Category: Mystery

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Captain Long Ears


By Diana Thung (SLG Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-59362-187-2 (TPB)

You might not have noticed – or even care – but every so often we slip in a week or so of themed recommendations. This time it’s “Pesky Kids” in all their picto-literary glory. We’ve seen youthful heroes, classic scallywags and comedically oppressed minors. Today we’re sharing a lost classic of the form which asks and answers just why some kids act like they do all wrapped up in a genial mystery with a hidden edge…

Here’s a odd thing. For a while, some years back, Diana Thung was a glittering name and shining prospect in graphic storytelling, but after two brilliant all-ages fantasy triumphs she dropped out of sight.

I don’t know why – and to be honest have no right to. It is a great shame as her work was groundbreaking and remains superb. I hope she’s well and happy, and I’m not going to stop recommending her delightful creations…

Thung was born in Jakarta, and grew up in Singapore before eventually settling in Australia. She is a natural storyteller, cartoonist and comics creator of sublime wit and imagination with a direct hotline to infinite thoughtscapes of childhood. Every single thing populating her astonishingly unique worlds is honed to razor sharpness and pinpoint logical clarity, no matter how weird or whimsical it might initially seem.

The sentiment is pure and unrefined; scenarios are perfectly constructed and effectively, authentically realised – and when things get tense and scary they are excessively tense and really, really scary… and pretty bloody sad too.

After SLG published debut series Captain Long Ears in 2010, Thung catapulted to (relative comic book) fame and two years later delivered her first original graphic novel August Moon, following up with Splendour in the Snow, before melting away. Prior to all that though she shared a very personal view of loss and bereavement that is both beguiling and hilarious, raw and unpolished and masked by a potent screen of happy manga style.

Michael lives in his head a lot. That’s okay though because he’s only eight, and it’s exciting there since that where his best friend lives too. That imaginative interior is packed with fun and thrills and a super-science citadel where Exalted Space Ninja Captain Long Ears and his deputy Captain Jam undertake their cosmic duties and eat peanut butter sandwiches. The situation is tense. All contact has been lost with supreme leader Captain Big Nose who has not answered hails for the longest time. Captain Jam acts like he knows something, but he’s not talking…

After putting themselves to bed, the next day dawns with Mum still – or already – at work. It’s become a habit but Michael can cope. Making breakfast (sugar with cereal), packing snacks and grabbing some cash, he and his cuddly gorilla bear are calling in at Headquarters. Maybe Captain Big Nose is there…

As they get off the bus outside seedy amusement park Happy Land, two overwrought workers are having a very tough time delivering a large wooden packing crate. It’s heavy, smelly, constantly shaking and emitting scary noises.

By the time they’ve dropped it in the enclosure behind the park grounds, Long Ears and Jam have fully failed to find any clues to their missing comrade, been accidentally absorbed by a school party and given a gang of alien predators disguised as bullying older kids a real shock. On the run from unimaginable retaliation, they land at the quiet rear enclosure just as the baby elephant in the box – still traumatised by memories of the poachers who killed the herd adults – loses all control and attacks the labouring oafs…

Lost in his own worlds, Michael spies on the events and resolves to liberate the prisoner in the crate at all costs…

That night, Michael’s mum gets home and quickly pierces the subterfuges her son had constructed to appear to be at home and in bed. Soon the police are searching for a missing child, but shabby old Happy Land is not their first port of call…

Visually inventive and astoundingly vivid – even in monochrome – whilst owing a huge inspirational debt to Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland, the saga unfolds as pirates, sea-monsters, alien invaders and wizards compete with real world rogues and villains and all the powers of unsure memory and unleashed imagination as Michael voyages to an inescapable admission and conclusion over lost Big Nose that almost costs his life…

Funny, scary, thrilling and moving, this is a fabulously enticing young reader’s yarn every lover of comics and storytelling should take to their hearts.
™ & © 2010 Diana Thung. All rights reserved.

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The Baker Street Peculiars


By Roger Langridge, Andrew Hirsh & Fred Stresing (KaBOOM!)
ISBN: 978-1-60886-928-2 (PB) eISBN: 978-1-61398-599-1

Roger Langridge is a very talented gentleman with a uniquely beguiling way of telling stories. He has mastered every aspect of the comics profession from lettering (Dr. Who) to writing (Thor: The Mighty Avenger) to illustration (Knuckles the Malevolent Nun, Zoot!). When combining his gifts – as Fred the Clown, Popeye, Abigail and the Snowman – the approbation, accolades and glittering prizes such as Eisner and Harvey Awards can’t come fast enough.

He is also a bloody genius at making folk laugh…

The Baker Street Peculiars started life as an all-ages comicbook miniseries before being gathered in a titanic detective tome and craftily references a glittering reservoir of cool concepts encompassing the mythology of Sherlock Holmes, 1930s London, cosy crime mysteries, kid gangs and rampaging monster movies. Moreover, thanks to Langridge’s keen ear for idiom and slang, every page resonates with hilarious dialogue any lover of old films or British sitcoms will find themselves helplessly chortling over – if not actually joining in with…

Blimey, Guv’ner!

Illustrated by Andy Hirsch (Science Comics: Dogs, Varmints, Adventure Time, Regular Show) and coloured by the inestimable Fred Stresing, ‘The Case of the Cockney Golem’ opens in foggy old London Town circa 1933, currently enduring an odd spot of bother. Exceedingly odd…

‘A Beast in Baker Street’ reveals that famous landmark statues are going missing. Now, with one of the bronze lions in Trafalgar Square coming to life and bolting away down Charing Cross Road – unlike the crowds rushing about in panic – three wayward tykes (and a dog) chase after it. Soon they are all embroiled in the story of a lifetime… perhaps several lifetimes…

Tailor’s granddaughter Molly Rosenberg, orphan street thief Rajani Malakar and neglected filthy rich posh-boy Humphrey Fforbes-Davenport (and his canine valet Wellington) are all out long after bedtime and keen on a spot of adventure. Having individually chanced upon the commotion, they spontaneously unite to doggedly track the animated absconder to Baker Street where they enjoy a chance encounter with a legendary investigator…

Molly is especially intrigued: she’s read every exploit of the famous consulting detective. When he roundly rubbishes their claim of moving statues – and claims to be too busy with other cases – she angrily suggests that they act as his assistants. The detective quite quickly complies, but only to conceal an incredible secret not even his fanciful new deputies could ever imagine…

As Molly’s grandpa suffers another visit from thugs running an extortion racket for the nefarious Chippy Kipper – “the Pearly King of Brick Lane” – the kids’ bizarre quest continues in ‘The Lion, the Lord and the Landlady’ after the junior sleuths meet up at 221B Baker Street. Although consoled with a fine meal, they are disappointed to find their hoped-for mentor absent.

Receiving further instructions from the great detective’s elderly cook Mrs. Hudson, the youthful team learn that Mr Holmes believes the statues are simply being stolen and that he wishes the dauntless children to post guard on Boadicea at Westminster Bridge and Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square…

Their sentinel duties bear strange fruit, however, as East End thugs perform a strange and dangerous ritual and the beloved tourist attractions come to menacing life. As the kids follow the ambulatory landmarks back to Kipper’s hideout, Molly strives to recall a story her grandfather used to tell her: a fable about a Rabbi in old Prague who used a scroll to bring a giant avenging clay statue to life…

As the colossal Chippy shares his own unique origins with his cohort of thugs and sculptures, the youngsters sneak in. Swifty captured and stuck in a dungeon, they can only watch in horror as Kipper uses ancient magic to make a new kind of monster. ‘The Old, Hard Cell’ brings the plot to a bubbling boil as the terrified tykes swallow simmering resentments and work together. Even as they escape their current predicament, elsewhere, other, more mature truth-seekers are compelled to change their stubbornly-held opinions…

Someone else with a keen eye and suspicious mind is enterprising lady journalist Hetty Jones of The Mirror. Her own patient, diligent enquiries have brought her to Baker Street in time to collaborate with the aged detective-in-charge. With all eventualities except the impossible exhausted, the grown-ups must accept the truth and soon track down the missing lion. It’s probably too late, however, as an army of animated marble and bronze artefacts rampage through London towards the East End, with only three nippers (and a dog) ready to confront them…

With Chippy Kipper in the vanguard, the chilling regiment invades Molly’s home turf but ‘The Battle of Brick Lane’ is no one-sided affair. One plucky minor has remembered the secret of the Rabbi’s Golem and conceived a daring stratagem to immobilise the monstrous invaders. As for Kipper’s human thugs, they’ve severely underestimated the solidarity of hundreds of poor-but-honest folk pushed just a bit too far, one time too many…

When the dust settles, Sherlock Holmes has one last surprise for his squad of juvenile surrogates…

Adding to the charm and cheer is a cover-&-variants gallery by Hirsch & Hannah Christenson, sketch and design feature ‘Meet the Peculiars’ and a delirious sequence of all-Langridge strips starring his unique interpretation of the Great Detective Himself in ‘The Peculiar Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’.

Reverently refencing and spoofing beloved old films and our oh-so-idiosyncratic manners and parlance with a loving ear for an incongruous laugh, The Baker Street Peculiars is a sheer triumph of spooky whimsy, reinventing what was great about classic British storytelling. Fast, funny, slyly witty and with plenty of twists, it is an absolute delight from start to finish and another sublime example of comics at its most welcoming.
™ & © 2016 Roger Langridge & Andrew Hirsch All rights reserved.

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A Guest in the House


By Emily Carroll (Faber & Faber)
ISBN: 978-0-571-35545-7 (HB)

It’s perhaps a little odd to be looking at terrifying tales of supernatural darkness at the height of summer, but as Emily Carroll proves here, sunny skies and enticingly gleaming lake waters don’t always equate with idyllic rests and restorative downtimes…

Born in 1983 in London, Ontario, Carroll now hails from Stratford (still Ontario): studying animation before redirecting her talents in 2010. The immediate beneficiaries of the career change are we comics fans and horror devotees, as her webcomic His Face All Red became a hot sensation on Halloween and went – as the kids and their grandparents say – viral.

Since then Carroll has got even better, working her dark magic for video game Gone Home (2013) and assorted publishers whilst contributing to numerous books and anthologies, garnering Ignatz, Eisner and British Fantast Awards among many others for first book Through the Woods – an anthology of scary comics stories.

Throughout she has continued crafting chilling webcomics like The Hole the Fox Did Make, Margot’s Room, Baba Yaga’s Assistant, Speak, When I Arrived at the Castle and Some Other Animal’s Meat (adapted in 2022 as “The Outside” for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix).

A Guest in the House is her second book and first full novel; and I don’t want to tell you very much about it. Narrated by dowdy, introspective, uninspired Abigail, it plays on the institutionalised uncertainty and self-doubt of women and offers a fantastic, ferocious dreamscape to outline a creepy, uneasy slice of domestic tragedy in what should be an idyllic retreat from care.

Abby lives by a beautiful lake in a sedate town with nice new husband David and Crystal, his daughter by a previous marriage. Abby’s not happy but she is settled, and if her husband seems a bit harsh or intolerant it’s only because he works so hard and his first wife Sheila died so tragically. The biggest bone of contention between them is his extreme reactions to Crystal getting near the lake…

When not working at the Valu-Save, Abby inhabits a rich fantasy life filled with knights, dragons and princesses, but as summer progresses she becomes increasingly concerned about the real-world inconsistencies in David’s stories of vivacious, clever, talented Sheila. Even before one of his work colleagues accidentally reveals how her predecessor really died, Abby starts seeing ghosts and talking to what remains of Sheila…

Whatever you think happens next is probably wrong. Cunning, twisty plotting fuels intense and expressive fantasmagoria blended with powerfully understated, almost documentarian narrative illustration as all concerned – especially the reader – are forced to confront and question everything thus far. Soon the tale heads into unexplored country and comprehension…

In so many ways this story acts as like an inverted take on Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, with an all-powerful past presence not just imprinted but actually working on and communicating with an embattled and distraught protagonist. However, even that’s not what’s really going on in this haunting tale of grief, ghosts, quiet desperation, suspicion and identity – submerged or otherwise. In the end it’s all-beguiling moments clouding the big question: is this materialised internal monologue or actual spiritual infestation?

Chilling and unforgettable, this is a summer storm that demands your full attention.

© Emily Carroll, 2023. All rights reserved.

A Guest in the House is published on August 17th 2023 and available for pre-order now.

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Werewolf by Night Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Roy & Jean Thomas, Mike Ploog, Werner Roth, Ross Andru, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3346-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Now a star of page and screen, Werewolf by Night could be described as the true start of the Marvel Age of Horror. Now technically supplanted by modern Hopi/Latino lycanthrope Jake Gomez – who’s shared the designation since 2020 – these trials of a turbulent teen wolf opened the floodgates to a stream of Marvel monster stars and horror antiheroes.

Inspiration isn’t everything. In 1970, as Marvel consolidated its new position of market dominance – even after losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so employing a wave of new young talent, but less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties. The only real exception to this was a mass-move into horror titles (or more accurately “monster titles” – the CCA still vetoed “horror”): a response to an industry down-turn in superhero sales, and a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight scary monsters became again acceptable fare on four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too), the creative aspect of the revived fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics would be incorporated into the print mix and shared universe mix as readily as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel launched a line of sinister superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire…

Werewolf by Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2 (preceded by western-era hero Red Wolf in #1, and followed by Ghost Rider). In actuality, the series title, if not the actual character, was recycled from a classic pre-Comics Code short suspense-thriller from Marvel Tales #116, July 1953. Marvel always favoured using old (presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. The Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got nominal starts as hairy underpants monsters or throwaways in some anthology or other.

Accompanied by an introductory reminiscence from Roy Thomas, this copious compendium collects the early adventures of a young West Coast wild one by re-presenting the contents of Marvel Spotlight #2-4, Werewolf by Night volume 1 #1-8 and a guest-shot from Marvel Team-Up #12 cumulatively covering February 1972 to August 1973.

The moonlit madness begins with that landmark first appearance, introducing teenager Jack Russell, who is suffering some sleepless nights…

Cover-dated February 1972 and on sale as 1971 closed, ‘Werewolf by Night!’ (Marvel Spotlight #2) was written by Gerry Conway and moodily, magnificently illustrated by Mike Ploog in the manner of his old mentor Will Eisner. The character concept came from an outline by Roy & Jeanie Thomas, describing the worst day of Jack’s life – his 18th birthday – which began with nightmares and ends in something far worse.

Jack’s mother and little sister Lissa are everything a fatherless boy could hope for, but new stepdad Philip and creepy chauffeur Grant are another matter. Try as he might, Jack can’t help but see them as self-serving and with hidden agendas…

At his party that evening, Jack has an agonising seizure and flees into the Malibu night, transforming for the first time into a ravening vulpine man-beast. At dawn, he awakes wasted on a beach to learn his mother has been gravely injured in a car crash. Something had happened to her brakes…

Sneaking into her hospital room, the distraught teen hears her relate the story of his birth-father: an Eastern European noble who loved her deeply, but locked himself away three nights every month…

The Russoff line is cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reach 18 years of age. Jack is horrified on realising how soon his sister will reach her own majority…

With her dying breath Laura Russell makes her son promise never to harm his stepfather, no matter what…

Scenario set, with the traumatised wolf-boy uncontrollably transforming three nights every month, the weird, wild wonderment begins in earnest with the beast attacking the creepy chauffeur – who had doctored those car-brakes – but refraining – even in vulpine form – from attacking Philip Russell…

The second chapter sees the reluctant nocturnal predator rescue Lissa from a rowdy biker gang (they were everywhere back then) and narrowly escape the cops, only to be abducted by a sinister dowager seeking knowledge of a magical tome dubbed the Darkhold. This legendary spell-book is the apparent basis of the Russoff curse, but when Jack can’t produce the goods, he’s left to the mercies of ‘The Thing in the Cellar!’…

Surviving more by luck than power, Jack’s third try-out issue fetches him up on an ‘Island of the Damned!’: introducing aging Hollywood screenwriter Buck Cowan, who will become Jack’s best friend and affirming father-figure as they jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s evil stepdad.

Russell had apparently sold off Jack’s inheritance, leaving the kid nothing but an old book. Following a paper trail to find proof Philip had Laura Russell killed leads them to an offshore fortress, a dungeon full of horrors and a ruthless mutant seductress…

The episode ended on a cliffhanger, presumably as an added incentive to buy Werewolf by Night #1 (cover-dated September 1972), wherein Frank Chiaramonte assumed inking duties with ‘Eye of the Beholder!…

Merciless biological freak Marlene Blackgar and her monstrous posse abduct the entire Russell family whilst looking for the Book of Sins, until – once more – a fearsome force of supernature awakes to accidentally save the day as night falls…

With ‘The Hunter… and the Hunted!’ Jack and Buck deposit the trouble-magnet grimoire with Father Joquez, a Christian monk and scholar of ancient texts, but are still hunted because of it. Jack quits the rural wastes of Malibu for a new home in Los Angeles, trading forests and surf for concrete canyons but life is no easier.

In #2, dying scientist Cephalos seeks to harness Jack’s feral life-force to extend his own existence, living just long enough to regret it. Meanwhile, Joquez successfully translates the Darkhold: an accomplishment allowing an ancient horror to possess him in WbN #3, in ‘The Mystery of the Mad Monk!’

Whilst the werewolf is saddened to end such a noble life, he feels far happier dealing with millionaire sportsman Joshua Kane, who craves a truly unique head mounted on the wall of his den in the Franke Bolle inked ‘The Danger Game’. Half-naked, exhausted and soaked to his now hairless skin, Jack must then deal with Kane’s deranged brother, who wants the werewolf for his pet assassin in ‘A Life for a Death!’ (by Len Wein & Ploog) after which ‘Carnival of Fear!’ (Bolle inks again) finds the beast – and Jack, once the sun rises – a pitiful captive of seedy mystic Swami Calliope and his deadly circus of freaks.

The wolf was now the subject of an obsessive police detective too. “Old-school cop” Lou Hackett is an old buddy of trophy-hunter Joshua Kane – and every bit as cruelly savage – but his off-the-books investigation hardly begins before the Swami’s plans fall apart in concluding part ‘Ritual of Blood!’ (inked by Jim Mooney).

The beast is safely(?) roaming loose in the backwoods for #8’s quirky and penultimate monster-mash when an ancient demon possesses a cute little bunny in Wein, Werner Roth & Paul Reinman’s ‘The Lurker Behind the Door!’, after we which we pause for now with a slight but stirring engagement in Marvel Team-Up #12, where Wein, Conway, Ross Andru & Don Perlin expose a ‘Wolf at Bay!’

As webspinning wallcrawler meets wily werewolf, they initially battle each other – and ultimately malevolent mage Moondark – in foggy, fearful San Francisco before Jack heads back to LA for more feral fury in a future issue…

With covers by Neal Adams& Tom Palmer, Ploog, Gil Kane and John Romita, this collection is supplemented with an unused Ploog cover for Marvel Spotlight#4; a gallery of original Ploog art pages and a previous collection cover by Arthur Adams & Jason Keith. A moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action, this tome shares some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling chillers to delight any fear fan or drama addict. If you crave a few fun frightmares, go get your paws on this.
© 2022 MARVEL.

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The Bozz Chronicles


By David Michelinie & Bret Blevins, with John Ridgway, Al Williamson & various (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-79851-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

During the 1980s the American comics scene experienced an astounding proliferation of new titles and companies in the wake of the creation of the Direct Sales Market. With publishers now able to firm-sale straight to specialised, dedicated-retail outlets rather than overprint and accept returned copies from general magazine vendors, the industry was able to risk and support less generic titles whilst authors, artists and publishers could experiment without losing their shirts.

At the height of the subsequent publishing explosion and in response to a wave of upstart innovators, Marvel developed its own line of creator-owned properties: launching a host of idiosyncratic, impressive series in a variety of formats under the watchful, benevolent and exceptionally canny eye of Editor Archie Goodwin. The delightfully disparate line was dubbed Epic Comics and reshaped the industry.

One of the most significant hits was a winsomely engaging blend of fantasy, criminology and urban myth with a beautifully simple core concept: “Sherlock Holmes from Outer Space”. Even that painfully broad pitch-line does the series it became an unforgivable disservice…

The Bozz Chronicles was – and is – so much more. It became one of Epic’s earliest hits and sensations, and the reasons it never continued beyond its initial 6-issue run (December 1985 to November 1986) had nothing to do with poor sales…

The mesmerising mix of Victoriana, super-science and sorcery might even be considered as an early precursor if not progenitor of the visual form of the literary genre K. W. Jeter dubbed “steampunk” in 1987…

Preceded with a Foreword from Brandon Graham, Dave Michelinie’s self-deprecating Introduction ‘Blame it on Spielberg’, and fond reminiscences from originating illustrator Bret Blevins, an amazing moment in comics history repeats itself as ‘The Bozz Chronicles’ opens on Mandy Flynn. She is a fiercely independent young woman plying her trade – described then and now as the World’s Oldest – in the sooty, sordid environs of London in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Saucy, sassy, sensitive and lovely, she is bringing her latest “brief acquaintance” up to her attic abode when the incipient physical transaction is suddenly curtailed by discovery of a strange-looking foreigner trying to commit suicide in her rooms…

As her toff flees in terror, Mandy tries to talk down the intruder and realises just how strange he truly is: eight feet tall, pale yellow in complexion, with a hairless, pointy head. He is also gentle, exceptionally well-spoken, has a long tail and can fly…

Six months pass. Mandy and the creature she calls Bozz are doing exceptionally well. He still claims to be from another world and certainly acts like no human she has ever met: he cannot tell lies, communicates with animals, constantly wanders around naked and absorbs like a sponge every scrap of knowledge she can provide for him through books and journal and newspapers.

Bozz misses his home: a far-distant world of benevolent intelligences he has no chance of ever returning to: so much so that he was trying to end himself as much through boredom as loneliness. Mandy’s brilliant idea to keep him alive was to engage his prodigious intellect in puzzles. She set them up as consulting detectives based in the less than fashionable Maracot Road, using the proceeds to better her own hand-to-mouth existence in the process. The only problem is that when no challenging cases manifest, Bozz’s thoughts instantly return to ending it all…

Thankfully, just as she is preparing to hide all the sharp objects again, a truly unique mystery knocks on the door and the secretary of Lord Giles Morgan requests their help. According to the Press, Pamela Grieves’ employer – and prospective Prime Minister – recently escaped an assassination attempt. However, the loyal amanuensis was with him when it happened and claims he did not survive. In fact, after having made further discreet inquiries, Miss Grieves found her master had in fact been dead for some three years prior to the attack…

As Bozz excitedly accepts the commission, Mandy is convinced they are dealing with a madwoman, but when their client is destroyed by a bolt of lightning as soon as she leaves their office the retired demimondaine is forced to think again…

Naturally the inquiry agents’ first step is to interview Lord Giles and although the shady politician proves no help at all, Bozz gleans much useful information from the caged bird in Morgan’s study. Soon they are on the trail of an aristocratic secret society utilising vast funds and weird science to resurrect the dead in pursuit of a deadly and regressive political and economic agenda (so hard not to comment satirically here!)…

Sadly, even the alien outcast’s uncanny powers prove insufficient to stop the schemers, but Mandy has gifts of her own and beguiles a rowdy American former prize-fighter she finds in a bar to assist in the climactic final confrontation.

Besotted, punch-drunk Salem Hawkshaw then joins the detectives to handle any future physical exigencies that might occur, but despite everything he sees is never convinced his big, bemused boss is anything other than a crazy circus freak…

The new colleagues are all painfully aware that their sudden success has brought them to the attention of Scotland Yard’s most privileged operative and the notorious trio have barely caught their breath before Inspector Colin Fitzroy comes calling, deviously offering them a case the police have no interest in.

Apparently a drunk has seen demons in Park Lane…

As the shamefully-employed scion of Britain’s richest family continues trying to impress the ravishing Miss Flynn, further arcane incidents occur, ‘Raising Hell’ in the capital’s swankiest district. Before long the consulting detectives find troubled Samantha Townes, whose husband has fallen foul of the vilest black magic and his own gullibility…

Wealthy Inspector Fitzroy has more pressing problems. A rash of exceedingly orderly murders has turned up odd artefacts defying explanation by any expert Scotland Yard can muster: things that cannot possibly have been built by any craftsman on Earth…

In ‘The Tomorrow Man’ (inked by Al Williamson) a trip to the funfair does little to alleviate Bozz’s boredom, but does lead to the genteel gullible giant being gulled: lured away by a wily pack of street children who use his powers and naivety to perpetrate a crime spree.

Later, when the shady show’s owner tries to kidnap Bozz for his freak attractions, the ultimately unsuccessful attack leaves the alien blind. The kids’ ringleader Oliver brings him to underworld surgeon Dr. Paine – who runs a subterranean clinic as a sideline to pay for his researches into time travel. He sees in the stranger a perfect opportunity to advance the causes of science…

Redeemed by Bozz’s unflagging trust, Oliver at last realises the enormity of his betrayal and fetches Mandy and Salem to effect a rescue, but by the time they arrive, chronal chaos is erupting everywhere…

As engaging and enthusiastic as the tales have been until this point, ‘Were-Town!’ is (at least for history-buffs and especially Londoners) a truly stand-out moment in the series, as the ineffably marvellous British veteran John Ridgway stepped in to illustrate a pithy, punchy deep midwinter tale disclosing a hint of Mandy’s past whilst introducing her reprehensible absentee father Egan Thorpe.

We’ve always whined in Britain about how Us and Ours are represented in American productions and, despite the obviously strenuous and diligent researches Michelinie & Blevins undertook, frequently the tone of their Bozz Chronicles often smacks more of Hollywood than Cricklewood. It’s not something non-Brits will even notice, but for us aging “Cockerney Sparrers” the differences are there to be seen… and felt.

Such is not the case (as gratefully acknowledged by the creators themselves in the respective, respectful Introductions) when Ridgway applied his meticulous line and copious pictorial acumen – gleaned from decades drawing a variety of British strips for everything from Commando Picture Library to Warrior to 2000AD or Doctor Who and The Famous Five – to a genuinely spooky, photographically authentic tale of deranged artists, dastardly squires and infernal paintings coming to unholy life in snow-capped rural wilds of Southeast England…

Michelinie & Blevins reunited for ‘The Cobblestone Jungle’ as Inspector Fitzroy again calls upon Bozz & Co: impelled as much by his lusty fascination with Amanda as the demands of an African king who needs the assistance of the British Empire if he is to guarantee a steady flow of diamonds from his equatorial satrapy…

Apparently, a white man had stolen the tribe’s sacred jewel and brought it to his hidden jungle playground in London. Thanks to some canny legwork from little Oliver, the detective trio track the bounder, but nobody anticipated the filched gewgaw emitting destructive death-rays…

After a spectacular battle high above the city, Bozz ends the threat, but his biggest surprise comes when the grateful king asks to thank him personally and reveals a millennia-old connection to Bozz’s extraterrestrial race…

For Mandy, Bozz, Salem and Fitzroy it all culminates in a desperate trek to the Dark Continent in search of ‘King Solomon’s Spaceship’ and the achievement of the marooned alien’s most fervent desires… until a gang of German raiders and Mandy’s own cynical self-interest ruins everything…

Rounded out by sketches and preliminary designs in a superb ‘Bonus Artwork and Cover Gallery’ from Blevins and closing with an effusive ‘Afterword by John Ridgway’, this is a magnificent moment in comics collaboration which will soon hopefully reclaim its place at the forefront of fantasy fables.
The Bozz Chronicles © 1985, 1986, 2015 David Michelinie. Introduction © 2015 David Michelinie. Foreword © 2015 Brandon Graham. Afterword © 2015 John Ridgway. All rights reserved.

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Rose



By Jeff Smith & Charles Vess (Cartoon Books/Scholastic)
ISBN: 978-1-88896-311-3 (Cartoon Books) also available in TPB, HB and digital edition

In Bone Jeff Smith (Tuki, RASL) created a fully-realised fantasy milieu with which to tell an astounding magical epic as much Tex Avery and Walt Kelly as J. R. R. Tolkien or the Brothers Grimm. Once the prime series was firmly up and running, much of the rich and textured back-story of that incredible world was further fleshed out and filled in by the author in collaboration with top-flight fantasy illustrator Charles Vess (Stardust, Spider-Man, Sandman) in an enchanting dark fable simply entitled Rose.

Many years ago the Harvestar princesses ‘Briar and Rose’ learned the origins of the world and its creatures. When the land was fresh and reality was still closely linked to the world of dreams, primal dragon Mim kept the balance between them.

However, when the malevolent spirit called Lord of the Locusts possessed her, the reptilian original dreamer went mad and began destroying everything. Mim’s own dragon children were forced to battle her and after horrendous, blood-soaked clashes ultimately triumphed by turning her to stone, thereby burying the rapacious Locust Lord forever. From debris and carnage the valley was created…

Rose is a gifted but inattentive young student, blessed with a great affinity for The Dreaming World, but her elder sister Briar’s “Dreaming Eye” is blind. Most people assume that when the time comes, it is Rose who will inherit the throne and role of the People’s protector…

That day seems not far off when their father tells them that they must depart for Old Man’s Cave and their graduation test. For years these sisters were schooled by mystic philosophers The Disciples of Venu, destined to become Veni-Yan-Cari or “Awakened Ones”, strong in the ways of the Dreaming Arts. Even so, the girls never imagined the day to take up their responsibilities would come so soon…

‘Our Brightest Hope’ opens with the sagacious Great Red Dragon discussing the siblings with the mystic Headmaster. However, the gravest news concerns the river dragon Balsaad who may have turned down an old, dark but painfully familiar path…

At dawn a small party of soldiers led by Palace Guard Captain Lucius Down escorts the girls on their trip with Rose, as always, bringing along her valiant talking hounds Cleo and Euclid. As they set off, Briar is even more acerbic and crabby than usual… until Rose is overwhelmed by one of her “gitchy” premonitions. The feeling is strong, disorienting but brief and maybe simply caused by the distracting proximity of the astonishingly hunky Lucius…

The feelings persist throughout the trip and when overly cautious Captain Down discovers one of the giant rat-creatures known as “Hairy Men” stalking the party, he drives it off with little fuss and forgets all about it.

Soon, the pilgrims are ensconced at an inn in the village of Oak Bottom, where years before the sisters stayed as toddlers: enjoying simple, open hospitality. Rose’s interest in Lucius is clear to all, and aspects of her awakening gifts manifest with embarrassing frequency. Oddly, the noble Captain seems bizarrely concerned with the comfort of ‘The Ice Queen’ Briar…

When the girls at last are safely deposited with their tutors at the cave in ‘We Ask, Teach’, the surly elder lass seems determined to be difficult. She constantly challenges the sages at all points and Rose again feels sympathy for her sibling’s lack of the Family’s hereditary powers.

Later, Rose has a disturbing dream where she and the dogs respond to a small dragon’s pleas for help and rescue it from a river. The scenes suddenly become nightmarish as she is drawn into a dark cavern by a monstrous giant insect which has smothered her mother and father with fiercely clinging locusts…

Shaken and anxious, Rose skips school to play with Euclid and Cleo, but annoyingly encounters the scolding Red Dragon who chides her for neglecting her responsibilities. However, as she rides back, the dogs spot a figure they believe is Briar, heading up a remote path. Following, a terrifying apparition orders them to ‘Turn Back’ as a storm of grasshoppers attacks. Undaunted, Rose and her loyal hounds persevere and are ambushed by the dragon of her dream, grown to colossal size and bristling with mocking ferocity…

‘Balsaad’ is only driven off after a brutal struggle in which Rose severs his hand with her sword. The chastened princess then rushes to her tutors to inform them, but is intercepted by Briar who warns Rose not to tell of her dream and its real-world repercussions in ‘The Warning’…

With the season’s first snows falling, Rose is summoned to ‘The Cave’ and questioned by the Headmaster. Admitting to having encountered the rogue dragon ravaging the countryside, she also heeds her beloved elder sister, withholding the full truth and denying any knowledge of or pertinent dreams about the creature or its dreaded “Emancipator”.

Even whilst suspecting her elders already know the truth, Rose trusts in her sister and sticks to her story before confiding that she is going out into the blizzard to destroy Balsaad…

Her faith in Briar is badly shaken, however, when she accidentally spots the beguiled Lucius sneaking into her elder sister’s room…

As the heartbroken Rose marches ‘Into the Night’ – accompanied by Euclid and Cleo – she discovers a nocturnal gathering of the usually timid Hairy Men, moving towards an irresistible rendezvous at some silent command. The nearby hamlet is being eradicated by the rampant Balsaad until he too responds when ‘The Master Calls’, reaffirming his commitment to the hidden Emancipator’s scheme to free the Lord of the Locusts in ‘The Pact’.

At last given license to destroy all humans – and those pesky dogs – Balsaad roars off whilst Rose, Euclid and Cleo again encounter the Red Dragon in ‘Frozen’. The antediluvian Scarlet Sage – unable to dissuade the indomitable Princess – regretfully advises how to defeat the beast as well as the hideous sacrifice Rose must enact to make things right…

At ‘Midnight’, Lucius and his men are ambushed by rabid ranks of rat creatures, leaving just Rose and the dogs to save Oak Bottom in an epic battle against the black river-wyrm and his manipulative master. Just as the benevolent Red Dragon predicted, for Rose to fulfil ‘The Promise’, the tragic princess must abandon all her hopes, dreams and aspirations before reluctantly destroying the greatest love of her life…

Far darker in tone than the series it spun off from, the saga of Rose merges classic mythic themes and borrowed legends to deliver a deeply moving parable about family, duty and responsibility, enchantingly realised by one of the world’s greatest fantasy illustrators.

Lovely, thrilling and unforgettable entertainment for anybody with an ounce of imagination…
Rose is TM & © 2000, 2001, 2002 Jeff Smith. All rights reserved.

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Crossroad Blues – A Nick Travers Graphic Novel


By Ace Atkins & Marco Finnegan (12-Guage Comics/Image)
ISBN: 978-1-5343-0648-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

Following the success of long-delayed originating Nick Travers tale Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Ace Atkins & Marco Finnegan regrouped and applied their brand of Southern discomfort to the first official published exploit. Prose novel Crossroad Blues was released in 1998, with three more following every two years thereafter until 2004.

Here history and myth collide with modern tastes and business practises as Travers reviews the celebrated legend of Robert Leroy Johnson who infamously sold his soul to the Devil for musical success. He “invented” the Delta Blues, was killed in still-mysterious circumstances, is a global presence and still personifies the image of a doomed musician at the mercy of his gifts and cruel commerce. Despite his fame then and influence since, Johnson’s recording career only lasted seven months in total…

Here, a glimpse at his last moments neatly segues into college lecturer/blues documentarian Travers who is momentarily stymied in his plans to make a film about his hero Guitar Slim. Keen to break the deadlock, he checks in with Tulane’s Head of Jazz Archives Professor Randy Sexton. A guy who likes to help and one easily distracted, Nick is soon heading into the Delta for Sexton, looking for absent colleague Professor Michael Baker, who has been missing since some big-time collector hired him to locate the fabled but apparently fictional “lost recordings of Robert Johnson”…

Disbelieving but still beguiled by the notion of the Holy Grail of Blues music, Travers dogs his trail across Mississippi, encountering many dubious characters and finding new girlfriend Virginia before being sent in the direction of negro-albino “Cracker”. This enigmatic “devil-touched” old coot actually met Johnson and now lives at the Old Three Forks Store where Johnson was murdered in 1938. Sadly, he’s not there now, having been abducted and tortured by a wannabe (possibly reincarnated?) new Elvis Presley. The gun for hire has been told the aged hermit knows the location of certain legendary recordings but is all shook up at the dotard’s resistance to pain and mockery of “The King”…

After rescuing Cracker, Travers and local sheriff Willie Brown join forces, but when Nick and multi-talented Virginia search another potential location, the sheriff is murdered and Travers takes the fall until Virginia provides an alibi…

In the interim, the closeted money man behind “Elvis” breaks cover and takes over questioning Cracker. When Nick gets home to New Orleans, trouble follows him back and begins hitting his closest friends – like JoJo and Loretta…

He also has a new suspect but nobody wants to tell him who Earl Snooks is or was, and many other people even try to kill just for saying his name…

In the end, it’s Professor Randy who supplies that information and also a possible prime suspect behind all the killings and horror. Just as Travers decides to come down heavy, he gets a message that the villain will trade the recordings no one has actually seen yet for Virginia…

When the dust and blood settles, the mystery of Johnson’s death is solved, but it’s only one of many homicides and the lost records are where they’ve always been as befits the dictates of a real myth…

Complex, compelling and sublimely orchestrated, this is a yarn to delight crime cognoscenti everywhere and one you cannot miss..
© 2018 Ace Atkins. 12-Guage Comics LL authorized user. All Rights Reserved.

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Last Fair Deal Gone Down – A Nick Travers Graphic Novel


By Ace Atkins & Marco Finnegan (12-Guage Comics/Image)
ISBN: 978-0-9836937-1-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

For the majority of private eyes, unshakable ethics, deductive reasoning and an attitude are not enough. The best ones also enjoy a specific time and/or location as well as a quirk or fascination that drives them. For Nero Wolf it was fine food and rare orchids, Marcus Didio Falco was an anti-establishment family man in first century Rome, Miss Marple was elderly and genteel, and both Phryne Fisher and Lord Peter Wimsey were posh, rich, and socialist. Moreover, Harry Dresden abets sleuthing with wizardry, Dirk Gently favours a holistic approach and Detective Chimp is a chimp…

Locale and an overarching outside interest flavours so many great crimebusting ratiocinators, none more so than Nick Travers: a music-loving history-driven investigator plying his twin trades in the moody Big Easy and its shady, murder & melody immersed environs.

The musical mystery prodigy was devised by former footballer award-winning investigative journalist Ace Atkins, a prolific writer who was himself compelled to re-examine cold cases and forgotten crimes.

Born in 1970, Atkins began his fiction-weaving aged 30: penning Crossroad Blues before going on to write three more Travers books between 1998 and 2004, 11 novels of former soldier Quinn Colson and standalone novels White Shadow, Wicked City, Devil’s Garden and Infamous. In 2011, the estate of Robert B. Parker commissioned Atkins to continue that author’s saga of P.I. Spenser, with a further ten books resulting thus far.

All that industrious fictive intrigue stemmed from an unfinished, abortive early exploit of the still unformed Nick Travers. The author’s Introduction for this stunning monochrome graphic grimoire details the strange circumstances leading to that abandoned outline finally being finished in 2016 to become something of a crime-writing sensation. It pays particular heed to the fevered efforts of fan Marco Finnegan to adapt the potent parable into comics…

A masterpiece of mood and style, the story sees Blues historian and occasional Tulane University lecturer Travers enjoying the distinctive Saturday night ambience of JoJo’s Bar (as well as Loretta’s cooking). In that suitably seedy dive, veteran sax player Fats beguiles drink-sodden listeners whilst continuing his own gradual self-extinction via booze and betting. It’s the founding myth of this city…

At the close, Nick spots him a meal and realises the little legend is especially troubled. He talks about being in love Real Love. Two days later, Fats is dead… an accidental fall…

The bluesman had no friends or family so JoJo and Travers are asked to clear his meagre belongings from the flop he rented. Fats had practically nothing left but his vintage sax. It was worth a fortune if he could have ever conceived of selling it, but it’s missing now…

Outraged and overwhelmed, Nick relentlessly employs his other skillset to discover how Fats actually died, who did it and why. As more far-from-innocents are killed, he kicks open a viper’s nest of betrayal, twisted hopes, frustrated desires, criminal exploitation and bitter disappointment – which only confirms all the legends and lies of the men who make the music and the lovers they despondently play it for…

And of course, even when the case closes and the bad guy is dealt with, there’s one last moment of revelation and another betrayal to avenge…

Atmospheric, moodily authentic and drowning in potent edgy drama and tension, Last Fair Deal Gone Down is a perfect example of comics crime and Southern Noir: a wonderful passport to the world of passion, idealism and shop-soiled justice…
© 2016 Ace Atkins. Image Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Sam Hill™: In the Crosshairs


By Tom DeFalco, Greg Scott, Janice Chiang & Art Lyon coloured by Anne-Marie Ducasse, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Dark Circle Comics/Archie)
No ISBN: Digital edition

At the height of America’s Film Noir era of the early 1950s – and following the game changing emergence of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer in 1947 – comics concocted a flurry of lonely, tarnished knights. Like their literary and cinematic equivalents, they solved crimes and unravelled mysteries employing varying degrees of excessive violence, street savvy and frankly a high degree of manly misogyny.

We’ll be seeing the prime offender in action at the end of this week and I’ll be back with Hammer’s greatest disciple – Johnny Dynamite – in the not too distant future. Today, though, it’s the turn of a revived reincarnation of one of the gumshoe’s earliest imitators.

Swiftly moving to exploit the trend, recently rechristened Archie Comics (nee MLJ) launched sidebar imprint Close-Up, Inc. to carry the semi-sordid shenanigans of titular tough guy Sam Hill.

That series (boasting five or more adventures per comic) ran to seven issues in 1951 before shutting down until another century. The writer(s?) remain undisclosed to this day, but the majority of the casebook was illuminated by company A-Lister Harry Lucey (Archie, Betty & Veronica, The Hangman, Madame Satan).

For more broadminded modern times, the character was revived by Archie’s modern mature reading imprint Dark Circle. Enjoying a very contemporary setting and milieu, the enquiry agent is reinvented by scripter Tom DeFalco (Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, Spider-Girl, The Phantom), illustrator Greg Scott (X-Files, Area 51, Black Hood, Steve McQueen, Wolverine), colourist Art Lyon & letterer Janice Chiang also suffered from company hesitancy, and the presumably traditional print-designed tales ultimately surfaced as a digital only compilation. Thankfully, the material itself is eminently readable genre fare that fills a gap between mature material like Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips’ Criminal, Jason Aaron & R.M. Guéra’s Scalped or Azzarello & Risso’s 100 Bullets and all-ages crimebusting fare such as Max Allan Collins’ CSI comic adaptations, Marvel’s Cops: The Job (Larry Hama, Joe Jusko & Mike Harris) or Robert Loren Fleming & Ernie Colón’s Underworld from DC.

So, in the cosy manner of a post-watershed TV show, ‘The Case of the Willful Widow’ sees a now late middle-aged veteran sleuth hired to discreetly retrieve a sex-tape lost by or stolen from recently bereaved cougar Mrs. Clare Wentworth.

Offering no judgement, Sam scrupulously swears not to watch it before checking out family members who might profit from Clare’s public humiliation: accumulating a few suspects in the husband’s murder, and soon finding all leads point to lethal and grudge-bearing old adversary Philip “Big Marco” Marconi…

It’s not long before this poking around confirms that there’s a double cross in play, no one is telling the truth and that Hill is marked for murder… again…

After skilfully avoiding that trap, Hill and secretary assistant Molly Barsdale relax until life gets hectic again when notorious District Attorney Nathan Geller blows his brains out. ‘The Case of the Purged Politician’ latterly exposes the playboy politico’s corrupt connections to Big Marco and results in Hill being hired to shadow the DA’s successor amidst rumours that his entire staff were on the take…

Bullets replace flying accusations and more bodies drop, and just who is clean becomes a moot point when Sam’s cop buddy Detective Rufus Stack is forced to act on behalf of the city police chief who hates Hill’s guts. When another motive becomes embarrassingly clear, the true cost of power politics is apparent to all…

Sleazy glamour seizes the Private Eye’s attention in ‘The Car, the Chorus Girl and the Killers’ with Sam paid to find missing showgirl Jenna Ray DeCarlo. Gleefully checking out nightclubs, the suave shamus learns that other, far shadier guys are also seeking her…

Once again he’s stepped on the toes of Marconi and – crucially – his heirs. Oddly, Sam’s client – mob-accountant Mr Mopely – seems more eager to locate her car than his latest squeeze, and when he’s found executed in the traditional manner, Sam realises Jenna wasn’t missing but hiding…

Big changes are happening in the Marconi family, and when what everyone is looking for falls into Hill’s unwilling hands, the P.I. is hunted by the cops and the robbers…

Set square ‘In the Crosshairs’ the investigator goes on the run but doesn’t escape unscathed, (prompting an easter egg guest-shot for Archie’s own medical hero as originally seen in Young Doctor Masters) and a spectacular trap and showdown that offers no conclusion but just a precarious détente…

Stylish, smart, sassy and classy, Sam Hill: In the Crosshairs delivers plenty of action and comfortable crime drama to please any genre fan, with DeFalco’s steadfast tributes to past glories and mob fiction superbly realised by Greg Scott’s slickly atmospheric yet understated art.
© 2015 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Misery City


By K. I. Zachopoulos & Vassilis Gogtzilas (Markosia)
ISBN: 978-1-905692-81-1 (TPB)

For purists every literary genre is sacrosanct – unless you can come up with a way to mix or blend them with such style, verve and panache that something new is born which feels like it’s always been one of the gang…

Lurking in the shadows since first released in 2013, Misery City is a dark, bleak and ferociously introspective tale that relates the cases of Max Murray. He’s a dowdy, down-at-heel private eye stalking the meanest streets imaginable, in a vast and ever-changing metropolis situated on the outskirts of Hell – and, no, that’s not poetic license or flowery prose, it’s a satnav instruction…

Following an effusive Foreword from arch-stylist Sam Keith and Introduction from writer J. M. DeMatteis, the first 5 issues of the original comics series unfold in this pocket novel package: a stark, unrelenting procession of grimly trenchant case-files starring a shabby, unshockable shamus just trying to get by uncovering other people’s secrets whilst making some sense of the most pitiless town in creation.

Of course, Max has a few secrets of his own…

The black parade begins on the ‘Night of the Corpse’ when the world-weary peeper is attacked by a giant skeleton and must employ his beloved and handy handgun Fat Betty to end the undead animate. Times are both tough and weird, so he doesn’t give it much thought before retiring to his dingy office to await a new client and case…

When the phone rings it’s that sexy waitress Pakita from The Bar. Max has suffered the serious hots for the hot totty simply forever, but his rising hopes take a dive when the mercurial Mexican only hires him to check up on her cheating boyfriend.

With heavy heart and azure cojones, the gumshoe goes looking, utterly unaware that an old enemy has returned seeking vengeance. Professor Ego was penned in unimaginable torment because of Murray, and now he’s out and wasting no time in sending a plague of devils to secure some payback…

As a host of demonic clowns hunt the private detective, Max finds Pakita’s man. However, catching the faithless dog with another woman drives the PI crazy, and Murray goes ballistic, beating the cheating Dick to a pulp. Appalled and repentant, he then heads over to Pakita’s place to apologise but finds her gone, snatched by his long-forgotten foe.

Answering the ‘Call of Ego’, Max heads for the horror’s Tower hideout and a brutal showdown…

Despite his shoddy appearance, this detective is no dumb palooka. His secret vice is reading, and Max’s unceasing internal monologue is peppered with quotes and allusions from poets like Dante and Tennyson. They’re the only thing comforting him as ‘A Wooden Coffin for Max Murray part I’ sees him taking the Hell train to a surveillance job in the worst part of Misery City.

Horny as always, Max is disappointed to discover what the owner of that so-sexy French voice on the phone really looks like, but nevertheless agrees to check out the abandoned timber-framed family house the tearful widow fears property developers crave…

Maybe he should have been more suspicious, but the client’s stunning daughter Josephine had turned his head and all points south…

Upon entering the ramshackle old pile, a colossal zombie fiend attacks and before he can react, the entire house explodes out of the ground and rockets into orbit. Lost in space and out of options, the gumshoe reveals a few of his own incredible survival secrets, destroying the monster (said client’s vengeful and very angry husband) in ‘A Wooden Coffin for Max Murray part II’ before escaping the timber trap to settle scores with the murderous she-devils. It appears Max is on a first name basis with the Big Boss of the Inferno, and the head man is keen on renewing a satanic acquaintance with the understandably reluctant detective…

These malign mystery yarns conclude with a stunning surprise in ‘The Last Drag of a Pocket God’ with Max dogging a phantom with astounding delusions of grandeur. However, after sending Marty “The Voice” Coronado to his final rest, an uncomfortable conversation with Pakita forces the shamus to confront his own long-suppressed thoughts: examining the illusions that keep him going on the pitiless streets of Misery City…

Potently targeted vulgarity and a brusque, verbally confrontational narrative style gives Kostas (Mister Universe, The Fang, The Cloud) Zachopoulos’ manic scripts a supremely savage edge, whilst the freakish, surreal Horror-Noir milieu is perfectly captured by frequent collaborator/illustrator Vassilis (The Biggest Bang) Gogtzilas’ astoundingly frenetic art, delivered in a melange of assorted styles.

This mean, moody and menacing chronicle is topped off with a host of powerful pin-ups and a cover art gallery to further disquiet and beguile the unwary reader.
Misery City ™ & © 2013 Kostas Zachopoulos, Vassilis Gogtzilas and Markosia Enterprises, Ltd. All rights reserved.