Category: Mature Reading

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Nightmares and Daydreams A.C. 2020


By Mirko Ili? (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-52-2 (Album HB)

This book contains nudity, sexual images, depiction of bodily functions, scenes of distress, oppression and violence, but for Pete’s sake millions died, countless others are still enduring long term debilitating illness and it could all happen again. Grow a sense of proportion or read something else if those are your problems with what’s on show here.

We all respond to stress, horror, terror and slow strangling of hope in different ways. If nothing else, the COVID 19 pandemic (and those many ongoing, still-evolving sequels national governments are so keen to have us ignore at this moment) resulting in global lockdown showed us ourselves in ways we could never have previously imagined. As loved ones vanished from around us, human monsters made money and political capital of the viral winnowing, and forcibly isolated humans turned inward, looked outward from cosy cages and redefined who they were. Many discovered new or long-suppressed gifts and talents. Others just got in much closer touch with what they knew but never had time for, back when the world was “normal”…

Bosnian-born on January 1st 1956, Mirko Ili? is an artist. Living with dyslexia, he especially preferred the visual to the verbal in his formative reading years and made graphic design his area of expertise. Upon achieving success and acclaim he moved to the Big Apple, becoming art director of Time magazine’s international edition and The New York Times Op-Ed section. Before that, though, he was raised in Soviet-era Yugoslavia, absorbing every comic he could find. Shaped, changed and charged-up for life, he entered the magazine marketplace as a creator and storyteller whose efforts were seen far and wide thanks to eye-catching yarns in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Marvel’s Epic Illustrated among others, all riding a global fantasy art boom at that time.

Coming to America confirmed his ascent but took him ever further away from personalised graphic narratives. Design pays more than panels & captions, and Ili? prospered from prestigious, high profile works such as posters and book covers for Steven Heller, Milton Glaser and so many more. He crafted film titles, ad designs, album covers and all the rest of those image-potent fillips that command and reward inspired vision-realisers. With time came more acclaim and many examples of his art added to modern collections including MOMA, SFMOMA, the Smithsonian, Die Nueue Sammlung and various other global institutions.

If you need to know more than what the fulsome creator bio at the back of this tome offers, you should track down his 2012 biography (by Dejan Krši?) Mirko Ili?: Fist to Face…

Meanwhile and however, when almost everyone’s career was put on pause in 2020, Ili? the long-neglected comics storymaker reacted to enforced isolation, prolonged separation and the prospect of an actual Apocalypse by unearthing his own roots. Locked in, he reviewed comforting literary influences and artistic inspirations. Deprived of bustling casual human contact – comprising strangers, casual acquaintances and close friends – he sought ways to make sense and apply perspective and proportion to what so many of us regarded as our long anticipated well-earned Armageddon. Ili? started drawing as he wondered and waited for whatever end was coming…

As explained in supporting text pieces – a contextual Foreword from Mark Hellier and Dave McKean’s appraisal in a concluding Afterword – an inward expulsion of ideas was nourished by Ili?’s past via beloved works by favourite creators… not just comic stars like Tomaz Pengov, R. Crumb, Moebius, and especially Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland. Also revisited were craftspeople, artisans, designers, filmmakers, poets and musicians including Magritte, de Chirico and Egon Schiele; Marshall McLuhan, Leonard Cohen, The Velvet Underground and Dylan Thomas. Ili? referenced formative mythology and religious iconography (image 27 references Saint Sebastian – believed in mediaeval times to defend against plague) and his own earliest comics creations and student days at Zagreb’s School of Applied Arts, to feed his art making addiction and when the world’s new normal began as the year closed, the therapy comics became his A.C. (After Covid) 2020 collection…

As inferred already, 2020 began with Mirko Ili? drawing self-contained single-page stories/statements as something to do and to reflect the mood of unprecedented times. He continued that daily visual diary even as world lockdowns gradually lifted, channelling his continuing anxieties, observations and self-evaluations into striking, shocking surreal pantomimes blending bleak, traumatised imagination with personal motifs and inspirations…

Without another word that procession of explicit, scary, sad and evocative moments unfolds here with gregarious overwhelming humanity reduced to spectres and phantoms avoiding other people. One voluntary ghost is a driven aging artist roaming achingly familiar but alien empty streets. Over 70+ individual vignettes rendered in a variety of liberating styles to challenge the notion of confinement and unflinching rigidity a longer narrative forms. Skilfully manipulating self-imposed creative restrictions whilst inhabiting nested boxes/containers/cells of wordless pages & panels, shining through monochrome palettes and singular subject matter a record of loneliness and isolation running wild emerges.. And yet, somehow, each message of and within borders and boundaries is invested in sparking unique examples of freedom of thought, memory, and anticipation… be that better or worsening days or no future at all…

Extremely explicit, complex, challenging, compressed, claustrophobic, and memorably distressing, this somehow still-mightily engaging gallery of isolated incidents is fully annotated and supplemented by a Visual Reference Index, presenting one compulsive creator’s unflinching documentary testament and uncompromising inner monologues: a physical paradigm of processing in response to solitary daily “constitutionals” undertaken through an eerily distanced metropolis in the fervent hope of touching “normal” again and seeking out a better, more crowded tomorrow…

If you can handle it, you must not miss this marvellous, darkly beautiful memento mori to modern fragility and failures…
Nightmares and Daydreams A.C. 2020 © 2026 by Mirko Ili?, Foreword © Steven Heller. Afterword © Dave McKean. All rights reserved.

Nightmares and Daydreams: A.C. 2020 will be released in the UK on September 3rd 2026 and September 29th in the US. It is available for pre-order now and is supported in London by an exhibition running from 1st to 7th September at the Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ.

Today in 1875 pioneering US cartoonist Clare A. Briggs (A. Piker Clerk, When a Feller Needs a Friend, Ain’t It a Grand and Glorious Feeling?, The Days of Real Sport, Mr. and Mrs. and father of pioneering woman cartoonist “Miss” Clare Briggs!) was born, sharing the anniversary with the premiere of Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie strip in 1924; Carl Giles’ eponymous UK family gag panel Giles in 1946; the loutish launch of Reg Smyth’s Andy Capp in 1957 as well as the birth in 1966 of filmmaker/producer/writer James Gunn (Super, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vols 1 2 & 3, The Suicide Squad; the whole honking’ great DC Extended Universe; Creature Commandos, Peacemaker, Scooby-Doo & Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Brightburn, Superman).

Today also marks passing of creator Frank Godwin (Wonder Woman, War on Crime, Connie, Rusty Riley) in 1957 and groundbreaking black American cartoonist, fan art pioneer and underground comix exponent Richard Edward “Grass” Green (Xal-Kor the Human Cat, Holiday Out, Super Soul Comix) in 2002.

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Came the Dawn and Other Stories illustrated by Wallace Wood (The Fantagraphics EC Comics artist Library volume 2)


By Wallace Wood, with Al Feldstein, Harry Harrison, Gardner F. Fox & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-546-4 (HC/Digital edition

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also contains Discriminatory Content employed for dramatic effect.

EC began in 1944 when comic book pioneer Max Gaines sold the successful superhero properties of his All-American Comics company – including Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman – to half-sister National/DC. He retained only Picture Stories from the Bible, with a plan to produce a line of Educational Comics and with schools and church groups as the major target market. Max then augmented his core title with three more in similar vein: Picture Stories from American History, Science and World History. The worthy but unsustainable project was already struggling when he died in a boating accident in 1947. His son William was eventually convinced to assume control of the family business and, with much support and encouragement from unsung hero Sol Cohen and multi-talented associate Al Feldstein, transformed the ailing enterprise into Entertaining Comics, consequently triggering the greatest qualitative leap forward in comic book history…

After a few tentative false starts and abortive experiments, Gaines settled into a bold and impressive publishing strategy, utilising the most gifted illustrators in the field to tell a “New Trend” of stories aimed at an older, more discriminating audience.

From 1950 -1954 EC was the most innovative and influential publisher in the US, dominating the genre markets for science fiction, war, horror and crime comics. The company even added a new type of title and another genre with the creation of parody magazine Mad…

This second volume of the Fantagraphics EC Library is a magical and groundbreaking omnibus of horrific tales and human dramas displaying the astounding artistic expertise of Wallace Allan Wood: one of the greatest draughtsmen our art form has ever produced.

Woody was a master of every aspect of the business. He began his career lettering Will Eisner’s Spirit strip, moved into pencilling and inking and latterly, publishing. After years working all over the comics and syndicated strip industries, as well as in legitimate illustration, package-design and other areas of commercial art, he devised the legendary T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents franchise and even created one of the first adult independent comics with Witzend as the 1960s closed.

The troubled genius carried the seeds of his own destruction, however. Woody’s life was one of addiction (booze and cigarettes), traumatic relationships, tantalisingly close but always frustrated financial security, illness and eventually suicide. It was as if all the joy and beauty in his existence stayed on the pages and there was none left for real life.

Although during his time with EC Wood became the acknowledged and undisputed Master of Science Fiction art in America, he was equally adept, driven and accomplished in the production of all genres. This powerful collection concentrates on some of his best early crime, horror and suspense tales and includes all the evocative, emotionally-charged social dramas (lovingly dubbed “Preachies”) which Feldstein & Bill Gaines devised to address hot-button issues and challenge the smugly hierarchical status quo of post-war triumphalist America.

These strident, still truly shocking morality plays viciously jabbed at the nation’s dark underbelly, attacking prejudice, police corruption, drug abuse, sexual attitudes, racism, institutionalised intolerance and all manners of hypocrisy. It’s no stretch to consider that these tales, more than any other childhood influence, probably shaped the resurgent liberal attitudes which blossomed as the future “Flower Power” generation reached their majority a decade later. They certainly riled the powers that be who made sure that when the Comics Code Authority was established all such dangerously seditious fare was kept well away from the kiddies…

The stories are re-presented here in stark yet lavish monochrome, with supplementary interviews, features and dissertations, beginning with Bill Mason’s ‘Come the Stories’ weighing the yarns included here with forensic discipline. Then the pictorial parade picks up with rather pedestrian scam caper in ‘The Werewolf Legend’ (Vault of Horror #12 April/May 1950) as an innocent man is convinced he’s a ravening monster. It was scripted by prolific and ubiquitous Gardner Fox, one of Gaines senior’s greatest assets and discoveries. The pencils are by cartoonist Harry Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat, Make Room! Make Room!, The Technicolor Time Machine, Bill, the Galactic Hero) and inked by Wood. Although Harrison found his greatest fame as a prestigious prose author in later years, he was a major player in the comics biz during the 1950s and had worked with Wood as a jobbing production team since they’d met at the Cartoonists and Illustrators school in 1948.

For Haunt of Fear #15 the trio concocted legend of lethal legerdemain ‘The Mad Magician’, whilst an anonymously-authored enigma of ‘The Living Corpse’ (Crypt of Terror #18) edged closer to truly supernatural shenanigans as another illusionist took things too far in pursuit of his craft…

Fox scripted and Harrison pencilled ‘The Curse of Harkley Heath’ in VoH #13, wherein a gothic triangle of greedy heirs come to unpleasant, untimely ends after a will is read, after which Wood began handling all the art chores, starting with ‘Horror-Ahead!’ in HoF #16 (July/August 1950) when rival curio collectors endure a jungle jaunt in search of shrunken skulls and end up the only way they possibly could…

A Noir-tinged new era began when Al Feldstein began scripting for Woody. ‘Death’s Double-Cross’ – from the sublimely mature Crime SuspenStories #1 (October/November 1951) offers the twisted tale of a woman cheating on her husband with his twin brother in a moody masterpiece reminiscent of James M. Cain. Naturally it quickly turns into a nightmare that won’t end pretty…

Fox delivered a final shot in ‘The Man from the Grave’ from HoF #4, which saw a dissolute craftsman commit gruesome murder for his art… and live to regret it in desperate luxury and a relentless, compulsive paroxysm of over-work, before Feldstein’s ‘Terror Ride!’ (Tales From the Crypt #21) finds young lovers who soon regret being the last couple to ride a decrepit Amusement Park’s Old Mill boat attraction. Feldstein’s epic run of stories fill most of this tome and continue in a yarn from Haunt of Fear #5, where Wood’s dark imagination and gift for  rendering grotesques is expertly exploited in ‘Horror in the Freak Tent!’ Here a cruel carnival owner who mercilessly mistreats his exotic employees finally receives a macabre measure of justice…

Crime SuspenStories #3 then provides a fearsome farrago of betrayal and vengeance when two fugitive bandits are ‘Faced With Horror!’ after picking the wrong plastic surgeon to sort out their public notoriety problems, whilst ‘So They Finally Pinned You Down!’ (HoF #6) follows a troubled soul who can’t understand why he’s always stumbling over dead women…

The macabre mayhem concludes with two tasty titbits from Tales From the Crypt #24 & 25, beginning with a classic philandering-murderer-gets-his-come-uppance saga in ‘Scared to Death!’, after which a baroque body-switching melodrama concerning a cunning crone and a lovely young thing compels a bewildered husband to conclude ‘Judy, You’re Not Yourself Today!’…

The remainder of this potent volume is comprised of those controversial conscience-rending polemical passion-plays and human dilemmas Gaines called Preachies, opening with ‘The Guilty!’ as seen in Shock SuspenStories #3 (June/July 1952), which sees a typical small town enflamed by the murder of a young white girl. The Sheriff knows the black kid in his jail is guilty and is just as keen as the mob to spare the State the cost of a trial and takes steps to ensure it too.

… And that’s when the girl’s white boyfriend confesses…

Although stridently moralising and rather heavy handed by contemporary standards, these stories are the very bedrock of EC’s well-deserved reputation as the crusading creators of America’s very first adult comics for mature readers. Moreover, these ugly truths were gloriously draped in so very beautiful clothes, with Wood’s incredible illustrations inspired by the fiercely impassioned scripts, soaring to unparallelled heights of sensitivity with gut-wrenching impact.

Shock SuspenStories #4 took the cultural campaign further in a sordid tale of the innocent witness relentlessly beaten into a ‘Confession’ by cops determined to capture a hit-&-run driver who’d killed their Lieutenant’s wife. So why then, is the grieving officer’s car all banged up and covered in blood? Sheer, old-fashioned anti-Semitism fuels the ‘Hate!’ of a quiet little town and leads to the death of a family too stubborn to be warned. Imagine instigator John Smith’s surprise when his appalled mother tells the entire town that he was adopted and what his true origins are. Shock SuspenStories #6’s ‘Under Cover!’ combines the local Klan chapter’s campaign of punishment-floggings for miscegenation with the end of a crusading reporter who tries to expose the scandal. Tragically, he forgot that there might be almost anybody under those pointy hoods…

In #7 ‘The Bribe’ reveals how even the most honest and dedicated of civil servants can be pushed into abandoning his principles – especially with a loving daughter, her upcoming wedding and crushing society pressure hitting him so hard…

Even today ‘The Assault!’ is potentially the most contentious tale here, exposing how a small town girl with salacious appetites callously guards her precious but precarious reputation by framing an old man for her “rape”. In typical tone for those times, her lie ultimately and inevitably causes two deaths, after which eponymous ‘Came the Dawn!’ from Shock SuspenStories #9 offers a superb  example of Greek tragedy in modern dress. Here a lonely backwoods hermit finds a beautiful naked woman in his cabin and, after a night of mutual passion with the girl of his dreams, discovers that an inmate fitting her description has escaped from the nearby asylum. Only after he’s locked his dream girl outside out does he discover that she’s not the only mysterious blonde lost in the forest…

Far less emotionally loaded but equally devastating is the darkly introspective ‘…So Shall Ye Reap!’ (Shock SuspenStories #10) which sees a penitent, angry young man contemplating every hypocritical act of his pompously pious parents before reaching his own moment of judgement prior to ‘In Gratitude’ launching a simply breathtaking assault on the nation’s double standards after a wounded soldier comes home to a hero’s welcome. However, he savagely turns on his friends and family when he finds out what they’ve done to the “coloured man” who saved his life…

More quirky crime-caper than social commentary, ‘Fall Guy’ (Shock SuspenStories #12) follows the doomed decade that saw upstanding citizen Danny Jansen steal a fortune to please a greedy girl far out of his league only to spend ten years in jail paying for it. Surprisingly, she waited all that time for him, but wasn’t best pleased when he couldn’t remember how to retrieve “their” ill-gotten gains…

A campaign of hate to drive out a man who foolishly admitted to being part-Negro ends in suicide and a sense of smug satisfaction when the bigot-in-charge boasts of his success to the local doctor in ‘Blood-Brothers’ (Shock SuspenStories #13). Imagine the vile cross-burner’s surprise when the aged medic reveals the source of the transfusion which had long-ago saved the happy hate-monger’s life. Next, ‘The Whipping’ (scripted by Feldstein & Gaines for Shock SuspenStories #14) returns to scandalmongering territory, when a dutiful daughter defies her racist father and starts dating an Hispanic boy. Dad doesn’t call it that, and the outrageous steps he and his pure-white buddies take to end the affair horrifically backfire…

The last tale reprinted here is ‘The Confidant’ (Feldstein, Gaines and Wood from Shock SuspenStories #15, June/July 1954), created at a moment in time when public outcries against comics was reaching its fevered peak. It deals with mob-justice and sees an entire town baying for the blood of a newcomer who they “know” has murdered a young girl. Then, when a dark stranger arrives searching for one of his children, the unofficial posse jump to a wrong conclusion with tragic and irreparable consequences…

Please forgive any deliberate vagueness on my part here: the point is to make you want to read these poignant. shocking stories and I don’t want to devalue their impact or spoil your otherwise assured enjoyment…

A detailed history of Woody the flawed genius is provided by historian S.C. Ringgenberg in prose piece ‘Wallace Wood’ after which this truly beautiful book is closed by ‘Behind the Panels: Creator Biographies’ compiled by Arthur Lortie & and Bill Mason before Ted White’s ‘Crime, Horror, Terror, Gore, Depravity, Disrespect for Established Authority – and Science Fiction Too!: ‘The Ups and Downs of EC Comics: A Short History’ offers a comprehensive rundown of the entire EC phenomenon.

The short, sweet, cruelly limited EC back catalogue has been revisited ad infinitum in the decades since its demise. Those amazing yarns changed not just comics but also infected the larger world through film and television to convert millions into dedicated devotees still addicted to New Trend tales. Whether you are an aged EC Fan-Addict, a nervous newbie, or simply a mere fan of brilliant stories and sublime art, Came the Dawn is a book no sane and/or sensible reader can afford to be without.
This edition © 2012 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All comics stories © 2012 William M. Gaines Agent, Inc., reprinted with permission. All other material © 2012 the respective creators.

Today in 1904 British cartoon colossus Reg Parlett (Just Jake, Billy Bunter, Mowser, countless assorted strips for Merry and Bright, Funny Wonder, Radio Fun, Film Fun, Knockout, Buster, Valiant, Lion, Whizzer and Chips, Cor!!, Whoopee!, Jackpot, Wow!) was born, sharing the day with Golden age letterer Betty Bentley (Superman, Batman, Starman) in 1916; artist/illustrator/inker Dave Hunt (Transformers, Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Wonder Woman, DC Comics Presents) in 1942; Belgian creator Luc Cromheecke (Taco Zip, Tom Carbon & Roboboy) in 1961; writer/letterer John Layman (Chew, Thundercats, Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness) in 1969 and writer/moviemaker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Daredevil: Guardian Devil, Green Arrow, Batman: The Widening Gyre, Batman: Cacophony, Jay and Silent Bob) in 1970.

Belgian master storyteller François Craenhals (Karan, Fantômette, Chevalier Ardent, Les 4 As, Pom et Teddy) died today in 2004.

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The Shadow: Blood & Judgment


By Howard Chaykin with Ken Bruzenak, Alex Wald & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-327-8 (TPB/Digital edition) (978-0-9302-8916-4 (DC comics 1989 TPB

This book contains Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect and to piss you off.

I’ve been a fan of The Shadow ever since I was a kid in the 1960s, picking up a couple of sixpenny paperbacks as a kid in my local Woolworth’s. Over so many decades I followed various comic and screen interpretations with mixed feelings but grudging general acceptance. However, when Howard Chaykin had a crack at the venerable trenchcoated crime-crusher at the height of the turbulent game-changing 1980’s, I nearly blew a gasket. I was appalled.

And that was the point.

Chaykin has for his entire career lovingly cultivated his reputation as an iconoclast and cultural bombast over many years, and the four issue miniseries from 1987 collected here certainly ruffled a few feathers – those of severe unrepentant traditionalist me included.

As originally disseminated in the days before comic books, The Shadow gave thrill-hungry fans their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced periodical novels dubbed Pulps (because of the low-grade paper they were printed on) and over mood-drenched airwaves via his own radio show. Pulps were the TV of their day, published in their hundreds of different titles every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire, and catered for every style and genre. However, for exotic adventure lovers there were two characters who outshone all others. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, Man of Bronze, whilst the premiere dark, relentless creature of the night dispensing terrifying grim justice was our mysterious slouch-hatted hero.

Originally the radio series Detective Story Hour (adapting stand-alone prose yarns from Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine) used a suitably spooky-voiced narrator (most famously Orson Welles, although he was preceded by James LaCurto & Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale. He was dubbed “the Shadow”, and from the start on July 31st 1930, he was more popular than the stories he introduced. Talking about soon evolved into participation and The Shadow became into a proactive hero solving crimes and mysteries and, on April 1st 1931, the dark Detective debuted in his own pulp series written by the incredibly prolific Walter Gibson under house-pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie tag-line “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!”…

Gibson-as-Grant wrote 282 of 325 novels over the next two decades, published twice a month. The series spawned comic books, seven movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a superstar brand. The pulp series ended in 1949, although many novels have been written (by Gibson and others) since 1963, when a pulp fantasy revival gripped America, generating reprinted classic stories and a run of new adventures as paperback novels. Then he was gone again but the mesmerising master of menace always seemed to be lurking in the background…

From June 17th 1940 The Shadow and his covert cohort of minions starred in a newspaper strip by Vernon Greene and – when comic books took off – he won his own four-colour title. It ran 101 issues spanning March 1940 – September 1949. Between 1964-1965 Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary version under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint, written by Robert Bernstein and Jerry Siegel, illustrated by John Rosenberger and Paul Reinman. In 1973, DC acquired the rights and produced a captivating but brief series of classic comic exploits unlike any other superhero title then on the stands.

DC periodically revived their comic book iterations of the venerable vigilante and in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen tasked one of the industry’s most controversial and popular creators with reviving the pre-eminent mystery man of all time. Fresh from an awe-inspiring, inspirational and transformative run on his satirical creation American Flagg, Howard Chaykin returned to DC to shake up everything with an interpretation which offended fans, purists (still including me) and franchise-owners Conde Nast, but which ultimately proved to be just the medicine the property needed to become relevant again.

That crucial year 1949 is the embarkation point for this flashy, savage, witty and utterly captivating updating. This is not a reboot. Chaykin was extremely careful to accept and utilise those decades of established canon, deftly accommodating old material whilst infilling information gaps by scrutinising world history and tacitly accepting that a do-gooder who exploited and expended his own agents whilst kidnapping, brainwashing and slaughtering the bad guys wasn’t what most people would consider a hero…

Devised and delivered as a glittering, frenetic avalanche of graphic and text material (spectacularly made comprehensible by the calligraphic skill of lettering wizard Ken Bruzenak and the understated colour-palette of Alex Wald) the story opens with a series of increasingly brutal murders. It doesn’t take long to connect the victims: old people from all walks of life rumoured to have worked for an old urban legend known as The Shadow…

That mystery manhunting vigilante vanished in 1949, abandoning his grim, fanatical crusade to destroy criminals. Now (for which read 1987) a hidden mastermind is systematically eliminating every surviving member of his former organization. Before long, a figure comes out of the closeted east, easily slipping past Communist China’s “Bamboo Curtain” and returning to the blighted, benighted USA with a new band of striking followers in tow…

Chaykin even had the chutzpah to provide the eternal Man of Mystery with a Real Origin, something he never really had before as the murder-marathon unfolded but soon and suddenly – amidst a broiling sea of sex, perversion and increasingly violent death – The Shadow is back in style and in full force. Dealing out bloody justice to petty thugs in search of the true mastermind, the desperate race against time sees an impossibly young, still vital Lamont Cranston reunite with his surviving agents to track down his oldest enemy and thwart a deadly plan to bring about nuclear annihilation.

However, as arrogant and officious as ever, the now-unmasked master manipulator is probably in more danger from the elderly colleagues he abandoned than the gun-toting punks and maniacs dogging his smartly-shod heels. Inevitably, as chaos escalates and bodies keep dropping, “Cranston” tracks down his unseen nemesis and – with his own sons in attendance and learning the ropes and family traditions on the job – proves again how the weed of crime bears bitter – but so very fragile – fruit…

Bonus features include a cover gallery, Marc Guggenheim’s Foreword ‘Looking Back on the Shadow’ plus text closer ‘The Light Behind The Shadow’: an interview with Chaykin and Joe Orlando which first appeared in the 1987 trade paperback collection.

I don’t know why I used to dislike this book so much: Although I still feel the proper milieu for the character is the iconic era of mobsters, militarists and madmen (by which I mean the 1930s and 1940s, not right here right now) I see what Chaykin’s getting at. Those threats and motivations were common enough in the Eighties and even more so nowadays.

Perhaps the author’s trademark trick of confronting misogyny, racism and suppressed sexuality by seemingly advocating them just wore a bit thin when applied to such a treasured old friend. There’s certainly a disquieting amount of adult themes, kinky sex and graphic violence on offer. With sufficient distance, though, I now must honestly pronounce this a terrific thrill-ride; stylish and compelling, if a little “in your face” and “on the nose”… Enough readers must have liked it back then: Blood and Judgment spawned a fascinating follow-up series (by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kyle Baker and others) before DC reverted to The Shadow Strikes: a series safely restored to its natural pre-war time period.

Out of print from 1991 until Dynamite picked up the option this is a vital and vigorous read which inspired some of today’s very best creators, and acts as a perfect introduction to the character. You can – and should – complement the experience by tracking down DC’s first experiment with the character, partially collected as The Private Files of the Shadow – and Dynamite’s serial continuations and new edition of The Shadow: Hitler’s Astrologer.

After all, a crime fighter this durable must have something to him…
The Shadow ® & © 2012 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. ™ & © Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1954 writer/colourist/inker/Digital Chameleon co-founder Lovern Kindzierski (Shame, Lunatik, Agents of Law, Black Widow) was born, followed a year to the day later by wonderful, gifted, tragically-short-lived Dave Stevens (The Rocketeer, Tarzan, The Bettie Pages); comic bok letterer Rus Wooton in 1970 and devastatingly brilliant writer Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, The Movement, Villains United!, Secret Six, Lara Croft, The All-New Atom, Welcome to Tranquility, Wonder Woman, Red Sonja, Batgirl, Uncanny X-Men) in 1974.

Today in 1985 Jimmy Johnson’s still-running, ever-kvetching, surreal domestic commentary romcom strip Arlo and Janis began.

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Pigeons from Hell


By Robert E. Howard, adapted by Scott Hampton & lettered by Steve Vance (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 0-913035-69-6 (Limited Edition Album HB), 978-0-91303-568-9 (Album TPB)

This book contains Discriminatory Content commonplace in less enlightened times. This book includes Discriminatory Content used for dramatic effect.

Robert Ervin Howard is justly celebrated for his burly, barbarian sword-&-sorcery creations such as Conan, Kull, Bran Mak Morn and others but as a successful jobbing writer in the heyday of pulp fiction he also turned his blazing typewriter to most of the other extant genres of the era. Moreover, as aficionados of his blistering fantasy fiction are well aware, he was a dab hand at creating tension, suspense and moody macabre horror.

During the too-brief time of his creative peak he crafted a select pack of chilling spooky supernatural stories set in the evocative southern milieu known as ArkLaTex – a doom- shrouded, decadence-driven Deep South meeting-point of the darkest corners of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and his beloved Texas. Deeply moved and inspired by old stories heard at his grandmother’s knee, Howard transformed oft-told anecdotes into timeless masterpieces of terror such as The Shadow of the Beast, Moon of Zambebwie, Black Hound of Death, Black Canaan and especially the yarn under scrutiny here: a chilling confection described by Stephen King as “one of the finest horror stories of our century”.

The tirelessly prolific Howard took his own life in 1936 and the prose Pigeons from Hell (unsold since its completion in 1932) was published posthumously in the May 1938 edition of premier pulp Weird Tales. It has become a classic not just of the genre but also a notional inclusion of the prestigious Southern Gothic movement of writers including Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Tennessee Williams and others.

In 1988 the original text was incorporated into a stunningly lush, lavishly painted deeply faithful adaptation by Scott Hampton and published by West Coast mavericks Eclipse Books, which, despite a later version by Joe R. Lansdale & Nathan Fox in 2008 (published by Dark Horse and reviewed here, remains one of the best horror graphic novels ever produced. This is in no small part due to its being printed on magnificently larger-than-life, glossy square white pages produced in the oversized European Album format of 285 x 220mm rather than the standard US proportions of 258 x 168mm.

Following an impassioned Introduction from Horrorist Supreme Ramsey Campbell the Depression-era exercise in the unnatural opens with ‘The Whistler in the Dark’ as a pair of perambulating New Englanders bumming their way across America on a motoring vacation reach the southlands region of Piney Woods and decide to spend the night in a dark, decrepit, abandoned antebellum plantation house.

Crashing out on the musty floor of the main downstairs room they sink into exhausted sleep, but in the middle of the night Griswell is awakened by bad dreams. They’d begun with replaying their arrival at sunset, discovery of the ramshackle edifice and all the oddly ethereal white birds their presence had disturbed. From there his visions had moved on to their quick, cold repast and weary lapse into slumber before shifting into nightmare feelings of disquiet. When Griswell roused, anxious and disturbed, it was with images of ghostly doves, hidden rooms concealing ancient hanging bodies and a sense that something was hiding just beyond his sight…

Trying to shake himself to full alertness, Griswell suddenly heard an eerie whistling and, helpless, watched his companion John Branner rise – as if sleepwalking – to ascend the grand staircase to the upper storey and into all-enveloping darkness. Incapable of movement, Griswell followed the sounds of Branner’s progress and suddenly, a hideous scream came…

Before he could move, Griswell heard Branner’s slow return. Then moonlight allowed a glimpse of his companion, and the sight was enough to send Griswold screaming helter-skelter into the night…

Reaching their automobile he found the vehicle infested with snakes and kept on running, convinced some unknown beast was at his heels. Careering ever on, he ran straight into a local lawman who instantly emptied his revolver into a shadow that pursued him…

‘Return’ fully introduces capable County Sheriff Kirby Buckner, who surprisingly accepts much of Griswell’s incredible tale and provides historical insight into the woeful tale and sinister reputation of Blassenville Manor as he and the terrified vacationer revisit – in full, comforting daylight – a scene of dreadful slaughter.

Swiftly ruling out the possibility of argument and murder amongst friends, Buckner begins searching the house for the true killer but comes up empty. Furthermore, knowing how bad things would look in a rational courtroom, he invites traumatised Griswell to help him get to the truth, by joining him and spending another night in the house…

‘The Snake’s Brother’ finds them preparing for that horrific prospect by researching the tragic history of the last of the Blassenvilles. In the years following the Civil War, three unwed daughters and a cousin, struggling to maintain the old pile, were eventually joined and chaperoned by their cold, brutal Aunt Celia, who had returned from the West Indies to watch over them.

Celia was a terrifying presence, as harsh with the girls as she was with remaining plantation staff and her own much-maltreated “mulatto” maid Joan…

The legend of the girls’ mysterious and sudden disappearance was common knowledge, but for more details Buckner and Griswold question an aged Negro who used to work on the plantation. When pressed, the still-mortally terrified dotard Jacob reveals a fantastic tale of brutal oppression, serpent worship, voodoo and appalling, unleashed, brooding vengeance… until he is hideously struck down by the power that lurks in the mansion…

Appalled, deeply shaken but more resolved than ever, Buckner and Griswold head for the Manor, mistakenly believing that they have a handle on what unquiet horror haunts the place and how to handle it in final chapter ‘The Call of Zuvembie’. They have jumped to a ghastly and tragic wrong conclusion…

Not only is the original prose work one of the best pieces of horror fiction ever written, but in this rare instance this adaptation – crafted over two long, meticulous years by Hampton – more than matches the power and all-encompassing mood of its source material. This is a classic of graphic narrative and fear fiction no fan will want to miss – but only with all the lights on…
© 1932, 1988 the Estate of Robert E, Howard, Glenn Lord Executor. Adaptation and painting © 1988 Scott Hampton. Introduction © 1988 Ramsey Campbell. Pigeons from Hell © 2008, 2009 Robert E. Howard Properties Inc. (“REHP”). All rights reserved.

Today in 1907 Antonia Yeoman was born: an Australian-Englishwoman cartoonist who became the only female member of Punch’s elite (male only) Toby Club. She shares the date with veteran colourist Gene D’Angelo (The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Blondie, Mandrake the Magician, Beetle Bailey, Superman Family, Action Comics, World’s Finest, Flash, Superboy, Justice League of America), born in 1924; Batman artist Lew Sayre Schwartz in 1926; artist Ricardo Villamonte (Doctor Strange, Saga of Crystar) in 1932; Australian cartoonist, sculptor, caricaturist and satirist Pat Oliphant in 1935. In 1947 Filipino artist Romeo Tanghal (New Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, Men of War) arrived on Earth, joined in 1958 by writer/editor Bob Greenberger (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Doom Patrol, Who’s Who in the DC Universe, Star Trek, Suicide Squad), and one year later by Guyanese American illustrator Trevor Von Eeden (Black Lightning, Batman, Thriller), with Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil, Amazing Spider-Man, The Sandman, Orbiter) coming along in 1963.

British Superman Garth debuted today in 1943, in a Daily Mirror strip by Steve Dowling & John Allard that ran until 1997.

The day also saw the deaths of some major and much-beloved players, such as illustrator Lou Fine (The Ray, Black Condor, The Flame, Uncle Sam, The Spirit, Taylor Woe, Adam Ames) in 1971; All Ages All Star Warren Kremer (Richie Rich, Caspar the Friendly Ghost, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Little Audrey, Stumbo the Giant, Joe Palooka, Planet Terry, Count Duckula, Ewoks, Royal Roy, Top Dog) in 2003 and in 2012, Chilean cartoonist Themístocles Nazario Lobos Aguirre – AKA “Themo Lobos” – (Máximo Chambónez, Ferrilo, Nick Obre, Alaraco, with his most famous work being Mampato, Cucalón) and Indonesian comics author “R. A.” (Raden Ahmad) Kosasih (Sri Asih, Ramayana, Siti Gahara, Seri Mahabharata, Setan Cebol).

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Mighty Love


By Howard Chaykin, with Don Cameron, Kurt Hathaway & Dave Stewart (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-930-0 (HB) 978-1-56389-931-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times and deliberately employed to provoke and annoy you.

Don’t let the outfits fool you: it’s not just another kinky love story…

Oddly released under the DC rather than Vertigo imprint when it debuted in 2003, this is a story about crime in the big city and of the compromises individuals must make to achieve their private and personal purposes.

Delaney Pope is a rough, tough cop on a completely corrupt force who is fed up with seeing the scum she arrests get away with murder – and far worse. Lincoln Reinhardt is a slick, liberal defense attorney constantly thwarting the frames and set-ups of those cops. He constantly clashes with Pope in the course of his job. They both loathe each other with a passion.

Unbeknownst to either they both assuage their workday frustrations by putting on masks and costumes to beat the crap out of criminals (with or without badges) in the commission of their crimes on the streets and in the backrooms… an arena where there are no doubts about guilt, innocence or mitigations.

The thrill of these nocturnal forays inevitably lead to a meeting of “Skylark” and “Iron Angel”, and a tenuous, teasing (if not actually titillating) team-up when separate cases bring them together against the city’s first criminal mastermind. Not knowing each other’s real identity, but afraid to unmask and lose that so-tantalising tension, the pair must decide what’s most important, the actual or the promised…

This delightfully fizzy adult romp prods all the fetishistic trappings of superhero storytelling as the brassy and whimsical writer/artist (with computer effects by Don Cameron, lettering by Kurt Hathaway and colours from Dave Stewart) blends classic romcom movie riffs as seen in The Shop Around the Corner, The Thin Man, Pat and Mike and even Adam’s Rib with a welter of crime caper movies to produce a costume drama in the unmistakable Chaykin manner.

Presumably a pilot for an unrealized longer series, Mighty Love was a fast & stylish, done-in-one oddity that reads well and looks great – so if all you want is a good time; Baby, look no further, and seek this out…
© 2003 Howard Chaykin, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Born today: long serving Golden Age artist/strip creator John Lehti (Crimson Avenger, Cotton Carver, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Tales of the Great Book, Tommy of the Big Top, Big Town, Lassie, Tom Corbet, Space Cadet, Sgt. Rock, The Losers) in 1912; Al Bryant (Gale Allen, Shark Brodie, Military Comics, Feature Comics) in 1917; multi-talented artist/editor/publisher Dick Giordano (Sarge Steel, Judomaster, Batman, Human Target, Elongated Man, Modesty Blaise, countless features at Warren, Valiant, DC & Marvel) in 1932 and, in 1990 Brazilian artist Bilquis Evely (Luluzinha Teen e Sua Turma, Doc Savage, Shaft, Wonder Woman, The Dreaming, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow).

On this date in 1975, Walt Kelly’s astounding strip Pogo published its last episode, and in 1995 writer/editor/animator George Caragonne (The Legend of Zelda, Masters of the Universe, Planet Terry, Star Brand, Penthouse Comix) died today.

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Pride & Joy


By Garth Ennis & John Higgins, lettered by Annie Halfacree (Vertigo/Image)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-803-7 ( 2004 Vertigo TPB), 978-1-4012-0190-6 (2016 Image TPB/ Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Garth Ennis has a well-deserved reputation for shocking, moving and wickedly funny storytelling, and is accomplished in blending genres for maximum effect, as his successes with The Boys, Battlefields, Ghost Rider, The Punisher, foundational runs on Preacher and Hellblazer, impious seminal shocker True Faith and a dozen other tales can attest.

One of his least regarded or remembered – in my opinion unjustly so – is this ferocious family saga of a painfully mundane domestic world turned upside down by an unredeemed past. It is a story of pedestrianly ordinary folk with none of the baroque or flamboyant characters that populate regular fiction…

There’s this guy called Jimmy Kavanagh. His wife is long-dead and son Patrick is at that revolting sulky teen age, but at least his little daughter Rachel is still the most beautiful girl in the whole world. Life is hard: his own dad, a war-hero, has just passed on, but the family are doing okay…
That all changes in a moment after Jimmy’s stupid past resurfaces. Back in 1972 he and a couple of his idiot pals reckoned they were going to be big-time hoods when they agreed to rip-off a gang boss. The gig had been planned by the boss’ own bodyguard, Stein, who promised them a million dollars…

Unfortunately for everybody but Jimmy, his pals were real shmucks, and ballsed up the caper. Cops came, busted Stein before he could kill them all and took him away for twenty-to-life. Scared straight by the experience, Jimmy got on with his life… until now. One night he gets a call and his world starts to implode. Coming home to finds the babysitter gutted like a fish. Stein is out and he wants revenge…

Gathering his kids and linking up with his old “colleagues” they go on the run together, but the hunter can’t be shaken and innocent people keep dying. Unable to bond with his son during their entire life together Jimmy finally, tragically connects with Patrick as the sorry saga comes to a small and dirty close…
With chilling echoes of Cape Fear (the 1962 Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum release) this tale examines how ordinary people cope with ordinary evil: a cheap thug with a knife is just as deadly as a horde of vampires. You and yours can only die once – painfully, horribly; but just once. Pride & Joy is a tale about dreams and hopes and heritage, showing how mediocre people cope, illustrated with perfect subtle understatement by John Higgins. Nothing about this story is big or bold or bombastic: but it could really happen. It’s that scary…
© 1997, 2004 Garth Ennis and John Higgins. All Rights Reserved.

Born today in 1926 Mexican writer Yolanda Vargas Dulché de la Parra (Memín Pinguín), sharing the day with artist Phil Noto (Gen13, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Jonah Hex. Green Lantern, Indiana Jones, Captain America) in 1971 and writer/musician/attorney Charles Soule (Daredevil, Letter 44, Swamp Thing, Death of Wolverine) in 1974.

This day in 1975 we lost revolutionary cartoonist Vaughn Bodé (Cheech Wizard, Cobalt-60, Deadbone,) and in 1990 French auteur Yves Chaland (Adventures of Freddy Lombard, Bob Fish, Adolphus Claar, Retro-Spirou).

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Comanche volumes 1 to 3: Red Dust, Warriors of Despair, Wolves of Wyoming


By Hermann & Greg, translated by Montana Kane (Europe Comics)
No ISBNs Digital-Only editions

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Welcome to another Wild West Wednesday with an self-indulgent peek at a favourite series I first saw way back in the 1980s, crafted by two Belgian masters of graphic narrative…

Best known as Greg, Michel Régnier was born in 1931 in Ixelles. The cartoonist, writer editor and publisher, sold his first series – Les Aventures de Nestor et Boniface – at age 16 to Belgian magazine Vers l’Avenir and followed up over many decades with legendary strips like Luc Orient, Bruno Brazil, Bernard Prince and Achille Talon in Héroïc- Albums, Le Journal de Spirou (where he scripted the title feature amongst many others), Paddy and Le Journal de Tintin (which he eventually edited from 1966-1974). One of his new finds on LJdS during this period was an artist named Hermann Huppen. Greg is estimated to have worked as writer or artist on more than 250 strip albums during his career. He died in 1999, leaving behind an astounding and beautiful legacy of drama and adventure crying out for revisiting in English…

Hermann Huppen entered the world on July 17th 1938 in what’s now the Malmedy region of Liège Province. He studied to become an interior architect and furniture maker but was thankfully swayed and diverted by comics. His narrative career began in 1963 but really took off three years later when he joined with writer Greg to create cop series Bernard Prince for Le Journal de Tintin. The artist soon added to his weekly chores with Roman adventure serial Jugurtha (scripted by Jean-Luc Vernal). In 1969 Hermann expanded his portfolio further, adding the Greg-penned western Comanche to his seamlessly stunning output. At his time Charlier & Jean Giraud’s epic Blueberry was reaching its peak of excellence…

Bernard Prince and Comanche made Hermann a superstar of the industry, a status built upon with further classics such as The Towers of Bois-Maury, Sarajevo-Tango, Station 16, Afrika, Lune de Guerre, Duke and many more (I estimate 30 separate series and a total well north of 115 albums up until his death on March 22nd 2026).

In 1978 Hermann bravely dropped guaranteed money-spinner Bernard Prince to create as (writer & illustrator) Jeremiah but he stayed with Comanche until 1982 (10 albums in total) because of his abiding love for western-themed yarns. Thanks to digital-only publishing commune Europe Comics, it’s easy to see why in these three (thus far) translated volumes of the sprawling epic which introduces a wandering gunslinger who finds a home – if not peace & quiet – after joining a most unlikely band of comrades on a cattle-spread in Wyoming…

 

Comanche volume 1: Red Dust

Comprised of linked weekly episodes and beginning in 1978, ‘Red Dust’ introduces an eponymous, lethally capable shootist wandering into a desolate cow-town just as trouble seems to be brewing. In fact, even before he gets into Greenstone Falls, the enigmatic Mr Dust has to kill manic mercenary Wally Hondo who refuses to share “his” stagecoach with a shabby drifter…

Moreover, when the stage finally pulls into what passes for civilisation, Red is approached by unctuous fixer Mr Cathrell who erroneously assumes him to be the latest addition to his growing army of pitiless hired guns. The mistake is soon cleared up after the newcomer unexpectedly reacquaints himself with Cathrell’s top stooge.

Red Dust and The Kentucky Kid have unsettled scores and old grievances in common…

Before long Red learns that the newly-arrived killer elite have all been commissioned to deal with a stubborn rancher refusing to sell out to their mysterious and always unseen boss. Mind made up, the taciturn nomad heads for the 666 Ranch and inveigles a job with aged, crotchety pioneer Ten Gallons and the new ranch-owner he apparently dotes upon: a young, lovely and immensely stubborn woman called Comanche…

She is determined to make her inheritance a successful going concern, but has been having lots of bad luck. Red soon determines it’s not her luck that’s at issue after a new herd of cattle she has bought apparently come down with a mystery sickness. As well as exposing a cruel trick, Red also recruits new hands Toby and Tenderfoot following the exposure of a nefarious scam.

That, in addition to decimating Cathrell’s gunslingers when they ambush the ranchers on a shopping trip to town, swiftly forces the mystery mastermind into the open and reveals just why the 666 is such a valuable property… but only after a few of those old scores are finally settled…

A gripping introduction to the ongoing saga this is a splendid confection of traditional western themes combined with sleek yet gritty European style. Red Dust is the kind of timeless treat comics fans and movie lovers will adore.

 

Comanche volume 2: Warriors of Despair

In the second translated volume of the sprawling cowboy epic which here resumes with no-longer-wandering gunslinger Red Dust and his new pals at the Triple 6 ranch. The taciturn hombre has found a home – if not peace and quiet – after joining a most unlikely band of comrades at the on-its-uppers cattle spread in Wyoming. The heart of the crew are still crotchety ancient Ten Gallons and young, lovely and stubborn neophyte owner Comanche.

Second serial ‘Warrior of Despair’ sees our quotidian, ever-expanding cast prepare steers for hungry railway workers rapidly building their way across the plains. That backbreaking toil is suddenly disrupted by the arrival of a party of Cheyenne who want the beef the cowboys are guarding…

A fractious but peaceful conference reveals the tribes are starving: supplies they’ve been promised by treaty haven’t arrived and no one can locate the Government’s Indian Agent to sort out the problem…

After the warriors rush off with the cattle, Comanche and Red join them at their camp in a last attempt to prevent a mess becoming a crisis. The upshot is that Dust has three days to find the Agent and restore the missing provisions. For that time Comanche will remain a “guest” of the Cheyenne…

…And so begins a desperate chase with double-dealing, ingrained mistrust and sheer bad luck on every side hindering the retired gunslinger’s quest and leading to the inescapable conclusion that the plains will soon be awash in flame and blood…

An epic tale in the classical manner, this yarn also has plenty of European verve, panache and ingenuity to recue it from the unreconstructed reputation and unsavoury old tropes that make even venerated old movie an uncomfortable experience in these enlightened days.

It’s also a tale that gets more visually compelling with every page…

A stunning appreciation of mythical Cowboys and Indians combined with a sleekly authentic sheen of grime and gutsy European style, Warriors of Despair is another classic collation comics fans and entertainment-starved readers will be unable to put down. Don’t miss out on a chance to enjoy one of the most celebrated comics classics of all time…

 

Comanche volume 3: The Wolves of Wyoming

The third translated volume of the unfolding epic starring no-longer-wandering shootist Red Dust and his expanding circle of friends sees the taciturn hombre accepting that he has finally found a home – if not peace and contentment – after joining the Triple 6 ranch and its unlikely cast of comradely outcasts on a struggling cattle-spread in Wyoming. The weekly episodes of The Wolves of Wyoming were originally published in 1974, seeing our roster embroiled in a classic cinematic scenario which begins with a stagecoach hurtling over dusty plains. Of course, it also has ruthless bandits slinging lead in hot pursuit…

Doughty driver Sid Bullock is hit, but the lone passenger is more than holding his own with a sixgun, and when Triple 6 ranch-hands Toby and Clem intercept the frantic chase, the vilely predatory Dobbs Brothers peel off and flee…

Diverting to the homestead, the hands formally meet self-confessed lay preacher Brian Braggshaw, a notorious former gunslinger with an extremely unforgiving attitude to sin (and sinners) and who takes an instant dislike… mutual and fully reciprocated… to Red.

As Ten Gallons doctors Bullock, Comanche learns the Dobbs’ were after a cash shipment to the Ranchers Union – money nearby Greenstone Falls depends on. The gang have bled the town dry with their recent raids. It’s almost as if they have an inside man informing them of key shipments and times…

Compounding the problem is that fact that wily Sid actually diverted the latest tranche of money: carrying an empty, decoy strongbox while local legendary old drunk Pharoah Colorado transported the actual cash by a circuitous route. It’s a cunning, brilliant plan that only falls short on one point. Finishing his booze early, Colorado has been forced to make a detour, visiting local moonshine-maker Trapper Hans even as the Triple 6 hands split up into search parties to find the leathery soak and precious funds…

Covering many potential routes, they are being secretly observed. The Dobbs’ are mostly cruel brutes, but oldest brother Russ is as smart as he is sadistic and quickly deduces what the ranchers are hunting for: money he feels is his by right. Moreover, Red has been paired with the vengeance-happy Braggshaw, and their heated debates over morality bring them close to blows. It’s not enough to stop the preacher killing Melvin Dobbs when he tries bushwhacking them, and as they backtrack to the gang’s cabin, they observe the entire clan riding off…

Investigating the cabin, Red finds missing Indian Affairs Commissioner Howard Calhoun, who embezzled funds and almost sparked an new Indian war. His cunning hideaway amongst the Dobbs Boys has clearly proved there’s no honour among thieves, and their treatment of their criminal comrade has resulted in what can only be regarded as divine justice…

Russ has gathered the clan to scour the region, whilst Red has made some deductions of his own. Trapper Hans’ sturdy shack is the only place to find booze in the Wyoming wilds so he and Braggshaw head there. As night falls, Comanche &Toby are already there, preparing to fight for their lives against the besieging Dobbs mob.

As the bloodshed begins, the rest of the Triple 6 men converge on the scene. With battle joined it’s not long before a hero dies and the gang turn tail. In the aftermath, Red rides off, having embraced the Preacher’s unforgiving doctrine and now determined to destroy all the “wolves of Wyoming”…

To Be Continued? Apparently not here, but we live in hope…

A classic of the western genre, these European yarns grew in style, passion and sublime, compulsive expression, methodically lifting them far above the now-unacceptable majority of cowboy stories that make even beloved older tales an uncomfortable experience in contemporary times. They are also so hauntingly lovely to look upon. Don’t miss out on one of the most celebrated comics cowboys ever devised…
Vols 1-3 © 2017 – LE LOMBARD – HERMANN & GREG. All rights reserved.

Today in 1925, cartoonist Henry Martin (Good News/Bad News) was born, with inker illustrator Jack Abel (Tales of the Green Berets, Legion of Super-Heroes, Richard Dragon: Kung-Fu Fighter & probably every Marvel and DC title you can think of) coming along in 1927 and Italian Master Guido Crepax (Valentina, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Man from Harlem, Il processo di Franz Kafka) arriving in 1933. A later generation includes author and comics scripter Christopher Golden (Baltimore, Beach High, Hellboy, The Punisher) in 1967; writer/editor/adapter Kelly Sue DeConnick (Castle, Ghost, Bitch Planet, Wonder Woman) in 1970; Norwegian creator/autobiographer Mads Eriksen (M, Gnom) in 1977, and writer Tom King (The Sheriff of Babylon, The Vision, Strange Adventures, Mister Miracle, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow) in 1978.

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The Marquis of Anaon volume 5: The Chamber of Cheops


By Vehlmann & Bonhomme: coloured by Delf and translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-295-9 (PB Album) 978-1-84918-725-1 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

In 1972 Fabien Vehlmann entered the world in Mont-de-Marsan. Raised in Savoie, he studied 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, Fabien caught the comics bug and two years later – with illustrative collaborator Denis Bodart – produced 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 for L’Écho des Savanes and especially album series Jolies Ténèbres/Beautiful Darkness, Seuls/Alone and a superb stint on global 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. Spanning 2002-2008, 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 so much more.

Now, where were we? Imagine The X-Files set in the Age of Enlightenment (circa 1720), played as a solo piece by a young French protagonist reluctantly growing into and accepting 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 tracing the development of a true champion against darkness and human venality.

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

On a windswept, storm-battered, extremely isolated island off the Brittany Coast, Poulain experienced fear and outrage, superstition and suspicion before ultimately exposing the appalling secret of the island overlord his serfs called “the Ogre”, bringing justice and finality to all concerned. In the 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 supposedly demonic but actually faith-based serial killer (The Black Virgin), and after that saved Europe from plague (La Providence) and France and the neighbouring Duchy of Savoy from a nigh-demonic cryptid (The Beast)… all without proper recompense or even some career-enhancing renown…

With this final tale (thus far) the much maligned misanthrope begins a passage of personal growth and fundamental change after he and four other complete strangers jointly inherit the vast fortune of fur trader and eccentric dilettante scholar Umberto Leone. He was – according to the protectorate’s French Consul De Trezancour – eaten by three crocodiles in Egypt…

In Paris, at the reading of the will, Poulain is gripped with doubts and suspicions over the ridiculous situation and overly specific cause of death. He compulsively ponders what really happened and why his apparently quick-tempered and obsessive benefactor was even in Cairo in the first place… especially after viewing radical renovations his departed patron had made to his lavish Parisian apartments immediately before his final visit to the Land of the Pharaohs…

Being rich now, finding out is simple and the Marquis of Anaon takes ship for Cairo, where he sees a thriving, energetic but completely alien culture and is met by unctuous, thoroughly unpleasant fixer/agent Charles Ruffin. In a sprawling city ancient beyond belief but plagued by external conquest and endemic factionalism, it soon becomes clear that his guide and escort is there to steer, manage and spy upon Umberto’s heir for exceedingly greedy and dangerous coffee trader and merchant prince Delambre… who also believes Poulain knows more than he’s letting on…

Stationed in Leone’s former dwelling, with Ruffin’s thugs ceaselessly watching, the inheritor soon learns from Leone’s “Negress” Diénéba, (a live-in “service” included as part of the welcome package, but one that the Marqius immediately places under his complete protection) that everyone knew Leone was searching the Great Pyramid of Cheops for something utterly extraordinary. They all – westerners and Egyptians alike – still believe it is physical treasure, but as Poulain proceeds in his investigations and ruminations he meets fringe scientist Richardson and realises that what Leone discovered was far more profound, spectacular and even perilously miraculous…

Further adding to the tensions is a febrile political situation, with the largely immune but always interfering French merchant class gleefully stirring unrest among the Egyptians and allowing roaming militias of Janissary “peacekeepers” to beat, plunder and bully at will, just as long as the pleasures and profits keep rolling in. When Poulain’s researches bring him close to Leone’s dream, he is confronted , challenged by and ultimately adopted by one faction – led by cleric Sheikh Luqman – and becomes an unwilling but grateful disciple of the sage. With his own people and the gold-crazed Janissaries seeking his blood, he finds love and solace with Diénéba, and they voyage to the pyramid. In the long hidden Chamber of Cheops Poulain barely survives the true secret of the edifice and uncovers a second astounding fact that could get him killed… but not like Leone was supposed to have been…

Then after dealing with Delambre it’s a frantic rush to get out of Egypt for the impassioned couple, with a promise of greater magic – and hardship – to come…

This deviously swingeing attack on colonialism and ignorantly fabled “mysteries of the Dark Continent” arrives as another tautly authentic, compellingly scripted saga from Vehlmann, vividly visualised via Bonhomme’s densely informative but never obtrusive illustrated realism. It adds a gripping, utterly enthralling tale of romance and discovery to the canon of a truly superior man’s war against the inherent iniquities of human behaviour. Once again the unsuspected miracles of the natural world and shocking potential of humanity’s creative spark are lensed through the drives and obsessions of an individual at the forefront of  religion’s retreat and birth of rationalism, and the result is pure entertainment gold.

This evolution of a self-doubting quester barely holding at bay the notion that all his schooling is pointless and without worth in a world too big for humanity and just one aspect of a universe beyond any one’s grasp is utterly compulsive entertainment, making The Marquis of Anaon’s mystery milestones a joy no thinking fear fan should miss.
Original edition © Dargaud Paris 2008 by Vehlmann & Bonhomme. All rights reserved. English translations © 2016 by Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1914, Canadian Joe Shuster was born. Three years later British cartoonist Reg Smythe (Andy Capp) followed, as did strip writer (Tank McNamara) turned film critic Jeff Millar in1942. That same year Argentinian art wizard José Antonio Muñoz AKA “Muñoz” (Alack Sinner, Joe’s Bar, Sophie, Billie Holiday) was born, with painter Bob Larkin (Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, Marvel Preview, Planet of the Apes, Savage Sword of Conan, Doc Savage) arriving in 1949; artist Howard Porter (Justice League, Trials of Shazam!, The Flash) in 1969 and Simone Bianchi (Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight, Original Sin) in1972.

In 1951, creator Dudley Fisher (Myrtle) died as did the stounding Jean-Michel Charlier (Redbeard, Buck Danny, Blueberry, Valhardi, Tanguy et Laverdure) in1989; cartoonist Doug Marlette (Kudzu) in 2007 and Indian artist and humourist Mangesh Tendulkar (Sunday Mood) in 2017.

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Cochlea & Eustachia


By Hans Rickheit (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-801-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book contains old-looking modern stories and pictures meant to amuse and creep you out. If you can’t open up and play along, you really should not be reading these books. Don’t even get me started on the nudity and nakedity. Oh, and the butchery and slaughter and body horror. You probably won’t like those either…

Jobbing fantasist Hans Rickheit was born in 1973 and has been producing skilfully crafted art in many different arenas since the 1990s, beginning with self-published mini-comics before graduating to full-sized, full-length epics like Kill, Kill, Kill and The Squirrel Machine. He has also turned his time and efforts to film, music, gallery works and performance art. A Xeric award beneficiary, he came to broader attention in 2001 with controversial graphic novel Chloe, and thereafter spread himself wide contributing to numerous anthologies and periodicals, building beguiling webcomics and instigating the occasional anthology or minicomic of his own such as Chrome Fetus.

That last was the original venue for the strangely surreal binary sorority known as Cochlea & Eustachia. They first manifested back in 2001’s issue #5, with obscure and occulted follow-ups including a regular strip feature in Seatle-based weekly paper The Stranger a year later, and guest appearances in Proper Gander, Hoax, Typhon, Blurred Visions and Pood. Then they destructively scurried through Rickheit’s webcomic pages (Chrome Fetus) before inflicting their distracting blend of ingénue iconoclasm and chaos chic through the printed page of splendidly olde worlde graphic compilations like this one.

An avid and avowed student of dreams, Rickheit has been called obscurantist, and indeed in all his beautifully rendered and realised concoctions meaning is layered and open to wide interpretation. His preferred oeuvre is the recondite imagery and sturdily fanciful milieu of Victorian/Edwardian Americana which provided such rich earth for fantasists like Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth, whilst his fine, studied, meticulously clear line is a perfect, incisive counterpoint to the frequently challenging logic-bending of miasmic mystery and cosmic confusion.

In Short: pay attention, scrutinise carefully, think twice and make up your own mind…

In a shabby, battered manse peculiar contraptions and bizarre trophies of things that should never have existed – let alone be stuffed and mounted – abound. The master of the house is another strange creature and as he awakes from a unique bier and begins to wander the rooms, unseen and undetected wanton mischief makers Cochlea & Eustachia rouse also and resume their apparently aimless peregrinations through the walls, nooks and crannies of the edifice that rests atop a sea of animal skulls…

The nubile, girl-like creatures scutter about in dream-like journeys and progressions, avoiding and yet stalking the wheelchair bound savant as he continues his labours, cultivating creatures of incomprehensible oddity…

Soon, chances manifest for more manufactured calamity and a wildly sedate chase ensues, resulting in capture, shocking indignity and clashes with monsters and giant robots, but as the episode escalates we are left to wonder are the elfin wanderers a binary or in fact trinary partnership? Or is the truth – if such a thing can ever be pinned down and vivisected – something even more baroque and uncanny?

All that basically means is that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling such a sinisterly absurdist confection from one of the most impressively single-minded craftsmen working in comics today, and if you are at all tempted or intrigued you must obtain and soundly secure this splendidly skewed and offbeat chronicle.

Scary, beautiful, disturbing and often utterly inappropriate, the full-colour exploits of masked misfit misses is accompanied by an enticing extra strand in muted monochrome wherein the mysterious masqueraders return to declare ‘How It Works’, after finding a possibly handsome stranger stashed in a box in a starkly surreal swamp…

Visually reminiscent of Rick Geary, Jason Lutes and Charles Burns whilst being nothing like them at all, Rickheit presents a singularly surreal and mannered design; a highly charged, subtly disturbing delusion that will chill, bewilder and possibly even outrage many readers. It is also compelling, seductive, sublimely quirky, blackly hilarious and nigh-impossible to forget. As long as you’re an adult (mere accumulated calendar years certainly count but will probably not be enough) and braced for the absolutely unexpected, expect this to be one of the best books you’ll read this decade – or any other…
Cochlea & Eustachia © 2014 Hans Rickheit. This edition © 2014 Fantagraphics Books Inc.

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Cochlea & Eustachia volume 2


By Hans Rickheit (Chrome Fetus Comix)
No ISBN: (Album PB)

This book is just like the previous one only much more so. If you feel compelled to carp on about it, please feel free to just form an opinion without reading any of the book itself just as you always do. We’ll be here waiting.

After many, many dreaming years the strangest of relations are again in print as Hans Rickheit moves into publishing his own books. Pumped, peculiarly primal and printed without recourse to editorial bumph or filler, Eustacia and Cochlea volume II offers the gathered sum of his ongoing webcomic, collated into a most beguiling and unsettling travelogue of the bizarre. As ever, think urgent journeys, surprise packages that MUST be opened, and constant forward – and occasionally sideways, downwards and upwards – motion. Sometimes, if the journey is the story, ceaseless forward motion and unleashed imagination is really all the narrative you need. Just ask Jack Kerouac, The Keystone Cops or Wile E Coyote…

At its rawest – and they usually are – Cochlea and Eustacia are incessant, tireless explorers, always seeking, opening things and persons they shouldn’t and finding peril without consequence. Meaning is not the guiding principle here, momentum is, and the landscapes they traverse are bleak mechanistic, vintage, inherently organic if not actually biological and only of relative safety, security and satisfaction. On the surface this is another debauched and scatological body-comedy employing geek horror based on commonplace dream phenomena and actions to shock, but it’s all cleverly (or perhaps simply instinctively!?) manufactured by an artist auteur with questions to ask.

Through exquisite drawing offering hyper focus on extraneous detail, married to obscure super clarity, the girls are subjected to terrors and ghastly sights, but at no stage do they think of quitting or turning back. There’s as much meaning as you can handle but no discernible plot, as the whole point is that dream states are endless progressions with recurring motifs attacked from different angles. My own is walking down an utterly familiar street to a specific destination only to find that somehow I’ve turned onto a sideroad that didn’t used to be there. Finding my way back takes forever and I never get to where I came from or where I want to be. Cop that one, Jung and Freud!

All you need to know is that a vast land of monsters, creepy mansions, bewildering drones and legions of clones are all undertaking their particular personalised Local Rules in a colossal universe whilst thriving inside a dystopian survivor with the face of a teddy bear. Everything inside that scavenging explorer is looking for something. Amidst Things within Things all hollow-framed with detailed surfaces are dangerous pursuers and body-mod devotees, also on vital but inexplicable missions. Nightmare creatures scurry over weird gizmos with surrealist death symbolism, as fields of skulls and bones cover immeasurable exteriors and interiors. Hardly housebroken creatures, C&E prefer the equally endless domestic interiors but it’s not always up to them. Trust is never an issue. Oh, it must also be confirmed that Cochlea and Eustacia are far from unique in their look, drives, wild abandon or presence…

Exotically rendered but highlighting the literal vacuousness of its leads – these are no Ladies! – there is no deeper meaning for these questers, just anxiety, pursuit and search in extremely detail, but all they find is thrown away and forgotten once out of sight. Everything in their reality is anticipatory and lives in nested dolls subsumed in or fleeing from another shell. Yes, you’re probably focussing on the peek-a-boo nudity, but shake off ribald smutty schoolboy jokes. This deshabille is defanged and deprived of the porn markers that would make it tawdry, sordid or sad. Here is a level mirroring saucy postcard or Carry-On cinema caper, not thinly veiled violence against women but an assault on manners, etiquette, expectation and moral strictures.

Think Herriman’s Krazy Kat, (André Francois) Barbe or the most tripped out, freewheelin’ of Underground Commix and just follow in their wake until you get to where they’re not going…

All contents © Hans Rickheit 2025.

Today in 1921 kids comic genius Warren Kremer (Riche Rich, Hot Stuff the Little Devil, Stumbo the Giant, Ewoks, Planet Terry) was born, sharing the date with historian and founder of comics fandom Dr. Jerry Bails in 1933; cartoonist Bob Weber (Moose and Molly) in 1934; Italian author Alfredo Castelli (Mister No, Martin Mystère) in 1947; Writer/editor Tom DeFalco (Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, Spider-Girl) in 1950 and Indonesian artist Sami Basri (Voodoo, New Titans, Birds of Prey) in 1979.

This date in 1965 saw the first episode of The Spider in UK weekly Lion, the launch in 1992 of Canadian romcom strip Fisher by Phillip Street and in 1999 the final instalment of prestigious detective strip Rip Kirby.