Category: Nostalgia

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E-Man – The Early Years


By Nicola Cuti & Joe Staton & various (First Comics Inc.)
ISBN: 978-1-61855-000-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

In 1973, superheroes were in a severe decline and the few surviving publishers in the industry were making most of their money from genre fare like war, westerns, kids cartoon and licensed titles (if they could secure them) and particularly horror stories. Such was certainly the case at Charlton Comics: a self-confessed “little company” which nevertheless always punched above its weight.

That was particularly true in terms of talent discovery, with the likes of Dick Giordano, Sam Glanzman, Steve Ditko, Roy Thomas, Denny O’Neil, Jim Aparo, Sam Grainger, Sanho Kim, Wayne Howard, Tom Sutton, Don Newton, Mike Zeck, Roger Stern, Roger Slifer, Bob Layton and John Byrne making a mark there before moving onwards and upwards.

Another major discovery was ultra-versatile cartoonist Joe Staton. He was quickly becoming a fan favourite and shared an off-kilter sense of humour with a Charlton sub-editor who moonlighted as a writer of horror and fantasy for the company’s anthologies…

Nicola “Nick” Cuti (Moonchild, Cannon, Sally Forth, Creepy, Moonie the Starbabe, The Creeper, Spanner’s Galaxy, Captain Cosmos, Starflake the Cosmic Sprite) was born on October 29th 1944. Since then, he’s been an “Underground Comix” cartoonist, animator, film maker, magazine illustrator, movie backdrop designer, novelist, editor and comics scripter.

Between 1972 and 1976 he was assistant to award-winning cartoonist – and Charlton’s general editor – George Wildman (Popeye) who wanted to test the murky waters with a new superhero. He tapped Cuti to write something a bit different and used the experimental vehicle to try-out a succession of features at the back: crafted by creators like Sutton (The Knight), Ditko (Killjoy, Liberty Belle) and Byrne (Rog-2000). Cuti wrote many of them too…

Born January 19th 1948, Joe Staton (Primus, Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, The Six Million Dollar Man, Space 1999, The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Silver Surfer, Green Lantern Corps, Guy Gardner, Legion of Super-Heroes, Millennium, All Star Comics, Power Girl, Metal Men, Doom Patrol, Plastic Man, Mike Danger and more) is a writer and incredibly versatile artist/inker who has been an integral part of American comic books since the early 1970s.

He has worked for dozens of companies, co-creating The Huntress, Killowog, The New Guardians and The Omega Men and in later years made kids comics his metier. During a spectacular run on licensed classic Scooby Doo, he and series scripter Mike Curtis (Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Shanda the Panda) discovered a mutual love for Dick Tracy and – mostly for their own amusement – created tribute strip Major Crime Squad.

That led to them being invited to handle the prestigious Dick Tracy strip (from 2011 to October 2021) but throughout that epic and varied career, Staton regularly re-partnered with Cuti on further adventures of his first triumph…

A pioneering masterpiece of superhero whimsy, E-Man tells the convoluted love story of a alien lifeform and a wonderfully capable and smart earth girl, and the weird life they make for themselves. It all began in 1973 (Happy Golden Anniversary!) in a 10-issue run that was barely noticed by the readership but which affected how many future comics creators remade the medium.

This cheerful and charming collection gathers the E-Man moments from that initial run and includes technically unpublished tales from said run, plus covers and other material from the hero’s revival as part of the Independents Publishing revolution of the 1980s.

We begin with a brace of Introductions as ‘Finding the Right Words for Joe, Nick and Alec Tronn’ by Jon B. Cooke and ‘E-Man: His Beginnings’ by Cuti contextually set the scene for an extraordinary meeting…

Cover-dated October 1973, “Collector’s Item! First Edition!!” E-Man #1 starts at ‘The Beginning’ revealing how, millions of years ago, a star exploded and released a packet of energy that had spontaneous sentience, immense curiosity and no knowledge at all. The bundle of wonder floated across the galaxies seeking intelligence but encountering none until arriving near our world just as a star-ship from Sirius attempts to attain orbit around Pluto.

Infiltrating the vessel, the energy being converts into matter, duplicating one of the robots serving the giant Brain commanding the mission and overhears how the warlike cyborg is here to test an experimental ultra-weapon on the frozen target. Sadly, curiosity proves fatal and the sudden weight increase sends the ship careening out of control and ultimately into the atmosphere of the blue-green planet third out from the sun…

Some time later, college student Katrinka Colchnzski is just finishing her evening job. She is a tough, brilliant, capable and proudly independent: paying for her degree as burlesque dancer Nova Kane when one of the lightbulbs in her dressing room begs her for help.

Freeing the energy creature and quickly striking up a friendship with the naïve, affably clueless being – who has unselfconsciously turned into a real stud-muffin by human standards – she is abruptly drawn into a world of insane danger when her landlord tries to kill her. It transpires that in ‘The Brain and the Bomb’ the super cerebral invader has also survived the crash and is vengefully testing hate-gas on the inhabitants…

Without hesitation Nova and the stranger seek out and stop the plot…

These tales were originally quite quirkily coloured by Wendy Fiore and are reconstructed here by Matt Webb, who also shades the cover to Original E-Man #1: a reprint series released by First Comics in October 1985 to supplement their revival of the hero. That book also revisited the second escapade of guileless alien visitor Alec Tronn as first seen in E-Man #2’s ‘The Entropy Twins’ (December 1973). Here, the Brain from Sirius unleashes a second super-weapon against E-Man and Nova: an artificially-bred loving couple who can casually manipulate the forces of order and chaos.

Stalking and befriending the childlike hero and his charming cohabitator, Michael and Juno cause catastrophic accidents which almost kill Nova, only to learn that her special friend Alec is as vengeful as any child when the things he loves are threatened…

An unused cover from 1974 accompanies article ‘The Energy and Paper Crisis’, explaining how a global power shortage both inspired and derailed a comic response. The upshot was that the story intended for the fourth issue ended up in #3, and the third followed after. The chronological anomaly is corrected here with E-Man #4 going first.

Cover-dated August 1974, ‘City in the Sand’ sees the odd couple in Egypt with exotic dancer Nova showing belly dancers how it’s done at night and pursuing her archaeological studies during the day. With Alec in tow, she unearths an ancient mystery and – thanks to E-Man – functional time machine: propelling them back millennia to uncover a link between the pharaohs and a lost colony of aliens afflicted with mad militarism and a sinister plague…

December 1985’s cover of Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #3 precedes June 1974’s E-Man #3, wherein ‘The Energy Crisis!’ blacking out America and the world leads oil baron Samuel Boar to unleash a robotic Battery to kidnap useless, over-abundant humans and turn them into a new fuel source.

When Nova vanishes, E-Man stops powering up hospitals to go looking for her. He is unaware that Nova had already engaged seedy private eye Michael – “don’t call me Mickey” – Mauser to find her fellow dancer Rosie Rhedd after she was sucked into a brick wall…

The sordid shamus became a fixture and even won his own series in Vengeance Squad….

The invasion of Boar’s citadel and clash with ‘The Battery’ is fast and furious and leads to the villain’s capture but would have shocking consequences in the fullness of time…

The tale ends with a direct plea to readers to protect the environment and “save the Earth!”. It’s a shame more kids didn’t buy this comic back then and avoid the mess we’re all in now…

Staton had been growing in skill and confidence and by this story had taken to adding what we now call easter eggs to his art. Backgrounds, minor characters and especially posters and newspapers provided a rich source of added whimsy, commentary and fun. They are a sheer delight to this day…

The Original E-Man #2 cover from October 1985 leads into November 1974’s #5 as ‘The City Swallower’ sees a day at the beach devolve into a transdimensional excursion. When Alec follows a hippy mermaid (based on contemporary and legendary fandom icon Heidi Saha) back to her realm he’s just in time to spearhead a war against a beast that consumed helpless conurbations, after which January 1986’s Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #4 cover leads to monster madness in E-Man #6.

‘Wunder-world’ – cover-dated January 1975 – sees an old enemy resurface when Alec and Nova visit a theme park, using robots, movie horrors, war machines and psychological warfare to attack the unlikely couple…

A full, illustrated list of ‘E-Man and Nova – Other Appearances’ is followed by #7’s ‘TV Man’ (March 1975) as another old enemy uses the airwaves and super-science to turn the energy- man into Nova’s worst nightmares and Mauser reappears to save the day. It’s followed by Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #5’s cover (February 1986) and heralds a really big change…

With #8’s full-length epic ‘The Inner Sun’ (May 1975) the creators brilliantly exploit the capricious, functionally implausible nature of comics books to deliver a superb slice of nonsense that begins when a giant jungle girl attacks New York. When she then busts into Mauser’s office…

Her trail leads to Samuel Boar and a primeval world under the North Pole…

Unless I’ve already convinced you to seek this book out, be warned that there’s a major spoiler ahead. Stop here if you’re going to read the actual stories. Or not. It’s your choice.

By the time E-Man gets there though, the villain has kidnapped Nova and triggered a disaster that kills her. It’s not anything to worry about as – through typically miraculous circumstances – she reconstitutes herself with the same powers as boyfriend Alec and begins her own crime crushing career…

March 1986’s cover to Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #6 is accompanied by text feature ‘Other Appearances by Michael Mauser’ before E-Man #9 (July 1975) unleashes ‘The Genius Plant’ which is foreshadow by brief ‘Prologue! History of E-Man and Nova’…

Accompanied by new cast member Teddy – a reformed evil koala – the hot couple stumble into a plot by a cabal of scientists to hyper-enhance their intellects and rule the world. After they foil that, one final cover – Original E-Man and Michael Mauser #7 (April 1986) – segues into E-Man #10 (September 1975) as Nova meets the first girl Alec met when he landed on Earth. Although initially jealous, after meeting Maisy-June Bragg, she’s with her beau all the way when what appear to be unnatural forces reduce the gentle rural bombshell into ‘The Witch of Hog Hollow’ who really needs her old “genie” to save her…

E-Man was simultaneously Charlton’s worst selling retail title but its best via direct subscription, which kept it going long after Wildman should have killed it, but at last the axe fell. When it died, there were a couple of tales still in the pipeline which eventually saw print in the company’s in-house fanzine – which was edited by Bob Layton.

Coloured by Webb, Staton’s cover for Charlton Bullseye #2 (1975) and Charlton Bullseye #4 (March/April 1976) here precede ‘…And Why the Sea is Boiling Hot’ (colour by Webb & Michael Watkins) wherein the energy-beings investigate missing shipping and discover that a ghost galleon is actually an alien artefact.

One final story – starring Nova Kane – details a stunning truth. When that exploding sun detonated way back when, it spawned more than one sentient energy-being – and courtesy of FIRST COMICS INC. – Alec’s opposite number ‘Vamfire’ finally arrives on Earth in a scary yarn coloured by Alex Wald. This frenzied female aspect is a ravenous power leech but Nova and E-Man soon find a way to dispel her “hanger-pangs”…

Biographies of Nicola Cuti and Joe Staton close this archive of sheer escapist delight: capping a glorious revisitation of sharper, smarter, funnier days in comics. However it’s not too late to tune in and get turned on to E-Man and Nova.
© 1973-1974 Charlton Comics, reprinted in Original E-Man and Mauser #1-7 © 1985-1986, First Comics, Inc. All new material © 2011, Joe Staton/First Comics, Inc.). All Rights Reserved.

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Tales of the Batman: Carmine Infantino


By Carmine Infantino, Gardner Fox, John Broome, Cary Bates, Gerry Conway, Don Kraar, Mike Barr, Geoff Johns & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4755-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Born on May 24th 1925, Carmine Michael Infantino was one of the greatest comic artists America ever produced: a multi-award-winning innovator who was there when comic books were born, reshaped the industry in the Silver Age and was still making fans when he died in 2013.

As an illustrator he co-created and initially visualised Black Canary, Detective Chimp, Pow-Wow Smith, the Silver Age Flash, Elongated Man, Deadman, Batgirl, Dial H for Hero and Human Target and revitalised characters such as Adam Strange and Batman. He worked for numerous companies, and at Marvel ushered in a new age by illustrating the licensed Star Wars comic book whilst working on titles and characters such as The Avengers, Daredevil, Ms. Marvel, Nova, Star-Lord and Spider-Woman…

His work on two separate iterations of the Batman newspaper strip is fondly remembered and whilst acting as Art Director and Publisher of National DC, he oversaw the most critically acclaimed period in the company’s history, ushering in the “relevancy” era and poaching Jack Kirby from Marvel to create the Fourth World, Kamandi, The Demon and others…

Very much – and repeatedly – the right man at the right time and place, Infantino shaped American comic book history like few others, and this bumper compendium comprehensively covers his contributions to the lore of Batman: collecting the stunning covers from Detective Comics #327-347, 349, 351-371, 500 and Batman #166-175, 181, 183-185, 188-192, 194-199 plus the Bat-Saga stories he drew for Detective #327, 329, 331, 333, 335, 337, 339, 341, 343, 345, 347, 349, 351, 353, 357, 359, 361, 363, 366-367, 369, and 500.

Also included are the contents of The Brave and the Bold #172, 183, 190, 194 and DC Comics Presents: Batman #1: an artistic association cumulatively spanning May 1964 to September 2004.

I’m assuming everybody here loves comics and that we’ve all had the same unpleasant experience of trying to justify that passion to somebody. Excluding your partner (who is actually right – the living room floor is not the place to leave your $£#!D*&$£! funnybooks) even today, many people have an entrenched and erroneous view of strip art, resulting in a frustrating and futile time as you tried to dissuade them from that opinion.

If so, this collection might be the book you want next time that confrontation occurs. It offers breathtaking examples of the prolific association of one the industry’s greatest illustrators with possibly the artform’s greatest creation.

Many of these “Light Knight” sagas stem from a period which saw the Dynamic Duo deftly reshaped for global Stardom – and subsequent fearful castigation from fans – as the template for the Batman TV show of the 1960s. It should be noted, however, that the producers and researchers took their creative impetus from stories of the era preceding the “New Look Batman” – as well as the original l940s movie serial…

So, what happened?

By the end of 1963, editor Julius Schwartz had spectacularly revived much of National/DC’s line – and the entire industry – with his modernisation of the superhero, and was then asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled and nigh-moribund Caped Crusaders.

Bringing his usual team of top-notch creators with him, Schwartz stripped down and back to the core-concept, downplaying aliens, outlandish villains and daft transformation tales to bring a cool modern take on combatting criminals. He even oversaw a streamlining and rationalisation of the art style itself.

The most apparent innovation was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol, but far more importantly, the stories also changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace re-entered the comfortable and absurdly abstract world of Gotham City.

Infantino was key to the changeover that reshaped a legend – but this was while still pencilling Silver Age superstar The Flash – so, despite generating the majority of covers, Infantino’s interior art was limited to alternate issues of Detective Comics with the lion’s share of narrative handled by Bob Kane’s then-uncredited deputies Sheldon Moldoff, Joe Giella, Chic Stone & others, plus occasional guest artists such as Gil Kane…

Punctuated throughout by his chronologically sequenced covers, Infantino’s part in the storytelling revolution began then and kicks off here with Detective #327 – written by John Broome and inked by Joe Giella at the very peak of their own creative powers.

‘The Mystery of the Menacing Mask!’ is a cunning “Howdunnit?”, long on action and moody peril, as discovery of a criminal “underground railroad” leads Gotham Gangbusters Batman and Robin to a common thug seemingly able to control them with his thoughts…

‘Castle with Wall-To-Wall Danger!’ (Detective #329 with Broome and Giella in their respective roles) follows: a captivating international thriller with the heroes braving a deadly death-trap in Swinging England in pursuit of a dastardly thief.

A rare full-length story in #331 co-starred Elongated Man Ralph Dibny. He was Detective Comics’ new back-up feature: a costumed sleuth blending the charm of Nick (The Thin Man) Charles with the outré heroic antics of Plastic Man.

The ‘Museum of Mixed-Up Men’ (Broome & Infantino) united the eclectic enigma-solvers against a super-scientific felon, whilst in #333 Batman & Robin fought a faux goddess and genuine telepaths in the ‘Hunters of the Elephants’ Graveyard!’, written by Gardner Fox and inked by Giella.

The same team revealed the ‘Trail of the Talking Mask!’ in #335, giving the Dynamic Duo an opportunity to reinforce their sci-fi credentials in a classy high-tech thriller guest-starring private detective Hugh Rankin (of “Mystery Analysts of Gotham City” fame) before ‘The Deep-Freeze Menace!’ (Detective #337 delivered a fearsome fantasy chiller pitting Batman against a super-powered caveman encased in ice for 50,000 years…

DC’s inexplicable (but deeply cool) long-running love-affair with gorillas resulted in a cracking doom-fable as ‘Batman Battles the Living Beast-Bomb!’ (#339) highlighted the hero’s physical prowess in a duel of wits and muscles against a sinister, super-intelligent simian.

Up until this time the New Look Batman was forging his more realistic path, as the TV series was still in pre-production. The Batman TV show (premiering on January 12th 1966 and running for three seasons of 120 episodes in total) aired twice weekly for its first two seasons, resulting in vast amount of Bat-awareness, no end of spin-offs and merchandise – including a movie – and the overkill phenomenon of “Batmania”.

No matter how much we might squeal and foam about it, a huge portion of this planet’s population Batman will always regard that “Zap! Biff! Pow!”  buffoonish costumed boy scout as The Real Deal…

Regrettably this means that the comic stories published during that period have been similarly excoriated and maligned by most Bat-fans ever since. It is true that some tales were crafted with overtones of the “camp” comedy fad – presumably to accommodate newer readers seduced by the arch silliness and coy irony of the show – but no editor of Schwartz’s calibre would ever deviate far from the characterisation that had sustained Batman for nearly 30 years, or the then-recent re-launch which had revitalised the character sufficiently for television to take an interest at all.

Nor would such brilliant writers as John Broome, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox and Robert Kanigher ever produce work which didn’t resonate on all the Batman’s intricate levels just for a quick laugh or cheap thrill. The artists tasked with sustaining the visual intensity included Infantino, Moldoff, Stone, Giella, Murphy Anderson and Sid Greene, with covers from Gil Kane and Joe Kubert supplementing Infantino’s stunning, trend-setting, fine-line masterpieces.

Most of the tales here reflect those gentler times and editorial policy of focusing on Batman’s reputation as “The World’s Greatest Detective”, so colourful, psychotic costumed super-villains are in a minority, but there are first appearances for a number of exotic foes who would become regular menaces for the Dynamic Duo in years to come.

Broome & Infantino detailed the screen-inspired, comedically-catastrophic campaign of ‘The Joker’s Comedy Capers!’ in #341, with the mayhem and mystery continuing in Detective Comics #343 (September 1965) with ‘The Secret War of the Phantom General!’: a tense thriller pitting our hard-pressed heroes against a hidden army of gangsters and Nazi war criminals.

Detective #345 brought forth a terrifying and tragic new villain in ‘The Blockbuster Invasion of Gotham City!’ (scripted by Fox), as a monstrous giant with the mind of a child and the raw, physical power of a tank is driven to destructive madness at sight of Batman and only placated by the sight of Bruce Wayne…

‘The Strange Death of Batman!’ (Fox, in Detective #347) fired the opening shot of habitual B-list villain the Bouncer in a bizarre experimental yarn which has to be seen to be believed, whereas it’s business as usual when monstrous, microcephalic man-brute returns in ‘The Blockbuster Breaks Loose!’: a blistering, action-fuelled thriller from Fox, Infantino & Giella first seen in Detective #349. This tale sports a cover by Infantino’s colleague Joe Kubert whilst also hinting at the return of a long-forgotten foe…

Detective #351 premiered game-show host turned felonious impresario Arthur Brown in a twisty, puzzle-packed battle of wits detailing ‘The Cluemaster’s Topsy-Turvy Crimes!’ (Fox, Infantino & Sid Greene) after which the action accelerates as ‘The Weather Wizard’s Triple-Treasure Thefts!’ (Fox/Giella in #353) bring a torrent of trouble to Gotham and the Dynamic Duo battle in spectacular opposition to the Flash’s meteorological arch-enemy. This was one of the earliest times a Silver Age DC villain moved out of his usual haunts…

Detective #357 then delivers a clever secret identity saving puzzler when – apparently – ‘Bruce Wayne Unmasks Batman!’ (Broome, Infantino & Giella) as a prelude to big changes in the Batman mythos…

After three seasons (perhaps two and a half would be more accurate) the Batman show ended in March, 1968. It had clocked up 120 episodes since the US premiere. The era ended but the series had instilled an undeniable effect on the world, the comics industry and – crucially – on the characters and history of its four-colour inspiration. Most notable was a whole new caped crusader who would become an integral part of the DC universe.

The comic book premiere of that aforementioned character came in ‘The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl’ (Detective Comics#359, cover-dated January 1967). Fox provided art team supreme Infantino & Greene a ripping yarn to introduce Barbara Gordon (mousy librarian and daughter of the Police Commissioner) into the superhero limelight. Thus, by the time the third season began on September 14th, 1967, she was well-established among comics fans at least…

A different Batgirl – Betty Kane (teenaged niece of the 1950s Batwoman) – was already a nearly-forgotten comics fixture, but for reasons far too complex and irrelevant to mention, she was conveniently ignored to make room for a new, empowered woman in the fresh and fashionable tradition of Emma Peel, Honey West and the Girl From U.N.C.L.E.

“Babs” was considered pretty hot too, which is always a plus for television…

Whereas she fought The Penguin on the small screen, her print origin features the no less ludicrous but at least visually forbidding Killer Moth in a clever yarn that still stands up today.

Editor Schwartz always preferred to play-up mysteries and crime conundrums in Detective Comics and #361’s ‘The Dynamic Duo’s Double-Deathtrap!’ was one of Fox’s best, especially as drawn by the now increasingly over-stretched Infantino & Greene. The plot involves Cold War spies and a maker of theatrical and stage paraphernalia; I shall reveal no more to keep you guessing when you read it…

Detective #363 was a full co-starring vehicle as the Dynamic Duo challenged the new Batgirl to deduce Batman’s secret identity whilst tracking down enigmatic Mr. Brains in ‘The True-False Face of Batman!’, leading to a taut suspense thriller stretching across Detective #366 & 367 – an almost unheard-of event in those cautiously reader-friendly days…

As devised by Fox, Infantino & Greene, ‘The Round Robin Death Threats’ involves a diabolical murder-plot threatening to destroy Gotham’s worthiest citizens, with the tension peaking and drama concluding in high style with ‘Where There’s a Will… There’s a Slay!’: a dark and deadly denouement barely marred by that dreadful title…

It was just a symptom of the times – as is Detective #369 (November 1967) – which somewhat reinforces boyhood prejudices about icky girls in otherwise classy thriller ‘Batgirl Breaks Up the Dynamic Duo!’…

Here, Robin seemingly abandons Batman for a vivaciously curvaceous new partner, and the best of clandestine reasons, ignominiously signalling – other than for the occasional cover – the end of Infantino’s tenure as a bat-illustrator.

His next Bat-contribution came in anniversary landmark Detective Comics #500 (March 1981): part of a huge creative jam-session specifically examining the legend of the immortal hero in ‘What Happens When a Batman Dies?’

Scripted by Cary Bates and inked by Bob Smith, this extracted chapter from a greater saga co-stars restless revenant Deadman as the Gotham Guardian hovers in a coma between this world and the next, yet still manages to find a way to save himself…

The cover is another collaborative effort with Dick Giordano, José Luis García-López, Joe Kubert & Tom Yeates all joining forces.

What follows is a quartet of tales from The Brave and the Bold, with Jim Aparo providing covers whilst Infantino handled interior art. Issue #172 (March 1981, inked by Steve Mitchell) paired the Caped Crimebuster with Firestorm in Gerry Conway scripted ‘Darkness and Dark Fire’, with the World’s Greatest Detective seeking to solve the mystery of the Nuclear Man’s periodic mental blackouts, after which #183 (February 1982, written by Don Krarr and inked by Mike DeCarlo) sees the crimebuster allied with The Riddler to prevent ‘The Death of Batman!’

Scripter Mike Barr & inker Sal Trapani worked with Infantino on B&B #190 (September 1982) and #194, January 1993), respectively challenging the Dark Knight to visit planet Rann and find ‘Who Killed Adam Strange?’ before subsequently working with the Flash against Doctor Double-X and the Rainbow Raider when they ‘Trade Heroes – And Win!’…

One final Infantino fling comes from DC Comics Presents: Batman #1 (September 2004), courtesy of writer Geoff Johns, with inks by Giella and a retro cover from Ryan Hughes, as ‘Batman of Two Worlds’ gets real metaphysical with narrative boundaries as the modern Batman and Robin investigate murder on the set of the 1960s Batman TV show in a bizarrely engaging romp with a mystery villain to expose…

The visual cavalcade then ends on a nostalgic high with ‘Batman and Robin Retail poster’ – AKA the front cover of this titanic tome – possibly the most iconic bat-image of the entire era.

Whether you tend towards the anodyne light-heartedness of Then, the socially acceptable psychopathy of assorted movie franchises or actually just like the comic book character, if you can make a potential convert sit down, shut up and actually read these wonderful adventures for all (reasonable) ages, you might find that the old adage “Quality will out” still holds true. And if you’re actually a fan who hasn’t read this classic stuff and revelled in the astounding timeless art, you have an absolute treat in store…
© 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1981, 1982, 1983, 2004, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Samson Archives volume 2


By Otto Binder, Frank Thorne, Jack Sparling, Morris Gollub, George Wilson, Joe Certa, Mike Sekowsky, George Roussos & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-659-6 (HB)

These days all the attention in comics circles goes to big-hitters and headline-grabbing ground-breakers, 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.

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 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 will reserve for a future occasion…

This second splendid full-colour hardback compilation – printed on a reassuringly sturdy and comforting grainy old-school pulp stock rather than glossy paper – gathers Mighty Samson #7-14 spanning September 1966 to May 1968, and begins with a heady appreciation by Paul Tobin (Plants vs Zombies, The Witcher, Angry Birds, Spider-Man, Bandette) in his reminiscent Foreword…

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, making 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, Krypto the Super Dog and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

In his later life, he moved into editing, producing factual science books and writing for NASA.

Frank Thorne (June 16th 1930 – March 7th 2021) was one of the most individualistic talents in American comics and the series co-creator’s last issue opens this volume. He began his comics career drawing romance stories for Standard Comics beside legendary draughtsman Alex Toth before graduating to better-paid newspaper strips like Perry Mason for King Features Syndicate. For Dell/Gold Key he drew Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim and The Green Hornet, as well as the first few years of this seminal sci-fi classic.

A DC he did compelling work on Tomahawk and Son of Tomahawk before being hired by Roy Thomas at Marvel to illustrate his belated breakthrough strip Red Sonja. Forever-after connected with feisty, earthy, highly sexualised women, in 1978 Thorne created outrageously bawdy (some say vulgar) swordswoman Ghita of Alizarr for Warren’s adult science fantasy anthology 1984/1994 as well as such adult satirical strips as Moonshine McJugs for Playboy and Danger Rangerette for National Lampoon.

Thorne won a National Cartoonists Award for comic books, an Inkpot Award and a Playboy Editorial Award, but was still a fairly by-the-book illustrator at the time of this collection’s content. In fact, it was on Mighty Samson that he opened up and found his own unique artistic vision: one which would carry him to the forefront of stylists with the satirical and erotic works of his later years.

That’s meat for other reviews, but here he and replacement artist Jack Sparling translate Binder’s imaginings into a beguiling otherworld of action, adventure and drama suitable for most kids of all ages and a milieu perfectly in tune with any Kids TV channel today…

Mighty Samson #1 (July 1964) introduced the bombed-out metropolis of N’Yark: a dismal dangerous region 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…

They toiled constantly to bring humanity out of its second stone age and, fired with inspiration, Samson joined their self-appointed mission: defending them from all threats as they carry out their work.

Every issue was augmented by mesmerising painted covers by master illustrators Morris Gollub or George Wilson. These covers were initially reproduced text-free on the back of each issue and probably graced many a kid’s bedroom wall way back when. You get those too, but I’d suggest scanners rather than scissors this time around…

The comics were ad free and inner side of those covers generally held monochrome single-page features supplementing the story with historical context, and the factoids. Sadly many are uncredited but when I know who, so will you…

The Altered World odyssey resumes with #7, cover-dated September 1966. ‘World of Darkness’ saw Thorne off in fine style as shattered skyscrapers in N’Yark began sinking into the ground. Investigating the trackless regions under the city, Samson and his allies encounter many horrific beings before mistakenly accusing the subsurface Undermen of waging war on the light-loving Uppermen like themselves. Before long, however, ‘The Enemy Below’ (with artistic assistance from Mike Sekowsky & George Roussos) is identified as being a threat of a wholly bestial and relentless nature, forcing an alliance and only ended by Mindor’s knowledge of pre-disaster atomic weapons…

The inner covers detail ‘The Underground World’ of 1960s subways, escalators and tunnels and hidden service structures ‘Beneath the City’ before #8 signalled a change of vision.

Drawn by Joe Certa, factual-teaser ‘The Magnetic Pole’ led and fed into Binder’s ‘The Migration Mystery’ and concluding chapter ‘The Mental Battle’ as our heroes – and every other human in N’Yark – are seized by a telepathic force pulling them northwards. Aware but unable to resist, Samson and his friends spend months gravitating towards a mineral formation (a “mental North Pole”) in the arctic: helping many others of the thousands of humans caught in the grip, before at last devising a solution that will allow them all to return home.

This tale signalled the debut of another veteran illustrator who would make the title his own.

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 Hap Hopper, Washington Correspondent strip for United Features Syndicate (1940) superseded 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 player 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…

With monsters so popular, the company also debuted the Gold Key Club Comic Monster Art page: inviting readers to create their own creepy critters and send them in for publication. The first examples were dreamed up in-house but for later issues, the beasts and bogles came courtesy of the kids. A scattering of them add loony lustre to this book at intermittent moments…

Another new feature began in the following issue. Illustrated by Sparling, ‘Mighty Samson Mutant Monsters’ offered an ongoing bestiary of horrors as seen in Mindor’s notes, beginning with ‘Stone-Throwing Cactus’ and ‘Lightning Beast’…

Bracketed by fact-features ‘Guide Tour of Washington D.C.’ and ‘Washington D.C.’, #9 (cover-dated March 1967) sees the valiant trio back home long enough to discover a fully automated, still-operational bullet train connected to the nation’s former Capital. Sadly, the astounding delights of pre-collapse culture and technology leads to war with ‘The Renegade Robot’, once they debark in DC…

That’s just in time for old enemy Queen Terra of Jerz to suborn an atom-powered Secret Service mechanical bodyguard…

Ordering ‘The Metal Hercules’ to crush and enslave Samson, Terra finds the robot too much for her but still not tough enough to stop the mutant: a dilemma that drives the automaton totally off the rails…

The issue ends with another Mighty Samson Mutant Monsters moment sharing the unnatural history profile of the ‘Net-Casting Spider’

Mighty Samson #10 opens with more of the same – the ‘Heavy-Matter Eagle’ – before a wave of desperate refugees disrupting N’Yark sends the scientific investigators off exploring formerly isolated Staten Island. The lost colony has become a bizarre dichotomy: with humans living in relative luxury in fully automated skyscrapers but unwilling to go below the first three storeys which has become a vast morass on interlinked monster-filled jungle. It was a paradise until Samson’s enemy Kull invaded, driving the soft tribes-folk away, but the ‘Terror in Tallplace Town’ ends as soon as Samson puts his foot down to oust the treacherous ‘King for a Day’…

More readers’ creations segue into #11, where Mighty Samson Mutant Monster ‘Lightning-Bolt Eel’ leads into a tale of unchecked capitalism as new trader Hulko the Swapper begins price gouging both farmers in the hinterlands and N’Yark’s scavengers who until recently, bartered amicably and honestly their edible produce for the city’s salvaged raw materials like scrap iron and reclaimed tinned luxury goods. The process involved shipping goods through wild territory of the Bronx and Long Island: terra incognita festooned with terrifying carnivorous forests infested with ‘The Swamp Rats’ and even worse perils.

When the profiteer pushes too hard, Samson takes action, reclaiming the concrete pathways of the ancients and providing a smooth “Broadway” for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Hulko and his shipping protectionists are understandably unhappy with the new arrangement, but their sabotage attempts to invoke ‘Terror on the Tradeway’ have no effect on giant hero’s policy of free enterprise…

Queen Terra returns in #12 operating a reclaimed, restored and fully-armed US Coast Guard cutter, leading ‘The River Raiders’ bombarding the shore-dwelling tribes of Manhattan island and demanding to be made their empress. Happily, Samson Sharmaine and Mindor are also au fait with naval salvage and ‘The Battle of N’Yark Bay’ swiftly sinks the queen’s schemes… despite the intervention of a few aroused sea beasts formerly asleep in the deep…

The quest for security is synonymous with the search for food and power sources. In #13 Mindor meets another historical detective skilled in the ways of pre-collapse technologists, but ‘The Prophet of Zomzu’ exploits his knowledge of electricity for another kind of power. Thanks to our brawny hero, cruel science despot Merlyn the Magic Maker is the loser in ‘The Wizard’s Showdown’: liberating a tribe of gullible pawns from a ruthless master…

This second sojourn in a broken tomorrow ends with Mighty Samson #14 (May 1968) as a Mighty Samson Mutant Monster briefing on ‘Rooted Sea Serpents’ segues into a chilling and contemporary fable as fisherfolk on the island of N’Yark are threatened by the ‘Menace from Nowhere’. This is a toxic gooey mass carried by the river, polluting their waters and killing the birds and fish they hunt, as well as infuriating all the monsters in the bay.

When Mindor determines the threat is millions of tons of crude oil being forced upriver, the trio voyage south to Florida and find an abandoned automated drilling rig has recently malfunctioned, constantly pouring black poison into the Gulf Stream.

The atomically-powered station is a danger to everything but when Samson shuts it down, he finds himself trapped ‘Between Beasts and Machines’ and joins post-apocalypse Tuaregs of the trackless Miami desert to destroy the unchecked depredations of automated city Technopolis: a robot metropolis of unimaginable treasures guarded by dinosaurs!

Closing with more Gold Key Club Readers Page monsters and full creator biographies, this mighty tome might be short on logic but absolutely revels in fabulous imagination and non-stop action. These sublime yarns typify a lost era’s devotion to fantastic fun: no-nonsense, brain-boggling yarns at once self-contained, episodic, exciting, enticing and deceptively witty.

Bizarre, brilliantly off-kilter and outrageously bombastic, Binder’s myth of a rationalist Hercules battling atom-spawned Titans and devils offers stunning spectacle and thrill-a-minute wonderment from start to finish. Captivatingly limned by Thorne and Sparling, 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 Two ™ & © 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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Showcase Presents Superman Family volume 2


By Otto Binder, Jerry Coleman, Alvin Schwartz, Leo Dorfman, Robert Bernstein, Bill Finger, Curt Swan, Wayne Boring, Kurt Schaffenberger, Dick Sprang, Al Plastino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-812-4 (TPB)

In America during the 1950s and early 1960s being different was a bad thing. Conformity was sacrosanct, even in comic books, and everybody and thing was meant to keep to its assigned and intended role.

For the Superman family and extended cast that meant a highly strictured code of conduct and parameters: Daily Planet Editor Perry White was a stern, shouty elder statesman with a heart of gold, Cub Reporter Jimmy Olsen was a brave and impulsive, unseasoned fool with a heart of gold – and plucky News-hen Lois Lane was nosy, impetuous and unscrupulous in her obsession to marry Superman, although she too was – deep down – another possessor of an Auric aorta. They were – of course – uniformly white and the Anglo-est of Saxons…

Yet somehow even with these mandates in place, talented writers and artists assigned to detail their wholesomely uncanny exploits managed to craft tales both beguiling and breathtakingly memorable – and usually as funny as they were exciting as seen in this second cunningly combined chronologically complete compendium. Here, collected in marvellous monochrome, are the affably all-ages tales from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #23-34 (September 1957-January 1959), Lois’s second try-out issue originally seen in Showcase #10 (September/October 1957) and #1-7 of her subsequent solo series Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane (March/April 1958-February 1959).

We commence with the Man of Steel’s Go-To Guy in three tales comprising issue #23 of his solo title: illustrated as almost always by the wonderful Curt Swan & Ray Burnley. ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Two Super-Pals’ was the first of three scripts by irrepressible Otto Binder, describing how our lad gains an other-dimensional Genie as another faithful Super-Friend. Of course with sinister radium bandits plaguing Metropolis there’s more to the cosmic companion than meets the eye…

Next comes ‘Jimmy Olsen, the Bearded Boy’ wherein boastful hubris and a magic potion inflict runaway whiskers on many Daily Planet staffers – even Clark Kent – prompting a flurry of face-saving secret feats from the identity conscious Man of Tomorrow.

As Jimmy’s series progressed, one of the most popular plot-themes (and most fondly remembered and referenced today by surviving Baby-Boomer fans) was the unlucky lad’s appalling talent for being warped, mutated and physically manipulated by fate, aliens, magic, mad science and even his friends …a fate which frequently befell Lois too, although Jimmy got far fewer marriage proposals (but not NONE!) from aliens, murderers of monsters…

The boy’s bits briefly conclude with ‘The Adventures of Private Olsen’, wherein the Cub Reporter is assigned to write articles on Army life and – with Superman’s assistance – teaches a nasty and unscrupulous drill sergeant a much-needed lesson…

When Lois Lane – arguably the oldest supporting character/star in the Superman mythology if not entire DC universe – finally received her own shot at a solo title, it was very much on the terms of the times. I must shamefacedly admit to a deep, nostalgic affection for her bright and breezy, fantastically fun adventures, but as a free-thinking, (nominally) adult liberal of the 21st century I’m often simultaneously shocked these days at the jollified, patronising, patriarchally misogynistic attitudes underpinning so many of the stories.

Yes, I’m fully aware that the series was intended for young readers at a time when “dizzy dames” like Lucille Ball or Doris Day played up to the popular American gestalt stereotype of Woman as jealous minx, silly goose, diffident wife and brood-hungry nester, but to ask kids to seriously accept that intelligent, courageous, ambitious, ethical and highly capable women would drop everything they’d worked hard for to lie, cheat, inveigle, manipulate and entrap a man just so that they could cook pot-roast and change super-diapers is plain crazy and tantamount to child abuse. They’re great, great comics but still… whooo… gah… splutter… I’m just saying…

Cover-dated September/October 1957 and illustrated by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye, Showcase #10 was the second and final test appearance for what became  Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane, opening with scripter Binder’s ‘The Jilting of Superman’, wherein the Action Ace almost falls for a most ancient ploy as Lois pretends to marry another man to make the Kryptonian clod realise what she means to him…

Written by Jerry Coleman, ‘The Sightless Lois Lane’ tells how a nuclear accident temporarily blinds the journalist, and how her sudden, unexpected recovery almost exposes Clark Kent’s secret when he callously changes to Superman in front of his “sightless” friend, after which Binder delightfully details the contents of ‘The Forbidden Box from Krypton’. Exhumed by a Smallville archaeologist, this hoard houses devices originally packed by Superman’s birth father Jor-El and intended to aid the infant Superbaby on Earth. Of course, when Lois opens the chest all she sees is a way to become as powerful as the Man of Steel. Before long, she’s addicted to being a super-champion in her own right…

Scant months later, the mercurial journo had her own title, clearly offering exactly what the reading public wanted…

Jimmy Olsen #24 featured another trio of top tales from Binder, Swan & Burnley beginning with ‘The Superman Hall of Trophies’ which finds a Kryptonite-paralysed Metropolis Marvel trapped in a museum and rescued by the brave boy reporter. ‘The Gorilla Reporter!’ sees the poor kid briefly brain-swapped with a mighty (confused) Great Ape before – as so often before – Superman must audaciously divert attention from his exposure-threatened alter ego by convincing the world at large that Jimmy is ‘The Luckiest Boy in the World’…

Issue #25 – by Binder, Swan & Burnley – features ‘The Secret of the Superman Dummies’ wherein a trip to a magic show results in Jimmy being inescapably handcuffed to the last man in the world Superman dares to approach, after which ‘The Second Superboy’ reveals how poor Jimmy is accidentally rocketed to an alien world where he gains incredible abilities courtesy of resident absent-minded genius Professor Potter. ‘The Day There Was No Jimmy Olsen’ then offers a tantalising hoax and mystery which ends with an unexpected promotion for the pluckily ingenious boy…

Jimmy began #26 subject to inexplicable bouts of deadly mass fluctuations and improbably became ‘The World’s “Heavyweight” Champ’ before – as newly appointed ‘Jimmy Olsen, Foreign Correspondent’ – uncovering a sinister scheme to defraud the Ruritanian Kingdom of Hoxana. Back home again though, he has to again undergo a well-intentioned con from his best pal after seeing Clark flying and subsequently – inadvertently – himself becoming ‘The Birdboy of Metropolis’…

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #1 (March/April #1958) at last arrived, sporting three stunning yarns illustrated by sleek, slick comedically-inclined illustrator Kurt Schaffenberger, whose distinctive art-style would become synonymous with the woman reporter. Everything kicked off with ‘The Bombshell of the Boulevards’ (scripted by Leo Dorfman) wherein she dons a blonde wig to deceitfully secure a Hollywood interview and provokes a death-duel between rival enflamed suitors. Of course, it’s only another scheme by Superman and Jimmy to teach her a lesson in journalistic ethics. It’s a good thing reporters are so much less unscrupulous these days…

During this Silver Age period, with Superman a solid gold sensation of the newly ascendant television medium, many stories were draped in the wholesome trappings of Tinseltown – even more so than most of celebrity-obsessed America. It didn’t hurt that chief editor Whitney Ellsworth was a part-time screenwriter, script editor and producer, as well as National DC’s Hollywood point man.

Otto Binder then reunited with old Captain Marvel collaborator Schaffenberger for ‘Lois Lane, Super-Chef’ as she disastrously tries to master home cooking in another scheme to get the Man of Steel to propose, whilst in ‘The Witch of Metropolis’ a science assignment goes horrifically awry, transforming her into a wizened old hag every time the sun sets…

All courtesy of Binder, Swan & Burnley, SPJO #27 opens with ‘The Boy from Mars’ wherein the cub reporter gets his own lesson in integrity after trying to create a circulation-boosting hoax, and a refresher course on the perils of pride and over-confidence after messing up ‘A Date with Miss Metropolis’ before the issue ends in a riotous battle with his own evil duplicate after Professor Potter accidentally creates ‘The Outlaw Jimmy Olsen’…

Ever so slowly a more mature tone was developing in the kid’s adventures. In #28’s ‘The Spendthrift and the Miser’ an alien gift from Superman triggers wildly manic mood swings whilst an accidental time-trip incredibly reveals that Jimmy is destined to become ‘The Boy who Killed Superman’ after which in ‘The Human Skyscraper’, another botched Potter product enlarges the kid to monumental, city-endangering size.

Over in the second Lois Lane comic book she is apparently appalled to uncover ‘Superman’s Secret Sweetheart’ (uncredited here but possibly Bill Finger?), but is in fact on her very best mettle and helping a bullied college girl fight back against her mean sorority sisters.

The Binder recounts how Tinseltown improbably calls and the reporter becomes – eventually – an extremely high maintenance actress in ‘Lois Lane in Hollywood’…

‘Superman’s Forbidden Room’ closes proceedings with a cruel hoax played on her well-publicised infatuation, but this time it isn’t the Man of Steel doing the fooling and the stakes have never been higher than in this moody thriller illustrated by Boring & Kaye and probably written by Jerry Coleman.

In Jimmy Olsen #29 the usually adept reporter suffers a monumental writer’s block whilst working on a novel, but ‘The Superman Book that Couldn’t be Finished’ eventually is …with a little hands-on Kryptonian help. ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Super-Pet’ then sees the cub reporter adopted by super-hound Krypto in his twilight years: an act that is instrumental in rejuvenating the Dog of Steel for a new generation.

The issue ends with ‘The Amazing Spectacles of Doctor X’: a clever thriller seeing Jimmy appropriate goggles which can see the future and glimpsing something he wishes he hadn’t!

Crafted by Binder & Schaffenberger, The Rainbow Superman’ opens Lois Lane #3 portraying the “News-hen” at her very worst as a cosmic accident makes the Man of Tomorrow an ambulatory spectrum and she sets about seeking to see if Clark also glows, whilst ‘The Man who was Clark Kent’s Double’ (scripted by Coleman, as is the final tale here) breaks her heart after she again proves too nosy for her own good.

‘Lois Lane and the Babe of Steel’ then delivers a terrifying glimpse of her dreams come true when Superman trades temporal places with his toddler self, causing all manner of problems for the capable bachelorette…

In JO #30, ‘The Son of Superman’ – by Binder, Swan & Burnley – jerks our tears as an attempt by the Kryptonian to adopt the boy reporter goes tragically wrong, after which the creators prove equally adept at concocting mystery and tension when criminals scheme to destroy Jimmy by making him ‘The Cub who Cried Wolf’.

‘Superman’s Greatest Enemy’ – with Dick Sprang standing in for Swan – then discloses how the naive lad falls for a crook’s scam but has enough smarts to turn the tables at the end…

Binder & Schaffenberger open SGFLL #4 with a well-meaning Jimmy using hypnotism to get Clark to propose to Lois, utterly unaware who he is actually using these gimmicks on, and catastrophically leading to ‘The Super-Courtship of Lois Lane’…

Times have changed, but when Coleman scripted ‘Lois Lane, Working Girl’ he was simply referring to her being challenged to undertake a job in manual labour, so shame on you. Alvin Schwartz then crafts a canny conundrum in ‘Annie Oakley Gets her (Super)man’ for Boring & Kaye to illustrate, when a riding accident out West causes Lois to believe she is the legendary sharpshooter whilst hunting some very nasty gangsters with very real guns…

Jimmy Olsen #31 highlights the now mythic tale of ‘The E-L-A-S-T-I-C Lad’ (Binder, Swan & Burnley) wherein Superman is ultimately responsible for the reporter gaining stretching powers. He should have known better than to leave a chest of alien artefacts with the nosy, accident-prone kid…

‘The Mad Hatter of Metropolis’ sees the simple power of suggestion convince the kid that he can imitate the feats of famous folks simply by donning their characteristic chapeaus,  before ‘The Boy who Hoaxed Superman’ has him attempt to secure a pay raise by pretending to leave for the future. Sadly, it doesn’t work, and everybody seems to prefer the replacement Perry hired who is, of course, Jimmy in disguise…

For #32 Professor Potter’s latest chemical concoction makes Jimmy look like Pinocchio but does compensate by giving him ‘The Super Nose for News’, whilst an uncanny concatenation of crazy circumstances turns the sensibly staid Man of Tomorrow into ‘The Rock ‘n’ Roll Superman’ every time the kid reporter – masquerading as a pop star – twangs his old guitar. Then, Alvin Schwartz scripts ‘The Jimmy Olsen from Jupiter’, revealing how aliens mutate the cub reporter into one of their scaly selves: complete with extremely useful mind-reading abilities, much to Superman’s dismay…

Robert Bernstein & Schaffenberger’s ‘Superman’s Greatest Sacrifice’ leads in Lois Lane #5, as the journalist meets her millionaire double and seemingly loses her beloved sort-of lover to the rich witch, whilst in ‘The Girl of 100 Costumes’ the canny lass employs a myriad of new looks to catch his attention, in an uncredited story drawn by Al Plastino.

It was back to silly, disquieting (and fat-shaming) usual for Binder & Schaffenberger’s ‘The Fattest Girl in Metropolis’ as a plant growth ray “accidentally” super-sizes the valiant but vain reporter. Imagine her reaction when Lois learns Superman has deliberately expanded her dimensions… for good and solid reasons, of course…

Binder, Swan & Burnley were in sparkling form in JO #33, starting with ‘Legends that Came to Life’, wherein a nuclear accident animates the strangest foes from fairy tales and only Jimmy, but not his mighty mentor, can save the day, after which ‘The Lady-Killer from Metropolis’ offers a classic case of boyish arrogance and girlish gossip which leads to the boy reporter briefly becoming the sexiest thing in Hollywood. The horror and hilarity is capped by ‘The Human Flame-Thrower!’ as Potter’s latest experiment leaves Jimmy with the worst case of high-octane halitosis in history…

Coleman, Boring & Kaye opened LL #6 with ‘The Amazing Superman Junior’ as yet another attempt to teach Lois a lesson backfires on the pompous Man of Steel and she brings in a mysterious kid to show the Kryptonian what it feels like…

This is followed by a brace of tales by Bill Finger & Schaffenberger, starting with ‘Lois Lane… Convict!’ which seemingly sees the reporter take a bribe from gangster Baldy Pate and pay a terrible price, whilst in ‘Lieutenant Lois Lane, U.S. Army’ she and Clark join the military for a story only to have Lois’ (temporary) rank turn her into a man-hating bully. Surely some mistake, no…?

‘Superman’s Pal of Steel’  by Binder, Swan & Burnley, begins the last Jimmy Olsen issue in this marvellous monochrome collection, as another secret identity-preserving scheme takes a bizarre turn after the boy reporter genuinely gains an incredible power. Alvin Schwartz then fills ‘The Underworld Journal’ which see our kid inherit his own newspaper …and swiftly go off the journalistic rails.

Finally for the boy, Potter’s newest invention turns Jimmy’s clunky old kit into ‘The Most Amazing Camera in the World’ (Binder, Swan & Burnley) – and a deadly danger to Superman’s greatest secret…

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #7 ends this volume with three more mixed-message masterpieces. beginning with ‘Lois Lane’s Kiss of Death’ (by Bernstein & Schaffenberger), wherein a canny conman tries to fool the reporter into botching her biggest crime exposés. Schwartz then has Lois use hypnotism to wash her heroic obsession out of her mind in ‘When Lois Lane Forgot Superman’.

Illustrated by Boring & Kaye, the tale takes an unlikely turn when she turns her passionate, unfulfilled attentions on poor Clark, after which Lana Lang fully enters the Man of Steel’s modern mythology. When Lois took in the destitute, down-at-heel lass who once held the Boy of Steel’s heart, she seemingly allowed her to also become ‘The Girl who Stole Superman’ in a tense and clever tale from Coleman & Schaffenberger…

These spun-off, support series were highly popular, top-selling titles for more than two decades: blending action, adventure, broad, wacky comedy, fantasy and science fiction in the gently addictive whimsical manner that Binder and Schaffenberger had perfected at Fawcett Comics on the magnificent Marvel Family.

As well as containing some of the most delightful episodes of the jovial, pre angst-anointed, cosmically catastrophic DC, these fun, thrilling and yes, occasionally deeply moving, all-ages stories also perfectly depict the changing mores and tastes which reshaped comics from the safe 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1970s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry – keep them entertained and keep them wanting more…

I certainly do…
© 1957, 1958, 1959, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain Action: Classic Collection


By Gil Kane, Wally Wood, Jim Shooter & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1- (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-64936-046-5

These days comics are about kids of varying ages looking back. So too are toys, and baby boomers like me are particularly prone to the fabled golden age and certain “must-have” items – whether we ever actually owned them or not. An added bonus comes if those toys made it to comics and vice versa…

Back then, the ultimate acme for so many of us in the UK was – no, not the Johnny Seven multi-gun, or Man from U.N.C.L.E. briefcase – but the Captain Action nine-heroes-in-1 doll (sorry, Action Figure)… 

Once upon a time comics were considered the nigh-exlusive domain of children, with many scrupulously-policed genres and subdivisions catering to particular and stratified arenas such as fact, fantasy, adventure and humour. They were even further codified by age and gender.

A particular and popular recurring theme was tapping into the guaranteed and hopefully mutual sales boost offered by licensing and cross-marketing. West Coast outfit Dell/Gold Key had early on specialised in out-industry licensing deals and adaptations…

Many titles depended on a media celebrity like Howdy Doody, Charlie Chaplin or Mickey Mouse and in America that eventually spread to the marketing of products also aimed at kids… such as sweets, cartoons and toys…

By the end of that era, comics for kids were almost exclusively released as a minor strand of a major maketing strategy. That comics like Thundercats, Micronauts, Transformers, Rom and G.I. Joe were actually good and entertaining on strictly strip terms was a happy coincidence and thanks solely to the diligent pride and efforts of the creators involved. Sadly, it also led to publishers intensifying efforts to add a toy component to their own properties. Hands up anyone out there who owns a Spider-mobile, Batboat or Supermobile…

For DC, that trend really began in 1968. Although the company – known as National Periodical Publications back then – had long benefitted from creating comics adventures of movie stars like Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis or Dale Evans and shows such as Gang Busters, A Date with Judy and Mr. District Attorney, they had stayed away from the toy biz – unless you count two issues of Showcase (#53 & 54 Novenber/December 1964 and January/February 1965) that unofficially tied-in to Hasbro’s release of the first G.I. Joe line.

Then, just as costumed superheroes boomed, peaked and began an inexorable die-back, an old connection resurfaced…

In 1964 inventor and promotions wizard Stan Weston devised a way to sell dolls to boys: a dilemma that had stumped toymakers for centuries. He devised an articulated mannequin that would represent all branches of the military and could be aurmented by add-on uniforms and equipment. He called it an “action-figure” and sold the notion to Hasbro, who marketed it with great and lasting success as G.I. Joe (in Britain it was rebranded Action Man).

With his remuneration, Weston – whose promotions company Leisure Concepts had secured representation rights to DC, Marvel and King Features characters – devised a similar boys toy figure designed to ride the then-current global superhero wave triggered by the Batman TV show. “Captain Magic” was not only a superhero in his own right but could also transform into other superheroes via costumes and masks purchased seperately…

Released in waves, these alter egos included Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Captain America, Sgt. Fury, The Phantom, 2 different Lone Rangers, Tonto, Steve Canyon, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and the Green Hornet.

Weston sold this concept to Hasbro’s rival Ideal Toy Company who went all-out in producing and marketing the range. It launched in 1966, redesignated Captain Action…

A huge success, an expansion line in 1967 introduced a kid sidekick, pet panther, villains, an Action-Cave, secret lairs, a super car and lots of other paraphenalia. Latterly, distaff partner Lady Action was joined by doll versions (“Super Queens”) of Wonder Woman, Mera, Supergirl and Batgirl…

The line was an early casualty of the downturn in superheroes and discontinued in 1968. It has, however, cemented itself in popular memory, with the core character returning on many occasions. He now enjoys a new marketing company seeking to rebuild the brand, Since 2005, Catain Action Enterprises have been testing the waters and some of their efforts can bee seen as ads and addenda throughout the book…

However, back at the height if the craze that DC link led to Editor in Chief Mort Weisinger commissioning a comic book tie-in. It turned out to be one of the most lovely, powerful, experimental and maturely sophisticated titles of the era and – finally – all the legal loopholes have been circumvented so you can see it at last …or if you’re truly blessed, once again…

Weisinger tapped his youngest writer – teenager Jim Shooter – and teamed him with veterans on the potentially colossal project. Miracle-working editor Julie Schwartz was in charge, and Wally Wood started the ball rolling artistically, but the real revelation came after replacement penciller Gil Kane took over the writing…

Born Eli Katz and a pre-WWII infant immigrant from Latvia, Kane was one of the pivotal players in the development of the American comics industry, and indeed of the art form itself. Working as an artist, and an increasingly more effective and influential one, he drew for many companies from the 1940s onwards, tackling superheroes, crime, action, war, mystery, romance, animal heroes (Streak and Rex the Wonder Dog!), movie adaptations and, most importantly perhaps, Westerns and Science Fiction tales.

In the late 1950s he became one of Schwartz’s key artists in regenerating and rebooting the superhero concept. Yet by 1968, at the top of his profession, this relentlessly revolutionary and creative man felt so confined by the juvenile strictures of the industry that he struck out on bold new ventures that jettisoned the editorial and format bondage of comic books for new visions and media.

His Name Is Savage was an adult-oriented black & white magazine about a cold and ruthless super-spy in the James Bond/Matt Helm/Man Called Flint mould; co-written by friend and collaborator Archie Goodwin. It was very much a precursor in tone, treatment and subject matter of many of today’s adventure titles.

His other venture, Blackmark (1971, and also with Goodwin), not only ushered in the comic book age of Sword and Sorcery, but also became one of medium’s first Graphic Novels. Technically, as the series was commissioned by fantasy publisher Ballantine as eight volumes, it was also envisioned as America’s first comic Limited Series.

Before them, though, there was Captain Action…

Edited by Schwartz with covers by Irv Novick, Wood, Kane & Dick Giordano, the entire DC run is collected here, preceded by a fulsome and informative Introduction from Mark Waid.

Unable to play with the toy’s major attraction – multiple super-personalities – Shooter & Wood instead went with classical drama for issue #1’s ‘Origin of Captain Action!’: revealing how archaeologist Clive Arno and his assistant Krellik uncover a chest of coins left in antiquity by incredible superbeings remembered by humanity as gods.

These coins allow the holder to access the incredible powers of countless deities, but the temptation proves too much for the scheming assistant.

However, when he tries to steal them, an ancient failsafe painfully prevents him…

Driven away, the scoundrel is then found by the coin vindictively created by primal God of Evil Chernobog: one which imparts astounding magical abilities and feeds his hatred. As Arno designs a costumed identity to help the world via the coins, Krellik spies on and steals his thunder, resolved to taint the project before it even begins…

Returning to America, Arno learns ‘Where the Action is’ from his son Carl, as Krellik plunders museums dressed in Arno’s proposed uniform. A swift chase then results in a cataclysmic clash and brief cameo by Superman…

Trailing his enemy, the true Captain cannot stop Krellik obtaining more deadly artefacts of the lost gods. As the first issue ends he is savagely beaten and apparently defeated before he’s even started …

With Kane pencilling Shooter’s script and Wood inking, the saga concludes in #2 as ‘The Battle Begins!’ with the victorious villain repeatedly failing to appropriate the power coins: stymied by the remarkably astute and valiant Action Boy. When Krellik’s frustration boils over and he starts wrecking the city, our recently returned hero goes all out and at last overcomes in ‘Captain Action’s Reactions!’ Kane was eager to stretch his creative muscles in a period of great change and challenge and Schwartz was happy to oblige…

Although already distressingly high in drama and calamity, the series went into overdrive with #3 as the toy company’s preferred archfoe debuted. A blue skinned humanoid with an exposed brain. Dr Evil was fleshed out as Kane wrote and pencilled ‘…And Evil This Way Comes!’, revealing how a catastrophic earthquake in San Francisco caused hundreds of deaths and triggered an evolutionary aberration in the laboratory of Dr. Stefan Tracy…

The Nobel Laureate was also Arno’s father-in-law and both were united in grief over the death of his daughter (and Arno’s wife) Kathryn. They also shared an abiding love for Carl Arno.

All that seemed over when Tracy was elevated to the status of a futureman resolved to similarly improve mankind, no matter how many perished in the process…

The most telling consequence of the quake is the loss of all but a handful of power coins. Action Boy is given the superspeed inducing Mercury artefact, whilst his dad keeps the tokens of Zeus, Hercules and Heimdall (rationalising why the Captain needs cool tools like his supercar the Silver Streak), and they deploy to save lives in the aftershocks.

They are hindered and countered by Tracy/Dr. Evil: using his devices to amplify the natural disaster. His deed almost kills his grandson, until a fast-fading final shred of humanity hampers his deeds and hold back his damning hand…

The act is his last as a human being and allows the Captain a desperate chance to drive him away…

From this issue on a letters page – Action Line – was included, and they are reprinted from here on.

Kane went even more deeply into mature themes with #4 as ‘Evil at Dead World’s End!’, sees the hyper-evolved savant drawn across the universe to a dying planet peopled with beings just like him. Well, not quite: these beings are at the end of existence on a dying planet, worn out by eons and resolutely awaiting death. Dr. Evil refuses to let them go, inspiring their brief rejection of well-earned rest with the promise of a fresh young world: Earth. To offset his son-in-law’s interference, the mind master distracts the hero with a trio of rampaging monsters and cruel resurrection of dead Kathryn. The alluring spectre then implores her husband to forsake life and join her in the beyond…

The high impact dramas were far from what any kid might expect, and the series closed on an even more shocking premise as ‘A Mind Divided’ revealed a nation torn apart by a racist demagogue inciting insurrection and racial purity: a campaign polarising America’s youth and encapsulated in a single father’s descent into madness. Captain Action might be able to rescue victims, stop bombers, break up riots and beat uniformed thugs but saving a twisted soul from self-inflicted tragedy was beyond even the reach of gods…

Now, rush out and buy the Captain Action Parachute Mortar, kids…

The comics material closes with text and letters page Action Line and a reader competition – ‘The Two Faces of Dr. Evil’ – before even more avarice-inspiring found-features fill out the Captain Action Gallery.

The comics stories preceding this section were packed with ads for old and new Cap merch in the gaps originally filled by DC comics releases (some contemporarily crafted by Michael Polis) for dolls/action figures, toys, accessories, costumes, “Captain Action Action Facts!”, card & board games, choco bars, breakfast cereal, freezer pops and vintage comic book house ads and TV promos for the franchise.

Here however are full-page delights such as paintings of Captain Action; toy ads from the comics for Action Boy, Dr. Evil. Lady Action and pages from the Captain Action Yellow Book by Murphy Anderson, Kurt Schaffenberger, & Chic Stone, plus astondingly lovely original art pages and pencil art by Kane & Wood.

Although Captain Action couldn’t sustain a readership or toy-buying clientele, DC would dabble again and again with related topics (like Alex Toth & Neal Adams’s sublime Hot Wheels comic in 1970, MASK, Masters of the Universe, and DC in-house properties Mego Superheroes and Kenner’s Super Powers action figures) and publishing properities now make a large paart of every successful comics company…

The 1960s was the era when all the assorted facets of “cool-for-kids” finally started to coalesce into a comprehensive assault on our minds and our parents’ pockets. TV, movies, comics, bubble-gum cards and toys all began concertedly feeding off each other, building a unified and combined fantasy-land no kid could resist. That nostalgic force has never been more wonderfully expressed than in the stories in this book and you would be mad to miss it.
Captain Action: Classic Collection © & ™ 2022 Captain Action Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved.

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The Complete Peanuts volume 7: 1963-1964



By Charles M. Schulz (Fantagraphics Books/Canongate Books UK)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-723-0 (HB) 978-1683960058 (US PB) 978-1847678140 (UK HB)

Peanuts is unequivocally the most important comic strip in the history of graphic narrative. It is also the most deeply personal. Cartoonist Charles M Schulz crafted his moodily hilarious, hysterically introspective, shockingly philosophical surreal epic for half a century: 17,897 strips from October 2nd 1950 to February 13th 2000. He died from the complications of cancer the day before his last strip was published…

At its height, the strip ran in 2,600 newspapers, translated into 21 languages in 75 countries. Many of those venues are still running perpetual reprints, as they have ever since his death. In his lifetime, book collections, a merchandising mountain and television spin-offs had made the publicity-shy artist a billionaire.

None of that really matters. Peanuts – a title Schulz loathed, but one the syndicate forced upon him – changed the way comics strips were received and perceived: proving cartoon comedy could have edges and nuance as well as pratfalls and punchlines.

Following animator Bill Melendez’s Foreword – relating how he became the TV arm of the Peanuts phenomenon – the timeless episodes of play, peril, psychoanalysis and personal recrimination resume as ever in marvellous monochrome, with more character introductions, plot advancements and the creation of even more traditions we all revere to this day…

As ever our focus is quintessential inspirational loser Charlie Brown who, with increasingly fanciful, high-maintenance mutt Snoopy, remain largely at odds with a bombastic, mercurial supporting cast, all hanging out doing what at first sight seems to be Kids Stuff.

As always, daily gags centre on playing, musical moments, pranks, interpersonal alignments and a seasonal selection of sports, all leavened by agonising teasing, aroused and crushed hopes, the making of baffled observations and occasionally acting a bit too much like grown-ups.

However, with this tome, the themes and tropes that define the series (especially in the wake of those animated TV specials) become mantra-like yet endlessly variable. A consistent theme is Charlie Brown’s inability to fly a kite, and here the never-ending war with wind, gravity and landscape reaches absurdist proportions…

Mean girl Violet, prodigy Schroeder, self-taught psychoanalyst and world dictator-in-waiting Lucy van Pelt, her brilliantly off-kilter little brother Linus and dirt-magnet “Pig-Pen” are fixtures honed to generate joke-routines and gag-sequences around their own foibles, but some early characters – like Shermy and Patty – gradually disappear as new attention-attracting players join the mob. Here that’s thoroughly modern lad “5” and his forward-looking non-conformist family “the 95472s”…

At least Charlie Brown’s existential crisis/responsibility vector/little sister Sally has settled into being just another trigger for relentless self-excoriation. As she grows, pesters librarians, forms opinions and propounds steadfastly authoritarian views, he is increasingly relegated to being her dumber, yet always protective, big brother…

Resigned – almost – to life as an eternal loser singled out by cruel and capricious fate, the Boy Brown is helpless meat in the clutches of openly sadistic Lucy. When not playfully sabotaging his efforts to kick a football, she monetises her spiteful verve via a 5¢ walk-in psychoanalysis booth: ensuring that whether at play, in sports, flying that kite or just brooding, the round-headed kid truly endures the character-building trials of the damned…

At least she’s consistent and equally mean to all. Over these two years, her campaign to curb that weird beagle and cure her brother of his comfort blanket addiction reaches astounding heights and appalling depths – such as when she wins a school science fair by exhibiting Linus as a psychological case study.

This volume opens and closes with many strips riffing on snow, and with Lucy constantly and consistently sucking all the joy out of the white wonder stuff…

Her family ally in the Blanket War is Grandma, but that never-pictured elder’s efforts to decouple Linus from the fabric comforter that sustains him in the worst of times are becoming easier to counter, even as Snoopy’s schemes to swipe the shroud become more elaborate and effective…

Lucy also finds time to master skipping and train others in the wonders of her “jump rope”, but ultimately her unflinchingly high standards lead to accusations of “crabbiness”. The prodigy cannot, however, master the intricacies of kicking a football herself, to the woe of all around her…

Perpetually sabotaged, and facing abuse from every female in his life, Charlie Brown endures fresh hell in the form of smug, attention-seeking Frieda, who demands constant approval for her “naturally curly hair” and champions the cause of shallow good looks over substance. Even noble Snoopy is threatened, as she drags – literally – her boneless, functionally inert but still essentially Feline cat Faron into places where cats just don’t belong. When not annoying the ever-hungry, entertainment-starved beagle, Frieda constantly cajoles the unconventional hound into chasing rabbits like a real dog!

Endless heartbreak ensues once Charlie Brown foolishly lets slip his closet romantic aspirations regarding the “little red-haired girl”: a fascination outrageously exploited by others whenever the boy doesn’t simply sabotage himself…

With great effect, Schulz began assiduously celebrating more calendar occasions as perennial events in the feature: adding Mothers and Fathers’ Days, the Fourth of July and National Dog Week strips to established yearly milestones like Christmas, St. Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween/Great Pumpkin Day and Beethoven’s Birthday.

Other notable events include persistent scholastic prevarications and a futile quest to attain that one elusive baseball bubble-gum card for Charlie’s set (Joe Shlabotnik, if you have a spare…), and the gang’s epic and sustained attempt to clean Snoopy’s labyrinthine multistorey doghouse.

At this time, the beagle was growing into the true star of the show, with his primary quest for more and better food playing out against an increasingly baroque inner life, wild encounters with birds, dance marathons, philosophical ruminations, and evermore popular catchphrases. Here, that sense of untrammelled whimsy leads to drama and rabies shots for Snoopy…

Sports injuries play a major role too, with baseball manager/pitcher Charlie Brown benched by “Little Leaguers elbow”, leading to a winning streak for the team. The event also spawns a late diagnosis of “eraserophagia” (nervous chewing of school pencil rubbers). At least the gang gamely rally round, with Linus becoming a lauded sporting superstar of the pitcher’s mound, whilst all and sundry are happy to scream at Charlie whenever he puts a pencil anywhere near his mouth…

The bizarre beagle magnified his strange interior development in all ways. Other than an extended Cold War duel for possession of the cherished comfort blanket, the manic mutt adapted to that darn cat and sundry rabbits but still made time to philosophise, eat, dance like a dervish, stand on his head, converse with falling leaves, play with sprinklers, befriend and battle birds, eat more, stoically brave the elements and discover the potent power of placards and marches…

The Sunday page had debuted on January 6th 1952: a standard half-page slot offering more measured fare than regular 4-panel dailies. Thwarted ambition, sporting failures, explosive frustration – much of it kite-related – and Snoopy’s inner life became the segment’s signature denouements as these weekend wonders afforded Schulz room to be at his most visually imaginative, whimsical and weird…

Particular moments to relish this time involve an increasingly defined, sharply-cornered romantic triangle involving Lucy, Schroeder and Beethoven; Charlie Brown’s backyard camping excursions; copious “pencil-pal” communications; poor penmanship; the power of television and decline of comic books; Lucy’s invention of “immoral” sporting tactics; an outbreak of tree-climbing in advance of the regular autumnal leaf collapse; horrendous rainfall; the growth of avian protest marches; Linus’ mural of the Story of Civilisation and eventual run for School President (with Charlie Brown as Veep!) and a new feature declaring what “Happiness Is…” at the start of each Sunday strip…

To wrap it all up, Gary Groth celebrates and deconstructs the man and his work in ‘Charles M. Schulz: 1922 to 2000’, preceded by a copious ‘Index’ offering instant access to favourite scenes you’d like to see again…

Readily available in hardcover, paperback and digital editions, this volume guarantees total enjoyment: comedy gold and social glue metamorphosing into an epic of spellbinding graphic mastery that still adds joy to billions of lives, and continues to make new fans and devotees long after its maker’s passing.
The Complete Peanuts © 2007, United Features Syndicate, Ltd. 2014 Peanuts Worldwide, LLC. The Foreword is © 2006, Bill Melendez. “Charles M. Schulz: 1922 to 2000” © 2007 Gary Groth. All rights reserved.

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The Art of Archie: The Covers


By various, edited by Victor Gorelick & Craig Yoe (Archie Books)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-79-2 (HB/Digital edition)

For most of us, comics mean buff men and women in capes and tights hitting each other, lobbing trees about, or stark, nihilistic genre thrillers aimed at an extremely mature and sophisticated readership of confirmed fans – and indeed that has been the prolific norm for nearly twenty years.

However, over the decades since 1933 when comic books were invented, other forms of sequential illustrated fiction genres have held their own. One that has maintained a unique position over the years – although almost now completely transferred to television – is the teen-comedy genre begun by and synonymous with a carrot topped, homely (at first just plain ugly) kid named Archie Andrews.

MLJ were a small outfit which jumped wholeheartedly onto the superhero bandwagon following the debut of Superman. In November 1939 they launched Blue Ribbon Comics, promptly following with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the accepted blend of costumed heroes, two-fisted adventure strips and one-off gags. Pep made history with its lead feature The Shield – the industry’s first superhero clad in the American flag – but generally MLJ were followers not innovators.

That all changed at the end of 1941. Even while profiting from the Fights ‘n’ Tights phalanx, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in their blossoming market and in December the action strips were joined by a wholesome, ordinary hero; an “average teen” who had invitingly human-scaled adventures that might happen to the readers, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick heavily emphasised.

Pep Comics #22 introduced a gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed goof showing off to the pretty blonde next door. Taking his lead from the popular Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey Rooney, Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman, tasking writer Vic Bloom & artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work.

So effective and all-pervasive was the impact and comforting message the new kid offered to the boys “over there” and those left behind on the Home Front that Archie and the wholesome image of familiar, beloved, secure Americana he and the Riverdale gang represented, one could consider them the greatest and most effective Patriotic/Propaganda weapon in comics history…

It all started with an innocuous 6-page tale entitled ‘Archie’ which introduced the future star and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper. Archie’s unconventional best friend and confidante Forsythe P. “Jughead” Jones also debuted in that first story, as did the small-town utopia they lived in.

The premise was an instant and ever-growing hit. In 1942 the feature graduated to its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first non-anthology magazine and began an inexorable transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the industry’s second Phenomenon (Superman being the first).

By May 1946 the kids had taken over and, retiring its costumed champions years before the end of the Golden Age, MLJ rebranded, renamed itself Archie Comics, and became to all intents and purposes a publisher of family comedies. This overwhelming success, like the Man of Tomorrow’s, forced a change in the content of every other publisher’s titles and led to a multi-media industry including a newspaper strip, TV, movies, pop-songs and even a chain of restaurants. Intermittently the costumed cut-ups have returned on occasion but Archie Comics now seems content to specialise in what they do uniquely best…

Our eponymous high-schooler is a good-hearted lad lacking common sense and Betty – pretty, sensible, devoted girl next door, with all that entails – loves the ridiculous redhead. Ronnie is spoiled, exotic and glamorous and only settles for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him too, though. Archie, of course, can’t decide who or what he wants…

This never-tawdry eternal triangle has been the basis of seventy years of charmingly raucous, gently preposterous, frenetic, chiding and even heart-rending comedy encompassing everything from surreal wit to frantic slapstick, as the kids and an increasing cast of friends grew into an American institution.

Adapting seamlessly to every trend and fad, perfectly in tone with and mirroring the growth of teen culture, the host of writers and artists who have crafted the stories over the decades have made the archetypal characters of Riverdale a benchmark for youth and a visual barometer of growing up American.

Archie’s unconventional best friend Jughead is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo: providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. There’s even a likeably reprehensible Tybalt figure in the crafty form of Reggie Mantle – who first popped up to cause mischief in Jackpot Comics #5 (Spring 1942).

This beguiling triangle edifice (plus annexe and outhouse) has been the rock-solid foundation for eight decades of comics magic. …and the concept seems eternally self-renewing and self-perpetuating…

Archie has thrived by constantly reinventing its core characters, seamlessly adapting to the changing world outside the bright, flimsy pages, shamelessly co-opting youth, pop culture and fashion trends into its infallible mix of slapstick and young romance.

Each and every social revolution has been painlessly assimilated into the mix with the editors tastefully confronting a number of social issues affecting the young in a manner both even-handed and tasteful over the years.

The cast is always growing and the constant addition of new characters such as African-American Chuck (an aspiring cartoonist), his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Hispanic couple Frankie & Maria and a host of others like spoiled wild-child home-wrecker-in-waiting Cheryl Blossom, and Kevin Keller, an openly gay young man and clear-headed advocate, capably tackling and dismantling the last major taboo in mainstream comics.

A major component of the company’s success has been the superbly enticing artwork and especially the unmistakable impact afforded via the assorted titles’ captivating covers.

This spectacular compilation (a companion and sequel to 2010s Betty & Veronica collection) traces the history and evolution of the wholesome phenomenon through many incredible examples from every decade. Augmented by scads of original art, fine art and commercial recreations, printer’s proofs and a host of other rare examples and graphic surprises no fan of the medium could possibly resist, this huge hardback (312 x 235mm) and digital delight re-presents hundreds of funny, charming, intriguing and occasionally controversial images as well as background and biographies on the many talented artists responsible for creating them.

Moreover, also included are many original artworks – gleaned from the private collections of fans – scripts, sketches, gag-roughs, production ephemera from the initial art-to-finished-cover process, plus an extensive, educational introductory commentary section stuffed with fascinating reminiscences and behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

The picture parade begins with some thoughts from the brains behind the fun as ‘It’s a Gift’ by Publisher/Co-CEO Jon Goldwater and ‘You Can Judge a Book by its Cover!’ by Editor-in-Chief/Co-President Victor Gorelick. Then ‘On the Covers’ issues guidance from cartoonist, Comics Historian and perpetrator Craig Yoe before taking us to the 1940s where ‘In the Beginning…’ details the story of Archie with relevant covers and the first of a recurring feature highlighting how later generations of artists have recycled and reinterpreted classic designs.

‘A Matchless Cover’ leads into the first Artist Profile – ‘Bob Montana’ – incorporating a wealth of cracking Golden Age images in ‘Who’s on First!’ before chapters dedicated to specific themes and motifs commence with a celebration of beach scenes ‘In the Swim’, after which artist ‘Bill Vigoda’ steps out from behind his easel and into the spotlight.

‘Deja Vu All Over Again’ further explores the recapitulation of certain cover ideas before ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll!’ examines decades of pop music and “guest” stars such as the Beatles, whilst ‘Archie’s Mechanically Inclined’ probes a short-lived dalliance with an early form of home DIY magazines.

The life of veteran illustrator ‘Al Fagaly’ leads into a selection of ‘Fan Faves’ ancient and modern before the biography of ‘Harry Sahle’ segues neatly into a selection of cheerleading covers in ‘Let’s Hear It for The Boy!’

It wasn’t long after the birth of modern pop music that the Riverdale gang formed their own band and ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, The Archies!’ focuses on those ever-evolving musical prodigies with scenes from the Swinging Sixties to the turbulent Rap-ridden 21st century, after which the history ‘Joe Edwards’ leads into a barrage of smoochy snogging scenes in ‘XOXOXO!’

Always a keen follower of fads and fashions. the Archie crowd embraced many popular trends and ‘Monster Bash!’ concentrates on kids’ love of horror and recurring periods of supernatural thrills, after which a bio of ‘Dan Parent’ leads unerringly to more ‘Celebrity Spotting!’ with covers featuring the likes of George Takei, Michael Jackson, Simon Cowell, J-Lo, Kiss, the casts of Glee and Twilight, and even President Barack Obama. all eagerly appearing amongst so very many others.

‘Art for Archie’s Sake’ dwells on the myriad expressions of junior painting and sculpture and, after the life story of the sublimely gifted ‘Harry Lucey’, ‘The Time Archie was Pinked Out!’ details the thinking behind the signature logo colour schemes used in the company’s pre-computer days.

‘Life with Archie’s a Beach!’ takes another look at the rise of teenage sand and surf culture through the medium of beautifully rendered, scantily clad boys and girls, whilst – after the lowdown on writer/artist ‘Fernando Ruiz’ – ‘Dance! Dance! Dance!’ follows those crazy kids from Jitterbug to Frug, Twisting through Disco and ever onwards…

‘The Happiest of Holidays’ highlights the horde of magical Christmas covers Archie, Betty and Ronnie have starred on whilst ‘Rhyme Time’ reveals the odd tradition of poetry spouting sessions that have been used to get fans interested and keep them amused.

A history of the inimitable ‘Samm Schwartz’ precedes a look at classroom moments in ‘Readin’, Writin’, an’ Archie – with a separate section on organised games entitled ‘Good Sports!’ – after which the life of legendary art star ‘Dan DeCarlo’ neatly leads to another selection of fad-based fun as ‘That’s Just Super!’ recalls the Sixties costumed hero craze, as well as a few other forays into Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy…

‘Let’s Get this Party Started’ features covers with strips rather than single images and is followed by a biography of ‘Bob Bolling’ before ‘A Little Goes a Long Way!’ concentrates on the assorted iterations of pre-teen Little Archie comics. This is then capped by the eye-popping enigma of teen taste as visualised in the many outfits over changing decades revealing ‘A Passion for Fashion’…

‘Come as You Aren’t’ is devoted to the theme of fancy dress parties after which the modern appetite for variant covers is celebrated in ‘Alternate Realities’ (with stunning examples from Fiona Staples, Tim Seeley and Walter Simonson amongst others) all wrapped up by the gen on artistic mainstay ‘Bob White’.

The entire kit and caboodle then concludes with an assortment of surreal, mindblowing covers defying categorisation or explanation in ‘And Now, For Something Completely Different’, proving that comics are still the only true home of untrammelled imagination: featuring scenes that literally have to be seen to be believed…

Enchanting, breathtaking graphic wonderment, fun-fuelled family entertainment and enticing pop art masterpieces, these unforgettable cartoon confections truly express the joyous spirit of intoxicating youthful vitality which changed the comic industry forever and comprise an essential example of artistic excellence no lover of narrative art should miss.

Spanning the entire history of American comicbooks and featuring vintage images, landmark material and up-to-the-minute modern masterpieces, this is a terrific tome for anybody interested in the history of comics, eternally evergreen light laughs and the acceptable happy face of the American Dream.
™ & © 2013 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. All covers previously published and copyrighted by Archie Comic Publication, Inc. (or its predecessors) in magazine form in 1941-2013.

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Doom Patrol: Silver Age volume 1


By Arnold Drake, Bob Haney, Bruno Premiani, Bob Brown & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8111-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

1963 was the year when traditionally cautious comic book publishers finally realised that superheroes were back in a big way and began reviving and/or creating a host of costumed characters to battle outrageous menaces and dastardly villains.

Thus it was that the powers-that-be at National Comics decided that venerable adventure-mystery anthology title My Greatest Adventure would dip its toe in the waters with a radical take on the fad. Still, infamous for cautious publishing, they introduced a startling squad of champions with its thematic roots still firmly planted in the B-movie monster films of the era that had not-so-subtly informed the parent comic.

No traditional team of masked adventurers, this cast comprised a robot, a mummy and an occasional 50-foot woman, who joined forces with and were guided by a vivid, brusque, domineering, crippled mad scientist to fight injustice in a whole new way…

Covering June 1963 to May 1965, this stunning compilation collects the earliest exploits of the “Fabulous Freaks”, gathered from My Greatest Adventure #80-85 and thereafter issues #86-95 of the rapidly renamed title, once overwhelming reader response compelled editor Murray Boltinoff to change it to the Doom Patrol.

These dramas were especially enhanced and elevated by the drawing skills of Italian cartoonist and classicist artist Giordano Bruno Premiani, whose highly detailed, subtly humanistic illustration made even the strangest situation dauntingly authentic and grittily believable.

Eponymous premier tale ‘The Doom Patrol’ was co-scripted by Arnold Drake and Bob Haney, depicting how a mysterious wheelchair-bound scientist summons three outcasts to his home through the promise of changing their miserable lives forever…

Competitive car racer and professional daredevil Cliff Steele had died in a horrific pile up, but his undamaged brain had been transplanted into a fantastic mechanical body. Test pilot Larry Trainor had been trapped in an experimental stratospheric plane and become permanently irradiated by stratospheric radiation, with the dubious benefit of gaining a semi-sentient energy avatar which would escape his body to perform incredible feats for up to a minute at a time. To pass safely amongst men Trainor had to constantly wrap himself in unique radiation-proof bandages…

Former movie star Rita Farr was exposed to mysterious gases which gave her the terrifying, unpredictable and, at first, uncontrolled ability to shrink or grow to incredible sizes.

The outcasts were brought together by brilliant but enigmatic Renaissance Man The Chief, who sought to mould the solitary misfits into a force for good. He quickly proved his point when a mad bomber attempted to blow up the city docks. The surly savant directed the trio of strangers in defusing it and no sooner had the misfits realised their true worth than they were on their first mission…

Second chapter ‘The Challenge of the Timeless Commander’, sees an implausibly ancient despot seeking to seize a fallen alien vessel: intent on turning its extraterrestrial secrets into weapons of world conquest, culminating in ‘The Deadly Duel with General Immortus’ which saw the Doom Patrol defeat the old devil and thereafter dedicate their lives to saving humanity from all threats.

My Greatest Adventure #81 featured ‘The Nightmare Maker’, combining everyday disaster response – saving a damaged submarine – with a nationwide plague of monsters. Stuck at base, The Chief monitors missions by means of a TV camera attached to Robotman/Steele’s chest, and quickly deduces the uncanny secret of the beasts and their war criminal creator Josef Kreutz…

Solely scripted by Drake, a devious espionage ploy outs the Chief – or at least his image, if not name – in #82’s ‘Three Against the Earth!’, leading the team to believe Rita is a traitor. When the cabal of millionaires actually behind the scheme are exposed as an alien advance guard who assumed the wheelchair-bound leader to be a rival invader, the inevitable showdown nearly costs Cliff what remains of his life…

In #83, ‘The Night Negative Man Went Berserk!’ spotlights the living mummy as a radio astronomy experiment interrupts the Negative Man’s return to Trainor’s body: pitching the pilot into a coma and sending the ebony energy being on a global spree of destruction. Calamity piles upon calamity when crooks steal the military equipment constructed to destroy the radio-energy creature and only desperate improvisation by Cliff and Rita allows avatar and host to reunite…

Issue #84 heralded ‘The Return of General Immortus’ as ancient Babylonian artefacts lead the squad to the eternal malefactor, only to have the wily warrior turn the tables and take control of Robotman. Even though his comrades soon save him, Immortus escapes with the greatest treasures of all time…

My Greatest Adventure #85 was the last issue, featuring ‘The Furies from 4,000 Miles Below’: monstrous subterranean horrors fuelled by nuclear forces. Despite having tricked Elasti-Girl into resuming her Hollywood career, the paternalistic heroes are pretty grateful when she turns up to save them all from radioactive incineration…

An unqualified success, the comic book transformed seamlessly into The Doom Patrol with #86 and celebrated by introducing ‘The Brotherhood of Evil’: an assemblage of international terrorist super-criminals led by French genius-in-a-jar The Brain. He was backed up by his greatest creation, a super-intelligent talking gorilla dubbed Monsieur Mallah.

The diametrically opposed teams first cross swords after brotherhood applicant Mr. Morden steals Rog, a giant robot the Chief constructed for the US military…

DP #87 revealed ‘The Terrible Secret of Negative Man’ after Brotherhood femme fatale Madame Rouge attempts to seduce Larry. When the Brain’s unstoppable mechanical army invades the city, Trainor is forced to remove his bandages and allow his lethal radiations to disrupt their transmissions…

An occasional series of short solo adventures kicked off in this issue with ‘Robotman Fights Alone’. Here Cliff is dispatched to a Pacific island in search of an escaped killer, only to walk into a devastating series of WWII Japanese booby-traps…

All mysteries surrounding the team’s leader are finally revealed in issue #88 with ‘The Incredible Origin of the Chief’: a blistering drama telling how brilliant but impoverished student Niles Caulder suddenly received unlimited funding from an anonymous patron interested in his researches on extending life.

Curiosity drove Caulder to track down his benefactor and he was horrified to discover the money came from the head of a criminal syndicate who claimed to be eons old…

Immortus had long ago consumed a potion which extended his life and wanted the student to recreate it since the years were finally catching up. To insure Caulder’s full cooperation, the General had a bomb inserted in the researcher’s chest and powered by his heartbeat…

After building a robot surgeon, Caulder tricked Immortus into shooting him, determined to thwart the monster at all costs. Once clinically dead, his Ra-2 doctor-bot removed the now-inert explosive and revived the bold scientist. Tragically, the trusty mechanoid had been too slow and Caulder lost the use of his legs forever…

Undaunted, ‘The Man Who Lived Twice’ destroyed all his research and went into hiding for years, with Immortus utterly unaware that Caulder had actually succeeded in the task which had stymied history’s greatest doctors and biologists…

Now, under the alias of super-thief The Baron, Immortus captures the Doom Patrol and demands a final confrontation with the Chief. Luckily, the wheelchair-locked inventor is not only a biologist and robotics genius but also adept at constructing concealed weapons…

In DP #89 the team tackle a duplicitous scientist who devises a means to transform himself into ‘The Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Menace’ before ‘The Private War of Elasti-Girl’ finds the Maid of Many Sizes using unsuspected detective skills to track down a missing soldier and reunite him with his adopted son.

‘The Enemy within the Doom Patrol’ sees shape-shifting Madame Rouge infiltrate the team and turn them against each other whilst issue #91 introduces multi-millionaire Steve Dayton.

Used to getting whatever he wants, he creates a superhero persona solely to woo and wed Rita Farr. With such ambiguous motivations ‘Mento – the Man who Split the Doom Patrol’ was a radical character for the times, but at least his psycho-kinetic helmet proved a big help in defeating the plastic robots of grotesque alien invader Garguax…

DP #92 tasks the team with a temporal terrorist in ‘The Sinister Secret of Dr. Tyme’ and features abrasive Mento again saving the day, after which ‘Showdown on Nightmare Road’ in #93 features The Brain’s latest monstrous scheme. This results in the evil genius being transplanted inside Robotman’s skull whilst poor Cliff is dumped into a horrific beast, until the Chief out-plays the French Fiend at his own game…

Creature-feature veteran Bob Brown stepped in to illustrate #94’s lead tale ‘The Nightmare Fighters’ as an eastern mystic’s uncanny abilities are swiftly debunked by solid American science. Premiani returned to render back-up solo-feature ‘The Chief …Stands Alone’ wherein Caulder eschews his deputies’ aid to bring down bird-themed villain The Claw with a mixture of wit, nerve and weaponised wheelchair.

This initial outing concludes with The Chief’s disastrous effort to cure Rita and Larry (DP #95), resulting in switched powers and the ‘Menace of the Turnabout Heroes’, so naturally that would be the very moment the Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man picks for a return bout…

Although as kids we all happily suspended disbelief and bought into the fanciful antics of the myriad masked heroes available, somehow the exploits of the Doom Patrol – and their surprisingly synchronistic Marvel counterparts The X-Men (freaks, outcasts, wheelchair geniuses, both debuting in the summer of 1963 – so happy shared 60th folks!) – always seemed just a bit more “real” and plausible than the usual caped and costumed crowd.

With the edge of time and experience on my side it’s obvious just how incredibly mature and hardcore Drake, Haney & Premian’s take on superheroes actually was. These superbly engaging, frantically fun and breathtakingly beautiful tales should rightfully rank amongst the finest Fights ‘n’ Tights tales ever told. Moreover, you should definitely own them, so go do that now.
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 2018 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Airboy Archives volume 1


By Chuck Dixon, Tim Truman, Stan Woch, Benn Dunn, Bill Jaaska, Tom Lyle, Larry Elmore, & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-900-2 (TPB) 978-1-62302-641-7 (IDW Digital edition)

Airboy was one of the very best adventure strips of the Golden Age: one with a terrific pedigree and a profound legacy. Created for Hillman Periodicals by the brilliant Charles Biro (Steel Sterling, Crimebuster, the original Daredevil, The Little Wiseguys and landmark genre prototype Crime Does Not Pay number among his many triumphs), it featured a plucky teen and his fabulous super-airplane, affectionately dubbed “Birdie”.

Airboy and Birdie both debuted in the second issue of Air Fighters Comics, cover-dated November 1942 (so Slightly Belated Happy Birthday guys!). The title was packed out with similarly-themed and oddly off-kilter aviator heroes such as Skywolf, The Iron Ace, The Black Angel, The Bald Eagle, The Flying Dutchman, The Flying Fool and a landmark horror proto archetype dubbed The Heap – forerunner of all comic muck monsters…

In December 1945, and after 23 issues, the title was redesignated Airboy Comics and soldiered on until 1953, when Hillman with great foresight got out of the funnybook biz just as hostile clouds of censorship were gathering. In over a dozen years of publication, the boy-warrior had tackled the Axis powers, crooks, aliens, monsters, demons and every possible permutation of sinister threat and horror-tinged terror – even subversive giant rats and conqueror ants!

The gripping scripts – initially the work of Biro and Dick Wood before the latter assumed complete control – took the avenging aviator/soldier-of-fortune all over the world to confront some of the most striking adversaries in comics and often some of the sexiest. The most notable of these was undoubtedly the conflicted Nazi Air Ace known as Valkyrie, who flew the killer skies with a squadron of lethal lovelies codenamed The Airmaidens.

However, as the world and tastes changed, Airboy vanished with many other gaudy comic book champions whose time had run out. Clearly, memories remained fresh for many, no doubt rekindled by a superb popular history series in the early 1970s. The Steranko History of Comics and its effusive chapter on the lethal lad led to a speculative venture reprinting two issues of the early run.

Airboy was also the inspiration for Jetboy – originating lynchpin of the Wild Cards franchise by Howard Waldrop, George R.R. Martin, Melinda M. Snodgrass and their many friends. That began in January 1987 and is still going strong with 30 books as of 2022…

In 1982 comics devotee and champion archivist Ken Pierce had collected early Airboy exploits featuring the voluptuous, absurdly pneumatic Nazi-turned-freedom-fighter Valkyrie, and this apparently inspired budding independent comics company Eclipse to reboot and revive the character …and many of his Hillman comrades.

Always innovative, Eclipse were experimenting at that time with fortnightly (that’s twice a month, non-Brits) comics with half the page count of industry standard books, but at a markedly reduced price. To be honest, at 16 pages of story per issue, it wasn’t that different from the 17-18 pages Marvel and DC had been reduced to working with during the late 1970s…

Airboy premiered at 50¢ a copy in July 1986 and quickly found a vocal, dedicated following. Rereading – in either trade paperback or digital editions – this first archival compilation, it’s easy to see why…

Collecting Airboy #1-16 spanning July 15th 1986 February 27th 1987, this superb, so very Eighties all-action romp opens with a revelatory Introduction by instigator and near-exclusive scripter of the entire resurrected franchise Chuck Dixon who asks and answers ‘Why Airboy?’: detailing the events that led to all-star packager/indie maverick Tim Truman getting involved with one of the biggest and most influential series of that era. With Dixon scripting, Truman co-plotting, editing and pencilling, Tom Yeates inking, Tim Harkins lettering and Ron Courtney applying a then-radical colour palette, the initial 5-issue story arc (collected in 1989 as graphic novel Airboy: The Return of Valkyrie) explodes into action…

Issue #1 begins ‘On the Wings of Death’ as, in California’s Napa Valley, a broken man rails against an unjust fate. David Nelson II is bitter and angry. Not even his teenaged son can bring joy to his life. The boy barely knows and certainly has no warm memories of his dad: an aviation magnate who switched from building civilian planes to forging deadly high-tech weapons for any dictator to buy…

Trained since birth by former Japanese WWII fighter ace and deadly martial artist Saburo Hirota, young Davy has become a brave, confident fighter who cannot imagine why his life has been one of constant combat training.

Suddenly, a horde of assassins attacks the compound and the senior Nelson dies in a hail of bullets. Only then does Davy discover the truth about his father. Once upon a time, the aloof martinet was war veteran and roving hero Airboy: battling against and alongside valiant comrades and piloting a truly unique super-aircraft. Second feature ‘Phoenix’ sees the aging samurai tell of the lost hero and – armed with the truth – Davy Nelson III swears to avenge his father and atone for his own inactions and neglect…

Two weeks later, ‘The Wolf and the Phoenix’ reintroduces WWII legend Skywolf who tangentially enters the saga whilst clearing out South American drug traffickers who have been using his isolated Florida Keys island/US military dump for decommissioned ordnance as a staging post for their enterprise. When Hirota and the kid turn up, it’s not just to share the news of a fallen comrade, but also to reclaim and rebuild the shell that used to be Birdie…

As they reassemble and modify the super plane, stories are told and Davy discovers another shocking truth. His mother was not his father’s true love. Once he loved a beautiful German woman-warrior named Valkyrie. However, for the last thirty years she has been trapped in suspended animation by Misery, a phantasmal being who feeds on evil and steals the souls of lost fliers…

Forced to do the monster’s bidding for three decades – such as providing weapons for South American despots to slaughter and enslave innocents – the old hero had gradually died inside. Now his son is ready to avenge him and free the beautiful sleeper. Soon Skywolf’s drug-dealer problem are connected to the death of the original Airboy, leading them all to tropical Bogantilla and despotic General Orista – one of Nelson Aviation’s biggest customers and a staunch anti-Communist whose regime is proudly supported by the Reagan Administration…

With #3’s ‘Misery Loves Company’, Willie Blyberg began inking Woch as – after a tragic and costly misunderstanding – the reunited Air Fighters ally with rebels resisting Orista’s depredations. It’s been a hard struggle as the dictator army is fully supplied with Nelson’s armaments, backed up by black magic. Ghastly Misery has been extorting the ordnance from his arch foe by threating to kill the comatose Valkyrie: a process that had slowly poisoned the heart and crushed the soul of Davy’s dad. Now, however, the tide is turning…

Months previously, from deep in the Florida Everglades the monstrous bog-creature known as The Heap stirred after decades of inactivity. Something momentous was beginning to unfold and – vaguely remembering a previous life, brave heroes and a diabolical evil – it began shambling southwards…

Now the rebels and yanqui heroes raid the General’s citadel in Gamada Cruz, assisted by the Heap and a local shaman, triumphantly completing their ‘Assault on Villa Miserio’ by rescuing the dormant sleeping beauty, weaking bloody vengeance on Orista and driving off the immortal emotion vampire behind all the death and destruction in concluding chapter ‘Misery Takes A Holiday’ (illustrated by Woch, Blyberg & Emil Novak). Not all the good guys make it back, and most uncomfortably of all the revived captive is unaware that the hero she tries so passionately and amorously to reward is not “her Davy”…

Fast-paced, beautifully illustrated and written with all the gung-ho bravado of a Rambo movie, this tale of liberation and revolution rattles along, a stirring blend of action and supernatural horror that sweeps readers along with it, setting the scene for a tense confrontation in #6 as ‘Back in the USA’ covers the aftermath wherein the time-displaced “aviatrix” seeks to adjust to a strange and frustrating new world and form some kind of relationship with the son of her lost lover…

Hirota leaves them to it: he’s more concerned with another long-term rehabilitation project: helping an old ally from WWII with very different yet eerily similar problems. Davy is trying to cleanse his corporation of the last taint of scandal and corruption only to discover that – thanks to CEO Emil Kronenberg – it has been happily supplying appalling weapons and support to almost every gang, terror group and corrupt regime on the planet. He has no idea that other eyes are upon the aging European: hungry, implacable, vengeful ones…

In #7, Valkyrie accepts a vast wad of cash and heads to New York City to lose herself in hedonism. Inked by Jeff Butler, ‘Partytime’ then sees Davy ambushed by his entire complicit Board and abducted by Kronenberg who resumes the indoctrination experiments he devised back in the camps in Germany. Unluckily for him, whilst losing herself, Valkyrie has impossibly found an old friend from the War who also has not aged a day…

Fellow former Luftwaffe pilot Baron Victor Heller has his own magical secrets to keep but makes a useful ally once Davy’s disappearance galvanises Hirota to enlist Val’s assistance in finding the boy…

Davy’s in big trouble in #8 (illustrated by Woch & Blyberg with colours from “Air Rescue”), trapped ‘Down in the Darkness’ and tortured. The extreme hostile takeover move proves initially unsuccessful and as the next issue hikes the price up to $1.25 and extends the page count, ‘Body Count!’ sees his friends move in for a savage showdown.

Inked by Mark Nelson & coloured by Moondoggies, it was offset by a new back-up series exploring the post war career of Skywolf and other Golden Age Air Fighters characters. Concluding in the next issue, ‘China Hands’ by Dixon, Larry Elmore, Harkins & Steve Oliff/Olyoptics, is set in 1948 as China falls to communist control. Here Link Thorne – AKA The Flying Fool – ferries food and medical supplies to the simple peasants caught up in the political carnage, only to be framed by US spook Jensen of what will become the CIA and imprisoned by Chang Kai Shek’s Nationalist army.

Desperate to help, American freight company owner Riot O’Hara reaches out to aimless drifters Skywolf to spring Thorne. Their rescue attempt is sabotaged by agents of the American government and officially they all die in the attempt… Officially…

With John Nyberg inks, #10 concludes Davy’s rescue and sees Kronenberg at last get what’s coming to him in ‘Tooth and Claw’, even as ‘China Hands part 2’ reveals how Skywolf became the man of mystery we all know and love…

Airboy #11 was written by Truman, with art from Ben Dunn & Hilary Barta. ‘…I Am Birdie’ peers into the past and retells the origin of David Nelson II and his sentient wonder craft whilst Dixon & Bill Jaaska combine for another historical 2-parter starring Skywolf. Set in 1949, ‘I Don’t Need My Grave!’ (with the concluding chapter inked by Jeff Darrow) sees the masked wanderer in Tokyo, resolved to stop criminal upstart Billy Yee, strongarming Riot O’Hara.

Yee wants her to export his drugs to America, but as “sangokujin” (displaced Korean or Chinese foreigners) must work outside Japan’s established criminal hierarchy. That’s proved when Skywolf’s attack is interrupted by members of the Yamataki syndicate and before long Yakuza and Yankee outlaw are united in the same goal. All they have to do is deal with the US soldiers Jensen has set on their tails and it’s clear sailing from then on…

The Airboy story in #10 had ended with a portentous teaser as an aerial assault force devastated Skywolf’s Florida island retreat in 1985. Leading the raid was a bloodthirsty loon dubbed Manic. The saga properly kicks off in #12’s ‘Gone to Texas’ (by Dixon, Woch, Kim DeMulder), as – whilst Hirota counsels former ally The Iron Ace (angrily trapped inside the world’s most advanced full body prosthesis) – Davy and Valkyrie tentatively explore their new normal. Both are understandably disturbed by the thought of renewing her relationship by proxy, switching her avid affection from father to son, but thankfully Skywolf distracts them with his latest problem…

Amidst the rubble of his home is a message from his unseen enemies: the burned body of a cop from the banana republic of the Grand Coronicos Islands…

A hastily arranged meeting brings Davy and Hirota to Galveston, Texas and a frankly hilarious encounter with Skywolf’s older, smarter, tougher, wheelchair-bound mother. She thinks her boy’s an idiot and refuses to call him anything but “Lawrence”, but her advice is welcome and leads to Nelson Aviation fronting Skywolf a new top-of-the-line helicopter gunship for their upcoming visit to the Grand Coronicos…

In #13 Dixon, Woch, Nelson & Steve Haynie craft a chilling ‘Tag-Team’ as Manic and his psycho partner Cowgirl apprise their boss of the situation. The nation is supposedly ruled by avid anti-Communist El Presidente Generalissimo Valasquez, but it’s his wife who has really pulled the strings for much of the last 50 years. The methodical scheme to corner America’s entire drug trade is hers, but that starts unravelling as soon as Davy and Birdie start shooting down drug-filled cargo planes…

The response is swift and savage and teams are despatched by Manic to kill everyone close to Nelson and Skywolf. Of course no drug cabal assassin is a match for Hirota, Valkyrie or Lawrence’s mom…

The drama intensifies in ‘A Barrel Full of Sharks’ (Woch & Nelson) as the intended victims all converge on the Islands for a little payback…

Airboy #13 & 14 also offer a fantastic history mystery by Dixon, Tom Lyle & Romeo Tanghal, as ‘Queen of Yeti Valley’ reveals how Skywolf and the Bald Eagle unite to exfiltrate the British Ambassador’s daughter in the Himalayas and end up saving a lost race from human monsters…

In 15 & 16 the posterior back-ups see supposedly deceased Skywolf sneak back into Texas in 1950 for ‘White Lightning’ (Dixon, Woch & Vern Henkel). Happily anonymous, the outlaw says hi to his ma and puts paid to a preacher opening up a Ku Klux Klan franchise to deal with all them uppity, invasive Mexicans in a deeply satisfying and cathartic dose of bigot-trashing catharsis…

At the fronts and in the Eighties, Airboy and his crew go undercover to infiltrate Puerto Oloroso, poverty stricken capital of the Grand Coronicos Island Chain, inevitably unleashing a ‘Caribbean Rampage’ over the final two episodes in this spectacular opening compilation. By scuttling the scheme to flood America with cut-price coke, Airboy, Hirota, Valkyrie and Skywolf (and his mom) achieve a brief moment of pure Eighties synergy: marrying style, outrageous fashion, ostentation, Contras, drugs, the CIA and always over-the-top action with a spurious motive, and wicked humour in a high octane romp translating the fighting stars of WWII to the era of Airwolf, Nightrider and Miami Vice.

Including stunning covers by Truman, Woch, Dave Stevens, Tex Blaisdell, Paul Gulacy, Flint Henry, Howard Bender, Yeates, John Totleben. Davis Dorman and Ron Randall, this is a true lost delight of sheer escapism well worth tracking down, with the promise of more and even better still to come.
Airboy Archives volume 1. Airboy © 2014 Chuck Dixon. © 2014 Idea and Design Work’s LLC. All rights reserved.

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Playbox Annual 1955 – A Picture and Story Book for Boys & Girls (47th Year)


By many & various (the Amalgamated Press)
No ISBN

These materials were created long ago in a different society for a very different audience. As such much material is inadvertently funny, blatantly racist and/or sexist and pretty much guaranteed to offend somebody sooner or later. Think of it as having to talk to your grandparents about “back when everything was better”…

If you don’t think you can tolerate – let alone enjoy – what’s being discussed here, maybe it’s not the book you need today. Why not look at something else or play a game instead?

This is probably the most controversial and potentially distressing book I’ll review this year – so why have I?

There’s a long-cherished but perhaps rather dangerous idea opining that beauty is greater than truth and the comics work in this book is of an astoundingly high quality. The problem is that it’s frequently applied in support of unchallenged assumptions about race, gender, class and culture.

These splendidly entertaining stories, strips, puzzles. poems and jokes come from a time and place where everything was fine and as it should be – as long as you were white, comfortably well off and preferably male…

Normally I review graphic novels and comics collections with a view to readers and potential purchasers becoming fans of the picture-strip medium beyond their usual comfort zones. Here though, I’m cautiously applying modern critical sensibilities to once ubiquitous items that shaped generations. On one level, an entire genre of pictorial edification seems forever lost: permanently removed from the contemporary cultural scene. With material like this though, I can’t honestly say whether that’s a good thing or not…

If you’re lucky enough to stumble across a copy or any similarly-vintage volume, I hope my words convince you look for yourselves. I’m always on my high and wide horse about the paucity of classic vintage strips, stories and comics but I think we need to create an academic benchmark in the entertainment ether for cases like this one.

Material available to the young and older readers of the 21st century will never be of this nature again, but that doesn’t mean it should be shoved aside and forgotten. This sort of stuff shaped generations and it needs to be studied in context.

These are slices extracted from our communal childhood, and must not be swept away or covered up – like Japan’s removal of its role in WWII ( apparently excised from the country’s school history texts) or our own government’s sly massaging of history and culture to wash away common folk, social inequity, and the accomplishments of women, the labour and union movements…

Playbox Annual 1955 was released by The Amalgamated Press in 1954 (dating was year-forward on such bumper, hard-backed premium editions so the book would have been released in the Autumn intended as a Christmas staple). For nursery kids and their parents or adult guardians, radio, comics and being outside in the fresh air were the order of the day. Television was still in its infancy. DC Thomson’s exuberant and anarchic stable of titles were the favourites of older children, but their fare for toddlers was all but indistinguishable from that of other publishers.

Far less open to change or innovation, Alfred Harmsworth’s AP  was the most prolific purveyor of children’s papers, with a pedigree stretching back to the end of the 19th century and a stranglehold on syndicated and licensed characters (especially screen and radio stars) which kept well-intentioned, nostalgic parents coming back for more…

Playbox was AP’s Jewel in the Crown. It had launched – prior to the company’s official foundation – on 19th October 1898, running until 1909 with illustrators and writers such as Julius Stafford Baker, Stavert Johnstone Cash, Mabel F. Taylor and Mabel Lucie Atwell as regular contributors. Favourite features endured through merger and amalgamations (I guess the clue was in the name) until a second volume appeared on St. Valentine’s Day 1925.

It was a rebranding and relaunch of Jungle Jinks and this iteration lasted until 11th June 1955, whereupon it again morphed into a more contemporary title by merging with Jack and Jill.

For much of that second life, Playbox benefitted from the cachet of undisputed UK comics superstar Tiger Tim and his chums The Bruin Boys – Bobby Bruin, Jumbo Elephant, Willie Ostrich, Georgie Giraffe, Jacko Monkey, Joey Parrot, Porkyboy Pig and Fido Pup – who spent their days learning to be civilised at Mrs Bruin’s Boarding School. The feature was originally rendered by Stafford Baker, but eventually became a multi-artist enterprise encompassing many of the country’s greatest artists.

Tim had first appeared in Harmsworth’s Daily Mirror in 1904, graduating in 1909 to The World and His Wife and its weekly children’s supplement – Playbox. The gang also appeared in the Rainbow weekly colour comic (from February 1914) with Tim as cover feature until its demise in 1956.

In 1919, Tiger Tim’s Weekly (nee Tales) launched, augmented by its own annual from 1921 (first one dated 1922 – got it now?). At a time when merchandising deals for children’s stuff were in their infancy, the characters were so popular that Britains – a toy soldier manufacturer – launched a line of lead figures to sell alongside their more militaristic and farm animal fare.

In this twilight years album – the 47th yearly release – the line-up as ever includes not only anthropomorphic Tim and Co. but also general features (prose and strip), fact pieces and plenty of puzzles and games to keep the nippers engrossed – and quiet – for hours…

Once again: when this book was released, our views of other races and cultures ranged from patronisingly parochial to outrageously insular to smugly intolerable and just unforgivable. As with every aspect of British – Hell, all “White Culture” – there was an implicit assumption of racial superiority – notwithstanding the fact that every empire is built on multi-nationality; and even within living memory WWII could not have been won by white warriors alone.

Which brings us back to ethnic stereotyping. All I can say is what I always do: those times were so different. Mercifully, the best of us have moved beyond the obvious institutionalised iniquities of casual racism and sexism and are much more tolerant today (unless you’re obese, gay, gender-nonconforming, trans, vegan, liberal, or childfree and happy about it). If antiquated attitudes and caricaturing offends you, don’t read this or any old comics – it’s your choice, but perhaps you shouldn’t condemn just on my or anybody else’s say-so without seeing what’s here…

Moreover, class and regional differences underpinning this entire era are far more insidious and egregious – just look at Sexton Blake and his assistant Tinker or upper middle-class, highly educated Dan Dare and his canny, competent but inescapably comedic “Ee baih gum” sidekick Digby…

I fear historic portrayals and inclusions of other races have always and will always be controversial and potentially offensive from our elevated standpoint, and we have mostly moved on since those pitifully ignorant times. It’s not really even an excuse to say, at least in our post-war comics, that baddies were mostly our kind and all those differently-hued cultures were victims: generally friendly, noble savages not trying to eat us…

Nor will this diversion ameliorate the shock of one particular illustrated story at the back of this particular book: I’m saying nothing further now, but By Crikey you’ll know what and why when we get to it…

This cosy, royalty-rich annual (so, so many kings and princesses!) begins in traditional manner: following stunning 2-colour frontispiece Wibblewobble Town (by Tom Wilkinson?) we open with western prose adventure ‘Cowboy Courage’ as young Cowboy Dan come to the rescue of “redskin maid” Wild Rose and her pony White Cloud in a beautifully limned monochrome yarn, before Stavert Johnstone Cash wishes ‘A Merry Christmas to All’ in a frenetic tableau starring cat clan the Fluffkins.

Via illustrated prose, a genteel dispute between King Nosegay and Wizard Wobble is settled on ‘The Giant Haystack’ before the Bruin Boys merge doggerel and comic strip in cooking clash ‘“Plop!” Goes the Pancake’ (probably drawn by Herbert Foxwell) whilst  text tail (!) ‘The New Puppy’ reveals how a big baby mutt learns to get along with aging tabby cat Montmorency…

‘Sky-High for Treasure’ combines strip and verse as two lads hunt pirate treasure (by Mabel Atwell?) whilst we resort to prose for ‘The Princess with the Purple Hair’ before returning to red & black tones for Cowell’s squirrelly tableau ‘The Tickletails are on the Move’ and Hugh McNeill’s fairy forest romp ‘Ring A-Ding Ding!’, all supplemented by Cash’s poetic pinup ‘Mow-Pram Rides’ and an animal inspired ‘Hamper of Jokes’.

Many inclusions are traditional “block-&-pic” (a progression of panel drawings accompanied by a paragraph of typeset words), such as McNeill’s ‘Two Boys in a Boat’, but ‘Home by Howdah’ is a modern comic strip story in all but content.

Fairy tale wonders and staggeringly lovely art masking and reinforcing so many poisonous attitudes about privilege, class and race are all out in force here, as the worst of “blackface minstrel” shows manifests as a bunch of jolly “picaninnies” who have to find an animal alternative to a crashed motor car…

Prose and monochrome return in ‘Peter to the Rescue!’ as a cowardly boy finally finds the motivation to be a hero and ‘Hair-Raising’ offers tonsorial tips for urbane birds before Tammy Twinkle shares a forest folk day out in text treat ‘Off to the Sea’, after which McNeill rolls out some seasonal chuckles in ‘Here’s Santa Smiler’…

Block-&-pic thriller ‘Robin Hood’s Pupil’ finds young John and his sister Catherine seized by Normans before devising a way to summon the immortal hero and – following more jokes in ‘Breezy ‘Bus-Stop Chatter’ – eerie prose yarn ‘Friendly Snowmen’ sees some seasonal wanderers lending a frosty helping hand to a lad who wants to buy his ailing little brother some sweets…

‘Laugh with Chic’ (McNeill) segues into puzzle page ‘A Happy Holiday’ and more Bruin Boy larks in ‘Topsy-Turvy Trick’ before Dick and Pusskins (Whittington and his animal asset) turn a job search into a tobogganing treat in ‘Icy Trip’ whilst prose parable ‘The Dragons’ Picnic’ sees a scaly family pay their regal respects and save a king in distress…

More casually racist cartoon virtue signalling sees a friendly white store owner help Little Raven and his father Chief White Wing when they desperately need a surfeit of pelts to buy off “Blackfeet” raiders. All the generous ‘Paleface Friends’ get in return is the useless gold clogging up the natives’ river…

A burst of activity is encouraged by ‘Trick Fun’ and ‘River Race’ before text thriller ‘Air Rescue’ sees housebound Linda play a big part in saving a sinking yachtsman, whilst ‘Reg and Ron’ endure scholastic shocks in strip form prior to more puzzles in ‘Strangers Around’ and ‘Games for Your Party’.

A burst of black and orange heralds Cash’s Fluffkins tableau ‘Sports day’ and Foxwell’s Bruin Boy strip ‘Christmas Snowball and Fun for All’ before we’re back in the world of appalled sensibilities with prose fantasy ‘Ching Chung’s Pets’, after which McNeill charms again in kiddies’ seaside adventure ‘Off for a Float in Chic’s Paddle-Boat’…

Tableau ‘The Woolly Boys’ Train-Ride’ closes the colour section before prose treat ‘Farmer’s Boys’ finds two wilful animal slackers learning the value and rewards of hard work, and illustrated verse ‘Lazy Trains’ brings us to a text tract of boarding school mice enjoying illicit ‘Cheese Pie for Supper’ and illustrated instructions on how to cast ‘Shadow Pictures’.

Apprentice Val works for ‘Grundvik the Toy-maker’ and foils a robbery in this text thriller in advance of pictorial epigram ‘The Buntings’ Dress Parade’ and more Bruin Boy hijinks in ‘Wigwam Surprises’, after which ‘Playbox Theatre’ details how to make a play at home… Another ‘Puzzle Page’ leads to historical adventure as a cabin boy Bob unearths ‘The Pirates Treasure’ and Chic invites ‘Too Many to Tea’. That’s just as well because you’ll need a bracing beverage to get past this year’s visit to (African? Caribbean? Alabamian?) favourite vacation spot and the ‘Darkietown Yacht Race’. I have words but I’m not going to use them…

Dickensian Victoriana sees two vagrant lads clean a widow’s chimney and encounter ‘Lucky Smoke’ and rich rewards after which city kids have ‘Country Fun’ in a prose tale sporting beautiful and uncredited silhouette illustration, prior to cartoon gag ‘A S’talking Stork Surprises Sam’ segues into cheeky kitten ‘Flips’ shares his diary and ‘Adrift on Ice’ shows and prose the valour of two kids in the arctic looking for food for their mother…

What passed for age-appropriate children’s content back then might raise a few eyebrows these days but we’re back on solid ground when ‘Percy Pump’s Pranks’ in prose bring the festivities to a close, leaving only room for a ‘Playbox ad’, editorial comment in ‘My Letter to You’ and a back cover adorned with advertorial ‘Cadburys Puzzle Picture’…

Popular fiction from a populist publisher will always embody some underlying assumptions unpalatable to some modern readers, but good taste by contemporary standards was always a watchword when producing work for younger children. Some interactions between white children and other races is a little utopian, perhaps, but more insidious problems arise from the accepted class-structures in many stories and the woefully petrified sexism displayed throughout.

None of this detracts one jot from the sheer creative power of the artists involved, and perhaps the best we can hope for is that readers use judgement and perspective when viewing or revisiting material this old. Remember, Thomas Jefferson may have kept slaves, but Britain’s Royal Family, our museums and educational institutions all benefitted hugely from the trade; it’s only been illegal to beat your wife since the 1970’s (The Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976), and even today and far too often people who die in police custody apparently only have themselves to blame…

So before I go off on another one or get put on another government watch list, let’s return to the subject at hand and say that despite all the restrictions and codicils this is in many ways a beautiful piece of children’s art in the time-honoured fashion of Enid Blyton, Dodie Smith and Arthur Ransome, with lovely illustrations that would make any artist weep with envy.
© 1955 The Amalgamated Press.