Kids – All Ages – Page 65

June 26, 2014July 6, 2014

Moomin: the Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip volume 2

By Tove Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-897299-19-7

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

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

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

Intensely creative in many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945: SmÃ¥trollen och den stora Ã¶versvÃ¤mningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood), a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian, misfit trolls and their strange friendsâ€¦

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

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

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

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

The Moomins and the Great Flood was relatively unsuccessful but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 the second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators have reckoned the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear destruction.

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

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid.

Mumintrollet och jordens undergÃ¤ng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature so Jansson readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world.

In 1953 The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Tove’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she had recruited her brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975.

Free of the strip Tove returned to painting, writing and her other creative pursuits, generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and another nine Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as thirteen books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Her awards are too numerous to mention but consider this: how many modern artists – let alone comics creators – get their faces on the national currency? She died on June 27^th 2001.

Her Moomin comic strip has been collected in seven Scandinavian volumes and the discerning folk at Drawn & Quarterly have translated these into English for your – and especially my – sheer delight and delectation.

This second oversized (312 x 222mm) monochrome hardback compilation commences with ‘Moomin’s Winter Follies’ as the rotund, gracious and deeply considerate young troll has an accident on ice which prompts the family to begin their preparations for the winter’s hibernation.

However after those efforts lead to nothing but petty disaster, boldly unconventional Moomin Pappa decides that tradition isn’t everything and decrees that they shall all stay awake for the icy months aheadâ€¦

The family and their many friends however are soon bedevilled by the obnoxiously enthusiastic Mr. Brisk who cajoles the easygoing Moomins to indulge in his abiding passion for winter sports. The results are painful and far from impressive, but the ruggedly athletic Brisk does turn the head of the overly romantic and lonely Mymbleâ€¦

As usual, the object of her affections is blithely oblivious, caring only for the upcoming Winter Games, but when the beauteous Snorkmaiden also begins to succumb to Brisk’s physical charms Moomin is compelled to take up ski-jumping to win back her attention.

When that goes poorly he is tempted into contemplating murder until cooler heads, his own gentle nature and the onset of spring produces a gentler solutionâ€¦

Moomins are easygoing free spirits, bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and societal pressures. Mamma is warm and capable but overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst Pappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys.

However when prideful snobbish Mrs. Fillyjonk moves in next door, her snooty attitudes unfavourably affect the entire family, resulting in the hiring of ‘Moomin Mamma’s Maid’.

The search for a suitable servant results in disruption and discontent before the dour, distressed and doom-obsessed Misabel – along with her direly depressed dog Pimple – begin to further blight the formerly happy household.

Misabel suffers from secrets and a persecution complex and when Fillyjonk goes missing a detective starts hanging around, adding to the general aura of anxiety until Moomin Mamma shakes herself out of her status-induced funk and starts a campaign to cheer up and change the latest additions to her wildly imaginative, but oddly welcoming homeâ€¦

‘Moomin Builds a House’ sees Mymble’s eccentrically forgetful but fruitful mother come to visit, inflicting her latest batch of wild and wilful youngsters – seventeen, or thereabouts – on the normally compassionate and understanding trolls.

The children are, to put it mildly, little monsters: destructive, practical joking arsonistic hellions who would put the Belles of St. Trinians to shame and to routâ€¦

Soon, impressionable Moomin is driven out of his home and, egged on by the worst of the brood Little My, attempts to build his own house in the woods.

Possessing none of Moomin Pappa’s artisan or craft skills, the lad’s efforts are far from satisfactory but nonetheless his flighty paramour Snorkmaiden soon joins him, intent on making the shaky edifice their romantic hideaway. Sadly, with Little My still around, their best laid plans soon come unstuckâ€¦

This utterly incomparable and heartwarming box of graphic delights concludes with a brilliantly satitical salutary romp as ‘Moomin Begins a New Life’, wherein an itinerant thinker enters the valley sharing his secret recipe for â€œHow to be Happyâ€.

The Prophet is remarkably convincing and, seeing how his pronouncements and suggestions have changed the lives of all their friends and neighbours, the graciously impressionable Moomins try to adjust their behaviour to maximise their joy, unaware that they are already as happy and content as anyone can beâ€¦

With the entire community blissed out, the well-intentioned Prophet then convinces the constable to release all the folk in jail, allowing mischievous trickster and scofflaw Stinky to resume his prankish shenanigansâ€¦

After convincing Moomin Pappa to set up an illicit still producing hard liquor – which incites Snorkmaiden to run off with another young man – Stinky then convinces heartbroken, abandoned Moomin to turn to the dark side by becoming a glamorous highwayman and jewel thief to win her back.

Having spread malice and disorder Stinky’s next stunt is badly misjudged as he invites a puritan, fire-and-brimstone rival philosopher dubbed the Black Prophet to come and save all the sinnersâ€¦

Thankfully, as the rival Prophets’ war of words escalates Moomin Mamma at last reaches the end of her patience and intervenesâ€¦

Wrapping up the Wild Things wonderment is the short essay ‘Tove Jansson: To Live in Peace, Plant Potatoes, and Dream’: a comprehensive biography and commentary by Alisia Grace Chase PhD which celebrates the incredible achievements of this genteel giant of literature.

These are truly magical tales for the young laced with the devastating observation and razor sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kid’s stories into classics of literature. These volumes are an international treasure and no fan of the medium – or biped with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without them.

June 15, 2014August 4, 2014

Asterix and the Magic Carpet

By Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-0-75284-776-4

The son of Italian immigrants, Alberto Aleandro Uderzo was born on April 25th 1927, in Fismes, on the Marne. As a child reading Mickey Mouse in Le PÃ©tit Parisien he showed artistic flair from an early age but dreamed of becoming an aircraft mechanic. Albert became a French citizen when he was seven and found employment at 13, apprenticed to the Paris Publishing Society, where he learned design, typography, calligraphy and photo retouching.

When World War II broke out he spent time with farming relatives in Brittany and joined his father’s furniture-making business. Brittany beguiled and fascinated Uderzo: when a location for Asterix‘s idyllic village was being mooted, the region was the only choice.

In the post-war rebuilding of France, Uderzo returned to Paris and became a successful artist in the recovering nation’s burgeoning comics industry.

His first published work, a pastiche of Aesop’s Fables, appeared in Junior and in 1945 he was introduced to industry giant Edmond-FranÃ§ois Calvo (whose own masterpiece The Beast is Dead is far too long overdue for a commemorative reissueâ€¦).

The tireless Uderzo’s subsequent creations included the indomitable eccentric Clopinard, Belloy, l’InvulnÃ©rable, Prince Rollin and Arys Buck. He illustrated Em-RÃ©-Vil’s novel Flamberge, worked in animation, as a journalist and illustrator for France Dimanche, and created the vertical comicstrip ‘Le Crime ne Paie pas’ for France-Soir.

In 1950 he illustrated a few episodes of the franchised European version of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. for Bravo!

An inveterate traveller, the artistic prodigy met Rene Goscinny in 1951. Soon becoming fast friends, they decided to work together at the new Paris office of Belgian Publishing giant World Press. Their first collaboration was in November of that year; a feature piece on savoir vivre (how to live right or gracious living) for women’s weekly Bonnes SoirÃ©e, following which an avalanche of splendid strips and serials poured forth.

Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior were created for La Libre Junior and they produced a western starring a â€œRed Indianâ€ who eventually evolved into the delightfully infamous Oumpah-Pah. In 1955, with the formation of Ã‰difrance/Ã‰dipresse, Uderzo drew Bill Blanchart for La Libre Junior, replaced Christian Godard on Benjamin et Benjamine and in 1957 added Charlier’s Clairette to his portfolio.

The following year, he made his debut in Tintin, as Oumpah-Pah finally found a home and a rapturous audience. Uderzo also drew Poussin et Poussif, La Famille Moutonet and La Famille Cokalane.

When Pilote launched in 1959 Uderzo was a major creative force for the new magazine collaborating with Charlier on Tanguy et Laverdure and launching – with Goscinny – a little something called Asterixâ€¦

Although the gallant Gaul was a massive hit from the start, Uderzo continued working on Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure, but once the first hilarious historical romp was collected in an album as AstÃ©rix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the series would demand most of his time – especially since the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas.

By 1967 Asterix occupied all Uderzo’s time and attention, so in 1974 the partners formed IdÃ©fix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation. When Goscinny passed away three years later, Uderzo had to be convinced to continue the adventures as writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes until 2010 when he retired.

After nearly 15 years as a weekly comic serial subsequently collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21^st (Asterix and Caesar’s Gift) was the first published as a complete original album before serialisation.

Thereafter each new release was a long anticipated, eagerly awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fansâ€¦

According to UNESCO’s Index Translationum, Uderzo is the tenth most-often translated French-language author in the world and the third most-translated French language comics author – right after his old mate RenÃ© Goscinny and the medium’s grand master HergÃ©.

More than 325 million copies of 35 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making his joint creators France’s best-selling international authors. Now the torch has been passed and new sagas of the indomitable are being created by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conradâ€¦

One of the most popular comics features on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut, with twelve animated and live-action movies, TV series, assorted games, toys, merchandise and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc AstÃ©rix, naturellement)â€¦

Like all the best stories the narrative premise works on more than one level: read it as an action-packed comedic romp of sneaky and bullying baddies coming a cropper if you want or as a punfully sly and witty satire for older, wiser heads. We Brits are further blessed by the brilliantly light touch of master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who played no small part in making the indomitable little Gaul so very palatable to English tongues.

More than half of the canon takes place in Uderzo’s beloved Brittany, where, circa 50 B.C., a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resisted every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul. The land is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces of Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, but the very tip of the last just refuses to be pacifiedâ€¦

The remaining epics occur in various locales throughout the Ancient World, with the Garrulous Gallic Gentlemen often quizzical tourists and bemused commentators in every fantastic land and corner of the civilisations that proliferated in that fabled eraâ€¦

Whenever the heroes were playing at home, the Romans, unable to defeat the last bastion of Gallic insouciance, futilely resorted to a policy of absolute containment. Thus the little seaside hamlet was permanently hemmed in by the heavily fortified garrisons of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

The Gauls couldn’t care less, daily defying and frustrating the world’s greatest military machine simply by going about their everyday affairs, protected by the miraculous magic potion of resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of the diminutive dynamo and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelixâ€¦

Firmly established as a global brand and premium French export by the mid-1960s, Asterix the Gaul continued to grow in quality as Goscinny & Uderzo toiled ever onward, crafting further fabulous sagas; building a stunning legacy of graphic excellence and storytelling gold.

By the time this edition was released Goscinny had been gone for a decade and Uderzo was slowly but surely finding his own authorial voiceâ€¦

Asterix and the Magic Carpet (originally and quite ponderously entitled AstÃ©rix chez RahÃ zade ou Le compte des mille et une heures – which translates as Asterix meets Orinjade or the 1001 Hours Countdown) was released in 1987 and once again saw Asterix and Obelix undertake a long voyage into the unknown: one packed with exotic climes, odd people and bold adventure, all deliciously underpinned by topical lampooning and timeless swingeing satire.

Before the Arabian adventure begins, a delightful in-character portrait of Goscinny and Uderzo as their greatest creations Asterix and Obelix whets the appetite for the fun to come, after which the 28^th saga begins with a friendly feast, suddenly ruined twice over by the singing of the Bard Cacofonix.

Firstly there’s the plain fact that he is singing at all, but the real problem is that his newly discovered vocal style summons up storms and creates violent downpours.

The thunderous deluge also brings a surprised visitor to the village. Watziznehm the Fakir was passing by far above on his flying carpet when the tempest tossed him to earth. It was a painful but happy accident since the Indian wise man was on a mission to find some miraculous Gauls and a certified rainmakerâ€¦

Soon Asterix, Obelix and canine wonder Dogmatix are heading Due East to save beautiful princess Orinjade from the machinations of Guru Hoodunnit, who wants to sacrifice her to end a terrible drought and seize the reins of power from her father Rajah Watzit. When the flying wizard left it was with a countdown of 1001 hours to doomâ€¦

Our heroes are only accompanying the real star of the Fakir’s quest: with a deadline looming to execute the princess, Watziznehm needs to get Cacofonix there in time to sing up a storm – or rather a monsoonâ€¦

Travel aboard the flying carpet is swift and comfortable but ever-hungry Obelix is continually holding up proceedings with many pit-stops to refuel his cavernous stomach, whilst the Bard’s practising frequently leads to stormy weather and unnecessary diversionsâ€¦

After the usual dalliance with pirates, a bird’s eye tour of Rome and a brief voyage on a Greek trading ship, the tourists soar over Athens and get shot at above Tyre before a natural storm sets the carpet alight and they crash-land in Persia.

Despite being in the land of carpets, the travellers are unable to secure a replacement until a band of Scythian raiders attack the village and Asterix and Obelix negotiate a trade deal: hundreds of pummelled plunderers for a freshly unbeatable new rugâ€¦

As the heroes plunge ever eastward, in the Valley of the Ganges Hoodunnit and his creepy mystic crony Owzat gloat at their impending takeover, even as poor Orinjade’s stout defiance begins to weaken.

When the Gauls and their Fakir chauffeur arrive with only a day to spare, it all seems over for the ghastly guru, but as the Bard begins his song he discovers that the arduous journey has given him laryngitis.

For the first time ever somebody wants him to sing and he has lost his voiceâ€¦

With time running out the Rajah’s doctors’ diagnosis seems crazy: immersion in various unwholesome by-products of sacred elephants. Rather than settle for half-measures the Gauls decide to take Cacofonix to the jungle abode of Howdoo the Elephant Trainer and bury him in the curative well away from civilised sensesâ€¦

This only gives the villains the opportunity they have been waiting for. When Watziznehm and the Gauls go to collect the Bard in the morning, Owzat engages the Fakir in a magical duel. Leaving them to their tricks Asterix and Obelix press on and find that the storm-singer has been kidnappedâ€¦

Happily, dashing Dogmatix is on hand to track down the Bard, an especially easy task as he now smells like he singsâ€¦

Hoodunnit is mirthfully preparing the stage for Orinjade’s sacrifice when, after the usual Gallic fisticuffs from our heroes, Cacofonix makes his Asian debut and sets everything – including the skies – to rights in the very nick of timeâ€¦

Stuffed with light-hearted action, good-natured joshing, raucous, bombastic, bellicose hi-jinks and a torrent of punishing puns to astound and bemuse youngsters of all ages, this tale again celebrates the spectacular illustrative ability of Uderzo and proves that the potion-powered paragon of Gallic Pride is in safe and steady hands.

Full of Eastern Promise, this sublime slice of French polish and graphic Ã©lan is all you need to make any holiday excursion or comfy staycation unforgettable.

May 31, 2014May 30, 2014

DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk volume 1: Dragon Down

By Simon Furman, Iwan Nazif & Bambos Georgiou (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-076-4

These days, young kids are far more likely to find their formative strip narrative experiences online or between the card-covers of specially tailored graphic novels rather than the comics and periodicals of my long-dead youth.

In times past the commercial comics industry thrived by producing copious amounts of gaudy, flimsy pamphlets subdivided into a range of successful, self-propagating, seamlessly self-perpetuating age-specific publications. Such eye-catching items generated innumerable tales and delights intended to entertain, inform and educate such well-defined target demographics as Toddler/Kindergarten, Younger and Older Juvenile, General, Girls, Boys and even Young Teens, but today the English-speaking world can only afford to maintain a few paltry out-industry, licensed tie-ins and spin-offs for a dwindling younger readership.

Where once cheap and prolific, strip magazines in the 21st century are extremely cost-intensive and manufactured for a highly specific – and dying – niche market, whilst the beguiling and bombastic genres that originally fed and nurtured comics are more immediately disseminated via TV, movies and assorted interactive media.

Happily, in this country old-school prose publishers and the newborn graphic novel industry have a different business model and far more sustainable long-term goals, so the magazine makers’ surrender has been turned into a burgeoning victory, as solid and reassuringly sturdy Comics-in-Books increasingly buck the pamphlet/papers downward spiral.

Moreover, many of those old comics enjoyed a successful affiliation and almost symbiotic relationship with television (and before that, Films and radio shows), and these days when even the ubiquitous goggle-box business is paralysed and endangered by on-demand streaming, too many channels and far too much choice, those connections have been taken up by the graphic novel trade too.

The links between animated features and comicbooks are long established and I suspect, for young consumers, indistinguishable. After all, in the end it’s all just entertaining picturesâ€¦

One of the most popular TV cartoons – and certainly the most gripping and entertaining – of recent years is DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of Berk (and its follow-up Defenders of Berk). It’s based on the wonderful movie How to Train Your Dragon – which was itself loosely adapted from Cressida Cowell’s glorious and charming sequence of children’s books.

The show has internationally wowed audiences young and old alike and, in this first full-colour Titan Comics digest-sized collection by Simon Furman, Iwan Nazif & BambosGeorgiou, those amazing adventures continue as brilliant but introverted boy-hero Hiccup and his compatriots of the Dragon Rider Academy gleefully roam the skies with their devoted scaly friends.

When not fighting each other the trusty teens attempt to keep the peace between the rambunctious multiplicity of saurians and the island of Berk’s irascible Viking settlers: protecting the humans’ village from the constant attacks of nastier folk such as Alvin the Treacherous and his fleet of piratical Outcasts or new and unknown monstersâ€¦

Following a brace of handy information pages introducing Hiccup and his devoted Night Fury Toothless, as well as tom-boyish Astrid on Deadly Nader Stormfly, obnoxious jock Snotlout and Monstrous Nightmare Hookfang, portly scholar Fishlegs on ponderous Gronckle Meatlug and the terribly dim but merrily violent twins Tuffnut and Ruffnut on double-headed Zippleback Belch & Barf, this initial saga opens as the riders go through their spectacular aerial combat paces over the waters around Berk.

Trouble is never far away where Dragons are concerned, and when Hookfang begins shedding incandescent scales, they soon have half the village putting out the resultant flash-firesâ€¦

For the safety of the town and the ailing Wyrm, Hiccup’s father Chief Stoick has no choice but to quarantine Hookfang off-island and ground the rest of the flight. However, when the Monstrous Nightmare goes missing the kids decide to ignore orders and go looking for the poor beastâ€¦

Chapter two opens during a massive squall with the Dragon Riders being bawled out by Stoick. Snotlout is heartbroken – but won’t show it – and guilty Hiccup furtively sneaks off to continue the search alone with Toothless.

Hookfang is in real trouble. He’s been cornered by Alvin the Treacherous, who wants to make dragons his war weapons. Now he has bait and only needs a skilled trainer to enslaveâ€¦ and he knows that one will be along soon to rescue the still-shedding Monstrous Nightmare he has trapped in a caveâ€¦

The evil scheme works almost perfectly. Hiccup is easily captured by the hulking Outcast warriors, but manages to convince the sleek, speedy Night Fury to abandon him and fetch helpâ€¦

Valiantly making his way back to Berk, the loyal Toothless rouses the Riders and Stoick’s men who speed to the rescue. Meanwhile, ingenious Hiccup has already engineered his own escape. It would have worked, too, if the islet they were on hadn’t been a not-quite dormant volcano with explosively shedding Hookfang inadvertently stoking the geological firesâ€¦

The saga concludes in an astounding sea battle as Stoick’s fleet engages Alvin’s pirates whilst Astrid and Stormfly spring Hiccup. Reunited with Toothless, the leader of the Dragon Riders then shows the Outcasts the dangers of messing with the boys and girls of Berk before deducing a (rather perilous) way to reunite Snotlout and Hookfang before the islet melts down or goes up in flamesâ€¦

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

May 26, 2014May 27, 2014

Iznogoud and the Magic Computer

By Goscinny & Tabary, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge(Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-79-3

During his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) RenÃ© Goscinny was one of the most prolific, most read writers of comic strips the world has ever seen.

He still is.

Among his most popular comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas and, of course Asterix the Gaul, but there were so many others.

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to the deserts when Goscinny teamed with the sublimely gifted Swede Jean Tabary (1930-2011 and numbering Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips) to produce imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah. However it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud, who stole the show – possibly the conniving little devil’s only successful scheme.

Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created for Record, with the first instalment appearing in the January 15^th issue in1962. A minor hit, it jumped ship to Pilote – a magazine created and edited by Goscinny – where it was refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little rat-bag who had increasingly hogged all the laughs and limelight.

Like all the best storytelling, Iznogoud works on two levels: as a comedic romp with sneaky baddies coming a cropper for younger readers, and as a pun-filled, witty satire for older, wiser heads, much like its more famous cousin Asterix – and also translated here by the master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who made the indomitable little Gaul so very palatable to the English tongue. Moreover the deliciously malicious whimsy is always heavily laden with manic absurdity and brilliantly applied creative anachronism to keep the plots bizarrely fresh and inventive.

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

The revamped series launched in Pilote in 1968, quickly becoming a huge European hit, with 29 albums so far (carried on by Tabary’s children StÃ©phane, Muriel and Nicolas), his own solo comic, a TV cartoon show and even a live action movie.

When Goscinny died in 1977 Tabary assumed the scripting as well as the superbly stylish illustration from the 13^th album, moving to book-length complete tales, rather than the compilations of short punchy stories that typified their collaborations.

This fourth Cinebook album was actually the sixth French album (released in 1970 as L’ordinateur magique) and features a clenched and grasping fistful of short, sharp salutary tales beginning, after a handy catch-up profile page, with ‘A Calculated Risk’, wherein the cunning conniver, desperate to forestall a pact between the Caliph and mighty military neighbour Sultan Pullmankar, hires forward-thinking I-Bee’Em and his ponderous problem-solving â€œcomputerâ€ to stop the signing of the treaty.

The big grey box might be brilliant, but it’s agonisingly slow in reaching its infallible conclusionsâ€¦

Things then get hilariously surreal when Iznogoud and his long-suffering, bumbling assistant Wa’at Alahf discover a mystic crossroads that can lead the unwary traveller onto an unending, pointless journey from which they can neither escape nor return.

Dashing back to lure the Caliph onto ‘The Road to Nowhere’ our wicked wayfarers eventually realise that they’ve been stuck on it all alongâ€¦

Back in Baghdad and itching to take over, the Vile Vizier then seeks to employ the tragic gifts of lonely hermit Ghoudas Gho’ld, a direct descendent of legendary King Midas, in ‘The Golden Handshake’. All he has to do to remove the Caliph is get the accursed involuntary metal-maker back to the palace without him touching anythingâ€¦

There’s more direct skulduggery afoot in ‘The Caliph’s Sceptre’ when Iznogoud hires a master thief to sneak him into the high-security vault where the Staff of Office is cached. If he takes it and keeps the Caliph from presenting it to the people in the annual reaffirmation of worthiness to rule ceremony, the Vizier can legally assume control of the country. Of course, it doesn’t quite play out that wayâ€¦

This fine kettle of funny fish concludes with ‘The Mysterious Ointment’ as fabled explorer Notsobad the Sailor returns to the port of Basrah and, having forgotten to bring the undetectable Occidental poisons he promised the Vizier, palms him off with a tube of â€œSchpouk toothpaste’.

Assured the container holds a lethal and undetectable toxin, poor Iznogoud embarks on an eccentrically convoluted campaign to convince the Caliph and the court that cleaning one’s choppers is the latest and most beneficial of scientific advancements. Care to guess how well that goes?

Snappy, fast-paced hi-jinks and gloriously agonising pun-ishing (see what I did there?) abound in this mirthfully infectious series which is a household name in France where â€œIznogoudâ€ is common parlance for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous â€“ and often of diminutive stature.

When first released here in the 1970s, these tales made little impression, but hopefully this snappy, wonderfully affable strips can finally find an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy Kids Of All Agesâ€¦
Â© 1970 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Goscinny & Tabary. All rights reserved.

May 22, 2014May 21, 2014

Asterix Versus Caesar and The Twelve Tasks of Asterix

By Goscinny and Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Hodder/Dargaud, Hodder and Stoughton, Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-0-34039-772-0 & 978-0-34027-647-1

One of the most-read comics series in the world, the chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages; with eight animated and four live-action movies, TV series, assorted toys and games and even a theme park (Parc AstÃ©rix, near Paris, naturellement).

More than 325 million copies of the 35 canonical Asterix books have sold worldwide, making Goscinny & Uderzo France’s bestselling international authors.

Their diminutive, doughty hero was created in 1959 by two of the art-form’s greatest proponents, RenÃ© Goscinny & Albert Uderzo; masters of strip narrative then at the peak of their creative powers. Although their perfect partnership ended in 1977 with the death of prolific scripter Goscinny, the creative wonderment continued with Uderzo writing and drawing the feature until his retirement in 2010.

In 2013 a new adventure – Asterix and the Picts – opened a fresh chapter in the annals as Jean-Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad began their much anticipated and dreaded continuation of the franchise.

Like everything good, the core premise works on multiple levels: ostensibly, younger readers enjoy the action-packed, lavishly illustrated comedic romps where conniving, bullying baddies get their just deserts, whilst more worldly readers enthuse over the dry, pun-filled, slyly witty satire, enhanced for English speakers by the brilliantly light touch of translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who played no small part in making the indomitable Gaul so palatable to the Anglo-Saxon world. (Personally I still thrill to a perfectly delivered punch in the bracket as much as a painfully swingeing string of bad puns and dry cutting jibesâ€¦)

Asterix the Gaul is a cunning underdog who resists the iniquities, experiences the absurdities and observes the myriad wonders of Julius Caesar‘s Roman Empire with brains, bravery and a bit of magic potion.

The stories were alternately set on the tip of Uderzo’s beloved Brittany coast, where a small village of redoubtable warriors and their families resisted every effort of the Roman Empire to complete their conquest of Gaul or throughout the expansive Ancient World circa 50BC.

Unable to defeat this last bastion of Gallic insouciance, the mostly victorious invaders resorted to a policy of cautious containment. Thus the little seaside hamlet is permanently hemmed in by the heavily fortified garrisons of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

The Gauls don’t care: they daily defy the world’s greatest military machine by just going about their everyday affairs, protected by the magic potion of resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of a rather diminutive dynamo and his simplistic best friendâ€¦

Firmly established as a global brand and premium French export by the mid-1960s, Asterix the Gaul continued to grow in quality as Goscinny & Uderzo toiled ever onward, crafting further fabulous sagas; building a stunning legacy of graphic excellence and storytelling gold.

RenÃ© Goscinny was one of the most prolific, and remains one of the most read, writers of comic strips the world has ever seen. Born in Paris in 1926, he was raised in Argentina where his father taught mathematics. From an early age the boy showed artistic promise, and studied fine arts, graduating in 1942.

While working as junior illustrator in an ad agency in 1945 an uncle invited him to stay in America, where he found work as a translator. After his National Service in France Goscinny settled in Brooklyn and pursued an artistic career, becoming in 1948 an art assistant in a little studio which included Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Jack Davis and John Severin as well as a couple of European giants-in-waiting: Maurice de BÃ©vÃ¨re (â€œMorrisâ€, with whom he produced Lucky Luke from 1955-1977) and Joseph Gillain (JijÃ©).

He also met Georges Troisfontaines, head of the World Press Agency, the company that provided comics for the French magazine Spirou.

After contributing scripts to Belles Histoires de l’Oncle Paul and ‘Jerry Spring’ Goscinny was made head of World Press’ Paris office, where he first met his life-long creative partner Albert Uderzo (Jehan Sepoulet, Luc Junior) as well as creating Sylvie and Alain et Christine (with â€œMartialâ€- Martial Durand) and Fanfan et Polo (drawn by Dino Attanasio).

In 1955 Goscinny, Uderzo, Charlier and Jean HÃ©brard formed the independent Ã‰dipress/Ã‰difrance syndicate, creating magazines for general industry (Clairon for the factory union and Pistolin for a chocolate factory). With Uderzo he produced Bill Blanchart, Pistolet and Benjamin et Benjamine, whilst himself writing and illustrating Le Capitaine Bibobu.

Goscinny seems to have invented the 9-day week. Under the pen-name Agostini he wrote Le Petit Nicholas (drawn by Jean-Jacques SempÃ©) and in 1956 began an association with the revolutionary comics magazine Tintin, writing stories for many illustrators including Signor Spagetti (Dino Attanasio), Monsieur Tric (Bob De Moor), Prudence Petitpas (MarÃ©chal), Globule le Martien and Alphonse (both by Tibet), Modeste et Pompon (for AndrÃ© Franquin), Strapontin (Berck) as well as Oumpah-Pah with Uderzo.

He also wrote strips for the magazines Paris-Flirt and Vaillant.

In 1959 Ã‰dipress/Ã‰difrance launched Pilote and Goscinny went into overdrive. The first issue starred his and Uderzo’s instant masterpiece Asterix the Gaul, began Jacquot le Mousse and Tromblon et Bottaclou (drawn by Godard) and also re-launched Le Petit Nicolas and Jehan Pistolet/Jehan Soupolet.

When Georges Dargaud bought Pilote in 1960, Goscinny became editor-in-Chief, but still found time to add new series Les Divagations de Monsieur Sait-Tout (Martial), La Potachologie IllustrÃ©e (Cabu), Les Dingodossiers (Gotlib) and La ForÃªt de ChÃªnebeau (Mic Delinx).

He also wrote frequently for television. In his spare time he created a little strip entitled Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah for Record (first episode January 15th 1962) illustrated by a Swedish-born artist named Jean Tabary. A minor success, it was re-tooled as Iznogoud when it transferred to Pilote.

Goscinny died – probably of well-deserved pride and severe exhaustion – aged 973, in November 1977.

In the post-war rebuilding of France, Albert Uderzo returned to Paris and became a successful artist in the country’s burgeoning comics industry. His first published work, a pastiche of Aesop’s Fables, appeared in Junior, and in 1945 he was introduced to industry giant Edmond-FranÃ§ois Calvo (whose own masterpiece The Beast is Dead is long overdue for a new editionâ€¦).

The tireless Uderzo’s subsequent creations included the indomitable eccentric Clopinard, Belloy, l’InvulnÃ©rable, Prince Rollin and Arys Buck. He illustrated Em-RÃ©-Vil’s novel Flamberge, worked in animation, as a journalist and illustrator for France Dimanche, and created the vertical comicstrip ‘Le Crime ne Paie pas’ for France-Soir. In 1950 he even illustrated a few episodes of the franchised European version of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. for Bravo!

An inveterate traveller, the prodigy met Rene Goscinny in 1951. Soon fast friends, they decided to work together at the new Paris office of Belgian Publishing giant World Press. Their first collaboration was in November of that year; a feature piece on savoir vivre (how to live right or gracious living) for women’s weekly Bonnes SoirÃ©e, after which an avalanche of splendid strips and serials poured forth.

Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior were created for La Libre Junior and they produced a western starring a Red Indian (ah, simpler, if more casually racist, timesâ€¦) who eventually evolved into the delightfully infamous Oumpah-Pah. In 1955 with the formation of Ã‰difrance/Ã‰dipresse, Uderzo drew Bill Blanchart for La Libre Junior, replaced Christian Godard on Benjamin et Benjamine and in 1957 added Charlier’s Clairette to his portfolio.

The following year later, he made his debut in Tintin, as Oumpah-Pah finally found a home and a rapturous, devoted audience. Uderzo also drew Poussin et Poussif, La Famille Moutonet and La Famille Cokalane.

When Pilote launched in 1959 Uderzo was a major creative force for the new magazine collaborating with Charlier on Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure and launching with Goscinny a little something called Asterixâ€¦

Although Asterix was a massive hit from the start, Uderzo continued working on Tanguy et Laverdure, but soon after the first adventure was collected as AstÃ©rix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the series would demand most of his time – especially as the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas.

By 1967 the strip occupied all Uderzo’s attention, so in 1974 the partners formed IdÃ©fix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation. When Goscinny passed away three years later, Uderzo had to be convinced to continue the adventures as writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes until he retired.

That year, after nearly 15 years as a weekly comic strip subsequently collected into compilations, the 21st tale (Asterix and Caesar’s Gift) was the first to be published as a complete original album before being serialised. Thereafter each new release was a long anticipated, eagerly awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fansâ€¦

As one of the most popular comics on Earth, Asterix has naturally become something of a celluloid star too and, the business being what it is, some of those movie megaliths have been recycled into intriguing – if non-canonical – graphic albums in their own right.

Although technically apart from the accepted legend, those filmic tomes are well worth a look tooâ€¦

In 1976 The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (originally entitled Les Douze travaux d’AstÃ©rix) was the very first theatrical release: an animated feature written, created, Directed and Produced by Goscinny & Uderzo’s own company Studios IdÃ©fix.

Like the albums which inspired it, the tale saw Asterix and Obelix undertake a long voyage into the unknown: one packed with exotic climes, odd people and boldly surreal adventure – although the topical lampooning and satire were subtly dialled back.

More a studio-produced illustrated prose storybook than a comic strip, this â€œbook of the filmâ€ naturally introduces our bucolic cast before diving into the rather clever plot wherein the perennially bashed-up Roman Legions surrounding the village of Indomitable Gauls come to the scary conclusion that their devil-may-care foes must be godsâ€¦

When the rumours reach the Roman Senate, Julius Caesar is livid. Determined to quell the deadly talk before his power crumbles, he personally travels to the little village and challenges the Gallic resistors. If they can accomplish twelve labours as arduous as those undertaken by Hercules, they will have proved themselves gods and he will give them the entire empire and retireâ€¦

Enthralled more by the challenge than the possible outcome, chief Vitalstatistix nominates Asterix and Obelix to travel to Rome and tackles Caesar’s challenge. With diminutive scribe Caius Tiddlus accepted as official referee and recorder, the easy-going competitors set about the cunning list of labours devised by Caesar’s devious Councillors, beginning with ‘Running Faster than Asbestos, Champion of the Olympic Games‘.

Thanks to a sip of magic potion Asterix humiliatingly and hilariously outdistances the racer after which Obelix ‘Throws a Javelin Farther than Verses the Persian’.

Although the sportsman’s best effort lands in faraway undiscovered America (at the feet of Oompah-pah), Obelix’ javelin never lands at all but goes into a very, very low orbit around the Earthâ€¦

The third task – ‘Beating Cilindric, the German’ – is far harder to handle. The tiny warrior is a master martial artist who easily lobs Obelix all over the landscape but his stiff-necked formality makes him easy prey for Asterix’ guileâ€¦

Task four is to ‘Cross a Lake’ but in the centre is an Isle of Pleasure inhabited by beguiling Sirens where the affable lads are quickly enchanted. They would be there still if the lovely ladies had served Wild Boar instead of just Nectar and Ambrosiaâ€¦

In short order the Gauls ‘Survive the Hypnotic Gaze of Iris the Egyptian’ and ‘Finish a Meal made by Calorofix the Belgian’, infamous for cooking huge meals for the godly progenitors known as The Titans.

Obelix eagerly tackles the mountain of nosh and breaks the culinary wizard’s spirit by consuming every morsel and innocently asking what the main course isâ€¦

The going gets tough and weird when the pair have to ‘Survive the Cave of the Beast’ and then battle bureaucracy gone wild by ‘Finding Permit A38 in â€œThe Place That Sends You Madâ€’, thereafter ‘Crossing a Ravine on an Invisible Tightrope, over a River full of Crocodiles’, ‘Climbing a Mountain and Answering the Old Man’s Riddle’ (a task which so impresses the actual gods that Jupiter causes a thunderstorm) before the weary contestants move on to their final task of the day by ‘Spending a Night on the Haunted Plains’.

Tragically for the restless spirits, the Gauls aren’t afraid of Roman soldiers, living or deadâ€¦

Next morning Asterix and Obelix awaken outside Caesar’s Palace in Rome and learn that their Twelfth Task is simply to ‘Survive the Circus Maximus’. The emperor is taking no chances however, and has gathered all the other Gaulish villagers to share what he thinks will be their spectacular demise at the hands of his gladiators and the fangs and claws of every savage beast in the city.

It seemed such a perfect plan, but Caesar’s soldiers really should have made sure that Druid Getafix couldn’t whip up some magic potionâ€¦

AstÃ©rix et la surprise de CÃ©sar was an animated feature released in 1985, the fourth film in a burgeoning franchise. The story was cobbled together from elements of the albums Asterix the Legionary and Asterix the Gladiator by Goscinny & Uderzo’s great friend screenwriter Pierre Tchernia.

I’m not sure if the translated Asterix Versus Caesar had a full cinema release in this country, but the book certainly seemed to be everywhere in 1986: a lovely large full colour hardback wedding another peerless prose adaptation to a wealth of stills (and a few fascinating design and models sheets) from the movie into a splendid, rollicking rollercoaster rompâ€¦

When Vitalstatistix’ beautiful niece Panacea visits the village, everybody is astonished to find that oafish Obelix is off his food. The colossal simpleton is hopelessly in love with the charming girl, who typically only has eyes for hunky Tragicomix, son of neighbouring chief Dramatix.

The hopeless situation takes a turn for the very worst though when the happy couple are kidnapped by the Romans. After the enraged, potion-powered villagers register their protests in the usual manner, a battered centurion informs them Panacea and Tragicomix have already been shipped to Condatum where the boy will be sent to fight in a Foreign Legion unit.

Hard on their heels Asterix and Obelix (accompanied by noble if diminutive canine wonder Dogmatix) beat, bully and trick their way into the Roman army, following the kidnapped lovers to Arabia as full-fledged legionaries. On arrival they discover that Panacea and Tragicomix have already escaped, been captured by Bedouins and sold to unctuous functionary Caius Flabius Obtus for a proposed ceremonial Triumph for Julius Caesar.

In Rome!

As the separated lovers languish in dank Roman dungeons, Asterix and Obelix hot-foot it for the Eternal City and, after contriving to become slaves, managed to get themselves into Obtus’ Gladiatorial School before their plans suffer a setback when Asterix mislays his flask of magic potion.

With Asterix and Obelix – mostly Obelix – defeating all combative comers at Caesar’s Triumph, everything tensely culminates in a grim showdown at the Colosseum with Tragicomix about to die under the claws of massed lions until valiant Dogmatix dashes into the arena, dragging that gourd of potionâ€¦

After literally bringing the house down, the quartet of Gauls confront Caesar, who has no choice but to allow them to return to their own land and a traditional welcome home feast…

Although eschewing the sly pokes and good-natured joshing, famous caricatures and wry commentary, these gentle all-ages tales will easily charm younger readers into the raucous, bombastic, bellicose hi-jinks and fast-paced action which never fails to astound and bemuse fans of those Fantastic French Fellows who always prove that potion-powered Gallic Pride is safe in steady hands whether you’re operating a video remote or merely turning perfect pagesâ€¦

The Twelve Tasks of Asterix Â© Dargaud Editeur 1976 Goscinny-Uderzo. English translation Â© 1978 Hodder and Stoughton Ltd. All rights reserved.
Asterix Versus Caesar Â© 1985 Editions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny & Uderzo. English translation Â© 1986 Hachette. All rights reserved.

May 15, 2014May 14, 2014

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man: Peter Parker vs. the X-Men

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

Since its earliest days the company we know as Marvel has always courted the youngest comicbook consumers. Whether animated tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad of others, or original creations such as Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids and Calvin, or in the 1980s the entire originated or licensed output of peewee imprint Star Comics, the House of Ideas has always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

These days however, general kids’ interest titles are on the wane and, with Marvel’s proprietary characters all over screens large and small, the company usually prefers to create child-friendly versions of its own proprietary pantheon, making that eventual hoped-for transition to more mature comics as painless as possible.

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and mixed it in with the remnants of the manga-based Tsunami imprint, all intended for a younger readership.

The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and the reconstituted classics supplanted by original stories. Additional series included Marvel Adventures series Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These iterations ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new – but continuity-continuing – volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man.

This digest-sized collection re-presents issues #58-61 – the final four stories from February to May 2010, scripted throughout by Paul Tobin.

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

The most persistent major hassle is the all-pervasive Torino crime-family, whose goombahs and street-thugs perpetually attack Spider-Man on sight, spurred on by the $500,000 bounty on the Wallcrawler’s headâ€¦

Peter’s civilian life is pretty complicated too, but great help and constant comfort is High School classmate Sophia Sanduval – an extremely talented lass nicknamed Chat – who knows Peter’s secret and can communicate with animalsâ€¦

Following a handy introductory recap page, the opening tale finds him ‘Wanted’ (art by Matteo Lolli & Terry Pallot) as the protracted vendetta against the Torinos is suddenly punctuated by wanted posters for the Webslinger on every tree, fence and lamppost. During another brutal but pointless clash with the mobsters the Webspinner is assisted by a very capable masked woman in a red dress who introduces herself as the Blonde Phantom. She’s behind the find-Spidey posters but only wants to offer him a job with her Blonde Phantom Detective Agencyâ€¦

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

Gwen’s dad is Police Captain George Stacy. He knows the boy’s secret and allows him to continue his vigilante antics whilst acting as a mentor and sounding board, but the senior cop has some very hard words concerning anyone taking money for doing good deeds. Peter sort of agrees with him, but Aunt May is in desperate need of cash to repair the foundations of her houseâ€¦

Later, when conflicted Peter meets up with Blonde Phantom he still hasn’t decided, but as another band of Torinos jump them, the resulting battle reminds him that the last time he took money for being Spider-Man, his Uncle Ben diedâ€¦

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

The Blonde Phantom isn’t too disappointed either: she got Chat’s contact details out of Peter before they partedâ€¦

The eponymous ‘Peter Parker vs. the X-Men’ (pencilled by Ben Dewey) finds the wallcrawler and Chat having an earnest heart-to-heart about their relationship – and Gwen’s persistent and insistent claims to still going out on dates with Peter – when squirrels warn them that they are being spied on by a stranger with â€œthree big fingersâ€.

A thorough investigation results in nothing but a strange whiff of sulphurâ€¦

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

The bewildered and nervous hero heads home only to find Wolverine spying on him. When the Arachnid attacks the triple clawed mutant he is assaulted by a whole squad of X-Men and only after a frantic clash does he discover that they have come to offer help to a fellow mutantâ€¦

When he finally convinces them that he isn’t a Homo Superior kid, the embarrassed outcast heroes realise that their mutant detector Cerebro must have been registering the girl he was with – the one who talks to pigeons and squirrelsâ€¦

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

The mysteries begin to unravel after Captain Stacy offers Spider-Man a Consultant position with the NYPD and asks him to help apprehend Silencer who has been robbing the city blind.

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

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

Choosing to help Emma escape the police, Peter sacrifices his chance for an easier life, but discovers to his dismay in the concluding chapter that Emma is the cause of all his romantic woes, meddling with both Gwen and Chat’s minds because she wants the Webslinger herself. Of course the animals know what’s going on and when they tell Chat the fur – and webbing – starts to flyâ€¦

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to those Disney XD television shows designated as â€œMarvel Universe cartoonsâ€, but these collected stories are still an intriguing, amazingly entertaining and more culturally accessible means of introducing the character and concepts to kids born sometimes two generations or more away from the originating events.

Fast-paced, enthralling and impressive, these Spidey super stories are extremely enjoyable yarns, although parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers â€œAll-Ages Super Hero Actionâ€ and might perhaps better suit older kidsâ€¦
Â© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

May 13, 2014May 12, 2014

Tarzan in the City of Gold (The Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library volume 1)

By Burne Hogarth and Don Garden (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-317-7

Modern comics and graphic novels evolved from newspaper comic strips.

These daily pictorial features were – until very recently – extremely popular with the public and highly valued by publishers who used them as a powerful weapon to guarantee and even increase circulation and profits. From the earliest days humour was paramount; hence the terms â€œFunniesâ€ and of course, â€œComicsâ€.

Despite the odd ancestor or precedent like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (comedic when it began in 1924, but gradually moving through mock-heroics to light-action and becoming a full-blown adventure serial with the introduction of Captain Easy in 1929, the vast bulk of strips produced were generally feel-good humour strips with the occasional child-oriented fantasy.

The full blown adventure serial started with Buck Rogers – which began on January 7^th 1929 – and Tarzan (which debuted the same day). Both were adaptations of pre-existing prose properties and their influence changed the shape of the medium forever.

The 1930s saw an explosion of action and drama strips launched with astounding rapidity and success. Not just strips but actual genres were created in that decade which still impact on not just today’s comic-books but all our popular fiction.

In terms of sheer quality of art, the adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels starring jungle-bred John Clayton, Lord Greystoke by Canadian commercial artist Harold â€œHalâ€ Foster were unsurpassed, and the strip soon became a firm favourite of the reading masses, supplementing movies, books, a radio show and ubiquitous advertising appearances.

As fully detailed in Tarzan historian and author Scott Tracy Griffin’s informative overview ‘Burne & Burroughs: The Story of Burne Hogarth and Edgar Rice Burroughs’, Foster initially quit the strip at the end of the10-week adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes. He was replaced by Rex Maxon, but returned (at the insistent urging of Edgar Rice Burroughs) when the black-&-white daily was expanded to include a lush, full colour Sunday page of new tales.

Leaving Maxon to capably handle the Monday through Saturday series of novel adaptations, Foster produced the Sunday page until 1936 (233 weeks) after which he momentously moved to King Features Syndicate to create his own landmark weekend masterpiece Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur – which debuted on February 13^th 1937.

Once the four month backlog of material he had built up was gone, Foster was succeeded by a precociously brilliant 25-year old artist named Burne Hogarth: a young graphic visionary whose superb anatomical skill, cinematic design flair and compelling page composition revolutionised the entire field of action/adventure narrative illustration.

The galvanic modern dynamism of the idealised human figure in comicbooks can be directly attributed to Hogarth’s pioneering drawing and, in later years, educational largesse.

When he in turn finally left the strip Hogarth eventually found his way into teaching (he was the co-founder – with Silas H. Rhodes – of the Cartoonist and Illustrators School for returning veterans which evolved into the New York School of Visual Arts) and produced an invaluable and inspirational series of art textbooks such as Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing, which influenced a generation of aspiring and wannabe pencillers. I can see my own well-worn copies from where I sit typing this.

In the early 1970s Hogarth was lured back to the leafy domain of the legendary Lord Greystoke, producing two magnificent volumes of graphic narrative in the dazzling style that had captivated audiences more than thirty years previously. The large bold panels, vibrantly coloured, with blocks of Burroughs’ original text, leapt out at the reader in a riot of hue and motion as they retold the triumphant, tragic tale of the orphaned scion of the British nobility raised to puissant manhood by the Great Apes of Africa in Tarzan of the Apes and The Jungle Tales of Tarzan.

Burroughs cannily used the increasingly popular strip feature to cross-market his own prose efforts with great effect. Tarzan and the City of Gold was first serialised in the pulp magazine Argosy in 1932 and released as book the following year. So by May 17^th 1936, Hal Foster’s new and unconnected Tarzan in the City of Gold could be described as a brand new adventure on one hand, whilst boosting the already impressively constant book sales by acting as a subtle weekly ad for the fantastic fantasy novel.

As discussed and prÃ©cised in ‘Hal Foster’s Tarzan in the City of Gold – the Story So Far’, the illustrator and regular scripter Don Garden’s final yarn began with the 271^st weekly page and revealed how the incessantly wandering Ape-Man had stumbled upon a lost outpost built by ancient refugees from Asia Minor in a desolate region of the Dark Continent.

The city of Taanor was so rich in gold that the material was only useful for weather-proofing the roofs and domes of houses, but when white ne’er-do-wells Jim Gorrey and Rufus Flint discovered the fantastic horde they had marshalled a mercenary army, complete with tanks and aircraft, to conquer and plunder the lost kingdom.

Tarzan meanwhile had become the war-chief of noble King Dalkon and his beautiful daughter Princess Nakonia and was determined to use every trick and stratagem to smash the invadersâ€¦

After 51 weekly episodes of the epic, Foster was gone and we pick up the story of ‘Tarzan in the City of Gold’ (episodes #322-343, 9^th May to October 3^rd 1937) when the drama took a bold new direction as the embattled Jungle Lord led a slow war of attrition against would-be conquerors whilst simultaneously recruiting a bizarre battalion of beasts comprising apes, lions and elephants to convincingly crush the greedily amassed armaments of 20^th century warfare with fang and claw, sinew and muscleâ€¦

In those halcyon days the adventure was non-stop and, rather than cleanly defined breaks, storylines flowed one into another. Thus, Tarzan allowed the victorious Taanorians to believe he had perished in battle and journeyed to familiar territory, revisiting the cabin where he had been born and the region where he was raised by the she-ape Kala – stopping to punish a tribe of natives hunting and tormenting his old family/band of apes before Hogarth’s first full epic really began.

‘Tarzan and the Boers Part I’ (pages #344-377; 10^th October 1937 – 29^th May 1938) found the erstwhile Greystoke lured to the assistance of the duplicitous chieftain Ishtak who craved the Ape-Man’s assistance in repulsing an â€œinvasionâ€ by white pioneers from South Africa.

It wasn’t too long however before Tarzan discovered that Ishtak was playing a double game: having sold the land in question to the families led by aged Jan Van Buren, the avaricious king intended to wipe them out and keep his tribal territories intactâ€¦

When Tarzan discovered the plot he naturally sided with the Boers and, over many bloody, torturous weeks, helped the refugees survive Ishtak’s murderous campaign of terror and eventually establish a sound, solid community of honest farmersâ€¦

When Hogarth first took over the strip he had used an affected drawing style which mimicked Foster’s static realism, but by the time of ‘Tarzan and the Chinese’ (#378-402, 5 June – 20^th November 1938) he had completed a slow transition to his own tautly hyper-kinetic visual methodology which perfectly suited the electric vitality of the ever-onrushing feature’s exotic wonder.

Here, after leaving the new Boer nation Tarzan founded a vast, double-walled enclosure and ever curious, climbed into a fabulous hidden kingdom populated by the descendents of imperial Chinese colonists.

Once again he was happily in time to prevent the overthrow of the rightful ruler: firstly by rebels and bandits, then a treacherous usurper and latterly by invading African tribesmen, before slipping away to befriend another tribe of Great Apes and be mistaken for an evolutionary missing link by Professor John Farr in ‘Tarzan and the Pygmies’ (#403-427, 27^th November 1938 – 14^th May 1939).

However, the scientist’s nefarious guide Marsada knew exactly who and what the Ape-Man was and spent a great deal of time and efforts trying to kill Tarzan, who had destroyed his profitable poaching racket years before and, most infuriatingly, had caught the passionate fancy of Farr’s lovely daughter Lindaâ€¦

Following an extended clash with actual missing links – a mountain tribe of primitive, bestial half-men – Tarzan and Linda fell into the brawny hands of magnificent (white) tree-dwelling viragos who all wanted to mate with a man who was their physical equal. The trials and tribulations of ‘Tarzan and the Amazons’ (#428-437, 21^st May-23^rd July 1939) only ended when the jungle Adonis faked his own deathâ€¦

All these relatively aimless perambulations took the hero again to the young homeland of his Afrikaans friends and ‘Tarzan and the Boers Part II’ (#438-477, 30^th July 1939-28^th April 1940) found him perfectly matched against a cunning and truly monstrous villain named Klaas Vanger.

This wandering diamond hunter had discovered a mother-lode of gems on Jan Van Buren’s farm and, after seducing his way into the family’s good graces by romancing impressionable daughter Matea, he tried to murder them all. When this didn’t work Vanger instigated another war between the settlers and the natives; meanwhile absconding with a cache of diamonds and massacring a tribe of baboons befriended by Tarzanâ€¦

These vile shenanigans led to a horrific boom town of greedy killers springing up on the Boers’ lands, leading Tarzan, baby baboon Bo-Dan and hulking tongue-tied lovelorn farmhand Groot Carlus to take a terrible and well-deserved vengeance on the money-crazed monster and his minions whilst rescuing the crestfallen Matea from the seducer’s vile clutchesâ€¦

Edgar Rice Burroughs was a master of populist writing and always his prose crackled with energy and imagination. Hogarth was an inspired intellectual and, as well as gradually instilling his pages with ferocious, unceasing action, layered the panels with subtle symbolism. Even the vegetation looked spiky, edgy and liable to attack at a moment’s noticeâ€¦

His pictorial narratives are all coiled-spring tension or vital, violent explosive motion, stretching, running, fighting: a surging rush of power and glory. It’s wonderful that these majestic exploits are back in print – especially in such a lavish and luxurious oversized (330 x 254mm) hardback format – even if only to give us comic lovers and other couch potatoes a thorough cardio-vascular work-outâ€¦

Beautifully rendered and reassuringly formulaic these masterful interpretations of the utterly authentic Ape-Man are a welcome addition to any comics’ connoisseurs’ cupboard and you would be crazy not to take advantage of this beautiful collection; the first in a proposed Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library.
Tarzan Â® &Â© 2014 ERB, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All images copyright of ERB, Inc 2014. All text copyright of ERB, Inc 2014.

April 28, 2014May 5, 2014

Henry Speaks for Himself

By John Liney, edited by David Tosh (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-733-8

Henry was one of the most venerated and long-lived of American newspaper comics strips. Created by veteran cartoonist Carl Anderson as a silent, pantomimic gag-panel first seen on March 19^th 1932 for The Saturday Evening Post, it was picked up by the legendary strip advocate and propounder William Randolph Hearst who brought it and the then-69 year old Anderson to his King Features Syndicate in 1934. The first comic strip appeared on December 17^th with a full colour Sunday half-page following on March 10^th 1935.

The Saturday Evening Post had to content itself with a new feature entitled Little Lulu by Marjorie Henderson Buell. I wonder how that worked outâ€¦?

Being a man of advanced years, Anderson employed Don Trachte to assist with the Sundays whilst John J. Liney performed the same role for the Monday to Saturday black and white iteration. This continued until 1942 when arthritis forced Anderson to retire. Trachte and Liney became the de facto creators of the feature – although the originator’s name remained on the masthead for the next two decades.

Liney (1912-1982) had started as a staff cartoonist on the Philadelphia Evening Ledger and began selling gag ideas to Anderson in 1936 before landing the full-time assistant’s job. After assuming the illustrator’s role in 1942 he took over sole writing responsibilities for the daily in 1945, continuing Henry until 1979 when he finally retired.

His own name had been adorning the strip since 1970.

Liney was also a passionate teacher and educator on comics and cartooning, with a position at Temple University. Nevertheless he still found time to write and draw a comicbook iteration of the mute and merry masterpiece from 1946 to 1961.

Major licensing monolith Western Publishing/Dell Comics had been successfully producing comicbooks starring animation characters, film icons and strip heroes since the mid 1930s, and when they launched Henry – first in Four Color Comics #122 and #155 (October 1946 and July 1947) and then in his own 65 issue title from January 1948 – they successfully argued for a radical change in the boy’s make-up.

The newspaper strip had always been a timeless, nostalgia-fuelled, happily humour-heavy panoply of gags and slapstick situations wherein the frankly weird-looking little bald kid romped and pranked in complete silence, with superb cartooning delivering all the communication nuance the vast international audience needed.

Now however, with children seen as the sole consumers, the powers-that-be felt that the little mutant should be able to speak and make himself understood. Liney easily rose to the challenge and produced a sublime run of jolly, wild, weird and often utterly surreal endlessly inventive adventures – some approaching â€œStream-of-Consciousnessâ€ progressions that perfectly captured the ephemeral nature of kids’ concentration. He also introduced a captivating supporting cast to augment the boy, and his appealingly unattractive, forthright and two-fisted inamorata Henrietta.

This splendid softcover collection gathers some of the very best longer tales from the comicbook run in the resplendent flat primary colours that are so evocative of simpler – if not better – days and begins after a heartfelt reminiscence in the Foreword by Kim Deitch, after which Editor, compiler and devotee David Tosh outlines the history of the character and his creators in ‘Henry – the Funniest Living American’.

He thengoes on to explain ‘The Dell Years’ before offering some informative ‘Notes on the Stories’.

The magical story portion of this collection is liberally interspersed with stunning cover reproductions; all impressively returning to the quiet lad’s pantomimic gag roots, a brace of which precede a beautiful double-page spread detailing the vast and varied cast Liney added to mix.

Then from issue #7 (June, 1949) we find ‘Henry is Thinking Out Loud!’ as the boy keeps his non-existent mouth shut and explores the medium of first person narrative, inner monologues and thought-balloons whilst getting into mischief looking for odd jobs to doâ€¦

October’s edition, Henry #9, introduced the good-natured, cool but increasingly put-upon Officer Yako in ‘You Can’t Beat the Man on the Beat!’ in an escalating succession of brushes with the law, bullies, prospective clients and darling Henrietta.

That bald boy still hadn’t actually uttered a sound, but by #14 (August 1950) he had found his voice, much to the amusement of his layabout Uncle (he never had a name) who eavesdropped on the assorted kids comparing their ‘Funny Dreams’.

After a quartet of covers Henry #16 (December 1950) found Liney playing with words as ‘Rhyme Without Reason’ found all the characters afflicted with doggerel, meter, couplets and all forms poetic with Liney even drawing himself into the madcap procession of japes and jests, whilst ‘A Slice of Ham’ from issue #22 (December 1951) cleverly riffed on Henry’s ambitions to impress Henrietta by becoming an actor. This yarn includes a wealth of Liney caricatures of screen immortals such as Chaplin, Gable, Sinatra and more, whilst introducing a potential rival for Henry’s affections in cousin Gildaâ€¦

In #24 (April 1952) Henry ‘Peeks into the Future’ by outrageously pondering on his possible careers as an adult, before plunging into Flintstone or Alley Oop territory – complete with cave city and dinosaurs – as a result of studying too hard for a history test in ‘The Stone Age Story’ from issues #29, February 1953.

After four more clever funny covers, growing up again featured heavily with ‘Choosing Your Career’ (#45, March 1956) as the little fool road-tested a job as a home-made cab driver and accidentally slipped into law enforcement by capturing a bandit.

In #48 (December 1956) Henry attended a fancy dress party and became ‘The Boy in the Iron Mask’, and this completely charming compilation closes by reprising that sojourn in the Stone Age with #49 (March 1957)’s ‘Rock and Roll’â€¦

Concluding the comedy capers is fond personal reminiscence ‘Henry and Me’ by David Tosh; a man justifiably delighted to be able to share his passion with us and hopefully proud that this book gloriously recaptures some of the simple straightforward sheer joy that could be found in comicbooks of yore.

Henry Speaks for Himself is fun, frolicsome and fabulously captivating all-ages cartooning that will enthral anyone with kids or who has the soul of one.

Henry Speaks for Himself Â© 2014 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All comics and drawings Â© 2014 King Features, Inc. All other material Â© its respective creators. This book was produced in cooperation with Heritage Auctions.

April 25, 2014April 27, 2014

Papyrus volume 3: Tutankhamun, the Assassinated Pharaoh

By Lucien De Geiter, coloured by G. Vloeberghs & translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1- 905460-84-7

British and European comics have always been happier with historical strips than our American cousins (a pugnacious part of me wants to say that’s because we have so much more past to play with – and yes, I know they’re responsible for Prince Valiant, but he’s an exception, not a rule) and our Franco-Belgian brethren in particular have made an astonishing art form out of days gone by.

The happy combination of familiar exoticism, past lives and world-changing events blended with drama, action and especially broad humour has resulted in a genre uniquely suited to beguiling readers of all ages and tastes.

Don’t take my word for it – just check out Asterix, AdÃ¨le Blanc-Sec, The Towers of Bois-Maury, Iznogoud or Thorgal to name but a few which have made it into English, or our own much missed period classics such as Olac the Gladiator, Dick Turpin, Janus Stark, Heros the Spartan or Wrath of the Gods; all far too long overdue for collection in album form, I might add.

Papyrus is the magnificent magnum opus of Belgian cartoonist Lucien de Gieter. It premiered in 1974 in legendary weekly Spirou, running to more than 30 albums, a wealth of merchandise, a television cartoon show and a video game.

De Gieter was born in 1932 and studied at Saint-Luc Art Institute in Brussels before going into industrial design and interior decorating. He made the jump into sequential narrative in 1961, first through ‘mini-rÃ©cits’ (fold-in, half-sized-booklets) inserts for Spirou, starring his jovial little cowboy ‘Pony’, and later by writing for art-star regulars such as Kiko, Jem, Eddy Ryssack and Francis.

He then joined Peyo’s studio as inker on ‘Les Schtroumpfs’ (The Smurfs) and took over the long-running newspaper strip ‘Poussy’.

In the 1960s De Gieter launched South Seas mermaid fantasy ‘TÃ´Ã´Ã´t et Puit’ whilst Pony was promoted to the full-sized pages of Spirou, deep-sixing the Smurfs gig to expand his horizons working for Tintin and Le Journal de Mickey.

From 1972-1974 he assisted cartooning legend Berck on ‘Mischa’ for Germany’s Primo, whilst applying the finishing touches to his latest project: a historical confection which would occupy his full attention and delight millions of fervent fans for the next forty years.

The annals of Papyrus encompass a huge range of themes and milieus, blending Boy’s Own adventure with historical fiction and interventionist mythology, gradually evolving from traditionally appealing â€œBigfootâ€ cartoon style and content towards a more realistic, dramatic and authentic iteration, through light fantasy romps – leavened and flavoured with the latest historical theories and discoveries – starring a fearlessly forthright boy fisherman favoured by the gods to become a hero of Egypt and friend to Pharaohs.

As a youngster the plucky â€œfellahâ€ was blessed by the gods and given a magic sword courtesy of the daughter of crocodile-headed Sobek.

The lad’s first task was to free supreme god Horus from imprisonment in the Black Pyramid of Ombos thereby restoring peace to the Double Kingdom, but his most difficult and never-ending duty was to protecting Pharaoh’s wilful, high-handed and safety-averse daughter Theti-Cheri – a princess with an unparalleled gift for seeking out troubleâ€¦

Tutankhamun, the Assassinated Pharaoh is the third Cinebook translation (17^th in the series and originally released in 1994 as ToutÃ¢nkhamon, le Pharaon assassinÃ©), skilfully blending fact and fantasy into a strange and disturbing tale of grave robbery, unquiet ghosts and madnessâ€¦

It all begins with a squabble between the Mayor of the City of the Dead and his equivalent civil servant for the City of Thebes. The vast desolate region of imperial tombs, sepulchres and lesser burials is being systematically ransacked by blasphemous thieves and, whilst aforementioned Executive of the Interred Paur claims the sacrilegious raids must be the work of roving Bedouins, Thebes’ Mayor Paser posits that the defilers’ knowledge of the sites indicates they must be Egyptiansâ€¦ perhaps even some of Paur’s workers or tomb guardsâ€¦

Bored with the interminable bickering, Theti-Cheri drags away Papyrus and court jester Puin to join her father’s lion hunt in the deep desert. Amidst the hustle and bustle the jolly dwarf is left behind and forced to frustratingly follow on his astoundingly smart donkey Khamelot.

Naturally this leads to him being attacked by the self-same decrepit man-eater Pharaoh is trying to eradicate, and as Puin frantically flees the hungry cat he sees chariot-borne scout Papyrus save a fellah from brutal grave guards.

The grateful peasant is a plant however and secretes a golden tomb treasure on the boy hero before knocking him outâ€¦

When Papyrus comes to he is surrounded by soldiers and accused by Paur’s captain Rhama of tomb-robbing. A crowd of suspiciously incensed citizens even try to stone him to death and Pharaoh has no choice but to have the boy imprisoned for trial.

However, before the doughty lad can gather his wits, Paur attempts to assassinate him with snakes and then kidnaps him from his temple cell, hiding the drugged and unconscious form in a secret access shaft to the grave of tragic boy king Tutankhamunâ€¦

Falling through into the tomb proper, Papyrus’ spirit is accosted by the ghost of Ankhsenamun and discovers from Tutankhamun’s beloved child-bride that his own peasant great-grandfather played a major role in the tragic romance and short, complex reign of the murdered Boy-Kingâ€¦

As Papyrus learns the incredible, unpalatable truth about the legendary ruler’s fate, in the physical world Puin and Khamelot have informed Theti-Cheri of the plot and the impetuous Princess has rushed to the site and subsequently trapped herself in the tomb whilst gold-crazed Paur’s men close in to murder everybody who knows of the Mayor of the City of the Dead’s perfidyâ€¦

However the blasphemous bandits have not reckoned on Pharaoh’s cunning perspicacity or a certain donkey’s loyal ingenuityâ€¦

This is another astounding amazing adventure which will thrill and enthral fans of fantastic fantasy – although some of the finer points of Pharaonic marriage customs might distress fainter-hearted parents and guardians – and De Gieter’s clever merging of gothic romance, ghost story and archaeological revelation make for a particularly impressive treat..

Papyrus is a brilliant addition to the family-friendly pantheon of continental champions who marry heroism and humour with wit and charm, and anybody who has worn out those Tintin or Asterix volumes would be wise beyond their years in acquiring all these classic chronicles.
Â© Dupuis, 1994 by De Gieter. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

April 12, 2014April 11, 2014

Dalton City: Lucky Luke volume 3

By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Frederick W. Nolan (CineBook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-13-7

It’s hard to think of one of Europe’s most beloved and long-running comics characters being in any way controversial, but when the changing times caught up with the fastest gun in the West (â€œso fast he can outdraw his own shadowâ€) and the planet’s most laconic cowboy moved with them, the news made headlines all over the world.

Lucky Luke is a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast cowboy who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper and interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures of the genre.

His continued exploits over nearly seventy years have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (78 collected books and more than 300 million albums in 30 languages thus far), with spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and even a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies.

He was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de BÃ©vÃ¨re (â€œMorrisâ€) for the 1947 Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou, before launching into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880â€² on December 7^th 1946.

Prior to that, while working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’ActualitiÃ©s) cartoon studio, Morris met future comics super-stars Franquin and Peyo, and worked for weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist – which is probably why (to my eyes at least) his lone star hero looks uncannily like the young Robert Mitchum who graced so many memorable mid-1940s B-movie Westerns.

Morris quickly became one of â€œla Bande des quatreâ€ – The Gang of Four – which comprised creators JijÃ©, Will and his old comrade Franquin: the leading proponents of the loose and free-wheeling artistic style known as the â€œMarcinelle Schoolâ€ which dominated Spirou in aesthetic contention with the â€œLigne Claireâ€ style used by HergÃ©, EP Jacobs and other artists in Tintin Magazine.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow traveller RenÃ© Goscinny, scoring some work from the newly-formed EC sensation Mad and making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West.

That research would resonate on every page of his life’s work.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush parody before reuniting with Goscinny, who became the regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Spirou on August 25^th 1955.

In 1967 the six-gun straight-shooter switched teams, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with ‘La Diligence’ (The Stagecoach). Goscinny produced 45 albums with Morris before his death, from whence Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus the spin-off adventures of Rantanplan (â€œdumbest dog in the Westâ€ and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), with AchdÃ©, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac taking over the franchise, producing another five tales to date.

Moreover, apart from that very first adventure, Lucky (to appropriate a quote applied to the thematically simpatico Alias Smith and Jones) â€œin all that timeâ€¦ never shot or killed anyoneâ€â€¦

Lucky Luke first appeared in Britain syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun and again in 1967 in Giggle where he was renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums from Brockhampton and Knight Books – Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip, but in 1983 Morris, no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of â€œpolitical correctness gone madâ€, substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The most recent attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook (who have rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages if not the coversâ€¦) and Dalton City was the third of 50 albums (and counting), available both on paper and as e-book editions.

It was the 34^th comic cowboy chronicle and Goscinny’s 25^th collaboration with Morris, originally appearing in 1969 and featuring the first appearance of that most stupid of do-gooding doggy sidekicks Rantanplan. You have been warnedâ€¦

The saga commences in Fenton Town, a city of utter depravity and villainy run by and for crooks, badmen and owlhoots by the cunning mastermind Dean Fenton; a mean man with the unsavoury hobby of collecting Sheriff’s starsâ€¦ from their bullet-riddled bodiesâ€¦

The night a lean, laconic lone rider ambled into town the murderous gambler’s fortunes changed forever, and when Luke spectacularly delivered the gang boss to justice, Fenton got 1223 years hard labour at Texas penitentiary, an imposing edifice already crammed with dozens of other varmints who failed to take Lucky Luke seriously.

And that’s where the trouble really startsâ€¦

Amongst the inmates are stupid sandbagging scallywags Averell, Jack and William Dalton and their smart, psychotic, bossy and short brother Joe, who had made things hot for our hero in the past. As they all crack rocks together the Dalton Gang are particularly influenced by Fenton’s tales of his little kingdom.

Contentedly ambling away from the prison, Luke and Jolly Jumper have no idea that an idiotic, incompetent telegraph operator is about to make their lives impossibly difficult. Handed a mis-transcribed message from the Governor to free inmate Joe Milton for Good Behaviour, the baffled Warden forcibly ejects the furiously insulted Dalton head honcho. Eventually calming down – at least as much as Joe Dalton ever can – the wily skunk promptly blows up an outer wall to liberate his scurrilous simpleton siblings and they all make tracks for the now-deserted Fenton Town.

Search parties of course trail them, but when vain, friendly and exceedingly dim prison hound Rin Tin Can absently-mindedly forgets himself and joins his quarry, the shame-faced guards have to return empty-handedâ€¦

Regretfully the Warden sends a telegram to Lucky Luke – again appallingly garbled – and the normally unflappable gunhawk is less than amused. It takes the pleadings of the Governor of Texas himself to convince him to go after his old enemiesâ€¦

In the renamed DaltonCity, Joe and the boys have big plans. They’re going to operate a Mecca for all the criminals in the state: a safe place for badmen to hide and spend their stolen loot. Joe will be in charge, Jack will operate the hotel, William the stables and Averell will run the restaurant.

He even has faithful, omnivorous Rin Tin Can to test all his recipes onâ€¦

After much unlikely and unfamiliar had work the place is starting to come together when they get an even bigger boost by capturing their nemesis Lucky Luke spying on them. The hero had forgotten how stupid Rin Tin Can could beâ€¦

The hapless prisoner is then put to work testing their wares: surely if the service is good enough for Luke it will be perfect for the scum of the West? However the boys make the foolish mistake of listening to his suggestions for improvementâ€¦

The beginning of the end comes when Joe writes off to hire a singer and troupe of dancing girls. When the bombastic virago Lulu Breechloader and her associates Belle, Sugar Linda and Pearl arrive Lucky has all he needs to drive an amorous wedge into the solidarity of the felonious fellowship and, as an army of bandits and killers steadily roll into town looking for sanctuary and entertainment, they are invited to the wedding of the centuryâ€¦

The only persons unaware of the impending – and hard-fought for – nuptials of Joe Dalton and Lulu are the bride herself and her blithely unaware piano-playing husbandâ€¦

In the ensuing chaos and explosive gunplay it isn’t hard for a smart cowboy crusader to make the biggest capture of wanted criminals in Texas’ history and ride off into the sunset with a new four-footed canine companionâ€¦

Once again the masterful wit and wicked deviousness of the indomitable hero triumphs in a splendidly intoxicating blend of all-ages action, seductive slapstick and wry cynical humour.

This is a grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides again and Support Your Local Sheriff (or perhaps Paint Your Wagon, Evil Roy Slade or Cat Ballou are more your style?), superbly executed by master storytellers, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never wasâ€¦

And in case you’re worried, even though the interior art still has our hero chawin’ on that ol’ nicotine stick, trust me, there’s very little chance of anyone craving a quick snout, but quite a high probability that they’ll be addicted to Lucky Luke Albumsâ€¦

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