Category: Satire/Politics

Posted on

Pete & Pickles


By Berkeley Breathed (Philomel Books/Penguin Young Readers Group)
ISBN: 978-0-399250-82-8 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because it Ain’t Seasonal Without Cartoon Critters… 10/10

Throughout the 1980s and for half of the 1990s, Berke Breathed dominated the newspaper strip scene with agonisingly funny, edgy-yet-surreal political fantasy Bloom County and, latterly, Sunday-only spin-off Outland. They are all available digitally – so don’t wait for my reviews, just get them now!

At the top of his game and swamped with awards like Pulitzers, Breathed retired to concentrate on books for kids, crafting whimsical wonders like Red Ranger Came Calling, Mars Needs Moms! and Flawed Dogs: The Year End Leftovers at the Piddleton “Last-Chance” Dog Pound (and sequel Flawed Dogs: The Shocking Raid on Westminster), which all rank among the best America has ever produced.

Get them too.

Breathed’s first foray into the field was 1991’s A Wish for Wings That Work: a Christmas parable featuring his signature character, and the most charmingly human one. Between 2003 and 2008, Breathed revived Opus as a Sunday strip, before eventually capitulating to his career-long antipathy for the manic deadline pressures of newspaper production and often-insane, convoluted contradictions of editorial censorship.

It seemed his ludicrous yet appealing cast of misfits – all skilled and deadly exponents of irony and common sense residing in the heartland of American conservatism – were gone for good, until the internet provided a platform for Breathed to resume his role as a gadfly commentator on his own terms.

Since 2015, Bloom County has mocked, exposed and shamed capitalism, celebrities, consumerism, popular culture, politicians, religious leaders and people who act like idiots. Donald Trump figures prominently and often, but that might just be coincidence…

These later efforts, unconstrained by syndicate pressures to not offend advertisers, are also available as book collections. You’ll want those too, and be delighted to learn that all Breathed’s Bloom County work is also available in digital formats – fully annotated to address the history gap, if you didn’t live through events such as Iran-Gate, Live-Aid, Star Wars (both cinematic and military versions), assorted cults, televangelists experiencing less than divine retribution and sundry other tea-cup storms that contributed to all us Baby Boomers beings so obnoxious, rude and defensive…

Not quite as renowned, but every inch as crucial to your enjoyment, is the lost gem on display today: a paean to the power of friendship, all wrapped up in a children’s book about an odd couple thrown together by fate and necessity. And outré noses…

As previously stated, after the all-too-brief, glittering outing as a syndicated strip cartoonist and socio-political commentator (so often the very same hallowed function) Breathed left strips to create children’s picture books.

He lost none of his perception, wit or imagination, and actually got better as an artist. Even so, he never quite abandoned his entrancing cast of characters and always maintained the gently excoriating, crusading passion and inherent bittersweet invective which underscored those earlier narratives.

Moreover, he couldn’t ignore that morally uplifting component of his work that so upset hypocrites, liars, greedy people and others who let us all down while carping on about being unfairly judged and how we don’t really understand complex issues. Trust me, we – and Breathed – understand perfectly…

This crushingly captivating cartoon catechism ruminates on the cost and worth of comradely fraternity.

Pete is a pig: practical, predictable and not in any way a perturbation to normal pedestrian life. He was a pig who didn’t like fuss or surprises and lived alone until the night of the big storm. Aroused from his usual rain-induced nightmare of drowning, Pete gradually became aware that something had broken into his otherwise empty but extremely secure house…

Suddenly accosted, he is all but smothered in the capacious and so strong snoot of escaped circus elephant Pickles, who begs him to shelter her. Of course, pragmatic Pete happily hands her over the moment the clowns hunting her turn up, but can’t forget how she’d smiled at him whilst being dragged away or that she’s left him a posy of dandelions…

The event utterly disrupts his equilibrium and – despite himself – Pete eventually attends the circus. What he sees moves him so greatly that he abandons everything he ever believed and breaks her out.

Hiding her in his house, he soon finds his staid, stolid and secure life shattered by odd adventures and intoxicating fantasies, but no matter how nice it feels, it’s far more than his practical nature can abide. However, the subsequent confrontation jumps quickly from angry words to life-threatening peril when the plumbing breaks and they’re both trapped in a rapidly-filling watery deathtrap…

Combining the potent desolate imagery of Grant Wood’s American Gothic with the paintings of Edward Hopper: channelling the hidden comedic potential of the isolated rural heartland with manic, surreal whimsy in hyper-real fully rendered paintings acting in concert with powerfully simplified line drawings, Pete & Pickles explores loneliness, reticence, compromise and the hunger for companionship in a charming but potent fable. This astounding yarn was inspired by the drawing and razor-sharp perspicacity of Breathed’s (then 5-year-old) daughter Sophie, and can teach us all a thing or two about understanding ourselves and just getting along…

This is a book to trigger personal reflection, audit consciences and promote more honest behaviour, but it will make grown citizens howl and children sit up and pay attention. It’s also wickedly funny and deliciously sad. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll think hard about what you want and who you’d like to share it with…
© 2008 Berkeley Breathed. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Moomin volume 6: The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip


By Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-042-3 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-553-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Enchanting Entertainment… 9/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20th century: equally adept at shaping words and images to create worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components like pen and ink, manipulating slim economical lines and patterns to realise sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols and as this collection shows, so was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and rather bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Father Viktor was a sculptor and mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars – AKA “Lasse” – and Per Olov became – respectively – an author/cartoonist and art photographer. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seems to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to inhabit.

After extensive and intensive study (from 1930-1938 at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War.

Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood) was a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian misfit trolls and their strange friends…

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove had worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of European leaders in the build-up to WWII. She was also an in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books, and had started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, gently adventurous big-eyed romantic goof began life as a spindly sigil next to her name in her political works. She called him “Snork” and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited, warning her that a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer – if a little clingy and insecure – acting as a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

The Moomins and the Great Flood didn’t make much of an initial impact but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators have reckoned the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can…

When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or occasionally The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 to great acclaim, it prompted British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet and sensibly surreal creations.

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature so Jansson readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she recruited brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975. His tenure as sole creator officially starts here…

Liberated from the strip’s pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other creative pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Tove Jansson died on June 27th 2001. Her awards are too numerous to mention, but just think: how many modern artists get their faces on the national currency?

Lars Fredrik Jansson (October 8th 1926 – July 31st 2000) was just as amazing as his sister. Born into that astounding clan twelve years after Tove, at 16 he started writing – and selling – his novels (nine in total). He also taught himself English because there weren’t enough Swedish-language translations of books available for his voracious reading appetite.

In 1956, he began co-scripting the Moomin newspaper strip at his sister’s request: injecting his own brand of witty whimsicality to ‘Moomin Goes Wild West’. He had been Tove’s translator from the start, seamlessly converting her Swedish text into English. When her contract with The London Evening News expired in 1959, Lars Jansson officially took over the feature, having spent the interim period learning to draw and perfectly mimic his sister’s cartooning style. He had done so in secret, with the assistance and tutelage of their mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, and from 1961 to the strip’s end in 1974 was sole steersman of the newspaper iteration of trollish tails.

Lasse was also a man of many parts: his other careers including writer, translator, aerial photographer and professional gold miner. He was the basis and model for cool kid Snufkin…

Lars’ Moomins was subtly sharper than his sister’s version and he was far more in tune with the quirky British sense of humour, but his whimsy and wry sense of wonder was every bit as compelling. In 1990, long after the original series, he began a new career, working with Dennis Livson (designer of Finland’s acclaimed theme park Moomin World) as producers of Japanese anime series The Moomins and – in 1993 with daughter Sophia Jansson – on new Moomin strips…

Moomintrolls are easy-going free spirits: modern bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and most societal pressures. Moominmama is warm, kindly tolerant and capable but perhaps overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst devoted husband Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys.

Their son Moomin is a meek, dreamy boy with confusing ambitions. He adores their permanent houseguest the Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable, flighty gamin prefers to play things slowly whilst waiting for somebody potentially better…

The 6th oversized (310 x 221 mm) monochrome hardback compilation gathers serial strip sagas #22-25 and is a particular favourite, and opens with Lars firmly in charge and puckishly re-exploring human frailties and foibles via a beloved old plot after a seaside excursion with the Snorkmaiden unearths ‘Moomin’s Lamp’…

Of course, the ancient artefact comes with its own rather lazy and inept genie, and when the glamour-crazed Snorkmaiden foolishly wishes for a diamond diadem despite her beau’s best advice, it triggers a bold theft and a great deal of difficulties with the local constabulary…

Soon, fugitives from the law and justice – definitely two different things here – the young malefactors have compromised the honour of overprotective Moominpapa and gone off to hide in the leafy wooded “Badlands” of Moomin Valley, enduring privation on the run until scurrilous reprobate Stinky “nobly” takes the offending lamp off their hands…

The perils of unrelenting progress and growth then manifest in ‘Moomin and the Railway’ when a bunch of burly but affable and unflappable workmen begin laying railroad tracks through the unspoiled beauty of Moomin Valley. Enraged and outraged, our young hero begins a campaign of resistance that includes persuasion, intimidation and even sabotage. Sadly, many of his initial allies turn at the prospect of increased ease, newfound affluence and plain old indifference, before incorrigible rebel Snufkin takes a hand and salvation suddenly comes in a strange form with the valley saved yet changed forever…

Contemporary Cold War concerns are then lampooned when the patriarch meets up with old school chum in ‘Moominpapa and the Spies’. Lost in a nostalgic haze with old crony Wimsy and hankering to recapture the wild and free, glory days of youth, the happy fantasist embarks on a misguided spree bound to disappoint and stumbles into an actual spy plot involving the worst operatives in the world. Ultimately Moominpapa is shanghaied and lost at sea before regaining his equilibrium and heading home again…

The weird wonderments conclude for now with another wry retort to fads and fashions as ‘Moomin and the Circus’ sees the Finn Family of trolls forced into vegetarianism when animal conservation captivates the entire valley. When Moominpapa is – most reluctantly – elected leader of the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, he resolves to lead by example, and his edicts quickly show up the hypocrisy of the fashion-conscious elite who pressganged him. Everybody gets an even more urgent chance to rethink their priorities and intentions after the SPCA forces the closure of a travelling show and then has to deal with the consequences: homing the Lions, horses, elephant, ostrich, monkeys, parrots, and sea-lions who were only really happy in show biz…

This compilation closes with ‘Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work’ by family biographer Juhani Tolvanen, extolling his many worthy attributes…

These are truly magical tales for the young, laced with the devastating observation and razor-sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kids’ stories into classics of literature. These volumes – both Tove and Lars’ – are an international treasure trove no fan of the medium – or carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without.
© 2011 Solo/Bulls. “Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work” © 2011 Juhani Tolvanen. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Marshal Law the Deluxe Edition


By Pat Mills & Kev O’Neill, with Mark A. Nelson & Mark Chiarello, lettered by Phil Felix, Steve Potter & Phil Oakley (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3855-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ultimate Antihero Excess… 10/10

Hard to believe, I know, but not everybody likes superheroes.. Some folks actively loathe them. And then there’s Pat Mills & Kev O’Neill…

One of the greatest creative forces in British comics, Pat Mills began his career at DC Thomson. He wrote girls comics and humour strips; moved south to IPC and killed posh-comics-for-middle-class-kids stone-dead by creating Battle Picture Weekly (1975 with John Wagner & Gerry Finley-Day), as well as Action (1976), 2000AD (1977) and Starlord (1978). Along the way, he also figured large in the junior horror comic Chiller…

As a writer he’s responsible for Ro-Busters, ABC Warriors, Nemesis the Warlock, Slaine, Button Man, Metalzoic, and Requiem Vampire Knight among many, many others. That also includes Battle’s extraordinary Charley’s War (with the brilliant Joe Colquhoun): the best war strip of all time and one of the top five explorations of the First World War in any artistic medium.

Unable to hide the passions that drive him, his most controversial work is probably Third World War which he created for the bravely experimental comics magazine Crisis. This fiercely socially conscious strip blended his trademark bleak, black humour, violence and anti-authoritarianism with a furious assault on Capitalism, Imperialism and Globalisation. It even contained elements of myth, mysticism, religion and neo-paganism – also key elements in his mature work.

Some of his most fruitful collaborations happened when teamed with the utterly unique and much-missed Kevin O’Neill. In 1988 O’Neill won the singular accolade of having his entire style of drawing – not a panel, not a story, but every single mark he left on paper – banned by the USA’s dried-up-but-not-quite-dead Comics Code Authority!

Not that it stopped the rise of his remarkable and truly unique talent in later triumphs such as Serial Killer, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and of course, Marshal Law…

“Kev” was born in 1953 and, aged 16, began work as an office boy/art corrector for British weekly Buster. He worked in every aspect of the compartmentalised industry: lettering, art paste-up, logo design, colouring and more…

As the kids’ stuff began to pale, life changed in 1977, when author/editor Mills transferred him to a forthcoming, iconoclastic new science fiction comic. O’Neill became a mainstay of 2000 AD: producing covers, pinups and Future Shock short stories, whilst contributing to serials like Ro-Busters, satirical super parody Captain Klep, ABC Warriors and his personal breakthrough character Nemesis the Warlock.

From there on, America came calling in the form of DC Comics, but his efforts on edgier science fiction titles like Green Lantern and Omega Men, graphic novel Metalzoic (and Bat-Mite!) only reinforced how different he was. Happily just as his “style of drawing” was banned by the American Comics Code Authority the marketplace changed completely…

In 1987 Marvel’s creator-owned imprint Epic Comics published a 6-issue miniseries starring a hero superficially very much in the vein of Judge Dredd, but one who took the hallowed American creation of the superhero genre and gave it a thorough duffing-up, Brit-boy style. It was the wholly traditional tale of a (costumed) cop who did the Right Thing and did it His Way…

San Futuro is a vast metropolitan urban dystopia built on the Post-Big Quake remnants of San Francisco. America is recovering from another stupid, exploitative war in somebody else’s country, and – as usual – demobbed, discharged, discarded, damaged, brain-fried grunts and veterans are clogging the streets and menacing decent society. The problem is that this war was fought with artificially manufactured superheroes, who eventually came home to become a very dangerous embarrassment. Marshal Law was one of them, but now he’s a cop; angry and disillusioned but dedicated. His job is to put away bad guys, but it’s hard to tell them apart from the “good” ones. This establishing series was collected as Marshal Law: Fear and Loathing.

This hefty compilation gathers the ever-peregrinating strip as it appeared under many publishers’ banners. It gathers Marshal Law #1-6, Marshal Law: Crime and Punishment, Marshal Law Takes Manhattan, Marshal Law: Kingdom of the Blind, Marshal Law: The Hateful Dead, Marshal Law: Super-Babylon & Marshal Law: Secret Tribunal 1-2. It opens with an Introduction from comics megafan/TV personality Jonathan Ross and stunning and informative ‘Map of San Futuro’ offering a ‘Welcome to San Futuro – Home of Law and Disorder’ before ‘Fear and Loathing: A Prologue’ introduces the world’s greatest hero. Colonel Buck Kaine AKA The Public Spirit has returned from a divine, ordained mission to the stars and his example inspired a certain young man to enlist in the SHOCC (Super Hero Operational Command & Control) program that created all the now-unwanted superbeings infesting Sat Futuro and the world…

Fear and Loathing begins with ‘Stars and Strippers’ as a rapist serial killer terrorises the city, distracting weary Marshal Law from his preferred targets: degenerates, thugs and thieves like Gangreen…

Marshal Law was once a forgotten supersoldier like them, but now he’s a cop: burned-out, angry and extremely disillusioned. His job is to put away rogue masks and capes, but as bad as they are, the people he works for are worse. Some heroes like The Public Spirit have the official backing of the government and can do no wrong – which is a huge problem as the solitary Marshal is convinced that he’s also the deadly rapist/serial killer called the Sleepman…

The case powerfully and tragically unfolds with bleak black humour, grim excess and raging righteous fury in ‘Evilution’, ‘Super Hero Messiah’, ‘Conduct Unbecoming’, ‘Mark of Caine’ and ‘Nemesis’: a savage parody of beloved genre stars and motifs, and uncompromising commentary and satirical attack on privilege, prestige, US policies and attitudes, in comics and the real world. However, Fear and Loathing is also a cracking good yarn for thinking adults with mature dispositions, open minds, and who love seeing injustice punished.

In the 1989 Epic Comics one shot ‘Marshal Law Takes Manhattan’, Mills & O’Neill – with additional inks by Mark A. Nelson and colours from Mark Chiarello – went after the entire (thinly disguised) Marvel Comics pantheon, with old zipper-face dispatched to New York to extradite a war criminal – and Law’s old army trainer – The Persecutor. Unfortunately (for them), the mass killer has hidden himself amongst the inmates of “The Institute”: a colossal Manhattan skyscraper housing all the Big Apple’s native superheroes. Each and every is one a brilliant, barmy, bile-filled parody of Marvel’s Mightiest …and they don’t stand a chance against disgust and righteous indignation…

Mills & O’Neill brought their new toy to British independent outfit Apocalypse, publishers of Toxic, a short-lived (March to October 1991) but talent-heavy rival to 2000 AD. Naturally, carnage and mayhem were the result, but not before author Mills slips a few well-aimed pops at US covert practices and policies in South America under the door.

That troubled, influential periodical was originally preceded by Marshal Law Special ‘Kingdom of the Blind’ at the end of 1990, which has been slotted in here…

Although played for more overt laughs than previous tales, the vented spleen and venom displayed in this captivating yarn is simply breathtaking, with the creators putting the boot into the most popular hero of the time. The Private Eye had trained himself to fight criminals ever since his parents were murdered in front of him. For decades he made the night his own, to universal acclaim: even Marshal Law thought he was the exception that proved the rule…

When circumstances force the Marshal to question his beliefs, he uncovers a snake-pit of horror and corruption that shakes even his weary, embittered sensibilities, and makes him wonder why nobody ever questioned how one hero could get through so many sidekicks…

Second Special ‘The Hateful Dead’ – lettered by Steve Potter – began a 2-part odyssey wherein the toughest cop in San Futuro faced an undead plague after a Toxic accident (tee-hee; d’you see what they did there?) resurrects a graveyard full of dead supermen – many of them put there by Marshall Law -as well as ordinary ex-citizens to bedevil the conflicted hero-hunter. The story ended on an incredible cliffhanger… and Apocalypse went bust.

After two years Law jumped back across the pond to Dark Horse Comics, concluding the yarn in ‘Super Babylon’ wherein the resurgent Bad Cop quelled the return of the living dead and – just by way of collateral damage – devastated assorted superhero pantheons by ending thinly disguised versions of the Justice Society and League as well as WWII super-patriots like the Invaders and Captain America. All this happened a decade before Marvel Zombies stirred in their graves or The Walking Dead pulled on their brain-stained boots…

In addition, the creators couldn’t resist one more mighty pop at American Cold-War Imperialism that’s both utterly over-the-top and hilarious – unless you’re a Republican, I suppose…

Additionally, there’s a wicked spoof as ‘Naked Heroes by Veegee’ shares the candid snaps of a super-celeb paparazzo and the art for Marshal Law’s feature in Hero Illustrated (May 1994)…

Less contentious – unless you’re a devoted fan of the Alien movies/comics or The Legion of Super Heroes – is Secret Tribunal. Lettered by Bill Oakley, it begins with Cape Fear’ as the Marshal is deployed to an orbiting Space Station where the government grows its manufactured superbeings, just as a nasty incursion of fast-breeding carnivorous space-beasts starts ripping the immature adolescent and primarily teenaged supermen and wonder women to gory gobbets…

Even though the hero hunter is ordered to bring with him a super-team (riffing off certain Marvel mutants…), in the end the only solution is a ruthless and highly personal ‘Court Marshal’…

Supplemented by an ‘Afterword by Pat Mills’ that shares his reasons for “hating heroes” and a stunning ‘Shooting Gallery’ of covers, designs, foreign edition art, previous collection covers, retail posters, and more to augment the experience of Futuro shock, this is classically inappropriate mayhem: just who could resist it?

Mills’ incisive observation, sharp dialogue, brilliant scenarios, great characters, stunningly memorable one-liners and hilariously compelling stories full of twists and surprises are magnificently brought to life by the cruelly lush art and colours of O’Neill: an artist so crazed with the joys of creation that every panel overflows with so many visual and typographical ad-libs that you could read this book one hundred times and still find new treats to make you laugh and wince. So I’m thinking that perhaps you really should…
© 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2013 Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Killraven Epic Collection: Warrior of the Worlds 1973-1983


By Don McGregor & P. Craig Russell, with Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Herb Trimpe, Rich Buckler, Gene Colan, Keith Giffen, Sal Buscema & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3216-9 (TPB/Digital)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epically Evergreen Faux Future Fun… 9/10

When the first flush of the 1960s superhero revival started fading at the end of the decade, Marvel – who had built their own resurgent renaissance on the phenomenon – began casting around for new concepts to sustain their hard-won impetus. The task was especially difficult as the co-architect of their success (and greatest, most experienced ideas-man in comics) had jumped ship to arch-rival National/DC, where Jack’s Kirby’s Fourth World, The Demon, Kamandi, Last Boy on Earth, OMAC and other innovations were opening new worlds of adventure to the ever-changing readership.

Although a global fascination with the supernatural had gripped the public – resulting in a huge outpouring of mystery and horror comics – other tried-&-true genre favourites were also revived and rebooted for modern sensibilities: westerns, war, humour, romance, sword & sorcery and science fiction…

At this time Stan Lee’s key assistant and star writer was (former-English teacher and lover of literature) Roy Thomas. As he accrued editorial power, Thomas increasingly dictated the direction of Marvel: creating new concepts and securing properties that could be given the “Marvel Treatment”. In a decade absolutely packed with innovative trial-&-error concepts, the policy had already paid huge dividends with the creation of Tomb of Dracula, Monster of Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night, whilst the brilliantly compelling Conan the Barbarian had quickly resulted in a whole new comicbook genus…

This complete compilation collects the bold and mercurial science-fiction thriller from Amazing Adventures #18-39, a guest appearance in Marvel Team-Up #45 and the saga’s notional conclusion in Marvel Graphic Novel #7: an eclectic and admittedly inconsistent hero-history that has at times been Marvel’s absolute best and strong contender for worst character, in a sporadic career spanning May 1973 to 1983. The feature struggled for a long time to carve out a solid identity for itself, but finally found a brilliantly effective and stridently lyrical voice when scripter Don McGregor arrived – and stayed – slowly recreating the potential epic into a perfectly crafted examination of contemporary American society in crisis; proving the old adage that all science fiction is about the Present and not the Future…

He was ideally complimented in his task by fellow artisan P. Craig Russell whose beautifully raw yet idealised art matured page by page over the long, hard months he illustrated the author’s increasingly powerful and evocative scripts. The tone of those times is scrupulously recalled in McGregor’s Introduction before Marvel’s most successful Future Past opens…

The dystopian tomorrow first dawned in Amazing Adventures #18, where Marvel’s loosely-based iteration began. Conceived by Thomas & Neal Adams – before being ultimately scripted by Gerry Conway – a ‘Prologue: 2018 A.D.’ introduces a New York City devastated by invasion and overrun by mutants, monsters and cyborgs all scavenging for survival.

The creative process was a very troubled one. Adams left the project in the middle of illustrating the debut episode, leaving Howard Chaykin & Frank Chiaramonte to flesh out the tale of how, at the turn of the 20th century, a refugee mother sacrifices her life defending her two young sons from terrifying alien Tripods and vile human turncoats who had early switched allegiance to their revolting, human-eating new masters…

Nearly two decades later, escaped gladiator Killraven overcomes all odds to kill monstrous genetic manipulator The Keeper and save his brother Joshua, only to discover his sibling long gone and his despised tormentor grateful for the release of death.

The elderly scientist had been compelled to perform countless mutagenic experiments for his alien masters but had secretly enacted a Machiavellian double-cross, imbuing Jonathan Raven with hidden powers that might eventually overthrow the conquerors. All the boy had to do was survive their horrific arena games until old enough to rebel against the Martians who have occupied Earth since 2001…

With his dying breath, Keeper provides his uneducated murderer with the history of ‘The War of the Worlds!’: of Free Mankind’s furious futile, atomic last stand and how the alien conquerors had possessed the shattered remnants of Earth…

The dying tech reveals how gladiatorial training and scientific abuses shaped Killraven into the perfect tool of liberation and retribution, even to the warrior’s recent escape and first attempts at raising a resistance movement. However, just as the story ends, the designated-liberator realises he has tarried too long and mutant monsters close in…

The adventure resumed in #19 as Killraven narrowly escapes the psionic snares of ‘The Sirens of 7thAve.’ (by Conway, Chaykin & Frank McLaughlin) and the other myriad terrors of the devastated metropolis to link up with second-in-command M’Shulla and strike a heavy blow against the alien butchers by destroying two hulking mechanical Tripods.

Newly elevated by the conquerors to the status of genuine threat, the rebel and his followers plan a raid on a New Jersey base but are instead captured by the mesmerising Skarlet, Queen of the Sirens, who hands them over to the Martian governing the city…

Forced to fight a mutated monstrosity in the alien’s private arena, Killraven unexpectedly turns the tables and drives off the gelatinous horror before boldly declaring he is the guardian of Mankind’s heritage and will make Earth free again…

Amazing Adventures #20 was written by Marv Wolfman, with Herb Trimpe & Frank Giacoia illustrating ‘The Warlord Strikes!’, wherein the Freemen raid a museum and acquire weapons and armaments, and create a brand-new look for Killraven…

Easily overcoming the traitorous lackeys of the Martian Masters, the rebels are blithely unaware that the carnivorous extraterrestrial devils have deployed their latest tool: a cruelly augmented old enemy who hunts them down and easily overcomes their primitive guns, swords and crossbows with his own onboard cyborg arsenal…

The ambitious new series was already floundering and dearly needed a firm direction and steady creative hands, so it’s lucky that the concluding chapter in #21 (November 1973) saw the debut of Don F. McGregor: a young ambitious and poetically experimental writer who slowly brought depth of character and plot cohesiveness to a strip which had reached uncanny levels of cliché in only three issues.

With Trimpe & “Yolande Pijcke” illustrating, ‘The Mutant Slayers!’ began the necessary task of re-establishing the oppressive hopelessness and all-pervasive horror and loss of Well’s original novel. Determined to translate the concept into modern terms for the new generation of intellectual, comics-reading social insurgents, McGregor also took the opportunity to introduce the first of a string of complex, controversial – and above all, powerful – female characters into the mix…

Carmilla Frost is a feisty, sharp-tongued geneticist and molecular biologist ostensibly faithful to her Martian masters, but she takes the first opportunity to betray their local human lieutenant and help Killraven and his Freemen escape the Warlord’s brutal clutches. For her own closely-guarded reasons, she and her bizarrely devoted monster anthropoid Grok the Clonal Man join the roving revolutionaries in their quest across the shattered continent…

In AA #22 (art by Trimpe & Chiaramonte), the motley crew arrive in America’s former capital and encounter a ‘Washington Nightmare!’

After defeating a band of slavers led by charismatic bravo Sabre, Killraven forms an uneasy alliance with local rebel leader Mint Julep and her exclusively female band of freedom-fighters. The green-skinned warrior woman has also battled Sabre and cautiously welcomes Killraven’s offer of assistance in rescuing her captured comrades from the literal meat-market of the Lincoln Memorial, where flesh-peddling mutant horror Abraxas auctions tasty human morsels to extraterrestrial patrons.

The raid goes badly and Killraven is on the conquerors’ menu in ‘The Legend Assassins!’, before the resistance fighters unite in a last-ditch attempt to save their tempestuous leader from The High Overlord. The captured leader, meanwhile, has become main course in a public propaganda-feeding/execution: to be devoured by vermin-controlling freak Rattack…

The hero’s faithful followers – including gentle, simple-minded strongman Old Skull and embittered Native American Hawk – arrive just in time to join the furious fray in #24’s spectacular ‘For He’s a Jolly Dead Rebel!’ (inked by Jack Abel), but their escape is only temporary before they are quickly recaptured. Their valiant example impresses more than one disaffected collaborator, however. When former foes led by Sabre unite in battle against the Martian Overlord, the result is a shattering defeat for the once-unbeatable oppressors…

A returning nemesis for the charismatic rebel and his freedom fighters debuted in Amazing Adventures #25. ‘The Devil’s Marauder’ (art by Rich Buckler & Klaus Janson) sees Killraven inconclusively clash with cyclopian Martian flunky Skar. During the battle, the hard-pressed human is unexpectedly gripped by a manifestation of hidden psychic power – granting him visions he cannot comprehend…

Travelling across country, the rebels stumble onto another forgotten glory of Mankind’s past in the state once called Indiana. The race circuit of the Indianapolis 500 is now a testing-ground for new terror-tripods and thus a perfect target for sabotage. However, when the fury-filled Killraven tackles human-collaborators and Skar resurfaces, the incensed insurgent steps too far over ‘The Vengeance Threshold!’…

Gene Colan & Dan Adkins illustrated #26’s ‘Something Worth Dying For!’ as the Freemen reach Battle Creek, Michigan and Killraven encounters a feral snake/horse hybrid he simply must possess…

Soon after the band is ambushed by human outlaws guarding a fabulous ancient treasure at the behest of petty tyrant Pstun-Rage the Vigilant…

Since the place was once the site of America’s breakfast cereal empire and this wry yarn is filled with oblique in-jokes – many of the villains’ names are anagrams of Kellogg’s cereals – you can imagine the irony-drenched secret of the hoard the defenders give their lives to protect and pragmatic Killraven’s reaction to it all…

The drama kicks into spectacular high gear with AA #27 and the arrival of P. Craig Russell (inked by Abel) for the start of a dark epic entitled ‘The Death Breeders’.

Whilst crossing frozen Lake Michigan in March 2019, the band is attacked by monstrous lampreys and Grok suffers a wound which will eventually prove fatal. McGregor loathed the notion of simplistic, problem-solving, consequence-free violence which most entertainment media slavishly thrived upon. He frequently tried to focus on some of the real-world repercussions such acts should and would result in…

The heroes head to what was once Chicago: now a vast industrialised breeding-pen to farm human babies for Martian consumption. En route, they met pyrokinetic mutant Volcana Ash, who has her own tragic reason for scouting the ghastly palaces of Death-Birth…

As the new allies undertake an explosively expensive sortie against the Death Breeders, in the far-distant halls of the Martian Kings of Earth, the Warlord is tasking recently-repaired Skar with a new mission: hunt down Killraven and destroy not only the man, but most importantly the legend of hope and liberation that has grown around him…

In #28 (pencilled, inked and coloured by Russell in the original) Ash reveals her horrific origins and the purpose of her quest as the Freemen battle monsters thriving in the chemically compromised lake. Elsewhere, chief butcher The Sacrificer watches his depraved boss Atalon live up to his decadent reputation as ‘The Death Merchant!’: emotionally tenderising the frantic “Adams and Eves” whose imminent newborns will be the main course for visiting Martian dignitaries…

Everything changes during Killraven’s fateful raid to liberate the human cattle. When the disgusted hero skewers one of the extraterrestrial horrors, he experiences severe psychic feedback and realises at last his debilitating, disorienting visions are an unsuspected ability to tap into Martian minds. And in the wastelands, Skar murderously retraces the Freemen’s route, getting closer and closer to a final showdown…

With Amazing Adventures #29 the series was rebranded Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds and ‘The Hell Destroyers’ reveals the rebel leader’s greatest victory, inspiring thousands of freshly-liberated earthlings by utterly destroying the temple of atrocity before gloriously escaping into the wilderness and a newborn mythology…

The pace of even a bi-monthly series was crippling to perfectionist Russell, and ‘The Rebels of January and Beyond!’ in #30 was a frantic 6-page melange from him, Adkins, Trimpe, Chiaramonte & Abel, all graphically treading water as The Warlord “reviewed” (admittedly beautiful) fact-file pages on Killraven, M’Shulla and Mint Julep.

The saga resumed in #31 on ‘The Day the Monuments Shattered’, wherein McGregor & Russell close the Death Breeders story in stunning style. Pursued by Atalon and Sacrificer into the icy wilds between Gary, Indiana and St. Louis, the broken Earth outcasts hide.  As Twilight People, they take refuge in a cavern, allowing an accompanying Eve to give birth in safety, but only leads to assault by a monolithic mutant monster just as their pursuers find them. The battle changes the landscape and ends three ghastly travesties forever…

In #32, ‘Only the Computer Shows Me Any Respect!’ (art by Russell & Dan Green) sees the reduced team in devastated Nashville, where Killraven, M’Shulla, Carmilla, Old Skull and Hawk wander into leftover holographic fantasy programs conjuring both joy and regret, even as Skar’s tripod brings him ever closer to a longed-for rematch. Things get nasty when Hawk’s painful memories of his father’s addiction to fictive detective Hodiah Twist manifest as realised threats and the malfunctioning program materialises a brutally solid savage dragon…

AA #33 was another deadline-busting fill-in. Written by Bill Mantlo with art from Trimpe & D. Bruce Berry, ‘Sing Out Loudly… Death!’ finds the Freemen sheltering from the elements in a vast cave: discovering a hostile tribe of refugee African Americans who had returned to tribal roots in the aftermath of invasion. The hidden wild men observe only one rule – “Kill all honkies” – but that changes once Killraven saves them from a marauding giant octo-beastie…

The long-delayed clash with Skar occurred in #34 as the cyborg ambushes the wanderers when they reach Chattanooga, Tennessee resulting in ‘A Death in the Family’ (McGregor & Russell) – two, actually – before the heartbroken, enraged Warrior of the Worlds literally tears his gloating nemesis to pieces…

Killraven fully entered Marvel Universe continuity – albeit on a branch line – with a crossover appearance by Spider-Man: courtesy of a time-and-space spanning multi-parter in Marvel Team-Up which saw the Amazing Arachnid lost and visiting the past and a number of alternate tomorrows. From MTU #45, ‘Future: Shock!’ – by Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito – saw the weary Wallcrawler wash up in this particular furious future just as Killraven is cornered by killer tripods, offering arachnid assistance as the liberators stumble into an hallucinogenic nightmare. Immediate problem solved, the chronologically adrift Arachnid continued his time-tossed travels…

Amazing Adventures #35 follows the family tragedy as the battered survivors stumble into Atlanta, Georgia and ‘The 24-Hour Man’ (McGregor & Russell & Keith Giffen & Abel), meeting an addled new mother and instant widow, even as Carmilla is abducted by a bizarre mutant with an irresistible and inescapably urgent biological imperative…

Illustrated by Russell & Sonny Trinidad, ‘Red Dust Legacy’ focuses on Killraven’s growing psychic powers with the charismatic champion gaining unwelcome insights into the Martian psyche, even as The Warlord travels to Yellowstone, taunting the rebel leader with news that his long-lost brother Joshua still lives. The hero has no idea it is as an indoctrinated slave codenamed Death Raven…

The self-appointed defender of humanity then invades a replica Martian environment in Georgia, shockingly destroying the Martians’ entire next generation by contaminating their incubators. Inked by Abel, #37 reveals the origins of affable Old Skull in ‘Arena Kill!’ when the wanderers discover a clandestine enclave of humans in the Okefenokee Wildlife Preserve before one final fill-in – by Mantlo, Giffin & Al Milgrom – appeared in #38. ‘Death’s Dark Dreamer!’ sees Killraven separated from his team and stumbling into a wrecked but still functional dream-dome to battle the materialised fantasies of its ancient occupant. His pre-invasion, memories-fuelled attacks reconstitute oddly familiar defenders patterned after Iron Man, Man-Thing, Dr. Strange and almost every other Marvel hero you could think of…

The beautiful, troubled and doomed saga stopped – but did not end – with Amazing Adventures #39 (November 1976) as McGregor & Russell introduced the decimated Band of Brothers to an incredible new life-form in ‘Mourning Prey’. This beguiling meeting of vastly different beings pauses the voyages on a satisfyingly upbeat note, with understanding and forgiveness winning out over suspicion and ingrained violence for once…

And that’s where the gloriously unique, elegiac, Art Nouveau fantasy vanished with no comfortable resolution until 1983 when Marvel Graphic Novel #7 featured an all-new collaboration by McGregor and Russell starring Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds.

That painted full-colour extravaganza is reproduced here and commences after a catch-up Prologue and 6 pages of character profiles to bring readers old and new up to speed…

‘Last Dreams Broken’ opens in February 2020 at Cape Canaveral where Killraven connects again to a distant consciousness and sets off for Yellowstone in search of answers to his inexpressible questions. Along the way the rebels meet 59-year-old Jenette Miller – probably the last surviving astronaut on Earth – as ‘Cocoa Beach Blues’ finds her teaching the warrior wanderers some history and human perspective in between the constant daily battles, whilst in ‘Blood and Passion’ The Warlord prepares his deadliest trap for his despised antagonist as Killraven is finally reunited with Joshua. The drama runs its inevitable course in ‘Let it Die Like Fourth of July’ as all the hero’s hopes and fears are cataclysmically realised…

McGregor’s long-anticipated conclusion did not disappoint and even set up a new future…

With covers by John Romita, Trimpe, Rich Buckler, Klaus Janson, Gil Kane, Jim Starlin, Russell, Keith Pollard & Marie Severin, this time-tossed compilation also includes the introductory editorial page from Amazing Adventures #18 – a fascinating insight into Thomas’ expectations of what became a landmark of visual narrative poetry that was far beyond its time and mass audience’s taste. These are house ads, original art pages, sketches and covers by Romita, Russell, and working materials – notes, photos, plots and more – from McGregor’s copious files plus a Russell pin-up from Marvel Fanfare #45, a Killraven- wraparound cover from The Official Marvel Index to Marvel Team-Up #3 by Sandy Plunkett & Russell, and pages from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Update …

Confused, convoluted, challenging, controversial (this series contained the first ever non-comedic interracial kiss in American comics – in 1975 if you can believe it!), evocative, inspirational and always entertaining, this is graphic narrative no serious fan or fantasy addict should miss. Do it now: the future is not your friend and Mars needs readers…
© 2021 MARVEL

Posted on

Iznogoud’s Nightmares


By Goscinny & Tabary translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-360-4 (Album PB)

For the greater part of his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) René Goscinny was one of – if not the – most prolific and most-read writers of comic strips the world has ever seen. He still is.

Among his most popular comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas and, of course, Asterix the Gaul, but there were so many others, such as the dazzling, dark deeds of a dastardly usurper whose dreams of diabolical skulduggery perpetually proved to be ultimately no more than castles in the sand…

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to those hotly contested deserts when Goscinny teamed with sublimely gifted Swedish émigré Jean Tabary (1930-2011) – who numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips – to detail the innocuous history of imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah.

However, it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud who stole the show – possibly the conniving little imp’s only successful coup…

According to the Foreword in this very special collection, the very notion of the series came from a throwaway moment in Les Vacances du Petit Nicolas, but – once it was fully formed and independent – Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created to join the roster in Record, with the first episode appearing in the January 15th 1962 issue. An assured if relatively minor hit, the strip jumped ship to Pilote – a comics periodical created and edited by Goscinny – where it was artfully refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little ratbag who had increasingly been hogging all the laughs and limelight.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on multiple levels: for youngsters it’s a comedic romp with adorably wicked baddies invariably hoisted on their own petards and coming a-cropper, whilst older, wiser heads can revel in pun-filled, witty satires and marvellously accessible episodic comic capers. Just like our Parliament today. That latter aspect is investigated in this collection of short episodes…

This same magic formula made its more famous cousin Asterix a monolithic global success and – just like the saga of the indomitable Gaul – the irresistibly addictive Arabian Nit was originally adapted into English by master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge, who made those Roman Follies so very palatable to British tastes. Always the deliciously malicious whimsy was heavily dosed with manic absurdity, cleverly contemporary cultural critiques and brilliantly delivered creative anachronisms which serve to keep the assorted escapades bizarrely fresh and hilariously inventive. However, like so many comics inventions, the series grew beyond its boundaries and this volume re-presents a sidebar series that began as a s statement and grew into a separate second career for the vindictive viper…

Insidious anti-hero Iznogoud is Grand Vizier to affable, easy-going Caliph of Ancient Baghdad Haroun Al Plassid, but the sneaky little toad has loftier ambitions, or – as he is always declaiming – “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”…

The retooled series launched in Pilote in 1968, quickly growing into a massive European hit, with 31 albums to date (carried on by Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel & Nicolas after his passing in 2011); his own solo comic; a computer game; animated film, TV cartoon show and a live-action movie.

When Goscinny died in 1977, Tabary started scripting his own sublimely stylish tales (from the 13th album onwards), gradually switching to book-length complete adventures, rather than the compilations of short, punchy vignettes which typified the collaborations.

In October, 1974, whilst the shifty shenanigans were unfolding to the delight of kids, its sandy-struck star began moonlighting: pulling double duty as a commentator and critic of real-world politics and social issues in a French newspaper. Some of the best and least dated have been resurrected here.

Published in 1979 by Editions de la Séguinière, Les Cauchemars d’Iznogoud was the 14th collection, gathering material from Le Journal du Dimanche and appears here with the usual introductory page of key characters plus an annotated text section offering political clarity and historical context. Each entry is presented as a short strip highlighting a contemporary issues seen through the wry lens of a Vile Vizier, offering a wry and raucous roster of advisory lectures with the sagacious schemer pausing his campaign to seize power from his oddly oblivious Lord and Master in favour of blessing all us proles with his wisdom and ruling acumen.

Deftly detailing how to deal with labour disputes, union demands, social unrest, unruly clergymen, domestic and foreign policy, the environment, cost-of-living crises, energy security, sporting links with pariah states, diversity, sectarianism and segregationism, and so much more, here the Caliph-in-waiting explains how to maintain a popularity and power in ancient but oh-so-contemporary Baghdad as well as the modern world…

Trust me, it’s far funnier than I’ve made it sound and all the usual magic and madness is apparent as the Vizier asks and answers questions posits potential policy in ‘If I were Minister of Labour…’, ‘If I were Minister of Energy…’ or ‘…Waste Management…’, ‘…the Interior…’, ‘…the Army…’, ‘…of Students…’, ‘…of Police…’, ‘ … the Anti-Gang Unit…’, ‘…of Negotiators…’, ‘…of Censorship…’, ‘…of the Economy…’ ‘…of Industry…’, and ‘If I were President of the Judges Union…’

Many strips are general in nature rather than addressing a specific “hot topic”, but still deliver hilariously acerbic and excoriating satirical points in bulletins like ‘If I were a Carpet Seller…’, ‘If I were Minister of Wishes…’, ‘If I dined with ordinary people…’, ‘If I were Minister of Divorce…’, ‘If I were Minister of Quality of Life…’, ‘If I spoke officialese…’ ‘ ‘If I were Minister of Compromise…’, ‘If I were Minister of Holes…’, ‘If I were Minister of Tolls…’, ‘If I were Minister of Prison Guards…’, ‘If I were the usurper…’, ‘If I were Minister of Freezing…’, ‘If I were going on holiday…’ (a popular a pressing duty of Prime ministers everywhere and one our own British bosses are world leaders in), as well as ‘If I were Secretary of Non-Smoking…’ and ‘If I were a UN Delegate…’

There is even a particularly scary sub-strand of episodes pondering – with menaces – ‘If I were your Caliph/King/Inheritor/Guess What?’…

What’s truly daunting and trenchant is just how many of these strips are still painfully relevant right now, with the darker side of sport, white & greenwashing, nepotism, cronyism and even sexual politics all poked with a very sharp stick (which is, coincidentally, my suggested solution for dealing with our 21st century ruling rascals and feather-bedding incompetents) in tales such as If I were Minister of Labour…’, ‘ ‘…of Racing…’, ‘…of Football…’, or even ‘If I were the one in charge of their “happiness”…’, If I were the Impaler…’, If I were on an official visit…’ and ‘If I were Minister of Ladies of the Night…’

Although the farcical eternal battle with his own hereditary superior is surrendered to the exigencies of a topical tone, the cast of regulars and legendary locales are still happily extant here with bumbling, long-suffering henchman and strong-arm crony Wa’at Alahf’ acting as sounding board and straight man and Caliph Haroun al Plassid acting as the oblivious powers that be in a panoply of short, sharp shockers blending un-realpolitik with world weary cynicism in a pun-punctuated comedy of errors, riddled with broad slapstick and craftily convoluted conniving…

Just such witty, fast-paced hi-jinks and craftily crafted comedy set pieces have made this addictive series a household name in France where “Iznogoud” is now an acceptable general term for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous, sans-gravitas and frequently a little short in the height department…

When first released in Britain during the late 1970s (and again in 1996) these tales made little impression, but certainly in today’s fervid climate of fustercluckery, these brisk and brutal, wonderfully beguiling strips have found an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy Kids Of All Ages…

…And journalists and Hansard, and Polit-Wonks, and dictators and…
Original edition © 2012 IMAV éditions by Goscinny & Tabary. All rights reserved. English translation 2017 Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

Justice Society of America: The Demise of Justice


By Len Strazewski, John Broome, Paul Levitz, Rick Burchett, Grant Miehm, Mike Parobeck, Tom Artis, Frank McLaughlin, Frank Giacoia, Arthur Peddy, Bernard Sachs, Joe Staton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-0744-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Golden Ageist Evergreen Enjoyment… 8/10

Released in 2021 to celebrate their 80th anniversary, here’s yet another DC core concept given fresh wings by a modern movie. If you can find it, this hardback/digital delight is good old fashioned fun and will make a perfect present for you or yours…

After the actual invention of the comic book superhero – the Action Comics debut of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s history was the combination of individual sales-points into a group.

Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven: consumers couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men, and combining many characters inevitably increased readership. Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one – or one-and-a-half if there’s a sidekick involved…

The creation of the Justice Society of America utterly changed the shape of the budding business and – technically – All Star Comics #3 (cover-dated Winter 1940-1941, released in December 1940) was the kick-off. However, in that landmark, the assembled heroes merely had dinner whilst recounting recent cases and didn’t actually go on a mission together until #4 (cover-dated April 1941).

With the simple notion that mighty mystery men hung out together, history was made and it wasn’t long before they started working together…

However, when WWII ended, superheroes gradually declined, and most companies had shelved them by 1950. The plunge in popularity led to a revival in genre-themed titles and characters, and it was a stripped-down team (Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, Black Canary, Dr. Mid-Nite and Wonder Woman) who battled on in contemporarily tailored crime and science fiction sagas before the title abruptly changed into All Star Western with #58.

It would take a second age of superheroes to revive them, this time as the champions of a parallel universe dubbed Earth Two…

Gathered here is a near-forgotten limited series concerning the latter days of the team’s Golden Age that originally ran in Justice Society of America #1-8 (April to November 1991), augmented by the last tale of the original era as seen in All-Star Comics #57, (February/March 1951), plus a turning point tale from Adventures Comics #466 (December 1979). They are preceded a sparkling, informative and appreciative Foreword by Golden Age aficionado and super scripter Mark Waid.

The miniseries – subtitled Vengeance from the Stars! – that comprises the majority of this tome was scripted by journalist and educator Len Strazewski (Speed Racer, The Flash, Phantom Lady, Starman, The Fly, The Web, Prime, Prototype, Elven) and illustrated by a rotating team of artists, opening as Rick Burchett illustrates ‘Beware the Savage Skies’. Here recently-retired mystery man Ted Knight – AKA Starman – is attacked in his private New Mexico observatory by incredible astral energy beings. Broken and dispirited, he is then enslaved by an old enemy who purloins his wondrous gravity rod before luring Jay (Flash) Garrick into a deathtrap that results in power outages across America…

The plot thickens with ‘The Sack of Gotham’ (art by Grant Miehm) as radio and television executive Alan Scott seeks to keep the lights on in his city whilst Black Canary prowls the darkened streets deterring looters and career criminals. Distracted by a museum break-in, she finds herself punching way, way up as undead monster/moron Solomon Grundy and a gang of determined bandits help themselves to ancient Egyptian artefacts at the behest of a hidden client. By the time Scott arrives as Green Lantern, the Canary has been thrashed and captured, leaving him to battle an animated star constellation dubbed Sagittarius…

Burchett inks the astoundingly talented Mike Parobeck in #3’s ‘Dead Air’, as the star thing blacks out Gotham and Scott struggles to stop it. Complications occur when Grundy – afflicted with an obsessive hatred of Green Lantern – forgets the orders from the mystery Machiavelli to attack his emerald enemy. Far away, Ted Knight learns that his gleeful foe intends to conquer Earth by eradicating modern technologies and attitudes and replace them with primordial magic and tyranny…

Tom Artis & Frank McLaughlin limn #4 as ‘Evil of the Ancients’ sees reincarnating Egyptian warrior Hawkman uncovering star-themed neolithic treasures in his day job as archaeologist Carter Hall. These findings expose the history and provenance of the constellation creatures, but also trigger the arrival of another…

Despite aerial valour and the US Army’s best efforts, deadly colossus Andromeda storms off with a clutch of atom bombs and only the sudden arrival of The Flash prevents utter disaster. The clash resumes in ‘Double Star Rising!’ by Parobeck & Burchett, as arcane knowledge and modern tech savvy combine to trace the stellar plunderer and the incredible pyramid of power it is constructing. When the heroes try to destroy it they are confronted with a second energy horror but find a way to defeat both at once, compelling the man behind the plot to finally take a personal hand in the fight…

Far across the country the Lantern and the Canary escape captivity in ‘Danger Flies the Skies’ (Artis & McLaughlin), thanks to some timely aid from valiant sidekick Doiby Dickles, and track west after the museum artefacts in time to reinforce Flash and Hawkman in ‘The Return of the Justice Society’ (art by Miehm & Burchett). Redeemed and reinspired, Knight once more takes up his costumed identity to end the villain’s plot in ‘Battle of the Stars!’

In the heady aftermath, the JSA ponder what the next decade will bring, unaware that political conspiracies, public paranoia and a wave of intolerance masquerading as social conformity was waiting to change the world in ways no one could anticipate…

In continuity terms, this was technically the antepenultimate adventure of the JSA, with the rousing romp slyly heralding mood swings in the heartland of Democracy. It is thus smartly supplemented by the team’s final appearance of the Golden Age (in All-Star Comics #57) and a chilling, thematically-aligned codicil from Adventures Comics #466.

Written by John Broome and illustrated by Frank Giacoia, Arthur Peddy & Bernard Sachs, All-Star Comics #57 was the JSA’s last hurrah as ‘The Mystery of the Vanishing Detectives!’ pitted them against criminal mastermind The Key. When he abducted Earth’s greatest criminologists in advance of a spectacular robbery spree, the superheroes were called in to solve the case and prevent an impending catastrophe. It took a lot of time and effort, but the JSA never fail…

The fallow period and gradual return of the JSA was a major success of fan power in the 1960s, but that decade too ended with superheroes on the wane. During the torrid and turbulent 1970s, many of the comics industry’s oldest publishing ideas were finally laid to rest. The belief that characters could be “over-exposed” was one of the most pernicious and long-lasting (although it never hurt Superman, Batman or the original Captain Marvel), garnered from years of experience in an industry which lived or died on that fractional portion of pennies derived each month from the pocket-money and allowances of children which wasn’t spent on candy, toys or movies.

By the end of the 1960s, comic book costs and retail prices were inexorably rising and a proportion of titles – especially the newly revived horror stories – were consciously being produced for older readerships. Nearly a decade of organised fan publications and letter writing crusades had finally convinced publishing bean-counters what editors already knew: grown-ups avidly read comics too. Moreover, they happily spent more than kids and craved more, more, more of what they loved.

Explicitly: If one appearance per month was popular, extras, specials and second series would be more so. By the time Marvel Comics Wunderkind Gerry Conway left The House of Ideas, DC was willing and ready to expand its variegated line-up with some oft-requested fan-favourite characters. Paramount among these was the Justice Society of America, the first comic book super-team and a perennial gem whose annual guest-appearances in the Justice League of America and other superhero titles had become a beloved tradition and treat.

Thus in 1976 writer/editor Conway marked his second DC tenure (he had first broken into the game writing horror shorts for Joe Orlando) by reviving All Star Comics with #58.

In 1951, the original title transformed overnight into All Star Western with the numbering running for a further decade for the home of cowboy crusaders like Strong Bow, The Trigger Twins, Johnny Thunder and Super-Chief. Now, set on Earth-Two, and in keeping with the editorial sense of ensuring a series be relevant to young readers too, Conway reintroduced the veteran team, leavened with a smattering of teen heroes forming a contentious, generation gap-fuelled “Super Squad”…

Augmented by Robin (a JSA-er since the mid-1960s in Justice League of America #55), Sylvester Pemberton/Star-Spangled Kid and a busty young thing who rapidly became the feisty favourite of a generation of growing boys: Kara Zor-L – Power Girl. Closing this collection is a short piece as she and fellow newcomer Huntress discuss how the Golden Age ended…

Taken from massive 68-page anthology title Adventure Comics 466 where Paul Levitz & Joe Staton delivered a pithy history lesson exposing the reason why the team vanished at the beginning of the 1950s, ‘The Defeat of the Justice Society!’ shows how the American Government cravenly betrayed their greatest champions. Set during early days of the McCarthy era anti-communist witch-hunts, a sham trial provoked the mystery men into voluntarily withdrawing from public, heroic life. There they stayed until the costumed stalwarts of Earth-One started the whole Fights ‘n’ Tights scene all over again…

These exuberant, rapid-paced and imaginative yarns perfectly blend the naive charm of Golden Age derring-do with cynically hopeful modern sensibilities. Here you will be reassured that no matter what, in the end our heroes will always find a way to save the day. These are classic tales from simpler times and a glorious example of traditional superhero storytelling at its finest: fun, furious and ferociously engaging, excitingly written and beguilingly illustrated. No Fights ‘n’ Tights fan should miss these marvellous sagas.
© 1951, 1979,1991, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

No Surrender


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

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Triumphant Tribute to Freedom Fighters and Literary Legends… 9/10

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 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’…

The story sees numerous characters interact on many levels like a soap opera, but underpinning it all is a roster of actual protest events woven into the plot, such as ambushing a number of 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 notable 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 the core principle – that they are all women together – completely 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 place 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 a 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 substantial graphic novel there’s a chart showing when – and how incrementally – the nations of the world instituted female enfranchisement, and an Afterword by adapting creators Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (Mann’s Best Friend, A Blow Borne Quietly, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists), naming names and offering factual provenance for the 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.

Posted on

Some Frightful War Pictures illustrated by W. Heath Robinson


By W. Heath Robinson (Last Post Press)
ISBN: 978-1-4733-3483-0 (PB/Digital edition)

Not many people enter the language due to their own works and efforts. Fewer still last the course and remain relevant. Can you recall what “doing an Archer” means? We’ll soon be calling it “doing a Boris”… or “Truss” or “Sunak” or…

Moreover, when such endeavours also challenge egregious public perceptions and seek to correct outrageous out-of-control attitudes whenever  governments seek to enflame the worst of humanity for immediate political gain – and yes I am drawing parallels with now – these heroes need to be remembered just as much as The Fallen of so many wars. On this day of all days, never forget that, and also please recall that all the dead we commemorate are only that way because politicians and diplomats on all sides of every conflict failed to do their jobs right and only cartoonists and satirists ever called them out for it…

William Heath Robinson was born on 31st May 1872 into an artistic dynasty. His father Thomas was chief staff artist for Penny Illustrated Paper and older brothers Thomas and Charles were also illustrators of note. After proper schooling, William tried – unsuccessfully – to become a watercolour landscape artist before turning to the family trade.

In 1902, he released fairy story Uncle Lubin before finding graphic work at The Tatler, Sketch, Strand, Bystander and London Opinion. During this period, he developed the humorous whimsy and penchant for eccentric over-engineered mechanical devices for simple tasks which made him a household name.

During The Great War, Heath Robinson uniquely avoided the jingoistic stance and fervour of many of his competitors, preferring to satirise the absurdity of conflict itself in every periodical venue and volumes of collected cartoons. When the shooting stopped, he went on to a career of phenomenal success and creativity in cartooning, illustration and advertising.

Sadly he found himself doing it all over again in World War Two…

William Heath Robinson died on 13th September 1944.

There was a mild resurgence of interest in his efforts some years ago (from whence stems this timely collection) and if you’re interested you could scour the internet or even real bookshops for Hunlikely! (1916) or The Saintly Hun: A Book of German Virtues (1917). More general joys and niggles can be seen in Flypapers (1919), Get On With It (1920), The Home Made Car (1921), Quaint and Selected Pictures (1922), Humours of Golf (1923) and Let’s Laugh (1939), and in larger compendia Heath Robinson At War (1941) and The Penguin Heath Robinson (1946)

His literary collaborations can be found in The Incredible Inventions Of Professor Branestawm – 1933, accompanying the novels of N Hunter – or in Mein Rant with R. F. Patterson (1940).

In the 1970s and 1980s Duckworth reprinted a selection of albums including Inventions, Devices, The Gentle Art of Advertising, Heath Robinson at War, Humours of Golf, How To Be A Motorist, How To Be A Perfect Husband, How To Live in a Flat, How To Make your Garden Grow, How To Run a Communal Home, How To Build a New World, and, ominously and rather perspicaciously foresightfully, How To Make the Best of Things…

Some of these may still be found at or ordered through your local Library Service. Both Ribaldry and Absurdities were reissued in the 1990s and were readily available online last month…

There is very little point of in-depth analysis in the limited space available here, but surely some degree of recommendation is permissible. In Absurdities (1934), Heath Robinson personally gathered his favourite works into a single volume that more than any other describes the frail resilience of the human condition in the Machine Age and particularly how the English used to deal with it all. They are also some of his funniest panels.

In Railway Ribaldry – a commission from The Great Western Railway Company to celebrate their centenary in1935 (and more power to them; can you imagine a modern company paying someone to make fun of them?) – he examined Homo Sapiens Albionensis, as steel and rails and steam and timetables gradually bored their way into the hearts and minds of us folk. Much too little of his charming and detailed illustrative wit is in print today, a situation that cries out for rectification more than any other injustice in the sadly neglected field of cartooning and Popular Arts.

I apologize for the laundry-list nature of the above, but I’m not sorry to have produced it and neither will you be when you find any the wonderful, whimsical, whacky work of William Heath Robinson, Wizard of Quondam Mechanics.

In the spirit of his unique contribution to war and peace, this review ostensibly concerns his first combat collection which is readily available in digital editions. Published in 1915, Some Frightful War Pictures reprinted gags and observations first published in The Sketch and The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News: assaulting both the despised and press-pilloried “Boche” and the Empire’s own inept High Command with genteel mockery.

In complex, convoluted cartons with titles like ‘The True Reason of the War (July 1914)’, ‘Nach Paris!’, ‘Hague Convention Defied!’, ‘Kolossal!’, ‘The War Lord at the Front!’ and ‘War Komforts!’, the artist repeatedly points out how alike all sides are, whilst subtly hinting that other ways of settling issues are always available…
© 2017 The Estate of William Heath Robinson.

Posted on

Metalzoic – DC Graphic Novel #6


By Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill and various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-93028-910-2 (Album TPB)

Once again sad news comes to us that another comics great – and brilliantly entertaining convention companion – has gone too soon. We use the word unique far too often in our hyperbole-ridden industry, but I can honestly say there was never anyone quite like Kevin O’Neill, so – rightfully shamed by guilt – I’ll be reviewing a bunch of his best stuff that I never-quite-got-around-to in the weeks and months to come, but for now let’s look again at one of his most remarkable and neglected manic masterpieces… 

In the years immediately following the release of Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics was a paragon of experimentation and quality, as this decidedly post-punk, English-flavoured offering from 2000 AD mainstays and certified “British Invaders” Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill proves.

Not long after this book was published. illustrator O’Neill won the singular accolade of having his entire style of drawing – not a panel, not a story, but every single mark he left on paper – banned by the dried-up-but-not-quite-dead Comics Code Authority!

Not that it stopped the rise of his remarkable and truly unique talent in later triumphs such as Marshal Law, Serial Killer and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

“Kev” was born in 1953 and, at age 16, began work as an office boy/art corrector for British weekly Buster. He worked in every aspect of the compartmentalised industry: lettering, art paste-up, logo design, colouring and more. He even apparently self-published a fanzine – Just Imagine: The Journal of Film and Television Special Effects…

As the kids stuff began to pale, life changed in 1977, when author/editor Pat Mills transferred him to a forthcoming, iconoclastic new science fiction comic.

O’Neill became a mainstay: producing covers, pinups and Future Shock short stories, whilst contributing to serials like Ro-Busters, satirical super parody Captain Klep, ABC Warriors and breakthrough character Nemesis the Warlock.

From there on, America came calling in the form of DC Comics…

In the far, far future robotic animals have evolved on the declining planet to fill the vacated niches once populated with specialised organic creatures. Civilised humanity has absconded to the stars and Mek-Animals roam the savage Earth. Armageddon is the ruler of the ape-like Mekaka, proud and ambitious, but his tribe are losing faith. They live on scavenged power and the mammoth-like Wheeled Beasts have not been seen for five years…

But this season they will return, led by the terrible God-Beast Amok, and the Mekaka will kill him and rule the world. Sadly, complications arise when joy-riding humans Jool and Ngila crash on this desolate dying world: one which most humans have forgotten ever existed. They have knowledge, but no survival instincts at all…

After US publication, the story was later serialised in 2000 AD #483-942, where it found a more welcoming audience before tragically vanishing from sight and memory. However, it remains purely primal savage satire: a fantastic fantasy; that remains an incontrovertible highpoint in DC’s abortive 1980s Graphic Novel line. Its scope and power are mesmerising and its return to print long, long overdue. Let’s hope someone gets the message…
© 1986 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Monsters! and Other Stories


By Gustavo Duarte (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-309-8 (PB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-886-8

In comics, Less Is More.

You start with pictures. They should be clearly understood. Deathless prose so often just gets in the way…

This stunning breakthrough compilation from Brazilian graphic raconteur Gustavo (Bizarro; Guardians of the Galaxy; Dear Justice League) Duarte’s earliest works is a sublime masterclass in cartoon comedy: a trio of engrossing mini-epics each hallmarked by breakneck pace, captivating atmosphere and escalating conceptual insanity, all delivered via inspired sight-gags and superb drawing.

Following an effusive Introduction extolling the virtues of pantomimic comics and the sheer wonder of silent comedy from indisputable arch-maestro Sergio Aragonés, a twisted triptych of hilarious terror tales opens with ‘Có!’ (2009).

Here is a sardonically sinister saga of alien abductions, pig husbandry and commercial chicken-rearing practises, tinged with bizarre transformations, existential confrontations and the unmitigated horror of incomprehensible extraterrestrial agendas…

Anthropomorphically unfolding next, ‘Birds’ (2011) pecks at the cutthroat business world. One ordinary day a sinister murder mystery ensues, with two avian office workers having the worst day of their lives. A tense situation swiftly degenerates into a surreal bloodbath where only Death holds true dominion…

Concluding this soundless extravaganza is bombastic battle bout ‘Monsters!’ from 2012. This is a manic celebration of Kaiju (that’s city-stomping, rampaging giant beasties to old folk like you and me) as a jaded recreational angler reels in a big catch before becoming one as a colossal lizard wades ashore to tear up the town and literally sample the night life. As the creature inevitably attracts gargantuan rivals ashore for a showdown and the human populace panic, an elderly gentleman patiently gathers ingredients for a very ancient and special potion. He’s seen this all before and has the perfect solution…

This manic, mostly monochrome tome is the acme of artistic thrills and chills, perfectly capturing the addictive wonderment of monster stories and crafted by a master of fun and thrills.

Less is More. Silence is Golden. Get this Book.
© 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014 Gustavo Duarte Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.