Kids – All Ages – Page 10

December 23, 2023December 19, 2023

The Juggler of Our Lady – The Classic Christmas Story

By R. O. Blechman with a Foreword by Jules Feiffer and Introduction by Maurice Sendak (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels/Dover Children’s)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80030-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Immaculate Confection… 10/10

Christmas is not just about shiny new toys and sparkly knitwear. It’s also about unearthing or revisiting old, beloved and – in this case – almost totally forgotten treasures like a magnificent hardback picture-perfect gift that’s still readily available; thanks to the perspicacious souls at Dover Books.

Oscar Robert Blechman is a glittering star in America’s graphic arts firmament and an international superstar. Brooklyn-born in 1930, he has excelled as cartoonist, illustrator, author, animator & director, editorial cartoonist, Editorial Director and ad-man.

He won awards for his commercials and TV specials and been venerated in an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art. His anti-Vietnam cartoons graced The Village Voice through the early 1970s whilst his cartoons and illustrations appeared in such prestigious vehicles as Punch, The New Yorker, Trump, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Show, Theater Arts and Humbug. He’s also produced fascinating graphic narratives such as Franklin the Fly, Talking Lines and Georgie and can reasonably claim to have produced one of the very first English-language Graphic Novels – and thus beginneth today’s lesson…

In 1952 Blechman used his groundbreaking and soon-to-be phenomenally influential minimalist line-style – deftly augmented with judicious watercolours – to make a much-told tale all his own. The Juggler of Our Lady was his first book: initially published by Henry Holt, and superbly fetishized and commemorated through brother-cartoonist Maurice Sendak’s fondly emotional Introduction in this sublime pocket edition. The slim tome became a landmark in graphic narrative and is beloved by generations.

Anatole France’s 1892 tale Le Jongleur de Notre Dame is probably the most widely accepted version of the original medieval religious-miracle myth but there have been so many others the story is as much part of most people’s seasonal landscape as Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Blechman’s reinvigoration retains all the awe and wonder, whilst adding such a potent blend of wry humour, pitiful humility and gentle hope to the mix that it can make a grown man weep. In 1958 his book became an animated Terrytoons TV short with a huge impact when it was adapted by Al Kouzel & Gene Deitch and narrated by that legendary Spirit of Christmas Past Boris Karloff…

You surely know the story: Cantalbert is an itinerant juggler who loves his work. He feels that if more people juggled there would less time for war and misery and folk would act better, feel better and be better. Nobody, however, will listen and the despondent performer – hungry for spirituality – joins a monastery. Even here he does not fit in and is saddened by his lack of suitable talents to venerate The Lord and especially his mother The Virgin Mary…

Everything comes to a head on Christmas Eve when the monks all display the magnificent presents they have made for the Madonna and poor Cantalbert has nothing worthy to give.

Later, when all is quiet, the sad juggler offers the only thing he knows and loves to the statue of The Virgin and something wonderful happens…

Deftly deconstructed and wondrously appreciated in a Foreword by comics and cartooning Titan Jules Feiffer, The Juggler of Our Lady is a masterpiece of graphic dexterity and an utterly beguiling experience no lover of the storytelling arts should be without.

Text and illustrations © 1997 R. O. Blechman. Foreword © 1997 2015 Jules Feiffer. Introduction © 1980 Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.

Check out www.doverpublications.com, internet retailers or local comic or bookshop.

December 17, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arthur Floyd Gottfredson was born in 1905 in Kaysville, Utah, one of eight siblings in a Mormon family of Danish extraction. Injured in a youthful hunting accident, Floyd whiled away a long recuperation drawing and studying cartoon correspondence courses. By the 1920s he had turned professional, selling cartoons and commercial art to local trade magazines and Big City newspaper the Salt Lake City Telegram.

In 1928, he and wife Mattie moved to California where, after a shaky start, the doodler found work in April 1929 as an in-betweener with the burgeoning Walt Disney Studios. Just as the Great Depression hit, he was personally asked by Walt to take over the newborn but already ailing Mickey Mouse newspaper strip. Gottfredson would plot, draw and frequently script the strip for the next five decades: an incredible accomplishment by of one of comics’ most gifted exponents.

Veteran animator Ub Iwerks had initiated the print feature with Disney himself contributing, before artist Win Smith was brought in. The nascent strip was plagued with problems and Gottfredson was only supposed to pitch in until a qualified regular creator could be found.

His first effort saw print on May 5^th 1930 (his 25^th birthday) and Floyd just kept going for fifty years. On January 17^th 1932, Gottfredson crafted the first colour Sunday page, which he also handled until retirement. At first he did everything, but in 1934 Gottfredson relinquished scripting, preferring plotting and illustrating the adventures to playing about with dialogue. Thereafter, collaborating wordsmiths included Ted Osborne, Merrill De Maris, Dick Shaw, Bill Walsh, Roy Williams & Del Connell. At the start and in the manner of film studio systems, Floyd briefly used inkers such as Ted Thwaites, Earl Duvall & Al Taliaferro, but by 1943 had taken on full art chores.

This superb archival compendium – part of a magnificently ambitious series collecting the creator’s entire canon – re-presents the initial colour sequences, jam-packed with thrills, spills and chills, whacky races, fantastic fights and a glorious superabundance of rapid-fire sight-gags and verbal by-play. The manner by which Mickey became a syndicated star is covered in various articles at the front and back of this sturdy tome devised and edited by truly dedicated, clearly devoted fan David Gerstein who also provides an Introduction. The tome is stuffed with lost treats such as a try-out sketch (of the Wolf Barker storyline) by Carl Barks from 1935 when he joined Disney Studios.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like all Disney creators, Gottfredson worked in utter anonymity. However, in the 1960s his identity was revealed and the roaring appreciation of previously unsuspected hordes of devotees led to interviews, overviews and public appearances, leading to subsequent reprinting in books, comics and albums which now all carried a credit for the quiet, reserved master. Floyd Gottfredson died in July 1986. Thankfully we have these Archives to enjoy, inspiring us and hopefully a whole new generation of inveterate tale-tellers…
Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Color Sundays “Call of the Wild” © 2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. Text of “Mickey’s Sunday Best: A New Arena” by J.B. Kaufman is © 2013 by J.B. Kaufman. All contents © 2013 Disney Enterprises unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

December 9, 2023December 8, 2023

Captain Marvel: Game On (Marvel Action Captain Marvel)

By Sam Maggs, Sweeney Boo, Mario Del Pennino, Isabel Escalante, Brittany Peer, Heather Breckel & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5115-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Total Entertainment Perfection… 10/10

In 2003 the House of Ideas instituted a Marvel Age line: an imprint to update classic original tales and characters for a new, young readership. The enterprise remodelled in 2005, reduced to core titles Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. The tone and look mirrored the company’s burgeoning TV cartoon franchises, in delivery if not name. Supplemental series including Super Heroes, The Avengers, Hulk and Iron Man chuntered along merrily until 2010 when they were cancelled. In their place new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man debuted. Since then a wealth of material crafted for more innocent audiences (often TV and movie affiliated) has been crafted under the umbrella of “Marvel Action”. This mega compilation – gathering together three earlier collections comprising Marvel Action Captain Marvel (2019) #1-6, and Marvel Action Captain Marvel (2021) #1-5 – offers a bonanza of role models for girl readers and furious fun-filled thrills for all lovers of light hearted superhero silliness and mayhem. And that’s most of us, right?

Written throughout by Sam Maggs (The Unstoppable Wasp: Built on Hope, Tell No Tales, Marvel’s Spider-Man) Carol Danvers steps up as premier super-doer of Earth beginning with a tale of cats breaking newsreaders and other stuff.

Illustrated by Sweeney Boo and colourist Brittany Peer, it opens with ‘Big Flerken Deal’, as Kree colonisers gather up and weaponize all those scattered fluffy house pets with interdimensional voids in their mouths. It should have been a secret but their tech also affected cats on Erath, triggering the weirdest, cutest assault New York ever experienced…

Happily Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman were having a girls-night-in and were ready for action, even if it did lead to Carol being abducted to the little sweeties’ new homeworld and another insane battle in ‘Don’t Be Flerken Ridiculous’.

Some last-minute assistance from her BFF and tagalong Chewie (that’s Carol’s own house-flerken as seen in films and mainstream comics), Star-Lord and the Guardians of the Galaxy show up, and everything finally ends well for all but the Kree in ‘I’m Flerken Out!’…

MACM #4-6’s ‘Bug Out!’ co-starred The Unstoppable Wasp (Nadia Van Dyne) and begins with the secret teenaged daughter of Hank Pym getting driving lessons from Carol. Of course things go awry – they’re using Tony Stark’s favourite sports car after all – when Advanced Idea Mechanics attack, trapping them at miniscule height and unable to use Carol’s powers without blowing up the city – and maybe the world…

Forced to ‘Hive It Your Way!’, Carol and Nadia invade AIM and uncover “Operation Roadkill”: a plot to destroy all superheroes using stolen Pym Particles. Incensed at being used as a trial run and using The Wasp’s Genius In action Research Labs (G.I.R.L.) associates as technical support and the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl as back-up, the ticked off team of ‘Queen Bees!’ target AIM Supreme Scientist Monica Rappaccinii, shatter her plan and save themselves from exploding before “fixing” Tony’s wheels and riding off into the sunset…

Although the title ended there, Marvel Action Captain Marvel restarted in 2021. That volume opens with Mario Del Pennino, Isabel Escalante & Heather Breckel rendering ‘Look at Meme Now!’ and ‘Do Androids Meme of Electric Sheep?!’ as a chance meeting with Ghost Spider Gwen Watson intersects with The Mad Thinker hijacking social media to program kids into being his mind slaves. Sadly, that workforce now includes almost every teen metahuman in the world, but those are mere distractions as the Thinker’s Awesome Android uses the crisis to go sentient and go solo…

With order restored, and Carol (a little) more computer literate, Captain Marvel faces a realty crunching crisis as Sweeney Boo & Brittany Peer return for 3-part thriller ‘Game On!’ as a mystery opponent traps Earth’s Strongest Hero in a constantly-shifting cyberspace whilst her allies can only watch and wait…

With covers and variants by Brianna Garcia, Sara Pitre-Durocher, Yasmín Flores Montañez, Karen Hallion, Megan Levens & Charlie Kirchoff, Nicoletta Baldari, Gretel Lusky, Kaela Lash, Nicole Goux, this is a star bright and breezy procession of witty and wonderful all ages escapades to delight and enthral, and inevitably inspire.
© 2023 MARVEL.

December 9, 2023December 8, 2023

Diana: Princess of the Amazons

By Shannon Hale & Dean Hale, illustrated by Victoria Ying with Lark Pien, Dave Sharpe & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-406-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Myth Making Gift Giving… 9/10

In recent years DC opened up its shared superhero universe to generate Original Graphic Novels featuring its stars in stand-alone adventures for the demographic inappropriately dubbed Young Adult. To date, results have been rather hit or miss, but when they’re good, they are very good indeed.

They’ve been especially scrupulous producing material catering to girls and other previously neglected comics minorities, tapping into the communal history and mystique of the DCU and always visiting aspects of youthful rebellion and growing independence.

Here – crafted by Shannon Hale (Rapunzel’s Revenge, The Princess in Black, Squirrel Girl, Princess Academy, Ever After High, Real Friends) & Dean Hale (Rapunzel’s Revenge, The Princess in Black, Squirrel Girl), illustrator, author and animator Victoria Ying (Big Hero 6, Moana, Meow!, Not Quite Black and White) colourist Lark Pien and letterer Dave Sharpe – is a tale of the earliest icon women in comics ever had: Earth’s most recognisable Female Heroic Ideal.

Wonder Woman is the acme of female role models. Since her premier she has permeated every aspect of global consciousness, becoming not only a paradigm of comics’ very fabric but an affirming symbol to women everywhere. In whatever era you observe, the Amazing Amazon epitomises a perfect balance between Brains and Brawn and, over decades, has become one of a rarefied pantheon of literary creations achieving meta-reality.

Her origins have been common cultural currency for so long and assimilated by so many generations that it’s a given the story can now be massaged and reinvented to accommodate and address any readership – just like all the best fairy tales.

Diana: Princess of the Amazons opens on the paradisical island of Themyscira: home of immortal Hellenic warriors called Amazons. They are mighty and wise and each is millennia old, happily ruled by their Queen Hippolyta. A few years prior to this tale she was blessed with a daughter. Diana is smart, courageous and inquisitive, spending her days learning from her thousands of “aunties”, playing with the vast number of animals inhabiting the land, exploring and having fun. Of course, as the only child on an isolated island, there’s no one to have all that fun with…

When she little everybody paid her attention and sought to share Diana’s life, but now that she’s nearly a teenager she often feels in the way of grown up stuff. It’s like she’s always in trouble… too old and simultaneous still too young for anything…

Then one day, Auntie Lyssa reminds Diana how Hippolyta moulded a baby out of clay and the gods and goddesses breathed life into it. More out of boredom than anything else, Diana heads to the beach and using clay, sand and surf tries ‘Making a Friend’ She isn’t surprised that it doesn’t work, but a little later meets the almost-breathing fruits of her labours when someone follows her…

The sand creature calls herself Mona and wants to be friends but refuses to let adults see her. Slowly, Mona becomes a covert but constant presence in Diana’s life, but that comes at a cost. There’s a flaw in her and an exciting wildness, leading to ‘Cutting Class on Themyscira’ and even wilful mischief. The princess should be ashamed of herself – but increasingly isn’t…

When one prank goes awry, Diana desperately wants to make amends and earn back her mother’s respect, and Mona hints that she should demonstrate her warrior prowess…

Of course the island is a paradise and no heroic deeds are possible there. All the Amazons’ martial training is because they are tasked with guarding Doom’s Doorway: the entrance to a hell dimension where the gods have imprisoned all the monsters of mythology. Thankfully ‘Only an Amazon’ can even turn the key holding the horrors in check.

With the incessant cajoling voice of her only friend in her ears, Diana makes the biggest mistake of her life…

However, with Hell unleashed and her aunties losing a savage battle against unholy terrors, she soon proves why she is ‘The Best of Us’: making hard decisions, exposing the truth of Mona and ultimately facing death to make things right again…

A superb example of a beloved character living up to her full potential, this is a sublime and rousing romp proving heroism comes in all manner of packages and affirming everyone can be the hero.

If further proof were required, this book also contains an enchanting extended excerpt from Zatanna and the House of Secrets to hammer home the point by entertaining the heck out of you and leaving you wanting more…
© 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

December 4, 2023December 1, 2023

Yakari volume 21: Fury From the Skies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

November 19, 2023

Moomin volume 8 – The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip

By Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-121-5 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-555-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Magical Mirthful Manners Unbridled… 10/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20^th century: equally adept at shaping words and images to create worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components like pen and ink, manipulating economical lines and patterns into sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols. So was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and rather bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9^th 1914. Patriarch Viktor was a sculptor and mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars – AKA “Lasse” – and Per Olov became – respectively – an author and cartoonist, and an art photographer. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seems to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to inhabit.

After extensive and intensive study (from 1930-1938 at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War.

Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood) was a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian misfit trolls and their strange friends…

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove had worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of European leaders in the build-up to WWII. She was also an in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books, and had started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, big-eyed, gently adventurous romantic goof began as a spindly sigil next to her name in her political works. She called him “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited, warning her a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer – if a bit clingy and insecure – acting as a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

The Moomins and the Great Flood didn’t make much of an initial impact but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators believe the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can…

When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or sometimes The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 to great acclaim, it prompted British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet and sensibly surreal creations.

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature so Jansson readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that she recruited brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975. His tenure as sole creator officially resumes here…

Liberated from cartooning pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Tove Jansson died on June 27^th 2001. Her awards are too numerous to mention, but just think: how many modern artists get their faces on the national currency?

Lars Fredrik Jansson (October 8^th1926 – July 31^st 2000) was just as amazing as his sister. Born into that astounding clan 12 years after Tove, at 16 he started writing – and selling – his novels (nine in total). He also taught himself English because there weren’t enough Swedish-language translations of books available for his voracious reading appetite.

In 1956, he began co-scripting the Moomin strip at his sister’s request: injecting his own witty whimsicality to ‘Moomin Goes Wild West’. He had been Tove’s translator from the start, seamlessly converting her Swedish text into English. In 1959, her contract with The London Evening News expired and Lars officially took over, having spent the interim period learning to draw and perfectly mimic his sister’s art style. He had done so in secret, assisted and tutored by their mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson. From 1961 to strip’s end in 1974, Lars was sole steersman of the newspaper iteration of trollish tails.

Lasse was also a man of many parts. Other careers included aerial photographer, professional gold miner, writer and translator. He was basis and model for the cool kid Snufkin…

Lars’ Moomins was subtly sharper than his sister’s version and he was far more in tune with the quirky British sense of humour, but his whimsy and wry sense of wonder was every bit as compelling. In 1990, long after the original series, he began a new career, working with Dennis Livson (designer of Finland’s acclaimed theme park Moomin World) as producers of anime series The Moomins and – in 1993 with daughter Sophia Jansson – on new Moomin strips…

Moomintrolls are easy-going free spirits: modern bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores but under Lars, increasingly diverted and distracted by societal pressures. Moominmama is warm, kindly tolerant and capable if perhaps overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst devoted spouse Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys.

Their son Moomin is a meek, dreamy boy with confusing ambitions. He adores and moons over permanent houseguest the Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable, flighty gamin prefers to play things slowly whilst waiting for somebody potentially better…

A particularly wry affair, this 8^th monochrome compilation revisits serial strip sagas #30-33, opening with Lars fully in charge and revealing how a near-fatally bored young Moomintroll drags the entire clan and clingers-on across the oceans to become ‘Moomin Family Robinson’. Wracked by sameness and tedium whilst simultaneously beguiled by charismatic, enigmatic Snufkin, he convinces the Snorkmaiden to run away to sea with him…

Before long the cruise liner stowaways are caught and cast adrift. Their problems only grow once they reach land and wash ashore on a private beach. Naturally, when mama and papa take ship after them everything instantly gets even worse. If only they didn’t keep looking for Man Friday. But wasn’t that an entirely different book?

Ultimately restored to their proper place, more unsavoury antics by unscrupulous barbarian Stinky lead to the assembled Moomins accidentally winning a prestigious photographic competition and becoming ‘Artists in Moominvalley’.

Along with the prize comes a literal horde of creative glitterati of varying degrees of talent and renown, all seeking the incredible sight the amateurs captured on film. All too soon, the fancy-schmancy, self-congratulatory in-crowd are pompously transforming the quiet valley into an appalling floating “art colony” that only Moominpapa’s urgent need to join has any hope of destroying…

Conman, venal chancer and annoying persistent associate Sniff again involves – or more accurately “implicates” – the whole family by helping himself to their beach front to build a ramshackle resort packed full of annoyingly needy paying holidaymakers before absconding. Leaving the inexplicably guilt-struck Moomins to manage ‘Sniff’s Holiday Camp’ generates chaos and the tried-&-true British middle class sitcom manner but thankfully – and also just like the UK – Moominvalley suffers from “weather”…

Crime, punishment and even more embarrassment accompanies ‘The Inspector’s Nephew’ after a drunken young wastrel becomes enamoured of rural crime busting and replaces idleness with over-imagination and zealousness. On the trail of skulduggery and early promotion, the likely lad soon targets the genteel Moomin family as kingpins in an empire of extortion, dope dealing (!), rum smuggling and more. Thankfully, his harassed uncle will do anything to restore calm to the valley…

This compilation closes with a closer look at the creator in ‘Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work’ courtesy of family biographer Juhani Tolvanen, extolling his many worthy attributes…

These are truly magical tales for the young, laced with the devastating observation and razor-sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kids’ stories into classics of literature. These volumes – both Tove and Lars’ – are an international treasure trove no fan of the medium – or carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without.
© 2013 Solo/Bulls. “Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work” © 2011/2013 Juhani Tolvanen. All rights reserved.

October 30, 2023October 27, 2023

Scary Godmother

By Jill Thompson (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-589-6 (HB/Digital edition)

The Eisner-Award winning Scary Godmother started life in 1997 as a full-colour, strip-format children’s book before evolving into a comic book series, hit stage show and brace of Cartoon Network animated specials. The original fully-painted picture book spawned three equally captivating annual sequels from Indie publisher Sirius Entertainment and all four of those astoundingly enthralling, wickedly hilarious books were resurrected in 2010 by Dark Horse as a stunning all-ages trade paperback collection just in time for Halloween.

And now it’s that time again…

Created by the terrifyingly multi-talented Jill Thompson (Morrison Hotel, Beasts of Burden, The Sandman, The Invisibles, Swamp Thing, Wonder Woman, The Little Endless Storybook), these tales offer comfortably spooky chills frosted with cracking comedy whilst proudly defending the inalienable right to be different…

Debut volume ‘The Scary Godmother’ introduced little Hannah Marie who’s frantic to start her first ever Trick or Treat night, and only the teensiest bit disappointed that she has to go with her older, rather mean cousin Jimmy and his friends. Naturally the big kids aren’t keen on taking a baby along as they frantically seek to score vast amounts of candy and cake, so as the evening progresses they try all they can think of to ditch the wide-eyed waif. It’s Jimmy who has the idea to scare Hannah by taking her to the old Spook House…

As they nervously enter the ramshackle, abandoned old mansion, Jimmy tells Hannah Marie that the new kid has to give the monsters in the house some candy or they will eat all the children in the world. He has severely underestimated his cousin’s grit. Although scared, she enters the dilapidated pile and the gang have no choice but to follow her inside…

As she looks for horrible creatures Hannah Marie starts to cry and her sobs cause a strange thing to happen: someone joins in with sobs even louder than hers. And that’s how she meets the twisted fairy called Scary Godmother and befriends all the actual magic monsters who live in the weird midnight realm known as the Fright Side…

Scary Godmother is the Ambassador of Spooky and pretty much runs Halloween. After being introduced to bats and beasts and boggles, Hannah Marie is no longer afraid and her new friend even has some ideas on how to teach Jimmy and his pals how to be less mean…

One year later ‘The Revenge of Jimmy’ finds the nasty boy deeply traumatised by his most memorable encounter with actual monsters last year. Now fixed on the notion that if he scuppers Halloween, the horrors, haunts and horrible things won’t be able to come back to the real world for a second chance at him, Jimmy sets out on a mission of sabotage…

Across the dark divide all the inhabitants are gearing up for their night of fun in the real world and perplexed that something is gumming the works. The magic bridge that forms to carry them over is only half-formed, strange webs bar their path and other peculiar events temporarily hamper their preparations for the special night.

It’s all Jimmy’s fault, but every time one of his cunning schemes looks like scuttling the town’s forthcoming festivities, some busybody or other finds a way to turn his sneaky dirty work into an exercise in ingenuity. With nothing apparently stopping Halloween coming and the Fright Siders crossing over, Jimmy steps up his campaign, unaware that all that meanness and loose magic is causing a rather strange transformation in him…

Nevertheless, his most appalling act of sabotage almost succeeds – until Hannah Marie sees an upside to his horrible acts. Halloween is saved but Jimmy almost isn’t… until one bold monster steps up to set things right…

Another year rolls by and Hannah Marie is preparing for a Halloween block party. As Mum and other parents toil to make all the seasonal treats, the little girl is writing invitations to all the monsters in Fright Side. She’s learned how to cross over to the nether realm, but when she gets there Scary Godmother is also busy, ensuring the night will be suitably spooky and wonderful.

As Hannah Marie distributes her invitations, a strange thing occurs: Scary Godmother gets a different invitation. It’s unsigned but from a Secret Admirer begging her attendance on ‘The Mystery Date’…

Captivated by the notion, Hannah Marie and little vampire Orson start canvassing all the likely candidates on the Fright Side – causing no end of trouble and embarrassment for Halloween’s startled and bemused Ambassador – before they all shamefully cross over to the real world where a real romantic surprise awaits the Scary Godmother…

The final book of the quartet was ‘The Boo Flu’, wherein our magical mystery madame succumbs to the worst of all eldritch aliments at the least best time, compelling Hannah Marie to step up, put on the big magic hat and ride the broomstick to marshal monsters and take charge of all the necessary preparations if All Hallows Eve is to happen at all this year. That’s a big ask for a little human girl, but help comes from all sorts of unexpected directions…

Almost as soon as the first book was released, Scary Godmother started popping up in comics too. Most of those tales are collected in a companion volume to this gleeful grimoire but there’s room here for one cheeky treat as ‘Tea for Orson’ (from Trilogy Tour Book) focuses on the vampire boy’s attempts to crash a girls-only soiree at Scary Godmother’s house. Harry the Werewolf also wants in – but more for the food than the company – and the banned boys’ combined – increasingly outrageous – efforts to gatecrash make for a captivating lesson in being careful what you wish for…

Wrapping up the tricks and treats is a liberal dose of ‘More Art’ in a huge and comprehensive ‘Scary Mother Sketch Book’ section; roughs, designs, character development drawings, working paintings, promotional art and comic ads, design, background and model sheets. There’s also – for the animated specials – original book covers and rejected pages and scenes.

Still readily available, Scary Godmother is a magical treat for youngsters of any vintage and would make a perfect alternative treat to candy and cakes…
Text and illustrations of Scary Godmother © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2010 Jill Thompson. All rights reserved.

October 19, 2023October 18, 2023

Sabrina the Teenage Witch The Complete Collection volume 1: 1962-1972 (Sabrina’s Spellbook Book 1)

By George Gladir, Frank Doyle, Dick Malmgren, Al Hartley, Dan DeCarlo, Joe Edwards, Rudy Lapick, Vince DeCarlo, Bob White, Bill Kresse, Bill Vigoda, Mario Acquaviva, Jimmy DeCarlo, Chic Stone, Bill Yoshida, Stan Goldberg, Jon D’Agostino, Gus LeMoine, Harry Lucey, Marty Epp, Bob Bolling, Joe Sinnott & various (Archie Comic Publications)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-94-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Created by George Gladir & Dan DeCarlo, Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch premiered in Archie’s Mad House #22 (cover-dated October 1962): a throwaway character in a gag anthology which was simply one more venue for comics’ undisputed kings of kids comedy. She proved popular enough to become a regular in the burgeoning cast surrounding the core stars Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and Jughead Jones.

By 1969, the high school enchantress had grown popular enough to win her own animated Filmation TV series (just like Archie and Josie and the Pussycats) and graduated to a lead position in Archie’s TV Laugh Out before finally winning her own title in 1971.

That first volume ran 77 issues (from 1971-1983) and, when a hugely successful live action TV series launched in 1996, ed comic book adaptation followed in 1997. That version folded in 1999 after a further 32 issues.

Volume 3 – simply entitled Sabrina – was based on new TV show Sabrina the Animated Series ran for 37 issues (2000- 2002) before a back-to-basics reboot saw the comic revert to Sabrina the Teenage Witch with #38, carefully blending elements of all previous print and TV versions.

A creature of seemingly infinite variation and variety, the mystic maid continued in this vein until 2004 and issue #57 wherein – acting on the global popularity of Japanese comics – the company switched format: transforming series into a manga-style high school comedy-romance in the classic Shoujo manner.

Another recent version abandoned whimsy altogether, depicted Sabrina as a vile and seductive force of evil in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. This no-frills. massively monochrome compilation re-presents all her appearances – even cameos on covers of other Archie titles – from that first decade, starting with an informative and educational Introduction courtesy of Editor-in-Chief Victor Gorelick before unleashing the wonderment in a year-by-year cavalcade of magic, mystery and mirth.

Clearly referencing Kim Novak as seen in Bell, Book and Candle, ‘Presenting Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ (George Gladir, Dan DeCarlo, Rudy Lapick & Vince DeCarlo from Archie’s Mad House #22) showcased a sultry seductress with a wicked edge preying on mortals at the behest of Head Witch Della, all whilst secretly hankering for the plebeian joys of dating…

Leading off the next year’s chapter, the creatives reunited in Archie’s Mad House #24 (February 1963), with ‘Monster Section’ depicting Sabrina bewitching boys the way mortal girls always have, whilst ‘Witch Pitch’ sees the young beguiler ordered to ensorcel the High School hockey team – with mixed results…

AMH #25 (April) focuses on the supernatural clan’s mission to destroy human romance. In ‘Sister Sorceress’ Della orders Sabrina to split up dating couple Hal and Wanda – with catastrophic results – before ‘Jinx Minx’ (#26, June) sees Sabrina go too far with a love potion at a school dance…

Bob White’s Archie’s Mad House #27 cover (August 1963) leads into #28’s ‘Tennis Menace’ (inked by Marty Epp) as Sabrina’s attempts to enrapture a rich lad go infuriatingly awry. AMH #30 (December) offers pin-up ‘Teen-Age Section’ drawn by Joe Edwards, with Sabrina comparing historical ways of charming boys with modern mortal methods…

The 1964 material opens with a love potion pin-up ‘Teen Section’ by Edwards (AMH #31, February) before Gladir & Edwards’ ‘Ronald the Rubber Boy Meets Sabrina the Witch Queen’ finds the magic miss disastrously swapping abilities with an elastic-boned pal.

Issue #36 (October, by Edwards) sees her failing to jinx her friends’ recreational evening in ‘Bowled Over’, after which (AMH #37, December) finds Gladir reunited with Dan & Vince DeCarlo for a spot of ‘Double Trouble’ when gruesome Aunt Hilda tries to fix Sabrina’s appalling human countenance, only to become her unwilling twin…

In 1965 Sabrina’s only appearance was a Harry Lucey-limned ad for Archie’s Mad House Annual, whereas a year later she triumphantly returned with illustrator Bill Kresse handling Gladir’s script for ‘Lulu of a Boo-Boo’ (AMH #45, February 1966). Here the witch-girl’s attempts to join the In-Crowd constantly misfire whilst ‘Beach Party Smarty’ (#48, August) confirms this new trend, as her spells to capture a hunky beau go badly wrong…

For ‘Go-Go Gaga’ (AMH #49, September) Gladir & Kresse pit the bonny bewitcher against a greedy entrepreneur planning to fleece school kids in his over-priced dance hall, whilst #50’s ‘Rival Reversal’ finds her failing to conjure a date before ‘Tragic Magic’ proves even sorcery can’t keep a teen’s room clean…

Art team Bill Vigoda & Mario Acquaviva join Gladir for 1967’s first tale. ‘London Lore’ (AMH #52, February) with Sabrina transporting new boyfriend Donald to the heart of the Swinging Scene (it meant something else back then) but ill-equipping him for debilitating culture-shock, after which ‘School Scamp’ (Gladir + Dan, Jimmy & Vince DeCarlo, from AMH #53, April) again proves magic has no place in human education…

In #55 Gladir, Dan DeCarlo & Lapick prove Sabrina’s wishing to help a doubly dangerous proposition in ‘Speed Deed’, whilst in #58 (December, Chic Stone & Bill Yoshida) the trend for ultra-skinny fashion models leads to a little shapeshifting in ‘Wile Style’…

1968 opens with Gladir, Stone & Yoshida exploring the downside of slot-car racing in ‘Teeny-Weeny Boppers’ (AMH #59, February) after which ‘Past Blast’ (#63, September by Gladir, Stan Goldberg, Jon D’Agostino & Yoshida) sees our mystic maid time-travel in search of Marie Antoinette, Pocahontas and Salem sorceress Hester. The year wraps up with ‘Light Delight’ (Gladir, White, Acquaviva & Yoshida: AMH #65, December) as Sabrina’s aunts Hilda and Zelda try more modern modes of witchy transport…

With Sabrina’s television debut, the end of 1969 saw a sudden leap in her comics appearances to capitalise on the exposure and resulted in a retitling of her home funnybook. Again crafted by Gladir, White, Acquaviva & Yoshida, ‘Glower Power’ comes from Mad House Ma-Ad Jokes #70 (September) with her duelling another teen mage before the cover of Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #1 (December: by Dick Malmgren & D’Agostino) leads into ‘Super Duper Party Pooper’ and the instant materialisation of a new sitcom lifestyle for the jinxing juvenile.

Sabrina yearns to be a typical High School girl. She lives in suburban seclusion with Hilda & Zelda and Uncle Ambrose. She has a pet cat – Salem – and is tentatively “seeing” childhood pal Harvey Kinkle. The cute but clueless boy reciprocates the affection, but is far too scared to rock the boat by acting on his own desires.

He has no idea that his old chum is actually a supernatural being…

This opening sally depicts what happens when surly Hilda takes umbrage at the antics of Archie and his pals after they come over for a visit, whilst ‘Great Celestial Sparks’ (pencilled by Gus LeMoine) reveals what lengths witches go to when afflicted with hiccups…

A full-on goggle-box star, Sabrina blossomed in 1970, starting with a little flying practice in ‘Broom Zoom’; boyfriend trouble in ‘Hex Vex’; fortune-telling foolishness in ‘Hard Card’; amulet antics in ‘Witch Pitch’ and kitchen conjurings in ‘Generation Gap’: all by Gladir, LeMoine, D’Agostino & Yoshida from Mad House Ma-Ad Jokes #72 (January). The issue also offered sporting spoofs in ‘Bowl Roll’ (Dan DeCarlo).

The so-busy cover of Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #2 (March 1970) segues into Gladir, Dan D, Lapick & Yoshida’s ‘A Plug for The Band’ with Sabrina briefly joining The Archies’ pop group, whilst LeMoine contributes a brace of half-page gags – ‘Sassy Lassy’ and ‘Food Mood’ – and limns ‘That Ol’ Black Magic’, wherein the winsome witch’s gifts cause misery to all her new friends in Riverdale…

Dan D’s & Lapick’s June cover for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #3 leads into Malmgren-scripted ‘Double Date’, with hapless Harvey causing chaos at home until Ambrose finds a potential putrid paramour for Aunt Hilda. The creatives then launch an occasional series on stage magic with ‘Sabrina Tricks’ pages, before single-pagers ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips’, ‘The Hand Sandwich’, ‘The Sampler’, ‘Never on Sundae’ and ‘Finger Licken Good’ reveal a growing divide between house-proud Hilda and accident-prone, ever-ravenous Harvey.

Interspersed by three more ‘Sabrina Tricks’ pages, mystic mayhem continues with mini-epic ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ (Malmgren, LeMoine, D’Agostino & Yoshida) as our witch girl disastrously attempts to make Jughead Jones more amenable to Big Ethel’s amorous overtures. The food fiascos resume with LeMoine-limned ‘Good and Bad’, as Sabrina’s every good intention is accidentally twisted to bedevil her human pals.

Taken from Mad House Glads #74 (August 1970), Gladir & LeMoine’s half-page chemistry gag ‘Strange Session’ is oddly balanced by the painterly ‘Blight Sight’ of long-forgotten never-was Bippy the Hippy, before we’re back on track and at the beach for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #4 (September, by Gladir, Vigoda, Lapick & Yoshida). In ‘To Catch a Thief’ Sabrina again assists Ethel in pinning down elusive, love-shy Jughead, and rounding out the issue are single page pranks ‘Beddy Bye Time’ (DeCarlo & Lapick), another ‘Sabrina Tricks’ lesson and seaside folly ‘In the Bag’ from LeMoine & D’Agostino.

ATVL-O #5 (November) offers up Gladir, Vigoda & Stone’s ‘I’ll Bite’ as Sabrina’s hungry schoolfriends learn the perils of raiding Hilda’s fridge and Gladir, DeCarlo & Lapick’s ‘Hex Vex’ as Della storms in, demanding tardy Sabrina fulfil her monthly quota of bad deeds…

Sabrina is an atypical witch: living in the mundane world and assiduously passing herself off as normal, and 1971 opens with DeCarlo & Lapick’s cover for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #6 (February) and ‘Match Maker’ by Frank Doyle, Harry Lucey & Epp as Hilda tries getting rid of Harvey by making him irresistible to Betty & Veronica. No way that can go wrong…

‘Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch’ (Gladir, LeMoine, D’Agostino & Yoshida) then uses her powers openly with some kids and learns a trick even ancient crone Hilda cannot fathom. Bolstered by a ‘Sabrina Tricks’, ‘Carry On, Aunt Hilda’ (Malmgren, LeMoine & Lapick) hilariously depicts lucky stars shielding Harvey from the wrath of irascible Aunt Hilda…

Bowing to popular demand, the eldritch ingenue finally starred in her own title from April 1971. Dan D & Lapick’s cover for Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch #1 hinted at much mystic mirth and mayhem which began with ‘Strange Love’ (Doyle, Dan D & Lapick). This revealed a jealous response to seeing Harvey with another girl, supplemented by ‘Sabrina and Salem’s Catty Quiz’ before hippy warlock Sylvester comes out of the woodwork to upset Hilda’s sedate life in ‘Mission Impossible’ (Malmgren, LeMoine & D’Agostino).

Another ‘Sabrina Puzzle’ neatly moves us to Doyle, Dan D & Lapick’s ‘An Uncle’s Monkey’ with Harvey and a pet chimpanzee pushing Hilda to the limits of patience and sanity…

The cover of Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #7 (May) precedes a long yarn by Doyle, Bob Bolling & D’Agostino as ‘Archie’s TV Celebrities’ (the animated Archies, Sabrina and Josie and the Pussycats) star in ‘For the Birds’ with a proposed open-air concert threatened by the protests of a bunch of old ornithology buffs.

Thanks to Malmgren, LeMoine & D’Agostino, our celebrity pals tackle an instrument-stealing saboteur in ‘Sounds Crazy to Me’, before Sabrina cameos on the cover of Jughead #192 (May, by Dan DeCarlo & Lapick) before heading for the cover of her second issue (DeCarlo & Lapick, July). Within those pages Malmgren scripts ‘No Strings Attached’ as The Archies visit their bewitching buddy just as Hilda turns Harvey into an axe-strumming rock god…

‘Witch Way is That’ sees Hilda quickly regret opening her house to Tuned In, Turned On, Dropped Out Cousin Bert, prior to Malmgren, Lucey & Epp showing Archie suffering the jibes and jokes of ‘The Court Jester’ Reggie – until Sabrina adds a little something extra to the Andrews boys’ basketball repertoire..

At this time the world underwent a revival of supernatural interest and Gothic Romance was The Coming Thing. In a bold experiment, Sabrina had a shot at a dramatic turn as Doyle, Bolling, Joe Sinnott & Yoshida crafted ‘Death Waits at Dumesburry’: a relatively straight horror/mystery with Sabrina facing a sinister maniac in a haunted castle she inherits…

Rendered by LeMoine & D’Agostino, the cover of Jughead’s Jokes #24 (July 1971) brings us back to comedy central, as does their cover for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #8 (August) and Malmgren’s charity bazaar-set tale ‘A Sweet Tooth’, with the winsome witch discovering even her magic cannot make Veronica’s baked goods edible…

Dan DeCarlo’s cover for Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch #3 (September) foreshadows a return to drama but in modern milieu as ‘House Breakers’ (Malmgren, DeCarlo & Lapick) finds Harvey and Sabrina stranded in an old dark mansion with spooks in situ, after which ‘Spellbinder’ (Doyle, Al Hartley) sees Hilda cringe and curse when human catastrophe Big Moose pays Sabrina a visit.

Hartley & D’Agostino fly solo on ‘Auntie Climax’ as irresistibility spells fly and both Archie and Hilda are caught in an amorous crossfire before Malmgren, Bolling & Lapick show our cast’s human side in ‘The Tooth Fairy’ as Archie, Jughead and Sabrina intervene to help a juvenile thief caught in a poverty trap …

A trio of DeCarlo & Lapick covers – Archie’s TV Laugh Out #9 (September), Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals #66 (October) and Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch #4 (October) segue into the teen thaumaturge’s fourth solo issue, where Doyle, Goldberg & D’Agostino set the cauldron bubbling with ‘Hex Marks the Spot’ as Aunts Hilda and Zelda nostalgically opine for their adventurous bad old days but something seems set on thwarting every spell they cast, after which ‘Which Witch is Right?’ (LeMoine pencils) finds obnoxious Reggie Mantle uncovering Sabrina’s sorcerous secrets.

Goldberg & Sinnott illustrate ‘Switch Witch’ as officious Della suspends Sabrina’s powers as a punishment and can’t understand why the girl is delirious instead of heartbroken, whilst Hartley & Sinnott contribute a run of madcap one-pagers from Gladir, Malmgren and Doyle with clue-packed titles such as ‘Out of Sight’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘The Teen Scene‘, ‘So That’s Why’ and ‘Time to Retire’.

Wrapping up the issue is ‘The Storming of Casket Island’ by Doyle, LeMoine & D’Agostino, blending stormy sailing, sinister swindling skulduggery and menacing mystic retribution…

More covers follow: Archie #213 and Archie’s TV Laugh Out #10 (both November by Dan D & Lapick) and Archie’s Christmas Stocking #190 (December, Hartley & D’Agostino), which latter also contributes Hartley & Sinnott’s ‘Card Shark’, with Sabrina joining Archie and the gang to explore the point and purpose of seasonal greetings postings. DeCarlo & Lapick’s cover of Betty and Me #39 brings the momentous year to a close…

The last year covered in this titanic tome is 1972, kicking off with DeCarlo & Lapick’s cover for Archie Annual #23, before their Sabrina’s Christmas Magic #196 cover (January) opens on a winter wonderland of seasonal sentiment. It all starts with ‘Hidden Claus’ (by featured team Hartley & Sinnott) as Sabrina ignores her aunt’s mockery and seeks out the real Father Christmas – just in time to help him with an existential and labour crisis…

‘Sabrina’s Wrap Session’ offers tips on gifting and packaging whilst ‘Hot Dog with Relish’ sees the witch woman zap Jughead’s mooching canine companion and make him a guy any girl could fall for. Doyle, Goldberg & Sinnott concocted ‘The Spell of the Season’, depicting our troubled teen torn between embracing Christmas and wrecking it as any true witch would. Guess which side wins the emotional tug-of-war?

More handicraft secrets are shared in ‘Sabrina’s Instant Christmas Decorations’ before Hartley & Sinnott’s ‘Sabrina Asks… What Does Christmas Mean to You?’ and ‘Sabrina Answers Questions About Christmas’, after which cartoon storytelling resumes with ‘Mission Possible’ as Hilda & Zelda find their own inner Samaritan.

Despite a rather distressing (and misleading) title ‘Popcorn Poopsie’ reveals a way of making tasty decorative snacks whilst ‘Sabrina’s Animal Crackers’ tells a tale of men turned to beasts before a yuletide ‘Sabrina Pin-Up’ and exercise feature ‘Sabrina Keeps in Christmas Trim’ return us to the entertainment section.

An all-Hartley affair, ‘Sabrina’s Witch Wisher’ examines what the vast cast would say if given a single wish, after which Doyle, Goldberg & Sinnott conclude this mammoth meander down memory lane by revealing how an evil warlock was punished by becoming ‘A Tree Named Obadiah’. Now – decked out in lights and tinsel – he’s back and making mischief in Veronica’s house…

An epic, enticing and always enchanting experience, the classic adventures of Sabrina the Teenage Witch are sheer timeless comics delight that no true fan will ever grow out of – and who says you have to?

© 1962-1972, 2017 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

October 2, 2023September 29, 2023

Showcase Presents Superman Family volume 3

By Otto Binder, Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, Alvin Schwartz, Bill Finger, Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Wayne Boring, Dick Sprang, Al Plastino, Stan Kaye, Ray Burnley, John Forte, George Klein, John Giunta & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-812-6 (TPB)

When the groundbreaking Man of Steel debuted in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) he was instantly the centre of attention, but even then the need for a solid supporting cast was apparent and wisely tailored for. Glamorous daredevil girl reporter Lois Lane premiered beside Clark Kent and was a constant companion and foil from the outset.

Although unnamed, a plucky red-headed, be-freckled kid started working for Clark and Lois from Action Comics #6 (November 1938) onwards. His name was used in Superman #13 (November-December 1941), having already been revealed as Jimmy Olsen due to being a major player on The Adventures of Superman radio show from its debut (April 15^th 1940).

As somebody the same age as the target audience for the hero to explain stuff to (all for the listeners’ benefit), he was the closest thing to a sidekick the Action Ace ever needed…

When the similarly titled television show launched in the autumn of 1952 – preceded a year earlier by landmark B-movie Superman and the Mole Men – it was another immediate sensation and National Periodicals began cautiously and judiciously expanding their revitalised franchise with new characters and titles.

During the 1950s/early 1960s, being different in America was a Very Bad Thing. Conformity was sacrosanct, even in comicbooks, and everybody and everything was meant to keep to its assigned and intended role: for the Superman family and cast, that meant a highly strictured code of conduct and parameters. Daily Planet Editor Perry White was a stern, shouty elder statesman with a heart of gold, Cub Reporter Jimmy was a brave and impulsive, unseasoned fool – with a heart of gold – with Lois brash, nosy, impetuous and unscrupulous in her obsession to marry Superman although she too was – deep down – another possessor of an Auric aorta. Moreover, although Clark was a Man in a Man’s World, his hidden alter ego meant that he must never act like one…

Yet somehow even with these mandates in place the talented writers and artists assigned to produce their wholesomely uncanny exploits managed to craft tales both beguiling and breathtakingly memorable – and usually as funny as they were exciting.

First to fill a solo title were the gloriously charming, light-hearted escapades of that rash, capable but callow photographer and “cub reporter”. Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #1 launched in 1954 with a September-October cover date, the first spin-off star of the Caped Kryptonian’s rapidly expanding multi-media entourage.

As the decade progressed the oh-so-cautious Editors tentatively extended the franchise in 1957 just as the Silver Age of Comics was getting underway, and it seemed that there might be a fresh and sustainable appetite for costumed heroes and their unique brand of spectacular shenanigans. Try-out title Showcase, which had already launched The Flash (#4) and Challengers of the Unknown (#6), followed up with a brace of issues entitled Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane in #9 and 10, before swiftly awarding the “plucky news-hen” a series of her own; in actuality her second, since for a brief while in the mid-1940s she had held a regular solo-spot in Superman.

At this time Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane was one of precious few titles with a female lead and – in the context of today – one that gives many 21^st century fans a few uncontrollable qualms of conscience. Within the confines of her series the valiant and capable working woman careered crazily from man-hungry, unscrupulous schemer through ditzy simpleton to indomitable and brilliant hero – often all in the same issue – as the exigencies of entertaining children under the strictures of the Comics Code all too often played up the period’s astonishingly misogynistic attitudes.

The comic was clearly intended to appeal to the family demographic that made I Love Lucy a national phenomenon and Doris Day a ditzy latter day saint, so many stories were played for laughs in that same patriarchal, parochial manner; a “gosh, aren’t women funny?” tone that appals me today – but not as much as the fact that I still love them to bits.

It helps that they’re mostly illustrated by the wonderfully whimsical Kurt Schaffenberger.

Jimmy fared little better: a bright, brave but naive kid making his own way in the world, he was often butt of cruel jokes and impossible circumstances; undervalued and humiliatingly tasked in a variety of slapstick adventures and strange transformations.

This third cunningly conjoined chronologically complete compendium collects the affable, all-ages tales from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #35-44, March 1959-April 1960 and Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #8-16, April 1959-April 1960. It commences with the Man of Steel’s Go-To Guy in three tales drawn by the wonderful Curt Swan.

Probably fuelled by television (syndicated reruns kept the Superman family at the forefront of childish viewing habits) Jimmy’s comic was highly popular for over two decades, blending action, adventure, wacky comedy, fantasy and science fiction in the gently addictive, self-deprecating manner scripter Otto Binder had perfected in the 1940s and early 1950s at Fawcett Comics on the magnificent original Captain Marvel (you can call him Shazam!).

As the feature progressed, one of the most popular plot-themes (and most fondly remembered and referenced today by most Baby-Boomer fans) was the unlucky lad’s appalling talent for being warped, mutated and physically manipulated by fate, aliens and even his friends…

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #35 (March 1959) opened with ‘The Menace of Superman’s Fan Mail!’, by Binder & Swan, inked by Stan Kaye. Here, the cub reporter undertakes to answer the mountain of missives for the Man of Steel: inadvertently supplying a crook with an almost foolproof method of murdering the Metropolis Marvel.

The remaining tales are inked by Ray Burnley, beginning with a rather disingenuous yarn seeing the kid repeatedly causing trouble by wearing a futuristic suit of mechanised super-armour which only made him look like ‘The Robot Jimmy Olsen!’, whilst in ‘Superman’s Enemy!’ the devoted dope overnight turns into a despicable, hero-hating wretch. However, as a veritable plague of altered behaviour afflicts Clark Kent’s friends, the Action Ace soon discerns an underlying pattern…

Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #8 (April 1959) opened with Alvin Schwartz & Kurt Schaffenberger’s ‘The Superwoman of Metropolis’, heavy-handedly turning the tables on our heroine when she develops incredible abilities and took on a costumed identity, and was instantly plagued by a suspicious Clark determined to expose her secret.

‘The Ugly Superman!’ dealt with a costumed wrestler who fell for Lois, giving the Caped Kryptonian another chance for some pretty unpleasant Super-teasing. It was written by Robert Bernstein, who unlike me can use the tenor of the times as his excuse, and pleasingly ameliorated by Schaffenberger delivering another hilarious dose of OTT comedic drama illustration. Following is a far less disturbing fantasy romp: ‘Queen for a Day!’ (Bernstein, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye) found Lois and Clark shipwrecked on an island of Amazons with the plucky lady mistaken for their long-prophesied royal saviour…

Jimmy Olsen #36 began with Binder, Swan & Burnley’s ‘Super-Senor’s Pal!’, with the boy South of the Border in the banana republic of Peccador helping a local rebel fight the dictators by masquerading as a Latino Man of Steel. Kaye inked the momentous debut of ‘Lois Lane’s Sister!’, introducing perky “air-hostess” Lucy as romantic foil and occasionally attainable inamorata for the kid, in a smart, funny tale of hapless puppy love. With Burnley inks the final tale details the cub reporter’s accidental time-trip to Krypton and ‘How Jimmy Olsen First met Superman!’

Although we all think of Siegel & Shuster’s iconic creation as the epitome of comicbook creation, the truth is that very soon after his launch Superman became a multimedia star and far more people have seen or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read him – and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strip which ran from 1939 to 1966. By the time his 20^th anniversary rolled around he had been a regular on radio, starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons and two movies, and just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were many more, a stage musical, a stellar movie career and almost seamless succession of TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

Thus it’s no wonder tales from this Silver Age period should be draped in gaudily wholesome trappings of Tinseltown – even more so than most of celebrity-obsessed America. It didn’t hurt that editor Whitney Ellsworth was a part-time screenwriter, script editor and producer as well as National/DC’s Hollywood point man.

The Man of Tomorrow’s TV presence influenced much of Lois Lane #9: a celebrity-soaked issue scripted by Bernstein which began with artists Dick Sprang & John Forte detailing how performer Pat Boone (who just-coincidentally had his own licensed DC comic at that time) almost exposed Earth’s greatest secret in ‘Superman’s Mystery Song!’

The Silver Screen connection continued in the Schaffenberger-limned ‘The Most Hated Girl in Metropolis’, wherein Lois is framed for exposing that self-same super-secret as a ruse to get her to Hollywood for her own unsuspected This is Your Life special. That issue ended with a welcome return to fantasy/comedy as Schaffenberger introduces a lost valley of leftover dinosaurs and puny caveman Blog – ‘Lois Lane’s Stone-Age Suitor’…

In JO #37 Bill Finger, Swan & John Forte reveal the incredible truth about multi-powered Mysterio in the case of ‘Superman’s Super-Rival’, whilst Binder, Swan & Kaye expose the difficulties of frivolous Lucy Lane having ‘The Jimmy Olsen Signal Watch!’: a timepiece that kept the boy on a constant electronic leash…

This issue closes with a cunning caper wherein resident crackpot genius Professor Phineas Potter concocts a serum enabling Jimmy to reprise his many malleable antics and tangled troublemaking as ‘The Elastic Lad of Metropolis!’ (Binder, Swan & George Klein) – and almost exposing Superman’s secret identity into the bargain.

Records from the period are sadly incomplete but Bernstein probably wrote each tale in Lois Lane #10, beginning with Schaffenberger-limned classic ‘The Cry-Baby of Metropolis’, as Lois – terrified of losing her looks – exposes herself to a youth ray and temporarily turns into a baby, much to the amusement of Superman and arch-rival Lana Lang…

Schaffenberger also illustrated ‘Lois Lane’s Romeo!’ with the constantly spurned reporter finally giving up on her extraterrestrial beau. Typically, she’s then romanced by a slick, romantic European who’s was also a conniving, crooked conman. She rebounds in top crime-busting form for ‘Lois Lane’s Super-Seance!’ (Boring & Kaye): apparently endowed with psychic sight, but actually pulling the wool over the eyes of superstitious crooks.

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #38 also tapped TV connection as the lad becomes ‘The MC of the Midnight Scare Theatre!’ (Bernstein, Swan & Forte): uncovering an incredible mystery after his hoary, hokey stage act apparently scares four viewers to death…

Although by the same creators, the broad humour of ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Wedding! to Lucy has a far less ingenious explanation, but at least ‘Olsen’s Super-Supper!’ (Bernstein, Swan & John Giunta) wraps up on a high as the impecunious kid enters an eating contest and allows shady operators to try an experimental appetite-increasing ray on him. Of course, the mad scientists have an ulterior, criminal motive…

A plane crash and head wound transform Lois into a fur-bikinied wild woman in #11 of her own magazine, but – even after being rescued by Superman – ‘The Leopard Girl of the Jungle!’ (Finger & Schaffenberger) has one last task to valiantly undertake. Anonymously authored ‘The Tricks of Lois Lane!’ finds the restored reporter up to her old tricks to expose Clark as Superman, whilst ‘Lois Lane’s Super-Perfume!’ (Bernstein) seems able to turn any man into a love-slave – until the Man of Steel exposes criminal scammers behind it…

Binder, Swan & Forte crafted all of Jimmy Olsen #39, beginning with the lad stuck on another world and quickly seen as ‘The Super-Lad of Space!’, after which, back in Metropolis, his ill-considered antics lose and win and lose him again a fortune in ‘The Million Dollar Mistakes!’ Lastly, ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Super-Signals!’ see him misplace his Superman-summoning watch and forced to spectacularly improvise every time he gets into trouble…

Bernstein wrote LL #12, beginning with two Schaffenberger specials: ‘The Mermaid of Metropolis’ in which an accident dooms Lois to life underwater beside Sea King Aquaman, until Superman cures her piscoid condition, whilst in ‘The Girl Atlas!’ Lana sneakily turns herself into a super-powerhouse to corral the Man of Steel and learns what sneaky means when Lois strikes back…

Al Plastino rendered ‘Lois Lane Loves Clark Kent!’, as the reporter, believing she has incontrovertible proof of Superman’s secret, starts a campaign to entrap her unknowing colleague in wedlock…

Swan & Forte illustrated all of JO #40, beginning with Binder’s ‘The Invisible Life of Jimmy Olsen’ as our hapless chum is enmired in all manner of mischief after a gift from his best pal unexpectedly leaves him unseen but not trouble-free. ‘Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl’s Pal!’ sees the reporter temporarily struck blind, just as a crook with a grudge tries to kill him. With Superman out of touch, the Caped Kryptonian’s secret weapon Supergirl (at this time a newly-arrived, hidden trainee no one except cousin Kal-El and Krypto know of) rushes to the rescue, only to have the feisty lad disbelieve and dispute her very existence.

Bernstein then exposes ‘Jimmy Olsen, Juvenile Delinquent!’ as he goes undercover to break up a street gang and discovers Perry White’s own son is a member…

Bernstein & Schaffenberger led in Lois’ 13^th issue, hilariously ‘Introducing… Lois Lane’s Parents!’ Superman had offered her a lift home to the farm of Sam and Ella Lane for a family reunion, but thanks to a concatenation of circumstances, local gossip and super-politeness, the Man of Steel quickly finds himself peer-pressure-press-ganged into a wedding.

Fair Warning: this contains Lois’ first nude scene as a proud father gets out baby albums…

From the same creative team – and in a brilliant pastiche of My Fair Lady – ‘Alias Lois Lane!’ see the indomitable inquirer undercover as sketchy floozie Sadie Blodgett in a plan to snap candid shots of a movie star. It all goes south when “Sadie” is “hired” by crooks to impersonate Superman’s girlfriend in an assassination plot bound to fail!

Next, Finger, Boring & Kaye disclose ‘The Shocking Secret of Lois Lane!’ following a tragically implausible incident forcing the journalist to cover her disfigured head in a lead-lined steel box. Thankfully, the Action Ace is around to deduce what’s really going on…

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #41 opened with Bernstein, Swan & Forte’s ‘The Human Octopus!’, highlighting the lad’s negligent idiocy as he impetuously eats alien fruit and grows six more arms. However, the true effect of the space spud is far more devious…

Binder & Kaye joined Swan for ‘The Robot Reporter!’, with Jimmy using an automaton provided by Superman to do his job as he recuperates from a damaged ankle. Nonetheless, he manages to get into trouble from the comfort of his apartment. Thanks to stupid showing off, he’s then mistaken for a master fencer and catapulted into a Ruritanian adventure as ‘Jimmy Olsen, the Boy Swordsman!’ (Binder, Swan & Forte).

Binder & Schaffenberger opened LL #14 with ‘Three Nights in the Fortress of Solitude!’ as conniving journalist has contrived to isolate herself with Superman long enough to prove how much he needs a woman in his life, only to suffer one disaster after another…

Bernstein scripted ‘Lois Lane’s Soldier Sweetheart!’, revealing her warm and generous side as she helps a lonely GI attain his greatest desire. Jerry Siegel then returned to the character he created (and based on his own wife!) using still-secret Supergirl to catastrophically play cupid in ‘Lois Lane’s Secret Romance!’

Jimmy Olsen #42 started with uncredited story ‘The Big Superman Movie!’ (art by Swan & Forte), wherein the star-struck kid consults on a major motion picture. He would far rather have played himself, much to Lucy’s amusement, but ultimately the sharp apprentice journalist has the last word – and laugh. Bernstein was back for ‘Perry White, Cub Reporter!’ which has Editor and junior trading places, with power only apparently going straight to Olsen’s head, after which ‘Jimmy the Genie!’ sees something similar occur when boy reporter and magical sprite exchange roles in a clever thriller illustrated by Swan & Giunta.

Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #15 featured a landmark mystery in ‘The Super-Family of Steel!’ (Binder & Schaffenberger) which seemingly sees Lois attain her every dream. She and her Kryptonian Crimebuster first become ‘Super-Husband and Wife’, with ‘The Bride Gets Super-Powers’ as a consequence. They even have a brace of super-kids before the astounding ‘Secret of the Super-Family’ is revealed…

In Superman’s Pal #43 TV show 77 Sunset Strip got a name-check as ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Four Fads!’ (Swan & Kaye) finds the kid attempting to create a teen trend to impress Lucy, whilst as ‘Phantom Fingers Olsen!’ (Boring & Kaye) he infiltrates a gang of murderous thieves, before being adopted by ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Private Monster!’ (Siegel, Swan & Forte). After causing no end of embarrassment in Metropolis, the bizarre beast takes Jim to his home dimension where even greater shocks await…

The book’s final Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane is #16 (April 1960) opening with ‘Lois Lane’s Signal-Watch’ with Schaffenberger art on (possibly) a Siegel script. Here the Man of Steel learns to regret ever giving a woman who clearly has no idea what “emergency” means a device to summon him at any moment of day or night…

That slice of scurrilous 1950s propaganda is inexplicably balanced by a brilliant murder thriller displaying all Lois’ resilience and fortitude as she infiltrates and solves (Bernstein’s) ‘The Mystery of Skull Island’, before Siegel authors another cruel dark tragedy wherein Superman tries to cure Lois’ nosy impulses – by tricking his own girlfriend into believing she has a death stare in ‘The Kryptonite Girl!’ Of course, as all couples know, such power develops naturally not long after the honeymoon…

I love these stories, but sometime words just fail me.

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #44 completes this third monochrome monolith, starting with Halloween-styled tale ‘The Wolf-Man of Metropolis!’ (Binder, Swan & Kaye) by blending horror, mystery and heart-warming charm in a mini-classic which sees the boy cursed to hairy moon madness. Desperate for surcease his only hope is a willing maiden to cure him with a kiss. That’s followed by Siegel, Swan & Forte’s ‘Jimmy’s Leprechaun Pal!’, a magical imp who made life hell for the cub until human ingenuity outwitted magical pranksterism, after which Bernstein, Swan & Kaye crafted possibly the strangest and most disturbing yarn in this compilation as the boy went undercover as a sexy showgirl to get close to gangster Big Monte in ‘Miss Jimmy Olsen!’

As well as containing some of the most delightful episodes of the pre angst-drenched, cosmically catastrophic DC, these fun, thrilling, deeply peculiar and yes, often potentially offensive stories also perfectly capture the changing tone and tastes which reshaped comics from the safe 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1970s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry – “keep them entertained and keep them wanting more”.

Despite my good-natured cavils from my high horse here in the 21^st century (or “the End of Days” as they’re more commonly known), I think these stories have a huge amount to offer funnybook fun-seekers. I strongly urge you to check them out.
© 1959, 1960, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

September 28, 2023September 27, 2023

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man: Peter Parker vs The X-Men

By Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, Ben Dewey, Christian Nauck, Terry Pallot & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4116-7 (Digest PB/Digital edition)

In 2003 the House of Ideas instituted a Marvel Age line: an imprint updating classic original tales and characters for a newer, younger readership. The enterprise was modified in 2005, with core titles reduced to Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. The tone was very much that of the company’s burgeoning TV cartoon franchises, in delivery if not name.

Supplemental series including Super Heroes, The Avengers, Hulk and Iron Man chuntered along merrily until 2010 when they were cancelled. In their place came new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. Most of the re-imagined tales were collected in gleefully inviting digest-sized compilations and digitised like this torrid tome. It re-presents #58-61 – the final four stories – from February to May 2010, and all scripted throughout by Paul (No Romance in Hell, Plants vs Zombies) Tobin.

What You Need to Know: 16-year-old Peter Parker has been the mysterious Spider-Man for little more than six months. In that time, he has constantly prowled the streets and skyscrapers of New York, driven to fight injustice. However, as a kid just learning the ropes, he’s pretty much in over his head all the time.

The most persistent major hassle is the all-pervasive Torino crime-family, whose goombahs and street-thugs perpetually attack the wallcrawler on sight, spurred on by a $500,000 bounty on the kid’s web-covered head…

Peter’s civilian life is pretty complicated too, but of great help and constant comfort is High School classmate Sophia Sanduval – the extremely talented Chat – who can communicate with animals and knows Peter’s secret…

Following a handy introductory recap page, we open with him ‘Wanted’ (illustrated by Matteo Lolli & Terry Pallot) when the protracted vendetta against the Torinos is suddenly punctuated by wanted posters for the webslinger on every tree, fence and lamppost. During another brutal but pointless clash with the mobsters, the harassed hero is aided by a very capable masked woman in a red dress who introduces herself as the Blonde Phantom. She’s behind the find-Spidey posters but only because she wants to offer him a job with her Blonde Phantom Detective Agency…

Cautiously hearing her out, Spidey shares his strange and complex personal life with the sultry sleuth, telling her about Chat and how Gwen Watson claims to be going out on dates with his alter ego, something Peter adamantly denies. He doesn’t even have time for the girlfriend he’s got…

Gwen’s dad is Police Captain George Stacy – who also knows the boy’s secret and allows him to continue his vigilante antics. The senior cop acts as a mentor and sounding board, but has some very hard words concerning anyone taking money for doing good deeds. Peter kind-of agrees with him, but Aunt May is in desperate need of cash to repair the foundations of her house…

Conflicted Peter still hasn’t decided to meet up with Blonde Phantom, but as another band of Torinos jump them, the resulting battle reminds him that the last time he took money for being Spider-Man, Uncle Ben died…

The guilt-ridden kid sadly declines the glamorous gumshoe’s offer but is later astounded when Captain Stacy provides a welcome – and acceptably legitimate – financial solution to May’s money woes.

Blonde Phantom isn’t too disappointed either: she got Chat’s contact details out of Peter before they parted…

Pencilled by Ben Dewey, eponymous epic ‘Peter Parker vs. the X-Men’ finds the wallcrawler and Chat having an earnest heart-to-heart about their relationship – and Gwen’s persistent and insistent claims to still be going out on dates with Peter – when alarmed squirrels warn them that they are being spied on by a stranger with “three big fingers”. A rapid and thorough investigation results in nothing but a strange whiff of sulphur…

After they go their separate ways, the hero is again ambushed by Torinos, but one of them – later revealed as the grandson of The Family’s Big Boss Berto – helps him escape. George Stacy later warns him the increasingly impatient mobsters have finally hired some specialist help: engaging the services of super-assassin Bullseye – the Man who Never Misses…

Bewildered and extremely nervous our hero heads home only to find Wolverine spying on him. When the Arachnid attacks the clawed mutant he is assaulted by a whole squad of X-Men, and only after a frantic fray discovers they’ve come to offer help to a fellow mutant…

When he finally convinces them that he isn’t a Homo Superior kid, the embarrassed outsider heroes realise that mutant detector Cerebro must have been registering the girl he was with… the one who talks to pigeons and squirrels…

With pencils by Christian Nauck, ‘I’ve Got a Badge!’ focuses on the return of teenaged thief/mutant mindbender Silencer as Chat – now in training with the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency – explains to a baffled Peter that she can’t remember being his girlfriend, even though all her animal associates assure her it’s totally true.

Mysteries begin to unravel after Captain Stacy offers Spider-Man a Consultant position with the NYPD, asking him to help apprehend Silencer… who has been robbing the city blind.

Whilst searching for her and dreaming of a life where cops aren’t always after him, young Torino kid Carter takes an opportunity during one more gang hit to warn the wallcrawler Bullseye is after him…

Heading for Chat’s place, Peter finds Silencer in residence and calls in the cops, only to discover the bandit is actually his girlfriend’s BFF Emma Frost…

Choosing to help Emma escape, Peter sacrifices his chance for an easier life, and discovers to his dismay in the concluding chapter Emma is also behind all his romantic woes, meddling with both Gwen and Chat’s minds because she wants the webslinger for herself. Of course, the animals know what’s going on and when they tell Chat the fur – and webbing – flies…

Never the success the company hoped, Marvel Adventures was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to Disney XD television shows designated as “Marvel Universe cartoons”, but these collected stories remain an intriguing, amazingly entertaining and more accessible means of introducing the character and concepts to kids born two generations or more away from the originating events.

Fast-paced, enthralling and impressive, these Spidey super stories are intensely enjoyable yarns, although parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers “All-Ages Super Hero Action” and might perhaps better suit older youngsters…
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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