Category: Satire/Politics

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Sky Masters of the Space Force: The Complete Dailies


By Jack Kirby, Dick & Dave Wood, Wally Wood & Dick Ayers (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-129-8 (HB) 978-1-61345-211-0 (TPB) 1-56685-009-6 (Pure Imagination)

Sky Masters of the Space Force was – and remains – a beautiful and eminently readable newspaper strip but one with a chequered and troubled back-story. How much so you can discover for yourself when you buy this book.

Even ever-upbeat and inspirational comics god Jack Kirby spent decades trying to forget the grief caused by his foray into the newspaper strip market during the height of the Space Race before finally relenting in his twilight years and giving his blessing to collections and reprints such as this one from Hermes Press.

Be grateful that he did because the collected work is one of his greatest achievements, even with the incredible format restraints of one tier of tiny panels per day, and a solitary page every Sunday. Decades later this hard-science space adventure is still the business!

And that’s despite the acrimonious legal manoeuvrings that poisoned the process of creating the strip from start to finish. That can of worms you can read for yourself in Daniel Herman’s forthright ‘Introduction: Jack Kirby, Wally Wood, and Sky Masters’ which precedes the astronautical adventures contained herein…

Just for context though: against a backdrop of international and ideological rivalry turned white-hot when the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik in 1957, the staid George Matthew Adams newspaper syndicate decided to finally enter the 20th century with a newspaper feature about space.

After approaching a reluctant DC Comics (then National Periodicals Publications) a deal was brokered. The project was steered by editor Jack Schiff who convinced Jack Kirby, inker Wally Wood (later replaced by Dick Ayers) and scripters/brothers Dick and Dave Wood (no relation to Wally) to begin bringing the conquest of the cosmos into our lives via an all-American astronaut, his trusty team of stalwart comrades and the philanthropic largesse of the newly-minted US Space Force (who knew Donald Trump could read back then?).

The daily strip launched on September 8th 1958 and ran until February 25th 1961; scant months before Alan Shepherd became in reality the first American in Space on May 5th.

The Sunday colour page told its five extended tales (The Atom Horse, Project Darkside, Mister Lunivac, Jumbo Jones and The Yogi Spaceman) in a separate continuity running from February 8th 1959 to 14th February 1960. They are sadly not included in this monochrome archival collection, but at least that gives us fans something to look forward to…

This tense, terse and startlingly suspenseful foray into a historical future begins with ‘The First Man in Space’ (September 8th – November 21st 1958) as Major Schuyler “Sky” Masters becomes the second man in space. Romantically involved with Holly Martin, he is hurled into orbit to rescue her astronaut father after the bold pioneer encounters, in the pitiless reaches above Earth, something too horrible to contemplate…

Human tragedy and ever-impinging fear of the unknown of that moody tale informs all the tales that follow, and as Holly Martin’s feisty brother Danny and burly Sgt. Riot join the cast (who do they remind me of?) for ‘Sabotage’ (22nd November – 7th March 1959), the quintessential components of all great comics teams are in place.

In this second encounter the stage expands enormously and a member of the vast Space Force contingent sinks into derangement: convinced colonization of the void and abandonment of Mother Earth is an unholy abomination.

That’s bad enough, but when he’s despatched as one of the six pathfinders constructing America’s first permanent orbiting space station, disaster is assured unless Sky can expose him and stop his deadly machinations…

Even as grim yet heady realism slowly grew into exuberant action and fantastic spectacle, the strip moves into high dramatic gear as woman pilot (or “aviatrix”) ‘Mayday Shannon’ (9th March – 9th May) joins the squad. The Brass have high hopes that she will prove “females” can thrive in space too. They didn’t reckon on her publicity-hungry greed and innate selfishness. Happily, the magnetic allure of the stars ultimately overcomes her bad side and Sky is on hand to deal with her ruthlessly unscrupulous manager…

A medical emergency tests the ingenuity of our dedicated spacers when project instigator and patriarch Doctor Royer is taken ill and Sky must ferry a surgeon to him in ‘To Save a Life’ (11th May – 10th June) after which the tireless Major and an unsuspected rival for Holly’s affections are stranded together on a New Guinea island of cannibals after losing control of ‘The Lost Capsule’ (11th June – 23rd September)…

During that heady meeting of ancient and modern cultures, inker/finisher Wally Wood was replaced by Dick Ayers (although the signatures remained “Kirby & Wood” for years more. Maybe the credit was for the writers?).

The incalculable terrors of space manifested with the next saga as ‘Alfie’ (24th September 1959 to 13th January 1960) carried the heroes of the New Frontier into the next decade. When young astronaut crewman Marek joins the orbiting space wheel, he begins periodically suffering bizarre fits. Every four hours for seven and a half minutes, the young American seems to channel the personality of aging East End cockney thief Alfie Higgins. With the fear that it might be some kind of infectious space madness, Sky and Riot head for London to link up with Scotland Yard in a gripping mystery drama blending jewel robbery and murder with the eerie overtones of Dumas’ Corsican Cousins…

The constant tensions of the Cold War and Space Race come to the fore in ‘Refugee’ (14th January – 19th February) as Sky and the US Space Force aid a most unlikely and improbable Soviet defector’s escape to the West…

Now a fully-trusted and dedicated member of the squad, Mayday Shannon returns to solve an astronaut’s romantic dilemma by arranging a ‘Wedding in Space’ (20th February – 20th April), before the true threat of the outer depths is tackled when Sky meets astronautical guru and maverick Martin Strickland. A tempestuous but invaluable asset of the Space program, the intellectual renegade has proof of alien life but won’t share the ‘Message from Space’ (21st April – 22nd June) unless military and civil authorities give him carte blanche to act on humanity’s behalf…

Counterbalancing such speculative sci fi aspects, the penultimate adventure is very much Earthbound and grounded in contemporary science and economics. ‘Weather Watchers’ (23rd June – 27th December) finds greedy capitalist entrepreneur Octavius Alexia realise he can make huge profits by scamming insurers if he has access to advance weather predictions afforded by the growing web of satellites orbiting the world.

To monopolise on that valuable information, he targets Mayday with the latest in espionage technologies and male honey trap J. Mansfield Sparks III. It might have all gone his way too if the woman hadn’t been so smart, and his mercenary gigolo had remained unencumbered by conscience…

The series ended in a rather rushed and rapid manner with ‘The Young Astronaut’ (28th December 1960 – 25th February 1961) wherein a new recruit proved to be too good to be true. Excelling at every aspect of the harsh training, Frederick T. “Fission” Tate had ulterior motives for getting into space. Luckily, suspicious Major Masters was right beside him on that first flight into the Wide Black Yonder…

As well as these stellar tales of stellar wonder, this volume also contains an abundance of visual extras such as a numerous covers and samples of Kirby’s contemporary comic book work, plus original art panels in a ‘Focus’ section, which almost compensates for the absence of the Sunday colour pages. Almost…

This compilation comprises a meteoric canon of wonderment that no red-blooded armchair adventurer could possibly resist, but quite honestly, I simply cannot be completely objective about Sky Masters.

I grew up during this time period and the “Conquest of Space” is as much a part of my sturdy yet creaky old bones as the lead in the paint, pipes and exhaust fumes my generation readily absorbed. That it is also thrilling, challenging and spectacularly drawn is almost irrelevant to me, but if any inducement is needed for you to seek this work out let it be that this is indisputably one of Kirby’s greatest accomplishments: engaging, beguiling, challenging and truly lovely to look upon. Now go enjoy it.

Back in 2000, Pure Imagination Publishing released The Complete Sky Masters of the Space Force, which also contains an abundance of essays; commentary and extras such as sketches and unpublished art, as well as those omitted Sunday pages, albeit printed in black and white. If you have the resources and that completist bug it’s worth hunting down, until such time as modern publishers finally catch on and print everything.

© 2017 Herman and Geer Communications, Inc. d/b/a Hermes Press. Introduction and Focus © 2017 Daniel Herman.

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Dreadstar -The Beginning


By Jim Starlin with Tom Orzechowski (Dynamite Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-60690-119-9 (HB/Digital edition)

Comics’ creative renaissance began during the 1980s and resulted in some utterly wonderful strip sagas, which shone briefly and brightly within what was still considered a largely niche industry. Many passed from view as business and art form battled spiralling costs, declining readerships and the perverse and pervasive attitude of the wider world. This was an era when comics were considered the natural province of morons, mutants and farm animals (I’m paraphrasing)…

Unlike today, way back then most grown-ups considered superheroes as adolescent power fantasies or idle wish-fulfilment for the uneducated or disenfranchised, so an entertainment industry which was perceived as largely made up of men in tights hitting each other got very little approval – or even notice – in the wider world of popular fiction.

Everything changed with the advent of the Direct Sales Market for comic books (and related interests like cards, posters and toys). Benefitting from a more targeted approach to selling, specialist vendors in dedicated emporia had leeway to allow frustrated creators to cut loose and experiment with other genres – and even formats and profit from any peripheral merchandising that might accrue.

All that unleashed innovation led inescapably to today’s high-end, thoroughly respectable graphic novel market which – with suitable and fitting circularity – is now gathering and re-circulating many of the breakthrough tales from those times: not as poorly distributed hard-to-find serials and sequences, but in satisfyingly complete stand-alone books.

Marvel was the unassailable front-runner in purveying pamphlet fiction back then, outselling all competitors and monopolising the lucrative licensed properties market (like Star Wars and Indiana Jones) which once been the preserve of the Whitman/Dell/Gold Key colossus. This added to a zeitgeist which proved that for open-minded readers, superheroes were not the only fruit…

As independently published titles hit an early peak, Marvel instigated its own creator-owned, rights-friendly fantasy periodical in response to the overwhelming success amongst older readers of Heavy Metal magazine. Lush, slick and lavish, HM had even brought a fresh, music-&-literature-based audience to graphic narratives…

That response was Epic Illustrated: an anthological magazine offering stunning art and an anything-goes attitude – unhindered by the censorious Comics Code Authority – which saw everything from literary adaptations to out-world in-continuity landmarks of the Marvel’s own in-house characters like ‘The Last Galactus Story’, plus numerous serial stories which would become compelling forerunners of today’s graphic novel industry.

EI’s first issue also discretely began a soft and gradual introduction to one of the era’s biggest Indie sensations: Vanth Dreadstar…

This collection gathers a number of stories culled from an assortment of places. The saga started in Epic Illustrated (#1-9, 12 and 15; spanning Spring 1980 to December 1982), whilst tangentially diverting in 1981 to Eclipse Graphic Album Series #5 (The Price) and 1982’s Marvel Graphic Novel #3: Dreadstar – all laying groundwork for one of the most successful creator-owned comic characters of the era… and one of the most long-lived.

Re-presented here in the original monochrome or painted full-colour, with writer/artist Starlin aided and abetted by letterer by Tom Orzechowski, these tales and this edition feature art remastered by Jerron Quality Color, Mike Kelleher and Digikiore Studios.

Already a big gun thanks to his run on Captain Marvel, the engendering of mad Titan Thanos and the reinvention of Adam Warlock, Starlin cemented his cosmic creator credentials and indulged his preoccupation with death and nihilism through grandiose serialised saga Metamorphosis Odyssey.

Delivered in painted grey-tones, it began with the introduction of mighty alien wizard Aknaton: savant of ancient and benevolent race the Osirosians. These masters of the cosmos were perturbed by the advent of rapacious barbarian species the Zygoteans, slowly and inexorably conquering planets and eradicating all life in the Milky Way galaxy.

Aknaton’s people fought back on behalf of all creation, but knew that their resistance was numbered in mere millennia before the predators would triumph.

Unsettled by the prognostication, Aknaton sets out on a desperate tour of the galaxy, planting life seeds, weaving a web of possibility and even depositing an incredible sword of power in a last-ditch plan which would take a million years to complete…

The first seed flowered in the form of spiritually advanced intellectual monster ‘Za!’, whilst another blossomed into 15-year old ‘Juliet’, abducted by Aknaton from Earth in 1980 just as the Zygoteans arrived to eradicate the rest of her species.

The mage’s last living puzzle piece was butterfly-winged psychic ‘Whis’par’ whose gifts and sensitivities easily divined the dark underpinnings of Aknaton’s ambitions…

During this chapter the artwork transitioned into full-painted colour, and by the time the wizard reached war-torn ice-world Byfrexia to recruit ‘Vanth’, cosmic conflict was in full phantasmagorical flow. This emotionless resistance leader battling the Zygoteans was a man with incredible physical powers, bestowed by a magic sword he had found: the very weapon Aknaton has planted eons previously…

‘The Meeting’ between Vanth and his notional maker is interrupted by Zygotean killers, affording the wizard opportunity to assess his handiwork in action. He quickly realises the hero is far more powerful than he had intended…

Nevertheless, the quest moves on to a recently-razed paradise, but ‘Delloran Revisited’ is merely one step in a search for an ultimate weapon so long lost, so well hidden, that Aknaton has no clue to its current location…

Appraising his unique team of one final push, Aknaton enjoys ‘Sunrise on Lartorez’ before absenting himself to meet God and discuss ‘Absolution’, after which a ‘Requiem’ sounds for life as the Zygoteans find them and light the skies with ‘Nightfire’.

Forced into precipitate action, ‘Dreamsend’ turns into ‘Doomsday!’ as Aknaton’s plan finally comes into play – with cataclysmic effect…

A million years later, an energy bubble bursts in another galaxy and sole survivors Aknaton and Vanth find themselves on a rural world not much different from any other. They still have business to settle and only one will walk away from the ‘Aftermath’ of what they’ve perpetrated…

With the illustration reverting to painted monochrome, sequel The Price is set in that new “Empirical Galaxy”: one riven by unending war between intergalactic robber barons The Monarchy and omnipresent mystico-political religious order The Instrumentality. Over 200 years these instinctive enemies have taken half a galaxy each and now battle to maintain a permanent stalemate. The economies of both factions depend on constant slaughter, but never outright victory…

At the heart of that strained environment, rising Instrumentality Bishop Syzygy Darklock is drawn by arcane forces and the diabolical plotting of terrorist mage Taurus Killgaren onto a path of inescapable doom and destruction.

It begins with the demonic assassination of Darklock’s brother; leading the outraged cleric onto a path of damnation and revelation: gaining immense mystic power and wisdom but only at the cost of sacrificing everything he ever loved. He is also forced to share Killgaren’s infallible vision of the fearful future and the role a man named Dreadstar will play in the fate of the universe…

After the huge success of The Death of Captain Marvel in Marvel Graphic Novel #1, Starlin was eagerly welcomed back for the third release. Here he finally and officially launched Dreadstar as a creator-owned property that would kickstart the Epic Comics imprint into life.

The full-colour painted story focused on Vanth the man, with the immortal Cold Warrior abandoning his sword and warlike ways, and settling down to decades of family and farming on isolated agri-world Caldor with retired Instrumentality researcher Delilah.

Toiling beside its gentle gen-gineered cat-people who operate the farm planet, Vanth found a kind of contentment, which was only slightly spoiled when a bizarre being named Syzygy Darklock sets up his tent in the mountain wilderness and begins tempting the old soldier with tales of the outer world and veiled promises of great knowledge and understanding.

Vanth is with the savant when Monarchy ships attack Delilah and the cat-folk. In the wake of their casual atrocities, he renounces his vow of peace and resolves to end the stupid, commercially expedient war his way…

The drama concludes with ‘Epilogue’: one last monochrome moment first seen in Epic Illustrated #15, and designed as a bridging introduction to the hero’s regular comic book debut. Vanth and cat-man ally Oedi are trying to quietly get off Instrumentality mining colony The Rock, but Dreadstar is nigh-fatally distracted by a worker who is the very image of Delilah.

However, before he can do anything really stupid, the mine roof caves in, threatening all his ambitious plans to bring peace and stability to the Empirical Galaxy…

To Be Continued…

Bold, bombastic and potently cathartic, this is no-nonsense space opera with the just the right amount of deep thought, comforting cynicism and welcoming pop philosophy adding flavour to the action and spicing up the celestial grandeur. Above all this is smart, trenchant, timelessly uncomplicated fun for grown-up space freaks, well worth a few moments of your time…
© 2010 James Starlin. All rights reserved. Dreadstar is a registered trademark of James Starlin, and the Dreadstar logo and all characters and content herein and the likenesses thereof are also trademarks of James Starlin unless otherwise expressly noted.

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The Bluecoats volume 15: Bull Run


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-061-6 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (and/or Dutch-language iteration De Blauwbloezen) debuted at the end of the 1960s: created to supplant the irreplaceable 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 and we’re up to 66 tomes…

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 – yet 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 was 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 sold alone has over 15 million copies… and counting. Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of barbed laughter remains.

Here, designated The Bluecoats, our long-suffering protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch; worthy, honest 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 second volume Du Nord au Sud, the sad-sack soldiers were situated back East, perpetually fighting in the American Civil War.

All subsequent adventures – despite often ranging far beyond the traditional environs of the sundered USA 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 orchestrators and commanders. Ducking, diving, 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 big and burly, a professional fighting man and proud career soldier of the 22nd Cavalry who passionately believes in patriotism and the esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirking his duty and hungry 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 but 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.

Coloured by Vittorio Leonardo, Les Tuniques Bleues – Bull Run was originally serialised in Le Journal de Spirou (#2558-2562) during 1987 and collected into another mega-selling album before the year was out. The 27th continental album, it was Cinebook’s 15th translated Bluecoats album.

Bull Run offers the creators’ trenchant and bitterly hilarious account of the infamous and calamitous first full clash between North and South, which took place on July 21st 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia. That was only 30 miles from national capital Washington DC, near the city of Manassas, from which the Confederates derived their own name for the debacle – the Battle of First Manassas.

A story within a story, it’s the account of what just happened as told by one who survived the debacle sharing confidences with a new recruit who can’t understand why nobody will speak of it…

Safely hidden away Blutch starts talking, telling how before any fighting began, President Lincoln’s generals gave the leader bad advice and pompous assurances, and a publicity campaign to recruit volunteers was badly administered. Moreover, the crisis fostered a festival atmosphere and civilians flocked to the proposed battleground to see the spectacle…

It was certainly impressive. The Union forces included not just American infantry, cavalry and artillery, but also many foreign contingents and brigades: Crimean Zouaves, Italian Garibaldians, Bavarians, Croats, Cossacks, Chinese and more. What a pity nobody drilled them in taking orders in English…

Still angry from being tricked into joining up, Blutch was already wary and could not bear to see the eagerness on the face of his glory-struck comrade Chesterfield. That’s why – when the call came from on high – he broke the habit of a lifetime and volunteered to join the proud few called on to serve drinks and refreshments to the spectators and upper ranks…

Already class divisions had appeared: the cavalry were expressly ordered not to speak to foot soldiers. That would prove catastrophically crucial as the battle unfolded and messages could not be passed…

Most telling of all, the Confederate forces were well-trained, well-disciplined and did not overconfidently consider the battle a foregone conclusion…

With carnage and confusion everywhere, Blutch’s deepest convictions are completely confirmed, and the jolly adventure becomes a complete rout, made all the worse for death-or-glory Chesterfield, who is ignominiously saved from capture or worse by his sneaky pal’s ungentlemanly behaviour and dirty tricks. That’s why the sergeant never talks about Bull Run…

Painfully cleaving to the bald facts of history, this episode is far darker than most, with the underlying horror leavened by a narrative distancing that allows ridiculously surreal black comedy and bitter satire to blossom constantly.

Combining pointedly seditious polemic with stunning slapstick, Bull Run mordantly manipulates the traditions of war stories to hammer home the point about the sheer stupidity of war and crushing cruelty of arrogant elitism. These yarns weaponise humour, making occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting. Funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the best kind of war-story and Western: appealing to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1987 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2021 Cinebook Ltd.

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Moomin volume 7 – The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip


By Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-062-1 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-554-1

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

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

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

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

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

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

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

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

Initially The Moomins and the Great Flood made little impact, but Jansson persisted – as much for her own edification as any other reason – and in 1946 Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators regard the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can…

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

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices regarding strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid. Mumintrollet och jordens undergäng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature, so she readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world. In 1953, The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip serials to captivate readers of all ages.

Jansson’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she recruited brother Lars to help. He then took over, continuing the strip until 1975. His tenure as sole creator continues here…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The seventh oversized (310 x 221 mm) monochrome hardback compilation gathers serial strip sagas #26-29, and opens with Lars firmly in charge and puckishly re-exploring human frailties and foibles via a sophisticate poke at the shifting political climate…

Craftily casting cats among pigeons, 26th escapade ‘Moomin the Colonist’ finds armchair adventurer Moominpappa resenting the advent of the annual hibernation and rashly listening to his bookish boy, who has been reading about colonisation…

Soon he has packed up the family and a few close friends and set out to conquer fresh fields and pastures new. With Mymble and Little My, Mrs Fillyjonk, her daughters and a cow in tow, the eager expansionists head off across the frozen land and don’t stop until they reach a tropical desert island where they start setting up a new civilisation combining the best of the old world with lots of fresh ideas on how society should be run…

Sadly, their neighbours from back home have sneakily copied the Moomin movement and before long the new continent is embroiled in a passive-aggressive, slyly competitive struggle for control, with scurrilous reprobate Stinky and his pals playing the bad guys behind the Palm Tree Curtain…

Following the mutual collapse of colonialism, outrageous satire gives way to wicked sarcasm as ‘Moomin and the Scouts’ recounts how energetic Mr Brisk’s passion for the outdoor life, badges and bossing children envelopes the instinctively sedentary Moomins and unleashes all kinds of disruptive chaos. With scouts running wild amongst the trees it just seems easier to join them rather than seek to beat them and let nature disrupt the movement from within…especially after Moomin starts hanging around with Miss Brisk’s Girl Guides and the generally dismissive Snorkmaiden feels oddly conflicted…

The perils of property and stain of status upsets the orderly life of the clan when Moominpappa unexpectedly comes into a major inheritance in ‘Moomin and the Farm’. Grievously afflicted by a terrible case of noblesse oblige, the family uproot themselves and retire to stately Gobble Manor to perpetuate the line of landed gentry on a modern working arable and pastoral estate.

Adapting to wealth and property is one thing and even accommodating the legion of ancestral ghosts is but another strand of Duty, but the effort of taking on and even perpetuating centuries of unearned privilege proves far too weighty a burden for all concerned… before the increasingly untenable situation typically corrects itself…

Back in their beloved house and rearranging furniture, a dropped chest disgorges an ancient map and triggers another wild dreamers’ quest in ‘Moomin and the Gold-fields’…

Unable to refuse adventure when it’s dangled in front of their exuberant noses, father and son are soon trekking the wilds and digging random holes thanks to the supremely unclear chart, and before long the entire valley is afflicted with gold rush fever.

With law, common decency and even good manners abandoned to greed as the sedate dell becomes a boisterous and sordid boom town, all Moominmama can do is maintain her dignity and wait for the madness to pass…

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

These are truly magical tales for the young, laced with the devastating observation and razor-sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kids’ stories into classics of literature. These volumes – both Tove and Lars’ – comprise an international treasure trove no fan of the medium – or carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without.
© 2012 Solo/Bulls except “Lars Jansson: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get to Work” © 2011, 2012 Juhani Tolvanen. All rights reserved.

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Beauty


By Hubert & Kerascoët, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-315-8 (Album TPB) eISBN 978-1-56163-897-0 (Kindle), 978-1-56163-896-3 (Epub), 978-1-56163-895-6 (PDF)

French comics creator Hubert Boulard died suddenly on February 12th 2020. He is criminally unknown in the English-speaking world despite an astounding canon of wonderful work. Thanks to NBM, two more gems from his supremely enticing canon can now be added to your physical or digital bookshelf…

Technically this first fantastic, cunningly subversive fable is a re-release, having first crossed the linguistic divide way back in 2008, but its message has only increased in poignancy and potency since then…

Prior to establishing himself as mononymously revered “Hubert”, Boulard was born on January 21st 1971, in Brittany’s Saint-Renan. In 1994, on graduating from the École régionale des beaux-arts d’Angers, he began his comics career as an artist for such seasoned pros as Éric Ormond, Yoann, Éric Corberyan, Paul Gillon and more. Also highly regarded as a colourist, he morphed into a triple threat in 2002, and wrote strips for others.

He began with Legs de l’alchimiste – limned by Herve Tanquerelle – following with Yeaux Verts for long-term collaborator Zanzim and Miss Pas Touche (20th July 1922) illustrated with irrepressible panache by Kerascoët (married artistic collaborators Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) and many others. Awards started piling up as he steered 14 separate series; many of them internationally renowned and celebrated, including Les Ogres-Dieux and Monsieur désire? An activist by nature, in 2013 he helmed and contributed to groundbreaking collective graphic tract Les Gens normaux, paroles lesbiennes gay bi trans: released to coincide with France’s national debate on legalizing same sex marriage and assuredly a factor in the measure becoming law…

His final book was with artist Zanzim: posthumously published in June 2020, and as yet unavailable in English. Peau d’homme is a comedy exploring gender and sexuality at the height of medieval European religious intolerance and social stratification, and I’m sure we’ll get that here in the fullness of time.

That era of “blood and iron” – and its fantasy potential – was frequently used by Hubert as a backdrop for his stories and here is utilised in a trenchant adult fairy tale revealing the cost of attraction and the dangers of wishing. Originally published in France between 2011 and 2014 in three volumes (Reine) Beauté is a deceptively witty and barbed parable following the many tribulations – and so few joys – of a homely peasant girl whose greatest wish is granted… and how it all lays low the mighty and destroys many kingdoms.

‘Wishes Granted’ introduces slow, unhappy Coddie: skivvy and household drudge in a rural mansion: teased by children and shunned by most adults. Her tedious, onerous duties include preparing all the fish the wealthy autocrats eat, so there’s also always something of an “atmosphere” around her. Despite being kind and gentle, it’s fair to say that she’s the kind of girl only her mother loves… although first son of the house Peter always pays attention every time he sneaks down to the kitchens for a stolen snack…

The scullion’s despondent misery seemingly ends when after years of leaving presents for the fairies, she accidentally frees one from a curse. Queen Mab is adamant about paying the debt incurred and casts a spell. Henceforth, although Coddie has not changed physically, all will see her as “the very idea of beauty in woman incarnate”…

The girl is too naive to realise that Mab has an agenda of her own or even to question exactly why the sprite was imprisoned in the first place, and trouble starts as soon as she reaches home. The women are astonished and envious and men who have ignored the drudge all her life now beg and plead and throw themselves at her: even attempting to kill each other to possess her. Even sweet pudgy Peter is enthralled…

When the male villagers form a mob to take her and the women try – and fail – to mar her loveliness, Coddie flees into the woods and is rescued/slash abducted by the Lord of the region. Young Otto locks her in his castle and makes her concubine. Coddie, unsurprisingly, doesn’t mind at all, even when he arbitrarily renames her “Beauty”…

Moreover, she can’t wait to make the villagers pay for how they treated her, both before and after her wish came true, and Mab reappears with a few suggestions…

Having driven Otto away with her demands for better and more opulent gifts and presents, Beauty pushes the manse itself into ruin and when a travelling artist tragically captures what he sees, the paintings and sketches catapulted her onto a global stage. As her image enflames the passions of lords and princes across the continent, knights start killing each other and regal overlord King Maxence of the Southern Kingdom and his top advisor/sister Princess Claudine intervene. Claudine immediately sees a strategic use for Beauty, but her scheme is thwarted when her brother falls uncontrollably under the commoner’s spell.

Second chapter ‘The Indecisive Queen’ details – with chilling echoes of Marie-Antoinette – how the kitchen girl inadvertently brings down two kingdoms as Max makes her his wife and mother of a child he cannot accept as his. Queen Beauty’s interference in state matters bankrupts the kingdom, decimates the nation’s cream of chivalry and drives the king into jealousy-fuelled madness and murder.

Moreover, the moment his great rival, archenemy and brother-in-law The Boar King of the Northern Kingdom claps eyes on Beauty, he too is seized by a mania to possess her and the resultant war destroys both nations…

Escaping with her un-ensorcelled and rather plain daughter Marine, Beauty resolves to have Mab revoke her wish in ‘Ordinary Mortals’ but the price the fairy demands is far too costly. Bonded to her child, Beauty is betrayed and sold to the Boar King: notional victor in the recent war. Allowing his wife Dagmar to know of his enslaved prizes seemed like a good idea, but soon the frenzy of possessing the fairy-touched treasure grips him and enrages his queen. Again death and death and destruction are the result – especially as Princess Claudine and Otto (now an unbeatable berserker knight) constantly harass and plague the victor’s occupying forces in advance of a full revolt and liberation…

Also a prisoner, Marine sets the final fall into motion by a simple demonstration of how to discern Coddie’s appearance under Beauty’s glamour, and the Boar King’s self-destructive behaviour escalates into overwhelming madness and inevitable catastrophe.

The child was born smart and when she learned to read, soon discovered the true history of Mab, albeit not soon enough to stop The Boar King again abducting mother and daughter (from his own citadel) and locking them way where only he could see them whilst letting the kingdoms doom and damn themselves…

Ultimately, Coddie and Marine break free and turn their attentions to stopping the true threat: fairies…

The blood-soaked saga ceases with a puckish ‘Epilogue’ set decades later, as some of those troublesome artworks of Beauty finally reach another almighty potentate in a distant land. He cannot believe or forget what he sees…

Smart, charmingly cynical and hugely engaging, the epic cautionary tale is sublimely realised by visual creators probably best known in the English-speaking world for Miss Don’t Touch Me and Joann Sfar & Lewis Trondheim’s Dungeon series. However, French phenomenon Kerascoët (joint pen name of married illustrators, comics & animation artists Marie Pommepuy & Sébastien Cosset) have generated a wealth of books for all ages including Malala’s Magic Pencil, I Walk with Vanessa, Beautiful Darkness, The Court Charade, I Forgive Alex, Paper Doll Artbook and more) to further delight the wide variety of grown-up readers everywhere.
Beauté © Dupuis, 2011-2013 by Hubert, Kerascoët. All rights reserved. © 2014 NBM For the English translation.

Beauty will be published on June 14th 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

For more information and other great reads please go to http://www.nbmpub.com/

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From Headrack to Claude – Collected Gay Comics of Howard Cruse


By Howard Cruse (Nifty Kitsch Press/Northwest Press)
ISBN: 978-0-578-03251-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

It’s long been an aphorism – if not an outright cliché – that Gay comics – can we be contemporary and say LGBTQIA+? – have long been the only place in the graphic narrative business to see real romance in all its joy, pain, glee and glory.

It’s still true: an artefact, I suppose, of a society seemingly obsessed with demarcating and separating sex and love as two utterly different and possibly even opposing principles and activities. I’d like to think that here in the 21st century – at least in the more sensible, civilised parts of it – we’ve outgrown the juvenile, judgemental, bad old days and can simply appreciate powerfully moving and/or funny comics about people of all sorts without any kind of preconception.

Sadly, that battle’s nowhere near won yet and in truth it all looks pretty bleak unless you’re a fundamentalist zealot or bigot. Hopefully, compendia such as this will aid the fight, if only we can get the other side to read them…

To facilitate that, after this archive was originally self-published in 2008 it was rendered fully digital – with updates and extra material – from those wonderful people at Northwest Press. Oh, and there’s an abundance of sex and swearing on view, so if you’re the kind of person liable to be upset by words and pictures of an adult nature (such as joyous, loving fornication between two people separated by age, wealth, social position and race who happily possess and constantly employ the same range of naughty bits on each other) or sly mockery of deeply-held, outmoded and ludicrous beliefs then best retreat and read something else.

In fact, just go away: you have no romance in your soul or love in your heart.

Howard Cruse (May 2nd 1944-November 26th 2019) enjoyed a remarkable cartooning career spanning decades that overlapped a number of key moments in American history and social advancement. Beginning as a hippy-trippy, counter-culture, Underground Comix star with beautifully drawn, witty, funny (not always the same thing in those days – or now, come to think of it) strips, his work evolved over years into a powerful voice for change in both sexual and race politics. Initially as strips in magazines but ultimately through such superb collections and Original Graphic Novels as Wendel and Stuck Rubber Baby: an examination of oppression, tolerance and freedoms in 1950s America.

Since then he has become a columnist, worked on other writers’ work, illustrated an adaptation of Jeanne E. Shaffer’s The Swimmer With a Rope In His Teeth and continued his own unique brand of cartoon commentary.

Born the son of a Baptist Minister in Birmingham, Alabama, Cruse grew up amid the instinctive race-based privilege and smouldering intolerance of the region’s segregationist regime: an atmosphere that shaped him on a primal level. In the late ‘60s, he escaped to Birmingham-Southern College to study Drama: graduating and winning a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship to Penn State University.

Campus life never really suited him and he dropped out in 1969. Returning to the South, he joined a loose crowd of fellow Birmingham Bohemians; allowing room to blossom as a creator. By 1971, Cruse was drawing a spectacular procession of strips for an increasingly hungry and growing crowd of eager admirers. Whilst working for a local TV station as both designer and children’s show performer, he created a kid’s newspaper strip about talking squirrels Tops & Button, and still found time to craft the utterly whimsical and bizarre tales of a romantic quadrangle. Intended for the more discerning college crowd he remained in contact with, these strips appeared in a variety of college newspapers and periodicals and starred a very nice young man and his troublesome friends…

In 1972 the strip was “discovered” by publishing impresario Denis Kitchen who began disseminating Barefootz to a far broader audience via such Underground periodical publications as Snarf, Bizarre Sex, Dope Comix and Commies From Mars: all published by his much-missed Kitchen Sink Enterprises.

Kitchen also hired Cruse to work on an ambitious co-production with rising powerhouse Marvel Comics: attempting to bring a (somewhat sanitised) version of the counter-culture’s cartoon stars and sensibilities to the mainstream. The Comix Book was a traditionally packaged and distributed newsstand magazine that only ran to a half-dozen issues. Although deemed a failure, it provided the notionally more wholesome and genteel Barefootz with a larger audience and yet more avid fans…

As well as being an actor, designer, art-director and teacher, Cruse appeared in Playboy, The Village Voice, Heavy Metal, Artforum International, The Advocate and Starlog and countless other publications, yet the tireless story-man found the time and resources to self-publish Barefootz Funnies: two comic collections of his addictively whimsical strip in 1973.

For us, a captivatingly forthright grab-bag and memoir gathers the snippets and classics left out of previous must-have collections The Compete Wendel and Early Barefootz, with Cruse tracing his development through cartoons and strips all thoroughly and engagingly annotated and contextualised by the author himself: fondly, candidly revisited against a backdrop of the men he loved at the time.

Acting as an historical place-setter, Cruse’s informative Preface sets the ball rolling, laconically tracing his artistic career and development through domestic autobiographical strip ‘Communique’ (from Heavy Metal) to unveil home life at the time. A more detailed exploration overview of the Queer comics scene follows in ‘From Miss Thing to Jane’s World’ before the book truly begins.

For a better, fuller understanding you’ll really want to see the aforementioned Wendell and Barefootz collections, but for now we relive history in first chapter Artefacts & Benchmarks Part 1: 1969-76, blending contextualising prose recollection with noteworthy strip ‘That Night at the Stonewall’s’, advertising art, abortive newspaper strip sample, an episode of Tops & Button, and other published work, plus gay sitcom feature ‘Cork & Dork’.

An early example of advocacy comes from wry cartoon homily ‘The Passer-By’ before further reminiscences and picture extracts take us to an uncharacteristically strident and harsh breakthrough.

Preceded by explanatory sidebar ‘Backstory: Gravy on Gay’, we are formally introduced to Barefootz’s, way-out friend confidante – and openly gay hippy rebel – Headrack in ‘Gravy on Gay’: wherein – the laid-back easy-going artist is confronted with the ugly, mouthy side of modern living as voiced by obnoxious jock jerk Mort…

The march of progress continues in Artefacts & Benchmarks Part 2: 1976-80, detailing a variety of comics jobs from Dope Comix and Snarf to the semi-legitimacy of Playboy and Starlog. It also features the first meeting with life partner – and ultimately, husband – Eddie Sedarbaum before My Strips from Gay Comix 1980-90 traces his editorial career on the landmark anthology through reprints of his own strip contributions.

It begins in ‘Billy Goes Out’: recalling the joyous – or it that empty and tedious? – hedonistic freedoms of the days immediately before the AIDS crisis…

Incisive cloaked autobiographical fable ‘Jerry Mack’ takes us inside the turbulent mind of an ultra-closeted church minister in full regretful denial, after which further heartbreak is called up in devious tragedy ‘I Always Cry at Movies’ before home chores are dealt with in a manly manner in ‘Getting Domestic’.

Historical and political insight comes in ‘Backstory: Dirty Old Lovers’ before the outrageous and hilarious antics of the oldest lovers in town scandalise the Gay community in ‘Dirty Old Lovers’, whilst the thinking behind clarion call ‘Safe Sex’ is detailed in a ‘Backstory’ article prior to a straightforward examination of Acquired Immune-Deficiency Syndrome and its effects on personal health and public consciousness…

Surreal comedy infuses the tale of a man’s man and his adored ‘Cabbage Patch Clone’ after which faux ad ‘I Was Trapped Naked inside the Jockey Shorts of the Amazing Colossal Man!’ and Matt Groening spoof ‘Gay Dorks in Fezzes’ closes this chapter to make way for Topical Strips 1983-93.

With Cruse’s particular brand of “Gay” commentary/advocacy reaching more mainstream audiences through publications like The Village Voice, a ‘Backstory’ relates the author’s ultimately unnecessary anxiety over inviting in the wider world through polemical sally ‘Sometimes I Get So Mad’ and wickedly pointed social and media satire ‘The Gay in the Street’. That oracular swipe and ‘1986 – An Interim Epilogue’ are also deconstructed by Backstory segments (the latter being a 2-page addendum created for the Australian release of ‘Safe Sex’ in Art & Text magazine) before ‘Backstory: Penceworth’ shares one of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s vilest moments.

In 1988, her government attempted to set back sexual freedom to the Stone Age (or Russia, Turkey, Nigeria and other uncivilised countries today) by prohibiting the “promotion of homosexuality”. The British law – (un)popularly known as Clause 28 – was resisted on many fronts, including benefit comic AARGH (Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia). Invited to contribute, Cruse channelled Hillaire Belloc’s Cautionary Verses and excoriatingly assaulted the New Nazism with ‘Penceworth’: a charming illustrated poem like a spiked cosh snuggled inside a rainbow coloured velvet slipper…

Luxuriating in righteous indignation and taking his lead from the New York Catholic Church’s militant stance against the LGBT community, Cruse then illuminated a supposed conference between ‘The Kardinal & the Klansman in Manning the Phone Bank’ and targeted similar anti-gay codicils in America’s National Endowment for the Arts in ‘Homoeroticism Blues’…

Another Backstory explains how and why a scurrilous article in Cosmopolitan resulted in ‘The Woeful World of Winnie and Walt’ – a complacency-shattering tale in Strip AIDS USA, pointedly reminding White Heterosexuals that the medical horror wasn’t as discriminating as they would like to believe…

That theme is revisited with the kid gloves off in ‘His Closet’, after which ‘Backstory: Rainbow Curriculum Comix’ clarify how School Board rabble-rouser Mary Cummings set back decades of progress in American diversity education through her oratorical witch hunts. Cruse’s potent responses ‘Rainbow Curriculum Comix’ and ‘The Educator’ follow…

The artist’s Late Entries 2000-08 round off the historical hay ride: snippets including a full-colour rebuttal from Village Voice to Dr. Bruce Bagemihl’s study on animal homosexuality. ‘A Zoo of Our Own’ is accompanied by a fulsome Backstory and followed by wryly engaging modern fable ‘My Hypnotist’ and semi-autobiographical conundrum ‘Then There Was Claude’ before the bemused wonderment wraps up with prose article ‘I Must Be Important …Cause I’m in a Documentary (2011)’ and a superb Batman pin-up/put down…

This is a sublime and timeless compilation: smart, funny, angry when needful and always astonishingly entertaining. Read it with Pride.
© 1976-2008 Howard Cruse. All rights reserved.
For further information and great stuff check out Howardcruse.com

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Lucky Luke volume 31 – Lucky Luke versus the Pinkertons


By Achdé, Daniel Pennac & Tonino Benacquista, in the style of Morris: coloured by Anne-Marie Ducasse, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-098-6 (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 spin-off series, with sales thus far totalling in excess of 300 million in 30 languages. That renown has led to a mountain of merchandise, aforementioned tie-in series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, plus toys, computer games, animated cartoons, a plethora of 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 laconic life in mid-1946, before inevitably ambling into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced nine albums of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before teaming with old pal and fellow trans-American émigré Rene Goscinny. With Rene 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 died 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 …as in this tale from 2010 which so neatly fits the week’s theme of “detective fiction”…

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 beginning in 1972 with Brockhampton Press, and continuing with Knight Books, Hodder Dargaud UK, Ravette Books and Glo’Worm, until Cinebook finally and thankfully found the way in 2006.

The taciturn trailblazer regularly interacts with historical and legendary figures as well as even odder fictional folk in tales drawn from key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions, and interpretations. That’s used to sublime effect in Lucky Luke contre Pinkerton released as Cinebook’s 31st album in 2011, but only latterly added to the official continental cannon.

In France, it had graced Le Journal de Spirou #3779-3784 before being compiled and released as the 4th edition of sub-strand Les Aventures de Lucky Luke d’après Morris.

Since the Europeans take their comics seriously – especially the funny ones – they aren’t afraid to be bold or brave and this riotous romp cheekily plays with established chronology and even employs creative anachronism to carry an edged – if not actually barbed – pop at government oversight, the rise of a surveillance state and arguments pro and con concerning necessary evils and zealous protections versus plain old liberty and equality…

In America, Abraham Lincoln has just been elected President . The world is changing and modernity looms, but the nefarious Daltons think nothing of it until a train robbery goes hideously awry.

Instead of their usual duel with Lucky Luke they are ambushed and arrested by an army of detectives employed by iconoclastic, ambitious lawman Allan Pinkerton. The detective then begins a publicity campaign trumpeting that the day of the gifted amateur is done and that Lucky is passe and over the hill…

Untroubled by all the modern foolishness, Luke busies himself hunting a counterfeiting gang but thinks again when Pinkerton pips him to the post and abrasively tells him that from now on, there will be no room for amateurs…

Egotistically sharing his cutting edge crimefighting scheme, Pinkerton unveils modern incarceration, rapid communications, intelligence-led pre-emptive investigation, forensic methodology and ruthless methods of “interrogation” – and operates on the principle that everyone is guilty of something…

He’s compiling incriminating dossiers on everyone, with his legion of detectives building an (analogue) database holding all those dark secrets in one secure office.

Pinkerton’s authority comes from Lincoln, who has made the innovator his chief of security, unaware of the detective’s own vaulting ambition – which includes acting as an agent provocateur and manufacturing threats against PotUS. Lucky sticks to his guns and the old moral ways and battlelines are drawn…

Initially, everything seems to go the way of the moderniser, but his success proves his undoing when a sudden influx of arrests fills all the prisons and the Daltons are given early release to make room. With turmoil gripping the nation and Lincoln’s popularity plunging, Pinkerton seems unassailable until unrepentant recidivist Joe Dalton cherry picks modern ordnance and applies old fashioned predatory behaviour to beat Pinkerton at his own game.

The little monster is particularly impressed by that huge store of files and calculates how much most decent people will pay to keep their secrets unexposed…

Happily Lucky Luke also cherishes the old ways and is ready to set things right his way…

A wickedly wry exploration of the other side of the investigation game, Lucky Luke versus the Pinkertons blends fun and adventure with some salient views of where we’ve been and where we’re going in our ever more urgent quest for safety and security. Nevertheless, the yarn also revels in classic set-piece slapstick and witty wordplay: poking fun at the fundamental components of the genre and successfully embracing tradition with action in another wildly entertaining all-ages confection.
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Songs of Michael Flanders & Donald Swann


Lyrics by Michael Flanders & Donald Swann, illustrated by H. M. Bateman, Gerard Hoffnung, Osbert Lancaster, David Low, Gerald Scarfe, Trog (Willy Fawkes), Edward Burra, Ionicus (Joshua Charles Armitage), William Hewison, Michael ffolkes, Ronald Searle and Many & Various (Elm Tree Books/International Music Publications Limited)
ISBN: 978-0-24189-738 6 (HB) 978-1-85909-439-6 (PB)

When music becomes global major news and both a political hot potato and celebration of Gay Pride, I’d be a sucker not to mark the occasion with a cheap shot and hearty paean for my own aspirational dreams. I want new people to recognise some good old days of my own – in words and pictures as well as musically. If you are intrigued, track these down…

I’m stretching my brief again here (and isn’t that a grisly image to conjure with?) to review this superb slice of comedy nostalgia that’s still readily available. Michael Flanders (1922-1975) and Donald Swann (1923-1994) were primarily songwriters who became a huge international success performing their own material and acting as charming social commentators.

All this they did, live on stage in a vibrant, satirical manner that captivated audiences both in theatres across the globe, but also on the increasingly important television variety circuit.

Their brand of gently jibing whimsy (mostly skewering themselves and a rapidly changing Britain and “Englishness”) through mordant sarcasm delighted the folk of many nations, and songs such as “The Hippopotamus” (you may know it as “Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud”) or “The Reluctant Cannibal” are still liable to break out whenever people of a certain age congregate near a piano.

The dapper duo first teamed up in 1948 and were brilliantly funny on stage. Live albums like At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat are classic examples of comedy stand-up that still leave contemporary improv performers agog and breathless. Both of them died far too early.

This brain-blistering book gathers 41 of their funniest, most sarcastic, touching and best songs, with both sheet music and separate lyrics. It’s also augmented by cartoons and illustrations from some of Britain’s greatest humorous illustrators such as H. M. Bateman, Hoffnung, Osbert Lancaster, David Low, Gerald Scarfe, Trog, Edward Burra, Ionicus, Hewison, ffolkes, Ronald Searle and many others.

If you’re a sucker for shopping lists the delicious ditties done here are In The Bath, Design For Living, Misalliance, The Gas-Man Cometh, A Song Of The Weather, Pillar To Post, Rain On The Plage, Motor Perpetuo, Slow Train, A Transport Of Delight (Omnibus), Last Of The Line, Twenty Tons Of TNT, The Reluctant Cannibal, Pee-Po-Belly-Bum-Drawers, Budget Song, Ballad For The Rich, All Gall, Philological Waltz (Tonga), Song Of Patriotic Prejudice, The Lord Chamberlain’s Regulations, The Album, Ill Wind, Guide To Britten, Song Of Reproduction, Bedstead Men, Excelsior, Vanessa, Twice Shy and the rather worrisome-by-modern-standards Madeira, M’dear?

Also included are a selection of their generally child-friendly airs such as The Armadillo, …Hippopotamus, …Ostrich, …Elephant, …Gnu, …Rhinoceros, …Sloth, …Spider, …Wild Boar, The Whale (Mopy Dick), The Warthog and The Wompom, acting in concert to make this grand book a delight to look at as well read. If you ever needed a reason to dust off the old piano lessons…
© 1977, 1996 International Music Publications Limited. Illustrations © 1977 their respective copyright holders.

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Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer, With Not Enough Drawings by Ronald Searle


By Tom Lehrer & Ronald Searle (Methuen)
ISBN: 978-0-41348-570-0 (HB) 978-0-41374-230-8 (PB)

And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement – an inspiring achievement,
Yes, we all will go together when we go.
We will all go together when we go.
All suffused with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance – to collect on his insurance
Lloyd’s of London will be loaded when they go.

Are you musical? I already know that you are a lover of graphic narrative excellence and fine art, so the wonderfully dark, sinister, disturbing and utterly brilliant cartoon illustrations of Ronald Searle will delight you.

But the name of mathematician, songwriter, satirist, Intellectual and early proponent of sick and bad taste humour Tom Lehrer is perhaps not so well known, although his achievements are as remarkable and far-reaching. If you already know of him you’ll know why I’m such a fanatical fan. If not, crack open your search engines. It’ll be the most fun you’ve had in ages.

This terrifically terse yet near-terpsichorean tome – often re-issued as a comedy classic (the last time was 1999) – contains the music, lyrics, words, tunes, piano accompaniments, and guitar chords for 34 classics from a frankly staggering oeuvre and back-catalogue comprising decades of educational and comedic songs. From such classics as “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”, the deeply disturbing yet hilarious “I Hold your Hand in Mine”, “The Old Dope Peddler” and “The Masochism Tango” to the lightly spiky “Be Prepared” or “I Got it from Agnes”, Lehrer makes smart people laugh, venal people squirm and all people think.

Also included are edgy examples from his tenure as songwriter for That Was The Week That Was and educational ditties penned for the Electric Company/Children’s Television Workshop (now the Sesame Workshop).

Some songs have been adapted by George Woodbridge in Mad Magazine,

In 2020, aged of 92, Professor Lehrer donated all lyrics and music written by him to the public domain, and on November 1st, followed up with all recording and performing rights of any kind, making all his originally composed or performed confections free for anyone to use. They are available directly from his site for free download (http://tomlehrersongs.com/).

His accompanying statement concluded with: “This website will be shut down at some date in the not-too-distant future, so if you want to download anything, don’t wait too long.”

Just as with Flanders & Swann there’s no substitute for actual performances, but in case you need more to go on, lurking here all snappy and sharp arias including The Irish Ballad, Fight Fiercely Harvard!, Be Prepared, The Old Dope Peddler, The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be, I Wanna Go Back to Dixie, Lobachevsky, The Hunting Song, I Hold Your Hand in Mine, My Home Town, L-Y, When You Are Old and Gray, The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, A Christmas Carol, Bright College Days, In Old Mexico, She’s My Girl, The Elements, The Masochism Tango, National Brotherhood Week, MLF Lullaby, The Folk Song Army, Smut, Send the Marines, New Math, Pollution, So Long Mom, Who’s Next?, The Vatican Rag, Wernher Von Braun, I Got It from Agnes, Silent E and We Will All Go Together When We Go.

Wedded to the razor-wrought drawings of Ronald Searle, this is an astoundingly entertaining book and what every liberal should make the piano teacher use on the kids: a melodic match for EC horror comics. Lehrer’s music and performances are readily available: go avail yourself of them online – or via your favoured news platform or source.

Moreover, I can’t resist ending with a famous quote. Just remember, please, this is not a malicious man, just a keenly observant Wit who claimed he’d stopped doing satire because “Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger made political satire obsolete”…
© 1981, 1999 Tom Lehrer. Illustrations © 1981 Ronald Searle.

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A Cartoon History of the Monarchy


By Michael Wynn Jones and Many & Various (Macmillan)
ASIN: B001H0OAOO (HB), ISBN: 978-0333198056 (PB)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Britain had no monopoly on talent and indignation, and this canny compendium also frequently features European – and latterly American – takes on our always-scandalous Royals and oddball citizenry…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whereas much of this material – British and foreign – was generally national commentary and straight religio-political assault, by the time period covered in The Wickedest Age: George III to George IV (1760-1830), the cartoon had also evolved into a weapon designed to wound with wit and crush through cruel caricature.

After covering major crises and scandals of the generally sensible – if parsimonious – third George in ‘The Royal Malady’, ‘The Dregs of Their Dull Race’ and ‘Twilight Years’, a veritable Golden Age of popular disapproval and pictorial pummelling of the Prince Regent and much-delayed, frustrated monarch (plus his many indiscreet mistresses) is covered in ‘The Prince of Whales’, ‘The Secret Marriage’, ‘…Pray Get Me a Glass of Brandy’ and ‘Delicate Investigations’.

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

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

William’s times are summed up in text via ‘The Sailor King’ and ‘Reform Billy’ whilst Victoria’s epochal reign and the Parliamentarians who increasingly wielded decisive power is described through ‘The Queen of the Whigs’, ‘Revolutions are bad for the Country’, ‘The Black and the Brown’ and ‘Years of Widowhood’.

The 36 collected images recapture days of Empire, with Heath, Seymour and Doyle predominant in illustrating bluff sea-dog William’s socially contentious days of Reform.

Victoria’s years – from engaging popular ingénue Queen, through happy bride to politically intrusive grand dame of European Court intrigue – highlights the craft of Doyle ‘The Queen in Danger’ (1837), Leech ‘There’s Always Something’ (1852), Tenniel ‘Queen Hermione’ (1865), ‘New Crowns for Old Ones!’ (1876), Morgan (Where is Britannia?’ and ‘A Brown Study’ (both 1867) and Sambourne ‘Kaiser-i-Hind’ (1876) amongst so many others.

Her latter years saw a rise in social conscience cartooning as displayed by the crusading Merry with ‘The Scapegrace of the Family’ (1880), ‘The fall of the rebels’ in 1886 and more. The telling modernist take of Max Beerbohm cuttingly illustrated the rift between the Empress and her playboy heir in ‘The rare, the rather awful visits of Albert Edward to Windsor Castle’…

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

With kings increasingly used as good-will ambassadors and cited in scandals frequently ending in court (sound familiar?), the 30 cartoons in this section include many German pieces from not only the war years but also the tense decade that preceded them. At that time of tinderbox politics, Imperial Superpowers jostled for position and used propaganda to appeal to the world’s “unwashed masses” for justification in their aims and ambitions.

Beside veteran caricaturists like Leech, Morgan, May, Partridge, Staniforth and David Low are merciless lampoons from German cartoonists Brandt, Blir, Heine, Gulbransson and Johnson as well as French illustrator Veber and lone American Kirby.

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

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

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

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

The imagery is also contextually far more familiar – and presumably comfortable – to modern tastes as print media generally learned to save their vitriol for politicians and celebrities: reserving only minor chidings and silly teasing for “the Royals”, as seen in ‘Birthday Greetings’ and ‘Under the Splendid Empire Tree’ (Shepard from 1947) or Illingworth’s 1951 panels ‘Family Ties’ and ‘Happy Returns’.

Papers were, however, happy to utilise the monarchy to score points against governments, as seen in an attack on Enoch Powell (Cummings’ ‘Ministry of Repatriation’) and the battle between Rhodesia’s Ian Smith and Harold Wilson, lampooned in ‘Your Move!’ by Jak (both 1968) or the legendary Giles’ ‘New Rent Assistance Bill’ (1971).

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

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

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

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

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

We haven’t had many monarchs since this book was first released, but there are plenty of new Royals and scandals to ponder, so it’s long past time for a fresh edition, no?
© Michael Wynn Jones 1978. All rights reserved.