Category: Older kids

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Wake Up, Percy Gloom


By Cathy Malkasian (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-638-6

There are a lot of graphic novels out there these days, and even the most in-tune fan or dedicated aficionado just can’t read everything new being published – and that’s not even counting the historical wealth of already published material that’s been released since the dawn of trade paperbacks and comics albums at the end of the 1970s.

A perfect case in point is Percy Gloom by Cathy Malkasian which was released in 2007 and which I completely missed. However, as soon as I read my review copy of the sequel Wake Up, Percy Gloom – the subject of today’s rave review – I realised what an utter joy I had missed and determined to track a copy down.

Whilst that’s happening however, let’s look at one of the best comics fantasy books I’ve read in all my many years…

Someplace, sometime far stranger than here or now, an innocuous little man who loved helping people lost his wife and left his ordered, simple life.

Actually it wasn’t that simple: although Percy is meek and gentle and desperately keen to help everybody, his lazy-eye and enormous head – which lights up when he’s happy – often creates false impressions amongst people who are at best rude and often just plain mean.

He’s also had some rather distressing news recently.

His Mum revealed to him that he is, like her, immortal but prone to naps which can take anything from months to decades. It’s why everything always seems so different every time he wakes up in the “morning”…

After his last kip he found true affection with Margaret, whom he met at his new job in a failing company…

Now we find them enjoying a sailboat ride as she searches for her long-lost twin. Percy has never been happier. As they reach a new land however Margaret realises her search is nearly over and, as she realises her growing affection for Percy, her extremely contented companion begins to feel very sleepy…

Percy’s mum is even more unique than her son. She has been alive for millennia and spends her maternal days shepherding humanity; devising devices and inventing awesome, clever things, such as the barrel which always collected her slumbering son wherever he’s dropped off and safely storing him until he awakes again.

Unfortunately one of her previous diversions – a joke-book – has become, over the last five centuries, the World’s Holy Book: an unshakable, adamant and infallible guide to living and the eternal Rewards Beyond, utterly believed as gospel by the short-lived, unquestioning and remarkably po-faced people.

Sadly the gag most misunderstood by the ardent the worshippers was the 29th Prophecy which said that after 182,515 days – just after tea-time – Voatzle would drop from the sky and land on The Good and The Lucky. By every cleric’s calculations that’s tomorrow afternoon…

Appalled at the people’s literal-mindedness, Mum has been busily building the Paradise the self-deluded worshippers are expecting and – now that she’s almost finished – is delighted to learn that Percy is waking up. Dispatching his barrel to a location that will appear familiar to her drowsy boy, Mum then pops off to meet her current beau Horace – a quiet and contemplative grandfather and extremely ingenious gardener/topiarist who knows her as dear old Clara…

Whilst ensuring Percy’s safe awakening, Clara reveals her true nature to Horace and discloses the cheese-based disguise secrets which have enabled her to maintain the imposture of aging, blithely unaware that there has been a little hitch…

When Percy succumbed to slumber he was with his adored Margaret but now, as he languorously comes to on a lovely moonlit night, he has no idea that only a year has passed. The counting device in his barrel has malfunctioned and one year has become 200…

Still groggy and heartbroken that his Margaret has long gone, Percy sets off across this odd land to find his mum; once again an innocuous, naively innocent wanderer in a very bizarre place and time. He has no idea that it’s only this odd because the all those true believers are excited that Voatzle is finally coming and are absorbed in performing their final rites and rituals…

As he progresses Percy meets and takes charge of the brusquely tragic Mr. Tetzel who accidentally locked himself out of his very small country and now must travel right around the world in a straight line to get back to the front door again. Not far away the morose Margaret has been deeply heartened by finally rendezvousing with sister Lily, who in turn will introduce her to Percy’s extended family too…

You meet a lot of people and make many friends if you live forever – including, it would seem, other immortals – and as Mum introduces Horace to her own affably eternal inner circle – and the talking goats – Percy’s peregrinations have also resulted in a few shocks.

Although a native, the closeted Mr. Tetzel is an even stranger Stranger in a StrangeLand and his shocking manners require all Percy’s tact and forbearance to keep them from harm. Despite his selfish and cavalier attitude, the brusque banished martinet is all too human and secretly endures his own tragically lost love. However that small glimpse of common humanity is quickly quashed when a committee of Voatzle priests and prelates mistake the obnoxious official for the Dimpled Ambassador – Last Prophet of Voatzle. Moreover the deluded Tetzel believes it too…

Happily though, that clash with the inevitably outraged Holy zealots gives Percy his first clue of exactly how little time has actually passed and puts him on the path to a gloriously reunion with his much-missed Margaret…

Cathy Malkasian is another brilliant (and multi-award winning) animator who has seamlessly segued into graphic narrative and turned the medium on its head. You’ll have seen her screen work as designer, storyboarder and/or director on such features as Curious George, The Wild Thornberrys Movie, As Told by Ginger, Psyko Ferret, Stressed Eric, Rugrats, Jumanji, Duckman and elsewhere. Perhaps you’ve seen her aforementioned Percy Gloom debut or Temperance graphic novels. She is currently occupied creating the animatic series Hiding in Happytown on YouTube.

Her latest surreal and intoxicatingly-rendered fable manages the almost impossible trick of being simultaneously sad and eerie, funny and thrilling, astonishingly mature and ingenuously innocent and childlike, resulting in a brilliant, enthralling, evocative and wryly uplifting fable of loss and reunion in a fantastical realm as overwhelmingly convincing and real as Oz, Narnia or Alice’s Looking Glass Land.

If you crave the acme of comics storytelling, you must read this fabulous yarn.

© 2013 Cathy Malkasian. All rights reserved.

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Battling Boy

(Uncorrected Proof Copy)

By Paul Pope (First Second)
ISBN: 978-1-59643-145-4

Paul Pope is undoubtedly one of the most creative and visually engaging creators working in comics these days. Since his debut in 1993 he has stunningly combined elements of European and Japanese styles with classical American themes to produce tales of science fiction, fantasy, crime, comedy, romance, adventure and even superheroics, generally for mature audiences.

If you’re not a fan yet, check out Sin Titulo, Batman: Year 100, Heavy Liquid, 100%, One Trick Ripoff and more…

This latest venture, however, is aimed a general readership – Hey, Kids, This Means You! – and introduces a world very similar to our own but with one big, big difference…

Arcopolis City would be the perfect place to bring up kids but for one thing. Ghastly devils roam at night, stealing children. Even the days are increasingly fraught as a seemingly endless procession of monstrous beasts incessantly carves a swathe of mindless destruction through the bright, breezy thoroughfares…

Of course the valiant sentinels of the Fighting 145th do their very best to contain the daily onslaughts, but it is to jet-packed, ray-gun-wielding science hero Haggard West that the harried citizens look to end the crisis. Those heartfelt hopes are cruelly dashed, however, when hooded horror Sadisto lays a crafty trap and blasts the magnificent rocket-man out of the sky…

His daughter and apprentice Aurora is shattered as she watches her dad vanish in a blast of blazing plasma…

Entire universes away, a shining citadel of warrior deities celebrates a very special event as the greatest pantheon of dutiful cosmic champions in the universe revels in the brief return of their mightiest hero. The stormy saviour of many worlds is back to see his son, who has reached a very special age…

The Boy is not ready for his Turning Day. Even if every child born here is invariably sent into the cosmos on their 13th birthday to save some lesser race from imminent peril on the venerable quest known as “a Ramble”, he knows he isn’t strong enough yet. After all, many of his childhood comrades have never returned…

As usual, though, his puissant father knows best and the anxious lad (armed with a very special cloak, battle grieves, the Encyclopedia Monstrosity, keys to an apartment, a map, a magic credit card and a dozen totem tee-shirts) is booted out of the veritable Valhalla of the Starry Lofts and dumped on a mountaintop overlooking a seemingly continent-sized city …just as a homogonous Humbaba rampages through Arcopolis eating cars and crushing tanks…

Before hurtling off to another appointment with destiny, the lad’s proud father casually reminds his spooked scion that if his “Battling Boy” cannot end the plague of monsters on this world, humanity is finished here…

Even as Aurora West begins to unlock the secrets of her father’s legacy and keenly embrace her own dreamed of destiny, the reluctant young demi-god makes his way to the epicentre of chaos and engages the ferocious furious Humbaba.

Things do not go according to plan…

Wry, spectacular and astonishingly engaging, this is a supremely entertaining, beautifully rendered yarn with plenty of fast-paced action, judicious suspense, likable heroes and a gloriously arch villain in the Machiavellian Sadisto, whose subtle scams and unlikely alliances stretch far beyond this blockbusting premiere epic.

This is an ideal comic book for older kids, and reads even better if you’re their adult keeper or guardian. Don’t miss out on the start of something very special…
© 2013 by Paul Pope. All rights reserved.

Battling Boy will be published on October 8th 2013.

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Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Magic Within Book 1


By Tania del Rio & Jim Amash (Archie Comics Publications)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-39-6

Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch debuted in Archie’s Madhouse #22 (October 1962), created by George Gladir & Dan de Carlo as a throwaway character in the gag anthology which was simply one more venue for comics’ undisputed kings of kids comedy. She instantly proved popular enough to become a regular in the burgeoning cast surrounding the core stars Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and Jughead Jones.

By 1969 the comely enchantress had grown popular enough to win her own animated Filmation TV series (just like Archie and Josie and the Pussycats) and graduated to a lead feature in Archie’s TV Laugh Out before in 1971 finally winning her own title.

The first volume ran 77 issues from 1971 to 1983 and, when a hugely successful live action TV series launched in 1996, an adapted comicbook iteration followed in 1997. That version folded in 1999 after a further 32 issues.

Volume 3 – simple titled Sabrina – was based on new TV show Sabrina the Animated Series. This ran from 2000 to 2002 for 37 issues before a back-to-basics reboot saw the comicbook revert to Sabrina the Teenage Witch with #38, carefully blending elements of all the previous print and TV versions. A creature of seemingly infinite variation and variety, the mystic maid continued in this vein until 2004 and #57 wherein, acting on the global popularity of Japanese comics, the company boldly switched format and transformed the series into a manga-style high school comedy-romance in the classic Shōjo manner.

Written and drawn by Tania del Rio and inked by Jim Amash, this canny supernatural soap ran until #100 in 2009. The series folded four issues later.

An incredibly successful experiment, the beginnings of the manga saga were collected in a trade paperback as Sabrina – the Magic Revisited and issues #58-67 were later added to Archie Comics’ online library as digital editions. Now with the release of this black-&-white digest sized US tankōbon edition, the concept comes full circle…

Collecting Sabrina the Teenage Witch #58-68 from 2004-2005, this vibrant slice of wild whimsy opens with ‘Entering the Magic Realm’ – a fond remembrance from del Rio – and a handy character guide before issue/chapter 1 introduces us to a different kind of Winsome Witch in ‘Spellfreeze’…

Sabrina is just a typical Greendale High School girl. She lives with her Aunts Hilda and Zelda Spellman, has a pet cat Salem and barely conceals a crush on childhood pal Harvey Kinkle. The cute but clueless boy reciprocates the affection but is far too scared to rock the boat by acting on his desires.

Sabrina is also an atypical witch: living in the mortal world and passing herself off as normal. To make up for this peccadillo she has to attend Charm-School in the “Other Realm” to learn all about her heritage, powers and especially the rules of magic/mortal interaction.

Her life takes a complicated turn when a cute new boy enrols at Greendale. Shinji Yamagi is gorgeous and instantly popular – but he’s also a young warlock from Sabrina’s class at her other school. He’s on Earth to clandestinely study for a Charm-School project but soon finds it hard to keep his gifts secret.

Moreover he’s soon turning Sabrina’s head and she can’t decide which boy she likes best…

Complicating the mess is mortal Amy Reinhardt – a spiteful rival for Harvey’s affections who will do anything to upset Sabrina and sharp enough to instantly realise that she can use Shinji to further her ambitions…

Shinji is having real problems not using his magic to ease the tedious drudgery of mortal life and is soon openly flouting the rules just to make himself popular. Knowing that eventually somebody will realise he’s not simply performing tricks – and perhaps just a little jealous – Sabrina determines to stop him…

Salem is not just an ordinary cat; long ago he was Salem Saberhagen: the most powerful warlock of all. After trying to conquer the world he was imprisoned in a cat’s body where he could do no magic, but he can still talk and his rehabilitation is very grudging. He doesn’t need much urging to guide Sabrina to the Magic Realm where she can obtain a spell to neutralise Shinji’s powers.

It’s quite complex though, and the junior conjuress gets it badly wrong. Rather than freezing the warlock’s magic the spell turns Shinji’s body to ice.

Horrified at her mistake Sabrina confesses all to her Aunts and learns that only a kiss can turn him back to normal, but she’s slowly becoming aware that for all his arrogant faults, she really, really likes Shinji and doesn’t fully trust herself…

Chapter 2 has a sporting theme as Sabrina tries to get Harvey to make his move. Although a star of the basketball squad, the wishy-washy boy is badly fumbling the school tradition of bestowing a team ribbon upon the girl of one’s dreams.

Sabrina is cruelly teased by Amy who tells her Harvey has already offered her his silken favour in ‘Blue Ribbon Blues’ and the distraction cannot come at a worse time. There’s a big test coming up in Charm-School – it’s the time when students have to make their first flying broomstick – and a bad result could affect her whole life…

Unbeknownst to her Shinji too is feeling the power of attraction. In ‘Councils and Concerts’, Aunt Hilda is lobbying to be elected to the ruling Council of the Magic Realm and needs no embarrassing distractions, but that hope is doomed after Sabrina is summonsed by the fearsome Galiena, Czarina of Decree to explain her recent rule-breaking and magical abuse of the adults-only spellfreeze incantation, not to mention riding a broom without a license…

As the depressed teen talks things over with best friend and eldritch classmate Llandra da Silva, Shinji appears and asks her on a date to see the hip, magic band Oberon. The wayward warlock has had plenty of run-ins with the Council though, and advises her just to ignore them, even as Llandra warns him not to come between her BFF and poor mortal Harvey…

After the gig, Shinji tries to get Sabrina to join him in another illegal broom flight and they have a blazing row before he ditches her. Humiliated and furious, all she can do is call the aunt she has again let down…

A Halloween party is the setting for ‘The Magic Within’ as troubled Goth girl Gwenevive Ricci arrives in Greendale, a mortal who can somehow make real magic. The brittle human is rather hard to like, but when Salem investigates he finds the secret of Gwenevive’s powers to be a rival someone he’d thought long gone and the soiree turns into a deadly supernatural battle.

More by luck than skill Sabrina saves the world and vindicates herself with the Council, but they might not be so mellow if they realised she had accidentally allowed Gwen to learn her secret…

‘Winter Wallflower’ deals with some of the potential repercussions as witchly wannabe Gwen pumps Sabrina for more information, blithely uncaring that she risks having her mind wiped by the Council. However rebellious Sabrina faces even greater challenges when she finds herself dateless for a school dance. Good old dependable Harvey has asked a cute freshman to the affair, and when Sabrina goes looking for Shinji she sees him in a passionate embrace with Llandra…

This chapter is complimented by a one-page gag strip starring Salem who abuses a present in ‘House Cat!’ before the Sabrina/Harvey/Shinji romantic triangle is dramatically resolved in ‘Cabin Fever’ wherein the kids and Llandra dash off for a winter break in a log cabin (with Aunt Zelda along as reluctant chaperone). However when the boys drive off for provisions they are caught in a killer ice storm and trapped on a mountain.

Soon their seething rivalry for Sabrina causes a confrontation, but after Harvey saves Shinji from death the chastened young magician determines to help Harvey win the girl of his dreams – even if neither of them is sure that’s what he wants…

After another Salem single ‘Here’s Looking at You’, Harvey’s indecisiveness resurfaces during Valentine’s Day. Despite the warlock boy’s every effort, his new mortal pal just cannot summon up the courage to ask Sabrina out. Moreover the frustrated teen Witch knows something’s amiss and has been having nightmares waiting for Harvey to make his move.

Unfortunately Sabrina talks – and enchants – in her sleep and wakes up on February 14th with the power to see ‘Love Connections’ between people and even animals. The teen witch spends the day acting as an unofficial Cupid, bringing together people who don’t realise how close their one true loves actually are, before – unable to handle Harvey’s paralysis – she just gives up and makes the first move herself.

Watching from concealment Shinji is delighted that at last they are together – and cannot understand why his own heart is breaking…

‘Caught on Tape’ deals with another kind of crisis just as Sabrina is finally together with Harvey. Hilda has been elected to the Council as Czarina of Meditation and the entire family has to move to the Magic Realm. The boy is still unaware of her true nature and now she may never see him again…

However when evidence is found of mortal poachers in the Magic Realm, Sabrina’s knowledge of the mundane world enables them to track down unscrupulous crypto-zoologist Atticus Rex and free the fantastic beast he thought would make him a TV sensation.

Realising that they increasingly need contact with Earth, the Council relents and stations Hilda permanently in the human Realm, but even after having his memories wiped the Spellmans have not seen the last of Atticus…

When Shinji’s mortal, toymaker uncle arrives from Japan and sees Sabrina’s cat he copies the creature’s unique appearance and spawns global ‘Salem Mania’. With the cat now on backpacks, apparel, toys, jewellery and every other form of merchandise as the ignominious ‘Mr. Kitty Litter’, the furious former arch-mage alternately plans revenge and how to cash in, with Sabrina otherwise occupied and unable to stop or help him.

Her attention has been diverted by an impossible dilemma: now that she has Harvey, why is she so jealous that Llandra is with Shinji?

This beguiling first collection concludes with a crossover of sorts when Shinji is “discovered” by a fashion agency and briefly becomes a male model. With Sabrina becoming increasingly disenchanted with Harvey, the warlock suddenly goes slow with Llandra and is romantically linked to pop sensations Josie and the Pussycats, but his meteoric career comes to a sudden halt when his bosses demand to see a little too much skin…

Enticing, funny and genuinely enthralling, this witty, fresh take on a classic American icon will delight most fans and readers. With actual human interaction rather than manufactured atom-powered fistfights to hold your attention, it offers women in particular a solid entertaining reason to give comics one more try. Sheer exuberant fun; perfectly crafted and utterly irresistible.
© 2013 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Usagi Yojimbo Book 3: The Wanderer’s Road


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-009-5

Usagi Yojimbo (literally “rabbit bodyguard”) premiered as a lowly background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, (Albedo Anthropomorphics #1, 1984), subsequently appearing there on his own terms as well as in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up in Grimjack.

Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family emigrated to Hawaii in 1955. He attended the University of Hawaii, graduating with a BA in Fine Arts, and pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design after landing in California.

His early forays into comics were as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer, before his nimble pens and brushes, coupled with a love of Japanese history and legend and hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, all combined to turn a proposed story about a human historical hero into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

The deliriously peripatetic and expansive period epic is nominally set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) and specifically references the Edo Period of Feudal Japan: the early 17th century of our reckoning.

It simultaneously samples classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi and even Godzilla whilst specifically recounting the life of Miyamoto Usagi, a Ronin or masterless wandering Samurai, eking out an honourable living as a Yojimbo or bodyguard-for-hire.

As such, his fate is to be drawn constantly into a plethora of incredible situations.

And yes, he’s a rabbit – a brave, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic long-suffering, conscientious and heroic everyman bunny who just can’t turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice…

This torrid third monochrome tome features takes which originally appeared in Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo volume 1, #7-12. Also included is a delightful short story from Mirage Studios’ Turtle Soup anthology from 1989.

The drama begins after an illuminating Introduction from fantasy novelist and occasional comics scribe Robert Asprin and offers a wealth of comedic episodes, supernatural adventure vignettes and other revelatory yarns to delight, astound and especially enchant, as author Sakai seamlessly plants hints and lays out threads that will in the fullness of time blossom and bloom into the elements of a 25-year-long epic…

First up is a salutary fable wherein the kind-hearted Ronin tries to rescue a trapped Tokagé lizard (ubiquitous, omnivorous reptiles that populate this anthropomorphic world, replacing scavenger species like rats, cats and dogs in the fictitious ecosystem) and earns the pitiless enmity of a local innkeeper.

Trapped atop a high, rickety watch platform with little food and snowstorms coming, “Spot” and Usagi’s problems are far from few but when the despicable bully gets bored and tries to chop down ‘The Tower’, fate smiles on the warrior and punishes the merchant…

With faithful Spot now sharing his wanderings, Usagi learns the power of ‘A Mother’s Love’ when he befriends an old woman and becomes embroiled in her quest to free a village of the ruthless depredations of her own beloved son, after which the rabbit again crosses paths – and swords – with affable yet ruthless Ino in ‘Return of the Blind Swordspig’ – a blood-spilling porcine outlaw whose incredible olfactory sense more than compensates for his useless eyes…

When the killer is saved from a bounty-hunter ambush by Spot, he forms an instant attachment to the lizard, but Ino’s obsessive hatred of Usagi can only lead to a blistering clash and heartbreak for one of the puissant sword masters…

The tone becomes supernaturally dark and bleak in ‘Blade of the Gods’ as the lonely Yojimbo meets a veritable devil in the sinister form of Jei, a roving unbeatable slaughterer who believes the Lords of Heaven have singled him out to kill the wicked on their behalf.

Of course only he decides who is or isn’t evil, and when he sets his soulless eyes on the Rabbit Ronin their incredible battle is ultimately decided by an incredible, baffling act of god…

Sakai’s stories were growing in depth and quality with every issue, and with ‘The Tea Cup’ the creator began to fully expand his milieu, making Japanese history and culture a compulsively authentic component of proceedings. Masked as an homage to Groo the Wanderer, this sparkling yarn saw Usagi and occasional foil money-mad bounty-hunter Gennosuké reunite to deliver a priceless and ultra-fragile porcelain cup to a Tea Master, with hired thugs from a rival potter trying to destroy it and them every inch of the way. As usual Gen was playing his own bewildering game of bluff and double bluff, and once again Usagi was left annoyed, exhausted and out of pocket…

The regularly scheduled wonderment concludes with the masterfully complex comedy thriller ‘The Shogun’s Gift’ as the rabbit again meets the beautiful bodyguard Tomoe Ame.

The devoted swordswoman is hunting for a ninja who stole the priceless Muramasa blade from the castle of her young Lord Noriyuki, new and still tenuous leader of the prestigious Geishu Clan. The sword is intended as a gift for the Shogun and its loss will cause an inexcusable and potentially fatal loss of face…

Suspecting the machinations of the insidious schemer Hikiji, Tomoe has begun frantically hunting the thief but fortune has already placed the culprit within the crafty clutches of the wily Usagi who solves the problem with hilarious guile and wit before tidying up the loose ends with his swords…

Also included here is the first of many wonderful cross-company alliances as ‘Turtle Soup and Rabbit Stew’ as Leonardo of Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fell through a wrinkle in space-time and found himself battling a horde of outlaw samurai before mistakenly getting into a duel of honour with a certain Rabbit Ronin…

Don’t fret folks: things ended inconclusively enough for at least two sequels (to be seen in later volumes…)

Usagi Yojimbo has changed publishers a few times but has been in continuous publication since 1987 with dozens of graphic novel collections and books to date. He has guest-starred in many other series (such as the aforementioned Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even almost made it into his own small-screen show – but there’s still time yet, and fashions can revive as quickly as they die out. With high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi series and lots of toys to promote popularity, Sakai and his creation have deservedly won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, funny and scary, always moving, ferociously thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a cartoon masterpiece of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of “funny animal” stories and comics.

Why aren’t you a fan yet?
Text and illustrations © 1987, 1989 Stan Sakai. Usagi Yojimbo is ™ Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1989, 2005 Fantagraphics books. Leonardo and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are ™ Mirage Studios and used with permission. All rights reserved.

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Will & Whit


By Laura Lee Gulledge (Amulet Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0546-5

We’re well into the 21st century now (with no foreseeable chance of ever getting back to sensible proper times) and yet there still aren’t enough good comics for girls.

Yes, they’ve pretty much sewed up the prose-reading marketplace, but within the realms of pictorial sequential narrative the stories are still all pretty much geared up for adolescent males (for which assume any boy from 11 to 108) with material devised to puff up chests, pump up adrenaline and set testosterone a-bubbling.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying females don’t enjoy Sturm, Drang, angst, mindless fighting and overblown physical carnage, only that they can appreciate other aspects of storytelling too. Oranges are not the only projectile to leave a nasty bruise…

Happily, life is not always about battle, struggle, self-doubt, terror and glorious triumph, so it’s wonderful when creators like Laura Lee Gulledge come along to shine a different light into our shadowy ghetto.

Born in 1979, Gulledge is a multi-disciplinary artist who has worked in Education, Scenic Painting, event production and drama, and seamlessly broke into comics with her beguilingly intimate and aspirational visual testament Page by Paige in 2011.

Will & Whit also highlights her penetrating insight and absorbingly imaginative grasp of purely visual metaphor by relating the Rubicon-crossing moment of a young woman coming to terms with personal tragedy and inescapable adulthood, aided only by her own gifts and the truest of friends…

‘Sparks’ introduces 16-year old Wilhelmina “Will” Huckstep who lives with her free-spirited Aunt Elsie; helping run the small town a second-hand shop called Foxxden Antiques during the most eventful summer of their lives.

Artistic, contemplative and backward-looking, Will is introspective and traumatised by bad memories. She thinks of herself as a “passed-down sort of girl”, obsessed with old things and memories, deathly scared of the dark, making lamps as homespun therapy and casting the most interesting and scarily expressive shadows in the world.

Ella Foxx is worries about her ward. It’s just the two of them these days and Will has grown into a tense, insomniac borderline workaholic, even now in the laziest days of summer vacation.

However this year Will is finally going to escape from her Shadow…

It starts in ‘Bright Ideas’ as she visits her best friends Autumn and Noel in nearby Charlottesville. All Will’s pals are creative too. Autumn – daughter of two pushy Indian doctors – is a brilliant puppeteer whilst easy-going Noel is a cordon bleu chef.

It’s his cool little sister Reese‘s thirteenth birthday and they plan to make her a full member of the gang… if she’ll only put down her cellphone for five minutes.

After a lazy day on the river, Will idly wishes for more such days of old-fashioned “unplugged adventure”…

The first ominous news reports about Tropical Storm Whitley begin terrifying folks in ‘Shedding Light’ as Will minds the store and three obnoxious kids come in to check out the “junk shop”.

Snotty Ava, Blake and Desmond are putting on an Arts Carnival in an abandoned building and they’re looking for props, but the poseur tension dissipates after Desmond recognises “Willy-Nilly” as an old chum from Elementary School.

Soon the kids are leaving with loads of great stuff and Will has volunteered Autumn as a performer. Of course the diffident Asian-American girl is not keen but, after Blake ladles on the charm in ‘Foreshadowing’, Autumn’s head is turned and her lifelong silent crush on Noel utterly forgotten…

Des is keen on Will performing too, but she demurs. After all she just makes lamps…

As the storm finally hits in ‘Out Whitted’, Noel is starting to realise what his complacency and lack of boldness has cost him. Even though Ella is in her element making plans and simply coping, Will is concerned that the hurricane is going to cause a blackout, leaving her stuck in the terrifying, all-consuming dark …

All over the region friends and strangers are battening down the hatches and, determined to deal, she occupies herself making a lamp that will save her, but Will’s mind keeps going back to the crash that made her an orphan…

That rash dream of an unplugged life comes true in ‘Will Powered’ as, in the immediate aftermath of the storm, folks come to terms with the lack of electrical power. The kids organise a giant Blackout Bonfire party and cook-out where Noel shows off his culinary craft and bends Will’s ear about their love-struck BFF before forcing her to confront her fears and take control of her imagination.

However, when Ava organises games in the wood, the junior master chef stumbles over Blake and Autumn taking advantage of the cloak of night and realises how much worse than the unknown reality can be…

‘The Dark Side’ finds the phone-less Reese displaying astounding insight as her brother mopes, and her casual conversation with Will prompts the lamp-maker to make an artistic leap in the dark. Soon however Will is consoling Autumn, whose time with Blake ended almost as soon as it began.

Ava and Desmond need help too. With power gone they need someone innovative with light to help the show go on…

Everything comes together ingeniously and perfectly in ‘Shadowboxing’ and leads to a deliciously authentic but satisfying happy ending with all mysteries and conflicts resolved in ‘Illuminated’ and ‘Epilogue’…

Comics as a English-language medium has had many worthy stabs at producing material for the teen/young adult audience and especially that ever-elusive girl readership, ranging through translated manga material, targeted tales from DC’s Minx imprint and evergreen Archie Comics situation comedies, but the lasting hits have always come when creators ignore editorial and marketing demographics and simply concentrated on telling an honest, absorbing story.

That’s why Maus, Persepolis, Hereville and Castle Waiting worked and how Fables, The Tale of One Bad Rat and The Ballad of Halo Jones found an unexpected, devoted female following, and it’s also why this aspirational, incisive, moving, funny and satisfyingly human yarn should find a permanent place beside those celebrated classics.

Text and illustrations © 2013 Laura Lee Gulledge. All rights reserved.
Reviewed from an uncorrected proof copy. Will & Whit will be published on May 7th 2013.

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Usagi Yojimbo book 2: Samurai


By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-0-93019-338-1

Usagi Yojimbo (which translates as “rabbit bodyguard”) first appeared as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, which launched in furry ‘n’ fuzzy folk anthology Albedo Anthropomorphics #1 (1984), subsequently appearing there on his own terms as well as in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up in Grimjack.

Sakai was born in 1953 in Kyoto, Japan before the family emigrated to Hawaii in 1955. He attended the University of Hawaii, graduating with a BA in Fine Arts, and pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design after landing in California.

His early forays into comics were as a letterer, most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer, before his nimble pens and brushes, coupled with a love of Japanese history and legend and hearty interest in the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, all combined to turn a proposed story about a human historical hero into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can name…

The deliriously peripatetic and expansive period epic is nominally set in a world of sentient animals (with a few unobtrusive human characters scattered about) and specifically references the Edo Period of Feudal Japan: the early 17th century of our reckoning.

It simultaneously samples classic contemporary cultural icons from sources as varied as Lone Wolf and Cub, Zatoichi and even Godzilla whilst specifically recounting the life of Miyamoto Usagi, a Ronin or masterless wandering Samurai, eking out an honourable living as a Yojimbo or bodyguard-for-hire.

As such, his fate is to be drawn constantly into a plethora of incredible situations.

And yes, he’s a rabbit – a brave, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic long-suffering, conscientious and heroic everyman bunny who just can’t turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice…

This sublime second monochrome compilation (which originally appeared in Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo volume 1, #1-6, from 1989), begins with an effulgent Introduction from fellow legendary Groo-grifter Mark Evanier before the comedic adventure seamlessly transformed into epic drama, in an ambitious 9-chapter serial which solidly set the scene for decades to come.

‘Samurai!’ started with the Ronin again meeting money-mad bounty-hunter Gennosuké after a deadly duel of honour left a warrior named Gunichi a bloody corpse at the Yojimbo’s feet. Pressed by the newly-arrived and curious Gen, the moodily moved and uncharacteristically loquacious rabbit began sharing some of the events of his boyhood…

Once, Miyamoto Usagi was simply the son of a small-town magistrate, dispatched with his friend Kenichi to train at the prestigious DogoraFencingSchool in Sendai.

As the boys made their journey they encountered a lone, aged warrior beset by a pack of bullies from that self-same school, determined to prove their institution’s martial superiority. Despite all efforts to placate the hotheads old Katsuichi was eventually forced to reluctantly slay the toughs. The stunned witnesses began to bicker. Whilst Kenichi wanted to follow orders and go on to the – clearly honourless – DogoraSchool, little Usagi chose to seek out the old man and make him his Sensei…

The old man was finished with teaching but eventually saw something in the defiant, determined little rabbit and grudgingly accepted his exceptional young charge…

Usagi spent years learning the Way of Bushido from his stern, leonine master: not just superior technique and tactics, but also a philosophy of justice and restraint that would serve him all his life…

The revelations of Usagi’s boyhood training continue in short, revelatory vignettes as the elder Yojimbo and his surly companion continue towards shelter, highlighting the peculiar relationship of Sensei and Student. At the disciple’s first tournament the scurrilous, vengeful Dogora adherents plan to “accidentally” cripple the boy and thus humiliate his teacher, but don’t reckon on his innate ability.

After besting the entire FencingSchool contingent in duels with wooden swords – or Bokken – the boy at last faces his old friend Kenichi and triumphs.

His prize is a Wakizashi “Young Willow” and Katana “Willow Branch”. The short and long swords are the soul of a samurai, marking his graduation to martial maturity, but Usagi is blithely unaware of what his victory has cost his childhood companion…

Mere months later, the graduate warrior was challenged by a masterful, mysterious swordsman who was a bodyguard to the Great Lord MifunÄ—. Their duel was interrupted when a band of Dogora assassins attacked, determined to avenge their school’s humiliation by a single stick-wielding student. The cowards were no match for the steel of Usagi and the mighty Gunichi, and the victors parted as friends, with the bodyguard promising to recommend the rabbit for future service to his Lord.

Still assessing his options the young Samurai then encountered Kenichi once more. The disgraced youth had left the DogoraSchool and was trying to drink himself to death, but when he and Usagi heard that their home village was threatened by bandits the former friends reunited to save their loved ones…

By holding Usagi’s childhood love Mariko hostage, the brigands had successfully neutralised his magistrate father and were stripping the hamlet of all its provisions and meagre treasures when Usagi and Kenichi challenged them.

None of the villains survived the vengeance of the outraged villagers.

In the aftermath although Mariko clearly wanted Usagi to stay, she said nothing and the Samurai left to join Lord MifunÄ—’s service. Kenichi stayed…

The young warrior rose quickly as MifunÄ—’s vassal and was soon a trusted bodyguard, serving beside the indomitable Gunichi. It was a time of great unrest and war was brewing. In his third year of service the Lord’s castle was attacked by Neko Ninja assassins. Although the doughty warriors managed to save their master, his wife Kazumi and heir Tsuruichi were murdered. Realising ambitious rival Lord Hikiji was responsible, MifunÄ— declared war…

The struggle ended on the great Adachigahara plain when MifunÄ—’s general Todo switched sides and the Great Lord fell. At the crucial moment Gunichi also broke, fleeing to save his own skin and leaving the helpless Usagi to preserve the fallen Lord’s head – and Honour – from shameful desecration…

The story came full circle now, when after two years as a purposeless, masterless Ronin, the wandering Yojimbo met Gunichi again…

After that epic origin yarn, Sakai returned to short, pithy vignettes to cleanse the dramatic palate, beginning with a delicious traditional horror story. In ‘Kappa’ the wanderer encounters a deadly marsh troll at dusk and barely escapes with his life by offering the foul beast some wild cucumbers he has picked. Exhausted, the Ronin finds shelter with an old woman for the night, but when she hears of his adventure she becomes hysterical.

The cucumbers were planted so that her own son – returning that night – would have something to buy off the voracious Kappa…

Horrified by his inadvertent error, Usagi dashes back to the marsh to save the son, but even after overcoming the monster shockingly learns of one final sting in this tale…

Soaking a sore back in a hot spring the wanderer befriends a newly hatched tokagé lizard (ubiquitous, omnivorous reptiles that populate the anthropomorphic world, replacing scavenger species like rats, cats and dogs in the fictitious ecosystem), but is caught off guard and ambushed by bandits. Luckily the uniquely fire-breathing ‘Zylla’ comes to his assistance, prompting the wary warrior to wonder if the lizard might be a minor deity…

This second monochrome compilation concludes at the ‘Silk Fair’ where the wanderer saves a silk-worker from marauding bandits and stays to liberate all his oppressed fellows from a miserly merchant ruthlessly exploiting them…

The Lethal Lepus has changed publishers a few times but has been in continuous publication since 1987 – with over 29 graphic novel collections and books to date. He has also guest-starred in many other series (such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even almost made it into his own small-screen show but there’s still time yet and fashions can revive as quickly as they die out. There are high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi comics serial and lots of toys. Sakai and his creation have won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, funny, thrilling and simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is a monolithic magical saga of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of “funny animal” stories.

Sheer comicbook poetry by a Comicbook Sensei…

Text and illustrations © 1987, 1989, 2005 Stan Sakai. Book editions © 1989, 2002 Fantagraphics books. All rights reserved.

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The Dragon: Blood and Guts


By Jason Pearson & Karl Story & various (Image Comics)
ISBN: 1-887279-10-5

In the fan-led, gimmick-fed early 1990s a group of young, ambitious comics-creators suddenly realised that they had a proven popular profile and all the power in the dwindling American marketplace. So they formed a co-operative company dubbed Image Comics and produced a welter of titles and characters their way…

For a while the co-operative’s stripped-down, post-modern, deconstructed output held collectors, if not always readers, in a frenzy of mass-consumption, but eventually the bubble burst and much of the material – ranging from derivative to frankly appalling – disappeared.

There was, naturally, a backlash, but when the dust settled old gits like me, who loved strong stories as well as pretty pictures, took another peek and realised that many of the surviving titles actually had something worth looking at.

One of the best and most consistently engaging titles was The Savage Dragon by Erik Larsen: a creator who never clearly forgot that although death-drenched, multi-layered epics and the continual angsty beating of meaty male chests was fine, bombastic action, strong traditional storytelling and wry humour never pall…

The Dragon is a bulky green bruiser with a giant fin on his head who woke up in a burning Chicago field one night: super-strong, exceedingly durable and with no memory of who or what he really was.

With no visible means of support but essentially a moral man, he enlisted in the police force just as a wave of super-criminals and manic monsters started appearing to menace the troubled citizens of the Windy City…

The series is Image Comics’ Great Survivor; continuously published since the first miniseries hit comic shops in 1992 and still the longest running full-colour American comicbook produced by a single artist/writer. In 1995 the series was adapted as a TV cartoon show running for two seasons.

I really must get around to reviewing the series some day, but here however I’m choosing to focus on a fabulous fun-filled diversion by Larsen’s associate Jason Pearson, who scripted and pencilled this deliciously over-the-top 3-issue miniseries with the deft assistance of  inker Karl Story (& chums) as well as colourists Reuben Rude & Antonia Kohl and letterer Chris Eliopoulos.

At this time the marvellously down-to-earth Dragon had just lost his girlfriend Debbie – murdered by her crazy ex-boyfriend – and the Pistachio Powerhouse was determined to drink himself into oblivion, something his partner, occasional lover and regular, human hard-assed cop Alex Wilde was determined to prevent…

She got some unexpected help from the ever-unwelcome FBI when utterly obnoxious Agent Sheridan breezed into town demanding Chicago’s super-cop act as bodyguard to a crucial witness in a Federal case.

Alicia Cordova married the wrong guy. Not just because he’s a wife-beating criminal scumbag but because he’s also the super-powered top-ranking assassin dubbed “Grip”. Her testimony will put him away and expose the powerful clients he worked for… if she can get to the court alive. Moreover this time it’s not just her own health she’s got to consider…

Dragon just doesn’t care anymore and quits the force rather than work with an arrogant, manipulative creep like Sheridan, who exhibits some unusual tendencies of his own after shrugging off an extremely physical rebuke from the furious fin-head.

Meanwhile in a church, Grip and his gang of psychos are having fun, killing time – and the congregation – until their spy gets back from police headquarters…

After Dragon storms out Alex is determined to help. Maybe it’s because she went to school with Alicia, or maybe there’s something more going on. Dragon’s former boss Chief Wisenberg certainly thinks so…

Chapter two (with additional inking from Jason Martin, Aurora Chen, Cully Hamner, Brian Stelfreeze, Rick Mays & Drew Garaci) opens with a tense armoured-car ride already underway, carrying Wilde, Sheridan and three SWAT guys as well as the terrified Cordova to her final destination. Things start to go crazy when The Dragon busts in and commandeers the vehicle, forcing it to change routes.

He was almost in time…

Unfortunately Grip and his motorbike riding cronies are already trailing the van and their attack is sudden and devastating…

Despite being nigh-invulnerable Dragon can’t fully resist Grip’s death-touch and even though the brutal battle leaves the contract-killer with his eye shot out, the attacking assassins successfully make off with Alicia. In the body-bestrewn aftermath Sheridan is just too quick to close the case, though, making Wilde and the mint-green monolith wonder if some of those potentially exposed clients might include certain Governments…

Convinced Alicia is still alive and now certain who their real enemy is, the outraged cops go on one last blistering mission to take down the bad-guys and save the day whatever the cost…

Superbly synthesising and utilising all those much abused, old clichés of gritty cop/ mindless action movies, Pearson and crew have produced here a wonderfully sharp, no-nonsense, guns-a-blazing thriller made all the more realistic by the fact that the leading man actually is a bad-tempered, bulletproof gung-ho hero.

This is sheer visceral, cathartic fun that never takes itself seriously but goes all-out to blast you out of your seat with frantic, frenzied fun and beautifully rendered mayhem.
The Dragon & Alex Wilde © and ™ 1995 Erik Larson. All other characters © their respective creators or owners. All rights reserved.

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Doctor Who Graphic Novels volume 15: Nemesis of the Daleks


By Richard Starkings, John Tomlinson, John Freeman, Paul Cornell, Dan Abnett, Steve Moore, Lee Sullivan, John Ridgway, Steve Dillon, David Lloyd & many and various (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-531-4

The British love comic strips and they love celebrity and they love “Odd Characters.”

The history of our graphic narrative has a peculiarly disproportionate amount of radio comedians, stars of theatre, film and TV such as Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Askey, Winifred Atwell, Max Bygraves, Charlie Drake and their ilk, as well as actual shows and properties such as Whacko!, ITMA, Our Gang, (there was a British version of the Hal Roach film sensation by Dudley Watkins in Dandy as well as the American comicbook series by Walt Kelly), Old Mother Riley, Supercar, Pinky & Perky and literally hundreds more.

Anthology comics such as Radio Fun, Film Fun, TV Fun, Look-In, TV Tornado, TV Comic and Countdown amongst others translated our viewing and listening favourites into pictorial escapism every week, and it was a pretty poor lead or show which couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed comic property.

Television’s Doctor Who premiered with part one of ‘An Unearthly Child’ on November 23rd 1963, and the following year his (their?) decades-long association with TV Comic began in issue #674 and the first instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’ – so this year marks the 50th or Golden Anniversary of the evergreen show and the 49th (Apoplexium, I believe) of the strip iteration.

On 11th October 1979 (although, adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system, it says 17th) Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly, which became a monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) and has been with us through various title-changes ever since. All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree and big shoes to fill.

Marvel/Panini is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from the prodigious annals and archives in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums, each concentrating on a particular incarnation of the deathless wanderer. This particular one gathers stories from a range of sources (specifically Doctor Who Magazine #152-156, 159-162, The Incredible Hulk Presents #1-12, Doctor Who Weekly #17-20, #27-30 and Doctor Who Monthly #44-46; spanning 1980-1990) and nominally stars the Seventh Doctor -Sylvester McCoy.

Also on show are some awesome ancillary stars from the monolithic Time Lord Universe (Whoniverse?) including the eponymous trundling terrors of the title, legendary cosmic crusaders the Star Tigers and the long-revered tragic, demented antihero Abslom Daak, Dalek-Killer.

Delivered beauty-contest style in reverse order, the magnificent magic opens with the cataclysmic ‘Nemesis of the Daleks’ (from DWM #152-155) as Richard and Steve Alan – AKA Richard Starkings & John Tomlinson – deliver a definitive and classic clash between the nomadic Time Lord and the ultimate foes of life wherein the deadly Daleks enslave a primitive civilisation and drive the pitiful native Helkans to the brink of extinction by forcing them to construct a Dalek Death Wheel armed with the universe’s most potent and toxic Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Grittily illustrated by Lee Sullivan, the blockbuster saga opens with the valiant last stand of incongruous chmpions the Star Tigers before the peripatetic Doctor accidentally arrives in the right place at the wrong time – no surprise there then – and joins death-obsessed Abslom Daak in a hopeless attempt to stop the Emperor of the Daleks from achieving supreme power…

Filled with evocative do-or-die heroics this is a battle only one being can survive…

As a complete change-of-pace, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (#156 from January 1990 and by John Freeman, Paul Cornell & Gerry Dolan) offers a wry and merrily murderous poke at modern art and the slavish gullibility of its patrons that still holds true today – and probably always will…

The Incredible Hulk Presents was a short-lived reprint weekly from Marvel UK which launched on September 30th 1989, targeting younger readers and featuring four media-fed features.

As well as the Big Green TV sensation it also reprinted American-produced stories of Indiana Jones and GI Joe/Action Force, but the mix was augmented by all-new adventures of the Gallant Gallifreyan by a rapidly rotating roster of British creators.

The plan was to eventually reprint the Who stories in DWM – thus maximising the costly outlay of new material at a time in British comics publishing where every penny counted. It didn’t quite go to plan and the comic folded after 12 issues, with only a couple of the far simpler – though no less enjoyable offerings – ever making it into the more mature magazine publication.

It all began with ‘Once in a Lifetime’ by Freeman & Geoff Senior wherein an obnoxious alien reporter learned to his dismay that some stories are too big even for the gutter press, after which issues #2-3 featured creators Dan Abnett & John Ridgway whose ‘Hunger From the Ends of Time!’ saw the Doctor and Foreign Hazard Duty – the future iteration of UNIT – save the Universal Library from creatures who literally consumed knowledge.

‘War World!’ by Freeman, Art Wetherell & Dave Harwood found the irascible time-traveller uncharacteristically fooled by an (un)common foot soldier, whilst in ‘Technical Hitch’ by Abnett & Wetherell, the Doctor saved a lonely spacer from unhappy dreams of paradise…

Freeman & Senior concocted a riotous, monster-mash for ‘A Switch in Time!’ whilst ‘The Sentinel!’ by Tomlinson & Andy Wildman found the Time Lord helpless before a being beyond the limits of temporal physics who claimed to have created all life in the universe but still needed a little something from Gallifrey to finish his latest project…

Another 2-parter in #8-9 declared ‘Who’s That Girl!’ as the Doctor’s latest regeneration apparently resulted in a female form just as the Time Lord was required to  stop an inter-dimensional war between malicious macho martial empires. Of course there was more than met the eye going in this silly but engaging thriller by Simon Furman, John Marshall & Stephen Baskerville.

Simon Jowett & Wildman produced a light-hearted salutary fable as ‘The Enlightenment of Ly-Chee the Wise’ proved that some travellers are too much for even the most mellow of meditators to handle, after which Mike Collins, Tim Robins & Senior proved just how dangerous fat-farms could be in ‘Slimmer!’ before The Incredible Hulk Presents ended its foray into time-warping with the portentous ‘Nineveh!’ by Tomlinson & Cam Smith, wherein the Tardis was ensnared in the deadly clutches of the Watcher at the End of Time – an impossible mythical being who harvested Time Lords after their final regeneration…

For most of its run and in all its guises the Doctor Who title suffered from criminally low budgets and restricted access to concepts, images and character-likenesses from the show (many actors, quite rightfully owning their faces, wanted to be paid if they appeared in print…) but diligent work by successive editors gradually bore fruit and every so often fans got a real treat…

‘Train-Flight’ by Andrew Donkin, Graham S. Brand & John Ridgway ran in DWM #159-161 from April to June 1990 and benefited from some slick editorial wheeler-dealing and the generosity of actress Elizabeth Sladen (who allowed her Sarah Jane Smith character to be used for a pittance) in a chilling tale of alien abductions.

A long overdue reunion between the Time Lord and his old Companion was swiftly derailed when their commuter train was hijacked by marauding carnivorous insects…

‘Doctor Conkerer!’ (#162 by Ian Rimmer & Mike Collins) then terminates the Time Lord’s travails in this tome with a humorous tale describing the unsuspected origins of that noble game played with horse chestnuts beloved by British schoolboys, assorted aliens and, of course, Vikings of every stripe…

There’s still plenty of high quality action and adventure to enjoy here, however, as the complete saga of ‘Abslom Daak, Dalek-Killer’ by Steve Moore and artists Steve Dillon& David Lloyd (from Doctor Who Weekly #17-20, February-March 1980, Doctor Who Weekly #27-30, April 1980 and Doctor Who Monthly #44-46, December 1980-February 1981) fills in the blanks on the doomed defenders of organic life everywhere…

In the 26th century the Earth Empire is in a death struggle with voracious Dalek forces yet still riven with home-grown threats.

One such is inveterate, antisocial killer Abslom Daak, who, on sentencing for his many crimes, chooses “Exile D-K” – being beamed into enemy territory to die as a “Dalek Killer”. His life expectancy as such is less than three hours… and that suits him just fine.

Materialising on an alien world the madman eagerly expects to die but finds an unexpected reason to live until she too is taken from him, leaving only an unquenchable thirst for Dalek destruction…

The initial ferociously action-packed back-up series led to a sequel and ‘Star Tigers’ found the manic marauder winning such improbable allies as a rebel Draconian Prince, a devilish Ice Warrior and the smartest sociopath in Human space, all willing to trade their pointless lives to kill Daleks…

As always the book is supplemented with lots of text features, and truly avid fans can also enjoy a treasure-trove of background information in the 17-page text Commentary section at the back, comprising story-by-story background, history and insights from the authors and illustrators, supplemented by scads of sketches, script pages, roughs, designs, production art covers and photos.

This includes full background from former DWM editor/scripter John Freeman on the stories, plus background on the guest stars in ‘Tales from the Daak Side’ by John Tomlinson.

More details and creator-biographies accompany the commentaries on The Incredible Hulk Presents tales and there’s a feature on ‘Hulk meets Who’ explaining that odd publishing alliance, as well as reminisces from editor Andy Seddon and even more info on the legendary Dalek killer and his Star Tiger allies to pore and exult over.

None of which is relevant if all you want is a darn good read. However all the creators involved have managed the ultimate task of any artisan – to produce engaging, thrilling, fun work which can be equally enjoyed by the merest beginner and the most slavishly dedicated and opinionated fans imaginable.

This is another marvellous book for casual readers, a fine shelf-addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics one more go…

All Doctor Who material © BBCtv. Doctor Who, the Tardis and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. Licenced by BBC Worldwide. Tardis image © BBC 1963. Daleks © Terry Nation. All commentaries © 2013 their respective authors. Published 2013 by Panini Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Wolverine Origins: Romulus


By Daniel Way, Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3539-5

Ever since his glory days in the All–New, All Different X-Men, the mutant berserker known variously as Wolverine, Logan, Patch and latterly James Howlett has been a fan-favourite who appealed to the suppressed, put-upon, catharsis-craving comic fan by perpetually promising to cut loose and give bad guys the kind of final punishment we all know they truly deserve.

Always skirting the line between and blurring the definitions of indomitable hero and maniac murderer, Wolverine soldiered on, a tragic, brutal, misunderstood hero cloaked in mysteries and contradictions until society changed and, as with ethically-challenged colleague the Punisher, final sanction and quick dispatch became acceptable and even preferred options for costumed crusaders.

Debuting as a foe for the Incredible Hulk in a tantalising teaser-glimpse at the end of issue #180 (October 1974) before indulging in a full-on scrap with the Green Goliath in the next issue, the semi-feral Canadian mutant with fearsome claws and killer attitude rode – and maybe even caused – the meteoric rise of the reconstructed and rebooted X-Men before gaining his own series, super-star status and silver screen immortality.

He hasn’t looked back since, although over the years many untold tales of the aged agent (since the original miniseries Origins revealed the hero had been born at the end of the 19th century) have explored his missing exploits in ever-increasing intensity and torturous detail.

Thus Wolverine’s secret origin(s) and increasingly revelatory disclosures regarding in his extended, conveniently much-brainwashed life have gradually seeped out. Cursed with recurring and periodic bouts of amnesia and mind-wiped ad nauseum by sinister or even well-meaning friends and foes, the Chaotic Canucklehead has packed a lot of adventurous living into his centuries of existence – but doesn’t remember most of it.

This permanently unploughed field has conveniently resulted in a crop of dramatically mysterious, undisclosed back-histories, so from June 2006 to July 2010 supplementary series Wolverine Origins, for a 50-issue run, began revealing certain discrete pockets of that rich but occluded seam of comicbook gold.

Short and feisty, Logan has always threatened and promised an explosion of visceral, vicarious ultra-violence and grim, gritty justice at every moment and in this slim, savage collection (gathering issues #37-40 of Wolverine Origins from), the panting comicbook public once again gets what it’s never stopped clamouring for…

Wolverine is the ultimate tracker and for months has been hunting for his own past. His search has revealed one inescapable, horrific fact: for most of his life the mutant has been repeatedly manipulated and tortured by a madman. Over decades a mysterious mastermind has been invisibly moving in and out of his life: even exerting complete mental dominance over the wandering warrior.

Only recently has Logan realised this and by setting all his prodigious instincts and tracking skills to the task, is at last closing in on the sadistic phantom he only knows as Romulus…

The infinitely patient phantom is the force behind numerous programs such as Weapon X (which first agonisingly bonded miracle metal Adamantium to Wolverine’s skeleton) and is dedicated to manufacturing and augmenting appalling human killing machines.

Of late Logan has been confronted by many of Romulus’ greatest successes, overcoming walking tragedies and monstrous atrocities such as tortured US super-soldier Nuke, old associates Wildchild and Sabretooth, foes Cyber and Omega Red and even his own, now-adult, psychotic son Daken.

Crisscrossing the globe, the implacable stalker has gradually come closer to finding his ancient tormentor, discovering ever-more chilling details about his shadowy opponent. Now he is ready for a final showdown…

The eponymous 4-part ‘Romulus’ opens with Wolverine in Russia following the mastermind’s trusted factotum Victor Hudson to the brutal Vutluga Prison, where a modern pestilence is plaguing hope-starved, desperate inmates and warders alike. As the infuriated mutant moves in for the long-deferred confrontation he’s been hungering for he realises he’s been set up in another stupid test… just as the life-leeching Omega Red ambushes him…

The staggeringly brutal battle goes to Wolverine – but only just – and as the exhausted victor staggers outside he falls prey to fellow feral mutant Wildchild.

Dragging the battered hero to a steel mill and a doom even Wolverine’s legendary healing factor can’t overcome, the boastful brat reveals a shocking truth.

Inhuman Romulus is apparently thousands of years old and considers himself the planet’s absolute apex predator. Logan’s quarry has spent centuries creating, shaping and honing his own successor. To this extent he has bred, if not actually farmed, Wolverine’s bloodline – among others – for generations: constantly improving human killers through technology and the crucibles of torment and combat, even killing Logan’s first wife Itsu and stealing the son the X-Man never knew existed…

Moreover, although Logan was the preferred option to succeed him, Romulus has always had other prospects in play and is content to stand well back and let the very best killer win…

Wildchild’s plan comes undone when the seemingly unstoppable Omega Red intervenes, resulting in one more cutthroat clash as another of Romulus’ frontrunners falls. Soon after, with the aid of Russian super-spy The Black Widow, Wolverine’s last rival falls and the master manipulator finally reveals himself for the climactic last battle…

It doesn’t end in the way you’d expect…

With covers by Doug Braithwaite & Art Lyon, variants from Mike Mayhew, Herb Trimpe and Simone Bianchi, fact-files on Omega Red and Logan and a comprehensive bibliography in ‘Wolverine: the Reading Chronology’, this plot-light, carnage-driven collection of gory delights is a vicarious thrill for the devoted but might well be hard to follow for new or returning readers.
© 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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New Crusaders: Rise of the Heroes


By Ian Flynn, Ben Bates, Alitha Martinez & Gary Martin (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-31-0

In the dawning days of the comic book business, just after Superman and Batman had ushered in a new genre of storytelling, many publishers jumped onto the bandwagon and made their own bids for cash and glory. Many thrived and many more didn’t, relished only as trivia by sad old blokes like me. Some few made it to an amorphous middle-ground: not forgotten, but certainly not household names either…

MLJ were one of the quickest publishers to jump on the mystery-man bandwagon, following the spectacular successes of the Man of Tomorrow with their own small but inspirational pantheon of gaudily clad crusaders, beginning in November 1939 with Blue Ribbon Comics, soon followed by Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the standard blend of two-fisted adventure strips, prose pieces and gag panels and, from #2 on, costumed heroes…

However, after only a few years Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in the blossoming market and in December 1941 nudged aside their masked heroes and action strips to make room for a far less imposing hero; an “average teen” who would have ordinary adventures like the readers, but with triumphs, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Pep Comics #22 featured a gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed goof who clearly took his lead from the popular Andy Hardy matinee movies starring Mickey Rooney. Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman protagonist, tasking writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work. The 6-page tale introduced Archie Andrews and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper as well as his unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones in their small-town utopia of Riverdale.

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had won its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first solo-star magazine and with it began the gradual transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the comicbook industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon (Superman being the first)…

By 1946 the kids had taken over, so MLJ renamed itself Archie Comics; retiring its heroic characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family comedies. Its success, like Superman’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV shows, movies, and a chain of restaurants. In the swinging sixties the pop hit “Sugar, Sugar” (a tune from their animated show) became a global smash: their wholesome garage band The Archies has been a fixture of the comics ever since.

Nonetheless the company had by this stage blazed through a rather impressive pantheon of mystery-men who would form the backbone of numerous future superhero revivals, most notably in the High-Camp/Marvel Explosion/Batman TV show-frenzied mid-60’s…

The heroes impressively resurfaced in the 1980s under the company’s Red Circle imprint but again failed to catch the public’s attention and Archie let them lie fallow (except for occasional revivals and intermittent guest-shots in regular Archie titles) until 1991, when the company licensed its heroes to superhero specialists DC for a magically fun, all-ages iteration (and where’s that star-studded trade paperback collection, huh?!).

Impact Comics was a vibrant, engaging and fun all-ages rethink that really should have been a huge hit but was again cruelly unsuccessful…

When the line folded in 1993 the characters returned to limbo until DC had one more crack at them in 2008, trying to incorporate the Mighty Crusaders & Co into their own maturely angst-ridden and stridently dark continuity – with the usual overwhelming lack of success.

Now at last the wanderers have returned home to Archie for a superbly simplistic and winningly straightforward revival aimed squarely at old nostalgics and young kids reared on highly charged action/adventure cartoon shows: brimming with all the exuberant verve and wide-eyed honest ingenuity you’d expect from an outfit which has been pleasing kids for nearly seventy years.

Released initially online in May 2012 – and followed by a traditional monthly print version that September – the first story-arc even made it to full legitimacy in this thrill-packed collection, equally welcoming to inveterate fanboys and eager newcomers alike.

The first 6 issues collected here offer grand old-fashioned Costumed Drama and modern teen-targeted Fights ‘n’ Tights action that begins with the 2-part introduction ‘From the Ashes’ by Ian Flynn, Ben Bates & Gary Martin.

Red Circle is an idyllic, storybook American town – now. That wasn’t always the case however, and as Mayor Jack Sterling hosts a party for some very old friends and their kids in ‘Reunions’, that dark past horrifically resurfaces as the festivities are cancelled due to a murderous attack by a manic super-villain.

One minute Ralph Hardy, John Dickering and wife Thelma, John and Rose Raymond, Ted Tyler and Kim Brand are watching their respective teenagers mooching about and not getting along and the next they’re all dead at the hands of alien overlord the Brain Emperor…

Only late arriving Joe Higgins is left to shepherd the kids from the burning Mayoral mansion, operating under a long-practised escape plan devised by the heroic Mighty Crusaders…

Debuting way back when in Pep Comics #1, January 1940, Higgins was an FBI scientist who devised a suit which gave him enhanced strength, speed and durability, battling the USA’s enemies as The Shield in the days before America entered WW II. He also devised a serum which enhanced those powers, smashing spies, saboteurs, subversives and every threat to Democracy and well-being. A minor sensation, he is credited as comics’ first Patriotic Hero, predating Captain America and Quality’s Uncle Sam in “wearing the Flag”.

In the sixties he and many of his lost cohorts returned to battle crime and craziness once more…

After accomplishing the impossible and wiping out super-crime he, Steel Sterling, Jaguar, Comet, The Web, Pow-Girl, Fireball and Fly Girl happily retired from action. Unable to settle or relax, Higgins became a virtual recluse and, as Evil Never Dies, laid contingency plans with his old comrades.

Now with all his nightmares come true, he sequesters the traumatised kids in his high-tech bunker and relates the truth about the seemingly dull-and-boring dearly departed in ‘Birthrights’.

The Red Circle tragedy is covered up by Federal spooks from the Military Logistics & Jurisdiction Bureau and dubbed a freak storm on the Impact City news, but orphans Johnny Sterling, Alex Tyler, Greg Dickering, Kelly Brand, Wyatt Raymond and Hardy’s young apprentice Ivette Velez know the truth. They just can’t come to grips with it.

Once Old Man Higgins had saved them from the monster-maniac, he locked them up in his subterranean wonderland – with the full approval of the MLJ – and started talking nonsense.

He claimed their folks were the world’s greatest superheroes and expects them to take up their identities and mission. It’s crazy and totally impossible to believe, but he has all kinds of evidence and gadgets in his bunker. There’s even a mutant talking monkey named Dusty, and somehow he makes more sense than his snarky, impatient boss…

It’s too much and the kids rebel, so Higgins lets them go. All they have to do is get out of the bunker alive…

The terrifying gauntlet proves to the shell-shocked teens that they are far from average and they elect to stay. ‘Legacies part 1: Growing Pains’ then describes the mandatory training process wherein the neophytes, through determination, pre-prepared inheritances, sheer dumb luck and rash stupidity become a second generation of heroes, privy to all the secrets and responsibilities of a world hidden from most of humanity.

Kelly is dispatched by Dusty (or Dr. Uruk Ak’ahk to give him his proper title) to a trans-dimensional space station operated by veteran Crusader Bob Phantom to pick up the alien gimmicks which will make her the new Fly Girl, whilst timid low-esteem-plagued Ivette is given the magical Jaguar Helmet of Ai Apaec, discovered by her boss Ralph Hardy and intended for her alone. However no-one realised it would put her into deadly contact with and at the mercy of a terrifying, possessive, savage lost god…

Puny Wyatt is as smart as his parents The Web and Pow-Girl ever were but has none of their physical gifts. A high-tech combat suit handles the muscle, speed and agility deficit, and the psionic power he’s hidden since infancy more than makes up for his lack of combat experience.

The real problems come with the three alpha-males. Impetuous and rebellious, Alex and Greg hastily misuse the serums intended to duplicate the pyrokinetic and lethal light-wielding power of Fireball and the Comet – nearly dying in the process – whilst Johnny just can’t bring himself to submit his perfect Jock’s body to the nasty nano-surgical procedure that will make him a second Steel  Sterling…

As ‘Legacies part 2: Inheritance’ (illustrated by new regular penciller Alitha Martinez) opens only Fly Girl is willing – or indeed able – to embrace her destiny, but fate takes charge as the implacable Brain Emperor strikes again, just as a poignant message from his departed dad inspires Johnny Sterling to take up the metallic mantle of a champion.

The Brain Emperor strikes in ‘Trial by Fire part 1’ raiding the penitentiary holding the original Crusaders’ greatest foes and causing a deadly ‘Jailbreak’ forcing the junior heroes and their aged tutor into action far too soon. Nevertheless, the kids do alright and the Cerebral Conqueror has made a crucial error: the prison held not only an army of vicious super-freaks but also three rogue heroes in special isolation.

The Black Hood, Hangman and Deadly Force are a remorseless Riot Squad just itching to get their merciless hands on more criminal scum ‘Caught in the Flames’…

As the alien Emperor gathers selected villains for his next enterprise, the New Crusaders’ blistering trial by fire proves to be an education for all, but not every hero survives…

To Be Continued…

Full of vim and vigour, this no-nonsense superhero saga is a slick and smart return to tried-and-true comicbook bombast and action which manages to feel brand-new whilst somehow still remaining faithful to all of the many iterations and re-imaginings of the assorted superheroes – even the two produced in conjunction with DC Comics.

This delightful exercise in recapturing the straightforward excitement of a genre also includes such special features as a variant cover gallery by Bates, Mike Norton, Ryan Jampole & Matt Helms, ChrisCross & Thomas Mason, Sanford Greene, Rich Buckler, Francesco Francavilla and Fiona Staples plus bonus featurette ‘Dusty’s Files’ on ‘The Pitch’, ‘The Cast’, ‘The Braintrust’ (creators Ian Flynn & Ben Bates), ‘The Legacy’, ‘The Villains’ and ‘The Future’.

Fast, fulfilling and fun, New Crusaders might just be Archie’s long-awaited superhero “one that didn’t get away”…
© 2013 Archie Comics Publications. All rights reserved. NEW CRUSADERS and RED CIRCLE COMICS ® ACP, Inc.