Category: Nostalgia

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Action Heroes Archive volume 1: Captain Atom & volume 2: Captain Atom, Blue Beetle & The Question


By Steve Ditko, Joe Gill, Gary Friedrich, Dave Kaler, Steve Skeates, Rocke Mastroserio, Frank McLaughlin, Al Milgrom, Roger Stern, John Byrne, Michael Uslan, Alex Toth, and various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0302-3 (HB vol. 1) 978-1-4012-1346-6 (HB vol. 2)

Clearly I’m cashing in on the pre-release hype around a new DC Cinema blockbuster here, but I take honest refuge and some comfort in the fact that these books and the stories they contain are actually germane as well as being some of the best Silver Age comics ever crafted… 

Despite being dead – and so very much missed – Steve Ditko remains comics’ most unique stylist. Love him or hate him, you can’t mistake his work for anyone else’s. His career began in the early 1950s and, depending on whether you’re a superhero fan or prefer deeper, more challenging experimental work, peaked in either the mid-1960s or 1970s.

Leaving the Avenging World, Mr. A and his other philosophically-derived creations for another time, the superhero crowd should heartily celebrate and clamour for new editions of these deluxe collections of the first costumed do-gooder that Ditko worked on. Although I’m a huge fan of his linework – which is always best served by monochrome printing – the crisp, sharp colour of these Archive editions is still much better than the appalling reproduction on bog-paper that first displayed Charlton Comics’ Atomic Ace and latterly the Bug Bombshell to the kids of Commie-obsessed America.

As discussed in the Foreword by historian and Ditko-expert Blake Bell, Action Heroes Archive volume 1: Captain Atom reveals – in all the full-on, simplistic furore of a 1950s B-Movie – how a Cold War-obsessed America copes with a modern-day miracle just as the concept of costumed superheroes was being reimagined…

With covers by Ditko and/or Mastroserio, this tome amasses pertinent tales from Space Adventures #33-40 & 42 (spanning cover-dates March 1960 to October 1961), augmented by the contents of the revived, solo-starring Captain Atom #78-82, as published for December 1965 through September 1966.

In those simpler times the short, terse adventures of Captain Atom seemed somehow more telling than the innovative yet rather anodyne DC fare, whilst Marvel was still pushing romances, westerns and monsters in underpants, explorers in pith helmets and citizen scientists with labs in their garden sheds. Their particular heroic revolution was still months away even though Steve Ditko was producing top-flight work for both companies.

Nevertheless, Ditko’s hero was different and we few who read him all knew it….

As scripted by Jo Gill and predating Fantastic Four #1 by more than 18 months, Space Adventures #33 even cover-featured the new sensation-in-waiting as ‘Introducing Captain Atom’ in a brief but vivid vignette, giving us a true American hero and man of his time before instantly killing him.

Captain Adam was an astronaut accidentally but literally atomised in a rocketry accident. Eerily – and the way it’s drawn spooked the short pants off me when I first read it all those years ago – he gradually reassembles himself on the launch pad…

Now blessed with astounding powers, he reports to the President (Eisenhower) and is swiftly kitted up in a protective outfit, allowing contact with normal, non-irradiated humans and reassigned as a masked superhero who will be the USA’s secret weapon…

Mostly written by or co-written with Joe Gill, the first wonderful, addictive run of 18 stories from Space Adventures #33-42 (and three of those were in fact drawn by uninspired, out-of-his-comfort zone Rocke Mastroserio) are a magnificent example of Ditko’s emerging mastery of mood, pacing, atmosphere and human dynamics.

In 1961, with Ditko increasingly doing more work for blossoming – and better paying – Marvel, Charlton killed the Captain Atom feature. However, when Dick Giordano jumped on the superhero bandwagon and created a costumed character line for Charlton in late 1965, the Captain was revived. Space Adventures was retitled, with Atom’s first full length issue numbered #78.

Since he was still drawing Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, Ditko could only manage pencils, so Mastroserio was recruited to ink the series, resulting in an oddly jarring finish. With #79, Ditko became lead writer too, and the stories took on an eccentric, compelling edge and tone, lifting them above much of the competition’s fare. Eventually the inker adapted to Ditko’s style and much of the ungainliness disappeared from the figurework, although so had the fine detail that had elevated the early art. This volume ends with issue #82, leaving six more published issues and a complete unpublished seventh for another time…

However, those early, Cold War-fired tales are a truly unique blend of action, tension and sheer whimsy which continued in Space Adventures #34 as ‘The 2nd Man in Space’ cheekily sees the magnanimous hero covertly undercut another Soviet space triumph by saving the USSR’s first cosmonaut from his defective capsule, whilst #35#s ‘The Little Wanderer’ finds him traversing the stars to rescue the spirit of an little boy inadvertently abducted by a well-meaning cosmic traveller…

A thermonuclear double bill graced #36, beginning with ‘The Wreck of X-44’, with a new craft detonating in space and leading Captain Atom to a deadly saboteur, after which ‘Captain Atom on Planet X’ finds him defending a US satellite from all-out attack by the dastardly ruthless Russians…

Geopolitics gives way to fantasy as #37 (December 1960) initially details a fusion-foiled invasion by ‘The Space Prowlers’ before a US probe to the second planet is scuttled by svelte space sirens who score ‘A Victory for Venus’ over the stounded atomic Earthman…

Two months later and the count climbed to three stories, beginning with ‘One Second of War’, wherein the Captain wrecks the doomsday missile attack of Dr. Claudius Jaynes, a suicidal maniac with his own atomic arsenal, before repeating the feat in ‘Backfire’ when a tin-pot dictator seeks to nuke the USA. The issue ends with ‘The Force Beyond’ as an alien entity tries to destroy the world with meteors before encountering our nuclear nemesis…

Space Adventures #39 begins with a ‘Test-Pilot’s Nightmare’ as arrogance threatens the life of a helpless jet jockey and Atom invisibly comes to the rescue after which Mastroserio limns ‘Peace Envoy’ with the energetic enigma turning back another alien invasion. Ditko is back for the final fling as Captain Adam goes undercover in Berlin (just before The Wall went up) to crush an espionage plot in ‘An Ageless Weapon’…

The atomic experiment was coming to a close. After #40’s ‘The Crisis’ – wherein the hero helps a diplomat call a tyrant’s bluff and ‘The Boy and the Stars’ features another Earth tot transported into the wondrous cosmos – the costumed heroics were absent the next issue.

Just as the FF was about to go big, Space Adventures #42 (October 1961) arrived and depleted all the inventory tales at once beginning with a brace of Mastroserio drawn yarns and one last tantalising Ditko masterpiece. ‘The Saucer Scare’ is yet another mediocre space war clash whilst ‘The Man in Saturn’s Moon’ sees the atomic ace hunting a Soviet dissent squirreled away by wicked commies. Those lesser efforts are utterly eclipsed by ‘The Silver Lady from Venus’ as another sexy extraterrestrial beguiles the humans of Earth before making a fool of the fiery champion…

And that was that the end until of 1965 when a global resurgence of costumed capers led to a new line at Charlton. Leading that charge came Captain Atom #78 (cover-dated December) when Gill & Ditko – with Mastroserio inking – revived the Atomic Adventurer in ‘The Gremlins from Planet Blue’. The genre had moved on in four years and the stripped-back, pared-down B-Movie feel of those early tales had evolved into a more uniquely fulsome and flamboyant affair for this particular extraterrestrial infiltration. Here were subplots and supporting cast to spare, as the hero foiled alien sabotage and mind control at Cape Kennedy, romancing Leah Jupe whilst her scientist father fell under the control of insidious infiltrators. There was even a new gadfly for Captain Adam in the grumpy form of martinet military man General Brill before ultimately saving Earth again…

In the next issue (February/March 1966), a true but tragic supervillain arrives in the series as ‘Captain Atom Faces Doctor Spectro, Master of Moods’ when a spy hunt brings the hero into the orbit of an embittered recluse seeking to master light and colour to revolutionise medicine. Sadly, sudden success tips him over the edge and his newfound abilities drive him even more crazy…

Apparently destroyed, the miscreant is soon forgotten when a wandering planetoid nears Earth and sounds the ‘Death Knell of the World’ (#80, Ditko, Gill & Mastroserio). Happily, the High Energy Hero is up to foiling a cosmic tyrant and liberating his captive satellite people before confronting ‘The Five Faces of Doctor Spectro’ as the misunderstood miscreant reappears in five prismatic pieces with a plethora of different plans but one overriding goal: pulling himself together and finally splitting this atom…

The hero hosts a quick fact feature drawn by Frank McLaughlin in ‘Captain Atom’s Secret’ before this initial outing ends with a magnificent step up in tension and quality. Issue #82 – cover-dated September 1966 and by Ditko with Dave Kaler & Mastroserio – debuts not just the series’ ultimate archfoe and a major story arc but also the company’s first female superhero.

With an enigmatic teleporting thief casually robbing the nation and the military of its wealth and top secrets, Captain Adam is sent undercover with mystery operative Nightshade in ‘Captain Atom vs. The Ghost’…

Their mission introduces sleek scoundrel Alec Rois, channels the spy craze of the era and hints at a vast conspiracy underpinning a threat to Earth and even finds time to see the heroes battle an army of thugs and save Fort Knox from bold bullion banditry…

Over half a decade pioneers Steve Ditko and Captain Atom and paved the way and lit a path to a revolution in comics storytelling and these early exploits were only the start…

 

Action Heroes volume 2: Captain Atom, Blue Beetle & The Question

A second – far longer – volume completes Ditko’s controversial Charlton Comics costumed hero contributions with the remainder of Captain Atom’s exploits, the introduction of a new Blue Beetle and debut of his uniquely iconic vigilante The Question.

Following an effusive and extremely informative Introduction by original Action Line inventor and editor Dick Giordano, Captain Atom #83 (November 1966) starts the ball rolling again with a huge blast of reconstructive character surgery.

Although ‘Finally Falls the Mighty!’ was inked by Mastroserio and scripted by relative newcomer Kaler, thematically it’s pure Ditko. Plotted and drawn by him, it sees an ungrateful public swiftly turn on the Atomic Ace, due to the manipulations of a former colleague turned cunning criminal.

Intended to tone down the character’s sheer omnipotence, the added approachable empathy-inducing humanity of malfunctioning powers made his struggles against treacherous Professor Koste all the more poignant.

Moreover, the sheer visual spectacle of his battle against a runaway reactor is some of Ditko’s most imaginative design and layout work. The tale ends on a cliffhanger – a real big deal when the comic came out every two months – and with the last 7 pages dedicated to debuting a new superhero with one of the oldest names in the business.

The Blue Beetle first appeared in Mystery Men Comics #1, released by Fox Comics and cover-dated August 1939. Created by Charles Nicholas (nee Wojtkowski) the character was inexplicably popular: surviving the collapse of numerous publishers before ending up as an acquired Charlton property in the mid-1950s. After releasing a few issues sporadically, Charlton shelved him until the superhero revival of the 1960s when Gill and latterly young Roy Thomas revised and revived the character for a combined 10-issue run (June 1964 – February 1966).

Here however, Ditko accepts but sets aside all that history to utterly recreate him. Ted Kord is an earnest young scientist with a secret tragedy in his past, which Ditko and scripter Gary Friedrich sagely forbear revealing in deference to intrigue and action, in a taut, captivating crime-thriller where the new hero displays his modus operandi by stopping a vicious crime-spree by the Killer Koke Gang.

This untitled short has all the classic elements of a Ditko masterpiece: outlandish intense, fight scenes, compact, claustrophobic yet dynamic layouts, innovative gimmickry and a clear-cut battle between Right and Wrong. It’s one of the very best introductory stories of a new hero anywhere in comics – and it’s 7 pages long…

The remodelling of the Atomic Ace concludes in the next issue with ‘After the Fall a New Beginning’. Once again Ditko rattled his authorial sabre about the fickleness of the public as the villainous Koste exposes the hero’s face on live TV. Escaping, Atom gets a new costume to match his curtailed powers …and consequently, a lot more drama drapes the series.

Now there is a definite feeling of no safety or status quo. The untitled Blue Beetle back-up (scripted by Friedrich with full art from Ditko) pits the new kid against a Masked Marauder, but the real kicker is the bombshell revelation that Homicide detective Fisher – investigating the disappearance of Dan Garrett – suspects a possible connection to Kord…

Whilst extending a running plot-line about the mysterious Ghost and his connection to a lost civilization of warrior women, ‘Strings of Punch and Jewelee’ introduces a couple of shady carnival hucksters who find a chest of esoteric alien weapons and use them for robbery. Although Cap and partner Nightshade are somewhat outclassed here, the vigour and vitality of the Blue Beetle is again undeniable as a mid-air hijack is foiled and a spy sub and giant killer octopus are given short shrift by the indomitable rookie crusader.

Captain Atom #86 finally brings the long-simmering plot-thread of tech thief The Ghost to a boil as the malevolent science-wizard goes on a rampage, totally trouncing Nightshade and our hero before being kidnapped by the aforementioned mystery maidens. ‘The Fury of the Faceless Foe! is by Ditko, Kaler & Mastroserio whilst in the (still) untitled Blue Beetle strip by Friedrich & Ditko, the cobalt crusader confronts a ruthless scientist/industrial spy he’s convinced he battled before…

This leads directly into the first issue of his own comic book. Blue Beetle #1 (cover-dated June 1967) is an all-Ditko masterpiece (even scripting it as “D.C. Glanzman”) with the hero in all-out action against a deadly gang of bandits. ‘Blue Beetle… Bugs the Squids’ is crammed with the eccentric vitality that made Amazing Spider-Man such a monster hit, with justice-dispensing joie de vivre balanced by the moody, claustrophobic introduction of Ditko’s most challenging mainstream superhero creation.

‘The Question’ is Vic Sage, a TV journalist with an uncompromising attitude to crime and corruption, employing an alter-ego of faceless, relentless retribution. In his premiere outing he exposes the link between his own employers’ self-righteous sponsors and gambling racketeer Lou Dicer. This theme of unflinching virtue in the teeth of both violent crime and pernicious peer and public pressure marked Ditko’s departure from straight entertainment towards philosophical – some would say polemical – examination of greater societal issues and the true nature of both Good and Evil that would culminate in his controversial Mr. A, Avenging World and other independent ventures.

In Captain Atom #87 (August 1967), ‘The Menace of the Fiery-Icer’ presaged the beginning of the end for the Atomic Ace as Kaler, Ditko & Mastroserio dialled back on plot threads to deliver a visually excellent but run-of-the-mill yarn about a spy ring with a hot line in cold-blooded leaders.

Blue Beetle #2 however – another all-Ditko affair from the same month – showed the master at his peak. Lead story ‘The End is a Beginning!’ at last reveals the origin of the character as well as the fate of Dan Garrett, and even advances Kord’s relationship with his assistant Tracey. The enigmatic Question, meanwhile, tackles flying burglar The Banshee in a vertiginous, moody thriller reminiscent of early Doctor Strange strips.

Frank McLaughlin joins as inker for a satisfying no-nonsense escapist romp ‘Ravage of Ronthor’ (Captain Atom #88, October 1967), as the hero answers a distress call from space to preserve a paradise planet from marauding giant bugs. Blue Beetle #3 was another superbly satisfying read, as the eponymous hero routes malevolent, picturesque thugs ‘The Madmen’ in a sharp parable about paranoia and misperception. Equally captivating is the intense and bizarre Question vignette wherein a murderous ghostly deep-sea diver stalks some shady captains of industry…

Cover-dated December 1967, issue #89 was the last Captain Atom published by Charlton: an early casualty of the burn-out afflicting the superhero genre and leading to a resurrected horror and mystery craze. This resurrected genre would form a new backbone for the company’s 1970’s output; one where Ditko would shine again in his role as master of short story horror.

Scripter Kaler satisfactorily ties up most of the hanging plot threads with the warrior women of Sunuria in sci-fi-meets-witchcraft thriller ‘Thirteen’, although the Ditko/McLaughlin art team was nowhere near top form.

The next episode promised a final ‘Showdown in Sunuria’, but never materialized…

Blue Beetle #4 (released the same month) is visually the best of the bunch as Kord follows a somehow-returned Dan Garrett to an Asian backwater in pursuit of lost treasure and a death cult. ‘The Men of the Mask’ is pure strip poetry and bombastic action, cunningly counterbalanced by a seedy underworld thriller as the Question seeks to discover who gave the order to ‘Kill Vic Sage!’ Scripted by Steve Skeates (as Warren Savin) it was the last action any Charlton hero saw for the better part of a year…

Then, cover-dated October 1968, The Question returned as the star of Mysterious Suspense #1, with Ditko producing a captivating cover and three-chapter thriller (with Mastroserio providing a rather jarring full-page frontispiece). ‘What Makes a Hero?’ (probably rescued from partially completed inventory material) sees crusading Vic Sage pilloried by the public, abandoned by friends and abandoned by his employers yet resolutely sticking to his higher principles in pursuit of hypocritical villains masquerading as pillars of the community. Ditko’s interest in Ayn Rand’s philosophical Objectivism had become increasingly important to him and this story is arguably the dividing line between his “old” and “new” work. It’s also the most powerful and compelling piece in this entire book.

A month later one final issue of Blue Beetle (#5) was published. ‘The Destroyer of Heroes’ is a decidedly quirky tale featuring a nominal team-up of the azure avenger and the Question as a frustrated artist defaces heroic and uplifting paintings and statues. Ditko’s committed if reactionary views of youth culture, which so worried Stan Lee, are fully on view in this charged, absorbing tale.

Other material had been created and languished incomplete in editorial limbo. In the early 1970s a burgeoning and committed fan-base created fanzine Charlton Portfolio. With the willing assistance of the company, a host of kids who would soon become household names in their own right found a way to bring the lost work to the public gaze. Their efforts are also included here, in monochrome as they originally appeared.

For Charlton Portfolio #9 and 10 (1974), the unreleased Blue Beetle #6 was serialized. ‘A Specter is Haunting Hub City!’ is another all-Ditko extravaganza, pitting the hero against an (almost) invisible thief. Follow-up magazine Charlton Bullseye (1975) finally published ‘Showdown in Sunuria’ in its first two issues.

Behind an Al Milgrom Captain Atom cover, Kaler’s plot was scripted by Roger Stern (working as Jon G. Michels) and Ditko’s pencils were inked by rising star John Byrne – a cataclysmic climax almost worth the 8-year wait. But even there, the magic doesn’t end in this magnificent Archive volume.

Charlton Bullseye #5 (1975) offers one last pre-DC tale of The Question: 8 gripping, intense and beautiful pages plotted by Stern, scripted by Michael Uslan and illustrated by the legendary Alex Toth. This alone is worth the price of admission.

These weighty snapshots from another era are packed with classic material by brilliant craftsmen. They are books no Ditko addict, serious fan of the genre or lover of graphic adventure can afford to be without. It’s impossible to describe the grace, finesse, and unique eclectic shape of Steve Ditko’s art. It must be experienced, and this is as good a place to start as any. It’s just a shame DC have let these tales languish so long, but hopefully the power of Hollywood will induce a revival…
© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1976, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Shazam! The Golden Age of the World’s Mightiest Mortal


By Bill Parker & C.C. Beck, Roscoe Fawcett, Marcus Swayze, Pete Costanza, Otto Binder, Jack Binder, Mac Raboy, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Chad Grothkopf, Kurt Schaffenberger, and many & various: compiled & written by Chip Kidd and photographed by Geoff Spear (Abrams ComicArts/Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)
ISBN: 978-0-8109-9596-3 (2010 HB) 978-1-4197-3747-3 (2019 PB)

One of the most venerated and beloved characters in American comics was devised by Bill Parker & Charles Clarence Beck as part of a wave of opportunistic creativity following Superman’s debut in 1938. Although there were many similarities in the early years, the Fawcett Comics character moved swiftly and solidly into the realm of light entertainment -and even broad comedy – whilst, as the 1940s progressed the Man of Steel increasingly put whimsy aside in favour of action and drama.

Homeless orphan and thoroughly good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to battle injustice: granted the powers of six gods and mythical heroes. By speaking aloud the mage’s name – an acronym for the patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury – Billy transformed from scrawny boy to brawny adult Captain Marvel.

At the height of his popularity, “the Big Red Cheese” significantly outsold The Man of Steel – published twice monthly and topping 14 million copies per month. Before eventually evolving his own affable personality the full-grown hero was a serious, bluff and rather characterless powerhouse, whilst alter ego Billy was the true star: a Horatio Alger archetype of impoverished, resourceful, boldly self-reliant youth overcoming impossible odds through gumption, grit and sheer determination…

However, as the decade moved on, tastes changed and sales slowed. A court case begun in 1941 by National Comics contesting copyright infringement was settled. Like many other superheroes, Cap disappeared, reduced to a fond memory for older fans. A big syndication success, he was missed all over the world…

In Britain, a reprint line had run for many years, so creator/publisher Mick Anglo had an avid audience and no product. His solution was to reimagine the franchise with atomic age hero Marvelman and Co. continuing to thrill readers well into the 1960s.

As America experienced another superhero boom-&-bust, the 1970s dawned with a shrinking industry and wide variety of comics genres servicing a base increasingly dependent on collectors and fans rather than casual or impulse buyers. DC needed sales and were prepared to look for them in unlikely places. Following a 1953 court settlement with Fawcett, DC ultimately secured the rights to Captain Marvel, his spun-off extended Family and attendant strips and characters.

Despite the actual name having been taken by Marvel Comics (via a circuitous route and quirky robotic hero published by Carl Burgos and M.F. Publications in 1967), the home of Superman opted for tapping into that discriminating, if aging, fanbase. In 1971, they licensed the dormant rights to the character stable (only fully buying them out in 1991) and two years later, riding a wave of national nostalgia on TV and in movies, DC resurrected and relaunched the entire beloved cast in their own kinder, weirder, completely segregated and separate universe.

To circumvent intellectual property clashes, they named the new/old title Shazam! (‘With One Magic Word…’): the unforgettable trigger phrase used by the majority of Marvels to transform to and from mortal form and a word that had entered the American language thanks to the success of the franchise (especially an excellent movie serial) the first time around.

Issue #1 carried a February 1973 cover-date and generated mixed reviews and unconvincing sales, but was pushed hard by DC. It even briefly scored the big prize in the publisher’s eyes. Adapted as live action Saturday morning TV series Shazam!, it ran three season (28 episodes) from 7th September 1974 to October 1976…

The comics are universally welcoming and wonderful and you should read them all, but we’re looking at a different aspect of the phenomenon here. Like any multi-media property, the Marvel Family franchise spawned tons of merchandise and this compendium sublimely showcases those tantalising collectables and examples of ephemera from the first 14 years – 1940-1953.

Most gems reproduced here come from the truly enviable personal collection of Harry Matesky as photographed by Geoff Spear (Batman Collected, The Peanuts Poster Collection, Mythology: The DC Art of Alex Ross). The multi-media melange is compiled, arranged and curated by frequent collaborator and acme and everyman of design fascinations and armchair indolences Chip Kidd (Cheese Monkeys, Batman: Death by Design, Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts, Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design, Batmanga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits).

This celebration of comics’ true magic was first released in 2010 as an epic oversized (235 x 310mm) hardback jam-packed with 3D cutaways, gatefolds and other print technology “bells & whistles”, and re-released in paperback (260 x 190mm) to tie-in with the first modern Shazam movie in 2019.

It’s a virtual wonderland for anyone who’s still a kid inside (AKA all men), overflowing with letters from the Captain Marvel Club, dynamic blow-ups of key characters such as Dr Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, classic covers, early toys, models, games, action figures and even candid shots of happy kids in their Captain and Mary Marvel costumes.

In its heyday, the Captain Marvel Club boasted a membership topping 400,000, serviced by a steady stream of priceless – and exclusive – tat to acquire: buttons, watches, key chains, paper rockets, tin toys, figurines, clothing, patches, transfers and more. Its inclusive and commercially canny model was repeated by later stars like Mary Marvel and others.

These feature amidst a wealth of mouth-watering displays of old comics, covers, original art, movie posters, apparel, toys, games and far rarer items – like Fawcett’s outreach material for potential manufacturers and merchandising partners and in-house writing guidelines.

Publishing house Fawcett first gained prominence through an immensely well-received light entertainment magazine for WWI veterans. From Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang they branched out into books and general interest magazines. Most successful publication – at least until Batson hit his stride – was ubiquitous boy’s building/activity bible Mechanix Illustrated. As the 1940s unfolded, scientific and engineering discipline and can-do demeanour underpinning MI suffused and informed both art and plots of Marvel Family titles.

On show here are long-lost treats like the Captain Marvel Magic Whistle (complete with packaging), secret codes and decoders, the Captain Marvel Magic Membership Card, gewgaws and gimcracks, house ads, prize competitions and editorials, interspersed with a terse but informative history of the company, the creators, characters and entire beguiling phenomenon,

The star and his spin-offs sparked a huge campaign of coordinated ancillary merchandising, especially once the Big Red Cheese made a spectacular leap to the silver screen in 12-part chapter play The Adventures of Captain Marvel. That luminous landmark provides some rousing stills featuring star Tom Tyler as the Good Captain…

As detailed in ‘Hey Kids! See Capt. Marvel in the Movies’, in 1940 Republic Pictures reached out to Detective Comics Incorporated with the notion of turning Superman into a movie serial. No deal was struck and a year later Republic catapulted Fawcett’s big gun onto screens and into history. This essay is augmented by biographies, lobby cards, posters from many countries, contemporary ads and write-ups from magazines and comics of the period.

The only complete comics yarn included here is a corker. In the formative years as the feature rocketed to the first rank of superhero superstars, there was a scramble to fill pages. Following his Whiz Comics residency and epic one-shot Special Edition Comics, the indomitable innocent was promoted to his own solo title, but with Beck and his studio overstretched, Captain Marvel Adventures #1 (cover-dated March 1941, and on sale from January 17th) was farmed out to up-and-coming whiz-kids Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. With inker Dick Briefer they produced the entire issue in a hurry from Beck and Parker’s guides. Apparently they did it in two weeks whilst finalising the launch of Captain America…

‘Captain Marvel versus Z’ remains a visually impressive action-drama with the irrepressible Sivana creating a hulking android brute designed to be the Captain’s equal. Despite numerous clashes and subsequent upgrades, after one last brutal knock-down, drag-out, Kirby-co-ordinated dust-up, it is apparent that Z isn’t…

The hero soon spawned sidekicks and assistants aplenty. The two most successful were Captain Marvel Junior and Mary Marvel who each have their own sections, replete with merch and memorabilia – both American made and from syndicating publishers who reprinted them around the world. There are also short sections devoted to other Fawcett stars Spy Smasher (who also had a Republic movie serial and club – the “Victory Battalion”) and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.

Toys, stationary, puzzles and games include Captain Marvel Lightning Racing Cars (glorious tin toys!), Captain and Mary Marvel Wristwatches (plus ads and packaging), keychains, a Captain Marvel Fun Kit, Helicopter and Power Siren (“world’s mightiest whistle!”). There are images of Captain Marvel’s Radar Racer, Rocket Raider and Magic Eyes (all with some assembly required); a compass-ring, Shazam board game, 3-D Magic Picture, a jigsaw, paper “punch-out book, and ceramic figurines ready to illuminate in the Captain Marvel Adventures in Paint set.

Throwable toy Hoppy the FLYING Marvel Bunny also needs assembling before launch, as does his Musical Evening Miracle Toy of Today, and there are examples of ultra-rare velveteen stuffed dolls of both the rabbit and his human inspiration…

As well as painting and colouring books, pencils, plastic statuettes, buzz bomb paper planes and Christmas tree decorations, are projects and covers from all across the globe, like lead figures and assorted Pre-Mick Anglo comics from Britain, plus a (gloriously painted) trading card set from Spain. There’s even a bootleg trading card album set from Havana, Cuba, based on the 1941 Republic serial.

Ready to wear items include novelty shirts, braces, neckties and a cape; bean bags, tie-clips, beanie-hats, vinyl saddlebag, bike/wall pennants, “overseas style” hats and caps, skin tattoo and iron-on tee-shirt transfers, illustrated soap (!?), numerous Premium postcards, patches and badges with even Billy and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny proudly included amongst the regular costumed heroes…

Leasing his fame, the Captain appears in strip ads for Coola Cola and other salient sales points (illustrated by Costanza) and proudly confirms his patriotic zeal via many inspirational war-time covers and with the Comics Canteen! packs (comics distributed gratis by Fawcett to US servicemen in 1942).

The titanic tome terminates with an examination of the end as ‘Twilight of the Golden Age’ reveals details of the court settlement, and reviews extracts from trial transcripts.

All items cited here are merely the tip of an iceberg of fabulous stuff no fan could resist, and an evocation to the simple pleasure of youth, making this book an unparalleled package of pure weaponised nostalgia impossible to resist. So don’t…
© 2010, 2019 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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The Newsboy Legion by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby volume Two


By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby with Don Cameron, Joe Samachson, Ed Herron, Arturo Cazeneuve, Curt Swan, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert & others (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7236-4 (HB/Digital edition)

Just as the Golden Age of comics was beginning, two young men with big dreams met up and began a decades-long association that was always intensely creative, immensely productive and spectacularly in tune with popular tastes. As kids they had both sold newspapers on street-corners to help their families survive the Great Depression…

Joe Simon was a sharp-minded, talented guy with 5 years’ experience in “real” publishing; working from the bottom up to become art director on a succession of small papers – such as the Rochester Journal American, Syracuse Herald and Syracuse Journal American – before moving to New York City to freelance as an art/photo retoucher and illustrator. Recommended by his boss, Simon joined Lloyd Jacquet’s pioneering Funnies Inc. This was a production “shop”: a conveyor belt of eager talent generating strips and characters for numerous publishing houses eager to cash in on the success of Action Comics and its stellar attraction Superman.

Within days, Simon created The Fiery Mask for Martin Goodman of Timely Comics (now Marvel) and met Jacob Kurtzberg, a cartoonist and animator just hitting his stride with the Blue Beetle for the Fox Feature Syndicate.

Together, Simon and Kurtzberg (who went through many pen-names before settling on Jack Kirby) enjoyed a stunning creative empathy and synergy: galvanizing an already electric neo-industry with a vast catalogue of features and even sub-genres.

They produced influential monthly Blue Bolt, rushed out Captain Marvel Adventures #1 for Fawcett and – after Martin Goodman appointed Simon editor at Timely – created a host of iconic characters such as Red Raven, the first Marvel Boy, Hurricane, The Vision, Young Allies and million-selling mega-hit Captain America.

Famed for his larger-than-life characters and colossal cosmic imaginings, “King” Kirby was an astute, spiritual hard-working family man who lived through poverty, gangsterism and the Depression. He loved his work, hated chicanery of every sort and saw a big future for the comics industry…

When Goodman failed to make good on his financial obligations, Simon & Kirby jumped ship to industry leader National/DC, who welcomed them with open arms and open chequebook. The pair were initially an uneasy fit, bursting with ideas the staid company were not comfortable with and thus given two strips that were in the doldrums until they found their creative feet…

Turning both around Sandman and Manhunter virtually overnight and – once established and left to their own devices – went on to devise the “Kid Gang” genre (technically, it was “recreating” as the notion was one of the duo’s last innovations for Timely as seen in 1941’s Young Allies). The result was unique and trendsetting juvenile Foreign Legion The Boy Commandos.

The little warriors began by sharing the spotlight with Batman in flagship publication Detective Comics, but before long they won their own accompanying solo title – which promptly became one of the company’s top three sellers. Frequently cited as the biggest-selling US comic book in the world at that time – Boy Commandos was such a success that the editors, painfully aware that the Draft was lurking, green-lit the completion of extra material to lay away for when their star creators were called up.

S&K assembled a creative team that generated so many stories in a phenomenally short time that publisher Jack Liebowitz then suggested they retool some of it into adventures of a second kid gang…

Thus was born The Newsboy Legion and super-heroic mentor The Guardian…

Probably based on the Our Gang/Little Rascals film shorts (1922-1944) and pitched halfway between a surly comedy grotesques and charmingly naive ragamuffins, the Newsboy Legion comprised four ferociously independent orphans living together on the streets of “Suicide Slum” peddling papers to survive. Earnest, good-looking Tommy Tompkins, garrulous genius Big Words, diminutive, hyper-active chatterbox Gabby and feisty, pugnacious Scrapper – whose Brooklyn-based patois and gutsy belligerence usually stole the show – were all headed for a bad end until somebody extraordinary entered their lives…

Their exploits offered a bombastic blend of crime thriller and comedy caper, leavened with dynamic superhero action and usually seen from a kid’s point of view. The series debuted in Star-Spangled Comics #7, forcing Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy off the covers and to the back of the book. The Legion remained lead feature until the end of 1946 when, without fanfare or warning, issue #65 was published without them.

The lads had been ousted and replaced by solo tales of Robin, the Boy Wonder. His own youth-oriented solo series subsequently ran all the way to SSC #130 in 1952, by which time superhero romps had largely been supplanted throughout the industry by general genre tales.

This second superb collection concludes their Golden Age exploits, with tales from Star-Spangled Comics #33-64 (cover-dated June 1944 – January 1947), including every stunning cover by Kirby, Simon, Fred Ray and teenager Gil Kane all inked by Arturo Cazeneuve, John Daly, Steve Brodie, George Roussos & Stan Kaye. There’s also an informative Introduction from The Jack Kirby Collector/Two Morrows’ publishing guru John Morrow setting the scene for the fun that follows…

In the very first tale, rookie cop Jim Harper adopted a superhero alter ego to administer hands-on justice when The Law was not enough. His vigilantism resulted in the capture of an infamous kidnap ring. Newspapers dubbed the mysterious hero the Guardian of Society and sold like hotcakes on all street corners, making money for even the poorest junior entrepreneurs.

Harper initially had no intention of repeating his foray into vigilantism but when he caught Tommy, Big Words, Gabby and Scrapper shoplifting, his life changed forever. The tough little monkeys were headed for reform school, but he made an earnest plea for clemency on their behalf and the judge appointed him their responsible adult: their “guardian”.

“The Newsboy Legion” were set on a righteous path, but their suspicions were aroused. Frustratingly, no matter how hard they tried, the boys could never prove that their two Guardians were the same guy…

With tales of the war declining in popularity, Star Spangled Comics #33 opens this concluding compilation with ‘The Case of the Bashful Bride!’ Regular illustrator Arturo Cazeneuve limns a fast-paced but uncredited yarn as gangster Sloppy Sam seemingly hangs up his gat after marrying into money. The nosy kids simply can’t accept the transformation and their poking around soon uncovers a cunning plot, cruel criminality and just a hint of hilarious hoity-toity crossdressing behind the scheme…

Naturally, by the time they’re in over their heads, Harper has again swapped his badge and gun for golden helmet and shield to wrap up the case…

The boys’ lives were peppered by dozens of get-rich-quick notions that inevitably uncovered crimes and unleashed chaos. In ‘From Rags to Ruin!’ (#34, by Cazeneuve, July 1944), Gabby discovers the power of positive thinking and talks himself into a high-paying executive position at an insurance company. His dream sours after discovering he’s the figurehead – and fall guy – for a protection racket. Time to call in some old pals…

Still calling himself Eli Katz, future superstar Gil Kane illustrated #35’s ‘The Proud Poppas!’ as the Newsboys adopt a homeless orphan fleeing a cruel and repressive institution. Peter wants to be an artist and gleefully moves into the Boys’ orbit – and shack – but his rightful carers desperately want him back and ruthless kidnappers now know who he is and where he’s hiding…

Cazeneuve returned for ‘The Cowboy of Suicide Slum!’ as grizzled former western sheriff Hawkeye Hawkins of Howlin’ Gulch comes Back East to see the sights. The Legion are all beguiled by his tall tales and before long hip-deep in trouble after they convince the ornery coot to display his talents by going after local gang boss Little Dodo…

After saving a swell from bullies in the slum, Scrapper is offered an apprenticeship by the city’s top gem cutter in ‘Diamonds in the Rough!’ However, as a business prone to criminality, the benefactor expects the fisty firebrand to protect his hands and quit fighting…

When workmen fixing waterpipes trigger a crude oil gusher in Suicide Slum, everybody wants to cash in whilst the toffs in swanky Doughbilt Apartments don’t want their views ruined by derricks. Into that bubbling cauldron of trouble come opportunists; crooks too, so it’s not long until The Guardian and the Legion discover what’s actually going on in ‘Roll Out the Barrels’…

Steve Brodie begins inking Cazeneuve in #39’s ‘Two Guardians Are a Crowd!’ (December 1944) as a crooked doppelganger plays hob with the hero’s reputation and the boys’ conviction of Harper’s double life – until the inevitable face-off – after which notorious thief Danny the Dip bids ‘Farewell to Crime!’ by writing a tell-all memoir. When the kids get involved, it’s exposed as less a confession and more perjury and blame-shifting, leading to the Guardian getting truth – and justice – his way…

When a criminal set fires and create street accidents to tie up first responders in ‘Time Out for the Guardian!’, cop Harper is among the injured. Mistakenly diagnosed with a broken leg, he uses the mistake to convince his wards that the superhero is another guy when they go after the culprits. However, they are just young, not idiots…

In #42, the Legion discovers ‘The Power of the Press!’ when they produce a grassroots periodical going after crooks at ground level. It’s good enough to get them framed by malign mastermind The Undertaker until good old Jim steps in, before the boys test their musical chops in a (naturally fixed and wildly comedic) barbershop quartet singing competition designed to expose the ‘Trials of a Tenor!’

Misguided philanthropy and unthinking privilege steer Ethelreda Winkle and her nephew Cuthbert when the daft dowager sets up an institute to elevate the poor by teaching them proper manners in ‘Etiquette Comes to Suicide Slum!’ With thieves flocking in to improve their chances of better scores, Harper asks the Newsboys to get with the program and learns all is not as seems, after which ‘Crime Gets Clipped!’ finds the lads setting up a …news-gathering “clipping service” and catching a vain bigshot plundering the city’s banks…

‘Clothes Make the Criminal!’ finds the kids on the trail of crooks using a selection of stolen uniforms and costumes to commit outrages before Jim and the boys again prove they have the right stuff…

With George Roussos inking Cazeneuve, ‘The Triumph of Tommy!’ sees the bold Newsboy gunned down by a robber. To recuperate, he’s carted off to Camp Woko-ni-to (“for underprivileged children of the slums”) by his doctor, and when his comrades visit, it sparks another fight when Tommy spots the thug who shot him laying low. Meanwhile, The Guardian has been following another trail and pops up just when he’s most needed…

‘Booty and the Blizzard!’ is one of the few stories we know the writer of. Don Cameron scripts for Cazeneuve & Roussos as an icy cold snap cuts off Suicide Slum and the industrious boys shovel out a network of tunnels for fellow residents trapped behind ten feet of hard-packed snow. Too bad it’s also an ideal escape route for wily bank bandits, until the Guardian learns to ski…

The same creative team measure out ‘One Ounce to Victory!’ as a scrap paper drive gets hyper-competitive when the Newsboys compete with rival news peddlers the Hawker Street Hawks. As if bitter enmity isn’t enough, the effort is made more dangerous after recently released convict Tightlips Leo hides the map to his stashed loot in one of those collected paper piles and resorts to murderous means to retrieve it…

Cover-dated November 1945, Star Spangled #50 features Joe Samachson, Joe Kubert & Roussos adding a flash of film fantasy in ‘The Leopard Man Changes his Spots!’ Here the boys help a meek movie star specialising in monsters channel his inner hero and escape the clutches of a racketeering mobster.

Another industrious enterprise transforms into a means of corralling crooks when the boys start a second-hand apparel business. Naturally, any way to help poor folk advance draws cunning connivers with a perfidious plan, but ‘The Style Show of Suicide Slum’ (Cameron & Kubert) also triggers a wicked comedy of errors when the ugliest jacket on Earth (concealing a fortune in stolen cash) is inadvertently passed from one ungrateful recipient to the next…

Cameron, Cazeneuve & Brodie reunite for #52’s ‘Rehearsal for a Crime!’ as Gabby breaks into an abandoned theatre and mistakes a practise run for robbery for a new play pre-debut. When he comes back with his pals they are all captured and it’s up to Harper to seek them out, shut them down and save the day…

Kirby returned in the next issue where Gabby won a jingle contest – and $500 – and pursued a career in rhyme as ‘The Poet of Suicide Slum!’ (script by Cameron and inked by Brodie). His delusions and propensity for naming gangsters and their plans in his odes soon made him a target for early immortality… until The Guardian applied his own brand of two-fisted criticism…

Another acknowledgement of the rise in western themes informs ‘Dead-Shot Dade’s Revenge!’ (by an uncredited writer, Kirby & Brodie) as a spiky relic of pioneer days drives his “prairie schooner” into Suicide Slum. He’s come 2000 miles in pursuit of Gaspipe Gosser, who stole Dade’s life savings, and it’s all The Guardian can do to stop the old coot shooting him dead like a dawg just to see him drop…

Happily, Gosser’s guilt triggers a pre-emptive strike that gives the hero all he needs to put the thug away, after which Curt Swan & Jack Farr depict how ‘Gabby Strikes a Gusher!’ He had been tending his vegetable garden when he discovered oil, but just as he looks into setting up a company, the thugs who originally stole the stuff came calling…

Cooking for the Newsboys was done on a strict rota basis, with dealer’s choice the prime consideration. When Gabby accidentally came into possession of oysters dropped by fleet-footed Willy Wetsell, he thought it solved his problem of what the gang would eat that night.

Instead, each mollusc contained a superb, huge fully processed Arabian pearl and Jim Harper realised that this ‘Treasure of Araby’ (art by Kirby & Ray Burnley) was far more than chance and not in the least lucky…

Kirby & John Daly limned Star Spangled Comics #57’s cunning shocker as mobster Snake Huggins resolved to fix the interfering brats for good. His plan was to hit him at his weakest point and resulted in ‘A Recruit for the Legion!’ but wealthy Timothy Tuck was not what he seemed and proved a far bigger threat that he looked…

Kirby handled exotic diversion ‘Matadors of Suicide Slum!’ as the boys befriend elderly janitor Perez and hear rousing tales of his glory days in the bullrings of Mexico. Coincidentally, Yankee businessmen are trying to bring the bloody sport to Suicide Slum, leading to a decades-delayed concluding duel between the man and his nemesis El Diabolo. Only, it’s not quite as they recalled or any onlooker quite expected…

From sentimental slapstick, we turn to criminal mystery in Kirby’s Daly inked ‘Answers, Inc.!’ (#59, August 1946) wherein Tommy cashes in on an unsuspected gift for solving riddles, puzzles and general knowledge quizzes. Although he’s smart, he’s still a kid though and when a cunning cove poses a pithy conundrum, Tommy hands over a method for a foolproof heist. Happily, jaded, cynical Jim Harper is on hand to ask his own difficult questions whilst The Guardian is ready to answer them…

Ed Herron, Swan and Stan Kaye then detail a whimsical winner as Scrapper seeks to become ‘Steve Brodie Da Second!’ to one-up friendly rivals the Boy Commandos. The Brodie in question is not the inker, but the turn of the century sportsman who claimed to have survived jumping off the East River Bridge. Here, however, Scrapper’s idiotic emulation ends when he jumps right into a gangster’s secret submarine, and silly season stunt escalates to front page crime caper…

Swan & Kaye then continued the new trend for stunts as Guardian’s pursuit of a crook leads to a syndicate dictating the demise of him and the Newsboy Legion under the pretence of sponsoring them in ‘The Great Balloon Race!’ across America, after which ‘Prevue of Tomorrow’ sees a mysterious stranger spark chaos by handing out papers offering news from 24 hours into the future. Of course for our heroes forewarned is simply forearmed…

Brodie inked Swan on penultimate outing ‘Code of the Newsstand!’ as the boys visit Chinatown just as Harper enters the enclave to find escaped convict Stiletto Mike. Of course, they are first to find the felon but it’s The Guardian who has the last word… and punch.

Cover-dated January 1947, Star Spangled Comics #64 closed the Newsboy Legion’s eclectic run with ‘Criminal Cruise!’ wherein Swan & Brodie had the kids literally sailing off into the sunset after winning an all-inclusive holiday to the South Seas. Naturally, trouble followed with lost tickets, stowaways and a gang of jewel thieves spicing up the voyage…

And that was that for almost 25 years, until Kirby brought them back in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 (October 1970), spearheading his mega revitalisation of DC’s continuity – but let’s talk of that another day…

There is a glorious abundance of Jack Kirby material available these days: true testament to his influence and legacy, with this magnificent and compelling collection in collaborations with fellow pioneer Joe Simon being another gigantic box of delights perfectly illustrating the depth, scope and sheer thundering joy of the early days of comics. Funny, thrilling and ideally accessing simpler days, this is a treat every fan should enjoy and share.
© 1944, 1945, 1946, 2017 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman: The First Jewish Superhero


By Jerome Siegel & Joe Shuster with Thomas Andrae, Mel Gordon & various (Feral House)
ISBN: 978-1-932595-78-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

The comics industry owes an irredeemable debt to two talented and ambitious Jewish kids from Cleveland in the right place at the right time who were able to translate their enthusiasm and heartfelt affection for beloved influences and delight in a new medium into a brand-new genre which took the world by storm.

Writer Jerome Siegel and artist Joe Shuster were a jobbing cartoonist team just breaking into the brand-new yet already-ailing comicbook business with strips such as ‘Henri Duval’, Doctor Occult and Slam Bradley. Thanks to editorial visionary Sheldon Mayer, they hastily rejigged a frequently rejected newspaper strip concept for an upcoming new title and manifested the greatest action sensation of the age – if not all time…

Superman captivated depression-era audiences and within a year had become the vanguard of a genre and an industry. In those early days, the feature was both whimsical and bombastic – as much gag strip as adventure serial – and it was clear the utterly inspired whiz kids were wedded to laughs just as much as any wish-fulfilling empowerment fantasies.

As even the most casual scholar knows, Siegel & Shuster were not well-served by their publishers and by 1946 no longer worked for National Periodicals (today’s DC Comics). In fact, they were in acrimonious litigation which led to the originators losing all rights to their creation and suffering years of ill-treatment until an artist-led campaign at the time of the 1978 Superman movie shamed the company into a belated reversal and financial package (consisting mostly of having their names returned to the character’s logo and company medical benefits).

Long before this however, the dynamic duo produced an abortive “Last Hurrah”: another unique character based on early influences, but one who sadly did not catch the public’s attention in those post war years when the first super-heroic age was ending.

Based broadly on performing sensation Danny Kaye, Funnyman was a stand-up comedian dressed as a clown who used comedy gimmicks to battle criminals, super-villains and aliens: initially in 6 issues of his own comic book and thereafter as a Daily/Sunday newspaper strip.

A complete antithesis to the Man of Steel, Larry Davis was a total insider, no orphan or immigrant, but a wealthy, successful man, revered by society, yet one who chose to become a ridiculous outsider, fighting for not the common good but because it gave him a thrill nothing else could match. The series was light, beautifully audacious, tremendous fun and sank like a concrete-filled whoopee cushion.

Here social historians Thomas Andrae and Mel Gordon carefully re-examine the strip in the much broader context of Jewish Identity and racial character, with particular reference as it applies to Jewish-Americans, and make some fascinating observations and postulates.

Following an intriguing preface by author, writer, editor and comics historian Danny Fingeroth, this book assiduously dissects the history and psychology of the Judaic experience in a compelling series of astoundingly illustrated essays gathered under the umbrellas of Gordon’s ‘The Farblondjet Superhero and his Cultural Origins’ and Andrae’s ‘The Jewish Superhero’.

The former (and Farblondjet translates as “mixed up” or “lost”) probes ‘The Mystery of Jewish Humor’, ‘The Construct of Humor in Everyday Jewish Life’, ‘The Old Theories: Laughter-Through-Tears’; ‘A Laughing People’; ‘Outside Observer’ and ‘The Badkhn Theory’ (Badkhn being performers hired to insult, offend and depress guests and celebrants at social gatherings such as weddings or funerals).

‘Characteristics of Modern Jewish Humor’ are subdivided and explored in ‘Aggression’, ‘The Yiddish Language’, ‘Self-Mockery’, ‘Inversion and Skepticism’, ‘Scatology’, ‘Gallows Humor’ and ‘Solipsism and Materialism’ before Gibson’s compelling, contextual potted-history concludes with ‘American-Jewish Comedy Before 1947’ (the year Funnyman debuted), ‘Weber and Fields’, ‘On the Boards’, ‘The Borscht Belt’, ‘Cartoons and Jokebooks’ and ‘Hollywood Talkies and Syndicated Radio’.

Then, in ‘The Jewish Superhero’ Andrae examines Siegel & Shuster’s possible influences; everything from German expressionist cinema masterpiece The Golem: How He Came into This World to real-life strongman Sigmund Breitbart, a Polish Jew who astounded the world with his feats in the early 1920s. On his American tour Sigmund appeared in Cleveland in October 1923. Siegel, a local resident, would have been 9 years old – which as everyone knows is the actual “golden age of comics”…

‘Funnyman, Jewish Masculinity and the Decline of the Superhero’ explores the psychology and landscape of the medium through the careers and treatment of Siegel & Shuster in ‘The Birth of Funnyman’, ‘The Body Politic’, ‘The Schlemiel and the Tough Jew’, ‘The Decline of the Superhero’ and ‘Comic Book Noir’ before going on to recount the story of the newspaper strips in ‘The Funnyman Comic Strip’ and ‘Reggie Van Twerp’ (a last ditch attempt by the creators to resurrect their comic fortunes) before the inevitable axe falls in ‘End Game…

Thus far this engaging tome is a compulsive and hugely informative academic work, but in ‘Funnyman Comic Book Stories’ the resplendently vintage fan fun truly takes hold with a full colour section reproducing a selection of strips from the 6-issue run.

‘The Kute Knockout!’ (Funnyman #2, March 1948) pits the Hilarious Hero against a streetwalker robot built to seduce and rob Johns after which ‘The Medieval Mirthquake’ (Funnyman #4, May 1948) propels our Comedy Crusader back to the time of Camelot. From the same issue comes ‘Leapin’ Lena’ as Funnyman faces a female bandit who can jump like a kangaroo whilst yarn #5 (July 1948) catches him chasing a worrisome new crime wrinkle in ‘The Peculiar Pacifier’.

Also included are the striking covers of all 6 issues, the origin of Funnyman from #1, lots of splash pages and a selection of Shuster’s Superman art, but the most welcome benefit for fans and collectors is a detailed precis of the entire run’s 20 tales.

The same consideration is offered for the newspaper strips. As well as similar synopses for the Sundays (12 adventures spanning October 31st 1948 to the end of October 1949) and the Dailies (another dozen larks covering October 18th 1948 to September 17th 1949), there are 11 pages of full-colour Sunday sections plus the complete monochrome ‘Adventure in Hollywood’ (December 20th-January 12th 1949) to enjoy and marvel over.

Like Funnyman himself, this book is an odd duck. Whereas I would have loved to see the entire output gathered into one volume, what there is here is completely engrossing: a wonderful assessment and appreciation of genuine world-altering hugely creative comics pioneers enjoying some well-deserved acclaim and compelling cultural contextualization for something other than their mighty Man of Steel. This is a fabulous tome with an appeal extending far beyond its arguably limited funnybook fan audience.
Siegel and Shuster’s Funnyman © 2010 Thomas Andrae and Mel Gordon. All rights reserved.

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Superman – The Golden Age volume one


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9109-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

Almost exactly 85 years ago, Superman started the whole modern era of fantasy heroes: outlandish, flamboyant indomitable, infallible, unconquerable. He also saved a foundering industry by birthing an entirely new genre of storytelling – the Super Hero.

Since April 18th 1938 (the generally agreed day copies of Action Comics #1 first went on sale) he has grown into a mighty presence in all aspects of art, culture and commerce, even as his natal comic book universe organically grew and expanded.

Within three years of that debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment that had hallmarked the early exploits of the Man of Tomorrow had grown: encompassing crime-busting, reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy and even whimsical comedy. However, once the war in Europe and the East seized America’s communal consciousness, combat themes and patriotic imagery dominated most comic book covers, if not interiors.

In comic book terms at least, Superman was soon a true master of the world, utterly changing the shape of the fledgling industry. There was a popular newspaper strip, a thrice-weekly radio serial, games, toys, foreign and overseas syndication and as the decade turned, the Fleischer studio’s astounding animated cartoons.

Moreover, the quality of the source material was increasing with every four-colour release as the energy and enthusiasm of originators Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster went on to inform and infect the burgeoning studio which grew around them to cope with the relentless demand.

These tales have been reprinted many times, but this superb compilation series is arguably the best, offering the original stories in chronological publishing order and spanning cover-dates June 1938 to December 1939. It features the groundbreaking sagas from Action Comics #1-19 and Superman #1-3, plus his pivotal appearance in New York’s World Fair No. 1. Although most of the early tales were untitled, here, for everyone’s convenience, they have been given descriptive appellations by the editors.

Thus – after describing the foundling’s escape from exploding planet Krypton and offering a scientific rationale for his incredible abilities and astonishing powers in 9 panels – with absolutely no preamble the wonderment begins with Action #1’s primal thriller ‘Superman: Champion of the Oppressed!’ Here, an enigmatic costumed crusader – who secretly masquerades by day as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent – begins averting numerous tragedies…

As well as saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair and roughing up an abusive “wife beater”, the tireless crusader works over racketeer Butch Matson and consequently saves feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse before outing a lobbyist for the armaments industry bribing Senators on behalf of the greedy munitions interests fomenting the war in Europe…

One month later came Action #2 and the next breathtaking instalment as the mercurial mystery-man travels to that war-zone to spectacularly dampen down hostilities already in progress in ‘Revolution in San Monte Part 2’ before ‘The Blakely Mine Disaster’ finds the Man of Steel responding to a coal-mine cave-in and exposing corrupt corporate practises before cleaning up gamblers ruthlessly fixing games and players in #4’s ‘Superman Plays Football’.

The Action Ace’s untapped physical potential is highlighted in the next issue as ‘Superman and the Dam’ pits the human dynamo against the power of a devastating natural disaster, after which issue #6 sees canny chiseller Nick Williams attempting to monetise the hero – without asking first. ‘Superman’s Phony Manager’ even attempts to replace the real thing with a cheap knock-off, but quickly learns a most painful and memorable lesson in ethics…

Although Superman starred on the first cover, National’s cautious editors were initially dubious about the alien strongman’s lasting appeal and fell back upon more traditional genre scenes for the following issues (all by Leo E. O’Mealia and all included here).

Superman – and Joe Shuster’s – second cover graced Action Comics #7 (on sale from October 25th but cover-dated December 1938) prompting a big jump in sales, even as the riotous romp inside revealed why ‘Superman Joins the Circus’ – with the mystery man crushing racketeers taking over the Big Top.

Fred Guardineer produced genre covers for #8 and 9 whilst their interiors saw ‘Superman in the Slums’ working to save young delinquents from a future life of crime and depravity before latterly detailing how the city’s cop disastrous decision to stop the costumed vigilante’s unsanctioned interference plays out in ‘Wanted: Superman’. That manhunt ended in an uncomfortable stalemate that endured for years…

Action Comics #7 had been one of the company’s highest-selling issues ever, so #10 again sported a stunning Shuster shot, whilst Siegel’s smart story ‘Superman Goes to Prison’ struck another telling blow against institutionalised injustice, as the Man of Tomorrow infiltrated a penitentiary to expose the brutal horrors of State Chain Gangs.

Action #11 offered a maritime cover by Guardineer whilst inside heartless conmen driving investors to penury and suicide soon regret the Metropolis Marvel intercession in ‘Superman and the “Black Gold” Swindle’.

Guardineer’s cover of magician hero Zatara for issue #12 was a shared affair, incorporating another landmark as the Man of Steel was given a cameo badge declaring his presence inside each and every issue. Between those covers, ‘Superman Declares War on Reckless Drivers’ is a hard-hitting tale of casual joy-riders, cost-cutting automobile manufacturers, corrupt lawmakers and dodgy car salesmen who all feel the wrath of the hero after a friend of Clark Kent dies in a hit-&-run incident.

By now, the editors had realised that Superman had propelled National Comics to the forefront of the new industry, and in 1939 the company was licensed to create a comic book commemorative edition celebrating the opening of the New York World’s Fair. The Man of Tomorrow naturally topped the bill on the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics at the forefront of such early DC four-colour stars as Zatara, Butch the Pup, Gingersnap and gas-masked vigilante The Sandman.

Following an inspirational cover by Sheldon Mayer, Siegel & Shuster’s ‘Superman at the World’s Fair’ describes how Lois and Clark are dispatched to cover the event, giving our hero an opportunity to contribute his own exhibit and bag a bunch of brutal bandits to boot…

Back in Action Comics #13 (June 1939 and another Shuster cover) the road-rage theme of the previous issue continued with ‘Superman vs. the Cab Protective League’ as the tireless foe of felons faces a murderous gang trying to take over the city’s taxi companies. The tale also introduces – in almost invisibly low key – The Man of Steel’s first recurring nemesis – The Ultra-Humanite…

Next follows a truncated version of Superman #1. This is because the industry’s first solo-starring comic book simply reprinted the earliest tales from Action, albeit supplemented with new and recovered material – which is all that’s featured at this point.

Behind the truly iconic and much recycled Shuster cover, the first episode was at last printed in full as ‘Origin of Superman’, describing the alien foundling’s escape from doomed planet Krypton, his childhood with unnamed Earthling foster parents and eventual journey to the big city…

Also included in those 6 pages (cut from Action #1, and restored to the solo vehicle entitled ‘Prelude to ‘Superman, Champion of the Oppressed’”) is the Man of Steel’s routing of a lynch mob and capture of the real killer which preceded his spectacular saving of the accused murderess that started the legend. Rounding off the unseen treasures is the solo page ‘A Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’, a 2-page prose adventure of the Caped Crime-crusher, a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster and a glorious Shuster pin-up from the premier issue’s back cover.

Sporting another Guardineer Zatara cover, Action #14 saw the return of the manic money-mad deranged scientist in ‘Superman Meets the Ultra-Humanite’, wherein the mercenary malcontent switches his incredible intellect from incessant graft, corruption and murder to an obsessive campaign to destroy the Man of Steel.

Whilst Shuster concentrated on the interior epic ‘Superman on the High Seas’ – wherein the heroic hurricane tackles sub-sea pirates and dry land gangsters – Guardineer then made some history as illustrator of an aquatic Superman cover for #15. He also produced the Foreign Legion cover on #16, wherein ‘Superman and the Numbers Racket’ sees the hero save an embezzler from suicide before wrecking another wicked gambling cabal.

Superman’s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, plus his own dedicated title and a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year. The fictive Man of Tomorrow was the actual Man of the Hour and was swiftly garnering millions of new fans.

A thrice-weekly radio serial was in the offing, and would launch on February 12th 1940. With games, toys, and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s favourite hero…

The second issue of Superman’s own title opened with ‘The Comeback of Larry Trent’ – a stirring human drama wherein the Action Ace clears the name of the broken heavyweight boxer, coincidentally cleaning the scum out of the fight game, and is followed by ‘Superman’s Tips for Super-Health’ before ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’ depicts the hero once more tackling unscrupulous munitions manufacturers by crushing a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas.

‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’ finds newshound Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, drawing his alter ego into conflict with mindless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which a contemporary ad and a Superman text tale bring the issue to a close.

Action Comics #17 declared ‘The Return of the Ultra-Humanite’ in a vicious and bloody caper involving extortion and the wanton sinking of US ships. and featured a classic Shuster Super-cover as the Man of Steel was awarded all the odd-numbered issues for his attention-grabbing playground.

That didn’t last long: after Guardineer’s final adventure cover – a bi-plane dog fight on #18 – and which led into ‘Superman’s Super-Campaign’ with both Kent and the Caped Kryptonian determinedly crushing a merciless blackmailer, Superman simply monopolised every cover from #19 onwards. That issue disclosed the peril of ‘Superman and the Purple Plague’ as the city reeled in the grip of a deadly epidemic created by Ultra-Humanite.

Closing this frenetic fun and thrill-filled compendium is the truncated contents of Superman #3, offering only the first and last strips originally contained therein, as the other two were reprints of Action Comics #5 and 6.

‘Superman and the Runaway’, however, is a gripping, shockingly uncompromising exposé of corrupt orphanages, after which – following a brief lesson on ‘Attaining Super-Health: a Few Hints from Superman!’ – Lois finally goes out on a date with hapless Clark – but only because she needs to get closer to a gang of murderous smugglers. Happily, Kent’s hidden alter ego is on hand to rescue her in the bombastic gang-busting style in ‘Superman and the Jewel Smugglers’…

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains lay years ahead of our hero, these primitive and raw, captivating tales of corruption, disaster and social injustice are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times then and now! The perilous parade of rip-roaring action, hoods, masterminds, plagues, disasters, lost kids and distressed damsels are all dealt with in direct, enthralling and captivatingly cathartic manner by our relentlessly entertaining champion’s summarily swift and decisive fashion.

As fresh and compelling now as they ever were, these endlessly re-readable epics perfectly display the savage intensity and sly wit of Siegel’s stories – which literally defined what being a Super Hero means – whilst Shuster created the basic iconography for all others to follow.

Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment. What comics fan could possibly resist them?
© 1938, 1939, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Trog-Shots: A Cartoonerama


By Trog AKA Wally Fawkes (Patrick Hardy Books)
ISBN: 978-0-7444-0049-6 (Landscape PB)

Our last lost giant was someone who drew a beloved all-ages politically-barbed satirical children’s strip for decades and had a second cartoon career as a rapier-witted rottweiler going after society’s true devils.

I’m holding off discussing Flook until I have a decent collection to recommend without pauperising anyone, but until then here’s a collection of Trogs’s other other line of work to celebrate his genius and mourn his loss…  

The one thing I really don’t miss about the 1970s and 1980s is just how many truly ruthless bastards and utter swine were out, proud and loudly ruling us, America and all the other morally bankrupt countries. No matter how bad our current crop of greedy, shallow, inept, self-serving plutocrats might be, they are pitiful pikers when compared to the vicious, callous and ethically challenged rulers of our forefathers. Those guys were actually good at what they did and appreciated a good cover-up too…

That still didn’t keep them out of the sights of a legion of cartoonists like Ralph Steadman, Gerald Scarfe, Steve Bell and Wally Fawkes – who perpetrated his personal acts of socio-political vigilantism under the alias “Trog”. The nom de plume stems from “troglodyte”, but its derivation is hotly disputed to this day…

Born Walter Ernest Pearsall (June 24th 1924 – March 1st 2023) in Vancouver, Canada, Fawkes took his stepfather’s surname after  moving to Britain when he was seven. He taught himself to play clarinet and was never happier than when playing Jazz. His first pro gigs came in 1944 with George Webb, before joining Humphrey Lyttelton in the 1950s. Wally clearly enjoyed his three careers (which he termed “minority pursuits”), and was apparently beyond compare in all of them. I’m not qualified to comment on his jazz playing: I only ever saw him twice but certainly had a great time on each occasion…

If anything was less financially rewarding than playing music it was drawing cartoons, so Wally started doing that too. After reaching England in 1931, he had grown up in South London and – aged 14 – won a scholarship to study at Sidcup Art School. The lifelong comics fan studied there until the money ran out and then plunged into the world of work. When war came, pleurisy kept him out of the armed forces and he contributed to the home front effort by painting camouflage on factories and mapping mines for the British Coal Commission.

In 1942, Fawkes won a cartoon competition held by The Daily Mail, and the judge (the paper’s illustrious chief cartoonist Leslie Illingworth) found him a position at advertising agency Clement Davies. Three years later – on Wally’s 21st birthday – Illingworth hired him as a junior cartoonist. In 1949, Wally’s unique blend of luck and perseverance scored a huge hit when he began his whimsical fantasy masterpiece Flook.

Newspaper owner Lord Rothermere had just come back from America where he had seen Crockett Johnson’s strip Barnaby. When he got home, the magnate wanted something similar but British for The Daily Mail and asked young Fawkes if he could handle it…

Co-scripted by a Who’s Who of media stars (including Sir Compton Mackenzie, Humphrey Lyttelton, George Melly, Barry Norman, Barry Took, Keith Waterhouse and others) it ran in the increasingly ultra-conservative Daily Mail until 1984. A true fish out of water feature, Flook told the increasingly Bohemian, left-leaning and liberal tales of a fuzzy, carrot-nosed, shapeshifting alien innocent and his naive little Earth boy pal Rufus.

Eventually the strip escaped its Right Wing captivity and moved into working class organ The Daily Mirror/Sunday Mirror, before being killed by print tyrant Robert Maxwell.

That didn’t stop Fawkes, though. He still had his clarinet, ideals, imagination, innate unshakeable sense of injustice and a third job as one of the country’s greatest caricaturists and satirists…

From its earliest inception cartooning has been used to sell: initially ideas or values but eventually actual products too. In newspapers, magazines and especially comic books the sheer power of narrative with its ability to create emotional affinities is linked to unforgettable images and characters. When those stories affect the daily lives of generations of readers, the force they can apply in a commercial or social arena is almost irresistible.

In Britain, the cartoonist has held a bizarrely precarious position of power for centuries: deftly designed bombastic broadsides or savagely surgical satirical slices instantly inflicting ridicule, exposing and deflating the powerfully elevated and seemingly untouchable with shaped-charges of scandalous wit and crushingly clear, universally understandable visual metaphor.

For this kind of concept transmission, literacy and lack of education are no barrier. As the Catholic Church proved centuries ago with the Stations of the Cross, stained glass windows and idealised saints, a picture is absolutely worth a thousand words. Moreover, even more than work, sport, religion, fighting or sex, politics has is the very grist that feeds a pictorial gadfly’s mill…

Having for decades contributed regularly to The Spectator, New Statesman, Observer, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, The Week, Today, London Daily News, plus venerable anti-establishment periodicals Punch and Private Eye (all whilst freelancing as a book illustrator), Fawkes simply carried on lambasting politicians of all stripes and persuasions and caustically commenting on a declining global civilisation until 2005, when failing eyesight finally silenced his excoriating commentaries. One year earlier he had added “Political Cartoonist Of The Year” to his horde of tributes and awards…

Trog died on March 1st 2023, from simple, well-earned old age.

There are still no definitive collections of Flook or Trog’s highly influential (just ask devoted fans Nicholas Garland, Malky McCormick, Barry Fantoni, Steve Bell or Raymond Briggs) stabs at iniquity and hypocrisy, but this collection from 1984 is both representative of the man and his mirth and readily available.

Preceded by a telling, deconstructive and revelatory Foreword by bandmate and Flook co-writer Melly, Trog-Shots: A Cartoonerama re-presents 57 late 1970s/early 1980s art sallies and includes many gags from his regular “Mini-Trog” feature: a general social commentary comedy residency in The Observer.

Culled – as should have been so many of his unsavoury targets – from a time when Monetarism and Reagan took over the USA; Soviet leaders were dropping like flies and Apartheid had just started being rejected by the world, here is a rogues gallery of putrid politicians, scurrilous scandals, and social shout-outs. Here you’ll see the worst of political indifference impacting shoppers, the National Health Service, workers and miners. Here also be monstrous economic mismanagement, revolting journalists, feuding Royals, racist policemen acting beyond the law, sporting skulduggery and Cold War crises. There are starring roles for all the old lags from Jim Callaghan, Michael Foot & Neil Kinnock to Ted Heath, Thatcher, Howe, Tebbitt, Whitelaw, Lawson and all their malign ilk, plus lesser lights like Jeremy Thorpe, Arthur Scargill, and Davids Steele & Owen are soundly skewered and taken to task for what they had – and hadn’t – done…

Awash with astounding images, fascinating lost ephemera and mouth-watering art no fan could resist, this compact compendium is a beautiful fragment of cartoon history that will delight and tantalise, and forms a fitting tribute to a self-effacing master craftsman whose departure has left us all so much poorer. Hopefully, we will at least soon see his legacy back in print…
Collection © 1984 by Wally Fawkes. Foreword © 1984 by George Melly. All rights reserved.

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The Fosdyke Saga volume 1


By Bill Tidy (Wolfe Publishing)
ISBN: 72340499-2/978-0-72340-499-6 (Landscape PB)

The world became a far less smart and infinitely grimmer place over the last weeks, due to the loss of three cartooning giants many of you have probably never heard of.

As so little of their superb output is readily accessible to digital-age readers, I’m celebrating their amazing achievements and acknowledging my personal debt to them here with items that can still be easily sourced and the heartfelt advice that if you like to laugh and have a surreal bent, these are comedy craftsmen you need to know.

Today, let’s plunge full-on into a lost world of sheerly startling shoddy grandeur…

William Edward “Bill” Tidy (MBE) was born on the 9th of October 1933 and died on March 11th 2023. For most of those 89 years he charmed people and made them laugh. Happily, many of his books are available digitally, although incomprehensibly not his sublimely daft (and that’s “Daffft” as in daffodil not “Darhhhhhhhhhhft” as in Dalek or Darling) 14 volume “magnificent octopus” The Fosdyke Saga.

But first, a few words about amusing folk…

Nothing is universally funny, but other people’s idiosyncrasies come pretty close. Comedy is cruel and can be mean-spirited at its core: it all depends on who’s saying what and how. Bill Tidy’s Fosdyke Saga is a grand exemplar: combining a smart, painfully self-aware surreal blend of parody, insular localised legend and working-class aspiration with sheer surrealism.

It is therefore utterly inexplicable to the young or the “Johnny Foreigner” of our Empire Days. In this case that also includes people of other utterly alien cultures – like Americans or Millennials – but also probably incorporates anyone British from further south than bucolic Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, or Buckinghamshire’s austere Aston Clinton and hoity-toity Tring.

Indeed, rumour has it that until recently, travellers using the Grand Union Canal – grizzled, gruff and grubby bargees hauling coal and rubbing liniment down to the sunlit uplands whilst posh snobs pleasure-boating as disaster tourists trekked a little way into the grim north – had to have their passports checked and stamped at the Apsley/Kings Langley buffer quay…

Seriously though, once upon a time British humour was fiercely and proudly local, regional and factional: cherishing warring accents and nurturing civic rivalries, ancient prejudices (still got plenty of them, though, Ta Very Much!!) and generational grudges. Midlands comedians weren’t funny in Glasgow and Manchester mirth-makers stayed the heck out of Liverpool. But then, after the war – the second one – we began homogenising aspects of life.

In the world of laughter, everything now had a manic, off-kilter skew. Random madcappery abounded where once only genteel wit grazed. The Goon Show and its bastard offspring Do Not Adjust Your Set and Monty Python’s Flying Circus challenged the rational senses whilst racism, sexism, jingoism, wife/mother-in-law jokes, illicit sex, smut, double entendres, “my doctor said” and sporting jibes could no longer securely address all our giggling needs.

Over in a corner somewhere, the bigger picture, establishment inertia and adamantine class structures were still being poked at by a dying cadre of satirists. Then, suddenly, it were 1971 and cartoonist Bill Tidy had a splendidly wicked idea…

He was born in Tranmere, Cheshire and proudly embraced his Northern working-class heritage in everything he did. Raised and educated in Liverpool, his first published work was a cartoon in his school magazine.

Bill joined the Royal Engineers in 1952 and made his first professional cartoon sale three years later whilst posted in Japan. Demobbed and back in Blighty, Tidy joined a Liverpool art agency, creating small ads and doing illustrations for various magazines, and sold his cartoons wherever he could.

Regular clients soon included The Daily Mirror and Daily Sketch so he moved down to London. Time passed and he met other freelancers and in 1966 co-founded a workers club – The British Cartoonists Association. A true wit and natural raconteur, he was mesmerising to listen to and even more so if you were lucky enough to chat with him over a pint…

Although a master of done-in-one single image gags – such as the immortal “Is There Any news of the Iceberg?” (look it up – both the cartoon itself and the illustrated autobiography it now fronts), Tidy inevitably told big stories. He cherished strong narratives powering the engines of his work, and his tales were delivered in a loose flowing, hyper-energetic style perfectly carrying the machine-gun rapidity of his ideas and whacky wordplay.

In April 1967 he created The Cloggies – an Everyday Saga in the Life of Clog Dancing Folk – which ran in Private Eye until 1981 and thereafter The Listener until 1986. He had a few comic residencies: weird/evil science spoof Grimbledon Down (1970-1994 in New Scientist), Dr. Whittle (1970-2001 in General Practitioner) and – from 1974 – imbibers strip Kegbusters in the Campaign for Real Ale’s periodical What’s Brewing? Other regular venues included Classic FM Magazine, The Oldie, The Mail on Sunday, The Yorkshire Post and Punch. When that last venerable humour institution (1841-2002) went bust, Tidy unsuccessfully tried to buy it and keep it going…

Tidy also authored 20 books and illustrated 70 more. If you’re interested, my favourites are The Bedside Book of Final Words and Disgraceful Archaeology: or Things You Shouldn’t Know About the History of Mankind…

From cartooning and dedicated charity work with the Lords Taverners, he latterly drifted into radio and TV presentation, appearing on or hosting shows such as I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, Draw Me, Countdown, Watercolour Challenge, Blankety Blank and Countryfile. There will never be another like him.

The best way to remember him is through his work: most notably the multi-volume Fosdyke Saga as gathered in collections from the 1970s and 1980s (but not so much the 2016 compilation).

Perhaps a little context is appropriate. In 1906, author John Galsworthy began in The Man of Property a sequence of novels detailing the lives of an English upper-middle class “new money” family. Spanning half a century (1886-1936) and augmented by In Chancery and To Let, the generational tale was formally repackaged as The Forsyte Saga in 1922. From then onwards, the societal epic has been adapted regularly as movies, immense radio plays and – in 1967 – a groundbreaking BBC television serial. Galsworthy wrote two more trilogies of novels plus spin-off “interludes” – like Indian Summer of a Forsyte and Awakening – cumulatively known as the Forsyte Chronicles. The effort won him 1932’s Nobel Prize for Literature.

Generally, it all showed how even posh folk don’t get to be secure or content and remains a powerful literary presence. The saga was revived in 1994 in a new novel by Suleika Dawson.

The British truly love their television and the BBC especially have produced numerous game changing dramas – everything from the Quatermass stories to I, Claudius. However, their 26-part Forsyte Saga adaptation utterly captivated viewers in a whole new way, so in regard to what’s we’re reviewing here, a little further clarification is required.

The Galsworthy adaptation had originally run from January 7th to July 1st 1967, in BBC 1’s prestigious prime Saturday slot. It was augmented by repeat showings three days later on BBC 2, and the entire series was re-screened on Sundays from September 8th 1968 with the final episode in 1969 seen by 18 million viewers. Overseas sales were staggering (it was the first BBC product sold to the Soviet Union!) and worldwide viewing figures topped in excess of 160 million. All this in the era before home recordings were available. If you missed an episode of anything, all you could was endure other people’s smug gloating…

The TV sensation inspired much imitation, such as ITV’s Upstairs Downstairs, which ran on Sundays from October 10th 1971 to December 21st 1975… just as Bill Tidy’s delirious spoof was hitting its baggy-trousered stride…

I mention this simply because Upstairs Downstairs also highlighted disparities, similarities and interactions of upper-class toffs and working people in a weekly accessible form, but explored the same Edwardian and Georgian eras as Tidy’s wickedly whacky wonders. It ensured the cartoon’s strong historical underpinnings were familiar to the hoi-polloi Daily Mirror readership who might have slept through school, but avidly paid attention to the goggle box…

Just like its inspiration, The Fosdyke Saga is no stranger to media adaptations: spawning a TV series, a play co-written by Alan Plater, two radio series and latterday sequels…

Describing itself as “a classic tale of Struggle, Power, Personalities and Tripe” the story follows Josiah Fosdyke and his family, who in 1900 emigrate from Lancashire mining town Griddlesbury to cosmopolitan Manchester. The move follows another near-death experience “down pit” as the aspiration scab labourer crosses picket lines and nearly ends up another casualty of “King Coal”…

Resolved that this is no way to get ahead, Jos, wife Rebecca, daughter Victoria and sons Tom, Albert and newborn Tim eschew aid from Becky’s wealthy brother and head for Manchester – “where streets are studded wi’ meat pies!”…

A chance meeting with old Ben Ditchley – the Lancashire Tripe King – sets them on the path to prosperity. As Jos repeatedly impresses the self-made millionaire with his cunning and ruthless work ethic, Ditchley’s dissolute son Roger dishonours and debauches Vicky and ultimately is disinherited in Fosdyke’s favour. The end result is by-blow Sylvia Fosdyke, Victoria’s radicalisation and eternal involvement with the paramilitary wing of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and Roger’s lifelong vendetta to crush the family who cost him his inheritance…

The Fosdyke Saga ran from March 1971 to February 1985 and was purportedly personally killed by unctuous, sleazily gentrifying corporate bandit Robert Maxwell after he acquired Mirror Group Newspapers in 1984. This volume is a severely edited compilation of the first few years of the sublime bizarre strip, packed with gags about fierce powerful women (many with full beards and steel toecap boots), privation, music halls, and new inventions. It’s populated by rogues, scoundrels, wastrels and gobsmacked bystanders, and stuffed with shocking foodstuffs like pigs trotters, cowheels, tripe and assorted offal, pigs ears and pickled cabbage, Bavarian Death’s Head Infantry Sausage, Sauerkraut und Schweinwurst and Tinned Tripe for the Troops, all of which act as milestones tracing Fosdyke fortunes in war and peace…

After inheriting old Ben’s business, Jos imaginatively expands and diversifies, but family troubles and Roger’s machinations constantly confound his plans for repast supremacy. Sub-plots reference contemporary turning points like the Titanic’s launch, the Salvation Army movement, suffragettes and the King’s horse, poverty, depression and the day-by day-absurdist drama of the Great War at home, at the Front and everywhere in between…

We see how Tom converts from staunch Conscientious Objector to trench infantryman/POW (with Jos naturally seeking to corner the white feather trade), and Albert’s astounding duel of wills and imagination with Red Baron Von Richthoven and sordid French air ace Marcel Waive, as well as Tom’s thriving prison camp restaurant trade.

The tripeworks is sabotaged and bombed by zeppelins and Jos is accused of being the Salford Ripper, before being blackmailed by Roger for colluding with the enemy, but always the Fosdykes soldier on…

High points for young Ditchley include sending aviator Albert on countless suicide missions, fomenting the Manchester Tripe Wars, seducing a quasi-mystical Tripe Inspector, and hiring the murderous O’Malley Sisters to crush Jos’ trade. When Ditchley’s scheme is quashed by Vicky’s suffragette comrades, the cad enlists “Legendary Lancashire Lothario” T. Edgar Shufflebottom to seduce them in job lots, before being foiled by a simple twist of fate…

When straightforward murder fails too, Roger blackmails “Russian Nightingale” Nadine Buzom into compromising Jos just as little Tim ships out as a cabin boy and is lost at sea…

With the war ended, attacks on the factory resume, Albert is lost in an air race that lands him and Albion’s adored aviatrix the Hon. Cynthia Spofforth at the mercy of a lusty and frustrated Arab sheik and Tom heads west to America’s ease Prohibition woes with Fosdyke’s latest innovation. Sadly, Ditchley is already there, getting rich in Chicago with whisky-soaked offal in his illicit Tripe-Easy…

As Tom joins Elliot Ness and the Untouchables, the volume ends with Jos’s hunger to expand his markets landing him in big trouble: held captive by a Soviet Commissar who just wanted a million tons of free tripe for her starving people… until the elder Fosdyke’s devastatingly manly demeanour turns her Red head…

A forgotten treat for us oldsters and a potential new delight for smart youngsters, Bill Tidy’s surreal tour de force is a delicious treat just waiting to be rediscovered. Over to you…
© Daily Mirror Newspapers Limited 1972.

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Totally Mad – 60 Years of Humor, Satire, Stupidity and Stupidity


By “The Usual Gang of Idiots” & edited by John Ficarra (Time Home Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-61893-030-9 (HB)

The world has become a measurably less smart and infinitely less funny place over the last month or so, due to the loss of three cartooning giants many of you have probably never heard of.

As it’s unforgivably crass to bundle them all up together – especially because so little of their incredible output is readily accessible to modern readers – I’m celebrating their amazing achievements and acknowledging my personal debt to them over the next few days with items that can still be easily sourced and the heartfelt advice that if you like to laugh and have a surreal bent, these are comedy craftsmen you need to know.

We’re kicking off with the unsung god of cunningly contrived chortles…

Eldest of 4 sons, Abraham Jaffee was born in Savannah, Georgia on March 13th 1921. A successfully transplanted New Yorker, he died in the Big Apple on April 10th 2023, after three years of retirement. For 74 years – 65 of them as an invaluable and unmissable regular contributor to Mad Magazine – he had been paid to make people laugh and think…

Jaffee garnered many awards, inspired millions – including Steven Colbert, John Stewart and generations of other satirists like Gary Larson, Matt Groening and Ted Rall – and he holds the Guinness World Record for longest career as a comics artist. The writer/artist officially retired in 2020 aged 99, and between April 1964 and April 2013 appeared in all but one issue of Mad. And that’s only consecutively – he also joined earlier than you think and carried on after he quit.

Those facts barely scrape the surface of an incredible career…

Jaffee’s early life was troubled: a succession of brief stays in Savannah, Far Rockaway, Queens and Zarasai, Lithuania, resulted from his mother arbitrarily and repeatedly returning to the Old Country with her sons. Eventually he and they at last escaped domestic turmoil to settle in New York.

For escape, he read comic strips (primarily those by Harold Foster, Milton Caniff, Noel Sickles, Otto Soglow, Alex Raymond and Rube Goldberg) and devised ingenious little contraptions from rubbish and junk – a habit that served him well during his later Mad days on the long running Crazy Inventions feature…

During the 1930s, he studied at the NYC High School of Music and Art. That institution also tutored his troubled brother/lifelong assistant Harry Jaffee and future co-workers Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, John Severin and Al Feldstein…

Abraham was a brilliantly innovative writer and gifted, multi-disciplined artist who officially started work in late 1942: acting as an illustrator for Timely’s Joker Comics. Soon he was an editor too, all whilst creating features such as Super Rabbit and Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal – originally two singles who became a knockout double act.

In truth, Jaffee had begun selling comedy a year earlier: working for a “Studio Shop” and inventing spoof hero Inferior Man, who debuted in Quality Comics’ Military Comics #7 (cover-dated February 1942 and on sale from December 10th 1941). When his own call-up time came, Jaffee’s war service involved working at the Pentagon as a military draughtsman. He found his first wife there and used the Service’s name-change facility to become Allan “Al” Jaffee…

Returned to civvy street in 1946, he hooked up with Stan Lee again at Timely/Atlas, and became editor of the hugely popular teen division headlined by Patsy Walker Comics.

Al was apparently tireless, freelancing all over even whilst in his ascendancy at Mad. He first worked there in 1955, on the second issue after conversion from colour comic book to monochrome magazine). His school pal Kurtzman was editor then and quit three months later in a fractious dispute with owner Bill Gaines. Al went with him and worked on Kurtzman’s retaliatory rival satire magazines Trump and Humbug. Only when the later closed in 1958 did Jaffee head back to Mad to formally become one of “The Usual Gang of Idiots”.

Between 1957-1963, he wrote and drew 2200 episodes of internationally syndicated strip Tall Tales for the New York Herald Tribune, before ghosting Frank Bolle’s soap opera melodrama Debbie Deere from 1966-1969 and Jason between 1971-1974. From 1984 Jaffee produced kids strip The Shpy for The Moshiac Times. He was an illustrator for Boy’s Life for 25 years and a stalwart of World’s Best Science Fiction (1977) and Ghoulish Book of Weird Records (1979).

Between 1963-1964, Al co-ghosted Kurtzman & Elder’s legendary adult satire Little Annie Fanny for Playboy: a tenure that surely inspired his most memorable Mad creation – the “Fold-In”. Hugh Hefner’s men’s magazine was infamous for its nude “fold-outs”, revealing even more pulchritudinous flesh than other skin mags, so what could be more potent and fitting than a graphic creation that exposed an uncomfortable truth by covering up an innocuous image?

Jaffee’s first fold-in appeared in Mad #86 (April 1964) and became one its most popular and immortal features. Other Jaffee landmarks include Vietnam-war era strip Hawks and Doves, Don’t You Hate…, Scenes We’d Like to See, Mad Inventions, Crazy Gadgets and Fake Ads, assorted covers, movie and TV parodies and utterly irresistible Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. Many of these have been seen in countless Mad Paperback collections released since the mid-Sixties…

I’ll hopefully get around to his Tall Tales strip collection soon, or maybe some of his Mad paperbacks or even 4-volume HB Boxed set The Mad Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010, but don’t wait for me: buy them if you see them…

For now, however, here’s a great big compendium jam-packed with Jaffe goodness showing him amongst his kind and playing in his natural environment… the world’s greatest humourists…

 

Totally Mad – 60 Years of Humor, Satire, Stupidity and Stupidity

EC Comics began in 1944 when comicbook pioneer Max Gaines sold the superhero properties of his All-American Comics company to half-sister National/DC, retaining only Picture Stories from the Bible. His plan was to produce a line of Educational Comics with schools and church groups as the major target market.

Gaines augmented this core title with Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from Science and Picture Stories from World History, but the so-worthy notion was already struggling when he died in a boating accident in 1947. With disaster looming, son William was dragged into the family business and with much support and encouragement from unsung hero Sol Cohen – who held the company together until the initially unwilling Bill Gaines abandoned his dreams of a career in chemistry – transformed the ailing enterprise into Entertaining Comics…

After a few tentative false starts and abortive experiments, Gaines and his multi-talented associate Al Feldstein settled into a bold, fresh publishing strategy, utilising the most gifted illustrators in the field to tell a “New Trend” of stories aimed at an older and more discerning readership. From 1950 to 1954 EC was the most innovative, influential publisher in America, dominating the genres of crime, horror, war and science fiction, spawning a host of cash-in imitations and, under the auspices of writer, artist and editor Harvey Kurtzman, the inventor of an entirely new beast: the satirical comic book…

Mad also inspired dozens of knock-offs and even a controversial sister publication, Panic.

Kurtzman was a cartoon genius and probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the 20th century. His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Mad, Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat) would be enough for most creators to lean back on, but Kurtzman was a force in newspaper strips (See Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, a commentator and social explorer who kept on looking at folk and their doings: a man with exacting standards who just couldn’t stop creating.

By inventing a whole new format he gave the USA Populist Satire: transforming highly distasteful, disgraceful, highly successful colour comic Mad into a mainstream monochrome magazine, safely distancing the outrageously comedic publication from fall-out caused by the 1950s socio-political witch-hunt that eventually killed all EC’s other titles, and bringing the now more socially acceptable publication to a far wider, broader audience. Kurtzman wasn’t around for long…

He then pursued his unique brand of thoughtfully outré comedy and social satire in Trump, Humbug and Help!, all the while conceiving challenging and powerfully effective humour strips like Little Annie Fannie (in Playboy), The Jungle Book, Nutz, Goodman Beaver, and Betsy and her Buddies. Seemingly tireless, he inspired a new generation through his creations on Sesame Street and by teaching cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He died far too early in 1993.

… And he was just one of the astonishingly gifted creators who made Mad an international franchise, a staggeringly influential cultural phenomenon and a global brand in the years that followed…

Totally Mad -and we’re long overdue for an updated edition, y’all – reviews the rise and rise of the magazine, with tantalising snippets of gags and features accompanied by big excerpts and illustrations from many brilliant creators to have contributed to its success.

Be Warned: this is not a “best of” collection – it would be impossible to choose, and there are hundreds of reprint compilations and websites for that. This is a joyous celebration of past glories and a compulsive taster for further exploration, albeit with few complete stories…

At 256 pages, this luxuriously huge (312x235mm) compendium is regrettably only on sale in physical form but does include historical articles, amazingly funny art and cleverly barbed observations, all divided by decade and augmented by many full-colour, iconic cover reproductions. The minimal text references favourite features such as Spy vs Spy (both by originator Antonio Prohias and successor Peter Kuper), Dave Berg’s The Lighter Side of…, Mad Mini-Posters, Film and TV parodies including ‘Gunsmoked’, ‘My Fair Ad-Man’, ‘East Side Story’, ‘Flawrence of Arabia’, ‘Star Blecch’, ‘Jaw’d’, ‘Saturday Night Feeble’, ‘LA Lewd’, ‘Dorky Dancing’, and assorted mega-movie franchises ad infinitum as well as sterling examples of Jaffee’s uniquely barbed ‘Mad Fold-Ins, ‘Scenes We’d Like to See’ and ‘Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions’.

Whatever your period, and whichever is your most dearly revered, it’s probably sampled and trammelled here…

Following an eccentric and loving Introduction from Stephen Colbert and Eric Drysdale -ably illustrated by Sam Viviano – veteran contributor Frank Jacobs provides a photo-packed profile of Mad’s unique father-figure by asking – and answering – ‘Who Was Bill Gaines?’ after which ‘Mad in the 1950s’ recalls the Kurtzman era with brightly-hued extracts from giant ape spoof ‘Ping Pong!’, ‘Superduperman!’, ‘Lone Stranger Rides Again!’, ‘Sound Effects!’, ‘Melvin of the Apes!’, ‘Mad Reader!’, ‘Bringing Back Father!’ and ‘Starchie’. These highlight the talents of Will Elder, Wallace Wood, Jack Davis, John Severin, Basil Wolverton & Bernie Krigstein before moving into the magazine phase via spoof advertising and popular pastimes such as ‘Readers Disgust’, ‘What Makes a Glass of Beer Taste so Good?’ and more.

Arch-caricaturist Mort Drucker began a stellar run at this time, as did mildly maniacal Don Martin, whilst comics legends Joe Orlando, Wood, Davis and George Woodbridge reached astonishing peaks of artistic excellence as seen via a parade of stunning covers and end-pages with additional contributions by Kurtzman, Kelly Freas, Norman Mingo and others…

In ‘Who is Alfred E. Neuman?’, Jacobs recounts the twisted, turbulent origins of the iconic gap-toothed-idiot company mascot, after which ‘Mad in the 1960s’ highlights the rise of Television and the counter-culture before ‘Was Mad Ever Sued?’ sees Jacobs testify to some truly daft and troubling moments in the mag’s life…

Many of the very best bits of ‘Mad in the 1970s’ is followed by the conclusion of ‘Who Was Bill Gaines?’ prior to Davis, Dick DeBartolo & Jacobs’ iconic ‘Raiders of the Lost Art skit heralding ‘Mad in the 1980s’ wherein patriotism, movie blockbusters, Hip-hop and computer games seized the public’s collective imagination…

‘What Were the Mad Trips?’ explores a grand tradition of company holidays, after which ‘Mad in the 1990s’ covers Rap music, the rise of celeb culture and the magazine’s frenzied forays into a rapidly changing world. Then comes ‘Mad After Gaines’, detailing internal adjustments necessitated by the death of its hands-on, larger-than life publisher in 1992. ‘Mad in the 2000s’ details the brand’s shift into the digital world, with exemplars from creators old and new spoofing medicines, newspaper strips, elections, religion, dead phrases, celebrity causes, cell-phones, man-boobs, war in Iraq, obesity, satirical competitor ‘The Bunion’, contemporary Racism and media sensations Donald Trump (Who He?): all accompanied by parodies including ‘Bored of the Rings’, ‘Sluts in the City’, ‘Spider-Sham’, and more…

Editor John Ficarra offers his Afterword and this magnificent tome also includes a poster pack of a dozen of the very best covers from Mad’s epochal run.

Most of you can happily stop now, but if you’re into shopping lists, here’s a small portion of other contributing “idiots” making Mad a national institution… like graft, perjury, prison and pimples:

Sergio Aragonés is represented throughout with Mad Marginals and many masterful cartoons and pastiches, whilst guest writers include Vic Cohen, Tom Koch, Larry Siegel, Nick Meglin, Earl Doud, Lou Silverstone, Jacobs, DeBartolo, Arnie Kogen, Chevy Chase, Max Brandel, Stan Hart, Marylyn Ippolito, Billy Doherty, Barry Liebman, Desmond Devlin, Russ Cooper, Joe Raiola, Charlie Kadau, Robert Bramble, Michael Gallagher, and Butch D’Ambrosio.

All-rounders both scripting and scribbling include Berg, Aragonés, Martin, Kuper, John Caldwell, Drew Friedman, Paul Peter Porges, Don “Duck” Edwing, Tom Cheney, Feggo, Christopher Baldwin and the incomparable Mister Jaffee.

There are also star artists making a rare splash amongst these venerable veterans. These include Frank Frazetta, John Cullen Murphy, Angelo Torres, Bill Wray, Mark Frederickson, Bob Clarke, Gary Belkin, Paul Coker Jr., Mutz, Jack Rickard, Irving Schild, Gerry Gersten, Rick Tulka, Harry North, Richard Williams, Tom Bunk, Steve Brodner, Mark Stutzman, Tom Richmond, and Gary Hallgren… Heck! – the list is nigh endless.

Wrist-wreckingly huge, eye-poppingly great and mind-bogglingly fun, this is one to treasure and pore through… and probably fight over…
© 2012 E.C. Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Batman & Superman in World’s Finest Comics: The Silver Age volume 1


By Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, Alvin Schwartz, Curt Swan, Dick Sprang, Stan Kaye, John Fischetti, Charles Paris, Ray Burnley & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6833-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

Some things were just meant to be: Bacon & Eggs, Rhubarb & Custard, Chalk & Cheese…

For many years Superman and Batman worked together as the “World’s Finest team”. They were friends as well as colleagues and the pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes (in effect, the company’s only costumed superstars) could cross-pollinate and, more importantly, cross-sell their combined readerships.

This most inevitable of Paladin Pairings first occurred on the Superman radio show in the early 1940s, whereas in comics the pair had only briefly met whilst on a Justice Society of America adventure in All-Star Comics #36 (August-September 1947) – and perhaps even there, they missed each other in the gaudy hubbub…

Of course, they had shared the covers of World’s Finest Comics from the outset, despite never crossing paths inside: sticking firmly to their specified solo adventures within. For us pictorial continuity buffs, the climactic real first time was in the pages of Superman’s own bi-monthly comic (#76, May/June 1952).

That yarn kicks off this stunning compendium of Silver Age solid gold, accompanied here by the lead story from World’s Finest Comics #71 through 94; spanning July/August 1954 to May/June 1958.

Science fiction author Edmond Hamilton was tasked with revealing how Man of Steel and Caped Crusader first met – and accidentally uncovered each other’s identities – whilst sharing a cabin on an over-booked cruise liner. Although an average crime-stopper yarn, it was the start of a phenomenon. The art for ‘The Mightiest Team in the World’ was by the brilliant Curt Swan and inkers John Fischetti & Stan Kaye.

With dwindling page counts, rising costs but a proven readership and years of co-starring but never mingling, World’s Finest Comics #71 presented the Man of Tomorrow and Gotham Gangbuster in the first of their official shared cases wherein the Caped Crusader became ‘Batman – Double for Superman!’ (by Alvin Schwartz, with Swan & Kaye providing pictures) as the merely mortal hero trades identities to preserve his comrade’s alter ego and – latterly – his life…

‘Fort Crime!’ (Schwartz, Swan & Kaye) has them unite to crush a highly-organised mob with a seemingly impregnable hideout, after which Hamilton returned for ‘Superman and Batman, Swamis Inc.’, a sharp sting-operation that almost goes tragically awry. Next, an alien invader prompts insane rivalry resulting in ‘The Contest of Heroes’ (Bill Finger, Swan & Kaye, in WFC #74.

The same creative team produced ‘Superman and Robin!’ wherein a disabled Batman can only fret and fume as his erstwhile assistant seemingly dumps him for a better man, whilst ‘When Gotham City Challenged Metropolis’ (by Hamilton, Swan & Charles Paris) catches the champions at odds as their hometowns over-aggressively vie for a multi-million-dollar electronics convention.

A landmark tale by Hamilton, Swan & Kaye invented a new sub-genre when a mad scientist’s accident temporarily removes the Caped Kryptonian’s powers and creates ‘The Super Bat-Man!’ in #77. The theme would be revisited for decades to come…

Arguably Batman’s greatest illustrator joined the creative crew ‘When Superman’s Identity is Exposed!’ (by Hamilton, Dick Sprang & Kaye) as a mysterious source keeps revealing the Man of Steel’s greatest secret, only to be exposed as a well-intentioned disinformation stunt. The tone switches to high adventure as the trio become ‘The Three Musicians of Bagdad’ – a stunning time-travel romp from Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye – after which the Gotham Gazette faces closure days before a spectacular crime-expose, and Clark Kent and Lois Lane join dilettante Bruce Wayne as pinch-hitting reporters on ‘The Super-Newspaper of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Charles Paris). Then, ‘The True History of Superman and Batman’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye, #81) finds a future historian blackmailing the heroes into restaging their greatest exploits so his erroneous treatise on them will be accurate…

Hamilton also produced a magnificent and classy costumed drama when ‘The Three Super-Musketeers!’ visit 17th century France to solve the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask, whilst Finger wrote a brilliant and delightful caper-without-a-crime in ‘The Case of the Mother Goose Mystery!’ after which Hamilton provides insight on a much earlier meeting of the World’s Finest Team with ‘The Super-Mystery of Metropolis!’ in #84, all for Sprang & Kaye to enticingly illustrate.

Hamilton, Swan, Sprang & Kaye demonstrate how a comely Ruritanian Princess inadvertently turns the level-headed heroes into ‘The Super-Rivals (or does she?), before monolithic charity-event ‘The Super-Show of Gotham City’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) nearly turns into a mammoth pay-day for unscrupulous con-men.

‘The Reversed Heroes’ (Finger, Sprang & Ray Burnley) once again catches the costumed champions swapping roles after Batman and Robin gain powers thanks to Kryptonian pep-pills found by criminal Elton Craig, ironically just as Superman’s powers fade…

As conceived by Hamilton, Sprang, Kaye, World’s Finest #87 revealed ‘Superman and Batman’s Greatest Foes!’ with “reformed” villains Lex Luthor and The Joker ostensibly setting up in the commercial robot business – which nobody really believed – after which seminal sequel ‘The Club of Heroes’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) reprised a meeting of Batmen from many nations, but added an intriguing sub-plot of an amnesiac Superman and a brand-new costumed champion…

That originating tale appeared in Detective Comics #215, January 1955 becoming a key plank of Grant Morrison’s epic Batman: The Black Glove serial: you should read that one too…

That evergreen power-swap plot was revived in #90’s ‘The Super-Batwoman’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) when the “headstrong heroine” defies Batman to resume her costumed career and is quickly compelled to swallow Elton Craig’s last Krypton pill to prevent criminals getting it…

A stirring time-busting saga of ‘The Three Super-Sleepers’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) sees our heroes fall into a trap causing them to slumber for 1000 years and awaken in a fantastic world they can never escape, but of course they can and – once back where they belonged – ‘The Boy from Outer Space!’ (Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye) details how a super-powered amnesiac kid crashes to Earth and briefly becomes Superman’s sidekick Skyboy, even as ‘The Boss of Superman and Batman’ (author unknown, but impeccably illustrated as always by Sprang & Kaye) sees a brain-amplifying machine turn Robin into a super-genius more than qualified to lead the trio in their battle against insidious rogue scientist Victor Danning…

Wrapping up this initial compendium with comfortable circularity, the Man of Tomorrow replaces the Caped Crusader with a new partner and provokes a review of ‘The Origin of the Superman-Batman Team’ courtesy of Hamilton, Sprang & Kaye, suspending these supremely enticing Fights ‘n’ Tights triumphs on an epic high.

These are gloriously clever yet uncomplicated tales whose dazzling style has returned to inform if not dictate the form for much of DC’s modern television animation – especially the fabulous Batman: The Brave and the Bold series – and the contents of this titanic tome are a veritable feast of witty, charming thrillers packing as much punch and wonder now as they always have.
© 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Bizarro Comics! – The Deluxe Edition


By a big bunch of very funny people AKA Jessica Abel, Todd Alcott, Rick Altergott, Peter Bagge, Kyle Baker, Gregory Benton, Charles Berberian, Aaron Bergeron, Nick Bertozzi, Ariel Bordeaux, Rand & David Borden, Ivan Brunetti, Eddie Campbell, Jim Campbell, Dave Cooper, Leela Corman, Mark Crilley, Jef Czekaj, Farel Dalrymple, Brian David-Marshall, Paul Dini, Paul Di Filippo, D’Israeli, Evan Dorkin, Mike Doughty, Eric Drysdale, Ben Dunn, Philippe Dupuy, Sarah Dyer, Phil Elliott, Hunt Emerson, Maggie Estep, Bob Fingerman, Abe Foreu, Ellen Forney, Liz Glass, Paul Grist, Matt Groening, Tom Hart, Dean Haglund, Tomer & Asaf Hanuka, Dean Haspiel, Danny Hellman, Sam Henderson, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Matt Hollingsworth, Paul Hornschemeier, Dylan Horrocks, Nathan Kane, John Kerschbaum, Chip Kidd, Derek Kirk Kim, James Kochalka, John Krewson, Michael Kupperbaum, Tim Lane, Roger Langridge, Carol Lay, Jason Little, Lee Loughridge, Matt Madden, Tom McCraw, Pat McEown, Andy Merrill, Scott Morse, Peter Murrietta, Tony Millionaire, Jason Paulos, Harvey Pekar, Will Pfeifer, Paul Pope, Patton Oswalt, Brian Ralph, Dave Roman, Johnny Ryan, Alvin Schwartz, Marie Severin, R. Sikoryak, Don Simpson, Jeff Smith, Jay Stephens, Rick Taylor, Raina Telgermeier, Craig Thompson, Jill Thompson, M. Wartella, Andi Watson, Steven Weissman, Mo Willems, Kurt Wolfgang, Bill Wray, Jason Yungbluth, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-1012-9 (HB/Digital)

Here am big, dull shopping list of top-ranking cartoonists from beginning of twenty-oneth century. Bunch of names not very entertaining, but what they draw and write am, especially when taking loving pot-shots at beloved DC Comics icons and moments…

I’ll happily go on record and say that practically all of the fun and true creativity in comics has come out of the ‘alternative’ or non-mainstream writers and artists these days. To prove my point I’d list a bunch of things, and very near the top of that list would be this book -actually two older, smaller books sensibly nailed together in 2021.

In its near 90 years of comics publishing, DC Comics has produced many of the most memorable, most engaging and most peculiar comic characters and concepts you could imagine. For all that, they also managed to stir echoes and forge a deep and abiding affection in the hearts and minds of some of the most creative people on the planet.

As I’ve already said, the material in this titanic tome of titters (sorry, apparently I’m channelling my inner Frankie Howerd today) first emerged in a brace of cartoon anthology volumes: Bizarro Comics and Bizarro World in 2001 and 2005, disrespectively.

They delivered fast and furious skits, sketches and gags by profoundly engaged – often deeply disturbed – fans turned pros. There was a heavy dependence on small-press and self-published creators all used to having complete control of their work…

It was all meant to make you laugh and feel longing for simpler whackier times, and the Introduction by Kyle Baker should be all you need to steer you through what follows.

If I were you, I’d stop here and just buy the book, but just in case you’re a stubborn holdout, I’m going to add to my editor and proof-reader’s many woes by listing exactly who is in the thing, what they did and even add a few critical comments, just to earn my keep.

Then I’ll make my poor staff read the book too, just to cheer them up after all my word salad…

Following Matt Groening’s Bizarro Comics cover (which you get here for free) lurks a hilarious framing sequence, as a monstrous unbeatable creature attempts to conquer Mr Mxyzptlk’s 5th dimensional home. Chris Duffy & Stephen DeStefano – aided by legendary cartoonist and colourist Marie Severin – tell a weird and wonderful tale of outlandish failed Superman clone Bizarro that begins in ‘Bizarre Wars Part One’ and diverges into a wonderland of individual battles against cosmic games player A.

As the appointed defender of the entire endangered dimension, Bizarro resorts to a heretofore unsuspected ultimate power: producing comic strips featuring unfamiliar adventures of DC’s most recognizable heroes that come to life …ish.

Cue a veritable Who’s Who of the cool and wonderful of modern comics creating a plethora of wacky, dreamy, funny, wistful and just plain un-put-downable strips that would delight any kid who read comics but then accidentally grew up.

In rapid rollercoaster fashion and Fighting the Goof Fight for reality come ‘Bizarro-X-Ray One’ by Gregory Benton, Bizarro-X-Ray Two’ by John Kerschbaum and Bizarro-X-Ray Three’ by Gilbert Hernandez – all coloured by Tom McCraw. Sam Henderson & Bob Fingerman reconvene the ‘Super-Pets’ whilst Duffy & Craig Thompson expose Green Lantern in ‘The Afterthoughts’. Chip Kidd & Tony Millionaire revisit early days of ‘The Bat-Man’ in stylish monochrome before Henderson, Dean Haspiel, Bill Oakley & Matt Madden recount the silly charm-packed saga of ‘Captain Marvel and the Sham Shazam’…

Baker & Elizabeth Glass test the mettle of ‘Letitia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter!’ and Aquaman endures double trouble as Evan Dorkin, Brian David-Marshall, Bill Wray & Matt Hollingsworth draw attention to ‘Silence of the Fishes’ before Andy Merrill & Jason Little douse the Sea King in ‘Porcine Panic!’

Fingerman, Pat McEown, Oakley & Hollingsworth inflict ‘The Tinnocchio Syndrome’ on The Metal Men before Andi Watson, Mark Crilley & Lee Loughridge orchestrate ‘Wonder Girl vs Wonder Tot’ and James Kochalka, Dylan Horrocks & Abe Foreau pit Hawkman against ‘The Egg-Napper!’, even as ‘The GL Corps: The Few, The Proud’ glean more story glory courtesy due to Will Pfeifer, Jill Thompson, Clem Robins, Rick Taylor & Digital Chameleon.

Horrocks, Jessica Abel & Madden then see Supergirl and Mary Marvel have a moment in ‘The Clubhouse of Solitude’ whilst Nick Bertozzi & Tom Hart tune in to ‘Kamandi: The Last Band on Earth!’ before Jeff Smith, Paul Pope & Loughridge depict Bizarro demanding ‘Help! Superman!’ as Jef Czekaj & Brian Ralph confront Aquaman with ‘The Man Who Cried Fish!’ in advance of Wonder Woman pondering ‘One-Piece, Two-Piece, Red-Piece, Blue-Piece’ on a shopping trip organised by Fingerman & Dave Cooper.

Ellen Forney, Ariel Bordeaux & Madden probe a young girl’s ‘Bats Out of Heck’ and Eddie Campbell, Hunt Emerson, Rick Taylor & Digital Chameleon went full-on Batmaniacal in ‘Who Erased the Eraser’ before Crilley & Watson negotiate a shocking ‘First Contact’ with The Atom, after which The Batman invites us ‘Inside the Batcave’ with Pope & Jay Stephens as tour guides.

Dorkin, D’Israeli & Digital Chameleon expose ‘Solomon Grundy: Bored on a Monday’ before Alvin Schwartz, Roger Langridge & Loughridge debut ‘The Most Bizarre Bizarro of All’ and Ivan Brunetti, Dorkin & Sarah Dyer reveal ‘That’s Really Super, Superman!’ to The World’s Finest Team whilst Dorkin, Carol Lay, Tom McCraw & Digital Chameleon invite everyone to ‘The J’onn J’onzz Celebrity Roast’ before Bordeaux, Forney & Madden share ‘Wonder Woman’s Day Off’…

The initial volume and that framing Mxyzptlk yarn are coming to a close as Dorkin, Wray, John Costanza & Hollingsworth craft ‘Unknown Challenges of the Challengers of the Unknown’ and Dorkin, Steven Weissman & Dyer go to bat for all the forgotten creature sidekicks in ‘Without You, I’m Nothing’ before Duffy, DeStefano, Phil Felix, Severin & Digital C reunite for the climactic conclusion of ‘Bizarre Wars – Part Two’…

If you haven’t heard of anybody on that overwhelming list then get Googling. Then get this book and get enjoying.

No? that’s okay… There’s More…

The turn of this century was a particularly fraught time – aren’t they always? – and one of the best ways to combat the impending travail was to make people laugh. A follow up to the remarkably successful Bizarro Comics again invited a coterie of alternative comics creators (and guests!) to make sport of various hallowed DC icons. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and all the lesser gods were dragooned into more tales humorous, dolorous and just plain peculiar, drawn in an eye-wrenching range of styles. Many of those involved continued to display a disturbing knowledge of, if not respect for, the DC continuity of the 1960s whilst others seem to centre on the TV and Movie interpretations, but the fondness for times gone by was readily apparent throughout.

Behind a Bizarro World cover from Jaime Hernandez, Rian Hughes & Coco Shinomiya is unsurprisingly story ‘Bizarro World’ by Duffy, Scott Morse, Rob Leigh & Dave Stewart as a couple of unwary kids fall into a universe stuffed to overflowing with everyday super people…

Answers come from a crusty reporter with extensive files and notes from many stringers…

Kidd, Millionaire & Jim Campbell review ‘Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder’ and Merrill, Langridge & Madden get seasonally silly in ‘Jing Kal-El’, whilst Mo Willems, Forney & Madden reveal ‘The Wonder of it All’ for the youthful feminist before Foreu, Kochalka & Madden have shapeshifter Chameleon Boy ask ‘Where’s Proty?’

Nostalgia and childish wish-fulfilment masterfully merge in pants-wettingly funny ‘Batman Smells’ by American National Treasures Patton Oswalt, Fingerman & Stewart, whilst Duffy & Craig Thompson channel ‘The Spectre’ and Jasons Yungbluth & Paulos confirm with Hal Jordan that ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’ even as Aaron Bergeron & Kerschbaum revel in ‘The Power of Positive Batman’…

Mike Doughty & Danny Hellman’s Fish-out-of-water ‘Aquaman’ segues into another true Stand Out story: ‘Batman: Upgrade 5.0’ by Dean Haglund & Peter Murrieta, illustrated by Don Simpson, before comics bad boy John Ryan joins Dave Cooper to explore being ‘Super-Dumped’ via the sad story of Clark and Diana…

Elsewhere, Dorkin & M. Wartella retroactively introduce Batman to ‘Monkey, the Monkey Wonder’ whilst comics verité legends Harvey Pekar & Dean Haspiel declare ‘Bizarro Shmizarro’ just as Dylan Horrocks, Farel Dalrymple & Paul Hornschemeier proposition ‘Dear Superman’ on behalf of a youngster with a secret…

‘The Red Bee Returns’ courtesy of Peter Bagge, Gilbert Hernandez & Madden, after which Eric Drysdale, Tim Lane, Oakley & Madden organise ‘The Break’ for the JLA. Dorkin & Watson then find The Legion of Super-Heroes ‘Out with the In Crowd’ just as Todd Alcott, Michael Kupperman & Ken Lopez detail the ‘Ultimate Crisis of the Justice League’…

Tomer & Asaf Hanuka join Lopez & Campbell to define ‘Batman’ whilst Paul Dini & Carol Lay have the very last word on ‘Krypto the Superdog’ and Ariel Bordeaux & Rick Altergott unwisely launch ‘Legion.com’ before mercurial Harvey Dent enjoys a ‘Dinner for Two’ thanks to Dorkin & Iva Brunetti…

Maggie Estep & Horrocks take on ‘Supergirl’ and her horsey history before Leela Corman & Tom Hart steer a ‘Power Trip’ for Batgirl, Wonder Woman and the Girl of Steel, whilst Eddie Campbell, Paul Grist & Phil Elliott schedule ‘A Day in the Life in the Flash’ before hilariously reprising their manic madness via ‘The Batman Operetta’…

Bizarro returns in an activity page from his ‘Daily Htrae’ – by Dorkin & R. Sikoryak – and the GL Corps turn Japanese in ‘Lantern Sentai’ from Rand & David Borden of Studio Kaiju, manifested by multi-talented Benn Dunn. Philippe Dupuy & Charles Berberian then offer a continental touch in ‘Batman of Paris’, Kurt Wolfgang & Brian Ralph have fun with ‘The Demon’ and John Krewson, Dorkin & Dyer expose ‘Kamandi, The Laziest Boy on Earth’.

Despite all the craziness, the best has wisely been left until last and end begins with The Justice League of America regretting ‘Take Your Kids to Work Day’ (by Dave Roman & Raina Telgemeier) whilst ultimate manservant Alfred Pennyworth conducts his master’s business as a “Personal Shopper” thanks to Kyle Baker & Elizabeth Glass, before we finish with Deadman who learns with horror – from Paul Di Filippo & Derek Kirk Kim – that ‘Good Girls Go to Heaven. Bad Girls Go Everywhere’…

What do you get if you give a whole bunch of vets and alternative comics creators carte blanche and a broad brief? You should get this.
© 2001, 2005, 2021 DC Comics. All rights reserved.