Category: Older kids

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Twin Spica volume 10


By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-24-7

Kou Yaginuma first captured the hearts and minds with poignant short story 2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi (2015: Fireworks, published in Gekkan Comics Flapper, June 2000), before expanding the subject and themes into a major manga epic combining hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days and growing up.

2024 AD: diminutive teenager Asumi Kamogawa always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the solitary child gazed up at the stars with imaginary friend Mr. Lion, especially gripped by the twinkling glow of Virgo and alluring binary star Spica.

An isolated, serious child, she lived with her father, a common labourer who had once worked for the consortium which built the rockets for Japan’s Space Program.

When Asumi was one year old, the first Japanese manned launch ended in catastrophe after rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”) exploded during its maiden flight: crashing to earth on the coastal city of Yuigahama. Hundreds were killed and many more injured, including Asumi’s mother.

Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die. The shock crushed her grieving husband and utterly traumatised infant Asumi.

In response to the disaster Japan set up an astronautics and space sciences training facility where, after years of determined struggle, Asumi was accepted by the Tokyo National Space School. Slowly making friends like Shinnosuke Fuchuya (who used to bully her as a child back in Yuigahama), boisterous Kei Oumi, chilly, distant Marika Ukita and ultra-cool Shu Suzuki, Asumi inexorably moved closer to her unshakable dream of going to the stars.

Against all odds – she is small, shy, retiring, looks weak and is very poor – Asumi endures and always succeeds. She still talks with Mr. Lion, who seems to be the ghost of an astronaut from the Shishigō…

Individual instalments in these compelling monochrome volumes are presented as “Missions”, methodically combining into an overarching mosaic detailing the subtle interconnectedness of generations of characters, all linked by the call of the heavens.

Volume 10 comprises numbers 56-64, and includes another enchanting autobiographical vignette from the author’s own teenage years in his Another Spica occasional series.

The story resumes as the students all head out to the mountains for another gruelling series of metal and physical tortures claiming to be training exercises, which give the fated five another chance to bond as arduous underwater repair protocols take on an added dimension as they compete against robots.

The daunting subtext is simple: the mechanoids are far more appealing to the government and funding authorities. They cost less to train and there’s no public outcry if they are lost. The stars-struck kids’ only hope is that the machines cannot yet compete with the pluck and ingenuity of living astronauts…

Whilst the students fret and train, back at Space School Asauri News journalist Ichimura is getting closer to corroborating his suspicions: Ukita is not a normal human and her “father” – publicity-shy life-sciences mogul Senri Ukita – has done something at once astonishing and ethically shady following the death of his first daughter years ago…

The thought triggers another flashback when, as a boy in Yuigahama, Ichimura (and his doomed friend who became an astronaut on the Lion) waited by the bed of a pale, chronically ill little girl and begged her unfeeling father not to take her away…

Mission: 57 opens with Asumi and her companions still valiantly giving their all in a modern “John Henry” battle against encroaching automation, but the stakes subtly change when she talks to the robot designers and understands the tragic passion which drives them to remove the necessity for humans in space. They too learn something from her counterarguments before 58 sees the end of the one-sided exercise and the dejected students’ glum return to school for the dog-days of summer in Mission: 59.

As Kei tries to lift everyone’s spirits Marika slips away to pick up another 90 days worth of the experimental drugs which keep her unique condition under control and time slips back again to the long-ago days when she read the diary of the other Marika: the weak one who preceded her…

Later the gang meet up and – due to a just a little chicanery – opt to spend another summer vacation in the unlikely seaside resort of Yuigahama. Later Marika confides in Asumi; suggesting that whatever happens in years to come, those who are left should always meet there in summer. Later, as they all trundle down on the scenic train their spirits rise, except perhaps star-boy Suzuki who sleeps quietly, utterly unaware that he has yet another nosebleed…

The restful recuperation begins in Mission: 60 with a visit to the shrines to the dead from the crash and gentle little bonding moments – except for grouchy Fuchuya who is once again pressed into service at the family fireworks factory. It’s the not the work he minds: it the continuing frustration that he cannot find again the specific blend of chemicals which produced just that special shade of green flaming flare that his beloved grandfather could…

As the Annual Fireworks Festival approaches in Mission: 61, a casual gift from Shu to one of the girls (a trinket victoriously claimed at the one of the bustling game stalls) takes on special significance whilst they all pass time on the beach discussing his imminent departure for America. The mood affects Marika who finally shares the truth about her genetic disease/medical condition… and why it means she will probably never make it to space…

The journey back to Tokyo is subdued and as Kei incessantly takes more photos, she feels no urge to wake her sleeping comrades…

Asumi has stayed behind with her father and spends time mulling over the complexities of life with Mr. Lion in Mission: 62, as does Fuchuya, whose discussions with his big brother about the disposition of the fireworks business inevitably leads to his meeting up with annoying Asumi and pondering how and why they got to where they are.

Mission: 63 finds them back in Tokyo a little later, amidst an increasing Press scrum as Suzuki’s departure nears, before everything changes in Mission: 64 as shocking news comes that the inseparable five are now only four…

To Be Continued…

Rounding off this volume in a wistfully autobiographical ‘Another Spica’ episode culled from author Yaginuma’s lovelorn days as a part-time server on a soft-drink stand in a theme park; focussing on his lonely journeys to distant places on the local railway line gathering images which would one day become the book you’re reading…

These magically moving marvels originally appeared in 2006-2007 as Futatsu no Supika 11 and 12 in the Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeted at male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

Twin Spica ran from September 2001-August 2009: sixteen volumes tracing the trajectories of Asumi and friends from callow students to trained astronauts, and the series has spawned both anime and live action TV series.

This delightful saga has everything: plenty of hard science to back up the informed extrapolation, an engaging cast, mystery and frustrated passion, alienation, angst and true friendships; all welded seamlessly into a joyous coming-of-age drama with supernatural overtones, raucous humour and masses of sheer sentiment.

These books are printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.
© 2011 by Kou Yaginuma/MEDIA FACTORY Inc. Translation © 2011 Vertical, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics


By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, restored & edited by Michael Gagné (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-502-0

Simon & Kirby presaged and ushered in the first American age of mature comics – not just with the Romance genre, but with all manner of challenging modern material of real people in extraordinary situations – before seeing it all disappear again in less than eight years. Their small stable of magazines produced for the loose association of companies known as Prize/Crestwood/Pines blossomed and wilted as the industry contracted throughout the 1950s.

As the popularity of flamboyant escapist superheroes waned after World War II, newer yet more familiar genres such as Crime and Horror came to the fore in American comics, as audiences increasingly rejected upbeat fantasy for grittier, more sober older themes in mass entertainment.

Some, like Westerns and Funny Animal comics, hardly changed at all, but gangster and detective tales were utterly radicalised by the temperament of the post-war world.

Stark, uncompromising, cynically ironic novels and socially aware, mature-themed B-movies that would become categorised as Film Noir offered the new civilian society a bleakly antiheroic worldview that often hit too close to home and set fearful, repressive, middle-class parent groups and political ideologues howling for blood.

Naturally the new forms and sensibilities seeped into comics, transforming good-natured, two-fisted gumshoe and Thud-&-Blunder cop strips of yore into darkly intriguing, even frightening tales of seductive dames, big pay-offs and glamorous thugs.

Sensing imminent Armageddon, the moral junkyard dogs bayed even louder as they saw their precious children’s minds under seditious attack…

Concurrent to the demise of masked mystery-men, industry giants Joe Simon & Jack Kirby – who were already capitalising on a True Crime boom – legendarily invented the comicbook Romance genre with mature, beguiling, explosively contemporary social dramas equally focussed on the changing cultural scene and adult-themed relationships. They also, with very little shading, discussed topics of a sexual nature…

Beginning with the semi-comedic prototype My Date for Hillman in early 1947, S&K plunged in full force with Young Romance #1 in September of that year for Crestwood Publications: a minor outfit which had been creating interesting but not innovative comics since 1940 as Prize Comics.

Following Simon’s plan to make a new marketplace from the grievously uncatered-for older girls of America, they struck gold with stories addressing serious issues and hazards of relationships…

Not since the invention of Superman had a single comicbook generated such a frantic rush of imitation and flagrant cashing-in. Young Romance #1 was a monumental hit and the team acted accordingly: swiftly expanding they releasing spin-offs Young Love (February 1949), Young Brides and In Love under a unique profits-sharing deal that quickly paid huge dividends to the publishers, creators and a growing studio of specialists.

All through that turbulent period comicbooks suffered impossibly biased oversight and hostile scrutiny from hidebound and panicked old guard institutions such as church groups, media outlets and ambitious politicians.

A number of tales and titles garnered especial notoriety from those social doomsmiths and when the industry buckled and introduced a ferocious Comics Code, it castrated the creative form just when it most needed boldness and imagination. Comics endured more than a decade and a half of savagely doctrinaire self-imposed censorship until changing society and plummeting profits forced the art form to adapt, evolve or die.

Those tales from a simpler time, exposing a society in meltdown and suffering cultural PTSD, are mild by modern standards of behaviour but the quality of art and writing make those pivotal years a creative highpoint long overdue for a thorough reassessment.

In 1947 fictionalising True Crime Cases was tremendously popular at the time, and of the assorted outfits that generated such material nobody did it better than S&K. That technique of first-person confession also naturally lent itself to the just-as-hard-hitting personal sagas of a succession of archetypal women and girls who populated their new comicbook smash.

Although their output as interchangeable writers/pencillers/inkers (aided by Joe’s brother-in-law Jack Oleck in the story department) was prodigious and astounding, other hands frequently pitched in, so although these tales are all credited to S&K, art-aficionados shouldn’t be surprised to detect traces of Bill Draut, Mort Meskin, Al Eadeh, George Roussos or other stalwarts lurking in the backgrounds…

Michelle Nolan’s ‘Introduction’ deftly analyses the scope and impact trajectory of the innovation and its impact on the industry before the new era opens with ‘Boy Crazy’ from Young Romance #2 (1947) wherein a flighty teenager with no sense of morality steals her aunt’s man with appalling consequences after which ‘Her Tragic Love’ – from the same issue – delivers a thunderbolt of melodrama as a lovers’ triangle encompassing a wrongly convicted man on death row presented one woman with no solution but the final one…

Scripted by Oleck ‘Fraulein Sweetheart…’ (YR #4, 1948) reveals dark days but no happy endings for two German girls eking out existence in the American-occupied sector of post-war Marburg whilst ‘Shame’ from issue #5 dealt with a high flying young lady too proud to acknowledge her own scrub-woman mother whenever her flashy boyfriend was around.

Next is ‘The Town and Toni Benson’ from Young Romance #11 and contemporarily designated volume 2, #5, 1949, which offered a sequel to ‘I Was a Pick-Up’ from the premiere issue (which is confusingly included in the sequel to this volume Young Romance 2: the Early Simon & Kirby).

Here S&K cleverly built on that original tale creating a soap opera environment which could so easily have spawned a series as the now-newlywed couple struggle to make ends meet under a wave of hostile public scrutiny…

On a roll the creative geniuses began mixing genres and Western Love #2, 1948 offered ‘Kathy and the Merchant of Sunset Canton!’ as a city slicker found his modern mercenary management style made him no friends in cowboy country until one proud girl took the chance on getting to know him whilst ‘Sailor’s Girl!’ (Young Romance #13/Vol. 3, #1 1949) explores the troubles of an heiress who marries a dauntless sea rover who works for daddy, confident that she can tame his wild free spirit…

We head out yonder once more to meet ‘The Perfect Cowboy!’(Real West Romances # 4 1949) – at least on set – and the simple sagebrush lass whose head he briefly turned before social inequality and petty envy inform the brutally heavy-handed ‘I Want Your Man’ Young Romance #21/Vol. 3, #9 1950 wherein a young woman of meagre means realises almost too late the cost of her vendetta against a pretty little rich girl…

‘Nancy Hale’s Problem Clinic’ (Young Romance #23/Vol. 3, #11, 1950) offers a brief dose of sob-sister advice as “treatment for the troubled heart” before the magnificent melodramas resume with ‘Old Fashioned Girl’ (YR #34/Vol. 4, #10 1951) as a forceful young woman raised by her grandmother slowly has her convictions about propriety challenged by intriguing men and her own barely subsumed passions, whereas ‘Mr. Know-It-All Falls in Love’ (Young Love #37/Vol. 7, #10 1952) takes a rare opportunity to use a male narrator’s voice when a buttoned-down control freak decides that with his career in order it’s time to marry. But who’s the best prospect?

Another of those pesky triangles then results in one marriage, one forlorn heartbreak, war, vengeance and a most perfect ‘Wedding Present!’ (Young Love #50/Vol. 5, #8 1953) before this cleverly conceived chronicle takes a conceptual diversion after one last tale from the same issue, detailing the all-business affair of ‘Norma, Queen of the Hot Dogs’ and her (at first) strictly platonic partner…

In 1955 the Comics Code Authority began its draconian anodyneing of the industry’s more mature efforts and the Romance titles especially took a big conceptual hit. The edgy stories became less daring and almost every ending was a happy one – for the guy or the parents at least.

Following a superbly extensive ‘Cover Gallery’ featuring a dozen of the most evocative images from those wild and free early years ‘The Post-Code Era’ re-presents the specific conditions affecting romantic relations from the censorious document, followed by a selection of the yarns S&K and their team were thereafter reduced to producing.

Even the art seems less enthusiastic for the wholesome unchallenging episodes which begin with ‘Old Enough to Marry!’ (Young Romance #80/Vol. 8, #8, 1955) as a young man confronts his grizzled cop dad who has no intention of letting his son make a mess of his life, after which a maimed farmer tries to sabotage the budding romance between his once-faithful girlfriend and the brilliant good-looking doctor who cured him in ‘Lovesick’ from the same issue.

The next four tales all originated in Young Romance #85/Vol. 10, #1 1956, beginning with ‘Lizzie’s Back in Town’ as a strong, competent girl returns home to let daddy pick her husband for her (no, really!); two guys fight and the winner gets the girl in ‘Lady’s Choice’ whilst another, less frenzied duel results in a ‘Resort Romeo’ wedding the girl of everybody’s dreams even as ‘My Cousin from Milwaukee’ exposes a gold-digger and reserves her handsome relative for herself…

The bowdlerised tales mercifully conclude with ‘The Love I Lost!’ (Young Romance #90/Vol. 12, #3, 1959) wherein another hospital case realises just in time that the man she wants is not the man she deserves…

This emotional rollercoaster is supplemented with a number of well-illustrated bonus features including ‘Why I Made this Book’, ‘Simon and Kirby’s Romance Comics: A Historical Overview’, a splendid selection of S&K’s pioneering ‘Photo Covers’ (18 in all) and a fascinating explanation of the process of artwork-rehabilitation in ‘About the Restoration’ before everything wraps up with the now-traditional ‘Biographies’ section.

Simon & Kirby took much of their tone if not actual content from movie melodramas of the period (such as Mr. Skeffington, All About Eve or Mildred Pierce and Noir romances like Blonde Ice or Hollow Triumph) and, unlike what we might consider suitable for romantic fiction today, their stories crackled with tension, embraced violent action and were infested with unsavoury characters and vicious backstabbing, gossiping hypocrites.

Happily those are the tales which fill most of this book, making for an extremely engaging, strikingly powerful and thoroughly addictive collection of great stories by brilliant masters of the comics arts and one no lover of the medium should miss…
Young Romance: the Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics © 2012 Fantagraphics Books Inc. Introduction © 2012 Michelle Nolan Schelly. All rights reserved.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 8: The Devil’s Organ


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

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

The engaging, eye-popping, expansively globe-girdling multi-award winning series was created by Belgian Roger Leloup, a man of many talents born in 1933 who worked as one of Herge’s meticulous researchers and background 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 forefront of a wave of strips featuring competent, brave and immensely successful female protagonists which revolutionised European comics from the 1970s onwards and are as potently empowering now as they ever were.

The first Spirou stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bête’ and ‘Cap 351’ were all 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’étrange which began serialisation with the May 13th 1971 issue.

That epic of extraterrestrial intrigue was the first of 26 European albums, promptly followed here with a more down-to-earth but equally breathtaking contemporary thriller set in the heart of Germany against a merely mortal menace who was every inch her match…

Serialised in Spirou #1767-1793 (in 1972 as L’orgue du diable) the suspenseful thriller reaches us as eighth translated Cinebook chronicle The Devil’s Organ and begins when young TV mogul Vic Van Steen and frivolous cameraman pal Pol Paris take their new chum – sleekly capable freelance Japanese electrical engineer Yoko Tsuno – with them up the so-scenic Rhine to shoot a travel documentary.

What the working tourists don’t realise is that the epic views and beautiful castles were recently the scene of a bizarre duel which left one man dead whilst his improbably garbed, demonic murderer escaped without anyone knowing a crime had been committed…

Now a week later Pol is not so subtly ogling (and filming) a comely fraulein on the top deck of the stately and palatial riverboat when the subject of his attentions falls into the chilly waters.

Yoko is only seconds behind him as the cameraman hits the water trying to save the girl and when they are all hauled back aboard the Japanese adventurer discovers the nearly drowned victim has been drugged…

Ingrid Hallberg is one of Germany’s most promising young classical organists and she has made the trip to the idyllic, fairytale region to see where her father committed suicide a week previously. However, when Pol’s voyeuristic photos are developed they reveal a strange man injecting her with something before pushing her into the river and Yoko begins to suspect that the senior Hallberg’s death might not be all it appears either. Adding to the mystery is a strange tape he sent Ingrid which she was intending to play once she arrived at his now deserted home in Sankt Goar…

As always the most potent asset of these edgy dramas is the astonishingly authentic and hyper-realistic settings, which benefit from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail. Tourists could use these pages as an A-Z and never get lost, except in rapturous wonder…

As they accompany the damp damsel Yoko discovers the girl has been electronically bugged and urges all haste, with the party arriving just as a masked man flees the house with the tape. Giving chase Yoko finds herself facing no ordinary foe and despite all her martial arts skills is near death by the time her friends catch up. The mystery man gets away but not with all of the tape…

The fragment that remains lead the baffled, battered heroes to buried copper artefacts which were part of an incredible restoration project. Werner Hallberg, being an expert in church music and instruments, was apparently contracted to restore a sixteenth century device for an anonymous millionaire. The colossal ancient device was known as The Devil’s Organ and from what the modern tech team can discern it was a sonic weapon of devastating power…

Tracking down the original location of the device at the world-famous Katz fortress, the self-appointed detectives settle on its current occupier Otto Meyer as the likely wealthy patron who hired Werner and, determined to get to the bottom of the criminal conundrum, barge in on him, only to be attacked by his misanthropic and overprotective nephew Karl. Over the young man’s strenuous objections the elder Meyer surprisingly invites the wary intruders to stay and look around all they want.

Cautiously accepting they continue their enquiries in plain sight but are all too soon the latest targets in the mysterious murderer’s sights…

It takes all Yoko’s considerable ingenuity and boldness to stay one step ahead of the hidden killer but when she finally unmasks the true villain and learns his sordid reasons for the deaths it is almost too late: the Organ from Hell is ready to sound and nothing can prevent it from unleashing a horrific wave of destruction.

…But that doesn’t stop Yoko Tsuno from giving it one final mighty try…

Absorbing, compelling and blending tense suspense with blistering adventure, this is another superbly rationalist mystery and fantastic exploit of the most unsung of all female action heroes: one you’ve waited far too long to meet…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1973 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2013 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Blake and Mortimer: S.O.S. Meteors


By Edgar P. Jacobs, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-97-7

Master storyteller Edgar P. Jacobs pitted his distinguished duo of Scientific Adventurers Professor Philip Mortimer and Captain Francis Blake against a wide variety of perils and menaces in stunning action thrillers which merged science fiction scope, detective mysteries and supernatural thrillers in the same timeless Ligne claire style which had done so much to make intrepid boy reporter Tintin a global sensation.

The strip debuted in the first issue of Le Journal de Tintin (dated 26th September 1946): an international anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland. The magazine was edited by Hergé, with his eponymous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and features for the post-war world…

S.O.S. Météores was originally serialised from January 8th 1958 to 22nd April 1959 and subsequently collected in a single album as the eighth drama-drenched epic escapade six months after the conclusion, just in time for the Christmas rush. In 2009 it was translated into English as Cinebook’s sixth Blake and Mortimer release, and – subtitled ‘Mortimer in Paris’ – begins here with the incomparable boffin in the City of Lights, answering a Gallic colleague’s pleas for assistance.

Meteorologist Professor Labrousse, like all his unfortunate ilk, is unhappily shouldering the brunt of public ire over freak weather events which are bringing France to its knees and when Mortimer arrives, he experiences for himself the chaos such tumultuous storms are inflicting upon the traffic-heavy metropolis. Thankfully, the embattled weatherman has despatched a taxi to collect the weary Englishman and bring him to the relative calm of suburban Jouy.

Both driver and passenger are unaware of a flashy American car suspiciously dogging them, and as conditions steadily worsen the ride becomes truly hazardous, leading to an inevitable crash. Separated from the driver and blindly wandering in the storm, Mortimer plunges into a lake and barely manages to scrabble to safety.

Finding his way back to the road, the exhausted scientist thumbs a lift to Labrousse’s house and is gratefully welcomed. Of the taxi driver, however, there is no trace…

The old colleagues discuss the catastrophic weather and uncanny events long into the night but the next morning their further deliberations are curtailed when the police arrive, eager to interview the Englishman about a certain cab driver’s disappearance…

Deeply troubled, the learned men later attempt to retrace Mortimer’s steps and discover the terrain is completely different from Englishman’s memories but encounter a thug and his immense dog going over the same sodden ground. The intruders are clearly following the orders of a boss who keeps well hidden, and a violent altercation is barely avoided with a simple whistle from the unseen voyeur…

Eventually the studied experience of the local postman enables the baffled British boffin to solve the geographical mystery and the recovered trail leads him to a nearby estate with huge walls patrolled by the same terrifying hound he met earlier. Well-versed in surveillance procedure, Mortimer prepares to probe further but is distracted when a sudden snowstorm begins. Determinedly he returns later, well-prepared and using the blizzard as cover to investigate the estate. It proves to be a tremendous mistake…

Next morning in Paris, Divisional Commissioner Pradier of French Intelligence welcomes a counterpart from Great Britain, looking into a new espionage network at work in France. Captain Francis Blake’s keen insight quickly scores a hit and opens up new leads that seem connected to the uncanny weather conditions tormenting the nation, but when he meets hastily-summoned Labrousse Blake learns that old comrade Mortimer has vanished after announcing that the aberrant meteorology is man-made…

Travelling to Jouy with the horrified weatherman, Blake makes a shocking impression on Labrousse’s usually-affable neighbour and suddenly the strange atmospheric conditions start being compounded with odd little accidents and frustrations that can only be seen in total as concerted enemy action…

The saga kicks into high gear when Blake recognises some old – and previously presumed dead – enemies and is chased through unrelenting arctic conditions back to Paris in a deadly, hair-raising game of cat-&-mouse which culminates when he confronts his greatest foe once again…

With the help of Pradier’s forces Blake soon has the villains on the run, spectacularly fleeing over the rooftops of Paris, but the big fish of course escapes and the heroes must face the fact that they might never know what has become of Mortimer…

In Jouy, however, the irascible researcher has made good use of his time incarcerated with the diabolical Professor Milosh Georgevich who has used the vast resources of an aggressor nation to weaponise weather in advance of an audacious scheme to invade France for the third time in a century…

Forced to act alone he escapes his jailers and picks up an unexpected ally as he tries to sabotage the colossal climate engines, utterly unaware that his greatest friend has picked up new clues and is closing in on the plotters…

Moody and comparatively low-key until the final act when the tension builds to explosive heights and a Bond-Movie finish, S.O.S. Meteors is a splendid mystery romp packed with astounding action, scads of sinister suspense and a blockbuster climax to delight spy-buffs and devotees of Distinguished Duo alike.

Addictive and absorbing in the truest tradition of pulp sci-fi and Boy’s Own Adventures, Blake and Mortimer are the very epitome of dogged heroic determination and the natural successors to such heroic icons as Professor Challenger, Bulldog Drummond and Richard Hannay, always delivering grand, old-fashioned Blood-&-Thunder thrills, chills and spills in timeless fashion and with a mesmerising visual punch.

Any kid able to suspend modern mores and cultural disbelief (call it alternate earth history or bakelite-punk if you want) will enjoy the experience of their lives…

This Cinebook edition also includes excerpts from two other B&M albums plus a short biographical feature and publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.
Original edition © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard S. A.) 1989 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

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Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 11: 1957-1958


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-828-1

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur premiered on Sunday February 13th 1937, a fantastic and fabulous full-colour weekly peek into a world where history met myth to make something greater than both. Hal Foster had developed the feature after leaving a landmark, groundbreaking, astoundingly popular run on the Tarzan of the Apes strip he had pioneered.

Prince Valiant provided action, adventure, exoticism, romance and a surprisingly high quota of laughs in its engrossing depiction of noble knights and wicked plunderers played out against a glamorised, dramatised Dark Ages backdrop. It followed the life of a refugee boy driven from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule who grew up to roam the world, attaining a paramount position amongst the heroes of fabled Camelot.

Foster wove his epic romance over decades, tracing the progress of a near-feral wild boy who became a paragon of chivalric virtue: knight, warrior, saviour, vengeance-taker and eventually family patriarch in a constant deluge of wild and joyously witty wonderment. The restless champion visited many far-flung lands, siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes, enchanting generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

The strip spawned films, an animated series and all manner of toys, games, books and collections based on Prince Valiant – one of the few adventure strips to have run continuously from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (more than 4000 episodes and still going strong) – and, even here at the end times of newspaper narrative cartoons as an art form, it continues in more than 300 American papers and via the internet.

Foster soloed on the feature alone until 1971 when John Cullen Murphy (Big Ben Bolt) succeeded him as illustrator with Foster continuing as writer and designer until 1980, after which he retired and Cullen Murphy’s daughter Mairead took over colouring and lettering whilst her brother John assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired, since when the strip has soldiered on under the auspices of many extremely talented artists such as Gary Gianni, Scott Roberts and latterly Thomas Yeates with Mark Schultz (Xenozoic) scripting.

This latest spellbinding, luxuriously oversized (362 x 264 mm) full-colour hardback collection re-presents pages spanning January 6th 1957 to 28th December 1958 (#1039-1142) but before proceeding, clears the palate for adventure with Brian M. Kane’s erudite, illustration-strewn Introduction ‘Pal Palenske [M]ad man’, detailing the incredible career and achievements of Foster’s inspiration: designer, illustrator, equine enthusiast and ingenious PR pioneer Reinhold Heinrich Palenske.

At the other end of this titanic tome Kane curates a lavish exhibition of stunning colour and monochrome illustrations revealing ‘Hal Foster’s Advertising Art: Business and Industry’, but captivating as they are, the real wonderment is, as ever, the unfolding epic that precedes them…

What Has Gone Before: Having brought Christianity to Thule and been instrumental in halting an invasion of Saxons and Danes in England, Valiant has been despatched by Arthur Pendragon to Cornwall in search of traitorous local kings, under the pretence of attending the wedding of young knight William Lydney.

During the festivities Valiant uncovered a terrible miscarriage of justice and acquired a new squire. Unknown to Lydney and his bride Gwendolyn of Berkeley, their homely old steward Alfred was actually the knight’s elder brother and true lord of the manor.

Rather than shame his handsome sibling and a woman they both love, the noble retainer has chosen to leave his home and wander the world as Val’s servant…

With a domestic debacle averted Valiant resumes his true mission and travels to Tintagel to discover that the suspect local lords have banished all Round Table Knights from their domains even as rumours abound of Northern raiders being welcomed into the Cornish Kingdoms…

Stymied, Alfred offers a solution to their dilemma and, shaving his new master’s head, transforms the pretty prince into an itinerant Palmer, roaming the countryside exhorting warriors to take up crusading in the Holy Land. As grizzled veteran and zealot Sir Quintus, the noble spy rises in the esteem of the traitor-kings whilst wily Alfred learns the true situation from the garrulous servant class at the strongholds of Launceston and Restormel, but when their trek takes them to the heart of the conspiracy they find King Och Synwyn to be an utterly different kind of plotter: arrogant, devious and a sadistic psychopath who has mustered a horde of Dane, Saxon and Viking raiders into an alliance to take England by storm.

Utterly appalled by the task he faces, Valiant ritually forswears his sacrosanct honour and apparently pledges himself to the mad king; determined to corrupt himself to destroy the maniac’s plans…

The task is made easier as Och Synwyn needs field commanders for his army, but once “Quintus” is installed, he begins the old game of divide and conquer; briefing against the quarrelsome northern freebooters tenuously united against Arthur whilst inciting the deviant king to begin heavily taxing his barbarous allies in advance of all the looting they will profit from…

Before too long the uneasy alliance is at war with itself and all too soon the western threat is ended, but rather than rejoice Valiant is heavy-hearted as he makes his way back to Camelot, knowing that his triumph came at cost of his knightly virtue and he is no longer worthy of a seat at the Round Table…

His mood briefly lifts when passing mysterious Stonehenge where he meets a Druid priestess and is beguiled by the most beautiful horse in the world…

Pressing onwards he reports his success to Arthur and resigns, but is astonished by an incredible gesture from his comrades which restores his besmirched honour and allows him to make peace with his conscience…

Still ill at ease, Valiant leaves the fabulous citadel and returns to Salisbury Plain, resolved to own the magnificent red stallion he glimpsed. The quest is epic and extraordinary and the beast is a proven man-killer, but eventually the wrangler’s uncharacteristically gentle methods and patience win the day and the steed. Sadly that only causes more problems as the son of the man killed by the magnificent “Arvak” demands the beast be killed and will only be deterred by a joust to the death…

Horseflesh causes more trouble when Alfred meets Sir Gawain‘s squires Pierre and Jex and the idle pranksters train Valiant’s other steed Mayflower to perform a succession of hilarious tricks. If only the unknowing prince had not decided to sell the beast to boorish, arrogant Saxon chieftain Halgar the Thunderer during a tense conference designed to ease tensions between the English and the constantly encroaching Northmen…

It takes all the hero’s charm and guile to prevent a fresh war erupting and as soon as the crisis passes Valiant decides it’s time he headed home to Thule to reconnect with his family once more…

The reunion is brief, joyous and bittersweet. The wanderer sees how much his children have grown and considers the cost of a life of duty: only just in time to bid his son Arn farewell as the lad is shipped off to enter the household of regal ally King Hap-Atla even as that ruler’s king becomes foster-son become and page to Valiant’s sire King Aguar.

The tradition is key to noble life throughout Christendom, but again Valiant realises how much he has missed…

Mirth comes to the fore thereafter as Arn moves into Hap-Atla’s palace and begins a tortuous love-hate relationship with his new lord’s spiteful, mischievous and prank-addicted daughter Frytha.

Back in Vikingsholm, Aguar is injured in a fall and forced to send Valiant in his stead to the five-yearly Council of Kings. Unfortunately many of the rulers at the conference believe the last-minute substitution is a sign of weakness and ambush the Thule delegation, proving a sequence of spectacular battles and Valiant’s epic overland trek back to safety.

…And after that there’s vengeance taken and betrayers brought to book…

Peaceful repose never lasts long and when a regal summons arrives from Camelot, the family again take ship. This time however the call is primarily for dutiful wife Aleta who gracefully enters a hive of hornets as aging Queen Guinevere takes offence at the young beauty’s popularity with the Courtiers and plots to end the imagined war of favourites.

Her husband meanwhile is busy with martial matters. Arthur has at last decided to move in force against the Danes and Saxons occupying Kent and Sussex. War is brewing again and as the warriors prepare, Valiant briefly retires aging squire Alfred in favour of two young, vigorous and keen martial assistants: Edwin and Claudius.

The former is an especial favourite of Aleta and her boisterous twin daughters Karen and Valeta…

With Valiant as field commander the campaign is bloody but overwhelmingly successful but ultimate victory comes at an incomprehensibly high personal price. Moreover after saving thriving mercantile metropolis London from the marauding northmen, Val’s weary forces experience a nasty lesson in capitalism run rampant and basic ingratitude. Of course the Prince has an insurmountable counterargument to employ…

Back in Camelot the war of wills between Guinevere and Aleta is settled by the most remarkable of intercessionaries by the time the victors return, but Valiant has little time to rest. His beloved comrade Gawain has vanished and the trail leads into the wilds of unruly Wales. Employing Welsh knight Sir Ian Waldoc as guide and following an unearthly vision provided by largely vanished mage Merlin, the tireless champion heads westward disguised as a troubadour, eventually fetching up at the forbidding castle of terrible King Oswick and his five beautiful daughters…

To Be Continued…

A mind-blowing panorama of visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a tremendous procession of boisterous action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending epic fantasy with dry wit and broad humour, soap opera melodrama with shatteringly dark violence.

Lush, lavish and captivating lovely, it is an indisputable landmark of comics fiction and something no fan should miss.
© 2015 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2015 their respective creators or holders. This edition © 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Louise Brooks: Detective


By Rick Geary (NBM/Comics/Lit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-952-6

Rick Geary is a unique talent in the comic industry not simply because of his style of drawing but especially because of his method of telling tales. Before settling on his current muse – true crime examinations via his Treasury of Victorian Murder and Treasury of XXth Century Murder series – he worked for decades as an Underground cartoonist and freelance illustrator of strange stories, published in locales as varied as Heavy Metal, Epic Illustrated, Twisted Tales, Bop, National Lampoon, Vanguard, Bizarre Sex, Fear and Laughter, Gates of Eden, RAW and High Times where his unique ability to create sublimely understated stories by stringing together seemingly unconnected streams of narrative to compose a moving, often melancholy and always beguiling whole first made him a national treasure.

Geary has grown into a grand master and unique presence in both comics and true crime literature through those aforementioned forensic reconstructions of some of the most infamous and groundbreaking murder mysteries since policing began, but in his latest release he has marvellously repurposed his eye for historical verity to concoct something new and truly fascinating.

Here his fixation with mercurial silent movie star Louise Brooks coincides with the recorded historical facts of her fall from global fame and subsequent disappearance into the American heartland. A little casual speculation, a few wry ruminations and this cleverly gripping yarn is the result…

In ‘Louise: An Introduction’ Geary précis’ how, for a brief flickering moment in 1927, dancer and actress Louise Brooks became the toast of world cinema, her face known from America to Zanzibar before she inexplicably declined to renew her Paramount Pictures contract, moved to Germany to star in erotic classic Pandora’s Box and began an inexorable decline into obscurity.

She returned to the US in 1930, but parts were hard to find. Returning to club dancing, she married twice and divorced both men by 1940 when, aged 33, she suddenly chucked everything and returned to the family home in Kansas…

Following a triptych of the author’s trademark maps (Central Wichita, the area south east of the city and rural Burden, Kansas in 1941-1942) the cartoon chapter-play begins with ‘Back to Wichita’ as Louise retreats to the fractious, unwelcoming Brooks household and desperately begins hunting for a job. Increasingly however she is drawn into the town’s only topic of conversation: the seemingly impossible “locked-room” murder of wealthy widow Edna Leach, which is like something out of a movie…

Louise strikes up an acquaintance with a mousy shop assistant at the music store, but ‘My Friend Helen’ only has two topics of conversation: her never-seen boyfriend Walden Pond and the grisly demise of Mrs. Leach…

After America enters World War II and her latest business venture fails, Louise sets out upon a new career path as a writer, but undertaking such ‘A Pilgrimage’ is daunting so she seeks out a former New York playwright who has lately taken residence in nearby Burden.

Borrowing her brother’s car she sets off one morning in June 1942, having first made plans to meet Helen and her elusive beau, but encounters ‘Unforeseen Difficulties’ en route and subsequently stumbles upon a deeply personal tragedy inadequately explained by ‘Helen’s Story’…

Finding herself lost in the middle of an actual murder mystery where everything is painfully real and terrifying, the performer soon realises she even has doubts about ‘The Victim’ and reluctantly takes on the unlikely role of ‘Louise Brooks, Detective’…

It’s a part she was born to play but after nearly losing her own life putting together the disparate strands and winkling out the culprit, she says ‘Farewell, Wichita’ and heads back to New York with her dreams reinvigorated and her future again filled with untapped potential…

Combining a superlative talent for laconic prose, incisive observation and meticulously detailed pictorial extrapolation with his fascination with the lethal propensities of humanity, Geary’s forensic eye has scoured police blotters, newspaper archives and history books to compile his irresistibly enthralling documentaries. Happily all that expertise is soundly utilised for his first major fiction feature and once again he has proved bloody murder is always a black and white affair…

A superbly engaging crime conundrum, the only thing that could improve this book is a sequel…
© 2015 Rick Geary.

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Blackjack: Second Bite of the Cobra


By Alex Simmons & Joe Bennett (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-79852-3

Here in the west nearly 150 years of popular publishing – and its spin-off art forms film, radio, television and especially comics – has produced a legion of legendary if human-scaled action adventurers. These larger than life characters have been called Pulp Heroes and their playground is all of human history and every tomorrow…

Whether you prefer Ivanhoe and Prince Valiant, Allan Quatermain, Sir Percy Blakeney, Richard Hannay, El Borak, Bulldog Drummond, Doc Savage, Mack Bolan, James Bond, Jason Bourne or even Indiana Jones, a succession of steely-eyed, immensely powerful men – and even the occasional woman – have prowled the world, righting wrongs and inspiring generations. Although some few had friends, colleagues or assistants of colour, I can’t think of a single protagonist who was black…

That all began to change in 1957 when Chester Himes began writing his tales of brutal, uncompromising cops Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones in the Harlem Detective novels, but then again he was writing them from exile in France.

America’s history of Jim Crow laws and institutionalised racism throughout the media had driven him away and long-stifled the dreams of generations of African-Americans looking for a hero of their own.

That all began to change in the radical 1960s when flunky stereotypes and dumb bad-guy representations began to give way to portrayals of fully-feeling human beings, intelligent moral champions and powerful, vital independent heroes – thanks to the efforts of the same media empires which had for so long censored any such image.

Sadly one look at today’s News tells us America still has some way to go. And of course for most of that time Britain has been no better…

That’s a rather longwinded and pompous way of introducing the latest in Dover’s superb line of lost and rescued graphic gems: a fresh edition of a compelling modern classic of the Good Old Bad Old Days, now resurrected in a softcover collection to astound and enthral all lovers of epic bravado and red-handed justice adventure, packed with the usual extras and bonus material.

Preceded with a Foreword from Joe Illidge and the author’s exhilarating Introduction ‘The Past: A Good Time for a Dark Hero’ before closing with an effusive Afterword by agent David Colley, a world of dangerous extremes perfectly realised by Brazilian born illustrator Joe Bennett (X-Men, 52, Supreme).

Alex Simmons is an award-winning African-American author, playwright, comicbook scripter and educator who has produced innumerable strips, games, shows and art-events all over the world. He’s worked for Marvel, DC, Disney, Archie and others and is a passionate advocate for and champion of equality and racial issues.

In 1996 he finally fulfilled a childhood dream by creating a black character as an equal to and worthy of the fictional meta-kingdom of all his childhood heroes as cited above. Following a cruelly recognisable usual pattern, however, the saga of Arron Day AKA Blackjack proved to be a monster hit everywhere but America…

Following the first two miniseries from Dark Angel Productions, Blackjack adapted to tough times in the comic biz by moving online as both prose and comics forms and through a serial in “Blaxploitation” magazine Bad Azz Mofo. In 2001 there was even an audio adventure – Blackjack: Retribution – recorded in front of a live audience at the Museum of TV and Radio in New York City.

Now with the first epic extravaganza compiled into one scotching saga, action fans have a chance for another bite of the cherry (sorry, couldn’t resist)…

During the Great War, Matthew “Mad Dog” Day found fame and a little prosperity as a soldier-of-fortune fighting all over the world; attaining the respect and acclaim no North Carolina negro could have by staying in America…

One particularly savage commission from a thankless Egyptian government sent him into the Sahara and pitted him and his fellow mercenaries against diabolical, nigh-messianic rebel Farouk Tea a la Af’a, know to insurgents everywhere as The Cobra.

After a climactic battle between eternal, implacable foes the Arab raider paid him the ultimate mark of disrespect by not bothering to kill him and his remaining comrades before vanishing back into the trackless wastes…

Back in Cairo days later the foreign survivors were publicly castigated by an ungrateful populace and Mad Dog’s young son Arron learned a harsh lesson. He knew who was truly to blame however and swore one day he would meet the Cobra…

Years passed and in 1923 the boy and his sister learned another salutary lesson when their parents were murdered by unknown assassins in Spain.

By 1935 Arron has surpassed his father and become a globetrotting man of wealth and means by way of his own martial talents. Possessing a keen sense of justice and never one to shy away from conflict or confrontation, he has used that money to challenge the American Way by buying a palatial home on Manhattan’s West Side, flying in the face of hostility and outright bigotry, even from the city police …

However, setting up home and aggravating the powers-that-be suddenly loses its appeal when a cable from Cairo arrives. His old uncle Silas – a white man who was Mad Dog’s trusted lieutenant – has learned that the Cobra is back and up to his old murderous tricks…

And so begins a spectacular, ferociously gripping duel in the desert as Blackjack hunts for the man who shamed his father – and might well have had him killed – encountering and outwitting corrupt rulers, suspect capitalists hungry for the region’s as yet untapped riches, and gangs of thugs.

Ferreting out the demon from his past accompanied by a trusted band of comrades and lethal new recruit Maryam, Blackjack blazes his way across the war-torn region to meet his promised nemesis and settle forever the family business so long delayed…

As spectacular as Lawrence of Arabia, as fast-paced as The Mummy and as satisfyingly suspenseful as Hidalgo, this is pure pulp experience no lover of the genre can afford to miss.
Story text © 1995 Alex Simmons. Illustrations © 1995, 1996 Joe Bennett. Cover art © 2015 Scott Hanna. All other material © 2015 its respective owners. All rights reserved.

Blackjack: Second Bite of the Cobra will be in stores from July 15th 2015 and is available for pre-order now. Check out www.doverpublications.com, your internet retailer or comic shop

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The Cat with a Really Big Head


By Roman Dirge (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-287-4

Roman Dirge is the multi-award winning, creatively twisted auteur behind the gloriously gruesome and deliriously disquieting Lenore: the Cute Little Dead Girl, but like quicksand and unpronounceable foreign cheese he also has a hidden, softer side.

Collected in this haunting hardback compilation are a brace of the mordant maestro’s lesser known works – as well as a bonus short vignette – all deviously masquerading as innocuously innocent if lavishly lurid illustrated fables and poems which nice kids might enjoy…

Eponymous tale of domestic tragedy and karmic comeuppance ‘The Cat with a Really Big Head’ was first released by Slave Labor Graphics in 2002 and details with charming indulgence the story of a poor macrocephalic kitty whose life is ruined by an awesome overabundance of cranium. You’d think that having eight more might be some comfort but you’d be wrong…

Following that there’s a brief doggerel divertissement as ‘A Big Question’ rhythmically relates what happened to little Alisa McGee after she asked the Autopsy Man what he was doing with her cadaver…

As revealed in Dirge’s Foreword, the agonised aftermath of a romantic break-up inspired ‘The Monsters in my Tummy’, originally seen as a black-&-white Slave Labor special in 1999.

Now remastered into resplendent rainbow hues, the grisly treatise on one man’s internal logistics and gory grieving process offers a certain sort of hope and lots of vicarious spleen for the newly heart-sore who still retain a smidgen of poesy and particles of a sense of humour…

Wittily weird, excessively eccentric and darkly hilarious, these fanciful fairytales for gloomy grownups readily blend whimsical charm with surreal introspection to create visual mood music and gothy glee for the down-at-soul; rekindling the mordant merriment of Charles Addams’ cartoons and so readily revived by modern macabrists such as Tim Burton, Jhonen Vasquez (Squee!, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac), Ted Naifeh & Serena (Gloom Cookie) and Jill “Scary Godmother” Thompson.

These fearsomely funny fables are an unwholesome treat for those kids of all ages with a taste for the richer, darker and less anodyne flavours of life and its inevitable final consequences.

Ever so much better for you than alcohol abuse, suicide pacts or stalking that certain someone in all weathers…
The Cat with a Really Big Head and The Monsters in My Tummy ™ & © 2015 Roman Dirge. All rights reserved.

The Cat with a Really Big Head will be released on June 30th 2015 and is available for pre-order now.

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The Monsterjunkies Graphic Novel #1


By Eric Daniel Shein & Theresa A. Gates, illustrated by Jay Fotos Studios (ArkWatch)
ISBN: 978-0-9963872-0-0

It’s tough being an outsider and doubly so if you’re a teenager with weird interests and strange parents.

Just think how much worse it can be if you’re notionally foreign, have no friends and your family has a long tradition of keeping secrets…

Introduced in prose Young Adult novels The Monsterjunkies: An American Family Odyssey and its sequel Sanctuary, impressionable Cromwell and his far more sociably adaptable older sister Indigo negotiated the tricky path through high school, slowly finding friends and companionship, gradually sharing their clandestine clan’s big secret with the ordinary folk of Foggy Point, Maine.

Now that first gently inclusive tale of integration and assimilation has been adapted into a beguiling graphic novel by original authors Eric Daniel Shein & Theresa A. Gates and opens at the daunting gates of 1313 Road to Nowhere. Within the vast wilderness compound lurk an assortment of oddities who have found safety, anonymity and peace of mind under the custodianship of glamorous cryptozoologist Dr. Talon Monsterjunkie and his eldritch, ethereal wife Pandora.

The dedicated preservationists of everything outré have turned their secluded estate into a haven for the world’s rarest and most endangered lifeforms, and although young Cromwell (he prefers “Crow”) may lack for strictly human companionship he is beloved by the creatures resident on the expansive Eden-like grounds.

Amongst his closet confidantes are Chico the chupacabra, poetry-writing sasquatch Beauregard, pituitary giants Frances and Betty, Periwinkle Pterodactyl, Fan – who runs the family mailbox – and sea serpent Sybil joyously sporting in the waters off scenic Bizarre Beach.

A loner at school, Crow’s life is made even worse by spoiled rich kid and practised bully Rutherford Grimes, but things start to radically change for the better after local lads Larry, Todd and Edgar sneak beyond the forbidding walls on a dare.

Shocked and awed by what they find, the kids are “rescued” by the aloof Goth kid from a succession of terrifying but ultimately friendly beasts and monsters and are soon the best of buddies. They even form a gang of their own to stand up to the predatory “popular kids” at school…

Soon the centuries-long family policy is being gradually tweaked and before long select individuals are being invited to share the hidden treasures of the estate. Ruth Grimes, however, isn’t happy at all and after Crow creates a unique way for school kids to stand up to him the closet psychopath subsequently tricks his boorish, millionaire dad into instigating a malicious whispering campaign to drive the weird foreigners out…

Then comes the worst news of all: daredevil dad Talon has been lost on an expedition to Bolivia…

Comparisons to the filmic Addams Family are unavoidable, but there is a superficial similarity at best. The dark humour of unsettling fear and voluntary isolation which underpins the movies has been replaced here with a cast of warm, accommodating outriders heroically performing great works, eagerly accepting newcomers into their circle and prepared to change and enter the wider world that encroaches upon them…

Wild, imaginative, compassionate and packing a potent and welcome moral message, this is a wonderful interface between modern supernatural thrillers for teens and grand old-fashioned family romps like Willard Price’s “Adventures” series.

And there are more to come…
© 2015 Arkwatch Holdings LLC. All Rights Reserved.

For more information check out http://www.themonsterjunkieuniverse.com/ and www.redanvilcomics.com

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Valerian and Laureline book 9: Châtelet Station Destination Cassiopeia


By Méziéres & Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-244-7

Valérian and Laureline is the most influential science fiction comics series ever created; witty, passionate, wry and jam-packed with stunning and disturbing ideas rendered in a hypnotic, addictive, truer-than-life art style that is impossible to resist.

Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent debuted in Pilote #420 (November 9th 1967) and was an instant hit. It gradually evolved into Valerian and Laureline as his rowdy red-headed female sidekick developed into an equal partner – and eventually scene-stealing star – in an intoxicating succession of light-hearted, fantastically imaginative, visually stunning, time-travelling, space-warping socially aware epics.

The so-sophisticated series always had room to propound a satirical, humanist ideology and agenda, launching telling fusillades of political commentary and social satire to underpin an astounding cascade of visionary space operas.

At first tough, bluff, taciturn, affably capable, unimaginative, by-the-book space cop Valerian just did his job: tasked with protecting official universal chronology (at least as per Terran Empire standards), he countered any paradoxes precipitated by incautious time-travellers.

When he fetched up in 11th century France during debut tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’, and infuriatingly still not translated into English), he was saved from inevitable doom by a capable young woman named Laureline. In gratitude he brought her back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative capital, Galaxity, where the feisty firebrand took a crash course in spatiotemporal ops before accompanying him on his cases.

The opening shot in the series’ first truly extended saga, Châtelet Station Destination Cassiopeia, was originally serialised in the monthly Pilote (issues #M47 to M50, 21st March to June 27th 1978) before being collected later that year as eighth album Métro Châtelet Direction Cassiopée. The story concluded in follow-up album Brooklyn Line Terminus Cosmos – which I’ll get to, once it’s published at the end of summer…

It all begins with the partners far apart in time and space. Laureline pensively voyages to the fabulous Cassiopeia system, for once enjoying the many wonders of space as she travels at sub-light speed through the phenomenally populous yet cosmically fragile region.

Her journey to Solum is broken up by many stopovers as she gradually gathers snippets of gossip which cohere to reveal an unsettling trend: subtly voiced concerns that some merchants are pushing strange and dangerous technologies on buyers extremely unsuited to possess them…

Although separated by centuries and light-years, Laureline and Valerian are enjoying impossibly intimate contact. Thanks to Terran ingenuity – and recent neurosurgeries – the partners are telepathically linked and sharing information on the mission.

His mission is playing out in Paris in 1980 where he idly observes the variety of human types frequenting the café he impatiently haunts; constantly reminded how little he knows or understands the people and history of his birthworld.

Things aren’t helped by the volubly affable, infuriatingly unrushed and always tardy Mr. Albert. Galaxity’s man in the moment is a sort of human X-Files: investigating, sifting and collating incalculable amounts of data on everything fringe, strange or whacky which occurs in the 20th century he has adopted as a home-away-from-home.

Breaking contact with Laureline, Valerian learns from the verbose nerd that appalling, monstrous manifestations have been terrorising the world and now this city’s subway system. Sensing action at last, the impulsive hero rushes to the site of the latest occurrence, abandoning Albert to follow up on something which has piqued his scholarly curiosity. Both are blithely unaware that a suspect band of not-so-ordinary Parisians with similar interests are mere metres ahead of them.

What Valerian confronts is a horrific thing out of the inferno, but even it is not immune to the futuristic weaponry he’s carrying in kit form. All he has to do is assemble it before being eaten…

In the aftermath Albert acts quickly to extract the wounded hero from hospital before doctors and cops start asking too many of the right questions. Later, over a luxurious dinner, the epicurean investigator shares a sheaf of files and clippings of monster and UFO sightings which only hint at why Valerian is stuck in a temporal backwater whilst his partner is covering the colossal Cassiopeia system alone…

Synching up again later despite constant headaches, Valerian hears her tell of the incredible inhabitants of Solum and her candid interview with the living memory of the race as well as sundry other wonders before contact is explosively ended by a phone call from Albert warning him that he is being watched…

After deftly dodging his tail Valerian receives a most distressing communication from Laureline. Her pleasant chat with the memory of Solum has uncovered news of a planet which long ago endured a similar plague of mysterious manifestations. It doesn’t exist anymore…

Therefore she’s off to incomprehensibly vile universal garbage dump Zomuk in pursuit of another promising lead, but before Val can warn her to stay away from the junk world, mind-contact is lost…

At that 20th century moment he and Mr. Albert are embarking on a bus ride to rural wetland idyll Doëre-la Rivière in search of marsh-monsters and dragons, only to surprisingly discover no accommodation available in the usually dead-in-the-off-season resort.

All rooms have been taken by scientists working for W.A.A.M (World American Advanced Machines): a mega-corporation in contention with the ubiquitous multinational Bellson & Gambler.

Both companies keep cropping up in Albert’s files of the weird and unexplained…

Soon the mismatched spatio-temporal operatives are trudging through acres of misty mire, encountering young Jean-René who offers to lead them to the infamous monster everybody is searching for.

When they find the Brobdingnagian beast, only Valerian’s disintegrator saves their lives. They quickly return to Albert’s paper-&-scrap-packed Paris flat, where the quirky researcher decides it’s time his impatient young colleague meets his secret source: a bizarre modern mystic and seer named Chatelard who cannily points out the affinities between the manifestations met so far and the classical ancient concept of The Four Elements…

He also points out that one could call highly ranked corporate businessmen the “hidden high priests of today’s world”, whilst mentioning that a pretty blonde woman from abroad recently offered him a lot of money for the same insights…

Later, as Albert sifts through the precious papers, reviewing all he has on Bellson & Gambler, frantic Valerian finally re-establishes contact with Laureline, just as she concludes an epic struggle against ghastly odds and enters a hidden shrine to gaze upon fantastic representations of Four Elemental Forces which underpin the universe…

Once again contact is broken and in a petulant rage the astral adventurer storms out into the Parisian night. Utterly oblivious to the fact that he is being followed by enigmatic figures in an expensive automobile, he accepts a lift from a pretty girl in a sports-car…

To Be Concluded…

Bold, mind-boggling and moodily mysterious, this splendid change of pace accentuates the deadly dangers which underscore this astonishingly imaginative series; eschewing the usual concentration on witty japery and politico-philosophical trendiness in favour of mounting suspense, bubbling paranoia and stark suspense with mesmerising effect.

However, no matter how trenchant, barbed, culturally aware or ethically crusading, these tales never allow message to overshadow fun or entertainment and as ever Méziéres & Christin leave their avid readers hungry for more …

© Dargaud Paris, 1980 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2015 Cinebook Ltd.