Mature Reading – Page 55

December 3, 2014

Serenity- Firefly Class 03-K64: Leaves on the Wind

By Zack Whedon, Georges Jeanty, FÃ¡bio Moon, Karl Story & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-489-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Furious Fun, Cosmic Class and Stellar Suprisesâ€¦ 9/10

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.

That crushed yet select 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 compilation which further details the troubled lives of reluctant freedom fighter Malcolm Reynolds and his oddball crew of reprobates aboard an independent trader starship of the Firefly class.

Collecting the 6-issue miniseries Serenity: Leaves on the Wind and a short story from Free Comic Book Day 2012: Serenity/Stars Wars, this is actually the fourth volume starring the nomadic, semi-piratical outlaws, but since the previous three all featured material bridging the end of the show and start of the film, it’s safe to start here and catch up with the rearguard action some other time.

I certainly intend toâ€¦

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

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 26^th century and mankind is living through the aftermath of a 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 cargo vessel.

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 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, Reynolds and Co uncovered the horrific secrets the Alliance were so desperate to keep hidden and broadcast them to the entire ‘Verseâ€¦

Now although the whole system is rumbling with renewed mutterings of rebellion the survivors of Serenity are more hunted than everâ€¦

Written by Zack Whedon, illustrated by Georges Jeanty and Karl Story with colours from Laura Martin & Lovern Kindzierski and letters by Michael Heisler, this rousing romp opens with the Alliance in full media attack mode: spreading disinformation and counter allegations to remove the sting from the twin revelations that the government has been for years conducting experiments to create slave super soldiers (like River was supposed to be) and their previous pacification experiments in fact created the unstoppable bloody Reaversâ€¦

As their demagogues demand the Firefly â€œterroristsâ€ come forward to substantiate their preposterous claims, the real backbone of the Alliance is concentrated on finding Reynolds and his shambolic friends who seem to have vanished into the voidâ€¦

On a huge military space station Operative Denon and the enigmatic woman he takes orders from confer and send out their most cunning agents to scour the rat-runs of the ‘Verse whilst setting in play plans to end the popular risings called by the idiotic â€œNew Resistanceâ€â€¦

In one such enclave of rebellion, a passionate girl named Bea outlines a bold plan: using the vast funds provided by the movement’s shadowy financiers she will track down the legendary Mal Reynolds and ask him to lead a unified pan-planetary revoltâ€¦

As Bea searches, in the uncharted unknowns Reynolds and his occasional lover Inara argue as usual. With money and supplies critically low, Serenity needs to take on a charter of some kind no matter what the risk.

The battered, weary survivors are also terminally bored. Simon and engineer Kaylee spend all their time having sex, enhanced, creepy River is now chief pilot and ferocious second-in-command Zoe spends her days trying to come to terms with husband Wash‘s stupid, stupid death whilst bringing their baby to term.

Things are so desperate they even miss brutish thug and professional butthole Jayne Cobbâ€¦

The situation alters drastically after Zoe gives birth. Newborn Emma is perfect in every detail but the labour has resulted in obstetrical haemorrhage for her mother. Painfully aware of the risks, Mal takes the ship in-system to the rough-and-ready medical facilities of the isolated Paquin asteroid mining stationâ€¦

The aforementioned Jayne has meanwhile been plucked from his preferred occupation as an excessively violent if inept bandit; hired by the unswervingly dedicated Bea to take her to all Reynolds’ favourite hiding places. The Alliance too have turned to an old acquaintance of the much sought after captain. Bounty hunter Jubal Early has a big score to settle with his â€œone who got awayâ€â€¦

Unfortunately, even the most remote outpost is subject to government oversight and no sooner is Zoe registered for surgery than the Alliance are rapidly en route. Mal only leaves his old Unification War comrade after she begs him to keep baby Emma safe at all costsâ€¦

On the run again and frantic, the crew’s doldrums are countered by River who suggests a dangerous procedure to allow her to tap into her suppressed powers.

A genius and psychic, before Simon rescued her she was part of an Alliance project which included lethal martial arts training and brain-augmenting surgeries. The result is a strange hybrid creature with too many personalities who often scares the willies out of her shipmates, but in her head are all manner of secrets she doesn’t know she knows.

If she can recover some fact or scrap of clandestine knowledge valuable enough from inside her consciousness, they can use it to blackmail the government into freeing Zoeâ€¦

As the terrifying teen sinks into a chemically-induced coma, Bea and Jayne show up, but just as Reynolds is refusing the earnest newcomer’s offer to lead her revolution, Early – having slaughtered Bea’s entire crew – infiltrates Serenity and begins taking out the fugitives one by oneâ€¦

The third chapter begins with a peek inside physically dormant River’s broken mind where she consults her other selves, before waking to discover the bounty hunter in control of the ship. Jubal however has neglected – and most crucially underestimated – the least of the crew and quickly learns to regret itâ€¦

The mind-walk has been shockingly successful and River now knows the location of other subjects like her. The chance to rescue more helpless victims from a place stuffed with invaluable stores, secrets and supplies whilst tweaking the Alliance’s nose is more than any of them can resist and soon Serenity is heading out to pick up another extremely unlikely allyâ€¦

For Zoe, however, life is not so appetising or upbeat. Barely recovered from surgery, she has been dumped on a hellish penal world where she has to literally battle every day just to stay alive. Luckily she’s always been good at fightingâ€¦

With a supposedly â€œturnedâ€ Alliance operative as guide, the crew lay their plans, but need Bea’s help to obtain a less recognisable ship to invade the facility in. Things seem to be going well until the New Resistance backers reveal themselves and the team stumble into a perfect trap.

It wouldn’t have been so bad but for one thing. River Tam is the most dangerous creature the heroes have ever met, but Simon got her out before her augmenting was complete. Now they’ve all burst into the one place where the horrifically finished models are ready and waitingâ€¦

With one single war-girl wiping the floor with the outgunned unwilling rebels, the gloating arrogant Alliance officers have not allowed for one small thing. Malcolm Reynolds is a wily, distrustful old soldier who has already lost one war and he didn’t come to fight without having one hell of a back-up planâ€¦

Following a blockbuster battle, stunning reversals of fortune but an essentially Pyrrhic victory, the escaping heroes finally settle some old business before one last hurrah finds the Firefly heading to an anonymous prison planet to execute the most spectacular jailbreak ever seenâ€¦

With chapter-break headings utilising the powerful variant covers of Dan Dos Santos, Leaves on the Wind is pure explosive escapist enjoyment, but this splendid yarn will be far less effective if you haven’t seen the film it grew out of. The same simply can’t be said of the short story which closes the book on this voyage of the Firefly Serenity – after a large and enticing cover gallery by Jeanty, Story, Martin, Ian McCaig, Jenny Frison & Joe Quinones.

‘It’s Never Easy’ by Zack Whedon, FÃ¡bio Moon, Cris Peter & Heisler originated in Free Comic Book Day 2012: Serenity/Stars Wars, a supremely approachable and engaging yarn set during Zoe’s pregnancy which graphically and hilariously demonstrates how Malcolm is the kind of man who can get into trouble even whilst just standing around watching other people workâ€¦

With atone and sensibility that is pure Jonah Hex (back when the bounty hunting gunfighter was as blackly funny, sardonic and socially critical as it was thrilling, scary and action-packed), astoundingly terse and winning characterisation and all the intoxicating bonhomie and sense of wonder of Babylon 5 and the original Star Wars trilogy, this a book no lover of space opera shoot ’em ups can afford to miss.

November 28, 2014

B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs volume 1

By Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Brian McDonald, Miles Gunther, Brian Augustyn, Geoff Johns, Joe Harris, Guy Davis, Ryan Sook, Matt Smith, Derek Thompson, Michael Avon Oeming, Scott Kolins, Adam Pollina, Cameron Stewart & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-5958-2675-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epic Eldritch Entertainmentâ€¦ 9/10

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 â€œBroomâ€ Bruttenholm to destroy unnatural threats and supernatural monsters as the lead agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

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

The massive collection under review here instead features his trusty comrades and other assorted spin-off characters from Mike Mignola’s legendary franchise: valiant champions who also deal with those occult occasions which typically fall under the remit of the Enhanced Talents task force established in Fairfield, Connecticut as the baby imp grew to monster-mangling manhood.

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.

As discussed in Scott Allie’s Introduction, the B.P.R.D. soon established itself as a viable premise in its own right and, through a succession of interlinked miniseries, went on to battle an ancient and arcane amphibian menace to the world in an immense epic which spanned eight years of publication.

Periodically released as a series of trade paperbacks during that time, the entire supernatural saga dubbed Plague of Frogs has been remastered and will be now be collected as a quartet of monumental volumes, of which this is the fearsome first. Gathering material from Hellboy: Box full of Evil, one-shots Abe Sapien: Drums of the Dead, B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth, B.P.R.D.: The Soul of Venice, B.P.R.D.: Dark Waters, B.P.R.D.: Night Train, B.P.R.D.: There’s Something Under My Bed, 5-issue miniseries B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs and choice snippets from the publisher’s trade flyer Dark Horse Extra, this macabre triumvirate of terror opens with ‘Hollow Earth’ written by Mignola, Christopher Golden & Tom Sniegoski and illustrated by Ryan Sook with additional inking from Curtis Arnold, letters from Clem Robins and magical colours from the himself-legendary Dave Stewart.

After the events of Hellboy: Conqueror Worm, the horned hero quit the B.P.R.D. which had been his only home since he was rescued from those Fascist sorcerers on December 23^rd 1944, and our tale begins with the remaining investigators questioning their own validity in and responsibilities to an organisation which clearly does not fully trust or appreciate them.

Such ponderings are sidelined however when on-sabbatical pyrokinetic Liz Sherman sends a spectacular distress call to amphibious Abe Sapien. Since she has been missing for two years nobody downplays it and a scratch team is promptly dispatched to her last known location, a temple in the Ural Mountains, on the Arctic Circle.

The squad comprises conflicted, lonely Abe, disgruntled artificial warrior Roger the Homunculus (still peeved by the discovery that his bosses planted a bomb inside him to ensure he remained controllable) and new recruit Johann Krauss, a recently disembodied psychic, led by reluctantly promoted psychologist/ field commander Kate Corrigan â€¦

When they arrive they find all the priests of Agartha slaughtered and Liz’s body cold and emptyâ€¦ but not dead. Also scattered about are the bodies of dead monsters and a great big hole leading down through the mountain into untrammelled subterranean depthsâ€¦

Realising that Liz’s animating energy has been stolen, Abe and the team plunge into the darkness, determined to rescue their comrade and solve the mysteryâ€¦

And so begins a ponderously oppressive, doom-laden classic adventure of sub-Terrene lost civilisations, ancient races, infernal entities and imminent threat of world conquest, all dealt with in blockbusting fashion by moodily charismatic heroes in the supremely entertaining action-packed, tension-filled nick-of-time.

Crafted by the same creative team and lettered by Dan Jackson, the under-Earth escapade is followed by ‘Hollow Earth, Dark Horse Extra’ which offers the tragic origin of bodiless spiritualist Johann Kraus, after which ‘The Killer in My Skull’ (written by Mignola, drawn by Matt Smith, inked by Sook and coloured by Stewart, introduces 1930’s masked ghost-breaker Lobster Johnson in a splendid weird-science shocker, whilst ‘Abe Sapien versus Science’ chills through an intimate glimpse at the fabulous manphibian’s early days as a guinea pig of the B.P.R.D.’s research division, with Mignola replacing Smith as inker. Pat Brosseau is the under-appreciated letterer in both cases, which both originally appeared as back-up strips from the miniseries Hellboy: Box Full of Evil.

Next up is a full-length Abe Sapien solo thriller, courtesy of writer Brian McDonald, illustrator Derek Thompson, colourist James Sinclair and Brosseau. ‘Drums of the Dead’ is a splendidly spooky sea-faring thriller involving voodoo, sharks and the unhappy unburied as Abe and apprentice Bureau psychic Garrett investigate uncanny and lethal transatlantic phenomena in the seas where once slave traders sailedâ€¦

The second book in this mammoth compilation is ‘The Soul of Venice and Other Stories’ commencing with that eponymous yarn by Miles Gunther & Michael Avon Oeming with a little help from Mignola, colours by Stewart and letters by Ken Bruzenak.

It all kicks off as amphibian Abe, bodiless Johann, lonely Roger and newly reinstated firestarter Liz are dispatched to Venice (that other one in Italy) to solve a literally nauseating crisis.

To fix the problem they have to invade a haunted palazzo, battle a debauched ghost-vampire and liberate an ancient Roman Goddess, incurring along the way the extremely polite disinterest of archdevil Lord Shax of Hell. However, in the triumphant aftermath Roger and the liberated deity Cloacina strike up an unlikely relationshipâ€¦

Brian Augustyn, Guy Davis, Stewart and Michelle Madsen then pit Sapien and Roger against religious zealotry and misunderstood arcane forces in ‘Dark Waters’.

When the corpses of three women branded as witches centuries earlier are pulled, inert, unchanged and smelling of roses, from a 300-year interment at the bottom of a duck pond in Shiloh (near Salem), Massachusetts the duo reluctantly investigate, but things go nastily awry when fire-and-brimstone preacher Pastor Blackwood steals the bodies.

Happily the agents and a more piously forgiving man of god are able to thwart the witch-hunting loon before he unleashes forces nothing could stopâ€¦

‘Night Train’ (Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Stewart & Brosseau) give the old â€œghost locomotiveâ€ plot an effective tweak when Liz and Roger meet the unquiet spirit of Lobster Johnson. The bombastic mystery man has returned to help stop the aged Nazi maniac who killed him and slaughtered a convoy of Manhattan Project scientists in 1939â€¦

The entire team are on hand to solve the mystery of disappearing babies in ‘There’s Something Under My Bed’ by Joe Harris, Adam Pollina, Guillermo Zubiaga, Lee Loughridge & Brosseau, leaving the â€œEnhanced Talentsâ€ (at least) wondering if they should revise their definition of the term â€œmonsterâ€, after which ‘Another Day at the Office’ (Mignola, Cameron Stewart, Madsen & Michael Heisler) raucously recounts the fate of a resurrected Balkan necromancer who thought his zombie legions a match for Abe, Johann and a squad of well-armed, well-trained B.P.R.D. regularsâ€¦

The third and final Book reprints the monstrously chilling opening sally in the epic ‘Plague of Frogs’ (by Mignola, Davis, Stewart & Robins) storyline as the supernatural riot squad faces off against some of their oldest enemies, allowing the author to tie up a number of loose ends and plot threads which encompass the entire publishing history of Hellboyâ€¦

The challengers of the extremely unknown are called in when a spore monster escapes from a B.P.R.D. storage facility and Abe, Liz, Johann, Roger and Kate Corrigan have their work cut out trying to stop the granddaddy of all elder gods from turning Earth into a charnel pit and breeding ground for giant frog demons.

Amongst all that mood, mystery, carnage and catastrophe Mignola and the unbelievably underrated and unique Guy Davis even manage to give us an origin of sorts for Abe Sapien in such a way as to tell everything and still leave us all none the wiserâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Rounding out this astoundingly absorbing tome is a portentous Afterword by Mignola, who also contribute extensively to the trio of Sketchbook Sections for Hollow Earth (mostly Sook), Soul of Venice by Avon Oeming, Davis, Kolins, Pollina and Cameron Stewart and finally Plague of Frogs by Davis. Also included are a gallery of covers, character recaps and other eerie art treats.

With the tides of TV fashion once again shifting towards the fantastic, this bunch must be the first choice option for every production company out there. Until then why not get ahead of the rush by reading these truly magical tales?
Â© 2003, 2004, 2005, 2014 Mike Mignola. All rights reserved. B.P.R.D., all key and prominently featured characters â„¢ Mike Mignola.

November 24, 2014November 28, 2014

Channel Evil

By Alan Grant, Shane Oakley, D’Israeli, Suzanne O’Brien & various (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-986820021-4-5

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: spooky chills for dark winter nightsâ€¦ 8/10

As the nights draw in, thoughts just naturally turn to hunkering down by a fire, eating to excess, drinking to oblivion and scaring the bejeezus out of each other with uncanny stories.

In that hallowed tradition comes a stunning (mostly) monochrome treat from veteran comicbook craftsmen Alan Grant (Robo-Hunter, Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Batman, The Bogie Man, plus one or two other things you might have heard of) and Shane Oakley (Fatal Charm, Mister X, Albion) which began life as an apparently cursed miniseries from Renegade and Berserker Comics in 2009.

That story is well covered in the brace of Introductions by author Grant and his film-making partner in creative cooperative Renegade Arts Entertainment, so I won’t waste your time here. However, with Channel Evil finally completed, the spectacular results have been released as a gripping grimoire of wicked wonderment with even more appreciations and reminiscences from horrorist Doug â€œPinheadâ€ Bradley in his Foreword before a decidedly different scary story starts in, of all places, Blackpoolâ€¦

‘Don’t Touch that Dial’ opens with ambitious local TV presenter Jez Manson doing what he loves most: ripping apart and humiliating a minor celeb on his talk show. Having crushed another eager hopeful, the Man of the Hour celebrates by taking his glamour model girlfriend Lian for a walk along the Central Pier and is cajoled into seeing a show starring medium Conni Verona.

The mouthy sceptic is unimpressed with the psychic’s message of universal peace and love as she â€œchannelsâ€ her spirit guide Great Horam – but on seeing the packed and enrapt audience Manson knows money when he smells itâ€¦

Arranging for Connie to appear on his show is easy and avaricious agent â€œFast Mickâ€ also senses more priceless publicity and ratings in store. Unfortunately when Conni is interviewed on Channel X-33 things don’t go as expected as she turns his ridiculing ambush back upon him, daring him to try and contact the spirit dimensions himself.

Forced to comply, Jez has a go and, after four millennia, the pagan god Ba’al finds himself a new and extremely inviting vesselâ€¦

Jez’s transformation is terrifying, compulsive and hypnoticâ€¦ until Conni snaps him out of his possessed state with a smart slap across the face. Manson is dazed and visibly shaken but all Mick can see is the astounding viewer reactions and offers from the major networks for more of the sameâ€¦

Brushing off Conni’s warning about messing with the unknown, Jez and Mick go on a club-hopping bender but the exhausted interviewer begs off early, heading home to crash out.

Later that night three rowdily drunken stag night partiers are burned to deathâ€¦

‘Interference Pattern’ sees Lian arrive home after a â€œPage 3â€ gig to find Jez in an uncharacteristically gloomy state, morbidly dwelling for reasons even he can’t explain on the triple homicide.

Across town, meanwhile, world-weary Sergeant Niven and his junior partner Detective Tate start their investigations at the morgue. All they’ve got to go on is three crispy charred corpses, a jerry can with an almost useless partial fingerprint and a brain-fried wino who might have witnessed the attackâ€¦

Jez is enduring horrific nightmares of slaughter and conquest, punctuated by demands from a supernal maniac that he surrender his bodyâ€¦

Mick does more than amorously solicitous Lian to quash those night terrors. The wily manager has arranged a live broadcast from Louis Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors for Jez to display his captivating new talent before an eager audience and sensation-hungry world. Once again Ba’al does not disappointâ€¦

After a stunningly baroque and grotesque display which brings the gods of television clamouring to his door with their chequebooks out, Jez heads for home utterly exhausted. Exultant Mick finds him there crashed out next day, with no memory of the intervening hours. Lian is there too. Well, at least most of her isâ€¦

With Manson utterly oblivious to the situation, Mick does what every good manager does and fixes things. Utterly unaware of what he’s done, the presenter is far more worried by a spate of bloody atrocities across the country. He’s convinced they’re all Ba’al’s work.

The police, thanks to that partial print, have listed Jez as a person of interest and paid a visit, but once again the agent has all the bases coveredâ€¦

Despite everything he seen Mick is still sceptical, but agrees to fetch Conni Verona to â€œfixâ€ either Jez’s delusion or – just possibly – the demonic intrusion. When he returns, however, his client is missing, giving the agent time to arrange one more televisual spectacular for the massesâ€¦

With the police closing in and Conni and Great Horam poised to banish the invading spirit the stage is set for a cataclysmic climax, but as you’d expect the ferocious ancient god has his own ideasâ€¦

Dark, witty, razor-paced and genuinely suspenseful, Grant’s Channel Evil delivers a potent punch to delight modern fans of mood and mystery, couched in slick and subtle terms and illustrated with devilishly stylish aplomb by Oakley and Suzanne O’Brien, but this wicked chronicle does not end there.

Also included is a gallery of covers and variants by Wayne Nichols, Mark Buckingham, Frank Quitely & D’Israeli, a fascinating glimpse into Oakley’s process via an extensive ‘Sketch Book’ feature, and a brilliant, informative and blackly hilarious bonus story as the red-handed storm god himself gives a candid in-depth TV interview which reveals his astonishing history and literally brings the house down in ‘An Evening With Ba’al’â€¦

Smart, sharp and unforgettable, this is a spooky yarn no grown-up fear aficionado will dare to miss.
Channel Evil Â© 2012 Renegade Arts Entertainment and Alan Grant.

November 19, 2014November 18, 2014

Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book

By Harvey Kurtzman (Ballantine/Kitchen Sink)
ISBNs: 978-0-87816-033-4 (Kitchen Sink HB),Â Â Â Â Â 338-K (Ballantine original PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Hard To Find – but absolutely worth itâ€¦ 10/10

Here in Britain we think we invented modern satire, and quite frankly it’s a pretty understandable notion, with The Great 1960s Wit Scare producing the likes of Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, Bernard Levin, Richard Ingrams, Alan Bennett, Paul Foot, Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Miller, David Frost and institutions such as The Establishment club, That Was the Week that Was and the utterly wonderful Private Eye (long may She reign, offend, fly at Gads and survive repeated libel and defamation writsâ€¦).

Somehow our American cousins were not so copiously blessed. Their share of genuine world-changing, liberal-lefty intellectual troublemakers only really comprised Tom Lehrer and Harvey Kurtzman. Of course it a very large country with an unbelievable number of guns equally distributed amongst smart folks, idiots and lunatics alikeâ€¦

Creative genius Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the 20th century – even more so than Will Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert or Will Eisner.

His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking, game-changing Mad) would be enough for most creators to lean back on but Kurtzman was a force in newspaper strips (See Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, commentator and social explorer who kept on looking at folk and their doings and just couldn’t stop making art to share his findingsâ€¦

He invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour funny book Mad into a black-&-white magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fall-out caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles.

He pursued comedy and social satire further with the magazines Trump, Humbug and Help!, all the while creating challenging and powerfully effective humour strips such as Little Annie Fanny (for Playboy), Nutz, Goodman Beaver, Betsy and her Buddies and many more. He died far too soon, far too young in 1993.

In 1959, having left Mad over issues of financial control and with both follow-up independent ventures Trump andÂ Humbug defunct, the irrepressible Kurtzman convinced Ballantine Books to publish a mass-market paperback of all-new satirical material.

The company had just lost the rights to publish Mad‘s paperback reprint line and were cautiously amenableâ€¦

The intriguing oddment saw the Great Observer in top form, returning to his comic roots by spoofing and lambasting strip characters, classic cinema, contemporary television and apparently unchanging social sentiments in a quartet of hyper-charged tales. Unfortunately the project was the first of its kind in America and met with less than stellar success. No one had ever published 140 pages of new comics in one savage bite before, and even the plenitude of strip reprint books always had one eye to the kids’ market.

This stuff was strictly for adults who would happily read newspaper or magazine strips but didn’t want to be seen carrying a book of them. Duly enlightened Kurtzman returned to safer ground and launched Help! just in time for the Swinging Sixties’ satire boomâ€¦

The slim monochrome package might not have changed the nation but it certainly warped and affected a generation of budding cartoonists and writers. Quickly becoming a legend – and nearly a myth in fan circles – Jungle Book was rescued from limbo in 1987 when Denis Kitchen (that much-missed crusading champion of all things grand, esoteric, nostalgic and/or naughty in comics), released the entire lost volume as a deluxe oversized (214 x 149 x 19mm) collectors hardback edition through his Kitchen Sink Press.

It’s still one of the funniest, most marvellous examples of wit and creativity comics have ever produced, as well as Kurtzman’s longest single work and is long overdue for another go-round.

Large sized paperback editions were also released at the time, but are now just as hard to findâ€¦

Deemed one of the â€œTop 100 Comics of the 20th Centuryâ€ by The Comics Journal, the racy, revelatory controversial – and in 1959 completely ignored – tome’s full title is Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Or, Up from the Apes! (and Right Back Down) – In Which Are Described in Words and Pictures Businessmen, Private Eyes, Cowboys, and Other Heroes All Exhibiting the Progress of Man from the Darkness of the Cave into the Light of Civilization by Means of Television, Wide Screen Movies, the Stone Axe, and Other Useful Arts and the Kitchen Sink edition augments its reproduction with an effusive and captivating ‘Intro’ from devoted fan Art Spiegelman plus an information-packed ‘Outro’ by editor and comics historian Dave Schriener.

The material itself is gloriously timeless and revelatory. In 1959 it gave the author an opportunity to experiment with layout, page design, narrative rhythms and especially the graphic potential of lettering, all whilst asking pertinent probing questions about the world changing around him.

‘Thelonius Violence, Like Private Eye’ is ostensibly a parody of groundbreaking TV show Peter Gunn, with the jazz-loving hipster â€œWhite Knight for Hireâ€ scoring chicks and getting hit an awful lot as he infallibly and oh-so-coolly tracks a killer whilst protecting blackmail victim Lolita Nabokovâ€¦

The tale is slick and witty and sublimely smart, whereas the next piece barely contains a lot of pent-up frustration for past sins and misdemeanours.

For ‘Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite’ Kurtzman accessed his experiences working for bosses (such as Marvel’s Martin Goodman) to create the salutary tale of a decent young man’s progress up the corporate ladder at Shlock Publications Inc. The quasi-autobiographical impressionable and ambitious naÃ¯f in question is Goodman Beaver (who would be resurrected for Help! and eventually, improbably evolve into Little Annie Fanny) and his transformation from sweet kid to cruel, corrupt, exploitative typical business jerk makes for truly outrageous reading.

The title comes from a trio of contemporary bestsellers on the subject of men in business: Executive Suite by Cameron Hawley (1952), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson in 1955 and William H. Whyte’s 1956 drama The Organization Man.

‘Compulsion on the Range’ simultaneously spoofs top-rated western Gunsmoke and the era’s growing fascination with cod psychology and angst-ridden heroes as Marshal Matt Dolin‘s far-reaching obsession with out-shooting infallible outlaw Johnny Ringding which takes him to the end of the Earthâ€¦

The volume wraps up with an edgily barbed tribute to Great Southern novels like Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre and assorted works of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, filtered through a glorious froth of absurd melodrama, frustrated passions and steamy sex (by all accounts the Very Best Kind), all outrageously delivered via astoundingly rendered caricatures and inspired dialect and accent gags.

In ‘Decadence Degenerated’ us sees thet nothin’ evah changes in sleepy ole Rottenville. Then wun naht, when the boys is jus’ a-oglin’ purty Honey-Lou as ushul, somethin’ goes awry an’ it all leads to murdah an’ lynchin’ befoah a snoopy repohtah who claims he frum up Noath turn up thinkin’ he can fin’ the truthâ€¦

Soon violent passions is furtha aroused and nothin’ kin evah be the same aginâ€¦

Funny, evocative and still unparalleled in its depth and visual potency, Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book inspired and influenced creators and storytellers as disparate as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Terry Gilliam. This is a masterpiece of our art form which no true devotee can afford to be without.

November 2, 2014

The Power of Tank Girl

By Alan Martin, Rufus Dayglo, Ashley Wood & (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-064-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: â€¦ 8/10

By golly, doesn’t time – and the occasional burst of bullets – fly! It’s hard to believe that our recent past is so far away. Back in the garishly gritty 1980s when I was tea-boy on Warrior magazine (still one of the most influential independent comics ever produced) there was a frantic buzz of feverish creativity in the British comics scene which seemed to say that any young upstart could hit the big time.

Possibly the most upstarty of all were art-students Jamie Hewlett & Alan Martin (and, tangentially, Phillip Bond) who prowled the local convention circuit impressing the hell out of everybody with their photocopied fanzine Atomtan. At the back of issue #1 was a pin-up/ad for a dubious looking young lady with a big, Big, BIG gun and her own armoured transport. And now it’s suddenly 30 years laterâ€¦

Commissioned by Brett Ewins and Steve Dillon for their new publishing venture Deadline (a pop-culture magazine with loads of cool comics strips), the absurdist tales of a feisty, well-armed chick roaming the wilds of a futuristic Australia with her Kangaroo boy-friend Booga caught the imagination of a large portion of the public. There was even a movieâ€¦

After many years dallying with a sordid plethora of different publishers, the salty, soldierly slapper found her way to Titan Books – self-appointed custodian of the Best of British strip art – who comprehensively remastered her old adventures and spin-offs into a series of unmissable volumes.

Now as Tank Girl continues to periodically sneak out for further frantic capers, they’ve added another tome to the canon as The Power of Tank Girl gathers recent serial exploits The Gifting, Visions of Booga and The Royal Escape (published in the USA by IDW between November 2007 and September 2010) into one stunning pocket – or is that pouch? – sized compendium of exuberant excess and blood-drenched hilarityâ€¦

Scripted throughout by Martin, the mucky-mouthed mania begins with a dash of poesy in ‘The Power’ and a pulsating pin-up before a transcendental epic ‘The Royal Escape’ (with art by the incomparable Rufus Dayglo) opens with ‘Part One: The Golden Egg’ wherein Tank Girl, paramour Booga (a most manly and lovable kangaroo) and gal pals Jackie (Boat Girl), Barney and Jet Girl are moments from death at the guns (and bombs, bayonets, RPGs etcâ€¦) of an extremely pissed off but much depleted army.

With their backs to the shattered walls and ammo gone, Jet Girl is forced to throw the last thing she possesses: a mysterious golden egg she has owned since childhoodâ€¦

The deed somehow turns her semi-catatonic and the mismatched team are forced to split up. As the gritty warriors hunker down, Barney and Jackie go on a mystic quest to recover the egg. The trek takes them up a mountain to meet skeevy shaman Wanka in ‘The Bulldog Breed’ who guides them to an eagle’s nest with a broken eggshell containing a teeny-tiny, very confused Jet Girlâ€¦

While they yomp back to the battle, the hard-pressed hold-out heroes are reduced to defending themselves with little more than a ‘Dead Man’s Sandwich’ even as their returning friends stumble across a gigantic statue deep in the Bush.

The monolith looks like Jet Girl and when the weeny wonder finds herself compelled to crawl into it, the statue comes to terrifying lifeâ€¦

Now possessed of an awesome unstoppable walking weapon, the wanderers return in time to make ‘A Terrible Souffle’ of the invading army in a shattering spectacle of intense and sustained carnageâ€¦

After a potpourri of covers and groovy pics, odd ode ‘Last of the Jensen Interceptors’ leads into a nostalgic nightmare when Tank Girl determines to attend at all costs a reunion gig by her fave girlhood manufactured Boy-Band in ‘The Funsters Will Play’ (with art by Ashley Wood)â€¦

A procession of fearsome fashion pages comes next as ‘Keys to the Tank’, ‘Booga in Extreme Jungle Wear’, ‘Jet Girl in Stealth Flying Gear’, ‘Barney in Urban Camouflage’ and ‘Cruiser Tank in full Racing Livery’ depict how the most stylish mass-murderers make the scene whilst ‘Tank Girl in Bad Camouflage’ and the concluding chapter ‘Uncle Smiffy’s Tombstone’ returns to strip storytelling to deliver a daft drama disclosing the bloodstained origins of Boat Girlâ€¦

Dayglo resumes the arty stuff for Visions of Booga which finds the lovers sucked into a Mafia plot and sent to prison in ‘Falling Angel Blues’. Unfortunately they’re also caught up in the daring escape of the Don’s favourite brother from the prison transport and have to go on the lam from both the cops and the mob.

The best disguise seems to be switching genders but perhaps they haven’t really thought it throughâ€¦

The pursuit continues and intensifies when they kill one of the Mafioso, accidentally acquiring in the process ultimate mystic panacea the ‘Book of Hipster Gold’ and stumbling onto unhappy diner waitress Barney who just happens to have an old SDKFZ 251 Mittlerer Schutzenpanzerwagen parked out backâ€¦

On the run again (but now in a perfectly working Nazi armoured halftrack) the fugitives head for the West Coast where a seasoned hippy dwells. He’s the only person on Earth who can be trusted with the eldritch tome of peace and perfection but as ‘Letters to Earth’ shows, The Mob never quit and hippies – even the sublime and most cool Spanky Smith – aren’t what they used to be.

Still, he does find time to marry Tank Girl and Booga before the bad guys turn up for the blistering and bizarre conclusion ‘Which Cuts the Finest, the Sabre or the Blade of Grass?’â€¦

Following some more covers, The Gifting opens with a batch of illustrated Beat poems extolling ‘Digging the Lonely Eternity’, before a bit of girl goss gets all scatological whilst solving the pressing mystery of ‘The Dogshit in Barney’s Handbag’ (Wood art) after which Martin & Dayglo spin us back to the 1970s for ‘Tank Girl and Friends in Our Glam Day Out’ revisiting such iconic treats as Evel Knievel, Chopper Bikes, Pub Lunches and much, much more, whilst Wood’s go on the art encompasses a ‘Barney Pull-out Poster’ and extended paean to days past ‘X2-38’ which sees Booga lose his heart to a toy raygun from his childhood which becomes his ‘Reason for Living’, before pausing for a brief ‘Tank Girl Haiku’

Dayglo’s smartly rendered ‘Bonko Patrol’ explains the downside of truly heavy ordnance before Wood wanders back to limn another extended battle against evil and ill manners in ‘The Innocent Die First’.

This sterling parable finds Tank Girl and Booga at a luxurious hotel they’ve just purchased, happily whiling away their days insulting the clientele and starting fights until they offend the wrong punter and start a full scale war in ‘Easy Action’. The conflict naturally escalates until the cataclysmic ‘Attack on the Foreskin Bridge Hotel’ ends the dispute in a most unlikely mannerâ€¦

‘Barney and Jet Girl in Stone Fox Chase’ (Dayglo) then pairs the dynamic duo with Style Icon Adam Ant for a bout of carnage and chaos after which ‘Tank Girl Tat’ offers the kind of merchandise you’ll never see anywhere else and Wood illuminates a quiet night in with nothing to do but ‘Kill Jumbo’â€¦

Booga then plays stage magician to entertain ‘The Kids from 23A’ with horrific results before getting stuck trying to buy lingerie in ‘The Gifting’ and everything wraps up nicely with another selection of moodful poetic meanderings comprising ‘Like a Roast Potato in a Pick-Up Truck’, ‘The Sunshine of Your Arse’, ‘The Ox’ and ‘You Are Loved’â€¦

Never too wedded to the concept of internal logic, chronological order, narrative consistency, linguistic restraint or spelling (so if you’re pedantic be warned!), this latest compote of outrageous and hilarious cartoon phantasmagoria revels in a glorious mud-bath of social iconoclasm, in-yer-face absurdity, decades of British Cultural Sampling and the ever-popular addictive sex ‘n’ violence.

Wildly absurdist, intoxicatingly adorable and packed to the gills with covers, spot art and other pictorial pleasures, The Power of Tank Girl is an ever-so-cool rollercoaster thrill-ride and lifestyle touchstone for life’s incurable rebels and undying Rude Britannians, so if you’ve never seen the anarchic, surreal and culturally soused peculiarity that is Tank Girl, bastard love child of 2000AD and Love and Rockets, you’ve missed a truly unique experienceâ€¦ and remember, she doesn’t care if you like her, just so long as you notice her.
Tank Girl and all related characters are â„¢ & Â© 2014 Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin. All rights reserved.

October 31, 2014October 31, 2014

Nightmare Carnival

By various, edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-6165-5427-9

Here’s a somewhat rushed review because the reading copy arrived late but I’m still determined to get it out in time for Halloween.

Apologies to all involved for my uncharacteristic brevityâ€¦

Dark Horse are best known for their comics and graphic novel efforts but they occasionally slip into old-school legitimate book publishing as with the astounding 2009 release Lovecraft Unbound.

The creative force behind that cosmically unsettling chronicle was Ellen Datlow, the prestigious, multi award-winning editor whose past endeavours include being fiction-editor at Omni, compiling The Best Horror of the Year series, books such as Lovecraft’s Monsters, Darkness: Two Decades of Horror and many more. She spends her quiet moments sourcing short fiction for Tor.Com.

Here she has assembled a chilling coterie of prose parables set in the fertile literary field of unearthly travelling shows as previously exploited by such luminaries as Ray Bradbury in Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dean Koontz in Twilight Eyes or Katherine Dunn in Geek Love.

This last luminary contributes an atmospheric Introduction to this selection of shockers set in and around circus life, atmospherically restating why the Wandering Show biz is such a bastion of terror tales, whilst Datlow’s Preface offers a more personal view of the Three Ring Experience.

The cavalcade commences with ‘Scapegoats’ by N. Lee Wood, which makes us look at elephants in a whole new way, after which Priya Sharma’s ‘The Firebrand’ balances passion, murder and revenge on the tip of a burning tongue and ‘Work, Hook, Shoot, Rip’ from Nick Mamatas describes an aging wrestler’s ultimate battle against a weird new freakâ€¦

A.C. Wise recounts an ex-cop’s problems with a missing family case in ‘And the Carnival Leaves Town’, before Terry Dowling describes in ‘Corpse Rose’ how, when Jeremy Scott Renton was , a bizarre circus ran away to join him and (sadly recently deceased) Joel Lane offers a disturbing insight to the nasty, shabby-chic British experience via a paean to lost love in ‘Last of the Fair’â€¦

A brush with eccentric academics and hidebound college customs draws an unwary new tutor into ‘A Small Part in the Pantomime’ (Glen Hirshberg) and the near-loss of everything she was, whilst ‘Hibbler’s Minions’ (Jeffrey Ford) harks back to the Dustbowl depression of 1933 and a twitchy time with a circus of astoundingly well-trained fleas, after which Dennis Danvers’ ‘Swan Song and Then Some’ explores the amazing resilience and bitter wishes of a songstress who just won’t stay dead.

‘The Lion Cage’ by Genevieve Valentine focuses on the welcome fate of a animal trainer more bestial than his benighted living props, whereas the fun-loving kids in Stephen Graham Jones’ ‘The Darkest Part’ only want to fulfil their hearts desires – to kill as many clowns as humanly possible – whilst Robert Shearman (yeah, the Dalek writer from Doctor Who) takes a lonely insignificant balloon-animal maker on an incredible trip to ‘The Popping Fields’â€¦

According to Nathan Ballingrud, monsters and ghouls have their own festive places of fun and in ‘Skullpocket’ he invites our participation in a most inventive game and spectacle, after which Livia Llewellyn dictates the terms of unnatural desires and weird shopping in ‘The Mysteries’ before Laird Barron carries us to the big finale in ‘Screaming Elk, MT’ with his compulsive trouble-magnet Jessica Mace falling with eyes wide open into some gruesome difficulties at the more-than-it-seems Gallows Brothers Carnival. Naturally, as soon as she settles in the bodies start piling upâ€¦

Harsh, seductive, shocking, spooky, funny and winningly suspenseful, Nightmare Carnival is a bombastic program of perilous passages and macabre moments to amaze and amuse the most jaded fear fiend.
All contents Â© 2014 their individual originators and owners. All rights reserved.

October 31, 2014October 30, 2014

George R.R. Martin’s Skin Trade

Adapted by Daniel Abraham & Mike Wolfer (Avatar Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59291-233-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Dark Delight for a Winter’s Nightâ€¦ 9/10

George Raymond Richard Martin has been selling stories since 1970 and winning major awards for them since 1975. As well as his stunning output of dark, emotive, melancholic multilayered novels and short stories in a variety of genres, he has also successfully pursued a parallel career in television (and movies) and even finds time to teach.

His series A Song of Ice and Fire became the TV sensation A Game of Thrones.

Born in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1948, Martin was active in early comics fandom and studied journalism at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois). He remains close to the funnybook and sci fi fan scenes to this day.

At the top of his form he is one of the most potent fantasy voices in the business, with short stories and novels that are witty, compulsive, imaginatively dark, tinged with wry black humour and always uniquely nuanced and atmospheric.

In 1988 his captivating yarn Skin Trade appeared in the fantasy anthology Night Visions 5 (a series he was editing which numbered Steven King, Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell amongst the contributors) offering a decidedly fresh and different interpretation of one of the most hoary (not a misprint) bÃªte noires in fictionâ€¦

Now that tale (which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella inÂ 1989) has been adapted as a miniseries by scripter Daniel Abraham and illustrator Mike Wolfer and subsequently collected into a slim and sinister trade paperback to delight another generation of fear freaks who loving feeling their own skins crawlâ€¦

Randi Wade is a private detective with a lot of baggage. Not surprising when you think of how her cop dad died years ago. In circumstances still not fully explained, Frank Wade was torn to pieces by some kind of animal at the local meat-packing plantâ€¦

Still not over it, she divides her time between bread-and-butter cases whilst investigating the historic killing off the books. Her best friend is effete ineffectual asthmatic Willie Flambeaux – as a repo man, he’s even in the same sort of business – and one night he offers insights regarding a particularly brutal contemporary murder which change Randi’s life foreverâ€¦

Willie knew the deceased and, assuming Joan Sorenson‘s horrific demise will be covered up by the investigating officers, asks Randi to get involved. He was supposed to meet the victim on the night she died and might be suspect but the real problem is what his own snooping has uncovered.

Joan was found mutilated and might even have been partially consumed by her attackerâ€¦ just like Randi’s dadâ€¦

Willie has not told his friend everything however and later starts calling a few old acquaintances: men like financier Jonathan Harmon, the dark, wealthy untouchable powerbroker whose clan has been secretly running the city foreverâ€¦

Randi taps her other sources, questioning Barry Shumacher, Editor of The Courier and one of her father’s oldest friends. He tells her there’s no connection to the new killing but she knows he’s lyingâ€¦

Convinced she’s on to something Randi then storms into police HQ for a conversation with her dad’s old partner and discovers Chief Joe Urquart reviewing files from the missing persons case Frank Wade was working at the time of his death.

It seems the suspect put away for the crimes is out again, but Frank always felt they had the wrong guy anyway. Rather than big, simple-minded poor kid Roy Helander, he favoured the frighteningly strange son of Jonathan Harmon as the perp behind a spate of child disappearancesâ€¦

Willie meanwhile has been summoned to the Harmon home for an audience with the patriarch and his just-not-right heir Stevenâ€¦

The case takes a disturbing turn after Randi and Willie compare notes. Joan’s death is apparently unconnected to the cold case as she was chained in silver and flayed before the killer made off with her skin. What Randi doesn’t, disclose is the fact that in Frank’s old files she found a note from prime suspect Roy which simply said â€œIt was a werewolfâ€â€¦

And then a friend on the force informs her that there’s been a second killing. Someone else close to good old Willie has been skinned alive, and Randi arrives at a terrifying, inescapable conclusionâ€¦

All of that is mere scene-setting for the shocks, twists and surprises still in store for Randi as two 20-year mysteries are finally resolved, appalling ambitions and dark desires uncovered and apex predators become cowering victims for something which preys on monstersâ€¦

Accompanied by a fifteen-page gallery of covers-&-variants, this splendidly effective blend of crime caper and supernatural thriller is a pure visceral delight no lover of spooky chills can dare to miss.

October 29, 2014October 28, 2014

The White Room of the Asylum

By Luke Melia, David Anderson, Zev Zimmerman, Bobby PeÃ±afiel, Kat Farjado, Omaik Neiv & Vinny Smith
ISBN: 978-1-50035-876-1

What really happens in our mental institutions?

Who really knows what occurs within troubled minds sequestered for their own good and too frequently at their own request?

Some answers are too appalling to stomach but thankfully political ideology, fiscal neglect and societal disinterest play no part in this inspired dark fantasy of pristine pale reflectionâ€¦

As I’ve frequently proclaimed, I’m a huge fan of creators with the drive and dedication to take control of their own destinies and that’s never been more splendidly affirmed than with the chilling collaboration between writer (and letterer) Luke Melia and his six illustrative collaborators in this inventively macabre and movingly spooky psycho-drama.

When the police are called to a suicide in a quiet house, it’s just another day for most of them. However for Officer Bardy, tasked with checking the contents of six old audio cassette tapes left with the sad old geezer’s farewell note, the case soon starts to resonate and she finds herself drawn into an incredible story impossible to let go ofâ€¦

The contents of each tape forms a chapter in a terrifying testament (every one uniquely rendered here by a different artist) and the fantastic voyage begins with David Anderson in ‘The Wicked Relative of the Dreamer’ as the policewoman hears recently deceased Steve describe how he was sectioned in 1982 and admitted to Soraberg Asylum displaying symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

Steve recounts dreams of being chased by a ferocious, distinctly female monster down an endless accusatory corridor and the relentless waking hours spent mixing with or avoiding the other strange residents.

Terrified of facing the horror again, Steve began hurting himself to stay awake but therapist Maggie stepped in and forced the issue and his inevitable return to sleepâ€¦

The tone abruptly changes as the recently deceased describes an incredible, impossible phenomenon.

One night when Steve once more found himself pursued by the monster, he was saved by a superhero who revealed himself as taciturn, unfriendly Ralph. In the outside world he was the weird, standoffish cove who had committed himself to Soraberg and spent all day playing chess with withdrawn Juliaâ€¦

In the dream space Ralph became open and amiable and as they conversed both realised that the featureless limbo was a resource which they could visit at will: a communal landscape to be reshaped by every fleeting whim. Further discourse led them to conclude that the environment was the subject to a cumulative effect: the more you slept, the easier it was to access.

Steve however, as the first to discover it, harboured a strong sense of possessiveness for his â€œWhite Roomâ€ and didn’t want to share it with any other inmatesâ€¦

The second tape continues the record with ‘The Suppressed Desires of the Depressive’ (with art by Zev Zimmerman) as idyllic nights of joyous shared adventure in the pale playground were disrupted by the arrival of John the Vegetable who was as loquacious and smart inside as he was comatose and inert in the physical worldâ€¦

The newcomer was accommodated into the dreamscape but everything changed when Ralph created a simulacrum of Julia as a sexual plaything. After â€œharmlesslyâ€ slaking his desires with the construct in the White Room, the astonished and ashamed Ralph was attacked and nearly killed in the actual asylum by furious Julia, who had somehow experienced every agonising moment of his assault on her proxyâ€¦

‘The Relentless Taunting of the Saviour’ (Bobby PeÃ±afiel), begins with another inmate finding his baffled way into the dream world. Persecuted Tim suddenly saw himself in a strange place and able to talk to Steve. The shocked newcomer recounted how Julia suddenly, inexplicably attacked Ralph but was more concerned that here at least he seemed free of the brutal incarnation of Jesus that dictated his every move in the real world: a vicious, man-sized, foul-mouthed, priapic tyrannosaur with impulse issues and a propensity for extreme violenceâ€¦

When Ralph joined them from his distant hospital bed things seem to settle until Julia suddenly materialised threatening to tell the carers what Ralph had done. In a fit of fury Steve then attacked her for threatening his White World and in the real world her sleeping body diedâ€¦

‘The Flawed Operation of the Condemned’ (Kat Farjado) found Steve in complete denial as more and more inmates begin continually leaking over into â€œhisâ€ dream world. Soon suppressed hostilities began to manifest, and after John defeated Steve in a spectacular duel of imaginations, the furious schizophrenic threatened to kill the vegetable’s immobile physical form when he went back to the real world.

The act resulted in a schism in the White Room. As everyone else avoided him and played, Steve made plans to escape Soraberg, using the psychoactive landscape to construct a facsimile asylum to practise inâ€¦

His big mistake was working with Minefield Frank whose aggressive imagination kept changing the set-up, but before he could get away everything changed again as the first member of staff made his astounded way into the fantasy zoneâ€¦

With Omaik Neiv handling the art, ‘The Uncertain Conclusion of the Thinker’ saw Steve tortured by helplessness as the medical professionals took charge; methodically transforming the plasmic wonderland into a vast therapeutic environment. Despite his furious insistence that they were all trespassing on his property, the staff began an accelerated program which quickly reaped immense dividends amongst the troubled detainees.

With everyone against him Steve had no choice but to strike back in ‘The Broken Opportunity of the Vegetable’ (illustrated by Vinny Smith), but even against such a remorseless, merciless adversary some of the inmates were not willing to go down without a fightâ€¦

Available as a trade paperback and in a kindle edition, the startling events of The White Room of the Asylum are judiciously rendered in a range of palettes from full colour to black & red to overwhelmingly stark monochrome, uniting to highlight the moody power of the narrative and the mesmerising power of the shocking mystery’s conclusion.

Gripping, compulsive and unforgettable, here is a terrifying tale you’d be absolutely crazy to miss.

October 28, 2014October 27, 2014

Springheeled Jack

By David Hitchcock (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-129-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: an Xmas scary story in the Grand Traditionâ€¦ 9/10

Britain can lay claim to impressive and ingenious achievements far too numerous to mention, but the ones I’m honing in on here are our prodigious appetite for inventing myths, our gift for telling scary stories and our plucky tendency to want things done right and thus often Doing-It-Yourselfâ€¦

In 2005 cartoonist, antiquarian and fright fan David Hitchcock (Spirit of the Highwayman, Whitechapel Freak, Gothic) crafted an intense and beguiling small press yarn in three chapters which went on to win the Eagle Award for Favourite Black & White Comic Book.

Originally released under the Full Circle banner, Springheeled Jack was subsequently released as a collection from Black Boar Press and is now available in a luxurious oversized (295 x 222mm) definitive monochrome hardback from Titan Comics.

The astounding suspense is handily preceded by the author’s introduction, recapitulating the historical reports of the original Urban Legend from the first sightings and police reports in 1838 in ‘At the Heels of the Devil’ before the dark graphic enchantment opens in 1861 with an arcane monstrosity roaming the foul, begrimed rooftops of London to the accompaniment of excerpts from the journal of Sir Jack Rackham.

Although still not without influence, the esteemed Sole Benefactor of Bethlehem Lunatic Asylum has been a broken man since his beloved Evelina was snatched from his helpless arms one foggy night by a monstrous insectoid fiend from Hellâ€¦

The thing’s depredations still continue but the authorities scoff at the administrator’s suppositions and ignore his protestations, leading the nigh-deranged Rackham and the few allies he has made to take matters into their own hands.

Although the red-eyed thing primarily snatches women, its malevolent, toxic influence, unbeknownst to all, has seeped into the highest echelons of the empire and the monarchy itself is currently in the greatest peril imaginableâ€¦

One person Rackham believes he can count upon is Dr. Henry Jekyll, whose own incredible metamorphic discoveries also stem from encounters with the beast â€“ or, as they speculate, perhaps some being from beyond the stars – but when the physician visits his old comrade he is appalled to se how far Sir Jack has fallen into despair and madness.

Jekyll can do nothing for his friend, however, as he has been summoned as a matter of utmost urgency to the side of the mysteriously ailing Prince Consortâ€¦

In an attempt to keep pace with the monstrous leaping travesty of nature, Rackham has constructed a bat-winged suit which allows him the glide after the beast when he eventually finds it, and now he waits for his opportunity.

In Windsor, upon examining Prince Albert, Jekyll sees something which shakes him to his soul and the doctor consequently dashes back to Rackham to join in his pursuit.

The thing has been going about its secret purposes incessantly, and its influence now even extends deep inside Rackham’s troubled Bedlam Hospital where confined savant Professor Graham claims to have discerned all there is to know about the threatâ€¦

That night Jekyll and Sir Jack rendezvous in a graveyard and lay a trap for the horror. The plan apparently works and they follow it to its lair, discovering the shattering secret of its depredations. They set to derailing its plans, but in the struggle a hero is infected and a shocking mutation begins to take holdâ€¦

The saga then kicks into ghastly high gear as a game of cat-and-mouse finds the police unjustly hunting the wrong â€œmanâ€, as all over the capital nature itself rebels from the hideous and almost completed incursionâ€¦

The tension rises to fever pitch in ‘The Last Chapter’ which sees a final desperate roll of the dice and a good man is seemingly lost forever before ‘Transmogrify’ finds humanity itself on the verge of its greatest triumph or defeatâ€¦

Also included in this titanic tome is a copious 22 page ‘Sketchbook’ section which comprises roughs, layouts, previous covers, physical models and constructions, plus an exploration of Hitchcock’s unique art style which involves preliminary pencils, full inks and a final layer of moody, mediating pencil tones on top of it all to capture the grimy sooty atmosphere of Victorian London.

Stark, gripping and chillingly compelling, Springheeled Jack is a grand, old-fashioned fearsome fantasy no lover of dark tales can afford to miss.

October 25, 2014October 23, 2014

Hacktivist

By Alyssa Milano, Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Marcus To, Ian Herring & Deron Bennett (Archaea Black Library)
ISBN: 978-1-60886-409-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because Sharing is Everythingâ€¦ 8/10

The world is radically altering every minute but some things never change: eternal verities like oppression and the hunger for freedom, greed and idealism, friendship and betrayalâ€¦

Following ‘A Note to the Reader’ from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, an astounding tale begins when a band of desperate dissidents narrowly avoids capture by the draconian Tunisian military. It seems the latest outbreak of popular democracy is doomed to failure until the last rebels of the â€œArab Springâ€ improbably receive a wireless signal from the most notorious hacker collective on Earth.

The message to â€œ.sve_Urs3lfâ€ is accompanied by the updated facility to penetrate the oppressive government’s firewalls, enabling Sirine and her fellow fugitives to break through the dictatorship’s isolating cyber-borders and communicate with other dissidents as well as the outside worldâ€¦

In San Francisco, the Robin Hoods behind the message allow themselves a glow of pride. Prodigies Nate Graft and Ed Hiccox sit back and watch as the Tunisian people rise, before getting back to their day jobs as the billionaire boy wonders who created and own YourLife: Earth’s most successful and ubiquitous decentralised social networkâ€¦

Although to the public flashy Nate is cool corporate aplomb and shy Ed the diffident brain-box problem-solver, both young men share the dream of forcing through true and fair social evolutionâ€¦ only these days Graft seems increasingly distracted by the glamour and wealth whilst earnest Mr. Hiccox acts ever-more dissatisfied and impatient with the rate of progressâ€¦

As Nate parties at gala benefits and shows off his latest technological tricks, Ed sits alone, tapping keys and making progress on the big picture. Both are utterly unaware that their world is about to spin crazily out of controlâ€¦

The first move is made by gorgeous Brynn Ori who targets Graft at a party. Her seductive soft-soap come-on soon fades though when Graft refuses to bite. That’s when she reveals her position in the CIA’s Cyber Command and makes Nate a truly tempting offer he really should not declineâ€¦

The story she tells is most convincing and soon Nate has even convinced his deeply suspicious partner to accept the offer – and the immense amount of cash Brynn is offering.

Also on the table is full amnesty for their illicit activities and the complete backing of the Government and its formidable resources in a noble mission to truly free Tunisia.

Despite a pointed confrontation between Ed and Brynn the endeavour soon gets underway and before long the military regime is on the verge of collapse thanks to a concerted cyber-attack and the rising of the peopleâ€¦

Unfortunately that’s when Brynn and the US government show their true colours and Nate finds himself at odds with everything he ever believed in.

Not so for his best friend, though, as Ed has already vanished. Despite a world-wide manhunt for America’s â€œNumber One Threatâ€, he shows up in Tunis, joins Sirine and starts using his unique gifts the way he always dreamed ofâ€¦

As the uprising gets its second wind, what follows is a tense, diamond-hard and laser sharp confrontation between the old system and the world that’s coming as two friends clash and finally prove which is best – ambition or expediencyâ€¦

Fraught with action, tragedy, hope and a crazily cathartic conclusion that will delight starry-eyed young idealists and jaded old drama addicts alike, Hacktivist is a truly cooperative effort: the idea of actress, producer, philanthropist and UNICEF Ambassador Alyssa Milano given form by screen writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, illustrator Marcus To, colourist Ian Herring and letterer Deron Bennett whose compelling and groundbreaking miniseries has been lovingly gathered into a superb and luxurious hardcover compilation.

This absorbing, beguiling chronicle comes stuffed with valued added extras such as ‘Hackers on Hactivist’ – an interview with inventor and actual campaigning hacker Pablos Holman – and behind-the-scenes features ‘Building YourLife’ and ‘On Site in Tunisia’ as well as the now-standard biographical info in ‘About the Creators’.

A stunning piece of fictive brilliance work, this yarn might even tempt your mum and dad to dabble about on the webâ€¦

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