Category: Humour

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Stabbed in the Front – Post-War General Elections through Political Cartoons


By various, edited by Dr. Alan Mumford (Centre for the Study of Cartoons & Caricature, University of Kent, Canterbury)
ISBN: 978-1-90267-120-8 (Album PB)

I thinks it’s time for another history lesson – or actually the same one. Normal service will be resumed one day.

“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else” – Clarence Darrow

From its earliest inception cartooning was used to sell: initially ideas or values but eventually actual products too. In newspapers, magazines and especially comic books, the sheer power of narrative with its ability to create emotional affinities has been linked to the creation of unforgettable images and characters. When those stories affect the daily lives of generations of readers, the force that they can apply in a commercial or social arena is almost irresistible.

In Britain the cartoonist has held a bizarrely precarious position of power for centuries: a deftly designed bombastic broadside or savagely surgical satirical slice instantly capable of ridiculing, exposing and always deflating the powerfully elevated and apparently untouchable with a simple shaped-charge of scandalous wit and crushingly clear, universally understandable visual metaphor. For this method of concept transmission, literacy or lack of education is no barrier. As the Catholic Church proved millennia ago with the Stations of the Cross, stained glass windows and a pantheon of idealised superhero saints, a picture is absolutely worth a thousand words – and they controlled those if they could. Inner thoughts too. What cruel, cunning maniac came up with “the thought Is the deed”?

More so than work, sport, religion, fighting or even sex, politics has always been the very grist that feeds the pictorial gadfly’s mill. This gloriously informative book (sponsored by the marvellous Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, University of Kent at Canterbury), offers a fantastic overview of political adaptability and cultural life as Britain moved from Empire to mere Nationhood in the latter half of the 20th century, examined through General Elections and the wealth of cunningly contrived images and pictorial iconography they provoked and inspired. It’s one of my favourite things ever and crucially in need of updating and re-release.

After an effusive Foreword from professional politician and celebrated cartoon aficionado (the Rt. Hon.) Lord Kenneth Baker of Dorking, author Alan Mumford – a specialist in management training – covers the basic semiology and working vocabulary of the medium in his copious Introduction. Designating definitions and terms for his splendid treatise, he subdivides the territory into ‘Origins’; ‘Criteria for Selection’; ‘Newspapers and Magazines’; ‘The Longevity of Political Cartoonists’; ‘References, Symbols and Metaphors’; ‘The Impact of Cartoons on General Elections’ and ‘Savagery in Political Cartoons’ as an effective foundation course in how to best contextualise and appreciate the plethora of carefully crafted mass-market messages which follow.

The format is extremely ergonomic and effective. Thus, Philip Zec’s iconic cartoon and caption/slogan “Here You Are. Don’t Lose it Again!” begins the Great Endeavour with historical background in The Run-up to the General Election of 1945, followed by Election Issues and the 1945 Campaign; Major Personalities of the 1945 General Election; Results of… and finally a nominated “Cartoonist of the Election” whose work most captured the spirit of, or affected the outcome of, a particular contest. This methodology then proceeds to efficiently and comprehensively recreate the tone of each time, augmented whenever possible by a personal interview or remembrance from one of the campaigners involved. Telling vignettes include contributions such mythic personalities as Frank Pakenham/Lord Longford, Barbara Castle, Edward Heath, Denis Healey, Roy Jenkins, Kenneth Baker again, Jim Prior, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, David Steel, Norman Tebbit, John Major and Tony Blair…

Each fact-packed, picture-filled chapter dissects every succeeding campaign: 1950’s tame ‘Consolidation not Adventure’, which resulted in Labour and Clement Attlee’s second victory by the narrowest – practically unworkable – of margins; Churchill’s resurgence in 1951 as ‘The Grand Old Man Returns’ and a slow steady decline in fortunes and growth of a New Politics after Anthony Eden’s star rose for the 1955 General Election when ‘The Crown Prince Takes Over’…

In an era of international unrest, Harold McMillan eventually became Tory top gun and in 1959 was ‘Supermac Triumphant’, but domestic troubles – race, unionism and the always struggling economy – wore away his energies. In a minor coup he was ousted and Sir Alec Douglas Home took over mid-term, consequently losing to glib, charismatic new Labour leader Harold Wilson. This entire era is one of aged and infirm Big Beasts passing away suddenly with too many lesser lights to succeed them; further complicated by both Labour and Conservative parties riven by infighting and jockeying for position with wannabe upstarts such as the Liberals cruising the room looking to pick up what scraps they could (so it’s not a new thing, OK?).

In 1966 ‘Labour Government Work’ took them to a second term, but social turmoil in the country, with unions demands spiralling out of control, enabled Edward Heath to lead the Conservatives into the most dangerous and turbulent decade in modern British history (this statement might need revising). The General Election of 1970 proved ‘Wilson Complacent, Heath Persistent’…

There were two General Elections in 1974.

The ongoing crisis in industrial relations and growing racial tensions caused by maverick Tory Enoch Powell’s continual cries to “end Immigration or face rivers of blood in the streets” forced Prime Minister Heath to ask in February ‘Who Governs Britain?’ He was informed by the disaffected electorate “Not you, mate.” Even though Wilson and Labour were returned to power, the majority was miniscule and by October the people were compelled to do it all again and ‘Vote for Peace and Quiet’.

Although he’d again narrowly led them to victory, Wilson’s time was done. He abruptly resigned in 1976 to be replaced by deputy Jim Callaghan. The Conspiracy Theorists queue begins on the left…

Heath too was reduced to the ranks and relegated to the Tory Back Benches, replaced by a rising star from Finchley. As Britain staggered under terrifying economic woes in 1979, Callaghan called an election and lost to Margaret Thatcher, who had famously said “No Woman in My Time” would ever be Prime Minister. I believe that was the last time she ever admitted to being wrong. Despite horrifying and sustained assaults on the fabric of British society – and monumental unpopularity – she enjoyed two more election victories: in 1983 – “The Longest Suicide Note in History” – and again in 1987 as ‘Thatcher Moves Forward’ before finally being turned on by her own bullied and harried Cabinet… a tradition that has become the biggest perk in politics…

The best political cartooning comes from outrage, and the Tory administrations of the 1980’s provided one bloated, bile-filled easy mark after another. Just look at TV’s Spitting Image which grew fat and healthy off that government’s peccadilloes, indignities and iniquities (as well as Reagan’s America and the Royal Family) in just the way that millions of unemployed and disenfranchised workers, students and pensioners didn’t. Election cartoons reproduced here from that period come from a largely Tory Press, and whilst contextualised and accurate, do not approach the level of venom she engendered in certain sections. For a more balanced view one should also seek out Plunder Woman Must Go! by Alan Hardman; Drain Pig and the Glow Boys in Critical Mess; You are Maggie Thatcher: a Dole-Playing Game or even Father Kissmass and Mother Claws by Bel Mooney & Gerald Scarfe, not to mention any collection of the magnificent pitiless Steve Bell’s excoriating If…

In 1992, the only thing stopping a Labour landslide was the party itself, which had so dissolved into factional infighting and ideological naval-gazing that not even the fiery oratory of Welsh Wizard Neil Kinnock could pull them together. Once again, the newspapers claimed the credit when Tory consensus/concession leader John Major pulled off a surprising ‘Triumph of the Soapbox?’

That Labour Landslide had to wait until 1997 and the ‘Teeth and Sleaze’ of Tony Blair (although at that time we all thought the latter term only applied to corrupt Tory MPs selling parliamentary time and attention to business interests). That moment of fond memory brings this incredibly appealing tome to a close. I said it before and I’m saying it again: since then a whole lot has happened and I think its long past time for a new, revised and updated edition…

As well as making our subjugation addictively accessible over half a century of venal demagoguery, hard work, murky manipulations, honest good intentions and the efforts of many men and women moved in equal parts by dedication and chicanery, this oversized monochrome tome is also literally stuffed with the best visual work of some of the very best cartoonists ever to work in these Sceptred Isles.

The art, imagination, passion and vitriol of Abu, Steve Bell, Peter Brookes, Dave Brown, Michael Cummings, Eccles, Emmwood, Stanley Franklin, George Gale, Nick Garland, the Davids Gaskill & Ghilchik, Les Gibbard, Charles Griffin, Graham High, Leslie Illingworth, Jak, John Jensen, Jon, Kal, David Low, Mac, Mahood, Norman Mansbridge, Sidney Moon, Bill Papas, Chris Riddell, Paul Rigby, Rodger, Stephen Roth, Martin Rowson, Willie Rushton, Peter Schrank, Ernest Shepard, Ralph Steadman, Sidney Strube, Trog, Vicky, Keith Waite, Zec and Zoke are timeless examples of the political pictorialist’s uncanny power and – as signs of the times – form a surprising affecting gestalt of our never happy nation’s feeling and character…

None of that actually matters now, since these cartoons performed the task they were intended for at the time of deployment: shaping the opinions and intentions of generations of voters. That they have also stood the test of time and remain as beloved relics of a lethal art form is true testament to their power and passion, but – to be honest and whatever your political complexion – isn’t it just a guilty pleasure to see a really great villain get one more good kicking?

Stuffed with astounding images, fascinating lost ephemera and mouth-watering tastes of comic art no fan could resist, this colossal collection is a beautiful piece of cartoon history that will delight and tantalise all who read it.
© 2001. Text © 2001 Alan Mumford. All illustrations © their respective holders or owners. All rights reserved.

Writer/inker Al Gordon (Wildstar, Legion of Super-Heroes, X-Men) arrived today in 1953, with writer/translator Jean-Marc Lofficier (The Airtight Garage: The Elsewhere Prince, Onyx Overlord, Dr. Strange, Arzach) joining one year later, and cartoonist Kevin Fagan (Drabble) arriving in 1956. Artist Bill Jaaska (Jon Sable, Teen Titans) was born in 1961; cartoonist, critic, editor publisher Eric Reynolds in 1972: artist Jae Lee (Namor the Sub-Mariner, The Sentry, Inhumans) in 1972 and Barcelona born illustrator Daniel Sampere (Wonder Woman) in 1985.

In 1984 today, the last TV Comic (of 1696 weekly editions) was published,

Today in 1928 pioneering US comics artist A.B. Frost died, as did French creator Alain Saini-Ogan (Zig et Puce) in 1974 and, in 2001, EC Comics all-star and strip supremo George R. Evans (Terry and the Pirates, Secret Agent X-9, Flash Gordon).

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Spirou and Fantasio: The Marsupilami Thieves


By André Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-167-9 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also contains Discriminatory Content included for comedic effect.

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924 and died on January 5th 1997. In between there were good times and bad, which he handled by creating the most incredible characters and stories, and by making people laugh and think… but mostly laugh. This is one of the very best you can find translated into English.

Adventure-seeking brave lad Spirou headlined the magazine he was named for from the first issue (dated April 21st 1938). He was devised and realised by French cartoonist Françoise Robert Velter using his pen-name Rob-Vel for Belgian publisher Éditions Dupuis in direct response to the success of Hergé’s Tintin over at rival outfit Casterman. Originally a plucky bellboy/lift operator employed by the Moustique Hotel (a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique), his improbable exploits with pet squirrel Spip gradually but steadily evolved into highflying, far reaching, surreal comedy dramas. That evolution was mainly thanks to Velter’s wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939 and Belgian artist/assistant Luc Lafnet… at least until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the property, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took over.

When Jijé handed his own trainee/assistant total responsibility for the flagship feature part-way through serial Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (Le Journal de Spirou #427, June 20th 1946), André Franquin ran with it for the next 20 years, enlarging the scope and expanding its horizons until the feature was purely his own. Almost every week fans would meet startling new characters such as comrade/rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics The Count of Champignac. Spirou and Fantasio became globetrotting journalists, travelling to exotic places, uncovering crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of exotic arch-enemies such as Zorglub and Fantasio’s unsavoury cousin Zantafio.

Gradually sidelining short, done-in-one gag vignettes in favour of longer epic adventure serials, Franquin’s growing cast of engaging regulars soon included one of the first strong female characters in European comics (rival journalist Seccotine, renamed Cellophine in the current English translation) and ultimately led to the debut of a scene-stealing, phenomenally popular apparently-magic animal. Marsupilami arrived during 1952’s serial Spirou et les héritiers and never left…

Franquin, plagued in later life by bouts of depression, died in 1997 but his legacy remains and still grows; a vast body of work which reshaped the landscape of European comics inspiring many others to carry on in his name and manner.

The Marsupilami Thieves was originally serialised in LJdS #729-761 (collected into an album in 1954); a direct sequel to Spirou et les héritiers, in which the valiant inseparable companions encountered an incredible elastic-tailed anthropoid in the rain forests of Palombia before bringing the fabulous, affable creature back to civilisation. Franquin’s follow-up, fleshed out from an idea by fellow cartoonist Jo Almo (Geo Salmon), sees the triumphant journalists visit the vast City Zoo where their latest headline ended up, only to be stricken with guilt and remorse at the poor creature’s sorry state of incarceration.

Resolved to free the poor thing and return him to his jungle home, their plan is foiled when the critter suddenly dies in its cage. Distraught and suspicious, they muscle their way in to see the vet and discover the corpse has gone missing…

Acting quickly, Spirou & Fantasio rouse the authorities. The commotion prevents the body thief escaping and all through the night Keepers and our heroes scour the institution. Thus, in the deadly dark they finally spook the mystery malefactor from his cosy hiding place…

There follows a spectacular and hilarious midnight chase through the zoo, with the lads harrying a dark figure – who must be some kind of athlete – past a panoply of angry animals, hindered more than helped by inept animal custodians. Nevertheless, they almost catch the intruder, but a last burst of furious energy propels the bandit over a back wall, although not before Spirou snatches a paper clue from him…

The precious scrap takes our resolute investigators to the flat of Victor Shanks, where his wife Clementine provides further information. Her man is flying off to the city of Magnana for his new job… and to deliver a package! The lads’ frantic chase to the airport is plagued by manic misfortune and they miss Victor by moments. Undeterred, they borrow a neighbour’s car and attempt to follow overland, leading to a fractious episode of fisticuffs with striking Customs Officers (they’re withholding their labour, not exceptionally attractive…). After a night in jail, the undeterred duo and kvetching Spip eventually fetch up in Magnana and the search begins…

One month later, they are fully frustrated and ready to throw in the towel when Spirou literally runs into Clementine Shanks and trails her to a football stadium where formerly unemployed, desperate Victor is now a star of the local soccer team. Confronting the essentially good-hearted rogue, Fantasio & Spirou force the truth from him. In return for his new job, Victor drugged and swiped the Marsupilami for ruthless showman The Great Zabaglione who sees an irresistible star attraction for his circus and travelling menagerie…

Determined to see the little creature free, the boys try to infiltrate the show but are quickly discovered and forcefully expelled. Then, following a chance meeting with weird science savant the Count of Champignac, they try once more, perfectly disguised as miraculous magic act Cam and Leon…

This time the ruse succeeds, but after a phenomenally outrageous opening performance, brutal but sharp Zabaglione rumbles the reporters. Things look bleak for the lads and the Marsupilami until guilt-wracked Victor steps in to save the day. Once the dust settles, the wondrous beast is freed, but gleefully opts to stay with the lads and share their fun-filled, exciting exploits…

Soaked in superb slapstick comedy and with gallons of gags throughout, this exuberant yarn is packed with angst-free action, thrills and spills and also offers an early ecological message and an always-timely moral regarding the humane treatment of animals. There’s even a fascinating history and creative overview of the timeless wandering heroes in back-up text feature ‘Spirou & Fantasio’s Stories Last Through Generations’.

The Marsupilami Thieves is the kind of lightly-barbed, comedy romp to delight readers fed up with a marketplace far too full of adults-only carnage, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters or sickly-sweet fantasy. Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductive yet wholesome verve and panache which make Asterix, Lucky Luke, and Yakari so compelling, this is a truly enduring landmark tale from a long line of superb exploits, and deserves to be a household name as much as those series… and even that other kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1954 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation 2013 © Cinebook Ltd.

Born today in 1934, Mexican artist, cartoonist and political thinker Eduardo Humberto del Río García AKA Ruis (the …for Beginners series) shared the occasion with master of all comics trades John E. Workman (Thor, Star*Reach, Heavy Metal, Eros Comics, Sonic the Hedgehog) from 1950 onwards. So do writer Marc Andreyko (Jinx: Torso, Manhunter) from 1970 and, in 1974, Canadian art ace Karl Kerschl (Adventures of Superman, Majestic, All-Flash, Teen Titans: Year One, Gotham Academy).

The date also saw André Franquin debut as Spirou’s new controlling creator in 1946 (halfway through ongoing serial Spirou et la maison préfabriquée) and, in 1964 the launch of pivotal UK weekly Wham!, as well as the death of Belgian superstar Jijé in 1980.

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Ordinary Victories volume 1 and 2


By Manu Larcenet, colours by Patrice Larcenet translated by Joe Johnson (NBM/ ComicsLit)
ISBNs: Vol. 1: 978-1-56163-423-1 (TPB) Vol. 2: 978-1-56163-533-7 (TPB)

Complete Set pack ISBN: 978-1-56163-600-6

Ordinary Victories examines the introspective and incidental life of neurotic, left-leaning, change-dreading Marco Louis in the years before France’s conservative-centrist Sarkozy government came to power. In mesmerising, eulogistic and winningly comedic narrative and via alternating modes of illustration ranging from brashly big-foot Marcinelle stylism to sensitively realistic reportage, the soul-searching isolationist examines himself, his past, his art and his family and consequently finds a future he can at least settle for…

The four albums released in France translate to two solidly satisfying tomes here and open with Marco – who has been subject to devastating panic attacks for years – not getting through to his therapist before giving up the idea of visiting his happy, married and well-adjusted brother to get high, chill out and reminisce.

Marco is just the kind of guy who lets life get to him. Seeing his over-protective mum and frail dad only heightens his general tension, but the loner does get a hint of parts of his father’s life he never before knew…

Returning to his isolated rural cottage and his maniacal cat Adolf, Marco tries to get back to his photojournalism job, but the despair and hatred he feels for the whole rat-race just won’t go away. Wracked by anxiety and nightmares, Marco takes the cat for walks in the woods where he encounters an abusive, trespass-obsessed farmer and a wise old gentleman. When Adolf is then savaged by a dog, Marco meets a charming vet who inexplicably likes him, but Life compensates for the nice event by getting Marco fired…

Unemployed, aimless but obsessed with his art, Marco still resists change: Emily is making noises about moving in together but the potential commitment terrifies him. He certainly can’t handle her outright demands for a baby…

The country seems to be heading for outright fascism, his neighbour is a maniac and when he visits the old gentleman, Marco discovers an unsettling connection to his dad’s mysterious war service. His journalist’s paranoia goes into overdrive when Marco finds out what kind of a soldier old man Mesrin was, and with his world spinning the angst-wracked artist is compelled to change or die…

The second part of this initial tome is ‘Negligible Amounts’, which sees the now officially-paired couple Emily & Marco visiting his parents. Here the son learns some unpleasant truths about his father’s health and that the once vigorous and sharp-witted proud shipworker is fading…

Marco’s shots of the gutted and dying Shipyard win him a Paris gallery show prize, but meeting his artistic and creative heroes proves a painful experience. Still, the promise of a book might boost his reputation and save his dad’s old work comrades from redundancy, even if some of them are already talking of closures, unemployment and actually changing their political allegiances…

With Right-wing radicalism in the streets and racism in the air, Marco and his brother are pretty glum and soon after pretty drunk. When another panic attack hits hard the besieged photographer only narrowly avoids an extended stay in a psychiatric unit… and then he gets the phone call about his dad…

 

Ordinary Victories Volume 2: What is Precious

The second potent reminiscence opens with eponymous episode ‘What is Precious’ as Marco slowly adjusts to his father’s death, and gets even closer to Emily… at least when her incessant demands for a baby aren’t freaking him out. With a book deal and a new analyst, things seem to be favourably progressing, but the contents of his dad’s diary provide fresh material for passive hysteria, as does his previously indomitable mother’s new attitude. Unable to stand the strain any longer, Marco confronts Mesrin and demands to know just what ghastly atrocities the old man and the deceased shipbuilder actually committed…

Final chapter ‘Hammering Nails’ opens with new mum Emily and their delightful daughter Maude providing fresh and very different anxieties for Marco, especially since he finally agreed to move the family into a bigger house…

The Shipyard is in its final days and as Marco captures the images of resigned but still striking workers, his own thoughts are more confused than ever. Everybody else either accepts or fights life’s vicissitudes: why can’t he do either?

There’s yet another election coming and everybody thinks a great change is coming – but for Marco, that has never been a comforting notion…

This is a subtle, funny and deeply contemplative tale, deftly understated and compellingly seductive. A commonplace guy handles nothing we blokes haven’t all faced and reacts pretty much as any guy would: amazed to make it safely through another day, always astonished that our partner seems to love us, claims to know us and yet stays anyway. Ordinary Victories is about frustration, loss, disappointment, and yes, occasional triumphs. These books are wonderful, sublime, magical comics and you really should track them down…
© Dargaud 2005, 2007, 2008 by Larcenet. Translation © 2005, 2008 NBM.

Today in 1906 artist extraordinaire and DC inker supreme Sid Greene (Target and the Targeteers, Batman, Elongated Man, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, The Atom) was born, sharing the day with Bob Kanigher (Metal Men, Sgt Rock, Viking Prince, Flash, Hawkman) in 1915 and Underground cartoonist Rick Griffin (Zap Comix) in 1944. Later creative stars debuts of the date include writer/editor/artist and continuity all-star Mark Gruenwald (Captain America, Hawkeye, Squadron Supreme) in 1953; editor, publisher and historian Dean Mullaney (Eclipse Comics) in 1954 and Britain’s international superstar creator Alan Davis (Captain Britain, Marvelman, Harry Twenty on the High Rock, Batman, Excalibur, Clan Destine, Hulk, X-Men, Thor) in 1956.

Today in 1966, the UK’s groundbreaking but short-lived Ranger folded after 40 weekly issues, having left the world The Rise and Fall of The Trigan Empire, Jason January Space Cadet, Rob Riley and the first English language translation of Asterix the Gaul.

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T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Classics volume 6


By Wallace Wood, Steve Ditko, Steve Skeates, Gil Kane, Ralph Reese, Dan Adkins, George Tuska, Reed Crandall, John Giunta, Ogden Whitney, Chic Stone, Paul Reinman, Jack Abel & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-182-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-62302-879-4

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The meteoric lifespan and output of Tower Comics is one of the key creative moments in US comic book history. Bombastic, brilliant but brief, the era of The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves was a benchmark of quality and sheer unadulterated fun for fans of both the then-still-reawakening superhero genre and the global spy-chic obsession of those distant times. Throughout the early 1960s, the Bond movie franchise was going from strength to strength, with blazing action and heady glamour totally transforming the formerly low-key, seedy and darkly patriotic espionage genre. The buzz was infectious: soon a Man Like Flint and Matt Helm were carving out their own piece of the action as TV shanghaied the entire bandwagon with the irresistible Man from U.N.C.L.E. (premiering September 1964), bringing the whole shtick into living rooms around the world.

Thus veteran Archie Comics editor Harry Shorten was commissioned to create a line of characters for a new distribution-chain funded publishing outfit: Tower Comics. He brought in creative maverick Wallace (he hated the contraction “Wally”) Wood, who called on many of the biggest names in the industry to craft material for the broad cross-section of genres the new company demanded; as well as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and spin-offs Undersea Agent, Dynamo and NoMan, there was a magnificent anthology war-comic Fight the Enemy and wholesome youth-comedy Tippy Teen.

Samm Schwartz & Dan DeCarlo handled the funny stuff – which outlasted everything else – whilst Wood, Larry Ivie, Len Brown, Bill Pearson, Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins, Russ Jones, Gil Kane, Ditko & Ralph Reese contributed scripts for themselves and the industry’s other top talents to illustrate on the adventure line. With a ravenous appetite for superspies and costumed heroes growing in comic book popularity and amongst the general public, the idea of blending the two concepts seemed inescapable…

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 appeared with no fanfare or pre-publicity on newsstands in August 1965. Beguilingly, all Tower titles were in the beloved-but-rarely-seen 80-Page Giant format, offering a huge amount of material in every issue. All that being said, these tales would not be so revered if they hadn’t also been so superbly crafted. As well as Wood, the art accompanying compelling, subtly more mature stories was by some of the greatest talents in comics: Reed Crandall, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando, Frank Giacoia, John Giunta, Ogden Whitney, Steve Ditko and more, as well as budding stars including Ralph Reese, Steve Skeates and Dan Adkins…

For those who came in late: When philanthropic benevolent super-genius Professor Emil Jennings perished in an assault by forces of the mysterious Warlord, late-arriving UN troops salvaged some of his greatest inventions. These included a belt that increased the density of the wearer’s body until it became as hard as steel; a cloak of invisibility and a brain-amplifier helmet. These uncopiable prototypes were divided between several agents: the basis of a unit of super-operatives to counter the increasingly bold attacks of multiple global terror threats such as the aforementioned Warlord. First chosen was affable, honest, but far from brilliant file clerk Len Brown. To the astonishment of everyone who knew him, he was assigned the belt and codename Dynamo.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent NoMan was previously decrepit Dr. Anthony Dunn who chose to have his mind transferred into an unaging android body and then gifted with the invisibility cape. If his artificial body was destroyed, Dunn’s consciousness could transfer to another android body. As long as he had a spare ready, he could never die. The helmet went to John Janus: a seemingly perfect UN employee and mental and physical marvel. He easily passed all tests necessary to wear the Jennings helmet. Sadly, he was also a double agent, the Warlord’s mole poised to betray T.H.U.N.D.E.R. at the earliest opportunity. All diabolical plans went awry once he donned the helmet and became Menthor since the device awakened his brain’s full potential, granting him telepathy, telekinesis and mindreading powers, but it also drove all evil from his mind. Such was the redemptive effect that Janus actually gave his life to save his comrades: an event which astounded readers at the time. In the wake of that tragedy, the Helmet vanished, passing through many hands but always escaping T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s attempts to retrieve it.

Guy Gilbert was leader of crack Mission: Impossible-styled special forces commando unit T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad until asked to beta-test an experimental super-speed suit. As gung-ho, duty-obsessed Lightning, he proudly did so, even if every use of the hyper-acceleration gimmick shortened his life-span. As the concept and the niche universe expanded, other augmented agents appeared – like human jet Raven or subsea spin-off U.N.D.E.R.S.E.A. Agent (AKA Davy Jones of the United Nations Department of Experiment and Research Systems Established at Atlantis…

This concluding compilation of classic costumed-spycraft re-presents the compelling contents of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents#15-20 (cover-dates July 1967 to November 1969) – with the incomparably cool concept and characters going from strength to strength as a spirit of eccentric experimentation and raucous low comedy increasingly manifested in the wake of the defeat of the Warlord (actually exposed as only one of a subterranean race intent on world conquest) and rise of independent, lone wolf supervillains, sinister crime cabals such as SPIDER or international/political foes like China’s Red Star…

As always the action opens with a Dynamo solo tale. ‘Collision Course!’ – by an unknown author and depicted by Wood – sees superhuman Andor resurface. A misunderstood modern Prometheus, he was abducted by the Warlords as a baby and spent decades being turned into a biological superman devoid of sentiment or compassion. However, they lost control of their living weapon once he met fellow mortals. Since their shattering defeat, the pitiful outsider’s attempts to rejoin mankind had been constantly thwarted and derailed. Here, following a clash with Dynamo and SPIDER, Andor is a blind (but still immensely powerful) Samson living as a hobo with a cunning grifter. Sadly. he’s again exploited by the underworld – in the form of ruthless criminal freelancer Iron Maiden – and precipitates another shattering duel with the super strong G-man as well as SPIDER’s own hyper-strong, enhanced operative Brutus Kanassus.

When the dust and rubble settles, Andor is gone again, but is now again a slave of Uru, the last surviving subterranean warlord…

Steve Skeates & Chic Stone then detail the next step in Lightning’s life. Dying because of the speed suit he volunteered to wear, Agent Gilbert is placed into cryostasis, but ‘While Our Hero Sleeps…!’ archfoe Warp Wizard wickedly swipes the body. He, however, utterly underestimates the skills and determination of Guy’s former T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad colleagues Dynamite AKA Daniel John Adkins, Katheryn “Kitten” Kane & William “Weed” Wylie to save him, before Bill Pearson & Ogden Whitney despatch NoMan’s scattershot free-floating consciousness on a ‘Starflight to the Assassin Planet!’ Here the invisible agent faces uncanny extraterrestrial terrors and saves earth from impending invasion…

Dynamo’s best efforts are not enough in ‘Hail to the Chief!’ (by an unknown author, Giunta, Wood & Adkins) wherein his commanding officer Sam Short mistakenly believes he’s being pensioned off. Obsessed with proving himself, “the Old Man” is captured by SPIDER and almost kills both of them before this day is saved. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent Weed (a character Wood regarded as his “spirit animal”) closes the show with a delicious comedy thriller by author unknown and George Tuska.

When a big dumb thug is bitten by a radioactive mole and gains regulation theme-based excavation powers, his small, cunning pal decides ‘Dig We Must’ and has them become costumed crooks robbing from below ground. Their exploits utterly outfox the super-augmented T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents but wily Weed has the perfect plan to trap The Mole and Dapper Dan…

Cover-dated October 1967, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #16 opens with a Dynamo mini-epic illustrated and possibly written by Steve Ditko at the peak of his creative powers and political paranoia. Here the mighty hero and missing frenemy Andor are both beset with a ‘Dream of Doom!’ sent by the last subterranean.

Emboldened by recapturing the Warlord’s living weapon, Uru modifies and heals Andor before unleashing him against humanity, but has again underestimated his tool’s strength of will, affinity for his own kind and all too human feeling for Agent Kitten…

Fast paced and furiously violent, this is a classic example of astounding Ditko’s gift for combat staging as well as his signature graphic psychedelia in action. The era was intensely fruitful for artists as seen in a follow-up by Gil Kane & Jack Abel who limn another uncredited yarn as NoMan learns ‘One of Our Androids is Missing!’ Plunged into a frantic and convoluted global chase whilst again succumbing to psychological traumas triggered by being an undying ancient in a mobile plastic coffin, he soon recovers his emotionless equilibrium after fellow agent Linda Rogers uncovers a plot by the Red Chinese to steal one of his artificial carcases. They intend on turning it into a bomb with the sole purpose of tricking the Soviet Union into leaving the United Nations and blaming T.H.U.N.D.E.R. for the crime. It doesn’t work…

With Lightning notionally cured and declared fit for duty, Skeates & Stone amp up the superpower arms race as old enemy Professor Forkliff uses SPIDER resources to dope the speedster with super hallucinogens before unleashing his own enhanced speed freak – ‘The Whirligig!’ – to crush T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Sadly for them, Gilbert does everything – even recover from a bad trip – at top speed…

The entire Agents roster assembles for anonymously scripted Tuska tale ‘The End of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents?’ after SPIDER finds a way to negate all their advanced technology and entombs them all… until Weed, Kitten & Dynamite prove that a great plan and deathwish determination is all that’s really needed to send evil packing…

Dynamo closes the issue with a psychologically harrowing tale revealing how constant missions have burned him out. Enduring random descents into mindless fugue states, he is a hero lost to reality. Mature, disturbing, chilling and decades ahead of its time, ‘A Slight Case of Combat Fatigue’ comes courtesy of old soldier Wood and reset the tone as superheroes and spies began to pall in the public’s attention…

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #17 (December 1967) began with Dynamo in lighter mode as ‘Return of the Hyena!’ (by that mystery scribe, Wood & Reese) saw the husky but not highbrow hero repeatedly made a jackass by a cunning costumed criminal who indulged himself in a battle of wits with an enemy he deemed completely unarmed. Happily. Brawn and determination… and sneaky rogue Agent Weed… balanced the scales of justice enough to cage the beastly bandit, after which Whitney renders an uncredited modern monster mash wherein NoMan learns ‘The Locusts are Coming!!’ before saving embattled missile bases from marauding robotic raiders led by ambitious but unruly King Locust.

With readers tastes changing, Tuska took the weakest but wily-est Agent deep into genre territory for ‘Weed Out West!’ Scouting out SPIDER sightings in Antelope Haunch, Oklahoma, he finds shady doings at the local cowboy film shoot and soon embroils butch back-up Dynamo in uranium smuggling rings, murder plots and wedding plans before the entire T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents cadre unites the arch enemy foe in show-stopping closer ‘Put Them All Together, They Spell S.P.I.D.E.R.!’ (by anonymous & Stone). Here Dynamo leads the charge after an ordinary undercover mission exposes the cabal’s secret leaders (“The Council”) as a coalition comprising old enemies Demo, Dr. Sparta, Mastermind, Mayven and The Tarantula, led by the utterly unknown Spider Secretary General, just as the group turn on each other.

That debacle began when SPIDER recovered the all-powerful Menthor Helmet but could not peacefully decide on who should wear it and ended when the good guys explosively arrived to mop up the remains of the heated debate…

Nearly a year passed before #18 was published (cover-dated September 1968), but the contents were worth the wait. It began with another Ditko classic as ‘Dynamo and the Amazing Mr. Mek!’ saw the super-agent clash with a little nebbish suddenly granted uncanny power over machines and mechanisms. Sadly, he had no problem robbing banks but baulked when SPIDER abducted him to inflict massive global terror and death. Those unshakeable, ironclad scruples cost Mek his life and baffled his foes, but not as much as ‘The Sinister Schemes of Professor Reverse!’ (illustrated by Whitney) baffled and bamboozled NoMan when the bonkers boffin began regressing animals, humans and top military personnel into ancient ancestor iterations such as cavemen and tyrannosaurs…

Next, thanks to an unknown writer and the astounding Reed Crandall, classical fantasy rendered in the classical manner finds Dynamo trapped in an Italian volcanic eruption to somehow awaken in ancient Rome. Experiencing firsthand the grandeur, glory and petty injustices, only a miracle saves him from ‘The Arena!’ and sees him returned to his proper place and station in time to solve ‘The Secret of the Abominable Snowman!’ Crafted by unknown & Stone, here hapless Len Bown must uncover how satellite and space-race launches are being sabotaged from Tibet. Close investigation beside saucy British spy Carnaby Mod soon uncovers a plot by “commie” robotics genius The Red Lama, but there are still mysteries of the upper slopes to unravel even when all the shooting and thumping stops…

The big spy bubble had burst by this point and the spin-off titles had all folded by the time T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #19 (November 1968) was released. All art with no ads, it felt like a rapid using up and closing down exercise which began with the Wood pencilled, Ralph Reese written & inked ‘Half an Hour of Power!’ as SPIDER scientist Dr. Orgo unleashes an army of super androids – including perfect duplicates of all T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and personnel – and poor Len goes on a rampage uncertain who to hit and who to save…

Feeling suspiciously like Dynamo inventory material, it’s followed by another rowdy riot as ‘Dynamo vs. The Ghost!’ (art by Paul Reinman) sees a traitor abscond with T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s latest breakthrough: a belt enabling the wearer to phase molecules and pass through walls. So can Dynamo – in his own way – but it’s equipment misuse that ends the blockbusting chase that follows in horrific tragedy…

Reese scripts Dynamo’s clash with the ‘All-Girl Gang!’ for Tuska to illustrate, as sinister spymaster Satana operates a squad of female agents no ordinary man can handle. Of course, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent Kitten Kane is an expert in disguise, infiltration and close combat too…

NoMan then confronts ‘A Matter of Transmitters’ (anonymous & Reinman) as SPIDER’s captive scientist Dr. Einzwei subverts T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s teleport systems and captures all the super-agents as they innocently travel to work. Of course, NoMan has more than one body to report in with and the web soon untangles…

One year later, a final issue appeared. Cover-dated November 1969, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #20 pretty much signalled the end of spy fever and a dialling back of superheroic shenanigans. The issue was filled with reprint masterpieces but did offer an editorial in ‘Dear T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Fan’ by Wood & Adkins and new 4-page recap of the way it all began in ‘The Origin of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent Dynamo’, drawn by Chic Stone, both of which are included here to sign off the first era of spies in spandex.

With covers by Wood, Kane, Ditko, Reese, Crandall & Stone, these stories all favour fast pace, wry wit, sparse dialogue, explosive action and breathtaking visuals. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was decades ahead of its time and informed everything in Fights ‘n’ Tights comics that came after it. These are truly timeless superhero comic classics which improve with every reading, so do yourself a favour and add these landmark super-sagas to your collection.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Classics volume 6 © 2015 Radiant Assets, LLC. All rights reserved.

Today in 1927 master craftsman and inveterate storyteller Wallace Wood (EC Comics, Mad Magazine, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Daredevil, Power Girl, Cannon, Sally Forth, The Wizard King, Witzend, Mars Attacks) was born, sharing the natal anniversary with Hi and Lois artist Chance Browne in 1948, scripter/artist Hilary Barta (Starslayer, Plastic Man) in 1957, artist Pat Olliffe (Untold Tales of Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, Captain Britain and MI:13) in 1965 and Italian illustrator Mirka Andolfo (Hex Wives, Wonder Woman, The Amazing World of Gumball, Ms. Marvel) in 1989.

This date in 1919 Billy DeBeck’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith strip premiered, as did Sgt. George Baker’s Sad Sack in 1942 in the first issue of service magazine Yank – the Army Weekly.

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Dogs on Dates


By Luke Healy (Faber & Faber)

ISBN: 978-0-571-39672-6 (HB)

Irish multi-award winning, low-impact iconoclast Luke Healy studied journalism at Dublin University and earned an MFA in Cartooning from the Center for Cartoon Studies (Vermont, USA). An occasional stand-up comedian, his previous cartoon tomes – like Americana, Permanent Press, How to Survive in the North, The Con Artists and Self Esteem and the End of the World – have won prizes and acclaim, and he’s also held gallery shows in places like Manhattan’s Museum of Comics & Cartoon Art.

Healy’s earlier comics for VICE, The Nib, A24, Medium, Nobrow and Avery Hill are also exceptionally good and, as already stated, he exposes himself to ridicule on stage, but not so much, these days. That’s what his recent funny books are for  – and as Bob Monkhouse used to say “nobody’s laughing now”… except that they are and in exactly the right places, just where Luke wants them to. We also all cry on command too, because that’s what dating in the modern world is like, okay?

Previously Healey addressed and ingested and passed baffled judgement upon all the trauma, weltschmerz and naff experiences of existence, diligently informed by exploration of basic Big Stuff like life, love, friends, and how to keep your head above emotional water. It kept us readers wonderfully entertained for a decade but here and now, that self-excoriating journey of discovery resolves into a fully realised, quirkily significant tale of anthropomorphic romance and the quest for lifelong contentment via a venture into dating, advice (wanted and otherwise) and comradely life support…

In Dog City – a mostly socially evolved metropolis equal parts London and the best bits of the East and West coasts of America – Brad is still looking for love and a steady life on a viable planet when he finally finds the dog of his dreams. However (and as always), renegade art student Bernie comes with baggage… and so very many of Brad’s dreams were always nightmares in waiting…

They first meet by hitting at speed – albeit a few precious moments apart – the same glass wall of Dog City Community College. Bernie had just comfortably removed himself from obnoxious academia by quitting his Abstract Art Class – a career move that will gravely affect his relationship with Brad once that poor mutt meets his ostensible true love’s unbelievable family! – whilst Brad is despondently there on behalf of an environmental charity. The crushed idealistic optimist was readying himself for one last go at turning self-obsessed students into eco-warriors motivated enough to save our deeply imperilled planet…

After bonding in the ambulance they subsequently share, bruised and battered Bernie & Brad agree to attempt the impossible task of gradually and cautiously getting to know each through a series of carefully planned dates. However, these guys are the kind thoughtful souls Nature creates just to beta-test cosmically cruel jokes for meaner people to capture on their phones…

The First Date is an absolute disaster, but Brad and Bernie persevere…

It’s worth it in the end…

Utterly beguiling and drenched in cute meets, charmed disasters, bondable moments, the best hopes of enthralled onlookers everywhere and the sheer determination to find, survive and enjoy love and companionship, Dogs on Dates is a passionate yet reserved pick-me-up for the emotionally exhausted, connection-wary, socially drained lonely hearts still hopefully looking for a shared life. Wry, witty, hopeful and encouraging, it’s what every Good Boi of any gender description wants, whether they admit it or not.

Fetch!
© Luke Healy, 2026. All rights reserved.

Dogs on Dates will be published on June 18th 2026 and is available for pre-order now.

On this date in 1977 US born Australian cartoonist Stan Cross (Wally and the Major, The Potts) died. We also lost Italian Andrea Pazienza (Zanardi) in 1988 and irreplaceable Man of Steel Curt Swan in 1996.

On the upside, the day welcomed French Canadian cartoonist Albert Chartier (Onésime) in 1912; illustrator Kack Keller (Kid Colt, Outlaw, Charlton’s entire “Hot Rod “comics division) in 1922; mega-stylist Frank Thorne (Mighty Samson, Son of Tomahawk, Red Sonja, Lann, Moonshine McJuggs) in 1930 and the Arnold half of the Pander Brothers (Grendel: Devil’s Legacy, Accelerate) in 1967.

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Jonah Hex volume 7: Lead Poisoning


By Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti, Jordi Bernet, Rafa Garres, David Michael Beck, Rob Schwager, Rob Leigh & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2485-1(TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also contains Discriminatory Content produced with dramatic intent.

When Justin Grey & Jimmy Palmiotti reinvigorated comic book Western legend Jonah Hex they deftly blended a blackly ironic streak of wit with a sanguine view of morality and justice to produce some of the most accessible and enjoyable comics fiction of the period. They also had the services of extremely talented people such as colourist Rob Schwager and letterer Rob Leigh, and the pick of top artists like European maestro Jordi Bernet who illustrates fully half the gritty tales in this compilation from 2009. The contents comprise issues #37-42 of the superb and much-missed iteration.

I first recognised Jordi Bernet’s work on UK weekly strip The Legend Testers. By “recognised” I mean that very moment when I actually understood that somebody somewhere drew the stuff I was adoring, and that it was better than the stuff either side of it. This was 1966, when British comics were mostly black & white and never had signatures or credits, so it was years before I knew who had sparked my interest.

Jordi Bernet Cussó was born in Barcelona on June 14th 1944, son of a prominent and successful humour cartoonist. When his father died suddenly Jordi, aged 15, took over his father’s strip es Doña Urraca (Mrs. Magpie). A huge fan of Alex Raymond, Hal Foster and particularly expressionist genius Milton Caniff, Bernet yearned for less restrictive horizons and left Spain in the early 1960s to chance his hand at dramatic storytelling.

He worked for Belgium’s Le Journal de Spirou, and Germany’s Pip and Primo, before finding work on English weeklies. Bernet toiled for British publishers between 1964 and 1967, and as well as the Odhams/Fleetway/IPC anthologies Smash!, Tiger and War Picture Library, also produced superlative material for DC Thomson’s Victor and Hornet. He even illustrated a Gardner Fox short for Marvel’s Vampire Tales #1 in 1973, but mainstream America was generally denied his mastery (other than some translated Torpedo tomes and a Batman short story) until Jonah Hex’s 21st century reincarnation.

Bernet’s most famous strips include thrillers Dan Lacombe (written by his uncle Miguel Cussó), Paul Foran (scripted by José Larraz) the saucy Wat 69 and spectacular post-apocalyptic barbarian epic Andrax (both with Cussó again). When General Franco died Bernet returned to Spain and began working for Cimoc, Creepy and Metropol, collaborating with Antonio Segura on the sexy fantasy Sarvan and dystopian SF black comedy Kraken. His other job was collaborating with Enrique Sánchez Abulí on gangster and adult themed tales that made him one of the world’s most honoured artists, and which culminated in the incredibly successful crime saga Torpedo 1936…

Here, however, the rawhide dramas commence with Bernet in top form as Hex tangles and torridly tussles with a trio of female former circus performers who take up bounty hunting and prove that ‘Trouble Comes in Threes’, after which ‘Hell or High Water’ finds the gritty gunslinger enduring horrific tortures at the hands of a sheriff he once shamed. The brutal psychopath has no idea what real vengeance feels like until Jonah gives him a fast and final lesson…

Baroque stylist Rafa Garres supplies art and colours for a grim parable examining ‘Cowardice’ wherein a rookie sheriff gets life lessons in doing his job after Hex tracks murderous escaped convicts to a quiet country backwater. Then David Michael Beck depicts a gruesome two-part tale of savage madness.

When Hex and sometime ally/constant foil Tallulah Black track a serial-killing civil war surgeon teaching other perverts and deviants his bloody discoveries, the red-handed butcher displays enough body-shredding acumen to almost end them both. However, even his gory assaults and inclinations to devil-worship of the ‘Sawbones’ are no match for Jonah Hex in a mood to display his all-consuming displeasure and irritation…

Bernet wraps things up in inimitable blackly comedic style as ‘Shooting the Sun’ offers a shocking glimpse at the bounty hunter’s formative years with parental sadist Woodson Hex. Apparently, the abusive behaviour made Jonah the man he is: someone able to turn an inescapable death-trap into a private shooting gallery offering the added attraction of long-deferred vengeance on the bullies who garnished little Jonah’s hellish childhood with extra misery…

With captivating covers from Bernet, Garres and Beck, Lead Poisoning is an explosively grim, darkly hilarious outing for the very best Western antihero ever created: an intoxicating blend of action and social commentary no fan of the genre or cream-of-the-crop comics magic can afford to miss.
© 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

This day in 1917 was when Canadian editorial cartoonist Sid Barron joined the world, followed in 1929 by Archie artist Jon D’Agostino; premier Welsh cartoonist Grenfell “Gren” Jones, MBE in 1934 and Spanish story wizard Antonio Segura (Hombre, Bogey, Sarvan, Kraken, Jack el Destripador, Eva Medusa) in 1947. In 1956 multi-talented Frank Cirocco (Alien Legion) arrived, with inker Brett Breeding born in 1961 and Brazilian artist Marcelo “Marc” Campos (Green Lantern, Iron Man) stopping by in 1965.

The day also saw the departures of UK cartoonist Reg Smythe (Andy Capp) in 1998 and animator, cartoonist (Peter Rabbit, Krazy Krow, Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal) & Marvel/ Timely Comics editor in chief Vince Fago in 2002.

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Virginia Woolf’s Orlando – Adapted by Jules Scheele (Orlando: A Graphic Novel Biography)


By Virginia Woolf, adapted by Jules Scheele with Garry Mac (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-24-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Some stories don’t translate well from prose to other narrative media, whilst others are simply made for it. In October 1928, author Virginia Woolf published a heavily-satirical appraisal of English literature down the ages. However, her fantasy epic was simultaneously a not-even-barely-veiled dramatised account of her ongoing, uproarious relationship with an equally notorious member of the British aristocracy…

Everyone in the know knew Orlando: A Biography detailed Woolf’s affair with British High Society’s supreme scandal-instigator… Vita Sackville-West. You can look all that history stuff up elsewhere or read the concise contextual precis that comes with this glorious, striking adaptation in the Foreword by Musician, Diarist and Modern Dandy Dickon Edwards…

The original novel is smart, wry and a fabulous historical whimsy that has become a rallying point and clarion call for all matters Queer, Trans, and Proud, and here is even further enhanced by the fitting tactic of adding seductive pictures to form a sequential narrative…

The tale is simple yet compelling: a beautiful, young and so-innocent poet who is a contemporary (and eventually favourite) of Queen Elizabeth I does not age or die.

Enduring and surviving perilous royal favour, great wealth and privilege, personal beauty and vast creative gifts, the poet has many adventures – most of them amorous, but also involving espionage intrigues, great disasters and shady services to The Crown undertaken abroad – before settling in the beloved old family seat to spend the majority of time and effort writing a magnificent novel: The Oak Tree.

Over decades and centuries Orlando adapts and is transformed by love affairs, courtly adventures, travel and writing. At one point, possibly thanks to the ministrations of a Romani witch (the lore and reputation of “Gypsies” fascinated Vita and Virginia cheekily indulged her in these pages) or simply through benevolent evolution, Orlando becomes an equally enchanting and beguiling woman. She too is left largely untouched by the world – except for its arts and fashions – and continues a life of creative and romantic abundance peppered with affairs and dalliances spiked with memorable personal encounters into an unguessable, primarily creative future…

Preceded by a Dedication culled from Derek Jarman, director of the 1992 film adaptation, Jules Scheele’s necessarily arcanely abbreviated Orlando sidelines the book’s formal presentation for a free-flowing cascade of multi-level images and key incidents broken down into ‘Chapter One: Part One: Orlando as a Boy’ & ‘Part Two: Two Years Later…’; ‘Chapter Two: Part Three: Afflicted with a love of literature’ & ‘Part Four: Vanity Rebuked’; ‘Chapter Three Part Five: Some Kind of Miracle’ & ‘Part Six: Orlando Remained Precisely As He Had Been’; ‘Chapter Four, Part Seven: Life, and a lover’ & ‘Part Eight: The clothes that wear us’ with scenes including days at Court and elsewhere subdivided into ‘Whitehall’, ‘The Court of King James at Greenwich’, ‘The Poet’, ‘The Great Frost’, and ‘Time Passed…’ before the settled days and nights of ‘Life, a lover’ presage a reduction in betrayals and forced exiles as constant war with conformity gives way to creative fruition, personal power and security and the ponderous march of time via ‘Chapter Five, Part Nine: Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Female’ and ‘Chapter Six Part Ten: What, Then, is Life?’ prior to the pausing of passing years in ‘Part Eleven: A Single Self, A Real Self’…

Glasgow-based illustrator Jules Scheele’s previous works have been for the educational and voluntary sectors, including the NHS, Scottish Government, UCL, University of Glasgow, LGBT Youth Scotland, Refugee Sanctuary Scotland, Edinburgh Arts Festival and others. His passion projects are fuelled by and stem from queer media, popular culture, and grass roots politics, and were previously seen via and expressed through DIY zine culture. With Dr. Meg-John Barker, Scheele has created numerous non-fiction graphic novels such as Queer: A Graphic History; Gender: A Graphic Guide and Sexuality: A Graphic Guide.
© Jules Scheele, 2026. All rights reserved.

Orlando – A Graphic Novel Biography will be published on June 18th 2026 and is available for pre-order now.

Today in 1934 Lee Falk’s magnificent epitome of wonder and superheroics Mandrake the Magician first appeared.

Today in 1949 British writer and oriental scholar Steve Moore (Rick Random, Laser Eraser & Pressbutton, Hulk, Doctor Who, Absalom Daak, Tales of Telguuth, Warrior, 2000 AD, Fortean Times) was born.

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The Shazam! Archives volume 1


By Bill Parker, C. C. Beck & Pete Costanza with various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-053-6 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

At their most impressive, superhero comics combine the gravitas of mythology with all the sheer fun and exuberance of a child’s first rollercoaster ride. The perfect example of this is the original happy-go-lucky hero we can’t call Captain Marvel anymore.

First seen in late December 1939, Whiz Comics (#2 – there was no #1) cashed in on the comic book sales phenomenon of Superman; the big red riot eventually won his name after narrowly missing being Captain Flash or Captain Thunder. He was the brainchild of Bill Parker & Charles Clarence Beck, initially dispensing the same kind of summary rough justice as his contemporaries. However, the character soon distanced himself from the pack – Man of Steel included – by employing and enjoying an increasingly light, surreal and comedic touch, which made him the bestselling comics character in America. Ultimately, he proved that he could beat everybody but copyright lawyers; during his years of enforced inactivity the trademarked name passed to a number of other publishers before settling at Marvel Comics and they are never, never, never letting go. You can check out and compare their cinematic blockbuster version with the DC Extended Universe’s Shazam! flick too…

Publishing house Fawcett had first gained prominence through an immensely well-received magazine for WWI veterans entitled Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang, before branching out into books and general interest magazines. Their most successful publication – at least until the Good Captain hit his stride – was the ubiquitous boy’s building bible Mechanix Illustrated and, as the comic book decade unfolded, the scientific and engineering discipline and “can-do” demeanour underpinning MI suffused and informed both art and plots of the Marvel Family titles.

As previously stated, the big guy was created by writer/editor Bill Parker and brilliant young artist Charles Clarence Beck who, with his assistant Pete Costanza, handled most of the art on the series throughout its stellar run. Other writers included William Woolfolk, Rod Reed, Ed “France” Herron, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Joe Millard, Manley Wade Wellman and fabulously prolific Otto Binder.

Before eventually evolving his own amiable personality, the Captain was a serious, bluff and rather characterless powerhouse, whilst his juvenile alter ego was the true star: a Horatio Alger archetype of impoverished, boldly self-reliant, resourceful youth overcoming impossible odds through gumption, grit and sheer determination…

Homeless orphan and good kid Billy Batson is selected by an ancient wizard to be given the powers of six gods and heroes to battle injustice. He transforms from scrawny precocious kid to brawny (adult) hero Captain Marvel by speaking aloud the wizard’s name – an acronym for six legendary divine patrons: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

This magnificent full-colour, deluxe hardback compendium re-presents Captain Marvel’s first 15 exploits from Whiz Comics #2 to 15 (February 1940 to March 1941). There was no #1, two issue #5’s and two editions in March (but I’ll try to explain all that as we go along), with joy, verve and invention paramount in this particular knock-off crusader; one of a countless number imitators and descendants to cash in on the sales phenomenon of Superman…

Author, journalist and fan Richard A. Lupoff covers in great detail the torturous beginnings of the feature in his Foreword before the magic proper starts with a priceless glimpse at the hero’s seemingly-accursed design stage. To establish copyright, publishers used to legally register truncated black-&-white facsimile editions – dubbed “Ash-can Editions” – in advance of their launch issues. For magazine publisher Fawcett, production of their first comic book proved an aggravating process as this registration twice uncovered costly snags which forced the editors to redesign both character and publication.

Contained herein are cover reproductions of Flash Comics #1 starring Captain Thunder (obliviously scheduled for release mere days after DC’s own Flash Comics title hit the stands), and Thrill Comics #1 which repeated the accident just as Standard’s Thrilling Comics launched. Also on view is monochrome art for the first half of the story of “Captain Thunder” which would eventually be re-lettered and released as the lead in anthology title Whiz Comics #2, finally safely released cover-dated February 1940. Like many Golden Age series, the stories collected here never had individual titles, and DC’s compilers have cleverly elected to use the original comics’ strap-lines or cover blurbs to differentiate the tales…

‘Gangway for Captain Marvel!’ – drawn in a style reminiscent of early Hergé – finds homeless orphan newsboy Billy Batson lured into an abandoned subway tunnel to a meeting with infinitely ancient wizard Shazam. At the end of a long life confronting evil, the white-bearded figure grants the lad the powers and signature gifts of six gods and heroes; bidding him to continue the good fight.

In 13 delightfully clean and simple pages Billy gets his powers, has his secret origin revealed (he’s actually heir to a fortune embezzled by his crooked uncle Ebenezer Batson), wins a job as a roaming radio reporter for Amalgamated Broadcasting and defeats the demonic schemes of criminal science maniac Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, who is holding the airwaves of America hostage. The mighty, taciturn and not yet invulnerable Marvel is only sparingly used to do the heavy lifting. It is sheer comic book poetry…

The March issue had no cover number but was listed as #3 in the indicia and featured ‘The Return of Sivana’ as the insane inventor unleashes a mercenary army equipped with his super-weapons upon the nation, attempting to become Emperor of America. His plan is duly thwarted by Billy acting as a war correspondent, and the mighty muscles of Marvel…

The third (April-dated) Whiz Comics had “Number 3” on the cover but was designated #4 inside and proudly proclaimed ‘Make Way for Captain Marvel!’ before boldly leaping into full science fiction mode as Billy is shanghaied to Venus in Sivana’s mighty rocketship. The boy is forced to reveal his amazing secret to the demented inventor whilst battling incredible monsters and giant frog-men dubbed “Glompers”, with the magnificently guileless and gallant Marvel seemingly helpless against the savant’s seductive new ally – Queen Beautia – as that deadly duo prepare to invade Earth.

Only seemingly though…

‘Captain Marvel Crashes Through’ (#4 on the cover, but #5 inside) details how bewitching Beautia, aided by Sivana’s technology, runs for President. However, the sinister siren has a soft heart, and when Billy is captured (and encounters the first of a multitude of diabolically clever gadgets designed to stop him saying his magic word), she frees him, thus falling foul of the gangsters who were backing her. Happily, Captain Marvel is there to save the day…

An inexplicable crime-wave shakes the country in ‘Captain Marvel Scores Again!’ (the wild numbers game finally ends here as there’s a #5 on the cover and the same inside) as a different sinister scientist uses a ray to turn children into thieves. Even Billy is not immune…

‘Captain Marvel and the Circus of Death’ (July 1940) sees Sivana return with fantastic Venusian dino-monsters which our Good Captain is hard-pressed to handle. Incidentally, this was the first issue where the Big Red Cheese is seen definitely flying as opposed to leaping – something Superman is not acknowledged as doing until late 1941. It means nothing, I’m just saying emulation goes both ways…

For ‘Captain Marvel and the Squadron of Doom’, young Billy travels to the North Pole for a radio story and discovers a secret organisation thawing out frozen cavemen to act as their army of conquest, after which he and his mature magical avatar foil a murderous spiritualist causing mass-drownings to bolster his reputation and fortune in ‘Saved by Captain Marvel!’

Whiz #9’s ‘Captain Marvel on the Job!’ finds man & boy foiling a revolution, recovering foreign crown jewels and flummoxing a madman with a shrinking ray, after which Sivana and Beautia return in ‘Captain Marvel Battles the Winged Death’: a blistering yarn involving espionage and America’s latest secret weapon. In this tale, the Empress of Venus finally reforms, becoming a solid American citizen…

‘Hurrah for Captain Marvel!’ finds Batson investigating college hazing and corrupt sporting events whilst in #12 (January 1941), the World War looms large as “Gnatzi” maritime outrages bring Billy to London where he uncovers the spy responsible for sinking refugee ships in ‘Captain Marvel Rides the Engine of Doom!’

‘Captain Marvel – World’s Most Powerful Man!’ then features Sivana’s latest atrocity as the madman disrupts hockey matches, blitzes banks and incapacitates the US army with a formula that turns men into babies. Even Billy isn’t immune, but at least Beautia is there to help him…

War was looking increasingly unavoidable and many superheroes jumped the gun to start fighting before the US officially entered the fray. ‘Captain Marvel Boomerangs the Torpedo!’ is a superb patriotic cover for Whiz #14 (March 1941) even though the actual story involves Sivana’s capture and subsequent discovery of a thought process which allows him to walk through walls – and cell bars. Luckily, the World’s Mightiest Mortal also possesses the Wisdom of Solomon and deduces a solution to the unstoppable menace…

This superb collection concludes after another stirring cover ‘With the British Plane Streaking to a Fiery Doom, Captain Marvel Dives to the Rescue!’ (#15 and also cover-dated March), fronting an unrelated adventure which reveals the astounding and tragic origin of Dr. Sivana, his unbelievable connection to Beautia, and also introduces her brother Magnificus – almost as mighty a fighter as Marvel – after Billy is kidnapped and trapped once more on Venus…

DC/National Periodical Publications had filed suit against Fawcett for copyright infringement as soon as Whiz Comics #2 was released. The companies slugged it out in court until 1953, when, with the sales of superhero comics decimated by changing tastes, Captain Marvel’s publishers decided to capitulate. The name lay unclaimed until 1967 when M.F. Enterprises released six issues of an unrelated android hero before folding. Marvel Comics finally secured rights to the name in 1968.

DC eventually acquired Fawcett’s comic book properties and characters and in 1973 revived the Good Captain for a new generation, gambling that his unique charm would work another sales miracle during one of comics’ periodic downturns. Retitled Shazam! due to the incontestable power of lawyers and copyright legislation, the revived heroic ideal enjoyed mixed success before being subsumed into the company’s vast stable of characters…

Nevertheless, the first Captain Marvel is a true icon of American comic history and a brilliantly conceived superhero for all ages. This titanic tome only scratches the surface of the canon of delights produced over the near 90 years of his tumultuous existence, and is an ideal exemplar introduction to the world of adventure comics: one that will appeal to readers of any age and temperament.
© 1940, 1941, 1992 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1867, French artist, cartoonist, creator and designer of Bibendum (the Michelin man) O’Galop AKA Marius Rossillon was born. He shares birthday with Charles Clarence “C.C.” Beck (Captain Marvel/Billy Batson, Spy Smasher, Fatman, the Human Flying Saucer) in 1910; mega-letterer Ray Holloway in 1920; strip cartoonist/animator Paul Gringle (Rural Delivery, Out Our Way) in 1922, Charlton comics art mainstay Rocke Mastroserio in 1927 and Dutch creator Jan Kruis (Jan, Jans en de Kinderen) in 1933.

Events include Ken Reid’s final Jonah strip in The Beano this day in 1963 – although the strip was revived in The Dandy 30 years later – and last of Gus Edson & Irwin Hasen’s newspaper feature Dondi in 1986, with Tom Batiuk/Chuck Ayers’ strip Crankshaft debuting one year later.

Today in 1846 Swiss satirist and the world’s first true comics creator – Rodolphe Töpffer (Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois/The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck) – died, as did Shoe and Pluggers cartoonist Jeff MacNelly in 2000, and the mighty, massively influential cartoonist, historian and publisher Jack Edward Jackson AKA Jaxon (Rip Off Press co-founder; crafter of God Nose, Los Tejanos, Comanche Moon, The Secret of San Saba, The Alamo: An Epic Told from Both Sides and dozens more) in 2006.

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Betsy and Me


By Jack Cole & Dwight Parks, with R.C. Harvey (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-156097-878-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content added for comedic effect.

Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of American comics’ Golden Age. Before moving into mature magazine and gag markets he originated landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero comic books, where his incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. It was a glittering career of distinction which Cole was clearly embarrassed by and unhappy with.

Without doubt – and despite his other triumphal comics innovations such as The Comet, Silver Streak, Daredevil, The Claw, Death Patrol, Midnight, Quicksilver, The Barker, and a uniquely twisted and phenomenally popular take on the crime and horror genres – Cole’s greatest contribution and lasting creation was the zany Malleable Marvel who (with indispensable sidekick/gadfly Woozy Winks) quickly grew from a minor back-up character into one of the most memorable and popular heroes of the era.

In 1954 Cole quit comics for the lucrative and prestigious field of magazine cartooning, and swiftly became a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began regularly running in Playboy from its fifth issue. Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and, in 1958, achieved a life-long ambition by launching a syndicated newspaper strip, the domestic comedy Betsy and Me, which began publication on Monday May 26th.

Something about reaching the cartoonist’s Promised Land clearly did not meet with the infamously private Cole’s expectations and, on August 13th 1958, at the peak of his prowess and success, he took his own life. The reasons – although much speculated upon ever since – remain unknown.

The strip was handed to commercial cartoonist Dwight Parks who continued it until an editorial decision was made to end it. The last daily was published on Saturday, December 27th. That great loss to the future of the industry and artform has for years clouded a greater truth: whatever his demons, Cole was a master of comedy and narrative art in all its forms and Betsy and Me was, in its own niche, every bit as great as his glamour illustration and comic book endeavours.

This mostly monochrome tome collects those long-lost newspaper sorties in a welcoming package which begins with the captivating solicitation page designed to entice new papers to buy the strip. Then biography, history, context and analysis come courtesy of historian R. C. Harvey’s introductory essay ‘The Last of Jack Cole: His Life and Art and Why They Both Ended with Betsy and Me’. The heavily illustrated article also offers possible insights into Cole’s motivations, state of mind and possible reasons for suicide, before this superb collection of what should have been Cole’s greatest legacy opens…

Utilising a stripped-down minimalist style that was the astute acme of its time, this domestic comedy is recounted as a fireside tale by homely working stiff Chester B. Tibbit. He recalls and reminisces with unseen readers who daily learn of his romancing of and marriage to Betsy; his downtrodden life as a floorwalker at the Meyers department store and plodding climb up the ladder of middle class aspiration.

The move from apartment to house, the trepidatious purchase of consumer benchmarks such as white goods and even an automobile (in the most generous sense of the term), and the inevitable addition of a child are all gradually covered in a manner most wry and deliciously sardonic. All the laughs stem from an old cartoonist’s trick: the rose-tinted self-deluding narrative says one thing whilst the pictures tell the grim, sordid truth, even when Chester can’t see it himself…

His admired and adored bosses are bullying martinets, his friends are shallow, fair-weather self-servers, Betsy isn’t a quiet, obedient little woman and his son is…

Well, the truth is that infant Farley actually is a genius: rude, brusque, impatient and utterly beyond the intellectual capabilities of his terrified, long-suffering parents. Even from his earliest moments in the crib the kid is the smartest one in the house – and that includes financially and emotionally…

The strips follow the traditional developmental path of courtship, marriage, home-making and child-rearing but always Cole’s needle-sharp social observations and uncontrollable whimsy are seditiously at work. At Meyers’ the infant blackmails his father’s superiors so they stop picking on the little nebbish and when Farley starts school he organises a student revolt…

The toddler even masters judo to protect his bewildered guardians from marauding criminals and spars continually with mooching, predatory Gus, a confirmed bachelor always hanging around Betsy with attentions that are clear to everyone but Chester…

Over the summer of 1958 Betsy and Me steadily grew in quality, scope and popularity. When Cole died on August 13th he had submitted strips for a full month ahead. His last daily ran on September 7th and the final Sunday on September 21st.

Dwight Parks took over and whereas the pared-down artistic style remained, the uneasy edgy satire was lost in favour of more domestic comfortable themes – such as the new house being a broken-down money pit, interfering neighbours, kindergarten woes, dieting and “keeping up with the Joneses”- the stuff of contemporary TV sitcoms like I Love Lucy…

Critics have debated ever since Cole’s passing about whether, given time, Betsy and Me (or even a successor strip) would have cemented the brilliant raconteur as a master of all forms of graphic narrative, or whether he had finally overreached himself. We’ll never know, but at least you can read what remains and judge for yourself.

… And you really should.
© 2007 Fantagraphics Books. Text © 2007 R. C. Harvey.

Today in 1915, EC all-star “Ghastly” Graham Ingels was born, as was Polish comics star Henryk Chmielewski AKA “Papcio Chmiel” (Tytus, Romek i A’Tomek); cartoonist/editor/educator Barb Rausch (Barbie, The Desert Peach, Omaha the Cat Dancer, Disney Studios, Neil the Horse) in 1941; writer/editor/artist Larry Hama (Wolverine, G.I. Joe, Bucky O’Hare, Nth Man) in 1949: artist/animator Rick Hoberg (Tarzan, Star Wars, Eternity Smith, Green Arrow) in 1952 and Mark Schultz (Superman, Xenozoic Tales) in 1955.

In 1958 today we lost astounding illustrator Joe Maneely (Ghost Breakers, Super Magician Comics, Black Knight, Yellow Claw, Atlas genres shorts) and in 2003 French artist Georges Pichard (Blanche Épiphanie, Ténébrax, Submerman, Ceux–là).

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Golden Age Captain America Marvel Masterworks volume 2


By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Charles Nicholas, Syd Shores, Al Avison, Al Gabriele, Harry Fisk, Ken Bald, Bill Ward and various (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2228-9 (HB), 978-1-3025-0560-8 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Captain America was devised at the end of 1940 and boldly launched in his own monthly title from Timely – the company’s unofficial trading designation – with none of the customary cautious shilly-shallying. Owner Pulp publisher turned comic book empresario Martin Goodman always knew the value of striking while irons were hot…

The first issue was cover-dated March 1941 and became an instant monster, blockbuster smash-hit. Overnight Cap was the absolute and undisputed star of Timely’s “Big Three” – the other two being The Human Torch & Sub-Mariner. He was also one of the very first to plummet from popularity at the end of the Golden Age. These days – excluding, perhaps, some far-too-few Bill Everett-crafted Sub-Mariner yarns – the huge war-years popularity of the other two just doesn’t translate into a good read for modern consumers.

In comparison to their contemporary rivals and industry leaders at Quality, Fawcett, National/All American and Dell, or Will Eisner’s The Spirit newspaper insert, the standard of most Timely periodicals was woefully lacklustre in both story and, most tellingly, art. That they survived and prospered is a Marvel mystery, but a clue might lie in the sheer exuberant venom of their racial stereotypes and heady fervour of jingoism at a time when the USA was becoming involved in the greatest war in global history. Nevertheless, the first ten Captain America Comics are indisputably the most high-quality comics in the fledgling company’s history and I can’t help but wonder what might have been had National (neé DC) been wise enough to hire Simon & Kirby before they were famous, instead of after that pivotal first year?

Of course, we’ll never know and although the team supreme did jump to the majors after a year, their visual dynamic became the mandated aspirational style for super-hero comics at the company they left. Moreover, their patriotic creation became a flagship icon for them and the industry. Truth be told. however, the groundbreaking and exceptionally high-quality material from Joe Simon & Jack Kirby is not really the lure here – the real gold nuggets for us old sods and comics veterans are the rare back-up features overseen by the star duo and crafted by their small pool of talented up-&-comers.

Although unattributed assistants included at various times Reed Crandall, Syd Shores, Alex Schomburg, Mort Meskin, Chu Hing, Charles Nicholas, Gustav Schrotter, George Klein, C.A. Winter, Fred Bell and many more, working on main course and filler features such as Hurricane, the God of Speed and Tuk, Caveboy: strips barely remembered today yet still brimming with the first enthusiastic efforts of creative legends in waiting.

This lavish hardback volume (available in a digital edition) reprints original Star-Spangled blockbusters Captain America Comics #5-8 (spanning August to November 1941) and also provides a fascinating insight into the fly-by-night nature of publishing during those get-rich-quick days in an Introduction from Gerard Jones, after which the astounding action resumes…

After scrawny, enfeebled young patriot Steve Rogers is continually rejected by the US Army, he is recruited by the Secret Service. In an effort to counter a wave of Nazi-sympathizing espionage and sabotage, the passionate young man was tapped to join a clandestine experimental project to create physically perfect super-soldiers. However, when a Nazi agent infiltrated the labs and murdered its key scientist, Rogers became its only successful graduate and transitioned into America’s not-so-secret weapon and very public patriotic symbol.

Despatched undercover as a simple army private, he soon encountered headstrong, orphaned Army Brat James Buchanan Barnes who became his sidekick and costumed confidante “Bucky”. In the period when America was still officially non-combatant, Rogers and his sidekick were stationed at East Coast army base Camp Lehigh, but still manage to find plenty of crime to crush and evil to eradicate.

In Simon & Kirby’s ‘Captain America and the Ringmaster of Death’ the arrival of a circus leads to the deaths of General Blaine and Defense Commissioner Newsome in suspicious circumstances. Before long, both the masked heroes and government agent Betty Ross reach the same conclusion: all the acts and freaks are Nazi operatives sabotaging the nation’s security through murder… but not for much longer…

Japan was still neutral too, so although visually their forces – especially spies – were also unmistakeably ever-present, the eastern arm of the Axis alliance (the other two being Germany and Italy, history fans) were still being referred to as “sinister Orientals” and “Asiatic aggressor nations”. Even so, when Steve & Bucky accompany new commander General Haywood to the US Pacific base of Kunoa, readers knew who was really behind ‘The Gruesome Secret of the Dragon of Death!’ and revelled in seeing the heroes scupper the most spectacular secret weapon yet aimed at the forces of freedom…

Back in the USA, the hard-hitting Star-Spangled Stalwarts then rescue decent, law-abiding German-Americans terrorised by the ‘Killers of the Bund’ who were determined to create a deadly Fifth Column inside America’s heartland. Following a rousing ad for a newly minted Captain America’s Sentinels of Liberty society, a glorified infomercial for the club comes in the form of prose adventure ‘Captain America and the Ruby Robbers’ scripted by Stan Lee with spot art by S&K, after which our Patriotic Pair save a downed volunteer American flyer held prisoner on a former French Island now administered by the collaborating Vichy government.

‘Captain America and… The Terror That Was Devil’s Island’ offers action-drenched melodrama plucked from the contemporaneous Hollywood movie mill and referencing films like 1937’s The Life of Emile Zola, 1939’s Devil’s Island and perhaps even 1941’s I Was a Prisoner on Devil’s Island and served to show that infamy and cruelty could not long subdue any valiant American heart…

Joining the list of supporting features, the equally relevant if improbable adventures of ‘Headline Hunter, Foreign Correspondent’ began with this issue. Credited to Stan Lee (Goodman’s nephew and major domo Stanley Lieber) & Harry Fisk, these shorts find US journalist Jerry Hunter sent to Blitz-blighted London to report on the European war, only to become the story after uncovering a traitor in the corridors of power…

Sporting only a title page by Simon & Kirby, primeval wonder ‘Tuk, Cave Boy’ bows out in a final example of “Weird Stories from the Dark Ages” as he saves his mentor Tanir from marauding beast-men and ends forever the depredations of brutal tyrant Bongo, before seasoned pro Charles Nicholas (nee Wojtkowski) assumes art chores on ‘Hurricane, Master of Speed’. Hurricane was the earthbound son of thunder god Thor (no relation to the 1960s version): a brisk reworking and sequel to Kirby’s ‘Mercury in the 20th Century’ from Red Raven Comics #1 (cover-dated August 1940), and here intercedes in a diabolical plot to destabilise the economy by flooding US banks with counterfeit currency.

CAC #6 carried a September 1941 cover-date and opens with a classic murder spree thriller as ‘Captain America Battles the Camera Fiend and his Darts of Doom’ in a frantic bid to prevent the theft of Britain’s Crown Jewels. Timely were never subtle in terms of jingoistic (we’d say appallingly racist) depictions, and even the normally reserved Simon & Kirby let themselves go in ‘Meet the Fang, the Arch Fiend of the Orient’ as Cap & Bucky challenge the full insidious might of the Tongs of San Francisco’s China Town to save kidnapped Chinese dignitaries from a master torturer…

Another new feature followed: scripted by Lee and illustrated by Al Avison & Al Gabriele, ‘Father Time: The Grim Reaper Deals with Crime’ details how Larry Scott learned his father had been framed for murder and through heroic efforts exposed the true culprits… but was seconds too late to save his sire from the noose. Resolved that time should no longer be on the side of criminals and killers, Larry devised a ghastly outfit and – wielding a scythe – brought his dad’s persecutors to justice. They would be only the first in Father Time’s crusade…

Simon & Kirby’s art and stories were becoming increasingly bold and innovative. ‘The Strange Case of Captain America and the Hangman Who Killed Doctor Vardoff’ reveals a diabolical game of “Ten Little Indians” as suspects perish one by one whilst the superheroes attempt to catch a ruthless killer and retrieve a stolen experimental super-silk invention. Lee and an unknown artist then offer another thinly-veiled prose plug for the Sentinels of Liberty club as Cap and Bucky lay a ‘Trap for a Traitor’, after which Headline Hunter, Foreign Correspondent ‘Battles the Engine of Destruction’ (Lee & Fisk) and exposes an aristocratic English fascist building Nazi terror weapons in his British factories.

Following further Sentinels of Liberty club news and puzzle pages ‘Hurricane, Master of Speed’ closes the issue, crushing a murder plot in his own boarding house with art courtesy of Charles Nicholas.

CAC #7 is a stunning comic milestone that leads with iconic clash ‘Captain America in the Case of the Red Skull and the Whistling Death’. With Steve & Bucky ordered to participate in a Vaudeville-themed troop show at Camp Lehigh, the Nazi super-assassin stalks the city, slaughtering his old cronies and US military experts with a mysterious sound weapon. The fiend’s big mistake is leaving the shadows and arrogantly turning his attention to Cap…

‘The Case of the Baseball Murders: Death Loads the Bases’ seemingly offers a change of pace but Steve’s sporting relaxation turns into more work when a masked maniac starts knocking off his team’s star players before Lee’s prose novelette provides ‘A Message from Captain America’ which introduces his fellow heroes Jerry Hunter, Hurricane and Father Time before S&K strip feature ‘Horror Plays the Scales’ pits the Red, White & Blue Bravos against a murdering musician knocking off anti-Nazi politicians.

Ken Bald & Bill Ward introduce a comedy foil for Hurricane as ‘Justice Laughs Last’ sees the speedster adopt portly shopkeeper Speedy Scriggles after protection racketeers target the feisty fool. Headline Hunter (Lee & Fisk) then clears an Englishman accused of murdering an American film star and reveals a Nazi plot to disrupt Anglo-US relations, as Father Time’s ‘Race Against Doom’ (Lee, Al Avison & Al Gabriele) saves another innocent patsy from taking the fall for a crooked DA and his mob-boss paymaster. The issue closes with more puzzles and patriotic pronouncements from Cap & Bucky to all their fee-paying Sentinels…

Cover-dated November 1941, Captain America Comics #8 was released months before the Pearl Harbor atrocity catapulted the USA into official war so contents might have compiled as early as June or July. Thus it opens with another gripping crime conundrum – ‘The Strange Mystery of the Ruby of the Nile and Its Heritage of Horror’ – which sees the heroes assisting Betty Ross in safeguarding a fabulous antique jewel, but seemingly helpless to prevents its archaeologist excavators being butchered by a marauding phantasm.

The impending conflagration does inform ‘Murder Stalks the Maneuvers’ when a Nazi infiltrator attends war games and uses the opportunity to trick the soldiers into destroying each other with live ammo, whilst Headline Hunter, Foreign Correspondent remains in the thick of it facing ‘The Strange Riddle of the Plague of Death’ (Lee & Fisk). This time he saves London (and the Home Counties) from a strange sickness spread by bread…

After more Sentinel propaganda and absorbing puzzles, Simon & Kirby’s ‘Case of the Black Witch’ has Cap & Bucky shielding a young woman’s inheritance before clashing with a sinister sorceress and the worst horrors hell could conceive of.

Nicholas returns to Hurricane as the Master of Speed and his new pal shut down a crooked ‘Carnival of Crime’, after which Lee & an unsung illustrator promote in prose a new Timely title as ‘The Young Allies Strike a Blow for Justice’. Please be warned: the treatment here of “Negro” character Whitewash – a full partner in the heroic team – is every bit as dated, contentious and potentially offensive as that era’s representations of other races, so kudos to the editors for bravely leaving the story untouched and unedited. Closing on a bombastic high, Father Time then deals harshly with robbers who use bank strongrooms to asphyxiate witnesses in ‘Vault of Doom!’

An added and very welcome bonus for fans is the inclusion of some absolutely beguiling house-ads for other titles, contents pages, Sentinels of Liberty club bulletins and assorted ephemera…

Although lagging far behind DC and despite, in many ways having a much shallower Golden Age well to draw from, it’s commendable that Marvel has overcome understandable initial reluctance about its earliest output in these masterworks – even if they’re only potentially of interest to the likes of sad old folk like me. However, with this particular tome at least, the House of Ideas has a book that will always stand shoulder to shoulder with the very best that the Golden Age of Comics could offer.
© 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

Pioneering Italian comics creator Sandro Angiolini (Isabella) was born today in 1920, sharing the date with Belgian Maurice Maréchal (Prudence Petipas) in 1922 and American cartoonist Tom K. Ryan (Tumbleweeds) in 1926, and – one year later – Le Journal de Spirou stalwart creator Peter Spier (Sophie).

We lost Katzenjammer Kids artist Joe Musial in 1977; Timely/Atlas/Marvel Comics founder Martin Goodman in 1992; Golden and Silver Age comic book everyman Manny Stallman (Young Robin Hood, Big Town, Raven) in 1997, with this century this day marking the passings of Kate Worley (Omaha the Cat Dancer) in 2004 and French creator and co-founder of Pilote Jean-René Le Moing – AKA “Bulbul” – (Le Chevalier Emerik, Peter Pat) in 2012.

In 1932 Clifford McBride’s Napoleon and Uncle Elby premiered; and in 1959 The Beano debuted Leo Baxendale’s The Three Bears, UK whilst weekly Cor!! launched today in 1970 and Steve Gerber & Gene Colan’s newspaper strip version of Howard the Duck took flight in 1977.