Category: Mature Reading

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Bram Stoker’s Dracula


By Bram Stoker & Fernando Fernández (Catalan Communications/Del Rey Books)
ISBN: 978-0-34548-312-6 (Del Rey)
DLB: 18118-1984 (Catalan)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Here a gloriously OTT example of Anglo-European collaboration long overdue for reconsideration and another go-round…

Multi-disciplinary Spanish artist Fernando Fernández began working to help support his family at age 13 whilst still at High School. He graduated in 1956 and immediately began working for British and French comics publishers. In 1958 his family relocated to Argentina and whilst there he added strips for El Gorrión, Tótem and Puño Fuerte to his ongoing European and British assignments for Valentina, Roxy and Marilyn.

In 1959 he returned to Spain and began a long association with Fleetway Publications in London, generating mostly war and girls’ romance stories. By the mid-1960’s he was experimenting with painting: selling book covers and illustrations to a number of clients. He resumed comics work in 1970, creating a variety of strips (many of which found their way into US horror magazine Vampirella), the successful comedy feature ‘Mosca’ for Diario de Barcelona and educational strips for the publishing house Afha.

Increasingly expressive and experimental as the decade passed, Fernández crafted ‘Cuba, 1898’ and ‘Círculos’ before, in 1980, beginning his science fiction spectacular Zora y los Hibernautas for the Spanish iteration of US fantasy magazine 1984. It eventually made it into English via Heavy Metal magazine as Zora and the Hibernauts.

He then adapted this moody, Hammer Films-influenced version of Dracula for the Spanish iteration of Creepy, before (working with Carlos Trillo) moving on to mediaeval fantasy thriller La Leyenda de las Cuatro Sombras. That done, he created illustration series Galería de Personajes Fantásticos, Argón, el Salvaje and a number of adaptations of Isaac Asimov tales in Firmado por: Isaac Asimov and Lucky Starr – Los Océanos de Venus.

His last comics work was Zodíaco, begun in 1989, before mounting heart problems curtailed the series and he returned to painting and illustration. He died in August 2010, aged 70.

For his interpretation of the gothic masterpiece under review here, Fernández sidelined the expansive, experimental layouts and lavish page design that had worked so effectively in Zora and the Hibernauts, opting for a moodily classical and oppressively claustrophobic, traditional page construction: trusting to his staggering mastery of colour and form to carry his luxuriously mesmeric message of mystery, seduction and terror.

The story is undoubtedly a familiar one and the set pieces are all executed with astounding skill and confident aplomb as, in May 1897, English lawyer Jonathan Harker is lured to the wilds of Transylvania and horror beyond imagining wherein an ancient bloodsucking horror prepares to move to the pulsing heart of the modern world. Leaving Harker to the tender mercies of his vampiric harem, Dracula voyages by schooner to England, slaughtering every seaman aboard the S.S. Demeter and unleashing a reign of terror throughout the sedate, complacent British countryside.

Meanwhile, in the seat of Empire, Harker’s fiancée Mina Murray finds her flighty friend Lucy Westenra fading from troublesome dreams and an uncanny lethargy which none of her determined suitors, Dr. Jack Seward, Texan Quincy P. Morris and Arthur Holmwood – the future Lord Godalming – seem capable of dispelling…

As Harker struggles to survive in the Carpathians, in Britain, Seward’s deranged but impotent patient Renfield confesses to horrifying visions and becomes greatly agitated. Freshly arrived in England, the Count is already causing chaos and disaster, as well as constantly returning to rapidly declining Lucy. His bestial bloodletting prompts her three beaux to summon famed Dutch physician Abraham Van Helsing to save her life and cure her increasing mania.

Harker survived his Transylvanian ordeal, and when nuns summoned Mina she rushed to Romania where she married him in a hasty ceremony to save his health and wits…

In London, Dracula renews his assaults and Lucy dies, only to be reborn as a predatory child-killing monster. After dispatching her to eternal rest, Van Helsing, Holmwood, Seward & Morris – joined by recently returned and much-altered Harker and his new bride – resolve to hunt down and destroy the ancient evil in their midst, following a chance encounter in a London street between the newlyweds and the astoundingly rejuvenated Count…

Dracula, however, has incredible forces and centuries of experience on his side and having tainted Mina with his blood-drinking curse flees back to his ancestral lands. Frantically, the mortal champions give chase, battling the elements, Dracula’s enslaved “gypsy army” and the monster’s horrific eldritch power in a race against time lest Mina finally succumb forever to his unholy influence…

Although translation to English in the Catalan version is a little slapdash in places – a fact happily addressed in a 2005 re-release from Del Rey – the original does have the subtly enhanced benefit of richer colours, sturdier paper stock and a slightly larger page size (285 x 219mm as opposed to 274 x 211mm) which somehow makes the 1984 edition feel more substantial. Of course, this would all be irrelevant if a digital edition were available.

This breathtaking take on the oft-retold yarn delivers fast paced, action-packed, staggeringly beautiful and astoundingly exciting thrills and chills in a most beguiling manner. Being Spanish, however, there’s perhaps the slightest hint of brooding machismo, if not subverted sexism, on display and – of course – plenty of heaving, gauze-filtered female nudity which might challenge modern sensibilities.

Nevertheless, what predominates in this Dracula is an overwhelming impression of unstoppable evil and impending doom. There’s no sympathy for the devil here – this is a monster from Hell all good men must oppose to their last breath and final drop of blood and sweat…

With an emphatic introduction (‘Dracula Lives!’) from comics historian Maurice Horn, this is a sublime treatment by a master craftsman all dark-fearing, red-blooded fans will want to track down and savour.
© 1984, 2005 Fernando Fernández. All rights reserved.

Today in 1894 letterer Ira Schnapp was born. I haven’t even listed most of his work on Now Read This!, but you’ve appreciated some of it every time you saw a golden age Superman logo.

Simultaneously culturally significant and insensitive, today in 1953 saw the first appearance of Leo Baxendale’s Little Plum in The Beano. You can weigh his pros and cons for yourself with Dandy and Beano Present The Comics at Christmas or any 20th century Beano Annual we’ve reviewed.

In 1957 Rumiko Takahashi was born. We covered Mermaid Forest so long ago it’s probably time for a revisit, and we should probably do Ranma ½ while we’re at it…

In 1959 the last episode of Norman Pett’s Jane was published. It had begun in 1932, but once you’ve seen The Misadventures of Jane you’ll probably agree it was best to let her go.

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The Shadow 1941: Hitler’s Astrologer


By Dennis O’Neil, Michael William Kaluta & Russ Heath with Mike Kelleher, Mark Chiarello, Nick Jainschigg, John Wellington, Phil Felix & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-429-9 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Russ Heath would have been 99 years old today: a master comics craftsman so few have ever heard of. I don’t think there’s even a definitive collection or a signature title to his name. He did his job masterfully and always moved on, and remains almost practically unknown. The pages of Sgt Rock original art I own are among my most treasured possessions, and every baby boomer who read US comics knew his work because of this and others like it.

Russell Heath Jr. was born in New York City on September 29th 1926 and raised in New Jersey. Influenced by cowboy artist Will James and others, Heath was self-taught and fiercely diligent, demanding authenticity of himself in all his work. This helped him break into comic books while still at High School (episodes of naval strip Hammerhead Hawley for Captain Aero Comics beginning with vol. 2, #2 in September 1942).

Eager to serve his country, Heath left Montclair High School early in 1945 for the Air Force. Whilst in the military he contributed cartoons to the Camp newspaper before shipping out. When peace broke out, he worked briefly as an ad agency gofer until in 1947 he landed a regular job with Timely Comics. Now married, Heath started working from home, drawing Kid Colt and Two Gun Kid, offerings for the dwindling superhero market and sundry horror stories and covers. He hit an early peak in the 1950s, with a wealth of western and horror features as well as co-creating Marvel Boy, limning Venus and The Human Torch during the abortive attempt to revive superheroes in 1953, whilst mostly crafting crime and romance tales,

He branched out: trying his hand on EC’s Mad and Frontline Combat, 3D comics for St. John’s and earned a reputation for gritty veracity in war and straight adventure stories (such as Robin Hood and Golden Gladiator for DC’s The Brave and the Bold). Heath started contributing to DC’s war line in early 1954, with strips in Our Army at War #23 and Star Spangled War Stories #22. It was good fit and he spent the next 15 years working with writer/editor Robert Kanigher, with whom he co-created The Haunted Tank, Losers and Sea Devils. All along he remained a stalwart of anthological compact combat yarns, but increasingly guested on and eventually took over full time illustrating prestigious Sgt. Rock.

Infamously and unjustly, many of his panels were co-opted by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein as the basis of his paintings (specifically Whaam!, Blam, Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!, and Brattata). Heath’s other contributions to American pop culture include those iconic ads for toy soldiers and a stint on Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder’s ubiquitous Playboy satire strip Little Annie Fanny. Later landmarks include launching a new Lone Ranger newspaper strip with Cary Bates in 1981, and illustrating Michael Fleisher’s infamous Death of Jonah Hex story. Eventually he moved into animation and out to the west coast, but remained in contact with his comics roots, providing occasional returns on titles such as Planet of the Vampires, Mister Miracle, Ka-Zar, The Punisher, Shadowmasters, G.I. Joe and Immortal Iron Fist among others. Having been awarded almost every award going, Heath was in semi-retirement when he died on the 23rd August 2018.

Despite adoring all that apparently unhip war and western stuff, we’re being contrary as ever and highlighting something a little different, but as it’s a special occasion you might want to also track down Hearts and Minds: A Vietnam War Story please link to 29th August 2018. Not our review, the actual book. It’s a Lost Treasure…

Here and now though let’s pop back to the early 1930s, when The Shadow gave thrill-starved Americans their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced pulp periodical novels and over the mood-drenched airwaves via his own radio show. Like comics once upon a time, “Pulps” were published in every style and genre in their hundreds every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire, but for exotic or esoteric adventure-lovers there were two stars who outshone all others. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, whilst the premier dark, relentless creature of the night dispensing terrifying grim justice was the putative hero featured here…

Radio series Detective Story Hour (based on stand-alone yarns from Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine) used a spooky-toned narrator (variously Orson Welles, James LaCurto or Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale. He was dubbed “the Shadow” and from the very start on July 31st 1930 was more popular than the stories he related. The Shadow rapidly evolved into a hands-on hero, solving instead of sharing mysteries and, on April 1st 1931, started starring in his own printed adventures. These were written by astonishingly prolific Walter Gibson under house pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie mantra “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!” unforgettably ringing out over the airwaves.

Over the next 18 years 325 novels were published, usually at two a month. The creepy crusader spawned comic books, movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a smash-hit superstar brand. The pulp series officially ended in 1949, although Gibson and others added to the canon during the 1960s when a pulp/fantasy revival gripped the world, generating reprinted classic yarns and a run of new stories as paperback novels. There are also new yarns turning up to this day…

In graphic terms The Shadow was a major player. His national newspaper strip by Vernon Greene launched on June 17th 1940, and when comic books really took off, the Man of Mystery had a four-colour title; running March 1940 to September 1949. Thanks to Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, John Rosenberger & Paul Reinman, Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary reworking in 1964-1965 for their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint.

In 1973 DC acquired rights to produce a captivating, brief but definitive series of classic comics unlike any other superhero title then on the stands. DC periodically revived the venerable vigilante and after the runaway success of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman, Howard Chaykin was allowed to utterly overhaul the vintage feature for an audience finally recognised as grown-up enough to handle more sophisticated fare. This led to further, adult-oriented iterations and one cracking outing from Marvel before Dark Horse assumed the license of the quintessential grim avenger for the latter half of the 1990s and beyond.

Dynamite Entertainment secured that option in 2011 and, whilst reissuing much of those earlier efforts, began a series of new monthly Shadow comics. A year after Chaykin and DC catapulted The Shadow into the grim ‘n’ grungy contemporary consumer arena, the dream-team that had first returned him to comics prominence reunited for a larger-than-life grand romp, ably abetted by the inking skills of master artist Russ Heath.

In the early 1970s Denny O’Neil & Michael Kaluta had produced a superb series of adventures (collected as The Private Files of the Shadow plee link to January 19th 2009), set in the mad scientist/spy/gangster-ridden ‘thirties. When they reunited to produce a Marvel Graphic novel, expectations were high, and in many ways that complex, devious yarn was the final chapter of that astounding graphic procession. Dynamite’s 2013 re-release of Hitler’s Astrologer saw the entire affair re-mastered by Mike Kelleher, finally doing justice to the colouring of Mark Chiarello, Nick Jainschigg and John Wellington – as well as letterer Phil Felix – which had not fared well under Marvel’s production processes of that earlier time.

On Easter Sunday 1941 a beautiful woman is pursued through the teeming crowds of Times Square theatre-goers by sinister thugs until rescued in the nick of time by agents of The Shadow. She is Gretchen Baur, personally despatched to America by Josef Goebbels to gather astrological data for the Reich’s Ministry of Propaganda. However, now the confused fräulein cannot understand why agents of her own government have tried to abduct her… until The Shadow reveals that she is an unwitting pawn in a deadly battle for supremacy within the Nazi Party. It all revolves around her father, Der Führer’s personal astrologer…

And thus begins a tense, intricate conspiracy thriller ranging from the bloody streets of New York through the shell-pocked skies of Europe to the very steps of Hitler’s palace in Berlin, as a desperate plan to subvert the course of the war comes up hard against a twisted, thwarted love and a decades-long hunt for vengeance…

Deliciously deranged and suitably Wagnerian in style, this action-packed mystery drama exudes period charm. Nobody has ever realised The Shadow and his cohorts as well as Kaluta, whilst Russ Heath’s sleek mastery adds weight and volume to the cataclysmic proceedings.

This sinister saga of the man in the black slouch hat with the girasol ring is another superb addition to the annals of the original Dark Knight, and one no one addicted to action and mystery should miss.

The Shadow ® & © 2013 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. ® ™ & © Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1916 was born Britain’s master of mordant wit Carl Giles. Last time we shared a laugh with him was Giles: the Collection 2014, whilst in 1947 underground legend Greg Irons first checked in. Our proudest moment is reviewing his outrageous The Wyf of Bath (The Wife of Bath) please link to March 9th 2018. Good luck finding that, but his other stuff is darn good too!

In 1988 utterly urbane arcane cartoonist Charles Addams went to his – or at least somebody’s – grave. You can check him out just by scrolling back to yesterday…

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My Dad Fights Demons


By Bobby Joseph & Abbigayle Bircham (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-34-8 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and comedic effect.

Here’s a short, sweet and sarcastically sharp poke at modern culture’s transient nature, mayfly attention-spans and perennially parlous state, delivered in a delicious ribald and deceptively irreverent tone and stylee (not a typo). The deed is done by street-wizened South Londoner and incumbent Comics Laureate Bobby Joseph (Dazed and Confused, Vice, The Guardian, Skank Magazine, Scotland Yardie) and rising star Abbigayle Bircham (Soaring Penguin Press, The Rat Pack Collective).

Anarchic, subversive and definitely NOT for little kids – unless they live inside the heads of adult-seeming types – here is a potent close-up peep at little Londoner Rye who is navigating the already-too-much-to-bear life of a kid trying to find themselves in a world of constant confliction and change-made-for-profit. The often overwhelmed and undervalued young ’un is just about coping with being vegan, addicted to sprout flavoured vapes, embarrassed by mum and her man, unappreciated by peers and schoolmates and generally not digging life when another body blow lands…

Mum and her manly beau – overly eager for a little intimate alone time – suddenly spring the news that Rye’s biological dad is in town and will be exercising visitation rights for the weekend. That’s when Rye first learns that Mr. Mantriks is not actually deceased (as was previously believed) but is in fact a wizard – “greatest sorcerer in the world” – who has been defending reality from inside a hell dimension for most of Rye’s short life.
Such reunions are always a bit uncomfortable, but this one is more fraught than most as daddy (and his appalling goblin familiar “Gobby”) are criminally unaware of how life has moved on, and are fact only really here to retrieve a lost spell of catastrophically evil potential.

However, like all such odd couple yarns, there’s the promise of reconciliation and a happy ending in store, but only if the long-parted in loco parentis pair – and Rye! – can mend long-ignored fences, avoid waves of disembodied body-parts, the allure of parallel universes (and fried chicken shops), totally solve the mystery of the lost cantrip and foil the cunning convoluted schemes of demonic social influencers who shouldn’t be here and SHOULD know better…

Manic-paced and wildly imaginative, this yarn might be impenetrable to certain ossified sections of the readership were it not for the absolutely indispensable aide memoire ‘Gobby’s Guide to UK Slang!’ Moreover, once an ending is reached, you can learn a little of the how and why thanks to ‘Sketches and development work’ provided by the creators…
Text and images © 2025 Bobby Joseph and Abbigayle Bircham. All rights reserved.

Today in 1911, artist Charles Paris was born. Although he probably inked every great pre-Silver Superman & Batman story you’ve ever read, I’d recommend checking out DC Finest: Metamorpho – The Element Man for a wilder ride.

In 1922, unsung comics icon & secret weapon Roz Kirby entered the world, whilst six years later comic strip pioneer Richard Outcault left it. I’m sure you already know all about him, but just in case why not look at Buster Brown: Early Strips in Full Color?

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Athos in America


By Jason, coloured by Hubert, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-478-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for dramatic, comedic and ironic effect.

Born in 1965 in Molde, Norway, John Arne Sæterøy is known globally by his enigmatic, utilitarian nom de plume Jason. The shy & retiring draughts-scribe started on the path to international cartoon superstardom in 1995, once first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won Norway’s biggest comics prize: the Sproing Award. Prior to that, he had contributed to alternate/indie magazine KonK whilst, from 1987, studying graphic design and illustration at Oslo’s Art Academy, before going on to Norway’s National School of Arts. After graduating in 1994, three years later he founded his own comic book Mjau Mjau, citing Lewis Trondheim, Jim Woodring & Tex Avery as primary influences, and constantly refining his style into a potent form of meaning-mined anthropomorphic minimalism.

Moving to Copenhagen Jason worked at Studio Gimle alongside Ole Comoll Christensen (Excreta, Mar Mysteriet Surn/Mayday Mysteries, Den Anden Praesident, Det Tredje Ojet) and Peter Snejbjerg (Den skjulte protocol/The Hidden Protocol, World War X, Tarzan, Books of Magic, Starman, Batman: Detective 27). His efforts were internationally noticed, making waves in France, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Germany and other Scandinavian countries as well as the Americas. He won another Sproing in 2001 – for self-published series Mjau Mjau – and from 2002 turned nigh-exclusively to producing graphic novels, and won even more major awards.

Jason’s breadth of interest is wide and deep: comics, movies, animated cartoons, music, literature and pulp fiction all feature equally with no sense of rank or hierarchy. This puckish and egalitarian mixing and matching of inspirational sources always and inevitably produces picture-treatises well worth a reader’s time. Over a succession of tales Jason built and constantly re-employed a repertory company of stock characters to explore deceptively simplistic milieux based on classic archetypes of movies, childhood entertainments, historical and literary favourites. These all role-play in deliciously absurd and surreal sagas centred on his preferred themes of relationships and loneliness. In latter years, Jason returned to such “found” players as he built his own highly esoteric universe, and even has a whole bizarre bunch of them “team-up” or clash…

As always, visual/verbal bon mots unfold in beguiling, sparse-dialogued, or even as here silently pantomimic progressions, with compellingly formal page layouts rendered in a pared back stripped-down interpretation of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style: solid blacks, and thick outlines dominating settings of seductive monochrome simplicity augmented by a beguiling palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.

The majority of his tales brim with bleak isolation, swamped by a signature surreality: largely populated with cinematically-inspired, darkly comic, charmingly macabre animal people ruminating on those inescapable concerns whilst re-enacting bizarrely cast, bestial movie tributes.

This perfect example of his oeuvre is something of a prequel and available as a sturdily comforting hardback or exalted eBook edition: a mild torrent of subtle wonderment that opens with understated crime thriller ‘The Smiling Horse’, wherein the last survivor of a kidnap team endures decades of tense anticipation before their victim’s uncanny avenger finally dispenses long-deferred justice.

Jason then examines his own life, career and romantic failings with harsh, uncompromising detail in ‘A Cat from Heaven’ whilst B-Movie Sci Fi informs ‘The Brain That Wouldn’t Virginia Woolf’ as a scientist spends years killing women whilst looking for a body that won’t reject the mean-spirited, constantly carping head he keeps alive in his laboratory, before ‘Tom Waits on the Moon’ inexorably draws together a quartet of introspective, isolated loners into a web of fantastic horror. Still they spend too much time thinking not doing so they get what they deserve…

A cunning period gangster pastiche rendered in subdued shades of red and brown, ‘So Long, Mary Anne’ depicts a decent woman helping a vicious escaped convict flee justice. After they snatch a hostage, the “victim” soon begins to exert an uncanny influence over the desperate killer, but is she just wicked or is there a hidden agenda in play?

Most welcome attraction here is eponymous final story ‘Athos in America’. This is a fabulously engaging “glory days” yarn, acting as a prequel to the author’s spellbinding graphic romp The Last Musketeer. That epic detailed the final exploit of the dashing Athos, who met his end bravely and improbably after 400 years of valiant adventure. But what was he doing in the years before that tragic denouement?

A guy walks into a bar… It’s America in the 1920s and the oddly-dressed Frenchman starts chatting to Bob the barman. As the quiet night unfolds the affable patron relates how he came to America to star in a movie about himself and his three greatest friends. Sadly, after he enjoyed a dalliance with the Studio’s top star, things quickly started to go wrong…

Effortlessly switching back and forth between genre, milieu and narrative pigeonholes, this grab-bag of graphic goodies again proves that Jason is a creative force in comics like no other: one totally deserving as much of your time, attention and disposable income as possible.
All characters, stories and artwork © 2011 Jason. All rights reserved.

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Butterscotch (The Flavour of the Invisible)


By Milo Manara, translated by Tom Leighton (Eurotica/NBM) or (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-109-4 (HB NBM) or 978-0-87416-047-5 (TPB Catalan)

These books include Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

If the cover images haven’t already clued you in, for some the graphic novels under review here will be unacceptable.

If that’s you, please stop right now and come back tomorrow when there will be something you’ll approve of but which will surely offend somebody else.

Today in 1945 Maurilio Manara – you can call him “Milo”- was born, and since I’m feeling all grown up and continental today, here’s a long overdue review of some milder masterpieces by one of the world’s greatest graphic eroticists.

Originally translated into English by Catalan in 1987, Butterscotch was re-released in 2002 under NBM’s Eurotica imprint, but has since languished in that great big limbo-land of the inexplicably Out-of-Print.

Manara has always been a puckish intellectual and whimsical craftsman with a dazzling array of artistic skills ranging from architecture, product design, filmmaking & animation, painting and of course an elegant, refined, clear-clean line style with pen and ink. He is best known for his wry and always controversial sexually explicit material – although that’s more an indicator of our comics market than any artistic obsession. He’s even drawn the X-Men – but mostly the women…

After studying painting and architecture he became a comics artist in 1969, beginning with the Fumetti Neri series Genius, and thereafter working on the magazine Terror. His life’s goal came in 1971 as he began his “adult” career (see what I did there?) illustrating Francisco Rubino’s Jolanda de Almaviva which led, four years later, to his first major work and success. Originally released as Lo Scimmiotto, The Ape was a bold and bawdy reworking of the Chinese tales of the Monkey King.

By the end of the seventies he was working for Franco-Belgian markets where he is still regarded as an A-list creator. It was while working for Charlie Mensuel, Pilote and L’Écho des savanes that he created signature series HP and Giuseppe Bergman for A Suivre. In 1986 he wrote and drew, in his inimitable blend of social satire, classicist bawdy burlesque and saucy slapstick, the incredible tale of the ultimate voyeur’s dream in Il profumo dell’invisibile, translated here as Butterscotch…

Our star is a rather brilliant, incredibly naive nerd-physicist who has invented a lotion that bends light rays around anything smeared with it. He also has an unnervingly innocent and utterly sexless fascination with prima ballerina Beatrice D’Altavilla… which is a pity as she is a heartless, sadistic power-mad monster… and the biggest slut in creation.

Honey is Beatrice’s extremely liberated, licentious and hot-blooded associate (The Beatrice don’t do “friends”) and when she discovers a naked, semi-invisible man in the dancer’s bedroom, she feels it her duty to show the innocuous stalker what his dream girl is really like. Sadly, there are none so blind as those who will not see, especially if we can’t see them either, and her many and various attempts to open his invisible eyes lead to violence and a bizarre sexual co-dependence; what with divine Beatrice being far too virginal and perfect for that nasty, dirty stuff…

As Honey perpetually and ever-more frantically attempts to prove the existence of her invisible man – whose cloaking lotion smells powerfully of butterscotch sweets – her already low position in the ballerina’s entourage plummets and the abuses intensify. Finally, however, as Honey grows increasingly closer to the omnipresent, unseen (but so regularly felt) voyeur, she finally succeeds in exposing Beatrice’s true nature, leading to a tempestuous climax nobody expected and some might not survive…

Couched in Manara’s beautifully rendered, lavish line-work, this witty, highly explicit, sexually charged tale casts fascinating light on what people can’t and won’t see around them. Absolutely for adults only, Butterscotch is a captivating exploration of love, obsession and misperception.

Raunchy, funny and extremely hard to find, this is a book desperately worthy of a new edition.
© 1987 Milo Manara. English Language edition © 1987 Catalan Communications. © 2002 NBM. All rights reserved.

Indian Summer


By Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt, translated by Jeff Lisle (/NBM/Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-107-0 (NBM TPB) 0-87416-030-2-8 (Catalan TPB)

Hugo Eugenio Pratt (June 15th 1927 – August 20th 1995) was one of the world’s paramount comics creators, and his enthralling graphic narratives inventions since Ace of Spades (whilst still a student at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts) in 1945 were both many and varied. His signature character – based in large part on his own exotic early life – is mercurial soldier of fortune Corto Maltese. You can learn more about him via our coverage of his UK war comics such as War Picture Library – The Crimson Sea please link to 30th July 2025.

However, a storyteller of Pratt’s vast creative capabilities was ever-restless, and as well as writing and illustrating his own tales, he scripted for other giants of the industry. In 1983 he crafted a steamy tale of sexual tension and social prejudice set in the New England colonies in the days before the Salem Witch Trials. This tale is timeless, potent and – naturally – out of print in English. In a world of digital publishing I find that utterly incomprehensible…

Tutto ricominciò con un’estate indiana (which was published as Indian Summer – although a more appropriate and illustrative translation would be “All things begin again with an Indian Summer”) was brought to stunning pictorial life by fellow graphic raconteur Milo Manara.

Remember his breakout series HP and Giuseppe Bergman for A Suivre? The “HP” of the title is his pal Hugo Pratt…

New England in the 17th century: The Puritan village of New Canaan slowly grows in placid, if uneasy, co-existence with the natives who have fished and hunted these coastal regions for centuries. When young Shevah Black is raped by two young Indians, outcast Abner Lewis kills them both. Taking the “ruined” girl back to his mother’s cottage in the woods, he introduces her to the entire family: mother Abigail and siblings Jeremiah, Elijah and Phyllis. They are a whole brood of damned sinners banished by Shevah’s uncle, the so-pious Reverend Pilgrim Black…

The mother was once a servant in the Black household, but has lived in the woods for 20 years, ever since Pilgrim Black’s father raped her. When Abigail fell pregnant, she was cast out for her sin and her face still bears a sinner’s brand. Aided by Indians, the reluctant mother built a cabin, and over the years had three further children. Her progeny are all wild creatures of nature; healthy, vital and with many close ties both to the natives (from personal preference and choice) as well as the truly decadent Black family (by sordid, unwelcome history and association)…

Now blood has spilled and passions are roused: none of those ties can prevent a bloodbath, and as the day progresses, many dark secrets come to light as the intolerance, hypocrisy and raw, thwarted lust of the upstanding Christians leads to an inexorable clash with the “savages and heathens” who are by far the most sensible and decent individuals in the place, with the pitifully isolated, ostracized and alienated Lewis clan stuck in the middle and betrayed by all sides…

Beautiful, disturbing and utterly compelling, this thoroughly adult examination of sexual tension, religious hypocrisy, attitudinal eugenics and destructive, tragic love is played out against the sweltering seductive heat and primitive glories of a natural, plentiful paradise which only needs its residents to act more like beasts and less like humans to achieve a perfect tranquillity.

Sadly, every Eden has serpents and here there are three: religion, custom and pride…

Pratt’s passion for historical research is displayed by the graphic afterword in which he not only cites his extensive sources – including a link to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter – but adds some fascinating insights and speculations on the fates of the survivors of the New Canaan massacre.

Although there is a 1994 NBM edition, I’m reviewing my 1986 Catalan copy principally because I own that one, but also because the Catalan copy has a magnificent four-page foldout watercolour cover (which I couldn’t fit onto my scanner no matter how I tried) and some pretty amazing sketches and watercolour studies gracing Javier Coma’s insightful introduction.

This is a classic tale of humanity frailty, haunting, dark and startlingly lovely. Whatever version you find, you must read this superb story; and if any print or digital publisher is reading this, you know what you should do…

© 1986, 1994 Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt. English language edition © 1986 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

Today marks the birth in 1897 of Walter B. Gibson, the magician turned author who wrote The Shadow.

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Helter Skelter Fashion Unfriendly


By Kyoko Okazaki (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-93565-483-4 (Tankōbon PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Following her 1983 debut as a producer of erotic material for the men’s markets, Kyoko Okazaki established a reputation for challenging, controversial, contemporary manga tales before gradually shifting her focus to produce stories specifically for and about women (such as Pink, Happy House and River’s Edge), focusing with unflinching intensity on their social issues and the overwhelming pressures of popular culture in modern Japan.

You can find out more about this pioneering creator here.

From 1994-1995, and following her immensely successful strip Tokyo Girls Bravo in mainstream fashion magazine CUTIE, Okazaki created a biting expose of the industry and its casualties for Shodensha’s Feel Young anthology. Heruta Sukeruta took the author’s concerns, inclinations and observations into realms tinged with dark speculation, but individual episodes never seemed too far-fetched or distant from what we all believed models and managers and clients actually experienced…

Liliko is the undisputed top model in Japan. The face and body of “The Lily” are everywhere, selling products and lifestyle to men, women and especially young girls. She is an iconic, unchanging paragon of look & style and has been so for absolutely ages.

In fact, nobody seems to know quite how long… except ruthless model agency president Mama Tada. Moreover, only Liliko’s long-suffering gofer/manager Hada and make-up artist Kin Sawanabe have any inkling of the real person under the gloss, glitz and glamour…

Despite this stellar star status, Lily is incredibly unhappy: bored, paranoid, burned out and increasingly obsessed with her inevitable usurpation by some fresh young “Next Year’s Model”. Knowing her days are numbered, the fragile but hard-as-nails supermodel is frantically chasing singing and acting gigs, and capitalising on her celebrity. Sadly, lacking discernible talent, she’s only getting ahead by sleeping with all the money-men involved…

When not drugged up, stressed out or screaming, Liliko finds a measure of contentment in the arms of Takao, handsome, spoiled heir to the Nanbu department store fortune (and the man she plans to marry) or in degrading and debauching the obsessively devoted Hada. Liliko’s biggest problem is an incredible secret that could shake the nation. All her beauty and success come from a series of cosmetic procedures carried out by a renegade plastic surgeon at an exclusive clinic that caters to the most powerful and influential people in the world.

Long ago a desperate girl with a sordid past met Mama and agreed to a complete, full-body series of operations. Now only her bones and some meat is her – all that glittering skin and surface is fabrication, maintained by constant use of addictive drugs supplied by the dowdy doctor in charge to fight implacable tissue rejection. Now, after years of use even these experimental remedies aren’t as efficient as before and Liliko’s look is breaking down and fragmenting…

She is by no means the clinic’s only client, and following a spate of suspicious deaths and the trail of illegal aborted foetal organ traffickers, police prosecutor Asada has begun putting pieces together. Sadly, even he is not completely immune to the Lily’s allure…

In the face of increasing breakdown, Mama brings Kin up to date and makes him part of the conspiracy, whilst arranging with “The Doctor” to perform still more operations on her fragile star. Liliko’s damaged psyche endures even greater shocks when her fat, dumpy little sister turns up. Having impossibly tracked down her sublime sibling, little Chikako is sent away with stars in her eyes, a dream in her heart and newfound determination to be beautiful too, whatever the cost.

Chemically deranged, paranoid and alternately wildly uncontrollable and practically catatonic, Lily goes off the deep end when Takao admits that he’s marrying an heiress for dynastic reasons but will still, of course, have sex with her in secret…

Having already seduced Hada and her boyfriend in a moment of malicious boredom, Liliko induces them to take revenge for her bruised pride and events soon spiral into an inescapable crescendo of catastrophe that extends far beyond the intangible arenas of image and illusion into the very bedrock of Japanese society…

Harsh, raw, brutal and relentlessly revelatory, the author’s forensic examination of the power of sex, temptations of fame and commoditisation of beauty is a multi-layered, shockingly effective – if occasionally surreal – tale that should alarm every parent who reads it. It is also a superb adult melodrama, tense political thriller and effective crime mystery to delight all broad-minded fans of comics entertainment looking to expand their horizons beyond capes, ghosts and ray-guns…

This cautionary tale was collected into a tankōbon edition in 2003, winning a number of awards including the 2004 Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize, and subsequently adapted into a film shown in Cannes.

Grim, existential and explicit, this is not a book for kids or the squeamish, but it is a dark marvel of graphic narrative and one well deserving of your attention.
© 2003 Kyoko Okazaki. All rights reserved.

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1941 – The Illustrated Story


By Stephen Bissette, Rick Veitch & Allan Asherman (Heavy Metal Books/Arrow Books)

ISBN: 978-0- 09922-720-7 (HMB) 978-0-09922-720-5 (Arrow Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

This book includes Discriminatory Content intended for dramatic and satirical effect.

It’s not often that I get to review a graphic adaptation that surpasses the source material, but this odd little item certainly does that. I’ll leave it to your personal tastes to determine if that’s because of the comic creators or simply because the movie under fire here wasn’t all that great to begin with…

Written by Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale and John Milius, 1941 was a big budget screwball comedy starring some of the greatest comedy talents of the day. It was also youngish Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster follow-up to Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but did not nearly receive the same kind of accolades and approbation.

The plot, adapted by Allan Asherman, concerns a certain night in December of that year when Hollywood was panicked by some “sightings” and many panicked reports of Japanese planes and submarines. One week after the devastation of Pearl Harbor, much of the USA – particularly its West Coast – was terrified of an invasion by the Imperial Forces of Emperor Hirohito. To be fair so were most of the white colonised Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand…

In this tale, one lone sub, borrowed from the Nazis, actually fetches up on the balmy shores of La-La land, but is largely ignored by the populace. The panic actually starts when gormless “Zoot-Suiters” Wally & Denny use an air-raid siren to distract store patrons and staff so that they can shop-lift new outfits, and inevitably peaks later when these feckless wastrels start a fist-fight at a USO (United Services Organisation) Dance. From there on, chaos and commotion carry this tale to its calamitous conclusion…

For the film that premise and delivery isn’t too successful, burdened as it is by leaden direction and a dire lack of spontaneity. However, all the frenetic energy and mania that was absent on screen is present in overwhelming abundance in the comic art of Steve Bissette (Swamp Thing, Taboo, 1963, Tyrant) & Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing, Army@Love, Heartburst, The One, Can’t Get No, 1963, Miracleman).

Taking their cue from the classic Mad Magazine work of the 1950s, they produced a riot of colour pages for the tie-in album reminiscent of Underground Comix and brimming with extra sight-gags, dripping bad-taste and irony, and combining raw, exciting painted art with collage and found imagery.

It’s not often that I say the story isn’t important in a graphic package, but this is one of those times. 1941 – The Illustrated Story is a visual treat and a fine example of two major creators’ earlier – and decidedly more experimental – days. If you get the chance, it’s a wild ride you should take. You can even shade your late-arriving curiosity in terms of “research” as we head towards the 80th anniversary of VJ Day if it makes you feel better…
© 1979 Universal City Studios, Inc. and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.

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Darkie’s Mob: The Secret War of Joe Darkie


By John Wagner & Mike Weston (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-442-8 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Britain has always had a solid tradition for top-notch comic strips about the Second World War, but the material produced by one radically different publication in the 1970s & 1980s surpassed all previous efforts and has been acknowledged as having transformed the entire art form. Some of the best bits and most memorable moments have been gathered over the intervening decades and current Fleetway license holder Rebellion are doing a sterling job revisiting past glories via their Treasury of British Comics imprint. So too are the equivalent efforts of DC Thomson’s modern combat archives…

Here however is a still-controversial yet sublime series that’s been “At Ease” since Titan Books released this edition way back in 2011. As we again commemorate the end of WWII and Victory over Japan’s loathsome militarist regime, surely this saga is ripe for release again?

Battle was one of the last great British weekly anthologies: a combat-themed anthology comic. It began as Battle Picture Weekly on 8th March 1975 and, through absorption, merger and re-branding became Battle Picture Weekly & Valiant, Battle Action, Battle, Battle Action Force and ultimately Battle Storm Force before itself being combined with the too-prestigious-to-cancel Eagle on January 23rd 1988. Over 673 gore-soaked, politically incorrect, epithet-stuffed, adrenaline-drenched issues, the contents of the blistering periodical gouged its way into the bloodthirsty hearts of a generation. It was consequently responsible for producing some of the best and most influential war stories ever.

These include Major Eazy, D-Day Dawson, The Bootneck Boy, Johnny Red, HMS Nightshade, Rat Pack, Fighter from the Sky, Hold Hill 109, Fighting Mann, Death Squad!, Panzer G-Man, Joe Two Beans, The Sarge please link to 8th May 2025 (star-artist Mike Western’s other best work ever), Hellman of Hammer Force and the stunning and iconic Charley’s War among many others.

The roster of contributors was equally impressive: writers Pat Mills, John Wagner, Steve McManus, Mark Andrew, Gerry Finley-Day, Tom Tully, Eric & Alan Hebden, with art from Colin Page, Pat Wright, Giralt, Carlos Ezquerra, Geoff Campion, Jim Watson, Mike Western, Joe Colquhoun, Carlos Pino, John Cooper, Mike Dorey, Cam Kennedy and more…

One of the most harrowing and memorable series during that reign of blood & honour was an innovative saga of obsession and personal vengeance set in the green hell of Burma in the months following the Japanese invasion and rapid rout of the entrenched British Empire in Spring 1942.

As crafted by John Wagner & Mike Western, Darkie’s Mob is a phenomenally and deservedly well-regarded classic of the genre, disclosing how a mysterious maniac adopts and gradually subverts a lost, broken, demoralised and so very doomed squad of British soldiers. The sinister Svengali’s intent is to on use them to punish Japanese soldiers in ways no normal man could imagine…

This gloriously oversized hardback compilation collects the complete uncompromising saga – which originally ran from 14th August 1976 to 18th June 1977 – in a deluxe monochrome edition which also contains a comprehensive cover gallery and ‘Dead Men Walking’: an effusive introduction by unabashed fan and occasional war-writer Garth Ennis.

After such preliminaries the drama opens: a frenetically fast-paced mystery-thriller beginning in 1946 when Allied troops discover the blood-soaked combat journal of Private Richard Shortland, reported missing along with the rest of his platoon during the frantic retreat from the all-conquering Japanese. The first entry – and the opening initial episode – are dated May 30th 1942, describing a slow descent into the very heart of darkness…

Defeated, despondent, and ready to die, the rag-tag remnants of the mighty British Army are rescued from certain death by uncompromising, unconventional and terrifyingly pitiless Captain Joe Darkie, who strides out of the hostile Burmese verdure and instantly asserts an almost preternatural command over the weary warriors. The men are appalled by Darkie’s physical and emotional abuse of them, and his terrifying treatment of an enemy patrol he encounters whilst leading them out of their predicament. They’re even more shocked when they discover that he’s not heading for the safety of their lines, but guiding them deeper into Japanese-held territory…

Thus begins a guerrilla war like no other, as Darkie moulds the soldiers – through brutal bullying and all manner of psychological ploys – into fanatics with only one purpose: hunting and killing the enemy.

In rapid snatches of events culled from Shortland’s log, we discover Darkie is a near-mythical night-terror to the invaders: a Kukri-wielding, poison-spitting demon happy to betray, exploit and expend his own men if it means slaughtering his hated foes. The monster is equally well-known to enslaved natives and ruthlessly at home in the alien world of the Burmese jungles and swamps. What kind of experiences could transform a British Officer into such a ravening horror?

An answer of sorts quickly comes after Shortland intercepts a radio communication and discovers that the British Army has no record of any soldier named Joe Darkie, but the dutiful diarist has no explanation of his own behaviour or reasons for keeping the psycho-killer’s secret to himself…

For over a year the hellish crusade continued with the Mob striking everywhere like bloody ghosts: liberating prisoners, sabotaging Japanese bases, destroying engineering works and always, always killing in the most spectacular manner possible. Eventually, after murdering generals, blowing up bridges and casually invading the most secure cities in the country, the Mob become the Empire of Japan’s most wanted men, but in truth both Britain and the enemy hunt the rogue unit with equal vehemence and ferocity.

Darkie wants to kill and not even Allied orders will stop him…

Gradually whittled away by death, attrition, insanity and fatigue as Darkie infects them with his hatred and nihilistic madness, The Mob are nothing more than Jap-hating killing machines ready and willing to die just as long as they can take another son of Nippon down to hell with them…

The descent culminates but doesn’t end with the shocking revelations of Darkie’s origins and secret in Shortland’s incredible entry for October 30th 1943, after which the inevitable end inexorably drew near…

This complete chronicle also includes a heavily illustrated prose tale from the 1990 Battle Holiday Special and I’m spoiling nobody’s fun by advising you all to read this bonus feature long before you arrive at the staggering conclusion…

A mention should be made of the language used here. Although a children’s comic – or perhaps because it was designated as one – the speech and interactions of characters contains a strongly disparaging and uncomfortably colourful racial element. Some of these terms are liable to cause offence to modern readers – but hopefully not nearly as much as any post-watershed TV show or your average school playground – so please try and remember the vintage, authorial directives and cultural temperature of those times (the 1980s not WWII) when these stories were first released.

Battle exploded forever the cosy, safely nostalgic “we’ll all be alright in the end” tradition of British comics; ushering in an ultra-realistic, class-savvy, gritty awareness of the true horror of military service and conflict, pounding home the message War is Hell. With Darkie’s Mob Wagner & Western successfully and so horrifyingly showed us its truly ugly face and inescapable consequences. It should read with caution but also demands to be a permanent fixture on graphic novel shelves.
Darkie’s Mob © 2011 Egmont UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Dead Men Walking © 2011 Garth Ennis.

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The Marquis of Anaon volume 4: The Beast


By Vehlmann & Bonhomme: coloured by Delf and translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-278-2 (PB Album/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content employed for dramatic effect.

In 1972 Fabien Vehlmann entered the world in Mont-de-Marsan. Raised in Savoie, he grew up to study business management before taking a job with a theatre group. His prodigious canon of pro comics work began in 1998 and soon earned him the soubriquet of “Goscinny of the 21st Century”. In 1996, after entering a writing contest in Le Journal de Spirou, he caught the comics bug and two years later – with illustrative collaborator Denis Bodart – crafted mordantly quirky, sophisticated portmanteau period crime comedy Green Manor. From there his triumphs grew to include amongst many others Célestin Speculoos for Circus, Nicotine Goudron in L’Écho des Savanes and a noteworthy stint on major property Spirou and Fantasio…

Scion of an artistic family, Matthieu Bonhomme received his degree in Applied Arts in 1992, before learning the comics trade working in the atelier of western & historical strip specialist Christian Rossi. Published between 2002 and 2008, Le Marquis d’Anaon was Bonhomme’s first regular series, after which he began writing as well as illustrating a variety of tales, from L’Age de Raison, Le Voyage d’Esteban, The Man Who Shot Lucky Luke and much more.

Now, where were we? Imagine The X-Files unfolding in Age of Enlightenment Europe (circa 1720-1730), but played as a solo piece by a young hero reluctantly growing to accept the role of crusading troubleshooter.

With potent overtones of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Fall of the House of Usher and similar gothic romances, it all began in 2001’s L’Isle de Brac: first of 5 albums (available in English-language/digital formats) tracing the development of a true champion of humanity against darkness and venality.

Under-employed middle class merchant’s son Jean-Baptiste Poulain is a scholar, pragmatic philosopher, ardent disciple of Cartesian logic and former medical student. Smart and well educated but impoverished, he accepted a post to tutor the son of the mysterious Baron of Brac. It was a career decision that reshaped the course of his life…

On the storm-battered, isolated island off the Brittany Coast, Poulain experienced fear and outrage, superstition and suspicion before ultimately exposing the appalling secret of the island overlord serfs called “the Ogre”, and bringing justice, finality and closure to all concerned. In the bitter aftermath, Poulain left, but could never outrun the obnoxious title the islanders bestowed upon him in their Bretagne argot: Le Marquis d’Anaon – “the Marquis of Lost Souls”…

Two years later Poulain caught a presumed demonic (but actually faith-based) serial killer (The Black Virgin) before tackling ship-borne plague that demanded the most draconian treatment to save all Europe from annihilation (The Providence) – all without recompense or even enhanced renown or esteem…

La Bête tackles a most traditional challenge from the unknown, as still-struggling, nigh-starveling Poulain is convinced by his beloved cousin Xavier to assist and consult for a company of French Dragoons. A monster is ravaging mountain villages along the border with the Kingdom of Savoy and these doughty non-nonsense warriors have been sent to sort it out.

Their initial scepticism rapidly adjusts to the repeated scenes of carnage and consumption, and Poulain is impressed by the way they can reconstruct events from observing the scattered, battered remains. The accounts of panicked surviving villagers are unreliable, and as the company tracks the animal ever higher into mountainous snowlines, their suppositions begin to affect the soldiers, Soon they too are debating the existence of giant bears and werewolves…

What they do indisputably know is that it’s huge, attacks at dusk, kills wantonly and is unnaturally choosy in what it then eats. One survivor claims it has bulging red, almost human eyes…

After just missing it again Captain Xavier is officially stymied when it crosses into Savoy, before opting to surrender his commission and uniform – but not his gun, shot and powder – to pursue it without creating a diplomatic incident. His most devoted men are just as determined and follow without regimental colours, whilst actual civilian Poulain cannot abandon his hunt for what seems to be malignant proof of supernatural forces…

Sadly, monsters are not the only peril and a clash with smugglers soon makes the hunters into fugitives, allowing Xavier to complete Jean-Baptiste’s schooling by teaching him to shoot…

It’s a wise and fortunate tactic as attrition by weather, environment and the ever-taunting, never seen but constantly heard monster winnows the comrades down to a weary handful. At last a scrap of useful information comes to them in an alpine village where the dwindling populace know well the haunts and tactics of what they call “the Shadow Beast”…

Armed with knowledge, Poulain and Xavier follow the horror higher and higher into its mountain top lair and final battle is joined with truly terrible costs to all…

This gritty derivation of the tales of grendel, krakens and dragons comes to us as another tautly authentic compellingly scripted saga from Vehlmann, depicted via Bonhomme’s densely informative but never obtrusive illustrated realism. As such, it adds a moody, ingenious, utterly enthralling tale of primal endurance to the literary legacy of Man against Monster, perfectly poised on the cusp of societal change from an era of superstition, class separation, burgeoning natural wonder, to one where reason should be ascendant and belief must be verified.

This chilling conundrum of a self-doubting quester barely holding at bay the crippling notion that all his knowledge might be trumped one night by the ever-lurking unknown is utterly compulsive entertainment, making the travails of The Marquis of Anaon mystery milestones no thinking fear fan should miss, and exploits deserving a much greater audience.
Original edition © Dargaud Paris 2006 by Vehlmann & Bonhomme. All rights reserved. English translations © 2016 by Cinebook Ltd.

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The Sky Over the Louvre


By Bernar Yslaire & Jean-Claude Carrière, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM Comics Lit/Louvre: Musée du Louvre Éditions)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-602-0 (HB)

Joyeux 14 juillet! – or if you’re being a leetle pickee – Happy Bastille Day, mes braves!

Well over a decade ago the prestigious Louvre gallery in Paris began an intriguing, extremely rewarding collaboration with the world of comics, resulting in wealth of modern art treasures – translated bande dessinée made available to English readers courtesy of those fine folks at NBM.

The second release was 2012’s Le Ciel Au-Dessus du Louvre which we know as The Sky Over the Louvre – a lush and beautiful, oversized hardback graphic novel exploring the origins and philosophical underpinnings of France’s national art collection, whilst simultaneously peeling back the motivations and ambitions of the twisted visionaries who steered – or maybe simply rode – the human wave of Chaos deemed “the Terror” of the French Revolution: the catalyst for the gallery’s very existence.

These tales were produced in close collaboration with the forward-looking authorities of the Musée du Louvre, but this is no gosh-wow, “Night-at-the-Museum”, or thinly-concealed catalogue of contents from a stuffy edifice of public culture. Rather, here is an intense, informative, insightful and gripping glimpse into the price and power of art as engine of change and agent of obsession.

Jean-Claude Carrière was born on September 17th 1931, studied at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud and wrote a novel before becoming an actor and one of France’s greatest screen writers. He assisted Jacques Tati and wrote the novelisations of his films, before going on to work with Luis Buñuel (for 19 years), scripting such classics as Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire and many more. Other notable credits include work with directors such as Milos Forman, Louis Malle, Andrzej Wajda, Nagisa Oshima and others on iconic films like The Tin Drum, Danton, The Return of Martin Guerre, Max, Mon Amour and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, although three generations of British television viewers will probably revere him most for his adaptation of the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (starring Robert Hoffmann and featuring that iconic theme-tune) which ran on BBC 1 at tea time from 1965 to about 20 minutes ago.

His approximately 80 screenplays, plus essays, fiction, translations and interviews led to countless awards and accolades including two Oscars – in 1963 for Heureux Anniversaire and an Honorary lifetime achievement Academy Award in 2014. Carrière died on February 8th 2021. In his spare time he had also written comics, particularly with legendary clown/gag writer Pierre Étaix and Bernard Yslaire…

Belgian born Bernard Yslaire (AKA Bernard Hislaire, Sylaire) began his career in 1978, drawing kiddie’s strip ‘Bidouille et Violette’ for Le Journal de Spirou before creating historical epic Sambre in 1986. He was one of the first creators to fully embrace the potential of the internet with his online strip Mémoires du XXe ciel / XXe ciel.com (Memories of the XXth Sky). In 2006 he produced the moving doomed romance Sky over Brussels, and since Le Ciel Au-Dessus du Louvre has largely left comics to concentrate on digital projects.

The Sky Over the Louvre compellingly dramatizes history, focussing on revolutionary artist Jacques-Louis David and close associate Maximilien de Robespierre (who dubbed himself “The Incorruptible”) as they plan how to replace religion, monarchy and the Old Art with something unique and truly worthy of their revolution. David and his School (Drouais, Greueze, Girodet and students Serangeli and Gérard) have taken residence in the old Louvre Palace, where past kings left their grandiose aggregation of treasures when they vacated Paris for Versailles. Here the Revolutionary council aspires to create a new aesthetic and new thought for their New Society…

Jules Stern is a 13-year-old wanderer from the Black Sea, roaming Paris’ dangerous streets in search of his mother, and claiming to have an appointment with David. On the 15th Fructidor, Year 1 (8th August 1793 for those of us not wedded to the Republic’s new calendar) the angelic lad confronts the artist just as he is inaugurating the Louvre as the first Museum of the Nation: dedicated to public ownership of art and the notion of beauty as a revolutionary ideal. Later, they meet again and Robespierre forms a hostile opinion of the child, although David is clearly fascinated by the headstrong, beautiful boy…

As high-minded idealism of the Revolution’s early days dissolves into factional in-fighting, Robespierre and David become increasingly concerned with the spiritual and aesthetic, determined to excise and replace every vestige of the old regime and society. They seek images and concepts to embody their cause and plan a festival to the concept of Reason, but all across France backsliding and foreign invasion threaten their progress. In September 1793 the Convention (ruling body and parliament of the Republic) decrees “Terror to be the order of the day”…

Blood, betrayal and horror rule the streets as David, from his apartments in the Louvre, begins work on a brace of pivotal works: The Supreme Being and The Death of Joseph Bara. It is difficult to assess which causes him the most grief and triggers his ultimate downfall…

The Incorruptible is becoming increasingly more arrogant and ruthless, desperate for revolutionary images that will fire and inspire the masses. He presses David to produce the ultimate physical representation of the conceptual spirit of the New France – a vision of its Supreme Being – but as time goes by and no image emerges, one too many people whisper that what Robespierre actually requires is a portrait of himself…

Far less troublesome should be The Death of Joseph Bara: a boy who became First Martyr of the Revolution, and one scheduled to become the nation’s uniting icon. However, David’s obsession with Jules Stern brings more trouble, when Robespierre objects to the boy being selected as the model for Bara the Myth…

Nobody baulks The Incorruptible for long, but the obsessive nature of the creative impulse is insurmountable. Eventually Robespierre can only achieve his ends by sending Jules to the guillotine. Incredibly, not even death separates the artist from his model…

Set solidly in the very heart of a moment of epochal historical importance, this is a stunning, utterly compelling tale of humanity at its wildest extremes, when grand ideals wedded themselves to the basest on bestial impulses, yet from that Yslaire & Carrière have crafted a magnificently realised tale laced with staggering detail and addictive emotion.

With extra features including biographies and a listing of the actual artworks woven seamlessly into the narrative, this is a truly magical book no aficionado of the medium, lover of history or student of human nature should miss…
© 2009 Futuropolis/Musée du Louvre Éditions. © 2011 NBM for the English translation by Joe Johnson. All rights reserved.