Category: Nostalgia

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Golden Age Doctor Fate Archives volume 1


By Gardner F. Fox, Hal Sherman, Stan Aschmeier, Jon Chester Kozlak & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1308-0 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. The most significant will be rightly celebrated, but some are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m still abusing my privileges to revisit another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

One of the most interesting aspects of DC’s Golden Age superhero pantheon is just how much more they gripped the attention of writers and readers from succeeding generations, even if they didn’t set the world alight during their original “Glory Days”. So many relatively short-lived or genuinely second-string characters with a remarkably short shelf life through the formative years of the industry have, since the Silver Age which began in 1956, seldom been far from our attention: constantly revived, rebooted and resurrected. Some even make it onto the big and small screens…

One of the most revered, revisited and frequently revived is Doctor Fate, who first appeared in 1940, courtesy of writer Gardner F. Fox and the uniquely stylistic Howard Sherman. Although starting strong, Fate was another incredibly powerful man of mystery who failed to capture the imaginations of enough readers to build on the chimeric tone of the times. He underwent radical revision midway through his premier run, but with little effect. Dr. Fate lost his strip even before WWII ended. However, since his Silver Age revival, the good doctor has become a popular and resolute cornerstone of more than one DC Universe and he’s still going strong, albeit via some daringly radical forms.

In this magnificent graphic grimoire, following the historically informative and laudatory Foreword by big-time devotee fan/ Keeper of the Golden Age Flame Roy Thomas, this monumental 400-page full-colour deluxe hardback (representing the entirety of Doctor Fate’s run from More Fun Comics #55-98 (May 1940 to July/August 1944)) introduces the potentate of peril in a 6-page parable wherein he combats ‘The Menace of Wotan’.

For those simpler times, origins and motivations were far less important than plot and action, so this eerie yarn focuses on an eerie blue-skinned Mephistopheles’ scheme to assassinate comely yet enigmatic lady of leisure Inza Cramer and how her forceful golden-helmed protector thwarts the plot. Our hero deals harshly with the nefarious azure mage, barely mentioning in passing that Fate possesses all the lost knowledge and lore of ancient civilisations. That’s probably the biggest difference between the original and today’s Fate: back then, he was no sorcerer but an adept of forgotten science (a distinction cribbed from many Lovecraftian horror tales of the previous two decades of pulp fiction): a hair-splitting difference all but lost on the youthful readers.

Eighty-five years later (MFC #55 was on sale from March 29th 1940) we can enjoy again one of the most sophisticated relationships in comics. Fate’s soon-to-be-inseparable companion in peril – latterly Inza Nelson and Doctor Fate in her own right – was clearly also the thaumic troubleshooter’s paramour and disciple and an active player in all the action. However, she didn’t get to be the lead until the 1990s…

In #56 – which boasted the first of 11 cover spots for the Wielder of Old Wisdoms –‘The Search for Wotan’ sees Fate carry Inza up the Stairs of Judgement to Heaven, where they learn their foe is not dead but actually preparing to blow up Earth. Foiling the plan but unable to permanently despatch the big blue meanie, Fate is forced to bury his enemy alive at the centre of the world. Next issue revealed ‘The Fire Murders’ as certified doom-magnet Inza is targeted by mystic arsonist Mango the Mighty before her guardian Fate swiftly ends his campaign of terror, whilst in #58 a modern mage recovers ‘The Book of Thoth’ from its watery tomb, unleashing a wave of appalling, uncanny phenomena until the Blue-&-Gold Gladiator steps in. The self-appointed bulwark against wicked mysticism levitates out of his comfort zone in More Fun #59 to repel an invasion by ‘The People from Outer Space’ but is firmly back in occult territory one month later to destroy ‘The Little Men’ tasked to crush humanity by a mythic triumvirate of colossal Norns.

Behind #61’s striking Sherman cover, ‘Attack of the Nebula’ pits the Puissant Paladin against a cosmic cloud and wandering planetoid summoned by an Earthly madman to devastate Earth, before detailing the doctor derailing a deranged technologist’s robotic coup in #62’s ‘Menace of the Metal Men’ and saving Inza from petrification by ‘The Sorcerer’ in More Fun #63. Like many of Fox’s very best heroic series, Doctor Fate was actually a romantic partnership, with mysterious Inza (only after a number of surnames did she eventually settle on Cramer) acting as assistant, foil, and so very often, target of many macabre menaces. In #64 she and Fate – who still had no civilian identity – share a pleasure cruise to the Caribbean where a slumbering Mayan God of Evil wants to utilise her unique psychic talents in ‘The Mystery of Mayoor’.

Inza got a brief rest in #65 as Fate soloed in a bombastic battle to repel an invasion of America by ‘The Fish-Men of Nyarl-Amen’, but plays a starring role in the next episode as the Doctor exposes a sadistic crook seeking to drive his wealthy cousin to suicide by convincing her that she is ‘The Leopard Girl’…

A year after his debut, More Fun Comics #67 (May 1941) at last revealed ‘The Origin of Doctor Fate’: depicting how in 1920, American boy Kent Nelson had accompanied his father Sven on an archaeological dig to Ur. Broaching a pre-Chaldean pyramid, the lad awakened a dormant half-million-year-old alien from the planet Cilia, as well as accidentally triggering security systems that kill his father. Out of gratitude and remorse, the being known as Nabu the Wise trained Kent for two decades, teaching him how to harness the hidden forces of the universe – levitation, telekinesis and the secrets of the atom – before sending him out into the world to battle those who used magic and science with evil intent.

That epic sequence only took up three pages, however, and the remainder of the instalment finds time and space for Fate & Inza to repel a ghostly incursion and convince Lord of the Dead Black Negal to stay away from the lands of the living…

Fate had graduated to 10-page tales and claimed the covers of More Fun #68-76, beginning a classic run of spectacular thrillers by firstly crushing a scientific slaughterer who had built an invisible killing field in ‘Murder in Baranga Marsh’, before gaining a deadly archenemy in #69 as deranged physicist Ian Karkull uses a ray to turn his gang into ‘The Shadow Killers’. In #70, the shadow master allies with Fate’s first foe as ‘Wotan and Karkull’ construct an arsenal of doomsday weapons in the arctic. They are still too weak to beat the Master of Cosmic Forces though, whereas rogue solar scientist Igorovich would have successfully blackmailed the entire planet with ‘The Great Drought’ had Inza not dramatically intervened.

With involvement in WWII now clearly inevitable, covers had increasingly become more martial and patriotic in nature, and with More Fun #72 (October 1941) Fate underwent an unexpected and radical change in nature. The full-face helmet was replaced with a gleaming metallic half hood and his powers were diminished. Moreover, the hero was no longer a cold, emotionless force of nature, but a passionate, lusty, two-fisted swashbuckler throwing more punches than pulses of eerie energy. His previous physical invulnerability was countered by revealing that his lungs were merely human and he could be drowned, poisoned or asphyxiated…

The quality and character of his opposition changed too. ‘The Forger’ pits him against a gang of conmen targeting Inza’s family and other farmers: altering intercepted bank documents to pull off cruel swindles. A far more rational and reasonable nemesis debuted in MF #73 when criminal mastermind ‘Mr. Who’ uses his body-morphing, forced-evolution “Solution Z” to perpetrate a series of sensational robberies.

Despite a rather brutal trouncing – and apparent death – the brute returned in #74 in ‘Mr. Who Lives Again’, with the sinister scientist employing his abilities to replace the City Mayor, whilst in #75 ‘The Battle Against Time’ finds Fate racing to locate the killer who framed Inza’s best friend for murder. Underworld chess master Michael Krugor manipulates people like pawns but ‘The King of Crime’ is himself overmatched and outplayed when he tries to use Inza against Fate, after which #77 saw a welcome – if brief – return to the grand old days as ‘Art for Crime’s Sake’ finds the Man of Mystery braving a magical world of monsters within an ancient Chinese painting to save young lovers eldritchly exiled by a greedy art dealer…

MF #78 details how clever bandits disguise themselves as statues of ‘The Wax Museum Killers’, whilst #79’s ‘The Deadly Designs of Mr. Who’ reveal how the metamorphic maniac attempts to impersonate and replace one of the richest men on Earth, before #80’s innovative felon ‘The Octopus’ turns a circus into his playground for High Society plunder. In More Fun #81, cunning crook The Clock exploits radio show ‘Hall of Lost Heirs’ to trawl for fresh victims and easy pickings prior to the next issue finding Fate exposing the schemes of stage magician/conman The Red Sage, who was offering ‘Luck for Sale!’…

‘The Two Fates!’ sees fortune tellers using extortion and murder to bolster their rigged prognostications only to be stopped by the real deal and in #84, the energetic evil-buster braves ‘Crime’s Hobby House!’ to stop thieving special effects wizard Mordaunt Grimm using rich men’s own pastimes to rob them.

Clearly still floundering the series saw big changes for Kent Nelson with #85. Here the stereotyped society idler rapidly and implausibly qualifies as a surgeon and medical doctor, before embarking on a new career of service to humanity. Additionally, his supra-human alter ego ditches the golden cape to become an acrobatic and human – albeit still bulletproof – crimebuster exposing a greedy plastic surgeon helping crooks escape justice as ‘The Man Who Changed Faces!’

Medical themes predominated in these later tales. ‘The Man Who Wanted No Medals’ was a brilliant surgeon who feared a crushing youthful indiscretion would be exposed and #87’s ‘The Mystery of Room 406’ dealt with a hospital cubicle where even the healthiest patients always died. In ‘The Victim of Doctor Fate!’, Nelson suffers crippling self-doubt after failing to save a patient. These only fade after the surgeon’s diligent enquiries reveal the murderous hands of Mad Dog McBain secretly behind the untimely demise…

Charlatan soothsaying scoundrel Krishna Das is exposed by Fate & Inza in #89’s ‘The Case of the Crystal Crimes’, after which ‘The Case of the Healthy Patient!’ pits them against a fraudulent doctor and incurable hypochondriac. Using his chemical conjurations to shrink our hero to doll size in #91’s ‘The Man Who Belittled Fate!’, Mr. Who resurfaces, but is soundly sent packing and – whilst still in jail – the Thief of Time strikes again in More Fun #92 as ‘Fate Turns Back The Clock!’ Next issue, superbly efficient and underrated Hal Sherman ended his long association with the strip in ‘The Legend of Lucky Lane’, wherein an impossibly fortunate felon finally plays the odds once too often…

As the page-count dropped back to 6 pages, Stan Aschmeier illustrated the next two adventures, beginning with 94’s ‘The Destiny of Mr. Coffin!’ as Fate comes to the aid of a fatalistic old soul framed as a fence, whilst ‘Flame in the Night!’ sees a matchbox collector targeted by killers who think he knows too much…

With the end clearly in sight, Jon Chester Kozlak took over the art, beginning with More Fun #96’s ‘Forgotten Magic!’, wherein Fate’s supernal Chaldean sponsor is forced to remove the hero’s remaining superhuman abilities for a day – leaving Kent Nelson to save trapped miners and foil their swindling boss with nothing but wits and courage. The restored champion then exposes the spurious bad luck reputed to plague ‘Pharaoh’s Lamp!’ and ends/suspends his crime-crushing career in #98 by sorting out a case of mistaken identity when a young boy is confused with diminutive Stumpy Small AKA ‘The Bashful King of Crime!’…

With the first age of superheroes coming to a close, the readership were developing new tastes. Fate’s costumed co-stars Green Arrow, Aquaman and Johnny Quick – along with debuting super-successful concept Superboy – all migrated to Adventure Comics, leaving More Fun as an anthology of cartoon comedy features. Initially dark, broodingly exotic and often genuinely spooky, Doctor Fate smoothly switched to the bombastic, boisterous, flamboyant and vividly exuberant post war Fights ‘n’ Tights style but couldn’t escape evolving times and trends. Here and forever, however, both halves of his early career can be seen as a lost treasure trove of pulse-pounding pulp drama, tense suspense, eerie enigmas, spectacular action and fabulous fun: one no lover of Costumed Dramas or sheer comics wonderment can afford to miss. Let’s hope the weird world of movies can pay us old comic geeks a dividend in a new edition sometime soon…
© 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks Presents volume 3 1963-1964: It Started on Yancy Street


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with George Roussos, Chic Stone, Sam Rosen, Art Simek & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4907-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

I’m partial to a bit of controversy so I’m going start off by saying that Fantastic Four #1 is the third most important Silver Age comic book ever, behind Showcase #4 – reintroducing The Flash in 1956 – and 1960’s The Brave and the Bold #28, which brought superhero teams back via the creation of The Justice League of America. Feel free to disagree…

After a troubled period at DC Comics (National Periodicals as it then was) and a creatively productive but disheartening time on the poisoned chalice of the Sky Masters newspaper strip, Jack Kirby settled into his job at the small outfit that used to be publishing powerhouse Timely/Atlas. There he generated mystery, monster, romance, war and western material for a market he suspected to be ultimately doomed. However, as always, he did the best job possible and that genre fare is now considered some of the best of its kind ever seen.

Nevertheless Kirby’s explosive imagination couldn’t be suppressed for long and when the JLA caught readers’ attention it gave him and writer/editor Stan Lee an opportunity to change the industry forever. According to popular myth, a golfing afternoon led to publisher Martin Goodman ordering nephew Stan to do a series about a group of super-characters like the JLA. The resulting team quickly took the fans by storm. It wasn’t the powers: they’d all been seen since the beginning of the medium. It wasn’t the costumes: they didn’t have any until the third issue.

It was Kirby’s compelling art and the fact that these characters weren’t anodyne cardboard cut-outs. In a real and recognizable location – New York City – imperfect, raw-nerved, touchy people banded together out of tragedy, disaster and necessity to face the incredible. In so many ways, The Challengers of the Unknown (Kirby’s prototype partners in peril for National/DC) laid all the groundwork for the wonders to come, but staid, hidebound editorial strictures there would never have allowed the undiluted energy of the concept to run all-but-unregulated.

Another milestone in the kid-friendly paperback/eBooks line of Mighty Marvel Masterworks, this full-colour pocket-sized compendium collects Fantastic Four #21-29 (spanning cover-dates December 1961 to August 1964) and shows how Stan & Jack cannily built on that early energy to consolidate the FF as the leading title and most innovative series of the era.

As ever the team are maverick scientist Reed Richards, his fiancée Sue Storm, their closest friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny: survivors of a private space-shot that went horribly wrong after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding and mutated them all. Richards’ body became elastic, Susan gained the power to turn invisible and her sibling could turn into living flame. Poor tragic Ben was reduced to a shambling, rocky super-strong freak of nature… Soon the FF was recognised as being like no other comic on the market and buyers responded to it avidly if not fanatically…

In late 1963, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos was another solid newsstand hit for the young “House of Ideas.” Eventually its brusque and brutish star metamorphosed into Marvel’s answer to James Bond. Here, however, he’s a cunning world-weary CIA agent seeking the FF’s aid against a sinister, immigrant-hating racist supremacist demagogue called ‘The Hate-Monger’: a cracking yarn with a strong message, inked by comics veteran George Roussos, under the protective nom-de-plume George Bell.

By this juncture the FF were firmly established and Lee & Kirby well on the way to toppling DC/National Comics from a decades-held top spot through an engaging blend of brash, folksy and consciously contemporaneous sagas: mixing high concept, low comedy, trenchant melodrama and breathtaking action.

Unseen since the premiere issue, #22 heralded ‘The Return of the Mole Man!’ in another full-on monster-mashing fight-fest, chiefly notable for debuting Sue Storm’s new increased power-set. Her ability to project force fields of “invisible energy” also involved a power to reveal hidden things and make others invisible too: advances that would eventually make her one of the mightiest characters in Marvel’s pantheon – and not before time either…

FF #23 enacted ‘The Master Plan of Doctor Doom!’ by introducing his mediocre mercenary minions “the Terrible Trio” – Bull Brogin, Handsome Harry and Yogi Dakor – and the uncanny menace of “the Solar Wave” (which was enough to raise the hackles on my 5-year-old neck. Do I need to qualify that with: all of me was five, but only my neck had properly developed hackles back then?)…

‘The Infant Terrible!’ in #24’s is a classic case of sci fi paranoia and misunderstanding and a sterling yarn of inadvertent extragalactic menace and misplaced innocence, with a reality-warping space baby endangering Earth, and is followed by a 2-part tale truly emphasising the inherent difference between Lee & Kirby’s work and everybody else’s at that time.

Fantastic Four #25-26 offered a cataclysmic clash that had young heads spinning in 1964 and led directly to the Emerald Behemoth finally regaining a strip of his own. In ‘The Hulk vs The Thing’ and conclusion ‘The Avengers Take Over!’ a relentless, lightning-paced, all-out Battle Royale results when the disgruntled emerald man-monster returns to New York in search of side-kick Rick Jones, with only an injury-wracked FF in the way of his destructive rampage.

A definitive moment in The Thing’s character development, action ramps up to the max when a rather stiff-necked and officious Avengers team (Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, The Wasp and recently-defrosted Captain America) horn in, claiming jurisdictional rights on “Bob” Banner and his Jaded alter ego. The tale is plagued with pesky continuity errors which would haunt Lee for decades, but – bloopers notwithstanding – is one of Marvel’s key moments and still a visceral, vital read today.

Stan & Jack had hit on a winning formula by including other stars in guest-shots – especially since readers could never anticipate if they would fight with or beside the home team. FF #27’s ‘The Search for Sub-Mariner!’ again saw the undersea antihero in amorous mood, and when he abducts Sue again, the boys call in Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts to locate them. Issue #28 delivered another terrific promotional infomercial team-up, but remains most notable (for me and many other fans) because of the man who replaced George Roussos as inker…

‘We Have to Fight the X-Men!’ sees the disparate super-squads in conflict due to the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master’s malign machinations, but the inclusion of Chic Stone – Kirby’s most simpatico and expressive inker – elevates the illustration to indescribable levels of beauty as the sinister savants briefly mind-control professor Charles Xavier and order him to set his students on the extremely surprised first family…

Closing this foray into the fantastic comes ‘It Started on Yancy Street!’ (FF #29) opening low-key and a little bit silly in the slum where Ben grew up, before the reappearance of the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes sees everything go wild and cosmic. The result is another meeting with the almighty Watcher, a blockbusting battle on the Moon, and the promise of bigger and even better to come…

To Be Continued…

Bolstered by all Kirby’s covers, this is a truly magnificent treat sharing pioneering tales that built a comics empire. The verve, imagination and sheer enthusiasm shines through and the wonder is there for you to share. If you’ve never thrilled to these spectacular sagas then this book of marvels is your best and most economical key to another world and time.
© 2023 MARVEL.

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The Complete Peanuts volume 9: 1967-1968


By Charles M. Schulz (Fantagraphics Books/Canongate Books UK)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-826-8 (US HB) 978-085786-213-6 (UK HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

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 surreal philosophical epic for half a century: 17,897 strips spanning October 2nd 1950 to February 13th 2000. He died – from complications of cancer – the day before his last strip was printed.

At its height, Peanuts ran in 2,600 newspapers, in 21 languages and75 countries. Many of those venues still run it in perpetual reprints, as they have ever since his death. During his lifetime, book collections, a merchandising mountain and television spin-offs had made the publicity-shy doodler an actual billionaire at a time when that really meant something…

None of that 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 and meaning as well as soon-forgotten pratfalls and punchlines.

We begin with an effusive foreword from film icon John Waters expressing his utter support of the mighty Lucy Van Pelt and all who sail in range of her, drawing references and similarities to actor/personality Divine I never saw before, but now can’t shift…

Notionally, our focus and point of contact remains quintessential, inspirational loser Charlie Brown who, beside fanciful, high-maintenance mutt Snoopy, remains squarely at odds with a mercurial supporting cast, hanging out doing what at first sight seems to be Kids Stuff and an increasingly hostile universe of perverse happenstance.

Always, gags centre on play, varying degrees of musicality, pranks, interpersonal alignments, the mounting pressures of ever-harder education, mass media lensed through young eyes and a selection of sports in their season, leavened by agonising teasing, aroused and crushed hopes, the making of baffled observations and occasionally acting a bit too much like grown-ups. However, in this tome, themes and tropes that define the entire series (especially in the wake of many animated TV specials) become mantra-like yet endlessly variable, but focus less on Charlie Brown and more on those around him. One deliciously powerful constant that remains and grows more abundant is his inability to fly a kite. Here the war with wind, gravity and landscape reaches absurdist proportions, as a certain tree pursues his adored pastime with vicious violent and malicious venom…

Human interactions still find the boy a pitiable outlier. Mean girl Violet, musical prodigy Schroeder, self-taught psychoanalyst and dictator-in-waiting Lucy, her brilliantly off-kilter little brother Linus and dirt-magnet “Pig-Pen” are fixtures honed to generate joke-routines and gag-sequences around their signature foibles, but some early characters have faded away in favour of fresh attention-attracting players joining the mob. Newcomers sidle in and shuffle off without much flurry or fanfare but in our real world the debut of “Minority” characters José Peron of New Mexico and African American Franklin attracted much attention and drew controversy – because, I guess, there will always be gits and arseholes…

A little girl Lila also debuted, but another white kid wasn’t much of shock to the system, even if she shared a fantastic life-changing secret with Snoopy…

At least the Brown boy’s existential crisis/responsibility vector/little sister Sally has grown enough to become just another trigger for relentless self-excoriation. As she grows, pesters librarians, forms opinions and propounds steadfastly authoritarian views, Charlie is relegated to being her dumber, but eternally protective, big brother…

Resigned to – but far from uncomplaining about – life as a loser in the gunsight of cruel and capricious fate, the boy Brown is helpless meat in the clutches of openly sadistic Lucy. When not sabotaging his efforts to kick a football, she monetises her spiteful verve via a 5¢ walk-in psychoanalysis booth (although supply and demand economics also affects this unshakeable standard), ensuring that whether at play, in sports, kite-flying or just brooding, the round-headed kid truly endures the character-building trials of the damned. She’s so good at it that a certain dog opens up a rival concern…

By this time, the beagle is 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, skateboarding, dance marathons and skating trysts with a “girl-beagle”, philosophical ruminations, and ever-more-popular catchphrases. Here, the burgeoning whimsy leads to constant glimpses of the dog’s WWI other life, peppered with classic dogfights against the accursed Red Baron, but also focuses on his side hustles: running for civic office, competing as arm wrestler The Masked Marvel and brief but intense time as an Olympic ice skater…

Snoopy also indulges in a protracted period impersonating a vulture, but pickings seem to have been quite slim…

As always, timeless episodes of play, peril, peewee psychoanalysis and personal recrimination are beards for some heavy topics. Rendered in marvellous monochrome, there are crucial character introductions, more plot developments and creation of even more traditions we all revere to this day. Of particular note is confirmation of the soft revolution leaving the wonder beagle and Lucy Van Pelt in the driving/pilot’s seat and head of the table/analyst’s couch…

Health and status became increasingly important at this time and the collection opens with a painfully relevant sequence of gags as Linus and Lucy get their measles vaccinations. It was played for laughs then and all ended well, but the way today’s parental moron sector are playing Russian roulette with kids’ lives is still no bloody joke…

Another trenchant continued gag-series follows Lucy attempts to “cure” Linus of his blanket dependency by playing him off against grandma who will give up smoking if he gives up clutching fabric and sucking thumb…

Snoopy is the only force capable of challenging if not actually countering Lucy. Over these two years, her campaign to curb that weird beagle, cure her brother of his comfort blanket addiction and generally reorder reality to her preferences reaches astounding heights and appalling depths, but the dog keeps trying and scores many minor victories. As always volumes open and close with many strips riffing on snow, food, movie-going and television – or the gang’s responses to it – become ever more pervasive. As aways, Lucy constantly and consistently sucks all the joy out of the white wonder stuff and the astounding variety offered by the goggle-box. Perpetually sabotaged, and facing abuse from every female in their life, Brown and Snoopy endure casual grief from smug, attention-seeking Frieda, championing shallow good looks over substance. Linus is still beguiled by the eerie attractions of his teacher Miss Othmar and Lucy’s amatory ambitions for Schroeder grow ever more chilling and substantive…

Schulz established way points in his year: formally celebrating certain calendar occasions – real or invented – as perennial shared events: Mothers and Fathers’ Days, Fourth of July, National Dog Week strips accompanied in their turn yearly milestones like Christmas, St. Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween/Great Pumpkin Day and Beethoven’s Birthday were joined this year by a return to another American ritual as many of the cast return to summer camp. This heralds a greater role for old pal Patricia Reichardt AKA tomboy Peppermint Patty (who debuted in the previous collection on August 22nd 1966); this time around, she becomes a counsellor to younger girls, ousts Charlie Brown from his own baseball team and even replaces him as manager with the beagle…

More endless heartbreak ensues as Charlie Brown fruitlessly pursue his ideal inamorata the “little red-haired girl”: a fascination outrageously exploited by others whenever he doesn’t simply sabotage himself. The poor oaf still has no idea how to respond to closer ties with his dream girl or why even Patty cares…

Sports loom large and terrifying as ever, but star athlete Snoopy is more interested in his new passions than boring old baseball or hockey. Even Lucy finds far more absorbing pastimes but still enjoys crushing the spirits of her teammates in whatever endeavour they are failing at. Anxiety-wracked Brown even steps down from the baseball team to ease his life, but being replaced by Linus only intensifies his woes. It also does nothing to help his kite wielding or paper plane folding…

Linus endures more disappointment in two Great Pumpkin seasons and before you know it, there’s the traditional countdown to Christmas and another year filled with weird, wild and wonderful moments…

Neatly interspersed with the daily doses of gloom, the Sunday page first debuted on January 6th 1952: a standard half-page slot offering more measured fare than the 4-panel dailies. Thwarted ambition, sporting failures, crushing frustration – much of it kite/psychoanalysis related – abound, alternating with Snoopy’s inner life of aviation and war stories, star gazing, shooting the breeze with bird buddies, weather woes and food fiascos. These and other signature sorties across the sabbath indulgences afforded Schulz room to be his most imaginative, whimsical and provocative…

Particular tentpole moments to relish include as always, the sharply-cornered romantic triangle involving Lucy, Schroeder & Beethoven; Snoopy v Lucy deathmatches; Charlie Brown’s food feud with the beagle, and assorted night terrors, Lucy’s unique solutions to complex questions; Valentines’ card coup counting, doggy dreams; the power of television; sporting endeavours; and more…

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 many formats, 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: 1967-1968 (Volume Nine) © 2008 Peanuts Worldwide, LLC. The Foreword is © 2008, John Waters. “Charles M. Schulz: 1922 to 2000” © 2008 Gary Groth. All rights reserved.

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Batman Arkham: Catwoman


By Bill Finger, Frank Robbins, Dennis O’Neil, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Mindy Newell, Devin Grayson, Ed Brubaker, Jeph Loeb, Joëlle Jones, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Mike W. Barr, Mark Waid, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, Charles Paris, Irv Novick, Joe Gella, Don Newton, Steve Mitchell, Alfredo Alcala, Joe Brozowski & Michael Bair, Jim Balent, John Stanisci, Brad Rader, Rick Burchett, Tim Sale, Dave Stevens, Brent Anderson, Brian Stelfreeze, Joelle Jones & Laura Allred and many & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-2177-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant – like this one – will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy I’m plugging here one of the bigger birthdays in a book still readily available either physically or in digital formats…

Cover-dated April 1940, Detective Comics #38 changed the landscape of comic books forever with the introduction of Robin, The Boy Wonder: child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes. He thereafter joined Batman in a lifelong quest to bring justice to the victims of crime. After the Flying Grayson’s killers were captured, Batman #1 (Spring 1940) opened proceedings with a recycled origin culled from portions of Detective Comics #33 and 34. ‘The Legend of the Batman – Who He Is and How He Came to Be!’ before introducing two villains who would each redefine comics in their own very different ways.

There will be more on co-anniversarians The Joker and Robin throughout the year, but today it’s the turn of a wicked thief from the comic’s third tale to be caught in a spotlight…

Batman Arkham: Catwoman re-presents material from Batman #1, 3, 210, 266, 332 & 355, Detective Comics #122, Catwoman volume 1 #2, Catwoman vol. 2 #57, Catwoman vol. 3 #10, Catwoman: When in Rome #4, Catwoman vol. 5, #1 with selections from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #4 & 16.

These cat tales span Spring/March 1940 to September 2018 and, eschewing any kind of editorial preamble, begin tracking track the feline fury from her first appearance as a mysterious jewel thief all the way to the very recent past in a snapshot of action, intrigue romance and career changing.

It all began long ago with disguise artist ‘The Cat’ – AKA “Miss Peggs” plying her felonious trade of jewel thief aboard the wrong cruise-liner and falling foul for the first time of the dashing Dynamic Duo. Swiping the Travers necklace on an ocean cruise in a taut nautical caper courtesy of Bill Finger, Bob Kane & Jerry Robinson, the wily Cat was stopped by fellow debutante Robin and later added the suffix ‘Woman’ to her name to avoid any possible doubt or confusion in her next appearance where she clashed with Batman and the Joker.

That’s not included here (but go see any collection including the contents of Batman #2), but her third appearance – ‘The Batman vs the Cat-Woman!’ (Batman #3 by Finger, Kane, Jerry Robinson & George Roussos) offered a taste of her future exploits and MO as, clad in cape and costume but once again in well over her now cat-masked head, she courted headlines by stealing for – and from – all the wrong people and ended up a catspaw for truly evil men… until Batman and Robin tracked her down…

Who’s Who #4 (1985) provided illustrated profiles of Catwoman of Earths-One & Two by Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Mike W. Barr, Dave Steven & Brent Anderson after which Detective Comics #122 (April 1947) commits ‘The Black Cat Crimes!’ by Finger, Kane & Charles Paris as the sinisterly sultry Catwoman claws her way out of jail and ruthlessly, spectacularly exploits superstitions to plunder the city…

It’s a big leap to the end of the 1960s – and therefore supposedly post Batman TV show campiness – as Batman #210 (March 1969) and Frank Robbins, Irv Novick & Joe Giella bring a new look Catwoman into circulation in nonsensical caper ‘The Case of the Purr-Loined Pearl!’ Here, oh, so terribly gradually, Selina Kyle begins her return to major villain status, by fielding eight recently recruited former convicts as a team of cunning crime-skilled Catwomen in pursuit of a gem score beyond compare.

As the Darknight Detective gradually regained his grim reputation, Batman #266 (August 1975) saw Kyle back in her classic cape & whip costume and again cashing in on superstition in ‘The Curious Case of the Catwoman’s Coincidences!’ by Denny O’Neil, Novick & Dick Giordano. Her increasingly frequent appearances, growing moral ambivalence and status as possible love interest started a process of reformation leading to occasional team-ups with her arch foe and eventually Catwoman was more antihero than villain…

Lovingly limned by Don Newton & Steve Mitchell over Marv Wolfman’s script, Batman #335 offered solo back-up story ‘Cat’s Paw’ wherein Kyle inadvertently foils a scheme to create super assassins for Ra’s al Ghul (another annoying taste of a longer tale not completed here) whilst ‘Never Scratch a Cat’ from #355 (January 1983, by Gerry Conway, Newton & Alfredo Alcala) re-emphasises her unpredictable, savagely independent and increasingly unstable nature and unwillingness to be ignored by Batman when Bruce Wayne starts dating Vicki Vale and Ms Kyle takes murderous umbrage at the seeming betrayal…

Glossing over the painfully dated politics of romance encapsulated here, lets admire the updated Catwoman Profile by Mark Waid & Brian Stelfreeze from Who’s Who in the DC Universe #19 (1992) before Crisis on Infinite Earths unleashes a whole new universe and continuity for DC. Following Batman: Year One, Selina Kyle was reimagined for a darker nastier world; a dominatrix and sex worker inspired by the arrival in Gotham City of a man who dressed like a giant bat and was determined to punish the corrupt and evil…

In the wake of Miller & Mazzuchelli’s epochal rethink, a Catwoman miniseries was released revealing the opening shots in her own war on injustice and privilege. Crafted by Mindy Newell, Joe Brozowski & Michael Bair, ‘Downtown Babylon’ (#2, March 1989) sees Selina confront her sadistic pimp Stan and unwittingly unleash his vengeance on a local nun. It’s a brilliantly manipulative piece of cruelty as Sister Magdalene was once Maggie Kyle – and Selina’s biological sister…

As is often the case you’ll need to seek elsewhere for the rest of the story as here we advance to her time as glamourous jewel thief and troubled soul seeking redemption. Catwoman vol. 2, #57 (May 1998) is set during the Cataclysm storyline when Gotham was wrecked by an earthquake and left to fend for itself by the Federal government. Devin Grayson, Jim Balent & John Stanicsi deliver a relatively quiet but suspenseful moment as Selina seeks to convince eco-terrorist and vegetable monster hybrid Poison Ivy to stop predating embattled human survivors in ‘Reap what You Sow’. It doesn’t go well…

In 2002 original graphic novel Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score led to a far more stylish and compelling reboot, based on crime pulps and caper movies. Catwoman volume 3, #10 sees Selina using her gifts and exploiting old friends and trusted contacts to spring convicted murderer Rebecca Robinson and get her out of the country for reasons she will not share even with Bruce Wayne and her sidekick Holly in ‘Joy Ride’ by Ed Brubaker, Brad Rader & Rick Burchett, after which Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale & Dave Stewart continue their continuity-reworking shenanigans as seen in Batman: the Long Halloween. In #4 of miniseries Catwoman: When in Rome #4, ‘Thursday’ sees Selina still fleeing the repercussions of ripping off and disfiguring Gotham Mob boss Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, leading to a manic clash with mystic femme feline The Cheetah…

The catalogue of crime catastrophes closes with another tempting but frustrating teaser as the first chapter of extended saga ‘Copycats’ (Part 1 by Joëlle Jones & Laura Allred, Catwoman volume 5, #1) finds the felonious feline relocated to Californian city Villa Hermosa and enjoying all those ill-gotten gains. The only real downside is having honest cops chasing her as she tries to find who is fielding a whole squad of Catwomen who look just like her but have no problem shooting anyone who gets in the way of all the robberies Selina isn’t committing…

With covers by Kane & Paris, Neal Adams & Carmine Infantino, Dick Giordano, Ed Hannigan, Brozowski & Bair, Balent & Sherilyn Van ValkenBurgh, Scott Morse, Richard Horie & Tanya Horie, Sale & Stewart, Joëlle Jones & Laura Allred, this is compelling distraction for any fan. Catwoman is a timeless icon and one of the few female comic characters the entire real world has actually heard of. With decades of back history material to enjoy, it’s great that there are primers like this to point the way to fuller exploits. Start planning those acquisitions here and make your move, tiger…
© 1940, 1947, 1969, 1975, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1989, 1992, 1998, 2005, 2018, 2023 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Punk Rock in Comics


By Nicolas Finet & Thierry Lamy, illustrated by Joël Alessandra, Antoane, Will Argunas, Katya Bauman, Romain Brun, Céheu, Christopher, Janis Do, Benoît Frébourg, Thierry Gioux, Kongkee, Estelle Meyrand, Yvan Ojo, Gilles Pascal, Christelle Pécout, Lauriane Rérolle, Toru Terada, Martin Texier, Léah Touitou, Martin Trystram & various: translated by James Hogan (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-350-9 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-351-6

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect and historical verity.

Having been (an extremely minor) part of the revolution and probably seen at most of the UK gigs and events cited here, I found it most difficult to remain dispassionate about the book under review today. It’s really very good, and I apologize if I seem less than my effusive self. Apparently, being fair and neutral is actually quite hard if one is involved. Moreover, it’s rather sad to realize that when all those disenfranchised kids warned of “no future”, right here, right now is what they were shouting about….

Graphic biographies are all the rage these days and this one is the most personally affecting yet. It’s strange to have lived long enough to find that the history people are writing and drawing is just “recently” and “remember when…” to some of us.

Part of NBM’s Music Stars in Comics series and guaranteed to appeal to a much larger audience than most comics usually reach, Punk Rock in Comics is a roundup of key bands and significant moments helpfully garnished with articles on the US and British antecedents and precursors, as well as a look at who joined late and what came next. It certainly deserves to reach as many as possible and will make a perfect gift if any of us make it to the next Great December fun-fest/Gig in the Sky…

… And just a note of clarification: between 1975 and 1981 us youth thought we were at the spear tip of a revolution, but it turns out it was a wave of similar-seeming local brush fires that were stamped out or died down of their own accord. Punk was music and fashion and guerilla graphics and SHEER ATTITUDE. All of it was primarily self-generated by triggered by example and a Do It Yourself philosophy sparked by the realization that no one in authority was ever going to help or rock a sitting status quo.

We concentrate on bands and music here but as a nod to the other great benefactor – self-publishing – this book is craftily delivered via distractingly faux-distressed pages meant to mimic the abundant and vibrant fanzine culture that came with us kids getting involved. Buying or trading a pamphlet did so much to popularise the movement in an era utterly devoid of social media and digital connection, but don’t whine you spend a few hours trying to flatten out wrinkle and glue stains that aren’t really there, okay?

Still with us? Okay then…

As if cannily re-presented popular culture factoids and snippets of urban history accompanied by a treasure trove of candid photographs, posters, badges fashions and other memorabilia aren’t enough to whet your appetite, this annal of arguably the closest we ever got to taking over the kingdom also offers vital and enticing extra enticements… but you’ll have to have your consciousness raised a bit before then.

Author, filmmaker, journalist, publisher, educator, translator/music documentarian Nicolas Finet has worked in comics over three decades: generating a bucketload of reference works – such as Mississippi Ramblin’ and Forever Woodstock. He adds to his graphic history tally (Prince in Comics, Love Me Please – The Story of Janis Joplin 1943-1970 and David Bowie in Comics) with this deep dive into the crazed career of the ultimate cosmic explorers and rebellious cultural pioneers. His scripts of the comics vignettes compiled in conjunction with frequent collaborator Thierry Lamy (Force Navale, David Bowie in Comics, Pink Floyd in Comics) are limned here by a spitting, pogo-ing posse of international strip artists, visually actualising vividly vocal and vociferous key moments in really recent history…

It begins with Céheu depicting ‘1969-1970 An American Prehistory’ as disillusionment in the1970s New World triggers reactions from young musicians like Jim “Iggy Pop” Osterberg and Richard Hell, and groups of iconic nearly-men such as MC5, Television and the New York Dolls set the scene and laid the groundwork for what came – quite unfairly – to be regarded as a British revolution…

Following a fact-packed essay, the state of our nation is assessed in ‘1971-1975 The United Kingdom of Pub Rock’, courtesy of Gilles Pascal. A growing hunger for cheap live music and short songs led to an extinction event for “Prog Rock” and the rise of bands and performers who would score no real chart success but reshape the industry for decades to come…

A text discussion of bands like (Ian Dury’s) Kilburn and the High Roads, Brinsley Schwartz, Nick Lowe, Eddie and the Hot Rods and more enjoying a growing London-centric live gig scene leads to Antoane’s proto-punk assessment ‘1974-1976 On the fringes of Punk Rock, a few Inspired Trailblazers’ (Dr. Feelgood, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Elvis Costello) before the cultural main event kicks off with Thierry Gioux’s coverage of ‘1975-1978 The Sex Pistols Endless Rebellion’ and a detailed biopsy of the Clash in ‘1976-1985 Combat Rock’ limned by Martin Trystram.

Further mini-bios follow in comics and essay combinations, exploring lesser gods of revolt such as ‘1976-1980 Buzzcocks Energy Made in Manchester’ by Katya Bauman, ‘1974-1996 We, The Ramones’ from Toru Terada, Benoît Frébourg’s ‘1976-2015 The Damned May the Farce be with You!’ and an assessment of lost wonders in Yvan Ojo’s ‘1975-1978 Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers’…

As I said, Britain got the lion’s share of global headlines (and reactionary authoritarian blamestorming) but the process and progress were international. Romain Brun illustrates ‘1974-1977 Meanwhile, in New York’ where the club CBGB was building a rep through outsider bands such Television, New York Dolls, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Dead Boys and poet Patti Smith, and by staging the first UK band to play America: The Damned…

A few more individualists are explored in ‘1976-1996 Siouxsie and the Banshees The Punk Sorceress’ by Léah Touitou, and Martin Texier reveals just how different The Vibrators were in ‘1976-2020 Never Stop Vibrating’ prior to Janis Do detailing the effect, influence and ultimate tragedy of Jimmy Pursey and Sham 69 in ‘1976-1980 Working Class Heroes’… It was a time of change, fervour and febrile opportunism and many acts were caught up in the money and mood, if not movement, usually against their will and at the behest of old-guard record companies. Christopher illuminates how The Jam rode the storm in ‘1974-1979 Not Quite Punks: a handful that can’t be put in a box’ and Lauriane Rérolle details ‘1975-1983 The Irish Wave’ that picked up and spat out The Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers but lost so many others.

‘1975-1982 Girls to the Front!’ by Christelle Pécout focusses on how “the kids” demand to be heard somehow didn’t apply to The Slits – until they put their big booted feet down – whilst Estelle Meyrand explores international wonders most of us missed at the time – no, not Belgium’s Plastic Bertrand but Australia’s The Saints and US phenomenon and political activist Jello Biafra and The Dead Kennedys in ‘1976-1980 Punks from Elsewhere’…

Despite constant accusations of nihilism Punk was always an inviting and inclusive arena and ‘1975-1981 Punks and Rastas’ from Joël Alessandra details cultural cross pollination and active inclusivity – leading to the Two Tone era – and Will Argunas recalls ‘1975-1983 Punks and Hard Rock: Loud, Fast, and in Your Face!’ via the life and achievements of Lemmy Kilmister and Motörhead, before Kongkee draws this tome to a close with a trip through ‘1981 and Beyond: The Post-Punk Legacy’ encompassing Electropop, New Wave/Romanticism, Grunge and more, citing bands such as Pere Ubu, Devo, et al…

This compelling and remarkable catalogue of cultural change and artistic hostage-taking includes a Selective Discography of the bands most crucial cuts, Further Reading, listings of Films and Videos, Photo Credits and a copious Acknowledgements section.

Punk Rock in Comics is a comprehensive and intriguing skilfully realised appreciation of a unique moment in time and society, boldly attempting to capture a too-big rocket in a very small bottle but still doing a pretty good of recalling the when, how and who, if not quite the why of the era. It’s also a true treasure for comics and music fans if they weren’t actually there: one to resonate with all those probably still quite angry and disaffected veteran kids who love to listen, look and wonder what if..?
© 2024 Editions Petit as Petit. © 2025 NBM for the English translation.

Punk Rock in Comics will be published on 18th March. 2025 and is available for pre-order now. NBM books are also available in digital editions. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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Henry Speaks for Himself


By John J. Liney, edited by David Tosh (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-733-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Created by veteran cartoonist Carl Anderson as a silent, pantomimic gag-panel first seen on March 19th 1932, Henry was one of the most venerated and long-lived of US newspaper comics strips. The feature was developed for The Saturday Evening Post before being picked up by legendary strip advocate and proponent William Randolph Hearst. He brought it and the then-69-year-old Anderson to his King Features Syndicate in 1934 after which the first comic strip appeared on December 17th, with a full colour Sunday half-page following on March 10th 1935. The Saturday Evening Post had to content and console itself with a new feature entitled Little Lulu by Marjorie Henderson Buell. I wonder how that worked out?

Being a man of advanced years, Anderson employed Don Trachte to assist with the Sundays whilst John J. Liney performed the same role for the Monday to Saturday black and white iteration. This continued until 1942 when arthritis forced Anderson to retire. Trachte and Liney became de facto creators of the feature – although the originator’s name remained on the masthead for the next twenty years.

Liney (1912-1982) had started as a staff cartoonist on the Philadelphia Evening Ledger and began selling gag ideas to Anderson in 1936 before landing the full-time assistant’s job. After assuming the illustrator’s role in 1942, Liney took over sole writing responsibilities for the daily in 1945, continuing Henry until 1979 when he finally retired. His own name had been adorning the strip since 1970. He was also a passionate teacher and educator on comics and cartooning, with a position at Temple University. Nevertheless, he still found time to write and draw a comic book iteration of the mute and merry masterpiece from 1946 to 1961.

Major licensing monolith Western Publishing/Dell Comics had been successfully producing comic books starring animation characters, film icons and strip heroes since the mid-1930s, and when they launched their Henry – first in Four Color Comics #122 and #155 (October 1946 and July 1947) prior to his own 65 issue title from January 1948 – they successfully argued for a radical change in the boy’s make-up.

The newspaper strip had always been a timeless, nostalgia-fuelled, happily humour-heavy panoply of gags and slapstick situations, wherein the quite frankly weird-looking little bald kid romped and pranked in complete silence, with superb cartooning delivering all the communication nuance its vast international audience needed.

Now though, with children seen as sole consumers, the powers-that-be felt that little lad should be able to speak and make himself understood. Liney easily rose to the challenge and produced a sublime run of jolly, wild, weird if not often utterly surreal, endlessly inventive adventures – many of which approached stream-of-consciousness progressions that perfectly captured the ephemeral nature of kids’ concentration. He also introduced a captivating supporting cast to augment the boy, and his appealingly unattractive, forthright and two-fisted inamorata Henrietta.

This splendid collection gathers some of the very best longer tales from the comic book run in the resplendent flat primary colours that are so evocative of simpler days, beginning after a heartfelt reminiscence in the Foreword by Kim Deitch. Another pause before the comics commence comes from Editor, compiler and devotee David Tosh who outlines the history of the character and his creators in ‘Henry – the Funniest Living American’. He then goes on to explain ‘The Dell Years’ before offering some informative ‘Notes on the Stories’.

The vivid viewing portion of this collection is liberally augmented with stunning cover reproductions; all impressively embracing to the quiet lad’s silent comedy roots, a brace of which precede a beautiful double-page spread detailing the vast and varied cast Liney added to the mix. Then, from #7 (June, 1949), we discover ‘Henry is Thinking Out Loud!’ as the kid keeps his non-existent mouth shut and explores the medium of first person narrative, inner monologues and thought-balloons, all whilst getting into mischief seeking odd jobs to do…

October’s edition, Henry #9, introduced good-natured, cool but increasingly put-upon Officer Yako in ‘You Can’t Beat the Man on the Beat!’ via an escalating succession of brushes with the law, bullies, prospective clients… and darling Henrietta.

That bald boy still hadn’t actually uttered a sound, but by #14 (August 1950) had found his voice, much to the amusement of his layabout Uncle (rather suspiciously, he never had a name) who eavesdropped on the assorted kids comparing their ‘Funny Dreams’. After a quartet of covers, Henry #16 (December 1950) finds Liney playing with words as ‘Rhyme Without Reason’ reveals the entire cast afflicted with doggerel, meter, couplets and all forms poetic, with Liney even drawing himself into the madcap procession of japes and jests, whilst ‘A Slice of Ham’  #22, December 1951) cleverly riffs on Henry’s ambitions to impress Henrietta by becoming an actor. This yarn offers a wealth of Liney caricatures featuring screen immortals such as Chaplin, Gable, Sinatra and more, whilst introducing a potential rival contender for Henry’s affections in cousin Gilda…

In #24 (April 1952) Henry ‘Peeks into the Future’ by outrageously pondering on his possible careers as an adult, before plunging into Flintstone or Alley Oop territory – complete with cave city and dinosaurs – as a result of studying too hard for a history test in ‘The Stone Age Story’ from #29, February 1953.

After four more clever funny covers, growing up again features heavily with ‘Choosing Your Career’ (#45, March 1956) as the little fool road-tests a job as a home-made cab driver and accidentally slips into law enforcement by capturing a bandit. Henry #48 (December 1956) sees him attend a fancy dress party and become ‘The Boy in the Iron Mask’, before this completely charming compilation closes by reprising that sojourn in the Stone Age ‘Rock and Roll’ (#49 March 1957). Concluding the comedy capers is fond personal reminiscence ‘Henry and Me’ by David Tosh; a man justifiably delighted to be able to share his passion with us and hopefully proud that this book gloriously recaptures some of the simple straightforward sheer joy that could be found in comicbooks of yore.

Henry Speaks for Himself is fun, frolicsome and fabulously captivating all-ages cartooning that will enthral anyone with kids or who has the soul of one.
Henry Speaks for Himself © 2014 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All comics and drawings © 2014 King Features, Inc. All other material © its respective creators. This book was produced in cooperation with Heritage Auctions.

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Famous First Edition C-63: New Fun Comics #1


By Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Charles Flanders, Lloyd Jacquet, Dick Loederer, Adolphe Barreaux, Adolph Shusterman, Joe Archibald, Lyman Anderson, Sheldon Hubert Stark, Lawrence Lariar, Henry Carl Kiefer, Bert Salg/Bertram Nelson, Clem Gretta, Ken Fitch, Jack A. Warren, Bob Weinstein, Tom Cooper, Tom McNamara, John Lindermayer & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0119-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Times of hardship and sustained crisis often trigger moments of inspiration and innovation. That’s no panacea for all the hardship that correspondingly accrues but every silver lining brings a crumb of comfort, no? Perhaps we’ll see more clearly in four years’ time…

In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, print salesman Max “MC” Gaines and editor Harry I. Wildenberg devised promotional premiums for stores to give away: cheaply made small booklets that reprinted some of the era’s hugely popular newspaper strips. By adding a price sticker these freebies were transformed into a mass market fixture as seen in 1934’s newsstand retail release Famous Funnies.

Monumental corporate megalith DC Comics began as National Allied Publications in 1935, another speculative venture conceived by controversial soldier-turned writer Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. He had been writing military non-fiction and pulp adventure stories when he met Gaines and, fired up, took a shot that the new print vehicle had legs. Backing the belief invention with a shoestring venture, he set about mass-producing the print novelty dubbed comic books.

Wheeler-Nicholson’s bold plan was to sidestep large leasing fees charged for established newspaper strip reprints by filling his books with new material. Moreover, with popular strips in limited supply and/or already optioned, his solution to create new characters in all new stories for an entertainment-hungry readership must have seemed a no-brainer.

Cover-dated February 1935, and looking remarkably like any weekly comic anthology ever since, New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 blended humour with action, intrigue and suspense, combining serialized adventure strips with prose fiction, and features. Tabloid sized, and largely scripted by “The Major”, it was edited by Lloyd Jacquet (who would later helm many of DC’s rapidly proliferating imitators and rivals) with pages filled by untried creators and lesser established cartoonist lights. Issue #6 launched the careers of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster with adventurer Henri Duval and supernatural troubleshooter Doctor Occult. Hopefully we closet comics historians will see those collected for the curious one day….

Despite initially tepid sales, the Major persevered, launching New Comics as 1935 closed. The anthology was renamed New Adventure Comics, before settling on Adventure Comics with #32 in 1938. The company was struggling when Wheeler-Nicholson’s main creditors -printer Harry Donenfeld and accountant Jack L. Liebowitz – moved in, taking more active roles in the running of the enterprise. Within two years the commercially unseasoned Wheeler-Nicholson had been forced out by his more adept business partners, just as Wheeler-Nicholson’s final inspiration neared its debut. Detective Comics was a themed anthology of crime thrillers, and when it launched (cover-dated March 1937) it was the hit the company needed. Its success signalled closure of National Allied and birth of Detective Comics Incorporated. Eventually his company grew into monolithic DC (Detective Comics, get it?) Comics. Surviving a myriad of changes and temporary shifts of identity and aims, it’s still with us – albeit primarily as a vehicle for the breakthrough character who debuted in #27 (May 1939). The Major was retained until 1938. Donenfeld and Liebowitz’s acumen ensured the viability of comic books and their editor Vin Sullivan inadvertently changed the direction of history when he commissioned something entirely new and unconventional by Seigel & Shuster for upcoming release Action Comics #1…

Supplemented by a wealth of ancillary articles and essays, the spark of this particular publishing revolutions is re-presented in full facsimile mode after introductory essay ‘The Start of Something Big’ by the legendary Dr Jerry G. Bails, fully supported by ‘A Second Introduction – This One by Roy Thomas’ and a reproduction of a rare insert letter from Lloyd Jaquet that came with some of the earliest copies printed…

Looking remarkably similar in format to any British weekly anthology from the 1930s to the 1970s, the comic had its first feature playing across the cover as Lyman Anderson depicted cowboy Jack Woods imperilled by a rascally bushwhacker.

Edited by Lloyd Jaquet, the inner front cover declaimed ‘New Fun Hello Everybody: Here’s the New Magazine You’ve Been Waiting For!’ before Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson & Charles Flanders debuted ‘Sandra of the Secret Service’; an elegant socialite in over her head…

The first six single page strips all came with an inbuilt star attraction. As Oswald the Lucky Rabbit an animated lepine tyke had hit cinema screens in 1927, courtesy of bright young men Walt Disney & Ub Iwerks. A year later the creators had been kicked out by Universal Pictures and got revenge by inventing Mickey Mouse. Oswald soldiered on under lesser hands until 1938 and enjoyed a strip of his own. Each 3-panel Oswald The Rabbit “topper” ran under New Fun’s new stuff, forming a sequence about ice skating and probably crafted by Al Stahl, John Lindermayer & Sheldon Hubert Stark.

Teen dating dilemmas plagued ‘Jigger and Ginger’ by Adolph “Schus” Shusterman and PI ‘Barry O’Neill’ (by Lawrence Lariar) faced Tong-&-Triad terrors before Adolphe Barreaux exposed Bobby & Binks to ‘The Magic Crystal of History’ and dumped the inquisitive kids in “4000 BC”, even as deKerosett (Henry Carl Kiefer) blended aviation and Foreign Legion licks in ‘Wing Brady – Soldier of Fortune’.

Oswald bowed out underneath the first instalment of ‘Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott’ courtesy of Wheeler-Nicholson & Flanders before Bert (Salg aka Bertram Nelson) enjoyed some judicial japery with ‘Judge Perkins’ before big sky sci fi kicked off in the Flash Gordon manner thanks to ‘Don Drake on the Planet Saro’ “presented” by Clem Gretta (Joseph Clemens Gretter & Ken Fitch) prior to Jack A. Warren introducing comedy cowpuncher ‘Loco Luke in “Nope He Didn’t Get His Man”’ and Wheeler-Nicholson & Flanders – as “Roger Furlong” – switch to illuminated prose to probe the mystery of ‘Spook Ranch’. It goes without saying, I hope, that many of these groundbreaking yarns are initial chapters of serials so don’t get too invested in what going on…

Joe Archibald taps into the varsity sports scene with comedic basketball titan ‘Scrub Hardy’ whereas Lyman Anderson plays deadly serious with the other, lesser kind of football in ‘Jack Andrews All-American Boy’ prior to the opening of a section of ads and features. Sandy beach-based bodybuilding revelations precede a prose vignette on ‘Bathysphere – A Martian Dream’ and segue into Joe Archibald’s ‘Sports’ review, a heads-up of what’s ‘On the Radio’ and ‘In the Movies’ whilst the secrets of ‘Model Aircraft’ and ‘Aviation’ lead to ‘How to Build a Model of Hendrik Hudson’s “Half Moon”’ …

Comic treats are topped up with Bob Weinstein’s maritime drama ‘Cap’n Erik’ and Tom Cooper taps into frontier history with ‘Buckskin Jim the Trail Blazer’ prior to learning and hobby craft taking over again with ‘Popular Science’, ‘Stamps and Coins’, and something for the little ladies…‘Young Homemakers’.

Tom McNamara heralds another bunch of comics with kiddie caper ‘After School’ and anonymous ‘Cavemen Capers’ take us to Barreaux’s ‘Fun Films 1st Episode: Tad Among the Pirates’ a faux cinema tale inviting readers to grab scissors and make their own stories, before New Fun’s art director Dick Loederer joins the fun with elfin romp ‘Bubby and Beevil’ and provides an untitled bottom strip to literally support a stylish penguin fantasy ‘Pelion and Ossa’ by John Lindermayer. Closing the interior amazement is another “Clem Gretta” wonder – ‘2023 Super-Police’ – leaving ads ‘New easy way to learn aviation’ and a full colour enticement for the ‘Tom Mix’ Ralston Zyp Gun (you absolutely WILL shoot your eye out!) to close the beginning of it all…

Fully supported by detailed biography ‘The Major Who Made Comics’ by granddaughter Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson and comprehensive listing ‘New Fun #1 – the Contributors’ plus reprint series overview ‘A Tabloid Tradition Continued’ and even more memorabilia bits, this is a historical artefact no serious comics fan should be without.
Famous First Edition: New Fun #1, C-63 Compilation and all new material © 2020 DC Comics. © 1935 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Biographical Essays © 2019 Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson.

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Kill My Mother


By Jules Feiffer (Liveright/W.W. Norton)
ISBN: 978-0-87140-314-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for comedic and dramatic effect.

After years as cartoonist, illustrator, pundit and educator, at age 85 Jules Feiffer returned to his primary role of comics storyteller with an intense, sublimely gripping and innovative graphic novel. Spanning 10 turbulent years, Kill My Mother is a supremely classy, passionately heartfelt tribute to Film Noir, Hollywood Babylon, sexual politics and family secrets, blending trappings of Dashiell Hammett with the tone, pacing and spark of Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder to tell an extended story of love, murder, jealousy and revenge.

It all begins in ‘Bay City Blues’. It’s 1933 and times are tough all over. At 15-years old, Annie Hannigan is cutting up, constantly leading poor, gullible sap Artie Folsom into trouble, whilst the mother she despises works all hours for dissolute, dipsomaniac, exceedingly cheap private investigator Neil Hammond. The odd arrangement developed after the shamus agreed to investigate the murder of Elsie Hannigan’s husband, whom he constantly refers to as the wrong sort of honest cop. Events take a dark turn when stylish, exceedingly tall maneater Mae Longo walks in, offering outrageous sums if the gumshoe can track down a certain someone. The photo she gives Hammond shows a woman remarkably similar to his coolly aloof new client…

Eddie “the Dancing Master” Longo is a rising star of the fight game who usually employs shady but capable gorilla Tiny Tim Gaffney to handle the more unsavoury problems in his life but Neil claims to know just how to handle him. In the course of her mean-spirited, casual rebellions, Annie gets poor Artie into real trouble when a shoplifting binge results in pursuit by a store detective far faster than he looks. A very nasty beating is only avoided when an exceptionally tall derelict in an alley lays out the private cop with her carefully concealed baseball bat. The rattled teen takes the tramp back to the dump of an apartment and cleans her up, even as Elsie – very much against her will and better judgement – is dragged by soused-as-ever Neil to the Big Fight to see the Dancing Master.

The escapade almost costs her everything…

Her drunken boss’ plan to draw his tall target out of the woodwork also involves poor Elsie and leads to a lot of pain, trouble and strife, whilst Hammond, clearly a dipsomaniac with a death wish, starts dogging mysterious client Mae instead of doing the job he was hired for.

The result is a murder unsolved and unexplained for a decade…

The concluding half of the story resumes in 1943 with ‘Hooray for Hollywood’ as we return to our cast and find them all greatly advanced. Goonish Artie is a Captain of Marines, successfully battling the Japanese in the Green Hell of the Pacific whilst Annie Hannigan is a writer and media darling. Her sensational hit comedy “Shut Up, Artie” is the most popular radio show in America and is broadcast wherever Yanks are posted. Eddie Longo made the transition to B-Movie star and Ellen, when not babysitting obstreperous grandson Sammy, is Executive Vice President of Pinnacle Studios in charge of Image Security and Maintenance. The scary indigent little Annie met in an alley has also cleaned up and moved on. Now she sings torch songs in the Reno Roost as the enigmatic Lady Veil…

Eddy hates his life. The former hard-man boxer is trapped as a song-&-dance hoofer in big, morale-boosting musicals but dreams of major stardom like glamorous He-Man Hugh Patton or even an Academy Award… but is typecast and more under the thumb of the formidable Mae than ever.

The fraught status quo changes after Annie meets the dashing Patton at the Hollywood Canteen, but her romantic elation is crushed soon after, when the sponsors call her in to discuss a crisis. A genuine war hero is suing the show, claiming his life is being made a mockery. Unless she can fix things up with her old pal Artie, the show and her career are over…

Eddie is also near breaking point and Mae calls in thuggish Gaffney as a minder. Events begin to spiral to a shocking conclusion when Longo joins a USO tour to the war-torn Pacific Islands. Patton is going too, and Annie takes the opportunity to join him, as does her mother in the role of “image maintainer”…

The first port of call is Tarawa; the hellhole where Captain Arthur Folsom is almost single-handedly repulsing the Jap advance. On the island, Artie is overseeing the building of a stage for the visiting stars whilst marvelling at the stupidity of putting on a show in a battleground still hotly contested by enemy forces. In the air above him, Ellen has a sharp confrontation with Mae Longo and “bodyguard” Gaffney. The events of ten years ago are still painfully fresh in every participant’s mind. By the time all the players debark on the island, a devious and supposedly foolproof plan to commit another perfect murder has been hatched, using the Japanese as ideal scapegoats. However, an intimate killing is far harder than mass slaughter and the scheme soon starts to unravel…

Complex, beguiling, smartly sophisticated, devastatingly witty and peppered with shockingly casual violence (as every noir thriller must be) this spectacular yarn is packed with twists and surprises, where nobody tells the truth and no one is playing on the side of the angels.

A masterpiece of cool suspense, mature ingenuity and graphic dexterity, Kill My Mother was winner of the Eisner Prize for Best New Graphic Album, took the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for Best Graphic Novel 2014 and was named one of the Best Books of the Year by Vanity Fair, Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal. It remains a timeless, hearty slice of bravura storytelling that gets better with every re-reading and a fitting tribute to the talents of one of graphic narrative storytelling’s greatest masters. If you love crime yarns, comic tales, nostalgia and having your intelligence respected, this is the book for you.
© 2014 Liveright Publishing Corporation.

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Golden Age Flash Archives volume I


By Gardner F. Fox, Harry Lampert, E.E. Hibbard, Hal Sharp & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0784-7 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are many comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m still abusing my privileges here by carping about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

The innovative fledgling company that became DC published the first ever comic book super-speedster and over the intervening decades has constantly added more to its pantheon of stars. Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and initially visually realised by Harry Lampert, Jay Garrick debuted as the very first Monarch of Motion in Flash Comics #1. He quickly – how else? – became a veritable sensation. “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers of anthologies like Flash Comics, All Star Comics, Comics Cavalcade and other titles – as well as solo vehicle All-Flash Quarterly – for just over a decade before changing tastes benched him and most other first-generation costumed crimebusters in the early1950s.

His invention as a strictly single-power superhero created a new trend in the burgeoning action-adventure Funnybook marketplace, and his particular riff was specifically replicated many times at various companies where myriad Fast Furies sprang up including Johnny Quick, Hurricane/Mercury, Silver Streak, The Whizzer, Quicksilver and Snurtle McTurtle – the Terrific Whatzit amongst so many others…

After half a decade of mostly interchangeable cops, cowboys and cosmic invaders, the concept of human speedsters and the superhero genre in general was spectacularly revived by Julie Schwartz in 1956. Showcase #4 revealed how police scientist Barry Allen became the second hero to run with the concept. We’ve not looked back since – and if we did it would all be a great big blur…

This initial charmingly beguiling deluxe Archive (sadly not available in not-quite-faster-than-light digital) edition collects the first year and a half of publication, spanning January 1940 to May 1941 of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric exploits in 17 (regrettably untitled) adventures from anthology Flash Comics. These tales demonstrate an appealing rawness, light-hearted whimsy and scads of narrative experimentation starring a brilliant nerd and (ostensibly) physical sad-sack who became a social reformer and justice-dispensing human meteor.

Following a fulsome Foreword from sometime Flash scribe Mark Waid, the fast fictions commence with the debut of ‘The Fastest Man Alive’, speedily delivering in 15 pages an origin and returning cast, whilst staging a classic confrontation with a sinister cabal of gangsters. It all started years previously when student Garrick collapsed in a Midwestern University lab, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to “hard water fumes” he had inhaled whilst unconscious. After weeks recovering in hospital, the formerly-frail chemist realised the exposure had bestowed super-speed and endurance. He promptly sought to impress his sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unstoppable football player…

Time passed, the kids graduated and Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by rampant crime, he decided to do something about it. The Flash operates mostly in secret until one day, whilst idly playing tennis with himself, Jay meets Joan again, just as mobsters try to kill her in a drive-by shooting. Catching a storm of bullets, Jay gets reacquainted with his former paramour and discovers she is being targeted by criminal combine the Faultless Four: master criminals set on obtaining her father’s invention the Atomic Bombarder. In the blink of an eye Flash smashes the gang’s sinister schemes and defeats diabolical leader Sieur Satan, saving Joan’s life whilst revelling in the sheer liberating fun and freedom of being gloriously unstoppable…

In his sequel appearance Flash stumbles upon a showgirl’s murder and discovers that Yankee mobster Boss Goll and British aristocrat Lord Donelin plan to take over America’s entire entertainment industry with ruthless strong-arm tactics. The speedster is as much hindered as helped by “wilful, headstrong” (that’s old world coding for forceful, competent and independently-minded) Joan who begins her own lifetime obsession of pesky do-gooding right there, right then…

Everett E. Hibbard began a decade-long association with Flash in #3, when Major Williams’ Atomic Bombarder is coveted by foreign spies. The elderly boffin being framed for treason prompts Garrick to come to his future father-in-law’s aid, after which Jay & Joan smash an off-shore gambling ring graduating to kidnapping and blackmail in #4. During these early escapades, Flash seldom donned his red, blue and yellow outfit: usually operating invisibly or undercover to play super-speed pranks with merciless, puckish glee. That started changing in #5, when the speedster saves an elderly artist from hit-men to frustrate mad collector Vandal who uses murder to increase the market value of his purchases.

Flash Comics #6 saw Jay & Joan at old Alma Mater Midwestern, foiling a scheme to dope athletes seeking to qualify for the Olympics, before #7 saw a stopover in Duluth lead to the downfall of gambler Black Mike – industriously fixing motorcar races with a metal melting ray. For #8, the Vizier of Velocity tracks down seemingly corrupt contractors building shoddy, dangerous buildings only to find graft and skulduggery go much further up the financial and civic food chain, whilst in FC #9, gangsters “acquire” a scientist’s invention and the Flash finds himself battling a brigade of giant Gila Monsters. Flash #10 depicts the downfall of a political cabal in the pocket of gangster Killer Kelly and stealing from the schools they administered, before in #11, Garrick meets his first serious opponent in kidnap racketeer The Chief, whose sinister brilliance enables him to devise stroboscopic glasses to track and target the usually invisibly fast crime-crusher…

With the threat of involvement in the “European War” a constant subject of US headlines, Flash Comics #12 (December 1940) had the heroic human hurricane intervene to save tiny Ruritanian nation Kurtavia from ruthless invasion. His spectacular lightning war sees Garrick sinking submarines, repelling land armies and crushing airborne blitzkriegs for a fairy tale happy ending here, but within a year the process would become patriotic morale boosting repeated ad infinitum in every US comic book as the real world brutally intruded on the industry and nation.

Back in the USA for #13, Garrick assists old pal Jim Carter in cowboy country where the young inheritor of a silver mine is gunned down by murdering owlhoots. Jay then heads back east to crush a criminal combine sabotaging city subway construction in #14, before saving a circus from robbery, sabotage and poor attendances in #15. Throughout all these yarns Jay paid scant attention to preserving any kind of secret identity – a detail that would soon change – but as Hal Sharp took over illustrating with #16 (Hibbard presumably devoting his energies to the contents of forthcoming 64-page solo-starring All-Flash Quarterly #1: another landmark for the hero) Joan is kidnapped by Mexican mobsters aware of her connection to The Flash. Rushing to her rescue, Garrick battles a small army, not only saving his girlfriend but even reforming bandit chief José Salvez. This high-energy compilation closes with another light-hearted sporting escapade as the speedster intervenes in a gambling plot, saving a moribund baseball team from sabotage even as Jay Garrick – officially “almost as fast as the Flash” – becomes the Redskins’ (a nickname now thankfully consigned to history’s massive dustbin of insensitivity) star player to save them from lousy performances…

With covers by Sheldon Moldoff, Dennis Neville, George Storm, Jon L. Blummer, Hibbard and Sharp, this book is a sheer delight for lovers of the early Fights ‘n’ Tights genre: exuberant, exciting and funny, although certainly not to every modern fan’s taste. Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
© 1940, 1941, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Golden Age Flash Archives volume II


By Gardner F. Fox, E.E. Hibbard, Hal Sharp & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0784-7 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The ever-expanding array of companies that became DC published many iconic “Firsts” in the early years of the industry. Associated outfit All-American Publications (co-publishers until bought out by National/DC in 1946) were responsible for the first comic book super-speedster as well as the iconic Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder and so many others who became mainstays of DC’s pantheon of stars.

Devised, created and written by Gardner Fox and originally limned by Harry Lampert, Flash Comics #1 saw Jay Garrick debut as the very first Vizier of Velocity and quickly become a veritable sensation. “The Fastest Man Alive” wowed readers for just over a decade before changing tastes ended the first costumed hero as the 1950s opened.

This charmingly seductive deluxe Archive edition collects the Fastest Yarns Alive from Flash Comics #18-24, covering June-December 1941, plus the first two issues of the irrepressible Garrick’s whimsically eccentric full-length exploits from All-Flash Quarterly (Summer and Fall of that same fateful year). All were written by an apparently inexhaustible Gardner Fox.

After another informative Introduction from comic book all-star Jim Amash, the rollercoaster of fun and thrills gathers steam with ‘The Restaurant Protective Association’ (illustrated by Hal Sharp), with Jay and girlfriend/confidante Joan Williams stumbling upon a pack of extortionists and exposing a treacherous viper preying on Joan’s best gal-pal, after which ‘The Fall Guy’ in #19 reveals how a gang of agile fraudsters are faking motor accidents to fleece insurance companies. Both cases gave Garrick ample opportunity to display his hilarious and humiliating bag of super-speed tricks and punishing pranks to astound playful kids of the day and which still delight decades later.

Flash Comics #20 led with ‘The Adventure of the Auctioned Utility Company’ wherein Joan accidentally buys a regional power outfit and Jay uses all his energies to reconcile a feuding family whilst teaching a miserly embezzler an unforgettable lesson…

Sharp had been doing such splendid artistic service on the monthly tales because regular illustrator E. E. Hibbard had been devoting all his creative energies to the contents of a forthcoming solo title: 64-page All-Flash Quarterly #1. The epic premiere issue opened with tantalising frontispiece ‘The JSA Bid Farewell to the Flash’, celebrating the fact that the Fastest Man Alive was the third character to win his own solo comic – after Superman and Batman – and would therefore be “too busy for Justice Society get-togethers”…

Fox & Hibbard then retold ‘The Origin of the Flash’, revealing again how some years previously college student Garrick had passed out in a lab at Midwestern University, only to awaken hyper-charged and the fastest creature on Earth thanks to “hard water fumes” he inhaled whilst unconscious. After weeks in hospital, the formerly-frail apprentice chemist deduced he had developed super-speed and endurance, and promptly sought to impress his apparently unattainable sort-of girlfriend Joan Williams by becoming an unbeatable football star. Upon graduation Garrick moved to New York where, appalled by its rampant criminality, he employed his gift to fight it…

‘The Men Who Turned to Stone’ plunged readers back to the present as one of Garrick’s colleagues at Chemical Research Incorporated discovers an instant petrification process and is abducted by criminals hoping to make lots of illegal money with it. Hibbard also illustrated uncredited fun-fact featurette ‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ before ‘Meet the Author and Artist of the Flash’ offers an intimate introduction to the creative team, before ‘The Adventure of the Monocle and his Garden of Gems’ sees the debut of a rare returning villain with an unwise addiction to other people’s jewels, but enough brains to counter Flash’s speed, if not Jay’s courage and ingenuity.

When Flash prevents the murder of a cowboy performer in New York, ‘The Rodeo Mystery’ soon takes Jay & Joan to Oklahoma and a crooked ploy to steal a newly discovered oil well, after which the issue closes with Flash smashing a gambler trying to take over the sport of Ice Hockey in ‘Menace of the Racket King’.

Gambling was also a problem in monthly Flash Comics #21 as ‘The Lottery’ (illustrated by Sharp) sees the Speedster expose a cunning criminal scheme to bilk theatre patrons and carnival-goers. Issue #22’s ‘The Hatchet Cult’ offers a rare exceedingly dark walk on the wild side as the speedster gets involved in a Chinatown Tong war and exposes the incredible secret of modern Mongol mastermind Mighty Kong…

Hibbard & Sharp collaborated on issue #23’s ‘A Millionaire’s Revenge’ wherein wealthy plutocrat Leffingwell Funk decides to avenge an imagined slight inadvertently delivered by a poor but happy man. The methodology is unique: beginning with engineering unsuspecting shoe store owner Jim Sewell’s inheritance of half a million dollars. It would have ended with leg-breaking thugs, disgrace and prison had not Jim counted Jay Garrick amongst his circle of friends…

Cover-dated Fall 1941, All-Flash Quarterly #2 (another all Fox/Hibbard co-production) kicks off with a spectacular all-action ‘Title Page’ and informative recap in ‘A Short History of the Flash’ before the creators ambitiously undertake a massive 4-chapter saga of vengeance and justice. In an era where story was paramount, this oddly time-skewed tale might jar slightly with modern continuity-freaks, spanning as it does nearly a lifetime in the telling, but trust me, just go with it…

‘The Threat: Part One – The Adventure of Roy Revenge!’ opens as brilliant young criminal Joe Connor is sentenced to ten years in jail and swears vengeance on DA Jim Kelley. The convict means it too, spending every waking moment inside improving himself educationally, becoming a trustee to foster the illusion of rehabilitation. On his release Connor befriends Kelley – who is currently pursuing a political career – and orchestrates the abduction of the lawyer’s newborn son. Years later a bold young thug dubbed Roy Revenge begins a campaign of terror against Mayor Jim Kelley which even Flash is hard-pressed to stop. When the bandit is at last apprehended, Kelley pushes hard to have the boy jailed, unaware of his biological connection to the savage youth. In the intervening years Connor had truly reformed – until his angelic wife died, leaving him to care for their little girl Ann and “adopted” son Roy. Without his wife’s influence, Connor again turns to crime and raises the stolen boy to hate his biological father…

‘The Flash Presents his Hall of Speed Records’ and ‘How to Develop Your Speed by the Flash’ break up the rolling melodrama before the saga continues in ‘The Threat: Part Two – Adventure of the Blood-Red Ray’ wherein Connor rises through ranks of the Underworld. He now plans to take over the country. Ann has grown up a decent and upstanding – if oblivious – citizen whose only weakness is her constant concealment of her bad brother Roy, who has been hiding from the law for years…

Even when the elder master criminal’s plan to destroy the Kelleys with a heat-ray is scotched by the Flash, the canny crook convinces the Speedster that he is merely a henchman and escapes the full force of justice…

‘The Threat: Part Three – The Wrecker Racket’ sees a new gang plaguing the city, led by a monstrous disfigured albino. No one realises this is Connor – who escaped custody by a method which physically ruined his body and only increased his hatred of Kelley. Locating Roy – who has since found peace in rural isolation – the malign menace again draws the young man into his maniacal schemes. When the boy nearly kills his “sister” Ann in pursuance of Connor’s ambitions, only the Flash can save the day, leading to a swathe of revelation and a shocking conclusion in ‘The Threat: Part Four – The End of the Threat’…

After that monumental generational saga this splendid selection closes with a full-on alien extravaganza from Flash Comics #24 as Garrick investigates a series of abductions and foils a madman’s plot to forcibly colonise the Red Planet. Unfortunately, when inventor Jennings and his gangster backer reach their destination with Jay a helpless prisoner, nobody expected the arid world to be already occupied by belligerent insectoids. Fox, Hibbard & Sharp’s ‘The Flash and the Spider-Man of Mars’ ends the book on a gloriously madcap, spectacular fantasy high note.

Amazing, exciting and quirkily captivating – even if not to many modern fans’ taste, the sheer exuberance, whimsical tone and constant narrative invention in these tales of a nerd who became a social crusader and justice-dispensing human meteor are addictively appealing, and with covers by Sharp, Sheldon Moldoff & Hibbard, this book is another utter delight for lovers of early Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy. Of course, with such straightforward thrills on show any reader with an open mind could find his opinion changed in a flash.
© 1941, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.