Category: Humour

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KIKI de Montparnasse


By Catel & Bocquet, translated by Nora Mahoney (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-90683-825-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Like all art students in the 1970s and early 1980s I fell in love with Surrealism and Dada and even had a copy of Man Ray’s print of the naked chick mimicking a cello on a wall for a while. The model was his greatest muse – Kiki of Montparnasse.

I revelled in how the image was a clever juxtaposition of idea and image and never gave much thought to the actual woman in the picture. That was a huge mistake, thankfully rectified here in this supremely moving account of the life of an indomitable soul who encapsulated and epitomised an extraordinary era…

Please take heed: this book contains both nudity and nakedness in large amounts. Don’t read it if such drawings might affect you in unwholesome ways…

Alice Ernestine Prin (2nd October 1901 – 29th April 1953) was born in Châtillon-sur-Seine, Côte-d’Or. She was a child of shame and poverty, wilful and a bit wild: surviving life amongst the lowest classes. She grew up in northern France in a region of agriculture, heavy industry and especially winemaking: raised by a grandmother and often-visiting godfather. Alice had her first drink and danced for inn patrons at ten. It kept happening until her already-disgraced mother abruptly returned in 1913 before the girl was packed off to Paris to learn a trade.

That’s when her life really began.

That life is traced from cradle to grave in a rapid-fire procession of black-&-white vignettes, that first focuses on her childhood and brushes with education, whilst concentrating on her happy but unconventional family life and relationships.

Already wise beyond her years in the things that mattered, Alice clashed with a number of employers in crappy jobs – such as bakery assistant or domestic servant – and dreamed of love and adventure, independence and fame…

She reached her majority just as Europe was changed forever by “The War to End All Wars”, and was on hand and at the forefront as the entire continent – but especially France – survived the communal mass PTSD dubbed the Années Folles or “Crazy Years”. An era of wild excess, free thought and fresh art and literary exploration, much of it triggered by shock, disenchantment and crumbling social order: the reaction of a generation who thought they were rebuilding themselves and society, but were in fact only gearing up to do it all over again…

With wounded soldiers everywhere and employment scarce, in 1916 Alice agreed to model for a sculptor buying bread: a scandalous job she at first concealed from her mother. When the outraged matron learned the truth, she disowned her daughter…

Two years later, she was an occasional singer and dancer and a paid escort too, but poverty was still biting too deep. Modelling was not a highly paid profession and most artists were just as poor as their subjects, but life took an upward turn after she was introduced to a promising prospect named Amedeo Modigliani…

He showed her to Utrillo, and thus to Mendjinsky and…

By 1920 she had remade herself and was known only as “KIKI”: bold, brassy, shamelessly confidant and utterly in command of the close community and artistic colony of defiant non-comformists of Montparnasse. Her star was on the rise and everyone one wanted to capture her in their own way. Her intimate associations would include Sanyu, Chaïm Sountine, Jean Cocteau, Julie Mandel, Constant Detré, Francis Picabia, Arno Breker, Alexander Calder, Per Krogh, Hermine David, Pablo Gargallo, Tono Salazar, John Glassco, Moïse Kisling and so many others who would reshape the creative world.

In 1921 she met her most devoted acolyte in Tsuguharu Foujita and the man who would make her immortal: American photographer Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky). She had also begun selling her own paintings, starring in numerous surrealist and Dadaist films and even performed in Ferdinand Leger’s Ballet mécanique in 1923…

Somehow, however, fame never quite equated to fortune, even though in June 1924 Man Ray’s image Le Violon d-Ingres (Ingre’s Violin) was first published in Surrealist magazine Littérature, with her astounding energy, creativity and catalogue of innovations and successes acting as a mere spine to form an impression of the woman whose guiding motto was always “be natural”. In May 2022, an original print of the image sold at auction for $412,400,000.

In love with fame and too forgiving with her lovers, KIKI flowered through those wild days luxuriating in independence and glamour, approval and rejection, notoriety, renown, and – outside her world and the art world – utter anonymity. Always, though, she lived it on her own terms…

How that all worked out comprises the majority of this stunningly inviting and compellingly absorbing cartoon biography: an award-winning tale that is the very picture of a rags-to-“riches”-to-rags melodrama and one as charming and uncompromising as any carefully constructed work of fiction.

This sublimely moving episodic dramatised narrative is a tasty wonder in bite-sized pieces and the first multi award-winning collaboration between graphic novelist Catel Muller (Ainsi soit Benoîte Groult, Adieu Kharkov, Lucie s’en soucie, Le Sang des Valentines, Joséphine Baker, Olympe de Gouges, Alice Guy) and crime novelist, screenwriter, biographer/comics writer José-Louis Bocquet (Sur la ligne blanche, Mémoires de l’espion, Panzer Panik, Joséphine Baker, Olympe de Gouges, Anton Six, Alice Guy).

The result is an exceptionally entertaining, engaging and informative account which is supplemented by a vast supporting structure of extras, beginning with a heavily illustrated and highly informative ‘Chronology’ tracing in minute detail all the pivotal events in KIKI’s short sharp life, which never changed the world but certain embraced and enjoyed it…

That’s further augmented by ‘Biographical Notes’ offering scholarly character portraits in prose and sketch form: all key historical figures impacting the model’s life, including Chaïm Sountine, Amedeo Modigliani, Moïse Kisling, Tsuguharu Foujita, Henri-Pierre Roché, Man Ray, Marie Vassilieff, Pablo Picasso, Tristan Tzara, Robert Desnos, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Trieze, Ivan Mosjoukine, Jean Cocteau, Henri Broca, Lee Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Jamblan, and André Larocque, and a Filmography of the movies researchers have since confirmed and acknowledged, and a colossal ‘Bibliography’ of books about her.
© 2011 SelfMadeHero. Illustrated by Catel. Written by José-Louis Bocquet. All rights reserved. Digital edition © May 2016.

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The Mental Load – A Feminist Comic


By Emma, translated by Una Dimitrijevic (Seven Stories Press)
ISBN: 978-1-60980-918-8 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-60980-919-5

It’s never been a fair world, although until relatively recently (if our choice of leaders can be seen as contrarily evidential) that’s a situation we all apparently aspire to create and maintain. Simultaneously in that nebulous “recent” period, many have sought to address imbalances between the roles and burdens of men and women in a civil and cohesive society, but the first problem they all hit was simply how to state the problems in terms all sides could understand. We have a lot more names and concepts to utilise now in discourse, but the difficulties don’t seem to have diminished at all…

In 2010, software engineer Emma had a revelation and first joined the public debate: crafting and curating a book of strips reflecting upon social issues impacting women, from long hours to workplace politics and getting on with partners… and how unfair and unjust the world was.

The daughter of two mathematicians from Troyes – in the North-eastern region of France – she studied computer science, grew older and lived like most adults: work, fun (when possible), relationships, family. Things changed after she had her first child…

At age 30 she became an avowed feminist, having been compelled to closely observe and re-assess her life in society even as she discovered the concept of “collective intelligence”. Her approach to formalising her thoughts was to identify and deftly dissect components of behaviour – hers and everyone else’s – and the result was The Mental Load. This was her term for all the unacknowledged, unpaid, incessant, invisible crap (mostly thanks to men, absolutely to partners in relationships, but also to many other women) that comprises and comes with almost every relationship.

Those observations were translated into activism, initially as self-published and distributed pamphlets, and in 2016 she started adding cartoons and drawings to the mix. The extreme positive response led her to launch cartoon blog Emmaclit, focussing on issues of racism, capitalism and police violence as well as feminism, following up a year later with sister webcomic Fallait demander (“You only had to ask”) which first posited the notion of an inescapable relational imbalance… a mental load…

In the webcomic, Emma used her own domestic and work life to provide biographical examples of how an unfair, unspoken – and often unrecognised – distribution of labour and responsibility falls on women in even the most equitable and ostensibly harmonious heterosexual relationships. The material went viral and struck a global chord…

Delivering her thoughts as a series of pictorial essays/lessons, Emma convincingly and compellingly argues that the vast majority of the overwhelming, relentless, inescapably burdensome life-tonnage had somehow settled on one side of the bed in most households…

The book – and sequel The Emotional Load (strips from them subsequently appeared in British newspaper The Guardian) – caused something of a commotion and as much trollish kickback as you’d expect from all the usual (and usually wrong) places…

Because a large proportion of humans who won the gender (genital?) lottery don’t really give a damn about other people’s woes – especially if the food keeps coming and the appropriate drawers magically refill with clean clothes and groceries – I fear there’s a segment of truly needy folk who will never benefit from this selection of treatises, anecdotes, statistics and life-changing stories.

Nevertheless, since many guys are genuinely clueless and baffled but willing to adapt, maybe enough of us will give change and thought a chance, even at this late stage. It’s certainly clear that there’s quite some way to go yet…

Best of all, most women reading this will realise that it’s not just them feeling the way they do and may even risk starting a conversation with their significant others, or at the very least, start talking to other women and organising together…

Working in the manner of the very best observational stand-up comedy, Emma forensically identifies an issue and dissects it, whilst offering advice, suggestions and a humorous perspective. Here that’s subdivided into a dozen comical chapters, preceded by an autobiographical context-setting Introduction, before ‘You Should’ve Asked’ finds sexism and discrimination at work heaped upon anyone bold enough to use their legal right to maternity leave, whilst cataloguing who does what around the house in terms of cooking, cleaning, provisioning, time managing, general “adulting”, noticing and remembering stuff needs to be cooked and cleaned, and providing clear-cut alternatives even an old geezer like me could understand, As always telling examples are offered…

‘Violence of the Oppressed’ offers a non-establishment view of 2016s protests against the dismantling of the French Labor Code and citizens’ rights, supplemented by a history of how women got them in the first place, followed by shocking facts about childbirth experiences and time-saving tactics of some medical practitioners in ‘The Story of My Friend C.’

What guys have always claimed they can’t control is carefully explored in ‘The Male Gaze’ and more fully explored in ‘Show Me That Bosom’ (via a deliciously barbed allegory of a land where bared breasts are mandatory).

‘The Wonderful Tale of Mohamed’ singles out one case to detail the treatment of immigrants and brown people in general. It examines what happens when police can use terrorism threats as justification for overreaction, whilst ‘The Wait’ explores individual freedoms and action in committed relationships with specific attention to Emma’s own life and who usually gets left holding the baby. ‘Work!’ then lays out a possible solution and alternatives to the rat race roles if only we ensure time and resources could be more evenly distributed. There’s also plenty of revelations on the way women have messed up the value of the work market…

Other than making men uncomfortable, ‘Check Your Pussy!’ then offers a public service announcement on knowing oneself for all women, setting out actual facts – and even biological route maps! – before social iniquity returns in the form of another exposé on police treatment of non-whites after the death of ‘Just Another Guy from the Hood’…

The ultimate male shield is the concept of “banter” and most effective weapon is the concept of “just kidding”. Both get a well-deserved and thoroughly effective kicking in ‘Chill Out’ before – to celebrate a year of the blog – Emma opted to share a formulative experience that triggered her late-found militancy. The upshot was personal anecdote ‘The Holidays’: describing her bout of childbirth and how it changed her life in all the ways absolutely no one had warned her about…

Now a full-time cartoonist, broadcaster and columnist, Emma continues to poke and probe an unfair world, but this subversively smart, amusingly addictive, slickly convincing, plausibly rational discussion of the way things should not be is undoubtedly a high point in her work and our communal advancement. It may still be a largely male-centric society, but amidst the many moments that will have any decent human weeping in empathy or raging in impotent fury, there are decisive points where a little knowledge and a smattering of honest willingness to listen and change could work bloody miracles…

Buy this book, learn some stuff. Be better, and please accept my earnest apologies on behalf of myself and my entire gender.

Dial it down and literally Man Up guys!
© 2017 by Emma. English translation © 2018 by Una Dimitrijevic. All rights reserved.

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Fruit of Knowledge – The Vulva vs. The Patriarchy


By Liv Strömquist, translated by Melissa Bowers (Virago)
ISBN: 978-0-349-01072-4 (B/Digital edition)

We’re going to be using grown-up words today and there’s stuff discussed and depicted here that many strident, officious (and mostly male) people simultaneously deny, deny access to, denigrate and demonise. They even dare to police how actual possessors & users of these body parts may employ or maintain them. Those guys won’t like this book at all.

If that’s you, Go Away. There’s nothing for you to see here and you’ll only get upset. If that’s not you, but you know where they live or hang out, there’s no law that prevents you from buying a copy and sending it to them. Just a thought…

If you know anything about female anatomy, all this will be funny, frightening, glaringly obvious and even enlightening. However, if you’re male – or really, really repressed and/or religious to a fundamental degree – you might want to stop here and pretend this book doesn’t exist.

Wars are fought with intolerant attitudes, economics and misinformation far more than with guns, bombs, knives or deadly chemicals. Oddly enough, that latter arsenal has been used far more than you might imagine: by an ostensibly well-meaning parochial and explicitly patriarchal establishment intent on suppressing women in every walk of life.

In 1978, Liv Strömquist was born in Lund, Sweden. After studying political science, she rekindled an early interest in comics and fanzines to explore topics that gripped her. A cartoonist and radio presenter, she is dogged, diligent, meticulous and devastatingly hilarious when exploring themes important to her. Her first graphic enquiry was 2005’s Hundra procent fett (Hundred Percent Fat) and she’s since followed up with another 10 books, as well as articles and features for newspapers, magazines, assorted media platforms …and comics. She leans left, despises hypocrisy and champions socio-political iniquities like income inequality and gender-determined disempowerment. She does it with scrupulously researched facts translated into cruelly hilarious satirical cartoons.

A ferocious truth-speaker incensed by injustice, in 2014 Strömquist released Kunskapens frukt, an historical exploration of taboos surrounding women’s bodies. It was a global sensation translated into a dozen languages and arrived in English as Fruit of Knowledge.

In a string of carefully constructed comic polemics, she explores, elucidates upon and demystifies the biology of women, how power-seeking groups and individuals have suppressed female autonomy, how male-led societies suppress knowledge, stifle debate, and use shame and gaslighting techniques to keep females downtrodden, destabilised and totally dependent at every level. We’ve even twisted science and history to the cause: excising the very terms needed to efficiently debate the problem…

Guided by a curating avatar, a journey of rediscovery begins with Chapter 1: a history lesson discussing the quirks, insane beliefs and perpetrated atrocities of ‘Men Who Have been Too Interested in the Female Genitalia’…

A staggering listicle of ignorance, arrogance and criminal callousness, this section details beliefs and actions of prominent personages who dictated how women should be. I’m staying vague on detail for reasons of taste, but our countdown begins with the socially-applauded misdeeds of John Harvey Kellog and Dr. Isaac Baker Brown before spending lots of time with mega-misogynist St. Augustine.

The shocking influence of “sexologist” John Money is outdone by the combined results of the instigators of Europe and America’s witch trials (including an outrageous game of “hunt the devil’s teat/clitoris”), before aristo fetish slaver Baron George Cuvier mixes kink with racism to a degree that shaped decades of followers. Top dishonours go to those who exhumed Queen Christina of Sweden’s 300-year old corpse in an attempt to prove that the incredibly effective and pioneering monarch had been a “pseudo-hermaphrodite” – AKA Man – all along…

The appalling litany of deranged anti-female delusion is not simply cited for comedic effect (much of it is actually stomach churning to read) but is used to prove Strömquist’s argument that the aggregated efforts of “Men” shaped today’s unjust system: from toxic medical attitudes regarding “women’s issues” to the nonsense-&-prejudice minefield of gender attribution/reassignment policies to the eternal verity that women only exist for men’s use…

Crushing pressure to conform and excel is tackled in ‘Upside-Down Rooster Comb’: showing how women and girls are deprived of knowledge of themselves and groomed to believe their most intimate parts are sub-standard, ugly, unhygienic, freakish and utterly unacceptable.

In discussing a rise in labial plastic surgery, we see how men from every walk of life dictate what women must look like. There is special, prolonged, recurring an hilarious focus on how NASA airbrushed out a human vulva in images on the 1972 Pioneer space probe, and how successive male experts “proved” the female state of being (and attendant reduced self-esteem) was subordinate and dependent on male primacy…

The philosophical, negativistic macho clap trap of Jean-Paul Sartre, Stig Larsson and others is balanced by the views of psychologist Harriet Lerner, but in the end science and school books confirm that the world believes women are there for men to put things in…

It wasn’t always so though, and Strömquist’s masterstroke is a formal lesson on anatomy, supported by thousands of years of art proudly “putting the Vulva on display.” Starting with the Greek myth of Demeter, an almost sidelined fuller history of civilisation follows, citing how women “exposing” themselves remained a component of life everywhere well into the 1800s…

Because there aren’t shocks enough yet, ‘AAH HAA’ re-examines female orgasm, revealing how much even the most supportive and in-tune bloke has been misinformed and misled, and how that elusive “Big O” was cynically reclassified and deemphasised. God and his earthly representatives don’t do well in this chapter, and there’s a stunning parade of quotes from medical men down the ages showing how we all slowly switched from “did the earth move?” to “what’s wrong with you?”…

Throughout, but especially here, historical anecdotes back up the argument. If the thought of woman after woman being maimed or killed by male intransigence is likely to upset you, suck it up: it’s the least anyone can do to expiate centuries of accumulated and unwarranted sexual privilege…

A whimsical peek at a potential matriarchy and more revelatory biology regarding the clitoris heralds a full colour reworking of the Judaeo-Christian creation story in ‘Feeling Eve – or: In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens’. Interview excerpts illustrate women’s eternal concerns: uncovering intimate moments of shame, fear, guilt, menstruation, masturbation, assault, body image and general ego-sabotage…

The book confronts head-on the uncomfortable occurrence we’ve all been programmed to shy away from in ‘Blood Mountain’: challenging adamant yet unshakably coy assumptions that make period products so gosh-darned profitable via some inspired role swapping, targeted historical trawling, a catalogue of nasty myths, modern psychoanalytic theories, episodic exposés of the magic power of blood from “down there”, reports of male PMS from ancient Greece, the revolting habits of Sigmund Freud and fellow period fan Dr. Wilhelm Fliess and examples and depictions of the “red flowering” from as far back as 15,000 years ago…

All that climaxes with a hard look at manufacturers’ obsession with “freshness” and “cleanliness” and how many of their “hygiene” products are killing the planet, all backed up by evaluations of fairy tales through the lens of menstruation rituals…

Fierce, funny and thoroughly thought-provoking, Fruit of Knowledge is acute, astute and magnificently uplifting: challenging and negating centuries of divisive bias and propaganda by asking women to be their own person. This is a book to arm and unite everyone everywhere in accepting that women’s biology and sexuality has never been the business of any man or organisation.
© Liv Strömquist. Original Swedish edition 2014 Ordfront/Galago. Translation © 2018 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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The Cartoon Life of Chuck Clayton (Archie & Friends All-Stars volume 3)


By Alex Simmons, Fernando Ruiz, Al Nickerson & various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-879794-48-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

For more than 80 years Archie Comics and its eponymous superstar Archie Andrews has epitomised good, safe, wholesome fun, whilst encouraging and embracing ingeniously hidden and deviously subversive elements of mischief. Family-friendly superheroes, spooky chills, sci-fi thrills and genre yarns have been as much a part of the publisher’s varied portfolio as those romantic comedy capers of America’s cleanest-cut teens since the company Golden Age debut as MLJ publications.

As you surely know by now, founded in 1939 as MLJ, Archie has been officially around since 1941, and spent spending most of the intervening decades chasing tantalisingly attainable Betty Cooper and wildly out-of-his-league debutante Veronica Lodge. The game was played with best friend Jughead Jones alternately mocking and abetting his romantic endeavours whilst rival Reggie Mantle sought to scuttle every move…

As crafted by a legion of writers and artists who logged innumerable stories of teen antics in and around idyllic, utopian small-town Riverdale, these timeless tales of decent, fun-loving kids captivated successive generations of readers and entertained millions worldwide.

To keep all that accumulated attention riveted, the company has always looked to modern trends and changing social mores. Every type of fashion-fad and youth-culture sensation has invariably been shoehorned in and explored on the pages of the regular titles.

The perennial eternal triangle that fuels all those stories has generated thousands of charming, raucous, gentle, thrilling, chiding and even heart-rending humorous dramas expressing everything from surreal wit to frantic, frenetic slapstick, with the kids – like boy genius Dilton Doily. genial giant jock Big Moose, and a constantly expanding cast of friends and associates – Principal Mr. Weatherbee, teachers Mrs. Grundy, Professor Flutesnoot and Coach Kleats or occasional guest stars like Josie and the Pussycats or Sabrina the Teenage Witch amongst so many others – all growing into a national institution and an inescapable part of America’s youth landscape.

The feature thrived by constantly refreshing its core archetypes; boldly, seamlessly adapting to a changing world outside its bright and cheerful pages, shamelessly co-opting youth, pop culture, fashion trends and even topical events into its infallible mix of comedy and young romance. Each and every social revolution has been painlessly assimilated into the mix and over the decades the company has confronted most social issues affecting youngsters in a manner both even-handed and tasteful.

Constant addition of new characters like out-&-proud gay student Kevin Keller, fashion-diva Ginger Lopez, Hispanic couple Frankie Valdez & Maria Rodriguez, junior film-maker Raj Patel, or spoiled home-wrecker-in-waiting Cheryl Blossom all contributed to the wide, refreshingly broad-minded scenario. In most of those cases, embracing diversity brought opprobrium – if not hysterical condemnation – from some sectors, but rarely from actual readers of the comics.

They were the hidebound ancestors of today’s speciously-outraged, doom-babbling anti-“woke” wankers, proudly politically incorrect and so-frequently utterly free of any taint of literacy or education who just pettily salivate and bark on command at the fatuous fringes of social media these days whenever anyone apparently rings a bell for just letting people live their lives…

That process probably began for Archie Comics with Pep Comics #257 (cover-dated September 1971): the first appearance of black student Chuck Taylor Lyndon Clayton: athletic all-star son of Floyd Clayton, the deputy PE teacher at Riverdale High.

As he grew into his role, Chuck escaped the obvious stereotypes and was revealed to be not only a talented and dedicated artist but comics fan. His greatest ambition is to be a successful cartoonist and comics creator – making him the comic book face of millions of aspiring readers and fans…

In 1976, after a succession of anonymous black girlfriends, Chuck began steadily dating Nancy (alternatively “Harris”, “Baker” or “Jackson”, but now officially “Woods”) in what appears one of the company’s most stable relationships. Also a Riverdale student, Nancy favours journalism, edits the school newspaper and is also black: Miscegenation apparently being one step far too far until the experimentally interracial 1990s …a period when the junior Clayton truly came into his own…

As previously stated, Chuck is the go-to guy for stories about comics (and African-American culture and heritage, but that’s a tale for another time and tome). He works part-time in the local comics store, collects old issues of MLJ stars and facts about publishing and creators. Much to Nancy’s dismay, he also spends too much time perfecting his skills for his future vocation…

When comics, TV and movies were being regularly challenged on not offering enough positive role models for young readers of colour, Chuck was there as a guy to admire but also someone who said it was okay to follow your dream career…

This cheap and cheerful collection was first released in 2010, and gathers a serial originally seen in Archie and Friends #126-129 (spanning February to May 2009) concocted by writer Alex Simmons, penciller Fernando Ruiz, inker Al Nickerson, letterers Patrick Owsley, Phil Felix & Ellen Leonforte and colourist Glenn Whitmore, and sees Chuck take the logical step in his progress…

A graphic zealot eager to share the wealth (aren’t we all?) Chuck is diverted from his own art classes when the elementary school art teacher asks him to tutor a group of problem kids in a comics-based afterschool project…

Nervous but rising to the challenge, ‘Stick Figures & Grumpy Elves’ details how Chuck’s biggest problems are getting the kids to listen to him and surviving the scorn of “traditional” art teacher Mr. Sal…

A solution starts to gel when he realises that his kids don’t need a teacher as much as an editor and after much mutual effort, the results make converts out of doubters…

Inspired and inspirational, Chuck is headhunted by another forward-looking adult when the Director of the Riverton Youth Centre asks him to teach a regular after-school Comic Book Workshop…

His personal project is trying to win a cash-contest for a new character – the “TomTom Comics can you create cool comics characters competition” – but that doesn’t stop him giving all his attention to the teens of the Carlos Community Center in second chapter ‘Meet the New School’. The real problem is a surly old geezer who frowns on his granddaughter’s – frankly wonderful – efforts. It’s affecting little Lori’s work, ruining everyone’s fun and deeply discouraging an amazing talent…

After talking things over with Archie, Reggie and the others, Chuck finally confronts surly Winston Morley and discovers his animosity is a learned behaviour: the old black man was a pioneer of comics’ Golden Age and has few happy memories or respect for that time of his life…

A solution to the dilemma comes when Chuck learns that his own dad was a big fan of the creator of Ollie the Ostrich and Flint Steelhard, Private Eye. He even still has all the old issues stashed away in Nana Clayton’s garage…

Not only does the revelation melt one old curmudgeon’s defences, but it also gives Chuck a boost in surmounting his own creative block over the TomTom competition as seen in ‘A Time to Draw’. If only proud and prestige-hungry Mr Weatherbee hadn’t lent his cartoon whiz-kid to Millis Middle School where Chuck will be teaching comics during actual school hours to actual school kids as part of an actual school schedule…

Making the job just perfect (that’s sarcasm) is the fact that he’s got to make the kids enjoy crafting a comic book about the History of Ancient Greece. Challenge Accepted…

Overcoming all obstacles like a caped crusader, Chuck excels in ending episode ‘Delinquent Doodles’: nurturing his kids to conclusion, creating his own killer competition character and contributing to Raj Patel’s Riverdale High/social science film project, before facing one last challenge… solving the mystery of why his star pupils – Mikey Diangelo – has suddenly become a spraying-painting vandal…

This charming saga was packed throughout with timeless, sage advice for aspiring wannabes and the in-world contents of Chuck’s classes are formalised at the end here: presented as a series of mini lectures about all aspects of the process. It begins with ‘Chuck Clayton’s Creating Cool Comics’ ‘Part 1: Terms’ and follows up with ‘Part 2: Script’, ‘Part 3: Thumbnails’ before wrapping up with ‘Part 4: Inking & Lettering’: sharing all the key tips and hints we pre-YouTube, internet-oblivious creators wallowed in…

Fun, enthralling and perfectly capturing the unmatched joys of imagination, realisation and making stuff up, The Cartoon Life of Chuck Clayton is a brilliantly entertaining treat for all.
© 2010 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. ™ & © 2018 Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

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Krazy & Ignatz 1916-1918: The George Herriman Library volume 1


By George Herriman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-255-7 (HB/Digital edition)

In a field positively brimming with magnificent and eternally evergreen achievements, Krazy Kat is – for most cartoon cognoscenti – the pinnacle of pictorial narrative innovation: a singular and hugely influential body of work which shaped the early days of the comics industry whilst elevating itself to the level of a treasure of world literature.

Krazy & Ignatz, as it is dubbed in these gloriously addictive archival tomes from Fantagraphics, is a creation which must always be appreciated on its own terms. Over the decades the strip developed a unique language – simultaneously visual and verbal – whilst delineating the immeasurable variety of human experience, foibles and peccadilloes with unfaltering warmth and understanding…and without ever offending anybody. Baffled millions certainly, but offended? …No.

It certainly went over the heads and around the hearts of many, but Krazy Kat was never a strip for dull, slow or unimaginative people: those who can’t or simply won’t appreciate complex, multilayered verbal and cartoon whimsy, absurdist philosophy or seamless blending of sardonic slapstick with arcane joshing. It is still the closest thing to pure poesy narrative art has ever produced.

Think of it as Dylan Thomas and Edward Lear playing “I Spy” with James Joyce amongst beautifully harsh, barren cactus fields whilst Gabriel García Márquez types up shorthand notes and keeps score…

George Joseph Herriman (August 22, 1880-April 25, 1944) was already a successful cartoonist and journalist in 1913 when a cat and mouse who’d been noodling about at the edges of his domestic comedy strip The Dingbat Family/The Family Upstairs graduated to their own feature.

Mildly intoxicating and gently scene-stealing, Krazy Kat debuted in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal on Oct 28th 1913: a 5-day-a-week monochrome comedy strip. By sheer dint of the overbearing publishing magnate’s enrapt adoration and direct influence and interference, it gradually and inexorably spread throughout his vast stable of papers.

Although Hearst and a host of the period’s artistic and literary intelligentsia (such as Frank Capra, e.e. Cummings, Willem de Kooning, H.L. Mencken and more) adored the strip, many local and regional editors did not; taking every potentially career-ending opportunity to drop it from those circulation-crucial comics sections designed to entice Joe Public and the general populace.

The feature found its true home and sanctuary in the Arts and Drama section of Hearst’s papers, protected there by the publisher’s unshakable patronage. Eventually enhanced (in 1935) with the cachet of enticing colour, Kat & Ko. flourished unhampered by editorial interference or fleeting fashion, running generally unmolested until Herriman’s death on April 25th 1944 from cirrhosis caused by Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Eschewing standard industry policy of finding a substitute creator, Hearst decreed Krazy Kat would die with its originator and sole ambassador.

The premise is simple: Krazy is an effeminate, dreamy, sensitive and romantic feline of variable gender, hopelessly smitten with venal, toxically masculine everyman Ignatz Mouse. A spousal abuser and delinquent father, the little guy is rude, crude, brutal, mendacious and thoroughly scurrilous.

Ignatz is a proudly unreconstructed male and early forerunner of the men’s rights movement: drinking, stealing, fighting, conniving, constantly neglecting his wife and many children and always responding to Krazy’s genteel advances of friendship (…or more) by clobbering the Kat with a well-aimed brick. These he obtains singly or in bulk from local brick-maker Kolin Kelly. The smitten kitten always misidentifies these gritty gifts as tokens of equally recondite affection, showered upon him/her/they in the manner of Cupid’s fabled arrows…

Even in these earliest tales, it’s not even a response, except perhaps a conditioned one: the mouse spends the majority of his time, energy and ingenuity (when not indulging in crime or philandering) launching missiles at the mild moggy’s mug. He can’t help himself, and Krazy’s day is bleak and unfulfilled if the adored, anticipated assault fails to happen.

The final critical element completing an anthropomorphic emotional triangle is lawman Offissa Bull Pupp. He’s utterly besotted with Krazy, professionally aware of the Mouse’s true nature, but hamstrung by his own amorous timidity and sense of honour from permanently removing his devilish rival for the foolish feline’s affections. Krazy is – of course – blithely oblivious to the perennially “Friend-Zoned” Pupp’s dolorous dilemma…

Secondarily populating the mutable stage are a large, ever-changing supporting cast of inspired bit players including relentless deliverer of unplanned babies Joe Stork; unsavoury Hispanic huckster Don Kiyoti, hobo Bum Bill Bee, self-aggrandizing Walter Cephus Austridge, inscrutable, barely intelligible (and outrageously unreconstructed by modern standards!) Chinese mallard Mock Duck, portraitist Michael O’Kobalt, dozy Joe Turtil and snoopy sagacious fowl Mrs. Kwakk Wakk, often augmented by a host of audacious animal crackers – such as Krazy’s niece Ketrina – all equally capable of stealing the limelight and supporting their own features…

The exotic, quixotic episodes occur in and around the Painted Desert environs of Coconino (patterned on the artist’s vacation retreat in Coconino County, Arizona) where surreal playfulness and the fluid ambiguity of the flora and landscape are perhaps the most important member of the cast.

The strips themselves are a masterful mélange of unique experimental art, cunningly designed, wildly expressionistic (often referencing Navajo art forms) whilst graphically utilising sheer unbridled imagination and delightfully evocative lettering and language. This last is particularly effective in these later tales: alliterative, phonetically, onomatopoeically joyous with a compellingly melodious musical force and delicious whimsy (“Ignatz Ainjil” or “I’m a heppy, heppy ket!”).

Yet for all our high-fallutin’ intellectualism, these comic adventures are poetic, satirical, timely, timeless, bittersweet, self-referential, fourth-wall bending, eerily idiosyncratic, outrageously hilarious escapades encompassing every aspect of humour from painfully punning shaggy dog stories to riotous, violent slapstick. Herriman was also a master of action: indulging in dialogue-free escapades as captivating as any Keystone Kop or Charlie Chaplin 2-reeler. Kids of any age will delight in them as much as any pompous old git like me and you…

Collected in a comfortably hefty (257 x 350 mm) hardcover edition – and available as a suitably serendipitous digital edition, this cartoon wonderment is bulked up with a veritable treasure trove of unique artefacts: plenty of candid photos, correspondence, original strip art and astounding examples of Herriman’s personalised gifts and commissions (gorgeous hand-coloured artworks featuring the cast and settings), as well as a section on the rare merchandising tie-ins and unofficial bootleg items.

These marvels are supported by fascinating insights and crucial history in Bill Blackbeard’s essay ‘The Kat’s Kreation’: detailing the crackers critters’ development and their creators’ circuitous path to Coconino, via strips Lariat Pete, Bud Smith, The Boy Who Does Stunts, Rosy’s Mama, Zoo Zoo, Daniel and Pansy, Alexander, Baron Mooch and key stepping stone The Dingbat Family…

From there we hie straight into the romantic imbroglio with ‘The Complete Krazy Kat Sunday Strips of 1916’ beginning with the full-page (17 panels!) episode for April 23rd wherein the Kat rudely absconds from a picnic to carry out a secret mission of mercy and sweet sentiment…

The peculiar proceedings were delivered – much like Joe Stork’s bundles of joy and responsibility – every seven days, ending that first year on December 31st. Across that period, as war raged in Europe and with America edging inexorably closer to joining in the Global Armageddon, the residents of Coconino sported and wiled away their days in careless abandon: utterly embroiled within their own – and their neighbours’ – personal dramas.

Big hearted Krazy adopts orphan kitties, accidentally goes boating and ballooning, saves baby birds from predatory mice and rats, survives pirate attacks and energy crises, constantly endures assault and affectionate attempted murder and does lots of nothing in an utterly addictive, idyllic and eccentric way. We see nature repeat itself with the introduction of our star’s extended family in “Kousins” Krazy Katbird and Krazy Katfish…

Always our benighted star gets hit with bricks: many, variegated, heavy and forever evoking joyous, grateful raptures and transports of delight from the heartsore, hard-headed recipient…

Often Herriman simply let nature takes its odd course: allowing surreal slapstick chases, weird physics and convoluted climate carry the action, but gradually an unshakeable character dynamic was forming involving love and pain, crime and punishment and – always – forgiveness, redemption and another chance for all transgressors and malefactors…

In ‘The Complete Krazy Kat Sunday Strips of 1917’ – specifically January 7th to December 30th – the eternal game plays out as usual and with an infinite variety of twists, quirks and reversals. However, there are also increasingly intriguing diversions to flesh out the picayune proceedings, such as recurring explorations of terrifying trees, grim ghosts, two-headed snakes and obnoxious Ouija Boards. Amidst hat-stealing winds, grudge-bearing stormy weather, Kiyote chicanery and tributes to Kipling we discover why the snake rattles and meet Ignatz’s aquatic cousins, observe an extended invasion of Mexican Jumping Beans and a plague of measles, discover the maritime and birthday cake value of “glowerms”, learn who is behind a brilliant brick-stealing campaign, graphically reconstruct brick assaults, encounter early “talkies” technology, indulge in “U-Boat diplomacy”, uniquely celebrate Halloween and at last see Krazy become the “brick-er” and not “brickee”…

With strips running from January 6th to December 29th, ‘The Complete Krazy Kat Sunday Strips of 1918’ finds Herriman fully in control of his medium, and kicking into poetic high gear as America finally entered the War to End All Wars.

As uncanny brick apparitions scotch someone’s New Year’s resolutions, cantankerous automobiles began disrupting the desert days, fun of a sort is had with boomerangs and moving picture mavens begin haunting the region. There are more deeply strange interactions with weather events, the first mentions of a “Spenish Influenza”, and a plague of bandit mice alternately led by or victimizing Ignatz. Music is made, jails are built and broken, Mrs Hedge-Hogg almost become a widow and criminal pig Sancho Pansy makes much trouble. Occasional extended storylines begin with the saga of an aberrant Kookoo Klock/avian refuge and invasive species of bean and “ko-ko-nutts”, and Krazy visits the Norths and Souths poles, foot specialist Dr. Poodil and Madame Kamouflage’s Beauty Parlor…

More surreal voyages are undertaken but over and again it’s seen that there is literally no place like Krazy & Ignatz’s home. There was only one acknowledgement of Kaiser Bill and it was left to the missile-chucking mouse to deliver it with style, stunning accuracy and full-blooded venom…

And then it was Christmas and a new year and volume lay ahead…

To complete the illustrious experience and explore an ever-shifting sense of reality amidst the constant visual virtuosity and verbal verve we end with splendidly informative bonus material.

Curated by Blackbeard, ‘The Ignatz Mouse Debaffler Page’ provides pertinent facts, snippets of contextual content and necessary notes for the young, potentially perplexed and historically harassed. Michael Tisserand’s ‘“The Early Romance between George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and William Randolph Hearst’s ‘City Life”’ explores the strip’s growing influence on the world around him, and it’s supported by an article of the period.

‘A Genius of the Comic Page’ is an appreciation and loving deconstruction of the strip – with illustrations from Herriman – by astoundingly perspicacious and erudite critic Summerfield Baldwin and originated in Cartoons Magazine (June 1917) and is followed by Blackbeard’s biography of the reclusive creator in ‘George Herriman 1880-1944’.

Herriman’s epochal classic is a genuine Treasure of World Art and Literature. These strips shaped our industry, galvanised comics creators, inspired auteurs in fields as disparate as prose fiction, film, sculpture, dance, animation and jazz and musical theatre whilst always delivering delight and delectation to generations of devoted, wonder-starved fans.

If however, you are one of Them and not Us, or if you still haven’t experienced the gleeful graphic assault on the sensorium, mental equilibrium and emotional lexicon carefully thrown together by Herriman from the dawn of the 20th century until the dog days of World War II, this glorious parade of cartoon masterpieces may be your last chance to become a Human before you die…

That was harsh, I know: not everybody gets it and some of them aren’t even stupid or soulless – they’re just unfortunate…

Still, for lovers of whimsy and whimsical lovers “There Is A Heppy Lend Furfur A-Waay” if only you know where and how to look…
© 2019 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All contents © 2019 Fantagraphics Books, Inc., unless otherwise noted. “The Kat’s Kreation”, “The Ignatz Mouse Debaffler Page”, and Herriman biography © 2019 Bill Blackbeard. “The Early Romance between George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and William Randolph Hearst’s ‘City Life”’ © 2019 Michael Tisserand. All other images and text © 2019 their respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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The Batman Adventures: Mad Love Deluxe Edition


By Paul Dini & Bruce Timm, with Rick Taylor, Tim Harkins & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5512-1 (HB/Digital edition)

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

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

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

Harley was first seen as the Clown Prince of Crime’s slavishly adoring, extreme abuse-enduring assistant in Joker’s Favor, which aired on September 11th 1992. She instantly captured the hearts and minds of millions of viewers.

From then on she began popping up in the incredibly successful licensed comic book and – always stealing the show – soon graduated into mainstream DC continuity.

After a period bopping around the DCU, she was re-imagined as part of the company’s vast post-Flashpoint major makeover: regularly appearing as part of a new, gritty-but-still-crazy iteration of the Suicide Squad. However, at heart she’s always been a cartoon glamour-puss, with big, bold, primal emotions and only the merest acknowledgement of how reality works…

Re-presenting the 1994 one-shot Batman Adventures: Mad Love, this slight and breezy hardcover is made up of mostly recycled material – including writer Paul Dini’s comfortably inviting Foreword and co-plotter/illustrator Bruce Timm’s effusive and candidly informative ‘Mad Love Afterword’.

However, a truly unmissable bonus treat for art-lovers and all those seeking technical insight (perhaps with a view to making comics or animation their day job) is the illustrator’s full monochrome ‘Original Layouts for The Batman Adventures: Mad Love’: displaying how the story materialised page by page. There’s even previous and variant covers to earlier editions and unused painted back cover art plus highly detailed, fully-annotated colour guides for the complete story, offering a perfect “How To”  lesson for aspiring creators…

All that being said though, what we want most is a great story, and that magnificently madcap mayhem commences after Police Commissioner James Gordon heads to the dentist. When Batman easily foils the Joker’s latest manic murder attempt, the mountebank of Mirth pettishly realises he’s lost his inspirational spark.

He’s therefore in no mood for lasciviously whining lapdog Harley’s words of comfort or flirtatious pep talks…

As the Dark Knight reviews his files on the Joker’s girlfriend and ponders on how Harleen Frances Quinzel breezed through college and came away with a psychology degree that bought her a staff position at Arkham Asylum, in the now, the larcenous lady in question has gone too far in the Joker’s lair. The trigger is comforting sympathy and telling her “precious pudden” how his baroque murder schemes could be improved…

Kicked out and almost killed (again), Harleen harks back to her first meeting with the devilishly desirable crazy clown and how they instantly clicked. She fondly recalls how her original plan to psychoanalyse the Joker and write a profitable tell-all book was forgotten the moment she fell under his malign spell. In that moment she became his adoring, willing and despised slave…

She also realises that Batman too-quickly scotched their budding eternal love by capturing the grinning psycho-killer she secretly aided and abetted, both before and after she created her own costumed alter ego…

In fact, Batman always spoils her dreams and brutalises her adored “Mistah J”. It’s long past time she took care of him once and for all…

Driven by desperation and fuelled by passion, Harley Quinn appropriates one of the Joker’s abortive schemes and tweaks it.

Before long, the Gotham Gangbuster is duped, doped, bound and destined for certain doom. Sadly, the triumphant Little Woman hasn’t reckoned on how her barmy beloved will react to learning she has done in mere hours what he’s failed to accomplish over many bitter years…

Coloured by Rick Taylor and lettered by Tim Harkins, the classy, classically staged main feature plays very much like a 1940s noir blend of morbid melodrama and cunning crime caper – albeit with outrageous over-the-top gags, sharply biting lines of dialogue and a blend of black humour and bombastic action. This story easily qualifies as one of the top five bat-tales of all time.

A frantic, laugh-packed, action-driven hoot that manages to be daring, deranged and demure by turns, Mad Love is an absolute delight, well worth the price of admission and an irresistible treasure to be enjoyed over and over again.
© 1994, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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If You Loved Me, You’d Think This was Cute – Uncomfortably True Cartoons About You


By Nick Galifianakis (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-0-7407-9947-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Delivering biting wit, groundbreaking revelation or an excoriating assault with an unforgettable drawing and a few well-chosen words is one of the greatest gifts humans might possess. Even those stuck-up holdouts who pointedly claim to have “never read a comic” certainly enjoy strips or panels: a golden bounty of brief amusement demanding no commitment other than a moment’s close attention.

Truth be told, it’s probably in our genes and a bit like love, no?

According to the text preface by Carolyn Hax in this astoundingly funny collection, the cartoons gathered here by immensely gifted illustrator Nick Galifianakis were originally intended as little pictorial add-ons to accompany and supplement her nationally syndicated Advice Column (cited by Time magazine as America’s best…).

Apparently, Nick kept making them so funny that the pictures became an intrinsic and unmissable companion and in 2010 a whole bunch of the very best of them turned into this book.

Also included are an outrageous Foreword by his cousin Zach – yes, that movie comedian guy – sharing the kind of intimate incident insights and past humiliations only a close family member can; as well as a vast Acknowledgments section and insider information on the way Nick works in his Introduction. There are also concrete clues that his one true love is his dog ZuZu…

All that aside, what’s on offer here is a spellbinding examination of human relationships as seen from a natural raconteur’s perspective: devastatingly penetrating, sharp to the point of cruelty, warmly sympathetic, ultimately understanding and forgiving and, most importantly, laugh-out-loud, Horlicks-jetting-out-of-your-nose funny.

Or whatever your shared evening tipple of choice might be. I’m not saying that his gags make your body mysteriously manufacture Horlicks. That would be weird…

In this delicious monochrome paperback (or eBook, you choose: it’s an officially free albeit expensive world and you’re most likely some sort of consenting adult) you’ll see all the perilous wonders and tribulations of human relationships. Crucially, you will also find the search for love reduced to simple, forthright categories stuffed with beautifully rendered line drawings exemplifying the rights and wrongs of finding and keeping – or satisfactorily jettisoning – a partner.

It kicks off with the male perspective as seen through female eyes in ‘The Bastard Files’ before naturally offering an opposing viewpoint in ‘The Unfair Sex’…

The eternal hunt is deconstructed in ‘Finding the Ones(s)’ and expanded upon in ‘So This Was The One’ before learning how to negotiate deadly traps and bile-filled traumas of ‘The Bridal Industrial Complex’.

Weddings avoided or survived, everybody’s all reconciled to being one great big joyous clan, as proved here in the acerbically astute ‘Putting the Eff in Family’, but please remember, Love’s all about the children really, isn’t it? Thus a close-up-and-personal dissection of procreation in ‘Just Kidding’ which leads to the conclusion that some sons and daughters don’t ever grow up in ‘When We’re Five We’re All Artists…’

If confused or in trouble, the natural thing to do is depend on your closest comrades in the Battle of the Sexes, but ‘With Friends Like These’, clarity and understanding are early casualties. Still, if we’re being truly honest we can only trust our ‘Lusting Impressions’ before settling for ‘A Little Something on the Side’ to avoid getting ‘Ego-Tripped’.

At least our animal companions still offer us unconditional love… don’t they? Perhaps not, if the bestial examples in ‘Ark Types’ are to be believed and if you ‘Catch My Riff’…

When all’s said (sad?) and done then, perhaps it’s best to play safe and just try the ‘Flair of the Dog’ when looking for truly lasting love…

With recurring themes including Frogs and Princesses, malevolent Cupids, uncomprehending Adams and Eves, weary Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates and the absolutely crucial role of Lawyers and Counsellors in all relationship matters, this compendium of situational quandaries and unromantic entanglements is a superbly cathartic look at love and one every new home and generational estate should have in pride of place on the mantelpiece – near the heavy candlesticks, poker, poisons and matching tasers…

© 2010 by Nick Galifianakis. All rights reserved.

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The Complete Love Hurts – Horrifying Tales of Romance


By Kim W. Andersson with Sara B. Elfgren & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-859-8 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-63008-152-2

Internationally acclaimed and award-winning, Kim W. Andersson began his comics career in fanzines, and after studying at the Serieskolan School of Art in Malmö began his professional life with contributions to Sweden’s broad and varied comics industry. His first hit series was Love Hurts which began in 2009.

Wry, creepy, mordant and ironically funny, the series appeared in numerous venues before serialisation in anthology series Dark Horse Presents, for us English speakers. In 2015 Dark Horse Books re-presented the entire shebang in one titanic, trenchant tome…

Collecting Love Hurts #1-22, Love Hurts: Anastasia from Nemi, and #23-32 as seen in Utopi Magasin, also included here is one-shot Love Hurts: Dead End courtesy of Johnossi Comics – which you would already know if you read more stuff published in Scandinavia…

Since then, Andersson has returned to school thematically in chiller Alena (made into a movie) and Astrid: Cult of the Volcanic Moon. When not lecturing, creating gallery shows or making comics, the auteur works as an illustrator of book, magazines and for TV.

Following Peter Snejbjerg’s barbed Introduction ‘It was a Dark and Stormy Night’, what follows is a rapid-fire, smartly sarcastic and cunningly pilfered and plundered tribute to all aspects of mass entertainment and popular fiction from EC Comics to slasher movies, manipulating relationships as a trigger for jabs, pokes and broadsides at how and why people (and related beings) want, need and use other people…

The result is a nonstop procession of gags and incidents starring serial killers, domestic abusers, needy girlfriends, procurers, and wayward teens all encountering endings they might not deserve but certainly should have been expecting…

Sexy, gory yet remarkably not salacious, pastiches of screen shockers are supplemented by surreal and metaphysical moments, historical fantasies, ghostly encounters or sci fi and monster moments: all leavened by a darkly childish sense of the absurd and all illustrated with fetching style…

From spoofs starring 50-foot girlfriends to perplexing prom night pranks; from western showdowns and manga cautionary tales to lovingly irreverent myths mauled and manipulated, the marriage of amour and peril is dissected, with demons, devils, doctors, dweebs and dolly-birds re-examined via a puckish contemporary lens. There’s even a murky nod to superheroes and – just when you’re off guard – genuine tragedy amidst the crimson-spattered comedy…

Here love comes in all sizes, shapes and kinds with nothing barred or forbidden but with precious little in the way of happy endings…

The short punchy vignettes are bolstered by two longer tales: frenzied fairy tale Love Hurts: Anastasia darkly riffs on the tale of Bluebeard and 1001 Arabian Nights by way of Puss in Boots and Night of the Living Dead whilst Love Hurts: Dead End depicts a deadly pan-dimensional trip to the bad places and a celebrity La-la-land after one poor guy “wins” ‘The Lottery’…

Scary, hilarious, mordant, and in wickedly Bad Taste, these tales for culturally savvy appetites are augmented by a bonus section of Sketches and Extras offering ‘Happy Valentine’s Day!’ cards; working sketches of the models used to create the strips; cover designs; previous collection covers; layouts; original pages in various stages of completion, tattoo art and a biography.

Dark, doom-swept, daft, deranged and delightful, this may be the most appropriate appreciation of the annual emotional event yet conceived…
Love Hurts™ © 2015 Kim W. Andersson. All rights reserved.

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Ares & Aphrodite: Love Wars


By Jamie S. Rich &Megan Levens, lettered by Crank! (Oni Press)
ISBN: 978-1-62010-208-4 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-62010-209-1

It might be hard to believe for people like us, but not all love stories are about hunting the villain who murdered your “Only One” or fighting dragons, or even seeking out the ghosts of those who are gone. Sometimes it’s just mutual attraction, Meet-cutes, Getting-to-know-you’s and taking some chances…

Author, editor, comics scripter and film fan Jamie S. Rich (12 Reasons Why I Love Her, You Have Killed Me, Cut My Hair, Lady Killer, Archer Coe and the Way to Dusty Death, It Girl and the Atomics, A Boy and a Girl, Justice League: Endless Winter) is a big fan of classic romance and film fiction and here unites with his collaborator on Madame Frankenstein to celebrate the genre and all its trappings. Best yet it’s all drenched in the heady miasma of modern life in Hollywood…

This tale was a breakthrough venture for Megan Levens, who went on to score big with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, Spell on Wheels, Mysticons, Wonder Woman: Black and Gold and more…

The similarities with cinematic RomComs are both deliberate and delightfully effective as we meet successful Tinseltown divorce lawyer Will Ares: a dedicated singleton doing his job well but paying for it through the malicious and destructively vindictive acts of a mystery stalker targeting his car, home and private life…

As a result, his dating profile is bleak and his love life is non-existent but he clings to the dream that somehow somewhere love conquers all…

The client taking up most of his time these days is legendary (and geriatric) Producer/serial romantic Evans Beatty. Ares handles all his divorces and is currently deeply involved in the necessary legal motions to accommodate his next walk up the aisle – with recently matured & legal former child-star Carrie Cartwright.

All that remains for Will to do is finalise Beatty’s split from extremely unhappy wife #4 Eileen. She, however, is not playing ball…

The impending bride-to-be is sweet but tough. Raised in Hollywood, she’s trying to be everyone’s friend, but in the unblinking spotlight of Hollywood’s news cycle, her only real ally at this moment is jaded yet ultra-competent wedding planner Gigi Averelle who owns Goddess of Love Nuptials.

Averelle’s really good at her job, but the daily grind and manufactured dream game has convinced her that there’s truly no such thing as Love. When marital mastermind and legal beagle meet and clash in Beatty’s office, all the wrong sort of sparks fly…

Will’s barely-acknowledged interest in the tough-cookie facilitator is soon sidelined as the targeted vandalism escalates and completely forgotten by the time Evans drunkenly reveals that he’s already secretly wed Carrie – despite still being tethered to Eileen…

With his client’s entire fortune and now liberty at stake, Will frantically strives to crisis-manage a catastrophe, whilst Gigi continues orchestrating an utterly unnecessary but so fabulously flashy Hollywood glamour-fest. Interest in the affair reaches fever-pitch when news breaks that Carrie’s next movie role will be as ingenue in classic fantasy Crown Princess…

The forthcoming blockbuster’s lead is Allison Queen and the salivating press-pack clearly anticipate fireworks aplenty with the next Mrs. Beatty picked to play second fiddle on set to Evans’ formidable, star-powered and apparently happily-divorced second wife…

Repeatedly forced into close contact, Will and Gigi witness the worst that LaLa Land’s scandal mill can generate, and as speculation, malicious rumour, misinformation, unvetted and illegal photo-scoops and ex-wife mischief mounts, the love-wary professionals foolishly contrive an ill-considered wager…

Arguing that the outcome will validate one or the others’ ideals, they bet on whether the upcoming wedding will actually happen. Fixing the prize/penalty as a date with the lawyer if Will wins and his having to publish a full accounting in the papers of every marriage he’s ruined if Gigi gets it right…

Forced into close proximity, both sides warm and mellow, and before long that penalty is watered down to Averelle rebuilding Ares’ online dating profile if she wins. Of course, she’s still unaware that the process is completely sham as Carrie and Evans are already hitched…

As the big day approaches, all hell repeatedly breaks loose with rogue reporters, spies, runaway brides and a tissue of lies drawing the distanced, smugly aloof and superior-feeling outsiders ever closer, even before “The Date” can happen. Then, when Carrie Cartwright delivers a shocking bombshell announcement, Gigi and Will are forced to reassess their opinions…

Wry and playful, this appalling yarn has engaging echoes of movies like Destination Wedding or the 1950 Father of the Bride, gently prodding all the established accoutrements of an evergreen plot and genre. It’s undemanding and might well give your comics-indulgent significant other an unexpected treat – or at least a brief break from Batman and Star Wars.

Bonus material includes a faux Trailer for Crown Princess, an appreciative Afterword from Jacque Nodell of romance comics site Sequentialcrush.com and a rundown of the full art process from script to final pages.

There’s also a previously unseen vignette by Rich & Levens about disentanglement. Short and sweet, it involves bridges, potential strangers, relationship insecurities and the eternal war between cyclists and pedestrians: all prime fantasy fodder for mismatched marital mayhem. ‘Two Wheels, Two Feet’ plays out here with subtlety and whimsical wit, proving love is all around…
Ares & Aphrodite is ™ & © Jamie S. Rich and Megan Levens 2015. All rights reserved.

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E-Man – The Early Years


By Nicola Cuti & Joe Staton & various (First Comics Inc.)
ISBN: 978-1-61855-000-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

In 1973, superheroes were in a severe decline and the few surviving publishers in the industry were making most of their money from genre fare like war, westerns, kids cartoon and licensed titles (if they could secure them) and particularly horror stories. Such was certainly the case at Charlton Comics: a self-confessed “little company” which nevertheless always punched above its weight.

That was particularly true in terms of talent discovery, with the likes of Dick Giordano, Sam Glanzman, Steve Ditko, Roy Thomas, Denny O’Neil, Jim Aparo, Sam Grainger, Sanho Kim, Wayne Howard, Tom Sutton, Don Newton, Mike Zeck, Roger Stern, Roger Slifer, Bob Layton and John Byrne making a mark there before moving onwards and upwards.

Another major discovery was ultra-versatile cartoonist Joe Staton. He was quickly becoming a fan favourite and shared an off-kilter sense of humour with a Charlton sub-editor who moonlighted as a writer of horror and fantasy for the company’s anthologies…

Nicola “Nick” Cuti (Moonchild, Cannon, Sally Forth, Creepy, Moonie the Starbabe, The Creeper, Spanner’s Galaxy, Captain Cosmos, Starflake the Cosmic Sprite) was born on October 29th 1944. Since then, he’s been an “Underground Comix” cartoonist, animator, film maker, magazine illustrator, movie backdrop designer, novelist, editor and comics scripter.

Between 1972 and 1976 he was assistant to award-winning cartoonist – and Charlton’s general editor – George Wildman (Popeye) who wanted to test the murky waters with a new superhero. He tapped Cuti to write something a bit different and used the experimental vehicle to try-out a succession of features at the back: crafted by creators like Sutton (The Knight), Ditko (Killjoy, Liberty Belle) and Byrne (Rog-2000). Cuti wrote many of them too…

Born January 19th 1948, Joe Staton (Primus, Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, The Six Million Dollar Man, Space 1999, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Silver Surfer, Green Lantern Corps, Guy Gardner, Legion of Super-Heroes, Millennium, All Star Comics, Power Girl, Metal Men, Doom Patrol, Plastic Man, Mike Danger and more) is a writer and incredibly versatile artist/inker who has been an integral part of American comic books since the early 1970s.

He has worked for dozens of companies, co-creating The Huntress, Killowog, The New Guardians and The Omega Men and in later years made kids comics his metier. During a spectacular run on licensed classic Scooby Doo, he and series scripter Mike Curtis (Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Shanda the Panda) discovered a mutual love for Dick Tracy and – mostly for their own amusement – created tribute strip Major Crime Squad.

That led to them being invited to handle the prestigious Dick Tracy strip (from 2011 to October 2021) but throughout that epic and varied career, Staton regularly re-partnered with Cuti on further adventures of his first triumph…

A pioneering masterpiece of superhero whimsy, E-Man tells the convoluted love story of a alien lifeform and a wonderfully capable and smart earth girl, and the weird life they make for themselves. It all began in 1973 (Happy Golden Anniversary!) in a 10-issue run that was barely noticed by the readership but which affected how many future comics creators remade the medium.

This cheerful and charming collection gathers the E-Man moments from that initial run and includes technically unpublished tales from said run, plus covers and other material from the hero’s revival as part of the Independents Publishing revolution of the 1980s.

We begin with a brace of Introductions as ‘Finding the Right Words for Joe, Nick and Alec Tronn’ by Jon B. Cooke and ‘E-Man: His Beginnings’ by Cuti contextually set the scene for an extraordinary meeting…

Cover-dated October 1973, “Collector’s Item! First Edition!!” E-Man #1 starts at ‘The Beginning’ revealing how, millions of years ago, a star exploded and released a packet of energy that had spontaneous sentience, immense curiosity and no knowledge at all. The bundle of wonder floated across the galaxies seeking intelligence but encountering none until arriving near our world just as a star-ship from Sirius attempts to attain orbit around Pluto.

Infiltrating the vessel, the energy being converts into matter, duplicating one of the robots serving the giant Brain commanding the mission and overhears how the warlike cyborg is here to test an experimental ultra-weapon on the frozen target. Sadly, curiosity proves fatal and the sudden weight increase sends the ship careening out of control and ultimately into the atmosphere of the blue-green planet third out from the sun…

Some time later, college student Katrinka Colchnzski is just finishing her evening job. She is a tough, brilliant, capable and proudly independent: paying for her degree as burlesque dancer Nova Kane when one of the lightbulbs in her dressing room begs her for help.

Freeing the energy creature and quickly striking up a friendship with the naïve, affably clueless being – who has unselfconsciously turned into a real stud-muffin by human standards – she is abruptly drawn into a world of insane danger when her landlord tries to kill her. It transpires that in ‘The Brain and the Bomb’ the super cerebral invader has also survived the crash and is vengefully testing hate-gas on the inhabitants…

Without hesitation Nova and the stranger seek out and stop the plot…

These tales were originally quite quirkily coloured by Wendy Fiore and are reconstructed here by Matt Webb, who also shades the cover to Original E-Man #1: a reprint series released by First Comics in October 1985 to supplement their revival of the hero. That book also revisited the second escapade of guileless alien visitor Alec Tronn as first seen in E-Man #2’s ‘The Entropy Twins’ (December 1973). Here, the Brain from Sirius unleashes a second super-weapon against E-Man and Nova: an artificially-bred loving couple who can casually manipulate the forces of order and chaos.

Stalking and befriending the childlike hero and his charming cohabitator, Michael and Juno cause catastrophic accidents which almost kill Nova, only to learn that her special friend Alec is as vengeful as any child when the things he loves are threatened…

An unused cover from 1974 accompanies article ‘The Energy and Paper Crisis’, explaining how a global power shortage both inspired and derailed a comic response. The upshot was that the story intended for the fourth issue ended up in #3, and the third followed after. The chronological anomaly is corrected here with E-Man #4 going first.

Cover-dated August 1974, ‘City in the Sand’ sees the odd couple in Egypt with exotic dancer Nova showing belly dancers how it’s done at night and pursuing her archaeological studies during the day. With Alec in tow, she unearths an ancient mystery and – thanks to E-Man – functional time machine: propelling them back millennia to uncover a link between the pharaohs and a lost colony of aliens afflicted with mad militarism and a sinister plague…

December 1985’s cover of Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #3 precedes June 1974’s E-Man #3, wherein ‘The Energy Crisis!’ blacking out America and the world leads oil baron Samuel Boar to unleash a robotic Battery to kidnap useless, over-abundant humans and turn them into a new fuel source.

When Nova vanishes, E-Man stops powering up hospitals to go looking for her. He is unaware that Nova had already engaged seedy private eye Michael – “don’t call me Mickey” – Mauser to find her fellow dancer Rosie Rhedd after she was sucked into a brick wall…

The sordid shamus became a fixture and even won his own series in Vengeance Squad….

The invasion of Boar’s citadel and clash with ‘The Battery’ is fast and furious and leads to the villain’s capture but would have shocking consequences in the fullness of time…

The tale ends with a direct plea to readers to protect the environment and “save the Earth!”. It’s a shame more kids didn’t buy this comic back then and avoid the mess we’re all in now…

Staton had been growing in skill and confidence and by this story had taken to adding what we now call easter eggs to his art. Backgrounds, minor characters and especially posters and newspapers provided a rich source of added whimsy, commentary and fun. They are a sheer delight to this day…

The Original E-Man #2 cover from October 1985 leads into November 1974’s #5 as ‘The City Swallower’ sees a day at the beach devolve into a transdimensional excursion. When Alec follows a hippy mermaid (based on contemporary and legendary fandom icon Heidi Saha) back to her realm he’s just in time to spearhead a war against a beast that consumed helpless conurbations, after which January 1986’s Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #4 cover leads to monster madness in E-Man #6.

‘Wunder-world’ – cover-dated January 1975 – sees an old enemy resurface when Alec and Nova visit a theme park, using robots, movie horrors, war machines and psychological warfare to attack the unlikely couple…

A full, illustrated list of ‘E-Man and Nova – Other Appearances’ is followed by #7’s ‘TV Man’ (March 1975) as another old enemy uses the airwaves and super-science to turn the energy- man into Nova’s worst nightmares and Mauser reappears to save the day. It’s followed by Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #5’s cover (February 1986) and heralds a really big change…

With #8’s full-length epic ‘The Inner Sun’ (May 1975) the creators brilliantly exploit the capricious, functionally implausible nature of comics books to deliver a superb slice of nonsense that begins when a giant jungle girl attacks New York. When she then busts into Mauser’s office…

Her trail leads to Samuel Boar and a primeval world under the North Pole…

Unless I’ve already convinced you to seek this book out, be warned that there’s a major spoiler ahead. Stop here if you’re going to read the actual stories. Or not. It’s your choice.

By the time E-Man gets there though, the villain has kidnapped Nova and triggered a disaster that kills her. It’s not anything to worry about as – through typically miraculous circumstances – she reconstitutes herself with the same powers as boyfriend Alec and begins her own crime crushing career…

March 1986’s cover to Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #6 is accompanied by text feature ‘Other Appearances by Michael Mauser’ before E-Man #9 (July 1975) unleashes ‘The Genius Plant’ which is foreshadow by brief ‘Prologue! History of E-Man and Nova’…

Accompanied by new cast member Teddy – a reformed evil koala – the hot couple stumble into a plot by a cabal of scientists to hyper-enhance their intellects and rule the world. After they foil that, one final cover – Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #7 (April 1986) – segues into E-Man #10 (September 1975) as Nova meets the first girl Alec met when he landed on Earth. Although initially jealous, after meeting Maisy-June Bragg, she’s with her beau all the way when what appear to be unnatural forces reduce the gentle rural bombshell into ‘The Witch of Hog Hollow’ who really needs her old “genie” to save her…

E-Man was simultaneously Charlton’s worst selling retail title but its best via direct subscription, which kept it going long after Wildman should have killed it, but at last the axe fell. When it died, there were a couple of tales still in the pipeline which eventually saw print in the company’s in-house fanzine – which was edited by Bob Layton.

Coloured by Webb, Staton’s cover for Charlton Bullseye #2 (1975) and Charlton Bullseye #4 (March/April 1976) here precede ‘…And Why the Sea is Boiling Hot’ (colour by Webb & Michael Watkins) wherein the energy-beings investigate missing shipping and discover that a ghost galleon is actually an alien artefact.

One final story – starring Nova Kane – details a stunning truth. When that exploding sun detonated way back when, it spawned more than one sentient energy-being – and courtesy of FIRST COMICS INC. – Alec’s opposite number ‘Vamfire’ finally arrives on Earth in a scary yarn coloured by Alex Wald. This frenzied female aspect is a ravenous power leech but Nova and E-Man soon find a way to dispel her “hanger-pangs”…

Biographies of Nicola Cuti and Joe Staton close this archive of sheer escapist delight: capping a glorious revisitation of sharper, smarter, funnier days in comics. However it’s not too late to tune in and get turned on to E-Man and Nova.
© 1973-1974 Charlton Comics, reprinted in Original E-Man and Mauser #1-7 © 1985-1986, First Comics, Inc. All new material © 2011, Joe Staton/First Comics, Inc.). All Rights Reserved.