Category: Older kids

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Animal Land book 1


By Makoto Raiku, translated and adapted by Stephen Paul (Kondansha USA)
ISBN: 978-1-935429-13-5

Here’s a sly and rather subtle allegory from relative manga newcomer Makoto Raiuku (Newtown Heroes, Genmai Blade, and the enormously popular Konjiki no Gash!! which hit American TV screens as Zatch Bell!!).

Dōbutsu no Kuni or “Animal Country” began in 2009 and follows the incredible life of a seemingly human baby abandoned and cast adrift on a river only to wash up in the land of animals: a dog-eat-dog, literally bestial world of raw savagery where the weak always die and only the strong are able to survive.

‘Word 1: Hello, Baby’ opens proceedings with little Monoko, an orphan Tanuki (a sort of tiny raccoon dog indigenous to Japan). Since her parents were eaten by wild cats she’s been unable to pull her weight in the hard-pressed Tanuki community; all rushing to store enough for the rapidly approaching winter. It doesn’t look like she’s going to make it…

Her world and existence change forever when she adopts the strange hairless monkey cub which washes up on the river bank one cold day. This is a very strange baby and Monoko insanely decides to become its new mother against all the advice of the village.

In Animal Land all creatures are at odds and cannot understand other species cries, but Monoko decides to risk everything – including being eaten by cats such as the fearsome Kurokagi – to steal some milk for the foundling to drink.

Despite a horrifying but successful mission the baby is cold and dying: it has no will to live and the Tanuki elders brusquely tell her to stop wasting everybody’s time and resources.

Desperate Monoko cuddles it with her body, sharing her warmth in a desperate, lonely struggle to keep it alive one more night. When she awakes she discovers something miraculous and staggering game-changing…

The initial episodes ends with another huge shock: the baby can speak Tanuki…

The mystery increases in the second instalment ‘Word 2: Baby’s Power’ when the infant reveals that he can converse and understand the speech of all animals – even the ultimate predator Kurokagi – thereby discovering the dire marauder’s tragic secret and further reshaping the nature and destiny of the savage domain, whilst the third and final chapter ‘Word 3: Baby Cries Over His Name’ sees Monoko’s first maternal crisis as she finds a keepsake from the baby’s biological mother and fears her joyous new world is crumbling around her until once more the wonder baby comes to her emotional and physical rescue…

Despite what the publishers would have you believe this isn’t just another cute kiddie-book. For starters it’s filled with scatological asides and the audience advisory is 13 and older. Moreover, despite being filled with action, adventure and slapstick/social gaffe humour in the grand manga manner, this is a tale filled with scary moments, brutal situations and heartbreaking poignancy, with a lot to say about family, community, integration, unity and understanding through plain-talking and communication.

Also included in this initial monochrome volume are translator’s notes, a guide to Japanese honorifics, Omake pages (“extra” or “bonus”) of short cartoon strips and a longer piece wherein Makuto Raiku lets us in on the background of and inspiration for the strip: sharing the bittersweet story of his and wife’s best friend Riku – an abandoned wounded puppy…

More Animal Farm than The Gruffalo, this is a brilliant piece and impressive slice of social fantasy for kids, and would make a great gift for older children getting too big for traditional kids stuff.

This volume is printed in the traditional front-to-back, right-to-left reading manner.

© 2010 Makoto Raiku. English translation © 2011 Makoto Raiku. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents The Witching Hour volume 1


By Alex Toth & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-196-6

American comicbooks started slowly until the creation of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and invented a new genre. Implacably vested in the Second World War, the Overman swept all before him (and the far too occasional her) until the troops came home and more traditional genres supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Although new kids kept up the buying, much of the previous generation also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years altered the psychology of the world, and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) reflected this. As well as Western, War and Crime comics, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another periodic revival of spiritualism and interest in the supernatural led to a wave of increasingly impressive, evocative and even shocking horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Dr. Fate and dozens of others), but these had been victims of circumstance: the unknown as a power source for super-heroics. Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken or control with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering the reader.

Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948, although Adventures Into the Unknown was technically pipped by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before launching a regular series in 1951, by which time Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with adaptations of the Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

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

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

When the hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April-June 1954 into your search engine at any time… you can do that because it’s notionally a free country now) was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self regulatory rules.

HoM and its sister title House of Secrets were dialled back into rationalistic, fantasy adventure vehicles, which dominated the market until the 1960s when super-heroes (which had started to creep back after Julius Schwartz began the Silver Age of comics by reintroducing the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956) finally overtook them. Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Atom and a slew of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books.

However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and at the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom stalled and crashed, leading to the surviving publishers of the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at that time but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in global interest in all aspects of the supernatural, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious “no-brainer.” Even the ultra wholesome Archie comics re-entered the field with their rather tasty line of Red Circle thrillers…

With Tales of the Unexpected from #105 and House of Mystery #174 the company switched to anthology horror material before creating an all-new title to further exploit the morbid fascination with the fearsome and spooky (they even resurrected the cancelled House of Secrets in late 1969) for those heady days when it was okay – and profitable – to scare the heck out of little kids by making them laugh.

Edited until #14 by Dick Giordano, The Witching Hour first struck at the end of 1968 (with a February/March 1969 cover-date). From the outset it was an extremely experimental and intriguing beast and this amazingly economical Showcase Presents collection reprints the first 19 issues, completely covering the first three years as the fear fad grew to become the backbone of DC’s sales. It is perhaps the most talent-stuffed title of that entire period.

Here the usual cool and creepy horror hosts who introduced the tales were three witches – based as much on Macbeth as the ancient concept of Maiden, Mother and Crone – a torrid trio who constantly battled to outdo or out-gross each other in the telling of terror tales. Moreover, Cynthia, Mildred and Mordred – as well as shy monster man-servant Egor – were designed and usually drawn by master artist Alex Toth; making the framing sequences between yarns as good as and sometimes better than the stories they brazenly bracketed.

One minor quibble: records from the period are not complete and occasionally a creator is unknown, but this volume also sadly misattributes the artist too. I’ve attempted to correct the mistakes when I’m certain, but please be warned and beware – I’m not always right either…

Following a stunning Nick Cardy cover, Toth starts the ball rolling by introducing the sinister sisters and their ongoing contest before Dennis O’Neil & Pat Boyette relate the story of a time-travelling tap-dancer in ‘Save the Last Dance For Me’, after which Toth writes and illustrates a compelling period piece of peril in ‘Eternal Hour!’ and Jack Sparling relates the eerie fate of wave-obsessed Stanley’s search for ‘The Perfect Surf’. Toth’s scary sisters then close out the premier issue (with, I suspect, additional inks from Neal Adams), but still find room for ‘Silk Gauze’, an informational page by persons unknown which first appeared in Tales Unexpected #126.

Although attributed to Toth, #2’s introductory episode is by his old Standard Comics stable-mate Mike Sekowsky (inked by Giordano) and leads into Sparling’s dream-chiller ‘Scream!’, after which young José Delbo delineates a shocking period tale of slavery and vengeance ‘The Trip of Fools!’ before Sid Greene’s short ghost story ‘The Beat Goes On!’ and Sparling’s ‘Once Upon a Surprise Ending!’ end an issue regrettably short on writer credits.

Following another Sekowsky/Giordano intro, Toth & Vince Colletta illustrated Don Arneson’s medieval mood masterpiece ‘The Turn of the Wheel!’, whilst Alan Riefe & Sparling told a decidedly different ghost-story in ‘The Death Watch’, after which Steve Skeates & Bernie Wrightson revealed a very alterative fantasy hero in ‘…And in a Far-Off Land!’, followed by the first of a series of short prose vignettes: an anonymous fright-comedy entitled ‘Potion of Love’.

Toth illustrated the sisters’ ‘Witching Hour Welcome Wagon’ (a useful identifying rule of thumb for the uninitiated is that the master usually signed his work – and was allowed too…) after which new kid Gerard Conway spectrally scripted ‘A Matter of Conscience’ for art veterans Sparling & George Roussos. Another anonymous prose piece ‘If You Have Ghosts’ preceded a smashing yarn entitled ‘Disaster in a Jar’ by Riefe & Boyette and Conway scripted the period witchfinder thriller ‘A Fistful of Fire’ for Delbo – a vastly underrated artist who was on the best form of his career at this time.

Toth’s Weird Sisters closed out that issue and eerily, hilariously opened #5 before Wrightson lavishly embellished a nifty but uncredited (as is every script in this one) nautical nightmare ‘The Sole Survivor!’, followed by text-teaser ‘The Non-Believer!’ and Boyette’s stunning, clownish creep-feature ‘A Guy Can Die Laughing!’, whilst Stanley Pitt & Giordano’s dating dilemma ‘The Computer Game’ was one of the first to explore that now-hoary plot. After Toth signs off the witches, there’s an added one-page black-comedy bonus from Sid Greene with ‘My! How You’ve Grown!’

Sekowsky & Giordano limned Dave Kaler’s take on the sisters’ intro for The Witching Hour #6 after which a far darker horror debuted in ‘A Face in the Crowd!’ by Conway, Mike Roy & Mike Peppe, as a Nazi war criminal and a concentration camp survivor met in an American street; Marv Wolfman & Delbo described a tale of neighbourly intolerance in ‘The Doll Man!’ and ‘Treasure Hunt’ by Skeates, John Celardo & Giordano showed why greed isn’t always good. Also included were Conway’s prose tale ‘Train to Doom’, ‘Mad Menace’ – a half-page gag strip by John Costanza – and ‘Distortion!’ another Greene-limned one-pager.

Toth & Mike Friedrich were on spectacular form for #7’s introduction and bridging sequences, and Bill Draut was compulsively effective in prison manhunt saga ‘The Big Break!’ whose scripter Steve Skeates also wrote modern-art murder-mystery ‘The Captive!’ for Roussos, after which Friedrich & Jack Abel advised a most individual baby to ‘Look Homeward, Angelo!’. Text piece ‘Who Believes Ouija?’ and Jack Miller & Michael Wm. Kaluta’s gothically lovely ‘Trick or Treat’ round out the sinister sights in this issue.

Sergio Aragonés & Neal Adams provided the witch-bits for #8, bracketing their own satanically sardonic ‘Above and Beyond the Call of Duty!’, as well as ‘Three Day Home Trial!’ (Aragonés & Cardy) and the staggeringly inventive ‘Computerr’ by that man again and Toth. ‘The Career Man’ was a witty but anonymous prose piece and the issue closed with a Twice Told Tale by Ron Whyte & Sparling, as an urban myth was revealed in ‘The Sign of the Hook!’

Toth & Draut began #9, after which Bob Brown & Murphy Anderson illustrated ghostly tale ‘The Long Road Home!’ and, after text story ‘The Dark Well’, the peripatetic, post-apocalyptic, ironic occasional series ‘The Day after Doomsday’ by Len Wein & Sparling made a welcome appearance. Delbo delightfully delineated a terrifying tale of Old China in ‘The Last Straw’ and, after George Tuska took over the Weird Sisters linking-segments, a doomsday debacle closed the dramas with a ‘Trumpet Perilous!’ drawn by Sparling & Abel.

The witches’ opening issue #10 were once more by Toth & Draut, promptly followed by a magnificent illustration job by the great Gray Morrow on the regrettably uncredited ‘A Warp in Time… Loses Everything!’ – work inestimably improved by being seen in monochrome – after which the all-word ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’ preceded Conway & Toth’s superb forbidden romance ‘Hold Softly, Hand of Death!’. Tuska handles the Sisters before Sparling’s faux-fact page ‘Realm of the Mystics’ ends this excursion into the dark.

Toth drew the intro and Jack Oleck’s ‘The Mark of the Witch’ (inked by Draut) in #11, whilst – after text-tale ‘Retired Undefeated!’ – Tuska inspirationally illustrated the creepy chronal conundrum ‘The Sands of Time, the Snows of Death!’, and The Witching Hour #12 was similarly blessed, as after a sinisterly sexy Skeates/Toth intro the devilish duo then described an horrific ‘Double Edge’ battle between witch-queens and valiant mortals, followed by a Machiavellian actor’s ‘Double Take’ (Skeates & Tuska) and a demonic duel and ‘Double Cross!’ by Skeates & Gil Kane. The ever-anonymous prose piece was the mordantly merry ‘The Dead Can’t Talk But…’

Giordano’s last issue was editor was #13, which opened in grand style as fellow comicbook hosts Cain, Abel and the Mad Mod Witch (from Houses of Mystery and Secrets and The Unexpected respectively) attended ‘New Year’s Eve at the Witching Hour’ (illustrated by Neal Adams) followed by a marvellously experimental and effective psycho-thriller by Alan Gold & Gray Morrow entitled ‘The Maze’, a far more traditional but no less scary story ‘The Accursed Clay!’ (Miller, Sparling & Frank Giacoia) and the just plain strange tale of ‘The Rush-Hour Ride of Abner Pringle!’, by Wein & Delbo. As an added treat the text token was ‘The Witching Hour Mistree’ by that shy but not retiring rogue Egor…

When veteran editor Murray Boltinoff assumed the reins with #14 (April-May 1971) an element of experimentalism was surrendered but the more conventional material was no less welcomed by the horror-hungry readership: more proof, if any were needed, that artistic endeavour and envelope-pushing aren’t to everybody’s taste. George Tuska replaced Toth as regular illustrator of the introductory and bridging sections, but otherwise most fright-seeking kids could hardly tell the difference.

The all-science fiction issue’s terror-tales began with a beautiful but oddly stilted yarn from Conway and Jeff Jones who explored the solitary burdens of ‘Fourteen Months’ in deep space, whilst ‘Which Witch is Which?’, by Kaler, drawn by Stanley & Reg Pitt, related the comeuppance of an intergalactic Lothario. As “Al Case”, Editor Boltinoff provided the text feature ‘Dead Letter Office’ and the issued ended on a classic visual high note with ‘The Haunted House in Space!’ illustrated by the dream team of Al Williamson & Carlos Garzon.

After the usual ghastly graphic girl talk TWH #15 started with a murder masterpiece from George Kashdan & Wally Wood revealing that ‘Freddy is Another Name For Fear!’, after which Al Case scripted ‘End of a World’ before Phil Seuling & Gray Morrow stole the show with the fearsome fable of the ‘Bayou Witch’ and Case & Art Saaf rang down the curtain with ‘I Married a Witch!’

Issue #16 saw House of Mystery expand from 32 to 52 pages – as did all DC titles for the next couple of years, opening the doors for a superb period of new material and the best of the company’s prodigious archives to an appreciative, impressionable audience. The mysterious magic began after Tuska’s punchy prelude with the cautionary ‘Never Kill a Witch!’ by Carl Wessler, John Calnan & Bernie Case, after which Boltinoff – as Bill Dennehy – provided a slick and edgy reinterpretation of a classic fairytale for Morrow to lavishly limn in ‘The Spell of Sinner Ella!’ before switching back to his Case persona for the Tony DeZuniga illustrated duelling drama ‘You Can’t Hide From Death’. The classic reprints began with ‘The Wondrous Witch’s Cauldron’ (drawn by the legendary Lee Elias from House of Secrets #58), followed by a Joe Orlando illustrated, Charles King scripted text piece ‘Last Meal’ and Howie Post and Draut’s ghoulish period parable ‘The Curse of the Cat’ which both first saw print in House of Mystery #177.

Kashdan & Heck opened #17 with a modern magic myth in ‘This Little Witch Went to College’ after which a classic 1950’s fear-feature from Sensation Mystery Comics #109 saw Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella devastatingly depict the ‘Fingers of Fear!’ whilst from House of Secrets #46, Howard Sherman delineated ‘The Second Life of Simon Steele’. Dennehy, Calnan & Colletta provided a new yarn with an old moral in ‘The Corpse who Carried Cash!’ before Wessler & mood-master Jerry Grandenetti fantastically finished the fear-fest with ‘The Man in the Cellar’.

The same team opened #18 with ‘The Worm that Turned to Terror’, a schizophrenic slice of domestic hell followed by ‘The Diggers!’ a nasty, vengeful yarn from Bobs Haney and Brown with Giacoia inks that encompassed half a century of French war and regret. Tales of the Unexpected #13 was the original source of both the Ed Herron/Jack Kirby conundrum ‘The Face Behind the Mask’ and the Herron/Cardy creepy-crime caper ‘I Was a Prisoner of the Supernatural’, after which modernity returned with Jim Aparo’s ‘Hypnotic Eye’ and the Kashdan, Calnan & Colletta cautionary tale ‘When Satan Comes Calling!’

The final issue in this superbly spooky compendium is The Witching Hour #19, which, after the customary Tuska drawn kaffeeklatsch with Mordred, Mildred and Cynthia, commences in a stylish, sparkling Jack Phillips & Grandenetti chiller ‘A Tomb for the Winning!’, swiftly followed by ‘The Four Threads of Doom’ (by anonymous & Cardy from Tales of the Unexpected #12) after which a different anonymous and Tuska provided a fresh new thriller in ‘Stop Beating, Heart! You’re Killing Me!’. One final Cardy reprint ‘The Lamp That Changed People!’ (House of Mystery #20) follows before this wonderful debut volume of witchly wonderment concludes with the Kashdan/Elias shocker ‘What Evil Haunts This House?’

These terror-tales captivated the reading public and critics alike when they first appeared and it’s likely the supernatural sector saved DC during one of the toughest downturns in comics publishing history. Now their blend of garish mordant mirth, classic horror scenarios and suspense set-pieces can most familiarly be seen in such children’s series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and their many imitators.

If you crave beautifully realised, tastefully gore-free sagas of tension and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly cartoon chaos, stay up past The Witching Hour as long and as often as you possibly can…

© 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant volume 4: 1943-1944


By Hal Foster (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-455-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal for anybody who ever strived or dreamed or wished… 9/10

Almost certainly the most successful comic strip fantasy ever conceived, the Sunday page Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on February 13th 1937, a luscious full-colour weekly window onto a perfect realm of perfect adventure and romance. The strip followed the life and exploits of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his ancestral homeland in Scandinavian Thule who grew up to roam the world and rose to a paramount position amongst the mightiest heroes of fabled Camelot.

Written and drawn by sublime master draftsman Harold “Hal” Foster, the little princeling matured to clean-limbed manhood in a heady sea of wonderment, visiting far-flung lands and siring a dynasty of equally puissant heroes whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts.

There have been films, animated series and all manner of toys, games and collections based on the strip – one of the few to have lasted from the thunderous 1930s to the present day (over 3800 episodes and counting) – and even in these declining days of the newspaper narrative strip as a viable medium it still claims over 300 American papers as its home. It has even made it into the very ether with an online edition.

Foster produced the strip, one spectacular page a week until 1971, when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt artist John Cullen Murphy was selected to draw the feature. Foster carried on as writer and designer until 1980, after which he fully retired and Murphy’s son assumed the writer’s role.

In 2004 the senior Cullen Murphy also retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of artist Gary Gianni and writer Mark Schultz.

This fourth luxurious oversized full-colour hardback volume reprints – spectacularly restored from Foster’s original Printer’s Proofs – the strips from January 3rd 1943 to 31st December 1944 and sees the beginning of his celebrated but rarely seen “Footer strip” The Mediaeval Castle.

As comprehensively explained in Brian M. Kaine’s introductory essay ‘Hal Foster’s The Mediaeval Castle in the Days of President Roosevelt’ wartime paper rationing forced newspapers to dictate format-changes to their syndicated strip purchases and properties like Prince Valiant began to appear with an unrelated (and therefore optional) second feature, which individual client papers could choose to omit according to their local space considerations.

Apparently the three-panel-per week saga starring the 11th century family of Lord and Lady Harwood, their young sons Arn and Guy and teenaged daughter Alice – a feudal pot-boiler so popular that it spawned a couple of book collections – wasn’t dropped by a single paper throughout its 18-month run from April 23, 1944 to the dog-days of 1945, but Foster was happy to return to one epic per full page once the newsprint restrictions were lifted. This volume also includes a candid glimpse of a painting by the artist lost since his death and only recently discovered at auction.

This comic chronicle opens with Valiant leading King Arthur’s forces in a cunning war of attrition against united Scottish Picts and invading Vikings – but only until the wily young paladin starts sowing deadly discord amongst their assembled ranks, breaking the invasion force by turning it upon itself.

After the clash of arms subsides, restless Val is haunted by visions of Queen Aleta of The Misty Isles, whom he believes has bewitched him, utterly unaware that she saved his life not once but twice.

Determined to lose his dolorous mood, he revisits the fenland swamps of his youth and spends a tempestuous time with the wizard Merlin, before moving on to Camelot and a joyous reunion with his dashing and outrageous comrade Gawain. Even in such company Val’s mood is poor and he determines to visit his father King Aguar in distant Thule, stopping only to eradicate two bands of bandits and cut-purses lurking in the great forest, ably assisted by his devoted squire Beric.

Taking passage to Scandia, the heroes stumble into a turbulent shipboard romance and extended drama which ends tragically as the great vessel Poseidon, carrying them all to Uppsala, founders in a mighty storm.

Enemies become comrades and even friends as they all struggle for survival, with Val, Beric and a few others, including Jewish merchant Ahab and a rowdy Saxon yclept Eric, finally continuing their voyage in small skiff, encountering Viking raiders and deep sea monsters before safely beaching in Trondheim.

Eric joins Val and Beric for the final leg of the journey to Thule, but as they near King Aguar’s palace they become fortuitously embroiled in a plot to oust the aged monarch, leading to insidious intrigue and a spectacular confrontation. As the heroes of the day bask in deserved glory, the boastful and flirtatious Eric is easily and permanently tamed by the delightfully capable maid Ingrid, but the idyllic days don’t last long as the other elements of the proposed coup become known.

For a change, Val uses diplomacy to end the crisis but danger still cloaks him like a shroud. When a hunting accident almost kills him, he accidentally plays Cupid for a crippled artist and a Viking’s daughter and, barely recovered, repulses an invasion by barbarian Finns.

After a collapsing glacier nearly ends his life he is captured by rebellious nobles determined to be rid of his sire. Tortured and used as bait, Valiant escapes, turns the tables on his captors and presides over a grim and merciless siege which sees them all destroyed like vermin.

Midway through that action The Mediaeval Castle debuted, beginning with details of daily life for the noble Harwoods before launching into an epic feud between rival lords that lasted until the end of this collection whilst depriving the lead feature of fully a third of its usual story-space each Sunday.

Undeterred Foster then launched his longest yarn to date: a twenty-month extravaganza which saw Prince Valiant set out for the Misty Isles to free himself of the “spell” of grey-eyed siren Aleta. Returning to Camelot the tormented Prince enlists the aid of Gawain and they promptly set off across the kingdoms of Europe. In Germany they are attacked by barbaric Goths, before taking ship in Rome and being shipwrecked. Beric and the now amnesiac Val are marooned whilst Gawain, who is held hostage by an ambitious Sicilian noble, takes the spotlight for a few weeks.

The sheer bravura of Foster’s storytelling ability comes to the fore now: in modern times an author of a periodical tale would blanch at the spending of a great and well-established character, but as Valiant finally recovers and lands on the extremely hostile Misty Isles one of the most loved players dies nobly to save the Prince’s life…

Aleta, the spellbinder of Val’s nightmares, has been ill-used by fate and is not the monster the bold voyager believes. She is however, in dire straits with a flock of suitors and her own courtiers pressing her to marry immediately and produce an heir. So it’s with mixed emotions that she sees the boy she once rescued burst in, snatch her up and flee the Isles with her as his uncomplaining prisoner.

As for the exhausted but exultant Val, he now has the cause of all his woes chained and at his mercy…

To Be Continued…

Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a non-stop rollercoaster of stirring action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending human-scaled fantasy with dry wit and broad humour with shatteringly dark violence. Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring the strip is a World Classic of fiction and something no fan can afford to miss. If you have never experienced the intoxicating grandeur of Foster’s magnum opus these magnificent, lavishly substantial deluxe editions are the best way possible to do so and will be your gateway to an eye-opening world of wonder and imagination…

Prince Valiant © 2011 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2011 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.

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Valerian and Laureline book 2: The Empire of a Thousand Planets


By J.-C. Méziéres & P. Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-087-0

Val̩rian is arguably the most influential comics science fiction series ever drawn Рand yes, I am including both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in that expansive and undoubtedly contentious statement.

Although to a large extent those venerable strips defined the medium itself, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie has seen some of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings which the filmic phenomenon has shamelessly plundered for decades: everything from the look of the Millennium Falcon to Leia‘s Slave Girl outfit -as this second volume powerfully proves in a stunning comparisons feature following after the magnificent adventure contained herein…

Simply put, more carbon-based lifeforms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in tech realism and light-hearted swashbuckling rollercoaster romps of Méziéres & Christin than any other cartoon spacer ever imagined possible.

The groundbreaking series followed a Franco-Belgian mini-boom in fantasy fiction triggered by Jean-Claude Forest’s 1962 creation Barbarella. Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent launched in the November 9th, 1967 edition of Pilote (#420) and was an instant hit. In combination with Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane, Valérian‘s hot public reception led to the creation of dedicated adult graphic sci fi magazine Métal Hurlant in 1977.

Valérian and Laureline (as the series eventually became) is light-hearted, wildly imaginative time-travelling, space-warping fantasy (a bit like Dr. Who, but not really at all…), drenched in wry, satirical, humanist action and political commentary, starring, in the beginning, an affable, capable, unimaginative and by-the-book cop tasked with protecting the official universal chronology and counteracting paradoxes caused by casual time-travellers.

When Valérian travelled to 11th century France in the initial tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’) he was rescued from doom by a fiery, capable young woman named Laureline whom he brought back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative wonderland of Galaxity, capital of the Terran Empire. The indomitable lass trained as a Spatio-Temporal operative and began accompanying him on his missions.

Every subsequent Valérian adventure until the 13th was first serialised weekly in Pilote until the conclusion of ‘The Rage of Hypsis’ after which the mind-boggling sagas were only published as all-new complete graphic novels, until the whole spectacular saga resolved and ended in 2010.

The Empire of a Thousand Planets originally ran in Pilote #520-541from October 23rd 1969 to March 19th 1970 and saw the veteran and rookie despatched to the fabled planet Syrte the Magnificent, capital of vast system-wide civilisation and a world in inexplicable and rapid technological and social decline.

The mission is one of threat-assessment: staying in their base time-period (October 2720) the pair are tasked with examining the first galactic civilisation ever discovered that has never experienced any human contact or contamination, but as usual, events don’t go according to plan…

Despite easily blending into a culture with a thousand sentient species, Valerian and Laureline soon find themselves plunged into intrigue and dire danger when the acquisitive girl buys an old watch in the market.

Nobody on Syrte knows what it is since all the creatures of this civilisation have an innate, infallible time-sense, but the gaudy bauble soon attracts the attention of one of the Enlightened – a sinister cult of masked mystics who have the ear of the Emperor and a stranglehold on all technologies….

The Enlightened are responsible for the stagnation within this once-vital interplanetary colossus and they quickly move to eradicate the Spatio-temporal agents. Narrowly escaping doom, the pair reluctantly experience the staggering natural wonders and perils of the wilds beyond the capital city before dutifully returning to retrieve their docked spaceship.

Soon however our dauntless duo are distracted and embroiled in a deadly rebellion fomented by the Commercial Traders Guild. Infiltrating the awesome palace of the puppet-Emperor and exploring the mysterious outer planets Valerian and Laureline discover a long-fomenting plot to destroy Earth – a world supposedly unknown to anyone in this Millennial Empire…

All-out war looms and the Enlightened’s incredible connection to post-Atomic disaster Earth is astonishingly revealed just as inter-stellar conflict erupts between rebels and Imperial forces, with our heroes forced to fully abandon their neutrality and take up arms to save two civilisations a universe apart yet inextricably linked…

Comfortingly, yet unjustly familiar, this spectacular space-opera is fun-filled, action-packed, visually breathtaking and mind-bogglingly ingenious.  Drenched in wide-eyed fantasy wonderment, science fiction adventures have never been better than this.

© Dargaud Paris, 1971 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Hidden


By Richard Sala (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-160699-385-6

Richard Sala is a deserving Darling of the Literary Comics movement (if such a thing exists) blending beloved pop culture artefacts and conventions – particularly old horror films – with a soberly 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 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 jolting joy to behold and has graced many outside-industry projects such as work with Lemony Snickett, the Resident and even – posthumously – Jack Kerouac; illustrating the author’s outrageous Doctor Sax and The Great World Snake.

His latest appetising shocker The Hidden returns to the seamy, scary underbelly of un-life with an enigmatic quest tale following the few “lucky” survivors who wake up one morning to discover civilisation has succumbed to an inexplicable global Armageddon, with no power, practically no people and ravening monsters roaming everywhere.

Trapped on in the fog on a mountain, Colleen and Tom emerge into the world of death and destruction before promptly fleeing back to the wilderness. As they run they find an amnesiac bum, who uncomprehendingly leads them to other young survivors with their own tale of terror, a place of sanctuary in the desert and the shocking true secret of the disaster…

Clever, compelling and staggeringly engaging, this fabulous full-colour hardback is a wonderfully nostalgic escape hatch back to those days when unruly children scared 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…

© 2011 Richard Sala. All rights reserved.

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Twin Spica volume 8


By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-13-1

The hungry fascination, hopeful imagination and cocksure anticipation of space travel which was an integral component of post-World War II society is the driving narrative engine for this inspiring manga epic from Kou Yaginuma, who first began capturing hearts and minds with his poignant short story ‘2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi’ (‘2015: Fireworks’), published in Gekkan Comics Flapper magazine, June 2000).

The author happily expanded and enhanced the subject, themes and characters into a major narrative epic combining hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days and growing up.

To recap: diminutive teenager Asumi Kamogawa has always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the lonely child gazed up at the stars with her imaginary friend Mr. Lion, especially at the twinkling glow of Virgo and the alluring binary star Spica. An isolated, serious girl, she lived with her father, a common labourer who once worked for the consortium which built the rockets for Japan’s Space Program.

In 2010, when Asumi was a year old, the first Japanese space-launch ended in utter catastrophe when rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”), exploded: crashing to earth on the city of Yuigahama. Hundreds were killed and many more injured, including Asumi’s mother. Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die. The shock crushed her grieving husband and utterly traumatised infant Asumi.

In response to the disaster, Japan set up an Astronautics and Space Sciences Acadamy. After years of struggle, in 2024 Asumi was accepted to the Tokyo National Space School and slowly began making real friends like Shinnosuke Fuchuya (who used to bully her as child in Yuigahama), jolly Kei Oumi, chilly Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool style-icon and fashion victim Shu Suzuki. Every day Asumi moved closer to her unshakable dream of going to the stars.

Small, physically weak and very poor, Asumi endures and triumphs. She still talks with Mr. Lion… who might be the ghost of an astronaut who died on the Shishigō…

The individual stories are broken up into “Missions” and this particularly tender and thoughtful eighth volume begins with #39 as the still somewhat aloof Asumi undertakes a devout daily personal ritual – absorbing the wonder of the Heavens at the local Planetarium. Times are changing, however and the venerable old edifice is about to close forever, a victim of economic cuts and dwindling public interest…

Later she rejoins classmates Oumi and Ukita on the school roof for more stargazing. Excitement rises when they think they might have discovered a new supernova…

Mission: 40 concentrates on the rapidly approaching end of semester and exams. Oumi is ill and might not pass, whilst enigmatic Shu reveals yet another hidden talent after being given the shocking news that he is confidentially considered for participation in an American Shuttle mission. Meanwhile, Christmas is coming and Asumi is inexplicably growing closer to a shy and extremely diffident boy from the local orphanage, just when she can least afford distractions. With her workload and part-time job she hardly has time to think as it is…

Mission: 41 continues her concentration-busting whilst we learn some tragic secrets regarding the abusive home life of Mr. Perfect Shu Suzuki and the other girls begin to notice physical evidence of her “imaginary friend”. When the orphan boy reveals he is leaving Japan, Asumi has to make a choice between her current emotions and her life’s dream and it takes a dramatic intervention by rival and “frenemy” Fuchuya to set her straight on what she really needs in the truly heartbreaking Mission: 42…

The orphan boy’s history and astonishing secret is examined in #43 whilst #44 amps up the school pressure and the conflicted Fuchuya recalls an pivotal moment when his fireworks-maker grandfather sparked his own interest in the stars – and Asumi…

The offer to send a Japanese astronaut up with the US shuttle becomes public in Mission: 45 and a fierce competition for the single placement ensues counter-pointed by more agonising reminiscences from Shu and the main storyline concludes in #46 as the previously isolated Asumi realises her life is changing and she has friends she might soon lose…

The going is getting tougher and now that they are all nearing the end of their training, it becomes increasingly, painfully clear to the determined students that the bonds so painstakingly forged are on the verge of being severed. After only one more year, final selections will be made and most of the class will fail and vanish from each other’s lives. A countdown clock is ticking…

Also included here a couple of ancillary tales: ‘Giovanni’s Ticket’ returns to the early years following the Shishigō crash and explores Asumi and Fuchuya’s formative relationship whilst the poignant ‘Guide to Cherry Blossoms’ follows the path to love and examines roads not taken by Kasumi Suzuki (presumably Shu’s tragic other if the dates hidden in the art work are anything to go by) during the highly symbolic spring festival.

The book ends with a wistfully autobiographical ‘Another Spica’ vignette from author Yaginuma’s days as a part-time server on a soft-drink stand in a theme park; one more charming insight into creative minds and unrequited passions…

These deeply moving marvels originally appeared in 2005 as Futatsu no Supika 8 and 9 in the Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeted at male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

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

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

Hopefully rekindling the irresistible allure of the Final Frontier for the next generation (and the last ones too) Twin Spica is quite simply the best…

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

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Showcase Presents Robin the Boy Wonder


By Gardner Fox, Mike Friedrich, Frank Robbins, Gil Kane, Irv Novick, Dick Dillin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-814-0

Robin the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940), created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger & Jerry Robinson: a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss. The story of how Batman took the orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still regularly undergoes tweaking to this day.

Grayson fought beside Batman until 1970 when, as an indicator of those turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder college student. His creation as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with has inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed sidekicks and kid crusaders, and Grayson continued in similar innovative vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership of America’s increasingly rebellious youth culture.

Robin even had his own solo series in Star Spangled Comics from 1947 to 1952, a solo spot in the back of Detective Comics from the end of the 1960s wherein he alternated and shared with Batgirl, and a starring feature in the anthology comic Batman Family. During the 1980s he led the New Teen Titans first in his original costumed identity but eventually in the reinvented guise of Nightwing, re-establishing a turbulent working relationship with his mentor Batman.

This broad ranging black and white compilation volume covers the period from Julie Schwartz’s captivating reinvigoration of the Dynamic Duo in 1964 until 1975 with Robin-related stories and material from Batman #184, 192, 202, 213, 227, 229-231, 234-236, 239-242, 244-246, 248-250, 252, 254 and portions of 217, Detective Comics #342, 386, 390-391, 394-395, 398-403, 445, 447, 450-251, Worlds Finest Comics #141, 147, 195, 200, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #91, 111, 130 and Justice League of America #91-92.

The wonderment begins with the lead story from Batman #213 (July-August 1969) – a 30th Anniversary reprint Giant – which featured an all-new retelling of ‘The Origin of Robin’ courtesy of E. Nelson Bridwell, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, which perfectly reinterpreted that epochal event for the Vietnam generation. After that the tales proceed in (more or less) chronological order, covering episodes where Robin took centre-stage.

First up is ‘The Olsen-Robin Team versus “the Superman-Batman Team!”’ (World’s Finest #141 May 1964). In this stirring blend of science fiction thriller and crime caper, the underappreciated sidekicks fake their own deaths and undertake a secret mission even their adult partners must remain unaware of… for the very best of reasons of course, whilst the sequel from WF #147 (February 1965, Hamilton, Swan & Klein) delivers an engaging drama of youth-in-revolt as ‘The New Terrific Team!’ quit their assistant roles to strike out on their disgruntled own. Naturally there’s a perfectly reasonable if incredible reason here, too…

Detective Comics #342 (August 1965) featured ‘The Midnight Raid of the Robin Gang!’ by John Broome, Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella, wherein the Boy Wonder infiltrated a youthful gang of costumed criminals whilst Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #91 (March 1966) provided ‘The Dragon Delinquent!’ (Leo Dorfman & Pete Costanza) which saw Robin and the cub reporter both, unknown to each other, infiltrate the same biker gang with potentially fatal consequences.

‘The Boy Wonder’s Boo-Boo Patrol!’ originally appeared as a back-up in Batman #184 (September 1966 by Fox, Chic Stone & Sid Greene), showing the daring lad’s star-potential in a clever tale of thespian skulduggery and classy conundrum solving, whilst ‘Dick Grayson’s Secret Guardian!’ from Batman #192 (June 1967: Fox, Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella) displayed his physical prowess in one of comicbooks’ first instances of the now over-used exo-skeletal augmentation gimmick.

‘Jimmy Olsen, Boy Wonder!’ (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #111, June 1968, by Cary Bates & Costanza) saw the reporter try to prove his covert skills by convincing the Gotham Guardian that he was actually Robin whilst that same month in Batman #203 the genuine article tackled the ‘Menace of the Motorcycle Marauders!’ (by Mike Friedrich, Stone & Giella) consequently learning a salutary lesson in the price of responsibility…

Cover-dated April 1969, Detective Comics #386 featured the Boy Wonder’s first solo back-up in what was to become his semi-regular home-spot, alternating with Batgirl. ‘The Teen-Age Gap!’ (Friedrich, Andru & Esposito) depicted a High School Barn Dance which only narrowly escaped becoming a riot thanks to his diligent intervention, but when Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson took over the art-chores for #390’s ‘Countdown to Chaos!’ (August 1969), the series came stunningly alive. Friedrich concocted a canny tale of corruption and kidnapping leading to a paralysing city ‘Strike!’ for the lad to spectacularly expose and foil in the following issue.

Batman #217 (December 1969) was a shattering landmark in the character’s long history as Dick Grayson left home to attend Hudson University. Only the pertinent portion from ‘One Bullet Too Many!’ by Frank Robbins, Irv Norvick & Dick Giordano is included here, closely followed by ‘Strike… Whilst the Campus is Hot’ (Detective #394 from the same month, by Robbins, Kane & Anderson) as the callow Freshman stumbled into a campus riot organised by criminals and radical activists which forced the now Teen Wonder to ‘Drop Out… or Drop Dead!‘ before stopping the seditious scheme…

Detective Comics #398-399 (April and May 1970) featured a two-part spy-thriller where Vince Colletta replaced Anderson as inker. ‘Moon-Struck’ saw lunar rock samples borrowed from NASA apparently cause a plague among Hudson’s students until Robin exposed a Soviet scheme to sabotage the Space Program in ‘Panic by Moonglow’.

The 400th anniversary issue (June 1970) finally teamed the Teen Wonder with his alternating back-up star in ‘A Burial For Batgirl!’(Denny O’Neil, Kane & Colletta): a college-based murder mystery which once more heavily referenced the political and social unrest then plaguing US campuses, but which still found space to be smart and action-packed as well as topical before the chilling conclusion ‘Midnight is the Dying Hour!’ wrapped up the saga.

Never afraid to repeat a good idea, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #130 (July 1970) saw Bob Haney & Murphy Anderson detail the exploits of ‘Olsen the Teen Wonder!’ as the boy reporter again aped Batman’s buddy to infiltrate an underworld newspaper whilst World’s Finest #195 (August 1970) found Jimmy & Robin targeted for murder by the Mafia in ‘Dig Now, Die Later!’ by Haney, Andru & Esposito.

Simultaneously in Detective #402, ‘My Place in the Sun’ by Friedrich, Kane & Colletta, embroiled Dick Grayson and fellow Teen Titan Roy “Speedy” Harper in a crisis of social conscience, before our scarce-bearded hero wrapped up his first Detective run with the corking crime-busting caper ‘Break-Out’ in the September issue.

Robin’s further adventures transferred to the back of Batman, beginning with #227 (December 1970) and ‘Help Me – I Think I’m Dead!’ (Friedrich, Novick & Esposito) as ecological awareness and penny-pinching Big Business catastrophically collided on the campus, beginning an extended epic which saw the Teen Thunderbolt explore communes, alternative cultures and the burgeoning spiritual New Age fads of the day.

‘Temperature Boiling… and Rising!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia from #229, February 1971) continued the politically charged drama which is uncomfortably interrupted by a trenchant fantasy team-up with Superman sparked when the Man of Steel attempted to halt a violent campus clash between students and National Guard.

‘Prisoners of the Immortal World!’ (World’s Finest #2000 February 1971, by Friedrich, Dick Dillin & Giella) featured brothers on the opposite side of the teen scene kidnapped with Robin and Superman to a distant planet where undying vampiric aliens waged eternal war on each other, before returning to more pedestrian perils in Batman #230 (March 1971) where ‘Danger Comes A-Looking!’ for our young hero in the form of a gang of right-wing, anti-protester jocks and a deluded friend who preferred bombs to brotherhood, courtesy of Friedrich, Novick & Dick Giordano.

‘Wiped Out!’ (#231, May 1971) produced an eye-popping end to the jock gang whilst #234 offered a clever road-trip tale in ‘Vengeance for a Cop!’ when a campus guard was gunned down and Robin tracked the only suspect to a commune. ‘The Outcast Society’ had its own unique system of justice but eventually the shooter was apprehended in the cataclysmic ‘Rain Fire!’ (#235 and 236 respectively).

The Collective experience blossomed into psychedelic and psionic strangeness in Batman #239 as ‘Soul-Pit’ (illustrated by new penciller Rich Buckler) found Dick Grayson’s would be girlfriend, Jesus-freaks and runaway kids all sucked into a telepathic duel between a father and son, played out in the ‘Theatre of the Mind!’ before revealing the ‘Secret of the Psychic Siren!’ culminating in a lethal clash with a clandestine cult in ‘Death-Point!’ in Batman #242 (June 1972).

After that eerie epic we slip back a year to peruse the Teen Wonder’s participation in one of the hallowed JLA/JSA summer team-ups beginning with Justice League of America #91 (August 1971) and ‘Earth… the Monster-Maker!’ as the Supermen, Flashes, Green Lanterns, Atoms and a brace of Hawkmen from two separate Realities simultaneously and ineffectually battled an alien boy and his symbiotically-linked dog (sort of) on almost identical planets a universe apart, whilst painfully patronising the Robins of both until ‘Solomon Grundy… the One and Only!’ gave everybody a brutal but ultimately life-saving lesson on acceptance, togetherness, youthful optimism and lateral thinking.

‘The Teen-Age Trap!’ by Elliot Maggin, Novick & Giordano (Batman #244, September 1972) found Dick Grayson mentoring troubled kids – and finding plenty of troublemakers his own age – whilst ‘Who Stole the Gift From Nowhere!’ was a delightful old fashioned change-of-pace mystery yarn.

‘How Many Ways Can a Robin Die?’ by Robbins, Novick Dillin & Giordano from Batman #246 (December 1972) is actually a Dark Knight story with the Teen Wonder reduced to helpless hostage throughout, but issue #248 began another run of short solo stories with ‘The Immortals of Usen Castle’ (Maggin, Novick & Frank McLaughlin) wherein a deprived-kids day trip turned into an episode of Scooby-Doo, Where are You?, whilst the ‘Case of the Kidnapped Crusader!’ (pencilled by Bob Brown) put the Student Centurion on the trail of an abducted consumer advocate and ‘Return of the Flying Grayson!’ by Maggin, Novick & McLaughlin from #250 painfully reminded the hero of his Circus past after tracking down pop-art thieves.

Batman #252 (October 1973) featured a light-hearted pairing with a Danny Kaye pastiche in the charming romp ‘The King From Canarsie!’ by Maggin, Dillin & Giordano, whilst ‘The Phenomenal Memory of Luke Graham!’ (#254 January/February 1974 and inked by Murphy Anderson) caused nothing but trouble for Robin, college professors and a gang of robbers…

It was a year before the Teen Wonder’s solo sallies resumed with ‘The Touchdown Trap’ in Detective Comics #445 as new scripter Bob Rozakis and guest artist Mike Grell catapulted our hero into a fifty-year old college football feud that refused to die, whilst ‘The Puzzle of the Pyramids’ (#447 illustrated by A. Martinez & Mazzaroli) offered another clever crime mystery.

This magically eclectic monochrome compendium concludes with an action-packed human drama in ‘The Parking Lot Bandit!’ and ‘The Parking Lot Bandit Strikes Again!’ from Detective #450-451, (August and September 1975, drawn by art from Al Milgrom & Terry Austin).

These stories span a turbulent and chaotic period for comicbooks: perfectly encapsulating and describing the vicissitudes of the superhero genre’s premier juvenile lead: complex yet uncomplicated adventures drenched in charm and wit, moody tales of rebellion and self-discovery and rollercoaster, all-fun romps. Action is always paramount and angst-free satisfaction is pretty much guaranteed. This book of cracking yarns something no fan of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction can afford to miss.

© 1964-1975, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Beast is Dead: World War II Among the Animals


By Edmond-François Calvo, Victor Dancette & Jacques Zimmerman (Abi Melzer Productions)
No ISBN:

In Acknowledgement of the upcoming Comics in Conflict event at the Imperial War Museum this weekend – see our Noticeboard for details – I’m going to be reviewing a few intriguing and hopefully pertinent classics beginning with this tragically neglected cartoon masterpiece…

As the European phase of World War II staggered to its bloody and inevitable conclusion, the enslaved nations began to reclaim their homelands and various national prides in a glorious wave of liberation. All over the Old World long suppressed stories and accounts, true or otherwise, began to be shared. During France’s occupation publishing was strictly controlled – even comics – but the Nazis couldn’t suppress creative spirit and many conquered citizens resisted in the only ways they safely could.

For sculptor, artist, caricaturist and social satirist Edmond-François Calvo (26/8/1892-11/10/1958) that was by drawing. Watched by his adoring apprentice-artist Albert (Asterix) Uderzo and inspired by the Gallic graphic giant Daumier, the venerable creator of such joyous anthropomorphic classics as ‘Patamousse’, ‘Anatomies Atomiques’, ‘Les Aventures de Rosalie’, ‘Monsieur Royal Présente’, ‘Grandeur et Décadente du Royaume des Bêtes’ and ‘Cricri, Souris d’Appartement’ worked quietly and determinedly on his own devastating war-effort secret weapon.

He latterly specialised in sparkling, socially aware and beautiful family-friendly strips such as ‘Moustache et Trottinette’, ‘Femmes d’Aujourd’hui’, ‘Coquin le Petit Cocker’ and a host of fairytale adaptations for Tintin, Baby Journal, Cricri Journal, Coq Hardi, Bravo!, Pierrot Âmes Vaillantes and Coeurs Vaillants.

Beginning as a caricaturist for Le Canard Enchaîné in 1938 Calvo eventually moved into strip stories, but also had to moonlight with “real” jobs such as woodcarver and innkeeper. By the time France fell to the Germans in June 1940 he was working for Offenstadt/S.P.E. press group, contributing ‘Le Chevalier Chantecler’, ‘D’Artagnan’, ‘Les Grandes Aventures’, ‘Robin des Bois’, ‘Les Voyages de Gulliver’ and the initial three chapters of ‘Patamouche’ to Fillette, L’Épatant, L’As and Junior plus ‘La Croisière Fantastique’, ‘Croquemulot’ and ‘Un Chasseur Sachant Chasser’ to Éditions Sépia.

Most of this material was produced under the stern scrutiny of the all-conquering censors Рmuch like his comics contemporary Herg̩ in Belgium Рbut Calvo also found time to produce something far less anodyne or safe.

With both Editor Victor Dancette and writer Jacques Zimmermann providing scripts, and beginning as early as 1941, Calvo began translating the history of the conflict into a staggeringly beautiful and passionately vehement dark fable, outlining the betrayal of the European nations by literal Wolves in the Fold.

After years of patient creation – and presumably limited dissemination amongst trusted confreres – the first part of La Bete est Mort! – ‘When the beast is raging’ was published in 1944, followed a year later with the concluding ‘When the animal is struck down’. Both were colossal hits even before the war ended and the volumes were continually reprinted until 1948 when the public clearly decided to move on with their lives…

The story is related in epic full-page painted spreads and captivating, luscious strip instalments and the smooth, slick glamour of Disney’s production style was co-opted to deliver the list of outrages to be addressed and a warning to the future, with each nation being categorised by a national totem.

The French were rabbits, the Italians hyenas and the Japanese monkeys. Britain was populated by bulldogs, Belgium by lions, Russia by polar bears and America by vast herds of buffalo…

Hitler’s inner circle of monsters got special attention: such as Goering the Pig and Himmler the Skunk, but so did the good guys: General de Gaulle was depicted as a magnificent Stork…

A fiercely unrepentant but compellingly lovely polemic by a bloody but unbowed winning side, The Beast is Dead was forgotten until republished in 1977 by Futuropolis. This particular English-language, oversized (225 x 300mm or 9 inches x 12) hardback edition was released in 1985 and includes the introduction from a Dutch edition; a dedication from Uderzo and a monochrome selection of Calvo’s wartime and post-war cartoons.

Magnificent, compelling radiant, hugely influential (without this there would never have been Maus), astoundingly affecting and just plain gorgeous, this modern horror tale of organised inhumanity is out of print but still available if you look hard and since an animated film adaptation was begun in 2005, hopefully there’s a new edition in the works too.
© 1944-1945 Éditions G.P. © 1977 Éditions Futuropolis. © 1984 Abi Melzer Productions.

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Xenozoic


By Mark Shultz (Flesk)
ISBN: 978-1-933865-31-7

Some things just are cool.

Perfect unto themselves and intrinsically, inexplicably, indefinably just right in any milieu and venue. Thus in 1986 when Mark Shultz wrote and drew the EC comics inspired pastiche/homage ‘Xenozoic!’ for Kitchen Sink’s fantasy anthology Death Rattle, his solid blend of pulp fiction, fifties automobile chic and honking great saurians hit an instantly addictive chord with the comics buying public.

Xenozoic Tales the series debuted early in 1987 and ran until 1989: 14 sporadic, magical issues which spawned an animated television series, assorted arcade, video and role-playing games, trading cards, action figures, candy bars and a succession of reprints (comics and graphic novel collections) from Kitchen Sink, Marvel and Dark Horse – although mostly under its alternative title Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.

Flesk Publications specialises in art books and the lavish tomes they produce are dedicated to the greats of our industry, with volumes on sequential narrative and fantasy illustration starring Steve Rude, Al Williamson, James Bama, Gary Gianni, Franklin Booth, William Stout and Joseph Clement Coll.

This oversized (279 x 216mm) 352-page softcover monochrome collection re-presents all the stories (excluding a few side-bar stories by sometimes inker and collaborator Steve Stiles) in one luxuriously exuberant and staggeringly compelling compilation and even finds a little room for some extra sketches and unused drawings.

A thousand years from now Earth is slowly recovering from a shattering disaster which devastated the planet and sent mankind scuttling into deep subterranean shelters for centuries. Now humans are reduced to isolated pockets of tribal civilisation eking out a precarious existence in enclaves cobbled together from equal parts recovered remnant technology, renewable natural resources and sheer ingenuity.

In the thousand years since the fall, beasts from many disparate eras – from dragonflies to dinosaurs, trilobites to sabretooth tigers – have all re-established themselves in the tenuous yet expansive ecology. Historian/engineer/shamans called the Old Blood have, for centuries, advocated a doctrine of natural balance; helping mankind progress and thrive in harmony with the environment, but now the species’ old habits of greed, waste and ruthless exploitation are becoming dominant again in too many ambitious tribal leaders…

Following a foreword from creator Mark Schultz and an effusive introduction from animator Craig Elliot there’s a lovely descriptive character epigram of ‘Jack and Hannah’ to contemplate, after which the much-recycled but always excellent adventures commence with ‘An Archipelago of Stone’ as, in sparkling tribute to the work of Wally Wood, Joe Orlando and Jack Davis, the once magnificent pre-Cataclysm metropolis now known as the City in the Sea gets word of an ambassador from the far off tribe of Wassoon.

The formidable Hannah Dundee has sailed north to cement friendly relations with the Sea City dwellers, exchange knowledge and ask the governors to rein in Jack “Cadillac” Tenrec: Old Blood nature shaman, brilliant engineer, miraculous mechanic, ancient auto aficionado and the tribe’s top hunter. The problem is that Tenrec hunts poachers and he’s so good at it that the criminals are steadily drifting into Wassoon territory to escape his lethal attentions…

In this packed 12-page tale all this information is cleverly imparted as some of those poachers try to murder the Ambassador before she can even present her credentials, but the formidable Cadillac Jack is, as usual one step ahead of everybody…

‘The Opportunists’ gives Hannah a chance to display her own capabilities as she promptly solves a long-standing problem of her host’s fishing fleet with the help of keen observation, a weedy scholar named Remfro and a brace of scavenging Zekes (pteranodons), after which ‘Law of the Land’ returns focus to Tenrec as the wrench-jockey and big-game hunter leads a relief column to an outlying mine project and discovers an incorrigible poacher in his team.

Slaughtering dinos for spurious yet valuable medical “cures” is phenomenally profitable, so Jack’s lethal treatments are always carried out with a long-term view of deterring other greedy potential criminals too…

On reaching the mine, ‘Rogue’ (inked by Steve Stiles) concentrates on a crazed man-eating Shivat, which Jack and the ever-present, too-inquisitive Ambassador are forced to put down. Of course there’s a reason why the T-Rex is bothering with human prey, and once more Tenrec gets to teach a poacher a salutary final lesson. Next that debut tale from Death Rattle is marginally remodelled and neatly slotted in as ‘Xenozoic!’ follows Tenrec’s troop into a deep swamp in search of a missing scientific expedition. The hideous fate of Dr. Fessenden and his team gives the first clue to the impossible ecology of the post-Cataclysm world…

Initially unwelcome Hannah Dundee was growing on Jack, which explains why – against his better judgement – the hunter complies with her insane attempt to domesticate a mastodon in ‘Mammoth Pitfall!’ – a task made even harder by a poacher seeking to murder them and steal his “overlander” (a rebuilt, customised, guano-powered Cadillac).

‘The Rules of the Game’ (Stiles inks) finds Jack and Hannah still waiting for the mammoth to get bored (like elephants, they’re easily riled and never forget), affording us a glimpse as the engineer’s adored horde of retrieved, restored automobiles, but when he shows off his driving skills they are caught in a flash-flood and treated to another example of the mysterious forces which bind the new world together…

Shultz’s art had been constantly evolving and by the time of ‘Benefactor’ – the first full-length adventure – the more subtle, humanistic influences of Al Williamson, Angelo Torres and Frank Frazetta were informing every page. This was particularly effective in this tale of political intrigue wherein the increasingly trusted Hannah is introduced to the clandestine ancient race that has helped Old Blood shamans steer humanity away from their self-destructive course, but regrettably those urges aren’t extinguished yet and one of the City Governors follows, intent on assassinating the man who is increasing stalling human “Progress”…

The true reason for Dundee’s mission is disclosed in ‘History Lesson’ when Jack takes her to The Library; a vast, partially flooded subterranean vault filled not only with lost books but also pre-Cataclysm technology. However, trouble is brewing and Scharnhorst, leader of the “moles” who excavate and guard the finds, has discovered a deadly ancient weapon and is planning to make a play for supreme power…

Thinking the crisis over Jack and Hannah go on a fishing ‘Excursion’ but after learning the history of the Wassoon tribe Jack stumbles into a far deadlier catch than he anticipated. In ‘Foundling’ Hannah solves the mystery of a baby missing for a decade and discovers more about the mysterious Grith who secretly shepherd the planet whilst ‘Green Air’ sees aviation addict Remfro attempt the first manned flight in a millennium after which ‘The Growing Pool’ gives more clues to the nature of the Xenozoic Age when an ancient, artificial gene soup is discovered, only to escape into a lake and trigger a fantastic explosion of raw evolutionary insanity…

As guardian of the eco-system Jack had tried to destroy the burgeoning life-lab but was betrayed and knocked out by those closest to him. ‘In the Dreamtime…’ finds him recovering from his wounds, when city Governor Dahlgren turns up with a warning and a mission. Heading out to a road-building project that’s gone quiet Tenrec and Hannah stumble into a macabre and deadly extinction event which almost ends their lives too, before ‘Last Link In the Chain’ sees Scharnhorst make her grab for power; attempting to assassinate Jack whilst taking control of the City Governors.

Tenrec’s precious balance of nature is keeping man down and she intends to restore humanity’s rightful place as ‘Lords of the Earth’. Wounded, discredited and on the run Jack leaves the City in the Sea as civil war is about to erupt and is forced to journey with Hannah to Wassoon, where he will swiftly discover that her people might be even worse.

Is it simply impossible for humanity to live in harmony with everything else on the planet…?

As they flee south Jack and Hannah wash up on a deadly island paradise where bugs and seagoing invertebrates have evolved to fill every ecological niche – including top-predator – in ‘Primeval’. On reaching Wassoon ‘Two Cities’ introduces Tenrec to truly Byzantine and Machiavellian politicking as various factions seek to exploit his knowledge and worth, just as Scharnhorst’s Sea Wolves arrive, demanding his arrest and return. They leave with a corpse, but it isn’t Jack’s…

He isn’t without friends however. Hannah’s old Nanny is high in the Old Blood hierarchy and in direct contact with the Grith, enabling Jack to turn the tables and make a few new allies in ‘Dangerous Grounds’ before this unfinished symphony of pulp wonderment concludes (hopefully temporarily) in ‘Another Swarm’ as an unlikely alliance is formed when the Grith reveal the true powers who run the Earth and dinosaur shaman Jack Tenrec prepared to return to the city that disavowed him…

Blockbusting in scope, magnificently fanciful and beautifully rendered, Xenozoic is the ideal everyman graphic novel: a perfect example of exciting, engaging classical comics storytelling that should be on everyone’s “must read” list.

© 2011 Mark Schultz. All Rights Reserved.

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Twin Spica volume 7


By Kou Yaginuma, translated by Maya Rosewood (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-12-4

The yearning, imagination and anticipation of space travel, such a critical component of post-World War II society, is paramount to this inspiring manga series from Kou Yaginuma, who first captured the hearts and minds of the public with his poignant short story ‘2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi’ (‘2015: Fireworks’, published in Gekkan Comics Flapper magazine, June 2000).

Since then he has expanded and enhanced the subject, themes and characters into a major epic combining hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism and traditional tales of school-days and growing up.

2024AD: teenaged Asumi Kamogawa has always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the lonely child gazed up at the stars with her imaginary friend Mr. Lion, especially at the twinkling glow of Virgo and the alluring binary star Spica. An isolated, serious child, she lived with her father, a common labourer who once worked for the consortium which built the rockets for Japan’s Space Program.

In 2010, when Asumi was a year old, the first Japanese launch ended in utter catastrophe when rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”), exploded: crashing to earth in the city of Yuigahama. Hundreds were killed and many more injured, including Asumi’s mother. Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die. The shock crushed her grieving husband and utterly traumatised infant Asumi.

In response to the disaster Japan set up an astronautics and space sciences training facilty and after years of struggle Asumi was accepted by the Tokyo National Space School. Slowly making friends like Shinnosuke Fuchuya (who used to bully her as child), jolly Kei Oumi, chilly Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool style-icon and fashion victim Shu Suzuki, she daily moved closer to her unshakable dream of going to the stars.

Against all odds – she is small, physically weak and very poor – Asumi endures. She still talks with Mr. Lion, who might be the ghost of an astronaut who died on the Shishigō…

I blinked and somehow missed a couple of volumes of this supremely moving saga, so by way of experiment I’m reviewing this seventh book without knowing all that’s recently occurred, and I’m delighted to announce that there’s been progress but not enough to confuse new or lax readers…

The story begins as the still quite formal classmates join Asumi on a vacation to her childhood home in Yuigahama and uncover a mystery about standoffish Marika, who has discovered an unsuspected connection to the rebuilt city. She is doubly plagued by an illness she hides from her comrades and teachers as well as phantom memories which increasingly draw her to a secluded shrine dedicated to the disaster.

When Marika succumbs to her inner torment and wanders away to find the isolated commemoration she becomes dangerously lost and Asumi, pushed by her own ghosts, tracks her down just in time…

As they wait together to be found, deeper bonds are forged, some secrets are revealed and we are afforded a glimpse into the events prior to and just following the crash of the Shishigō. It becomes clear that both girls are afflicted with the same unquenchable need to escape the Earth…

Asumi’s father Tomoro Kamogawa is a no fan of the space program, having lost his wife, his engineering job and his pride to the race for space. In the wake of the catastrophe he was assigned by his bosses at the corporation who built the ship to lead the reparations committee.

Guilt-wracked and himself bereaved, the devastated widower had to visit and apologize to each and every survivor and victim’s grieving family. He raised his daughter alone, working two and often three menial jobs at a time for over a decade.

Now, his old engineering colleague Takahito Sano is one of Asumi’s Professors at the Space School and the men’s previous history and relationship is revealed. A possible cause of the crash is mooted as the five astronaut trainees bond in an atmosphere of unravelling secrets and too many persistent ghosts and memories…

The second half of the book concentrates on the students’ return to school and their next semester of training. Asumi has struck up a more than casual relationship with a boy in a park. He volunteers at a hospice and is trying to learn the harmonica so that he can play to an old woman with dementia. He reminds Asumi of a sickly High-school friend named Shimazu…

Diffidently bonding, the boy tells her of a Sunday concert he’s playing at a week hence and she promises to be there…

Meanwhile at school the latest test of strength, ingenuity and fortitude finds the class divided into teams and transported to a decommissioned prison. Their task: to break free within seven days. Asumi convinces the teachers to drive them back to the city early if they all finish the task before Sunday…

However, even with things working her way there’s a hitch and only terse, unpredictable Fuchuya can help the girl he spends so much time studiously annoying and ignoring – if he can be bothered…

This volume also contains two more bittersweet autobiographical ‘Another Spica’ vignettes from author Yaginuma’s days as a part-time server on a soft-drink stand in a theme park; both delightfully painful accounts of amorous timidity, deep yearning, over-thinking and unrequited young love

All these gloriously heady confections initially appeared in 2004-2005as Futatsu no Supika 7 and 8 in the Seinen manga publication Gekkan Comics Flapper, targeted at male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding beguiling saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

Twin Spica ran for eight enchanting years (September 2001-August 2009): sixteen volumes tracing the orbits of Asumi and her friends from callow students to competent astronauts and the series has spawned both anime and live action TV series.

This delightful serial has everything: plenty of hard science to back up the savvy extrapolation, an ever-more engaging cast, enduring mystery, tender moments, isolation and teen angst and true friendships; all wrapped up in a joyous coming-of-age drama with supernatural overtones and masses of sheer sentiment.

Utterly defining the siren call of the Starry Reaches for a new generation (and the older ones too) Twin Spica is quite simply too good  to miss…

These books are printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.

© 2011 by Kou Yaginuma/Media Factory. Translation © 2011 Vertical, Inc. All Rights Reserved.