Category: Satire/Politics

Posted on

The City: A Vision in Woodcuts


By Frans Masereel (Dover Publications)
ISBN: 978-0-486-44731-5 (TPB/Digital Edition)

We tend to think of graphic novels as being a late 20th century phenomenon, and one that fought long and hard for legitimacy and a sense of worth, but the format was pioneered popularised much earlier in the century… and utilised for the most solemn, serious and worthy purposes.

At the same time as the earliest newspaper strips were being rebound as collected editions, European Fine Artists were addressing the world’s problems in “Wordless Novels”: assembling individual artworks – usually lino or sometimes woodcuts – into narrative sequences which, as the name implies, used images, not dialogue or captions, to tell a story. This also accounts for the other names of the articles – Woodcut Novels/Novels in Woodcut.

The fashion grew out of the German Expressionist movement of the early 20th century which revived and repurposed medieval woodblock printing techniques and even imagery for its own artistic agenda and purposes and was most popular during the 1920s and 1930s. The undisputed master of the form was Flemish artisan Frans Masereel, whose many works were phenomenally popular in German and whose influence spread far and wide – particularly to Depression-era America where Lynd Ward adopted the process for his many sallies against social iniquity, and Giacomo Patri unleashed his anti-capitalist salvo in the wordless novel White Collar as well as comedic parodies such as Milt Gross’ He Done Her Wrong…

Masereel (1899-1972) was born in Blankenberge, Belgium and raised by his stepfather, an avowed socialist. He left home to study art in Paris supporting himself through magazine and newspaper illustration, political cartooning and his earliest woodcut prints. He was also a devout pacifist, refusing to fight in WWI, where he instead acted as a translator for the Red Cross. As a result he was unable to return to his homeland and lived most of his life in Germany, Switzerland and France.

In 1918 he created his first narrative: 25 Images of a Man’s Passion and followed up a year later with his masterpiece Passionate Journey. Masereel crafted more than 40 wordless novels, primarily woodcuts, but also a quartet of traditional pen & brush sagas, plus countless illustrations, commissioned paintings, animation works and more. Always stridently and forcefully defending the ordinary man from the horrors of capitalism, disaster and especially warmongering, his potent ability to hone meaning and capture emotion in singular images influenced generations of artists and cartoonists including Ward, Georg Grosz, Will Eisner, Art Spiegelman, Clifford Harper, Eric Drooker, Otto Nückel, Peter Kuper, George Walker and Peter Arno.

The book under review today was first released in 1925 as La Ville: cent bois gravés in France and as Die Stadt in Germany. Originally comprising 100 prints (13cm x 8cm) bound into book form, it quickly became a touchstone for many artists and critics and was hailed as the precursor of a film genre which made environment the focus of narrative (like Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis or Man With a Movie Camera) and subsequently rereleased in 1961, 1972 and 1988 before this definitive 21st century Dover edition.

The City: A Vision in Woodcuts is translated from the German version as produced by Kurt Wolff Verlag AG (Munich 1925): seeking to forego actual sequential narrative by delivering its stark and startling images encapsulating the modern urban existence. Of course, humans being what we are, readers will find themselves unconsciously imposing form on those unfolding, uncompromising extremely explicit images anyway…

The candid exploration encompasses the highest and lowest echelons of society all rubbing up against each other, zeroing in page by page on the emotions, reactions and consequent horrors such friction creates…

There are bawdy entertainments, diligent toil, crimes of all kinds, quiet times almost unnoticed. We see smoke stacks, railway lines, canals, ports, traffic jams, subways and stations. There are rush hour crowds, fights, civil protests and always personal tragedies: accidents, bad births, thefts, affray, rape murder…

Buildings go up and come down, there is rush and rubbish and courtroom drama: vast office regiments, factory lines and foundry creations. Opulence and desperate poverty co-exist, with the exploited, maimed, forgotten and unwanted ignored by those enjoying themselves at all costs. The masses sing, dance, imbibe carouse and even indulge themselves being part of a grand State funeral. Always people come and people go, some for a different life and others to a “better world”…

It’s a place of constant change and the pace never slows… education, celebration and pauses for thought embrace art edification and human degradation on demand but there is also – for the bold and unbroken – a glimmer of hope…

Stirring, evocative and still movingly inspirational as the world returns to those dark days of Haves, Have-Nots and Why-Should-I-Cares?; this magnificent rediscovery is inventive, ferocious in its dramatic delivery, instantly engaging and enraging: a book long overdue for revival and reassessment and one every callous “I’m All Right” Jackass and “Why Should I Pay For Your…” social misanthrope needs to see or be slapped with…
No © asserted.

Posted on

Valerian – The Complete Collection volume 5


By J-C Méziéres & P Christin with colours by E. Tranlé: translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-400-7 (Album HB/Digital edition)

Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent first took to the skies and timestream in 1967: gracing the November 9th edition of Pilote (#420) in an introductory serial which ran until February 15th 1968. Although an instant hit, album compilations only began with second tale – The City of Shifting Waters – as the creators considered their first yarn as a work-in-progress, not quite up to their preferred standard.

You can judge for yourself by getting hold of the first hardcover compilation volume in this sequence of compilations Or you can consider yourself suitably forward-looking and acquire an eBook edition…

The groundbreaking fantasy series followed a Franco-Belgian boom in science fiction comics sparked by Jean-Claude Forest’s 1962 creation Barbarella. Other notable hits of that era include Greg & Eddy Paape’s Luc Orient and the cosmic excursions of Philippe Druillet’s Lone Sloane, which all – with Valérian in the vanguard – boosted public reception of the genre. It all led, in 1977, to the creation of dedicated fantasy periodical Métal Hurlant…

Valérian and Laureline (as the series became) was light-hearted and wildly imaginative: a time-travel action-adventure romp drenched in wry, satirical, humanist and political social commentary. The star was – at least initially – an affable, capably unimaginative, by-the-book cop tasked with protecting universal timelines and counteracting paradoxes caused by casual, incautious or criminally-minded chrononauts…

In the course of that debut escapade, Valerian picked up impetuous, sharp-witted peasant lass Laureline, who was born in the 11th century before becoming our star’s assistant and deputy. In gratitude for her truly invaluable assistance, the he-man hero brought her back to Galaxity, the 28th century super-citadel administrative capital where the feisty firebrand took a crash course in spatiotemporal ops before accompanying him on his cases…. luckily for all existence.

The series is not only immensely popular but also astoundingly influential.

This fabulous fifth oversized hardback – also available digitally – re-presents 1988’s On the Frontiers, 1990’s The Living Weapons and 1994’s The Circles of Power, and again offers a treasure trove of text features, beginning with critical appraisals ‘Valerian and Laureline: The Stuff of Heroes’; ‘Valerian, the Accidental Hero’; ‘Laureline, Bewitching and Wise’ and ‘The Heroes’ Metamorphosis’ by Stan Barets. Accompanying them are clip-art photo features ‘The Secret Charms of Laureline’, ‘The Colours of Laureline’ and essay ‘And Meanwhile…’ (detailing the creative duo’s other occupations at the time of creation).

A flurry of photos, sketches, designs and reference material detail the connections between comic album The Circles of Power and movie epic The Fifth Element in ‘A Taxi for Two’, and rounding out the extras is a selection of reportage comics by inveterate traveller Christin, illustrated by Philippe Aylmond, Alain Mounier, Enki Bilal, Méziéres, Olivier Balez and Max Cabanes.

Then, following a retrospective overview of the albums, it’s time to blast-off…

Valerian is arguably the most influential science fiction series ever drawn – and yes, I am including both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in that undoubtedly contentious statement. Although to a large extent those venerable newspaper strips formed the medium’s foundations, anybody who has seen a Star Wars movie has seen some of Jean-Claude Méziéres & Pierre Christin’s brilliant imaginings which the filmic franchise has shamelessly plundered for decades: everything from the look of the Millennium Falcon to military uniforms to Leia’s Slave Girl outfit…

Simply put, more carbon-based lifeforms have experienced and marvelled at the uniquely innovative, grungy, lived-in tech realism and light-hearted, socially-critical swashbuckling of Méziéres & Christin’s co-creation than any other cartoon spacer ever imagined. Now having scored their own big budget movie, that surely unjust situation is finally addressed and rectified…

Packed with cunningly satirical humanist action, challenging philosophy and astute political commentary, the mind-bending yarns always struck a chord with the public and especially other creators who have been swiping, “homaging” and riffing off the series ever since.

Sur les frontiers (On the Frontiers to English-speakers) was the 13th tale and marked a landmark moment in the series’ evolution.

When first conceived, every adventure started life as a serial in Pilote before being collected in album editions, but with this adventure from 1988, the publishing environment changed. This subtly harder-edged saga debuted as an all-new, complete graphic novel with magazine serialisation relegated to minor and secondary function. The switch in dissemination affected all top characters in French comics and almost spelled the end of periodical publication on the continent…

In the previous storyline the immensity of Galaxity had been erased from reality and our Spatio-Temporal Agents – with a few trusted allies – were stranded in time and stuck on late 20th century Earth…

Here, and now, we open in the depths of space as a fantastic and fabulous luxury liner affords the wealthy of many cultures and civilisations the delights of an interstellar Grand Tour. Paramount amongst guests are two god-like creatures amusing themselves by slumming amongst lower lifeforms whilst performing an ages old, languidly slow-moving mating ritual of their kind…

Sadly, puissant, magnificent Kistna has been utterly deceived by her new intended Jal. He actually has no interest in her or propagating the species: he intends stealing her probability-warping powers…

Jal is a disguised Terran and once he has completed his despicable charade, compels the ship’s captain to leave him on the nearest world: a place its indigenes call Earth…

Stranded on that world since Galaxity vanished, partners-in-peril Valerian and Laureline have been using their training and a few futuristic gadgets they had with them to become freelance secret agents. At this moment they’re in Soviet Russia where Val has just concluded that the recent catastrophic meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor was deliberately sparked by persons unknown…

As officials on site absorb the news, Val is extracted from the radioactive hotspot and ferried by laborious means across the frozen wastes to Finland and a belated reunion with Laureline and Mr. Albert: previously Galaxity’s jolly, infuriatingly unflappable 20th information gatherer/sleeper agent. The topic of discussion is tense and baffling: who could possibly profit from sparking Earth’s political tinderbox into atomic conflagration?

Far away in a plush hotel, a man with extraordinary luck discusses a certain plan with his awed co-conspirators, unaware that in the Tunisian Sahara near the frontier with Libya, three time-travelling troubleshooters are following his operatives…

That trail leads to a nuclear mine counting down to detonation, but happily the agents are well-versed in tackling primitive weaponry and the close call allows Albert to deduce why Libya and an unknown mastermind are working to instigate nuclear conflict in Africa…

After another near-miss on the US-Mexican border, investigators finally get a break, isolating the enigma behind these many almost-Armageddon moments. However, when Laureline approaches the super-gambler financing global nuclear terrorism through his bank-breaking casino sprees, she is astounded to realise the deadly disaster capitalist knows Galaxity tech…

As Valerian hurtles to her rescue, he discovers the enemy is an old comrade. For what possible reason could a fellow Galaxity survivor orchestrate Earth’s destruction? After all, isn’t it the home and foundation of the time-travelling Terran Empire they are all sworn to protect and restore?

This stunning caper was Christin & Méziéres deft re-rationalisation and clarification of their original drowned Earth storyline (as seen in 1968’s The City of Shifting Waters): adjusting it to the contemporary period that they were working in, with the added benefit of sending Valerian and Laureline into uncharted creative waters. Thus the agents’ solution to the problem of their deranged, broken – and god-powered – comrade was both impressively humane and winningly conclusive…

It was followed by 1990’s Les Armes Vivantes, with Valerian and Laureline forced to expend their last assets – a damaged astroship, some leftover alien gadgets and their own training – to eke out a perilous existence as intergalactic trans-temporal mercenaries.

Despite the misbehaviour of fractious inter-dimensional circuits in the much-travelled ship, our celestial voyagers are bound for distant, disreputable planet Blopik where Val has agreed to hand-deliver some livestock-improvement supplies. Moralistic Laureline is deeply suspicious of the way her man is behaving: it’s as if he’s doing something he knows she will disapprove of…

After a pretty hairy landing, she exits the ship to explore the burned-out pest-hole on her own. making the acquaintance of a trio of unique individuals: intergalactic performers stranded in their worst nightmare – a world without theatres and an absentee manager…

Before long they are all travelling together. The showbiz trio – malodorous metamorphic artiste Britibrit from Chab, indestructible rock-eater Doum A’goum and the indescribable Yfysania are seeking a venue to play in and appreciative audience to admire them, whilst taciturn Valerian is simply hunting the proposed purchaser of the wares in his case.

Laureline is, by now, frankly baffled. The centaurs who inhabit Blopik only understand and appreciate one thing – combat – and the planet’s cindered state is due to them setting fire to everything during the annual war between rival tribes. She can’t imagine what such folk would want with “farming gear”. For that matter, she also can’t imagine why Valerian keeps arguing with whatever he has in his travel-case…

Eventually, however, the alien Argonauts reach a grassy plain to be met by a bombastic centaur general. For “met”, read attacked without warning, but the natural abilities of the astounding performers soon gives pause to the hooved hellions and warlord Rompf agrees to parlay. He’s a centaur with a Homeric dream and Shakespearean leanings as well as the proposed purchaser of the bio-weapon in Valerian’s case. That thing has come direct from Katubian arms dealers and Laureline is appalled that Val has sunk so low and been devious enough to keep her out of the loop…

Rompf has declared War on War. He seeks to unify the tribes of Blopik by beating them all into submission and desperately needs the flame-spitting, foul-mouthed Schniafer couriered by the shamefaced former Spatio-Temporal peacekeeper to seal the deal. However, now that he’s seen what the offworld clowns can do, Rompf wants them too…

The various vaudevillians are not averse to the idea, but pride demands they put on a show too! They even have ideas how Laureline can be part of the fun.

…And that gives Valerian a chance to redeem himself too…

This tesseract of timely tales close here for now with The Circles of Power (released continentally in 1994 as Les Cercles du pouvoir). The hard-ridden, worn-out brutally battered astroship has finally given up the ghost after reaching planet Rubanis: an advanced but violently volatile and dangerous world divided into five nested rings of influence and specialism. Leaving the ship for some extremely costly repairs in the anarchic, technological boomtown of the First Circle, the Spatio-Temporal Agents start looking for some way of earning enough cash to pay for it all…

Worryingly, their occasional allies the Shingouz have already found a profitable prospect (and naturally factored in their own cut): sending the humans to meet old acquaintance and current planetary Chief of Police Colonel Tlocq in his palatial, low-orbit, high security citadel. That means taking a flying taxi and learning more than they wanted to as their highly excitable, enthusiastic and informative cabbie briefs them on the planet. He is also a young man with strong beliefs, big ideas and an often expressed violent streak…

Tlocq is a venal, casually violent but extremely efficient being policing a brutal, callous rogue world with permanently conflicting interests. Moreover, he has adopted mistrust, deception and institutional corruption as the most effective methodology to keep everything on an even keel. His policy seems to be “keep your enemies close and your allies and subordinates close enough to stab in the back”…

His chief deputy Krupachov holds the exalted rank of “Informer” and they maintain a constant atmosphere of productive, self-limiting disorder in and between the ringed regions…

However, even Tlocq has realised that something extra nasty is unfolding below him: not just in the always-explosive Heavy Industry First Circle but also in the Second (Business) Circle; the Trade/Entertainments/Arts morass of the Third Circle and even the elitist, crime-free and off-limits Fourth Circle reserved for Religion, Administration, Finance and Aristocracy. This rarefied region generates what passes for Tlocq’s directives, orders and operating rules, but he hasn’t received anything from them for some time now…

In the past he received direction via one of the ubiquitous enigmatic “machines” dotted around the cities, but is utterly opposed to letting the humans poke around inside them. He believes the machines are somehow connected to the sporadically spreading, microcephaly-inducing Scunindar virus cropping up all over Rubanis. In fact, the last time Valerian and Laureline saw him (in The Ghosts of Inverloch), Tlocq was dying from it, but he seems to have fully recovered now…

To ensure they do things his way, Tlocq doubles their fee and, knowing exactly how his world works, also gives an advance: a Grumpy Transmuter from Bluxte, able to spontaneously generate any kind of cash to buy their way out of trouble…

What he wants is not clearcut or straightforward. Although the Colonel still controls the utterly mercenary, self-serving forces under him, he has lost faith in and contact with those above who issue his orders. He wants the outsiders to bypass them and invade the ineffable Fifth Circle and find out who or what truly governs this world…

Valerian and Laureline begin by heading for the Third Circle in the flying cab, but are immediately targeted by a hidden foe. Attacked by a by a mystery woman in a tricked-up luxury vehicle that could only come from the richer echelons, they are forced down, but thanks to the cabbie’s combat skills, bring the war-limousine down with them. Go-getting taxi pilot S’traks also leads them to shelter in a seedy club in the region of entertainment…

The Shingouz are already there, haggling with a seedy mechanic who claims to know a secret way into the Last Circle…

All dickering and bargains are put on hold when their attacker bursts in, leading a squad of Vlago-Vlago mercenaries and wielding a “moroniser” whip that paralyzes, pauses cognition and wipes short-term memory. Helpless and hidden, Val and the cabbie watch merciless crime lord Na-Zultra cart off stupefied Laureline, much to the anger and frustration of her incorrigible, besotted new admirer S’traks…

It’s his idea for the undeclared love rivals to conceal themselves in the crashed limo and wait for vicious virago Na-Zultra to reclaim her highly exclusive property, and it almost works, but when they emerge from the vehicle thy are deep in unknown territory, covertly watching a procession of High Priests, business moguls and assorted aristopatrons attend a secret ceremony. They all have preternaturally shrunken heads…

Regaining consciousness a prisoner, Laureline resists all Na-Zultra’s entireties and threats of torture whilst extracting the schemer’s intentions. She learns that the ambitious criminal was hired by some faction in the Fourth Circle to secure control of Rubanis for them, but now intends to seize power for herself. When Valerian and S’Traks are discovered, Na-Zultra goes after them with the majority of her forces and Laureline makes her move…

After recuing the men and having exposed a web of conspiracies as well as the deliberate pointless of their commission, the heroes split up with Valerian confronting Tlocq about his true intent whilst Laureline seeks out the Shingouz to finally expose the mystery of the Last Circle, with go-getting S’traks using the deteriorating situation and his cabbie connections to mobilise the lower classes in an armed uprising…

Ultimately the shocking truth is exposed, triggering planetary revolution with Tlocq, Na-Zultra and S’Traks leading separate factions. Before the dust at last settles, he is well on his way to controlling Rubanis via a popular revolution across all the Circles…

Smartly subtle, sophisticated, complex and hilarious, the exploits of Valerian and Laureline mix outrageous satire with blistering action, stirring the mix with wryly punishing, allegorically critical social commentary: challenging contemporary cultural trends to forge one of the most thrilling sci fi strips ever seen.

These stories are some of the most influential comics in the world, timeless, dynamic, funny and just too good to be ignored. The time is now and there’s no space large enough to contain the sheer joy of Valerian and Laureline, so go see what all the fuss is about right now…
© Dargaud Paris, 2017 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-L?. All rights reserved. English translation © 2018 Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

Bluecoats volume 13: Something Borrowed, Something Blue


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-531-8 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (or Dutch co-incarnation De Blauwbloezen) debuted at the end of the 1960s: created to replace Lucky Luke when that laconic maverick defected from weekly anthology Le Journal de Spirou to rival publication Pilote.

From its first sallies, the substitute strip swiftly became hugely popular: one of the most popular bande dessinée series in Europe. In case you were wondering, it is now scribed by Jose-Luis Munuera and the BeKa writing partnership…

Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour school, and after his sudden death in 1972, successor Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte gradually adopted a more realistic – but still overtly comedic – tone and manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936 and, after studying Fine Art in college, joined publishing giant Dupuis in 1952 as a letterer.

Born in 1938, scripter Cauvin was also Belgian and – before entering Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 – studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling – comedy – and began a glittering, prolific writing career at Le Journal de Spirou. In addition, he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. Les Tuniques Bleues alone has sold more than 15 million copies of its 66 (and counting) album sequence. Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of laughter remains.

Here, as The Bluecoats, our long-suffering protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch; worthy fools in the manner of Laurel & Hardy: hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen defending America during the War Between the States.

The original format offered single-page gags set around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but from the second volume – Du Nord au Sud – the sad-sack soldiers were situated back East, fighting in the American Civil War. All subsequent adventures – despite ranging far beyond the traditional environs of America and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history – are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.

Blutch is your run-of-the-mill, whinging little-man-in-the street: work-shy, mouthy, devious and ferociously critical of the army and its inept commanders. Ducking, diving, or deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except at his core he’s smart, principled and even heroic …if no easier option is available.

Chesterfield is a big, burly professional fighting man; a proud career soldier of the 22nd Cavalry who passionately believes in the patriotism and esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirks his duty and hungers to be a medal-wearing hero. He also loves his cynical little troll of a pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers and simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in: a situation that once more stretches their friendship to breaking point in this cunningly conceived instalment.

Des bleus et des dentelles was originally serialised in 1983 in Le Journal de Spirou (#2384-2387) before collection into another mega-selling album in 1985. It was the 22nd European release and in 2020 became Cinebook’s 13th translated volume. As Something Borrowed, Something Blue it offers a lighter touch and tone than many, with the underlying horror salved by a kind-of romance and ridiculously surreal black comedy.

Once again Union forces are stalemated with no advance possible. Even the cavalry – under the leadership of utterly deranged, apparently invulnerable maniac Captain Stark – are stuck in dugouts, dodging enemy artillery fire beside ordinary foot soldiers. The zealot’s constant, costly, pointless charges at Confederate gun emplacements have left them short of riders and out of horses…

Sergeant Chesterfield is furious, but Blutch is perfectly happy keeping his head down and playing cards… until a shell lands on his position. By some miracle, he survives, but as Chesterfield brings him to the casualty-packed field hospital, it becomes clear that the odds of remaining so are against him.

Only the sarge’s armed intimidation can get a doctor to even look at his pal, and when they try to hack off Blutch’s leg, only the little man’s hidden gun stops them from completing the unnecessary surgery…

Suddenly, the entire camp’s attention is switched to the hospital, as the General’s latest morale-boosting scheme arrives: volunteer medical assistants – all women…

Suddenly, the entire army is stricken with some malady or other. Even Stark abandons the joy of slaughter to secure some female attention, and a top level secret plan is enacted to retore order. It involves scrupulous triage before any soldier can be admitted for treatment and to make doubly sure of weeding out malingerers, the formidable Miss Bertha will examine every man claiming injury.

The most secret part is that she is actually the hugely unhappy Private Burke in drag. His greatest fear is dying in a dress, but at least he won’t have to explain his new “uniform” to the wife and kids…

Meanwhile, actually injured Blutch is slowly recovering, thanks in great part to the diligent ministrations of nurse Jenny. Angel and patient are always together now, and Chesterfield finds himself increasingly lonely and jealous …but not as much as Blutch’s incredibly smart horse Polka…

As the shirker heals, the military situation is worsening. The unassailable artillery is grinding the Union stronghold to rubble and ruin, but things start changing after another futile Stark sortie leads to the enemy troops learning there are women in their enemies’ camp. Soon, Rebel wounded are demanding that they be treated in the Union hospital too…

The situation is untenable and Chesterfield is going crazy, but the biggest bombshell comes not from enemy guns but little Blutch, as he hobbles around on crutches. The little guy is going to marry Jenny…

Initially horrified, the General unexpectedly agrees to the match, but as preparations take the men’s minds off the perpetual bombardment another shock lands after Stark requests he be allowed to wed “Bertha”…

Moreover, as Mr and Mrs Blutch ride a buggy back to safety and civilisation, Chesterfield discovers the truth about Bertha and is ordered to take his place as a female-presenting triage nurse. When “Miss Cornelia” then discovers how Blutch and Jenny have fooled everybody and escaped the war, he goes ballistic and sets off after the delinquents. He finds them frantically coming towards him scant yards ahead of a Confederate sneak attack approaching the Union camp from the rear.

Suddenly, it’s time for everyone to get back to the real business of war, with the Bluecoats survival dependant on Stark’s insane tactics…

Combining searing satire with stunning slapstick, Something Borrowed, Something Blue deftly delivers a beguiling message about the sheer stupidity of war equally clear  to younger, less world-weary audiences and old lags who have seen it all.

These stories weaponise humour, making occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting. Funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the kind of war-story and Western, appealing to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1985 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

Warlock Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Roy Thomas, Mike Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Ron Goulart, Tony Isabella, Gil Kane, Bob Brown, Herb Trimpe, John Buscema, Tom Sutton & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2411-5 (HB) 978-0-7851-8858-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

During the 1970s in America and Britain (the latter of which deemed newspaper cartoons and strips worthy of adult appreciation for centuries whilst fervently denying similar appreciation and potential for comics), the first inklings of wider public respect for the medium of graphic narratives began to blossom. This followed teen response to such pioneering series as Stan Lee & John Buscema’s biblically allegorical Silver Surfer and Roy Thomas’ ecologically strident antihero Sub-Mariner, a procession of thoughtfully-delivered attacks on drugs in many titles and constant use of positive racial role models everywhere on four-colour pages.

Comics were inexorably developing into a vibrant forum of debate (a situation also seen in Europe and Japan), engaging youngsters in real world issues relevant to them. As 1972 dawned, Thomas took the next logical step, transubstantiating an old Lee & Jack Kirby Fantastic Four throwaway foe into a potent political and religious metaphor.

Debuting in FF #66 (September 1967) dread mystery menace Him was re-imagined by Thomas and Gil Kane as a modern interpretation of the Christ myth: stationed on an alternate Earth far more like our own than that of Marvel’s unique universe.

Re-presenting Marvel Premiere #1-2, Warlock #1-8 and Incredible Hulk #176-178 – collectively spanning the tumultuous time between April 1972 and August 1974, this epic adventure also offers a context-soaked Introduction from originator Thomas.

It all began with April cover-dated Marvel Premiere #1, which boldly proclaimed on its cover The Power of… Warlock. Inside, the stunning fable – by Thomas, Kane & Dan Adkins – declared ‘And Men Shall Call Him… Warlock’: swiftly recapitulating the artificial man’s origins as a lab experiment concocted by rogue geneticists eager to create a superman they could control for conquest.

After facing the Fantastic Four, the manufactured man had subsequently escaped to the stars, later initiating a naive clash with Asgardian Thor over the rights to a mate before returning to an all-encompassing cosmic cocoon to evolve a little more…

Now the all-encompassing shell is plucked from the interplanetary void thanks to the moon-sized ship of self-created god The High Evolutionary. Having artificially ascended to godhood, he is wrapped up in a bold new experiment…

Establishing contact with Him as he basks in his cocoon, the Evolutionary explains that he is constructing from space rubble a duplicate planet Earth on the opposite side of the sun. Here he replays the development of life, intending that humanity on Counter Earth will evolve without the taint of cruelty and greed and deprived of the lust to kill…

It’s a magnificent scheme that might well have worked, but as the Evolutionary wearies, his greatest mistake intervenes. The Man-Beast was hyper-evolved from a wolf and gained mighty powers, but also ferocious savagery and ruthless wickedness. Now he invades the satellite, despoiling humanity’s rise and ensuring the new world’s development exactly mirror’s True-Earth’s. The only exception is the meticulous exclusion of enhanced individuals. This beleaguered planet has all mankind’s woes but no superheroes to save or inspire them.

A helpless witness to the desecration, the golden being furiously crashes free of his cocoon to save the High Evolutionary and rout the Man-Beast and his bestial cronies (all similarly evolved animal-humanoids called “New-Men”).

When the despondent and enraged science god recovers, he makes to erase his failed experiment but is stopped by his rescuer. As a powerless observer, Him saw the potential and value of embattled humanity. Despite all its flaws, he believes he can save them from the imminent doom caused by their own unthinking actions, wars and intolerance. His pleas at last convince the Evolutionary to give this mankind one last chance, and the wanderer is hurled down to Counter-Earth, equipped with a strange gem to focus his powers, a mission to find the best in the fallen and a name of his own… Adam Warlock…

Marvel Premiere #2 (July) sees the golden man-god crash to Earth in America and immediately win over a small group of disciples: a quartet of disenchanted teen runaways fleeing The Man, The Establishment and their oppressive families. His nativity and transformation leave him briefly amnesiac, and as Warlock’s followers seek to help, all are unaware that Man-Beast has moved quickly, insinuating himself and his bestial servants into the USA’s political hierarchy and Military/Industrial complex.

This devil knows the High Evolutionary is watching and breaks cover to introduce unnatural forces on a world previously devoid of superbeings and aliens. The result is an all-out attack by rat mutate Rhodan, who pounces on his prey at the very moment Colonel Barney Roberts, uber-capitalist Josiah Grey and Senator Nathan Carter track their missing kids to the desolate Southern Californian farm where they have been nursing the golden angel…

Men of power and influence, they realise their world has changed forever after seeing Warlock destroy the monstrous beast and ‘The Hounds of Helios!’

Doctor Strange was revived to fill the space in MP #3, as the gleaming saviour catapulted into his own August cover-dated title. Inked by Tom Sutton, Warlock #1 decreed ‘The Day of the Prophet!’: recapping key events and seeing the High Evolutionary safeguard his failing project by masking Counter-Earth from the rest of the solar system behind a vibratory screen.

With his mistake securely isolated from further contamination, HE asks Adam if he’s had enough of this pointless mission, and is disappointed to see Warlock’s resolve is unshaken. That assessment is questioned when the disciples take the spaceman to his first human city. Senses reeling, Warlock is drawn to bombastic street preacher and his psychic sister Astrella who are seemingly targeted by the Man-Beast. Of course, all is not as it seems…

Thomas’s plot is scripted by Mike Friedrich and John Buscema joins Sutton in illuminating ‘Count-Down for Counter-Earth!’: taking the biblical allegory even further as Warlock is captured by his vile foes and tempted with power in partnership with evil, even as his erstwhile disciples are attacked and deny him. Counter-Earth has never been closer to damnation and doom, but once more the saviour’s determination overcomes the odds…

The epic continues with Friedrich in the hot seat and Kane & Sutton reunited to steer the redeemer’s path. ‘The Apollo Eclipse’ begins with Adam and his apostles harassed by the increasingly impatient High Evolutionary following a breaching of his vibratory barrier by the Incredible Hulk and the Rhino (in Hulk #158 and reprinted in many volumes …but not this one). That episode is soon forgotten after they are targeted by another Man-Beast crony, hiding his revolting origins and unstable psyche behind a pretty façade.

The brute attacks a rocket base where Adam seeks to reconcile his youthful followers with their parents, but the subsequent clash turns into tragedy in #4’s ‘Come Sing a Searing Song of Vengeance!’ as the exposed monster takes the children hostage. Astrella senses that visiting Presidential candidate Rex Carpenter holds the key to the stalemate, but when he intervenes at her urging, unbridled escalation, death and disaster follow…

Although super-beings were excised from the world’s evolution, extraordinary beings still exist. Warlock #5 (April 1973) sees Ron Goulart write the aftermath as the doubt-riddled redeemer emerges from another sojourn in a recuperative cocoon. In the intervening months Carpenter has become President and ordered an increase in weapons testing to combat the incredible new dangers he personally witness.

Tragically, he also ignores warnings from government scientist Victor Von Doom, and when one military manoeuvre sparks ‘The Day of the Death-Birds!’ Adam is there to help when a dam is wrecked. His might is sufficient to stop the automated launch of swarms of robotic drones programmed to strafe ground-based beings, but cannot stop the grateful citizenry turning on him when President Carter declares him a menace to society…

Friedrich scripts Goulart & Thomas’ plot and Bob Brown joins the team as penciller in #6 as Warlock battles the army and Doom contacts fellow genius Reed Richards for help. However, the Latverian is unaware of a shocking change in his oldest friend who is now ‘The Brute!’: a mutated cosmic horror enthralled by the malign thing running the White House and now ordered to ambush Warlock as Astrella brings him to truce talks…

It’s all a pack of lies and a trap. As the Golden Gladiator defeats Richards, enraged mobs egged on by the President move on Warlock’s growing band of supporters. Now, though, the alien’s very public life-saving heroics have swayed fickle opinion and Carter is compelled to reverse his stance and exonerate Warlock. Even this is a ploy, allowing him to set the energy-absorbing Brute on the redeemer in ‘Doom: at the Earth’s Core!’

Beyond all control, Richards’ rampage threatens to explode Counter-Earth, and only the supreme sacrifice of one of Adams’s constantly dwinling band of supporters saves the planet…

Warlock’s rocky road paused with the next issue. Cancelled with #8, Friedrich, Brown & Sutton dutifully detailed ‘Confrontation’ in Washington DC as the supposed saviour’s supporters clashed with incensed cops. Intent on stopping a riot, Warlock finds his work magnified when Man-Beast’s New-Men minions join the battle. The saga then ends on an eternal cliffhanger as Warlock finally exposes what Carpenter is… before vanishing from sight for 8 months…

The aforementioned Hulk #158 had seen the Jade Giant dispatched to the far side of the Sun to clash on Counter-Earth with the messiahs enemies. Although excluded here, the 3-issue sequel it spawned was concocted after the Golden Godling’s series ended.

When the feature returned the tone, like the times had comprehensively changed. All the hopeful positivity and naivety had, post-Vietnam and Watergate, turned to world-weary cynicism in the manner of Moorcock’s doomed hero Elric. Maybe that was a harbinger of things to come…?

The cosmic codicil closing this initial collection came after the Hulk’s typically short-tempered encounter with the Uncanny Inhumans and devastating duel with silent super-monarch Black Bolt. Following the usual collateral carnage, the bout ended with the Gamma Goliath hurtling in a rocket-ship to the far side of the sun for a date with allegory, if not destiny.

The troubled globe codified Counter-Earth had seen messianic Adam Warlock futilely battle Satan-analogue Man-Beast: a struggle the Jade Juggernaut learned of on his previous visit. Now he crashed there again to complete the cruelly truncated metaphorical epic, beginning in ‘Crisis on Counter-Earth!’ (Incredible Hulk #176, June 1974) by Gerry Conway, Herb Trimpe & Jack Abel.

Since the Hulk’s last visit Man-Beast and his animalistic flunkies had become America’s President and Cabinet. Moving deceptively but decisively, they had finally captured Warlock and led humanity to the brink of extinction, leaving the would-be messiah’s disciples in utter confusion.

With the nation reeling, Hulk’s shattering return gives Warlock’s faithful flock opportunity to save their saviour in ‘Peril of the Plural Planet!’ but the foray badly misfires and Adam is captured. Publicly crucified, humanity’s last hope perishes…

The quasi-religious experience concludes with ‘Triumph on Terra-Two’ (Conway, Tony Isabella, Trimpe & Abel, Incredible Hulk #178). Whilst Hulk furiously battles Man-Beast, the expired redeemer resurrects in time to deliver a karmic coup de grace before ascending from Counter-Earth to the beckoning stars…

Adding temptation at the end is a gallery of Kane pencil page layouts and a half dozen inked pages plus the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page that first announced Warlock’s debut.

Ambitious and beautiful to behold, the early Warlock adventures are very much a product of their tempestuous, socially divisive times. For many, they proved how mature comics might become, but for others they were simply pretty pictures and epic fights with little lasting relevance. What they unquestionably remain is a series of crucial stepping stones to greater epics and unmissable appetisers to Marvel Magic at its finest.
© 2020 MARVEL

Posted on

Gentleman Jim


By Raymond Briggs (Jonathan Cape/Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-0-22408-524-3 (HB, Jonathan Cape) 978-1-8972-9936-4 (PB, D&Q edition)

Once again a master of comics art has been taken from us, and this time it’s one of the greatest in our medium’s history: a hugely gifted maverick who worked largely outside the established industry, but whose decades of work truly turned sequential graphic narrative into an art form.

Cartoonist, political satirist, philosopher, social commentator and delighter of children of all ages, Raymond Redvers Briggs CBE (18th January 1934 – 9th August 2022) never forgot that kids aren’t fools. Many of his books – ostensibly targeting the young – revel in the target audience’s fascination with all things gross and disgusting and the artist never underestimated an “unformed” mind’s capacity for empathy and understanding. Moreover, unlike so many working in the children’s book industry, he wasn’t afraid to be morose or even sad…

The comic book industry always wilfully neglected and sidelined Briggs’s graphic narratives – which nevertheless reached more hearts and minds than Spider-Man or Dennis the Menace ever will. Briggs’ books remain among the most powerful and important in the entire field.

Deservedly famous works such as Father Christmas, The Snowman, When the Wind Blows, Fungus the Bogeyman, The Bear, Ethel and Earnest, Ug: Boy Genius of the Stone Age and Time for Lights Out are but the tip of an astoundingly impressive, remarkably wide-ranging and quintessentially British iceberg of dry, mordant wit, cheeky sarcasm and poignant fellow-feeling for even the most ghastly and graceless of his unlikely protagonists…

After studying at Wimbledon School of Art, Central and The Slade – and completing a stint of National Service in Catterick – Briggs started working as an illustrator in 1958. He produced dozens of books, ranging from illuminating other creators’ poetry and stories to crafting his own dingily fabulous yarns such as this slyly seditious treatise on self-betterment that first appeared in 1980.

One of his most charmingly bittersweet and contemplative efforts, Gentleman Jim is a mesmerising affectionate portrait of one of life’s always-dreaming no-hoper’s, published just as Thatcherite dogma began to bite and tear into Britain’s already reeling social structures.

Jim Bloggs is a middle-aged bloke who mans a Council-run public toilet or “Gentleman’s Convenience” in Birmingham: diligently and uncomplainingly cleaning and maintaining his subterranean office whilst constantly dreaming of bigger, better, bolder things.

There’s nothing wrong with the job; it’s just that Jim feels he was meant for greater challenges…

At every quiet moment, Jim scans the job section of the newspaper, imagining himself a hero of the Royal Marines or a tail-gunner in a fighter-bomber or an artist or even a doorman in a fancy uniform. It’s never too late…

Jim’s problem is education: he hasn’t any and all these vacant situations want people with “The Levels”… O’s and A’s and whatnot…

At home with his wife Hilda, Jim discusses a change of direction. Inspired by a late film on television, he decides to become a cowboy, maybe even a sheriff. A quick bit of research convinces him that the start-up costs for cowboying are beyond his means and the paperwork would be a nightmare, but after popping into the second-hand bookshop Jim realises that what he really wants to be is a Highwayman…

Even here though, money is a problem. Great black chargers or even plain old valiant steeds cost thousands of pounds. However, when the local Donkey Sanctuary lets him have one of their older ones for free, Jim’s off and running in his new career and living his dream…

Sublimely low key and gentle, the fall into arrant criminality of this ambitious dreamer is a sheer, understated masterpiece of sardonic whimsy to enthral and delight older kids as well as all us adults who never quite made it. Yet…

Raymond Briggs was the human turning point in the evolution of comics from tawdry waste of time to esteemed art form and his books will live forever. If you’re not a fan yet, you inevitably will be …once you start reading them.
© 1980, 2008 Raymond Briggs. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Death Threat


By Vivek Shraya & Ness Lee (Arsenal Pulp Press Vancouver)
ISBN: 978-1-55152-750-5 (HB/Digital edition)

Vivek Shraya is a poet, musician, educator, writer and performer of immense creativity, as can be appreciated in books such as God Loves Hair; even this page is white; The Boy & the Bindi; I’m Afraid of Men and She of the Mountains or her many albums and films.

On her 35th birthday Shraya publicly announced her status as Trans and requested that she be henceforward addressed with female pronouns. That seems inoffensive enough to me and you, and nobody’s business but hers, but sadly and all too typically these days, the announcement inspired the by-now pro forma response from certain quarters: a tirade of vitriol and harassment from nasty busybodies hiding behind and tainting social media…

Unevolved old jerks like me just get angry and hunger to respond in kind – with vituperative counterattacks – but happily, more civilised people find better ways. This book is perhaps the best of them as, in collaboration with Toronto-based artist and designer Ness Lee, Shraya transformed fear and disappointment into art with a heavy helping of surreal, satirical soul searching.

The liberating act of turning those unsolicited, unreasoning email assaults – all couched in offensive terms by people who hide behind religions whose fundamental tenets they will gleefully cherry pick – into a gloriously incisive and witty exploration of the inexplicable mindless aggression that continues to debase so much of modern society is eyepopping and mind-blowing…

Unlike those who cower behind the cowardly anonymity of keyboards and phones, Shraya & Lee proudly appended their names to this vibrant voyage, detailing how the bile of ignorant bullies (you simply won’t believe just how dumb some bigots can be until you see the hate mail here!) inspired beautiful images and empowering inclusivity.

My generation’s parents told us to ignore or strike back, but today’s ostracised, oppressed and unfairly targeted have found a far better way to respond to bullies: turn their hate into beauty and take ownership of it.
Death Threat: Text © 2019 Vivek Shraya. Illustrations © 2019 Ness Lee. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Miss Don’t Touch Me volumes 1 and 2


By Hubert & Kerascoët, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-544-3 (TPB) & 978-1-56163-592-4 (TPB)

Hubert Boulard was a French comics writer and colourist who died suddenly on February 12th 2020. He is criminally unknown in the English-speaking world.

“Hubert” was born on January 21st 1971, and after graduating in 1994 from the École régionale des beaux-arts d’Angers, began his comics career as an artist for seasoned pros such as Éric Ormond, Yoann, Éric Corberyan, Paul Gillon and others. He started writing strips for others in 2002, with Legs de l’alchimiste limned by Herve Tanquerelle, followed up with Yeaux Verts for long-term collaborator Zanzim.

He produced another 14 separate series – many of them internationally award winning like Les Ogres-Dieux and Monsieur désire? – and in 2013 contributed to collective graphic tract Les Gens normaux, paroles lesbiennes gay bi trans: released to coincide with France’s national debate on legalizing same sex marriage.

His final book was with artist Zanzim. Peau d’homme – a comedy exploring gender and sexuality at the height of an era of medieval religious intolerance and social stratification – was posthumously published in June 2020… and is as yet unavailable in English translation.

Debuting in 2006, Miss Pas Touche was Hubert’s third scripting venture and remains arguably his most successful. It was originally released as four volumes in France, which – when translated by NBM – were delivered as two deliciously wicked tomes…

This slim, sleek initial translated tome offers a superb period murder mystery from visual creators probably best known in the English speaking world as contributors to Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim’s Dungeon series of interlinked fantasy books.

Here, Paris at the end of the 19th century is plagued by its very own Jack the Ripper – a knife-wielding maniac dubbed “the Butcher of the Dances” because he picks his victims from lower class girls frequenting suburban Tea-dances where the young people gather…

Blanche is a maid in a fine socially prestigious house: pious, repressed and solitary, unlike her sister Agatha – also a maid in the same residence – who is fun-loving and vivacious. They share the attic room at the top of the house where one night, Blanche accidentally sees “the Butcher” at his bloody work through a crack in the wall.

He sees her too, and some nights later she finds Agatha dead, as if by her own hand. Blanche knows what must have really happened…

Anxious to avoid scandal, the mistress of the house dismisses Blanche, who is forced to fend for herself on inhospitable streets. Through a combination of detective enquiry and sheer luck, she finds a lead to the killer and secures a position in The Pompadour, the most exclusive brothel in the city. By catering to a rich and powerful elite, here she will find the Butcher and exact her revenge…

Originally published in France as La Vierge du Bordel and Du Sang sur le Mains, this witty, and hugely engaging crime conundrum cleverly peels back its layered secrets as our star finds a way to turn her steadfast virginal state and overwhelming frustration to her advantage amidst the decadent rich and sexually bored of Paris. Maintaining her virtue against all odds, Blanche discovers the other side to a world she previously despised, while valiantly achieving her goal, even though it threatens to topple two empires!

Feeling very much like a cheeky grown-up version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1905 novel A Little Princess, this saucy confection from writer/colourist Hubert is delightfully realized with great panache by the Kerascoët to the delight of a wide variety of grown-up readers.

 

Miss Don’t Touch Me volume 2

Let’s return to the eclectic world of the French demi-Monde – in the oddly inappropriate guise of formerly naive and still virginal ex-housemaid Blanche, who one night espied a psychopathic murderer at work. Intent on silencing the pesky witness, “the Butcher of the Dances” mistakenly killed Blanche’s sister Agatha in her stead, before the surviving sibling was unceremoniously sacked by her employers to avoid scandal.

Thrown onto the streets of fin de siècle Paris, our pious innocent found refuge and unique employment within the plush corridors of the city’s most exclusive and lavishly opulent bordello. Fiercely hanging on to her virtue against all odds, Blanche became Miss Don’t Touch Me: a spirited – and energetic – proponent of the “English Method” – specifically, an excessively enthusiastic flagellating dominatrix, beating the dickens out of men who delighted in enduring exquisite pain and exorbitant expense. The first volume ended with justice for both Blanche and the Butcher but her adventures were not over…

This delightfully audacious and risqué sequel opens with Blanche – virtue still notoriously and profitably intact – as the Pompadour’s most popular attraction, even though the magnificent edifice is undergoing an expensive and disruptive refit.

However, she is deeply unhappy with her life and tries to flee, buy and even blackmail herself out of her onerous contract. She is soon made brutally aware of how business is really done in the twilight world of the courtesan-for-hire…

Utterly trapped, Blanche loses all hope, even while becoming gradually enamoured of Apollo-like young dandy Antoine: one of the wealthiest men in the country and a man apparently content to simply talk with her. Complications mount when her unscrupulous, conniving mother returns to Paris and begins to avail herself of the surviving daughter’s guilt-fuelled generosity and social contacts…

Blanche’s velvet-gloved imprisonment seems set to end when her bonny bon vivant boy begins to talk of marriage, but just as suddenly, her life at the brothel begins to radically unravel. Obviously the aristocrat’s dowager mother has no stomach for the match, but social humiliation is not the same as the malicious lies, assaults, attacks and even attempted poisoning Blanche experiences.

Moreover, the genteel dominatrix’s mother seems to hold a hidden secret concerning Antoine’s family and, if they are to be wed, why doesn’t the prospective groom want his bride-to-be to give up her day – or more accurately – evening job?

Originally published in France as Le Prince Charmant and Jusqu’à ce que la Mort Nous sépare, this enticing, knowing and hugely enthralling tale trumps the inspired murder-mystery of the introductory volume with a turbulent period melodrama of guerrilla Class Warfare that promises tragic and shocking consequences, especially after Antoine abruptly vanishes and the apparently benevolent brain surgeon Professor Muniz begins his terrifying work…

A compelling saga stuffed with secrets, this engagingly sophisticated confection from writer/colourist Hubert, illustrated with irrepressible panache by Kerascoët (married artistic collaborators Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) will further delight the wide variety of grown-up readers who made the first book such a popular and critical success.
© 2007 Dargaud by Kerascoet & Hubert. All Rights Reserved. English Translation © 2007, 2008, 2010 NBM.

Posted on

OMAC – One Man Army Corps by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby with D. Bruce Berry, Mike Royer & various (DC)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-1026-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

There’s a magnificent abundance of Jack Kirby collections around these days – but still not everything, so I reserve my right carrying on whining…

This slim trade paperback/digital collection re-presents possibly his boldest, most bombastic and most heartfelt creation after the comics landmark that was his Fourth World Cycle.

Famed for larger than life characters and gigantic, cosmic imaginings, “King” Kirby was an astute, spiritual man who had lived through poverty, gangsterism, the Depression and World War II. He experienced Pre-War privation, Post-War optimism, Cold War paranoia, political cynicism and the birth and death of peace-seeking counter-cultures, but always looked to the future while understanding human nature intimately. In OMAC: One Man Army Corps, he gave his darkest assumptions and prognostications free rein, and his “World That’s Coming” has proved far too close to the World we’re frantically trying to escape now…

In 1974, with his newest creations inexplicably tanking at DC, Kirby tentatively considered a return to Marvel, but – ever the consummate professional – he scrupulously carried out every detail of an increasingly onerous and emotionally unrewarding DC contract. When The Demon was cancelled, the King needed another title to maintain his Herculean commitments (Jack was legally obliged to deliver 15 completed pages of art and story per week!) and returned to an idea he had shelved in 1968.

That was to re-interpret Captain America for a possible future where all Kirby’s direst suspicions and fears could be made manifest. In 1974 he revisited those anxieties: producing a nightmare scenario that demanded not a hero but a warrior.

Dubbing his Day-After-Tomorrow dystopia “The World That’s Coming”, Kirby let his mind run free – and scared – to birth a frighteningly close appreciation of our “Now”, where science and wealth have outstripped compassion and reason, and humanity teeters on the brink of self-inflicted global destruction. His thoughts then are represented here in the editorial that accompanied the premier issue…

OMAC #1 launched in September-October 1974, introducing the Global Peace Agency, a world-wide Doomwatch-style police force who manufactured a super-soldier to course-correct mankind and crisis-manage the constant threats to a species with hair-trigger fingers on nuclear stockpiles, chemical weapons of mass destruction and made-to-measure biological horrors.

Base human nature was the true threat behind this series, and that was first demonstrated by decent young man Buddy Blank who – whilst working at Pseudo-People Inc. – discovers that the euphemistically entitled Build-A-Friend division hides a far darker secret than merely pliant girls that come in kit-form. (I believe we even have those now, too…)

Luckily Buddy has been singled out by the GPA’s resident genius Professor Myron Forest for eternal linkage to sentient satellite Brother Eye. His atoms shifted and reconstructed, Buddy is rebuilt to become a living God of War, and the new-born human weapon easily destroys his ruthless employers before their murderous plans can be fully realised. ‘Buddy Blank and Brother Eye’ was followed by a truly prophetic tale, wherein impossibly wealthy criminal Mister Big purchases an entire city simply to assassinate Professor Forest in ‘The Era of the Super-Rich!’

Kirby’s tried and trusted approach was always to pepper high concepts throughout blazing action, and #3 was the most spectacular thus far. OMAC fought ‘One Hundred Thousand Foes!’ to get to murderous Marshal Kafka; terrorist leader of a Rogue State with a private army, WMDs and a solid belief that the United Nations can’t touch him. Sound familiar…? That incredible clash carries on and concludes in #4’s ‘Busting of a Conqueror!’

With #5, Kirby moved on to other new crimes for a new world. The definition of a criminal tends to blur when you can buy anything – even law and justice – but rich old people cherry-picking young men and women for brain-implantation is (hopefully) always going to be a no-no. Still, you can sell or plunder specific organs even now…

Busting the ‘New Bodies for Old!!’ racket took two issues, and after the One-Man-Army-Corps smashed ‘The Body Bank!’ he embarked on his final adventure. Ecological disaster and water shortage was the theme of the last tale, but as our hero trudges across a dry, desolate lake bottom amidst the dead and dying marine life he is horrified to discover the disaster is the work of one man. ‘The Ocean Stealers!’ (#7) introduced scientific madman Doctor Skuba, who mastered atomic manipulation techniques that had turned feeble Buddy Blank into an unstoppable war machine.

Joe Kubert drew the cover to final outing OMAC #8. ‘Human Genius Vs Thinking Machine’; was an epic episode seeing Brother Eye apparently destroyed as Skuba and Buddy Blank died together in an incredible explosion.

But that final panel was a hasty, last-minute addition by unknown editorial hands, for the saga never actually finished. Kirby, his contract completed, had promptly returned to Marvel and new challenges like Black Panther, Captain America, 2001, Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man and especially The Eternals.

Hormone treatments, Virtual Reality, medical computers, satellite surveillance, genetic tampering and all the other hard-science predictions in OMAC pale into insignificance against Kirby’s terrifyingly accurate social observations in this bombastic and tragically incomplete masterpiece.

OMAC is Jack Kirby’s Edwin Drood: an unfinished symphony of such power and prophecy that it informs not just the entire modern DC universe and inspires ever more incisive and intriguing tales from the King’s artistic inheritors but still presages more truly scary developments in our own mundane and inescapable reality…

As always in these wondrously economical collections it should be noted that the book includes Kirby pencilled pages.

Jack Kirby is unique and uncompromising. If you’re not a fan or simply not prepared to see for yourself what all the fuss has been about then no words of mine will change your mind. That doesn’t alter the fact that Kirby’s work from 1937 to his death in 1994 shaped the entire American comics scene, affected the lives of billions of readers and thousands of creators in all areas of artistic endeavour around the world for generations and still wins new fans and apostles every day, from the young and naive to the most cerebral of intellectuals. His work is instantly accessible, irresistibly visceral, deceptively deep whilst being simultaneously mythic and human: and just plain Great.

© 1974, 1975, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists


By Robert Tressell; adapted by Scarlett & Sophie Rickard (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-910593-92-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Born in Dublin to unfavourable circumstances, Robert Croker – AKA Robert Noonan – (17 April 1870 – 3 February 1911) was a man of many parts. His short, globetrotting, eventful life ended with him a housepainter and signwriter (a skilled trade) dying of tuberculosis in The Liverpool Royal Infirmary in 1911.

In all likelihood nobody today would remember him if he hadn’t spent his off hours in the declining years of 1906 to 1910 writing a book. He failed to have it published in his lifetime, but his daughter Kathleen Noonan persevered and a first (heavily edited, highly abridged and politically redacted) version was released on April 23 1914 – four months before the Great War began. That clash resulted in a changed planet and the first socialist (sic) state…

The full manuscript didn’t reach the public until 1955. Even bowdlerized editions were potent enough to make it one of the most important books of the century. Released under the nom de plume Robert Tressell, the cultural satire and barely-disguised socialist polemic was The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

After reading the million plus-selling, never out-of-print pioneering prose opus of working class literature, you should research the times it was set in and read up on the author, if you want to see how a fascinating man responded to the injustice of his world. There’s a splendid Afterword by the creators in this hefty graphic novel to get you started…

A more jaded person might assume current businesses and governments have also studied the text, with a view to rolling back all the hard-won advances made since then, returning us to the days where workers toiled in a brutal gig economy without safety nets of social housing, medicine or pensions. Work or die was the way of world and it’s well on its way back…

The tale – masquerading, like a Thomas Hardy Wessex novel, as a peek at the lives of poor working folk – was a major influence on thinkers in the aftermath of WWI, and many of the civil rights and common benefits of civilisation that we’re gradually allowing to be taken from us were predicted in its more utopian moments…

Politics aside however, it’s also a sublime realisation and examination of the working classes in all their warty, noble, scurrilous, generous, mean-spirited, self-sacrificing, self-serving, gullible, aspirational, tractable, intractable, skiving, hard-working, honest and human glory: a state perfectly realized in this warm-hearted and supremely inviting comics adaptation by Sophie Rickard, illustrated with charm, simplicity and abiding empathy by Scarlett Rickard. You will also want to see Mann’s Best Friend and A Blow Borne Quietly and their eagerly-anticipated adaptation of suffragist Constance Maud‘s inspirational No Surrender…

The semi-autobiographical story detailed here closely follows a group of workers and their families over a year in the town of Mugsborough: proudly go-getting municipal powerhouse (closely based on Hastings, where Croker had worked) with the usual band of rich, mercantile bastards in charge and on the Council, feathering their own lavish nests with the approval and assistance of the local churches and clergy…

The 23 chapters span a year as seen through the eyes of skilled labourers at a time when jobs were scarce and cut-throat competition had the men who hire them fiercely undercutting each other to secure commissions. The artisans are currently refurbishing an ornate house on the cheap for a grasping boss, under the penny pinching eye of foreman Mr. ‘Unter.

In breaks and off moments the disparate crew – dispassionately at first – discuss the job, the way of the world and ever-present threat of work drying up again. Artisan painter/signwriter Frank Owen argues the greed and dishonesty of capitalism and enlightening sense of socialism to his highly resistant and openly hostile mates. Over many days, they all hotly debate ‘The Causes of Poverty’ and the Church’s complicity in maintaining an unfair status quo in ‘The Lord Our Shepherd’. Further discussion in ‘The Economists’ focuses on the impossibility of making do on ever-diminishing wages and ‘The Ever-Present Danger’ of being thrown away once a worker is no longer usable.

This is no pedant’s dry and dusty tirade. “Tressell’s” arguments are bolstered by the declining state of the wives, elders and children of the workers – most of whom still argue ferociously against improvement of their own conditions. As those above them reduce wages and increase hours, uncaring of the horrific repercussions of their parsimony, Frank and enigmatic associate George Barrington gradually convert many, but a resolute group cannot countenance any change to the old system.

That begins changing in ‘The Truth’, and revelation is heightened after the Church is exposed to ‘The Shining Light’, especially once Owen makes a breakthrough by explaining ‘The Money Trick’ underpinning Capitalism.

The damaging power of booze on the hopeless is witnessed after a night at ‘The Cricketers’, presaging work briefly pausing for ‘The Christmas Party’. A New Year exposes corporate skulduggery and public malfeasance by ‘The Council’ of Mugsborough…

Every opinion expounded by the painters can be seen here and now: echoed on modern TV vox-pop segments with today’s exploited, bread & circus sated citizens repeating that we should let the rich (our “betters”) do the hard job of making the big decisions for us, happily abrogating all responsibility for their own evermore parlous state…

Deepening personal crises auger greater tragedies as ‘The Beginning of The End’ finds a beloved friend condemned to the Workhouse as a cynically tongue-in-cheek glimpse at what the Establishment considers ‘The Solutions’ to poverty lead to a long look at ‘The Meetings’ inside the Municipal Council and how a glimmer of reform is crushed by the prestigious clique…

After a period of scarcity, fresh work at a lower wage comes in ‘The Summer’ before a turning point comes when Barrington challenges the Bosses on a rare day’s holiday jaunt in ‘The Beano’ (slang for “BNO” – Boys Night Out).

Again arguing – but with a much smaller and more vocal group of workmates – Owen and Barrington begin ‘The Great Oration’, overruling and disproving ‘The Objections’ of bellicose working class holdouts – the apologists and willing henchmen who happily betray their own sort for elevated status, extra pennies and the cheery disdain of the capitalists. However, grief has not ended and as talk of elections and the growth of a socialist Labour Party blooms, death comes again. Even here the rich and their lackeys find a way to make a profit in ‘The Rope’ and a sordid exhibition at ‘The Funeral’. After the worker’s death comes what we today call “the cover-up”…

Feelings of hope manifest in final chapters ‘The Will of the People’, ‘The Sundered’ and ‘The New Position’ as utopian ideals and practical solutions are leavened with home truths, and a concentration on making change happen…

Uplifting ending notwithstanding, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a major milestone in the west’s path to becoming truly civilised, and this beautifully accessible iteration – deliciously illustrated in the manner of an inviting children’s picture book – could not be more timely, both as a reminder and warning from history. It’s also a wonderfully human drama gauging the limitations and frailties of the most exploited and vulnerable in society and “a book that everyone should read”.

I didn’t write that, George Orwell did, in 1946. Who could argue with that? Class is class no matter what you think…
© 2020 SelfMadeHero. Text © 2020 Sophie Rickard. Artwork © 2020 Scarlett Rickard. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Operation Liberate Men volume 1 & 2


By Mira Lee (NetComics/Ecomix)
ISBN: 978-1-60009-231-2 and 978-1-60009-232-9 (Tankōbon PB/Digital editions)

Authored by Mira Lee (Land of Silver Rain), Operation Liberate Men began in the late 1990s: a challenging comics concept released in a country where female roles in society were still painfully hidebound, and the concept of the “Ideal Woman” was a very real anchor to freedom of expression and lifestyle. The wild fantasy ran for 9 volumes before going on hiatus.

Now controlled by South Korean publisher Ecomix, episodes are available online with the promise of resumption and a conclusion after Lee concludes her current comics projects.

In volume 1, Sooha Jung is sixteen and an officially inadequate woman. For her whole life, she never fitted in, and has now failed the High School Admissions Exam. In achievement-oriented, socially-conservative, gender-orthodox South Korea, it’s damaging enough just to be a tomboy who prefers fighting to preening, primping or dating boys, but now she must add mediocre student to her list of failings.

Then, all of a sudden, the ethereally beautiful and androgynous Ganesha literally bumps into her…

Sooha is unsure if the lovely but weird foreigner is boy or girl, but quickly realises that it’s not as relevant as the fact that the stranger is completely crazy, claiming to come from another dimension – the Para Empire – where men are slaves and sex objects dominated by sadistic, domineering women. Disbelieving yet inspired by the thought of a world where women are in charge, she humours Ganesha, agreeing to travel to the Para Empire. Unfortunately, the story is completely accurate and she’s soon trapped on a very alien and dangerous world. Moreover, when they first met, Ganesha had assumed she was a ferocious male – the perfect man to lead the downtrodden males of Para to freedom!

Embroiled in a civil war in a fantastical primitive place, Sooha bolts, but soon realises the genuine need of the oppressed in the ruthless, savage society. She also discovers Ganesha has a secret. As the most beautiful man in the worlds, he’s not only a secret freedom-fighter but also the cherished, pampered plaything of the utterly diabolical Supreme Ruler: a woman called The Emperor…
Malevolent schemers, Court intrigues, broad humour and a remarkably progressive take on gender discrimination elevates this old, old plot, whilst healthy doses of supernatural conflict, countered by Sooha’s Bull-in-a-China-Shop temperament, make this tale an unexpected treat.
It’s nice to see a less-than-deferential, plain girl as lead character for once and the cliffhanger the first volume concludes on ensures readers will return to see what happens next. Give it a go and perhaps you’ll feel the same way too…

Operation Liberate Men volume 2 steams straight in with the next step in the campaign of sexual revolution, as Sooha Jung reviews her position. It was hard enough to get by as a mannish young girl, better at fighting than dating, and a poor student too, in modern society, but when you’re so ashamed that you make a foolish decision and end up trapped in a parallel dimension where sadistic, autocratic, bullying women have enslaved men, it’s almost too much to bear.

When you compound all that with the shameful fact that the oppressed men who expect you to deliver them from bondage are all completely oblivious of the fact that you are actually female, you can see why the teenager thinks she might have made a major mistake in travelling to this magical realm to liberate the men of the Para Empire.
Grudgingly accepting command of the Laharshita (“Male Liberation Army”) she now falls foul of the brutal women – also unaware of Sooha’s gender – leading to a savage battle in which rebel conspirator and undercover Boy-Toy Ganesha is near-fatally wounded.

Desperate and on the run, Sooha is soon captured and imprisoned and, as events in the rebel hierarchy proceed without her, suddenly realises that this is not her first contact with the male denizens of the Para Empire. There was an incident so long ago, back when she was just a little girl…

A touch of Aubrey Beardsley and the occasional flurry of Charles M Schulz in the dreamy artwork is so effective in elevating this compelling manhwa (Korean for manga or comics) fantasy. Ending on another cliffhanger, this war story will grip readers in fevered anticipation for that hopefully imminent conclusion…
© 1997, 2001 Mira Lee. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2007 NetComics.