Category: Nostalgia

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Glorious Summers volume 3: Little Miss Esterel (1962)


By Zidrou & Jordi Lafebre with additional colour by Mado Peña, translated by Lara Vergnaud (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: Digital edition only

Until comparatively recently, comics in the English-speaking world mostly countenanced comedic or numerous adventure sub-genres (crime, superhero, horror, sci fi), with only a small but vital niche of “real world” ventures, and those usually depicted via graphic biographies/autobiographies like They Called Us Enemy, Love on the Isle of Dogs, Wage Slaves or Sour Pickles offering a different feel and flavour. Even historical sagas were treated as extraordinary moments with larger-than-life characters whenever possible.

What we have never had – and still largely don’t outside small press/self-publishing – is a comics equivalent to general fiction, drama and melodrama. That’s not so in Japan, South Korea or Europe, where a literal “anything goes” attitude has always accommodated and nurtured human-scaled, slice-of-life tales with ordinary folk in as many quiet as extraordinary moments.

Surely it can’t be that hard to tell engaging stories in simple, recognisably ordinary settings? Medical traumas, love stories, school tales and family tragedies still play well on various-sized screens around the world, so why not in English-language comics?

People being people is more than enough for our continental cousins. There appears to be an insatiable appetite for everyday moments aimed at properly “mature readers”, joyfully sans vampires, aliens or men in tights. These even have sub-genres all their own. For example, there’s a wealth of superb material just about going on holiday. So, since we Brits are all too broke for any jaunts or une petite vacances in Europe, let’s stare covetously at them having a good time. After all, Over There holidays are an inalienable right and they have some simply fabulous tales about the simple well-earned break. This one comes from one of the best series on taking it easy you will ever see …

An absolute exemplar of fantasy vacations made real, Glorious Summers: Southbound! (1973) was a nostalgia-drenched confection by Zidrou and regular collaborator Jordi Lafebre: a sublime example of idyllic group memory made into graphic sorcery in an everyday account utterly unafraid to temper humorous sweetness and light with real-world tragedy and suspense.

Would sir et madame care for a soupçon of context? Summer holidays – “Midi” – are a big deal in France and Belgium. The French divide into two tribes over the annual rest period, which generally lasts an entire month. Juilletistes only vacation in July, wielding dogmatic facts like rapiers to prove why it’s the only way to take a break. They are eternally opposed, heart, soul, and suntan lotion, by majority faction the Aoûtiens, who recharge their batteries in August whilst fully reciprocating the suspicion, disdain and baffled scorn of the early-leavers. Many European sociologists claim the greatest social division today is not race, religion, gender, political affiliation or whether to open boiled eggs from the top or the bottom, but when summer holidays begin and end…

Les Beaux Étés 1: Cap au Sud! was first in a string of family visits – six so far – that began in 2015 courtesy of scripter Benoît “Zidrou” Drousie and Spanish illustrator Jordi Lafebre. Drousie is Belgian, Brussels-born in 1962 and was a school teacher prior to becoming a teller of tales in 1990. His main successes include school dunce series L’Elève Ducobu, Petit Dagobert, Scott Zombi, La Ribambelle, Le Montreur d’histoires, a revival of Ric Hochet, African Trilogy, Léonardo, Shi and so many more. His most celebrated and beloved stories are this memorable sequence and 2010’s Lydie, both illustrated by Lafebre.

That gifted, empathically sensitive artist and teacher was born in Barcelona in 1979 and has created comics professionally since 2001, first for magazines like Mister K, where he limned Toni Font’s El Mundo de Judy. He found regular work at Le Journal de Spirou, creating the romance Always Never and collaborated with Zidrou on La vieille dame qui n’avait jamais joué au tennis et autres nouvelles qui font du bien, Lydie, and La Mondaine.

A combination of feel-good fable and powerful comedy drama, Glorious Summers depicts memories of an aging couple recalling their grandest family moments, beginning with a momentous vacation in 1973 where their four kids nearly lost their parents. The general progress is backwards, as the second tale – The Calanque – was set in summer of 1969, when heavily pregnant Maddie Faldérault (imminently about to deliver precociously hyperactive Paulette AKA “Peaches”) once again had her holiday start late thanks to an inescapable deadline. Husband Pierre is a comics artist and every summer break begins with him frantically trying to complete enough pages to take the time off…

That time it left Maddie coping with three impatient kids (oldest girl Jolly-Julie, dangerously forthright Nicole and introspective toddler Louis) and a newly-bereaved and lonely Spanish father-in-law…

Here, however, third volume Mam’zelle Estérel (translated for this criminally digital-only-edition as Little Miss Esterel) starts in the present day before setting the wayback machine to August 1962. Papa and Mama Faldérault are finally selling the faithful Renaut 4L Hatchback which carried their ever-expanding family south to the sun for three memorable decades.

It’s not that she’s clapped out or knackered – in fact the vehicle is in immaculate condition. She has been lovingly cared for and is a valuable collector’s item! – it’s only that Peaches is all grown up now and the last chick preparing to leave the nest, so plucky, steadfast “Little Miss Esterel” deserves an owner who will keep her on the road and having adventures…

Of course, the transaction is charged with sentiment and sparks a flood of memories, and the scene shifts to 1969. Recently a mum for the second time, Maddie shepherds her two kids (toddler Jolly-Julie AKA “Zulie” and 6-month-old Nicole) and idiot husband. It’s four days into the big holiday, and he’s just finishing the emergency pages his abusive “named-creator” boss Garin just dropped on him.

The scenario is particularly aggravating as Maddie’s martinet mother Yvette LeGrand and long-suffering, still-recuperating cardiac-case dad are staying with them. Having bought the young marrieds a car for family vacations, the snooty dowager has invited herself and gluttonous heart-attack survivor Henry (dubbed forever after “Fat Pop Pop” by Zulie) along on their eagerly-anticipated premier camping trip.

Sadly, grandmama’s haughty convictions and stern diktats don’t just extend to how badly Madeleine is raising her children, how stupid Pierre’s job is or what Henry can eat, drink or do. Before long she hijacks the déclassé sun, sea-&-picnic worshippers’ dreams: sternly inflicting upon them all a succession of hotels, restaurants and churches (all Michelin-starred!) for their own good and ultimate edification…

Inevitably the situation is too much even for easy-going Pierre and poor historically-dominated Maddie… but then something small but wonderful happens to change and even explain those harsh years when Yvette raised her daughter all alone; and Pierre philosophically accepts that the Sun and Sea will always be there, but some things won’t…

Packed with heart, honest emotion and tons of pure sitcom comedy gold, this tale is another beautifully rendered and realised basket of memories stitched seamlessly together. It’s funny, sweet and charming whilst delivering painful blows you never see coming. There aren’t any spectacular events and shocking crises and that’s the entire point…

If you’re British – and old enough – this series will stir echoes of revered family sitcoms like Bless This House, Bread, or Butterflies and even generational ads starring the “Oxo Family” (and if that description doesn’t fit you, I pity your browsing history if you look up any of that…). The rest of you in need of an opening (but unfair) comparator might break out the Calvin and Hobbes collections and re-examine the bits with his embattled parents when the kid’s out of the picture…

Lyrical, laconic, engagingly demure, debilitatingly nostalgic but unafraid to grasp any nettles on the beach, this holiday romance is another dose of sheer visual seduction wrapped in sharp dialogue and a superbly anarchic sense of mischief. Vacations are built of moments and might-have-beens, and come packaged here in compelling clips all making the mundane marvellous.
© 2018 -DARGAUD BENELUX (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) – ZIDROU & LEFEBRE, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon volume 3


By Mac Raboy & Don Moore (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1569719787 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

By almost every metric, Flash Gordon is the most influential comic strip in the world. When the hero debuted on Sunday January 7th 1934 (with equally superb Jungle Jim running as a supplementary “topper” strip), it was a slick, sophisticated answer to Philip Nolan & Dick Calkins’ revolutionary, ideas-packed, inspirational, but quirkily clunky Buck Rogers (which had also launched on January 7th – albeit in 1929), with two fresh elements added to the wonderment: Classical Lyricism and Poetic Dynamism. The newcomer became a weekly invitation to stunningly exotic glamour and astonishing beauty.

Where Buck merged traditional adventure with groundbreaking science concepts, Flash reinterpreted fairy tales, hero epics and mythology, draping them in the spectacular trappings of contemporary futurism, with the varying “rays”, “engines” and “motors” of modern pulp sci fi substituting for trusty swords and lances. There were also plenty of those too – and exotic craft and contraptions stood in for galleons, chariots and magic carpets. Look closely, though, and you’ll see cowboys, gangsters and of course, flying saucer fetishes adding contemporary flourish to the fanciful fables. The narrative trick made the far-fetched satisfactorily familiar – and was continued with contemporary trends and innovations by Austin Briggs and Don Moore before Mac Raboy, (with Moore and Robert Rogers) took over the Sunday strips in a tenure lasting from 1948 to 1967.

The sheer artistic talent of Raymond, his compositional skills, fine linework, eye for clean, concise detail and just plain genius for drawing beautiful people and things, swiftly made this the strip that all young artists swiped from literally all over the world. When original material comic books began a few years later, many talented kids used Gordon as their model and ticket to future success in the field of adventure strips. Almost all the others went with Raymond’s stylistic polar opposite: emulating Milton Caniff’s expressionist masterwork Terry and the Pirates (and to see one of his better disciples check out Beyond Mars, limned by wonderful Lee Elias).

Flash Gordon began on present-day Earth (which was 1934, remember?) with a wandering world about to smash into our planet. As global panic ensued, polo player Flash and fellow passenger Dale Arden narrowly escaped disaster when a meteor fragment downed their airliner. They landed on the estate of tormented genius Dr. Zarkov, who imprisoned them in the rocket-ship he had built. His plan? To fly the ship directly at the astral invader and deflect it from Earth by crashing into it!

Thus began a decade of sheer escapist magic in a Ruritanian Neverland: a blend of Camelot, Oz and a hundred other fantasy realms promising paradise yet concealing vipers, ogres and demons, all cloaked in a glimmering sheen of sleek scientific speculation. Worthy adversaries such as utterly evil yet magnetic Ming, emperor of the fantastic wandering planet; myriad exotic races and shattering conflicts offered a fantastic alternative to drab and dangerous reality for millions of avid readers around the world.

With Moore handling the majority of the scripting, Alex Raymond’s ‘On the Planet Mongo’ ran every Sunday until 1944, when the artist joined the Marines. On his return, he forsook wild imaginings for sober reality: creating gentleman-detective Rip Kirby. The public’s unmissable weekly appointment with wonderment perforce continued under the artistic auspices of Austin Briggs – who had drawn the monochrome daily instalments since 1940.

In 1948, eight years after beginning his career drawing for the Harry A. Chesler production “shop”, comic book artist Emmanuel “Mac” Raboy took over illustrating the Sunday page. Moore remained as scripter and began co-writing with the new artist.

Raboy’s sleek, fine-line brush style – heavily influenced by his idol Raymond – had made his work on Captain Marvel Jr., Kid Eternity and especially Green Lama a pinnacle of artistic quality in the early days of the proliferating superhero genre. His seemingly inevitable assumption of Flash Gordon’s extraordinary exploits led to a renaissance of the strip and in a rapidly evolving post-war world, it became once more a benchmark of timeless, hyper-realistic quality escapism which only Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant could match. This third 260-page paperback volume – produced in landscape format, printed in stark monochrome and still criminally out-of-print and long overdue for a fresh edition – opens after a gripping and informative appraisal of Raboy in Bruce (Incredible Hulk, Arena, Silverheels, Ka-Zar the Savage) Jones’ Introduction ‘The Body Aerodynamic’. Then it’s blast-off time. again…

Sequence 68 ‘Missiles from Neptune’ began on January 19th 1958 and closed the previous cliffhanging volume barely weeks in. It resumes here with the episode for February 30th and carries on until March 9th, revealing how the oppressive Tyrant of Neptune seeks to impress and cow into submission his already-captive populace by testing deadly new Weapons of Interplanetary Destruction against hapless planet Earth.

The callous campaign prompts Flash to go and discourage him, but after superbly succeeding the conquering hero is lost in the interplanetary void and forced to build a survival nest inside an asteroid. His ingenuity as a ‘Robinson Crusoe in Space’ (16th March – 27th April) once more demonstrates the compelling power of straight, hard science storytelling (especially at a time when America was locked in a space race of its own), but it’s back to fantastic empires and extragalactic terror for his next exploit as Earth is menaced by ‘The Z Bomb Cloud’ (4th May – 15th June).

Long after a far-distant civilisation destroys itself, the deadly fallout of its doomsday weapon drifts into Earth orbit, threatening all terrestrial life. When Zarkov’s desperate plan to intercept the cloud goes wrong, someone must sacrifice themself to save us all…

Obviously, just this once it isn’t Flash, but the potent drama peaks with appropriate tragedy and sentiment anyway, before sequence S071 taps into the sheer burgeoning wonderment of the era as Flash and Dale help big game hunter Brian Farr prove the existence of uncanny unseen cryptids he calls ‘Stratosphere Beasts’ (22nd June – 17th August). These invisible beasts apparently dwell far above Earth’s highest mountain tops, so the endeavour takes the humans to the top of Everest where the unknown isn’t the only trial they face…

From 24th August to October 12th S072 told how the ace space pilot was embroiled in a commercial show-race to the outer planets. However, the ‘Rocket Derby’ is apparently less about proving whose ship is best and more about rich, spoiled obsessive competitors Morgan Bates and Babara “Bobcat” Kathryns realising how close hate is to love…

Along the way, Dale is dragged into the competition after hearing macho males telling Bobcat that space is no place for women, even as hired gun Flash suffers numerous sabotage attempts. It’s almost like there’s an unknown fifth element acting on their own agenda…

It’s back to dramatic basics for ‘Moon Wreck’ (S073, running from 19th October to December 14th) wherein Gordon attempts to rescue an arrogant playboy and his latest dalliance from a self-inflicted crash and subsequent marooning on Luna. The pilot’s every valiant effort is hampered by the autocrat’s privilege, greed, stupidity and cowardice, vain starlet’s Elyse Elan’s venality, and the deadly environment they both refuse to take seriously…

Gordon’s piloting skills land him in more trouble in ‘The Ship of Gold’ (S074: December 21st 1958 to January 2nd 1959) when he captains a transport of mining machinery and tons of cash to Mars, only to have the ship stolen out from under him with Dale trapped aboard. The evil mastermind is old college colleague Nicky Hamilton, but when the boastful villain abandons current girlfriend Jet in a ruthless attempt to loose Flash in the airless wastes of Titan, he seals his own fate and accidentally exposes a major threat to Earth in succeeding saga ‘The Skorpi’ (February 8th – April 5th)…

Left for dead, Flash and Dale fall through Titan’s surface to discover an insectoid alien invasion force. Skorpi can become copies of humans and are well advanced in a plot to infiltrate Earth, but aren’t quick enough to outwit Flash, especially once he befriends captive telepathic ET Brunn. His gigantic kind are Gorgins and with their allies The Dhreen have been battling Skorpi for 30,000 years. Together, the new pals whip up a plan to defeats this particular incursion…

Brunn then adapts a ship to Faster-Than-Light drive and accompanies Flash on a ‘Flight for Help’ (S076: April 12th – June 7th), beseeching Dhreen’s Council of Elders for military aid. Instead, the embassage is covertly targeted by their other client vassals – like Brunn’s own Gorgin race – who fear their share of aid will be diminished if the benign overlords help yet another endangered species…

Plots become assassination attempts, but only accidentally expose Skorpi infiltration, leading Brunn and Gordon to further corruption, exile and ultimately capture by a hidden race who dwell unsuspected in a ‘City of Glass’ (S077: June 14th to August 23rd). Condemned to death for breaking the metropolis’ sacrosanct isolation, the wanderers are only saved by lovely, sympathetic Flara, who aids the human’s escape back to the Solar system but keeps adorable Brunn by her side…

The Earthman only makes it as far as the second rock from the Sun and S078 (August 30th – November 1st) radically changes pace for a ‘Venus Mystery’ wherein human colonists face disaster as their Bajo crop is targeted by “swamp devils”. In an early lesson in green land management, crash-landed Flash aids ecologist Dirk Van Meer in proving to the furious farmers how badly wrong they have got things, what is actually to blame for all the chaos and carnage and how to fix it…

Immediate emergency over, Flash finally reaches Earth to find Zarkov impatiently waiting. Before he can catch his breath the steadfast starman is dragooned into a dangerous new experiment with cyberneticist Dr. Else Neilson having him ride along as a fallback option as she “road-tests” her ‘Robot Spaceship’ (S079: November 8th 1959 to 17th 1960). Fully automated – and what we’d call AI – the ship has human safety as its core drive, but of course, human and mechanical opinions on what exactly that means differ extensively…

Thanks in large part to Flash Gordon, spaceship technology has rapidly advanced and he is selected to pilot the first human-built FTL drive ship. The Columbus will ferry ‘The Star Miners’ (S080: January 24th – March 27th) to another star system, reap mineral wealth and set up a colony. However, the directives of chief advisor Dr. Zarkov are constantly challenged and ultimately overruled by gang-boss Mr. Birk, who can only think of glory and a big fat bonus promised for prompt completion and delivery…

Arriving on unexplored planet Karst, Zarkov again urges patience and caution, but is first sidelined and then arrested once Flash undertakes his secondary mission of exploration. By the time the hero returns the entire expedition is close to extinction and only drastic measures can save them all…

On returning to Earth, welcome shore-leave ends in catastrophe when Flash is shanghaied by “entrepreneurs” Roni and Captain Graz: kidnapped into space and ordered to pilot their ship or die. They need someone able to deliver potentially ‘Deadly Cargo’ (S081: April 3rd to June 12th) and navigate through the asteroid belt to mineral-rich big rock Juno, where a huge diamond strike has created urgent demand for explosives. It’s also a race setting competitive old rivals at each other’s throats and costs plenty of nefarious lives before Gordon gets ramshackle freighter Pollux down (relatively) safely…

Subsequent attempts to get off Juno turn wild and dangerous in ‘The Soil Divers’ (S082: June 19th – August 28th) when Flash is suckered into an ongoing resource war on the mining asteroid. Scientist Ben Corelli has devised a means of passing through solid matter, but fallen under the spell of avaricious faithless Roni and her new heavy Snapper Kaye, sparking violent conflict amongst those desperate diggers stuck using old methods of extracting mineral wealth. Soon, the attempts to seize Corelli’s breakthrough tech leads to murder and worse…

A self-aggrandising, fame-hungry documentary filmmaker obsessed with his legacy makes trouble for Dale – and therefore Flash – next. Charles Q. Charlston brings ‘Dead Worlds’ (S083: September 4th to November 20th) and lost civilisations to the masses, but has no qualms or scruples about breaking all the rules of space conduct: cheating, lying, stealing and even killing to ensure his own glory… until Gordon steps up. He and Dale are then called to the ringed planet and a reunion and to assist Brian Farr, now ‘Game Warden on Saturn’ (S084: November 27th 1960 to February 19th 1961)…

His job is currently complicated by the system’s most successful poacher – cunning sadist Von Brandt – who seeks the joy of hunting and intends making millions selling the skins of a rare indigenous lifeform. He’s also happy to excise interfering busybodies for free…

A maritime tang and epic approach flavours ‘The Trail of Orpheus’ (S085: February 26th – May 28th) when Flash joins oceanologists Henry and Veronica Weeks on a submarine to map the unique and spectacular “Devils Spring” environmental phenomenon making the watery world so hazardous to rocket ships. Their undersea voyage reveals fantastic truths about the past rulers of the planet and changes the solar system forever…

It’s a welcome return to space opera and pulp overtones as S086 sees an orbital agriculture satellite accidentally invaded by space gremlins and transformed into a ‘Death Farm in Space’ (June 4th to September 3rd) until Zarkov and Flash investigate and act, all followed by comedic whimsy as a band of backward-looking human bandits revolt against ecological progress in ‘Desert Prince’ (S087: September 10th to December 10th)…

When Earth loses the final dusty miles of once-barren Sahara to water reclamation projects, reactionary tribal chieftain Al Maarri refuses to take up farming and instead leads his raiders on a wave of sorties. The campaign of resistance culminates in his stealing a rocket ship to carry his entire bandit horde and their families to Mars where civilisation is scarce, law is poorly enforced and beautiful sandy wastes are abundant. Soon, armed with modern weapons, he’s making life difficult for genuine colonists, forcing under-resourced Flash to solve the problem creatively. That means infiltrating the tribe with the assistance of the long-suffering wives, children and oldsters the rowdy raiders forcibly dragged along with them…

Law & order was the theme of the next tale as readers gained insights into future traffic management solutions in the crowded orbital paths above Earth. The revelations came thanks to Flash visiting old pal “Ape” Rice, an officer of the ‘Spaceways Patrol’ (S088: December 17th 1961 to April 1st 1962).

Sadly, it’s not a friendly visit: Gordon works for the World Space Patrol and is on an official inspection of the Police satellite. Silly cultural satire – observing how dumb the private citizens “driving” in space are – quickly gives way to taut drama when recently-ousted national despot Generalissimo Sanre and his entourage seize the station through subterfuge, planning to blackmail the world with its arsenal of atomic weapons…

With only Flash and Ape free to act, tragedy inevitably follows the deadly fight that ensues before the planet is free from the threat of global tyranny…

The same blend of expansive wonder and human frailty permeates the saga of a blonde, blue-eyed hero found in a block of arctic ice – a tale told in full in S089, spanning April 8th through July 15th 1962. Incidentally, The Avengers #4 was released on January 3rd 1964, reintroducing Captain America to the world. I’m just saying…

Here, the ‘Living Fossil’ is found by researchers testing magnetic fields in Greenland and only involves Flash when defrosted berserker Ragnor goes on a rampage that brings him to the airfield Gordon is trying to land on. A renewed assault traps the Viking aboard (with Flash and a crew that includes handy Scandinavian scholar Eva) on a flight to Venus: a world far more in keeping with the barbarian’s culture of warriors, trolls, goblins, dwarves… and dragons…

This third astounding visit to a historical future closes with another technological nightmare and disaster-movie precursor spanning July 22nd to October 14th 1962. ‘Falling Moon’ (S090) reveals how massive artificial satellite Deepspace-One – jumping-off point for all outgoing Earth space travel – is struck by a meteor. Deflected and doomed, it slowly falls, leaving Flash only five hours to evacuate its resort contingent and find a way to save Earth from impact and atomic fallout…

As the adventures never ended, we close the collection with the opening of another exploit and pause on a moment of cliffhanging suspense. ‘Sons of Saturn’ (S091: in its original entirety running from October 21st 1962 to January 20th 1963) stops here with the December 9th episode. Prior to that point, a hitherto unsuspected super-civilisation thriving in the clouds of the Sixth Planet is revealed when an Earth probe provokes the current dictator to determine human nature and resource by sending super-criminal outcast Baldr to plague, punish and test them. That results in the indestructible giant breaking into Flash’s ship and going on a rampage…

To Be Continued…

Each week as he toiled on the strip, Raboy produced ever-more expansive artwork filled with distressed damsels, deadly monsters, incredible civilisations, increasingly authentic space hardware and locales, and all sorts of outrageous adventure that continued until the illustrator’s untimely death in 1967. Perhaps it was a kindness. He was the last great Golden Age romanticist illustrator and his lushly lavish, freely-flowing adoration of perfected human form was beginning to stale in popular taste. The Daily feature had already switched to the solid, chunky, He-Manly burly realism of Dan Barry and Frank Frazetta, but here at least the last outpost of ethereally beautiful heroism and pretty perils still prevailed: a dream realm you can visit as easily and often as Flash, Dale & Zarkov popped between planets, just by tracking down this book and the one which follows…
© 2003 King Features Syndicate Inc. ™ & © Hearst Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Sidney Smith’s The Gumps


By Sidney Smith, edited and compiled by Herb Galewitz (Charles Scribner’s Sons)
ISBN: 978-0-68413-997-5 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

There are so many milestones of the art of comics that new or casual readers can’t enjoy these days. The literary pioneer celebrated in this book is probably the most important of all 20th century US cartoonists, but other than this rare-as-hen’s-teeth tome and a single Library of American Comics Essentials collection (The Saga of Mary Gold) there’s precious little to be seen of his greatest invention – in English at least. Chances are you’ve never heard of him, but Robert Sidney Smith (February 13th 1877 – October 20th 1935) is arguably the most influential creator in the history of popular entertainment. A pretty big claim, I admit, but true nonetheless.

Smith was a pioneer of narrative continuity and the most successful early cartoonist to move the medium on from situational, gag-a-day variations on a character (a style dominant again today) to build with his avid audience an ongoing relationship based on character development and story progress. The Gumps grew from a notion expressed by influential comic strip Svengali Joseph Medill Patterson – Editor and Publisher of the Chicago Tribune – who shaped the development of such iconic institutions as Little Orphan Annie, Gasoline Alley, Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates and so many more. He handed his idea to Smith to make magic with…

The ongoing saga of a middle class American family began in 1917 and ran for 42 years, inviting readers to share the largely comedic tribulations of chinless wonder Andy Gump, his formidable wife Minerva, son Chester, cat Hope, dog Buck and fearsome Tilda, the family’s aging cook, housemaid, gadfly and critic

Andy was a regular guy: a blowhard with lots of schemes to make his fortune, Min was shrewish and nagging, the boys were troublesome and Tilda was a nosy tartar and the already infinite plot well of their domestic set-up sporadically drifted into thrilling adventure and flights of fancy whenever eccentric, two-fisted globetrotting millionaire Uncle Bim paid a visit…

It sounds hackneyed now, but that’s because The Gumps literally wrote the book on what daily story narratives should be: a lot of laughs, plenty of vicarious judgement, an occasional tragedy, oodles of long-drawn out tension and archetypal characters every reader recognised if not actually identified with…

Having enticed and beguiled a nation, The Gumps was one of the earliest strips to make the jump to celluloid. More than four dozen Universal Pictures 2-reel comedies were released between 1923 and 1928 starring Joe Murphy as the gormless patriarch. These followed 50 or more animated cartoons first seen between in 1920 and 1921, produced and directed by Wallace A. Carlson with scripts credited to Smith.

The Gumps was an early sensation of radio (1931-1937), paving the way for all later family soap operas which mimicked its irresistible format. Most importantly, as the strip progressed, its rocketing popularity became a key driver in the rise of comics syndication. Eventually Sidney Smith’s baby was seen across America and the world and he became one of the most highly-paid artists in the history of the medium. His salary was enormous and kept rising, as the grateful Patterson constantly rewarded him with some new extravagance to show his gratitude. The legend goes that racing-mad speed-freak Smith was driving his latest luxury Rolls Royce when he died in a smash-up in 1935…

After his shocking death, Patterson parachuted in sports cartoonist Gus Edson: a creditable replacement but ultimately unable to recapture the indefinable pizzazz of the originator. Whether it was something unique to Smith or simply that times and tastes were changing will never be known. Readership declined steadily but it took decades before the feature finally folded on October 17th 1959, by which time less than 20 papers carried it.

There will probably never be a comprehensive or complete Gumps archival collection. The spiky but compelling art is still manically wonderful and most of the gags remain well-conceived and effective, but the real problem is the pacing and verbosity of the text in the panels. Smith was writing and drawing a whole new way to tell stories and had to be sure the majority of his audience were with him. For most modern readers – blessed with a 100+ years of progress – much of the material might seem interminably slow. Not so back then: many of Smith’s boldest innovations caused uproar and shock on a periodic basis…

This sterling and scholarly monochrome landscape tome from 1974 still pops up now and again, offering the best of all possible worlds; extracting salient snippets, events and extracts from key storylines whilst providing fascinating commentary and context where necessary.

On Thursday February 8th 1917 Sidney Smith’s funny animal strip Old Doc Yak ended with the sagacious ruminant moving out of their house and wondering who the next tenants might be. The following Monday – February 12th – the doors opened on the Gump clan. The magic started strong and just kept on going…

Packed with photos and plenty of astonishing facts, Herb Galewitz’s ‘Introduction’ offers the run-down on the strip and its creator whilst also providing a glimpse at the star in the making through ‘Sidney Smith’s Sports Cartoons’. Also revealed are ‘The Last Old Doc Yak’ strip and a handy pictorial introduction to the incoming cast before ‘The Early Years: 1917-20’ sees the stories begin to unfold…

Scenes of wedded bliss and domestic contention abound as Andy & Min contend with household chores, wayward furnaces, gardening, child-rearing and each other. As ticked off as they ever got, the happy marrieds seldom let adversarial moments linger or fester…

‘Andy On Vacation – 1922’ shows our hero’s take on bucolic pastimes like fishing, hiking and cooking after he and Min take separate holidays. Andy finds himself at a lakeside cabin with the least welcoming couple in history. Mr. Gump doesn’t mind: it takes all sorts and he’s willing to be accommodating…

The satire cup overflows when the pontificating prawn then enters politics. ‘Andy Runs for Congress – 1922’ proffers plenty of scope for character assassination, skulduggery and corrupt shenanigans before all the votes are finally cast and counted…

The Gumps truly hit its peak after moving wholeheartedly into melodrama, as with ‘The Vindication of Tom Carr – 1929’, wherein romantic regular Mary Gold’s one true love was wrongfully convicted of robbery. Smith sagely portrayed the trial through daily bulletins which built tension and sympathy in equal amounts. When the travesty of justice saw the real culprit rapaciously move in on Mary, the aroused assembled readership was aghast and astoundingly vocal in their protests…

They went absolutely crazy when the vile predator’s machinations led shockingly to ‘The Death of Mary Gold – 1929’. The story even moved from the comics section to Front Page as readers registered their disapproval. Circulation of papers carrying The Gumps skyrocketed…

Uncle Bim was an exotic semi-regular whose appearances always caused sparks. His lonely years of prospecting and wealth-gathering looked likely to end when he met Millie De Stross but her social-climbing mother had other ideas. These brought her to near-ruin after the gullible old lady encountered unscrupulous embezzler/conman Townsend Zander who masqueraded as royalty in ‘The Count Bessford Affair – 1933’…

With Mama firmly in the crook’s pocket, the scoundrel demanded marriage to Millie as part of his pay-off. When that went wrong he resorted to kidnap and blackmail. Audiences were breathless and terrified. Their favourite funny page feature had a track record of letting good guys suffer and killing off heroines…

When ‘The Disappearance of Uncle Bim – 1933’ was finally resolved, the distraught millionaire rushed his intended to the altar, but Zander had one last card to play, resulting in ‘A Foiled Wedding! – 1934’…

The villain’s outrageous claim to have already wed Millie led to courtroom drama and ‘A Legal Hassle! – 1934’, allowing reprehensible, haughty Mama De Stross to sue Bim for his fortune, so Andy took the beleaguered suitor to his old holiday haunt for ‘An Interlude at Shady Rest – 1934’…

Batteries fully recharged, the irrepressible Gumps returned to the fray to finally outwit Mrs. De Stross and defeat Zander, resulting in a long-delayed happy ending (of sorts) with ‘Bim and Millie, United at Last – 1934’. Of course that meant the newlyweds had to cope with ‘Mama De Stross, Mother In Law – 1934’…

These too-brief tastes of Smith’s amazing graphic narrative achievements are supplemented by a selection of shorter vignettes such as a glimpse at the unique service of housemaid ‘Tilda’ and the wiles of child prodigy ‘Chester Gump’ as well as a peek at the efforts of his successor in ‘Gus Edson’s The Gumps’. Also included is an appreciation of Smith’s gag-panel, uncomfortably displaying the “oriental wisdom” of ‘Ching Chow’. Although disquieting to modern eyes, this philosophy-spouting comedy “Chinaman” first appeared on January 27th 1927 and also carried on after Smith’s death, initially rendered by Stanley Link. Regarded as an irreplaceable cartoon “fortune cookie” by countless editors, the panel was crafted by a succession of creators and ran until June 4th 1990 (!!), outliving The Gumps by almost 40 years…

The examples seen here are counterbalanced by a ‘Comparison of Chester Gump and Stanley Link’s Tiny Tim’ and followed by a photo-feature ‘Miscellany’ displaying a wide range of Gumps books and merchandise to end this cartoon celebration…

Studious and genuinely enticing for students of comics and anybody interested in the evolution of soap operas and sitcoms, this book provides insight and a fascinating visual tour of a phenomenon and world we’ve mostly outgrown, but one still worth celebrating and commemorating.
© 1974 The Chicago Tribune/N.Y. News Syndicate Inc. All rights reserved.

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Sub-Mariner & The Original Human Torch


By Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, Rich Buckler with Bob McLeod, Richardson & Company, Mike Gustovich, Danny Bulanadi, Alfredo Alcala, Romeo Tanghal & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9048-6 (TPB)

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the hybrid offspring of a sub-sea Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer; a being of immense strength, highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Created by young Bill Everett, Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics.

He first caught the public’s attention as part of an elementally electrifying “Fire vs. Water” headlining team-up clash in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939 and soon to become Marvel Mystery Comics) alongside The Human Torch, but had originally been seen in truncated form via monochrome Motion Picture Funnies: a weekly promotional giveaway handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year.

Rapidly becoming one of the new company’s biggest draws, Namor gained his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-date Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to go at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” (the Torch and Captain America being the other two), Sub-Mariner resurfaced with Everett returning for an extended run of superb fantasy tales. Even so, the time wasn’t right and the title sank again.

When Stan Lee & Jack Kirby began reinventing comic-books in 1961 with Fantastic Four, they revived and rebooted the near-forgotten amphibian as a troubled, semi-amnesiac, yet decidedly more regal and grandiose anti-hero. He was understandably embittered at the loss of his undersea kingdom, which had seemingly been destroyed by American atomic testing.

He also became a dangerous bad-boy romantic interest: besotted with the FF’s golden-haired Sue Storm…

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel Universe for a few years, squabbling with assorted heroes like Daredevil, The Avengers and X-Men – and villains like The Incredible Hulk and Doctor Doom – before securing his own series as part of “split-book” Tales to Astonish with the aforementioned fellow antisocial antihero…

In 1988, as part of Marvel’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, that phenomenal half-century of comic book history was abridged, amended, updated and generally précised by avowed fan and self-appointed keeper of chronology Roy Thomas and writing partner Dann Thomas who collaboratively commemorated the Avenging Son’s contribution in 12-part Limited Series miniseries The Saga of the Sub-Mariner: rapturously drawn by Golden Age groupie Rich Buckler.

Roy & Rich did the same with The Saga of the Original Human Torch – a 4-part series running April to July 1990 – and both sides of the tempestuous coin are triumphantly tossed together in this splendidly all-encompassing, no-nonsense textbook of historic Fights ‘n’ Tights mythology ideal for celebrating and commemorating the elemental odd couple’s 85th Anniversary…

It all begins thousands of years ago with ‘A Legend a-Borning’ from The Saga of the Sub-Mariner #1 (November 1988) with Buckler inked by Bob McLeod. A short history of the sinking of antediluvian Atlantis and its eventual reoccupation by nomadic tribes of Homo Mermanus follows. The water-breathing wanderers flourish deep in the icy waters, and their story leads to a certain US research vessel sailing into icy waters in 1920…

Its depth-charging and icebreaking has horrendous consequences for the citizens of the deep and in response Emperor Thakorr organises a possibly punitive expedition. Instead, his daughter Princess Fen uses experimental air-breathing serums to infiltrate the ship and forms a brief liaison with Captain Leonard McKenzie. They even marry, but neither is aware the voyage has been arranged by unscrupulous telepath Paul Destine who is drawn to the area by an uncanny device of ancient power and origins…

Whilst Destine is being buried under a catastrophic avalanche trying to excavate the artefact, a raiding party from Atlantis boards the ship and drags Fen back home. She believes her husband has been killed in the attack. Months later a strange, pink-skinned baby is born beneath the deep blue sea…

The story resumes years later with teenaged Namor experiencing prejudice firsthand whilst playing with his blue-skinned chums and royal cousin Prince Byrrah. The passing of his callow years are interspersed with his grandfather’s disdain, his mother’s tales of the fabled “Americans” and the annoying girl Dorma who is always hanging around…

Every day seems to point out another way in which he differs from his people, such as his ever-increasing strength, ability to live unaided on the surface and the wings on his ankles which grant him the power of flight through the air.

Life changes forever when the youngster scavenges a sunken ship and shockingly encounters a brace of clunky mechanical men from the surface world doing the same. Panicked, he attacks, severing control cables connected to a ship far above before proudly hauling them to Atlantis as his prize. For once grandfather is delighted, especially when the face plates are pried open and he sees dead surface-men within.

The Emperor is ever more gleeful when Byrrah suggests Namor should go beard the Surfacers in their own realm to pay them back for the past destruction of Atlantis. Young, feisty and gullible, Namor sets off, ready to live up to his name which means ‘Avenging Son’…

‘A Prince in New York’ spectacularly depicts the fantastic reign of terror and destruction Sub-Mariner wrought upon the city, until distracted and becalmed by plucky blonde policewoman Betty Dean. It then reveals how he learns to despise Nazi Germany’s maritime depredations before ‘A Fire on the Water’ details how New York Special Policeman The (Original) Human Torch is deputised to stop the fish-man at all costs…

He never quite succeeds, but their ongoing clash resulted in some of the most astonishing scraps in comics history. With the city almost wrecked by their battles Betty Dean again steps in to calm the boiling waters and the next chapter – inked by Richardson & Company – introduced the ‘Invaders!’ as Hitler incomprehensibly decides to eradicate Atlantis with depth charges and U-boats. This rash act of wanton hatred merely secures Sub-Mariner’s fanatical aid for the Allied Powers.

With Thakorr wounded, the people elect Namor Emperor by popular acclaim before watching him swim off to crush the Axis and their super-powered servants. The young regent fights with and beside the Torch, Captain America, Bucky, Spitfire and Union Jack. By the time the war is won and Namor returns to his realm, Byrrah and his crony Commander Krang have turned recuperating Thakorr against his interim substitute and Sub-Mariner finds himself banished. Only Lady Dorma’s impassioned intervention prevents the homecoming becoming a bloodbath…

With nowhere else to go Namor rejoins his surface superhero friends to create the post-war All-Winners Squad, before eventually being summoned home by his cousin Namora. Atlantis has been ravaged by air-breathing gangsters…

Seeking vengeance, they team up with Betty for a short-lived crusade against criminals, madmen and monsters until again recalled to the rebuilt underwater kingdom. Namor’s years away had gradually diminished his mighty hybrid abilities, but now-recovered Thakorr orders Atlantis’ greatest scientists to restore them so the Sub-Mariner can renew the Realm’s war against all surface-men…

Instead, Namor attempts diplomacy, but his State Visit to the United Nations results in violent protests and the death of a bystander. He returns to his grandfather a bitter man, but still argues against war, no matter how hard General Krang and Byrrah urge it…

When Atlantis is wracked by seaquakes, Namor leads a patrol to the polar cap above and discovers freshly-exhumed Paul Destine is responsible. The psychic had found a fantastic Helmet of Power which magnified his gifts exponentially, and decided to test his expanded abilities on the closest population centre…

Enraged, Namor’s physical might is useless against the tele-potent madman and Destine wipes his fishy foe’s memories, sending him to live as an amnesiac amongst the dregs of New York, blindly awaiting his future ‘Dark Destiny’ (McLeod inks).

The epic history lesson reaches the dawn of the Marvel Age decades later as ‘Rage and Remembrance’ recaps the epochal events after new Human Torch Johnny Storm restores the memory of a weary derelict and unleashes the rage of the Sub-Mariner once again. With his mind and most of his memories back, Namor instantly heads home to find Atlantis razed and his people gone. Blaming humans, he launches a series of blistering attacks on the Fantastic Four whilst attempting to win the heart of the clearly conflicted Invisible Girl…

As months pass he discovers his people had relocated to rebuild Atlantis. Namor is re-elected Emperor over the protests of Byrrah and betrothed to Lady Dorma, unknowingly earning the eternal enmity of Warlord Krang who has always wanted her…

His war against the surface continues, escalating into a brief invasion of New York, a turbulent alliance with The Hulk and clash with ‘Avengers!’ (Mike Gustovich inks) resulting in the revival of his now-forgotten Invaders comrade Captain America…

Sub-Mariner’s pointless sorties against mankind continue as he forcefully adds The X-Men and Magneto onto his roster of enemies whilst still trying to take Sue Storm away from Reed Richards.

After repelling an invasion by sub-sea barbarian Attuma he softens and again seeks official human recognition for Atlantis. Whilst making this embassage, Krang seizes control of Atlantis and after battling Daredevil, Namor returns to his kingdom, deals with the usurper and more-or-less dials back his campaign against the surface. Sadly, this peace is interrupted as Destine again strikes, inviting the new ruler to a ‘Rendezvous with Destiny!’ (McLeod inks).

Time and events telescope from now on as ‘Losses in Battle’ traces Namor’s showdown with the mental maniac, alliance with the Inhuman Triton and battles Plantman, Dr. Dorcas, Tiger Shark, The Thing and a host of others, as well as enjoying a reunion with Betty Prentiss (nee Dean) and facing the rise of the sinister antediluvian Serpent Cult of Lemuria, which first devised the formidable Helmet of Power in eons past. Also revealed is how Namor’s marriage to Dorma is thwarted by murderous Lemurian Llyra and his subsequent agonising first and last meetings with his long-lost father…

‘Blood Ties’ then details his meeting with and adoption of Namora’s teenaged daughter Namorita, clashes with Doctor Doom and M.O.D.O.K., an alliance of Byrrah and Llyra and origins of The Defenders before ‘Triumphs… and Tragedy!’ (inked by McLeod & Co) brings us to a cameo-packed conclusion, relating Namor’s enforced alliance with Doom, admission into the Mighty Avengers and loss of two of his greatest loves…

Although appearing a tad rushed, the writing is strong and compelling: offering fresh insights for those familiar with the original material whilst presenting these chronicles in an engaging and appetising manner for those coming to the stories for the first time. Moreover, Buckler’s solidly dependable illustration capably handles a wide, wild and capacious cast with great style and verve.

Balancing the watery wonderment is the later and far shorter comics chronology of Sub-Mariner’s arch ally and favourite frenemy, as first seen in The Saga of the Original Human Torch. It starts with ‘The Lighted Torch’ by Thomas, Buckler & Danny Bulanadi, showing how the Flaming Fury first burst into life as a malfunctioning humanoid devised by troubled and acquisitive Professor Phineas Horton. Instantly igniting into an uncontrollable fireball whenever exposed to air, the artificial innocent was consigned to entombment in concrete but escaped to accidentally imperil the metropolis until it/he fell into the hands of a malign mobster named Sardo.

When the crook’s attempts to use the android as a terror weapon dramatically backfired, the hapless newborn was left a misunderstood fugitive – like a modern-day Frankenstein’s monster. Even his creator only saw the fiery Prometheus as a means of making money.

Gradually gaining control of his flammability, the angry, perpetually rejected android decides to make his own way in the world. Instinctively honest, the creature saw crime and wickedness everywhere and resolved to do something about it. Indistinguishable from human when not afire, he joined the police as Jim Hammond: tackling ordinary thugs even as his volcanic alter ego battled such outlandish bandits as Asbestos Lady. The Torch met Betty Dean when New York City Chief of Police John C. Wilson asked him to stop the savage Sub-Mariner destroying everything. The battles are spectacular but inconclusive, only ending when Betty intervenes and brokers a tenuous ceasefire.

Later, a brusque reunion with Horton sets the Torch on the trail of his creator’s former assistant Fred Raymond. Hammond is too late to stop Asbestos Lady murdering the Raymonds in a train wreck, but adopts their little boy Toro, who gains the power to become a human torch as soon as he meets the artificial avenger. The partners in peril become a team who set ‘The World on Fire!’: battling beside Namor in The Invaders for WWII’s duration.

They even play a major role in ending the conflict in 1945, storming a Berlin bunker and incinerating Hitler, before rising ‘Out of the Ashes…’ (Alfredo Alcala inks) to battle Homefront hostiles, exposing Machiavellian android mastermind Adam-II who, with knowledge of the future, attempts to assassinate a group of strangers who would all eventually be Presidents of the USA. The Fiery Furies formed the backbone of the All-Winners Squad, battling maniacs and conquerors from tomorrow, continuing their campaign against crime long after their comrades retired…

When a family crisis benches Toro, the Torch soldiers on with new sidekick Sun Girl until he returns. The reunion is destined to be short and far from sweet…

The hot history lesson concludes in ‘The Flaming Fifties!’ (inked by Romeo Tanghal) as Jim Hammond bursts from a desert grave following a nuclear test explosion: revived from a chemically-induced coma mimicking death. His last memory was of being ambushed by gangsters and sprayed with a chemical inhibiting his flame and knocking him out. Blazing back to the ambush site he attacks his assailants only to discover four years have passed…

When they employ the same solution as before, the compound no longer works on his atomically-charged form and when G-Men burst in the awful truth comes out. The Torch & Toro vanished in 1949 and when pressed, the crooks admit to having got their chemical cosh from the Russians. More chillingly, they paid for it by handing Toro over to the Reds…

After spectacularly rescuing and deprogramming the Soviets’ incendiary secret weapon, the Torch brings Toro home and they continue their anti-crime campaign against weird villains, Commie menaces and an assortment of crooks and gangsters. However, before long tragedy again strikes as the atomic infusion finally reaches critical mass in Jim’s android body.

Realising he is about to flame out in a colossal nova, The Human Torch soars into the desert skies and detonates like a supernova…

The pre-Marvel Age exploits of the Torch end here, but devotees already know how Hammond was resurrected a number of times in the convoluted continuity that underpins the modern House of Ideas…

This substantial primer into the prehistory of the groundbreaking Marvel Universe also includes a quartet of original art covers plus a brace of full-colour, textless cover reproductions. Fast, furious and fabulously action-packed, this is a lovely slice of authentic Marvel mastery to delight all lovers of Costumed dramas.
© 1988, 1989, 1990, 2014 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Complete Johnny Future


By Alf Wallace, Luis Bermejo & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-758-9 (HB/Digital edition)

Gosh I feel inexplicably optimistic and upbeat this week and can’t imagine why. Let’s continue looking forward and back and explore one of our little industry’s best lost secret: a buried masterpiece of international cooperation that has stood the test of time…

Until relatively recently, Britain never really had a handle on superheroes. Although every reader from the 1950s on can cite a particular favourite fantasy muscle-man or costumed champion – from Thunderbolt Jaxon to Morgyn the Mighty to Marvelman, Gadget Man & Gimmick Kid to The Spider, Tri-Man and Phantom Viking to Red Star Robinson, The Leopard from Lime Street and Billy the Cat (& Katie!) and all worthy stalwarts deserving their own archived revivals! – who have populated our pages, they all somehow ultimately lacked conviction. Well, almost all…

During the heady Swinging Sixties days of “Batmania”, just as Marvel Comics was first infiltrating our collective consciousness, a little-remembered strip graced the pages of a short-lived experimental title. The result being sheer, unbridled magic…

With Scotland’s DC Thomson steadily overtaking the London-based competition (monolithic comics publishing giant Amalgamated Press) during the late 1950s & 1960s, the sheer variety of material the southerners unleashed to compete offered incredible vistas in adventure tales. Thanks to Leo Baxendale and Ken Reid’s defection to AP, they also had a wealth of anarchic comedy material to challenge the likes of The Bash Street Kids, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and their unruly ilk. During that latter end of the period, the Batman TV show sent the world superhero crazy just as AP finished absorbing all its local rivals such as The Eagle’s Hulton Press to form Fleetway, Odhams and ultimately IPC.

Formerly the biggest player in children’s comics, Amalgamated Press (founded by Alfred Harmsworth at the beginning of the 20th century) had stayed at the forefront of sales by latching onto every fad: keeping their material contemporary, if not always fresh or original. The all-consuming monolith had been reprinting the early successes of Marvel comics for a few years, feeding on the growing fashion for US-style action/adventure which had largely supplanted the rather tired True-Blue Brit style of Dan Dare or DCT’s Wolf of Kabul or the Tough of the Track. A key point at that time was that although both part of the Mirror Group, Fleetway and Odhams were deadly rivals…

Power Comics was a sub-brand used by Odhams to differentiate their periodicals containing reprinted American superhero material from the greater company’s regular blend of sports, war, western adventure and gag comics such as Buster, Valiant, Lion or Tiger. During this period, the strictly monochrome Power weeklies did much to popularise budding Marvel characters and their shared universe in this country, which was still poorly served by distribution of the actual American imports.

The line began with Wham! – but only after the comic was well-established. Originally created by newly-ensconced Baxendale, it had launched on June 20th 1964. Initially, the title was designed as a counter to The Beano, as was Smash! (launching February 5th 1966), but the tone of times soon dictated the hiving off into a more distinctive imprint, which was augmented by the creation of little sister Pow!

Pow! premiered with a cover date of January 31st 1967, combining home-grown funnies like Mike Higgs’ The Cloak, Baxendale’s The Dolls of St Dominic’s, Reid’s Dare-a-Day Davy, Wee Willie Haggis: The Spy from Skye and British originated thrillers such as Jack Magic and The Python with the now ubiquitous resized US strips: in this case Amazing Spider-Man, The Hulk and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. The next step was even bolder. Fantastic – and its sister paper Terrific – were notable for not reformatting or resizing the original US artwork whereas in Wham!, Pow! or Smash!, an entire 24-page yarn could be rejigged and squeezed into 10 or 11 pages, and were accompanied by British comedy and adventure strips.

These slick new titles – each with a dynamic back cover pin-up taken from Marvel Comics or created in-house by apprentice comics bods and future superstars Barry Windsor-Smith and Steve Parkhouse (see below) – reprinted US Superhero fare, supplemented by minimal amounts of UK originated filler and editorial.

Fantastic #1 debuted with cover-date February 18th 1967 (but first seen in newsagents on Saturday 11th), revealing the origin stories of Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men, but from the get-go, savvy tykes like me were as engrossed by a short adventure serial also included to fill out the page count. The Missing Link was beautifully drawn and over the following year (February 18th 1967 – February 3rd 1968) would become a truly unique reading experience…

The series began inauspiciously as a homegrown Incredible Hulk knock off. Oddly, editor and writer Alfred “Alf” Wallace crafted for the filler a tone very similar to that adopted by Marvel’s own Green Goliath when he became a small screen star a decade later…

The illustrator was the astoundingly gifted Luis Bermejo Rojo, a star of Spanish comics forced to seek work abroad after the domestic market imploded in 1956. He became a prolific contributor to British strips, working on a succession of moody masterpieces in a variety of genres. These included The Human Guinea Pig, Mann of Battle, Pike Mason, Phantom Force Five and Heros the Spartan, appearing in Girls Crystal, Tina, Tarzan Weekly, Battle Picture Library, Thriller Picture Library The Eagle, Buster, Boys World, Tell Me Why, Look and Learn and many more. Bermejo finally achieved a modicum of his long-deserved acclaim in the 1970s, after joining fellow studio mates José Ortiz, Esteban Maroto and Leopoldo Sanchez working on adult horror stories for Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella.

I’m still a big kid helplessly enmired in nostalgia, but to me his greatest moments were the year spent drawing Johnny Future…

The Missing Link – as the feature was entitled for the first 15 episodes – was disturbingly similar in tone and delivery to television’s Hulk of the 1970s. The strip’s titular protagonist was superhumanly strong, seemingly intellectually challenged and tragically misunderstood. The saga combined human-scaled drama with lost world exoticism in the manner of King Kong, as can be see seen following Steve Holland’s incisive and informative Introduction ‘Welcome to the Future!’, when the drama opens in the wilds of Africa.

A bestial man-beast roams the veldt, swamps and mountains, until great white hunter Bull Belson comes to capture him, accompanied by secretary/photographer Lita Munro. The infamous tracker sees only profit in his quarry: a mute beast who, after much frustratingly destructive behaviour, is lured into captivity by an inexplicable attraction to Miss Munro…

To be fair, she actually has the brute’s interests at heart, attempting to befriend and teach the Link on the slow voyage back to England, but on reaching London Dock, the prospective sideshow attraction is spooked by mocking labourers and shockingly breaks his bonds… and cage.

Brutally rampaging across the city at the heart of the Swinging Sixties, the Link is hunted by the army, but no one realizes that beneath the bestial brow is a cunning brain. Hopping a freight train north, he seeks refuge in an isolated government atomic research laboratory run by Dr. Viktor Kelso and is accidentally dosed with vast amounts of transformative radiation. Unleashed uncanny forces jumpstart an evolutionary leap, turning the primitive beast into a perfect specimen of human manhood, while simultaneously sparking near-catastrophic meltdown in the machinery. It is only averted by the massive instinctive intellect of the new man. Arrested as a terrorist spy, the silent superman is very publicly tried in court and again encounters Lita.

Kelso meanwhile has deduced the true course of events. As the Link uses his prison time to educate himself in the ways of the world, the unstable scientist works on a deadly super-weapon, prompting the Link to escape jail and clear his name. With super-strength and his newly enhanced massive mind, the task is easy but he still needs Lita to complete his plan…

The series cheerfully plundered the tone of the times. The drama seamlessly morphs into and pilfers chilling contemporary science fiction tropes as Kelso’s device brings Britain to a literal standstill, leaving only the evolved outsider to thwart a staggeringly ambitious scheme.

Set on a fresh, bold openly heroic path, and despite still being a hunted fugitive, the Link creates a civilian identity (John Foster) and a costumed persona just as the nation is assaulted by ‘The Animal Man’: a psionic dictator able to control all beasts and creatures. Incredibly, that includes recently ascendant Johnny Future, with the villain only defeated through overextending himself after accidentally awakening a primordial horror from Jurassic times…

In short order, Johnny Future tackles Dr. Jarra and his killer robot; a society of evil world-conquering scientists; invention-plundering shapeshifting aliens; prehistoric giants and deranged science tyrant The Master.

Fully hitting his stride, the tomorrow man overcomes personality warping psychopath Mr. Opposite and defeats the top assassins of the Secret Society of Science – ‘The Brain, The Brute and the Hunter’, prior to saving Earth from marauding living metal and destroying Dr. Plasto’s animated waxwork killers.

… And that was that. Without warning the comic merged with sister publication Terrific and there was no more room for a purely British superhero. Here, however, there’s one final memorable delight: a 14-page, full-colour complete adventure with Johnny battling diabolical primordial revenant Disastro, as first seen in Fantastic Annual 1968, as well as a colour pin-up from Fantastic #30 (September 9th 1967).

Interest in superheroes and fantasy in general were on the wane and British weeklies were diversifying. Some switched back to war, sports and fantasy adventure yarns, whilst – with comedy strips on the rise again – others became largely humour outlets. The Complete Johnny Future is a unique beast: a blend of British B-movie chic with classic monster riffs seen through the same bleakly compelling lens that spawned Doctor Who and Quatermass. It is the social sci fi of John Wyndham trying on glamourous superhero schtick whilst blending the breakneck pace of a weekly serial with the chilling moodiness of kitchen sink crime dramas.

There was never anything quite like this before – or since – and if you love dark edges to your comics escapism you must have this amazing collection far sooner than tomorrow.
™ & © 1967, 1968, & 2020 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Silver Age Dailies and Sundays volume 1: 1966-1967


By Whitney Ellsworth, Joe Giella, Sheldon Moldoff, Carmine Infantino, Bob Powell, Werner Roth, Curt Swan & various (Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 987-1-61377-845-6 (HB)

Last century in America the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail all cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers aspired to and hungered for; syndicated across the country and the planet. Always a prime tool of circulation-building, strips won millions of readers and were regarded (in most places) as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic books.

They also paid better, and the Holiest of Holies was a full-colour Sunday page, so it was always something of a poisoned chalice if comic book characters became so popular that they swam against the tide and became a syndicated serial strip. After all, weren’t funnybooks invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?

Both Superman and Wonder Woman made the jump soon after their debuts and many features have done so since. Due to numerous war-time complications, the Batman and Robin newspaper strip was slow getting its shot, but when the Dynamic Duo finally hit the comics section of papers, the feature proved to be one of the best-regarded, highest quality examples of the trend, both in Daily and Sunday formats (and we’ll be covering what collections there are of those landmarks quite soon in this Dark Knight anniversary year).

The 1940s strips never achieved the circulation they deserved, but the Sundays were latterly given a new lease of life when DC began including selected episodes in the 1960s Batman 80-Page Giants and Annuals. Those exceedingly high-quality adventures were ideal short stories, adding an extra cachet of exoticism for youngsters captivated by simply seeing their heroes in tales that were positively ancient and redolent of History with a capital “H”.

Such was not the case as the decade proceeded when, for a relatively brief moment, humanity went bananas for superheroes in general but most especially went “Bat-Mad”…

Comic books’ Silver Age utterly revolutionised a creatively moribund medium cosily snoozing in unchallenging complacency, bringing a modicum of sophistication to the returning genre of masked mystery men. For quite some time the changes instigated by Julius Schwartz in Showcase #4 (October 1956) had rippled out to affect all National/DC Comics’ superhero characters but generally passed by Batman and Robin. Fans buying Detective Comics, Batman, World’s Finest Comics and latterly Justice League of America read exploits that – in look and tone – were largely unchanged from safely anodyne fantasies that had turned the Dark Knight into a mystery-solving, alien-fighting costumed Boy Scout after the 1940s turned into the 1950s.

By the end of 1963, however, Schwartz having – either personally or by example – revived and revitalised the majority of DC’s line (and, by extension and imitation, the entire industry) with his reinvention of the Superhero, was asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled nigh-moribund Caped Crusaders.

Shepherding his usual team of top-notch creators, the Editor stripped down the core-concept, downplaying the ETs, outlandish villains and daft transformations, bringing cool modernity to the capture of criminals and overseeing a streamlining rationalisation of the art style itself. The most apparent change to us kids was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol but, far more importantly, the stories similarly changed as a subtle aura of genuine menace had crept back in. At the same time Hollywood was in production of a television series based on Batman and, through the sheer karmic insanity that permeates the universe, the studio executives were basing their interpretation upon the addictively daft material DC was emphatically turning its editorial back on rather than the “New Look Batman” currently enthralling readers.

The Batman TV show premiered on January 12th 1966 and ran for three seasons of 120 episodes, airing twice weekly for the first two. It was a monumental, world-wide hit and sparked a wave of imitation. Resulting media hysteria and fan frenzy generated an insane degree of Bat-awareness, no end of spin-offs and merchandise – including a movie – and introduced us all to the phenomenon of overkill. No matter how much we might squeal and foam about it, even 60 years later, to a huge portion of this planet’s population Batman is always going to be that “Zap! Biff! Pow!” buffoonish Boy Scout in a mask…

“Batmania” exploded across the world and almost as quickly became toxic and vanished, but at its height sparked a fresh newspaper strip incarnation. The strip was a huge syndication success and even reached fuddy-duddy Britain, not in our papers and journals but as the cover feature of weekly comic Smash! (with the 20th issue onwards).

Overwhelmingly successful, Batman’s TV show ended in March 1968. As it foundered and faded away, the global fascination with “camp” superheroes – and no, the term had nothing to do with sexual orientation no matter what you and Mel Brooks might suspect about Men in Tights – burst as quickly as it had boomed and the Caped Crusader was left with a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who now wanted their hero back…

From the time when the Gotham Guardians could do no wrong comes this superb collection re-presenting the bright and breezy, intentionally zany cartoon classics, augmented by a wealth of background material, topped up with oodles of unseen scenes and detail to delight the most ardent Baby-boomer nostalgia-freaks.

It opens with an astonishingly informative and astoundingly picture-packed, candidly cool introduction from comics historian Joe Desris entitled ‘A History of the Batman and Robin Newspaper Strip’, stuffed with a wealth of newspaper promotional materials, premiums and giveaways, sketches, comic book covers and the lowdown on how the strip was coordinated to work in conjunction with the regular comic books. The Dailies and Sundays were all scripted by former DC writer/editor – and the company’s Hollywood liaison/producer – Whitney Ellsworth (Tillie the Toiler, Congo Bill) and initially illustrated by Bob Kane’s long-term secret art collaborator Sheldon Moldoff, before inker Joe Giella was tapped by the TV studio to provide a slick, streamlined modern look in the visuals – frequently as penciller but ALWAYS as embellisher.

Since the feature was a 7-day-a-week job, Giella often called in few comicbook buddies to help lay-out and draw the strip; luminaries such as Carmine Infantino, Bob Powell, Werner Roth, Curt Swan and more…

Back then, black-&-white Dailies and full-colour Sundays were usually offered as separate packages with continuity strips often generating different storylines for each. With Batman the strip started out that way, but switched to unified 7-day continuities in December 1966.

For convenience, this collection begins with the Sunday-only yarns. As on TV, the first villain du jour was a certain top-hatted raucous raptor…

‘Penguin Perpetrated a Prank’ (May 29th – July 10th 1966) saw the Fowl Felon and masked moll Beulah go on a rather uninspired crime spree, after which ‘The Nasty Napoleon’ (July 17th – October 16th) introduced a pint-sized plunderer with larcenous intent and delusions of military grandeur. Moldoff was replaced by Giella &Infantino at the end of August, if you were wondering…

Contemporarily “Swinging England” was almost as big a craze as Batman so it was no surprise the Dynamic Duo would hop across The Pond to meet well-meaning but bumbling imitators ‘Batchap and Bobbin’, fighting crime in the sleepy hamlet of Lemon Regis (October 23rd – December 18th) after which the Sundays were incorporated into the working week storylines.

Monochrome Dailies launched on May 30th: Ellsworth & Moldoff kicking off with a healthy dose of sex & violence as ‘Catwoman is a Wily Wench’ (running to July 9th 1966) saw the sultry bandit easily captured only to break out of jail and go on a vengeance-fuelled spree intended to end Batman’s career and life. Next came ‘Two Jokers and a Laughing Girl’ (July 11th – September 24th) wherein the Clown Prince of Crime is paroled into the custody of Bruce Wayne, whilst covertly robbing Gotham blind by employing a body-double. As Giella took over the art chores, it took a guest shot from Superman to iron out that macabre miscreant’s merry muddle.

Claiming to have been robbed of his rightfully stolen loot, the Wily Bird brigand became ‘Penguin the Complainant’ (September 26th – October 8th), demanding his greatest enemies and the Gotham police catch a modern-day pirate plaguing him. That led in turn to a flotilla of fists and foolishness as Batman & Robin began ‘Flying the Jolly Roger’ (October 10th – December 9th), after which Daily and Sunday segments unified as our courteous but severely outmatched Chivalrous Crusaders faced their greatest challenge from a trio of college girls: The Ivy League Dropouts. The co-ed crooks and their floral field commander seen in ‘The Sizzling Saga of Poison Ivy’ (December 10th 1966 – March 17th 1967) were unrelated to the psychotic poisoner created by Robert Kanigher in Batman #181 (June 1966) in all but name…

Like its TV counterpart, the strip began increasingly featuring real-world guest stars and the bad girls’ scheme to plunder hospitality magnate Conrad Hilton‘s latest enterprise – The Batman Hilton – led to comedic cross-dressing hijinks, a doomed affair for Bruce and plenty of publicity for all concerned…

The guest policy was expanded in ‘Jack Benny’s Stolen Stradivarius’ (March 18th – April 30th) as the infamously penny-pinching comedian promised Gotham’s Gangbusters a $1000-an-hour stipend (for charity, of course) to recover his fiddle and insisted on accompanying them everywhere to ensure they worked at top speed…

A major character debuted in ‘Batgirl Ain’t your Sister’ (May 1st – July 9th) with a masked mystery woman prowling the night streets. She was beating up plenty of baddies but their loot never seemed to be recovered…

With no clues and nothing to go on, all Batman & Robin could do was masquerade as crooks and rob places in hopes of being caught by the “Dominoed Daredoll”, but by the time they found each other The Riddler had involved himself, planning to kill everybody and keep all that accumulated loot for himself…

Riding a wave and feeling ambitious, Ellsworth & Giella began their longest saga yet as ‘Shivering Blue Max, “Pretty Boy” Floy and Flo’ (July 10th 1967 – March 18th 1968 and ending in the next book) saw a perpetually hypothermic criminal pilot accidentally down the Batcopter and erroneously claim the underworld’s million dollar bounty on Batman & Robin. The heroes were not dead, but the crash had caused the Caped Crusader to lose his memory. As Robin and faithful manservant Alfred sought to remedy his affliction, Max collected his prize and jetted off for sunnier climes. With Batman missing, neophyte crimebuster Batgirl tracked down the heroes – incidentally learning their secret identities – and was instrumental in restoring him to action… if not quite his full functioning faculties.

When underworld paymaster BG (Big) Trubble heard the heroes had returned he quite understandably instituted procedures to get his money back, forcing Max to return to Gotham where he stupidly fell foul of Pretty Boy before that hip young gunsel and his sister Flo kicked off a murderous scheme to fleece a horoscope-addicted millionaire…

To Be Continued and concluded, Bat-Fans…

Supplementing the parade of guilty pleasures is a copious, comprehensive and fabulously educational section on ‘Notes on Stories in this Volume’ – also generously illustrated with covers, photos and show-&-strip arcana – as well as a fascinating behind-the-scenes display highlighting editorial corrections and alterations to the strips required by those ever-so-fussy TV studio people. Everything then ends for now with a schematic key to ‘The Batman Cast’ as depicted on the back cover.

The stories in this compendium reflect gentler times and an editorial policy focusing as much on broad humour as Batman’s reputation as a manhunter, so the colourful, psychotic costumed super-villains are in a minority here, but if you’re of a certain age or open to fun-over-thrills this a collection well worth your attention.

Batman: Silver Age Dailies and Sundays 1966-1967 was the first of huge (305 x 236 mm) lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Gotham Gangbusters, and another crucial addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, Bringing Up Father, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many other cartoon icons. Hopefully one day they will all be available digitally too…

If you love the era, or simply the medium of serial graphic narratives, these stories are great comics reading, and this is a book you must have.
© 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Batman and all related characters and elements ™ & © DC Comics.

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Mandrake the Magician: Dailies volume 1 – The Cobra


By Lee Falk & Phil Davis (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1178276-690-2 (HB)

Time for another – belated – Birthday briefing as we celebrate 90 glorious years for another golden Age stalwart…

Regarded by many as comics’ first superhero, Mandrake the Magician debuted as a daily newspaper strip on 11th June 1934 – although creator Lee Falk had sold the strip almost a decade previously. Initially drawing it too, Falk replaced himself as soon as feasible, allowing the early wonderment to materialise through the effective understatement of sublime draughtsman Phil Davis. An instant hit, Mandrake was soon supplemented by a full-colour Sunday companion page from February 3rd 1935.

Falk – as a 19-year old college student – had sold the strip to King Features Syndicate years earlier, but asked the monolithic company to let him finish his studies before dedicating himself to it full time. Schooling done, the 23-year-old born raconteur settled into his life’s work: entertaining millions with astounding tales. Falk also created the first costumed superhero in moodily magnificent generational manhunter The Phantom, whilst spawning an entire comic book subgenre with his first creation. Most Golden Age publishers boasted at least one (but usually many) nattily attired wizards in their gaudily-garbed pantheons: all roaming the world(s) making miracles and crushing injustice with varying degrees of stage legerdemain or actual sorcery.

Characters such as Mr. Mystic, Ibis the Invincible, Sargon the Sorcerer, and an assortment of  “…the Magician” ’s like Zatara, Zanzibar, Kardak proliferated ad infinitum: all borrowing heavily and shamelessly from the uncanny exploits of the elegant, enigmatic man of mystery gracing the world’s newspapers and magazines.

In the Antipodes, Mandrake was a suave stalwart regular of Australian Women’s Weekly and became a cherished icon of adventure in the UK, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Turkey and across Scandinavia: a major star of page and screen, pervading every aspect of global consciousness.

Over the years he has been a star of radio, movie chapter-serials, a theatrical play, television and animation (as part of the cartoon series Defenders of the Earth). With that has come the usual merchandising bonanza of games, toys (including magic trick kits), books, comics and more…

Falk worked on Mandrake and “The Ghost who Walks” until his death in 1999 (even on his deathbed, he was laying out one last story), but also found a few quiet moments to become a renowned playwright, theatre producer and impresario, as well as an inveterate world-traveller.

After drawing those the first few strips Falk united with sublimely polished cartoonist Phil Davis. His sleekly understated renditions took the daily strip, especially that expansive full-page Sunday page (collected in a sister volume), to unparalleled heights of sophistication. Davis’ steadfast, assured realism was the perfect tool to render the Magician’s mounting catalogue of spectacular miracles.

Those in the know are well aware that Mandrake was educated at the fabled College of Magic in Tibet, thereafter becoming a suave globe-trotting troubleshooter, always accompanied by his faithful African friend Lothar and beautiful companion (eventually, in 1997, bride) Princess Narda of Cockaigne, co-operatively solving crimes and fighting evil.

Those days, however, are still to come as a wealth of fact-filled features begins here with college Classics Professor Bob Griffin vividly recalling ‘From Fan to Friend: My Memories of Lee Falk’. Mathematics lecturer and comics historian Rick Norwood traces comic book sorcerers and sources in ‘Mandrake Gestures Hypnotically’ before the strips section of this luxury monochrome landscape hardback opens on the hero’s first case.

A classy twist on contemporary crime dramas and pulp fiction, ‘The Cobra’ (June 11th – November 24th 1934) exhibits the eponymous criminal mastermind menacing the family of US ambassador Vandergriff… until a dapper, haunting figure and his colossal African companion insert themselves into the affair. Initially mistrusted, Mandrake & Lothar guide the embattled diplomat through a globe-girdling vendetta against a human fiend with mystic powers and a loyal terrorist cult. Employing their own miracles, wonders and common sense, the heroes defeat every scheme leading to a ferocious final clash in the orient and the seeming destruction of the wicked evil wizard.

At their ease in Alexandria, Mandrake & Lothar are targeted by criminal mastermind ‘The Hawk’ (November 26th 1934 – February 23rd 1935) and meet distrait socialite Narda of Cockaigne, who employs her every wile to seduce and destroy them. Thwarting each plot, Mandrake learns her actions are dictated by a monstrous stalker blackmailing Narda’s brother Prince Sigrid. With his true enemy revealed, the Mage sets implacably to work to settle the villain’s affairs for good…

With an impending sense of further entanglements to come, the wanderers leave Narda, eventually fetching up in the Carpathians and encountering a lonely, embattled woman tormented by crazed Professor Sorcin and ‘The Monster of Tanov Pass’ (February 25th – June 15th 1935). This time, there’s a fearsomely robust and rational explanation for all the terror and tribulations…

Mandrake & Lothar meet weary policeman Inspector Duffy and clash with a brilliant mimic and master thief in Arabia. ‘Saki, the Clay Camel’ (June 17th – November 2nd 1935) is driving the occupying British authorities to distraction but an offer of mystic assistance brings danger, excitement and a surprise reunion with Narda before the faceless fiend and his army of desperate criminals are defeated…

Heading into the frozen north, magician and strongman encounter persecuted Lora, saving her from her own unscrupulous and cash-crazed family and ‘The Werewolf’ (November 4th 1935 – February 29th 1936) before this first volume concludes with ‘The Return of the Clay Camel’ (March 2nd – July 18th 1936): a rip-roaring romp showing off Falk’s deft gift for comedy…

It begins with our heroes curing a raging, obsessive sportsman of the urge to hunt, before expanding into a baffling mystery as the long vacationing Sir Oswald returns home to England only to discover someone has been perfectly impersonating him for months…

Devolving into a cunning robbery and comedy of mistaken identity, Mandrake and the false faced Saki test wits and determination, but even with the distraction of an impending marriage being hijacked too, its certain that the canny conjuror is going to come out on top…

Closing with ‘The Phil Davis Mandrake the Magician Complete Daily Checklist 1934-1965’ this thrilling tome offers exotic locales, thrilling action, bold belly laughs, spooky chills and sheer elegance in equal measure. Paramount taleteller Falk instinctively knew from the start that the secret of success was strong and – crucially – recurring villains to test and challenge his heroes, and make Mandrake an unmissable treat for every daily strip addict. These stories have lost none of their impact and only need you reading them to concoct a perfect cure for the 21st century blues.
Mandrake the Magician © 2016 King Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved. All other material © 2016 the respective authors or owners.

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Showcase Presents Batman volume 4


By Gardner F. Fox, Frank Robbins, Bob Kanigher, Mike Friedrich, John Broome, E. Nelson Bridwell, Chic Stone, Frank Springer, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, Gil Kane, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Sid Greene, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84856-357-5 (TPB)

After three seasons (perhaps two and a half would be closer) the overwhelmingly successful Batman TV show ended in March, 1968. It had clocked up 120 episodes since the US premiere on January 12, 1966. As the show foundered and crashed, global fascination with “camp” superheroes – and no, the term had nothing to do with sexual proclivities no matter what you and Mel Brooks might think about Men in Tights – burst as quickly as it had boomed and the Caped Crusader was left with a hard core of dedicated fans and followers who now wanted their hero back.

For the editor who had tried to keep the most ludicrous excesses of the show out whilst still cashing in on his global popularity, the reasoning seemed simple: get him back to solving baffling mysteries and facing genuine perils as soon and as thrillingly as possible.

No problem. This fourth monochrome compendium gathers Batman & Robin yarns from the eponymous star title #202-215 and the front halves of Detective Comics #376-390. The back-up slot was delightfully filled until #383 by whimsically stretchable sleuth The Elongated Man, before his unceremonious ejection to make room for Batgirl’s solo sallies.

The 27 stories here (some Batman issues were giant reprint editions, so only their covers are reproduced within these pages) were crafted by an ever-evolving team of creators as editor Julie Schwartz lost some of his elite stable to age, attrition and corporate pressure, but the “new blood” was only fresh to the Gotham Guardian not the industry, and their sterling efforts deftly moulded the 30 year veteran star into a hero capable of actually working within the new “big thing” in comics: suspense, horror and the supernatural…

The book leads off with ‘Gateway to Death!’  from Batman #202, cover-dated June 1968, as delivered by Gardner Fox, and un-attributed artist (it’s Chic Stone inked by Sid Greene). The tale is a spooky graveyard chiller finding the Dynamic Duo chasing a psychic plunderer towards their own prognosticated doom, after which Detective #376 (by the same creative team) ask ‘Hunted or …Haunted?’ as a time-traveller inadvertently puts the fear of death and worse into the Gotham Gangbuster.

Batman #203 was an 80-Page Giant with a Neal Adams cover, before an old foe returns in Detective #377. ‘The Riddler’s Prison-Puzzle Problem!’ by Fox, Frank Springer & Greene precedes Frank Robbins (creator of newspaper strip icon Johnny Hazard) joining the writing team for ‘Operation: Blindfold!’ as limned by Irv Novick & Joe Giella – a 2-part criminal conspiracy saga wherein a legion of thugs and sightless beggars almost take over Gotham.

With veteran penciller Bob Brown on Detective and Novick on Batman, artistic quality was high and consistent, but sadly strictly chronological reprinting works against the reader as the concluding episode is postponed and derailed here by Detective #378 – first half of Robbins, Brown & Giella’s generation gap murder-mystery ‘Batman! Drop Dead… Twice!’ which itself climaxes after ‘Blind as a… Bat?’ from Batman #204, with a rollicking rollercoaster ride of spills & chills in ‘Two Killings For the Price of One!’ in Detective #379…

Issue #380 follows, introducing new love-interest Ginny Jenkins, Robbins, Brown & Giella’s ‘Marital-Bliss Miss!’ who only pretends to be the new Mrs. Bruce Wayne for the very best of motives – saving his life – before Batman #206 sees Novick & Giella illustrate canny thriller ‘Batman Walks the Last Mile!’, pitting Caped Crusader against a conman claiming to be the brains behind the Dynamic Duo’s success.

In an era when teen angst and the counter-culture played an ever more evident and strident part, Robin’s role as spokesperson for a generation was becoming increasingly important, with disputes and splits from his senior partner constantly recurring. Detective #381 featured one of the best as Batman literally dumped the Boy Wonder in ‘One Drown… One More to Go!’ – another clever crime conundrum by Robbins, Brown & Giella. Batman #207 carried a classy countdown-to-catastrophe drama as all Gotham hunted the atomic nightmare of ‘The Doomsday Ball!’ whilst DC #382 continued a theme of youth in revolt with ‘Riddle of the Robbin’ Robin!’ The disagreements were never serious or genuine, although that would soon change.

Batman #208 was another reprint Giant highlighting the women in his life. However, even though Schwartz varied the usual format by having Gil Kane draw interlocking framing sequences, turning the issue into one big single story, all that has all omitted here so you just get the rather nifty Nicky Cardy cover. Detective #383 was a straightforward (and painfully dated!) thriller set in Gotham’s Chinatown – ‘The Fortune-Cookie Caper!’ before outlandish mind-bending mystery became the order of the day in Batman #209’s ‘Jungle Jeopardy!’ whilst DC #384 asked ‘Whatever Will Happen to Heiress Heloise?’: a crafty final tale of cross and double-cross from Fox, illustrated by Brown & Giella.

Catwoman returned mob-handed – or is that murder-mittened? – in Batman #210 with eight other “cat chicks” in tow, leaving the Caped Crimebuster hard-pressed to solve ‘The Case of the Purr-Loined Pearl!’ after which Bob Kanigher wrote one of the best tales of his long and illustrious career for Detective #385 as a nameless nonentity became the most important man Batman never met in the deeply moving ‘Die Small… Die Big!’

Issue #386 found Wayne a ‘Stand-In for Murder’ (Robbins, Brown & Giella) and the heroes had secret identity woes in ‘Batman’s Big Blow-Off!’ (#211, (Robbins, Novick & Giella) whilst Young Turk Mike Friedrich scripted a reworking of Batman’s very first appearance for the 30th Anniversary issue of Detective Comics. ‘The Cry of Night is… Sudden Death!’ was a contemporary reworking of #27’s ‘The Case of the Chemical Syndicate’ that launched the Dark Knight on the road to immortality (for the original check out any of many “Best of” or “Golden Age” collections to feature the landmark tale). However here the relationship between Batman and Boy Wonder came under probing scrutiny…

‘Baffling Deaths of the Crime-Czar!’ (Batman #212, Robbins, Novick & Giella) pitted a trio of exuberant hitmen against our heroes, after which John Broome returned to make one last scripting contribution, sagely moving The Joker away from campy Clown crimes and back towards the insane killer MO we all cherish. That all came about in Detective #388’s ‘Public Luna-tic Number One!’: a classy sci-fi thriller totally reinventing the Lethal Laughing Loon, in no small part thanks to the artistic efforts of Brown & Giella.

Batman #213 is another reprint Giant, celebrating other landmarks of the 30th Anniversary and leading with a new retelling of ‘The Origin of Robin’, courtesy of E. Nelson Bridwell, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, which is included here after the spiffy cover from Bill Draut & Vince Colletta. The rocky road to a scary superhero continued into Detective #389 and Robbins’ ‘Batman’s Evil Eye’ wherein The Scarecrow afflicts Gotham’s Guardian with the involuntary power to terrify at a glance – and obviously somebody saw the long-term story potential in that stunt…

There was still potential to be daft too though, as seen in ‘Batman’s Marriage Trap!’ (#214, Robbins, Novick & Giella) wherein a wicked Femme Fatale sets the unhappy spinsters of America on the trail of Gotham’s Most Eligible Bat-chelor (See what I did there? Wishing I hadn’t?) Not even a guest-shot by positive role-model Batgirl could redeem this peculiar throwback – although the art just might…

The last Detective tale is from #390 and pits the Dynamic Duo against lacklustre costumed assassin The Masquerader in ‘If the Coffin Fits… Wear It!’ before the end of an era is presaged in Batman #215 and ‘Call Me Master!’ by Robbins, Novick and soon to become legendary inker Dick Giordano. Although a clever tale of mind-control skullduggery, this tale trailled the loss of Wayne Manor and an all-out split between Darknight Detective and Boy Wonder: events which would come to pass within months, ushering in a bold new direction for the Bat-Universe.

This volume brings three decades of Batman to a solid satisfactory conclusion. All too soon safe boy-scout Caped Crusader would become a terrifying creature of passion, intellect and shadowy suspense.

Stay tuned: This book is wonderfully good but even better is still to come…
© 1968, 1969, 2009 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Samson Archives volume 3


By Otto Binder, Gerry Boudreau, Jack Sparling, José Delbo, Jack Abel?, George Wilson & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-705-0 (HB)

As we have elections in Britain at the moment here’s another classic compilation focusing on Dystopias and why fiction remains so much less implausible than grim reality

These days all the attention in comics circles goes to big-hitters and headline-grabbing groundbreakers, but once upon a time, when funnybooks were cheap as well as plentiful, a kid (whatever their age) could afford to follow the pack and still find time and room to enjoy quirky outliers: B through Z listers, oddly off-kilter concepts and champions falling far short of the accepted parameters of standard super-types…

A classic example of that exuberant freedom of expression was the relatively angst-free dystopian tomorrow of Mighty Samson, who had a sporadic yet extended comics career of 32 issues spanning 1964 to 1982. In this volume the unearthed treasure come from issues #15 – 24 cover-dated August 1968 to June 1974. At the latter end of this time mass entertainment was filled with a fascination in post-disaster scenarios and revival of dystopian fiction. Comic books responded, with the most successful entries being Jack Kirby’s Kamandi at DC and Marvel contemporaneous Planet of the Apes adaptations.

Although set in the aftermath of an atomic Armageddon, the story of the survivors was a blend of updated myth, pioneer adventure and superhero shtick, liberally leavened with variations of those incredible creatures and sci fi monsters the industry thrived on back then.

Comics colossus Dell/Gold Key/Whitman had one of the most complicated publishing set-ups in history, but that didn’t matter one iota to kids of all ages who consumed their vastly varied product. Based in Racine, Wisconsin, Whitman had been a crucial component of the monolithic Western Publishing and Lithography Company since 1915: drawing upon huge commercial resources and industry connections that came with editorial offices on both coasts. They even boasted a subsidiary printing plant in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Another connection was with fellow Western subsidiary K.K. Publications (named for licensing legend Kay Kamen who facilitated extremely lucrative “license to print money” merchandising deals for Walt Disney Studios between 1933 and 1949). From 1938, the affiliated companies’ comic book output was released under a partnership deal with a “pulps” periodical publisher under the umbrella imprint Dell Comics – and again those creative staff and commercial contacts fed into the line-up of the Big Little, Little Golden and Golden Press books for younger children. This partnership ended in 1962 and Western had to swiftly reinvent its comics division as Gold Key.

Western had been a major player since comics’ earliest days, blending a vast tranche of licensed titles – including newspaper strips (like Nancy and Sluggo, Tarzan and The Lone Ranger), TV tie-in and Disney titles with in-house originations such as Turok, Son of Stone, Brain Boy and Kona: Monarch of Monster Isle. Dell and Western split just as a comic book resurgence triggered a host of new titles and companies, and a superhero boom. Independent of Dell, new outfit Gold Key launched original adventure titles including Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom; Magnus – Robot Fighter; M.A.R.S. Patrol – Total War; Space Family Robinson and many more. As a publisher, Gold Key never really “got” the melodramatic, frequently mock-heroic Sturm und Drang of the Silver Age superhero boom – although for many of us, the understated functionality of classics like Magnus and Doctor Solar or crime-fighting iterations of classic movie monsters Dracula, Frankenstein and Werewolf were utterly irresistible. The sheer off-the-wall lunacy of features like Neutro or Dr. Spektor I shall reserve for a future occasion…

The post-dystopian wonder warrior had been anonymously created by industry giants Otto Binder & Frank Thorne in 1964. Binder was the quintessential jobbing writer: he and his brother Earl were early fans of science fiction, with their first professional sale to Amazing Stories in 1930. As “Eando Binder” their pulp-fiction and novels output continued well into the 1970s, with Otto rightly famed for his creation of primal robotic hero Adam Link. From 1939 onwards, Otto was also a prolific comic book scripter, most beloved and revered for the invention and perfection of a humorous blend of spectacular action, self-deprecating humour and gentle whimsy as characterised by the Fawcett Captain Marvel line of titles (and later in DC’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen). Binder was also constantly employed by many other publishers and amongst his most memorable inventions and innovations are Timely’s Young Allies, Mr. Mind, Brainiac, Super Dog Krypto and the Legion of Super-Heroes. In later life, he moved into editing, producing factual science books and writing for NASA.

This third splendid full-colour hardback compilation – printed on a reassuringly sturdy and comforting grainy old-school pulp stock rather than glossy paper – gathers Mighty Samson #15-24, spanning August 1968 to June 1974 and begins with a heady appreciation of the life and stellar career by author Dylan Williams in ‘Otto Binder: The Working Life of Comics’ Mightiest Dramatist’…

His art partner for the tales in this volume was another experienced comics veteran. John Edmond “Jack” Sparling (June 21st 1916 – February 15th 1997) was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba but migrated young to the USA. After studying in New Orleans and at the Corcoran School of Art, he left a cartooning gig at the New Orleans Item-Tribune to create the strip Hap Hopper, Washington Correspondent for United Features Syndicate (1940) which was followed in 1943 by Claire Voyant. That strip ended in 1948 and thereafter Sparling concentrated on comic books, becoming a wandering regular whose work appeared in Classics Illustrated, Dell/Gold Key, Marvel, DC, Charlton and others on strips like Robin Hood, Captain America, Tiger Girl, Space Man, Neuro, Secret Six, Eclipso, The Day after Doomsday, Challengers of The Unknown, Unknown Soldier and more.

Ideally suited for short story and humorous fare, he worked continuously for Gold Key’s horror anthologies and was a key contributor when DC revived its House of Secrets and House of Mystery titles (co-creating with Bob Haney undying horror-host Cain in HoM #175). Sparling was particularly adept on licensed properties, illustrating Bomba, Family Affair, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Welcome Back, Kotter, Adam-12, Microbots, The Outer Limits ad nauseum…

What you need to know: Mighty Samson #1 (July 1964) had introduced the bombed-out metropolis of N’Yark: a dismal dangerous collection of enclaves and regions where human primitives clung to the ruins, scattered into rival tribes all striving daily against mutated plants and monsters as well as less easily identified blends somewhere in between…

One day when a toddler was grabbed by a predatory plant he casually tore the terror apart with his podgy little hands. Years passed and the child grew tall and clean-limbed, and it was clear that he too was a mutant: immensely strong, incredibly fast and improbably durable…

Impassioned by his mother’s dying words – “protect the weak from the powerful, the good from the evil” – Samson became the champion of his people; battling beasts and monsters imperilling the city. Sadly, those struggles were not without cost, and when he killed an immense Liobear, it cost the young hero his right eye…

The clash proved a turning point for Samson since his wounds were dressed by a stranger named Sharmaine. She and her father Mindor were voluntary outcasts in the city: shunning contact with superstitious tribes whilst gathering lost secrets of science. Already toiling constantly to bring humanity out of its second stone age and fired with inspiration, Samson joined their self-appointed mission: defending them from all manner of threat and menace as they carry out their work….

Now and here the Altered World odyssey resumes with Mighty Samson #15, cover-dated August 1968. Binder and Sparling were in top form for ‘The Plot of Gold’ and its sequel chapter ‘Danger in the Vaults’ as old enemy Queen Terra of Jerz attempts to seduce the tribes of N’Yark by reintroducing the concept of money. Of course she is the sole source of currency (gold from the buried US Mint) and tries to corner the market on the beguiling new means of expediting trade…

As confusion mounts and the primitives struggle to understand, Samson spends his precious time settling squabbles and battling rampaging beasts like the choke-foam monster and giant cave centipedes, before resolving to end the chaos by destroying Terra’s deadly booby-trapped repository. With Mindor and Sharmaine stubbornly beside him, that proves harder than expected…

With monsters so popular, the action is supplemented by another regular fact page in the Gold Key Club: enthusing readers with the lowdown on Dinosauria – Pterodactyl and an essay on ‘Lost Civilizations: Nomad Empire’, introducing kids to the lost tribe called Scythians…

Cover-dated November 1968, #16 brought new invaders to N’Yark. ‘The Smoky Realm’ saw fresh peril for the subterranean Undermen as brutal “Gnarly Men” attack the subway dwellers after being driven from their own realm deep below what was once the Radio City complex.

Eager to keep the peace, Samson and Co explore and find a fire breathing dragon has upset the status quo and determine that a concerted ‘The Call to Arms’ is the best way to proceed…

Sadly, the real problem is the ancient Radio City air conditioning system has malfunctioned, depriving the invaders of oxygen, forcing some quick thinking and patient re-engineering to solve the crisis.

The bonus material here offers Gold Key Club: Dinosauria – Plesiosaur and a Lost Civilizations tract on ‘Ur – Mother of Cities’ in advance of #17 (February 1969) seeing Terra sprinkling ‘Seeds of Disaster’ on Samson’s primal protectorate. Allied with roof dwelling hostile horticulturalists, the Queen almost destroys her enemies with deadly fast growing giant ‘Assassin Plants’ but yet again underestimates the power and determination of Mighty Samson. The issue closed Gold Key Club: Dinosauria – Triceratops and the lowdown on Hittites in prose expose ‘Forgotten Empire’.

On its quarterly schedule, the 18th tale was designated May and saw giant monster birds and mutant winged men blitz N’Yark, but King Zorr of ‘The Winged Raiders’ – although savage and cunning – was unprepared for the saviour strongman to confront the wingmen head on in ‘Battle in the Skies’ and helpless after his traitorous deputy Hawkarr became smitten with Sharmaine…

Flooding looked likely to inundate everyone in #19’s ‘Day of the Deluge’ as incessant rainfall triggers a human exodus and mass monster stampedes that reduce the relic metropolis to a enclave of canals. With the people trapped and starving on ramshackle rooftops whilst batwing pelicans, lightning eels and fire fish pick off stragglers, Samson looks for a way to transport stranded survivors out of N’Yark, only to discover the ungrateful mob have sold him out to the Queen  of Jerz…

However, once Terra finds a whole new population too much to handle or feed, she drives them all back to the strongman and ‘The Drowning City’…

Bonus features return in this issue with a Gold Key Club Readers Page Monsters selection of their own creepy critters and another educational read in ‘Lost Civilizations: Carthage’ prior to Mighty Samson #20 (November 1969) picking up the watery saga as the exiled expats return to N’Yark just in time endure an undersea assault by expansionist amphibian King Nepthoon whose merciless ‘Attack of the Fishmen’ further reduces the human population. Wielding whirlpools, mermen and mutant monsters, his ‘Dam of Doom’ has turned Manhattan into a permanent water feature… but only until Samson pulls the colossal plug and drains the pool…

Issues #21 (August 1972) & 22 (December 1973) were reprints – MS #7 & #2 respectively – and are represented here by the painted covers from the miraculous George Wilson plus text essay ‘Lost Civilizations: Atlantis: Fable or Fact?’ and comics fact page ‘Space Station’.

The long hiatus was caused by a combination of dwindling sales, changing tastes and a personal tragedy Binder suffered: all leading to the series’ “soft” cancellation.

A revival came mere months after the second reprint issue, bringing a flashy new logo and new costume for the strongman star. Cover-dated March 1974, Mighty Samson #23 is credited here to Jack Abel as writer, although later research suggests Gerry Boudreau as the scribe. There’s no doubt about the art as limned by José Delbo.

Argentinean illustrator José María Del Bó was born December 9th 1933 and became a professional comics artist aged 16 when he began drawing serial Poncho Negro. As Argentina became politically unstable, he migrated to Brazil in 1963 and two years later settled in the USA as José Delbo. He worked for Charlton Comics (Billy the Kid and genre shorts) but found his niche at Dell/Gold Key/Western Publishing, specialising in licensed titles. Amongst many titles he illustrated in his clean, no-nonsense realistic style were The Brady Bunch, Hogan’s Heroes, Mod Squad, The Monkees, Twilight Zone, The Lone Ranger and prestige specials Dwight D. Eisenhower and Yellow Submarine.

His first DC work was in The Spectre #9 (May/June 1969) and after taking on the revived Mighty Samson at Gold Key in 1974, Delbo settled at the home of Superman, drawing an epic 10-year run on Wonder Woman (#222-286: March 1976-December 1986) as well as on Batman Family, Jimmy Olsen in Superman Family, DC Comics Presents, World’s Finest Comics, and Batgirl in Detective Comics. His greatest impact and visibility came after moving to Marvel in 1986, where he drew more licensed product including NFL SuperPro, Brute Force, Thundercats and The Transformers.

He taught at the Joe Kubert School (1990-2005) and set up his own version (Delbo Cartoon Camp) for school-aged kids in Boca Raton, Florida. He died aged 90 on February 5th 2024.

‘In the Country of the Blind’ parts 1 & 2 sees Sharmaine kidnapped by a tribe of sightless hyper sensitive souls led by a seeing chief soon to breathe his last. Kouran needs a replacement to serve as his people’s eyes as they pursue a war with the rival Pan’m people and face monsters invisible to human eyes. The war goes badly however until Samson finds them and ends the strife in his own unique way

Closing this book, MS #24 begins with text piece ‘Lost Civilizations: The Phoenicians’ before accessing the then-ubiquitous kung fu craze for ‘The Manchu of C’nal Street – The Challenge of Chang’ as the heroic trio stumble onto previously unexplored Chinatown and discover relative modernity in an ancient building called Martial Arts Training Academy. Soon Samson is clashing with its hereditary champion unaware that Chang is already sworn to the service of Queen Terra. However, her treacherous nature, Chang’s conscience and an inevitable duel of skill against strength soon proves the cost of ‘Death Before Dishonor’ before one final comics fact page – ‘Satellites of the Future’ – and fulsome Creator Biographies bring the future frolics to a halt.

Bizarre, brilliantly off-kilter and outrageously bombastic, these myths of a rationalist brute battling atom-spawned titans and human devils offer stunning spectacle and thrill-a-minute wonderment from start to finish. Captivatingly limned by Sparling and Delbo, these lost gems from an era when fun was paramount and entertainment a mandatory requirement are comics the way they were and perhaps might be again…
Mighty Samson ® Volume Three ™ & © 2010 Random House, Inc. Under license to Classic Media LCC. All rights reserved. All other material, unless otherwise specified, © 2010 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: The Brittle Mastery of Donald Duck


By Carl Barks (Gladstone Comic Album #7)
ISBN: 978-0-94459-906-8 (Album PB)

Although experts quibble over the details of Donald Duck’s debut (I cleave to the notion we should use the premier of The Wise Little Hen on 3rd May rather than the June 9th US general release date), everybody agrees 1934 was the year and that the magnificent mallard is 90 this year. In honour of that achievement, here’s a lovely old book starring Disney’s top cartoon star that you might be lucky enough to find. Even if you can’t, the stories are scattered throughout Fantagraphics’ magnificent Carl Barks library editions which we will continue sporadically reviewing and which you really should already own…

Donald Duck ranks among a small group of fictional characters to have transcended the bounds of reality and become – like Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Popeye and James Bond -meta-real. As such, his origins are complex and convoluted. His official birthday is June 9th 1934: a dancing, nautically-themed bit-player in the Silly Symphony cartoon short The Wise Little Hen.

The animated cartoon was adapted by Ted Osborne & Al Taliaferro for the Silly Symphonies Sunday newspaper strip and thus classified by historians as Donald’s official debut in Disney comics. Controversially, he was also reported to have pre-originated in The Adventures of Mickey Mouse strip which began 1931. Thus the Duck has more “birthdays” than he knows what to do with, which presumably explains why he’s such a bad-tempered cuss.

Visually, Donald Fauntleroy Duck was largely the result of animator Dick Lundy’s efforts, and, with partner-in-fun Mickey Mouse, is one of TV Guide’s 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time. The Duck has his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame and has appeared in more films than any other Disney player. Throughout the 1930s, his screen career grew from background and supporting roles via a team act with Mickey and Goofy to a series of solo cartoons beginning with 1937’s Don Donald. That one also introduced love interest Daisy Duck and the irrepressible nephews Huey, Louie and Dewey…

By 1938 The Duck was officially more popular than corporate icon Mickey Mouse, and even more so after his national service as a propaganda warrior in a series of animated morale boosters and information features during WWII. The merely magnificent Der Fuehrer’s Face garnered the 1942 Academy Award for Animated Short Film…

Crucially for our purposes, Donald is also planet Earth’s most-published non-superhero comics character, and blessed with some of the greatest writers and illustrators ever to punch a keyboard or pick up a pen or brush. A publishing phenomenon and megastar across Europe – particularly Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland – Donald (& Co) have spawned countless original stories and many immortal characters. Sales are stratospheric across all age groups there and in upwards of 45 other countries they export to. Japan’s manga publishers have their own iteration too…

The aforementioned Silly Symphonies adaptation and Mickey strip guest shots were trumped in 1937 when Italian publisher Mondadori launched an 18-page comic book story crafted by Federico Pedrocchi. It was quickly followed by a regular serial in Britain’s Mickey Mouse Weekly (a comic produced under license by Willbank Publications/Odhams Press that ran from 8th February 1936 to 28th December 1957). Issue #67 (May 15th 1937) premiered Donald and Donna – a prototype Daisy Duck girlfriend – drawn by William A. Ward. Running for 15 weeks, it was followed by Donald and Mac before ultimately settling as Donald Duck – a fixture until the magazine folded. The feature inspired similar Disney-themed publications across Europe, with Donald regularly appearing beside company mascot Mickey…

In the USA, a daily Donald Duck newspaper strip launched on February 2nd 1938, with a colour Sunday strip added in 1939. Writer Ted Karp joined Taliaferro in expanding the duck cast and history: adding a signature automobile, pet dog Bolivar, goofy cousin Gus Goose, and grandmother Elvira Coot whilst expanding the roles of both Donna and Daisy. In 1942, his comic book life began with October cover-dated Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9: AKA Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was conceived by Homer Brightman & Harry Reeves, scripted by Karp and illustrated by Disney Studios employees Carl Barks & Jack Hannah. That was the moment everything changed…

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, and raised in rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you need detail, but briefly, Barks was a cartoonist, then an animator before quitting the Studio in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books. From then until his retirement in the mid-1960s (he officially downed tools in 1966 but was cajoled into scripting stories well into 1968), Barks worked in self-imposed seclusion: writing, drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters like Gladstone Gander (1948), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Magica De Spell (1961) and the nefarious Beagle Boys (1951) to supplement the Studio’s stable of cartoon actors.

His greatest creation was crusty, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: the World’s wealthiest winged nonagenarian and frequent spur/gadfly and reluctant sugar daddy to the adventuresome youngsters…

Whilst producing all that landmark material Barks was also just a working guy, generating cover art, drawing other people’s scripts as asked, and always adding stories to a burgeoning international canon of Duck Lore. Only after Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging Barks material in books like this during the 1980s, did he discover the well-earned appreciation he never imagined existed. Media Historian Leonard Maltin called Barks “the most popular and widely read artist/writer in the world”…

So potent were Barks’ creations that they fed back into Disney’s overarching animation output, despite all his brilliant comic work being for Dell/Gold Key and not the studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly animated series Duck Tales, based on his classic Uncle Scrooge adventures. Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the blockbuster tale: blending wit, history, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps that utterly captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

During his working life Barks was utterly unaware that his work – uncredited due to company policy, as was all Disney’s comics output – had been recognised by a rabid and discerning public as “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, belated celebrity began.

In 2013, Fantagraphics Books began chronologically collecting Barks’ Duck stuff in curated archival volumes, tracing his output year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library. Physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 260mm – to grace any bookshelf.

Gladstone Publishing began re-releasing Barks material and sundry other Disney strips in the late-1980s and this album is one of their best. Printed in the European oversized format (278mm x 223mm) this joyous compendium collects an occasional series of similarly-themed yarns: some of the best and funniest Duck tales ever crafted.

The “Brittle Master” series is the name given by devotees to a group of stories wherein the perennial failing, fiery-tempered and eternally put-upon everyman Donald displays an excellence in some unique skill or service, winning the approval and veneration of all and sundry – only to have his own smug hubris bring about his ultimate humiliation and downfall.

The first untitled tale, from Walt Disney Comics and Stories #156 (1953) sees Donald as an airplane-piloting, cloud-sculpting Master Rainmaker catering to increasingly outrageous requests from his adoring public. This leads him inevitably to disaster – in this case the creation of a full-blown, devastating Ice-storm…

Next, from WDC&S #222 (1959) comes the tale of the Master Mover, as Donald displays an uncanny ability to transport anything anywhere, only to come a crushing cropper when he guarantees to shift an entire zoo to a mountaintop in one afternoon!

From Donald Duck #68 (also from 1959) ‘The Master Glasser’ (we’d call him a glazier) is a wickedly satirical glimpse at small-town America as the arrogant artificer at the height of his fame attempts to repair the aged fascia of Duckburg’s giant clock. Perhaps he shouldn’t have tried to do it live on TV?

The fourth tale is one where I suspect Donald actually found his true calling. The ‘Master Wrecker’ (WDC&S #26, 1962) is the go-to-duck if you need something demolished with no muss or fuss, and even in this hilarious yarn Donald doesn’t actually fail. The target is utterly razed: it’s just not the one he was supposed to demolish…

This delightful collection ends with the satisfyingly sharp ‘Spare That Hair’ (WDC&S #272, 1963) as Donald the Master Barber finally wins one for a change, even though he mistakenly shaves a gorilla and inspires the ire of a rowdy circus ringmaster…

Barks was as adept with quick-fire gag stories as epic adventures; blending humour with drama and charm with action, and even if you can’t find this particular volume, most of his unforgettable work is readily accessible through a number of publications and outlets and in many languages. So if you seek to become a Master Reader, you know what you need to do…
© 1988, 1963, 1962, 1959, 1953 The Walt Disney Company. All Rights Reserved.