Category: Mature Reading

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Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64 volume 3 – The Shepherd’s Tale


By Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Chris Samnee & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-561-2

For those far too few people who actually saw it, Firefly remains one of the best science fiction TV shows ever created.

It was cancelled after one season. Buy the box set or seek it out from an on-demand/streaming media outlet as soon as you possibly can.

The select dejected fanbase were eventually delighted by the superb Serenity – one of the best science fiction movies ever released.

Rent it, buy it, watch it however you can.

Once you’ve done those things you’ll be properly primed to enjoy this superb and lavish full-colour hardback which offers long-awaited details into the troubled life of enigmatic preacher Book who joined reluctant freedom fighter Malcolm Reynolds and his oddball crew of reprobates aboard an independent trader starship of the Firefly class, under the most peculiar of circumstances…

If you aren’t au fait with “the ‘Verse” yet – and did I mention the live action iterations are readily available and extremely entertaining? – here’s a little background.

After they used up Earth, humanity migrated to the stars and settled another star-system packed with hundreds of more or less hospitable planets and satellites. Now it’s the 26th century and mankind is living through the aftermath of a recent punishing internecine conflict known – by the victors – as the Unification War.

This still-sore and rankling clash saw the outer Colonies crushed after attempting to secede from the authoritarian Alliance of first-settled inner planets. Reynolds fought valiantly on the losing side and now spends his days eking out a living on the fringes of an increasingly repressive and dangerous universe: taking cargo and people from world to world – and hopefully avoiding the ever-expanding Alliance representatives – as a free agent skippering a small Firefly class cargo transport called Serenity.

It’s hard, risky work: often illegal and frequently dangerous – especially as the outer regions are where the insane cannibal berserker savages dubbed Reavers restlessly prowl.

Life changed forever after Serenity gave passage to Alliance doctor Simon Tam who was on the run after stealing his seemingly-psychic sister River from a top secret research project.

The Government spared no effort or expense to get her back and hounded the fugitives from pillar to post until Reynolds and his crew finally decided to push back.

At the cost of too many friends, the reluctant rebels uncovered the horrific secrets the Alliance were so desperate to keep hidden and broadcast them to the entire ‘Verse …

During their TV voyages the Firefly crew was supplemented by a wise and gentle cleric of the Shepherd religion on a pilgrimage to who knew where. He offered moral guidance (mostly ignored), philosophical debate and emotional support as required, but every so often something Derrial Book said or did gave hints of lethal capabilities and a dangerous past the holy man always deftly avoided discussing…

Written by (series creator) Joss Whedon and Zack Whedon, illustrated by super-star in the making Chris Samnee (Daredevil, Thor: The Mighty Avenger, The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom) and sporting colours from Dave Stewart and letters by Steve Morris, this compelling book of revelations finally exposes the secrets and tells the life story of the show’s most intriguing character…

The episodic saga is told in flashes and snippets from end to beginning; starting with his eventual glorious passing and working backwards in dramatic instalments to the way and why it all began…

Along the road we see his turbulent time aboard Serenity, before moving into unexplored territory at placid Southdown Abbey where after much soul-searching he elected to rejoin the dangerous, tempting outer world…

From then it’s a jump back a full decade to when a drunken derelict near death received one more well-deserved beating and awoke to a moment of holy clarity in a bowl of soup…

From then a time-cut slashes back to the moment when Alliance high-flyer Officer Book personally oversaw the military’s greatest defeat and was cashiered out of the service with extreme prejudice…

Years prior to that another scene shows how far ambitious cadet Derrial would go to further his career before a further flashback reveals that the man we’ve been reading about was never Derrial Book at all, but instead a murderous sleeper agent planted within the Alliance.

And even further back we travel, learning what makes a boy into the kind of man who would endure mutilation and worse; contemplate constantly betraying everything he cares for in a dark yet redemptive tale exploring the most basic and abiding aspects of human nature…

With narrative tones reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s Memento, this powerful testament to the force of personality, the bondage of upbringing and man’s infinite capacity for change is accompanied by an incisive and heartfelt Afterword – ‘The Journey is the Worthier Part…’ from scripter Zack Whedon, detailing the inspirations which fuelled many of the story’s most memorable scenes.

Poignant, compelling and explosively engaging, this is a tale no devotee should miss and a comic experience well able to stand apart from its live action roots.
Serenity © 2010 Universal Studios. Firefly™ and Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64™ and © 2014 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Edgar Allan Poe’s Spirits of the Dead


Adapted by Richard Corben, with Beth Corben Reed & Nate Piekos (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-356-2

Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest proponents of graphic narrative: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist, catapulting from the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a major force in comic storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision.

He is equally renowned for his mastery of airbrush, captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation and delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales. In later years he has become an elder statesman of horror and fantasy comics lending his gifts and cachet to such icons as John Constantine, Hulk, Hellboy, Punisher and Ghost Rider as well as new adaptations and renditions of literary classics by the likes of William Hope Hodgson, Lovecraft and the master of gothic terror Edgar Allan Poe.

Corben didn’t sell out; American publishing simply caught up, finally growing mature enough to accommodate him, due in no small part to his own broad and pervasive influence…

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, he graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 and found work as an animator. At that time, the neutered comicbooks of the Comics-Code Authority era were just starting to lose disaffected, malcontent older fans to the hippy-trippy, freewheeling, anything-goes publications of independent-minded creators across the continent who were increasingly making the kind of material Preachers and Mummy and her Lawyers wouldn’t approve of…

Creativity honed by the resplendent and explicitly mature 1950s EC Comics, Carl Barks’ perfectly crafted Duck tales and other classy early strips, a plethora of young artists like Corben responded with a variety of small-press publications – including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor – which featured shocking, rebellious, sexed-up, raw, brutal, psychedelically-inspired cartoons and strips blending the new wave of artists’ unconventional lifestyles with their earliest childhood influences… honestly crafting the kind of stories they would like to read.

Corben inevitably graduated to more professional – and paying – venues. As his style and skills developed he worked for Warren Publishing in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and outrageous adult science fiction anthology 1984/1994. He famously coloured some strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s The Spirit.

Soon after he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He has never stopped creating comics but prefers personal independent projects or working with in-tune collaborators such as Bruce Jones, Jan Strnad and Harlan Ellison.

In 1975 Corben approached French fantasy phenomenon M̩tal Hurlant and quickly became a fixture of its American iteration Heavy Metal, cementing his international reputation in the process. Garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he has been regularly collected in luxurious albums even as he seemingly fell out of favour Рand print Рin his own country. Through it all he has never strayed far from his moss-covered roots.

This particular tome gathers a recent return to adaptations of the classic Poe canon; all-new, 21st century, often rather radical reinterpretations of the troubled author’s greatest works, as published in The Fall of the House of Usher #1-2, one-shots The Conqueror Worm, The Raven and the Red Death, The Premature Burial and Morella and the Murders in the Rue Morgue plus some short tales originally published in Dark Horse Presents #9, #16-18 and #28-29; collectively spanning the period November 2012-April 2014.

The horrific hagiography – each tale attributed with its year of publication and adapted with the colouring assistance of Beth Corben Reed and lettering expertise of Nate Piekos of Blambot® – opens following an erudite, informative and compelling Introduction ‘Masters of the Macabre: Edgar Allan Poe and Richard Corben’ by university professor, author, Poe expert and comics scholar Thomas M. Inge and the mood-setting poem ‘Spirits of the Dead (1827)’ before the artistic extravaganza unfolds with aged, one-eyed crone Maggy as host and guide to the selection which follows.

In ‘Alone (1828)’ morbid, death-haunted Solomon discusses his distressing dreams with the intoxicating but strangely unmoved Liea whilst ‘The City in the Sea (1831)’ sees a shipwrecked sea captain forced to explain his recent dramatic actions to a dank and unforgiving tribunal who have markedly different views to him on what constitutes duty, business sense, cargo and humanity…

Many of these interpretations employ embedded lines of Poe’s verse, such as ‘The Sleeper (1831)’ which sees a well-deserved fate meted out to a rich philanderer who had his wife and her murderer killed to further his own carnal desires whilst ‘The Assignation (1834)’ examines a toxic relationship where husband and wife cannot live together… or apart…

‘Berenice (1835)’ is one of Poe’s most stomach-churning, nerve-jangling yarns and Corben does it full justice as bereaved Egaeus watches over the corpse of his recently-deceased betrothed. However, even in death he cannot turn his mind away from an overwhelming fascination with her perfect teeth…

The deeply unsettling story of ‘Morella (1835)’ reveals how a vain witch orchestrates her own death and resurrection as her own daughter to keep her husband properly seduced and in line, before focus shifts to ancient Greece and the inevitable approach of death amongst the warriors at a funeral: a wake tainted by the unquiet dead and an oppressive ‘Shadow (1835)’…

In the luxuriously expansive ‘The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)’ artist and traveller Allan is broaches a befuddling, bilious and deadly swamp to reach the ancestral seat of the ancient Usher clan and visit an old school chum.

Like the family, the vast manse is slowly dissolving into the mire that surrounds and supports it. The decadent, failing blood of melancholic master and obsessive portraitist Roderick Usher masks many bizarre behaviours, but not even that can excuse his vile attitude to his seemingly subjugated, clandestinely closeted, sumptuously seductive deranged sister Madeline whose essence he is determined to capture on canvas at any cost…

As he stares at the too-intimate pencil studies, Allan too is drawn to the girl: a feeling only intensified once they actually meet…

By secret means she makes the visitor aware of a unique plight and urges him to assist her escape but Roderick will go to any lengths to keep his sister with him and would rather extinguish the family line rather than lose her.

That is unless the repelled, rebellious Earth doesn’t reclaim the crumbling house and the decadent Ushers first…

Infamous for his dark, doom-laden horror stories, Poe was also a pioneer of crime fiction and next up is a grimly effective and trenchantly black-humoured adaptation of the debut tale starring French gentleman detective Le Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin and his partner in peril Beluc.

Here the dandified dynamic duo put their heads together to solve an impossible locked room mystery which resulted in the brutal dismemberment of two women in ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)’: a crime with a callous perpetrator but no culpable killer…

‘The Masque of the Red Death (1842)’ then returns to classical themes and supernal horror as plague grips the lands of regal Prospero. Faced with difficult choices, the lord opts to bring his richest cronies within his opulent castle to safely disport themselves in debauched revelry whilst the contagion burns itself out on the peasantry. Sadly, the foolish sybarite has made one grave and arrogant error which will cost him everything…

Under Corben’s imaginative purview, grim gloomy ode ‘The Conqueror Worm (1843)’ is transformed into a salutary saga of inescapable vengeance as proud Colonel Mann kills his errant wife and her lover but is tainted with a maggot that burrows into his body and soul.

Feigning innocence and ignorance, Mann salves his “tragic loss” by employing an itinerant puppet show for a family party but the mummers expose that most proper paragon’s sins before utterly consuming him, whilst in ‘The Premature Burial (1844)’ a close shave with attempted murder and molestation of the dead turns Lucian into a man obsessed with being buried alive and Arnold‘s inability to forget his dead Lenore leads to an unforgettable encounter with ‘The Raven (1845)’ in a visual tour de force every inch as potent as Poe’s poem.

Wrapping up the journey into mysteries is a deft retelling of ‘The Cask of Amontillado, (1846)’ wherein aging Montressor at last shares a long-held secret with the wife of his old friend Fortunato, now missing for many a year.

As he guides her through his deep vaults, filled with the remains of his ancestors and his precious wine collection, gloating Montressor tells the increasing nervous widow of her husband’s ghastly fate and why and how the poor, bibulous buffoon vanished so completely that long-ago night…

Accompanied by a stunning Cover Gallery, this compelling collection of classic chillers is a modern masterpiece of arcane abomination and human horror no shock addict of mystery lover will want to miss.
Spirits of the Dead™ © 2012, 2013, 2014 Richard Corben. All rights reserved.

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B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs volume 2


By Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Guy Davis, Herb Trimpe, John Severin, Peter Snejbjerg, Karl Moline & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-672-5

Hellboy is a creature of vast depth and innate mystery; a demonic baby summoned to Earth by Nazi occultists at the end of Word War II but subsequently raised, educated and trained by parapsychologist Professor Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm to destroy unnatural threats and supernatural monsters as the lead field-agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

After decades of unfailing, faithful service in 2001 he became mortally tired and resigned. Itinerantly roaming the world, he still managed to constantly encounter weird happenstances, never escape trouble or avoid his own sense of duty. This book is not about him.

The massive full-colour hardback collection under review here (also available in digital formats) instead features the trusty comrades he left behind: valiant champions of varying shades of human-ness who also deal with those occult occasions which typically fall under the remit of the Enhanced Talents task force of the B.P.R.D.

If you’re having trouble with the concept, think of a government-sanctioned and internationally co-sponsored Ghostbusters dealing with Buffy-style threats to humanity.

The B.P.R.D. rapidly established itself as a viable publishing premise in its own right through a succession of interlinked miniseries, confronting an ancient, arcane amphibian menace to humanity in an immense epic which spanned eight years of comicbook releases.

Periodically collected as a series of trade paperbacks during that time, the entire supernatural saga – latterly dubbed Plague of Frogs – was remastered as a quartet of monumental full-colour volumes, of which this is the sinister second.

Gathering material from Hellboy Premiere Edition, MySpace Dark Horse Presents #8-9, B.P.R.D.: The Dead, B.P.R.D. volume 5: The Black Flame and B.P.R.D. volume 12: War on Frogs, this macabre triumvirate of terror opens with a handy recap page identifying key personnel of the B.P.R.D. before an equally handy Introduction from series editor Scott Allie provides context and background in the organisation’s struggle against the eons-old supernal force mutating humans into terrifying frog-monsters…

From there it’s a short hop (sorry, sorry!) to ‘Book One: The Dead’, written by Mignola and John Arcudi, illustrated by Guy Davis, lettered as always by Clem Robins and with colours from Dave Stewart. Firstly though that supernatural storm of woe is preceded by the prologue ‘Born Again’ (from Hellboy Premiere Edition) wherein pyrokinetic Liz Sherman, amphibious Abe Sapien, man-made marvel Roger the Homunculus and disembodied psychic Johann Krauss break into a secret tomb beneath a suburb of Chicago and arouse an extremely angry monster spirit warning of worse to follow.

In the aftermath of their spectacular triumph, Roger casually pockets a weird little artefact…

B.P.R.D. volume 4: The Dead properly begins a little later in North Dakota, when an investigation team is wiped out after discovering another nest of Frogs. At the organisation’s HQ in Fairfield, Connecticut the assessment is that the amphibian incursions are growing too rapidly and drastic measures are now called for…

Johann suggests that rather than instant eradication perhaps the answer is translating the bizarre glyphs found at every site. Abe is absent from this meeting, having travelled to Littleport, Rhode Island with psychologist Kate Corrigan in search of his own obscure origins…

Back at base the team meet new field commander Benjamin Daimio, a former marine and Green Beret officer. His qualifications for the new militaristic role include an impressive but classified record in covert operations and the still-unexplained fact that he came back to life on a morgue slab three days after dying in the line of duty…

A brusque man with deep pentagon connections, he quickly arranges for the entire B.P.R.D. to relocate to a super-secret, mothballed military complex in Colorado, much to the suspicious disgust of volatile Liz…

In Littleport, Abe locates the long abandoned house of Langdon Everett Caul and ponders its disturbing but undisclosed link to his own shrouded past…

The next few days are filled with busywork as the B.P.R.D. relocate to Colorado and strive to bring the vast Cold War mountain fortress up to speed and into the 21st century.

Tensions are high in the Enhanced Talents unit as Liz constantly rails against the new military style of working whilst worrying that impressionable Roger is being unduly influenced by Daimio’s forceful, take-charge personality.

Johann is also a cause for concern as his psychic talents seem to be drawing him into himself after he casually mind-scans the ancient edifice they now occupy…

Back in Rhode Island, Abe disturbs a ghost and is drawn into a trap baited with past happiness and bitter memories whilst in Colorado Liz awakens from a nightmare to find Johann acting as if possessed. With Roger in tow, she follows the bodiless medium down into the bowels of the base: a level not listed on any official map or blueprint, blocked by a colossal door covered in strange markings…

Breaking into a hidden chamber, Daimio and the investigators discover a huge cavern filled with skeletons covered in mushrooms, strange machinery and an old German who has been living there since the 1950s…

Quantum physicist Dr. Gunter Eiss worked for the Nazis on mystic science projects. He was sidelined after Hitler ditched his “Operation Himmelmacht” in favour of the Ragna Rok operation which brought Hellboy to Earth. The fringe scientist was scooped up by American forces and brought to Colorado when WWII ended to work on alternative energy research.

Then there was a catastrophic disaster which devastated the still under-construction base and when he regained consciousness Gunter had been entombed with all the dead: lost and forgotten…

Although Eiss seems harmless, nobody is comfortable with his inexplicable survival and reappearance and, all too soon, those misgivings prove well-founded as strange events start plaguing the fortress. Clarity comes when Johann, pressured by odd notions and weird warnings, makes contact with the spirits of Eiss’ dead colleagues.

It’s too late, but as the aged revenant unleashes a storm of insectile horrors inside the base and tries to complete his long-delayed Himmelmacht project, Johann and the recovered dead men are frantically cobbling together a countermeasure of last resort.

…And whilst the team strive to prevent a disaster of literally biblical proportions, in Rhode Island, Abe Sapien struggles to free himself from a ghostly prison of memories and, to his eternal regret, at last succeeds…

War on Frogs began life as a series of one-shots issued in 2008 and 2009. They were collected with ‘Revival’ from MySpace Dark Horse Presents #8-9 as the 12th B.P.R.D. trade paperback volume in April 2009, but as those tales are all set in 2005 during the early days of the battle against the manphibians, they appear next in this remastered compilation.

Each story focuses on one character and many are by guest illustrators, but the “bug-hunt” begins with an all-action engagement from Mignola, Arcudi, Davis, Stewart & Robins featuring Daimio, Liz, Roger and Johann as the enhanced heroes and an army of military specialists clear out a tunnel system overflowing with Frogs only to discover the site is a breeding nest…

Davis then inks Marvel superstar artist Herb Trimpe on an Arcudi script as Abe Sapien removes himself from active duty for a desk job, leaving an increasing martial-minded and bellicose Roger to lead the ground war. The struggle takes him back to Lake Talutah, New York where Hellboy and Abe first battled the Frog things and where the Homunculus discovers those original monsters never left…

Mignola, Arcudi, Davis & Stewart then combine in ‘Revival’ as travelling faith healers spread the Frog contagion throughout the American heartland until Captain Damio tracks them down and deals with the problem in his usual lethally efficient manner…

Arcudi, Stewart and Robins are then joined by the astounding John Severin, who etches a macabre masterpiece as a strictly human team of soldiers attempts to clear out a Frog-infested warship and succumb one by one to the terrors in the darkness.

Then Arcudi & Peter Snejbjerg (with colourist Bjarne Hansen and letterer Robins) depict a turning point in the conflict as psychic Johann realises he can see and communicate with the spirits of dead Frog monsters. Compelled to help the horrors move on, Krauss’ attempt only opens the door to greater terrors and deeper mysteries…

Moving on to B.P.R.D. volume 5: The Black Flame, Mignola, Arcudi, Davis, Stewart & Robins reveal how corrupt and complicit Zinco Industries executive Mr. Pope tries to convert Nazi sympathies and closeted secret knowledge into personal power by using the Frogs’ magic to turn himself into a super-villain.

Beyond his laboratories, the war seems to be going well. Roger has become a fierce and effective warrior, leading many sorties to stamp out the amphibian invaders. However that is about to change as Pope succeeds in cracking the language barrier and learning how to talk to the Frogs. Now, as the Black Flame, he seems to be their uncontested master…

During one battle Liz is given a strange blossom by a bystander and falls into a coma. In a misty dreamworld she is approached by a shrouded stranger who reveals that things are not as they seem and that the war is about to take a very bad turn as far as mankind is concerned…

Further research triggers a panic in B.P.R.D. boffin Professor O’Donnell who flies into a panic after realising Liz’s vision is a warning that antediluvian demon-deity Katha-Hem is coming back and all living things will transform at his vile touch. Suitably chilled, firestarter Liz tries to rouse and warn the Enhanced team, but is too late to save one of them…

As the Black Flame leads his gathered amphibian legions into a cavern system in Idaho, Abe, afflicted by guilt, returns to active duty even as Liz succumbs to further astral communications. The shaken team is far from combat-ready when news comes that Lincoln, Nebraska has been overrun. Before they can react, news comes of concerted attacks all over the North American continent. The Frogs are inexorably on the move and the summons has gone out. Katha-Hem is coming…

As a colossal horror beyond imagining starts destroying man’s cities, Pope realises he is a pawn in a far greater, incalculably older game, whilst Liz confronts her mystery informant before a clue to destroying the monster is grudgingly given. All she has to do is find an artefact Roger once idly picked up on an early mission against the Frogs…

The scene is set for an incomprehensible last battle, but the will the beaten and broken Black Flame remain a thrall of the foe or find redemption and his lost humanity in the final accounting…?

Wrapping up the strip thrills and chills, Arcudi and illustrator Karl Moline focus on the repercussions of the team’s victory in a trenchant Epilogue as shell-shocked, traumatised Liz goes through the motions of mopping-up, possibly finding a new significant other to lean on, but still plagued by visions of the enigmatic man in the mists…

Bonus features included here comprise an informative Afterword by Arcudi describing the behind-the-scenes scripting system he shared with Mignola, plus Notes from Scott Allie and a huge Sketchbook section offering roughs, designs and preliminary artwork from Davis and Mignola on The Dead, The Black Flame and War on Frogs.

With supernatural fantasy now a staple of TV and movie fashion, these unlikely heroes must be a top pick for every production company out there. Until then, why not stay ahead of the rush by reading these truly magical tales?
B.P.R.D. ™: Plague of Frogs volume 2 © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2015 Mike Mignola. Abe Sapien™, Liz Sherman™, Hellboy™, Johann™, Lobster Johnson™ and all other prominently featured characters ™ Mike Mignola. All rights reserved.

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Hellboy volume 6: Strange Places


By Mike Mignola with Dave Stewart & Clem Robbins (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-475-3

Hellboy is a creature of vast depth and innate mystery; a demonic child summoned to Earth by Nazi occultists at the end of World War II. Intercepted and rescued by allied troops, the infernal infant was reared by Allied parapsychologist Professor Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm. After years of devoted intervention, education and warm human interaction, in 1952 Hellboy began destroying unnatural threats and supernatural monsters as lead agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

As the decades of his career unfold, Hellboy gleans snatches of his origins, learning he is an infernal creature of dark portent: born an infernal messiah, somehow destined to destroy the world and bring back ancient powers of evil. It is a fate he despises and utterly rejects…

This sinister sixth spellbinding compendium of pictorial paranormality and grave wit collects micro-series Hellboy: The Third Wish #1-2 (July-August 2002) and Hellboy: The Island #1-2 (June and July 2005); the latter augmented with a new 6-page Epilogue for this trade paperback edition.

Following an engaging Introduction from fellow multi-talented macabre-ist Gary Gianni, Mignola briefly explains the origins and antecedents of the marine marvel which follows after which the eldritch enigmas unfold.

At the bottom of the sea three mermaid sisters implore the mighty Bog Roosh to grant their wishes. Her compliance comes at a cost however: the marine maidens must somehow hammer a mystic nail into the head of her great enemy…

Hellboy is currently in Africa, estranged from the B.P.R.D. but still encountering mystic menaces that need stopping. Eventually he stops to listen to the tales of witch-man Mohlomi and is soon under the spell of the tale-teller. Falling into a deep sleep, he dreams of lions who foretell his future…

He awakens to find they have somehow moved to the coast. When Mohlomi tells him the ocean is calling, the baffled but resigned parapsychologist enters the roaring surf and is promptly dragged under the waves, protected only by a bell-charm the witch-man has given him…

Attacked by sea creatures and the three sisters, Hellboy is overcome as soon as he lets go of the jingling trinket and is helpless to prevent them driving in the nail…

Bound and helpless in the Bog Roosh’s power, Hellboy can only watch as the sisters are given theirs hearts’ desires and – in the usual manner of such things – suffer the cruel consequences of double-dealing demonry.

Wise in such matters, Hellboy tries to help the third mermaid avoid her fate but is powerless to prevent the sea witch granting the last wish. The kind act touches the mermaid’s heart and – whilst the witch tries to dismember Hellboy and all the powers of The Pit stand helpless to prevent the end of all their hopes and dreams – she sneaks back and frees him.

Released to vent his considerable anger, Hellboy ends the Bog Roosh and decimates her power, but is ultimately unable to save his saviour…

According to Mignola’s commentary, The Island was a tough tale to write and underwent many strange transmutations and permutations. When it finally appeared it signalled the grand finale of the First Chapter in Hellboy’s life. None of that difficulty is apparent in the tale that follows though: a bleak, moody suspense saga filled with all the answer fans had been craving since the hero’s debut…

Hellboy wades ashore in a drear limbo of shattered ships and broken vessels. Anxious but resolved, he trudges on and joins a motley assemblage of mariners in a protracted boozing session, only later realising he had been drinking with dead men.

A further shock to his system is delivered by old enemy Hecate, who appears gloating and glad that the Bog Roosh failed to kill him. As long as Hellboy lives she can still corrupt or conquer him…

Shunning the Goddess of the Damned, Hellboy wanders on and enters a dilapidated castle where he is sucked into an ancient vision which offers potential clues to his past and future but now only results in him battling ferociously but with little success against yet another gargantuan monster…

He awakes an unknowable time later on a dry, dusty plain with Mohlomi who offers yet more occluded, oblique advice before a revived ghost joins the conversation with the tale of his mortality in ancient Tenochtitlan.

This story of life, death and resurrection coincidentally reveals the secret history of creation, the inevitable end of mankind, what will follow and – most terrifyingly – the truth of Hellboy’s stone hand and his intended role in the ghastly Grand Scheme of Cosmic Doom…

Wrapping up the spectral showcase is an ominous all-new Epilogue as the arcane and infernal powers confer over what the revelations mean to Hellboy. The Fated One is now armed with knowledge but is only drifting closer to his future, no matter how hard he struggles to turn away from it…

Rounding out this apocalyptic endeavour is a stunning Bonus Section which includes the decidedly different first eight pages of the original iteration of The Island – specially inked and coloured for this book – followed by seven powerfully potent, all-action pencil art pages created and then abandoned in the second attempt to tell the tale. Wrapping up the behind-the-scenes extras is a selection of character designs and roughs to sweeten the pot for every lover of great comics art.

Baroque, grandiose, alternating suspenseful slow-boiling tension with explosive spectacle, Strange Places inexorably increases the pace in the race to Armageddon. Blending revelation with astounding adventure to enthral horror addicts and action junkies alike, it is another cataclysmic compendium of dark delights no comics fan or fear fanatic should miss.
™ and © 2006, 2005 and 2002 Mike Mignola. Hellboy is ™ Mike Mignola. Introduction © 2006 Gary Gianni. All rights reserved.

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Lone Wolf and Cub volume 2: The Gateless Barrier


By Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima, translated by Dana Lewis (Dark Horse Manga)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-503-1

Best known in the West as Lone Wolf and Cub, the epic Samurai saga created by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima is without doubt a global classic of comics literature.

An example of the popular “Chanbara” or “sword-fighting genre of books and cinema, Kozure Okami was serialised in Weekly Manga Action from September 1970 until April 1976 and was an immense hit. Those tales soon prompted a thematic companion series, Kubikiri Asa (Samurai Executioner) which ran from 1972 to 1976, but the major draw at home – and increasingly abroad – was always the nomadic wanderings of doomed noble ÅŒgami Ittō and his solemn child.

Revered and influential, Kozure Okami was followed after years of supplication by fans and editors by sequel Shin Lone Wolf & Cub (illustrated by Hideki Mori) and even spawned – through Koike’s indirect participation – science fiction homage Lone Wolf 2100 by Mike Kennedy & Francisco Ruiz Velasco with.

The original saga has been successfully adapted to many other media, spawning six movies, four plays, two TV series, games and merchandise. The property is notoriously still in pre-production as a big Hollywood blockbuster.

The several thousand pages of enthralling, exotic, intoxicating narrative art produced by these legendary creators eventually filled 28 tankobon volumes, beguiling generations of readers in Japan and, inevitably, the world. More importantly, their philosophically nihilistic odyssey with its timeless themes and iconic visuals has influenced hordes of other creators.

The many manga, comics and movies these stories have inspired are impossible to count. Frank Miller, who illustrated the cover of this edition, referenced the series in Daredevil, his dystopian opus Ronin, The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City. Max Allan Collin’s Road to Perdition is an unashamed tribute to this masterpiece of vengeance-fiction. Stan Sakai has superbly spoofed, pastiched and celebrated the wanderer’s path in his own epic Usagi Yojimbo and even children’s cartoon shows such as Samurai Jack can be seen as direct descendants of this astounding achievement of graphic narrative.

We in the West first saw the translated tales as 45 Prestige Format editions from First Comics beginning in 1987. That innovative trailblazer foundered before getting even a third of the way through the vast canon, after which Dark Horse Comics assumed the rights, systematically reprinting and translating the entire epic into 28 tankobon-style editions (petite 153 x 109 mm monochrome trade paperbacks, of about 300 pages each) between from September 2000-December 2002. When the entire translated epic had run its course it was all placed online through the Dark Horse Digital project.

A certain formula informs the early episodes: the acceptance of a commission to kill an impossible target, a cunning plan and inevitable success, all underscored with bleak philosophical musings alternately informed by Buddhist teachings in conjunction with or in opposition to the unflinching personal honour code of Bushido. The protagonist is also – probably – the most dangerous swordsman in creation…

The foredoomed killer-nomad was once Kōgi Kaishakunin: the Shogun’s official executioner, capable of cleaving a man in half with one stroke. An eminent individual of esteemed imperial standing, elevated social position and impeccable honour, ÅŒgami Ittō lost everything through the machinations of enemies at court and now roams feudal Japan pushing his toddler son in a tricked-out weaponised pram; two doomed souls hell-bent for the dire, demon-haunted underworld of Meifumado.

ÅŒgami’s wife was murdered and his clan eternally dishonoured due to the machinations of the politically ambitious Yagyu Clan, and the Emperor ordered ÅŒgami to commit suicide. Instead he rebelled, choosing to become a despicable Ronin (masterless samurai) and assassin, pledging to revenge himself on the Yagyus until they were all dead or Hell claimed him.

Although little more than a baby, his son Daigoro also chose the way of the sword, and together they now tread the grim and evocative landscapes of feudal Japan, one step ahead of destruction with death behind and before them.

This second magnificent monochrome volume – set in the depths of Japan’s legendary winters – again offers a grimly compelling combination of vengeful fable and addictive action-adventure which resumes here with ‘Red Cat’ as ÅŒgami leaves Daigoro with his client’s maid and engineers his own capture.

He wants to be incarcerated in the brutal, Fukuyama Han Prison where he can at last reach his target. Frequently the infallible assassin’s best ploy was to allow himself to be taken prisoner, endure unimaginable torture and then fight his way out having slaughtered his target: perhaps a self-induced penance for his failings…

Akaneko Shinsuke is an arsonist who once burned down the jail; effecting the escape of many criminals and causing the death and dishonour of the client’s father who was the warden at the time. Now “Red Cat” is back inside the rebuilt prison and on Death Row, but that is not punishment enough for the client.

He must not die impersonally, and the mastermind who truly created the shameful tragedy must be exposed and ended too…

Enduring appalling treatment and leaving a stack of corpses behind him, the Lone Wolf manoeuvres himself onto Death Row beside Shinsuke and learns the truth of that terrible night and the great fire, before rekindling the conflagration and bringing hell back to earth for final retribution…

Another aspect of ÅŒgami’s methodology re-emerges in ‘The Coming of the Cold’. The assassin always insists on a personal interview with his client and demands not only who is to die, but why. Perhaps the cautious killer only wants to know the extent of what he’s getting into, but we know he’s judging: seeing whether the target deserves death… or if the client does…

Upon accepting his latest job, ÅŒgami is proud to despatch the man who hired him before plunging into arctic conditions to complete his commission. The client’s retainers also happily sacrifice their lives to allow the Lone Wolf to infiltrate the fortified town of Oyamada and its impenetrable castle. As this scheme unfolds, little Daigoro sits in a cave in the midst of a blizzard fully aware that unless his father returns within five days, he will freeze or starve.

But that was before the avalanche…

Believing his son dead, Ōgami continues his mission, drawing ever closer to the traitor Lord who has chosen to rebel against the Shogun and forced his most loyal retainer to hire an assassin to cleanse the honour of the Han and remind his corrupted comrades of the purity of the beliefs they have forsaken…

His task accomplished, the assassin is replaced by the grieving father, but there is a miracle awaiting the weary warrior on his path to hell…

‘Tragic O-Sue’ begins as Daigoro gets into a fight with older children. When he wounds the son of the local Lord he is arrested and savagely beaten until the Lord realises the silent child is the son of the infamous and terrifying Lone Wolf.

ÅŒgami meanwhile is semi-conscious in a deserted temple, recovering from the fever and wounds earned during his last job. As he struggles back to health and sanity, little Daigoro is locked up with only the lowliest servant of the great house caring whether he lives or dies.

When the O-Sue’s charity is discovered, the Lord – convinced ÅŒgami has been sent to kill him – deals brutally with her and nearly dies for his callous brutality when enraged Daigoro escapes. Following the fugitive boy though the snow, the Lord intends to find the hidden assassin but doesn’t survive the success of his plan…

Delving deeply into Buddhist lore, ‘The Gateless Barrier’ sees ÅŒgami travel to desolate Wolf Mountain in search of spiritual clarity. However, although the animal predators find a way to live in harmony with him, his fellow humans are not so inclined. Cleansed and prepared, ÅŒgami proceeds with his latest job…

Strife between church and state over taxes in a famine-afflicted Han leads civil officials to hire the assassin to kill a “living Buddha” stirring up trouble. Before he can succeed in this sacrilegious assignment, however, the Wolf must be schooled in the proper procedures… by his victim…

This potently beautiful compendium of philosophic bloodletting concludes with an absorbing and fabulously off-kilter mystery as a highborn Samurai woman turned prostitute (a licensed and regulated profession in the Tokugawa Shogunate) proudly ends her life.

Elsewhere at the same time, the high-living head of the Han secretariat and his wife are murdered in almost impossible circumstances. Beside their bodies is a local blossom known as the ‘Winter Flower’ and the local criminal investigator wonders if there can be any connection. When an informant reveals that one of the prostitute’s last clients was a wandering ronin pushing a baby carriage, wheels begin to turn in the mind of the inspector…

Solid police work leads to a ramshackle hut in temple grounds, but the battalion of deputies and soldiers are loath to storm the shack since the local priest warned them that the warrior inside is dying of a highly contagious and revolting disease…

As metsuke (Police Inspector/Regional Spy Chief) Takariki Jinbei shouts through the closed door, the dying assassin tells him the shameful, shocking reasons the Han Chief and his bride had to die before igniting the hut and ending his tortured existence…

However, the metsuke is a remarkably astute, honourable and dedicated man. Seeing Daigoro, he wonders if he can trust his eyes and returns later: a move that results in a most enlightening confrontation with the devious Ōgami…

These stories are deeply metaphorical and work on a number of levels most of us Westerners just can’t grasp on first reading – even with the contextual help provided by bonus features such as the copious Glossary, providing detailed clarification and context on the terms used in the stories.

That only makes them more exotic and fascinating. Also, a little unsettling is the even-handed treatment of women in the tales. Within the confines of the incredibly stratified culture being depicted, females – from servants to courtesans, prostitutes to highborn ladies – are all fully-rounded characters, with their own motivations and drives. ÅŒgami’s female allies are valiant and dependable, and his foes, whether ultimate targets or mere enemy combatants in his path, are treated with professional respect by the Lone Wolf. He kills them just as if they were men…

A breathtaking tour de force, these are comics classics you simply must read.
© 1995, 2000 Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima. Cover art © 2000 Frank Miller. All other material © 2000 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Shadow volume 2: Revolution


By Victor Gischler, Jack Herbert, Aaron Campbell, Giovanni Timpano & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-361-2

In the early 1930s, The Shadow gave thrill-starved readers their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced pulp periodical novels, and over the mood-drenched airwaves, through his own radio show.

“Pulps” were published in every style and genre in their hundreds every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire, but for exotic or esoteric adventure-lovers there were two star who outshone all others. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, whilst the premier dark, relentless creature of the night dispensing terrifying grim justice was the putative hero under discussion here.

Radio series Detective Story Hour – based on stand-alone yarns from the Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine – used a spooky voiced narrator (variously Orson Welles, James LaCurto or Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale. He was dubbed “the Shadow” and from the very start on July 31st 1930, he was more popular than the stories he highlighted.

The Shadow evolved into a proactive hero solving instead of narrating mysteries and, on April 1st 1931, began starring in his own printed pulp series, written by the incredibly prolific Walter Gibson under the house pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie motto “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!” ringing out unforgettably over the nation’s airwaves.

Over the next eighteen years 325 novels were published, usually at the rate of two a month. The uncanny crusader spawned comicbooks, seven movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a superstar brand.

The pulp series officially ended in 1949 although Gibson and others added to the canon during the 1960s when a pulp/fantasy revival gripped America, generating reprinted classic stories and a run of new adventures as paperback novels.

In graphic terms The Shadow was a major player. His national newspaper strip – by Vernon Greene – launched on June 17th 1940 and when comicbooks really took off the Man of Mystery had his own four-colour title; running from March 1940 to September 1949.

Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary comicbook in 1964-1965 under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint, by Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, John Rosenberger and latterly Paul Reinman; and in 1973 DC acquired the rights to produce a captivating, brief and definitive series of classic comic adventures unlike any other superhero title then on the stands.

DC periodically revived the venerable vigilante. After the runaway success of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman, Howard Chaykin was allowed to utterly overhaul the vintage feature. This led to further, adult-oriented iterations (and even one cracking outing from Marvel) before Dark Horse assumed the license of the quintessential grim avenger for the latter half of the 1990s and beyond.

Dynamite Entertainment picked up the option in 2011 and, whilst republishing many of those other publisher’s earlier efforts, began a series of new monthly Shadow comics.

Set in the turbulent 1930s and war years that followed, these were crafted by some of the top writers in the industry, each taking their shot at the immortal legend, and all winningly depicted by a succession of extremely gifted illustrators.

This second volume – collecting #7-12 of the monthly comicbook from 2013 – comes courtesy of Victor Gischler (Gun Monkeys, Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, Kiss Me Satan), again throwing a spotlight on the increasing deadly geopolitics of a civilisation sliding inexorably into another World War….

His scripts were variously realised by Jack Herbert, Aaron Campbell, Giovanni Timpano, Ivan Nunes & Carlos Lopez, and the action opens with a self-contained prelude that begins with the Master of the Macabre suffering from uncharacteristic bad dreams…

Very few people know that the black-cloaked fist of final retribution known as The Shadow masquerades by day as abrasive, indolent playboy Lamont Cranston. Most are agents in his employ and they are all aware of his semi-mystical abilities to detect thoughts and cloud the minds of men, but not that in the past few days those abilities have seemingly waned and led to the death of an innocent…

Engaging veteran Great War pilot Miles Crofton, Cranston embarks on a journey to the Himalayan region where he long ago studied under august adepts of the arcane. However, his voyage is interrupted in Nepal when he encounters a brutal bandit leader dubbed Red Raja. This thuggish crimelord seems to have powers and abilities similar and equal to his own…

Eschewing immediate confrontation, Cranston delves deep into the past and eventually learns the Raja also studied with the esoteric “Masters”. Tragically, when his innate evil nature forced them to expel him, the student returned with men and guns; wiping out the entire enclave of puissant accumulated knowledge…

Armed with information and fuelled by righteous fury, The Shadow then assaults Red Raja’s fortress, single-handedly eradicating his army of rogues before enacting final judgement…

Weeks later, vacationing in Paris whilst Miles has their plane repaired, the restless Shadow passes his time hunting down human predators and becomes emotionally embroiled in a missing persons case.

The trail leads to a grand soiree at the Spanish Embassy where Cranston makes a particular splash with the assorted dignitaries and persons of wealth and high station, particularly after loudly declaring that he is an arms dealer with product to sell.

It is 1937 and the civil war in Spain has all but stalled, with both sides afflicted by attrition and exhaustion…

Horrified Ambassador Ramirez is only too happy to fob off the tiresome Cranston on his military attaché. As soon as he sees the devastating Major Esmeralda Aguilar, the Shadow knows she is no ordinary woman…

The swaggering millionaire is only too eager to ditch the stuffy party with the exotic spy, but their intimate drive through the City of Lights is almost ended by a machine gun attack. Then Cranston discovers just how dangerous his companion truly is…

The next day Miles resurfaces with news on a freighter full of munitions headed for Spain and the final clue to the disappearances the Shadow has been investigating. Even with mental faculties and powers diminished and compromised, the Dark Avenger is clear on where his next destination lies…

Intercepting the gunrunners as they seek to offload their illicit cargo at a Spanish port, the Shadow dispenses his brand of justice before vanishing, and twelve hours later Lamont Cranston arrives in Barcelona, unsure of what trick of fate or his own subconscious has brought him there.

His mystically-attuned senses go into overdrive once he meets an inoffensive British volunteer in the Socialist Brigade calling himself “George Orwell”…

After befriending the oddly magnetic militiaman, Cranston excuses himself and resumes his trail of guns whilst Orwell returns to his unit in Aragon. Diligent hunting takes the Shadow to a warehouse where a gang led by a masked woman named Black Sparrow are attempting to sell the munitions to representatives of the underworld.

When the crooks try a double-cross they are savagely wiped out by the Sparrow as her men stand idly by, and from his hidden vantage point the Shadow realises just how extraordinary Major Aguilar truly is…

Soon the Avenger is risking spectacular airborne death; chasing her back to an ancient castle in the Aragon Region where he uncovers a bold scheme by an international cabal to place a third ruler on the throne of Spain. Of course, when he blazes in to end the conspiracy, Cranston finds more than he bargained for.

“El Rey” is far from the dominating despot he appears, and the true mastermind behind the plot is far more of a match for the Shadow than the grim guardian could possibly have anticipated.

And that’s when fate reveals the potential value of a certain nondescript British soldier of ideology and fortune…

This historically-flavoured jaunt then concludes with one last hurrah as Miles and Cranston belatedly return to New York just in time for the Shadow to fixate on a gang of ruthless bank robbers terrorising the city with their bold and lethal raids.

Broaching his contacts on the police force and rampaging through the ranks of the underworld, the Shadow turns the city upside down until at last a grudging tip takes him to a certain Chinatown whorehouse where a most exotic creature provides all the details he need to exact his vengeance on the guilty.

Now all that remains is to trigger the bloody end…

Dynamite publish periodicals with a vast array of cover variants and here a vast gallery features dozens of iconic alternate visions from Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Darwyn Cooke, Francesco Francavilla, Tim Bradstreet, Mike Mayhew, Michael Golden, Jack Herbert and Sean Chen to delight any art lover’s eyes and heart.

Sardonic, uncompromising and packed with subtle nuance, Revolution is a superb addition to the annals of the quintessential Dark Knight, and one no one addicted to action and mystery should be without.
The Shadow ® & © 2013 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. d/b/a Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

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Growing Up in Public


By Ezequiel García (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-936-3

With the acceptance of graphic novels as a valid and worthy form of entertainment and mature expression has come a welcome flowering of personal stories and authorial voices blending unique – and literal – visions with perspectives far removed from our cosy own.

After all, potent and evocative as they might be, the graphic observations and conclusions of a Harvey Pekar or Eddie Campbell still resonate with shared concerns, experiences and ideologies for most English-speaking, western-reared readers from Britain, the USA, Canada, New Zealand or Australia.

Such a view just can’t be taken when absorbing the pictorial ruminations of equally brilliant and driven artisans from countries with differing historical, socio-cultural, linguistic and even artistic world views.

That kind of revelatory exotic intimacy can be found in Growing up in Public, the latest cartoon epistle from Argentinean artist and cartoonist Ezequiel García as he contemplates his achievements, total lack of success or celebrity and place in the world following his thirtieth birthday…

Born in 1975, García studied under Argentinean comics legend Alberto Breccia whilst co-editing several comics anthologies and trying his hands at other forms of artistic expression. Growing up in troubled times in a country that has always taken culture, heritage and the arts seriously, he has had short works appear in comics magazines in Europe and South America.

He won the comics award at Brazil’s Salon del Humor de Piracicaba in 2000, and his first graphic novel Turning 30 was released in Argentina in 2007. In recent years, Garcia has served as a comics teacher, art gallery curator, and co-organizer of the Festival Increible de Historietas, Fanzines y Afines whilst labouring on this eclectic, far-ranging, intimate, polemical and engaging reminiscence.

In a free-wheeling, affectingly immersive, starkly black-&-white outpouring, Ezequiel introduces us to his world at a certain point in his life. A struggling artist, the author derives much of his inspiration from the history, music and architectural heritage of Buenos Aires. Here, however, as he struggles to find a publisher for his comics, galleries to exhibit his other art, women to sleep with and someone special to love, his attentions are increasingly distracted by the ongoing destruction of all he cherishes as big banks and foreign businesses take over, rebuild and desecrate the magnificent dance palaces, film theatres and civic buildings which were the landmarks and milestones of his childhood…

In truth the entire city is under threat of losing its identity as money and encroaching corporate globalisation seeps in, buying off officials and easily circumventing the legal protections supposedly safeguarding these edifices for the nation…

Most galling of all is Ezequiel’s quest for creative acceptance. He’s getting some traction, but as he and his friends visit show after show, he’s starting to feel that the art world only wants to reward shallow charlatans regurgitating old or devalued concepts and no longer has room or respect for toil, craftsmanship and honest searches for truth…

He feels equally powerless to change his personal situation. Ezequiel has no trouble meeting women, but really wants a girlfriend and just can’t decide on which one to get serious with…

The most potent temptation of autobiographical comics is the total autonomy the exercise grants. In the midst of his collation of linked episodes and hope-filled introspections highlighting the aggravating, mundane or personally significant, García takes the opportunity to radically depart from his prescribed path to interweave a psychedelic, emotionally overcharged diversion.

As he is drawn into a late-night church meeting after reading Moby Dick, he is transported to mind-boggling flights of fancy as the firebrand cleric ranting conflates Melville’s tale with the biblical example of Jonah; resulting in a stunning visual tornado of iconic idolatrous revelation…

And then reality returns and he goes back to his catalogue of disaffection. As he endures more and more of the same the increasingly uncomfortable thirty-someone reaches a crisis in his romantic stalemates and decides it’s time to make decisions and changes in his life…

As previously stated, music plays a great part in the author’s life, and song lyrics – in Spanish – are woven into almost every page of García’s fiercely expressionistic art like street art or a graffiti Greek Chorus. Don’t fret however, as a full compliment of ‘Song Translations’ featuring all those mood-enhancing lines is included in the Bonus Section, which also includes a page of the artists ‘Inspiration’ sources as well as ‘Notes’ offering context and commentary on the story.

Powerful, uncompromising, mesmerising and unforgettable, this is a superb peek at life’s unchanging verities through fresh and expressive eyes and one all lovers of comics as art should seek out.
© 2016 Ezequiel García. Design © 2016 Fantagraphics. Translation © 2016 Ezequiel García. All rights reserved.

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Black River


By Josh Simmons (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-833-5

After far too long way, cartoonist Josh Simmons (House, Jessica Farm, The Furry Trap) returns with another masterfully monochrome comics epic: a poetically potent, visually enthralling, ferociously challenging tale some might reasonably call a horror story.

However, despite its post-apocalyptic setting and milieu and constantly rising death-toll, Black River has more in common with the arduous privations and torturous trials of endurance and personal choice typical of a Jack London adventure novel than a slasher flick, serial killer slaughter or even last ditch stand against the zombie horde du jour.

Sacrificing plot to concentrate on character and experience, the story details how a band of people roam the wastes of Earth after the world ends.

Incessantly moving forward, the motley mixed-up band of strangers hunt for scarce supplies in wrecked cities and outpost; staying one step ahead of whatever destroyed civilisation. Of course, even as they wearily trudge the length of the continent, scavenging for necessities – and even occasional, instantly abused luxuries like booze and drugs – they cannot stop madness finding them or death from picking them off one by one.

Their years-long nomadic perambulation takes an even darker turn after they are all captured by a marauding band led by a charismatic sociopath called Benji. These brutes have reverted to little more than true beasts, but solitary, traumatised Shauna endures the worst atrocities they can commit before lethally turning the tables on them and leading the now solely female group back out into the wilds again.

Years pass, battles are fought and the group thins as life winnows them down to nothing…

Simmons doesn’t offer answers or explanations: this epic trek of unrelieved toil and raw survivalism is truly all about the journey and what happens next as the ever-shifting cast of desperately determined humans take life one day at a time, one step after another until the inescapable end comes…

Black River is bleak, unrelenting and morbid, but Simmons is a fantastically perceptive creator and realises that even in such an existence, there must be moments of rude hilarity or short-lived contentment and even unexpected joy to balance the constant fight for one more day…

A saga of grim attrition in a world without hope, Black River perfectly displays the best and worst of human nature and is a tale which, once read, will never be forgotten…
© 2015 Josh Simmons. This edition © 2015 Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

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Mystery Girl volume 1


By Paul Tobin, Alberto J. Albuquerque, Marissa Louise & Marshall Dillon (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-959-5

There’s a fabulous wave of smart, entertaining stand-alone comics on the market these days, offering readers a single uncomplicated hit of graphic entertainment without the grief of buying into massive back-history or infinite cross-continuity.

One of the best I’ve seen recently is the compilation of a fierce, frenetic and funny debut 4-issue miniseries from 2015, starring the most infallible detective of all time.

As crafted by Paul Tobin (Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, Plants vs. Zombies, Bandette, Colder) and Alberto J. Albuquerque (Letter 44) – with colours by Marissa Louise and letters from Marshall Dillon – this slim, sleek, slick yarn seems certain to lead to more enigmas excitingly unravelled in our immediate future…

Like any ancient city, London has its fair share of unique characters and unsolved mysteries, but that’s never the case whenever Trine Dorothy Hampstead sets up her “office” on the pavements and begins chatting…

The effusive, ebullient young woman has an incredible gift. She knows the answer to any question she’s asked. Instantly and infallibly. “Where are my keys?” “Did Dad leave a will?” “Where is my son’s body?”

All inquiries get an instant response and every answer is correct…

Trine is a local celebrity in her community, not only for the fact that she’s never judgemental or exploits her gift, but also because everyone knows there’s only one mystery the poor lass can’t solve: how she got her uncanny power…

Trine has an immense taste for life at full throttle and abiding desire to help those in need: regularly consulting with local private eye Alfie and aiding her perpetually sceptical boyfriend – and Metropolitan police constable – Ken Bloke in his work, even though he refuses to believe in her gift…

Her already extraordinary life takes a big step into the unknown when ancient DNA specialist Jovie Ghislain comes to Trine with a fascinating query. The biologist has been researching a 1930’s expedition to the wild Sakha region of Siberia. In the notes of the fabled Weimar-Steinberg trek, the explorers detail how they uncovered a frozen mammoth carcass so perfectly preserved that the meat was still fresh and edible.

The records are tragically incomplete and Ghislain – desperate to secure viable DNA from the deceased giant – wants to know where the rest of the body is now…

The answer is not immediately forthcoming. In fact Trine refuses to say anything unless she can join Jovie’s excursion and personally show the scientists where it is.

Trine thrives on new experiences and this time her gift has paid a huge dividend. As preparations are made, she shrugs off all questions from friends and acquaintances but does confide in her pet budgie Candide. The reason that mammoth meat was so fresh is obvious. It hadn’t been dead long. Now she’s off to see its kin in the only place on earth where the mighty beasts still live…

Sadly, the original expedition and its journals are also the subject of a search by wealthy and far less friendly folk. However, when a mystery billionaire commissions a psychopathic hitman to find all the original journals and stop the new expedition, even the deadly Linford is taken with Trine. Foregoing his usual callous efficiency, the murdering mercenary takes his time, insinuating himself into the life of all her friends. It’s all working out fine until the Mystery Girl is asked about her pal’s latest boyfriend and suddenly she knows all about the new beau, including his real profession…

Hampstead’s plan to deal with him is shockingly effective, but doesn’t go nearly far enough…

Believing the coast clear, Trine and Jovie head for the Arctic Circle, blissfully unaware that their trail is being dogged by Linford’s sinister paymaster and that the killer himself is down but not out. Instead he has devised a cunning method to turn his opponent’s gift against her…

Yet again, however, the obsessive hitman has underestimated Trine’s power, ingenuity and ruthless resolve but when finesse fails at least he can always fall back on overwhelming firepower and direct action…

With the explorers nearing their frozen El Dorado, the bad guys make their move, revealing what’s actually behind all the death and destruction. Now it no longer matters if Trine is asked the right question or not…

As the ghastly true story of the Weimar-Steinberg expedition is exposed, their heirs and inheritors will prove willing to commit mass murder to keep the bloody secret covered up, but Trine asks herself a different question and a life-saving solution pops into her head…

Fast-paced, spectacularly action-packed, witty and superbly balanced as hero and villain play cat-&-mouse around the world, Mystery Girl is a funny, imaginative, brutally uncompromising introduction to a potent and engaging new female character who seems destined for greatness.

Also included are fascinating bonus features including a copious and heavily annotated Sketchbook section with commentary from Tobin and Albuquerque, concept to finished art examples, cover roughs and designs and unused cover art, revealing the masses of effort that went into making this one of the best character debuts of the year.

Don’t ask why you weren’t in at the beginning of her climb to stardom: get Mystery Girl and become someone with (some of) the answers…
Mystery Girl™ & © 2015, 2016 Paul Tobin and Alberto J. Albuquerque. Mystery Girl™ and all prominently featured characters are trademarks of Paul Tobin and Alberto J. Albuquerque.

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Time Clock


By Leslie Stein (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-930-1

Help Wanted: Girl cartoonist seeks meaning of contemporary existence and like-minded individuals to share bewilderment and revelations with.

Interests/Hobbies include: drinking, counting sand, growing stuff, antiquing for pop culture “trash”, drinking, meaningful conversations with musical instruments, playing board games with same, recreational herbal intoxicants, reminiscing about wild-times with gal-pals and old cronies, drinking, visiting difficult relatives.

Employment: unwanted but regrettably necessary. Although not native to the Big City, is extremely adaptable and will do anything – unless it’s hard, boring or she sucks at it…

After graduating from the New York School of Visual Arts, Leslie Stein began producing astonishingly addictive cartoon strips in the self-published Yeah, It Is. Winning a Xeric Grant for her efforts, she then started an even better comicbook entitled Eye of the Majestic Creature: blending autobiographical self-discovery, surreal free-association, philosophical ruminations, nostalgic reminiscences and devastatingly dry wit to describe modern life as filtered through her seductive meta-fictional interior landscape. She is a creator who sees things as they really aren’t, but makes them authentic and even desirable to anyone willing to pay attention…

This long-awaited third volume resumes Stein’s airy, eccentric and engaging pictorial mood-music as her mythologized autobiography continues to reveal the history and ambitions (for want of a better term) of Larrybear – a girl deliberately and determinedly on her own, trying to establish her uniquely singular way of getting by.

Eschewing chronological narrative for an easy, breezy raconteur’s epigrammatic delivery, illustrated in loose, free-flowing line-work, detailed stippling, hypnotic pattern-building or even honest-to-gosh representational line-drawing, Stein operates under the credo of “whatever works, works” – and she’s not wrong…

Larrybear makes friends easily: bums, winos, weirdoes, dropouts, misfits, non-English-speaking co-workers and especially inanimate objects. Her bestest buddy is her talking guitar/flatmate Marshmallow, one of the many odd fellow travellers who all aggregate around her, briefly sharing her outré interests and latest dreams.

However Larrybear doesn’t want an average life, just more experiences, less hassle and affable companions to share it all with.

This latest graphic dinner party starts with another Friday at work. After scrupulously completing her wage-slave tasks, she heads off to show her latest creation at the long-awaited Sand Counters Convention.

The guy at the next table next is annoying but okay, and she’s touched when venerable old Sand Counter Henry Peet admires her work but, after seeing über-stylist Tim Heerling swanking and lapping up the adulation of the audience, she is mysteriously moved and decides that now she has a new nemesis…

And in the meantime, stay-at-home stringed instrument Marshmallow – feeling unfulfilled – takes up baking to shorten the incessant loneliness…

A second untitled segment then finds Larrybear hanging out with old pal Boris, sharing stories and intoxicants, but still blithely unaware of how he feels about her…

After months of prevaricating, and whilst still enduring dreams about that Heerling guy, our aimless star finally relocates to the countryside where she, Marshmallow and the rest of her animated instrument collection enjoy a life of bucolic fulfilment and idle contemplation until they can’t stand it any more…

This superbly quirky diversion then concludes with ‘Boy’ as Larrybear learns that living miles from the nearest bar and being unable to drive is severely impacting her drinking time, whilst having competition-quality sand delivered is a huge mistake…

All too soon however, she’s back in her natural environment, dealing booze to drunks and sharing their buzz, just as the biggest storm in living memory threatens to close up the city…

All delivered in a mesmerising, oversized (292 x 204 mm) monochrome package, these incisive, absurdist, whimsically charming and visually intoxicating invitations into a singularly creative mind and fabulous alternative reality offer truly memorable walks on the wild side. For a gloriously rewarding and exceptionally enticing cartoon experience – one no serious fan of fun and narrative art can afford to miss – you simply must spend a few hours with a Time Clock.
© 2016 Leslie Stein. All rights reserved.