Nostalgia – Page 62 – Now Read This!

September 12, 2016September 11, 2016

Bob Powell’s Complete Cave Girl

By Gardner Fox & Bob Powell, with James Vance, John Wooley, Mark Schultz & various (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-700-3

Like every art form, comics can be readily divided into masterpieces and populist pap, but that damning assessment necessarily comes with a bunch of exclusions and codicils.

Periodical publications, like all pop songs, movies and the entirety of television’s output (barring schools programming), are designed to sell to masses of consumers. As such the product must reflect the target and society at a specific moment in time and perforce quickly adapt and change with every variation in taste or fashion.

Although very much an artefact of its time I consider â€œEver Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)â€ by The Buzzcocks to be the perfect pop song, but I’m not going to waste time trying to convince anybody of the fact.

For me, and perhaps only for me, it just is.

The situation is most especially true of comics – especially those created before they gained any kind of credibility: primarily deemed by their creators and publishers as a means of parting youngsters from disposable cash. The fact that so many have been found to possess redeeming literary and artistic merit or social worth is post hoc rationalisation.

Those creators striving for better, doing the very best they could because of their inner artistic drives, were being rewarded with just as meagre a financial reward as the shmoes just phoning it in for the paycheckâ€¦

That sad state of affairs in periodical publication wasn’t helped by the fact that most editors thought they knew what the readership wanted – safe, prurient gratification – and mostly they were right.

Even so, from such swamps gems occasionally emergedâ€¦

The entire genre of â€œJungle Girlsâ€ is one fraught with perils for modern readers. Barely clad, unattainable, (usually) white paragons of feminine pulchritude lording it over superstitious primitive races is one that is now pretty hard to digest, but frankly so are most of the attitudes of our grandfathers’ time.

However, ways can be found to accommodate such crystallised or outdated attitudes, especially when reading from a suitably detached historical perspective and even more so when the art is crafted by a master storyteller like Bob Powell.

After all, it’s not that big a jump from fictionalised 1950s jungles to the filmic metropolises of today where leather armoured (usually white) Adonises with godlike power paternalistically watch over us, telling we lumpy, dumpy, ethnically mixed losers how to live and be happyâ€¦

Sorry, I all comics in all genres from all eras, but sometimes the â€œguilty pleasureâ€ meter on my conscience just redlines and I can’t stop it. Just remember, it’s not realâ€¦

As businessmen, editors and publishers knew what hormonal kids wanted to see and they gave it to them. It’s no different today. Just take a look at any comic-shop shelf or cover listings site and see how many fully-clad, small-breasted females you can spotâ€¦

Cave Girl was one of the last entries into the surprisingly long-lived Jungle Queen genre and consequently looks relatively mild in comparison to other titles in regard to suggestive or prurient titillation.

Here the action-adventure side of the equation was always most heavily stressed and readers of the time could see far more salacious material at every movie house if they need to.

End of self-gratifying apologies. Let’s talk about Bobâ€¦

Stanley Robert Pawlowski was born in 1916 in Buffalo, New York, and studied at the Pratt Institute in Manhattan before joining one of the earliest comics-packaging outfits: the Eisner-Iger Shop.

He was a solid and dependable staple of American comicbook’s Golden Age, illustrating a variety of key features. He drew original Jungle Queen Sheena in Jumbo Comics plus other Jungle Girl features and Spirit of ’76 for Harvey’s Pocket Comics.

He handled assorted material for Timely titles such as Captain America in All-Winners Comics, Tough Kid Comics plus such genre material as Gale Allen and the Women’s Space Battalion for anthologies like Planet Comics, Mystery Men Comics and Wonder Comics.

Recently he was revealed to have co-scripted/created Blackhawk as well as drawing Loops and Banks in Military Comics as well as so many more now near-forgotten strips: all under a variety of English-sounding pseudonyms, since the tone of the times was rather unforgiving for creative people of minority origins.

Eventually the artist settled on S. Bob Powell and had his name legally changedâ€¦

Probably his most well-remembered and highly regarded tour of duty was on Mr. Mystic in Will Eisner’s Spirit Section newspaper insert. After serving in WWII, Bob came home and quit to set up his own studio. Eisner never forgave him.

Powell – with his assistants Howard Nostrand, Martin Epp and George Siefringer – soon established a solid reputation for quality, versatility and reliability: working for Fawcett (Vic Torry & His Flying Saucer, Hot Rod Comics, Lash Larue), Harvey Comics (Man in Black, Adventures in 3-D and True 3-D) and on Street and Smith’s Shadow Comics.

He was particularly prolific in many titles for Magazine Enterprises (ME), including TV tie-in Bobby Benson’s B-Bar-B Riders, Red Hawk in Straight Arrow, Jet Powers and the short but bombastic run of quasi-superhero Strong Man.

Powell easily turned his hand to a vast range of War, Western, Science Fiction, Crime, Comedy and Horror material: consequently generating as a by-product some of the best and most glamorous â€œGood Girl artâ€ of the era, both in comics and in premiums/strip packages for business.

In the 1960s he pencilled the infamous Mars Attacks cards, illustrated Bessie Little’s Teena-a-Go-Go and the Bat Masterson strip for the newspapers and ended his days drawing Daredevil, the Human Torch and Giant-Man for Marvel.

This captivating hardback compilation gathers all the Cave Girl appearances – written by ubiquitous jobbing scripter Gardner Fox – from numerous ME publications. The company employed a truly Byzantine method of numbering their comicbooks so I’ll cite Thun’da #2-6 (1953), Cave Girl #4 (1953-1954) and Africa, Thrilling Land of Mystery #1 (1955) simply for the sake of brevity and completeness, knowing that it makes no real difference to your enjoyment of what’s to come.

This splendid tome includes a Biography of Bob, an incisive Introduction from Mark Schultz and an erudite essay – ‘King of the Jungle Queens’– by James Vance and John Wooley, diligently examining the origins of the genre (courtesy of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, William Henry Hudson’s novel Green Mansions and a slew of B-movies); its development in publishing; the effect of the phenomenon and Powell’s overall contributions to comics in a far more even-handed and informed way than I can manageâ€¦

That done it’s time to head to an Africa that never existed for action and adventure beyond compare. Cave Girl started as a back-up strip in Thun’da #2; a primeval barbarian saga set in an antediluvian region of the Dark Continent where dinosaurs still lived.

In ‘The Ape God of Kor’ the mighty primitive encounters a blonde stranger who can speak to birds and beasts, and helps her escape the unwanted attentions of a bestial tyrant. When that’s not enough to deter the monstrous suitor, Thun’da and Cave Girl have no choice but to topple his empireâ€¦

In #3 the wild woman met ‘The Man Who Served Death!‘ – a criminal from the outer world whose hunger for gold and savage brutality necessitated his urgent removal from the land of the living. Cave Girl’s beloved animal allies were being wantonly slaughtered to appease ‘The Shadow God of Korchak!’, forcing the gorgeous guardian of the green to topple the lost kingdom’s debauched queen, after which the tireless champion tackled a trio of sadistic killers from the civilised world in ‘Death Comes Three Ways!’

A rather demeaning comedy sidekick debuted in ‘The Little Man Who Was All There!’ from Thun’da #6 as pompous pigmy bumbler Bobo attached himself to Cave Girl as her protectorâ€¦

From there the forest monarch leaped into her own title, beginning with Cave Girl #11. ‘The Pool of Life!’ delved back in time to when a scientific expedition was wiped out, leaving little blonde toddler Carol Mantomer to fend for herself. Happily, the child was adopted by Kattu the wolf and grew tall and strong and mightyâ€¦

The obligatory origin dispensed with, the story proceeds to reveal how two white explorers broach the lost valley in time to reap their deserved fate after finding a little lake with mystic propertiesâ€¦

Tables are turned when explorer Luke Hardin deduces Cave Girl’s true identity and convinces the wild thing to come with him to Nairobi to claim her inheritance. Already appalled by the gadgets and morass of humanity in ‘The City of Terror!’, Carol’s decision to leave is cemented by her only living relative’s attempts to murder her for her inheritanceâ€¦

En route home, her wild beauty arouses the desires of millionaire hunter Alan Brandon, but his forceful pursuit and attempted abduction soon teaches him he has a ‘Tiger by the Tail!’

Her trek done, Cave Girl traverses high mountains and finds Alan and Luke have been captured by beast-like primitives and must face the ‘Spears of the Snowmen’ to save them bothâ€¦

Even the usually astoundingly high-quality scripting of veteran Gardner Fox couldn’t do much with the formulaic strictures of the sub-genre but he always tried his best, as in Cave Girl #12 which opened with ‘The Devil Boat!’ – a submarine disgorging devious crooks in death-masks intent on plundering the archaeological treasures found by Lukeâ€¦ Then when an explorer steals a sacred cache of rubies he finds that even Cave Girl can’t prevent him becoming ‘Prey of the Headhunters!’

Fantastic fantasy replaces crass commercial concerns as ‘The Amazon Assassins’ ravage villages under Cave Girl’s protection, seeking to expand their empire. The Women Warriors have no conception of the hornet’s nest they are stirring upâ€¦

Cave Girl #13 took its lead tale from newspaper headlines as the jungle defender clashed with ‘The Mau Mau Killers!’ killing innocents and destabilising the region, after which ‘Altar of the Axe’ features the return of the all-conquering Amazons who believe they can counter their arch-enemy’s prowess with a battalion of war elephants.

Their grievous error then seamlessly segues into a battle with escaped convict Buck Maldin. ‘The Jungle Badman’ is beaten by Cave Girl but it’s greedy buffoon Bobo who quickly regrets claiming the reward.

Powell reached a creative zenith with the illustrations for Cave Girl #14 (1954), his solid linework and enticing composition augmented by a burst of purely decorative design which made ‘The Man Who Conquered Death’ a dramatic tour de force.

When a series of murders and resurrections lead Cave Girl to a mad scientist who has found a time machine, she is transformed into an aged crone but still possesses the force of will to beat the deranged meddlerâ€¦

A tad more prosaic, ‘The Shining Gods’ finds a rejuvenated Cave Girl and Luke stalking thieves stealing tribal relics only to uncover a Soviet plot to secure Africa’s radium, after which the queen of the jungle is â€œsavedâ€ by well-intentioned rich woman Leona Carter and brought back to civilisation.

Happily, after poor Carol endures a catalogue of modern mishaps which equate to ‘Terror in the Town’, Cave Girl is allowed to return to her true homeâ€¦

The official series ended there, but ME had one last issue ready to print and deftly shifted emphasis by re-badging the package as Africa, Thrilling Land of Mystery #1. It appeared in 1955, sporting a Comics Code Authority symbol. Inside however, it was still formulaic but beautifully illustrated Cave Girl who exposed a conniving witch doctor using ‘The Volcano Fury’ to fleece natives, restoring ‘The Lost Juju’ of the devout Wamboolis whilst stopping a murderous explorer stealing a million dollar gem and crushing a potential uprising by taking a fateful ride on ‘The Doom Boat’â€¦

And then she was gone.

Like the society it protected from subversion and corruption, the strictures of the Comics Code frowned on females disporting themselves freely or appearing able to cope without a man, and the next half-decade was one where women were either submissive, domesticated, silly objects of amusement or just plain marital manhunters. It would be the 1970s before strong, truly independent female characters reappeared in comicbooksâ€¦

Whatever your political leanings or social condition, Cave Girl – taken strictly on her own merits – is one of the mostly beautifully rendered characters in pictorial fiction and a tribute to the talents of Bob Powell and his team. If you love perfect comic storytelling, of its time, but transcending fashion or trendiness, this is a treasure just waiting to be rediscovered.
Bob Powell’s Complete Cave Girl compilation Â© 2014 Kitchen, Lind and Associates LLC. Cave Girl is a trademark of AC Comics, successors in interest to Magazine Enterprises and is used here with permission of AC Comics. Introduction Â© 2014 Mark Schultz. â€œKing of the Jungle Queensâ€ essay Â© 2014 James Vance and John Wooley. All rights reserved.

September 8, 2016September 6, 2016

Mighty Samson Archives: volume 1

By Otto Binder & Frank Thorne & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-579-7

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

A classic example of that freedom of expression was the relatively angst-free dystopian future of Mighty Samson, who had a sporadic yet extended comics career of 32 issues spanning 1964 to 1982.

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

As a publisher, Gold Key never really â€œgotâ€ the melodramatic, often-mock-heroic Sturm und Drang of the 1960s superhero boom – although for many of us, the understated functionality of classics like Magnus, Robot Fighter and Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom or the remarkably radical concepts of atomic crusader Nukla and crime-fighting iterations of classic movie monsters Dracula, Frankenstein and Werewolf were utterly irresistible. The sheer off-the-wall lunacy of features like Neutro or Dr. Spektor I will save for a future occasionâ€¦

This superb first full-colour hardback compilation – printed on a reassuringly sturdy and comforting grainy old-school pulp stock rather than glossy paper – gathers the first half dozen issues of Mighty Samson, as anonymously created by industry giants Otto Binder & Frank Thorne. It even includes some monochrome single-page fact-features and the mesmerising painted covers by unsung master illustrators Morris Gollub and George Wilson.

These covers were reproduced text-free on the back of each issue and probably graced many a kid’s bedroom wall way back when. You get those too, but I’d suggest scanners rather than scissors this time aroundâ€¦

Otto Binder was a quintessential jobbing writer. He and his brother Earl were early fans of science fiction and made their first professional sale to Amazing Stories in 1930. As â€œEando Binderâ€ their pulp-fiction and novels output ran well into the 1970s, with Otto rightly famed for his creation of robotic hero Adam Link.

From 1939 onwards, Otto was also a prolific comicbook scripter, most beloved for the invention and perfection of a humorous blend of spectacular action, self-deprecating humour and gentle whimsy which characterised the Fawcett Captain Marvel line of characters (and later DC’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen). He was also constantly employed by many other publishers and amongst his most memorable inventions and innovations are Timely’s Young Allies, Mr. Mind, Brainiac, Krypto the Super Dog and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

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

Frank Thorne is one of the most individualistic talents in American comics. Born in 1930, he began his comics career drawing romances for Standard Comics beside the legendary Alex Toth before graduating to better paid newspaper strips: illustrating Perry Mason for King Features Syndicate. For Dell/Gold Key he drew Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim and The Green Hornet, as well as the first few years of this seminal sci-fi classic.

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

Thorne was still a fairly by-the-book illustrator at the time of this collection’s content and it was on Mighty Samson that he opened up, finding his own unique artistic vision which would carry him to the forefront of stylists with the satirical and erotic works of his later years.

That’s meat for other reviews, but here the creators combined to craft a beguiling other-world of action, adventure and drama suitable for most kids of all ages and which would be perfectly at home today on any Saturday Morning Kids channel.

The strip, its merits and the incredible careers of its originators are fully and lovingly discussed by Dylan Williams in his Foreword ‘The Mighty Samson Comics of Frank Thorne and Otto Binder’, and there are full ‘Creator Biographies’ at the end of the book, but what really matters is the sublime stories reprinted here: no-nonsense high-fantasy yarns at once self-contained, episodic, exciting, enticing and deceptively witty.

After that first magnetic painted cover from Gollub, the eponymous ‘Mighty Samson’ (#1, July 1964) introduces the bombed out former metropolis of N’Yark; a place where human primitives cling to the ruins, striving daily against mutated plants and monsters and less easily identified blends somewhere in betweenâ€¦.

A strange event occurs one day when a toddler is grabbed by a predatory plant. The tot simply tears the terror apart with his podgy little hands. As years pass and the child grows tall and clean-limbed, it becomes clear that he too is a mutant: immensely strong, fast and durableâ€¦

Impassioned by his mother’s dying words – â€œprotect the weak from the powerful, the good from the evilâ€ – Samson becomes the champion of his people, battling the beasts and monsters of the city. Sadly the struggles are not without cost, such as when he kills the immense Liobear, but loses his right eyeâ€¦

The clash proves a turning point in his life as his wounds are dressed by a stranger named Sharmaine. She and her father Mindor are voluntary outcasts in the city: shunning contact with superstitious tribes to gather lost secrets of science and work to bring humanity out of its second stone ageâ€¦

Fired with inspiration, Samson agrees to join in their self-appointed mission and defend them from all threats as they carry out their work.

There were generally two full adventures per issue, and the quest continues in ‘Ancient Weapon’ as the trio’s constant scavenging leads them through a gauntlet of horrendous mutant monsters to an ancient armoury where sagacious Mindor deciphers the secrets of sticks which kill from a distance. Sadly, the discovery is observed by brutal warlord Kull the Killer who takes Sharmaine hostage to seize control of the death-technology. Thankfully the tyrant and his warriors never suspect Samson is as clever as he is strongâ€¦

It was nearly a year until a second issue was released (#2, June 1965), but when it finally arrived it was at full throttle. ‘The Riddle of the Raids’ saw the wandering science nomads buzzed by a flying saucer which proves to be the vehicle of choice of a new arch foe. Terra is an exotic mystery woman possessing many lost technological secrets who has emerged after years underground in a bunker from the old world. Her store of atomic batteries finally exhausted, she begins raiding across the toxic, monster-infested Huzon River from the wastelands of Jerz, and soon recruits Kull to her cause. Even working in unison however they are no match for Mighty Samson and once he drives them off, aged Mindor is able to add greatly to mankind’s store of recovered knowledgeâ€¦

Intent on uncovering the truth about ‘The Maid of Mystery’, Samson makes the perilous excursion across the devastated George Washington Bridge to invade Terra’s subterranean fortress in Jerz. Although faced with Kull’s monstrous minions and captured, the one-eyed hero soon escapes, but not before making a lasting impression on the evil empress of forgotten loreâ€¦

More secrets of lost civilisation emerged in #3 (September 1965) after the atomic archaeologists unearth a ‘Peril from the Past’. Dr. John Pitt was working in an atomic bunker when the world ended, and after somehow falling into suspended animation is revived by the jubilant Mindor.

Determined to glean everything possible from the shaken survivor, hopes are continually dashed as a geological accident in an old chemical factory threatens to wipe out N’Yark with toxic clouds of radioactive poison. However, as the reawakened chemist works with his rescuers to end the threat, Sharmaine suspects the old-worlder is hiding somethingâ€¦

The tragic truth about Pitt comes out as he and Samson begin ‘The Desperate Mission’ to snuff out the source of the death cloud, but only as a prelude to a greater, final lossâ€¦

With Mighty Samson #4 (December 1965), the turbulent world of tomorrow expanded exponentially as N’Yark suffers raids by post-apocalyptic Vikings from pastoral paradise Greelynd. Barbaric despot Thorr leads ‘The Metal Stealers’ in stripping the ruined city of all its scrap alloys; sailing them to his distant Nordic castle where he has rediscovered the processes of smelting and forging.

Samson doggedly tracks him across unknown oceans, not just because he has stolen the city’s heritage and vital resources but also because the reaver kidnapped Sharmaine and seemingly turned Mindor’s head with promises of technological resources and total freedom to experimentâ€¦

Of course, all is not as it seems and when Samson invades Thorr’s ‘Sinister Stronghold’, to battle the tyrant’s legion of monsters, idealistic Mindor’s seeming compliance is revealed as a clever plan to defeat the resource raiderâ€¦

Returned to their shattered home, Samson and his allies are helpless against the mounting radioactive peril of ‘The Death Geysers’ (#5, March 1966) erupting from beneath the city. With portions of N’Yark now no-go areas, hope seems to materialise in the form of Vaxar, a stranger versed in science, whom Samson rescues from a voracious Gulping Blob.

Vaxar eagerly joins their efforts to neutralise the geyser menace, but the researcher’s every invention is countered by a monstrous and bestial mutant named Oggar who is every inch Samson’s physical equalâ€¦

Once again, clear-headed Sharmaine is the one who deduces the truth about ‘The Double Enemy’ in their midst and, as Vaxar’s terrible secret is exposed, awesome natural forces are combined with a most terrifying artefact of recovered weaponry to end the threat of both Oggar and the geysersâ€¦

These utterly accessible, exultant and exuberant romps conclude in this volume with a sop to the then-escalating â€œspace raceâ€ between Russia and the USA. Issue #6 (June 1966) opens with N’Yark bombarded by ‘The Sinister Satellites’ of a forgotten era, haphazardly crashing to earth around the city.

Consulting his preciously-hoarded records, Mindor ascertains they are lost technology he simply must possess, but finds that he is in deadly contention with Terra of Jerz for the fallen stars.

None too soon, suspicious Samson and Sharmaine discover the evil queen of science is actually pulling the satellites to earth with a magnetic cannon, but as they move to stop her, an unintended consequence of her meddling unleashes ‘The Monster from Space’ which grows exponentially and looks set to devour the entire continent should Mighty Samson not find some way to kill itâ€¦

This excellent tome has one last treat in store, as a brace of monochrome pictorial fact features – also illustrated by Thorne – reveal a few salient facts about the iconic Empire State Building in ‘The Mighty Tower’ and ‘The World’s Tallest’, originally produced as frontispieces for the advert-free original comicbooks.

Bizarre, action-packed and fabulously bombastic, Binder’s modern myth of a rationalist Hercules battling atom-spawned Titans and devils is a stunning spectacle of thrill-a-minute wonderment from start to finish, with artist Thorne visibly shaking off his artistic chains with every succeeding page. These tales are lost gems from an era when fun was paramount and entertainment a mandatory requirement. This is comics they way they were and really should be againâ€¦
Mighty SamsonÂ® Volume One â„¢ and Â© 2010 Random House, Inc. Under license to Classic Media LCC. All rights reserved. All other material, unless otherwise specified, Â© 2010 Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.

September 4, 2016August 30, 2016

Mandrake the Magician: The Hidden Kingdom of Murderers – Sundays 1935-1937

By Lee Falk & Phil Davis (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-572-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because We Believe in Magicâ€¦ 9/10

Considered by many as the first superhero, Mandrake the Magician debuted as a daily newspaper strip on 11^th June 1934. An instant hit, it was soon supplemented by a full-colour Sunday companion page which launched on February 3^rd 1935.

Creator Lee Falk actually sold the strip to King Features Syndicate years earlier as a 19-year old college student, but asked the monolithic company to let him finish his studies before dedicating himself to the strip full time. With his schooling done, the 23 year old master raconteur settled in to begin his life’s work: entertaining millions with his astounding tales.

Falk – who also created the first costumed superhero in the moodily magnificent Phantom – spawned an actual comicbook subgenre with his first creation. Most publishers of the Golden Age boasted at least one (and usually many more) nattily attired wonder wizards amongst their gaudily-garbed pantheons; all roaming the world making miracles and defeating injustice with varying degrees of stage legerdemain or actually sorcery.

Characters such Mr. Mystic, Ibis the Invincible, Sargon the Sorcerer, and an assortment of â€œâ€¦the Magicianâ€ such as Zanzibar, Zatara, Kardak and so many, many more all borrowed heavily and shamelessly from the uncanny exploits of the elegant, enigmatic man of mystery who graced the pages of the world’s newspapers and magazines.

In the Antipodes Mandrake was a stalwart regular of the Australian Women’s Weekly, and also became a cherished star in the UK, Italy and Scandinavia.

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

Falk worked on Mandrake and â€œThe Ghost who Walksâ€ until his death in 1999 (even on his deathbed he was laying out one last story) but he also found time to become a playwright, theatre producer and impresario, as well as an inveterate world-traveller.

A man of many talents, Falk drew the first few weeks himself before uniting with the sublimely imaginative cartoonist Phil Davis whose sleekly understated renditions took the daily strip – and especially these expansive full-page Sunday offerings – to unparalleled heights of sophistication; his steady assured realism the perfect tool to render the Magician’s mounting catalogue of wondrous miraclesâ€¦

Those in the know are well aware that Mandrake was educated at the fabled College of Magic in Tibet, thereafter becoming a suave globe-trotting troubleshooter, always accompanied by his faithful African friend Lothar and beautiful companion (eventually, in 1997, his bride) Princess Narda of Cockaigne, solving crimes and fighting evil. Those days, however, are still to come as the comics section opens in this splendidly oversized (315 x 236 mm) full-colour luxury hardback with ‘The Hidden Kingdom of Murderers’ (which ran from February 3^rd to June 2^nd 1935) as the urbane Prince of Prestidigitation and his herculean man-servant are approached by members of the international police to help expose a secret society of criminals and killers acting against the civilised world from their own hidden country.

After officer Duval is assassinated, Mandrake and Lothar – accompanied by panther woman Rheeta and surviving cop Pierce – embark upon a multi-continental search which after many adventures eventually takes them a desolate desert region where they are confronted by bloody-handed Bull Ganton, King of Killers.

With the master murderer distracted by Rheeta, Mandrake easily infiltrates the odious organisation and quickly begins dismantling the secret society of two million murderers. By the time Ganton wises up and begins a succession of schemes to end Mandrake, it’s too lateâ€¦

That deadly drama concluded, Mandrake and Lothar head to India to revisit old haunts and end up playing both peacemaker and cupid in the ‘Land of the Fakirs’ (running from June 9^th to October 6^th).

When Princess Jana, daughter of Mandrake’s old acquaintance Jehol Khan is abducted by rival ruler Rajah Indus of Lapore, the Magician ends his mischievous baiting of the street fakirs to intervene. In the meantime Captain Jorga – who loves Jana despite being of a lower caste – sets off from the Khan’s palace to save her or die in the tryingâ€¦

After many terrific and protracted struggles, Mandrake, Lothar and Jorga finally unite to defeat the devious and duplicitous Rajah before the westerners set about their most difficult and important feat; overturning centuries of tradition so that Jorga and Jana might marryâ€¦

Heading north, the peripatetic performers stumble into amazing fantasy after entering the ‘Land of the Little People’ (13^th October 1935 to March 1^st 1936), encountering a lost race of tiny people embroiled in a centuries-long war with brutal cannibalistic adversaries. After saving the proud warriors from obliteration, Mandrake again plays matchmaker, allowing valiant Prince Dano to wed brave and formidable commoner Derina who fought so bravely beside themâ€¦

With this sequence illustrator Davis seemed to shake off all prior influences and truly blossomed into an artist with a unique and mesmerising style all his own. That was perfectly showcased in the loosely knit sequence (spanning 8^th March to 23^rd August 1936) which followed, as Mandrake and Lothar returned to civilisation only to narrowly escape death in an horrific train wreck.

Crawling from the wreckage, our heroes help ‘The Circus People’ recapture and calm the animals freed by the crash and subsequently stick around as the close-knit family of nomadic outcasts rebuild. Mighty Lothar has many clashes with jealous bully Zaro the Strongman, culminating in thwarting attempted murder, whilst Mandrake uses his hypnotic hoodoo to teach sadistic animal trainer Almado lessons in how to behave, but primarily the newcomers act as a catalyst, making three slow-burning romances finally burst into roaring passionate lifeâ€¦

Absolutely the best tale in this tome and an imaginative tour de force which inspired many soon-to-be legendary comicbook stars, ‘The Chamber into the X Dimension’ (30^th August 1936 to March 7^th 1937) is a breathtaking, mind-bending saga which begins when Mandrake and Lothar go searching for the missing daughter of a scientist whose experiments have sent her literally out of this world.

Professor Theobold has discovered a way to pierce the walls between worlds but his beloved Fran never returned from the first live test. Eager to help – and addicted to adventure – Mandrake and Lothar volunteer to go in search of her and soon find themselves in a bizarre timeless world where the rules of science are warped and races of sentient vegetation, living metal, crystal and even flame war with fleshly humanoids for dominance and survival.

After months of captivity, slavery, exploration and struggle our human heroes finally lead a rebellion of the downtrodden fleshlings and bring the professor the happiest news of his long-missing childâ€¦

Concluding this initial conjuror’s compilation is a whimsical tale of judgement and redemption as Mandrake uses his gifts to challenge the mad antics of ‘Prince Paulo the Tyrant’ 14^th (March 14^th – 29^th August 1937).

The unhappy usurper stole the throne of Ruritanian Dementor and promptly turned the idyllic kingdom into a scientifically created madhouse. Sadly, Paulo had no conception of what true chaos and terror were until the magician exercised his mesmeric talentsâ€¦

This epic celebration also offers a fulsome, picture-packed and informative introduction to the character – thanks to Magnus Magnuson’s compelling essay ‘Mandrake the Magician Wonder of a Generation’ – plus details on the lives of the creators (Lee Falk’ and ‘Phil Davis Biography’ features) and a marvellous Davis pin-up of the cast to complete an immaculate confection of nostalgic strip wonderment for young and old alike.
Mandrake the Magician Â© 2016 King Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved. â€œMandrake the Magician Wonder of a Generationâ€ Â© 2016 by Magnus Magnuson.

August 31, 2016August 28, 2016

The Shadow volume 2: Revolution

By Victor Gischler, Jack Herbert, Aaron Campbell, Giovanni Timpano & various (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-361-2

In the early 1930s, The Shadow gave thrill-starved readers their measured doses of extraordinary excitement via cheaply produced pulp periodical novels, and over the mood-drenched airwaves, through his own radio show.

â€œPulpsâ€ were published in every style and genre in their hundreds every month, ranging from the truly excellent to the pitifully dire, but for exotic or esoteric adventure-lovers there were two star who outshone all others. The Superman of his day was Doc Savage, whilst the premier dark, relentless creature of the night dispensing terrifying grim justice was the putative hero under discussion here.

Radio series Detective Story Hour – based on stand-alone yarns from the Street & Smith publication Detective Story Magazine – used a spooky voiced narrator (variously Orson Welles, James LaCurto or Frank Readick Jr.) to introduce each tale. He was dubbed â€œthe Shadowâ€ and from the very start on July 31^st 1930, he was more popular than the stories he highlighted.

The Shadow evolved into a proactive hero solving instead of narrating mysteries and, on April 1^st 1931, began starring in his own printed pulp series, written by the incredibly prolific Walter Gibson under the house pseudonym Maxwell Grant. On September 26^th 1937 the radio show officially became The Shadow with the eerie motto â€œWho knows what evil lurks in the hearts of Men? The Shadow knows!â€ ringing out unforgettably over the nation’s airwaves.

Over the next eighteen years 325 novels were published, usually at the rate of two a month. The uncanny crusader spawned comicbooks, seven movies, a newspaper strip and all the merchandising paraphernalia you’d expect of a superstar brand.

The pulp series officially ended in 1949 although Gibson and others added to the canon during the 1960s when a pulp/fantasy revival gripped America, generating reprinted classic stories and a run of new adventures as paperback novels.

In graphic terms The Shadow was a major player. His national newspaper strip – by Vernon Greene – launched on June 17^th 1940 and when comicbooks really took off the Man of Mystery had his own four-colour title; running from March 1940 to September 1949.

Archie Comics published a controversial contemporary comicbook in 1964-1965 under their Radio/Mighty Comics imprint, by Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, John Rosenberger and latterly Paul Reinman; and in 1973 DC acquired the rights to produce a captivating, brief and definitive series of classic comic adventures unlike any other superhero title then on the stands.

DC periodically revived the venerable vigilante. After the runaway success of Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchman, Howard Chaykin was allowed to utterly overhaul the vintage feature. This led to further, adult-oriented iterations (and even one cracking outing from Marvel) before Dark Horse assumed the license of the quintessential grim avenger for the latter half of the 1990s and beyond.

Dynamite Entertainment picked up the option in 2011 and, whilst republishing many of those other publisher’s earlier efforts, began a series of new monthly Shadow comics.

Set in the turbulent 1930s and war years that followed, these were crafted by some of the top writers in the industry, each taking their shot at the immortal legend, and all winningly depicted by a succession of extremely gifted illustrators.

This second volume – collecting #7-12 of the monthly comicbook from 2013 – comes courtesy of Victor Gischler (Gun Monkeys, Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, Kiss Me Satan), again throwing a spotlight on the increasing deadly geopolitics of a civilisation sliding inexorably into another World Warâ€¦.

His scripts were variously realised by Jack Herbert, Aaron Campbell, Giovanni Timpano, Ivan Nunes & Carlos Lopez, and the action opens with a self-contained prelude that begins with the Master of the Macabre suffering from uncharacteristic bad dreamsâ€¦

Very few people know that the black-cloaked fist of final retribution known as The Shadow masquerades by day as abrasive, indolent playboy Lamont Cranston. Most are agents in his employ and they are all aware of his semi-mystical abilities to detect thoughts and cloud the minds of men, but not that in the past few days those abilities have seemingly waned and led to the death of an innocentâ€¦

Engaging veteran Great War pilot Miles Crofton, Cranston embarks on a journey to the Himalayan region where he long ago studied under august adepts of the arcane. However, his voyage is interrupted in Nepal when he encounters a brutal bandit leader dubbed Red Raja. This thuggish crimelord seems to have powers and abilities similar and equal to his ownâ€¦

Eschewing immediate confrontation, Cranston delves deep into the past and eventually learns the Raja also studied with the esoteric â€œMastersâ€. Tragically, when his innate evil nature forced them to expel him, the student returned with men and guns; wiping out the entire enclave of puissant accumulated knowledgeâ€¦

Armed with information and fuelled by righteous fury, The Shadow then assaults Red Raja’s fortress, single-handedly eradicating his army of rogues before enacting final judgementâ€¦

Weeks later, vacationing in Paris whilst Miles has their plane repaired, the restless Shadow passes his time hunting down human predators and becomes emotionally embroiled in a missing persons case.

The trail leads to a grand soiree at the Spanish Embassy where Cranston makes a particular splash with the assorted dignitaries and persons of wealth and high station, particularly after loudly declaring that he is an arms dealer with product to sell.

It is 1937 and the civil war in Spain has all but stalled, with both sides afflicted by attrition and exhaustionâ€¦

Horrified Ambassador Ramirez is only too happy to fob off the tiresome Cranston on his military attachÃ©. As soon as he sees the devastating Major Esmeralda Aguilar, the Shadow knows she is no ordinary womanâ€¦

The swaggering millionaire is only too eager to ditch the stuffy party with the exotic spy, but their intimate drive through the City of Lights is almost ended by a machine gun attack. Then Cranston discovers just how dangerous his companion truly isâ€¦

The next day Miles resurfaces with news on a freighter full of munitions headed for Spain and the final clue to the disappearances the Shadow has been investigating. Even with mental faculties and powers diminished and compromised, the Dark Avenger is clear on where his next destination liesâ€¦

Intercepting the gunrunners as they seek to offload their illicit cargo at a Spanish port, the Shadow dispenses his brand of justice before vanishing, and twelve hours later Lamont Cranston arrives in Barcelona, unsure of what trick of fate or his own subconscious has brought him there.

His mystically-attuned senses go into overdrive once he meets an inoffensive British volunteer in the Socialist Brigade calling himself â€œGeorge Orwellâ€â€¦

After befriending the oddly magnetic militiaman, Cranston excuses himself and resumes his trail of guns whilst Orwell returns to his unit in Aragon. Diligent hunting takes the Shadow to a warehouse where a gang led by a masked woman named Black Sparrow are attempting to sell the munitions to representatives of the underworld.

When the crooks try a double-cross they are savagely wiped out by the Sparrow as her men stand idly by, and from his hidden vantage point the Shadow realises just how extraordinary Major Aguilar truly isâ€¦

Soon the Avenger is risking spectacular airborne death; chasing her back to an ancient castle in the Aragon Region where he uncovers a bold scheme by an international cabal to place a third ruler on the throne of Spain. Of course, when he blazes in to end the conspiracy, Cranston finds more than he bargained for.

â€œEl Reyâ€ is far from the dominating despot he appears, and the true mastermind behind the plot is far more of a match for the Shadow than the grim guardian could possibly have anticipated.

And that’s when fate reveals the potential value of a certain nondescript British soldier of ideology and fortuneâ€¦

This historically-flavoured jaunt then concludes with one last hurrah as Miles and Cranston belatedly return to New York just in time for the Shadow to fixate on a gang of ruthless bank robbers terrorising the city with their bold and lethal raids.

Broaching his contacts on the police force and rampaging through the ranks of the underworld, the Shadow turns the city upside down until at last a grudging tip takes him to a certain Chinatown whorehouse where a most exotic creature provides all the details he need to exact his vengeance on the guilty.

Now all that remains is to trigger the bloody endâ€¦

Dynamite publish periodicals with a vast array of cover variants and here a vast gallery features dozens of iconic alternate visions from Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Darwyn Cooke, Francesco Francavilla, Tim Bradstreet, Mike Mayhew, Michael Golden, Jack Herbert and Sean Chen to delight any art lover’s eyes and heart.

Sardonic, uncompromising and packed with subtle nuance, Revolution is a superb addition to the annals of the quintessential Dark Knight, and one no one addicted to action and mystery should be without.
The Shadow Â® & Â© 2013 Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. d/b/a Conde Nast. All Rights Reserved.

August 18, 2016August 17, 2016

The Rocketeer & The Spirit: Pulp Friction

By Mark Waid, Paul Smith, Loston Wallace, J Bone, Bob Wiacek & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-881-4

The American comics industry has generated its fair share of immortal heroes. However, whilst everyone is familiar with household names such as Flash Gordon, Superman, Dick Tracy or Popeye, there are also timeless champions who pretty much remain hallowed names known only to the in-crowd and cognoscenti: characters who have had their shot at global mega-stardom but for some reason never caught on with the masses. Characters like The Spirit and The Rocketeerâ€¦

Will Eisner was a pivotal creative force who helped shaped the entire medium of comics. From 1936 to 1938 he worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the studio-stable known as the â€œEisner-Eiger Shopâ€, creating strips for both domestic and foreign markets.

As Willis B. Rensie he created and drew the opening instalments of a huge variety of characters ranging from funny animal to historical sagas, Westerns, Detectives, aviation action thrillersâ€¦ and superheroesâ€¦ lots of superheroesâ€¦

In 1940 Everett â€œBusyâ€ Arnold, head honcho of Quality Comics, invited Eisner to take on a new challenge. The Register-Tribune newspaper syndicate wanted a 16-page weekly comicbook insert to be given away with the Sunday editions. Eisner created three strips which would initially be handled by him before two were handed off to his talented assistants.

Bob Powell inherited Mr. Mystic and distaff detective Lady Luck first fell into the capable hands of Nick Cardy (nÃ©e Nicholas Viscardi) and later the inimitable Klaus Nordling.

Eisner kept the lead strip for himself, and over the next twelve years masked detective The Spirit grew into the most impressive, innovative, imitated and talked-about strip in the business. In 1952 the venture folded and Eisner moved into commercial, instructional and educational strips, working extensively for the US military in manuals and magazines like P*S, the Preventative Maintenance Monthly, generally leaving comics books behind.

In the wake of â€œBatmaniaâ€ and the 1960s superhero craze, Harvey Comics released two giant-sized reprint editions with some new material from Eisner, which lead to a brace of underground compilations and a slow but inexorable rediscovery and revival of the Spirit’s fame and fortune via black and white newsstand reprint magazines.

Warren Publishing collected old stories, occasionally adding painted colour from such contemporary luminaries as Rich Corben, but from #17 the title reverted to Kitchen Sink, who had produced those first two underground collections.

Eisner found himself re-enamoured with graphic narrative and discerned that there now existed a willing audience eager for new works. From producing new Spirit covers for the magazine (something the original newspaper insert had never needed) he became increasingly inspired. American comics were evolving into an art-form and the restless creator finally saw a place for the kind of stories he had always wanted to tell.

He subsequently began crafting some of the most telling and impressive work the industry had ever seen: first in limited collector portfolios and eventually, in 1978, with the groundbreaking sequential narrative A Contract With God and thereby jumpstarting our modern comics phenomenon of graphic novelsâ€¦

Although his output was far smaller and life far shorter, Dave Stevens had an equally revolutionary effect on the industry: his lush and lavish illustration style influencing a generation of artists as his signature retro-futurist character The Rocketeer became the first breakout star of the Independent Comics movement which stemmed from the creation of the Comicbook Direct Sales Market.

Due to Stevens’s legendarily uncompromising artistic vision – and consequent slow page rate – very few of The Rocketeer’s period exploits appeared before the artist’s death from Hairy Cell Leukaemia in 2008. Since then, however, diverse other hands have added to the canon, as with the miniseries collected in this slim but stunning hardcover edition.

Just in case these vintage adventurers are new to you, The Spirit used to be Denny Colt: Central City’s greatest detective and criminologist. After apparently dying in battle with a vile master-villain, Colt opted to remain officially dearly departed and battle evil in a semi-official capacity as a masked enigma, aided by girlfriend Ellen Dolan and her father the crime-ridden metropolis’ Police Commissioner.

Cliff Secord is an itinerant West Coast pilot who – circa 1938 – found a fantastic jetpack outfit and ever thereafter stumbled into a succession of criminal plots and capers. With the eventual permission of the flight engine’s inventor – one of the greatest heroes of that or any other era – Cliff still finds himself regularly battling bad guys as The Rocketeer. When that’s not occupying his time, he’s busy looking for work or being given the run-around by his star-struck, fame-obsessed, trouble-magnet girl Bettyâ€¦

Team-ups are part-and-parcel of comics extravaganzas and both heroes have had their share of cataclysmic and catastrophic clashes with the valiant giants of the period and the industry.

This yarn however – collecting a 4-issue miniseries by Mark Waid which ran from July to December 2013 – concentrates as much on humour as bombastic action and begins on the East Coast in February 1941 where business executives and government meet to decide the future of the Next Big Thingâ€¦

Alderman Cunningham is stridently opposed to letting business cartels control the new medium and argues that, just like with radio, public airwaves must not be owned by any individual or corporation seeking to monopolise recently invented Televisionâ€¦

Mere hours later an early morning fashion shoot on a California beach is ruined when beautiful Betty finds the idealistic politician’s mangled corpseâ€¦

When the stiff is identified as Cunningham, Commissioner Dolan and Spirit are baffled. How could the victim have travelled more than 3000 miles in one night? Determined to investigate, they book passage on a trans-continental plane, having reluctantly crumbled before the forceful Ellen who demands to join them and see Hollywoodâ€¦

In Los Angeles, Cliff Secord is again being ignored by the traumatised Betty. He mopes dejectedly until his grizzled old mechanic Peevy points out that whoever killed the Alderman might also want to silence the girl who found the bodyâ€¦

Nearby, a very wealthy entrepreneur places a coast-to-coast call to The Spirit’s greatest enemy to discuss his incredible new invention, the pursuance of their plans and how to stop a certain masked interloper from interferingâ€¦

Said hero – still wearing his mask – is stiffly staggering off a plane at Chaplin Field with his equally exhausted cross-country companions. In a weary, unguarded moment he mentions Betty. Learning of the â€œslipâ€, an already paranoid Cliff panics and, assuming the masked killer has come for his girl, dons his rocket-man suit to attackâ€¦

After a spectacular battle, Ellen finally manages to convince the two testosterone-soaked mutton heads they are on the same side, and a tentative alliance is formedâ€¦ at least until Spirit interviews Betty and the flighty starlet finds she’s in love or thereabouts with the hunky masked copâ€¦

Illustrator Paul Smith gives way to Loston Wallace & Bob Wiacek as the second chapter opens with the fractious, clueless allies heading for the LA Morgue to examine Cunningham’s body, even as television wizard Benedict Trask and The Octopus discuss how best to get Betty out of the picture and deal with the interlopers meddling in their affairs. Their solution is unique indeed and everything would have worked out swell if not for inveterate tinkerer Peevy who has built his own prototype TV receiver and intercepted something he shouldn’t haveâ€¦

The villains respond in typical manner but their big mistake is believing the planes sent to strafe Peevy’s hangar are enough to stop Rocketeer and The Spiritâ€¦

With J Bone stepping in to limn the final two chapters the high-octane tale ramps up into top gear as Cliff travels back to Central City with Spirit and the Dolans to find Betty, expose the sinister scheme of Trask and the Octopus, uncover the crooks’ treacherous connections to a certain Fascist foreign power, prevent America’s airwaves from being subverted and even save President Roosevelt from being assassinated by television in a rocket-paced, breathtaking rollercoaster ride that delivers non-stop thrills and chillsâ€¦

Accompanied with an Introduction from Denis Kitchen, filling in all the necessary back-story on the iconic characters, and visually embellished by sketches and a large cover gallery by Darwyn Cooke, Smith, Jordie Bellaire, Bone and Chris Samnee, Pulp Friction is a no-nonsense fun-filled action frolic to delight lovers of the good old days of Thud and Blunderâ€¦
Â© 2014 The Rocketeer Trust and Will Eisner Studios, Inc. The Rocketeer is a registered trademark of, and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and indicia are trademarks of The Rocketeer Trust. All Rights Reserved. The Spirit Â© 2014 Will Eisner Studios, Inc. The Spirit and Will Eisnerâ„¢ Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Â® in the US Patent and Trademark Office. All Rights Reserved.

August 15, 2016August 13, 2016

Tarzan Archives: The Joe Kubert Years volume 2

By Joe Kubert with Hal Foster, Frank Thorne & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-416-6

The early 1970s were the last real glory days of National (now DC) Comics. As they slowly lost market-share to Marvel they responded by producing controversial and landmark superhero material, but their greatest strength lay, as it always has, in the variety and quality of its genre divisions. Mystery and Supernatural thrillers, Science Fiction, Romance, War and Kids’ titles remained powerful attractions and the company’s eye for a strong licensed brand was as keen as ever.

A global multi-media phenomenon, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan had long been a comicbook mainstay of Dell/Gold Key/Whitman, and when DC acquired the title they rightly trumpeted it out, putting one of their top Artist/Editors, Joe Kubert, in charge of the immortal Ape-man’s monthly exploits.

After decades as Whitman staples, total licensing of ERB properties was transferred to DC – not just Tarzan and his extended family, but also the author’s pioneering science fantasy characters – with DC wisely continuing the original numbering.

Tarzan #207 was the first: an April 1972 cover-date, and the series stormed on until #258 in February 1977. Thereafter Marvel, Malibu, Dark Horse and Dynamite extended the Jungle Lord’s comicbook canon in sporadic sorties to recapture the sales and popularity of the 1950sâ€¦

The latter days of the Gold Key run had suffered ever since Russ Manning left the title to draw the syndicated newspaper strip, and even the likes of Doug Wildey were unable to revive the comic’s success in the face of constantly rising costs and a general downturn in sales across the market. DC’s continuation of the franchise premiered in a blaze of publicity at the height of a nostalgia boom and was generally well-received by fans.

DC pushed the title in many places and formats (such as bookstore digest collections and the gloriously oversized Tabloid Editions) and adapted other properties such as John Carter of Mars, Pellucidar and Carson of Venus in their own features and titles

This second superb hardcover archive collection (also available in digital formats) re-presents material from Tarzan #215-224 (December 1972 to October 1973) and opens with fond reminiscences and grateful thanks to fellow artist Frank Thorne in Kubert’s Introduction.

The pictorial wonderment kicks off with a classic visual treat as ‘The Mine!’ incorporates material originally seen in classic 1930s Sunday newspaper strips (by Hal Foster & George Carlin) embedded in an original tale by Kubert.

Joe’s intent was to adapt all 24 Tarzan novels – writing, illustrating and even lettering the stories, with the brilliant Tatjana Wood handling the colours – interspersing them with new and original tales. However the workload, coupled with his other editorial duties, was crippling.

As with Tarzan #211, here he was again compelled to combine original with vintage to detail how the Ape-Man is captured by slavers and pressed into toil deep in the bowels of the earth for a sadistic mine owner.

Naturally, Tarzan soon chafes at enforced servitude and quickly leads a savage workers’ revolt to overturn and end the corporate bondage…

Issue #216 took another route to beating deadlines with old pal Frank Thorne pencilling Kubert’s script for ‘The Renegades’, leaving hard-pressed Joe to ink and complete the story of a murderous raid which wipes out a Red Cross mission.

Investigating the atrocity, Tarzan discovers the â€œmaddened savagesâ€ responsible are actually white men masquerading as natives; stealing supplies for a proposed expedition to plunder a lost treasure vault. When he catches the culprits, Tarzan’s vengeance is terrible indeedâ€¦

‘The Black Queen!’ is an all-Kubert affair wherein the Jungle Lord almost saves a man from crocodiles. Acceding to the ravaged victim’s last wish, Tarzan then travels to his distant homeland and overturns the brutal regime of tyrannical Queen Kyra who rules her multicultural kingdom with whimsy, ingrained prejudice and casual crueltyâ€¦

The equally selfish choices of American millionaire tycoon Darryl T. Hanson blights his family as his search for ‘The Trophy’ decimates the fauna of Tarzan’s home and leads to a clash of wills and ideologies which can only end in tragedyâ€¦

With Tarzan #219, Kubert began an epic 5-issue adaptation of ERB’s sequel novel The Return of Tarzan. It opens in Paris as the unacknowledged son of vanished Lord Greystoke tries to adapt to his new life as a civilised man of leisure.

One night his natural gallantry draws him to the side of a woman screaming for help and he is attacked by a gang of thugs. After easily thrashing the brigands he is astounded to find her accusing him of assault and simply bounds effortlessly away from the gendarmes called to the disturbance.

This entire trap has been engineered by a new enemy; Russian spy and Ã©migrÃ© Nikolas Rokoff and his duplicitous toady Paulvitchâ€¦

The rightful heir to the Greystoke lands and titles silently stood aside and let his apparently unaware cousin William Cecil Clayton claim both them and the American Jane Porter, after Tarzan rescued her from attacking apes in the jungle. Missing her terribly, Tarzan then chose to make his own way in the human world beside new friend and French Naval Officer Paul D’Arnot.

(You could catch up by reading our review of Tarzan Archives: The Joe Kubert Years Volume One, but I’m sure you’d far rather see the book itself or even the original novelâ€¦).

In the course of his urbane progression, Tarzan had exposed the Russian cheating at cards to blackmail French diplomat Count De Coude and had earned himself a relentless, implacable foe forever. When Rokoff subsequently tried to murder Tarzan, the vile miscreant agonisingly learned how powerful his jungle-bred enemy wasâ€¦

With physical force clearly of no use, Rokoff’s latest plan is to put the Ape-Man through a ‘Trial by Treachery’; manufacturing â€œevidenceâ€ that Tarzan is having an affair with the Comte’s wife. Once more, however, the civilised monster underestimates his target’s forthright manner of dealing with problems and is savagely beaten until he admits to the plot and clears the innocent woman’s nameâ€¦

With news of Jane’s impending marriage to William Clayton, Tarzan seeks to ease his tortured mind with action and the next chapter sees him travel to Algeria where, sponsored by the grateful, ashamed Count, he begins working for the Secret Service in Sidi Bel Abbes, ferreting out a traitor in the turbulently volatile French colonyâ€¦

His hunt soon leads him to a likely traitor and brutal battle with Arab agent provocateurs, but things start to turn his way after he liberates a dancing slave who is the daughter of a local sheik.

When word of Jane comes from D’Arnot, Tarzan throws himself even more deeply into his tasks and falls into another ambush organised by Rokoff. This time his ‘Fury in the Desert’ seems insufficient to his needs until his newfound friend the Sheik rides to his rescueâ€¦

The intrigue continues to unfold in ‘Return of the Primitive’ as Tarzan finally uncovers a link between Rokoff and the espionage at Sidi Bel Abbes. Job done he is then posted to Capetown and aboard ship meets voyager Hazel Strong, a close friend of Jane’s who reveals the heiress had never forgotten her tryst with the Ape-Man.

Unable to watch Jane enter into a loveless marriage, Hazel took off on an ocean cruiseâ€¦

The story rocks Tarzan’s mind, but not so completely that he fails to notice Rokoff is also aboard and murderously dogging his footsteps. This time however the Russian is properly prepared and that night the Ape-Man vanishes from the shipâ€¦

Rokoff’s act of assassination is a purely pyrrhic victory. Soon after reaching Capetown the villain insinuated himself into the Clayton wedding party but when their yacht’s boilers explode next morning, he, Hazel, William Clayton, Jane and her father are left adrift in a lifeboatâ€¦

Tarzan meanwhile, has survived being tumbled overboard and spent days swimming hundreds of miles. He now washes up on the same beach his parents were left upon decades ago. Staggering inland, he finds himself in the cabin his father built before being stolen and adopted by Kala the She-Ape.

John Clayton is forgotten, for fate has brought Tarzan homeâ€¦

A man changed by his time amongst other men, the Jungle Lord instinctively saves a native warrior from certain death and is astonished to find himself declared chieftain of the noble Waziri tribe.

â€¦And off the coast, a lifeboat filled with dying travellers spots land and wearily sculls towards a welcoming beach in the heart of primeval forestsâ€¦

Revelling in his newfound status, popularity and freedom, Tarzan enquires about the fabulous jewelled ornaments of his new friends and learns of an incredible lost metropolis. Soon he is curiously journeying to ‘The City of Gold’ where he encounters debased, degenerate beast-men led by a gloriously beautiful Queen.

La is high priestess of forgotten Atlantean outpost Opar, but can barely control her subjects enough to allow the perfect specimen of manhood to escape to safety. Both she and Tarzan know they are destined to meet againâ€¦

Refusing to be cheated of their sacrifice, the bloodthirsty Oparian males search far into the jungle and soon encounter the Clayton yacht survivors. When the primitives attack the human strangers and carry off Jane, Rokoff shows his true colours, leaving William to die. This callous act also inadvertently clears the path for Tarzan to finally claim his inheritance and reunite with Janeâ€¦

All the Jungle Lord has to do is break back into Opar, save his one true love from ‘The Pit of Doom!’ and escape the wrath of jealous Queen Laâ€¦

That mission accomplished, he and Jane return to the beach in time to witness William’s dying confession and accept the succession to the estates and title of Lord Greystokeâ€¦

This captivating compilation concludes with an original adventure seeing Tarzan rescue a beautiful maiden from attacking apes and discovering she is a messenger from La, who is in peril of her lifeâ€¦

In Opar another insurrection by the Beast Men has left the Queen imperilled by her subjects and threatened by a gigantic mutant whom she tearfully reveals is her sibling in ‘Death is My Brother!’ With no choice Tarzan regretfully battles the dim brute and proves to the insurgents that his wrath is greater than their maliceâ€¦

Supplemented by Creator Biographies of Burroughs and Kubert, this tome is another masterpiece of comics creation and total adventure triumph which no lover of the medium or fantasy fan can afford to be without.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan Â® The Joe Kubert Years Volume Two Â© 1972, 1973, 2006 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Tarzan Â® is owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., and used by permission.

July 14, 2016July 13, 2016

Plastic Man Archives volume 5

By Jack Cole & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0154-8

Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of America’s Golden Age of Comics. Before moving into mature magazine and gag markets he originated landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero comicbooks, and his incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. It was a glittering career of distinction which Cole was clearly embarrassed by and unhappy with.

In 1954 he quit comics for the lucrative and prestigious field of magazine cartooning, swiftly becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began regularly running in Playboy from the fifth issue.

Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and, in May 1958, achieved his life-long ambition by launching a syndicated newspaper strip, the domestic comedy Betsy and Me.

On August 13^th 1958, at the peak of his greatest success, he took his own life. The reasons remain unknown.

Without doubt – and despite his other triumphal comicbook innovations such as Silver Streak, Daredevil, The Claw, Death Patrol, Midnight, Quicksilver, The Barker, The Comet and a uniquely twisted and phenomenally popular take on the crime and horror genres – Cole’s greatest creation and contribution was the zany Malleable Marvel who quickly grew from a minor back-up character into one of the most memorable and popular heroes of the era. â€œPlasâ€ was the wondrously perfect fantastic embodiment of the sheer energy, verve and creativity of an era when anything went and comics-makers were prepared to try out every outlandish ideaâ€¦

Eel O’Brian was a brilliant career criminal wounded during a factory robbery, soaked by a vat of spilled acid and callously abandoned by his thieving buddies. Left for dead, he was saved by a monk who nursed him back to health and proved to the hardened thug that the world was not just filled with brutes and vicious chisellers after a fast buck.

His entire outlook altered and now blessed with incredible elasticity, Eel resolved to put his new powers to good use: cleaning up the scum he used to run with.

Creating a costumed alter ego he began a stormy association with the New York City cops before being recruited as a most special agent of the FBIâ€¦

He soon picked up the most unforgettable comedy sidekick in comics history. Woozy Winks was a dopey, indolent slob and utterly amoral pickpocket who accidentally saved a wizard’s life and was blessed in return with a gift of invulnerability: all the forces of nature would henceforth protect him from injury or death – if said forces felt like it.

After failing to halt the unlikely superman’s determined crime spree, Plas appealed to the scoundrel’s sentimentality and, once Woozy tearfully repented, was compelled to keep him around in case he strayed again. The oaf was slavishly loyal but perpetually back-sliding into pernicious old habitsâ€¦

Equal parts Artful Dodger and Mr Micawber, with the verbal skills and intellect of Lou Costello’s screen persona or the over-filled potato sack he resembled, Winks was the perfect foil for Plastic Man: a lazy, greedy, morally bankrupt reprobate with perennially sticky fingers who got all the best lines, possessed an inexplicable charm and had a habit of finding trouble. It was the ideal marriage of inconvenienceâ€¦

This fifth full-colour hardback exposes more eccentrically exaggerated exploits of the elastic eidolon from Police Comics #50-58 and Plastic Man #4 (stretching from January to September 1946), and opens here with an appreciation of Cole and his craft by Bill Schelly in the Foreword before a bizarre mystery confounds the populace as ‘Plastic Man Protects Crookdom’.

When a celebrated astrologer is murdered, his dying prediction seems to confirm that the chameleonic crimebuster is cursed to save his killers from the lawâ€¦ but they haven’t heard the victim’s entire utteranceâ€¦

Police #51 then details how twisted, frustrated love turns a gorgeous but frog-throated operatic chanteuse into a deadly, rock-fisted killer dubbed ‘The Granite Lady’. Even after her mad scientist paramour returns her to flesh-&-blood, her heart remains stony coldâ€¦

‘Crime without Criminals’ sees the city devoid of all underworld activity thanks to the efforts of Plas and Woozy. However, nature abhors a vacuum and this time it’s filled by an unlikely new crew of bandits, just in time to take the edge off our heroes’ mounting boredomâ€¦

Cole always had a grand line on mad scientists and in ‘The Evil Genius of Dr. Erudite’, came up with a classic loon like no other. This passionate maniac had so many great crime ideas he had no time to implement them. Realising the only solution was to replicate himself, he began an anarchic spree but was surprised by two unforeseen factors: Plastic Man’s determination to stop him and his own duplicate’s rebellious natureâ€¦

Cerebral conundra continued to vex our heroes in Police #54 as a moronic sneak thief became a lethal menace to America after swiping ‘The Thinking Machine’. Thankfully Plastic Man was on hand to fight and Woozy to balance the scales of natural imbecilityâ€¦

Issue #55 revealed the genesis and just deserts of ‘Sleepy Eyes’ as a cheap crook realises he has the power to plunge folk into unshakeable comasâ€¦

Cole’s constant and still-growing pressure to fill pages led to the hiring of numerous artists to draw his madcap scripts. This is clearly seen in Plastic Man #4 (Summer 1946) which opens with ‘The Purple Viking’ (illustrated by Bart Tumey), wherein a longboat full of ancient Norse reivers invades a quiet seaside hamlet, just as Plas and Woozy check in for a quiet weekend. How odd that the beach town is trashed by invaders just as a developer is checking out prospective new resort sitesâ€¦

A crooked political-boss trying to set up his own country inside America is no match for the Pliable Paladin in ‘King Lughead the First’ (art by John Spranger). Not only are all his larcenous efforts to fill the Treasury foiled, but new Prime Minister Mr. Winks is so dumb he might as well be working for the other sideâ€¦

The stooge once more becomes the star as Woozy stumbles into ‘The Lollypop Caper’ (Tumey again), chasing gem-filled candy sought by rival mobs and a rather dangerous toddlerâ€¦

Plastic Man’s uncanny deductive abilities are then propounded in prose short ‘Plas’ to Meet You’ before the capture of arch-thug ‘The Lobster’ leads to Woozy being adopted and Plas stumbling into a cunning conspiracyâ€¦

Plastic Man #56 then dabbled with childish whimsy as ‘Overworked Genie’ (art by Andre Leblanc) sees the stretchable sleuth take a day off to spend his time granting wishes to a little kid. However, crime never sleeps and all too soon greedy thugs are trying to steal Mickey’s lamp. Big mistakeâ€¦

A growing public fascination with and appetite for flying saucer stories informs ‘Mars – Keep Away’ (Spranger art) as the mysterious Mr. Misfit inserts his diminutive self into Plas and Woozy’s hunt for stolen atomic fuel and a flamboyantly crackpot rocketry loon dubbed Professor MacGhoul, after which this slice of vintage class concludes with a deadly duel against murderously marauding vegetable villain ‘The Green Terror’ (illustrated by Alex Kotsky)â€¦

Augmented by all the astoundingly ingenious covers, this is a true gem of funnybook virtuosity: still exciting, breathtakingly original, thrilling, witty, scary, visually outrageous and pictorially intoxicating more than seventy years after Jack Cole first put pen to paper.

July 7, 2016July 6, 2016

Tarzan Archives: The Joe Kubert Years volume 1

By Joe Kubert with Burne Hogarth (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-404-3

Soon after first publication in 1912 Tarzan of the Apes became a multi-media sensation and global star. More novels and many movies followed; a comic strip arrived in 1929, followed by a radio show in 1932 and the Ape-Man inevitably carved out a solid slice of the comicbook market too once the industry was firmly established.

Western Publishing were a big publishing and printing outfit based on America’s West Coast, rivalling DC and Marvel at the height of their powers. They specialised in licensed properties and the jewels in their crown were all the comics starring the Walt Disney and Warner Brothers cartoon characters.

The publishers famously never capitulated to the wave of anti-comics hysteria that resulted in the crippling self-censorship of the 1950s. Dell Comics – and latter imprints Gold Key and Whitman – never displayed a Comics Code Authority symbol on their covers. They never needed toâ€¦

Dell also sought out other properties like movie or newspaper strip franchises, and would become inextricably associated with TV adaptations once the small screen monopolised modern homes.

In 1948 Dell produced the first all-new Tarzan comicbook. The newspaper strip had previously provided plenty of material for expurgated reprint editions until Dell Four Color Comic #134 (February 1947).

This milestone featured a lengthy, captivating tale of the Ape-Man scripted by Robert P Thompson – who wrote both the Tarzan radio show and aforementioned syndicated strip â€“ with art by the legendary Jesse Marsh.

Marsh & Thompson’s Tarzan returned with two further tales in Dell Four Color Comic #161, cover-dated August 1947. This was a frankly remarkable feat: Four Colour was a catch-all umbrella title that featured literally hundreds of different licensed properties – often as many as ten separate issues per month – so such a rapid return meant pretty solid sales figures.

Within six months the bimonthly Tarzan #1 was released (January/February 1948), beginning an unbroken run that only ended in 1977, albeit by a convoluted routeâ€¦

After decades as Whitman staples, licensing of Edgar Rice Burroughs properties was transferred to DC – not just Tarzan and his extended family, but also fantasy pioneers John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar and others – with the new company continuing the original numbering.

Tarzan #207 had an April 1972 cover-date and the series carried on until February 1977 and issue #258. From then on Marvel, Malibu and Dark Horse extended the jungle Lord’s comicbook canonâ€¦

The early 1970s were the last real glory days of National/DC Comics. As they slowly lost market-share to Marvel, they responded by producing controversial and landmark superhero material, but their greatest strength lay – as it always had – in the variety and quality of its genre divisions.

Mystery and Supernatural, Romance, War and Kids’ titles remained strong or even thrived and the company’s eye for a strong brand was as keen as ever.

Tarzan had been a mainstay of Dell/Gold Key, and a global multi-media phenomenon, so when DC acquired rights they justifiably trumpeted it out, putting one of their top creators in sole charge of the legendary Ape-Man’s monthly exploits, as well as generating a boutique bunch of ERB titles in a variety of formats.

The DC incarnation premiered in a blaze of publicity at the height of a nostalgia boom and was generally well received by fans. For many of us, those years provided the definitive graphic Tarzan, thanks solely to the efforts of the Editor, publisher and illustrator who shepherded the Ape-man through the transition. They were all the same guy: Joe Kubert.

Kubert was born in 1926 in rural Southeast Poland (which became Ukraine and might be Outer Russia by the time you read this). At age two his parents took him to America and he grew up in Brooklyn. According to his Introduction his earliest memory of cartooning was Hal Foster’s Tarzan Sunday stripsâ€¦

Joe’s folks encouraged him to draw from an early age and the precocious kid began a glittering career at the start of the Golden Age, before he was even a teenager. Working and learning at the Chesler comics packaging â€œShopâ€, MLJ, Holyoke and assorted other outfits, he began his close association with National/DC in 1943. A canny survivor of the Great Depression he also maintained outside contacts, dividing his time and energies between Fiction House, Avon, Harvey and All-American Comics, where he particularly distinguished himself on The Flash and Hawkman.

In the early 1950s he and old school chum Norman Maurer were the creative force behind publishers St. Johns: creating evergreen caveman Tor and launching the 3D comics craze with Three Dimension Comics.

Joe never stopped freelancing, appearing in EC’s Two-Fisted Tales, Avon’s Strange Worlds, Lev Gleason Publications & Atlas Comics until in 1955 when, with the industry imploding, he took a permanent position at DC, only slightly diluted whilst he illustrated the contentious and controversial newspaper strip Tales of the Green Berets from 1965 to 1968. From then on he split his time drawing Sgt. Rock and other features, designing covers and editing DC’s line of war comicbooks.

And then DC acquired Tarzanâ€¦

This first fabulous hardcover archive (also available in digital formats) collects the lead stories from Tarzan #207-214 (April-November 1972); a tour de force of passion transubstantiated into stunning comic art, with Kubert writing, illustrating and lettering. Moreover, the vibrant colours in this epic re-presentation is based on Tatjana Wood’s original guides, offering readers a superbly authentic and immersive experience whether you’re coming fresh to the material or joyously revisiting a beloved lost time.

The only disconcerting things about this stellar compilation are the cover reproductions, which appear in all their iconic glory but manipulated to remove DC’s trademark logos. The mightiest force in the modern jungle is still Intellectual Property lawyersâ€¦

The tense suspense begins with an adaptation of first novel Tarzan of the Apes and opens with a safari deep in the jungle. A pretty rich girl is driving her white guide and native bearers at a ferocious pace as she desperately hunts for her missing father.

When a bronzed god bursts into view battling a panther, she watches aghast as human impossibly triumphs over killer cat and then beats his chest whilst emitting an astounding scream. As the terrifying figure vanishes back into the green hell the girl’s questions are grudgingly answered by the old hunter who relates a legend he has heardâ€¦

‘Origin of Tarzan of the Apes’ depicts how, following a shipboard mutiny, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke and his wife Lady Alice are marooned on the African coast with all their possessions, including the vast library of books and Primers intended for their soon to be born babyâ€¦

Against appalling odds they persevered, with Greystoke building a fortified cabin to shelter them from marauding beasts, especially the curious and savage apes which roam the region. Despite the birth of a son, eventually the jungle won and the humans perished, but their son was saved by a grieving she-ape who adopted the baby to replace her own recently killed â€œBaluâ€â€¦

The ugly, hairless boy thrived under Kala‘s doting attentions, growing strong but increasingly aware that he was intrinsically different. He only discovered the how and why after years of diligent effort: through sheer intellectual effort and the remnants of his father’s books and papers, Tarzan learned to read and deduced that he was a M-A-Nâ€¦

The tale within a tale continues in ‘A Son’s Vengeance: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 2’ as the boy rises to prominence amongst his hirsute tribe and through imagination and invention masters all the beasts of his savage environment. Eventually a brutal, nomadic tribe of natives settle in the area and Tarzan has his first contact with creatures he correctly identifies as being M-E-N like himâ€¦

The new situation leads to the greatest tragedy of his life as a hunter of M’Bonga’s tribe kills beloved, devoted Kala and Tarzan learns the shock of loss and overpowering hunger for revengeâ€¦

Issue #209 revealed how civilisation finally caught up with Tarzan as ‘A Mate For the Ape-Man: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 3’ saw him meet and save American Jane Porter, her elderly father and his own cousin.

Just as had happened years earlier, these unlucky voyagers were marooned by mutineers. Discovering John Clayton’s cabin, the castaways find the lost peer’s diary, which is of especial interest to William Clayton, the current Lord Greystoke. As tensions rise and humans die, Tarzan takes his golden haired mate deep into the impenetrable verdureâ€¦

Both tales conclude neatly and tantalisingly in ‘Civilisation: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 4’ as innately noble Tarzan returns Jane to her fiancÃ© William Clayton in time for the westerners to be rescued by French Officer Paul D’Arnot.

When the dashing Lieutenant is captured and tortured by M’Bonga’s tribesmen, Tarzan rescues him and nurses the Frenchman back to health. In return the officer teaches him to speak the human languages that up until that moment he could only read and write inâ€¦

By then however the navy vessel and saved souls have all sailed away, each carrying their own secrets with themâ€¦

With no other options, lovelorn Tarzan agrees to accompany D’Arnot back to civilisation. The eternal comrades eventually settle in Paris with Tarzan practically indistinguishable from other menâ€¦

Even today ‘Origin of the Ape-Man’ is still the most faithful adaptation of ERB’s novel in any medium: potent and evocative, fiercely expressive, a loving and utterly visceral true translation of the landmark saga.

Kubert’s intent was to adapt all 24 Burroughs novels and intersperse them with short, complete tales, but the workload, coupled with his other editorial duties was crippling. To buy some time #211 combined old with new as ‘Land of the Giants’ partially adapted and incorporated Don Garden & Burne Hogarth’s newspaper strip tale ‘Tarzan and the Fatal Mountain’: Sunday strip pages #582-595 which had originally ran from May 3^rd to August 2^nd 1942 (you can see that saga in al its uncut glory by tracking down Tarzan versus the Barbarians (Complete Burne Hogarth Comic Strip Library volume 2).

Here a battle with crocodiles dumps Tarzan in a lost valley where giant natives are being persecuted by deformed, diminutive outworlder Martius Kalban who hungers for the secrets of their prodigious size and strength. Even after gaining his dark desire, Kalban finds himself no match for the outraged Ape-Manâ€¦

‘The Captive!’ is a latter-day exploit, beginning a run of yarns based on the short stories comprising ERB’s book Jungle Tales of Tarzan. Here the relationship between Ape-Man and the elephants is explored with each saving the other from the ever-present threat of the hunters of M’Bongaâ€¦

The Jungle Tales reworkings continue with ‘Balu of the Great Apes’ as childhood friends of Tarzan becomes incomprehensibly aggressive after the birth of their first baby and this first astounding compilation ends with ‘The Nightmare’ as starving Tarzan steals and gorges on meat and drink from the native village. The resultant food-poisoning takes him on a hallucinogenic journey he will never forget and almost costs his life when he can no longer tell phantasm from genuine threatâ€¦

Supplemented by full Creator Biographies of Burroughs and Kubert, this tome is a masterpiece of comics creation no lover of the medium or fantasy fan can afford to be without.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan Â® The Joe Kubert Years Volume One Â© 1972, 2005 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Tarzan Â® is owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., and used by permission.

July 6, 2016July 5, 2016

Blake and Mortimer: Professor SatÅ’s Three Formulae Part 2 â€“ Mortimer versus Mortimer

By Edgar P. Jacobs & Bob De Moor with colours by Paul-Serge Marssignac, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-303-1

Belgian Edgard FÃ©lix Pierre Jacobs (March 30^th 1904-February 20^th 1987) is rightly considered one of the founding fathers of the Continental comics industry. Although his output was relatively modest compared to many of his iconic contemporaries, Jacobs’ landmark serialised epic starring scientific adventurers Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake practically formed the backbone of the modern action-adventure comic in Europe.

His splendidly adroit, roguish yet thoroughly British adventurers were conceived and realised for the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin in 1946, and quickly became a crucial staple of life for post-war European kids – in exactly the same way Dan Dare was for 1950s Britain.

Jacobs was born in Brussels, a precocious child perpetually drawing, but even more obsessed with music and the performing arts – especially opera. He attended a commercial school but loathed the idea of office work, so instead avidly pursued arts and drama on his graduation in 1919.

A succession of odd jobs at opera-houses (scene-painting, set decoration and even performing as both an acting and singing extra) supplemented his private performance studies, and in 1929 Jacobs won an award from the Government for classical singing.

His dreamed-of operatic career was thwarted by the Great Depression. When arts funding suffered massive cutbacks following the global stock market crash, he was compelled to pick up whatever dramatic work was going, although this did include more singing and performing.

Jacobs switched to commercial illustration in 1940, winning regular work in the magazine Bravo, as well as illustrating short stories and novels. He famously took over the syndicated Flash Gordon strip after the occupying German authorities banned Alex Raymond’s quintessentially All-American Hero and the publishers desperately sought someone to satisfactorily complete the saga.

Jacobs’ ‘Stormer Gordon’ lasted less than a month before being similarly embargoed by the Occupation fun-police, after which the man of many talents simply created his own epic science-fantasy feature in the legendary Le Rayon U: a milestone in both Belgian comics and science fiction adventure.

During this period Jacobs and Tintin creator HergÃ© got together, and whilst creating the weekly U Ray strip, the younger man began assisting on Tintin, colouring the original black and white strips of The Shooting Star (originally run in newspaper Le Soir) for an upcoming album collection.

By 1944 Jacobs was performing similar duties on Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, King Ottokar’s Sceptre and The Blue Lotus. He was also contributing to the drawing too, working on the extended epic The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun.

After the war and liberation, publisher Raymond Leblanc convinced HergÃ©, Jacobs and a few other comicstrip stars to work for his proposed new venture. Founding publishing house Le Lombard, Leblanc also commissioned Le Journal de Tintin, an anthology comic with simultaneous editions in Belgium, France and Holland to be edited by HergÃ© and starring the intrepid boy reporter supplemented by a host of newer heroes.

Beside HergÃ©, Jacobs and writer Jacques van Melkebeke, Le Journal de Tintin featured Paul Cuvelier’s ‘Corentin’ and Jacques Laudy’s ‘The Legend of the Four Aymon Brothers’.

As revealed in an enticing, photo-packed essay closing this Cinebook volume, Blake and Mortimer were a lucky compromise. Jacobs had wanted to create a period historical drama entitled Roland the Bold but changed genres due to an overabundance of such stripsâ€¦

Laudy had been a friend of Jacobs’ since their time together on Bravo, and the first instalment of the epic thriller serial ‘Le secret de l’Espadon’ starred a bluff, gruff British scientist and an English Military Intelligence officer closely modelled on Laudy himselfâ€¦

The initial storyline ran from issue #1 (26^th September 1946) to September 8^th 1949) and cemented Jacobs’ status as a star in his own right.

In 1950, with the first 18 pages slightly redrawn, The Secret of the Swordfish became Le Lombard’s first album release, with the concluding part published three years later. The volumes were reprinted nine more times between 1955 and 1982, in addition to a single omnibus edition released in 1964.

HergÃ© and Jacobs purportedly suffered a split in 1947 when the former refused to grant the latter a by-line on new Tintin material they had collaborated on, but since the two remained friends for life and Jacobs continued to produce Blake and Mortimer for the weekly comic, I think it’s fair to assume that if such was the case it was a pretty minor spat. I rather suspect that the Eccentric Englishmen were simply taking up more and more of the diligent artist’s time and attentionâ€¦

In 1984 The Secret of the Swordfish was reformatted and repackaged for English translation as three volumes with additional material (mostly covers from the weekly Tintin added to the story as splash pages): part of a push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market here. Sadly the tall tomes failed to find an audience and ended after seven magnificent if under-appreciated volumes.

Now happily Cinebook have finally made the Gentleman Heroes a bankable proposition, releasing all 23 extant albums with the most recent – due to the quirks of publishing – being the original twelfth and the last one that Jacobs was involved with.

For further details please check out yesterday’s review, but suffice to say that the concluding instalment of Professor SatÅ’s Three Formulae was a long time coming â€¦

Les 3 formules du professeur SatÅ – Mortimer contre Mortimer was a tragically extended affair and only credited Jacobs as writer and layout artist. The eleventh album had been serialised between September 1971 and May 1972 in Tintin after which the author simply abandoned his story due to failing health and other issues.

He died on February 20^th 1987 and soon after veteran cartoonist Bob de Moor (Bart de Scheepsjongen, Monsieur Tric, Cori le Moussaillon, Balthazar, Barelli and so many others) was commissioned by his family and estate to complete his final tale from Jacob’s pencils and notes.

The concluding album was finally released in March 1990, leading to a republishing of all the earlier exploits and eventually new adventures from a variety of creative teamsâ€¦

Rather than make you wait eighteen years for the conclusion, here’s E.P Jacobs’ final foray starring the beloved tour de force scientific investigators.

As described yesterday, boisterous boffin Mortimer was in Japan when urgently contacted by robotics pioneer and cyberneticist supreme Professor Akira SatÅ. That savant had accomplished miracles in the mass-production of highly specialised mechanoids and androids, but his discoveries – parsed down into three crucial processes and deposited in three separate banks – were being targeted by a ruthless gang led by Blake and Mortimer’s greatest enemy.

The villains had infiltrated SatÅ‘s home and laboratory and tried to murder Mortimer numerous times before creating a robot duplicate of the British scientist, but had been unable to stop a summons for help going out to his Secret Service ally. Now, with Blake imminently expected, the gang had to radically move up their timetableâ€¦

Captain Blake is watched from the moment he disembarks at Haneda Airport and the hidden enemies are already in place at the hotel where he is staying. The MI5 chief has the suite next to Mortimer’s, and although his old comrade is missing, finds plenty of clues as to what has happened to him. The diligent search also uncovers the video surveillance gear infesting both rooms and sets his watchers running for the exits in panicâ€¦

A hasty pursuit only leads to his own capture but, with fortune ever favouring the brave, Blake turns the tables on his foes in a deadly clash in the hotel garages and sends them all fleeing for their lives.

By the time he has connected with Police Superintendent Hasumi and briefed Colonel Mitsu of the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency, the assailants have vanished, but Blake is building a picture of what is going on. To end the Englishman’s threat forever, a diabolical and desperate scheme is devised: creating a second Mortimer robot to assassinate Blakeâ€¦

Turncoat assistant Kim is nervous. Although he’s happy to use Professor SatÅ‘s incredible inventions to detain Mortimer and his former employer, the traitor is not conversant enough with the production procedures to guarantee success. Nevertheless, soon a deadly doppelganger of the British Professor is despatched to kill Blakeâ€¦

Meanwhile, the real Mortimer has not been idle. With SatÅ‘s aid he has escaped the lab prison and rushes to intercept the android assassin, but is unaware that behind him, unqualified hands have meddled with the duplication processes and a legion of horrific misfit mechanoids are tumbling off the conveyor beltsâ€¦

What follows is a succession of spectacular chases, frantic battles and a final shattering showdown between Blake, Mortimer and the man who has bedevilled their lives since the days of the Swordfish case â€“ a fitting end to the epic adventures and, thanks to the graphic efforts of De Moor, a perfect, revitalising stepping stone for other creators to renew and continue the featureâ€¦

Rocket-paced, suspenseful and cathartically action-packed, this is an enthralling changing-of-the-guard building to an explosive conclusion and satisfying final flourish, resulting in another superbly stylish blockbuster to delight every adventure addict.

As well as the aforementioned historical overview – ‘Jacobs: 1946, the Swordfish, starting point of a masterful work’ – this Cinebook edition also includes excerpts from two other Blake & Mortimer albums plus a short biographical feature and publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.
Original edition Â© Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard s. a.) 1990 by E.P. Jacobs & Bob De Moor. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2016 Cinebook Ltd.

July 5, 2016July 4, 2016

Blake and Mortimer: Professor SatÅ’s Three Formulae Part 1 – Mortimer in Tokyo

By Edgar P. Jacobs, with colours by Paul-Serge Marssignac, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-292-8

Pre-eminent fantasy raconteur Edgar P. Jacobs devised one of the greatest heroic double acts in pulp fiction: pitting his distinguished scientific adventurers Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake against a broad variety of perils and menaces in a sequence of stellar action-thrillers which merged science fiction scope, detective mystery suspense and supernatural thrills. The magic was made perfect through his stunning illustrations, rendered in the timeless Ligne Claire style which had made intrepid boy-reporter Tintin a global sensation.

The Doughty Duo debuted in September 1946; gracing the pages of the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin. This was an ambitious international anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland, edited by HergÃ©, with his eponymous, world famous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and features for the rapidly-changing post-war worldâ€¦

Les 3 formules du professeur SatÅ was a tragically extended affair and Jacob’s last hurrah. What became the eleventh album was serialised between September 1971 and May 1972 in Tintin, after which the author abandoned his story due to failing health and other personal issues.

Edgard FÃ©lix Pierre Jacobs died on February 20^th 1987 and soon after Bob de Moor was commissioned by his family and estate to complete his final tale from Jacob’s pencil roughs and script notes. The concluding album was finally released in March 1990. This led to a republishing of all the earlier exploits and eventually fresh adventures from a variety of creative teamsâ€¦

Here however the action opens at Haneda Airport, Tokyo where Air Traffic Controllers experience a unique problem as a UFO disrupts their carefully plotted flight courses. With disaster imminent two Starfighter jets are scrambled to pursue the meteoric anomaly and, just before they are destroyed, the pilots radio back they are being attacked by a dragonâ€¦

As the news filters around the world, renowned cyberneticist Professor Akira SatÅ argues with his assistant Dr. Kim, deeply remorseful that his latest breakthrough has been the cause of such tragedy. Kim only barely dissuades his Sensei from turning himself in to the authorities but is utterly unable to convince or prevent SatÅ from involving visiting colleague Philip Mortimer in his crisis of conscienceâ€¦

The British Professor is in Kyoto attending a succession of scientific conferences, but when an ominous outsider hears of SatÅ’s intentions through hidden surveillance methods, the reaction is both explosive and potentially murderousâ€¦

The first Mortimer knows of the problem is when a gang of gunmen attempt to kidnap him off the streets, but after fighting them off and escaping the old warrior returns to his hotel and finds a telegram waiting for himâ€¦

An urgent request to join old friend SatÅ immediately seems impossible to accomplish due to stringencies of train timetabling, but an accommodating journalist overhears and offers a speedy compromiseâ€¦

Mortimer is suspicious of the happy accidentâ€¦ but not suspicious enoughâ€¦

Surviving another assassination attempt by sheer force of will, the professor is then lost in the wilds of Japan but eventually manages to battle his way to SatÅ’s lab outside Tokyo where he witnesses a series of astonishing sights.

His host has worked miracles in the fields of robotics – including the dragon which so recently and horrifically malfunctioned – but is at a loss to explain how his incredible creations have gone wrong at such a late stage.

Worldly-wise Mortimer soon deduces the causes: espionage and sabotageâ€¦

As the British boffin sends for his old comrade-in-arms Captain Blake, SatÅ is comforted by the fact that the key formulae for producing his mechanical marvels have been divided and deposited at three different banks in Tokyo. The Sensei breathes even easier after arranging that only Mortimer can retrieve them but this only prompts their hidden enemy to accelerate his plans and reveal himself as one of Mortimer’s greatest foesâ€¦

Unable to induce or force Mortimer to retrieve the scientific goldmine, the mastermind has an android double constructed to visit the banks but the rush-job breaks down before the task is completed. Now the vile villain has only more card to play before the formidable Blake arrivesâ€¦

This Cinebook edition then concludes with excerpts from two other Blake & Mortimer albums (The Time Trap and a tantalising glimpse of Professor SatÅ’s Three Formulae Part 2) plus a short biographical feature and publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts to whet the appetite for further treats in storeâ€¦ Cunning and convoluted, this devilishly devious tale unfolds with potent authenticity and ever-escalating tension, building to an explosive conclusion which eventually took eighteen years to conclude. At least we don’t have to wait that near life-time for the epic denouement…
Original edition Â© Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) 1977 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2016 Cinebook Ltd.

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