Category: Kids – All Ages

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The Art of Archie: The Covers


By various, edited by Victor Gorelick & Craig Yoe (Archie Books)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-79-2 (HB/Digital edition)

For most of us, comics mean buff men and women in capes and tights hitting each other, lobbing trees about, or stark, nihilistic genre thrillers aimed at an extremely mature and sophisticated readership of confirmed fans – and indeed that has been the prolific norm for nearly twenty years.

However, over the decades since 1933 when comic books were invented, other forms of sequential illustrated fiction genres have held their own. One that has maintained a unique position over the years – although almost now completely transferred to television – is the teen-comedy genre begun by and synonymous with a carrot topped, homely (at first just plain ugly) kid named Archie Andrews.

MLJ were a small outfit which jumped wholeheartedly onto the superhero bandwagon following the debut of Superman. In November 1939 they launched Blue Ribbon Comics, promptly following with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the accepted blend of costumed heroes, two-fisted adventure strips and one-off gags. Pep made history with its lead feature The Shield – the industry’s first superhero clad in the American flag – but generally MLJ were followers not innovators.

That all changed at the end of 1941. Even while profiting from the Fights ‘n’ Tights phalanx, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in their blossoming market and in December the action strips were joined by a wholesome, ordinary hero; an “average teen” who had invitingly human-scaled adventures that might happen to the readers, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick heavily emphasised.

Pep Comics #22 introduced a gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed goof showing off to the pretty blonde next door. Taking his lead from the popular Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey Rooney, Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman, tasking writer Vic Bloom & artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work.

So effective and all-pervasive was the impact and comforting message the new kid offered to the boys “over there” and those left behind on the Home Front that Archie and the wholesome image of familiar, beloved, secure Americana he and the Riverdale gang represented, one could consider them the greatest and most effective Patriotic/Propaganda weapon in comics history…

It all started with an innocuous 6-page tale entitled ‘Archie’ which introduced the future star and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper. Archie’s unconventional best friend and confidante Forsythe P. “Jughead” Jones also debuted in that first story, as did the small-town utopia they lived in.

The premise was an instant and ever-growing hit. In 1942 the feature graduated to its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first non-anthology magazine and began an inexorable transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the industry’s second Phenomenon (Superman being the first).

By May 1946 the kids had taken over and, retiring its costumed champions years before the end of the Golden Age, MLJ rebranded, renamed itself Archie Comics, and became to all intents and purposes a publisher of family comedies. This overwhelming success, like the Man of Tomorrow’s, forced a change in the content of every other publisher’s titles and led to a multi-media industry including a newspaper strip, TV, movies, pop-songs and even a chain of restaurants. Intermittently the costumed cut-ups have returned on occasion but Archie Comics now seems content to specialise in what they do uniquely best…

Our eponymous high-schooler is a good-hearted lad lacking common sense and Betty – pretty, sensible, devoted girl next door, with all that entails – loves the ridiculous redhead. Ronnie is spoiled, exotic and glamorous and only settles for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him too, though. Archie, of course, can’t decide who or what he wants…

This never-tawdry eternal triangle has been the basis of seventy years of charmingly raucous, gently preposterous, frenetic, chiding and even heart-rending comedy encompassing everything from surreal wit to frantic slapstick, as the kids and an increasing cast of friends grew into an American institution.

Adapting seamlessly to every trend and fad, perfectly in tone with and mirroring the growth of teen culture, the host of writers and artists who have crafted the stories over the decades have made the archetypal characters of Riverdale a benchmark for youth and a visual barometer of growing up American.

Archie’s unconventional best friend Jughead is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo: providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. There’s even a likeably reprehensible Tybalt figure in the crafty form of Reggie Mantle – who first popped up to cause mischief in Jackpot Comics #5 (Spring 1942).

This beguiling triangle edifice (plus annexe and outhouse) has been the rock-solid foundation for eight decades of comics magic. …and the concept seems eternally self-renewing and self-perpetuating…

Archie has thrived by constantly reinventing its core characters, seamlessly adapting to the changing world outside the bright, flimsy pages, shamelessly co-opting youth, pop culture and fashion trends into its infallible mix of slapstick and young romance.

Each and every social revolution has been painlessly assimilated into the mix with the editors tastefully confronting a number of social issues affecting the young in a manner both even-handed and tasteful over the years.

The cast is always growing and the constant addition of new characters such as African-American Chuck (an aspiring cartoonist), his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Hispanic couple Frankie & Maria and a host of others like spoiled wild-child home-wrecker-in-waiting Cheryl Blossom, and Kevin Keller, an openly gay young man and clear-headed advocate, capably tackling and dismantling the last major taboo in mainstream comics.

A major component of the company’s success has been the superbly enticing artwork and especially the unmistakable impact afforded via the assorted titles’ captivating covers.

This spectacular compilation (a companion and sequel to 2010s Betty & Veronica collection) traces the history and evolution of the wholesome phenomenon through many incredible examples from every decade. Augmented by scads of original art, fine art and commercial recreations, printer’s proofs and a host of other rare examples and graphic surprises no fan of the medium could possibly resist, this huge hardback (312 x 235mm) and digital delight re-presents hundreds of funny, charming, intriguing and occasionally controversial images as well as background and biographies on the many talented artists responsible for creating them.

Moreover, also included are many original artworks – gleaned from the private collections of fans – scripts, sketches, gag-roughs, production ephemera from the initial art-to-finished-cover process, plus an extensive, educational introductory commentary section stuffed with fascinating reminiscences and behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

The picture parade begins with some thoughts from the brains behind the fun as ‘It’s a Gift’ by Publisher/Co-CEO Jon Goldwater and ‘You Can Judge a Book by its Cover!’ by Editor-in-Chief/Co-President Victor Gorelick. Then ‘On the Covers’ issues guidance from cartoonist, Comics Historian and perpetrator Craig Yoe before taking us to the 1940s where ‘In the Beginning…’ details the story of Archie with relevant covers and the first of a recurring feature highlighting how later generations of artists have recycled and reinterpreted classic designs.

‘A Matchless Cover’ leads into the first Artist Profile – ‘Bob Montana’ – incorporating a wealth of cracking Golden Age images in ‘Who’s on First!’ before chapters dedicated to specific themes and motifs commence with a celebration of beach scenes ‘In the Swim’, after which artist ‘Bill Vigoda’ steps out from behind his easel and into the spotlight.

‘Deja Vu All Over Again’ further explores the recapitulation of certain cover ideas before ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll!’ examines decades of pop music and “guest” stars such as the Beatles, whilst ‘Archie’s Mechanically Inclined’ probes a short-lived dalliance with an early form of home DIY magazines.

The life of veteran illustrator ‘Al Fagaly’ leads into a selection of ‘Fan Faves’ ancient and modern before the biography of ‘Harry Sahle’ segues neatly into a selection of cheerleading covers in ‘Let’s Hear It for The Boy!’

It wasn’t long after the birth of modern pop music that the Riverdale gang formed their own band and ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, The Archies!’ focuses on those ever-evolving musical prodigies with scenes from the Swinging Sixties to the turbulent Rap-ridden 21st century, after which the history ‘Joe Edwards’ leads into a barrage of smoochy snogging scenes in ‘XOXOXO!’

Always a keen follower of fads and fashions. the Archie crowd embraced many popular trends and ‘Monster Bash!’ concentrates on kids’ love of horror and recurring periods of supernatural thrills, after which a bio of ‘Dan Parent’ leads unerringly to more ‘Celebrity Spotting!’ with covers featuring the likes of George Takei, Michael Jackson, Simon Cowell, J-Lo, Kiss, the casts of Glee and Twilight, and even President Barack Obama. all eagerly appearing amongst so very many others.

‘Art for Archie’s Sake’ dwells on the myriad expressions of junior painting and sculpture and, after the life story of the sublimely gifted ‘Harry Lucey’, ‘The Time Archie was Pinked Out!’ details the thinking behind the signature logo colour schemes used in the company’s pre-computer days.

‘Life with Archie’s a Beach!’ takes another look at the rise of teenage sand and surf culture through the medium of beautifully rendered, scantily clad boys and girls, whilst – after the lowdown on writer/artist ‘Fernando Ruiz’ – ‘Dance! Dance! Dance!’ follows those crazy kids from Jitterbug to Frug, Twisting through Disco and ever onwards…

‘The Happiest of Holidays’ highlights the horde of magical Christmas covers Archie, Betty and Ronnie have starred on whilst ‘Rhyme Time’ reveals the odd tradition of poetry spouting sessions that have been used to get fans interested and keep them amused.

A history of the inimitable ‘Samm Schwartz’ precedes a look at classroom moments in ‘Readin’, Writin’, an’ Archie – with a separate section on organised games entitled ‘Good Sports!’ – after which the life of legendary art star ‘Dan DeCarlo’ neatly leads to another selection of fad-based fun as ‘That’s Just Super!’ recalls the Sixties costumed hero craze, as well as a few other forays into Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy…

‘Let’s Get this Party Started’ features covers with strips rather than single images and is followed by a biography of ‘Bob Bolling’ before ‘A Little Goes a Long Way!’ concentrates on the assorted iterations of pre-teen Little Archie comics. This is then capped by the eye-popping enigma of teen taste as visualised in the many outfits over changing decades revealing ‘A Passion for Fashion’…

‘Come as You Aren’t’ is devoted to the theme of fancy dress parties after which the modern appetite for variant covers is celebrated in ‘Alternate Realities’ (with stunning examples from Fiona Staples, Tim Seeley and Walter Simonson amongst others) all wrapped up by the gen on artistic mainstay ‘Bob White’.

The entire kit and caboodle then concludes with an assortment of surreal, mindblowing covers defying categorisation or explanation in ‘And Now, For Something Completely Different’, proving that comics are still the only true home of untrammelled imagination: featuring scenes that literally have to be seen to be believed…

Enchanting, breathtaking graphic wonderment, fun-fuelled family entertainment and enticing pop art masterpieces, these unforgettable cartoon confections truly express the joyous spirit of intoxicating youthful vitality which changed the comic industry forever and comprise an essential example of artistic excellence no lover of narrative art should miss.

Spanning the entire history of American comicbooks and featuring vintage images, landmark material and up-to-the-minute modern masterpieces, this is a terrific tome for anybody interested in the history of comics, eternally evergreen light laughs and the acceptable happy face of the American Dream.
™ & © 2013 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. All covers previously published and copyrighted by Archie Comic Publication, Inc. (or its predecessors) in magazine form in 1941-2013.

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Billy & Buddy volume 8: Fetch and Carry On


By Christophe Cazenove & Jean Bastide in the style of Roba, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-070-8 (Album PB/Digital)

Known as Boule et Bill in Europe (at least in the French speaking bits – the Dutch and Flemish call them Bollie en Billie or perhaps Bas et Boef if readers first glimpsed them in legendary weekly Sjors), this evergreen, immensely popular cartoon saga of a dog and his boy first debuted at Christmas in 1959.

The perennial family favourite resulted from Belgian writer-artist Jean Roba (Spirou et Fantasio, La Ribambelle) putting his head together with Maurice Rosy: the magazine’s Artistic Director and Ideas Man, who had also ghosted art and/or scripts on Jerry Spring, Tif et Tondu, Bobo and Attila during a decades-long, astoundingly productive career at the legendary periodical.

Intended as a European answer to Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Boule et Bill quickly went its own way, developing a unique style and personality and becoming Roba’s main occupation for the next 45 years. He had launched the feature as a mini-récit (32-page, half-sized freebie inserts) in the December 24th edition of Le Journal de Spirou.

Like Dennis the Menace in The Beano, the strip was a huge hit from the start, and for 25 years held the coveted and prestigious back-cover spot. It was even syndicated to rival publishers and became a popular feature in Le Journal de Mickey, rubbing shoulders with Walt Disney’s top stars. Older Brits might recognise the art as early episodes – retitled It’s a Dog’s Life – ran in Fleetway’s weekly Valiant from 1961 to 1965…

A cornerstone of European life, the strip has generated a live-action movie, four animated TV series, computer games, permanent art exhibitions, sculptures and even postage stamps. As with a select few immortalized Belgian comics creations, Bollie en Billie were awarded a commemorative plaque and have a street named after them in Brussels…

Large format album compilations began immediately, totalling 21 volumes throughout the 1960s and 1970s from publisher Dupuis. These were completely redesigned and re-released in 1985 when Roba moved to Dargaud and became his own editor. The standard albums (43 to date) are supplemented by a range of early-reader books for toddlers. Assorted collections are available in 14 languages, selling well in excess of 25 million copies.

Roba crafted more than a thousand pages of gag-strips in his beguiling, idealised domestic comedy setting, all about a little lad and an exceedingly smart Cocker Spaniel. Long before his death in 2006, the auteur wisely appointed successors for the strip, which has thus continued to this day. He began by surrendering the art chores to his long-term assistant Laurent Verron in 2003, and the successor subsequently took on the scripting too upon Roba’s passing. Verron was soon joined by gag-writers Veys, Corbeyran, Chric & Cucuel whilst this tome comes courtesy of new team Christophe Cazenove & Jean Bastide. In this collection Verron is present as illustrator of the “cabochons”: illustrated icons at the top of each strip. They’re what old folks like us employed before emoticons…

As Billy and Buddy, the strip returned to British eyes in 2009: stars of enticing Cinebook compilations introducing to 21st century readers an endearingly bucolic sitcom-styled nuclear family set-up consisting of one bemused, long-suffering and short-tempered dad; a warmly compassionate but constantly wearied and distracted mum; a smart but mischievous son and a genius dog who has a penchant for finding bones, puddles and trouble.

As the feature accommodates the passage of time, we see a few more mod-cons and a bigger role for girls – such as skipping sharpie Juliet – but, in essence, nothing has changed… and that’s the whole point…

Bill est un gros rapporteur! was the 37th European collection, comfortingly resuming in the approved manner and further exploring the evergreen relationship of a dog and his boy (and tortoise) for our delight and delectation. Available in paperback and digital editions and delivered as a series of stand-alone rapid-fire, single-page gags, Fetch and Carry On is packed with visual puns, quips, slapstick and jolly jests and japes: all affirming the gradual socialisation and behaviour of little Billy as measured in carefree romps with four-footed friends and an even split between parental judgements and getting away with murder…

Buddy is the perfect pet for an imaginative and playful boy, although the manipulative mutt is overly fond of purloined food, buried bones (ownership frequently to be determined), and as seen in this volume sleeping where he really shouldn’t. When not being a problem, he’s also ferociously protective of his boy, tortoise and ball.

The pesky pooch simply cannot understand why everyone wants to constantly plunge him into foul-tasting soapy water, but it’s just a sacrifice he’s prepared to make to be with Billy…

Buddy’s fondly platonic relationship with tortoise Caroline is played up in this book and his knack for clearing off whenever Dad has one of his explosive emotional meltdowns over the cost of canine treats, repair bills or the Boss’ latest impositions is dialled down, but most of the traditional themes and schemes are revisited abundantly

Our inseparable duo interact with many pals – particularly Billy’s school chum Pat – who acts as confidante and best two-legged crony in all mischief making – and at every carefree moment they all play pranks, encounter other animals, dodge surveillance, hunt and hoard (bones, toys, shoes, phones and other crucial household items), rummage in bins, wilfully and/or honestly misunderstand adults, cause accidents and cost money, with both kid and mutt equally adept at all of the above.

This time, domestic chaos is heightened by the introduction of classmate Celia’s new French Bulldog Brice. The pedigreed dog meets all the breed standards – which means he makes noises like a ruptured steam train when eating, sleeping or even just watching the others in bewilderment and becomes a cause celebre for the growing cast. A rival retriever makes his bow too: Pixel might look like a movie star mutt but he’s not a patch on mastermind Buddy…

Another much explored story strand involves Billy emulating a zookeeper, and his many attempts to train Buddy via “treat encouragement” – a system the dog instinctively distrusts and much time is spent comedically exploiting the doggy message retrieval system of widdling on lampposts…

And of course, when Buddy and Caroline aren’t futilely trying to teach Billy and Pat how to talk to human girls Celia and Hazel, hostile neighbour Madame Stick and her evil cat Corporal are a on hand to spoil all fun and frustrate their frolics…

Roba was a master of this cartoon art form and under his successors the strips remain genially paced, filled with wry wit and potent sentiment: enchantingly funny episodes running the gamut from heart-warming to hilarious, silly to surreal and thrilling to just plain daft.

This collection is exactly what fans would expect and deserve: another charming tribute to and lasting argument for a child for every pet and vice versa. Here is a supremely engaging family-oriented compendium of cool and clever comics no one keen on introducing youngsters to the medium should be without.
Original edition © Dargaud, 2016 by Cazenove & Bastide in the style of Roba © Studio Boule & Bill 2016. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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Bunny vs Monkey: Multiverse Mix-Up!


By Jamie Smart & with Sammy Borras (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-292-2 (Digest PB)

Bunny vs. Monkey has been a staple of The Phoenix from the first issue in 2012: detailing a madcap vendetta gripping animal archenemies amidst an idyllic arcadia masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands.

Concocted with gleefully inspired mania by cartoonist and novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Flember), these trendsetting, mindbending yarns have all the tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy of a uniquely off-kilter magnum opus – not to be confused with the veritable magnificent octopus – although there’s them occasionally popping up too…

It all began yonks ago after an obnoxious little simian slapped down in the wake of a disastrous British space shot. Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab animal Monkey believed himself the rightful inheritor of a strange new world, despite all efforts from reasonable, sensible, genteel, contemplative forest resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and good breeding, the laid-back lepine just could not contain the incorrigible idiot ape, who was – and is – a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating loutish troublemaker…

Problems are ever-exacerbated by other unconventional Crinkle critters, particularly a skunk – AKA Skunky – who has a mad scientist’s attitude to life and a propensity to build extremely dangerous robots and overly technological super-weapons…

Here – with artistic assistance from design deputy Sammy Borras – the war of nerves and mega-ordnances is rekindled after briefly seeming to be all over. Our unruly assortment of odd bods cluttering up the bucolic paradise had finally picked sides and sorted it all out and – with battles ended – even apparently forgot the ever-encroaching Hyoomanz…

Rather than the traditional opening and tales ranked by changing seasons, this titanic trade paperback archive of insanity offers two massive chapters subdivided into short instalments. The astounding new adventure opens in Part One and ‘Pond Life’ wherein a quiet moment of skating in the chilly evening of a New Year is going so well until our apish antagonist renews old dreams of a planet united under his rule and the banner of “Monkeyopia”.

Sadly, the banner is attached to a staff with a really pointy end… and ice is really brittle…

An epoch of bewildering calamity commences when animal alternates from a parallel universe pop in through a portal. On their home plane everyone is evil but even so, their abduction of pan–universal innocent Pig Piggerton goes terribly wrong: stranding the instigator of the ‘Pig Swap’ on the wrong realm…

Meanwhile, Skunky has temporarily got rid of his annoying Monkey mate with some pointless make-work in ‘Snow Fun’ and ‘Evil Pig’ has introduced himself to the other Crinkle critters. Of course, Monkey must prove he’s the most wicked…

With Skunky, Monkey and the transplanted Pig all menacing and recruiting minions, confused Bunny calls on everyone to again ‘Choose Your Side’, but things get a bit out of hand when Metal Steve, Metal E.V.E. and brain-battered, bewildered former stuntman Action Beaver all join in the party games…

Thankfully, Eve allies with the good guys and Bunny affirms that their prime directive is “protecting the woods at all costs”: ‘A Mammoth Task’ made even harder once Skunky and Monkey unleash giant undergrounds monsters…

Dedicated to doom and destruction, the bad boys try – and ultimately fail – to synthesize Mongolian Death molluscs in ‘With Snails & I’ and try to pluck the ‘Big Moon’ out of the night sky before clashing with Evil Pig…

The transplanted transdimensional then meets his counterpart’s best bud Weenie Squirrel and has ‘A Falling Out’ even as Monkey unleashes exploding duplicates in ‘All A-Clone’ before trying his hand at scary documentary making in ‘The Sand-Witch Project’. All that cloning around comes back to bite him in the form of ‘Monkeysaurus’

Desperate for peace and quiet, Bunny, Eve and superfast Ai seek solace and silence in the river, but find only more mad excitement when evil spies get into difficulties and require their ‘Canoooe’, unaware that temporary allies Evil Pig, Skunky and Monkey were messing with serums and animals and had ‘Gone Batty’…

When Skunky tries to upgrade obsolete robotic oaf Metal Steve, reformed Eve is trapped in his bandwidth and is transformed into ‘Eve 2.0’, whilst Evil Pig – still seeking to win over Weenie – instead subverts Steve into ‘Alan the Unicorn’…

Existence gets truly meta when godlike human beings abruptly intervene, inadvertently sharing a glimpse behind the cosmic curtains of reality and by inflicting a distressing touch of The Matrix in ‘The First Glitch’ offers our quotidian cast of layered realities a hideous glimpse of what reality really means. Thoroughly re-educated, the bad guys then lose control of another experiment, unleashing shapeshifter ‘Polymorph’ on the easily embarrassed denizens of the Woods.

Fearless and stupid, Monkey discovers a sleeping beast and refuses to listen when everyone tells him ‘Don’t Wake the Bear’…

After too long and portentous an interval, the evil doppelgangers return, banishing their counterparts across many ‘Dimensions’ before ending the multiverse itself. Only Bunny escapes and with the unlikeliest of allies begins exploring ‘The Infinite’ and – thanks to a Portable Dimension Hopper – seeks ways to restore reality and rescue his comrades from the Real World.

That means many appalling experiences including ‘Babysitting’ toddler-versions of all his friends and foes, clashing with ghosts, vampires and Halloween Dimension beings before – as ‘Grumpy Bunny’ – saving a cowboy realm from the perils of a ‘Wilder West’. Bridging warring lava and frost dimensions ‘Of Fire and Ice’ that are also infested with familiar variants of everyone he knew, the thankless quest finally pays off in a commerce dimension ruled by an ‘Office Monkey’ only too glad to be rid of the annoying anarchic duplicate pestering his people and threatening his bottom line…

When the idiot ape eats Bunny’s travel tech, the status quo starts to resettle but by then the voyagers have found a dystopian desert where civilisation has gone ‘Mad to the Max’. Happily, Skunky is there to fix the gadget and get them on their way to the Christmas Dimension, and then out of the land of ‘Ho Ho Oh No’: so lovely that no one ever leaves…

The assembled animals ultimately prove that’s not true, but only at the cost of their ship which is badly hit, leaving them ‘Doomed’ to fall between 9.7 billion dimensions until they unselfishly work together in a team up. As a result they touch down at the Very End of Existence Itself! Stuck in a formless void, only Bunny and Skunky seem able to go on and use the lack of working time to recreate useful bits of what’s been eradicated. Once they rerun ‘The Birth of Science’ it’s not too long before they’re ready to fix everything and open a portal… sparking a massive time loop…

Forewarned by déjà vu, the voyagers overreact and reality goes boink! again, dumping everyone into the dimension of excrement and causing a nasty ‘Pooey Christmas’…

It looks like a fresh beginning for all as Part Two opens with ‘A New Start’. The nice animals are having picnics and Skunky and Monkey are building better mecha-weapons, but something’s still not quite right, and when the miscreants unleash transforming terror ‘Octoplops’ the repercussions really aren’t that bad…

Still off his game, cupcake-addicted Monkey is easily exposed as a ‘Thief!’ and Weenie and Pig endure the sheer horror of losing their ‘Ducky’ to a mystery fiend, before an escaped Time Droid goes berserk and generates a ‘Looooooop’ in reality…

Thanks to Transmogrification Pants, Bunny is assaulted by fake friends he never knew in ‘Pants for the Memories’ whilst Skunky, Monkey, the Beaver and Metal Steve are stuck inside their own malfunctioning ‘Chameleotron’: a chaotic debacle that results in Monkey being sucked back into the appalling ‘Poo Dimension’ where he accidentally liberates a fearsome alternate self who is a genuine threat to everyone in Crinkle Woods…

A brief dalliance as superhero ‘Brave Bunny’ quickly palls for our genteel star and ‘Law and Order’ is brutally abused when ultra-efficient Office Monkey begins to modernise and corporatize the green paradise…

Initially set back and hindered by the workforce he has to work with, OM retrenches and debuts his polluting ‘Furps’ engine (don’t ask and don’t breathe in!) before forming a merger with Skunky…

The other critters are all enjoying ‘Lobnut Day!’ and trying to gather the most nuts, but wise up when the apish alternate dimension asset-stripper launches Monkey Corp. and seeks to put all the furry time-wasters ‘To Work’. However, by casually betraying Skunky, Office Monkey has sown the seeds of his own downfall and his ‘Streamlining’ the Woods into a modernistic business park triggers a groundswell of consumer resistance…

After losing a contest and being acclaimed ‘The Worst Inventor’ Skunky joins that rebellion, and ‘Wrong Monkey’ finds him planning to dismantle the corporate stronghold of Monkeytopia, revealing to the astounded woodlanders that the menace is not the annoying idiot they’re used to, but an extradimensional invader…

That said, the mercurial monochrome megamind recruits some alternate selves with his Time-o-tron and he and ‘Father Skunky’ plunge into the vortex void to unmake their current dire situation…

Tragically, all that multiversal mismanagement causes a few ‘Portal Problems’ and an unwise stopover at their starting point (three in one book!) prompts an unexpected self-promotion as  Office Monkey exploits the confusion to become Boss Level and ‘Takeover’ the universe…

Ejected from Reality, archnemesis Bunny is flung into the Poo Dimension where his usual enemy has become ‘King Monkey’. Implausibly, he has a plan to save the day and put everything back the way it was… more or less…

The narrative animal anarchy might have pawsed (not sorry!) for now but there’s more secrets to share thanks to detailed instructions on ‘‘How to Draw Cowboy Monkey!’, ‘How to Draw Hellcage Monkey!’ and ‘How to Draw Office Monkey!’ to wind down from all that angsty parallel peril and future-bending furore…

The zany zenith of absurdist adventure, Bunny vs Monkey is weird, wild wit, brilliantly bonkers invention, potent sentiment and superb cartooning all crammed into one eccentrically excellent package. These tails never fail to deliver jubilant joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. This is the kind of comic parents beg kids to read to them. Shouldn’t that be you?
Text and illustrations © Jamie Smart 2023. All rights reserved.

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Superadventure Annual 1960-1961


By Jack Miller, Jack Schiff, Joe Millard, Otto Binder, Edmund Hamilton, Robert Bernstein, Gardner Fox, John Forte, Bob Brown, Ramona Fradon, Jim Mooney, Edwin J. Smalle Jr, Howard Sherman, Ruben Moreira, Henry Boltinoff & others (Atlas Publishing & distributing Co./K.G. Murray)
No ISBN:

Before 1959, when DC and other American publishers started exporting directly into the UK, our exposure to their unique brand of fantasy fun came mostly from licensed reprints. British publishers/printers like Len Miller, Alan Class and bought material from the USA – and occasionally, Canada – to fill 68-page monochrome anthologies – many of which recycled the same stories for decades. In Britain we began seeing hardcover Superman Annuals in 1950, Superboy Annuals in 1953, Superadventure Annuals in 1959 and Batman books in 1960. Since then many publishers have carried on the tradition…

Less common were the oddly coloured pamphlets produced by Australian outfit K.G. Murray and exported here in a somewhat sporadic manner. The company also produced sturdily substantial Christmas Annuals which had a huge impact on my earliest years (I strongly suspect my adoration of black-&-white artwork stems from seeing supreme stylists like Curt Swan, Carmine Infantino, Al Plastino, Wayne Boring, Gil Kane or Murphy Anderson utterly uncluttered by flat, limited colour palettes).

This particular tome comes from 1960 whilst a superhero craze was barely bubbling under, allowing us access a wide range of the transitional genre material that fell between the Golden and Silver Ages. Everything in comics was changing and this book offers a delightfully eclectic mix of material far more in keeping with the traditionally perceived interests of British boys than the caped-&-cowled masked madness soon to obsess us all…

This collection is all monochrome, soundly stiff-backed, and sublimely suspense and joyous, and begins with Space Ranger: a relatively new property seen in Showcase #16.

In America, Showcase was a try-out comic designed by DC to launch new series and concepts with minimal commitment of publishing resources. If a new character sold well initially, a regular series would follow. The process had been proved with Frogmen, The Flash, Challengers of the Unknown and Lois Lane, so Editorial Director Irwin Donenfeld urged his editors to create science fiction heroes to capitalise on the twin zeitgeists of the Space Race and the popular fascination with movie monsters and aliens.

Jack Schiff came up with a “masked” crimefighter of the future who premiered in issues #15 & 16 (1958). The hero was Rick Starr: interplanetary businessman who – thanks to incredible gadgets and the assistance of shape-shifting alien pal Cryll and capable Girl Friday Myra Mason – spent his free time battling evil and injustice from his base in a hollow asteroid.

A few months later, the State-side Space Ranger was transported to DC’s science fiction anthology Tales of the Unexpected, beginning with issue #40 (August 1959): holding the lead and cover spot for a 6-year run and enduring frequent revivals and reboots ever since…

Canonically, we start with his third published exploit as ‘The Secret of the Space Monster’ (plot by John Forte, scripted by pulp veteran Edmond Hamilton and illustrated by Bob Brown) sees Rick, Myra and Cryll investigating an impossible void creature and uncovering a band of alien revolutionaries testing novel super-weapons.

Continuity was practically unheard in these DC overseas editions – and I’m pretty sure the editorial staff never gave a monkey’s about reading cohesion. UK spellings and currency were scrupulously re-lettered, but stories were arbitrarily trimmed to fit the page count and layout, making endings unclear or uncertain. However, we loved the sheer eclectic exoticism (we didn’t call it that, though); we were just wide-eyed impressionable grateful kids, okay?

One of the few superheroes to survive the collapse at the end of the Golden Age was a rather nondescript and generally bland looking chap who solved maritime crimes, rescuing fish and people from sub-sea disaster.

Created by Mort Weisinger & Paul Norris in the wake of Timely Comics’ Sub-Mariner, Aquaman first set sail in More Fun Comics #73 (November 1941). Strictly a second stringer for most of his career, the Sea King nevertheless continued on far beyond many stronger features. He was primarily illustrated by Norris, Louis Cazeneuve and Charles Paris, until young Ramona Fradon took over the art chores in 1954, by which time the Sea King had settled into a regular back-up slot in Adventure Comics. All of the salty sagas here are illustrated by her, and limned every single adventure until 1960: indelibly stamping the hero with her unique blend of charm and sleek competence.

At the time this book was released, America’s Aquaman had been refitted. Showcase #4 (1956) rekindled the public’s taste for costumed crime-fighters. As well as re-imagining Golden Age stalwarts, DC updated its hoary survivors. The initial revamp ‘How Aquaman Got His Powers!’ (Adventure #260, May 1959) was the work of Robert Bernstein. That tale set a new origin – offspring of a lighthouse keeper/refugee from undersea Atlantis – and eventually all trappings of the modern superhero followed: themed hideout, sidekick, even super-villains! Moreover, continuity and the concept of a shared universe became paramount.

In this seasonal collection however, he’s still a charming, dedicated seagoing nomad with a tendency to find trouble as in ‘The Ocean of 1,000,000 B.C.’ (Adventure Comics #253, October 1958 by Bernstein & Fradon) where he swims through a time warp and helps a seashore-dwelling caveman against a marauding dragon.

Cartoonist Henry Boltinoff was a prolific and nigh-permanent fixture of DC titles in this period, providing a variety of 2, 1, and 1½ page gag strips to cleanse visual palates and satisfy byzantine US legal directives allowing publishers to sustain cheaper postal shipping rates. He’s here in strength: his gentle humour jibing perfectly with contemporary British tastes, in the first vignette starring space boffin Professor Eureka…

Based on Alex Raymond’s newspaper star Jungle Jim, the next feature was very much of its time. Congo Bill debuted in More Fun Comics #56 (June 1940) and adventured there for a year (#67, May 1941) before upgrading to flagship title Action Comics with #37 (June 1941). A solid and reliable B-feature, his global safaris were popular enough to make him a star of his own movie serial and win his own 7-issue series (running from August/September 1954 to August/September 1955). His exploits followed trend slavishly: he faced uprisings, criminals, contemptuous rich wastrels, wars, plagues, evil witch-doctors, mad scientists, monsters, aliens – and every permutation thereof – in his monthly vignettes; gained a sidekick in Action Comics #191 (April 1954) and even evolved into a sort of superhero in Action #224 (January 1957) when he gained the power to body swap with golden gorilla Congorilla. He/they prowled in Action until #261 (February 1960), whereupon the feature moved into Adventure Comics, running from #270-283 (March 1960-April 1961). As comics folk are painfully, incurably nostalgic, the characters have been revived many times since…

Here Congo Bill – with Janu the Jungle Boy open their innings with ‘The Mystery of the Jungle Monuments!’ (Action Comics #206, July 1955) authorially uncredited but illustrated by Edwin J. Smalle, Jr., as they uncover a cunning smuggling plot before equally long-lived space patrolman/interplanetary Coast Guard operative Tommy Tomorrow pops in from the future to solve ‘The Puzzle of the Perilous Planetoid’ – from Action Comics #206 July 1955 and crafted – as were most of his missions – by Otto Binder & Jim Mooney.

The strip was a hugely long-running back-up strip which began in Real Fact Comics #6 (January 1947). Devised by Jack Schiff, George Kashdan, Bernie Breslauer, Virgil Finlay and Howard Sherman, it was a speculative science feature that returned in #8, 13 & 16 before shifting to Action Comics (#127-251, December 1948 to April 1959). Along the way Tommy became a Colonel in the peacekeeping Planeteers organisation…

With superheroes ascending again, he then moved into World’s Finest Comics (#102- 124, June 1959 to March 1962) and endured one final reboot in Showcase #41-42, 44 & 46-47 (1962-1963) before fading from sight and memory until rediscovered and reimagined by later generations…

Here the interstellar star of 2058 (so not long now) and his patrol partner Captain Brent Wood solve a titanic taxonomical conundrum before we switch from fantasy to contemporary showbiz…

When superheroes declined in the early 1950s, Detective Comics shed its costumed cohort for more rationalistic reasoners and grounded champions. One of the most offbeat was Roy Raymond, a TV personality who hosted hit series “Impossible… But True”. Illustrated by Ruben Moreira, it launched in #153 (November 1949): its formulaic yet versatile pattern being that his researchers or members of the public would present weird or “supernatural” items or mysteries for the arch-debunker to inevitably expose as misunderstanding, mistake or, as in this case, criminal fraud…

Produced throughout this book by Jack Miller & Moreira, Roy Raymond, TV Detective introduces ‘The Man with the Magic Camera’ (Detective Comics #246 August 1957) as a tinkerer with an X-ray camera is exposed as a cunning crook after which another Boltinoff Professor Eureka treat segues into Aquaman thriller, ‘The Guinea Pig of the Sea’ (by Joe Millard & Fradon from Adventure Comics #250, July 1958) with the Sea King abducted by a well-intentioned but obsessive researcher fed up with waiting for a moment in the hero’s hectic schedule to open up…

My earlier carping about continuity is confirmed here as Congo Bill and Janu face ‘The Five from the Future’. Crafted by Miller & Sherman, it comes from Action Comics #243 (August 1958) and sees the heroes facing an alien invasion of beasts. It reads well enough as is, but is actually the second part of a continued tale, with the first chapter appearing towards the end of this tome. I pity the little kid trying to make sense of that. Actually, no I don’t: we didn’t care that much – it’s just adults that worry about that instead of great art and fantastic thrills…

If you can find this book, just read part 1 at the back then flip back here, ok?

Tommy Tomorrow then makes a rare mistake by accidentally destroying ‘The Interplanetary Scarecrow’ (Action Comics #245, October 1958) before ending the seasonal menace it was intended to frighten off and – following another Professor Eureka moment – Roy Raymond heads to Africa and encounters ‘The Man who Charmed Wild Beasts’ (Detective Comics #256 June 1958).

Space Ranger is next in his very first tale (from Showcase #15 and seen in the US with a September/October 1958 cover-date). It commenced – without fanfare or origin – the ongoing adventures of the futuristic mystery man – beginning in ‘The Great Plutonium Plot’. Plotted by Gardner Fox, scripted by Hamilton and illustrated by Brown, it begins when Jarko the Jovian space pirate targets ships carrying a trans-uranic element. Rick Starr suspects hidden motives and, as Space Ranger, lays a cunning trap, exposing a hidden mastermind and a lethal ancient device endangering the entire solar system…

Keeping up a theme of times and space ‘At Sea in the Stone Age’ is an anonymously scripted Aquaman yarn limned by Fradon (Adventure Comics #184, January 1953) which sees another watery warp propel the Sea King into the distant past. Once again primordial men need help against ravening sea monsters and the hero is happy to oblige…

Bill and Janu then confront ‘The Riddle of the Roc!’ (illustrated by Sherman from Action Comics #244 September 1958) as crooked diamond prospector Ed Vance finds a giant egg and trains the hatchling into the perfect plundering weapon …until our great white hunter employs his trapping skills…

With his job and reputation on the line, Tommy Tomorrow solves ‘The Mystery of the Three Space Rookies’ (Action #244, September 1958) who are just too good to be true, before tantalising ads and public service announcement ‘The Atom – the Servant of Man’ – by Schiff, Morris Waldinger & Tony Nicolosi? – precede Miller & Fradon’s salty tale of Aquaman’s plight as ‘The Robinson Crusoe of the Sea’ (Adventure Comics #252, September 1958). It begins when a chemical spill makes the Sea King allergic to seawater and offers a charming sequence of clever crisis management by our hero’s octopus pal Topo…

Miller & Smalle, Jr. pit Bill and Jungle Boy against ‘The Amazing Army of Apes!’ (Action #219, August 1956) as a soldier seemingly deranged by jungle fever goes on a rampage, after which Colonel Tommy Tomorrow is pressganged into a space tyrant’s retinue to stalk freedom fighters as one of ‘The Hunters of the Future!’ (Binder & Mooney from Action Comics #190 March 1954) and Boltinoff’s Moolah the Mystic has a close encounter on his flying carpet…

Roy Raymond exposes fraud and attempted murder in the case of accident-prone ‘Mr. Disaster’ (Detective #258, August 1958) before one final Space Ranger romp solves ‘The Riddle of the Lost Race’ (Fox, Hamilton & Brown from Showcase #16). The case takes Rick’s team on a whistle-stop tour of the Solar system in pursuit of a vicious criminal and hidden treasures of a long-vanished civilisation…

Aquaman scuppers ‘The Outlaw Navy’ of a modern pirate in a rip-raring romp by Millard & Fradon (Adventure Comics #194, November 1953) and the first part of Congo Bill’s alien adventure finds him and Janu the Jungle Boy facing Venusian marauder Xov on a ‘Safari from Space!’ (Miller & Sherman, Action Comics #242, July 1958). To confirm an old prospector’s bonanza claim Tommy Tomorrow assembles ‘The Strangest Crew in the Universe’ (Action Comics #241 June 1958) before the Superadventuring wraps up with Roy Raymond investigating apparently accursed timber from ‘The Fantastic Forest’ as seen in Detective Comics #260 October 1958). The festivities finish with a quick cartoon lesson in science feature Solar System Sizes!, revealing the wonders of comets and meteors.

Quirky and fun, this is a true delight for oldsters and casual consumers of comics and offers true fans their only real opportunity to see material DC doesn’t seem to care about any more…
© National Periodical Publications, Inc. Published by arrangement with the K.G. Murray Publishing Company, Pty. Ltd., Sydney.

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Lion Annual 1954


By Frank S. Pepper, Ron Forbes, Edwin Dale, Ted Cowan, Vernon Crick, & many & various (Amalgamated Press)
No ISBN: Digital edition

The 1950s ushered in a revolution in British comics. With wartime restrictions on printing and paper lifted, a steady stream of new titles emerged from many companies and when The Eagle launched from the Hulton Press in April 1950, the very idea of what weeklies could be altered forever. That kind of oversized prestige package with photogravure colour was exorbitantly expensive however, and when London-based publishing powerhouse Amalgamated Press retaliated with their own equivalent, it was an understandably more economical affair.

I’m assuming they only waited so long before the first issue of Lion launched (cover-dated February 23rd 1952) to see if their flashy rival periodical was going to last. Lion – just like The Eagle – was a mix of prose stories, features and comic strips and even offered its own cover-featured space-farer in Captain Condor – Space Ship Pilot.

Initially edited by Reg Eves, the title ran for 1156 weekly issues until 18th May 1974 when it merged with sister-title Valiant. Along the way, in the approved manner of British comics which subsumed weaker-selling titles to keep popular strips going, Lion absorbed Sun (in 1959) and Champion (1966) before going on to swallow The Eagle in April 1969 before merging with Thunder in 1971. In its capacity as one of the country’s most popular and enduring adventure comics, the last vestiges of Lion finally vanished in 1976 when Valiant was amalgamated with Battle Picture Weekly.

Despite its demise in the mid-70s, there were 30 Lion Annuals between 1953 and 1982, all targeting the lucrative Christmas market, combining a broad variety of original strips with topical and historical prose adventures; sports, science and general interest features; short humour strips and – increasingly in the 1970s – reformatted reprints from IPC/Fleetway’s vast back catalogue.

That’s certainly not the case with this particular item. Forward-dated 1954, but actually published in late 1953, it’s the first counterstrike from AP in the war to own Christmas: a delicious – but occasionally ethno-socially and culturally dated and dubious – dose of traditional comics entertainment. Big on variety, sturdily produced in a starkly potent monochrome, it offers a wide mixed bag of treats to beguile boisterous boys in a rapidly-changing world. What’s especially satisfying is that, current sensibilities notwithstanding, this volume has been digitised and can be bought and read electronically by kids of all vintages today…

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that these entertainments were produced in good faith with the best of intentions by creators in a culture and at a time very different from ours. Very frequently attitudes and expressions are employed which we now find a little upsetting, but this book is actually one of the better examples of racial, gender and cultural tolerance. Still, even so…

The cornucopia of prose, puzzles, strips and features (all illustrated by artists as photography was too expensive) opens with a rather disturbing but truly lovely painted frontispiece ‘The Redskin Accepts the Challenge’ before a contents page promises astounding wonders to come.

We then rocket into adventure in the future where freedom fighter Captain Condor – by Frank S. Pepper and probably illustrated by original artist Ron Forbes – continues his war against despots running the solar system by solving ‘The Mystery of the Vanished Space-Ship!’ Edwin Dale then provides a prose thriller starring troubleshooter Mr. X, who discovers ‘The Tree that Stopped a Rebellion’ as he traverses the fabled African Veldt…

Presumably scripted by Ted Cowan & illustrated by Barry (R. G. Thomas) Nelson, ‘Sandy Dean’s Prize Guy’ is a comic strip wherein the schoolboy paragon and his chums deal with cheating classmates sabotaging and stealing effigies built to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. It’s followed by Nigel Dawn’s prose thriller ‘Too Smart for the Atom Spy!’ wherein a schoolboy pigeon fancier foils a cunning espionage plot, after which we segue into a historical action strip credited to George Forrest (Cowan again).

‘The Slaves who Saved the Emperor’ follows two recently escaped British warriors who foil an imperial Roman assassination and is counterbalanced by Tom Stirling’s (E. L. Rosman) humorous text tale ‘Only a Press-Button Champ!’ This sees inventor’s nephew Jingo Jones stir up tons of trouble using his “Invisibliser” to save himself from a bully. Sadly, it also gives his headmaster and a boxing promoter the idea that the skinny runt is a fighting marvel…

‘The Weird Ways of Witch-Doctors Beat the Bush-Rangers’ (possibly by John Donnelly Jr.) shares amazing “facts” about jobbing mages in the post-war world after which John Barnes -AKA Peter O’Donnell – tells prose tale of ‘Chalu the Elephant Boy’ who clears his beloved four-legged co-worker Tooska when the big beast is framed as a murderous rogue animal…

Rex King (A.W. Henderson) delivers comic strip cowboy thrills as cavalry scout exposes a traitor and battles ‘Peril on the Tomahawk Trail’ before ‘Wiz and Lofty – Rescuers of the Kidnapped King’ (by E.L. Rosman as Victor Norman) delivers text thrills and spills as the globetrotting speed merchants stumble into a deadly plot to usurp a kingdom…

Harry Hollinson D.F.C. details and depicts some soon to be commonplace future wonders in speculative feature ‘Scientists Land on the Moon’ after which we pop back to WWII where Edward R. Home-Gall (AKA Edwin Dale) reveals in cartoon form how ‘The Lone Commandos’ scupper hidden Nazi artillery and save British soldiers in ‘Operation Gunfire’ before Vernon Crick shows in prose that ‘Rust’s the Boy for Stunts’: a rousing tale of motorcycle mayhem and skulduggery at a circus’ Wall of Death ride…

A pictorial ‘World-Wide Quiz’ tests your general knowledge before Peter O’Donnell – as Derek Knight – delivers a chilling prose vignette of Arctic endeavour as ‘Tulak Hunts the Polar Terror’, saving lost scientists, capturing murderous outlaws and stalking a killer bear…

A sea strip by A. W. Henderson as Roy Leighton sees schooner skipper Don Watson save pearl divers and solve ‘The Secret of Ju-Ju Island’ whilst Michael Fox’s prose story ‘Mike Merlin – Master of Magic’ details the greatest trick of a schoolboy conjuror before we meet one of British comics’ most enduring stars.

Robot Archie began life as ‘The Jungle Robot’ and his comic strip (by E. George Cowan & Ted/Jim Kearon) reveals how the mechanical marvel becomes the ‘Pal o’ the Pigmies’ before another prose piece by R. G. Thomas sees a western trader and his Native American pal stave off bandits and a hidden tribe of renegades in ‘Rod and the Red Arrow Raiders’…

A ‘Picture Parade of Facts from Near and Far’ precedes a text thriller by Hedley Scott (AKA Hedley O’Mant) wherein ‘The Schoolboy Treasure Hunters’ do a bit of digging and uncover presumed pirate gold with a far more modern and sinister provenance, before John Fordice (Colin Robertson) employs the comic strip form to catch ‘The Smash-and-Grab Speedster’, courtesy of consulting crimebuster Brett Marlowe, Detective as he explores the contemporary sporting phenomenon of motorcycle speedway…

Donald Dane’s prose yarn ‘Kurdo of the Strong Arm’ details the fascinating, action-packed saga of a Viking teenager – from ancient Scotland – stranded in North America hundreds of years before Columbus and leads to all those puzzle answers and final cartoon fact file ‘Fishy Tales – But They’re True!’ before a House Ad for weekly Lion – “The King of Picture Story Papers!’ brings us to the back cover and a sponsored treat: early infotainment treat ‘Cadbury’s Car Race puzzle’.

Sadly, many of the creators remain unknown and uncredited, especially the exceptional artists whose efforts adorn the prose stories, but this remains a solid box of delights for any “bloke of a certain age” seeking to recapture his so-happily uncomplicated youth. It also has the added advantage of being far less likely than other (usually unsavoury) endeavours which, although designed to rekindle the dead past, generally lead to divorce…

Before I go, let’s thank Steve Holland at Bear Alley (link please) and all the other dedicated diligent bods researching and excavating the names and other facts for everyone like me to cite and pretend we’re so clever…

A true taste of days gone by, this is a chance for the curious to test bygone tomes and times and I thoroughly recommend it to your house…
© 1955 the Amalgamated Press and latterly IPC. All rights reserved.

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The Dandy Book 1972


By many & various (D.C. Thomson & Co.)
ISBN: 978-0-85116-043-6 (HB)

For generations of British fans Christmas means The Beano Book, The Broons, Oor Wullie and making every December 25th magical. There used to be many more DC Thomson titles, but the years have gradually winnowed them away. Thankfully, time means nothing here, so this year I’m concentrating on another Thomson Christmas cracker that made me the man wot I am. As usual my knowledge of the creators involved is woefully inadequate but I’m going to hazard a few guesses anyway, in the hope that someone with better knowledge will correct me whenever I err.

The Dandy comic predated The Beano by eight months, utterly revolutionising the way children’s publications looked and – most importantly – how they were read. Over decades it produced a bevy of household names that delighted millions, with end of year celebrations being bumper bonanzas of the weekly stars in magnificent bumper hardback annuals.

Premiering on December 4th December 1937, The Dandy broke the mould of its hidebound British predecessors by utilising word balloons and captions rather than narrative blocks of text under sequential picture frames. A colossal success, it was followed on July 30th 1938 by The Beano. Together they revolutionised children’s publications. Dandy was the third longest running comic in the world (behind Italy’s Il Giornalino – launched in 1924 – and America’s Detective Comics in March 1937).

Over decades the “terrible twins” spawned countless cartoon stars of unforgettable and beloved household names who delighted generations of avid and devoted readers…

The Christmas Annuals were traditionally produced in the wonderful “half-colour” British publishers used to keep costs down whilst bringing a little spark into our drab and gloomy young lives. The process involved printing sections with only two (of potentially 4) plates, such as blue/Cyan and red/Magenta as seen in this majority of this tome. The versatility and palette range provided was astounding. Even now the technique screams “Holidays” to me and my contemporaries, and this volume uses the technique to stunning effect.

As you can see, the fun-filled action begins on the covers and continues on the reverse, with front-&-back covers and Introduction pages occupied by superstar Korky the Cat (by Charlie Grigg) setting the tone with a sequence of splendid seasonal sight gags.

D.C. Thomson were also extremely adept at combining anarchic, clownish comedy with solid fantasy/adventure tales. The eclectic menu truly opens with some topical environmentalism working as drama in Paddy Brennan’s ‘Guardian of the Red Raider’. Such picture thrillers still came in the traditional captioned format, with blocks of typeset text rather than word balloons. Here, bedridden schoolboy Freddy Gibbon “adopts” a vixen and her cubs, secretly safeguarding them from harm until they can fend for themselves.

From there we revert to the cheeky comfort of simpler times as Dirty Dick – by the incredibly engaging Eric Roberts (no, not the actor) – finds our perennially besmudged and befouled boy on his best and cleanest behaviour in anticipation of a visit from his American penfriend. However, in comics good intentions count for nothing…

Appropriately switching to black and blue plates, we next meet eternal enemies Bully Beef and Chips. Drawn by Jimmy Hughes, the thuggish big kid’s antics invariably proved that a weedy underdog’s brain always trumped brutal brawn, as here where little Chips orchestrates well-deserved payback after Bully forces little lads to play with his dangerously-rigged Christmas crackers…

Hugh Morren’s The Smasher was a lad cut from the same mould as Dennis the Menace and in the first of his contributions carves a characteristic swathe of anarchic destruction, when seeking to join a cowboy movie location shoot,

A quick switch to red & black – and all the tones between – signals the advance of hard-pressed squaddie Corporal Clott (by David Sutherland) who again bears the brunt of cruel misfortune and surly Colonel Grumbly when ordered to provide a slap-up feed for a visiting General…

The prolific Roberts always played a huge part in making these annuals work and next up his signature star Winker Watson hosts double-page picture puzzle ‘Catch the Imps!’: testing mind, eye and vocabulary before Shamus O’Doherty’s Bodger the Bookworm is seduced away from his comfortable reading to play football… with catastrophic repercussions…

Back in black & blue, traditional chaotic school hijinks get a cruel and crazy feudal spin in Ron Spencer’s Whacko! before we stay on topic but jump 500 years to the then-present and a different take on the education crisis. Whilst much comics material was based on school as seen by pupils, George Martin’s Greedy Pigg featured a voracious teacher always attempting to confiscate and scoff his pupils’ snacks. This time, he forsakes tuck boxes and extends his reach to the fodder fed to zoo animals – and gets what he deserves after masquerading as a gorilla…

Unforgivably racist but somehow painfully topical, Hughes’ Wun Tun and Too Tun the Chinese Spies traces the misadventures of badly-briefed oriental agents in old Blighty. Here they get lost in and misunderstand the point of sewers, after which Sutherland’s Desperate Dan offers a range of incidents deriving from the sagebrush superman letting his beard grow out of control.

The daftness drifts into more brilliantly entertaining eco-messaging as Peter Potter’s Otters – by Grigg employing his dramatic style – sees a gamekeeper’s son contrive to rescue a family of river-dwelling “pests” from the community seeking to eradicate them…

Jack Edward Oliver’s My Woozy Dog Snoozy proves utterly useless as a security guard, but does usher in green & black tones to welcome back Korky the Cat, whose clash with a fish farm’s “security guards” segues into a doggerel dotted Zany Zoo feature. An examination of The Smasher’s evolutionary forebears heralds a resumption of blue hues as Roberts delivers another classic Winker Watson yarn that is now sadly drenched in controversy and potential offense.

It begins when the Third Form lads of Greytowers School act on their love of the BBC’s Black and White Minstrel Show (look it up, but be prepared to be appalled before realising just how far we’ve come…): adding a blackface minstrel skit to the Christmas Concert. When chastised and rebuffed by form master Mr. Creep, schoolboy grifter Winker institutes a cunning scheme – worthy of Mission Impossible or Leverage – to make the teacher the butt of a joke and star of the show…

The green scene enjoys one last outing for a lengthy police spoof. Created by John Geering and played strictly for laughs, P.C. Big Ears was an overzealous beat copper with outrageous lugholes whose super-hearing and faithful dog Sniffer helped him crush “crime”. Here the dynamic duo are hot on the trail of a truant schoolboy, but pay a irritating price for their dutiful diligence, after which another light-hearted drama ensues, courtesy of Bill Holroyd.

With premium blue & red plates back in play home-made mechanoid Brassneck kicks off an avalanche of trouble after a service by his inventor. Uncle Sam pal warns the robot-boy’s pal Charley Brand that the automaton might be a little fragile for a while but is blithely unaware how rowdy and boisterous school can be. When a couple of unavoidable buffets trigger wild outbursts, Brassneck’s antics close the school, empty the parks and even cause animal escapes from the zoo before order is finally restored…

Desperate Dan then catches cold and almost decimates the environment in his efforts to get warm and stop sneezing before Korky the Cat suffers the downside of camping, and pint-sized hellion Dinah Mite (drawn by Ron Spencer) tests some possible careers should she ever leave school.

Another blue section opens with animal gags in Jokey Jumbo and Winker Watson puzzle feature ‘It’s as Easy as ABC’ before My Woozy Dog Snoozy compounds his worthlessness when a burglar breaks in.

A switch to red and black sees Corporal Clott suckered by a spiv and become the proud new owner of a lethally destructive vacuum cleaner after he replaces the naff motor with a leftover jet engine. Blue tones are back as George Matin’s big-footed klutz Claude Hopper learns why he’s not cut out for a job waiting tables and Korky the Cat wins a fancy dress competition by being extremely cool…

More red & blue pages picture Dirty Dick at his dustily destructive worst before a switch to yellow & black plates finds Greedy Pigg imitating a tramp to get scrumptious handouts before Wun Tun and Too Tun the Chinese Spies return in another distressingly outdated and inappropriate espionage episode.

Rendered in red and black. Sandy Calder powerfully illustrates Scruffy the Bad-Luck Doggie as ordinary kid Danny Dunlop saves a scrappy mutt from bullies trying to drown it, but takes some time and effort – and a few hard knocks – adjusting to being the owner of a semi-feral delinquent dog…

Sentiment surrenders to surreal silliness and yellow hues as Desperate Dan teaches a dog how to be fierce, before Bodger the Bookworm enflames his family by practising matchstick tricks and Korky successfully poaches a fish in more ways than one, after which black & blue tones detail a pretty Darwinian battle for survival and supremacy amongst alley cats as Boss of the Backyards (by Murray Ball – whose wonderful Footrot Flats strips are just crying out for a modern archival edition) sees a tough newcomer challenge a wild moggy in the kingdom of bins and backstreets…

Dirty Dick is tarred by own insolence – and tar – in a very early example of photobombing and My Woozy Dog Snoozy turns the tables on his longsuffering owner, before P.C. Big Ears finds his own hound complicit in apple scrumping. Corporal Clott then dumps the colonel in a frozen river and Korky again profits from his thieving ways…

Another flush of red & blue captures Bully Beef and Chips causing chaos with a doctor’s play set and Greedy Pigg outsmarted by the dog he borrowed to steal food for him, and true blue drama Bold Ben’s Boulder (by Victor Peon?) has a young boy save his uncle’s fortune and life when Burmese bandits go on a kidnapping spree before one final flush of red & black sees Desperate Dan solve a lighting crisis with a little illuminating larceny…

With Puzzle Answers and the aforementioned Korky endpapers wrapping up proceedings, let’s celebrate another tremendously fun book; with so much merriment on offer I can’t believe this book is 51 years old, and still available through second hand outlets.

The only thing better would by curated archive reissues and digital editions…
© D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd, 1971.

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Merry Christmas Every One!

In keeping with my self-imposed Holidays tradition, here’s another pick of British Annuals selected not just for nostalgia’s sake but because it’s my wife’s house and my rules…

After decades when only American comics and memorabilia were considered collectable or worthy, a resurgence of interest in home-grown material means there’s lots more of this stuff available. So, if you’re lucky enough to stumble across a vintage volume, modern facsimile or even one of the growing number of digital reproductions increasingly cropping up, I hope my words can convince you to expand your comfort zone and try something old…

Still topping my Xmas wish-list are more collections from fans and publishers who have begun to rescue this magical material from print limbo in (affordable and annotated) new collections…

Great writing and art is rotting in boxes and attics or the archives of publishing houses, when it needs to be back in the hands of readers once again. As the tastes of the reading public have never been broader and since a selective sampling of our popular heritage will always appeal to some part of the mass consumer base, let’s all continue rewarding publishers for their efforts and prove that there’s money to be made from these glorious examples of our communal childhood.

These materials were created long ago in a different society for a very different audience. As such much material is inadvertently funny, blatantly racist and/or sexist and pretty much guaranteed to offend somebody sooner or later. Think of it as having to talk to your grandparents about “back when everything was better”…

If you don’t think you can tolerate – let alone enjoy – what’s being discussed here, maybe it’s not the book you need today. Why not look at something else or play a game instead?

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The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories



By John Stanley, Walt Kelly, Richard Scarry, Jack Bradbury, Klaus Nordling, Mike Sekowsky, Alberto Giolitti & various: edited and designed by Craig Yoe with Clizia Gussoni (IDW Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-60010-773-3(HB); 978-1-68405-009-3(TPB); eISBN: 978-1-68406-352-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Clue is in the Title… 10/10

Justifiably revered for brilliant, landmark newspaper strip Pogo, or perhaps his wonderful Our Gang tales, the incredible Walt Kelly also has a pretty strong claim to owning traditional western culture’s Christmas – at least in terms of childhood experience. From 1942 until he quit comic-books for newsprint, Kelly produced stories and magazines dedicated to the season of Good Will for publishing giant Dell.

Santa Claus Funnies and Christmas with Mother Goose were a Holidays institution in both their Four Color and Dell Giant incarnations, and the sheer beauty and charm of Kelly’s art defined what Christmas should be for generations. Kelly transferred his affinity for the best of all fantasy worlds to the immortal Pogo but still was especially associated with the Festive season. Many publications sought out his special touch. The Christmas 1955 edition of Newsweek even starred Kelly and Co on the cover.

Thanks to dedicated preserver of America’s Comics history Craig Yoe, we can add more great creators and stories to our communal archive of seasonal joy, with this cracking tome celebrating Yuletide comic classics.

Wrapped up here are old masters and vintage delights from Santa Claus Funnies # 61, 91,128, 175, 205, 302, 361, 867, 1154 & 1274 (spanning 1944-1962) plus 1962’s Santa Claus Funnies #1 and material from A Christmas Treasury #1 1954; Sleepy Santa (1948); Ha Ha Comics #49 (1947); Santa and the Pirates (1953); Here Comes Santa (1960); Christmas at the Rotunda, Giant Comics #3 (1957) and Christmas Carnival volume 1 #2 (1954). This superb funfest opens with a silent short by Kelly revealing the Big (in red) Man’s working practice, & Mo Gollub introducing ‘The Christmas Mouse’ (from Santa Clause Funnies #126 and #175) before we enjoy a Seasonal message (illustrated by Mel Millar) revealing ‘Hey Kids, Christmas Comics!’

‘How Santa Got his Red Suit’ is a superbly imaginative, gnome-stuffed origin fable by Kelly from Santa Claus Funnies # 61, after which H.R. Karp & Jack Bradbury reveal the salutary saga of ‘Blitzen, Jr.’ as first seen in Ha Ha Comics #49, whilst a tragically uncredited team disclose in prose-&-picture format the magical adventure of ‘Santa and the Pirates’, taken from a booklet Premium released by Promotional Publishing Co. NYC.

As rendered by the inimitable John Stanley, SCF #1154’s ‘Santa’s Problem’ explores the good intentions and bad habits of polar bears, before Mike Sekowsky contributes a concise, workmanlike adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ (from A Christmas Treasury #1) before Kelly returns with the heart-warming tale of ‘A Mouse in the House’ (SCF #128).

Stanley strikes again with ‘The Helpful Snowman’ (Here Comes Santa) offering aerial assistance to Kris Kringle whilst Christmas at the Rotunda offers a classy version of ‘The Shoemaker and the Elves’ courtesy of Elsa Jane Werner & Richard Scarry, after which cognoscenti can see potent prototypes for Pogo characters in 1945’s ‘Christmas Comes to the Woodland’ (SCF #91): another whimsical Kelly classic.

Imbecilic but well-meaning elf Scamper causes mayhem, prompting ‘Santa’s Return Trip’ in a wry delight from John Stanley & Irving Tripp (from SCF #1274), after which Stanley & Dan Gormley craft an epic voyage for determined rugrats Cathy and David as they deliver ‘A Letter for Santa’ (Santa Claus Funnies #1).

Another masterful Kelly prose-&-picture fable then recounts the sentimental journey of ‘Ticky Tack, the Littlest Reindeer’ (SCF #205) and the animal crackerz continue as a lost puppy finds friendship and a new home in ‘Sooky’s First Christmas’ (Stanley & Gormley from SCF #867)…

Charlton Comics were late to the party for X-mas strips, but their glorious Giant Comics #3 from 1957 provides here both Frank Johnson’s anarchic ‘Lil’ Tomboy in It Was the Day Before Christmas…’ and an extra-length action-packed romp for Al Fago to masterfully orchestrate in ‘Atomic Mouse in The Night before Christmas’. Separating those yarns is a deft updating of Clement Clark Moore’s ubiquitous ode in ‘The Night before Christmas’ by Dan Gormley from A Christmas Treasury #1…

In 1947, Kelly set his sights on consolidating a new Holiday mythology and succeeded with outrageous aplomb in ‘The Great Three-Flavoured Blizzard’ (Santa Claus Funnies #175) as an unseasonal warm spell precipitates a crisis and necessitates the making of a new kind of snow, before fabulous Klaus Nordling contributes a stylish comedy of errors with ‘Joe and Jennifer in the Wonderful Snowhouse’ from Christmas Carnival volume 1 #2.

Bringing things to a close Dan Noonan concocts a staffing crisis for Santa to solve with the aid of ‘Teddy Bear in Toyland’ (SCF #91, 1950) after which we enjoy a moment of sober reflection as ‘The Christmas Story’ – according to St. Matthew’s gospel and illuminated by Alberto Giolitti – (A Christmas Treasury #1) reminds us that for many people it’s not just about loot, excess and fantasy.

Kelly then ushers us out with a brace of end pieces encompassing a poetic hunt for the old boy and a silent silly symphony from ‘The Carollers’…

It absolutely baffles me that Kelly and his peers’ unique and universally top-notch Christmas tales – and Batman’s too for that matter – are not re-released every November for the Yule spending spree. Christmas is all about nostalgia and good old days and there is no bigger sentimental sap on the planet than your average comics punter. And once these books are out there their supreme readability will quickly make converts of the rest of the world.

Just you wait and see…
The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories © 2018 Gussoni-Yoe Studio, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Material reprinted: Sleepy Santa © 1948 Belda Record & Publishing Co. Ha Ha Comics #49 © Creston Publications Corporation. Santa and the Pirates © 1953 Promotional Publishing Co. NYC. Christmas at the Rotunda © 1955 Ford Motor Company and Artists and Writers Guild, Inc. Giant Comics #3 © 1957 Charlton Comics Group Christmas Carnival vol. 1 #2 St. John Publishing Corp. ©1954. © Western Printing & Lithographing Co. 1948, 1950, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1960, 1961, 1962. © 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, Oscar Lebek/Dell Publishing, Western Printing & Lithographing Co.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks volume 11: Christmas For Shacktown


By Carl Barks & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-574-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, growing up in the rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you crave detail, but briefly, Barks worked as an animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books.

With studio partner Jack Hannah (another animator turned occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for a cartoon short into Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was published in October of that year as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 and – although not his first published comics work – was the story that shaped the rest of Barks’ career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, he worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing, drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters, including Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952) and Magica De Spell (1961) to supplement Disney’s stable of illustrated actors.

His greatest creation was undoubtedly the crusty, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: world’s wealthiest septuagenarian waterfowl and the harassed, hard-pressed, scene-swiping co-star of this tome.

Whilst producing all that landmark material, Barks was just a working guy, crafting covers, drawing other people’s scripts and contributing his stories to a burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. Only in the 1980s – after Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging his work and other Disney strips – did Barks discover the devoted appreciation he never imagined existed…

So potent were his creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output, even though his brilliant comics were produced for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the Disney studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly the animated series Duck Tales: heavily based on his Scrooge comics output.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the comedy blockbuster: blending wit, history, science, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps which captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions, there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

Throughout his working life, Barks was blissfully unaware that his efforts – uncredited by official policy as was all Disney’s strip and comic book output – had been singled out by a rabidly discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, Barks’ belated celebrity began.

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books started collecting his Duck materials in carefully curated archival volumes, tracing the output approximately year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library…

The physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release and showcasing works from 1947. Today we’re revisiting 1951-1952, with volume 11 offering another landmark Seasonal tale that critically reshaped the supposedly throwaway, 2-dimensional miser into the richly rounded character beloved by billions…

It begins eponymously with Bark’s most enduring creation in top form. The elder McDuck had debuted in ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ (Four Color #178, December 1947): a handy comedy foil stemming from a Yuletide tale of woe and joy. He was a miserly relative who seethed in opulent isolation, hating everybody and meanly opting to share the gloom by tormenting his nephew Donald and his junior houseguests Huey, Louie and Dewey – by gifting them his mountain cabin for the Holidays. Scrooge schemed, intent on terrorising them in a bear costume, but fate had other ideas…

After the tale ended Barks realised that although the old coot was creepy, menacing and money-mad, he was also energetic and oddly lovable – and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent or thrown away. Further appearances proved that he was right and his expedient maguffin was undoubtedly his greatest cartoon creation. The Downy Dodecadillionaire returned often, eventually expanding to fill all available space in tales set in the scenic metropolis of Duckburg.

Here. shifted slightly out of publishing chronology – because McDuck is not about wasting time or money – we open eponymously with the lead tale from Four Color #367. Cover-dated January 1952, ‘A Christmas For Shacktown’ begins as Donald’s nephews take a detour through the bad side of town and realise they cannot allow all the poverty-stricken children they see endure a festive season without food or toys…

Their discussion also inspires Daisy Duck, who resolves to organise a solution, and before long her women’s club is tapping Duckburg’s citizens for contributions. Daisy herself asks Donald – who’s experiencing a personal cashflow crisis and can’t afford his own Yule celebrations – who might make up her final $50 shortfall. When the nephews suggest Scrooge McDuck, Donald is reluctantly despatched to beg a donation, and does not relish the conversation…

That last 50 bucks is to buy turkeys and provide the joyless waifs with a train set, but after a titanic tussle, Donald can only get the skinflint to agree to $25… and that’s only for the food, not silly fripperies like toys…

Rapidly regrouping, Donald and Daisy are overwhelmed when the nephews hand over their savings and tell their “Unca Donald” to similarly donate the money put aside for their presents, but it’s still not enough and the trio then head off to shovel snow from sidewalks to make up the difference.

Ashamed and emboldened, Donald resolves to get what’s needed from Scrooge, embarking upon a series of increasingly wild stunts – including recruiting despicable rival Gladstone Gander – that culminates in disaster when Scrooge’s overloaded money vault collapses under the weight of its own reserves, plunging his entire fortune into the bowels of the Earth.

Confronted with penury, the despondent tycoon is saved by Donald and the boys who devise a means of retrieving the loot which gives the miser a new perspective on the value of toys: a view that rightly translates into Shacktown enjoying the best Christmas ever…

A month prior to that yarn, anthological Walt Disney Comics & Stories #135 (cover-dated December 1951) featured The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill’ wherein the old money magnate debuted his monolithic money bin, and invites Donald and the boys to inspect it… if they can get past all his baroque and byzantine security measures. Sadly, the visit also inspires the dastardly Beagle Boys to try to empty it…

WDC&S #136 (January 1952) then finds Donald suffering a braggart’s boasts again as his despised super-lucky rival recounts ‘Gladstone’s Usual Good Year’. Driven to distraction, Donald resorts to cheating just to raise his own spirits and something very unlikely occurs…

For #137, Donald and the nephews head to the mountains after he sells a song. Sadly, ‘The Screaming Cowboy’ is a particularly annoying tune that Donald smugly plays on every juke box in the region: the ominously named Avalanche Valley…

Scrooge returned in (WDC&S #138 March 1952), acting in a most uncharacteristic manner as ‘Statuesque Spendthrifts’ revealed him locked in financial combat with the proudly philanthropic Maharajah of Howduyustan to prove who was truly “the richest man in the world”. The battle revolved around who could donate the most ornate, ostentatious and gaudy monument of Duckburg’s founder…

When Huey, Dewey & Louie’s latest hobby – racing pigeons – inspires Donald’s disdain, the mean Unca attempts to sabotage and gaslight them, but learns his lesson when ‘Rocket Wing Saves the Day’ (WDC&S #139, April) after he has an accident…

The family – and even outrageous inventor Gyro Gearloose – are united in WDC&S #140, working to uncover annoying wastrel ‘Gladstone’s Terrible Secret’, and the chaos-creating boffin is back in #141, much to Donald’s dismay and the nephews’ delight: upsetting the natural order with machines giving beasts human attributes in ‘The Think Box Bollix’…

Four Color #408 (July/August 1952) was an All-Donald/All Barks affair and opens with a brace of single page gags, starting with ‘Full-Service Windows’ as the wily retailer finds a cheap and easy way to clean his shop front and compounding interest with ‘Rigged-Up Roller’ (alternately called ‘Rigged Up Lawn’) wherein the nephews must find a new way to keep the yard maintained…

The main event was extended action adventure ‘The Golden Helmet’ wherein bored museum guard Donald stops a suspicious individual poking about in a Viking longship and uncovers a hidden deerskin map. It reveals how explorer Olaf the Blue discovered America in 901 AD, and left a golden helmet which confirms when and how the nation was born.

The museum authorities are exultant… but only until the meddler returns with his lawyer Sharky. Azure Blue claims to be the descendant of Olaf and invokes the ancient “code of discovery” law. It dictates that as proof of the event, the helmet also confers ownership of the continent on the heirs… but only if Azure finds it first…

Almost resenting his earlier dreams of adventure, Donald recruits his nephews and dashes off with the museum curator to Labrador. They are all intent on saving Americans from becoming Blue’s slaves: battling deadly weather, constant misfortune and the machinations of Azure and Sharky in a superb action romp anticipating, Dan Brown, The Librarian and the National Treasure screen franchise…

The fun finishes with Donald’s Nephews ‘Awash in Success’ beside a faulty drinking fountain, counterbalanced by a Donald and Scrooge single from Four Color #422, (cover-dated September/October 1952) with the money-wise miser benefitting from bulk buying in ‘Stable Prices’.

Back on track and sampling Walt Disney Comics & Stories (#142, July 1952) sees Donald drag the kids on a ‘Houseboat Holiday’ to keep their summer vacation pranks and hijinks at a manageable level. Instead, he finds himself at the centre of a storm of freak calamities and life-threatening disasters. Its only marginally less fraught one month later when he takes them to the desert as ‘Gemstone Hunters’ and is bamboozled by cunning fraudsters and again humiliated by Gladstone…

The remainder of Four Color #422 follows, opening with a follow-up action excursion. In ‘The Gilded Man’ avid stamp collector Donald believes he’s tracked down a hugely valuable item and heads for British Guiana, with the nephews in tow and Gladstone hot on his trail.

The quest is for fabled El Dorado, and the jungle trek ultimately leads them to victory of a sort after exposing the secrets of the ancient golden god…

Two more one-pagers wrap up the issue: detailing correct precautions for saving a cat in ‘Armored Rescue’ before adapting an old idea to avoid social commitments in ‘Crafty Corner’…

Scrooge stole the spotlight again in WDC&S #144 (September) as another storage crisis in his vault compelled the old bird to try and learn a new trick. In an effort to make room, he hires insanely profligate Donald to share the secret of ‘Spending Money’ but is far from satisfied with what he learns…

The story portion of this tome terminates with the remainder of Four Color #367, with ‘Treeing Off’ showing how the nephews brighten up the Christmas decorating, after which Donald pays the price for presumption with mistletoe in ‘Christmas Kiss’ and the boys have the last word when adapting modern science to list writing in ‘Projecting Desires’ (AKA ‘Stamp-Sized Christmas List’).

The comics are augmented by a sublime Cover Gallery proving the Master’s gift for visual one-liners in Four Color (volume II) 367, 408 & 422, and Walt Disney Comics & Stories#135-144 which intercut context, commentary and validation in ‘Story Notes’ for each Duck tale gathered here. Following Donald Ault’s essay ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’, ‘Biographies’ then introduces commentators Ault, R, Fiore, Craig Fischer, Jared Gardner, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone and Matthias Wivel and why they’re saying all those nice and informative things. We close as ever with an examination of provenance in ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, with almost all his work featuring Disney’s Duck characters: reaching and affecting untold billions across the world. You might be late to the party but don’t be scared: it’s never too late to climb aboard the Barks Express.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “A Christmas For Shacktown” © 2012 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

 

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Sixty Years: The Beano and The Dandy – Focus on the Fifties


By Many & various (DC Thomson)
ISBN: 978-0-851-16846-3 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Scotland’s Finest Fun Factory Fancies… 9/10

Whenever we’ve faced our worst moments, humans tend to seek out old familiarities and wallow in the nostalgia of better days. Let’s see how this particular foray feels, especially as it’s still unreachable by that there newmfangled electro retrieval widgetry, but still remarkably cheap in assorted emporia and on them there interwebs… 

Released in 2004 as part of the DC Thomson Sixtieth Anniversary celebrations for their children’s periodicals division – which has more than any other shaped the psyche of generations of British kids – this splendidly oversized (299 x 205mm) 144 page hardback compilation rightly glories in the incredible explosion of ebullient creativity that paraded through the flimsy colourful pages of The Beano and The Dandy during a particularly bleak and fraught period in British history. Tragically, neither it nor its companion volumes are available digitally yet, but hope springs ever eternal…

Admittedly this book goes through some rather elaborate editing, design and paste-up permutations to editorial explaining for modern readers the vast changes to the once-commonplace that’s happened in the intervening years. Naturally the process has quietly dodged the more egregious terms and scenarios that wouldn’t sit well with 21st century sensibilities, although to my enlightened sensibilities the concentration on whacking children on the bottom does occur with disturbing frequency – the Bash Street Kids even had their fearfully expectant upraised bums as the strip’s logo for a few years!

However, viewed as a cultural and historical memoire, this is a superb comic commemoration of one of our greatest communal formative forces, with a vast number of strips and stories carefully curated from a hugely transformative period in national history.

They’re also superbly timeless examples of cartoon storytelling at its best…

Until it folded and was briefly reborn as a digital publication on 4th December 2012, The Dandy was the third-longest running comic in the world (behind Italy’s Il Giornalino which launched in 1924 and America’s Detective Comics in March 1937). The Dandy premiered on December 4th 1937: breaking the mould of traditional British predecessors by using word balloons and captions on some strips, rather than just the narrative blocks of text under the sequential picture frames that had been the industry standard.

A huge success, it was followed on July 30th 1938 by The Beano – and in concert they revolutionised the way children’s publications looked and, most importantly, how they were read.

Over the decades the “terrible twins” spawned so many unforgettable and beloved household names who delighted countless avid and devoted readers, and their unmissable end of year celebrations were graced with bumper bonanzas of the comics’ weekly stars in extended stories in magnificent hardback annuals.

During WWII, rationing of paper and ink forced the “children’s papers” into an alternating fortnightly schedule: on September 6th 1941, only The Dandy was published. A week later just The Beano appeared. The rascally rapscallions only returned to normal weekly editions on 30th July 1949, but the restrictions had not hurt sales. In fact, in December 1945, The Beano #272 became the first British comic to sell a million copies, and the post-war period saw more landmarks as the children’s division of DC Thomson blossomed over the next decade, with innovative characters and a profusion of talented cartoonists who would carry it to publishing prominence, even as the story papers died back in advance of more strip anthologies like The Topper (1953) and The Beezer (1956)…

This compilation primarily concentrates via random extracts and selected strips on the development of established 1940s stars – like Biffo the Bear (1948), Lord Snooty (1938), The Smasher (1938, but completely reinvented in 1957), Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan (both 1937), who all survived the winds of change to grow into beloved and long-lived favourites in the new era. They’re highlighted beside the most successful new characters of the fifties, including Dennis the Menace (1951), Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger & Little Plum (all 1953) and the Bash Street Kids (1956 or 1954 if you count prototype When the Bell Rings! as the same).

Nevertheless there’s also a wonderful selection of less well known features on view…

This superb celebration of Celtic creativity is packed literally cover-to-cover with brilliant, breakthrough strips with the mirth starting on the inside front with an outrageous 2-colour Frontispiece tableau by Leo Baxendale of When the Bell Rings!

It’s mirrored at the back of the book by a similarly hilarious spread starring Biffo by indisputable cartoonist Dudley D. Watkins …

The main event begins with Focus on the 50’s, as a full-colour Roger the Dodger page by Ken Reid and a Baxendale 2-tone Bash Street Kids strip heralds an editorial introduction, context on soapbox cart building and casting call ‘Fifties Fun-Folk’ before seguing into a tale of Tin Lizzie: a pioneering comedy strip in block-text & pic format about a mechanical housemaid and robot butler Brassribs. Starting in 1953 as a prose serial, it was remodelled as a comic drawn by Jack Prout and  Charles Grigg which presaged later mega-hit Brassneck…

With all these pages playing with the theme of “carties”, snatches of Watkins’ Lord Snooty and the 1957 iteration of The Smasher by Hugh Morren lead to an episode of ‘Charlie the Chimp’.

Limned by Charles Grigg, the feature was another comedy drama in block & pic format starring a smart but strictly realistic simian working as a porter in a boarding house…

A full-colour Korky strip by James Crighton, with the cat using his cart as a taxi, ends this section before ‘A Day in the Life of Dennis’ offers an extended collection of strips and features starring the magnificent Menace, rendered by creator Davey Law. The Bad Boy debuted in The Beano #452 (in shops from March 12th 1951) and begins with prose piece ‘Nursery Crimes – or Dennis Growing Up by Dennis’s Dad’ taken from the first Dennis the Menace Book. Its backed up by 15 strips from the era, including ‘News Boy’, ‘Doctor’s Orders’, ‘Top of the Class’ and ‘Dad in Disgrace’ before literally and figuratively shifting gear to see Korky and Biffo as “Teddy Boys” in individual full-colour fashion yarns…

Assorted snapshot strips from venerable fantasy serial ‘The Iron Fish’, illustrated by Jack Glass, lead to a Watkins moment in ‘50’s Medicine the Desperate Dan Way!’ before Baxendale’s ‘Little Plum’ enjoys his own time in the spotlight via 22 strips culled from both comics and Annuals.

Desperate Dan crops up again in episodes from 1952-1954 before “Strongman’s Daughter” Pansy Potter (by James Clark) outwits a wicked wizard whilst Paddy Brennan exults in full-colour in the debut chapter of fantasy thriller ‘Fighting Forkbeard (The Sea Wolf from Long Ago)’ wherein a dragonship full of Vikings washes up and attacks a modern fishing village…

A Baxendale Bash Street strip guest-starring Minnie the Minx opens a selection of crossovers with Biffo and others, after which Hungry Horace and Shaggy Doggy offer a glimpse at the work of Allan Morley, an old school cartoonist who had been with The Beano since #1 but was now giving way to new style and content…

Created by Ken Reid, Jonah was an accursed sailor who sank every vessel he touched and the splendid sampling of strips here leads to Watkins’ introduction of Desperate Dan’s nephew Danny and niece Katey from February 1957, and is followed by a Biffo strip showing a number of things totally banned from modern comics…

‘Guess the Date!’ and ‘50’s Housing – the Desperate Dan Way!’ plus a Korky clash with his arch enemies – The Mice – lead to examples of strips that didn’t work out with a page each for Jenny Penny (Jimmy Thompson) and Little Angel Face (by Ken Reid) before a Lord Snooty vignette from 1954 opens a section starring a certified superstar – Roger the Dodger…

Realised by Reid, the consummate con artist struts his stuff and takes his retributive punishments in a dozen strips, after which the modern medium of home entertainment is tackled in a colour Korky tale and ‘50’s Tele-Watching – the Desperate Dan Way!’ before a Morley Charlie Chutney cookery classic from 1954 acts as palate cleanser for what follows…

All that spanking endured by wayward kids is especially prevalent in a selection of manic material starring Minnie the Minx: in 28 episodes of conniving, chicanery and clobbering courtesy of Baxendale…

A brilliant blast of Biffo in colour brings us to the Bash Street Kids in all their grubby glory. Accompanied by another mini-editorial providing historical context, a slap-happy selection combines double-page tableaux of When the Bell Rings! with a surfeit of Bash Street strips and reveals how the feature evolved. The Baxendale cover to story paper Wizard #1547 (October 1955) accompanies prose tale ‘Bash Street School’ from the June 4th edition, and discloses how the tableau feature inspired comedic school stories which in turn informed a stripped-down strip version with the 16+ kid cast pared down to the 9 we know today…

The process was applied to a few DCT characters, as seen in text story ‘The Boyhood of Desperate Dan’, preceded by the cover for Wizard #1492 (September 18th 1954) and a page of prose thriller ‘Red Rory of the Eagle’ (September 1951) ranged beside the strip it became with a Jack Glass rendered episode from September 1958…

Bill Holroyd provides a 1954 tale of voracious be-kilted ‘Plum MacDuff – The Highlander Who Never Gets Enough’ and the animal antics of ‘Kat and Kanary’ – created by Grigg but probably illustrated here by Baxendale – introduces ‘50’s Tele-Watching – the Desperate Dan Way!’ and follows up with a Biffo strip from November 1956 that might just be the UK’s first infomercial; a Grigg royal rarity featuring Prince Whoopee and a Reid Roger the Dodger lark that eschews the punitive slipper for a more targeted retribution…

A sampling of fantasy drama series follows: name – and picture – checking ‘The Horse That Jack Built’, Brennan’s ‘The Shipwrecked Circus’ and Glass’ ‘The Bird Boy’ before we hit the final stretch, starting with a 1959 Smasher saga about boots, a quick appearance for ‘Cocky Sue, the Cockatoo – She’s the Brains of the Pirate Crew’ by an artist I should recognise, but don’t, and ‘50’s Transport – the Desperate Dan Way!’

With past and future in mind Lord Snooty then pre-empts the microwave oven in a wild yarn from 1954, whilst ‘Wee Davie and King Willie’ strike an early and unexpected blow for animal rights in a strip from 1957 by Ken Hunter, who also ends our comic capers with a wild & woolly double page bonanza tableau set in ‘Wee Davie’s Zoo’…

Sadly, none of the writers are named and precious few of the artists, but I’ve offered a best guess as to whom we should thank, and of course I would be so very happy if anybody could confirm or deny my supposition…

A marvel of nostalgia and timeless comics wonder, the addictive magic of this collection is the brilliant art and stories by a host of talents that have literally made Britons who they are today. Bravo to DC Thomson for letting them out for a half-day to run amok once again; can we please have more and in digital edition, too?
© DC Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2004