Category: Humour

Posted on

The Dandy Monster Comic (Dandy Annual 1939 Special Facsimile Edition)


By Many and various (DC Thomson & Co/Aurum Press)
ISBN: 978-1- 84513-217-0 (Boxed slipcase HB)

This one’s actually older than me – at least in its original incarnation – and a true anniversary wonder.

Until it folded and was reborn as a digital publication on 4th December 2012, The Dandy was the third longest running comic in the world (behind Italy’s Il Giornalino – launched in 1924 – and America’s Detective Comics in March 1937).

Premiering on December 4th 1937, The Dandy broke the mould of British predecessors by using word balloons and captions rather than narrative blocks of text under sequential picture frames. A colossal success, it was followed eight months later (on July 30th 1938) by The Beano, and together they revolutionised the way children’s publications looked and, most importantly, how they were read.

Over the decades the “terrible twins” spawned a bevy of unforgettable, beloved household names who delighted generations of avidly devoted readers, and end of year celebrations were graced with bumper bonanzas of the weekly stars in extended stories in magnificent hardback annuals. As WWII progressed, rationed paper and ink forced the “children’s papers” into an alternating fortnightly schedule: on September 6th 1941 only The Dandy was published. A week later just The Beano appeared. They only returned to normal weekly editions on 30th July 1949…

However, as of this grand festive feast that’s all in the future. Here, masterfully restored, is a treasure trove of joyous pranks and all-ages adventure to delight and enthral. It should be noted however, that all this buffoonery and jolly japery was crafted at a time socially far-removed from ours, and there are terms and racial depictions that wouldn’t be given houseroom in today’s world. That was then, this is now, and that’s another thing you can be grateful for…

It opens in classis DCT manner with the entire cast chowing down to a monumental feast – a staple reward of those leaner, impoverished times – before James Crichton’s ‘Korky the Cat’ kicks things off with spot of calamitous dockside fishing, after which ‘Jimmy and his Grockle’ – a kind of Doberman dragon – foil a dognapping ring. Illustrated by James Clark, the strip was recycled from prose “Boys Paper” The Rover where it was “Jimmy Johnson’s Grockle” (1932).

Most pages come with riddles, jokes or single panel gags and many of the strips are delivered in the signature two colour process that typifies British Annuals and as usual no writers are named and precious few of the artists are credited. As always, I’ve offered a best guess as to whom we should thank, and of course I would be so very happy if anybody could confirm or deny my suppositions…

Prolific Allan Morley details how ‘Keyhole Kate’ falls foul of a burglar and cowboy superman, ‘Desperate Dan’ – by key man Dudley D. Watkins – braves harsh winter climes, before Morley’s ‘Freddy the Fearless Fly’ thwarts a human bully and thrashes a predatory spider.

These colossal tomes were all about variety and value for money and next up is a heavily-illustrated prose story detailing the feudal adventure of young shepherd-boy Gingan’s dragon-slaying quest with magical weapon ‘The Sword of Crad’ before wandering tramp ‘Barney Boko’ comes a-cropper after defacing public property in a wordless strip from John R. Mason.

As depicted by the superb Eric Roberts, ‘Podge’s Frame-Up’ sees the junior entrepreneur confusing art galleries with glaziers whilst nattily-dressed ‘Archie the Ape’ deals with a hungry lion and ‘Smarty Grandpa’ (by Watkins and a double for strip veteran Pa Broon) has a racially-charged moment at a minstrel show before anthropomorphic tortoise ‘Dan the Night-watchman’ confronts a gang of thieving rats…

‘The Boy that Beat the Band’ is another prose drama (illustrated by Fred Sturrock?) with a young orphan acrobat saving a disabled boy and thereafter rewarded with his heart’s desire – a job – after which Jack Glass’ text-block & pic strip ‘The Daring Deeds of Buck Wilson’ sees the singing cowboy battling kidnappers before the animal antics in ‘Bamboo Town’ find daring duo Bongo and Pongo organising a therapeutic gymnasium in a typically busy romp limned by Charlie Gordon.

Sam Fair’s ‘Wig and Wam the Skookum Kids’ were prank-playing “Red Indian” lads who here trick the Big Chief into baiting a bear before ‘Flippy the Sea Serpent’ – by Frank Minnitt – settles the hash of a snooty octopus whilst Smarty Grandpa fails to steal a pie…

Boneless Bill was a long-running but sadly anonymous strip starring an affable contortionist. Here he astounds an army recruiting officer before ‘Marmaduke Mean the Miser’ pays painfully for stealing a little lad’s Dandy comic. Then ‘Hungry Horace’ (Morley) finds his appetite briefly diminished after illicitly tapping the wrong barrel and a cunning old codger prevents a mugging in ‘Old Beaver’s Brainwaves’.

‘Wee Tusky’ was a long-running prose feature and here the baby elephant’s propensity for trouble leads to deadly danger but secures him a human friend in the end, after which Roberts’ ‘Helpful Henry’ adjusts seating arrangements despite a history of calamitous consequences, just as pompous (idiot) detective ‘Trackem Down’ botches another “case”…

Korky the Cat masters the fundamentals of golf whilst Jimmy and his Grockle find fun – and bananas – at the docks, after which Keyhole Kate’s snooping drenches a helpful bystander and Desperate Dan proves building sites can be dangerous places… for other people…

After another get-rich-quick scheme from Podge, sausage-snaffling ‘Dipper the Dodger’ falls foul of the law. Probably drawn by James Jewell, Dipper is a dead ringer for Beano and The People’s Journal cartoon stalwart Wee Peem (“He’s a Proper Scream”), so there might have been some cross-pollination back then.

Freddy the Fearless Fly turns arsonist to escape a spider’s trap before Helpful Henry learns the perils of electricity, and Jimmy Denton tries rodeo riding to save the ranch with the invaluable assistance of ‘White Star’s Star Turn’, in a prose thriller that seamlessly segues to Podge setting up his own postal service whilst ‘Bobby, the Boy Scout’ goes too far in his scheme to help a hobo…

Boneless Bill artfully apprehends a thief and Archie the Ape find busking hazardous to health, whilst Hungry Horace loses his lunch to a quick-witted sprinter, but savvy navies ‘Nick & Nack’ find a smart way to keep the cops from confiscating their grub.

Interfering busybodies Bobby, the Boy Scout and Helpful Henry both get it wrong again, after which we head west to see Wig and Wam the Skookum Kids prank their dad yet again even as Desperate Dan falls asleep in the park but still causes chaos…

‘Willing Willie and his Pa’ experience decorating woes before we revisit the days of the Raj in prose thriller ‘Pam the Peace-Maker’ wherein a little girl prevents an outbreak of war after which Helpful Henry confuses radio and electric irons and Korky triumphs over a tiger when he goes on safari.

Jimmy and his Grockle clash violently with shopkeepers and Old Beaver’s Brainwaves sees the gamey geezer getting back at the thug who pinched his job as itinerant Barney Boko pays through the nose for watching football without a ticket.

Dipper the Dodger meets a theatrical strongman and the Bamboo-Town boys convene a swimming class that would certainly have benefitted ‘Sandy Starfish, the Shipwrecked Sailor’ before Fred Sturrock illustrates a prose battle of wits between stubborn old men in ‘The House that Jack the Joker Built’.

More musical mayhem from Archie the Ape precedes Hungry Horace outwitting municipal bylaws in search of a big scoff, even as Podge dupes another crowd of sensation hungry oafs and Helpful Henry wrecks a house before it’s even built: a trick even Desperate Dan can’t match, even if he wasn’t so thirsty…

Mini vignettes for Podge, Barney Boko and Boneless Bill presage a riotous schoolboy romp in prose – probably illustrated by George Ramsbottom – that I need you to be grown up about. ‘Invisible Dick Spoofs the Spoofer’ is a smart tale from a venerable feature that ran in The Rover for years and when he turns the tables on a cruel stage magician humiliating his school chums you should be proud and not titter or snigger…

A rapid-fire tranche of cartoon antics, starring Bobby the Boy Scout, Podge, Marmaduke Mean the Miser, Flippy the Sea Serpent, Boneless Bill and Willing Willie and his Pa, lead to another text tale as animal-raised orphan ‘Buffalo Boy’ discovers toffee and begins his slow march back to civilisation…

From here it’s cartoon strip all the way with Korky, Keyhole Kate, Freddy the Fearless Fly, Helpful Henry, Wig and Wam the Skookum Kids, Smarty Grandpa and Dipper the Dodger all doing what they do best before Bamboo-Town brings down the curtain when Bongo and Pongo build an all-animal skating rink…

A marvel of nostalgia and timeless comics wonder, the true magic of this facsimile edition is the brilliant art and stories by a host of talents that have literally made Britons who they are today, and bravo to DC Thomson for letting them out for a half-day to run amok once again.
The DANDY is a trademark of and © D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2006. Associated characters, text and artwork © D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2006. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Superman: the Atomic Age Sundays volume 2: 1953-1956


By Alvin Schwartz, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye (IDW/DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-537-2 (HB)

It’s indisputable that today’s comic book industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s bold and unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre… if not an actual art form.

He was shamelessly copied and adapted by many inspired writers and artists for numerous publishers, spawning an incomprehensible army of imitators and variations within three years of his summer 1938 debut. 85 YEARS… and counting!

An intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and triumphal wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel soon grew to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East also engulfed America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

Superman was master of the world and whilst transforming and dictating the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, the Man of Tomorrow relentlessly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media. Although we all think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as the epitome and acme of cartoon creation, the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel became a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse. Diehard comics fans regard our purest and most enduring icons in primarily graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Avengers and their hyperkinetic ilk long ago outgrew four-colour origins to become fully mythologized modern media creatures, instantly recognised in mass markets across all platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have viewed or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comics. His globally syndicated newspaper strips alone reached untold millions, and by the time his 20th anniversary rolled around at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial regular and starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, as well as two films and a novel by George Lowther.

Superman was a perennial sure-fire success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were many more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark, Smallville, Superman & Lois and even spin-offs like Supergirl), a stage musical, a franchise of blockbuster movies and an almost seamless succession of games, bubble gum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even his superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

However, during his formative years the small screen was simply an expensive novelty so the Action Ace achieved true mass market fame through a different medium: one not that far removed from his print origins.

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the last century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and frequently the planet – it was seen by millions, if not billions, of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books. It also paid far better.

And rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture. Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped humble and tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar.

Some still do…

Superman was the first original comic book character to make that leap – about 6 months after he exploded out of Action Comics – but precious few ever successfully followed. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and trailblazing teen icon Archie Andrews made the jump in the 1940s with only a handful such as Spider-Man, Howard the Duck and Conan the Barbarian having done so since.

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16th January 1939, supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that year. Originally crafted by such luminaries as Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task soon required the additional talents of Jack Burnley and writers Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz.

The McClure Syndicate Superman feature ran continuously from 1939 until May 1966, appearing at its peak in more than 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers; boasting a combined readership of more than 20 million. For most of the post war years Boring & Stan Kaye illustrated these spectacular Sundays (eventually supplemented by artists Win Mortimer and Curt Swan). The majority of the strips – from 1944 to 1958 – were written by Alvin Schwartz.

Born in 1916, he was an early maestro of comic books, writing for Batman, Superman, Captain Marvel and many other titles and companies. Whilst handling the Superman strip he also freelanced on Wonder Woman and the dwindling superhero pantheon as well as genre titles like Tomahawk, Buzzy, A Date with Judy and House of Mystery. After numerous clashes with new Superman Editor Mort Weisinger, Schwartz quit comics for commercial writing, selling novels and essays, and latterly documentaries and docudramas for the National Film Board of Canada.

He also worked miracles in advertising and market research, developing selling techniques such as psychographics and typological identification. He was a member of the advisory committee to the American Association of Advertising Agencies. He died in 2011.

After years wallowing in obscurity most of Superman’s newspaper strip exploits are at last available to aficionados and the curious newcomer in tomes such as this one, compiled under the auspices of the Library of American Comics. Showcasing Schwartz and artist Wayne Boring in their purest prime, these Sundays (numbered as pages #699 to #869 and collectively spanning March 22nd 1953 to June 24th 1956) feature a nigh-omnipotent Man of Steel in domestically-framed and curated tales of emotional dilemmas and pedestrian criminality rather than muscle-flexing bombast, utilising mystery, fashion, wit and satire as substitutes for bludgeoning action.

Following an affable appreciation of the creators and overview of the era in ‘An Introduction’ by Mark Waid, ‘A Wayne Boring Gallery’ provides a tantalising selection of Superman and Action Comics covers from the period before weekly wonderment commences in all its vibrant glory. Sadly, individual serial stories are untitled, so you’ll just have to manage with my meagre synopses of the individual yarns…

It begins with another prime example of Superman gaslighting his girlfriend – one of the sharpest journalists on Earth – in what I keep telling myself is just an example of how different attitudes were back then…

When Lois Lane catches Superman mid-change from Clark Kent, he manages to obscure his face long enough to claim her “victory” was through luck not skill or ingenuity, and challenge her to actually deduce his alter ego in a test through time. Angry, prideful and apparently a real sucker, she agrees and – relocated to ancient Troy, on the pilgrim ship Mayflower and Massechusetts colony and in 1907 San Francisco – promptly fails to spot the new identities the Man of Steel establishes. Apart from the appalling patriarchal premise and treatment it’s a beautiful tale with Lois meeting and/or replacing Helen of Troy, Priscilla Mullins (look her up or read The Courtship of Miles Standish by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) and celebrity performer Lillian Russell with Trojan battles, pioneering dangers and the Great San Francisco Earthquake giving Superman plenty to do before she concedes defeat…

Dated July 5th 1953 (strip #714), the next exploit is far less upsetting as a dying millionaire convinces the Man of Tomorrow to find a decent purpose and inheritor for his vast riches. Operating clandestinely at first Superman vets artists, inventors, simple scammers, country doctors (thereby diverging long enough to become embroiled in a decades-long hillbilly feud) and battles crooks before finally completing his mission…

Strip #725 opened a thrilling new chapter on September 20th as the Action Ace intercepts an alien vehicle crashing to Earth and finds it carries two convicts from his long-dead homeworld. At first Arno and Tolas are content to use their new superpowers to scam, steal and swindle the puny humans before eventually realising they’re strong enough to take anything want. Superman’s attempts to restrain their crimes are never enough and he only saves his adopted homeworld by adopting his enemies’ preferred tactics…

December 13th (strip #737) saw a new yarn begin as an extremely determined young woman threw herself off a building to get Superman’s attention. Alice Talbot was a lawyer working as process server for her sexist uncle. He believed Law was man’s work and had his associates give her impossible jobs to discourage her: a situation that needed all the Man of Steel’s discretion as Alice took on ever-more difficult serving jobs and succeeded – even if with some secret assistance…

Few Superman foes transferred from funnybooks to the Funnies section, but murderously ridiculous criminal The Prankster was perfect for whimsy-minded readers. Strip #747 (February 21st 1954) began an extend campaign of confusion and carnage as the diabolically devious bandit began attacking modern art, plundering vaults and raiding stores after finding a way to exploit one of Superman’s powers and use it against him…

Clark took centre stage in a clever quandary running from April 25th to July 4th (#756-766) as a publicity stunt gone awry leaves him handcuffed to a starlet and accompanied everywhere by her wily manager, requiring many clever tricks over a very busy weekend to go into action as the Man of Tomorrow before he can legitimately shuck the shackles…

The “Atomic Age” title gets full milage in the next story (#767-777, July 11th – September 19th) as a purse-snatcher fleeing Superman is dosed with radiation and acquires the unwelcome and uncontrollable power to become intangible. Happily he’s not smart enough to capitalise on the scary gift… but his even shadier pal Al is…

When a strange man starts following Superman, it leads to crazy contests and another shifty conman mystic who has convinced wrestler Mop-up Moby that he can beat the Man of Steel in the ring. Incredibly that proves true in the comedy romp running from September 26th – November 7th (#778-784), after which a science experiment gives Superman amnesia and leaves him lost and confused on a desert island (#785-793, November 14th 1954 to January 9th 1955). At least “Roger” has lazy drop-out beach-bums Horace and Mike to guide him and manage his strange abilities: they even help the simple islanders appreciate the mod-cons of 20th century living Roger provides – whether they want him to or not…

Restored and returned to Metropolis for strip #794 (November 14th), Superman is swamped with petty requests from the authorities, unaware they are keeping him distracted from preparations for a major television event. The “Your Story” episode detailing his life is a great honour, but a huge risk too as he’s supposed to appear live with all his friends: Lois, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen and… Clark Kent…

Another secret identity dilemma follows (#801-805, March 6th – April 3rd) as Clark exhibits superstrength and allows observers to believe it comes from a mutant apple he ate. It might have been the end of it, but two other apples were eaten and he has to spend all his time faking the same powers for their eaters or risk exposure of his alter ego…

When Lois and Clark investigate a mystery millionaire (#806-813, April 10th – May 29th) they go undercover as domestics and encounter the most appalling children ever reared. Soon though a heartbreaking story emerges and the hardboiled reporters become matchmaking homemakers, after which epic action and humour return as an amazing archaeological discovery sends Superman back to ancient Greece to dispel many myths around Hercules before helping the rather hapless legend-in-waiting accomplish his labours (#814-824, June 5th – August 14th)…

Atom Age fantasy follows as a genuine flying horse baffles and bamboozles Metropolitans from scientists to thieves to circus showmen (#825-833, August 21st – October 16th). When Superman discovers the facts, his greatest concern is to reunite the modern Pegasus with the boy who loves him, before heading to the Himalayas (#834-844, October 23rd 1955 – January 1st 1956) and foiling a devilish plotter seeking to seize control of a lost colony of French musketeers and cavaliers!

The new year opened with science fiction in the driving seat as downtrodden despondent travelling salesman/inventor Edgar Weems makes contact with a scientist on a dying world. Benevolent Bel Neth Ka of Kadath is happy to share his secrets – like antigravity ointment and superstrength serum – but when innocent Edgar starts selling them his instant success naturally causes chaos. That was a big and very funny job for Superman running from January 8th to March 25th over Strips #845-856, and leads to the concluding tale in this second Atomic Age collection, as Lois goes on quiz show “The $88,000 Jackpot”. Her specialist subject is Superman and her answers are astonishingly accurate. As the days pass (April 1st to June 24th 1953 and strips#857-869), audience attention makes life hell for the Action Ace, reminding viewers of his weaknesses and who he might be in civilian life…

The Atomic Age Superman: – Sunday Pages 1953-1956 is the second of three huge (312 x 245mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Man of Tomorrow. It’s an inexpressible joy to see these “lost” stories again, offering a far more measured, domesticated and comforting side of America’s most unique contribution to world culture. It’s also a pure delight to see some of the hero’s most engaging yesterdays. Join me and see for yourself…
© 2016 DC Comics. All rights reserved. SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics.

Posted on

Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Color Sundays “Call of the Wild” (volume 1)


By Floyd Gottfredson & various: edited by David Gerstein & Gary Groth (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-643-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Mouse in Every House… 10/10

Happy technical 100th Anniversary Disney, but we all know it all REALLY started with this little guy…

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 the mascot mouse and co-star and 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 soon joined 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 shaped 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/mouse underdog into a crimebuster, detective, explorer, lover, aviator and cowboy. Mickey was the quintessential two-fisted hero whenever necessity demanded. In later years, as tastes – and syndicate policy – changed, Gottfredson steered that self-same wandering warrior into a sedate, gently suburbanised lifestyle, employing crafty and clever sitcom gags suited to a newly middle-class 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 doodler found work in April 1929 as an in-betweener with the burgeoning Walt Disney Studios. Just as the Great Depression hit, he was personally asked by Walt to take over the newborn but already ailing Mickey Mouse newspaper strip. Gottfredson would plot, draw and frequently script the strip for 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 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 fifty years. On January 17th 1932, Gottfredson crafted the first colour Sunday page, which he also handled 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 film studio systems, 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 – re-presents the initial colour sequences, jam-packed with thrills, spills and chills, whacky races, fantastic fights and a glorious superabundance of rapid-fire sight-gags and verbal by-play. The manner by which Mickey became a syndicated star is covered in various articles at the front and back of this sturdy tome devised and edited by truly dedicated, clearly devoted fan David Gerstein who also provides an Introduction. The tome is stuffed with lost treats such as a try-out sketch (of the Wolf Barker storyline) by Carl Barks from 1935 when he joined Disney Studios.

Under the guise of Setting the Stage unbridled fun and incisive revelations begin with J.B. Kaufman’s ‘Mickey’s Sunday Best: A New Arena’ introducing us to this unique graphic world before Kevin Huizenga’s Appreciation ‘A Brief Essay About Floyd Gottfredson’ details the pictorial pathfinder’s visual innovations prior to The Sundays: Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse Stories With Introductory Notes concluding scene-setting with Gerstein offering some preliminary insights in ‘Sunday Storytelling’…

At the start – just like the daily feature – the strip was treated like an animated feature, with diverse hands working under a “director” and each day 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 for his first full yarn, and here generally unconnected Gag Strips spanning January 10th to July 24th 1932 were by Duval (story & pencils) and Gottfredson until they switched and Floyd drew with Duval and Al Taliaferro inking. The result was a barrage of fast-paced and funny anthropomorphic animal antics starring Mickey, Minnie Mouse, Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, plus prototype pet Pluto dodging dogcatchers, visiting circuses and funfairs, fighting fires, skating, fighting Indians (sorry, it was an inescapable factor of less-evolved times), joyriding, farming, fishing, gardening, cooking, quarrelling, messing with model planes and trying to make money. As the weekly funfest progressed, Pluto’s part grew exponentially and – after a monochrome poser for film short Puppy Love (1933) – a brief briefing in ‘The Peter Principle’ leads to the first extended storyline.

Running from July 31st to September 4th 1932 ‘Dan the Dogcatcher’ saw Gottfredson inked by Ted Thwaites in a dogged (sorry, not sorry) battle of wills as future returning foe Peg-Leg Pete debuted as an unscrupulously uncivil civil servant seeking to put Pluto in the pound at any cost. The tale wandered eccentrically and frenetically all over the small town scenario, adding drama and bathos to chaos and comedy before seamlessly slipping into more Gag Strips (January 10-July 24 1932) with story & pencils by Duval & Gottfredson and inks by Duval and Al Taliaferro.

One last Gag Strip (September 11th 1932 by Gottfredson & Thwaites neatly segues into ‘Mickey’s Nephews’ (September 18th – November 6th 1932 by Gottfredson & Thwaites) and is notable for introducing Mickey’s mischief-making nephews when he looks after the anarchic offspring of neighbour Mrs. Fieldmouse for a few weeks. The sentient cyclones soon start calling the guardian/jailer “unca Mickey”…

Gag Strips spanning November 13th 1932 to January 22nd 1933 (story Gottfredson & Webb Smith, pencils by Gottfredson inked by Thwaites & Taliaferro) leads to an essay detailing ‘Mickey’s Delayed Drama’ before landmark romp ‘Lair of Wolf Barker’ (January 29th – June 18th) changed the tone of the strip forever.

The first extended Mickey Sunday colour epic was partially scripted by Osborne and inked by Taliaferro & Thwaites, but is pure Gottfredson at his most engaging: a rip-roaring comedy western featuring a full wide-screen repertory cast: Mickey, Minnie, Horace, Clarabelle and Goofy, who originally answered to the moniker Dippy Dog.

The gang head west to look after Uncle Mortimer’s sprawling ranch and enjoy fresh air and free lodgings but after meeting his foreman Don Poocho stumble into a baffling crisis. Mortimer’s cattle are progressively vanishing, with the unsavoury eponymous villain riding roughshod over the territory and terrorising assorted characters and stock figures culled from a million movies. Desperados and deviltry notwithstanding, before long Barker gets his ultimate and well-deserved come-uppance thanks the Mouses’ valiant efforts. This is action comics on the fly, with plenty of rough-&- tumble action, twists, turns and surprises always alloyed to snappy, fast-packed sight and slapstick gags.

Without pausing for breath the cast’s return home leads to more unconnected frenzied Gag Strips (June 25th 1933 to March 4th 1934: story by Osborne, pencils by Gottfredson and inks by Thwaites & Taliaferro) with Mickey as much silly nuisance as closet hero until extended tales return, with ‘The Longest Short Story Ever Told!’ first supplying some context about the filmic origins of the next epic ‘Rumplewatt The Giant.’

The fantasy fable ran March 11th to April 29th 1934 by Osborne, Gottfredson, Thwaites & Taliaferro and sees Mickey reading a bedtime story to youngsters with himself as a giant killer in fairyland, after which rustic domesticity and free enterprise dominate as Mickey and Minnie anticipate – over a number of episodes – replacing the decrepit horse in his new delivery service. Many mishaps occur until ‘Tanglefoot Pulls His Weight’ (May 6th – June 3rd), and a single Gag Strip (June 10th 1934) leads to essay ‘Call of the Wild’ debating the history and tangled relationship of Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle and Goofy prior to Osborne, Gottfredson & Taliaferro dipping into sinister mad science courtesy of ‘Dr. Oofgay’s Secret Serum’ (June 17th– September 9th 1934). A double date camping trip to the woods goes awry when the reclusive scientist – seeking a way to tame ferocious animals by chemistry, instead injects Horace with the antidote turning him into a rampaging beast…

‘TOPPER Strip “Introducing Mickey Mouse Movies”’ (June 24 1934 by Osborne, Gottfredson, & Taliaferro) reveals the ancillary feature that augmented the weekly feature and precedes more unconnected but house-based Gag Strips (September 16th to December 2nd 1934) and article ‘Death Knocks, Fate Pesters’ explores the strip’s early use of what we now call disaster capitalism before ‘Foray to Mt. Fishflake’ (December 9th 1934 to February 10th 1935 by Osborne, Gottfredson & Thwaites) finds the four friends seeking to scale a peak for prize money – a thrilling romp that led to also included Gag Strips from January 27th to February 10th and saw the comics debut of new Disney screen sensation Donald Duck…

‘Beneath the Overcoat’ is a treatise on Osborne, Gottfredson & Thwaites’ landmark crime yarn running from February 17th to March 24th that reshaped the Mouse’s modus operandi and future exploits before serialised gem ‘The Case of the Vanishing Coats’ sees Mickey helping Donald’s Uncle Amos solve a baffling mystery of invisible shoplifters just before Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse return to Gag Strips appearing between March 31st and July 21st in pranks and hijinks exacerbated by wild spark Donald….

Another Gottfredson promo drawing precedes the next big addition with text tract ‘Hoppy the Ambassador’ bringing readers up to speed on previous antipodean animals just so Osborne, Gottfredson & Thwaites can fully enthral and beguile with the saga of originally unwelcome new pet ‘Hoppy the Kangaroo’ (July 28th – November 24th). The bouncy ’roo eventually wins everyone over after a boxing bout with a gorilla named Growlio, managed by old enemy Peg-Leg Pete…

Osborne, Gottfredson & Thwaites’ Gag Strips carry the feature over the Holiday period of December 1st – 29th 1935, but although the chronological cartooning officially concludes here, there’s still a wealth of glorious treats and fascinating revelations in store. A 1935 painted colour cover by Gottfredson & Tom Wood for Italian magazine Modellina takes us into The Gottfredson Archives: Essays and Special Features section that follows. Here a picture packed essay on ‘The Monthly “Sundays”’ by Gerstein & Jim Korkis reveals a long-lost publication for Masonic youth in “Mickey Mouse Chapter” (A Mickey Supplement) sourced fromInternational DeMolay CordonVol. 1 #9-11, Vol. 2 #1-2 (December 1932 – May 1933) and written by Fred Spencer (first 4 strips) & Gottfredson (5), with art by Spencer.

International reprints of our opening saga are seen in ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Dan the Dogcatcher’ whilst background and context on ‘The Cast: Morty and Ferdie’ by Gerstein segues into a sidebar project detailed in ‘Behind the Scenes: Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo’.

More international editions can be seen in ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Mickey’s Nephews.’ A foray into pop-up books is covered in Gerstein’s ‘The Comics Department at Work: The Mouseton Pops’, supplemented with covers and interior art from Gottfredson, Taliaferro & Tom Wood. More reprint covers of many nations are gathered in ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Early Epics’ after which ‘The Gottfredson Gang: In “Their Own” Words’ sees Gerstein revisit text by Irene Cavanaugh from 1932, introducing Dippy Dawg to the world and revealing Mickey’s astrological aspects…

Topolino covers fill the ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Going Places’ whilst storyboards by Homer Brightman adorn Gerstein’s ‘Behind the Scenes: Interior Decorators’ before William Van Horn’s ‘“Wrapping Up” The Case of the Vanishing Coats’ focuses on later reprintings and alterations…

Another tranche of foreign imports can be seen in ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Curiosities of 1935’ and ‘Gallery Feature – Gottfredson’s World: Hoppy the Kangaroo’ in advance of feature article ‘The Heirs of Gottfredson’s World: Topolino’ by Sergio Lama & Gerstein leading to capacious translated Christmas-themed Gag Strips in Verse (A Mickey Supplement) offering excerpts from Italian Il Popolo Di Roma (May-July 29 1931: story by Guglielmo Guastaveglia); The Delineator (December1932: story & art by Gottfredson et al) and Italian Topolino #1 & 7 (December 31st 1932 & February 11th 1933 with story & art by Giove Toppi & Angelo Burattini) before closing with an illustrated quote – “Any time you can tell a story…” – giving Gottfredson himself the last word…

Floyd Gottfredson’s influence on not just Disney’s canon but sequential graphic narrative itself is inestimable: he was among the 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 gag strips, Floyd adapted seamlessly, working until retirement in 1975. His last daily appeared on November 15th with a final Sunday published on September 19th 1976.

Like all Disney creators, Gottfredson worked in utter anonymity. However, 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 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…
Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Color Sundays “Call of the Wild” © 2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. Text of “Mickey’s Sunday Best: A New Arena” by J.B. Kaufman is © 2013 by J.B. Kaufman. All contents © 2013 Disney Enterprises unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Behind the Scenes with Burt – A Breaking Cat News Adventure


By Georgia Dunn (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-1-5248-7127-7 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-5248-7769-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Joys of the Season – and Some Cats… 10/10

Cats rule the world. Everybody knows it. Just ask social media and the internet. In fact, just ask your cat – if you dare. Those of us “blessed” with designated feline overlords also learn pretty quickly that they run the house too. In 2016, illustrator and cartoonist Georgia Dunn found a way to make her hairy housemates (the ones with more than two feet) earn their keep after watching them converge on a domestic accident and inquisitively – and interminably – poke their little snouts into the mess.

Breaking Cat News began as an irresistibly beguiling web comic strip detailing how her forthright felines form their own on-the-spot news-team with studio anchor Lupin, and field reporters Elvis (investigative) and Puck (commentary) delivering around-the-clock reports on the events that really resonate with cats – because, after all, who else matters?

And now they’re all over books like this recapitulating delight, as well as a slew of delightful merchandise…

Here then, after far too long an interlude, is the fifth collection of outrageous, alarming, occasionally courageous but always charming – and probably far too autobiographical for comfort – romps, riffs and devastatingly debilitating sad bits starring a growing family of people and the cats and assorted critters they share space with.

If you’re a returning customer or already follow the strip, you’re au fait with the ever-expanding cast and its ceaselessly surreal absurdity, but this stuff is so welcoming even the merest neophyte can jump right in with no confusion other than that which is intentional…

Be warned though, Dunn is a master of emotional manipulation and never afraid to tug heartstrings. Keep hankies close.

Under the conceit that the BCN station needs technical upgrades, this collection revisits earlier evergreen episodes (more on that later) but – professionally unable to simply coast – Dunn kicks off with an extended special saga pulling together plotlines from the in-world telenovela/soap opera Our IX Lives Christmas Special: an outrageous, hilariously histrionic sequence of episodes piling up millionaire skulduggery, murder, nuns, piracy, abductions, romance and forced marriages upon unsuspected siblings and secret parents, medical crises, legal shenanigans, warring families, ghosts and prophecies. The non-stop dramady culminates in a many aborted weddings, and a multi-vehicle ambulance chase in a snowstorm. Pretty much any day at Viejo Gato, in fact…

Accompanied by deliciously whimsical behind the scenes commentary, such as how Puck “changing colour”, and plenty of cartoon interjections and graphic stage whispers about how and when the strip moved from pixels to print, the recollections then commence. On March 27th 2017, a suitably modified (for which read fully redrawn and recoloured) version of the web wild world began newspaper syndication, alternating with new material designed expressly for print consumption: a situation mirrored in this tabby tinged tome…

(Re)Drawing attention on the home front are items such as ‘The Woman is Cooking Bacon’, The Woman is in a Room We Can’t Get Into’, ‘The People Bought Some Stupid-Looking Thing For the Dining Room’, ‘The Woman is Trying to Use a Laptop’, and expansionist future tearjerker ‘That Cat is in the backyard again, Elvis’ – opening salvo in a lengthy but subtle discussion on lost cats that would pay off in many hankies over the years ahead…

Rolling news was backed up by In-Depth packages devoted to moving house (‘The People are building box forts’, and ‘Packing tape: Dangerous Hazard?’) and the entire household undertook a lengthy brush with maternity as seen in ‘The Woman is Slowing down’, ‘The Woman is Trying to Make the Bed’ and ‘The People are Awake in the Middle of the Night’…

Perennial favoured topics include animals who aren’t cats, the war with vacuum cleaners, weather and changing seasons, vet visits, what constitutes food, lamps and house plants and Puck’s lifelong efforts to prove the existence of fabled cryptid “The Mailman”…

Most crucially you’ll also learn the derivation of household boon the “bellywarmer”, how trees fall apart, see the traditional ‘Bi-monthly 2 AM “Running of the Cats”’, the joy and wonder of takeout, how cats enjoy Halloween and Christmas and why kale must be eradicated…

We pause (tee hee) for now with Breaking Cat News More to Explore: presenting a selection of the first strips reformatted for newspaper consumption in ‘Digitally Colored BCN Strips’ (as opposed to Dunn’s preferred and now restored method of hand water-colouring her artwork.

Smart, witty, imaginative and deliciously whimsical, Breaking Cat News is a fabulously funny infinitely re-readable feel-good feature rendered with artistic elan and a light and breezy touch to delight not just us irredeemable cat-addicts but also anyone in need of a good laugh.

Felis Navidad, y’all.
Behind the Scenes with Burt © 2022 Georgia Dunn. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant volume 1


By Keith Giffen & Alan Grant with Simon Bisley, Christian Alamy, Denys Cowan, Kevin O’Neill & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7477-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: ’Tis the Season To Be Fragged… 8/10

Lobo is an incredibly powerful, inescapably violent, perpetually drunken thug afflicted with a love of space dolphins, an utter disregard for all other life and an unshakable moral code hard for anyone else to grasp. The obnoxious, overbearing, unsanitary intergalactic bounty hunter was first seen in Omega Men #3, cover-dated June 1983. He then cropped up all over the DC universe, even becoming a mainstay of the popular L.E.G.I.O.N. series: indentured by cunning stunt as a (sort of) peacekeeper to the intergalactic commercial police force run by Vril Dox, “son” of one multiversal iteration of cosmic super-villain Brainiac.

He had his own monthly title for a few years as well as multiple miniseries and specials, and was a popular candidate for inter and cross-company team-ups. He’s even been a repeat offender on screen in both live action and animated iterations. In-world, the name Lobo roughly translates as “he who devours your entrails and enjoys it”. Despite being pretty much a one trick pony and increasingly an exercise in outrageous graphic excess, this unstoppable, anarchic force-of-nature exploded in popularity in the decade following debut. He was exactly what many fans wanted.

This collection reprints Lobo #1-4; The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special; Lobo’s Back #1-4; Lobo: Blazing Chain of Love; Lobo Convention Special and material from Who’s Who in the DC Universe, collectively spanning all of infinity via cover-dates November 1990 to September 1993.

Without any kind of fair warning, this bloodbath of poor taste and shocking excess opens with initial Limited Series Lobo #1-4: ‘The Last Czarnian’. The skeevy brute always prided himself on being the final survivor of his planet, but here finds to his horror and disgust that he missed someone when he slaughtered his entire race. That lucky survivor is his old fourth grade teacher Miss Tribb, who has unbelievably and unwisely written an unauthorized tell-all biography of “the Main Man” who was her least favourite pupil ever…

Forbidden by his own honour-code from killing her, he must instead escort the snippy snarky old baggage to Dox at L.E.G.I.O.N. HQ with every nut-job in the universe pursuing them, hell-bent on killing one or other or preferably both of them. Subdivided into ‘Part One: Portrait of a Psychopath’, ‘Part Two: Lord of the Dance’, ‘Part Three: Spell or Die’ and ‘Part Four: The Last Last Czarnian’, this blistering bonkers baroque barbarity is plotted and laid out by Giffen, scripted by Grant and outrageously limned by hip headbanger Simon Bisley as colourist; Lovern Kindzierski and letterer Todd Klein aid and abet the cartoon carnage. As usual, despite all the forces ranged against him, The Main Man has the last – albeit misspelled – word…

The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special (January 1992) follows with Giffen, Grant, Bisley, Kindzierski and Gaspar Saldino expediting ‘The Lobo Xmas Sanction’ as cash-strapped parents of far-too-many brats look to save on end of year expenses and learn how a certain unsavoury soul and his dog Dawg were hired by The Easter Bunny to take out his biggest rival in the holiday icon game: Santa Claus. The elves were no real problem but old man Kringle was a harder nut to crack and left a surprise Lobo never anticipated…

Beginning in May 1992, and coloured by Danny Vozzo, Lobo’s Back #1-4 comprised ‘The Final Fragdown’, ‘Heaven is… a 4-Letter Word’, ‘If the Jackboot Fits…!’ and ‘The War in Heaven’ then details his return to the private sector after L.E.G.I.O.N. implodes and how he dies trying to bring in the infamous Loo, the most dangerous being in the universe.

What follows is an outrageous, darkly hilarious, blood-soaked spin on a venerable old tale (you’ve probably seen the Bugs Bunny cartoon classic) as Lobo makes himself persona non grata in every aspect of the afterlife. When both Heaven and Hell discover that the Main Man is too much to handle, there’s only one place to go and that’s back here, but nobody said it had to be in his original body…

Fans and the spiritually attuned will want to see what this creative team does with comic guest stars loke The Demon and General Glory and a host of pantheons and holy folk of all denominations…

Behind a cover by Dan Brereton, Lobo: Blazing Chain of Love sees artist Denys Cowan, colourist Noelle Giddings and letterer “Tanya” Klein join Giffen & Grant to explore the Main Man’s other main interest, only to encounter a forced shortage of willing babes of negotiable affection…

You’d think that’s the kind of problem relentless remorseless violence couldn’t fix. You’d be wrong…

This yarn will confound all your expectations as it is in fact a potent, brilliantly-conceived argument for safe sex crafted at the height of the fightback against HIV/AIDS, leading directly into our final furious foray… against Comics fandom itself…

The Lobo Convention Special – with the much-missed Kev O’Neill delivering another inimitable illustration masterclass, and Digital Chameleon adding hues to the queues at ‘Lobo-Con’ – is blackly comedic, ironic, sardonic and manic, as it depicts and cruelly deconstructs the people it depends upon. After skewering the great, good and especially unwashed of the industry, it all ends in carnage but begins with Lobo looking to replace his copy of the Death of Superman and heading to a convention packed with the kind of fanboys we’re all absolutely certain are FAR WORSE than we are…

The carnage concludes with info pages from Who’s Who in the DC Universe…

At the height of his popularity the Main Man of Mayhem was a publisher’s dream. There was actual baying from fans and speculators for more product and a largely new and receptive audience which hadn’t seen the unleashed potential of grown up comics. These tales for (im)Mature readers aren’t to everybody’s taste, but Giffen & Grant’s wickedly sharp scripts gave Bisley (assisted by Christian Alamy) and later artists scope for breathtakingly memorable art sequences, and sometimes just going wild is as rewarding as the most intricately balanced craftwork and plot-building.

All that being said, if you’re in the right mood, his kind of gratuitous mayhem can be wonderfully entertaining and has much to recommend it if vicious, sardonic slapstick pushes your buttons. Comics excess at its finest.
© 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Yakari volume 21: Fury From the Skies


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominique and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-019-4 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Another Kind of Wonderful Life… 9/10

In 1964 children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded by Swiss journalist André Jobin, who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow Franco-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre AKA “Derib”. The illustrator had launched his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs): working on The Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Le Journal de Spirou. Thereafter, together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few years later with their next collaboration.

Derib – equally au fait with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime such groundbreaking strips as Buddy Longway, Celui-qui-est-nà-deux-fois, Jo (first comic to deal with AIDS), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we still patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Over decades, much of Derib’s stunning works have featured his beloved Western themes: magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes. Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the strip which led him to his deserved mega-stardom. Debuting in 1969, self-contained episodes trace the eventful, nomadic life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains, with stories set sometime after the introduction of horses (by colonising Conquistadores) but before the coming of modern Europeans.

The series – which also generated two separate animated TV series and a movie – is up to 42 albums thus far: a testament to its evergreen vitality and brilliance of its creators, even though originator Job moved on and Frenchman Joris Chamblain took on the writing in 2016.

Abundant with gentle whimsy and heady compassion, Yakari’s life is a largely bucolic and happy existence: at one with nature and generally free from privation or strife. For the sake of dramatic delectation however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart and brave – and who can, thanks to a boon of his totem guide the Great Eagle, converse with animals…

In 1996, La fureur du ciel was the 22nd European album, but as always, the content and set-up are both stunningly simple and sublimely accessible, affording new readers total enjoyment with a minimum of familiarity or foreknowledge required…

Fury from the Skies is painfully topical as Yakari’s wandering people are moving into lands occupied by buffalo after an eventful winter. The spring sun has brought further problems with oppressive heat and tempers fray when the adults start arguing. Medicine man He-Who-Knows wants to stop and set up camp, but Yakari’s father Bold Gaze chooses to follow his wise son a little further on. The action incenses self-appointed leader Bold Crow and magnifies bad feeling in all the riders…

As Yakari’s parents ride on, the boy is unhorsed by a plague of biting bugs, but his painful embarrassment is as nothing to the distress of his former companions as they set up camp. Old pals Slow Motion and Eyes-Always-Shut have their own ways of dealing with debilitating heat and ravenous flies, but for the rest – even children Rainbow and Buffalo Seed – stress and petty bickering looks like igniting a war, and He-Who-Knows fears big trouble ahead…

Those worries are confirmed when the sky is suddenly filled with fleeing ravens ahead of a monstrous whirlwind that smashing through, devasting the camp, scattering the tribe and injuring helpless humans and their animals. By the time Yakari and his parents return to the demolished campsite, their shocked friends are in a daze with Slow Motion bewailing the disappearance into the clouds of his large lazy friend. The Medicine Man is also gone, and Bold Crow harshly decrees the search party he forms should seek the wise one, not the fat, sleepy one…

Of course, Yakari has his own ideas and – riding his sarcastic steed Little Thunder – sets off to learn what happened to Eyes-Always-Shut. The answer is astonishing and quite troublesome, but at least the lad has a still-stunned camp dog and some very helpful wild turkeys to help him solve a very tricky and potentially dangerous puzzle.

With the big guy recovered, Yakari can turn his attention to finding out what happened to He-Who-Knows, before the adults all go crazy. They had depended on the wise man for years and are beginning to panic and lash out. This task is far more difficult and requires a long journey over spectacularly-realised terrain, some assistance from the Great Eagle himself and literally changing horses in mid-stream before the boy wonder can save the shaman and his world…

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly absorbing and entertaining all-ages strips ever conceived and should be in every home, right next to Tintin, Uncle Scrooge, Asterix and The Moomins. It’s never too late to start reading something wonderful, so why not get back to nature as soon as you can?
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud – Lombard s. a.) – 2000. All rights reserved. English translation 2023 © Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

Alley Oop: The First Time Travel Adventure (Library of American Comic Essentials)


By V.T. Hamlin (IDW/Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-829-6 (Landscape HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Reliving Those Golden Days… 9/10

Modern comics evolved from newspaper strips. These pictorial features were, until relatively recently, extremely popular with the public and highly valued by publishers who used them as a powerful weapon to guarantee and even increase circulation and profits. From the outset humour was paramount; hence our umbrella terms “Funnies” and of course “comics”.

Despite the odd ancestor or precedent like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (comedic when it began in 1924; gradually moving from mock-heroics to light-action into full-blown adventure with the introduction of Captain Easy in 1929) or Tarzan and Buck Rogers – both debuting January 7th 1929 as adaptations of pre-existing prose properties – the vast bulk of strips produced were generally feel-good humour strips supplemented by the occasional jolly child-oriented fantasy.

This abruptly changed in the 1930s when an explosion of rollicking drama strips launched with astounding rapidity. Not only features but actual genres were created in that decade which still impact on not just today’s comicbooks but all our popular fiction.

Another infinitely deep well of fascination for humans is cavemen and dinosaurs. During that distant heyday of America’s strip-surge a rather unique real character created a rather unique and paradoxical cartoon character: at once both adventurous and comedic; simultaneously forward-looking and fantastically “retro” in the same engagingly rendered package…

Vincent Trout Hamlin was born in 1900 and did many things before settling as a cartoonist. After mustering out of the US Expeditionary Force at the end of the Great War, V.T. finished High School and then went to the University of Missouri. This was in 1920 and he studied journalism but, since he’d always loved drawing, the eager beaver took advantage of the institution’s art courses too.

Hamlin was always a supreme storyteller and lived long enough to give plenty of interviews and accounts – many impishly contradictory – about the birth of his antediluvian archetype…

As a press photographer, Hamlin had roamed the Lone Star State filming the beginnings of the petroleum industry and caught the bug for finding fossils. Whilst drawing ads for a Texas Oil company, he became further fascinated with bones and rocks as he struggled to create a strip which would provide his family with a regular income…

When V.T. resolved to chance his arm at the booming comic strip business, those fossil fragments got his imagination percolating and he came up with a perfect set-up for action, adventure, big laughs and even a healthy dose of social satire.

Alley Oop is a Neanderthal (-ish) caveman inhabiting a lush, fantastic land where dinosaurs still thrive. In fact his greatest friend and boon companion is Dinny; a faithful, valiant saurian chum who terrifies every other dinosaur in creation… as well as all the annoying spear-waving bipeds swarming about. Because Dinny is as smart and obedient as a dog, all the other cave folk – like arrogant, insecure King Guzzle – generally treat the mighty, free-thinking, disrespectful Oop with immense caution…

Unlike most of his audience, Hamlin knew such things could never have occurred, but didn’t much care: the set-up was too sweet to waste and it would prove to be the very least of the supremely imaginative creative anachronisms he and his brilliant wife Dorothy would concoct as the strip grew in scope and popularity.

Oop actually launched twice. In 1930 Hamlin whipped up primeval prototype Oop the Mighty which he then radically retooled and sold to small, local Bonnet-Brown Syndicate as Alley Oop. It debuted on December 5th 1932 and was steadily gaining traction when Bonnet-Brown foundered in the worst days of the Great Depression a year later.

Happily the strip had enough of a popular following that Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate – whose other properties included Major Hoople, Boots and Her Buddies and the aforementioned Wash Tubbs – tracked down the neophyte scribbler and offered him a regular slot in papers all over America. Thus Alley Oop re-debuted as a daily strip on August 7th 1933, swiftly reprising old stories for a far larger audience before starting new adventures. He inevitably won a Sunday colour page on September 9th 1934, the year V.T., Dorothy and new daughter Theodora relocated to affluent Sarasota, Florida.

Sadly for such a revered series with a huge pedigree – still running today, scripted by Joey Alison Sayers and drawn by Jonathan Lemon – there has never been a concerted effort to properly collect the entire epic. There have however been tantalising reprints in magazines and archive editions from Kitchen Sink, Dark Horse and IDW. This intriguing monochrome hardback (part of The Library of American Comics Essentials range) re-presents – in one day per elongated landscape page – the absolutely most crucial game-changing sequence in the strip’s history as the protagonists escaped their antediluvian environs and calamitously catapulted into the 20th century…

Supplementing the cartoon bedazzlement is a superbly informative and candidly-picture packed introduction by Michael H. Price. ‘V.T. Hamlin and the Road to Moo’ reviews the creator’s amazing life and other strip endeavours before starting his magnum opus and what the feature meant to him, before the grand adventure (Monday March 6th 1939 to Saturday March 23rd 1940) opens in a strange land a long, long way from here and now…

A little background: the cave-folk of that far-ago time lived in a rocky village ruled over by devious, semi-paranoid King Guzzle and his formidable, achingly status-conscious wife Queen Umpateedle. The kingdom was known as Moo and the elite ruling couple were guided, advised and manipulated in equal amounts by the sneaky shaman Grand Wizer, and all three constantly sought to curb the excesses of a rebelliously independent, free-spirited, instinctively democratic kibitzer. Our hero – the toughest, most honest man in the land – had no time for silly fripperies and dumb made-up rules of interfering civilisation, but he did usually give in to the stern glances and fierce admonishments of his long-suffering girl “companion” Ooola. The uneasy balance of power in the kingdom comes from the fact that Guz and the Wizer – even with the entire nation behind them – were never a match for Oop and Dinny when they got mad – which was pretty often…

The big change came when Dinny turned up with an egg: all broody and uncooperative. With Oop’s mighty pal out of sorts, the Wizer played a cruel master-stoke and declared that only the contents of the egg could cure the King’s mystery ailment, prompting a mini civil war…

After revolution and counterrevolution Oop & Ooola are on the run when they encounter a bizarre object which vanishes before their eyes. As they stare in stupefaction they’re ambushed by Guz’s men and only escape because they too fade from sight…

Somewhere in rural America in 1939, brilliant researcher Dr. Elbert Wonmug (that’s a really convoluted but clever pun) discusses with his assistant movies their camera took when they sent it into the distant past via their experimental time machine…

The heated debate about the strangely beautiful and modern-looking cave woman and her monstrously odd-looking mate are curtailed as the subjects actually materialise in the room and the absentminded professor realises he left his chronal scoop running…

Before he can reverse his mistake and return the unwilling, unwitting guests to their point of origin, the colossal mechanism catastrophically explodes, wrecking the lab and burying the astounded antediluvians in rubble.

Thanks to an unexplained quirk of temporal trans-placement, time travellers always speak the language of wherever they’ve fetched up – albeit through their own slang and idiom – so after utterly unharmed Oop digs his way out, explanations are soon forthcoming from the modern tinkerers. Before long the cave folk are introduced to the fabulous advances of 20th century America.

At least Ooola is – thanks to the friendly advice of Wonmug’s daughter Dee – but the hulking male primitive is quickly fed up with this fragile place, all snarled up with just as many foolish rules and customs as home…

Storming off to catch and eat something he understands, Oop is suddenly whisked across country in a spectacular and hilarious rampage of destruction – in the best silent movie chase tradition – after falling asleep in a transcontinental freighttrain car. After weeks of wondering, Wonmug and the now thoroughly-acclimated Ooola read newspaper reports of a cunning and destructive “Great White Ape” and make plans to fetch their stray home. The government meanwhile have put top agent G.I.Tum on the case…

The Phantom Ape has plans of his own and, after “trapping” an aeroplane and its pilot, makes his own tempestuous way back to the isolated lab. Eventually the whole story comes out and the displaced primal pair become media sensations, just as Wonmug finally completes repairs to the time machine. Now though, Ooola – and to a lesser extent Alley – are not keen on returning to their dangerous point of origin…

Moreover, not everybody believes Elbert has actually cracked the time barrier and the next segment sees scientific sceptic Dr. Bronson demand proof. However, when he eagerly zips off to experience Moo first hand, he disappears and – after much pleading – Oop is convinced to follow him and find out what happened. When the swirling sensation ends, our hirsute hero discovers what the problem is: the machine is by no means accurate and its focus has shifted,  rematerializing outside a gigantic walled city of what we’d call the Bronze Age…

What follows is a stupendous romp of action, adventure and so many laughs as Oop and Bronson become improbable and forgotten heroes of the Trojan War, turning the so-pretty head of enchanting Helen of Troy and becoming the embattled city’s top warrior generals.

In the 20th century Wonmug is arrested for murder. Dee and his assistant Jon struggle to perfect their chronal contraption but in the end resort to busting the genius out to fix the problem and bring the time-lost wanderers back.

In a race against time that’s all soon sorted and Ooola heads for ancient Greece to save the lost boys. Unfortunately she’s picked up by besieging Greeks and, thanks to her skill with guns, mistaken for the goddess Minerva. The legendary story further unfolds with Oop & Ooola on opposite sides until wily Bronson makes a breakthrough based on his historical knowledge and they all return home in time to save Wonmug from the cops…

Soon a compact time team is established to exploit the invention – but not before Oop returns to devastated Troy to retrieve his beloved stone axe. With Bronson and Ooola in tow he then finds himself swept up in little sea voyage we know as The Odyssey…

Back in America, the team expands after college chum and genius of all knowledge G. Oscar Boom invites himself to Wonmug’s scientific party. With all contact lost, the unscrupulous rogue offers to go looking for them in the untrammelled past …providing he can take his specially tricked-out station wagon. As this stunning collection concludes Boom and a mighty hitchhiker named Hercules have just run into the missing chrononauts as they are about to enter the Amazonian wilds of the Land of Warrior Women…

Escaping the ultimately limiting confines of the strip and becoming a seasoned time travellers Hamlin made the best of all worlds for his characters: Oop and Ooola periodically returned home to Dinny and Moo but they also roamed every intriguing nook and cranny of history – even escaping planet Earth entirely. Hopefully our own future holds the prospect of more such splendid strip sagas. Fast-paced, furious, fantastically funny and bitterly barbed in the wryly acerbic manner of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, Alley Oop is a bone fide classic of strip narrative, long overdue the respect of a complete curated chronological collection.

However, until some enlightened publisher gets around to it, by all means start digging online and in bargain bins for each – or any – of the wonderful tomes already released. It’s barely the tip of an iceberg, but we all have to start sometime…
Alley Oop © and ® 2013 United Features Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Ugly Mug #5, 6 & 7


By many and various aligned to The House of Harley, including Ed Pinsent, John Bagnall, Tom Baxter Tiffin, Marc Baines, Chris Reynolds, Savage Pencil, Jason Atomic, Patricia Gaignat, iestyn, Jim Barker, Masaman, Denny Derbyshire, Oxideguy, Vince Mancuso, Hal Weaver, Alberto Monteiro & various (House of Harley)
ISBN: N/A

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Wild Fun and the Epitome of Sheer Creativity Perfection… 8/10

Comics may be a billion dollar business these days, but at its core remains all about doing something creative and waiting for people to say “Oi! Come and look at this!”

At that charged and dynamic pictorial coalface are folk who would draw strips and cartoons even if the act carried the threat of exile or death penalty (so, missed a trick there, Soo-Ella Slaverman and Mr. not-so-Cleverly!): crafting and self-publishing the kind of word-wedded images the industry and art form continually renews and reinvents itself with.

Every year The House of Harley unleashes an annual (well duh!) anthology of short stories, posterworks, tableaux, diagrammatic diatribes – even further continued characters and serials – via the ranks of the British Small Press movement (it’s really more of a tendency these days but riveting nonetheless).The project also invites international guests, and it’s well past time you knew more about their splendid efforts.

Available at the moment for your delectation are a trio of tomes, with issue #5 being a horror themed treat including, amongst many, dark delights from Marc Baines, Chris Reynolds, Savage Pencil, Denny Derbyshire and Niall Richardson, an instalment of Ed Pinsent’s ‘Windy Wilberforce’ serial, John Bagnall’s ‘Father Gilderoy Investigates’, Tom Baxter Tiffin’s ‘Berserker’, Pinsent’s ‘R.S.D. Laing, Record Detective’ and some sinister self-help advice from Ess “Strange and Wonderful Creature” Hödlmoser.

City and Country in contention are compiled for #6, with Jim Barker (‘Cardboard Cities’) and Masaman (‘Japanese Graphix’), supplementing the old lags’ regular fare which here includes ‘Seb’ (by House of Harley), PCSO Dan, Dora the Art Restorer, more Windy Wilberforce et al…

This year’s model is a bonanza edition sporting an iestyn pettigrew wraparound cover, with a bumper crop of wonders addressing Karma and Chaos and dedicated to Chris Reynolds (1960-2023). Here lurk fantastic beasts from Pinsent, Bagnall’s crucial ‘How a Comic is Made’, Chris Reynolds’ fumetti ‘Batlight’, prophetic ‘Take the Children Out of Town’ (House of Harley) and epic exploration ‘Otherweirdly’ (Denny Derbyshire). These are backed up by briefer bits, graphic one-offs and episodes of extended exploits for ‘Mark E. Smith: Music Teacher’, Jason Atomic’s ‘King Kong Memories’ and ‘Respecto/Kanyok Hunting Fetish’ by Hal Weaver.

As jammed-packed with beguiling thrilling stuff as any British X-mas Annual of yore, these curated creations brim with surreal narrative force and come overloaded with wry and witty visual oomph, an example of the compulsion to leave our marks wherever we can.
All contents © their respective creators.

For all this and much more please check out: houseofharley.net/shop

Posted on

Marsupilami volumes 7 & 8: The Gold of Boavista & The Temple of Boavista


By Yann & Batem, coloured by Cerise and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-069-2 (Album PB/Digital edition Gold)
ISBN: 978-1 80044-099-9 (Album PB/Digital edition Temple)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Mad Monkeyshines with Gallic Aplomb… 9/10

One of Europe’s most popular comic stars is an eccentrically irascible, loyally unpredictable, super-strong, rubber-limbed ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The frantic, frenetic Marsupilami is a wonder of nature and icon of European entertainment originally spun-off from another immortal comedy adventure strip…

When Andre Franquin began crafting eponymous keystone strip Spirou for eponymous flagship publication Le Journal de Spirou, he quickly abandoned the previous format of short complete gags to pioneer longer adventure serials, and began introducing a wide and engaging cast of new characters.

For 1952’s Spirou et les heritiers, he then devised a beguilingly boisterous South American critter and tossed him like an elastic-arsed grenade into the mix. Thereafter – until resigning in 1969 – Franquin constantly added the bombastic little beast to Spirou’s increasingly incredible escapades…

Marsupilami popped up constantly: a phenomenally popular wonder animal who inevitably grew into a solo star of screen, toy store, console games and albums all his own. In 1955 a contractual spat with Dupuis saw Franquin sign up with publishing rivals Casterman for Le Journal de Tintin: collaborating with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst creating raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon.

Franquin and Dupuis patched things up within days, and he went back to Le Journal de Spirou. In 1957, he co-created Gaston Lagaffe, but was still legally obliged to carry on his Tintin work too. From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted, but over the next decade Franquin reached his Spirou limit. In 1969 he quit for good, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

Plagued by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped European comics. Moreover, having learned his lessons about publishers, Franquin retained all rights to Marsupilami and in the late 1980’s began publishing his own adventures of the rambunctious miracle-worker.

He recruited old comrade Greg as scripter and invited commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (AKA Batem) to collaborate on – and later monopolise – art duties for the new adventures. In recent years, the commercial world triumphed again and – since 2016 – the universes of Marsupilami and Spirou have reconnected, allowing the old firm to participate in shared exploits of a world created and populated by Franquin.

Graced with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a deviously ingenious anthropoid inhabiting the rainforests of Palombia. One of the rarest animals on Earth, it speaks a language uniquely its own and has a reputation for making trouble and sparking chaos. The species is rare and is fanatically dedicated to its young. Sometimes that takes the form of “tough love”. This behaviour frequently extends to any humans it encounters and “adopts”…

The first of two books telling one tale, L’or de Boavista was released in October 1992. The seventh of 33 solo albums, it was followed a year later by concluding volume Le Temple de Boavista, combining into an edgily gripping comedy drama with much dark and scary social activism underpinning the usual hairy hijinks.

It opens in Palombian capital Chiquito, where children are going missing. No one cared when it was orphans and homeless urchins, but it’s quite different when Donald Maxwell-Trent plays truant and is abducted off the street. He’s spoiled, rich and the son of the US Ambassador…

Tragically, that means nothing to the ruthless thugs who need a constant supply of kids his size and age to work at an illegal, highly polluting goldmine in the jungle upriver. The toxic mess and mercury-made mire these Garimpeiros are creating has incensed and outraged the Marsupilami who now deems them his worst enemies ever…

After another of the yellow terror’s night attacks, overseer Solaria – a slightly older boy with an agenda of his own – helps Donald, now cruelly called “Gordito” by his malnourished comrades, to escape into the green hell. The older boy is only interested in freedom, wealth and returning to the undiscovered tribe he was stolen from, but from his cough may have waited too long to make his break…

Soon brutal gang boss Ingo is in hot pursuit, but his party’s progress is severely hampered by the stalking Marsu – whenever the golden beast isn’t clandestinely helping the fugitives. The furious furry (called by Polombians “El diablo”, and “La catestrofe amarilla”) is then instrumental in linking up the lads with an acceptable resident human…

Transplanted animal trainer Noah keeps his menagerie of friends on a river boat. Appalled by what Solario tells him, Noah resolves to stop the mining but that confrontation does not work out as planned and soon they are all fleeing for their lives up the dreaded Rio Boavista into lethal, legend-drenched “Spatoolah Territory” with dozens of killers on their collective tails…

To Be Concluded…

 

The dark drama heads into even wilder regions with The Temple of Boavista as relentless pursuit drives our heroes ever deeper into unexplored locales of the mighty tributary. Thankfully the hidden people they meet are mostly friendly, but their heightened state of fear is not ended for long. That night the jungle reverberates with horrific laughter emanating from a gargantuan edifice almost reclaimed by centuries of encroaching trees and vines…

The building is an ancient Zygomaztec temple and in its lee are some very nasty tomb robbers. Zoltan and Zorrino plan on stealing Noah’s floating zoo to carry their latest haul, but haven’t reckoned on the alliance of kids and tribal people, nor whatever is making the dire noises wracking the night with sinister sounds.

… And that’s before Ingo’s Garimpeiros and utterly fed up and furious Marsupilami get involved, or morose millionaire Harold “Buster” Stonelove and his safari guide Rhode Island Smith show up. These “ugly Americans” are looking for the secret of laughter and believe the raucous ruins can supply their answer, when they should be watching the yellow critter with the elastic tail and bad attitude…

As all the competing factions calamitously converge on the temple interior, a remarkable answer to the mirth mystery emerges and in a storm of giggling terror everybody gets jut what they deserve…

These eccentric exploits of the garrulous golden monkey are moodily macabre, furiously funny and pithily pertinent, offering engagingly riotous romps and devastating debacles for wide-eyed kids of every age all over the world. Fancy channelling your inner El Diablo and joining in the fun? It all starts with Hoobee, Hoobah Hoobah…
Marsupilami: The Gold of Boavista Original edition © Dupuis 1992, by Batem & Yann
Marsupilami: Temple of Boavista Original edition © Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1993, by Batem & Yann, Franquin. All rights reserved. English translations © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.
© Marsu Productions 1992. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

Daydreams and Nightmares – The Fantastic Visions of Winsor McCay (second edition)


By Winsor McCay & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-569-4 (TPB/Digital editions)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Picture Perfect… 10/10

Winsor McCay was a cartoonist and animator best known for Little Nemo in Slumberland. There was of course, so much more to him and this retrospective touches on the man whilst displaying a glorious abundance of his many graphic marvels.

Born in Spring Lake, Michigan, on 26th September, 1869 (or maybe 1871 in Canada: records differ) Zenas Winsor McCay was a brilliant and hugely successful cartoonist and animator who worked on newspaper illustrations, strips and political panels from 1898 until his untimely death in 1934.

This collection (a remastered release of a 1998 celebration) offers up some sublime examples of his many oeuvres. Following a Foreword by Gary Groth and context-packed biographical preface ‘The Dream Master’ by Richard Marschall, the man himself relates what we need to know in his own words thanks to 1927 essay ‘From Sketchbook to Animation by Winsor McCay’ and a 1926 letter to fellow artisan Clare Briggs (Danny Dreamer, Mr. and Mrs.) ‘On Being a Cartoonist’ before we begin a magical trawl through a magnificent career…

Spanning 1989 to 1903 – when McCay signed with The New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett – ‘Chapter One: Early Magazine Work’ offers political broadsides, early editorial diatribes in pictorial form, social commentary and pure illustration pieces, albeit gradually trending towards his later fascination with fantastic architecture and parlous prognostications of cultural collapse, before ‘Chapter Two: Newspaper Fantasy Illustrations’ focusses on wry speculative futurism – a popular topic of periodical publication back then…

Encompassing 1904-1924, ‘Chapter Three: Midsummer Daydreams and Other Comic Strips’ offers timeless examples of his ceaseless cartoon endeavours including A Pilgrim’s Progress, Poor Jake, Midsummer Daydreams/Daydreams, It Was Only a Dream, The Dreams of a Lobster Fiend, The Faithful Employee, He’s One of Those Telephone Lobster Fiends, And Then – Kerchoo! – He Sneezed!, Everyone Has Met That Well Known Character, Mr. Duck, and Rabid Reveries but sadly omits Jungle Imps, Dull Care, The Man from Montclair, Mr. Bosh, Hungry Henrietta and It’s Nice to be Married…

On October 15th 1905 the most important children’s strip in the world debuted in the Sunday Herald but Little Nemo in Slumberland had precursors and indeed a mature-reader rival. ‘Chapter Four: Dream of the Rarebit Fiend’ explores the many variations and iterations penned (and inked) from 1904 to 1913. Tireless McCay had conjured up visions for adult readers of The Evening Telegram, initially entitled Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. The editor, wishing to distance the feature from other strips, required McCay to use a pen-name, and he complied, signing the strips “Silas”, reputedly after a local garbage cart driver.

Where Nemo was a beautifully clean formal and surreal fantasy of childish imagination, Fiend displayed a creepy, subdued tension resonant with the fears and worries of its adult audience. Black, cruel and often outright sick humour pervades the series combining monstrous destruction and expressionist trauma. Even root causes of otherworldly nightmares were salutary. Each self-contained episode (18 reproduced here) and disturbing sequence of unsettling or terrifying, incredibly realistic images was the result of overindulgence; usually in late night toasted cheese treats!

Every anxiety from surreal terror to social embarrassment was grist for the fantasist’s mill and startling perspectives, bizarre transformations and uncanny scenes – always immaculately rendered – made the strip hugely successful and well-regarded strip in its day.

In 1906, American film pioneer Edwin S. Porter created a landmark 7-minute live action special-effects movie entitled The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend and the Edison company produced a cylinder recording with the same name the following year – played by the Edison Military Band. McCay himself produced four animated shorts in 1916-17: Dream of a Rarebit Fiend; Dreams of The Rarebit Fiend: The Pet, Dreams of The Rarebit Fiend: The Flying House and Dreams of The Rarebit Fiend: Bug Vaudeville, and despite his many other later successes returned to the feature sporadically over the years. Between 1923 – 1925 he revived it as Rarebit Reveries, officially attributing the strip to his son who signed the panels Robert Winsor McCay, Jr.

An artist hugely in-demand then and revered today, from 1903 to 1906 McCay invented many other all-ages cartoon works and ‘Chapter Five: Sunday Excursions’ highlights one of most enduring and inventive with 18 episodes of Little Sammy Sneeze, before the linear lunacy ends with his speculations on the world, its people and impending dystopias in ‘Chapter Six: Sermons on Paper’ with 54 stunning tableaux full-page rendered between 1913-1934, shaped by war and other disasters depicting so very many ways humanity could end and so few where we stop our species’ extinction event…

Although working far more than a century ago McCay still affects all aspects of graphic narrative produced ever since and his visions are more pertinent now than in his own lifetime. A darker side of an absolute master of our art form, this is work you must see and cannot miss.
Daydreams and Nightmares © 2005 Fantagraphics Books.