Category: Mature Reading

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You’ll Never Know Book 2: Collateral Damage


By C. Tyler (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-418-4

In 2009 cartoonist Carol Tyler published the first of a proposed trilogy of graphic memoirs that examined the difficult relationship with her father Chuck, a veteran of World War II. ‘A Good and Decent Man’ explored three generations of the family dominated by a capable mother and a hard working, oddly cold yet volatile, taciturn patriarch. Events kicked off when after six decades of silence incipient frailty suddenly produced in her once-distant father a terrifying openness and desire to share war experiences and history long suppressed.

As if suddenly speaking for an entire generation who fought and died or survived and soldiered on as civilians in a society with no conception of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, Chuck Tyler began to unburden his soul…

This second volume takes up the acclaimed and award-winning generational saga with Carol coping with her own husband’s desertion, leading to her resuming recording her dad’s recollections of Italy and France (including the infamous Battle of the Bulge) whilst re-examining the painful, chaotic and self-destructive existence she made for herself due to his hidden demons.

Now a single mother, Carol ponders her tempestuous past through a new lens. How much did her cold and terrifying father who was nevertheless a devoted, loving husband shape her mistakes? How can she prevent her increasingly wild daughter making the same mistakes and bad choices? Moreover, as her parents’ physical and mental states deteriorate, Chuck has become obsessed by a mystery that been forgotten since he came back from the conflict and needs Carol to solve it at all costs…

With an increasingly critical reappraisal of the family’s shared experiences, Carol discovers how her own mother coped with dark tragedies and suppressed secrets (revealed in ‘The Hannah Story’ – an updated sidebar first published in 1994), gaining an enhanced perspective but still no satisfactory answers to the conundrum of her father.

As she races to complete the self-appointed task of turning her father’s life into a comprehensible chronicle her parents are both declining visibly and her own life is becoming far too complex to ignore or withstand…

Delivered in monochrome and a selection of muted paint wash and crayon effects, the compellingly inviting blend of cartoon styles (reminiscent of our own Posy Simmonds but with a gleeful openness all her own) captures heartbreak, horror, humour, angst and tragedy in a beguiling, seductive manner which is simultaneously charming and devastatingly effective, whilst the book and narrative itself is constructed like a photo album depicting the eternal question “How and Why Do Families Work?”

Enticing, disturbing and genuinely moving, ‘Collateral Damage’ is a powerful and affecting second stage in Tyler’s triptych of discovery and one no student of the human condition will care to miss.

© 1994, 2010 C. Tyler. All rights reserved.

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Master of Rampling Gate


By Anne Rice, adapted by Colleen Doran (Innovation)
ISBN: 978-1-56521-009-7

Usually I’m a big advocate of the purity of original material over adaptations – never ask my opinions on movies made from comics, for example – but every so often a piece of reworked work transcends not only its origins but even the source material itself.

Such a gem is the Colleen Doran interpretation of a short Anne Rice vampire tale which was first published in Redbook in 1982 tenuously attached to the author’s ponderous Vampire Lestat universe but set in England in the 14th and 19th centuries.

1888: Richard and Julie Rampling are travelling to the country seat they have jointly inherited on the passing of their father. The journey is tainted with trepidation and apprehension as their sire made them swear on his deathbed to have the estate razed to the ground.

As the train brings them closer they reminisce on odd events that have occurred over the years, and on arriving at the beautiful manse their hesitation in executing the last wish increases. The mere thought of obliterating such a serene and beautiful setting is appalling whilst getting rid of the many generations of retainers who still service Rampling Gate is too painful to countenance. Yet their father was adamant: the house is a place of hidden horror and must be eradicated.

As their fact-finding mission proceeds the seductive lure of the house works its magic on Julie and even Richard feels the ancient call and struggles to comprehend why his obligation must result in loss of such a wondrous and compelling inheritance. A sensitive girl with aspirations to be a writer, Julie is inspired by the majestic environment but when her brother uncovers some old journals she becomes consciously aware of an ancient presence that has permeated and protected the estate for half a millennium.

Moreover the undying master has made his desires and intentions appallingly clear…

Slow and moody, this somewhat shallow tale is elevated to glittering heights by the chromatic dazzle of Doran’s artwork which treats the pages as brilliant, impossibly perfect concoctions reminiscent of stained glass window designs. All trace of terror is subdued by the inevitable culmination of Julie’s fascination with the hidden creature and the upbeat (at least for a vampire romance story) conclusion makes this slim book more dream than nightmare.

Impressive, understated and effectively brief, Master of Rampling Gate is a lost delight for those dark winter nights and one no fantasy fan will care to miss.
â„¢ & © 1991 Anne O’Brien Rice. Cover art © 1991 John Bolton. Adaptation and interior art 1991 Innovation Corp. All rights reserved.

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Fables volume 8: Wolves


By Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham & others (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-388-6

Fables is one of those blessed delights that makes a reviewers job almost impossible. Series of matchless quality that still improve with each volume are rare and most welcome but you soon run out of superlatives to express your enthusiasm, so unless the reviewer wants to cross the border into Spoiler Territory (giving away a plot to a potential fan ought to be a Capital Offence) you really have nothing to offer: therefore I’m repeating my standard short review: Best One Yet – Get Them All.

Still and all you might want a little more, so…

The monthly comicbook Fables details the exploits of fairytale and storybook characters that we humans regard as fictional, living secret immortal lives among us, refugees from a monstrous all-consuming Adversary who had conquered their original otherworldly homelands.

Allow me to elucidate. Keeping their true nature hidden from humanity the Fables have created enclaves where their magic and sheer strangeness (all the talking animals are sequestered on a remote farm in upstate New York, for example) keep them luxuriously safe. Many characters do wander the human world, but always under strict injunction not to draw attention. These magical, perfect, cynical yet perversely human creatures dream of one day returning to their own homes and interrupted lives.

They used to live with the constant threat that their all-consuming foe would one day find them…

However their nemesis has been revealed as the puppeteer Geppetto, who used his ability to carve living, sentient beings out of wood to build all-powerful armies, soon supplemented with goblins, monsters and collaborators who joined rather than die when his unstoppable marionette forces came marching in. ruling in anonymity from behind his greatest creation the Emperor. Geppetto has almost conquered all of Reality, but now with his secret revealed the indomitable refugees of Fabletown are planning to retaliate…

Collecting issues # 48-51 of the monthly comic this volume brings everybody up to speed with the handy ‘Who’s Who in Fabletown’ featurette before the eponymous two-parter ‘Wolves’ (illustrated by Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy) finds the eternally young Mowgli prowling the Arctic hinterlands attempting to track down absent friend – and experienced warrior – Bigby; shape-changing Big Bad Wolf and son of the storm god known alternately as Mr. North and the Great North Wind.

When the mortals of Siberia prove useless the Jungle Boy turns to the wolves and soon discovers what he needs. Meanwhile back in America on the farm Bigby’s cubs are growing increasingly hard to handle…

Of course Mowgli is eventually successful and Bigby returns to Fabletown, although not without some pretty conniving convincing, just in time for the celebratory 50th issue extravaganza which opens with ‘Secret Agent Man’ as Bigby undertakes an covert mission deep into the Adversary’s territory, reviews the Fables indescribably unique war-resources in ‘Castles in the Sky’ before dropping ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ to set up a spectacular confrontation and coup.

Breathtaking in its audacity ‘The Israel Analogy’ establishes a new relationship between Geppetto and the refugee Fables before Bigby returns to Earth in ‘Home is the Hunter’ for a different kind of confrontation and unexpected revelation with Snow White (long-abandoned mother of his cubs) in ‘Restoration’ leading to a reconciliation in ‘The Big Valley’ and ending, as proper stories should, in ‘The Wedding’. There’s even a pithy little epilogue ‘Mr. and Mrs. Wolf’ for all us helpless romantics…

Shawn McManus then illustrates ‘Big and Small’ wherein special emissary Cinderella goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain allies amongst both giants and mouse governments, which ends the narrative portion of this splendid tome but there are still treats in store beginning with assorted ‘Maps of the Fable Territories’ and ending with the complete script to Fables #50, illustrated by cover illustrator James Jean.

There is nothing around today that can touch this series for imagination, style and quality, and you’ll never know the real meaning of “happy ever after” until you turn on to this magnificent saga.

© 2006 Bill Willingham and DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere


Adapted by Mike Carey & Glenn Fabry (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-353-X

Just as he was reaching the narrative heights with his comics works Neil Gaiman wrote a six part television series for the BBC which met with mixed responses from the not-necessarily overlapping audiences of print and TV. Neverwhere had plenty of literary antecedents but its contemporary setting and post-punk attitude clearly caused a few confusions, whilst the legendary BBC budget “make-do-and-mend” policy and financial restrictions left the show looking far less impressive than the writing and acting warranted (a superficial viewer prejudice which still deprives far too many potential fans from taking the pre-1989 Dr. Who series as seriously as they should…)

Concocted by Gaiman and comedian Lenny Henry – long-time comics fan – the show was broadcast on BBC 2 in 1996 and was soon forgotten, but they eventually returned to the concept and it was adapted, restored and expanded as a novel which became a substantial hit (most recently re-published in 2006 in an “Author’s Preferred Text” edition). The core concepts have also been referenced in some of Gaiman’s subsequent fiction.

In 2005 the story was adapted to comics form by Mike Carey and Glenn Fabry as a 9-part miniseries from Vertigo and this compilation graphic novel seems to be the ultimate and most comfortable arena for this engaging urban quest into the dark and hidden side of cities and civilisation.

Abridged and distilled rather than adapted from the novel, Neverwhere recounts the journey and fate of harassed would-be yuppie Richard Mayhew who, against his fiancée’s wishes, stops to help a young homeless girl they find collapsed on the streets of London.

The frail, Goth-like waif calls herself Door and reveals that she is running for her life. Unfortunately that life is a mystical, metaphysical, subterranean analogue of reality notionally located under the sewers beneath our feet. Populated by the lost and forgotten, indigents, outcasts and creatures of legend and fevered fantasy this world is both seductive and dangerous. Moreover, once on those hidden paths mere mortals almost never return…

Door is the last of House Portico, a dynasty once powerful in “London Below” but all dead now. Her family’s relentless enemies have followed her to the world above and when Mayhew is threatened by thugs-for-hire Messrs Croup and Vandemar, pressing him for her location, he inadvertently crosses over, becoming forgotten and eventually invisible to his old friends and acquaintances.

As Door assembles allies to combat the plot against her, Mayhew is dragged along; a well-meaning innocent determined to win back his old life by completing a quest to cross Night’s Bridge, defeat Croup, Valdemar and their hidden master, overcome the fearsome Beast of London and win the support of the supreme power of this underworld: the Angel called Islington.

The path is long and hard however and Mayhew isn’t sure if he and the orphan Door can trust such unique, uncompromising companions as the derelict Iliaster, the Marquis de Carabas, Lord Rat-Speaker, Old Bailey and Hunter. Most importantly, should he win his heart’s desire, is Mayhew even aware of what it might truly be…?

Clever and engaging this dark romance is packed with tension, drama and the lure of the arcane and exotic, skilfully wrangled by Carey and Fabry into a pretty, enthralling package. This is a solid comics treat for full-on fans and tantalised dabblers alike.

© 2005, 2006 Neil Gaiman. All Rights Reserved.

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Tomorrow Stories Books 1 & 2


By Alan Moore & various (America’s Best Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-56389-985-0 and 978-1-4012-0166-1

Alan Moore revolutionised American Comics with a series of stunningly well-crafted series and shorter stories featuring characters created by others and in the late 1990s began working for Jim Lee’s Wildstorm outfit. Initially writing for the imprint’s reductive and post-modern line of superheroes (see Alan Moore’s Complete WildC.A.T.s and Alan Moore: Wild Worlds) he gradually began constructing his own universe, loosely based on a number of perennial concepts, genre archetypes and the visual likenesses of some Golden-Age characters long unused – and unclaimed – by copyright farmers…

In 1999 he deftly injected some fun back into a medium plagued and overwhelmed by grim tales of assorted vengeances and mind-numbing violence. The stories also found room to intellectually challenge as well as play with the readership. Moore and a selection of his very talented friends employed all the vast benefits of a shared continuity without getting bogged down in histrionics and shallow bombast, producing a line of clever, witty, beautifully illustrated adventures aimed at those adults grown from the Baby-boomers who had fed the Silver-Age comics revolution and only to be somehow deprived of their fundamental fascination by an industry increasingly devoted to fads and short-term profits.

The most perfect example of this erudite graphic philosophy was undoubtedly Tomorrow Stories, a series designed as a themed anthology title and the greater part of which has been collected in two splendidly whacky volumes of action, suspense, adventure, mystery and imagination.

Volume one, fully scripted throughout by Moore, led with the introduction of Jack B. Quick – Boy Inventor illustrated by the incredibly talented Kevin Nowlan who introduced a junior Edison in ‘Smalltown Stardom.’ The juvenile super-genius, resident on a farm in rural Queerwater Creek, rashly created a miniature sun in the back pasture and had to deal with the diminutive solar system that develops – causing traffic chaos and concomitant conniptions amongst the townsfolk and livestock…

Blending cutting edge science with wondrous surreality this feature always concealed an uplifting laugh amongst its conceptually challenging wonders…

Rick Veitch illustrated Greyshirt (a fulsome tribute to Will Eisner’s urbane detective the Spirit) and the feature began here with ‘Amnesia’ a tale of stylish murder whilst Jim Baikie slipped comfortably into broad parody and biting satire with the patriotic wonders The First American and U.S.Angel; battling Nazis, aliens and daytime television audiences in ‘Dumbsday!’

The first issue closed with ‘The Cobweb’ an exotic pastiche of such (scantily) costumed Golden-Age mystery women as Phantom Lady and Tarpe Mills’ Miss Fury in a plethora of artistic styles provided by Melinda Gebbie. This crusading feminist Lady of the Night starred in a thought-provokingly whimsical yet sinister tale of scandalous delights and forbidden horrors wherein the Amorous Avenger battled a mad scientist who literally turned women into toys and playthings…

Issue #2 opened with Greyshirt in a visually arresting generational yarn of four stories in a building’s life. ‘How Things Work Out’ (illustrated by Veitch) played with Time, Space and vertical altitude to define how crime affects people over the course of decades whilst physics got another well-honed kicking from Jack B. Quick in ‘The Unbearableness of Being Light’ as the brainy boy determined that photons in Queerwater had been over-imbibing intoxicants…

It was ‘Waltztime’ for Cobweb when she encountered dancing alien phantoms in the asteroid belt whilst the First American crushed a backwards-looking felon wielding a deadly Nostalgitator in ‘The Curse of the Reverse!’ to close the proceedings.

Quick’s ‘Pet Theory’ is a triumph of bad-taste: an animal-testing black comedy that tips a cocky hat to Orwell’s Animal Farm; the ever experimental Moore & Gebbie pulled off an illustrated prose thriller-tragedy in the Cobweb fragment ‘Eurydice: A Retrospective’ and First American took a painful look at youth culture and juvenile crime in ‘The Peril of the Pediatric Perpetrators’ before the smoke-coloured man of mystery once more stole the show in ‘The Making of Greyshirt’: a different kind of origin from Moore & Veitch.

The President Clinton/Ken Starr clash got a jovial shout-out in #4’s First American micro-saga as ‘The Bitter Crumbs of Defeat!?!’ almost saw the Patriotic Poltroon investigated and legislated out of business whilst ‘Li’l Cobweb’ married the innocent charms of childhood with a more sordid look at modern relationships and ‘Tempus Fugitive’ pitted Greyshirt against a conceptually inept time-bandit, after which Jack B. Quick hilariously, confoundingly also got the chronal itch as he underwent ‘A Quick Geography of Time’.

Musical explorer ‘Dr. Crescendo!’ paid an ultimate price for his virtuosity in the Greyshirt tale that opened issue #5 whilst Cobweb slipped into moody old territory with the fabulous old Romance fragment ‘La Toile dans le Chateau des Larmes’ a gothic triumph hinting at the true vintage of the spidery siren and first American got in the festive spirit just in time for ‘A Christmas Cop-Out’.

The premiere volume closed with #6 and a Greyshirt saga entitled ‘Day Release’ wherein the supernatural supplanted the grimly urban blight of crime and First American manfully resisted any urge to get all “Touchy-Feely” in the impressively brusque ‘Lo! There Shall Come a Closeness and Commitment!’ with the ever-ambivalent U.S.Angel dragged along for the ride, after which Cobweb found herself distressingly confined with an arachnid opponent who left her ‘Shackled in Silk!’

The final tale is a debut, as an old champion awakened to a world that had pretty much outgrown him. Inky Idol Splash Brannigan: Indelible Avenger made a long-overdue first reappearance in ‘The Return of the Remarkable Rivulet!’ by Moore and Hilary Barta, wherein a downtrodden comics artist accidentally freed an ebullient liquid asset to fight crime and crush her intolerable deadlines…

The hardcover tome under review here also includes all the covers, a selection of sketches and artwork by Nowlan, Veitch, Gebbie and Barta and a copious informative biographies section.

The second volume (reprinting issues #7-12) was also fully written by Moore and riotously opened with the Barta limned Splash Brannigan romp ‘A Bigger Splash!’ as the Dark Stain and Miss Daisy Screensaver stumbled into the atrocity of the modern art market, after which Melinda Gebbie revealed the Maid of Mysteries’ flower-power experiences in the trippy flashback ‘Grooveweb’ and First American selectively recalled recent history from an ideal perspective in ‘The 20th Century: My Struggle’ before Veitch again stole the show with the compulsive Greyshirt thriller ‘How’s My Driving?’

First American muffed the chance to tell his story as a docu-soap in the biting ‘Justice in Tights!’, that Brannigan chap endured horror beyond description when he attended a comics convention and battled ‘Testostor the Terrible!’, Cobweb fans got a rare treat with the uncovering of rare (and faux) newspaper strips featuring her and bosom buddy Clarice clashing with a lost tribe of jungle women, and Greyshirt’s ever-varying cast examined their own interior monologues in the innovative ‘Thinx’.

Alternative Comics darling Dame Darcy illustrated Cobweb’s hardboiled fairytale detective yarn ‘Farewell, My Lullabye’, but series regular Jim Baikie stayed the course to mistreat us to ‘The Origin of the First American’ and Rick Veitch went for the gusto in the show-stopping ‘Greyshirt: The Musical!’ before Splash Brannigan ended the issue with a heartfelt parody parable in ‘Splash of Two Worlds!’

Jack B. Quick triumphantly returned in #10 to solve the mystery of Manure Circles in an alien extravaganza of bovine bombast ‘Why the Long Face?’, ably complimented by the fast-paced Greyshirt thriller ‘…For a Blue Lady’ whilst First American was inaugurated for his ultimate role in the uproarious ‘What We Probably Inhaled at the Toilet’s Last Cleaning!’ and Dame Darcy again enthralled in the quirky travelogue ‘Cobweb of the Future!’.

Splash Brannigan left an inky residue on the pristine world of Pop music in ‘Splash City Rocker!’, Greyshirt went all monster-hunter in the cleverly crafted ‘Vermin’ and we had a behind-the-scenes glimpse of super-patriotic life in ‘Being the First American’ before Joyce Chin illustrated the eerie Cobweb period-piece ‘Bedsheets & Brimstone!’.

This volume and the original series concluded with #12 (although a couple of Specials were later released) so Moore and Veitch celebrated the wind-up in grand style with a Greyshirt/Cobweb team-up ‘Strands of Desire’ wherein the Sultry Sleuth and Man of Smoke and Mirrors set out to catch the sinister, sexy Moneyspider, concluding in the evocative ‘Shades of Grey’ after which Jack B. Quick took one last chance to shock and amaze with the hilariously straight-faced vignette ‘The Facts of Life!!’, leaving the Flag-Draped Fool to close the comics experimentation with an audacious homage to the breadth of comics imagination in ‘The Death/Marriage/Son of the First American of the Future!’ neatly revering and skewering it and ourselves in one swell foop.

Bold, insightful, witty and not at all precious Tomorrow Stories was a brave attempt at being fresh with archetypes whilst asking audiences to respond with brain as well as gut. Comics fans alternatively love it, hate or don’t get it: I really hope you get it (them, they, whatever…)

© 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004 America’s Best Comics, LLC. All rights reserved.

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The Broadcast


By Eric Hobbs & Noel Tuazon (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-590-0

When you read that as many as one millions Americans were fooled into hysterical panic by Orson Welles’ Halloween radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds it’s had not to think “how dumb are you?” or “don’t you people read books?” but the sad fact remains that a vast proportion of the population heard a portion of the innovative updating of the HG Wells classic on October 30th 1930 and genuinely thought the end of humanity had come.

This superbly low-key monochromatic tale takes a canny peek at human nature in a time of sustained privation (the Great Depression had just hit the USA a damned sight harder than any Martian death-ray could) and urgent – if only imagined – emergency as a small community in rural Indiana endures a couple of unhappy coincidences that result in a horrific confrontation…

At the height of a brutal storm a small band of farmers and families huddle in a barn. It’s been a bad day all around. Young Gavin Baker has finally asked wealthy Thomas Shrader if he could marry his daughter, Kim, but the meeting didn’t go well. Nevertheless the lovers still planned to escape to New York where Kim could become a writer…

Shrader had made a killing bailing out and buying up failing farms over the past year and wasn’t well liked by the newly destitute townsfolk such as widower Jacob Lee or cropper Eli Dawson, but he’s the only employer left so they make do…

A severely beaten, wandering Negro named Martin Steinbeck stumbled into the Baker place later that day. He’d clearly had a brutally rough encounter and was astonished when the family offered him help and sustenance rather than hatred and further violence…

Later, throughout the community the townsfolk tuned in their radios and all caught what they believed to be newscasts reporting Martian invaders blasting New York and New Jersey when suddenly a storm hit and the town lost power. With the phones and lights out, panicked, terrified people all headed towards the Shrader place with its solid storm cellar but when Kim discovered a truck with dead bodies it in, the only conclusion could be that the aliens have already reached the Heartland…

But when the families arrive Shrader delivered an ultimatum: only five people will be allowed refuge, him, his wife and three other and only then if rebellious Kim is one of them…

With imminent doom lurking in the darkness, friendship, civility and human empathy begin to breakdown and a very human atrocity seems inevitable…

This is an enchantingly subtle and impressive tale, carefully avoiding histrionics and bombast, and ultimately uplifting and positive. Eric Hobbs has focused on the communal heroism of the common man and the misty, raw line-and-wash illustration of Noel Tuazon marries dreamy introspection with painful sufferance to give the ensemble cast a look far removed from the general run of modern comics.

The book also contains a photo and clippings gallery displaying the media’s response to the original radio broadcast, deleted scenes, character sketches and a brief commentary on the creator’s working process. Tense, ironic and deeply moving this may well be the sleeper-hit of the year and a major motion picture soon after…

© 2010 Eric Hobbes.

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Mome 20: Fall 2010


By various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-365-1

Mome is a quarterly compendium of sequential narratives; a magazine that looks 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 is where the smart kids with the sharpest pencils, shiniest pens, biggest brushes and best software go to play before they blow your minds in great big award-winning graphic novels. It is intense, sometimes hard to read and crafted to the highest production standards. This volume signals five incredibly impressive years and the eclectic graphic mix presented here augurs well for the next fifty…

After the previous edition’s brief sabbatical a number of continued features return, but before that Dash Shaw opens proceedings with an oddly disturbing short romance entitled ‘Blind Date 2’ – cited as “an adaptation of an episode of Blind Date”, followed by a quirkily affecting parable of eternal romantic triangles entitled ‘The Bird, The Mouse and The Sausage’ by Sara Edward-Corbett before the spectacular and disturbing fantasy from The (Shaun) Partridge in the Pear Tree & Josh Simmons continues in part 2 of ‘The White Rhino’ as an extremely obnoxious man also awakes in the nerve-wracking, deceptively welcoming rainbow-nation of Racelandia…

T. Edward Bak’s pictorial biography of 18th century German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller finds the Siberian explorer reaping a few well-deserved carnal rewards for his efforts in ‘Wild Man Chapter 2: A Bavarian Botanist in St. Petersburg, part 4’ before Conor O’Keefe returns with the first chapter of another charmingly potent watercolour fantasy in ‘The Coconut Octopus’: part 1 – surreal, nostalgic, seductively compulsive…

Nate Neal (and don’t miss his recently released graphic novel The Sanctuary) goes all song-and-dancey with the magically macabre message of ‘Magpie Inevitability’ before moody World War II mystery ‘Devil Doll’ by Michael Jada and Derek Van Gieson returns with a captivating third part.

Steven Weissman utterly impresses with his time-twisting, haunted boy’s adventure ‘This Already Happened’, award-winning Italian cartoonist Sergio Ponchione reprises his marvelously enticing horror-hunter with ‘The Grotesque Obsession of Professor Hackensack’ and painter Jeremy Tinder explores ‘Time and Space’ with cunning intimacy and wild imagination.

Genteelly experimental and sadly inquisitive Aidan Koch pushes her seductive pencil to explore the transitory briefness of relationships in ‘Green House’ whilst Viennese cartoonist Nicholas Mahler ponders the life of a working comics artist in ‘Convention Tension’ and ‘Goodbye Mr. Nibs’. Fans should prepare for a bracing encounter with themselves…

Cover-featured Ted Stern’s anthropomorphic sad-sacks Fuzz & Pluck return in their ongoing nautical quest for wealth and safety with ‘The Moolah Tree’ part 4 and graphic designer Adam Grano ends this volume with a tantalising glance at his ‘$crapbook’…

Whether you’re new to comics, fresh from the mainstream ghettos or just need something new, Mome always promises – and delivers – a decidedly different read. You may not like all of it, but it will always have something you can’t help but respond to. After half a decade it’s here to stay …so why haven’t you tried it yet?

Mome © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. Individual stories are © the respective creator. All rights reserved.

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Elephant Man


By Greg Houston (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-588-7

Cartoonist, caricaturist, designer, educator, actor and big fan of old movies Greg Houston delights in the baroque and comically grotesque; positively revelling in taking taste-free pot-shots at societal and popular culture icons (see Vatican Hustle for more of his measured, manic musings) and his latest brilliant black and white book has a go at the very bedrock of our medium by parodying and pastiching the classic superhero scenario.

Baltimore has its own Costumed Crusader and he is the perfect symbol of a city with so little to recommend it. He doesn’t have any proper powers, but the people love him and on the fifth anniversary of his first appearance the minor metropolis is holding a week of commemorative events.

Local paper the Daily Crab is following events, particularly feisty journo Tracie Bombasso, cub reporter Dud Cawley and mild-mannered, colonically-challenged reporter Jon Merrick (yes, that kind of Elephant Man), despite the rantings of unpopular on-air TV presenter Handsome Dick Denton – but he’s just jealous, right?

Also determined to spoil everything is sinister conjoined villain The Priest, the Rabbi and the Duck, twisted victim of an old joke and a tragic accident involving alcohol and science…

Can Merrick keep his identity secret from his fellow reporters, foil the machinations of Denton and stop the three-headed Hydra of Pique? Of course he can, but along the way there’s bizarre characters old and new (keep your eyes peeled for cameos from Boss Karate Black Guy Jones and other Vatican Hustle alumni), cripplingly painful embarrassing moments and enough ugly hilarity to have a very good time indeed.

And lest you think we’re being unkind to the place let me reveal that Houston is Baltimore born-and-bred…

Beneath the outrageous parody and extreme mock-heroics is another witty and genuinely funny adult romp which pokes edgy fun at everything from politicians to donuts, weathermen to beauticians, making some telling observations about heroes and how to treat them, all rendered in a busy, buzzy, black and white line that appeals and appals in equal amounts.

Warning: this book contains Six-foot talking flies and shaved, car-racing monkeys.

© 2010 Greg Houston. All rights reserved.

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Vlad the Impaler: the Man Who Was Dracula (paperback edition)


By Sid Jacobson & Ernie Colón (Plume/Penguin Group USA)
ISBN: 978-0-452-29675-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: 8/10: Perfect spin on the seasonal traditional terror tales

Here’s a handy “heads-up” Horrible History hint if you’re looking for an ideal Christmas gift for your horrors at home: an economical softcover edition of one of the best graphic biographies of 2009 unleashed just in time to read in front of the Yule Log.

As writer and editor, Sid Jacobson masterminded the Harvey Comics monopoly of strips for younger American readers in the 1960s and 1970s, co-creating Richie Rich and Wendy, the Good Little Witch among others, before working the same magic for Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, where he oversaw a vast amount of family-friendly material; both self created – such as Royal Roy or the superb Planet Terry – and a huge basket of licensed properties.

In latter years he has worked closely with fellow Harvey alumnus Ernie Colón on such thought-provoking graphic enterprises as The 9/11 Report: a Graphic Adaptation (2006) and its 2008 sequel, After 9/11: America’s War on Terror. In 2009 their epic Che: a Graphic Biography was released: separating the man from the myth of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, universal icon of cool rebellion.

Ernie Colón was born in Puerto Rico in 1931: a creator whose work has been loved by generations of readers. Whether as artist, writer, colourist or editor his contributions have benefited the entire industry from the youngest (Monster in My Pocket, Richie Rich and Casper the Friendly Ghost for Harvey Comics, and many similar projects for Marvel’s Star Comics), to the traditional comicbook fans with Battlestar Galactica, Damage Control and Doom 2099 for Marvel, Arak, Son of Thunder and Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, the Airboy revival for Eclipse, Magnus: Robot Fighter for Valiant and so very many others.

There are also his sophisticated experimental works such as indie thriller Manimal, and his seminal genre graphic novels Ax and the Medusa Chain. Since 2005 he’s been hard at work on the strip SpyCat for Weekly World News.

Jacobson and Colón together are a comics fan’s dream come true and their bold choice of biography and reportage as well as their unique take on characters and events always pays great dividends. Vlad the Impaler is by far their most captivating project to date: a fictionalised account of the notorious Wallachian prince who was raised by his enemies as a literal hostage to fortune, only to reconquer and lose his country not once, but many times.

The roistering, bloody, brutal life of this Romanian national hero and basis of Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, is a fascinating, baroque, darkly funny yarn, capturing a troubled soul’s battle with himself as much as the Muslim and Christian superpowers that treated his tiny principality as their plaything.

With startling amounts of sex and violence this book makes no excuses for a patriot and freedom fighter who was driven by his horrific bloodlust and (justifiable?) paranoia to become a complete beast: clearly the very worst of all possible monsters – a human one.

Sharp, witty, robust and engaging, with a quirky twist in the tale, this is a good old-fashioned shocker that any history-loving gore-fiend will adore.

Text © 2009 Sid Jacobson. Art © 2009 Ernie Colón. All rights reserved.

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Will Eisner Color Treasury


By Will Eisner, written by Catherine Yronwoode (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 0-87816-006-X

It is pretty much accepted today that Will Eisner was one of the key creative forces who shaped the American comic book industry, with most of his graphic works more or less permanently in print – as they should be. But as far as I know at least one of his milestones has generally escaped public attention.

From 1936 to 1938 Eisner worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the comics production firm known as the Eisner-Eiger Shop, creating strips to be published in both domestic US and foreign markets. Using the pen-name Willis B. Rensie he created and drew the opening instalments of a huge variety of characters ranging from funny animal to historical sagas,

Westerns, Detectives, aviation action thrillers… and superheroes – lots of superheroes …

In 1940 Everett “Busy” Arnold, head honcho of the superbly impressive Quality Comics outfit, invited Eisner to take on a new challenge. The Register-Tribune newspaper syndicate wanted a 16-page weekly comicbook insert to be given away with the Sunday editions. Eisner jumped at the opportunity, creating three strips which would initially be handled by him before two of them were handed off to his talented assistants. Bob Powell inherited Mr. Mystic and distaff detective Lady Luck fell into the capable hands of Nick Cardy (then still Nicholas Viscardi) and later the inimitable Klaus Nordling.

Eisner kept the lead strip for himself, and over the next twelve years The Spirit became the most impressive, innovative, imitated and talked-about strip in the business. In 1952 the venture folded and Eisner moved into commercial, instructional and educational strips, working extensively for the US military in manuals and magazines like P*S, the Preventative Maintenance Monthly, generally leaving comics books behind.

In the wake of “Batmania” and the 1960s superhero craze, Harvey Comics released two giant-sized reprints with a little material from the artist, which lead to underground editions and a slow revival of the Spirit’s fame and fortune via black and white newsstand reprint magazines. Initially Warren Publishing collected old stories, even adding colour sections with painted illumination from such contemporary luminaries as Rich Corben, but with #17 the title reverted to Kitchen Sink, who had produced the first two underground collections.

Eisner found himself re-enamored with graphic narrative and saw a willing audience eager for new works. From producing new Spirit covers for the magazine (something the original newspaper insert had never needed) he became increasingly inspired. American comics were evolving into an art-form and the restless creator finally saw a place for the kind of stories he had always wanted to tell.

He began crafting some of the most telling and impressive work the industry had ever seen: first in limited collector portfolios and eventually, in 1978, with the groundbreaking graphic novel A Contract With God.

If Jack Kirby is the American comicbook’s most influential artist, Will Eisner is undoubtedly its most venerated and exceptional storyteller. Contemporaries originating from strikingly similar Jewish backgrounds, each used comic arts to escape from their own tenements, achieving varying degrees of acclaim and success, and eventually settling upon a theme to colour all their later works. For Kirby it was the Cosmos, what Man would find there, and how humanity would transcend its origins in The Ultimate Outward Escape. Will Eisner went Home, went Back and went Inward.

This fictionalised series of tales about the Jewish immigrant experience led to a wonderful succession of challenging, controversial and breathtakingly human stories for adults which changed how comics were perceived in America… and all because the inquisitive perfectionist was asked to produce some new covers for old stories.

This glorious oversized hardback (still available through internet retailers) features two full Spirit adventures, fully re-coloured by the master (who was never particularly pleased with how his strips were originally limned), pencil sketches and a magnificent confection of those aforementioned covers – plus some really rare extras.

The eerie 1948 chiller ‘Lorelei of Odyssey Road’ leads off this tome followed by a barely seen science fiction Spirit story. ‘The Invader’ – produced in the 1970s as the result of a teaching gig Eisner had at Sheridan College in Canada.

Eisner created the first page in class to show students the fundamentals of comics creation, and after months of coaxing was convinced to complete the tale, which was published in an extremely limited edition as the Tabloid Press Spirit in 1973. The action and sly, counter-culture comedy is impressively compact and well coordinated: ‘The Invader’ comfortably fits 57 panels into its five pages whereas the old eight-page yarns used to average a mere 50 frames…

Following two gloriously lush wraparound Kitchen Sink covers (complete with a pencil rough) and the hilarious cover to underground anthology Snarf #3, the single page Warren pieces commence. Originally seen on issues #2 through 10 they have all been re-mastered by Eisner and are simply stunning.

After these come the fully-painted wraparounds (all magnificently presented as double-page spreads) that graced the Kitchen Sink Spirit issues #18,-24, #27-29 and #31 and then the rare 1977 Spirit Portfolio is reproduced in the same generous proportions: eleven stunning paintings encapsulating key moments in the masked detective’s astonishing career.

‘The Hideaway’, ‘The Scene of the Crime’, ‘The Women’, ‘The Duel’, ‘Dead End’, ‘The Convention’, ‘The Rescue’, ‘The Chase’, ‘The Capture’ and ‘The City’ plus the portfolio cover are followed by the contents of 1980’s ‘City: a Narrative Portfolio’ a series of evocative black line and sepia ghetto images with obverse blank verse and cameo images dealing with the eternal themes that shape man as a metropolitan dweller. Once more including the cover image, ‘The Spark’, ‘The City’, ‘Predators’, ‘Mugger’, ‘Family’ and ‘Life’ are powerfully moving and magically rendered one-frame stories that presage his growing use of the urban landscape as an integral character in his later works.

With a fascinating biography and commentary from historian and publisher Cat Yronwoode this book is a lavish treat for Eisner aficionados, but the treats still aren’t exhausted: there are also rare colour works and illustrations from Cosmos magazine and Esquire, plus poster art, unpublished Spirit paintings and a preview of his then forthcoming book Big City…

Will Eisner is rightly regarded as one of the greatest writers in American comics but it is too seldom that his incredible draughtsmanship and design sense get to grab the spotlight. This book is a joy no fan or art-lover can afford to be without.
© 1981 Will Eisner. All rights reserved.