Category: Philosophy

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Richard Dragon: Kung-Fu Fighter: Coming of the Dragon!


By Dennis J. O’Neil, David Anthony Kraft, Bob Haney, Mike W. Barr, Leopoldo Durañona, Jim Starlin, Alan Weiss, Jack Kirby, Ric Estrada, Jim Aparo, Alex Saviuk Wally Wood, Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, D. Bruce Berry, Vince Colletta & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0810-2 (HC) 978-1-7795-1240-6 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The mysterious martial arts of “The East” have always fascinated western readers and writers. Adventurers, detectives and mystery men like Sexton Blake, Batman, Doc Savage, The Spider and The Shadow drew much of their history and arsenal from the arcane Orient, and even intellectual acme Sherlock Holmes occasionally employed the scientific combat system of “Baritsu” – actually a mixed martial art called Bartitsu which developed between 1898-1902. Moreover, every secret agent worth their salt was au fait with assorted “chop sockey” techniques: generally disparaging them while delivering a visually enticing signature blow…

Putting aside references in assorted newspaper strips, the first specialist martial arts comic book star was Judo Joe: a young American raised in Japan who used his training for the benefit of all. Three issues were released between August and December 1953. The work of Dr Barney Cosneck and illustrator Paul W. Stoddard, it set the tone of the genre as well, devising an enduring feature of most early strips in illustrated lessons on specific moves and techniques to let them all break bones in the security of their own bedrooms. Kids! DO try this at home… but not on the cat. That what little brothers are for…

Comics in the 1960s were highly spiced with judo and karate users, with by far the most accurate forms employed by Charlton Comics champions Sarge Steel (#1 December 1964, by Pat Masulli & Dick Giordano) and WWII costumed combatant Judomaster (first seen in Special War Series #4, November 1965): both benefitting from the specialist Kung Fu knowledge and artistic skills of Frank McLaughlin – an actual judoka who had studied martial arts for years.

Gold Key simply exploited licensing power. Television’s The Green Hornet ran 26 episodes from September 1966 to March 1967 and their comics adaptation (3 issues from February to August 1967) played up the combat skills of the antihero/vigilante’s chauffeur and partner Kato. You’ll recall, I’m sure, that he was played by young Bruce Lee, who was in very large part responsible for the popularisation of martial arts in the west… especially after graduating to film roles.

When the big boom began in the early 1970s, Charlton were again quick off the mark: launching their own knock-off of hugely popular TV series Kung Fu. Running 18 issues, Joe Gill & Warren Sattler’s Yang debuted with a November 1973 cover-date, recounting the life of a Chinese wanderer in the 1870s wild west. It spawned sequel/spin-off House of #1-6, July 1975 – June 1976) by Korean comics creator Sanho Kim and remains a visual highpoint to this day… if you can find it. Marvel really reaped the benefits of the zeitgeist with Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu in Special Marvel Edition #15 (cover-dated December 1973) and a flood of follow-ups including Iron Fist, Sons of the Tiger, Daughters of the Dragon and White Tiger. As ever – and despite teenager Jim Shooter introducing Karate Kid to the Legion of Super-Heroes back in 1966 (Adventure Comics #346, July) – ever-cautious DC were late to the party, even though one of their key writers was also the co-author of a Kung Fu novel…

…And Karate Kid? As the martial arts boom was subsiding, DC awarded him his own solo series, set primarily in the 20th century: 15 bi-monthly issues running from March/April 1976 to July/August 1978. He travelled through time and across realities, but never met the stars of this particular title…

The Seventies had begun with a downturn in superhero sales and a resurgence of traditional genre comic tales. A few years in, a new genre emerged: one blending eastern philosophy and personal combat systems with a real-world growth in organised crime – especially drug (and human) trafficking. Popular fiction responded with a wave of lone wolf vigilantes like Mack (The Executioner) Bolan and martial arts icon Remo Williams: The Destroyer, as gritty hardboiled crime thrillers evolved and genres began to mash up…

Riding his own wave of comic success and celebrity from Batman, Justice League of America, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Superman, former Marvel trainee/intern turned journalist Dennis J. O’Neil teamed up with editorial cartoonist James R. Berry to write a prose thriller for this burgeoning market. Under the pen-name Jim Dennis, they detailed the life path of teen thug Richard Drakunovski after finding friends and life direction with a martial arts sensei. Kung Fu Master, Richard Dragon: Dragon’s Fists was released in 1974 and ultimately pitted the hero against evil industrialist Guano Cravat…

With a phenomenon unfolding around them, DC finally joined the parade of warriors by having O’Neil adapt the book, expanding the premise and adding significantly to their pantheon of stars in the process: not so much with the leading man but through his potential-packed supporting cast.

Spanning April/May 1975 to November 1981, this fast and furious compendium collects Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter #1-18; a team-up from The Brave and the Bold #132, plus a closing note from DC Comics Presents #39. In keeping with the tone of the genre and time, these stories are tersely underwritten and potently action driven, but racial and gender issues are ubiquitous and fully expressed in the terms of the times.

The first issue was cover-dated April/ May 1975 and on sale from January 30th, with opening episode ‘Coming of a Dragon!’ credited to “Jim Dennis” and illustrated by comics legend Leopoldo Durañona. Here it was revealed how a teenager’s attempt to burgle a dojo in Kyoto, Japan was foiled by its head teacher O-Sensei. The venerable ancient easily mastered the violent thief and then invited to him to change his life path. Richard Dragon spends the next seven years mastering countless forms of Kung Fu, higher education and his own raging nature, forming a lifelong bond with his fellow pupil – African American Ben Turner – and seeking to become a physically and ethically “Superior Man”…

The idyllic period ends the day unctuous freelance spymaster Barney Ling shows up. He runs acronymic organisation G.O.O.D. and begs the legendary O-Sensei to aid him in stopping a world-class human trafficker. Instead, the master sends his students against an army of brutes and monsters…

Artistic stability was not an option as O’Neil was partnered in swift succession with Jim Starlin, Alan Weiss & Al Milgrom for second exploit ‘A Dragon Fights Alone’. Wounded but triumphant, Dragon and Turner return to Japan only to be targeted by the hired thugs of a hidden enemy. The attack comes in the wake of a tearful graduation, as they seek to aid O-Sensei’s goddaughter Carolyn Woosan. This results in them all heading for San Francisco, where mercenary The Swiss had orchestrated her uncle’s death whilst searching for a deadly secret. When the freshly-debarked adventurers investigate, Ben is shot and Carolyn taken…

It clearly took some time to assign an art-team as Jack Kirby & D. Bruce Berry limned third instalment ‘Claws of the Dragon!’ as an enraged hero hunts The Swiss and trounces an army of assassins, thanks in no small part to his secret weapon – a jade claw allowing him to focus all his knowledge and fury and become a beast of battle…

Crushed by their continuing failure to rescue Carolyn, Dragon & Ben reluctantly accept help from Ling and G.O.O.D. Marshalling resources and infiltrating a suspect dojo, Dragon accepts that there is ‘A Time to be a Whirlwind!’, and again overcomes all physical opposition, but once more fails Carolyn, this time forever. This shattering clash signalled the start of artistic stability as Ric Estrada took over pencilling, augmented by master inker Wallace Wood.

Sandra Woosan debuted in #5, a woman who would become a major player in DC continuity. Cover-dated December 1975-January 1976, ‘The Arena of No Exit!’ introduced lethal Lady Shiva: a conflict-addicted swordswoman seeking bloody redress for her murdered sister. She was working for grotesque super arms-dealer Guano Cravat (the secret mastermind behind The Swiss), but rejected her current assignment to kill Dragon after fighting him and realising that staying in his orbit would generate all the murderous duels her killer’s heart hungered for without betraying her tarnished and diminished ethical code…

In later years she would evolve into the most dangerous assassin on Earth: a major opponent of Batman, Robin, assorted Batgirls, Black Canary, the Birds of Prey and many others.

After foiling Cravat’s scheme, Dragon and Shiva are rewarded by Ling with magnificent matched swords: katana crafted by an 18th century master smith. However, it’s just a ploy to sweeten them up. G.O.O.D. needs them to recover a “misplaced” nuke on a volcanic island: one ruled by a modern pirate with an obsessive fixation on fighting with swords. He calls himself Slash…

The spectacular conclusion of ‘Island of the Inferno’ leads to a confrontation with occasional Batman and Wonder Woman evil scientist Doctor Moon, who uses Cravat’s money to transform mere humans into surgically-augmented, programmable super-warriors in #7’s ‘Command: Slay the Dragon!’ All this time, Ben has been healing and teaching at the dojo he runs with Dragon, but his life is about to change after becoming romantically entangled with promising student Janey Lewis. When she and other students are attacked by Moon’s thugs, Dragon & Shiva retaliate but are almost killed by Moon’s colossal cyborg Topper. Almost…

Another old foe resurfaces in #8, striking at his despised enemies by murdering more dojo students and rendering our hero temporarily sightless, facilitating his scheme to ‘Slay the Blind Dragon’ after which Estrada inks his own pencils in #9 as Barney Ling returns to reveal that the recent dojo attacks are masking a hidden plot to assassinate Ben. The manipulative G.O.O.D. guy offers to reveal all, but only if all three kung fu fighters carry out a few errands for him…

Thus Turner, Shiva & Dragon depart for tropical San Lorenzo to stop a monster ravaging the tourist destination – a thieving mutated killer known as ‘The Preying Mantis’ – prior to Ben discovering he’s inherited millions in prime timberland! He heads north, with his allies in tow and finds that the lumberjacks are definitely killers… and are embezzling all the profits. They have already murdered Turner’s sister, leaving him as guardian of an unsuspected nephew (also called Ben) and their leader Hatchett tries everything possible to destroy the nosy snoopers in ‘The Human Inferno!’ (inked by Jack Abel). However, the assassination attempts only slow, but do not cease…

Cover-dated September 1976, #11 offers a change of pace and scripter, as David Anthony Kraft joins Estrada & Abel in a byzantine futuristic spy conspiracy that begins ‘When Strikes the Samurai!’ After being targeted by a disappearing Japanese warrior, the trio are despatched to Communist China to secure an object dubbed the Tiger Tally which in turn could unlock the secrets of bewildering Project Moon Age Daydream. The mission results in a trail of dropped bodies before ‘A Dragon Defiant’ is subjected to a duplication device resulting in him literally beating himself up before thwarting rival maniacs Telegram Sam and Madame Sun…

Back in the USA for #13, the drama intensifies with O’Neil & Estrada’s reunion, as Ben is poisoned and Dragon & Shiva carve their way through a murderous legion ‘To Catch an Assassin!’ and secure the antidote. When that proves fruitless, detective work leads them to The League of Assassins and a desperate quest for their chief deviser of toxins. Viper makes his potions in the wilds of Mongolia – perilously close to the Soviet Russian border – and the countdown quest allows no time for restraint, which only grants Shiva opportunity to do the work she loves without being held back…

With Turner’s death imminent, we pause for a diversionary team-up as The Brave and the Bold #132 (February 1977 by veteran writer Bob Haney & ultimate guest star artist Jim Aparo) enquires ‘Batman – Dragon Slayer??’ When Denny O’Neil succeeded Murray Boltinoff as B&B editor, it resulted in this rather forced tale of duelling fight stylists after a publicity-shy billionaire sought to repay an imagined debt to good Samaritan Dragon by leaving him a mysterious bequest…

Back in his own title, Dragon’s quest for a cure takes him back to China to find the O-Sensei. At that time, unknown to all, his former master was Dr. Moon’s prisoner, so Richard & Shiva’s mission generates massive mayhem and an inconclusive duel with ‘The Man Who Studied with Bruce Lee’: a gullible yet proficient martial arts purist who had learned all the celebrity’s “lost secrets”…

The clash might have been pointless, but the rescued O-Sensei cures Turner, who pursues his relationship with Janey to the point of asking her father for permission to wed. Tragically, at that moment in #15, ‘The Axeman’ attacks shipyard Security Chief Luke Lewis and his adored daughter is fatally caught in the crossfire. Crushed and broken inside, Ben hunts the killer with Dragon at his side, uncovering shocking betrayal that intensifies his fury into mania. Exploiting all their resources, they follow to the top of the world in #16, where ‘The Doom Seer’ – outrageous, tyrannical madman Professor Ojo (later to become a Green Lantern nemesis!) – pits them and Lady Shiva against outlandish martial arts skaters and an arsenal of scientific terrors before #17’s ‘The Final Victim’ provides a spectacular conclusion, but no resolution…

Richard Dragon: Kung-Fu Fighter finished with #18, but ‘The Secret of the Bronze Tiger’ set up decades’ more stories. Bereft, Turner had vanished and was presumed killed battling Ojo, whilst Dragon sank into despair and dissolution. Finally, Shiva dragged him out to investigate a mysterious masked martial artist and illegal fight club. Dragon was stunned to discover Ben was the Tiger – who retained all his skills but was apparently a ruthless criminal with no memory or scruples…

This storyline was later picked up and expanded upon in future Batman tales involving Ra’s Al Ghul’s League of Assassins and sinister splinter group Demonfang (whose leader was ancient killer The Sensei) and resulted in Bronze Tiger becoming an integral part of the Suicide Squad in post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe. In that rebuilt continuity, Shiva & Dragon were crucial to the development of The Question (Vic Sage) and other martial arts-based characters, emphasising the ripple-effect of “the Superior Man” on an entire heroic universe.

Here, however, there’s an epilogue of sorts as DC Comics Presents #39 (November 1981, by Mike W. Barr, Alex Saviuk & Vince Colletta) discloses ‘Whatever Happened to Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter?’ Having retreated to the peace of a Shaolin monastery, Dragon is called back to the outside world to save mind-controlled Bronze Tiger from the person who had truly been responsible for most of their perils and hardships all along…

With covers by Dick Giordano, Wiess, Milgrom, Estrada & Colletta, Jose Delbo, Ernie Chan, Aparo & Rich Buckler, and including Who’s Who character profiles of Dragon, Bronze Tiger & Lady Shiva, this compendium is very much of its time, but still offers universal thrills and spills whilst providing crucial context to all devotees of DC’s overarching multiversal continuity. Very much the Superior Read of the Superior Fan…
© 1975, 1976, 1977, 1981, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1910, cartoonist/animator and legend maker William Hanna was born, sharing the date with inking legend Mike Esposito in 1927; French mythmaker Marcel “Gotlib” Gotlieb (Gai-Luron, Superdupont, Les Dingodossiers, Rubrique-à-Brac, Hamster Jovial, co-founder of L’Écho des savanes & Fluide Glacial) in 1934; writer/artist John K. Snyder III (Fashion in Action, Grendel, Suicide Squad, Doctor Mid-Nite, Mr E, The Duckberg Times, 8 Million Ways to Die) in 1961, artist Richard Case (Doom Patrol, Sensational Spider-Man The Sandman) in 1964 and illustrator/storyteller Colleen Coover (Small Favors, Banana Sunday, Bandette, X-Men: First Class) in1969.

It’s a big day for colourists with Peter Steigerwald born in 1974, Brian Reber in 1975 and Matt Wilson in 1980; and also saw the deaths of arguably Chile’s greatest cartoon humourist Rene Rios Boettiger (Condorito) in 2000 and, in 2006, the utterly irreplaceable British man of letters (and thought balloons and caption boxes) Tom Frame.

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Oracles


By Olivia Sullivan (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-26-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Tired? Fed up? Overheated? I might have what you need right here.

Addressing the same inner discontents and travelling the same internal pathways as Clare Scully’s The Wilderness Collection and Lizzy Stewart’s Walking Distance, radical designer surrealist storyteller and visual poet Olivia Sullivan’s pictorial mantra Oracles traces an internal voyage via meaningful personal place-markers through a trip back to solid emotional grounding after a surrender of stability and overwhelming chaos… like deep personal loss…

In the narrative guise of such a loss, our age-shifting narrator offers a step aside and away from communal modern life and a trek to familiar haunts and abandoned notions. Staccato bursts of thought wedded to clear, neutrally informative images are blessed with muted tones and a restricted palette that enhances the patterns, pictures and poesy of an epigrammatic, near-synaesthesic catalogue of visions. Haiku-adjacent listicle-prayers, like an OCD-gripped da Vinci, Whitman or Thoreau count down and tick off their necessities for finding their happy place again.

Looking for something better and happier, we travel back to cheerier venues of a deeply personal past, noting what is still the same, refreshing worn attitudes with mycology miracles, a personal shaman and confirmation of A Good Trip Well Had. The reconnection with a better yesterday and lost mother take us on to a universally connected consciousness shared by all animals until we come to our old new home again…

Unless there is something clinically, certifiably, diagnosably wrong with them, every human being can be caught by a full sensory burst when all cognitive spark plugs fire in a moment when Wonder, Clarity, Appreciation and unleashed Emotion Centres all go bang at once. Sometimes the experience needs to catch you complacently elsewhere and off-guard. Simply opening up to rituals or a certain relaxation of daily processes and safeguards just happens, but whenever it does, the result is magical as everything old is new again – but more so…

That all-encompassing transitional moment of fresh sensation is explored here in a procession of mergers between crystal clear drawing and incisive lyrical descriptions with icons of the natural world great and small attempting to share the woosh of wow and sheer wonder we all get when taken unawares by nature, reality, or each other. Drugs and religion or the right person at the right time can do it too…

Words as pretty as a picture. Heady visions framed (or it that trapped?) in manageable, consumable little boxes all carry the reader like a surfboard on big wave, or leaf in a cataract, providing mental bricks for you to build your own in-head house. In the end you arrive back but is it still you now?

You decide.

The most wondrous thing about comics is their sheer versality. In terms of narrative, exposition, mood-setting and information dissemination, nothing comes close, and the range of visualisations span near-abstract construction to hyper-realism. If the end-consumer is particularly receptive, the author can even dial back on narrative or plot or characterisation and let a succession of carefully-applied images make a story unique to each reader. It’s like jazz for your head and before your very eyes…

In all the most telling ways, we’re still monkeys clinging to rocks. We can’t help but respond viscerally to our environment: cowed or elated by stony heights, drawn to and pacified by pools and gardens, inexplicably moved to fear or joy by forests. It’s in our blood and bones: nobody stands on a mountaintop or looks down into the Grand Canyon and says “meh”…

When someone really talented and truly invested channels such primal responses, the fires of creativity can push right into the hindbrain to our inner primitive. It’s a trip worth taking.

There’s a route map and bag ready right here…
© Olivia Sullivan, 2026. All rights reserved.

Today in 1917 award winning scripter, author and screenwriter Bill Woolfolk (Captain Marvel, Bulletman, Blackhawk, Batman, Superman, Plastic Man, Captain America, Sub-Mariner) was born, whilst two true giants – Alex Toth and Peyo/Pierre Culliford shared the birthday in 1928. In 1953 Jerry Bingham (Beowulf, Batman: Son of the Demon) joined the party.

Today in 1979 Stan Lynde’s western Latigo debuted, whilst in 1990, we saw the last instalment of Katsuhiro Otomo’s epic Akira.

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Comic Therapy – Meditations for Reflection


By Kay Medaglia (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-39-3 (pocket HB)

Author and graphic artist Kay Medaglia moved from Ontario, Canada to wild & woolly Reading in Britain nearly twenty years ago and ever since has sought ways to share their ideas of better living through enhanced wellbeing. In a prodigious outpouring of gently stated, multimedia-delivered suggestions, they have advocated calmer ways to get along and stay stable through such varied avenues as the UK small press scene; self-published sensation Wu Wei, and global arenas like The Huffington Post and Elephant Journal. As well as editing issues-based publications dealing with autism, dementia, mental health and sexual assault, their hugely successful One Year Wiser series has brought those notions to ever-wider audiences. They have even explored modern metaphysics with their bestselling Luna Sol Tarot.

Here drawing together genteel humour, funny animals (and bugs, actually) and traditional philosophical observations lensed through practicality and common sense, Medaglia offers self-contained, image-led emotional pep-talks as Comic Therapy: spiritually enriching reminders of who and where you are – or could be. These graphic epigrams compile and project easily assimilable visual life-coaching and pictorial pick-me-ups, broaching topics from the minute and mundane to the cosmically crushing, or life-changing. As well as encouraging loving others and yourself, the image interludes especially confront themes of rejection, dejection, hopelessness, self-worth, self-compassion, resilience and mindfulness and lack of direction with breezy light humour and whimsy.

Resembling still-running romance homily panel Love Is… (created by New Zealand cartoonist Kim Grove/latterly Kim Casali) and delivered in Japan’s popular Yonkoma manga format, these four panel public service announcements for the soul are personal common sense messages from a global traveller seasoned with flavours of Hindu imagery and basic Buddhist tenets wedded to primal western gag delivery systems.

Employing and urging the deployment of wit, patience, whatever faith or spirituality you can accept, and subtle but constant reminders that you don’t have to wallow alone, this is a book that should perk up most moody buggers and provide a judgement free first nudge to fix whatever ails you from within and because You want to…

If you can’t actually hug a kitten or juggle ducklings in moments of crisis or despondency, dipping unto this handy pocket-sized package might just restore equilibrium and restart your jammed perspective generators…
© Kay Medaglia, 2026. All rights reserved.

Today in 1915 Mort Weisinger was born, with Johnny Craig arriving in 1926 and Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo coming one year later. In 1952 historian researcher and uberfan Peter Sanderson was born.

In 1940 today Batman #1 went on sale. Four years later the utterly unique George (Krazy Kat) Herriman passed away.

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Planet of Science – The Universal Encyclopedia of Scientists


By Antonio Fischetti & Bouzard, translated by James Hogan (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital only

Comics and graphic novels have an inconceivable power to deliver information in readily accessible form, and – like all the best teachers – can do so in ways that are fascinating, fun and therefore unforgettable.

A prime example is 2019’s La Planète des sciences – Encyclopédie universelle des scientifiques – which is available digitally in English if STILL not yet as a solidly reassuring tome. A bright and breezy introduction to a number of researchers and discoverers, famed and not, it combines a page of personal history, biography and unflinching commentary on 37 notable personages who have added to global scientific knowledge, each accompanied by a smart, punchy and pertinent gag strip by underground cartoonist Guillaume Bouzard (Caca bemol, Je veux travailler pour le Canard enchaîné, Lucky Luke).

Presenting the facts is Dr Antonio Fischetti, author (Cats and Dogs under the scientist’s magnifying glass, Idiotic and Relevant Questions about Mankind); science journalist; educator (at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris, Louis Lumière School and La Femis); and author of a science column for illustrious truth-seeking organ Charlie Hebdo.

The Continent is happily, gloriously awash with factual albums and graphic novels – and not just biographies – and this is one of the most entertaining I’ve ever seen, opening with Dr. Fischetti’s explanatory postulate on why these particular 37 candidates and his cognitive methodology, before the visual revelations begin. Sub-divided into rough, often overlapping time frames it all starts in Ancient Greece with the lowdown and high points of Thales, Pythagoras, Hippocrates and Archimedes, before jumping to 780-850CE for the story of Al-Khwarizmi.

Traversing the 15th – 16th Century, we meet Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolaus Copernicus, Ambroise Paré, Giordano Bruno & Galileo, before 17th – 18th Century pioneers Rene Decartes, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Isaac Newton, Carl Linnaeus and Antoine Lavoisier get their moment in history’s hindsight and spotlight. As big, deep thinking becomes more widespread, representing the 19th Century are Charles Darwin, Claud Bernard, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, Alfred Nobel (suck it, Donny-baby!) and Dmitri Mendeleev, after which the revolutionary 19th – 20th Century hones in on Ivan Pavlov, Max Planck, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Alfred Wegener, Alexander Fleming, Erwin Schrödinger and Trofim Lysenko. By now it’s probably clear to most of you that this is no simple hagiography: some of the folk here are included because of their effect on scientific progress and it’s not all smiles, acclaim and awards…

The procession of progress pauses with the 20th – 21st Century (because, as of this writing, time travel has not been satisfactorily confirmed or reproduced under laboratory conditions) with controversial and occasionally still-living paragons Konrad Lorenz, Alan Turing, Alexander Grothendieck, James Watson, Peter Higgs, Yves Coppens, Emmanuelle Charpentier and the recently lost and already hugely missed Jane Goodall. Sure, you could Google them, but this book is a far more satisfying alternative…

The very fact that you probably haven’t heard of some of these latter savants – or even a few of the more ancient ones – only proves without doubt that you need this book. QED: What more can one say?
© 2020 DARGAUD – Fischetti & Bouzard. All rights reserved.

Today in 1913, comic book pioneer, cover artist and co-creator of Zatara Fred Guardineer was born, whilst in 1924 the legendary Harvey Kurtzman took his first peep at reality and probably started taking critical notes. We last spotlighted the inventor of Mad Magazine in Harvey Kurtzman’s Marley’s Ghost.

And today in 1982 the world was lessened by the passing of wondrous Noel Sickles, whom we loved most for such astounding strip work as Scorchy Smith: Partners in Danger.

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Yoko Tsuno volume 20: The Gate of Souls


By Roger Leloup, coloured by Studio Leonardo & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-160-6 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

On September 24th 1970, “electronics engineer” Yoko Tsuno first began her troubleshooting career as an indomitable intellectual adventurer. Bon anniversaire, ma brave cherie!

Her debut in Le Journal de Spirou was realised in “Marcinelle style” cartoonish 8 page short ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’ and although she is still delighting readers and making new fans to this day, for a while it looked as if she wasn’t going anywhere soon. Thankfully, her astonishing, astoundingly accessible exploits were revised and she quickly evolved into a paragon of peril: helming a highpoint of pseudo-realistic fantasies numbering amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created. Her globe-girdling mystery cases and space-&-time-spanning epics are the brainchild of Belgian maestro Roger Leloup who launched his own solo career in 1953 whilst working as studio assistant/technical artist on Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin.

Compellingly told, sublimely imaginative and – no matter how implausible the premise of an individual yarn – always firmly grounded in hyper-authentic settings underpinned by solidly-constructed, unshakably believable technology and unswerving scientific principles, Leloup’s illustrated escapades were at the vanguard of a wave of strips revolutionising European comics. Early in the journey, he switched from loose illustration to a mesmerising, nigh-photo realistic style that is a series signature. The long-overdue sea-change in gender roles and stereotyping he led heralded a torrent of clever, competent, brave and formidable women protagonists taking their rightful places as heroic ideals and not romantic lures. That consequently elevated Continental comics in the process. Such endeavours are as engaging and empowering now as they ever were, none more so than the travails of masterful Miss Tsuno.

Her first outings (oft-aforementioned, STILL unavailable Hold-up en hi-fi, and co-sequels La belle et la bête and Cap 351) were introductory vignettes prior to epic authenticity taking a firm grip in 1971 when the unflappable problem solver met valiant but lesser (male) pals Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen. Instantly hitting her stride in premier full-length saga Le trio de l’étrange (in LJdS’s May 13th edition), from then on, Yoko’s efforts encompassed explosive exploits in exotic corners of our world, spy and crime capers, time-travelling jaunts and sinister deep-space sagas such as this one. There are 31 European bande dessinée albums to date, with 21 translated into English thus far, albeit – and ironically – none of them available in digital formats…

Initially serialised in LJdS #3033 to 3044, spanning May 29th to 14th August 1996, La Porte des âmes became Europe’s 21st collected Yoko Tsuno album at year’s end. Following chronologically from The Astrologer of Bruges, it returns our terrestrial troubleshooters to their friends in the sky with another momentous visit with the prodigiously reconstructing Vineans.

In a disturbingly philosophical, metaphysically-tinged caper the Earthlings – including Yoko’s adopted daughter Morning Dew and Mieke (Pol’s fiancée from the 16th century) – all toil in deep space beside the disaster-prone lethally pragmatic alien colonists with their most trusted ally when another echo from the distant past changes lives and destines once again.

Their constant guide and companion is Khany: the competent, commanding single mother who combines parenting her toddler Poky and the humans with saving worlds, leading her people, averting continual cosmic catastrophe and – with Yoko – recovering lost knowledge. Frequently that stems from attempts to restore a moral compass to those ancient survivors ruthlessly rebuilding their fallen civilisation and permanently undermining and gaslighting the upstarts who slept out the apocalypse on another planet. Progress is slow and regularly results in uncovered, long forgotten threats that might end the racial resurrection in flaming instants…

In their initial adventure together, Yoko, Vic and Pol had discovered an enclave of dormant aliens hibernating for eons in Earth’s depths. After saving the sleepers from robotic/AI subjugation, the humans occasionally helped the refugees (who had fled their planet two million years previously) to rebuild their lost sciences. Ultimately, the humans accompanied the Vineans on their return to their natal star system and (wrongly presumed) long-dead homeworld. In the years Vineans slept, primary civilisation collapsed, and the world they strive to reclaim is much changed, with isolated pockets of inhabitants evolved beyond recognition. As the re-migrants gradually restore a decadent, much-debased civilisation and culture, the human trio become regular guests and helpers against sabotage, political intrigue and simple skulduggery…

And as seen here, it’s not just people they must beware of…

On a previous visit Yoko had established a unique psychic link with ancient mech-intellect Queen Hegora: one granting her certain technophilic abilities. A later excursion saw her bonded with an equally antediluvian child-rearing toy robot. “Myna” and her kind were constant sentient companions to young children – until parents abruptly deemed them all too smart and dangerous, before subsequently banishing them to distant asteroid. Now that last relic is hastily consulted as another time-lost probe soars back into Vinean territory from out of history and the (currently) unknown…

A constant cause of contemporary strife is piecemeal rediscovery of ancient beings who have endured due to the Vinean practise of digitally encoding living persons into automatons. Now a space salvage effort is interrupted by a probe from the deep past, and the excited explorers confront the possibility of being able to finally penetrate the fabled mysteries of occluded and forbidden lost colony Ultima. Their actions precipitate shocking and tragic discoveries which expose the downside of immortality.

Deadly strife begins as the discoverers plunge down to the revealed world and find another survivor outpost divided into factions indulging in an unending war of technologies and philosophies. An imminent crash and collision makes allies of advance scout Yoko and a bold indigenous pilot named Litsy, and soon the human learns that here vassals are forced to carry the personalities of other deceased servants. Servitude is eternal with useful, knowledgeable “souls” digitally impressed upon successive bodies. All the lower orders can anticipate is forced reincarnation and losing themselves bit by bit to someone else’s soul’s past history…

In a society where biology and mechanisms are less valuable than knowledge and experience, the newcomers are soon caught up in a devilish scheme challenging and undermining the very nature and fine print definition of life on Ultima, as they expose a long unfolding plot by rebel Isora who currently inhabits a menial flying droid. She illicitly made copies of her soul before committing suicide and now she ruthlessly seeks to recover and reunite her fractured personalities in a fresh – and stolen – body. This is over and despite violent objections of its original occupier Ethera, and once morally-outraged Yoko fully grasps the complexities of the situation she is prepared to do whatever is necessary to end this ghastly refinement of intellectual slavery…

Ultimately, overwhelming institutionalised digital malevolence proves inadequate in the face of Yoko Tsuno’s passionate humanity, bold imagination and quick thinking, but her success comes at great cost and cannot truly be called a triumph. Moreover, as the weary explorers return to established Vinean borders, Isora delivers a chilling message revealing nothing is settled yet…

Blending rocket-paced action with shattering suspense and byzantine twists, this deviously twisted, terrifying plausible battle with bigotry is superbly mesmerising, proving once more how smarts and combat savvy are pointless without compassion. As always, the most potent asset of this edgy outer space dramas is its astonishingly authentic setting, as ever benefitting from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail.

The Gate of Souls is a magnificently tense all-action psycho- thriller, taut and compelling, and surely appealing as much to fans of blockbuster space opera as ordinary general purpose comic addicts.

Original edition © Dupuis, 1996 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation © 2025 Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1972, talented wee nipper Jock was born. You can remind yourself how good an artist he is by looking at Green Arrow Year One – The Deluxe Edition.

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Approximate Continuum Comics


By Lewis Trondheim, edited & translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-410-8 (TPB)

With well over 100 books sporting his name (which isn’t actually Lewis Trondheim but Laurent Chabosy), the writer/artist/editor and educator is one of Europe’s most prolific comics creators: illustrating his own work and working with the industry’s top artists; overseeing animated cartoons of print successes like La Mouche (The Fly) and Kaput and Zösky and even editing younger readers book series Shampooing for Dargaud. His most famous works are the global hits Les Formidables Aventures de Lapinot (translated as The Spiffy Adventures of McConey) and, with Joann Sfar, the Donjon (Dungeon) series of nested fantasy epics (see the translated Dungeon: Parade, Dungeon: Monstres and Dungeon: the Early Years).

Tireless and prolific, he has written for everything from satirical magazine Psikopat to Le Journal de Spirou and Walt Disney. His scripts for the continent’s most popular artists include Le Roi Catastrophe and Vénézia with Fabrice Parme, Les Cosmonautes du futur (Manu Larcenet), Allez Raconte and Papa Raconte (José Parrondo), Politique étrangère (with Jochen Gerner and which Trondheim adapted into an opera in 2009) and Petit Pére Noël (Thierry Robin).

He is a cartoonist of uncanny wit, piercing, gentle perspicacity, comforting affability and self-deprecating empathy who prefers to control scrupulously what is known and said about him…

I first became aware of Lewis Trondheim’s subtly engaging comics mannerism in Fantagraphics’ Mome anthologies which reprinted excerpts of his utterly entrancing comics blog Little Nothings, wherein Trondheim’s friends and acquaintances, rendered and simultaneously masked as anthropomorphised animals (with him a dowdy, parrot-beaked central figure) revisit episodes of his life, flavoured with philosophy, personal introspection, whimsical inquiry and foible-filled observations.

These mini-treats were gathered into four terrific tomes of drawn diaries for constant re-reading (Little Nothings: Curse of the Umbrella, The Prisoner Syndrome, Uneasy Happiness and My Shadow in the Distance). You might still find the first three available as collected gift set Bigger Nothings…

However, before all that, in 1993 Trondheim first explored the idea as a 4-issue American-styled comic book project and those prototypical slices of wry and winning reportage are finally available in a translated black and white softcover collection. Some of the very first autobiographical works on the French bande dessinée scene, these little gems were a genuine game-changer for cartoonists and storytellers, prompting a rise in personal stories that has generated many works to rival the best of Harvey Pekar himself and created a new (sub)genre of graphic narrative…

In this collected Approximate Continuum Comics the signature blend of visualised introspection and self-condemnatory flagellation finds the younger Trondheim questioning his own professional integrity; violently and graphically wish-fulfilling his way through rush-hour crowds (haven’t we all?); planning – for which read risk-assessing – his forthcoming marriage and dealing with his unfathomable Japanese publisher during the early days of creating his multi-media hit La Mouche.

He regularly gets lost in his own free-associating daydreams and rightly fears being castigated by his own conscience for swimming in megalomania, indecisiveness, forthrightness and deference. Trondheim’s many inner voices don’t like him very much: there are myriad incidences of self-abuse where his alternate egos beat the crap out of him; counterbalanced with gloriously loaded “real-world” episodes where he lampoons and embarrasses his fellow studio-mates of publishing collective L’Association. (To be fair these are fabulously balanced by a marvellous section at the book’s end where such maligned and injured creative colleagues as David B., Emile Bravo, Didier Tronchet, Jean-Christophe Menu, Killofer & Philippe Dupuy among others, as well as civilian friends, his wife Brigitte and even his mother all get a trenchant and routinely hilarious right-to-reply.)

The first inklings of the artist’s perennial problems with technology in general and computer games in particular appear here, as do many childhood memoirs and sundry diatribes against people and places either experienced or sometimes only imagined. One of the best sequences concerns the trip-of-a-lifetime to America (first of many, but he didn’t know that then…) and his apparent inability to think of one single strip idea about it, only surpassed by his behaviour at a raucous party held in his beloved studio.

During the course of these cartoon capers, Trondheim married his fiancée, sired his first child and moved into a new home, but although these major events are thoroughly and compellingly covered they still pale into insignificance against the spectacular battles against his inevitably spreading paunch, obsessively mean-spirited self-criticism and the thunderbolt-like occasional phone call from his mum. …And whenever that’s no longer painful enough there’s always the violent physical assaults and punishment-beatings from his inner selves…

Personal favourites of mine include Les petits riens, Tiny Tyrant, Ralph Azham, Mr. O, Archives of Lost Issues, Mister I, Infinity 8 and A.L.I.E.E.E.N. but if you fancy other kinds of fare, Trondheim’s probably covered whatever you fancy and done it with wit and aplomb…

Superbly skilled at switching imperceptibly from broad self-parody to cripplingly honest and  painful personal revelation; wild surrealism to powerful reportage and from clever humorous observation to howling existentialist inquisition, Trondheim’s cartoon interior catalogue is always a supremely rewarding and enjoyable experience and, as these ancient texts prove, always has been…
© 2001 Lewis Trondheim and Cornélius. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books. All Rights Reserved.

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The Wilderness Collection


By Claire Scully (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-74-5- (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Know Your Place… 9/10

The most wondrous thing about comics is their sheer versality. In terms of narrative, exposition, mood-setting and information dissemination, nothing comes close, and the range of visualisations span near-abstract construction to hyper-realism. If the end-consumer is particularly receptive, the author can even dial back on narrative or plot or characterisation and let a succession of carefully-applied images make a story unique to each reader. It’s like jazz for your head and before your very eyes…

In all the most telling ways, we’re still monkeys clinging to rocks: we can’t help but respond viscerally to our environment: cowed or elated by stony heights, drawn to and pacified by pools and gardens, inexplicably moved to fear or joy by forests. It’s in our blood and bones: nobody stands on a mountaintop or looks down into the Grand Canyon and says “meh”…

Wherever we are, the landscapes in our heads still unfold before or curl back on us. We may have left the caves and trees and sunlit shores, but we now mimic those ancient sanctuary havens in our dwellings. We climb high and burrow deep and our architecture has visceral, compulsive, instinctive power over us.

Walk by a Victorian school, across a Roman viaduct or study the oppressive, aggressive triumphalism of Nazi-built buildings or battle emplacements – we’re all still part of the wild with Nature in our veins and bones. Just don’t stand too long near towering desert mile-spires or vertical palaces based on knickknacks or vegetables or sex-toys…

When someone really talented and truly invested channels such primal responses, the fires of creativity can push right into the hindbrain to our inner primitive. The Wilderness Collection does that. A timely amalgamation of three earlier rambles through realities – Internal Wilderness, Desolation Wilderness and Outer Wilderness – the sequenced images comprise a hardback handbook of purely and sublimely visual triggers: experiences enhanced by the rough tactile textures of the card they are printed on. This is the culmination of a project examining the relationship between Landscape and Memory.

The first steps come in nocturnal shades of blue as Internal Wilderness presents “a journal of a sequence of events occurring over a period of time and location in space” before the ceaseless peregrination reaches the warm reds, oranges, browns and fading greens of the Desolation Wilderness which depicts “a sequence of events occurring over a period of time in the search for a location in space”.

Careful now, you are nearing a stopping point if not an end, as Outer Wilderness explores the wildest places on the route: “a sequence of events occurring over an unimaginable period of time in the vastness of space” – melding animal, mineral and vegetable in a manner reminiscent of Basil Wolverton in his visionary, inspirational element….

Creator Claire Scully has inscribed and sequenced compelling scenes of rocks and trees and waters and skies and other things less definable, across different seasons and times of day in such a fashion that you must look and pause and ponder.

This is a graphic missile targeting recollection and imagination; one that hits with serenely devastating impact.

If you are still human or at least a primate looking for challenge, this will make you think: you won’t be able to help yourself…
© 2019 Claire Scully. All rights reserved.

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Middle Distance – A Graphic Memoir


By Mylo Choy (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-15-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

There are many ways to find yourself. Too often the main roadblock is other people… or maybe a lack of a pathfinder.

In Middle Distance, mixed race, non-binary Mylo Choy shares their road to understanding one’s self via curated extracts of a life filled with coping mechanisms such as running, drawing, reading or sharing stories: all solid sound ways of trying to address that feeling of not being who you might be or where you should be.

No overblown drama to titillate here, just a rational seeker recalling obstacles faced and hurdles cleared in a marathon push towards acceptance of a pragmatic middle way. It begins with growing up in Wisconsin, as ‘The Race’ sees the 6th grader run a first revelatory race and discover a feeling and undertaking to totally consume them and view a world of total isolation and security: the mile run…

Soon running daily with Dad before again graduating or reduced to a single person passion – to the point of slowing down and pretending to stroll if someone sees you – always the goal is no specified goal. Well, maybe making those who matter say the accomplishment is more than just “pretty good”…

‘Speedwork’ finds solo traveller joining the track team in sophomore year, learning from more experienced friends and uncaringly accepting a coach’s assessment to be a middle distance runner, yet feeling only glee and pride inside on being told 800 metres is the most painful distance to go…

Gaining technique but never losing the primal exuberance of putting one foot in front of another – and how that influences other passions like drawing – growth continues. Does the placebo puzzle of confidence, concentration and meditation contribute to landing impostor-like on the 4 x 800 relay team beside incomparable admirable Maggie?

Why read so many stories about “tomboys”? And why can’t an iron will hold back puberty?

Years pass and the now adult outsider works with kids in Brooklyn and upstate New York as an outdoor educator. Life catches up and starts inflicting years of mystery aches and severe pains, so running buddy Jeff suggests the only answer is the New York Marathon…

By re-examining Buddhist family roots ‘Rest’ traces years of sporadic and often-interrupted progress towards that great dream, before a series of small intense inner revelations point to ‘The Long Run’ and what comes next…

Subtly, almost accidentally allegorical, this testament to understanding through internal addiction and evolution by determination is beguiling, enticing and strangely cleansing: a welcome step into unknown territory for most of us and a journey well worth taking..

It’s a little bit strange to write about running which mostly consists of clearing the mind and just going. That’s especially true of this pretty and memorable book. You should just do it…

© 2023 Mylo Choy. Written and drawn by Mylo Choy. All rights reserved.
Middle Distance will be published in the UK on 14th September 2023. An American edition will be released 31st October 2023.

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Sophie’s World – A Graphic Novel About the History of Philosophy: Volume 1: From Socrates to Galileo


By Jostein Gaarder, adapted by Vincent Zabus & Nicoby, colours by Philippe Ory with Bruno Tatti; translated by Edward Gauvin (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: ?978-1-91422-411-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

It has long been a truism of the creative arts that the most effective, efficient and economical method of instruction and informational training is the comic strip. If you simply consider the medium’s value as a historical recording and narrative system, the process encompasses cave paintings, hieroglyphs, pictograms, oriental prints, Stations of the Cross, the Bayeux Tapestry and so much more: and pretty succinctly covers the history of humanity…

For well over a century and a half, advertising mavens exploited the easy impact of words wedded to evocative pictures, whilst public information materials frequently used sequential narrative to get hard messages over quickly and simply. In a surprisingly short time, the internet and social media restored and enhanced the full universal might of image narratives to transcend language. Who doesn’t “speak” emoji?

Since World War II, carefully crafted strips have been used as training materials for every aspect of adult life from school careers advice to various disciplines of military service – utilising the talents of comics giants as varied as Milton Caniff, Will Eisner (who spent decades producing reams of comic manuals for the US army and other government departments), Kurt Schaffenberger and Neil Adams. The educational value and merit of comics is a given.

The magnificent Larry Gonick in particular uses the strip medium to stuff learning and entertainment in equal amounts into weary brains of jaded students with his webcomic Raw Materials and such seasoned tomes as The Cartoon History of the Universe, The Cartoon History of the United States and The Cartoon Guide to… series (Genetics, Sex, The Environment et al). That’s not even including his crusading satirical strip Commoners for Common Ground, and educational features Science Classics, Kokopelli & Company and pioneering cartoon work with the National Science Foundation…

For decades Japan has employed manga textbooks in schools and universities and has even released government reports and business prospectuses as comic books to get around the public’s apathy towards reading large dreary volumes of public information. So do we and everybody else. I’ve even produced the occasional multi-panel teaching-tract myself. The method has also been frequently used to sublimely and elegantly tackle the greatest and most all-consuming preoccupation and creation of the mind of Man…

Like organised religion, the conceptual discipline dubbed Philosophy has had a tough time relating to modern folk and – just like innumerable vicars in pulpits everywhere – its proponents and followers have sought fresh ways to make eternal questions and subjective verities understandable and palatable to us hoi-polloi and average simpletons.

In 1991 Norwegian teacher Jostein Gaarder found one that became a global sensation. Oslo-born in 1952, he taught Philosophy and the History of Ideas in Bergen until he retired to write a modern prose masterpiece of allegory and symbolism in the guise of a fantastic mystery and quest saga.

In an assortment of languages, Sofies verden became an award-winning bestseller in Europe, before being translated into English in 1994 and – as Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy – metamorphosed into the top-selling book on Earth a year later.

Translated into 59 languages with sales far in excess of forty million copies, it enjoys regular anniversary rereleases, and has been adapted to the large and small screen in many countries, as well as PC and board games, and all the usual merchandising instances of a global sensation…

In 2022, playwright/comics scribe Vincent Zabus (Le Journal de Spirou, Les Ombres, Incroyable!) and prolific, wide-ranging Bande Dessinée illustrator Nicolas Bidet AKA “Nicoby” and “Korkydü” (Ouessantines, Le Manuel de la Jungle, Belle-Île en père, Sang de Sein, Tête de gondola, Poète à Djibouti, C’est la guerre – journal d’une famille confine) joined forces to translate the philosophical phenomenon into words and pictures: deftly embracing the magically realist underpinnings of the tale by fully exploring and exploiting the self-imposed fourth wall (and floors and ceilings) of the “ninth art”…

Big, bold and embracing wonderment head-on, Sophie’s World – A Graphic Novel About the History of Philosophy: Volume 1: From Socrates to Galileo seductively adapts the first half of Gaarder’s masterpiece as 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen and her best friend Colleen anticipate their first protest event. They are fired up about the planet’s imminent demise and ready to fight for its life, but Sophie’s scattershot passions are suddenly derailed and her curiosity enflamed after receiving an anonymous package asking the somehow compulsively significant question ‘Who Are You?’…

The Who and Why of this enigmatic pen pal transaction completely obsess her after the unseen arrival of follow-up question “Where does the world come from”, and as she ponders, she is lured into the first of some frankly weird if not supernatural proceedings…

As Sophie determinedly seeks answers on a range of conceptual levels, further inquiring despatches literally take her on a journey through all of human development, guided at first remotely, but eventually in the shadow and company of a seemingly benign tutor with an agenda all his own.

…And at every moment and juncture – no matter how wild, impossible or magical – the girl learns and grows…

This initial comics session encompasses cunningly targeted and curated visits, affording up-close-&-personal experiences, via the entirety of the evolution of Western history and culture…

However, as bewildering engagements (or at least gripping, interactive syntheses thereof) unfold in ‘Myths and Natural Philosophers’, ‘Atom and Fate’, ‘Athens and Socrates’, ‘Plato’, ‘Aristotle’, ‘Hellenism’, ‘Two Cultures’, ‘St. Augustine, Averroes, St. Thomas’, ‘The Renaissance’, there’s a turning point in ‘The Baroque’ that unlocks and expands Sophie’s understanding whilst addressing a secret tragedy that unconsciously drives her.

Ultimately, the avid teen discovers other forces in play and unknown actors participating in her lessons, as glimpsed in ‘The Dream of Hilde’ and rebellious phase/phrase ‘A Woman is a Man’s Equal’, and before long the seeker is ready to chart her own course…

Completing the educational brief, this opening discourse includes ‘Author Biographies’ of ‘Nicoby’, ‘Vincent Zabus’ and ‘Jostein Gaarder’ and is absolutely To Be Continued…

Rendered in bright, cheerfully inviting colours in the welcoming manner of a children’s book, this vibrant voyage of discovery is mesmerising in its gently mischievous intensity: an outrageously joyous, entertaining rundown of humanity’s evolution and fundamental principles of thought, cunningly disguised as a superb conundrum to rival any detective yarn. Moreover, the seeds have all been laid for a monumental “Big Reveal” in the next volume…
© 2022 Albin Michel. Based on & © Jostein Gaarder’s novel Sophie’s World. English translation © 2022 SelfMadeHero. All rights reserved.

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Desolation Wilderness


By Claire Scully (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-45-5 (PB)

The most magical thing about comics is the sheer versality of potential results. In terms of narrative, exposition, mood-setting and information dissemination, nothing can come close, and the range of visualisation spans near-abstract construction to hyper-realism. If the end-consumer is particularly receptive, the author can even dial back on the narrative and let a succession of carefully-applied images make a story unique to each reader. It’s like jazz for your eyes…

In a way, we’re all still monkeys clinging to rocks: we cannot help but respond viscerally to our environments: cowed or elated by stony heights, drawn to and pacified by pools and gardens, inexplicably moved to fear or joy by forests. It’s in our blood and bones: Nobody stands on a mountaintop or looks down into the Grand Canyon and says “meh”…

We may have left the caves and trees but we now mimic those ancient sanctuary havens in our dwellings. We climb high and burrow deep and our architecture has visceral, compulsive, instinctive power over us – just walk by a Victorian school, across a Roman viaduct or study the oppressive triumphalism of Nazi-built buildings or battle emplacements – we’re all still part of the wild and nature is in our bones too.

When someone really talented and truly invested channels those primal responses, the fires of creativity can push right into the hindbrain to our inner primitive. Desolation Wilderness does that.

Described as “a sequence of events occurring over a period of time in the search for a location in space” this tiny paperback handbook is a purely visual experience enhanced by the rough tactile textures of the card it’s printed on: part of an on-going project examining the relationship of Landscape and Memory.

Creator Claire Scully has inscribed and sequenced compelling scenes of rocks and trees and waters through different seasons and times of day in such a fashion that you must look and pause and ponder. It is a graphic missile targeting recollection and imagination; one that hits with serenely devastating impact.

If you are still human it will make you think: you won’t be able to help yourself…

© 2019 Claire Scully. All rights reserved.
Desolation Wilderness is scheduled for publication on June 3rd 2019 and is available for pre-order now.