Category: Pirates!

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Toys in the Basement


By Stéphane Blanquet, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-402-3 (HB)

It’s that special time if you have kids who love the darker, grimmer side of storytelling. Originally published abroad as Chocottes au sous -sol!, this sublime slice of macabre all-ages Euro-whimsy comes courtesy of wildly talented, incredibly prolific animator, auteur and multimedia artist Stéphane Blanquet who has to date over 64 art books, graphic novels, collaborative works and books for kids published since 1994. These include Dungeon: Monstres (volume 2), Kramer’s Ergot, and Zero Zero, as well as the numerous international exhibitions, shows and movies to his name…

Do you remember the heart-wrenching scene in 1964 stop-motion television classic Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer when the runaway ruminant finds the Island of Misfit Toys? Do you recall how all they wanted was children to love them? Hold on to that thought…

Once upon a time at a Halloween fancy-dress party a disgruntled little boy is sulking. In his heart he’s a vicious pirate king, but his cheapskate mother would only pay for a pink bunny costume nobody else wanted…

As the other kids tease and bully him, he retreats to a corner where he meets a geeky kid in a chicken suit. Poultry boy has a broken leg and a raging thirst, but his friend – a girl kitted out as a kitten – has been down in cellar fetching drinks for ages. After some pleading, Pink Bunny, extremely keen to avoid any further embarrassment – or to be seen with a nerd dressed like a chicken – goes after her.

At the bottom of the stairs he finds her paralysed with fear: the basement is filled with maimed and broken toys, alive, angry and determined to wreak bloody vengeance on the cruel children who maltreated and abandoned them. Luckily, because of their stupid outfits, the toys assume the kids are also dolls, because if they were real children…

Playing for time, Catgirl and Bunnyboy follow the malevolent maladjusted playthings into a vast underground cavern where all the world’s broken toys are massing, readying for the day they will rise and take over. The undercover tykes gasp in horror at the artificial army’s secret weapon – a gigantic ravenous Frankensteinian beast named Amelia, cobbled together from thousands of discarded toy fragments, all hungry for righteous slaughter…

It’s at that moment Chicken-boy stumbles upon them and blows their cover…

Dosed with dry, mordant wit and just the right tone of moodily macabre Ghost Train suspense, Toys in the Basement is a simply terrific goose-bumpy thriller rendered magical by the wildly eccentric, brilliantly imaginative and creepily fluid artwork of Blanquet. This dark delight – sadly out of print but still available from the regular online vendors  – also has the perfect moral message for loot-hungry, attention-deprived youngsters; and their kids and grandchildren too.
© 2005 Editions La Joie de Lire SA. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Jamie Smart’s Bunny vs Monkey Book 12: Day of the Heroes!


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras, Paul Duffield & Armin Roshdi (DFB/Phoenix)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-391-2 (HB), 978-1-78845-434-6 (Waterstones Exclusive Edition)

Bunny vs Monkey has been the inspirationally bonkers breakout star of The Phoenix since the premiere issue back in 2012, cataloguing a madcap vendetta gripping animal archenemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia, masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands. Concocted with gleefully gusto – but increasingly with a cerebral cosmic crescendo in mind – by cartoonist/comics artist/novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Max and Chaffy, Flember, Find Chaffy; Megalomaniacs), these trendsetting, mindbending yarns have been wisely retooled as multi award-winning, bestselling graphic albums available in digest softcover such as this one hardback and sponsored special editions and even as AUDIOBOOKs. Just let that one last one sink in…

All the tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy began yonks ago after an obnoxious little beast plopped down in after a disastrous British space shot. OR DID IT?

Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab animal Monkey believed himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite every effort of genteel, contemplative, reasonably sensible resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and refined breeding, the laid-back lepine could not contain or control the incorrigible idiot ape, who to this moment remains a rude, troublemaking, chaos-causing, noise-loving lout intent on building his perfect “Monkeyopia” and/or being a robot, with or without the aid of evil supergenius Skunky or useless “henches” Metal Steve & Action Beaver…

All those daily wonders and catastrophes were exacerbated by a mixed melange of mildly unconventional Crinkle creatures, none more so than aforementioned monochrome mad scientist Skunky, whose intellect and cavalier attitude to life and consequences presents as a propensity for building dangerous robots, bio-beasts and sundry other super-weapons. He is, at his core, a dangerously inquisitive thinker and tinkerer…

With artistic fiddling about from design deputy Sammy Borras, the unending war of nerves and mega-ordnances assumes a posture of asymmetric – if not arrhythmic and asthmatic – warfare as a series of sequences starring assorted minor artisans sees much of the cast taking a bit of a breather… at least on paper. It all opens with a few fluffy tales of ‘Bunny in… “Home is Where the Heart is”.’ It all begins one not so very ‘Good Morning’ as Monkey’s thoughtlessness and Skunky’s careless use of volcanoes and microwave ovens finally provokes the wracked rabbit to pack up and leave. Still hungry for ‘The Good Life’ our gentle hero seeks an isolated wilderness to be ‘A New Home’ but discovers all the best spots of perfect peacefulness have been previously “bagsied” by enigmatic furry Thoreau Le Fox…

However things turn really odd when Bunny uncovers sacred standing stones and manifests a sentient palatial edifice that floats on air and offers to cater to every whim…

Meanwhile back wherever Crinkle Woods is, Monkey & Skunky are missing their old niceness nemesis and unleash colossal mutant hybrid shark ‘Hammer Honk’ to keep the ADHD-ape amused, even as, far away on “A Day in the Life of Bunny … and his enchanted House!” arachnophobe Bunny adopts an 8-legged housemate in ‘“Brenda”’. Thanks to her passion for digging, before long she has uncovered ‘A New Guest’ who turns out to be the miraculous Grand Spirit of the Woodland… and a bit of a nuisance…

Nothing lasts forever, and the peaceful days end in ‘Underpants!’ when Monkey & Action-Beaver invade the magical kingdom with newly-minted monster Terror-Dactyl in search of entertainment and encounter a very unwelcoming Woodland Spirit…

As if anticipating Bunny’s imminent return, sensible but naïve robot Metal E.V.E. is trying to build him a perfect new home, but the good deed is hijacked by time-warping Skunky who casually turns all involved into ‘Old Folks’ just as disorder is fully restored and the Grand Spirit evicts all the crazy critters and despatches them ‘Home’…

As they all resettle in, focus shifts to superfast sweetheart aye-aye Ai in “Ai’ll Be Back!” – a relay race of rapid-fire adventures that opens with ‘Thants!’ as a REALLY GIANT giant anteater is turned loose during National Ant Day and only Ai can stop the tongue-lashing it begins, after which chaos is unleashed when our misplaced Madagascan finds Skunky’s Graveyard of Failed Scientific Experiments and is bitten by a disembodied undead head, sustaining a nasty ‘Zombiebooboo’…

Whilst Monkey indulges in a spot of robotic ‘Dino-War!’ – and briefly acquires the stern maternal influence he always needed – Squirrel Weenie, Pig Piggerton and Metal E.V.E. become the first of many woodfolk turned ‘Tiny and Whiney’ and stuffed in Skunky’s Jar of Idiots. Sadly one of them is bitey, zombie-contagious Ai and before long the plague of the gambolling dead is everywhere, as seen in apocalyptic vision ‘Guhhhh!’, prompting the evil genius to sideline his attempts to build/grow a superbrain ‘From Scratch’ to sort things out. Of course, said brain ‘Smartypants’ has ideas of its own, and once Monkey meddles some more, the war of Zombies vs Supercomputer! rages out of control until the mighty mind in a jar devises a cure for undead bitey-ness which it then cruelly locks away in ‘The Box’…

However, despite being afflicted with zombie hunger, the aye-aye has enough grit and resolve to step up and sort it, to become ‘Ai, Saviour of the World’…

With what passes for normality restored to the Woods we next pay some attention to ‘Pig + Weenie in “Pig & Weenie Fun Police”’ as after five days of noxious obnoxiousness and Monkey playing with his ‘Fart Face’ chemical weapon, the sweet simpletons found an official vigilante team to stop the horror. However once the job is done it’s hard to stop and soon they are annoying/cheering up Underwater Adventurer Le Fox as he tries to be a ‘Water Grump!’ and unwelcomely refereeing the 563rd Annual ‘Bonk Bonk’ Race, befriending and defending Skunky’s runaway terror ‘Robotron’ before confronting Pig’s potent desire to be a poodle in ‘Arf!’

‘A Day in the Life of “Pig & Weenie Fun Police!”’ sees the variety of purely existential perils involved in cheering folk up, after which a family visit to Jonty, Monty, Ponty and Big Bertha Piggerton broadens Weenie’s horizons and highlights who is ‘The Wrong Pig’ whilst preceding a genuine rescue mission as the Fun Police save beleaguered Bunny from a House of Nightmares in ‘The Winchester’ and overindulge in one final mission to stop Skunky’s recently-mined ‘Shiny Pebbles’ fuelling an arsenal to techno terrors…

Generally regarded as “The Unluckiest Red Panda in the World!!”, next to shine here is ‘Lucky in “Stay Lucky!”’ with a simple fun session with the gang going awry in ‘Card Luck’, and doubled down on in ‘Statuesque’ as Monkey’s latest Bunny-bothering collaterally lands Lucky in the muck, prior to everything changing after encountering mystic monument ‘The Tablet’ in the really deep, dark woods…

‘Brown Duck’ then details a noisome scatological sidestep, but if we all hold our noses it’s soon over and the fallout of a cosmic change sparked by latrine lunacy and toilet terrorism can be registered as a ‘Lucky Chance’ and heralding a flipping of fortune for the pitiable panda…

As she becomes “the Luckiest Red Panda in the World!”, her ‘Attitude Adjustment’ scuppers a potentially lethal attempt to blow Action Beaver into space. Karmically, her new status doesn’t extend to those around her, so when ‘The Decoy’ finds a duplicate of Monkey making mayhem for all and his acts as Cardboard Samurai Monkey creating a cascade of all-conquering ‘Cardboard Creations’ she steps in to shield them. However, confusion and carnage culminate in a cross-chronological panda pair-up as time-travel allows ‘The Next Lucky’ to come back from the future to warn that her fortunes are about to change again…

The animal assemblage concludes for now with a look at enigmatic sage ‘“Le Fox in “Big ol’ Grump!”’ It opens long ago as an impressionable fox cub meets a crusty hibernating bruin who shapes his mental and philosophical growth in ‘Bearing It’… but not as much as the pesky bees buzzing him…

In the present, perpetually irritable Le Fox is caught in Monkey’s latest attempts to annoy Bunny in ‘Natural Mystery’ and retaliates with devasting aplomb, before ‘Ah, Poop!’ sees Skunky unwisely boast to his partner in perfidy that his poo collection is now perfectly complete even as deep underground, Le Fox shares his views on despondency with sad Metal E.V.E. and demonstrates vengeance as a means of ‘Coping’ when Monkey interrupts their musings…

Eternally anarchic Monkey’s meddling with Skunky’s reality-warping Wishinator leads to Le Fox achieving Godzilla-like size and temperament in ‘Wish Big’ but all his rampaging and ‘Stomping About’ is rightly directed at one small hairy nutcase, before a calamitous event heralds big changes for everybody as eerie, appalling Signalmen invade the wood and all those left free must find ‘A Place to Hide’…

As those few survivors seek ways to make Le Fox ‘Smaller’ desperation forms an alliance of former foes, but no one made them joint pilot the ridiculous mega-mecha Bunny vs Monkey-a-tron in a last-ditch duel of colossi, even if it does somehow save the day and create ‘An Understanding’ and peaceful resolutions not even one last unleashed tentacle monster can disrupt…

Wrapping up these sidereal shenanigans, farty fooffawraws and monster bum gags are a few related activities offered under the aegis of the Phoenix Comics Club. Bring paper, pencils and yourself to a compact online course in all aspects of comic strip creation supervised by Jamie Smart and Armin Roshdi. This time the subjects are ‘How to draw the Floating Island’, including tips on The Cosy Cabin, Pond and Sewer Waterfalls before closing with an extensive plug for the Phoenix Comics Club website, complete with instant access via QR codes, plus previews of other treats & wonders to be seen in The Phoenix to wind down from all that philosophical fun and Kaiju kerfuffle…

Another book for your kids to explain to you, Bunny vs Monkey – Day of the Heroes! is weird wit, wild invention, potent sentiment and superb cartooning incautiously crammed into one eccentrically excellent package. These tails never fail to deliver jubilant joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. Is that you?
Text and illustrations © Fumboo Ltd. 2026. All rights reserved.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Just Trust Me… It’s Beyond Your Control But Worth It … 10/10

Bunny vs Monkey – Day of the Heroes! will be released on October 8th 2026 and is favailable for pre-order now.

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H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu


Adapted by Gou Tanabe, with lettering and touch-up by Steve Dutro & translated by Zack Davisson (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-50674-140-6 (Tank?bon TPB), 978-1-50674-644-9 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content used for dramatic effect.

As it’s now officially cold and dark at night… or at least dark if not actually cold… it’s an apposite moment to reflect that this year is technically the 100th anniversary of a world-changing classic of literature. Moreover, if you’re one of those people who’s STILL never read a manga tale, or who’s been tempted but discouraged by the terrifying number of volumes such sagas can run to, here’s a delicious feast of fearsome fantasy exploiting centenary and an unmissable opportunity thanks to the killer pedigree of an astounding adaptation. Complete in one eerie epistle, this displays all that’s best about comics out of the East in one darkly digestible big gulp.

Most manga can be characterised by a fast, raucous, even occasionally choppy style and manner of delivery but this volume of emphatically eerie adaptations is atmospheric, suitably scary and marvellously moody: just as you’d hope when recreating classic tales by the undisputed master of supernal terror…

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was frail, troubled and remarkably ill-starred. Born August 20th 1890, he was truly and tragically afflicted with a drive to write, but only achieved any degree of success after he died (in March 1937) closing a brief life of desperate penury. Other than disappointment and despondency, his end came from complications of intestinal cancer that ate him from inside. Once he was gone, his literary star swiftly ascended, and posthumous publications pushed by his many friends and writing colleagues made him a household name who changed the face of fiction forever.

His stories have deeply – often life-changingly! – affected generations across and around the world. One person particularly moved is international literary specialist Gou Tanabe. He previously adapted works of Maxim Gorky and Anton Chekov to manga form. During a career lull in 2005 he was introduced to the works of Lovecraft and began assiduously adapting them between his regular commitments, with The Outsider completed in 2007.

Perfectly capturing the relentlessly oppressive and inescapably sombre sense of inexorably approaching fatality permeating most of Lovecraft’s potent prose, ‘The Call of Chthulu’ was done in 2019, transforming the legendary novella which written in mid-1926, but first published three years later in the February issue of pulp magazine Weird Tales. The story has become a foundational document of the subgenre and mythopoeia (shared universe) called The Cthulhu Mythos: frequently referenced and added to across a plethora of media from comics to games as well as constantly accessed by dozens of authors.

Accomplished in stark and staggering monochrome tinged with a palette of morbid grey textures and triggered by an explosive bursts of creepy colour, the saga opens in multihued torrent of horror ‘A Foreword…’ before first chapter ‘The Horror in Clay’ traces the progress of dutiful nephew Francis Wayland Thurston as he unpicks the trail of his recently deceased grand-uncle George Gammell Angell. That deceased historian, scholar and linguistics professor had become increasingly obsessed by artefacts and elements of an apparently lost civilisation and was seemingly aware of his impending death, and now his heir is similarly tormented by nightmares and deeply disturbed by an clay tablet.

It was made by modern sculptor H.A. Wilcox, a troubled soul also afflicted by pervasive night terrors, who had sought out Professor Angell after entering fugue states, seeing visions of human blood, dank mountains and towers rising from the sea. He heard bizarre sounds like alien words that stayed with him in the waking world and had created a clay tablet with a monstrous thing and phrases in an unknown language on it, all while sleeping…

Thurston had first become intrigued and ensnared at his grand-uncle’s funeral in Providence, Rhode Island, and by the time his patron’s effects had been shipped to Thurston’s home in Boston, the young man was caught and drawn ever inwards to something impossible…

Angell’s papers described something ancient called the Cthulhu Cult and cited early findings by an anthropologist studying rural natives in Western Greenland, whilst Wilcox’s tablet and its inscription depicted something beyond comprehension yet irresistibly beguiling. The phrases “Cthulhu fhtagn” and “R’Lyeh” were all over the files, but what really seduced the researcher was a 1908 report provided by a New Orleans policeman…

Angell’s researches had been surprisingly fruitful and responses – so many of them – came from his learned colleagues and other interested parties from all over the world. Many concerned old aboriginal outposts and enclaves, or brutal, spontaneous bloodlettings and mob violence, savage outrages or suicides of fringe religious groups. There was a high incidence of madness and death amongst overly-sensitive creative artists. Often the mantra “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’agl fhtagn” – translated as “in his house at R’Lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming” – was connected to such incidents.

The investigations takes a solidly chilling turn when Angell hears ‘The Tale of Inspector Legrasse’ who had survived a manic battle with murder cultists in the Louisiana swamps, uncovered appalling atrocities and confiscated a small greenish-black stone idol of a many eyed tentacled thing…

This raid had utterly crushed the vile ‘Cthulhu Cult’ but in the aftermath, when grilling smug unshakable Castro, the spiritual leader of the killers told Legrasse a fantastic tale of interstellar empires ruled by cosmic gods: beings death could not hold and who – sustained by human sacrificial blood offered by those who worshipped them – waited in the dark cold places of the world for their moment to return. Their lord was a supernal force answering to the name Cthulhu…

The weary cop wanted Professor Angell to help him weed out other instances of the cult but time caught up with them. Now, nearly twenty years later Thurston resolves to follow up and begins by tracking down Wilcox. The artist has become fully immersed in the cult and is clearly an enemy, and may have been the cause of Angell’s sudden death…

Thus Thurston locates and interviews Legrasse himself and, with reports of mass hysteria mounting across the world, takes possession of ‘The Terrible Statue’ the cop has kept all this time. Fired up and now fully obsessed, Thurston follows reports and scours global news outlets and finds a likely case in Australia where a salvaged vessel was found carrying a statue similar to the one Legrasse held, clutched in the arms of sole survivor Gustaf Johansen. He had claimed to have lived through a bizarre sea battle in the South Pacific Gyre….

Piecing events together, Thurston deduces the assault coincided with a recent massive earthquake that shook the world and increased cult incidents, and seeks to interview the repatriated mariner. The journey is convoluted but ultimately lands him in Norway… but too late. From the newly widowed Fru Johansen, Thurston learns that her husband arrived back broken and increasingly raving, only to be recently killed in a unlikely accident…

Thankfully, she has compiled all his papers and log books and wants the shocked scholar to read them…

The tale therein is one of utter insanity, detailing how the tragic complement of schooner Emma succumbed to ‘The Madness from the Sea’ after a monumental storm and maelstrom threw the vessel onto a newly arisen island in the Gyre. Their doom was sealed when Emma was attacked by heavily-fortified steam yacht Alert, manned by piratical barbarians who worshipped a stone idol and screamed the chant “Cthulhu fhtagn”. A protracted battle resulted in the destruction of these maniacs but also the loss of Emma, whose handful of survivors commandeered Alert and washed ashore on the foreboding island.

It was a place of studied horror and ancient terrors, bleak, dark and soul-crushing, where incomprehensibly ancient, uncomfortably warped buildings and structures overwhelmed their senses. This was ‘R’Lyeh’ and their fate was confirmed when vast doors opened to unleash the city’s sleeping guardian. It made short work of the pitiful human wretches and only Second Mate Johansen and Able Seaman William Briden made it back to the barely seaworthy Alert.

However, as seen in Final Chapter ‘Great Old Ones’, some things simply cannot be deterred or avoided, a painful recognition finally accepted by Thurston himself as he closed his investigation and prepared for the inescapable fate remorselessly approaching him…

Tapping into the modern vogue for arcane exploratory adventure (as also favoured and perfected by the likes of literary horrorist brethren Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, and latterly August Derleth and Robert E. Howard and popularised by contemporary media from video games to MMORPGs) here Lovecraft delivered what most feel to be his most perfect and potent story. Moreover it has never been better interpreted than by Gou Tanabe – and you can learn more about both through the text feature ‘About the Creators’ that closes this book.

Enthralling, understated and astoundingly effective, this supernatural saga is a milestone of horror fiction, reverently adapted and packaged in manner that will delight avowed aficionados and beguile fear-loving newcomers alike.
CTHULHU NO YOBIGOE LOVECRAFT KESSAKUSHU © 2019 Gou Tanabe. All rights reserved. This English-language edition © 2024 Dark Horse Comics, LLC.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal Dread for Dark Nights… 9/10

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Neill Cameron’s How to Make Awesome Comics


By Neill Cameron (The Phoenix Comic Books/David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-147-5 (TPB)

A lifetime ago in January 2012, Oxford-based publisher David Fickling Books launched a traditional-seeming anthology comic weekly aimed at girls and boys between 6 – 12 which revelled in reviving the good old days of picture-story entertainment intent, whilst embracing the full force of modernity in style and content. Each issue offers humour & adventure strips (most subsequently gathered into a formidable library of stunning Graphic Novels); quizzes; puzzles; educational material and drawing/storytelling tips comprising a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy and, in the years since its premiere, The Phoenix has become a staple of kids’ fun, winning praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – the utterly engaged kids and parents who read it…

The magazine celebrated its first anniversary by launching a digital edition available globally as an app and continually expands its horizons. These days they offer internet added value via an ongoing tutorial fun-lab dubbed the Phoenix Comics Club…

It is, most importantly, big and bold and tremendous fun.

The publishers are also a fantastically inclusive bunch, ever-eager to get us involved. Conceived and delivered by best-selling Graphic Novelist Neill Cameron (Donut Squad, Mega Robo Bros, Freddy, Tamsin of the Deep, Pirates of Pangea), activity feature ‘How to Make Awesome Comics’ has featured intermittently since issue #0, offering enticing insights and practical tips through the auspices of cartoon know-it-all Professor Panels and his long-suffering collaborator Art Monkey. Its sage pages were first gathered and released in book form in 2014, and now there’s a fully updated and improved version to impart just how to be the best… and why you shouldn’t draw on walls…

As part of the company’s line of comic albums those invaluable observations and exercises were superbly repackaged into a lexicon of hands-on instruction: a not-so-serious foundation course in cartoon wonder-making no aspiring comic book genius can afford to be without.

Broken down into six chapters and (more or less) 21 easily assimilated lessons, the book also makes full use of modern technologies, with exercises, cartoon cheats and spare drawing pages all included as well as downloadable from the internet.

Leaping straight in following the standard equipment check, tuition begins in Chapter 1 with Getting Started, via Lessons 1 & 2: Anyone Can Make Awesome Comics and Awesome Comics can be about Anything. These offer tutorial insights from the Prof ranging from stick-figure first-concepts to fully inked and coloured final work, all augmented by opportunities to create your own strips through the first of many Art Monkey Challenges… plus a Level 1 Bonus Challenge…

Chapter 2 introduces Great Ideas! and in Lessons 3 through 6 covers How to Have Awesome Ideas, How to Have Awesomer Ideas, How to Have Awesomest Ideas before finishing with a treatise on Real Life Awesome (biographical comics) accompanied by an Art Monkey Challenge of dedicated daily fun and complexity…

With work-philosophy fully engaged and imaginations suitably fired up, Chapter 3 then determines What’s a Comic? as Lesson 7 (Warning! Clowns at work!) focuses on the basics with How Awesome Comics Work, whilst L8 details How to Make Funny Comics – with many strip examples!

Then L9 Awesome Words + Awesome Pictures offers some sound lettering tips before this heavy session closes with a welcome pause in which students can peruse a batch of Bonus Comic strips such as ‘Mecha Monkey Meltdown’; ‘Sir Meows-a-Lot and the Bandit Mouse’; ‘Triceracop’; ‘Kung Fu Banana Squad’; ‘BananaBarbarian’ and more…

Returning to learning, Chapter 4 deals with Awesome Drawing, with Lessons 10 to 15 revealing How to Draw Anything Awesomely (like characters & costumes) with L11 pinpointing How to Draw Cartoons Awesomely, before we learn in rapid succession How to Draw Awesome Faces, How to Draw Awesome Robots, How to Draw Awesome Pirates and, of course How to Draw Awesome Monsters. As always that monkey is there to lay down those pesky but so useful challenges…

The really important stuff is Telling Stories as covered in Chapter 5 with How to Tell Awesome Stories, How to Create Awesome Heroes, How to Create Awesome Villains, Creating Awesome Drama before culminating with the big secret in L20’s Awesome Endings…

Finally the practicalities of production and dissemination are revealed in Chapter 6 with How to Make Your Very Own Comics, covering such arcane but crucial topics as folding, pagination and layout; copying and reproduction and getting your work into the hands of your readers…

Packed with superb examples, handy breakdown & layout tips, lots of practical exercises and offering tons of cool ideas plus a library of inspirational examples, this perspicacious primer even includes a wealth of Awesome Appendix of More Awesome Stuff: comprising visual inventories of gallery of stock characters, Cool Robot Accessories and Pirate Moustachery. You will see How to Draw Dinosaurs Step-by-Step, as well as Creepy Creatures and Penguins – also all Step-by-Step – before ending with More Fun Comics challenges for the now-adept student to complete…

There are a host of books, both academic and/or instructional, designed to inculcate a love of comics whilst offering tips, hacks and a hands-on education in crafting your own sequential narratives. There are precious few that do it with as much style, enthusiasm and cunning craft as Neill Cameron’s beguiling release under the all-ages aegis of The Phoenix. This bright & breezy album hones in on and perfectly highlights all the core skills necessary to crafting picture-stories, cleverly drenching them in an aura of rambunctious, addictive fun. With such a boost how can any prospective or neophyte storyteller fail to be galvanised into making their own magic?
Text and illustrations © Neill Cameron, © 2014, 2016, 2026. All rights reserved.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Seasonal Secret Weapon to Ensure Silent Nights… 8/10

How to Make Awesome Comics! will be released on October 8th 2026 and is available for pre-order now.

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Brother Voodoo Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Len Wein, Doug Moench, Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, David Anthony Kraft, Roger Slifer, Roger Stern, Scott Lobdell, Jean-Marc Lofficier, Randy Lofficier, Gene Colan, Don Perlin, Jim Mooney, Tony DeZuñiga, Ron Wilson, Marshall Rogers, Vicente Alcazar, Fred Hembeck, Geoff Isherwood. Gil Kane, John Romita Sr., & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2923-7 (HB), 978-1-3029-3804-8 (Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

It’s Black History Month soon as well as US Midterm elections. Here’s some excellent reading matter to get you through it all…

In 1968 the consciousness-raising demonstration of Black Power at the Olympic Games politicised a generation of youngsters. By this time a few comics companies had already made tentative but concerted efforts to address what were national and socio-political iniquities. Nevertheless, issues of race and ethnicity took a bloody long time to filter through to still-impressionable young minds avidly absorbing knowledge and attitudes via four-colour pages that couldn’t even approximate the skin tones of African-Americans.

As with TV and films, breakthroughs were small, incremental and too often reduced to a cold war of daringly liberal “firsts.” Excluding characters in 1940s-1950s jungle themed comic books, Marvel clearly led the field with a recurring character: historically impossible Gabe Jones, a black soldier in Sgt. Fury’s Howling Commandos; debuting in #1 (May 1963).

Technically, he was beaten to that dubious honour by DC’s Jackie Johnson. Created by Robert Kanigher & Joe Kubert, the “negro prizefighter” joined Sgt Rock’s Easy Company in late 1961 (Our Army at War #113), but it was years before he became a regular character…

By the way, so unlikely a character was ol’ Gabe in 1963 that he was – without consulting editor Stan Lee – helpfully re-coloured as Caucasian at the printers, who didn’t realise his ethnicity but just knew that he just couldn’t be non-white.

Jones was eventually followed by actual black superheroes Black Panther in Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966), and The Falcon in Captain America #117 (September 1969). America’s first hero of colour to helm his own title had come and gone largely unnoticed in a little remembered or regarded title from Dell Comics. Debuting December 1965 and created by artist Tony Tallarico & scripter D.J. Arneson, Lobo was a wild west gunslinger battling injustice just like any cowboy would.

Arguably the greater funnybook breakthrough was Joe Robertson, City Editor of the Daily Bugle: an erudite, brave, proudly ordinary mortal distinguished by his sterling character, not costume or skin tone. He debuted in Amazing Spider-Man # 51 (August 1967), proving in every panel thereafter that the world would not end if black folk and white folk shared the same spaces…

This big change slowly grew out of raised public awareness during a terrible time in US history: even worse than today’s festering social wounds and agonisingly commonplace occurrences of cops claiming to misjudge immediate life-or-death situations, perilous racial pressures and a seemingly constant, officially policy of Black Lives Not Mattering and Hispanic-looking ones not counting. These tragedies occur unpardonably often in the UK too, so we’ve nothing to be smug about, and should in fact be calling out and shaming more politicians and rabble-rousers on an hourly basis…

Britain has been afflicted with race riots since the Sixties, leaving simmering scars that only comedians and openly racist power-seekers dare talk about – and even then they aren’t seeking debate but just yanking chains and blowing dogwhistles. Things today don’t seem all that different, except the bile and growing taste for violence is turned towards European accents, or health workers as well as brown skins, and now includes non-white sectarian aggravation too…

As the 1960s gave way to a newer, darker decade, more positive and inclusive incidences of ethnic characters appeared in the US, with DC finally getting an African-America hero in John Stewart (Green Lantern #87 December 1971/January 1972) – although his designation as a replacement Green Lantern might be construed as more conciliatory and insulting than revolutionary.

The first DC hero with his own title was Black Lightning. He didn’t debut until April 1977, although Jack Kirby had introduced Vykin in Forever People #1, the Black Racer in New Gods #3 (March and July 1971) and Shilo Norman as Scott Free’s apprentice (and eventual successor) in Mister Miracle #15 (August 1973). One month later there was Dr. Jericho Drumm AKA Brother Voodoo…

It was a turbulent time culturally, but it was also a life-or-death moment for comics. The American industry was in turmoil if not meltdown, much like the youth of the nation they courted. With costs of production skyrocketing, every title had to be a success and no one seemed clear on what audiences wanted…

Superheroes had dominated the 1960s: peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Traditional genres like horror, westerns, romance and science fiction returned, fed by radical trends in movie-making where another wrinkle had emerged: films by and for African-American audiences. Most called them “Blacksploitation” films…

As previously stated, Marvel was already a pioneer in diversity. As well as a plethora of white Christian males there were pagan gods, female characters (a few but not for long), Atlanteans, extraterrestrials, native Americans and monsters spearheading their own features. Why not another black lead with roots addressing multiple genres at once? Contemporary cinema and prose novel Blaxsploitation had fired up commercial interests throughout America, and in that miasma of outlandish dialogue, daft outfits and barely concealed – and justified – outrage, an angry black man with a shady past and questionable morals must have felt like a surefire hit to Marvel’s bosses. Luke Cage, Hero for Hire launched in the summer of 1972. A year later, Black Panther finally got his own series in Jungle Action #5, with Blade: Vampire Hunter debuting in Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 19730. Surely there was room for more?

Astonishingly soon after, with the Comics Code prohibition against horror hastily rewritten (amazing how plunging sales affects morality), macabre scary comics returned in force and a fresh crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters began appearing on newsstands to supplement those ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of embattled but surviving Fights ‘n’ Tights titles. In fact, tinkering with the Code ban resulted in such an avalanche of horror titles in response to the industry-wide downturn in superhero sales, that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to – albeit temporarily – bite the dust.

Almost overnight nasty monsters – both new and reprinted from the1950s – (and narcotics; but that’s another story) became acceptable fare on four-colour pages. Whilst a parade of pre-code reprints made sound business sense, the creative aspect of the latest fascination with supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons, before risking whole new concepts on an untested public. Oddly the last Code-embargoed genre – Crime comics – never figured in this particular populist revival…

As always in entertainment, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was incorporated into the mix as soon as possible. When proto-horror Morbius debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of shocking superstars. They began with a traditional werewolf and a vampire before chancing something new: a haunted biker tapping into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the prevailing supernatural zeitgeist. Recycling an old western title, the all-new Ghost Rider debuted in Marvel Spotlight #5, August 1972. He’d been preceded by Native American/western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night in #2-4. From these cautious beginnings spooky floodgates opened to such an extent that there was even room for non-white stars like The Living Mummy and today’s star turn…

This quirky compendium collects Brother Voodoo’s earliest exploits from a time when he was equal parts tragic outsider/in-joke laughing stock and long before he was reclaimed as a major hero and rebooted as Doctor Voodoo. The adventures from Strange Tales #169-173, Tales of the Zombie #6 &10, Marvel Team-Up #24, Werewolf by Night #38-41, Marvel Two-in-One #41, Doctor Strange #48, Moon Knight #21, Marvel Super-Heroes #1 and Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme #16, 17, & 20 are supplemented by extracts from Tomb of Dracula #34-37. They epically span cover-dates September 1973 to August 1990 and are preceded by an informative Introduction from illustrator Ron Wilson detailing how the series came to be.

Built from an idea by then Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas, with defining input from Stan Lee, John Romita and eventually assigned to creators Len Wein & Gene Colan, the end result was a complex, convoluted affair spread out over many issues. It’s also painfully fair to say that there’s a lot of dialogue and some notions that haven’t fared well as we’ve become a more inclusive society. If you can’t temper your modern sensibilities in the face of well-meaning but outdated attitudes, it might be best to look elsewhere for early evidence of role models for young black readers…

Brother Voodoo was a series that took its time to tell a tale, and we need to remember that the idea was to create a hero who could have lots of adventures for as long as possible: a new Doctor Strange, Spider-Man or Daredevil created at a moment when society and the comic industry were in total turmoil. Lots of good ideas debuted and died unfulfilled, only to blossom again in years to come. With their hero ready to launch, Marvel capitalised on the zeitgeist as much as possible. The company had launched a wave of titles (many of them cost-effective reprint anthologies) and restored defunct titles to crowd rival publishers off newsstands.

Cover dated May 1968, Strange Tales #168 was officially the final issue of a prestigious horror book that had run from 1951 before becoming a vehicle for The Human Torch, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Doctor Strange in the 1960s. When Marvel became a top-selling brand in 1968, its numbering had carried on for Doctor Strange’s first solo title. Then, cover dated September 1973, the book was revived after a 5-year hiatus as a try-out title, kicking off with Brother Voodoo. He occupied #169-174, after which The Golem, classic horror reprints and Jim Starlin’s landmark reinterpretation of Adam Warlock took the magazine to its ultimate oblivion in 1975.

Enough background now: let’s get down among the dead men…

The drama commences in the eponymous ‘Brother Voodoo!’ (Wein, Gene Colan & Dan Adkins), as a UN special investigator lands in Haiti and is suddenly saved from murderous ambush by an oddly-garbed man with incredible powers, emerging from clouds of smoke amidst thunderous frenetic drum beats. Accompanied by elderly aide Bambu, the stranger escorts Dr Maitland to safety even as his mind flashes back to how it all began…

Years ago, Jericho Drumm abandoned his brother Daniel and family heritage as voodoo priests for rationalism, wealth and acclaim of the USA. Almost 20 years later, celebrated psychologist Dr. Drumm returned to Haiti to witness his brother’s murder by magic. Daniel had taken his brother’s preordained place as houngan (voodoo priest) of his people but was dying from a curse laid by evil loa (spirit)/serpent god Damballah. Utterly disbelieving, Jericho was helpless to prevent his brother’s death and his own subsequent humiliation by Damballah, but after swallowing his civilised pride, sought out Daniel’s teacher Papa Jambo. Accepting his fate, Jericho learned the lore and accepted the onerous responsibilities of protecting the world from evil magic.

Now it’s the present and he divides his time between his Caribbean homeland and a medical practice in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Occasional physician Dr. Jericho Drumm ministers to the world’s unknown ailments and hidden horrors…

The origin flashback extended to a second issue ‘Baptism of Fire!’ tracing Jericho’s accelerated course of study and triumphant battle against the loa lord. Amongst his many new gifts, the power that tipped the balance of battle was his eerie ability to channel his dead brother’s power and soul – a chilling tactic only possible because Daniel now lived within him…

With ST #171 we finally learn why the UN is under attack in Haiti when ‘March of the Dead!’ (with Frank Giacoia inking Colan’s gloriously beautiful, increasingly eerie pencils) sees Drumm attacked by the walking dead.

Thanks to the Comics Code, at this time the literal word “zombie” was banned in newsstand publications, compelling writers and editors to take torturous steps to do their job. Marvel’s monochrome magazines used the term with impunity and without sanction, but for the mainstream colour titles, Wein had to coin a new appellation, which is why Brother Voodoo here clashes with “zuvembies” in a graveyard. You couldn’t make it up, could you?

These specific “soulless ones” prowl at the command of sinister Baron Samedi, sabotaging much-needed industry providing jobs for the impoverished nation. This tale catapults BV into the heart of Marvel continuity as the true perpetrators are exposed as far-from-supernatural assailants and one of the MU’s greatest threats to life and liberty – Advanced Idea Mechanics.

Dick Giordano inked #172 & 173 as our hero returns to Louisiana. Seeking to assist a woman targeted by mystic malevolence in ‘Fiend in the Fog!’ Police chief’s daughter Loralee Tate is singled out by voodoo villain and cult leader Black Talon with Drumm inexorably drawn into a massive conspiracy demanding a ‘Sacrifice Play!’ and the (initially) unwelcome aid of local legend Mama Limbo. The spooky thrills culminate in a do-or-die battle with Talon’s tribe, Drumm’s defeat and capture, all resulting in a painful cliffhanger as the series ceased here with the April 1974 episode.

Mere months later, the already drawn conclusion resurfaced in one of those aforementioned mature Marvel magazines. Black Talon’s tale concluded in July’s Tales of the Zombie #6, with Doug Moench scripting Wein’s plot and Frank Chiaramonte inking Colan – who always worked best in monochrome. ‘End of a Legend!’ exposed devious duplicity and reaped a rich harvest of destruction after Drumm broke loose and unleashed all the forces at his command…

Brother Voodoo next appeared in New York City, joining Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #24 (August 1974) in a Wein yarn illustrated by Jim Mooney & Sal Trapani: a decidedly offbeat hero haunting the Big Apple to quash a Manhattan killer cult in ‘Moondog is Another Name for Murder!’ Almost one year later, BV returned as Tales of the Zombie #10 delivered ‘The Resurrection of Papa Jambo!’ (March 1975, by Moench & Tony DeZuñiga) wherein Drumm’s long-departed tutor is forcibly resurrected by malign Dramabu, the Death-Lord. As the revered savant stalks shanty towns in Haiti, claiming sacrificial fodder for his power-hungry new master, the houngan hero & Bambu return to their roots to make some hard decisions and save their people…

Following that, Voodoo joined Marvel’s own ranks of the living dead: reduced to occasional cameos and guests shots in other series. Represented here in excerpts from The Tomb of Dracula #34-37 (July to October 1975 as crafted by Marv Wolfman, Colan & Tom Palmer), he visits the Brazilian Amazon, rescuing vampire hunter Frank Drake from a “zuvembi” army unleashed by the Transylvanian terror. Increasingly though, times & tastes were changing, with superheroes again ascendent as the horror fad faded. Soon, only The Tomb of Dracula would remain…

Lovingly realised by Moench & Don Perlin, furry former phenomenon Werewolf by Night had ridden the storm longer than most: deftly adapting to new trends and ideas by allowing character and not plot to dictate the course. An earlier arc depicting Haiti holding a cure for lycanthrope Raymond Coker was revisited and the extract here from WBN #38 (May 1976) set up an epic intervention and unfolding wonder as Coker requests the aid of Brother Voodoo. Cover-dated July, Werewolf by Night #39 reveals how – after being visited by a trinity of infinite beings who threaten to alter his existence forever – wild werewolf Jack Russell is propelled into a lifechanging crisis. His celestial visitants are also in touch with Coker as he squats in a hut in far off Haiti, and they even appear to Russell’s sister Lissa and girlfriend Topaz.

The “Three Who Are All” are manoeuvring players into a game of cosmic consequences and when Jack gets home, he finds Coker and Drumm waiting. No sooner are introductions made than another army of zuvembies attack and Russell learns that ‘Some are Born to the Night!’ Portentous proclamations of unfulfilled destinies push the adventurers and Topaz back to Haiti where they are abducted and brought to an infernal pit nurturing a shocking travesty of life, with Jack’s old enemy Dr. Glitternight in charge of ‘Souls in Darkness’.

Revealed in WBN #41 as an ex-member of the gestalt once called “Five Who Are All”, the villain’s obsessive monster-making is explained before his attempts to dominate reality are spectacularly thwarted through the return of a missing fourth being and the indomitable resistance of Jack and Brother Voodoo in ‘…And Death Shall Be the Change’…

Key to their eventual triumph is the moment when Russell discovers how to transform into a werewolf fully in control of his mental faculties day or night. Returning to the US, the Werewolf-by-Choice naturally became a superhero and moved to New York, but for Jericho Drumm it was time to fade into the shadows once more. As such he was prime fodder for guest vehicle Marvel Two-in-One, and #41 (July 1978) sees David Anthony Kraft, Ron Wilson & Pablo Marcos close an open case where The Black Panther had vanished whilst fighting a “zombie-vampire” stalking New York’s streets and abducting prominent African Americans. Here, concluding chapter ‘Voodoo and Valor!’ sees Drumm volunteer his specialised services to The Thing to save T’Challa, and end the crisis. The trail takes them to Uganda for a confrontation with African supervillain Doctor Spectrum and a far deadlier crazed killer… Idi Amin.

For August 1981’s Doctor Strange #48, Roger Stern, Marshall Rogers & Terry Austin reveal how the voodoo vigilante and his passenger Daniel are possessed by minor god Damballah and require ‘The Power of Dr. Strange’ to restore them to sanity and safety, after which Moon Knight #21 (July 1982) is paid a visit by ‘The Master of Night Earth!’ Crafted by Moench, Vicente Alcazar, John Tartaglione & Bob Camp, this dark delight sees the Fist of Khonshu join Brother Voodoo in Haitian port city Mirebalais. Battling gunrunners before colliding with a thug possessed by Daniel Drumm, the lunar avenger is soon helping head off a revolution: one fought by zuvembies on zombie alligators fighting for a greedy politician with voodoo training…

May 1990 brought giant anthology Marvel Super-Heroes (Spring Special) #1where, buried deep inside, Scott Lobdell, Fred Hembeck & Dell Barras detailed short done-in-one saga ‘Don’t Do that Voodoo You Do So Well’ with Jericho saving hurricane victims, encountering again a lost love from his youth. Contemporaneously, he scored a short back-up series in Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme (April-August 1990) seen here as ‘The Book of the Vishanti: The Mark of the Vodû! Part I-III’ as featured in issues #16-17 & 20. A way to reinvent the hero whilst revisiting and revising his origins, the serial (by Roy Thomas, Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier and illustrators Geoff Isherwood & Mickey Ritter) reprised Voodoo’s career & legacy, whilst laying out how the origins, history and practise of voodoo slotted into Marvel’s cosmology and continuity.

With covers by Romita, Gil Kane, Giordano, Giacoia, Rich Buckler, Ernie Chan, Earl Norem, Palmer, Keith Pollard, Rogers & Austin, Bill Sienkiewicz & Jim Lee; pages of original art by Colan, Kane and a host of forementioned inkers, this tome also offers contemporary house ads; pertinent info pages (Brother Voodoo & Black Talon) from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and 2008’s cover of Essential Marvel Horror volume 2. These are augmented by creator biographies; ‘Introducing Brother Voodoo!’ – an illustrated feature by Tony Isabella from Tales of the Zombie #2 in anticipation of his imminent debut in Strange Tales #169. and ‘Brother Voodoo Lives Again’ from TotZ #5 – discussing his move out of colour comics.

Definitely not everybody’s role model or anyone’s “Great White Hope”, Brother Voodoo remains a noble experiment and intriguing concept that still offers great enjoyment and astounding art for those who like their fun challenging and off centre.

Don’t let other people’s prejudice make up your mind or you might miss out on something special.
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Piracy: The Complete Series 1-7 (The EC Archives Library)


By Irv Werstein, Carl Wessler, Jack Oleck, Reed Crandall, Wally Wood, Graham Ingels, George Evans, Jack Davis, Bernie Krigstein, Al Williamson, Angelo Torres & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-700-6 (HB) eISBN 978-1-50670-967-3

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Happy Batman Day! Let’s talk like pirates!

Haa-Haaarr! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day and we backseat buccaneers be cunning coves ’oo prefers to sneak up on a fellow when they most expects it, especially since precious pearls like these graphical beauties never go stale… 

Legendary imprint EC Comics began in 1944 when comic book pioneer Max Gaines sold the superhero properties of his All-American Comics company to half-sister National/DC. The Inventor of Comic Books only retained Picture Stories from the Bible. His plan was to produce Educational Comics, with schools and church groups being his major target market. He latterly augmented his core title with Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from Science and Picture Stories from World History. Sadly, the worthy venture was already struggling when Gaines died in a boating accident in 1947.

His son William was dragged out of college and hurled into the family business where – with much support and encouragement from unsung hero Sol Cohen (who held Dad’s company together until initially unwilling Bill abandoned his dreams of a career in chemistry) – he transformed the ailing enterprise into Entertaining Comics.

After a few tentative false starts and abortive experiments, Gaines and his multi-talented associate Al Feldstein settled into a bold, impressive publishing strategy, utilising the most gifted illustrators in the field to tell a “New Trend” of stories for an older and more discerning readership. Between 1950 – 1954, EC was the most innovative, influential comics publisher in America, dominating newly reinvigorated genres of crime, horror, war and science fiction. Moreover, under the auspices of writer, artist and editor Harvey Kurtzman, the company introduced an entirely new beast: the satirical comic book.

Kurtzman was hired to supplement the workforce on EC’s horror titles but wasn’t a fan of that genre, suggesting instead a new action-adventure title. The result was Two-Fisted Tales which began with #18 as an anthology of rip-snorting, stand-alone he-man dramas. With the US deep into a military “police action” in Korea, the title quickly became a dedicated war comic, rapidly augmented by a second; Frontline Combat. Also written and edited by Kurtzman (who assiduously laid-out and meticulously designed every story), it made for great entertainment and a unifying authorial voice but was frequently a cause of friction with his illustrating artists. In keeping with the spirit of Gaines’ “New Trend”, these war stories were never bombastic, jingoistic fantasies for glory-hungry little boys, but rather subtly subversive examinations of the cost of conflict which sought to highlight the madness, futility and senseless, pointless waste of it all…

When the McCarthy-era anti-comics witch hunt of the 1950s crushed the industry and gutted EC’s output by effectively outlawing horror, crime, gore, political commentary and social criticism, Gaines & Feldstein retrenched: releasing experimental titles under the umbrella of a “New Direction”. Kurtzman’s Mad – which had defined a whole new genre, bequeathing unto Americans Popular Satire – was reconfigured into a monochrome magazine, safely distancing the outrageously brilliant comedic publication from the fall-out caused by the socio-political witch-hunt which eventually killed EC’s other titles.

Denied a soapbox to address social ills, Gaines’ new books concentrated on drama, intrigue and adventure, informed by fresh modern fascinations: either intellectual or simply mass entertainment fads. Despite still offering stunningly beautiful artwork and thoughtful writing, New Direction titles couldn’t find an audience and died within a year.

Impact, Extra!, Aces High and Valor all reflected themes of contemporary film and TV, whilst Psychoanalysis and M.D. targeted mature audiences through the growing TV phenomenon of medical dramas. Incredible Science Fiction bridged the transition from old vogue to new line-up whilst also tapping movie trends. Another fad paying off big on screen had already been seen in previous Kurtzman’s action titles: sea-going sagas from different points in history…

Piracy set sail in the Fall of 1954 (#1 was cover dated October/November) and ran for seven bi-monthly issues before being scuttled at the end of 1955. This volume of Dark Horse’s EC Archives gathers them all, re-presenting some of the most gorgeous art of the era (or ever) but with scripts apparently curtailed and bowdlerized by the newly-instituted Comics Code Authority and Gaines’ own sense of financial survival.

And yes, Watchmen fans, these are the stories Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons were referencing in that sub-strand of their dystopian masterpiece…

One last thing to remember: although it’s called Piracy, the title embraced all aspects of nautical fiction from wars, whaling and the slave trade right up to contemporary commercial affairs: mixing flamboyant sea sagas with deeper, more complex and even socially crusading maritime topics intended to equate with literary highlights like CM Forester’s Hornblower yarns, Herman Melville’s classic text and even more modern fare by Jack London or Ernest Hemingway.

Before getting underway, the fraught history of EC is outlined in Grant Geissman’s informative Introduction, offering keen insights into those times and the gifted creators involved, after which Film Producer Greg Nicotero’s Foreword provides insight into Bill Gaines’ pioneering stand against censorship…

Sadly, despite diligent efforts by researchers and historians, many of these tales still have no writing credit, but that barely impacts their power to enthral as we open with a stunning Wally Wood cover. Piracy #1 opens with editorial welcome ‘Scuttlebutt’ before Reed Crandall and an author unknown detail the rise and fall of ‘The Privateer’, with patriotic Englishman Captain Ballard James gradually succumbing to temptation. Originally and exclusively targeting Spanish vessels, his battles eventually turn from his country’s survival to personal profit before he suffers a grisly, ironic comeuppance…

This collection also includes rousing house ads by EC’s finest and a particularly stirring one from Wood precedes his tale ‘The Mutineers’, with murderous marine martinet Cap’n Mathew Bollard finally driving his long-suffering crew into desperate retaliation and desertion during the last voyage of the clipper Lorna J in 1854…

Al Williamson & Angelo Torres formed a sublime artistic partnership at EC and their captivating versality is displayed in ‘Harpooned’. Also set in 1854 (for which thank the ever-beguiling concept of “only 100 years ago…”), it details how the whaling bark Eben Dodge was lost due to the growing tensions between the envious first mate and a dedicated captain who assumed his only foe was the giant sea beasts they hunted together. Prose parable ‘The Challenge’ (regarding a sea captain with an obsessive grudge against storms) and a Jack Davis-limned ad lead to the master cartoonist’s first full contribution, as ‘Shanghaied’ shares a long-anticipated reunion between a lifelong mariner and the criminal procurer who drugged and sold him into sea service a dozen years previously…

Cover-dated December 1954/January 1955, Piracy #2 opens with a Crandall cover and lead story ‘Sea Food’, wherein pirate Benjamin Medford’s ruthless predations are ended by cruel misfortune, British Naval firepower and brutal, bestial karma. Davis then returns to explore the eastern concept of ‘Kismet’ after a slave-ship’s first mate betrays his skipper and learns a lasting lesson about duty and honour…

‘Loblolly Boy’ is an historical text feature concerning tricks played on first-timers and junior seamen, after which Williamson & Torres render a modern tale of penny-pinching, deep sea treasure hunters in ‘The Shell Game’, backed up by prose piece ‘The Dive’ about a trainee’s last dry run. The issue closes with Wood’s ‘A Fitting End’, scripted by Carl Wessler and details how Edmund Drummond, Master of His Majesty’s Ship Sea Gull, allows his own innate cruelty and sense of superiority to provoke shipboard unrest even as his subordinate Jack Roark discovers an unsuspected piratical family connection.

Crandall retains the cover and lead position for #3 with a compelling tale of the buccaneer who sought higher status and position than mighty ‘Blackbeard’ before ‘Scuttlebutt’ returns in the form of a letters page. Wessler & Bernie Krigstein (one of comics’ most innovative illustrators and a commercial and gallery artist) united for a psychological war drama in the style of Frontline Combat as ‘U-Boat’ reveals the lethal outcome of a battle of wills between a German submarine commander and his fanatical Nazi political officer.

Text tale ‘The Beast’ exposes romantic rivalry between tuna fishermen, preceding George Evans’ debut in ‘Mouse Trap’ wherein a 19th century sailor plucked from the seas expiates his guilt and shares his role in the ghastly fate of lost ship The Sea Spray. Wessler & Graham Ingels closed the issue with the saga of an abolitionist white man shanghaied to serve aboard a ‘Slave Ship’ and the pact he made with its “human cargo”…

Behind Piracy #4’s Crandall cover and more ‘Scuttlebutt’ letters, that dean of realism rendered the brutal tale of Cap’n Satan – Terror of the Spanish Main. This savage, satirical yarn of the ‘Pirate Master’ details his humble origins, appalling deeds and ultimate downfall… matrimony!

‘The King’s Buccaneer’ recounts in prose the career of privateer Sir Henry Morgan, after which Wessler & Evans use the war of 1812 to frame the salutary saga of a stubborn young US midshipman who wants everything done ‘By the Book’, no matter how impractical… or suicidal it may seem. A brace of house-ads for the entire New Direction Line carries us into Ingels’ illustrated mystery ‘The Sheba’ with a young sea captain taking to the bitter end his vendetta against a sailing ship he believes wants to kill him. Krigstein then realises revolutionary France for us as aristocratic rival siblings in the King’s navy ruthlessly vie for prominence and position… until the events of 1789 engulf them both with lethal results in ‘Inheritance’.

Krigstein’s cover for #5 (June/July 1955) precedes Crandall’s gorgeous re-examination of US patriotic icon ‘Jean Lafitte’, before another missives-packed ‘Scuttlebutt’ leads to Wessler & Ingels’ ‘Rag Doll’, wherein a sullen brute on an 1810 four-master repels a pirate raid almost singlehandedly, simply to reclaim the childhood totem hiding his darkest secret and greatest shame. Jack Oleck scripts Krigstein on ‘Salvage’ as ruthless seaborne profiteers learn a nasty lesson about humanity, after which snippets of sea-based new stories are recycled in prose piece ‘Breakers on the Shore’, prior to Evans closing the issue with ‘The Keg’ – a sinister yet uplifting saga of survival…

Krigstein’s stunning cover for penultimate issue #6 segues into Crandall’s chilling 17th century saga of plunder, murder and brain-shattering guilt as a drunken derelict details how he is cursed by treasures ‘Fit for a King’, as letters in Scuttlebutt lead to Wessler & Evans’ account of a junior officer deranged by denial of promotion. He then does what he does to become ‘The Skipper’ before Ingels limns the story of a merciless seal trapper who destroys an arctic village’s food supply and is driven ‘Fur Crazy’…

Sir Francis Drake’s text biography ‘Sailor for Queen Bess’ precedes Davis’ tale of South Pacific schooner master Jonathan Wade, whose favourite disciplinary tactic is casting men adrift in an open boat. His inevitable breakdown leads to justice when he too is lost in ‘Solitary’…

Evans drafted the iconic last cover and Crandall told his final tale here as warring corsair captains Kemp and Valdez became ‘Partners’ in piracy just long enough to get really, truly rich… before inevitably betraying each other. Text tale ‘Prologue’ follows a trainee submariner’s last test exercise before Wessler & Krigstein visit 1777’s New England, where a British fleet sworn to take Saratoga is lured to destruction ‘Up the River’ by a terrain-savvy farmer.

Incessantly harassed by his literal fishwife spouse, a weary, poverty-stricken fishing boat skipper does a selfless good deed and is blessed with ‘John’s Reward’ in a wry domestic drama drawn by Ingels, after which more postal praise in ‘Scuttlebutt’ leads to one final foray from Evans. ‘Temptation’ finds venerable Captain Dover and his young chief officer aboard a Charleston packet boat. Of course, a once-in-lifetime cargo of $2 million in gold and jewels would turn most heads and suspicion quickly leads to a bad life choice…

Every page here has been restored from the masterful colour guides of original colourist Marie Severin, resulting – with modern reproduction techniques – in a sequence of graphic poems of unsurpassed beauty, whilst original house ads and commercial pages from the period tantalise in a way no others could, completing a nostalgic experience unlike any other.

The New Direction was a last hurrah for the kind of literate, mature comics Gaines wanted to publish. When they failed, he concentrated on Mad magazine and satire’s gain was American comics’ loss. You can vicariously relive those times and trends, and I strongly suggest that whether you are an aged EC Fan-Addict or nervous newbie, this is a book no aficionado can afford to miss. Why not dig deep and seize these timeless treasures, Me Buckoes?
THE EC ARCHIVES: PIRACY® & © 1954, 1955, 2019 William M. Gaines Agent, Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction © 2019 Grant Geissman.

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Marvel Firsts: The 1960s


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Larry Lieber, Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Arnold Drake, Steve Parkhouse, Don Heck, Bill Everett, Dick Ayers, Gene Colan, John Buscema, George Tuska, Christpher Rule, George Klein, Paul Reinman, Joe Sinnott, George Roussos, Sol Brodsky, Vince Colletta, Chic Stone, John Verpoorten, Syd Shores, Frank Giacoia, Sid Greene, Stan Goldberg, Sam Rosen, Art Simek, Terry Szanics, John Duffy & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5864-6 (TPB), 978-1-3025-0063-4 (Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless Fantasy Masterpiece for All Old Alike… 9/10

For most fans, the Marvel Age of Comics began with Fantastic Four #1 at the tail end of 1961, but the company itself cites Marvel Comics #1 from 1939, when the outfit was called Timely, as the big natal event. That means this year is their 87th anniversary. The first modern (for which read Post-War) comic books badged with a Marvel Comics brand were mystery anthology Journey into Mystery #69 and teen-humour hit Patsy Walker #95 (both cover-dated June 1961), each displaying an “MC” box on the cover. These soon proliferated until iconic storyteller Steve Ditko redesigned the masthead corner box for Amazing Spider-Man #2 (cover dated May 1963 and on sale from February 12th). By the July releases the name was on all issues and Marvel was forever linked to a comics revolution…

Whenever the event was, has been celebrated in a number of big-ticket compilations. This hefty carefully curated edition from 2011 wasn’t one of them, but is a superb overview of the decade of innovation that made the House of Ideas a global force and household name. It collects the first story of each character’s own series (not necessarily the same as a debut appearance), highlighting key moments through material taken from Rawhide Kid #17, Amazing Adventures #1, Fantastic Four #1, Tales to Astonish #27, 51 & 70, Incredible Hulk #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, Journey into Mystery #83, Strange Tales #101, 110 & 135, Two-Gun Kid #60, Tales of Suspense #39, 49 & 59, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes #1, The Avengers #1, X-Men #1, Daredevil #1, Ghost Rider #1, Marvel Super-Heroes #12, 19-20, Captain Savage #1 & Silver Surfer #1. These collectively cover August 1960 to May 1969 and also incorporate a vast gallery of covers from the other titles that came and went with such breathtaking rapidity in those days.

As stated, the company that would be Marvel was still going (albeit in dire straits) when Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Ditko and a select band of other multi-genre creators started that revolution, and these tales offer unmatched insights into how it all happened by re-presenting official first appearances…

Opening in January 1960 with 16 genre covers ranging from Battle #70 to Love Romances #87 to Patsy Walker #89, the first inklings of what’s to come are seen in narrative components taken from Rawhide Kid #17, by Lee, Kirby and inker Dick Ayers.

The Kid was one of Atlas’ older icons, having starred in his own title since 1955. A stock sagebrush centurion clad in buckskins, he was an early casualty when Atlas’ distribution crisis forced the company to cut back to 16 titles in the autumn of 1957. With westerns huge on TV and youthful rebellion a hot topic in 1960, Lee & Kirby conceived a brand-new sixgun stalwart – and a teenager to boot! – and launched him in the summer of the year, economically continuing the numbering of his cancelled predecessor.

It’s important to remember that these yarns aren’t trying to be gritty or authentic: they’re accessing the vast miasmic morass of wholesome, homogenised Hollywood mythmaking that generations of consumer preferred to learning the grim everyday toil, travail and terror of the real Old West, so sit back, reset your moral compass to “fair enough” and revel in simplistic Black Hats vs White Hats with all the dynamic bombast and bravura Kirby & Ayers could muster.

It all begins with adopted teen Johnny Bart teaching all and sundry in a cow-town named Rawhide to ‘Beware! The Rawhide Kid’ after his retired Texas Ranger Uncle Ben (!) is gunned down by fame-hungry cheat Hawk Brown. After very publicly exercising his right to vengeance, the naive kid flees Rawhide before offering justifications or explanation, resigned to living as an outlaw forevermore. His reputation is further enhanced when he routs a masked gang robbing the ‘Stagecoach to Shotgun Gap!’, after which Don Heck delivers one of his slickly authentic western yarns as a veteran gunslinger devises a way to end his own fearsome career ‘With Gun in Hand!’ The issue closed with by Lee, Kirby & Ayers revealing how another tragic misunderstanding confirms Johnny Bart’s destiny ‘When the Rawhide Kid Turned… Outlaw!’

Following a trio of romantic comedy covers (My Girl Pearl #7; Teen-Age Romance #77 & Life with Millie #8) we turn to the splendidly addictive men-vs-monsters anthology titles wherein Amazing Adventures #1 (cover-dated June 1961) begins a cautious experiment by launching a low-key – un-costumed even – paranormal mystically empowered investigator for a short run of pre-superhero escapades. ‘I Am the Fantastic Dr. Droom!’ (Lee & Kirby with Ditko inking) sees a seemingly sedate American drawn to Tibet to be trained in ancient mysteries before returning home as an occult consultant. The cover for Linda Carter, Student Nurse #1 then takes us to the big moment when everything changed…

Cover-dated November 1961 and on sale from August 8th, Fantastic Four #1 introduced a brave new world in eponymous epic ‘The Fantastic Four’ as maverick genius Reed Richards summons his fiancée Sue Storm, their pilot pal Ben Grimm and Sue’s teenaged brother Johnny before heading off on their first mission. Via flashback we learn they are driven survivors of a private spaceshot that went horribly wrong after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding. On crashing back to Earth, they found they’d all been hideously mutated into outlandish freaks.

Richards’ body became elastic, Sue could become invisible, Johnny Storm could turn into living flame and tragic Ben was reduced to a shambling, rocky living horror. Shaken but unbowed, they vowed to dedicate their new abilities to benefiting mankind. Crafted by Lee & Kirby. inked by George Klein & Christopher Rule, the drama intensified with ‘The Fantastic Four meet the Mole Man’ as they foil another outcast who tyrannically controls monsters and slave humanoids from far beneath the Earth. This summation of the admittedly mediocre plot cannot do justice to the engrossing wonder of that breakthrough issue… we really have no grasp today of just how different in tone, and how shocking it all was.

Next comes Ditko’s cover to Amazing Adult Fantasy #7, preceding a throwaway vignette from another of the company’s anthological monster mags. Taken from Tales to Astonish #27 (January 1962) a 7-page short introduces Dr Henry Pym, the maverick scientist who discovered a shrinking potion and invoked peril, wonder and a kind of companionship amongst the lowliest creatures on Earth and under it. This engaging piece of fluff – which owed more than a little to movie The Incredible Shrinking Man – was plotted by Lee, scripted by his brother Larry Lieber and stunningly illustrated by Kirby & Ayers.

The Incredible Hulk smashed right into his own bi-monthly comic and, after some classic romps by Young Marvel’s finest creators, crashed right out again. After 6 issues the series was cancelled and Lee retrenched, making the Gruff Green Giant a perennial guest-star in other Marvel titles until such time as they could restart the drama in their new Split-Book format in Tales to Astonish where Ant/Giant-Man was rapidly proving to be a character who had outlived his time.

Cover-dated May 1962, that first issue observes puny atomic scientist Bruce Banner, sequestered on a secret military base in the Midwest desert, perpetually bullied by bombastic commander General “Thunderbolt” Ross as a clock counts down to the world’s first Gamma Bomb detonation. Besotted by the General’s daughter Betty, Banner endures the General’s constant jibes as the timer ticks on and tension increases. At the final moment Banner sees a teenager lollygagging at Ground Zero and frantically rushes to the site to drag the boy away. Unknown to everyone, the assistant he’s entrusted to delay the countdown has an agenda of his own…

Rick Jones is a wayward but good-hearted kid. After initial resistance he lets himself be pushed into a safety trench, but just as Banner prepares to join him The Bomb explodes…

Somehow surviving the blast, Banner and the boy are secured by soldiers, but that evening as the sun sets the scientist undergoes a monstrous transformation. He grows larger and his skin turns stony grey…

In 6 simple pages that’s how it all starts, and no matter what any number of TV or movie reworkings or comicbook retcons and psycho-babble re-evaluations would have you believe that’s still the best and most primal take on the origin. A good man, an unobtainable girl, a foolish kid, an unknown enemy and the horrible power of destructive science unchecked…

Written by Lee, drawn by Kirby & inked by Paul Reinman, ‘The Coming of the Hulk’ barrels along as the man-monster & Jones are kidnapped by Banner’s Soviet counterpart The Gargoyle for a rousing round of espionage and Commie-bashing…

Crafting extremely well-received monster and mystery tales for and with Stan Lee, Ditko had been rewarded with his own title. Amazing Adventures/Amazing Adult Fantasy featured a subtler alternative kind of yarns other than Rampaging Aliens or Furry Underpants Monsters, which – though individually entertaining – had been slowly losing traction in the world of comics ever since National/DC had successfully reintroduced costumed heroes.

Lee & Kirby had responded with Fantastic Four and the ahead-of-his-time Hulk, but there was no indication of the renaissance to come when the cover of officially just-cancelled Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) highlighted a brand new and rather eerie adventure character. The wonderment came and went in 11 captivating pages as ‘Spider-Man!’ told the parable of Peter Parker, a smart yet alienated kid bitten by a radioactive spider on a high school science trip. Discovering he has developed arachnid abilities (which he augments with his own natural engineering genius) Parker does what any lonely, geeky nerd would do when given such a gift… he tries to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Creating a costume to hide his identity in case he makes a fool of himself, Parker becomes a minor celebrity and a vain, self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief flees past, he doesn’t lift a finger to stop him, only to find when he returns home that his Uncle Ben has been murdered. Crazy for vengeance, Parker stalks the assailant who made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known, to find that it is the felon he couldn’t be bothered with. Since his irresponsibility led to the death of the man who raised him, the boy swears to always use his powers to help others…

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. This wasn’t the gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, giant aliens and flying cars, this stuff could happen to anybody. The tragic last ditch tale struck a chord with the readers and by Christmas a new comic book superstar was ready to launch in his own title, with Ditko eager to show what he could do with his first returning character since the demise of Charlton action hero Captain Atom.

The Mighty Thor was the comic series in which Kirby’s restless fascination with all things Cosmic was honed and refined through his dazzling graphics and captivating concepts. The King’s examination of space-age mythology began in modest fantasy title Journey into Mystery where, in the summer of 1962, a tried-&-true comic book concept (feeble mortal transformed into god-like hero) was revived by the fledgling outfit to add a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers. Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962) saw a bold costumed warrior jostle aside the regular fare of monsters, robots and sinister scientists in a brash, vivid explosion of verve and vigour. The initial exploit follows crippled US doctor Donald Blake vacationing in Norway and encountering the vanguard of an alien invasion. Fleeing, he is trapped in a cave and finds an old, gnarled walking stick. In his frustration, he smashes the stick into a huge boulder obstructing his escape and his spindly frame transforms into Norse God of Thunder Mighty Thor!

Plotted by Lee, scripted by Lieber and illustrated by Kirby & inker Joe Sinnott (at this juncture a full illustrator, Sinnott would become Kirby’s primary inker for most of his Marvel career), ‘The Stone Men of Saturn’ is pure early Marvel: bombastic, fast-paced, gloriously illogical and captivatingly action-packed. The hugely under-appreciated Art Simek was the letterer and logo designer.

It was clear that they were making it up as they went along (not in itself a bad thing) and all that infectious enthusiasm showed. Amazing Fantasy #15 came out the same month as JiM #83 and a month later Tales to Astonish #35 – the first featuring Henry Pym as Astonishing Ant-Man in costumed capers appeared. In this volume you’ll find the cover to TtA #35 to mark that occasion…

Hot on the heels of the runaway success of the FF, Stan & Jack spun the most colourful – and youngest – member of the team into a solo series, seeking to recapture the glory of the 1940s when the original Human Torch was one of the company’s “Big Three” superstars. Within a year, magic-&-monsters anthology Strange Tales became home for the hot-headed hero. ST #101 saw Johnny Storm start his off-duty career with eponymous exploit ‘The Human Torch’. Scripted by Lieber (over a plot by brother Stan) and sublimely illustrated by Kirby & Ayers, the plucky lad investigates sabotage at a seaside amusement park and uncovers Commie-conniving by Red spy The Destroyer. Kirby pencilled the first few adventures before moving on, with Ayers assuming artistic control for most of its run, although The King generated some of the best covers of his Marvel career throughout the Torch’s Strange Tales tenure.

An odd inconsistency – or, more likely, tension- and drama-inducing gimmick – did crop up here. Although public figures in the FF, Johnny and sister Sue lived part-time in Long Island hamlet Glenville, where, despite the townsfolk being fully aware of her as the glamorous and heroic Invisible Girl, they seemed oblivious to the fact that her brother is the equally famous Torch. Many daft-but-ingenious pages of Johnny protecting his “secret identity” ensued before the situation was brilliantly resolved…

Despite the runway success of its new-fangled superheroes, Marvel still offered a range of genres like westerns. August 1962 saw the retooling of another retired Atlas property when Two-Gun Kid #60 (cover-dated November) introduced Eastern lawyer Matt Hawk. He moved to barbarous, unruly Tombstone, Texas in ‘The Beginning of the Two-Gun Kid’ (Lee, Kirby & Ayers). After merciless and relentless bullying, the tenderfoot is mentored by aged gunslinger Ben Dancer and becomes a powerful, ultrafast deadly accurate shootist.

When Ben is driven out of town by thugs working for land baron Clem Carter, Hawk adopts a masked identity to see that justice is done. Heck then limns stand-alone tale ‘The Outcast’, exposing the naked ambition of a Navajo warrior, before Hawk returns to complete his origin story in ‘I Hate the Two-Gun Kid!’ as romantic interest Nancy Carter succumbs to a scheme by her stepbrother to defraud her and frame the new hero in town…

More striking covers – Modelling with Millie #21 & Amazing Spider-Man #1 – precede the debut of Marvel’s next milestone in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963 and on sale for Christmas 1962). Created in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when “Red-baiting” & “Commie-bashing” were national obsessions in the U.S. the emergence of a brilliant new Thomas Edison employing Yankee ingenuity and invention to safeguard the World was an inevitable proposition.

Combining the cherished belief that (US) technology could solve every problem with universal imagery of noble knights battling evil, the proposition became certainty. Of course, kids thought it great fun and very, very cool. Scripted by Lieber (over Lee’s plot) and illustrated by the criminally unappreciated Don Heck, ‘Iron Man is Born’ saw electronics wizard turned arms maker Tony Stark field testing inventions in Vietnam when he is wounded by a landmine. Captured by Viet Cong leader Wong-Chu, Stark is given a grim ultimatum. Create weapons for the Reds and a doctor will remove from his chest the shrapnel that will kill him within seven days. If not…

Knowing Commies can’t be trusted, Stark and aged Professor Yinsen – another captive scientist – build a mobile iron lung (remember this is years before transplants or pacemakers) to keep his heart beating, equipping it with all the weapons their ingenuity and resources can secretly build. Naturally they succeed, defeating Wong-Chu, but not without tragic sacrifice.

Next was a new genre title, again given a fresh treatment by Lee, Kirby & Ayers. Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (May 1963) was an improbable, over-the-top WWII combat comics series similar in tone to later ensemble action movies like The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Bunch or The Dirty Dozen. The surly squad of sorry reprobates were the first of three teams concocted by men-on-fire Kirby & Lee to secure Marvel’s growing position as the publisher to watch. Sgt. Fury started out as a pure Kirby creation. As with his various war comics, The King made everything look harsh and real and appalling: the people and places are all grimy and tired, battered yet indomitable. Jack had served in some of the worst battles of the war and never forgot horrific and heroic things he saw. These he more graphically expressed in his efforts during the 1950s genre boom at many different companies. However, even at kid-friendly, Comics Code-sanitised Marvel, those experiences perpetually leaked through onto his powerfully gripping pages.

The saga began with blistering premier ‘Sgt. Fury, and his Howling Commandoes’ (that’s how they spellleded it in the storrie-title – altho knot enneewaire else): a rip-snorting yarn bursting with full-page panels interspersed with ‘Meet the Howling Commandos’ – a double-page spread spotlighting the 7-member First Attack Squad; Able Company, comprising Fury himself; former circus strongman/Corporal “Dum-Dum” Dugan and privates Robert “Rebel” Ralston (a Kentucky jockey); college student Jonathan “Junior” Juniper; jazz trumpeter Gabe Jones; Brooklyn mechanic Izzy Cohen and glamorous movie heartthrob Dino Manelli.

Controversially even for the 1960s, this battle Rat Pack was an integrated unit with Jewish and black members as well as Catholics, Southern Baptists and New York white guys all merrily serving together. The Howling Commandos pushed envelopes and busted taboos from the very start and the first mission was a non-stop riot pitting ‘Seven Against the Nazis!’ whilst putting the squad through their unique paces. The ragged band of indomitable warriors took on hordes of square-necked Nazis to save D-Day and rescue a French resistance fighter carrying vital plans of the invasion and is counterpointed by a far more low-key introduction for the next debut.

Something definitely different debuted at the back of Strange Tales #110.

When the budding House of Ideas introduced a warrior wizard to their proliferating pantheon in the summer of 1963 it was a bold but curious move. Bizarre adventures with menacing monsters were still incredibly popular both in and outside comics but mention of magic or the supernatural – especially vampires, werewolves and their eldritch ilk – were savagely proscribed by the censorship panel which dictated almost all aspects of story content. At this time (nearly a decade after an anti-comics public campaign led to Senate hearings) all comics were ferociously monitored and adjudicated by a draconian Comics Code Authority. Even though some of smaller company’s strongest sellers were mystery mags, their underlying themes and premises were almost universally mad science & alien wonders, not necromantic or thaumaturgic horrors. That might explain Lee’s unobtrusive introduction of Ditko’s mystic defender: an exotic, twilit troubleshooter inhabiting the shadowy outer fringes of rational, civilised society in one of those aforementioned monster titles.

Tales of Suspense #41 (May 1963) saw neophyte Iron Man battle crazed tech-wizard Doctor Strange, and with the codename successfully and legally in copyrightable print, preparations began for a truly different kind of ongoing hero. Marvel had recently published a quasi-mystic champion in balding, trench-coated Doctor Droom (later rechristened – or is that re-paganed? – Dr. Druid) and when Stephen Strange scored big, the prototype was retro-written into Marvel continuity as an alternative candidate and precursor for the ultimate role of Sorcerer Supreme.

Thus, without any preamble, our first meeting with the man of mystery comes courtesy of a quiet little chiller which has never been surpassed for sheer mood and imagination. Lee & Ditko’s ‘Doctor Strange Master of Black Magic!’ (Strange Tales #110, July 1963) saw a terrified man troubled by dreams approach an exceptional consultant in his search of a cure. That perfect 5-page fright-fest introduced entire fresh realms and featured deceit, desperation, double-dealing and the introduction of both a mysterious, aged oriental mentor and devilish dream demon Nightmare in an unforgettable yarn that might well be Ditko’s finest moment.

After a period of meteoric expansion, by mid-1963 the ever-expanding Marvel Universe was finally ready to emulate the successful DC concept that cemented the legitimacy of the Silver Age of American comics. The notion of putting a bunch of all-star eggs in one basket had made Justice League of America such a winner it inspired fading Atlas to try superheroes again. Nearly 18 months after FF #1, Marvel had a viable stable of leading men (but only sidekick women) so Lee & Kirby assembled a handful of them and moulded them into a force for justice and soaring sales. Seldom has it ever been done with such style and sheer exuberance. Cover dated September 1963, The Avengers #1 kicks off with ‘The Coming of the Avengers’: one of the industry’s cannier origin tales. Instead of starting at a zero point and acting as if the reader knew nothing, Stan & Jack (plus inker Ayers) assumed consumers had at least a passing familiarity with their other titles and wasted very little time or energy on introductions.

In Asgard, God of Mischief Loki is imprisoned on a dank isle, hungry for vengeance on his half-brother Thor. Observing Earth, the wicked godling espies monstrous, misunderstood Hulk and engineers a situation wherein the man-brute seemingly goes on a rampage, simply to trick the Thunder God into battling the brute. When the Hulk’s sidekick Rick Jones radios the FF for assistance, devious Loki diverts the transmission and smugly awaits the outcome of his trickery Sadly, Iron Man, Ant-Man & The Wasp also pick up the redirected SOS and respond. As heroes converge in the US Southwest to search for the Jade Giant, they realize that something is oddly amiss…

This terse, epic, compelling and wide-ranging yarn (New York, New Mexico, Detroit and Asgard in 22 pages) is Lee & Kirby at their bombastic best, but that same month they also premiered another super squad that was the hero team’s polar opposite. X-Men #1 introduced gloomy, serious Scott Summers (Cyclops), ebullient Bobby Drake/Iceman, wealthy golden boy Warren Worthington III codenamed Angel, and erudite, brutish genius Henry McCoy as The Beast. The teens were students of wheelchair-bound telepath Professor Charles Xavier, dedicated to broker peace and achieve integration between sprawling masses of humanity and Homo Superior: an emergent off-shoot species of mutants with incredible extra abilities.

Scripted by Lee ‘X-Men’ opens with the boisterous boy students welcoming newest classmate Jean Grey (promptly dubbed Marvel Girl): a young woman possessing the ability to move objects with her mind. Whilst Xavier is explaining the team goals and mission in life, actual Evil Mutant Magneto is single-handedly taking over US missile-base Cape Citadel. A seemingly unbeatable threat, the master of magnetism is nonetheless valiantly driven off by the young heroes on their first outing in under 15 minutes. It doesn’t sound like much, but the gritty, dynamic power of Kirby’s art, solidly inked by veteran Paul Reinman, imparted raw aggressive energy to the tale which carried the bi-monthly book irresistibly forward.

As Henry Pym matured from Ant-Man to Giant-Man, he took on a crimefighting partner in Janet Van Dyne: The Wasp. Although she almost never got a chance to solo star, with Tales to Astonish #52 (January 1964) Jan was granted a back-up series where she narrated horror stories like the one included here. Crafted by Lee, Lieber & George Roussos, ‘Somewhere Waits a Wobbow!’is a standard cautionary tale of fate and justice catching up to a crooked ne’er-do-well, and is followed here by a similar new position for an alien first introduced in Fantastic Four #13. From the same team and the same month, Tales of the Watcher began in Tales of Suspense #49 with the omnipotent intergalactic voyeur sharing ‘The Saga of the Sneepers!’ with predatory extraterrestrials observing Earth and making plans of conquest…

As the evolved Atlas Comics grew in popularity, it gradually supplanted its broad variety of genre titles with more and more superheroes. The recovering powerhouse was still hampered by a crippling distribution deal that limited the company to 16 titles per month (which would restrict their output until 1968), so each new untried book would have to fill the revenue-generating slot (however small) of an existing title.

Moreover, as costumed characters were selling, each new similarly-themed title would limit the monster, western, war, humour or girls’ comics that had been the outfit’s recent bread and butter. It was putting a lot of those eggs in one basket, and superheroes had failed twice before for Marvel. So Daredevil, the Man Without Fear (April 1964) might have seemed a risky venture. Yes, the artist was one of the industry’s most talented veterans, but not to the young kids who were its audience. Most importantly, he wasn’t Kirby or Ditko…

‘The Origin of Daredevil’ sees how young Matthew Murdock grew up in the slums, raised by his dad Battling Jack Murdock, a second-rate prize-fighter. Determined that his boy will be someone, Jack extracts a solemn promise from his son that he will never fight. Mocked by other kids who sarcastically dub him “Daredevil”, Matt abides by his vow, but secretly trains his body to physical perfection. One day he saves a blind man from being hit by a speeding truck, only to be struck in the face by its radioactive cargo. His sight is burned away forever but his other senses are super-humanly enhanced and he gains a sixth: “radar-sense”. He tells no-one, not even his dad.

Jack is in dire straits. As his career declined, he signed with The Fixer, knowing full well what the corrupt promoter expected from his fighters. Yet Jack’s star started to shine again and his downward spiral reversed itself. Unaware that he was being set up, Murdock got a shot at the Big Time, but when ordered to take a dive, refused. Winning was the proudest moment of his life. When his bullet-riddled corpse was found, the cops had suspicions but no proof…

Heartbroken Matt graduates college with a law degree and sets up in business with old room-mate Franklin “Foggy” Nelson. They hire young secretary Karen Page and, with his life on track, Matt now has time to solve his father’s murder. His promise had stopped him from fighting but what if he became somebody else? Scripted by Lee and moodily illustrated by Bill Everett (with assistance from Ditko) this is a rather nonsensical yet visually compelling yarn that just goes through the motions, barely hinting at the magic yet to come.

A cover gallery highlighting Marvel Tales Annual #1, Tales to Astonish #60 and photo-satire mag Monsters to Laugh With #1 then leads to the return of Captain America in his own series. After his resurrection in Avengers #4, the golden Age Cap exponentially grew in popularity and was quickly awarded his own solo feature, sharing Tales of Suspense with Iron Man. Sparsely scripted by Lee with the staggeringly perfect team of Kirby & Chic Stone illustrating, ‘Captain America’ is one phenomenal extended fight as an army of thugs invade Avengers Mansion because “only the one without superpowers” is at home. They soon learn the folly of that misapprehension…

Veteran war-hero Nick Fury was reimagined in Fantastic Four #21 (December 1963) as a grizzled, world-weary CIA Colonel at the periphery of really big events in a fast-changing world. Fury’s latter-day self then emerged as a big-name star once espionage yarns went global in the wake of popular TV sensations like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The elder iteration was given a second series in Strange Tales #135 (August 1965). Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which back then stood for Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division) combined Cold War tensions with sinister schemes of World Conquest by a subversive, all-encompassing, hidden enemy organisation. The unfolding saga came with captivating Kirby-designed super-science gadgetry…

Kirby’s genius for graphic wizardry and gift for dramatic staging mixed with Lee’s manic melodrama to create a tough, tense series which the writers & artists who followed turned into a non-stop riot of action and suspense. The main event opens in ST #135 as the Human Torch lead feature was summarily replaced. In the rocket-paced first episode, Fury is asked to volunteer for the most dangerous job in the world: leading a new counter-intelligence agency sworn to stop secret subversive super-science organisation Hydra. With assassins dogging his every move, the Take-Charge Guy with the Can-Do Attitude proves he is ‘The Man for the Job!’ in a potent 12-page thriller by Lee, Kirby & Ayers.

Originally devised by Bill Everett in 1939, Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the offspring of a water-breathing Atlantean princess and a US polar explorer: a hybrid being of immense strength, highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly and exist above and below the waves. Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics. He first caught public attention as part of the fire vs. water headlining team in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939 and Marvel Mystery Comics from the second issue onward), sharing honours and top billing with the original Human Torch, but he had originally been seen (albeit in a truncated monochrome version) in Motion Picture Funnies: a weekly promotional giveaway handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year.

Rapidly emerging as one of the company’s biggest draws, Namor gained his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to go at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, when Atlas briefly revived its Big Three super characters, Everett returned for an extended run of superb fantasy tales, but even so the time wasn’t right and the title sunk again. When Lee & Kirby began reinventing comic books in 1961 they retooled the forgotten awesome amphibian as a troubled, semi-amnesiac, decidedly regal and grandiose antihero in FF #4. Namor despised humanity; embittered at the loss of his sub-sea kingdom (which was seemingly destroyed by atomic testing) whilst being simultaneously besotted with Sue Storm.

Namor knocked around the budding continuity, squabbling with assorted heroes like Hulk, Avengers & X-Men, before winning his own series as half of Tales to Astonish. Marvel’s split-books had been devised as a way to promote their growing stable of stars whilst toiling under a highly restrictive distribution deal limiting the number of titles they could release each month. In 1968 the company ended this commitment and expanded exponentially.

After spectacularly battling Daredevil in the Scarlet Swashbuckler’s 7th issue, TtA #70 heralded ‘The Start of the Quest!’ as Lee, Gene Colan (in pseudonymous disguise as Adam Austin) & Vince Colletta set Sub-Mariner to storming an Atlantis under martial law ordered by his usurping Warlord Krang. The effort is for naught and our returning hero is rejected by his own people. Callously imprisoned, the troubled Prince is freed by his oft-neglected and ignored paramour Lady Dorma, charging him to undertake a mystical quest to find the lost Trident of King Neptune… which only the rightful ruler of Atlantis can hold.

More covers follow: Monsters Unlimited #1, Patsy Walker’s Fashion Parade #1, reprint anthologies Marvel Collectors’ Items Classics #1, Fantasy Masterpieces #1, Marvel Tales #3, King Size Special Marvel Super-Heroes #1 & Thor #126 (a first issue as Journey into Mystery was sensibly retitled here) before a new masked-&-costumed western hero debuted in Ghost Rider #1 (December 1966).

‘The Origin of the Ghost Rider’ by Gary Friedrich, Roy Thomas, Ayers & Colletta revealed how Eastern teacher Carter Slade is shot by fake Indians and brought back from the brink of death by real ones. Saved by recently-orphaned Jamie Jacobs, Slade is healed by shaman Flaming Star who trains Slade in combat and grants him gifts enabling him to perform tricks of stage magic (such as night time invisibility, image projection and bodily discorporation). Creating a glowing costume, Slade goes after plundering white men impersonating native tribes – and who killed Jamie’s parents – as a spectral avenging spirit “He who rides the Night Winds”…

Older fans – or their grandparents – might possibly recognise this hero as a western legend created by Ray Krank & Dick Ayers for Tim Holt #11 (Magazine Enterprises, 1949) and later immortalised by Frank Frazetta. They are stunningly, litigiously similar and Marvel made good use of the original’s reputation and recently voided copyright ownership. The same holds true for their next superhero addition, who crops up following another cover gallery featuring Not Brand Echh #1 and animated cartoon tie-in one-shot America’s Best (TV) Comics #1.

After years as an also-ran/up-and-comer, by 1968 Marvel Comics was in the ascendant. Their sales were catching up with industry leaders National/DC Comics and Gold Key, and they at last secured a new distribution deal that allowed them to expand their titles exponentially. Once the doubled-up stars of split-books Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish & Strange Tales all got their own titles, the House of Ideas just kept on going. One dead-cert idea was a star named after the company… one with a vast amount of name-recognition and nostalgic pedigree as well.

After the DC/Fawcett court case of the 1940s-1950s, the name Captain Marvel disappeared from newsstands, but in 1967, during the superhero boom and camp craze generated by the Batman TV show, publisher MLF secured rights to the name and produced giant-sized comics featuring an intelligent robot who could divide his body into segments and shoot lasers from his eyes. Quirky, charming and devised by the legendary Carl (Human Torch) Burgos who had recently worked for Marvel, the comic nevertheless did not attract a large following. Upon its demise, the name was quickly snapped up by the resurgent Marvel Comics Group. Marvel Super-Heroes was a brand-new title. It had been giant-sized reprint title Fantasy Masterpieces, combining monster & mystery tales with Golden Age Timely classics. With #12, it added an all-new experimental lead section for characters without homes. These would include Inhuman Queen Medusa and a new Black Knight when not debuting new concepts like Guardians of the Galaxy, Phantom Eagle (oddly omitted from this volume) and, to start the ball rolling, an troubled alien spy sent to Earth from the Kree Galaxy. He held a Captain’s rank and his name was Mar-Vell.

Crafted by Lee, Colan & Giacoia, initial 15-page MS-H instalment ‘The Coming of Captain Marvel!: Phase One!!’ devolved directly from FF #64-65 wherein the quartet defeated a super-advanced Sentry robot from a mythical space empire, only to be attacked by a high official of those long-lost extraterrestrials in their very next issue! After defeating Ronan the Accuser, the FF heard no more from the far-from-extinct Kree, but the millennia-old civilisation was once again interested in Earth. Dispatching a surveillance mission, the Kree wanted to know everything about us. Unfortunately, the agent they chose was a troubled man of conscience; whilst commanding officer Colonel Yon-Rogg was a ruthless rival for the love of the ship’s medical officer Una. No sooner has the good captain made tentative planetfall and clashed with the US military from the local missile base than this first instalment ends…

Although cover-dated January 1968, Capt. Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders #1 was released in November of the previous year, literally promoting a long-running supporting character from Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos to lead status and the Pacific Theatre of War in WWII. Crafted by Friedrich, Ayers & Syd Shores ‘The Last Banzai!’ sees US submarine commander Simon Savage reluctantly appointed the head of a squad of elite (multicultural/multi-ethnic) marines to clear the way for imminent Allied landings on the fortified atoll of Tarawa. It’s a dirty job but…

The aforementioned expansion is celebrated by a gallery of debuting series covers for Groovy #1, Captain America #100, Incredible Hulk #102, Iron Man and The Sub-Mariner #1, Iron Man #1, Sub-Mariner #1, Captain Marvel #1, Doctor Strange #169, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 and Spectacular Spider-Man #1 and cemented by the first full solo tale of one the company’s breakthrough stars.

Although pretty much a last-minute addition to Fantastic Four #48-50’s ‘Galactus Trilogy’, Jack Kirby’s scintillating creation the Silver Surfer swiftly became a watchword for depth and subtext in the Marvel Universe and one Lee kept as his own personal toy for many years. Tasked with finding planets for space god Galactus to consume and, despite the best efforts of intergalactic voyeur Uatu the Watcher, one day the Surfer discovers Earth, where the latent nobility of humanity reawakens his own suppressed morality; causing the shining scout to rebel against his master and help the FF save the world. In retaliation, Galactus imprisons his one-time herald on Earth, making him the ultimate outsider on a planet remarkably ungrateful for his sacrifice. The Galactus Saga was a creative high from a period when the Lee/Kirby partnership was absolutely on fire. The tale has all the power and grandeur of a true epic and has never been surpassed for drama, thrills and sheer entertainment. It’s not included here: for that treat you’ll need to see a Fantastic Four Epic Collection or many another Marvel collection…

In May 1968, after frequent guest-shots and even a solo adventure in the back of Fantastic Four Annual #5, the Surfer finally got his own (initially double-length) title at long last. Illustrated by John Buscema & Joe Sinnott, ‘The Origin of the Silver Surfer!’ finds the drama opening on a prolonged flashback sequence of the outcast’s forays on Earth and repeated examples of crass humanity’s brutal callousness and unthinking hostility. Then we see how Norrin Radd, discontented soul from an alien paradise Zenn-La, became the gleaming herald of a planetary scourge. Radd had constantly chafed against a civilisation in comfortable, sybaritic stagnation, but when Galactus shattered their cosy million years of progress in a fleeting moment, without hesitation the discontented dissident offered himself as a sacrifice to save the world from the Devourer’s hunger. Converted into an indestructible, gleaming human meteor, Radd agreed to scour the galaxies looking for uninhabited worlds rich in the energies Galactus needs to survive, thus saving planets with life on them from destruction. He didn’t always find them in time…

The stories in this series were highly acclaimed – if not commercially successful – both for Buscema’s agonised, emphatic and lush artwork as well as Lee’s deeply spiritual and cod-philosophical scripts. The tone was accusatory; with the isolated alien’s travails and social observations creating a metaphoric status akin to a Christ-figure for an audience that was maturing and rebelling against America’s creaking and unsavoury status quo.

Marvel the business had early learned the value of reprinting past glories; both to update new readers and to cheaply monopolise sales points. Here a gallery blends ongoing titles like newly retitled Captain Savage and his Battlefield Raiders #5 and adult-oriented comics magazine Pussycat #1 with double-sized classics reprint compilations Tales of Asgard #1 and The Mighty Marvel Western #1 before Marvel Super-Heroes #19 (March 1969 and on the stands in December 1968) sees Tarzan analogue Ka-Zar in his first solo story ‘My Father, My Enemy!’ courtesy of Arnold Drake, Steve Parkhouse, George Tuska & Sid Greene. Beginning as a barbarian wild man in a lost sub-polar realm of swamp-men and dinosaurs, Ka-Zar eventually evolved into one of Marvel’s more complex – and exceedingly mutable – characters. Wealthy heir to one of Britain’s oldest noble families, his best friend is a sabre-tooth tiger, his wife is feisty jungle warrior/zoologist Shanna the She-Devil and his brother is a homicidal super-scientific bandit. He is one of Marvel/Timely’s oldest heroes; pulp hero predated Martin Goodman’s first foray into comics and strip incarnation Kazar the Great was in Marvel Comics #1, right beside Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and The Angel…

Lord Kevin Plunder was perpetually torn between the clean life-or-death simplicity of the jungle and the bewildering constant compromises of modern civilisation as he guest-starred in titles as varied as X-Men, Daredevil & Amazing Spider-Man. As this enjoyable, under-appreciated tale unfolds many of the modern hero’s inconsistencies and conflicts are squared as the aristocratic outsider quits his English castle for the Antediluvian Savage Land to investigate claims that his dead father was a scientific devil intent on using his discovery of anti-metal for evil. Tragically, his warped brother Parnival is ruthless and determined to hide the truth for his own vile ends. A consequent wild excursion to Antarctica sees the discovery and obfuscation of the truth, strange aliens, dinosaurs, lost cities, spectacular locations, pervasive mystery and all-out action. Comics don’t get better than this…

Ending these astounding formative adventures is a tale from February 1969, just as comics began experiencing another downturn in superhero sales and the resurrection of other, more traditional genres with fresh modern tones. Co-written and pencilled by Lieber with Thomas, Giacoia & Vince Colletta, ‘This Man… This Demon!’ was the final solo try-out in Marvel Super-Heroes (#20, cover-dated May) before it became an all-reprint vehicle. It restated Dr. Victor von Doom’s origins and revealed his tragic, doomed relationship with “insignificant” Roma girl Valeria. That relationship is then exploited by demon alchemist Diablo who claims to need an ally but actually wants a new slave. The terrifying monarch of Latveria deals with the charlatan in typically effective style…

Marvel continued expanding for the remainder of the decade, but not with superheroes, as a final clutch of covers – Mad About Millie #1, Chili #1, My Love #1, Tower of Shadows #1, Chamber of Darkness #1, Our Love Story #1, Marvel’s Greatest Comics #22, Homer, the Happy Ghost #1, Peter the Little Pest #1, the revived Kid Colt Outlaw(#140), Ringo Kid #1 and Where Monsters Dwell #1 – highlights the publisher’s return to broader choices and themes, following as always the trends of TV and movies. Also included is a brief bonus section sharing Stan Lee’s original synopsis for FF #1 and iconic contemporary house ads.

The 1960s was the turning point in the history of US comic books: the moment a populist industry became an art form. These tales helped sparked that renaissance and remain some of the best stories and art you will ever experience. Nuff Said?
© 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Batman: Terror of the High Skies


By Joe R. Lansdale, Edward Hannigan & Dick Giordano (Little, Brown & Co.)
ISBN: 978-0-316-17765-8 (TPB)

September 19th is the 12th Annual Batman Day and this year it coincides with the 32nd International Talk Like A Pirate Day. That’s gonna be some strange dinner party conversation, right there, me Hearties! Moreover, World Police expect to deploy specially trained penguins to keep rival marchers Ap-Aarrrrrt!

Prior to the days of all-out Superhero cinema, we parochial comics fans tended to regard and measure our greatest assets in purely graphic narrative terms, but truthfully characters such as Superman, Spider-Man and especially Batman have long-since grown beyond their origins and are now fully modern mythological creatures who inhabit a mass of medias and even age ranges. A precious case in point is this superbly rowdy, rollicking. rousing and rather rare “Boy’s Own adventure” released in November 1992 as part of the perennial and hopefully never-ending drive to get kids reading.

Terror of the High Skies was written by the brilliant and joyously prolific Texan Joe R. Lansdale, whose credits range from novels to screenplays (Bubba Ho-Tep, Hap and Leonard) and cartoons (Superman: The Animated Series, DC Showcase: Jonah Hex) to comic books (Jonah Hex: Two Gun, Molo & Shadows West, Red Range, Pigeons From Hell, The Steam Man, Batman) in genres as broad as horror, comedy, westerns, crime-thrillers, fantasy science fiction and all points in between. He is as adept at challenging adult audiences as he is beguiling – far harder to impress – young readerships… and he knows kung fu too!

The illustrated prose tale begins as young Toby Tyler slowly adjusts to life in Gotham City after growing up in Mud Creek, East Texas. One night, as his parents play host to old friend – and Police Commissioner – Jim Gordon, Toby hears a cat in distress and climbs out of his bedroom window onto the roof of his building. Once there, he finds a flying galleon heaving-to and infamous criminal The Joker capering about all gussied-up in the guise of a movie pirate.

Toby’s a big fan of films and keeps up to date on the news, so when the Mountebank of Mirth makes the kid walk the plank off the roof he overhears some clues that will eventually lead to the Clown Prince’s defeat. It’s also where and when he first meets the daring Dark Knight, as Batman swoops out of the darkness to save him before racing off to confront Joker and his gang of plundering sky-pirates…

Already deeply involved in solving taunting card-clues to the raucous rogue’s future crimes, Batman comes close to ending the case right there, but the wily Harlequin of Hate hastily hightails it to embarks on a campaign of pirate-themed plundering, unaware that plucky Toby has deduced where and when he will strike next.

With the focus very much on the valiant boy – just as young Jim Hawkins is the narrative voice of Robert Louis Stevenson’s genre-founding Treasure Island – readers are treated to a splendid adventure as Toby is allowed to join Batman’s search for the Joker in a fantastic chase encompassing a visit to the Batcave; meeting and rescuing his favourite horror-film actor; stowing away aboard the cloud-soaring marauder; facing a (mechanical) sea monster and eventually foiling a spectacular scheme to unleash a wave of madness on unsuspecting Gotham City.

Boldly boisterous, fast-paced and engaging; delivered very much in the manner of Batman the Animated Series (for which Lansdale also wrote a number of episodes), this delightful text escapade is enhanced by eight breathtaking full-page action-illustrations by Batman veterans Ed Hannigan & Dick Giordano and would make a perfect primer for younger fans to begin their – hopefully – life-long love affair with reading… once some forward-thinking editorial bigwig has it re-released and commissions a new one too…
© 1992 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Published under license from DC Comics.

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The Death of Groo the Wanderer (Marvel Graphic Novel #32)


By Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai & Tom Luth (Epic/Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-87135-290-3 (1990 Album TPB)

Groo is a living paradox: a brilliant fighting man and unbeatable warrior sell-sword, and also – AT THE SAME TIME – far too stupid to be harmed and the dumbest loose assemblage of organic molecules on the planet. Always hungry, he wanders because most places where he pauses burn down, wash away or crash into rubble soon after he gets there. He loves to fight and the entire world trembles at the mention of his name. They do the same whenever they are downwind of him too…

Produced in unique fashion by Sergio Aragonés, wordsmith Mark Evanier, letterer Stan Sakai (creator of Usagi Yojimbo) and colourist Tom Luth, the idiot’s adventures form one of the longest running humour comic book series in America and there seems to be no chance of stopping the creators as long as we keep buying these incredible, hilarious sagas…

Both in comic narrative and the infinitely more strenuous idea-consuming field of gag-cartooning, Sergio Aragonés Domenech (born today in 1937 so Happy Birthday amigo!) has produced vast volumes of excellent stuff. His darkly skewed sensibilities and deathgrip on the cosmically absurd, wedded to a utterly unique, anarchically meticulous drawing style and frankly terrifying professional discipline, have made his (frequently) silent doodles a vibrant proof of the maxims that laughter is universal and a picture is worth a thousand words.

Also an actor of some merit and repute, the Spanish-born Mexican-American most famously worked for years at Mad Magazine and on DC’s horror anthology titles when he first moved to the USA. Here he mostly delivered pages of gags and occasional full comic scripts and strips. Then in 1981, with comics scripting, screenwriting associate Mark Evanier, Aragonés knocked out a madcap 4-page parody of the entire Sword-&-Sorcery genre as his contribution to the Creators Rights benefit comic book Destroyer Duck being published by Eclipse Comics.

Following a second outing in Mike Grell’s Starslayer (#5), Pacific Comics launched Groo the Wanderer in his own title. After 8 issues (December 1982-April 1984) that beleaguered, troubled company folded but the unsinkable yet unwashed barbarian (that’s a joke I’ll explain later) resurfaced in a Groo Special one-shot from Eclipse (October 1984), before finding a relatively stable home at Epic Comics, Archie Goodwin’s creator-owned corner of the Marvel Universe.

Aragonés had first doodled his witless warrior in the 1970s, but no publisher would take on the property unless he sold all rights – a nigh-universal situation in the industry until the advent of the Direct Sales market transferred power from companies and distributors to creators and consumers. Groo is arguably the most successful creator-owned property of the US comic book market, and this randomly selected volume of so very many pretty much epitomises what the meandering (but never a mendicant!) moron is all about. Since that Epic incarnation (an uproarious 120 issue run plus dozens of graphic novel compilations) the witless wall-eyed wanderer moved on to Image and Dark Horse Comics, but they haven’t completely gone belly-up yet. Moreover, he has teamed up with the best in the biz (like Tarzan and Conan) and continues to escape in new editions whenever you least expect it…

This all original volume from 1987 reintroduces readers to the ugliest, stupidest, stinky-est itinerant mercenary in the world. Luckily he’s also the best swordsman in creation and too thick to be harmed, because when he shuffles his unshod, dirty feet into the domain of King Krag he inadvertently encounters a thoroughly nasty man with a good many reasons to psychotically hate him…

At this time the kingdom is being ravaged by a colossal dragon, but as the only man on the planet crazy enough to fight it has a huge bounty on his head, how stupid would he have to be to come and attempt to kill it? If you’re having difficulty answering that, either you’ve not been paying attention or Groo has found a new apprentice…

Due to the kind of circumstance-concatenation that only happens in this series, everybody in the land of Groo-haters thinks the oaf is finally dead – even Groo – but with all the folk who have ever suffered at his hands gathered in one place, they all start to realise that a world without Groo just isn’t the same…

Fear not, however. Order, if not sense, is eventually restored… but only after a grand display of confusions, contusions, conflagrations, conflicts, pratfalls, pitfalls, punch-lines and punch-ups. There’s even a little room left over for a soupçon of romance (Mmmm, Soup! Mmmm, leftovers…)

Originally published in the extravagant, luxurious over-sized 285mm x 220mm European album format (other later versions are available!) allowing even more room for the artist’s tireless tornado of visual hits and narrative graffiti, this is a masterpiece of mirth and madness comedy addicts will adore and the great most telling strength of the series is that new readers can start practically anywhere – and still be none the wiser…

Marvellously cynical, wildly witty and stunningly silly, Groo remains the comic of first resort for people who hate comics: titanically tongue-in-cheek, sharply sarcastic and searingly self-deprecating. An irresistible humour tour-de-force astoundingly scribed and illustrated by jesters who don’t know when – or how – to stop.

The unstoppable brain-donor (Groo, not Aragonés) has since rambled on to other ventures but there’s still plenty of material for you to track down…

Oh yeah, that sinking thing: among his other lack of abilities Groo cannot travel by ship. He’s not seasick or anything, it’s just that his physical presence on nautical apparatus of any sort causes it to sink. This book has one of the very best riffs on that running (swimming? sinking?) gag I’ve ever seen… and while we’re sharing secrets, according to our admittedly so-very-wry and untrustworthy narrator/creators, a hallowed, unchanging creative process forms the basis of the prolific partnership.

Groo’s tales are initially plotted and pencilled by Aragonés before being handed off to Evanier (Scooby-Doo, Blackhawk, Crossfire, DNAgents, New Gods, Garfield) to dialogue in those bits least filled with pictorial idiocy and graphic contumely. After all that, Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo, The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, 47 Ronin) letters the pages (in indelible ink!) before Sergio gets them back to embellish and change back to what he wanted in the first place. A colourist (usually Tom Luth) colours it all in for picky customers who want no truck with measly monochrome…

If you must read only one Groo book, any one will do. I like this one and so do all of these dissatisfied customers…

© 1987, 1990, 2026 Sergio Aragonés. All Rights Reserved.

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Aragones 3-D


By Sergio Aragones, with 3-D enhancement by Ray Zone (3-D Zone)
ISBN: 978-0-92530-000-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Whilst we’re celebrating a truly unique oeuvre, why not try to find this booklet of wordless humour in 3-D. It should include two pairs of 3-D glasses, but you know what resellers and second hand retailers are like…

I’m all about everything to do with comics and so to celebrate our Spanish/Mexican-American cartoonist, occasional actor and birthday boy I’ve dredged up this wonderful piece of eye-candy. It is both a splendid example of the periodic fascination our industry has with the somewhat hit-or-miss print process of Three-Dimensional reproduction, and also a superb short collection of sardonic pictorial lunacy by of one of the modern world’s greatest gag cartoonists. Notably, black-& white’s perfectly all right for gag-cartooning genius Aragonés and he’s not fussed by red & green either…

This little book features more than sixty of his best, many embracing the theme of 3-D itself, but all dipped in the grim wit of the cynical absurdist. Shove on your specs and see the gags just jump out at you.
© 1989 Sergio Aragones. All Rights Reserved.