Category: Mature Reading

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Ronin


By Frank Miller with Lynn Varley (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-930289-21-8

I always feel a bit daft reviewing stuff that everyone already knows about, but I’m constantly being reminded that even though somebody talks about the classics of our art-form it doesn’t mean they actually have read them. Moreover, the great thing about comics is that they’re meant to be re-experienced, over and over and over…

So here’s a quick look at Frank Miller’s breakthrough epic: a canny blending of East and West, ancient and futuristic, mythical and technological, all used to scrutinise the unchanging nature of human passion, readily available in a number of paperback versions and even as an Absolute Ronin edition, released in 2008…

Set mostly in a near future where society has irretrievably broken down, our story actually opens eight centuries ago in feudal Japan, where a beloved, noble lord and his youngest, most untried samurai are besieged by the forces of a terrible demon named Agat who wants the mystical sword the old daimyo protects.

Eventually the unrelenting attacks succeed and Lord Ozaki is compromised and murdered. Shamed at his failure and maimed by the shape-shifting demon, the samurai becomes a masterless warrior, a Ronin, forced to wander the Earth until he can regain his honour…

Meanwhile in the 21st century, New York City and indeed the entire planet are dying, destroyed by economic, industrial and societal abuse. However at the heart of the dystopian nightmare a small team of free-thinking and idealistic scientists are pioneering a scheme to save humanity from itself.

Technological wizard Peter McKenna has invented self-replicating “bio-circuitry” that feeds itself from the polluted earth to grow clean buildings and even new prosthetic limbs. His greatest achievement is the Aquarius complex, a self-staining habitat governed by a benevolent Artificial Intelligence dubbed Virgo. Peter’s wife Casey runs the security of the complex whilst their friend Taggart runs the corporation they jointly founded, selling their world saving tech – and message – to the rest of humanity.

The maternal Virgo is increasingly becoming the fourth member of the team: making autonomous decisions for the benefit of all. She works closely with Billy Challas, an extreme congenital quadriplegic with latent psionic abilities. His hidden mental abilities have enabled Virgo to make huge leaps in replacement limbs, but recently his dreams have been disturbed by visions of Ozaki, Agat and the Ronin. Virgo is troubled by how historically accurate the nightmares are…

In ancient Japan the Ronin has wandered for years continually defending the magic sword from Agat’s forces, until in one self-sacrificing final duel demon and hero are both killed by the eldritch blade…

When Virgo’s researches uncover the dream Katana in a junk shop eight centuries later she accidentally causes an explosion which decimates part of the Aquarius complex, releasing Agat into our world again. Mercifully the spirit of the Ronin simultaneously enters Billy, who uses his submerged mind-powers to reconfigure his deformed flesh into the form of the ancient warrior.

Lost, dazed and confused, the Ronin wanders through the horrific landscape of post-civilised New York amongst a debased and corrupted populace whilst the demon possesses the body of Taggart and begins to subvert the pacifist, redemptive mission of Aquarius.

Casey McKenna, as head of security, begins to dig (quite literally) into the problem and with Virgo’s help is able to track down Billy/Ronin, but rather than saving the lad she is terrifyingly drawn into his mystical confusion. Meanwhile, as “Taggart” retools the complex into a munitions super-factory, Peter McKenna begins unravelling the mystery and discovers that nothing is as it seems and that there are far more sinister threats than debased gang-mutants and ancient demonic creatures. The entire world is under imminent threat and the clock is ticking…

This tale was not well received when it initially launched: the heady mix of manga influences (particularly Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s stunning Lone Wolf and Cub saga which permeates and guides this tale like a ghostly grandfather), science fiction, social politics and supernatural ultra violence was clearly not what the superhero reading fans had expected. Although some of the thematic overtones remained this was clearly no continuation of Miller’s landmark Daredevil run for Marvel: those issues were returned to in successive DC epics The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One.

However Ronin did effectively alter the comicbook marketplace forever, allowing the adult sensibilities that had flourished in Europe and Japan for decades to finally gain a solid foothold in the dogmatically juvenile American comics market. Of course it wasn’t alone, but with American Flagg! and a few precious others it was at the vanguard of the zeitgeist that put style and mature content above Fights, Tights and empty frights…

Oppressive, exhilarating and scarily mystifying, Ronin is a spectacular visual tour de force that reshaped what we read and how we read it. As a fan you have a divine obligation to see it for yourself…
© 1983, 1984, 1987 Frank Miller, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Sanctuary


By Nate Neal (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-388-0

There’s a wonderful abundance of impressive and talented cartoonists crafting superbly thought-provoking comics these days. Moreover they are all blessed with perfect timing, by which I mean they’re more or less able to support themselves thanks to modern technology and markets where, in the past, the imaginative likes of Kirby, Ditko and even R. Crumb had to filter themselves through a system of editors, publishers and distributors to get their work published.

In this new arena ideas can take you anywhere and religious ideologues, self-righteous pressure groups and blinkered editors have only negligible effect: indeed, their assorted squeals of outrage or timid support for fresh thoughts can actually help get contentious graphic material to the audiences it was actually intended for.

Not that Nate Neal’s first graphic novel is particularly contentious or outrageous. Even though there is nudity, fornication, wanton violence and gleeful irreverence, what mostly comes through in The Sanctuary is the sheer hard-work and intelligent philosophical questioning in this primordial tale of a band of cave-dwellers living and dying at the birth of our greatest inventions… language and art.

Neal is Michigan born and Brooklyn dwelling and was one of the creative crew that launched the splendid indy comics anthology Hoax (alongside Eleanor Davis, Dash Shaw & Hans Rickheit) and has produced a string of impressive colour and monochrome pieces such as ‘Delia’s Love’, ‘Mindforkin” and ‘Fruition’ in Fantagraphics’ stunning arts periodical Mome. His high-profile commercial gigs include ‘Truckhead’ for Nickelodeon Magazine and Mad‘s perennial favourite Spy Vs. Spy (originally created by Antonio Prohias and since covered by such diverse lights as Dave Manak and Peter Kuper).

Like kitsch movie masterpieces When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and 1,000,000 Years B.C. this primeval parable is produced with a unique and supremely limited intrinsic language (which, if you pay attention, you will decipher) and which serves to focus the reader on the meat of the tale: how art and graphic narrative became a fundamental aspect of human cognition.

Don’t be put off by my jokey references to classic bubblegum cinema; The Sanctuary has far more in common with the antediluvian aspects of Alan Moore’s Voice of the Fire than with any “big lizard meets busty cave-babe” flick (although if you’re a fan of Quest for Fire, that film’s gritty, grey and darkly sardonic ethos does eerily resonate here…)

Largely silent and broadly pantomimic, the snapshot episodes in this bleak black and white generational sage describe a small clan – or more properly “pack” – of brutal hominids eking out a squalid and desperate existence about thirty-two thousand years ago. The tribal equilibrium is altered when a young female is traded to them offering the lowest male in the pack a crumb of comfort. Until then he was practically outcast having to steal food from the alpha males and females, who have been and continue to struggle for control of the group.

This omega-male has a gift and a passion. He commemorates the tribe’s hunts through art, but when the girl arrives he discovers a new use and purpose for his abilities. However, life is hard and hunger and danger go hand in hand. The cold war between young and old, fit and maimed, male and female is inevitably coming to a head…

This is a powerful tale about creativity, morality, verity and above all, responsibility which demands that the reader work for his reward. As an exploration of imagination it is subtly enticing, but as an examination of Mankind’s unchanging primal nature The Sanctuary is pitilessly honest. Abstract, symbolic, metaphorical yet gloriously approachable, this devastatingly clever saga is a “must-see” for any serious fan of comics and every student of the human condition.

© 2010 Nate Neal. All rights reserved.

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Heroes volume 1


By various (WildStorm/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-706-8

Some people are never satisfied. When I was a kid constantly defending or even hiding my reading preferences, I and so many others, used to dream of a day when “normal” people – especially grown-ups and girls – would appreciate and love the superheroes, pulp fiction and space-opera that we devoured in comics. One day, I muttered, they’ll get it too…

These days not only are the concepts and traditions of my childhood inamoratas common currency, but actual favourite characters have been shared with the general populace to such a broad extent and with such ruthless commercial interpretation that often I can’t recognise the cheery costumed champions I once longed for others to partake of…

The world’s Batman isn’t mine, the celluloid (do we even use celluloid anymore?) Spider-Man is a complete stranger and I won’t have Daredevil or the X-Men in my house… Moreover I cringe inside when “the comicbook plot” appears in any cop or fantasy show: Nobody in the industry actually considers themselves “graphic novelists” – nobody I know would be that poncey…

So I was understandably a little nervous when a prime-time TV series debuted steeped in the fictive concepts of meta-humanity and attempted to bring the fringe experience and continuity shenanigans of the empowered outsider to the wider audience of soap fans and armchair sportsmen…

Tim Kring’s pedigree is admittedly quite good. He has worked extensively with fantasy concepts and clever adventure heroes on TV: Knight Rider, Strange World, Crossing Jordan, Teen Wolf Too (which he co-wrote with long-time collaborator Jeph Loeb) and the spectacularly under-appreciated Misfits of Science, an earlier and wittily cool attempt at a silver screen super-team.

Heroes ran for four controversial seasons, beginning in 2006, initially garnering huge audience figures and critical acclaim but gradually tapering off in popularity and direction before being finally euthanised by NBC in February 2010.

Recounting the secret history and evolution of a broad and disparate offshoot of superhumans amongst us the series attempted to transfer comicbook sensibilities to the television audience, following up to dozen separate metahumans as they came to terms with their abilities in a dangerously out of kilter world.

An overarching narrative thread was provided by Indian scientist Mohinder Suresh who had inherited his dead biologist father’s secret research into and fascination with these hidden but rapidly evolving beings, whilst constant menace was provided by a covert organisation hunting the paranormals and a rogue superhuman dubbed Sylar, who also stalked them – but only to kill them and steal their powers.

The concept’s lowly pop culture origins were coyly and constantly referenced in the show by including a meta-fictional comic, Ninth Wonder, written and drawn by a future-gazing character, into the ongoing plots. There was also a weekly webcomic produced to supplement the series and those webisodes are compiled in this book, comprising a stream of sidebar stories to enhance the overall experience, crafted by some of our industry’s leading talents.

Obviously if you never saw or didn’t like the show this would be the time to stop reading this review, but as I’m going to carry on regardless feel free to accompany me as I attempt to weigh the merits of the comics strips collection on its own terms…

Numbered as Ninth Wonder #1-34 these short stories – averaging 4-6 pages and a cover per instalment – begin with ‘Monsters’ by Aron Eli Coleite and artists Michael Turner & Koi Turnbull, wherein Mohinder moves to America, reintroducing the core concepts to us whilst investigating his father’s death, after which time-bending Japanese salaryman Hiro offers a peek into his own past with ‘The Crane’ by Coleite, Micah Gunnell & Mark Roslan.

Flying politician Nathan Petrelli experiences an eye-opening ‘Trial by Fire’ (Chuck Kim, Marcus To & Roslan)’ whilst invulnerable cheerleader Claire realises how much her life has changed after teaching a date-rapist a brutal lesson in ‘Aftermath’ (Joe Pokaski, Gunnell & Roslan). In ‘Snapshot’ by Pokaski, To & Peter Steigerwald, intangible convict DL Sanders breaks out of jail, unaware that his wife Niki is also abhuman and currently beginning a part-time career as a violent criminal in ‘Stolen Time’ (Pokaski, To & Roslan)…

Telepathic cop Matt Parkman feels his orderly life slipping away in ‘Control’ (Oliver Grigsby, Gunnell & Roslan) and that aforementioned precog artist discovers his powers in Coleite, Gunnell & Roslan’s ‘Isaac’s First Time’. Then Pierluigi Cothran, To & Roslan introduce a very special, irresistible little girl in ‘Life Before Eden’.

The tenth episode featured the sinister Sylar in ‘Turning Point’ (Christopher Zatta, Gunnell & Roslan), we got a look into the life of the chief agent hunting paranormals in ‘Fathers and Daughters’ (Andrew Chambliss, Travis Kotzebue, Gunnell & Steigerwald), power-magnet Peter Petrelli dreamed of ‘Super-Heroics’ (Harrison Wilcox, Gunnell & Steigerwald) before the format got an overdue upgrade with a continued story and an all new character.

‘Wireless’ (Coleite, Pokaski, Gunnell, Phil Jimenez & Roslan) introduced Israeli soldier Hana Gitelman who had the ability to interact with computers and electronic data-streams and recounted how she was recruited by the agency that hunts Heroes, a four-part tale of frustrated vengeance, fraud and disillusionment, followed in #17-18 with ‘How Do You Stop an Exploding Man?’ (Jesse Alexander, Coleite, Travis & Jordan Kotzebue & Roslan) as Hana tracks down the tragic Ted Sprague, fugitive paranormal cursed with the ability to explode like a nuke…

DL and Niki have a son and little Micah also has an ability – controlling machinery, but that’s not a great deal of help in ‘Bully’ (Kim, Gunnell & Roslan), whilst Sylar experiences a setback of his own in ‘Road Kill’ (Pokaski & Jason Badower). Hana returns in ‘The Path of the Righteous’ (Coleite & Staz Johnson), protecting the innocent from internet predators whilst cheerleader Claire’s unorthodox adoption is examined in Jesse Alexander & Michael Gaydos’ ‘Hell’s Angel’.

Episode #23 ‘Family Man’ (Alexander & Staz Johnson) deals with the aftermath of Claire’s exposure as a metahuman as her adoptive father, chief agent for the organisation that hunts her kind, makes a life changing decision, before another extended saga opens with ‘War Buddies: The Lonestar File’ (Mark Warshaw & Steven Lejeune).

Deep undercover Hana discovers the story of a previous generation of superhumans in ‘Unknown Soldiers’ (Chambliss, Cothran, DJ Doyle, Wilcox, Adam Archer, Roslan & Badower) detailing the story of a special ops mission in the Mekong Delta in 1968.

After incalculable horror the two survivors of the US team realise they are both more than mortal and lay plans that will eventually shake the world: a scheme that comes closer to fruition in ‘War Buddies: Call to Arms’ (Warshaw & Johnson)…

Time traveler Hiro Nakamura meets himself in the portentous ‘String Theory’ (Pokaski & Johnson) and events spiral to a climax – or more accurately Season Finale – with the 2 parter ‘Walls’ from Pokaski, Tom Grummett & Gaydos, as the heroes of a possible future strive to change their past. This volume then closes with a final 2-part thriller ‘The Death of Hana Gitelman’ by Coleite & Badower. It’s not what you think…

The book also contains a number of extra text features, the webisode covers and TV show art by Tim Sale and others such as Jim Lee and Alex Ross and despite my initial misgivings does actually present a fairly cohesive picture that most readers should enjoy and appreciate even with no prior experience of the primary material. And of course with Boxed set DVDs make ideal presents – almost as good as graphic novels, in fact…

© 2007 Universal Studios. Heroes is ™ & © NBC Studios, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Fires


By Lorenzo Mattotti (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 0-87416-064-2

Lorenzo Mattotti was born in Brescia 1954, and after studying architecture became a comics storyteller before graduating into a second career as a designer and illustrator. As well as the book under discussion here, his most well-known work is probably his 2003 Eisner award-winning adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. His stunning illustrations have graced magazines as varied as Cosmopolitan, Le Monde, Vogue and The New Yorker.

Initially working in a stylish but standard manner he gradually became obsessed with expanding the traditional comics form; capturing the power of light, hue and motion on the page and exploring the inner world of the characters populating it, beginning with the seminal Il Signor Spartaco in 1982.

With all his successive works from Murmur, the semi- autobiographical ‘The Man in the Window’ (where he applied the same creative questioning doctrine to line-drawing as he had to paint, pastel and chalk colour), the historical Caboto and others he pursued a technique of offering multiple meanings and interpretations to the reader…

Fires was released in 1986, and details the experience of a navy officer seduced by the magical nature of a tropical island. Either that or a classic case of a sensitive nature driven to madness by the regimentation of militarism…

When the warship Anselm II drops anchor in the bay of the paradisiacal islet of St. Agatha to investigate the growing loss of merchant shipping, junior officer Lieutenant Absinthe is troubled by the stunning natural beauty of volcanic atoll. The government of the new super-state of Sillantoe has dispatched the dreadnought to explore the place, and if populated, civilise or pacify the natives.

On the night before Absinthe and a landing party are dispatched, blazing fires can be seen brilliantly lighting up the dark and the Lieutenant thinks he sees strange creatures invading the ship. When the away team trudges through the foliage the next morning, he thinks he sees them again, but for some inexplicable reason cannot bring himself to report the sighting.

The officer is increasingly disturbed by the joyous, dancing flickering figures, and even though he says nothing the crew knows something is happening to him. Absinthe only feels happy or at peace on the island, and one night he goes AWOL. Seeing islanders all the time now he goes fully native, reveling in the spectacular blazes that roar and dance every time darkness falls.

Eventually the sailors recapture their “hallucinatory” comrade and the order comes to bombard this isle of the damned until it is razed of all possibility of life.

And now the nightmare truly begins…

This examination of technology vs. nature, freedom challenging duty and man against civilisation is rendered in a euphoric blaze of expressionistic colour and frantic movement reminiscent of Disney’s Fantasia and bolder abstract experimental animations, with forms and actors reduced to primal shapes surging across the landscape of a page. Mattotti’s questing style blends the colour philosophy of Fauvism with the stripped-down forms and perfect structures of Italian Futurist painters such as Giacomo Balla, Carlo Carrà and Umberto Boccioni and Russian Natalia Goncharova whilst the story itself has the brooding, paranoiac, inevitable-descent-into-madness feel of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and its filmic avatar (Coppola’s) Apocalypse Now.

Astounding, compelling and deeply moving this book (there’s also a 1991 British edition from Penguin – ISBN 978-0-14013-889-4 available) is a mesmerising classic and high point of our art-form and one any serious devotee of sequential narrative would be proud to own.
© 1986-1988 by Editions Albin Michel S. A. English language edition © 1988 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

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Dr. Watchstop: Adventures in Time and Space


By Ken Macklin (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 0-913035-85-8

Before becoming a successful games artist for LucasArts graphic adventure games (I don’t actually grok push-button fun but I gather that Maniac Mansion, Loom, the second and third Monkey Island contraptions and the character Bubsy the bobcat number among his electronic hits) Ken Macklin was an underground/small press creator who delighted in cleverly whimsical and witty funny animal strips during the late 1970s in indy publications such as Quack!

Married to equally talented anthropomorphic raconteur Lela Dowling, he assisted and contributed to her marvelously manic Weasel Patrol tales, which were published in the lost and long-lamented sci-fi anthology Fusion whilst producing his own diabolically wonderful one-shot space opera romp Contractors and the stimulating vignettes gathered here.

As well as a talented designer and illustrator Macklin is a gifted painter and slyly devious writer and in 1982 he began selling brief, luxurious mini-epics starring an astonishingly brilliant but outrageous innocent multi-discipline savant named Dr. Watchstop to Epic Illustrated and Fusion: high quality graphic fantasy magazines aimed at older readers.

In an era where science fiction was synonymous with and indistinguishable from cops and cowboys with blasters, Watchstop’s antics were contemplative, slapstick, wickedly ironic, eyes wide-open wonderments that only saw the ridiculous side of technology and the future cosmos…

Still readily available this oversized compilation gathers all those marvelously intellectual, winningly funny spoofs and japes, opening in glorious painted colour with ‘Dr. Watchstop Faces the Future’ (Epic #10 February 1982), possibly the last word in time paradox tales, followed by an amoebic dalliance ‘One Cell at a Time’ before demonstrating the downside of ancient alien artifacts in ‘Time Bomb’ (Epic #14 and #17 respectively).

If possible Macklin’s art is even better as monochrome tonal washes, as perfectly illustrated in the hilarious ‘Unique Specimen’ (Fusion #1, January 1987), life-through-a-lens fable ‘Modern Culture’ (Fusion #3) and natural history segments ‘Right Stuff’ (Fusion #7) and ‘Bugs’ (Fusion #5).

‘Relic’ (Fusion #2) is pure Future Shock whilst full-colour ‘The Single Electron Proof’ from Epic #21(September 1983, and with the timely assistance of Toren Smith) will stretch the higher mathematics prodigies amongst us with a little metaphysical tomfoolery.

Epic #29 provided a first home for ‘In Search of Ancient Myths’, #33 both ‘Reaching Out’ and ‘Beating the Heat’ whilst the last colour cosmic conundrum ‘Wasting Time’ debuted in #34. The remainder of this collection features more black and white antics from Fusion, beginning with the vaudevillian ‘Gone Fishing’ (#4), moving adroitly into ‘Xlerg’s Fossil Emporium’ (#8) and anarchically culminating in a riotous Weasel Patrol collaboration enigmatically entitled ‘The Weasels Fill In’ from Fusion #9 (May 1988)

Sheer artistic ability and incisive comedy for smart people is never going to be out of style and this stellar compilation will be a constant joy for any fan smart enough to unearth it.
© 1989 Ken Macklin, and where appropriate Raymond E. Feist, Toren Smith, Lela Dowling and LX Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Golgo 13 volumes 1-4


By Takao Saito, translated by Patrick Connolly (LEED Publishing)
ISBNs: 4-947538-57-0, 4-947538-59-7, 4-947538-61-9 & 4-947538-62-7

Almost from its very beginnings the Manga marketplace addressed the needs of a broad audience and adult-oriented material was always a confirmed and successful part of the Japanese publishing landscape. One of the earliest stars of this arena was the incredible, prolific Takao Saito, who began in 1969 to document the gritty adventures of the world’s greatest hitman.

Golgo 13 is a man of mystery: an ice-hearted assassin for hire who picks his assignments depending on a private code of honour: meticulous, remorseless, infallible. He never fails and is always at the heart of whatever real-world political or social scandal his creator happened upon.

The cognomen Golgo denotes hints of a Biblical connection to crucifixion site Golgotha and other Christian iconography, but is only one of this darkly Bond-like protagonist’s many names. However “Duke Togo” – his most common pseudonym – is Japanese through and through and there is no hint of a religious sensibility (except possibly Old Testament style vengeance) – only a truly remorseless social conscience.

The strip debuted in the January 1969 issue of Shogakukan’s premier title Big Comic and has run more or less continually ever since, with compilation sales topping 200 million copies, with attendant immensely popular films, anime, TV series and video game adaptations. Golgo’s monthly strip adventures have been collected into 155 tankobon editions (the term means discrete or stand alone edition, but the manga industry has adopted the term to describe a collected book length volume irrespective of whether or not the story within concludes).

In 1986 just as the western world was beginning to franchise and translate selected manga properties LEED Publishing and Vic Tokai Electronics Corporation repackaged a selection of Golgo 13 tales into four spectacularly addictive English language editions to promote one of the aforementioned games, but regrettably failed to capture the attention of the sci-fi and superhero besotted comics buying public. In 1991 LEED tried again in conjunction with Viz Media via a three issue miniseries entitled Golgo 13: The Professional, but once more the super-assassin failed to hit his mark.

A couple of years ago they tried again as part of the Viz Signature imprint, and here the jury is still out…

Takao Saito was born in 1936 and grew into a tough kid and brilliant storyteller. Eschewing a boxing career he began working in the relatively new field of Manga in 1955 with the adventure strip Baron Air, displaying a love of gritty adventure and science fiction over the next fifteen years. He formed Saito Production in 1960 and in 1971 he began a second career as a teacher of the comic arts.

The four volumes covered here show creator and character at the very peak of their game. The first ‘Into the Wolves’ Lair: The Fall of the Fourth Reich’ includes a fold-out “dossier” on Golgo 13 before launching into a stunning 120 page saga as the Israeli intelligence service Mossad hire the unstoppable hitman to invade and destroy an impregnable fortress in Buenos Aires where the implacable mastermind behind the Nazi holocaust has engineered a new army of fascist psychopaths to once more menace humanity.

A hallmark of Saito’s process is the meticulous attention to detail and the tension-building way his protagonist plans every mission: as engrossing a factor as the inevitable explosive culmination of each mission. The preparation pays off when the one man death squad blazes effortlessly through the Nazi’s final Festung but even so there’s one last surprise in store…

This 17 chapter epic is balanced with a shorter, five part, but no less topical tale. ‘Fighting Back‘ is set in Afghanistan during the then on-going Soviet Occupation, and details a specialist Russian force hunting the assassin who killed the General-Director of Military Political Affairs with an impossible 1km rifle shot through the windscreen of a moving armoured vehicle…

Tough and dedicated soldiers, the soldiers track the killer through the rocky passes and isolated villages until they make a huge mistake and catch him…

Book 2, ‘Galinpero’ is set in the Amazon River Basin and sees the enigmatic anti-hero accept a commission from a dead man. Agreeing to hunt down a pack of government-sponsored diamond miners-come-slavers using the natives to enrich themselves before slaughtering all witnesses, once more G13’s careful planning and apparent insanity lead to a particularly mordant demonstration of cosmic justice spectacularly appeased.

The killer’s technical proficiency is displayed in ‘110º: The One-Ten Angle’ as Golgo is hired to kill the man who raped and murdered a Saudi Arabian princess. When her distraught father discovers the culprit is the Crown Prince (the victim’s own cousin) he tries to cancel the hit and suppress a scandal, even sending his own assassins after the mercenary mastermind. Securing the prince deep within the imperial palace he feels secure that nothing can reach the tarnished target – but G13 never fails…

Crafty, sly and deftly understated, this gripping thriller combines modern geo-political double-dealing with the most ancient of motives and actions…

‘Ice Lake Hit’ leads off the third volume and finds “Duke Togo” hunting Moose in the arctic Northwest Territories of Canada. When he makes an impossible shot it quickly attracts the suspicions of the Game Warden and local Mounties, but the visitor’s real prey are more than capable of shooting back…

In a veritable bloodbath the story of a CIA traitor and a Soviet spy-ring emerges, but as ever careful planning and uncanny skill are more than a match for mere guns and numerical superiority…

The second tale deals with the legal and illicit trade in horsemeat to Japan and sees a motorbike-riding G13 stalking a gang of modern rustlers terrorisingTexas. ‘Machine Cowboy’ finds Togo employed by a widow whose one true love was taken from her, and  even if the cops are reluctantly prepared to investigate the murder of her ranch foreman they won’t do anything to find the killers of her beloved steed Whitey – but Golgo 13 will…

Produced for adults, all these tales are casually steeped in nudity, torture and brutal graphic violence, but the content and heartfelt outrage Saito imbues this tale with make it easily the most disturbing story many readers will ever experience.

The final volume is also an ecological nightmare scenario. ‘The Ivory Connection’ begins when unchecked elephant poaching in Uganda prompts members of the World Wildlife Fund to hire G13 to cull the offending culprits (and wouldn’t it be nice to think that all our past donations were as sensibly used?). The trail leads from British mercenaries through African civil wars to the medicine monsters of the Chinese triads, but as ever the ice-man has just the plan to handle all his opposition…

This book ends with ‘Scandal! The Unpaid Reward’ and pits Togo against a West German kingmaker who wants his political rival not only dead but his victim’s party utterly humiliated and discredited. Set at the height of the Cold War this tense thriller perfectly illustrates why, if you hire the world’s greatest assassin, it’s imperative to pay him what you promised once he’s accomplished his mission…

Like most tankobon editions each volume in this too-brief series (which reads from left to right in the Western manner), begins with a painted colour section which devolves into two tone (black and red) before eventually resolving into standard monochrome for the bulk of each book, but readers of British comics shouldn’t have any problems with that, and these savage, addictive, so very clever and compelling tales are worth a little time and effort. Track him down: you won’t regret it…
© 1986, 1987 Saito Production Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Walking Dead volume 1: Days Gone Bye


By Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore (Image)
ISBN: 978-1-58240-672-5

In advance of the television debut and sarcastically smug in the knowledge that at least one American University is now offering Zombie Studies as part of its curriculum, I think it’s about time that I turned my winnowing gaze on the most critically successful comicbook on the subject of the restless and infinitely hungry horrors that have recently captivated the global imagination.

The Walking Dead began in 2003 as an unassuming black and white monthly from Image Comics, once a cooperative of comics media darlings that has since evolved into a welcome clearing house of good ideas and different concepts that bigger publishers are too commercially timid to risk releasing. Writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore took the tried and trusted format pioneered by George A. Romero in his 1968 satirical shocker Night of the Living Dead, and stripped it of its sensationalistic brutality and anti-war sub-text, producing a very human and scarily passionate exploration of human nature under extreme and sustained duress.

In that light if zombie invasions are a metaphor for Life During Wartime then Walking Dead is more about civilians than soldiers and explores the Spirit of the Blitz rather than the last ditch heroics of Dunkirk or the Alamo.

The series has won many awards and, since 2004, been collected into numerous editions including 13 trade paperbacks each containing six issues, six deluxe hardbacks with a dozen issues each and bonus material, three omnibus editions with two years of material in each and even a Compendium volume containing the first 48 issues. There’s even a book of covers planned but I don’t know if that’s out yet… Being an old purist with weak wrists, I’m plumping for the very first trade edition for this graphic novel review.

Rural Kentucky cop Rick Grimes is shot whilst apprehending a rampaging felon with his friend and deputy Shane. He awakes from a coma in a deserted hospital littered with dead bodies and, whilst weakly making his way outside, discovers that not all the corpses are staying dead.

Chased by aggressively hungry but slow-moving zombies in various stages of decomposition Rick flees town and makes his way to the family home. His wife and son are missing but before he can search he is overwhelmed by Morgan Jones and his little boy Duane, fugitives from the undead plague which has overwhelmed the entire planet.

They bring Rick – and us – up to speed on the situation, explaining how to kill the monsters and relating all the news on the creatures that was broadcast before the media outlets were overrun. Most importantly, they reveal that uninfected humans have been advised to relocate to major cities. Knowing his wife had family in Atlanta, Rick tools up with weapons and supplies from the police station and sets off after his missing loved ones – even though Morgan clearly prefers to take his chances out in the wilds…

Experiencing all manner of sedate horrors Rick eventually reaches the big city but the scene is one of desolate carnage. The zombies are everywhere and when he is surrounded his own death looks certain until he is rescued by Glenn, a young man scavenging supplies for a small band of survivors hidden outside the city.

Shocks come thick and fast when the Rick finds wife Lori, son Carl and former deputy Shane are all part of the disparate group. They have been roughing it in a camp formed of assorted motor vehicles, living off the land, and waiting to be rescued or killed.

Also, something significant has happened between Shane and Lori…

Tensions amongst the survivors build as cold weather encroaches, resources diminish and the erratically wandering zombies gradually close in on the camp. Moreover, the unspoken friction between Rick, Lori and Shane is inexorably building and after an unusually heavy assault that kills two of their number results in a bitterly tragic climax…

Despite the trappings of dark, bloody horror, this is a series about humanity: its foibles, frailnesses, fallibilities and formidable resilience. Ancient anxieties such as ravenous unreasoning monsters rub alongside more modern bogeymen such as fear of the disease, and all the sins of humanity still plague the dwindling humans in this supremely underplayed gem, especially in Tony Moore’s deceptively comforting clean lined art; subversively enhancing the ghastly situation with quiet power and smooth grey-tone embellishments.

Whatever format you prefer this distinctly different horror show is one that will take your breath away and leave you so very hungry foe more…

© 2005, 2006 Robert Kirkman. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents House of Mystery volume 1


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0786-1

American comicbooks started slowly until the creation of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and invented a new genre. Implacably vested in the Second World War, the Overman swept all before him (and the very occasional her) until the troops came home and older genres supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Although new kids kept up the buying, much of the previous generation also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years altered the psychology of the world, and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) reflected this. As well as Western, War and Crime comics, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another periodic revival of spiritualism and interest in the supernatural led to a wave of increasingly impressive, evocative and even shocking horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (the Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Dr. Fate and dozens of others), but these had been victims of circumstance: the unknown as a power source for super-heroics. Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader.

Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948, although Adventures Into the Unknown was technically pipped by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before launching a regular series in 1951, by which time Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with adaptations of the Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon and Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap and invented the Romance comic (Young Romance #1, September 1947) but they too saw the sales potential for spooky material, resulting in the seminal Black Magic (launched in 1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952).

The company that would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery. When the hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April- June 1954 into your search engine at any time… You can do that because it’s ostensibly a free country now) was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self regulatory rules HoM and its sister title House of Secrets were dialled back into rationalistic, fantasy adventure vehicles, and even became super-hero tinged split-books (With Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero in HoM, and Eclipso sharing space with Mark Merlin and later Prince Ra-Man in HoS).

However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and at the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom stalled and crashed, leading to the surviving publishers of the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in global interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious “no-brainer.” Even the ultra wholesome Archie comics re-entered the field with their rather tasty line of Red Circle thrillers…

Thus with absolutely no fanfare at all issue #174, cover dated May-June 1968 presented a bold banner demanding “Do You Dare Enter The House of Mystery?” and reprinted a bunch of admittedly excellent short fantastic thrillers originally seen in House of Secrets from the heady days when it was okay to scare kids. Staring off was ‘The Wondrous Witch’s Cauldron’ (HoS #58) by an unknown writer and compellingly illustrated by the great Lee Elias, another uncredited script ‘The Man Who Hated Good Luck!’ limned by Doug Wildey and the only new feature of the issue – one which would set the tone for decades to come.

Page 13 was a trenchantly comedic feature page scripted by Editor and EC veteran Joe Orlando and cartooned by manic Hispanic genius Sergio Aragonés. It stated quite clearly that whilst the intent was to thrill, enthral and even appal it was all in the spirit of sinister fun, and gallows humour was the order of the day. The comic then concluded with a Bernard Baily tale of the unexpected ‘The Museum of Worthless Inventions’ (from #13) and concluded with the Jack Miller, Carmine Infantino & Mort Meskin fantasy fable ‘The Court of Creatures’ (a Mark Merlin masterpiece from HoS #43).

The next issue can probably be counted as the true start of this latter day revenant renaissance, as Orlando revived the EC tradition of slyly sardonic narrators by creating the Machiavellian Cain, “caretaker of the House of Mystery” and raconteur par excellence. Behind the first of a spectacular series of creepy covers from Neal Adams lurked another reprint ‘The Gift of Doom’ (from HoM #137, illustrated by George Roussos) followed by ‘All Alone’, an original, uncredited prose chiller.

After another Page 13 side-splitter, Aragonés launched his long-running gag page ‘Cain’s Game Room’ and the issue closed with an all-new new comic thriller ‘The House of Gargoyles!’ by veteran scaremongers Bob Haney and Jack Sparling.

With format firmly established and commercially successful the fear-fest was off and running. Stunning Adams covers, painfully punny introductory segments and interspersed gag pages (originally just Aragonés but eventually supplemented by other cartoonists such as John Albano, Lore Shoberg and John Costanza. This feature eventually grew popular enough to be spun off into bizarrely outrageous comicbook called Plop! – but that’s a subject for another day…) supplied an element of continuity to an increasingly superior range of self-contained supernatural thrillers. Moreover, if ever deadline distress loomed there was always a wealth of superb old material to fill in with.

HoM #176 led with spectral thriller ‘The House of No Return!’ by an unknown writer and the great Sid Greene and young Marv Wolfman (one of an absolute Who’s Who of budding writers who went on to bigger things) teamed with Sparling on the paranoiac mad science shocker ‘The Root of Evil!’

Another reprinted masterpiece of form from Mort Meskin (see From Shadow to Light for more about this unsung genius of the art-form) led off #177, ‘The Son of the Monstross Monster’ having previously appeared in House of Mystery #130. and 1950’s fearsome fact page was recycled into ‘Odds and Ends from Cain’s Cellar’ before Charles King and Orlando’s illustrated prose piece ‘Last Meal’ and dream team Howie (Anthro) Post and Bill Draut produced a ghoulish period parable in ‘The Curse of the Cat.’

Neal Adams debuted as an interior illustrator – and writer – with a mind-boggling virtuoso performance as a little boy survived ‘The Game’, after which Jim Mooney’s spooky credentials were recalled with ‘The Man Who Haunted a Ghost’ (first seen in HoM #35) and E. Nelson Bridwell, Win Mortimer & George Roussos delineated an eternal dream with ‘What’s the Youth?’ and ‘Cain’s True Case Files: Ghostly Miners’ closed the issue.

Bridwell contributed the claustrophobic ‘Sour Note’ in issue #179 rendered by the uniquely visionary Jerry Grandenetti and Roussos and the next generation of comics genius begun with the first Bernie Wrightson creepy contribution. ‘Cain’s True Case Files: The Man Who Murdered Himself’ was scripted by Marv Wolfman and is still a stunning example of gothic perfection in the artist’s Graham Ingels inspired lush, fine-line style.

This exceptional artists issue also contains the moody supernatural romance ‘The Widow’s Walk’ by Post. Adams & Orlando – a subtle shift from schlocky black humour to moody supernatural tragedy that would undoubtedly appeal to the increasingly expanding female readership. The issue ends with another fact feature ‘Cain’s True Case Files: The Dead Tell Tales’.

Going from strength to strength House of Mystery was increasingly drawing on DC’s major artistic resources. ‘Comes a Warrior’ which opened #180, was a chilling faux Sword & Sorcery masterpiece written and drawn by the da Vinci of Dynamism Gil Kane, inked by the incomparable Wally Wood, and the same art team also illustrated Mike Friedrich’s fourth-wall demolishing ‘His Name is Cain Kane!’ Cliff Rhodes and Orlando contributed the text-terror ‘Oscar Horns In!’ and Wolfman & Wrightson returned with the prophetic vignette ‘Scared to Life’ An uncredited forensic history lesson from ‘Cain’s True Case Files’ closed the proceedings for that month.

‘Sir Greeley’s Revenge!’ by Otto Binder and drawn by the quirkily capable Sparling was a heart-warmingly genteel spook story, but Wrightson’s first long story – a fantastic reincarnation saga entitled ‘The Circle of Satan’, scripted by Bob Kanigher, ended #181 on a eerily unsettling note and #182 opened with one of the most impressive tales of the entire run. Jack Oleck’s take on the old cursed mirror plot was elevated to high art as his script ‘The Devil’s Doorway’ was illustrated by the incredible Alex Toth. Wolfman and Wayne Howard then followed with ‘Cain’s True Case Files: Grave Results!’ an Orlando limned house promotion and the nightmarish revenge tale ‘The Hound of Night!’

Oleck and Grandenetti opened #183 with ‘The Haunting!’, ‘Odds and Ends from Cain’s Cellar’ returned with ‘Curse of the Blankenship’s and ‘Superstitions About Spiders’ and Wolfman & Wrightson contributed ‘Cain’s True Case Files: The Dead Can Kill!’ before the canny teaming of Kanigher with Grandenetti and Wally Wood resulted in the truly bizarre ‘Secret of the Whale’s Vengeance.’ The next issue saw the triumphant return of Oleck & Toth for the captivating Egyptian tomb raider epic ‘Turner’s Treasure’ and Bridwell, Kane & Wood for a barbarian blockbuster ‘The Eyes of the Basilisk!’

House of Mystery #185 saw caretaker Cain take a more active role in the all-Grandenetti yarn ‘Boom!’, Wayne Howard illustrated the sinister ‘Voice From the Dead!’ and veteran Charlton scribe Joe Gill debuted with ‘The Beautiful Beast’: a lost world romance perfectly pictured by EC alumnus Al Williamson. Next issue topped even that as Wrightson illustrated Kanigher’s spectacular bestiary tale ‘The Secret of the Egyptian Cat’ and Neal Adams produced some his best art ever for Oleck’s poignant tale of imagination and childhood lost ‘Nightmare’. Nobody who ever adored Mr. Tumnus could read this little gem without choking up… and as for the rest of you, I just despair…

Kanigher & Toth produced another brilliantly disquieting drama in ‘Mask of the Red Fox’ to open #187, and Wayne Howard was at his workmanlike best on ‘Cain’s True Case Files: Appointment Beyond the Grave!’ before John Celardo & Mike Peppe apparently illustrated the anonymous script for the period peril ‘An Aura of Death!’ (although to my jaded old eyes the penciller looks more like Win Mortimer…)

Another revolutionary moment began with the first story in #188, cover dated September-October 1970. Gerry Conway got an early boost scripting ‘Dark City of Doom’, a chilling reincarnation mystery set in both contemporary times and Mayan South America as the trailblazer for a magnificent tidal wave of Filipino artists debuted. The stunning art of Tony DeZuniga opened the door for many of his talented countrymen to enter and reshape both Marvel and DC’s graphic landscape and this black and white compendium is the perfect vehicle to see their mastery of line and texture…

Wrightson was responsible for the time-lost thriller ‘House of Madness!’ which closed that issue whilst Aragonés opened the proceedings for #189, closely followed by Kanigher, Grandenetti & Wood’s ‘Eyes of the Cat’ and a 1953 reprint drawn by Leonard Starr, ‘The Deadly Game of G-H-O-S-T‘ (from HoM #11) before another Charlton mystery superstar premiered as Tom Sutton illustrated Oleck’s ‘The Thing in the Chair’.

Kanigher and Toth teamed for another impeccable graphic masterwork in ‘Fright!’, Albano filled Cain’s Game Room and Aragonés debuted another long-running gag page with ‘Cain’s Gargoyles’ and this issue ended with a Salem-based shocker ‘A Witch Must Die!’ (by Jack Miller, Ric Estrada & Frank Giacoia). Issue #191 saw the official debut of Len Wein who wrote the terrifying puppet-show tragedy ‘No Strings Attached!’ for Bill Draut and DeZuniga returned to draw Oleck’s cautionary tale ‘The Hanging Tree!’ before Wein closed the show paired with Wrightson on ‘Night-Prowler!’ a seasonal instant-classic that has been reprinted many times since.

John Albano wrote ‘The Garden of Eden!’, a sinister surgical stunner, made utterly believably by Jim Aparo’s polished art, and Gray Morrow illustrated Kanigher’s modern psycho-drama ‘Image of Darkness’ and superhero veteran Don Heck returned to his suspenseful roots drawing Virgil North’s monstrously whimsical ‘Nobody Loves a Lizard!’

Wrightson contributed the first of many magnificent covers for #193, depicting the graveyard terrors of Alan Riefe & DeZuniga’s ‘Voodoo Vengeance!’, whilst Bill Draut skilfully delineated the screaming tension of Francis X. Bushmaster’s ‘Dark Knight, Dark Dreams!’

For #194, which saw House of Mystery expand from 32 to 52 pages – as did all DC’s titles for the next couple of years, opening the doors for a superb period of new material and the best of the company’s prodigious archives to an appreciative, impressionable audience – the magic began with another bravura Toth contribution in Oleck’s ‘Born Loser’ swiftly followed by the Russ Heath illustrated monster thriller ‘The Human Wave’ (from House of Secrets #31), a Jack Kirby monster-work ‘The Negative Man’ (House of Mystery #84) before Oleck and the simply stunning Nestor Redondo (see also The Bible: DC Limited Collectors Edition C-36) closed the issue and this first volume with the metamorphic horror ‘The King is Dead’.

These terror-tales captivated the reading public and comics critics alike when they first appeared and it’s no exaggeration to posit that they may well have saved the company during the dire downward sales spiral of the 1970. Now their blend of sinister mirth and classical suspense situations can most usually be seen in such series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and their many imitators. If you crave beautifully realised, tastefully, splatter-free sagas of tension and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly creepy cartooning The House of Mystery is the place for you…

© 1968-1971, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Love and Rockets: New Stories volume 3


By The Hernandez Brothers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-379-8

A year goes by like 365 days when you’re waiting for something really special and very often the anticipation is far headier than the eventual pay-off. Mercifully in the case of Love and Rockets: New Stories such in not the case, as the third annual volume proves to be the best yet, combining eccentric drama, bright fantasy, captivating whimsy and appalling human frailty into a package of stunning graphic intensity.

In the 1980s a qualitative revolution forever destroyed the clichéd, stereotypical ways different genres of comic strips were produced and marketed. Most prominent in destroying the comfy pigeonholes we’d built for ourselves were three guys from Oxnard, California; Jaime, Mario (occasionally) and Gilberto Hernandez.

Love and Rockets was an anthology magazine featuring slick, intriguing, sci-fi tinted hi-jinx of punky young things Maggie and Hopey – las Locas – and heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies from the rural Central American paradise of Palomar. The Hernandez Boys, gifted synthesists all, enthralled and enchanted with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Comics, TV cartoons, masked wrestlers and the exotica of American Hispanic pop culture to German Expressionism. There was also a perpetual backdrop displaying the holy trinity of youth: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll – for which please hear alternative music and punk rock.

The result was dynamite. Mario only officially contributed on rare occasions but the slick and enticing visual forays by Jaime explored friendship and modern love whilst destroying stereotypes of feminine attraction through his fetching coterie of Gals Gone Wild and Gilberto created the hyper-real landscape of Palomar: a playground of wit and passion created for the extended serial Heartbreak Soup, in the quicksilver form of a poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. The denizens of Palomar still inform and shape the latest tales from Beto both directly and as imaginative spurs for unassociated stories.

Everything from life death, adultery, magic, serial killing and especially gossip could happen in Palomar’s meta-fictional environs, as the artist mined his own post-punk influences in a deceptively effective primitivist art style which blended the highly personal mythologies of comics, music, drugs, strong women, gangs, sex and family using a narrative format that was the graphic equivalent to the literary discipline of Magical Realism.

Winning critical acclaim but little financial success the brothers temporarily went their own ways but a few years ago creatively reunited to produce these annual collections of new material in their particularly peculiar shared or rather, intermittently adjacent pen-and-ink universes.

This third volume commences with Gilbert’s ‘Scarlet by Starlight’ a multi-perspective narrative that appears at first to be a science fictional fable before evolving into something far more disturbing. On a distant world, a team of three earthling explorers are becoming far too intimate with the primitive yet buxom anthropoids that populate the planet and as the human relationships break down, unwise new bonds are formed with unpleasant and even harrowing results…

Savage and sexually explicit, this exploration of drives and desires takes a further step into forbidden territory when the explorers return home…

Maggie Chascarrillo – star of las Locas – takes centre stage in Jaime’s ‘The Love Bunglers Part One’, a lonely middle-aged lady, still looking for her life’s path and still an unsuspecting object of desire to the men who flock around her. But who is that particularly dangerous-looking bum stalking her?

The central portion again features Gilbert’s newest fascination: the young, rebellious and dangerously pneumatic underage Latina spitfire dubbed “Killer” – actually the juvenile character Dora Rivera – granddaughter of Palomar’s formidable Matriarch Luba (see Luba and Love and Rockets: New Stories volume 2) grown to a far more dangerous age.

As seen in the previous volume, Killer, who is slowly making her way into the exotic B-movie arena that fascinated and overwhelmed her Aunt Fritz (See also High Soft Lisp and The Troublemakers) is a highly strung creature on the verge of losing all her remaining innocence and in ‘Killer*Sad Girl*Star’ is considering remaking one of her aunt’s strangest movies whilst becoming involved in a senseless tragic crime… or is she?

Maggie’s turbulent childhood is revealed in Jaime’s startling and truly disturbing ‘Browntown’ as the Chascarrillo family move to a new city where both parents and all four kids undergo differing ordeals which reshape them forever. A note of warning: There are some heart-rending situations of child-abuse here that, although artistically valid and even necessary, are also genuinely upsetting, so please remember that this is a book strictly for mature readers.

The harrowing revelations of ‘Browntown’ lead directly into ‘The Love Bunglers Part Two’ as many of the mysteries set up in the first chapter are thrown into stark relief by the events from Maggie’s past, leading to a surprisingly warm-hearted conclusion to this deceptively hard-hitting book.

Stark, challenging, charming and irresistibly seductive, Love and Rockets: New Stories is a grown up comics fan’s dream come true and remains as valid and groundbreaking as its earlier incarnations – the cutting edge of American graphic narrative.

© 2010 Gilberto, Jaime and Mario Hernandez. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All Rights Reserved.

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Wanted: Undead or Alive: Vampire Hunters and other Kick-Ass Enemies of Evil


By Jonathan Maberry & Janice Gable Bashman (Citadel Press)
ISBN: 978-0-8065-2821-2

Although out of my usual comfort zone and possibly beyond my usual purview, when this fascinating item thunked onto my doormat I confess I was intrigued enough to stretch a point and review it here – especially with Halloween looming large on the horizon.

Written in a wonderfully accessible style this series of essays, liberally illustrated with both colour and monochrome images, examines the concept of evil monsters and how to fight them in fact and fiction; real life and all the myriad media forms that comprise our global entertainment landscape: books, films, television and comics.

Jonathan Maberry is an award-winning factual and fiction writer with a few comicbook credits to his name and Janice Gable Bashman is a successful thriller author, and together they examine the nature of Darkness as a theoretical and philosophical concept in their introduction ‘That Whole “Good and Evil” Thing’ before moving on to recount ‘The Roots of Good vs. Evil’ and listing the prerequisites for survival in ‘Heroes and Villains’.

Vampires, how they’re interwoven into all the world’s cultures and, of course, how to combat them comes to the fore in ‘It Didn’t Start With Van Helsing’ whilst ‘Hunting the Fang Gang’ provides a comprehensive list of traditional and fictional Nosferatu-killers ranging from Bataks and Dhampyrs to Bram Stoker’s seminal crew and Buffy’s far-ranging friends and descendents…

‘Fangs vs. Fangs’ delineates the monsters who fight for Good – or at least against Greater Evils – and ‘Legendary Heroes’ recounts the brave and the bold of myth, history and fiction who have battled demons, devils and beasts, as well as far more intangible horrors. Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Rocky Balboa, Jack (“24”) Bauer, Emmeline Pankhurst and Mother Theresa are among the many examples that define this pinnacle of human-ness and the chapter also lists the worst monsters ever recorded.

‘Did You Use Protection?’ covers weapons, charms, talismans and practices that assist and arm the devil-slayers, ‘A Priest and a Rabbi Walk into a Crypt’ examines the role of various religions and belief systems and ‘Who You Gonna Call?’ takes a peek at the role of ghosts in history and entertainment.

‘Pulp Friction’ relates the growth of popular entertainment forms and how they have handled heroes and monsters(human, supernatural and even super-scientific) and the comicbook superhero phenomenon gets the same treatment in ‘Spandex to the Rescue’.

The effects of these concepts on discrete sections of the public goes under the microscope in ‘Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things’; examining conventions, fan groups, games, tattoos and skin art, Role Playing (both RPGs and LARPs) and Cosplay before the really scary section tackles ‘Real Evil’ with a comprehensive listing of Serial Killers which makes all the preceding fictional Psychos and Mass Murderers look tame and insipid by comparison…

Topped off with the Online Film Critics Society Top 100 Villains of All Time, a list of Spirit Superstitions and the Top 10 Vampire, Werewolf, Demon and Ghost Movies of all time, this superb compendium is a sublime delight for fans and thrill-seekers to dip into over and again.

Stuffed with interviews and commentary from across the spectrum of popular media including Stan Lee, John Carpenter and a host of artists, creators and designers this is a delight no fantasy fan should dare to miss.

© 2004, Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman. All rights reserved. An extended edition of this volume is also available as an ebook.