Mature Reading – Page 82

January 31, 2011January 29, 2011

The Building

By Will Eisner (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 978-0-87816-025-9 Hardcover 0-87616-024-8

William Erwin Eisner was born in 1906, on March 6^th in Brooklyn, and grew up in the ghettos of the city. They never left him. After time served 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 then invented the mainstream graphic novel, bringing maturity, acceptability and public recognition to English language comics.

In 1978 Poorhouse Press released A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories, a collection of four original short stories in comics form. All the tales centre around 55 Dropsie Avenue, a typical 1930’s Bronx tenement, housing poor Jewish and immigrant families. It changed America’s perception of strips and led to 20 further masterpieces from Eisner, consequently opening the door for creators to escape their own creative ghettos of superheroes, funny animals and other juvenilia. At one stroke comics grew up.

Eisner was a consummate creator, honing his skills not just on the legendary 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.

Restlessly plundering his own childhood and love of human nature as well as his belief that environment was a major and active character in fiction, Eisner created The Building; a beguiling portmanteau saga of four lost souls and the pile of bricks and mortar that shaped their lives.

The 14-storey corner-edifice stood at a busy intersection for 80 years but New York is a hungry city and it was eventually torn down, replaced in short months by a prestigious new office complex. One day a quartet of ghosts appeared outside the gleaming new Hammond Building, invisibly waiting for something to happenâ€¦

Monroe Mensh had lived in the old building for years. One day a senseless tragedy changed his life forever and plagued with guilt, he spent his remaining days trying to atone. He never did, at least not to his own satisfactionâ€¦

Gilda Green could have had her pick of boys, but loved Benny, an unsuccessful poet. After years of waiting she settled for a dentist, security and lifelong dissatisfaction. Gilda never stopped seeing Benny; meeting for lunches and sometimes more outside the old pile as it gradually fell into disrepair. One day she didn’t keep her appointmentâ€¦

Antonio Tonatti loved music but was never good enough for the big-paying gigs. He started working construction but had an accident. He couldn’t work but the settlement provided enough to live on, so he began playing again on the street corner, just to keep occupied and to make folks feel happier. For decades and more he played. Even whilst the new building was going up he played his corner, until one day he never turned upâ€¦

P. J. Hammond came from money and was forced into the family’s Real Estate business. He hated it but eventually became an even bigger bastard than his father. He spent most of his life acquiring properties on that street but the old building eluded him for decades, forcing him into ever greater excess and expense. By the time he finally acquired it he had no capital left to exploit his victory. When he was finally forced to sell, the new owners condescended to name the new skyscraper after him. He didn’t live long enough to gloatâ€¦

One morning four ghosts waited outside the Hammond Building, hoping that fate and circumstance would give them a final opportunity to fulfil the existences their sorry lives had notâ€¦

Eisner’s elegiac fascination with city life, deep empathy with all aspects of the human condition and instinctive grasp of storytelling produced here a gloriously comi-tragic melodrama, moving and uplifting in the classic manner of such films as It’s a Wonderful Life, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir or The Enchanted Cottage.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cryâ€¦

Sometimes the Medium is the Message, especially when the artefact is a substantially solid tome delivering magical artwork in seductive, nostalgic sepia line and tone – and if, like smug old me you’re rereading a signed, numbered hardcover with tipped in illustrative plate for the umpteenth time – then you’re as near to paradise as any jaded old realist can get, but to be frank any edition of Will Eisner’s The Building that you can get, you really, really shouldâ€¦

January 22, 2011January 19, 2011

Axa volumes 1: Axa: The Beginning and 2: Axa the Desired

By Donne Avenell & Enrique Badia Romero (Ken Pierce Books)
Vol. 1 ISBN: 0-912277-04-1 Vol. 2 no ISBN

During the 1970s the British newspaper underwent radical changes in style and particularly content as lip service to female liberation and the sexual revolution allowed editors to wedge in even more semi-clad women for men to ogle even while bragging that now the chicks were in control of their own lives.

One place where that policy actually manifested in truly strong female role models as opposed to vapid eye-candy and fluff-piece fashion flash-in-the-pans was the comics page where the likes of Modesty Blaise, Scarth, Amanda and a wave of other capable ladies walked all over the oppressor gender both humorously and in straight adventure scenarios.

They still got their kit off at every imaginable opportunity, but that was just tradition and the idiom of the mediumâ€¦

By 1978 the fuss and furore had somewhat subsided and aggressive, take-charge naked chicks had become commonplace, but when Star Wars reinvigorated public interest in science fiction the old concept of a scantily-clad, curvaceous beautiful barbarienne toiling through post-apocalyptic wonderlands resurfaced. The concept must have appealed mightily to the features editor of The Sun when it first crossed his desk, especially with Modesty Blaise illustrator Enrique Badia Romero attached to the proposal as artistâ€¦

Veteran writer Donne Avenell (who had cut his teeth on hundreds of British comics icons and such major international features as The Phantom and assorted Disney strips) provided racy, pacy, imaginative and subversively clever scripts for glamour-strip star Romero, who had begun his career in Spain in 1953, producing everything from westerns, sports, war stories and trading cards, often in conjunction with his brother Jorge BadÃa Romero. He even formed his own publishing house.

â€œEnricâ€ began working for the higher-paying UK market in the 1960s on strips such as ‘Cathy and Wendy’, ‘Isometrics’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ before assuming the art duties on the high-profile Modesty strip in 1970, only leaving when this enticing new prospect appeared. Political and editorial intrigue saw Axa cancelled in the middle of a story in 1986 and Enric soon returned to Blaise until creator Peter O’Donnell retired in 2001. Since then he has produced Modesty Blaise material for Scandinavia and a number of projects such as Durham Red for 2000AD.

Axa ran in The Sun Monday to Saturday from 1978 to her abrupt disappearance in 1986 and other than these slim volumes from strip preserver Ken Pierce has never been graced with a definitive collection. It should be noted also that at the time of these books the strip was still being published to great acclaim.

The first black and white volume opens with an informative essay ‘Introducing Axa’ by publisher and historian Maggie Thompson outlining the history of and indifference to nudity in British newspaper strips after which ‘The Beginning’ takes us to 2080AD and a domed city where restless, buxom, anti-social amazon Axa chafes under the stifling oppressive security of the State which controls the citizens’ lives down to the most minute detail.

Throwing off her shackles and her clothes she leaves her assigned mate Jon, breaks out and flees to the post-apocalyptic wastelands created by The Great Contamination, populated only by mutants and monsters. In a cave she is attacked by a giant spider and saved by Matt, a debased (but hunky) warrior of the Middle People tribe. Taken to their village she discovers that the free primitives are just as hide-bound and oppressive as the City Men. Fleeing the village with the captivated Matt she finds a gleaming long-sword and finally discovers the secret of total true freedom is the ability to defend oneselfâ€¦

Matt convinces her to return to the Middle Men, but she is betrayed and condemned to be a breeding female, but finds unwelcome release when she and her fellow captives are taken by raiding mutants. Easily escaping, she follows the raiders, intent on freeing the other captive women, once more linking up with the double-crossing Matt.

Surviving the monsters of the wilderness they catch up with the raiders only to be captured. After a climactic battle where Axa’s arguments and beliefs are more effective than any weapons, the rescued women are freedâ€¦

This segues straight into ‘The Chosen’ as Axa discovers that her fierce nature and astounding exploits has led the Middle People to declare her a goddess. Bemused by the attention at first she soon finds at it’s all a ploy by the wily tribe’s leader. Goddesses are locked up in temples where they can’t interfere or change the way the people are governedâ€¦

Never defeated, Axa breaks out and battles her way to freedom, dragging the ambivalent and indecisive Matt with her. Trekking through a beast-infested desert she is soon lost, alone and near death when she is rescued by Jon. Thinking he has come to join her she awakes to find herself a prisoner, returned to the Dome for therapy.

Sanitized and â€œDepersonalised’ with mind-bending drugs she once more becomes a decent citizen, but the lure of freedom is too strong and once more she rebels. Throwing off the chemical cosh Axa once more makes a break for the outside, but this time with the sanction of the Dome’s ruler who wants the unconquerable woman to undertake an impossible missionâ€¦

The second volume, containing the next two adventures, opens with a text appreciation and recap by Catherine Yronwoode after which Axa the Desired begins with the unstoppable freedom-seeker heading towards the coast, closely followed by the reluctant Jon, torn between his desire for her and disgust with the tainted world beyond the Dome.

Soon they have found a colony of survivors eking out an existence from the slowly healing seas, but are betrayed only to be rescued by two sailors from a foreign land. Jon has had enough and bolts back for the safety of the Domed City and Axa takes ship with the mariners, but the constant storms which batter the poisoned seas destroy their boat and she is washed ashore on an island where the old civilisation seems to have survived.

Appearances are deceiving: the lifestyle of the islanders is about to end as their stockpiled resources of guns and food and gasoline are all but gone. All but handsome Jason Arkady are decrepit dotards and their enclave was doomed until the healthy, hopefully fertile Axa turned upâ€¦

Initially horrified, the suave Jason almost turns the wild-woman’s head, but as the mad cracks in the isolated island-culture begin to show, she bolts and discovers that her companion from the shipwreck has been hiding out on the beach, secretly aided by Jasonâ€¦

When the three try to escape, the suppressed insanity of the Arkady clan boils over in a cascade of blood, bullets and conflagrationâ€¦

The next saga – also called ‘the Desired’ – sees the trio reach what was once Europe where the biggest surprise was Axa’s discovery of another Dome, just like the one she fled from but located at the bottom of a shallow sea. However this bastion of technology is even worse than her old home as the rulers are women who have dominated their own men and use mutants adapted to aquatic conditions as slaves and beasts of burden.

Even after all her woes at male hands Axa cannot abide the loss of any creature’s liberty and rejects the overtures of the Sea Women to join their society. Moreover when the slaves’ long-planned revolt erupts she manages to avoid taking sides and broker a solution acceptable to allâ€¦

These tales are classically European if not British in style: lavishly drawn, cunningly written, expansive in scope and utterly enchanting in their basic simplicity. Eminently readable and re-readable, perhaps the distant promise of a major motion picture (although the project has been in a development wasteland much like the one seen here since 2005) might lure a bold publisher into producing some definitive collectors editionsâ€¦

January 19, 2011January 18, 2011

Jimbo in Paradise

By Gary Panter (Raw/Pantheon)
ISBN: 978-0-39475-639-4

Gary Panter has been an iconic force in comics and the visual arts since the late 1970s, and his unique distillation of American popular culture through the frenetic lens of his savage design style (alternatively termed â€œratty lineâ€ or â€œpunkâ€) has been seen in such varied fields as set design (winning 3 Emmy Awards for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), interior design, TV and computer animation as well as record covers for Frank Zappa, Red Hot Chili Peppers and many others.

His expressionistic, beautifully ugly, primitivist, high energy anti-art has influenced a generation of cartoonists and illustrators including Matt Groening, whose Simpsons design style owes much to Panter’s innovations in the 1970’s hardcore punk-zine Slash and his contributions to Art Spiegelman’s legendary art comic Raw – from which these wildly eccentric strips are culled.

Long considered a dominant force in punk and alternative comics, Panter is the leading figure of a second generation of â€œUnderground Cartoonistsâ€, doing much to legitimise the movement and elevating this potentially misunderstood arena of graphic narrative to a position of High Art which most mainstream comics have never been able to achieve.

Born in Durant, Oklahoma in December 1^st 1950, he became an integral part of the US New Wave movement (not to be confused with our British effete, big-haired, baggy-bloused, excessively made-up electro-pop scene of a decade later). He worked for Time, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and The New Yorker as well creating his own comics and graphic novels such as, Facetasm, Dal Tokyo and Cola Madnes (created especially for the Japanese market) as well as his signature creation Jimbo: a punk icon whose bizarre life was (mostly) explored in the seminal Raw magazine before being collected into the intimidatingly oversized tomes Adventures in Paradise, Jimbo’s Inferno and Jimbo in Purgatory.

Set – not that it’s particularly relevant – in a semi-futuristic, dystopian urban hodge-podge landscape, burly, kilt-clad Jimbo is just getting by and making do, but stuff always happens to himâ€¦

First, a new fast-food place opens up near the derelict building he lives in, but the telepathic robots who run it are really creepy and things start going bad when mutants chase him, trying to steal his burger. He takes refuge in the sewers but life doesn’t get any simpler. In ‘Jimbo’s House is Gigantic, but Condemned’ his skeevy pals Gruten, Zipper and Fluke come for a rather destructive visit, before they all go clubbing – giving the artist license to go hog-wild with stunningly complex full-page art-riots. Of course the authorities take a dim view of all the fun the kids are havingâ€¦

‘Jim30’ begins a aeries of connected vignettes which abandon formal narrative structure as the punky pariah experiences the downside of waking up, making breakfast and bathing before ‘Jimbo meets Rat-Boy’ introduces our non-hero to a kindred spirit – and his disgusting petâ€¦

After a devilish pastiche of the comic strip Nancy ‘Jimbo Erectus’ describes the evolution of the punk sub-species, after which we return to the future where Jimbo has scored with his buddy Smoggo’s harshly take-charge sister Judy. Now firmly entrenched in a â€œrelationshipâ€ Jimbo is now confronted by a whole new world of give-and-take – so when giant cockroaches abduct his girlfriend he and Smoggo must rise to the occasionâ€¦

Many of these strips are accompanied by an ancillary strip running at the foot of the pages. Now, at the most inconvenient moment, ‘William & Percy’ take over the main page before the dramatic hunt continuesâ€¦

Disillusioned, our man contemplates joining the army before opting for the natural life of a primitive shaman in ‘Jimbo is Running Sore’ (complete with graphic diversion ‘Klorex & Purox: the Mad Bombers’). After a brief conversation with God the hunt for Judy resumes; an extended odyssey leading to a fantastic barrage of visual extravaganzas that encompass the explosive death of the world and its aftermath: an eye-popping crescendo of apocalyptic imagery that perfectly captures the philosophy of 20^th century punk.

If you’re looking for something a little strong, a little strange, perfectly outrageous and boldly experimental this is the ideal introduction to the works of an absolute maestro.
Â© 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 Gary Panter. All Rights Reserved.

January 12, 2011January 15, 2011

Hellblazer: The Fear Machine

By Jamie Delano and various & (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-880-5

You’ve either heard of John Constantine by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be as brief as I can. Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, he is a mercurial modern wizard, a chancer who plays with magic on his own terms for his own ends. He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void.

Given his own series by popular demand, he premiered in the dying days of Reaganite Atrocity in the US but at the height of Thatcherite Barbarism in England, so as we’re singing the same song now (but with second-rate Britain’s Got Talent cover-artists as leaders) I thought I’d cover a few old gems that might be regaining their relevance in the days aheadâ€¦

In 1987 Creative Arts and Liberal attitudes were dirty words in many quarters and the readership of Vertigo was pretty easy to profile. Jamie Delano began the series with relatively safe horror plots, introducing us to Constantine’s unpleasant nature, chequered history and odd acquaintances but even then discriminating fans were aware of a joyously anti-establishment political line and wild metaphorical underpinnings.

Skinheads, racism, Darwinian politics, gruesome supernature and more abound in the dark dystopian present of John Constantine – a world of cutting edge of mysticism, Cyber-shamanism and political soul-stealing. In Delano’s world the edges between science and magic aren’t blurred – they simply don’t exist.

Some terrors are eternal and some seem inextricably tied to a specific time and place: The Fear Machine (collecting issues #14-22 of the mature readers monthly comicbook) is an engrossing extended epic which began when the wizard went on the run after the tabloid press pilloried him as a Satanist serial killer in ‘Touching the Earth’ (by Delano, Richard Piers Rayner & Mark Buckingham).

Forced to flee his inner London comfort-zone he is adopted by a band of neo-pagan Travellers (apparently as responsible for all the ills plaguing society in the 1980s and 1990s as fat people and immigrants are todayâ€¦) and journeys through the heartland of Britain.

Going native amongst the drop-outs, druggies, bath-dodgers and social misfits Constantine buddies up with an immensely powerful psychic girl named Mercury and her extremely engaging mum, Marj, but even amidst these freewheeling folks he can feel something nasty building. The first inkling occurs in ‘Shepherd’s Warning’ when Mercury discovers an ancient stone circle has been fenced off by a quasi-governmental company named Geotroniks. Someone is trying to shackle Mother Earth’s circulatory system of Ley linesâ€¦

Meanwhile elsewhere, people are compelled to kill and mutilate themselves and Geotroniks is watching and taking notesâ€¦

When police raid the Travellers campsite in ‘Rough Justice’ Mercury is abducted and imprisoned in a secret complex where the mind’s limits and the Earth’s forces are being radically tested. Cutting edge stuffâ€¦ if only the subjects and observing scientists can be persuaded to stop committing suicideâ€¦

Mike Hoffman illustrated the fourth chapter, ‘Fellow Travellers’ as Constantine headed back to London for help in finding Mercury and uncovering the secrets of Geotroniks. He gains a horrific insight when the train he’s on is devastated by a psychic assault which makes all the passengers destroy themselvesâ€¦

‘Hate Mail & Love Letters’ (with art by Buckingham & Alfredo Alcala) begins two months later. Marj and the travellers are hiding in the Highlands with a fringe group called the Pagan Nation, led by the mysterious Zed – an old friend of the wily trickster. Constantine keeps digging, but across the country suicide and self harm are increasing. Society itself seems diseased, but at least the Satanist witch hunt has been forgotten as the Press rage on to their next sanctimonious cause celebrÃ©â€¦

Touching base with his few police contacts and pet journalists the metropolitan mage soon stumbles into a fresh aspect of the mystery when a Masonic hitman begins removing anyone who could be of use to his enquiries in ‘The Broken Man’. Saving journalist Simon Hughes from assassination in a particularly exotic manner guaranteed to divert attention from his politically damaging investigations, Constantine finds new clues that a the psychic horror and social unrest are all being orchestrated by reactionary aspects of the government and a sinister â€œOld Boy networkâ€â€¦

And somewhere dark and hidden Mercury’s captors are opening doors to places mortals were never meant toâ€¦

As the Pagan Nation’s priestesses work their subtle magics to find the missing girl and save humanity’s soul, a disgusting, conglomerate beast-thing is maturing, made from fear and pain, greed and suffering and deep black despair: provoking a response from and guest-appearance by Morpheus, the Sandman, and prompting Constantine, Hughes and possibly the last decent copper in London to go huntingâ€¦

Picking up another recruit in the form of KGB scientist Sergei, events spiral ever faster as the Freemasons – or at least their â€œMagi Caecusâ€ elite – are revealed to be organising the plot in ‘Betrayal’, combining Cold War paranormal research, economic imperialism, Thatcherite divisive self-gratification and the order’s own quasi-mystical arcana to create a situation in which their guiding principles will control society and the physical world. It nothing more than a greedy power-grab using blood and horror to fuel the engines of changeâ€¦

All pretence of scientific research at Geotroniks is abandoned in ‘The God of All Gods’ as Masonic hitman Mr. Webster goes off the deep end, ignoring his own Lodge Grandmaster’s orders to abort the project amidst an increasing national atmosphere of mania, determined to free the fearful thing they’ve created and unmake the modern world at all costs. Constantine’s allies are all taken and the wizard is left to fight on alone.

Knee deep in intrigue, conspiracy and spilled guts, humanity seems doomed unless Constantine’s band of unhappy brothers and a bunch of Highland witch women can pull the biggest, bloodiest rabbit out of the mother of all hats in the spectacular conclusion ‘Balance’â€¦

The heady blend of authoritarian intransigence, counterculture optimism, espionage action, murder-mystery conspiracy theories and ancient sex-magic mix perfectly to create an oppressive tract of inexorable terror and smashed hope before the astounding climax forestalls if not saves the day of doom, in this extremely impressive dark chronicle which still resonates with the bleak and cheerless zeitgeist of the time.

This is a superb example of modern horror fiction, inextricably linking politics, religion human nature and sheer bloody-mindedness as the root cause of all ills. That our best chance of survival is a truly reprehensible exploitative monomaniac seems a perfect metaphor for the world we’re locked intoâ€¦

Clever, subversive and painfully prophetic, even at its most outlandish, this tale jabs at the subconscious with its scratchy edginess and jangles the nerves from beginning to end. An unmissable feast for fear fans, humanists and political mavericks everywhereâ€¦

January 11, 2011January 15, 2011

100 Bullets: Samurai

By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-800-3

Not long after Columbus landed in America, thirteen ancient European crime-families migrated to the New World and clandestinely carved up the continent in perpetuity between them. As the country grew cultured and a new nation was born the Trust embedded itself 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 or faction 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’s 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 â€œCourt of Last Resortâ€ offering answers, secrets, an untraceable handgun and 100 Bulletsâ€¦

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics in decades, 100 Bullets slowly, steadily transformed into a captivating conspiracy thriller of terrifying scope and immense, intimate detail. With this seventh volume (collecting issues #43-49 of the magnificently adult comicbook) creators Azzarello and Risso began arraying their huge cast of pawns and key pieces for the endgame and unguessable conclusion even though it was only the halfway point of the showâ€¦

With ‘Chill in the Oven’ the action switches to a maximum security prison where Loop Hughes is just getting out of solitary. Sadly that’s only the beginning of his problems since both the convict alpha dogs and the guards have been waiting for this momentâ€¦

Luckily, or probably not, the heat is temporarily off since the new intake includes the most dangerous sociopath nut-job in Americaâ€¦ Lono, a brutal force of nature planning to take charge even from behind bars, fresh from an unexpected encounter in 100 Bullets: Six Feet Under the Gun. Sadly, the murderous ex-Minuteman also has a score to settle with Loop tooâ€¦

When the Trust’s fixer Shepherd pays a surprise visit Lono realises who is behind all his problems if not why and decides to take matters into his own calloused, bloodstained handsâ€¦

Meanwhile out in the free world junkie Jack Daw (100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow) still has one of those untraceable guns and is travelling south with his skeevy pal Mikey. ‘In Stinked’ finds the pair laying low at a seedy wild animal park that secretly caters to â€œbusinessmenâ€ who want to kill a big cat without the hassle of licenses, laws or leaving the countryâ€¦

Jack clearly thinks he has more in common with the caged beasts but when he discovers what else goes on at Jungle Land the lost boy finally makes a stand that leaves the walls red and nobody standingâ€¦

Wicked, clever, blackly funny and gloriously, gratuitously vicarious, this ultra-violent, sex-stuffed, profanity-packed, utterly addictive thrill ride goes from strength to strength but always pay close attention! Every beautiful panel on every thrilling page might hold clues to the grand saga unfolding before your eyes.

If there are still any of you rush-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! You need them all and the very best is yet to comeâ€¦

December 31, 2010December 30, 2010

Nightwings (DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel #2)

By Robert Silverberg, adapted by Cary Bates, Gene Colan & Neal McPheeters (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-06-04

During the 1980s DC, on a creative roll like many publishers large and small, attempted to free comics narrative from its previous constraints of size and format as well as content. To this end, legendary editor Julie Schwartz called upon contacts from his early days as a Literary Agent to convince major names from the prose fantasy genre to allow their early classics to be adapted into a line of Science Fiction Graphic Novels.

In the far future Earth has aged into a somnolent, semi-feudalistic place of fantastic creatures and shabby glories. An old man from the Guild of Watchers is making his way to the fabled city of Roum, accompanied by an innocent gamin and a sardonic lizard-man outcast.

Watchers scan the heavens using portable technology and inherent psychic sensitivity, seeking the earliest inklings of a predicted alien invasion: this one has wandered the entire world and used up his life doing so. Impoverished and frail he makes his way to the greatest city on Earth with the beautiful Avluela, a creature who can fly like a butterfly – but only in darkness when the fierce solar winds have subsided. The old fool loves and yearns for the alluring nymph as does Gormon, their other companion. This reptilian goliath from the shunned guild of sub-humans carries with him a dark secretâ€¦

Each has their own reasons for going to the Eternal City, but as they make their way to the palace of the Prince, greatest ruler of this diminished globe they see evidence that all glory has faded and Roum is just as corrupted, decadent and increasingly bestial as everywhere else. Denied accommodation and food even from their own Guilds, appalled by the poverty and cruelty around them, the trio find tainted shelter within the Prince’s Palace but only because the arrogant, radiant ruler desires the fragile, gossamer Avluela and what he wants, he takesâ€¦

Disillusioned and at his lowest ebb the Watcher wonders if this world might actually benefit from the invasion he has wasted his life searching for. When heartbroken and vengeful Gormon reveals his own secret the Watcher’s equipment finally sounds the alarms he has waited all his life to hearâ€¦

Silverberg’s deeply moving, Hugo Award winning story of faded glories and mistimed love was first published in Galaxy Magazine in 1968 and was followed by two sequel novellas, Perris Way and To Jorslem which were promptly edited together to form the novel Nightwings.

Adaptors Cary Bates and Gene Colan, ably assisted by lettering legend Gaspar Saldino and painter/colourist Neal McPheeters, perfectly capture the debilitating aura of inescapable, inexorable loss and dissolution, but as always, any adaptation – no matter how well executed – is absolutely no substitute for experiencing a creator’s work the way it was originally intended, so Go Read The Story too.

However, as this is a place to review graphic novels, please be assured that this is one that works excessively well; moody, portentous and beautifully realised.

This refined, stoic interpretation is welcomingly traditional in its delivery, allowing the tale to creep into your hearts and is a perfect companion to DC’s other adaptations in this series. It’s an inexpressible pity they’re all currently out of print and this is an experiment the company should seriously consider resuming. Moreover as I’ve said before: these DC Science Fiction Graphic Novels would make an irresistible â€œAbsoluteâ€ compilationâ€¦
Â© 1968, 1969 Robert Siverberg. Adapted with permission of the author and Agberg Ltd. All text and illustrations Â© 1985 DC Comics Inc. All rights reserved.

December 27, 2010December 22, 2010

The Outer Space Spirit: 1952

By Will Eisner, Jules Feiffer & Wally Wood (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 0-87816-012-4

In keeping with the dolorous nature of this time of year I’m concentrating on a few missed opportunities in this period between the dubious joys of Christmas and the nervous anticipation of the New Year so here’s a graphic novel that in some ways didn’t live up to all it could have been – not necessarily because of the material itself but because of the kind of world we live inâ€¦

It is pretty much accepted today that Will Eisner was one of those pivotal creators who shaped the American comic book industry, with most of his graphic works more or less permanently in print – as they should be. However, although the story can be found as part of the recent Spirit Archive volume 24, this classy monochrome volume from much-missed independent publisher Kitchen Sink in 1983 released in both hardback and softcover, is by far a better reading experience.

Sometimes the Medium is the Message, especially when the artefact is a substantially solid tome delivering magical artwork in crisp, breathtaking black and white which details – not only in the reprinted strips but also sketches, incidental artwork and author’s breakdown layouts – the last and most striking saga of one of the world’s greatest fantasy characters.

From 1936 to 1938 Eisner worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the comics production firm 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 to be given away with the Sunday editions. Eisner jumped at the opportunity, creating three strips which would initially be handled by him before two of them were handed off to his talented assistants. Bob Powell inherited Mr. Mystic and distaff detective Lady Luck fell into the capable hands of Nick Cardy (then still Nicholas Viscardi) and later the inimitable Klaus Nordling.

Eisner kept the lead feature for his own playground 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.

For the final year or so the bulk of Spirit tales were produced by other hands with assistant Jules Feiffer handling the bulk of the scripts and diverse artists producing the art. Feiffer preferred to map out his episodes in rough pencil with word balloons and captions fully scripted: once approved by Eisner the roughs would then be interpreted by the assigned artist for the individual episodes. The long-term plan was not to cancel The Spirit but to redefine it for a new decade and expand the Eisner studio/company beyond and around it – but that’s not quite how it played out.

As seen in the scholarly introduction by Cat Yronwoode and Eisner’s own director’s commentary ‘Reminiscence’, the plans to reposition The Spirit were not welcomed by the client papers buying the strip; the creators handling the feature had different creative goals and drives and Eisner himself couldn’t quite let go of his precious baby.

Even though society and comicbooks were wildly in love with the bold new genre of space opera science fiction and Eisner had previously dabbled with the form in a few previous adventures, a large number of Spirit clients and readers did not want any â€œflying saucer spacey stuffâ€ on their Sunday funnies pages. Moreover the brilliantly sardonic, existentialist and sensitively satirical Feiffer was approaching the tales in a bleak, almost nihilistic way, emphasising existentialist isolation, human frailty and the passing of an era rather than rugged he-men with hot babes in bikinis and fishbowl helmetsâ€¦

After a succession of fill-in draughtsmen Wally Wood was selected as artist, a stunningly gifted imaginer who had been reaching unparalleled heights with his work for EC and other comicbook Sci Fi publishers. Wood had actually begun his professional career on the Spirit in the 1940s as a letterer and was fantastically keen on the new project, but the merciless deadlines and his overwhelming desire to surmount his own high standards soon had the saga experiencing deadline problems on top of everything elseâ€¦

After the text features, the first episode ‘Outer Space’ begins, preceded as are most of the strips here by Feiffer’s meticulous and detailed script layouts. First appearing on Sunday, July 27^th 1952, it saw Denny Colt, The Spirit, managing a crew of convict volunteers on an American rocketship to the moon, at the insistent request of eminent space scientist Professor Hartley Skol. However this was a new hero for an uncertain age. The tough, fun-loving, crime-fighting daredevil had become a cautious, introspective leader, feeling fully the weight of his mission and the burden of unwelcome responsibilities.

‘Mission: the Moon’ (August 3^rd 1952), follows Colt, Professor Skol and the pardoned felons onto the satellite’s barren surface and recounts the Spirit’s first victory as he heads off a potential mutiny with reason, not force, whilst ‘A DP on the Moon’ reveals how closely Eisner still monitored the series.

DP’s were â€œDisplaced Personsâ€ a common term in the post-war world, and when the explorers find a diary in the lunar dust, it reveals that the world’s greatest dictator and his inner circle fled to the moon to escape Allied justice. Unfortunately they could not outrun their own paranoia and madnessâ€¦

In the original script and finished art the diarist is Adolf Hitler, but the grim fate that befell his fellow Nazis was altered at the very last moment by Eisner, who felt the plot already old hat. Swift retouching transformed Der Fuehrer into fictitious Latin American dictator Francisco Rivera and the revised version ran on August 10^th 1952. It still reads well but if you look carefully those uniforms in the background flashbacks are hauntingly familiarâ€¦

With ‘Heat on the Moon’ the deadline crunch hit, and one and a half pages of spectacular Lunar exploration by Wood abruptly segue to a â€œmeanwhile back on Earthâ€ scene by Eisner, featuring Chief Dolan, daughter Ellen and a criminal with a vested interest in assuring that at least one of the moon volunteers isn’t pardoned.

Following their first fatality the mission began to go swiftly awry and ‘Rescue’ (the instalments now cut to only four pages in an attempt to fight the deadline doom) saw another body-blow to the expedition. Defeated and demoralised Spirit decided to return the survivors to Earthâ€¦

‘The Last Man on the Moon’ depicted the launch from the moon as on Earth another gangster attempted to scotch the return trip. The mission, clearly cursed, suffered one more disaster as a convict sneaks away before take-off, becoming, with the September 7^th episode ‘The Man in the Moon’.

On September 14^th the inevitable occurred and the feature was forced to run a modified reprint (‘The Amulet of Osiris’ from the late 1940s) before Wood resurfaced to illustrate the philosophically barbed ‘Return from the Moon’ on September 21^st. As Denny Colt and the remaining lunar-nauts debate the nature of reality, Eisner stepped in with the help of Al Wenzel to produce ‘The Return’ a hasty wrap-up that still found room for a close encounter with a flying saucer.

A scheduling blip saw an alternate version of the return a week later (not included here) and the last episode ‘Denny Colt, UFO Investigator’ ran on October 5^th 1952: an inconclusive new beginning illustrated by Klaus Nordling. The strip died with that episode as Eisner, increasingly occupied with military work, and bleeding client-papers, terminated the feature.

But that isn’t quite the end: this book also includes in various forms what would have been the next three chapters, discovered in Eisner’s extensive file vault in the early 1980s. First is a fully lettered Feiffer layout, followed by a sequence of lettered pages prior to the art being drawn and the first (and only) typed script from assigned new creator Nordling.

Tense, suspenseful, dark and fearsomely compelling, these are the stories that killed off the Spirit for nearly two decades, but today they stand as a mini-masterpiece of modern comics storytelling that was quite simply, too far advanced for its audience. For we survivors of Cold War, Space Race and Budget-cut scientific exploration they are a chilling and intensely prophetic examination of human nature in a Brave New World rendered with all the skill and frantic passion of some of comics’ greatest talents.

December 24, 2010December 22, 2010

Dungeon: Monstres volume 3: Heartbreaker

By Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim, Carlos Nine & Patrice Killoffer, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-591-7

This slim tome is yet another instalment in the ongoing, eccentric, raucous and addictively wacky franchise that is the best thing to have happened to fantasy storytelling in decades. The Dungeon saga is subdivided into Early Years, Zenith, and Twilight as well as Dungeons Parade and the Monstres of this particular review.

The inhabitants of this weirdly surreal universe include every kind of anthropomorphic beast and bug as well as monsters, demons, smart-alecs and stroppy women-folk. There’s always something happening and it’s usually quite strangeâ€¦

The nominal star is a duck with a magic sword which forces him to channel dead heroes and monsters, but at the time of the first story Herbert of Craftiwich is yet to become Grand Khan and supreme overlord of a dying, burning world. For increased clarity a quick glance at Dungeon – the Early Years (Volume 2: Innocence Lost to be specific) would be beneficial.

In ‘Heartbreaker’, the lead story in this beautifully exotic compilation, the setting is the debauched, bureaucratised and grimly frenetic urban hellhole of Antipolis wherein serpentine lady-assassin Alexandra reveals her cynically jaded, tragically baroque past in a bizarrely beautiful account of the inescapable corruption at the heart of the city and its Guilds.

Without warning the tale shifts to her betrayal, incarceration and escape from horrendous suffering and her response to a world that could make her the creature she irrevocably isâ€¦

Evocatively illustrated by guest artist Carlos Nine the darkly disturbing odyssey is followed by a flamboyantly bright and deceptively garish self-contained undersea saga ‘The Depths’ which looks like the most pleasing kids fantasy everâ€¦

But it most certainly isn’t.

Set decades later when Herbert is the Khan, it focuses on aquatic princess Drowny (who looks like a wide-eyed purple tadpole) as she narrowly escapes death when a gang of assassins mistake her family’s home for their intended target. With her loved ones murdered Drowny hides in plain sight, disguising herself as one of the intruders. Enduring heartbreak and degradation she accidentally rises to a position of power and influence in the invading army which has struck a foul deal with the Khan’s son to conquer the planet and divide the world above and below between them.

Always looking for a way to return to her own people, when her chance comes, Drowny is faced with a crushing revelationâ€¦

Superbly realised – the creators have really thought about how characters would act and interact underwater – the lush colour and incredibly imaginative creature designs of Patrice Killoffer add a cartoon fantasy sheen to the proceedings which utterly belies the stark, horrific tale of the depths a decent person will sink to for revengeâ€¦

Comprising two translated French albums ‘Creve-Coeur’ and ‘Les Profondeurs’ this is another strikingly surreal, earthy, sharp, mordant, poignant and brilliantly outlandish tome that’s a joy to read with vibrant, wildly eccentric art moody as Sin City and jolly as Rupert Bear.

Definitely for broad-minded grown-ups with young hearts, Dungeon is a near-the-knuckle, over-the-top, illicit experience which addicts at first sight, but for a fuller comprehension – and added enjoyment – I’d advise buying all the various incarnations.
Â© 2004 Trondheim-Sfar-Nine-Killoffer-Guy Delcourt Productions. English translation Â© 2010 NBM. All rights reserved.

December 16, 2010December 18, 2010

What I Did

By Jason, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-414-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect for anybody who wants something a little different in their stocking â€¦ Â 8/10

John Arne SaeterrÃ¸y, who works under the pen-name Jason, was born in Molde, Norway in 1965, and appeared on the international cartoonists’ scene at age 30 with his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) subsequently winning Norway’s biggest comics prize, the Sproing Award for 1995.

He won another Sproing in 2001 for his self-generated comic series Mjau Mjau – from which all the tales in this latest magical collection are culled – before turning almost exclusively to producing graphic novels in 2002. Now a global star among the cognoscenti he has won several major awards from such disparate regions as France, Slovakia and the USA.

This latest hardback compilation gathering ‘Hey, Waitâ€¦’, ‘Sshhhh!’ and ‘The Iron Wagon’ first appeared in Mjau Mjau between 1997 and 2001, and the volume opens with an eerie and glorious paean to boyhood friendships as young Bjorn and Jon enjoy a life of perfect childhood until a tragic accident ends the idyll forever. Life however, goes on, but for one of the lads it’s an existence populated from then on with ghosts and visionsâ€¦

Jason’s work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, using the beastly and unnatural to gently pose eternal questions about basic human needs in a soft but relentless quest for answers. That you don’t ever notice the deep stuff because of the clever gags and safe, familiar â€œfunny-animalâ€ characters should indicate just how good a cartoonist he isâ€¦

‘Sshhhh!’ is a delightfully evocative romantic melodrama created without words: a bittersweet tale of boy-bird meeting girl-bird in a world overly populated with spooks and ghouls and skeletons but afflicted far more harshly by loneliness and regret.

These comic tales are strictly for adults but allow us all to look at the world through wide-open young eyes. This is especially true of the final tale in this collection – a sly and beguiling adaptation of a classic detective story from 1909, but enhanced to a macabre degree by the easy cartooning and skilled use of silence and moment.

‘The Iron Wagon’ is a clever, enthralling and deeply dark mystery yarn originally written by Stein Riverton, and has the same quality of cold yet harnessed stillness which makes the Swedish television adaptations of Henning Mankell’s Wallander so superior to the English-language interpretations.

Jason’s stylised artwork is delivered in formalised page layouts rendered in a minimalist evolution of HergÃ©’s Claire Ligne style, solid blacks, thick lines and settings of seductive simplicity augmented here by stunning Deep Red overlays to enhance the Hard Black and Genteel White he usually prefers.

In the coastal retreat of Hvalen a desperate author is haunted by ghosts and nightmares but the townsfolk are all too engrossed with the death of the game warden on the Gjaernes Estate to notice or care. The family seems cursed with troubles. First the old man was lost at sea, now the murder of Warden Blinde just as he was betrothed to Hilde Gjaernes blights the farm. People are talking, saying it’s all the fault of the long dead grandfather who lost his fortune and life dabbling with weird inventionsâ€¦

Even now sensitive souls still hear his accursed Iron Wagon roaring through the night, presaging another death in the villageâ€¦

Luckily there are more sensible folk abroad to summon a detective from Kristiania (Oslo), but AsbjÇ¿rn Krag is not the kind of policeman anybody was expecting and as the young writer becomes enmired in the horrific unfolding events he realises that not only over-imaginative fools hear things.

In the depths of the night’s stillness he too shudders at the roaring din of the Iron Wagonâ€¦

Moody, suspenseful and utterly engrossing this would be a terrific yarn even without Jason’s superbly understated art, but in combination the result is dynamite.

This collection, despite being early works resonates with the artist’s preferred themes and shines with his visual dexterity. It’s one of Jason’s very best and will warm the cockles of any fan’s heart.

December 15, 2010December 18, 2010

Blabworld #1

By various, edited by Monte Beauchamp (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-746-4

For decades Monte Beauchamp’s iconic and innovative narrative and graphic arts magazine Blab! has highlighted the best and most groundbreaking trends and trendsetters in cartooning and other popular creative fields. Initially published through the auspices of the much missed Dennis Kitchen’s Kitchen Sink Press it moved over to Fantagraphics and now it has resurfaced, reformed in a snazzy hardback annual format from Last Gasp.

As ever there is an eclectic and eye-popping mix of strips, articles and features on show and Blabworld #1 opens with a gloriously enchanting sequence of paintings describing everything you wanted to know about ‘Slime Moulds’ crafted by Geoffrey Grahn, after which Kari Laine McCluskey enchants and disturbs with a series of toy and doll photomontages entitled ‘Colloidion’.

Greg Clarke delivers a droll and dry assault on the obsessive ownership mentality with ‘The Neurotic Art Collector’, Bill North examines youth’s most popular graphic symbol in ‘Skull!’ – an article tracing the use of the memento mori in popular publishing with loads of cool covers to ogle and covet – and Nora Krug relates in unique cartoon manner ‘Quicksand: The Tumultuous Life of Isabelle Eberhardt’, before cover artist Shag delivers another magically hip gag on the consumer society.

The major central portion of this volume is devoted to magnificent artworks in a variety of media from a stellar collection of artists grouped together under the umbrella theme of ‘Artpocalypse’:

Ron English contributed ‘The Creation of Evolution’, Ryan Heshka depicted ‘The Rapture’, Owen Smith showed ‘Fin’ and Jean-Pierre Roy revealed ‘No Secrets Left From Us.’ ‘Beyond the Fence’ came via Martin Wittfooth, Kathleen Lolly showed ‘Knowledge Dies Too’ and Andy Kehoe painted ‘When the Last Leaf Falls’. Andrea Dezso contributed ‘Strangely Normal’, Natalia Fabia ‘Hooker in the Apocalypse’, Karen Barbour ‘Lamentations Over the Merciless Void’, Edel Rodriguez ‘Farewell to Grace’ and Fred Stonehouse ‘Dream of St. John’.

‘Well-Matched Lovers’ by Marc Burckhardt is followed by Femke Hiemstra’s ‘Hayano & Koheu’, Calef Brown’s ‘Endtime Tigerbird’, Larry Day’s ‘Rapture in Birdville’ and underground commix legend Spain Rodriguez delivers a glimpse of ‘2012’.

Lowbrow art virtuoso Mark Ryden displays his ‘End of the World’, Yoko D’Holbachie contributes ‘Final Farewell’, Gary Basemen ‘Another Average Day’, Alex Gross ‘Jozaikai (Purgatory)’, Sue Coe ‘Revenge of the Swine’, Sofia Arnold ‘Smoke Cave’ and Gary Taxali illuminates both ‘End World’ and ‘Rapture’.

‘Armageddon Flub’ by Travis Lampe, John Pound predicts ‘All Things Must Fall’, Kris Kuksi conducts ‘An Opera for the Apocalypse’ and Ryan Heshka returns to deliver a ‘Flaming End’ (as well as the mesmerising back cover).

Michael Noland reveals the ‘Revelation Roaches’, Teresa James collects ‘Weapons of Divine Power’, and Tom Huck a ‘Pile O’ Poon’ before Joe Sorren wraps it all up with ‘The Secret Collapse of Miss Lorraine’.

After the art show Sergio Ruzzier takes up the comic strip baton with a mercurial watercolour saga entitled ‘The Life of an Artist’, designer Steven Heller explores the hypnotic cover art of R. Crumb in ‘Covering Weirdo’ whilst James Lowe relates the astounding history of ‘Propaganda Caricature Art of World War II’ in ‘Axe the Axis!’ before Mark Landman amuses and offends with the story of ‘Fetal Elvis’ Art Empire’.

Steven Guarnaccia adapts Julia Moores poem ‘Lament on the Death of Willie’, Mark Todd details the sordid horror of ‘The Dreaded Mothman of West Virginia’ and ‘Ballpoint Bravura: Drawings by CJ Pyle’ spotlights the incredible dexterity and imagination of the rock drummer turned graphic craftsman with superstar Peter Kuper dramatically closing out this first fantastic happening with his appropriately apocalyptic strip ‘Four Horsemen’

There has never been a more vibrant and exciting time for lavish imaginative art and cutting edge graphic narrative and this superb catalogue of marvels is sure to become a watchword for what to watch out for.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: