Category: Mature Reading

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Early Barefootz


By Howard Cruse (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-052-1

Howard Cruse’s remarkable cartooning career has spanned decades and encompassed a number of key moments in American history and social advancement.

Beginning as a Hippy-trippy, counter-culture, Underground Comix star with beautifully drawn, witty, funny (not always the same thing in those days – or these, come to think of it) strips, evolving over the years into a powerful voice for change in both sexual and race politics through such superb features as Wendel culminating in his masterful Stuck Rubber Baby – an examination of oppression, tolerance and freedom in 1950s America. Since then he has worked on other writer’s work, illustrating an adaptation of Jeanne E. Shaffer’s The Swimmer With a Rope In His Teeth.

Born in 1944 the son of a Baptist Minister in Birmingham, Alabama, Cruse grew up amid the smouldering intolerance of the region’s segregationist regime, an atmosphere that affected him on a primal level. He escaped to Birmingham-Southern College to study Drama in the late ’60s, graduating and winning a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship to Penn State University.

Campus life there never really suited him and he dropped out in 1969. Returning to the South he joined a loose crowd of fellow Birmingham Bohemians which allowed him to blossom as a creator and by 1971 was drawing a spectacular procession of strips for an increasingly hungry and growing crowd of eager admirers.

Whilst working for a local TV station as both designer and children’s show performer he created a kid’s newspaper strip about talking squirrels, Tops & Button, still finding time to craft the utterly whimsical and bizarre tales of a romantic quadrangle starring a very nice young man and his troublesome friends for the more discerning college crowd he still mingled with. The strips appeared in a variety of college newspapers and periodicals

He was “discovered” by publishing impresario Denis Kitchen in 1972 who began presenting Barefootz to a far broader audience in such Underground publications as Snarf, Bizarre Sex, Dope Comix and Commies From Mars from his Kitchen Sink Enterprises outfit.

Kitchen also hired Cruse to work on an ambitious co-production with rising powerhouse Marvel Comics, attempting to bring a bowdlerised version of the counter-culture’s cartoon stars and sensibilities to the mainstream via the Comix Book – a newsstand magazine. It only ran to a half-dozen issues and although deemed a failure it provided the notionally more wholesome and genteel Barefootz with a larger audience and yet more avid fans…

As well as an actor, designer, art-director and teacher, Cruse’s work has appeared in Playboy, The Village Voice, Heavy Metal, Artforum International, The Advocate and Starlog among countless others, and the tireless storyman found the time and resources to self-publish Barefootz Funnies, two comic collections of his addictively whimsical strip in 1973.

Here in this fascinatingly written memoir of those salad days Cruse movingly recounts those early triumphs and re-presents the strips that began it all, covering 1970-73, and although he has moved on to weightier material since (especially on Gay and Race issues) these splendidly whacky and deliriously charming adventures still stand among his most evergreen creations.

So here, for your consideration and delectation are the gathered exploits and ruminations of thoughtful, Nice Young Man Barefootz, his way-out friend and confidante Headrack, sexually aggressive and very forceful gal-pal Dolly and Glory: the frog-manifesting “Thing Under the Bed”, aided and abetted by an ever-changing cast of erudite cockroaches who share his apartment.

As well as the history and Cruse’s reflections, this terrific compilation includes in stunning and meticulous monochrome a selection of Tops & Button gag-panels, ‘The Head Strip’, early strips from campus journal The Crimson-White and The Alternate, syndicated Barefootz from Service Strips, Kitchen Sink single-pagers and the longer stories, ‘Tussy Come Back’, ‘Hint and Run’, ‘Cream of the Genes’, ‘It All Fits’, ‘Suffering Celeste’, the Paperman strips and ‘The Eclipse’, – a classic and unflinchingly engaging treat for any comics fan and grown-up dreamer.

For further information check out Howardcruse.com and track down this and all his other brilliant creations – before Glory turns you into a frog…
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1977 & 1987, 1990 Howard Cruse. All rights reserved.

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The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans


By Rick Geary (NBM/Comics Lit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-581-8

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

Geary’s forensic eye scours the last hundred years or so for his Treasury of XXth Century Murder series, and here scores a palpable if rather unpalatable hit with a relatively unknown (certainly to me) serial killer saga that would make an incredible film – if only the fiend had ever been caught!

In 1918 with the Great War moving into the inevitable End-game the iconic and legend-laden city of New Orleans endured a campaign of terror that lasted well over a year with far reaching repercussion felt clear across the United States.

As explained in the captivating capsule history that opens this lovely black and white hardcover thriller, New Orleans was founded by the French in 1717, lost to the Spanish in 1763, taken by Napoleon in 1802 and sold to the Americans a year later, making it one of the oldest and certainly the most eclectic, eccentric, artistic and elegant city in the USA.

By 1918 it was a huge, sprawling and vital hub of trade and commerce, peopled by a vast melting pot of immigrant populations. On the night of May 23rd an Italian couple who ran a grocery store were hacked to death by an intruder who broke into their home and attacked them with their own household axe. Over the next year and half a phantom killer would, under the horrifying glare of public scrutiny, kill six people, maim and mutilate another half dozen and hold the city virtual hostage with insane proclamations and demands. He – if it was indeed, a man – was often seen but never apprehended.

Geary is as meticulous and logical as ever, forensically dissecting the various attacks, examining the similarities and more importantly, the differences whilst dutifully pursing the key figures to their unlikely ends.

All the victims were grocers of Italian origin (leading to a supposed Mafia connection) except for the ones who were not, which possibly refuted the theory but equally suggested opportunistic copy-cat killers. A number of personal grievances among the victims led to many false arrests and even convictions, and the killer or killers left many survivors who all agreed on a general description but all subsequently identified different suspects. There’s even a broader than usual hint of supernatural overtones.

Occurring at the very birth of the Jazz Age this utterly compelling tale is jam-packed with intriguing snatches of historical minutiae, plus beautifully rendered maps and plans which bring the varied locations to moody life: yet another Geary production tailor-made for a Cluedo special edition!

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

© 2010 Rick Geary. All Rights Reserved.

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100 Bullets: Six Feet Under the Gun


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-662-0

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics in decades, 100 Bullets imperceptibly grew into a terrifyingly imaginative conspiracy thriller of vast scope and intricate, intimate detail. With this sixth volume (collecting issues #37-42 of the stunningly adult comic book) creators Azzarello and Risso seemingly paused for breath and a succession of single episodes, exploring the inner workings of a deadly half-dozen cast-members, but as always there’s far, far more going on than you might think, and now that the series has concluded it’s clear that what happened here was of vital importance to what came next.

Pay attention! Every beautiful panel on every thrilling page might hold clues to the epic saga unfolding before your eyes.

Soon after Columbus landed in America, thirteen European crime-families migrated to the New World and carved up the continent in perpetuity between them. As the country grew civilised and a new nation was born the Trust embedded themselves in every aspect of it.

To prevent their own greed and ambition from destroying the sweetest deal in history the Families created an extraordinary police force to mediate and act when any Trust member acted against the unity and best interests of the whole. They were called the Minutemen and were always led by the kind of peacekeeper needed to keep them honest and actively cooperating – a man uniquely honest, dedicated, smart and remorseless.

Not too long ago though, The Trust leaders decided they no longer needed overseers and acted with characteristic ruthlessness to remove them. Betrayed Minutemen leader Agent Graves didn’t take his dismissal well and has been slowly enacting a plan to rectify that casual injustice. For years he has been appearing to various betrayed and defeated people as a “Court of Last Resort” offering answers, secrets, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bullets…

The sextet of character studies herein opens with ‘On Accidental Purpose’ as Dizzy Cordova pays a nostalgia-tainted visit to the friends and ghetto neighbourhood she so happily escaped from (in 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call) whilst Graves has a conversation with one-time Minuteman Shepherd – now sole facilitator for the Trust, before ‘Cole Burns Slow Hand’ sees the newly reactivated Minuteman settle accounts with the fiancé he abandoned once Graves came calling (100 Bullets: Split Second Chance), all set against the backdrop of a robbery/hostage situation gone painfully wrong.

Trust Heir Apparent Benito Medici experiences first hand a taste of the Old Ways and Good Old Days in the bloody ‘Ambition’s Audition’ whilst rogue agent and unstoppable Force of Nature Lono gets a visit from Shepherd, resulting in a situation even his barbarous methods can’t handle in ‘Night of the Payday’ and Graves himself features in ‘A Crash’ as overtures from the Families are rebuffed whilst a young couple’s brief dream of vast, unearned wealth falls foul of bad timing and their own consciences.

Wylie Times (100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow) gets a visit from Agent Graves and a case, gun, bullets and dossier of his own in the final tale ‘Point Off the Edge’ – a tense thriller which reminds us that not all evil comes courtesy of secret criminal cabals whilst proving once more that even if it doesn’t Graves is always prepared to take advantage…

Even after this seeming break in the overarching narrative the unfolding saga remains astoundingly accessible and readable with the war against the Trust now openly declared and all participants anxiously choosing their side and crossing their fingers. Agent Graves has activated the final stage of his decades-long campaign and the endgame is approaching…

If there are still any entertainment-starved story fans – grown-up, paid-up, immured to harsh language and unshaken by rude, nude and very violent behaviour – who aren’t addicted to this compulsive classic yet, get out there and grab every one of these graphic novels at all costs! The best is still to come…

© 2002, 2003 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso & DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Bogie


By Claude Jean-Philippe & Patrick Lesueur, translated by Wendy Payton (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 978-0-913035-78-8

As well as a far greater appreciation of, and looser, more accommodating definitions for performing and popular arts, the French just seem to cherish the magnificent ephemera of entertainment; examining and revisiting the icons and landmarks of TV, film, modern music and comics in ways that English-speakers just don’t seem capable of.

At the beginning of the 1980s artist Patrick Lesueur collaborated with author Claude Jean Philippe on a graphic series of biographies featuring Movie Stars who changed the world: Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Errol Flynn and the subject of this slim and beautiful chronicle translated for America by West Coast independent publisher Eclipse.

Even Wikipedia doesn’t throw up much about the writer but Lesueur began life as a window dresser before moving into bande dessinée in 1972 by joining the creative staff of Pilote, illustrating current affairs pages before moving into fiction with short eco-fables compiled as the album ‘En Attendant le Printemps’ and cop thriller ‘Reste-t-il du Miel pour le Thé’. Latterly he produced ‘Detroit’, ‘Douglas Dunkerk’, and classic car feature ‘Enzo Ferrari, l’Homme aux Voitures Rouges’.

Bogie is told in a haunting, conversationally first-person narrative: the moodily realistic yet whimsically refined life of one of the greatest screen gods of all time comes to elegiac life in this peculiarly down-beat and low-key piece, all the more fascinating because the tale unfolds in an engagingly static manner but actually sounds just like you’d want and expect Humphrey Bogart to talk to you if you met him in a bar, whilst the restrained yet powerfully effective images shout “private photograph album” in a candid, winningly intimate way.

Bogart apparently led an unremarkable life off-screen, or perhaps the creators just didn’t want this hard-drinking, much-married legend to outshine his own celluloid legacy, but in terms of graphic novel entertainment this poetic picture-story in a stunning achievement and worthy of your attention. Perhaps someday soon another publisher will re-release it and even translate those other silver screen sagas too…
Contents © 1984 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Claude Jean Philippe and Patrick Lesueur. 1989 This edition © 1989 Eclipse Books.

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Set to Sea


By Drew Weing (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-368-2

Sometimes it’s terribly easy to review a new graphic novel. Sometimes they’re simply a good strong tale, beautifully told and universally appealing.

One such is the delightful, genuinely stirring saga of an indigent poet and aspiring barfly with a taste for maritime verse, whose lack of true inspiration is cured when he is press-ganged aboard a Hong-Kong Clipper and forcibly learns the true life of a mariner.

Initially resistant to a life afloat, a terrifying brush with death opens his eye and he accepts the only life he could ever truly enjoy, and even manages, whilst traversing the world for joyous, raucous decades, to satisfy his artistic leanings into the bargain…

Magically circular in structure and beautifully drawn in a homagic blend of Elzie Segar, traditional woodcut prints and, I suspect, a touch of the wonderful Tony Millionaire (see E.C. Segar’s Popeye and Drinky Crow’s Maakies Treasury) this superb rough ‘n’ tumble black and white hardcover collects the impressive online comic into a salty, panel-per-page paean to the gaining of true experience over romantic fantasy, and even manages to be a telling examination of the role of the arts in life.

What more do you need to know? Any lover of a dream-life and fresh yet solid entertainment simply must read this book… Captain’s Orders…

© 2010 Drew Weing. All Rights Reserved.

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Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde


By Robert Louis Stevenson, adapted by Guido Crepax (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-0-87416-079-6

Guido Crepax was born in Milan in 1933, the son of a noted cellist, and grew up in an atmosphere of art and music (his closest childhood friend was the noted musician and conductor Claudio Abado). Inevitably the boy Crepax became a creative artist in his own right. Whilst studying architecture in the 1950s he freelanced as a graphic designer, illustrator and printmaker, producing book, medical texts and magazine covers, posters and record sleeves most notably for Classical and Jazz musicians ranging from Charlie Parker and Fats Waller to Domenico Modugno.

He won acclaim and advertising awards throughout the 1950s, but was driven to do still more. In 1963 he began drawing comics, and two years later created his most famous character Valentina for the second issue of Linus. She was initially the lead character’s girlfriend, but whereas superhero Neutron soon lost the interest of readers, the sexy, psychedelic, culturally bold and accessible distaff evolved to become an evocative, fantastic, sophisticated, erotic zeitgeist of the 1960s and far, far beyond. He passed away on July 31, 2003.

Although noted – if not always revered – for his strongly erotic female characters, Crepax was an astute and sensitive tale-teller and examiner of the human condition, and all his varied works vibrate with strong themes of charged sexuality and violence, none more so than his chilling, oppressive adaptation of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

As Editor Maurice Horn points out in his introduction, Stevenson’s novella – first published in January 1886 by Longmans, Green & Co. – has never been as faithfully adapted in any other medium: the tale being constructed and narrated as a recap within a flashback, and almost utterly devoid of any relevant female characters. The story revolutionised not only fiction, but also modern sensibilities, cementing an entire concept of human behaviour into the modern lexicon and becoming a keystone of two separate literary genres, science fiction and horror, whilst maintaining for almost its entire duration the semblance of just another tale of mystery and detection. What it must have been to get to that final chapter and discover an entirely new kind of ending! We simply cannot imagine…

For most readers of the text, rather than viewers of the impossibly large number of film, television, radio and stage productions, the brief morality play is clearly a metaphor (I, for example, have always felt it addressed social repression via an examination of addiction) and Crepax has chosen to interpret the issue here as one of unleashed sexual license…

Narrator Gabriel John Utterson is friend and legal representative to Gentleman Scientist Henry Jekyll, a brilliant, upstanding man obsessed with his image and standing in a rich and excessively reputation-driven society. When the wizened, disreputable Edward Hyde appears and begins to exert some inexplicable, overwhelming hold upon the genteel Jekyll, even keeping him from seeing his friends, Utterson is driven to investigate and uncovers a horrendous, unimaginable catalogue of the dwarf’s excesses, ranging from brutal violence, sexual bondage, blackmail and even murder…

Crepax retained the unique narrative structure, dialogue and even chapter headings of the original text, but peppered his visual interpretation with the highly charged, sexually explicit imagery he was – and is – notorious for in such a manner that their sybaritic inclusion made perfect sense. Following the eerie unraveling of the saga in  ‘Story of the Door’, ‘The Carew Murder Case’, ‘The Letter’, ‘Incident at Dr. Lanyon’s’, ‘The Window’, ‘The Last Night’, ‘Dr Lanyon’s Account’ comes the revelatory, post-mortem disclosures of  ‘Henry Jekyll’s Confession’ and Utterson’s shocked realisation of the pressures of English society and the forces they contain and conceal within every man…

Stark, shocking, convulsively claustrophobic in its public scenes whilst indolently free and spacious for the unleashed hedonistic, yet curiously idyllic and lyrical depictions of debauchery, Crepax’s artistic stylisations are as always cannily calculated to work on the reader’s subconscious and bestow an unrelenting power and oppressive inevitability to the tragedy.

Here is a powerful saga magnificently retold using the language and terms of the British Empire, but this highly adult interpretation is also unflinching in its sexual imagery, so if such visual candour depicted in a truly unique style and manner is going to offend you don’t seek out this superb tale.

Everybody else with their senses of drama, history and perspective intact should go ahead and enjoy a brilliant tale stunningly interpreted: another classic graphic novel desperately in need of reprinting…
© 1989 Olympia Press, Italy, Luca A Staletti, agent. English translation © 1990 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

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30 Days of Night: Red Snow


By Ben Templesmith (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-6001-0149-6

Although I wasn’t a great a fan of the first 30 Days of Night graphic novel it didn’t stop it becoming a comics and movie sensation, but with this sequel (or to be exact, narrative prequel), writer artist Ben Templesmith finally struck a cord with this jaded old reviewer…

That first tale detailed the last days of Barrow, Alaska: a contemporary American town near the Arctic Circle where the sun sets for an entire month at a time. What happens when a posse of roving vampires came for an extended overnight stay one sundown is a simplistic but highly effective exercise in visceral slasher-thrills. No real depth or explanation, just easily explained motivations (eat and/or kill vs. run and/or fight) and lots of evocative action. A perfect, uncomplicated video game of a tale…

Now, in Red Snow a little glimpse into the history of that nomadic band of Nosferatu is offered…

Russia 1941: bleak black bitter winter is decimating both the Nazi invaders and the hard-hearted vengeful Russian troops in the hinterlands beyond Murmansk. The German-Finnish Operation: Silver Fox has collapsed (a bold, doomed attempt by the Nazis to capture the port and end Allied aid into Russia), and roving bands of Germans are freezing and starving in the permanent blizzard-bedeviled arctic night. Equally hard-pressed are the Soviet and Cossack patrols hunting the surviving invaders.

Among the pursuers is Charlie Keating, British Naval observer, military liaison and war-weary polyglot. As the Soviets are slowly advancing despite the deadly temperatures, they come across a vast underground storage compound where a family of peasants has been hoarding food, ammunition and fuel “for the War Effort”. At the same time the Nazis have made their own discovery – a small band of blood-stained travesties, immune to the cold and dark, ravenously hungry for human flesh and hot red blood…

Old animosities are soon forgotten as the surviving Nazis are invited into the subterranean citadel, but the unstoppable bloodsuckers besiege and rapidly deplete the defenders’ numbers and resources. Soon it’s clear that the only possible chance lies in outrunning them in the one remaining truck…

Templesmith’s first outing as scripter is clear-cut and a little short on sophistication, but wickedly effective as the vampires relentlessly attack, and even though the team-up of human enemies, complete with inevitable betrayals, is nothing new in this genre it is extremely well-executed and graphically enticing.

Although many British readers might compare this unfavourably to the similar scenario of the classic 1980 2000AD strip Fiends of the Eastern Front – and in terms of sheer suspense the Gerry Finley-Day/Carlos Ezquerra serial is certainly superior – (note to self: must review some 2000AD collections soonest…) there is a splendidly visceral brevity to the blood-soaked events of Red Snow that carries the tale along at a breakneck pace and always delivers its promised punch.

Templesmith is an accomplished illustrator and works well in his painterly manner, blending Kent Williams or Jon J Muth’s watercolour vivacity s with Ted McKeever’s angular, expressionistic figure work. Of course there’s also heaping helpings of splashy reds against the cool icy blues – and remarkable amounts of gruesome violence which is, of course, exactly what the target audience expects…

This collection of the three-part miniseries also includes an interview with Templesmith and an extensive gory gallery section of art-pieces.

™ & © 2008 Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith and Ideas and Design Works, LCC. All Rights Reserved.

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Hotwire Comics volume 3


By various, edited by Glenn Head (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-288-3

The third magnificent, oversized compendium of cutting edge cartooning and alternative artistic visions has finally arrived and once more combines famed and possibly less well-known creators in a bold, brassy high-quality, giant-sized (9×12 inch or 230x304mm) full colour and black and white anthology of new tales and concoctions. There’s even a multi-page psychedelic, phantasmagorical fold-out ‘The Magnificent Pigtail Show’ from the incredible Steven Cerio.

Beginning with art-pieces – David Sandlin’s ‘Studio of Sin’ and Tim Lane’s ‘Greetings From Hotwire USA’ – the sequential narratives launch with Michael Kupperman’s ‘Meet McArf!’, a decidedly smooth shaggy dog story, the eerie childhood reminiscence ‘Car-Boy’s Family’ from Max Andersson and ‘Bottomless’ a salutary tale of excessive appetite from Eric Watkins and Chadwick Whitehead.

The first of a series of ‘Feral Spheres’ – monochrome artworks by David Paleo – is followed by ‘Denial’ and ‘The Bully’, two moody introspections from Jayr Pulga and Sam Henderson’s gross-out gag-strip ‘At a Frat Party or a Sports Game or Something Like That’, before editor Glenn Head enthrals with the cheery chiller ‘Candyland Clinic.’

After Paleo’s second ‘Feral Sphere’ the always fascinating Mary Fleener describes how and why she bought a gun in ‘The Judge’ and Rick Altergott reveals the sordid saga of a sweet young thing who was just too ‘Keen on a Clown!’, after which sordid shocks Head returns with some  ‘Psychedelic Smut’.

Onsmith’s beguiling ‘Dispossession by Tornado’ is followed by another ‘Feral Sphere’ and Mark Dean Vega reinterprets some of our most beloved comics characters in his mouth-watering ‘Popeyeconography’ before Doug Allen’s grotesquely funny ‘Hillbilly’s Dun Gawn Ta College’ and the ever offensive Johnny Ryan provides insight to life with ‘The Cockhorns’.

Following the aforementioned Cerio foldout section Tim Lane crafts a chilling tale of hobos riding the rails in ‘Spike’, Danny Hellman illustrates a truly lovely clash in ‘Alice Versus the Sandman’, R. Sikoryak retells the story of Hamlet using Hank Ketcham’s oddly appropriate cartoon cast in ‘The Menace of Denmark’ and Mack White provides a surreal and terrifying glimpse into ‘Roadside Hell.’

Another ‘Feral Sphere’ precedes, for my money, the very best piece in this collection. The darkly mannered tale entitled the ‘Passion of Atte’ by Matti Hagelberg is a complex, brooding tale of vanishment and suicide – or is it?

‘Infernal Combustion’ is a bold, old-fashioned paranoid nightmare by David Sandlin, followed by one last ‘Feral Sphere’ and Danny Hellman’s delightful ironic parable ‘Tales of the Sodom Ape Men and the Electronic God’, Stephane Blanquet provides so much more than just a ‘Drawing’, Karl Wills delivers a punchy space fable in ‘Connie Radar’ and Mats!? chills and thrills with his deeply disturbing discourse ‘Sleep Walker.’

The final tale is the classy history of an unsung hero from another, more wicked time:  Glenn Head relates the rather sad and nasty tale of ‘Vulvina, the Ventriloquist’s Dummy Daughter!’ which closes another startling, offensive, compelling and thoroughly wonderful box of cartoon delights for brave, hungry souls in search of different kicks. Strictly for those of you over voting age, this is a treat no real comics aficionado can afford to miss.

All artwork and stories © 2010 the respective creators. All rights reserved.

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The Files of Ms. Tree volume 3: The Mike Mist Case Book


By Max Collins, Terry Beatty & Gary Kato (Renegade Press)
ISBN: 0-840031-02-7

Despite being one of the most popular genres in literature and the fact that most fiction books are bought and read by women, Private Eye yarns are desperately short of female protagonists. Marry that with the observation that “gumshoe” comics are also as rare as hen’s teeth and it’s a wonder that a series such as Ms. Tree ever got off the drawing board.

The secret – as always – was quality.

The black widow of detective fiction first appeared in 1981 as a serial in the anthology comic Eclipse Magazine, produced by Max Allan Collins (crime novelist and new writer of the Dick Tracy strip) with young humour cartoonist Terry Beatty.

She soon won her own solo title, Ms. Tree’s Thrilling Detective Stories (later simply Ms. Tree), and although the marketplace was not friendly to such a radical concept the series ran for 50 issues, and 2 specials, from three publishers (Eclipse, Aardvark-Vanaheim and Renegade Press) before finally dying in 1989. She was promptly revived as a DC comic in 1990 for another 10 magnum-sized issues as Ms. Tree Quarterly/ Ms. Tree Special; three more blood-soaked, mayhem-packed, morally challenging years of pure magic.

Astonishingly, there are no contemporary collections of her exploits – despite Collins’ status as a prolific and best-selling author of both graphic novels (Road to Perdition, CSI and prose sequences featuring his crime-creations Nathan Heller, Quarry, Nolan, Mallory and a veritable pantheon of others).

In the first volume we briefly met Mike Tree, an archetypal detective who married his secretary and partner Mike (“nobody calls me Michelle… twice”) Friday, only to be murdered on their wedding night. The Widow Tree hunted down his killer, setting herself on a path of blood-soaked vengeance. En route she uncovered a vast web of corruption and made an eternal enemy of Mob boss Dominic Muerta: locking together forever in a bloody vendetta.

This third volume, released in 1986, diverged from the chronological retelling of her adventures to re-present a selection of one-shots and specials that co-starred another Collins/Beatty shamus, one originally intended for a far more impressionable audience that gore-hardened Comic-book fans.

The Mike Mist Minute Mysteries began as a part of a tabloid section entitled The Comics Page, which was syndicated for a year or so (1979-1980) in a dozen small newspapers, and latterly in Mystery Magazine. The strip featured a cool, smooth PI who, in 12 panels or less, introduced a crime, deduced a culprit and caught the felon, in neat fair-play duels with the reader. He was generally not aided by the self-fulfilling cop Lieutenant Dimm. The feature was rife with sly in-jokes for fans of detective fiction: whether prose, TV or filmic…

Some of these little gems were collected into a comic-book by Eclipse in 1981 and a selection of those works-in-progress form the opening chapter of this red-handed collection, beginning with the very first conundrum, ‘Death Takes a Powder’, swiftly followed by ‘The Butler Didn’t’, ‘You Only Die Once’, ‘Silence Isn’t Golden’, ‘No Laughing Murder’, ‘Crime Takes a Hike’, ‘Damsel in This Dress’, ‘Too Damp Bad’ and ‘Death Has an Eerie Ring.’

When Ms. Tree launched Mist became an occasional guest: an associate and friend who handled over-spill cases, and eventually scored his own back-up strip in the monthly comic. Inevitably this led to a number of official team-ups – “Mist-Tree Tales” (the liberal use of atrocious puns as concealed and/or offensive weapons was a signature and standard M.O. of all Mist-adventures…)

‘Murder at Mohawk’, from Ms. Tree #9 found accidentally sharing a resort hotel, just a blizzard traps an unsavory cast of characters into an unsolved robbery/murder thirty years old… By this time Gary Kato had joined the team as letterer, art assistant and sometime penciller. Thus Beatty’s art took on a seductively Steve Ditko-esque appearance, especially in such Mist’ back-up teasers as ‘The Long and the Short of Death’ and ‘See no Evil…’, whilst Collins added some autobiographical verity by making Mist a comicbook and record collector in ‘Wertham Was Right’ and ‘Four Color Phony’. After the seasonal ‘Claus for Alarm’, ‘Suitable for Framing’, ‘Snow Job’, ‘Disappearing Act’, ‘Woman in White’ and ‘Blood Will Tell’ our second full-length feature begins.

‘Death, Danger and Diamonds: Dear, Dead Darling’ is a high-octane, hard-bitten hot potato which saw Mist looking to avenge a murdered client (so many of his paying customers ended up dead it became a running gag in the strip. As Tree used to teasingly point out – at least with her cases it was usually the bad-guys who ended up on slabs…) To that end the pair masqueraded as husband and wife; playing bait for a seasoned killer in the concluding ‘Hawaiian Ice.’

‘Death, Danger and Diamonds’ was released as a 3D comic during the brief revival of the form in the mid 1980s. Ray Zone’s eye-popping “separations” expertise is absent from this 2D, black and white collection, but the addition of a four page 3D thriller ‘A Pair of Eyes’ serves to keep the theme in the frame…

There’s another batch of Mist-only Minute Mysteries before the final long-playing tale. ‘Railroaded’, ‘Shattered Alibi’, ‘Staged Suicide’, ‘Blind Suspicion’, ‘No Shot in the Dark’ (with Ms. Tree in attendance), ‘Lucky Number’, ‘Overdrawn Account’ and ‘Tag! You’re It…’ all display the requisite observational antics before ‘Music to Murder By’ finds Mist and Tree hunting a murderer through the heady halls of a vinyl record convention (although to be fair this was produced in the time before CDs, let alone those infernal I-Poddy contraptions…).

The much-abused “more-valuable-dead-than-alive-rock-musician” plot gets an early but quite superior outing in this gripping, stylish thriller which closes the charming, chilling collaboration between two of the sharpest, deadliest gumshoes in the biz.

Despite the tragic scenarios, ruthless characterisations and high body-count, this is yet another clever, scathingly funny casebook steeped in the lore of detective fiction, stuffed with added asides and extras for the cognoscenti. In fiction absolutely no one can be trusted and since you get the chance to match wits with both scumbags and sleuths, these tales are simply steeped in the truly magical gratification factor that allows the reader an even chance to mete out some vicarious justice…

Ms. Tree is the closest thing the American market has ever produced to challenge our own Empress of Adventure Modesty Blaise: how she can be left to languish in graphic obscurity is a greater mystery than any described in this compelling collection. Track down all her superb exploits and pray someone has the street smarts to bring her back for good…

© 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986 Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty. All Rights Reserved.

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The Classic Pin-Up Art of Jack Cole


By Jack Cole, edited by Alex Chun (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-284-5

Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of American Comics’ Golden Age, crafting landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero genres. His incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed Hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. As the Golden Age faded, Cole could see the writing on the wall and famously jumped into gag and glamour cartooning, becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour saucy pictures began running in Playboy with the fifth issue.

Ever-restless, Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and in May 1958, achieved a life-long ambition by launching the syndicated domestic comedy Betsy and Me. On August 13th 1958, at the moment of his biggest break he took his own life.

The unexplained reasons for his death are not as important as the triumphs of Cole’s artistic life and this captivating paperback (reprinting a rare hardback compilation from 2004) provides a fascinating insight into a transitional moment in his artistic development.

When Cole began his move from comic-books into the “adult world” of cartooning, he adopted the nom-de-plume “Jake” whilst he honed his dormant gag-skills (sequential narrative being so far removed from the “quintessential moment” illustration needed for a single picture telling an entire story). Working in beautiful ink and wash creations he began submitting to the cheaper end men’s magazines: ubiquitous little throwaway digests with titles such as Romp, Stare, Joker, Laugh Riot and Breezy, packed with photos of saucy vixens like Betty Page and her cheesecake ilk – and lots and lots of debatably risqué gags.

Nor was he the only artist making the pilgrimage: other funnybook stars on the move included Bill Ward, Jefferson Machamer, Dan DeCarlo, Bill Wenzel and Basil Wolverton.

This charmingly innocent compendium of Lush Ladies, Willing Wantons, Savvy Sirens, Naive Nymphs (always stunningly beautiful women) collects his 100 or so published sales, divided into Line Art, Washes and an astounding selection of Originals – images shot from the actual artwork and not printed pages, revealing all the detail and unedited work a budding creator could need or desire.

This beguiling glimpse into a major artist’s processes and the sexual mores of an entire generation are an intoxicating treat and that the work is still utterly addictive is a treasure beyond compare.

© 2004, 2010 Fantagraphics Books All right reserved.