Category: Mature Reading

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Mome 22


By various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-395-8

Mome was a quarterly compendium of sequential narratives; a magazine that looked like a book, featuring strips, articles, graphic artworks and sometimes interviews from and about a variety of talented, dedicated creators ranging from the internationally renowned to the soon-to-be. It was where the smart kids with the sharpest pencils, shiniest pens, biggest brushes and best software went to play before they blew our minds in great big award-winning graphic novels. It was intense, sometimes hard to read and crafted to the highest production standards.

I’m using the past tense here because tragically the amazing anthological compendium closes with this bonanza-sized final edition after six eye-popping, parameter-expanding years: another economic casualty of those globalizing fat-cat banking bastards… curse them all and the artificially-expensive, sweat-shop produced shoes they smugly skulk in!

With a promise that the unfinished serials will eventually be concluded in their own graphic novel compilations this last bombastic book opens with an ending – of sorts – for Kurt Wolfgang’s delicious ‘Nothing Eve’ expediently assisted by self-professed “art-whore” Jordan Crane, after which Chuck Forsman produces a moving stand alone rumination on the young Freelancer’s existence in ‘Francis’.

Guns ‘n’ Roses, Kiss and other rock-god types get a working over in a number of hilarious single page assaults by Steven Weissman beginning with ‘Soup ‘n’ ½ Sandwich’ followed by Sara Edward-Corbett’s captivating childhood paean ‘The Blunderous Companion’ and Laura Park’s darkly wicked ‘George’.

Tom Kaczynski proffers some sage movie-making advice in ‘Music for Neanderthals’, Weissman describes an ‘Appetite for Delicatessen’ and Joe Kimball spectacularly reveals the magic of the ‘Secret Hand’ after which ‘Ham ‘n’ Tashen’ follows, taking Weissman’s musical obsession to ludicrous heights – and depths…

The wildly imaginative fable ‘Simon Magus’ by Jesse Moynihan is followed by a too-brief fourth instalment of The (Shaun) Partridge in the Pear Tree & Josh Simmons’ fantasy-epic ‘The White Rhino’ (we’ll have to wait for a conclusion in the promised graphic novel one day) and a powerful tale of the dangers of “going native” in ‘Hero of Science’ by Malachi Ward, whilst Eleanor Davis recounts a poignant tale of loss and abiding endurance in ‘Nita Goes Home’…

James Romberger shocks and delights with the daring ‘Loving Bin Laden’ after which and extra-long chapter by Derek Van Gieson & Michael Jada concludes the moody World War II mystery ‘Devil Doll’. Weissman resurfaces with ‘Chinese Chicken Salad Democracy’ before Tim Lane presents an earnest biographical tale of a WWII ‘Belly Gunner’ and Nate Neal scrupulously examines the pros and cons of ‘Death’…

Josh Simmons waxes theological with ‘We Enjoyed Many Adventures’ and then joins Wendy Chin to relate the salutary endings of ‘Axl & Jim’. Following Weissman’s (?) ‘Peter Criss Diary’ come Anders Nilsen’s contemplative collage ‘Lists and Commentary’ whilst in ‘Sir Alfred’ film director Hitchcock’s life and work endures a delightful cartoon roasting by Tim Hensley, and Weissman strikes again with ‘Jews Your Illusion’.

Lille Carré delights and enthrals with ‘Into the Night’, T. Edward Bak’s pictorial biography of 18th century German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller forges ever onward in ‘Wild Man Chapter 3: Beasts of the Sea part 2’ (another saga to be concluded elsewhere) and Nick Drnaso’s ‘Keith or Steve’ wittily explores the suburban lifestyle. ‘List of Lasts’ by Joseph Lambert captivatingly captures our childhood obsessions before Paul Hornschemeier beguiles and enthrals with ‘Amy & Paul’ and Sergio Ponchione reprises his marvellously madcap horror-hunter Professor Hackensack with ‘Fear, Thy Name is Foursquare!’…

Malachi Ward resurfaces with philosophical future history ‘1211N.E. (New Era)’ and Nick Thorburn contributes a recollection of music festival fun in an untitled piece before Dash Shaw shows everybody up with another oddly enticing adaptation of TV at its worst in ‘Blind Date 3’ (“an adaptation of an episode of Blind Date”) after which Ted Stern’s anthropomorphic sad-sacks Fuzz & Pluck return in their ongoing nautical quest for wealth and safety with the fifth chapter of ‘The Moolah Tree’ – one more to wait for in album format…

‘Suburban Love Tales, Number 10, Page 3’ is a moody midnight encounter from Jim Rugg, Victor Kerlow offers a growing peril in ‘Oh Man’, Noah Van Sciver details both sides of the story in ‘Roommates’ and the wonderment sadly ceases with a true hard knocks tale in ‘Unlucky’

With bios of contributors and a full list of all who’ve graced this glorious project over the last six years the experiment ends but even though gone this superb, bold endeavour mustn’t be forgotten. There are plenty of places to still find back issues and these tomes – especially this double-sized delight – would make captivating Christmas presents.

Mome © 2011 Fantagraphics Books. Individual stories are © the respective creator. All rights reserved.

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The Desert Peach – Politics, Pilots and Puppies


By Donna Barr (Mu Press)
No ISBN, ASIN: B0006DK6PA

Donna Barr is one of the comic world’s most singular graphic raconteurs. She always constructs impeccable, fully realised worldscapes to house her stories and tells them with a style and voice that are definitely one-of-a-kind. Her most perfect creations are Stinz Löwhard, the Half-Horse and The Desert Peach, the outrageously “out”, homosexual brother of legendary Ideal German soldier “the Desert Fox” and the star of this effervescent assemblage of sly, dry wit, raucous drollery and way out military madness.

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 part of the German invasion force of 1940-1943. However, although as capable as elder sibling Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the gracious and convivial Peach was a man who loathed harming anybody physically or emotionally and thus spent his days with the ever-so-motley crew of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging & Support Unit of the Afrika Korps, trying to remain stylish, elegant and non-threatening to the men under his command.

He applies the same genteel courtesies to the sundry natives inhabiting the area and the rather tiresome British – not all of whom are party to a clandestine non-aggression pact Pfirsich has in place with his opposite numbers in the amassed Allied Forces…

The romantic fool is also wildly in love with and engaged to Rosen Kavalier: handsome Aryan warrior and manly Luftwaffe ace…

The Desert Peach ran for 32 intermittent issues via a number of publishers and subsequently collected as eight graphic novel collections between 1988-2005. A prose novel – Bread and Swans – and a musical and an invitational collection by other artists entitled Ersatz Peach were also created during the strip’s heyday. A larger compendium, Seven Peaches, collects issues #1-7 and Pfirsich’s further exploits continue as part of the Modern Tales webcomics collective…

Perhaps the real star of these fabulous comedy epics is the Peach’s long-suffering, unkempt, crafty, ill-mannered, bilious and lazily scrofulous orderly Udo Schmidt, whose one redeeming virtue is his uncompromising loyalty and devotion to the only decent officer in the entire army.

This criminally rare second softcover collection reprints issues #4-6, opening with ‘Is There a Nazi in the House?‘ wherein maniacally patriotic, self-appointed political officer Leutnant Kjars Winzig is once more trying to get Udo – or indeed anybody in the mangy collection of rejects comprising the 469th – to read his beloved Führer’s bible of hate Mein Kampf…

Pfirsich steps in before calamity and carnage breaks out but the entire camp is thrown into an even greater tizzy when official notice arrives that a party from Berlin is en route to inspect the Battalion and meet all the devout, card-carrying members of the Nazi Party. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the vile inner-circle elite are looking for a way to embarrass the Peach’s brother: the Fox is an outspoken and vociferous critic of Hitler’s vile crew of toadies and backstabbers…

It seems the Nazi bigwigs have planned well; Pfirsich can’t find a single Party member in the entire camp… even the fanatical Winzig wasn’t dedicated enough to spring for the membership dues…

Last minute salvation comes from a most unlikely source as the least likely individual in Africa admits his shameful secret and impresses the jodhpurred pants off the visiting dignitaries… it appears he joined the Nazi Party in its earliest hours when recruiters were buying beer for anybody who would listen…

This hilarious comedy of errors is followed by the supremely delightful, action-packed ‘Flight of Fancy’ wherein Pfirsich’s personal pilot Von Drachenberg gets in big trouble for secretly re-arming our hero’s peach-coloured reconnaissance plane – the junior Rommel doesn’t approve of guns…

Nevertheless he concedes they have their uses when the plane is involved in a uniquely absurd and breathtaking aerial dogfight with a less than sporting Englishman in a Spitfire. Of course, he far less happy about having to refit the machinegun in mid-flight, thousands of feet above the desert with British bullets whistling about his well-formed pearl-bedecked ears…

Luckily the Peach’s beloved fiancé Rosen Kavalier is also prowling the war-torn skies and this magnificently clever yarn still has plenty of controversy and surprises in store…

‘A Day Like any Other’ concludes the comicbook reprints with a powerfully intriguing moral dilemma for the German misfits when a British sniper takes up lethal residence and begins shooting Pfirsich’s men in disdainful contravention of the non-aggression agreement. Soon the 469th are starting to remember that they are – ostensibly, at least – soldiers with a duty to kill Germany’s enemies and this unwelcome situation is further exacerbated by the arrival of abrasive, militant new medical officer Oberstabsartzt Viktor Eddsel, dumped with the Battalion of Battlefield Embarrassments because he is a specialist in the banned “Jewish science” of psychiatry…

The procession of baroque, bizarre characters and incomprehensible relationships he observes in his first few hours has Eddsel reaching for extra case-history notebooks and good, stiff drinks before the urbane Oberst Rommel takes him tellingly to task…

Also included in this enchanting monochrome compendium is a spectacular new adventure ‘Outfoxed’ relating some character-building episodes in the life of Perfect Warrior Erwin Rommel; such as the momentous day he taught his very young son Manfred how to ride a horse, jump off the high-diving board and dismantle a motorcycle.

Of course, it might have better for all concerned if all these lessons hadn’t been specifically against his beloved Frau Rommel’s orders and objections…

This captivating compendium is completed by another cut-out paper-doll page starring Pfirsich’s airborne inamorata Rosen Kavalier and his assorted uniforms…

Referencing the same vast story potential as Sgt. Bilko, Hogan’s Heroes, Oh, What a Lovely War! and Catch 22, the Desert Peach is bawdy, raucous, clever, authentically madcap and immensely engaging. These fabulous combat fruit cocktails were some of the very best comics of the 1990s and still pack the comedic kick of an embroidered landmine, liberally leavened with situational jocularity, accent humour and lots of footnoted Deutsche cuss-words for the kids to learn.

Illustrated in Barr’s fluidly seductive wood-cut and loose-line style, this book is a must-have for any history-loving, war-hating fun seeker. 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 get the hang of all this verdammte  science stuff…
© 1990-1991, 1992 Donna Barr. Introduction © 1992 D. Daniel Pinkwater. All rights reserved.

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The Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti – A Treasury of XXth Century Murder


By Rick Geary (NBM/Comics Lit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-605-1

Master cartoon criminologist Rick Geary returns with another compelling carnival of corruption from his series of graphic novel true-murder mystery reconstructions, combining a superlative talent for laconic prose, incisive observation and forensically detailed pictorial extrapolation with his formidable fascination for the darker aspects of human history.

Geary’s unblinking eye periodically scours the last hundred years or so for his Treasury of XXth Century Murder series, and here exposes one of the greatest and most painful travesties of American justice – a case which took the entire world by storm.

In 1920 a payroll robbery and double homicide in Eastern Massachusetts led to the arrest of two Italian anarchists who were either cunning, ruthless enemies of society, haplessly innocent victims of political scaremongering and judicial bigotry or – just maybe – a little of both….

Another superb black and white hardcover thriller, this captivating capsule history opens as always with a selection of detailed maps of pertinent locales before ‘The Crime’ details how a bloody wages snatch in South Braintree, Massachusetts took place on April 15th 1920. The events are dissected with meticulous care, rich in enticing extra data the local police ignored when picking up two ideal suspects: immigrant left wing activists Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco.

‘The Accused’ details their personal histories, involvement with Anarchist and Socialist groups and their version of the events which led to their arrest on May 5th after which their deeply flawed trial is deconstructed in ‘The Case For the Commonwealth’: paying particular attention to the illegal manner in which the jury was convened, the nature of the witnesses and the prejudices of presiding judge and prominent anti-immigrant advocate Webster Thayer, who declared before, during and after the trial how he was going to “get those Bolshevicki bastards good and proper” and “get those guys hanged”…

The farcical days in court, in which the defendants found themselves as much at the mercy of their own lawyer’s political agenda as the prosecution’s and public’s assumptions and fabrications, is detailed in ‘The Case For the Defense’ and inevitably led to a guilty verdict and death sentences for both on July 14th 1921.

‘The Legal Jungle’ follows the numerous appeals, delays, public campaigns for clemency and stays of execution – paying particularly mordant attention to the unfortunate and peculiar legal procedure of Massachusetts Law which dictated that all appeals in a case must be heard by the judge in the original case – meaning that Web Thayer was “compelled” to rule on his own judgements and directions in the case. Not surprisingly, all appeals were over-ruled…

He even threw out a confession by a professional gangster who came forward and admitted to committing the crime, calling him a “robber, crook, liar and thief” with no credibility whatsoever…

The account closes with ‘A Global Cause’ as the case caught world attention, sparking a massive movement to re-examine the case; its subsequent co-opting as a cause celebre by both fascist and communist national leaders and violent anti-American protest, even riots and bombings in the streets of many countries.

Sacco and Vanzetti, who had always proclaimed their total innocence, were executed on August 23rd 1927, and this stirring chronicle concludes with the events, further facts and arguments that have continued to surface to this day regarding what is still a huge unfinished drama…

Geary presents facts and theories with chilling pictorial precision, captivating clarity and devastating wit and this still broadly unresolved mystery is every bit as compelling as his other homicidal forays: a perfect example of how graphic narrative can be so much more than simple fantasy entertainment. This merrily morbid series of murder masterpieces should be mandatory reading for all comic fans, mystery addicts and crime collectors.

© 2011 Rick Geary. All Rights Reserved.

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100 Bullets: Strychnine Lives


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-252-5

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics ever produced, 100 Bullets developed into a staggeringly plausible and painfully visceral conspiracy thriller of vast scope and dazzling, intricate detail. Starting from the superb premise “what if you were given an untraceable gun, one hundred bullets and a damned good reason?”, Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso carefully planted seeds which grew into a tangle of disparate shoots simultaneously entwining and growing off at tangents before coming together into a perfect mosaic of mood, mayhem and murder.

What we know so far…

Soon after Columbus stumbled upon America, thirteen European crime-families migrated to his New World and carved up the continent between them. Establishing themselves in all aspects of the chaotic influx, they swiftly disappeared into the burgeoning masses flocking to the New World. When the new nation was born The Trust was embedded into the roots of everything and secretly controlled all the decision-makers…

To forestall their own greed and ambition screwing up the sweetest deal in history, The Families created an extraordinary taskforce to mediate and police any Trust members or splinter factions acting against the best interests of the whole. “The Minutemen” were always led by the only kind of peacekeeper capable of enforcing the rule of law on men of infinite power and unsurpassed ambition – a man uniquely honest, dedicated, smart and remorseless.

Some years ago Trust leaders decided they no longer needed overseers and acted with characteristic ruthlessness to remove them at a stroke. Betrayed Minutemen commander Agent Graves didn’t take his dismissal lying down and has been manipulating events and people to rectify that injustice ever since.

For years he has been appearing to various betrayed and defeated people as a “Court of Last Resort” offering answers, proofs, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bullets…

More recently The Trust has come under sustained attack from within and without. House leaders have been assassinated and as surviving members and newly promoted house-heads constantly politic to rewrite their 400 year old accord, scattered members of Graves’ old team gather in the wings.

But even the returned Minutemen all seem to have their own agendas now… or is Graves simply a far more subtle Machiavelli than anybody ever suspected?

With this ninth volume (collecting issues #59- 67of the 100 Bullets comicbook) comes a stunning ramping-up of suspense as even more players are removed from the game and the wary survivors consolidate their positions for the fast approaching apocalyptic finale. Pay attention: Azzarello & Risso have never been accused of underestimating their audience’s intelligence – or appetite for blood, sex, intrigue and ultra-violent action – and these stories need to be carefully studied: both the delightfully sparse words and the shockingly slick pictures…

The cataclysmic carnage and torturous tension begins with ‘The Calm’ as maniac former-Minuteman Lono and his jail-bird apprentice Loop Hughes (see 100 Bullets: Hang Up on the Hang Low and 100 Bullets: Samurai) meet up with Victor Ray, first member of the old crew to be reactivated by Graves and off the grid for a suspiciously long time. In that time Victor has been lying low with Christine, but now her abandoned, lovesick husband has tracked them down…

Meanwhile in ‘Staring At the Son’ recently ascended House-leader Megan Dietrich pays a visit to de facto Trust leader Augustus Medici – himself only recently reconciled with his out-of-control heir Benito – to discuss new alliances, but she is, as usual, playing her own game. Why else would she compel terrified rogue reporter Mr. Branch to return to America for a clandestine conference decades after he first uncovered the secret of The Trust and went on the run?

At the same glitzy hotel where Megan is confronted by cool killer Cole Burns, bellboy Tino makes the wrong connection and becomes embroiled in a drug-fuelled domestic tragedy provoked by an insane misunderstanding between major bad-ass gang-bosses Spain and Bosco.

As Graves and Augustus thrash out a few differences, Cole and Branch discover they have somebody else in common; sexy, enigmatic Echo Memoria – who seems to be playing all sides in the ongoing struggle – and has stolen a painting crucial to the very survival of the Trust. Everybody wants that damn picture and now Cole expects the ineffectual Branch to track down both her and it…

‘The Dive’ sees Graves further provoke recovering addict Jack Daw – now devolved into a troubled street-fighting brute immune to pain but wracked by indecision – who tries to make the manipulative Minuteman take back his untraceable briefcase of ordnance and tainted promise – with typical lack of success. As Victor Ray points Loop towards some unwholesome facts of his new life, Lono auditions for the role of Trust facilitator by making a stomach-churning example of one of Augustus Medici’s last rivals and the psychotic force of nature reveals the calibre of tactical brain hiding beneath his brutish sadistic exterior in ‘New Tricks’…

With another major player falling to a Minuteman-engineered hit – but perpetrated by which faction of the relentlessly shifting rogue team? – this captivating chronicle concludes with an apparent sidebar tale when ‘Love Let Her’ finds Benito Medici, Mr. Branch and conflicted Minuteman Wylie Times stumbling all over each other in the Mexican desert whilst searching for freshly de-programmed – or is she? – Dizzy Cordova, Graves’ prime agent and secret weapon. Trading booze, bon mots and bullets the situation looks bad for all concerned…

But we won’t know until the next volume…

Everybody lies and everyone has their own goals in this complex and impossibly clever yarn, so the magical skill shown in presenting these characters in their immediate actions and long-term machinations is dazzling to behold. This madly mature epic is a masterpiece of craft, with layers of incidental stories counter-pointing the major narrative thrust… but in which even the least depicted cameo of the most minor bit-player might be of crucial importance to the final denouement…

If there are still any thrill-starved readers – grown-up, paid-up, immured to harsh language and unshaken by rude, nude and very violent behaviour – who aren’t addicted to this astounding epic thriller yet, for Pete’s sake go out and grab every one of these graphic novels at all costs! You need them all and the very best is still to come…
© 2005, 2006 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Evaristo: Deep City


By F. Solano Lopez & Carlos Sampayo (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-0874160345

For British and Commonwealth comics readers of a certain age, the unmistakable artistic style of Francisco Solano Lopez always conjures up dark moods and atmospheric tension because he drew such ubiquitous boyhood classics as Janus Stark, Adam Eterno, Tri-Man, Galaxus: The Thing from Outer Space, Pete’s Pocket Army, Nipper, The Drowned World, Kelly’s Eye, Raven on the Wing, Master of the Marsh and a host of other stunning tales of mystery, imagination and adventure in the years he worked for Britain’s Fleetway Publications.

However the master of blackest brushwork was not merely a creator of children’s fiction. In his home country of Argentina he was considered a radical political cartoonist whose work eventually forced him to flee to more hospitable climes.

Francisco Solano López was born on October 26th 1928 in Buenos Aires and began illustrating comics in 1953 with Perico y Guillerma for the publisher Columba. With journalist Héctor Germán Oesterheld (a prolific comics scripter “disappeared” by the Junta in 1976 and presumed killed the following year) Solano López produced Bull Rocket for Editorial Abril’s magazine Misterix.

After working on such landmark series as Pablo Maran, Uma-Uma, Rolo el marciano adoptivo and El Héroe, López joined Oesterheld’s publishing house Editorial Frontera and became a member of the influential Venice Group which included including Mario Faustinelli, Hugo Pratt, Ivo Pavone and Dino Battaglia.

López alternated with Pratt, Jorge Moliterni and José Muñoz on Oesterheld’s legendary Ernie Pike serial but their most significant collaboration was the explosively political and hugely popular allegorical science fiction thriller El Eternauta which began in 1957. By 1959 the series had come to the unwelcome attention of the authorities in Argentina and Chile, forcing López to flee to Spain. Whilst an exile there he began working for UK publishing giant Fleetway from Madrid and London.

In 1968 he returned to Argentina and with Oesterheld started El Eternauta II for new publisher Editorial Records, produced sci-fi series Slot-Barr (written by Ricardo Barreiro) and period cop drama Evaristo with kindred spirit Carlos Sampayo. In the mid-1970s López was once again compelled to flee his homeland, returning to Madrid where he organised the publication of El Eternauta and Slot-Barr with Italian magazines LancioStory & Skorpio.

He never stopped working, producing a stunning variety of assorted genre tales and mature-reader material and erotica such as El Instituto (printed by Eros as Young Witches), El Prostíbulo del Terror (story by Barreiro) and Sexy Symphonies: the bleak thrillers Ana and Historias Tristes with his son Gabriel, illustrated Jim Woodring’s adaptation of the cult movie Freaks. In recent times, safely home in Argentina he continued to work on El Eternauta with new writer Pablo “Pol” Maiztegui.

López even found time for more British comics with strips such as ‘Jimmy’, ‘The Louts of Liberty Hall’, ‘Ozzie the Loan Arranger’ and ‘Dark Angels’ in Roy of the Rovers, Hot-Shot and Eagle.

Francisco Solano López passed away in Buenos Aires on August 12th 2011.

Poet, critic and author Carlos Sampayo is most well-known for his grimly powerful comics collaborations with José Muñoz on Joe’s Bar and Alack Sinner (both long overdue for a review here) as well as other contemporary classics like ‘Jeu de Lumières’, ‘Sophie’, ‘Billie Holiday’ and ‘Sudor Sudaca’.

Born in 1943 Sampayo was another outspoken creative Argentinean forced to flee the Junta in the early 1970s. Travelling to Europe he found a home for his desolate, gritty and passionately evocative stories in France and Italy, working with Julio Schiaffino, Jorge Zentner and Oscar Zarate before settling in Spain where he and fellow expatriate Solano López produced the compelling anti-hero Evaristo in 1985.

The long-running serial featured a seemingly brutish ex-boxer who had risen to the rank of Police Commissioner in late 1950s Buenos Aires – a debased and corrupt city of wealth and prestige cheek-by-jowl with appalling poverty and desperate degradation, and after a compelling introduction by Xavier Coma the graphic odyssey begins with ‘Breaking the Ties’ as a bank hostage crisis devolves into a long-postponed grudge match as Commissioner Evaristo is confronted by old Boxing ring-rival Fournier who has returned to finally settle an old score. As is so often the case in such long-lived hatreds, there’s a woman at the heart of it…

‘The Famous Lubitsch Case’ finds the grizzled morally ambivalent veteran pushed by his bosses to locate a missing heiress who has either been abducted or eloped with a notorious gangster and womaniser. Unfortunately, for reasons even he can’t fathom, Evaristo seems determined to discover the truth rather than follow the “clues” his bosses have directed him to find…

In ‘The Herman Operation’ secretive guys with German accents and connections to the Argentinean military keep disappearing and the Commissioner is no use at all. It’s like he isn’t even trying…

The hunt for a cop-killing bandit takes a long look at the Commissioner’s sordid past and some dubious child-care practises by the local clergy in ‘The Crazy Grandson’ whilst ‘Shanty Town’ sees the cops looking for a serial killer whilst a corrupt minister causes a devastating water-shortage – and riots – in the slums. As usual Evaristo ignores his bosses and keeps looking for the “wrong” people…

As a hit-squad tasked with assassinating the troublesome cop uses what seems to be perfect leverage by kidnapping a kid claiming to be his son, Evaristo seems more concerned with an escaped lion causing ‘Terror in the Streets’ and this superb noir mini-masterpiece concludes with ‘Legend of a Wounded Gunman’ as a case from the Commissioner’s early days eerily replays itself – but this time the ending will be different…

Released in America as Deep City this first oversized (277 x 206mm), 112 page monochrome collection depicts the compelling solutions found by a cop who bends all the rules just to win a modicum of justice in an utterly corrupt society: a powerfully cynical and shockingly effective series of vignettes examining freedom and equality in a totally repressive time and place devoid of hope. However at no time does the ideology overwhelm the artistry of the narrative or distract from the sheer power of the art.

This magnificent book and all the other Evaristo tales are long overdue for another shot at the big time…
© 1986 F. Solano López, Carlos Sampayo & Xavier Coma. English language edition © 1986 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

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Hearts of Africa


By Cindy Goff & Rafael Nieves & Seitu Hayden (Slave Labor Graphics)
ISBN/ASIN: B0006S0NKI

After the rapid spread of specialised comics retailers during the early 1980s, many start-up publishing companies began competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown accustomed – or resigned – to getting their on-going picture-periodicals from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics.

At the same time European, Japanese and domestic non-mainstream material had been creeping in from such young upstarts as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others, producing a creative globalisation in what had once been a purely anodised and painfully insular Middle-American milieu. New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum, open to new ideas and different takes on what had come before. Thus when a realistic, biographical, non-fantasy small-scale drama set in the exotic wonderland of Africa began to appear, certain sections of the comics cognoscenti were ready and willing to give the new thing a shot.

It certainly didn’t hurt that it was so compellingly good…

As I’ve constantly stated, the period was an incredibly fertile time for American comics-creators. It was as if an entire new industry had been born with the proliferation of the Direct Sales market and dedicated specialist shops; new companies were experimenting with format and content and potential fans even had a bit of extra cash to play with after they’d bought their regular four-colour fixes.

Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had abated and the English-speaking countries were finally catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be a for-real actual art-form. There were even signs that whole new comics-genres might be being born…

One of the most critically acclaimed, profoundly moving and just plain fun features came from an industry innocent named Cindy Goff who, with long-time comics aficionado Rafael Nieves and extremely talented artistic newcomer Seitu Hayden, produced a mildly fictionalised account of her two years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Africa which took the comic world by storm.

Actually it should have but didn’t: however those in the know like Archie Goodwin and Neil Gaiman spotted the potential and sheer quality of the feature and championed it for years.

Eventually Epic Comics published a pair of all-new full-colour graphic novels – Tales from the Heart of Africa: The Temporary Natives in 1990 and A Tale From the Heart of Africa: Bloodlines (1992 and nominated for two Eisner Awards: Best Single Issue, Self-Contained Story and Best Graphic Album-New).

The original little epic began with two self-published issues as Entropy Enterprises in 1987 before Tales From the Heart moved over to Slave Labor Graphics, who were rapidly establishing themselves as one of the most innovative and outré players amongst the burgeoning morass of independent publishers. They produced a further 9 issues between 1988-1994 before finally calling it a day; no doubt as bewildered and disappointed as the rest of us at the stubborn intransigence of a comics clientele which refused to see beyond busty sword-swinging bad-girls and cybernetic, gun-toting mutant maniacs…

In 1994 Slave Labor published one last hurrah in the form of this stunning oversized (278 x 218mm) monochrome paperback, reprinting the first three instalments of the saga complete with an informative afterword by Goff and an impassioned introduction by Gaiman.

From 1983-1985 Cindy Goff and a select group of young Americans were trained and then let loose to work in the strangest place they had ever been. Those personal experiences were synthesised for comics readers beginning with ‘Prologue: Every Now & Then…’ as sheltered Minneapolis girl Cathy Grant wakes up and realises that she is really now a resident of the Central African Republic…

Her mind wanders back to the unique training and conditioning which began in ‘D.C. to Disease’, meeting fellow volunteers Karen, Constance, Julie and others ranging from qualified nurses to demure debutantes. The trials of learning French and the native tongue Shango are balanced by the nauseating terror of discovering all about the various disgusting bugs and maladies that can kill or debilitate, before finally they all embark for Africa in ‘Silverbox!’

Indoctrination, acclimatisation and assimilation follow before ‘Later in the Daze’ further hilariously and empathically examines the effects of culture shock on the pampered waifs fresh from the New World…

Learning daily and rapidly realising they are as much students as teachers to the “primitive” Africans, the volunteers slowly become comfortable until after only a few months the girls are split up for their final postings and Cathy learns to stand on her two feet in ‘Fits & Starts’

Although a perfect place to end the initial collection there were no others and the further tales remain uncollected to this day.

Later episodes examined the ultimate inefficacy of the Peace Corps Program and the horrific reign of Jean-Bédel Bokassa (a despotic dictator believed insane by the rest of the world and a cannibal by his own people), but these opening sallies dwell gloriously and charmingly on the eye-opening wonder of well-meaning innocents abroad in an utterly alien environment: an advertisement for American intervention the country should be proud to commemorate.

This delightful true tale is joyously filled with good-hearted people trying their best to understand each other and get on with life in harmony. Try and find any other non-kiddie American comicbook of the period that can say that…

Emphatically human, effectively documentarian and addictively readable, Tales From the Heart is long-overdue for a complete collected edition and the need for such illuminating stories and attitudes has never been greater. At least this time the genre of graphic autobiography is recognised and valued and we know that there is a ready audience for something more than implausible men in tights constantly refighting the same battle…
™ & © 1994 Cindy Goff & Rafael Nieves. Cover © 1994 Jill Thompson.

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The Hunting Party


By Enki Bilal & Pierre Christin translated by Elizabeth Bell (Les Humanoid/Titan Books)
ISBN: hardback 978-0-96724-017-6,   softcover 978-1-85286-289-3

To highlight the Memoirs of a Cold Utopia exhibition plugged in our Noticeboard section here’s a fascinating graphic novel long overdue for a thorough revisit…

Here’s a masterpiece of subtle moody comics storytelling criminally out of print and long overdue for rediscovery in the frankly incomprehensible modern English language comics marketplace.

Enes Bilalović AKA Enki Bilal was born in Belgrade in 1951 and broke into French comics in 1972 with Le Bal Maudit for Pilote. Throughout the 1970s he grew in skill and fame and achieved English-language celebrity once his work began appearing in America’s Heavy Metal magazine.

Although best known for his self-scripted Nikopol Trilogy (Gods in Chaos, The Woman Trap and Cold Equator) I’ve always felt that his most effective art appeared in this contemplative Cold War drama. Partie de chasse – The Hunting Party – scripted by old comrade Christin is arguably Bilal’s most powerful and heartfelt effort. In recent years Bilal returned to contemporary political themes with his much-lauded self-penned Hatzfeld tetralogy…

As if writing one of the most successful and significant comics series in the world (the groundbreaking and influential Valérian and Laureline series) was not enough, full-time Academician Pierre Christin has still found time over the years to script science-fiction novels, screenplays and a broad selection of comics, beginning in 1966 with Le Rhum du Punch with Valérian co-creator Jean-Claude Mézières.

Christin has produced stellar graphic stories with such artistic luminaries as Jacques Tardi, Raymond Poïvet, Annie Goetzinger, François Boucq, Jijé and many others, but whenever he collaborated with the brilliant Bilal, beginning in 1975 with their exotic and surreal Légendes d’Aujourd’hui or in later classic tales such as The City That Didn’t Exist or The Black Order Brigade, the results have never been less than stunning.

In this, their best work, idealism and human nature have never been more coldly and clearly depicted…

As the Soviet system begins to crack, ten old men of the Party gathered at an exclusive Polish estate for an extended winter holiday of reminiscing and shooting. Stars and survivors in their own Warsaw Pact countries, the guests are all linked in deed and indebted to one charismatic man…

He is legendary figure and hard-line apparatchik Vassili Alexandrovich Chevchenko who has given his long life to the pursuit of the Communist ideal, but is now a doomed man; half-paralysed, rendered mute by a stroke and sidelined by the Politburo which is again repurposing itself, as it has so many times during Chevchenko’s life.

The aged politician’s long career has been one of surrendering self and sacrificing personal desire to serve the State and now he has gathered his closest colleagues about him for one last diverting weekend of vodka, chess, hunting and history…

As the festivities proceed the silent grandee is plagued with red-handed memories of the things he has done and the love he’d lost for the sake of the Dream, but his internal colloquy is balanced by the naïve questions and attitudes of the young and anonymous French Communist hired to translate for the other interloper among the old Comrades – reforming go-getter Sergei Shavanidze, who has been appointed Chevchenko’s successor and can’t wait to start pruning dead wood and outmoded ideas…

The entire history of the Movement is examined via the personal reminiscences of these creaking remnants of the system recalling past glories, old horrors and narrow escapes, but the bemused and bewildered Frenchman has no inkling as he absorbs the secrets of their socialist past of the part he will unwittingly play in its future…

This mesmerising, beguiling and utterly chilling thriller methodically skins the hide from an idealistic dream and spills the dark hot guts of guilt, arrogance and the pursuit of power in a sublime example of graphic narrative’s unique facility to tell a story on a number of levels.

In 1990 Titan Books released The Hunting Party in a captivating softcover album as part of their push to popularise European comics classics and in 1992 Humanoids Publishing published a sturdy oversized (12.6 x 9.4inches) hardback edition for the US market, either of which will delight any fan in search of a more mature and thought-provoking reading experience.
© 1990 Les Humanoides Associes. English language edition © 1990 Titan Books. All Rights Reserved.

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The Desert Peach Collection book 1: Beginnings


By Donna Barr (Mu-Aeon/Atlantic Books)
Aeon no ISBN, Atlantic ISBN: 978-1-88384-713-5

In Acknowledgement of the upcoming Comics in Conflict event at the Imperial War Museum this weekend – see our Noticeboard for details – I’m going to be reviewing a few intriguing and hopefully pertinent classics beginning with this criminally neglected comics gem…

Donna Barr is one of the comic world’s most unique talents. She has constructed a fully realised fantasyscape to house her stories and tells them with a style and voice that are definitely one-of-a-kind.

Her most well known creations are Stinz Löwhard, the Half-Horse and the star of this particular volume, Pfirsich Rommel the outrageously out, homosexual brother of the legendary perfect German soldier dubbed “The Desert Fox”.

The stories are set in World War II Africa and effortlessly combine hilarity, surreality profound sensitivity and glittering spontaneity.

Oberst Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel, like his Field Marshal brother Erwin, was part of the German invasion force in from 1940-1943. However, although as capable as his elder sibling, the gracious and convivial Desert Peach was a man who loathed harming anybody physically or emotionally and thus spent his days with the ever-so-motley crew of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging & Support Unit of the Afrika Korps. trying to remain stylish, elegant and non-threatening to the men under his command, the natives and the rather trying British – not all of whom were party to the clandestine non-aggression pact he had made with his opposite numbers in the amassed Allied Forces…

Pfirsich was also wildly in love with Rosen Kavalier: manly Luftwaffe ace and the Peach’s fiancé…

The Desert Peach ran for 32 intermittent issues from a number of publishers and was subsequently collected as eight graphic novel collections between 1988-2005, with a prose novel – Bread and Swans, a musical and an invitational collection by other artists entitled Ersatz Peach. A larger compendium, Seven Peaches, collects issues #1-7 and Pfirsich’s further exploits continue as part of the Modern Tales webcomics collective…

However, this hard-to-find first softcover collection reprints issues #1-3, opening with ‘Who is This Man?‘ as Pfirsich inspects his tiresomely peculiar band of maverick military men (the 469th is where the real army transfers its problem cases) prior to losing a map crucial to the German army’s advance. Not that the Peach is particularly upset over the military ramifications… he just doesn’t want to get his beloved brother into trouble…

And of course that’s the very moment Erwin pops over for a visit…

The real star of these fabulous comedy epics is the Peach’s long-suffering, unkempt, crafty, ill-mannered, bilious and lazily scrofulous orderly Udo Schmidt, whose one redeeming virtue is his uncompromising loyalty and devotion to the only decent officer in the army. As the broad and cunning farce unfolds the lost map leads inevitably to a confrontation with a bunch of British soldiers unaware of the unofficial truce, who then make the inexcusable gaffe of opening fire on Pfirsich and his desperately distressed subordinates.

Big mistake…

This first captivating excursion is capped off with a magical extra: cut-out paper-dolls of Pfirsich’s personal pilot von Drachenberg (whose plane is not, Not, NOT painted Pink, but actually a delightful shade of Peach) and his assorted uniform clothes…

In #2 after a gloriously experimental fourth-wall busting scratchboard sequence the military merriment continues unabated in ‘The Bar Fight’ as the urbane and generally peaceable Peach is provoked beyond all human endurance by a homosexual-hating Russian at the enlisted men’s unsanctioned watering hole…

Barr herself is ex-military and a devoted researcher in love with the often paradoxical minutiae of the martial life, so her scripts are rife with daft but true facts and circumstances, all utilised to enhance her brilliant tales, such as the knowledge that anti-communist Don Cossacks were allies of the Wehrmacht. One such, ultra-macho Semyon Bryonovich Givsonov, learns here to his temporary regret and eternal gratitude that some “fancy-boys” have a temper when pushed too far…

This spectacular boozy, bottle-busting battle yarn is followed by an utterly off-the-wall and indescribable exploit which nevertheless hangs together perfectly as Pfirsich commandeers Brother Erwin’s search for Allied submarines off the African coast to teach the Desert Fox the finer points of surfing in ‘A Day at the Beach’.

It doesn’t start too well but things quickly shape up once the work-shy Udo accidentally captures an American soldier from Hawaii who is convinced to give the gathered troops a few tips…

One note of warning for the usually squeamish hetero male readership: bathing suits were not standard issue for German soldiers during WWII so if exposed – but historically accurate – military buttockry is apt to unsettle, you might want to turn these pages carefully – although bluff old straight me personally found the Peach’s non-regulation swimsuit of svelte diaphanous pink (sorry, peach) ruffles a far more distracting notion…

Barr’s work is distinctive and honest but not to everybody’s taste, which is a shame as she has lots to say and a truly wondrous way of saying it.

Referencing the same vast story potential as Sgt. Bilko, Hogan’s Heroes, Oh, What a Lovely War! and even a little bit of Catch 22, the Desert Peach is bawdy, raucous, clever, authentically madcap and immensely engaging. These first tentative tastes of the fruits of combat were some of the very best comic tales of the 1980s and 1990s and still pack the comedic punch of a chartreuse howitzer, liberally leavened with situational jocularity, accent humour and lots of footnoted Deutsche cuss-words for the kids to learn.

Illustrated in Barr’s fluidly seductive wood-cut and loose-line style this book is a must-have for any history-loving, war-hating fun seeker and comes with an added attraction.

‘Ratzen’, scripted and drawn by Chuck Melville, is a clever vignette in which the assorted vermin of the 469th fall out over the definition of what is and isn’t a pet…

Beginnings and the 1998 reissue are pretty scarce these days but if you have a Kindle Robot Comics have just begun to release the individual comicbook issues for anybody who can get the hang of all this verfluchte new technology…
© 1988-1989, 1995 Donna Barr. Introduction © 1995 D. Aviva Rothschild. “Ratzen” © 1995 Chuck Melville. All rights reserved.

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The Crow Special Edition


By James O’Barr (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-85768-795-1

In 1989 just as the independent comics boom was coming to a halt a troubled writer/artist named James O’Barr re-interpreted the classic plot of revenge from beyond the grave to create a media sensation and work through a shattering personal trauma.

Produced as an inspired form of art therapy following the killing of his lover by a drunk driver O’Barr’s cathartic and emotive spirit of revenge debuted in 1989 in black and white anthology comic Caliber Presents #1, before graduating to his own title. Due to the downturn in comics sales the proposed 5-issue limited series was cancelled before its conclusion and the feature moved to Tundra, where it was reconfigured and re-released in 1991 as three volumes ‘Pain and Fear’, ‘Irony and Despair’ and the unseen double-length conclusion ‘Death’.

When Kitchen Sink Press absorbed Tundra in 1993 the saga was combined into one graphic novel (with even more new material). The seemingly-cursed series caught the public imagination a year later when actor Brandon Lee died during the filming of a movie adaptation and the franchise has since generated 3 further celluloid sequels, a TV series, prose novels and The Crow: Shattered Lives and Broken Dreams – a collection of short stories by fantasy novelists such as Gene Wolf and Alan Dean Foster.

There were also numerous comics sequels by O’Barr and guest creators including The Crow/Razor: Kill the Pain, Dead Time, Flesh and Blood, Wild Justice and Waking Nightmares as well as a 10-issue ongoing series from Image Comics.

A new movie remake is in production…

This long-awaited remastered Special Edition is probably the final word on the original tale: a graphic Director’s Cut which restores much intended material dropped during the 1989-1991 run due to space considerations, cost and, as stated in the author’s introduction, O’Barr’s then-lack of ability and “limited visual vocabulary”.

As well as restored and reconceived graphic narrative sequences, this mostly monochrome volume also includes a colour cover gallery section, illustrated poems by Rimbaud, Rose Fyleman and Baudelaire, loads of extra art, an appreciation by John Bergin and an Afterword by A.A. Attanasio.

‘Book One: Lament’ opens the ‘Pain and Fear’ segment with the Caliber Presents short ‘Inertia’ wherein a leather-clad Goth/clown extracts some information from a very nasty street-thug, after which ‘Shattered in the Head’, rendered in grey tones and washes, follows a tragic young man as he rides a very special train and sees something truly horrific…

Book One proper then describes ‘Pain’ as a melancholy figure prowls an empty, desolate house before going out hunting. Five names resound in his head, a handful of men he has plans for…

Meanwhile one of those unlucky targets is going about his unlawful business, killing for sheer entertainment. When confronted in ‘New Dawn Fades’ Tin Tin doesn’t even remember the clown with the crow on his shoulder…

Intercut with flashes of a grievous crime and atrocity inflicted on a loving young couple, the drama proceeds with ‘Shadowplay’ as rising criminal star Top Dollar receives a visitor who decimates his gang before ‘The Kill’.

The vengeance taker is plagued by memories of his lost, perfect life in ‘The Anti-Architect Dreams’ before proceeding ‘…Like a Concave Scream’ with his hell-bent mission…

Second book ‘Fear’ briefly focuses on sadistic scumbag Tom Tom who is convinced to share valuable information with the implacable ghost in ‘Dead Souls’. When he was alive the sensitive soul was called Eric and here he makes a slight detour in ‘Submission’ to reclaim the engagement ring taken from his ravaged love’s dead finger before making an ally in the police force and continuing his death march in ‘Elegy: Irony & Despair’.

Another tender memory racks his conscience in ‘Atmosphere’ and the agonised angel finds time to save a little girl’s future before resuming his hellish campaign in ‘Velocity’ as the drug addicted, pain-immune Fun Boy is sent a message and becomes a living example for the remaining targets before we gain a further inkling into the role of the ever-present Crow in ‘Watching Forever’…

‘Book Three: Irony’ hints at the coming conclusion in ‘Immolation’ as Eric destroys the massed street-gangs employed by the harried targets as a final warning before some of the mysteries are revealed in a harrowing flashback ‘The Atrocity Exhibition: One Year Ago’ which opens ‘Book Four: Despair’. Closely following is the secret of Eric’s “survival” in ‘Head Trauma’ leading to the inescapable ‘Crescendo’…

The largest new segment ‘An August Noel’ precedes the beginning of the end and in ‘Angel, All Fire’ Eric makes his peace with life and dances one last ghastly pavane to his lost past before setting out for a gruesome ‘Hammer Party’…

‘Book Five: Death’ starts the final confrontation with last target T-Bird in ‘Gravity’ and, as another army of society’s worst dregs get in Eric’s way his bloody ‘Attrition’ at last begins to elicit some human response from the unrepentant monster. With bodies falling like red rain ‘Looking Down the Cross’ sees Eric become an unstoppable slaughter machine and ‘Steel Tide on an Asphalt Beach’ has the campaign of vengeance conclude the only way it could…

After the denouement a new postscript ‘Sparkle Horse’ offers some long-needed healing to augment the gory closure before order is restored in the elegiac ‘Passover’ and ‘Coda’.

Epic, simplistic, poetic and powerfully moving, this darkly uncompromising tale is a monolith of modern comics and this stellar compilation is the only way to truly experience it in all its gothic glory.

© 1981, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2011 James O’Barr.

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The Minotaur’s Tale


By Al Davison (Gollancz)
ISBN hardback: 978-0-57505-189-8   softcover: 978-0-57505-283-3

During the 1990s, following the stunning success and huge mainstream sales of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus, graphic novels were finally accepted by the publishing industry as a viable and valuable market for adults after decades in which sequential narrative had been deemed a ghetto for children and idiots – the works of Raymond Williams and others of his pioneering ilk notwithstanding.

When the likes of HarperCollins, Macmillan/Pan and Gollancz finally caught wise they did it in fine style with challenging works like Doris Lessing & Charlie Adlard’s Playing the Game or The City by James Herbert & Ian Miller.

Gollancz was probably the first to fully embrace the nascent form, creating the VG Graphics imprint and going all out by releasing a game-changing selection of mature and challenging confections by comics glitterati Alan Moore & Oscar Zarate, Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean and fantasy stalwarts M. John Harrison & Ian Miller and Ian McDonald & Dave Lyttleton. A fifth commissioned volume was crafted by relative newcomer and unique authorial voice Al Davison who had first come to the industry’s attention with his incredible autobiography The Spiral Cage: Diary of an Astral Gypsy in 1988.

His story of a life spent daily triumphing over a body wracked by Spina bifida and a society that couldn’t handle cripples who didn’t know their place is a stunning testament to human courage and the liberating power of creativity (originally published by Renegade Press and re-issued in revised and expanded editions by Titan Books in 1990 and Active Images in 2003) and led to Davison being invited to contribute to the VG roster.

Davison writes, illustrates and letters this darkly enchanting parable, similarly examining the themes of disability, alienation, perception and inclusion, which opens in a prologue with a rather nonconformist if not confrontational interpretation of the myth of Minos of Crete and the bestial murderous Minotaur from a wilful little girl named Etty-Mae Brown.

Years later in ‘Transmissions’ the dystopian urban night is shattered by a pain-drenched wail. The deformed dosser everybody calls Banshee is screaming again, but the skinheads, hookers, winos and other human trash have better things to do than listen to the mad bastard. Still, after a night of mindless aggression the thugs still have a bit of time and energy left to give ugly freak a bit of a kicking…

Barely able to stand on his own malformed feet at the best of times, Banshee is found collapsed in the street by recovering drug-addict Etty who gets him into a hospital. He awakes from terrifying dreams of the orphanage and the vile nuns who ran it to find himself in a clean bed and immediately panics, subsequently barricading himself in the toilet.

All his life Banshee has been called a freak, a mistake, a monster or worse but Etty knows she can help him and shows him her version of the Minotaur legend, encouraged by the sympathetic Dr. Sparks – who has a secret shame of her own which she conceals at all costs…

In ‘Preparations’ we travel back to ancient Greece to see the story of Theseus and the man-bull told from the Minotaur’s point of view – a tale of bigotry, pride and prejudice, rewritten by the self-aggrandizing pretty-boys who always seem to get the last word… The unjust tragedy of Minos’ humiliatingly deformed child inspires Banshee’s recovery and the solitary misfit is adopted by Etty and her lover.

In ‘Revelations’ whilst safely ensconced in the only house he has ever known, Etty’s baby daughter Josie cuddles the hideous man-thing. It is the first hug Banshee has ever experienced…

In this welcoming environment Banshee experiences many magical, educational moments and evolves, becoming a free creature at last, after which ‘Transmissions (A Slight Return)’ reveals a different truth to the myth of Theseus whilst Banshee finds a way to share his newfound state of grace and return a favour to Dr. Sparks resulting in a perfect miracle…

Even the most twisted and lonely need love and human contact and from isolated places of darkness and the horrors of life there is always the promise of a better life…

Despite being of sublime quality none of the VG Graphics titles really caught on and the experiment was soon terminated. A US edition of The Minotaur’s Tale was published in 1995 by Dark Horse Comics, with as little commercial success, but nearly twenty years later perhaps the audiences have broadened and grown enough so that this superb and enchantingly beautiful pictorial homily can at last find the readership it deserves.

In a perfect world some wise publisher would re-release the modern myth in a new edition, but if you can’t wait – and why should you? – the original lavishly full-colour 80 page tale is still readily available in both hardback and softcover versions.
©1992 Al Davison. All rights reserved.