Mature Reading – Page 53

March 6, 2015March 5, 2015

Ofelia – A Love and Rockets Book

By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-806-9

Please pay attention: this book contains stories and images of an extremely adult nature, specifically designed for consumption by mature readers as well as the kind of coarse and vulgar language that most kids are fluent in by the age of ten.

If reading about such things will offend you, please stop now and go away. Tomorrow I’ll do something with violence and explosions, so come back then.

In addition to being part of the graphic literary revolution that is Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly compulsive tales of Palomar gained vast critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced stand-alone tales such as Sloth, Grip and Girl Crazy, all marked by his bold, instinctive, simplified line artwork and a mature, sensitive use of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel GarcÃa MÃ¡rquez: techniques which he has added to and made his own.

Love and Rockets – by Gilbert and his brothers Jaime and Mario – was/is an anthology comics publication featuring slick, intriguing, sci-fi-ish larks, heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies, manic monster stories and bold experimental comic narratives that pretty much defy classification. To this day the synthesistic Hernandez boys continue to captivate with incredible stories that sample a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Archie Comics and alternative music to German Expressionism and masked wrestlers.

Created for extended serial Heartbreak Soup, Palomar was a conceptual playground and cultural toybox; an impoverished Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. Everything from life, death, adultery, alien infiltration, magic making, hauntings, serial-killing and especially gossip happened in its meta-fictional environs as Gilbert plundered his own post-punk influences – comics, music, drugs, comics, strong women, gangs, sex, family and comics – in a style informed by everything from Tarzan strips to Saturday morning cartoons and The Lucy Show.

Beto, as he signs himself, returns to Palomar constantly, usually with tales involving the formidable matriarch Luba, who ran the village’s bath house and cinema, acted as Mayor and sometimes law enforcer – as well as adding regularly and copiously to the general population. Her children, brought up with no acknowledged fathers in sight, are Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira, Socorro, Joselito and Conchita.

Luba is a character who defies easy description and I don’t actually want to: As one of the most complex women in literature, let alone comics, she’s somebody you want to experience, not learn of second-hand. You will certainly notice that she has absolutely enormous breasts. Deal with it. These stories are casually, graphically, sexually explicit, and appalling violence is also never far from the players lives.

Luba’s story is about Life, and sex and death happen, constantly and often, usually to and with the wrong people at the wrong time. If harsh language and cartoon nudity (male and female) are an insurmountable problem for you, don’t read these tales; but it is genuinely your loss.

Throughout all those eventful years, normally always in the background and frequently sidelined, was Luba’s cousin Ofelia; babysitter, surrogate mum, confidante, family conscience and keen – if not so detached – observerâ€¦

After a run of spectacular stories (all of which have been collected in a variety of formats and editions which I really must get around to reviewing), the first incarnation of Love and Rockets ended. Luba and her extended family graduated to a succession of mini-series which concentrated on her moving to the USA and reuniting with her half-sisters Rosalba (â€œFritzâ€) and Petra Martinez. The tone and content ranged from surreal to sad to funny to thrilling. The entire world can be found in these pages.

Although in an ideal world you would read that aforementioned older material first, there’s absolutely no need to. Reminiscence and memory are as much a part of this potent passion-play as family feeling, music, infidelity, survival, punk rock philosophy, and laughter – lots and lots of laughter.

Brilliantly illustrated, these are human tales as coarse and earthy any as any of Chaucer’s Pilgrims could tell, as varied and appetising as any of Boccaccio’s Decameron and as universally human as the best of that bloke Shakespeare.

This latest monochrome family album sees sidebar â€œsisterâ€ Ofelia notionally promoted to headliner, compiled from assorted material first seen in Luba #3-9, Luba’s Comics and Stories #2-5 and Measles #3 and, following a crucial pictorial reintroduction to ‘Luba’s Family’, the ever-unfolding saga resumes with ‘Remember Me’ as the youngest kids swap tales about the fathers they have never known.

After ‘Luba and the Little Ones’ finds the ferocious matron calming down her very excitable progeny, ‘Socorroâ€¦’ details that girl’s educational problems. Apparently she is too smart and the teachers want her transferred to a special schoolâ€¦

‘The Book of Ofelia Part One’ sees Luba and her mute, maimed and possibly ex-gangster husband Khamo reeling from the news that their faithful major domo is considering writing a book based on her cousin’s drama-drenched life. With friction mounting, the frustrated author and perennial babysitter casts her mind back to Palomar where she sacrificed her relationship with lover Rico (â€œcall me Ooliâ€) to raise a wild toddler called Luba.

Back in the now, wise-beyond-her-years Casimira knows her quiet guardian is in contact with an old flame on the internetâ€¦

‘The Book of Ofelia Part Two’ expands on the theme as the prospective writer recalls the years of fighting with her wilful almost elemental charge whilst pondering a too-long deferred decisionâ€¦

‘Spot Marks the Ex’ then exposes more family scandals as entrepreneur Pipo tries to get rid of her former husband Gato and deal with the ongoing problems caused by Luba’s daughter Doralis.

The teen-star of Pipo’s popular Spanish-language kid’s show plans to come out as a lesbian, much to the sponsors’ horror; someone at the studio is giving the newspapers salacious scandals for their holier-than-thou gossip pages and her beloved son Sergio Jimenez (a soccer superstar and celebrity bad boy) is having an affair with Fritz Martinez – the very woman Pipo cannot get out of her own oversexed mindâ€¦

Fritz is a terrifyingly complex creature, a psychiatrist, therapist, B-Movie actress, belly dancer, amorous drunk, gun-fetishist, sexually aggressive and a manipulative serial spouse. Beautiful, enticingly emotionally damaged, her â€œhigh soft lispâ€ more likely an affectation than genuine speech impediment, she sashays from crisis to triumph and back again, and almost everybody who wants hers can apparently have her – except increasingly impatient Pipoâ€¦

Moreover, as strident accountant Boots signs on to save Pipo’s company, the stressed and busy businesswoman begins to suspect Sergio and his stepfather Gato have some strange connection and are up to no goodâ€¦

‘El Show Super Duper Sensacional Fantastico de Doralis’ reveals the controversial gay star’s story of the irresistibly beguiling merfolk who live in secret amongst us, after which ‘Snail Trail’ introduces a well-meaning young man named Hector who rescues Socorro and Joselito after they steal and crash a car.

He sees and is instantly enchanted by their Tia (that’s Aunt in Spanish, hombre) Fritz in ‘Bromear’ and in ‘Meeting Cute, Fucking Cuter’ falls hopelessly for the sexual predator: so much so, in fact, that he agrees to her request to date her quirky, buff, bodybuilding older sister Petra, thus leaving Fritz free for a sordid secret affair with toyboy acquaintance Sergioâ€¦

Sadly, whipped Hector finds he has more in common with Petra’s little daughter Venus. They both love the same comicbooks, movies and music and she doesn’t make him do things he’d rather notâ€¦

A garden party bids ‘Buen Viaje, Socorro’ and sees the smart girl’s last family fun before heading off to smart kid boarding school, after which ‘Luba One’ finds the downhearted mum dragged to fetish party by Fritz and Pipo where she finds blonde sex god Fortunato: a man no woman can resist and a perfect lover who derives no joy from his amatory conquestsâ€¦

Boots, mindful of the merman legend, speculates on his origins in ‘The Fortunato Files’ after which ‘The Goddess and the Goof’ finds Hector finally capitulating to pressure and taking gloriously gorgeous, Amazonian Petra out only to discover she is every inch as bewitching and satisfying as her sister. Conflicted by a surfeit of physical riches he ponders a big decisionâ€¦

After a little dance madness in ‘El Biale’, Venus and Doralis share a moment with one of the fallen star’s fans in ‘The Glamorous Life’ whilst ‘Boots Takes the Case’ has the tenacious little accountant assume a larger role. With Gato exposed as the source of the leaks and sorrowfully reaping his reward in ‘And Soâ€¦’, Boots then proceeds to worm out more secrets in ‘Kisses for Pipo’; appraising key moments since the entrepreneur entered America as a teen, disclosing her past interactions with Sergio, Gato (and his current wife Guadalupe), Fortunato and Pipo’s latest fling Igorâ€¦

‘In Bed With Pipo’ targets her bizarrely twisted relationship with gun-obsessed Fritz, the men they occasionally share and a terrifying past experience when both were stranded in a country in the midst of an anti-Christian genocideâ€¦

Revelations include the horrific tale of how High-School junior Rosalba fell into an abusive relationship with a middle-aged cop, offering telling insights for her modern personasâ€¦

‘Luba Two’ delves deep into Khamo’s off-kilter arrangements with both cops and drug dealers whilst – after surreal sight-gag ‘Uno Dos Tres’ – ‘The New Adventures of Venus’ proves that the latest generation can be just as determined and violently forceful. When the little comics lover discovers her best friend is a potential romantic rival, Venus takes excessive punitive action on the soccer fieldâ€¦

With the entire world on tenterhooks as a colossal meteor heads towards Earth, Fritz’s exploitative ex-husband Scott gets up to his old tricks in ‘The Beloved and the Damned’. He couldn’t have expected the savage beating a mysterious stranger delivers after ripping off kickboxing Petra’s baby sister though.

Unfortunately the Avenger in question gets a taste for vigilantism and begins looking for other jerks in need of straightening outâ€¦

Khamo’s underworld connections then lead to a disquieting abduction and ‘Luba’s Science Lesson’ before ever-more conflicted Hector returns, still unable to choose between Petra and Fritz but currently distracted by his ex-girlfriend taking him to court as part of a whacko ploy to get him back in ‘And Justice for Some’.

That plan goes badly wrong when a stranger beats her to a pulp in the parking lot of the strip club she works atâ€¦

Boot’s ongoing investigations resurface as she explains ‘The Tao of Doralis’ before a very stoned ‘Hector‘ rescues non-English-speaking Luba from a bar, leading into flashbacks of ‘Khamo’ and her early days. That long, weird walk home also delivers more revelations about the enigmatic Fortunato before Luba and her taciturn husband at last reconcile in ‘Lovers and Hector’â€¦

Events then take a dark turn in ‘Sergio Rocks’ as the wild child is targeted by gangster gamblers even as belly-dancing novice ‘Guadalupe’ strives to escape the overwhelming influence of her charismatic Tia Fritzâ€¦

Receding Ofelia resurfaces in ‘Luba Again’ as the cousins bitterly and violently argue over the proposed warts-and-all book and, after visual aside ‘Click!’, the determined author visits Socorro in ‘La Luba’ whilst long ostracised Maricela has a rather one-sided chat with step-dad Khamo in ‘Burning for You’â€¦

‘Pipo’s Burden’ revisits her still-growing obsession with Fritz whilst ‘Of Two Minds’ highlights Hector’s suspicions when he attends one of Petra’s boxing bouts and Fortunato works his magic on schoolteacher Guadalupe and Ofelia in ‘But the Little Girls Understand’ after which ‘Luba Three’ ushers in the beginning of the end of this family’s affairsâ€¦

‘Fritz and Pipo, Sittin’ in a Tree’ finds Sergio growing aggressively intolerant of his mother’s dilemma whilst still making casual use of Fritz himself. Soon the still-active vigilante has hospitalised the entrepreneur, and more tragedy strikes when Ofelia has a heart attack in ‘God Willing’â€¦

Once the violence begins it seems impossible to stop and in ‘Luba Four’ the so-dysfunctional family splinters even further when an abduction and punishment beating goes too farâ€¦

I’m certainly more obtuse – just plain dense or blinkered – than most, but for years I thought this stuff was all about the force of Family Ties, but it’s not: at least not fundamentally. Palomar is about love. Not the sappy one-sided happy-ever-after stuff in chick-flicks, but LOVE, that mighty, hungry beast that makes you instinctively protect the child that betrays you, that has you look for a better partner whilst you’re in the arms of your one true love, and hate the place you wanted to live in all your life. The love of cars and hair-cuts and biscuits and paper-cuts and stray cats that bite you: selfish, self-sacrificing, dutiful, urgent, patient, uncomprehending, a feeling beyond words. A Love that can hurt and even killâ€¦

A bit like the love of a great comicâ€¦

Funny, deeply moving, compelling and deftly capable of delivering shock after breathtaking shock, Ofelia is remarkable and unmissable: no true fan of the medium can afford to forego this treat.
All contents Â© 2015 Gilbert Hernandez. This edition Â© 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

March 5, 2015March 3, 2015

The Chronicles of Legion volume 1: Rise of the Vampires

By Fabien Nury, Mathieu Lauffray, Mario Alberti, Zhang Xiaoyu & Tirso , translated by Virgine Selavy (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-093-1

We’ve all been in love with vampires since the golden age of Victorian Gothic and it’s taken the undead in some extremely odd directions (I personally draw the line at sparkly, immortal kissy-face boy-toys, but to each his own)…

Thankfully our European cousins have a more sanguine view of such matters and innate respect for tradition even when they reinterpret the old classics. Prolific writer Fabien Nury (Stalin’s Death: A Real Soviet History, Once Upon a Time in France, The Master of Benson Gate, Necromancy as well as the epic Je Suis LÃ©gion with John Cassaday) began in 2011 a generational saga which put a new spin on the legend whilst keeping a steady eye on the tone of what has gone beforeâ€¦

Les Chroniques de Legion was illustrated by round-robin art-team Mathieu (Star Wars, Long John Silver) Lauffray, Mario (Nathan Never, Morgana, assorted DC covers) Alberti, the enigmatic Zhang Xiaoyu & Tirso Cons (Eye of the Devil, Le Manoir murmurs) and opens here (in good old English) in 1476 as barbaric warlord Vlad Tepes finally falls before the overwhelming armies of the invading Moslem horde.

His stubborn Transylvania a crushed and broken province, the infamous leader had been dragged from the arms of his favourite concubine and beheaded by exultant general Selim Bey. Working for the invaders, Vlad’s despised and treacherous brother Radu knew that the story was not over yet…

As the victorious Turk ravished his despised enemy’s beloved, Dracula’s implacable sibling rival was too late to stop his brother’s malign blood invading the Moslem’s body and eating his devout mind. In an instant Selim Bey’s was gone, overwritten by the undying Impalerâ€¦

Nor could Radu not stop the horror escaping and after â€œSelimâ€ murdered the Sultan and vanished, the Transylvanian turncoat endured all the anger and hatred of the Ottomans. Of course since his blood was just as accursed as Vlad’s, Radu’s story didn’t end with his body’s death eitherâ€¦

In 1521 Vlad was on the move once more, inhabiting the body of Gabriella Del La Fuente. This recent orphan was travelling to the New World, contracted to marry the audacious conquistador Hernan Torres. A flower of the aristocracy, her perfect beauty was only marred by the strange red mark on the back of her neck – a blemish shared with her recently-departed father Victor and a long-dead Turk named Selim Beyâ€¦

She had no idea Radu had reached the Americas first and transformed them to a hell of his own devising. The other brother had sustained his own arcane life by equally esoteric means, only in his case the intellect was scattered and diminished by the swarm of rats who consumed him for the longest timeâ€¦

In Russia in 1812, an undying warrior sprit was wearing French Hussar Armand Malachie. As Napoleon’s broken armies fled before the vengeful Cossacks, he convinced his faithful subordinates Kholya, Stern, Hartmann and Feraud to desert with him. Detouring to the Wallachian Mountains they hunted for valuable loot Armand had heard about: the Lost Treasure of Vlad Dracula Tepesâ€¦

It was all a lie. The true reason for the diversion was that Dracula sensed far-distant Radu had allowed an unprecedented atrocity to be created and the time had come to end their infinitely extended vendetta foreverâ€¦

London, 1887: elderly lawyer Morris Webster contacts friendless, antisocial clerk and gambling addict Victor Douglas Thorpe with an offer that will forever liberate the morose wastrel and ne’er-do-well from the drudgery of his impoverished Whitechapel life.

For reasons inexplicable, Thorpe has been selected by immensely rich aristocratic recluse Lord Byron Cavendish to inherit all his lands and propertiesâ€¦ upon successful conclusion of a personal interview, of courseâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Lavishly presented in an oversized (211 x 282mm) full-colour hardback, evocatively illustrated and told through contiguous strands in many concurrent times, this epic, intoxicatingly absorbing horror mosaic depicts a constant battle between two remorseless foes inextricably linked by blood to grip and delight lovers of all things dark and demonicâ€¦
The Chronicles of Legion and all contents Â© Ã‰ditions GlÃ©nat 2011. Translated edition Â© Titan Comics, 2014.

March 3, 2015March 2, 2015

King Conan volume 4: The Conqueror

By Timothy Truman, TomÃ¡s Giorello, JosÃ© Villarrubia & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-514-6

During the 1970’s the American comic book industry opened up after more than fifteen years of cautious and calcified publishing practises that had come about as a reaction to the censorious oversight of the self-inflicted Comics Code Authority. This body was created to keep the publisher’s product wholesome after the industry suffered their very own McCarthy-style Witch-hunt during the 1950s.

One of the first genres revisited was Horror/Mystery comics and from that came the pulp icon Conan the Cimmerian, via a little tale called ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ in anthology Chamber of Darkness #4 (April 1970), whose hero Starr the Slayer bore no little thematic resemblance to the Barbarian. It was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Barry Smith, a recent Marvel find, and one who was just breaking out of the company’s still-prevalent Kirby house-style.

Pulp-style Sword & Sorcery stories had been enjoying a prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings (first published in 1954) and by the 1960s a popular revival of the two-fisted fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Fritz Lieber and others were being supplemented by modern writers such as Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter who kick-started their careers with contemporary versions of man against mage. However, the undisputed grand master of the genre was Robert E. Howard.

Despite some early teething problems, including being cancelled and reinstated in the same month, the comicbook adventures of REH were as big a success as the prose yarns that led the global boom in fantasy and, latterly, the supernatural.

Conan became a huge hit; a monumental brand which saw new prose tales, movies, a TV series and cartoon show, a newspaper strip, games, toys and all the other paraphernalia of successâ€¦ and it all stemmed from the vast range of quality comics initiated by Thomas and Smith.

In Conan’s all-conquering wake Marvel developed comicbook interpretations of other Howard creations such as Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane and others. Undoubtedly the Silver and Bronze medals went to the fairly straight adaptation of King Kull of Atlantis and a rather more broadly reinterpreted Red Sonya of Rogatine.

Roy Thomas was a huge fan of the prose source material and took great pains to adapt the novels and short stories into the graphic canon, but he was also one of the top writers in his field and much of the franchise’s success devolves from his visceral grasp of the characters, which makes this particular graphic novel of particular interest.

Eventually, however, fashions changed and Marvel – having tried increasingly deviant and unsuccessful reboots of the sword-slinger – surrendered or lost the rights to the barbarian blockbuster.

The franchise was picked up by â€œIntellectual Propertiesâ€ specialists Dark Horse who eagerly took up the Howard mantle, reinvigorating the hero and his satellites with fresh adaptations of the source material crafted by a host of talented creators who could cut loose, utterly unhampered by the censorship of the Comics Code Authority which had afflicted the Marvel incarnationâ€¦

This fourth Dark Horse volume collects issues #1-6 of King Conan The Conqueror (originally published as a comicbook miniseries from February to July 2014), expanding and reinterpreting Howard’s epic Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon and opening with the warrior-emperor in his dotage relating to dutiful scribe and historian Pramis the events of the greatest crisis of his troubled reignâ€¦

What Had Gone Before: After decades of adventure-filled wandering, the Cimmerian’s travels eventually led him to the throne of the vast and prosperous kingdom of Aquilonia, but the outsider’s dream of founding a dynasty had soon stumbled as an alliance of disgruntled hereditary nobles and satellite kings plotted his downfall. To secure their ends the plotters resurrected an ancient wizard from demon-haunted Acheron through the arcane agency of a mystic gem known as The Heart of Ahriman.

With the sorcerous interventions of eldritch revenant Xaltotun, Conan was toppled and given over to his treacherous enemies. He subsequently escaped thanks to the actions of harem slave Zenobia and, on the advice of enigmatic witch Zelata that only the Heart can defeat Xaltotun, the fugitive pursued its current owner across the seas to the port of Messantia.

The saga resumes as Conan relentlessly tracks Beloso – who thinks himself the greatest thief in the world. The deposed king is constantly distracted by thoughts of Zenobia whom he had to abandon, and tragically unaware that a band of Khitan warrior-priests (like super-ninjas) hired by Aquilonian puppet-ruler Valerius are tracking him in turnâ€¦

Amongst his many careers prior to kingship, Conan had once led the most savage pirates of the age as the merciless Amra and now he inflicts himself upon former fence-turned-upstanding merchant Publio to help him find Beloso and the Heart.

Far from willing but with too much to lose, the businessman reluctantly assists his â€œguestâ€ but the effort is too little too late. By the time Conan finds his prey the thief is dead at the hands of Stygian priests (another faction with a long grudge against the barbarian) and the gem gone.

Whilst still reeling in shock and disappointment Publio’s thugs jump the Cimmerian and leave him for dead, but the betrayer fares no better after the Khitans show up looking for Conanâ€¦

The King was always exceedingly hard to kill and has merely escaped out to sea only to be captured by trading ship Venturer: a vessel which can always find room for one more galley-slave. It’s the last mistake the captain ever makes, however, as the barbarian goes berserk, sowing slaughter all about him and freeing the captives at the oars, many of whom recognise the white maniac as their former pirate lord Amraâ€¦

Before long Venturer has new masters and the liberated Black Corsairs have ferried Amra to the Stygian capital Khemi. Refusing further aid Conan infiltrates the temple city of vile snake worshippers in search of the Heart, making his way with a minimum of mayhem and penetrating the inner sanctum of arch-priest Thutothmes.

Unfortunately his furtive progress attracts the attention of seductive vampire princess Akivasha who hasn’t had a real man – in any sense – for centuriesâ€¦

Conan’s narrow escape from her clutches precipitates him into a clash with Thutothmes – who has by now secured the Heart of Ahriman – but everything is suddenly thrown into chaos when the infallible Khitans burst into the tombs determined to claim the deposed king no matter who stands in their wayâ€¦

After watching the mystic factions eviscerate each other Conan ends the last priest standing and, thanks to the efforts of a most tractable zombie who leads him out of the labyrinthine temple, makes off with the Heart. Before long the Corsairs have brought him back to his stolen kingdom and the exile is recruiting an army from his oppressed Aquilonian subjects, who have been chafing under the brutal depredations of Valeriusâ€¦

Soon the entire nation is ablaze and the plotters are sore-pressed in their own unquiet kingdoms too. Desperate, they plan to betray and sacrifice their mystic secret weapon Xaltotun, only to realise far too late that the servant has been their master for some timeâ€¦

The crisis comes to a head when the mage attempts to destroy Conan’s liberating army during a pivotal clash of implacable foes. Seeking to fuel his magics with Zenobia’s blood, Xaltotun is totally unprepared for the determination of enraged and enslaved mortals acting in concert, the eldritch opposition of the Heart and the carefully calculated vengeance of the wily Cimmerianâ€¦

Apocalyptic, bombastic and cataclysmically compelling, this is a splendid retelling of a pulp fantasy classic augmented by an insightful Afterword by adaptor Timothy Truman and a Bonus Gallery of pencil art by illustrator TomÃ¡s Giorello

This collection is a superb slice of savage escapism that any red-blooded, action-starved armchair adventurer would kill for, a superb way to enjoy some of American popular fiction’ most influential – and enjoyable – moments. They certainly deserve a prized place on your bookshelf.
Â©2014, 2015 Conan Properties International, LLC. All rights reserved.

February 26, 2015February 25, 2015

The Tower Chronicles: DreadStalker

By Matt Wagner & Simon Bisley (Legendary Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-93727-836-6

In The Tower Chronicles: Geisthawk, FBI agent Alicia Hardwicke first encountered a strangely compelling masked bounty hunter named John Tower who filled a rather select niche in the broad spectrum of law-enforcement and peacekeeping services. This odd enigma helped people with highly specialised problems: things cops and feds and government refused to even acknowledge the existence ofâ€¦

After having her eyes opened and seeing what Tower – â€œthe Geisthawkâ€ – did with vampires and ghosts and even stranger supernal threats, Alicia started skipping work and letting her day job slide to join him on his bizarre cases, but she could never crack his carefully guarded faÃ§ade of secrets nor ascertain the reason for his relentless, thankless and generally unrewarding crusade.

The concept was created by Thomas Tull (whose Legendary Pictures is responsible for the latest Batman/Dark Knight movies as well as The Hangover, Man of Steel and 300) and comics veteran Matt Wagner – presumably as a prime concept for the new hero’s own monster-bashing film franchiseâ€¦

This slim and sinister spooky sequel volume collects The Tower Chronicles: DreadStalker #1-6 (spanning August 2014 to January 2015) wherein Wagner, illustrator Simon Bisley and colourist Ryan Brown ramp up the tension whilst revealing a few of the horror-hunter’s darkest secrets.

The saga begins in the frozen wilds of Northern Ontario where a couple of thrill-seeking teenagers stumble upon a very hungry Wendigo. Their immediate gory consumption is narrowly averted by Tower and Hardwicke but, after the rescue and inevitable bloody battle, the FBI agent realises her sullen partner seems more interested in ransacking the beast’s lair that attending to a shellshocked survivorâ€¦

Elsewhere creepy cultists â€œThe Brotherhood of the Roseâ€ know far more about Tower than he would like, and confer on how to deal with the DreadStalker and give the first hints to his true motivations. Apparently magic calls to magic and supernatural terrors tend to confiscate eldritch artefacts. Somewhere there are objects Tower wants and his constant despatching of dire hidden horrors gives him unmatched opportunities to search for such spoilsâ€¦

The Brotherhood also covet such articles and, now that Tower has allied himself with Hardwicke, they believe they have the potential to exert a little leverageâ€¦

In the Washington DC office Alicia is using the Bureau’s vast resources to look into Tower’s past but her investigations are beginning to return impossible results. She is also starting to draw attention from her superiors, and terms like â€œnegligenceâ€, â€œobsessionâ€ and â€œreassignedâ€ are being used by her furious bossâ€¦

In his lonely citadel Tower broods. He is actually centuries old and has carried a grievous wound of the heart for that entire time. All his searching and ransacking of monsters’ dens is for one sublime purpose but his quest seems as far from success now as it always has. â€¦And on the other side of a looking glass, a beautiful, mournful woman waits for himâ€¦ Determined to get some concrete answers, Hardwicke confronts Tower’s elderly lawyer Romulus Barnes and wrangles an incredible story from the attorney of how the taciturn troubleshooter saved a young law student’s son from demonic doom in return for a lifetime of legal servitudeâ€¦

A most insidious villain, Martin Castle spearheads a cabal of entrepreneurs dubbed â€œThe ChÃ¢teau Groupâ€ and, when not selling genetically augmented heirs to shady sheiks, he and they harbour patient dreams of acquiring the world. However, Castle’s machinations mask a vile and increasingly debilitating secretâ€¦

Some answers – for the reader at least – are forthcoming as Tower resurfaces in New Mexico, hunting an avian monstrosity. Scaling the high cliffs to its nest, Jean Latour‘s mind cannot help but wing back to the First Crusade when as one of nine Christian warriors dedicated to liberating the Holy Land he co-founded The Knights Templar in 1119 Anno Domini.

He recalls how the crusaders’ initial vows of piety, poverty, chastity and charity gradually eroded as their ranks grew and their coffers swelled, and how his life changed forever when he rescued the heathen maiden Nadira from Christian soldiers determined to stop her from praying at the mosque they had converted to a barracksâ€¦

In New Mexico Tower’s reveries are curtailed when the appalling Thunderbird attacks, only to fall after an horrific battle to the DreadStalker’s accumulated centuries of martial prowess. The net result is only more disappointment as the slaughtered beast’s nest reveals many artefacts but nothing of any use to the immortal warrior.

When Tower drags his battered, pain-wracked body back to his car, Alicia is waitingâ€¦

Still refusing to share, he drives off and Hardwicke reluctantly goes to plan B, applying the federal screws to another member of Tower’s support network. Raf is the genius who builds the uniquely devastating ordnance employed by the Geisthawk to expunge assorted creatures of the night but his tale of how the un-aging man exorcised his unquiet mother only adds to Alicia’s growing sense of uneaseâ€¦

As Mr. Castle undergoes radical surgery in Austria to alleviate an unpleasant arcane infirmity, further gathered strands at last force Agent Hardwicke to accept the impossible: her silent partner is possibly hundreds of years old and has been holding back a horde of horrors for all that timeâ€¦

The man himself is in Colorado, dealing with a werewolf incursion in a brutally efficient manner before heading on to Ireland. En route he calls Alicia who probably scuppers her own career to join him, blithely unaware that the Brotherhood and Castle are both using her to track Tower. Neither organisation really wants the monster hunter, but they really need the prizes he’s likely to findâ€¦

After a cataclysmic battle with a ghastly Gaestlych, Tower finally relents and shares his story with Alicia, but the revelations give her no joy or satisfactionâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Fast-paced and astoundingly action-packed, this slight but satisfying romp is tailor-made for transferral to large or small screen as companion or rival to Constantine, True Blood and Supernatural, but The Tower Chronicles primarily offers comics fans a spectacular rollercoaster of straightforward beastie-bashing in the grand traditional manner beloved of Fights ‘n’ Tights enthusiast everywhere.
Â© 2015 Legendary Comics LLC and Matt Wagner. All Rights Reserved.

February 25, 2015February 24, 2015

Kick-Ass 3 â€“ trade paperback edition

By Mark Millar, John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78329-087-1

Once upon a time, perennial High School no-hoper Dave Lizewski – a pitifully ordinary and unhappy teenager who loved comicbooks – realised that he had no chance of being part of the school â€œin-crowdâ€. He just hung out with the other geeks, nerds and social lepers; talking TV, movies, funnybooks and wishing he could have a perfect life and trophy girlfriend.

Then one day he had his big inspiration – he was going to be a masked superhero. All he needed was a costume and a gimmick. Oh, and a codename tooâ€¦

Clad in a wetsuit bought online and filled with hope, Dave started patrolling the streets and promptly got beaten into a coma by three kids tagging a wallâ€¦

After months in hospital and with three metal plates in his skull, Dave eventually returned to school, but the compulsion had only grown stronger. Soon he was prowling the city again. This time a chance encounter was recorded on witnesses’ camera-phones and uploaded to YouTubeâ€¦

An overnight internet sensation and supremely now overconfident, Dave – or Kick-Ass – inspired a wave of copycats, attracted the extremely unwanted attention of Organised Crime and met the closest thing to real superheroes the world had ever seenâ€¦

Dave’s life went into deadly overdrive when he met diminutive Mindy McCready – AKA Hit-Girl – and her burly, brutish, utterly insane senior partner Big Daddy: cool, efficient ninjas of justice and everything he’d aspired to be but could never approach in a million yearsâ€¦

These armoured, gun-toting urban vigilantes were utter ciphers, stalking and destroying the operations of brutal Mafia boss Johnny Genovese with remorseless efficiency and in complete attention-shunning anonymity. Before long Dave was drawn into their war and met fellow adventurer Red Mist, who turned out to be Genovese’s abused, psychotic son Chris: a bastard maniac in his own right.

Things got really out of hand and lots of people died. Mostly scumbags, but some good people and a few innocent civilians tooâ€¦

The mesmerising saga comes to a cataclysmic climax close as Kick-Ass 3 collects the final 8-part miniseries (originally published through Marvel’s Icon imprint) from Mark Millar, John Romita Jr, Tom Palmer and Dean White in a beguiling full-colour mass market paperback.

As seen previously, Red Mist had evolved into a truly psychotic and blood-drenched super-villain to counter the fannish tidal wave of costumed champions. In the aftermath of a bloody slaughter, superheroes were outlawed in New York, Dave and faithful masked pals Todd and Marty went undercover and the totally OTT Hit-Girl was arrested and sent to prisonâ€¦

The saga resumes now with the lads reviewing a letter from the deadly tyke and planning to bust her out with the aid of a few costumed associates. However, life is not as clear cut as comicbooks and the scheme ignominiously fails.

Life goes on and the boys graduate High School, seeping into dead-end jobs whilst spending nights patrolling and training for their next attempt. Soon, though, tensions begin to rise as skeevy newcomer hero The Juicer takes over their once-communal lair – formerly Mindy’s old tricked-out HQ. The gloating sod even moves in his girlfriendâ€¦

Disgusted, undeterred and resolved not to spoil things, Dave gets back to the streets. When a posse of gangbangers attempt to mug Kick-Ass the battle goes badly wrong before he is rescued by witness – and nurse – Valerie.

Elsewhere, greater events are afoot. Brutally maimed Chris Genovese is stuck in prison hospital awaiting trial when his uncle Rocco pays a visit. With the established hierarchy of organised crime decimated by Hit-Girl, the aged Don has returned from exile in Sicily. He had been shipped off years ago when his deviant tastes and merciless depredations proved to be too much even for the Mafia.

Now he’s back and making a move to unite all the criminals in America under his rule â€“ and he plans to make Chris his heirâ€¦

Self-proclaimed super-villain Chris is a changed boy and wants no part of it, but Rocco has the police force on his payroll. Nobody ever says no to the Donâ€¦

The boy’s mother has had enough too, but when she sneaks into his room determined to execute her crazy child she catches someone else with the same ideaâ€¦

Dave meanwhile has organised another attempt to spring Hit-Girl but even as he preps his motley crew, the lass in question is facing down her latest psychiatrist.

The malevolent tyke has spent the intervening months terrorising and pacifying the entire prison around her, whilst psychologically breaking a long string of mental health professionals assigned to her, but Dr. Alex White is made of sterner stuff. The ruthless, remorseless headshrinker is determined to crush not cure the waif-like homicidal maniac, whatever it takesâ€¦

Dave is a man distracted. Although he has planned a raid on the mob as they fÃªte the recently released Chris, his attention is mostly on Valerie. Thus the consequent attack is a disaster and the badly-scared mystery men barely get away with their livesâ€¦

In the cold light of day the heroes have a bitter falling-out at Justice Forever HQ and Dave adds The Juicer to his growing list of arch enemies. It’s hard to care, though, as he and Val are dating now and he’s having sex regularlyâ€¦

The only thing he hasn’t given up on is Hit-Girl. He will get her out, somehow, somedayâ€¦

He doesn’t know it, but Dave is on a clock. Rocco is firmly in the driving seat now and obsessed with the tiny titan too. He wants her out of jail so that he can smash his treasured golden ice-pick right into her brainâ€¦

As Dr. White plays the latest card in his duplicitous bag of brain-bending tricks, at Vic Gigante‘s place the bent cop – and Rocco’s most influential agent on the NYPD – has an interesting idea. With three trusted pals he’s devised a way to make even more dirty money in a foolproof manner.

Soon a quartet of â€œRobin Hoodâ€ masked heroes are brutally raiding all of Rocco’s places of business; killing mooks and confiscating cash. The Skull & Bones boys claim it’s all being passed on to the poor and naturally everybody believes themâ€¦

Lost in a lustful daze, not even a timely intervention by Todd can shake Dave up enough to get back in costume and on track, but the increasingly bold raids of the Skull & Bones gang is driving Rocco crazy. Only when the deviant Don declares war on every masked hero in the city and despatches hit squads to gun them down wherever they are does Dave finally rouse himself from a besotted haze and get back on the streetsâ€¦

The psychological campaign against Hit-Girl is also beginning to work. The formerly indomitable Mindy is retreating into memories of training with her dad and sharing those episodes with the exultant White.

Unfortunately the cocky doctor overplays his hand and seems to lose everything, but before he can reassess the situation Rocco Genovese has his family’s nemesis abducted from the penitentiary so that he can slaughter her in style.

Ferrying her to a big party at his estate, the Don thinks he’s won but is utterly unprepared for betrayal from within, the incomprehensible inability of Kick-Ass to give up and the sheer determination and total, sociopathic verve which inspires Hit-Girl in her holy mission to eradicate criminal scumâ€¦

Building to a cataclysmic, graphically hyper-violent, ferociously cathartic conclusion, the saga of simple soul Dave and the atrociously foul-mouthed Hit-Girl wraps up in unforgettable manner with plenty of shocking twists and surprises in a blockbusting clash which answers all the questions in a fashion fitting, furious and finalâ€¦

The blackly comedic and ultra-violent comedy quartet of tales which comprise the Kick-Ass saga are the ultimate extension of the modern trend for â€œrealisticâ€ superhero stories whilst simultaneously forming a brilliantly engaging and cynically hilarious examination of boyhood dreams and power fantasies, delivered with dazzling aplomb, studied self-deprecation and spellbinding style.

Here Millar’s mesmeric script skilfully dances on the very edge of possibility and credibility, whilst the stunning art collaboration of John Romita Jr., Tom Palmer and colourist Dean White afford a vision of New York life that ranges from Paradise to Hell on Earth.

Bracketed by a pithy Introduction from screen writer Geoff Wadlow and Afterword Acknowledgements from writer and artist, this majestically wide-screen extravaganza is a sharp, superb and stunning tale not just for comics fans but a genuine treasure for all followers of frantic fun and fantasy in any medium.

Kick-Ass 3 is scheduled for publication on February 27^th

February 24, 2015February 23, 2015

Love and Rockets: New Stories volume 7

By The Hernandez Brothers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-770-3

Years pass like centuries when you’re waiting for a wonderful treat but at long last here’s the latest annual instalment of Love and Rockets: New Stories. So life is once more challengingly complete â€¦

Now solidly in its fourth decade as a transcendent and transformative force shaking up the American comics industry, Love and Rockets was originally an anthology magazine featuring amongst other gems and joys the slick, intriguing, sci-fi-tinged hi-jinx of punky young things Maggie and Hopey – las Locas – and a series of heart-warming, gut-wrenching soap-opera epics set in a rural Central American paradise called Palomar.

The Hernandez Boys (three guys from Oxnard, California: Jaime, Gilberto and Mario), gifted synthesists all, captivated the comics cognoscenti with incredible stories sampling and referencing a host of influences – everything from comics, TV cartoons, masked wrestlers and the exotica of everything from American Hispanic pop culture to German Expressionism.

There was also a perpetual backdrop displaying the holy trinity of youth: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll – also alternative music, hip hop and punk.

The result was dynamite then and the guys have only got better with the passing years. Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions, but Jaime’s slick, enticing visual forays explored friendship and modern love by destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of â€œGals Gone Wildâ€, whilst bro Gilberto created a hyper-real and passionately poignant landscape and playground of wit and venality for his extended generational saga Heartbreak Soup: a quicksilver chimera of breadline Latin-American village life with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast.

The shadows cast by Palomar still define and inform his latest tales both directly and as imaginative spurs for ostensibly unaffiliated stories.

Fully evolved into an annual omnibus compendium of wonders, Love and Rockets: New Stories features one-off vignettes supplementing a string of contiguous and continuing story strands, opening here with Beto’s ‘Killer in Palomar’.

After having apparently quitting her blossoming cinema career Doralis â€œKillerâ€ Rivera headed back to Palomar to visit her distanced family. She was fleeing rumours of pregnancy and just wanted some peace and a normal life. At least that’s what she told herselfâ€¦

Now she’s reeling from the horror of a deranged stalker-fan who murdered people in her name, but new friend Theo is more worried about her strange reaction to a copycat stripper/double appropriating her reputation to become a porn star. And to make things even more complicated Killer is chatting to dead Tia DoralÃs againâ€¦

Jaime then returns to his singularly aging signature characters as Maggie and Hopey ditch their significant others for a weekend to attend an Eighties-Friends reunion in ‘Do I Look at the Camera, Or Do I Look at Me?’

The devout pals and former lovers may have moved on, but there’s still some spark of the old wild couple in play – especially the constant bickering – and eventually the ladies at leisure settle on watching a movie Maggie’s boyfriend Ray recommended coincidentallyÂ running at the Indie cinema that used to be the girls’ teenage hangoutâ€¦

Metafiction and magical realism have always played a large part in the Hernandez Boy’s tales and as Maggie and Hopey settle in for a weird screen experience, elsewhere in time and space star of the film Maria Rodriguez is showing it to her baby daughter Fritz/Rosalba (for further details and family indiscretions best check out High Soft Lisp or Luba)â€¦

Blending a bizarre B-movie fantasy with more telling insights into three generations of powerful and beautiful women, Gilberto’s story segues into Killer’s time as a toddler – and the mistakes all the women in her family seem condemned to repeat – before ‘Daughters and Mothers and Daughters’ flashes back to more revelations, inter-cut with her playing her own grandmother in scandalous biopic Maria Mâ€¦

Jaime’s vignette ‘You and Hopey’ focuses on poor abandoned Ray and how he spends his time as a weekend-widower, after which the artist switches track to follow frustrated teen wrestling hopefuls in ‘Our Lady of the Assassinating Angels’ before returning to Ray for ‘The Cody Pendant’ and an evening alone, coincidentally watching the same movie as Maggie and Hopeyâ€¦

Beto steps in for a fantastic slice of hokey fantasy as ‘Magic Voyage of Aladdin’ offers an incredible genre mash-up with the legendary boy adventurer and his astoundingly pneumatic patron Circe battling witches, monsters, aliens and bat-people in three anarchic cine-plays, beginning with ‘Chapter 1: the Electrical Brain’ moving on to ‘Chapter 2: the Cave of Bats’ and calamitously concluding with ‘Chapter 3: the Living Corpse’â€¦

Jaime tags in to continue the travails of young Tonta Agajanian in ‘If It Ain’t Fixed, Don’t Break It!’ as the troublesome teen escapes her scandalous family (murdered step-father and her far-from-sane mother still prime suspect even after being cleared by DA’s office) for a comicbook party.

After another fine moment annoying the rich kids, Tonta and gullible associate Gomez suddenly find themselves pulled over by the copsâ€¦

The dirty doppelgangers poaching the reputation of Killer’s dynasty of sexy starlets make their unseemly entrances in Gilbert’s ‘Meet Fritz Jr.’ and unwittingly offer tantalising glimpses of unsuspected family connections, after which Jaime turns up the filmic fantasy dial with the hilariously scary sci fi classic ‘Princess Animus!’ wherein a beautiful cannibal gains the power to dominate the universeâ€¦

However when the film breaks at the best bit Maggie and Hopey are left at a loose end and unwisely head back to the motel earlyâ€¦

Beto closes down this annual affair (bracketing an untitled Jaime two-pager highlighting las Locas’ morning-after) with another outrageous grindhouse movie pastiche in ‘The Golem Suit Starring Killer’ before a painful day for Fritz and her copyright infringing facsimile meeting fans at a convention as ‘Talent’ wraps things up for another too-long wait until next timeâ€¦

Warm-hearted, deceptively heart-wrenching, subtly shocking, challenging, charming and irresistibly addictive, Love and Rockets: New Stories is a grown up comics fan’s dream come true and remains as valid and groundbreaking as its earlier incarnations – the diamond point of the cutting edge of American graphic narrative.
Â© 2015 Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. This edition Â© 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

February 23, 2015

Green Arrow volume 1: Hunter’s Moon

By Mike Grell, Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4326-5

First appearing in More Fun Comics #73 in 1941, Green Arrow is one of very few superheroes to be continuously published (more or less) since the Golden Age of American comic books. At first glance this combination of Batman and Robin Hood seems to have very little going for him but he has always managed to keep himself in vogue.

Probably his most telling of many makeovers came in 1987, when, hot on the heels of The Dark Knight Returns, auteur Mike Grell was given the green (Shameless, me!) light to make him the star of DC’s second â€œPrestige Format Mini-Seriesâ€.

Grell was counted a major creator at the time. Beginning his rise with a laudable run on Legion of Super-Heroes, he went on to draw the revived Green Lantern/Green Arrow and practically saved the company with his Edgar Rice Burroughs-inspired fantasy series Warlord. He had also notched up a big fan following illustrating many Aquaman, Batman and Phantom Stranger stories before establishing his independent creator credentials at First Comics with Starslayer and Jon Sable, Freelanceâ€¦

In the grim ‘n’ gritty late Eighties, it was certainly time for another overhaul of the Emerald Archer. Exploding arrows yes, maybe even net or rope arrows, but arrows with boxing gloves or paint brushes on them just don’t work. Thus, in an era of corrupt government, drug cartels and serial killers, the evergreen survivor adapted and thrived under the direction of a creator famed for the realism of his stories.

The Longbow Hunters focused on the super-hero’s mid-life crisis as he relocated to Seattle and struggled to come to terms with the fact that since his former sidekick Speedy was now a dad, Oliver Queen had technically become a grandfather. With long-time â€œsignificant otherâ€ Dinah Lance AKA Black Canary he began to simplify his life, but the drive to fight injustice never dimmed for either of them.

She went undercover to stamp out a drug ring, and he became engrossed in the hunt for a psycho-killer dubbed â€œThe Seattle Slasherâ€. Ollie was also made aware of a second – cross-country – slayer who had been murdering people with arrowsâ€¦

Eschewing his gaudy costume and gimmicks he reinvented himself as an urban hunter to stop such unglamorous everyday monsters, stumbling into a mystery that led back to World War II involving the Yakuza, CIA, corporate America and even the Viet Nam warâ€¦

The intricate plot, subtly blending three seemingly disparate stories that were in fact one, still delivers a shocking punch even now in its disturbingly explicit examination of torture, which won the series undeserved negative press when it was first published. Although possibly tame to most modern tastes, this was eye-opening stuff in the 1980’s, which is a shame, as it diverted attention from the real issueâ€¦ and that was a massive surge in quality and maturity.

The sophisticated and intricate plot – weaving themes of age, diminishing potency, vengeance and family – were another turning point in American comics and led to an ongoing series specifically targeting â€œMature Readersâ€. The treatment and tone heavily influenced and flavoured today’s TV adaptation Arrow and has led to the release of Grell’s nigh-forgotten urban predator tales in a new range of economical trade paperbacks.

This first full-colour paperback collection, scripted by Grell with superbly efficient and powerfully understated art from Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano & Frank McLaughlin, re-presents Green Arrow volume 2, #1-6 (February to July 1988), offering grimly realistic yarns ripped from headlines that have as much impact and relevance today as they did nearly thirty years agoâ€¦

Sparse, Spartan and devastatingly compelling, the initial tales were all constructed as two-part dramas beginning here – sans any preamble – with ‘Hunter’s Moon’ as the hunter (the series was notable in that other than on the cover, the soubriquet â€œGreen Arrowâ€ was never, ever used) prowls his new home dealing harshly with thugs, gangbangers and muggers before heading home to his still-traumatised girlfriend.

Black Canary was tortured for days before Ollie found her and, although the physical wounds have faded, Dinah Lance is still sufferingâ€¦

She’s not the only one. Police Lieutenant Jim Cameron has just heard that child-torturing sociopath Al Muncie has used his vast beer-dynasty inheritance to buy a retrial after 18 years in prison.

The cops couldn’t get him for murdering all those â€œmissingâ€ kids but one lucky ten year old, after days of appalling torment, escaped and testified so Muncie’s been locked up for aggravated assault ever since. Now the heartbroken cop has to tell that brave survivor she must do it all over againâ€¦

The victim grew up to become Dr. Annie Green and she’s working wonders treating Dinah, but the therapist’s own long-suppressed terrors come flooding back when Muncie – despite being in total lockdown in his palatial house on the family brewery estate – somehow hand-delivers a little souvenir of their time togetherâ€¦

On hand when Annie freaks out and flees in panic, Ollie gives chase and finds her once more calm and resigned. On hearing the full story he makes a house-call on the maniac but cannot â€œdissuadeâ€ him from paying Annie another visit that nightâ€¦

The experienced manhunter is waiting as a masked assailant tries to break in to the doctor’s apartment, but when the intruder shrugs off a steel arrow to the chest Ollie realises something’s not rightâ€¦

Part Two expands the mystery of how Muncie can get past police guards at will, but by the time the Arrow has convinced the cops to raid Muncie’s den with the solution to the obsessed sociopath’s disappearing act and apparent invulnerability, the killer has already made his move.

Once again however Muncie has underestimated Annie, and her defiance buys Ollie time to intercept the hellbent human beast. After a furious chase back to the brewery the killer meets his fate in a most ironic mannerâ€¦

A broad change of pace follows as ‘The Champions’ sees Ollie abducted by government spooks and pressganged into competing for a deadly prize. A joint space venture with the Chinese has resulted in a deadly â€œDNA-programmableâ€ virus being created and, following the sudden destruction of the satellite lab where it was propagated, the only surviving sample has crashed onto remote San Juan Island.

With political allies turned rivals for sole possession of a bio-agent which can be set to kill anything from wheat harvests to black or yellow or white people, overt warfare would only lead to catastrophic publicity, so the political superpowers have agreed to use a gladiatorial bout as the method of deciding ownership.

Ollie has his own reasons for accepting the job. For starters he doesn’t trust any government with the DNA-hunting bug, the agents who drafted him are Russian not American and, most urgently, he has no doubt that he’ll be killed if he refuses to competeâ€¦

Equipped with a tracking device, Ollie is dumped on the island as a colossal storm starts, meeting his arrogant opposite getting off the ferry. Former CIA operative Eddie Fyers is an old foe and one of the sneakiest killers on Earth. He convinces Ollie they should work togetherâ€¦ before double-crossing and leaving him to bleed out in a blizzard.

The archer is rescued by an archaeologist who has inadvertently picked up the fallen bio-agent pod, but as Ollie argues with his saviour over the wisdom and morality of his mission, her cabin is peppered with gunfireâ€¦

Fyers has the upper hand but suffers a sudden change of attitude when a third team ambushes him and his prisoners. It seems neither the Russians or Chinese trusted their championsâ€¦

Again forced to team up, spy and vigilante despatch the hit squad but Ollie has the very last word after finding a way to deprive everybody of the bio-sampleâ€¦

Determined to challenge all manners of social inequity, Grell’s final story in this collection confronted the rise in homosexual prejudice that manifested in the wake of the AIDs crisis.

It begins after two customers leaving Dinah’s flower shop are brutally attacked by kids ordered to â€œgay-bashâ€ as part of their gang initiation. The horrific crime is further compounded when Ollie discovers that Dinah’s new assistant Colin is not only a bloody-handed perpetrator but also a victimâ€¦

The Warhogs are the most powerful gang in the city, but their new induction policy is one the Arrow cannot allow to exist any longer. Any kid refusing to join is mercilessly beaten by a ‘Gauntlet’ of thugs. Those who eagerly volunteer suffer the same treatment as their initiation. And once you’re accepted as a Warhog you still have to prove your loyalty by beating – and preferably killing – a â€œqueerâ€â€¦

In the shocking conclusion Ollie, having failed to make a dent through any of his usual tactics, goes straight to the top. Big boss Reggie Mandel has big plans for the Warhogs. He’s already made them a national force to be reckoned with, but when he arrives in Seattle to check on his regional deputy Kebo, the Machiavellian schemer is confronted by a nut with a bow challenging him in his own cribâ€¦

The Arrow is keen to point out that the strictly local Warhog policy of gay hate-crimes is not only bad for business but is serving someone else’s private agenda. Reggie actually agrees with the vigilante, but before he’s prepared to take appropriate action he expects his verdant petitioner to undergo the same gauntlet any Warhog must survive before being heardâ€¦

Terse, sparse scripts, economical and immensely effective illustration and an unfailing eye for engaging controversy make these epic yarns some of the most powerful comic tales American comics ever produced. Compiled here with a cover gallery by Grell (both fully painted and line art), Hannigan & Giordano, this compulsive retooling is an epic masked mystery saga no lover of the genre will want to miss.

February 7, 2015February 6, 2015

Dungeon: the Early Years Set (volume 1: The Night Shirt: volume 2: Innocence Lost)

By Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim, art by Christophe Blain, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
Set ISBN: 978-1-56163-932-1

As crafted by prolific artisans Joann Sfar (Professeur Bell, Les olives noires, The Rabbi’s Cat) and Lewis Trondheim (La Mouche, Kaput and ZÃ¶sky, Little Nothings) with assorted associates of their New Wave-ish collective of bande dessinÃ©e creators most often seen under the aegis of independent publisher L’Association, the Donjon saga has generated more than thirty interlinked volumes since it launched in 1998 and has become far more than a mere cult hit all over the world.

These slim, translated and re-released tomes form a small sub-division of a vastly generational, eccentrically raucous and addictively wacky franchise which melds starkly adult whimsy to the fantastic worlds of fantasy fiction, and the Early Years tomes (now available as a complete set) fill in some historical gaps which might have puzzled occasional readers of Dungeon Parade, Zenith, Monstres and Twilight.

There’s this magic castle, in a fantastic land of miracles, see, and it’s got a dungeonâ€¦

But before that citadel was constructed there was the debauched, bureaucratised and grimly frenetic urban hellhole of Antipolis, greatest and most appalling city on the strange world of Terra Amataâ€¦

Illustrated in compellingly frenetic style by Christophe Blain, it all begins with volume one and the origin of ‘The Night Shirt’. Young Hyacinthe De Cavalerre is the scion of an esteemed and noble – if provincial – house and line. The world is changing however; shifting from feudal aristocracy and blood-privilege to a civilisation based on mercantilism, greed and bureaucracy.

Thus a father dispatches his dreamy boy to the capital to study, residing with an estranged uncle to learn the rules of the New Age. The boy’s dreams of literary glory soon founder after an encounter with monstrous â€œBrutesâ€ in the forest and are forever dashed when faced with the filth and unbridled avarice of the cityâ€¦

At least he has made one friend: learned fellow traveller Doctor Hippolyte is also heading to Antipolis, determined to petition the city council to free a gigantic Arboress the municipality intends to burn alive as part of their upcoming carnival celebrationsâ€¦

Literally negotiating their way into the fetid metropolis the travellers separate, and Hyacinthe makes his way to the mansion of wheelchair-bound Count Florotte and has a tense encounter with a serpentine – if mannish – seductress who teasingly offers to teach him how to use his sword.

His uncle calls her Alexandra; a valued – if occasional – employeeâ€¦

Wearily settling in that night the young man is roused by screams and rushes to the aid of a serving girl being cruelly assaulted by an arrogant bully who boasts that no one will to come to her aid. When the boy intervenes he is casually rebuffed and shamefully leaves. The villain is Michael, his uncle’s most valued deputy and the one Hyacinthe has been indentured toâ€¦

Despondently returning to his room the boy then makes the acquaintance of the house elves as they busily steal his golden jacket buttonsâ€¦

The next day Michael begins the fiscal and social education of his new charge, having Hyacinthe carry the huge bag of gold Florotte regularly dispenses for bribing officials to leave his various business enterprises alone. The lad is horrified to see the system used to throw Hippolyte in jail after failing to convince the town council to spare the captive tree-womanâ€¦

Michael celebrates by dragging the lad to an insalubrious tavern and getting plastered. The feline factotum knows Alexandra tooâ€¦

After carrying the soused villain home, the furious, fanciful boy comes to a bizarre decision and returns to the dark streets, draped in a big blouse, waving his sword and wearing a maskâ€¦

More by luck than skill he breaks Hippolyte out of his noisome cell and the pair flee through the city. The flight is particularly easy as someone is killing all the guards and impediments in their pathâ€¦

Soon they see Alexandra, dispatching more men, and the still-unnamed crusader gallantly rushes to her aid. She is more than a little charmed, even as she saves the neophyte from his own impetuous follyâ€¦

After she vanishes Hyacinthe attempts to get Hippolyte out of the city but the scholar refuses to leave without the Arboress. Forced to leave him hidden inside the gigantic tree-woman, the exhausted little hero staggers home and stumbles upon one of Michael’s more devilish schemes. The reprobate is taking gold from the elves to stop his own workers dynamiting the ground under Antipolisâ€¦

Some businessmen have plans to build a vast subway system beneath the city and have hired Blasters to blow up or expand the already in situ elf tunnels. Michael is taking cash from the little people to â€œstopâ€ the project he’s actually expediting. He’s even crass enough to boast to Hyacinthe that they have over-paid himâ€¦

Scrupulously honest, the lad determines to return the extra gold but upon reaching the bowels of the city he accidentally causes a huge detonation which kills the Blasters, earning the undying devotion of the elvesâ€¦

On reaching the house again he is horrified to find the mastermind behind the subway scheme is his own uncle and the elder doesn’t care how many suffer or die to accomplish his grand designâ€¦

Later as the Carnival begins, besotted Hyacinthe follows Alexandra and discovers what she does for Florotte: as the finest killer in the Guild of Assassins she is invaluable in his business dealings. When the heartbroken boy confronts her on the matter he painfully learns just how good she is at her jobâ€¦

Battered and probably delirious, he determines to save her from herself and is astonished to find an army of elves awaiting him in his room. Blasters have returned in force and the wee folk have decided to abandon their underground homes for somewhere less busyâ€¦

Donning his commodious crime-busting costume, the lad chooses to do some good by saving Hippolyte and the Arboress. Accompanied by the elves he heads for the enclosure where the remarkably strong little people offer to carry the all-but-immobile tree-woman for their beloved â€œNightshirtâ€. Soon, under cover of colossal carnival floats, the fugitives are heading for the wild woods surrounding the cityâ€¦

After the carnage of a breakneck chase and unlikely triumph, Arboress and elves are invited to live in the castle of Hyacinthe’s father and a new story begins sometime later with the boy now a dutiful student attending the University of Antipolis.

When newcomer Alcibiades joins the class of prominent Dr. Fontaine, he is soon taken under the lad’s generous wing, experiencing the heady freedom of student life where Hyacinthe is the butt of the organ-juggling jokes of the Necromancy undergraduates. He regularly blows off steam prowling the dark streets, dishing out justice as the infamous urban legend The Night Shirtâ€¦

Utterly besotted with Alexandra, one night he spies on her and observes a passionate tryst with the vile Michael. Sadly the villain observes him back and a violent rooftop duel ensuesâ€¦

Barely escaping with his life Hyacinthe heads home where his uncle has a favour to ask. Fontaine is a strenuous critic of Florotte’s proposed subway and, since a succession of â€œgiftsâ€ have not swayed the scientist’s opinions, perhaps the student might have a quiet word with his teacher?

The interview does not go well and despondent Hyacinthe opts to visit his father in the country rather than return to Florotte’s mansion. Enjoying the break, the lad lapses from unrequitable love of Alexandra and suffers a frustrating dalliance with a young lady named Elise. This leads to a violent battle between forest monsters and the Night Shirtâ€¦

Wounded and bleeding he is rescued by the elves who give him a pipe with magic tobaccos which temporarily impart a host of strange powers and abilities. When he returns to Antipolis, Fontaine has been murdered and Night Shirt has claimed responsibilityâ€¦

Resolved to clear his alter ego’s name, things go quite badly for the boy until Alexandra deals herself in to save the little oaf from himself, but in the end justice is only served and the real killer exposed after sensible Elise takes overâ€¦

The saga continued in Volume 2: Innocence Lost as some time later future supreme Dungeon-Keeper Hyacinthe prowls the night as a far more effective masked vigilante. The Night Shirt’s nocturnal adventures are however seriously curtailed by his still-unrequited inamorata Alexandra.

Her violent disdain does not stop her from sharing her unbridled passions – and a rather painful social disease – with the poor fool. Visiting old friend Dr. Hippolyte at the rapidly expanding country castle for advice (and possible medical solutions) he meets fair Gabrielle Olivet and offers to accompany her as she travels to join her fiancÃ© in far-off Necroville.

However during a stopover in lawless, rabbit-infested frontier town Zedotamaxim, she is falsely arrested by over-officious sheriffs and trusts Hyacinthe to engineer her release by fetching her intended – prominent lawyer Eustace Ravin – from the wilds of the charnel hamletâ€¦

Sadly once Hyacinthe gets there Eustace proves to be a rather faithless gadabout who couldn’t care less about Gabrielle’s plight. By the time he convinces the rogue of his duty it’s too late and she has been sold to the biggest brothel in Antipolis.

Determined to set things right The Night Shirt realises he’s going to need the assistance of the kind of people he usually fightsâ€¦

Second story After the Rain is set many years later when aging and now dissolute Hyacinthe is a middle-aged, unhappily married rouÃ©. Set in his ways and terminally unhappy the former Night Shirt is enticed into making a comeback by clever and strangely superhuman Doctor Cormor who must battle greed and the establishment itself to stop completion of the infernal subway being dug through the unstable pile of detritus that forms the bedrock of the city.

Perhaps it is less a noble quest than the return of slinky Alexandra that fires up the weary hero, but when inevitable disaster strikes will Hyacinthe be ready or able to cope?

Featuring the catastrophic events which destroyed Antipolis and sparked the creation of the modern Dungeon of Terra Armata this is perhaps the most effective yarn in the franchise’s vast scope and spanâ€¦

The inhabitants of this weirdly surreal universe include every kind of anthropomorphic beast and bug as well as monsters, demons, mean bunnies, sexy vamps and highly capable women-folk who know the true (lack of) worth of a man. This is an epic saga of cynically world-weary political intrigue, played as an eternal and highly amusing battle of the sexes, with tongues planted firmly in cheeks – and no, I won’t clarify or specifyâ€¦

Comprising in total four translated French albums – ‘Donjon Potron-Minet: Le Chemisede la Nuit’, ‘Un Justicier dans L’Ennui, ‘Une Jeunesse Qui S’Enfuit’ and ‘Apres La Pluie’ – this baroque bunch of barbaric books comprise a delightfully absurd, earthy, sharp, poignant and brilliantly outlandish romp that’s a joy to read with vibrant, wildly eccentric art as moody as Dark Knight, as jolly as Rupert Bear and as anarchic as the best of Leo Baxendale.

Definitely for grown-ups with young hearts, Dungeon is a near-the-knuckle, illicit experience which addicts at first sight, but for fuller comprehension – and added enjoyment – I’d strongly advise buying all the various incarnations which are happily also currently available as collectors’ setsâ€¦

January 26, 2015

The Veil

By Greg Rucka & Toni Fejzula, with AljoÅ¡a TomiÄ‡ & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-492-7

It’s January and the nights are long and cold. Good thing there’s plenty of scary stories and coolly creepy graphic novels to while away the midnight hoursâ€¦

Written by Greg Rucka and chillingly illustrated by Toni Fejzula with additional colour work from AljoÅ¡a TomiÄ‡, Veil collects the introductory 5-issue miniseries (March to July 2014) which saw the debut of one of the more intriguing femme fatales in modern comics historyâ€¦

It all begins in an abandoned, desolate subway station where a beautiful, naked and extremely confused young woman awakens on a bed of most surprised rats. Babbling incoherently but not at all scared, she makes her way above ground and finds herself in a modern Sodom and Gomorrah where her nubile helplessness soon attracts the attention of the pimps and other two-footed predatorsâ€¦

Big mean Vincent especially seems unable to resist his most basic urges but the victim-to-be is rescued by unlikely hero Dante who inexplicably – and unlike every other John on the street – seems compelled to shield rather than covet herâ€¦

Covering her nakedness, Dante takes her to his shabby apartment and tries to get some sense out of the girl who calls herself â€œVeilâ€. Vincent and his homies, however, are not the types to defer gratification and come looking for her with plenty of guns and bad attitudesâ€¦

It’s the last mistake of their short, violent lives but in the bloody aftermath Dante knows more than ever that, whatever she is, this girl must be protected. As they go on the run through the seedy backstreets and alleys of the city Veil seems to grow more clear-headed even as she displays ever-greater impossible abilities.

Elsewhere men wielding a different kind of irresistible power are discussing her. In the gory detritus of a satanic ritual, money-man Mr. Scarborough unwisely chides the black magician he and his consortium have hired – with apparently negligible returnâ€¦

Despite apparent failure and the clear absence of the thing they paid for, insouciant Cormac remains aggravatingly untroubled. Just why is revealed after Scarborough’s thugs try to kill him for his presumed failure and the scheming wizard displays some of the other powers at his commandâ€¦

The demands of ego satisfied on both sides, Cormac assures Scarborough that he will find the missing vessel of unfettered power he was hired to summon. He never actually specifies who will profit from it, thoughâ€¦

Back in the nasty part of town, cops have arrested Dante and Veil, but the girl’s uncanny allure compels one of them to force himself upon her as he has so many other street girls. His partner will never sleep easy again after seeing what she left of himâ€¦

With Veil vanished, the still-handcuffed Dante flees whilst in an empty, deconsecrated church Cormac works, summoning a rat familiar to scent out his target and draw it to him. If he knows that Scarborough and his billionaire business associates have sanctioned an assassination hit team to take him out, he doesn’t careâ€¦

The killer elite arrive soon after the mesmerised Veil and are on site when the mage binds her with a mystic chain, ordering her to change to her true form. The hit squad doesn’t stand a chanceâ€¦

Dante meanwhile has hooked up with an old friend who has rid him of the handcuffs, if not his obsession to help the strangely compelling Veil. The poor sap isn’t that surprised when a rat bites Gabriel and something terrifying starts talking through his mouth. It seems the Devil wants his property back and is prepared to help Dante save her from the mad mortals who currently possess herâ€¦

Sharply scripted and superbly illustrated, this rocket-paced rollercoaster ride to Hell and back is a superb blend of corporate chicanery, sinister sorcery, grimy street crime, gory excess and unlikely heroism that delivers a bloodbath of spooky, sexy action even as it promises more revelations to come.

This classy full-colour hardback edition also includes a copious ‘Veil Sketchbook’ section depicting the evolution and intriguing multiple aspects of the enigmatic star to astound art lovers and all aficionados of the darkly exotic.
Â© 2014, 2015 Nervous Habit, Inc. All rights reserved.

January 25, 2015January 24, 2015

Treasury of Mini Comics volume 2

By many and various, edited by Michael Dowers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-807-6

The act of stringing pictures and/or words together is something almost everybody has done at some stage of their lives. It’s a key step in the cognitive path of children and, for an increasing number of us, that compulsive, absorbing euphoria never goes away.

Whilst many millions acquiesce to the crushing weight of a world which stifles the liberation of creativity, turning a preponderance of makers into consumers, a privileged, determined few carry on: drawing, exploring, and in some cases, with technology’s help, producing and sharing.

Michael Dowers, the force behind not only this compilation but also Brownfieldpress and Starhead Comix, adores the concept of crafting and disseminating mini comics and his books Newave!- The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980 and volume one of this series described and reproduced hundreds of examples: spotlighting with enticing, encouraging exuberance those incurably driven artisans who came out of the â€œanything goesâ€ 1960s and 1970s Underground Commix movement still craving a vehicle of expressly personal expression.

Such creators aren’t really in it for the money – although a few have moved on to find a modicum of mainstream comics fame, at least – and, in an era before computers, they found time to write, draw and compile artwork (small press people are notoriously generous, contributing to projects at the drop of a hat) before laboriously photocopying, cutting, folding, stapling and then distributing the miniscule marvellous results.

Just by way of definition: most mini comics were and still are home-produced pamphlets using borrowed – or when necessary paid for – print processes. The most popular format was an 8Â½ x 11inch sheet, folded twice, and printed at local copy-shops (or clandestinely churned out on school/work repro systems like early Xerox, Photostat, Mimeo or Spirit Banda machines) on any paper one could lay hands on.

Because they weren’t big, they were called â€œmini commixâ€. Inspired, no?

Thanks to a seemingly inexhaustible modern appetite for such uniquely individualistic endeavours here’s a superb sequel tome – one more massive paper brick of fun (848 monochrome and colour pages, 178 x 127mm) – compiling and sharing many of the very best mini masterpieces from the 1970s to right here, right nowâ€¦

Many key figures in the proliferation of this uniquely eloquent people’s medium are included here, not only through examples of their groundbreaking work, but also through statements, interviews and fond reminiscences.

If human beings have access to any kind of reproductive technology they seemingly cannot resist making copies of their own private parts or creating their own comics, and here content comes from all over the North American continent – and even beyond – covering everything from superhero spoofs, monster-mashes, robot rampages, animal antics, autobiography, recreational drugs, religious, spiritual and philosophical diatribes and polemics, surreal experimental design and just plain fun stories, chatter and gags: all as sexually explicit, violent, strident or personally intimate as their creators wanted them to beâ€¦

As usual I’ll deliver here my standard warning for the easily offended: this book contains comic strips never intended for children. If you are liable to be offended by raucous adult, political and drug humour, or illustrated scenes of explicit sex or unbelievable comedy violence, don’t buy this book and stop reading this review. You won’t enjoy any of it and might be compelled to cause a fuss.

I’ll probably cover something far more wholesome tomorrow so please come back then.

It all starts with Michael Dowers’ introduction wherein he brings the history of the sub-medium up to date and posits a connection with the legendarily scandalous â€œGentlemen’s under-the-counterâ€ publications known as Tijuana Bibles which livened up life for our forebears in the early part of the 20^th century with explicit and illegal cartoon cavortings featuring famous stars of screen and newspaper strips.

That proposition is upheld and further explored following ‘The Hundred Year Old New Waver in â€œDamn Punks Got it Easy Todayâ€’: a hilarious graphic diatribe (dis)courtesy of Brad W. Foster from Time Warp #3 (2007) after which a genuine, authentic and anonymous Tijuana Bible inclusion offers erotic relief to ‘The Van Swaggers’.

Then follows a batch of modern tributes and reinterpretations beginning with masked wrestler/guitarist The Crippler by Fiona Smyth (2007) and the astoundingly disturbing, politically punishing ‘Obliging Lady’ from Ethan Persoff & Scott Marshall’s The Adventures of Fuller Bush Man & John McCain (2009)â€¦

A splendid faux pastiche of the original pamphlets, Hairy Crotch & Rim Johnson in ‘The Interview’ is an anonymous entry from 1995, whilst Lilli Loge abandons the form but ramps up the spirit for the tale of a girl and her slave in ‘A Blessing in Disguise’ from Ben & Jenny from 2009.

That same year clean-cut Euro icon Lucky Luke got homo-erotically spoofed as ‘Hunky Luke in Calamity Jack’ by Anna Bas Backer after which Antoine Duthoit (2013) plunders Jim Woodring’s style and character cast for the outrageous Spank.

From 1972 Trina Robbins delivers classic pastiche ‘Sally Starr Hollywood Gal Sleuth’ solving a â€œMinit Mysteryâ€ whilst Bob Conway offers classic cartoon capers ‘Out to Lunch’ and ‘Chicken Shit’ in 1980’s Tales of Mr. Fly, and David Miller & Par Holman venerate the disaffected teen outsider experience in a blast of vignettes in Punkomix #1 from 1982.

Clark Dissmeyer laments the life of a Two-Fisted Cartoonist (#1 1983) after which Steve Willis’ 1983 Sasquatch Comix #3 details a strange encounter in the wild woods and R.K. Sloane & Jeff Gaither noxiously explore a life in hell with Fresh Meat from 1985.

A genuine small press big noise reveals all in the ‘Jeff Nicholson Interview’ after which the creator’s infamous cartoon polemic Jeff Nicholson’s Small Press Tirade (1989) still proves to be astoundingly powerful and the ‘Dan Taylor Interview’ segues neatly into some of his superbly eclectic Shortoonz from 1990 and the deliciously vulgarian Unleashed #1 from 2010.

John Trubee’s 1990 Vomit! #1 is a captivating manifesto of the politically baroque and philosophically bizarre whilst from 1992 Jason Atomic’s Wongo Batonga pt. 2 gloriously celebrates the magnificent freedom of superheroic imagination in a lengthy explosion of power-packed battles before Patrick Dowers explores human diversity in Marvels of the Sideshow Freaks.

Corn Comics #1 (Marc Bell, 1993) provides a hilarious laugh-ride of bitter twisted types after which the ‘Tom Hart Interview’ precedes his wittily poignant 1993 slice-of-life saga Love Looks Left and all-star line-up J.R. Williams, Pat Moriarity & R.L. Crabb collaborate on the 1994 cautionary tale ‘Devil Stay Away From Me’.

Impishly shocking Ellen Forney & RenÃ©e French then reveal how The Exquisite Corpse Bakes a Pie (1994), after which a ‘Molly Kiely Interview’ is stunningly supplemented by her rendition of a bevy of female music and movie icons who all possessed that indefinable sense of Sass! (1995).

Jeffrey Brown’s 1998 paean to hopelessness and confusion ‘To Wenatchee’ is followed by Pshaw’s whimsical story of a little robot in The One Eyed World (1999) after which ‘Colin Upton Presents A Short Guide To the Care and Production of Mini-Comics’ provides everything anyone needs to know about making story-art stories.

Contemporary cartoon wild child Johnny Ryan 2002 exposes guilty secrets from Shouldn’t You Be Working? #5, before the ‘Souther Salazar Interview’ leads to the artist’s wide-ranging ‘In Case of Emergency Only’ (2003) and Max Clotfelter’s eerily post-apocalyptic Snake Meat #1 from 2004.

Her smartly evocative 2004 Science Fiction Affliction is preceded by an ‘Alison Cole Interview’ after which Thought Cloud Shrines from 2007 perfectly displays Theo Ellsworth’s astounding graphic imagination and meticulous penmanship; gifts shared by Lisa Hanawalt and revealed in a stunning fashion parade of freaks in Stay Away From Other People from 2008, augmented by her hilarious ’12 Things To Do When you Are Stuck in Traffic’.

Travis Millard’s ‘Sad Dad’ introduces a deucedly depressing modern pantheon in Who Let the Gods Out (2008) whilst Bobby Maddness explores a variety of baffling annoyances in Too Small Comics #2 (2010) and Esther Pearl Watson describes a ghastly future populated solely by pop stars and fashion models in Eric Parris World from 2009.

The marvellous Jim Rugg contributes a stunning and outrageous pop at America’s dumbest President and most moronic national symbol in the delirious ‘Rambo 3.5’ (2009) after which, from 2010, Donald & Daniel Zettwoch mesmerise with their incredible personal history of phone exchange technology in ‘Cut Lines and Intricate Minds’ as seen in Tel-Tales #1 and Tom Neely employs dozens of bootlegged Popeyes in a surreal spinach-fuelled Battle Royale for his DoppelgÃ¤ngerâ€¦

The ‘Jason T. Miles Interview’ leads naturally enough into his 2010 tale of terror ‘Dump’ from Pines 3.

The irrepressible manga marvel DJ Cat Gosshie goes through a series of adorable â€œtotally-streetâ€ trans-Pacific short story syncopations as delineated by Harukichi in 2011 before Pakito Bolino then relates the hyperkinetic end of everything with the ‘Male of the Future’ from D.O.C. (2012)

DemonDust #10 by Bernie McGovern (2012) lyrically explores the poetry of atomic theory and human interactiveness whilst from the same year Shuttlecakes reveals the stunning dexterity and artistic facility of Susan Belle before the ‘Caroline Paquita Interview’ leads to her seductively gender-political compilation Womanimalistic #3 from 2013 to close the monochrome section of this collection.

However, following the ever-so-useful ‘Artist website and contact info’ pages, there’s even more compelling cartoon self-expression all crafted to make use of carefully considered colour, commencing with Kristyna Baczynski’s travails of a pretty kitty in ‘Nine Lives’ from 2012, Leah Wishnia’s disturbing exploration of women’s lives from Spithouse #1 (2008) and an even more distressing tale of psychological brutality from Nick Bertozzi in ‘5/4’ from 2000 before Ethan Persoff concludes the challenging cartoon content with a stunning graphic potpourri from Plastic Tales and Stories #2.

This tremendous tome features some of the host of pioneering craftsmen who worked in the self-printing movement which became today’s thriving Alternative/Small Press publishing industry as well as the current internet comics phenomenon, and this book has incredible appeal on an historical basis.

However, that’s really not the point: the real draw of such collections is that creativity is addictive, good work never pales or grows stale and the great stories and art here will make you keen to have a go too.

I’ve done it myself, for fun â€“ even once or twice for actual profit â€“ and it’s an incredible buzz (I should note that I am still married to a wife not only tolerant but far more skilled and speedy in the actual â€œphotocopy, cut, fold, stapleâ€ bit of the process and willing, if not keen, to join in just so she might occasionally be with the compulsive dingbat she marriedâ€¦)

The sheer boundless enthusiasm and feelgood rewards of intellectual freedom from making such comics celebrated in this astoundingly vast, incredibly heavy and yet still pocket-sized hardback is a pure galvanic joy that will enchant and impel every fan of the art-form: as long as they’re big enough to hold a pencil, old enough to vote, and strong enough to lift the book.
Treasury of Mini Comics volume 2 Â© 2015 Michael Dowers and Fantagraphics Books. All contents Â© 2013 their respective creators or authors. All rights reserved.

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