Category: Reportage

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Noisy Valley: The Art of Protest


By Myfanwy Tristram (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-43-0 (THB)

The world has always been hierarchical in nature. Moreover, the ever-expanding, shamefully selfish human portion of it has never missed any opportunity to exploit, impose upon and oppress its own “lower orders”. Historically, those who put themselves above us have systematically entrenched and weaponized wealth, ownership, culture – and weapons too – to suppress those they deem “lesser” in some arbitrarily decided way you were never consulted upon. This is called lawmaking and “keeping public order”.

The other side (the only un-oppressed minority in existence) uses divisive popularism, money-thuggery and lawyers, because they believe most ordinary people don’t give a toss about anything until it affects them in the pocket or impacts their kids and, no matter to what end of the political spectrum one belongs, they can be bought or placated by gestures rather than actual change.

And what can the rest of us do? Grumble, complain and, if all else fails, be disruptive. We unite in protest because all we have going for us is numbers and shared goals…

Having, in my militant radical youth, marched a few miles and punched (far less than) my fair share of neo-Nazi thugs and bovver boys – kids, don’t do this unless you really, truly have to – I still ascribe to old-fashioned ideas which don’t properly fit in a modern society, but I’m still angry and reasonable enough to be willing to listen and entertain new options…

Generally speaking, politics is composed of and utilised mutually by firebrands, coldly calculating grandees and wannabe despots, but in recent years universal failures in leadership large and small have prompted exponential growth in movements of gentle resistance and persuasion. It has to be gentle now, because each increasingly innovative exhibition of concern and dissent has been met with revision of laws already calculated to defang protestors and quash opposing opinions.

That’s what Noisy Valley is all about…

All governments change laws and tinker with norms of social compliance to reduce resistance to the people the elected ones actually serve. This is done in pursuit of a mythic general weal that translates as “me/my donor’s money is more important that your concerns or lives” and “we value your opinion, but keep it to yourselves”…

This compelling graphic report documents a long history of hands-on dissent via local, global and grass roots responses to abuses by those-in-power, gleaned from firsthand witness accounts by those who were involved at the time.  Here they are transformed into rousing modern fables that sprang from an art project celebrating democratic crusading activists and the stirring histories of South Wales’ Rhondda valley.

It was 2022, a time when everybody in Britain – and on Earth – had plenty to protest about. It was around that twenty minutes or so when Liz Truss “led” the nation that assorted ordinary folk were making their way to The Workers Gallery of Ynyshir to view an exhibition of protest drawings by Brighton-based social historian/comics creator Myfanwy Tristram (Draw the Line, Running Out)…

That exhibition and the people she met there became the basis for a graphic catalogue of eyewitness stories focused on when protest evolved, why it is embattled in the UK, and how it is under threat of being legislated out of existence now…

Here in easily-accessible snippets of the past are the observations of those fighting public spending cuts and library closures; Anti-Consumerism, The Greenham Common Peace Camp and Police responses to the question ‘Do we have a right to protest?’

Examination of how laws have been changed and the Courts deployed to suppress societal disruption accompanies scrutiny and testimony on Schoolgirl strikes; The Aldermaston Marches (by on-scene photographer David Hurn); the Miners’ Strikes and Hospital closures (specifically a schoolboy marcher protesting the loss of Llwynpia in South Wales).

More factoids about US/Welsh historical connections, global suppression of dissent, increasing size of protest movements and the apparently not-quite-officially-genocide in Gaza bracket personal reports of Women in the Workplace from the 1960s to today; Politician Jill Evans’ fight to make safe deadly landfill sites of Nantygwyddon and poet Patrick Jones’ battle to save ancient woodlands of Sirhowy Valley before the stories close with climate change protestor Jenny McLelland and an overview of what happened since the Noisy Valley project began in 2022 (…so many Prime Ministers and lawmakers gone since then…!)

Closing the celebration are ‘End Notes’ comprising illustrated mini briefings on all ‘The Protestors’ storied here; a copious section of contacts for further study compiled as ‘References’; Acknowledgements and a pretty impressive biography of auteur Myfanwy Tristram.

The greatest enemy of the impassioned ideologue is apathy. This simple fact forces activists and visionaries to ever-more devious and imaginative stunts and tactics. However, all entrenched Powers-That-Be are ultimately hopeless before one thing: collective unified resistance by the very masses they’re holding down through force of arms; artificial boundaries (class, race, capitalist dogma); forms of mind control like bread, circuses and religion; divisive propagandas or just the insurmountable ennui of grudging acceptance to a status quo flavoured with an orchestrated fear that unknown changes could make things worse.

From its earliest inception, art – and especially cartooning – has been used to sell: initially ideas or values but eventually actual products too. In newspapers, magazines and especially comics the sheer power of narrative – with its ability to create emotional affinities – has been linked to unforgettable images and characters. When those stories affect generations of readers, the force that they can apply in a commercial, social or especially political context is almost irresistible…

The power of graphic narrative to efficiently, potently and evocatively disseminate information and advocate complex issues with great conviction through layered levels has always been most effectively used in works with a political or social component. That’s never been more evident than here…
Text and images © Myfanwy Tristram, 2026. All rights reserved.

Noisy Valley: The Art of Protest will be published on May 14th 2026 and is available for pre-order now.

A national promotional tour is underway and you can meet the creator and exchange all the views you cherish at a number of venues. These include

7th May: GOSH Comics, London launch party for Noisy Valley

16th May: Beyond the Book Festival, Brighton

18th May: Waterstones, Brighton

24th May: BorthFfest, Wales

27th May: Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, Wales

29th May: The Worker’s Gallery, Rhondda, Wales celebration event for Noisy Valley

6th June: Leeds Litfest

Please seek further details from them. I just type stuff…

Today in 1919, we welcomed astoundingly versatile Canadian comics all-star James Winslow “Win” Mortimer (Superman, Batman, Robin, Superboy, Stanley and His Monster, Spider-Man, Night Nurse) while in 1940 the Philippines was blessed by the comings of both Cal Sobrepeña (Lovelife Komiks) and the iconic fantasy master Alex Niño (Captain Fear, Thriller, Space Clusters), and Argentina greeted future mega-scripter Carlos Trillo (Cicca Dum Dum, Cybersix, El Negro Blanco, El Loco Chávez, Borderline, Clara de noche). The US struck back in the creative wonder stakes by birthing cartoonist Phil Foglio (Buck Godot, Dynamo Joe, Girl Genius, Angel and the Ape) and illustrator Tim Sale (Billi 99, Batman: The Long Halloween, Spider-Man: Blue) in 1956, and author/painter Christopher Moeller (Iron Empires, Rocketman: King of the Rocketmen, Star Wars, JLA: A League of One) in 1963.

Landmark launches today include Ken Reid’s fantastical Face Ache in 1971; adult French comics magazine L’Écho des savanes in 1972 and Barbara Slate’s boldly groundbreaking Angel Love for DC in 1987, but the date also marks the passing of veteran Belgian writer/artist Sirius AKA Max Mayeu (Les Timour, Niki Lapin, L’Épervier Bleu, Pemberton, Bouldadar) in 1997, and gone-too-soon Tomosina Cawthorne-Artis AKA Tom Artis (Tailgunner Jo, Judge Dredd, Sensational She-Hulk, The Spectre, The Web) in 2007.

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Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory


By Barbara Yelin: translated by Helge R. Dascher & edited by Charlotte Schallié and Alexander Korb (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-442-3 (HB)

With the world once again on the brink of extinction and hate, and what looks to me and so many others like actual clinical madness gripping every pious yet greedy soul alive, what better time than right now to explore the memories and postwar experiences of a Shoah survivor?

Released in February (and produced thanks to the assistance of the  Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) this epic tome is an engrossing expansion of 2022’s visual essay in But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust. Through gentle conversations and via thoughtful consideration it pictorially processes the memories of a remarkable, and remarkably tight-lipped, woman who survived the last breakout of extermination madness in the 1930s and 1940s, She kept on living against crushing odds and circumstances, making a life for herself and with her remaining family. Of course, that was only the beginning of the story. Here, in beautiful languid episodes framed in mood-altering hues and tones, is some of what she did once the actual shooting had stopped…

One of three acknowledged survivors of a Dutch family handed over to Nazis when they conquered Holland, a four-year old girl and her mother were despatched to Eastern European death camps. Seven-year old Emmie Arbel was finally orphaned at Ravensbruck and Bergen-Belsen, but “saved” by the Allies when the camp was liberated. Clerically decreed a Displaced Person, she was soon reunited with her brothers, but suffered appalling betrayal, sexual abuse, illness-induced isolation and benign neglect from those entrusted with her care and rearing. Even being bounced across newly-liberated Europe before being bundled off to new homeland Israel only reinforced the conviction that Promised Lands came with conditions and were not for everybody…

Deeply traumatized, but fortified by selective recall and an indomitable poker face, Emmie grew up and turned inward, living life at a distance until making friends with a German artist and storyteller who wanted to show a different truth…

As much about getting a reluctant hostile witness to open up and share sights and scares of the life lived, The Colour of Memories unfolds in slices and snippets: a deft, non-linear, emotionally turbulent potpourri sparked by recollection, rather than chronologically steered or directed. This softly shocking, wandering ramble shows how the mass-produced, institutionalised terrors of war and pogrom were only prelude to the rest of Emmie Arbel’s life, and that the bad times were not over just because no one was actively trying to kill her…

The tale is as much about a growing friendship and mutually acceptable narrative, with graphic novelist Barbara Yelin injecting much of her process into the compelling mix. Born in 1977 Munich, Yelin studied illustration at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences before breaking into France’s Bande Dessinée market in 2004 with Le Visiteur. Successive works include Le Retard; Gift; Riekes Notizen (in daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau); The Summer of Her Life and, in 2016, Eisner Award-nominated graphic novel Irmina.

A feast of revelatory growth and paean to adaptability, this dossier on survival comes with supplemental materials including a list of ‘The People in This Book’; a ‘Glossary of Hebrew Words’; a timeline ‘About Emmie Arbel’; documentarian Yelin’s incisive afterword and process deconstruction ‘This is Her Story’ and Alexander Korb & Dienke Hondius’ statement of intent ‘The Aftermath of Survival: Emmie Arbel’s Experiences After the Holocaust’. These are supported by photos, maps, diagrams and closing addendum ‘Wartime and Postwar Routes of the Arbel Family’ before editors Charlotte Schallié & Korb’s ethical dilemmas and the solutions needed to facilitate a non-harmful processing of the unthinkable are discussed in essay ‘About this Book’.
Text and images © Barbara Yelin and Reprodukt. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1843 pioneering Brazilian cartoonist and comics artist Angelo Agostini was born and we lost French cartoonist comic star Jean Cézard (Arthur le fantôme justicier) in 1977, legendary Lee Elias (Green Arrow, Beyond Mars, The Rook, Luke Cage) in 1998 and the magnificent Alfredo Alcala (Voltar, Batman, Man-Thing, Planet of the Apes, Swamp Thing, Arak, Son of Thunder, Kong the Untamed, Conan) in 2000.

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Fallen Words


By Yoshihiro Tatsumi, translated by Jocelyne Allen (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-074-4 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in really really less enlightened times.

After half a century of virtual obscurity, crafting brilliantly incisive and powerfully personal tales of modern humanity on the margins and on the edge, Yoshihiro Tatsumi (10th June 1935 – 7th March 7, 2015) found “overnight success” in 2009 with his glorious autobiographical work A Drifting Life.

To describe his dark, bleak vignettes of raw real life, in 1957 Tatsumi devised the term Gekiga or “dramatic pictures”, practically if not actually inventing the genre of adult, realistic, socially aware and literary comics stories in Japan. He began his career after WWII, at a time when sequential narratives or “manga” literally meant “Irresponsible” or “Foolish Pictures”: a flashy and fanciful form of cheap, escapist entertainment targeted specifically at children (and the simple-minded) in the years immediately following the cessation of hostilities.

His tales continued in a never-ending progression, detailing the minutiae and momentum of Japanese popular culture and, with his star assured in the manga firmament, turned to a far older aspect of his country’s artistic heritage for this project.

The traditional performance art of Rakugo seems to combine many elements British observers would recognise: reverentially combining familiar tales told many times over such as morality or mystery plays with instructive fables and especially shaggy dog stories. Just like Christmas pantomimes, the art derives from how the story is revamped, retold and re-expressed – although the ending (punchline?) is sacrosanct and must always be delivered in its purest, untrammelled form…

Developing out of the far older Karukuchi and Kobanashi shows, Rakugo was first accepted as a discrete performance style accessible to the lower classes around 1780 CE, during the Edo Period, and going on to establish itself as a popular entertainment which still thrives today, regarded as a type of intimate comedy drama act in Vaudeville theatres.

As with all Japanese art-forms and disciplines, Rakuga is highly structured, strictured and codified, with many off-shoots and subgenres abounding, but basically it’s a one-man show where a storyteller (Rakugoka or Hanashika) relates a broad, widely embellished tale of Old Japan, acting all the parts from a sitting position, with only a paper fan (Sensu) and hand-cloth (Tenegui).

Equal parts humorous monologue, sitcom and stand-up act (or more accurately “kneel-down comedy”, since the Rakugoka never rises from the formal Seiza position) the crucial element is always delivery of the traditional ochi or punchline; inviolate, eagerly anticipated and already deeply ingrained in audience members and baffled foreign onlookers…

As is only fitting, these tales are presented in the traditional back to front, right to left Japanese format with a copious section of notes and commentary, plus an ‘Afterword’ from Mr. Tatsumi himself, and I’d be doing potential readers an immense disservice by being too detailed in my plot descriptions, so I’ll be both brief and vague from now on… as if any of you could tell the difference…

‘The Innkeeper’s Fortune’ relates the salutary events following the arrival of an immensely rich man at a lowly hostel, and what happens after – against his express desires – he wins a paltry 1000 Ryo in a lottery, whilst the ‘New Year Festival’ only serves to remind one reluctant father what a noisome burden his rowdy ungrateful son is…

An itinerant young artist cannot pay his inn bill and, as a promissory note, paints a screen with birds so lifelike they fly off the paper every morning. The populace are willing to pay good money to see the daily ‘Escape of the Sparrows’, more than the bill ever came to.

…And then one day another far more experienced artist wishes to see the screen…

When a dutiful merchant succumbs to the temptations of his trade and engages a mistress, she quickly consumes all his attention, leading to his poor neglected wife trying to kill the homewrecker with sorcery. Soon both women are dead and the merchant is plagued by their ‘Fiery Spirits’, after which ‘Making the Rounds’ details one night in a brothel where four clients are growing increasingly impatient: incensed by the non-appearance of the woman they’ve already paid for…

‘The Rooster Crows’ details the fate of a proud and puritanical young man tricked into visiting a brothel by his friends, whilst a poor and untrained man becomes an infallible doctor after entering into a bargain with ‘The God of Death’. This superb book of fables concludes with the sorry story of a lazy fishmonger who loved to drink, but whose life changed when he found a wallet full of money whilst fishing on ‘Shibahama’ beach – or was it just a dream?

With these “Eight Moral Comedies” Tatsumi succeeded – at least to my naive Western eyes – in translating a phenomenon where plot is so familiar as to be an inconvenience, but where an individual performance on the night is paramount, into a beguiling, charming and yes, funny paean to a uniquely egalitarian entertainment. That bit of graphic literary legerdemain proved him to be a true and responsible guardian of Japanese culture, ancient or modern, and begs the question: why is this glorious tome out of print and not available digitally?
Art and stories © 2009, 2012 Yoshihiro Tatsumi. This edition © 2012 Drawn & Quarterly. All rights reserved.

Today in 1874 pioneering Canadian cartoonist animator and comics creator Vital Achille Raoul Barré was born, just like Belgian Spirou editor Thierry Martens in 1942. One year later American scripter Steve Skeates (T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Aquaman, Hawk & Dove) arrived, but we had to wait until 1958 for Jeph Loeb (Batman: The Long Halloween, loads of others).

On the debit side today in 1977, we lost Bob Brown (Space Ranger, Challengers of the Unknown, Batman, Daredevil, The Avengers) and in 1982 Henry cartoonist John Liney, who can be properly appreciated by seeing Henry Speaks for Himself.

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Add Toner – a Cometbus Collection


By Aaron Cometbus (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-753-2 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Before the advent of computers and the internet gave everybody with a keyboard and an ounce of determination the ability to become writers and publishers (an eternity before AI made all that a complete joke and waste of time), only those truly dedicated, driven or Full-On Compulsive individualists self-published.

…Or those with something to say.

Aaron Cometbus (not his real name: use your search engine if you absolutely must find out about the man, but the best route would be to read his wonderful work) has been a drummer, roadie, author, designer, traveller, author, raconteur, social historian, bookseller and cultural anthropologist of the American Punk movement from long before he began his hugely acclaimed and long-running ‘Zine Cometbus in 1981.

In the decades over which his hand-crafted publication has been released (as photocopy pamphlet, offset magazine and even audio-mag) his writing and art have covered every aspect of the life of the contemporary outsider from self-exploratory introspection, reportage, criticism, oral history, music journalism, philosophical discourse and even unalloyed fiction – from epigram to novella, news bulletin to chatty remembrance – usually in a distinctive hand-lettered style all his own, augmented by cartoons, photo-collage, comics and a dozen other monochrome techniques beloved of today’s art-house cognoscenti.

Cometbus (go read Downtown Local, The Voyeurs and A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309) tells stories and has been doing so since the first death of the Punk Rock movement at the end of the 1970s, but the material is – and always has been – about real, involved people, not trendy, commercialised bastardisations.

In 2002 Last Gasp released Despite Everything: a 600+ page Omnibus distillation of the best bits from the first 43 issues with this second compilation released in 2011… and this one’s still available.

Add Toner, which samples issues #44-46, 46½, and 47-48, is a far more comprehensive collection with stories, reminiscences, interviews, artworks and added features such as the novella ‘Lanky’ plus a selection of previously withheld and self-censored pieces which simply captivate and enthral.

Particularly informative and moving are the collected illustrated interviews with the “staff” and patrons of punk watering hole and communal meeting space Dead End Café from #46 (gloriously redolent and evocative of my own art-school punk band hang-out The Horn of Plenty in St. Albans) and a fabulous three-chapter oral history examination of the post-hippie “Back to nature” movement divided into interviews with ‘The Kids’, ‘The Adults’ and an appreciation of ‘Back to the Land’: a fascinating period in American history neglected by just about everybody, probably since most of those flower-power Arcadians and disenchanted just-plain-folks grew more pot than potatoes…

With graphic contributions and supplementary interviews from Phil Lollar, Nate Powell, Katie Glicksberg, Idon, Lawrence Livermore & Michael Silverberg, this is a gloriously honest and seditiously entertaining view of life from the trenches: happy, sad, funny and shocking…

Eccentric, eclectic and essentially, magically picayune, Add Toner is a fabulous cultural doctorate from the Kerouac of my g-g-generation…
© Aaron Cometbus. All rights reserved.

Today in 1878 Mary Tourtel was born, originator of UK strip star Rupert Bear

In 1983 Cuban inker Frank Chiaremonte died and in 1996 we lost two true legends, Jerry Siegel and Burne Hogarth. You don’t need me to tell you how they changed everything.

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Ginseng Roots


By Craig Thompson (Faber)
ISBN: 978-0-571-38661-1 (HB)

This is one of those reviews where I try quite hard not to say too much about the content, because it’s a sin and a form of theft to deprive readers of the joy of it unfolding just for them. You could and should just go buy this now and save time, but if I can’t convince you of that here, please read on and think again…

In no way a sequel to his landmark masterpiece Blankets but every inch and ounce as compelling, engaging and important, Ginseng Roots sees auteur Craig Thompson return to what you or I would deem an incredibly harsh – nigh-dystopian – childhood to craft another incredibly engaging paean of love and fond wonder to his home, his family and his extraordinary life.

In a book encompassing biographical revelation, philosophical rumination and religious re-exploration we see the auteur share incredibly candid events from his profession and career. Wrapped up in a most engaging, amusing and occasionally distressing tutorial on the history and global cultural significance of Ginseng, we see Thompson return to Wisconsin. The Thompson kids were raised in a fundamentalist Christian household, with the Rapture anticipated any day now, but it wasn’t all bad. They were loved, if ruled hard, and here we see how that panned out, as well as the transformative power of comics via a broad, deep and astonishingly informative yarn viewed through the ruminative lens of the Thompson family’s recollections of being child labourers for local farmers growing American Ginseng in the 1980s.

The way it all worked is unpicked with remarkable even-handedness, as the man who became a major force in his field of graphic narrative expression revisits those formative days before embarking on a quest to learn all he can of the How and Why of it all. This involves returning home before ultimately crisscrossing the world with little brother Phil to research a new graphic novel undertaken in the light of potentially losing all he could be to an inexorable physical decline: one destined to take away his self-defining ability to draw…

When first released in July 2003, Blankets started slowly before achieving monumental international fame and near-unanimous critical approval from comics’ Great & Good & Fabled. If you have a favourite author or artist they probably loved the book – and rightly so.

Taking 3½ years to create, Blankets won 3 Harvey Awards, 2 Eisners, 2 Ignatz Awards and a France’s Prix de la Critique. Translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Greek, German, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Czech, Polish, Korean, Hungarian, Slovenian, Estonian, Serbian and Greek, it was latterly published in 17 foreign editions (so far) and kept on winning glittering prizes and acclaim. It’s also won a YALSA Popular Paperback for Young Adults prize: listed as one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top Ten Graphic Novels of All Time. You can expect Ginseng Roots to do as well or better, even if young love and tragic foredoomed passions have been downplayed in favour of the inexorable march of time, unsatisfied injustices, midlife crises and failing faculties.

Reading this, you will learn all about a wonder herb, global trade, Chinese medicine, Big Agriculture & pesticides, many flavours of immigrant workers, exploitation and corporate ruthlessness, the economic history of many nations, the narcotic tendencies of comic books of grade school kids, and so much about human nature, that you’ll probably laugh, cry and get angry quite a lot…

Originally released in serialised instalments by Uncivilized Book (between 2019 -2023, as Covid ravaged the US and the world) just as Craig Thompson was confronting presumed career burnout, impostor syndrome and the loss of his ability to draw, the fascinating pictorial discourse is divided into 12 chapters beginning with ‘Real Ginseng Runs’, as Craig, Phil and their sister Sarah reunite at the parental homestead and trade tales of the old days. The reminiscences blend with flashback and flashforwards in ‘Sister Species’ as the story of Ginseng from America expands, with ‘Broad Stripes’ covering the history of Wisconsin – especially the region around Marathon – and growth of Ginseng trading: its use by First Nations before colonisation, white/French and Christian exploitation after that, and eventually an unshakeable connection to Asian nations that bought it from Wisconsin’s farmers and entrenched rivalry with its clearly inferior Canadian competition…

Interviews with old friends and former employers begins in ‘Rock(s) & Roll(ie)’, augmented by modern convolutions in ‘MAGGA’ (Make American Ginseng Great Again!) and ‘Good Seed Sinks’, before Craig’s declining health is more extensively explored in ‘No More Cartoons’. This leads to a vast expansion of purpose that culminates in fact finding missions all over “the orient” and the undertaking of a major literary project as expanded upon in ‘Father Abraham’, ‘Dark Night of the Soil’ and ‘Insam Respects’, before all that global and historical interconnection is pulled together as one big ‘Red Thread’, and laid to bed in grand ‘Agricultural Appreciation’…

So much better read than read about, this marvellously moving memoir and ruminatory treatise is backed up with full contextual ‘Notes’, genuinely evocative ‘Acknowledgments’ and bonus art from the little brother/willing accomplice and henchman on a ‘Phil(er) Page’ and closes with an extended cartoon ad for Craig’s other books – debut tome Good-bye Chunky Rice, Blankets, Carnet de voyage, Habibi and Space Dumplins. You should sample them too and Faber has them all in print for just that purpose.

Loving, informatively wistful and never angry or condemnatory, for such a weighty tome, Ginseng Roots is a remarkably quick and easy read, with Thompson’s imaginative and ingenious marriage of text and images carrying one along in the way only comics can. Expect his cartoon avatar of the root to be pinched and copied by ad men for some time to come…

Charming, engrossing and irresistible, this may well be Thompson’s best and most enduring book, but if fate and Ginseng will it, not his last as it is another perfect story in pictures.
This edition © 2025 by Craig Thompson. All rights reserved. Originally serialised by Uncivilized Books © 2019, 2021, 2021, 2022, 2023 by Craig Thompson.

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Punk Rock in Comics


By Nicolas Finet & Thierry Lamy, illustrated by Joël Alessandra, Antoane, Will Argunas, Katya Bauman, Romain Brun, Céheu, Christopher, Janis Do, Benoît Frébourg, Thierry Gioux, Kongkee, Estelle Meyrand, Yvan Ojo, Gilles Pascal, Christelle Pécout, Lauriane Rérolle, Toru Terada, Martin Texier, Léah Touitou, Martin Trystram & various: translated by James Hogan (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-350-9 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-351-6

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect and historical verity.

Having been (an extremely minor) part of the revolution and probably seen at most of the UK gigs and events cited here, I found it most difficult to remain dispassionate about the book under review today. It’s really very good, and I apologize if I seem less than my effusive self. Apparently, being fair and neutral is actually quite hard if one is involved. Moreover, it’s rather sad to realize that when all those disenfranchised kids warned of “no future”, right here, right now is what they were shouting about….

Graphic biographies are all the rage these days and this one is the most personally affecting yet. It’s strange to have lived long enough to find that the history people are writing and drawing is just “recently” and “remember when…” to some of us.

Part of NBM’s Music Stars in Comics series and guaranteed to appeal to a much larger audience than most comics usually reach, Punk Rock in Comics is a roundup of key bands and significant moments helpfully garnished with articles on the US and British antecedents and precursors, as well as a look at who joined late and what came next. It certainly deserves to reach as many as possible and will make a perfect gift if any of us make it to the next Great December fun-fest/Gig in the Sky…

… And just a note of clarification: between 1975 and 1981 us youth thought we were at the spear tip of a revolution, but it turns out it was a wave of similar-seeming local brush fires that were stamped out or died down of their own accord. Punk was music and fashion and guerilla graphics and SHEER ATTITUDE. All of it was primarily self-generated by triggered by example and a Do It Yourself philosophy sparked by the realization that no one in authority was ever going to help or rock a sitting status quo.

We concentrate on bands and music here but as a nod to the other great benefactor – self-publishing – this book is craftily delivered via distractingly faux-distressed pages meant to mimic the abundant and vibrant fanzine culture that came with us kids getting involved. Buying or trading a pamphlet did so much to popularise the movement in an era utterly devoid of social media and digital connection, but don’t whine you spend a few hours trying to flatten out wrinkle and glue stains that aren’t really there, okay?

Still with us? Okay then…

As if cannily re-presented popular culture factoids and snippets of urban history accompanied by a treasure trove of candid photographs, posters, badges fashions and other memorabilia aren’t enough to whet your appetite, this annal of arguably the closest we ever got to taking over the kingdom also offers vital and enticing extra enticements… but you’ll have to have your consciousness raised a bit before then.

Author, filmmaker, journalist, publisher, educator, translator/music documentarian Nicolas Finet has worked in comics over three decades: generating a bucketload of reference works – such as Mississippi Ramblin’ and Forever Woodstock. He adds to his graphic history tally (Prince in Comics, Love Me Please – The Story of Janis Joplin 1943-1970 and David Bowie in Comics) with this deep dive into the crazed career of the ultimate cosmic explorers and rebellious cultural pioneers. His scripts of the comics vignettes compiled in conjunction with frequent collaborator Thierry Lamy (Force Navale, David Bowie in Comics, Pink Floyd in Comics) are limned here by a spitting, pogo-ing posse of international strip artists, visually actualising vividly vocal and vociferous key moments in really recent history…

It begins with Céheu depicting ‘1969-1970 An American Prehistory’ as disillusionment in the1970s New World triggers reactions from young musicians like Jim “Iggy Pop” Osterberg and Richard Hell, and groups of iconic nearly-men such as MC5, Television and the New York Dolls set the scene and laid the groundwork for what came – quite unfairly – to be regarded as a British revolution…

Following a fact-packed essay, the state of our nation is assessed in ‘1971-1975 The United Kingdom of Pub Rock’, courtesy of Gilles Pascal. A growing hunger for cheap live music and short songs led to an extinction event for “Prog Rock” and the rise of bands and performers who would score no real chart success but reshape the industry for decades to come…

A text discussion of bands like (Ian Dury’s) Kilburn and the High Roads, Brinsley Schwartz, Nick Lowe, Eddie and the Hot Rods and more enjoying a growing London-centric live gig scene leads to Antoane’s proto-punk assessment ‘1974-1976 On the fringes of Punk Rock, a few Inspired Trailblazers’ (Dr. Feelgood, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Elvis Costello) before the cultural main event kicks off with Thierry Gioux’s coverage of ‘1975-1978 The Sex Pistols Endless Rebellion’ and a detailed biopsy of the Clash in ‘1976-1985 Combat Rock’ limned by Martin Trystram.

Further mini-bios follow in comics and essay combinations, exploring lesser gods of revolt such as ‘1976-1980 Buzzcocks Energy Made in Manchester’ by Katya Bauman, ‘1974-1996 We, The Ramones’ from Toru Terada, Benoît Frébourg’s ‘1976-2015 The Damned May the Farce be with You!’ and an assessment of lost wonders in Yvan Ojo’s ‘1975-1978 Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers’…

As I said, Britain got the lion’s share of global headlines (and reactionary authoritarian blamestorming) but the process and progress were international. Romain Brun illustrates ‘1974-1977 Meanwhile, in New York’ where the club CBGB was building a rep through outsider bands such Television, New York Dolls, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Dead Boys and poet Patti Smith, and by staging the first UK band to play America: The Damned…

A few more individualists are explored in ‘1976-1996 Siouxsie and the Banshees The Punk Sorceress’ by Léah Touitou, and Martin Texier reveals just how different The Vibrators were in ‘1976-2020 Never Stop Vibrating’ prior to Janis Do detailing the effect, influence and ultimate tragedy of Jimmy Pursey and Sham 69 in ‘1976-1980 Working Class Heroes’… It was a time of change, fervour and febrile opportunism and many acts were caught up in the money and mood, if not movement, usually against their will and at the behest of old-guard record companies. Christopher illuminates how The Jam rode the storm in ‘1974-1979 Not Quite Punks: a handful that can’t be put in a box’ and Lauriane Rérolle details ‘1975-1983 The Irish Wave’ that picked up and spat out The Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers but lost so many others.

‘1975-1982 Girls to the Front!’ by Christelle Pécout focusses on how “the kids” demand to be heard somehow didn’t apply to The Slits – until they put their big booted feet down – whilst Estelle Meyrand explores international wonders most of us missed at the time – no, not Belgium’s Plastic Bertrand but Australia’s The Saints and US phenomenon and political activist Jello Biafra and The Dead Kennedys in ‘1976-1980 Punks from Elsewhere’…

Despite constant accusations of nihilism Punk was always an inviting and inclusive arena and ‘1975-1981 Punks and Rastas’ from Joël Alessandra details cultural cross pollination and active inclusivity – leading to the Two Tone era – and Will Argunas recalls ‘1975-1983 Punks and Hard Rock: Loud, Fast, and in Your Face!’ via the life and achievements of Lemmy Kilmister and Motörhead, before Kongkee draws this tome to a close with a trip through ‘1981 and Beyond: The Post-Punk Legacy’ encompassing Electropop, New Wave/Romanticism, Grunge and more, citing bands such as Pere Ubu, Devo, et al…

This compelling and remarkable catalogue of cultural change and artistic hostage-taking includes a Selective Discography of the bands most crucial cuts, Further Reading, listings of Films and Videos, Photo Credits and a copious Acknowledgements section.

Punk Rock in Comics is a comprehensive and intriguing skilfully realised appreciation of a unique moment in time and society, boldly attempting to capture a too-big rocket in a very small bottle but still doing a pretty good of recalling the when, how and who, if not quite the why of the era. It’s also a true treasure for comics and music fans if they weren’t actually there: one to resonate with all those probably still quite angry and disaffected veteran kids who love to listen, look and wonder what if..?
© 2024 Editions Petit as Petit. © 2025 NBM for the English translation.

Punk Rock in Comics will be published on 18th March. 2025 and is available for pre-order now. NBM books are also available in digital editions. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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Women Discoverers: 20 Top Women in Science


By Marie Moinard & Christelle Pecout, translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-270-0 (Album HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-271-7

Comics and graphic novels have an inconceivable power to deliver information in readily accessible form, and – exactly like all the best human teachers – do so in ways that are fascinating, fun and therefore unforgettable. Here’s a crucial past highpoint in a wave of historical and biographical visual celebrations seeking to redress centuries of gender injustice while providing true life role models for coming generations… if we have any.

Crafted by writer, editor and journalist Marie Moinard (En chemin elle recontre, La petite vieille du Vendredi) & Christelle Pecout (Lune d’Ombre, Hypathie, Histoires et légendes normandes), Les découvreuses is a cheery compendium made comprehensible to us via translation into English by the fine folk at NBM. As the name suggests, Women Discoverers focuses on 20 NOT MALE scientists and researchers who generally sans fanfare, or even fair credit, changed the world. Some are thankfully still doing so.

A combination of comics vignettes and short illustrated data epigrams preceded by an impassioned Introduction from Marie-Sophie Pawlak (President of the Elles Bougent scientific society), the revelations begin with an extended strip history citing some of the achievements of the peerless Marie Curie – whose discoveries in chemistry and physics practically reinvented the planet. She is followed by brief vignettes of French biologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (discoverer of the HIV retrovirus), Canadian physicist Donna Théo Strickland (laser amplification) and African-American Dorothy Vaughan whose mathematical and computing skills served the world at NASA.

It’s back to comics for Ada Lovelace who revolutionized mathematics and invented computer programming, after which single page biographies describe the achievements of and lengths undertaken by French mathematician Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet AKA Émilie du Châtelet to attend men-only institutions in the days of the Enlightenment, before writing world-changing philosophical magnum opus Institutions de Physique.

Although separated by centuries, mathematicians Emmy Noether (Germany 1882-1935) and Niger-born Grace Alele-Williams (December 16th 1932 to March 25, 2022) both excelled and triumphed despite male opposition, but their stories pale beside the strip-delivered hardships of screen star, engineer, plastic surgeon and computing/mobile phone/internet pioneer Hedy Lamarr…

Another Nasa stalwart, mathematician/astrophysicist Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson, famously calculated Apollo 11’s life-saving orbit, while paediatrician Marthe Gautier discovered the origins of Downs’ Syndrome. Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani’s geometry discoveries were tragically cut short by illness, whilst the shameful treatment and fate of British researcher Rosalind Franklin also ended in unjust sidelining, a cruelly early death and belated fame, unlike French mathematician, philosopher and physicist Sophie Germain whose many (posthumous) triumphs never brought her inclusion in the numerous scientific organisations barring female membership during her lifetime and far beyond it…

Whereas Marie Curie’s daughter Iréne Joliot-Curie won similar accolades to her mother, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars, only to have her (male) supervisor steal the credit. At least she’s still alive to see the record set straight and reap belated fame and awards (go Google Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell to see a rare happy ending)…

In pictorial form, astronaut Mae Jemison reveals her life and medical successes on Earth, before this potent paean closes with a trio of one-page wonders: Kevlar inventor Stephanie Kwolek, Navy mathematician Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (writer of the notorious, ubiquitous and utterly essential programming language COBOL) and Chinese chemist Xie Yi, whose advances in nanotechnology are still making the world a very different place.

Sure, you could ride a search engine to learn about them all, but this book is a far more satisfying and charming alternative and the very fact that you probably haven’t heard of most of these astounding innovators – or even a few of the more ancient ones – only proves why you need this book.
© 2019 Blue Lotus Prod. © 2021 NBM for the English translation.

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Explainers


By Jules Feiffer (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-835-0 (HB)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for comedic and dramatic effect.

In January this year we lost one of the few remaining titans of our industry and art form. Bronx-born Jules Ralph Feiffer (January 26th 1929 – January 17th 2025) was always far more than “just a comic-book guy”, even though his credits in the field are astonishingly impressive. Feiffer wrote upwards of 35 books, plays, and screenplays and was frequently cited as the most widely read satirist in America. His creative credits extend far beyond the world of print. Feiffer was one of the playwrights on stage revue Oh! Calcutta! (collaborating with Kenneth Tynan, Edna O’Brien, Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi, Samuel Beckett & John Lennon) and has created 35 plays, books and screenplays including Carnal Knowledge and Little Murders. In 1961 his animated trenchant antiwar short feature Munro won an Academy Award.

In our isolated, outlier field, Feiffer began his career working for and with Will Eisner on The Spirit and other comics features, before creating his own Sunday strip Clifford (1949-51). He eventually settled at The Village Voice, art directing and crafting a variety of comics for kids and adults. These include Sick, Sick, Sick, Passionella and Other Stories (1959), Feiffer on Nixon, the Cartoon Presidency (1974), Knock Knock (1976), Tantrum (1979), I Lost My Bear (1998), Kill My Mother (2014) and Amazing Grapes (2024).

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995, and his many awards include a Pulitzer and Oscar, an Obie, Inkpot, National Cartoonists Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Writers Guild and Dramatists Guild of America. In 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame and was later recognized by The Library of Congress for his “remarkable legacy as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children’s book author, illustrator, and art instructor”. In 2006 was awarded the Creativity Foundation’s Laureate.

Novelist (Harry: The Rat with Women, a Novel in 1963 and 1977’s Ackroyd), animator, educator, academic, film maker, playwright (why isn’t there a single-word term for those guys?), he officially turned his back on cartooning in 2000, but the 42-year run of his satirical comic strip in The Village Voice ranks as some of the most telling, trenchant, plaintive and socio-politically perspicacious narrative art in the history of the medium.

In 1965 Feiffer kickstarted academic American comic fandom with his celebratory evaluation of the industry’s formative Golden Age The Great Comic Book Heroes, and in 1979 was at the forefront of the creation of graphic novels with Tantrum before scripting Robert Altman’s much-undervalued Popeye movie (released a year later).

After years as a cartoonist, illustrator, pundit and educator, at the age of 85 (having been born in the Bronx on 26th January 1929) he returned to his primary role of storyteller with another gripping and innovative graphic novel – for which read on after the review below…

Originally entitled Sick, Sick, Sick, and latterly Feiffer’s Fables, before simply settling on Feiffer – Feiffer’s Village voice strip was quickly picked up by the Hall Syndicate and developed a devoted worldwide following. Over decades the strip generated many strip collections – the first book was in 1958 – since its low key premiere. The auteur’s incisive examination of American society and culture, as reflected by and expressed through politics, art, Television, Cinema, work, philosophy, advertising and most especially in the way men and women interacted, informed and shaped opinions and challenged accepted thought for generations. They were mostly bloody funny and wistfully sad too – and remain so today.

Fantagraphics Books began collecting the entire run in 2007 – and we’re all waiting patiently for the run to continue and conclude. However Explainers is a magnificent first volume of 568 pages, covering the period from its start in October 1956 up to the end of 1966. As such, it covers a pivotal period of social, racial and sexual transformation in America and the world beyond its borders and much of that is – tragically- still painfully germane to today’s readers.

Explainers is a “dipping book”: not something to storm your way through, but a faithful relaxation resource to return to over and again. Feiffer’s thoughts and language, his pictorial observations and questions on “the eternal verities” are potently, dauntingly relevant even now. As I’ve already mentioned, it is utterly terrifying how many problems of the 1950s and 1960s still vex and dog us today – and the “Battle of the Sexes” that my generation honestly believed to be almost over still breaks out somewhere every minute. Of course, now we have the internet to advise and enrage us further…

Most crucially and compellingly, Feiffer’s expressive drawing is a masterclass in style and economy all by itself.

If you occasionally resort to Thinking and sometimes wonder about Stuff, this book should be your guide and constant companion – and it will make you laugh.
© 2007 Jules Feiffer. All Rights Reserved.

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Abandoned Cars


By Tim Lane (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-341-5 (HB) 978-1-60699-3415 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Do you remember America? It’s clearly not the place it used to be. Maybe it never was.

Tim Lane is a post-war American. His inner landscape is populated with B-Movies, Rock & Roll, junk-memorabilia, big cars with fins, old TV shows, Jack Kerouac, the seven ages of Marlon Brando, pulp fictions, young Elvis, distilled Depression-era experiences (all of them from “The Great” to the latest), black & white images on TV, loss of faith in old values, Mad Avenue propaganda, compromised ideals, frustrated dreams and waking nightmares. Lane calls that oh-so-plunderable societal gestalt and psychic landscape “The Great American Mythological Drama”, and for this first compilation of his stark, intriguing comic strips dipped deep to concoct his own striking contributions to the Great Double Martini of Life…

Many contemporaries used that shared popular culture to create new paintings and sculptures (see any of the many “lowbrow” or “pop surrealist”  tomes by Schorr, Ryden, Ledbetter et al that we’ve previously reviewed) but Lane eschewed the gallery art arena for his explorations, opting instead for the only true American medium of expression, the story, and toils bombastically in its ugly bastard offspring: Comics.

He draws in stunning monochrome: hard-edged, uncompromising and enticingly moody, and these short stories, vignettes, observations and sequential investigations are far from the usual stock of funnies. The compelling contents are culled from varied sources like Legal Action Comics, Hotwire, Typhon, Riverfront Times and Lane’s self-published magazine Happy Hour in America from 2003 to 2008, ranging from tales of dark, eccentric whimsy (‘American Cut-Out Collectibles’, ‘The Manic-Depressive from Another Planet’ and ‘The Aries Cow’) to philosophically charged musings (‘Ghost Road’, ‘To Be Happy’ and ‘The Drive Home’). There are Pop cultural pastiches (‘Outing’ and ‘Doo-Wop and Planet Earth’), fascinating autobiography and reportage (‘Spirit’ parts 1-3, ‘In My Dream’ and ‘You Are Here: the Story of Stagger Lee’) to just plain old-fashioned noir-tinted thrillers like ‘Cleveland’ and ‘Sanctuary’.

Also included are numerous untitled, enigmatic and addictive short pieces, and for my money the most evocative and powerful piece herein is an all-but-wordless, 2-page rumination on age and loss: ‘Those Were Good Years’. You’d have to be made of stone to be unmoved…

Crafting comics is clearly not a job or hobby for Lane. Serious artists have always struggled to discover greater truths through their creative response to the world, and he has obviously found his instrument in black line on white and his muse in the shabby, avuncular, boisterous, scary detritus of our everyday, blue-collar communal past. The result is stunning and highly intoxicating.

Questing, introspective, insightful, melancholic and as desperately inquiring as the young Bob Dylan, with as many questions, even fewer answers and just as much lasting, life-altering entertainment to be derived…

Why haven’t you got this book yet?… And once you’ve sorted that, why not try his 2014 graphic novel The Lonesome Go or 2020’s Toybox Americana: Characters Met Along the Way?
© 2003-2008, 2010 Tim Lane. All rights reserved.

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They Shot the Piano Player – A Graphic Novel


By Fernando Trueba & Javier Mariscal, translated by Mediasaur (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-424-9 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Look, Listen and Learn …8/10

Comics are serious business in South and Central America, but not as much as Music is. Add to that the fact that all of us hate evil and love a mystery and the result is a captivating read. It’s also a captivating film but that’s not my point today…

As much a treatment on the power of obsession and curiosity as a (fictionalised) account of one creator’s fascination with another, They Shot the Piano Player is a lovely, tortured beast: an account of how a multi-award-winning writer, director, producer and documentarian became obsessed with the forgotten fate of a “disappeared” musician Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior and went looking for answers – albeit at one remove and using a made-up “journo” as his literary bloodhound.

The story is true. Tenório lived, loved and died through the most appalling of times, for the most stupid and venal of reasons and the world moved on. At least, until one man heard some old Bossa Nova records and decided to know more about the incredibly talented man who made them…

Delivered in a parade of vivid and captivating styles by major mainstream artist/designer Javier Mariscal, the dry obsession blossoms into a captivating murder mystery with clues unpicked and suspects followed until an awful truth about governments and power is exposed. There’s no restorative justice to be found here, just an acknowledgement of unpunished wickedness and sombre warnings that it can still happen again…

Devious, relentless and compelling, the multimedia masterwork concludes with a copious section on the how the book/film came to be. ‘Searching for Tenório’ combines Trueba’s research notes, visits and interviews across Central and South America and through generations with photos and Mariscal’s amazing art and sketches. These are subdivided into ‘The Characters’, ‘The Family’, ‘The Buenos Aires Group’, ‘Musicians’, ‘Argentina’, ‘Guest Artists’, and ‘The Tragedy’, and precede a glorious gallery of ancillary art studies from the book itself.

Reading like no other graphic biography you’ve ever seen but subtly gripping like the most potent crime fiction or UN report on war crimes, They Shot the Piano Player is a ferociously addictive read you will never forget.
© 2023, Fernando Trueba. © 2023, Javier Mariscal. Originally published as DISPARARON AL PIANISTA © 2023, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial S.A.U. Travessera de Gracia, 08021 Barcelona