Category: Romance

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Oh My Goddess! volume 2


By Kosuke Fujishima, original translation by Dana Lewis, Alan Gleason & Toren Smith (Dark Horse Manga)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-457-9 (tankōbon TPB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-756-4

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times and cultures.

All over the world, college days offer plenty of opportunities for romance, comedy and comics creativity. Apparently manga always gets there first and explores avenues you never even realised existed….

Fujishima Kosuke was born in Chiba, Japan on July 7th 1964, and, after completing High School, got a job as an editor. His plans to be a draughtsman had foundered after failing to secure a requisite apprenticeship, and he instead joined Puff magazine in that administrative role. Life started looking up after he became assistant to manga artist Tatsuya Egawa (Be Free, Golden Boy, Magical Taluluto). Fujishima graduated to his first solo feature in 1986: writing and illustrating police series You’re Under Arrest until 1992. In 1988, he began a consecutive second series: a fantasy comedy that would reshape his life. Despite other series such as Paradise Residence and Toppu GP over intervening decades, Aa! Megami-sama – alternatively translated as Ah! My Goddess and Oh My Goddess! became his signature work and one that has made him a household name in Japan.

The saga began in the September 1988 issue of Kodansha’s seinen (“teen boys/young males”) periodical Monthly Afternoon and ran until April 2014, generating enough material for 48 tankōbon volumes and a supplementary series whilst spawning anime, special editions, TV series, musical albums, games and all the attendant spin-offs and merchandise mega-popularity brings. In 2020 there were 25 million physical copies of the books in circulation and an unguessable number of digital sales. It has won awards, been translated across the globe in print and on screens and has a confirmed place in comics history…

Oh My Goddess! is a particularly fine example of a peculiarly Japanese genre of storytelling combining fantasy with loss of conformity and maxed out embarrassment. In this case, and as seen in volume 1’s opening chapter ‘The Number You Have Dialled is Incorrect’, when nerdy engineering sophomore Keiichi Morisato dials a wrong number one night, he inadvertently connects to the Goddess Technical Help Line.

When captivatingly beautiful and cosmically powerful minor administrative deity Belldandy materialises in his room offering him one wish, he snidely asks that she never leave him. That rash response traps her on Earth, unable even to move very far beyond his physical proximity. Her powers are mighty, but come with many provisos and restrictions. The most immediate and terrible repercussion manifests quickly as he is ejected from his student residence for having a girl in his room…

In a structured society like Japan there’s plenty of scope for comedy when a powerful and beautiful female seemingly dotes on a barely average male, especially as Keiichi’s new girlfriend seems to all observers unwilling to ever leave his side. Captivating Belldandy’s profligate use of divine powers, utter naivety and tendency to attract chaos and calamity make the bonded pair’s search for a new home a fraught exercise, but after a few foredoomed forays the odd couple settle in a temple gifted them by a Buddhist priest. The proximity quandary is settled by Belldandy using her powers to enrol at his school, the Nekomi Institute of Technology. However, the clearly “European” newcomer can’t help but draw unwelcome attention, particularly from Keiichi’s macho, petrolhead fellow students and creepy lecturer Dr. Ozawa. The lifelong rival of Morisato’s favourite teacher “Doc” Kakuta is suspicious when all his students switch to the classes Belldandy audits and he commences a covert campaign to get rid of her…

College is a series of crucial interconnections and – other than Belldandy – Morisato is inexplicably closest to his colleagues in the Nekomi Institute of Technology Motor Club: a gang of overbearing, exploitative, bullying gearhead maniacs who gleefully spend his money, eat his food and get him into trouble. However, the earthbound divinity/clingy girlfriend’s hardwired role is to aid those in need and whenever she detects a problem she addresses it, dragging her poor partner along for the ride…

More trouble materialises as campus queen Sayoko Mishima realises the lovely new lass threatens her social supremacy and so the predatory Mean Girl sets her destructive sights and wealth on stealing Belldandy’s hapless chump of a “boyfriend”. The goddess is fully aware of the interloper’s mystical bad mojo and takes kind, gentle but firm retaliatory action when necessary. Sadly, Sayoko is determined, inspired and relentless.

With chaos following him everywhere, increased angst occurs after Morisato finally finds the nerve to move beyond the painfully platonic life sentence he’s locked into. Of course, books like Going Steady for Dummies get him no closer to even kissing his goddess, and their first stab at an intimate dinner date is a disaster. It’s further compounded when constant financial shortfalls force him to accept his little sister Megumi into his secrets and inner circle. Miss Morisato is a gossip spreader and imaginative tale teller. What family furore she will make of him living with a gorgeous exotic foreigner cannot be imagined. She causes chaos from the start: bearing enough cash to tide them over – but only if Keiichi boards her for a week while she takes some important entrance exams. There’s no way the kid won’t expose Belldandy’s supernatural nature to the world, but what big brother should have fretted over was the actual tests, as Megumi aces her exams and is admitted to Nekomi Tech, right beside him… and his goddess.

This second volume gathers Chapters 10-16 where, having adapted to being inextricably linked to a naïve, beautiful goddess, you’d think life would settle down for our socially inadequate misfit student. However,  things keep getting more complicated for Keiichi. His college society are determined to prove them their dominance: swiping his cash and getting him into trouble. In ‘An Honest Match’ they arbitrarily settle his money woes by signing him up to an art class: one run by scheming Sayoko, who seeks to crush his spirit by making him and Belldandy nude models, exposed to everyone’s judging gaze. The goddess has other ideas…

The impossible romance of that first kiss edges closer to reality on a gentle day out together in ‘This Life is Wonderful’ before manic mundanity returns in ‘Love is the Prize’ as the Nekomi cycle club pressgang Morisato into competing in a dangerous race with rivals of the Ushikubo University Motorcycle Club – with Belldandy as an unofficial prize! – before events precipitate a ‘System Force Down’ on a 4-day Nekomi beach retreat as Belldandy’s powers run amok. Unbeknownst to her, the fault has been divinely manufactured by her wayward, oft-demoted, even more powerful older sister Urd, who uses the crisis to visit Earth and scope out Morisato. Intrigued by what she finds the salacious, sex-obsessed  meddler makes him her pet project, but the scheme backfires and she too ends up stuck in the world of mortals with oh-so-lucky Keiichi in ‘Oh My Older Sister!’

Her bombastic nature erupts to the fore during the Nekomi Campus festival where Urd manipulates events and people to star a war to confirm ‘I’m the Campus Queen’, but she’s met her match in Sayoko, who participates in a cheesy beauty/talent contest and drags poor Belldandy unto the line of fire too. By the time the furore ends it’s the anniversary of Morisato’s careless wish and ‘What Belldandy Wants Most’ finds him – and her – in contemplative mood. Eager as always to advance the relationship he wants to get her a ring, but must first earn enough to buy one. The result is almost constant humiliation and many near-death experiences as he takes a number of jobs to fund the gift, but at least the reward is worth the effort…

To Be Continued…
This mainly monochrome compendium is peppered with brief full colour sections and – as is also traditional – the main story is augmented by mini features. Goddess Side Story ‘Oh My Manga Artist!’ offers 4-panel gag strips ‘The Shield’, ‘The Trap’ and ‘The Paper’, a selection of ‘Letters to the Enchantress’ from the US series’ original comic book incarnation and ‘Editor’s Commentary on Vol. 2’: another expansive collection of factoids detailing significant cultural clues that might bypass most readers.

Decades after it began Oh My Goddess! remains a beguiling, engaging and eminently re-readable confection, at once frothy fun and entrancing drama. Think of it as a Eastern take on Bewitched or I Dream of Genie, especially as the painfully awkward forbidden romance develops: one that both mortal and immortal protagonists are incapable of admitting to. Throw in the required supporting cast of friends, rivals, insaniacs, petrol-heads, weird teachers and interfering entities, and there’s almost too much light-hearted fun to be found in this bright and breezy manga classic.
© 2006 by Kosuke Fujishima. All rights reserved. This English language edition © 2006 Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

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Conan Epic Collection volume 5: Of Once and Future Kings (1976-1977)


By Roy Thomas & John Buscema, with John Jakes, Len Wein, Skip Kirkland, Ralph Macchio, Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom, Val Mayerik, Vicente Alcázar, Howard Bender, Marshall Rogers, Neal Adams, Tim Conrad & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 1-84576- (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In the 1970’s, America’s comic book industry opened up after more than 15 years of calcified publishing practises promulgated by the censorious, self-inflicted Comics Code Authority: a self-imposed oversight organisation created to police product after the industry suffered its very own McCarthy-style 1950s witch-hunt. The first genre revisited during the literary liberation was Horror/Mystery, and from those changes sprang migrated pulp star Conan.

Sword & Sorcery stories had been undergoing a prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of softcover editions of Lord of the Rings in 1954 and, in the 1960s, revivals of the fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Fritz Lieber and others were making huge inroads into buying patterns across the world. The old masters had also been augmented by many modern writers. Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter and others kick-started their prose careers with contemporary versions of man against mage against monsters. The undisputed overlord of the genre was Robert E. Howard with his 1930s pulp masterpiece Conan of Cimmeria.

Gold Key had notionally opened the field in 1964 with cult hit Mighty Samson, followed by Harvey Comics’ ‘Clawfang the Barbarian’ (1966’s Thrill-O-Rama #2). Both steely warriors dwelt in post-apocalyptic techno-wildernesses, but in 1969 DC dabbled with previously code-proscribed mysticism as Nightmaster came (and went) in Showcase #82-84, following the example of CCA-exempt Warren anthologies Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Marvel tested the waters with barbarian villain/Conan prototype Arkon the Magnificent in Avengers #76 (April 1970) – the same month they went all-out with short supernatural thriller ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ in their own watered-down horror anthology Chamber of Darkness #4.

Written by Roy Thomas and drawn by fresh-faced Barry Smith (a recent Marvel find just breaking free of the company’s still-prevalent, nigh-compulsory Kirby house style) the tale introduced Starr the Slayer… who also bore no small resemblance to our Barbarian-in-waiting…

Conan the Barbarian debuted with an October 1970 cover-date and despite early teething problems (including being cancelled and reinstated in the same month) these strip adventures of Howard’s primal hero were as big a success as the prose yarns they adapted. Conan became a huge hit: a blockbuster brand that prompted new prose tales, movies, TV series, cartoon shows, a newspaper strip and all the other paraphernalia of global superstardom.

However, times changed, sales declined and in 2003 the property moved to another comics publisher. Then in 2019 the brawny brute returned to the aegis of Marvel.

Their first bite of the cherry was retroactively subtitled “the Original Marvel Years” due to the character’s sojourn with Dark Horse Comics and other intellectual rights holders, and this fifth compendium spans cover-dates March 1976 to February 1977. It reprints Conan the Barbarian #60-71, Conan Annual #2-3 plus material from Power Records #31, F.O.O.M. #14 and elsewhere, highlighting a period when the burly brute was very much the darling of the comics crowd, and when artist John Buscema made the hero his very own.

Adaptor Thomas had resolved to follow the character’s narrative timeline as laid out by Howard and successors like L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, expanded and padded out with other adaptions of REH and his contemporaries and – almost as a last resort – all-new adventures. Thus, content was evermore redolent of pulp-oriented episodic action rather than traditional fantasy fiction. As usual, firstly hurtle back in time approximately 12,000 years to a forgotten age of wonders, and follow the now traditional map of ‘The Hyborean Age of Conan’ plus accompanying mandatory establishing quote.

Maybe we’d best pause a moment and say something necessary. Many of the trappings and themes of Sword & Sorcery stories – especially those from the 1970s & 1980s adapting even earlier tales when racism, sexism and the presumed superiority of white males was a given – are not as comfortable – or unchallenged – for modern readers as they were for my generation or its forebears. Many elements here, for all their artistic and narrative excellence, will be hard to swallow for a lot of younger readers.

At least I hope so…

If barely-clad women casually traded as prizes and trophies and brown people waving spears and wearing feathers are a trigger, please don’t read these tales. I’m not making apologies when I say Thomas and his collaborators were actively working to subvert the established paradigm even then, or that these stories are powerful, thrilling and of evolving cultural significance, but, until so very recently, this kind of epic was a diminishing force with dwindling power to supress or denigrate ethnicities and minorities.

Now, with ugly race supremacism, resurgent sexism, and all forms of “othering” on the rise once more, I get the need to call out or shout down things that could warp young or weak minds. Don’t read these if you can’t. They are only comics, but it doesn’t take much to form and fix a bias, does it?

If you’re still with us, the hopefully harmless action nonsense resumes with a riotous romp from CtB #60 introducing ‘Riders of the River-Dragons!’ The Cimmerian wanderer continues as red-handed consort to pirate queen Bêlit, a Shemite orphan raised by a Kushite witch doctor and considered an avatar of his tribe’s death goddess…

Pulp novelette Queen of the Black Coast was originally published in the May 1934 Weird Tales, and obliquely told of Conan’s time as infamous pirate “Amra”: plundering the coasts of Kush (prehistoric Africa) beside his first great love. The brief but tragic tale of bold buccaneer Bêlit was a prose one-off, but Thomas expanded it over years into an epic comics storyline that ran to #100 of the monthly title.

It had all begun in  Conan The Barbarian #58, where Thomas, Buscema & Steve Gan debuted their Queen of the Black Coast! After the fugitive Cimmerian found safe harbour on an outward bound Argossean trading ship. The Northborn outlaw befriended entrepreneurial Captain Tito and settled into the mariner’s life. After visiting many fabulous ports and exotic wild places, Conan’s life changed when the ship encountered the most feared vessel afloat. Only Conan survived the assault of Kushite warriors, but as he prepared to die fighting, their white queen spared his life, and allowed Conan to earn his place by fighting any objectors before settling in as Bêlit’s prize…

As Thomas fleshed out the text tale, eventually Conan learned from shaman/mentor/guardian N’yaga how the warrior woman had remade herself. How a daughter of Asgalun’s king escaped murder by the Stygians who placed her uncle on the suddenly vacant throne, and how she grew up among barbarous tribesmen of the Silver Isles. Trained to best any man and after mastering supernal horrors, she destroyed a jealous chieftain, proving her in the eyes of the tribes an earthly daughter of Death Goddess Derketa: sworn to inflict bloody vengeance on Stygians and all who stand with them. Before long she had trained them as seafaring plunderers building a war chest to retake her throne: her, deadly, merciless devoutly loyal “black Corsairs”…

Conan also realises that he loves Bêlit beyond all else, even if she may not be wholly human…

Here the saga further expands in Thomas, Buscema & Gan’s opening shot where the pirate goddess is captured by crocodile-riding warriors as she visits a vassal coastal tribe, When the dragon riders come again, Conan, his shipmates and the river dwelling Watambis turn the tables on them, forcing captive raiders to lead them to their distant domain and hidden lord: a bestial godlike entity called “Amra”…

Ploughing through foetid forests, the rescue party is hard ‘On the Track of the She-Pirate!’ (#61), but Bêlit has already escaped, only to fall victim to a monstrous Moth creature. Her death is only prevented by the arrival of the brutal ‘Lord of the Lions!’ in #63, who takes a fancy to a woman who is the same colour he is…

In a barbed pastiche of ultimate white god Tarzan, Thomas, Buscema & Gan reveal how a red-haired noble child lost in jungles is reared by lions. On maturity, his physical might and domination of beasts makes him de facto ruler of terrorised local tribes surrounding the ruined lost city he calls home. Sadly, Amra’s fascination with Bêlit drives a previous captive paramour – chief’s daughter Makeda – to jealously retaliate by awakening demonic creatures asleep in the city’s bowels.

By the time Conan arrives to duel his rival and physical equal, the entire region is imperilled as the dead hunt the living and ‘Death Among the Ruins!’ leads to Amra’s defeat and the Cimmerian being hailed as a new Lord of Lions…

Deadlines were always a scourge at this time and #64 pauses the serial to reprint a colorised, toned down tale from mature readers magazine Savage Tales #5 (July 1974). Crafted by Thomas from a John Jakes plot, ‘The Secret of Skull River’ is illustrated Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom, detailing the Cimmerian’s mercenary’s battle against monster-making alchemists Anaximander and Sophos, prior to CtB #65’s ‘Fiends of the Feathered Serpent!’ (inked by the Tribe) returning to the shipboard romance in a canny adaptation of Howard’s The Thunder Rider. Here the Corsairs are driven by a Stygian fleet into uncharted waters, encountering the accursed remains of legendary black slave liberator Ahmaan the Merciless and the sorcerer who finally killed him. Tezcatlipoca is still there, trying to steal the dead man’s magic axe – which has already chosen Conan/Amra as its next host – when Ahmaan comes back to settle unfinished business, with the entire atoll paying the price of that clash…

Still inked by The Tribe, ‘Daggers and Death-Gods!’ brings the corsairs back to Argossean port city Messantia as Bêlit seeks to barter her plunder for Shemite currency to fund her counter-revolution. When shady fence Publio offers a big payout for a special job robbing a temple , it results in a mesmerising priest pitting the lovers against each other after seemingly awakening guardian death deities Derketa and Dagon, The pitiless duel is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Conan’s old sparring partner Red Sonja…

Although based on Robert E. Howard’s Russian war-woman Red Sonya of Rogatine (from 16th century-set thriller The Shadow of the Vulture with a smidgen of Dark Agnes de Chastillon thrown into the mix) the comic book Red Sonja is very much Thomas’ brainchild. She debuted in Conan the Barbarian #23 (in November 1973) and became an unattainable gadfly/lure for the Cimmerian before gaining her own series and creative stable. Thomas returned as scripter to set up a tumultuous extended team-up with Conan and Bêlit that began with CtB #67’s ‘Talons of the Man-Tiger!’ as the Pirate Queen suspiciously eyes her man’s “one that got away” – and who is also after the loot Pulbio wants so badly…

Sonja was commissioned by Karanthes, High Priest of the Ibis God, to secure a page torn from mystic grimoire the Iron-Bound Book of Skelos in demon-haunted Stygia. She’s barely aware of an unending war between ancient deities, or that old colleague and rival Conan of Cimmeria is similarly seeking the arcane artefact. Ignoring his offer to work together, the women set off singly after the artefact, and Conan meets old apprentice Tara of Hanumar, who begs him to rescue her husband Yusef from a castle dungeon guarded by were-panther. By the time he finds Bêlit, Sonja has ridden off with the prize and the lovers give chase…

Prose recap of Marvel Feature #7 ‘The Battle of the Barbarians!’ summarises the other side of the story – and for her exploits see The Adventures of Red Sonja vol. 1. Sonja clashes repeatedly with her rivals and defeats many beasts and terrors, believing she has the upper hand, but there’s more at stake than any doughty warrior might imagine as the players reconvene with Karanthes.

Attacked by a demon bat who steals the page, Sonja, Amra and Bêlit give chase until they discover a strange city in the wastelands. Pencilled & inked by Buscema, CtB #68’s ‘Of Once and Future Kings!’ sees the sorcery of a sinister mastermind bring King Kull and his armies out of the past to conquer Conan’s era in a spectacular crossover conclusion that sets the scene for future forays of the fantastic before the love story takes centre stage once more with ‘The Demon Out of the Deep!’ as Thomas, Val Mayerik & the Tribe adapt REH’s historical horror classic Out of the Deep with the Cimmerian sharing an exploit of his teen years when as a captive of the enemy Vanir tribe he witnessed a sea devil decimate a fishing village before killing the thing with own brawny arms, neatly segueing into a two-part thriller from Conan the Barbarian #70 & 71, freely adapted from Howard’s The Marchers of Valhalla and inked by returning embellisher Ernie Chan.

In ‘The City in the Storm!’ a mighty storm drives the pirates far from recognisable shores and the corsairs’ iron discipline begins the fracture as they reach a welcoming island adorned with a fabulous walled metropolis of gold. With N’Yaga injured the crew head for shore and find glorious women serving a population of near-bestial sub-men. After an inconclusive battle, serving maid Aluna and her priestly master Akkheba negotiate a deal for the corsairs to defend the city – Kelka – from rival Barachan pirates, but there’s double dealing in the contract and soon the Kushites and their queen are captives awaiting sacrifice…

However as Conan discovers in ‘The Secret of Ashtoreth!’, the immortal captive the Kelkans worship and abuse in equal measure is no patron but vengeful victim who only needs a little aid to end their treacherous depredations forever…

The volume pauses Belit’s romance here to conclude with a selection of out-chronology oddments, beginning with 1976’s Conan the Barbarian Annual  #2. Opening with graphic reprise ‘Conan the Cimmerian’ by Thomas, Buscema & Yong Montano, the main event is a much abridged adaptation of ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’ by Thomas, Vicente Alcázar & Yong Montano, as aging King Conan faces sedition, rebellion and usurpation as he rules mighty empire Aquilonia. The thriller is backed up by The Hyborian Page text feature detailing the convoluted path of Howard’s original tale.

One year later, Conan the Barbarian Annual 3 reprinted some of Savage Sword of Conan #3 (December 1974) in a colourised, bowdlerised family friendly form, preceded by framing sequence ‘Conan the Barbarian and King Kull!’. Thomas, Buscema & Pablo Marcos placed General Conan of Khoraja ‘At the Mountain of the Moon-God’ and ‘Where Dark Death Soars’ to foil a scheme to replace the new King Khossus with a puppet of King Strabonus of Koth…

With covers by Gil Kane, John Romita, Rich Buckler, Vince Colletta, Mike Esposito, Dan Adkins, Marcos, Chan, Buscema, Adams & Crusty Bunkers, the regular comics fare is augmented by rare treats, beginning with a genuine rarity. Power Records #31: Conan the Barbarian was part of line of vinyl records packaged with comic adventures. Other titles included Batman, Planet of the Apes and many more, but here – scripted by Len Wein & J.M. DeMatteis and illustrated by Buscema, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano and friends – ‘The Crawler in the Mists!’ offers an old fashioned monster & misjudgement parable as Conan faces the uncanny and comes away far wiser…

House fan mag F.O.O.M. #14 (June 1976) was an all barbarian special and from it liberally-illustrated features ‘The Barbarian and the Bullpen!’, ‘Thomas Speaks!’, ‘Robert E. Howard: The Man Who Created Conan!’, ‘Conan Checklist’, ‘A Marvel Artistic Double-Treat’ and ‘Marvel Writer/Artist Scorecard’ reveal all things Hyborian. Then Conan ‘Marvel Value Stamp’, assorted house ads and pages from Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar (April 1976 by Gil Kane & Tony Isabella) reflect the comics popularity, and a Power Comics Conan promo and sleeve art by Adams leads to incisive article ‘The (Almost) Forgotten Tales of Conan’ by Fred Blosser from SSoC #40, a Romita pencil sketch and original art by Buscema & Gan, many pages of layouts, Tim Conrad pin-up and artwork from 1976’s Marvel Comics Index #2, painted by Conrad.

Stirring, evocative, cathartic and thrilling for all their modern faults and failings, these yarns are deeply satisfying on a primal level, and this is one of the best volumes in a superb series starring a paragon and icon of adventure heroes. This is classic pulp/comic action in all its unashamed exuberance: an honestly guilty pleasure for old time fans and newbies of all persuasion. What more does any red-blooded, action-starved fan need to know?
Conan the Barbarian Published Monthly by MARVEL WORLDWIDE Inc, a subsidiary of MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT, LLC. © 2022 Conan Properties International, LLC (“CPI”).

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How to Be Happy


By Eleanor Davis (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-740-6 (HB/Digital edition)

Do acts of creation make one happy? They certainly do for me, but sometimes so do acts of wanton destruction. I’m sharing, not judging. With all the emotional pressure that builds at this time of year, let’s revisit a beautiful and beguiling picture treat intended to reinvigorate a little perspective and say “it’s not all bad”…

Eleanor Davis is one of those rare sparks that just can’t help making great comics. Born in 1983, and growing up in Tucson, Arizona, she was blessed with parents who reared her on classic strips like Little Nemo, Little Lulu and Krazy Kat. Following unconventional schooling and teen years spent making minicomics, she studied at Georgia’s wonderful Savannah College of Art and Design, and went on to teach there. Her innovative works have appeared in diverse places such as Mome, Nobrow and Lucky Peach.

A life of glittering prizes began after her award-winning easy reader book Stinky was released in 2008. Davis followed up with gems such as Flop to the Top, The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook (with husband Drew Weing), You & a Bike & a Road and Why Art? and has become a celebrated star of the international comics scene.

Way back in 2014, Fantagraphics released a themed collection of her epigrammatic tales, crafted in a mesmerising variety of styles and riffing on the concept of joy and contentment: causes, failings, and what to do with them when and if they happen. These are enigmatic variations on the most ephemeral of emotions and one you only really notice when it’s gone, but the individual episodes here are truly joyous to share.

How to Be Happy is NOT a self-help book – at least not in any traditional sense – but it did make me feel very good when I first read it and only increases my sense of fulfilment every time I pick it up, whether in its comforting. reassuring hardback edition or my ever-present anxiety-reducing digital edition…

These observational vignettes were created for the sheer innocent joy of making them, and diligently examine many aspects of life through self-contained yarns ranging from cautionary tales to excoriating self-diagnosis to flights of sardonic fancy. Some are titled like proper narratives whilst others just happen like life does. Those I’ve identified by first lines if no title is obvious…

Packed with evocative, stand-alone imagery, the episodes commence with line art pictorial pep talk ‘Write a Story’ before switching to lush colour for ‘In Our Eden’, wherein a primitive life of pastoral toil starts to grate on Adam and Eve. They are, unsurprisingly, not all they seem…

Further monochrome line art interventionism manifests in ‘First We Take Off Our Clothes’ after which a short hop into full-colour and a longer one into a fraught future examines family life on Tomorrow’s sub-continent when ‘Nita Goes Home’…

Separation and rural isolation underpin monochrome monologue ‘We Come Down on Clear Days’ before the restricted colour palette of ‘Stick and String’ offers a good hard look at relationships and agency in the tale of a wandering minstrel and captivating power of momentary fascination. Relations are further tested in monochrome as ‘Darling I’ve Realized I Don’t Love You’ provides unwise solutions to ancient problems, before a truly disquieting incident of mutual grooming in ‘Snip’ segues into a chilling visit to ‘The Emotion Room’.

Colour is employed to potent effect in ‘He turned a grey-green and thought he might pass out’ whilst ‘Seven Sacks’ addresses grisly problems in a fresh fable Aesop or the Brothers Grimm would be proud to pen.

Two colours and self-delusion tinge ‘Did you want to see the statue?’, whilst B&W lines detail the rewards of heroic vitality in ‘Make Yourself Strong’, after which young love blossoms in living colour in ‘Summer Snakes’…

The pure exultation and imagination of childhood is exposed through stark monochrome in ‘Thomas the Leader’ before a brief vox-pop moment in ‘I used to be so unhappy but then I got on Prozac’ is built upon in further untitled moments of self-realisation before a strong admonition to ‘Pray’…

Observation, tribulation and revelation come to the author for ‘In 2006 I took a Greyhound from Georgia to Los Angeles’, before a descent into dark moments and extreme actions in ‘The fox must have been hit pretty recently…’ is balanced by intimate sharing in ‘The woman feels sadness’.

Colour adds depth in an extended moment of group therapy release in ‘No Tears, No Sorrow’ after which the wandering introspection of ‘9/26’ leads to a conclusion of sorts during a cab ride to ‘25 Washington Street, Please’…

A superb and sublime example of the range and versatility of image &text cannily combined, How to Be Happy a true joy for all fans of unbridled expression no one could fail to enjoy.
© Eleanor Davis 2014. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Young Love


By Robert Kanigher, Jack Miller, Phyllis Reed, Lee Goldsmith, Barbara Friedlander, Julius Schwartz, John Romita, Bernard Sachs, John Rosenberger, Werner Roth, Bill Draut, Mike Sekowsky, Tony Abruzzo, Arthur Peddy, Dick Giordano, Sal Trapani, Jay Scott Pike, Gene Colan, John Giunta, Frank Giacoia & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3438-6 (TPB)

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

As the escapist popularity of flamboyant superheroes waned after World War II, newer genres such as Romance and Horror came to the fore and older forms regained their audiences. Some, like Westerns and “Funny Animal” comics, had hardly changed at all but Crime and Detective tales were utterly radicalised by the temperament of the times. Stark, uncompromising, cynically ironic novels and socially aware, if not actually culturally nihilistic, movies that would become categorised as Film Noir offered postwar society a bleakly antiheroic worldview that often hit too close to home and set fearful, repressive, middleclass parent groups and political ideologues howling for blood.

Naturally, these new artistic sensibilities seeped into comics, transforming two-fisted gumshoe and Thud-&-Blunder cop strips of yore into darkly beguiling, even frightening tales of seductive dames, big payoffs and glamorous, sympathetically portrayed thugs and brutes. Sensing imminent Armageddon, America’s moral junkyard dogs bayed ever louder as they imagined their precious children’s minds under seditious attack…

Concurrent to the demise of masked mystery-men, industry giants and inveterate pioneers Joe Simon & Jack Kirby famously invented the love genre for comic books, crafting tastefully adult-oriented, beguiling, explosively contemporary social dramas equally focussed on the changing cultural scene and grown up relationships. However, even they began cautiously, with semi-comedic prototype My Date in early 1947 before plunging into the torrid real deal with Young Romance #1 in September of that year.

Not since the invention of Superman has a single comic book generated such a frantic rush of imitation and flagrant cashing-in. It was a monumental hit and the team quickly expanded: releasing spin-offs such as Young Love (February 1949), Young Brides and In Love. Simon & Kirby presaged and ushered-in the first American age of adult comics – not only with their creation of the Romance genre, but with challenging modern stories of real people in extraordinary situations. Sadly, they also saw it all disappear again in less than eight years. Produced for a loose association of companies known as Prize/Crestwood/Pines, their small stable of magazines blossomed and wilted as the industry contracted throughout the 1950s.

All through that turbulent period, comic books suffered impossibly biased oversight and hostile scrutiny from hidebound and panicked old guard institutions such as church groups, media outlets and ambitious opportunistic politicians. A number of tales and titles were cherry-picked and garnered especial notoriety from those social doomsmiths, whilst hopeful celebration and eager anticipation amongst tragic, forward-thinking (if psychologically scarred comics-collecting) victims was quashed when the industry instigated a ferocious Comics Code castrating the creative form just when it most needed boldness and imagination.

We lost and comics endured more than a decade and a half of savagely doctrinaire, self-imposed censorship. Those tales from a simpler, more paranoid time (much like right now), exposed a society in meltdown and suffering cultural PTSD, but are mild by modern standards of behaviour, and the sheer quality of art and writing make those pivotal years a creative highpoint long overdue for a thorough reassessment.

The first Young Love ran for 73 issues (1949-1956) before folding and being relaunched in a far more anodyne, CCA-approved form as All For Love in Spring 1957. Unable to find an iota of its previous and hoped-for audience, it disappeared after 17 issues in March 1959 before resurrecting as Young Love a year later. Starting with #18, the title ran steadily but unremarkably until June 1963 when the experiment and company died with #38. Crestwood sold its remaining landmark, groundbreaking titles and properties – Young Romance, Young Love and Black Magic being the most notable – to National/DC before fading from sight. The new editors released their first edition in the autumn of 1963 as part of their own small, shy, unassuming romance ring: carrying on with it and similar titles targeting teenaged girls (for which, read aspirational, imaginative 8-12 year-olds) for the next 15 years.

In the 1970s a sharp decline in all comic book sales finally killed the genre off. Young Love was one of the last; ending at #126 (cover-date July 1977). This monumental monochrome miscellany gathers DC’s first 18 issues (#39-56) spanning September/October 1963 – July/ August 1966) but, although beautiful to look upon, it is sadly plagued with twin tragedies.

The first is that the stories soon become fearfully formulaic – although flashes of narrative brilliance do crop up with reassuring regularity – whilst the second is an painfully inaccurate listing of creator credits. Many fans have commented and suggested corrections online, and I’m adding my own surmises and deductions about artists whenever I’m reasonably sure, but other than the unmistakable, declamatorily florid flavour of Robert Kanigher, none of us in fandom are that certain just who was responsible for scripting these amatory affairs. However, research continues and sources like Grand Comicbook Database, Lambiek and DC.fandom.com are continually amending history for us. Here, likely anonymous creative contenders include Dorothy Woolfolk, George Kashdan, E. Nelson Bridwell and Morris Waldinger, but I’m afraid we may never really know.

C’est l’amour… et la vie

On these anthological pages, the heartbreak and tears begin with the introduction of a soap-opera serial undoubtedly inspired by romantic antics of television physicians such as Dr. Kildare (1961-1966) and Ben Casey (1962-1966). Written in an uncomfortably macho “me Dr. Tarzan, you Nurse Jane” style by Kanigher and illustrated with staggering beauty by John Romita, ‘The Private Diary of Mary Robin R.N.’ follows the painful journey and regularly recurring heartache of a nurse dedicated to her patients, all whilst fighting her inbuilt need to “settle down” with the man of her dreams, whoever he may be.

It’s usually a big-headed, know-it-all medic with no time to waste on settling anything or anywhere…

The serial opened with 2-part novelette ‘No Cure for Love’, in which a newly-qualified Registered Nurse starts her career in the OR at County General Hospital, instantly arousing the ire of surly surgeon Will Ames whose apparent nastiness is only a mask for his moody man-concern over his poor benighted patients – but never their billables…

However, even as he romances Mary and she dares to dream, the good doctor soon proves that medicine will always be his first and only Love.

I’m not sure of the inker but the pencils on stand-alone back-up ‘You’ve Always Been Nice!’ look like Werner Roth in a novel yarn of modern Texans in love that pretty much sets the tone for the title: Modern Miss gets enamoured of the wrong guy or flashy newcomer until the quiet one who waited for her finally gets motivated. ‘The Eve of His Wedding’ – by Bernard Sachs – goes with the other favourite option: a smug, flashy girl who loses out to the quiet potentially Trad-wife heroine waiting patiently for true love to lead her man back to her…

In #40, Kanigher & Romita ask Mary Robin ‘Which Way, My Heart?’ and she answers by letting Dr. Ames walk all over her before transferring to Paediatrics. She still found time to fall in love with a thankfully adult patient – but only until he got better… Filling out the issue are ‘Someone to Remember’ (illustrated by Bill Draut) which sees sensible Judy utterly transform herself into a sophisticated floozy for a boy who actually prefers the old her, and ‘The Power of Love’ (incorrectly attributed to Don Heck but perhaps Morris Waldinger or John Rosenberger heavily inked by Sachs?) wherein Linda competes with her own sister over new boy Bill.

Although retaining the cover spot, the medical drama was relegated to the end of the comic from #41 on, and complete stories led, starting on ‘End With A Kiss’ (Mike Sekowsky & Sachs), wherein calculating Anna almost marries wrong guy Steve, until good old Neil puts his foot down, whilst for a girl who dates two men at the same time, ‘Heartbreak Came Twice!’ – a tale that was almost a tragedy. Mary Robin then cries – she cried a lot – ‘No Tomorrow for My Heart!’ as Will Ames continues calling when he feels like it as she somehow finds herself competing with best friend Tess for both him and a hunky patient in their care. Mary even briefly quits her job for this man of her dreams…

The always superb John Rosenberger inking himself – mistakenly credited throughout to Jay Scott Pike – opens #42 with ‘Boys are Fools!’ wherein young Phyllis is temporarily eclipsed by her cynical, worldly older sister Jayne; until a decent man shows them the error of their ways. Vile Marty then uses unwitting Linda as a pawn in a battle of romantic rivals for ‘A Deal with Love!’ (Rosenberger or maybe Win Mortimer & Sachs?). I don’t have any corroborating proof, but a custom of the era was for artists to trade pages or anonymously collaborate on some stories; making visual identification a real expert’s game…

With a ‘Fearful Heart!’, Mary Robin closes up the issue by accidentally stealing the love of a blinded patient nursed by her plain associate. When the hunk’s sight returned, he just naturally assumes the pretty one was his devoted carer…

Young Love #43 opened with the excellent ‘Remember Yesterday’ (Tony Abruzzo & Sachs) in which Gloria relives her jilting by fiancé Grant before embarking on a journey of self-discovery and finding her way back to love. Then the Sekowsky/Sachs influenced ‘A Day Like Any Other’ and ‘Before it’s Too Late’ disclose the difficulties of being a working woman and temptations of being left at home all alone…

After that, Kanigher & Romita end the affairs by sharing the childhood days of Mary Robin and just why she turned to nursing when her childhood sweetheart becomes her latest patient in ‘Shadow of Love!’ YL #44 declares ‘It’s You I Love!’ (Abruzzo & Frank Giacoia) as wilful Chris foolishly sets her cap for the college’s biggest hunk, whilst in ‘Unattainable’ Lorna learns she just isn’t that special to playboy Gary before Mary Robin endures ‘Double Heartbreak!’ when her own sister Naomi sweeps in and swoops off with on-again, off-again Dr. Ames.

Sekowsky & Sachs opened #45 with ‘As Long as a Lifetime!’ wherein poor April finds herself torn between and tearing apart best friends Tommy and Jamie, whilst ‘Laugh Today, Weep Tomorrow!’ (Phyllis Reed & Abruzo) has tragic Janet see her best friend Margot‘s seductive allure steal away another man she might have loved. ‘One Kiss for Always’ then shows Mary Robin as the patient after a bus crash costs her the use of her legs. During her battle back to health, and loss of the only man she might be happy with, the melodrama finally achieves the heights it always aspired to in a tale of genuine depth and passion.

Reed & Rosenberger lead in #46 as Maria and Mark conspire together to win back their respective intendeds and discover exactly ‘Where Love Belongs’, after which Mortimer reveals ‘It’s All Over Now’ (Reed & Arthur Peddy) for Merrill who only gets Cliff because Addie went away to finishing school. But then she came back…

This surprisingly mature and sophisticated fable is followed by Kanigher & Romita’s ‘Veil of Silence!’ in which Nurse Robin takes her duties to extraordinary lengths: allowing a patient to take her latest boyfriend in order to aid her full recovery…

YL #47’s ‘Merry Christmas’ (Rosenberger) shows astonishing seasonal spirit as Thea cautiously welcomes back sister Laurie – and gives her a second chance to steal her husband – after which secretary Vicky eavesdrops on her boss and boyfriend: almost finishing her marriage before it begins in ‘Every Beat of his Heart!’ (Reed & Peddy). Mary Robin’s ‘Cry for Love’ starts in another pointless fling with gadabout Ames and ends with her almost stealing another nurse’s man in a disappointingly shallow but action-packed effort, after which – in #48 – ‘Call it a Day’ (Lee Goldsmith & Peddy) finds an entire clan of women united to secure a man for little Alice, before Rosenberger limns ‘Trust Him!’ wherein bitter sister Marta‘s harsh advice to love-sick sibling Jill is happily ignored. Kanigher & Romita then explore Mary Robin’s ‘Two-Sided Heart!’ after Ames again refuses to consider moving beyond their casually intimate relationship. Of course, that shouldn’t excuse what she then does with the gorgeous amnesia patient who has a grieving girlfriend…

Young Love #49 led with Jack Miller & Rosenberger’s ‘Give Me Something to Remember You By!’, with Marge praying her latest summer romance turns into a something more. Waiting is a torment but ‘Your Man is Mine!’ (Goldsmith &Roth) shows what’s worse when sisters clash and Clea again tries taking what Pat has: a fiancé…

‘Someone… Hear my Heart!’ then unselfconsciously dips into the world of TV as Mary Robin dumps Dr. Ames for an actor and new career on a medical show. It doesn’t end well and she’s soon back where she belongs with bedpans and the man who can’t or won’t appreciate her…

Roth – or maybe Sekowsky & Jay Scott Pike – open #50 with ‘Second Hand Love’ as Debbie dreads that the return of vivacious Vicky will lead to her taking back the man she left behind, whilst ‘Come into My Arms!’ (Reed & Frank Bolle) sees Mary Grant visit Paris in search of one man, only to fall for another. Mary Robin then finds herself pulled in many directions as she falls for another doctor and one more hunky patient before yet again rededicating herself to professional care over ‘The Love I Never Held!’ She jumps back to the front in #51, discovering  ‘All Men are Children!’ (still Kanigher & Romita) when an unruly shut-in vindictively uses her to make another nurse jealous, after which Miller & Rosenberger delivers a stunning turn with ‘Afraid of Love!’ Here, after years of obsessive yearning, Lois finally goes for it with the man of her dreams. Romita then a took a turn at an stand-alone solo story, limning Miller’s ‘No Easy Lessons in Love’ wherein Gwen and Peter separately travel the world and make many mistakes before finally finding each other again.

The nurse finally got her man – and her marching orders – in #52’s ‘Don’t Let it Stop!’, but dashing intern Dan Swift only makes his move on Mary after being hypnotised! Hopefully, she lived happily ever after because, despite being advertised for the next issue, she didn’t appear again…

The abrupt departure was followed by vintage reprint ‘Wonder Women of History: Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch’ (by Julius Schwartz & John Giunta from Wonder Woman #55, September/October 1952), detailing the life of a crusading social campaigner before Roth & Sachs detail how a flighty girl stops chasing husky lifeguards and finds a faithful adoring ‘Young Man for Me!’ ‘The Day I Looked Like This!’ (by Dick Giordano & Sal Trapani) celebrates the day tomboy Judi finally starts gussying up like a proper girl and unhappily discovers she is the spitting image of a hot starlet…

Sporting a design makeover, Young Love #53 opens with ‘A Heart Full of Pride!’ (Abruzzo & Romita) as naïve Mib proves to herself that – just like in school – determination and perseverance pay off in romance, before Miller & Peddy show how standoffish Cynthia learns how she needs to play the field to win her man in ‘I Wanted My Share of Love’.

Miller & Romita describe the designs of Kathy, who discovers the pitfalls of her frivolous lifestyle in ‘Everybody Likes Me… but Nobody Loves Me!’ before Draut illustrates Miller’s lead feature for YL #54 as ‘False Love!’ exposes a case of painfully mistaken intentions when a gang of kids all go out with the wrong partners… until bold Nan finally speaks her mind.

Reed, Abruzzo & Sachs’ ‘Love Against Time’ shows schoolteacher Lisa that patience isn’t everything, after which ‘Too Much in Love!’(Miller & Romita) hints at a truly abusive relationship until Mandy‘s rival tells her just why beloved Van acts that way…

‘An Empty Heart!’ (Reed & Peddy) opens #55, revealing how insecure Mindy needs to date other boys just to be sure she can wait for beloved Sam to come back from the army, whilst in ‘Heart-Shy’ (Reed, Jay Scott Pike & Sachs) oblivious Della takes took her own sweet time realising self-effacing Lon is the boy for her, after which Pike limns Miller’s tale of Janie who finally defies her snobbish, controlling mother and picks ‘Someone of My Own to Love’.

The romance dance concludes here with #56 and ‘A Visit to a Lost Love’ (Miller & Gene Colan): a bittersweet winter’s tale of paradise lost and regained, after which perpetually fighting Richy and Cindy realise ‘Believe it or Not… It’s Love’ (Barbara Friedlander, Abruzzo & Sachs), and ‘I’ll Make Him Love Me!’ (Miller & Sachs) show how scary Liz stalks Perry until she falls for her destined soul-mate Bud…

As I’ve stated, the listed credits are full of errors and whilst I’ve corrected those I know to be wrong I’ve also made a few guesses which might be just as wild and egregious (I’m still not unconvinced that many tales were simply rendered by a committee of artists working in desperate jam-sessions), so I can only apologise to all those it concerns, as well as fans who thrive on these details for the less-than-satisfactory job of celebrating the dedicated creators who worked on these all-but-forgotten items.

As for the tales themselves: they’re dated, outlandish and frequently offensive in their treatment of women. So were the times in which they were created, but that’s no excuse.

However, there are many moments of true narrative brilliance to equal the astonishing quality of the artwork here, and by the end of this titanic torrid tome the tone of the turbulent times was definitely beginning to shift as the Swinging part of the Sixties began and hippies, free love, flower power and female emancipation began scaring the pants off the old guard and reactionary traditionalists.

Not for wimps or sissies but certainly an unmissable temptation for all traditionalist romantics and lovers of great comic art…
© 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Teen Angst: A Treasury of ’50’s Romance


By Everett Raymond Kinstler, Matt Baker & various, compiled and edited by Tom Mason (Malibu Graphics)
ISBN: 978-0944735350 (TPB)

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

Ever felt in the mood for a really trashy read? These tacky tales of love from another age are a deliciously forbidden and oh, so very guilty pleasure – if only for the gonzo appeal of a ghastly bygone age and some of the most potently compelling art in US comics history.

There’s no real literary justification for today’s featured item, and I’m not even particularly inclined to defend some of material within on historical grounds either. Not that there isn’t an undeniable and direct link between these exceedingly engaging assignations and affairs and today’s funnybook market of age-&-maturity-sensitive cartoons. If and when taken on their own terms, these stories have a certain naively beguiling quality, like watching old B-movies. You know just when to go “Hey! Wait a minute, now…”

The story of how Max Gaines turned freebie pamphlets containing reprinted newspaper strips into a discrete and saleable commodity thereby launching an entire industry, if not art-form, has been told far better elsewhere, but I suspect that without a ready public acceptance of serialised sequential narrative via occasional book collections of the most lauded strips and these saucy little interludes in the all-pervasive but predominantly prose pulps, the fledgling comic book companies would never have found their rabid customer-base quite so readily.

This cheap ‘n’ cheerful monochrome compilation, coyly contained behind a cracking Madman cover, opens with a brace of fascinatingly informative essays from Tom Mason whose ‘Bad Girls Need Love Too’ provides historical context before Jim Korkis covers the highpoints of the genre in ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’: providing background for some (but sadly not all) of the mostly uncredited star turns revisited here.

Creative credit for most of these torrid tales is sadly lacking, but the unmistakable fine line feathering of Everett Raymond Kinstler definitely starts the ball rolling with a selection of his exotic frontispieces from Realistic Romances #2 and Romantic Love #7 (both from September-October 1951) and Realistic Romances #4, February 1952 before segueing into the equally stirring saga ‘Our Love was Battle-Scarred!’ (Realistic Romances #8, November 1952) – a tear-jerking tale of ardour amidst the air raids, whilst ‘Jinx Girl’ (Realistic Romances #7, August 1952 and possibly drawn by John Rosenberger) follows an unlucky lassie’s traumatic tribulations …until her man makes her complete and happy…

From that same issue comes ‘Triumphant Kisses’, a cautionary tale of a small town spitfire who would do (almost) anything to get into showbiz whilst ‘Dangerous Woman!’ (Romantic Love #7) proffers a parable of greed and desire from the magnificent Matt Baker. That gem-stuffed issue also provided the scandalous ‘I Craved Excitement!’ whilst Realistic Romances #6 (June 1952) exposed the shocking truth about the ‘Girl on Parole’ (Kinstler). There’s a lighter tone to ‘Kissless Honeymoon’ (Realistic Romances #2) before Baker excels again with youth oriented sagas ‘I Was a Love Gypsy’ and ‘Fast Company’ (Teen-Age Romances #20, February 1952 and Teen-Age Temptations #9, July 1953 respectively).

Somebody signing themselves “Astarita” drew the brooding ‘Fatal Romance!’ (Realistic Romances #2) whilst the (Korean) war reared its opportunistic head again in ‘Lovelife of an Army Nurse’ (Baker art from Wartime Romances #1 July 1952), after which ‘Make-Believe Marriage’ from the same issue examined the aftermath on the home front.

‘Thrill Hungry’ (Realistic Romances #6) proved it was never too late to change, ‘His Heart on My Sleeve’ (Teen-Age Temptations #5) displayed the value of forgiveness even as ‘Deadly Triangle’ (Realistic Romances #2) warned of the danger of falling for the wrong guy…

‘Notorious Woman’ (Teen-Age Temptations #5) continued the cautionary tone whilst ‘Borrowed Love’ (Realistic Romances #2) and ‘Confessions of a Farm Girl’ (Teen-Age Romances #20) conclude graphic revelations in fine style and with happy endings all around.

These old titles were packed with entertainment so as well as a plethora of “mature” (sic) ads from the era, the tome also contains a selection of typical prose novelettes – ‘I Had to be Tamed’, ‘Reckless Pasttime’ and ‘The Love I Couldn’t Hide’ – which originally graced Teen-Age Romances #20 and 22.

Hard to find, difficult to justify and certainly increasingly harder to accept from our sexually complacent viewpoint here and now, these tales and their hugely successful ilk exploding out of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby’s creation of the Romance comics in 1947 were inarguably a vital stepping stone to our modern industry and possible even society. There is a serious lesson here about acknowledging the ability of comics to appeal to older readers from a time when all the experts would have the public believe comics were made by conmen and shysters for kiddies, morons and slackers.

Certainly there are also many cheap laughs and guilty gratifications to be found in these undeniably effective little tales. This book and era it came from are worthy of far greater coverage than has been previously experienced and no true comics devotee can readily ignore this stuff.
© 1990 Malibu Graphics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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i love this part



By Tillie Walden (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-91039-532-5(HB) 978-1-91039-517-2 (TPB)

It’s time to remind readers of another imminently impending St. Valentines’ Day. I’m stifling my usual curmudgeonly attitudes for a while and re-recommending a book that’s solidly on the side of being in love, but not so disingenuous as to assure you that it’s all hearts and flowers…

Sweet but never cloying or calorific, i love this part deliciously pictorializes the happy, introspective, contemplative and aspirational moments of two schoolgirls who have found each other. Shared dreams, idle conversations, disputes and landmark first steps, even fights and break-ups are seen, weathered and sorted. Novelty, timidity, apprehension, societal pressure and even some unnecessary shame come into it, but generally this is just how young people learn to love and what that inevitably entails. Somehow the trappings shift all the time but clearly nothing really changes…

Apart from the astoundingly graceful and inviting honesty of the tale, the most engaging factor is author Tillie Walden’s brilliantly cavalier dismissal of visual reality. These interactions are all backdropped by wild changes in dimension and perspective, abrupt shifts in location and landscape and shots of empty spaces all adding a sense of distance and whimsy to very familiar proceedings.

Walden is a great admirer of Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo so fellow afficionados will feel at home even if neophytes might experience the odd sensation of disorientation and trepidation. Like being in love, I suppose…

Gloriously celebrating not just the relationships but also in the sheer joy of drawing what you feel, Walden is still a relative newcomer – albeit a prolific and immensely gifted one – who has garnered heaps of acclaim and awards. Whether through her fiction or autobiographical works (frequently combined in the same stories), she always engenders a feeling of absolute wonder, combined with a fresh incisive view and measured, compelling delivery in terms of both story and character. Her artwork is a sheer delight.

Before globally turning heads with such unforgettable, deeply personal tales as On a Sunbeam, A City Inside, Spinning, Mini Meditations on Creativity, and Are You Listening? she followed up on her Ignatz Award-winning debut graphic novel The End of Summer with this fluffy yet barbed coming-of-age tale, and has latterly expanded her oeuvre with gems including Alone in Space, My Parents Won’t Stop Talking and the Clementine series (three books and counting…). In 2023 she became Vermont’s youngest ever Cartoon Laureate, and will hold the post until 2026.

i love this part is charming, moving, sad, funny and lovely. You’d have to be bereft of vision and afflicted with a heart of stone to reject this comic masterpiece; available in hardback, softcover and digital formats: a romantic treat no one should miss.
© Tillie Walden 2016. All rights reserved.

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Mandrake the Magician: Fred Fredericks Dailies volume 1: The Return of Evil – The Cobra


By Lee Falk & Fred Fredericks (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-691-9 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

In this month of romantic anticipation and disillusionment, it’s worth remarking that every iconic hero of strips and comics has a dutiful, stalwart inamorata waiting ever so patiently in the wings for a moment to spoon and swoon. Here’s another beguiling outing starring one of the earliest and most resolute…

Regarded by many as comics’ first superhero, Mandrake the Magician debuted as a daily newspaper strip on 11th June 1934 – although creator Lee Falk had sold the strip almost a decade previously. Initially drawing it too, Falk replaced himself as soon as feasible, allowing the early wonderment to materialise through the effective understatement of sublime draughtsman Phil Davis. An instant hit, Mandrake was soon supplemented by a full-colour Sunday companion page from February 3rd 1935. Happy other Birthday, dapper tuxedo dude…

Whilst a 19-year old college student Falk had sold the strip to King Features Syndicate years earlier, but asked the monolithic company to let him finish his studies before dedicating himself to it full time. Schooling done, the 23-year-old born raconteur settled into his life’s work, entertaining millions with astounding tales. Falk also created the first costumed superhero – moodily magnificent generational manhunter The Phantom – whilst spawning an entire comic book subgenre with his first inspiration. Most Golden Age publishers boasted at least one (but usually many) nattily attired wizards in their gaudily-garbed pantheons: all roaming the world(s) making miracles and crushing injustice with varying degrees of stage legerdemain or actual sorcery. Characters such as Mr. Mystic, Ibis the Invincible, Sargon the Sorcerer, and an assortment of  “…the Magician” ’s like Zatara, Zanzibar, Kardak proliferated ad infinitum: all borrowing heavily and shamelessly from the uncanny exploits of the elegant, enigmatic man of mystery gracing the world’s newspapers and magazines.

In the Antipodes, Mandrake was a suave stalwart regular of Australian Women’s Weekly and became a cherished icon of adventure in the UK, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Turkey and across Scandinavia: a major star of page and screen, pervading every aspect of global consciousness.

Over the years he has been a star of radio, movie chapter-serials, a theatrical play, television and animation (as part of the cartoon series Defenders of the Earth). With that has come the usual merchandising bonanza of games, toys (including magic trick kits), books, comics and more…

Falk helmed Mandrake and The Phantom until his death in 1999 (even on his deathbed, he was laying out one last story), but also found some few quiet moments to become a renowned playwright, theatre producer and impresario, as well as an inveterate world-traveller. After drawing those the first few strips Falk united with sublimely polished cartoonist Phil Davis (March 4th 1906 -16th December 1964). His sleekly understated renditions took the daily strip, especially the expansive Sunday page to unparalleled heights of sophistication. Davis’ steadfast, assured realism was the perfect tool to render the Magician’s mounting catalogue of spectacular miracles. He rendered and realised Falk’s words until his death by heart attack…

Harold “Fred” Fredericks, Jr. (August 9th 1929 – March 10th 2015) took over – with strips starting in June 1965 – he was also handpicked by Falk who admired his work as both writer and/or illustrator on teen strip Rebel and family comic books such as Nancy, Boris Karloff, The Twilight Zone, The Munsters, Mister Ed, O.G. Whiz presents Tubby, Mighty Mouse, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, and Bullwinkle.

In later years tireless taleteller Fredericks became an inking mainstay at Marvel & DC on titles including New Titans, Catwoman, Robin, Punisher War Journal, Nth Man, Daredevil, Quasar, G.I. Joe and Defenders of the Earth.

Preceded by Roger Langridge’s essay ‘Fred Fredericks – An Appreciation’ and John Preddle’s appraisal ‘Mandrake: The Fred Fredericks Era’, the official changing of the artistic guard comes with a cheeky contemporary mystery…

However, firstly…

Mandrake was educated at the fabled College of Magic in Tibet, thereafter becoming a suave globetrotting troubleshooter, accompanied by his faithful African friend Lothar and eventually enchanting companion (and in 1997, bride) Princess Narda of Cockaigne. They co-operatively solve crimes, fight evil and find trouble and mystery apparently everywhere. Although the African Prince was a component from the start, Narda turned up fashionably late (in 1934) as victim/secret weapon in early escapade ‘The Hawk’ (see Mandrake the Magician: Dailies vol. 1 – The Cobra ): a distrait socialite forced to use her every wile to seduce and destroy the magician and Lothar. Thwarting each attack, Mandrake went after the monstrous stalker blackmailing Narda’s brother Prince Sigrid/Segrid and extorting her, decisively lowering the boom and liberating the embattled aristocrats. Bear all that in mind: it’s going to come in handy later…

Falk and Fredericks started as they meant to go on with ‘Odd Fellow’ (running from May 3rd to August 14th 1965) wherein a puckish little chap ruins a day of quiet contemplation for Narda before going on to peddle incredible inventions to greedy industrialists. By the time Mandrake gets involved, a lethal looking pursuer is hard on their heels and the mounting chaos is explained by the deduction that the jolly leprechaun is actually Roger the Rogue: a conman from the future with a deadly secret agenda but no idea who he’s messing with…

Following an interlude that introduces Mandrake’s palatial super citadel Xanadu, it’s back to basics for the next epic as the Princess goes to college to improve her mind and inadvertently uncovers and exposes a criminal gang embedded in world culture for hundreds of years. With echoes on modern conspiracy thriller 100 Bullets, ‘The Sign of 8’ (August 16th 1965 to February 6th 1966) arise from managed obscurity to discredit, hunt and destroy Narda with increasingly baroque and deadly assaults before falling to the counterattack of the Magician…

Growing contemporary fascination in the supernatural is addressed an capitalised upon in ‘The Witches’ (February 7th – May 28th) as criminal hypnotist Count Diablo and his all-women gang terrorise young heiress “Really” Riley , only to learn to their lasting regret what a master mesmerist can do to punish the wicked…

Another headline fuelled thriller, ‘The UFO’ May 30th – September 17th) sets the trio on the trail of aliens robbing banks with heat rays and escaping in flying saucers. Of course, it’s not long before Mandrake makes the connection between these uncanny events and missing military ordnance hot off the drawing board and takes steps to stop the plunderers from the stars…

In an era of super spies and covert cabals it wasn’t long before our heroes were back on ‘The Trail of the 8’ (September 19th 1966 – January 14th 1967) as Mandrake discovers evidence that the ancient order is still active. Teaming with good-guy agency Inter-Intel, the hunt makes Mandrake a target for repeated assassination attempts but ultimately leads to the organisation’s explosive demise. And yet the magician remains unconvinced…

This titanic tome terminates with a long-anticipated revival as ‘The Return of Evil – The Cobra’ (January 16th to June 3rd 1967) reveals how King Segrid of Cockaigne needs the help of his sister and her boyfriend after a sinister presence buys up tracts of the country and populace: using wealth, influence, chicanery, publicity stunts, blackmail and sheer dominating physical presence to rule the nation from behind the oval office throne. Thankfully, Mandrake and Lothar know just how to deal with the villain once he’s exposed as fatally flawed old foe The Cobra, and foil the fiend’s scheme to steal the nation from its legally-appointed ruler…

Supplemented here by a ‘Fred Fredericks – Biography’ before closing with ‘The Fred Fredericks Mandrake the Magician Complete Daily Checklist 1965-2013’, this thrilling tome offers exotic locales, thrilling action, fantastic fantasy, space age shocks, sinister spycraft, crafty criminality and spooky chills in equal measure. As always, the strip abounds with fantastic imagery from whenever “Mandrake gestures hypnotically” and drips with wry dialogue and bold action. Paramount taleteller Falk instinctively knew from the start that the secret of success was strong and – crucially – recurring villains and uncanny situations to test and challenge his heroes, making Mandrake the Magician an unmissable treat for every daily strip addict. These stories have lost none of their impact and only need you reading them to concoct a perfect cure for 21st century blues.
Mandrake the Magician © 2017 King Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved. All other material © 2017 the respective authors or owners.

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Ducoboo volume 5: Lovable Dunce


By Godi & Zidrou, coloured by Véronique Grobet, translated by Mark Bence (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-311-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for comedic effect.

If you’re currently experiencing offspring overload, fear not! The Back to School countdown has begun!

School stories and strips about juvenile fools, devils and rebels are a lynchpin of western entertainment and an even larger staple of Japanese comics – where the scenario has spawned its own numerous wild and vibrant subgenres. However, would Dennis the Menace (ours and theirs), Komi Can’t Communicate, Winker Watson, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Power Pack, Cédric or any of the rest be improved or just different if they were created by battle-scarred, shell-shocked former teachers rather than ex-kids or current parents?

It’s no surprise the form is evergreen: schooling (and tragically, sometimes, sufficient lack of it) takes up a huge amount of children’s attention no matter how impoverished or privileged they are, and their fictions will naturally address their issues and interests. It’s fascinating to see just how much school stories revolve around humour, but always with huge helpings of drama, terror, romance and an occasional dash of action…

One of the most popular European strips employing those eternal yet basic themes and methodology began in the last fraction of the 20th century, courtesy of scripter Zidrou (Benoît Drousie) and illustrator Godi. Drousie is Belgian, born in 1962 and for six years a school teacher prior to changing careers in 1990 to write comics like those he probably used to confiscate in class. Other mainstream successes in a range of genres include Blossoms in Autumn, Petit Dagobert, Scott Zombi, La Ribambelle, Le Montreur d’histoires, African Trilogy, Shi, Léonardo, a superb revival of Ric Hochet and many more. His most celebrated and beloved stories are the Les Beaux Étés sequence (only available digitally in English as Glorious Summers) and 2010’s sublime Lydie, both illustrated by Jordi Lafebre.

Zidrou began his comics career with what he knew best: stories about and for kids, including Crannibales, Tamara, Margot et Oscar and, most significantly, a feature about a (and please forgive the charged term) school blockhead: L’Elève Ducobu…

Godi is a Belgian National Treasure, born Bernard Godisiabois in Etterbeek in December 1951. After studying Plastic Arts at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels he became assistant to comics legend Eddy Paape in 1970, working on the strip Tommy Banco for Le Journal de Tintin whilst freelancing as an illustrator for numerous comics and magazines. He became a Tintin regular three years later, primarily limning C. Blareau’s Comte Lombardi, but also working on Vicq’s gag strip Red Rétro, with whom he also produced Cap’tain Anblus McManus and Le Triangle des Bermudes for Le Journal de Spirou in the early 1980s. Godi soloed on Diogène Terrier (1981-1983) for Casterman prior to moving into advertising cartoons and television. He cocreated animated TV series Ovide with Nic Broca, only returning to comics in 1991 to collaborating with newcomer Zidrou on L’Elève Ducobu. The strip began in Tremplin magazine (September 1992) before transferring to Le Journal de Mickey, with collected albums starting in 1997: 28 so far in a raft of languages. When not immortalising modern school days for future generations, Godi diversified, co-creating (in 1995 with Zidrou) comedy feature Suivez le Guide and game page Démon du Jeu with scripter Janssens. That series spawned a live action movie franchise and a dozen pocket books, plus all customary attendant merchandise paraphernalia.

English-speakers’ introduction to the series (5 volumes only thus far) came courtesy of Cinebook with 2006’s initial release King of the Dunces – in actuality the 5th European collection L’élève Ducobu – Le roi des cancres. The indefatigable, unbeatable format comprises short – most often single page – gag strips like you’d see in The Beano, involving a revolving cast; well-established albeit also fairly one-dimensional and easy to get a handle on. Our star is a well-meaning, good natured but terminally lazy young oaf who doesn’t get on with school. He’s sharp, inventive, imaginative, inquisitive, personable and not at all academical. Today he’d be SEN, banished as someone else’s problem, relegated to a “spectrum” or casually damned by diagnoses such as ADHD, but back then, and at heart, he’s just not interested: a kid who can always find better – or certainly more interesting – things to do…

Dad is a civil servant and Mum left home when Ducoboo was an infant. It’s no big deal: Leonie Gratin – the girly brainbox from whom he constantly and fanatically copies answers to interminable written tests – only has a mum. Ducoboo and his class colleagues attend Saint Potache School and are mostly taught and tested by ferocious, impatient, mushroom-mad Mr Latouche. The petulant pedagogue is something of humourless martinet, and thanks to him, Ducoboo has spent so much time in the corner with a dunce cap on his head that he’s struck up a friendship with the biology skeleton. He (She? They!) answer to Skelly – always ready with a crack-brained theory, wrong answer or best of all, a suggestion for fun and frolics…

Released in 2001, Europe’s sixth collected album Un amour de potache became another eclectic collation of classic clowning about that begins with another new term. Mr. Latouche is hard in, training for the trials to come whilst Ducoboo does his utmost to keep fresh young innocents away from the sinister scholastic hellhole. Here, many strips address burgeoning personal technologies as the wayward lad tests aids like earbuds and smartpens but finds nothing cleverer than his teacher or Leonie…

An extended riff on the kinds of comics and magazines – and free gift premiums – kids consume leads to the cheater retrenching and re-exploring tried-&-tested ways of sneaking answers, before Leonie stumbles into new avenues to exploit and educational toys to distract the big oaf with.

Thanks to Skelly, at least anatomy class is a breeze, but when Ducoboo looks for specialist cadavers for use in his other lessons, Latouche loses his cool – and his esteemed position. Inevitably, the pressure proves too great. Sadly, when teacher has a breakdown, the school replaces him with surly cleaning lady Mrs. Mop, who employs extraordinary methods our bad boy cannot overcome…

With swipes at modern methodology and mercantile means – such as teaching-by-photocopy and growing class sizes – a long section on Christmas holidays, festivities and just rewards leads to a new year and more of the same, as times tables, history and poetry increasingly impinge on Ducoboo’s dreary supposedly free days. Nevertheless, he still finds time to defend Leonie from a bully before life goes topsy-turvy with the arrival of a pretty new girl. She’s also called Leonie Gratin, lives in the same house as his educational fount of knowledge wellspring and has just had – reluctantly – her first maternally funded and fuelled makeover…

When that chaos and confusion concludes, mysteriously returned original Leonie agrees to visit a museum with her engaging oaf and again discovers that there are depths he hasn’t plumbed yet: gifts that come in handy when term end approaches and Latouche plans to upgrade the testing/exams and parental reports side of his job.

As summer comes at last the kids enjoy markedly different vacations and activities, but Ducoboo’s take a wild turn as his desperate dad hires a private tutor and accidentally becomes a sort of teacher’s pet himself. It’s clearly a common condition as, far, far away, Leonie succumbs to a holiday urge and finally tries to honestly communicate what she really feels about her truly aggravating classmate…

Despite the accidental and innocent tones of stalking and potential future abuse, these yarns are wry, witty and whimsical: deftly recycling adored perennial childhood themes. Ducuboo is an up-tempo, upbeat addition to a genre every parent or pupil can appreciate and enjoy. If your kids aren’t back from – or to – school quite yet, why not try keeping them occupied with Lovable Dunce, and again give thanks that there are kids far more demanding than even yours…
© Les Editions du Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard s.a.) 2001 by Godi & Zidrou. English translation © 2016 Cinebook Ltd.

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Captain America Epic Collection volume 6: The Man Who Sold the United States (1974-1976)


By Steve Englehart, Jack Kirby, John Warner, Tony Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, Frank Robbins, Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe, Vince Colletta, Frank Giacoia, D. Bruce Berry, Joe Giella, Mike Esposito, Frank Chiaramonte Barry Windsor-Smith John Romita, John Verpoorten, Dan Adkins, John Byrne, Joe Sinnott, Marie Severin, Charley Parker, Bob Budiansky, Paty Cockrum, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4873-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s customary – right here at least – to end our year with bit of timey-wimey extrapolation and conjecture, or celebrate an anniversary. However, due to the parlous state of global existence, I’ve instead opted for political pontificating. I decided that with the horror of the next four years barely begun, it’s time to stand tallish and make a sly whiny statement and see who even notices…

Created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby in an era of ferocious patriotic fervour and carefully-manipulated idealism, Captain America was a dynamic and exceedingly bombastic response to the horrors of Nazism and the threat of Liberty’s loss.

He quickly lost focus and popularity once hostilities ceased: fading away as post-war reconstruction began. He briefly reappeared after the Korean War: a harder, darker sentinel ferreting out monsters, subversives and the “commies” who lurked under every American bed. Then he vanished once more until the burgeoning Marvel Age resurrected him just in time to experience the Land of the Free’s most turbulent and culturally divisive era. Here the Star-Spangled Avenger was in danger of becoming an uncomfortable symbol of a troubled, divided society, split along age lines and with many of the hero’s fans apparently rooting for the wrong side. Now into that turbulent mix crept issues of racial and gender inequality…

Cap had quickly evolved into a mainstay of the Marvel Revolution during the Swinging Sixties but lost his way somewhat after that, except for a glittering period under writer Steve Englehart. Eventually however, in the middle of the decades, that enlightened voice-of-a-generation scribe also moved on and out. Meanwhile, after nearly ten years drafting almost all of Marvel’s successes, Jack Kirby had jumped ship to arch-rival DC in 1971, creating a whole new mythology, dynamically inspiring pantheon and new way to tell comics stories. Short term though, cowardly editorial practices and lack of support had convinced him that DC was no better than Marvel for men of vision. Eventually, he accepted that even he could never win against any publishing company’s excessive pressure to produce whilst enduring micro-managing editorial interference.

Seeing which way the winds were blowing, Kirby exploded back into the Marvel Universe in 1976 with a signed promise of free rein to concoct another stunning wave of iconic creations – licensed movie sensations such as 2001: a Space Odyssey (and – so very nearly – seminal TV paranoia-fest The Prisoner); Machine Man; Devil Dinosaur and The Eternals. He was also granted control of two of his previous co-creations – firmly established characters Black Panther and Captain America to do with as he wished…

His return was much hyped at the time but swiftly became controversial since his intensely personal visions paid little lip service to company continuity: Jack always went his own bombastic way. Whilst those new works quickly found many friends, his tenure on those earlier inventions drastically divided the fan base. Kirby was never slavishly wedded to tight continuity and preferred, in many ways, to treat his stints on Cap and the Panther as creative “Day Ones”. That was never more apparent than for the Star-Spangled Sentinel of Liberty…

This resoundingly resolute rabble rousingly rambunctious sixth full-colour Epic Collection re-presents Captain America and the Falcon #180-200 and 1976’s colossal Marvel Treasury Special: Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, cover-dated December 1974 to August 1976: spanning and neatly wrapping up the post-Englehart period and revealing how, when Kirby came aboard as writer, artist and editor, he had big plans for the nation’s premiere comicbook patriotic symbol in the year of its 200th anniversary…

At this time the US was a nation reeling from loss of idealism caused by Vietnam, Watergate and the (then partial) exposure of President Richard Nixon’s crimes. The general loss of idealism and painful public revelation that politicians are generally unpleasant – and even potentially ruthless, wicked exploiters – kicked the props out of most Americans who had an incomprehensibly rosy view of their leaders. Thus, Cap’s exposing a conspiracy reaching into the halls and backrooms of government to undemocratically seize control of the country by deceit and criminal conspiracy (sounds like sheer fantasy these days, doesn’t it?) was extremely controversial but compellingly attractive in those distant, simpler days. Now after doing what was necessary, the idealistic hero could no longer be associated with a tarnished ideal…

Previously: the Sentinel of Liberty had become a lost symbol in and of a divided nation. Uncomfortable in his red, white and blue skin but looking to carve himself a new place in the Land of the Free he is also unable to  abandon the role of do-gooder. When Steve Rogers is convinced by Avenging comrade Hawkeye that he could still serve his country and people even if he can’t be a star-spangled representative of America, it sparks a life-changing decision in opening tale ‘The Coming of the Nomad!’ Sadly, survivors of the sinister Serpent Squad (Cobra and The Eel) return with psychotic Princess Python in tow and maniac nihilist Madame Hydra murderously assuming the suddenly vacant leader’s role as a new Viper. When Rogers – as Nomad, “the Man Without a Country” – tackles the ophidian villains, he battles ineptly and fares badly but still stumbles across a sinister scheme by the Squad and Sub-Mariner’s arch-nemesis Warlord Krang. That subsea tyrant – in the thrall of ancient evil force the Helmet of Set – seeks to raise a sunken continent and restore an ancient civilisation in ‘The Mark of Madness!’ Elsewhere at the same time, former partner Sam Wilson/The Falcon is ignoring his better judgement and training determined young Roscoe Simons to become the next Captain America…

A glittering era ended with #182 as artist Sal Buscema moved on and newspaper-strip star Frank Robbins came aboard for a controversial run, beginning with ‘Inferno!’ (inked by Joe Giella). Whilst Nomad successfully mops up the Serpent Squad – despite well-meaning police interference – Sam and Cap’s substitute Roscoe encounter the Sentinel of Liberty’s greatest enemy with fatal consequences. The saga shifts into top gear as ‘Nomad: No More!’ (Frank Giacoia inks) sees shamed, grief-stricken Rogers once more take up his star-spangled burden after the murderous Red Skull simultaneously attacks the hero’s loved ones and dismantles America’s economy by defiling the banks and slaughtering the financial wizards who run them.

Beginning in the chillingly evocative ‘Cap’s Back!’ (art by Herb Trimpe, Giacoia & Mike Esposito), rampaging through the utterly shocking ‘Scream of the Scarlet Skull!’ (Sal Buscema, Robbins & Giacoia), it all climaxes in ‘Mindcage!’ (with additional scripting by John Warner and art by Robbins & Esposito) wherein our titular hero’s greatest ally is apparently revealed as his enemy’s stooge and slave. As the Red Skull, in all his gory glory, gloatingly reveals that his staggeringly effective campaign of terror was as nothing to his ultimate triumph, we learn that the high-flying Falcon has been his unwitting secret weapon for years. The staunch ally was originally cheap gangster “Snap” Wilson, radically recreated and reprogrammed by the Cosmic Cube to be Captain America’s perfect partner; and a tantalising, ticking time bomb waiting to explode…

Captain America and the Falcon #187 opens on ‘The Madness Maze!’ (Warner, Robbins & Frank Chiaramonte) with the Skull recently-fled and a now-comatose Falcon in custody of superspy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. Abruptly, the Star-Spangled Avenger is abducted, snatched by by a mysterious flying saucer and latterly attacked by alchemical androids employed by a rival espionage outfit, culminating in a ‘Druid-War’ (Warner, Sal B & Colletta), before Tony Isabella, Robbins & Chiaramonte put Cap into an ‘Arena For a Fallen Hero!’ where deception, psychological warfare and unarmed combat combine into a risky shock therapy to kill or cure the mind-locked Sam Wilson. However, just as the radical cure kicks in, an old foe takes over S.H.I.E.L.D.’s flying HQ in ‘Nightshade is Deadlier the Second Time Around!’ (Isabella, Robbins & Colletta). Once she’s defeated, the past crimes of forcibly-reformed Snap Wilson are reviewed and judged in an LA courtroom in climactic wrap-up ‘The Trial of the Falcon!’ (Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Robbins & D. Bruce Berry): proffering a predictable court ruling, a clutch of heroic cameos and a bombastic battle against the sinister Stilt-Man – hired by mob bosses to ensure Snap’s silence on his gangland activities…

Narrative decks cleared, CAatF #192 delivered an ingenious, entertaining filler written by outgoing editor Marv Wolfman, illustrated by Robbins & Berry, wherein Cap hops on a commercial flight back to the East Coast and finds himself battling deranged psychiatrist Dr. Faustus and a contingent of mobsters on a ‘Mad-Flight!’ thousands of feet above New York. With all plots safely settled, the stage was set for the return of Cap’s co-creator: returning with a bombastic fresh take that would take the Sentinel of Liberty into regions never before explored…

It begins with Captain America and the Falcon #193, offering the opening salvo in an epic storyline leading up the immortal super-soldier’s own Bicentennial issue (sort of). Gone now was all the soul-searching and breast-beating about what the country was or symbolised: The USA is in peril and its sentinel was ready to roar into action…

Inked by fellow veteran Frank Giacoia ‘The Madbomb’ exposes a ‘Screamer in the Brain!’ as a miniscule new weapon is triggered by unknown terrorists, reducing an entire city block to rubble by driving the populace into a mass psychotic frenzy. Experiencing the madness at close hand, Cap and the Falcon are swiftly seconded by the US government to ferret out the culprits and find a full-scale device hidden somewhere in the vast melting pot of America…

‘The Trojan Horde’ introduces plutocratic mastermind William Taurey who intends to correct history, unmaking the American Revolution and restoring a privilege-ridden aristocracy upon the massed millions of free citizens. Using inestimable wealth, a cabal of similarly disgruntled billionaire elitists (what a ree-dicalus ideah!), an army of mercenaries, slaves cruelly transformed into genetic freaks and other cutting-edge super-science atrocities, the maniac intends to forever eradicate the Republic and plunder the resources of the planet. Thank every god you know that it couldn’t happen today…

Moreover, when he is finally elevated to what he considers his rightful place, the first thing Taurey intends to do is hunt down the last descendent of Colonial-era hero Steven Rogers: a rebel who had killed Taurey’s Monarchist ancestor and allowed Washington to win the War of Independence. Little does he suspect the subject of his wrath has already infiltrated his secret army…

Inked by D. Bruce Berry, in ‘It’s 1984!’ Cap & Falcon get a firsthand look at the kind of fascistic world Taurey advocates, battling their way through monsters, mercenaries and a mob fuelled by modern mind-control and pacified by Bread & Circuses, before ultra-spoiled elitist Cheer Chadwick takes the undercover heroes under her bored, effete and patronising wing. Sadly, even she can’t keep her new pets from being sucked into the bloody, brutal Circus section of the New Society, where American loyalists are forced to fight for their lives in ultra-modern gladiatorial mode in the ‘Kill-Derby’, even as the US army raids the secret base in Giacoia inked ‘The Rocks are Burning!’ Soon, the Patriotic Pair realise it has all been for nought since the colossal full-sized Madbomb is still active: carefully hidden somewhere else in their vast Home of the Brave…

The offbeat ‘Captain America’s Love Story’ then takes a decidedly different and desperate track as the Bastion of Freedom must romance a sick woman to get to her father – the inventor of the deadly mind-shattering device – after which ‘The Man Who Sold the United States’ accelerates to top speed for all-out action as the hard-pressed heroes race a countdown to disaster with the Madbomb finally triggering by ‘Dawn’s Early Light!’ for a spectacular showdown climax that truly  surpasses all expectation.

This compilation compellingly concludes with a once in a lifetime special event. Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles was originally released (on June 15th 1976) as part of the nationwide celebration of the USA’s two hundredth year. One of Marvel’s tabloid-sized “Treasury Format” (80+ pages of 338 x 258mm dimensions) titles, it took the Star-Spangled Avenger on an incredible excursion through key eras and areas of American history. An expansive, panoramic and wildly iconic celebration of the memory and myth of the nation, this almost abstracted, deeply symbolic 84-page extravaganza perfectly survives reduction to standard comic dimensions, following Captain America as cosmic savant – and retrofitted Elder of the Universe The Contemplator – Mister Buda propels the querulous hero into successively significant slices of history. Enduring a blistering pace of constant change, Cap encounters lost partner Bucky during WWII, meets Benjamin Franklin in Revolutionary Philadelphia and revisits the mobster-ridden depression era of Steve Roger’s own childhood as ‘The Lost Super-Hero!’.

In ‘My Fellow Americans’, Cap confronts Geronimo during the Indian Wars and suffers the horrors of a mine cave-in, before ‘Stop Here for Glory!’ finds him surviving a dogfight with a German WWI fighter ace, battling bare-knuckle boxer John L. Sullivan, resisting slavers with abolitionist John Brown, and observing both the detonation of the first Atom Bomb and the Great Chicago Fire. ‘The Face of the Future!’ even sees him slipping into the space colonies of America’s inevitable tomorrows, and segueing into pure emotional fantasy by experiencing the glory days of Hollywood, the simple joys of rural homesteading and the harshest modern ghetto, before drawing strength from the nation’s hopeful children…

Inked by such luminaries as Barry Windsor-Smith, John Romita Sr., Herb Trimpe and Dan Adkins, the book length bonanza comes peppered with a glorious selection of pulsating pin-ups.

With covers throughout by Gil Kane, Kirby, Giacoia, Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Ron Wilson, John Romita (Sr.), Sal Buscema &John Verpoorten, this supremely thrilling collection also has room for a selection of bonus treats beginning with the Kane & Esposito cover for reprint title Giant-size Captain America #1 (1975); relevant Cap & Falcon pages from Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975 ((July, by John Romita); the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page announcing the King’s return in all October issues, and assorted house ads. Also on view are extracts and articles from company fanzine F.O.O.M. #11, September 1975; an all-Kirby issue declaring – behind a Byrne/Joe Sinnott cover – that “Jack’s back!”. Material includes ‘The King is Here! Long Live the King!’, ‘Kirby Speaks!’, stunning artwork from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alex Boyd’s appreciation ‘The Once and Future King!’, Charley Parker’s ‘The Origin of King Kirby’, ‘Kirby’s Kosmik Konsciousness’ and a caricature from the wonderful Marie Severin.

Also on show are cover roughs and un-inked pencils to delight art fans and aficionados, as well as original page art by Kirby inked by Giacoia & Windsor Smith.

King Kirby’s commitment to wholesome adventure, breakneck action and breathless wonderment, combined with his absolute mastery of the medium and unceasing quest for the Next Big Thrill, always make for a captivating read and this stuff is amongst the most bombastic and captivating material he ever produced. Fast-paced, action-packed, totally engrossing Fights ‘n’ Tights masterpieces no fan should ignore and, above all else, fabulously fun tales of a true American Dream and a perfect counterpoint and exemplar to the moodily insecurity of the Englehart episodes that precede them here. Despite the odd cringeworthy story moment (I specifically omitted the part where Cap battles three chicken-themed villains for example, and still wince at some of the dialogue from this forthright and earnest era of “blaxsploitation” and emergent ethnic awareness), these tales of matchless courage and indomitable heroism are fast-paced, action-packed, totally engrossing fights ‘n’ tights no comics fan should miss, and joking aside, their cultural significance is crucial in informing the political consciences of the youngest members of post-Watergate generation, and so much more so today…
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon volume 4


By Mac Raboy & Don Moore, Dan Barry & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-156971-979-9 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

By almost every metric, Flash Gordon is the most influential comic strip in the world. When the hero debuted on Sunday January 7th 1934 (Happy Birthday Flash!) with equally superb Jungle Jim running as a supplementary “topper” strip, it was a slick, sophisticated answer to Philip Nolan & Dick Calkins’ revolutionary, ideas-packed, inspirational, but quirkily clunky Buck Rogers (which also launched on January 7th – albeit in 1929) with two fresh elements added to the wonderment: Classical Lyricism and Poetic Dynamism. The newcomer became a weekly invitation to stunningly exotic glamour and astonishing beauty.

Where Buck merged traditional adventure with groundbreaking science concepts, Flash reinterpreted fairy tales, hero epics and mythology, draping them in the spectacular trappings of contemporary futurism, with the varying “rays”, “engines” and “motors” of modern pulp sci fi substituting for trusty swords and lances. There were also plenty of those too – and exotic craft and contraptions stood in for galleons, chariots and magic carpets. Look closely, though, and you’ll see cowboys, gangsters and of course, contemporary flying saucer fetishes adding flourish to the fanciful fables. The narrative trick made the far-fetched satisfactorily familiar – and was continued with contemporary trends and innovations by Austin Briggs and Don Moore before Mac Raboy (with Moore and Robert Rogers) took over the Sunday strips for a groundbreakingly modern yet comfortably familiar tenure lasting from 1948 to 1967.

The sheer artistic talent of Raymond, his compositional skills, fine linework, eye for clean, concise detail and just plain genius for drawing beautiful people and things, swiftly made this the strip that all young artists swiped from literally all over the world. When original material comic books began a few years later, many talented kids used Gordon as their model and ticket to future success in the field of adventure strips. Almost all the others went with Raymond’s stylistic polar opposite: emulating Milton Caniff’s expressionist masterwork Terry and the Pirates (and to see one of his better disciples check out Beyond Mars, limned by the wonderful Lee Elias).

Flash Gordon began on present-day Earth (which was 1934, remember?) with a wandering world about to smash into our planet. As global panic ensued, polo player Flash and fellow passenger Dale Arden narrowly escaped disaster when a meteor fragment downed their airliner. They landed on the estate of tormented genius Dr. Hans Zarkov, who imprisoned them in the rocket-ship he had built. His plan? To fly the ship directly at the astral invader and deflect it from Earth by crashing into it! Thus began a decade of sheer escapist magic in a Ruritanian Neverland: a blend of Camelot, Oz, John Carter of Mars and a hundred other fantasy realms promising paradise yet concealing vipers, ogres and demons, all cloaked in a glimmering sheen of sleek scientific speculation. Worthy adversaries such as utterly evil yet magnetic Ming, emperor of the fantastic wandering planet; myriad exotic races and shattering conflicts offered a fantastic alternative to drab and dangerous reality for millions of avid readers around the world.

With Moore handling the bulk of scripts, Alex Raymond’s ‘On the Planet Mongo’ ran every Sunday until 1944, when the artist joined the Marines. On his return, he forsook wild imaginings for sober reality by introducing gentleman gumshoe Rip Kirby. The public’s unmissable weekly appointment with wonderment perforce continued under the artistic auspices of Austin Briggs – who had drawn the monochrome daily instalments since 1940.

In 1948, eight years after beginning his career drawing for the Harry A. Chesler production “shop”, comic book artist Emmanuel “Mac” Raboy took over illustrating the Sunday page. Moore remained as scripter and began co-writing with the new artist. Raboy’s sleek, fine-line brush style – heavily influenced by his idol Raymond – had made his work on Captain Marvel Jr., Kid Eternity and especially Green Lama a pinnacle of artistic quality in the early days of the proliferating superhero genre. His seemingly inevitable assumption of Flash Gordon’s extraordinary exploits led to a renaissance of the strip and in a rapidly evolving post-war world, it became once more a benchmark of timeless, hyper-realistic quality escapism which only Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant could match.

This fourth and final 276-page paperback volume – printed in stark monochrome, landscape format and still criminally out-of-print/long overdue for a fresh edition – spans December 16th 1962 through December 31st 1967 – by which time successor Dan Barry was already adding his artistic contributions to the final chapter (from December 24th). After one last informative appraisal of Raboy in Bruce Jones’ Introduction ‘Walking with Giants’ it’s time for one last blast-off as the adventure resumes with already-in-progress thriller ‘Sons of Saturn’… Sequence SO91 had begun on October 21st 1962 and cliffhangerly closed the previous volume barely weeks in. It resumes here with the episode for December 16th and carries on until January 20th 1963 revealing how the hitherto unsuspected super-civilisation thriving in the clouds of the Sixth Planet is revealed when an Earth probe provokes its current overlord to determine human nature and resource by sending super-criminal outcast Baldr to plague, punish and test them. That results in the indestructible giant breaking into Flash’s ship and going on a rampage, but ultimately alien force proves no match for human – i.e. Flash Gordon’s – ingenuity and the embattled visitors accidentally initiate a sudden and very permanent regime change…

Running from January 27th to April 14th pure cold war paranoia shapes sequence S092. ‘The Force Dome’ sees well-meaning Professor Howe build a perfectly impenetrable protective energy barrier and convince the authorities to let him run a live test by shielding all of Metropole City. When Howe dies suddenly the experiment goes awry and the generators can’t be switched off. Thankfully, Flash and Zarkov are on site and able to avert the crisis before all the air under the city-sized bubble is used up…

It’s back to the beyond next as (S093: 21/4/63 – 14/7/63) finds our hero further testing the bounds of Earth’s recently-developed Faster-Than-Light technologies, with Flash despatched to a far star system to discover what happened to an off-line ‘Star Beacon’ that has stopped providing subspace navigation data. That all sounds quite technical, but it’s just a plot device to enable Flash & Co to wryly clash with cunning alien primitives after which it’s back to Earth and the Himalayas to rescue explorer Bill Penrose from fabled monsters (S094: 21/7/63-17/11/63). However, as Flash digs deeper, he learns these ‘Yeti’ are actually robots employed by extraterrestrial resource bandits to steal uranium, resulting in an epic battle beneath the Earth, before returning to space and a new station orbiting Jupiter. Set on Earth’s newly-constructed interstellar transit station, sequence S095 (24/11/63 to 15/3/1964) sees Dale and Flash accidentally in loco parentis to Miki – an extremely impulsive ‘Boy From Another World’ …and his disruptively radioactive pet Zhlubb…

The furore builds as the star waifs suddenly go missing just as interplanetary bandit trio the Breen Brothers invade the station whilst Flash is testing Zarkov’s latest super-ship, triggering a monumental and manic battle beyond the stars. When the shooting stops and with Miki restored to his parents, Flash finally boosts off in the new FTL vessel, destined for a colony world that has called for help by sending back all its women and children. In truth, the castaways’ return is a bid by aliens on a dying world who seek to inveigle tribute and rations for their starving civilisation by holding the male human colonists hostage.

Backed up by colonist Kitty Corum and rash, overconfident Star Patrol Special Service recruit Dino, Flash’s test ride becomes a rescue/diplomatic mission to the ‘Dark Sun of Dragor’ (S096: 22/3/ to 7/19/64): a most unconventional confrontation that culminates in the death of a star system, followed by a brief diversion. Spanning 26th July to November 8th, sequence S097 sees a family of giant, shapeshifting aliens crash on Earth and their colossal child faces typical panic and bigotry until Dale steps in to salve tensions and save ‘The Chameleon’, prior to sheer arrogance almost destroying the world’s hopes of halting chaotic storms caused by solar flares and securing reliable ‘Man-Made Weather’ (S098: 15/11/64 – 2/14/February 65). The problem is a clash of wills between abrasive Dr Franz Graf and Zarkov, but eventually the meteorological fireworks spark a world-saving inspiration…

Another mountaintop yarn finds Flash and junior shuttle pilot Wally Green captive of the ‘Lost Tribe of the Andes’ (S099: February 21st to 13th June), facing the bellicose descendants of Spanish conquistadors shielded from progress for hundreds of years and ultimately duelling dastardly power-hungry despot-in-waiting El Mono, before a return to modern civilisation brings the first Moon’s Fair and a transport nightmare when the best pilot in space gets involved in transporting Michelangelo’s David to the exhibition site. It all results in ‘The Greatest Art Theft’ (SI00: June 20th – October 10th) as petty tyrant/organised crime overlord Baron Borgaz purloins the masterpiece for his private orbital fiefdom and is vain enough to allow Flash entrance to search his sinister, thug-&-monster-stuffed citadel…

Next comes a yarn older British fans might recognise as part of the 1967 digest series World Adventure Library: a line that also included Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Batman. Here Flash plays space cop in pursuit of devious disguise artist/thief Merlyn, who swindles his way across the solar system and even escapes Gordon’s justice… but not his fate or just deserts in year spanning comedic change-of-pace ‘Con Man in Space’ (SI01: 17/10/1965 to 30/01/1966). It’s followed by ‘A Visit From Mercury’ (February 6th to June 5th ’66 and another tale reprinted in the UK) as a trip to erupting volcano Vesuvius allows “impervium”-clad Flash, Dale & Zarkov to enter a undiscovered base deep in the magma, where visitors fleeing the first rock from the sun are hiding. Sheltered from geological upheaval and basking in Earth’s warmth, they’re ultimately restored to their point of origin with Earth’s aid, but only after Gordon deals with flaming recidivist usurper Janj…

Old-style mystery and monster hunting shapes survival saga ‘Death World’ (SI03: 12/06 – 23/10/66) as Flash and a Space Agency Survival Corps squad led by Sikh commander Singh are despatched to learn what caused the disappearance of an entire human colony and rise of a swathe of killer beasts. What they discover changes lives and the annals of bio-science, before Flash tangles with another low-orbit lowlife when ‘The Duke of Naples’ (SI04: 30th October 1966 – April 2nd 1967) reinstitutes privateering, slave-taking and gladiatorial combat on his private space station in his passionately plutocratic desire to return humanity to feudalism, after which big science engineering finds Flash and Zarkov mediating war between grudge-bearing Madame Mimi Duclos and martinet Godfrey Ledge as each attempts to seize control and complete construction of ‘The Moon Launcher’ (April 9th to July 16th). The ion launch platform is an obvious and permanent boon to human space expansion, but the project takes on desperate urgency after explorers on Pluto encounter trouble and the acceleration launcher offers the only possibility of getting a rescue ship to them in time.

The bitter war between the project chiefs sparks industrial strife, worker mutiny and even criminal changes against Flash’s new best pal Pancho, but sooner rather than later the job is done and Gordon (plus fugitive stowaway Pancho) are rocketing into infernal darkness and Raboy’s last adventure.  Sequence SI06 spans 23/7/1967 to 7/1/1968 (with Dan Barry taking over on December 24th) as the voyagers find the lost explorers but are ‘Captured on Pluto’ by super-advanced aliens playing mindgames and conjuring fantastic worlds and beings in a cosmic scaled romp deeply redolent of 1964 Star Trek pilot episode The Cage…

To Be Continued… by other hands

Each week as he toiled on the strip, Raboy produced ever-more expansive artwork filled with distressed damsels, deadly monsters, incredible civilisations, increasingly authentic space hardware and locales, and all sorts of outrageous adventure that continued until the illustrator’s untimely death in 1967. Perhaps it was a kindness. He was the last great Golden Age romanticist illustrator and his lushly lavish, freely-flowing adoration of perfected human form was beginning to stale in popular taste. The Daily feature had already switched to the solid, chunky, He-Manly burly realism of Dan Barry and Frank Frazetta, but here at least the last outpost of ethereally beautiful heroism and pretty perils still prevailed: a dream realm you can visit as easily and often as Flash, Dale & Zarkov popped between planets, just by tracking down this book and the one which preceded it…
© 2003 King Features Syndicate Inc. ™ & © Hearst Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.