Category: Satire/Politics

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Acid Box


By Sarah Kenney, James Devlin, Emma Vieceli, Ria Grix, Sophie Dodgson, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou & various (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-05-6 (HB/Digital edition)

The entirety of all worlds and each and every time is readily available to any open-minded comics connoisseur. Here’s a fun extrapolation on an old plot, with plenty of twisty raucous fun fully baked in for anyone with an open mind. A working knowledge of recent history (yes, I know that’s a relative term!) and breadth of musical tastes won’t be wasted if you can lay your hands on that too…

Most importantly, if you can remember the Nineties, you might well have been there, but probably a bit too far from the speaker-stacks…

In that context, the term Acid (noun: PRO: “Ass-SEeeeed”) denotes a popular youth culture movement concerned with music, recreational drugs, dancing and wandering about trying to find where the action was happening. It also had lots to do with a specific bit of clever kit called a Roland TB-303 Bass Line (AKA the “303”) that became instrumental in electronic music movements such as “techno”, “Chicago-house” and “acid house”…

At this moment of now in opening chapter ‘Fully Munted’, it’s 2026 in Glasgow and cleaner/presumed orphan Jade Nyo is hoping to forget the shitty world, crap prospects of survival and especially younger brother Rory’s persistent tortured nightmares of tsunamis and global collapse, as personified in recurring images of a big angry sod he calls “AngryMan” leading the inundations.

There’s not a lot she can use to get out and away – and so much to get away from – but her abiding fascination with dance music history tops the list, so soon she’s necked an “E” at local club Tempus and is living in the beats and sweat and non-stop motion. Rory’s there too but his crutches and callipers aren’t really rave-conducive…

Life gets worse and better all at once when three really weird skanky women drag her and Rory into a rather tacky corner that didn’t used to be there, and make an outrageous request/demand. Apparently, Yemaya, Angie and Tracey are “Liminals” commanding the forces of time, space, matter and energy and they have an urgent job that needs doing: restoring order to the geological continuum… or else…

Soon – while disbelieving every minute of it – Jade is jaunting all over infinity, drawn to key and crucial rave moments and beat history milestones chasing vibrations and saving the universe with the aid of a handy little widget dubbed (sorry! Sorry!!) an Acid Box. This one is missing three dials that Jade just must restore to it… or Earth will shake itself to dust within three days. Moreover, AngryMan is very real and resolved to make that big finish happen…

First stop, once all the “yeah, but”-ing is done with, is Berlin in 1994 (devotees of musical culture will soon comprehend what these key moments in time travel mean, and the rest of us can just revel in the pacy action and extremely effective character-play from here on…) as Jade musters some allies – such as tough local-time operators Fizzy & Rhonda – and faces increasing grief and terror in successive, potentially self-explanatory escalating episodes ‘Make Techno Not Friends’, ‘The Fear’ and ‘Go Hard or Go Home’.

The chase exposes family skeletons, loads of closets and repeatedly lands her in 1994 – somehow simultaneously in Detroit, Bradford, Berlin again, Johannesburg, Mysore and Hyde Park, London – gathering allies for an environmental showdown in at La Palma volcano in 2026, supplanted by ten-yearly confrontations in 2034, 2044 and 2054 all round the imperilled world until the big is done… one way or another…

Packed with and augmented by utterly absorbing sidebar bonus material, this is a sublimely absorbing romp embroidered with true love of the period and source music material that will no doubt make a fabulous and funny film one day. The primary creators are led by Sarah Kenney (Surgeon X, She Could Fly, Planet Divoc-91) who writes socially informed speculative fiction (the other, accurate, term for Science Fiction) and works as a scripter, producer and director for the Games industry and television. Her visual collaborator on  Surgeon X and Planet Divoc-91 is Glasgow-based James Devlin (Tomorrow, LaGuardia) who here joins multidisciplinary performance artist Emma Vieceli (Life is Strange, BREAKS) and illustrator Ria Grix (The Anomalous Adventures of Viola Holm and Kotiin).

This macroscopic, musically-inclined peregrination includes further input and compelling comics fare culled from an international workshop group about comics, music, science culture and planet Earth run by Kenney & Kirsten Murray. That resulted in compelling essays and graphic sorties all packed in here too, all stage-set by an accommodatingly informative ‘Afterword’ by Kenney.

The textual thoughts comprise ‘Happy Place by Sarah Zad’; ‘Fund, Marry, Chill: The Ultimate Guide to Guaranteed Creative Success by Adrian Saredia-Brayley’; ‘Research and Discussion of the potential benefits of MDMA on PTSD sufferers by Bobby Gunasekara’; ‘Reviving Rave Roots Resurgence of Clean Rave Culture by Sevitha ’Vadlamudi’; ‘Fact and Fiction by Sarah Zad’ and ‘The Lens of Life… Storytelling and facilitating change through art by Whitney Love’. These are followed by a selection of ‘Youth Workshop Comics’ beginning with eco-chiller ‘We Can’t Stay Here Any Longer’ by Adrian Saredia-Brayley and followed by Ben Avey-Edwards cyber-thriller ‘Vibe’ (lettered by Rob Jones).

ShyWhy shares the joys of ‘Mind Travel’ and Lara Sloane depicts ‘A Housewives Revolution’ before ‘Dancing On My Own’ – scripted by Nyla Ahmad with art by Adrian Saredia-Brayley – carries us to Lucy Porte’s ‘Bad Trip’ after which Paula Karanja brings ‘A Gift to Share’. Rounding out the jam session, Saredia-Brayley limns Phelisa Sikwata’s ‘Sinking HomeS’ and Hannah Maclennan closes the show with ‘Hurry Up! Our Song is Playing!’
© Wowbagger Productions 2025. All rights reserved.

Today in 1929 US Golden Age artist Joe Gallagher was born, as was James Vance (Kings in Disguise, Omaha the Cat Dancer, Aliens, Predator) in 1953, and Todd Nauck (Young Justice, Spider-Man) in 1971.

In1867 Britain and the world lost pioneering cartoonist/caricaturist/political commentator Charles H. Bennett, and in 2002 Stan Pitt (officially the first Australian artist with original material published US  comic books – The Witching Hour #14 & Boris Karloff – Tales of Mystery # 33!) who ghosted Al Williamson’s Secret Agent Corrigan in 1969 and 1972. Also, in 2009 we lost the great unsung Frank Springer (Secret Six, Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, Phoebe Zeit-Geist, The Dazzler, Friday Foster, Rex Morgan M.D., Mary Perkins on Stage, The Incredible Hulk newspaper strip).

In 1958 Goscinny & Uderzo’s Oumpah-pah debuted in Le Journal de Tintin.

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The Boondocks: Because I Know You Don’t Read the Newspapers (volume 1)


By Aaron McGruder (Andrews McMeel)
ISBN: 978-0-7407-0609-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times. This book also includes Discriminatory Content included for satirical and comedic effect.

Unlike editorial cartooning, newspaper comic strips generally prospered by avoiding controversy. Other than a few notable exceptions – such as the mighty Doonesbury – daily and Sunday gag continuities aimed at keeping their readers amused and complacent.

Such was not the case with Aaron McGruder’s brilliant and so-much missed The Boondocks.

The strip ran from February 8th 1996 and officially ended – despite promises of a swift return – with the February 28th 2006 instalment. Episodes apparently popped up on social media for a month or so after that. You might have seen the adapted animated version on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim some years ago…

The feature was created for pioneer online music website Hitlist.com and quickly began a print incarnation in Hip-Hop magazine The Source. On December 3rd, it started appearing in national periodical The Diamondback but, after an editorial bust-up, McGruder pulled the strip in March 1997. Nevertheless, it thrived as it was picked up by Universal Press Syndicate. Launched nationally, The Boondocks had over 300 client subscribers, reaching – and so often offending – millions of readers every day. Such was the content and set-up that the strip was regularly dropped by editors, and complaints from readers were pretty much constant.

What could possibly make a cartoon continuity such a lightning rod yet still have publishers so eager to keep it amongst their ever-dwindling stable of strip stars?

The Boondocks was always fast, funny, thought-provoking, funny, ferociously socially aware and created for a modern black readership. And Funny.

The series never sugar-coated anything – except obviously the utterly unacceptable curse of immodest language – whilst bringing contemporary issues of race to the table every day. This was a strip Afro-American readers wanted to peruse… even if they didn’t necessarily agree with what was being said and seen.

The narrative premise was deceptively sitcom-simple, but hid a potent surprise in its delivery. Huey Freeman is an incredibly smart, savvy and well-informed African American youngster. He spent his formative years on Chicago’s South Side, immersed in black history; philosophy of power; radical and alternative politics and “The Streets”. His little brother Riley is mired in Hip-Hop and the trappings of Gangsta Rap. Yet suddenly one day they are both whisked out of their comfort zone as their grandfather Robert assumes custody of them, and moves the whole family to whiter-than-white suburb Woodcrest in semi-rural Maryland.

It’s mutual culture shock of epic proportions all both sides…

Huey (proudly boasting that he’s named for Black Panther co-founder Dr Huey Percy Newton) perpetually expounds radical rhetoric and points out hypocrisy of the well-meaning but inherently patronising all-Caucasian township, but saves equal amounts of hilarious disgust and venom for those overbearing, overhyped aspects of modern Black Culture he regards as stupid, demeaning or self-serving…

Riley mostly likes scaring them oh-so-polite white folks…

In this initial paperback monochrome collection (there’s also a Treasury edition with Sundays in full colour) we see material from April 19th 1999 to January 29th 2000, which includes a potent Foreword from Hip-Hop Activist and Media Assassin Harry Allen. He points out the way we’ve all managed to stop actual progress on issues of race by politely agreeing to not talk about them…

Property values start to wobble just a bit when Huey and Riley arrive in Woodcrest but at least disquiet is mutual. The place really freaks them out: the air is clean, there are no tagged walls or take-out stores, and old white people keep coming up to say hello. The first semblance of normality occurs when another new family moves in next door. Thomas and Sarah Dubois are woolly liberals: yuppy lawyers and Woodcrest’s first interracial couple, and – although she doesn’t understand any of the stuff Huey taunts her with – their daughter Jazmine is the suburb’s third black child… ever. She never thought of herself as any colour, but Huey is determined to raise her consciousness – when he’s not taking her establishment-conditioned dad to task on what colour he actually is…

Huey’s far less keen on the attentions of Cindy McPhearson, the little girl from school who has fully embraced TV’s version of Black Culture. She wants to meet – and be – Snoop Doggy Dogg. She hasn’t heard the term “Wigga” yet and Huey ain’t doing nothing but avoiding her: a tricky proposition as she sits behind him in class asking dumb questions.

The boys enrolling at Edgar J. Hoover Elementary School caused a few sleepless nights for Principal Williams but he cleverly borrowed a some videos (use google if you must, but it’s just an old way of having movies in your room) – Menace II Society, Shaft’s Big Score – to get him up to speed on the special needs of “inner city ghetto youth” and is confident his terrified teachers can handle any possible hurdles a variance in backgrounds might cause…

Don’t go away under the misapprehension that The Boondocks is a strident polemical diatribe, drowning in its own message. First and foremost, this is a strip about kids growing up, just like Bloom County, The Perishers, Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes. Some of the most memorable riffs come from the boys’ reactions to the release of the Star Wars: Episode I (although admittedly, Jar Jar Binks gets a fully-deserved roasting for that alien/ethnic Minstrel performance), the worthlessness of high-priced merchandise and the insipid, anodyne street names. At least here, Riley and his paint spray cans can help out…

As the year progresses we also see outrageous takes on Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as the boys’ investigation of the Santa Clause and Kwanza scenarios and their own hysterical Inner City, Keepin’ It Real alternative to all those manufactured holidays and causes…

Smart, addictive and still with a vast amount to say The Boondocks is a strip you need to see if you cherish speaking Wit as well as Truth to Power…
The Boondocks © 2000 by Aaron McGruder. All rights reserved.

Today in 1948 Spanish maestro José Luis García-López was born, as was equally polished superstar Brian Bolland in 1951. 1988 saw the passing of Swedish cartoonist, Journalist and strip maker Jan-Erik Garland.

In 1972 Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean began, whilst 1995 saw the end of Berkeley Breathed’s Outland after six gloriously bizarre years and, by most accounts, the last ever The Boondocks strip by Aaron McGruder in 2006.

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U.S.S. Stevens – The Collected Stories


By Sam Glanzman (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80158-2 (HB/Digital edition)kuno

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for dramatic and comedic effect.

To the shame and detriment of the entire comics industry, for most of his career Sam Glanzman was one of the least-renowned creators in American comic books. Despite having one of the longest careers, most unique illustration styles and the respect of his creative peers, he just never got the public acclaim his work deserved. Thankfully that all changed in recent years and he lived long enough to enjoy the belated spotlight and bask in some well-deserved adulation.

Glanzman drew and wrote comics since the Golden Age, most commonly in classic genres ranging from war to mystery to fantasy, where his work was – as always – raw, powerful, subtly engaging and irresistibly compelling. On titles such as Kona, Monarch of Monster Island, Voyage to the Deep, Combat, Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Hercules, The Haunted Tank, The Green Berets, The Private War of Willie Schultz, and especially 1980s graphic novels A Sailor’s Story and Wind, Dreams and Dragons – which you should buy in a single volume from Dover – Glanzman produced magnificent action-adventure tales which fired the imagination and stirred the blood. His stuff always sold and at least won him a legion of fans amongst fellow artists, if not from the small, insular and over-vocal fan-press.

In later years, Glanzman worked with Tim Truman’s 4Winds outfit on high-profile projects like The Lone Ranger, Jonah Hex and barbarian fantasy Attu. Moreover, as the sublime work gathered here attests, he was also one of the earliest pioneers of graphic autobiography; translating personal WWII experiences as a sailor in the Pacific into one of the very best things to come out of DC’s 1970s war comics line.

U.S.S. Stevens, DD479 was a peripatetic filler-feature bobbing about between Our Army at War, Our Fighting Forces, G.I. Combat, Star Spangled War Stories and the other anthological battle books; quietly backing-up the cover-hogging, star-attraction glory-boys. It provided wry, witty, shocking, informative and immensely human vignettes of shipboard life, starring the fictionalised crew of the destroyer Glanzman had served on. It was, in most ways, a love story and tribute to the vessel which had been their only home and refuge under fire. In 4- or 5-page episodes, the auteur recaptured and shared a kind of comradeship we peace-timers can only imagine and, despite the pulse-pounding drama of the lead features, us fans all knew these little snippets were what really happened when the Boys went “over there”. Just like now…

A maritime epic to rank with Melville or Forester – and with stunning pictures too – every episode of this astounding unsung masterpiece is housed in one stunning hardback compilation (also available digitally for limp-wristed old coots like me) and if you love the medium of comics, or history, or just a damn fine tale well-told, you must have it.

That’s really all you need to know, but if you’re one of the regular crowd needful of more of my bombastic blather, a much fuller description follows.

As I’ve already stated, Glanzman belatedly enjoyed some well-earned attention, and this tome opens by sharing Presidential Letters from Barack Obama and George Herbert Walker Bush for his service and achievements. Then follows a Foreword from Ivan Brandon and a copious and informative Introduction by Jon B. Cooke detailing ‘A Sailor’s History: The Life and Art of Sam J. Glanzman’. Next comes a brace of prototypical treats; the initial comic book appearance of U.S.S. Stevens from Dell Comics’ Combat #16 (cover-dated April-June 1965) and the valiant vessel’s first cover spot from Combat #24, April 1967.

The first official U.S.S. Stevens, DD479 appeared after Glanzman approached Joe Kubert, who had recently become Group Editor for DC’s war titles. He commissioned ‘Frightened Boys… or Fighting Men’ (appearing in Our Army at War #218, April 1970), depicting a moment in 1942 as boredom and tension were replaced by frantic action when a suicide plane targeted the ship…

A semi-regular cast was introduced slowly throughout 1970; fictionalised incarnations of old shipmates including skipper Commander T. A. Rakov, who ominously pondered his Task Force’s dispersal, moments before a pot-luck attack known as ‘The Browning Shot’ (Our Fighting Forces #125, May/June) proved his fears justified…

Glanzman’s pocket-sized tales always delivered a mountain of information, mood and impact and ‘The Idiot!’ (OAaW#220, June) is one of his most effective, detailing in 4 mesmerising pages not only the variety of suicidal flying bombs the Allies faced, but also how appalled American sailors reacted to them. Sudden death was everywhere. ‘1-2-3’ (OFF #126, July/August) details how quick action and intuitive thinking saves the ship from a hidden gun emplacement whilst ‘Black Smoke’ (Our Army at War #222, from the same month) shows how a know-it-all engineer causes the sinking of the Stevens’ sister-ship by not believing an old salt’s frequent, frantic warnings. All aboard ship were regularly shaken by the variety of Japanese aircraft and skill of the pilots. ‘Dragonfly’ (OFF #127, September/October) shows exactly why, whilst an insightful glimpse of the enemy’s psychological other-ness is tragically, graphically depicted in the tale of ‘The Kunkō Warrior’ (OAaW #223, September).

A weird encounter with a wooden WWI vessel forces a ‘Double Rescue!’ (Star Spangled War Stories #153, October/November) before OFF #128’s (November/December) ‘How Many Fathoms?’ again counts the human cost of bravery with devastating, understated impact. ‘Buckethead’ (OAaW #225, November) then relates one swabbie’s unique reaction to constant bombardment before ‘Missing: 320 Men!’ (G.I. Combat #145, December 1970-January 1971) debuted Glanzman-avatar Jerry Boyle, who whiled away helpless moments during a shattering battle by sketching cartoons of his astonished shipmates.

‘Death of a Ship!’ (OAaW #227, January 1971) deals with classic war fodder as submarine and ship hunt each other in a deadly duel. A military maritime mystery was solved by Commander Rakov in ‘Cause and Cure!’ Our Army at War #230, March) whilst next issue (April 1971) posed a different conundrum as the ship lost all power and was stuck ‘In the Frying Pan!’…

The vignettes were always less about warfare than its effect – immediate or cumulative – on ordinary guys. ‘Buck Taylor, You Can’t Fool Me!’ (OAaW #232) catalogues his increasingly aberrant behaviour but posits some less likely reasons, after which old school hero Bos’n Egloff saves the day during the worst typhoon of the war in ‘Cabbages and Kings’ (OFF #131, July/August) whilst ‘Kamikaze’ (OAa #235 August) boldly and provocatively tells a poignant life-story from the point of view of the pilot inside a flying bomb.

An informative peek at the crew of a torpedo launch station in ‘Hip Shot’ (G.I. Combat #150 October/November) segues seamlessly into the dangers of shore leave ‘In Tsingtao’ (OFF #134, November/December) whilst ‘XDD479’ (OAaW #238 November) reveals a lost landmark of military history. The real DD479 was one of three destroyers test-trialling ship-mounted spotter planes. This little gem explains why that experiment was dropped…

Buck bounces back in ‘Red Ribbon’ (G.I.C #151 December 1971-January 1972), sharing a personal coping mechanism for making shipboard chores less “exhilarating”, whilst ‘Vela Lavella’ (OAaW #240, January 1972) captures the claustrophobic horror of nighttime naval engagement before ‘Dreams’ (G.I.C #152 February/March) peeps inside various heads to see what the ship’s company would rather be doing. ‘Batmen’ (OAaW #241, February) uses a lecture on radar to recount one of the most astounding exploits of the war…

Every episode was packed with fascinating fact and detail, culled from the artist’s letters home and service-time sketchbooks, but those invaluable memento belligeri also served double duty as the basis for a secondary feature. The debut ‘Sam Glanzman’s War Diary’ appeared in Our Army at War #242 (March 1972): a compendium of pictorial snapshots sharing quieter moments, such as the first passage through the Panama Canal, sleeping arrangements or K.P. duties peeling spuds, and precedes an hilarious record of the freshmen sailors’ endurance of an ancient naval hazing tradition inflicted upon every “pollywog” crossing the equator for the first time in ‘Imperivm Neptivm Regis’ (OFF #136 (March/April 1972).

A second ‘Sam Glanzman’s War Diary’ (OAaW #244, April) reveals the mixed joys of ‘Liberty in the Philippines’ after which a suitably foreboding ‘Prelude’ (Weird War Tales #4 (March/April 1972) captures the passive-panicked tension of daily routine whilst a potentially morale-shattering close shave is shared during an all-too-infrequent ‘Mail Call!’ (G.I. Combat #155, April/May)…

A thoughtful man of keen empathy and insight, Glanzman often offered readers a look at the real victims. ‘What Do They Know About War?’ (OAaW #244, April) sees peasant islanders trying to eke out a living, only to discover far too many similarities between Occupiers and Liberators, whilst the next issue focussed on sailors’ jangling nerves and stomachs. ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the War!’ (#245, May) reveals what happened when DD479 was mistakenly declared destroyed and, thanks to an administrative iron curtain, found it impossible to refuel or take on food stores. Cartoonist Jerry Boyle resurfaced in a ‘Comic Strip’ (OFF #138, July/August) after which Glanzman produced one of the most powerful social statements in an era of tumultuous change.

Our Army at War #247 (July 1972) featured a tale based on decorated Pearl Harbor hero Doner Miller who saved lives, killed the enemy and won medals, but was not allowed to progress beyond the rank of shipboard domestic because of his skin. ‘Color Me Brave!’ was an excoriating attack on the U.S. Navy’s segregation policies and is as breathtaking and rousing now as it was then.

‘Ride the Baka’ (OAaW #248 August) revisits constant near-miss moments sparked by suicide pilots after which Glanzman shares broken sleep in ‘A Nightmare from the Beginning’ (OFF #139, September/October) whilst ‘Another Kunkō Warrior’ (OFF #140, November/December) sees marines taking an island and encountering warfare beyond their comprehension…

1973 began with a death-dipped nursery rhyme detailing ‘This is the Ship that War Built!’ (G.I.C #157 December 1972-January 1973) before ‘Buck Taylor’ (OFF #141 January/February) delivers an impromptu lecture on maritime military history. Glanzman struck an impassioned note for war-brides and lonely ships passing in the night with ‘The Islands Were Meant for Love!’ (Star Spangled War Stories #167 February). Terror turns to wonder when sailors encounter the ‘Portuguese Man of War’ (OAaW #256 August), a shore leave mugging is thwarted thanks to ‘Tailor-Mades’ (OFF #143 June/July) and letters home are necessarily self-censored in ‘The Sea is Calm… The Sky is Bright…’ (OAaW #257 June), but shipboard relationships remain complex and bewildering, as proved in ‘Who to Believe!’ (SSWS #171, July).

The strife of constant struggle comes to the fore in ‘The Kiyi’ (OAaW #258 July) and is seen from both sides when souvenir hunters try to take ‘The Thousand-Stitch-Belt’ (SSWS #172 August), but, as always, it’s noncombatants who truly pay the price, just like the native fishermen in ‘Accident…’ (OAaW #259, August). Even the quietest, happiest moments can turn instantly fatal as good-natured pilferers swiping fruit at a refuelling station discover in ‘King of the Hill’ (SSWS #174, October). An unlikely tale of a kamikaze who survives his final flight but not his final fate, ‘Today is Tomorrow’ (OAaW #261, October) precedes a strident, wordless plea for understanding in ‘Where…?’ (OAaW #262 November 1973) before our sombre mood is briefly lifted with a tale of selfishness and sacrifice in ‘Rocco’s Roost’ from OAaW #265, February 1974.

The following issue provided both a gentle ‘Sam Glanzman’s War Diary’ covering down-time in “The Islands” and a brutal tale of mentorship and torches passed seen in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’, after which a truly disturbing tale of what we now call gender identity and post-traumatic stress disorder is recounted in the tragedy of ‘Toro’ ( April/May Our Fighting Forces #148)…

‘Moonglow’ from OAaW #267 (April 1974) reveals how quickly placid contemplation can turn to blazing conflagration, whilst – after a chilling, evocative ‘Sam Glanzman’s War Diary’ (OAaW #269 June) – ‘Lucky… Save Me!’ (OAaW #275, December 1974) shows how memories of unconditional love can offset the cruellest of injuries. ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose!’ (OAaW #281, June 1975) explores how both friend and foe alike can be addicted to risk, after which the next issue’s ‘I Am Old Glory…’ sardonically transposes a thoughtful veneration with the actualities of combat before ‘A Glance into Glanzman’ by Allan Asherman (Our Army at War #284, September 1975) takes a look at the author’s creative process.

Then it’s back to those sketchbooks and another peep ‘Between the Pages’ (OAaW #293, June 1976) before ‘Not Granted!’ (OAaW #298, November 1976) discloses every seaman’s most fervent wish…

Stories were coming at greater intervals at this time and it was clear that – editorially at least – the company was moving on to fresher and more fantastical fields. Glanzman, however, had saved his best till last as a stomach-churning visual essay displayed the force of tension sustained over months in ‘…And Fear Crippled Andy Payne’ (Sgt. Rock #304, May 1977) before an elegy to bravery and stupidity asked ‘Why?’ in Sgt. Rock #308 (September 1977).

And that was it for nearly a decade. Glanzman – a consummate professional – moved on to other ventures. He was, however, constantly asked about U.S.S. Stevens and eventually returned to his spiritual stomping grounds in expanded tales of DD479: both in his graphic novel memoirs and comic strips. The latter appeared in anthological monochrome Marvel magazine Savage Tales (#6-8, spanning August-December 1986) under the umbrella title ‘Of War and Peace – Tales by Mas’.

First up was ‘The Trinity’ blending present with past to detail a shocking incident of a good man’s breaking point, whilst a lighter tone informed ‘In a Gentlemanly Way’, as Glanzman recalled different means by which officers and swabbies showed pride for their ships. ‘Rescued by Luck’ than concentrated on a saga of island survival for sailors whose ship had sunk. Next comes a hauntingly powerful black-&-white tale of then and now entitled ‘Even Dead Birds Have Wings’ (created for the Dover Edition of A Sailor’s Story from 2015), after which a chronologically adrift yarn (from Sgt. Rock Special #1, October 1992) evokes potently elegiac feelings, describing an uncanny act of gallantry under fire and the ultimate fate of old heroes in ‘Home of the Brave’…

Some years ago, by popular – and editorial – demand, Glanzman returned to the U.S.S. Stevens for an old friend’s swan song series; providing new tales for each issue of DC’s anthological 6-issue miniseries Joe Kubert Presents (December 2012 – May 2013). More scattershot reminiscences than structured stories, ‘I REMEMBER: Dreams’ and ‘I REMEMBER: Squish Squash’ recapitulate unforgettable moments seen through eyes at the sunset end of life; recalling giant storms and lost friends, imagining how distant families endured war and absence and, as always, balancing funny memories with tragic, like that time when the stiff-necked new commander…

‘Snapshots’ continues the reverie, blending a veteran’s war stories with cherished times as a kid on the farm whilst ‘The Figurehead’ delves deeper into the character of Buck Taylor and his esoteric quest for seaborne nirvana…

Closing that last hurrah were ‘Back and Forth 1941-1944’ and ‘Back and Forth 1941-1945’: an encapsulating catalogue of war service as experienced by the creator, mixing facts, figures, memories and reactions to form a quiet tribute to all who served and all who never returned…

With the stories mostly told, ‘Afterword’ by Allan Asherman details those heady days when he worked in DC Editorial, and Glanzman would unfailingly light up the offices by delivering his latest strips, after which this monolithic milestone offers a vast and stunningly detailed appendix of ‘Story Annotations’ by Jon B. Cooke.

This is a magnificent collection of comic stories based on real life and what is more fitting than to end it with ‘U.S.S. Stevens DD479’ (coloured by Frank M. Cuonzo & lettered by Thomas Mauer): one final, lyrical farewell from Glanzman to his comrades and the ship which still holds his heart after all these years?

This is an extraordinary work. In unobtrusive little snippets, Glanzman challenged myths, prejudices and stereotypes – of morality, manhood, race, sexuality and gender – decades before anybody else in comics even thought to try. He also brought an aura of authenticity to war stories which has never been equalled: eschewing melodrama, faux heroism, trumped-up angst and eye-catching glory-hounding to instead depict how brothers-in-arms really felt and acted and suffered and died.

Shockingly funny, painfully realistic and visually captivating, U.S.S. Stevens is phenomenal and magnificent: a masterpiece by one of the very best of “The Greatest Generation”. I waited over 40 years for this and I couldn’t be happier that ten years later this is one comics classic that is still available to all: a sublimely insightful, affecting and rewarding graphic memoir every home, school and library should have and one every reader will return to over and over.
Artwork and text © 2015 Sam Glanzman. All other material © 2015 its respective creators.

Today in 1920. US Dennis the Menace originator Hank Ketcham was born as was Funky Winkerbean cartoonist Tom Batiuk in 1947, and comics horror god Stephen R. Bissette in 1955. In 1973 we mourned Blondie creator Chic Young.

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No Surrender


By Constance Maud: adapted by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-91422-406-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Happy International women’s day 2026! And if you’re a guy who groaned. swore and reached for your huge, Massive THROBBING keyboard to type out those trollish insults someone else made up for you, HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2026 AGAIN! SEE YOU NEXT YEAR?

Constance Elizabeth Maud (1857-1929) was a child of privilege: daughter of a celebrated English scholar and cleric. She was primarily educated in France and lived there or in Chelsea for most of her life. Between 1895 and 1924 she wrote numerous articles and 8 novels – of which No Surrender was the penultimate – and became a member of the 400-strong Women Writers Suffrage League. In 1908 she joined The Women’s Social and Political Union and The Women’s Freedom League: turning her writings to the needs of the cause. Her work subsequently appeared in many periodicals, especially magazines like the Suffragist movement’s newspaper Votes For Women.

In No Surrender (published in 1911 – and again in an annotated centenary edition released by publisher Persephone in 2011), Maud incorporated actual events with fictionalised analogues of many contemporary activists participating in the struggle to craft a history and playbook of the campaign for emancipation. The book became a rallying point and recruiting tool for the movement and was used to promote the soft end of the battle for equality. It inspired countless women (and presumable many male sympathisers) with a dramatised story of how the great and good would join with the humblest workers and unite to overcome…

Maud lived just long enough to see British women secure the right to vote: in 1918 with the Representation of the People Act – which enfranchised women over 30 years old – and at last witnessing universal female suffrage established in 1928’s Act, legislating that all Britons of 21 years or above could freely vote.

The main reason why No Surrender was such an effective weapon in the war to win the vote for all is that its propaganda and polemic were deftly disguised by readily accessible drama. Beginning in industrial hub Greyston, ‘The Mill’ tells how northern mill worker Jenny Clegg is fired up by the many injustices afflicting women’s lives: with cruelty, unfair taxation, financial neglect, legitimised maltreatment and a status of second-class citizens chaining every female to a man of the gutter…

Rebelling, she forsakes her crusading socialist love interest Joe Hopton – a successful prime mover in winning better lives and wages for male workers – and dedicates her life to winning those same rights and representation for women. Upper class Suffragist Mary O’Neill has a more refined but similarly intransigent family at ‘The Country House’, all decrying her passion for women’s suffrage. She and Jenny will become friends, allies and leading lights in the struggle, inspiring millions of women, converting men, embarrassing the authorities and challenging a society where even other women refuse to see a status quo threatened…

Both driven by ‘The Calling’, they and a growing army of allies will invade London and suffer police and legal suppression in ‘The Courtyard’ and face ‘The Magistrate’ but never stray from their course. Whether testing tactics in ‘The Routes To Battle’ or challenging their detractors through heated debate on ‘The Cart’, the socially-distanced allies never stop their work, and gradually make converts even amongst the stratified intelligentsia who enjoy the closeted luxuries of ‘The Weekend Cottage’…

Just like a soap opera, the story sees multiple characters interact on many levels but underpinning it all is a roster of actual protest events woven into the plot, such as ambushing off-duty cabinet ministers in ‘The Church’ and then infiltrating ‘The Dinner Party’ to reinforce their message.

The darkest and most notorious moments of the cause are also featured, as Clegg, O’Neill and other noted activists of every class endure imprisonment, abuse and medical torture – but each according to their own social rank and standing – in ‘The Crushed Butterfly’, ‘The Prison’ and the deeply distressing culmination of ‘The Punishment’. Always, efforts to disunite and separate rich from poor, inherently virtuous from tawdry and lowborn, fails as their core principle – that they are all women together – utterly eludes the smug, hectoring, insensate elitist male oppressors; prejudiced and scared working men and the Anti-Suffrage Women’s groups populated with ladies who know and defend their privileged positions in the world…

Ultimately, Jenny and Joe are united in the cause and Mary makes her own converts in ‘The Homecoming’ before the story ends with a proud rallying of all in the march to inevitable universal enfranchisement and victory in ‘The Standard is Raised’ – a rousing graphic tour de force with illustrator Sophie Rickard crafting a stunning multi-page fold-out any art fan would cry to see…

Maud’s tale was ostensibly a romance and account of families in crisis with a thinly disguised moral message like any Dickens or Thomas Hardy novel. She explored and contrasted the lives of poor working folk with gentry and aristocracy, but also scrupulously catalogued the added travails and insecurities of working women. At this time women had been successively deprived of most financial and civil rights and privileges. They had to pay taxes but enjoyed no representation under the law; could not be legal guardians of their own children or property and, if married, could not divorce whilst their husbands could. The men could also beat them, but only with cudgels of judicially-mandated size…

At the end of this hefty and deliciously substantial graphic novel there’s a chart showing when – and how incrementally – nations of the world instituted female enfranchisement, and an Afterword by adapting creators Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (This Slavery, Mann’s Best Friend, A Blow Borne Quietly, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists), naming names and offering factual provenance for incidents and characters enriching the narrative. It also declares why – in the current environment where a citizen’s right to dissent and protest is being deviously and criminally whittled away – the principles of organised resistance and role and consequences of righteous civil disobedience must be stridently defended…

Fair minded, honestly and powerfully expressing the views of all – including those opposing universal enfranchisement (and restoration of previously-removed social and civil rights) – Maud’s words are reinvigorated here with the authorities, capitalists, police and judiciary all given a fair hearing – and generally convicted out of their own mouths. Of particular interest to modern readers will be the opinions of women who didn’t want a vote and the low workingmen who were generally the most passionate and violent opponents of change and equality…

Powerful, enraging, engaging and even occasionally funny, this never-more-timely tale of the force of the disenfranchised with their backs to the wall and ready to fight is supremely readable and should be compulsory viewing for all – as long as we don’t force anyone to…
© 2022 SelfMadeHero. Text © 2022 Sophie Rickard. Artwork © 2022 Scarlett Rickard. All rights reserved.

Today in 1880 Wonder Woman co-creator Harry G. Peter was born.

In 1907 Dutch comics master Charles Boost (Broeder Bastiaan, Knor de Pot, Neppie Tuun, Jan de Zeehond, Robinson Crusoë) was born, as was Mad magazine cartoonist Jack Rickard in 1922, Sal Amendola in 1948, and Eric Powell in 1975.

In 1936 The Sunday Post featured Dudley D. Watkins’ The Broons & Oor Wullie for the first time, and in 1975 iconic UK comic Battle Picture Weekly launched the first of its 644 issues, and just kept on doing it until January 1988.

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The Spirit: An 80th Anniversary Celebration


By Will Eisner with Abe Kanegson, Sam Rosen, Laura Martin, Jeromy Cox & various (Clover Press)
ISBN: 978-1-95103-805-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It is pretty much accepted today that Will Eisner was one of the prime creative forces that shaped the comic book industry, but still many of his milestones escape public acclaim in the English-speaking world.

William Erwin Eisner was born on March 6th 1917, in Brooklyn, and grew up in the ghettos of the city. They never left him. After time served inventing much of the visual semantics, semiotics and syllabary of the medium he dubbed “Sequential Art” in strips, comicbooks, newspaper premiums and instructional comics, he then invented the mainstream graphic novel, bringing maturity, acceptability and public recognition to English language comics.

In 1978 a collection of four original short stories in comics form released in a single book, A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories. All the tales centred around 55 Dropsie Avenue: a 1930’s Bronx tenement housing poor Jewish and immigrant families. It changed the American perception of cartoon strips forever.

Eisner wrote and drew a further 20 further masterpieces, opening the door for all other comics creators to escape the funny book and anodyne strip ghettos of superheroes, funny animals, juvenilia and “family-friendly” entertainment. At one stroke comics grew up.

Eisner constantly pushed the boundaries of his craft, honing his skills not just on the legendary Spirit but with years of educational and promotional material. In A Contract With God he moved into unexplored territory with truly sophisticated, mature themes worthy of Steinbeck and F. Scott Fitzgerald, using pictorial fiction as documentary exploration of social experience.

Restlessly plundering his own childhood and love of human nature as well as his belief that environment was a major and active character in fiction, in the 1980s Eisner began redefining the building blocks unique to sequential narrative with a portmanteau series of brief vignettes that told stories and tested the expressive and informational limits of representational drawings on paper. From 1936 to 1938, Eisner worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the comics production firm known as the Eisner-Eiger Shop, creating strips for domestic US and foreign markets. Using pen-name Willis B. Rensie he conceived and drew the opening instalments of a huge variety of characters ranging from funny animal to historical sagas, Westerns, Detectives, aviation action thrillers – and superheroes – lots of superheroes…

In 1940 Everett “Busy” Arnold (head honcho of the superbly impressive Quality Comics outfit) invited Eisner to take on a new challenge. The Register-Tribune newspaper syndicate wanted a 16-page weekly comic book insert to be given away with the Sunday editions. Despite the terrifying workload such a commission demanded, Eisner jumped at the opportunity, creating three strips which would initially be handled by him before two of them were handed off to his talented assistants. Bob Powell inherited Mr. Mystic whilst masked detective Lady Luck fell into the capable hands of Nick Cardy (then still Nicholas Viscardi), and later the inimitable Klaus Nordling.

Eisner kept the lead strip for himself, and over the next twelve years The Spirit became the most impressive, innovative, imitated and talked-about strip in the business. In 1952 the venture folded and Eisner moved into commercial, instructional and educational strips. He worked extensively for the US military in manuals and magazines like P*S, the Preventative Maintenance Monthly, generally leaving comics books behind.

In the wake of “Batmania” and the 1960s superhero craze, Harvey Comics released two giant-sized reprints with a little new material from the artist, which lead to underground/indie editions and a slow revival of the Spirit’s fame and fortune via monochrome newsstand reprint magazines. Initially, Warren Publishing collected old stories, even adding colour sections with painted illumination from such contemporary luminaries as Rich Corben, but with #17 the title reverted to Kitchen Sink, who had produced the first two underground collections.

Eisner found himself re-enamoured with graphic narrative and saw a willing audience eager for new works. From producing new Spirit covers for the magazine (something the original newspaper insert had never needed) he became increasingly inspired. American comics were evolving into an art form and the restless creator finally saw a place for the kind of stories he had always wanted to tell.

Eisner began crafting some of the most telling and impressive work the US industry had ever seen: first in limited collector portfolios and eventually in 1978, A Contract With God. If Jack Kirby was American comics’ most influential artist, Will Eisner undoubtedly was – and remains – its most venerated and exceptional storyteller. Contemporaries originating from strikingly similar Jewish backgrounds, each used comic arts to escape from their own tenements, achieving varying degrees of acclaim and success, and eventually settling upon a theme to colour all their later works. For Kirby it was the Cosmos, what Man would find there, and how humanity would transcend its origins in The Ultimate Outward Escape. Will Eisner went Home, went Back and went Inward.

The Spirit debuted on June 2nd 1940 in the Sunday edition of newspapers belonging to the Register and Tribune Syndicates. “The Spirit Section” expanded into 20 Sunday newspapers, with a combined circulation of five million copies during the 1940s and ran until October 5th 1952. This collection re-presents a selection of classic adventures from the original 12-year canon, in stark stunning monochrome, with five digitally recoloured by Laura Martin and Jeromy Cox. Furthermore, each episode is preceded by an essay from Industry insiders and unashamed fans.

Leading the charge and providing a fascinating breakdown on the history of the masked marvel is former publisher (one of 15 to date) Denis Kitchen, who provides ‘A Brief History and Appreciation of The Spirit’ before the Cox-coloured ‘Who is The Spirit?’ reveals how a battle of wills between private detective Denny Colt and scientific terror Dr. Cobra leads to the hero’s death and resurrection as the ultimate man of mystery…

Editorial wonder Diana Schutz deconstructs one of Eisner’s most metaphysically mirthful yarns as ‘No Spirit Story Today’ treats us all to monochrome madness with a deadline crunch inspiring a Central City cartoonist to break the fourth wall. Dean Mullaney then spills the beans over atomic era intrigue as Martin’s hues add bite to the 1947 armageddon spoof ‘Wanted’, with the entire world as well as our hero hunting a little man with a deadly secret…

According to Bruce Canwell’s essay, Li’ Abner parody ‘Li’l Adam’ was part of a scheme between Eisner and Al Capp to mutually boost popularity of their respective properties. The jury’s still out, but there no doubt that the Spirit portion is one of the wackiest episodes in the gumshoe’s case files, unlike the moody, compelling tragedy of ‘The Strange Case of Mrs. Paraffin’ (previewed by Charles Brownstein), wherein the ghostly gangbuster strives to convince a widow that she is not also a murderess…

Paul Levitz examines authorial inspiration in anticipation of a return to black & white and The Spirit’s battle against arsonist ‘The Torch’: a potentially passé romp rendered hilariously unforgettable by Eisner’s wry poke at advertising sponsorship, before Beau Smith fondly recalls his mentor’s gift for teaching using modern magic realist western ‘Gold’ as his exemplar…

Coloured by Cox and discussed by Craig Yoe, ‘Matua’ is a deftly winsome tribute to myths and legends disguised as a poke at monster movies with the Spirit wandering the Pacific Islands and meeting an awakened colossal beast, after which Greg Goldstein focusses on ‘Sound’ as a monochrome moment again peeks behind the curtain of a cartoonist’s life.

Eisner always had a superb team to back him up and here letterers Sam Rosen & Abe Kanegson combine with design assistant Jules Pfeiffer to make the wordforms the surreal stars of this picture show about another murdered pencil pusher…

Rounding out this tribute to eight tumultuous decades of Spiritual Enlightenment is a Will Eisner Art Gallery of latterday sketches, pin-ups and covers by the master.

Will Eisner is rightly regarded as one of the greatest writers in American comics but it is too seldom that his incredible draughtsmanship and design sense get to grab the spotlight. This book is a joy no fan or art-lover should be without, and is especially recommended for newbies who only know Eisner’s more mature works.

By the Way: Although Eisner started out utilising the commonplace racial and gender stereotypes employed by so many sectors of mass entertainment, he was among the first in comics – or anywhere else – to eschew and abandon them. In these more enlightened, if not settled, times, it’s nice to see a statement addressing the historical and cultural problems not to mention potential distress these outdated sensibilities might cause right at the front of the collection. So, if funny books can do it, how come statues and people can’t?
THE SPIRIT and WILL EISNER are Registered Trademarks of Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Will Eisner’s The Spirit © 2020 Will Eisner Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All other material © its respective contributor. © 2020 Clover Press, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

In case you missed it, today in 1917 Will Eisner was born, and shared his natal day with Al Milgrom in 1950 and Kieron Dwyer in 1967. The date also marks the deaths of Jack Abel in 1996 and in 2007, groundbreaking woman artist Lina Buffolente who drew Italian comics from age 17 in 1941 ‘til the end.

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Harvey Kurtzman’s Strange Adventures


By Harvey Kurtzman, Art Spiegelman, Moebius, R. Crumb, Eric Palma, William Stout, Sergio Aragonés & Tom Luth, Tomas Bunk, Rick Geary, Dave Gibbons, Sarah Downs & various (Epic Comics/A Byron Preiss Book
ISBN: 978-0-87135-675-8 (Album HB)

This book contains Discriminatory Content included for satirical and dramatic effect.

Creative genius Harvey Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the latter half of the last century – even more so than Jules Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert or Will Eisner. His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking, game-changing Mad comic book) would be enough for most creators to lean back on, but Kurtzman was also a force in newspaper strips (Flash Gordon Complete 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, commentator and social critic who kept on looking at folk and their doings. He just couldn’t stop making art or sharing his conclusions…

Kurtzman invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour comic book Mad into a monochrome magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fallout caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed EC’s other titles. He then pursued comedy and social satire further with newsstand magazines Trump (no relation to any orange tossers!), Humbug and Help! – all the while creating challenging and powerfully effective humour strips like Little Annie Fanny (for Playboy), Nutz, Goodman Beaver, Betsy and her Buddies and many more. He died far too soon, far too young today in 1993.

Utterly unavailable in digital editions, this intriguing oddment from 1990 saw the Great Observer return to his comic roots to spoof and lambaste strip characters, classic cinema and contemporary sentiments in a series of vignettes illustrated by some of the biggest names of the day. Following a captivating introduction from ex-student Art Spiegelman, a stunning pin-up from Moebius and an overview from project coordinator Byron Preiss, the fun begins with a typically upbeat cartoon appreciation from R. Crumb: ‘Ode to Harvey Kurtzman’ which was coloured by Eric Palma, after which the Harvey-fest begins in earnest…

‘Shmegeggi of the Cave Men’ visually revives the author’s legendary Goodman Beaver, dislocating him to that mythic antediluvian land of dim brutes, hot babes in fur bikinis and marauding dinosaurs, to take a look at how little sexual politics has progressed in a million years – all exquisitely painted by cartoonist, movie artist and paleontological illustrator William Stout, after which Sergio Aragonés adds his inimitable mania to the stirring piratical shenanigans of the dashing ‘Captain Bleed’ (with striking hues supplied by Groo accomplice Tom Luth).

Western parody ‘Drums Along the Shmohawk’ is an all-Kurtzman affair as the scribe picks up his pens and felt-tips to describe how the sheriff and his stooge paid a little visit to the local tribe…

Cartoonist, fine artist and illustrator Tomas Bunk contributes a classically underground and exuberant job depicting ‘A Vampire Named Mel’ whilst arch-stylist Rick Geary helps update the most famous canine star in history with ‘Sassy, Come Home’. Limey Living Legend Dave Gibbons utilises his too-seldom-seen gift for comedy by aiding and abetting in what we Brits term “a good kicking” to the superhero genre in the outrageous romp ‘The Silver Surfer’ before the cartoon buffoonery concludes with Kurtzman and long-time associate Sarah Downs smacking a good genre while it’s down and dirty in ‘Halloween, or the Legend of Creepy Hollow’.

But wait, there’s more…

This seductive oversized hardback also has an abundant section devoted to creator biographies supplemented with pages and pages of Kurtzman’s uniquely wonderful pencil rough script pages – almost like having the stories printed twice.

Fun, philosophical fantasy and fabulous famous, artist folk: what more do you need to know – other than that SOMEone should re-release tis ASAP?
© 1990 by Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc. Each strip © 1990 Harvey Kurtzman and the respective artist. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1922 British comics artist (Bennie & Barley Bottom) and social redeemer Derek Chittock was born, with Belgian comics maven René Hausman (Laïyna), following in 1936 and fantasy illustrator Frank (Doctor Strange, Howard the Duck, Creepy) Brunner arriving in 1949. In 1963 manhua creator Khoo Fuk Lung (Saint) was born, with comics/screenwriter Christopher Yost coming in 1973 and Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim, Seconds, Snotgirl) in 1979.

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A Cartoon History of the Monarchy


By Michael Wynn Jones and Many & Various (Macmillan)
ISBN: 978-0333198056 (PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

We’re far too reluctant in this country to celebrate the history and quality of our own cartooning tradition; preferring simply to remark on the attention-grabbers or impressive longevity of one or two classic and venerable veterans of the pen-&-ink game for TV soundbites and platform clickbait. The actual truth is that for an incredibly long time the political art movement of the Empire and Commonwealth – and its enemies – was vast, varied and fantastically influential.

The British wing of the form has been magnificently serviced over centuries by masters of form, line, wash and most importantly ideas, repeatedly tickling our funny bones or enraging our sleeping consciences and sensibilities, all whilst poking our communal pomposities and fascinations.

From earliest inception, satiric draughtsmanship has been used to attack and sell: initially ideas, values, opinions and prejudices or but eventually actual products too. In newspapers, magazines and especially comic books, the sheer power of graphic narrative, with its ability to create emotional affinities, has led to the creation of unforgettable images and characters – and the destruction of real people or social systems.

When those creations can affect the daily lives of millions of readers, the force they can apply in the commercial or political arena is well-nigh irresistible…

In Britain, the cartoonist has held a bizarrely precarious position of power for centuries: the deftly designed bombastic broadside or savagely surgical satirical slice instantly capable of ridiculing, exposing, uplifting or deflating the powerfully elevated, unapproachable and apparently untouchable with a simple shaped-charge of scandalous wit and crushingly clear, universally understandable visual metaphor.

For this method of concept transmission, lack of literacy or education is no barrier. As the Catholic Church proved centuries ago with the Stations of the Cross, stained glass windows and a superteam of idealised saints, a picture is worth far more than a thousand words…

For as long as we’ve had printing there have been scurrilous gadfly artists commentating on rulers, society and all iniquities: pictorially haranguing the powerful, pompous, privileged and just plain perfidious through swingeing satire and cunning caricature. Sometimes artists have been just plain mean. Those are usually the best and most memorable…

Britain had no monopoly on talent and indignation, and this canny compendium also frequently features European – and latterly American – takes on our always-scandalous Royals (wow, is THAT true today!) and oddball citizenry…

Released in 1978 and desperately in need of updating and re-issue, A Cartoon History of the Monarchy offers a potted, far from hagiographic history and deliciously skewed view of our Ruling Elite in all their unsavoury glory. Here reside an unbroken line of jibes, asides and broadsides culled from diverse sources by jobbing journalist and aficionado of japes, lampoons and sketches Michael Wynn Jones, who casts his discriminating eye from the reign of Elizabeth I up until just before the Silver Jubilee of the second Regina to bear the name…

Following a rota of the Kings and Queens of England, the pomposity-puncturing procession commences with The Age of Intolerance, reproducing cartoons and adding commentary dealing with the doings of the 10 monarchs from the initial Elizabeth I to George II.

Accompanying essays share the zeitgeist of those times; the religious questions as England, Wales, Ireland and eventually Scotland faced numerous crises regarding succession. That issue always revolved around whether the land should be Catholic or Protestant. ‘Popes, Plots and Puritans’ led to a final solution when ‘The Men from Hanover’ arrived to settle the matter and fully cement the nation under the Church of England.

A savage sampling of national and European opinions are represented by 26 visual bombards such as allegorical assault ‘Diana and Callisto’ by Dutch artist Miricenys (1585), anonymous ‘England’s Miraculous Preservation’ (1648) and ‘The Royal Oake of Brittayn’ (1649) amongst many others.

Cartoon grotesques like ‘Cromwell’s Car’ (1649) or ‘Babel and Bethel’ (1679) appear beside such scandalous foreign attacks as Dutch illustrator Dusart’s ‘Fr. James King’ or anonymous French pictorial polemic ‘Notice of Burial’ (both from 1690). We Brits riposted with jeering celebrations of martial triumphs such as ‘The Arrival of William and Mary’ (1689), ‘The Great Eclipse of the Sun’ (simultaneously a topical spin on a 1706 solar event and defeat of “Sun King” Louis XIV by the British armies of Queen Anne), and ‘A Bridle for the French King’ from the same year.

Domestic contretemps are highlighted through such draughtsman’s delights as anonymous 1743 shocker ‘The Hanover Bubble’, Ebersley’s ‘The Agreeable Contrast’ (1746 and attacking King George’s brother “Butcher” Cumberland’s treatment of Jacobites after the Young Pretender’s defeat), and exposure of Popish influence in the Highlands, described in ‘The Chevalier’s Market’ 1745…

Whereas much of this material – British and otherwise – was generally national commentary and pure religio-political assault, by the time period covered in The Wickedest Age: George III to George IV (1760-1830), the cartoon had also evolved into a weapon designed to wound with wit and crush through cruel caricature. After covering major crises and scandals of the generally sensible – if parsimonious – third George in ‘The Royal Malady’, ‘The Dregs of Their Dull Race’ and ‘Twilight Years’: a veritable Golden Age of popular disapproval and pictorial pummelling of the Prince Regent and much-delayed, frustrated monarch (plus his many indiscreet mistresses) is covered in ‘The Prince of Whales’, ‘The Secret Marriage’, ‘…Pray Get Me a Glass of Brandy’ and ‘Delicate Investigations’.

The public disdain of the times generated a fusillade of cartoon prints, represented here by 35 graphic thrusts and savage cartoon sallies by names now as famous as any ruler. However master character assassins Townsend (‘The Scotch hurdy-gurdy’), George Cruikshank (‘Royal Condescension’), Gillray (‘A New Way to Pay the National Debt’, ‘A Voluptuary under the Horrors of Digestion’), Rowlandson (‘The Prospect Before Us’) and Heath (‘A Triumph of innocence over perjury’) are brilliantly bolstered by lesser lights West (‘The Save-all and the Extinguisher!’), Williams (‘Low Life above stairs’), Vowles (‘The shelter for the destitute’) and Marshall (‘The kettle calling the pot ugly names’) and some anonymous pen-pricks who nevertheless hit hard with ‘Tempora Mutantor’, ‘The captive Prince’ and ‘Reading of the Imperial decree’ and more.

Eventually, periodical publication overtook print-shops as the great disseminators of cartoon imagery, and open savagery and targeted vulgarity of caricaturists gradually gave way to mannered, if barbed, genteel observation. Thus The Age of Discretion: William IV to Victoria (1830-1901) offers a different style of Royal Commentary: no less challenging, but certainly more overtly respectful even when critical. Sometimes, though, the new family-oriented cartooning – even in magazines like Punch and The Times – simply sunk to fawning veneration as the institution of monarchy became more and more removed from the lives of the citizenry.

William’s times are summed up in text via ‘The Sailor King’ and ‘Reform Billy’ whilst Victoria’s epochal reign and the Parliamentarians who increasingly wielded decisive power is described through ‘The Queen of the Whigs’, ‘Revolutions are bad for the Country’, ‘The Black and the Brown’ and ‘Years of Widowhood’. The 36 collected images recapture days of Empire, with Heath, Seymour & Doyle predominant in illustrating bluff sea-dog William’s socially contentious days of Reform (no, not our modern bunch of useless Gammons, but actually people seemingly seeking to make the country better very long ago…)

Victoria’s years – from engaging popular ingénue Queen, through happy bride to politically intrusive grand dame of European Court intrigue – highlights the craft of Doyle ‘The Queen in Danger’ (1837), Leech ‘There’s Always Something’ (1852), Tenniel ‘Queen Hermione’ (1865), ‘New Crowns for Old Ones!’ (1876), Morgan (Where is Britannia?’ and ‘A Brown Study’ (both 1867) and Sambourne ‘Kaiser-i-Hind’ (1876) amongst so many others. Her latter years saw a rise in social conscience cartooning as displayed by the crusading Merry with ‘The Scapegrace of the Family’ (1880), ‘The fall of the rebels’ in 1886 and more. The telling modernist take of Max Beerbohm cuttingly illustrated the rift between the Empress and her playboy heir in ‘The rare, the rather awful visits of Albert Edward to Windsor Castle’…

Despite her well-publicised disapproval of the good-time Prince, he became an effective king as did his son, both covered in The Edwardian Age: Edward VII to George V, spanning 1901-1936. Their dutiful achievements are depicted in ‘The Coming King’ and ‘The First Gentleman of Europe’ before war with Germany necessitated a family name change for George: ‘The First Windsor’…

With kings increasingly used as good-will ambassadors and cited in scandals frequently ending in court (sound familiar?), the 30 cartoons in this section include many German pieces from not only the war years but also the tense decade that preceded them. At that time of tinderbox politics, Imperial Superpowers jostled for position and used propaganda to appeal to the world’s “unwashed masses” for justification in their aims and ambitions. Beside veteran caricaturists like Leech, Morgan, May, Partridge, Staniforth and David Low are merciless lampoons from German cartoonists Brandt, Blir, Heine, Gulbransson and Johnson as well as French illustrator Veber and lone American Kirby.

Our pen-&-ink pictorial history lesson concludes with The Age of Respectability: Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II, by generally skipping World War II, concentrating on the openly secret scandal of Edward & Mrs Simpson in ‘Abdication’. Thereafter the advent of ‘New Elizabethans’ brought a modern age of monarchs as sideshow attractions…

Although Fleet Street chose to whitewash and suppress the affair between a King-in-waiting and an American divorcee, the rest of the world made great play of the situation: as seen here with 11 telling cartoon shots from Americans McCutcheon and Orro, whilst French scribbler Effel posited typically insouciant Gallic pragmatism in ‘Une Solution’ and German-based Gulbransson played up the true romance angle…

In the meantime, British cartoonist Low had to be at his most obliquely hilarious, delineating the crisis by not mentioning it, whilst Punch stars such as Partridge steadfastly pursued a line of deferential, tragic sacrifice…

Although there is very little material featuring wartime monarch George VI – a propaganda casualty of the conflict – the last 20 cartoons herein celebrate the changing image of a very public Royal Family, pictured by names hopefully familiar to contemporary cartoon lovers.

The imagery is also contextually far more familiar – and presumably comfortable – to modern tastes as print media generally learned to save their vitriol for politicians and celebrities: reserving only minor chidings and silly teasing for “the Royals”, as seen in ‘Birthday Greetings’ and ‘Under the Splendid Empire Tree’ (Shepard fin 1947) or Illingworth’s 1951 panels ‘Family Ties’ and ‘Happy Returns’. Papers were, however, happy to utilise monarchy to score points against governments, as seen in an attack on Enoch Powell (Cummings’ ‘Ministry of Repatriation’) and the battle between Rhodesia’s Ian Smith and Harold Wilson, lampooned in ‘Your Move!’ by Jak (both 1968) or the legendary Giles’ ‘New Rent Assistance Bill’ (1971).

Also offering acerbic jollity of a far more blueblood-specific variety are cartoon giants Trog and Waite, joining the abovementioned in exploiting the Royal Family’s gift for headline-stealing gaffes in such daring gags as ‘I Suppose we did send them to the Right Schools?’, ‘I Suppose she’ll think these are of the Queen Mother’, ‘More Pay’ and ‘Andrew’s Exchange Student’: coming full circle with the best of Hanoverian excesses scrutinised by cost-conscious government and public – albeit this time for rather more gentle laughs…

Appended with a scholarly section of Acknowledgements, Illustration sources and Index of artists, this is an extremely effective introduction to the lasting relationship between Royalty, Church and Fourth Estate, offering a fantastic overview of Regal adaptability and cultural life through cunningly contrived images and pictorial iconography that shaped society and the world.

These are timeless examples of the political pictorialist’s uncanny power and, as signs of the times, form a surprising effecting gestalt of the never-happy nation’s feeling and character.

None of that actually matters now, since these cartoons have performed the task they were intended for: moulding attitudes of generations of voters who never voted for monarchy. That they have also stood the test of time and remain beloved relics of a lethal art form is true testament to their power and passion.

Stuffed with astounding images, fascinating lost ephemera and mouth-watering tastes of comic art no aficionado could resist, this colossal collection is a beautiful piece of cartoon history to delight and tantalise all who read it.

We haven’t had many monarchs since this book was first released, but there are plenty of new Royals and so many scandals to explore, so it’s long past time for a fresh edition, no?

NOW CAN WE HAVE A NEW REVISED EDITION PLEASE?
© Michael Wynn Jones 1978. All rights reserved.

Today in 1893 attorney and psychologist Elizabeth Holloway Marston was born, although you won’t find her name on any of the Wonder Woman stories she wrote with her husband. In 1929 Australian John Dangar Dixon (Air Hawk and the Flying Doctors – which ran from 1959 until 1986) was born, as was Torpedo creator Enrique Sánchez Abulí in 1945 and colourist Steve Oliff in 1954. Dwayne McDuffie arrived in 1962, as did Mike Allred, whilst Lady Killer, Batman & Catwoman scribe Joëlle Jones didn’t join the party until 1980.

We lost both Superman stalwart Wayne Boring and Blake & Mortimer creator Edgar Pierre Jacobs in 1987 and strips scribe Elliot Caplin (Dr. Bobbs, Peter Scratch, Big Ben Bolt, Abbie an’ Slats, Long Sam, Little Orphan Annie, The Heart of Juliet Jones) in 2000.

If you’re British and never grew up, today in 1971 TV based weekly Countdown launched…

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Nuts


By Gahan Wilson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-454-2 (HB/Digital edition

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Born on February 18th 1930 and dying November 21st 2019, Gahan Allen Wilson was an illustrator, cartoonist, essayist and author who always had his eyes and heart set on the future. According to Gary Groth, the artist/author grew up reading comic strips as much as fantasy fiction.

It always showed.

The mordantly macabre, acerbically wry and surreal draughtsman tickled funnybones and twanged nerves with his darkly dry graphic confections from the 1960s onwards; contributing superb spoofs, sparklingly horrific and satirically suspenseful drawings and strips and panels as a celebrated regular contributor in such major magazines as Playboy, Collier’s, The New Yorker and others. He also wrote cutting edge science fiction for Again Dangerous Visions, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Twilight Zone Magazine and Realms of Fantasy as well as contributing criticism, book and film reviews for them all.

In an extremely broad and long career he wore dozens of creative hats, even embracing the modern digital universe by creating – with Byron Preiss – his own supernatural computer game Gahan Wilson’s the Ultimate Haunted House.

When National Lampoon first began its devastatingly satirical (geez, do modern folk even recognize satire anymore?) all-out attack on the American Dream, Wilson was invited to contribute a regular strip to their comics section. His sublimely semi-autobiographical, darkly hilarious paean to lost childhood ran from 1972 and until 1981 and was collected as Nuts, another superb compilation from this publisher that you should own and share. Few people – me included – knew that during that period he also, apparently more for fun and relaxation than profit, produced his own syndicated Sunday strip feature. For two years – beginning on March 3rd 1974 – Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics appeared in a small cross-section of newspapers from Boston to Los Angeles and, as with all his work, it bucked a trend.

At a time when most cartoonists were seeking a daily continuity strip, building a readership and eking jokes out with sensible parsimony, Wilson let himself go hog-wild, generating a half-dozen or so single-shot gags every Sabbath, blending his signature weird, wild monsters, uncanny aliens and unsavoury scenes with straight family humour, animal crackers, topical themes and cynically socio-politically astute observations.

Looking at them here it’s clear to me that his intent was to have fun and make himself laugh as much or even more than his readership: capturing those moments when an idea or notion gave him pause to giggle whilst going about his day job…

I’m not going to waste time describing individual cartoons: there are just too many and despite being a fascinating snapshot of ancient life, they’re almost all still outrageously funny in the way and manner that Gary Larson’s Far Side was a scant six years later.

I will say that even whilst generating a storm of humorous, apparently unconnected one-offs, consummate professional Wilson couldn’t restrain himself and eventually the jokes achieved an underlying shape and tone with recurring motifs (clocks, beasts, wallpaper, etc), and features-within-the-feature such as The Creep and Future Funnies…

Here, generally a single-page complete graphic epigram “star” a grotty little chubby homunculus dubbed The Kid. This fabulous monochrome (and occasionally colour) collection gathers that complete serial for collectors and potential addicts in a perfect package that readers will dip into over and over again.

Taking his lead from popular sickly-sweet strips about or starring little children and the brilliant but definitely not jejune Peanuts (which was populated, to all intents and purposes, with teeny-weeny neurotic middle-aged midgets), Wilson sought to do the exact opposite and attempt to access the fear, frustration, confusion and unalloyed joy of being a young, impressionable, powerless, curious and demanding…

… and magnificently succeeded.

Dense, claustrophobic, intense and trenchantly funny, these self-contained strips range from satire to slapstick to agonising irony, linking up over the years to form a fascinating catalogue of growing older in the USA: a fearfully faithful alternate view of childhood and most importantly, of how we adults choose to recall and process those distant days…

Each strip begins with the question “Remember how…?” or “One of the…” or some equally folksy enquiry before unveiling bafflement, bewilderment, night-terrors or a deeply-scarring embarrassment which haunts us till doomsday, all wrapped in a comradely band-of-brothers, shared-coping-mechanism whimsy that is both moving and quintessentially nostalgic.

Topics include the unremitting horror of germs; sudden death; being ill; inappropriate movies; forced visits; grandparents; things adults do that they don’t want you to see; unexplained noises; the butcher’s shop; accidents and rusty nails; things in closets; doctors and needles; dying pets; Santa Claus; seasonal disappointments; summer camp; sleep; bodily functions; school and lessons (two completely different things); fungus; bikes and toys; haircuts; comic books; deaths of relatives; hot weather; candy; overhearing things you shouldn’t; stranger danger; hobby-kits and glue; daydreaming; babies and so many other incomprehensible daily pitfalls on the treacherous path to maturity…

Peppered also with full page, hilariously annotated diagrams of such places of enduring childhood fascination as ‘The Alley’, ‘The Kit for Camp Tall Lone Tree’, ‘Mr. Schultz’s Cigar Store’, ‘The Movie Theater Seat’, ‘Table Set Up For Making Models’, ‘The Doctor’s Waiting Room’, ‘The Closet’, ‘The Sick Bed’ and ‘The Private Drawer’, this glorious procession also covers occasions of heartbreaking poignancy and those stunning, blue moon moments of serendipity and triumph when everything is oh-so-briefly perfect…

Complete with a 3-D strip and ‘Nuts to You’ – a comprehensive appreciation and history by Gary Groth – this funny, sad, chilling and sublimely true picture-passport to growing up is unmissable cartoon gold.
© Fantagraphics Books. All Nuts strips © 2011 Gahan Wilson. All rights reserved.

Today in 1917, Golden Age writer/editor Ruth Roche was born, followed by forgotten genius Joe Maneely in 1926, Gahan Wilson in 1930, Johnny Hart in 1931 and both comic book artist Doug Mahnke and cartoonist Mark Bodé in 1963.

We lost Belgian megastar and Marcinelle School founder Willy Maltaite (“Will”) in 2000 and lifelong multi-style achiever Bob Oksner in 2007.

Comics wise, UK standby Radio Fun (published since 1938) folded today in 1961 and Power Comic Fantastic launched today in 1967.

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Growing Old with B.C. – A 50 Year Celebration


By Johnny Hart (Checker BPG)
ISBN: 978-1-905239-63-4 (HB) 978-1-933160-68-9 (PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

John Lewis Hart was born in Endicott, New York in 1931, and his first published cartoons appeared in military newspaper Stars and Stripes while he served with the US Air Force during the Korean War. On returning to Civvy Street in 1953, he sold a few gags to The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers Weekly and elsewhere, but had to earn a living as a general designer.

In 1958, for some inexplicable reason, caveman jokes were everywhere in magazines and comics (even latterly creeping onto TV and into movies). Despite all the dawn-age foofaraw, General Electric draughtsman and still-wannabe cartoonist Johnny Hart hadn’t sold a single one. He also desperately wanted to create a syndicated newspaper strip but couldn’t think of an idea.

And then one of his co-workers said why not do a strip feature one about Cavemen? Just like Alley Oop, but different…

Hart took a good look at the state of the world, and especially the people around him, and the wryly outrageous social commentarians supporting and harassing our hapless nebbish leading man B.C. quickly took shape…

The concept sold instantly to the New York Herald-Tribune Syndicate and the strip – starting today in 1958 – rapidly became a global hit, with the first of 41 collected editions (Hey! B.C.) released in 1959. In 1964 Hart started collaborating with fellow cartoonist Brant Parker on a new strip. The Wizard of Id also became a monster hit. The features won Hart an astounding hoard of awards over the years: making him one of only 4 American cartoonists to produce two strips appearing contiguously in more than 1000 newspapers.

Hart died of a stroke on April 7th 2007. He was working at his drawing board. Brant Parker passed away eight days later.

Hart became a devout Christian during the mid-1980s – something which increasingly and controversially manifested in later strips – but his urgent need to preach and share took a long time to impact the trenchant, whimsically surreal wit and primal byplay of his primordial playpen.

B.C. is a modern everyday kind of guy: a general purpose ordinary slob just getting by, but he has some odd and interesting friends breaking up the monotony of the pre-civilised world. These include self-proclaimed genius Peter, superstitious misogynist Wiley, proto-prime nerd Clumsy Carp, pre-human missing-link Grog, uber-sarcastic Curls and rakish lady-killer Thor.

Apparently, all of them are based on actual people – life-long friends of Hart’s – and their candid reminiscences provide a charming and poignant insight into the life of one of the most revered and successful cartoonists of modern times.

Other materialised regulars include a variety of talking beasts and inanimate objects: chatty, snappy dinosaurs; ants and ant-eaters; clams, snakes; turtles; birds and an apteryx – but I’m guessing they never had analogues with day-jobs in Eisenhower’s America…

This magnificent tome – available in hardcover, paperback and digital editions – offers a decade-by-decade selection of the best and most memorable B.C. strips, supplemented by a listing of its many awards, and comes stuffed with photographs and observations. It is a most delightful commemoration of a truly great and very funny strip.

Hart died during the finishing stages of this book’s creation, making this the best way to celebrate his achievements. His legacy of brain-tickling, absurdist lunacy will never date, and creative anachronism has never been better used to raise a smile or an eyebrow in this lush collection of timely and timeless fun.
B.C. © 2007 Creators Syndicate Inc. B.C. © 1958-2006 John L. Hart Family Limited Partnership.

Today in 1914 writer Leo Dorman was born, as was fellow Superman stalwart Curt Swan in 1920. In 1929 Alejandro Jodorowsky came along, with today also greeting modern myth makers Nelson De Castro/“Nelson” in 1969 and Leah Williams in 1988.

Big day for strip launches too. As well as BC, we all started loving Richard F. Outcault’s The Yellow Kid in 1985, Lee Falk’s The Phantom in 1936 and Jack Williamson & Lee Elias’ Beyond Mars in 1952.

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HM Bateman: The Man Who… and Other Drawings


By H.M. Bateman; edited by John Jensen (Methuen 1983)
ISBN: 978-0-41332-360-9 (Album PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times but also emphasised for comedic effect.

On February 15th in 1887, Henry Mayo Bateman was born in New South Wales. He was however, raised in England, attending Forest Hill House School and Goldsmith’s College (Institute, as was). He also studied with John Hassall and later at the Charles Van Havenmaet Studio from 1904-07. He was a great fan of Comic Cuts and Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, and his first cartoons were published in 1903 in Scraps. Bateman was skilled and gifted in both illustrative and comedic drawing and agonised over his career path before choosing humour. Mercifully, he was too frail for military service in 1914 and so his gifts were preserved for us all to share. He died in Gozo, Malta on February 11th 1970, having spent his final years in steadfast (often hilarious) battle with the Inland Revenue…

Bateman’s most memorable series of cartoons was ‘The Man Who…’ These were lavish set pieces, published as full colour double-page spreads in The Tatler, perpetually lampooning the English Manner by way of frenzied character reactions to a gaffe or inappropriate action from a blithely oblivious central participant. Bateman’s unique strength came from extending his training as a caricaturist into all his humorous work, a working philosophy that the artist equated with drawing people as they felt rather than how they looked.

He was also a British pioneer of cartoons without text, depending on beautifully rendered yet powerfully energetic and vivacious interpretations of people and environment to make his always funny point. He was a master of presenting a complete narrative in a single image.

In reviewing the 14 collections published during his lifetime and such collections as the volume at hand, or the excellent The Best Of H M Bateman 1922-1926: The Tatler Cartoons (1987), I was particularly struck by the topicality of the work as well as the sheer wonder of the draughtsmanship. Find if you can ‘The Man Who asked for a second helping at a City Company Dinner’, wherein 107 fully realised Diners and waiters, all in full view, have 107 different and recognizable reactions to that gauche request. It is an absolute masterpiece of comic art – as are all the rest. In a world where the next fad is always the most important, it is vital that creators such as Bateman remain unforgettable and unforgotten. I pray to the cartoon gods that somewhere soon some museum retrospective on British culture will rescue this genius from ill-deserved (temporary) obscurity and generate one last curated collection for us to revel in…
Text ©.1983 John Jensen/Methuen. Illustrations © 1982, 2007 Estate of H M Bateman.

For further explorations and illumination please check out HM Bateman – Official Cartoons & Artwork.

Also today, Golden Age comics artist Nina Albright (Miss Victory, Black Venus) was born, as was Belgian star Willy Vandersteen (Spike and Suzy) in 1913 and Disney Duck artist William Van Horn in 1939.

Art Spiegelman was born in 1948, and Marc Hansen (Ralph Snart, Weird Melvin, Doctor Gorpon) in 1963, whilst in 1965, Morrie Turner launched Wee Pals, America’s first strip with a racially diverse cast. In 1987, Walt Disney’s Treasury of Classic Tales ended a run begun in the early 1950s. We also lost today veteran Canadian artist Jack Sparling in 1997, and two Italian Bonelli/Tex Willer stalwarts: Vincenzo Monti in 2002 and Fabrizio Busticchi in 2017.