Category: Humour

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Yakari volume 17: The Snow Bird


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominique and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-460-1 (Album PB)

Children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded in 1964 by Swiss journalist André Jobin who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-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 Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Le Journal de Spirou. 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 that groundbreaking strips such as Celui-qui-est-né-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic ever published dealing 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…

Many of Derib’s stunning works over the decades feature his cherished Western themes; magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes. Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the strip which first led him to deserved mega-stardom.

Debuting in 1969, Yakari follows the life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains; set sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores but before the coming of modern Europeans.

The series – which has generated two separate TV cartoon series and a movie release – has achieved 40th albums: a testament to the strip’s evergreen vitality and the brilliance of its creators, even though originator Job has moved on and Frenchman Joris Chamblain has assumed the writer’s role from 2016.

Overflowing with gentle whimsy and heady compassion, young Yakari enjoys a largely bucolic existence: at one with nature and generally free from privation or strife. For the sake of our 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, brave… and can – thanks to the boon of his totem guide the Great Eagle – converse with all animals …

Originally released in 1992, L’osieau de niege was the 18th European album, but – as always with the best books – the content and set-up are both stunningly simple and effectively timeless, affording new readers total enjoyment with a minimum of familiarity or foreknowledge required…

This time, the little wonder willingly yields focus to human companion Rainbow as the kids idly play at the debilitating heights of the summer. They are confined to one of the capacious rawhide tipis thanks to a sudden deluge when the storm suddenly picks up the entire tent – floor and all – and whisks them away into the sky…

The tipi heads steadily north at high altitude and eventually lands in frozen tundra where old pal and mystic spirit rabbit Nanabozho is waiting. He’s summoned them for fun and adventure…

Rapt in wonder, the little girl soon befriends a lemming and saves him from a hunting snowy owl before she and Yakari are separated. A long search for each other finds them exhausted and baffled as the sun never goes down…

After a long nap on the too-bright plains, Yakari has a long chat with the giant owl and joins an army of lemmings as they cross a stream. Rainbow, meanwhile, is caught in a similar migration, but the reindeer she’s wandered into are far larger and determined. Before long she’s been carried with them and dumped in a raging river. Thankfully, the owl is soaring above and drags her out before she can drown…

Reunited at last, the little wanderers seek out their tipi, and befriend a herd of musk oxen just as a snap snowstorm hits. Not only do the mighty beasts warm them until it passes, but they’re quite protective when a hungry and inquisitive pack of wolves considers them as the next meal…

When Nanabozho pops up again, the general consensus is that it might be time to return, but as the tipi takes off, the kids realise they have a stowaway…

Exotically enticing, deviously educational and wildly entertaining, this cheery travelogue of natural wonders allows Derib & Job full rein to display their astounding and compelling narrative virtuosity: a glorious graphic tour de force capturing the appealing courage of our diminutive heroes, and a visually stunning, seductively smart and happily heart-warming saga to delight young and old alike.

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly absorbing all-ages strips ever conceived and should be in every home, right beside Tintin, Uncle Scrooge, Asterix and The Moomins.
Original edition © Derib + Job – Editions du Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard s. a.) 2000. English translation 2019 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Cage!


By Genndy Tartakovsky, Stephen DeStefano & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2786-4 (TPB)

For most of modern history black consumers of popular entertainments enjoyed far too few fictive role models. In the English-speaking world that began changing in the turbulent 1960s and truly took hold during the decade that followed. Many characters stemming from those days come from a cultural phenomenon called Blaxploitation. Although criticised for its seedy antecedents, stereotypical situations and violence, the films, books, music and art were the first mass-market examples of minority characters in leading roles, rather than as fodder, flunkies or flamboyant villains. If you scroll back a bit, you’ll see a rather pompous review by (old, white) me detailing how that groundbreaking era led to the birth of superheroic cultural icon Luke Cage. You should read those stories: they’re rather good.

In 2016, animation superstar Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Hotel Transylvania) reminded readers of something else: those tales were outrageously frantic fun too.

Four-issue miniseries Cage! dials us back to that fabulous mythical moment – or at least 1977 in New York – for a sublimely daft interlude as the street-jivin’ Hero for Hire interrupts roller skating bank robbers before being drawn into an incredible mystery…

Super heroes and top ass-kickers like his friends Misty Knight and Iron Fist are going missing and diligent investigation leads him into nothin’ but trouble…

Soon the bewildered champion is facing off against an army of old enemies, enduring psychedelic enlightenment, and battling simian Professor Soos to liberate the lost defenders and survive a deadly festival of combat on a lost island…

With raucous and rowdy guest appearances from the pre-Dark Phoenix X-Men, Dazzler, Black Panther, Ghost Rider, Brother Voodoo and a host of period stars of the Marvel Pantheon, this timeless delight also includes a full reprint of origin/debut ‘Out of Hell… A Hero!’ (by Archie Goodwin, George Tuska, Billy Graham, Roy Thomas &John Romita Senior) as seen in Luke Cage Hero for Hire #1, plus a stunning covers-&-variants gallery by Tartakovsky, Trevor Von Eeden, Marco D’Alfonso, Joe Quesada, Damion Scott, Bruce Timm, Bill Pressing and Arthur Adams & Paul Mounts

I honestly don’t know what the commissioning editors were thinking, but By Gosh, It Works! This is a superb pastiche and spoof of distant days, packed with fun and frenetic energy. Read it fast with loud music playing and preferably wearing orange rayon slacks. Dig it in paperback or digital, but do, do dig it Baby…
© 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Luke on the Loose


By Harry Bliss, coloured by Françoise Mouly & Zeynep Memecan (Toon Books/Raw Junior)
ISBN: 978-1-935179-05-4 (HB) 978-1-935179-36-8 (PB)

Here’s a sublimely enticing yarn for early readers and older instructors possibly bored with wholesomely anodyne little tots.

Award-winning creator Harry Bliss was reared on a diet of Will Elder’s Mad Magazine cartoons and, after surviving to adulthood, started selling his own manic doodles and covers to the prestigious periodical the New Yorker. He’s also illustrated many fine and fabulous children’s books such as Sharon Creech’s A Fine, Fine School, Doreen Cronin’s Diary of… series – a Worm, a Fly and a Spider et al – as well as Which Would You Rather Be? by William Steig and the marvellously stirring Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo. Luke… was his first comic book, but you’d never know it.

Opening with a handy all-ages-accessible map of the City That Never Sleeps (just remember “the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down”), Luke on the Loose introduces a little lad with a lot of energy and a dangerous amount of single-minded determination, whose inquisitive focus and blind concentration leads him into a great big New York Adventure…

Whilst being taken for a walk with his father in Central Park, little Luke’s attention is captured by a flock of pigeons. Slipping out of his distracted dad’s grasp, the eager beaver chases after the birds and just keeps on going…

Even running as fast as he can – which is pretty darn quick – the boy can’t catch his cooing quarry, but his phenomenal progress through the urban arboreal esplanade causes a wave of commotion leaving people, pooches and sundry other passers-by windswept and reeling…

Also reeling is Luke’s Mum once Dad telephones her…

Caught in the moment of complete absorption Luke hurtles onward, out of the park, across the bridge and into the wilds of Brooklyn, vaulting moms with strollers, hurtling over kerbside diners and young lovers and crashing through a queue at an ice-cream stand. Unable to escape the determined pursuit, the flurried flock heads up and, thanks to a handy fire-escape, so does Luke…

Raucous, riotous and riveting, infinitely re-readable and packed with overlapping gags in layers of beguiling pictorial detail, Luke on the Loose is superbly engaging, thrill-a-minute and hilariously exciting: the kind of fun tale boisterous little boys will adore in that so-brief window every day between full-speed rushing about and total snoring shut-down…

Little girls will love it too, but probably take time to savour it before also rocketing about like hyper-active meteors …

Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly set up Toon Books/Raw Junior as an imprint of legendary alternative comics magazine, to produce high-quality comics stories in premium formats to suit pre-schoolers and beginning readers and form the first steps of a life enriched by strips and reading. Their superbly superior comic tales come in 3 educational standards (Level 1: First Comic for Brand New Readers, Level 2: Easy-to-Read for Emerging Readers and Level 3: Chapter Books for Advanced Beginners) and the company enhances publications with on-line supplements.

TOON-BOOKS.com offers follow ups like interactive audio-versions (read by the authors), a choice of languages and a “cartoon maker” facility allowing readers to make their own adventures about the characters they have just met in the printed editions. Most books also include tips for parents and teachers on ‘How to Read Comics with Kids’ – and you know how much that’s worth these days…
© 2009, 2020 Raw Junior, LLC. All rights reserved.

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A Valentine for Charlie Brown


By Charles M. Schulz (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699- (HB)

Peanuts is unequivocally the most important comics strip in the history of graphic narrative. It is also the most broadly accepted, since – after the characters made the jump to television – the little nippers become an integral part of the American mass cultural experience.

Charles M. Schulz crafted his moodily hilarious, hysterically introspective, shockingly philosophical epic for 50 years, publishing 17,897 strips from October 2nd 1950 to February 13th 2000. He died from the complications of cancer the day before his last strip was published…

At its height, the strip ran in 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries, translated into 21 languages. Many of those venues are still running perpetual reprints, as they have ever since his departure. Attendant book collections, a merchandising mountain and TV spin-offs made the publicity-shy artist a billionaire. That profitable sideline – one Schulz devoted barely any time to over the decades – is where this little gem originates from…

Peanuts – a title Schulz loathed, but one the syndicate forced upon him – changed the way comics strips were received and perceived by showing that cartoon comedy could have edges and nuance as well as pratfalls and punchlines.

The usual focus of the feature (we just can’t call him “star” or “hero”) is everyman loser Charlie Brown who, with high-maintenance, fanciful mutt Snoopy, endures a bombastic and mercurial supporting cast who hang out doing kid things in a most introspective, self-absorbed manner.

The daily gags centred on playing (pranks, sports, musical instruments), teasing each other, making ill-informed observations and occasionally acting a bit too much like grown-ups. The consistently expanding cast also includes mean girl Violet, child prodigy Schroeder, “world’s greatest fussbudget” Lucy Van Pelt, her other-worldly baby brother Linus and dirt-magnet “Pig-Pen”: each with a signature twist to the overall mirth quotient and sufficiently fleshed out and personified to generate jokes and sequences around their own foibles. As a whole, the kids tackled every aspect of human existence in a charming and witty manner, acting as cartoon therapists and graphic philosophical guides to the world that watched them.

Charlie Brown is settled into his existential angst and resigned to his role as eternal loser as if singled out by a gleeful Fate. It’s a set-up that remains timelessly funny and infinitely enduring…

Available in a child-friendly hardback and the usual digital formats, A Valentine for Charlie Brown offers a trio of extended vintage sequences revolving around further crushing the spirit of the saddest, yet most optimistic kid on Earth. All he wants is someone to love, but for many of us, it’s not that easy to find the one – or even anyone…

The tales are told in a series of monochrome panels (generally four to a page) and we open with ‘Valentine’s Vigil at the Mailbox’ as the perpetually anxious and responsibility-burdened Charlie anticipates a card or maybe more at this time of romantic intensity. Sadly, the mail is not an ally and most post goes to the hairy pal who truly does dote on him…

Of course, there’s always Linus to share thoughts with, sister Sally to show him up and Lucy to be… well Lucy…

Not that Van Pelt has much joy with her own chosen inamorata. Schroeder loves music and would do anything to be alone with his passion…

A new year brings fresh hope as Charlie discovers ‘The Little Red-Haired Girl’, but even after burdening all his pals with his aspirations and disappointments, our gallant would-be swain painfully realises the course of true love never yadda, yadda, yadda…

Wrapping up the melancholy mirth is delicious change of pace ‘My Sweet Babboo’ which sees Sally set her cap for Linus with terrifying determination: an all-points pursuit to delight jaded older souls and simultaneously chill the heart of anybody with pet bunnies..

Sally and Linus take centre stage in this outrageous and inventive sequence but there’s still plenty of time for Charlie and the others to suffer their usual hang-ups, between marvelling at the dogged determination on show…

Timeless and evergreen, Charlie Brown’s existentialist travail and amorous aspirations have been delighting readers seemingly forever and clearly will not be stopping or superseded anytime soon. If you haven’t joined this club yet, why not sign up now?
A Valentine for Charlie Brown © 2015 Peanuts Worldwide, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Corpse Talk: Dead Good Storytellers


By Adam & Lisa Murphy (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-78845-125-3 (PB)

The educational power of comic strips has been long understood and acknowledged: if you can make the material memorably enjoyable, there is nothing that can’t be better taught with pictures. The obverse is also true: comics can make any topic or subject come alive… or at least – as here – outrageously, informatively undead…

The fabulous and effective conceit in Corpse Talk is that your scribbling, cartooning host Adam Murphy (ably abetted off-camera by Lisa Murphy) tracks down (or rather digs up) famous personages from the past: all serially exhumed for a chatty, cheeky This Was Your Life talk-show interview that – in Reithian terms – simultaneously “elucidates, educates and entertains”. It also often grosses one out, which is no bad thing for either a kids’ comic or a learning experience…

Another splendid album release culled from the annals of The Phoenix, this authorially-themed collection is dedicated to not-so-private audiences with a succession of legendary and/or unsung wordsmiths, in what would almost certainly not be their own words…

Catching up in order of date of demise, these candid cartoon conferences begin by digging the dirt with ‘Enheduanna: Priestess-Poet 23rd century BCE’, who has a claim to inventing poetry with her religion themed anthems in ancient Sumeria. As always, each balmy biography is accompanied by a side-feature examining a key aspect or artefact of their lives such as here with ‘Inanna and the Mountain’ (The Corpse Talk version) illustrating the power and short temper of the primal goddess…

Moving on in time – and perhaps into fiction rather than fact – comes an intimate investigation into the truth behind Greek epic poet ‘Homer’ (8th century BCE – possibly) supplemented by a vivid and truncated Corpse Talk version of ‘The Odyssey’ which could get you a passing grade if schools and exams weren’t another thing of the past…

Astounding female and unconventional Mandarin’s daughter ‘Li Qingzhao – Lyric Poet 1084-1155’ discusses her fortunate career in the Song Dynasty: accompanied by her translated, illustrated ode ‘Like a Dream’, after which a Sufi poet spanning 1207-1273 takes centre stage.

‘Jalaluddin Rumi’ details his transformation from acerbic scholar to impassioned love poet and is backed up by his illustrated poem ‘The Guest House’ before we head into more familiar territory with Medieval poet ‘Geoffrey Chaucer – 1343-1400’ who relates the tale of his times, backed up by the pertinent facts of ‘The Canterbury Tales’ plus a Corpse Talk adaptation of ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’…

Playwright ‘William Shakespeare – 1564-1616’ tells it like it was, accompanied by the (fun) version of ‘Macbeth’ after which we go gothic by chatting with Romantic Poet ‘John Keats – 1795-1821’ and get acquainted with ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ and double down with dark fantasy courtesy of Gothic Novelist ‘Mary Shelley – 1797-1851’ who candidly discloses how and why her groundbreaking novel came about, supplemented by a cartoon adaptation of ‘Frankenstein’.

Sticking with Gothic Novels, the life of ‘Charlotte Brontë – 1816-1865’ is explored, with definitive classic ‘Jayne Eyre’enjoying a Corpse Talk make-over, after which ‘Charles Dickens 1812-1870’ reviews his amazing career and endures a comics interpretation of ‘Great Expectations’, whilst Adventure Novelist ‘Alexandre Dumas – 1802-1870’ details how the son of French plantation slaves rose to pre-eminence in the literary world, accompanied by a rousing rendition of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’…

Epic Novelist and spiritual questor ‘Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy – 1828-1910’ comes under the necroscope next, with a serviceable truncation of ‘War and Peace’ in his wake, before horrorist ‘Bram Stoker – 1847-1912’ tells his life-story while the Murphys deftly adapt his undying masterpiece ‘Dracula’ and Crime Writer ‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – 1859-1930’ examines his serried career and influences, with Sherlock Holmes short story ‘The Speckled Band’ leading us to final interviewee Children’s Author ‘Beatrix Potter – 1866-1943’; describing a life well-lived, and a splendid legacy, backed up a fresh take on the tale of ‘Peter Rabbit’.

…And just when you think it’s all over, up pops an extra item: a cracking adaptation of ‘All the World’s a Stage…’ from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’, rounding out the fun and whimsy before ushering all and sundry back to their biers and sepulchres for now.

Clever, cheeky, outrageously funny and formidably factual throughout, Corpse Talk unyieldingly tackles history’s more tendentious moments whilst personalising the great, the grim, the good and especially the greatly entertaining for coming generations.

It is also a fabulously fun read no parent or kid could possibly resist. Don’t take my word for it though, just read and enjoy…
Text and illustrations © Adam & Lisa Murphy 2021. All rights reserved.

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The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson: volume 1: Pirates in the Heartland


By S. Clay Wilson, edited by Patrick Rosenkranz (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-747-5 (HB)

Once more, I’m altering the fixed schedules to note the passing of a giant. Everybody’s losing loved one in far greater numbers than we can really afford or cope with, but this one is even more poignant and powerful: the death of one of the most vital and vigorous cartoonists we’ve ever been privileged to enjoy. Here’s a parental warning to prove it…

This book is filled with dark, violent sexual imagery and outrageous situations intended to make adults laugh and think. If that hasn’t clued you in, please be warned that this book contains images of nudity, extreme violence, sexual intimacy and excess – both hetero- and homosexual – and language commonly used in the privacy of the bedroom, drunken street brawls and school playgrounds whenever adults aren’t present.

If the thought of all that offends you, read no further and don’t buy the book. The rest of us will just enjoy some of the most groundbreaking cartoon experiences ever created without you.

Steve Clay Wilson was a pioneering light of America’s transformative Underground Commix movement: an uncompromising, controversial, in-your-face pioneer of the counterculture, constantly challenging attitudes and sensitivities whilst telling the kind of cartoon tales he wanted – or perhaps had – to.

Something of a contradiction to those who knew him, charming, charismatic Wilson lived life to the full and took his art seriously.

And what art! Stark, complex, shocking, incredibly detailed tableaux jumping with modern Rabelaisian content: mesmerising scenes packed with intense multi-layered busyness, crammed with outrageous, iconic characters in constant surging motion – mostly combative and hilariously violent.

The manly, hedonistic exuberance of frantic fighters rejoicing in the wild freedom as exemplified by bikers, cowboys, pirates, bull dykes and devils, augmented by other violent ne’er-do-wells, grotesques, human-scaled beasts and things which could be drawn but never described…

His work seethed and abounded with excess: monsters, mutilations, booze and drug-fuelled romps populated with priapic plunderers and ravening beasts, dangerous and disturbed women and always, always unsettling scenes of society’s biggest taboos – sex and personal freedom.

All Americans already worshipped violence; Wilson just pushed the visuals for that sacrament as far as he could into surreal parody. Everybody who knew Wilson adored him, but around him they were usually a little nervous and stepped lightly…

The modern successor to Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch moved on to other artistic arenas when the Underground movement foundered, but he never toned down his visions. In 2008 he suffered massive brain damage in mysterious circumstances and underwent full-time palliative care ever since. He died aged 79, on Sunday February 7th 2021.

This intimate and informative oversize (286 x 202mm) hardcover biography and graphic overview – also available in digital formats – is compiled from previous writings and extensive interviews with the people he grew up with and who shared his eventful life.

Moreover, each telling anecdote and reminiscence is augmented with photos, paintings, illustrated letters and private or previously-unpublished artworks, and each chapter offers a wealth of gloriously outrageous strips: comprising all of his published comics work from the heady days of America’s counterculture explosion in 1968 to its virtual demise in 1976.

It opens with a warm, picture-packed, fact-filled Introduction by college pal and flatmate John Gary Brown before the hagiography of horrors begins with ‘Wilson’s Childhood’.

Described by Robert Crumb as “the strongest, most original artist of my generation” Steven Clay Wilson grew up in down-home Lincoln, Nebraska, thriving on a diet of EC comics (especially Piracy), post-war prosperity and Great Plains sensibilities. His early life was filled with good family, cool pets, cycling, school and drawing.

Lots of drawing (much of it impressively included in the first chapter) takes us out of High School and into college, but before that unfolds there’s a gory welter of early triumphs in the black and white comics section which includes such classics as ‘Shorts in the Bowl’ (from Gothic Blimp Works #1), ‘River City Shoot-Out’ from the second issue and ‘No Loot for You, Captain Namrooth’ from Gothic Blimp Works #6, all circa 1969, followed by a ‘Goodtimes Front Cover’for May 1st 1970.

The entirety – 26 images – of the mega-successful arts project which became ‘S. Clay Wilson Portfolio Comix’ leads into the strip ‘Afterwards’ (Hydrogen Bomb Funnies, 1970) and the tableaux ‘It’s a Thrill to Kill’ from Thrilling Murder Comics, 1971 and ‘The 137th Dream of Lester Gass’ (Illuminations, 1971).

A productive strip period begins with ‘Insect Paranoia’ (Insect Fear #1),‘Insect Angst’ (#2, both 1970) and ‘Insomnia Angst’ (#3, 1972), followed by ‘Boogie Boogie Horror Yarn’ (Laugh in the Dark, 1971) and closes with ‘Whip Tip Tales’and ‘Soft Core Porn Yarn’ from San Francisco Comic Book issues #1 and #3 in 1970.

Wilson’s turbulent brush with art school and academia at the University of Nebraska is detailed in ‘Higher Education’ as is his understandably less than glorious military service and adoption of the drop-out life style, topped off by more manic strips and panels (he called them “Deep Scenes”) beginning with ‘The Hog Ridin’ Fools’ (Zap Comix #2, 1968 and featuring a very early appearance of Wilson’s signature character the Checkered Demon). That issue also supplies ‘Just as you said Madge… He’s Shitting’ and ‘Head First’, whilst from the third comes ‘Captain Pissgums and His Pervert Pirates’, ‘Gilded Moments’, ‘Captain Edwards St. Miguel Tilden Bradshaw and his crew come to Grips with bloodthirsty foe pirates’, ‘Come Fix’ and ‘Arnie, my bra ain’t on’.

Wilson drew at a phenomenal rate and Zap Comix #4 1969 unleashed ‘A Ball in the Bung Hole’, an untitled phantasmagorical double-spread, ‘Leather Tits’ and the debut of his occasional lewd lead ‘Star-Eyed Stella’. Zap #5 (1970) barely contained ‘Lester Gass the Midnight Misogynist’, ‘Ruby the Dyke Meets Weedman’ and ‘Snake Snatch Tale’.

At the end of 1966 Wilson relocated to ‘Lawrence, Kansas’: a burgeoning Midwestern oasis of countercultural thought and self-expression, and a useful place to concentrate creative energies before his inevitable move to the West Coast. This chapter is abutted by another wave of glorious filth and ferocity, comprising non-biblical epic ‘The Felching Vampires Meet the Holy Virgin Mary’ (Felch Cumics, 1975), adult fairy tale ‘Puducchio’ from Pork (1974), which also offers a quartet of single-frame gags, after which Bent (1971) provides Deep Scene ‘Dwarf Snuffing Station #103’, ‘Pendants’; a return engagement for ‘Star-Eyed Stella’ and ‘Nail Tales’.

Declaring “Art is Therapy”, Wilson always saw its creation as a collaborative process: one which demanded a response. On reaching the golden lands of ‘The Barbary Coast’ his artistic jams with the likes of Crumb – who claims the flatlander inspired him to completely release all his artistic inhibitions – and creative compadrés like Spain Rodriguez, Rick Griffin, Robert Williams and Victor Moscoso, made them royalty in the San Francisco heart of the revolution.

That star-studded, astounding period and how it began to fade makes up the last revelatory chapter in this initial volume (of three) and concludes with one last selection of colour and monochrome masterpieces including eye-popping ‘Deranged doctors perform operational experiments on mutated patients under the antiseptic incandescent gaze of the Big Daddy Devil Doctor’ from Arcade #3, 1975; illustrations for William Burroughs’ seminal short story ‘Fun City in Badan’ (Arcade #4), ‘The Corpse Gobblin’ Ogre of Columbite Mountain’(Arcade #5), ‘Monster Bride’ (Arcade #6) and ‘Vampire Lust’ (Arcade #7, 1976).

Also on show are multi-hued strip ‘Last Foe’ (Apple Pie July 1975), the cover from Zap Comix #3, front-&-back covers from S. Clay Wilson Portfolio Comix, Bent and Pork; ‘It’s a treat to blast away the flat foot’s feet’ from Tales of Sex and Death #1 (1971), 8-page, in-record minicomic insert ‘The Saga of Yukon Pete’ from the vinyl platter of the same name by Son of Pete and the Muffdivers, wrapping up in fine style with the infernally euphoric ‘Surfsup’ strip from Tales from the Tube #1, 1972.

Scholarly yet surprisingly engaging, this superb collation, contrived and shepherded by Patrick Rosenkranz, offers an amazingly and unforgettable close-up view of one of the most important cartoonists in American history. This is a book no serious lover of the art form or devotee of grown-up comics can afford to miss.
The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson volume one: Pirates in the Heartland © 2014 Fantagraphics Books. All comics and images by S. Clay Wilson © 2014 S. Clay Wilson. All biographical text © 2014 Patrick Rosenkranz. All other material © 2014 its respective creators and owners. All rights reserved.

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Mindviscosity


By Matt Furie (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-370-7 (HB)

Matt Furie was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1979. After studying at Wesleyan University, he became an artist for pay, creating characters, strips (that eventually became the 2016 graphic novel Boys Club) and children’s book The Night Riders.

Boys Club inadvertently made him a figure of global controversy after one of his characters became a universal meme and was appropriated against his wishes by some very nasty people. If you need to know more you can search for Pepe the Frog online or watch the 2020 documentary Feels Good Man. I’m pretty sure Furie has had enough of the entire affair, so let’s move on.

What we have in plush hardback Mindviscosity is a collection of designs, studies and full, multi-character paintings of incredible monsters, beasts and unnatural wonders displaying fantastic imagination along the lines of Dr. Seuss and Basil Wolverton, rendered in a variety of styles and media: a joyous bestiary of happy horrors, celebrating otherness in a garish parade of surreal collations. Be warned though, there’s so much that kids will love here, but some of the situations are rather mature in content so either police this material or be prepared to answer some tricky comments on the birds and the beasts and where monsters come from…

Quirkily inclusive, brashly optimistic and preceded by appreciative Foreword ‘Matt’s World’ from John Lee of PFFR, this is a superb showcase of Furie’s painterly skills and narrative gifts making him in so many ways this generation’s Bosch or Bruegel. Here, truly, every picture tells a story…
© 2020 Matt Furie. Matt’s World © 2020 John Lee. This edition © 2020 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All rights reserved.

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QU33R


By various; edited by Rob Kirby (Northwest Press)
ISBN: 978-1-93872-038-3 (HB) 978-1-93872-036-9 (TPB)

It’s long been an aphorism – if not cliché – that LGBTQ comics are the only place in the graphic narrative business to regularly portray real romance.

It’s still true: an artefact, I suppose, of a society which seems determined to demarcate and separate sex and love as two utterly different – and possibly even opposite – things. I’d like to think that here and now – in most places – we’ve outgrown the juvenile, judgemental, bad old days and can simply appreciate powerful, moving and funny comics about people of all sorts without any kind of preconception, but that battle’s still not completely won yet. Compendia such as this classic tome – available in hardback, paperback and digital editions – helped and continues to aid the fight…

In this superb anthology – with contributions from 33 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and/or Queer (IE- questioning their sexual identity) craftspeople and creators – love stories are not all that’s on offer. The authors and artists cajoled and shepherded by Rob Kirby (Curbside Boys, The Books of Boy Trouble) have produced revelatory ponderings, satires, comics-reportage, pastiches, comedies, thrillers, horror stories and superhero adventures, as well as many superb pictorial narrative diaries and autobiographical pieces to complement the wild, heady romances inescapably on offer.

Oh, and (hold on while I switch to bold) there’s sex and swearing: rather a lot and sometimes a bit graphic, so if you’re liable to be upset by words and pictures of an adult nature (such as joyous, loving fornication between two people separated by age, wealth, social position and race who happily possess and constantly employ the same type of naughty bits on each other) then go away and read something else.

In fact, just go away.

It all begins with a Foreword by Justin Hall (No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, Glamazonia, True Travel Tales, Hard to Swallow) recapitulating just how far the industry and society have come since Mary Wing’s self-published Come Out Comix in 1973. That breakthrough opened doors for thousands of other non-hetero creators, and here editor Rob Kirby’s Introduction places this contemporary compendium of “Alt/Queer comics” in its contextual place leaving nothing for us to do except enjoy the ride…

It all begins with ‘Porno’ by Eric Orner, wherein the artist beguilingly relates key moments and situations from his past whilst ruminating upon his relationship with his dad, after which Annie Murphy’s ‘Mother’s Sisters’ offers similar family insights by searching through the pages of a faux-photo-album.

MariNaomi then beautifully explains how, if not why, ‘Three’s a Crowd’ for a date-shy lass, whilst Ed Luce’s dance hall days in a Death-Metal mosh pit are hilariously described in ‘Wuvable Oaf presents Kindness of Strangers’.

‘The Transformers – a True Story’ (by Dylan Edwards) is a moving, memorable account of growing up “different”; an oft-repeated experience recapitulated in Diane DiMassa’s girlish tale of young love ‘Born Qu33r’.

Always compelling and challenging, Justin Hall hits home hard here with ‘Seductive Summer’ and the doomed affair of two young men with very different causes for their feelings of attraction, isolation, alienation despair and doom. ‘Just Another Night in Carbon City’ (Jennifer Camper) then offers a grimly witty noir crime tale with not a Tough Guy in sight…

‘Sissy That Walk’ by Eric Kostiuk Williams incisively relates the fan reaction to RuPaul’s Drag Race show before a meaningful conversation occurs between two old friends in Kris Dresen’s ‘Chop Suey’ and Tyler Cohen presents us with one enigmatic possible tomorrow in ‘Flux’…

‘So Young, So Talented, So What?!’ is an engaging and often scary comic jam by Jennifer Camper & Michael Fahy, couched in the cautionary tale of a young artistic boy lost even before he reaches the Big City; followed by a triptych of Fahy’s narrative gallery images and strips entitled ‘Found’, ‘O’Hara Song’ and ‘Hazily Remembered Drag Queens’.

Edie Fake then plays coy and arch at the ‘Sex Club’, whilst José-Luis Olivares indulges in ‘Online Fantasy’ and Steve MacIsaac lets his mind wander back into thoughts of unpleasant school days in ‘Vacant Lots’, before wishful thinking and wistful hope poignantly meet in ‘For Fletch and Ruski, Spooner, and Calico’ by Rick Worley.

‘Life’s but a Walking Shadow’ (Christine Smith) silently scours the college scene with a couple of kids who haven’t found their way yet whilst ‘Political Will’ by Carlo Quispe reveals the inescapable highs and lows of the party scene

Do you remember Private Manning? The young soldier was an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009, releasing thousands of classified documents to the horrified world. The records were leaked via a hacker named Lamo and the then-transgender Bradley was communicating via electronic media. Here Andy Hartzell imaginatively and mesmerising illustrates those game-changing chat logs in ‘Manning/Lamo Project’ to create possibly the most engrossing piece in this wonderful book.

‘Toot Toot Heyyyyyyy Beep Beep’ by Carrie McNinch describes a first emotional connection and the fall of Skylab before Rob Kirby recounts his own dating dilemma in ‘Music for No Boyfriends’ and local London lad Sina Sparrow proves there’s no such thing as carefree love in ‘If You Want Me to I Will Be The One Who Is Always Good’…

Superheroes and wry humour inform Ivan Velez, Jr.’s ‘Oso Oro – the night I got my hero card…’ with the protagonist falling foul of the masked community’s precarious pecking order after which ‘Coming Out With the Bunksteads’ (by Arch-Bishop of Gay Comics Howard Cruse) hilariously turns venerable family strip Blondie on its head with a little coming-out confession, whilst author and “Officially Out” professional wrestler Terrance Griep relates ‘The Second Most Asked Question’ about his grappling career, with Rob Kirby supplying the excruciating visual details…

A different type of “tension and differences in the band” are disclosed in Craig Bostick’s ‘Guitar Bass Drums’before‘Burger Meister: a Story of Love and Loss’ by Amanda Verwey focuses on a tragic miscommunication and Comedy of desperate-dating Errors, before Nichole J. Georges describes just another date in the whimsically wonderful ‘Grief’.

David Kelly helpfully shares a few very sensible ‘Tips to a Teen-Age Me’ whilst Marian Runk offers some captivating memories and suggestions of her own in ‘This Winter, I Practiced Being Alone’…

‘Miss Sasha Velour’ (by Sasha Steinberg) then shows you don’t need to be armed to be Fabulous, and Jon Macy graphically examines his relationship with his heroes in a powerfully self-searching untitled graphic musing on Oscar Wilde, Frankenstein’s Monster, Djuna Barnes, Raymond Chandler and Charles Mingus before ‘Confession’ (L. Nichols) rounds off the comics cavalcade with a light-hearted affirmation about finding yourself…

Situated between pin-up Drag in 1969 (Sasha Steinberg), and untitled pieces from MariNaomi and L. Nichols – plus one last strip starring ‘School Girls’ by Camper – About the Creators then briefs you on the talented story-makers and where else to find their work whilst a copious Special Thanks section gratefully name-checks the contributors and the investors on KickStarter who paid to make the project happen, ending this glorious rainbow-hued book of bright ideas and colourful yarns on an exceedingly positive and life-affirming note.

QU33R remains a superb example of comics celebrating determination and difference: sensitive, evocative, romantic and humorously engaging “people stories” which any open-minded fan can’t help but adore. There’s not much fighting but plenty of punch, and in an ideal world this book would be readily available in every school and library for any confused kid in need of inspiration, comfort, understanding, encouragement and hope.
QU33R, the collection is © 2014 Rob Kirby. The individual art and writing contributions are © 2014 the original artists and writers. All rights reserved.

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Bunny vs Monkey and the Human Invasion!


By Jaimie Smart, with Laura Bentley & Sammy Borras (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-195-6 (PB)

Way back in 2012, Oxford-based family publisher David Fickling Books launched a weekly comics anthology for girls and boys which harked back to the grand old days of British picture-story entertainment intent whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content.

Each issue offers humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material: a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. Since its premiere, The Phoenix has gone from strength to strength, packed with splendid tales from amazing creators. This is a handily repackaged instant classic from one of the best…

Concocted with gleefully gentle mania by cartoonist, comics artist and novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Flember), Bunny vs. Monkey has been a fixture from the very first issue: a madcap duel of animal arch rivals set amidst the idyllic arcadia of a more-or-less ordinary English Wood. Those trend-setting, mind-bending antics were rapidly retooled as graphic albums and are now available in remastered, double-length digest editions. In case you’re wondering, the fabulous fun found here originally inhabited volumes 3 & 4, then entitled The Stench and The Wobbles…

The tittering, tail-biting tension details the ongoing war of wits and wonder-weapons over another year in the country. The obnoxious simian co-star originally arrived after a disastrous space shot went awry. Having crash-landed in Crinkle Woods – a scant few miles from his blast-off site – Monkey believes himself rightful owner of a strange new world, despite the continual efforts of reasonable, sensible, contemplative Bunny. Despite patience, propriety and good breeding, the laid-back lepine is increasingly compelled to wearily admit that the incorrigible idiot ape is a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating troublemaker…

Following a vivid gallery of stars, the month-by-month mayhem reports recommence with January as chilly snow blankets the ground. ‘Log Off!’ finds Bunny in need of firewood, but he should never have asked happily brain-battered, bewildered former stuntman Action Beaver to help gather it…

Blithering innocents Weenie Squirrel and Pig then take centre stage as the baking-addicted tree-rodent reveals he has an imaginary friend. The mocking fools have no idea ‘Lionel!’ is actually one of the ghastly Hyoomanz intent on demolishing the Wood to build something called a motorway…

Monkey’s greatest ally is ostracised outcast and hairy mad scientist Skunky – a brilliant inventor with a bombastic line in animal-themed atrocity weapons and a secret agenda of his own. His latest bovine-inspired stealth weapon – ‘Ca-Moo-Flarj!’ – promptly goes the way of most of his ghastly gimmicks, after which both furry factions catch gold fever in ‘The Quest for Blackbeard’s Treasure!’ Sadly, the old map stuffed in a tree trunk is of very recent vintage…

February opens with ‘T3-ddy!’ as Skunky’s colossally devastating robo-bear is suborned and defeated by its own innate need for a cuddle, after which Bunny discovers a vast cavern under his food store. At first, he thinks it’s just Skunky’s latest indiscretion, but even the evil mega-genius is surprised at the hideous thing ‘What Lies Beneath!’…

‘Casa Del Pig!’ sees woodland folk unite to make the porcine ingénue a home of his own, after which ‘Meet Randolph!’sees them all together to greet a visiting raccoon. The masked stranger claims to be the cousin of surly radical environmentalist (and keeper of ancient secrets) Fantastique Le Fox, and he can certainly handle himself in a crisis, as evidenced by the swift and efficient way he despatches Monkey and Skunky’s rampaging mechanical Helliphant…

March ushers in a not-so fragrant Spring as Skunky decides to weaponize his own natural defences, but ‘The Stench!’proves yet again that his intellect far outstrips common sense and any iota of self-restraint…

When an irrepressible yet lonely cyber-crocodile finds a message in a bottle, he unbends enough to ask Bunny for reading and writing lessons in ‘The Educating of Mister Metal Steve!’ Sadly, his eventual RSVP proves that core-programming is hard to escape…

A rare victory for Evil is revealed through the creation of a giant beached flounder in ‘Fishy Plops!’ before nature reasserts itself in ‘Bad Crowd!’, wherein the tantrum-throwing Monkey meets some heretofore unknown woods-dwellers who terrify even him…

The Skunk boffin finally goes too far in his quest for knowledge and accidentally invents Boomantium, capable of creating ‘The Biggest, Mostest Enormousest Explosion in the World!’ Nobody expected dim-witted Action to find a solution to the imminent cacophonous catastrophe, but as April opens ‘Billion Dollar Beaver!’ reveals that their crash-helmeted comrade is indestructible. He should therefore be considered another actual ultimate weapon… unless, of course, you’re just a short-sighted, imagination-limited primate with delusions of grandeur…

Over the months the Woods have become home to an increasingly impressive variety of non-native species and an unsavoury crisis of explosive proportions is barely averted when ‘The Kakapo Poo Kaboom!’ defeats the ever-encroaching “Humans” but not the combined efforts of Bunny and Skunky.

His evil dominance drastically declining, the appalling anthropoid is blackmailed by Pig and Weenie into being their ‘Monkey Butler!’, before May blossoms and ‘The Big Eye Am!’ sees a gigantic laser-firing orb crashing through the verdure, closely followed by its previous owner…

‘On the Road!’ finds the beastly boys trying to decide on how to stop the motorway builders when the meeting is disrupted by cute running-toy addict Hamster 3000. This allows Skunky and Le Fox to resume their own private negotiations, after which Monkey returns to his devious top form when subjecting the flora and fauna to the inundation of ‘The Purple!’

May becomes June during ‘The Weird, Weird Woods! (Part One and Two)’ as the animals invade the humans’ building-site shed. They are furiously repelled and pursued by the bizarre and terrified creatures within, but their first foray is soon forgotten when Bunny wakes up in proposed paradise ‘Bunnyopia!’, only to discover it is a monstrous and frightening sham…

Skunky’s perpetual and wanton splashing about in the gene-pool then results in terrifying travesty ‘Octo-Fox!’ and only Monkey’s arrant disregard for all rules and laws – including Nature’s – saves the day: one-upping the tentacled terror, after which ‘Weenie’s Big Adventure!’ gives the benign waif a day to remember after waking an oversleeping bear. A little later, however, a mind-swapping device in the wrong paws leads to a plague of chaotic ‘Brainache!’

With a seemingly quiet moment to spare, the animals consider the past and their futures in ‘Woodland Story!’, leading to Skunky’s new Clone-a-Tron generating ‘So Many Monkeys!’ that the dream of Monkeytopia seems a forgone conclusion…

Focus switches now on the pasts of our uncanny assortment of odd critters littering and loitering around the bucolic paradise as the Hyoomanz are now well underway in building that motorway through the sylvan glades and apparently unprotected parks…

Sadly, all the tail-biting tension does nothing to derail the ongoing but so-far-localised war of wits and wonder-weapons, and the already fraught atmosphere gets another unnecessary shot of adrenaline as ‘A New Challenger Appears’ in the fuzzy form of The Maniacal Badger, resolutely challenging Skunky for the title of top mad scientist, after which Monkey wrecks a playground but loses face once Bunny gets him to share a ‘See-Saw!’…

Skunky horrifies blithering innocents Weenie and Pig when his ‘Grav-O-Box’ sets the river running backwards, although when co-conspirator Monkey ruins the test flight of his Hot Air Balloon Jet Engines and propels them ‘Around the Woods in 80 Seconds’ the malcontents themselves are the only ones to suffer…

Sinking into over-indulgence, the simian stinker has to take drastic action after becoming a ‘Fat Monkey’ before stealing some building machinery from the Hyoomanz in ‘Monkey at Work’…

Skunky upsets the balance of nature – and value of custard – after creating aberrant lifeform ‘The Wobbles!’, after which every animal pulls together when a Hyooman wanders in and Bunny orders ‘Battle Stations’. Of course, Skunky stupidly makes things so much worse by splicing Science to Nature and releasing ‘The Vines’…

An annoying game of ‘Poink!’ drives everybody bonkers but welcome terror returns after the colossal ‘Monkeytron!’rampages through the trees, in time to greet rocket scientists searching for a test monkey they lost in the very first episode…

Pig’s origin is revealed in the cleverly obfuscatory (not!) ‘A Pig on the Range’ before Park Ranger Derek P. Brigstockehas a close encounter with a net and ‘A Bear Bum!’, whilst irrepressible yet lonely cyber-crocodile ‘The Incredible Metal Steve’ undergoes a ferocious metal-morphosis even as ‘Bunny Vs. Monkey!’ finds our notional stars getting back to bruising basics in their never-ending struggle…

After a troop of Hyooman cub scouts fail to ‘Catch That Bunny’, Pig and Squirrel dig up ‘Worms’ and take the slimy earth-movers fishing, but not in any way you’ve seen before… ‘Goodbye, Bunny’ then finds our pacifist protagonist plunging deep into the distant city in search of his origins, and Pig becomes a dragon-slaying knight in ‘Arise, Lord Wuffywuff!’

…And none too soon as it happens, since, with snow falling, the Maniacal Badger returns to worry the woodland folk with ‘The Thing!’ he’d stolen from the Hyoomanz Building Site, prompting a desperate search for natural leader Bunny: a trail taking them to a comfortable suburban hutch and ‘A Place Where You Belong’…

Reunited with the Crinkle Woods critters, Bunny finds a time machine and – by accidentally visiting ‘Once Upon a Time’– discovers the true secret of Skunky’s vast and evil intellect, courtesy of an extra-long extravaganza which segues straight into the formation of sadly deficient superhero team The Rather Good Squad in ‘Choose Your Side!’

With Christmas fast approaching, festivities are briefly disrupted by marauding ‘Snow Meanies’ before the Builders try secretly bulldozing the Woods. They are stopped by Monkey, gleefully brain-battered, bewildered former stuntman Action Beaver and ‘The Real Santa!’…

The madcap mayhem concludes with a portentous epilogue as ‘Door B’ opens to reveal the ultimate triumph of the ultimate villainous mastermind, but that’s…

To Be Continued…

Adding lustre and fun, this superb treat includes detailed instructions on ‘How to Draw Pig’ and ‘How to Draw Skunky’, so, as well as beguiling your littl’uns with stories, you can use this book to teach them a trade…

The absolute acme of absurdist adventure, Bunny Vs Monkey is halfway to becoming a British Institution of weird wit, brilliant invention and superb cartooning: an utterly irresistible joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. Endlessly inventive, sublimely funny and outrageously addictive, this is the kind of comic parents beg kids to read to them. Why isn’t that you, yet?
Text and illustrations © Jamie Smart 2021. All rights reserved.

Bunny vs. Monkey and the Human Invasion! will be published on February 4th 2021, and is available for pre-order now.

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The Eldritch Kid volume 1: Whisky and Hate


By Christian Read & Michael Maier (Gestalt Publishing)
ISBN: 978-0-980782-35-6 (TPB)

Felt like a scary western today. Here’s one…

There was a time, not so very long ago, when all of popular fiction was bloated and engorged with tales of Cowboys and Indians.

As always happens with such periodic populist phenomena – such as the Swinging Sixties’ Super-Spy Boom, the Vampire Boyfriend or recent Misunderstood Teens vs Corrupt Adult Dystopias trends – there was a goodly amount of momentary merit, lots of utter dross and a few spectacular gems.

Most importantly, once such surges peter out there’s also always a small cadre of frustrated devotees who mourn the passing and, resolve to do something to venerate or even revive their lost and faded favourite fad…

After World War II, the American family entertainment market – for which read comics, radio and the rapidly burgeoning television industry – were comprehensively enamoured of clear-cut, simplistic sensibilities and easy, escapist solutions offered by Tales of the Old West: at that time already a firmly established standby of paperback publishing, movie serials and low-budget feature films.

I’ve often ruminated on how and why, simultaneously, the dark, bleakly nigh-nihilistic and left-leaning Film Noir genre quietly blossomed alongside that wholesome rip-snorting range-&-rodeo revolution, seemingly only for a cynical minority of entertainment intellectuals who somehow knew that the returned veterans still hadn’t found a Land Fit for Heroes… but perhaps that’s a thought for another time and a different review.

Even though comics had encompassed Western heroes from the get-go (there were cowboy strips in the premier issues of both Action Comics and Marvel Comics), the post-war boom years saw a vast outpouring of titles with gun-toting heroes ousting the rapidly-dwindling supply of costumed Mystery Men. True to formula, most of these pioneers ranged from transiently mediocre to outright appalling…

Despite minor re-flowerings in the early 1970s and mid-1990s, Western strips have largely vanished from funny book pages: apparently unable to command enough mainstream support to survive the crushing competition of garish wonder-men and furiously seductive futures.

Europe and Britain also embraced the Sagebrush zeitgeist, producing some extremely impressive work, before France, Belgium and Italy made the genre emphatically their own by the end of the 1960s. They still make the best straight Western strips in the world for an avid audience still possessing an appetite for them…

Fantasy and Horror stories, on the other hand, have never really gone away and this superb entertaining entry from Australian graphic raconteurs Christian Read & Michael Maier superbly blends time-honoured tropes of the wild west with sinister sorcerous sensibilities to create a bewitching alternate reality where dark bloody deeds are matched by dire demonic forces and the decent guys called upon to combat them have to dabble in the diabolical too…

Following the tantalising Introduction ‘Our shadow goes where we go’ from author K. J. Bishop, the full-colour mystic mayhem begins with the recollections of an Oxford-educated shaman detailing his life following his return to the land of his birth.

Spring 1877 and the great Indian Wars are over. Custer is dead but so is Crazy Horse. The Whites are greedily covering the entire country and an erudite, educated man with the wrong skin tones is reduced to playing scout for a bunch of barely literate morons wagon-trekking across the plains to California. They need him but regard their supremely capable guide with suspicion, disdain and barely-disguised disgust…

One particular incident of second-guessing his decisions involves a detour around a stony butte that simply reeks of bad magic. Accusing him of leading them into an ambush and other dishonourable deeds, the lazy, work-shy Christians drive him to ignore his instincts and better judgement and reluctantly check out the pinnacle personally…

Wicasa Waken, outcast Shaman of the Oglala Lakota, Ten Shoes Dancing of the mighty Sioux and lately graduated Master of Arts and Literature, Oxford, England (1875), always knew devil magic when he smelled it, but – since his teachers taught him to treasure human life – he remained faithful to their training and climbs a mountain into hell…

At the top he encounters five-headed snakes and zombies and a strange white man they were taking their time killing…

Losing their lands to the pale invaders has soured many of his people and allowed a growth of bad spirits and corrupted medicine like the long-fled Bloody Knife to control many points on the map, but the man these horrors are torturing jangle the shaman’s mystic senses in way nothing ever has before.

Piling in, he starts killing monsters and the “victim” – once freed – eagerly joins in; his accursed guns making short work of the ravening Heyokas. Soon they’re all dispatched and Ten Shoes Dancing – after exorcising and sanitising the spiritually defiled butte – realises he has made the rather prickly acquaintance of a modern Western Legend…

The pioneering settlers are ecstatic to have celebrated dime novel hero The Eldritch Kid join their party and, whilst still treating his rescuer like a barely housebroken monkey, fête the grim gunslinger like a messiah. It’s hard for even the most enlightened man to watch a surly, taciturn, creepy freak basking in hero-worship, hot vittles and wanton female attention…

It’s not just this becoming-nation America that is awash with blood and wickedness. The entire world is swamped with boggles, spectres and worse, but since the War Between the States, the Kid has achieved a certain notoriety for dealing harshly and permanently with all things supernatural and predatory.

Nevertheless, he’s a mean, mercenary bastard and a tough man to like for the philosophically inclined, poetry-loving Ten Shoes… until the wagons arrive at a thriving prairie town the shaman knows wasn’t there a month previously.

Opting to investigate the bustling hamlet together, the mismatched heroes are soon fighting for their lives against an army of hungry ghosts and the Lakotan learns that although his personal patron god Lord Hnaska is grossly offended by the crawling things that hunger for human morsels, he is more worried by the cold, dark deity who sponsors his avatar’s gun-toting partner in peril…

A loveless alliance is forged in that ghastly spirit-trap and, as the wagon train proceeds towards California, the kid finally opens up enough to share the history that made him the most feared gunhawk in the West.

The story began in 1865 at Camp Elmira, New Jersey where Confederate prisoners were held. The detention centre was a hellhole even by human standards, but when a ravenous demon began taking inmates, one of the terrified, beaten, sitting duck captives was offered a deal by an invading ancient northern god. This grim King of Death was unhappy with the beasts and night things increasingly infesting the Earth and offered a trade: power for service…

After a suitably painful and gory “offering” the prisoner was given just enough of a supernatural advantage to kill the monsters – human and otherwise – and escape. He’s been doing his Lord’s work ever since…

At trail’s end the settlers naturally bilk the generally good-natured Ten Shoes who chalks it up to experience. However, his new associate still has many secrets unshared and exacts his own brand of instant karma.

…And thus is born another legend of the Wildest West Ever…

Bleak, moody, spectacularly action-packed and cathartic, Whisky & Hate is a smart, blackly funny yarn that will astound lovers of genre fiction and witty mash-ups.

The Western has long been a part of world culture and perhaps that fact has relegated the genre in too many minds to the status of a passé fascination of a bygone generation. If so, this fresh, hypnotically beguiling look at an overexposed idiom proves there’s still meat to chew on those old bones, and cow-punching aficionados, fear-fans, lovers of nostalgia-tainted comics and seekers of the wild and new alike can be assured this range-riding rollercoaster of thrills and macabre mystery proves that excitement and terror still lurk in those hills and over that horizon…

Black hats, white hats, alternate worlds, haunts and horrors, stunning visuals and macabre twists – what more could you possibly ask for?

Apparently, a sequel, so I’ll be getting to that too in the fullness of time…
© 2011 Christian Read, Michael Maier & Gestalt Publishing Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.