Older kids – Page 28 – Now Read This!

November 23, 2015November 22, 2015

Yoko Tsuno volume 10: Message for Eternity

By Roger Leloup translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-251-5

The uncannily edgy yet excessively accessible European exploits of Japanese scientific adventurer Yoko Tsuno began first began gracing the pages of Spirou in September 1970 and are still going strong.

The explosive, eye-popping, expansively globe-girdling multi-award winning series was the brainchild of Roger Leloup, another hugely talented Belgian who worked as a studio assistant to Herge’s on The Adventures of Tintin before striking out on his own.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative but always solidly grounded in hyper-realistic settings sporting utterly authentic and unshakably believable technology, these illustrated epics were at the vanguard of a wave of strips featuring competent, clever and brave female protagonists which revolutionised Continental comics from the last third of the 20^th century onwards and are as potently empowering now as they ever were.

The initial Spirou stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bÃªte’ and ‘Cap 351’ were short introductory vignettes before the superbly capable Miss Tsuno and her always awestruck and overwhelmed male comrades Pol and Vic truly hit their stride with premier extended saga Le trio de l’Ã©trange which began serialisation with the May 13^th 1971 issue.

That epic of extraterrestrial intrigue was the first of 27 European albums to date, and the on show here was first serialised in Spirou #1882-1905 (9^th May-17 October 17^th1974) and released the following year as Message pour l’Ã©ternitÃ©. A skilfully suspenseful mystery thriller, it was chronologically the fifth album and reaches us as Cinebook’s tenth translated chronicle.

It all begins as ever-restless Yoko perfects her skills in a new hobby. Gliding high above Brittany she fortuitously sets down in a field near a vast telecommunications complex. Offered a tour of the space-probing facility she learns from one of the scientists of a fantastic â€œghost messageâ€ recently picked up by satellites: a Morse code signal from a British plane lost in 1933. Moreover the signal is still being regularly broadcastâ€¦

When Yoko tries to arrange to have her glider picked up and sort out her own departure, a mysterious Englishman offers her a lift in his private helicopter. He has an ulterior motive: an employee of the company which insured the lost flight he is looking for someone with certain precise qualifications to trace the downed flight and recover a fortune in jewels from it. Her fee will be Â£20,000â€¦

It transpires that his firm has known where the plane went down for some time, but geographical and logistic difficulties have prevented them from undertaking a recovery mission until now. Moreover, although they have now started the process, the petite engineer is physically superior to the candidates the company are currently working withâ€¦

Cautiously accepting the commission, Yoko starts planning but even before Pol and Vic can join her the following day, strange accidents and incidents begin to imperil her lifeâ€¦

The boys are understandably reluctant but that attitude turns to sheer frustration and terror after someone tries to shoot down Yoko as she practises in her glider. This only makes her more determined to complete the job at all costs.

Two weeks later the trio are heading to the daunting Swiss fortress the company uses as a base when another spectacular murder attempt almost ends their lives, but Yoko is undaunted. Not so Vic and Pol, especially after hearing that two of her fellow trainees have recently died in similar â€œaccidentsâ€ in the mountainsâ€¦

Carrying on regardless, she is introduced to the fantastic glider-&-launch system which will take her to the previously unattainable crash site and begins perfecting her landing technique in a fantastic training simulator.

Eventually more details are provided and the real story unfolds. The Handley-Page transport they are seeking was conveying diplomatic mail from Karachi to London in November 1933, but vanished in a storm over Afghanistan. Decades later a satellite somehow picked up a broken radio message stating it had landedâ€¦ somewhereâ€¦

The businessman the trio call â€œMilordâ€ identifies himself as Major Dundee – a spymaster from Britain’s Ministry of Defence – and explains how a shady American former U2 pilot approached the British government, claiming to have spotted the downed ship during a clandestine over-flight of Soviet territories.

He provided purloined photos showing the plane in the centre of a vast circular crater on the Russo-Chinese border, but subsequent reconnaissance flights revealed nothing in the hole and the decision was taken to make a physical assessment, even though the already inaccessible site was deep in hostile enemy territoryâ€¦

Since then it has become clear that some unidentified agent or group is acting against the recovery project, probably intent on retrieving the ship’s mysterious but valuable cargo for a foreign power.

Events spiral out of control when a traitor in the training team attempts to kill Yoko and â€œOperation Albatrossâ€ is rushed to commencement before the unknown enemy can try againâ€¦

Within a day she is transported in a most fantastic and speedy manner around the world before her space-age glider prototype is secretly deployed over the enigmatic craterâ€¦

Narrowly avoiding patrolling Soviet jets, Yoko deftly manoeuvres into the mist-covered chasm and plunges into one of the most uncanny experiences of her life.

The old plane is certainly gone. The floor of the crater is strangely cracked and at the centre stands a strangely burned and blackened monolith, there are uncharacteristic animal bones everywhere and at one end of the vast cavity there is a primitive but large graveyardâ€¦

Whilst the astounded girl is exploring she is ambushed by her treacherous fellow trainee who has raced after her by conventional means and parachuted into the bizarre basin. However, his original plans have changed drastically since arrival and despite the machine gun he wields he needs Yoko’s help.

He’s already located the Handley-Page – somehow manually dragged under an unsuspected overhang in the crater – but is mortally afraid of what he describes as the â€œtiny peopleâ€ infesting the terrifying impact bowlâ€¦

As the unlikely allies head towards the perfectly preserved plane, the truth about the terrifying homunculi is shockingly revealed and they encounter the last human survivor of downed Diplomatic Flight, discover to their supreme cost the uncanny and ultimately deadly atmospheric anomaly which has kept the plane a secret for decades and turned the crater into a vast geological radio setâ€¦

When the dust settles Yoko realises she is trapped in the subterranean anomaly. With all her escape plans rendered useless she must align herself with the bizarre sole survivor and his bestial, rebellious servants, but she also refuses to give up on the recovery mission.

Of course that doesn’t mean that she has to trust anything the old relic in the hole or Major Dundee has said. With that in mind she lays her own plans to settle mattersâ€¦

As always the most potent asset of these breathtaking dramas is the astonishingly authentic and staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail, honed through years of working on Tintin.

With this sleekly beguiling tale Yoko proved that she was a truly multi-faceted adventurer, equally at home in all manner of dramatic milieus and able to hold her own against the likes of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin or any other genre-busting super-star: as triumphantly capable pitted against spies and crooks as alien invaders, weird science or unchecked force of natureâ€¦

This is a splendidly frenetic, tense thriller which will appeal to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or devious espionage exploit.
Original edition Â© Dupuis, 1973, 1979 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2015 Â© Cinebook Ltd.

November 14, 2015November 12, 2015

Alley Oop

By V.T. Hamlin (Ken Pierce Books)
ISBN: 0-912277-02-5

Modern comics evolved from newspaper comic strips. These pictorial features were, until relatively recently, extremely popular with the public and highly valued by publishers who used them as a powerful weapon to guarantee and even increase circulation and profits. From the earliest days humour was paramount; hence our umbrella terms â€œFunniesâ€ and of course â€œcomicsâ€.

Despite the odd ancestor or precedent like Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (comedic when it began in 1924, and gradually moving from mock-heroics to light-action into full-blown action-adventure with the introduction of Captain Easy in 1929), or Tarzan and Buck Rogers – which both debuted January 7^th 1929 as an adaptation of pre-existing prose properties – the vast bulk of strips produced were generally feel-good humour strips with the occasional child-oriented fantasy.

This changed in the 1930s when an explosion of action and drama strips were launched with astounding rapidity. Not only strips but actual genres were created in that decade and they still impact on not just today’s comic-books but all our popular fiction.

Another infinitely deep well of fascination for humans is cavemen and dinosaurs. During that heyday of America’s strip surge a rather unique real character created a rather unique and paradoxical cartoon character: one both adventurous and comedic and simultaneously forward-looking and fantastically â€œretroâ€ at the same timeâ€¦

Vincent Trout Hamlin was born in 1900 and did lots of things before becoming a cartoonist. When he mustered out of the US Expeditionary Force after the Great War he finished High School and then went to the University of Missouri. This was in 1920 and he studied journalism but, since he’d always loved drawing, the eager beaver took advantage of the institution’s art courses too.

He was always a supreme storyteller and lived long enough to give plenty of interviews and accounts – many impishly contradictory – about the birth of his antediluvian archetypeâ€¦

As a press photographer Hamlin had roamed the Lone Star State and filmed the beginnings of the petroleum industry, catching the bug for finding fossils. Later, whilst drawing ads for a Texas Oil company, he became further fascinated with fossils as he struggled to create a strip which would provide his family with a regular incomeâ€¦

When V.T. decided to chance his arm at the booming comic strip business, those old stones and bones got his imagination percolating and he eventually came up with a perfect set-up for action, adventure, big laughs and even a healthy dose of social satireâ€¦

Alley Oop is a Neanderthal-ish caveman inhabiting a lush and fantastic land where dinosaurs still thrive. In fact his greatest friend and boon companion is Dinny; a faithful, valiant saurian chum who terrifies every other dinosaur in creation as well as all the annoying bipeds in residence.

Because Dinny is as smart and obedient as a dog, all the other cave dwellers – such as arrogant, insecure King Guzzle – generally treat the mighty, free-thinking, disrespectful Oop with immense cautionâ€¦

Unlike most of his audience, Hamlin knew such things could never have occurred but didn’t much care: the set-up was too sweet to waste and it would prove to be the very least of the supremely imaginative creative anachronisms he and his brilliant wife Dorothy would concoct as the strip grew in scope and popularity.

Oop actually launched twice. In 1930 Hamlin whipped up primeval prototype Oop the Mighty which he then radically retooled and sold a year later to the small and local Bonnet-Brown Syndicate as Alley Oop. It debuted on December 5^th 1932 and was gaining steam when Bonnet-Brown foundered during the worst part of the Great Depression in 1933.

Happily the strip had won enough of a popular following that representatives of the vast Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicate – whose other properties included Major Hoople, Boots and Her Buddies and the aforementioned Wash Tubbs – tracked down the neophyte scribbler and offered him a regular slot in papers all over America.

Alley Oop debuted again as a daily on August 7^th 1933, reprising his old stories for a far larger audience before moving on to new adventures and winning a Sunday colour page on September 9^th 1934, the year V.T., Dorothy and new daughter Theodora relocated to affluent Sarasota, Florida.

Sadly for such a revered series with a huge pedigree – still running today as both Sunday and daily feature, scripted by Carole Bender and drawn by her husband Jack – there has never been a concerted effort to properly collect the entire epic. There have however been tantalising outbursts of reprints in magazines and short sets of archive editions from Kitchen Sink, Dark Horse and IDW’s Library of American Comics.

One of – if not actually – the very first serious compilation came courtesy of dedicated preserver of great comics Ken Pierce, who in 1983 released this marvellously compact monochrome paperback edition which reprints one of the most revered sequences of the burly and boisterous dawn man.

Preceded by an Introduction from fellow cartoonist Herb Galewitz and ‘When Hamlin Started Digging Into History Out Came Alley Oop’ – a typically bright and breezy Press Release from 1960 – ‘The Sawalla Chronicles’ ran from April 10^th to August 28^th 1936 and detailed a classic clash between perennial free-thinker Oop and the increasingly oppressive forces of civilisation and polite society that was growing around himâ€¦

A little background: most cave-folk of that long ago time lived in a rocky village ruled over by devious, semi-paranoid King Guzzle and his formidable, achingly status-conscious wife Queen Umpateedle.

Their kingdom was dubbed Moo and the elite couple were guided/manipulated by sneaky shaman the Grand Wizer with all three of them constantly seeking to curb the excesses of the rebelliously independent, instinctively democratic Oop.

Our hero – toughest man in the land – had no time for all the silly fripperies and dumb made-up rules but he did usually give in to the stern glances and fierce admonishments of his long-suffering girlfriend Ooola. The uneasy balance of power in the kingdom comes from the fact that Guz and the Wizer, even with the entire nation behind them, were never a match for Oop and Dinny when they got madâ€¦

As this story starts however that dÃ©tente has suddenly ended because the Wizer has hypnotised the gigantic beast and turned him against Oopâ€¦

Seizing his chance, Guzzle orders his guards to throw his rival into â€œThe Pitâ€, but when they all regain consciousness they see their intended victim is now astride the throne with the crown on his headâ€¦

With a new king in charge things start to move quickly and Oop’s only ally is his old, less-evolved rhyming pal Foozy, so they are hard-pressed to stop the Grand Wizer’s own power-grab since the malevolent old geezer still commands Dinnyâ€¦

When the chums then fall out, Foozy decides to restore normality by putting Guz back on the throne and to that end devises a cunning plan to immobilise gargantuan Dinny. As events spiral completely out of control, however, it’s ferocious Umpateedle who finally restores the status quo by knocking a few stubborn male heads togetherâ€¦

Oop doesn’t care. After a few precarious and decidedly risky moments he and Dinny are restored and for him that’s what really matters.

As normality returns – exemplified by Umpateedle organising a swanky Ladies Day – Oop takes Ooola on a hunting trip deep into unexplored territory where they discover other men. Moreover these strangers are riding dinosaurs, something everyone thought only Oop could doâ€¦

A brutal battle results in some answers from thoroughly beaten Wur, warrior-guardian of the previously unsuspected Sawalla Frontier who surprisingly invites the startled Moovians to visit his own unsuspected country.

Despite Oop’s suspicions, Sawalla seems a paradise. Sited beside a colossal body of water everything is great until Wur – who also happens to be king – informs him they will be staying foreverâ€¦

Despite lethal swamps and ferocious dinosaurs barring their way back, Oop is determined to return – more because nobody tells him what to do than any degree of patriotism or homesickness – and doesn’t stop looking for escape routes even after Wur sets a gang of brutes to watch him. More distressing is the fact that Wur – desiring Ooola for himself – wants to marry the male Moovian to his own sister Looâ€¦

When that scheme goes south he opts to just get rid of Oop, unaware that his rival has co-opted the Sawallan squad ordered to supervise him. As intrigue turns into all-out war, Oop, Ooola and their converts try to escape through the lethally impassable swamp with all Wur’s forces hard on their soggy heels.

As the fugitives’ arduous slog and occasional battles with Sawallan scouts intensify, at the other end of the green hell, long-missing Dinny finally emerges from the jungle depths and trots into Moo. Realising something’s up, Foozy – accompanied by towering throwback the Cardiff Giant – leads a rescue mission into the swamp and is soon engaged in furious battle with Wur and his army, even as elsewhere Oop’s party fight for their lives against an armada of wild and angry thunder lizards.

And then in a one terrifying moment, the abundant flora catches alight and a monstrous forest fire beginsâ€¦

Fast, furious, fantastically funny and bitterly barbed in the manner of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, Alley Oop is a bone fide classic of comicstrip narrative, long overdue the respect and honour of a complete chronological collection.

However until some enlightened publisher gets around to it, by all means start digging on line and in bargain bins for each – or any – of the wonderful tomes already released. It’s barely the tip of an iceberg but it’s a startâ€¦
Â© 1983 Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. All rights reserved. ALLEY OOP COMIC STRIPS Â© 1936 Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. Introduction and editorial material Â© 1983 Hern Galewitz.

November 6, 2015November 5, 2015

The Story of Lee volume 2

By SeÃ¡n Michael Wilson & Nami Tamura (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1 56163-973-1

Win’s Christmas Recommendation: A Fine Tale of Families Far Apartâ€¦ 8/10

After far too long a wait here’s a supremely engaging sequel to an endearing romantic confection which delighted readers in 2011: a sweet transatlantic/transpacific shojo manga, which like its subject matter and stars was the happy product of more than one countryâ€¦

As written by Scottish Ã©migrÃ© and current resident of Japan SeÃ¡n Michael Wilson and illustrated by Manga Shakespeare artist Chie Kutsuwada, The Story of Lee detailed the growing relationship of a restless Hong Kong girl who fell for a young celtic poet and teacher.

Lee endured frustrated dreams dutifully working in her father’s shop. The situation was uncomfortable: although the elder meant well, he disapproved of almost everything Lee did and never stinted in telling her so. His disparagement and constant pushing for her to achieve something (becoming a dentist) whilst staying true to his old-fashioned ideas was tearing her apart, and Wang, the nice, proper Chinese boy he perpetually forced upon her, was a really creepy turn-off.

What they never realised was that Lee was a closet poet and pop music junkie besotted with western culture, particularly myth-laden London. In those unwelcome fascinations she was clandestinely supported by her frail, aging grandmother and unconventional Uncle Jun, a globe-trotting playboy who long ago abandoned convention and tradition to follow his own dreams to Americaâ€¦

At 24 Lee was being gradually eroded away until she met gorgeous temporary teacher Matt MacDonald. Exotically Scottish, he was polite and charming: a sensitive, talented poetâ€¦

Lee quietly defied her father and her relationship with Matt deepened, but when tragedy struck and grandmother was no longer a factor, further upheaval occurred when Matt announced that he was returning to his home thousands of miles away.

â€¦And then he dropped his bombshell and asked her to go with himâ€¦

With the second instalment – illustrated by British-based Japanese artist Nami Tamura – the tale resumes with the lovers in flight for the UK and, after a whirlwind tour of London, on a long and gloriously picturesque train journey to Edinburgh where Lee will study for a year on a student visa. It also happens to be Matt’s home town.

A minor skirmish with rude, rowdy but generally harmless lads travelling to Newcastle is not as distressing to the sheltered, culture-shocked waif as the baffling array of accents, dialects and slang which constantly overwhelm her plainly inadequate textbook understanding of Englishâ€¦

The city itself is a revelation: so many old and beautiful buildings, unlike HK where everything is always being torn down and rebuilt, and perhaps it’s just that dizzying cultural adjustment which makes her feel Matt is acting a little differently now that he’s in his on his own turf againâ€¦

Or maybe it’s the oddly intimate relationship he has with the old college chum they’re crashing with? Richard is warm, welcoming and coolly into all the right music, but she can’t shake the feeling that his relationship with her man might go beyond the bonds of friendshipâ€¦

Over following days Lee’s apprehensions increase as Matt gleefully shows her around the nostalgic landmarks of his past and apparent proofs of Richard’s feelings begin to emerge. Moreover, her charming man seems to be changing too: his gentle patience evaporates; he’s snappish and even reacts jealously when other students – and even the local musicians she slavishly seeks out – pay attention to herâ€¦

One thing she cannot adjust to is the undercurrent of hostility and casual aggression expressed by the young men in Scotlandâ€¦

Lee has never felt more vulnerable. She is a world away from home and security and increasingly wonders if she’s made the biggest mistake of her life. As tensions rise and the nurturing warmth the lovers shared deteriorates further, unexpected aid appears in the form of Uncle Jun who pops up for a visit and offers some startling adviceâ€¦

Things boil over after a particularly savage argument and the boys steam off together to a party but what Lee sees when she returns and finds them together is beyond comprehension and seems to confirm all her worst fearsâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Supplemented by a copious Glossary and Notes section defining the specific vagaries of accent and slang whilst offering geographical and historical perspective on the many actual locations depicted, this is a deliciously compelling drama playing with well-established conventions and idioms of romantic fiction and teen soap opera.

With beguiling subtlety The Story of Lee uses powerful themes of cultural differences, mixed-race-relationships, family and friendship pressures and the often insurmountable barrier of different childhood experiences and expectations to weave an enchanting tale of independence, interdependence and isolation.

It all ends on a gentle cliffhanger and I can’t wait to see how it all resolves in the next volumeâ€¦ and so will you when you pick up on this evocative, addictive story of cultures in conflict and union…
Â© 2015 SeÃ¡n Michael Wilson & Nami Tamura.

November 2, 2015October 30, 2015

Secret Teachings of a Comic Book Master: the Art of Alfredo Alcala

By Heidi MacDonald & Phillip Dana Yeh with art by Alfredo Alcala (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80041-7

Win’s Christmas Recommendation: A Perfect, Old-School Craft-Book Prezzieâ€¦ 9/10

We haven’t covered a â€œHow Toâ€ book for ages and this is one of the most intriguing and rewarding I’ve seen in many a year.

There is a host of books both academic and/or instructional designed to inculcate a love of comics whilst offering tips, secrets and an education in how to make your own sequential narratives.

There are others intended to foster and further the apparently innate and universal desire to simply make art and make it proficiently and well (see for example the superb and lengthy list of Dover Books on Art Instruction and Anatomy at the back of this particular tome).

There are, however, precious few that do it with as much style, enthusiasm or perspicacity as this latest re-release from the culture-preserving heroes at Dover.

As much biography and philosophical treatise on work-ethic as training manual, Secret Teachings of a Comic Book Master: the Art of Alfredo Alcala resurrects a slim and informative monochrome package from 1994 compiled from the thoughts and especially a vast selection of gorgeous illustrations and examples from one of the most influential and meritorious masters of illustration Comics ever produced.

Following an effusive ‘Introduction by Gil Kane’ and passionate exhortations in ‘A is For Alfredo – a Personal Reminiscence by Roy Thomas’ the real meat of this tome is presented in ‘On the Road with a Real Artist by Phil Yeh’ wherein scribes Heidi McDonald and Yeh repackage the wit, wisdom and sheer gracious enthusiasm of the man we in the English-speaking world think of mostly as a superb inker, but who was so much more.

Alfredo P. Alcala (1925-2000) was born in Talisay, Negros Occidental: part of the chain of islands known as the Philippines. He lived through the Japanese Occupation of WWII (playing a small part in their defeat) and the years following when America supervised the country. An obsessed autodidact and self-taught artistic prodigy, he held a number of creative jobs before joining the extremely popular Philippines â€œKomiksâ€ industry in 1948.

A phenomenal talent – and lightning fast – he quickly rose to prominence and started his own publishing house. When his period adventure serial Ukala was made into a hugely successful movie he was already at the peak of his powers, but he followed that with the groundbreaking Sword-&-Sorcery series Voltar and became influential on the world stage.

At the beginning of the 1970s horror boom he moved with a number of other Filipino stars to America where their florid illustrative styles and broad genre experience defined the look of US comicbooks for a decade.

Although he was a superbly versatile draughtsman and storyteller, Alcala’s most beloved and well-known contributions were made during sustained runs as inker on Conan, Batman, Swamp Thing and others and, when the industry moved away from the Filipino style, he and his compatriots moved to California and began excelling in the voracious, talent-consuming animation businessâ€¦

Taken from memories of shared train journeys, this section offers insights and anecdotes interspersed with Alfredo’s real Secret Teachings of How to be an Artist as recalled by fellow traveller and creative fellow spirit Phil Yeh, packed with illustrative examples from published comics as well as intimate sketches and studies from a man who simply never stopped drawingâ€¦

The remainder of this evocative bible from a sublimely classicist illustrator and self-made wonder breaks down into a potent series of tutorials beginning with ‘The Art of Observation’ which is neatly subdivided into helpful guides to ‘Discovering Your Style’, the proper use of the correct ‘Tools’, the crucial mastery of ‘Anatomy and Proportion’ and the truth about ‘Composition’, all thoroughly backed up and supported by examples from Alcala’s vast back catalogue.

Next comes a most crucial treatise on the disciplines specific to graphic narrative entitled ‘Thinking About Comics’, again augmented with cogent and beautiful visual back-up and biographical minutiae from ‘Ukala’, ‘Conan’ and the superbly impressive historical commemoration ‘The Gift‘.

This is followed by an in-depth 20-page reiteration of all that’s gone before, using Alcala’s groundbreaking Voltar as model and exemplar, complete with critical deconstruction by the master himself, and everything wraps up a with quick lesson on ‘Painting’, using one of Alcala’s own murals as the basis for a stringent and informative Q & A session.

This glorious paperback is aimed squarely at the progressing cartoonist, rather than total neophyte, and provides as much a philosophy of creativity as strict instruction, but the sheer profusion of Alcala’s magnificent monochrome will satisfy comics fans as well as budding artists and storytellers.

If you already have the urge to make pictures but want a little encouragement, this wonderful celebration will offer a steadying hand and all the support you could dream of.
Â© 2015 Dover Publications, Ltd. Introduction Â© 1994 Elain Kane. Introduction Â© 1994 Roy Thomas. Conan the Barbarian art Â© 1994 Marvel Entertainment Group. All rights reserved.

Secret Teachings of a Comic Book Master: the Art of Alfredo Alcala will be released November 27^th 2015 and is available for pre-order now. Check out www.doverpublications.com, your internet retailer or local comic or bookshop.

October 31, 2015October 15, 2015

Melusine volume 2: Halloween

By Clarke (FrÃ©dÃ©ric Seron) & Gilson, coloured by Cerise and translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-34-2

Teen witches have a long and distinguished pedigree in fiction and one of the most engaging first appeared in venerable Belgian magazine Spirou in 1992.

MÃ©lusine is actually a sprightly 119 year old who spends her days working as an au pair in a vast monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau whilst diligently studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ Schoolâ€¦

The long-lived feature offers everything from one-page gag strips to full-length comedy tales on supernatural themes detailing her rather fraught life, the impossibly demanding master and mistress of the castle and her large circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.

Collected editions began appearing annually or better from 1995, with the 24^th published in 2015 and another due next year. Thus far five of those have transformed into English translations thanks to the fine folk at Cinebook.

The strip was devised by writer FranÃ§ois Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and cartoon humorist FrÃ©dÃ©ric Seron, AKA Clarke whose numerous features for all-ages Spirou and acerbic adult humour publication Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continueâ€¦ and Le Miracle de la Vie.

Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and, as Bluttwurst, Les EnquÃªtes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, ChÃ¢teau Montrachet, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is unremittingly funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical and genre pieces such as Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes and apparently is free from the curse of having to sleepâ€¦

Halloween was the eighth MÃ©lusine album, originally released in 2001, and gathers a wealth of stunning seasonally sensitive strips, making it a great place for newcomers to start as the majority of the content is comprised of one or two page gags starring the sassy sorceress who – like a young but hot Broom Hilda – makes excessive play with fairy tale and horror film conventions and themes.

When brittle, moody Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle, or ducking cat-eating monster Winston and frisky vampire The Count, she’s avoiding the attentions of horny peasants, practising her spells or consoling and coaching inept, un-improvable and lethally unskilled classmate Cancrelune.

Mel’s boyfriend is a werewolf so he only bothers her a couple of nights a monthâ€¦

Daunting dowager Aunt Adrezelle is always eager and happy to share the wisdom of her so-many centuries but so, unfortunately, is family embarrassment cousin Melisande who spurned the dark, dread and sinisterly sober side of the clan to be a Fairy Godmother; all sparkles, fairy-cakes, pink bunnies and love. She’s simplicity, sweetness and light itself in every aspect, so what’s not to loatheâ€¦?

This turbulent tome riffs mercilessly on the established motifs and customs of Halloween where kids fill up to lethal levels on sweets and candies, monsters strive to look their worst, teachers try to keep the witches-in-training glued top their books and grimoires even as their over-excitable students experiment most unwisely on what to do with pumpkins – including how to grow, breed or conjure the biggest ones – whilst the fearfully pious local priest and his flock endeavour to ruin all the magical funâ€¦

Even Melisande gets in on the party atmosphere in her own too nice-to-be-true manner, lightening the happy shadows with too much sunshine and saccharine before the collection ends with the extended eponymous ‘Halloween’ wherein Melusine and Cancrelune learn the true meaning of the portentous anniversary when they inadvertently join the creaking clacking cadavers of the Risen Dead as they evacuate their graves on the special night to fight and drive away for another year the Evil Spirits which haunt humanityâ€¦

Wry, sly, fast-paced and uproariously funny, this compendium of arcane antics is a great taste of the magic of European comics and a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art. Read before bedtime and don’t eat any hairy sweetsâ€¦
Original edition Â© Dupuis, 2000 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2007 Â© Cinebook Ltd.

October 21, 2015

Long John Silver volume III: The Emerald Maze

By Xavier Dorison & Mathieu Lauffray, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-105-1

British and European comics have always been far more comfortable with period-piece strips than our American cousins and much more imaginative when reinterpreting classical fiction for jaded comicbook audiences. The happy combination of familiar exoticism, past lives and world-changing events blended with drama, action and, most frequently, broad comedy has resulted in a uniquely narrative art form suited to beguiling readers of all ages and tastes.

Our Franco-Belgian associates in particular have made an astonishing success out of repackaging days-gone-by but this particularly enchanting older-readers yarn forgoes the broad belly-laughs whilst extending the adventures of literature’s greatest rogue into a particularly engaging realm of globe-girdling thriller.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island was originally serialised from 1881-1882 in Young Folks magazine as Treasure Island or, the mutiny of the Hispaniola, as pseudonymous penned by one â€œCaptain George Northâ€.

It was collected and published as a novel in May 1883 and has never been out of print since. A landmark of world storytelling, Treasure Island has been dramatised too many times to count and adapted into all forms of art. Most significantly, the book created a metafictional megastar – albeit at best an anti-hero – as immortal as King Arthur, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan or Superman. Almost everything the public â€œknowsâ€ about pirates devolves from the book and its unforgettable, show-stealing one-legged antagonistâ€¦

Writer Xavier Dorison was born in Paris in 1970 and graduated business school before moving into storytelling. He works as an author, film writer, lecturer and movie script doctor. He began the award-winning Long John Silver in conjunction with preferred collaborator Mathieu (Prophet) Lauffray in 2006, with the last volume released in 2013.

Lauffray is also a Parisian born in 1970. He spends his days illustrating, drawing comics, crafting games and concept designing for movies. His art has graced international items as varied as Dark Horse’s Star Wars franchise, games like Alone in the Dark, the album Lyrics Verdun, February 21, 1916 – December 18, 1916, Tarzan and much moreâ€¦

Their collaborative exploration of the piratical prince’s later years is a foray into far more mature arenas set decades after the affair of the Hispaniola and ranges far and wide: from foggy, oppressive England to the vast, brooding inner recesses of the Amazon.

What has Gone Before: in 1785 treasure-hunting Lord Byron Hastings found the lost bastion of Guiana-Capac but needed further funds to exploit this fabulous City of Gold.

In England, his profligate and wanton wife Lady Vivian had been enjoying herself too much and was with child by lecherous neighbour Lord Prisham. With a baby in her belly and a husband gone three years, she was considering having Byron declared dead and undertaking a hasty remarriageâ€¦

Suddenly shattering those plans her despised brother-in-law turned up with an aged, garish tribesman named Moxtechica bearing a message and map from her long-lost husband. Prudish and cruel, Royal Naval officer Edward Hastings gleefully told the scheming strumpet he abhorred that his brother had succeeded and demanded she sell everything – including all the treasured family possessions, manor house and lands she brought to the marriage – to finance his returnâ€¦

Byron named Edward sole Proxy and the martinet delighted in giving high-born trollop Vivian her marching orders. He even urged her to confine herself to a convent and save them all further shame and disgraceâ€¦

Raging in front of her conniving maid Elsie, the Lady considered a number of retaliatory tactics before settling upon the most bold, dangerous and potentially rewarding. After announcing to the stunned Edward that she would accompany him to South America and reunite with her beloved husband, the fallen noblewoman sought out a doctor to take care of the biological problem she was still secretly carryingâ€¦

Dr. Livesay was a decent, god-fearing soul who led a quiet, prosperous life ever since his adventures on Flint’s Island. However, it was not just her condition which brought Vivian to the physician’s door, but also persistent tales of a former acquaintance; a formidable, peg-legged rogue with a reputation for making life’s difficulties disappearâ€¦

Against his better judgement, Livesay capitulated to Vivian’s urgings and introduced her to retired sea-cook John Silver. Amidst the (alleged) ex-pirate’s inner circle of scary-looking confederates she spun the story of the Spaniard Pizarro‘s discovery of a City of Gold and how, centuries later, her husband had reclaimed it.

She wanted to travel there with a few capable men and make those riches her own and needed Silver and his colleagues to infiltrate Edward’s crew, seize the ship he chartered and complete the voyage under her commandâ€¦

Unable to convince Vivian to desist or Silver to reject her offer, Livesay reluctantly joined them in vain hopes that he could keep the debased woman from mortal harm. Nobody was aware that Silver concealed a debilitating and soon-to-be-fatal affliction as the rascal orchestrated his own hiring and packed the Neptune with suitable scoundrels and compelled Lady Vivian to sign a sacrosanct Pirates Contract.

With all the various schemers believing their own plans were proceeding satisfactorily, the Neptune set sail for the Americas, but at the last moment Silver suffers a major setback when rival rogue Paris inveigled his way into the crewâ€¦

As the tension-driven voyage progressed, Silver’s men, Paris’ contingent and even Captain Hastings’ innocent hires all slowly succumbed to the Sea Cook’s glib tongue and fascinating tales of the Red Brotherhood.

Only Hastings’ lieutenants Dantzig and Van Horn had any inkling of the battle of wills occurring below decks, but even that shaky dÃ©tente shattered after Elsie was murdered. Well-aware that everybody aboard was gripped by gold-fever, Hastings tried to rule with a rod of iron and full naval discipline. Settling upon boy seaman Jack O’Kief (a protÃ©gÃ© of Paris, but beloved by Silver) as responsible for the maid’s death, Hastings had him brutally flogged.

A vicious and prolonged battle of wills followed, pushing the crew to the edge of mutiny. Hastings delayed making final landfall on the tantalisingly close South American coast and strained tensions exploded just as a colossal storm pushed Neptune inexorably towards its foregone destination. An inevitable mutiny erupted, resulting in appalling bloodshed and a red-handed settling of many scoresâ€¦

Literally above it all, old shaman Moxtechica rode out both tempests, patiently waiting to see what the calm of dawn might bringâ€¦

The Emerald Maze opens in the ghastly aftermath of the maelstroms of human and natural forces with the becalmed and battered Neptune drifting idly off-shore and the survivors reeling aimlessly on her decks. In sight of terrifying cliffs, the stunned rabble are near panic and babbling of sailing on to Tortuga until Silver’s ferocious tongue-lashing brings them to heel.

Now completely in charge, the old pirate almost loses them again after making Dantzig (the only trained pilot and navigator left alive) second-in-command, despite the Navy Man swearing he’ll see them all hang one dayâ€¦

Boldly sailing Neptune straight into the cliffs, Silver and Dantzig navigate a barely discernible channel in the stony walls and bring the ship through into a calm and beguiling tributary of the Amazon. With time taken to repair and recover, however, the men soon resort to their old ways. Dead are buried, a few old scores settled and Jasper, a new rival to Silver’s authority, begins to assert himself. Seeing the way things are going, Vivian steps in and employs her wiles and cunningâ€¦

She quickly beguiles the entire crew with her story of the Emperor Viracocha and his immense pagan City of Gold. She tells of how her husband claimed it and wins them all over by promising how they will take it from himâ€¦

With their goal so close, the wary mariners impatiently and so-slowly sail up the vast river in an epic journey through labyrinthine courses and jungle backwaters. Each time they stall or founder Moxtechica is there, silently divining which way they should go in the inexorable voyage to lost Guiana-Capac.

This in itself is a cause of growing suspicion to Lady Vivian. Her brutal, impatient husband was never a man to trust others or inspire loyalty – even in other Englishmen – and now she begins to have grave doubts over the shaman’s true motivesâ€¦

Those same thoughts are plaguing Silver and his wily old shipmate Olaf as the river gradually becomes perilously shallow. Soon the voyagers are shocked to see the foundered, rotting wreckage of Lord Byron Hastings’ ship The Nimrod in the scant waters abutting a hugely overgrown and jungle-covered cityâ€¦

As Silver readies his depleted contingent to begin searching the ruins, Vivian surprises the pirate by requesting to be left aboard Nimrod. She has too many questions and perhaps her husband’s ship holds some answersâ€¦

As Vivian find a grimy journal and begins to read, aboard the Neptune nobody really cares that Moxtechica has gone missingâ€¦ but they shouldâ€¦

To Be Concludedâ€¦

Tense, evocative, shockingly powerful and eerily, magnificently realised, these further exploits of Long John Silver are a modern masterpiece of adventure fiction worthy of Stevenson’s immortal adventure. They might even convince a few more folks to actually read the original novelâ€¦
Â© Dargaud, Paris, 2010 by Dorison & Lauffray. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2011 Cinebook Ltd.

October 19, 2015October 18, 2015

Showcase Presents Weird War Tales volume 1

By Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, Bill Finger, Sheldon Mayer, Jack Oleck, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, Dennis O’Neil, Russ Heath, Mort Drucker, Frank Thorne, Alex Toth, Reed Crandall, Sam Glanzman, John Severin, Howard Chaykin, Ed Davis, Frank Robbins, Nestor Redondo, George Evans, Alex NiÃ±o, Russ Heath, Neal Adams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3694-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Inventive, Intense and Intoxicatingâ€¦ 9/10

American comicbooks just idled along rather slowly until the invention of Superman provided a flamboyant new genre of heroes and subsequently unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and imaginative generation for a suddenly thriving and voracious new entertainment model.

Implacably vested in World War II, these gaudily-attired mystery men swept all before them until the troops came home, but as the decade closed more traditional themes and heroes began to resurface and eventually supplant the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Even as a new generation of kids began buying and collecting, many of the first fans who had retained their four-colour habit increasingly sought more mature themes in their pictorial reading matter. The war years and post-war paranoia had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film, theatre and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this.

To balance the return of Western, War and Crime and imminent Atomic Armageddon-fuelled Science Fiction comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist or teen-oriented comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features sprang up, but gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and a public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative and shockingly addictive horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in superhero trappings but these had been victims of circumstance: The Unknown as a power source for super-heroics. Now focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering the reader.

Almost every publisher jumped on an increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948, although their Adventures Into the Unknown was technically pipped by Avon. The book and comics publisher had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 but didn’t follow-up with a regular series until 1951.

Classics Illustrated had already secured the literary end of the medium with child-friendly comics adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another â€œmature marketâ€ gap and invented Romance comics (Young Romance #1, September 1947) but they too saw the sales potential for spooky material, resulting in the seminal Black Magic (launched in 1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952).

The company which would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery.

After the hysterical censorship debate which led to witch-hunting Senate hearings in the early 1950s was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulation, titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, but the audience’s appetite for suspense was still high and in 1956 National introduced sister titles Tales of the Unexpected and House of Secrets.

Stories were dialled back from uncanny spooky yarns to always marvellously illustrated, rationalistic fantasy-adventure vehicles and, eventually, straight monster-busting Sci Fi tales which dominated the market into the 1960s. That’s when super-heroes – which had gradually enjoyed their own visionary revival after Julius Schwartz reintroduced the Flash in Showcase #4 – finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom and a growing coterie of costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which forced previously staunchly uncompromising anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character books. Even ACG slipped tights and masks onto its spooky stars.

When the caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, superheroes began dropping like Kryptonite-gassed flies. However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and, at the end of the 1960s with the cape-and-cowl boom over and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain, the surviving publishers of the field agreed to revise the Comics Code, loosening their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics.

Nobody much cared about gangster titles but, as the liberalisation coincided with yet another bump in public interest concerning supernatural themes, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious â€œno-brainer.â€

Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with their rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillersâ€¦

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all horror comics came back and quickly dominated the American funnybook market for more the next half decade. DC led the pack: converting House of Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected into supernatural suspense anthologies in 1968 and resurrecting House of Secrets a year later.

Such was not the case with war comics. Tales of ordinary guys in combat began with the industry itself and although mostly sidelined during the capes-&-cowls war years, quickly began to assert themselves again once the actual fighting stopped.

National/DC were one of the last publishers to get in on the combat act, converting superhero/fantasy adventure anthology Star Spangled Comics into Star Spangled War Stories the same month it launched and Our Army at War (both cover-dated August 1952) and promptly repurposing All-American Comics into All-American Men of War a month later as the â€œpolice actionâ€ in Korea escalated.

They grew the division slowly but steadily, adding Our Fighting Forces #1 (November 1954) – just as EC’s groundbreaking combat comics were vanishing – and in 1957 added GI Combat to their portfolio when Quality Comics got out of the funnybook business.

As the 1950s closed however the two-fisted anthologies all began to incorporate recurring characters such as Gunner and Sarge – and latterly Pooch – from Our Fighting Forces #45 on, (May 1959), Sgt Rock (Our Army at War #83 (June 1959) and The Haunted Tank (G.I. Combat #87, April/May 1961) and soon all DC war titles had a lead star or feature to hold the fickle readers’ attention. The drive to produce superior material never wavered however, hugely aided by the diligent and meticulous ministrations of writer/editor Robert Kanigher.

In America after the demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s and prior to the game-changing Blazing Combat, the only certain place to find controversial, challenging and entertaining American war comics was DC. In fact, even whilst Archie Goodwin’s stunning but tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a new generation of readers in the 1960s, the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman was a veritable cornucopia of gritty, intriguing and beautifully illustrated battle tales presenting warfare on a variety of fronts and from many differing points of view.

Whilst the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Homefront death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response the military-themed comicbooks from National Periodical Publishing, as it then was, became even more bold and innovativeâ€¦

However the sudden downturn in superheroes at the end of the 1960s led to some serious rethinking here and although the war titles maintained and even built sales they beefed up the anthological elements.

Thus in 1971 a title combining supernatural horror stories with bombastic battle yarns in an anthological setting seemed a forgone conclusion and sure thing to both publishers and readers alike and this economically epic monochrome tome collects the contents of Weird War Stories #1-21 (cover-dated September/October 1971 to January 1974), offering a broad blend of genre mash-ups for readers with a taste for the dark and uncanny to relish.

The series launched in a 52-page format combining new material with adapted reprints featuring a veritable Who’s Who of top flight creative talent – both seasoned veterans and stars in waiting – and #1 saw Editor Joe Kubert writing and illustrating an eerie linking story entitled ‘Let Me Tell You of the Things I’ve Seen’ as a lost GI stumbles into the personification of Death (the title’s long-term narrator in various blood-stained uniforms) who tells him a few storiesâ€¦

The reaper began with ‘Fort Which Did Not Return!’ by Robert Kanigher & Russ Heath as originally seen in GI Combat #86, detailing how a bomber continued its mission even after the crew bailed out and followed up with all-new ‘The Story behind the Cover’ wherein Kubert revealed how a shunned German soldier carried on his duties after deathâ€¦

From Star Spangled War Stories #71 (July 1958) Bob Haney & Kubert revealed ‘The End of the Sea Wolf!’ as a sadistic U-Boat captain was sunk by one of his own earlier victims whilst SSWS #116 (August/September 1964) originally saw France Herron & Irv Novick’s ‘Baker’s Dozen’ with a fresh-faced replacement to a super-superstitious platoon battling to prove he’s not their unlucky thirteenth manâ€¦

The issue ends with that lost GI realising just who has been telling tales in Kubert’s ‘You Must Go!’â€¦

The reprints included in these early issues were all taken from a time when supernatural themes were proscribed by the Comics Code Authority, but even so they all held fast to eerie aura of sinister uncertainty – the merest hint of the strange and uncanny to leaven the usual blood and thunder of battle booksâ€¦

In Weird War Tales #2 Kubert reprised his bridging vehicle as ‘Lookâ€¦ and Listenâ€¦’ saw a crashed Stuka pilot meeting a ghastly stranger at a battle-torn desert oasis before ‘Reef of No Return’ (by Haney & Mort Drucker from Our Fighting Forces #43, March 1959) detailed a determined frogman’s most dangerous mission and Kanigher & Frank Thorne’s new WWI silent saga ‘The Moon is the Murderer’ proved that overwhelming firepower isn’t everythingâ€¦

Kubert’s ‘Behind the Cover’ featured a prophetic dream and terrifying telegram after which ‘A Promise to Joe!’ (Kanigher & Novick, G.I. Combat #97 (December 1962-January 1963) sees a dead gunner seemingly save his friend from beyond the grave and the superb ‘Monsieur Gravedigger’ – by Jerry DeFuccio & the legendary Reed Crandall – follows the follies of a sadistic Foreign Legionnaire who pushed his comrades too farâ€¦

Cartoonist John Costanza delivers some gag-filled ‘Military Madness’ and Kubert & Sam Glanzman offer a fact-packed ‘Sgt. Rock’s Battle Stations’ about ‘The Grenadier’ before Bill Finger, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito examine a young recruit’s rite of passage and development of ‘The Face of a Fighter’ (Our Fighting Forces #25, September 1957) after which ‘Oasis’ concludes the sorry saga of that downed Aryan airmanâ€¦

American Naval Aviators ditching at sea were the unwilling audience for Death’s stories as WWT #3 opens with Kubert’s ‘Listenâ€¦’

The itinerary starts with ‘Been Here Before!’ (Finger, Andru & Esposito, G.I. Combat #44 January 1957) as a soldier under fire turns his mind back to boyhood games to save the day after which we see an aerial battle and parachute drop from the perspective of ‘The Cloud That Went to War!’ (Our Fighting Forces #17, January 1957 by Dave Wood, Andru & Esposito).

More Costanza comedy from ‘The Kreepy Korps!’ precedes an early tale by relative newcomers Len Wein & Marv Wolfman, ably illustrated by Russ Heath as both cave tribes and modern soldiers battle to possess ‘The Pool’, before the artists earlier collaboration with Bob Haney reveals how ‘Combat Size!’ is all a matter of mental attitude in a tale first seen in Our Army at War #66 (January 1958).

Glanzman’s ‘Battle Album’ explains ‘Flying Guns’ after which a finny friend helps a US submarine sink an aircraft carrier in Finger & Drucker’s ‘Pilot for a Sub!’ (Our Army at War #68, March 1958) before the issue ends as Kubert sends a ‘Lifeboat’ for those tragic aviatorsâ€¦

The fourth issue opens with Kubert’s final linking tale as a ‘Gypsy Girl’ and her family find wounded soldier Tony after his buddy runs off to get a medic. They kindly offer to pass time with him sharing stories such as ‘Ghost Ship of Two Wars’ (Kanigher & Novick from All-American Men of War #81, September 1960) wherein an obsessed WWI pilot seemingly slips into 1944 while pursuing of his unbeatable arch-enemy the Black Ace.

‘Time Warp’ by Kanigher and Gene Colan originally appeared as ‘The Dinosaur who Ate Torpedoes!’‘ in Star Spangled War Stories #123 (October/November 1965 and part of the uniquely bizarre War That Time Forgot series), pitting US frogmen against colossal sea-going saurians, after which ‘The Unknown Sentinel’ (by author unknown & Mort Meskin from House of Mystery #55, October 1956) saves the lives of two soldiers lost on manoeuvres on America’s most famous battlefield.

Glanzman then offers one of his magnificently engaging autobiographical USS Stevens vignettes with the all-new elegiac ‘Prelude’ before Kubert wraps up his chilling drama as ‘I Know Them to be True’ sees medics arriving to find Tony a much changed man, leaving Costanza to close things down with a laugh and some ‘Military Madness’â€¦

Weird War Tales #5 opens with Haney & Alex Toth providing the book-end tale of ‘The Prisoner’ held by Nazis in Italy. Seeking a way out he recalls tales of escape such as ‘The Toy Jet!’ (Haney & Heath from All-American Men of War #78, March/April 1960), a chilling psychological thriller about an interned pilot in North Korea, and ‘Human Trigger’ (Herron, Andru & Esposito, Star Spangled War Stories #18, February 1954) which shows how a soldier lying on a mine deftly saves his own lifeâ€¦

Herron & Carmine Infantino then reveal how an American spy is forced to ‘Face a Firing Squad!’ (SSWS #14, November 1953) and Norman Maurer instructs with the history of ‘Medal of Honour: Corporal Gerry Kisters’ and Willi Franz & Heath detail the victory of a ‘Slave’ in Roman times before Haney & Toth offer a final release in ‘This Is It!’

Issue #6 saw Weird War drop to a standard 36 page package and take a step into tomorrow with Haney & Toth’s battlefield test of ‘Robots’. Wolfman & Thorne expanded the theme in ‘Pawns’ as humans and mechanoids finally decided who worked for whom whilst ‘Goliath of the Western Front!’ (Herron, Andru & Esposito from SSWS #93 (October/November 1960) featured a giant mechanical Nazi and an American David who finally did for him, before Haney & Toth settled all debate with the conclusive ‘Robot Fightin’ Men’â€¦

Wolfman & Kubert combined to provide thematic bookends for issue #7, beginning with ‘Out of Action’ with wounded GIs awaiting the worst and trading tales like William Woolfolk, Jerry Grandenetti & Joe Giella’s ‘Flying Blind’ (Our Army at War #12 July 1953) as a wounded pilot was forced to trust someone else for the first time in his life if he wanted to land his burning jet, whilst Kanigher & Kubert’s ‘The 50-50 War!’ (All-American Men of War #41, January 1957) finds sporting rivals forced to help each other after both suffer injuries on an alpine mission, with Costanza adding more much-needed levity through his ‘Military Hall of Fame’â€¦

‘The Three GIs’ (Finger & Heath, SSWS #62, October 1957) riffs smartly on those monkeys who respectively can’t see, hear and speak and the Purple Heart yarns end with Wolfman & Kubert’s chilling ‘I Can’t See’â€¦

From #8 editorial control switched to the mystery division under the control of Joe Orlando and with it the reprints were shelved in favour of all-original material as publication frequency graduated from six times a year to monthly.

This all German-focused issue begins with a gruesome ‘Guide to No-Man’s Land’ (probably written by assistant editor E. Nelson Bridwell and illustrated by Tony DeZuniga) before moving on to ‘The Avenging Grave’ by Kanigher & DeZuniga with SS officers learning too late the folly of desecrating the dead of WWI, whilst anonymously scripted ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill!’ – with art by Steve Harper & Neal Adams – sees more gloating Nazis facing a vengeful golemâ€¦

Kanigher & DeZuniga then return to reveal the fate of an arrogant 1916 air ace in the skies over No-Man’s Land in ‘Duel of the Dead’ before the artist’s ‘Epilogue’ wraps things upâ€¦

Weird War Tales #9 invites us to ‘Enter the Portals of War’ in an introduction drawn by Howard Chaykin, swiftly followed by a trio of Kanigher yarns illustrated by the cream of DC’s Filipino artists.

‘The Promise’ was limned by Alfredo P. Alcala, telling a tale in two eras as both Teutonic knights in 1242 and German tankers seven centuries later fail to cross frozen Lake Chud, whilst Gerry Talaoc renders the disastrous end of deathly, determined ‘Blood Brothers!’ during the American Civil War and the incomparable Alex NiÃ±o details ‘The Last Battle’ between East and West before Chaykin pops back to declare ‘Death, the Ultimate Winner’.

Sheldon Mayer & Toth open WWT #10 with a deliciously whimsical ghostly love story in ‘Who is Haunting the Haunted Chateau?’ before Raymond Marais & Quico Redondo change the tone as a Death-Camp commandant returns after the war to salvage his ill-gotten gains from ‘The Room that Remembered’ whilst Wein & Walter Simonson – on the artist’s pro comics debut – reveal how invading Nazis shouldn’t have abused the town idiot and incurred the wrath of ‘Cyrano’s Army’â€¦

Always experimental, the creative team of Mayer, DeZuniga, Alcala, Talaoc & NiÃ±o tried their hand at a time-twisting complete adventure for issue #11. Occurring on ‘October 30′ over 99 years beginning in 1918, the tale compares the progress of an ambitious German General granted a wish for glory by a treacherous spirit of war with three ghostly Americans determined to fix a long-standing mistake whatever the costâ€¦

DeZuniga draws the introduction to #12, featuring tales of ‘Egypt’ starting with Kanigher & Talaoc’s tale of an ancient warlord who learned to regret spitting on the ‘God of Vengeance’, whilst ‘Hand of Hell’ (Kanigher & DeZuniga) saw Anubis similarly deal with one of Rommel’s least reputable and most sadistic deputies, after which Arnold Drake & Don Perlin switch locales to Roman Britain where a centurion takes an accidental time-trip and ultimately overthrows the Druids in ‘The Warrior and the Witch-Doctors!’â€¦

Weird War Tales #13 opens with ‘The Die-Hards’ by Jack Oleck & Nestor Redondo, with Nazis realising there are even worse killers than they haunting their latest conquered village before Drake & NiÃ±o determine that ‘Old Samurai Never Die’ when a would-be shogun offends the patron spirit of Bushido and ‘Loser’s Luck’ by Michael J. Pellowski, George Kashdan & DeZuniga details the harsh choices facing the unfortunate winners of the next, last warâ€¦

Mayer, DeZuniga & Alcala unite in #14 to tell an eerie tale of doomed love and military injustice from the days before Pearl Harbor which begins with a ‘Dream of Disaster’, incorporates a deadly flight with a ‘Phantom for a Co-Pilot’ and marines who arrive ‘Too Late for the Death March!’ before finally meeting ‘The Ghost of McBride’s Woman’ and vindicating an unsung heroâ€¦

A little boy enamoured of war’s glory learns a lesson in WWT # 15 when his dead grandfather takes him back to WWI to see how ‘â€œAceâ€ King Just Flew in from Hell’ (Drake & Perlin) after which Oleck & Talaoc reveal the doom of ‘The Survivor’ of a Viking raid which offends a sorceress, and Oleck & Alcala detail the shocking fate of a fanatical crusader who succumbs to ‘The Ultimate Weapon’ of a Saracen wise manâ€¦

Drake & Alcala describe transplant science gone mad in #16’s ‘More Dead than Alive!’, whilst the first of a NiÃ±o double bill sees him delineate ‘The Conquerors’ (scripted by Oleck) who eradicate humanity – but not the things that predate on them – before Drake’s ‘Evil Eye’ sees a little boy inflict hell’s wrath on both Allies and Axis alike.

In #17 Kanigher & George Evans disclose how a dishonourable French Air Ace is punished by ‘Dead Man’s Hands’ before Pellowski, E. Nelson Bridwell & Ernie Chan show how a murdered soldier is avenged by ‘A Gun Named Marie!‘

WWT #18 has Drake & DeZuniga sketch the brief career of ‘Captain Dracula!‘ as he marauds through (mostly) German forces in Sicily before Mayer & Talaoc reunite for the cautionary tale of a greedy German sergeant in France whose greed makes him easy prey for the ‘Whim of a Phantom!’

Drake & Talaoc started #19 with the full-length story of the agent who infiltrated the Nazi terror weapon known as ‘The Platoon That Wouldn’t Die!’ whilst #20 reverted to short stories with Oleck & Perlin’s ‘Death Watch’ of a doomed coward who should have waited one more day before deserting, Drake & Alcala’s period saga of a witchcraft vendetta in ‘Operation: Voodoo!’ followed by their Battle of Britain chiller wherein a burned out fighter pilot learns ‘Death is a Green Man’â€¦

This blockbusting blend of military mayhem, magical melee and martial madness concludes with Weird War Tales #21 and ‘One Hour to Kill!’ by Drake & Frank Robbins wherein an American soldier is ordered to go back in time to assassinate Leonardo Da Vinci and prevent the invention of automatic weapons before Mayer & Bernard Baily show just how a foul-up GI became an unstoppable hero ‘When Death Took a Hand’â€¦

Classily chilling, emotionally intense, superbly illustrated, insanely addictive and Just Plain Fun, this is a deliciously guilty pleasure that will astound and delight any lover of fantasy fiction and comics that work on plot invention rather than character compulsion.
Â© 1971, 1972, 1973, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 15, 2015October 14, 2015

Blake and Mortimer: The Time Trap

By Edgar P. Jacobs, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-214-0

Pre-eminent fantasy raconteur Edgar P. Jacobs devised one of the greatest heroic double acts in fiction: pitting his distinguished Scientific Adventurers Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake against a wide variety of perils and menaces in a stellar sequence of stunning 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 the very first issue of Le Journal de Tintin (26^th September 1946): an ambitious international anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland. The magazine was edited by HergÃ©, with his eponymous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and features for the post-war worldâ€¦

The Time Trap comes from a transitional period when the entire world seemed to be changing. The tale was originally serialised from January 8^th 1958 to 22^nd April 1959 and subsequently collected in a single album, as B & M’s eighth drama-drenched epic album escapade, six months after the conclusion. However, as befitted the times, this largely solo saga seemed to offer faster, leaner drama and stripped-down action in bigger, less dense panelsâ€¦

It was only recently translated by Cinebook (2014 as their 19^th Blake and Mortimer release), and begins here with the heroes relaxing in Paris when Mortimer gets a rather shocking message. Not long before, the incomparable boffin had been instrumental in foiling the plans of diabolical Professor Milosh Georgevich who used the vast resources of an aggressor nation to weaponise the weather (as seen in SOS Meteors) in advance of an audacious scheme to invade France, and now the villain has seemingly communicated from beyond the graveâ€¦

The literally mad scientist was believed to have perished and now word comes that he has bequeathed to Mortimer – the only man he considered an intellectual equal – his estate as well as his last and greatest inventionâ€¦

With his naturally suspicious comrade called to Germany on another Secret Service errand, the Professor slowly motors alone down to rural La Roche-Guyon and – still looking for traps – cautiously inspects the 10^th century house known locally as â€œThe Bove of the Maidenâ€ bequeathed to him by Milosh.

The idyllic setting, complete with haunted, legend-drenched castle, is not one to likely to set off any alarms in his bemused headâ€¦

What he finds in the deep cellars beneath his new property defies belief and comprehension. As described in recorded messages Georgevich had solved the mystery of time travel and, since he was dying of radiation poisoning, wanted his incredible device to be used by the only other person who could truly appreciate the scope of his geniusâ€¦

In a daze the still sceptical Mortimer follows the taped instructions, donning the protective suit provided before activating the vehicle. Only as the â€œChronoscapheâ€ rumbles into action and deposits him a terrifying antediluvian world of colossal plants, rampaging dinosaurs and marauding giant bugs does he realise how he has been trickedâ€¦

Against all his expectations the time machine works, landing him in a fantastic lost realm. Sadly the machine’s selector controls have been sabotaged, leaving Mortimer no way to returnâ€¦

Devilish Milosh however has not counted on his dupe’s steely determination, expansive brilliance and sheer stubbornness, and before long the Professor is hurtling forward 100,000,000 years through eternity, roughly calculating in his shaggy head his original point of origin.

He’s not far off in his sums, relatively. The cellar is indeed the one he first found the Chronoscaphe in, but some time before Georgevich built his lab. Realising he needs to know the exact date before he can fine-tune his calibrations Mortimer works his way through the tunnels towards the surface and promptly finds himself in the midst of a feudal rebellionâ€¦

Gui de la Roche is not a benevolent overlord and is currently losing control of his lands to an uprising of his Serfs. The petty tyrant is understandably unhappy and suspicious when a strangely dressed Englishman drops into the middle of the conflict, babbling like a loon. The ill-educated peasants simply think he’s a demonâ€¦

Mortimer barely makes it back to the Chronoscaphe and in his haste overshoots his desired destination, encountering a few bizarre temporal manifestations as he plunges far into a dystopian futureâ€¦

Finding himself embroiled in an all-out war to liberate mankind from an insidious global dictator, the Professor’s insights wedded to the technology of a broken future soon topple the tyrant and he thereafter adapts Tomorrow’s technology to solving his own problems.

With everything he needs to steer true a course home, the wily boffin even has an opportunity to turn the tables on the madman who caused his eccentric odyssey through the corridors of timeâ€¦

Swift-paced, witty and spectacularly action-packed, this solo outing for Mortimer rockets from staggering sci fi set-piece to set-piece, building to an explosive conclusion with a tantalising final flourish, resulting in a superbly engaging blockbuster to delight every adventure addict.

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.) 1962 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2014 Cinebook Ltd.

October 13, 2015

Yoko Tsuno volume 9: The Forge of Vulcan

By Roger Leloup (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-197-6

The uncannily edgy yet excessively accessible European exploits of Japanese scientific adventurer Yoko Tsuno began first began gracing the pages of Spirou in September 1970 and are still going strong.

The explosive, eye-popping, expansively globe-girdling multi-award winning series was devised by Roger Leloup, another hugely talented Belgian who worked as one of Herge’s assistants on the Adventures of Tintin strip before striking out on his own.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative but always solidly placed in hyper-realistic settings sporting utterly authentic and unshakably believable technology, these illustrated epics were at the vanguard of a wave of strips starring smart, competent and brave female protagonists which revolutionised Continental comics from the last third of the 20^th century onwards and are as potently empowering now as they ever were.

The initial Spirou stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bÃªte’ and ‘Cap 351’ were short introductory vignettes before the formidable Miss Tsuno and her always awestruck and overwhelmed male comrades truly hit their stride with premier extended saga Le trio de l’Ã©trange which began serialisation with the May 13^th 1971 issue.

That epic of extraterrestrial intrigue was the first of 26 European albums, and this one was first serialised in 1973 (Spirou #1819-1840) and released the same year as La forge de Vulcain. A spectacular earth-shaking rollercoaster romp, it was chronologically the third album and reaches us as Cinebook’s ninth translated chronicle.

It all begins when Yoko spots a TV report of a disaster on an oil rig near Martinique and realises the drill has impacted and penetrated the same strange material – â€œvitreous, luminous and ultra-magneticâ€ – that was a basic building material of the subterranean aliens known as the Vineansâ€¦

Those ancient wanderers had been secretly hibernating deep within the earth for hundreds of thousands of years until she and her new comrades (freelance TV producer Vic Van Steen and his frivolous cameraman pal Pol Paris) encountered them and set the lost race on a new pathâ€¦

Now the Vineans seem to be at the heart of a burgeoning ecological catastrophe of cataclysmic proportions, and none too soon Yoko and the lads are winging their way to the Caribbean. Upon landing they waste no time in bluffing their way into the offices of oil company Forex, aided by a few mementoes of their under-earth adventure.

They are, however, about to be unceremoniously ejected when news comes that the soon-to-explode rig has encountered a new problem: a strange craft, unlike any ever seen, is trapped in the rig’s legs even as inexplicable seismic distortions are propagating, creating an area of meteorological instability.

Yoko desperately tries to convince the manager that she has prior experience in matters like these and is promptly jetting over in a helicopter. Of course, she had to stow away firstâ€¦

Before long she is valiantly prying a live Vinean and his scout vessel out of a boiling gusher of mud and has discerned the true scale of the threat. The rig’s drill has intercepted a Vinean magma tunnel – used in their construction projects – which has strayed too close to the oil field and triggered a potential geological time-bombâ€¦

Thankfully the crisis has brought forth an unexpected benefit too as old friend and benevolent alien scientist Khany arrives to take charge.

The forthright technologist already has a plan but needs her old surface allies’ assistance to carry it out. Soon Yoko, Pol and Vic are abandoning the incredulous rig engineers and heading back under earth where an unpleasant surprise is awaiting them.

The Vineans had slept in huge, manufactured caverns for almost half a million years, but since recently reviving, internecine strife has entered the lives of the blue-skinned colonist/refugees.

In The Curious Trio, ambitious militaristic throwback Karpan made a play to seize power from the vast electronic complex known as The Centre which regulated the lives of the colonists but he was ultimately frustrated by Khany and her newfound surface pals.

Now though – thanks to humanity’s underground atomic testing – the blustering bully has returned to prominence amongst his terrified people and undertaken a dangerous scheme to destroy Earth’s civilisation and conquer the survivors.

Subverting a plan to divert magma and grow a new continent for the Vineans to occupy, Karpan wants to use the colossal magma-shifting technology to drown the surface world and conquer the survivorsâ€¦

Khany and her followers were already attempting to scuttle the scheme but now that grim fortune and the humans’ drill has damaged the vast, super-engineered magma-tubes, a drastic solution is necessary to save the planet both species occupy from exploding like a cosmic firecrackerâ€¦

Naturally Yoko has a plan, but this one depends as much on luck as her scientific ingenuity and martial arts prowess as she tries to mould lava like plasticine and thwart Karpan’s globally suicidal schemesâ€¦

As always the most potent asset of these breathtaking dramas is the astonishingly authentic and staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship, which benefits from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail, honed through years of working on Tintin.

Possible the most frenetic and visually spectacular of all her adventures, The Forge of Vulcan is a relentless, rocket-paced race to doom or salvation that will appeal to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy.
Original edition Â© Dupuis, 1973, 1979 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2014 Â© Cinebook Ltd.

October 9, 2015October 8, 2015

Gabriel

By Jim Alexander, David Hill & Mick Trimble (Planet Jimbot)
No ISBN

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Home-Grown Feast of Wondersâ€¦ 8/10

There’s a wonderful intensity to creator-owned comic tales which is all too often lacking in slicker projects from major outfits with all the financial resources in the world at their fingertips.

When just the right creative elements are in place it can be like seeing The Buzzcocks playing live at a sweaty, heaving college gig in 1976 but then going home to watch to â€œEver Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)â€, all seamlessly schmaltzed-out and over-produced to buggery by some cosmetically-enhanced, Ã¼ber-styled photogenic twinkie on X-Factorâ€¦

Past masters of getting the very best out of finite resources, fresh talent and strong ideas, Jim Alexander and his compadres at Planet Jimbot (whose new periodical release APP-1 will star in our next Small Press Sunday feature) have been crafting superbly enthralling graphic narratives for a wee while now and have recently added to their roster this smart, magnificently chilling – and, arguably, cheekily blasphemous – intellectual challenge to complacent Christianityâ€¦

Packaged as a slim, starkly effective monochrome trade paperback, Gabriel is an archly askew urban drama touted as â€œa true story taking place in an alternative Scotlandâ€. The only noticeable difference I can see is that demons and angels are real and regularly meddle in mortal lives and matters.

â€¦That and the fact that the Church is still supremely powerful: publicly operating its own secret service and special police force which supersedes regular Rozzers in matters both spiritual and temporalâ€¦

Writer Alexander’s prodigious back catalogue includes Calhab Justice and other strips for 2000 AD, Star Trek the Manga, GoodCopBadCop and bunches of stuff for The Dandy, DC, Marvel, Metal Hurlant, plus loads of other places and here – bolstered by carefully understated illustrator David Hill (Luther: Echoes of the Hammer) – he turns his mercurial imagination to troubled soul Stewart Gabriel: a poor sinner in another Glasgow with more than his fair share of burdensâ€¦

Stewart is an introspective, isolated chap who doesn’t want any bother but has trouble relating to his surviving relations. That’s not uncommon, but he’s also afflicted with terrible dreams of past lives and demonic darkness. Perhaps it’s all because he and his estranged wife Donna are trying to get a shameful, nigh-sacrilegious divorceâ€¦

Of course that major doctrinal misdemeanour can’t explain why he is somehow being irresistibly drawn to scenes of carnage and chaos involving the extremely excessive Saint Templar Church militia or why he’s suddenly started walking through walks, doors and other solid objects and even blinking out and rematerialising at scenes of infernal atrocity…

Glasgow is under siege these days: not just from increasingly violent protestors demanding sexual equality and abortions but also reeling from a series of savage serial killings by a particularly gruesome and determined demon.

The beast has decidedly dark â€œmommy-issuesâ€ and is gleefully causing a stink and slaughtering the faithful, especially if they’re partial to a little sin or hypocrisyâ€¦

In the higher ecclesiastical echelons, the synod of church leaders known as the Living Saints are fiercely debating how best to quell The Abomination’s sanguine spree and when one of their number prophetically divines Gabriel’s name in connection to the crisis and moves to have him brought in for a little inquisition, the demon is listeningâ€¦

Despite the growing movement agitating for personal freedoms and responsibilities, this is still a world with no need for faith.

God is. The Devil is. Nobody is asked to believe anything because the spiritual is in fact all physical. So why does Gabriel believe there’s something going on that can’t be explained?

With chaos in the streets, events spiral to bloody climax when The Beast invades the church sanctum and confronts Gabriel, Donna and the Living Saints with a testament and revelation of his ownâ€¦

First seen in the fabled 1990s thanks to much-missed pioneering publisher Caliber, this modern Mystery Play has been properly remastered for the 21^st century and concludes here with an all-new palate cleansing whimsical addendum deftly illustrated by Mick (Bloodfellas) Trimble.

Set six months later, ‘I Am the Resurrection’ follows a good-natured beardy-bloke as he spends one eventful day and night washing the feet of hookers, avoiding death and giving dodgy traders in Temple Market a bit of a kicking. Naturally he ends up in jail – the regular nick, not the Templars’ stronghold – and has a remarkable interview with dying priest Father Salmon, who felt so very much better after giving the stranger the all-clearâ€¦

Things only really start to make sense after the unworldly weirdo pops by Gabriel’s placeâ€¦

Smart, incisive and fictively fascinating, Gabriel builds a brilliantly enticing world before asking all the right questions and offering just enough answers to make readers hungry for a sequel.

This is another dark delight for all those who seek some intellectual meat in their reading matter, so why not break bread here and now?
Gabriel Â© 2015 Jim Alexander (story) and David Hill (art). I Am the Resurrection Â© 2015 Jim Alexander (story) and Mick Trimble (art).
Planet Jimbot has a splendid online shop so why not check out: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/244444294/gabriel-tpb

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