Category: Older kids

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The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer: The Yellow “M”


By Edgar P. Jacobs, translated by Clarence E. Holland (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-21-2

Master storyteller Edgar P. Jacobs pitted his distinguished duo of Scientific Adventurers Captain Francis Blake and Professor Philip Mortimer against a wide variety of perils and menaces in stunning action thrillers which merged science fiction, 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 Le Journal de Tintin #1 (26th September 1946): an anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland. The new anthology was edited by Hergé, with his eponymous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and features…

Le Marque Jaune was the third astounding exploit of the peerless pair, originally serialised in Le Journal de Tintin from August 6th 1953 to November 3rd 1954, before being collected as the sixth drama-drenched album in 1956.

This moody stand-alone extravaganza is the first in the modern Cinebook sequence with the True Brits for once on home soil as they struggle to solve an eerie mystery and capture an apparently superhuman criminal…

The tale begins a few days before Christmas on a night raining cats and dogs. The guards at the Tower of London are dutifully going about their appointed tasks when a sudden power cut douses all the lights.

By the time Beefeaters and Yeomen can find alternative lighting the damage is done. The Jewel Room is ransacked, the Imperial Crown missing and the wall emblazoned with a large letter M in a bold circle of yellow chalk.

The shocking travesty is but the latest in an outrageous series of incredible crimes by someone the newspapers have taken to calling The Yellow M…

Incensed by the latest outrage the Home Office assigns MI6 to the case and their top man Blake is seconded to assist Chief Inspector Glenn Kendall of Scotland Yard. So serious is the matter that Blake instantly cables his old comrade Professor Mortimer, dragging the bellicose boffin back from a well-deserved vacation in Scotland.

London is ablaze with rumour and speculation about the super-bandit. The old warhorses adjourn to the Centaur Club in Piccadilly to discuss events but as they settle in for a chinwag, Mortimer gets a fleeting impression that they are being spied upon…

Suddenly they are interrupted by four fellow members also hotly debating the case. Sir Hugh Calvin is a judge at the Central Criminal Court; Leslie Macomber edits the Daily Mail and Professor Robert Vernay is a prominent figure in the British Medical Association and they all are hotly disputing Dr Jonathan Septimus – of the Psychiatric Institute – who propounds a theory that the phantom felon is a prime example of his pet theory of “The Evil Influence of Cellular Development”…

The enlarged group continues the verbal back-and-forth into the small hours and when they finally break up Vernay follows his habit of walking home. He does not make it. The police find only his hat and a chalked letter in a circle…

The flamboyant rogue seems to be everywhere. When Blake and Mortimer interview Macomber, Calvin and the terrified Septimus next day, the invisible enigma somehow gets close enough to leave his mark on the MI6 officer’s coat, before sending a mocking cable warning the Mail’s Editor that more and worse is coming…

That night Macomber is abducted from his office in plain view of his staff and Kendall is found in a dazed state after failing to protect Judge Calvin from a mystery intruder…

Septimus concludes that he is next and convinces Blake to get him out of London. The pair board a train for Suffolk with a complement of detectives but even these precautions are not enough. The psychiatrist is impossibly plucked from the Express before it is wrecked in a horrific collision with another train.

In London, cerebral Mortimer has been researching another angle with the assistance of Daily Mail archivist Mr. Stone and has found a decades-old link between the missing men…

It all revolves around a controversial medical text entitled “The Mega Wave” and a scandalous court case, but when the Professor tries to secure a copy of the incredibly rare volume from the British Museum Library he is confounded by the Yellow M who invisibly purloins the last known copy in existence…

That evening he shares his thoughts with the returned Blake, unaware that his house has been bugged. Hours later a mysterious cloaked intruder breaks in but has a fit after passing some of Mortimer’s Egyptian souvenirs. The noise arouses the household and the masked burglar is confronted by Blake, Mortimer and burly manservant Nasir.

Incredibly the villain defeats them all with incredible strength and electrical shocks, even shrugging off bullets when they shoot him…

Exploding through a second story window the M laughs maniacally as they continue futilely firing before running off into the London night. In their shock the adventurers return to the drawing room and trip over the intruder’s listening devices…

Later the recovered Kendall visits just as a package arrives. It contains an anonymous note from someone wishing to share information and directs Blake to a late night rendezvous at Limehouse Dock. The message also contains a desperate note from the missing Septimus begging Blake to comply…

Well aware that it’s a trap and over Mortimer’s strenuous protests, Blake and Kendall lay plans to turn the meeting to their advantage. Left at home the Professor is surprised by a late visit from Stone. The remarkably efficient researcher has found a copy of The Mega Wave and rushed over to show Mortimer.

As Blake manfully braves the foggy waterfront and walks into deadly danger Mortimer is reading the tome, deducing who is behind the plot and perhaps even how the malign miracles are pulled off…

In Limehouse the empty commercial buildings become a spectacular battleground as Blake and the police confront the masked man who easily holds them all at bay with incredible feats of speed and strength, before breaking out of the supposedly impenetrable blue cordon and escaping.

In his destructive flight he tumbles into the frantic Mortimer who is dashing in to warn his old friend. Changing tack, the boffin gives chase, doggedly following the superhuman enigma through parks and sewers until he finds himself in a hidden basement laboratory being assaulted by mind-control devices devised by the sinister mastermind actually behind the entire campaign of vengeance and terror…

As the smirking villain gives an exultant speech of explanation, triumph and justification, Mortimer sees the fate of the abducted men and meets the human guinea pig who has been terrorising London at the behest of a madman. It is the very last person he ever expected to see again, but as he reels in shock Blake and Kendall are on his trail, thanks to the efforts of an avaricious cabbie with a good memory for faces…

As Christmas Day dawns Blake and Kendall lead a raid on the hidden citadel to rescue Mortimer, but the wily savant has already taken dramatic steps to secure his own release and defeat his insane, implacable opponent…

Fast-paced, action-packed, wry and magnificently eerie, this fabulously retro thriller is an intoxicating moody mystery and a sheer delight for lovers of fantastic fiction. Blake & Mortimer are the graphic personification of the Bulldog Spirit and worthy successors to the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Allan Quatermain, Professor Challenger, Richard Hannay and all the other valiant stalwarts of lost Albion…

In 1986 this story was reformatted and repackaged in a super-sized English translation, the last of six volumes with additional material (mostly covers from the weekly Tintin added to the story as splash pages) as part of a European push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market here, but failed to find an audience. There were no more translations until January 2007 when Cinebook released this tome to far greater approval and much success…

Gripping and fantastic in the truest tradition of pulp sci-fi and Boy’s Own Adventures, Blake and Mortimer are the very epitome of dogged heroic determination; always delivering grand, old-fashioned Blood-&-Thunder thrills and spills in timeless fashion and with astonishing visual punch. Any kid able to suspend modern mores and cultural disbelief (call it alternate earth history or bakelite-punk if you want) will experience the adventure of their lives… and so will their children.

This Cinebook edition also includes a selection of colour cover sketches and roughs plus a biographical feature and chronological publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.
Original editions © Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) 1987 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation © 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

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Thorgal volume 1: Child of the Stars/Aaricia


By Rosiński & Van Hamme, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-23-6

One of the best and most celebrated adventure series of all time, Thorgal manages the ultimate magic trick of being able to both please critics and sell bucketloads. The series debuted in iconic French weekly Tintin in 1977 with the inevitable album compilations beginning three years later. The expansive generational saga has a truly international following in fourteen languages, has generated many spin-off series and naturally offers a strong presence in the global gaming arena.

Narratively, Thorgal offers the best of all amazing worlds with an ostensibly starkly historical milieu of bold Viking adventure glibly yet seamlessly encompassing chilling science fiction elements, monstrous horror, social satire, political intrigue, soap opera, Atlantean mystique and mythically mystical fantasy standards such as gods, monsters, dwarves and demons.

Created by Belgian writer Jean Van Hamme (Domino, XIII, Largo Winch, Blake and Mortimer) and Polish illustrator Grzegorz Rosiński (Kapitan Żbik, Pilot Śmigłowca, Hans, The Revenge of Count Skarbek) the feature grew into a generational saga over the decades with the creative duo completing 29 albums between 1980 and 2006 when Van Hamme moved on. Thereafter the scripting duties fell to Yves Sente who has collaborated on a further five collections to date.

By the time Van Hamme departed the feature had expanded to cover not only the life of the titular hero and his son Jolan but also other valiant family members in a number of spin-off series (Kriss de Valnor, Louve, La Jeunesse de Thorgal) under the umbrella title Les Mondes de Thorgal – all eventually winning their own section of albums.

In 1985 American publisher Donning released a superb series of oversized hardcover book translations but Thorgal never really found an English-speaking audience until Cinebook began its own iteration in 2007.

Although the original French series wanders back and forth through the hero’s life, this first British volume opts for a strictly chronological beginning and even doubles the pleasure by reprinting both the seventh (L’enfant des étoiles, 1984) and fourteenth (Aaricia, 1989) Le Lombard volumes, revealing the star’s origins and a few early adventures as well as the story of his divinely-destined bride-to-be…

Child of the Stars opens with ‘The Lost Drakkar’ as an expedition led by seemingly accursed Viking leader Leif Haraldson founders in stormy seas. Only fifteen men remain of the 120 who set out and wily, ambitious Gandalf the Mad convinces the survivors that the crew’s priest is right. Leif must be sacrificed to angry sea-god Aegir.

With everyone against him Leif prepares to sell his life dearly when the fates intervene. Thor‘s constant storms suddenly subside and their drakkar (ship) pulls through eerie mists into a warm sunlit bay.

The relieved mariners are further stunned to find a strange metal chest unlike anything they have ever beheld, lying on the beach. It contains a baby boy and jubilant chief Haraldson instantly adopts the foundling, naming the child Thorgal Aegirsson after the two forgiving gods who spared them…

The story resumes with ‘The Metal that Didn’t Exist’ by voyaging a thousand years into the past when demon-snake Nidhogg tricked Ivaldi, King of the Dwarves into wagering his name on a game of draughts (they called it “checkers”).

When the gloating serpent won, it allowed the humiliated artificer one last chance: Ivaldi could buy back his name – and power – if he produced a jewel made from a metal that did not exist. He even offered a grace period of one millennium to work in…

The mortified and terrified dwarf nation immediately set their youngest, boldest son to search the world for the impossible and 999 years later the weary, footsore mite wandered into a Haraldson’s Northern Viking village and saw a small dark-haired boy wearing an amulet made of something that had never originated on our world…

Excited Tjahzi explained his plight to the solitary lad and offered him all the wealth of the dwarvish realm but Thorgal refused, instead generously offering to give him the necklace. The astounded seeker instantly set off for home but his travels had exhausted him and he collapsed.

Thorgal picked up Tjahzi and began to carry him towards the distant mountains, telling the aged mite of how the amulet came from the strange “raft” he was found in as a baby…

As they slipped between worlds into the gods’ realm the boy grew – or shrank – to the same size as his diminutive companion but their epic journey was soon interrupted by the giant Hjalmgunnar, The hungry horror would have eaten them if not for the Winged Cats of Frigg but the goddess’ envoys were far less effective against a swarm of flying Vampire-Snakes…

The tiny travellers soon realised their mission was of great import to the major powers of the universe when, as they travelled a subterranean frozen river to the Dwarf Lands, a monstrous many-limbed monster serpent attacked.

Nidhogg was too arrogant, however, permitting the impetuous human boy to grow into his destined mature warrior form to duel more fairly. The intentionally cruel gesture and Thorgal’s dauntless courage allowed Tjahzi to slip by and deliver the unknown amulet to Ivaldi in time – at the cost of the boy-hero’s life.

Frigg, however, would not let such an injustice stand…

Little Thorgal awoke back in his village with the other children shouting. The wife of Gandalf had just been delivered of a baby girl. The little miracle was to be named Aaricia and when she was born she had a teardrop pearl gripped in each tiny fist…

Years later when Thorgal was just approaching adolescence his incredible history was finally revealed in ‘The Talisman’. Following a strange persistent call inside his head the boy voyaged across the country to a distant mountain where a bizarre hermit waited.

Thorgal had grown increasingly apart from the other children. Vile Gandalf had led a campaign to ostracise the foundling and the kids all called the child “bastard” and claimed he was not a true Viking.

The sage vaguely promised all the answers the wanderer wanted, but was astounded when the boy offered his most prized possession in return: a peculiar disc of unknown material given him by foster-father Leif Haraldson. The artefact had been inside the odd “raft” the baby was in and kept by the chief until Thorgal came of age…

The hermit did something to it and then had the boy meditate. Soon Thorgal’s thoughts are in the past and in the stars as an incredible story unfolds…

Years past a ship from the stars came to Earth. The awesomely powerful beings aboard had originated on Earth in eons past before migrating to the heavens, but even though they had returned in glory, many had not escaped the personal tyrannies of greed, jealousy, ambition and lust for power…

There was dissent and rebellion. The starmen battled and died. Soon only a baby in a lifeboat remained…

Former leader Xargos regretfully closed the psycho-transmitter and then removed all the restored memories he had shared with his grandson. The sage felt that with everything gone and the boy clearly not manifesting his race’s sometimes-latent psychic abilities Thorgal’s future would be kinder if he lived and died as an ordinary mortal…

Fourteenth collection Aaricia also contained a selection of short pieces and opens here with a fantastic trip as a sad little girl goes looking for her Mummy only to encounter some friendly “undergrowth Elves” who offer to take her where she wants to be…

As the entire village searches for Aaricia, ever-solitary Thorgal breaks off from the rest and follows a trail only he can discern. The little girl is almost in the arms of her recently dead mother when he arrives to drive off the vile demonic Nixes who have lured her to ‘Odin’s Mountain’…

‘First Snow’ details how, when Haraldson dies, Gandalf makes a cautious power-grab. With the Northern Vikings about to enter the overarching Nordic alliance The Althing as a recognised kingdom, the usurper is terrified that the outsider bastard will become ruler and summarily seizes all Leif’s lands and possessions.

Only Aaricia’s intervention and the arrival of the Althing’s astute adjudicator prevents monstrous murder, but Thorgal is nevertheless left an outcast in his own country…

Years later the outraged boy is denied the universal training all growing warriors are heir to: condemned to become a mere Skald (travelling musician). Although the princess Aaricia still loves him her intended chafes at such injustice and eventually invokes the right of ‘Holmganga’: challenging Gandalf’s son Bjorn to a death-duel for the right to be raised as a true man…

The usurper king sees an opportunity to get rid of the only threat to his rule, and secretly hires assassins to ensure Thorgal’s doom, but the scheme founders when adoring Aaricia – determined to marry Thorgal when they are of age – takes matters into her own inspired hands…

The sagas conclude here with the astounding tale of ‘Tjahzi’s Tears’ as lost and blinded minor poet-god Vigrid washes up in his ramshackle flying Drakkar long enough for the curious princess to climb aboard. Thus begins a fantastic voyage as the girl is wafted away by the tragic nomad and resolves to guide the lost god back to Asgard, despite the attacks of monsters and devils.

Encountering incredible creatures and perilous places, child and despondent deity persevere over uncanny distances, overcoming a host of perils until she sacrifices her greatest treasure – the teardrop pearls she was born holding – in a moment of sheer imaginative ingenuity…

Sublimely rendered, astonishingly inventive and ferociously intoxicating, the enchantingly wondrous world of Thorgal is every fan’s perfect dream of fantasy unbound.
Original edition © Rosiński & Van Hamme 1984-1989 Les Editions du Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard). English translation © 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

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Twin Spica volume 5


By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-02-5

This compellingly intimate paean to the wonder of the stars originated in a poignant short story: Kou Yaginuma’s ‘2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi’ (‘2015: Fireworks’), published in Gekkan Comics Flapper magazine in June 2000.

The author subsequently expanded and enhanced his subject, themes and characters into an all-consuming epic coming-of-age spellbinder which wedded hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days friendships the inescapable shocks of growing up.

Small, unassuming Asumi Kamogawa always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the lonely child had gazed with intense longing up at the stars, her only companion and confidante an imaginary friend dubbed Mr. Lion.

When she was a year old, the first Japanese space launch ended in catastrophe after rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”) exploded before crashing back to earth on the city of Yuigahama where the Kamogawas lived. Hundreds were killed and many more injured.

Perhaps the cruellest casualty was Asumi’s own mother. Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die and the long, drawn-out tragedy deeply traumatised her tiny, uncomprehending daughter.

The trauma also crushed her grieving husband who had worked as a designer on the rockets for Japan’s fledgling Space Program.

In the wake of the disaster, Tomoro Kamogawa was assigned by the corporation who had built the ship to head the reparations committee. Guilt-wracked and personally bereaved, the devastated technologist visited and formally apologised to each and every survivor or victim’s grieving family. The experience harrowed and crushed him.

He is certainly no fan of the space program nowm having lost wife, beloved engineering career and his pride to the race for the heavens. Raising his daughter alone, he worked two – and often three – menial jobs at a time for over a decade and cannot countenance losing the very last of his loved ones to the cold black heavens…

In response to the Lion disaster, Japan set up an Astronautics and Space Sciences Academy. After years of passionate struggle and in defiance of her father’s wishes, in 2024 Asumi – an isolated, solitary, serious but determined teenager – was accepted to the Tokyo National Space School. Without her father’s blessing, she reluctantly left Yuigahama and joined the new class.

Amongst the year’s fresh intake were surly, abrasive Shinnosuke Fuchuya (an elementary school classmate who used to bully her as a child back in Yuigahama), jolly Kei Oumi, chilly Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool style-icon and fashion victim Shu Suzuki who all gradually became the shy introvert’s closest acquaintances.

Every day Asumi nudged inexorably towards her goal: the stars. Ever since the crashing rocket had shattered her family, she had drawn comfort from the firmament, with Mr. Lion staring up at the heavens at her side – especially drawn to the twinkling glow of Virgo and the alluring binary star Spica.

And now she was so tantalisingly close…

Small, poor, physically weak but resolutely capable, Asumi endures and triumphs over every obstacle and she still talks with Mr. Lion – who might just be a ghost of a crewman from the Shishigō…

All any student can think of is space travel, but they are harshly and perpetually reminded that most of them won’t even finish their schooling…

At just four feet, eight inches tall Asumi is constantly struggling to meet the arduous physical requirements dictated by the Academy but has already survived far greater problems. She is still adjusting to the busy life of Tokyo, sleeps in tawdry communal women’s dorm “The Seagull”, struggles with many of her classes and subsists on meagre funds, supplemented by part-time jobs.

Individual stories are broken up into “Missions” with volume five covering numbers 19-24, as well as offering an entrancing sidebar autobiographical vignette about the author’s own teenage years.

It begins in the Seagull hostel where mysterious Ukita – who has recently rejected her rich overbearing father’s domination – now resides with Asumi. The solitary girl is subject to strange spells and is clearly suffering from some mystery malady. Only recently, spectral Mr. Lion saw Ukita dump a package of pills off a bridge…

Now he informs concerned Asumi that she has arbitrarily moved into the storeroom but before he can disclose more their mutual attention is diverted by the spectacle of a satellite soaring through the night sky.

Their s turn to romance and the ghost tells of his love – a dalliance which changed his life…

It was summer and he was in third grade when a strange new girl (who looked just like Ukita) moved to a big mansion in the hills for the vacation months…

At the academy next day Oumi is teasing Asumi about a boy. He was part of an anti-space program protest but Asumi was drawn to him and they had a “moment” after he picked up a rocket-shaped trinket she had lost. He also reminded her of a boy from her past who died of cancer during elementary school…

Although she doesn’t know Kiriu yet, the orphan is utterly infatuated with Asumi, and when the bullies at his posh school – North Star High – attempt to take the trinket, the scholarship boy suffers a harsh beating trying to protect the keepsake…

Impetuous Oumi later drags the diffident Asumi to the gates of North Star to arrange a meeting but Kiriu, still smarting from his battle, reacts boorishly and sends the infatuated girl packing. Later, poor long-suffering Fuchuya finds Asumi tearfully watching the stars from a playground…

‘Mission: 20’ begins with unsinkable, meddlesome Oumi researching the survivors of the Lion disaster, trying to get a handle on Kiriu’s overreaction. What she discovers breaks her heart…

As the second year of study begins Fuchaya tries once more to penetrate Ukita’s shield of stoic isolationism as Mr. Lion warns Asumi that he might be away for a while.

As the cadets bury themselves in hard work and study, Oumi one day sees Kiriu leaving the Sunflower Children’s Home and has a heart-to-heart with him about Asumi. The little matchmaker then arranges for her dumbfounded friend to meet the fractious lad…

He’s not there when she visits the orphanage but Asumi is swiftly swamped by Kiriu’s adoring younger “brothers and sisters”. Meanwhile, the quiet scholar is turning the city upside down trying to replace or repair the rocket token smashed by his thuggish classmates…

Asumi eventually finds him scouring parkland outside his school searching for the fragments of the broken toy. As they hunt together he lets slip that once upon a time space was his only dream too…

At her lessons soon after, a package arrives for Asumi. It is the (badly) repaired rocket keychain.

Joy is quickly replaced by sadness and fear as ‘Mission: 21’ opens with a list of students who have been axed from the program. Budget cuts and public opinion have affected the future of astronaut school and although Oumi, Fuchaya, Ukita and Suzuki have made the grade too, only fourteen cadets now comprise the entire Second Year…

Later relaxing in the public Planetarium, Asumi again meets the boisterous youngsters from the Sunflower orphanage and learns lots more about Kiriu before indulging in some shared speculation about life on other worlds. Later she meets always-tense Fuchaya who has a new bee in his bonnet. His latest growth spurt has him worried that might grow too tall to be an astronaut…

His odd behaviour seems justified when the class face their next test: being locked in tiny escape pods for hours to learn their psychological reaction to enforced extended claustrophobia…

Sadly that’s only the first part of the problem. The second half is a survival exercise. When the students finally emerge from the capsules they are all marooned in deep woods. Separated from each other and with only minimal equipment, they have to fight their way to a distant pick-up point…

The whole effort is tough and scary for meek Asumi but elsewhere in the vast forest Ukita has even bigger problems: she’s begun to cough up blood…

In yet another wooded section Mr. Lion is visiting the old summer house of his first love and recalls how he broke all the rules to befriend the lonely sick girl imprisoned there…

The make-or-break endurance test continues in ‘Mission: 22’ as Asumi starts her arduous trek back to civilisation whilst pensive Mr. Lion follows a memory trail to the rocket he built of junk when he was kid.

He had been playing there when the girl from the house first found him. She was quiet and lonely and clearly quite ill. Her name was Marika Ukita…

Decades later another girl with that name is failing fast as ‘Mission: 23’ opens. The spirit of the Lion is lost in reverie, remembering how his Ukita used to sneak away and help build his – no, their – rocket in the woods.

She was fascinated by his tales of space flight and the history of exploration. She told him about the only joyous moment in her life, when her over-protective dad took her to see a play called Beauty and the Beast…

When the big annual fireworks festival was beginning the boy made a lion-mask like the Beast’s to wear, but she never came. He had to break into the mansion to show her. She was very sick but wanted to dance with him…

And in the present, despite constantly doubting herself, Asumi struggles on and perseveres…

The intricate interlocking revelations conclude in ‘Mission: 24’ with Asumi storming towards the finish only to encounter another escape capsule, surrounded by droplets of blood. In another time, if not place, the tragedy of the past climaxes as the boy is confronted by Marika’s father who furiously beats the young intruder…

Later the horrified lad learns more of his friend’s terrible disease when her stern patriarch visits his own dad in a panic. The dying daughter had quietly rebelled when told she was being sent to a Swiss sanatorium for her health. She slipped out of the house when no-one was watching and has vanished. Of course the boy knows where she has gone and rushes off to save her…

To Be Continued…

Although the main event is temporarily suspended there is still more affecting personal revelation in store, as ‘Another Spica’ finds author Yaginuma in autobiographical mode and back in his ambition-free teens, sharing his own romantic travails with a confessor who might also be a phantom king of beasts…

These powerfully unforgettable tales originally appeared in 2003 as Futatsu no Supika and in the Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeting male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

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

Twin Spica has everything: plenty of hard tech to back up the informed extrapolation, an engaging cast, mystery, passion, alienation, angst, enduring friendships and just the right touch of spiritual engagement feeding the wild-eyed wonder; all welded seamlessly into a joyous, evocative, addictive drama.

Rekindling the magical spark of the Wild Black Yonder for a new generation, this is the sublime poetry of science and imagination cast as a treat no imagineer with head firmly in the clouds can afford to miss…

© 2010 by Kou Yaginuma. Translation © 2010 Vertical, Inc. All rights reserved.

This book is printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.

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Robbie Burns: Witch Hunter


By Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby, Tiernen Trevallion, Jim Campbell & Jerry Brannigan (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-99215-085-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a graphic joy beyond compare… 10/10

Robert Burns was born in 1759 in Alloway. His father was a farmer who went to great lengths to ensure that his children were properly educated. Robert was schooled in the classics, French and Latin and began his creative writing when he was fifteen.

He led a successful, tempestuous life – particularly favouring boozy carousing and roistering escapades with the ladies – and died in 1796 aged 37.

As well as his dialectical and vernacular poetry, Burns selflessly preserved a wealth of traditional Scottish songs and folklore – particularly the bizarre arcane bestiary of supernatural entities God-fearing folk of the 18th century believed in – and is more popular today than he has ever been.

He is the only poet in history to have his own globally celebrated holiday, with his birth anniversary on January 25th an affair universally honoured by food, drink, recitations and well-loved scary stories…

This stunning re-imagining of the venerable wordsmith by scripters Gordon Rennie (Necronauts, Cabalistics Inc., Judge Dredd) and Emma Beeby (Doctor Who, Judge Dredd), breathtakingly illustrated by relative newcomer Tiernen Trevallion (2000AD, Judge Dredd) and lettered by Jim Campbell, owes as much to the modern fashion for stylish tongue-in-cheek horror comedies like Shaun of the Dead, Lesbian Vampire Killers and I Sell the Dead as the beguiling and frequently fantastical works of the poet, but the skilful interweaving of Burns’ immortal lines with a diabolically clever but simple idea make this tale an unforgettable treat whether pages or screens float your particular boat…

Think of it this way: in all those sterling supernatural sonnets and sagas, Burns wasn’t reinterpreting his elders’ supernatural folk tales or exercising a unique imagination, he was simply quoting from his diary…

The wee drama unfolds one night in Ayrshire in 1779 when rascally young gadabout Robbie finds himself on the wrong end of an angry man’s fist after playing fast and loose with the irate hulk’s intended bride. However, even though all the lassies fall for the blithe blather of the self-proclaimed poet, the battered man himself knows he has not yet found his true muse…

Half-drunk and well-thumped, the farmer’s son heads his horse for home but is drawn to uncanny lights emanating from haunted, drear abandoned old Alloway Kirk. Dangerously enthralled he then espies a scene out of Hell itself as witches and demons cavort in a naked ecstasy of dark worship to the satanic master “Old Clootie”…

The lad’s enrapt attention is only broken by a heavy pistol shoved in his ear by a stealthy pair also watching the shocking ritual. Old Mackay is a daunting figure kitted out like a wrinkled human arsenal but Robbie’s attention cannot stray from the dangerous codger’s comely companion Meg, the most astounding woman he has ever seen.

Unfortunately the confrontation between the mortal voyeurs has resulted in Burns’ “innocent” blood being spilled and the satanic celebrants have caught wind of it…

Soon all the denizens of Hell are howling after the ‘mazed mortals but things are not as they seem. The outlandish pair are actually Witch Hunters, ferociously skilled in sending all Satan’s minions back to the Inferno and always armed to the teeth with a fantastic array of ingeniously inventive ordnance…

Having fought free of the black Sabbat, the mortals take flight with the screaming witches in pursuit and when one grabs Robbie as he rides pillion on Meg’s horse, the dazed, half-soused lad blasts the beast with one of his companions’ blessed flintlock pistols.

Tragically in the selfsame altercation the pursuing she-devil had opportunity to mark him with her talons and the would-be poet promptly sobers up when he is informed that he has only three days left to live…

With mounting terror he learns that most mortals so infected become willing thralls of the hellions, but when a seductive minion of The Pit comes for him the next night, the scribbler somehow fends it off long enough for the suspiciously near-at-hand Meg to spectacularly despatch it back to the brimstone realms…

Concluding that’s there might be something of worth to the Burns boy, Mackay and Meg resolve to teach him how to be a true Witch Hunter so that he can defend himself when the horrors come in full strength to collect the Devil’s due. Of course that’s only three days hence…

Renegade are a publisher who value fact as well as fiction and this superb full-colour hardback comes with a fine selection of factual features beginning with a lavish history and appreciation of Scotland’s greatest poet in Robbie Burns: a Biography’ by author and historian Jerry Brannigan as well as ‘Selected Poems’ which provides a tantalising entrée into the uniquely impassioned and eerie world of the grand imagineer with a sampling of some of his most famous works embellished and beguilingly illustrated with a wealth of Trevallion’s pencils sketches of Bogles and Brownies, Spunkies and Sirens and even senior Witch Hunter Mackay.

The rhythmic reveille includes Scots Wha Hae, the totally crucial, groundbreaking spooky saga Tam o’ Shanter (A Tale), the evocative A Red, Red Rose, A Man’s A Man For A’ That, the delirious Address To The Deil and most moving lament Ae Fond Kiss, And Then We Sever…

Smart, action packed, skilfully suspenseful, uproariously funny, divinely irreverent and genuinely scary or sad by turn, Robbie Burns Witch Hunter is a gloriously compelling and truly mesmerising romp: a doom-laden, wisecracking rollicking love story no sensitive soul or jaded comics fan could possibly resist. It’s even educational too…
Robbie Burns: Witch Hunter © 2014 Renegade Arts Entertainment, Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby and Tiernen Trevallion.

To learn more and obtain copies check out Turnaround or Amazon.

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In a Glass Grotesquely – Selected Picture Stories


By Richard Sala (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-797-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Pure and Primal Comics Wonderment… 9/10

Richard Sala is a lauded and much-deserving darling of the Literary Comics movement (if such a thing exists), blending beloved pop culture artefacts and conventions – particularly cheesy comics and old horror films – with a hypnotically effective ability to tell a graphic tale.

He grew up in Chicago and Arizona before earning a Masters in Fine Arts, and after beginning a career as an illustrator rediscovered his love of comicbooks. The potentially metafictional self-published Night Drive in 1984 led to appearances in legendary 1980s anthologies Raw and Blab! and animated adaptations of the series on Liquid Television.

His work is welcomingly atmospheric, dryly ironic, wittily quirky and mordantly funny; indulgently celebrating childhood terrors, gangsters, bizarre events, monsters and manic mysteries, with girl sleuth Judy Drood and the glorious trenchant storybook investigator Peculia the most well known characters in his gratifyingly large back catalogue.

Sala’s art is a joltingly jolly – if macabre – joy to behold and has also shone on many out-industry projects such as his work with Lemony Snickett, The Residents and even – posthumously – Jack Kerouac; illustrating the author’s outrageous Doctor Sax and The Great World Snake.

In a Glass Grotesquely is his latest irresistible tract of baroque pictorial enchantment, deftly combining his recent 2014 webcomic with a triptych of visceral and saturnine delusions from the end of the last century, all exploring the bleakest corners of the modern world’s communal fantasy landscape and applying his truly skewed raconteur’s gifts to giving us a thrill, a chill and a chortle…

The majority of this spookily sublime confrontation with the cartoon dark side is taken up with the gripping saga of ultimate enemy of America ‘Super-Enigmatix’, a diabolically inspired super-villain determined to avenge himself upon America for slights both imagined and tragically real…

Delivered in punchy alternating doses of surreal full-colour splashes and moody monochrome subplots, the story details how the brilliant weird-scientist, served by an army of beautiful female zealots and hidden race of mole people, tries to destroy modern society, only opposed by disenchanted ex-cop Natalie Charms and a dedicated band of “conspiracy nuts”…

The struggle against a self-created monster hiding behind a smoke screen of urban legend is fast-paced, Byzantine, and insidiously politically charged: a mesmerising chase-caper and delight of post-modern paranoia meeting classic pulp-fiction melodrama…

Like a bleakly mordant reinvention of the Catholic Church’s Stations of the Cross, ‘It Will All Be Over Before You Know It…’ is a sequence from single panel black and white epigrams building to a tableau of modern terrors for women seeking work, after which 1998’s ‘Stranger Street’ silently details the building tension as a psycho-killer haunts the streets of an already scary town…

The cracked chronicle then concludes with a Kafkaesque shaggy bird story delivered in barrage of grey wash, as an ineffectual nobody receives – and loses – a once-in-a-lifetime honour in ‘The Prestigious Banquet To Be Held In My Honour’…

In a Glass Grotesquely amusingly exposes the seamy, scary underbelly of existence with these enigmatic, clever, compelling and staggeringly engaging yarns blending nostalgic escapism with the childish frisson of children scaring themselves silly under the bedcovers at night and will therefore make an ideal gift for the big kid in your life – whether he/she’s just you, imaginary or even relatively real…

In a Glass Grotesquely © 2014 Richard Sala. This edition © 2014 Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

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The Loxleys and the War of 1812 (second edition)


By Alan Grant, Claude St. Aubin, Lovern Kindzierski, Todd Klein & Mark Zuehlke (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-9921508-0-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Beautiful, Educational and Fun, the perfect gift… 10/10

America’s been in lots of wars since it won Independence and has, in fact, started a goodly proportion of those for less than noble reasons. To be fair, Britain’s much longer record is no better, but most people here have never even heard of the brutal and frankly stupid conflict now known as The War of 1812.

Two centuries after the fact a small independent creative outfit known as Renegade Arts Entertainment (generally Alexander Finbow, Alan Grant, Doug Bradley, John Finbow, Nick Wilson and Jennifer Taylor: originators of comics and audio books, movies, animation, prose and graphic novels, merchandise and games) put their heads together and commemorated the story of the forgotten clash of political intransigents and empire-building politicians as a pictorial tome for youngsters featuring a multi-generational family caught up in the conflict.

The book won a number of prestigious awards and the narrative was later adapted into an animated motion comic (with the assistance of Arcana Studios and the Department of Canadian Heritage), iPad and digital PDF iterations and numerous other online formats as well as a wealth of educational materials for use in conjunction with the piece.

Author Alan Grant rewrote his comics saga as a prose novel and Oscar-nominated screen writer Tab Murphy remade the original story into both a screenplay and school play performed by students across Canada. There is even an 1812timeline.com you can follow whilst reading the version of your choice…

Hopefully that will be this brand new, fully updated and upgraded second edition, a stunning 175 page full-colour hardback tome which marries the powerful and enthralling graphic narrative with an abundance of fascinating extras.

Packed with additional illustrations, Alexander Finbow’s background-packed Foreword and the moving Acknowledgements page whets the appetite for the rollercoaster tale of ‘The Loxleys and the War of 1812’ by writer Grant, illustrator Claude St. Aubin, colourist Lovern Kindzierski and letterer Todd Klein.

Matriarch Aurora Loxley is justifiably proud of her extended family, three generations living and working together to build a farm and a life in a welcoming land. Originally from Pennsylvania she and her departed husband Abraham migrated to Canada after the War of Independence to the far side of the Niagara River where their burgeoning clan prospered near the Canadian town of York.

Extracts from her journal begin with the harvest of 1811 where well-earned celebrations are only slightly marred by talk amongst the men of war with America. Britain is currently battling Napoleon all over the world and the Royal Navy has been raiding American ships and ports, impressing men they claim are British deserters to serve in their embattled vessels. The practise outrages their southern neighbours the other side of the river, but many leaders in Washington DC act just as badly as the former regal masters they despise. The “War Hawks” in Congress are rapacious expansionists: wanting to wipe out the Indian peoples and believing it is their destiny to rule the entire continent.

As the idle party talk continues frail William takes a moment to capture the entire family (a dozen happy souls and their dog Duke) in a pencil portrait that depicts their last time as a happy, united family…

Everything changes on the night of November 11th when the Loxleys invite a frantic messenger into their home. He brings news that the main settlement of visionary Chief Tecumseh‘s “nation within a nation” has been destroyed by a force of Americans in a night of massacre.

Tecumseh and his brother The Prophet have worked long to create a federation of disparate tribes as a bulwark against American westward expansion. Now the Yankees have taken the opportunity to move north as well and intend to drive the British out of Canada…

And so begins a deeply moving, informative, even-handed and intensely exciting tale of ordinary people moved to defend themselves against greed and aggression set against the backdrop of possibly the most ineptly handled, poorly executed war in history.

Despite being born of common greed and ruthless ambition by a few and ignorance and intolerance by a multitude, the haphazard, cravenly executed conflict nonetheless bought misery and death to thousands of serving soldiers, sailors and militia volunteers on both sides and domestic atrocity to an uncounted number of innocent civilians over the following two years and eight months.

Even America’s greatest victory, one of pitifully few in an overcautious, criminally mismanaged string of campaigns, was a ludicrous farce. Despite being considered a stunning triumph and affirmation at the time, the Battle of New Orleans occurred weeks after the war officially ended and nobody except the dead, maimed and missing really cared…

As the Locksley family splinters, the story powerfully covers the role of militias on both sides Рas well as the valiant French-speaking citizens we know as Quebe̤ois today Рand examines the crucial part played by and eventual betrayal of the native peoples.

Also seen through innocent eyes are the machinations of the politicians on both sides and the aftermath of the war…

For old fuddy-duddies like me who like their facts and analysis printed on paper there’s historian Mark Zuehlke’s epic, fascinating and lavishly illustrated essay ‘The War of 1812: Historical Summary’ – preceded by a stunning painting of ‘The White House in Flames’ by John M. Burns – to enjoy before a range of follow-up features offer further information through ‘Creator Biographies’ and alluring details on the other strands of the project such as ‘The Loxleys and the War of 1812 School Play’ and ‘The Loxleys and the War of 1812 Novel by Alan Grant’ both of which include excerpted passages and a piece on the ‘The Interactive iPad and Android Tablet app’ before everything concludes with a wealth of delightful ‘Initial Character Designs by Claude St. Aubin’

Despite the panoply of interactive iterations listed above, this sterling and compulsively readable chronicle ably proves one of my most fervently held beliefs: the comics medium is the perfect means to marry learning with fun and a well made graphic treatise is an unbeatable mode with which to Elucidate, Educate and Enjoy.

So buy this and do so…
The Loxleys and the War of 1812 © 2012 Renegade Arts Entertainment.

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Valerian and Laureline book 7: On the False Earths


By Méziéres & Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-190-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Stellar Entertainment to last the year through… 9/10

Valérian and Laureline is the most influential science fiction comics series ever created; an innovation-packed, Big-Ideas bonanza stuffed with wry observation, knowing humour, intoxicating action and sardonic sideswipes at contemporary mores and prejudices.

As Val̩rian: Spatio-Temporal Agent the strip debuted in the weekly Pilote #420 (November 9th 1967) and was an instant hit. It rapidly evolved into its current designation as his feisty, fire-headed sidekick developed into the equal partner Рif not scene-stealing star Рof light-hearted, fantastically imaginative, visually stunning, time-travelling, space-warping fantasies which nevertheless always found room to propound a satirical, humanist ideology and let loose telling fusillades of political commentary.

At first tough, bluff Valerian was an affable, capable (if unimaginative), by-the-book space cop tasked with protecting official universal chronology (at least as per Terran Empire standards) by intercepting or counteracting paradoxes caused by incautious time-travellers.

When Valérian landed in 11th century France during debut tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’ and infuriatingly still not translated into English yet), he was rescued from doom by a capable young woman named Laureline. He brought her back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative capital of the Terran Empire, Galaxity, where the indomitable female firebrand trained as a spatiotemporal operative and began accompanying him on all his missions.

On the False Earths originally appeared in the newly monthly Pilote (issues #M31 to M34 (30th November 1976 -1st March 1977) before being collected as seventh album Sur le terres truquées – spectacularly reinforcing the “spatiotemporal” aspect of our heroes through a beguiling cosmic conundrum…

The story starts in frantic full flow as a very familiar figure fights valiantly and dies ignominiously during a pitched battle in 19th century Colonial India. He doesn’t go easy, however, using his ray gun to disintegrate an attacking tiger before beaming back crucial data stolen from a sinister maharaja equipped with technology he simply shouldn’t have…

In deep space distraught Laureline sees her man die, but her protests are ignored by heartless, man-despising historian Jadna. The scholar cares little for the oafish warrior undertaking a top secret mission for her. After all, there’s plenty more where he came from…

That’s literally the case as, a little later, another Valerian infiltrates Victorian London Society, breaking into a swank Gentleman’s Club and crashing a meeting of the Empire’s greatest movers and shakers. Once again these potentates are communicating with a hidden high-tech master, and once again the star cop expires trying to determine the mastermind’s exact whereabouts.

He resurfaces in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1895 where enquiries arouse the wrath of the local tongs. This Valerian perishes after noting an increasing number of anachronisms – such as an Easy Rider on a chopped Harley Davidson motorbike…

From their secure vantage point on a vast satellite Jadna and Laureline see their agent expire in another artificially constructed historical microcosm. The callous historian ruminates on their mystery opponent: a being capable of reshaping matter, crafting perfect little worlds and recreating human eras with the skill of a master artist whilst remaining utterly hidden from all their probing searches. If the enigma hadn’t been detected rifling through Terran time zones – presumably for research – no one would even know of its existence…

The creator’s simulacrums are progressively advancing through brutal but significant periods of Terran history, but each visit by Valerian brings the investigation team closer to the mysterious maker’s actual location. Soon our hero is cautiously exploring a slice of Belle Époque France, but his enigmatic quarry is cognizant of the constant intrusions and has taken a few liberties with verisimilitude.

Waiting in ambush for Valerian are American gangsters with Tommyguns…

Rubbed out before he can even begin, Valerian is swiftly replaced by another short-lived duplicate whilst the original and genuine lies comatose in a clone-command tank. This last rapid substitution, however, finally allows the watching women to zero in on their target’s true location and they instantly shift their ship through the universal continua to reach the incredible being’s astounding base… and none too soon, as Jadna posits that the creature’s next construction will most likely be World War I…

She is proved painfully correct. As they ready themselves for a confrontation with the maker Laureline and the scholar realise that the astral citadel is a perfect replica of a Great War battlefield. Seizing the initiative Jadna activates and musters all the remaining clones – as well as the original McCoy – programming them to play the marauding “boche” in an apocalyptic re-enactment simply as a diversion to allow her to get to the impossibly powerful being she so admires…

Caught up in the incomprehensible slaughter and its bizarre aftermath the two spatiotemporal agents can only watch in astonishment as Jadna and the seemingly all-powerful artisan discover just how much they have in common…

Trenchant, barbed, socially aware and ethically crusading, Valerian and Laureline stories never allow message to overshadow fun and wonder and On the False Earths is one of the sharpest, most intriguing sagas Méziéres & Christin ever concocted, complete with a superb twist in the tale to delight and confound even the most experienced starfarer.

© Dargaud Paris, 1977 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2014 Cinebook Ltd.

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Set to Sea


By Drew Weing (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-771-0

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Alluring, Tantalising and totally Satisfying… 9/10

Graphic novels have been around long enough now that certain subdivisions have developed.

Many are superhero sagas stuffed with visual Sturm & Drang, others canny crime capers, haunting horror stories or quirky comedies. Age targeting and other demographics apply too, with some books intended for mature readers whilst others are designed to appeal mostly to youngsters.

Happily there are still those others which defy simple categorisation: the heartfelt results of earnest, talented creators letting themselves go where their unfettered imaginative minds take them. Sometimes they’re simply a good strong tale, beautifully told and universally appealing.

Such a craftsman is Drew Weing, who currently delights with his web-comic The Creepy Files of Margo Maloo, but first came to notice with a subversively mesmerising tale of maritime fortitude in 2010.

Now that sublime and out-of-print yarn is back as a deliciously handy, pocket-sized softcover reissue that will – if there’s any justice – finally make him a household name amongst lovers of tall tales and comic treasures.

This beguiling, irresistibly stirring salty saga follows an indigent poet and aspiring barfly with a taste for maritime verse whose lack of true inspiration is dramatically cured when he is press-ganged aboard a Hong-Kong Clipper and forcibly learns the true life of a globe-girdling mariner.

Initially resistant to a life afloat, a terrifying brush with death and battle against rapacious pirates opens the poet’s eye and forces him to accept the only life he could ever truly enjoy.

As the years and a myriad of exotically different lands pass by he even manages, whilst traversing the world for joyous, raucous decades, to satisfy his artistic leanings into the bargain and finally discover where his heart truly lies…

Magically circular in structure and beautifully drawn in a worshipful blend of Elzie Segar, traditional woodcut prints and, I suspect, a touch of Jeff Smith’s Bone and Tony Millionaire’ wonderful confections (see Drinky Crow’s Maakies Treasury) this superbly rough ‘n’ tumble monochrome epic collects the impressive original online comic into a salty, panel-per-page paean to the value of true experience over romantic fantasy, and even manages to be a telling examination of the role of the arts in life.

A true graphic odyssey which any lover of a dream-life must see, this eternally fresh yet solid entertainment is a genuine “must read”.

Captain’s Orders…
© 2014 Drew Weing. All rights reserved.

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Magneto: Infamous


By Cullen Bunn, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Javier Fernandez & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-618-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Solid, Mature Superhero Storytelling… 8/10

Cover-dated September 1963, X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott “Slim” Summers (Cyclops), ebullient Bobby Drake AKA Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III – codenamed Angel – and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy as The Beast.

These teens were very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and achieving integration between the sprawling masses of humanity and Homo Superior: an emergent off-shoot race of mutants with incredible extra abilities.

That first issue also introduced their murderous and utterly evil arch nemesis Magneto: a terrifying and supremely powerful radical menace determined to seize the world for mutantkind and enslave or destroy humanity. The master of magnetism quickly became one of the early Marvel Universe’s A-List villains.

Over the years, however, a wealth of transformations, introspective investigations and personal re-evaluations turned the monster into a too-often misunderstood freedom fighter for his own kind and increasingly an ally of the ever-evolving X-Men.

Then, during the cataclysmic events of Avengers versus X-Men, staunch and steadfast Cyclops – transformed and possessed by the overwhelming Phoenix Force – killed his beloved father-figure Xavier and in the devastating aftermath united with former comrade Magik and occasional enemies Emma Frost and Magneto in a hard-line alliance devoted to preserving mutant lives at all costs: even, if necessary, by sacrificing human ones.

This new attitude appalled many of their former associates and created a schism in the ranks of Xavier’s many protégés.

The quartet instituted their own training academy – The New Charles Xavier School – and began drilling a new generation of mutants in the tactics of survival in a covert college dedicated to training mutants to fight and survive rather than placidly wait for mankind to turn on them.

The tutors, whose powers had all been radically curtailed in the battle against the Phoenix, also began a public campaign to win a place in the world for mutants, operated under the guise of terrorist group The Extinction Team.

Throughout his time with the group the war-weary elder continued to pay a deep game and, as this volume (collecting issues #1-6 of Magneto volume 3, March-July 2014) commences, he has left them and returned to old ways and his primary purpose…

Written by Cullen Bunn and grittily illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez Walta and Javier Fernandez, the tripwire-taut suspense begins in Missouri as witnesses describe a baroque and grotesque execution carried out by a man who could manipulate metal and who accused his victim of “crimes against evolution and genetic genocide”…

Magneto has used many names since his powers first manifested in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII, but now, with his once planet-wrecking potentialities reduced to merely moving around objects no heavier than a man could lift with flesh, bone and muscle, his priorities have changed. Now he is a creature of terror again, dealing final judgement to those who would eradicate mutants like some stain or mistake of nature…

Subject of a global manhunt by S.H.IE.L.D. – and lesser law-enforcement agencies – Magneto is restlessly travelling from region to region acting as a Homo Superior Punisher, protecting and avenging his people when human authorities can’t or won’t.

Now his travels have brought him to Mountain Air, California where a guilt-stricken vagrant has turned himself in after murdering three mutants. The magnetic menace is not prepared to leave such a killer to indifferent human justice…

However when he blasts into the Courthouse to administer his sentence the helpless, terrified indigent suddenly morphs into an Omega Sentinel and attacks him.

Quickly dispatching the cyborg mutant-hunter, the magnetic avenger is horrified to realise that the scared and totally bewildered human had no idea of the mechanical monster lurking within…

Whilst S.H.I.E.L.D Special Agents Rodriguez and Haines dog his heels, the master of magnetism backtracks the vagrant’s trail to a huge shanty-town where hundreds of dispossessed families cluster together, economic victims eking out a communal existence until they can break back into the society that abandoned them.

Welcomed as just another victim/loser to the spartan community of Down Acres, the punisher discovers that the tent city provokes long-buried memories of the Nazi-controlled Warsaw ghetto little Max Eisenhardt grew up in. The aged undercover vigilante realises that the same type of unfeeling monsters are at work here; kidnapping unwitting humans for raw materials and rebuilding them as stealth sentinels to hunt down mutants.

When the pressgang turns up to take more human fodder, Magneto is waiting…

By the time Haines and Rodriguez arrive, he is gone, following the Sentinel makers’ trail to a factory facility he will not allow to exist for one moment longer. However with his might so severely curtailed, the death and destruction he envisages has to be carried out at close quarters and preferably face-to-face…

His gory task concluded, Magneto travels to the Adirondack Mountains to destroy a secret base where religious fundamentalist sect The Purifiers experiment on mutant children before turning his angry attention to the constantly re-cloned mutant team known as The Marauders…

Human Briar Raleigh had been stalking Magneto for years. A survivor of one of his earlier rampages, the enigmatic manipulator offers her services to him as a skilled information-gatherer, providing data on the latest incarnation of Marauders for her own unspecified reasons.

The Marauders are all mutants, servants of genetic zealot Mr. Sinister, tasked with eradicating the crazed biologist’s failed experiments and anybody he considers a threat or valueless. The number of their own people they have callously slaughtered is incalculable and Magneto dearly wants to find these too-long unchecked race-traitors.

Entering into a cautious alliance with Briar, Magneto meticulously and permanently deals with Scalphunter, Prism, Scrambler, Arclight, Harpoon, Riptide and Blockbuster but simply executing the oft-cloned killers is not his ultimate goal. By finding where the next generation are maturing and deftly reprogramming them, the mutant avenger expects to add to his own growing arsenal of resources…

To Be Continued…

Non-stop visceral action, shocking suspense and a roaring sense of social injustice underpin this excessively grim and noir-tinted saga, exploring a savage genetic realpolitik that will astound and engage readers from bleak start to explosive finish.

This compulsive read also includes a gallery of covers and variants by Paolo Rivera, Chris Samnee & Matthew Wilson, Declan Shalvey & Jordie Bellaire, John Cassaday, Michael Del Mundo, Gurihiru Studios, Skott Young, Jerome Opena, Mark Brooks and Stephanie Hans plus added extras provided by AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.
™ & © 2014 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

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I’d Love to Draw!


By Andrew Loomis (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-920-9

Win’s Christmas Recommendation: a superb, old-school introduction to peace and recreation… 9/10

There are 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 far more intended to foster and further the apparently innate and universal desire to simply make art and make it proficiently and well. There are however, precious few that do it with as much style, enthusiasm, delight and cunning craft as this latest re-release by one of the most influential and meritorious masters of illustration America ever produced.

William Andrew Loomis was born in Syracuse, New York in 1892. He grew up in Zanesville, Ohio during the period when almost all published illustration was crafted by talented hands rather than mechanical contrivances like cameras.

Aged 19, he moved back to New York to study under George Bridgman and Frank DuMond at the Art Students League before enlisting to fight in The Great War.

On returning to America Loomis studied at the Art Institute of Chicago whilst setting up his own agency as a jobbing illustrator. Successful from the start, he began supplementing his income during the 1930s by teaching at the American Academy of Art and eventually started compiling his lecture and class material into such popular and effective instructional tomes as Fun With a Pencil and Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth.

His many beautiful and inspirational books influenced generations of artists before eventually slipping out of print, but in recent years Titan Books have been gradually resurrecting them.

This latest tome (with an Introduction and a lavishly informative commentary by comics legend and grateful fan Alex Ross) continues the master’s good works in an epic-scaled (315 x 235mm) luxuriously sturdy monochrome hardback which is a treasure to behold. Even when demonstrating the simplest stance or construction shape, Loomis’ utter joy in putting lines or shapes or shades on paper shines through…

This deeply idiosyncratic, wonderfully expansive and copiously illustrated collection begins with ‘Getting Started’: explaining the theory of ‘Basic Forms’ whilst offering page after page of illuminating examples before carefully and enthusiastically getting to grips with the thorny discipline of ‘Perspective’ in all its daunting forms.

The third pillar of artistic accomplishment is tackled head-on in ‘Light’ with a plethora of examples and exercises explaining all the necessities and useful tricks before the comfortable crash-course gravitates to Part Two and ‘Getting the Fun Out of It!’

Here the first port of call is perfecting ‘The Head’ which incorporates basic construction, carriage, positions and techniques before moving on to caricature and portraiture, after which ‘The Figure’ meticulously traces body form and development from stick-skeletons and sketch layouts to varieties of rendering, fast action visual notation, The Nude and the fundamentals of full illustration.

The foundation course concludes with the third and most important part: ‘The Fun of Sketching’: opening with an effusive overview of the practice of ‘Sketching’ incorporating Line and Form Combined, Exaggeration to Project Character, Solid or Tonal Caricature, Portrait Sketching and much, much more.

Everything ends in an enthralling and enthusiastic ‘Closing Chat’ from the great man encouraging everyone to pick up a pencil and get on with it…

Loomis died in 1959 with one last art manual – Eye of the Painter & Elements of Beauty – published posthumously, yet his professional artistic philosophy, folksy wit and great personal charm still shine throughout this book. His gentle yet thorough instruction of the eternal unchanging verities of visual creation still makes the rewarding act of drawing not only achievable but desirable for everyone.

Perhaps this splendid volume is aimed more squarely at the progressing cartoonist, rather than at utter neophytes, and provides as much a philosophy of creativity as strict instruction, but I’d Love to Draw! will well serve any budding artists and storytellers whilst keeping idle hands and minds amused, absorbed and entertained for hours. If you already have the urge to make pictures but want a little encouragement, this marvellous manual will offer a steadying hand and all the support you could dream of.

© Andrew Loomis, The Estate of Andrew Loomis 2014. All rights reserved.

Introduction and additional text © Alex Ross 2014.