Category: Kids – All Ages

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Captain Pugwash: A Pirate Story


By John Ryan (Puffin)
ISBN: 978-1-84507-919-2

John Ryan was an artist and storyteller who straddled three distinct disciplines of graphic narrative, with equal qualitative if not financial success.

The son of a diplomat, Ryan was born in Edinburgh on March 4th 1921, served in Burma and India and after attending the Regent Street Polytechnic (1946-48) took up a post as assistant Art Master at Harrow School from 1948 to 1955. It was during this time that he began contributing strips to Fulton Press publications, in the distaff alternative Girl but especially the legendary Eagle.

On April 14th 1950 Britain’s grey, post-war gloom was partially lifted with the first issue of a new comic that literally shone with light and colour. Avid children were soon understandably enraptured with the gloss and dazzle of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, a charismatic star-turn venerated to this day. The Eagle was a tabloid-sized paper with full colour inserts alternating with text and a range of various other comic features. “Tabloid” is a big page and one can get a lot of material onto each one. Deep within, on the bottom third of a monochrome page was an eight panel strip entitled Captain Pugwash – The story of a Bad Buccaneer and the many Sticky Ends which nearly befell him. Ryan’s quirky, spiky style also lent itself to the numerous spot illustrations required throughout the comic every week.

Pugwash, his harridan of a wife and the useless, lazy crew of the Black Pig ran until issue 19 when the feature disappeared. This was no real hardship as Ryan had been writing and illustrating ‘Harris Tweed – Extra Special Agent’ a full page (tabloid, remember, an average of twenty panels a page, per week!) from The Eagle #16. Tweed ran for three years as a full page until 1953 when it dropped to a half page strip and was repositioned as a purely comedic venture.

In 1956 the indefatigable old sea-dog (I mean old Horatio Pugwash but it could so easily be Ryan: an unceasing story-peddler with a big family, he also found time to be the head cartoonist for the Catholic Herald for forty years) made the jump to children’s picture books.

A Pirate Story (first published by Bodley Head before switching to the children’s publishing specialist Puffin) was the first of a huge run of children’s books on a number of different subjects. Pugwash himself starred in 21 tomes; there were a dozen books based on the animated series Ark Stories, as well as Sir Prancelot and a number of other creations. Ryan worked whenever he wanted to in the comic world and eventually the books and the strips began to cross-fertilise.

The first Pugwash is very traditional in format with blocks of text and single illustrations that illuminate a particular moment. But by the publication of Pugwash the Smuggler (1982) entire sequences are lavishly painted comic strips, with as many as eight panels per page, and including word balloons. A fitting circularity to his careers and a nice treat for us old-fashioned comic drones.

When A Pirate Story was released in 1957 the BBC pounced on the property, commissioning Ryan to produce five-minute episodes (86 in all from 1957 to 1968, which were reformatted in full colour and rebroadcast in 1976). In the budding 1950s arena of animated television cartoons Ryan developed a new system for producing cheap, high quality animations to a tight deadline. He began with Pugwash, keeping the adventure milieu, but replaced the shrewish wife with a tried-and-true boy assistant. Tom the Cabin Boy is the only capable member of a crew which included such visual archetypes as Willy, Baranabas and Master Mate (fat, thin and tall – all dim) instantly affirming to the rapt, young audience that grown-ups are fools and kids do, in fact, rule.

Ryan also drew a weekly Pugwash strip in the Radio Times for eight years, before going on to produce a number of other animated series including Mary, Mungo and Midge, The Friendly Giant and Sir Prancelot as well as adaptations of some of his many children’s books. In 1997 an all new CGI-based Pugwash animated TV series began.

That first story sets the scene with a delightful clown’s romp as the so-very-motley crew of the Black Pig sailed in search of buried treasure, only to fall into a cunning trap set by the truly nasty Cut-Throat Jake. Luckily Tom, the Cabin Boy, was as smart as his shipmates and Captain were not…

John Ryan returned to pirate life in the 1980s, drawing three new Pugwash storybooks: The Secret of the San Fiasco, The Battle of Bunkum Bay and The Quest for the Golden Handshake as well as a thematic prequel in Admiral Fatso Fitzpugwash, in which it is revealed that the not-so-salty seadog had a medieval ancestor who became First Sea Lord, despite being terrified of water…

The most recent edition of A Pirate Story (2008 from Frances Lincoln Children’s Books) came with a free audio CD, and just in case I’ve tempted you beyond endurance here’s a full list (I think) of the good(?) Captain’s exploits: Captain Pugwash: A Pirate Story (1957), Pugwash Aloft (1960), Pugwash and the Ghost Ship (1962), Pugwash in the Pacific (1963), Pugwash and the Sea Monster (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Ruby (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Treasure Chest (1976), Captain Pugwash and the New Ship (1976), Captain Pugwash and the Elephant (1976), The Captain Pugwash Cartoon Book (1977), Pugwash and the Buried Treasure (1980), Pugwash the Smuggler (1982), Captain Pugwash and the Fancy Dress Party (1982), Captain Pugwash and the Mutiny (1982), Pugwash and the Wreckers (1984), Pugwash and the Midnight Feast (1984), The Battle of Bunkum Bay (1985), The Quest of the Golden Handshake (1985), The Secret of the San Fiasco (1985), Captain Pugwash and the Pigwig (1991) and Captain Pugwash and the Huge Reward (1991)

We don’t have that many multi-discipline successes in comics, so why don’t you go and find out why we should celebrate one who did it all, did it first and did it well? Your kids will thank you and if you’ve any life left in your old and weary adult fan’s soul, you will too…

© 1957, 2009 John Ryan and presumably the Estate of John Ryan. All rights reserved.

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Paper Dolls from the California Girls


By Trina Robbins (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 0-913035-57-2

I haven’t looked at anything for the sheer fun of it for awhile so here’s a delightful peculiarity from the 1980s: an example of an old hobby that’s just crying out to become the next big fad. As a follow-up to her wacky, wise and wonderful Paper Dolls from the Comics (ISBN: 0-913035-20-3) cartoonist Trina Robbins turned her designing eye on her own strip: California Girls.

One of the last serious attempts at creating a fun comicbook for young girls, the series featured the everyday lives of Maxine and Maureen Muldoon, twins who attend Hollyhock High School with their gal-pals. While not to every fan’s taste the strip consisted of fashion, comedy and everyday adventure, carried out with Robbins’ slick wit and accessible style.

The newspaper comic strip was a powerful and ubiquitous tool used to raise circulation and promote customer loyalty in the first half of the twentieth century, and as well as laughs, thrills and escapism creators frequently added games, cut-out collectible premiums and paper toys to their output in their efforts to win and keep an audience that consisted of the entire family, not just adolescent males of all ages.

One of the most popular and effective – even to this day (don’t take my word for it, crank up that search engine and see for yourself), was the addition of favourite characters in their underwear, with additional clothes you could “dress” them in. You could even design your own outfits for them. The common belief was that young children and girls loved this kind of “dress-up” play, but I suspect many young men also joined in the fun.

This practise migrated to comicbooks, and every youngster and girl friendly title from Sugar and Spike to Millie the Model had their own paper-doll pages. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, even my exceptionally smart and utterly sensible wife is not immune to the seditious allure of these things.

So grab your crayons to decorate the monochrome pages (there’s a glorious full-colour centre section too), snag some scissors – don’t run! – and revel in the modes and fashions of the 1980s West Coast. And remember if you do come across a copy of this joyous little gem, with today’s scanning and reprographic advances you can easily duplicate all the pages and go mad without destroying this fun and funky little package…
© 1988 Trina Robbins. All Rights Reserved.

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Iznogoud volume 2: The Caliph’s Vacation


By Goscinny & Tabary, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-905460-61-8

During his lifetime (1926-1977) René Goscinny was one of the most prolific, and is still one of the most read, writers of comic strips the world has ever seen. Among his most popular series are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas and of course Asterix the Gaul. In 1962, scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to the deserts when he teamed with Jean Tabary to produce imbecilic Arabian potentate Haroun el-Poussah but it was the villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud that 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 15th issue in1962. A modest success, it was transferred to Pilot: a magazine created and edited by Goscinny where it was redeveloped to give more emphasis to the scurrilous little weasel who had increasingly stolen the show.

With the emphasis shifted to the shifty shrimp the revamped series, retitled Iznogoud, commenced in Pilote in 1968, becoming a huge favourite, with 27 albums to date, a long-running TV cartoon show and even a live action movie in 2005. When Goscinny died in 1977 Tabary took over writing the strip as well, moving to book-length complete tales, rather than the compilations of short punchy stories that typified their collaborations.

Like all the best storytelling, Iznogoud works on two levels: as a comedic romp of 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. Here their famed skills conjure up the best – and least salacious – bits of the legendary “Carry On films”…

Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to Haroun Al Plassid, Caliph of Ancient Baghdad, but the sneaky little toad has loftier ambitions, or as he is always shouting “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”

The vile vizier is “aided” – that’s sarcasm, that is – in his schemes by bumbling and reluctant assistant Wa’at Alahf, and in this second delightful translation from CineBook (which was originally the third album Les vacances du calife (1968, Dargaud), they begin their latest campaign of insurrections with ‘Summer Vacation or Never Say Die.’ As the holidays come round again the vizier persuades the Caliph to forego his usual Summer Palace in favour of a quiet bed-sit by the seaside, where an unwary ruler could easily drown or be buried in the sand or lost at sea or be eaten by sharks or…

As usual the plans go painfully awry and it’s back to Baghdad for ‘Good Sports in the Caliphate’ as a hapless magician/weatherman accidentally creates enough snow in the desert to open a ski resort. It doesn’t take much – it never does – to convince Haroun to sample the chilly thrills of skiing, snowboarding, crevasses and avalanches but as usual it’s not the Big Chief who sustains any crippling injuries.

The vacation theme continues with ‘The Caliph’s Cruise’ but after booking passage for Haroun with the unluckiest sea captain alive, the vile vizier doesn’t get off the ship quickly enough and the selection of cannibals, monsters, savages and sea creatures the voyagers encounter find him a far more suitable subject for their unique attentions, whilst in the concluding tale ‘Lihkwid’s Bottle or the Bottle of Lihkwid’ a travelling merchant provides an infallible elixir that will transform the affable potentate into a louse – but only if Iznogoud can trick him into drinking all three gallons of the foul-tasting stuff…

Snappy, fast-paced slapstick and painfully punny word-play abound in these mirthfully infectious tales, and this series is a household name in France; where the name has even entered common usage as a term for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and often of diminutive stature.

When first released here in the 1970s, Iznogoud made little impression but hopefully this snazzy new incarnation of gloriously readable and wonderfully affordable comedy vignettes can finally find an audience among today’s more internationally aware comics-and-cartoon savvy British Kids Of All Ages.

I’m already one of them: How about you…?

© 1968 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Goscinny & Tabary. All Rights Reserved.

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The Rainbow Orchid Volume 1 (the Adventures of Julius Chancer)


By Garen Ewing (Egmont UK)
ISBN:  978-1-4052-4853-2

Finally getting what he deserves is creator Garen Ewing whose delightful pastiche of the adventure genre pioneered by Hergé at last gets the full-colour album treatment with the first volume of The Rainbow Orchid.

The character of plucky young daredevil Julius Chancer and his adventuresome pals began popping up around 2003 in a self-published mini-comic and a few other small press publications (Gosh, I wish there was a less loaded or pejorative term for magazines produced by devoted, if unpaid, creators) and has been unfolding online ever since to rapturous praise from industry and public alike. Now Egmont, who also publish Tintin, (last time I mention him, I promise) have picked up the series and we should see this fabulous tale of old fashioned derring-do become a solid reader favourite on its own merits.

In a tale delightfully reminiscent of Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion tale ‘Look to the Lady/the Gyrth Chalice Mystery’ (and wasn’t he originally a pastiche of Lord Peter Wimsey?) and with just a hint of Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger stories, this first of three volumes set in 1920s Britain introduces Julius Chancer, young but capable assistant to Sir Alfred Catesby-Grey, renowned historical researcher and gentleman breeder of orchids.

Sir Alfred is approached by Lord Reginald Lawrence, scion of an ancient and noble house, who has been tricked into an impossible wager by the dastardly entrepreneur Urkaz Grope. At stake is the “Trembling Sword of Tybalt Stone” a priceless antique that has been the seat of the family’s honour since 1445, and without which Lord Lawrence would have to surrender all his estates and titles…

To win the wager Lawrence needs an example of Iriode Orchino – the rainbow orchid, a mythical bloom last seen by Alexander the Great over two thousand years ago. Although Catesby-Grey pooh-poohs the whole story, Julius remains hopeful, perhaps as tempted by the prospect of adventure and paid bills as by the urgings of plucky Lady Lily, Lawrence’s daughter and a silent film actress recently returned from Hollywood to the bosom of Empire.

Grope is an ominous presence throughout, with a highly secret agenda of his own and no principles at all, whilst the vulgarly intrusive journalist William Pickle has no decency, no morals and definitely no fear as he sniffs out news and controversy like an obsessed ferret, whilst Lily’s Movie Publicity Agent Nathaniel Crumpole always seems in the thick of whatever trouble is brewing – can even an American be that determinedly naive?

The boy Chancer determines to risk all in tracking down the orchid and despite a series of viciously calculated ploys by Grope and his gang of cutthroats sets off with Lily and Crumpole for Karachi and the fantastic flower’s last known whereabouts…

Enchantingly engaging, astonishingly authentic and masterfully illustrated in the legendary Ligne Claire style, this is a wonderful tale that ranks amongst the very best all-ages graphic narratives and although the wait for the next volume might seem interminable the online presence and added value items which can be found at www.rainboworchid.co.uk should keep your bated breath puffing along until then.

Magic, pure graphic magic. Where else could you get hot fresh nostalgia, just like your granddad used to love?

© 2009 Garen Ewing. All Rights Reserved.

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Lucky Luke: Billy the Kid


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (CineBook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-11-3

It’s hard to think of one of Europe’s most beloved and long-running comics character’s being in any way controversial, but when the changing times caught up with the fastest gun in the West (“so fast he can outdraw his own shadow”) and Lucky Luke moved with them, the news made headlines all over the world.

Lucky Luke is a rangy, laconic, good, natured cowboy who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper and Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures of the genre.

His continued exploits over more than 60 years have made him the best-selling comic character in Europe, (more than 300 million albums in 30 languages thus far), with spin-off games, computer games, animated cartoon and even live-action movies.

He was created by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère – who signed himself Morris – for the 1947 Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou, launching into his first adventure ‘Arizona 1880′ on December 7th 1946.

Before then, while working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio Morris met future comics super-stars Franquin and Peyo, and worked for weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist (to my eyes Lucky Luke looks uncannily like the young Robert Mitchum who graced so many mid-1940s B-movie Westerns).

He quickly became one of “la Bande des quatre” or Gang of Four, which comprised the creators Jijé, Will and his old comrade Franquin, and who were the leading proponents of the loose and free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP

Jacobs and other artists in Tintin Magazine.

In 1948 the Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing, and Morris stayed for six years, meeting René Goscinny, scoring some work from the newly formed EC sensation, Mad, and making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly disappearing Old West. His research henceforward resonated on every page of his life’s work.

Working alone until 1955 when he reunited with Goscinny (see our recent Iznogoud review for the low-down on that most prolific of comics writers) Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush parody before, working in perfect unison, Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Spirou on August 25th 1955.

In 1967 the straight-shooter switched teams, leaving Spirou for Goscinny’s magazine Pilote with the tale ‘La Diligence’ (the Stagecoach). Goscinny produced 45 albums with Morris before his death, from when Morris continued both alone and with other collaborators. Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus the spin-off adventures of Rantanplan, and the team of Achdé and Laurent Gerra took over franchise, producing another three tales to date. In a most peculiar aside I feel I must mention that Morris was apparently voted the “79th Greatest Belgian” in the 2005 Walloon election of De Grootste Belg. If so, I demand a recount…

Lucky Luke first appeared in Britain syndicated in the 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 “political correctness gone mad” – substituted a piece of straw for the much-traveled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The latest attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook, and the first of the twenty (and counting) available albums is Billy the Kid, Morris and Goscinny’s eleventh collaboration.

As Luke rides into the troubled town of Fort Weakling he finds the populace cowed and broken by the vile depredations of the infamous William Bonney. The desperado robs the bank every couple of days, and the stage coach every time it leaves town, helps himself to caramels without paying, and won’t let the saloon serve anything but drinking chocolate.

His deadly aptitude with a six-gun means that no one will swear out a complaint let alone testify against the vicious little bully, and when Luke accepts the job of sheriff it takes brains and cunning rather than his legendary skill with a shooting iron to free the town from the tiny grip of the world’s meanest 12 year old…

Although the dialogue is a trifle stiff in places, this is a grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides again and Support Your Local Sheriff (or perhaps Alias Smith and Jones or Evil Roy Slade are more your style?) superbly executed by master storytellers, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genres for kids of all ages.

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 want more Lucky Luke Albums…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © Cinebook Ltd.

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Connective Tissue


By Bob Fingerman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-143-5

The always innovative and entertaining Bob Fingerman turns his post-modern attentions to the burgeoning sector of illustrated novellas (picture books for grown-ups) with this classy, sassy and wickedly beguiling blend of Alice in Wonderland, Stranger in a Strange Land and Clerks with just a dash of Allan Moyle’s hugely underrated 1995 movie Empire Records.

There’s a whole other class in the world, eternally young, worldly-wise and yet unaccountably innocent. They dress oddly, know cool but useless things, don’t care about pension plans or job security and work only to live their outside lives. They are the disaffected tribe who work for minimum wage in the odd corners of modern retail: record stores, non-chain book shops, computer games stores, comic shops…

They’re not an underclass, just a different one.

Darla Vogel earns her living at Kwok’s Video rental store. As a cool and rudely healthy chick in a venue that attracts a lot of loners and weirdoes she often finds herself the object of fumbling attention and unwanted gifts, but one particular night when she gets home she finds herself abducted via a poster on her wall into a disturbing new universe: bleakly undulating, slightly skewed, grossly organic and filled with far too much of the wrong kind of nakedness. Darla wants to go home…

Fingerman takes a classic plot with a much funnier and more feisty heroine, adds a dollop of queasy otherworldliness, peppers it all with dry wit and an avalanche of contemporary references Рeverything from celebrity gossip to comic strips Рbefore adding his own subversively funny tone-and-wash illustrations (a delightful remembrance of the best Mad Magazine pages) to produce a runaway delight for adult lovers of the outr̩ and outrageous.

Get it: it’s good!

© 2009 Bob Fingerman. All Rights Reserved.

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The Best of Roy of the Rovers: the 1980s


By Tom Tulley & David Sque (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84576948-2

There was a time when comics in Britain reflected the interests of a much larger proportion of the youthful population, and when adults kept their bizarre reading habits a closely guarded secret. Now that it’s practically cool to read graphic narrative, one of the nation’s greatest heroes – sporting, as well as comic related – has been revived in a series of collections from Titan Books.

Roy of the Rovers began on the front cover of Tiger, a new weekly anthology comic published by Amalgamated Press (later IPC and Fleetway Publications). Launched on September 11th 1954, “The Sport and Adventure Picture Story Weekly” was a cannily crafted companion to Lion, Amalgamated’s successful response to Hulton Press’ mighty Eagle (home of Dan Dare).

From the first Tiger concentrated heavily on sports stars and themes, with issue #1 also featuring The Speedster from Bleakmoor, Mascot of Bad Luck and Tales of Whitestoke School amongst others. In later years racing driver Skid Solo and wrestler Johnny Cougar joined the more traditional, earthy strips such as Billy’s Boots, Nipper, Hotshot Hamish and Martin’s Marvellous Mini, but for most of its 1,555-issue run it was “the comic with Roy of the Rovers”.

Created by Frank S. Pepper, who used the pseudonym Stewart Colwyn, and drawn by Joe Colquhoun, Roy was written for much of his early career by the comic’s Editor Derek Birnage (although credited to “Bobby Charlton” for a couple of years). In 1975 Roy became player-manager and the following year got his own weekly comic, just in time for the 1976-77 season, premiering on September 25th and running for 855 issues (ending 20th March 1993).

Roy Race started as a humble apprentice at mighty Melchester Rovers, and after may years of winning all the glories the beautiful game could offer, settled down to live the dream: wife, kids, wealth, comfort and triumphant adventure every Saturday…

This glossy oversized paperback covers the period September 20th 1980 to 4th June 1982, when the comic was regularly selling a million copies a week. The stories were always much more than simply “He shoots! He’s scored!!!” formulaic episodes: they’re closer to the sports-based TV dramas of later decades like Dream Team (litigiously so, in some cases…).

This segment begins with Melchester Rovers’ worst season ever. The team are knocked out of the FA Cup and even relegated, only to fight their way back to the top flight despite such distractions as spoilt-brat players, a TV company making a serial about the club and even Roy’s wife leaving him…

Weekly comics have a tremendous advantage when it comes to staying topical. From draught script to issue-on-sale can be as little as six weeks. This meant that with a judicious eye to the upcoming events diary a strip can comfortably lock into big public occasions and even short lived crazes. Two solid examples here are Roy’s attendance of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and the dramatic sequence of events following the attempted murder of the indomitable player-manager.

The mystery of “Who Shot Roy Race” mirrored the “Who Shot JR?” furore generated by TV soap Dallas, although with a far more logical conclusion…

Old football comics are never going to be the toast of the medium’s Critical Glitterati, but these were astonishingly popular strips in their day, and produced for maximum entertainment value by highly skilled professionals. They still have the power to enthral and captivate far beyond the limits of nostalgia and fashion. If your footy-mad youngster isn’t reading enough, this might be the cunning tactic to catch him – or her – totally offside…

© 2008 Egmont UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Justice League Unlimited Sticker Book


By various (Alligator Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84750-335-0

It’s never too soon to get your young ‘uns hooked on the hard stuff as this wonderful black and white activity book for the three-and-up crowd proves with its selection of word puzzles, drawing grid exercises, recognition tests, mazes, join-the-dot puzzles and good old-fashioned colouring pages, all based on the DC characters who made up the cartoon Network version of the Justice League of America – that’s Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, the John Stewart/Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and my personal feisty favourite, Hawkgirl.

This attention-riveting tome is also a Sticker Book, which means that there are loads of very cool, full-colour, peel-off adhesive images (Reusable! It says on the front so you know it must be true!) which can be placed in relevant – or not – places to great effect.

Produced by the collective efforts of Brian Augustyn, Jason Hernandez Rosenblatt, Bob Rozakis, Jason Armstrong, Dan Davis, Mike DeCarlo, John Delaney, Craig Rousseau and Joe Staton this great package is another perfect tool in the never-ending crusade to teach kids to love comics, books and reading. And some of the kids who get this book will undoubtedly want to graduate to the comic afterward…

In a world where books are increasingly alien to people, the combination of great characters, compelling pictures and every darn attention-seizing trick in the book is a welcome tactic for getting kids reading and not Wii-ing. Forget video games, buy that child a book! And if you’re worried about exercise, make ’em do the colouring-in standing up…
TM and © 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Hanna-Barbera’s Shazzan: The Glass Princess


By Don Christiansen & Dan Spiegle (Whitman)
No ISBN ASIN: B000H7WMWA

Big Little Books were first produced by the Whitman Publishing Company in 1932: compact square-bound tiny tomes, typically 3⅝″ wide and 4½″ tall by 1½″ thick (hand-sized for kids, right?) anything from 212 to 432 pages long, retailing for the magical 10 cents (eventually hiking up to 15 cents) that even the poorest kids could find. Designed as blocks of text on one side accompanied by a full page illustration across the gutter they simply screamed “great value” to the budget-conscious kid who could find the adventures of his/her favourite radio, movie, literary, carton, newspaper strip and eventually toy or comicbook star within those stiffened pages. The very first was The Adventures of Dick Tracy, released in December 1932.

Quickly followed by other publishers such as Saalfield, Goldsmith, World Syndicate and others, the diminutive hardbacks were soon filling the shelves of retail chain shops such as Woolworths with the gaudy dramas of such luminaries as The Shadow, The Gumps, John Carter of Mars, Lone Ranger, Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Popeye and hundreds more. The format proved popular until the 1960s by which time Whitman was the lone survivor, producing TV (including comicbook properties that had made the jump to the small screen such as Aquaman, Fantastic Four and Batman) and toy tie-ins such as the Monkees, Bonanza and Major Matt Mason.

Whitman, based in Racine, Wisconsin had been part of the monolithic Western Publishing and Lithography Company since 1915, and could draw on the commercial resources and industry connections that came with editorial offices on both coasts and even a subsidiary printing plant in Poughkeepsie, New York. Another connection was with fellow Western subsidiary K.K. Publications (named for licensing legend Kay Kamen who facilitated merchandising deals for Walt Disney Studios between 1933 and 1949).

From 1938 Western’s comic book output was released under a partnership deal with a “pulps” periodical publisher under the imprint Dell Comics -and again those creative staff and commercial contacts fed into the line-up of the Big Little and Little Golden/Golden Press books for children. This partnership ended in 1962 and Western reinvented its comics division as Gold Key, but as always, its strong licenses allowed it to explore other book formats (see our review of Superman Smashes the Mad Director).

From 1968 comes this spiffy little adventure of based on a popular cartoon adventure show in which siblings Chuck and Nancy find two magic rings in a cave. Each has half a coin on it and when the rings are brought together they spell the name Shazzan – mightiest of all Genies!

Transported back to fabled Arabia the kids have been told by the genie that they must return the rings to the true owner before they can go home again, leading to many splendid adventures in the world of the 1,001 Nights…

In this remarkably entertaining and engrossing tale the kids, aided by their flying camel Kaboobie, get one step closer to their final destination when they battle barbarous sky-pirates, winged monsters and the villainous Shalagar, whose spells have enslaved a nation, turned the beautiful Princess Nada Tia into a crystal statue and whose Diamond Sword is the only weapon that can kill a Genie!

Fast-paced, fanciful and exceedingly well-written, Don Christiansen’s story is perfectly complimented by 123 colour plates from the astoundingly talented Gold Key mainstay Dan Spiegle, working in his patented Alex Toth TV cartoon style.

These little gems are long overdue for some sort of collective retrospective, but at least this fine tale can still be found at relatively low prices from various internet retailers, so if you’re intrigued, enthused or simple starved for nostalgia, you know what to do…
© 1968 Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Smashes the Secret of the Mad Director


By George S. Elrick and anonymous (Whitman)
ASIN: B000H7WMWA

I bang on a lot about comics as an art form and (justifiably, I think) decry the fact that they’ve never been given the mainstream recognition other forms of popular creative expression enjoy. I also encourage all and sundry to read more graphic narrative (I’m blurring my own terms here by including any product where text and image work co-operatively to tell a story, rather than simply a sequence of pictures with words attached), and I’m judicious and even selective (really and truly – there’s stuff I’m never going to share and recommend because by most critical criteria, it’s better off ignored and forgotten).

However sometimes I’m caught in a bind: I tend to minimise the impact of nostalgia on my beloved world of “funnybooks”, but so often that irresistible siren call from the Golden Years will utterly trump any hi-falutin’ aesthetic ideal and proselytising zeal for acceptance and recognition.

Superman Smashes the Secret of the Mad Director is such a product from a simpler time when it could be truly said that everybody had seen some sort of comic in their lives (not so easy to claim these days, I fear): a standard paperback more probably released to capitalise on the groundbreaking Saturday morning cartoon series ‘The New Adventures of Superman’ (first hit for the fledgling Filmation Studios) than on the periodical delights of the “World’s Best Selling Comics Magazine!”

The half-hour cartoon show was a huge success, running three seasons; initially piggybacked with Superboy in its first year, (beginning September 10th 1966), expanding into The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure in 1967 and finally The Superman/Batman Hour in 1968. It was cancelled in September 1969 due to pressure from the censorious Action For Children’s Television who agitated against it for its unacceptably violent content!

As was the often the case in those times Big Little Books were produced under license by Whitman Publishing (the print giant that owned Dell and Gold Key Comics) in a mutually advantageous system that got books for younger readers featuring popular characters and cartoon brands (Man From U.N.C.L.E., the Monkees, Shazzan!, Flintstones, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Batman, even the Fantastic Four amongst literally hundreds of others) into huge general store chains such as Woolworth’s, thus expanding recognition, product longevity – and hopefully sales.

Don Markstein’s superb Toonopedia site defines Big Little Books as: a small, square book, usually measuring about 3″x3″, with text on the left-hand pages and a single full-page illustration on the right. Big Little Books were originally created in the 1930s, to make use of small pieces of paper that had formerly gone to waste when magazines were trimmed after printing. By running a separate publication on paper that would otherwise go in the trash, the printer was able to create a salable product almost for free.

Big Little Books were an ideal way to merchandise comic strip characters, as the drawings could simply be taken directly from the strips themselves. Big Little Books flourished during the days of pulp magazine publishing, which mostly came to an end after World War II. The form was revived in the 1960s, partly as a nostalgia item, and has been used sporadically ever since. These latter-day Big Little Books are generally printed on better paper, and some, at least, have color illustrations.

This novel for children, written by BLB mainstay George S. Elrick, is slightly different, having no colour illustrations on its 166 interior pages and reformatted like a bookstore paperback of the sort that proliferated during the 1960s “Camp Superhero Craze” (check out our archived review for High Camp Super-Heroes – B50 695 – for a handy example), and tells a rather good action/mystery yarn about a demented movie maker whose search for ultimate realism draws investigative reporters Clark Kent and Lois Lane into a pretty pickle…

To be frank the illustrations are pretty poor, originals not clipped pictures, but ineptly traced from reference material provided by comics drawn by the great Kurt Schaffenberger. Still, the wholesome naivety, rapid pace and gentle enthusiasm of the package surprised and engrossed me – even after the more than forty years since I last read it.

It’s a crying shame that the world doesn’t take comics seriously nor appreciate the medium’s place and role in global society and the pantheon of Arts. Still, as long as graphic narrative has the power to transport such as me to faraway, better places I’m not going to lose too much sleep over it…

© 1966 National Periodical Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.