Category: Mature Reading

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Ironwolf: Fires of the Revolution


By Howard Chaykin, John Francis Moore, Michael Mignola & P. Craig Russell (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-063-5 (HB) 978-1-56389-065-9 (TPB)

In the early 1970s, when Howard Chaykin and other luminaries-in-waiting like Bernie Wrightson, Walt Simonson, Al Weiss, Mike Kaluta and others were just starting out in the US comics industry, it was on the back of a global fantasy boom. DC had the comic book rights to Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser tales (beautifully realised in 5 issues of Swords and Sorcery by Denny O’Neil and many of the above-mentioned gentlemen) as well as the more well-known works of Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan, Korak, John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar and even Beyond the Farthest Star. Marvel had some old pulp called Conan and a bunch of others…

Those beautiful fantasy strips began as back-up features in DC’s jungle books but quickly graduated to their own title – Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Weird Worlds – where they enthralled for just 7 magnificent issues before returning to back-up status in Tarzan and Korak. Dropping ERB’s strap line the comic itself ran for three more issues before folding in 1974. Those featured an all-new space opera scenario by O’Neil and Chaykin – The Saga of Ironwolf.

Predating Star Wars by years, and seductively blending hard sci fi and horror tropes, it only just began the story of a star-spanning empire fallen into dissolution and decadence and the rebellion of one honest aristocrat who threw off the seductive chains of privilege to fight for freedom and justice. Artificial vampires, monsters, vast alien armies and his own kin were some of the horrors Ironwolf tackled, leading a loyal band of privateers from his gravity-defying wooden star-galleon the Limerick Rake.

With impressive elan Ironwolf mixed post-Vietnam, current-Watergate cynicism with youthful rebellion, all flavoured by Celtic mythology, Greek tragedy, the legend of Robin Hood and pulp trappings to create a rollicking, barnstorming unforgettable romp. It was cancelled after three issues.

In 1986, those episodes were collected as a special one shot which obviously had some editorial impact, as soon after, this slim but classy all-star conclusion was released in both hardcover and paperback.

In the Empire Galaktika no resource is more prized than the miraculous anti-gravity trees of Illium – ancestral home of the Lords Ironwolf. These incredible plants take a thousand years to mature, can grow on no other world, and are the basis of all starships and extraplanetary travel in the Empire.

After untold years of comfortable co-existence, the latest Empress, Erika Morelle D’Klein Hernandez – steeped in her own debaucheries – declares that she is giving the latest crop of mature trees to monstrous aliens she had welcomed into her realm. Disgusted at this betrayal, nauseated by D’Klein’s blood-sucking allies and afraid for the Empire’s survival, Lord Brian of Illium destroys the much-coveted trees and joins the revolution.

With a burgeoning republican movement, he almost overthrows the corrupt regime in a series of spectacular battles, but was ultimately betrayed by one of his closest allies. Ambushed, the Limerick Rake died in a ball of flame…

Ironwolf awakes confused and crippled in a shabby hovel. Horrified he learns he has been unconscious for eight years, and although the Empire has been replaced with a Commonwealth, things have actually grown worse for humanity. The Empress still holds power and men are no more than playthings and sustenance – not only for the vampiric Blood Legion but also the increasingly debased aristocrats he once called his fellows.

Clearly he has a job to finish…

After decades away, much of the raw fire of the young creators who originated Ironwolf has mellowed with age, but Chaykin has always been a savvy, cynical and politically worldly-wise story-teller and still had enough indignant venom remaining to make this tale of betrayal and righteous revenge a gloriously fulfilling read, especially with the superbly beguiling art of Mike Mignola & P. Craig Russell, illustrating his final campaign to liberate the masses.

Since the tale (which links into Chaykin & Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez’s DC future-verse Twilight epic – and no, that one has nothing to do with fey vampires in love: stayed tuned for our review of the sci fi classic) is not available digitally and physical copies are a bit pricy, I think the time has never been better for reissuing the entire vast panoramic saga in one complete graphic novel.

Let’s see if somebody at DC is reading this review…
© 1992 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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XIII volumes 3 & 4 – All the Tears of Hell and SPADS


By William Vance & Jean Van Hamme, coloured by Petra (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-8491-8051-1 (Album PB/Digital Tears of Hell) 978-1-84918-058-0 (Album PB/Digital SPADS)

One of the most consistently entertaining and popular adventure serials in Europe, XIII was created by writer Jean Van Hamme (Wayne Shelton, Blake and Mortimer, Lady S.) and artist William Vance while working on numerous strips like Bruce J. Hawker, Marshal Blueberry, Ramiro, Bob Morane and more.

Born in Brussels in 1939 Van Hamme is one of the most prolific writers in comics. After academically pursuing business studies he moved into journalism and marketing before selling his first graphic tale in 1968.

Immediately clicking with the public, by 1976 he had also branched out into novels and screenwriting. His big break was the monumentally successful fantasy series Thorgal for Le Journal de Tintin magazine. He then cemented his reputation with mass-market bestsellers Largo Winch and XIII as well as more cerebral fare such as Chninkel and Les maîtres de l’orge. Van Hamme has been listed as the second-best selling comics author in France, ranked beside the seemingly unassailable Hergé and Uderzo.

Born in Anderlecht, William Vance was the comics nom de plume of William van Cutsem, (September 8th 1935 – May 14th 2018). After military service in 1955-1956 he studied art at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and promptly became an illustrator of biographic features for Le Journal de Tintin in 1962. His art is a classical blend of meticulous realism, scrupulous detail and spectacular yet understated action. In 1964 he began maritime serial Howard Flynn (written by Yves Duval) before graduating to more popular genre work with western Ray Ringo and espionage thriller Bruno Brazil (scripted by Greg).

Further success followed when he replaced Gérald Forton on science fiction classic Bob Morane in Femmes d’Aujourd’hui, (and later Pilote and Le Journal de Tintin).

Constantly working on both serials and stand-alone stories, Vance’s most acclaimed work was his collaboration with fellow Belgian Van Hamme on a contemporary thriller based on Robert Ludlum’s novel The Bourne Identity…

XIII debuted in 1984, originally running – to great acclaim – in prestigious comics anthology Le Journal de Spirou. A triad of albums were rushed out – simultaneously printed in French and Dutch editions – before the first year of serialisation ended.

The series was a monumental hit in Europe – although publishing house Dargaud were initially a little slow to catch on – but has fared less well in its many attempts to make the translation jump to English, with Catalan Communications, Alias Comics and even Marvel all failing to maximise the potential of the gritty mystery thriller. That all changed when Cinebook took over. To date the original series and most spin-offs have seen print…

The grand conspiracy saga of unrelenting mood, mystery and mayhem opened in The Day of the Black Sun when an old beachcomber found a body. The human flotsam had a gunshot head wound and was near death when Abe and his wife Sally found him. She discovered a key sewn into his clothes and the Roman numerals for thirteen tattooed on his neck. The remote hideaway offered little in the way of emergency services, but their alcoholic, struck-off surgeon friend managed to save the stranger…

As he recuperated, a complication became apparent. The patient – a splendid physical specimen clearly no stranger to action or violence – had suffered massive, irreversible brain trauma. Although increasingly sound in body he had completely lost his past. Language, muscle memories, even social and reflexive conditioning all remained, but every detail of his life-history was gone…

They named him Alan after their own dead son – but hints of the intruder’s lost past explosively intruded when hitmen attacked the beach house with guns blazing. Alan lethally retaliated with terrifying skill, but too late. In the aftermath he found a photo of himself and a young woman on the killers and traced it to nearby Eastown. Desperate for answers and certain more killers were coming, the human question mark headed off into unimaginable danger to hopefully find the answers he craved.

The picture led to a local newspaper and a crooked cop who recognised the amnesiac but said nothing. The woman in the photo was Kim Rowland, a local widow recently gone missing. Alan’s key opened the door of her house. The place had been ransacked but a thorough search utilising his mysterious talents turned up another key and a note warning someone named Jake that “The Mongoose” had found her…

Alan was ambushed by the cop and newspaper editor Wayne. Calling him “Shelton”, they demanded the return of a large amount of missing money…

Alan/Jake/Shelton reasoned the new key fitted a safe-deposit box and bluffed the thugs into taking him to the biggest bank in town. Staff there called him Shelton, but when his captors examined the briefcase in Shelton’s box, a booby trap detonated. Instantly acting, the mystery man expertly escaped and eluded capture, holing up in a shabby hotel room, pondering again what kind of man he used to be…

Preparing to leave, he stumbled into a mob of armed killers and in a blur of lethal action escaped, running  into more heavies led by a Colonel Amos. This chilling executive referred to his captive as “Thirteen”, claiming to have dealt with his predecessors XI and XII in regard to the “Black Sun” case…

Amos very much wanted to know who Alan was, and offered shocking titbits in return. The most sensational was film of the recent assassination of American President, William B Sheridan, clearly showing XIII was the lone gunman…

Despite the amnesiac’s heartfelt conviction that he was no assassin, Amos accused him of working for a criminal mastermind, and wanted that big boss. The interrogator failed to take Alan’s instinctive abilities into account and was astounded when his prisoner leapt out of a fourth floor window…

The fugitive headed back to Abe’s beach, but more murderers awaited; led by a mild-seeming man Alan inexplicably knew was The Mongoose. The criminal overlord expressed surprise and admiration: he thought he’d killed Thirteen months ago…

Following an explosion of hyper-fast violence leaving the henchmen dead and Mongoose vanished but vengeful, Alan regretfully hopped a freight train west towards the next stage in his quest for truth.

His journey of discovery took him to the army base where Kim Rowland’s husband was stationed, where enquiries provoked an unexpected and violent response resulting in his interrogation by General Ben Carrington and his sexily capable aide Lieutenant Jones.

They’re from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, know an awful lot about black ops units and have proof their memory-challenged prisoner is in fact their agent: believed-deceased Captain Steve Rowland…

After testing the amnesiac’s abilities Carrington drops him off in Rowland’s home town of Southberg to pursue his search for his missing wife, but the prodigal’s return to his rat’s nest of a family rekindles long-simmering passions and jealousies. The entire town seems to want Rowland’s blood and before long he’s the target of an assassination attempt and victim of a diabolical murder-plot. Despite Carrington and Jones’ last-minute intervention Alan/Steve is framed for murdering his father, and grabbed by a furious posse.

Gripping third instalment All the Tears of Hell (originally 1986 European album Toutes Les larmes de l’enfer) opens with Steve Rowland undergoing the worst kind of psychiatric care at the Plain Rock Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane. Despite drugs and shock treatments, his progress at the Maximum Security Facility is negligible. Young Dr. Ralph Berger seems amenable enough but elderly martinet Dr. Johansson’s claims of seeking a cure for his amnesia are clearly no more than a proselytising, judgemental sadist’s justifications for inflicting pain.

Meanwhile in Washington DC, Carrington and Jones have met with Colonel Amos who has a strange request and troubling new information. His investigations have revealed that the amnesiac in the desert hell of Plain Rock has undergone plastic surgery and his army records have been altered. Steve Rowland is definitely not Steve Rowland…

Moreover, Amos has information proving that the plotters who had the President killed are still active and their amnesiac assassin is the only link and hope of finding them. Acting on her own initiative, Jones decides it’s time she took a hands-on approach to the problem…

Meanwhile, anxious and isolated Not-Rowland has a visitor who galvanises him out of his electro-chemically induced fugue-state. The Mongoose gloatingly informs the prisoner that his days are numbered…

Deep within the corridors of power, Colonel Amos informs Carrington his investigations have resulted in a name. He has solved the mystery of XIII and the man they are actually dealing with is former soldier and intelligence operative Ross Tanner.

Probably.

Knowing time is limited, Rowland/Tanner opts for escape and decides to take along the kid who shares his cell. It’s as if he’s forgotten they’re in a maximum security facility for criminal maniacs, but he’s painfully reminded of the fact when sweet little Billy starts killing again as soon as they’re clear of the detention wing…

Recaptured and restricted to the medical section, XIII is helpless when the Mongoose’s inside man makes a move. Luckily, Jones has also inserted herself in a position where she can do the most good…

Spectacularly busting out of the prison, “Rowland” and the mystery-woman race into the desert, somehow avoiding a massive manhunt before vanishing without trace. Later Amos and Carrington confer over the disappearance, but one already knows exactly where the fugitive is. Now, with another new name, the warrior without a past and his new powerful allies lay plans to take the fight to their secret enemy…

To Be Continued…

XIII: SPADS
First released in Europe in 1987, SPADS is the fourth complex and convoluted chapter in the saga, opening with a more concise visual recap than I’ve just given, before kicking the plot into high gear as the race to replace murdered President Sheridan hots up. The contenders are Old Boy Network hack and former Vice President Joseph Galbrain battling Sheridan’s glamorous and idealistic younger brother Walter: latest scion of a venerable dynasty of leaders…

Amos’ diligent investigation is relentless. After exhuming many bodies, he can confidently claim to know who Tanner really is, but when the search leads him into a trap that kills his assistant and incapacitates him, he starts to wonder if he’s tracking a target or being led onto a bullseye…

Elsewhere, in a green hell of sweat and testosterone, Ross Tanner is making no friends as he trains to join elite combat unit SPADS (Special Assault and Destruction Squads). He doesn’t fit in and is always causing trouble. It’s as if he’s there under false pretences…

When Amos and Judge Allenby confront Carrington at the Pentagon with news that Tanner is also an alias for an as yet unknown operative, the reaction is explosive. Soon after, special aide Lieutenant Jones goes AWOL…

Back in the Bayou, the man everybody is hunting has made a fresh advance into uncovering his occluded past. Sergeant Betty served with the real Rowland and knows he didn’t die at the time and in the manner official reports describe. Before she shares the details, however, she has an itch that needs scratching…

That cosy conversation is curtailed by camp commander Colonel McCall, who tells the undercover operative that he’s being transferred out in the morning by direct order of General Carrington. With his chance to solve his personal mystery evaporating, XIII settles a few outstanding scores before sneaking into Betty’s quarters…

Amos and Allenby meanwhile have not been idle, and the former is certain he has at last gleaned the actual identity of multi-named XIII, but when they visit a certain grave they walk into another ambush and a well-placed mole is forced to break cover…

As Amos is plucked from the firefight by the last person he expected to see, a continent away Tanner’s liaison gets even more dangerous when another Mongoose mole interrupts, trying to kill them both. Happily, Carrington’s back-up agent is well placed to save them and they all flee together, unaware their escape vehicle has been boobytrapped and sabotaged…

Amos by now is securely ensconced in a palatial hideaway, being feted by a coterie of political heavyweights who finally reveal the truth about all the men Ross Tanner is and isn’t. They explain the incredible reason for the smoke-&-mirrors operation and earth-shattering stakes…

To Be Continued…

XIII is one most compelling, multi-layered mystery adventures ever conceived, with subsequent instalments constantly taking the restless human enigma two steps forward, one step back, stumbling through a world of pain and peril whilst cutting through an interminable web of past lives he seemingly led. Rocket-paced and immensely inventive, this is a series no devotee of action sagas and conspiracy thrillers will want to miss.
Original edition © Dargaud Benelux (Dargaud-Lombard SA), 1986, 1987 by Van Hamme, Vance & Petra. All rights reserved. This edition published 2010 by Cinebook Ltd.

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Dreadstar -The Beginning


By Jim Starlin with Tom Orzechowski (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-119-9 (HB/Digital edition)

Comics’ creative renaissance began during the 1980s and resulted in some utterly wonderful strip sagas, which shone briefly and brightly within what was still considered a largely niche industry. Many passed from view as business and art form battled spiralling costs, declining readerships and the perverse and pervasive attitude of the wider world. This was an era when comics were considered the natural province of morons, mutants and farm animals (I’m paraphrasing)…

Unlike today, way back then most grown-ups considered superheroes as adolescent power fantasies or idle wish-fulfilment for the uneducated or disenfranchised, so an entertainment industry which was perceived as largely made up of men in tights hitting each other got very little approval – or even notice – in the wider world of popular fiction.

Everything changed with the advent of the Direct Sales Market for comic books (and related interests like cards, posters and toys). Benefitting from a more targeted approach to selling, specialist vendors in dedicated emporia had leeway to allow frustrated creators to cut loose and experiment with other genres – and even formats and profit from any peripheral merchandising that might accrue.

All that unleashed innovation led inescapably to today’s high-end, thoroughly respectable graphic novel market which – with suitable and fitting circularity – is now gathering and re-circulating many of the breakthrough tales from those times: not as poorly distributed hard-to-find serials and sequences, but in satisfyingly complete stand-alone books.

Marvel was the unassailable front-runner in purveying pamphlet fiction back then, outselling all competitors and monopolising the lucrative licensed properties market (like Star Wars and Indiana Jones) which once been the preserve of the Whitman/Dell/Gold Key colossus. This added to a zeitgeist which proved that for open-minded readers, superheroes were not the only fruit…

As independently published titles hit an early peak, Marvel instigated its own creator-owned, rights-friendly fantasy periodical in response to the overwhelming success amongst older readers of Heavy Metal magazine. Lush, slick and lavish, HM had even brought a fresh, music-&-literature-based audience to graphic narratives…

That response was Epic Illustrated: an anthological magazine offering stunning art and an anything-goes attitude – unhindered by the censorious Comics Code Authority – which saw everything from literary adaptations to out-world in-continuity landmarks of the Marvel’s own in-house characters like ‘The Last Galactus Story’, plus numerous serial stories which would become compelling forerunners of today’s graphic novel industry.

EI’s first issue also discretely began a soft and gradual introduction to one of the era’s biggest Indie sensations: Vanth Dreadstar…

This collection gathers a number of stories culled from an assortment of places. The saga started in Epic Illustrated (#1-9, 12 and 15; spanning Spring 1980 to December 1982), whilst tangentially diverting in 1981 to Eclipse Graphic Album Series #5 (The Price) and 1982’s Marvel Graphic Novel #3: Dreadstar – all laying groundwork for one of the most successful creator-owned comic characters of the era… and one of the most long-lived.

Re-presented here in the original monochrome or painted full-colour, with writer/artist Starlin aided and abetted by letterer by Tom Orzechowski, these tales and this edition feature art remastered by Jerron Quality Color, Mike Kelleher and Digikiore Studios.

Already a big gun thanks to his run on Captain Marvel, the engendering of mad Titan Thanos and the reinvention of Adam Warlock, Starlin cemented his cosmic creator credentials and indulged his preoccupation with death and nihilism through grandiose serialised saga Metamorphosis Odyssey.

Delivered in painted grey-tones, it began with the introduction of mighty alien wizard Aknaton: savant of ancient and benevolent race the Osirosians. These masters of the cosmos were perturbed by the advent of rapacious barbarian species the Zygoteans, slowly and inexorably conquering planets and eradicating all life in the Milky Way galaxy.

Aknaton’s people fought back on behalf of all creation, but knew that their resistance was numbered in mere millennia before the predators would triumph.

Unsettled by the prognostication, Aknaton sets out on a desperate tour of the galaxy, planting life seeds, weaving a web of possibility and even depositing an incredible sword of power in a last-ditch plan which would take a million years to complete…

The first seed flowered in the form of spiritually advanced intellectual monster ‘Za!’, whilst another blossomed into 15-year old ‘Juliet’, abducted by Aknaton from Earth in 1980 just as the Zygoteans arrived to eradicate the rest of her species.

The mage’s last living puzzle piece was butterfly-winged psychic ‘Whis’par’ whose gifts and sensitivities easily divined the dark underpinnings of Aknaton’s ambitions…

During this chapter the artwork transitioned into full-painted colour, and by the time the wizard reached war-torn ice-world Byfrexia to recruit ‘Vanth’, cosmic conflict was in full phantasmagorical flow. This emotionless resistance leader battling the Zygoteans was a man with incredible physical powers, bestowed by a magic sword he had found: the very weapon Aknaton has planted eons previously…

‘The Meeting’ between Vanth and his notional maker is interrupted by Zygotean killers, affording the wizard opportunity to assess his handiwork in action. He quickly realises the hero is far more powerful than he had intended…

Nevertheless, the quest moves on to a recently-razed paradise, but ‘Delloran Revisited’ is merely one step in a search for an ultimate weapon so long lost, so well hidden, that Aknaton has no clue to its current location…

Appraising his unique team of one final push, Aknaton enjoys ‘Sunrise on Lartorez’ before absenting himself to meet God and discuss ‘Absolution’, after which a ‘Requiem’ sounds for life as the Zygoteans find them and light the skies with ‘Nightfire’.

Forced into precipitate action, ‘Dreamsend’ turns into ‘Doomsday!’ as Aknaton’s plan finally comes into play – with cataclysmic effect…

A million years later, an energy bubble bursts in another galaxy and sole survivors Aknaton and Vanth find themselves on a rural world not much different from any other. They still have business to settle and only one will walk away from the ‘Aftermath’ of what they’ve perpetrated…

With the illustration reverting to painted monochrome, sequel The Price is set in that new “Empirical Galaxy”: one riven by unending war between intergalactic robber barons The Monarchy and omnipresent mystico-political religious order The Instrumentality. Over 200 years these instinctive enemies have taken half a galaxy each and now battle to maintain a permanent stalemate. The economies of both factions depend on constant slaughter, but never outright victory…

At the heart of that strained environment, rising Instrumentality Bishop Syzygy Darklock is drawn by arcane forces and the diabolical plotting of terrorist mage Taurus Killgaren onto a path of inescapable doom and destruction.

It begins with the demonic assassination of Darklock’s brother; leading the outraged cleric onto a path of damnation and revelation: gaining immense mystic power and wisdom but only at the cost of sacrificing everything he ever loved. He is also forced to share Killgaren’s infallible vision of the fearful future and the role a man named Dreadstar will play in the fate of the universe…

After the huge success of The Death of Captain Marvel in Marvel Graphic Novel #1, Starlin was eagerly welcomed back for the third release. Here he finally and officially launched Dreadstar as a creator-owned property that would kickstart the Epic Comics imprint into life.

The full-colour painted story focused on Vanth the man, with the immortal Cold Warrior abandoning his sword and warlike ways, and settling down to decades of family and farming on isolated agri-world Caldor with retired Instrumentality researcher Delilah.

Toiling beside its gentle gen-gineered cat-people who operate the farm planet, Vanth found a kind of contentment, which was only slightly spoiled when a bizarre being named Syzygy Darklock sets up his tent in the mountain wilderness and begins tempting the old soldier with tales of the outer world and veiled promises of great knowledge and understanding.

Vanth is with the savant when Monarchy ships attack Delilah and the cat-folk. In the wake of their casual atrocities, he renounces his vow of peace and resolves to end the stupid, commercially expedient war his way…

The drama concludes with ‘Epilogue’: one last monochrome moment first seen in Epic Illustrated #15, and designed as a bridging introduction to the hero’s regular comic book debut. Vanth and cat-man ally Oedi are trying to quietly get off Instrumentality mining colony The Rock, but Dreadstar is nigh-fatally distracted by a worker who is the very image of Delilah.

However, before he can do anything really stupid, the mine roof caves in, threatening all his ambitious plans to bring peace and stability to the Empirical Galaxy…

To Be Continued…

Bold, bombastic and potently cathartic, this is no-nonsense space opera with the just the right amount of deep thought, comforting cynicism and welcoming pop philosophy adding flavour to the action and spicing up the celestial grandeur. Above all this is smart, trenchant, timelessly uncomplicated fun for grown-up space freaks, well worth a few moments of your time…
© 2010 James Starlin. All rights reserved. Dreadstar is a registered trademark of James Starlin, and the Dreadstar logo and all characters and content herein and the likenesses thereof are also trademarks of James Starlin unless otherwise expressly noted.

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The Last Musketeer


By Jason, coloured by Hubert and translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-889-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterrøy: born in Molde, Norway in 1965 and an overnight international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won that year’s Sproing Award (Norway’s biggest comics prize).

He won another Sproing in 2001 for the series Mjau Mjau and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels. A global star among the cognoscenti, he has won many major awards.

Jason’s breadth of interest is wide and deep: comics, movies, music, high literature and pulp fiction all feature equally with no sense of hierarchy and his puckish mixing and matching of his inspirational sources always produces a picture-treatise well worth a reader’s time.

As always, this visual/verbal bon mot unfolds in his beguiling, sparse-dialogued, pantomimic progressions with enchantingly formal page layouts rendered in the familiar, minimalist evolution of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style: solid blacks, thick lines, settings of seductive simplicity augmented here by a beguiling palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours. This delicious caper is one of his best yarns ever and even spawned a prequel…

The Last Musketeer is an epic rife with his signature surrealism; populated with his quirkily quotidian cast of darkly comic anthropomorphic regulars, and downplaying his signature themes of relationships and loneliness to produce a wild action-adventure for a charmingly macabre cast of bestial movie archetypes and lost modern chumps to romp through.

With hues from much missed triple-threat Hubert, our brief full-colour thriller opens with a drunk in a Paris bar. He claims to be legendary musketeer Athos, still alive after four centuries. And he actually is.

The contemplative warrior dreams of past glories and inseparable old comrades but things aren’t the same anymore. However, as he muses on a bench, destructive balls of energy rain down on the city and Athos realises he is needed again and might just have one last adventure in him…

Despite failing to get the old gang back together, Athos persists in his quest and, after fighting a couple of green-skinned invaders, induces them to take him to their world. All too soon, he is making friends, battling the flamboyantly evil King of the Red Planet, helping a Princess of Mars foment an Earth-saving revolution and re-encountering an enemy from home he had long forgotten…

And we’re all still here so he must have triumphed in the end…

Outrageously merging the worlds of Alexander Dumas with Edgar Rice Burroughs, whilst gleefully borrowing Flash Gordon’s props and work ethic, The Last Musketeer is a superbly engaging pastiche that is pure nostalgia and pure Jason.

Jason is instantly addictive and a creator every serious fan of the art form should move to the top of the “Must-Have” list.
All characters, stories and artwork © 2007 Jason. All rights reserved.

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The Bozz Chronicles


By David Michelinie & Bret Blevins, with John Ridgway, Al Williamson & various (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-79851-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

During the 1980s the American comics scene experienced an astounding proliferation of new titles and companies in the wake of the creation of the Direct Sales Market. With publishers now able to firm-sale straight to specialised, dedicated-retail outlets rather than overprint and accept returned copies from general magazine vendors, the industry was able to risk and support less generic titles whilst authors, artists and publishers could experiment without losing their shirts.

At the height of the subsequent publishing explosion and in response to a wave of upstart innovators, Marvel developed its own line of creator-owned properties: launching a host of idiosyncratic, impressive series in a variety of formats under the watchful, benevolent and exceptionally canny eye of Editor Archie Goodwin. The delightfully disparate line was dubbed Epic Comics and reshaped the industry.

One of the most significant hits was a winsomely engaging blend of fantasy, criminology and urban myth with a beautifully simple core concept: “Sherlock Holmes from Outer Space”. Even that painfully broad pitch-line does the series it became an unforgivable disservice…

The Bozz Chronicles was – and is – so much more. It became one of Epic’s earliest hits and sensations, and the reasons it never continued beyond its initial 6-issue run (December 1985 to November 1986) had nothing to do with poor sales…

The mesmerising mix of Victoriana, super-science and sorcery might even be considered as an early precursor if not progenitor of the visual form of the literary genre K. W. Jeter dubbed “steampunk” in 1987…

Preceded with a Foreword from Brandon Graham, Dave Michelinie’s self-deprecating Introduction ‘Blame it on Spielberg’, and fond reminiscences from originating illustrator Bret Blevins, an amazing moment in comics history repeats itself as ‘The Bozz Chronicles’ opens on Mandy Flynn. She is a fiercely independent young woman plying her trade – described then and now as the World’s Oldest – in the sooty, sordid environs of London in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Saucy, sassy, sensitive and lovely, she is bringing her latest “brief acquaintance” up to her attic abode when the incipient physical transaction is suddenly curtailed by discovery of a strange-looking foreigner trying to commit suicide in her rooms…

As her toff flees in terror, Mandy tries to talk down the intruder and realises just how strange he truly is: eight feet tall, pale yellow in complexion, with a hairless, pointy head. He is also gentle, exceptionally well-spoken, has a long tail and can fly…

Six months pass. Mandy and the creature she calls Bozz are doing exceptionally well. He still claims to be from another world and certainly acts like no human she has ever met: he cannot tell lies, communicates with animals, constantly wanders around naked and absorbs like a sponge every scrap of knowledge she can provide for him through books and journal and newspapers.

Bozz misses his home: a far-distant world of benevolent intelligences he has no chance of ever returning to: so much so that he was trying to end himself as much through boredom as loneliness. Mandy’s brilliant idea to keep him alive was to engage his prodigious intellect in puzzles. She set them up as consulting detectives based in the less than fashionable Maracot Road, using the proceeds to better her own hand-to-mouth existence in the process. The only problem is that when no challenging cases manifest, Bozz’s thoughts instantly return to ending it all…

Thankfully, just as she is preparing to hide all the sharp objects again, a truly unique mystery knocks on the door and the secretary of Lord Giles Morgan requests their help. According to the Press, Pamela Grieves’ employer – and prospective Prime Minister – recently escaped an assassination attempt. However, the loyal amanuensis was with him when it happened and claims he did not survive. In fact, after having made further discreet inquiries, Miss Grieves found her master had in fact been dead for some three years prior to the attack…

As Bozz excitedly accepts the commission, Mandy is convinced they are dealing with a madwoman, but when their client is destroyed by a bolt of lightning as soon as she leaves their office the retired demimondaine is forced to think again…

Naturally the inquiry agents’ first step is to interview Lord Giles and although the shady politician proves no help at all, Bozz gleans much useful information from the caged bird in Morgan’s study. Soon they are on the trail of an aristocratic secret society utilising vast funds and weird science to resurrect the dead in pursuit of a deadly and regressive political and economic agenda (so hard not to comment satirically here!)…

Sadly, even the alien outcast’s uncanny powers prove insufficient to stop the schemers, but Mandy has gifts of her own and beguiles a rowdy American former prize-fighter she finds in a bar to assist in the climactic final confrontation.

Besotted, punch-drunk Salem Hawkshaw then joins the detectives to handle any future physical exigencies that might occur, but despite everything he sees is never convinced his big, bemused boss is anything other than a crazy circus freak…

The new colleagues are all painfully aware that their sudden success has brought them to the attention of Scotland Yard’s most privileged operative and the notorious trio have barely caught their breath before Inspector Colin Fitzroy comes calling, deviously offering them a case the police have no interest in.

Apparently a drunk has seen demons in Park Lane…

As the shamefully-employed scion of Britain’s richest family continues trying to impress the ravishing Miss Flynn, further arcane incidents occur, ‘Raising Hell’ in the capital’s swankiest district. Before long the consulting detectives find troubled Samantha Townes, whose husband has fallen foul of the vilest black magic and his own gullibility…

Wealthy Inspector Fitzroy has more pressing problems. A rash of exceedingly orderly murders has turned up odd artefacts defying explanation by any expert Scotland Yard can muster: things that cannot possibly have been built by any craftsman on Earth…

In ‘The Tomorrow Man’ (inked by Al Williamson) a trip to the funfair does little to alleviate Bozz’s boredom, but does lead to the genteel gullible giant being gulled: lured away by a wily pack of street children who use his powers and naivety to perpetrate a crime spree.

Later, when the shady show’s owner tries to kidnap Bozz for his freak attractions, the ultimately unsuccessful attack leaves the alien blind. The kids’ ringleader Oliver brings him to underworld surgeon Dr. Paine – who runs a subterranean clinic as a sideline to pay for his researches into time travel. He sees in the stranger a perfect opportunity to advance the causes of science…

Redeemed by Bozz’s unflagging trust, Oliver at last realises the enormity of his betrayal and fetches Mandy and Salem to effect a rescue, but by the time they arrive, chronal chaos is erupting everywhere…

As engaging and enthusiastic as the tales have been until this point, ‘Were-Town!’ is (at least for history-buffs and especially Londoners) a truly stand-out moment in the series, as the ineffably marvellous British veteran John Ridgway stepped in to illustrate a pithy, punchy deep midwinter tale disclosing a hint of Mandy’s past whilst introducing her reprehensible absentee father Egan Thorpe.

We’ve always whined in Britain about how Us and Ours are represented in American productions and, despite the obviously strenuous and diligent researches Michelinie & Blevins undertook, frequently the tone of their Bozz Chronicles often smacks more of Hollywood than Cricklewood. It’s not something non-Brits will even notice, but for us aging “Cockerney Sparrers” the differences are there to be seen… and felt.

Such is not the case (as gratefully acknowledged by the creators themselves in the respective, respectful Introductions) when Ridgway applied his meticulous line and copious pictorial acumen – gleaned from decades drawing a variety of British strips for everything from Commando Picture Library to Warrior to 2000AD or Doctor Who and The Famous Five – to a genuinely spooky, photographically authentic tale of deranged artists, dastardly squires and infernal paintings coming to unholy life in snow-capped rural wilds of Southeast England…

Michelinie & Blevins reunited for ‘The Cobblestone Jungle’ as Inspector Fitzroy again calls upon Bozz & Co: impelled as much by his lusty fascination with Amanda as the demands of an African king who needs the assistance of the British Empire if he is to guarantee a steady flow of diamonds from his equatorial satrapy…

Apparently, a white man had stolen the tribe’s sacred jewel and brought it to his hidden jungle playground in London. Thanks to some canny legwork from little Oliver, the detective trio track the bounder, but nobody anticipated the filched gewgaw emitting destructive death-rays…

After a spectacular battle high above the city, Bozz ends the threat, but his biggest surprise comes when the grateful king asks to thank him personally and reveals a millennia-old connection to Bozz’s extraterrestrial race…

For Mandy, Bozz, Salem and Fitzroy it all culminates in a desperate trek to the Dark Continent in search of ‘King Solomon’s Spaceship’ and the achievement of the marooned alien’s most fervent desires… until a gang of German raiders and Mandy’s own cynical self-interest ruins everything…

Rounded out by sketches and preliminary designs in a superb ‘Bonus Artwork and Cover Gallery’ from Blevins and closing with an effusive ‘Afterword by John Ridgway’, this is a magnificent moment in comics collaboration which will soon hopefully reclaim its place at the forefront of fantasy fables.
The Bozz Chronicles © 1985, 1986, 2015 David Michelinie. Introduction © 2015 David Michelinie. Foreword © 2015 Brandon Graham. Afterword © 2015 John Ridgway. All rights reserved.

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Big Ugly


By Ellice Weaver (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-66-0 (pocket HB)

We’ve all experienced something of an interpersonal revolution thanks to Covid-19 and the measures used to counter it, as well as the undeclared global depression and rising functional poverty in developed world that followed. However, it’s wise to remember that relationships between friends and especially family members are – and always have been – complex, varied and nothing like fiction would have us believe…

Most folk lead ordinary lives with forgettable days, minor affections and grudges and lots of tedium and bills. All days and everydays are not grand affairs and soaring missions undertaken by grand heroes and threatened by Machiavellian villains. Cradle to grave, it’s just carrying on until you finally stop. We grown-ups call it “life” and Mel is utterly mired in it.

Her existence is about plodding on, making ends meet, being underappreciated in her job and just getting by, but her mental and emotional loads take a big hit when brother Matt hits a pothole in his dreams and moves into her spare room.

Soon everything that was annoying and unsettling about their shared past together is slipping out, resurfacing and occupying her bandwidth: his unrealistic expectations, daft schemes, lack of attention and selfishness. It’s just like when they were kids all over again…

Mel might have been unhappy, but at least she was settled and now it’s all Upset, Change and Challenge, and Matt hasn’t let the passage of time mellow him at all. He’s no less obnoxious and pig-headed than when he first left home. Still, he has his good sides too, and it’s some comfort to feel kinship rekindled and re-share experiences. Some moments even afford a smattering of long-delayed clarity, but it’s obvious they have very different ways of being grown-ups.

They haven’t quite got to the stage where they can talk about Dad yet though, but it is good to have someone to share her decidedly rare medical condition – or perhaps rather unique kind of hypochondria? Above all, Mark is Family. Mel might be permanently peeved with him, but who else could she share such intimate concerns with. There’s certainly no one else ready to help the way Matt is…

… And thus the situation quietly slowly spirals, as Matt infuriatingly settles in, expecting and encouraging his sister to change whilst sinking back into his old selfish, foolishly ambitious patterns of behaviour and daydreams of creative superstardom. He even brings in his weird new girlfriend Jill – the one Mel technically introduced him to…

When he gets Mel to drive him and Jill across the country to a ridiculous podcast convention things get both painfully honest and truly revelatory…

Simultaneously placid and tense, painfully pedestrian and infuriatingly abstract, this darkly comedic interaction is a “Post Coming-of-Age” tale of ordinary people, afflicted like we all are with the binary condition most adults experience: the feeling that life’s leaving you behind whilst you are convincing yourself that you’ve never even caught up in the first place…

Born in Bath and based in Bristol, Ellice Weaver became a freelance illustrator after graduating from The University of West England and moving to Berlin. Past clients include The Guardian, Washington Post, New Yorker, The Times and Transport for London. A compulsive storyteller, her first graphic novel Something City was released in 2017 and awarded “Indie Comic of the Year”.

Her second full narrative outing, Big Ugly is a slyly entrancing, graphically compelling observational essay on expectation – familial, personal and professional – and how it can founder on the forge of humdrum subsistence, daily disappointment and diminishing dreams. It also reveals just how much early days and sibling support (or not) can shape and affirm, and at what price…
© Ellice Weaver, 2023. All rights reserved.

If you’re London based/adjacent – or just a bit keen – there’s a launch party for Big Ugly on 22nd June. It’s at Jam Bookshop in Hackney Rd E2 7NX and launches an art exhibition that will run until July 9th.

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The Left Bank Gang


By Jason, coloured by Hubert, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-742-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterrøy: born in Molde, Norway in 1965 and an overnight international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won that year’s Sproing Award (Norway’s biggest comics prize).

He won another Sproing in 2001 for the series Mjau Mjau and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels. Now a global star among the cognoscenti he has won seven major awards from such disparate regions as France, Slovakia and the USA.

Now his latest novella is released, rife with his signature surreality: populated with cinematic, darkly comic anthropomorphs and featuring more bewitching ruminations on his favourite themes of relationships and loneliness, viewed as ever through a charmingly macabre cast of bestial movie archetypes and lost modern chumps.

In this full-colour tract – originally released in France as Hemingway – Jason sets his quirkily-informed imagination into literary overdrive: postulating what might have been at a moment of intense intellectual cross-pollination.

It’s Paris in the 1920s: émigrés F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway are all struggling to make their marks on the world – and most especially on the other artistic Men and Women of Destiny congregated in the enclave of creative excellence that has grown up around the Latin Quarter. Wannabe cartoonists, their own meagre efforts seem paltry and trivial in comparison to the masterful comic books produced by Faulkner or Dostoyevsky, whilst true artists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Man Ray all seem to have no trouble with their medium or message…

Worst of all, Scott thinks something is bothering Zelda: she might even be cheating on him…

The disaffected Young Turks are uniformly plagued by nightmares of the past and frustrated dreams of mediocre futures with everyday life relentlessly coming at them demanding vile money just to stay alive and keep on fruitlessly toiling.

… And then Hemingway says it: why not just rob a bank?

Blending literary pretention and modern creative mythology with the iconography and ironic bombast of Reservoir Dogs is a stroke of genius no one else could pull off. As always, this visual/verbal bon mot unfolds via Jason’s beguiling, sparse-dialogued, pantomimic progressions with enchantingly formal page layouts rendered in the familiar, minimalist evolution of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style; solid blacks, thick lines and settings of seductive simplicity augmented here by a stunning palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.

Jason’s work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, always probing the nature of “human-ness” by using the beastly and unnatural to ask persistent and pertinent questions. Although the clever sight-gags are less prominent here his repertory company of “funny-animal” characters still uncannily depict the subtlest emotions with devastating effect, proving again just how good a cartoonist he is.

This wry mis-history lesson is strongly suggested for adults but makes us all to look at the world through wide-open childish eyes. Jason is instantly addictive and a creator every serious fan of the art form should move to the top of the Must-Have list.
All characters, stories and artwork © 2007 Editions de Tournon-Carabas/Jason. All rights reserved.

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Mingus


By Flavio Massarutto & Squaz, translated by Nanette McGuiness (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-309-7 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-310-3

Charles Mingus Jr. was born on April 22nd 1922 in Nogales, Arizona. He was a musical prodigy perpetually held back and frustrated by the response of other people to the colour of his skin. “The Angry Man of Jazz” died in January 1979, having battled all his life whilst composing and performing some of the most groundbreaking music of all time. When you hear some you will either love it or loathe it.

That’s the facts. Anything else you need can be found on Wikipedia or in countless books written about – or by – him…

That kind of dry data isn’t what this celebration is about. Instead, journalist and author Flavio Massarutto and magazine illustrator/educator/graphic novelist Pasquale Todisco – AKA Squaz (Toutes les obsessions de Victor, Diabolik, Pandemonio) – have successfully captured the feeling and flavour of the man and his music, crafting visual cuts of key moments to make a conceptual album of his embattled existence and lasting legacy.

‘Track 1: Eclipse’ focuses on 1940 and a Hollywood backlot where extras in a cheap jungle picture discuss the appalling conditions in their other job. Once more, Charlie advocates merging their union with a white one…

The man is driven. Nothing in life keeps him from the world of words and music inside his head for long…

‘Track 2: Pithecanthropus Erectus’ finds him in New York City in 1956, meeting music critic Nat Hentoff and sharing his ideology and inspiration. It’s taken from the latest release for the astounding Charlie Mingus Jazz Workshop. Two years later and jobbing composer and film scorer Mingus almost yields to commercial pressures in ‘Track 3: Nostalgia in Times Square’…

An activist and resister all his life, the small victories against institutionalised racism start to build as the performer makes waves at the Antibes Juan-les-pins Festival 1960 in ‘Track 4: What Love’. The seduction of the senses crafted throughout comes in waves of limited-colour palette comic snippets, blending reportage with fantasy sequences and is here augmented by Squaz’s reproductions of classic Mingus record sleeve designs.

Here The Clown, Tijuana Moods, Mingus Dynasty and Blues and Roots bring us to the height of the Civil Rights revolution as ‘Track 5: Fables of Faubus’ depicts the response to Arkansas State Governor Orval Faubus closing schools to black students…

With war officially declared, the relentlessly impassioned and driven musician pushed ever deeper into music and social justice before ‘Track 6: Self-portrait in Three Colors’ details how it all proved too much. However, after referring himself to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric assessment, Mingus was caught in racist red tape and only barely escaped an illegal lobotomy…

One of the jazz man’s greatest sins in the eyes of supremacists was miscegenation. Mingus’ relationships with white women (he married two of them) was apparently fed by a drive to unite eternally divided polarities and is addressed in metaphor via ‘Track 7: The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady’, after which ‘Track 8: Passions Of A Man’ jumps to the end days when inevitable fame and success were marred by declining health.

Unable to perform on his beloved bass, Mingus moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico for treatment and ultimately surrendered to “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” (ALS). The hallucinogenic end is pictured with grace and wonder before a posthumous scattering of his ashes in the Ganges, all seen through the eyes of his widow Susan Mingus (née Graham)…

The lasting importance of the man is seen from a child’s perspective in ‘Track 9: Epitaph’ before the soul of Mingus is displayed in ‘Bonus Track: Sophisticated Lady’. Harking back to 1972, it shows a true and perfect moment as a concert at Yale is disrupted by a hoax bomb threat. With the hall evacuated and cops trying to hustle him out, Mingus ignores everything and keeps on playing…

Accompanying the conceptual wild ride, an author’s Afterword shares Massarutto’s take on the project and this volume also includes suggestions for further enjoyment in what ‘To Read’, ‘To Hear’ and ‘To See’…

Just like its subject matter, Mingus follows a radical muse, eschews fact and formula and takes us into the heart and soul of a giant, both scary and almost beyond understanding.

This intensely personal assessment and interpretation is less a biography and more a heartfelt paean of appreciation, channelling and exploring the hard, harsh tone of troubled times where talented, dogged souls fought for recognition and survival in a world determined to exploit and consume them.
© 2021 Coconino Press. © 2021 Flavio Massarutto, Squaz. © 2023 NBM for the English version.

Mingus will be published in August 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

Most NBM books are also available in digital formats so for more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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Darkly She Goes


By Hubert & Vincent Mallié, coloured by Bruno Tatti & Clémentine Guivarc’h: translated by L Benson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-313-4 (HB) eISBN 978-1-68112-314-1

Hubert Boulard was born on January 21st 1971 in Saint-Renan, Brittany. Graduating from the École régionale des beaux-arts d’Angers in 1994, he began his far too short comics career as  artist for seasoned pros such as Éric Ormond, Yoann, Éric Corberyan, Paul Gillon and others. He was also highly regarded as a colourist, and in 2002 became a triple threat by writing for many top artists.

He began with Legs de l’alchimiste – limned by Herve Tanquerelle – followed by Yeaux Verts for long-term collaborator Zanzim and Miss Pas Touche/Miss Don’t Touch Me – rendered by Kerascoët and many more. Awards piled up as he steered 14 internationally renowned and celebrated series, including Les Ogres-Dieux and Monsieur désire?

An activist by nature, in 2013 Hubert helmed and contributed to groundbreaking collective graphic volume Les Gens normaux, paroles lesbiennes gay bi trans: released to coincide with France’s national debate on legalizing same sex marriage and a factor in the proposal becoming law…

His last book was with artist Zanzim: posthumously published in June 2020 soon after his death. Still unavailable in English, Peau d’homme comedically explores gender and sexuality at the height of Europe’s Europe’s medieval religious intolerance and social stratification.

Hubert frequently utilised such eras of “blood and iron” as a backdrop, and Darkly She Goes again confronts modern perceptions and standards via an adventure-based scenario readily recognisable to adults and children alike.

Epic in scope and spectacular in content, the tale is illustrated by Vincent Mallié: a two volume saga entitled Ténébreuse. It was published after the author’s passing and is combined here into one monumental tome.

Born in Paris in 1973, Mallié initially studied economics and history before joining an atelier in 1992 to learn about comics and graphic design. Whilst working as a storyboarder in 1996, he created – with schoolmate Joël Parnotte – a short story that grew into the popular Hong Kong Triad series.

They followed up with sci fi romp Les Aquanautes before Vincent collaborated with Jér?me Félix on L’Arche (2003-2007). Later endeavours include Le Grande Mort with Régis Loisel (2007-2019), reviving and enhancing established serial La Quête de l’Oiseau du Temps (with Loisel & Serge le Tendre) and more.

His staggeringly potent imagery here is augmented by the painterly gifts of Bruno Tatti and latterly Clémentine Guivarc’h, combining to build a painfully authentic feudal world where blood and mud and steel and sinew believably share space with fantastic beasts, sorcery and deviltry of all kinds…

The story opens as disgraced knight Arzhur drunkenly clashes again with former comrades, before being patched up by his inexplicably faithful squire Youenn. Despite the warrior’s best efforts to destroy himself, his life is about to change radically as he has been singled out by a trio of cunning witches…

They have a quest for Arzhur to fulfil: a noble deed that can’t help but expiate his past sins and redeem his reputation – maybe even restore his fortune too. All he must do is save a captive princess from imprisonment in a dark, dank dungeon. Fame, wealth and honour can be his again…

Sadly, the salvation- and honour-obsessed paladin is being played for a sucker, and after blazing in and butchering a dragon, discovers the fair maiden is very much there of her own free will. In fact, Arzhur has slaughtered Princess Islen’s protector, a noble creature keeping her from being seduced and suborned by three mystic hags. They seek to use the captive exile’s inherent power for their own dark designs…

As the fallen knight escorts his unwilling prize back to her father King Goulvan, her story – couched in grief-stricken tones and fiery terms – reveals how Islen’s supernatural mother Meliren was once the undisputed Queen of Evil. She raised a simple man to the highest estate in the land but his elevation could not offset her dark nature or schemes. The unholy marriage spawned a child, but their warring natures soon drove them apart and war broke out over custody of the princess. Thanks to a magic sword and Islen herself, Meliren was destroyed, but after her defeat, her mystic forces transferred to her child, manifested as a terrifying Butterfly Crown and ability to control beasts.

For the safety of all Islen removed herself from the world but the temptation of her legacy meant that ambition and fear gripped all who knew of her…

When Arzhur brings her home, instead of royal joy and rich rewards, he is cast into a dungeon whilst the King rapidly tries to marry his problem child off – preferably to someone living far, far away. Meanwhile, his second wife – fearing for her own son’s claim to the throne – seeks to convince the populace that the demon child is better off dead…

Faced with such appalling betrayal, the princess angrily taps into her power and the three witches see their dark design falling into place…

With the castle under siege by the animal kingdom, Islen liberates Arzhur and they flee, carrying with them the magic sword and invincible armour Meliren gave Goulvan, blissfully unaware of the tragic human cost of their escape…

With Clémentine Guivarc’h providing colour-art assistance, Part Two begins as the fugitives put as much distance as possible between them and the kingdom, even as the three witches actively seek to push Islen further into anger and depravity. Loathing, passion and duty have already led the princess and fallen knight into a carnal mistake and every close call with pursuers pushes her deeper into the seductive coils of sorcerous forces.

Their shaky plan is to hide in Arzhur’s rural homeland, but all too soon, the burden of the knight’s original failure and disgrace, plus his sordid past with most of the region’s young women, makes them a target of self-righteous paladins ready to believe the salacious slanders of the whispering witches.

Their tenuous sanctuary becomes a death trap when Goulvan’s armies invade and the witches possess Islen to complete their decades long plot. Ultimately, the princess must fight for her soul – and perhaps true love – in a sorcerous duel revealing how little anyone can understand – or trust – parents and learn that in life it’s always a case of devils taking the hindmost…

An epic fantasy and deadly dark fairy tale for adults, Darkly She Goes turns narrative conventions on their heads in a sharp and wry exploration of heroism, honour and self-reliance that is the perfect antidote for anodyne and saccharine bedtime stories.

Ténébreuse © 2021-2022 Dupuis – Mallié/Hubert. All rights reserved. © 2014 NBM For the English translation.

Darkly She Goes will be published on June 14th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

Most NBM books are also available in digital formats so for more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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Beauty


By Hubert & Kerascoët, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-315-8 (Album TPB) eISBN 978-1-56163-897-0 (Kindle), 978-1-56163-896-3 (Epub), 978-1-56163-895-6 (PDF)

French comics creator Hubert Boulard died suddenly on February 12th 2020. He is criminally unknown in the English-speaking world despite an astounding canon of wonderful work. Thanks to NBM, two more gems from his supremely enticing canon can now be added to your physical or digital bookshelf…

Technically this first fantastic, cunningly subversive fable is a re-release, having first crossed the linguistic divide way back in 2008, but its message has only increased in poignancy and potency since then…

Prior to establishing himself as mononymously revered “Hubert”, Boulard was born on January 21st 1971, in Brittany’s Saint-Renan. In 1994, on graduating from the École régionale des beaux-arts d’Angers, he began his comics career as an artist for such seasoned pros as Éric Ormond, Yoann, Éric Corberyan, Paul Gillon and more. Also highly regarded as a colourist, he morphed into a triple threat in 2002, and wrote strips for others.

He began with Legs de l’alchimiste – limned by Herve Tanquerelle – following with Yeaux Verts for long-term collaborator Zanzim and Miss Pas Touche (20th July 1922) illustrated with irrepressible panache by Kerascoët (married artistic collaborators Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) and many others. Awards started piling up as he steered 14 separate series; many of them internationally renowned and celebrated, including Les Ogres-Dieux and Monsieur désire? An activist by nature, in 2013 he helmed and contributed to groundbreaking collective graphic tract Les Gens normaux, paroles lesbiennes gay bi trans: released to coincide with France’s national debate on legalizing same sex marriage and assuredly a factor in the measure becoming law…

His final book was with artist Zanzim: posthumously published in June 2020, and as yet unavailable in English. Peau d’homme is a comedy exploring gender and sexuality at the height of medieval European religious intolerance and social stratification, and I’m sure we’ll get that here in the fullness of time.

That era of “blood and iron” – and its fantasy potential – was frequently used by Hubert as a backdrop for his stories and here is utilised in a trenchant adult fairy tale revealing the cost of attraction and the dangers of wishing. Originally published in France between 2011 and 2014 in three volumes (Reine) Beauté is a deceptively witty and barbed parable following the many tribulations – and so few joys – of a homely peasant girl whose greatest wish is granted… and how it all lays low the mighty and destroys many kingdoms.

‘Wishes Granted’ introduces slow, unhappy Coddie: skivvy and household drudge in a rural mansion: teased by children and shunned by most adults. Her tedious, onerous duties include preparing all the fish the wealthy autocrats eat, so there’s also always something of an “atmosphere” around her. Despite being kind and gentle, it’s fair to say that she’s the kind of girl only her mother loves… although first son of the house Peter always pays attention every time he sneaks down to the kitchens for a stolen snack…

The scullion’s despondent misery seemingly ends when after years of leaving presents for the fairies, she accidentally frees one from a curse. Queen Mab is adamant about paying the debt incurred and casts a spell. Henceforth, although Coddie has not changed physically, all will see her as “the very idea of beauty in woman incarnate”…

The girl is too naive to realise that Mab has an agenda of her own or even to question exactly why the sprite was imprisoned in the first place, and trouble starts as soon as she reaches home. The women are astonished and envious and men who have ignored the drudge all her life now beg and plead and throw themselves at her: even attempting to kill each other to possess her. Even sweet pudgy Peter is enthralled…

When the male villagers form a mob to take her and the women try – and fail – to mar her loveliness, Coddie flees into the woods and is rescued/slash abducted by the Lord of the region. Young Otto locks her in his castle and makes her concubine. Coddie, unsurprisingly, doesn’t mind at all, even when he arbitrarily renames her “Beauty”…

Moreover, she can’t wait to make the villagers pay for how they treated her, both before and after her wish came true, and Mab reappears with a few suggestions…

Having driven Otto away with her demands for better and more opulent gifts and presents, Beauty pushes the manse itself into ruin and when a travelling artist tragically captures what he sees, the paintings and sketches catapulted her onto a global stage. As her image enflames the passions of lords and princes across the continent, knights start killing each other and regal overlord King Maxence of the Southern Kingdom and his top advisor/sister Princess Claudine intervene. Claudine immediately sees a strategic use for Beauty, but her scheme is thwarted when her brother falls uncontrollably under the commoner’s spell.

Second chapter ‘The Indecisive Queen’ details – with chilling echoes of Marie-Antoinette – how the kitchen girl inadvertently brings down two kingdoms as Max makes her his wife and mother of a child he cannot accept as his. Queen Beauty’s interference in state matters bankrupts the kingdom, decimates the nation’s cream of chivalry and drives the king into jealousy-fuelled madness and murder.

Moreover, the moment his great rival, archenemy and brother-in-law The Boar King of the Northern Kingdom claps eyes on Beauty, he too is seized by a mania to possess her and the resultant war destroys both nations…

Escaping with her un-ensorcelled and rather plain daughter Marine, Beauty resolves to have Mab revoke her wish in ‘Ordinary Mortals’ but the price the fairy demands is far too costly. Bonded to her child, Beauty is betrayed and sold to the Boar King: notional victor in the recent war. Allowing his wife Dagmar to know of his enslaved prizes seemed like a good idea, but soon the frenzy of possessing the fairy-touched treasure grips him and enrages his queen. Again death and death and destruction are the result – especially as Princess Claudine and Otto (now an unbeatable berserker knight) constantly harass and plague the victor’s occupying forces in advance of a full revolt and liberation…

Also a prisoner, Marine sets the final fall into motion by a simple demonstration of how to discern Coddie’s appearance under Beauty’s glamour, and the Boar King’s self-destructive behaviour escalates into overwhelming madness and inevitable catastrophe.

The child was born smart and when she learned to read, soon discovered the true history of Mab, albeit not soon enough to stop The Boar King again abducting mother and daughter (from his own citadel) and locking them way where only he could see them whilst letting the kingdoms doom and damn themselves…

Ultimately, Coddie and Marine break free and turn their attentions to stopping the true threat: fairies…

The blood-soaked saga ceases with a puckish ‘Epilogue’ set decades later, as some of those troublesome artworks of Beauty finally reach another almighty potentate in a distant land. He cannot believe or forget what he sees…

Smart, charmingly cynical and hugely engaging, the epic cautionary tale is sublimely realised by visual creators probably best known in the English-speaking world for Miss Don’t Touch Me and Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim’s Dungeon series. However, French phenomenon Kerascoët (joint pen name of married illustrators, comics & animation artists Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) have generated a wealth of books for all ages including Malala’s Magic Pencil, I Walk with Vanessa, Beautiful Darkness, The Court Charade, I Forgive Alex, Paper Doll Artbook and more) to further delight the wide variety of grown-up readers everywhere.
Beauté © Dupuis, 2011-2013 by Hubert, Kerascoët. All rights reserved. © 2014 NBM For the English translation.

Beauty will be published on June 14th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

For more information and other great reads please go to http://www.nbmpub.com/