Mature Reading – Page 77

August 27, 2011August 17, 2011

The Desert Peach Collection book 1: Beginnings

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

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

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

Her most well known creations are Stinz LÃ¶whard, the Half-Horse and the star of this particular volume, Pfirsich Rommel the outrageously out, homosexual brother of the legendary perfect German soldier dubbed â€œThe Desert Foxâ€.

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

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

Pfirsich was also wildly in love with Rosen Kavalier: manly Luftwaffe ace and the Peach’s fiancÃ©â€¦

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

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

And of course that’s the very moment Erwin pops over for a visitâ€¦

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

Big mistakeâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 26, 2011August 28, 2011

The Crow Special Edition

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

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

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

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

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

A new movie remake is in productionâ€¦

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 23, 2011August 22, 2011

The Minotaur’s Tale

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 14, 2011August 11, 2011

Signal From Space

By Will Eisner with Andre LeBlanc (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 0-87816-014-0

Here’s another classy contemporary cartooning classic which although readily available in a number of formats is still seen best in first release. Ambitious and deliberately targeting an adult book-reading rather than comics audience, this initial collection of Will Eisner’s trenchant political thriller-cum-social commentary proves once more that sometimes the medium really is the messageâ€¦

It is pretty much accepted today that Eisner was one of the pivotal creators who shaped the American comicbook industry, with most of his works more or less permanently in print – as they should be.

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

Westerns, Detectives, aviation action thrillersâ€¦ and superheroes – lots of superheroes â€¦

In 1940 Everett â€œBusyâ€ 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 for the Sunday editions and Eisner jumped at the opportunity, creating three series which would initially be handled by him before two of them were delegated to supremely 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 feature for his own and over the next twelve years The Spirit became the most impressive, innovative, imitated and talked-about strip in the business. However, by 1952 he had more or less abandoned it for more challenging and certainly more profitable commercial, instructional and educational strips, working extensively for the US military in manuals and magazines like P*S, the Preventative Maintenance Monthly and generally leaving comics books behind.

After too long away from his natural story-telling arena Eisner creatively returned to the ghettos of Brooklyn where he was born on March 6^th 1906. After years spent inventing much of the visual semantics, semiotics and syllabary of the medium he dubbed â€œSequential Artâ€ in strips, comicbooks, newspaper premiums and instructional comics he capped that glittering career by inventing the mainstream graphic novel, bringing maturity, acceptability and public recognition to English language comics.

In 1978 a collection of four original short stories in strip form were released as a single book, A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories. All the tales centred around 55 Dropsie Avenue, a 1930’s Bronx tenement, housing poor Jewish and immigrant families. It changed the American perception of cartoon strips forever. Eisner wrote and drew a further 20 further masterpieces opening the door for all other comics creators to escape the funnybook and anodyne strip ghettos of superheroes, funny animals, juvenilia and â€œfamily-friendlyâ€ entertainment. At one stroke comics grew up.

Eisner was constantly pushing the boundaries of his craft, honing his skills not just on the Spirit but with years of educational and promotional material. In A Contract With God he moved into unexplored territory with truly sophisticated, mature themes worthy of Steinbeck and F. Scott Fitzgerald, using pictorial fiction as documentary exploration of social experience.

One of the few genres where Eisner never really excelled was science fiction – and arguably he doesn’t in this tale either as, in Signal From Space, the big discovery is just a plot maguffin to explore politics, social interactions and greed – all premium Eisner meatâ€¦

The material in this collection was originally serialised in as eight 16 page episodes in Will Eisner’s Spirit Magazine as ‘Life On Another Planet’ from October 1978 to December 1980, rendered in toned black and white (a format adhered to and title revived in subsequent Kitchen Sink, DC and W.W. Norton collections). However for this luscious hardback the artist and long-time confederate Andre LeBlanc fully-painted the entire saga using evocative tones and hues to subtly enhanced the sinister, cynical proceedings.

One night lonely radio astronomer Mark Argano, based at a New Mexico observatory, picks up ‘The Signal’ a mathematical formula which originated from Barnard’s Star – proof positive of extraterrestrial intelligenceâ€¦

One of his colleagues wants to inform the public immediately but Argano is adamant that they go slowly as he harbours schemes to somehow â€œcash inâ€. Unfortunately the other scientist he shares the secret with is a Soviet sleeper agentâ€¦

Almost immediately the first murder in a long and bloody succession is committed as various parties seek to use the incredible revelation to their own advantage. World-weary science advisor and maverick astrophysicist James Bludd is dispatched by the CIA to verify and control the situation, but he walks straight into a KGB ambush and narrowly escapes with his lifeâ€¦

There’s now a deadly Cold War race to control contact with the mysterious signallers and ‘The 1^st Empire’ follows recovering addict Marco as he turns his life around and uses the now public sensation to create a personality cult dedicated to leaving Earth and joining the aliens. Whilst Marco’s Star People grab all the headlines ruthless plutocrat Mr. MacRedy uses his monolithic Multinational Corporation to manipulate Russia and America, intending to be the only one to ultimately capitalise on any mission to Barnard’s Star.

Since travel to far space is still impossible for humans MacRedy sanctions the unethical and illegal creation of a human/plant hybrid and starts looking for volunteers to experiment on in ‘A New Form of Life’ whilst Bludd accepts another undercover assignment – now more reluctant spy than dedicated scientist. Casualties moral, ethical and corporeal mount in ‘Pre-Launch’ whilst in distressed African nation Sidiami, a desperate despot declares his nation a colony of Barnard’s Star to avoid UN sanctions and having to pay back his national debt to Earthly banksâ€¦

Soon he’s offering a base to Multinational for their own launch site and sanctuary to those Star People anxious to emigrateâ€¦

In ‘Bludd’ the scientist and his sultry KGB counterpart find themselves odd-bedfellows and the Mafia get involved in the crisis – for both personal and pecuniary reasons – whilst in America MacRedy prepares to install his own Presidentâ€¦

Now determined to take matters into his own hands and screw all governments and interests, Bludd is caught up in an unstoppable, uncontrollable maelstrom of events in ‘Abort’ and after the American President has a fatal accident in ‘The Big Hit’ MacRedy thinks he’s finally won, but is utterly unprepared for Bludd’s unpredictable masterstroke in ‘The Last Chapter’â€¦

A Signal From Space is a dark and nasty espionage drama as well as a powerfully intriguing ethical parable: a Petrie dish for ethical dilemmas where Eisner masterfully manipulates his vast cast to display human foible and eventually a glimmer of aspirational virtue. This is a hugely underrated tale from a master of mature comics guaranteed to become an instant favourite. And it’s even better in this sumptuous oversized edition which is well worth every effort to hunt it down.

After all, Per Ardua ad Astraâ€¦
Â© 1978, 1979, 1980, 1983 Will Eisner.All rights reserved.

July 24, 2011July 21, 2011

Alien Legion: Tenants of Hell

By Chuck Dixon, Larry Stroman, Dan Panosian, Mike McMahon & Carl Potts (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-0-84023-811-2

During the 1980s the American comics scene experienced a magical proliferation of new titles and companies following the creation of the Direct Sales Market. With publishers now able to firm-sale straight to retail outlets rather than overprint and accept returned copies from non-specialised shops, the industry was able to support less generic titles and creators were able to experiment without losing their shirts.

In response Marvel developed its own line of creator-owned properties during the height of the explosion, launching a number of idiosyncratic, impressive series in a variety of formats under the watchful, canny eye of Editor Archie Goodwin. The delightfully disparate line was called Epic Comics and the results reshaped the industry.

One of the earliest hits was a darkly compelling science fiction serial with a beautifully simple core concept: the Foreign Legion of Space (and no, it isn’t at all similar to Jack Williamson’s epochal 1934 creation the Legion of Space). Created by Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz and Frank Cirocco Alien Legion debuted in its own on-going series in April 1984, running for 20 issues and an oversized Marvel Graphic Novel (see Alien Legion: A Grey Day to Die), before re-booting into a second, 18 issue volume. After that the tales were told in occasionally released miniseries and one-shots such as the ones that comprise this volume.

Alien Legion has come and gone ever since, jumping from Checker Books to Titan and Dark Horse Comics – who have been compiling the series into collected omnibuses – and there is, of course, a movie in the pipelineâ€¦

The Legion keeps the peace of the pan-galactic Galarchy on a million worlds spread over three galaxies: a broad brotherhood of outcast militant sentients united by a need to belong and a desire to escape their pasts. For such beings honour and tradition are the only things holding them together.

After years of holding back the forces of chaos and anarchy Nomad Squadron were dispatched to â€œpacifyâ€ the Quaalians; a warlike and unpredictable culture perpetually causing trouble from their strategically critical star-system midway between the Galarchy and its ideological opposite the Harkilon Empire. The mission went tragically wrong and the squadron were trapped in a time dilation field on a planet of raving maniacs dubbed â€œHellscapeâ€ and written off by the Legion.

Lost for years the last few survivors were eventually rescued by their erstwhile commander Sarigar, who had left the service but never abandoned his men. In the intervening years the Galarchy had become a far nastier, more callous place and the rescue was hushed up. With nowhere else to go Torrie Montroc, Jugger Grimrod, Zeerod and Tamara stayed in the Legion and Sarigar re-enlisted. Whilst exploiting his skills, the corrupt and dissolute Brass punished him for his temerity by converting the last of Nomad into a penal battalion: dirty job cannon-fodder little better than slaves.

(Don’t panic newcomers – this edition also includes text features and comprehensive background on the ‘Hellscape’ mission that catapulted the sorry survivors into the Tense Future of this volume, ‘Our Friends Above: a Galarchy Primer’ on the history and running of the Galarchy, an introduction from author Chuck Dixon and a handy ‘Glossary of Terms’ as well as a cover gallery and biographies of both story characters and creatorsâ€¦)

In ‘Tenants of Hell’ (originally released in 1991 as a two-part Prestige Format miniseries by Chuck Dixon, Larry Stroman & Dan Panosian), the embittered fragments of Nomad are chafing under the brutal new Legion regime whilst â€œpeacekeepingâ€ on the manufacturing planet of Combine IV; becoming increasingly aware that their role is to terrify the populace into submitting to their corporate overlords – the same faceless plutocrats that bankroll the Legion and expect prompt service for their largesse.

Meanwhile Sarigar has enlisted clandestine allies to discover who sanctioned the throwing away of his unit, whilst Torrie Montroc’s mega-rich and almost dead father finally learns through the efforts of industrial super-spy Nahkira that his only heir is still aliveâ€¦

Fighting a rebellion they actually sympathise with, the Nomads are further tested when they discover that the Hallidor Corporation has decided to cut its losses and liquidate the planet. The board decides to atomise the planet and collect on the insurance. Of course the bottom line dictates that only key management personnel need to be evacuatedâ€¦

In the final moments of Combine IV, loyalties to their oaths, their honour and the helpless citizens left to die push the valiant heroes out of time to the edge of mutinyâ€¦

Terse, tense and compellingly action-packed, this imaginative romp is splendidly readable and perfectly accessible to those unfamiliar with the series.

Also included here is the 1991 Alien Legion: Grimrod one-shot by Dixon and Mike McMahon: a magically cynical and acerbic parable about never volunteering, which finds the double-dealing, greedy sociopath falling for the oldest scam in military history and tricking himself into the worst assignment in the Galarchy.

Thinking he’s to be a cushy military attachÃ© to the king of a paradise planet of balmy skies with women of easy virtue, Jugger is instead trapped on a dank, muddy hellhole just before the annual uprising of the barbarian horde sweeps down for fresh slaves, ripe plunder and all the excessive bloodletting they can handle.

Without a means of escape and no Galarchy back-up or ordnance, Grimrod is forced to turn a nation of wimps and pansies into all-conquering warriors before he loses his own life and only chance of revenge on the conman who switched postings with himâ€¦

Sardonic and powerfully funny in the classic 2000AD manner, this delightfully engaging yarn caps the stunning, spectacular, cynical space opera with a bracing jolt of cartoon schadenfreude which renders this chronicle â€œunmissableâ€ in my book.
Â© 1991, 2004 Carl Potts. All rights reserved.

July 19, 2011July 18, 2011

Desperation Row

By Denis MÃ©rezette & Jean-FranÃ§ois di Giorgio (Editions Michel Deligne)
ISBN: 2-87135-019-1

Even in these cosmopolitan times of easy access and no borders a truly monolithic amount of world comics still languishes untranslated and thus unappreciated by a vast pool of potential fans. It’s certainly not the Japanese or Europeans’ fault. Over the decades many publishers, Eastern and Occidental, have tried to crack the American market (let’s be honest here; Britain alone is certainly too small for the effort to mean anything or be cost effective) with usual painful and costly results.

However it does mean that circulating out there are many intriguing lost gems of graphic narrative such as this dark and moody adult thriller that came and went largely unremarked in 1985 but is certainly worthy of a second look and a larger audience in these more cosmopolitan times.

Desperation Row (or more accurately ‘Street of Shadows’) was the debut pairing of MÃ©rezette & di Giorgio, appearing on a few British bookshelves in 1986, a year after publisher De Ligne launched it in France as ‘Rue Des Ombres’ – a terse and intriguingly intense period crime drama set in the mythical, movie-immortalised gutters and slums of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen.

Artist Denis MÃ©rÃ©zette’s first published work was ‘Le Berger’ (written by SÃ©dille), released in 1981. He went on to illustrate DumÃ©nil’s ‘AlgÃ©rie FranÃ§aise!’ before joining with Jean-FranÃ§ois di Giorgio on ‘Rue des Ombres’ in 1985 and ‘Julie Julie’ in 1986. In 1988 he produced ‘Hank Wetter – Les Carnassiers’ with Philippe Illien, for Magic Strip and adapted, with author De la RoyÃ¨re, B. Clavel’s epic ‘Harricana – Le Royaume du Nord’ in 1992.

Di Giorgio moved from editorial to authorial creativity with his debut albums ‘Rue des Ombres’ and ‘Julie Julie’ after which he began the serial ‘Munro’ (illustrated by Griffo and AndrÃ© Taymans for Spirou) as well as novel adaptations of novels such as Le Pays Perdus and many other strips like ‘Fous de Monk’, ‘Sam Griffith’, ‘Les Aventures de Bouchon le Petit Cochon’, medieval blockbuster ‘Shane’ (with Paul Teng), ‘Le Culte des TÃ©nÃ¨bres’ and ‘Mygala’â€¦ all stuff I’d love to see make the jump to English.

This bleak noir homage pushes all the visual, tonal and narrative buttons of mythic 20^th century America as it follows the foredoomed path of burned-out Parisian Paparazzo Paul; moving through the mean streets of the Bowery and immigrant districts, capturing the sordid glamour of America’s underbelly for the bored readers of Europe.

Tracking an unexplained spate of suicides Paul spots a high roller slumming on skid row and gets far too close to a big storyâ€¦

Inexplicably ignoring the tawdry instincts of a lifetime, Paul sells wealthy Mr. Ofield the undeveloped film-roll of his Bowery escapade and in return the millionaire offers him a high-paying gigâ€¦ obtaining compromising and legally airtight photos of his cheating spouse.

Paul succeeds and things start to get really messy: his apartment is searched, thugs beat him up, terrorise his hooker girlfriend and then his building – and the ones either side – are torched. As his fellow news-photographers happily snap away at the maimed and homeless survivors of the conflagration, Paul reaches an epiphany and realises he’s no longer one of their conscienceless fraternityâ€¦ and that’s when the cheating wife he so recently exposed confronts him and the photographer begins to regret keeping those negativesâ€¦.

It would seem Mr. Ofield never intended to divorce his wandering wife and now Paul is fatally involved in a deadly, devious war between rival gangsters and an equal ruthless government agency. Paul trades his camera for a hastily purchased gun, but when his old pal and street tipster Shorty is brutally murdered by the beggars who run the Bowery Paul finds himself remorselessly pulled between, honour, ambition and survival and having to decide if he’s a recorder of or participant in lifeâ€¦

Cunningly twisted and nihilistically bleak, this grim thriller suffers somewhat from a mediocre translation, but the plot and art are fearfully engaging and this moving, stylish adult yarn is long overdue for a more sensitive interpretation and new English edition.
Â© 1985 Editions Michel Deligne S.A., and MÃ©rezette & Giorgio Productions. All rights reserved.

July 17, 2011July 14, 2011

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in â€œGrass Rootsâ€

– a Knockabout Deluxe Edition

By Gilbert Shelton & Dave Sheridan (Knockabout Comics)
ISBN: 0-86166-015-3

Because you’re all decent, deity-fearing, upstanding citizens you’re probably utterly unaware of the extensive sub-culture which has grown up around the recreational abuse of narcotic pharmaceuticals – and so, of course, am I – but it must be said: those counter-culture chaps certainly know how to craft a comic tale.

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers shambled out of the Underground Commix counter-culture wave in 1968; initially appearing in Berkeley Print Mint’s Feds ‘n’ Heads, before creator Gilbert Shelton and a few friends founded their own San Francisco based Rip Off Press in 1969. This effective collective continued to maximise the madness as the hilarious antics of the â€œFreaksâ€ (a contemporary term for lazy, dirty, drug-taking hippy folks) captured the imagination of the open-minded portions of America and the world.

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

Always written by Shelton and, from 1974 illustrated by Dave Sheridan (until his death in 1982) and Paul Mavrides; the disjointed strips (sorry; just could not resist) combined canny satirical cynicism, surreal situations, scatological sauciness and an astounding grasp of human nature in brilliantly comedic episodes that cannot fail to amuse anyone with a mature sense of humour.

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

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

And they’re so very, very funny.

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

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

One last point: despite the vast panoply of drugs imbibed, both real and invented, the Freaks don’t ever do heroin – which should tell you somethingâ€¦

‘Grass Roots’ has slowly been adapted into a â€œclaymationâ€ movie for as long as I can remember – and still not completed yet – but the tale it is based on has been a favourite for even longer (since first produced serially in 1976) and this luxurious full-colour hardback edition from 1984 is the very best way in which to enjoy itâ€¦

After a cartoon introduction from Shelton the intoxicating entertainment begins with a series of shorts strips ‘The Mellow Cab Man’, ‘Violence on the Bus’, an untitled culinary escapade, ‘Fat Freddy Demonstrates How to Use Rolling Papers’ and ‘Phineas and the Organic Mechanic’ after which the main event commences.

After being evicted again for not paying rent, the Freaks luck into a caretaking gig at a palatial â€œhauntedâ€ mansion where the hapless fools find a huge stash of cocaine. After selling most of it to legendary independent vendor Dealer McDope they have enough cash to buy a forty acre farm, pick up a bevy of hitchhiker babes and set up in the agricultural narcotics game. They also have an entire year’s supply of cocaine for personal useâ€¦

Their rural idyll suddenly turns painfully real when they blow all that coke (sorry: I’m just incorrigible, me) in two days and, stranded miles from the city, have no choice but to make the far-fetched farm pipe-dream workâ€¦

It’s hard, unrewarding labour, the friendly locals aren’t and without drugs the girls are finding the boys less and less appealing. As the joys of getting back to nature pall things temporarily turn around when they â€œdiscover goldâ€ on the property and the farm turns into the lawless boomtown of Rush City overnight.

As picturesque Boondock County slowly succumbs to the imported blandishments of Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, things seem to going great for the furry ones, but then the rains begin to fall on the desiccated, over-excavated soils of mining town.

It rains and rains and rainsâ€¦

Anarchically sardonic and splendidly ludicrous, the madcap slapstick of the Freak Brothers is always an irresistible and joyously innocent tonic for the blues and these tales should be a compulsory experience for any fan of the comics medium. However, if you’re still worried about the content, which is definitely habit-forming, simply read but don’t inhaleâ€¦
Â© 1984 Gilbert Shelton. All rights reserved.

July 14, 2011July 12, 2011

Drought Chic – a Dry Analysis of the Water Shortage

By Shary Flenniken (Shary Flenniken)
No ISBN

I’m feeling nostalgic, thirsty and in need of a laugh all at once so here’s an intriguing self-published gem from the mid-1970s whose theme and subject matter seems to be coming back into vogue as the days seep byâ€¦

Do you remember that sweet pretty girl you admired and day-dreamed about from afar? All glowing soft focus summer afternoons and sherbet refreshers, scents of new-mown hay, tinkly bells and soaring strings? And after a lifetime you found the courage to talk to her and she swore like a trooper, cackled like a loon, pulled your hair and was all loud and boisterous and not at all serious and girly and your heart broke just a little?

Shary Flenniken’s sense of humour is like that. With her affable, underplayed, deceptively simple line drawing style (so devastating effective in the glorious Girl and her Talking Dog strip Trots and Bonnie) everything looks clean and sugary and chocolate-coated, but then you realise there’s a devastatingly sharp mind and a tungsten-tipped razor-edged scalpel sense of humour at play as you’re hit with a really spiky and heavy giant pink boxing gloveâ€¦

Flenniken is a scripter/artist/editor/illustrator/screenwriter of enormous talent who contributed to and edited the funniest years of National Lampoon, has published her own books – such as the slim gem under review today – and has illustrated some of the funniest books even written by other people, with titles such as When a Man Loves a Walnut, Blood-Lust Chickens & Renegade Sheep and Nice Guys Sleep Alone.

She started out as an underground cartoonist in 1971 with the fabulously notorious Air Pirates Collective (the other bold cartoonists taking on Disney whilst preserving the classic heritage of past cartoon masters and waving the flag for free speech and the Right to Parody and Satirise were Dan O’Neill, Bobby London, Gary Hallgren and Ted Richards).

Her own drawing style is often likened to pioneering strip artists Clare Briggs (When a Feller Needs a Friend!!, Danny Dreamer, The Days of Real Sport, Mr. and Mrs, Real Folks at Home, Someone’s Always Taking the Joy Out of Life) and the laconically mordant master Harold Tucker Webster (Our Boyhood Ambitions, How to Torture Your Wife, Life’s Darkest Moment, How to Torture Your Husband and the legendary Caspar Milquetoast/The Timid Soul) – especially in the long-running(1971-1990) and aforementioned sardonic comedy masterpiece Trots and Bonnie which I simply must get around toâ€¦

In recent years Flenniken has edited Seattle Laughs: Comic Stories about Seattle and worked for DC’s Paradox Press and Mad, freelanced in Premiere, Details and The American Lawyer whilst winning critical acclaim for her adaptations of the works of Mark Twain, O. Henry and others.

Drought Chic was self-published in 1977, and this tiny tidal wave of crafty cartoons and satisfyingly salty asides resulted from close observation and experience of the global heat-wave (can you remember that Long Hot Summer of Punk in the UK?) and the perennial water paucity of America’s West Coast; extrapolating on the sage advice offered by those in power as the country all-too briefly saw the (fashionably faddy) sense in dabbling with water discipline.

Suggestions to the trend-setters of society riffed-on here include â€œshare baths and showersâ€, â€œdon’t flush toiletsâ€, â€œimport icebergsâ€, â€œreplant your lawn with cactusâ€ and â€œdrink something elseâ€â€¦ directives I’m fairly sure we’ll all be considering again in the months and years ahead.

Of course here in Britain we’ve already taken the most effective step to conserve water consumption by selling off the water utility, privatising a natural resource and pricing it out of the reach of ordinary folkâ€¦

Still, if you’re saving a little time and money as a new member of the Great Unwashed at least you can spend your grubby free hours seeking out this wry, dry and slyly sophisticated soupcon of delightful disinformation.
Â© 1977 Shary Flenniken. All rights reserved.

July 12, 2011July 11, 2011

The Odd Comic World of Richard Corben

By Richard Corben & various (Warren Adult Fantasy)
ISBN: 84-85138-21-X

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

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

Violent, cathartically graphic and often blackly hilarious, his infamous signature-stylisation always includes oodles of nudity, ultra-extreme explicit violence and impossibly proportioned male and female physiques – and nobody should be disappointed as there’s plenty of all that in here.

From a time when graphic novels and book-bound comics collections were almost unheard of, this quirky, racy collection opens after an effusive introduction by Will Eisner with ‘The Dweller in the Dark’ (co-written with Herb Arnold) – an early exploration of the artist’s fascination with and facility for depicting lost civilisations. Rain-forest dwellers Bo Glan and Nipta break tribal taboo to explore a dead city, and learn pain and sorrow when they fall foul of rapacious, invading white men and ancient things far worseâ€¦

‘Razar the Unhero’ (written in 1970 by Arnold as â€œStarr Armitageâ€) is a dark and sexily violent spoof with a deprecating edge, deliciously lampooning the Sword and Sorcery epics dominating paperback bookshelves of the day whilst the silly, saucy ‘Mangle, Robot Mangler’ does the same to classic comicbook hero Magnus with a sexy, seditious rabbit-punch parody.

‘How Howie Made it in the Real World’ jumps wholeheartedly into adult science fiction territory with a sinister gore-fest for unwary space-tourists whilst ‘For the Love of a Daemon’ – opening the full-colour section of this volume and showing the first hints of the artist’s later airbrush expertise – returns to traditional fantasy themes for a boisterous black comedy of Barbarians and mega-hot naked babes in distress.

The1973 collaboration with Doug Moench ‘Damsel in Dragon Dress’ is a gleeful witches’ brew of fantasy, fairytale foible and a curious cautionary tale about the unexpected dangers of drug abuse, whilst worlds-within-worlds alien romance ‘Cidopey’ conceals a tragic twist as well as the artist’s softer and more contemplative side.

The final tales in this collection are both from 1972. ‘Space Jacked’ blends Corben’s mordant sense of humour with a darkly cynical streak in the twisty-turny tale of an outer space Bonnie and Clyde who think they might be Adam and Eve, and ‘Going Home’ closes the show in a contemplative, poignant manner as the last man of Earth bequeaths the universe far better caretakersâ€¦

Mad, moody and magnificent, these early exotic episodes are too-long overdue for a proper re-evaluation but until some publisher finally wises up, at least there’s a still a goodly number of older editions just waiting to be found and treasuredâ€¦
Â© 1971-1977 Richard Corben/Warren Publishing Co. All Rights Reserved.

July 10, 2011July 7, 2011

Sandman Presents The Furies

By Mike Carey & John Bolton (Vertigo)
ISBN: hardback 978-1-5638-9935-5, softcoverÂ 1-4012-0093-1

Even though the enchanting worlds of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman extravaganza have been generally hived off into their own authorial pocket universe these days, many of the elements and characters were drawn from pre-existing series and a number of them survived it to return to the greater DC universe.

Here one of the most poorly used women in comics got a chance to be the star in her own story for a change in a dark and moody semi-sequel to the events of Sandman: The Kindly Ones and Sandman: the Wake (which I must get around to reviewing one dayâ€¦).

Lyta Hall has one of the most convoluted histories in comics continuity: pre- Crisis on Infinite Earths she was originally the daughter of Earth-2’s Wonder Woman, before being retro-fitted as the child of WWII heroine Helena Kosmatos AKA Fury: a Greek heroine possessed and empowered by The Eumenides: those fearsome implacable Furies of Grecian myth tasked with punishing all who spill the blood of kinâ€¦

Once the myriad Earths were blended into one in 1986 Lyta retroactively became the child of a Greek WWII heroine. Following in Mama’s footsteps she became a member of teen superteam Infinity Inc., where she loved and was impregnated by the son of Hawkman. He died and was subsumed into the Realm of Dreams as the red-and-gold 1970s Sandman created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon (for which check out The Sandman), after which Lyta married his ghost and moved into the dream-world. Missing for years she finally gave birth to a son Daniel, who was subsequently abducted by Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming.

In maternal madness and frustrated revenge Lyta set in motion the events which finally culminated in the Dream Master’s death and the installation of her lost baby as the new Master of Dreams.

The oneiric Daniel returned his mother to Earth under a spell of protection to ward off revenge from the supernatural forces she had exploited or offended; but Lyta was far from healed or even sane – nor was she safeâ€¦

There’s even more to her career set after this story but that’s for another time and place.

Three years after the climactic cosmic drama Lyta is a woman on the edge: under psychiatric observation, given to mood-swings, self-destructive acts, fits of violent rage and sweeping depressions. She is moments away from being dumped and forgotten in an institution; off the rails and obsessed with a missing child the physical universe knows never existedâ€¦

As a last resort her analyst convinces Lyta to join a theatrical troupe, indulge in some hopefully cathartic art-therapy and make a few friends she won’t sleep with or punch out, whilst in the Sublime Realms beyond reality a terrifying ancient foe of gods and men has freed himself from eternal torment and begun hunting the beings who betrayed and imprisoned himâ€¦

Events are shaped and the Goatsong Theatre Group is inexplicably offered the chance to perform in Athens, wellspring of Greek tragedy. How lucky for them then, that new recruit Lyta Hall is fluent in the language, history and customs? Capitalising on the mystical perturbations following Morpheus’ passing, the monstrous Cronus is closing in on Hermes and laying traps in the mortal world, ensnaring those pitiful, disposable wretches slowly warming to the troubled once-super-heroine. The cosmic patricide and unwilling father of gods is uncaring of the fact that his quest will bring him into conflict with the fearsome Furies who have hungered for his punishment since the dawn of timeâ€¦

Cronus has a cunning planâ€¦

Despite its convoluted antecedents this eerie, mythological horror story from Mike Carey is a compelling and inventive adult fable with a powerful kick and a disturbing message about love, friendship, duty and family, whilst artist John Bolton, who used this tale to shift his creative style from lush and mannered painterly illustration to a stronger, more photo-based expressionist form, excels in capturing mundane fantasy and inconceivable reality as diametrically opposed worlds collide.

Stylish, quirky and immensely impressive this nominal epilogue to Gaiman’s Sandman saga was released as an original hardcover graphic novel and is still generally available in a softcover edition.
Â© 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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