Category: Humour

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Melusine volume 5: Tales of the Full Moon


By Clarke & Gilson, coloured by Cerise; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)

ISBN: 978-1-84918-212-6 (album TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Historically, whenever we used to feel out of sorts we’d consult the wise women to pull our fat out of the fire. Thus as we’re still sick and I’m out of pre-completed reviews here’s a sample of that and me being too clever for my own good.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings…

Witches – especially cute, sassy and/or teenaged ones – have a surprisingly long pedigree in all branches of fiction, and one of the most seductively engaging first appeared in venerable Belgian comic Le Journal de Spirou way back in 1992.

Mélusine is actually a sprightly (119 years old) neophyte sorceress diligently studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School. To make ends meet she spends her off-duty moments working as au pair/general dogsbody to a shockingly disreputable family of haunts & horrors inhabiting and/or infesting a vast, monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau during some chronologically adrift, anachronistically awry time in the Middle-ish Ages…

Episodes of the much-loved feature are presented in every format from one-page gag strips to full-length comedy tales; each and all riffing wickedly on supernatural themes and detailing Melusine’s rather fraught existence. Our magical maid’s life is filled with daily indignities: skivvying, studying, catering to the appalling and outrageous domestic demands of the master and mistress of the castle and – far too occasionally – schmoozing with a large and ever-increasing circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.

The strip was devised by writer Françoise Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and cartoon humourist Frédéric Seron – AKA Clarke – whose numerous features for all-ages LJdS and acerbic adult humour Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continué… and Le Miracle de la Vie. Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and as “Bluttwurst” Les Enqu?tes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is unremittingly funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical & genre pieces like Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes. He was obviously cursed by some sorceress and can no longer enjoy the surcease of sleep…

Collected Mélusine editions began appearing annually or better from 1995 onwards, with the 27th published in 2019. Thus far thanks to Cinebook, five of those have shape-shifted into English translations, but there have been ads for a sixth…

Continentally released in October 2002, Contes de la pleine lune was the 10th groovy grimoire of mystic mirth and is again most welcoming: primarily comprised of single or 2-page gags starring the enticing enchantress and delightfully eschewing continuity for the sake of new readers’ instant approbation. When brittle, moody, over-stressed Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle; ducking cat-eating monster Winston; dodging frisky vampire The Count or avoiding unwelcome and often hostile attentions of horny peasants and over-zealous witch-hunting priests, the wily witchlette can usually be found practising spells or consoling/coaching inept, un-improvable and lethally unskilled classmate Cancrelune.

Unlike Mel, this sorry sorceress-in-training is a real basket case: her transformation spells go appallingly awry; she can’t remember incantations and her broomstick-riding makes her a menace to herself, any unfortunate observers… and even the terrain and buildings around her.

As the translated title suggests, Tales of the Full Moon dwells on demolishing fairy fables and bedevilling bedtime stories but also gives proper introduction to Mel’s best friend Krapella: a rowdy, roistering, mischievous and disruptive classmate who is the very image of what boys want in a “bad” witch…

This tantalising tome is filled with narrative nostrums featuring the traditional melange of slick sight gags and pun-ishing pranks highlighting how our legerdemainic lass finds a little heart’s ease by picturing how one day she’ll have her very own Prince Charming. Sadly, every dream ends – usually because there’s something sticky that needs cleaning up – but Melusine absolutely draws the line when Cancrelune (and even her own sweetness-&-light Fairy cousin Melisande!) start hijacking her daydreams…

This fusillade of fanciful forays concludes with eponymously titled, extended episode Tales of the Full Moon wherein Melusine is ordered to read a bedtime story to the Count’s cousin’s son: obnoxiously rambunctious junior vampire Globule, who insists on twisting her lovely lines about princesses and princes into something warped and Gothic… and even that’s before Cancrelune starts chipping in with her own weird, wild suggestions and interjections…

Wacky, wry, sly, infinitely inventive and uproariously funny, this arty arcana of arcane antics is a terrific taste of Continental comics wonderment: a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art. Read well before bedtime – or you’ll be up laughing all night…
Original edition © Dupuis, 2002 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2014 © Cinebook Ltd.

Speaking of Dark Nights, today in 1915 Bob Kane was born. Whatever happened to him?
Today in 1906 Golden Age comics scripter Joe Samachson was born. He’s all over this blog so just initiate a little search dialogue action to know more.

And in 1938 the inimitable E.C. “Elzie” Segar died. We last worshipped at his salty feet with Popeye: The E.C. Segar Popeye Sundays volume 4: Swea’Pea and Eugene the Jeep (February 1936 – October 1938); so should you as soon as possible.

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Chas Addams Happily Ever After: A Collection of Cartoons to Chill the Heart of You


By Charles Addams (Simon & Schuster)
ISBN: 978-1-43910-356-2 (PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. It also has Discriminatory Content included for comedic and satirical effect.

Cartoonist Charles Samuel Addams (1912-1988) was a distant descendant of two American Presidents (John Adams & John Quincy Adams). He compounded that hereditary infamy by perpetually making his real life as extraordinary as his dark, mordantly funny drawings.

Born into a successful family in Westfield, New Jersey, the precocious, prankish, constantly drawing child was educated at the town High School, Colgate University, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York City’s Grand Central School of Art, and apparently spent the entire time producing cartoons and illustrations for a raft of institutional publications.

In 1932 he became a designer for True Detective magazine – “retouching photos of corpses” – and soon after started selling drawings to The New Yorker. In 1937, at the peak of popular fascination in cinematic and literary horror stories, he began a ghoulish if not outright macabre sequence of family portraits that ultimately became his signature creation. However, during WWII, he toned down the terror and served with the US Signal Corps Photographic Center, devising animated training films for the military.

Whether Addams artfully manufactured his biography to enhance his value to feature writers or was genuinely a warped and wickedly wacky individual is irrelevant, although it makes for great reading – especially the stuff about his wives – and, as always, the internet is eager to be your informative friend…

What is important is that in all the years he drew and painted those creepily sardonic, gruesome gags and illustrations for The New Yorker, Colliers, TV Guide and so many others, he beguiled and enthralled his audience with a devilish mind and a soft, gentle approach that made him a household name long before television turned his characters into a hit. This was a substantial part of what generated the craze for monsters and grotesques that lasts to this day. That eminence was only magnified once the big screen iterations debuted. And now we have streaming fun too. He would have loved the sheer terrifying inescapability of it all…

As he worked on unto death, Addams got even wackier: marrying his third wife in a pet cemetery, spending an absolute fortune collecting weapons and torture devices – “for reference don’cha know” – and inventing… recipes…

There will be more on that last one another time but what really matters is that older collections of his oeuvre are finally being unearthed. This one – compiled from Addams’s personal archive, with many previously unpublished gems, explores the widest gamut of emotion, from ecstatic love to disappointed affection to murderous obsession. It’s a creepy corker demonstrating that love really does hurt…

Chas Addams Happily Ever After: A Collection of Cartoons to Chill the Heart of You opens in full scholar mode with ‘Chas Addams’ a photo-essay appreciation by H. Kevin Miserocchi, backed up by an explanation of the work of the ‘Tee and Charles Addams Foundation’ – remembering of course that the Tee here is his truly kindred spirit third wife Marilyn Matthews Miller-Addams (1926–2002).

Then the cartoon carnival commences with early works as ‘In the Beginning’ sets the cultural scene with crime, terror, murder and the ever-lurking supernatural before the remainder of the perilous pictorium offers insights into what used to be called “the war of the sexes”. This socially sensitive selection judiciously deals even handedly with ‘His Side’ and ‘Her Side’ before going on to test ‘His Resolve’ and ‘Her Resolve’…

The matter is naturally settled in revelatory style with ‘The Final Score’…

For clarity and pure knowledge this hilariously judgemental tome closes with a full list of ‘Dates of First Publication’ and the happy confirmation that a goodly proportion of the gags are new/unpublished until this time.

Should you not be as familiar with his actual cartoons as with the big and small screen legacy Addams unleashed, you really owe it to yourself to see the uncensored brilliance of one of America’s greatest humourists. It’s dead funny…
© 2006 by Tee and Charles Addams Foundation. All rights reserved.

Today in 1897 English writer & cartoonist Charles Henry Ross died. He’s one of the chaps accused of inventing comics with his disreputable rogue Ally Sloper. The closest we’ve got yet to exposing that rapscallion was in Great British Comics.

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O Josephine!


By Jason (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-210-6 (HB/digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic, comedic and ironic effect.

Born in 1965 in Molde, Norway, John Arne Sæterøy is known globally by his enigmatic, utilitarian nom de plume Jason. The shy & retiring auteur 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.

From 1987 he had contributed to alternate/indie magazine KonK while studying graphic design and illustration at Oslo’s Art Academy. From there he went on to Norway’s National School of Arts and, after graduating in 1994, founded his own comic book Mjau Mjau. Constantly refining his style into a potent form of meaning-mined anthropomorphic minimalism, Jason cites Lewis Trondheim, Jim Woodring & Tex Avery as primary influences. Moving to Copenhagen Jason worked at Studio Gimle alongside Ole Comoll Christensen (Excreta, Mar Mysteriet Surn/Mayday Mysteries, Den Anden Praesident, Det Tredje Ojet) & 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 in 2002 turned nigh-exclusively to producing graphic novels. He won even more major awards.

Jason’s breadth of interest is wide and deep: comics, movies, animated cartoons, music, 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 re-employed a repertory company of stock characters to explore deceptively simplistic milieux based on classic archetypes distilled from 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. Latterly, 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 master of short-form illustrated tales, many Jason yarns were released as snappy little albums perfect for later inclusion in longer anthology collections like this one which gathers a quartet of his very best.

Here the stream of subtle wonderment opens with a suitably understated autobiographical jaunt to the land of Erin and an uneventful but truly mind-blowing progression along ‘The Wicklow Way’. The vacation hikes might be scenic and uneventful, but you’re never alone as long as you’re stuck inside your own head…

With the addition of a jaundiced inky outlook (and employing “yellow journalism” of the most literal kind) ‘L. Cohen: A Life’ then outlines the experiences and times of the poet, musician and philosopher, with a strong emphasis on whimsical inaccuracy and factual one-upmanship, whilst cinematic classicism underpins ‘The Diamonds’ wherein a pair of softened and barely-boiled detectives lose all objectivity after their scrupulous surveillance of a simple family affects their own hidden lives…

The low-key dramatics slip back into monochrome and into the twilight zone after weary world traveller Napoleon Bonaparte returns to Paris and falls head over shiny heels for infamous exotic dancer Josephine Baker. As with all doomed romances, the path to happiness is rocky, dangerous, and potentially insurmountable, but… c’est l’amour!

These comic tales are strictly for adults but allow us all to look at the world through wide-open childish eyes, exploring love, loss, life, death, boredom and all aspects of relationship politics without ever descending into mawkishness or simple, easy buffoonery. His buffoonery is always slick and deftly designed for maximum effect.

Jason remains a taste instantly acquired: a creator any true fan of the medium should move to the top of their “Must-Have” list.
All characters, stories, and artwork © 2019 Jason. This edition © Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1913 comics legend Joe Simon was born. I’m sure you’ve read all those great books he & Jack Kirby co-created, but if you haven’t, why not try The Sandman by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby?

In 1957 French comics genius Edmond-François Calvo died. You can not until you read his masterwork La Bête Est Mort which we reviewed as The Beast is Dead: World War II Among the Animals and will probably do again real soon.

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Showcase Presents Dial H for Hero


By Dave Wood, Jim Mooney, George Roussos, Frank Springer, Sal Trapani, Jack Sparling & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2648-0 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In the mid-Sixties the entire world went crazy for costumed crusaders and every comic book publisher (and some who weren’t) frantically sought new ways to repackage an extremely exciting yet intrinsically limited concept. Perhaps its ultimate expression – for Americans at least as UK comics were always skewing the curves – came with the creation of a teen-aged everyman champion who battled crime and disaster in his little town with the aid of a fantastic wonder-tool…

This slim monochrome paperback compendium collects the entire eclectic run from House of Mystery (#156, January 1966 to #173, March-April 1968), after which the title vanished for a few months, only to re-emerge as DC’s first new anthological supernatural mystery title and next big publishing sensation…

Created by Dave Wood & Jim Mooney, Dial H For Hero detailed the incredible adventures of lonely boy genius Robby Reed who lived with his grandfather in idyllic Littleville: a genial small town where nothing ever happened…

Born in Arlington, Massachusetts on September 5th 1926, Dave Silva worked prodigiously in comics as Dave Wood, as did his brothers Bob Wood and Dick Wood. Their father was a doctor who blotted his copybook so badly that the family had their surname legally changed sometime after 1932.

Dave’s brothers got into making comics early – founding a studio shop with Charles (Airboy, Crime Does Not Pay, The Little Wise Guys) Biro – and Dave joined them before his war service as an army reporter in 1944. He returned and blossomed into a go-to writer in many genres. His prolific output really began in the post-superhero days of AUS comic books and includes such seminal classics – often with artistic legends Jack Kirby and Wally (no-relation) Wood) – as Challengers of the Unknown and seminal Space Race newspaper strip Sky Masters. A skilled jobbing writer, Wood frequently and closely collaborated with brother Dick. They bounced around the industry, scripting mystery, war, science fiction and he-man adventure yarns. Amongst his/their vast credits are stints on Danger Trail, Our Army at War, most Superman family titles, Batman, Detective Comics, World’s Finest Comics, Green Arrow, Rex the Wonder Dog, Tomahawk, Blackhawk, Martian Manhunter and so many more. As well as Dial H For Hero Dave Wood created bizarre sleeper hit Animal Man and the esoteric but fondly regarded Ultra, the Multi-Alien. He was Bob Kane’s ghost writer and co-created eccentric villains Mister Zero/Mr Freeze, Doctor Double X and the Terrible Trio/The Fox, the Shark and the Vulture. He died far, far too young on July 7th 1974

The majority of the illustration was left to capable, unflappable, slick James Noel Mooney. He started his comics career in 1940, aged 21, working for the Eisner & Eiger production shop, and at Fiction House on The Moth, Camilla, Suicide Smith and other B-features. By the end of that year he was a mainstay of Timely Comic’s vast funny animal/animated cartoon tie-in department.

In 1946, he migrated to National/DC to ghost Batman for Bob Kane & Dick Sprang. He stayed until 1968, a regular on a host of key features including Superman, Superboy, Legion of Super-Heroes, World’s Finest Comics and Tommy Tomorrow, as well as many genre short stories for the company’s assorted anthology titles like Tales of the Unexpected and House of Mystery. He famously drew Supergirl from her series debut in Action Comics #253 to #373. He returned to Marvel in the late 1960s, delivering stellar runs on Spider-Man, Marvel Team-up, Omega the Unknown, Man-Thing, Ghost Rider and a host of other features including early adults-only feature Pussycat as both penciller and inker. Prior to that move he was illustrating Dial H For Hero; the only original DC feature he co-created.

Big things were clearly expected of the new feature, which was parachuted in as lead and cover feature, demoting the venerable Martian Manhunter J’onn J’onzz to a back-up role at the rear of each issue. Cover dated January 1966 (and on sale from November 18th 1965) House of Mystery #156 kicked off the strange adventures with an untitled tale that opens in an attack on the local chemical works by super-scientific criminal organisation Thunderbolt. This occurs just as young Robby and his pals are playing in the hills above the site. As they flee, the plucky kid is caught in a landslide and falls into an ancient cave where lies hidden an obviously alien artefact… that looks like an outlandish rotary telephone dial. If these words mean nothing to you, feel free to investigate on-line…

After finding his way out of the cavern Robby becomes obsessed with the device and spends all his time attempting to translate the arcane hieroglyphs on it. Eventually he determines that they are instructions to dial the dial symbols which roughly translate to “H”, “E”, “R” and “O”…

Ever curious, Robby complies and is suddenly transformed into a colossal super-powered Giantboy, just in time to save a crashing airliner and quash another Thunderbolt raid. On returning home, he simply reverses the dialling process and goes to bed…

These were and still are perfect wish-fulfilment stories: uncluttered, uncomplicated yarns concealing no grand messages or themes: just straight entertainment expertly undertaken by experienced and gifted craftsmen who knew how to reach their young-at-heart audiences. After all, what right minded child wouldn’t rush out and DO GOOD if they got superpowers?

Thus, no-one is surprised at the ease with which Robby adapts to his new situation. When Thunderbolt strikes again next morning Robby grabs his dial but is startled to become a different hero – high-energy being The Cometeer. Streaking to the rescue Robby is overcome by the raider’s super weapon and forced dial back into being a boy again. Undeterred, he later tries again and as The Mole finally tracks the villains to their base and crushes them. The leader escapes, however, to become the series’ only returning villain…

Mr. Thunder was back in the next issue as Robby became The Human, Bullet, bestial energy-being Super-Charge and eerie alien Radar-Sonar Man to combat ‘The Marauders from Thunderbolt Island’ after which criminal scientist Daffy Dagan steals the H-Dial after defeating the boy’s next temporary alter ego Quake-Master. Dagan becomes a horrifying multi-powered monster when he learns to ‘Dial… V… For Villain’ but after the defeated hero takes back the artefact, Robby redials into techno-warrior The Squid and belatedly saves the day. Clearly the Mystery in House of… was related to where the Dial came from, what its unknown parameters were and especially who or what Robby would transform into next…

HoM #159 pitted The Human Starfish, Hypno-Man and super-powered toddler Mighty Moppet (wielding weaponised baby bottles) in single combats with a shape-shifting bandit gang dubbed ‘The Clay-Creep Clan’ whilst ‘The Wizard of Light’ played with the format by introducing a potential love-interest for Robby in his best friend’s cousin Suzy. It also saw the return of Giant-Boy, introduction of sugar-based sentinel of justice King Candy and the lad’s only transformation into an already established hero – Golden Age legend Plastic Man.

Cynical me suspects the move was a tester to see if the Pliable Paladin – who had been an inert resource since the company had bought out original publisher Quality Comics in 1956 – was ripe for a relaunch in the new, superhero-hungry environment.

DC’s Plastic Man #1 was released five months later…

House of Mystery #161 featured awesome ancient Egyptian menace ‘The Mummy with Six Heads’ who proved too much for Robby as Magneto (same powers but so very not a certain Marvel villain) and Hornet-Man, but not intangible avenger Shadow-Man who eventually triumphed, whilst in the next issue ‘The Monster-Maker of Littleville’ is proved by Mr. Echo and Future-Man to be less mad scientist than greedy entrepreneur. Then, ‘Baron Bug and his Insect Army’ almost ends Robby’s clandestine career when the boy turns into two heroes at once. However, even though celestial twins Castor and Pollux are overmatched, animated slinky-toy King Coil proves sufficient to stamp out the Baron’s giant mini-beasts. Human wave Zip Tide, living star Super Nova and Robby the Super-Robot are then increasingly hard-pressed to stop the rampages of ‘Dr. Cyclops – the Villain with the Doomsday Stare’, but eventually overcome the outrageous odds – and oddness…

Things got decidedly peculiar in #165 when a clearly malfunctioning H-Dial called up ‘The Freak Super-Heroes’ – Whoozis, Whatsis and Howzis – to battle Dr. Rigoro Mortis and his artificial thug Super-Hood in a bizarrely captivating romp with what looks like some unacknowledged inking assistance from veteran brush-meister George Roussos (who popped in a couple more times until Mooney’s departure).

Suzy became a fixture and moved into the house next door with ‘The King of the Curses!’ He found his schemes to plunder the city thwarted by The Yankee-Doodle Kid and Chief Mighty Arrow, a war-bonneted “Indian brave” on a winged horse, before in HoM #167, ‘The Fantastic Rainbow Raider’ easily defeated Balloon Boy and Muscle Man but had no defence against returning Radar-Sonar Man. Next ‘The Marauding Moon Man’ easily overmatched Robby as The Hoopster, but had no defence when another glitch turned old incarnations The Mole and Cometeer into a single heroic composite imaginatively christened Mole-Cometeer. The biggest shock of all came when ‘The Terrible Toymaster’ defeats Robby – AKA Velocity Kid – and Suzy cajoles the fallen hero into dialling her into the scintillating Gem Girl to finish the mission.

Of course, as it was the 1960s, plucky Suzy didn’t quite manage on her own, but after Robby transforms into psionically potent Astro, Man of Space they soon closed the case – and toybox – for good. This one was all Mooney and so was the next, which turned out to be the artist’s last hurrah with the Kid of a Thousand Capes. ‘Thunderbolt’s Secret Weapon’ saw the crooks cartel seek to steal a supercomputer, only to be stopped dead by Baron Buzz-Saw, Don Juan (and his magic sword!) and the imposing Sphinx-Man. With House of Mystery #171 a radical new look emerged, as well as a darker tone. The writing was clearly on the wall for exuberant, angst-free adventurers…

‘The Micro-Monsters!’ was illustrated by Frank Springer and saw Robby dial up King Viking – Super Norseman, Go-Go (a fab hipster who utilised the incredible powers of popular disco dances… and how long have I waited to type that line?) and multi-powered Whirl-I-Gig to defeat bio-terrorist Doc Morhar and his belligerent invaders from a sub-atomic dimension. Springer also drew ‘The Monsters from the H-Dial’, wherein the again on-the-fritz gear simultaneously turns Reed’s friend Jim into assorted ravening horrors every time Robby dials up. Luckily the unnamed animated Pendulum, Chief Mighty Arrow and the Human Solar Mirror our hero successively turns into prove just enough to stop the beasts until the canny boy can apply his trusty screwdriver to the incredible artefact once again.

In those distant days series ended abruptly, without fanfare and often in the middle of something… and such was the fate of Robby Reed. HoM #173, by Wood & Sal Trapani, saw the lad solve a mystery in ‘The Revolt of the H-Dial’, wherein the process reshapes him into water-breathing Gill-Man and a literal Icicle Man: beings not only unsuitable for life on Earth but also compelled to commit crimes. Happily by the time Robby dials into Strata Man he’s deduced what outside force is affecting his dangerously double-edged device…

And that was that. The series was gone, the market was again abandoning Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy and on the immediate horizon lay a host of war, western, barbarian and horror comics…

Exciting, fun, inspirational, imaginatively engaging and silly in equal amounts (heck, even I couldn’t resist a jibe or too and I genuinely revere these daft, nostalgia-soaked gems), Dial H For Hero has been re-imagined many times since these innocent odysseys first ran, but never with the clear-cut, unsophisticated, welcoming charm displayed here.

This was Ben-10 (remember him?) for your granddad’s generation and perhaps your kid’s delectation: and only if they’re at just that certain age. Certainly you’re too grown up to enjoy these glorious classics. Surely you couldn’t be that lucky; could you?
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 2010 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Today in 1950 comics iconoclast and creative pioneer Howard Chaykin was born. You should track down American Flagg! and his interpretation of The Shadow but don’t miss Ironwolf: Fires of the Revolution. One year later international comics legend Enki Bilal did likewise, before going on to create masterpieces such as Century’s End: The Black Order Brigade & The Hunting Party.

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Planet of Science – The Universal Encyclopedia of Scientists


By Antonio Fischetti & Bouzard, translated by James Hogan (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital only

Comics and graphic novels have an inconceivable power to deliver information in readily accessible form, and – like all the best teachers – can do so in ways that are fascinating, fun and therefore unforgettable.

A prime example is 2019’s La Planète des sciences – Encyclopédie universelle des scientifiques – which is available digitally in English if STILL not yet as a solidly reassuring tome. A bright and breezy introduction to a number of researchers and discoverers, famed and not, it combines a page of personal history, biography and unflinching commentary on 37 notable personages who have added to global scientific knowledge, each accompanied by a smart, punchy and pertinent gag strip by underground cartoonist Guillaume Bouzard (Caca bemol, Je veux travailler pour le Canard enchaîné, Lucky Luke).

Presenting the facts is Dr Antonio Fischetti, author (Cats and Dogs under the scientist’s magnifying glass, Idiotic and Relevant Questions about Mankind); science journalist; educator (at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris, Louis Lumière School and La Femis); and author of a science column for illustrious truth-seeking organ Charlie Hebdo.

The Continent is happily, gloriously awash with factual albums and graphic novels – and not just biographies – and this is one of the most entertaining I’ve ever seen, opening with Dr. Fischetti’s explanatory postulate on why these particular 37 candidates and his cognitive methodology, before the visual revelations begin. Sub-divided into rough, often overlapping time frames it all starts in Ancient Greece with the lowdown and high points of Thales, Pythagoras, Hippocrates and Archimedes, before jumping to 780-850CE for the story of Al-Khwarizmi.

Traversing the 15th – 16th Century, we meet Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolaus Copernicus, Ambroise Paré, Giordano Bruno & Galileo, before 17th – 18th Century pioneers Rene Decartes, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Isaac Newton, Carl Linnaeus and Antoine Lavoisier get their moment in history’s hindsight and spotlight. As big, deep thinking becomes more widespread, representing the 19th Century are Charles Darwin, Claud Bernard, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, Alfred Nobel (suck it, Donny-baby!) and Dmitri Mendeleev, after which the revolutionary 19th – 20th Century hones in on Ivan Pavlov, Max Planck, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Alfred Wegener, Alexander Fleming, Erwin Schrödinger and Trofim Lysenko. By now it’s probably clear to most of you that this is no simple hagiography: some of the folk here are included because of their effect on scientific progress and it’s not all smiles, acclaim and awards…

The procession of progress pauses with the 20th – 21st Century (because, as of this writing, time travel has not been satisfactorily confirmed or reproduced under laboratory conditions) with controversial and occasionally still-living paragons Konrad Lorenz, Alan Turing, Alexander Grothendieck, James Watson, Peter Higgs, Yves Coppens, Emmanuelle Charpentier and the recently lost and already hugely missed Jane Goodall. Sure, you could Google them, but this book is a far more satisfying alternative…

The very fact that you probably haven’t heard of some of these latter savants – or even a few of the more ancient ones – only proves without doubt that you need this book. QED: What more can one say?
© 2020 DARGAUD – Fischetti & Bouzard. All rights reserved.

Today in 1913, comic book pioneer, cover artist and co-creator of Zatara Fred Guardineer was born, whilst in 1924 the legendary Harvey Kurtzman took his first peep at reality and probably started taking critical notes. We last spotlighted the inventor of Mad Magazine in Harvey Kurtzman’s Marley’s Ghost.

And today in 1982 the world was lessened by the passing of wondrous Noel Sickles, whom we loved most for such astounding strip work as Scorchy Smith: Partners in Danger.

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The Complete Peanuts volume 1: 1950-1952


By Charles Schulz (Canongate Books/Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-589-2 (Fantagraphics HB) 978-1-60699-763-5 (Fantagraphics TPB) 978-1-84767-031-1 (Canongate)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: All that’s great about cartoon strips… 10/10

Peanuts is unequivocally the most important comics strip in the history of graphic narrative. It is also the most deeply personal. Today in 1950 it all began, and cartoonist Charles M Schulz went on crafting his moodily hilarious, hysterically introspective, shockingly surreal philosophical epic for half a century: 17,897 strips spanning October 2nd 1950 to February 13th 2000.

He died from complications of cancer the day before his last strip was printed.

At its height, Peanuts ran in 2,600 newspapers, in 21 languages and in 75 countries. Many of those venues still run it as perpetual reprints, and have ever since his death. During Schulz’s lifetime, book collections, a merchandising mountain and television spin-offs had made the publicity-shy doodler an actual billionaire at a time when that really meant something…

None of that matters. Peanuts – a title Schulz loathed, but one the syndicate forced upon him – changed the way comics strips were received and perceived: proving cartoon comedy could have edges and nuance and meaning as well as soon-forgotten pratfalls and punchlines.

Following a typically garrulous, charming and informative Introduction from fellow Minnesotan Garrison Keillor, this mammoth (218 x 33x 172 mm) landscape compendium offers the first two and a bit years. Here a prototypical, rather outgoing and jolly Charlie Brown and high-maintenance mutt Snoopy joined with bombastic Shermy and mercurial Patty in hanging out doing kid things.

These include playing, playing pranks, playing sports such as tennis, golf and baseball, playing musical instruments, teasing each other, making baffled observations and occasionally acting a bit too much like grown-ups. Fans of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes will feel eerie familiarity with much of the hijinks and larks of these episodes.

As new characters Violet, infant prodigy Schroeder, and Lucy and her strange baby brother Linus were added to the mix, the boisterous rush of the series began to imperceptibly settle into a more contemplative pace. Charlie Brown began to adopt and embrace his eternal loser, singled-out-by-fate persona and the sheer diabolical wilfulness of Lucy began to sharpen itself on everyone around her…

The first Sunday page debuted on January 6th 1952; a standard half-page slot offering more measured fare than the daily. Both thwarted ambition and explosive frustration became part of the strip’s signature denouements…

By the end of 1952, all those the rapid-fire gags had evolved from raucous slapstick to surreal, edgy, psychologically barbed introspection, garnished by crushing judgements and deep rumination in a world where kids – and certain animals – were the only actors. The relationships, however, were increasingly deep, complex and absorbing even though “Sparky” Schulz never deviated from his core message: entertain…

David Michaelis then celebrates and deconstructs ‘The Life and Times of Charles M. Schulz’ after which Gary Groth & Rick Marschall conduct ‘An Interview with Charles M. Schulz’, rounding out our glimpse of the dolorous graphic genius with intimate revelations and reminiscences whilst a copious ‘Index’ offers instant access to favourite scenes you’d like to see again.

Readily available in hardcover, paperback and digital editions, this initial volume offers a rare example of a masterpiece in motion: comedy gold and social glue gradually metamorphosing in an epic of spellbinding graphic mastery which became part of the fabric of billions of lives, and which continues to do so long after its maker’s passing.

Happy ever afters, kids.
The Complete Peanuts: 1950-1952 (volume 1) © 2004 Peanuts Worldwide, LLC. Introduction © 2004 Garrison Keillor. “The Life and Times of Charles M. Schulz” © 2000 David Michaelis. “Interview with Charles M. Schulz” © 2004 Gary Groth and Richard Marschall. All other material copyright its respective owners. All rights reserved.

Today in 1909 Alex Raymond was born. You’ll know him best for stuff like Flash Gordon on the Planet Mongo volume 1: Sundays 1934-1937 (The Complete Flash Gordon Library. In 1916 Bob Powell, was born. He went on to do things like Bob Powell’s Complete Jet Powers.

Ramona Fradon was born in 1926, and Spirou stalwart Janry arrived in Belgium in 1957, whilst Maltese docu-comics journalist Joe Sacco was born in 1960. You can find dozens of books by the first two just by using a search box here, and I’ve almost summoned enough nerve to review Sacco’s Palestine despite – or because of – these febrile times…

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Addams and Evil


By Charles Addams (Methuen/Mandarin)
ISBN: 978-0-413-55370-1 (Album PB) 978-0-413-57190-8 (Album HB) 978-0-413-55370-6 (Mandarin TPB)

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

Charles Samuel Addams (1912 – 1988) was a cartoonist and distant descendant of two American Presidents (John Adams & John Quincy Adams) who made his real life as extraordinary as his dark, mordantly funny drawings.

Born into a successful family in Westfield, New Jersey, the precocious, prankish, constantly drawing child was educated at the town High School, Colgate University, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York City’s Grand Central School of Art, and apparently spent the entire time producing cartoons and illustrations for a raft of institutional publications.

In 1932 he became a designer for True Detective magazine – “retouching photos of corpses” – and soon after began selling drawings to The New Yorker. In 1937 he began creating ghoulish if not outright macabre family portraits that become his signature creation. During WWII, he served with Signal Corps Photographic Center, devising animated training films for the military.

Whether he artfully manufactured his biography to enhance his value to feature writers or was genuinely a warped and wickedly wacky individual is irrelevant, although it makes for great reading – especially the stuff about his second wife – and, as always, the internet awaits the siren call of your search engine…

What is important is that in all the years he drew and painted those creepily sardonic, gruesome gags and illustrations for The New Yorker, Colliers, TV Guide and so many others, he managed to beguile and enthral his audience with a devilish mind and a soft, gentle approach that made him a household name long before television turned his characters into a hit and generated a juvenile craze for monsters and grotesques that lasts to this day. That eminence was only magnified once the big screen iterations debuted. And now we have streaming fun too. He would have loved the sheer terrifying inescapability of it all…

This stunningly enticing volume is a reissue of his second collection of cartoons, first published in 1947, and semi-occasionally since then. It’s still readily available if you’ve a big bank book, but the time is ripe for a definitive collected edition, or better yet a reissue of his entire canon (eleven volumes of drawings and a biography) either in print or digitally.

Should you not be as familiar with his actual cartoons as with their big and small screen descendants you really owe it to yourself to see the uncensored brilliance of one of America’s greatest humourists. It’s dead funny…

© 1940-1947 the New Yorker Magazine, Inc. In Canada © 1947 Charles Addams.

Today in 1909, fearless campaigner/cartoonist turned arch conservative Al Capp was born. Slightly less contentious than Li’l Abner, his Fearless Fosdick might be more to your taste.

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My Dad Fights Demons


By Bobby Joseph & Abbigayle Bircham (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-34-8 (TPB)

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

Here’s a short, sweet and sarcastically sharp poke at modern culture’s transient nature, mayfly attention-spans and perennially parlous state, delivered in a delicious ribald and deceptively irreverent tone and stylee (not a typo). The deed is done by street-wizened South Londoner and incumbent Comics Laureate Bobby Joseph (Dazed and Confused, Vice, The Guardian, Skank Magazine, Scotland Yardie) and rising star Abbigayle Bircham (Soaring Penguin Press, The Rat Pack Collective).

Anarchic, subversive and definitely NOT for little kids – unless they live inside the heads of adult-seeming types – here is a potent close-up peep at little Londoner Rye who is navigating the already-too-much-to-bear life of a kid trying to find themselves in a world of constant confliction and change-made-for-profit. The often overwhelmed and undervalued young ’un is just about coping with being vegan, addicted to sprout flavoured vapes, embarrassed by mum and her man, unappreciated by peers and schoolmates and generally not digging life when another body blow lands…

Mum and her manly beau – overly eager for a little intimate alone time – suddenly spring the news that Rye’s biological dad is in town and will be exercising visitation rights for the weekend. That’s when Rye first learns that Mr. Mantriks is not actually deceased (as was previously believed) but is in fact a wizard – “greatest sorcerer in the world” – who has been defending reality from inside a hell dimension for most of Rye’s short life.
Such reunions are always a bit uncomfortable, but this one is more fraught than most as daddy (and his appalling goblin familiar “Gobby”) are criminally unaware of how life has moved on, and are fact only really here to retrieve a lost spell of catastrophically evil potential.

However, like all such odd couple yarns, there’s the promise of reconciliation and a happy ending in store, but only if the long-parted in loco parentis pair – and Rye! – can mend long-ignored fences, avoid waves of disembodied body-parts, the allure of parallel universes (and fried chicken shops), totally solve the mystery of the lost cantrip and foil the cunning convoluted schemes of demonic social influencers who shouldn’t be here and SHOULD know better…

Manic-paced and wildly imaginative, this yarn might be impenetrable to certain ossified sections of the readership were it not for the absolutely indispensable aide memoire ‘Gobby’s Guide to UK Slang!’ Moreover, once an ending is reached, you can learn a little of the how and why thanks to ‘Sketches and development work’ provided by the creators…
Text and images © 2025 Bobby Joseph and Abbigayle Bircham. All rights reserved.

Today in 1911, artist Charles Paris was born. Although he probably inked every great pre-Silver Superman & Batman story you’ve ever read, I’d recommend checking out DC Finest: Metamorpho – The Element Man for a wilder ride.

In 1922, unsung comics icon & secret weapon Roz Kirby entered the world, whilst six years later comic strip pioneer Richard Outcault left it. I’m sure you already know all about him, but just in case why not look at Buster Brown: Early Strips in Full Color?

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The Legend of Lord Snooty and His Pals – 60 Years of Classic Cartoon Art


By Dudley D. Watkins, with Albert Holroyd, Roy Nixon, Ken Harrison & various (DC Thomson & Co)
ISBN: 978-0-85116-691-9 (tabloid HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

To commemorate Dudley D. Watkins death on August 20th 1969, I ordered some physical books rather than the digital editions I favour. In an ironic tribute to the great man and Grand British comedic traditions, said items failed to arrive on time for the scheduled tribute on that anniversary. So, here’s one of them that finally turned up and can now consequently be shared with you all. That’s egalitarianism, that is…

As an odd adjunct of being a nation perpetually embroiled in class struggle, Britain has found countless ways to apologize and humanise its blue-blooded oppressors. Here’s one of the most successful: a masterpiece of charming fraternity that undermines any anti-privilege message even as it delights and subverts. But which side is our star on, and does it even matter in the end?

Designed and mostly written by Watkins (1907-1969), and debuting in the very first issue of The Beano on 30th July 1938, the only decent posh boy this country ever produced is Marmaduke, Earl of Bunkerton: a bred-in-the-bone blue-blooded subversive and instinctive rebel anarchist… who could never decide which side of the class war and divide he and his ever-evolving pals were actually on.

Clad in Eton school uniform complete with top hat and umbrella, the little lord loathed the pointless tedium of his grand estate and constant pressure of his impending position and status. Thus, at every opportunity he bunked off, dodging pitiless and so-proper Aunt Matilda (who gradually mellowed into genteelly eccentric “Aunt Mat”) and the haughty, stiff-necked and smugly snobbish Bunkerton Castle staff to cavort and revel with the poor waifs from Ash Can Council School – thus dubbed “The Ash Can Alley kids”. Marmaduke even disguised himself as one of them to indulge in his wayward capers, and fully embraced and leaned into their barbed nickname for him – “Lord Snooty”.

Oh, what Larks!! It was like an Edwardian novel of swopped lives or The Prince and the Pauper played for laughs, with this lovable, amiable toff strongly on the side of the savvy proletariat. However, although he just wanted to have fun, there were always dangerous and unwelcome poor kids to fight in the insalubrious form of the bullies of the Gasworks Gang…

The early days saw the kids mostly dodging onerous duties, tutorial tribulations and posh expectations – although everybody from every societal stratum seemed to have problems with the police force, which was depicted as officious, interfering, venal and spiteful – and usually cast as true villains…

‘The Legend of Lord Snooty and His Pals…’ opens our itinerary introducing the players and offering early exploits.

In those heady days before September 1939 (plentifully sampled here, albeit in lightly edited visual terms to cater for modern sensibilities) beginning with the very first episode, Snooty’s chums consisted of Rosie, Skinny Lizzie, Hairpin Huggins, Happy Hutton, Scrapper Smith, and Gertie the Goat, latterly joined by eternal devil-toddlers in romper suits Snitch & Snatch who arrived in Beano #18. Their amalgamated exploits included: dodging school; pinching grub; taunting the police; rushing about in goat-karts (not a misspelling!); playing cricket and football; circuses & wild animals; foiling burglars & bandits; huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’; ruining banquets and wearing the wrong clothes and enjoying/surviving the inventions of castle inventor Professor Screwtop (introduced in Beano #40, April 29th 1939). However, just as everywhere else, once World War II began, Snooty & Co were drafted…

Followed by selection of strips crafted prior to the declaration of hostilities, ‘The War Years’ delivers a potent and wildly weird sampling of how kids adapted to the crisis – albeit filtered through their adult creators’ sensibilities. After war broke out, the call for morale boosting triggered a wave of delirious and passionate fantasy yarns. As well as cops & robbers, featuring an ever-more officious police force, the anarchistic kids had countless pompous asses and ninnies of the officer classes plus Home Guards & Air Raid Wardens trying to push them around. These were almost more trouble than the nigh-infinite cadre of spies and saboteurs and the entire Nazi Wehrmacht who episodically get what they deserved in an escalating war of nerves and nonsense with the kids. As the conflict proceeded, Snooty and his pint-sized allies even made it to Hitler & Goering’s personal hit list: frequently embarrassing when not actually slapping around the Nasty Nazi nincompoops with no appreciable repercussions. This was wish-fulfilment kid power at its most delightful…

A big bunch of these strips make up a majority of this book and show Watkins at his most imaginative. A tireless and prolific illustrator equally adept at comedy, adventure, educational 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.

He started life in Manchester and Nottingham as an artistic prodigy prior to entering Glasgow College of Art in 1924. Before long he was advised to get a job at expanding, Dundee-based DCT, where his 6-month trial illustrating prose boys’ paper 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). Managing Editor of Children’s Publication and between 1921 and 1933, Low 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 “Fun Section”: a landmark 8-page comic strip supplement for national newspaper The Sunday Post. This illustrated accessory – prototype and blueprint for every comic the company subsequently released – was launched on 8th March. From the outset The Broons and Oor Wullie were the uncontested headliners… and were both illustrated by Watkins. The other features included Chic Gordon’s Auchentogle, Allan Morley’s Nero and Zero, Nosey Parker and others. These pioneering comics laid the groundwork for the company’s next great leap. In December, 1937 Low launched DC Thomson’s first weekly all-picture strip comic, The Dandy; with The Beano Comic arriving in 1938…

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. Seven months later, placidly outrageous social satire Lord Snooty became a big draw for freshly launched companion paper The Beano.

These war stories are interspersed with selections of colour “pic & text” stories taken from postwar annuals (‘1960s Beano Book Picture Book strip’ and ‘Beano Book 1956 Picture Book strip modified version’) somewhat chronologically undercutting the impact of Snooty’s next big adjustment. After the war, the feature was paused and retooled. Lord Snooty was dropped with #367 (30th October, 1948) and only returned in December 1950. However, #440 introduced a new supporting cast, partially comprised of past Beano stars in need of a fresh gig. This crowd included hulking Joe (initially star of Big Fat Joe who was cancelled in #35), Liz (ex-Swanky, Lanky Liz who ran from #336-368), Thomas (Doubting Thomas #90-174), Polly and her dog (originally Polly Wolly Doodle and Her Great Big Poodle, in #286-306) and Mary (Contrary Mary who graced Beano #1-97, and even had a side gig as Neddy the Cuddy in The People’s Journal), who all joined Marmaduke and inexplicably popular gremlins Snitch & Snatch. The scattering of strips from 1946 to the pause & revamp garnish informative feature ‘Out With the Old…’ which reviews strips of absorbed and failed solo stars Big Fat Joe, Doubting Thomas and Swanky Lanky Liz in their primes, and celebrates the debuts of later Snooty fill-in and replacement artists Albert Holroyd, Roy Nixon and Ken Harrison on the aristocratic anarchist trail. Then a section of ‘Fifties strips’ observe modernity and loss of empire in smart, witty strips about Christmas, prefab houses, public transport, April Fool’s stunts, homelessness, penury and death duties, rationing, recycling and animals, lots & lots of animals. Finally, ‘Sixties strips’ sees Watkins and his aides investigate increased prosperity, theft, fraud & mis-selling, shopping, the weather, Screwtop’s inventions, entertainment, proper food, etiquette and social mobility and the proper use of cannon fire…

This titanic tome terminates in a wash of colour as Watkins highlights the twins in a strip from an unspecified annual before modern juvenile paragon of protest and advocate of anarchy Dennis the Menace gets in on the act, with strip ‘Me Too, Lord Dennis’ as the ferocious little lout tries out the old ermines and privileged attitude…

This stunning and luxurious hardback commemorative celebration is exuberantly joyous in tracing one of comics most bizarre and seditious stars and is a strong – almost overwhelming – argument for a bigger and more comprehensive curated collection. Conversely it’s also a huge cartoon chronicle stuffed with strips that will make you collapse in mirth. Probably both. At least you don’t have to pick a side but just buy a book…
© D.C. Thomson & Co Ltd 1998.

On this day in 1960, Daredevil: Born Again illustrator David Mazzucchelli was born.

15 years after that Blankets author Craig Thompson also entered the world.

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Captain Pugwash: A Pirate Story


By John Ryan (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books/Picture Puffin Story Books)
ISBN: 978-0140554533 (Puffin PB) 978-1-84507-821-8 (F Lincoln HB)
Ha-HA-HHARRRR! The time be here, Shipmaties! ‘Tis International Talk Like a Pirate Day again!

John Ryan was an artist and storyteller who straddled three distinct disciplines of graphic narrative, with equal qualitative if not financial success.

The son of a diplomat, Ryan was born in Edinburgh on March 4th 1921, served in Burma and India and – after attending the Regent Street Polytechnic (1946-48) – took a post as assistant Art Master at Harrow School from 1948 to 1955. It was during this time that he first began contributing strips to Fulton Press publications, for the company’s glossy distaff alternative Girl, but most especially in the pages of the legendary “boys’ paper” Eagle.

On April 14th 1950, Britain’s grey, postwar gloom was partially lifted by the premiere issue of a new comic that literally shone with light and colour. Avid children were understandably enraptured with the gloss and dazzle of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, a charismatic star-turn venerated to this day and by a host of cannily incorporated licensed features such as radio star turns P.C. 49 and Riders of the Range. Eagle was a tabloid-sized paper with full-colour inserts alternating with text and a range of various other comic features. Tabloid is a big page and one can get a lot of material onto each one. Ryan’s quirky, spiky style lent itself to the numerous spot illustrations required throughout the comic every week but he also offered little strip serials. Deep within, on the bottom third of a monochrome page was an 8-panel strip entitled Captain Pugwash – The story of a Bad Buccaneer and the many Sticky Ends which nearly befell him…

Pugwash, his harridan of a wife and the useless, lazy crew of the Black Pig ran (or more accurately capered and fell about) until issue #19 when the feature disappeared – sunk without trace! This was no real hardship for Ryan who had been writing & illustrating Harris Tweed – Extra Special Agent as a full-page (tabloid, remember – an average of 20 panels per page, per week!) from Eagle #16. (I really must reinvestigate the solidly stolid sleuth too sometime soon…) Tweed ran for three years as a full page until 1953 after which it dropped to a half-page strip and was carefully repositioned as a purely comedic venture.

In 1956 the indefatigable old sea-dog (I mean old Horatio Pugwash but it could so easily be applied to Ryan) made the jump to children’s picture books. The artist was an unceasing story-peddler with a big family, and somehow he also found time to be head cartoonist for The Catholic Herald – a side gig that lasted for 40 years.

A Pirate Story was first published by Bodley Head before switching to children’s publishing specialist Puffin for further editions and more adventures. It was the first foray of a vast (sorry, got away with myself there!) run of children’s books on a number of different subjects. Pugwash himself starred in 21 tomes; there were a dozen books based on the animated TV series Ark Stories, plus Sir Prancelot and a number of other creations. Ryan worked whenever he wanted to in the comics world and eventually the books and the strips began to cross-fertilise.

The primary Pugwash is traditional in format, with blocks of text and single illustrations to illuminate a particular moment. But by the publication of Pugwash the Smuggler (1982) entire sequences were lavishly painted comic strips, with as many as eight panels per page, and including word balloons. A fitting circularity to his careers and a nice treat for us old-fashioned comic drones.

After A Pirate Story was released in 1957 the BBC pounced on the property, commissioning Ryan to produce 5-minute episodes (86 in all from 1957 to 1968, all later reformatted in full colour and rebroadcast in 1976). In the budding 1950s arena of animated television cartoons, Ryan developed a new system for producing cheap, high quality animations to a tight deadline. He began with Pugwash, keeping the adventure milieu, but replaced the shrewish wife with a tried-and-true boy assistant. Tom the Cabin Boy is the only capable member of a crew which included such visual archetypes as Willy, Barnabas and Master Mate (fat, thin and tall – and all dim), instantly affirming to the rapt, young audience that grown-ups are fools and kids do, in fact, rule.

Ryan also drew a weekly Captain Pugwash strip for The Radio Times – lasting eight years – before going on to produce other animated series including Mary, Mungo and Midge, The Friendly Giant and the aforementioned Sir Prancelot. There were also adaptations of some of his many other children’s books. In 1997, an all-new CGI-based Pugwash animated TV series began. I don’t need to tell that we’re about due another go-round…

This first story sets the scene with a delightful clown’s romp as the so-very-motley crew of the Black Pig sail in search of buried treasure, only to fall into a cunning trap set by truly nasty Cut-Throat Jake. Luckily, Tom is as smart as his shipmates and Captain are not…

Ryan returned to pirate life in the 1980s, drawing three new Pugwash storybooks: The Secret of the San Fiasco, The Battle of Bunkum Bay & The Quest for the Golden Handshake, as well as thematic prequel Admiral Fatso Fitzpugwash, in which it’s revealed that the not-so-salty seadog had a medieval ancestor who became First Sea Lord, despite being terrified of water…

The 2008 edition of A Pirate Story (from Frances Lincoln Children’s Books) came with a free audio CD, and just in case I’ve tempted you beyond endurance here’s a full list (I think) of the good(ish) Captain’s exploits that you should make it your remaining life’s work to unearth: Captain Pugwash: A Pirate Story (1957), Pugwash Aloft (1960), Pugwash and the Ghost Ship (1962), Pugwash in the Pacific (1963), Pugwash and the Sea Monster (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Ruby (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Treasure Chest (1976), Captain Pugwash and the New Ship (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Elephant (1976), The Captain Pugwash Cartoon Book (1977), Pugwash and the Buried Treasure (1980), Pugwash the Smuggler (1982), Captain Pugwash and the Fancy Dress Party (1982), Captain Pugwash and the Mutiny (1982), Pugwash and the Wreckers (1984), Pugwash and the Midnight Feast (1984), The Battle of Bunkum Bay (1985), The Quest of the Golden Handshake (1985), The Secret of the San Fiasco (1985), Captain Pugwash and the Pigwig (1991) and Captain Pugwash and the Huge Reward (1991). All pearls beyond price and a true treasure of graphic excellence.

We don’t have that many multi-discipline successes in comics, so why don’t you go and find out why we should celebrate one who did it all, did it first and did it well? Your kids will thank you and if you’ve any life left in your old and weary soul, you will too

The quintessential pirate king appears to be generally out of print and long, long overdue for revival, so it might mean a bit of digging around to unearth copies but on this day and in the anniversary year of Eagle, surely a little effort and skulduggery is not beyond us?

© 1957, 2009 John Ryan and (presumably) the Estate of John Ryan. All rights reserved.

On this day in 1953, Paddy Brennan’s General Jumbo first appeared in The Beano, and one year later my old flatmate and artist par excellence Garry Leach was born. Both went away far too soon and are still so very much missed.