Category: Mature Reading

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The Witching Hour


By Jeph Loeb, Chris Bachalo & Art Thibert (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-251-6

I gather a new edition of this dark little treat is imminent so here’s a quick graphic novel review to whet your appetites and prime your bank accounts…

The original title the Witching Hour was a quirky, highly readable anthology comic from DC’s 1970s horror/mystery stable, with the early issues particularly memorable due to some extremely tasty contributions from arch-stylist Alex Toth. The pithy, spooky, mordantly ironic yarns were recounted by three iconic hosts representing the Wiccan concept of maiden, mother and crone and nominally based on the Weird sisters from Macbeth: namely Cynthia, Mildred and Mordred. The series ran from 1969 to 1978.

In 1999, with the company’s Vertigo imprint successfully reinventing the horror comic month by month, a number of old properties were given the proverbial fresh spin and Jeph Loeb and Chris Bachalo produced a delightfully dark, character-driven mystery yarn as a three issue prestige-format miniseries, promptly collected in a volume that unjustly vanished with nary a ripple of comment. Hopefully this time out it will garner some better press and attention…

In Manhattan, vivacious, exotic Amanda Collins visits a disparate, desperate selection of characters, daring them to trade-in their pasts and seize new futures. Dispensing blank business-cards and new realities to the lost, lonely and dangerous with but a wish, she seems the epitome of wild chance and missed opportunities, but Amanda too is a prisoner of the past, with a sorcerous heritage reaching back to 1660 and a romantic clash between Christian propriety and pagan license.

As other mysterious mystics also enfold fate-touched mortals in some enigmatic grand scheme – are they Amanda’s coven comrades or opponents in some grand game? – a centuries old debt is assessed… and perhaps repaid…

Vague as that sounds, it is all you need for this complex, intriguing, savage, seductive, sexy and addictively arcane experiment in sequential story-telling. The connections linking Amanda to her own past, her witchly companions and all the apparent innocents who accept her highly suspicious offer are deliberately obscure; thus the tale unfolds on a multitude of levels and the reader actually has to engage the brain to divine the hidden secrets of the Witching Hour.

Bachalo’s art is magic of the purely pictorial kind: as light and airy as clouds and deeply, densely, information-packed like a favourite grimoire. The section collecting his design sketches are sleek and pretty, everything an art-lover could want to see.

This is a book that washes over you like a wave, all mood and moment, and will offer a rare challenge for adult readers tired of being spoon-fed their fiction-fix.

© 1999, 2000 Jeph Loeb and Chris Bachalo. All rights reserved.

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The Question volume 5: Riddles


By Dennis O’Neil, Denys Cowan, Bill Wray & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-513-5

This is a saga about dysfunction and a search for answers: Social, societal, political, emotional, familial and even methodological. The normal masked avenger tactics don’t work in a “real”-er world, and some solutions require better Questions…

Challenging Western dystopia with Eastern thought and martial arts action is not a new concept but O’Neil’s focus on cultural and social problems rather than histrionic super-heroics make this series a truly philosophical work, and Cowan’s raw, edgy art imbues this darkly adult, powerfully sophisticated thriller with a maturity that is simply breathtaking.

This fifth collection (reprinting issues #25-30) picks up from the shock ending of The Question: Welcome to Oz with ‘Skells’ illustrated by Cowan & Malcolm Jones III. New Mayor Myra Fermin-Connelly has been gunned down by her drunken, brain-addled husband and lies in a coma. Due to a quirk of Hub City law, with both current candidates unable to take office, the incumbent – despite being wanted for attempted murder – is technically next-in-line, and therefore de facto Mayor…

The tornado that struck the city on Election Day has finished the job begun by years of corruption and the gang warfare of the campaign. Hub City is a billion-dollar disaster zone. All essential services have ceased, the surviving populace are either rioting, looting or hiding. Food and water are running out.

State authorities are unwilling to step in and the urban hell-hole is poised to become a purely Darwinian jungle (this storyline probably inspired Batman’s ‘No Man’s Land’ publishing event) but all the Question wants to do is hunt down Myra’s addled husband/killer…

‘Riddles’ is a strange and melancholy Christmas divertissement, from fill-in penciller Bill Wray and Jones III which sees the Riddler, fresh out of jail and in a slump, catch a bus to Hub City and a new start. Sadly he picks the wrong girl to chat up and the result is the bloodiest and most senseless night of his life. It’s a genuine Christmas miracle that Vic Sage and Professor Rodor are on the same road that night…

With the city in turmoil, Myra in a coma, and no foe he can hit, The Question is helpless, but when the Prof reveals that his long-lost brother was a comic book artist in the 1940s it leads them all on a quasi-mystic quest which just might provide the mauled metropolis with its first glimmer of hope and recovery. ‘Captain Stars & Sergeant Stripes’ is illustrated by Cowan and Jones III, with Golden Age pastiche pages from Rick Stasi & Terry Beatty.

The last three tales here, also limned by Cowan and Jones, form an extended epic as the lethal Lady Shiva (see The Question: Zen and Violence) returns. Myra has emerged from her coma and taken charge, but with no resources and open warfare on the streets she is forced to take some extraordinary measures to restore order. In ‘A Place for the Arts’ Shiva, drawn to the chaos and ever-hungry to test her martial arts skills, offers her murderous services to one of the gangs trying to take over what’s left of Hub City, only to have her potential employers snatched from her as the new Lady Mayor convinces the warring thugs to become her new police force…

Incredibly disaster seems to have been averted until in ‘The Slaying’ one of the rival gang-lords is stabbed at a peace-conference and the Faceless Inquisitor has a murder to solve before the last remnants of hope are swallowed by renewed bloodshed. ‘Whodunit’ reveals all, but as is always the case in this superb series the answers are far from neat, tidy or satisfactory, and as always a moral and philosophical pall clouds the issues. And like a ghost Shiva stalks the city, ambivalent, ambiguous, unfathomable in her private purposes…

Like life, The Question never produces easy answers…

Bleak, brutal, confrontational and mordantly action-packed these tales come from one of DC’s very best series, and they form a perfect snapshot in comics history of a hugely creative and historically significant time. These graphic novels demonstrate just how evocative sequential narrative can be and no fan of serious fun literature or mature, sensitive escapism can afford to miss them.

© 1989, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Abandoned Cars


By Tim Lane (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-341-5

Tim Lane is a post-war American. His inner landscape is populated with B-Movies, Rock and Roll, junk-memorabilia, big cars with fins, old television shows, Jack Kerouac, the seven ages of Marlon Brando, pulp fictions, young Elvis, distilled Depression-era experiences (all of them from “The Great” to the latest), black and white images on TV, a loss of faith in old values, Mad Avenue propaganda, compromised ideals and frustrated dreams. He calls that oh, so plunderable societal gestalt and psychic landscape “The Great American Mythological Drama”, and in this first collection of his stark, intriguing comic strips he dips deep and concocts his own striking contributions to the Great Double Martini of Life…

Many modern Americans are using that shared popular culture to create new paintings and sculptures (see any of the numerous “lowbrow” or “pop surrealist” tomes by Schorr, Ryden, Ledbetter et al that we’ve reviewed here over the last few months) but Lane has eschewed the gallery art arena for his explorations, opting instead for the only true American medium of expression, the story, and toils bombastically in its ugly bastard offspring – Comics.

He draws in stunning black and white: hard-edged, uncompromising and enticingly moody, and these short stories, vignettes, observations and sequential investigations are far from the usual stock of funnies.

The contents here are culled from a number of sources such as Legal Action Comics, Hotwire, Typhon, Riverfront Times and his self-published magazine Happy Hour in America from 2003 to 2008, and range from tales of dark, eccentric whimsy (‘American Cut-Out Collectibles’, ‘The Manic-Depressive from Another Planet’ and ‘The Aries Cow’) to philosophically charged musings (‘Ghost Road’, ‘To Be Happy’ and ‘The Drive Home’), Pop cultural pastiches (‘Outing’ and ‘Doo-Wop and Planet Earth’ ) fascinating autobiography and reportage (‘Spirit’ parts 1-3, ‘In My Dream’ and ‘You Are Here: the Story of Stagger Lee’) to just plain old-fashioned noir-tinted thrillers like ‘Cleveland’ and  ‘Sanctuary’.

The book also contains numerous untitled, enigmatic and addictive short pieces, and for my money the most evocative and powerful piece herein is an all but wordless, two-page rumination on age and loss: ‘Those Were Good Years’. You’d have to be made of stone to be unmoved…

Crafting comics is clearly not a job or hobby for Lane. Serious artists have always struggled to discover greater truths through their creative response to the world, and he has obviously found his instrument in black line on white and his muse in the shabby, avuncular, boisterous, scary detritus of our everyday, blue-collar communal past. The result is stunning and highly intoxicating.

Questing, introspective, insightful and as desperately inquiring as the young Bob Dylan, with as many questions, even fewer answers and just as much lasting, life-altering entertainment to be derived…

Why haven’t you got this book yet?

© 2003 – 2008, 2010 Tim Lane. All rights reserved.

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The Question volume 4: Welcome to Oz


By Dennis O’Neil, Denys Cowan, Rick Magyar & various III (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-84856-328-5

The Question, created by Steve Ditko, was Vic Sage, a driven, obsessed reporter who sought out crime and corruption irrespective of the consequences. This Charlton ‘Action-Hero’ was purchased by DC when Charlton folded in 1983 and was the template for the compulsive Rorschach when Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons first drafted the miniseries that would become the groundbreaking Watchmen.

An ordinary man pushed to the edge by his obsessions, Sage used his fists and a mask that made him look utterly faceless to get answers (and justice) whenever normal journalistic methods failed. After a few minor successes around the DC universe Sage got a job in the town where he grew up.

Hub City (purportedly based on East St Louis) was a hell-hole, the most corrupt and morally bankrupt municipality in America. Mayor Wesley Fermin was a degenerate drunken sot and the real power was insane cleric Reverend Jeremiah Hatch. When Sage started cleaning house as The Question he was “killed”, rescued and resurrected by the inscrutable Shiva – the World’s deadliest assassin.

Crippled, he journeyed into the wilderness to be healed and trained by O’Neil’s other legendary martial arts creation, Richard Dragon.

It’s a new type of hero who returned to Hub City, philosophical rather than angry, but still cursed with a drive to understand how things universally go bad. The city has degenerated even further. Sage’s girlfriend is now Mayor Fermin’s wife, and crime and chaos are everywhere…

This fourth collection (reprinting issues #19-24 of the seminal 1980s series) brings to a head many of the dark plot threads that have been with the series since its inception. With Fermin permanently drunk and oblivious Sage has renewed his affair with Myra, even whilst she is running for her husband’s job.

Closet racist Royal Dinsmore has better ways of winning the race than smearing his opponent, but thanks to an extremely disturbed good citizen those plans are exposed in ‘The Plastic Dilemma’ (illustrated by Denys Cowan & Rick Magyar) and Myra refuses the financial support of a particularly unwholesome millionaire backer, whilst the emotional impact of her affair with Sage is revealed in ‘Send in the Clowns’ (an all-Magyar art job) a brutal tale of freaks, greed and prejudice.

Dick Giordano inks Cowan in ‘Rejects’ as psychopathic Junior Musto, returns (see The Question: Zen and Violence) to take a hospital hostage, demanding a heart transplant for the father who abused and tried to destroy him. That Greek tragedy leads into the main event…

‘Election Day (by Cowan & Malcolm Jones III): The Fix’ begins an agonising comedy of political errors as Dinsmore’s plan to steal the election is thwarted and he resorts to hiring a gang of Bikers to prevent the populace from voting – a t least those who can be bothered to turn out.

All the while Myra is having heartrending second thoughts. She doesn’t want to win but can’t afford to let a monster like Dinsmore gain control of her city. In the background her sot husband lurks; drunk deranged, bitter: clutching a bottle and a gun…

Some disquieting historical facts about Hub City are revealed in ‘Election Day: Welcome to Oz’ as the situation worsens. Open warfare in the streets is compounded by the arrival of a tornado that smashes most of the city to rubble, and the terrible conclusion ‘Election Day: The Dark’ sees Dinsmore defeated by a last-minute Machiavellian masterstroke from Vic Sage.

Mrya becomes the new Mayor of the biggest, most corrupt pile of rubble in America. A shot rings out…

Even ending on such a painful cliffhanger is grudgingly acceptable when the work is of such sterling quality and these eccentric epics are as readable now as they ever were. Complex characters, a very mature depiction of the struggle between Good and Evil using Eastern philosophy and very human prowess to challenge crime, corruption, abuse, neglect and complacency would seem to be a recipe for heady but dull reading yet these stories by one of the American industry’s greatest wordsmiths, and especially the mythic martial arts action delineated by Denys Cowan are gripping beyond belief and constantly challenge any and all preconceptions. So grab this book; absorb, enjoy and then move briskly on to the next volume.

I’m going to…

© 1988, 1989, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Files of Ms. Tree volume 2: The Cold Dish


By Max Collins & Terry Beatty with Gary Kato (Renegade Press)
No ISBN: 0-919359-05-1

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 crime stories are desperately short of female protagonists. Marry that with the observation that “gum-shoe” 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 – is quality.

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

She soon won a 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 giant-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 2007 Collins released a classy prose novel, “Deadly Beloved” about his troubled troubleshooter, but thus far the Files of Ms. Tree volumes are the only place to find the collected exploits of this superb crime-stopper.

In the first volume I, For an Eye and Death Do Us Part we briefly met Mike Tree, a legendary private detective who married his secretary and partner Mike Friday, only to be murdered on their wedding night.

The new Mrs. Tree hunted down his killer, setting herself on a path of vengeance and blood. On the way she uncovered a vast web of corruption and made an eternal enemy of Mob boss Dominic Muerta, becoming locked in a bloody vendetta. She also discovered her dead husband’s previous wife and a son who was painfully like his departed dad…

This second volume, released in 1985 and reprinting her adventures from issues #4-8, has fewer behind-the-scenes extras and commentary but does include another colour cover gallery and an all-new and nasty illustrated prose short story, ‘The Little Woman’ to supplement the darkly engaging title tale.

Gary Kato joined the team as letterer and art assistant Beatty’s drawing took on a seductively Steve Ditko-like appearance whilst the drama became increasingly terse in ‘The Right to Remain Silent…’ and ‘No Use Crying’ as Mike Tree’s other wife briefly returns, begging Ms Tree to take her son into protective custody. She is murdered days later and as the detective spirits Mike Jr. away his grandparents violently disapprove, and Dominic Muerta sends an unmistakable message …

‘Paying Respects’ and ‘Forgive Her Trespasses’ introduces a new cast member, ex-SAS child protection expert Mr. Hand, to baby-sit the resentful boy whilst Ms Tree delivers a message of her own to Muerta, and the mystery deepens in ‘To the Slaughter’ as another viable suspect to Anne Tree’s murder appears – and bloodily expires, whilst in ‘Urbane Renewal’ the body count and suspect list rises again.

The action intensifies when Ms. Tree’s closest ally is blown up in ‘Visiting Hours’ and a vigil by his bedside leads to another grisly attempt on her life. ‘Knee-Deep in Death’ and ‘Accounts Payable’ finally provides the missing motive for the ongoing bloodbath, but with Mr. Hand attacked and Mike Jr. missing it might be all too late…

After all the Hitchcockian suspense the carnage and conundrums brilliantly culminate in ‘Murder-Go-Round’, a spectacular showdown that would do Sam Peckinpah proud…

Despite the tragic scenarios, ruthless characterisations and high body-count, this is another clever, funny affair steeped in the lore of detective fiction, stuffed with in-jokes for the cognoscenti (such as the unspoken conceit that the heroine Mike Friday is the daughter of legendary TV cop Joe “Dragnet” Friday or that in fiction absolutely no one can be trusted) and dripping in the truly magical gratification factor that shows complete scum finally get what’s coming to them…

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 these superb thrillers and pray someone has the street smarts to bring her back for good…
© 1983, 1984, 1985 Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty. All Rights Reserved.

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Penny Century (Las Locas volume 4)


By Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-342-2

Please pay attention: this book contains stories and images of an extremely adult nature, specifically designed for adult consumption and the kind of coarse and vulgar language that most kids are fluent in by the age of ten. If reading about such things is likely to offend you, please stop now and go away. I’ll be back with far more wholesome, family friendly and acceptable violence and explosions tomorrow. So come back then.

Love and Rockets is an anthology comics publication that originally featured slick, intriguing, sci-fi-ish larks, heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies and bold experimental comic narratives that pretty much defied classification, all wrapped up in the ephemera of the LA Hispanic and punk music scene. The synthesistic Hernandez Bros joyously plundered their own relatively idyllic childhoods to captivate with incredible stories that sampled a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from comics and TV through alternative music to German Expressionism and masked wrestlers.

Jaime Hernandez was always the most visible part of the graphic and literary revolution that is Love and Rockets, his slick, seductive, clean black line and beautiful composition, not to mention impeccably rendered heroes and villains and the comfortingly recognisable comic book iconography, being particularly welcomed by readers weaned on traditional Marvel and DC superheroes.

However his love of that material, as well as the best of Archie Comics cartoonists (I often see shades of the great Sam Schwartz and Harry Lucey in his drawing and staging), accomplished and enticing as it is, often distracted from the power of his writing, especially in his extended saga of Maggie Chascarillo and Hopey Glass – Las Locas.

Palomar was the conceptual and cultural playground of brother Gilberto, whilst Jaime initially began with a fantasy-tinged adventure serial (as seen in volume #1 ‘Maggie the Mechanic’) which eventually evolved into a prolonged examination of love and friendship as Maggie and Hopey, chums since childhood and occasional lovers, drifted into and away from each other over the years. The later stories also yielded focus to an increasing number of truly unique friends and acquaintances…

This volume ostensibly stars Hopey’s lifelong friend and wild child Beatriz Garcia who meticulously reinvented herself as the cosmic starlet and ambiguous super-heroine Penny Century, but the whole utterly magnetic cast are on board for a series of revelatory tales, casting light on both the shadowy histories and portentous futures as Maggie and Hopey approach middle age – still beautiful, still feisty but not really that much wiser…

Collected from the spin-offs and miniseries ‘Whoa Nellie!’, ‘Maggie and Hopey Color Fun’ and ‘Penny Century’ produced between 1996 and 2002, the pageant of wonders begins with a disturbingly compelling side-trip into the world of women’s wrestling, following the lives and glory-days of two women as they strive to become tag-team champions: a visually mesmeric and touchingly poignant dissection of an extraordinary friendship.

The spotlight lands squarely on Hopey in the second extended tale as the older but no wiser wildcat revisits her good old days with Maggie, before the main event, told through a succession of short stories, commences. Beginning with two instalments of ‘Locas’, and three of ‘Penny Century’ the narrative is interspersed with nineteen fascinating complementary vignettes and sidebars such as ‘La Pantera Negra’, ‘Hopey Hop Sacks’, ‘Look Out’, ‘Chiller!’, ‘C’Mon Mom!’, and ‘Loser Leave Oxnard’ – the secret origins of most of the extended cast are laid bare in progressively more funny and tragic tales of missed opportunities and lost last chances…

Every bit as surreal and meta-fictional as brother Beto’s incredible tales of Luba and Palomar, Jaime’s continuing development as a writer both stirring and meaningful is a delight to experience, whilst his starkly beautiful drawing – even when he affectionately dabbles with other styles – is an utter joy. It’s an amazing trick to tell such wistful, insightful and even outright sad stories with so much genuine warmth and slapstick humour but this book easily pulls it all off.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll own one hell of a good book when you buy Penny Century… and you may regret it forever if you don’t.
© 2010 Gilbert Hernandez. All Rights Reserved.

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High Soft Lisp


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-318-7

Please pay attention: this book contains stories and images of an extremely adult nature, specifically designed for adult consumption and the kind of coarse and vulgar language that most kids are fluent in by the age of ten. If reading about such things is likely to offend you, please stop now and go away. Tomorrow I’ll write about something with violence and explosions, so come back then.

In addition to being part of the graphic and literary revolution that is Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly compulsive tales of Palomar and the later stories of those characters collected as Luba gained such critical acclaim) Gilbert Hernandez has produced stand-alone tales such as Sloth, Grip and Girl Crazy, all marked by his bold, instinctive, simplified line artwork and a mature, sensitive use of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has added to and made his own.

Love and Rockets is an anthology comics publication that features slick, intriguing, sci-fi-ish larks, heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasy and bold experimental comic narratives that pretty much defy classification. The synthesistic Hernandez Bros still captivate with incredible stories that sample a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Archie Comics and alternative music to German Expressionism and masked wrestlers.

Palomar was the conceptual and cultural playground of Gilberto, created for the extended serial Heartbreak Soup: a poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. Everything from life death, adultery, magic, serial killing and especially gossip could happen in the meta-fictional environs of Palomar, and did, as the artist explored his own post-punk influences, comics, music, drugs, comics, strong women, gangs, sex, family and comics, in a style that seemed informed by everything from Tarzan comics to Saturday morning cartoons and the Lucy Show.

Beto, as he signs himself, returns to Palomar constantly, usually with tales involving the formidable matriarch Luba, who ran the village’s bath house, acted as Mayor and sometimes police chief – as well as adding regularly and copiously to the general population. Her children, brought up with no acknowledged fathers in sight, are Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira, Socorro, Joselito and Concepcion.

Luba eventually migrated to the USA and reunited with her half-sisters Petra and the star of this volume, Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez. This collection was compiled from assorted material that first appeared in Love and Rockets volume II and Luba’s Comics and Stories, with some new pages and many others redrawn and rewritten.

Fritz is a terrifyingly complex creature, a psychiatrist, therapist, B-Movie actress, belly dancer, drunk, gun-fetishist, sexually aggressive and a manipulative serial spouse. Beautiful, enticingly damaged, with a possibly intentional speech impediment she sashays from crisis to triumph and back again, and this moving, shocking, funny chronicle uses the rambling recollections of one of her husbands, motivational speaker Mark Herrera, to follow her life from punkette outsider at High-School through her various career and family ups and downs.

Under the umbrella title of ‘Dumb Solitaire’ what purports to be the memoir of Senor Herrera reveals in scathing depth the troubled life of the woman he cannot stay away from, in an uncompromising and sexually explicit “documentary” which pulls no punches, makes no judgements and yet still manages to come off as a feel-good tale.

High Soft Lisp is the most intriguing depiction of feminine power and behaviour since Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – and probably just as controversial – with the added advantage of Beto’s intoxicating drawing adding shades of meaning that mere text just cannot impart.

Very funny, very moving, remarkable and unmissable: no mature fan of the medium can afford to miss this treat.

© 2010 Gilbert Hernandez. All Rights Reserved.

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The Files of Ms. Tree volume 1: I, For an Eye and Death Do Us Part


By Max Collins & Terry Beatty (Aardvark-Vanaheim)
ISBN: 0-919359-05-1

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 crime stories are desperately short of female protagonists. Marry that with the observation that “gum-shoe” 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 – is quality.

The black widow of detective fiction first appeared in 1981 as a serial in the groundbreaking black-and-white anthology comic Eclipse Magazine, along with a number of other quirky alternatives to the East Coast superheroes that had a stranglehold on American comics in the 1970s and early 1980s. Besides such gems as Sax Rohmer’s ‘Dope’ (adapted by Trina Robbins), Steve Englehart and Marshal Rogers’ ‘I Am Coyote’, Don McGregor & Gene Colan’s ‘Ragamuffins’, B.C. Boyer’s wonderful ‘Masked Man’ and a host of other gems from the industry’s finest, Max Allan Collins, crime novelist and new writer of the venerable Dick Tracy newspaper strip, with young humour cartoonist Terry Beatty introduced a cold, calculating and genuinely fierce avenger who put new gloss on the hallowed imagery and plot of the hard-bitten, hard-boiled shamus avenging a murdered partner…

She was one of the first features to win a solo title, Ms. Tree’s Thrilling Detective Stories which became simply Ms. Tree with the fourth issue. 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. Gone but not quickly forgotten she was promptly revived as a DC comic in 1990 for another 10 giant-sized issues as Ms. Tree Quarterly/ Ms. Tree Special; three more blood-soaked, mayhem-packed, morally challenging years of pure magic.

Astonishingly, as far as I know 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 2007 Collins released a classy prose novel, “Deadly Beloved” about his troubled troubleshooter, but thus far the Files of Ms. Tree volumes are the only place to find the collected exploits of this superb crime-stopper.

The first volume I, For an Eye and Death Do Us Part gathers the introductory tale from Eclipse Magazine #1-6 (May 1981-July 1982) and the first story-arc from Ms. Tree’s Thrilling Detective Stories #1-3 (August-December 1982), two chilling tales of regret and revenge, perfectly delivered as fair-play mystery tales. You might not be able to extract your own retribution, but if you’re smart enough you can solve the clues as fast as our heroine does…

In ‘I, For an Eye’ we briefly meet Mike Tree, a true icon of the detective profession: hard, tough, sharp and fair: an ex-cop who set up for himself and did well. At the peak of career he met Mike Friday, a feisty, clever, pistol-packing, two-fisted dame who quickly moved from secretary to full partner. They fell in love…

On their wedding night her husband was gunned down and the new Mrs. Tree set out to find his killer. Assuming control over their detective agency she used part of the staff to keep the business going but placed her husband’s… her… best people onto finding out why her man died. Together they uncovered a web of corruption and lies which included the fact that she was not the first Mrs. Tree. Mike had a previous wife and a son who’s painfully like his departed dad…

Gritty, witty and darkly relentless this tale of corruption and twisted friendship set the pace for all the ensuing adventures; a brilliant odyssey which peels like an onion, always showing that there’s still more to uncover…

Even after finding Mike’s killer and delivering the traditional vengeance in great style, the investigation revealed a higher mastermind behind it all, in the shape of mob boss Dominic Muerta, and the second tale ‘Death Do Us Part’ deals with the repercussions of Ms. Tree’s crusade against that psychotic grandee’s operations.

The unrelenting death and misery has taken its toll on the traumatised widow: she is in therapy but when that doesn’t work she takes a holiday to a distant honeymoon resort. She even finds a new lover. However when the newlyweds in the next cabin are murdered by a hit-man Tree realises that she is trapped on a path that can only lead to more death…

Adult, astute, and enchantingly challenging, this second drama is full of plot twists and clever set-pieces that will charm and enthrall crime fans of every persuasion and the art by Beatty is a sheer revelation. Static and informative, remorselessly matter-of-fact and deadly in its cold efficiency – a quality which might be off-putting to some but which so perfectly matches the persona of its pitiless star that I can’t imagine any other style working at all.

This volume, released in 1984, is stuffed with behind-the-scenes extras and commentary from both creators, including a colour cover gallery, and as an added bonus, an original illustrated prose short-story ‘Red Light’, a terse thriller that perfectly supplements the grim mood of the book.

Despite the tragic scenarios, ruthless characterisations and high body-count, this is a clever, funny affair steeped in the lore of detective fiction, stuffed with in-jokes for the cognoscenti (such as the unspoken conceit that the heroine Mike Friday is the daughter of legendary TV cop Joe “Dragnet” Friday) and dripping in the truly magical gratification factor that shows complete scum finally get what’s coming to them…

Ms. Tree is the closest thing the American market has ever produced to challenge our own Queen of Adventure Modesty Blaise: how they can let her languish in graphic obscurity is a greater crime than any described in this compelling classic collection. Hunt it down for your pleasure and pray somebody has the great good sense to bring back Ms. Tree.
© 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 Max Collins and Terry Beatty. All Rights Reserved.

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Indian Summer


By Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt, translated by Jeff Lisle (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 0-87416-030-2-8

Hugo Eugenio Pratt (June 15th 1927 – August 20th 1995) was one of the world’s paramount comics creators, and his inventions since ‘Ace of Spades’ (whilst still a student at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts) in 1945 were both many and varied. His most famous character, based in large part on his own exotic early life, is the mercurial soldier - perhaps sailor would be more accurate – of fortune, Corto Maltese.

After working in both Argentinean and English comics for years Pratt returned to Italy in the 1960s. In 1967 he produced a number of series for the monthly comic Sgt. Kirk. In addition to the Western lead character, he created a pirate strip Capitan Cormorand, the detective strip Lucky Star O’Hara, and a moody South Seas adventure called Una Ballata del Mare Salato (A Ballad of the Salty Sea). The magazine folded in 1970, but Pratt took one of Ballata‘s characters to the French weekly, Pif, before eventually settling into the legendary Belgian comic Tintin. Corto Maltese proved as much a Wild Rover in reality as in his historic and eventful career.

However a storyteller of such vast capabilities as Pratt was ever-restless, and as well as writing and illustrating his own tales he has written for other giants of the industry. In 1983 he crafted a steamy tale of sexual tension and social prejudice set in the New England colonies in the days before the Salem Witch Trials.

Tutto ricominciò con un’estate Indiana (released and known as Indian Summer – although a more appropriate and illustrative translation would be “All things begin again with an Indian Summer”) was brought to stunning pictorial life by fellow Italian graphic raconteur Milo Manara.

Maurilio Manara (born September 12th 1945) is best known for his wry, controversial erotica – but that’s more an indicator of the English-speaking comics market than any artistic obsession; an intellectual, whimsical craftsman with a dazzling array of artistic skills ranging from architecture, product design, painting and of course an elegant, refined, clear-clean line style with pen and ink.

He studied painting and architecture before becoming a comic artist in 1969, beginning with the Fumetti Neri series Genius, worked on the magazine Terror and in 1971 began his erotic career illustrating Francisco Rubino’s Jolanda de Almaviva. In 1975 his first major work Lo Scimmiotto (‘The Ape‘ – a reworking of the Chinese tales of the Monkey King) was released.

By the end of the decade he was working for the Franco-Belgian markets where he is still regarded as a first-rank creator. It was while working for Charlie Mensuel, Pilote and L’Écho des savanes that he created his signature series HP and Giuseppe Bergman – which saw print in A Suivre. The “HP” of the title is his good friend Hugo Pratt…

New England in the 17th century: the Puritan village of New Canaan slowly grows in placid, if uneasy, co-existence with the natives who have fished and hunted these coastal regions for centuries. When young Shevah Black is raped by two young Indians, outcast Abner Lewis kills them both. Taking the “ruined” girl back to his mother’s cottage in the woods the girl meets the entire family – mother Abigail, siblings Jeremiah, Elijah and Phyllis – a whole brood of damned sinners banished by her uncle the Reverend Pilgrim Black.

The mother was once a servant in the Black household, but has lived in the woods for twenty years, ever since Pilgrim Black’s father raped her. When Abigail fell pregnant she was cast out for her sin. Her face bears a sinner’s brand. Aided by the Indians the mother built a cabin, and over the years had three further children. Her progeny are all wild creatures of nature; healthy, vital and with many close ties both to the natives (from choice) and the truly decadent Black family (by sordid, unwelcome history).

Now blood has spilled and passions are roused: none of those ties can prevent a bloodbath, and as the day progresses many dark secrets come to light as the intolerance, hypocrisy and raw, thwarted lust of the upstanding Christians leads to an inexorable clash with the Indians – by far the most sensible and decent individuals in the place – with the pitifully isolated, ostracized and alienated Lewis clan stuck in middle and betrayed by both…

Beautiful, disturbing and utterly compelling, this thoroughly adult examination of sexual tension, attitudinal eugenics and destructive, tragic love is played out against the seductive heat and primitive glories of a natural, plentiful paradise which only needs its residents to act more like beasts and less like humans to achieve a perfect tranquility. Sadly, every Eden has serpents and here there are three: religion, custom and pride…

Pratt’s passion for historical research is displayed by the graphic afterword in which he not only cites his extensive sources – including a link to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter – but adds some fascinating insights and speculations on the fates of the survivors of New Canaan massacre…

Although there is a 1994 NBM edition readily available I’m reviewing from my 1986 Catalan copy principally because I own that one, but also because the Catalan copy has a magnificent four-page foldout watercolour cover (which I couldn’t fit onto my scanner no matter how I tried) and some pretty amazing sketches and watercolour studies gracing Javier Coma’s insightful introduction.

This is a classic tale of humanity frailty, haunting, dark and startlingly lovely. Whatever version you find, you must read this superb story.
© 1986 Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt. English language edition © 1986 Catalan Communications. All Rights Reserved.

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Vatican Hustle


By Greg Houston (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-571-9

The zeitgeist of the moment seems to be nostalgia, and especially a post-modern re-examination of some of our most unfortunate cultural milestones, but at least the graphic novels that are coming out of these historic plunderings are varied and readable if not universally palatable…

Another sparkling example of the phenomenon is the potentially controversial little gem under review here from cartoonist, caricaturist, designer, educator, actor and big fan of old movies Greg Houston.

This baroque, grotesque and immensely appealing pastiche of Blaxploitation movies and the no-nonsense, in your face attitudes of the early 1970s introduces Baltimore’s coolest private eye Boss Karate Black Guy Jones, who is reluctantly commissioned by Lumpy Fargo, the city’s biggest crime boss, to rescue his wayward, dim daughter from the sticky clutches of Geech Bradford, the White Pimp…

The sordid trail leads inevitably to Rome, porn capital of the world, and, after a brief brush with the legitimate, inclusive end of skin-flicks, directly to the Vatican, long perceived among industry insiders as the source of all the really nasty freaky stuff…

Meanwhile the Pope is getting horny and anxious. Chickee Falzbar his official drug dealer and wingman is late, and the brutish, two-fisted, leather-jacketed Pontiff is looking to score some tail, kick some butt and raise a little Hell. There’s a ba-aad hassle coming and Jones is gonna need all his skills to rescue Brandi Fargo from the callous hands of God’s chosen representative on Earth…

Beneath the outrageous parody and shockingly impious (nigh slanderous) treatment of Catholic tenets and icons is a witty mystery and genuinely funny adult romp which pokes bad-tasting fun at everything from Lepers to Clowns to Hobos, college girls, the sex trade and even rock ‘n’ roll, all rendered in a busy, buzzy, black and white line that appeals and appals in equal amounts.

If you’re of a religious mien and likely to take offence at religion mocked don’t buy this book.

If you are a fan of frantic fisticuffs of fury and martial arts mayhem this ain’t the book for you neither as there practically isn’t none, but if you’re eligible to vote, open (and broad) minded, can whistle the theme to Shaft and love to laugh, this might just be your favourite book of the year…

© 2009 Greg Houston. All rights reserved.