Category: Lifestyle

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Oracles


By Olivia Sullivan (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-26-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Tired? Fed up? Overheated? I might have what you need right here.

Addressing the same inner discontents and travelling the same internal pathways as Clare Scully’s The Wilderness Collection and Lizzy Stewart’s Walking Distance, radical designer surrealist storyteller and visual poet Olivia Sullivan’s pictorial mantra Oracles traces an internal voyage via meaningful personal place-markers through a trip back to solid emotional grounding after a surrender of stability and overwhelming chaos… like deep personal loss…

In the narrative guise of such a loss, our age-shifting narrator offers a step aside and away from communal modern life and a trek to familiar haunts and abandoned notions. Staccato bursts of thought wedded to clear, neutrally informative images are blessed with muted tones and a restricted palette that enhances the patterns, pictures and poesy of an epigrammatic, near-synaesthesic catalogue of visions. Haiku-adjacent listicle-prayers, like an OCD-gripped da Vinci, Whitman or Thoreau count down and tick off their necessities for finding their happy place again.

Looking for something better and happier, we travel back to cheerier venues of a deeply personal past, noting what is still the same, refreshing worn attitudes with mycology miracles, a personal shaman and confirmation of A Good Trip Well Had. The reconnection with a better yesterday and lost mother take us on to a universally connected consciousness shared by all animals until we come to our old new home again…

Unless there is something clinically, certifiably, diagnosably wrong with them, every human being can be caught by a full sensory burst when all cognitive spark plugs fire in a moment when Wonder, Clarity, Appreciation and unleashed Emotion Centres all go bang at once. Sometimes the experience needs to catch you complacently elsewhere and off-guard. Simply opening up to rituals or a certain relaxation of daily processes and safeguards just happens, but whenever it does, the result is magical as everything old is new again – but more so…

That all-encompassing transitional moment of fresh sensation is explored here in a procession of mergers between crystal clear drawing and incisive lyrical descriptions with icons of the natural world great and small attempting to share the woosh of wow and sheer wonder we all get when taken unawares by nature, reality, or each other. Drugs and religion or the right person at the right time can do it too…

Words as pretty as a picture. Heady visions framed (or it that trapped?) in manageable, consumable little boxes all carry the reader like a surfboard on big wave, or leaf in a cataract, providing mental bricks for you to build your own in-head house. In the end you arrive back but is it still you now?

You decide.

The most wondrous thing about comics is their sheer versality. In terms of narrative, exposition, mood-setting and information dissemination, nothing comes close, and the range of visualisations span near-abstract construction to hyper-realism. If the end-consumer is particularly receptive, the author can even dial back on narrative or plot or characterisation and let a succession of carefully-applied images make a story unique to each reader. It’s like jazz for your head and before your very eyes…

In all the most telling ways, we’re still monkeys clinging to rocks. We can’t help but respond viscerally to our environment: cowed or elated by stony heights, drawn to and pacified by pools and gardens, inexplicably moved to fear or joy by forests. It’s in our blood and bones: nobody stands on a mountaintop or looks down into the Grand Canyon and says “meh”…

When someone really talented and truly invested channels such primal responses, the fires of creativity can push right into the hindbrain to our inner primitive. It’s a trip worth taking.

There’s a route map and bag ready right here…
© Olivia Sullivan, 2026. All rights reserved.

Today in 1917 award winning scripter, author and screenwriter Bill Woolfolk (Captain Marvel, Bulletman, Blackhawk, Batman, Superman, Plastic Man, Captain America, Sub-Mariner) was born, whilst two true giants – Alex Toth and Peyo/Pierre Culliford shared the birthday in 1928. In 1953 Jerry Bingham (Beowulf, Batman: Son of the Demon) joined the party.

Today in 1979 Stan Lynde’s western Latigo debuted, whilst in 1990, we saw the last instalment of Katsuhiro Otomo’s epic Akira.

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Ordinary Victories volume 1 and 2


By Manu Larcenet, colours by Patrice Larcenet translated by Joe Johnson (NBM/ ComicsLit)
ISBNs: Vol. 1: 978-1-56163-423-1 (TPB) Vol. 2: 978-1-56163-533-7 (TPB)

Complete Set pack ISBN: 978-1-56163-600-6

Ordinary Victories examines the introspective and incidental life of neurotic, left-leaning, change-dreading Marco Louis in the years before France’s conservative-centrist Sarkozy government came to power. In mesmerising, eulogistic and winningly comedic narrative and via alternating modes of illustration ranging from brashly big-foot Marcinelle stylism to sensitively realistic reportage, the soul-searching isolationist examines himself, his past, his art and his family and consequently finds a future he can at least settle for…

The four albums released in France translate to two solidly satisfying tomes here and open with Marco – who has been subject to devastating panic attacks for years – not getting through to his therapist before giving up the idea of visiting his happy, married and well-adjusted brother to get high, chill out and reminisce.

Marco is just the kind of guy who lets life get to him. Seeing his over-protective mum and frail dad only heightens his general tension, but the loner does get a hint of parts of his father’s life he never before knew…

Returning to his isolated rural cottage and his maniacal cat Adolf, Marco tries to get back to his photojournalism job, but the despair and hatred he feels for the whole rat-race just won’t go away. Wracked by anxiety and nightmares, Marco takes the cat for walks in the woods where he encounters an abusive, trespass-obsessed farmer and a wise old gentleman. When Adolf is then savaged by a dog, Marco meets a charming vet who inexplicably likes him, but Life compensates for the nice event by getting Marco fired…

Unemployed, aimless but obsessed with his art, Marco still resists change: Emily is making noises about moving in together but the potential commitment terrifies him. He certainly can’t handle her outright demands for a baby…

The country seems to be heading for outright fascism, his neighbour is a maniac and when he visits the old gentleman, Marco discovers an unsettling connection to his dad’s mysterious war service. His journalist’s paranoia goes into overdrive when Marco finds out what kind of a soldier old man Mesrin was, and with his world spinning the angst-wracked artist is compelled to change or die…

The second part of this initial tome is ‘Negligible Amounts’, which sees the now officially-paired couple Emily & Marco visiting his parents. Here the son learns some unpleasant truths about his father’s health and that the once vigorous and sharp-witted proud shipworker is fading…

Marco’s shots of the gutted and dying Shipyard win him a Paris gallery show prize, but meeting his artistic and creative heroes proves a painful experience. Still, the promise of a book might boost his reputation and save his dad’s old work comrades from redundancy, even if some of them are already talking of closures, unemployment and actually changing their political allegiances…

With Right-wing radicalism in the streets and racism in the air, Marco and his brother are pretty glum and soon after pretty drunk. When another panic attack hits hard the besieged photographer only narrowly avoids an extended stay in a psychiatric unit… and then he gets the phone call about his dad…

 

Ordinary Victories Volume 2: What is Precious

The second potent reminiscence opens with eponymous episode ‘What is Precious’ as Marco slowly adjusts to his father’s death, and gets even closer to Emily… at least when her incessant demands for a baby aren’t freaking him out. With a book deal and a new analyst, things seem to be favourably progressing, but the contents of his dad’s diary provide fresh material for passive hysteria, as does his previously indomitable mother’s new attitude. Unable to stand the strain any longer, Marco confronts Mesrin and demands to know just what ghastly atrocities the old man and the deceased shipbuilder actually committed…

Final chapter ‘Hammering Nails’ opens with new mum Emily and their delightful daughter Maude providing fresh and very different anxieties for Marco, especially since he finally agreed to move the family into a bigger house…

The Shipyard is in its final days and as Marco captures the images of resigned but still striking workers, his own thoughts are more confused than ever. Everybody else either accepts or fights life’s vicissitudes: why can’t he do either?

There’s yet another election coming and everybody thinks a great change is coming – but for Marco, that has never been a comforting notion…

This is a subtle, funny and deeply contemplative tale, deftly understated and compellingly seductive. A commonplace guy handles nothing we blokes haven’t all faced and reacts pretty much as any guy would: amazed to make it safely through another day, always astonished that our partner seems to love us, claims to know us and yet stays anyway. Ordinary Victories is about frustration, loss, disappointment, and yes, occasional triumphs. These books are wonderful, sublime, magical comics and you really should track them down…
© Dargaud 2005, 2007, 2008 by Larcenet. Translation © 2005, 2008 NBM.

Today in 1906 artist extraordinaire and DC inker supreme Sid Greene (Target and the Targeteers, Batman, Elongated Man, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, The Atom) was born, sharing the day with Bob Kanigher (Metal Men, Sgt Rock, Viking Prince, Flash, Hawkman) in 1915 and Underground cartoonist Rick Griffin (Zap Comix) in 1944. Later creative stars debuts of the date include writer/editor/artist and continuity all-star Mark Gruenwald (Captain America, Hawkeye, Squadron Supreme) in 1953; editor, publisher and historian Dean Mullaney (Eclipse Comics) in 1954 and Britain’s international superstar creator Alan Davis (Captain Britain, Marvelman, Harry Twenty on the High Rock, Batman, Excalibur, Clan Destine, Hulk, X-Men, Thor) in 1956.

Today in 1966, the UK’s groundbreaking but short-lived Ranger folded after 40 weekly issues, having left the world The Rise and Fall of The Trigan Empire, Jason January Space Cadet, Rob Riley and the first English language translation of Asterix the Gaul.

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Taproot: A Story About a Gardener and a Ghost


By Keezy Young & various (The Lion Forge/Oni Press)
ISBN: 978-1-941302-46-0 (Lion Forge PB/Digital edition), 978-1-63715-073-3 (Oni Press PB/Digital edition)

I’m joining in Pride Month with a timely reminder of a superbly upbeat love story in the sincere hope that one day we won’t need a specially appointed time and space for queer people, or women, or black and Asian ones or in fact any person not white and “naturally” hetero-male. It’s all just stories, folks. Why can’t we just share them out fairly?

Back in 2017, queer, non-binary artist, author/storyteller Keezy Young (Never Heroes, Hello Sunshine) created a supernatural romance that garnered lots of critical attention, accolades and awards. Seattle-based, Young has used art to tell tales since able to hold a crayon in a fist, so it’s no surprise how good they are at it now. They specialise in creating YA comics and stories about being young, adventurous and LGBTQIA.

Rendered in beguiling pastel colours and big, welcoming images, Taproot tells the story of Hamal; a gentle young man who loves plants and growing things. He always has time to chat and offer advice on plant care, even though his boss at the flower store is a bit of a tartar about unnecessary customer service. Mr Takashi would be even more surly if he realised that many of the people Hamal talks to are dead.

Unable to understand or explain his gift, Hamal is not afraid: moving at the centre of a small band of ghostly regulars who spend much of their time with him. There’s moody teen April, effervescent grade schooler Joey and Blue: a good looking older teen who spends too much time trying to fix up Hamal’s love-life. If Blue knows who Hamal really pines for, he’s good at covering it up…

They’ve been close for a year now. The aimless revenant just followed Hamal one day and was astounded when the living doll stared into his invisible face and asked him why. No longer isolated and cut off from existence, Blue stuck around, and other wandering spirits gradually tagged along. It’s not all sunshine and roses though. Recently, something dark and strange has begun slowly unfolding. The plants aren’t thriving, and increasingly spooks are being sucked into a ghastly spectral forest realm of doom and decay. It would be really frightening if they weren’t already dead…

It all comes to a head after Blue is drawn to the forest and confronts a monster who knows what’s really going on in creation. Terrifying and predatory, it recognises what Hamal really is and has plans for both the living and the dead. Worst of all, it has a way to fulfil Blue’s most heartfelt desire… if the ghost boy will play along…

Thankfully, that’s just the beginning of a whole new life for the would-be lovers and a novel existence for Hamal, as the story takes on fresh life via some captivating plot twists that every romantic who loves happy endings can see just by tapping this…
© 2017 Keezy Young. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2007 NetComics.

Born today in 1922, Angela Giussani co-created Italian comics mega-franchise Diabolik with her sister Luciana, whereas Belgian Spirou mainstay Mitacq AKA Michel Tacq (La Patrouille des Castors, Stany Derval) didn’t arrive until 1927. Sublime fantasist Charles Vess (Sandman, Stardust, Spider-Man: Spirits of the Earth, The Book of Ballads and Sagas) only arrived in 1951, and amazing comics author (Zot!, Destroy!!) and explainer Scott McCloud came along in 1960. In 1962 mangaka Masahi Tanaka (Gon) came along in 1962.

This date in 1960 we lost veteran strip cartoonist Al Posen (Ella and Her Fella, Rhymin’ Time, Sweeney & Son) and in 2017 Filipino artist and cartoonist “Malang” AKA Mauro Malang Santos (Kosme the Cop, Chain Gang Charlie, Beelzebub).

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Comic Therapy – Meditations for Reflection


By Kay Medaglia (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-39-3 (pocket HB)

Author and graphic artist Kay Medaglia moved from Ontario, Canada to wild & woolly Reading in Britain nearly twenty years ago and ever since has sought ways to share their ideas of better living through enhanced wellbeing. In a prodigious outpouring of gently stated, multimedia-delivered suggestions, they have advocated calmer ways to get along and stay stable through such varied avenues as the UK small press scene; self-published sensation Wu Wei, and global arenas like The Huffington Post and Elephant Journal. As well as editing issues-based publications dealing with autism, dementia, mental health and sexual assault, their hugely successful One Year Wiser series has brought those notions to ever-wider audiences. They have even explored modern metaphysics with their bestselling Luna Sol Tarot.

Here drawing together genteel humour, funny animals (and bugs, actually) and traditional philosophical observations lensed through practicality and common sense, Medaglia offers self-contained, image-led emotional pep-talks as Comic Therapy: spiritually enriching reminders of who and where you are – or could be. These graphic epigrams compile and project easily assimilable visual life-coaching and pictorial pick-me-ups, broaching topics from the minute and mundane to the cosmically crushing, or life-changing. As well as encouraging loving others and yourself, the image interludes especially confront themes of rejection, dejection, hopelessness, self-worth, self-compassion, resilience and mindfulness and lack of direction with breezy light humour and whimsy.

Resembling still-running romance homily panel Love Is… (created by New Zealand cartoonist Kim Grove/latterly Kim Casali) and delivered in Japan’s popular Yonkoma manga format, these four panel public service announcements for the soul are personal common sense messages from a global traveller seasoned with flavours of Hindu imagery and basic Buddhist tenets wedded to primal western gag delivery systems.

Employing and urging the deployment of wit, patience, whatever faith or spirituality you can accept, and subtle but constant reminders that you don’t have to wallow alone, this is a book that should perk up most moody buggers and provide a judgement free first nudge to fix whatever ails you from within and because You want to…

If you can’t actually hug a kitten or juggle ducklings in moments of crisis or despondency, dipping unto this handy pocket-sized package might just restore equilibrium and restart your jammed perspective generators…
© Kay Medaglia, 2026. All rights reserved.

Today in 1915 Mort Weisinger was born, with Johnny Craig arriving in 1926 and Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo coming one year later. In 1952 historian researcher and uberfan Peter Sanderson was born.

In 1940 today Batman #1 went on sale. Four years later the utterly unique George (Krazy Kat) Herriman passed away.

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The Pass


By Katriona Chapman (Fantagraphics Books, Inc)
ISBN: 979-8-8750-0065-2 (HB)

There are so very many graphic novels these days. Some are awful, many are so-so and the rest I endeavour to share with you. Of that remaining fraction, most can be summarised, plot-pointed and précised to give you a notion about what you might be buying if I’ve done my job right. Sometimes, however, all that fuss and blather is not only irrelevant but will actually impede your eventual enjoyment. This is one of those times so my advice is just to stop now, buy the book and render your own judgement…

Katriona Chapman is a fantastically observant story-maker based in London, from where she crafts superbly sublime tales for Small Press titles like Tiny Pencil (which she-cofounded), Comic Book Slumber Party, Ink & Paper, Save Our Souls, Deep Space Canine and her award-winning Katzine. Chapman draws beautifully and subtly, with a deep knowledge of tone and appreciation of hue, concentrating on people in the background as much as all the attention-grabbers we’re accustomed to and increasingly afflicted by in social interactions.

She hasn’t spent all her life in the Smoke, as revealed in her award-winning debut graphic travel memoir Follow Me In, or moody exploration of age and loneliness Breakwater. Her longer stories are about places around people. Chapman knows how to quietly sneak up and stage a scene perfectly before grabbing your undivided attention and never letting go. Locations don’t have to be expansive or impressive to become playing characters in the dramas they support, and that’s compellingly proved here.

Most tellingly, Chapman utterly and implicitly understands the mechanisms and value of calligraphic silence on a page: letting images do the work, shape reader emotion and tell the tale. Our art form is jampacked with the explosive, eccentric and exotic: stories and depictions of the ultra-extraordinary, but life isn’t like that. Life for most of us is like The Pass…

The demands of friends and expectations of family are a real pressure cooker for thirty-something Claudia Durand. Fiercely independent child of a internationally celebrated (but rather officious, controlling and overbearing) Chef and a helicopter mother, the daughter’s dream of being an enterprising restaurateur and food innovator in her own right seems to be coming true at last.

Never good with emotional conflict, asking for help or meddling interference, “Claude” has nonetheless opened her own up-&-coming bistro – The Alley – in insalubrious Southwark. Ignoring unsought parental guidance throughout, after five long years she is making waves: catching the favourable attention of Food Critics and enjoying commercial progress despite the economic situation, fickle tastes, self-doubt and that ever-present unwanted family oversight.

Naturally, she couldn’t have done it without the collaboration of her team: best friend/sous chef Lisa Turner – with her brother Jack doing the accounts and skivvying – and new barman/botanically adept experimental mixologist Ben readily adapting to working with them. Not to mention core server Adrienne and all the rest elbows-deep in the cut & thrust hurly-burly of the modern fashionable bistro experience….

With everything starting to gel and come together over Christmas, Claudia can’t really understand why – in a moment of giddy euphoria and media encouragement – she opts to pile on more pressure by finally entering the Chef of the Year competition…

Then, as if day-to-day business stresses were not bad enough and as self-inflicted anxieties over the contest grow nigh-intolerable, her pot boils over when in a moment of exhaustion-fuelled intimacy and need, she kisses someone she really shouldn’t have. Now everything has to change…

Food as fashion and entertainment has become a compelling arena for modern drama in recent years and this powerfully engaging exploration of the struggles that come with the smiles and piles of fodder is a potent blend of transitional growing experiences and how other people live, meeting challenging crises head on and all-out.

Love, duty, betrayal, loyalty, self-expression, search for identity and ambition drive us all and here are carefully mixed and presented for your delectation. You would be churlish to refuse a taste and should actually demand a second heaping helping.
All characters, stories and artwork © 2025 Katriona Chapman. This edition of The Pass © 2026 Fantagraphics Books, Inc All rights reserved.

Today in 1927, pioneering US cartoonist Brumsic Brandon Jr. (Luther) was born, just like Belgian strip artist René Follet in 1931 and French comics scripter Jacques de Loustal in 1956. Artist Scott Hampton arrived in 1959 and Canadian comics visionary Bill Marks in 1962. In 1988 Bill Amend’s still-unfolding science-y soap opera strip FoxTrot began, and in 2004 we lost the astounding cartoonist Chester Commodore.

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Was That Normal?


By Alex Potts (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-25-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

Apparently a vast fraction of humanity do not have an inner monologue. Lucky them. That’s not the case for Philip who abides alone, inherently awkward in a seaside town. He works from his basement flat and spends all his time inside his head. Here that inner adjudicator finds fault, and he cruelly second-guesses himself without let or surcease unless he’s nailed down and tapping his keyboard for his remote working job…

His days are a roundabout of listening, peeking, and seeking to be unseen by his friendly, sweet old landlady/flat mate Caroline. It’s not her… it’s him…

Occasionally, when the walls close in, he breaks and goes for long walks. At the back or in anonymous corners of cafes and pubs he sees strangers then… but they also see Philip. How they react – or don’t – also torments and unsettles…

When not excoriating himself and poking his mind viciously, Philip admits to being lonely and responds like the last puppy in a litter whenever a stranger smiles at him. However, that next step – making contact – seems beyond him. Sometimes he goes to “his” café and listens to others chat and be friends, but its more about staying current than joining a crowd…

However, this solitary introverted existence starts wildly oscillating after Philip finally forces himself out of his comfortable holding pattern and goes to live-music pub The Quagmire. He sees a local band and somehow starts a painfully tenuous relationship with flighty, vivacious singer Gina. Despite himself,  he persists, meets others and trepidatiously extends his social circle.

…And then something happens, and so does another and it’s all out of control, and amidst the shouting in his head, sex and love (sort of) happens, but so does jealousy and bizarre death and he really, really should have stayed indoors…

Or has it all been worth it in the end?

Small, intimately human-scaled and drenched in whimsy, this is a compelling underdog yarn that despite being introspective, deeply ruminative and agonisingly self-exploratory, applies charm, sentiment and empathy to a growing problem and winningly displays the disenchantment and alienation driving the self-inflicted male loneliness epidemic undermining modern human relationships.

If you suffer crushing discomforts, miscommunications, and emotional misfires, but can’t bring yourself to open up – or know someone who is getting to that bad place – you can see what’s what right here and make your own plan guys. So please do…
© Alex Potts, 2026. All rights reserved.

Today in 1907 Chinese manhua pioneer Ye Qianyu (Mr. Wang) was born, followed in 1911 by US Golden Age mainstay Joe Sulman (Biff Bronson). Peruvian all-star Pablo Marcos (Conan, Star Trek: The Next Generation, everything) came along in 1937, and French artist F’Murr/Richard Peyzaret (Le Génie des alpages) in 1946.

We lost Mickey Mouse Sundays stalwart Manuel Gonzales in 1993, Spanish creator José Escobar Saliente (Zipi y Zape) one year later and the game-changing Italian illustrator Massimo Belardinelli (Dan Dare, Steel Claw, Star Trek, Flesh, Meltdown Man, Ace Trucking Co, Sláine, et al) in 2007.

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All the places in between (Wellness and Green Living)


By John Cei Douglas (Liminal 11)
ISBN: 978-1-912634-23-1 (PB)

These days we’re all locked up in our own heads as much as in our homes or inescapably foredoomed lives, constantly in search of solutions to ease anxiety, however we can. Here then – in timely fashion and most serendipitously – is a sublime gem in the conceptual mould of Tove Jansson, laced with oblique yet helpful ruminations on healing mindfulness and enjoyed as a voyage of genuine inner discovery.

Not only is the message calming and helpful – and delivered in beguiling imagery guaranteed to restore your weary disposition – but it also guarantees a solidly entertaining mystery journey helping to moderate your hunger for physical travel and fresh experience.

Crafted in dreamy, silent passages, All the places in between follows a pensive girl by a barren seashore as she fretfully, nervously but determinedly passes from ‘All the places we’ve been’ to ‘All the places we’re going’…

On the way she meets her exact opposite and is cast ‘adrift’: occupying ‘the lighthouse’ before finding civilisation drowned and devastated. Time drags ‘between’ before isolation draws her to ‘the city’ where she finds ‘a companion’ to care for.

Eventually that temporary relationship sunders, ‘buried’ in the wreckage of the world and dwarfed by insurmountable chasms prior to a ‘tsunami’ that brings resolution of sorts as ‘the lighthouse returns’, prompting a revelatory resolution in ‘space’…

Filled with delightful human moments, and not a book to summarise, but definitely one to look at and wonder over and over again, John Cei Douglas’ oneiric ramble is a calming and enticing trip we can all benefit and draw comfort from.
© 2020 John Cei Douglas. All rights reserved.

Today in 1913, Mickey Mouse Sunday strip illustrator Manuel Gonzales was born, as was British strip maestro Harry Bishop (Gun Law, Bonanza, Tarzan) in 1922. Anticipating an end to war and no need to boost morale anymore(!!) Milton Caniff’s armed services strip Male Call ended today in 1946…
Max Allen Collins (Road to Perdition, Ms. Tree, Batman, Dick Tracy) was born in 1948, and Matthew Dow Smith (Astronauts in Trouble, Doctor Who) in 1950, with Dan Mishkin (Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, Blue Devil) turning up in 1953 and Claudio Castellini Nathan Never) arriving in 1966.
Today in 1983 Hergé left us, as did Italian Disney superstar Giovan Battista Carpi in 1999.

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Escape from Special


By Miss Lasko-Gross (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-804-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Little Melissa is a very difficult child: smart and constantly questioning her unconventional parents (easy-going hippie-types) as well as the guards and inmates at her elementary school (both intransigent teachers and status-obsessed kids). Even at six years old, she’s a fiercely independent thinker – the kind of kid modern parents usually dope with Ritalin.

She flounders in all the arenas of childhood, consequently being moved from school to school. She has a child-therapist and like many smart, creative kids has problems with reading. Painfully self-aware but ultimately adamantine, Melissa must endure the social horrors of Special Education.

But please don’t think this is a book about the crushing of a spirit. Whether on a tour-bus with her so-very-hip ‘n’ cool folks, fumbling with classmates or fighting off nightmares, this is a series of skits and sketches that affirm Melissa’s vibrant character: one which can adapt but will never buckle. Illustrated in a powerful primitivist – almost naivest – illustrative style and symbology, the little girl endures and overcomes in tales that are charming, sad, funny, reassuring and just plain strange.

Miss (that’s her name now – she changed it) Lasko-Gross has produced graphic narrative for most of her life, editing the Pratt Institute’s Static Fish comic book, working in Mauled, House of Twelve 2.0, Legal Action Comics, Aim and others whilst generally living the kind of life that finds its way onto the pages of fabulous books like this one. This book was followed by notional sequel A Mess of Everything and in 2015 macabre religious funny animal opus Henni which should also be on the must-see list of every thinking comics consumer.

The powerfully direct stories in Escape from “Special” are of such a high calibre that they’re far beyond some new or trendy genre and demand to be seen by a greater audience who don’t even care if their reading matter has pictures or not. These tales are in the same category as American Splendor, Maus and Persepolis with words wedded to pictures that you’ll revel in for years to come.
© 2006 Miss Lasko-Gross. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1902 Red Ryder co-creator Fred Harman was born, as was Spirou originator “Rob-Vel” (François Robert Velter) in 1909. In 1928 Frank Frazetta joined the party, with Scots script wizard Alan Grant popping along in 1942, just like Jo Duffy in 1954. Two years later Timothy Truman was born, as was French star David B. in 1959. Somehow all that doesn’t really balance the scales as today in 1989 Osamu Tezuka laid down his pens and brushes for the last time.

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Add Toner – a Cometbus Collection


By Aaron Cometbus (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-753-2 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Before the advent of computers and the internet gave everybody with a keyboard and an ounce of determination the ability to become writers and publishers (an eternity before AI made all that a complete joke and waste of time), only those truly dedicated, driven or Full-On Compulsive individualists self-published.

…Or those with something to say.

Aaron Cometbus (not his real name: use your search engine if you absolutely must find out about the man, but the best route would be to read his wonderful work) has been a drummer, roadie, author, designer, traveller, author, raconteur, social historian, bookseller and cultural anthropologist of the American Punk movement from long before he began his hugely acclaimed and long-running ‘Zine Cometbus in 1981.

In the decades over which his hand-crafted publication has been released (as photocopy pamphlet, offset magazine and even audio-mag) his writing and art have covered every aspect of the life of the contemporary outsider from self-exploratory introspection, reportage, criticism, oral history, music journalism, philosophical discourse and even unalloyed fiction – from epigram to novella, news bulletin to chatty remembrance – usually in a distinctive hand-lettered style all his own, augmented by cartoons, photo-collage, comics and a dozen other monochrome techniques beloved of today’s art-house cognoscenti.

Cometbus (go read Downtown Local, The Voyeurs and A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309) tells stories and has been doing so since the first death of the Punk Rock movement at the end of the 1970s, but the material is – and always has been – about real, involved people, not trendy, commercialised bastardisations.

In 2002 Last Gasp released Despite Everything: a 600+ page Omnibus distillation of the best bits from the first 43 issues with this second compilation released in 2011… and this one’s still available.

Add Toner, which samples issues #44-46, 46½, and 47-48, is a far more comprehensive collection with stories, reminiscences, interviews, artworks and added features such as the novella ‘Lanky’ plus a selection of previously withheld and self-censored pieces which simply captivate and enthral.

Particularly informative and moving are the collected illustrated interviews with the “staff” and patrons of punk watering hole and communal meeting space Dead End Café from #46 (gloriously redolent and evocative of my own art-school punk band hang-out The Horn of Plenty in St. Albans) and a fabulous three-chapter oral history examination of the post-hippie “Back to nature” movement divided into interviews with ‘The Kids’, ‘The Adults’ and an appreciation of ‘Back to the Land’: a fascinating period in American history neglected by just about everybody, probably since most of those flower-power Arcadians and disenchanted just-plain-folks grew more pot than potatoes…

With graphic contributions and supplementary interviews from Phil Lollar, Nate Powell, Katie Glicksberg, Idon, Lawrence Livermore & Michael Silverberg, this is a gloriously honest and seditiously entertaining view of life from the trenches: happy, sad, funny and shocking…

Eccentric, eclectic and essentially, magically picayune, Add Toner is a fabulous cultural doctorate from the Kerouac of my g-g-generation…
© Aaron Cometbus. All rights reserved.

Today in 1878 Mary Tourtel was born, originator of UK strip star Rupert Bear

In 1983 Cuban inker Frank Chiaremonte died and in 1996 we lost two true legends, Jerry Siegel and Burne Hogarth. You don’t need me to tell you how they changed everything.

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The Most Amazing Saturday Morning Rubbish Club


By Bill Tuckey & Francisco de la Mora (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-36-2 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Family entertainment… 8/10

Are you old enough to remember, books, films and comics aimed at kids who would see players their own age finding a problem and sorting it out themselves? That’s what this fabulous yarn is, only here those plucky protagonists are all kids with conditions the world says renders them even more useless and in fact unable to act or think for themselves at all…

Writer (broadcaster, radio DJ, journalist, editor) Bill Tuckey & artist Francisco de la Mora (Frida Kahlo – Her Life, Her Work, Her Home please link to March 13th 2023) are both parents of children with special needs. Tuckey’s boys have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and de la Mora’s lad has PVL (Periventricular leukomalacia) and both creators have brought those experiences into a grand adventure that is also a signpost for how you should all behave around those of us that need a little forethought, patience and consideration…

In a city district near a park, 11-year-olds Arthur Ballentine and Finn Gregory are already pals when they first encounter tireless fireball Uma Blanco. She’s 8 and has PVL. It leaves her with speech difficulties and cognitive deficits, but she always knows what she wants and runs rings around Arthur, who has ASD, and Finn, stuck in his wheelchair due to cerebral palsy.

They instantly unite over the way the insensitive folk (“the white people”) around them act and find purpose in the way their favourite space is becoming one huge litter trap. It’s just one aspect of the ongoing neglect slowly ruining the treasured urban green space. It’s getting less fun all the time now, as they learn from embattled park warden “the General”, lumbered with explaining why the latest council cuts mean the disabled toilets are closed from now on…

By June the kids are firm friends and resolved to do something. It begins with just picking up other people’s rubbish every Saturday, but builds before going into extreme overdrive once they discover a quiet, damaged man is living under the trees with a fox called Winchester. He’s buried himself in an underground hideout constructed secretly from other people’s cast offs…

And thus begins a quirky tale of renewal and unlikely friendships which charmingly lead to victory for the idealistic nippers, salvation for sad, strange wild engineer Richard (once the police stop being involved) and even a glorious storybook ending of sorts…

This is not polemic masquerading as entertainment. There’s a clever plot, compelling drama and a profound resolution in the offing. Of course there are plenty of incidents underlining how crap we are as society in taking care of our fellows, but it’s velvet-gloved in a welter of witty incidents and glorious characters studies of the kids and all the adults they impact and gradually convert to a better way of thinking and acting…

I don’t get to use the terms inspirational or heartwarming much when reviewing modern books and comics but when The Most Amazing Saturday Morning Rubbish Club inevitably becomes the next big British indie movie hit (like The Lady in the Van but closer to the kerb and bushes), I’ll be back to say I told you so and to plug the book all over again…
© 2025 Francisco de la Mora/Bill Tuckey. All rights reserved.

Today in 1911 Disney comics artist Paul Murray was born. We last saw his mastery in Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Volume 2: The Diabolical Duck Avenger. In 1950 Chris Claremont was born, and the magnificent Bob Haney died today in 2004. You don’t need me to tell you what they did and where to find their works.