Category: Humour

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Jack Kirby’s The Losers


By Jack Kirby with D. Bruce Berry, Mike Royer & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-194-6 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Despite there being a glorious profusion of Jack Kirby material around these days, much of the best and rarest stuff is still – unforgivably – hard to access. This astounding collection of his too-brief run on DC war comic Our Fighting Forces is, for far too many, an unknown delight. You can still find it in the original 2009 hardback edition, but as far as I know, there’s neither digital nor even n trade paperback edition – in English – to satisfy the desires of fans lacking an infinite bank balance.

Famed for his larger than life characters and gigantic, cosmic imaginings, the King was a decent, spiritual man from another generation, and one who had experienced human horror and bravery as an ordinary grunt during World War II. Whether in the world-weary Verité of his 1950s collaborations with Joe Simon or the flamboyant bravado of his Marvel creation Sgt. Fury, Kirby’s combat comics always looked and felt real: grimy, tired, battered yet indomitable. Back in 1974, with his newest creations inexplicably not setting any sales records at DC, and while he tentatively pondered a return to Marvel, Jack took over the creative chores on a well-established, compelling but always floundering series that had run in Our Fighting Forces since 1970.

The Losers were an elite unit of American warriors cobbled together by amalgamating three pre-existing war series that had reached the end of their solo star roads. Gunner and Sarge (supplemented by “Fighting Devil Dog” Pooch) were Pacific-based Marines; debuting in All-American Men of War #67, (March 1959). They patrolled for 50 issues in Our Fighting Forces (#45-94, May 1959- August 1965), whilst Captain Johnny Cloud – Navajo Ace and native American fighter pilot – shot down his first bogie in All-American Men of War #82 (December 1960) and flew (mostly) solo until issue #115 in 1966. The final component of the Land/Air/Sea team was filled by Captain Storm, a disabled PT Boat commander (he had a wooden leg) who had his own 18-issue title from 1964 to 1967. All three series were created by DC’s comics warlord Robert Kanigher.

The characters had all pretty much passed their sell-by dates when they teamed-up as guest-stars in a Haunted Tank tale (G.I. Combat #138 October 1969), but these “Losers” found a new resonance together in the “relevant-era” and disillusioned, cynical Vietnam years and beyond, when their nihilistic, doom-laden anti-hero adventures claimed lead spot in Our Fighting Forces #123 (January/February 1970). Once again written primarily by Kanigher, these episodes were graced with art from such giants as Ken Barr, Russ Heath, John Severin, Sam Glanzman, Ross Andru and Joe Kubert. With the tagline “even when they win, they lose” the squad saw action all over the globe, winning critical acclaim and a far-too-small, passionate following.

In an inexplicable dose of company politics, discontented Kirby was abruptly given complete control of the series with #151 (November 1974). His radically different approach was highly controversial at the time, but the passage of years has granted a fairer appraisal and whilst never really in tune with the aesthetic of DC’s other war-books, the King’s run was a spectacular, bombastic and singularly intriguing examination of the human condition under the worst of all possible situations.

The combat frenzy kicks off in ‘Kill Me with Wagner’ as The Losers infiltrate a French village to rescue a concert pianist before the Nazis can capture her. The hapless propaganda pawn has one tremendous advantage – nobody knows what she looks like. As with most of this series, a feeling of inevitable, onrushing Gotterdammerung permeates the tale: a sense that worlds are ending and a new one’s coming. The action culminates in a catastrophic wave of destruction that is pure Kirby bravura…

Most of DC’s war titles sported Kubert covers, but #152 featured the first in a startling sequence of hypnotic Kirby collations – almost abstract in delivery – to introduce the team to the no-hope proposition of ‘A Small Place in Hell!’ when they find themselves the advance guard for an Allied push, but dropped in the wrong town: one that has not been cleared…

The spectacular action here is augmented by a potent 2-page Kirby fact feature: Sub-machine guns of WWII, and it should be noted and commended that this collection is also peppered with un-inked Kirby pencilled pages and roughs.

Our Fighting Forces #153 is one of those stories that made traditionalists squeak. Behind a Kirby cover, the story of ‘Devastator vs. Big Max’ veers dangerously close to science fiction, but an admittedly eccentric plan to destroy a giant German rail-mounted super-cannon isn’t any stranger than many schemes actual boffins dreamed up to disinform the enemy during the actual conflict, actually…

That yarn – with two beautiful info-pages on military uniforms and insignia – is followed by a superb parable examining personal honour. A compelling Kirby cover segues into the team’s deployment to the Pacific to remove a Japanese officer whose devotion to ‘Bushido’ inspires superhuman loyalty and resistance to surrender among his men. The means used to remove him are far from clean or creditable…

Bracketed by 2 pages on war vehicles plus a wonderful pencil cover-rough, two more on artillery pieces and the pencils for the cover to that issue, OFF #155’s ‘The Partisans!’ takes the Losers into very dark territory, before they return to America for ‘Good-bye Broadway… Hello Death!’, wherein the boys experience home-front joys of New York whilst hunting a notorious U-Boat commander. Naturally there’s more to the story than first appears…

This fast-paced thriller is complemented by a history of battle headgear and another pencilled rough. Comprising a 2-part saga concerning theft, black marketeering and espionage, #157 & 158 introduce utterly unique personage ‘Panama Fattie!’ Her criminal activities almost alter the course of the war; and conclude in the highly charged ‘Bombing Out on the Panama Canal’, with accompanying pages on ships, subs and Nazi super-planes.

Behind the last Kirby cover (#159), ‘Mile-a-Minute Jones!’ details a smaller-scaled duel. With the Losers relegated to subordinate roles, the tale of a black runner who embarrassed the Nazis at the 1936 Olympics unfolds as a forced rematch with the Nazi ubermensch he defeated back then reignites old passions on the battlefield.

Indicating that Kirby’s attentions were being diverted elsewhere, Kubert & Ernie Chan handled the last three covers of this run, but the stories remain powerful, deeply personal explorations of combat. In ‘Ivan’ (OFF #160) the squad goes undercover, impersonating German soldiers on the Eastern Front, and have an unpleasant encounter with Russian Nazi sympathizers whose appetite for atrocity surpasses anything they have ever seen before. Supplemented by a 2-page tanks feature, the drama resumes in the hellish jungles of Burma which prove an unholy backdrop for traumatic combat shocker ‘The Major’s Dream’ before the volume and Kirby’s DC war work ends in a sly tribute to his 1942 co-creation Boy Commandos.

‘Gung-Ho!’ sees a young Gunner training a band of war orphans in Marine tactics, only to find fun turn to dire necessity after Germans overrun their “safe” position. This is an optimistic, all-out action romp ending on a note of hope and anticipation, even as the King made his departure for pastures not-so-new. From OFF #163 Kanigher picked up where he left off, with artists like Jack Lehti, Ric Estrada & George Evans illustrating, as the Losers returned to their pre-Kirby style and status, with readers hardly acknowledging the detour into another kind of war.

Jack Kirby is unique and uncompromising. If you’re not a fan or simply not prepared to see for yourself what all the fuss has been about then no words of mine will change your mind. That doesn’t alter the fact that his work from 1939 onwards shaped the entire American comics scene, affected the lives of billions of readers and thousands of creators in all areas of artistic endeavour around the world for generations, and which still garners new fans and apostles from the young and naive to the most cerebral of intellectuals. Jack’s work is instantly accessible, irresistibly visceral and deceptively deep whilst being simultaneously mythic and human.

These tales of purely mortal heroism are in many ways the most revealing, honest and insightful of Jack’s incredibly vast accumulated works, and even the true devotee often forgets their very existence. As Neil Gaiman’s introduction succinctly declaims, “they are classic Kirby” and even if you don’t like war comics, you may be in for a surprise…”

You won’t want to miss that, would you?
© 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby, Vince Colletta & Mike Royer, with Murphy Anderson, Neal Adams, Al Plastino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-746-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For nearly nine decades, Superman has provided excitement, imagination and fun in more or less equal amounts. Although unnamed, since Action Comics #6 (November 1938), a red-headed, be-freckled plucky kid worked alongside Clark Kent & Lois Lane and enjoyed a unique and special relationship with the Metropolis Marvel.

We saw him called by his first name in Superman #13 (November/ December 1941). Jimmy Olsen became a major player on The Adventures of Superman radio show from its debut on April 15th 1940: someone for the hero to explain stuff to for the listener’s benefit and the closest thing to a sidekick the Man of Tomorrow ever needed. That partnership transferred to the comics. Following a string of hit movie chapter plays, when the similarly titled television show launched in the autumn of 1952, it was a monolithic hit and co-star Jimmy was in constant attendance. Thus, National Periodicals began cautiously expanding their precious franchise with new characters and titles. First up was the gloriously charming, light-hearted escapades of an impetuous, naïve but capable Daily Planet cub reporter/photographer forever onward saddled with the cognomen Superman’s Pal. Jimmy Olsen, which launched in 1954 carrying a September/October cover date. For 20 years the comic blended action, adventure, wacky comedy, fantasy and science fiction in the gentle, wry, exceedingly popular manner scripter Otto Binder had perfected in the 1940s at Fawcett Comics on the magnificent Captain Marvel.

Over those years, one of its most popular plot-themes (and most fondly revered and referenced today by Baby-Boomer fans) was the unlucky lad’s appalling talent for being warped, mutated and physically manipulated by fate, aliens and even his supposed friends. Latterly, however, Leo Dorfman had begun the process of remaking Jimmy as a more competent action hero and serious investigative journalist in tune with the rebellious era when the worlds of DC forever altered on the pages of what was then considered one of their least appreciated and poorest-selling titles.

According to fan myth & legend, none of it apparently mattered when Jack Kirby – hot from making Marvel the top company in the business – took over. By all popular accounts, he had asked for DC’s worst performing title to prove what he could do, and used it to spearhead a wave of changes whilst adapting grand schemes his old employers were too timid to countenance on their pages…

Jack’s first issue was #133, cover-dated October and on sale from August 25, 1970.

Jack Kirby (28th August 1917 – 6th February 1994) was – and, more than three decades after his death, remains – the most important single influence in the history of American comics. There are innumerable accounts of and testaments to what the man has done and meant, and you should read all of those if you are at all interested in the bones and breath of our medium. Kirby was a man of vast imagination who translated big concepts into astoundingly potent, instantly accessible symbols, thereby creating an iconography for generations of fantasy fans. If you were exposed to Kirby as an impressionable child, you were his for life. To be honest, that probably applies at whatever age you jump aboard the “Kirby Express”…

Synonymous with larger-than-life characters and vast cosmic imaginings, he was an astute, spiritual man who lived through poverty, prejudice, gangsterism, The Great Depression and World War II. He experienced Pre-War privation, Post-War optimism, Cold War paranoia, political cynicism and the birth and death of peace-seeking counter-cultures, but always looked to the future while understanding human nature intimately. Beginning his career in the late 1930s, it took a remarkably short time for Jack and creative collaborator Joe Simon to become the wonder-kid dream-team of the newborn comic book industry. Together they produced a year’s worth of influential monthly magazine Blue Bolt, dashed off Captain Marvel Adventures #1 for overstretched Fawcett, and – after Martin Goodman appointed Simon editor at Timely Comics – launched a host of pivotal characters including Red Raven, Marvel Boy, Mercury/Hurricane, The Vision, Young Allies and million-selling mega-hit Captain America. When Goodman failed to honour his financial obligations, Simon & Kirby were snapped up by National/DC, who welcomed them with open arms and a fat chequebook.

Bursting with ideas these staid industry leaders were never really comfortable with, the pair were initially an uneasy fit. Awarded two moribund strips to play with until they found their creative feet, they turned around both Sandman and Manhunter virtually overnight and, once safely established and left to their own devices, switched to the “Kid Gang” genre they had pioneered at Timely. Joe & Jack created wartime sales sensation Boy Commandos and Homefront iteration The Newsboy Legion before being called up to serve in the war they had been fighting on comic pages since 1940. Once demobbed, they returned to a very different funnybook business, and soon after left National to create their own empire…

S&K ushered in the first age of mature American comics – not just by inventing the Romance genre, but with all manner of challenging modern material about real people in extraordinary situations, only to see it all disappear again in less than eight years. Simon & Kirby had established their own publishing house, creating comics for far more sophisticated readerships, but found themselves in a sales downturn and awash in public hysteria generated by an anti-comic book pogrom. Their small stable of magazines – generated for an association of companies known as Prize, Crestwood, Pines, Essenkay and Mainline Comics – blossomed and as quickly wilted when the industry contracted throughout the 1950s, but had left future generations fascinating ventures such as Boys’ Ranch, Bullseye, Crime Does Not Pay, Black Magic, Boy Explorers, Fighting American and the entire genre of Romance Comics…

Hysterical censorship fever spearheaded by US Senator Estes Kefauver and opportunistic pop psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham led to witch-hunt Senate hearings. Most publishers caved, adopting a castrating self-regulatory straitjacket of draconian rules and guidelines. Crime & Horror titles produced under the aegis and emblem of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of mature themes, political commentary, shock and gore even though the market’s appetite for suspense and the uncanny was still high. Crime comics vanished as adult sensibilities challenging an increasingly stratified and oppressive society were suppressed. Salaciousness, suspense and horror were dialled back to the level of technological fairy tales and whimsical parables…

Simon left the business for advertising, but Jack soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to safer, more conventional, less experimental companies. As the panic abated, he returned to DC Comics, working on bread-&-butter anthological mystery tales and revamping Green Arrow (at that time a back-up feature in Adventure Comics and World’s Finest Comics) whilst concentrating on a passion project: newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force.

During this period Kirby also re-packaged a superteam concept that had kicked around in his head since he and Joe closed their innovative, ill-timed ventures. At the end of 1956, Showcase #6 premiered Challengers of the Unknown and following three further test issues they won their own title with Kirby crafting the first eight. Then a dispute with Editor Jack Schiff exploded and the King was gone…

He found fresh fields and an equally hungry new partner in Stan Lee at the ailing Atlas Comics outfit (AKA once mighty Timely Comics), launching and spearheading a revolution in comics storytelling. However, after just over a decade of a continual innovation and wonderment, Kirby felt increasingly stifled. His efforts had transformed a dying publisher into industry-leader Marvel, but success had left him trapped in a profitable rut. Thus, he moved back to DC to generate another tidal wave of sheer imagination and pure invention. The result was experimental adult magazines Spirit World & In the Days of the Mob followed by a stunning reworking of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen – and by the time he had finished, all DC continuity. The latter was a prelude to his landmark Fourth World Saga comprising interlinked and contemporaneous titles Forever People, New Gods & Mister Miracle: the very definition of something game-changing and too far ahead of its time…

Incidentally, on many levels Jimmy was an ideal match for the King and not an incongruous display of breast-beating or do-or-die audition. Olsen was an idealistic, heroic young man in the thick of the incredible at all times, and Kirby had a long history with such boy heroes. He and Joe Simon had invented the comic book “kid gang” subgenre and for the next two years Kirby revived it with a new take on The Newsboy Legion… albeit interlaced with a future-embracing backstory, and aspirational wonder, rather than the poverty, privation and ongoing war of survival embodied by the Forties iteration…

In last non-Jack issue, Jimmy had been abducted by gangsters convinced he knew Superman’s secret identity, before battling a soviet champion for sovereignty of a floating island (as you do…) but everything abruptly changed with Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133. Suddenly readers were thrown into a bravely strange new world where, out of nowhere, extremely shady incoming Daily Planet owner Morgan Edge gifts Jimmy with a fantastic supercar – the “Whiz Wagon” – and demands that he and his previously unseen pals ‘The Newsboy Legion!’ (actually the “New Newsboy Legion” comprising the sons of Tommy, Big-Words, Gabby & Scrapper, with the addition of African-American, scuba diving addict Flipper Dipper) deliver an exclusive scoop on a strange counterculture movement living in the wilds outside Metropolis. The mysterious subjects are all weird hippie-types and don’t trust anyone over age 25, so he needs youth and experience…

However, the one who can’t be trusted is Edge himself. He has undisclosed connections to crime combine Intergang and a chilling stone-faced alien called Darkseid…

After very publicly surviving an assassination attempt, Clark Kent goes into hiding allowing Superman to take off after Jimmy and the boys as they probe a fantastic unsuspected region dubbed the Wild Area. Here Olsen survives trial by combat to become leader of futuristic biker gang The Outsiders, and is sucked into their quest for meaning by hunting a moving mountain inhabited by techno-pacifists “The Hairies”…

Linking up with the Man of Steel as tremors rock the organically grown refuge city of Habitat, Jimmy and the Newsboys chase the ultimate test of existence alongside all the other motor nomads, unaware that pal Superman already knows the secret they’re all seeking. What Jimmy isn’t aware of is that Edge has boobytrapped the Whiz Wagon to satisfy his master’s desire to destroy what might the next step in human evolution and a threat to his own schemes…

Although Kirby and Inker Vince Colletta put their hearts and souls into the job, and despite Publisher Carmine Infantino’s promise of strict non-intervention, meddling with the concept began early with regular Superman art staff redrawing Superman and Jimmy’s faces. We’ll never know what they tried to do to the overall story arc…

Without pause for breath, exposition or recap Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 saw Jimmy and his biker wild bunch catch up to monstrous mechanised white whale ‘The Mountain of Judgement!’ after astoundingly taking out Superman with weapons casually discarded by inveterate tinkerers the Hairies. Thankfully, Edge’s bomb is easily defused by the techno-hippies who all share an incredible secret – one Superman is fully aware of. In short order Jim and the lads are briefed on “The Project”: the US government’s cracking of the human genome and extensive duplication and experimentation of life forms. This has already resulted in cloning the deceased, mass-producing soldiers and staff and, most incredibly, meddling with/reconfiguring chromosomal structure to create new life forms: “D.N.A.liens” like the pacifist techno-wizards called Hairies…

Moreover, the Project is run by none other than slum-kids made good the original Newsboy Legion!

Although commonplace now, the notion of cloning was practically unknown in 1970 and Kirby took the idea and ran with it: blending eternal questions about Life itself with Spy Fi tropes, gansterism and Bond movie settings, all packed with freaks and monsters and underpinned by a constant threat posed by a mysterious mastermind and his own experimental devils. The inspired auteur was also pulling out all the stops visually and his experimental concepts were backed up by equally innovative art and photo collages.

In SPJO #135 we meet Simyan & Mokkari, whose raid on the Project’s genetic storehouse provides raw material to constantly reproduce wilder and wilder versions of our heroes in their own hidden ‘Evil Factory!’ Being utterly without restraint or ethical scruple, their goal of destroying the Project for Darkseid is well-advanced, and – as previously stated – Jimmy’s genes are a particularly promising medium for random transformations…

Their control of what they make is less impressive however, and a superstrong, giant Jimmy infused with Kryptonite is teleported without a plan into the Project simply to save Simyan & Mokkari being killed by their own experiment. Although it almost kills Superman and his pal, the day is saved by the Senior Newsboys’ passion project – a new iteration of their murdered WWII superhero patron Jim Harper – the (Golden) Guardian – in concluding, action-packed background-filling expository chapter ‘The Saga of the D.N.A.liens!’ (cover-dated March 1971 and leading into the launch of Kirby’s opening Fourth World titles Forever People and New Gods #1. We’ll be covering those and final plank Mister Miracle later in the year).

With the scene set, Jimmy’s further exploits are generally Fourth World adjacent: a forge and funnel for concepts linking Superman to the ongoing narrative of Gods and Armageddons whilst exploring Mankind’s dangerous tendencies and corruptible natures. In Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #137, as the Newsboys and Jimmy learn more about their own (utterly non-consensual) contributions to the Project (without their knowledge Scrapper has been mass-produced as soldiers and guards in different sizes from six feet to six inches, and innumerable Gabbys man switchboards and communications consoles!) the Evil Factory strike again.

As Jimmy meets The Project’s emergent telepath/resident D.N.A.lien Dubbilex, elsewhere Darkseid demands results and Simyan & Mokkari unleash another Olsen variant on the hidden science citadel. Gifted with astounding strength and uncanny energy powers ‘The Four-Armed Terror!’ has been bred to feed on nuclear radiation and carves a wave of destruction that extends into the Wild Area on its path to the Project’s atomic power plant. Superman and the boys are easily disposed of and discarded, with the crisis escalating even further after Simyan & Mokkari lose control of all the other quadra-killers and beam the entire rampaging herd into the subterranean Project’s tunnels, forcing Superman to pull out all the stops to get free and save everything in cataclysmic closing chapter ‘The Big Boom!’

Despite those promises of non-interference, DC editors and promotional staff perpetually sought to “goose up” the Kirby flagship title. Always a team player, the King acquiesced to a guest-appearance by currently-hot comedian Don Rickles and oddly – in the manner of Marmite – it either worked uproariously or appalled readers. I thought it was a genuine hilarious hoot. Further undercutting the narrative, the saga was bifurcated by a reprint 80-Page Giant of pre-Kirby Olsen escapades in SPJO #140 and not included here.

Nevertheless #139 and 141 ( July’s ‘The Guardian Fights Again!!!’ and September’s ‘Will the Real Don Rickles Panic?’) is a compelling tale of Edge’s unfolding evil, Intergang’s growing influence and the creeping menace of Darkseid, who allows his tech to be used to send Clark Kent into hyperspace destined for Apokolips whilst Jimmy and the Golden Guardian are poisoned by slow-acting incendiary poison Pyro-Granulate: a slow death that will turn them into human torches unless they find an antidote. Slowing them down is equally doomed Galaxy Broadcasting staffer Goody Rickles whom Edge wants gone because he looks like the star Edge wants to sign up… and is really, really annoying…

With Kent saved from a modern hell by New God Lightray, Kirby next addressed the rise in horror and supernatural tales via another two-parter that began in #142 with ‘The Man from Transilvane!’ Here, apparent vampire Count Dragorin and his wolfman assistant Lupek target and “turn” Edge’s PA Laura Conway in their desperate hunt for long-missing mad scientist Dabney Donovan: a planetologist who apparently built worlds in his laboratory and shaped civilisations by screening movies in their skies. Like all sensible scientists, Donovan planned to end his research project on a certain day and set up programmed measures involving his ‘Genocide Spray!’ with no consideration of the beings he had made and discarded… but Jimmy and Superman certainly did…

Elsewhere, the Newsboy Legion had their own case, one that again led to Intergang but also the thug who murdered the original Jim Harper/Guardian…

In SPJO #142, Kirby began adding short background-enhancing vignettes and here 2-pager ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! “Hairie” Secrets Revealed!!!’ offered a glimpse of the techno-hippies and their Mountain of Judgment, whilst the next issue added drama to fact-finding as ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project!! The Alien Thing!!!’ details the terrifying results of creating the first non-human clone…

More much-needed laughs underpin a return to and imminent ending of Olsen’s involvement with the Evil Factory and Apokolips after Edge sends the lads to Britain on a snipe hunt to find and film ‘A Big Thing in a Deep Scottish Lake!’ in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #144 (cover-dated December 1971). Sadly, it’s just another baroque attempt to kill the pesky, interfering kids, but Edge’s delightfully outré assassins are not up to the task and actually facilitate the Whiz Wagon wonders finally finding the long-sought Evil Factory…

Back in Metropolis, as Superman, the Guardian and Dubbilex visit a discotheque and accidentally uncover a connection to the Project and the New Gods, the back of the book discloses ‘Strange Stories of the D.N.A. Project! – The Torn Photograph!’, hinting that not all the mysteries of the top secret base were created by modern scientists…

Jimmy at last gets transformed himself as the Newsboys encounter a menagerie of uncanny creatures in ‘Brigadoom!’ (#145, January 1972) before falling victim to Simyan & Mokkari’s tender ministrations. Unfortunately for them, reverting Olsen to primal revenant ‘Homo Disastrous!’ opens the door to chaos and their own destruction, even if it does add a (semi-) friendly monster to the team in affable escapee “Angry Charlie”…

Issue #146 also added a little lore to Superman’s personal canon after ‘Tales of the DNA Project! Arin the Armored Man!!!’ reveals how the geneticists found a way to safeguard the man of Steel’s precious and potential deadly cell cultures and decoded genetic structure from potential abuse…

An issue later, heavily-edited down from his original idea, and inked by Mike Royer rather than Colletta, SPJO #147 saw ‘A Superman in Supertown!’, completing a plot thread begun in Forever People #1, wherein the one-&-only Man of Tomorrow accidentally ends up amongst his “own kind” on paradise planet New Genesis, only to realise he cannot rest until his work is done. An example of that carries over into Kirby’s final issue as Jim, the Newsboys and Angry Charlie head across the Atlantic for a confrontation with Morgan Edge and are abducted in mid-air by purely earthborn menace Professor Victor Volcanum.

Incongruously backed up by one last revelatory episode of ‘Tales of the DNA Project – Genetic Criminal’ with cloned killer Floyd “Bullets” Barstow apparently answering the question of whether evil is an inherited trait, the tale of a Victorian-era supergenius who made himself immortal by distilling the essence of volcanoes wrapped up Jimmy’s Kirby-Era. Volcanum had ended a lengthy period of solitude and isolation by attacking the modern world with robots, death-rays and an advanced flying gondola in his efforts to become ‘Monarch of All He Subdues!’ (SPJO #148, April 1972). His first mistake was capturing the Whiz Wagon riders, but when Highfather of New Genesis graciously dropped Superman into his ongoing campaign, the writing was on the wall.

Of course it had been for Jack for some while. Happy to be deprived of the poison chalice of the committee-mindset governing every aspect of all Superman titles, the King soldiered on with his original intention of creating a timeless saga of celestial drama, passion and mind-bending scope – but there too he would be ultimately thwarted and frustrated. Basically and as was always the case, management wanted New and Different, but didn’t like or understand it when they got it…

Almost overnight and in one broad flourish, Kirby had created one of the most powerful concepts in comic book history. His Fourth World inserted a whole new mythology into the existing DC Universe and blew the developing minds of a generation of readers and especially those who would become the next generation of creators. Who know what could have happened if the publishers had had a little more courage, patience and vision?

Kirby instinctively grasped the fundamentals of pleasing his audience and always diligently struggled against the appalling prejudice regarding the comics medium – especially from industry insiders and professionals who despised the “kiddies world” they felt trapped in. After his grandiose, controversial editorially unappreciated Fourth World was cancelled immediately prior to his long-planned grand finale, Kirby explored other projects that would stimulate his own vast creativity yet still appeal to a market growing ever more fickle. These included supernatural stalwart The Demon, traditional war stories starring established DC team The Losers, OMAC: One Man Army Corps and even a new metaphysically mighty Sandman – co-created with old pal Joe Simon and his biggest hit since science fictional survival saga Kamandi. However, although ideas kept coming (Atlas, Kobra, a new Manhunter and Dingbats of Danger Street), once again editorial disputes took up too much of his time. Reluctantly, he left again, choosing to believe in promises of more creative freedom elsewhere…

As early as 1974, worn down by a lack of editorial support and with his newest creations inexplicably tanking, Kirby considered returning to Marvel, but – ever the consummate professional – scrupulously rode out his contract and carried out every detail of an increasingly onerous, emotionally unrewarding DC contract. The Demon was cancelled after 16 issues and he needed another title to maintain his Herculean commitments (legally obliged to deliver 15 completed pages of art and story per week!): Kamandi – The Last Boy on Earth had found a solid and faithful audience. It also provided further scope to explore big concepts as seen in thematic companion OMAC. Both series granted Kirby’s darkest assumptions and prognostications free rein, and his “World That’s Coming” has proved far too close to the World we’re frantically trying to fix or escape from today…

It’s hard to see these stories – supplemented in this edition by ‘Mother Box Files’ culled from 1986’s Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #16 and glorious pages of pencils featuring ‘The Art of Jack Kirby’ – isolated from the original Fourth World titles, and to be honest Jimmy plays a back seat role in most of the tales here. When not driving, being chased by or turned into assorted monsters, he’s Superman’s sounding board and supervising adult for the new Newsboy Legion, but at least he’s treated as a clever and competent active player rather than charming directionless idiot…

Once Kirby left the book things changed slowly. The Newsboys and Angry Charlie stuck around for a while and characters like The Guardian, Morgan Edge and the Project became fundamentals of the Superman universe and continuity. The ongoing continuity repercussions of Kirby’s passing were mostly addressed in, of all places, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, so much as I’d like otherwise, there’s little chance of seeing collected curated editions of those…

Here though is Kirby at his finest and most iconoclastic, doing what he always did: telling stories of wonder, verve and unparalleled imagination. What more could you possibly want?
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1986, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Carl Barks died today in 2000. If you want to learn about him, our most recent review of his magic can be found here.

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Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Color Sundays “Robin Hood Rides Again” (volume 2)


By Floyd Gottfredson, Ted Osborne, Ted Thwaites, Manual Gonzales, Al Taliaferro, Julius Svensden, Merrill De Maris, Bill Walsh, Roy Williams, Del Connell, Tony Strobl, Bill Wright & Chuck Fuson, Bob Grant & various: edited by David Gerstein & Gary Groth (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-686-7 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

As collaboratively co-created by Walt Disney & Ub Iwerks, Mickey Mouse was first seen – if not heard – in silent cartoon Plane Crazy. The animated short fared poorly in a May 1928 test screening and was promptly shelved. That’s why most people who care cite Steamboat Willie – the fourth Mickey feature to be completed – as the debut of both the mascot mouse and co-star/paramour Minnie Mouse, since it was the first to be nationally distributed, as well as the first animated feature with synchronised sound. The astounding success of the short led to a subsequent and rapid release of fully completed predecessors Plane Crazy, The Gallopin’ Gaucho and The Barn Dance, once they too had been given soundtracks. From those timid beginnings grew an immense fantasy empire, but film was not the only way Disney conquered hearts and minds. With Mickey a certified solid gold sensation, the mighty mouse was considered a hot property and was soon inducted into America’s most powerful and pervasive entertainment medium – comic strips…

Floyd Gottfredson was a cartooning pathfinder who started out as just another warm body in the Disney Studio animation factory. Happily, he slipped sideways into graphic narrative and evolved into a pioneer of pictorial narratives as influential as George Herriman, Winsor McCay and Elzie Segar. Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse entertained millions – if not billions – of eagerly enthralled readers and helped shape the very way comics worked. Via some of the earliest adventure continuities in comics history he took a wildly anarchic animated rodent from slap-stick beginnings and transformed a feisty everyman underdog into a crimebuster, detective, explorer, lover, aviator and cowboy. Mickey was the quintessential two-fisted hero as necessity and locale demanded. In later years, as tastes – and syndicate policy – changed, Gottfredson steered that self-same wandering warrior towards a sedate, gently suburbanised lifestyle, employing crafty and clever sitcom gags suited to a newly middle-class and financially comfortable America: comprising a 50-year career generating some of the most engrossing continuities the comics industry has ever enjoyed.

Arthur Floyd Gottfredson was born in 1905 in Kaysville, Utah, one of eight siblings in a Mormon family of Danish extraction. Injured in a youthful hunting accident, Floyd whiled away a long recuperation drawing and studying cartoon correspondence courses. By the 1920s he had turned professional, selling cartoons and commercial art to local trade magazines and Big City newspaper the Salt Lake City Telegram. In 1928, he and wife Mattie moved to California where, after a shaky start, the compulsive doodler found work as an in-betweener with the burgeoning Walt Disney Studios. That was in April 1929, just before the Great Depression hit. Not long after that Gottfredson was personally asked by Walt to take over the newborn but already ailing Mickey Mouse newspaper strip. He would plot, draw and frequently script the strip across the next five decades: an incredible accomplishment by of one of comics’ most gifted exponents.

Veteran animator Ub Iwerks had initiated the print feature with Disney himself contributing, before artist Win Smith was brought in. The nascent strip was plagued with problems and young Gottfredson was only supposed to pitch in until a qualified regular creator could be found. His first effort saw print on May 5th 1930 (his 25th birthday) and Floyd just kept going for 50 years. On January 17th 1932, Gottfredson crafted the first colour Sunday page, which he also oversaw and often produced until retirement. At first he did everything, but in 1934 Gottfredson relinquished scripting, preferring plotting and illustrating the adventures to playing about with dialogue. Thereafter, collaborating wordsmiths included Ted Osborne, Merrill De Maris, Dick Shaw, Bill Walsh, Roy Williams & Del Connell. At the start and in the manner of a filmic studio system, Floyd briefly used inkers such as Ted Thwaites, Earl Duvall & Al Taliaferro, but by 1943 had taken on full art chores.

This superb archival compendium – part of a magnificently ambitious series collecting the creator’s entire canon – continues with his efforts from his thirties heyday to retirement in 1976. Initially – just like the daily feature – the Sunday strip was treated like an animated feature (and frequently promoted screen stories by adapting or continuing movies on the page) with diverse hands working under a “director” and each episode seen as a full gag with set-up, delivery and a punchline, usually all in service to an umbrella story or theme. Such was the format Gottfredson inherited from Walt Disney, and by the time of the material re-presented here it had evolved into a highly efficient system for delivering fun and adventure thanks to the tireless efforts of master storyteller, who knew how to spin out and embellish a yarn…

Following David Gerstein’s Introduction and a truly massive table of Contents, the show opens with preliminary features Setting the Stage. Unbridled fun and incisive revelations begin with J.B. Kaufman’s model-sheet stuffed Foreword ‘Mickey’s Sunday Best: Moving On’ introducing us to the pressures of this unique graphic world before Tom Neely’s equally image-packed Appreciation ‘Of Blots and Stressed-Out Bodies’ tells us more about Gottfredson himself, prior to the glories of the spoken picture as the comics delights begin with The Sundays: Mickey’s Rival and Helpless Helpers and Gag Strips: subdivided into ‘The Sundays, (Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse Stories)’ and each proudly preceded by Joe Torcivia’s Introductory Notes, starting with ‘Balancing Acts – And When Helpfulness Lacks’.

Then, spanning January 5th – 26th 1936, ‘Mickey’s Rival’ introduces our hero’s dark mirror antithesis in a sequence written by Ted Osborne, pencilled by Gottfredson and inked Ted Thwaites. Here a most manly, not to say thuggish and vulgar, fellow rodent named Mortimer makes major inroads courting Minnie and a month of escalating escapades – and even stern advice from Goofy – are ineffective. Ultimately, low cunning and unsportsmanlike tricks clear the path of true love and Mortimer is sent packing…

Done-in-one ‘Gag Strips’ run from February 2nd to 23rd with Al Taliaferro joining the creative trio mid-month: with Mickey and faithful hound Pluto dodging dog catchers, failing to open cans and bottles, falling foul of ice and snow and even street racing old cars with Donald Duck. Mickey then helps Goofy & Donald catastrophically “fix-up” Minnie’s house in themed sequence ‘Helpless Helpers’ (March 1st to 22nd) in advance of more ‘Gag Strips’ spanning March 29th to April 19th with the Mouse meeting burglars, bandits and floods whilst avoiding the dentist he really needs to see…

Stefano Priarone’s introductory text ‘Postmodern Times’ then ushers readers into compelling extended fantasy romp ‘The Robin Hood Adventure’ (April 19th to October 4th, with plot & pencils by Gottfredson, an Osborne script and Taliaferro inking): a story-within-a-story as ardent gardener Mickey is transported via beanstalk and magic book back to Sherwood Forest to for dashing derring-do, comical capers, swashbuckling swipes and satirical jibes.

Essay ‘Growing Up, Growing Down’ leads to a sequence demonstrating Mickey’s gifts as ‘The Ventriloquist’ (11th October – 8th November) with Gottfredson & Taliaferro limning another Osborne extended script with the rascally rodent exhibiting his voice throwing gifts – and puckish sense of prankery – to Pluto, Goofy, Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow before inevitably suffering a major reversal of fortune…

Many, many more ‘Gag Strips’ follow (November 15th 1936 to May 9th 1937) as Osborne, Gottfredson, Thwaites & Taliaferro carry readers into a new year and beyond with slapstick hijinks about injury, infirmity, house, garden and motorcar maintenance, domestic spats, pets, circuses, playing practical jokes, and inescapable retaliation, pickpockets, panhandling, and snow. Bad weather, hunting and jail figure heavily too, as does love, with charmed simpleton Goofy’s unique point of view increasingly making Mickey the straight man in an enduring new relationship.

Halting momentarily to enjoy a Gottfredson private commission of the Mouse in cowboy mode from the 1980s, this compilation then heads west, only pausing to absorb more background and context via Francisco Stajano & Leonardo Gori’s essay ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Sunday’ Then Osborne scripts another gem for sagebrush devotee Gottfredson and inker Taliaferro in ‘Sheriff of Nugget Gulch’, running from May 16th to October27th. Here over-enthusiastic tenderfeet (tenderfoots?) Mickey & Goofy take a holiday of sorts after Minnie informs them of a gold strike near her uncle’s ranch. Sadly en route to Nugget Gulch, their rowdy excitement convinces everyone that they are deadly gunslingers: the toughest desperadoes since the Dalton Gang and both faster on the trigger than Bill Hickock…

The comedy of errors fully unfolds as the utterly unproven reputations of “Big Poison” & “Little Poison” continues to mount, with bandits pre-emptively heading for the hills and a terrified populace making them the new lawmen. Sadly that doesn’t count for much with genuine bad seed Pauncho Malarky, but eventually justice, goodness and blind luck carry the day and the railroad carries our heroes home…

Palate cleansing ‘Gag Strips’ from Osborne, Gottfredson, Thwaites & Taliaferro sustained readers between October 31st 1937 and 27th February 1938, with favoured themes like car trouble, house repairs, fancy dress, fashion, crop harvesting, bug infestation, family illness (Minnie’s nephew Manfred), construction crises and plain old surreal slapstick situations. Thanks to time of year, snow ice and inclement weather proved to timeless and reliable standbys, as were street crime, obnoxious cops and neighbours and household chores, with Minnie’s other rapscallion nephews (Mortimer and Ferdinand – AKA Morty & Ferdie – Fieldmouse) increasingly becoming the voice and faces of wayward youth in sneaky revolt…

Preceded by Gori & Stajano’s lecture ‘With Friends Like These’ continued sequence ‘Service with a Smile’ spans March 6th to April 10th with Merrill De Maris scripting for Gottfredson, Taliaferro, Manuel Gonzales & Thwaites. Her Mickey briefly manages his uncle’s gas service station, and between dealing with the public decides to go after delinquent clients and outstanding bills – with disastrous consequences. That chaos neatly transits to another tranche of stand-alone ‘Gag Strips’ (April 17th – August 21st 1938) by De Maris, Gottfredson, Taliaferro, Gonzales & Thwaites encompassing, bed-making, house cleaning, museum visits with Morty & Ferdie, fence-building with Goofy, hat-hunting with Minnie, more neighbour nonsense, car buying, chore-dodging, aviation antics, pet shenanigans and picnicking. As always many of these result in jail time – especially for Goofy and Mickey…

Another momentary diversion offers a Gottfredson inspired Goofy pinup/poem by Bob Grant from Mickey Mouse Magazine #59 (1940) comes in advance of movie inspired madness and mayhem again preceded by an essay. Thad Komorowski’s ‘Tailoring a Better Mouse’ explores Mickey’s declining film fanbase in lieu of rising stars Donald, Pluto & Goofy and how the Disney Studio remedied that with a new movie epic, suitably tied in and promoted to Gottfredson’s still hale and hearty newspaper strip. Albeit now a feature primarily supervised by Floyd and handled by Manual Gonzales, the strip actually saw print before the cinematic release of Brave Little Tailor.

Running from August 28th to November 27th 1938, ‘The Brave Little Tailor’ began and ended with original framing episodes written by De Maris, who also adapted the film’s script which was realised by Gottfredson & Gonzales & inked by Thwaites. Here actor Mickey Mouse joins an epic in production and the fairy tales immediately becomes utterly real, as out unassuming hero is swept along in a rush to kill a giant, marry a princess and save an embattled kingdom…

De Maris, Gottfredson, Gonzales & Thwaites stuck around to produce more ‘Gag Strips’ spanning December 4th to 25th 1938, involving the film’s premier and Goofy’s growing prominence after which Gottfredson’s involvement was curtailed by his promotion to manager of the prodigious Comic Strip Department, addressed here in Later Years: Gottfredson Fill-Ins (June 17th 1956- September 19th 1976), through essay ‘Mouse Soup’. From the end of 1938, Gottfredson oversaw Gonzales on the Sunday feature until the mid-1940s when he gifted Frank Reilly with his managerial duties and took on “Special Projects”.

The period lasted until his retirement in 1976 and is represented here with a selection of delightful oddments beginning with more ‘Gag Strips’ starring a far more sedate and suburban Mouse and traversing June 17th 1956 to September 19th 1976, with stories by Bill Walsh, Roy Williams, & Del Connell, and pencilled and/or inked by Floyd with Tony Strobl. The content is lovely but no longer in any way subversive: detailing swimming pool and gardening woes, ice cream parlor perils, entertaining bored kids, sports, decorating, fashion, camping, pets… and snow…

The remainder of the comics content concerns other Disney stalwarts graced by the master storyteller’s touch. ‘Gottfredson Guest Stars: Donald Duck and Treasury of Classic Tales’ shows stories of other Disney strip features and comes with its own briefing in context confirming ‘Calling All Characters!’ From there it’s a small hop to ‘Donald Duck Gag Strips’ by Osborne, Taliaferro & Gottfredson as seen in the Silly Symphonies feature for October 3rd & 10th 1937. Here the mad as heck mallard goes hunting with Pluto as his gun dog and deeply regrets pranking Goofy with a peashooter…

Walt Disney’s Treasury of Classic Tales extended and adapted other studio screen gems and Gottfredson lustrated many of them, beginning here with Frank Reilly’s interpretation of ‘Lambert the Sheepish Lion’ which ran from August 5th to September 30th 1956. It’s followed by ‘The Seven Dwarfs and the Witch Queen’ (March 2nd – April 27th, 1958) with Gottfredson writing and lettering a saga illustrated by Julius Svensden. The team reunited for the film adaptation of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ from August 3rd to December 28th 1958, and Gottfredson’s last hurrah here was laying out Reilly’s adaptation of ‘101 Dalmatians’ (January 1st to March 26th 1961) for pencillers Bill Wright & Chuck Fuson. The eclectic but buzzy result was inked by Wright & Gonzales.

The joyous cartoon fun is complimented by another mini-moment: this one discussing the rarely seen pre-US Mickey Mouse Sunday strips published in Britain’s Sunday Pictorial from July 13th 1930, and how they never should have been released at all…

Although the comics conclude here there’s still plenty to see and learn as The Gottfredson Archives: Essays and Special Features section follows with a plethora of picture packed articles. Kicking off is ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Mickey’s Rival and Helpless Helpers’ with overseas edition depicting ratty rogue Mortimer as seen in Italy’s Topolino and Germany’s Mickey Maus Mini-Comic Klassiker, with ‘The Cast: Mortimer’ by Gerstein giving a full assessment of the love-rat before segueing into the expert’s review of Otto Englander’s film storyboards of a most influential unfinished epic in ‘Behind the Scenes: Interior Decorators (Again!)’.

A Gottfredson painting offers visual refreshment in ‘Mickey Mouse Adventures with Robin Hood Adventure’ prior to ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: The Robin Hood Adventure’ sharing international interpretations of the tale from Yugoslavia, Italy and Brazil. Then Gerstein appraises recycled Earl Hurd storyboards in ‘Behind the Scenes: Mickey’s Garden’, whilst ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Gags of 1936-1938’ depicts international collections of the auteur’s single page strips published in the US and Italy, before Gerstein deconstructs ‘The Inventive Goof’ and Alberto Becattini & Gerstein share the story of a late arriving collaborator in ‘Sharing the Spotlight: Julius Svensden’.

Fully focused on cowboy fun ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Sheriff of Nugget Gulch’ depicts some of the numerous compilations of the western classic from America and France, whilst six versions from Italy, the US and Yugoslavia illuminate a follow up ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: ‘The Brave Little Tailor’. Then Timo Ronkainen & Gerstein again highlight a Mickey mainstay in ‘The Heirs of Gottfredson: Manuel Gonzales’ before a last dose of strip silliness comes via Gag Strips (A Mickey Supplement): selections from August 25th 1940 to 18th February 1951 by De Maris, Walsh, Gonzales, and Wright.

The glee finally stops with a lovely sketch from Floyd entitled ‘Al [Taliaferro] came into the studio…’, a pertinent cover from California Magazine and biographies of the hard-working editors involved on this splendid tome…

Floyd Gottfredson’s influence on not just Disney’s canon but sequential graphic narrative itself is inestimable: he was among the very first to produce long continuities and “straight” adventures, pioneered team-ups and invented some of the art form’s first “super-villains”.

When Disney killed their continuities in 1955, dictating henceforth strips would only contain one-off gags, Floyd adapted seamlessly, working until retirement in 1975. His last daily appeared on November 15th with the final Sunday included here published on September 19th 1976.

Like all Disney’s creators, Gottfredson worked in utter anonymity, until, in the 1960s, his identity was revealed and the roaring appreciation of previously unsuspected hordes of devotees led to interviews, overviews and public appearances, leading to subsequent his reprinting in books, comics and albums which now all carried a credit for the quiet, reserved master. Floyd Gottfredson died in July 1986.

Thankfully we have these Archives to enjoy, inspiring us and hopefully a whole new generation of inveterate tale-tellers.…

Still, isn’t there more we could find for a third book?
Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Color Sundays volume 2 “Robin Hood Rides Again” © 2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. Text of “Mickey’s Sunday Best: Moving On” by J.B. Kaufman is © 2013 by J.B. Kaufman. Text of “Of Blots and Stressed-Out Bodies” by Tom Neely is © 2013 by Tom Neely. All contents © 2013 Disney Enterprises unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

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Sshhhh!


By Jason (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-497-0 (TBB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for dramatic and comedic effect.

Born this day in 1965 in Molde, Norway, John Arne Sæterøy is known globally by his enigmatic, utilitarian nom de plume. The shy & retiring draughts-scribe started on the path to international cartoon superstardom in 1995, once first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won Norway’s biggest comics prize: the Sproing Award. Prior to that, he had contributed to alternate/indie magazine KonK whilst, from 1987, studying graphic design and illustration at Oslo’s Art Academy, before going on to Norway’s National School of Arts. After graduating in 1994, three years later he founded his own comic book Mjau Mjau, citing Lewis Trondheim, Jim Woodring and Tex Avery as his primary influences and constantly refining his style into a potent form of meaning-laden anthropomorphic minimalism.

Moving to Copenhagen Jason worked at Studio Gimle alongside Ole Comoll Christensen (Excreta, Mar Mysteriet Surn/Mayday Mysteries, Den Anden Praesident, Det Tredje Ojet) and Peter Snejbjerg (Den skjulte protocol/The Hidden Protocol, World War X, Tarzan, Books of Magic, Starman, Batman: Detective 27). His efforts were internationally noticed, making waves in France, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Germany and other Scandinavian countries as well as the Americas. He won another Sproing in 2001 – for self-published series Mjau Mjau – and from 2002 turned nigh-exclusively to producing graphic novels, winning even more major awards.

Jason’s breadth of interest is wide and deep: comics, movies, animated cartoons, music, high literature and pulp fiction all feature equally with no sense of rank or hierarchy. This puckish and egalitarian mixing and matching of inspirational sources always and inevitably produces picture-treatises well worth a reader’s time.

Over a succession of tales Jason built and constantly employed a repertory company of stock characters to explore deceptively simplistic milieux based on classic archetypes of movies, childhood entertainments, historical and literary favourites. These all role play in deliciously absurd and surreal sagas centred on his preferred themes of relationships and loneliness. In latter years, Jason returned to such “found” players as he built his own highly esoteric universe, and even has a whole bizarre bunch of them “team-up” or clash…

As always, visual/verbal bon mots unfold in beguiling, sparse-dialogued, or even as here silently pantomimic progressions, with compellingly formal page layouts rendered in a pared back stripped-down interpretation of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style: solid blacks, and thick outlines dominating settings of seductive monochrome simplicity augmented by a beguiling palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.

The majority of his tales brim with bleak isolation, swamped by a signature surreality: largely populated with cinematically-inspired, darkly comic, charmingly macabre animal people ruminating on those inescapable concerns whilst re-enacting bizarrely cast, bestial movie tributes.

A perfect example of his oeuvre is ‘Sshhhh!’: a deliciously evocative, extended romantic melodrama created without words; the bittersweet tale of boy-bird meeting girl-bird in a world overly populated with spooks and ghouls and skeletons. The archetypes and cartoon critters are similarly afflicted by far more harsh demons: loneliness and regret.

Of course, it’s not just that. It’s also boy-bird loses girl-bird to death, other men, his own inadequacies and the vagaries of parenthood. It’s about how money fixes nothing and how Death is ever at your elbow and can be – quite frankly – a bit of a nuisance. It’s sex and death and discontentment and bloody ungrateful kids; aliens; being invisible; miserable vacations; disappointing locations: guys who are sexier than you and The Devil…

… And birds-nests…

Jason’s work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, always probing the nature of “human-ness” by visually invoking the beastly and unnatural to ask persistent and pertinent questions. Although clever sight-gags are less prominent here, his repertory company still uncannily display the subtlest emotions with devastating effect, proving again just how good a cartoonist he is.

This comic tale is best suited for adults but makes us all look at the world through wide-open childish eyes. Jason is instantly addictive and a creator every serious fan of the medium should move to the top of the “Must-Have” list. Don’t even wait for a physical copy, buy a digital edition ASAP, just so you can see immediately what all the fuss is about…
All characters, stories and artwork © 1998, 1999, 2008 Jason. All rights reserved.

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Beano and The Dandy: A Celebration of Dudley D. Watkins


By Dudley D. Watkins, R.D. Low & various (DC Thomson)
ISBN: 978-1-84535-818-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As the physical books I bought to commemorate this occasion still haven’t arrived yet, and none of them are available digitally, I’m celebrating the achievements of one of Britain’s greatest cartoonists with something you might have read before. So if I didn’t convince you then, here’s a another shot at what you see and what should be a compulsory text in Art, Sociology and History classes. Don’t make me repeat myself again…

Unlike any other artform, Comics is uniquely set up to create small gods. Initially low cost, mass-market and appearing with rapidity – occasionally over the course of decades – the works of some creators are instantly recognisable and generally prolific, and come to define the medium for generations of enthralled recipients. All generally defy exact duplication, despite being always heavily imitated by adoring adherents, since they possess an indefinable element that slavish imitation cannot capture: Osamu Tezuka, Hergé, Jack Kirby, Alex Raymond, Moebius, Steve Ditko and Charles Schulz are all instantly known. There are certainly a few others you’d like to add to that list.

Feel free.

My own candidate for ascension is Dudley Dexter Watkins…

A tireless and prolific illustrator equally adept at comedy and drama storytelling, his style more than any other’s shaped the postwar look and form of Scottish publishing giant DC Thompson’s comics output. Watkins (1907-1969) started life in Manchester and Nottingham as an artistic prodigy prior to entering Glasgow College of Art in 1924. Before too long he was advised to get a job at expanding, Dundee-based DCT, where a 6-month trial illustrating prose boys’ stories led to comic strip specials and some original cartoon creations. Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks and Wandering Willie, The Wily Explorer made him the only contender for both lead strips in a bold new project conceived by Robert Duncan Low (1895-1980).

Low began as a journalist for DC Thomson, rising via story scripting to Managing Editor of Children’s Publication and between 1921 and 1933 launched the company’s “Big Five” story papers for boys: Adventure, The Rover, The Wizard, The Skipper and The Hotspur. In 1936, he created the landmark “Fun Section”: an 8-page pull-out comic strip supplement for national newspaper The Sunday Post. This illustrated accessory – prototype and blueprint for every comic the company subsequently released – launched on 8th March. From the outset The Broons and Oor Wullie were the uncontested headliners.

Low’s shrewdest notion was to devise both strips as comedies played out in the charismatic Scottish idiom and broad unforgettable vernacular, supported by features such as Chic Gordon’s Auchentogle, Allan Morley’s Nero and Zero, Nosey Parker and other strips. These pioneering comics then laid the groundwork for the company’s next great leap. After some devious devising, in December 1937 Low launched DC Thomson’s first weekly all-picture strip comic. The Dandy was followed by The Beano Comic in 1938, and early-reading title The Magic Comic in 1939.

Low’s irresistible secret weapon in all of these ventures was Watkins. The indefatigable cartoon stalwart drew the Fun Section signature strips The Broons and Oor Wullie from the outset and – without missing a beat – added Desperate Dan (in The Dandy) to his weekly workload in 1937. Seven months later, placidly outrageous, subtly subversive social satire Lord Snooty became a big draw for freshly launched companion paper The Beano.

This stunning and luxurious hardback commemorative celebration was released to mark 50 years since Watkins’ death and – despite dealing with a rather solemn topic – is exuberantly joyous in tracing the man’s astounding career and output. No one could read this stuff and not smile, if not actually collapse in mirth.

Packed with brief commentary and visual extracts, the artist is revealed in excerpts and complete episodes chronologically curated to maximise his artistic development. Beginning with The 1930s, a selection of strips starring Oor Wullie and The Broons from The Fun Section is followed by a vintage full-colour Beano Book cover, before a feature on Desperate Dan leads inevitably to a tranche of wild cowboy antics in the best Dundee tradition. The system then repeats for Lord Snooty – and his Pals – and then forgotten almost-stars Wandering Willie the Wily Explorer and aforementioned Percy Vere and his Trying Tricks who share their brand of whimsy. Up until now, the majority of strips are monochrome, but the sequence starring Smarty Grandpa comes in the nostalgic two-colour style we all remember so fondly…

An introductory essay about The 1940s is followed by more of the same, but different; beginning with lost family favourite adventure series. Jimmy and His Magic Patch (latterly Jimmy’s Magic Patch) share the exploits of a wee nipper whose torn trousers were repaired with a piece of mystical cloth that could thereafter grant wishes and transport the wearer to other times and fantastic realms. Here Watkins got to impress with authentic imagery of pirates and dinosaurs, while a two-tone tale from an annual took Jimmy to Sherwood Forest and a meeting with Robin Hood…

Apparently Watkins could handle anything, as seen by a selection of book covers that follow – The Story of Kidnapped, The Story of Treasure Island and The Story of Robinson Crusoe – and illustrated general knowledge pages Cast Away!, Wolves of the Spanish Main and Soldiers’ Uniforms & Arms 1742-1755 which precede complete Jacobite adventure strip Red Fergie’s “Army”.

Once upon a time, comics offered illustrated prose yarns too, and a literary legend was a fan favourite when Watkins did the pictures. ‘Gulliver – the Paraffin Oil Plot’ has splendidly stood the test of time and neatly segues into a hefty section of strips starring the evergreen Lord Snooty and his Pals and Desperate Dan, before Biffo the Bear debuts in full colour, beginning with his premier on January 24th 1948 and including three more captivating outings. The decade closes with another prose Gulliver treat in ‘Baron Bawler’s Blackout’…

A true golden age, The 1950s section opens with Oor Wullie derivative Ginger (from The Beezer), another full-colour cover-star copiously represented and followed by fellow mischief-maker Mickey the Monkey out of The Topper, after which Lord Snooty and his Pals get the text & picture treatment for an extended (possibly Annual or summer special?) lark, and Desperate Dan & Biffo the Bear star in multi-hued shorts trips, after which ‘The Tricks of Tom Thumb’ – another classical adventure yarn – sets the scene for a veritable flurry of strips starring Biffo & Dan to see the decade out.

Venerable Lord Snooty and his Pals open The 1960s, with Desperate Dan quickly following, before more full-colourful Mickey & Ginger strips lead into what was probably the artist’s preferred material. Watkins was a committed man of faith, creating illustrated Bible tracts in his spare time, and always eager to (decorously) promote his beliefs. Here – in full colour – are a brace of theological adventure strips beginning with ‘David’ and his notorious battle, supplemented by ‘The Road to Calvary’ which lead into a rousing clan romp in the prose-&-picture yarn of English-trouncing Scots rebel Wild Young Dirky…

Ending the festival of fun, with a lump in the throat, is the Biffo strip that formed the cover of Beano #1423 (25th October 1969). Watkins had soldiered on in unassailable triumph for decades, drawing some of the most lavishly lifelike and winningly hilarious strips in comics history, and died at his drawing board on August 20th 1969. The page he was working on was completed by David Sutherland, who adds his own gracious homily to the piece.

For all those astonishingly productive years, Dudley D. Watkins had also unflaggingly crafted a full captivating page each of Oor Wullie and The Broons, as well as his church tracts and periodical commitments. His loss was a colossal blow to the company. DC Thomson reprinted old episodes of both strips in the newspaper and the Annuals for seven years before a replacement was agreed upon, whilst The Dandy reran Watkins’ Desperate Dan stories for twice that length of time.

DCT’s publications have always played a big part in Britain’s Christmas festivities and are still a cornerstone of our cultural bulwarks, so let’s revel in the Good Old Days of comics via this lovingly curated tribute to Scotland’s greatest cartoon artisan.
© DCT Consumer Products (UK) Ltd. 2020.

Hugo Pratt also died today in 1995. If you want to learn about him, our most recent review of his magic can be found here.

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Eagle Classics: Harris Tweed – Extra Special Agent


By John Ryan (Hawk Books -1990)
ISBN: 978-0-94824-822-1 (album TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Happy anniversary Eagle!

The son of a diplomat and irrefutably a died-in-wool True Gent, John Ryan was born in 1921, served in Burma and India during WWII and – after attending the Regent Street Polytechnic (1946-48) – took up a teaching post as assistant Art Master at Harrow School from 1948 to 1955. It was during this time that he began contributing strips to comics such as Girl and a newfangled but soon to be legendary weekly comic…

On April 14th 1950, Britain’s grey, post-war gloom was partially lifted with the first issue of a glossy new comic that literally shone with light and colour. Mesmerised children were soon understandably enraptured with the gloss and dazzle of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, a charismatic star-turn venerated to this day, as well as a plethora of strips illustrating some of their favourite radio shows.

Eagle was a tabloid sized paper with full photogravure colour inserts alternating with text and a range of other comic features. Tabloid is a big page and you can get a lot of material onto each one. Deep within, on the bottom third of a monochrome folio was an 8-panel strip entitled Captain Pugwash, the story of a Bad Buccaneer and the many sticky ends which nearly befell him. Ryan’s quirky, spiky style also lent itself to the numerous spot illustrations required every week. Pugwash, his harridan of a wife and the useless, lazy crew of the Black Pig ran until issue #19 when the feature disappeared. This was no real hardship as Ryan had already begun writing and illustrating new feature Harris Tweed – Extra Special Agent which began as a full page (tabloid, remember – an average of 20 panels a page, per week) since #16 (cover-dated July 28th 1950).

Tweed ran for three years as a full page. Then in 1953 it dropped to a half-page strip and deftly repositioned as a purely comedic venture. For our purposes and those of the book under review, it’s those first three years we’re thinking of even if the only decent illustration I could find comes from the 1959 Eagle Annual…

Harris Tweed was a bluff and blundering caricature of the military “Big Brass” Ryan had encountered during The War. In gentler times, the bumbler with a young, never-to-be-named assistant known only as “Boy” solved mysteries and captured villains to general popular acclaim. Thrilling – and often eerily macabre – adventure blended seamlessly with sly yet cheerful schoolboy low comedy in these strips, since Tweed was in fact that most British of archetypes: a bit of a twit and a bit of a sham stumbling through a world of Thud & Blunder…

His totally undeserved reputation as detective and crime fighter par excellence, and his good-hearted yet smug arrogance – as demonstrated elsewhere by the likes of Bulldog Drummond, Dick Barton – Special Agent, or Sexton Blake – somehow endeared the arrogant, posturing buffoon to a young and impressionable public which would in later years take to its heart Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army and, more pointedly perhaps, Peter Sellers’ numerous film outings as Inspector Clouseau. Maybe most of those enthralled kids had an uncle or dad who buffaloed on about the war in just the same way…

Ryan’s art here is particularly noteworthy. Deep moody blacks and intense, sharp, edgy inking creates a constant mood of fever-dream intensity. There are anachronistic echoes and nuances of underground cartoons of more than a decade later, and much of the inevitable ‘brooding, lurking horror’ atmosphere found in the best works of Basil Wolverton. Ryan knew what kids liked and he delivered it by the cartload.

This too-slim, oversized (324 x 234mm x) paperback compilation is all that’s readily available these days, but surely in the era of electronic publishing, some enterprising fan with a complete Eagle collection can link up with a perspicacious publisher someway, somehow and produce a comprehensive compilation of the nation’s most self-lauded sleuth? I simply KNOW today’s TV crowd and dwindling but still-potent ancient 10-year-olds and their grandchildren would just lap him up….
Harris Tweed © 1990 Fleetway Publications. Compilation © 1990 Hawk Books.

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Prince Valiant volumes 1-3 Gift Box Set


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1 68396-072-0 (boxed set)

Individual volume ISBNs: 978-1-60699-141-1 (HB vol. 1), 978-1-60699-348-4 (HB vol. 2), 978-1-60699-407-8 (HB vol. 3)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Today, way back in 1892, a god of comics was born. His work will never die.

Rightly reckoned one of the greatest comic strips of all time, the majestic, nigh-mythical saga of a king-in-exile who became one of the greatest warriors in an age of unparalleled heroes is at once fantastically realistic and beautifully, perfectly abstracted – an indisputable paradigm of adventure fiction where anything is possible and justice always prevails. It is the epic we all want to live in. However, on one thing let us be perfectly clear: Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant is not historical. It is far better and more real than that.

Possibly the most successful and evergreen fantasy creation ever conceived, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on Sunday 13th February 1937, a glorious weekly, full-colour window not onto the past but rather onto a world that should have been. It followed the tempestuous life of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland of faraway Thule who persevered and, through tenacity, imagination and sheer grit, rose to become one of the mightiest heroes of the age of Camelot.

As depicted by the incomprehensibly gifted Foster, this noble scion would, over decades, grow to mighty manhood in a heady sea of wonderment: roaming the globe and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts. There have been films, cartoon series and all manner of toys, games and collections based on the feature – one of the few newspaper strips to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (well over 4600 episodes and STILL counting) and, even in these declining days of newspaper cartooning, it still claims over 300 American papers as its home.

Foster produced the strip, one spectacular page a week until 1971 when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt artist John Cullen Murphy was selected to draw the feature. Foster carried on as writer and designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son took over scripting duties. In 2004 Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) but the strip soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artist Gary Gianni and writer Mark Schultz prior to Thomas Yeates settling in and conquering one more exotic land by making it onto the worldwide web.

The first three exquisite oversized hardback volumes (362 x 268mm) are happily still available as a monumental gift set nobody could resist. They reprint, in glorious colour spectacularly restored from Foster’s original printer’s proofs, the princely pristine Sunday pages cumulatively spanning February 1937 to 20th December 1942: six years of formative forays comprising an impressive saga which promised much and delivered so much more than anybody could have suspected during those dim, distant and dangerous days…

Volume 1 opens with editor Brian M. Kane’s informative picture/photo-packed potted history of ‘Harold Rudolf Foster: 1892-1982’, after which Fred Schreiber conducts ‘An Interview with Hal Foster’ as first seen in Nemo: The Classic Comics Magazine (1984). Additionally, after the Arthurian epic exploits of our quintessential swashbuckling hero, this initial tome is rounded off by Kim Thompson’s discourse on the many iterations of reprints over the years and around the world in ‘A History of Valiants’…

The actual action-packed drama commences in distant Scandinavia as the King of Thule, his family and a few faithful retainers dash for a flimsy fishing boat, intent only on escaping the murderous intentions of a usurper’s army. Their voyage carries them to the barbarous coast of Britain and into battle against bands of wild men before they secure a safe point in the gloomy fens of East Anglia. After many hard fights they reach an uneasy détente with the locals and settle into a harsh life as regal exiles. Prince Valiant is but 5 years old when they arrive, and his growing years in a hostile environment toughen the heir, sharpen his wits and give him an insatiable taste for mischief and adventure. He befriends a local shepherd boy and together their escapades include challenging the marauding ancient dinosaurs which infest the swamp, battling a hulking man-brute and bedevilling a local witch. In retaliation the hag Horrit predicts that Val’s life will be long and packed with incredible feats… but always tainted by great sorrow. All that, plus a constant regimen of knightly training and scholarly tuition befitting an exile learning how to reclaim his stolen kingdom, make the lad a veritable hellion…

Everything changes when his mother passes away. After a further year of intense schooling in the arts of battle, Valiant leaves the Fens, and makes his way in the dangerous lands beyond. Whilst sparring with his boyhood companion, he unsuspectingly insults Sir Launcelot who is fortuitously passing by. Although that noble warrior is sanguine about the cheeky lad’s big mouth, his affronted squire attempts to administer a stern punishment… and is rewarded with a thorough drubbing. Indeed, Launcelot has to stop the Scion of Thule from slitting the battered and defeated man’s throat. Moreover, although he has no arms, armour, steed or money, Valiant swears that he too will be a Knight…

Luck is with the Pauper Prince. After spectacularly catching and taming a wild stallion, his journey is interrupted by gregarious paladin Sir Gawain who shares a meal and regales the wide-eyed lad with tales of chivalry and heroism. When their alfresco repast is spoiled by robber knight Sir Negarth – who unfairly strikes the champion of Camelot – Val charges in. Gawain regains consciousness to find the threat ended, with Negarth hogtied and his accomplice skewered…

Taking Val under his wing, wounded Gawain escorts the lad and his prisoner to Camelot, although their journey is delayed by a gigantic dragon. Val kills it too – with the assistance of Negarth – and spends the rest of the trip arguing that the rogue should be freed for his display of gallantry. Val is still stoutly defending the scoundrel at the miscreant’s trial before King Arthur, and is rewarded by being appointed Gawain’s squire. Unfortunately, he responds badly to being teased by the other knights-in-training and soon finds himself locked in a dungeon whilst his tormentors heal and the remaining Knights of the Round Table ride out to deal with an invasion of Northmen…

Whilst the flowers of chivalry are away, a plot is hatched by scheming Sir Osmond and Baron Baldon. To recoup gambling debts, they capture and ransom Gawain, but have not reckoned on the dauntless devotion and ruthless ingenuity of his semi-feral squire. Easily infiltrating the bleak fortress imprisoning the hero, Valiant liberates his mentor through astounding feats of daring and brings the grievously wounded knight to Winchester Heath and Arthur…

As Gawain recuperates, he is approached by a young maiden. Ilene is in need of a champion and – over his squire’s protests – the still gravely unfit knight dutifully complies. Val’s protests might have been better expressed had he not been so tongue-tied by the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. The quest to rescue Ilene’s parents is delayed when an unscrupulous warrior in scarlet challenges them, intent on himself possessing the lovely maiden. Correctly assessing Gawain to be no threat, the Red Knight does not live long enough to revise his opinion of the wild-eyed boy who then attacks him…

Leaving Ilene and re-injured Gawain with a hermit, Valiant continues on alone to Branwyn Castle, recently captured by an “Ogre” who terrorises the countryside. Through guile, force of arms and diabolical tactics the boy ends that threat forever. This is an astonishing tour de force of graphic bravura no fan could ever forget. Aspiring cartoonist Jack Kirby certainly didn’t: he recycled Val’s outlandish outfit used to terrorise the Ogre’s soldiers into the visual basis for his 1972 horror-hero Etrigan the Demon…

Having successfully routed the invaders and freed Ilene’s family, Val begins earnestly courting the grateful girl, but his prophecy of lifelong misery seems assured, however, when her father regretfully informs him that she is promised to Arn, son and heir of the King of Ord. Even before that shock can sink in, Valiant is called away again. Ailing Gawain has been abducted by sorceress Morgan le Fey, who is enamoured of the knight’s manly charms…

When Val confronts her, le Fey drugs him with a potion and the Prince endures uncounted ages in her dungeon before escaping. Weak and desperate, he makes his way to Camelot and enlists Merlin in a last-ditch ploy to defeat the witch and save his adored mentor. In the meantime, events have progressed, and Val’s bold plans to win Ilene are derailed when invitations to her wedding arrive at Camelot. Initially crushed, the resilient youth determines to travel to Ord and challenge Prince Arn for her hand. Their meeting is nothing like Val imagined but, after much annoying interference, he and the rather admirable Arn finally engage in their oft-delayed death-duel, only to be again distracted when news comes that Ilene has been stolen by Viking raiders…

What follows is another unparalleled moment of comics magnificence as Valiant sacrifices everything for honour, gloriously falls to superior forces, wins possession of Flamberge (the legendary Singing Sword which is brother to Excalibur), is captured and then reunited with Ilene… only to lose her again to the cruellest of fates…

After escaping from the Vikings and covering himself with glory at the Lists in Camelot – although he doesn’t even realise it – the heartsick, weary Prince returns to his father in the melancholy Anglian fens, again encountering ghastly Horrit and nearly succumbing to fever. When he recovers months later, he has a new purpose: he and his faithful countrymen will travel to Thule and rescue the nation from the cruel grip of usurper Sligon. Unfortunately, during the preparations, Valiant discovers his region of Britain has been invaded by Saxons and is compelled by his honour to race to Camelot and warn Arthur first…

To Be Continued…


Volume 2 reprints perfectly-restored Sunday pages from January 1st 1939 to 29th December 1940, following Sir Gawain’s extremely capable squire as he rushes to warn Camelot of invasion by rapacious Saxons via vast Anglian Fens. Here Thule’s Royal Family have hidden since being ousted from their Nordic Island Kingdom by the villainous usurper Sligon. After a breathtaking battle which sees Saxons repulsed and the battle-loving boy-warrior knighted upon the field of victory, Valiant begins a period of globe-trotting. This carries him through the fabled lands of Europe just as the last remnants of the Roman Empire are dying in deceit and intrigue.

Firstly, Val revisits Thule and restores his father to the throne, narrowly escaping the alluring wiles of a conniving beauty with an eye to marrying the Heir Apparent. Quickly bored with palaces, peace and plenty, the roving royal wildcat then encounters a time-twisting pair of mystical perils who show him the eventual fate of all mortals. Sobered but not daunted, he makes his way towards Rome, where he will become unwittingly embroiled in the manic machinations of the Last Emperor, Valentinian. Before that, however, Val is distracted by an epic feat that would have struck stunning resonances for the readership at the time. With episode #118 (14th May 1939) Val joins the doomed knights of mountain fortress Andelkrag, who, alone and unaided, hold back the assembled might of the terrifying hordes of Attila the Hun: a terror who is currently decimating the civilisations of Europe and now marshals his forces to wipe out its last vestige.

With Hitler & Mussolini hogging headlines and Modern European war seemingly inevitable, Val shares the Battle of Decency and Right against untrammelled Barbarism. His epic struggle and sole survival comprise one of the greatest episodes of glorious, doom-fated chivalry in literature…

After the fall of the towers of Andelkrag, Valiant makes his way onward to diminished Rome, picking up a wily sidekick in the form of cutpurse vagabond Slith and is once more distracted and delayed by dastardly Huns. The indomitable lad resolves to pay them back in kind, gathering dispossessed victims of Hunnish depredations and forging them into a resistance army of guerrilla-fighters: the Hun-Hunters. Thereafter he liberates vassal city Pandaris, driving back the invaders and their collaborator allies in one spectacular coup after another.

Valiant eventually reunites with equally action-starved Round Table companions Sir Tristram and Sir Gawain to make further fools of the Hun, who have lost heart after the death of their charismatic leader Attila (nothing to do with Val, just a historical fact). When Slith falls for a warrior princess, the Knights leave him to a life of joyous domesticity and move ever on…

An unexpected encounter with a giant and his unconventional army of freaks leads to the heroes inadvertently helping a band of marshland refugees from Hunnish atrocity, before establishing the nation-state of Venice. Then, at long last – and after a side-trip to the fabulous city of Ravenna – the Courtly trio cross the fabled Rubicon and plunge into a hotbed of political tumult. Unjustly implicated in a web of murder and double-dealing, the knights barely escape with their lives and split up to avoid pursuit. Tristan heads back to England and a star-crossed rendezvous with comely Isolde, Gawain takes ship for some fun in Massilia and Valiant, after an excursion to the rim of fiery Vesuvius, boards a pirate scow for Sicily and further adventure.

To Be Continued…


Volume 3 of the most successful and evergreen fantasy creation ever conceived offers the Sunday pages from January 5th 1941 to 20th December 1942, but only after erudite foreword ‘Modestly, Foster’ by Dan Nadel. The illustrated action opens in the shadow of flaming Vesuvius as Val’s vessel is attacked by self-proclaimed Sea-King Angor Wrack. Even the ferocious warrior-prince’s martial might is insufficient against insurmountable odds and the young Lord is captured and enslaved, his fabled Singing Sword confiscated by the victorious pirate.

Thus begins an astonishingly impressive chapter in the hero’s history. Val becomes a galley slave, escapes and washes up, starving and semi-comatose on the lost shores of the Misty Isles. Delirious, he glimpses his future wife Queen Aleta when she re-provisions his boat before casting him back to the sea’s mercies. The Misty Isles are secure only because of their secret location and the noble girl has broken a great taboo by sparing the shipwrecked lad. Replenished but lost, Val drifts helplessly away but resolves that one day he will discover again the Misty Isles and the enigmatic Aleta…

Eventually he is picked up by more pirates, but overwhelms the captain and takes charge. Finding himself in the island paradise of Tambelaine courting the daughters of the aged King Lamorack, Val encounters Angor Wrack again, but fails to recover the Singing Sword, precipitating an extended saga of maritime warfare and spectacular voyaging across the Holy Land from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The vendetta results in both Angor and Val being taken by Arab slavers, but the Prince nobly allows Wrack to escape whilst he battles Bedouin hordes…

Enslaved in Syria, even Val’s indomitable will and terrifying prowess are insufficient to his need so he seduces his owner’s daughter to effect an escape, only to stumble into a marital spat between the region’s greatest necromancer and his tempestuous bride.

Reaching Jerusalem, Val finally regains his beloved sword and settles his scores with Angor Wrack before determining to return to the hidden Misty Isles, but once again falls afoul of the pirates infesting the region. After incredible hardships, he is reunited with Aleta before fate drags them apart once more. Despondent, he departs alone – but not for long though, as on reaching Athens Val meets far-larger-than-life Viking raider Boltar: a Falstaff-like rogue and “honest pirate”. Together they rove across the oceans to the heart of the African jungles. On securing a huge fortune, their Dragonship reaches Gaul and Val is finally reunited with Gawain, and, after settling a succession of generational feuds between knights and defeating a seductive maniac, the paladins at last return to Britain courtesy of Boltar. This is just in time to be dispatched by Arthur to the far North. The King needs to scout Hadrian’s Wall and see if it can still keep belligerent Picts out. Unfortunately, libidinous Gawain abandons Val and the lad is captured by Caledonian wild-men and their new allies – a far nastier breed of Vikings intent on conquering England…

Tortured nigh unto death, the Prince is saved by the ministrations of Julian – a Roman warrior who has seemingly safeguarded the wall for centuries. And when he is recovered, Prince Valiant begins to inflict a terrible and studied revenge upon his tormentors…

To Be Continued…

Rendered in an astoundingly lovely panorama of glowing images, Prince Valiant is a lyrical juggernaut of stirring action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending realistic fantasy with sardonic wit, and broad humour with unbelievably dark violence. Here closing text feature ‘Too Violent for American Dog Lovers’ reveals censored panels and changes editors around the world inflicted upon the saga during this period.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring, Foster’s magnum opus is a World Classic of storytelling, something no adventuresome fan can afford to be without.

Volume 1: All comics material © 2009 King Features Syndicate except Tarzan page, © 2009 ERB Inc. All other content and properties © 2009 their respective creators or holders.
Volume 2: © 2009 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2009 their respective creators or holders.
Volume 3: © 2011 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2011 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved throughout.
Gift Set © 2017 King Features Syndicate. Published by Fantagraphics Books.

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Barefoot Gen volume 10: Never Give Up


By Keiji Nakazawa (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-601-6 (TPB) 978-0-86719-840-9 (HB/School Edition)

Whilst we are all commemorating the 80th anniversary of VJ Day (the Americans hold theirs on September 2nd), it’s only appropriate to remember how that war ended and what victory and defeat meant to a world forever changed after the conclusion. In comics, that means Keiji Nakazawa and Hadashi no Gen. A standby of anti-nuclear movements since first release in 1983, new hardback editions combining two paperback editions per volume are underway and will be on sale from January 15th 2026 – if we manage to live that long. You could wait or even check out our past reviews or simply save your time & energy by buying the still-available 10 tank?bon set right now.

After many years of struggle the entire piecemeal epic semi-autobiographical saga was remastered as an unabridged and uncompromising 10-volume English-language translation by Last Gasp under the auspices of Project Gen: a multinational organisation dedicated to peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Constantly revised and refined by its creator until his death from lung cancer in December 2012, Barefoot Gen is the quintessential anti-war tract and plea to humanity for peace. The combined volumes are angry and uncompromising, and never forgive those who seek to perpetuate greed, mendacity and bloody-handed stupidity.

Hadashi no Gen was first seen in Japan in 1973, serialised in Gekkan Shōnen Janpu Jampu (Monthly Boys Jump) following an occasional 1972 series of stand-alone stories in various magazines which included Kuroi Ame ni Utarete (Struck by Black Rain) and Aru Hi Totsuzen (One Day, Suddenly).

The scattered tales eventually led Shonen Jump’s editor Tadasu Nagano to commission 45-page Ore wa Mita (I Saw It) for a Monthly Jump special devoted to autobiographical works. Nagano clearly recognised that the author – an actual survivor of the world’s first atomic atrocity – had much more to say which readers needed to see and commissioned the serial which has grown into this stunning landmark epic.

The tale was always controversial in a country which still generally prefers to ignore rather than confront past mistakes and indiscretions and, after 18 months, Hadashi no Gen was removed from Jump, transferring firstly to Shimin (Citizen), then Bunka Hyåron (Cultural Criticism), and Kyåiku Hyåron (Educational Criticism). Just like his indomitable hero, Keiji Nakazawa never gave up and his persistence led to a first Japanese book collection in 1975, translated by the newly-constituted Project Gen team into Russian, English and other languages including Norwegian, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Indonesian, Tagalog and Esperanto.

Born in March 14th 1939 and changed forever on August 6th 1945, the hibakusha (“atom bomb survivor”) author first completed his account in 1985 and his telling testament of survival has since been adapted into live-action & anime films; operas; musicals and live television dramas; each spreading the message across every continent and all generations.

Today we’re looking again at the concluding volume which brings the story of irrepressible, ebullient Gen and his friends to a close. One last time we see the forceful vitality of a select band of bomb survivors pitted against the constant shadow of tragedy which implacably dogs them in the city slowly recovering from nuclear conflagration.

Here the indomitable idealistic individualist, having finally found a way to express his anger and effectively fight back against the idiocies and injustices of a world which lets Atom bombs fall but is seemingly incapable of learning from its mistakes, at last strikes back at the demagogues and monsters who still keep the bad old ways alive… even after their people suffered the most hideous of consequences…

Barefoot Gen: Never Give Up begins following an inspirational ‘Gen’s Message: A Plea for Nuclear Abolition’ by the Translators & Editors and – as previously – the other end of this monochrome paperback balances the essay with a biography of the author and invaluable data ‘About Project Gen’…

The graphic manifesto resumes in March 1953 as Gen prepares for his school graduation ceremony, despite seldom attending that hidebound institution over the past few years. Fellow bomb orphans Ryuta and quietly stolid Musubi – who have shared Gen’s shabby shack for years – are also in high spirits. They have been constantly selling dresses made by radiation-scarred outcast Katsuko on Hiroshima’s rebuilt street corners, diligently saving the proceeds until she has enough money to open a shop. Now the manager of one of the big stores wants to buy all the clothes they can manufacture to sell in his fashionable venues…

At the Graduation Ceremony Gen once again loses his temper when the faculty begin memorialising the past and celebrating the failed regime of the empire. Later, his savage confrontation with teachers and visiting dignitaries sparks a minor student revolution. For many of the juvenile delinquents it’s also an opportunity to inflict some long-delayed retribution on the educational bullies who have oppressed and beaten them for years…

Encouragingly, however, not all parents and attending adults take the teachers’ side, and a potentially murderous confrontation is (rather violently) defused by Gen. The boy’s life then changes forever when he bumps into a young woman and is instantly smitten. His pursuit of Mitsuko will bring him into conflict with her brutal father, former employer and unrepentant war-lover Nakao who is now a highly successful businessman going places in the reconstructed city…

Gen has been studying with elderly artist Seiga Amano, learning the skills his own father would have passed on had he not died in 1945. The mentor/father-figure encourages his protégé to pursue Mitsuko… and it costs them both their jobs. However, the seeming setback is in fact liberating and before long the star-crossed youngsters are in a fevered euphoria of first love. So engaged is Gen that he is not there when stolid Musubi is targeted by a cruel Yakuza honeytrap who addicts him to drugs before fleecing him of all Katsuko’s hard-earned savings…

With a happy ending so close he can touch it, Gen is dragged back down to earth by a trio of tragedies which leave him near-broken and all alone. The legacies of the bombing have again cost him almost everything…

After a horrendous bout of death and vengeance-taking, Gen seems to have nothing to live for, but the despondent young man is saved by aged Amano who rekindles his spirit and wisely advises him to get out of Hiroshima and start his real life in the world beyond it…

Keiji Nakazawa’s broad cartoon art style has often been subject of heated discussion; his simplified Disney-esque rendering felt by some to be at odds with the subject matter, and perhaps diluting the impact of the message. I’d like to categorically refute that.

The style springs from his earliest influence, Osamu Tezuka, Father of Anime & God of Manga who began his career in 1946 and whose works – Shin Takarajima/New Treasure Island, Tetsuwan Atomu/Astro Boy and so many more – assuaged some of the grim realities of being hibakusha, providing escape, hope and even a career path to the young illustrator. Even at its most bleak and traumatic the epic never forgets to shade horror with humour and counterpoint crushing loss with fiery idealism and enthusiasm.

As such the clear line, solid black forms and abstracted visual motifs act as tolerable symbols for much of the horror in this parable. The art defuses but never dilutes the horror of the tragedy and its aftermath. The reader has to be brought through the tale to receive the message and for that purpose drawings are accurate, simplified and effective. The intent is not to repel (and to be honest, even as they are they’re still pretty hard to take) but to inform, to warn.

Shocking. Momentous. Bleak and violent but ultimately astoundingly uplifting, Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen is without peer and its legacy will be pervasive and long-lasting. So now you’ve been warned, buy this old book. Buy the entire series. Buy the new editions as they come out. Tell everyone you know about it. Barefoot Gen is an indisputable classic and should be available to absolutely everyone.
© 2009 Keiji Nakazawa. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Our Army At War


By Dave Wood, Robert Kanigher, David Khan, Hal Kantor, John Reed, France “Ed” Herron, William Woolfolk, John Reed, Art Wallace, Nat Barnett, Irv Novick, Carmine Infantino, Gene Colan, Bernie Krigstein, Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella, Bernard Sachs, Irwin Hasen, Bob Lander, Gil Kane, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Jerry Grandenetti, Bob Oksner, Mort Drucker, Sy Barry, Fred Ray, Eugene Hughes, Ray Burnley, Ray Schott & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1401229429 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In America following the demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s – and prior to Warren Publishing’s astounding Blazing Combat – the only certain place to find challenging, entertaining and often controversial American war comics was at DC. In fact, even as Archie Goodwin’s stunning yet tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a generation, the home of Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman was also a cornucopia of gritty, intriguing, beautifully illustrated battle tales presenting combat on a variety of fronts and from many differing points of view. As the very public Vietnam War escalated, and secret wars in central America festered unseen, 1960s America increasingly endured a Home Front death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youthful freedom-from-old-values-oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response, the military-themed comic books of DC (or rather National Periodical Publishing, as it then was) became ever bolder and more innovative…

That stellar and challenging creative period came to an end as all strip trends do, but some of the more impressive and popular features (Sgt. Rock, Haunted Tank, Unknown Soldier, The War That Time Forgot, The Losers, Enemy Ace) survived well into the second – post horror-boom – superhero revival as character not genre vehicles. Currently, English-language fans of war stories are grievously underserved in both print and digital formats, but this magnificent monochrome reprint compendium is still readily available. It collects Our Army At War #1-20, from August 1952 – March 1954. With war comics resurgent, it was a new anthology title that was on sale from June 11th 1952 which ran for 301 issues until March 1977, whereupon it was redesignated Sgt. Rock and soldiered on (sorry, couldn’t stop myself!) until #422 cover dated June 1988. The appeal of that style and genre has largely vanished from comic books but once, these were hugely popular casual entertainments for kids and others.

Pure anthology Our Army At War very much followed Harvey Kurtzman’s EC model for Two-Fisted Tales & Frontline Combat, primarily featuring the proud American fighting man on a variety of historical battlefronts including the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American War, WWI and Korean War even whilst concentrating the majority of its creative firepower on WWII – in which the target readership’s fathers and older relatives had just fought.

Sans ado or preamble, OAAW #1 opens with ‘Last Performance!’ as Dave Wood, Frank Giacoia & Joe Giella reveal how former acrobats Eddie March & Bert Brown escape a deadly German ambush thanks to their old act and a little common sense, after which Kanigher, Irv Novick & Bernard Sachs take us to the Pacific theatre of war and explain – without dialogue – how an entrenched marine patrol only survive Japanese scare tactics by when they ‘Dig Your Foxhole Deep!’

Fanciful – if not outright whimsical – notions proliferated in this era and David Khan, Irwin Hasen & Bob Lander gleefully kick off the practise as a Kentucky mountain man (and a dog!) unused to combat boots provides invaluable pedal intel at the Kasserine Pass thanks to ‘Radar Feet!’ prior to Dave Wood, Gil Kane & Giella ending the issue with inter service rivalry in the Pacific as ‘SOS Seabees!’ sees US troops and navy engineers forced to cooperate to survive…

In issue #2, Kanigher returned his much-loved boxing-as-combat metaphor in ‘Champ!’ with Carmine Infantino & Giella limning a yarn of sporting rivals meeting again over gunsights and in foxholes, before Dave Wood, Bob Oksner & Sachs depicted a tense moment as a sentry spots what might be Germans disguised as GIs in ‘Second Best!’, after which a soldiers takes drastic action to ensure a little peace and quiet to finish ‘A Letter from Joe!’ (by Hal Kantor, Mort Drucker & Lander). The issue ends on Khan, Novick & Lander’s ‘Survival for Shorty!’ as a sensitive short-tempered pee-wee powerhouse strives to proves he’s as big a man as any of his team as they raid a Japanese stronghold…

Kanigher, Novick & Sachs open #3 with the war deep inside a US Marine’s head as he endures the pressure of another ‘Patrol!’ even as Wood, Kane & Lander offer ‘No Exit!’ for former stunt-bikers Skeets & Wally when the former’s combat-trauma traps them behind enemy lines with crucial knowledge of a forthcoming surprise attack…

Kantor & Eugene Hughes then prove superstitious Roy has no need of his lost ‘Lucky Charm!’, before Kantor, Drucker & Lander complete the issue with the tale of ‘Frightened Hero!’ Perry Walters whose tardiness made him a lifelong mouse… until he hit the D-Day beaches…

The contemporaneous Korean conflict led in OAAW #4 where Kanigher, Novick & Sachs reveal the lonely response – and fate – of the ‘Last Man!’ in a unit wiped out by the pitiless enemy after which Kantor & Bernie Krigstein introduce a soldier hoping to take it easy until his ‘Replacement!’ shows up, before Kantor, Ray Schott & Lander, explore the job similarities of a peacetime mailman once more carrying a ‘Special Delivery!’ through the mud and weather of the 38th Parallel. Kantor, Jerry Grandenetti & Giella then finish the forays with an ironically barbed close look at the ‘Soft Job!’ tank men face every day in modern warfare…

Staying in Korea, #5 opens with Kanigher, Novick & Sachs wryly exploring the perennial problem of keepsakes in ‘Battle Souvenir!’, whilst Kantor, Oksner & Lander cover the other regular misdemeanour of illicit underage enlistment as a seasoned officer must act quickly after finding out the age of new unit replacement ‘Baby Face!’. Combat engineers then get a moment in the spotlight – and mud – blowing a crucial bridge in ‘T.N.T. Bouquet!’  courtesy of John Reed, Gene Colan & Sy Barry, after which Khan & Hughes detail the rocky ride of an elite ‘Ranger!’ in a unit of ordinary dogface… until the shooting starts…

Variety overrules contemporaneity in #6 as Kanigher, Novick & Sachs head back to the American Civil War for ‘Battle Flag!’: the lyrical tale of a grandfather recalling what carrying that bloody banner as boy-soldier cost, and followed by a highly experimental yarn from Kantor, Grandenetti & Ray Burnley that’s tantamount to science fiction, wherein a ‘Killer Sub!’ meets its fate. Robert Bernstein & Hughes take us to Korea next as a GI foils a cunning booby trap and makes a mortal enemy determined to have the ‘Last Laugh!’ at any cost before Kahn, Colan & Giella close the issue with the charming tale of a US soldier and a music (and democracy!) loving Korean boy happy to help out as ‘Kid Private!’…

Cover-dated February 1953 and on sale from December 10th 1952, OAAW #7 closed the first year with a mixed bag of yarns beginning with ‘Dive Bomber!’ by Kanigher, Grandenetti & Giella, wherein the novice team piloting a Curtiss Helldiver in a mass attack against the Japanese Navy are shot down and must survive all perils…

Kahn, Drucker, Lander then upgrade to Korea and trace the perilously peripatetic path of a US service pistol as narrated by ‘I, The Gun!’, prior to Reed, Colan & Lander detailing how lost puppy Tugger saves a doughboy patrol from murderous ‘Counterattack!’ before we close on alpine WWII combat as Wood, Colan & Giella’s ‘Mountain Trooper!’ learns a lesson about glamour jobs before returning to the good old infantry…

In #8, Kanigher & Novick’s ‘One Man Army!’ cogitates on being a cog in a massive war machine before single handedly conquering a communist Korean citadel, whilst Wood & Krigstein spectacularly play with the form in ‘Toy Soldier!’ – the short saga of an amazing inventor in the US trenches of the Great War. Reed & Colan then present ‘Rearguard!’ action as a lonely man holds off an unseen army and ponders his life before a brief cessation of hostilities as Wood, Grandenetti & Giella test argumentative sibling soldiers with roaring rapids, crucial supply deliveries and many, many murderous “commies” chasing then through the ‘Pusan Pocket!’…

Opening #9, uncanny coincidence and the powers of a jinx concern the crew of US submarine Flying Fish after picking up a message in a bottle written by members of their WWI namesake. The eerie tale of the ‘Undersea Raider!’ (by Kahn, Colan & Giella) ends badly and portentously for all before segueing into Wood, Grandenetti & Sachs’ generational saga of US pilots whose glorious deaths in combat overwhelm the latest scion and compel Joey Rickard to become a ‘Runaway Hero’ by joining the infantry in Korea. However, destiny is a harsh mistress…

Bernstein & Hughes test out motor pool instruction theory when novice corporal Jim Terris goes off book to deliver crucial supplies by making a ‘Fatal Choice!’ after which Kahn & Krigstein imaginatively refocus the ‘Eyes of the Artillery’ when a fighter pilot is forced to become a specialist bomber in primitive crate to destroy a deadly North Korean supergun…

Kanigher & Krigstein lead in #10, with Signal Corps veterans Don & Steve adding to their already lethal workload as ‘Soldiers of the High Wire’ when their commanding officer sanctions a broadcast for the folks back home and they have to keep the civilians alive and recording despite attacks from jets, tanks and even Korean guerillas…

‘Deadlock!’ by Wood, Colan & Giella then details how a downed American pilot and his Nazi counterpart are trapped in a standoff on a sinking submarine, each anticipating rescue by their side as time runs out. Next, Kantor, Grandenetti & Giella reveal how ‘Chessmen of War’ decide the course of a battle when captured Red Chinese Major Tao plays a fateful game with his US interrogator, after which we close on Kahn & Krigstein depict the ultimate triumph of a ‘Fighting Mess Sergeant’ taken prisoner by North Koreans…

Our Army At War #11 opens in the sky where Kanigher, Novick & Sachs compare the attitudes of Kamikaze pilots and US swabbies shooting them down in ‘Scratch One Meatball!’, whilst Kahn, Colan & Giella stick with the last days of WWII – specifically Luzon island – for ‘Guerilla Fighters’, where a grizzled yank sergeant and a young Filipino recruit make things hot for the embattled occupiers. Kantor & Hughes stick to same war but head to Europe for a ‘Combat Report’ as embedded war correspondent (albeit for a company newspaper) Davey Brown gets fed up with evasions from GIs and makes his own news before Wood & Krigstein return to Korea and depict how an embarrassing present from home can change a ‘Soldier’s Luck!’

William Woolfolk, Grandenetti & Giella secure pole position in #12 as ‘Flying Blind’ sees a cynical solitary US Navy pilot learn to trust when he is injured in mid-air even as Kahn, Colan & Giella oversee the reuniting of a team of track & field sportsmen on a Pacific island infested with Japanese killers and forced to endure a ‘Death Relay’ to survive, before Reed, Colan & Sachs define the ‘End of the Line!’ for a publicity-seeking fool who always had to be first in peacetime and paid the price for it in battle-shattered Belgium. Kanigher & Novick pause the fighting for the moment in a tale of performance anxiety as a paratrooper frets over ‘The Big Drop!’ on the night before D-Day…

Woolfolk, Grandenetti & Giella again lead in OAAW #13 as the torch of mentor/guardian passes from one pilot to another above bomb-shattered Japan in moody yarn ‘Ghost Ace!’, after which Wood, Novick & Sachs describe how ‘Combat Fever!’ chills one hypochondriac GI as his unit establish a beachhead on the ferociously occupied Solomon Islands. Human frailty and pomposity are punctured in Kahn, Colan & Giella’s ‘Phantom Frogman’ as a Navy hero describes the mysterious undersea guardian angel actually responsible for all his feats and medals before the issues closes on ‘Minuteman of Saratoga!’ by Nat Barnett & Krigstein wherein cocky young Roger Holcomb eventually proves his worth to his elders in the proud militia…

The concentration on American servicemen ended in #14 as Woolfolk & Krigstein share the militarily profound and uplifting tale of a boy more steadfast than Napolean himself and known forever after as the ‘Drummer of Waterloo’, before Kahn, Colan & Giella return to quarrelsome GIs in a foxhole inadvertently capture Nazi bigwigs in ‘Double or Nothing!’ Woolfolk, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito then detail the casual heroism of a military doctor who goes all out to save his patients as a ‘Soldier Without Armor’, in advance of the same author – with Grandenetti & Giella – exposing one soldier’s phobia over heavy ordnance… and how he was cured by a ‘Killer Tank’…

Kanigher, Novick & Sy Barry claimed the lead spot in #15 as ‘Thunder in the Skies’ exposed the pressures of night bombing raids over Germany as experienced by the waist gunner of a Flying Fortress, before Art Wallace, Colan & Sachs visit Italy as a history loving GI – one of the US divisions trying to kick out the Nazis – becomes an unwilling ‘Tourist with T.N.T.’ Reed, Colan & Giella then embrace 1918 and the Battle of Chateau Thierry as members of the 4th Marine Brigade take ‘A Sunday Walk’, into utter carnage before a ceasefire of sorts closes the issue with Reed, Grandenetti & Sachs’ ‘The Fifteen-Minute War’ – a brutal, barbaric fug-enshrouded 1942-set battle for Massacre Ridge on Attu in the Aleutians…

Obsessive hunger for vengeance grips hard in OAAW #16’s opener, ‘A Million-to-One Shot!’ as Kanigher, Novick & Giella detail how the lone survivor of a Japanese strafing attack on shipwrecked sailors turns into a quest spanning the entire Pacific war. Nat Barnett, Andru & Esposito cover a typically gung-ho ‘Battle of the Bugles!’ during the Spanish-American War’s attack on San Juan Hill, before Reed, Colan & Giella channel cyclic history for a 1940 ‘Last Stand!’ in the mountains of Greece with eerie echoes of 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. Ending on a lighter note, France “Ed” Herron, Andru & Esposito share the story of a street corner in liberated French city Metz that suddenly comes under Nazi attack with only a ‘Traffic Cop Soldier!’ to save the day…

Kanigher & Novick detail combat on skis to start #17, as ‘The White Death!’ follows an elite snow-skimming team ordered to take a key mountain pass untouchable by bomber raids, whilst Barnett, Colan & Giella draw the ‘Sword for a Statue’: revealing the strangest exploit of the War of 1812 and West Point’s mythology. Then, Wallace, Hughes & Giella recount an aspiring author’s ‘Battle Without Bullets!’ and unbelievable victory over his German captors, prior to Herron, Grandenetti & Sachs showing how a ‘Washed-Out Cadet!’ failure to make pilot officer is the Japanese’s loss after he finds his true killing calling…

Kahn, Colan & Giella open #18 in WWII as a Navy rescue helicopter pilot continually causes trouble in ‘The Duel’ by picking fights with Nazi infantry and even shipping and U-Boats, after which we head back to 1775 where ‘Frontier Fighter’ Mr. Wade casually and most effectively tramples all over the old-fashioned rules of combat held dear by his British employers and their French opponents in a frighteningly belligerent tale of early American exceptionalism from Barnett, Grandenetti & Sy Barry. Reed, Andru & Esposito then wittily address a fluke of combat as a simple corporal is rotated out before ever even seeing a Germen. Happily for him his ‘Delayed Action’ getting back to his lines more than makes up for his previous lack of stories to tell his kids. The issue closes with a more serious yarn from Woolfolk, Colan & Sachs as a sleep-deprived Pacific based Marine is constantly told to ‘Wake Up – And Fight!’

Penultimate inclusion OAAW #19 commences with Kanigher & Novick’s ‘The Big Ditch’ as a fighter pilot shot down by a Focke is picked by a Nazi crash boat and interrogated at a hidden rocket base before escaping and destroying it all. That remarkably low concept yarn is made up for by Woolfolk, Grandenetti & Giella’s ‘No Rank’ as damaged, isolated lone wolf Jack Randall learns the value and responsibilities of leadership, after which historical specialist/veteran Superman and Tomahawk illustrator Fred Ray delivers a potent paean to the Civil War with his Gettysburg-set ‘Stand-In Soldier’, after which Kahn, Colan & Giella play games as ‘G.I. Tarzan’ sees a former ape-man actor employ what he learned on set to flush out Japanese soldiers hiding in lush island jungles…

Closing this vintage veteran-fest, Our Army At War #20 (cover dated March 1954 and on sale from January 4th) sees Kanigher, Grandenetti & Sachs launch proceedings with the life story of USS Lion from the mustering of its crew to the Captain’s command to ‘Abandon Ship!’, whilst Joseph Daffron, Andru & Esposito more light-heartedly trace the fall and rise of a seemingly cursed B-25 bomber in ‘The Flying Crackerbox’. Herron & Frank Giacoia address the hostility and acrimony of defeated southern soldiers in ‘The Blue and the Gray’, and the epic war stories conclude for now with ‘T.N.T. Mail!’ by Woolfolk, Grandenetti & Giella wherein contented loner and voluntary outsider Charlet West at long last learns the value of comradeship during a colossal tank engagement…

With covers by Novick, Infantino, Giella, Giacoia, Kane, Colan, Krigstein & Grandenetti this compilation is technically excellent but suffers from many flaws caused by changing tastes and expanded consciousness. Bombastic, triumphalist and frequently overbearingly jingoistic, this mighty black-&-white treasure trove of combat classics also holds thoughtful, clever and even funny yarns of relatively ordinary guys in the worst times of their lives, making it a monument to a type and style (if not ideology) of storytelling we’re all the poorer without. Hopefully the publishers will wise up soon and begin restoring their like to the wide variety of genre sagas currently available in graphic collections…
© 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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1941 – The Illustrated Story


By Stephen Bissette, Rick Veitch & Allan Asherman (Heavy Metal Books/Arrow Books)

ISBN: 978-0- 09922-720-7 (HMB) 978-0-09922-720-5 (Arrow Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

This book includes Discriminatory Content intended for dramatic and satirical effect.

It’s not often that I get to review a graphic adaptation that surpasses the source material, but this odd little item certainly does that. I’ll leave it to your personal tastes to determine if that’s because of the comic creators or simply because the movie under fire here wasn’t all that great to begin with…

Written by Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale and John Milius, 1941 was a big budget screwball comedy starring some of the greatest comedy talents of the day. It was also youngish Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster follow-up to Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but did not nearly receive the same kind of accolades and approbation.

The plot, adapted by Allan Asherman, concerns a certain night in December of that year when Hollywood was panicked by some “sightings” and many panicked reports of Japanese planes and submarines. One week after the devastation of Pearl Harbor, much of the USA – particularly its West Coast – was terrified of an invasion by the Imperial Forces of Emperor Hirohito. To be fair so were most of the white colonised Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand…

In this tale, one lone sub, borrowed from the Nazis, actually fetches up on the balmy shores of La-La land, but is largely ignored by the populace. The panic actually starts when gormless “Zoot-Suiters” Wally & Denny use an air-raid siren to distract store patrons and staff so that they can shop-lift new outfits, and inevitably peaks later when these feckless wastrels start a fist-fight at a USO (United Services Organisation) Dance. From there on, chaos and commotion carry this tale to its calamitous conclusion…

For the film that premise and delivery isn’t too successful, burdened as it is by leaden direction and a dire lack of spontaneity. However, all the frenetic energy and mania that was absent on screen is present in overwhelming abundance in the comic art of Steve Bissette (Swamp Thing, Taboo, 1963, Tyrant) & Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing, Army@Love, Heartburst, The One, Can’t Get No, 1963, Miracleman).

Taking their cue from the classic Mad Magazine work of the 1950s, they produced a riot of colour pages for the tie-in album reminiscent of Underground Comix and brimming with extra sight-gags, dripping bad-taste and irony, and combining raw, exciting painted art with collage and found imagery.

It’s not often that I say the story isn’t important in a graphic package, but this is one of those times. 1941 – The Illustrated Story is a visual treat and a fine example of two major creators’ earlier – and decidedly more experimental – days. If you get the chance, it’s a wild ride you should take. You can even shade your late-arriving curiosity in terms of “research” as we head towards the 80th anniversary of VJ Day if it makes you feel better…
© 1979 Universal City Studios, Inc. and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.