Category: Satire/Politics

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Jiggs is Back


By George McManus (City Lights/Celtic Book Company)
ISBN: 978-0-91366-682-1 (Album PB)

Variously entitled Maggie and Jiggs or Bringing Up Father, the comedic magnum opus of George McManus ranks as one of the best and most influential comic strips of all time: a brilliant blend of high satire and low wit that drapes the rags-to-riches American dream with the cautionary admonition to be careful of what you wish for…

Increasingly obscure as years go by, relatively recently this magnificent series was celebrated with a lavish hardcover collection reprinting the strip’s captivating beginnings (see George McManus’s Bringing Up Father: Forever Nuts – Classic Screwball Strips) but that book, wonderful though it is, only prints black and white daily episodes, whilst this colossal softcover (from 1986 and well overdue for re-issue) concentrates on the exceptionally beautiful Sunday colour pages – a perfect proving ground for the artist’s incredible imagination to run wild with slapstick set-pieces, innovative page design and a near-mystical eye for fashion and pattern.

McManus was born on January 23rd in either 1882 or 1883 and drew from a very young age. His father, realising his talent, found him work in the art department of the St. Louis Republic newspaper. At thirteen, George swept floors, ran errands and drew when ordered to. In an era before cheap, reliable photography, news stories were supplemented by drawn illustrations; usually of disasters, civic events and executions: McManus claimed he had attended 120 hangings (a national record!) but still found time to produce cartoons: honing his mordant wit and visual pacing. His first sale was Elmer and Oliver. He hated it.

The jobbing cartoonist had a legendary stroke of luck in 1903. Acting on a bootblack’s tip, he placed a $100 bet on a 30-1 outsider and used his winnings to fund a trip to New York City. The young hopeful splurged his cash reserves but on his last day got two job offers: one from the McClure Syndicate and a lesser bid from Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.

He took the smaller offer, went to work for Pulitzer and created a host of features for the paper including Snoozer, The Merry Marceline, Ready Money Ladies, Cheerful Charlie, Panhandle Pete, Let George Do It, Nibsy the Newsboy in Funny Fairyland (one of the earliest Little Nemo knock-offs) and, in 1904, his first big hit The Newlyweds.

This last brought him to the attention of Pulitzer’s arch rival William Randolph Hearst who, acting in tried-&-true manner, lured him away with big money in 1912. In Hearst’s papers, The Newlyweds became Sunday page feature Their Only Child, and soon – supplemented by Outside the Asylum, The Whole Blooming Family, Spare Ribs and Gravy – at last, Bringing Up Father.

At first it alternated with other McManus domestic comedies in the same slot, but eventually the artist dropped Oh, It’s Great to be Married!, Oh, It’s Great to Have a Home and Ah Yes! Our Happy Home! (as well as a second Sunday strip Love Affairs of a Muttonhead) to concentrate on the story of Irish hod-carrier Jiggs whose sudden and vast newfound wealth brings him no joy, whilst his parvenu wife Maggie and (flouting all laws of genetics) their inexplicably comely and cultured daughter Nora constantly seek acceptance in “Polite” society.

The strip turned on the simplest of premises: as Maggie and Nora perpetually fete wealth and aristocracy, Jiggs – who only wants to booze and schmooze and eat his beloved corned beef and cabbage – will somehow shoot down their plans… usually with severe personal physical consequences.

Maggie might have risen in society but she never lost her devastating accuracy with crockery and household appliances…

Bringing Up Father launched on January 12th 1913, originally appearing three times a week, then four and eventually every day. It made McManus two fortunes (the first lost in the 1929 Stock Market crash), spawned a radio show, a movie in 1928 – with five more between 1946-1950 as well as an original Finnish film in 1939 – and 9 silent animated short features. There was also all the assorted marketing paraphernalia that fetch such high prices in today’s antique markets.

McManus died in 1954, and other creators continued the strip until May 28th 2000: its unbroken 87 years making it the second longest running newspaper strip of all time.

McManus said that he got the basic idea from The Rising Generation, a musical comedy he’d seen as a boy, but the premise of wealth not bringing happiness was only the foundation of the strip’s success. Jiggs’ discomfort at his elevated position, his yearnings for the nostalgic days and simple joys of youth are something every one of us is prey to. However, the deciding factor and real magic at work here is an entrancing blend of slapstick, social commentary, sexual politics and flashy fashion, all cannily composted together and delivered by a man who lived and breathed comedy timing and could draw like an angel with the propensities of a devil.

His incredibly clean simple lines and the superb use – and implicit understanding – of art nouveau and art deco imagery as well as Jazz Age philosophy – especially proffered in full colour as here – make this book a stunning treat for the eye. The glorious rainbow of mirth includes an introduction from Pulitzer-winning author William Kennedy and an incisive analytical commentary from comics historian Bill Blackbeard for those that need or desire a grounding for their reading, but of course what we all want is to revel in the 48 magnificent, full-page escapades; thoughtfully divided into palatable sections starting with ‘The Joys of Poverty’ from 1923, wherein the family suffers a reversal of fortune and became once more poor, but happy.

It’s followed by ‘The Vacation’ (December 9th 1939 to July 7th 1940), a visually spectacular epic following the wealthy-once-more family – complete with spiffingly new aristocratic English Twit son-in-law – on a city-by-city tour of America, and ‘Maggie, Do You Remember When…’ (picked from the feature’s peak period between 1933 and 1942): a shamelessly sentimental, dryly witty occasional series of bucolic recollections culled from “the good old days” which generated some of the most heart-warming and inventive episodes in the series’ entire history…

An added surprise for a strip of this vintage is the great egalitarianism of it. Although there is an occasional unwholesome visual stereotype to swallow and excuse, what we regard as racism is practically absent. The only thing to watch out for is the genteel sexism and class (un)consciousness, although McManus clearly pitched his tent on the side of the dirty, disenfranchised and downtrodden – as long as he could get a laugh out of it.

This wonderful, evocative celebration of the world’s greatest domestic comedy strip is a little hard to find but well worth the effort. Hopefully some sagacious entrepreneur will eventually get around to giving Bringing Up Father the deluxe reprint treatment it so richly deserves or at least create a digital collection for modern-minded, old-fashioned comedy mavens to relish and revel in.
© 1986 Celtic Book Company.

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Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 01 – 10th Anniversary Edition


By John Wagner, Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Peter Harris, Malcolm Shaw, Charles Herring, Gerry Finlay-Day, Robert Flynn, Joe Collins, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon, Ian Gibson, Massimo Belardinelli, Ron Turner, John Cooper, Bill Ward, Brian Bolland & various (Rebellion/REBCA)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-332-1 (HB/Digital edition)

Britain’s last great comic icon can be described as a combination of the other two, combining the futuristic milieu and thrills of Dan Dare with the terrifying anarchy and irreverent absurdity of Dennis the Menace. He’s the longest-lasting adventure character in our rather meagre comics stable, having been continually published every week since February 1977 when he kicked off in the second issue of science-fiction anthology 2000AD – and now that The Dandy’s gone, veterans Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan might one day be overtaken in the comedy stakes too…

However, with at least 52 2000AD episodes a year, annuals, specials, a newspaper strip (in the Daily Star and The Metro), Judge Dredd Megazine, numerous reprinted classic comics collections, some rather appalling franchised foreign comic book spin-off titles, that adds up to a phenomenal amount of material, most of which is still happily in print.

Judicial Review: Dredd and dystopian ultra-metropolis Mega-City One – originally posited as 21st century New York – were formulated by a very talented committee including Pat Mills, Kelvin Gosnell, Carlos Ezquerra, Mike McMahon and others, with major contributions from legendary writer John Wagner who has written the largest portion of the canon under his own name and several pseudonyms.

Joe Dredd is a fanatically dedicated law enforcer dubbed a Judge in the super-city, where hundreds of millions of citizens idle away their days in a world where robots are cheaper, more efficient and frequently crazier than humans, where jobs are both beloved pastime and treasured commodity. Boredom is at epidemic proportions and almost everybody is just one askance glance away from mental meltdown. Judges are peacekeepers who maintain order at all costs: investigating, taking action and trying all crimes and disturbances to the hard-won equilibrium of the constantly boiling melting pot. Justice is always immediate…

Dredd’s world is a polluted and precarious Future (In)Tense, with all key analogues for successful sci fi (as ever a social looking-glass for the times it’s created in) situated and sharply attuned to a Cold War Consumer Civilisation. The ravaged planet is split into political camps with post-nuclear holocaust America locked in a slow death-struggle with Sov Judges of the old Eastern Communist blocs. Eastern lawmen are militaristic, oppressive and totalitarian – and that’s by the US Judges’ standards – so just imagine what they’re actually like. Judges are necessary fascists in a world permanently on the edge of catastrophe, and sadly, what far too many readers never realised is the strip is a gigantic satirical black comedy with oodles of outrageous, vicarious cathartic action.

Such was not the case when the super-cop debuted in 2000AD Prog (that’s issue number to you) #2 on March 5th 1977. He was stuck at the back of the new weekly comic in a tale finally scripted – after much intensive re-hashing – by Peter Harris and illustrated by Mike McMahon & Carlos Ezquerra. The blazing, humourless, no-nonsense (there would be plenty of yes nonsense later) action extravaganza introduced a bike-riding Sentinel of Order in the cautionary tale of brutal bandit Whitey, whose savage crime spree was ended with ferocious efficiency before the thug was sentenced to Devil’s Island – a high-rise artificial plateau surrounded by the City’s constant stream of lethal, never-ending, high-speed traffic. Prog #3 saw Dredd investigate ‘The New You’ in a cunning thriller by Gosnell & McMahon wherein a crafty crook tries to escape justice by popping into his local face-changing shop, whilst #4 saw the first appearance of the outcast mutants in ‘The Brotherhood of Darkness’ (Malcolm Shaw & McMahon) as ghastly post-nuclear pariahs raid the megalopolis for slaves.

Early hints of humour began in Prog 5’s ‘Krong’ by Shaw & Ezquerra, introducing Dredd’s little-old-lady cleaner/landlady Maria, wherein deranged horror film fan/hologram salesman Kevin O’Neill – yes it’s an in-joke – unleashes a giant mechanical gorilla on the city. The issue was the first to cover-feature old Stone Face (that’s Dredd, not Kev)…

‘Frankenstein 2’ pits the Lawman against an audacious medical mastermind, hijacking citizens to keep his rich-but-aging clients in fresh, young organs, whilst #7 sees ruthless reprobate Ringo’s gang of muggers flaunting their criminality in the very shadow of ‘The Statue of Judgement’ until Dredd lowers the boom on them…

The first indications that the super-cop’s face was somehow hideously disfigured emerge in #8, as Charles Herring & Massimo Belardinelli’s ‘Antique Car Heist’ finds the Judge tracking down a murdering thief who stole an ancient petrol-burning vehicle, after which co-creator John Wagner returned in Prog 9 to begin a staggering run of tales with ‘Robots’, illustrated by veteran British science fiction artist Ron Turner. The gripping vignette was set at the Robot of the Year Show, exposing callous cruelty citizens inflicted upon their mechanical slaves as a by-product of a violent blackmail threat by a disabled maniac in a mechanical-super chair… This set the scene for an ambitious mini-saga in #10-17 as those casual injustices paved the way for ‘Robot Wars’ (alternately illustrated over the weeks by Ezquerra, Turner, McMahon & much missed arch wag Ian Gibson) wherein carpentry-robot Call-Me-Kenneth succumbs to a mecha mind meltdown to emerge as a human-hating steel Spartacus, spearheading a bloody revolution against fleshy oppressors.

The slaughter is widespread and terrible before the Judges regain control, helped in no small part by loyal, lisping Vending droid Walter the Wobot, who graduated at the conclusion to Dredd’s second live-in comedy foil…

With order restored, self-contained stories firmed up the vision of the crazed city. In Prog 18 Wagner & McMahon introduced the menace of mind-bending ‘Brainblooms’ cultivated by another little old lady/career criminal, and Gerry Finley-Day & John Cooper described the galvanising effect of a ‘Muggers Moon’ on Mega-City 1’s criminal class before Dredd demonstrated the inadvisability of being an uncooperative witness…

Wagner & McMahon then debuted Dredd’s bizarre paid informant Max Normal in #20, whose latest tip ended the profitable career of ‘The Comic Pusher’; Finley-Day & Turner turned in a workmanlike thriller as the laconic lawmaker tackles a seasoned killer with a deadly new weapon in ‘The Solar Sniper’ and Wagner & Gibson showed the draconian steps Dredd was prepared to take to bring in mutant assassin ‘Mr Buzzz’.

Prog 23 comfortably catapulted the series into all-out ironic satire mode with Finley-Day & McMahon’s ‘Smoker’s Crime’ when Dredd stalks a killer with a nicotine habit to a noxious City Smokatorium, after which Malcolm Shaw, McMahon & Ezquerra reveal the uncanny secret of ‘The Wreath Murders’ in #24. The next issue began the long tradition of spoofing TV and media fashions with Wagner & Gibson concocting lethal illegal game show ‘You Bet Your Life’ whilst #26 exposes the sordid illusory joys and dangers of the ‘Dream Palace’ (McMahon) before #27-28 offer some crucial background on the Judges themselves when Dredd visits ‘The Academy of Law’ (Wagner & Gibson) to give Cadet Judge Giant his final practical exam. Of course, for Dredd there are no half measures or easy going and the novice barely survives graduation…

With the concluding part in #28, Dredd moved to second spot in 2000AD (behind brutally jingoistic thriller Invasion) and the next issue saw Pat Mills & Gibson confront robot racism as Ku Kux Klan-analogue ‘The Neon Knights’ brutalised the reformed and broken artificial citizenry until the Juggernaut Judge krushes them.

Mills then offered tantalising hints on Dredd’s origins in ‘The Return of Rico!’ (McMahon) as a bitter criminal resurfaces after twenty years on the penal colony of Titan. The outcast wants vengeance on the Judge who had sentenced him, but from his earliest days as a fresh-faced rookie, Joe Dredd had no time for corrupt lawmen – even if one were his own clone-brother…

Whitey escapes from ‘Devil’s Island’ (Finley-Day & Gibson) in Prog 31, thanks to a cobbled-together contraption that turns off weather control, but doesn’t get far before Dredd sends him back, whilst fully automated skyscraper resort ‘Komputel’ (Robert Flynn & McMahon) becomes a multi-story murder factory that only Mega-City’s greatest Judge can counter before Wagner (as John Howard) took sole control for a series of savage, whacky escapades beginning with #33’s ‘Walter’s Secret Job’ (art by Gibson). Here the besotted droid is discovered moonlighting as a cabbie to buy “pwesents” for his beloved master…

McMahon & Gibson illustrated 2-parter ‘Mutie the Pig’: a flamboyant criminal and bent Judge, and perform the same tag-team effort on ‘The Troggies’, a debased colony of ancient humans living under the city and preying on the unwary…

Something of a bogie man for wayward kids and exhausted parents, Dredd does himself no favours in Prog 38 bursting in on ‘Billy Jones’ (Gibson) and exposing a vast espionage plot utilising toys as surveillance tools. On tackling ‘The Ape Gang’ in #39 (19th November 1977 by McMahon), the Judge graduated to lead spot whilst quashing a turf war between augmented, educated, criminal anthropoids in the unruly district dubbed “the Jungle”…

‘The Mega-City 5000’ was an illegal, murderously bloody street race the Judges were determined to shut down, but the gripping action-illustration of the Bill Ward drawn first chapter is sadly overshadowed by hyper-realist rising star Brian Bolland, who began his legendary association with Dredd by concluding the mini-epic in blistering, captivating style in Prog 41. Bolland, by his own admission, was an uncommercially slow artist and much of his later Dredd work would appear as weekly portions of large epics with others handling intervening episodes, giving him time to complete his own assignments with a minimum of pressure.

From out of nowhere in a bold change of pace, Dredd is seconded to the Moon for a 6-month tour of duty beginning in #42. His brief is to oversee the nigh-lawless colony set up by the unified efforts of three US Mega-Cities there. The outpost was as bonkers as Mega-City One and a good deal less civilised – a true Final Frontier town…

The extended epic began with Wagner & Gibson’s ‘Luna-1’, with Dredd and stowaway Walter almost shot down en route in a mysterious missile attack before being targeted by a suicide-bomb robot before they can even unpack. ‘Showdown on Luna-1’ introduces permanent Deputy-Marshal Judge Tex from Texas-City, whose jaded, laissez-faire attitudes get a sound shaking up when Dredd demonstrates he’s one lawman who won’t coast for the duration of his term in office. Hitting dusty mean streets, Dredd starts cleaning up the wild boys by outdrawing a mechanical Robo-Slinger and uncovering another assassination ploy. It seems reclusive mega-billionaire ‘Mr. Moonie’ has a problem with the latest law on his lunar turf…

Whilst dispensing aggravating administrative edicts like a frustrated Solomon, Dredd chafes to hit the streets and do real work in #44’s McMahon-limned ‘Red Christmas’. Opportunity arises when arrogant axe-murderer ‘Geek Gorgon’ abducts Walter and demands a showdown he barely lives to regret, whilst ’22nd Century Futsie!’ (Gibson) finds Moonie Fabrications clerk Arthur Goodworthy cracking under the strain of overwork: going on a destructive binge, with Dredd compelled to protect a future-shocked father’s family from Moonie’s overzealous security goons. The arc concludes in Prog 46 with ‘Meet Mr. Moonie’ (Gibson) as Dredd & Walter confront the manipulative manufacturer and uncover his horrific secret.

The feature moved to the prestigious middle spot with this episode, allowing artists to really open up and exploit full-colour centre-spreads, none more so than Bolland as seen in #47’s ‘Land Race’ as Dredd officiates over a frantic scramble by colonists to secure newly opened plots of habitable territory. Of course, there’s always someone who doesn’t want to share…

Ian Gibson illustrated 2-part drama ‘The Oxygen Desert’ (#48-49), wherein veteran moon-rat Wild Butch Carmody defeats Dredd using superior knowledge of the airless wastes beyond the airtight domes. Broken, the Judge quits and slides into despondency, but all is not as it seems…

Prog 50 debuted single-page comedy supplement Walter the Wobot: Fwiend of Dwedd – but more of that later – whilst the long-suffering Justice found himself knee-boot deep in an international interplanetary crisis when ‘The First Lunar Olympics’ (Bolland) against a rival lunar colony controlled by the Machiavellian Judges of the Sov-Cities bloc escalates into assassination and a murderous, politically-fuelled land grab. The conflict was settled in ostensibly civilised manner with strictly controlled ‘War Games’, yet there’s still a grievously high body-count by the time the moon-dust settles. This vicious swipe at contemporary sport’s politicisation was and still is bloody, brutal and bitingly funny…

Bolland illustrated a sardonic saga of ruthless bandits up for a lethal laugh in #52’s ‘The Face-Change Crimes’, employing morphing tech to change their appearances and rob at will until Dredd beats them at their own game. Wagner & Gibson crafted a 4-part epic (Progs 53-56) wherein motor fanatic Dave Paton’s cybernetic, child-like pride-&-joy blows a fuse and terrorises the domed territory: slaughtering humans and infiltrating Dredd’s own quarters before the Judge finally stops ‘Elvis, The Killer Car’.

Bolland stunningly limned a savagely mordant saga of killer bandits who hijack the moon’s air before themselves falling foul of ‘The Oxygen Board’ in #57, but only managed the first two pages of 58’s ‘Full Earth Crimes’, leaving McMahon to complete the tale of regularly occurring chaos in the streets whenever the Big Blue Marble dominates the black sky above.

It was a fine and frantic note to end on as, with ‘Return to Mega-City’, Dredd rotates back Earthside and resumes business as unusual. Readers were probably baffled as to why the returned cop utterly ignored countless crime and misdemeanours, but Wagner & McMahon provide a logical answer in a brilliant, action-packed set-up for madcap dramas to come

This first Case Files chronicle nominally concludes with Wagner & McMahon’s ‘Firebug’ from Prog 60, as the ultimate lawgiver deals with a seemingly-crazed arsonist literally setting the city ablaze. The Law soon discovers a purely venal motive to the apparent madness…

There’s still a wealth of superb bonus material to enjoy before we end, however, and kicking off proceedings is the controversial First Dredd strip (illustrated by Ezquerra) which was bounced from 2000AD #1 and vigorously reworked – a fascinating glimpse of what the series might have been. It’s followed by the eawliest Walter the Wobot: Fwiend of Dwedd stwips (sowwy – can’t wesist!) from 2000AD Progs 50-58. Scripted by Joe Collins, these madcap comedy shorts were seen as antidote to the savage, brutal action strips and served to set the scene for Dredd’s later full-on satirical lampoonery. Illustrated by Gibson, ‘Tap Dancer’ dealt with an embarrassing plumbing emergency whilst ‘Shoot Pool!’ has the Wobot again taking his Judge’s instructions far too literally…

Bolland came aboard giving full rein to his own sense of the absurd with 5-parter ‘Walter’s Brother’: a bizarre tale of evil twins, cunning frame-ups and malign muggings inevitably resulting in us learning all we needed to know about the insipidly faithful, annoying rust-bucket. Dredd then had to rescue the plastic poltroon from becoming a pirate of the airwaves in ‘Radio Walter’ before the star-struck servant finds his 15 seconds of fame as winner of rigged quiz-show ‘Masterbrain’ and this big, big book concludes with a trio of Dredd covers from Progs 10, 44 and 59, courtesy of artists Ezquerra, Kev O’Neill and McMahon.

Mesmerising and beautifully limned, these punchy stories of Britain’s most successful and iconic comics character are the narrative bedrock from which all the later successes of the Mirthless Moral Myrmidon derive. More importantly, they are timeless classics no comic fan can ignore – and just for a change something that you can easily get your hungry hands on. Even my local library has copies of this masterpiece of British literature and popular culture…
© 1977, 1978, 2006 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved. Judge Dredd & 2000AD are ® & ™ Rebellion.

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The Bugle Boy


By Alexandre Clérisse, translated by Edward Gauvin (Europe Comics)
No ISBN – digital only edition

The dead don’t care what we do, but how we treat and remember them defines who we are as a culture and species. Inspired by a true story, Trompe la mort was first published in 2009, offering a humorous, whimsical tone to what must have been a pretty depressing situation…

Translated by digital-only Europe Comics and apparently now only available digitally, The Bugle Boy is a story of debts paid and brothers-in-arms honoured, which begins as an ageing veteran decides to settle some long outstanding affairs…

Marcel is a surviving participant of WWII, and as a surly bugger of 85-years, is inexplicably moved by an impending notion to sort out unfinished business before he joins the rest of his generation in the boneyard.

Back in the war, he was a dashing young company bugler and is now increasingly unsettled at the events which forced him to bury his beloved instrument on a battlefield. As memories of those fraught, often humiliating days keep coming to him, the gritty old sod, with his feisty and unwillingly dutiful granddaughter Andrea, embark on an unpleasant, cross-country bus trek to the distant rural region where – in 1940 – he and his comrades fought their first and last battle…

Before being captured, the idealistic lad he was buried that war horn before it could be employed as it should, and now all he can think of is getting it back.

Sadly but typically, once all the tedious and painful travails of the journey are done, Marcel is left with a still-more difficult problem to solve. The instrument has been already found and turned by the Mayor into a tourist-trap badge of French patriotism. It’s grandly installed in the local town museum – which is now dedicated to bugles of all kinds – as the heart and soul of the town’s rebirth. With elections coming, the wily civic demagogue is planning on exploiting it and the glorious – if comfortably mis-defined – past, as the clarion symbols of his re-election campaign. He has no intention of returning it to its rightful owner.

… Not if Marcel and Andrea have anything to say about it…

Writer/artist Alexandre Clérisse was born in 1980 and began seriously making comics in 1999 through a series of experimental fanzines. In 2002, he graduated from EESI school of Visual Arts in Angoulême and began releasing such superbly readable Bande Dessinee as Jazz Club, Souvenir de l’empire de l’atome (seen in English as IDW’s Atomic Empire) and all-ages Seek-&-Find book Now Playing…

Heartwarming and irreverent, poignant and deeply funny, The Bugle Boy has all the impact and gently subversive wit of classic Dad’s Army episodes and cannot fail to hit home with any reader possessing any empathy at all or even just grandparents who remember and kids who wonder what war is really like…
© 2019 – Dargaud – Clérisse. All rights reserved.

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Lucky Luke volume 40 – Phil Wire


By Morris, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-155-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Doughty, dashing and dependable cowboy “good guy” Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic Old West, enjoying light-hearted adventures on his petulant and rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nine decades, his exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating upwards of 85 individual albums and many, many spin-off series (like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan), with sales thus far totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages. That renown has translated into a mountain of merchandise, toys, games, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Originally the brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) and first officially seen in Le Journal de Spirou’s seasonal Annual L’Almanach Spirou 1947, Luke actually sprang to (un-titled) laconic life in mid-1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946. Morris was one of “la Bande des quatre”– The Gang of Four – comprising Jijé, Will and Franquin: leading proponents of a fresh, loosely free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School”. It came to dominate Le Journal de Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style favoured by Hergé, E.P. Jacobs and other artists in Le Journal de Tintin.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, encountered Goscinny, scored work at newly-formed EC sensation Mad and constantly, copiously noted and sketched a swiftly vanishing Old West.

Working solo until 1955 (with early script assistance from his brother Louis De Bevere), Morris produced nine initial albums – of which today’s was #8 – of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American émigré René Goscinny. With him as his regular wordsmith, Luke attained dizzying, legendary, heights starting with Des rails sur la Prairie (Rails on the Prairie) which began serialisation on August 25th 1955. In 1967, the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, joining Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote in La Diligence (The Stagecoach). Goscinny co-created 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, whereupon Morris soldiered on both singly and with other collaborators. He went to the Last Roundup in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar sagebrush sagas crafted with Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, all taking their own shot at the venerable vigilante.

Lucky Luke has a long history in Britain, having first pseudonymously amused and enthralled young readers during the late 1950s, syndicated to weekly anthology Film Fun. He later rode back into comics-town in 1967 for comedy paper Giggle, using nom de plume Buck Bingo. And that’s not counting the many attempts to establish him as a book star starting with Brockhampton Press in 1972 and continuing via Knight Books, Hodder Dargaud UK, Ravette Books and Glo’Worm, until Cinebook finally and thankfully found the right path in 2006.

As Lucky Luke contre Phil Defer (Lucky Luke: Phil Wire in Britain) this classic collection comprises a brace of tales taken from the company’s general entertainment periodical Le Moustique. The saga of deadly gunslinger Phil Wire -“The Spider” is visually based on the early western works of based on legendary cinematic bad man Jack Palance in a strip taken from issues #1464-1494 (14th February-12th September 1954) of the celebrated periodical.

It begins in the booze-soaked Badlands when Phil Defer – LE FAUCHEUX sells his lethal talents to sinister saloon owner O’Sullivan. He’s looking to remove a rival entrepreneur…

Fate – or perhaps the gods of comedy – instead decree that another tall guy extremely good with guns gets to Bottleneck Gulch first, where he’s naturally mistaken for the rather idiosyncratic, notoriously superstitious killer for hire. You know, the tall guy…

Lucky and Wire have already clashed once before and – despite all the hero’s efforts to deter O’Sullivan – meet once more after all “the Spider’s” schemes to remove rival barkeep O’Hara are foiled. Ultimately, as ever, it comes down to a showdown on main street with only one tall man walking away…

The album also features a second but shorter serial from Le Moustique #1508-1516 (19th December 1954 to 13th February 1955): originally entitled Lucky Luke et Pilule. As Lucky Luke and The Pill, it here details a campfire tale told by our rangy wanderer, relating how a short-sighted, diminutive hypochondriac tenderfoot with no discernible fighting ability or action acumen became a true gun-toting town-tamer…

Ideal for older kids with a bit of historical perspective and social understanding – although the action and slapstick situations are no more contentious than any Laurel and Hardy film, Chuckle Brothers skit and whatever TikTok clip the waifs of the coming generation (Gen Eric?) titter to – these early exploits are a grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again or Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by a master storyteller, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for modern kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of the Wild West that never was…
© Dupuis 1956 by Morris. © Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2013 Cinebook Ltd.

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Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant volume 1


By Keith Giffen & Alan Grant with Simon Bisley, Christian Alamy, Denys Cowan, Kevin O’Neill & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7477-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: ’Tis the Season To Be Fragged… 8/10

Lobo is an incredibly powerful, inescapably violent, perpetually drunken thug afflicted with a love of space dolphins, an utter disregard for all other life and an unshakable moral code hard for anyone else to grasp. The obnoxious, overbearing, unsanitary intergalactic bounty hunter was first seen in Omega Men #3, cover-dated June 1983. He then cropped up all over the DC universe, even becoming a mainstay of the popular L.E.G.I.O.N. series: indentured by cunning stunt as a (sort of) peacekeeper to the intergalactic commercial police force run by Vril Dox, “son” of one multiversal iteration of cosmic super-villain Brainiac.

He had his own monthly title for a few years as well as multiple miniseries and specials, and was a popular candidate for inter and cross-company team-ups. He’s even been a repeat offender on screen in both live action and animated iterations. In-world, the name Lobo roughly translates as “he who devours your entrails and enjoys it”. Despite being pretty much a one trick pony and increasingly an exercise in outrageous graphic excess, this unstoppable, anarchic force-of-nature exploded in popularity in the decade following debut. He was exactly what many fans wanted.

This collection reprints Lobo #1-4; The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special; Lobo’s Back #1-4; Lobo: Blazing Chain of Love; Lobo Convention Special and material from Who’s Who in the DC Universe, collectively spanning all of infinity via cover-dates November 1990 to September 1993.

Without any kind of fair warning, this bloodbath of poor taste and shocking excess opens with initial Limited Series Lobo #1-4: ‘The Last Czarnian’. The skeevy brute always prided himself on being the final survivor of his planet, but here finds to his horror and disgust that he missed someone when he slaughtered his entire race. That lucky survivor is his old fourth grade teacher Miss Tribb, who has unbelievably and unwisely written an unauthorized tell-all biography of “the Main Man” who was her least favourite pupil ever…

Forbidden by his own honour-code from killing her, he must instead escort the snippy snarky old baggage to Dox at L.E.G.I.O.N. HQ with every nut-job in the universe pursuing them, hell-bent on killing one or other or preferably both of them. Subdivided into ‘Part One: Portrait of a Psychopath’, ‘Part Two: Lord of the Dance’, ‘Part Three: Spell or Die’ and ‘Part Four: The Last Last Czarnian’, this blistering bonkers baroque barbarity is plotted and laid out by Giffen, scripted by Grant and outrageously limned by hip headbanger Simon Bisley as colourist; Lovern Kindzierski and letterer Todd Klein aid and abet the cartoon carnage. As usual, despite all the forces ranged against him, The Main Man has the last – albeit misspelled – word…

The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special (January 1992) follows with Giffen, Grant, Bisley, Kindzierski and Gaspar Saldino expediting ‘The Lobo Xmas Sanction’ as cash-strapped parents of far-too-many brats look to save on end of year expenses and learn how a certain unsavoury soul and his dog Dawg were hired by The Easter Bunny to take out his biggest rival in the holiday icon game: Santa Claus. The elves were no real problem but old man Kringle was a harder nut to crack and left a surprise Lobo never anticipated…

Beginning in May 1992, and coloured by Danny Vozzo, Lobo’s Back #1-4 comprised ‘The Final Fragdown’, ‘Heaven is… a 4-Letter Word’, ‘If the Jackboot Fits…!’ and ‘The War in Heaven’ then details his return to the private sector after L.E.G.I.O.N. implodes and how he dies trying to bring in the infamous Loo, the most dangerous being in the universe.

What follows is an outrageous, darkly hilarious, blood-soaked spin on a venerable old tale (you’ve probably seen the Bugs Bunny cartoon classic) as Lobo makes himself persona non grata in every aspect of the afterlife. When both Heaven and Hell discover that the Main Man is too much to handle, there’s only one place to go and that’s back here, but nobody said it had to be in his original body…

Fans and the spiritually attuned will want to see what this creative team does with comic guest stars loke The Demon and General Glory and a host of pantheons and holy folk of all denominations…

Behind a cover by Dan Brereton, Lobo: Blazing Chain of Love sees artist Denys Cowan, colourist Noelle Giddings and letterer “Tanya” Klein join Giffen & Grant to explore the Main Man’s other main interest, only to encounter a forced shortage of willing babes of negotiable affection…

You’d think that’s the kind of problem relentless remorseless violence couldn’t fix. You’d be wrong…

This yarn will confound all your expectations as it is in fact a potent, brilliantly-conceived argument for safe sex crafted at the height of the fightback against HIV/AIDS, leading directly into our final furious foray… against Comics fandom itself…

The Lobo Convention Special – with the much-missed Kev O’Neill delivering another inimitable illustration masterclass, and Digital Chameleon adding hues to the queues at ‘Lobo-Con’ – is blackly comedic, ironic, sardonic and manic, as it depicts and cruelly deconstructs the people it depends upon. After skewering the great, good and especially unwashed of the industry, it all ends in carnage but begins with Lobo looking to replace his copy of the Death of Superman and heading to a convention packed with the kind of fanboys we’re all absolutely certain are FAR WORSE than we are…

The carnage concludes with info pages from Who’s Who in the DC Universe…

At the height of his popularity the Main Man of Mayhem was a publisher’s dream. There was actual baying from fans and speculators for more product and a largely new and receptive audience which hadn’t seen the unleashed potential of grown up comics. These tales for (im)Mature readers aren’t to everybody’s taste, but Giffen & Grant’s wickedly sharp scripts gave Bisley (assisted by Christian Alamy) and later artists scope for breathtakingly memorable art sequences, and sometimes just going wild is as rewarding as the most intricately balanced craftwork and plot-building.

All that being said, if you’re in the right mood, his kind of gratuitous mayhem can be wonderfully entertaining and has much to recommend it if vicious, sardonic slapstick pushes your buttons. Comics excess at its finest.
© 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Sennen


By Shanti Rai (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-71-4 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Family Feast for Modern Mindsets… 9/10

In the valley, all people toil faithfully to sustain themselves and venerate the gods. That worship comes in the form of crops that uncanny messengers of the divine actually come and collect. Everyone is content in their pastoral idyl, working gratefully in harmony and devotion. No one questions… except Sennen.

Restless, dissatisfied and increasingly rebellious, she is at an age where things no longer seem certain or right. Her growing dissent against doctrine and just the way how life is has resulted in pushing her few friends away: even loyal co-conspirator Margate now considers her a “Bad Influence”.

Sennen, however, dreams of one day going over the all-enclosing mountains and learning what lies beyond… maybe even meeting different people…?

When her acting out forces her biological father Baba Gwent and the man he lives with (Pelynt, whom she calls “Dad”) to reveal the true circumstances of Sennen’s birth and her mother’s death, it leads to Gwent being taken away and offered up as sacrifice to the Gods. Furious, Sennen secretly follows, stowing away in an incredible machine and taken up above where she discovers a horrific truth about the Supreme Beings who rule her people. She also finds allies of her own age and apostate disposition willing to help her share the shocking truth… and even destroy the status quo.

… And that’s when an even more appalling truth manifests…

Born in South London and therefore knowing all about “salt of the Earth types” and layers of disbelief, Shanti Rai has constructed a beguiling politico-religious Coming of Age tale with heavy notes of “adults always lie” to flavour the broth: a properly thoughtful thriller that askes eternal but always important questions.

Powerful, beguiling, comfortingly apocalyptic and harbouring the promise of a sequel (soon please!) Sennen is a mini-masterpiece worthy of your attention – especially in this season of spiritual revelation…
© Shanti Rai, 2022. All rights reserved.

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Marsupilami volumes 7 & 8: The Gold of Boavista & The Temple of Boavista


By Yann & Batem, coloured by Cerise and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-069-2 (Album PB/Digital edition Gold)
ISBN: 978-1 80044-099-9 (Album PB/Digital edition Temple)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Mad Monkeyshines with Gallic Aplomb… 9/10

One of Europe’s most popular comic stars is an eccentrically irascible, loyally unpredictable, super-strong, rubber-limbed ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The frantic, frenetic Marsupilami is a wonder of nature and icon of European entertainment originally spun-off from another immortal comedy adventure strip…

When Andre Franquin began crafting eponymous keystone strip Spirou for eponymous flagship publication Le Journal de Spirou, he quickly abandoned the previous format of short complete gags to pioneer longer adventure serials, and began introducing a wide and engaging cast of new characters.

For 1952’s Spirou et les heritiers, he then devised a beguilingly boisterous South American critter and tossed him like an elastic-arsed grenade into the mix. Thereafter – until resigning in 1969 – Franquin constantly added the bombastic little beast to Spirou’s increasingly incredible escapades…

Marsupilami popped up constantly: a phenomenally popular wonder animal who inevitably grew into a solo star of screen, toy store, console games and albums all his own. In 1955 a contractual spat with Dupuis saw Franquin sign up with publishing rivals Casterman for Le Journal de Tintin: collaborating with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo whilst creating raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon.

Franquin and Dupuis patched things up within days, and he went back to Le Journal de Spirou. In 1957, he co-created Gaston Lagaffe, but was still legally obliged to carry on his Tintin work too. From 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem assisted, but over the next decade Franquin reached his Spirou limit. In 1969 he quit for good, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

Plagued by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped European comics. Moreover, having learned his lessons about publishers, Franquin retained all rights to Marsupilami and in the late 1980’s began publishing his own adventures of the rambunctious miracle-worker.

He recruited old comrade Greg as scripter and invited commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (AKA Batem) to collaborate on – and later monopolise – art duties for the new adventures. In recent years, the commercial world triumphed again and – since 2016 – the universes of Marsupilami and Spirou have reconnected, allowing the old firm to participate in shared exploits of a world created and populated by Franquin.

Graced with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a deviously ingenious anthropoid inhabiting the rainforests of Palombia. One of the rarest animals on Earth, it speaks a language uniquely its own and has a reputation for making trouble and sparking chaos. The species is rare and is fanatically dedicated to its young. Sometimes that takes the form of “tough love”. This behaviour frequently extends to any humans it encounters and “adopts”…

The first of two books telling one tale, L’or de Boavista was released in October 1992. The seventh of 33 solo albums, it was followed a year later by concluding volume Le Temple de Boavista, combining into an edgily gripping comedy drama with much dark and scary social activism underpinning the usual hairy hijinks.

It opens in Palombian capital Chiquito, where children are going missing. No one cared when it was orphans and homeless urchins, but it’s quite different when Donald Maxwell-Trent plays truant and is abducted off the street. He’s spoiled, rich and the son of the US Ambassador…

Tragically, that means nothing to the ruthless thugs who need a constant supply of kids his size and age to work at an illegal, highly polluting goldmine in the jungle upriver. The toxic mess and mercury-made mire these Garimpeiros are creating has incensed and outraged the Marsupilami who now deems them his worst enemies ever…

After another of the yellow terror’s night attacks, overseer Solaria – a slightly older boy with an agenda of his own – helps Donald, now cruelly called “Gordito” by his malnourished comrades, to escape into the green hell. The older boy is only interested in freedom, wealth and returning to the undiscovered tribe he was stolen from, but from his cough may have waited too long to make his break…

Soon brutal gang boss Ingo is in hot pursuit, but his party’s progress is severely hampered by the stalking Marsu – whenever the golden beast isn’t clandestinely helping the fugitives. The furious furry (called by Polombians “El diablo”, and “La catestrofe amarilla”) is then instrumental in linking up the lads with an acceptable resident human…

Transplanted animal trainer Noah keeps his menagerie of friends on a river boat. Appalled by what Solario tells him, Noah resolves to stop the mining but that confrontation does not work out as planned and soon they are all fleeing for their lives up the dreaded Rio Boavista into lethal, legend-drenched “Spatoolah Territory” with dozens of killers on their collective tails…

To Be Concluded…

 

The dark drama heads into even wilder regions with The Temple of Boavista as relentless pursuit drives our heroes ever deeper into unexplored locales of the mighty tributary. Thankfully the hidden people they meet are mostly friendly, but their heightened state of fear is not ended for long. That night the jungle reverberates with horrific laughter emanating from a gargantuan edifice almost reclaimed by centuries of encroaching trees and vines…

The building is an ancient Zygomaztec temple and in its lee are some very nasty tomb robbers. Zoltan and Zorrino plan on stealing Noah’s floating zoo to carry their latest haul, but haven’t reckoned on the alliance of kids and tribal people, nor whatever is making the dire noises wracking the night with sinister sounds.

… And that’s before Ingo’s Garimpeiros and utterly fed up and furious Marsupilami get involved, or morose millionaire Harold “Buster” Stonelove and his safari guide Rhode Island Smith show up. These “ugly Americans” are looking for the secret of laughter and believe the raucous ruins can supply their answer, when they should be watching the yellow critter with the elastic tail and bad attitude…

As all the competing factions calamitously converge on the temple interior, a remarkable answer to the mirth mystery emerges and in a storm of giggling terror everybody gets jut what they deserve…

These eccentric exploits of the garrulous golden monkey are moodily macabre, furiously funny and pithily pertinent, offering engagingly riotous romps and devastating debacles for wide-eyed kids of every age all over the world. Fancy channelling your inner El Diablo and joining in the fun? It all starts with Hoobee, Hoobah Hoobah…
Marsupilami: The Gold of Boavista Original edition © Dupuis 1992, by Batem & Yann
Marsupilami: Temple of Boavista Original edition © Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1993, by Batem & Yann, Franquin. All rights reserved. English translations © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.
© Marsu Productions 1992. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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Asterix and the Griffin (volume 39)


By Jean-Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad, coloured by Thierry Mébarki, translated by Adriana Hunter (Sphere)
ISBN: 978-0-7515-8398-4 (Album HB) eISBN: 978-0-7515-8397-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Seasonal Sensations with Gallic Chill… 9/10

Whoops! Missed one!

As we saw a few days ago, Asterix le Gaulois has been around, amazing and amusing the planet since 1959 and become part of the fabric of French life. His exploits have touched billions of people all around the world.

For five and a half decades and for almost all of that time his astounding adventures were the sole preserve of originators René Goscinny and/or Albert Uderzo.

After nearly 15 years dissemination as weekly serials before invariably collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st saga – Asterix and Caesar’s Gift – was the first to be released as a complete, original album prior to serialisation. Thereafter each new tome was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for legions of devotees. The eager anxiety hadn’t diminished any when Uderzo’s handpicked replacements – scripter Jean-Yves Ferri (Fables Autonomes, La Retour à la terre) and illustrator Didier Conrad (Les Innomables, L’Avatar, Le Piège Malais, Tatum) – settled into the creative role on his retirement in 2009.

Whether an action-packed comedic romp with sneaky, bullying baddies getting their just deserts or a sly satire for older-if-no-wiser heads, these new yarns are just as engrossing as the established canon. As you already know, half of the epics take place in exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, whilst the alternating rest are set in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany where, circa 50 BC, a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resist every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul. This one’s solidly of the former variety as our major cast members make it all the way to “barbaricum”: literally beyond the known world…

Although divided by its Roman conquerors into provinces Celtica, Aquitania and Armorica, the very tip of the last-named region stubbornly refuses to be properly pacified. Utterly unable to overrun this last little bastion of Gallic insouciance, the otherwise supreme Roman overlords are reduced to a pointless policy of absolute containment – even though the irksome Gauls come and go as they please…

Thus, a tiny seaside hamlet is permanently hemmed in by heavily fortified garrisons Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium, filled with veteran fighters who would rather be anywhere else on earth than there. The residents couldn’t care less: daily defying, frustrating and often terrorising the world’s greatest military machine by going about their everyday affairs, bolstered by magic potion brewed by resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits and strategic aplomb of diminutive dynamo Asterix… and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelix. And their dog…

In Rome, Julius Caesar is in need of a diversion for his sensation seeking subjects, so when geographer Cartographus claims to have discovered a fabled griffin, the Emperor funds a huge expedition to capture it via legions of soldiers and engineers. The beast resides far to the east in the icy Sarmatian wastes, but the scholar is convinced he can snare it as he has captured a Sarmatian Amazon woman to guide them. Terrifying and seductive, Kalashnikova only sees a chance to return home…

Meanwhile, the frozen lands under discussion have welcomed some familiar friends as Asterix, Obelix and canine wonder Dogmatix escort a very ill (no, no, it’s just a cold, really!) Getafix to the yurt of Fanciakuppov. That cheery shaman had visions of Roman invaders stealing his people’s sacred animal, so his old druid pal has brought a keg of magic potion to resist the incursion. There are, however, a couple of snags…

Firstly, the tribe is proudly matriarchal, with powerful warrior women doing all the fighting. They do it fantastically well, and don’t need help from foreigners – no matter how attractive they might be! – or magic. It’s a good thing too, as local conditions soon render the potion useless and Asterix has to rely on his brains and his giant pal’s innate brawn…

The big guy is quite distracted. Primarily by Dogmatix running away to become a wolf, but also by the obvious attentions of some of the amorous Amazons…

The Roman expedition is led by seasoned centurion Intrepidus, and Cartographus (who naturally has a secret agenda in play) has brought along famed venator (animal-fighting gladiator) Vainglorius, as a specialist to tame the griffin when they find it.

Army morale is low: the commanders squabble constantly, these lands are gloomy, frozen cold, steeped in legends and packed with people and things trying to kill them. Worst of all, when they should be building forts to secure their supply lines, the men are instead fighting each other for the right to guard the prisoner. Aloof, beautiful Kalashnikova disdains and discards them all… and they love it.

When the military monsters capture Fanciakuppov, he is forced to lead the smug raiders to the secret abode of the griffin, but thanks to the hit-&-run tactics of the Gaul-enhanced war women their numbers are so severely depleted, no one thinks they’ll make it back to sunnier climes…

The mission ends in spectacular failure but they do all get to see the fabulous beast before they die…

Packed with hilarious action, genuine chills, potent punning and cartooning delights, this tale provides plenty of pokes at fake news, current affairs, conspiracy theories, a certain global retail/delivery brand, and lands many wry jabs at all sides of the battle of the sexes and role of women in societies ancient and modern.

Asterix and the Griffin is a sure win and another triumphant addition to the magically mythic Gaulish oeuvre for laugh-seekers in general and all devotees of comics.
Original edition © 2021 Les Éditions Albert René. English translation: © 2021 Les Éditions Albert René. All rights reserved.

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Daydreams and Nightmares – The Fantastic Visions of Winsor McCay (second edition)


By Winsor McCay & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-569-4 (TPB/Digital editions)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Picture Perfect… 10/10

Winsor McCay was a cartoonist and animator best known for Little Nemo in Slumberland. There was of course, so much more to him and this retrospective touches on the man whilst displaying a glorious abundance of his many graphic marvels.

Born in Spring Lake, Michigan, on 26th September, 1869 (or maybe 1871 in Canada: records differ) Zenas Winsor McCay was a brilliant and hugely successful cartoonist and animator who worked on newspaper illustrations, strips and political panels from 1898 until his untimely death in 1934.

This collection (a remastered release of a 1998 celebration) offers up some sublime examples of his many oeuvres. Following a Foreword by Gary Groth and context-packed biographical preface ‘The Dream Master’ by Richard Marschall, the man himself relates what we need to know in his own words thanks to 1927 essay ‘From Sketchbook to Animation by Winsor McCay’ and a 1926 letter to fellow artisan Clare Briggs (Danny Dreamer, Mr. and Mrs.) ‘On Being a Cartoonist’ before we begin a magical trawl through a magnificent career…

Spanning 1989 to 1903 – when McCay signed with The New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett – ‘Chapter One: Early Magazine Work’ offers political broadsides, early editorial diatribes in pictorial form, social commentary and pure illustration pieces, albeit gradually trending towards his later fascination with fantastic architecture and parlous prognostications of cultural collapse, before ‘Chapter Two: Newspaper Fantasy Illustrations’ focusses on wry speculative futurism – a popular topic of periodical publication back then…

Encompassing 1904-1924, ‘Chapter Three: Midsummer Daydreams and Other Comic Strips’ offers timeless examples of his ceaseless cartoon endeavours including A Pilgrim’s Progress, Poor Jake, Midsummer Daydreams/Daydreams, It Was Only a Dream, The Dreams of a Lobster Fiend, The Faithful Employee, He’s One of Those Telephone Lobster Fiends, And Then – Kerchoo! – He Sneezed!, Everyone Has Met That Well Known Character, Mr. Duck, and Rabid Reveries but sadly omits Jungle Imps, Dull Care, The Man from Montclair, Mr. Bosh, Hungry Henrietta and It’s Nice to be Married…

On October 15th 1905 the most important children’s strip in the world debuted in the Sunday Herald but Little Nemo in Slumberland had precursors and indeed a mature-reader rival. ‘Chapter Four: Dream of the Rarebit Fiend’ explores the many variations and iterations penned (and inked) from 1904 to 1913. Tireless McCay had conjured up visions for adult readers of The Evening Telegram, initially entitled Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. The editor, wishing to distance the feature from other strips, required McCay to use a pen-name, and he complied, signing the strips “Silas”, reputedly after a local garbage cart driver.

Where Nemo was a beautifully clean formal and surreal fantasy of childish imagination, Fiend displayed a creepy, subdued tension resonant with the fears and worries of its adult audience. Black, cruel and often outright sick humour pervades the series combining monstrous destruction and expressionist trauma. Even root causes of otherworldly nightmares were salutary. Each self-contained episode (18 reproduced here) and disturbing sequence of unsettling or terrifying, incredibly realistic images was the result of overindulgence; usually in late night toasted cheese treats!

Every anxiety from surreal terror to social embarrassment was grist for the fantasist’s mill and startling perspectives, bizarre transformations and uncanny scenes – always immaculately rendered – made the strip hugely successful and well-regarded strip in its day.

In 1906, American film pioneer Edwin S. Porter created a landmark 7-minute live action special-effects movie entitled The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend and the Edison company produced a cylinder recording with the same name the following year – played by the Edison Military Band. McCay himself produced four animated shorts in 1916-17: Dream of a Rarebit Fiend; Dreams of The Rarebit Fiend: The Pet, Dreams of The Rarebit Fiend: The Flying House and Dreams of The Rarebit Fiend: Bug Vaudeville, and despite his many other later successes returned to the feature sporadically over the years. Between 1923 – 1925 he revived it as Rarebit Reveries, officially attributing the strip to his son who signed the panels Robert Winsor McCay, Jr.

An artist hugely in-demand then and revered today, from 1903 to 1906 McCay invented many other all-ages cartoon works and ‘Chapter Five: Sunday Excursions’ highlights one of most enduring and inventive with 18 episodes of Little Sammy Sneeze, before the linear lunacy ends with his speculations on the world, its people and impending dystopias in ‘Chapter Six: Sermons on Paper’ with 54 stunning tableaux full-page rendered between 1913-1934, shaped by war and other disasters depicting so very many ways humanity could end and so few where we stop our species’ extinction event…

Although working far more than a century ago McCay still affects all aspects of graphic narrative produced ever since and his visions are more pertinent now than in his own lifetime. A darker side of an absolute master of our art form, this is work you must see and cannot miss.
Daydreams and Nightmares © 2005 Fantagraphics Books.

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The Hawk and The Dove: The Silver Age


By Steve Ditko, Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Nick Cardy, John Celardo, Sal Trapani, Wally Wood & various (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1401278052 (TPB/Digital edition)
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: For a Season of Heated Family Debates… 9/10

The 1960s changed the world, especially in comics. Fresh ideas, new freedoms, young talents emerging and a growing assurance among established creators that what they were doing mattered and had lasting relevance generated a wave of inspiration and new characters everywhere. Not all of them hit home, but all have lasting significance. Happy Anniversary Hawk & Dove…

Steve Ditko was one of our industry’s greatest and most influential talents and – in his lifetime – one of America’s least lauded. Reclusive and reticent by inclination, his fervent desire was always just to get on with his job, telling stories the best way he could: letting his work speak for him. Whilst the noblest of aspirations, that attitude was usually a minor consideration – and even an actual stumbling block – for the commercial interests which controlled all comics production back then and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the bulk of mainstream comic industry output. If you need more biographical background, there are plenty of wonderful books or even that internet stuff to find it. I’m sticking to his wish to have the stories tell you all you need to know…

After his legendary disagreements with Stan Lee led to Ditko quitting Marvel he worked at Warren Publishing and resumed his career-long association with Charlton Comics. Their laissez faire editorial attitudes always offered virtual creative freedom, if not great financial reward, but when their trailblazing editor Dick Giordano was poached by rapidly-slipping industry leader DC Comics in 1968, he brought with him some of his bullpen of key creators.

Whilst Jim Aparo, Steve Skeates, Frank McLaughlin and Denny O’Neil found a new home, Ditko began only a sporadic – if phenomenally fruitful – association with DC.

During this heady, unsettled period, the first strips derived from Ditko’s interpretation of novelist Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy began appearing in fanzines and independent press publications like Witzend and The Collector – an avenue of freer expression the artist wholeheartedly embraced in an era of social rebellion. For the “over-ground” publishing colossus DC, he devised numerous short stories for genre anthologies and a brace of cult classics. Beware The Creeper came first, followed by the superbly captivating concept gathered here: The Hawk and the Dove. Later visits to the house of Superman & Batman generated Shade, the Changing Man, Stalker and The Odd Man, plus truly unique reinterpretations of The Demon, Man-Bat, Legion of Super-Heroes and many more…

This slight but superb compilation gathers every Ditko-drafted episode of a feature very much of its time plus those who took up the task when he left: curating Showcase #75, The Hawk and the Dove #1-6 and Teen Titans #21, covering May/June 1968 to May/June 1969.

The domestic drama of a family at war naturally opens ‘In the Beginning’ (Showcase #75, with Ditko doing everything except dialoguing which was left to relative youngster Steve Skeates) as high school kids Don and Hank Hall resume their heated quarrel about what American society needs to be. Don is left-leaning pacifist and younger brother Hank is savagely reactionary: pro-military, pro-patriot and anti-dissent of any kind. It was a situation played out all over the world at that crucial stage of the Vietnam war as a new generation turned away from what their parents held dear…

The Hall boys’ paternal parent was doctrinaire small town Judge Irwin Hall of Elmond County: handing out harsh but fair pronouncements that were the cause of a minor superhero moment. When he throws the book at convicted racketeer Dargo, it sparks a wave of violent reprisals and assassination attempts that hospitalise the Judge. Constantly arguing their irreconcilable views, Don and Hank follow one gangster they suspect and are trapped in a warehouse, helpless to prevent a follow-up murder attempt. Their mounting panic and frustration ends when a mysterious voice magically grants them superpowers and costumed identities based on their divergent worldviews and allowing them to escape and foil the killers…

The gift only activates “when evil is present” and also magnifies their ability to act out their philosophical standpoint, and in typical Ditko manner is heartily vilified by the Judge who advocates the rule of law and enforcement of elected authority over criminal vigilantism…

Reaction was strong enough to warrant a solo series and cover-dated August/September that year, The Hawk and the Dove #1 (again scripted by Skeates) revealed ‘The Dove is a Very Gentle Bird’ as teen thieves The Drop-outs plunder at will, with Dove Don and Hawk Hank taking very different approaches to stopping them. The concept of the warring brothers was fascinating but extremely flawed in comic book terms.

Hawk happily smashed everything in traditional Fights ‘n’ Tights style whilst Dove second-guessed his own every action, enduring all kinds of permutation to be dynamic and proactive without ever actually hitting anyone: a definition of pacifism that struggled with itself…

The dichotomy clearly affected Ditko, who abandoned his creation after only three stories, although his swansong ‘Jailbreak’ (H&D #2 Ditko & Skeates) is a mini-masterpiece perfectly embodying all those innate contradictions to craft a powerful tale of ideology and redemption. When the Hall family vacation is overtaken by a mass prison escape, crazed killer Harker forces hopeless, despondent career-convict Davis and a genuinely-reformed young parolee to escape with him, intending to sacrifice them to aid his getaway. When Harker takes the Halls hostage, Hawk and Dove manifest, but as the belligerent bird-boy brutalises Davis and the many escapees he brought along, the repentant parolee saves the hostages whilst Dove stubbornly defeats Harker by taking the beating of his life and wearing his opponent down. Here, the true victory belongs to Don and the system that punishes the guilty and rewards the rule-followers: hardly a radical challenge to the social issues the series sought to redress…

The Hawk and the Dove #3 (December 1968/January 1969) brought a big creative change but more thematic confusion as Gil Kane & Sal Trapani joined Skeates for a brace of crime mysteries. ‘After the Cat’ has the heroes hunt a violent costumed burglar, where Dove’s principles directly lead to tragedy and death after which ‘Twice Burned!’ finds the avian avengers helpless when a savage assault and travesty of justice leads an angry teenager into vengeful violence…

Skeates, Kane & Trapani advanced the themes of ideology versus family bonds in #4 as ‘The Sell-Out!’ sees a mayoral run implicate Judge Hall in wrongdoing when Hawk and Dove expose their father’s oldest political ally as a murdering criminal mastermind funding his campaign through forgery and art theft…

The inevitable occurs in #5 when Kane takes over scripting and Wally Wood assumes the inker’s role in ‘Walk With Me O’ Brother… Death Has Taken My Hand!’

A pre-WWII infant immigrant from Latvia born Eli Katz, Gil Kane was a pivotal player in the developing US comics industry, and indeed the art form itself. Working as an artist, and an increasingly more effective and influential one, he drew for many outfits from 1942 on, tackling superheroes, crime, action, war, mystery, romance, animal heroes (Streak, Rex the Wonder Dog!), movie adaptations Westerns and Science Fiction tales.

In the late 1950s he became one of Julie Schwartz’s key artists: regenerating and rebooting the superhero concept. Yet by 1968, at the top of his profession, this relentlessly revolutionary and creative man felt so confined by the juvenile strictures of the industry that he struck out on bold new ventures that jettisoned the editorial and format bondage of comic books for new visions and media. His Name Is Savage was an adult-oriented black & white magazine about a cold and ruthless super-spy in the James Bond/Matt Helm/Man Called Flint mould; co-written by friend and collaborator Archie Goodwin. It was very much a precursor in tone, treatment and subject matter of many of today’s adventure titles.

His other venture, Blackmark (1971, also with Goodwin), not only ushered in the comic book era of Sword & Sorcery, but also became one of the medium’s first Graphic Novels. Technically, as the series was commissioned by fantasy publisher Ballantine as 8 volumes, it was also envisioned as America’s first comic Limited Series. Before them, though, there was Captain Action and The Hawk and The Dove. At this moment Kane was eager to stretch his creative muscles in a period of great change and challenge and editor Dick Giordano was happy to oblige…

The tale of betrayal and rage sees Irwin Hall uncharacteristically intercede when old friend and literal life-saver Sam Hodgins is framed for armed robbery and murder. When Hawk and Dove investigate they discover a shocking truth that leads to Hank Hall being near-fatally injured as Don – losing his mind with grief – betrays his principles in pursuit of vengeance, not justice…

The tale leads into Teen Titans #21 (June 1969) and a landmark guest shot in DC’s other young heroes title. Written by Neal Adams, pencilled by him and Sal Amendola with inks from brush-maestro Nick Cardy – one of the all-out prettiest illustration jobs of that decade – the tale is centrepiece of a triptych tale spanning TT #20-22.

Facing interdimensional invasion spearheaded by a human multinational crime gang, Titans (Kid Flash, Robin, Wonder Girl and Speedy) are briefly joined by our symbolic super-teens for ‘Citadel of Fear’: chasing smugglers, facing evil ETs and ramping up the surly teen angst quotient whilst moving the invaders story-arc towards a stunning conclusion that you’ll have to read elsewhere…

The unstoppable superhero recession of the late 1960s generated incredible and bold experiments, but all those groundbreaking advances went unheeded and unheralded – except by the next generation of comic creators who benefitted from them. Back then, costumed hero books fell like dominoes and The Hawk and The Dove died with #6 (June/July 1969, by Kane & John Celardo). ‘Judgment in a Small Dark Place!’ again focusses on Judge Hall as the son of a man he jailed years previously targets the family before kidnapping and torturing the draconian lawgiver.

Unable to cooperate, the boys search for him separately, but in the end it’s Hawk’s mindless violence that solves the problem and – as usual – Hall’s ungrateful response is seeking to arrest the lawless vigilantes…

This little slice of obscure hero history also includes spectacular covers by Ditko, Kane and Cardy.

The Sixties was the era when all assorted facets of “cool-for-kids” ephemera finally started to coalesce into a comprehensive assault on our minds and our parents’ pockets. Music, TV, movies, comics, bubble-gum cards and toys all began concertedly feeding off each other, building a unified and combined fantasy-land no kid could resist, but there was also deep and permanent change to the culture and social consciousness and kids became aware politically active for the first time. Those competing colliding forces have never been more wonderfully expressed than in the stories in this book and you would be mad to miss it.
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