Category: Romance

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Daredevil Epic Collection volume 8: To Dare the Devil (1978-1981)


By Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, David Micheline, Jo Duffy, Michael Fleischer, Mike W. Barr, Frank Robbins, Gene Colan, Steve Ditko, Klaus Janson, Frank Springer, Josef Rubinstein & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-60537 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book contains Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. He also developed a kind of biological radar, granting him complete awareness of his immediate environment. A second-string hero for much of his early career, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due mostly to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. DD fought gangsters, super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping his way through life and life-threatening combat, utterly unlike the grim, moody, quasi-religious metaphor of justice and retribution that he became.

Under the auspices of Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and finally Frank Miller & Klaus Janson, the character transformed into a grimly modern figure, but here we find him navigating choppy relationship waters. After a disastrous on-again, off-again relationship with his secretary Karen Page, Murdock took up with Russian émigré Natasha Romanoff, infamous and notorious former soviet spy Black Widow, but their similarities and incompatibilities led to her leaving and Matt taking up with flighty, fun-loving trouble-magnet heiress Heather Glenn…

Spanning cover-dates November 1978 to October 1981, this crucial compilation comprises relevant material from Daredevil #155-176, plus spin-off material generated for a readership that simply could not get enough of their newly darkened avenging devil and his secret paramour, as first seen in What If? #28 & Bizarre Adventures #28. The visual tumult and tension begin sans any delay or debate…

Heroic endeavours resume with writer Roger McKenzie describing the repercussions of a massive ambush on the hero by his worst enemies. Guest-starring Black Widow, Hercules and The Avengers, aftermath episode ‘The Man Without Fear?’ is illustrated by Frank Robbins & Frank Springer, wherein a brain-damaged Murdock repeatedly attacks innocent bystanders and his allies before collapsing. Keenly observing, macabre mystery menace Death-Stalker spots an opportunity and follows the hospitalised hero into #156’s ‘Ring of Death!’ (McKenzie, Colan & Klaus Janson). As DD undergoes surgery and suffers deadly delusions of fighting himself, the teleporting terror with a death-touch seeks to end the scarlet swashbuckler’s meddling forever, but finds the Avengers almost too much to handle…

The assault ends in DD #157’s ‘The Ungrateful Dead’, with Mary Jo Duffy scripting from McKenzie’s plot. Now, after frustrating the vanishing villain, Matt is cruelly kidnapped by a new squad of the Ani-Men (Ape-Man, Cat-Man & Bird-Man) all leading to Miller’s debut as penciller in #158’s ‘A Grave Mistake!’ With McKenzie writing and Janson inking, all plot threads regarding Death-Stalker spectacularly conclude as the monster gloatingly shares his true origins and reasons for haunting the Sightless Swashbuckler for so long. As always, Villain underestimates Hero and the stunning final fight in a graveyard became one of the most iconic duels in superhero history…

From this point on, Daredevil was increasingly repositioned as an outcast urban defender and compulsive vengeance-taker: a tortured demon dipped in blood. The character makeover was carried on initially by McKenzie from his predecessor Jim Shooter, and fully manifested in collaboration with Miller until the latter fully took control to deliver audacious, shocking, groundbreakingly compelling dark delights, making Daredevil one of comics’ most momentous, unmissable, “must-read” series.

That revitalisation resumes with ‘Marked for Murder!’ (McKenzie, Miller & Janson) wherein infallible assassin-broker Eric Slaughter comes out of retirement for a very special hit on the hero of Hell’s Kitchen. Meanwhile elsewhere, veteran Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich works a nagging hunch: slowly piecing together dusty news snippets that indicate a certain sight-impaired attorney might be far more than he seems……

The spectacular showdown between the Crimson Crimebuster and Slaughter’s hit-man army inevitably compels his covert client to eventually do his own dirty work: brutally ambushing and abducting former flame Natasha Romanoff, aka The Black Widow…

After a single-page fact-feature on ‘Daredevil’s Billy Club!’, the saga continues in #160 with our hero having no choice but to place himself ‘In the Hands of Bullseye!’ – a stratagem culminating in a devastating duel and shocking defeat for the villain in cataclysmic conclusion ‘To Dare the Devil!’

Next issue offered a fill-in tale by Michael Fleisher & Steve Ditko wherein another radiation accident impairs our hero’s abilities and induces amnesia just as a figure from his father’s pugilistic past resurfaces. Becoming a boxer for crooked promoter Mr. Hyle, Murdock unknowingly relives his murdered dad’s last days in ‘Requiem for a Pug!’… until his own memories return and justice is served…

Stunning David & Goliath action belatedly comes in #163 as the merely mortal Man Without Fear battles The Incredible Hulk in ‘Blind Alley’ (McKenzie & Miller, inked by Josef Rubenstein & Janson) wherein Murdock’s innate compassion for hounded Bruce Banner inadvertently endangers Manhattan and triggers a desperate, bone-breaking, but ultimately doomed attempt to save his beloved city…

In #164 McKenzie, Miller & Janson deliver an evocative ‘Exposé’, retelling the origin saga as meticulous, dogged Urich confronts the hospitalised hero with inescapable conclusions from his diligent research and a turning point is reached…

The landmark tale is followed by accompanied by Miller’s unused cover for Ditko’s fill-in yarn, and precedes a mean-&-moody modern makeover for a moribund and over-exposed Spider-Man villain. DD #165 finds the Scarlet Swashbuckler in the ‘Arms of the Octopus’ when Murdock’s millionaire girlfriend Heather is kidnapped by Dr. Otto Octavius. Her company can – and do – rebuild his mechanical tentacles with Adamantium, but “Doc Ock” stupidly underestimates both his hostage and the seemingly powerless Man Without Fear…

A long-running plot thread of Matt’s best pal Foggy Nelson’s oft-delayed wedding finally culminates with some much-needed comedy in #166’s ‘Till Death Do Us Part!’, with true tragedy coming along too as old enemy Gladiator has a breakdown and kidnaps his parole officer. With visions of Roman arenas driving him, tormented killer Melvin Potter only needs to see Daredevil to go completely over the top…

David Michelinie wrote #167 for Miller & Janson, with a cruelly wronged employee of tech company the Cord Conglomerate stealing super-armour to become ‘…The Mauler!’ and exact personal justice. Constantly drawn into the conflict, DD finds his sense of justice and respect for the law at odds when another avoidable tragedy results…

The tale is backed up by an info feature revealing the ‘Dark Secrets’ of DD’s everyday life before segueing neatly into the story that changed everything.

With Daredevil #168 Miller took over the writing and with Janson’s art contributions increasing in each issue, rewired the history of Matt Murdock to open an era of noir-tinged, pulp-fuelled, Eisner-inspired innovation. It begins when Daredevil encounters a new bounty hunter in town which prompts recall of lost college-days first love. Back then, diplomat’s daughter Elektra Natchios shared his secrets – until her father was kidnapped and murdered before her eyes, partly due to Matt’s hasty actions. She left him and vanished, apparently becoming a ninja assassin, but is now tearing up the town hunting Eric Slaughter. Matt cannot help but get involved…

When Daredevil last defeated Bullseye, the psycho-killer was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and in #169 escapes from hospital to enact another murder spree. He is deep in a delusional state where everyone he sees are horn-headed scarlet-draped ‘Devils’. A frenetic chase and brutal battle results in countless civilian casualties and great anxiety as Daredevil has a chance to let the manic die… but doesn’t.

Yet another landmark resurrection of a tired villain begins in DD #170 as Miller & Janson decree ‘The Kingpin Must Die’. The former crimelord of New York had faded into serene retirement in Japan by impassioned request of his wife Vanessa, until this triptych of terror sees him return, more powerful and resourceful than ever. It all begins when the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen hears rumours the syndicate that replaced Wilson Fisk are trying to kill their old boss. Apparently, he has offered all his old records to the Feds…

When Vanessa hires Nelson & Murdock to broker the deal, all hell breaks loose, assassins attack and Mrs Fisk goes missing. Further complicating matters, having survived brain surgery, Bullseye now offers his services to the syndicate, mercenary killer Elektra senses a big business opportunity and a murderously resolute Kingpin sneaks back into the country resolved to save his Vanessa at any cost…

The title at last returned to monthly schedule with #171 as the city erupted into sporadic violence with civilians caught in the crossfire. DD dons a disguise and goes undercover but is soon ‘In the Kingpin’s Clutches’, and seemingly sent to a watery grave prior to Fisk gambling and losing everything.

The saga ends in all-out ‘Gangwar!’ as, with Vanessa lost and presumed dead, Wilson Fisk destroys the in situ Syndicate and takes back control of New York’s underworld. At least Daredevil scores a small-yet-toxic victory by apprehending the Kingpin’s assassin, all the while aware that every death since Bullseye’s operation has been because Murdock was not strong enough to let the monster die…

… And deep in the bowels of the city, an amnesiac woman wanders, a future trigger for much death and destruction to come…

With the city increasingly awash in mobsters, monsters, assassins and deviants, Daredevil 173 returns to the difficult, painful redemption of mentally-ill former foe The Gladiator. Having suffered an emotional crisis Melvin Potter prays his violent old life is over, but when a woman is brutalised in the streets, she identifies the anxious supervillain as her attacker. Murdock begins a stout defence of the ‘Lady Killer’, but despite his truth-sensing abilities, even his confidence takes a battering when his own assistant Becky Blake reveals Potter is the man who put her in a wheelchair years previously. Shocked and betrayed on all sides, Matt lets DD take charge and exposes a world of horror and abuse while tracking down a cunning, opportunistic human beast who tortures women just for kicks…

Elektra co-stars in #174 as her former master The Jonin demands ‘The Assassination of Matt Murdock’, introducing resurrecting zombie ninja cult The Hand just when the Potter trial is going badly and faithful partner Foggy Nelson has abandoned him. The cult’s expansion into America is lethally and effectively countered by Elektra, but when Daredevil joins the fight he is wounded and loses his greatest supersense, leaving him to depend on her and Melvin reluctantly returned to his Gladiator persona…

Now targeted by immortal super ninja Kirigi, Elektra goes after Jonin in ‘Gantlet’ and leaves DD to his own devices prior to ‘Hunters’, showing severely impaired Matt hunting for the old guy who first taught him to use his super senses. He rattles his old foes and street sources so badly that even Z-grade thugs Turk and Grotto are scared enough to steal a super-armour suit and settle with the Scarlet Swashbuckler for good…

To Be Continued…

Here, however, the events sparked a number of ancillary delights represented here by What If? #28’s ‘Matt Murdock, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ (by Mike W. Barr, Miller & Janson, and cover-dated August 1981), seeing what might have been had Anthony Stark and Nick Fury been nearby when young Matt was hit by that senses-altering radioactive cannister. That’s followed by spectacular monochrome prequel ‘Elektra’, crafted by Miller for Bizarre Adventures #28 (October 1981) with the hired killer going off-book after she finds out an unsavoury truth about her client.

Supplementing throughout with the covers by Colan, Springer, Janson, Rubinstein, Al Milgrom, Miller, Ditko, Bob McLeod, George Roussos and Bob Larkin, this roster depicting the resurgent rise in comics form is further bedecked and bedazzled with contemporary house ads; the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page heralding Miller’s debut; original art and Miller’s full Daredevil character bible, written in 1980 as he prepared to take over the writing. Also on view are Miller & Janson’s pages from Marvel Comics 20th Anniversary Calendar 1981 (June) and their Spider-Man vs DD plate from Marvel Team-Up Portfolio One. Those are supplemented by Miller covers & frontispieces for Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller volume 1 & 2 (with Steve Buccellato) before closing with M&J’s iconic Amazing Heroes #4 cover from September 1981.

As the decade closed, these gritty tales set the scene for truly mature forthcoming dramas, promising the true potential of Daredevil was finally in reach. Their narrative energy and exuberant excitement are dashing delights no action fan will care to miss.

… And the next volume heads full on into darker shadows, the grimmest of territory and the breaking of many more boundaries…
© MARVEL 2025.

In 1958 horror artist John Totleben was born, as was Italy’s Antonio Serra (Nathan Never) in 1963, Tim Bradstreet in 1967 and Warren Ellis one year later.

We lost letterer/colourist/comics artist/animator Frank Engli in 1977 but we can still enjoy Popeye, Betty Boop, Terry and the Pirates, Male Call, Steve Canyon, Scorchy Smith and his own creations On the Wing and Rocky the Stone Age Kid. Don’t you want to go look him up now?

In 1963 UK standby Knockout finally lay down after 24 years and in1980 Nutty launched with the debut of Bananaman. And in 2017 dutchman designer Dick Bruna died, having introduced us all to his bunny star Miffy way back in 1955.

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A Sea of Love


By Wilfrid Lupano & Grégory Panaccione (Lion Forge/The Magnetic Collection)
ISBN: 978-1-942367-45-1 (HB/Digital edition)

The sheer breadth, variety and creative ambition of comics regularly renders me breathless. It feels like there’s no subject or blend thereof; no tone or trope; no limits and absolutely no style or admixture that talented individuals can’t turn into heartrending, hilarious, thrilling, educational, evocative, uplifting and/or infuriating stories.

This completely silent saga from prolific French writer Wilfrid Lupano (Old Geezers; Azimut; Blanc Autour; Le Loup; Valerian spin-off Shingouzlooz Inc. and so many more) with illustrator Grégory Panaccione (Someone to Talk To; Toby Mon Ami; Match; Âme) somehow offers all of those in one delicious hardback or digital package.

Originally seen au continent as Un Océan d’amour in 2014, this wordless yet universally comprehensible pantomime is an unforgettable saga celebrating the timeless resilience of mature love. Here it is craftily concealed yet constantly displayed in a tale of tetchy devotion between an aged diminutive fisherman and his quiet, timid, overly-flappable but formidably indomitable wife.

Every morning before the sun lights their rustic hovel, she makes him a wonderful breakfast before he heads out into the big ocean in a little boat. They have their fractious moments and he can be a trial sometimes, but their relationship is rock solid and never-ending.

This particular morning, however, the old coot finally falls foul of a changing world, when his little vessel is snagged in the nets of a vast trawler factory ship. Saving his idiot apprentice, the old git is soon swallowed up and gone…

At least, that’s what the sole survivor believes when he washes up ashore. However, the matronly new widow refuses to accept that and – disregarding decades of homey domestic programming – goes looking for him.

Oh, the incredible adventures she has and the people she meets…

He, meanwhile, is still very much alive. Stranded on his little tub, with nothing but tinned sardines and memories to sustain him, he is washed uncontrollably across the world. Befriended by a sardine-loving gull, he experiences first hand and close up the way we’ve befouled the seas and meets a wide variety of people he’s casually misjudged all his life, before eventually fighting his way back to his little cottage and the faithful one who’s waiting for him. At least, he complacently assumed she is…

Epic, hilarious, terrifying, shocking and sublimely satisfying, this is masterpiece of graphic narrative with so very much to say. Why not give your eyes a treat and have a good listen?
A Sea of Love © 2018 Editions Delcourt. All rights reserved.

Today in 1917 Sidney Smith’s landmark strip The Gumps began, as in his own way did Belgian narrative artist Even (Balthazar de groene steenvreter) Meulen/Eddy Vermeulen in 1946.

In 1962 cartoonist and pioneering conservationist Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling died, as did Charles M. Schulz (no clues from me here!) in 2000. Master illustrator, war comics wonder and funny, funny cartoon guy John Severin left it to 2012 to leave us for the last time.

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The Phantom – The Complete Series: The Gold Key Years volume 2


By Bill Harris & Bill Lignante, with Joe Certa, Sparky Moore, George Wilson & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-023-9 (HB?/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In the 17th century a British sailor survived an attack by pirates, and, washing ashore in Africa, swore on the skull of his murdered father to dedicate his life and that of all his descendants to destroying all pirates and criminals. The Phantom fights crime and injustice from a fabulous lair deep in the jungles of Bengali, and is known throughout Africa as “the Ghost Who Walks”. His unchanging appearance and unswerving quest for justice have led to him being regarded as an immortal avenger by the credulous and the wicked. Down the decades one hero after another has fought and died in an unbroken line, and the latest wearer of the mask, indistinguishable from the first, continues the never-ending battle…

Lee Falk created the Jungle Avenger at the request of his syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician…

Although technically not the first ever costumed hero in comics, The Phantom was the prototype paladin to wear a skintight bodystocking, and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits. He debuted on February 17th 1936 in an extended sequence pitting him against a global confederation of pirates called the Singh Brotherhood. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing over the illustration side to artist Ray Moore. The Sunday feature began in May 1939.

For such a successful, long-lived and influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic novel collections, The Phantom has been poorly served by the English language market. Various small companies have tried to collect the strips – one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history – but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success. But, even if it were only of historical value (or just printed for Australians, who have long been manic devotees of the implacable champion) surely “Kit Walker” is worthy of a definitive chronological compendium series?

Happily, his comic book adventures have fared slightly better – especially in recent times.

In the 1960’s King Features Syndicate dabbled with a comic book line of their biggest stars – Flash Gordon, Popeye, Blondie, Mandrake and The Phantom – but immediately prior to that, the Ghost Who Walks helmed a solo-starring vehicle under the broad and effective aegis of veteran licensed properties publisher Gold Key Comics. Each issue was fronted by a stunning painted cover by George Wilson. The Phantom was no stranger to funnybooks, having been featured since the Golden Age in titles such as Feature Book and Harvey Hits, but only as straight strip reprints. These Gold Key exploits were tailored to a big page and a younger readership.

This second superb full-colour hardcover – with equivalent eBook editions for the modern minded – gathers The Phantom #9-17 (originally released between November 1964 and July 1966) and opens with fan and scholar Pete Klaus’ Introduction ‘The Gold Key Phantom’ offering original art panels (many by Sy Barry) and a welcoming overview of the immortal strip star.

Scripted by Bill Harris and drawn in comic book format by Bill Lignante, the illustrated adventures resume with full-length epic ‘The Sixth Man’ from #9 as the Ghost Who Walks takes a rare trip into modern civilisation only to be shanghaied by crooks. All too soon the miscreants realise that they have made the biggest mistake of their shady lives. Determined to discover what’s behind the nefarious scheme, Kit Walker allows himself to be taken to a remote island ruled by bored, cruel queen Sansamor who thrives on making powerful men duel to the death.

Once the hero sees the kind of creature she is, her downfall is assured…

The issue is concluded by a single-page historical recap of the legend of ‘The Phantom’ and equally brief monochrome rundown of the mystery man’s intended bride ‘Diana’ (Palmer).

Cover-dated February 1965, #10 opens with devious action thriller ‘The Sleeping Giant’ wherein the long-peaceful tribe of Itongo headhunters take up the old ways after ancestral idol Tuamotu comes to life.

Thankfully, the Phantom is on hand to stem potential carnage and expose crooked diamond prospector Joe Gagnon (and his oversized circus performer pal) inciting the tribesmen to war and conquest. All he has to do is defeat the giant warrior in unarmed combat…

Assisting the masked peacekeeper in policing tribes and criminals of the region is ‘The Patrol’. These worthy soldiers have no idea who their mysterious “Commander” actually is, so when the latest raw recruit tries to find out, he receives a startling shock in this wry vignette.

Issue #11 (April 1965) features ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’ with two brutal convicts breaking out of the Bengal Penal Colony to terrorise native communities by masquerading as demonic spirits. When the Phantom apprehends them as they link up with pirates, he is struck sightless by a flare gun, but not even blindness can stop the resourceful champion from dispensing justice…

Closing the issue is a one-page tour of ‘The Skull Cave’ by Joe Certa, after which #12 (June, with art by Sparky Moore & Lignante) introduces ‘The Beast of Bengali’. Here a golden giant capable of seeming miracles subjugates the locality until the masked marvel exposes his magical feats for the tricks they really are. Then, following a mouth-watering period ad for the Phantom Revell model kit, #13 (August) opens ‘The Phantom Chronicles’ as the Jungle Sentinel consults his ancestor’s meticulous records for tips on defeating seemingly immortal bandit Rachamond…

October cover-dated, The Phantom #14 opens with ‘The Historian’ as scholar Dr. Heg consults with the Jungle Patrol on a book chronicling their achievements. His ulterior motive is to destroy the only law for hundreds of miles, but he has not reckoned on the true identity of their enigmatic leader…

‘Grandpa’ switches locales to America where Diana Palmer’s doting ancestor is playing unwelcome matchmaker. Eventually, after violent incidents involving bears and robbers, the old man warms to African mystery man Kit Walker…

Closing 1966, TP #15 (December) details the downfall of ‘The River Pirates’ who ravage the mighty waterways of the region. Their modern weapons prove little use against the cunning and bravery of the Deep Woods Guardian. ‘The Tournament’ then focuses on an unlucky prison escapee who finds the Phantom’s clothes and is stuck fighting a native gladiator in a centuries-old grudge match. Sadly, if he loses, the prestige lost means chaos will return to the tribes benefitting from The Phantom’s Peace…

‘The Chain’ opens #16 (April 1966) as a world-weary Phantom considers quitting after an interminable period negotiating peace between warring tribes. Even Diana cannot change his mind, but then ancient wise man Wuru appears, relating a story of the hero’s father, who endured hardship, mockery and even slavery in a quest to rescue a woman from vile bondage. Her name was Maude, and she was to be the Phantom’s mother…

A brace of single-pagers follow, revealing Kit Walker’s unrecorded boxing bout against ‘The Champ’ and a battle in a bar won by ‘The Milk Drinker’ before ‘The Crescent Cult’ sees the Jungle Ghost crushing an assassination gang determined to murder their country’s new Maharani. The comic concludes with another 1-page yarn as ‘The Diggers’ examine old ruins and discover proof that the Phantom has lived and fought evil for centuries!

This second volume closes on a truly supernatural note as The Phantom #17 (July 1966) discloses how undying witch ‘Samaris’ has preyed on male suitors for centuries, and believes she has last found another cursed to live forever…

Following one-pager ‘The Waterfall’, detailing the secrets of the entrance to the fabled Skull Cave, ‘Samaris Part II’ finds the Ghost Who Walks captive of the Queen but resisting her every wile until justice, fate and an avalanche of deferred years catch up to her at last…

Wrapping up is a monochrome vignette detailing the secrets of The Phantom’s devout helpers ‘The Bandar’ Poison Pygmy People and a sumptuous cover gallery by painter George Wilson.

Straightforward, captivating rollicking action-adventure has always been the staple diet of The Phantom. If that sounds like a good time to you, this is a traditional nostalgia-fest you won’t want to miss…
The Phantom® © 1964-1966 and 2012 King Features Syndicate, Inc. ® Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

Today in 1828 genre-founding author Jules Verne was born, so maybe go read a book soon? In comics, unsung wonder Bill Finger was born in 1914, as was Filipino inking legend Danny Bulanadi in 1946. On the debit side we lost the iconic Julius Schwartz today in 2004 and Li’l Jinx originator and Archie stalwart Joe Edwards in 2007.

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I Am Not Okay with This



By Charles Forsman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-68396-193-2 (FB PB) 978-0-57135-012-4 (Faber & Faber PB)

PUBLIC SEVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: It’s ten days until the big romance confluence. Start thinking now, don’t think your significant other or intended likes just what you do – and for every god’s sake don’t “share” drugs with them without informing them first!

Teenage rites of passage are an evergreen source for dramatic material – and comedy too, if you’re fortunate enough to survive the inescapable maturation process relatively unscathed and not too warped… especially when viewed from a bit of distance and with the right perspective. That said, it certainly seems that the problems faced get worse for each successive generation. I can remember my lot facing peer and parental pressure, sexual and/or gender confusion, a war against conformity, political despair and general powerlessness, all while trying to stay sober enough to finish exams and ponder employment futures, but trolls and invisible bullies you can’t escape or confront? No, thanks.

Today’s issues have a unique (devil’s) advocate, however, in a brilliant cartoonist who combines keen insight, devilish imagination and an uncanny ear for dialogue to make stories it’s impossible to not respond to, no matter your specific age or circumstance. Charles Forsman is a multi-award-winning graduate of Vermont’s celebrated Center for Cartoon Studies, whose previous releases include Celebrated Summer, The End of the Fucking World, Hobo Mom and self-published minicomics such as Snake Oil, Revenger and Slasher. He’s been sadly quiet of late but we live in hope…

Subject to many printings and international editions, readily available digitally and the basis for an equally evocative – but by no means identical – TV adaptation, I Am Not Okay with This is rendered in a powerfully deceptive, underplayed cartoon primitivist manner which deviously disguises the fact that this yarn has the shock value and emotional impact of a chunk of concrete chucked through your windscreen from a motorway overpass.

A tale for our times opens with troubled outsider Sydney reluctantly complying with a school counsellor’s urgings to start a journal to catalogue and confront her feelings. Syd is 15 and confused: she’s so far from pretty, a poor student, and recently lost her war-veteran dad in a most unconventional manner.

She’s fighting with her mom – who wastes all her time at her crappy waitressing job – and idiot little brother Liam. Sydney’s only friend Dina is now ghosting her, having just discovered boys in the incomprehensibly form of vile jock Brad. He wants to keep the freak away from his “property” and calls Syd a dyke. Maybe she is? So what?

…And now – as if sexual confusion, family insecurity and disgusting body breakouts aren’t enough – Syd discovers a hidden and uncontrollable ability to cause harm and destruction with her mind. She also thinks someone dark and dangerous is dogging her heels and knows all her secrets…

Similarities to the broader elements of Stephen King’s epistolary landmark Carrie or Kazuya Kud? & Ryoichi Ikegami’s Mai the Psychic Girl soon vanish here, however, as a progression of diary entries intimately expose a succession of poor decisions and relationship mistakes that reshape and transform Syd and everyone she knows. Sadly, the choices made by one lost soul are increasingly irredeemable. They will never get the chance to live down or move away from the events that soon overtake them all, bringing tragedy and disaster in their wake…

Potent and moving, I Am Not Okay with This is a devastatingly affecting variation on a teen theme, and an unforgettable exploration of becoming human everyone with a heart and mind must read.
© 2018 Charles Forsman. This edition © 2018 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All rights reserved.

Today in 1920 historical illustrator and comic book artist Fred (Superman, Tomahawk) Ray was born. In 1951 comics writer/editor/publisher/sound Yorkshire son Dez Skinn arrived too.

In 1957 Mel Lazarus’ Miss Peach first appeared, just like Dik Browne’s Hägar the Horrible did in 1973.

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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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Showcase Presents Weird War Tales volume 1


By Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, Bill Finger, Sheldon Mayer, Jack Oleck, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, Dennis O’Neil, Russ Heath, Mort Drucker, Frank Thorne, Alex Toth, Reed Crandall, Sam Glanzman, John Severin, Howard Chaykin, Ed Davis, Frank Robbins, Nestor Redondo, George Evans, Alex Niño, Russ Heath, Neal Adams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3694-6 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

American comics just idled along rather slowly until the invention of Superman provided a flamboyant new genre for heroes and subsequently unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and imaginative generation for a suddenly thriving, voracious new entertainment model.

Implacably vested in World War II, these gaudily-attired mystery men swept all before them until the troops came home, but as the decade closed more traditional themes and heroes began to resurface and eventually supplant the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

As a new generation of kids started buying and collecting, many of the first fans who retained their four-colour habit increasingly sought more mature themes in their pictorial reading matter. The war years and post-war paranoia had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything. Their chosen forms of entertainment (film, theatre and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this.

To balance the return of Western, War, Crime and imminent Atomic Armageddon-fuelled Science Fiction, comics created new genres. Celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist or teen-oriented comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features sprang up, but gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and a public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative and shockingly addictive horror comics. There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in superhero trappings but these had usually been victims of circumstance: The Unknown as a power source for super-heroics. Now focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering the reader.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap and filled it by inventing romance comics (Young Romance #1, September 1947) and they too saw the sales potential for spooky material, resulting in the seminal Black Magic (1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952). The company which would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively strait-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with The House of Mystery (cover-dated December 1951/January 1952).

After the hysterical censorship debate which led to witch-hunting Senate hearings in the early 1950s was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulation, titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, but the audience’s appetite for suspense was still high and in 1956 National introduced sister titles Tales of the Unexpected and House of Secrets. Stories were dialled back from uncanny spooky yarns to marvellously illustrated, rationalistic fantasy-adventure vehicles and – eventually – straight monster-busting Sci Fi tales which dominated the market into the 1960s. That’s when superheroes – which had gradually enjoyed their own visionary revival after Julius Schwartz reintroduced The Flash in Showcase #4 – finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a rapidly-expanding coterie of costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which forced previously staunchly uncompromising anthology suspense titles to become super-character books. When caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, superheroes began dropping like Kryptonite-gassed flies. However, nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and, at the end of the 1960s with the cape-and-cowl boom over and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain, the surviving publishers of the field agreed to revise the Comics Code, loosening their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics.

Nobody much cared about gangster titles but, as the liberalisation coincided with yet another bump in public interest concerning supernatural themes, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious no-brainer.

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all, horror comics came back and quickly dominated the US market for more than half a decade. DC led the pack: converting House of Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected into supernatural suspense anthologies in 1968 and resurrecting House of Secrets a year later.

Such was not the case with war comics. Tales of ordinary guys in combat began with the industry itself and although mostly sidelined during the capes-&-cowls war years, quickly re-asserted themselves once the actual fighting stopped. National/DC were one of the last publishers to get in on the combat act, converting superhero/fantasy adventure anthology Star Spangled Comics into Star Spangled War Stories the same month it launched Our Army at War (both cover-dated August 1952). They repurposed All-American Comics into All-American Men of War a month later as a “police action” in Korea escalated.

DC grew the division slowly but steadily, launching Our Fighting Forces (#1, November 1954) – just as EC’s groundbreaking combat comics were vanishing – and in 1957 added GI Combat to their portfolio when Quality Comics got out of the funnybook business.

As the 1950s closed however, the two-fisted anthologies all began incorporating recurring characters such as Gunner and Sarge – and latterly Pooch – from Our Fighting Forces #45 on, (May 1959); Sgt Rock (Our Army at War #83 (June 1959) and The Haunted Tank (G.I. Combat #87, April/May 1961). Soon all DC war titles had a lead star or feature to hold the fickle readers’ attention. The drive to produce superior material never wavered however, hugely aided by the diligent and meticulous ministrations of writer/editor Robert Kanigher.

In America after the demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s and prior to the game-changing Blazing Combat, the only certain place to find controversial, challenging and entertaining American war comics was DC. In fact, even whilst Archie Goodwin’s stunning but tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a new generation of readers in the 1960s, the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman was a veritable cornucopia of gritty, intriguing, beautifully limned battle tales presenting armed combat on a variety of fronts and from many differing points of view.

Whilst the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Homefront death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response, military-themed comic books from National Periodical Publishing, as it then was, became even more bold and innovative.

However, the sudden downturn in superheroes led to some serious rethinking, and although the war titles maintained and even built sales, they also beefed up the anthological elements.

Thus in 1971 a title combining supernatural horror stories with bombastic battle yarns in an anthological setting seemed a forgone conclusion and sure thing to both publishers and readers alike…

This epic monochrome tome collects the contents of Weird War Stories #1-21 (cover-dates September/October 1971 to January 1974), offering a broad blend of genre mash-ups for readers with a taste for the dark and uncanny to relish. The series launched in a 52-page format combining new material with modified reprints featuring a veritable Who’s Who of top flight creative talent – both seasoned veterans and stars in waiting.

WWS #1 saw Editor Joe Kubert writing and illustrating an eerie linking strand entitled ‘Let Me Tell You of the Things I’ve Seen’, wherein a lost GI meets the personification of Death (the title’s long-term narrator in various blood-stained uniforms) who has a few foxhole stories to share…

The Reaper begins with ‘Fort Which Did Not Return!’ (by Kanigher & Russ Heath, as first seen in GI Combat #86), detailing how a bomber continues its mission even after the crew bail out, following up with all-new ‘The Story behind the Cover’ wherein Kubert reveals how a shunned German soldier carried on his duties after death…

From Star Spangled War Stories #71 (July 1958) Bob Haney & Kubert disclosed ‘The End of the Sea Wolf!’, as a sadistic U-Boat captain is sunk by one of his own earlier victims, whilst SSWS #116 (August/September 1964) originally debuted France Herron & Irv Novick’s ‘Baker’s Dozen’, with a fresh-faced replacement to a super-superstitious platoon battling to prove he’s not their unlucky thirteenth man…

The issue ends with that lost GI realising just who has been telling tales in Kubert’s ‘You Must Go!’…

The reprints in these early issues were all taken from a time when supernatural themes were proscribed by the Comics Code Authority, but even so they all held fast to an eerie aura of sinister uncertainty… the merest hint of the strange and uncanny to leaven the usual blood and thunder of battle books. In Weird War Tales #2, Kubert reprised his bridging vehicle as ‘Look… and Listen…’ sees a crashed Stuka pilot meeting a ghastly stranger at a battle-torn desert oasis before ‘Reef of No Return’ (Haney & Mort Drucker from Our Fighting Forces #43, March 1959) details a determined frogman’s most dangerous mission in advance of Kanigher & Frank Thorne’s new WWI silent saga ‘The Moon is the Murderer’ proving that overwhelming firepower isn’t everything…

Kubert’s ‘Behind the Cover’ features a prophetic dream and terrifying telegram, and ‘A Promise to Joe!’ (Kanigher & Novick, G.I. Combat #97 (December 1962-January 1963) sees a dead gunner seemingly save his friend from beyond the grave, after which the superb ‘Monsieur Gravedigger’ – by Jerry DeFuccio & legendary Reed Crandall – follows the follies of a sadistic Foreign Legionnaire who pushes his comrades too far. Cartoonist John Costanza delivers gag-packed ‘Military Madness’ and Kubert & Sam Glanzman offer a fact-packed ‘Sgt. Rock’s Battle Stations’ about ‘The Grenadier’ before Bill Finger, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito examine a young recruit’s rite of passage and development of ‘The Face of a Fighter’ (Our Fighting Forces #25, September 1957) before ‘Oasis’ concludes the sorry saga of that downed Aryan airman.

American Naval Aviators ditching at sea were the unwilling audience for Death’s stories as WWT #3 opens with Kubert’s ‘Listen…’ The roster starts with ‘Been Here Before!’ (Finger, Andru & Esposito, G.I. Combat #44 January 1957) as a soldier under fire turns his mind back to boyhood games to save the day, after which we see an aerial battle and parachute drop from the perspective of ‘The Cloud That Went to War!’ (Our Fighting Forces #17, January 1957) courtesy of Dave Wood, Andru & Esposito.

More Costanza comedy from ‘The Kreepy Korps!’ precedes an early tale by Len Wein & Marv Wolfman, ably illustrated by Heath as both cave tribes and modern soldiers battle to possess ‘The Pool’, before the artist’s earlier collaboration with Bob Haney reveals how ‘Combat Size!’ is all a matter of mental attitude in a tale from Our Army at War #66 (January 1958). After Glanzman’s ‘Battle Album’ explains ‘Flying Guns’, a finny friend helps a US submarine sink an aircraft carrier in Finger & Drucker’s ‘Pilot for a Sub!’ (OAaW #68, March 1958) and the issue ends as Kubert sends a ‘Lifeboat’ for those tragic aviators…

The fourth issue opens with Kubert’s final linking tale as a ‘Gypsy Girl’ and her family find wounded soldier Tony after his buddy runs off to get a medic. They kindly offer to pass the time with him, sharing stories like ‘Ghost Ship of Two Wars’ (Kanigher & Novick, All-American Men of War #81, September 1960) wherein an obsessed WWI pilot seemingly slips into 1944 while pursuing his unbeatable archenemy the Black Ace.

Kanigher & Gene Colan’s ‘Time Warp’ originally appeared as ‘The Dinosaur Who Ate Torpedoes!’ in SSWS #123 (October/November 1965 and part of the uniquely bizarre War That Time Forgot series), pitting US frogmen against colossal sea-going saurians, after which ‘The Unknown Sentinel’ (by author unknown & Mort Meskin from House of Mystery #55, October 1956) saves the lives of two soldiers lost on manoeuvres on America’s most famous battlefield.

Glanzman then offers one of his magnificently engaging autobiographical USS Stevens vignettes with all-new, elegiac ‘Prelude’ before Kubert wraps up his chilling drama as ‘I Know Them to be True’ sees medics arriving to find Tony a much-changed man, leaving Costanza to close things down with a laugh and some ‘Military Madness’.

Weird War Tales #5 opens with Haney & Alex Toth providing a book-end tale of ‘The Prisoner’ held by Nazis in Italy. Seeking a way out, he recalls tales of escape such as ‘The Toy Jet!’ (Haney & Heath, All-American Men of War#78, March/April 1960): a chilling psychological thriller about an interned pilot in North Korea. It’s followed by ‘Human Trigger’ (Herron, Andru & Esposito, Star Spangled War Stories #18, February 1954) which shows how a soldier lying on a mine deftly saves his own life…

Herron & Carmine Infantino then reveal how an US spy is forced to ‘Face a Firing Squad!’ (SSWS #14, November 1953) and Norman Maurer instructs with the history of ‘Medal of Honour: Corporal Gerry Kisters’ before Willi Franz & Heath detail the victory of a ‘Slave’ in Roman times and Haney & Toth offer final release in ‘This Is It!’

Issue #6 saw Weird War cut to a standard 36-page package and take a step into tomorrow with Haney & Toth’s battlefield test of ‘Robots’. Wolfman & Frank Thorne expanded the theme in ‘Pawns’ as humans and mechanoids finally decide who works for whom whilst ‘Goliath of the Western Front!’ (Herron, Andru & Esposito, SSWS #93 – October/November 1960) features a giant mechanical Nazi and American David who finally does for him, before Haney & Toth settle all debate with the conclusive ‘Robot Fightin’ Men’…

Wolfman & Kubert provide thematic bookends for #7, beginning with ‘Out of Action’ and wounded GIs awaiting the worst by trading tales like William Woolfolk, Jerry Grandenetti & Joe Giella’s ‘Flying Blind’ (OAaW #12, July 1953) wherein a wounded pilot must trust someone else for the first time in his life if he wants to land his burning jet. Kanigher & Kubert’s ‘The 50-50 War!’ (A-AMW #41, January 1957) finds sporting rivals forced to help each other after both suffer injuries on an alpine mission, with Costanza adding more welcome levity through his ‘Military Hall of Fame’. ‘The Three GIs’ (Finger & Heath, SSWS #62, October 1957) riffs smartly on those monkeys who respectively can’t see, hear and speak and the Purple Heart yarns end with Wolfman & Kubert’s chilling ‘I Can’t See’…

From WWT #8, editorial control switched to the Mystery division under Joe Orlando and with that reprints were shelved in favour of original material as publication frequency graduated from six times a year to monthly. This all-German-focused issue begins with a gruesome ‘Guide to No-Man’s Land’ (probably written by assistant editor E. Nelson Bridwell and illustrated by Tony DeZuñiga) before moving on to ‘The Avenging Grave’ (Kanigher & DeZuñiga) with SS officers learning too late the folly of desecrating the dead of WWI. Anonymously scripted ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill!’– with art by Steve Harper & Neal Adams – sees more gloating Nazis facing a vengeful golem. Kanigher & DeZuñiga return to reveal the fate of an arrogant 1916 air ace in the skies over No-Man’s Land in ‘Duel of the Dead’ before the artist’s ‘Epilogue’ wraps things up, whilst Weird War Tales #9 invites us to ‘Enter the Portals of War’ in an introduction drawn by Howard Chaykin, swiftly followed by a trio of Kanigher yarns illustrated by the cream of DC’s Filipino artists.

‘The Promise’ was limned by Alfredo P. Alcala, telling a tale in two eras as both Teutonic knights in 1242 and German tankers seven centuries later fail to cross frozen Lake Chud, whilst Gerry Talaoc renders the disastrous end of deathly, determined ‘Blood Brothers!’ during the American Civil War, and incomparable Alex Niño details ‘The Last Battle’ between East and West before Chaykin pops back to declare ‘Death, the Ultimate Winner’.

Sheldon Mayer & Toth open WWT #10 with a deliciously whimsical ghostly love story in ‘Who is Haunting the Haunted Chateau?’ before Raymond Marais & Quico Redondo change the tone as a Death-Camp commandant returns after the war to salvage ill-gotten gains from ‘The Room that Remembered’, whilst Wein & Walter Simonson – in the artist’s pro comics debut – reveal why invading Nazis shouldn’t abuse the town idiot, incurring the wrath of ‘Cyrano’s Army’…

Always experimental, the creative team of Mayer, DeZuñiga, Alcala, Talaoc & Niño tried their hand at a time-twisting complete adventure for #11. Occurring on ‘October 30? over 99 years beginning in 1918, the tale compares the progress of an ambitious German General granted a wish for glory by a treacherous spirit of war, with three ghostly Americans determined to fix a long-standing mistake whatever the cost…

DeZuñiga draws the introduction to #12, featuring tales of ‘Egypt’ starting with Kanigher & Talaoc’s tale of an ancient warlord who learned to regret spitting on the ‘God of Vengeance’, whilst ‘Hand of Hell’ (Kanigher & DeZuñiga) sees Anubis similarly deal with one of Rommel’s least reputable, most sadistic deputies. Arnold Drake & Don Perlin then switch locales to Roman Britain where a centurion takes an accidental time-trip and ultimately overthrows the Druids in ‘The Warrior and the Witch-Doctors!’

Weird War Tales #13 opens with Oleck & Nestor Redondo’s ‘The Die-Hards’, with Nazis realising there are even worse killers than they haunting their latest conquered village, before Drake & Niño determine that ‘Old Samurai Never Die’ when a would-be shogun offends the patron spirit of Bushido. ‘Loser’s Luck’ – by Michael J. Pellowski, George Kashdan & DeZuñiga – details harsh choices facing the unfortunate winners of the next, last war…

Mayer, DeZuñiga & Alcala reunite in #14 to tell an eerie tale of doomed love and military injustice from the days before Pearl Harbor which begins with a ‘Dream of Disaster’, incorporates a deadly flight with a ‘Phantom for a Co-Pilot’ and marines who arrive ‘Too Late for the Death March!’ before finally meeting ‘The Ghost of McBride’s Woman’ and vindicating an unsung hero…

A little lad enamoured of war’s glory learns a lesson in WWT #15 when his dead grandfather takes him back to WWI to see how ‘…Ace King Just Flew in from Hell’ (Drake & Perlin) before Oleck & Talaoc reveal the doom of ‘The Survivor’ of a Viking raid which offends a sorceress, and Oleck & Alcala detail the shocking fate of a fanatical crusader who succumbs to ‘The Ultimate Weapon’ of a Saracen wise man. Drake & Alcala describe transplant science gone mad in #16’s ‘More Dead than Alive!’, whilst the first of a Niño double bill sees him delineate Oleck’s ‘The Conquerors’ who eradicate humanity – but not the things that predate on them – whilst Drake’s ‘Evil Eye’ sees a little boy inflict hell’s wrath on both Allies and Axis alike…

In #17, Kanigher & George Evans disclose how a dishonourable French Air Ace is punished by ‘Dead Man’s Hands’ before Pellowski, E. Nelson Bridwell & Ernie Chan reveal how a murdered soldier is avenged by ‘A Gun Named Marie!’ WWT #18 has Drake & DeZuñiga sketch the brief career of ‘Captain Dracula!’ as he marauds through (mostly) German forces in Sicily before Mayer & Talaoc return for the cautionary tale of a greedy German sergeant in France whose avarice makes him easy prey for the ‘Whim of a Phantom!’

Drake & Talaoc start #19 with the full-length story of an agent who infiltrates the Nazi terror weapon known as ‘The Platoon That Wouldn’t Die!’, and #20 reverts to short stories with Oleck & Perlin’s ‘Death Watch’ of a doomed coward who should have waited one more day before deserting, before Drake & Alcala’s period saga of a witchcraft vendetta ‘Operation: Voodoo!’ and their Battle of Britain chiller wherein a burned-out fighter pilot learns ‘Death is a Green Man’.

This blockbusting blend of military mayhem, magical melee and martial madness concludes with Weird War Tales #21 and ‘One Hour to Kill!’ by Drake & Frank Robbins, wherein an American soldier is ordered to go back in time to assassinate Leonardo Da Vinci and prevent the invention of automatic weapons. Mayer & Bernard Baily then detail just how a foul-up GI becomes an unstoppable hero ‘When Death Took a Hand’…

Classily chilling, emotionally intense, superbly illustrated, insanely addictive and Just Plain Fun, this is a deliciously guilty pleasure that will astound and delight any lover of fantasy fiction and comics that work on plot invention rather than character compulsion.
© 1971, 1972, 1973, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1937 Herman creator Jim Unger was born, whilst in 1967, pioneering Golden Age artist Homer Fleming (Craig Kennedy, The Whip, Chuck Dawson, Captain Jim of the Texas Rangers, Classics Illustrated) died.

Also in 1967, British weeklies Pow! and Mandy both launched, as did tabloid treasure The Beezer way back in 1956 today.

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DC Finest: Superman – The Invisible Luthor


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Jack Burnley, Paul Lauretta, Wayne Boring, Jack Burnley, Paul Cassidy, Ed Dobrotka, Leo Nowak, Fred Ray, John Sikela, Dennis Neville, Don Komisarow, lettered by Frank Shuster, Betty Burnley Bentley, the Superman Studio & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77950-332-3 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times

Nearly 90 years ago, Superman rebooted planetary mythology and kickstarted the entire genre of modern fantasy heroes. Outlandish, flamboyant, indomitable, infallible and unconquerable, he also saved a foundering industry by birthing an entirely new genre of storytelling: the Super Hero. Since April 18th 1938 (the generally agreed day copies of Action Comics #1 first went on sale) he has grown into a mighty presence in all aspects of art, culture and commerce, even as his natal comic book universe organically grew and expanded. Within three years of that debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment that had hallmarked the early exploits of the Man of Tomorrow had grown: encompassing crime-busting, reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy and even whimsical comedy. However, once the war in Europe and the East captured America’s communal consciousness, combat themes and patriotic imagery dominated most comic book covers, if not interiors.

In comic book terms alone Superman was soon a true master of the world, utterly changing the shape of the fledgling industry as easily as he could a mighty river. There was a popular newspaper strip, a thrice-weekly radio serial, games, toys, foreign and overseas syndication and as the decade turned, the Fleischer studio’s astounding animated cartoons.

Moreover, the quality of the source material was increasing with every four-colour release as the energy and enthusiasm of originators Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster went on to inform and infect the burgeoning studio which grew around them to cope with the relentless demand.

These tales have been reprinted many times, but this latest compilation might arguably be the best yet, offering the original stories in reading – if not strictly chronological publishing – order and spanning cover-dates July 1940 to September 1941. It features landmark sagas from Action Comics #26-40 and Superman #6-11, plus pivotal appearances in New York’s World Fair No. 2, World’s Best Comics #1 and World’s Finest Comics #2 & 3 (all with eye-catching groundbreaking covers by Jack Burnley). Although most early tales were untitled, here, for everyone’s convenience, they have been given descriptive appellations by the editors, and I should also advise that as far as we know it’s written entirely by Seigel, with the majority of covers by Fred Ray (unless I say otherwise!).

This incredible panorama of torrid tales opens with gangsters attempting to plunder jewels from exhibits at the biggest show on earth. Taken from premium package New York World’s Fair #2, ‘Superman at the 1940 World’s Fair’ is credited to Siegel & Schuster, but actually illustrated by Burnley who also provided the first ever pairing of the Man of Tomorrow with Dynamic Duo Batman and Robin on the cover to drag readers in…

Siegel & Shuster had created a true phenomenon and were struggling to cope with it. As well as monthly and bimonthly comics a new quarterly publication, initially World’s Best and ultimately World’s Finest Comics – springing from the success of the publisher’s New York World’s Fair comic-book tie-ins – would soon debut with their indefatigable hero featuring prominently in it. Superman’s daily newspaper strip began on 16th January 1939 (Yes! Today but back then!), with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th: garnering millions of new devotees. The need for new material and creators was constant and oppressive, so expansion was the watchword at the Superman and Shuster studios.

On the primary pages though, Action Comics#26 (July 1940) introduced ‘Professor Cobalt’s Clinic’ (limned by Pauls Lauretta & Cassidy with Siegel inking and Frank Shuster lettering) wherein Clark Kent & Lois Lane expose a murderous sham Health Facility with a little Kryptonian help, whilst the following month dealt a similar blow to corrupt orphanage the ‘Brentwood Home for Wayward Youth’. September’s issue found Superman at the circus, solving the mystery of ‘The Strongarm Assaults’, a fast-paced thriller beautifully illustrated by the astonishingly talented and versatile Burnley. Whilst thrilling to all that, kids of the time could also have picked up the sixth issue of Superman (cover-dated September/October 1940). Produced by Siegel and the Superman Studio, with Shuster increasingly overseeing and only drawing key figures and faces, this contained four more lengthy adventures. Behind its Shuster & Cassidy cover, ‘Lois Lane, Murderer’, and ‘Racketeer Terror in Gateston’ by Cassidy had the Man of Action saving his plucky co-worker from a dastardly frame up and rescuing a small town from a mob invasion. An infomercial for the Supermen of America club and the secrets of attaining ‘Super Strength’ as shared by Burnley, Shuster & Cassidy follows. These lead to more adventure and action from Lauretta & Cassidy as ‘Terror Stalks San Caluma’ and ‘The Construction Scam’ sees the Man of Tomorrow foil a blackmailer who’s discovered his secret identity before spectacularly fixing a corrupt company’s shoddy, death-trap buildings.

Action Comics #29 (October 1940) again features Burnley art in a gripping tale of murder for profit. Human drama in ‘The Life Insurance Con’ was followed by deadly super-science as the mastermind Zolar created ‘The Midsummer Snowstorm’, allowing Burnley a rare opportunity to display his fantastic imagination as well as his representational acumen and dexterity. Then Superman #7 (November/December1940) marked a creative sea-change as occasional cover artist Wayne Boring became Schuster’s regular inker, whilst seeing the Man of Steel embroiled in local politics when he confronts ‘Metropolis’ Most Savage Racketeers’; quells manmade disasters in ‘The Exploding Citizens’; stamps out City Hall corruption in ‘Superman’s Clean-Up Campaign’ (illustrated fully by Boring) and puts villainous high society bandits ‘The Black Gang’ where they belong… behind iron bars.

For Action # 31 Burnley draws another high-tech crime caper as crooks put an entire city to sleep and only Clark Kent isn’t ‘In the Grip of Morpheus’ after which ‘The Gambling Rackets of Metropolis’ (AC #32) finds Lois almost institutionalised until the Big Guy steps up to crush an illicit High Society operation that has wormed its nefarious way into the loftiest echelons of Government, a typical Siegel social drama magnificently illustrated.

Cover-dated January/February 1941, Superman #8 was another spectacular and wildly varied compendium containing four big adventures ranging from fantastic fantasy in ‘The Giants of Professor Zee’ (Cassidy & Boring); topical suspense in spotlighting ‘The Fifth Column’ (Boring & Komisarow) and common criminality in ‘The Carnival Crooks’ (Cassidy) before concluding with cover-featured ‘Parrone and the Drug Gang’ (Boring), wherein the Metropolis Marvel duels doped-up thugs and corrupt lawyers controlling them.

Action Comics #33 & 34 are both Burnley extravaganzas wherein Superman goes north to discover ‘Something Amiss at the Lumber Camp’, before heading to coal country to save ‘The Beautiful Young Heiress’; both superbly enticing character-plays with plenty of scope for super-stunts to thrill the gasping fans.

Superman #9 (March/April 1941) was another four-star thriller with all art credited to Cassidy. ‘The Phony Pacifists’ is an espionage thriller capitalising on increasing US tensions over “the European War” whilst ‘Joe Gatson, Racketeer’ recounts the sorry end of a hot-shot blackmailer and kidnapper. ‘Mystery in Swasey Swamp’ combines eerie rural events with ruthless spies whilst the self-explanatory ‘Jackson’s Murder Ring’ pits the Caped Kryptonian against an ingenious gang of commercial assassins. The issue also improves health and well-being with another Shuster & Cassidy ‘Supermen of America’ update and exercise feature ‘Super-Strength’ by Shuster.

The success of the annual World’s Fair premium comic books had convinced editors that an over-sized anthology of their characters, with Superman and Batman prominently featured, would be a worthwhile proposition even at the exorbitant price of 15¢ (most 64-page titles retailed for 10¢ and would do so until the 1960s). At 96 pages, World’s Best Comics #1 debuted with a Spring 1941 cover-date and Fred Ray frontage, before transforming into the soon-to-be-venerable World’s Finest Comics from issue #2 onwards. From that landmark one-&-only edition comes gripping disaster thriller ‘Superman vs. the Rainmaker’, illustrated by Boring & Komisarow, after which Action Comics #35 headlines a human-interest tale with startling repercussions in Boring & Leo Nowak’s ‘The Guybart Gold Mine’, before even Superman is mightily stretched to cope with the awesome threat of ‘The Enemy Invasion’ rendered by Boring & Shuster: a canny, foreboding taste of things to come if – or rather, when – America entered World War II.

Superman #10 (May/June 1941) opens with eponymous mystery ‘The Invisible Luthor’ (Nowak), follows with ‘The Talent Agency Fraud’ (Cassidy, Nowak, Siegel & the Studio), steps on the gas in ‘The Spy Ring of Righab Bey’ and closes with ‘The Dukalia Spy Ring’ (both by Boring, Siegel & the Studio): topical and exotic themes of suspense as America was still at this time still officially neutral in the “European War”. Conversely, Action Comics #37 (June 1941) returned to tales of graft, crime and social injustice in ‘Commissioner Kent’ (Cassidy) as the Man of Steel’s timid alter-ego is forced to run for the job of Metropolis’ top cop, before World’s Finest Comics #2 (Summer 1941) unleashes Cassidy & Nowak’s ‘The Unknown X’ – a fast-paced mystery of sinister murder-masterminds, before AC #38 (and Nowak & Ed Dobrotka) provide a spectacular battle bout against a sinister hypnotist committing crimes through ‘Radio Control’…

Other than a Cassidy pinup, Superman #11 (July/August 1941) was an all Nowak affair, beginning with ‘Zimba’s Gold Badge Terrorists’ wherein thinly disguised Nazis “Blitzkrieg” America, after which “giant animals” go on a rampage in ‘The Corinthville Caper’. Seeking a cure for ‘The Yellow Plague’ then takes Superman to the ends of the Earth whilst ‘The Plot of Count Bergac’ brings him back home to crush High Society gangsters. All by Nowak but accompanied by a Cassidy pinup.

Horrific mad science creates ‘The Radioactive Man’ in Action #39 (Nowak & Shuster Studios), whilst #40 featured ‘The Billionaire’s Daughter’ (by John Sikela) wherein the mighty Man of Tomorrow needs all his wits to set straight a spoiled debutante before we closing with ‘The Case of the Death Express’: a tense thriller about train-wreckers illustrated by Nowak from the Fall issue of World’s Finest (#3).

Stories of corruption and social injustice were gradually moving aside for more spectacular fare, and with war in the news and clearly on the horizon, the tone and content of Superman’s adventures changed too: the scale and scope of the stunts became more important than the motive. The raw passion and sly wit still shone through in Siegel’s stories but as the world grew more dangerous the Man of Tomorrow simply had to become stronger and more flamboyant to deal with it all, with Shuster and his team consequently stretching and expanding the iconography for all imitators and successors to follow.

These Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price. My admiration for the stripped-down purity and power of these stories is boundless. Nothing has ever come near them for joyous, child-like perfection. You really should make them part of your life. In fact, how can you possibly resist them?
© 1940, 1941, 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1939 Jean Van Hamme (XIII, Thorgal, Largo Winch) was born, which you now know was the same moment – allowing for time zone differentials – that the Superman newspaper strip launched. It ended in 1966 but Van Hamme’s still going…

In 1960 UK comic Judy debuted, and ten years later so did Garth Ennis.

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What I Did


By Jason, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-414-6 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Absurdly Enchanting Comics Capers… 9/10

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

Born in 1965 in Molde, Norway, John Arne Sæterøy is known by enigmatic, utilitarian nom de plume Jason. The shy & retiring auteur first took the path to cartoon superstardom in 1995, once debut graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won Norway’s biggest comics prize: the Sproing Award. From 1987 he had contributed to alternate/indie magazine KonK while studying graphic design and illustration at Oslo’s Art Academy.

From there he took on Norway’s National School of Arts and, on graduating in 1994, founded his own comic – Mjau Mjau. Constantly refining his style into a potent form of meaning-mined anthropomorphic minimalism, Jason cited Lewis Trondheim, Jim Woodring & Tex Avery as primary influences. He moved to Copenhagen, working at Studio Gimle alongside Ole Comoll Christensen (Excreta, Mar Mysteriet Surn/Mayday Mysteries, Den Anden Praesident, Det Tredje Ojet) & Peter Snejbjerg (Den skjulte protocol/The Hidden Protocol, World War X, Tarzan, Books of Magic, Batman: Detective 27). Jason’s efforts were internationally recognised, making waves in France, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Germany and other Scandinavian countries as well as the Americas. He won another Sproing in 2001 – for self-published series Mjau Mjau – and in 2002 turned nigh-exclusively to producing graphic novels. He won even more major awards.

His breadth of interest is wide & deep: comics, movies, animated cartoons, music, literature art history and pulp fiction all feature equally with no sense of rank or hierarchy. Jason’s puckish, egalitarian mixing & matching of inspirational sources always and inevitably produces picture-treatises well worth a reader’s time. Over a succession of tales he has built and re-employed a repertory company of stock characters to explore deceptively simplistic milieux based on classic archetypes distilled from movies, childhood yarns, historical and literary favourites. These all role-play in deliciously absurd and surreal sagas centred on his preferred themes of relationships and loneliness. Latterly, Jason returned to such “found” players as he built his own highly esoteric universe, and even has a whole bizarre bunch of them “team-up” or clash…

As always, visual/verbal bon mots unfold in beguiling, sparse-dialogued (or even, as here, silently pantomimic) progressions, with compellingly formal page layouts rendered in a pared back stripped-down interpretation of Hergé’s Claire Ligne style: solid blacks, thick outlines dominating settings of seductive monochrome simplicity augmented by a beguiling palette of stark pastels and muted primary colours.

A master of short-form illustrated tales, many Jason yarns have been released as snappy little albums perfect for later inclusion in longer anthology collections like this one which gathers a triptych of his very best. The majority of tales brim with bleak isolation, swamped by a signature surreality. They are, as warned, largely populated with cinematically-inspired, darkly comedic, charmingly macabre animal people ruminating on inescapable concerns whilst re-enacting bizarrely cast, bestial movie tributes

This sterling hard cover compilation gathers ‘Hey, Wait…’, ‘Sshhhh!’ and ‘The Iron Wagon’ which first appeared in Mjau Mjau between 1997 & 2001, and if you’re keeping score, the reviews and illustrations are taken from the 2018 second edition…

The volume opens with an eerie and glorious and wildly funny paean to boyhood friendships – in the manner of the movie Stand By Me – as young Bjorn and Jon enjoy a life of perfect childhood until a tragic accident ends the idyll and reshapes them forever. Life, however, goes on, but for one of the lads it’s an existence populated forever onwards with ghosts and visions…

Jason’s work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, using the beastly and unnatural to gently pose eternal questions about basic human needs in a soft but relentless quest for answers. That you don’t ever notice the deep stuff because of the clever gags and safe, familiar funny-animal characters should indicate just how good a cartoonist he is…

‘Sshhhh!’ is a delightfully evocative romantic melodrama created without words: a bittersweet extended tale of boy-bird meeting girl-bird in a world overly populated with spooks and ghouls and skeletons but afflicted far more harshly by missed chances, loneliness and regret.

These comic tales are strictly for adults but allow us all to look at the world through wide-open young eyes. This is especially true of the final tale in this collection – a slyly beguiling adaptation of a classic detective story from 1909, but enhanced to a macabre degree by the easy cartooning, skilled use of silence and moment and a two-tone colour palette.

As you’d expect of a classic “Scandi-crime drama” ‘The Iron Wagon’ is a clever, enthralling and deeply dark mystery yarn originally written by Stein Riverton, and has the same quality of cold yet harnessed stillness which makes the Swedish television adaptations of Henning Mankell’s Wallander so superior to those English-language interpretations. Here, the stylised artwork is delivered in formalised page layouts; solid blacks, thick lines and settings of seductive simplicity are augmented here by stunning Deep Red overlays to enhance the Hard Black and Genteel White he usually prefers.

In the coastal retreat of Hvalen a desperate author is haunted by ghosts and nightmares. However, the townsfolk are all too engrossed with the death of the game warden on the Gjaernes Estate to notice or care. The family seems cursed with constant troubles. First the old man was lost at sea, now the murder of Warden Blinde just as he was betrothed to Hilde Gjaernes blights the farm. People are talking, saying it’s all the fault of the long dead grandfather who lost his fortune and life dabbling with weird inventions…

Even now, sensitive souls still hear his accursed Iron Wagon roaring through the night, presaging another death in the village…

Luckily there are more sensible folk abroad to summon a detective from Kristiania (Oslo), but Asbjørn Krag is not the kind of policeman anybody was anticipating and as the young writer becomes enmired in the horrific unfolding events, he realises that not only over-imaginative fools hear things.

In the depths of the night’s stillness he too shudders at the roaring din of the Iron Wagon…

Moody, suspenseful and utterly engrossing, this would be a terrific yarn even without Jason’s superbly understated art, but in combination the result is pure dynamite.

This collection – despite being “merely” early works – resonates with the artist’s signature themes and shines with his visual dexterity. It’s one of Jason’s very best and will warm the cockles of any fan’s heart.
All characters, stories, and artwork © 2010 Jason. All rights reserved.

Today in 1900 cartoonist Otto Soglow was born; he’s most revered for The Little King strip. Someone else utterly neglected by modern comics publishers is wartime patriot and Anglo-Canadian creator Jon Stables AKA Jon St. Ables (get it?) who carried most of the creative workload at Maple Leaf Comics until it closed down in 1946. As he was born in 1912, he had to find other artistic outlets until his death in 1999. And he did.

A year earlier (in 1998, okay?) we lost the astounding Joe Orlando. The editor who saved DC in the late 1960s through his horror comics revival was also a superb illustrator, gag-guy and story-man, as you could see in Judgment Day and Other Stories or any of the superb DC horror comics editions we’ve covered over the decades.

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Abbie an’ Slats volumes 1 & 2


By Raeburn Van Buren, with Al Capp, Elliot Caplin & various (Ken Pierce Inc. 1983
ISBN: 978-0-912277-14-1 (vol. 1 TPB); 978-0-912277-24-6 (vol. 2 TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Literal Good Old Days… 9/10

It’s practically impossible for us today to understand the power and popularity of the comic strip in America from the Great Depression to the end of the Second World War. With no television, far from universal usage of radio, and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most people, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. To consider that situation as a parallel to the modern comic scene would be like expecting those generations-distant readers to only read one out of a dozen of the numerous offerings in each and every paper or only on streaming channels.

Our treasured standard themes of adventure and horror, superheroes and merchandising tie-ins targeting kids would seem laughably limited in comparison to the sheer variety of story and genre available then.

If we tenuously compare those papers with internet providers today you might glimpse a more accurate flavour of the industry, stars and brands that blossomed at that time locally, regionally, nationally and globally. One entry from that era, created by stars, which began as what we’d probably call a soap opera, evolved into an American Classic to become one of the most fondly remembered comedy strips of all time.

Abbie an’ Slats was created by Li’l Abner creator Al Capp. He scripted it until 1945, after which he handed it over to his brother Elliot (Caplin) who wrote it until its end in 1971. It began as the story of dead-end kid Aubrey Eustace (understandably self-dubbed “Slats”), who was sent to live with spinster relative Abbie Scrapple, and became in turns a seminal prototype for soap comedy dramas; the pattern for the whole Archie Andrews phenomenon; a heart-warming melodrama, slice-of-life pot-boiler, romance strip, and – with the priceless introduction of drunken reprobate J. Pierpont “Bathless” Groggins (father of Slat’s one true love Beckie) – a timeless comedy classic.

By 1941, Groggins senior had appropriated the full colour Sunday page for his own comedic fantasist shenanigans in the grand manner of Baron Munchausen.

That’s all well and good, but what makes this strip even more special is the art.

Raeburn Van Buren (January 12th, 1891 – December 29th 1987) was a Great War veteran turned highly successful commercial illustrator. He was much in demand by such prestigious publications as The Saturday Evening Post, New Yorker, Esquire and Life as well as purely humour magazines such as Puck and Judge. When Al Capp approached him to draw the proposed strip, Van Buren initially declined, and it took all of the writer’s legendary wiles and perseverance to lure him away from his profitable freelance ways.

Eventually Van Buren capitulated and the strip debuted on July 6th 1937, with a Sunday page beginning January 15th 1939. At its height Abbie an’ Slats was syndicated in 400 papers, with the last episode was published on January 30th 1971. Van Buren, who was credited with every single page and episode, retired to Great Neck, New York.

Over the decades his spectacularly underplayed scenarios and wonderfully rendered, evocative detail – just enough for clarity, never too much to digest – and his warmly funny, human, loving characters became part of the psyche of a nation far more kind and understanding than today’s, and the fictitious town of Crabtree Corners became a pictorial synonym of small town America.

Sadly, very little of this wonderful strip has been collected as yet, but the books cited herein are still available if you look hard and so-long overdue for reprinting. Perhaps with the latest wave of strip reprints and burgeoning graphic novel market having burnt its way through all the obvious stuff to reprint, we can only hope some publisher opts for quality over brand names and brings this much neglected gem back to public gaze.

© 1937-1964 United Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved.

In 1905, Superman, Batman, Alfred, and Liberty Belle scribe Donald Clough “Don” Cameron was born. Ten years later so was Ben Oda, who probably lettered most of them as well as half of what you’ve read since, if US comics are your thing.

In 1918 Frank Hampson was born. You don’t need me to tell why that’s commemorated here.

Heathcliff cartoonist George Gately was born in 1928, and Belgian comics wizard Jean De Mesmaeker AKA Jidéhem, popped in in 1935. None of that really makes up for losing pioneering comic book genius Sheldon Mayer in 1991. I think I’ll go re-re-re-read Sugar and Spike Archives volume 1.

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Glorious Summers volume 4: The Runaway 1979


By Zidrou & Jordi Lafebre, with additional colour by Mado Peña, translated by Lara Vergnaud (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: Digital edition only

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Holiday Joy and Heartbreak in the Balance… 9/10

Until comparatively recently, comics in the English-speaking world mostly countenanced comedic or numerous adventure sub-genres (crime, superhero, horror, sci fi), with only a small but vital niche of “mundane world” ventures, usually depicted via graphic biographies and autobiographies like They Called Us Enemy, Breakwater, Love on the Isle of Dogs, Wage Slaves or Sour Pickles offering a different feel and flavour. Even historical sagas were treated as extraordinary moments with larger-than-life characters whenever possible.

What we have never had – and still largely don’t – is a comics equivalent to general fiction, and drama. That’s not so in Japan, South Korea or Europe, where a literal “anything goes” attitude has always accommodated and nurtured human-scaled, slice-of-life tales depicting ordinary people in as many quiet as extraordinary moments. Surely it can’t be that hard to tell engaging stories in pedestrian, recognisably ordinary settings? Medical traumas, love stories, school tales and family tragedies about common folk seem to play well on various-sized screens around the world, so why not in English language comics? The closest we seem to get are comedies like John Allison’s superb Giant Days…

People being people is more than enough for Europeans. Apparently, there’s an insatiable appetite for everyday events aimed at properly “mature readers”, joyfully sans vampires, aliens or men in tights. These even have sub-genres of their own. For example, there’s a wealth of superb material just about going on holiday: the highly ritualised une petite vacances. Let’s stare & glare covetously at them having a good time, because over there holidays are an inalienable right, and thus they have some simply fabulous tales about a simple break. If you can remember the 1970s, this one is probably the best you’ll ever see…

An absolute exemplar of fantasy vacations made real, Glorious Summers: Southbound! (1973) was a nostalgia-drenched confection by Zidrou and regular collaborator Jordi Lafebre: a sublime example of idyllic group memory made into graphic sorcery in an everyday account utterly unafraid to temper humorous sweetness and light with real-world tragedy and suspense.

Peut-être a little context is in order. Summer holidays – “Midi” – are a big deal in France and Belgium. The French divide into two tribes over the annual rest period, which generally lasts an entire month. Juilletistes vacation in July, wielding dogmatic facts like rapiers to prove why it’s the only way to take a break. They are eternally opposed, heart, soul and suntan lotion, by majority faction the Aoûtiens, who recharge their batteries in August whilst fully reciprocating the suspicion, disdain and baffled scorn of the early-leavers. Many European sociologists claim the greatest social division today is not race, religion, gender, political affiliation or whether to open boiled eggs from the top or the bottom, but when summer holidays begin and end…

In 2015, courtesy of scripter Benoît “Zidrou” Drousie and Spanish illustrator Jordi Lafebre, Les Beaux Étés 1: Cap au Sud! began a string of family visits that beguile and charm every time we reread them. Zidrou is Belgian, Brussels-born in 1962 and was a school teacher prior to quitting marking books in 1990 to begin making them. His main successes include school dunce series L’Elève Ducobu, Petit Dagobert, Scott Zombi, La Ribambelle, Le Montreur d’histoires, the revival of Ric Hochet, African Trilogy, Léonardo, Shi and many more. His most celebrated and beloved stories are this memorable sequence and 2010’s Lydie, both illustrated by Lafebre.

That gifted, empathically sensitive illustrator and art teacher was born in Barcelona in 1979 and has created comics professionally since 2001, first for magazines like Mister K, where he limned Toni Font’s El Mundo de Judy. He found regular work at Le Journal de Spirou, creating the romance Always Never and collaborated with Zidrou on La vieille dame qui n’avait jamais joué au tennis et autres nouvelles qui font du bien, Lydie, and La Mondaine.

A combination of feel-good fable and powerful comedy drama, Glorious Summers depicts memories of an aging couple recalling their grandest family moments, beginning with a momentous vacation in 1973 where their four kids nearly lost their parents….

However, fourth reverie The Runaway is slightly askew of the regular time frame and schedule, focusing on 1979 after a constantly deferred getaway due to dad’s deadline woes and relentless bad fortune leads to animosity and upset…

Weary frazzled 41-year-old Maddie Faldérault is on a slow burn. Her life is a constant drain. The job at the shoe shop is a demeaning nightmare, but money is scarce. Old Fat Pop Pop is really sick and so is her beloved car Little Miss Esterel. Moreover her adorable, wonderful kids are growing up too fast and becoming more and more trying. And Christmas is days away and Maddie could really use a break…

When a call comes of a medical emergency she dashes over expecting to see hubby Pierre finally crippled by his literally back-breaking toil over a drawing board. After years of whining about being an anonymous assistant, he had at last made the jump to create his own feature, and everyone was a delighted when his Zoombies were picked up by an animation studio. Now many months later, and tied to a vile contract, he’s drawing more and more and hasn’t yet seen a penny for all his trouble…

Thankfully, he’s not the problem. His old boss Garin has had a career-ending stroke and the publisher want Pierre to come back and take over the soul-destroying mega-strip he used to ghost. It means financial security (maybe even a by-line), but only at the cost of his dreams…

Maddie’s immediate relief extinguishes all thoughts of her own miseries but as the parents reach home and comfort their panicking brood – effusive 9-year-old precociously hyperactive Paulette (AKA Peaches), moody, music mad 14 year old Louis, weight obsessed Nicole and college crushed Jolly-Julie (whose homework over the holidays includes 10 kilos of law books!) – the thought of a family Christmas is quashed as her son reveals his plans to travel unsupervised to England to see some band called Pink Floyd…

Acrimony and argument end the day badly for all, but the real trigger comes later when Pierre accidentally reminds her that his job and a total lack of rejuvenating sun and sand utterly ruined her precious August getaway…

After she explodes, it takes a very long time for the spouses to be friends again…

The next day the shoe shop is a living hell but when she gets home it’s to a family packed and ready for a holiday in the sun – even if he has to drive Little Miss Esterel all the way to the Côte d’Azur or even Africa to find it…

Pierre has cajoled the entire pack – all but revision wracked Jolly-Julie – to rerun the annual Faldérault escape from gloomy Brussels just for her, but not without some effort… and unrealised deception. Louis is in prime teen rebel mode now and once they’re out of Belgium and have played their usual games with the French border guards, he absconds determined to get to London by Christmas at all costs. After all its not just the music. There’s someone waiting for him there…

Of course, once he vanishes, the family goes into overdrive to find The Runaway, and as ever, the company of strangers is a powerful reminder of just how kind people can be – even the cops! – and the surprise holiday recharge becomes a most special Christmas: one that significantly changes life for all of them…

This sublimely understated seasonal treat is a sentimentally witty gem polished to perfection by the addition of an ‘epilog’ and pictorial codicil in the form of a charming fantasy postscript from Peaches. Her illustrated prose letter ‘The House that Dreamed of Going on Vacation – by Paulette Foldérault’ neatly adds all the warmth lost in unused summer sunshine and ends the saga on a cosy note of promise…

This tale is another beautifully recalled, rendered and realised basket of memories stitched seamlessly together. It’s funny, sweet and charming whilst delivering sharp swipes you never see coming. There aren’t any spectacular events and shocking crises (well, just the one here) and that’s the whole point…

If you’re British – and old enough – this series (six translated albums thus far, plus a French omnibus edition) will echo revered family sitcoms like Bless This House or Butterflies and generational ads starring the “Oxo Family”. (If that description doesn’t fit you, I pity your browsing history if you look up any of that…). The rest of you in need of an opening (but unfair) comparator could break out the Calvin and Hobbes collections and re-examine the bits with his embattled parents when the kid’s out of the picture…

Lyrical, laconic, engagingly demure, and debilitatingly nostalgic, this holiday romance is sheer visual perfection wrapped in sharp dialogue and a superbly anarchic sense of mischief. Vacations and occasions are built of moments and might-have-beens, packaged here in a compelling melange making the mundane marvellous.
© 2018 -DARGAUD BENELUX (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) – ZIDROU & LEFEBRE, LLC. All rights reserved.

Today in 1924 superstar Sam Glanzman was born. You should read everything he ever did but perhaps start with A Sailor’s Story?

Britain’s WWII secret weapon Jane by Norman Pett opened in The Daily Mirror dated December 4th 1932. We’ve shamefully peeped at her a few times, most recently in The Misadventures of Jane. She has the same birthdays as V.T. Hamlin’s magnificent Alley Oop feature, for which Alley Oop by V.T. Hamlin must be your first port of call…