Humour – Page 99 – Now Read This!

December 18, 2014December 17, 2014

Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Essential Kurtzman volume One

By Harvey Kurtzman (Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-61655-563-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Buy It Now, Love It Foreverâ€¦ 10/10

Well this is embarrassingâ€¦

About a month ago, after literally years of waiting impatiently, I finally reviewed one of the earliest classics of our art form, impetuously deciding that at least some of you might find and delight in Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book through second-hand and pre-owned suppliers.

Apparently, even as I was whining about the thing not being in print, superbly crafted copies of a wonderful new deluxe hardcover edition were winging their way around the planet thanks to the perspicacity of those fine people at Dark Horse and Kitchen Sink.

That will teach me to actually read some of the online reports and press releases we’re bombarded with here at Grumpy Old Luddite Centralâ€¦

Still my humiliation is your good fortune as this magnificently oversized (297x184mm) masterpiece is ready to buy and just in time to make this Holiday Season a time of wickedly barbed merrimentâ€¦

Here in Britain we think we invented modern satire, and quite frankly it’s a pretty understandable notion, with â€œThe Great 1960s Satire Boomâ€ producing the likes of Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, Bernard Levin, Richard Ingrams, Alan Bennett, Paul Foot, Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Miller, David Frost and institutions such as The Establishment club, That Was the Week that Was and the utterly wonderful Private Eye (long may She reign, offend, fly at Gads and survive repeated libel and defamation writs – there’s a Christmas Annual out even as we speakâ€¦).

Sadly our American cousins were not so magnanimously blessed. Their share of genuine world-changing, liberal-lefty rib-tickling intellectual troublemakers only really comprised Tom Lehrer and Harvey Kurtzman. Of course it is a very large country of excitable citizens, with an unbelievable number of guns equally distributed amongst smart folks, idiots and outright lunaticsâ€¦

Creative genius Harvey Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the last century – even more so than Jules Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert or Will Eisner.

His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking, game-changing Mad) would be enough for most creators to lean back on but Kurtzman was also a force in newspaper strips (Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, commentator and social critic who kept on looking at folk and their doings and just couldn’t stop making art or sharing his conclusionsâ€¦

He invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour comicbook Mad into a black-&-white magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fall-out caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles.

He pursued comedy and social satire further with the magazines Trump, Humbug and Help!, all the while creating challenging and powerfully effective humour strips such as Little Annie Fanny (for Playboy), Nutz, Goodman Beaver, Betsy and her Buddies and many more. He died far too soon, far too young in 1993.

In 1959, having left Mad over issues of financial control and with both follow-up independent ventures Trump andÂ Humbug cruelly defunct, the irrepressible Kurtzman convinced Ballantine Books to publish a mass-market paperback of all-new satirical material. That company had just lost the rights to publish Mad‘s phenomenally best-selling paperback reprint line and were cautiously amenable to a gambleâ€¦

The intriguing oddment saw the Great Observer in top form, returning to his comic roots by spoofing and lambasting strip characters, classic cinema, contemporary television and apparently unchanging social sentiments in a quartet of hyper-charged tales. Unfortunately the project was the first of its kind in America and met with far less than stellar success. No one had ever published 140 pages of new comics in one savage bite before, and even the plenitude of strip reprint books packing bookshop shelves and newsstand spinners were always designed with one eye on the kids’ market.

This new stuff was strictly for adults who would happily follow newspaper or magazine strips but didn’t want to be seen carrying a whole book of them. Duly enlightened, Kurtzman instead returned to safer ground and launched Help! just in time for the aforementioned Swinging Sixties’ satire boomâ€¦

The slim monochrome package might not have changed the nation but it certainly warped and affected a generation of budding cartoonists and writers. Quickly becoming a legend – and nearly a myth in many fan circles – Jungle Book was rescued from limbo in 1986 when cartoonist, publisher and comics advocate Denis Kitchen released the entire lost volume as a deluxe oversized collectors hardback edition through his Kitchen Sink Press.

Adjudged by The Comics Journal as #26 in the â€œTop 100 Comics of the 20^th Centuryâ€, the racy, revelatory controversial – and in 1959 completely ignored – tome’s full title is Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Or, Up from the Apes! (and Right Back Down) – In Which Are Described in Words and Pictures Businessmen, Private Eyes, Cowboys, and Other Heroes All Exhibiting the Progress of Man from the Darkness of the Cave into the Light of Civilization by Means of Television, Wide Screen Movies, the Stone Axe, and Other Useful Arts and this latest edition brilliantly gilds the graphic lily with a host of extra features and treats.

Augmented by a wealth of candid photos, covers and sketches from other works, this new chronicle of craziness offers an effusive Introduction by Gilbert Shelton and a fascinating and informative essay by Kitchen entitled ‘It’s a Jungle Out There!’ which reveals the tone of the times and discloses the background behind the novel novel’s creation.

Also included is the 1986 Kitchen Sink edition’s ‘Intro’ by rabidly devoted fan Art Spiegelman and, after the words and picture-fest concludes, a captivating ‘Epilogue’ ensues in the form of a scholarly ‘Conversation between Peter Poplaski and R. Crumb’â€¦

The material itself is gloriously timeless and revelatory. In 1959 it gave the author an opportunity to experiment with layout, page design, narrative rhythms and especially the graphic potential of lettering, all whilst asking pertinent, probing questions about the world rapidly changing all around him.

Each tale in the quartet is prefaced by Kurtzman’s own commentary as shared with comics historian Dave Schriener for the 1986 Editionâ€¦

‘Thelonius Violence, Like Private Eye’ is ostensibly a parody of groundbreaking TV show Peter Gunn, with the jazz-loving, hipster â€œWhite Knight for Hireâ€ scoring chicks and getting hit an awful lot as he infallibly and oh-so-coolly tracks a killer whilst protecting blackmail victim Lolita Nabokovâ€¦

The tale is slick and witty and sublimely smart, whereas the next piece (barely) contains a lot of pent-up frustration for past sins and misdemeanours.

In creating ‘Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite’ Kurtzman accessed his experiences working for low-rent publishers and bosses (such as Marvel’s Martin Goodman) to create the salutary tale of a decent young man’s progress up the corporate ladder at Shlock Publications Inc.

The quasi-autobiographical, impressionable and ambitious naÃ¯f in question is Goodman Beaver (who would be resurrected for Help! and eventually, improbably evolve into Little Annie Fanny) and his transformation from sweet kid to cruel, corrupt, exploitative average business jerk makes for truly outrageous reading.

The title comes from a trio of contemporary bestsellers on the subject of men in business: Executive Suite by Cameron Hawley (1952), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson in 1955 and William H. Whyte’s 1956 drama The Organization Man.

‘Compulsion on the Range’ simultaneously spoofs top-rated western Gunsmoke and the era’s growing fascination with cod psychology and angst-ridden heroes as Marshal Matt Dolin‘s far-reaching obsession with out-shooting infallible outlaw Johnny Ringding which takes him to the ends of the Earthâ€¦

The cartooning wraps up with an edgily barbed tribute to Great Southern novels like Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre or assorted works of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, filtered through a glorious froth of absurd melodrama, frustrated passions and steamy sex (by all accounts the Very Best Kind), all outrageously delivered via astoundingly rendered caricatures and inspired dialect and accent gags.

The tale was inspired by the time Kurtzman spent in Paris, Texas during his wartime serviceâ€¦

In ‘Decadence Degenerated’ us’n sees thet nothin’ evah changes in sleepy ole Rottenville. Then wun naht, when the boys is jus’ a-oglin’ purty Honey-Lou as ushul, sommin’ goes awry an’ it all leads to murdah an’ lynchin’ befoah some snoopy repohtah who claims he frum up Noath turns up thinkin’ he can fin’ the truthâ€¦

Soon vi’lint passions is furtha aroused and nuthin’ kin evah be the same aginâ€¦

Funny, evocative and still unparalleled in its depth, ambition and visual potency, Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book inspired and influenced creators and storytellers as disparate as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Terry Gilliam. This is a masterpiece of our art form which no true devotee can afford to be without.
Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book (Essential Kurtzman Volume One) Â© 2014 Kitchen, Lind & Associates, LLC. All contents Â© and/or â„¢ their respective creators or rights holders. All artwork and stories Â© the estate of Harvey Kurtzman unless noted. Â All rights reserved.

December 2, 2014

Robbie Burns: Witch Hunter

By Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby, Tiernen Trevallion, Jim Campbell & Jerry Brannigan (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-99215-085-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a graphic joy beyond compareâ€¦ 10/10

Robert Burns was born in 1759 in Alloway. His father was a farmer who went to great lengths to ensure that his children were properly educated. Robert was schooled in the classics, French and Latin and began his creative writing when he was fifteen.

He led a successful, tempestuous life – particularly favouring boozy carousing and roistering escapades with the ladies – and died in 1796 aged 37.

As well as his dialectical and vernacular poetry, Burns selflessly preserved a wealth of traditional Scottish songs and folklore – particularly the bizarre arcane bestiary of supernatural entities God-fearing folk of the 18^th century believed in – and is more popular today than he has ever been.

He is the only poet in history to have his own globally celebrated holiday, with his birth anniversary on January 25^th an affair universally honoured by food, drink, recitations and well-loved scary storiesâ€¦

This stunning re-imagining of the venerable wordsmith by scripters Gordon Rennie (Necronauts, Cabalistics Inc., Judge Dredd) and Emma Beeby (Doctor Who, Judge Dredd), breathtakingly illustrated by relative newcomer Tiernen Trevallion (2000AD, Judge Dredd) and lettered by Jim Campbell, owes as much to the modern fashion for stylish tongue-in-cheek horror comedies like Shaun of the Dead, Lesbian Vampire Killers and I Sell the Dead as the beguiling and frequently fantastical works of the poet, but the skilful interweaving of Burns’ immortal lines with a diabolically clever but simple idea make this tale an unforgettable treat whether pages or screens float your particular boatâ€¦

Think of it this way: in all those sterling supernatural sonnets and sagas, Burns wasn’t reinterpreting his elders’ supernatural folk tales or exercising a unique imagination, he was simply quoting from his diaryâ€¦

The wee drama unfolds one night in Ayrshire in 1779 when rascally young gadabout Robbie finds himself on the wrong end of an angry man’s fist after playing fast and loose with the irate hulk’s intended bride. However, even though all the lassies fall for the blithe blather of the self-proclaimed poet, the battered man himself knows he has not yet found his true museâ€¦

Half-drunk and well-thumped, the farmer’s son heads his horse for home but is drawn to uncanny lights emanating from haunted, drear abandoned old Alloway Kirk. Dangerously enthralled he then espies a scene out of Hell itself as witches and demons cavort in a naked ecstasy of dark worship to the satanic master â€œOld Clootieâ€â€¦

The lad’s enrapt attention is only broken by a heavy pistol shoved in his ear by a stealthy pair also watching the shocking ritual. Old Mackay is a daunting figure kitted out like a wrinkled human arsenal but Robbie’s attention cannot stray from the dangerous codger’s comely companion Meg, the most astounding woman he has ever seen.

Unfortunately the confrontation between the mortal voyeurs has resulted in Burns’ â€œinnocentâ€ blood being spilled and the satanic celebrants have caught wind of itâ€¦

Soon all the denizens of Hell are howling after the ‘mazed mortals but things are not as they seem. The outlandish pair are actually Witch Hunters, ferociously skilled in sending all Satan’s minions back to the Inferno and always armed to the teeth with a fantastic array of ingeniously inventive ordnanceâ€¦

Having fought free of the black Sabbat, the mortals take flight with the screaming witches in pursuit and when one grabs Robbie as he rides pillion on Meg’s horse, the dazed, half-soused lad blasts the beast with one of his companions’ blessed flintlock pistols.

Tragically in the selfsame altercation the pursuing she-devil had opportunity to mark him with her talons and the would-be poet promptly sobers up when he is informed that he has only three days left to liveâ€¦

With mounting terror he learns that most mortals so infected become willing thralls of the hellions, but when a seductive minion of The Pit comes for him the next night, the scribbler somehow fends it off long enough for the suspiciously near-at-hand Meg to spectacularly despatch it back to the brimstone realmsâ€¦

Concluding that’s there might be something of worth to the Burns boy, Mackay and Meg resolve to teach him how to be a true Witch Hunter so that he can defend himself when the horrors come in full strength to collect the Devil’s due. Of course that’s only three days henceâ€¦

Renegade are a publisher who value fact as well as fiction and this superb full-colour hardback comes with a fine selection of factual features beginning with a lavish history and appreciation of Scotland’s greatest poet in Robbie Burns: a Biography’ by author and historian Jerry Brannigan as well as ‘Selected Poems’ which provides a tantalising entrÃ©e into the uniquely impassioned and eerie world of the grand imagineer with a sampling of some of his most famous works embellished and beguilingly illustrated with a wealth of Trevallion’s pencils sketches of Bogles and Brownies, Spunkies and Sirens and even senior Witch Hunter Mackay.

The rhythmic reveille includes Scots Wha Hae, the totally crucial, groundbreaking spooky saga Tam o’ Shanter (A Tale), the evocative A Red, Red Rose, A Man’s A Man For A’ That, the delirious AddressÂ To The Deil and most moving lament Ae Fond Kiss, And Then We Severâ€¦

Smart, action packed, skilfully suspenseful, uproariously funny, divinely irreverent and genuinely scary or sad by turn, Robbie Burns Witch Hunter is a gloriously compelling and truly mesmerising romp: a doom-laden, wisecracking rollicking love story no sensitive soul or jaded comics fan could possibly resist. It’s even educational tooâ€¦
Robbie Burns: Witch Hunter Â© 2014 Renegade Arts Entertainment, Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby and Tiernen Trevallion.

To learn more and obtain copies check out Turnaround or Amazon.

November 19, 2014November 18, 2014

Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book

By Harvey Kurtzman (Ballantine/Kitchen Sink)
ISBNs: 978-0-87816-033-4 (Kitchen Sink HB),Â Â Â Â Â 338-K (Ballantine original PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Hard To Find – but absolutely worth itâ€¦ 10/10

Here in Britain we think we invented modern satire, and quite frankly it’s a pretty understandable notion, with The Great 1960s Wit Scare producing the likes of Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, Bernard Levin, Richard Ingrams, Alan Bennett, Paul Foot, Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Miller, David Frost and institutions such as The Establishment club, That Was the Week that Was and the utterly wonderful Private Eye (long may She reign, offend, fly at Gads and survive repeated libel and defamation writsâ€¦).

Somehow our American cousins were not so copiously blessed. Their share of genuine world-changing, liberal-lefty intellectual troublemakers only really comprised Tom Lehrer and Harvey Kurtzman. Of course it a very large country with an unbelievable number of guns equally distributed amongst smart folks, idiots and lunatics alikeâ€¦

Creative genius Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the 20th century – even more so than Will Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert or Will Eisner.

His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking, game-changing Mad) would be enough for most creators to lean back on but Kurtzman was a force in newspaper strips (See Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, commentator and social explorer who kept on looking at folk and their doings and just couldn’t stop making art to share his findingsâ€¦

He invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour funny book Mad into a black-&-white magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fall-out caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles.

In 1959, having left Mad over issues of financial control and with both follow-up independent ventures Trump andÂ Humbug defunct, the irrepressible Kurtzman convinced Ballantine Books to publish a mass-market paperback of all-new satirical material.

The company had just lost the rights to publish Mad‘s paperback reprint line and were cautiously amenableâ€¦

The intriguing oddment saw the Great Observer in top form, returning to his comic roots by spoofing and lambasting strip characters, classic cinema, contemporary television and apparently unchanging social sentiments in a quartet of hyper-charged tales. Unfortunately the project was the first of its kind in America and met with less than stellar success. No one had ever published 140 pages of new comics in one savage bite before, and even the plenitude of strip reprint books always had one eye to the kids’ market.

This stuff was strictly for adults who would happily read newspaper or magazine strips but didn’t want to be seen carrying a book of them. Duly enlightened Kurtzman returned to safer ground and launched Help! just in time for the Swinging Sixties’ satire boomâ€¦

The slim monochrome package might not have changed the nation but it certainly warped and affected a generation of budding cartoonists and writers. Quickly becoming a legend – and nearly a myth in fan circles – Jungle Book was rescued from limbo in 1987 when Denis Kitchen (that much-missed crusading champion of all things grand, esoteric, nostalgic and/or naughty in comics), released the entire lost volume as a deluxe oversized (214 x 149 x 19mm) collectors hardback edition through his Kitchen Sink Press.

It’s still one of the funniest, most marvellous examples of wit and creativity comics have ever produced, as well as Kurtzman’s longest single work and is long overdue for another go-round.

Large sized paperback editions were also released at the time, but are now just as hard to findâ€¦

Deemed one of the â€œTop 100 Comics of the 20th Centuryâ€ by The Comics Journal, the racy, revelatory controversial – and in 1959 completely ignored – tome’s full title is Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Or, Up from the Apes! (and Right Back Down) – In Which Are Described in Words and Pictures Businessmen, Private Eyes, Cowboys, and Other Heroes All Exhibiting the Progress of Man from the Darkness of the Cave into the Light of Civilization by Means of Television, Wide Screen Movies, the Stone Axe, and Other Useful Arts and the Kitchen Sink edition augments its reproduction with an effusive and captivating ‘Intro’ from devoted fan Art Spiegelman plus an information-packed ‘Outro’ by editor and comics historian Dave Schriener.

The material itself is gloriously timeless and revelatory. In 1959 it gave the author an opportunity to experiment with layout, page design, narrative rhythms and especially the graphic potential of lettering, all whilst asking pertinent probing questions about the world changing around him.

‘Thelonius Violence, Like Private Eye’ is ostensibly a parody of groundbreaking TV show Peter Gunn, with the jazz-loving hipster â€œWhite Knight for Hireâ€ scoring chicks and getting hit an awful lot as he infallibly and oh-so-coolly tracks a killer whilst protecting blackmail victim Lolita Nabokovâ€¦

The tale is slick and witty and sublimely smart, whereas the next piece barely contains a lot of pent-up frustration for past sins and misdemeanours.

For ‘Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite’ Kurtzman accessed his experiences working for bosses (such as Marvel’s Martin Goodman) to create the salutary tale of a decent young man’s progress up the corporate ladder at Shlock Publications Inc. The quasi-autobiographical impressionable and ambitious naÃ¯f in question is Goodman Beaver (who would be resurrected for Help! and eventually, improbably evolve into Little Annie Fanny) and his transformation from sweet kid to cruel, corrupt, exploitative typical business jerk makes for truly outrageous reading.

The volume wraps up with an edgily barbed tribute to Great Southern novels like Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre and assorted works of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, filtered through a glorious froth of absurd melodrama, frustrated passions and steamy sex (by all accounts the Very Best Kind), all outrageously delivered via astoundingly rendered caricatures and inspired dialect and accent gags.

In ‘Decadence Degenerated’ us sees thet nothin’ evah changes in sleepy ole Rottenville. Then wun naht, when the boys is jus’ a-oglin’ purty Honey-Lou as ushul, somethin’ goes awry an’ it all leads to murdah an’ lynchin’ befoah a snoopy repohtah who claims he frum up Noath turn up thinkin’ he can fin’ the truthâ€¦

Soon violent passions is furtha aroused and nothin’ kin evah be the same aginâ€¦

Funny, evocative and still unparalleled in its depth and visual potency, Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book inspired and influenced creators and storytellers as disparate as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Terry Gilliam. This is a masterpiece of our art form which no true devotee can afford to be without.

November 13, 2014

Pogo – The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips volume 3: Evidence to the Contrary

By Walt Kelly, edited by Carolyn Kelly & Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-694-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Possibly the Best Comic Strip Collection in the Worldâ€¦ 10/10

Books of this stature and calibre are worth buying and reading at every moment of every day, and rather than waste your valuable time with my purely extraneous blather, you should just hit the shops or online emporia and grab this terrific tome right now.

If you still need more though, and aren’t put off by me yet, I’m honoured to elucidate at some lengthâ€¦

Walter Crawford Kelly Jr. was born in 1913 and began his cartooning career whilst still in High School as artist and reporter for the Bridgeport Post. In 1935 he moved to California and joined the Disney Studio, working on animated short films and such features as Dumbo, Fantasia and Pinocchio.

His steady ascent was curtailed by the infamous animator’s strike in 1941. Refusing to take sides, Kelly quit, moving back East and into comicbooks – primarily for Dell who held the Disney funnybook license amongst others at that time.

Despite his glorious work on such popular people-based classics as the Our Gang movie spin-off, Kelly preferred and particularly excelled with anthropomorphic animal and children’s fantasy material.

For the December 1942-released Animal Comics #1 he created Albert the Alligator and Pogo Possum, wisely retaining the copyrights to the ongoing saga of two affable Bayou critters and their young African-American pal Bumbazine. Although the black kid soon disappeared, the animal actors stayed on as stars until 1948 when Kelly moved into journalism, becoming art editor and cartoonist for hard hitting, left-leaning liberal newspaper The New York Star.

On October 4^th 1948, Pogo, Albert and an ever-expanding cast of gloriously addictive, ridiculously exuberant characters began their strip careers, appearing in the paper six days a week until the periodical folded in January 1949.

Although ostensibly a gently humorous kids feature, by the end of its New York Star run (reprinted in Pogo: the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips volume 1) the first glimmerings of an astoundingly barbed, boldly satirical masterpiece of velvet-pawed social commentary had begun to emergeâ€¦

When the paper folded Pogo was picked up for mass distribution by the Post-Hall Syndicate, debuting on May 16^th 1949 in selected outlets across the nation. A colour Sunday page launched January 29^th 1950 and both were produced simultaneously by Kelly until his death in 1973 and thereafter by his talented wife and family until the feature was at last laid to rest on July 20^th 1975.

At its height the strip appeared in 500 papers in 14 countries and the book collections – which began in 1951 – eventually numbered nearly 50, collectively selling over 30 million copiesâ€¦ and all that before this Fantagraphics series even beganâ€¦

In this third and much delayed (due to the sudden death of much missed editor and publisher Kim Thompson) volume of a proposed full dozen reprinting the entire Kelly canon of the Okefenokee Swamp critter citizenry, undoubtedly the main aspect of interest is the full-on comedic assault against possibly the greatest danger and vilest political demagogue America ever endured, but the counterattack against witch-hunter Senator Joe McCarthy is merely one of the many delights in this stunning mix of free expression and wild and woolly whimsyâ€¦

This colossal and comfortingly sturdy landscape compilation hardback (boasting three-hundred-and-fifty-six 184 x 267mm pages) includes the monochrome ‘Daily Strips’ from January 1^st 1953 to December 31^st 1954, and the Sundays – in their own full-colour section – from January 4^th to December 26^th of the same years.

Supplemental features this time comprise a Foreword from ward winning cartoonist Mike Peters (Mother Goose & Grimm), a wealth of deliriously winning unpublished illustrations and working drawings by Kelly and utterly invaluable context and historical notes in R.C. Harvey’s ‘Swamp Talk’ which also compellingly, almost forensically, details the rise and fall of rabblerousing â€œred-baiterâ€ Joe McCarthy and how Kelly courageously opened America’s fight back against the unscrupulous, bullying chancer (and the movement for which he was merely a publicity-hungry figurehead) with an unbeatable combination broadside of ridicule and cool disdainâ€¦

The closing regular biographical feature ‘About Walt Kelly’ by Mark Evanier is supplemented by a comprehensive ‘Index of the Strips’ and a gloriously inspired selection of ‘Noteworthy Quotes’ to fill out the academic needs of the readers, but of course the greatest boon here is the strips and characters themselves.

Kelly was a masterful inventor of engaging and endearing personalities, all of whom carried as many flaws as virtues. The regular roll call (which some commentators reckon to be as many as 1000) included gentle, perpetually put-upon and bemused possum Pogo, boisterous, happily ignorant alligator Albert, dolorous, sensitive Porkypine, obnoxious turtle Churchy La Femme, lugubrious hound Beauregard Bugleboy, carpet-bagging Seminole Sam Fox, pompously ignorant know-it-all Howland Owl, sveltely seductive skunk Miz Mam’selle Hepzibah, long suffering matron Miz Beaver, maternal Miz Groun’chuck and her incomprehensible, bitey baby Grundoon plus all the other bugs, beasts and young’uns of the swamp, but the author’s greatest strength lay in his uniquely Vaudevillian rogues, scoundrels and outright villains.

The likes of Tammanany Tiger, officious Deacon Mushrat, sinister, sycophantic beatnik communist Catbirds Compeer and Confrere, sepulchral Sarcophagus MacAbre, sloganeering P.T. Bridgeport and a trio of brilliantly scene-stealing bats named Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred were perfect confections to illustrate all manner of pestilential pettifogging, mean manners and venal self-serving atrocities as they intermingled and interfered with the decent folk volubly enduring the vicissitudes of such day to day travails as love, marriage, comicbooks, weather, rival strips, fishing, the problem with kids, the innocent joys of sport, cadging food, making a living and why neighbours shouldn’t eat each otherâ€¦

In this volume the topics of exotically extravagant conversation include the longevity and worth of New Year’s Resolutions, the scandalous behaviour of Porkeypine’s kissing-thief Uncle Baldwin, a get-rich scheme involving dirt and opening shots at the burgeoning phenomenon of commercial television. However the gradual conversion of the Deacon’s Boy Bird Watchers society into a self-policing vigilante committee looking out for strangers and making sure all the citizens are right thinking and true looking would quickly insinuate itself into every corner of the featureâ€¦

The anti-foreigner sentiment peaks following the arrival of Deacon Mushrat’s old pal The Hon. Mole MacCarony; a blind, self-aggrandizing politico determined to root out all (undisclosed) threats, enforce conformity and stamp out the diseases obviously carried by strangers.

The xenophobic dirt-digger was based on Nevada Senator Patrick McCarran who briefly shaped paranoid public opinion on a platform of severely restricting immigration and implementing the speedy deportation of all communists and non-Americans.

Things got much darker – and therefore more effectively ludicrous – with the arrival of Mole’s malicious and ambitious associate Simple J. Malarkey whose bullying tactics soon began to terrify his fellow bigots as much as the increasingly outraged, off-balance citizensâ€¦

Eventually the villains fell out and triggered their own downfall with the mortified Deacon sheepishly denying his part in the fiasco. Peace and (in)sanity returned and with sunny days ahead weather-prognosticating frog Picayune debuted, but suffered a great loss when Albert accidentally ingested the amphibian’s pal Halpha – an amoeba who actually did all the meteorological messing aboutâ€¦

Voracious Albert generally swallowed a lot of things, but his biggest gaffe probably occurred after meeting Roogey Batoon, a pelican impresario who – briefly – managed Flim, Flam and Flo: a singing fish acted billed as the Lou’siana Perchesâ€¦

Many intriguing individuals shambled into view at this time: Ol’ Mouse and his tutorial pal Snavely (who taught worms how to be cobras and rattlers), cricket-crazed British bugs Reggie and Alf and family icons Bug Daddy and Chile, but the biggest mover and shaker to be introduced was undoubtedly a sporty Rhode Island Red chicken named Miss Sis Boombah.

The formidable biddy was a physically imposing and prodigiously capable sports enthusiast (and Albert’s old football coach), who wandered in as survey taker for â€œDr. Whimsy‘s report on the Sectional Habits of U.S. Mail Menâ€ (a brilliant spoof of the societally sensational Kinsey Report on sexual behaviour in America) but her arrival also generated a succession of romantic interludes and debacles which eventually led to a bewildered Mushrat proposing marriage before leaving her in the lurch and disappearing into the deepest parts of the swampâ€¦

Mole had already reared his unseeing head again, causing only minor mischief, but when the marriage-averse Deacon encountered the terrifying Malarkey lurking in hiding with sinister acolyte Indian Charlie (who bears a remarkable resemblance to then current US Vice-President Richard Nixon) the scene was set for another savage and often genuinely scary confrontationâ€¦

That’s also exactly what Miss Boombah had in mind as she set out with Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred to hunt down the scoundrel who had left her in the lurch at the churchâ€¦

Other story strands and insane interludes include such epic mini sagas as the hunt for an abducted puppy – lampooning TV cop series Dragnet – and a long session on the keeping and proper sharing of secrets, much ado about gossip and the art of being a busybody.

Most memorable of all though are Churchy’s sudden predilection for dressing up as pretty little blonde girl, perpetually visiting Martians and poor Pogo’s oddly domestic recipe for A Bombsâ€¦

In his time satirical supremo Kelly unleashed his bestial spokes-cast upon many other innocent, innocuous sweethearts such as J.Edgar Hoover, the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Clan, as well as lesser lights likes Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon B. Johnson and – with eerie perspicacity – George W. Romney (U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Governor of Michigan and father of some guy named Mitt), but nothing ever compared his delicious and devilish deconstruction of â€œTailgunner Joeâ€ in the two extended sequences reprinted hereâ€¦

Kelly’s unmatched genius lay in his seemingly effortless ability to lyrically, if not vivaciously, portray through anthropomorphic affectation and apparently frivolous nonsense language comedic, tragic, pompous, infinitely sympathetic characters of any shape or breed, all whilst making them undeniably human.

He used that gift to readily blend hard-hitting observation of our crimes, foibles and peccadilloes with rampaging whimsy, poesy and sheer exuberant joie de vivre. Generally though he usually toned down the satirical scalpels for the magnificently imaginative ‘Sunday Funnies’: concentrating instead on fantastic and unfailingly hilarious serial fables and comedy romps.

Some of the best he ever conceived conclude this volume, beginning with the epic saga of little faun Melonbone whose search for the Fountain of Youth inadvertently caused Sam Duck to revert to an egg. The distraught drake’s wife was not best pleased at having to hatch her own husband out at her age (she was no spring chicken)â€¦

Churchy and Albert then fell afoul of sharp toothed tot Grundoon as the kid’s inability to converse led the alligator to accidentally swallow his turtle pal, after which the animal crackpots all got very lost for a long time in their own swampy backyardâ€¦

Howlan Owl’s latest get-rich-quick scheme – digging to China – resulted in his and Albert’s reluctant consultation of an Atlas and the shocking conclusion that the Russians had taken over Georgia.

The panicked reaction of the chumps then led to their accidentally awakening an oversleeping bear who decided to start celebrating Christmas in the middle of August. Eventually everybody caught up to him just in time for the true Yule eventâ€¦

After the usual New Year’s shenanigans, 1954 really took hold as everyone’s favourite alligator tried to recount the amazing exploit of ‘King Albert and the 1001 Arabian Knights of the Round Table’ – despite each listener’s evident and express disinterest – before Howlan and Churchy became compulsively embroiled in a furious feud over pugilism.

Soon thereafter Albert was mistaken for a monster after getting his head stuck in a cauldron. Sadly, once the alligator was finally extricated from the calamitous cookpot, other unhappy folk become the infernal alembic’s’s unwilling method of locomotionâ€¦

No sooner did that catastrophe conclude than the whole sorry fiasco promptly kicked off again with a lovesick octopus now playing transient chapeau to a succession of unfortunate and duly startled swamp critters â€¦

The hairy, scaly, feathered, slimy folk of the surreal swamp lands are, of course, inescapably us, elevated by burlesque, slapstick, absurdism and all the glorious joys of wordplay from puns to malapropisms to raucous accent humour into a multi-layered hodgepodge of all-ages delight – and we’ve never looked or behaved betterâ€¦

This stuff will certainly make you laugh; it will probably provoke a sentimental tear or ten and will certainly satisfy your every entertainment requirement. Timeless and ineffably magical, Pogo is a giant not simply of comics, but of world literature and this magnificent third tome should be the pride of every home’s bookshelf, right beside the other two.

â€¦Or, in the popular campaign parlance of the all politically astute critters – â€œI Go Pogo!â€ and so should you.

Pogo Vol. 3: Evidence to the Contrary and all POGO images, including Walt Kelly’s signature Â© 2014 Okefenokee Glee & Perloo Inc. All other material Â© 2014 the respective creator and owner. All rights reserved.

November 10, 2014November 8, 2014

Iznogoud and the Magic Carpet

By Goscinny and Tabary (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918- 044-3

For the greater part of his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) RenÃ© Goscinny was one of the most prolific and most-read writers of comic strips the world has ever seen. Incredibly, he still is.

Among his most popular comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas and, of course Asterix the Gaul, but there were so many others, such as the dazzling, dark deeds of a dastardly usurper whose dreams of diabolical skulduggery perpetually proved to be ultimately no more than castles in the sandâ€¦

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to the hotly contested deserts when Goscinny teamed with sublimely gifted Swedish Ã©migrÃ© Jean Tabary (1930-2011) – who numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips – to detail the innocuous history of imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah.

However it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud who stole the show – possibly the conniving little imp’s only successful coup.

Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created for Record; with the first episode appearing in the January 15^th issue. 1962. A minor hit, it subsequently jumped ship to Pilote – a comics magazine created and edited by Goscinny – where it was artfully refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little ratbag who had increasingly been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on two levels: as a comedic romp with adorably wicked baddies invariably hoisted on their own petards and coming a cropper for the youngsters, whilst older, wiser heads revelled in the pun-filled, witty satire of marvellously accessible episodic comic capers.

The same magic formula had made its more famous cousin Asterix such a global success, and just like the saga of the indomitable Gaul, this irresistibly addictive Arabian nonsense is adapted here by master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who made those Roman Follies so very palatable to the English tongue.

Moreover the deliciously malicious whimsy is always heavily laden with manic absurdity and brilliantly delivered creative anachronism which keeps the assorted escapades bizarrely fresh and inventive.

Insidious anti-hero Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to affable, easy-going Caliph of Ancient Baghdad Haroun Al Plassid, but the sneaky little toad has loftier ambitions, or as he is always declaiming â€œI want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!â€â€¦

The retooled series launched in Pilote in 1968, and soon became a massive European hit, with 29 albums to date (carried on by Tabary’s children StÃ©phane, Muriel and Nicolas), his own solo comic, a computer game, animated film, TV cartoon show and even a live-action movie.

When Goscinny died in 1977 Tabary began scripting his own sublimely stylish tales (from the 13^th album onwards), switching to book-length complete adventures, rather than the compilations of short, punchy vignettes which typified the collaborations.

This sixth Cinebook album was actually the ninth French album (released in 1973 as Le Tapis Magique) with the lead tale ‘The Magic Carpet’ an exceptional, extended 20-page epic bolstered by a triumvirate of shorter yarns and prefaced as ever with a handy catch-up profile page of the usual suspectsâ€¦

It all starts in glorious bustling Baghdad where the verminous Vizier unaccountably encounters a few famous faces (moonlighting from their day jobs in TinTin) before returning to his plotting on how to remove the gentle, isolated and very dim obstacle to power Haroun Al Plassidâ€¦

It’s the corpulent oaf’s birthday and a thought finally occurs to employ impecunious Fakir Khaledonyahn to make a very special kind of rug. Flying carpets are no big deal in the empire and the skies of Baghdad are crammed with them, but the Fakir’s are extraordinary.

They only travel one way. Anybody standing on one of these when the trigger word is pronounced takes a flight to who-knows-where and never returnsâ€¦

Who-knows-where is actually Ancient Peking and soon the venerably inscrutable and imperturbable citizens there are having their legendary patience tested as carpet after carpet arrives because untrusting Iznogoud continually demands proof of concept before parting with cash whilst the gullibly hapless Caliph can’t get the hang of the magic word his trusted advisor wants him to repeatâ€¦

The sharply convoluted pun-punctuated yarn is followed by a sneaky dose of inspired iniquity dubbed ‘Incognito’. The well-meaning Caliph has no idea of the depredations Iznogoud inflicts upon the populace in his name or that his beloved people fear, despise and revile the Caliphate because of excessive taxes, prisons filled with tortured citizens and schools empty of children.

When chimerically inquisitive Haroun Al Plassid decides to go out amongst the populace in all his regal splendour he is disappointed and surprised to find the streets utterly deserted by the terrified common folk. Asking his precious Iznogoud for advice the Commander of the Faithful is then convinced to sneak out alone dressed as a common beggar.

Unable to believe his luck the vile Vizier quickly briefs his bumbling, long-suffering crony Wa’at Alahf and orders the guards to throw any beggars who approach the palace into the deepest dungeon.

On his fact finding mission the shabby Caliph learns a lot he doesn’t like and determines to fix things as soon as he gets back. Unfortunately being a newcomer in his own city he gets lostâ€¦

Soon Iznogoud is going insane with the suspense. Al Plassid should be back and languishing in jail by now but as long as he’s out there somewhere the coup cannot begin. Thus the despot-in-waiting and his flunky are forced to disguise themselves as beggars and steal out into Baghdad to search for their missing lord.

In the meantime the Caliph has had the brilliant notion of asking for directions and shambles home just as the Guard is being changed. Nobody even notices the scruffy indigent as he wanders back to his apartments and becomes again The Caliph.

In the city the tired and frustrated plotters give up and head for home, just as the order to arrest all beggars becomes lawâ€¦

Sheer broad slapstick-riddled farce is the secret ingredient of the perfectly paced saga of ‘The Tiger Hunt’ when Iznogoud convinces his boss to go for a low key safari – just him, the Vizier and faithful Wa’at Alahf, armed with bows and blunt arrows – to bag the perfect bedside rug.

Typically, the murder plot goes hideously awry as a succession of hunters provide perfectly suitable, already skinned rugs to the happy ruler and the only living apex predators they can find are just not interested.

Forced to improvise Iznogoud finally resorts to digging a huge pit but whilst he’s at the bottom of it Haroun at last finds a way to really tick off a tiger – just before it tumbles into a great big hole in the groundâ€¦

The manic mirth concludes with ‘The Box of Souvenirs’ as a visitor from distant Nippon visits fabulous Baghdad with a strange device. Judoka Karate is a destitute tourist whose incredible hand-held cube can turn solid objects into two-dimensional pictures.

Instantly sensing an opportunity Iznogoud, after much spirited dickering, acquires the mystic souvenir maker, but hasn’t fully considered the details. To turn a jug or jewel or Caliph into a black and white image the object has to be the proper distance from the lens and keep completely still for a minute or two.

Confident he can cope, the Vizier has utterly underestimated Haroun Al Plassid’s mayfly attention span and ingrained vanity which has led to big mirrors being placed all over the palaceâ€¦

Just such witty, fast-paced hi-jinks and craftily crafted comedy set pieces have made this addictive series a household name in France where â€œIznogoudâ€ is common term for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and frequently not that tall.

When first released in Britain in the 1970s (and again in 1996 as a periodical comic book) these tales made little impression, but certainly now this snappy, wonderfully beguiling strip has finally found an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy Kids Of All Agesâ€¦
Original edition Â© Editions TABARY 1991, by Goscinny & Tabary. All rights reserved. This edition published 2010 by Cinebook Ltd.

November 6, 2014

The Broons and Oor Wullie: The Roaring Forties

By R.D. Low & Dudley D. Watkins (DC Thomson)
ISBN: 978-0-85116-804-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: How the Holidays Must Be Celebratedâ€¦ 10/10

The Broons is one of the longest running newspaper strips in British history, having run almost continuously in Scottish newspaper The Sunday Post since its first amazing appearance in the March 8th 1936 edition: the same issue which launched mischievous and equally unchanging wee laddie Oor Wullie.

Both the boisterous boy and the gregariously engaging working class family were co-created by journalist, writer and editor Robert Duncan Low in conjunction with DC Thomson’s greatest artist Dudley D. Watkins and, once the strips began to be collected in reprint editions as Seasonal Annuals, those books alternated stars and years right up to the present day.

Low (1895-1980) began at DC Thomson as a journalist, rising to the post of Managing Editor of Children’s Publication and launching, between 1921 and 1933, the company’s â€œBig Fiveâ€ story papers for boys: Adventure, The Rover, The Wizard, The Skipper and The Hotspur.

In 1936 his next brilliant idea was the â€œFun Sectionâ€: an 8-page pull-out comic strip supplement for national newspaper The Sunday Post. The illustrated accessory launched on 8^th March and from the outset The Broons and Oor Wullie were the clear starsâ€¦

Low’s shrewdest notion was to devise both strips as comedies played out in the charismatic Scottish idiom and broad unforgettable vernacular where, supported by features such as Auchentogle by Chic Gordon, Allan Morley‘s Nero and Zero, Nosey Parker and other strips, they laid the groundwork for the company’s next great leap.

After some devious devising in December 1937 Low launched the first DC Thomson weekly comic. The Dandy was followed by The Beano in 1938 and early-reading title The Magic Comic in 1939.

War-time paper shortages and rationing sadly curtailed the strip periodical revolution, and it was 1953 before the next wave of cartoon caper picture paper releases. The Topper started the ball rolling again (with Oor Wullie in the logo and masthead but not included in the magazine’s regular roster) in the same year that Low & the great Ken Reid created Roger the Dodger for The Beanoâ€¦

Low’s greatest advantage in the early days was his prolific illustrator Dudley Dexter Watkins, whose style – more than any other – shaped the look of DC Thompson’s comics output until the bombastic advent of Leo Baxendale shook things up in the mid-1950s.

Watkins (1907-1969) had started life in Manchester and Nottingham as a genuine artistic prodigy before entering Glasgow College of Art in 1924. It wasn’t long before he was advised to get a job at burgeoning, Dundee-based DCT, where a 6-month trial illustrating boys’ stories led to comic strip specials and some original cartoon creations.

Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks and Wandering Willie, The Wily Explorer made him a dead cert for both lead strips in the Sunday Post‘s new Fun Section and, without missing a beat, Watkins later added The Dandy‘s Desperate Dan to his weekly workload in 1937, eventually adding The Beano‘s placidly outrageous Lord Snooty seven months later.

Watkins soldiered on in unassailable triumph for decades, drawing some of the most lavishly lifelike and winningly hilarious strips in comics history. He died at his drawing board on August 20^th 1969.

For all those astonishingly productive years he had unflaggingly drawn a full captivating page each of Oor Wullie and The Broons every week, and his loss was a colossal blow to the company.

DC Thomson reprinted old episodes of both strips in the newspaper and the Annuals for seven years before a replacement was agreed upon, whilst The Dandy reran Watkins’ Desperate Dan stories for twice that length of time.

An undeniable, rock-solid facet of Scots popular culture from the start, the first Broons Annual (technically Bi-Annual) had appeared in 1939, alternating with Oor Wullie – although, due to wartime paper restrictions, no annuals were published between 1943 and 1946 – and for millions of readers a year cannot truly end without them.

So What’s the Set Up?: the multigenerational Broon family inhabit a tenement flat at 10 Glebe Street, in the timelessly metafictional Scottish industrial everytown of Auchentogle (or sometimes Auchenshoogle), based in large part on the working class Glasgow district of Auchenshuggle. As such it’s an ideal setting in which to tell gags, relate events and fossilise the deepest and most reassuring cultural archetypes for sentimental Scots wherever in the world they might actually be residing.

As is always the case, the adamant, unswerving cornerstone of any family feature is long-suffering, understanding Maw, who puts up with cantankerous, cheap know-it-all Paw, and a battalion of stay-at-home kids comprising hunky Joe, freakishly tall Hen (Henry), sturdy Daphne, pretty Maggie, brainy Horace, mischievous twins Eck and the unnamed â€œither aneâ€ plus the wee toddler referred to only as â€œThe Bairnâ€.

Not officially in residence but always hanging around is gruffly patriarchal buffoon Granpaw – a comedic gadfly who spends more time at Glebe Street than his own cottage and constantly tries to impart decades of out-of-date, hard-earned experience to the kidsâ€¦ but do they listenâ€¦?

Offering regular breaks from the inner city turmoil and a chance to simultaneously sentimentalise, spoof and memorialise more traditional times, the family frequently repair to their But ‘n’ Ben (a dilapidated rustic cottage in the Highlands) to fall foul of the weather, the countryside and all its denizens: fish, fowl and farm-grownâ€¦

As previously stated, Oor Wullie also debuted on 8^th March 1936 with his collected Annuals appearing in the even years.

The basic set-up is sublimely simply and eternally evergreen, featuring an imaginative, good-hearted scruff with a talent for finding trouble and no hope of ever avoiding parental retribution when appropriateâ€¦

Wullie – AKA William MacCallum – is the archetypal rascal with time on his hands and can usually be found sitting on an upturned bucket at the start and finish of his page-a-week exploits.

The regular cast includes Ma and Pa, local copper P.C. Murdoch, assorted teachers and other interfering adults who either lavish gifts or inflict opprobrium upon the little pest and his pals Fat Bob, Soapy Joe Soutar, Wee Eck and othersâ€¦

The Roaring Forties was released in 2002 as part of a concerted drive to keep the earlier material available to fans: a lavish and sturdy hardback compilation (still readily available through internet vendors) offering a tantalising selection of strips from 1940-1949, covering every aspect of contemporary existence except a rather obvious one.

Although for half the book World War II was a brutal fact of life, it barely encroached upon the characters’ lives except perhaps in the unexplained occasional shortages of toys, sweets and other scrummy comestiblesâ€¦

The parade of celtic mirth begins with – and is regularly broken up by – a number of atmospheric photo-features such as a celebration of film stars of the period in ‘A Nicht at the Picters’ (three glamour-studded showings) and ‘Cartoon Capers’ which reproduces a wealth of one-off gag panels from The Sunday Post by such luminaries as Carmichael, Eric Cook, Campbell and Housley, whilst ‘Whit’s in The Sunday Post Today?’ gathers a selection of the era’s daftest news items.

The endless escapades of the strip stars comprise the usual subject-matter: gleeful goofs, family frolics and gloriously slapstick shenanigans including plumbing disasters, fireplace fiascos, food foolishness, dating dilemmas, appliance atrocities, fashion freak-outs, exercise exploits and childish pranks by young and old alikeâ€¦

Punctuated by editorial extras, such as ‘Correction Corner’ offering an intriguing look into the strips’ creative process and ‘Dinnae Mention the War’ which reprints a selection of morale-boosting ads and items, are rib-tickling scenes of sledding and skating, stolen candies, torn clothes, recycled comics, visiting circuses, practical jokes, and social gaffes: stories intended to take our collective mind off troubles abroad, and for every thwarted romance of poor Daphne and Maggie or embarrassing fiasco focussed on Paw’s cussedness, there’s an uproarious chase, riotous squabble and no-tears scrap for the little ‘uns.

With snobs to deflate, bullies to crush, duels to fight, chips to scoff, games to win and rowdy animals (from cats to cows) to avoid at all costs, the timeless gentle humour and gently self-deprecating, inclusive fun and frolics make these superbly crafted strips and endlessly entertaining serving of superbly nostalgic an unmissable treat.

So why not return to a time of local blacksmiths and coalmen, best china and full employment, neighbours you knew by first names and trousers that always fell apart or were chewed by goats? There are even occasional crossovers to marvel at here with Wullie and Granpaw Broon striving to outdo each other in the adorable menace stakesâ€¦

Packed with all-ages fun, rambunctious slapstick hilarity and comfortably domestic warmth, these unchanging examples of happy certainty and convivial celebration of a mythic lost life and time are a sure cure for post-modern glumsâ€¦ and you can’t really have a happy holiday without that, can you?
Â© D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd. 2002.

November 3, 2014November 2, 2014

Wallace & Gromit – The Complete Newspaper Comics Strips Collection volume 2: 2011-2012

By various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-87276-082-5

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a Grand New Christmas Traditionâ€¦ 10/10

Hard though it is to believe, Wallace & Gromit have been delighting us for nearly 25 years and this second extremely engaging newspaper strip compilation – originally published 2011-12 – again attests to just how much a cornerstone of British culture the potty putty pair have become.

The quintessentially English cheese-chasing chaps were originally conceived as an Art School graphic novel for the student Nick Park, before the Plasticene lure of movement and sound redirected the concept to the world of animation.

With the films a global multi-media phenomenon, the animator’s ingenious inventors went full circle bringing the dog and his old boy to cartoon album audiences. After years of perpetually pining for more Wallace & Gromit, the public were then given a big treat when Aardman and Titan Comics put their collective creative noggins together and produced a daily, full-colour comic strip to run in Red-Top tabloid The Sun.

Easily overcoming some early controversy about the suitability of the sometimes saucy venue, Wallace & Gromit debuted on Monday 17^th May, 2010, establishing a regular weekly adventure format which comprised six complete, stand-alone gags in traditional format (three panels: Set-up, Delivery, Punchline!) that built to one full storyline.

The tone is always bright and breezy, inventive family fare with all the film-originated regulars in play and the emphasis squarely focused on weird science, appalling puns and the beloved traditions of British sitcoms and farce.

â€¦And Cheese. Mountains and mountains of fermented milk-curd mirthâ€¦

Following a foreword of fond remembrance from animator and Aardman co-founder David Sproxton CBE, the witty workouts of nutty northern boffin Wallace and his incomparable best-of-breed working dog Gromit, in their preferred environs of scenic 62 West Wallaby Street, Wigan, start with ‘Library Mate 5000’ wherein a hastily constructed robotic shelf-filler soon proves too much for the staff and readers, after which ‘Pick of the Litter’ finds the likely lads inadvertently changing the nature and face of the Mayor’s clean-up campaign whilst the ‘Lazy Reader 3000’ proves no help at all when Wallace tries to bluff his way into wonderful Wendolene‘s new book clubâ€¦

As ever there’s a host of howling in-jokes scattered throughout the strips such as scholarly Gromit’s quirky reading habits (Mansfield Bark, Bleak Doghouse, Larry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Charles Spaniel, etcâ€¦) as well as a glorious parade of pained and hangdog expressions on the haunted hound’s hard-pressed, long suffering snout, such as seen when a blow to the head inflicts Wallace with ‘Am-cheesy-a‘ or, after the inventor is happily restored to what passes for normal, he misconstrues a sewing moment at Wendolene’s shop for a frenzied scissors attack in ‘D is for Dummy’â€¦

As always the strips are accompanied by a wealth of double-page photo-spreads taken from the original animated features and after the first of these the movie themes continue in ‘Not Matinee Idles’ when W & G take over a failing cinema and attempt to augment the viewing experience with a little technologyâ€¦

‘The Umpire Strikes Back’ then finds the canny craftsman regretting building a tinker-toy tennis partner whilst a bit of a cellar clearout leads to a cash bonanza in ‘Car Boot’ prompting our heroes to open their own cleaning business utilising the formidable yet ultimately useless ‘Washinator 600′.

Following another photo-op poster the vacation season finds Wallace testing to destruction his cybernetic camping kit in ‘Climb Any Mountain’ and designing a most troublesome vegetable labyrinth in ‘Mazed and Confused’ before succumbing to the invention-proof vicissitudes of a British ‘Heatwave’. When that results in ‘Coughs and Sneezes’ good old Gromit proves more of a remedy than the robot nurse Wallace constructsâ€¦

A film set poster leads to a spate of camera creativity and the making of a remarkable ‘Home Movie’ before the lads head for ‘The Grand Tour of Cheese’. The first stop is naturally Wensleydale, after which week two finds them on the continent scouting out France and (mis)hap-pily stocking up on Camembert and Brie inevitably ending up in Holland for ‘The Grand Tour of Cheese #3’.

An intimate poster or Wallace in romantic mood segues neatly into the balding boffin’s brief flirtation with ‘Street Art’, physical fitness in ‘One Dog and his Man’, the perils of barbeque in ‘Garden Party’ and ballooning in ‘Pup Pup and Away’.

Wallace and Wendolene share an romantic poster moment before the comic capers resume with ‘Polly Wants a Cracker (with Cheese)’ as the boys try to capture an escaped Macaw, whilst a haircut for Gromit inspires a new grooming robot, but ends up in ‘Hairs and Disgraces’.

A scheme to build toys for kids in hospital goes strangely awry but ends well on Halloween in ‘Night of the Living Bears’, but there’s no such saving grace when Wallace devises a Magic-o-tron for children’s parties in ‘The Entertainer’. At least his chickens derive some benefit from the wildly inappropriate ‘Rooster Booster 800’â€¦

An industrious photo-spread leads into a week of frantic fiddling with a mechanoid drinks dispenser in ‘Tea Party’, after which the lads turn their skills to trapping ‘The West Wallabyâ€¦ Wallaby!’ and latterly solving traffic congestion with their mobile, multi-decker ‘Easy Parker’ garaging invention.

They then turn into detectorists to unearth a fabulous lost horde (of cheese) in ‘Treasure Hunters’ and, after another poster break, construct something to take the drudgery out of present shopping in ‘That’s a Wrap’ before foiling a bold robbery attempt by evil penguin Feathers McGraw in ‘T’was the Night Before Christmasâ€¦’

A cold snap offers an opportunity to make some dirty money with a chimney cleaning gimmick in ‘Soots You!’ and leads to a bout of hang-gliding in ‘Blown Off Course’, before – after another photographic interlude – ‘Driving Ambition’ details the inventor’s attempts to start his own mass transportation system.

‘Foreign Exchange’ introduces the lads’ oddly similar French cousins Waltier et Bagget whilst in ‘Encounters of the Furred Kind’ Gromit has a brush with a dog from outer space and saves his boss from a big mistake babysitting a python as part of his ‘Pet Hotel’ ventureâ€¦

Following another poster ‘Bark Life’ depicts the duo’s dealings with a rowdy canine bully before those animated teddy bears pop up again as ‘Wallace’s Grizzly Valentines’, leading to much-needed break on the canals in ‘Straight and Narrow’, despite the boffin’s balmy barge improvementsâ€¦

Wallace gets completely the wrong idea after attentive Miss Anita Goodman starts pursuing him in ‘Leaping to Conclusions’ and, following another poster-show, returns to sow more chaos through her unruly pet mutt Cuddles in ‘Gromit the Underdog’â€¦

Wallace’s plans to improve Gromit’s favourite chair go predictably haywire in ‘Sofa So Good’ before the tinkerer takes up a new post teaching ‘Evening Classes’, and that short-lived endeavour necessitates a cycling tour only ruined by the inventor’s habit of â€œfixingâ€ things which aren’t broken in ‘On Yer Bike’â€¦

Easter brings an increased demand for baked goods which the bonkers brainbox tries to meet with his robotic ‘Hot Crossed Bunny’, after which he renovates an old bomber plane and takes the skies in ‘Wallace’s Wings’.

A stint in the Security business leads to skulduggery ‘Behind the Screams at the Museum’, jazzing up old horror films results in more neighbourhood terror in ‘Movie Night’ whilst Gromit eschews exercise for cunning and sheer luck to defeat a canine thug in ‘Dog Fight’ before a national holiday parade leads to out of control dragons and knightly nonsense to catch an fraudulent saint in ‘By George!’

Rounding out this annual of machine-based mirth are the tribulations of wasp nest removal in ‘Sting in the Tail’ and the greatest advancement in the noble game of Cricket ever misconceived with the invention of bombastic bowling machine the ‘Dibbly Dobbly 2000’â€¦

This classy collection closes with informational feature ‘Tomb of the Unknown Artist’ which tells all but reveals nothing of the Creation-by-Committee process which realised (for this edition at least) the mirthful material name-checking scripters Richy Chandler, Robert Etherington, Ned Hartley, Rik Hoskin, David Leach, J.P. Rutter and Rona Simpson, illustrators Jimmy Hansen & Mychailo Kazybrid, inker Bambos and colourist John Burns, all empirically overseen by Aardman’s enigmatic Keeper of the Flame, Cheese and Biscuits: Tristan.

Britain has a grand tradition of converting popular entertainment stars into sterling and memorable comic strip fare which gloriously continues in these superbly inviting, hilariously pun-chy, picture-perfect mini-sagas.

Moreover, all those parents who deliberately avoided the strip because of the paper which carried it no longer have any excuse and should now make this collection a â€œmust haveâ€ for the family bookshelfâ€¦

November 2, 2014

The Power of Tank Girl

By Alan Martin, Rufus Dayglo, Ashley Wood & (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-064-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: â€¦ 8/10

By golly, doesn’t time – and the occasional burst of bullets – fly! It’s hard to believe that our recent past is so far away. Back in the garishly gritty 1980s when I was tea-boy on Warrior magazine (still one of the most influential independent comics ever produced) there was a frantic buzz of feverish creativity in the British comics scene which seemed to say that any young upstart could hit the big time.

Possibly the most upstarty of all were art-students Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin (and, tangentially, Phillip Bond) who prowled the local convention circuit impressing the hell out of everybody with their photocopied fanzine Atomtan. At the back of issue #1 was a pin-up/ad for a dubious looking young lady with a big, Big, BIG gun and her own armoured transport. And now it’s suddenly 30 years laterâ€¦

Commissioned by Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon for their new publishing venture Deadline (a pop-culture magazine with loads of cool comics strips), the absurdist tales of a feisty, well-armed chick roaming the wilds of a futuristic Australia with her Kangaroo boy-friend Booga caught the imagination of a large portion of the public. There was even a movieâ€¦

After many years dallying with a sordid plethora of different publishers, the salty, soldierly slapper found her way to Titan Books – self-appointed custodian of the Best of British strip art – who comprehensively remastered her old adventures and spin-offs into a series of unmissable volumes.

Now as Tank Girl continues to periodically sneak out for further frantic capers, they’ve added another tome to the canon as The Power of Tank Girl gathers recent serial exploits The Gifting, Visions of Booga and The Royal Escape (published in the USA by IDW between November 2007 and September 2010) into one stunning pocket – or is that pouch? – sized compendium of exuberant excess and blood-drenched hilarityâ€¦

Scripted throughout by Martin, the mucky-mouthed mania begins with a dash of poesy in ‘The Power’ and a pulsating pin-up before a transcendental epic ‘The Royal Escape’ (with art by the incomparable Rufus Dayglo) opens with ‘Part One: The Golden Egg’ wherein Tank Girl, paramour Booga (a most manly and lovable kangaroo) and gal pals Jackie (Boat Girl), Barney and Jet Girl are moments from death at the guns (and bombs, bayonets, RPGs etcâ€¦) of an extremely pissed off but much depleted army.

With their backs to the shattered walls and ammo gone, Jet Girl is forced to throw the last thing she possesses: a mysterious golden egg she has owned since childhoodâ€¦

The deed somehow turns her semi-catatonic and the mismatched team are forced to split up. As the gritty warriors hunker down, Barney and Jackie go on a mystic quest to recover the egg. The trek takes them up a mountain to meet skeevy shaman Wanka in ‘The Bulldog Breed’ who guides them to an eagle’s nest with a broken eggshell containing a teeny-tiny, very confused Jet Girlâ€¦

While they yomp back to the battle, the hard-pressed hold-out heroes are reduced to defending themselves with little more than a ‘Dead Man’s Sandwich’ even as their returning friends stumble across a gigantic statue deep in the Bush.

The monolith looks like Jet Girl and when the weeny wonder finds herself compelled to crawl into it, the statue comes to terrifying lifeâ€¦

Now possessed of an awesome unstoppable walking weapon, the wanderers return in time to make ‘A Terrible Souffle’ of the invading army in a shattering spectacle of intense and sustained carnageâ€¦

After a potpourri of covers and groovy pics, odd ode ‘Last of the Jensen Interceptors’ leads into a nostalgic nightmare when Tank Girl determines to attend at all costs a reunion gig by her fave girlhood manufactured Boy-Band in ‘The Funsters Will Play’ (with art by Ashley Wood)â€¦

A procession of fearsome fashion pages comes next as ‘Keys to the Tank’, ‘Booga in Extreme Jungle Wear’, ‘Jet Girl in Stealth Flying Gear’, ‘Barney in Urban Camouflage’ and ‘Cruiser Tank in full Racing Livery’ depict how the most stylish mass-murderers make the scene whilst ‘Tank Girl in Bad Camouflage’ and the concluding chapter ‘Uncle Smiffy’s Tombstone’ returns to strip storytelling to deliver a daft drama disclosing the bloodstained origins of Boat Girlâ€¦

Dayglo resumes the arty stuff for Visions of Booga which finds the lovers sucked into a Mafia plot and sent to prison in ‘Falling Angel Blues’. Unfortunately they’re also caught up in the daring escape of the Don’s favourite brother from the prison transport and have to go on the lam from both the cops and the mob.

The best disguise seems to be switching genders but perhaps they haven’t really thought it throughâ€¦

The pursuit continues and intensifies when they kill one of the Mafioso, accidentally acquiring in the process ultimate mystic panacea the ‘Book of Hipster Gold’ and stumbling onto unhappy diner waitress Barney who just happens to have an old SDKFZ 251 Mittlerer Schutzenpanzerwagen parked out backâ€¦

On the run again (but now in a perfectly working Nazi armoured halftrack) the fugitives head for the West Coast where a seasoned hippy dwells. He’s the only person on Earth who can be trusted with the eldritch tome of peace and perfection but as ‘Letters to Earth’ shows, The Mob never quit and hippies – even the sublime and most cool Spanky Smith – aren’t what they used to be.

Still, he does find time to marry Tank Girl and Booga before the bad guys turn up for the blistering and bizarre conclusion ‘Which Cuts the Finest, the Sabre or the Blade of Grass?’â€¦

Following some more covers, The Gifting opens with a batch of illustrated Beat poems extolling ‘Digging the Lonely Eternity’, before a bit of girl goss gets all scatological whilst solving the pressing mystery of ‘The Dogshit in Barney’s Handbag’ (Wood art) after which Martin & Dayglo spin us back to the 1970s for ‘Tank Girl and Friends in Our Glam Day Out’ revisiting such iconic treats as Evel Knievel, Chopper Bikes, Pub Lunches and much, much more, whilst Wood’s go on the art encompasses a ‘Barney Pull-out Poster’ and extended paean to days past ‘X2-38’ which sees Booga lose his heart to a toy raygun from his childhood which becomes his ‘Reason for Living’, before pausing for a brief ‘Tank Girl Haiku’

Dayglo’s smartly rendered ‘Bonko Patrol’ explains the downside of truly heavy ordnance before Wood wanders back to limn another extended battle against evil and ill manners in ‘The Innocent Die First’.

This sterling parable finds Tank Girl and Booga at a luxurious hotel they’ve just purchased, happily whiling away their days insulting the clientele and starting fights until they offend the wrong punter and start a full scale war in ‘Easy Action’. The conflict naturally escalates until the cataclysmic ‘Attack on the Foreskin Bridge Hotel’ ends the dispute in a most unlikely mannerâ€¦

‘Barney and Jet Girl in Stone Fox Chase’ (Dayglo) then pairs the dynamic duo with Style Icon Adam Ant for a bout of carnage and chaos after which ‘Tank Girl Tat’ offers the kind of merchandise you’ll never see anywhere else and Wood illuminates a quiet night in with nothing to do but ‘Kill Jumbo’â€¦

Booga then plays stage magician to entertain ‘The Kids from 23A’ with horrific results before getting stuck trying to buy lingerie in ‘The Gifting’ and everything wraps up nicely with another selection of moodful poetic meanderings comprising ‘Like a Roast Potato in a Pick-Up Truck’, ‘The Sunshine of Your Arse’, ‘The Ox’ and ‘You Are Loved’â€¦

Never too wedded to the concept of internal logic, chronological order, narrative consistency, linguistic restraint or spelling (so if you’re pedantic be warned!), this latest compote of outrageous and hilarious cartoon phantasmagoria revels in a glorious mud-bath of social iconoclasm, in-yer-face absurdity, decades of British Cultural Sampling and the ever-popular addictive sex ‘n’ violence.

Wildly absurdist, intoxicatingly adorable and packed to the gills with covers, spot art and other pictorial pleasures, The Power of Tank Girl is an ever-so-cool rollercoaster thrill-ride and lifestyle touchstone for life’s incurable rebels and undying Rude Britannians, so if you’ve never seen the anarchic, surreal and culturally soused peculiarity that is Tank Girl, bastard love child of 2000AD and Love and Rockets, you’ve missed a truly unique experienceâ€¦ and remember, she doesn’t care if you like her, just so long as you notice her.
Tank Girl and all related characters are â„¢ & Â© 2014 Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin. All rights reserved.

November 1, 2014October 31, 2014

Dreamworks Dragons: Riders of Berk volume 2: Dangers of the Deep

By Simon Furman, Iwan Nazif, Lee Townsend & various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-077-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: an unmissable Xmas Treatâ€¦ 8/10

DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk and its follow-up Defenders of Berk comprise one of the most popular kids TV cartoons around. Loosely adapted from Cressida Cowell’s glorious and charming sequence of children’s books, the show is based upon and set between the movies How to Train Your Dragon and its recent sequel.

Of course if you have children you are almost certainly already aware of that already.

Having wowed audiences young and old alike across the globe, the series has also spawned a series of comic albums and the second digest-sized collection by Simon Furman, Iwan Nazif & Lee Townsend (with the colour and lettering assistance of Nestor Pereyra, Digikore, John Charles & David Manley-Leach) is available just in time to fill out a few Seasonal stockingsâ€¦

The epic follows the astounding adventures of brilliant but introverted boy-hero Hiccup and his unruly kid compatriots of the Dragon Rider Academy as they gleefully roam the skies with their devoted scaly friends getting into trouble whilst generally saving the day.

When not squabbling with each other the trusty teens strive to keep the peace between the vast variety of wondrous Wyrms and isolated Berk island’s bombastic Viking homesteaders.

These days, now that the dragons have all been more-or-less befriended, those duties generally involve protecting the village and farms from constant attacks by far nastier folk such as Alvin the Treacherous and his fleet of piratical Outcasts and, occasionally, fresh unknown horrorsâ€¦

A masterly maritime romp ensues after a brace of handy information pages reintroducing Hiccup and his devoted Night Fury Toothless, as well as tom-boyish Astrid on Deadly Nader Stormfly, obnoxious jock Snotlout and Monstrous Nightmare Hookfang, portly scholar Fishlegs on ponderous Gronckle Meatlug and the terribly dim yet merrily violent twins Tuffnut and Ruffnut on double-headed Zippleback Belch & Barfâ€¦

The salty saga opens one terrible day when the fishing fleets of Berk reach home with their holds empty. With winter coming, the islanders need vast supplies of salted fish to carry them through the cold season, but this year the usually plentiful traditional areas are barrenâ€¦

After a fraught council meeting Hiccup’s father Chief Stoick declares that every able-bodied adult must set to sea and voyage to the only place the fishermen have not tried: the spookily taboo region known as the Veil of Mists.

Hiccup is nervous – he always is – to see the fleet leave, but his real concern is that Stoick has left him in charge. The lad might be brave and inventive, but he’s nobody’s idea of a commanding presenceâ€¦

As usual, he’s completely right. Neither young nor old will listen to him and the chores necessary to keep the village going are soon being neglected. Faced with insurmountable odds the temporary chieftain just gives upâ€¦

As the adults sail into the terrifying wall of engulfing clouds, Hiccup sees how badly his home town has declined and rallies the only five people who will listen to him. With the dragon-riders on the case things marginally improve, but that changes again after Astrid goes on patrol and discovers a horrifying secret: a gigantic undersea net which has prevented the fish from reaching their usual feeding groundsâ€¦

Hurrying back to the Academy she informs the others and Hiccup arrives at a grievous conclusion: the net is part of a scheme to invade Berkâ€¦

That terrifying thought is confirmed when the Alvin’s Outcast warships sail into view, intent on pillage and destruction. Instantly decisive, Hiccup lays his plans, despatching Astrid to the Veil of Mists to inform Stoick, whilst he rouses the rest to take over coastal defences and rally the recalcitrant idling youngsters – who would much rather fight than do chores anywayâ€¦

Berk’s adults meanwhile are having problems of their own. The trip into the billowing, grey mist wall utterly demoralised them, and that turned to sheer terror when their ships were targeted by a huge, ferocious and hungry Submaripper dragonâ€¦

They are barely holding their own when Astrid and Stormfly arrive, but after a frantic pitched battle the victors turn back for Berk, desperately rushing to save their children from Alvin’s invasion.

With ingenious Hiccup in charge, however, Stoick needn’t have worried. Thanks to the dragons, the blockbusting Battle of Berk is not going in Alvin’s favourâ€¦

Despite being ostensibly aimed at excitable juniors and TV kids, this sublimely sharp yarn is a smart and engaging fantasy romp no self-indulging fun-fan of any vintage should miss: accessible, entertaining, and wickedly habit-forming.
DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk Â© 2014 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

October 24, 2014October 22, 2014

Kill My Mother (Advance Reading Copy)

By Jules Feiffer (Liveright/W.W. Norton)
ISBN: 978-0-87140-314-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Smart, Sharp and Perfectly Put Togetherâ€¦ 9/10

Jules Ralph Feiffer has always been much more than â€œjust a comic-book guyâ€ even though his credits in the field are sound and suitably impressive. As well as working with Will Eisner on The Spirit, he created his own Sunday strip ‘Clifford’ (1949-51) before settling at the Village Voice for a Pulitzer Prize winning run.

Novelist, playwright, animator, children’s book creator (why isn’t there a single word or term for those guys?), teacher and screenwriter, he turned his back on cartooning in 2000, but the 42-year run of his satirical comic strip in The Village Voice ranks as some of the most telling, trenchant, plaintive and perspicacious narrative art in the history of the medium.

The strip, originally entitled Sick, Sick, Sick, then Feiffer’s Fables, before simply becoming Feiffer was quickly picked up by the Hall Syndicate and garnered a devoted world wide following, with many collections appearing over the years since the first book in 1958.

His incisive examination of American society and culture, as expressed through politics, art, television, cinema, work, philosophy, advertising and most especially in the way men and women interact, informed and shaped opinions and challenged accepted thought for generations. They were bloody funny and wistfully sad too – and still are today.

However his creative credits extend far beyond the world of print: he was one of the playwrights on stage revue Oh! Calcutta! (with Kenneth Tynan, Edna O’Brien, Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi, Samuel Beckett & John Lennon) and has created 35 plays, books and screenplays including Carnal Knowledge and Little Murders. In 1961 his animated short feature Munro won an Oscar.

In 1965 he kickstarted acedemic American comic fandom with his celebratory evaluation The Great Comic Book Heroes and in 1979 he was at the forefront of the creation of graphic novels with Tantrum before scripting Robert Altman’s much-undervalued Popeye movie (released a year later).

He has a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writers Guild of America, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995, and 2004 saw him inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame and simultaneously receive the National Cartoonists Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, and 2006 saw him awarded the Creativity Foundation’s Laureate.

Now after years as a cartoonist, illustrator, pundit and educator, at the age of 85 (having been born in the Bronx on 26^th January 1929) he has returned to his primary role of storyteller with another gripping and innovative graphic novel.

â€¦And what a yarn he’s spunâ€¦

Spanning ten turbulent years, Kill My Mother is a supremely classy tribute to Film Noir, Hollywood Babylon, sexual politics and family secrets, blending the trappings of Dashiell Hammett with the tone, pacing and spark of Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder to tell an extended story of love, murder, jealousy and revenge.

It all begins in ‘Bay City Blues’. It’s 1933 and times are tough. Fifteen year old Annie Hannigan is cutting up, constantly leading poor, gullible sap Artie Folsom into trouble, whilst the mother she despises works all hours for dissolute, dipsomaniac and exceedingly cheap private investigator Neil Hammond.

The odd arrangement developed after the shamus agreed to investigate the murder of Elsie Hannigan‘s husband, whom he constantly refers to as the wrong sort of honest cop.

Events take a dark turn when stylish, exceedingly tall man-eater Mae Longo walks in offering outrageous sums if the shamus can track down a certain woman. The photo she gives him shows a woman remarkably like his coolly aloof new clientâ€¦

Eddie â€œthe Dancing Masterâ€ Longo is a rising star of the fight game who usually employs shady and capable gorilla Tiny Tim Gaffney to handle the more unsavoury problems in his life but Neil claims he knows how to handle himâ€¦

In the course of her mean-spirited, casual rebellions Annie gets poor Artie into real trouble when a shoplifting binge results in a pursuit by a store detective far faster than he looks. A very nasty beating is only avoided when an exceptionally tall derelict in an alley lays out the private cop with her carefully concealed baseball batâ€¦

The rattled teen takes the tramp back to the apartment and cleans her up even as Elsie, very much against her will and better judgement, is dragged by soused-as-ever Neil to the Big Fight to see the Dancing Master.

The escapade almost costs her everythingâ€¦

Her drunken boss’ plan to draw his tall target out of the woodwork also involves poor Elsie and leads to a lot of pain, trouble and strife, whilst Hammond, clearly a dipsomaniac with a death wish, starts dogging mysterious client Mae instead of doing the job he was hired for.

The result is a murder unsolved and unexplained for a decadeâ€¦

The concluding half of the story resumes in 1943 with ‘Hooray for Hollywood’ as we return to our cast and find them all greatly advanced.

Goonish Artie is a Captain of Marines, successfully battling the Japanese in the Green Hell of the Pacific whilst Annie Hannigan is a writer and media darling. Her sensational hit comedy â€œShut Up, Artieâ€ is the most popular radio show in America and broadcast wherever Yanks are posted.

Eddie Longo has made the transition to B-Movie star and Ellen – when not babysitting her obstreperous grandson Sammy – is â€œExecutive Vice President of Pinnacle Studios in charge of Image Security and Maintenanceâ€â€¦

The scary indigent little Annie met in an alley has also cleaned up and moved on. Now she sings torch songs in the Reno Roost as the enigmatic Lady Veilâ€¦

Eddy hates his life. The former hard-man boxer is trapped as a song-and-dance hoofer in big, morale-boosting musicals but dreams of major stardom like glamorous He-Man Hugh Patton or even an Academy Award, but is typecast and more under the thumb of the formidable Mae than ever.

The fraught status quo changes after Annie meets the dashing Patton at the Hollywood Canteen, but her romantic elation is crushed soon after when the sponsors call her in to discuss a crisis.

A genuine war hero is suing the show, claiming his life is being made a mockery. Unless she can fix things up with her old pal Artie, the show and her career are overâ€¦

Eddie is also near breaking point and Mae is forced to call in the thuggish Gaffney as a minder.

Events begin to spiral to a shocking conclusion when Longo joins a USO tour to the war-torn Pacific Islands. Patton is going too and Annie takes the opportunity to join him, as does her mother in the role of â€œimage maintainerâ€…

The first port of call is Tarawa; the hellhole where Captain Arthur Folsom is almost single-handedly repulsing the Jap advanceâ€¦

On the island Artie is overseeing the building of the stage for the visiting stars and marvelling at the stupidity of putting on a show in battleground still hotly contested by enemy forces. In the air above him Ellen has a sharp confrontation with Mae Longo and â€œbodyguardâ€ Gaffney. The events of ten years ago are still painfully fresh in every participant’s mind.

By the time all the players debark on the island, a devious and supposedly foolproof plan to commit another perfect murder has been hatched, using the Japanese as ideal scapegoats, but intimate killing is far harder than mass slaughter and the scheme soon begins to unravelâ€¦

Complex, beguiling, smartly sophisticated, devastatingly witty and peppered with casual shocking violence as every noir thriller has to be, this is a spectacular yarn – available in both hardback and mass market paperback editions – packed with twists and surprises, where nobody is telling the truth and no-one is playing on the side of the angels.

A masterpiece of cool suspense, mature ingenuity and graphic dexterity, Kill My Mother offers a timeless, hearty slice of bravura storytelling that gets better with every re-reading.

If you love crime yarns, comic tales, nostalgia and having your intelligence respected, this is the book for you.
Â© 2014 Liveright Publishing Corporation.

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