Tales From the Plague


By Dennis Cunningham & Richard Corben (Bill Leach Collectibles/Eclipse Comics)

No ISBN/ ASIN: B000GXQ8HA

Richard Corben flowered in the independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a globally revered, multi-award winning creator. He is most renowned for his mastery of the airbrush and his delight in sardonic, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Although never a regular contributor to the comicbook mainstream, the animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist is one of America’s greatest proponents of sequential narrative: an astoundingly accomplished artist with an unmistakable style and vision.

Violent, cathartically graphic and often blackly hilarious, his infamous signature-stylisation always includes oodles of nudity, ultra-extreme explicit violence and impossibly proportioned male and female physiques – but there’s almost none of the latter on show in this intriguing re-issue of his very first comics work: a celebratory new edition sporting a stunning wraparound card cover that was released in 1986.

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, Corben graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 from the Kansas City Art Institute and began working as an animator. At that time, the Underground movement was just stating to revolutionise, reinvigorate and liberate the medium of comics as a motley crew of independent-minded creators across the continent began making and publishing stories that appealed to their rebellious, pharmacologically-enhanced sensibilities and unconventional lifestyles.

Most of them had been reared on and hugely influenced by 1950s EC Comics or Carl Barks’ Duck tales – and usually both.

As can be seen in this intriguiging little tale, which first appeared in Weirdom Illustrated #13 (the “Special Plague issue”) in 1969, Corben started the same way, producing the kind of stories that he would like to read, for a variety of small-press publications including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor, often signed with his affectionate pseudonym “Gore”, and usually introduced by an EC style horror-host or hostess.

As Corben’s style matured and his skills developed, his work began to appear in more professionally produced venues. He began working for Warren Publishing in 1970 with tales in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and latterly, the aggressively audacious adult science fiction anthology 1984. He also famously re-coloured a number of reprinted Spirit strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s the Spirit magazine.

In 1975 Corben submitted work to the French fantasy phenomenon Métal Hurlant and subsequently became a fixture in the magazine’s American iteration Heavy Metal after which his career really took off. Soon he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped making comics but preferred his own independent projects with collaborators such as Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jones and Jan Strnad.

This oft-reprinted but now regrettably out-of-print collection perfectly shows the artist’s developing style in an acerbic and customarily wry horror yarn set in the English hamlet of “Chelmesford” during the Year of Our Lord 1664, beginning with the last testament of dying Witch Hunter James Hopkins.

His last legal commission had been the arrest and despatch of widow Ann Ashby, a strange and ugly crone dwelling alone on the edge of town. Following the accusation of a neighbour Hopkins investigates and finds her house filled with strange instruments and small animals…

On arrest she is put to The Test (that’s religious speak for tortured) and an eager and happy procession of townsfolk reveal her suspicious acts and the odd things that occur near her: boys have accidents or fall ill, animals become sick and she talks to chickens…

Once her unholy and depraved acts with animals and blood are disclosed it’s but a short hop to the stake, but even after they have watched her death agonies the still-unsated mob are hungry for more and tear her old shack down.

Soon after, many of the fine citizens of Chelmesford begin to sicken, and the remainder of Hopkins’ account details the grisly and ghastly effects of the plague as it devastates the town…

The concluding chapter is taken from scraps of parchment found hidden in Ann Ashby’s cell and reveal a shocking and ironic twist for modern historians. The supposed witch was in fact a far worse monster than Elizabethan society believed…

The well-travelled foreigner was secretly a brilliant thinker who had formulated theories of biology and natural science centuries ahead of her time. With her home-made ocular devices Ashby was on the trail of a cure for the dreadful pestilence – which she had seen ravage Europe and the East – at least until Hopkins and his self-righteous rabble of superstitious fools and jealous liars seized her…

Remarkably engrossing if a touch wordy, this compelling yarn reveals the core of solid draughtsmanship and pen-and-ink technique which underscores all Corben’s work, in a gritty chiller Hammer Films would be proud of.

Hard to find, but a great read and well worth the effort for all fans of illustrated horror yarns.
© 1986 Dennis Cunningham.

Operative: Scorpio


By Jack Herman, Dan Tolentino & Danny Taver (Blackthorne Publishing)
ISBN: 0-932629-15-6

Sometimes I just get a devil in me…

Although I review a broad spectrum of illustrated narratives and comics related books, I generally stick to the rule of thumb that the selection has to have some intrinsic quality or merit. Occasionally however there comes an item that I just can’t rationally recommend but still just… sends me…

As the first contraction of the 1980s independent comics boom began to cut down the plethora of small publishers, Blackthorne moved from canny licensed properties such as California Raisins and Rocky and Bullwinkle, 3-D titles and classic reprints like Tarzan, Dick Tracy and Betty Boop into a line of all-new characters, which might well have hastened their demise.

They also brought out many early graphic novels and Operative: Scorpio might well rank amongst their oddest.

In blocky black and white the confused but compellingly enthusiastic caper details the story of ambitious young thug Carl Manara who takes sole proprietorship of PMD, a new super-addictive drug hitting the streets of a peculiarly Latino Los Angeles, consequently falling foul of the criminal overlord Monticello, whose cabal Blackleague runs the entire country’s illegal enterprises.

Monticello has other problems; specifically a crazy masked martial artist roaming the streets and hitting all his organisations rackets. Scorpio’s campaign is costing him money and the cops – bought or honest – can’t catch the mysterious vigilante…

‘Breaking and Entering’ introduces Police Detective Morgan Pierce, tasked with stopping Manara’s super-drug from causing a bloody turf war. He has no interest in catching Scorpio: in fact he thinks the guy’s a hoax or urban legend…

Pierce has some odd friends he seems embarrassed by: fly-by-night playboy nightclub owner Aristotle, whose clientele ranges from the social elite to the dregs of the city, and disgraced competition martial artist Jay-Daniel Cobra, who only seem to meet with him at the oddest times – whenever no body’s watching…

After some beat cops are killed and civilians come under fire Scorpio gets involved, but Manara has a secret weapon. The designer of the new drug is a highly respected college professor and the only one who knows the formula, protected by a lethal hand-to-hand fighter. When the masked man raids the chemist’s fortress home Scorpio barely survives the encounter.

With war brewing between Manara and Monticello, the upstart’s gang begins selling the new dope out of their car and soon civilians are caught in gang crossfires. The cops won’t touch the dealers – after all they are Homicide Detectives too…

And that’s when the enigmatic Scorpio decides on drastic action: all three of him…

Muddled, manic and utterly mad, this yarn is full of brutal, pell-mell action and short on characterisation but that really doesn’t matter as the drama barrels along, reaching a climax but no real conclusion.

Clearly the opening shot in a longer epic, this dark yarn, with echoes of 1970’s exploitation cinema and Grindhouse movies, was written by Jack Herman, with art by the clearly Latin American or Filipino team of Dan Tolentino & Danny Taver – possibly pseudonyms for three or four different artists in a shared studio.

Even in 1989 the book looked and felt a decade older and I have a sneaking suspicion that it might even be a Mexican digest-comics story surreptitiously picked up and translated: no proof to support the idea but it just has that unshakeable feel to it…

Inexplicably compelling and splendidly fun, this is another guilty pleasure retro-read, best absorbed whilst listening to “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys… but only at maximum volume.
© 1988 Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Drowned Girl


By Jon Hammer (Piranha Press/DC)
No ISBN:

During the anything goes 1980s the field of comics publishing expanded exponentially with new companies offering a vast range of fresh titles and ideas. To combat this upstart expansion, Marvel and DC also instigated and created innovative material for those freshly growing markets with the latter cartoon colossus especially targeting readers for whom old-fashioned comicbooks were anathema …or at least a long-abandoned dalliance.

DC created a number of new, more mature-oriented imprints such as Vertigo and Helix, but some of the most intriguing projects came out of their Piranha Press sub-division, formed in 1989 and re-designated Paradox Press in 1993.

When DC founded this adult special projects imprint, the resulting publications and reader’s reaction to them were mixed. It had long been a Holy Grail of the business to produce comics for people who don’t read comics and, despite the inherent logical flaw, that’s a pretty sound and sensible plan.

However, the delivery of such is always problematic. Is the problem resistance to the medium?

Then try radical art and narrative styles, unusual typography and talent from outside the medium to tell your stories: you get some intriguing results but risk still not reaching a new audience whilst alienating the readers already on board…

This eclectic and overwhelmingly effective tome was one of the best and simultaneously one of the least appreciated…

Dick Shamus lives in New York City. Not necessarily the one you know but one equally composed of snippets of books, flickers of films and TV titbits all filtered through the fried brains of an incorrigible addict who’s been off his prescription Lithium for far too long now…

Dick Shamus is a Private Eye. If he says so then it’s got to be true, right?

On one night so much like every other, Dick, bombed out of his gourd on his tipple of choice – embalmers’ formaldehyde with a chocolate drink chaser – picks up a useful tip about a Nazi weight-lifting club from one of his usual sources: few of them credible and none of them real…

The drink might be the secret CIA vaccine to prevent AIDS but it sure plays hob with the deductive faculties…

The side of the city only he can see tells the weary, ravaged gumshoe that there’s a connection between the Fascist health fanatics, India and the Drowned Girl – whoever she is – and as his personal reality intercepts and continually collides with the equally outrageous consensus reality the rest of us are stuck with, Dick is carried by events to a tragic and disturbing rendezvous.

If only he could recall who the client was…

Raw and savagely beguiling, the one night’s odyssey of the perceptually challenged Shamus as he weaves between rich bastards, gutter-scum, gullible art-trendoids, yuppie-gentrifiers and armchair anarchists, affable protester-bashing cops and a hundred other “normal” folks in search of his dimly perceived targets…

This disturbing, hard-luck pilgrim’s progress is as truly thought-provoking, hard-bitten, revelatory and socially castigating as the works of Dashiell Hammett, William Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Raymond Chandler or Gabriel García Márquez, whilst the brutally unrefined and intoxicatingly vibrant painting of author Jon Hammer makes this perhaps the very best psycho-detective graphic novel you’ve never read.

But all that could change if and when you too track down The Drowned Girl…
© 1990 Jon Hammer. All rights reserved.

The Desert Peach book 3: Foreign Relations


By Donna Barr (Aeon)
ISBN: 1-883847-04-4

The Desert Peach is the supremely self-assured and eminently accomplished gay brother of the legendary “Desert Fox” and one of the most perfectly realised characters in comics.

Set in World War II Africa and effortlessly combining hilarity, absurdity, profound sensitivity and glittering spontaneity, the stories describe the daily grind of Oberst Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel; a dutiful if unwilling cog in the German War Machine and his efforts to remain a perfect gentleman under the most adverse and unkind conditions.

As formidable as his beloved elder sibling Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the gracious and genteel Peach is a man of breeding who loathes causing harm or giving offence and thus spends his dry and dusty days commanding the ever-so-motley crew of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging & Support Unit of the Afrika Korps, trying to remain stylish, elegant, civil and gracious to the men under his command, the enemy forces opposite him and all the unfortunate natives whose countries both Allied and Axis powers are currently running riot within.

It’s a lot of work: the 469th houses the worst dregs of the Wehrmacht, from malingerers and malcontents to useless wounded, sharpers, screw-ups and outright maniacs.

Pfirsich applies the same genteel courtesies and rule of well-manicured thumb to the sundry indigenes populating the area surrounding the camp and the rather tiresome British – not all of whom are party to a clandestine non-aggression pact Pfirsich has agreed with his opposite number in the opposing British Forces.

The romantic fool is passionately in love with and engaged to Rosen Kavalier: handsome Aryan warrior and outrageously manly Luftwaffe Ace: in fact the only people the Peach really has no time for are boors, bigots and card-carrying Blackshirts…

Arguably the real star of these fabulous frothy epics is the Peach’s long-suffering, unkempt, crafty, ill-mannered, bilious and lazily scrofulous orderly Udo Schmidt, a man of many secrets and non-existent morals whose one redeeming virtue is his uncompromising loyalty and devotion to the only decent man and tolerable officer in the entire German army.

This hard to find but supremely superb third monochrome compendium reprints issues #7-9 and includes an all-new tale too.

Battle commences with ‘The Spoiled Fruit’ as the mild mannered and utterly urbane Peach is accidentally dosed with shell-shocked veteran Corporal Doberman‘s anti-psychotic medication. The ghastly experimental brew acts like Angel Dust on the sweet lad and turns Pfirsich into a raging warmongering lunatic, who goes on a three day battle-jag, dragging the 469th with by sheer rampaging willpower and almost winning the desert war single-handed… until the drugs stop working.

Even more embarrassing than the death and bloodshed he caused and certainly more painful than the bullet wound in his posterior is brother Erwin awarding him a medal…

This is followed by international adventure and intrigue in ‘Dressing Down’ as an old-fashioned army concert-party leads to one of the most ludicrous espionage missions of the war.

In an attempt to raise morale Udo organises a show where he and a few other ranks dress up in drag. Although a little unhappy at the sordid and distasteful turn of events, Pfirsich lets it go but is horrified when an intelligence officer from his brother’s staff claims that Udo-as-a girl looks just like Hannah Mardi, a German agent currently missing in England.

She and her sister were the only hope of recovering the stolen plans for Rommel’s latest tank but for such a mission to succeed Hannah should be accompanied by her usual partner. What a happy coincidence that Pfirsich looks so much like the equally absent “Portia Sophi”: the Peach could pass for her with almost no make-up at all…

Arriving at the last known address of the missing spies in London, the terrified and mutinously reluctant Pfirsich and Udo are horrified to discover something very peculiar is going on in the agents’ old lodgings and things become surreal, hilarious and quite, quite tricky when the Peach realises that the landlady’s son Willie is the same delightful boy who befriended him in those carefree days before the war..

The reprints end with ‘Scourge of Love’ as the ever-horny Udo unwittingly turns a bargaining session for fresh rations with Tuareg traders into an accidentally proposal to the Chieftain’s beautiful daughter Falila.

He thought he was getting a “quickie” from a easy trollop but too soon Udo realises he was not only betrothed to the proud princess of a people who have turned avenging insults into an art-form and spectator blood-sport, but that to prove himself worthy he would have to steal a herd of camels from the Arabs’ greatest and most ancient enemies.

With a tribal revolt threatening to interfere with the smooth course of the war, Udo’s tenderest and most cherished organs at risk and, most importantly, the honour and happiness of a lady at stake, the Desert Peach has no choice but to step in and settle matters in his own uniquely sensitive and refined manner…

The new epilogue ‘Home is Where…’ is set in the Peach’s declining years, wherein Pfirsich and his adult son Mani play host to a reunion of the 469th few survivors: a bittersweet vignette which delights and fearfully foreshadows tragedies yet to come. This moving vignette also appears in Book 4 Baby Games.

Referencing the same vast story potential as Sgt. Bilko, Hogan’s Heroes, Oh, What a Lovely War! and Catch 22, as well as such tangential films as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Birdcage, the Desert Peach is bawdy, raucous, clever, authentically madcap and immensely engaging.

These fabulously weird war stories were some of the very best comics of the 1990s and still pack the comedic kick of a floral-scented howitzer, liberally leavened with situational jocularity, accent humour and lots of footnoted Deutsche cuss-words for the kids to learn.

Pfirsich’s further exploits continue as part of the Modern Tales webcomics collective…

Illustrated in Barr’s fluidly seductive wood-cut and loose-line style, this book is a must-have for any history-loving, war-hating lover of wit, slapstick, romance and belly-laughs. All the Desert Peach books are pretty hard to find these days but if you have a Kindle, Robot Comics have just begun to release individual comicbook issues for anybody who can make their way around Das Ferslugginer Internetten …
© 1990-1994 Donna Barr. All rights reserved. The Desert Peach is ™ Donna Barr.

Zora and the Hibernauts


By Fernando Fernández (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-0-87416-001-7

Multi-disciplinary Spanish artist Fernando Fernández began working to help support his family at age 13 whilst still at High School. He left in 1956 and immediately began working for British and French comics publishers. In 1958 his family relocated to Argentina and whilst there he added jobs for El Gorrión, Tótem and Puño Fuerte to his ongoing European and British assignments for Valentina, Roxy and Marilyn.

In 1959 he returned to Spain and began a long association with Fleetway Publications in London, producing mostly war and girls’ romance stories.

During the mid-1960’s he began to experiment with painting and began selling book covers and illustrations to a number of clients, before again taking up comics work in 1970, creating a variety of strips (many of which found their way into US horror magazine Vampirella), the successful comedy feature ‘Mosca’ for Diario de Barcelona and educational strips for the pubshing house Afha.

Becoming increasingly experimental as the decade passed, Fernández produced ‘Cuba, 1898’ and ‘Círculos’ before in 1980 beginning his science fiction spectacular ‘Zora y los Hibernautas’ for the Spanish iteration of fantasy magazine 1984 which was eventually seen in English in Heavy Metal magazine. His later graphic spectacles include ‘Dracula’ for the Spanish iteration of Creepy, mediaeval fantasy thriller ‘La Leyenda de las Cuatro Sombras’ (working with Carlos Trillo), ‘Argón, el Salvaje’ and a number of adaptations of Isaac Asimov tales in ‘Firmado por: Isaac Asimov’ and ‘Lucky Starr – Los Océanos de Venus’.

His last comics work was ‘Zodíaco’ begun in 1989, but his increasing heart problems soon curtailed the series and he returned to painting and illustration. He passed away in August 2010, aged 70.

The stunning adult epic Zora and the Hibernauts exploits classic science fiction themes of sexual politics to explore the perceived role and character of men and women and opens, after a truly breathtaking biography and gallery section, with the first staggeringly lush chapter as, far into the future, warrior-women from the artificial moon Honeycomb (home to the censorious, draconian colony of the Sisterhood) land on the deadly and biologically inimical planet Earth searching for lost technology and other objects of interest or value.

The crew is led by the competent Zora, a space veteran who has won the love and devotion of her crew through years of sterling service. The ancient birthplace of humanity has long been quarantined: a pestilential hell-hole where radiation and disease have created unspeakable horrors, but the explorers have no idea what shocks await their first forays into the unknown landscape they call Terra-Lune…

The search goes badly and crew-women are lost to plants, beasts and things which qualify as both and neither, but Zora is intent on finding some specific unknown treasure. Meanwhile, back on Honeycomb, scientist Nylea breaks the Queen’s taboo and searches the ancient archives for proscribed information on the extinct creature once called “man”…

On Terra-Lune the invaders have broached a long-hidden chamber and found six hibernation pods from before the Earth died…

They contain frozen men and Zora, defying orders and centuries of custom, decants and revives the perfectly preserved creatures rather than destroy them, setting herself on a path that will lead to civil war and the restoration of the natural order…

She is strangely drawn to one of the men: Astronaut Commander Amon, who holds crucial knowledge of the fall of humanity and whose presence stirs the quizzical Zora in ways she doesn’t understand…

Taking her prizes back to Honeycomb where they are interviewed by Supreme Sister Rasam, Zora is ordered to keep the hibernauts in personal custody, but isn’t surprised when Nylea informs her that the queen is planning to destroy her and the men who threaten the hegemony and beliefs of the all-female, in vitro parthenogenetic culture.

Following a brutal battle, Zora, Nylea and the males take refuge on toxic Terra-Lune where they encounter another man: an incredible immortal named Rob who has survived on the poisoned planet for uncounted ages and aids the fugitives when the Sisterhood ships come hunting them…

Escaping the stalkers, the refugee band hides deep within the horror-world and inevitably Zora and Amon perpetrate an act of love not seen on Earth for millennia, after which Rob reveals the location of a fully-functioning ancient starship and offers them a means of fighting back against the tyranny of Rasam.

But whilst Rob relates the secret of his incredible longevity, on Honeycomb long-suppressed antagonisms begin to re-emerge.

Terra-Lune still holds many threats and horrors however, and whilst the outcasts battle for survival against beasts and monstrous sub-men on the debased planet, a deadly civil war erupts on the artificial satellite led by ambitious hardliner and second-in-command Sharta. By the time Zora and her followers are ready to attack Rasam, Honeycomb is in the midst of civil war…

Just when events are their most fraught, the universal implications of the struggle are revealed when a god-like timeless entity appears, disclosing Zora’s cosmic importance and that her womb now carries the first naturally conceived and developing human baby in thousand of years. Zora has been chosen by the higher powers of the universe to restore and perpetuate the human species…

The grand concepts come thick and fast in Zora and the Hibernauts and although the narrative is a little muddled in consequence, this breathtaking yarn delivers fast paced, action-packed, staggeringly beautiful and astoundingly exciting adult science fiction thrills in the tradition pulp manner. Being Spanish, however there’s a slight tinge of macho, if not subverted sexism, on display and of course, there is extensive female nudity throughout – so much so that by half-way through you won’t even notice…

If naked bald women are liable to offend you, give this as miss, but for all the normal red- blooded fans out there this is a superb tale by a master craftsman you’ll certainly want to track down and savour.

© 1981 Fernando Fernández. English edition © 1984 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in The Idiots Abroad


By Gilbert Shelton & Paul Mavrides, colour by Guy Colwell (Knockabout)
ISBN: 0-86166-053-6

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers shambled out of the Underground Commix counter-culture wave in 1968; initially appearing in Berkeley Print Mint’s Feds ‘n’ Heads, and in Underground newspapers before creator Gilbert Shelton and a few friends founded their own San Francisco based Rip Off Press in 1969.

That effective collective continued to maximise the reefer madness and the hilarious antics of the “Freaks” (contemporary term for lazy, dirty, drug-taking hippy folk) quickly captured the imaginations of the more open-minded portions of America and the world (not to mention their kids)…

In 1971 they published the first compilation: The Collected Adventures of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers – which has been in print all around the planet ever since – and soon assorted underground magazines and college papers were joined by the heady likes of Rip Off Comix, High Times and Playboy (and numerous foreign periodicals) in featuring the addictive adventures of Freewheelin’ Franklin, Phineas T. Freakears and Fat Freddy Freekowtski (and his cat): siblings in sybaritic self-indulgence.

Always written by Shelton and, from 1974 illustrated by Dave Sheridan (until his death in 1982) and Paul Mavrides, the disjointed strips (sorry; bad puns are my opiate of choice) combined canny satire, worldly cynicism, surreal situations, drug-based scatological sauciness and an astounding grasp of human nature in brilliantly comedic episodes that cannot fail to amuse anyone with a mature sense of humour.

All the strips have been collected in various formats (in Britain by the fabulous folks of Knockabout Comics) and have been happily absorbed by vast generations of fans – most of whom wouldn’t read any other comic.

Despite the hippy-dippy antecedents and stoner presentiments, Shelton is irrefutably a consummate professional. His ideas are always enchantingly fresh, the dialogue is permanently spot-on and his pacing perfect. The stories, whether half-page fillers, short vignettes or full blown sagas, start strong and relentlessly build to spectacular – and often wildly outrageous, hallucinogenic yet narrative-appropriate – climaxes.

Franklin is the tough, street-savvy one who can pull the chicks best, Phineas is a wildly romantic, educated and dangerous (to himself) intellectual whilst Fat Freddy is us; weak-willed, greedy, not so smart, vastly put upon by an uncaring universe but oddly charming (you wish…)

One last point: despite the vast panoply of drugs ingested, imbibed and otherwise absorbed, both real and invented, the Freaks don’t ever do heroin – which should tell you something…

‘The Idiots Abroad’ was first published in issues #8-10 of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comicbook, beginning in 1982, by Shelton & Paul Mavrides with colour separations by fellow controversial Underground cartoonist Guy Colwell (see Doll). This compilation first appeared in 1988.

The alternative anarchy and high-strung hilarity opens with a cunning monochrome introduction set in the high-tech Bastion of Commerce which is the Rip Off Press High-rise after which the scene switches Oz-like to full-colour as the beardy boys, just chilling in their latest crash-pad, realise that they’re paying too much for their drugs. If they just holidayed in Colombia they could buy the stuff at source and make a killing…

Keen and eager the trio set off for the airport, expecting an easy flight to their Promised Land. Fat Freddy falls in with a drunken bunch of Scottish football fans, Phineas accidentally boards a jet for the Middle East and only Franklin actually gets on a plane for South America: of course it is a package tour of survivalists…

Ever vigilant, the US government quickly dispatches dedicated super-cop Norbert the Nark to follow the Brothers…

As Franklin finds himself in bed with freedom-fighting, drug-dealing Indio eco-warriors and quite sensibly runs for his life, in Scotland Fat Freddy has been mistaken for nuclear terrorist Andre the Hyena and similarly bolts.

Making his way across Europe the corpulent clown unwittingly takes with him a soccer-ball shaped thermonuclear device and stumbles into a global military conspiracy conceived by the Colonels of every nation to seize control of human civilisation…

Phineas meanwhile has landed in Mecca and through his usual incredible good fortune has become a valued member of the government and a major player in OPEC.

Whilst Franklin joins a cruise ship full of millionaires and ends up sold into slavery when the vessel is attacked by pirates, Fat Freddy rampages across Spain and meets the utterly “out there” Anarchist genius Pablos Pegaso before invading the Warsaw Pact countries at the artist’s suggestion, ending up in Moscow at just the wrong moment…

The stupendous saga of outrageous Unrealpolitik ramps up even more when the assembled Colonels take over the world and in a Saudi dungeon Franklin and the now thin Freddy are sold at auction to all-powerful Father Phineas, the Honest Hierophant who has converted his immense wealth into real money by inventing “Fundaligionism” which is now the hottest Faith around and has made him the richest person on the planet…

And that’s when the cartoon craziness really starts to motor…

And they’re so very, very funny.

Without Shelton and the Freaks the whole sub-genre of slacker/stoner movies, from Cheech and Chong‘s assorted escapades to Dude, Where’s My Car? and all the rest – good, bad or indifferent – wouldn’t exist. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you.

Chaotically satirical, poisonously cynical and addictively ludicrous, the madcap slapstick of the Freak Brothers is always an unbelievably potent tonic for the blues and this epic escapade of inspired insanity is among their very best exploits. However, if you’re still worried about the content, which is definitely habit-forming, simply read but don’t inhale…
© 1987 Rip Off Press, Inc., and Gilbert Shelton. All rights reserved.

Daredevil in Love and War – a Marvel Graphic Novel


By Frank Miller & Bill Sienkiewicz (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-172-2

It’s been a while since Marvel published an all-original graphic novel as opposed to a collection, but not too long ago they were the market leader in the field with an entire range of “big stories” told on larger than normal pages (277x208mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168mm) featuring not only proprietary characters but also licensed assets like Conan, media adaptations like Willow and even original creator-owned properties such as Alien Legion.

This spectacular and controversial tale of triumph and tragedy from 1986 is a defining moment in the ongoing battle between the driven Man Without Fear and his ultimate antithesis Wilson Fisk – the sinister and grotesque master manipulator dubbed the Kingpin – wherein scripter Frank Miller and illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz (and subtly effective letterer Jim Novak) took a long, hard look at the costs of the struggle in a stark examination of obsession…

The Kingpin is the criminal overlord with New York City in his pocket, wielding the power of life and death over all its denizens. For such a man helplessness is a toxic emotion but all his power and influence cannot cure his beloved wife Vanessa, left broken and catatonic after one of Fisk’s regular confrontation’s with the city’s superheroic guardians…

Dr. Paul Mondat is the world’s greatest expert on such conditions so Fisk orders psychopathic killer Victor to abduct the French physician’s blind wife Cheryl, thus compelling the doctor to cure Vanessa or else. To ensure his total compliance and utmost passionate dedication Fisk leaves Cheryl in the deranged kidnapper’s tender care…

Spending all his time babysitting the unsullied and angelically helpless waif, Victor begins to fixate on his captive…

Daredevil, meanwhile, is punching all the usual suspects in his attempts to get to the Kingpin and save Cheryl, but Victor is far, far off the grid as well as his meds…

Coercing low-level thug Turk into being his snitch and pawn the Sightless Swashbuckler at last rescues Cheryl and then determines to use her as another game piece in his campaign but soon he too is falling under the spell of the impossibly beguiling young woman…

Victor, deprived of his angel of light, goes completely off the rails just as a new factor skews the picture when Mondat succeeds in bringing Vanessa out of her trance…

As the doctor grows ever closer to the recovering Vanessa, ruthless mob overlord Fisk is increasingly distracted and beginning to succumb to jealousy. Events rise to a fearsome crescendo when Daredevil finally tears himself away from Cheryl to invade the Kingpin’s skyscraper citadel. The hero is completely unaware that the utterly unhinged Victor has tracked him down and is only waiting for the masked man to leave so that he can be alone again with his divine Cheryl…

Meanwhile the Kingpin has realised his own great mistake: Mondat has bound Vanessa to him and disappeared, taking with him the only thing Wilson… an eye for an eye, a wife for a wife…

Brutal, scary and enticingly different, this is a truly breathtaking psychological drama beautifully draped in Sienkiewicz’s evocative expressionist painting style: a uniquely effective piece of comics storytelling which is a magnificent, challenging and deeply satisfying.

Although best read in the original oversized Marvel Graphic Novel edition keen and thrifty fans can also see the tale included in the 2003 standard-proportioned compendium Daredevil/Elektra: Love and War.

And they really should…
© 1986 Marvel Comics Group. All rights reserved.

Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates: The Republic is Burning


By Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribic, Brandon Peterson & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-504-8

Marvel’s Ultimates imprint began in 2000 with a new post-modern take on major characters and concepts to bring them into line with the tastes of 21st century readers – apparently a wholly different market from those baby-boomers and their descendents content to stick with the precepts sprung from founding talents Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee… or simply those unable or unwilling to deal with the five decades (seven if you include the Golden Age Timely tales retroactively co-opted into the mix) of continuity baggage which saturated the originals.

Eventually even this darkly nihilistic new universe became as continuity-constricted as its ancestor and in 2008 the cleansing event “Ultimatum” culminated in a reign of terror which excised dozens of super-humans and millions of lesser mortals in a devastating tsunami which inundated Manhattan courtesy of mutant menace Magneto.

In the aftermath the meta-human survivors struggled to restore order to a dangerous new world…

This compilation collects Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates issue #1-6 and Ultimate Comics: Fallout #4 (published in comicbook form from October 2011 to March 2012) which comprised the core-story for the latest relaunch of the constantly-changing grim and gritty alternate universe.

Before the Deluge, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury ran an American Black Ops team of super-humans called the Avengers, but he was toppled from his position for blatant rule-bending – and being caught.

Now in the wake of the global inundation, internecine strife amongst the covert ops community and brushfire wars which have broken out all over the planet, Fury is back: once more running the entire spook show and firmly re-established in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s army of secret agents, an official superhero team for public consumption and another clandestine super-squad doing stuff the officially sanctioned Ultimates wouldn’t dream of…

It isn’t a job many would want: the world is falling apart at a phenomenal rate. Individual metahumans are classed as Weapons of Mass Destruction and personal superpowers are now the focus of a terrifying new global arms race. In Asia the new nation SEAR (South East Asian Republic) is dissolving into bloody civil war after developing a serum that will randomly spark fantastic abilities in humans dosed with it. They also stacked the deck by simultaneously releasing a global virus which has killed the genes responsible for causing natural mutation.

A new metahuman nation has grown up within the embattled country offering super-powers to anybody daring to take the Serum, as seen in sidebar series Ultimate Comics Hawkeye…

The gods of Asgard have been dragged from their heavenly halls and marooned on Earth where their wild warlike ways and fantastic powers are disrupting all of Europe. Premiere hero Spider-Man has been murdered, resurrected WWII super soldier Captain America has gone AWOL and in the wings an old friend turned foe has returned to remake the planet according to an impossible and remorseless agenda…

The constant calamity begins when enigmatic mastermind Maker and his dedicated band of volunteers entomb themselves in a high-tech dome in Northern Germany where enhanced time and ruthless scientific augmentation enables the inhabitants to hyper-evolve a thousand years in the space of a few days.

Whilst Iron Man Tony Stark is being conned by his fellow members of billionaires fraternity The Kratos Club and tricked into detonating a nuke over Montevideo in order to manipulate global stock markets, these Children of Tomorrow – now more alien ant farm than human science cult – break out as the Dome begins to expand and absorb Western Europe. The region’s superhumans, including current Captain Britain Jamie Braddock are busy losing a fight with the errant Asgardians and card-carrying Ultimate Thor when The Children attack…

As Hawkeye attempts to forestall the civil war in SEAR and Stark is dragged back from death by his bodyguard Jarvis, the Children perform the impossible feat of killing almost every god in Asgard.

Only Thor and Braddock survive but the Thunderer’s hammer and magic are gone forever…

Resorting to technology provided by Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. the Last Asgardian returns to the fray, intending to die gloriously in battle as a warrior should, but the expanding dome and ravening children are unstoppable. After an all-out final assault by S.H.I.E.L.D. and the World’s armies, humanity is utterly defeated and humiliatingly allowed to slink off to await the end…

When the Dome stops growing and stands revealed as an incredible future City the doom-hungry Thor invades it, freeing Braddock, who has been imprisoned and subjected to torturous scientific investigation. They are then captured by the Maker who reveals his impossible true identity, after which he discards the ineffectual and demoralised warriors.

Thor doesn’t care: he has just realised that he is being haunted by the ghosts of all the fallen Asgardians…

Fury is almost out of ideas. When technologist Sam Wilson AKA the Falcon finds a way to infiltrate the City he suddenly vanishes without trace, and even Captain America has refused to rejoin the Ultimates and lead mankind’s last hurrah against their implacable unshakable successors…

To Be Continued…

Hot off the presses this saga ends on a chilling cliffhanger as what might well be the Last Battle of the alternate Marvel Universe begins. However the always entertaining Jonathan Hickman, artists Esad Ribic & Brandon Peterson (as well as colourists Dean White, Jose Villsrrubia, Jim Charalampidis, John Raunch & Edgar Delgado) make this a slick and compulsive read for older Fights ‘n’ Tights fans and the impressive cover gallery by Kaare Andrews, Ribic & Chris Evans adds immeasurably to the book’s visual appeal.

Much more in tune with the visual feel and sensibilities of the assorted Movie franchises than the traditional comicbook market, the trademark post-modernity and cynical, dark action is amped to the max here; delivering the visceral shocks and staggering revelations fans of this sub-imprint seem addicted to.

Whilst perhaps not the best book for anybody thinking on jumping on to the decidedly different Ultimate World, The Republic is Burning will certainly strike a chord with older readers who love the darkest side of superheroes and readers who know the company’s films better than their publications.

A British edition licensed and published by Panini UK, Ltd. ™ & © 2012 Marvel Entertainment LLC and its subsidiaries. Licensed from Marvel Characters B.V. All Rights Reserved.

Elementals: The Natural Order


By Bill Willingham (Comico)
ISBN: 978-0-93896-508-4

Long before he achieved universal acclaim with his sublime adult fantasy series Fables, writer/artist Bill Willingham first turned comic fans’ heads with a post-modern re-evaluation of the superhero in a series entitled Elementals which took many Fights ‘n’ Tights traditions and turned them on their heads with telling and most pervasive effect.

The team debuted as a back-up tale in the one-shot Justice Machine Annual published by Texas Comics in 1983 and was picked up a year later by new publisher Comico, one of the front-runners in an explosion of new companies which grew out of the 1980s rise of the Direct Sales market and dedicated comics retail outlets.

This enchanting and enthusiastic volume collects that initial introduction and the subsequent first five innovative issues of their own title and opens with ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ by Willingham & Bill Anderson, as master villain Lord Saker demands a situation report from his trusted aide Shapeshifter. She describes how four recently deceased individuals have all inexplicably resurrected, each with the powers and attributes of one of the ancient alchemical elements.

Police officer Jeanette Crane revived with the ability to wield flame and heat and goes by the codename Morningstar, helicopter pilot and Vietnam vet Jeff Murphy has flight, speed and wind-based powers and answers to Vortex, whilst wealthy trust-fund brat Rebecca Golden has become a web-footed green sea-sprite dubbed Fathom.

The last resurrectee is 14 year old Tommy Czuchra: a disturbingly brilliant, adult and coldly rational boy-genius who can transform at will into a colossal Monolith of soil and rock.

Each of the quartet died in accidents directly related to their new conditions as avatars of Fire, Air, Water and Earth.

Saker is apprehensive: his centuries-old mystic master-plan is nearing fruition and now these supernatural agents have inconveniently manifested. When he dispatched his personal metahuman hit-squad, the Elementals easily routed them. Only Shapeshifter survived to report the bad news…

The series proper began with ‘The Spontaneous Generation’ (Willingham & Michelle Wolff Anderson) as the unlikely and reluctant heroes consult with Rebecca’s dad – a major league New York lawyer – about their situation. In this highly realistic and rational world, superpowers have only ever been the stuff of comicbooks, but now here they are alive again with incredible abilities, having just fought human chameleons, dragons and monsters…

Moreover, they each oppressively remember the pain and horror of dying but have no idea how or why they have returned…

And that’s when FBI spook Porter Scott turns up…

Meanwhile Saker’s remaining superhuman resources (Shapeshifter, Behemoth, Ratman, Electrocutioner, Annihiliator and Chrysalis) attack; ambushing the team during a lunch in the Seattle Space Needle, oblivious to the hundreds of civilian lives endangered in the assault. Once again outmatched the bad guys retreat, taking Fathom’s dad hostage…

After a ‘Destroyers’ pin-up by Willingham and Neil Vokes the drama resumes in ‘Angel of Light’ as some time later the Federal authorities – in the forms of Major General Benjamin Franklin Richter and NSA Special Agent William Lyons – discuss the National Crisis that has developed since the Elementals surrendered themselves to save David Golden.

Simultaneously, over the villain’s hidden citadel Nacht Island, the Elementals have broken free and are again devastating Saker’s Destroyers as well as his large army of fundamentalist soldiers: all willing zealots to his arcane cause.

Although the battle goes well in ‘Birds of Prey’ (inked by Rankin) the heroes are unprepared for the wizard to draw more power from his apparently infernal patrons and blithely unaware that Vortex has been killed and partially consumed by Ratman…

Even so the Elementals are clearly winning and look likely to end the affair quickly until Saker himself intervenes…

A year passes.

In ‘The Mean Seasons’ (Willingham, Herman & Rankin with added assistance from Dave Johnson, Mike Leeke & Bill Cucinotta) the Alchemical Allies have been prisoners all that time and Saker is close to his endgame, activating his agents in the Federal Government and readying himself to unleash the horrifying Shadowspear. As the sorcerer readies himself to destroy the world Jeff has almost fully recovered and his revenant comrades are also preparing for one last sally…

Saker has discerned that the Elementals do not age and cannot be killed by any means he can devise, but has unwisely formed an intellectual relationship with Tommy: foolishly disclosing his tragic and painfully unjust biblical origins and the reason he wants to see God’s creation unmade.

The Mage’s biggest mistake was believing that the seemingly broken foursome had given up and the cataclysmic Saves-the-Day climax of ‘Riders of the Storm’ (Willingham, Herman & Rankin) is both stunningly epic and superbly chilling…

Although the characters are not themselves particularly innovative the hard-headed, cynical and ruthlessly pragmatic manner in which Willingham and later author Jack Herman used them was a landmark breakthrough. As much as Alan Moore’s take on Marvelman, the Elementals always seemed to work in the most plausible and perhaps only possible manner our world could operate if men became modern gods and monsters.

The Natural Order is one of the very best superhero yarns of the era and still holds up incredibly well: slick, savvy, distressingly mature and savagely cynical.

If you want Adult Fights ‘n’ Tights thrills hunt down this magical masterpiece and enjoy the End of the World as we know it.
© 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988 William T. Willingham. All right reserved.

The Names of Magic


By Dylan Horrocks & Richard Case (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-888-4

Way back when Neil Gaiman was just making a name for himself at DC he was asked to consolidate and rationalise the role of magic in that expansive shared universe. Over the course of four Prestige Format editions a quartet of mystical champions (thereinafter known as “the Trenchcoat Brigade”) took a London schoolboy on a Cook’s Tour of Time, Space and Infinite Dimensions in preparation for his becoming the most powerful wizard of the 21st Century, and an overwhelming force for Light or Darkness.

Shy, bespectacled Timothy Hunter (co-created by John Bolton) was an ordinary lad unaware of his incredible potential: a natural but untutored magical prodigy (and yes, I know who he looks like but the series came out eight years before anybody had ever heard of Hogwarts, so get over it).

In an attempt to keep him righteous the self-appointed mystic guides provided him with a full tutorial in the history and state of play regarding The Unseen Art and its major practitioners and adepts. However, although the four guardians were not united in their plans and hopes for the boy, the “other side” certainly had no doubts. If Hunter could not be turned to the Dark he had to die

The Books of Magic spawned a 75 issue run of issues under the Vertigo imprint plus attendant annuals, mini-series and spin-offs as the neophyte sorcerer struggled to find his way and learn the craft, aided and/or hindered by sort-of girlfriend Molly and a hidden personal history akin to a colossal, convoluted cosmic onion skin. His enigmatic lineage and true origins remained a crushing, crippling but crucially important mystery – especially since all the mystic powers of this world and many others either wanted him dead or enslaved…

By 2001 and the advent of this excellent tome (collecting the five-part Names of Magic miniseries) Hunter is a lonely, isolated fourteen year old runaway with no past, roaming the streets of London. His loving family have been exposed as fakes and surrogates, he’s lost or been abandoned by all his human associates and the final reeling shock was finding out that his real mother was Titania, Queen of Faerie and his sire her mortal falconer and plaything Tamlin…

However when he is simultaneously attacked by a raiding party of the Theena Sidhe from the Higher Realms and a politically influential mortal magician’s cult in ‘Invocation’, Tim is rescued by a sword-wielding stranger and old mentor Dr. Occult and his life is once again collapsing around his ears…

The stranger is Ash; a Walker and one of a hidden human brotherhood who police the ancient magical places of Earth, charged with taking the unwilling boy on a pilgrimage down those venerable lost paths to save his life and find his calling.

The Rosicrucian sages of The Cold Flame of the Golden Lotus, who want to co-opt Hunter’s power or negate his threat potential, have been embedded in the fabric of British Society for centuries and soon have their media tools and pet coppers on the trail whilst the rival Faerie stalkers – supposedly under a truce to leave Tim alone – rely on their own arcane methods to relentlessly pursue the fugitives…

When man and boy rendezvous with the “Trenchcoat Brigade” in Cornwall it is decided to closet the lad at the puissant magical college known as the White School where he can be safely trained in the use of his incredible powers.

Of course, there’s a snag: to enter a student must simply utter their True Name but when Tim tries he discovers that even his own identity is a lie…

Reeling in shock at the School gate, Tim and Ash narrowly escape a police ambush in ‘Trust’ and the boy almost succumbs to a beguiling spell from Lotus master Mr. Lily before stumbling into another Faerie trap. It appears that one clan of Fair Folk has made a pact with the eternal enemy of The Unseelie Court to destroy Tim, but the fugitives turn the tables on their hunters and Tim saves one of them from death, binding her into an unbreakable debt that she must repay twice-over…

‘Secrets’ sees Tim and Ash recruit modern Pagan “Bearclaw” Clarke to their Spirit Quest. However the Cold Flame close in and a police raid disrupts the astral journey before any secrets can be uncovered. Ruthlessly shooting their way out, the trio take ‘Flight’, daringly hiding deep inside the Faerie Kingdoms.

On Earth Mr. Lily turns his attention to Tim’s lost love Molly in his attempts to trap the young mage whilst, after a climactic struggle in Elfland, the seekers are captured and dragged before High King Auberon who denies all knowledge of Tim’s troubles. The Faerie Lord swears to ferret out the renegades working with the Seelie Court, and Tim finally learns his True Name, just before Iolanthe, eager to expend her onerous debt, warns him that he’s walked into another trap…

Battling free, the fugitive four head back to Earthly Cornwall where they wait helplessly for their following foes – both Faerie and Cold Flame – to converge for a final assault. With their backs to the sea and sure death approaching on all sides Tim and crew take refuge in tourist trap Merlin’s Cave, where as the various factions slaughter each other to get to him, the boy finds a hidden door and discovers the whole and unexpurgated ‘Truth’…

Although a series with a lot of highs and lows and one which never really lived up to its promise, Books of Magic was a popular early foray into mature comic publishing for Vertigo and subsequent returns to the characters have proved quite impressive.

Here Dylan Horrocks and illustrator Richard Case – augmented by cover artist Bolton – have recapitulated and reconfigured the past whilst crafting a compelling and enjoyable fantasy yarn that reads well, looks great and stands solid enough on it own to easily serve as an introduction to the saga of Tim Hunter.
© 2001 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.