Category: Science Fiction

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Robot Archie and the World of the Future


By E. George Cowan, Ernest “Ted” Kearon, Davis Harwood, with Garry Leach, Geoff Campion & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-83786-554-3 (HB/Digital edition), 978-1-83786-626-7 (Webshop HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless Fantasy Masterpiece for Young and Old Alike… 9/10

British comics have always enjoyed an extended love affair with what can only be described as “unconventional” (for which feel free to substitute “weird” or “creepy”) heroes. So many stars and notional role models of our serials and strips have been outrageous or just plain “off”: self-righteous voyeur/vigilantes like Jason Hyde, sinister masterminds in the manner of The Dwarf or Black Max, arrogant former criminals like The Spider or outright racist overmen such as fearsome white ideologue Captain Hurricane…

Joking aside, British comics are unlike any other kind: having to be seen to be believed and always enjoying – especially when “homaging” such uniquely American fare as costumed crimefighters – a touch of insouciant rebelliousness…

Until the 1980s, UK periodicals employed an anthological model, offering variety of genre, theme and character on a weekly (sometimes fortnightly) basis. Humour comics like The Beano were leavened by action-heroes like The Q-Bikes or General Jumbo whilst adventure papers like Smash, The Eagle, Hotspur or Valiant offered palate-cleansers The Cloak, Grimly Feendish, Mowser and sundry other titter-treats.

Prior to the advent of game changers Action, Misty and 2000AD, British comics seemingly fell into fairly ironclad categories. Back then, you had genial and/or fantastic preschool fantasy; licensed entertainment properties; action; adventure; war; school dramas; sports and straight comedy strands. Closer examination would confirm there was always a subversive merging, mixing undertone, especially in such antihero series as Dennis the Menace or our rather strained interpretation of superheroes. Just check out The Phantom Viking, Kelly’s Eye or early Steel Claw stories…

After post-war austerity, the 1950s ushered in revolution. With printing and paper restrictions gone, a steady stream of titles emerged from companies new and old, aimed at the many different levels of childish attainment from pre-school to young adult. When Hulton Press launched Eagle in April 1950, the very concept of what weeklies could be changed forever. That oversized prestige package with photogravure colour was exorbitantly expensive, however, and when venerable London-based publishing powerhouse Amalgamated Press retaliated, it was a far more economical affair. I’m assuming AP only waited so long before the first issue of Lion launched (cover-dated February 23rd 1952) to see if their flashy rival was going to last.

Just like Eagle, Lion mixed prose stories, features and comic strips. It even offered its own cover-featured space-farer in Captain Condor – Space Ship Pilot. Initially edited by Reg Eves, the title ran 1156 weekly issues until 18th May 1974 when it merged with sister-title Valiant. Along the way, in the tradition of Darwinian British publishing – which subsumed weaker-selling titles to keep popular strips going – in 1959 Lion absorbed Sun then Champion (1966) before swallowing Eagle in April 1969, before merging with Thunder in 1971. One of the country’s most popular and enduring adventure comics, the last vestiges of Lion only vanished in 1976 after Valiant’s amalgamation with Battle Picture Weekly.

Despite that demise, there were 30 Lion Annuals between 1953 & 1982, all benefitting from the UK’s lucrative Christmas market, combining a variety of original strips with topical and historical prose adventures; sports, science/general interest features; short humour strips and – increasingly from the 1970s – reformatted reprints from IPC/Fleetway’s back catalogue.

The Jungle Robot debuted in Lion’s first issue, created by incredibly prolific E. George Cowan (Ginger Nutt, The Spider, Saber, King of the Jungle, Smokeman/UFO Agent, Nick Jolly the Flying Highwayman, Paddy Payne, Girls’ Crystal Libraries) and drawn by Alan Philpott (The Deathless Men/V for Vengeance, Look-In, Klanky). It enthralled readers for a couple of months before abruptly vanishing with the August 9th issue.

Other than an appearance in the 1955 Lion Annual, that was it until January 19th 1957 when the mechanical marvel was revived and revised by Cowan & A. Forbes prior to veteran artist Ernest “Ted” Kearon (Spot the Clue with Zip Nolan, The Day the World Drowned, Steel Commando and DC Thomson’s Morgyn the Mighty). He signed on in 1958 and soldiered on for most of the next 17-ish years. This time the mighty mouthed mechanoid became one of the most popular and well-remembered heroes of the British scene, successfully syndicated all across Europe and around the world. Hopefully this second compilation of later material will be soon supplemented by earlier annals …

Reprinting stories from 18th January 1969 to 18th October 1969, plus yarns from Lion Annual 1971 and Lion Holiday Special 1980 these latterday adventures of explorer/ troubleshooters Ted Ritchie, Ken Dale and arrogant, smug, self-absorbed yet paternally benevolent super-robot Robot Archie resume and take an even more outrageous turn here.

The former Jungle Robot was for a very long time the greatest achievement of Ted’s inventor uncle Professor C. R. Ritchie. Partnered with him/it the lads battled monsters & aliens, foiled crooks and faced disasters. Then the Prof left them The Castle. This inhabitable two-storey faux chess piece could take them anywhere in history and even into the future… and inevitably the boastful ‘bot commandeers it and discovers the wonders and perils of all spacetime…

After joining a peasant’s revolt in the 14th century, and ending an alien invasion in the 21st, they fetched up fully lost and out of control in 18th century England to face Highwaymen and corrupt judges, pirates and more. Now at the mercy of raging chronal currents, the wanderers arrive thousands of years into Earth’s menacing tomorrows to find a paradise run by genetically pacifistic humans who look like wise children. This promised land is serviced by billions of mechanical servants but ‘Robot Archie in the World of the Future’ (by Cowan & Kearon for Lion 18th January to 26th April 1969) coincides with another extraterrestrial landgrab.

With barbarous conquerors the Krull resolved to possess and use up the world, it falls to Ted, Ken and especially super-general Archie to protect what humanity has become, retrain billions of robots into an army and repel the invaders. Of course, with no organised military or armaments, their arsenal of liberty must come from museums… as do the hands-on tactics the metal commander-in-chief inflicts on the aliens. These sorties have never been seen before and the Krull have no idea how to counter then…

After a ferocious struggle Earth is safe and free again, albeit forever changed, and the time trio take off on the hope of finding their home era again. The next landing initially seems to satisfy them – a lush island with recognisable architecture and normal looking people. Sadly, a series of unexplained events soon show otherwise…

Running from May 3rd to August 2nd, ‘Robot Archie and the Island of 1,000 Secrets’ pits the lads against ghostly phenomena, animated machinery, possessed animals and “hostile natives”, before a succession of hairsbreadth escapes expose the whole locale as a testing ground for some scurrilous aliens formerly beaten but now ready for a second round of malice and mayhem. Bombastic, bellicose Archie is more than happy to supply it…

After a protracted struggle that slips from mystery to sci fi fantasy, the intruders are defeated and humans liberated, with the restless nomads taking off again and landing in a pit of genuine horror…

Concluding around that year’s Remembrance Sunday commemorations ‘Robot Archie in No-Man’s Land’ ran from 9th August – 18th November 1969 and dropped the pals in the middle of a mud-drenched clash for a few feet of trench. In the clash Archie was damaged and went berserk whilst ununiformed Ted and Ken are instantly assessed as spies and arrested. In an age of technological breakthroughs the Germans, after being pounded and petrified by “the Steel Man”, concentrate all their efforts on capturing it, leading to massive and cathartic comics Hun-bashing (with Archie excelling on land at sea and in the air) before finally rescuing his human companions, un-impounding the Time Castle and taking off for fresh pastures and fewer explosions…

To Be Continued…

With epic covers by Geoff Campion & Garry Leach, the ‘Extras’ section of this mighty monument to weird fun begins with a brace of short complete tales from Lion Annual 1971 Special 1969 and Lion Holiday Special 1980 respectively. ‘Robot Archie – The Steel Giant’ by Kearon and an uncredited author finds the time-tossed trio in ancient Rome just as a usurper awaits three gladiator/assassins he’s hired sight unseen to kill Caesar. He can’t miss them, one of them is a veritable colossus who always wears full armour…

The general is cautious however and sets them tasks to prove their merit, but while they are acing those, the real hitmen arrive. Whoops!

Only a decade later, and three years into Fleetways’ revolution of UK comics, Archie was long gone and a figure of fond nostalgia. Thus he was cheekily revived for a team/up clash with a fellow veteran. Delivered by an unknown writer and Dave Harwood, ‘Robot Archie vs the Spider’ gave everybody what they wanted as the icons tried to beat the stuffings out of each other in a two-part saga that delivered on action but promised a continuation that never came…

The memory storm concludes with a too-short Covers Gallery and biographies.

Now part of Rebellion Publishing’s line of British Comics Classics, Robot Archie is a landmark of UK fantasy long overdue for revival. I hope not much time passes before we see all the old stories back again…
© 1969, 1970. 1980 & 2025 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1887, British cartoonist George William Wakefield was born. You’ve never heard of him but he delighted your great grandparents with his Laurel and Hardy comics. In 1947, Doug Murray was born, whom we probably know best for writing The ‘Nam.

Today in 1977 saw the last published episode of Li’l Abner and in 1997, master Archie artist Samm Schwartz prat-falled (pratfell?) his way offstage for the last time.

In 2003, Flash co-creator and Golden Age stalwart Harry Lampert died. You don’t have to follow Now Read This, but you really, REALLY should read the comics we’re plugging here.

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DC Finest: Super Friends – The Fury of the Super Foes


By E. Nelson Bridwell, Denny O’Neil, Ramona Fradon, Kurt Schaffenberger, Ric Estrada, Alex Toth, Joe Orlando, Bob Smith, Vince Colletta with Dick Giordano, Curt Swan & Geoge Klein & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-316-3 (TPB)

This book contains Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Evergreen Superhero Sagas For All… 9/10

Once upon a time comics were primarily created with kids in mind. Whilst I’d never advocate exclusively going back to those days, the modern industry has for the longest time sinned by not fully addressing the needs and tastes of younger fans these days. By that I mean less tie-ns and more accessible standard stoires like Marvel Adventures material or this stuff here.

Happily, DC has latterly been rectifying the situation with new and – most importantly for old geeks like me – remastered, repackaged age-appropriate gems from their vast back catalogue.

A superb case in point of all-ages comics done right is this tome celebrating the joys of childhood when comics and TV shows were interchangeable in kids’ head. It was all one great big dangerous fun world to save or conquer…

DC Finest: Super Friends:- The Fury of the Super Foes gathers comic book tales spun off from a hugely popular Saturday Morning TV Cartoon show: one that, thanks to the canny craftsmanship and loving invention of lead scripter E. Nelson Bridwell, became an integral and unmissable component of the greater pre Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe.

It was also one of the most universally thrilling and satisfying superhero titles of the period: featuring the smart, witty, straightforward adventures people my age grew up with, produced during a period when the entire industry was increasingly losing itself in colossal continued storylines and bombastic, convoluted, soap opera melodrama.It’s something all creators should have tattooed on their foreheads: sometimes all you really want is a smart plot well illustrated, sinister villains well-smacked, a solid resolution and early bed…

TV show Super Friends ran (under various iterations) from 1973 to 1986; starring primarily Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and a brace of studio-originated kids as student crimebusters. The cast was supplemented by guest stars from the DCU on a case by case basis. The animated series made the transition to print as part of the publisher’s 1976 foray into “boutiqued” comics which saw titles with a television connection cross-marketed as DC TV Comics.

Child-friendly Golden Age comic book revival Shazam!- the Original Captain Marvel had been adapted into a successful live action series and its Saturday Morning silver screen stablemate The Secrets of Isis consequently reversed the process to become a comic book. With the additions of hit comedy show Welcome Back Kotter and animated blockbuster Super Friends four-colour format, DC had a neat outreach imprimatur tailor-made to draw viewers into the magic word of funnybooks.

At least that was the plan: with the exception of Super Friends none of the titles lasted more than ten issues beyond their launch…

This massive mega-extravaganza collects Super Friends #1-26 (spanning November 1976 to November 1979), includes promo comic Aquateers Meet the Super Friends and reprints material from Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41 and C-46.

The fun begins a crafty 2-part caper by the wondrous E. Nelson Bridwell and illustrators Ric Estrada, Vince Colletta & Joe Orlando. ‘The Fury of the Super Foes’ finds heroes-in-training Wendy & Marvin – and their incredibly astute mutt Wonderdog – studying at the palatial Hall of Justice, even as elsewhere, a confederation of villains prove imitation is the sincerest form of flattery… if not outright intellectual theft. Having auditioned a host of young criminals, The Penguin, Cheetah, Flying Fish, Poison Ivy and Toyman are creating a squad of sidekicks and protégés to follow in their felonious footsteps. Now Chick, Kitten, Sardine, Honeysuckle and Toyboy are all ready and willing to carry out their first caper…

When the giant “Troubalert” screen informs our heroes of a 3-pronged attack on S.T.A.R. Labs’ latest inventions, the team split up to tackle the crises, but are thoroughly trounced until Wendy & Marvin break curfew to help them. As a result of the clash, Chick and Kitten are brought back to the Hall of Justice, but their talk of repentance is a rascally ruse and they secretly sabotage vital equipment. Thankfully, Wonderdog has seen everything and quickly finds a way to inform the still-oblivious good guys in issue #2, but too late to prevent the Super Friends being briefly ‘Trapped by the Super Foes’…

Aided and abetted by inker Bob Smith, the incomparable Ramona Fradon (Aquaman; Metamorpho the Element Man; Brenda Starr, Reporter) became penciller with #3, as ‘The Cosmic Hit Man?’ sees 50 intergalactic super-villains murdered by infernal Dr. Ihdrom, who then blends their harvested essences to create an apparently unbeatable hyper-horror to utterly overwhelm Earth’s heroic defenders. However, he falls victim to his own arrogance and Wendy & Marvin’s logical deductions…

‘Riddles and Rockets!’ sees the Super Friends overmatched by new ne’er-do-well Skyrocket whilst simultaneously seeking to cope with a rash of crimes contrived by King of Conundra The Riddler. Soon a pattern emerges and a criminal connection is confirmed…

Author Bridwell (Secret Six; Inferior Five; Batman; Superman; The Flash; Legion of Super-Heroes; Captain Marvel/Shazam!) was justly famed as DC’s Keeper of Lore and top Continuity Cop thanks to his astoundingly encyclopaedic knowledge of its publishing minutiae and ability to instantly recall every damn thing! ‘Telethon Treachery!’ gave him plenty of scope to display it with a horde of near-forgotten guest-stars joining the heroes as they host a televised charity event. Sadly, money-mad menace Greenback lurks in the wings, awaiting his moment to grab the loot and kidnap the wealthiest donors. Then The Atom (Ray Palmer) plays a crucial role in stopping the depredations of an animal trainer using beasts as bandits in ‘The Menace of the Menagerie Man!’ before a huge cast change is unveiled in #7 (October 1977) with ‘The Warning of the Wondertwins’…

You all know TV is very different from comics. When the next season of Super Friends aired, Wendy, Marvin & Wonderdog were abruptly gone, replaced without explanation by alien kids Zan & Jayna and their elastic-tailed space monkey Gleek. With room to extrapolate and in consideration of fans, Bridwell explained the sudden change via a battle to save Earth from annihilation whilst introducing the newest student heroes in memorable style. At the Hall of Justice Wendy & Marvin spot a spaceship hurtling to Earth on the Troubalert monitor and dash off to intercept it. Aboard are two siblings from distant planet Exor: a girl able to transform into animals and a boy who can become any form of water, from steam to ice. They have come carrying an urgent warning…

Superman’s alien enemy Grax has resolved to eradicate humanity and devised a dozen different superbombs and attendant weird-science traps to ensure his victory. These are scattered all over Earth and even the entire Justice League cannot stretch its resources to cover every angle and threat. To Wendy & Marvin the answer is obvious: call upon the help and knowledge of hyper-powered local heroes…

Soon Superman and Israel’s champion The Seraph are dismantling a black hole bomb whilst Elongated Man and titan-tressed Godiva perform similar service on a life-eradicator in England. Flash (Barry Allen) and mighty-leaping Impala dismantle uncatchable ordnance in South Africa before Hawkman & Hawkwoman join Native American avenger Owlwoman to crush darkness-breeding monsters in Oklahoma, whilst from the Hall of Justice Wendy, Marvin and the Wonder Twins monitor the crisis with a modicum of mounting hope…

The cataclysmic epic continues in #8 with ‘The Mind Killers!’ as Atom and Rising Son tackle a device designed to decimate Japan, and in Ireland Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Jack O’Lantern battle multi-hued monstrosities before switching off their technological terror.

In New Zealand, time-scanning Tuatara tips off Red Tornado to the position of a bomb cached in the distant past whilst Venezuela’s doom is diverted through a team-up of Batman, Robin and reptile-themed champion Bushmaster. And in Taiwan a melding of sonic superpowers possessed by Black Canary and the astounding Thunderlord harmoniously saves the day…

The saga soars to a classic climax with ‘Three Ways to Kill a World!’ in which the final phases of Grax’s scheme fail thanks to Green Arrow & Tasmanian Devil in Australia, with Aquaman & Little Mermaid sorting out the embattled seas off Denmark and Wonder Woman & The Olympian preserving modern Greece.

Or at least, they would have if the Hellenic heroes had found the right foe. Sadly, their triumph against Wrong-Place, Right-Time terrorist Colonel Conquest almost upsets everything. Thankfully, the quick thinking hero-students send an army of defenders to Antarctica where Norwegian novice Icemaiden dismantles the ultimate booby-trap bomb.  However, whilst the adult champions are engaged, Grax invades the Hall of Justice seeking revenge on the pesky whistleblowing Exorian kids. He’s completely unprepared for and overwhelmed by Wendy, Marvin & Wonderdog, who categorically prove they’re ready to graduate to the big leagues…

Thus with Zan & Jayna enrolled as latest heroes-in-training, Super Friends #10 details their adoption by Batman’s old associate – and eccentric time travel theoretician – Professor Carter Nichols, just before a legion of alien horrors arrive on Earth to teach the kids that appearances can be lethally deceiving in ‘The Monster Menace!’ In #11, ‘Kingslayer’ pits the heroes against criminal mastermind Overlord who has contracted the world’s greatest hitman to murder more than one hundred leaders at one sitting…

Another deep dive into DC’s past resurrected Golden Age titans T.N.T and Dan, the Dyna-Mite in ‘The Atomic Twosome!’ These 1940s mystery men had been under government wraps ever since their radioactive powers began to melt down, but when an underground catastrophe ruptures their individual lead-lined vaults, the Super Friends are called in to prevent potential nuclear nightmare. Then the subterranean reason for the near tragedy is tracked to a monstrous mole creature, and leads to the introduction of eternal mystic Doctor Mist, who reveals the secret history of civilisation and begs help to halt ‘The Mindless Immortal!’ before its random burrowing shatters mankind’s cities. From here, Bridwell would build a fascinating new team concept that would support decades of future continuity…

Super Friends #14 opens with ‘Elementary!’; introducing four ordinary mortals forever changed when possessed by ancient sprits. Tasked by Overlord with plundering the world, Undine, Salamander, Sylph & Gnome are defeated by our heroes yet retain their powers and so become crimefighting team The Elementals. Also on view is a short back-up illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger & Bob Smith. ‘The Origin of the Wondertwins’ at last reveals they are Exorian genetic throwbacks (despised outcasts on their homeworld) who fled from a circus of freaks and uncovered Grax’s plot before taking that fateful voyage to Earth.

Big surprises come in ‘The Overlord Goes Under!’ (Fradon & Smith) as the Elementals begin battling evil by joining the Super Friends in crushing the crook. All those superheroes are blithely unaware that they are merely clearing the way for a far more cunning and subtle mastermind to take Overlord’s place…

‘The People Who Stole the Sky!’ in SF #16 is a grand, old-fashioned alien invasion yarn, foiled by the team and the increasingly adept Wonder Twins whilst ‘Trapped in Two Times!’ has Zan & Jayna used by the insidious Time Trapper to lure their adult mentors into deadly peril on Krypton in the days before it detonated, and future water world Neryla in the hours before it’s swallowed by its critically expanding red sun. After rescuing the kids – thanks largely to Superman’s legendary lost love Lyla Ler-Rol – the Super Friends employ Tuatara’s temporal insight and Professor Nichol’s obscure chronal methodologies to hunt the Trapper in a riotous yet educational ‘Manhunt in Time!’ (art by Schaffenberger & Smith), by way of Atlantis before it sank, medieval Spain and Michigan in 1860CE: all to thwart a triple-strength scheme to derail history and end Earth civilisation…

SF #19 sees an encore for Menagerie Man in ‘The Mystery of the Missing Monkey!’ (Fradon & Smith) as the animal exploiter appropriates Gleek: intent on turning his elastic-tailed talents into a perfect pickpocketing tool, before Denny O’Neil (as Sergius O’Shaugnessy) teams with Schaffenberger & Smith for a more jocular turn. Here, chaos and comedy ensue when the team tackles vegetable monsters unleashed after self-obsessed shlock-movie director Frownin’ Fritz Frazzle uses Merlin’s actually magical Magic Lantern to make a “masterpiece” on the cheap in ‘Revenge of the Leafy Monsters!’…

Bridwell & Fradon bounce back in #21 where ‘Battle Against the Super Fiends!’ has the heroes travelling to Exor to combat super-criminals who can duplicate their power-sets, after which ‘It’s Never Too Late!’ (#22, O’Shaugnessy, Fradon & Smith) reveals how time bandit Chronos subjects the Super Friends to a chronal-delay treatment rendering them perennially too late to stop him… but only until Batman and the Wonder Twins out-think him.

The Mirror Master divides and banishes teachers from students in #23 but is ultimately unable to prevent an ‘SOS from Nowhere!’ (Bridwell, Fradon & Smith) to the Flash. This episode also spends time fleshing out the Wonder Twins’ earthly alter egos as Gotham Central highschoolers John & Joanna Fleming…

With O’Shaugnessy scripting, ‘Past, Present and Danger!’ sees Zan & Jayna’s faces found engraved on a recently-unearthed Egyptian pyramid. Upon investigation inside the edifice, the heroes awaken two ancient exiles who resemble the kids, but who are in truth criminals who fled Exorian justice thousands of years previously. How lucky, then, that the kids are perfect doubles that the villains can send back with the robot cops surrounding the pyramid – once they’ve got rid of all those busybody Earthling heroes…

Enjoying promotion through treachery, habitually harassed Underling has seized power at last in Bridwell’s ‘Puppets of the Overlord’, and then employs forbidden technology to mind-control adult and junior heroes. Happily, international champions Green Fury (later Fire), Wonder Woman’s sister Nubia, Tasmanian Devil and Seraph can join Green Lantern and Queen Mera of Atlantis in delivering a liberating solution, after which this splendid selection of super thrills pauses with SF #26 as Bridwell, Fradon & Smith bring back some old friends and enemies for ‘The Wondertwins’ Battle of Wits!’ when a scheming former Bat-foe enacts an infallibly murderous plot…

Rounding out the frenetic fun is a features section that includes the Alex Toth cover from Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-41  and new material from sequel C-46. These include a comic strip collaboration with Bridwell on introductory tale ‘Super Friends’ which was a star-studded framing sequence for a big reprint issue of Justice League classics. The wonders are further augmented by Toth’s comprehensive pictorial essay on creating ‘TV Cartoons’ (with contributions from Bob Foster), plus his ‘The JLA on TV’ model sheets, and designs of ‘The Hall of Justice’ by Terry Austin. As you of course know, comics legend Toth was lead designer on the characters’ transition to TV animation…

The extras include mini-comic Aquateers Meet the Super Friends – a 1979 promotional giveaway included with every purchase of Super Friends Swim Goggles. An uncredited framing sequence (which looks like a Continuity Associates project that Dick Giordano & Frank McLoughlin had a hand in) segues into ‘The Greatest Show on Water’ – an Aquaman short by Fradon originally published in Adventure Comics #219, (December 1955).

The bumper fun wraps with Alex Ross’ painted cover from 2001 book collection Super Friends!

With covers by Fradon, Smith, Schaffenberger, Colletta, Ernie Chan and more, this hopefully initial compendium is superbly entertaining, masterfully crafted and utterly engaging. It offers stories of pure comics gold to delight children and adults in equal proportion. Truly generational in appeal, they are probably the closest thing to an American answer to the magic of Tintin or Asterix and no family home should be without this tome.

Sadly, this masterful mystery megamix is not yet available digitally, but we live in hope. In the meantime, if you prefer your cartoon crimebustng computer collated you could access 2020’s Super-Friends: Saturday Morning Comics volume 1.
© 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 2001, 2025 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1697, Willam Hogarth was born. Notionally adding to the comics lustre and significance, in 1918, Howard Purcell was also added to the planet’s roster, as was Neil Gaiman in 1960. In the exit column for today, in 1993 we lost astounding illustrator Alberto Breccia, and in 2006 immortal sci fi writer Jack Williamson. All those other guys you can find in old posts here, but I particularly recommend Beyond Mars – The Complete Series 1952-1955.

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Fantastic Four Epic Collection volume 12: The Possession of Franklin Richards


By Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, John Byrne, Ed Hannigan, George Pérez, Peter B. Gillis, Roger Stern, Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz, Steve Ditko, Tom Sutton, Keith Pollard, Al Milgrom, Joe Sinnott, Pablo Marcos, Bruce Patterson, Chic Stone, Jon D’Agostino, Mike Esposito, Jerome Moore, Frank Giacoia & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-6056-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fantastic Fun for Comics Addicts… 8/10

It’s a been a big year for the fabulous FF. Here’s another titanic tome to add to your seasonal swag list…

For Marvel everything started with The Fantastic Four.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with eccentric monster ‘n’ alien filled adventures of a compact superteam as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. All that Modern Marvel is, company and brand, stems from that quirky quartet and the inspired, inspirational, groundbreaking efforts of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan, Jack, George Klein and/or Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by its ailing publisher’s steadily plunging standards. However, it seethed with rough, passionate, uncontrolled excitement and thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling. The series caught a wave of change beginning to build in America, and every succeeding issue changed comics a little bit more… and forever. Revealed in that premier, maverick scientist Reed Richards, fiancée Sue Storm, close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teenaged brother survived an ill-starred private spaceshot after cosmic rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, diffident Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Thus was born The Fantastic Four – you can add your own fanfare and timpani here if you wish…

Throughout the 1960s it was the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters. Jack Kirby was approaching his creative peak: unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, and intense, incredible new characters whilst Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their powers and full of the confidence only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed… which is rather ironic since it was the company’s reticence to give the artist more creative freedom that led to Kirby’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mindbending High Concepts lost out to traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap opera leanings and supervillain-heavy Fights ‘n’ Tights forays abounding. With Lee & Kirby long gone but their mark very much still stamped onto every page of the still-prestigious title, this full-colour compendium represents Fantastic Four #215-231 and Annuals #14-16, spanning Fall 1979 to June 1981.

What You Should Know: After being rejuvenated and repowered in an extended space-spanning saga, the Family FF are getting used to being back on Earth even with supervillains all over the place. Now Read On…

The revived, excessively rejuvenated team are in full fine fettle for Fantastic Four Annual #14 wherin Marv Wolfman, George Pérez & Pablo Marcos put firstborn Franklin Richards and his sorcerous nanny Agatha Harkness in the spotlight for ‘Cats-Paw!’ When magical cult Salem’s Seven abduct and brainwash the adult FF in hopes of resurrecting their macabre master Nicholas Scratch, even the Avengers are helpless to stop the carnage unleashed. Thankfully, the extra-dimensional voyage of the kid and the crone is enough to set everything right…

The arcane account is augmented by ‘A Gallery of the Fantastic Four’s Most Famous Foes!’ by Keith Pollard & Marcos, giving the lowdown on late-debuting villains and ne’er-do-wells including Invincible Man, Attuma, Gideon, Dragon Man, The Frightful Four and Quasimodo. Monthly FF #215 then finds Wolfman, John Byrne & Joe Sinnott reintroducing Negative Zone terror tyrant ‘Blastaar!’ who somehow escapes the antimatter universe to take over the Baxter Building just as a reinvigorated Reed Richards is distracted by former colleague Professor Randolph James who has hyper-evolved himself to offset an otherwise fatal beating by street thugs. Sadly, his accelerator device has not advanced James’ ethical outlook, and after taking vengeance on his attackers, the future man proves that ‘Where There Be Gods!’ there be trouble too, as the mental marvel aligns with Blastaar only to fall before a far greater power… angry cosmic child Franklin…

Bill Mantlo scripts #217 for Byrne & Sinnott, as ‘Masquerade!’ at last exposes the viper in the team’s midst: an inimical force responsible for most of the recent setbacks and accidents, and almost the deaths of the heroes and Johnny’s new intended girlfriend Dazzler…

No spoilers here this time, but back then we all just knew who the hidden villain actually was… that acursed robot!

Infernal gadget H.E.R.B.I.E. was imposed on the series due to concerns by producers of the current Fantasic Four cartoon show. Rejecting fire hazard Johnny for a cutely telegenic robot, Wolfman cheekily made that commercial compromise in-world canon, dividing fans forever after. The bleeping bot – a Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics (latterly, Highly Engineered Robot Built for Interdimensional Exploration; don’cha just love nominative deterministic acronymics?) – is pure Marmite in most readers eyes…

Next is the last half of an old-school saga that, for completeness, means you need to read Peter Parker, the Sensational Spider-Man #42 before enjoying the contents of FF #218. What’s not here is how ESU student Peter Parker goes on a class jaunt and is lured into a trap by the Frightful Four (in ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ by Mantlo, Mike Zeck & Jim Mooney if you were wondering). The villains broadsided the wallcrawler after new recruit Electro impersonated the Human Torch there…

Now for ‘When a Spider-Man Comes Calling!’ (cover-dated May 1980 by Mantlo, Byrne & Sinnott), Trapster repeats the tactic to ambush the comfortably at home quartet, allowing his comrades The Wizard and Sandman to take over the heroes’ Baxter Building citadel… at least until a fighting-mad webspinner breaks free for an unstoppable counterattack…

Penciller John Byrne, having served out his first term on the series he was to soon make his alone, was officially only temporarily replaced for FF #219. Ably augmented by Sinnott, stalwart “Guest-Team” Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz were parachuted in for monster mash-up ‘Leviathans’ due to the huge success and acclaim generated by their vigilante thriller Moon Knight. They brought with them a whole new look and sensibility, as well as far faster pace to the stories. Here, modern day pirate Cap’n Barracuda steals the fabled Horn of Proteus from Atlantis to unleash a wave of giant monsters on New York City. Thankfully, this is a subject the mighty Sub-Mariner and Mr. Fantastic can agree on, and their combined forces soon stomp the beasties to stop a piratical plunder ploy without peer…

Byrne bounced back writing & pencilling in #220 as ‘…And the Lights Went Out All Over the World!’ sees the Avengers call Reed and Co. when all Earth suffers a catastrophic power-outage. Science! sends the explorers to the arctic to encounter an astounding and unbelievable obelisk being constructed by beings of utterly alien appearance…

The story includes an updated origin for the quartet and guest shot for Canada’s finest (that’s Vindicator of Alpha Flight in case you were wondering) as the tale halts for a pinup by inker Sinnott (the Torch battling a flaming Skrull) prior to #221’s concluding chapter ‘Tower of Glass… Dreams of Glass!’ Following the usual misconceptions and rash clashes it is revealed that three aliens shipwrecked for half a million years just need their myriad mobile mechanisms to reverse the planet’s magnetic poles so they can return home at last. Happily, Reed has a less end-of-human-civilisation-y solution leaving everyone involved happy and safe; and back where they belong…

Now officially the regular creative team, Moench & Sienkiewicz prep for Halloween in FF #222’s ‘The Possession of Franklin Richards!’ as the cosmic ray kid is again targeted from beyond the unknown by exiled soul Nicholas Scratch. The son of Agatha Harkness is the kind of warlock who gives witchcraft a bad name. and, having made the boy his conduit back to reality, Scratch goes on to terrorise and torture his hated enemies. With Doctor Strange unavailable, they enlist the dubious gifts of self-doubting failed horror hero Gabriel the Devil Hunter and his morally ambiguous familiar Desadia (from Marvel’s monochrome magazine line titles Haunt of Horror and Monsters Unleashed)…

Apparently acquiescing, the team agree to liberate the dead diabolist’s minions of magical mayhem and Salem’s Seven toil ‘That a Child May Live…’ Of course, their instant assaults on humanity are an acceptable risk and consequence in Reed’s plan: setting the worlds to rights for all but the defeated devil…

Fantastic Four Annual #15 swiftly follows, wherein Moench & Pérez, abetted by Chic Stone, Jon D’Agostino & Mike Esposito, renew hostilities between the FF and Skrull empire as the shapeshifters target the supergenius’ latest energy-casting breakthrough in ‘Time for the Prime Ten!’ Infiltrating the Baxter Building, negating his valiant teammates and almost banishing Mr. Fantastic to the tender mercies of Annihilus in the Negative Zone, the sneaky killers are actually seeking to end their millennial war against stellar rivals The Kree, but have underestimated Reed’s brilliance, his family’s tenacity and the cosmic awareness of Earth-loving Kree Exile Captain Mar-Vell…

A back-up tale by Moench & Tom Sutton takes us to recently liberated Latveria for the opening of proposed series ‘The Return of Doctor Doom!’ Only episode ‘The Power of the People!’ shows how restored monarch King Zorba fails to live up to his democratic promises and discover how excessive taxation really upsets voters, at around the same moment crazed, catatonic Victor von Doom goes missing from the most secure dungeon in Doomstadt…

Sadly, the impending crisis never materialised and was only addressed by Byrne in Fantastic Four #247…

Over in FF #224 & 225, fresh calamity unfolds in ‘The Darkfield Illumination’ (Moench, Sienkiewicz & Pablo Marcos) as radioactive red mist blankets Manhattan and plays hob with the team’s powers. Tracing the cloud’s origin point to an icy dome in the Arctic, the FF find a lost colony of technologically advanced Vikings utterly dependent upon a mutated immortal giant. ‘The Blind God’s Tears’ supply heat, light, food materials from the outside world and immortality, but now Korgon is dying and demands the explorers save him and the people who worship him. Always eager to help, the FF strive and succeed in saving the God, only to see him betrayed by his most trusted ally. As Korgon rages madly in response, the crisis escalates as Mighty Thor arrives to investigate worshippers who have abandoned their true god for a false one…

Bruce Patterson joins Marcos inking Sienkiewicz when Moench next brings closure to fans of his Shogun Warriors series. In their own title the former pilots of monster-fighting mega-mecha Dangard Ace, Raydeen and Combatra had been recruited by an ancient order to defend humanity, but retired when their machines were destroyed. That epic sacrifice had come when evil enemy Maur-Kon targeted the Fantastic Four and attempted to kill Reed. Now a new giant mecha rampages and robs, so the teams reunite with Ilongo Savage, Richard Carson and Genji Odashu aiding the fight against ‘The Samurai Destroyer’ and the unworthy soul exploiting its power for profit….

Movie-toned terror in the heartland follows as a meteor crashes in rural Pennsylvania resort Lost Lake just as the FF head out to the Boonies for a break. Their encounter with ‘The Brain Parasites’ reverting hosts to earlier evolutionary forms is by-the-books horror fun from Moench, Sienkiewicz & Patterson, and readily fixed by little Franklin’s increasingly unreliable powers. This sets the scene for the next – Sinnott inked – issue where further tests by professional head shrinkers and brain benders unleash uncontrollable chaos, possessed bystanders and an adult super-powered version of the lad. Thankfully, loving parents and uncles allow Franklin to exorcise his deadly ‘Ego-Spawn’.

The experiment in alternative tale-telling ends with a 3-part saga opening on #229’s ‘The Thing From the Black Hole’. When it homes in on Reed’s latest invention, Earth totters on the edge of destruction as a sentient singularity made of antimatter disrupts physical laws. Desperate Richards makes contact with its cosmic equivalent and uncovers a tale of love lost in service to scientific exploration. The wandering extinction event was once a living being whose love for a fellow astronaut turned them both into creatures of uncanny forces. Thankfully, ‘Firefrost and the Ebon Seeker’ now reach an understanding that saves Earth, but as a consequence a section of Manhattan – including the Baxter Building – is left inside the Negative Zone.

With panic amongst the abducted New Yorkers barely suppressed, the FF seek a solution ‘In All the Gathered Gloom!’ (Moench & Roger Stern, Sienkienwisz, Jerome Moore, Sinnott, & Frank Giacoia) even as new antimatter menace Stygorr zeroes in on the intruding enclave. The last thing the FF need is bullying big business plutocrat Lew Shiner telling everyone his money puts him in charge. After his posturing triggers a riot, tragedy is guaranteed, and the heroes barely beat the alien invader in time to return everyone surviving back home…

This foray into the fantastic finishes on a “soft pilot episode” as Fantastic Four Annual #16 embraces the contemporary fantasy market with ‘The Coming of… Dragon Lord!’ by Ed Hannigan & Steve Ditko. When trainee Ral Dorn is framed for killing a sacred beast and hunted by former fellows in the puissant extradimensional Dragon Rider organisation, the chase ends up with him wounded. His flight, employing a multi-powered Dragon Staff, leads to a collision with an off-duty quirky quartet, celebrating a reunion on the college campus where they first encountered astouding android Dragon Man,. but the coincidence escapes everybody and the heroes leave the mystery man to the medics.

Days later the fugitive breaks into their skyscraper home and with the Staff holding the FF at bay explains his predicament. A novice lawkeeper, his dream of bonding with a dragon has been shattered by the death of his destined beast-partner, and accusations that he’s responsible. The wild story is inadvertantly backed up by a posse of Dragon Riders seeking to stop him and the intervention of Ral’s bizarre former ally Lalique. When they are driven away, it is clear to the human heroes that something is not kosher and they determine to help him. It’s obvious to Ral that his boss Dragon Lord Skagerackäkor is behind the plot but without a bonded beast what can he do? That’s why he was on campus. He had learned of former FF foe Dragon Man and decided that needs must when the devil drives…

The classic plot left all the goodies rewarded amd baddies punished and was claearly an attempt to launch a series, but…

With covers by Sinnott, Ron Wilson, Josef Rubinstein, Rich Buckler, Al Milgrom, Byrne, Pollard, Sienkienwicz, Bob McLeod & Ditko the extras here include Sinnott pinups of the whole team and Thing pinup from FF #218 & 219: Sienkievich’s rejected cover-turned-pinup as printed in #224; the entries for January in the Marvel Comics 20th Anniversary Calandar 1981 (Sienkienwicz & Sinnott) plus original art pages/covers from Byrne, Sinnott, Sienkienwicz, Marcos and Patterson, as well as original colour-guides painted by George Roussos.

Although never quite returning to the stratospheric heights of the Kirby era, this truly different collection represents a closing of the First Act for the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine”, and palate-cleansing preparation for the second groundbreaking run by John Byrne. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and delight casual browsers looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement.
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1858, French cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré was born. He annoyed all the right people as Caran d’Ache… and plenty of the wrong ones too. Far less controversial were Fred Harmon and screenwriter/ scripter Stephen Slesinger who launched epic cowboy strip Red Ryder this day in 1938.

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Osama Tezuka’s Astro Boy volume 10


By Osamu Tezuka, translated by Frederik L. Schodt (Dark Horse Manga)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-793-1 (tank?bon PB/Digital edition)

This book contains Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

From beginning his professional career in the late 1940s until his death in 1989, Osamu Tezuka generated an incomprehensible volume of quality work which transformed the world of manga and how it was perceived in his own country and, ultimately, across the globe. Devoted to Walt Disney’s creations, he also performed similar sterling service with Japan’s fledgling animation industry. Look what that led to…

The earliest stories were intended for children but right from the start Tezuka’s expansive fairy tale stylisations harboured more mature themes, holding hidden pleasures for older readers and the legion of fans growing up with the Mankaga’s manga masterworks…

The “God of Comics” was born in Osaka Prefecture on November 3rd 1928, and as a child suffered from severe illness. The doctor who cured him inspired the lad to study medicine, and although Osamu began drawing professionally whilst at university in 1946, he persevered with college and qualified as a medical practitioner too. Then, as he faced a career crossroads, his mother advised him to do the thing which made him happiest.

He never practiced as a healer but the world was gifted such masterpieces as Kimba the White Lion, Buddha, Black Jack and so many other graphic narratives. Working ceaselessly over decades, Tezuka and his creations inevitably matured, but he was always able to speak to the hearts and minds of young and old equally. His creations ranged from the childishly charming to the distinctly disturbing such as The Book of Human Insects or Tomorrow the Birds.

Tezuka died on February 9th 1989, having produced more than 150,000 pages of timeless comics; reinvented the Japanese anime industry and popularised a uniquely Japanese graphic narrative style which has become a fixture of global culture.

These monochrome digest volumes (173 x 113 mm in the physical world and any size you like if you read them digitally) present – in non-linear order – early exploits of his signature character, with the emphasis firmly on fantastic fun and family entertainment…

Tetsuwan Atomu (literally “Mighty Atom” but known universally as Astro Boy due to its dissemination around the world as an animated TV cartoon and one of post-war Japan’s better exports) is a spectacular, riotous, rollicking sci fi action-adventure starring a young boy who also happens to be one of the mightiest robots on Earth.

The series began in 1952 in Sh?nen Kobunsha and ran until March 12th 1968 – although Tezuka often added to the canon in later years, both in comics but in also in other media such as newspaper strips and in magazines. Throughout that period, the plucky robot lad spawned the aforementioned global TV cartoon boom, starred in comic book specials and featured in games, toys, collectibles, movies and the undying devotion of generations of ardent fans.

Tezuka frequently drew himself into his tales as a commentator, and in his later revisions and introductions often mentioned how he found the restrictions of Sh?nen comics stifling; specifically, having to periodically pause a plot to placate the demands of his audience by providing a blockbusting fight every episode. That’s his prerogative: most of us avid aficionados have no complaints and one upheld in abundance in the early tales included here…

Tezuka and his production team were never as wedded to close continuity as fans are. They constantly revised stories and artwork for later collections, so if you’re a purist you are just plain out of luck. Such tweaking and modifying is the reason these editions seemingly skip up and down publishing chronology. The intent is to entertain at all times so stories aren’t treated as gospel and order is not immutable or inviolate. It’s just comics, guys, and in case you came in late, here’s a little background to set you up.

In a forthcoming world where robots are ubiquitous and have won (limited) human rights, brilliant Dr. Tenma lost his son Tobio in a traffic accident. Grief-stricken, the tormented genius used his position as head of Japan’s Ministry of Science to have his team build a replacement. The android created was one of the most groundbreaking constructs in history, and for a while Tenma was content. However, as his mind re-stabilised, Tenma realised this unchanging humanoid was not Tobio and, with cruel clarity, no longer accepted a substitute. Ultimately, the savant removed the insult to his real boy by selling the robot to a shady dealer…

One day, independent researcher Professor Ochanomizu was in the audience at a robot circus and realised diminutive performer Astro was unlike the other acts – or indeed, any artificial being he’d ever encountered. Convincing the circus owners to part with the little robot, the boffin closely studied the unique creation and realised just what a miracle had come into his hands…

Part of Ochanomizu’s socialization process for Astro included placing him in a family environment and having him attend school just like a real boy. As well as providing friends and admirers the familiar environment turned up other foils and occasional assistants such as the bellicose Elementary School teacher Higeoyaji (AKA Mr. Mustachio) and a robot little sister dubbed Uran…

The wiry, widgety wonder’s astonishing exploits resume here after the now traditional ‘A Note to Readers’ – explaining why one thing that hasn’t been altered is the depictions of various racial types in the stories. Since the author was keen to combine all aspects of his creation into one overarching continuity, this volume (at last) incorporates classic 1950s material as well as the masterful Sixties sagas and following an intimate chat with the cartoonist opens with masterful monster mash -up ‘Astro vs Garon’ which was originally serialised in Sh?nen Magazine from October 1962 to February 1963. Here a sequence of wild weather events precedes the arrival of a bizarre object from space. As scientists gather, prod and poke about, they determine the package is some sort of cosmic flat-pack parcel. Sadly, once they put all the pieces together, what they have is a planet-restructuring autonomous entity…

Thanks to Ochanomizu and his little robot companion, a packing note is translated, revealing the power and purpose of the construct, and – crucially – that it has arrived on the WRONG PLANET!

Sent to the Superintendent of Megalopa by the King of Planet Yura, the package has been despatched to “kill Plasta” and “modify” planets, so the sagacious observers are perfectly happy to leave it alone from now on if they can’t find a way to destroy it. Sadly, they aren’t quick enough and lightning awakens “the Garon”, which goes on a catastrophic rampage that all Earth’s military might and valiant Astro Boy can barely handle.

Thinking the crisis over, the handmade hero is called back into action when inert Garon is stolen by sleazy Professor Amagawa and a conglomerate of greedy capitalists and gangsters, Transported to the South Pacific the monster is then deliberately unleashed and all hell inevitably breaks loose. Able to convert the atmosphere and alter gravity, Garon goes wild and the astonishingly outpowered robot kid seems unable to pull off a second miracle.

Thankful for an old fable he once heard, Astro Boy devises a way to outsmart and banish the beast he cannot kill…

Japanese kids were editorially and parentally sheltered in different ways to us in the West, and second saga ‘Yellow Horse’ (Sh?nen, October 1955 – February 1956) might be a little shocking to some. It deals with diabolical drug dealers and sees Astro seconded by Police Inspector Nakamura to crack a ruthless smuggling gang with a hideout that is literally out of this world. To defeat them, the boy ‘bot goes undercover posing as a young user and eventually junkie/recruit, having to allow his hero Mr. Mustachio to be attacked and nearly killed and Professor Ochanomizu to be tortured and turned into an addict…

Eventually however, the plan gels and a calamitous battle reveals another shocking secret before the case can be closed…

Next, from Sh?nen magazine March to April 1967, ‘The 100 Million Year Old Crime’ sees a gang of French mutant juvenile delinquents run amok, endangering all of society with their unchecked mental powers. Called in to help, Professor O and Astro are crushed and defeated by the teens after they steal unstoppable robot superweapon Karabusu…

As the professor is cruelly enslaved by the mutant kids, the wrecked scraps of Astro are found by ancient aliens. These “water ghosts” have been on/in Earth for 100,000,000 years and the father one is mired in guilt for committing an utterly unpardonable act. His daughter Parma is, however, enchanted by the robot remains and rebuilds him, triggering a cycle of redemption. Repaired and curious, Astro learns that heinous antediluvian crime was meddling with earth creatures’ genetic and creating humanity. All their historical atrocities and planetary harms are the alien’s fault and now he will wipe out his mistake. Desperate, Astro debates with the despondent progenitor and a deadly deal is struck, one involving reforming those mutant kids who seem to be the very worst the species can offer…

Sadly, the morbid maker has no intention of honouring it and Astro has to resort to the kind of tactics he despises for the good of all…

This outing to the orient of cartoon yore ends with a cunning crime caper and contemporary spoof saga as ‘Astro’s Been Stolen!’ (June to September in Tetsuwan Atom Kurabu AKA Mighty Atom Club) sees the mecha mite and his loving (equally mechanical) family distraught following a message from Professor O. This explains that the boy, his sister and they all need to grow for their mental health. That means transferring their processors and personalities into new, appropriately aged bodies every ten years…

Tragically, Ochanomizu has been targeted by diabolical twinned Doctors Rukarike. He’s actually a singular supervillain called Gettrich who cons the well-meaning savant into switching Astro Boy’s electro-brain into an adult replacement frame just so he can steal the junior version and place a hench-minion’s mind in it. The purpose is to gain admittance to the top-secret base containing super artefact the Neo-pyramid, but the fiend has not reckoned with Astro’s resilience and determination, nor the timely interference of British agent James Itch Dnob…

Breathtaking pace, outrageous invention, slapstick comedy, heart-wrenching sentiment and frenetic action are hallmarks of these captivating comics constructions: all ideal examples of Tezuka’s uncanny storytelling gifts. These still deliver a potent punch and instil wide-eyed wonder on a variety of intellectual levels and our melange of mecha-marvels is further enhanced an older, more sophisticated tone via the material’s constant revision, confirming Astro Boy as a genuine delight for all ages.
Tetsuwan Atom by Osama Tezuka © 2002 by Tezuka Productions. All rights reserved. Astro Boy is a registered trademark of Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd., Tokyo Japan. Unedited translation © 2002 Frederik L. Schodt.

Today in 1998 Batman co-creator Bob Kane died. Coincidentally, way back in 1927 letterer Milt Snappin was born on this same date. Milt put the words in Batman & Robin’s bubbles – as well as Superman, Superboy and other DC World’s Finest stars throughout the post Golden and Silver Age period.

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The Creeper by Steve Ditko


By Ditko, Don Segall, Denny O’Neil, Michael Fleisher, Mike Peppe, Jack Sparling & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2592-6 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

It’s Steve Ditko’s 99th birthday today and I’m not letting the fact that he’s no longer with us stop us enjoying his wonders and celebrating his unique storytelling mastery…

Steve Ditko was one of our industry’s greatest and most influential talents and, during his lifetime, amongst America’s least lauded. Always reclusive and reticent by inclination, his fervent desire was always just to get on with his job, tell stories the best way he can and let his work speak for him.

Whilst the noblest of aspirations, that attitude was usually a minor consideration – and even an actual stumbling block – for the commercial interests which for so long controlled all comics production and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of the comic industry’s output. After Ditko’s legendary disagreements with Stan Lee led to his quitting Marvel – where his groundbreaking efforts made the reclusive genius (at least in comicbook terms) a household name – he found work at Warren Comics and resumed his long association with Charlton Comics.

That company’s laissez faire editorial attitudes had always offered him the most creative freedom, if not greatest financial reward, but in 1968 their wünderkind editor Dick Giordano was poached by the rapidly-slipping industry leader and he took some of his bullpen of key creators with him to DC Comics. Whilst Jim Aparo, Steve Skeates, Frank McLaughlin and Denny O’Neil found a new and regular home, Ditko began only a sporadic – if phenomenally productive – association with DC.

It was during this heady if unsettled period that the first strips derived from Ditko’s interpretation of the Objectivist philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand began appearing in fanzines and independent press publications like Witzend and The Collector, whilst for the “over-ground” publishing colossus he devised a brace of cult classics with The Hawk and the Dove and the superbly captivating concept re-presented here: Beware The Creeper. Later efforts would include Shade, the Changing Man, Stalker and The Odd Man, plus truly unique interpretations of Man-Bat, the Legion of Super-Heroes and many more… including a wealth of horror, mystery and sci fi shorts reminiscent of his Charlton glory days.

The auteur’s comings and goings also allowed him to revisit past triumphs and none more so than with The Creeper – who kept periodically popping up like a mad, bad penny. This superb hardcover compilation – still tragically and inexplicably languishing with other classics DC hasn’t got around to making available in digital formats – gathers every Ditko-drafted/delineated Creeper classic from a delirious decade for your delight, and the spooky superhero spectacle kicks off with an effusive Introduction from appreciative fan Steve (30 Days of Night) Niles.

This collation curates tales from Showcase #73; Beware the Creeper #1-6; 1st Issue Special #7; World’s Finest Comics #249-255 and Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #2/Showcase #106 (collectively spanning March/April 1968 to February/March 1979), so settle in for a long ride…

Like so many brilliant ideas before it, Ditko’s bizarre DC visions first exploded off the newsstands in try-out title Showcase. Issue #73 heralded ‘The Coming of the Creeper!!’ with veteran comics & TV scripter Don Segall putting the words to Ditko’s plot and illustrations. The moodily macabre tale introduces suicidally-outspoken TV host Jack Ryder, whose attitude to his show’s sponsors and cronies loses him his cushy job. His brazen attitude does, however, impress network security chief Bill Brane and the gruff oldster offers him a job as an investigator and occasional bodyguard.

Jack’s first case involves tracking down recent Soviet defector Professor Yatz who has gone missing. The CIA suspect has been abducted by gangster Angel Devilin and sold to Red agent Major Smej. Displaying a natural affinity for detective work, Ryder tracks a lead to Devilin’s grand house and interrupts a costume party designed as a cover to make the trade. Promptly kicked out by thugs, Ryder heads for a costume shop but can only find a box of garish odds and ends… and lots of makeup.

Kitted out in a strange melange of psychedelic attire and accoutrements, he breaks back in but is caught and stabbed before being thrown into a cell with the missing Yatz. The scientist – also grievously wounded – is determined to keep his inventions out of the hands of evil men. These creations comprise an instant-healing serum and a Molecular Transmuter, able to shunt whatever a person is wearing or carrying into and out of our universe. A fully equipped army could enter a country as harmless tourists and materialise a complete armoury before launching sneak attacks…

To preserve them, Yatz lodges the Transmuter inside Ryder’s knife wound before injecting him with the untested serum. The effect is instantaneous and doesn’t even leave a scar. The investigator is also suddenly faster, stronger and more agile…

When Jack presses a handheld activator, he is instantly naked, and experimentation shows that he can make his motley costume appear and disappear just by touching a button. Of course, now, whenever it is activated, neither makeup nor wig, bodystocking, boots or gloves will come off. It’s like the crazy outfit has become his second skin…

When the gangsters come for their captives, Yatz is burning his notes. In the fracas that follows he catches a fatal bullet and, furious, guilt-ridden and strangely euphoric, Ryder goes after the thugs and spies. By the time the cops arrive he finds himself (or at least his canary yellow alter ego) blamed by Devilin for the chaos and even a burglary. The mobster has even given him a name – The Creeper…

As soon as the furore dies down vengeful Ryder returns to exact justice for the professor and discovers his uncanny physical prowess and macabre, incessant unnerving laughter give him an unbeatable edge whilst winning him a supernatural reputation…

After that single yarn the haunting hero hurtled straight into his own bimonthly series. Beware the Creeper #1 debuted with a May/June cover-date. Behind one of the most evocative covers of the decade – or indeed, ever – ‘Where Lurks the Menace?’ (scripted by Denny O’Neil under his occasional pen-name Sergius O’Shaughnessy) finds Ryder and the Creeper hunting an acrobatic killer beating to death numerous shady types in a savage effort to take over the city’s gangs. Sadly, Jack’s relentless pursuit of “the Terror” and careful piecing together of many disparate clues to his identity is hindered by the introduction of publicity-hungry, obnoxious glamour-puss ‘Vera Sweet’. The TV weathergirl thinks she has the right to monopolise Ryder’s time and attention, even when he’s ducking fists and bullets…

The remainder of the far-too-brief run featured a classic duel of opposites as a chameleonic criminal mastermind insinuated himself into the lives of Jack and the Brane bunch. It all began with ‘The Many Faces of Proteus!’ in BtC #2 (by Ditko & O’Shaughnessy) wherein a pompous do-gooder’s TV campaign against The Creeper is abruptly curtailed after the Golden Grotesque shows up at the studio and throws bombs.

Caught in the blast is baffled and battered Jack Ryder, and he’s even more bewildered when Brane informs him that a tip has come in confirming the Creeper is working for gambler gangboss Legs Larsen…

Dodging Vera, whose latest scheme involves a fake engagement, the real Creeper reaches Larsen’s gaming house in time to see a faceless man put a bullet into the prime suspect. In the ensuing panic the Laughing Terror transforms back into Ryder and strolls out with Larsen’s files, unaware that the faceless man is watching him leave and putting a few clues together himself…

The documents reveal a lone player slowly consolidating a grip on the city’s underworld but discloses no concrete information, so the Creeper goes on a very public rampage against all criminals in hopes of drawing Proteus out. The gambit works perfectly as a number of close friends try to kill Ryder, but only after frantically fending off flamethrower-wielding Vera in his own apartment does the Creeper realise that Proteus is far more than a madman with a makeup kit. A spectacular rooftop duel ends in a collapsed building and apparent end of the protean plunderer… but there’s no body to be found in the rubble…

Beware the Creeper #3 has our outré hero tearing the city’s thugs apart looking for Proteus, but his one-man spook-show is curtailed when Brane sends Ryder to find Vera. Little Miss Wonderful is determined to be the first to interview an island society cut off from the world for over a century, but all contact has been lost since she arrived. Tracking her to ‘The Isle of Fear’ Jack finds her in the hands of a death cult. More important to Ryder, however, is the fact that the Supreme One leading the maniacs is actually a top criminal offering sanctuary to Proteus flunkies he’s been scouring the city for…

Back in civilisation again, ‘Which Face Hides My Enemy?’ sees Ryder expose High Society guru and criminal mesmerist Yogi Birzerk’s unsuspected connection to Proteus. The cops drive The Creeper away before he can get anything from the charlatan, and when he dejectedly returns home Jack walks into an explosive booby trap in his new apartment. The “warning” from Proteus heralds the arrival of Asian troubleshooters Bulldog Bird and Sumo who claim to be also pursuing the faceless villain. They reveal he was a high-ranking member of the government of Offalia who stole a chemical which alters the molecular composition of flesh, before suggesting they all team up. Heading back to Bizerk’s place, it soon becomes clear that they are actually working for Proteus and that the faceless fiend knows Ryder’s other identity…

With #5, inker Mike Peppe joined Ditko & O’Neil as the epic swung into high gear with ‘The Color of Rain is Death!’ Proteus makes his closing moves, attacking Jack’s associates and framing him again whilst preparing for a criminal masterstroke which will win him much of the city’s wealth. Luring the Creeper into the sewers as a major storm threatens to deluge the city, the face-shifter reveals a scheme to blow up the drainage system and cause catastrophic flooding. After a brutal battle, he also leaves The Creeper tied to a grating to drown…

The stunning saga closed with final issue Beware the Creeper #6 (March/April 1969), by which time Ditko had all but abandoned his creation. ‘A Time to Die’ saw tireless, reliable everyman artist Jack Sparling pencil most of the story as the Howling Hero escapes his death-trap, deciphers the wily villain’s true gameplan and delivers a crushing final defeat. It was fun and thrilling and – unlike many series which folded at that troubled time – even provided an actual conclusion, but it somehow it wasn’t satisfactory and it wasn’t what we wanted.

This was a time when superheroes went into another steep decline with supernatural and genre material rapidly gaining prominence throughout the industry. With Fights ‘n’ Tights comics folding all over, Ditko concentrated again on Charlton’s mystery line, an occasional horror piece for Warren and his own projects…

In the years his own title was dormant, the Creeper enjoyed many guest shots in other comics and it was established that the city he prowled was in fact Gotham. When Ditko returned to DC in the mid-1970s, try-out series 1st Issue Special was alternating new concepts with revivals of old characters. Issue #7 (October 1975) gave the quirky crusader another shot at stardom in ‘Menace of the Human Firefly’ – written by Michael Fleisher & inked by Mike Royer. Here restored TV journalist Jack Ryder is inspecting the fantastic felons in Gotham Penitentiary just as manic lifer Garfield Lynns breaks jail to resume his interrupted costumed career as the master of lighting effects. By the time the rogue’s brief but brilliant rampage is over, the Creeper has discovered something extremely disturbing about his own ever-evolving abilities…

The story wasn’t enough to restart the rollercoaster, but some years later DC instituted a policy of giant-sized anthologies, and the extra page counts allowed a number of lesser lights to secure back-up slots and shine again. For World’s Finest Comics #249-255 (cover-dated February/March 1978 to February/March 1979) Ditko was invited to produce a series of 8-page vignettes starring his most iconic DC creation. This time he wrote as well as illustrated and the results are pure eccentric excellence. The sequence begins with ‘Moon Lady and the Monster’ as Ryder – once again a security operative for Cosmic Broadcasting Network – must ferret out a grotesque brute stalking a late-night horror-movie hostess, after which #250’s ‘Return of the Past’ reprises the origin as Angel Devilin gets out of jail and goes looking for revenge…

In WFC #251, ‘The Disruptor’ proves to be a blackmailer attempting to extort CBN by sabotaging programmes whilst ‘The Keeper of Secrets is Death!’ in #252 follows the tragic murder of Dr. Joanne Russell who was accused on a sensationalistic TV show of knowing the Creeper’s secret identity. Next issue ‘The Wrecker’ offers an actual grudge-bearing mad scientist who has built a most unconventional robot, whilst ‘Beware Mr. Wrinkles!’ in #254 debuts a villain with the power to age his victims. Neither, however, are a match for the tireless, spring-heeled Technicolor Tornado, whose too-short return culminates in a lethal duel with a knife-throwing jewel thief in #255’s ‘Furious Fran and the Dagger Lady’…

Until this volume, that was it for Ditko devotees and Creeper collectors, but as the final delight in this splendid compendium reveals, there was more. An ill-considered expansion was followed by 1978’s infamous “DC Implosion”, when a number of titles were shut down or cancelled before release. One of those was Showcase #106 which would have featured a new all-Ditko Creeper tale.

It was collected – with sundry other lost treasures – in a copyright-securing, monochrome, minimum print-run internal publication entitled Cancelled Comics Cavalcade. Here, from CCC #2 (1978) and presented in stark black & white, fans can see the Garish Gallant’s last Ditko-devised hurrah as ‘Enter Dr. Storme’ pits the Creeper (and cameo crimebuster The Odd Man) against a deranged weatherman turned climatic conqueror able to manipulate the elements.

Fast, fight-filled, furiously fun and devastatingly dynamic, Beware the Creeper was a high-point in skewed superhero sagas and this is a compendium no lovers of the genre can do without.
© 1968, 1969, 1975, 1978, 1979, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1926 Harvey Comics star and Anthro originator Howie Post was born, followed a year later by the mighty Steve Ditko. Just scroll back up or look anywhere on this blog, dude!

Sadly, it’s also the anniversary of Wally Wood’s death in 1981. We last looked closely at Ditko’s frequent collaborator in Cannon.

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DC Finest Horror – The Devil’s Doorway


By Alex Toth, Gil Kane, Mike Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Sergio Aragonés, Dave Wood, Joe Orlando, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Steve Skeates, John Costanza, Otto Binder, D.J. Arneson, John Albano, Julius Schwartz, E. Nelson Bridwell, Joe Gill, Robert Kanigher, Jack Oleck, Cliff Rhodes, Bob Haney, George Kashdan, Jack Miller, Carl Wessler, Dennis O’Neil, Alan Riefe, Dave Kaler, Jack Phillips, Murray Boltinoff, Curt Swan, Jerry Grandenetti, Bill Draut, Werner Roth, Jack Sparling, Morris Waldinger, Tom Nicolosi, Bernard Baily, Jack Abel, George Roussos, Eddie Robbins, Wayne Howard, Stanley Pitt, Bruno Premiani, Dick Giordano, Dick Dillin, Murphy Anderson, Pat Boyette, Neal Adams, Nick Cardy, Mike Sekowsky, Sid Greene, Mike Roy, Mike Peppe, Don Heck, Wally Wood, Ralph Reese, George Tuska, Gray Morrow, John Celardo, Art Saaf, José Delbo, Vince Colletta, Frank Giacoia, Al Williamson & many & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-79950-280-7 (TPB)

Sadly this masterful mystery megamix is not yet available digitally, but we live in hope…

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Splendid Slice of Spectral Shock & Awe… 9/10

It’s the time for sweet indulgence, shocking over-eating and spooky stories, so let’s pay a visit to a much-neglected old favourite in a fresh new costume…

US comic books started slowly until the coming of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and sparked a new genre. Implacably vested in World War II, the Overman swept all before him (and very occasionally her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional genres resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd. Although new kids kept on buying, much of the previous generation of consumers also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years altered global psychological landscapes and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) reflected this.

As well as Westerns, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and public fascination with all things occult, eldritch and arcane led to them being outshone and outsold by a wave of increasingly impressive, evocative and shocking horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Monako, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic, Dr. Fate and dozens more), but these had been victims of circumstance: The Unknown as a “narrativium” power source for super-heroics.

Now the focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader. Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948. Technically, though, Adventures Into the Unknown was actually pipped by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before finally committing to a regular series in 1951. By this time, and following the filmic horror heyday of Universal Pictures’ fright films franchises, worthy comic book monolith Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score, this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap by inventing the Romance comic (Young Romance #1, cover-dated September 1947) but they too saw sales potential in macabre mood material, resulting in seminal anthologies Black Magic (launched in 1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama vehicle Strange World of Your Dreams (1952). Around that time the staid cautious company that would become DC Comics bowed to the commercial inevitable and launched a comparatively straightlaced anthology that became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 opening of The House of Mystery.

When the hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings was at its height, the mobs with pitchforks furore was adroitly curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules. Horror titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock ‘n’ Gore.

However, since appetite for suspenseful short stories remained high, in 1956 National DC introduced sister title House of Secrets (a November/December cover-date). Plots were dialled back into superbly illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which would dominate the market until the 1960s when superheroes (which began sneaking back in 1956 after Julius Schwartz reintroduced The Flash in Showcase #4), finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a slew of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books, with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero monopolising House of Mystery whilst Mark Merlin – later Prince Ra-Man – sharing space with Eclipso in House of Secrets. When caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, HoS was one of the first casualties, folding with #80, the September/October 1966 issue.

However, nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and by the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom was over, with many titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain. This real-world Crisis prompted surviving publishers to loosen self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles at that juncture, but liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest for all things Worlds Beyond-ey, so resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious no-brainer…

Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with a rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillers: a minor substrate they regularly return to with style and potency to this day.

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all House of Mystery #174 (cover dated May/June 1968), confirmed the downturn in superhero stories eveywhere as it hit newstands everywhere presenting a bold banner asking Do You Dare Enter The House of Mystery? Inside it reprinted admittedly excellent short fantastic thrillers originally seen in House of Secrets from those heady days when it was okay to scare kids…

It was a slow but unstoppable hit which just kept spreading…

This DC Finest collection gathers a year’s worth of scary stuff snapshotted from House of Secrets #81-85; House of Mystery #180-185; The Witching Hour #3-7; The Unexpected #113-117 and includes a short back-up yarn from Phantom Stranger volume 2 #5, which cumulatively filled dank evenings from May 1969-April 1970. It all starts – with absolutely no fanfare at all – in HoM #180…

Going from strength to strength, the fear flagship was increasingly drawing on DC’s major artistic resources. Astounding opener ‘Comes a Warrior’ is a chilling faux Sword & Sorcery classic written and drawn by da Vinci of Dynamism Gil Kane, and inked by incomparable Wally Wood, before they illustrate Mike Friedrich’s fourth-wall-demolishing ‘His Name is Cain Kane!’

A Sergio Aragonés gag page in the long-running ‘Cain’s Game Room’ roaming sequence then cleanses palates for Cliff Rhodes & Joe Orlando’s text-terror ‘Oscar Horns In!’ before Marv Wolfman & Bernie Wrightson proffer prophetic vignette ‘Scared to Life’. A double-page ‘Cain’s Game Room’ precedes an uncredited forensic history lesson drawn by Morris Waldinger and recycled as‘Cain’s True Case Files’ to close proceedings for that title. Meanwhile over in long-running, recently remodelled fantasy anthology The Unexpected, the former sci fi vehicle was retooling as a gritty, weird thriller venue with George Kashdan, Jack Sparling & Vince Colletta detailing ‘The Shriek of Vengeance’. Here, Golden Age troubleshooter Johnny Peril is accused of heinous crimes and then abducted by maniac justice dispenser The Executioner. His gladiatorial tests are no problem for an ordinary guy who’d been facing the incomprehensible unknown since Comics Cavalcade #19 (February 1947) and soon the true motive is exposed and the scheme crushed…

Dave Wood & recent Charlton Comics émigré Pat Boyette then glare into ‘The Eyes of Death’, revealing the fate of an actual criminal who gains the power to see iminent fatalities before Wood, Curt Swan & Mike Esposito ride ‘The Tunnel of Love Fear!’ to introduce potential host narrator Judge Gallows, discussing one of his stranger cases…

With Tales of the Unexpected #105 and House of Mystery #174, National/DC had gambled heavily that anthology horror material was back and wouldn’t call the wrath of the gods – and parents – down upon them. Now that they had a boutique mystery stable, they put lots of thought and effort into creating an all-new title to further exploit our morbid fascination with all thingies fearsome and spooky. They would also resurrect House of Secrets (cancelled in late 1969. Apparently in those heady days it was okay – and profitable – to scare the heck out of little kids if you also made them laugh.

Edited until #14 by Dick Giordano, The Witching Hour first struck with a February/March 1969 cover-date (actually on-sale from December 19th 1968). From the outset it was an extremely experimental and intriguing beast. Here however we begin with #3 (cover-dated July 1969). In this graphic grimoire, cool & creepy horror-hosts traditionally introducing the entertainments are replaced by three witches. Based as much on a common American misapprehension of Macbeth as the ancient concept of Maiden, Mother & Crone, this torrid trio constantly strove to outdo (and outgross) each other in telling of terror tales.

Crucially, Cynthia, Mildred & Mordred – as well as shy monster man-servant minion Egor – were designed by and initially delineated by master illustrator Alex Toth, making framing sequences between yarns as good as and frequently more enthralling than the stories they brazenly bracketed. Following intro ‘You Be Our Judge’ from Toth & Giordano, the graphic genius & Colletta illustrate Don Arneson’s medieval mood masterpiece ‘The Turn of the Wheel!’ before Alan Riefe & Sparling tell a decidedly different ghost-story in ‘The Death Watch’. Steve Skeates & Bernie Wrightson then debut a decidedly alterative fantasy hero in ‘…And in a Far-Off Land!’, followed by the first in a series of short prose vignettes: anonymous fright-comedy ‘Potion of Love’ and Mike Sekowsky & Giordano deliver the sisters’ farewell epilogue…

Back at House of Mystery #181, scripted by Otto Binder and drawn by quirkily capable Sparling, ‘Sir Greeley’s Revenge!’ offers a heart-warmingly genteel spook story, albeit jump-cut interrupted by new comedy featire Page 13 (from Aragonés) after which Wrightson’s first long tale is fantastical reincarnation saga ‘The Siren of Satan’ (scripted by Bob Kanigher) before we get to the next big thing – and an actual resurrection…

House of Secrets returned with #81 (August/September 1969) just as big sister HoM had done a year previously. Under a bold banner declaiming “There’s No Escape From… The House of Secrets”, Mike Friedrich, Jerry Grandenetti & George Roussos introduced a ramshackle, sentient old pile in ‘Don’t Move It!’, after which Bill Draut limned the introduction of bumbling caretaker Abel (with a guest-shot by his murderous older brother Cain) in eponymous intro set-up fable ‘House of Secrets’. A prose yarn by Gerry Conway ‘Burn this House!’ gave the portly porter a pause before he kicked off his storytelling career with Conway & Sparling’s‘Aaron Philip’s Photo Finish!’ before the inaugural issue is put to bed with a Draut limned ‘Epilogue’…

The Unexpected #114 led with Kashdan, Ed Robbins & Colletta’s ‘Johnny Peril – My Self… My Enemy!’ as a modern day alchemist unleashes a lifeforce-stealing golem on the doughty P.I., after Dave Wood & Art Saaf premier a new host regaling readers with ‘Tales of the Mad, Mod Witch’ and opening with a warning about magic fountains and poorly aimed coins in ‘The Well of Second Chances’. Thematically on safe ground, we switch to Witching Hour #4 as Toth renders a ‘Witching Hour Welcome Wagon’ after which Conway scripts spectral saga ‘A Matter of Conscience’ for Sparling & George Roussos. Anonymous prose piece ‘If You Have Ghosts?’ then segues into smashing yarn ‘Disaster in a Jar’ (Riefe & Boyette) before Conway turns in period witchfinder thriller ‘A Fistful of Fire’ for José Delbo – a vastly underrated artist who was on the best form of his career at this time.

Toth’s Weird Sisters close out that issue as we move on to HoM #182 which opens with one of the most impressive tales of the entire decade. Jack Oleck’s take on the old cursed mirror plot is elevated to high art with his script for ‘The Devil’s Doorway’ illustrated by incredible Alex Toth. Marv Wolfman & Wayne Howard follow with ‘Cain’s True Case Files: Grave Results!’, and an expose of the Barbadian sugar trade, after which an Aragonés Game Room break leads to nightmarish Gothic revenge tale ‘The Hound of Night!’ from Kanigher & Grandenetti. HoS #82 was a largely Conway scripted affair with Draut drawing both ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ and ‘Epilogue’, whilst cinema shocker ‘Realer Than Real’ was illustrated by Werner Roth & Vince Colletta. Prose poser ‘His Last Resting Place!’ leads to Wolfman & Giordano’s short sci fi saga ‘Sudden Madness’ prior to Conway & Sparling regaling us with salutary tale of murder and revenge ‘The Little Old Winemaker’. Finally, as realised by Dick Dillin & Neal Adams ‘The One and Only, Fully-Guaranteed, Super-Permanent, 100%’ presents a darkly comedic eerily unsettling tale of domestic bliss and how to get it…

Carl Wessler & Ed Robbins open Unexpected #115 with Blitz- survivor Maude Waltham unwisely accessing the ‘Diary of a Madman’ and being drawn into a world she could not comprehend or cope with, after which Dave Wood, Swan & Jack Abel reveal how an opportunistic showman appropriates an old abndined house and discovers ‘Abrakadabra – You’re Dead!’ A classic plot gets a sixties makeover as ‘The Day Nobody Died!’ (by Wood as D.W. Holz, Werner Roth & Frank Giacoia) details the repercussions of a wise man unwisely caging the angel of death…

In Witching Hour #5 the sisters are at their most outrageously, eerily hilarious introducing an anonymous yarn lavishly embellished by Wrightson – a nifty nautical nightmare of loneliness and ‘The Sole Survivor!’, before text-teaser ‘The Non-Believer! and Boyette’s stunning, clownish creep-feature ‘A Guy Can Die Laughing!’ set the scene for Steve Skeates, Stanley Pitt & Giordano’s dating dilemma ‘The Computer Game’ I think this was one of the first to explore that now-hoary plot, and it neatly anticipates Toth’s sign off for the witches and added single-page black-comedy bonus ‘My! How You’ve Grown!’ from Sid Greene…

For #183, Joe Orlando offers Cain introductory chuckle ‘Welcome to the House of Mystery’ before, in collaboration with Oleck, Grandenetti reveals the misery of ‘The Haunting!’ Following more mirth in Cain’s Game Room (by John Albano) and vintage Bernard Baily ‘Odds and Ends from Cain’s Cellar’, ‘Curse of the Blankenship’s’ and ‘Superstitions About Spiders’, Wolfman & Wrightson contribute ‘Cain’s True Case Files: The Dead Can Kill!’ A bonanza of Aragonés comprising a comedic horroscope on Page 13 and two pages of Cain’s Game Room precedes a canny teaming of Kanigher with Grandenetti & Wally Wood that results in the truly bizarre ‘Secret of the Whale’s Vengeance’…

After Draut & Giordano’s ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets’ piece, superstar Toth made his modern HoS debut with Wolfman-written fantasy ‘The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of’, before Mikes Royer & Peppe visualise sinister love-story ‘Bigger Than a Breadbox’, bookended by anonymous text teaser ‘Once Upon a Time in Mystery Book…’ Wrapping up, Conway & Draut revive gothic menace for chilling fable ‘The House of Endless Years’.

Modernity is briefly embraced in Unexpected #116 as thanks to Dave Wood & Art Saaf, The Mad Mod Witch escorts a group of strangers on an ‘Express Train to Nowhere!’ after which author unknown & Boyette describe a doomed Dutch peddlar’s brush with legend and ‘Steps to Disaster’, before Murphy Anderson picks out apparel ‘Mad to Order’ as Wrightson details the problems wrapped up in a ‘Ball of String!’ ‘Ashes to Ashes, Dustin to Dust?’ then closes the issue with a spectral tale of love & death from Murray “Al Case” Boltinoff & Sid Greene…

Sekowsky & Giordano limn Dave Kaler’s take on the sinister sisters’ intro for Witching Hour #6, after which far darker horror debuts as ‘A Face in the Crowd!’ (Conway, Mike Roy & Mike Peppe), wherein a Nazi war-criminal and concentration camp survivor meet in an American street. Wolfman & Delbo depict a tale of neighbourly intolerance in ‘The Doll Man!’ and ‘Treasure Hunt’ (Skeates, John Celardo & Giordano) shows why greed isn’t always good. Also included were Conway’s prose tale ‘Train to Doom’, ‘Mad Menace’ – a ½-page gag strip by John Costanza – and ‘Distortion!’: another Greene-limned one-pager.

HoM #184 features the triumphant return of Oleck & Toth for captivating Egyptian tomb raider epic ‘Turner’s Treasure’ before cartoon pauses for Page 13 (a diploma fron Aragonés & Orlando) and Orlando gag ‘The Fly’ deftly segues into epic barbarian blockbuster ‘The Eyes of the Basilisk!’ by Bridwell, Gil Kane & Wally Wood…

Closing with more Albano Cain’s Game Room giggles, next comes info short ‘The Devil’s Footprints!’ by Kanigher, Swan & Nick Cardy from The Phantom Stranger #5 (cover-dated January/February 1970) before in House of Secrets #84, Conway & Draut maintain the light-hearted bracketing of stories prior to properly beginning with ‘If I Had but World Enough and Time’ (Wein, Dillin & Peppe): a cautionary tale about too much TV. Tensions grow with Wolfman & Greene’s warning against wagering in ‘Double or Nothing!’ and Skeates, Sparling & Abel’s utterly manic parable of greed ‘The Unbelievable! The Unexplained!’, before Wein & Sparling mess with our dreams in ‘If I Should Die before I Wake…’

Johnny Peril leads in Unexpected #117, as Kashdan & Greene reveal how he becomes the patsy for a clan seeking to avoid a hereditary curse in ‘Midnight Summons the Executioner!’, after which Case, Grandenetti & Draut see a woman trick fate by accepting ‘Hands of Death’ whilst Wessler & Tuska detail the downfall of a money-mad beast in ‘The House that Hate Built!’ Wessler & Bruno Premiani then detail the uncanny ‘Death of the Man Who Never Lived!’ in a spy yarn unlike any other…

In Witching Hour #7, Toth & Mike Friedrich show spectacular form for the intro and bridging sequences, whilst Draut is compulsively effective in prison manhunt saga ‘The Big Break!’, with scripter Skeates also writing modern-art murder-mystery ‘The Captive!’ for Roussos. Friedrich & Abel advise a most individual baby to ‘Look Homeward, Angelo!’, whilst text piece ‘Who Believes Ouija?’ and Jack Miller & Michael Wm. Kaluta’s Gothically delicious ‘Trick or Treat’ round out the sinister sights in this issue. Then, House of Mystery #185 sees Cain take a more active role in all-Grandenetti yarn ‘Boom!’, with Albano, Aragones & Orlando Page13 and Cain’s Game Room, prior to Wayne Howard illustrating the sinister ‘Voice from the Dead!’ Following more Orlando Game-iness prolific Charlton scribe Joe Gill debuts with ‘The Beautiful Beast’: a lost world romance perfectly pictured by EC alumnus Al Williamson.

This monolitic montage of macabre mirth and scary sagas ceases with House of Secrets #85. Here, Cain & Abel acrimoniously open, after which Wein & Don Heck disclose what can happen to ‘People Who Live in Glass Houses…’ whilst graphic legend Ralph Reese limns Wein’s daftly ironic ‘Reggie Rabbit, Heathcliffe Hog, Archibald Aardvark, J. Benson Baboon and Bertram the Dancing Frog’, ere John Costanza contributes comedy page ‘House of Wacks’ and Conway, Kane & Adams herald the upcoming age of slickly seductive barbarian fantasy with gloriously vivid and vital ‘Second Chance’.

With iconic covers from Neal Adams, Jack Adler, Toth, Sekowsky, Cardy and Gray Morrow this (hopefully first of many) moody mystery compilations is a perfect accompaniment to dark nights in, and one you can depend on to astound and amaze in equal amounts.
© 2025 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today – or maybe even tonight – in 1939 underground cartoonist Frank Stack was born. His blasphemous antics have made us laugh for decades. Why not check out The New Adventures of Jesus: The Second Coming.

In 2011 today UK icon Mick Anglo died. He’s all over this blog if you want to see something very special but I’d advise scoping out one of his unique Annual creations, such as Batman Story Book Annual 1967 (with Robin the Boy Wonder).

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Glacial Period


By Nicolas de Crécy, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM ComicsLit/Louvre: Musée du Louvre Éditions)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-855-0 (Album HB/Digital edition) 978-1-56163-483-5 (TPB)

I’m feeling waggishly topical today. Mayhap I might be getting better…

In 2005 one of the greatest museums in the world began an intriguing ongoing project with the upstart art form of comics; inviting some of the world’s most accomplished masters of graphic narrative to create new works in response to the centuries of acquired treasures residing within the grand repository of arts, history and culture.

The tales are produced in close collaboration with the forward-looking (if not security-conscious) authorities of the Louvre, and always push the envelope of what can be accomplished by master craftsman inspired by their creative antecedents and forebears. These are no thinly-concealed catalogues of exhibition contents gift-wrapped in cartoon terms to gull potential visitors off their couches and into a stuffy edifice of public culture, but vibrant and challenging comics events calculated to make you think again about what creativity and history mean…

The first of those stellar tomes, originally released as Période glaciaire, is a deluxe, lavish, oversized (286 x 222mm) hardback edition by NBM – well worth nicking but perhaps best purchased – granting readers that rarest of things… a second bite of the cherry.

Born in Lyon in September 1966 into a large family of artistic overachievers, Nicolas de Crécy was, in 1987, part of the first graduating class of students from de l’école de Bande dessinée des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême.

After working for Studios Disney at Montreuil, he published first album Foligatto in 1991. Since then he has produced more than thirty albums; both one-off books such as Journal d’un fantôme, Escales, Plaisir de myope and La Nuit du grand méchant loup and series/serials such as Léon la came, Monsieur Fruit and Salvatore.

He is justly considered a wünderkind of French comics and his unique take on the role of the Louvre was – typically – boldly off-kilter, ingeniously amusing and fantastically sardonic…

Thousands of years from now Earth is a frozen dustheap. Scrabbling through its barren remains one day comes a turbulent group of scientists and archaeologists. The humans are a tendentious bunch, constantly bickering and pontificating on what the civilisation they are obsessed with understanding was actually like. Most have their own theories and perhaps only look now for finds to validate their views. Far more open and philosophical are the tubby talking dogs who act as frontrunners; their hyper-keen noses sniffing out areas where potential finds are buried. Especially sensitive – in every meaning of the term – is Hulk.

The rotund canine rogue can feel the tension in the party and when he sleeps (as often as possible) he has strange dreams and visions of beautiful old things. When he and official expedition leader Juliette are briefly separated from the group by a storm, the ensuing calm reveals an ancient structure freshly uncovered. Soon the humans are all over the “temple” and making grand plans. Nevertheless, the irascible mutt knows this find is mere dross and rubbish…

Another angry discussion results in top historian Paul being left behind to research/catalogue the temple whilst the others press on to uncover the fabled lost metropolis buried somewhere in this desolate region…

Hulk isn’t fooled. He sees that imperious alpha male Gregor has designs on Juliette and is slowly isolating her from the others. After she ignores the canny canine’s warnings, Hulk wanders off into the cold night and next morning impatient Gregor convinces the party to go on without him. Alone and no longer distracted, Hulk’s incredible faculties detect a faint scent and he begins to dig down.

Before long he has broken into a stone vault filled with fascinating artefacts and, as ever following his nose, the mighty mutt discovers a mesmerising maze of corridors, revealing incredible facts about the lost civilisation. Under the cold light skies above, Juliette & Gregor clash over who is truly in charge and poor studious Joseph intervenes, suffering for his chivalry. Further interpersonal violence is only prevented when the treacherously unstable landscape shifts and from the icy crust an ancient structure begins to inexorably rise…

Hysterically elated, Gregor drags stunned archaeologists into the fabled metropolis and all are astounded by the images and artefacts they find. Soon, they’re frantically hypothesising, guessing and just plain spit-balling as they plunge deeper and deeper into a still shaky, shifting edifice. Entranced and intoxicated by the panoply of pictures and statues, the humans’ imaginations are running amok.

And, from outside, Esteban calls out to them: he has spotted another glistening building forcing its way out of the snows…

The treasure trove seems unending: a final repository of ancient magnificence that leads them ever inward as the monumental mausoleum inexorably pushes upwards into dying sunlight.

Elsewhere, deep below them, Hulk is making his own explorations and encounters something uncanny and bizarre. Before long he’s conversing with the oldest statues and objets d’art in the vaults of history. The relics know the Louvre is in tectonic death throes and need his help to save all the wonderful “living” treasures that have waited here for patient millennia…

Sharing with him the true stories, mistakes and triumphs of the past races of man, dog and anxious, animated exhibits unite in a desperate attempt to save their quintessentially timeless splendours from final obliteration…

Accompanied by a formidable and informative List of Works which feature most prominently in this captivating yarn, Glacial Period is a bemusing, wide-eyed, light-hearted epic as well as an utterly engrossing, darkly charming graphic discussion on the nature and value of art and our eternal ever-changing relationship with it. It is also an entrancing, witty literal shaggy dog story in comics form that reads superbly even if you wouldn’t be caught dead in a museum, French or otherwise.

Why not give it a go and see if your cool attitude thaws after all?
© 2005 Futuropolis/Musée du Louvre Éditions. English Edition © 2006 NBM.

Today in 1920 Archie Comics artist Bob Montanna was born, and in 1958 Earth reeled from the first appearance of the Smurfs as walk-on in a Johan and Peewit strip by Peyo in Le Journal de Spirou. We covered all that in The Smurfs Anthology volume 1.

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Leo Baxendale’s Sweeny Toddler


By Leo Baxendale & others (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-726-8 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utterly Bonkers, Inspired Lunacy… 10/10

If you know British Comics, you know Leo Baxendale.

Long ago and still right now, Baxendale (27th October 1930 – 23rd April 2017) was the epitome of rebellious, youth-oriented artistic prodigies who, largely unsung but definitely much noticed, went about seditiously transforming British Comics: entertaining millions and inspiring uncounted numbers of those readers to become cartoonists too.

Joseph Leo Baxendale was educated at Preston Catholic College, served in the RAF and was born on 27th, October 1930, in Whittle-le-Woods, Lancashire – but not necessarily in that order. Like Spike Milligan and so many brilliant others, his response to privation, injustice, war and the post war era was being funny in an absurd way. If you’re quick, you can track down some of his stuff – of which far too little has been archivally published – and celebrate his 95th anniversary in an appropriate manner.

Baxendale’s first paid artistic efforts were drawing ads and cartoons for The Lancashire Evening Post but his life – and the entire British comics scene – changed in 1952 when he began freelancing for DC Thomson’s top weekly The Beano. He assumed creative control of moribund Lord Snooty and his Pals and originated anarchically surreal strips Little Plum, Minnie the Minx, The Three Bears and When the Bell Rings. That last strip then rapidly metamorphosed into legendary, lurgy-packed anarchic icon The Bash Street Kids, thereby altering the daily realities and lifetime sensibilities of millions of readers and generations of kids.

Baxendale also contributed heavily to the creation of comics tabloid The Beezer in 1956 but, following editorial and financial disputes with his editors, migrated in 1962 to London-based, Harmsworth-owned conglomerate Odhams/Fleetway/IPC. South of the border, his initial humorous creations included Grimly Feendish, General Nitt and his Barmy Army, Bad Penny and a horrid horde of similarly revoltingly, uncannily engaging oiks, yobs and weirdoes who cumulatively made the company’s “Power Comics” experiment such a joy to behold.

During the 1970s he devised more remarkable cartoon star turns which, whilst not perhaps as seditiously groundbreaking as Plum, Minnie, or The Bash Street Kids, nor as subversively enticing as Wham, Smash and Pow creations such as Eagle Eye, Junior Spy, The Swots and the Blots and The Tiddlers (or indeed, as garishly outlandish as George’s Germs or Sam’s Spook), remained part of the nation’s junior landscape for decades after.

The main body of his later creations appeared in mighty anthology Buster: features such as The Cave Kids, Big Chief Pow Wow, Clever Dick and Snooper. Baxendale latterly foisted Willy the Kid upon the world before creating his own publishing imprint Reaper Books.

He also sued DCT for rights to his innovative inky inventions: a 7-year struggle that was eventually settled out of court. Other notable graphic landmarks include pantomimic vision THRRP!, his biography A Very Funny Business: 40 Years of Comics and the strip I Love You, Baby Basil which ran in The Guardian during the early 1990s.

Signature stinker Sweeny Toddler debuted in Shiver and Shake in 1973, unsurprisingly surviving repeated mergers – with Whoopee! and Whizzer and Chips – before settling in at the seemingly unsinkable Buster.

This stunning hardback (and eBook) celebration – hopefully the first of many gathering the entire run and Baxendale’s IPC/Fleetway oeuvre – is another crucial addition to Rebellion’s ever-expanding Treasury of British Comics. It gathers the episodes from Shiver and Shake spanning March 10th 1973 to 5th October 1974, plus the first nappy-load from Whoopee!, from 23rd November 1974 until 7th June 1975.

The potent package is suitably accompanied by an appreciative, informative and responsible Introduction by his son Martin (who drew the Bad Boy’s adventures after Baxendale senior moved into publishing) and offers a magnificent exercise in manic misrule starring the absolute worst baby in the world… outside of a democratically elected government.

In a simple terrace house with the legend “Tremble wiv fear, Sweeny livs here” scrawled all over it, lives a spotty (occasionally be-stubbled) mono-fanged tyke who is disturbingly fast and strong with a physiognomy that can sour milk. He is precociously able to read – after a fashion – and that, coupled with a lethally low tolerance for boredom and obedience, means the nasty nipper always finds new and distressing ways to amuse himself at someone else’s expense…

With or without faithful dog and eager abettor Hairy Henry, Sweeny turns every pram ride into a pulse-pounding rollercoaster adventure for his poor benighted mum and grandad; every visit to park, shop or museum into a heart-stopping chase and every cuddlesome interlude with ill-advised adults into an exhausting episode in psychological and physical torture.

At least six strips re-presented here are not by Baxendale, but record-keeping is sadly incomplete. Chances are they’re drawn by Tom Paterson, who eventually took over the feature (or possibly Roy Nixon?) but they are all deliciously weird and wonderful: a blend of unbeatable whacky wordplay, explosive slapstick and bizarre situations, garnished by Baxendale’s unique and evocative sound effects: once read, never forgotten…

Briefly retitled Help! It’s Sweeny Toddler in experimental pages that feature second stories starring monstrous beasts living in the borders and margins of the panel dividers, later episodes never lost the eccentric impetus of the first, with the baby from hell, as ever, mugging old ladies, postmen, schoolboys and other unwary visitors; creating his own zoo, attempting to sneak into X films (maybe get granddad to explain those?) and totally tormenting anyone who treats him like a child…

As well as straight strips, this collection also offers ‘Sweeny Toddler’s Beat the Bully Guide’ and graphic game ‘Sweeny Toddler’s Fifty Frightful Faces!’, proving the vile versatility of the manky mite.

Leo Baxendale was one-of-a-kind: a hugely influential, much-imitated master of pictorial comedy and noxious gross-out escapades whose work deeply affected (some would say warped) generations of British and Commonwealth kids. We’ll not see his like again, but these astoundingly engrossing comedy classics are a perfect example of his resolutely British humorous sensibilities – absurdly anarchic, explosively whimsical, outrageously aggressive, crazily confrontational and gleefully grotesque – starring an unremittingly rebellious force of nature with no impulse control.

Sweeny Toddler says and does whatever he wants as soon as he thinks of it, albeit usually to his own detriment and great regret: a rare gift, usually only employed by madmen and foreign Presidents.

These cartoon capers are amongst the most memorable and re-readable exploits in all UK comics history: smart, eternal, existentially funny and immaculately rendered. This a treasure-trove of laughs that spans generations and must be in every family bookcase.
© 1973, 1974, 1975 & 2019 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. Sweeny Toddler is ™ & © Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1920 artistic icon Nicholas Vicardi AKA Nick Cardy was born. We last admired his mastery in DC Finest: Aquaman – The King of Atlantis.

In 1935 today, cartoon pioneer Sidney Smith died way too soon. You would already know that if you’d listened and looked up Sidney Smith’s The Gumps like we told you to last week.

In 1993 unsung legend Gaylord Dubois died. He wrote and edited dozens of key features, supplying thousands of stories to comics legends. We are particularly partial to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Omnibus volume two.

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Misty featuring Moonchild & The Four Faces of Eve (volume 1)


By Pat Mills, Malcolm Shaw, John Armstrong, Brian Delaney, Shirley Bellwood & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-452-6 (album TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Spooky Treats for Every Stocking… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Like most of my comics contemporaries I harbour a secret shame. Growing up, I was well aware of the weeklies produced for girls but would never admit to reading them.

My loss: I now know that they were packed with some great strips by astounding artists and writers, many of them personal favourites when they were drawing stalwart soldiers, evil aliens, marauding monsters or strange superheroes (all British superheroes were weird and off-kilter…).

I believe – in terms of quality and respect for the readership’s intelligence, experience and development – “girls’ periodicals” were far more in tune with the sensibilities of the target audience. I absolutely wish I’d paid more attention to Misty back then…

Thus, I’m overjoyed to re-recommend this superb first collection from what originating editor Pat Mills reveals in his Foreword was intended to be as iconoclastic and groundbreaking a publication as his previous creation.

You know the one: 2000 AD…

Despite never living up to his expectations – for all the traditional self-sabotaging editorial reasons that have scuppered bold visions since the days of Caxton – Misty was nothing like any other comic in the British marketplace: a Girls’ Juvenile periodical addressing modern issues through a lens of urban horror, science fictional and historical mysteries couched in terms of tense suspenseful dramas. It was also one of the best drawn comics ever seen and featured stunningly beguiling covers by unsung legend Shirley Bellwood: a veteran illustrator who ought to be a household name because we’ve all admired her work in comics and books since the 1950s even if we’ve never been privileged to see her by-line…

Unlike most weeklies, Misty was created with specific themes in mind – fantasy, horror and mystery – and over its too-short existence introduced numerous self-contained features serialised like today’s graphic novels, rather than continuing adventures of star characters.

Although adulterated from Mill’s original design, the comic launched on February 4th 1978 and ran until January 1980 whereupon it merged with the division’s lead title Tammy, thus extending its lifeline until 1984. As was often the case, the brand also continued through Annuals and Specials, running from 1979 until 1986.

The first of a series working under the umbrella of The Treasury of British Comics, this compact monochrome softcover compilation offers two complete part-work novellas from the comic’s canon of nearly 70 strip sagas, starting with the gripping history of the Moonchild.

Written by Mills and illustrated by John Armstrong (Bella in Tammy; The Secret Gymnast in Bunty; Grange Hill), the eerie adventure was based on Stephen King’s Carrie, and ran as lead feature in issues #1-13. It traced the turbulent coming-of-age of abused and confused schoolgirl Rosemary Black: born into a family afflicted with an apparent curse. All women who bore a hereditary crescent birthmark on their foreheads were eventually consumed by psychokinetic powers…

Rosemary’s mother brutally and zealously tries to suppress her daughter’s burgeoning abilities but with sociopathic mean girls Norma, Dawn & Freda making her their constant target for bullying and humiliation, the force inside Rosemary keeps expressing itself in ever more violent manner. Moreover, when school physician Doctor Armstrong realises the truth about the girl so often sent to see him, he sees nothing but an opportunity to be exploited…

When Norma’s bullies embark on their most ambitious scheme to torture Rosemary, sheer disaster is barely averted after the Moonchild’s long missing grandmother suddenly appears with a shocking secret to share…

Following a handy hints feature – how to make a Witch’s Hat – The Four Faces of Eve carries on the chilling bewilderment.

Created by Malcolm Shaw (Misty’s editor and writer of dozens of strips in Britain and Europe) & Brian Delaney (Hart to Hart; Grange Hill; The Professionals) this marvel of malign medical malpractice ran in #20-31, tracing the seemingly paranoid path of Eve Marshall, recently discharged from hospital but still suffering partial amnesia. Despite returning to her home and high-powered scientist parents, Eve remains troubled, especially by horrifically vivid dreams of other girls who died painful, violent deaths…

Inconsolable and increasingly suspicious, Eve snoops around a house she doesn’t remember and discovers mounting evidence that the Marshalls are not her real parents. When the house is later burgled, the police forensics team uncover another impossible anomaly: Eve’s fingerprints match a thief who died months ago…

Scared and haunted by traumatic dreams, Eve runs away and hides in a circus, only to be tracked down and dragged back home by her faux parents. However, pieces are inexorably falling into place and she soon must face the appalling truth she has deduced about herself and the monsters she lives with…

Also including a fulsome tribute to ‘Shirley Bellwood – An Unsung Heroine of British Comics’, creator biographies and one final activity page (‘Misty Says… Be a Devil – and Here’s How’) this supremely engaging tome is a glorious celebration of a uniquely compelling phenomenon of British comics and one that has stood the test of time. Don’t miss this second chance to get in on something truly special and splendidly entertaining
Misty © Egmont UK Limited 1978. All rights reserved.

Today in 1955 René Goscinny & André Franquin debuted humour strip Modeste et Pompom in Le Journal de Tintin – a fact and feature that has still singularly not impressed any English-language comics publishers.

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Steve Ditko Archives volume 2: Unexplored Worlds


By Steve Ditko, Joe Gill & various, edited by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-289-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Immaculate Yarn-Spinning… 9/10

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

Once upon a time the anthological title of short stand-alone stories was the sole staple of the comicbook profession, where the plan was to deliver as much variety as possible to the reader. Sadly, that particular vehicle of expression seems all but lost to us today…

Despite his death Steve Ditko remains one of our industry’s greatest talents and one of America’s least lauded. His fervent desire to just get on with his job and to tell stories the best way he can – whilst the noblest of aspirations – had always been a minor consideration or even stumbling block for the commercial interests which for so long controlled all comics production and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of comic book output. Before his time at Marvel, young Ditko perfected his craft creating short sharp yarns for a variety of companies and it’s an undeniable joy today to be able to look at this work from such an innocent time when he was just breaking into the industry: tirelessly honing his craft with genre tales for whichever publisher would have him, utterly free from the interference of intrusive editors.

A superb full-colour series of hardback collections reprinted those early efforts (all of them here are from 1956-1957) with material produced after the draconian, self-inflicted Comics Code Authority sanitised the industry following Senate Hearings and a public witch-hunt.

Most are wonderfully baroque bizarre supernatural or science fantasy stories, but there are also examples of Westerns, Crime and Humour: cunningly presented in the order he completed and sold them rather than the more logical but far-less-revealing chronological release dates. Moreover, they’re all helpfully annotated with a purchase number to indicate approximately when they were actually drawn – even the brace of tales done for Stan Lee’s pre-Marvel Atlas company.

Sadly, there’s no indication of how many (if any) were actually written by the moody master…

This second sublime selection reprints more heaping helpings of his increasingly impressive works: most courtesy of the surprisingly liberal (at least in its trust of its employees’ creative instincts) sweat-shop publisher Charlton Comics.

And whilst we’re being technically accurate, it’s also important to reiterate that those cited publication dates have very little to do with when Ditko crafted them: as Charlton paid so little, the cheap, anthologically astute outfit had no problem in buying material it could leave on a shelf for months – occasionally years! – until the right moment arrived to print. The work is assembled and runs here in the order Ditko submitted it, rather than when it reached our grubby sweaty paws…

Following an historically informative Introduction and passionate advocacy by Blake Bell, concentrating on Ditko’s near-death experience in 1954 (when the artist contracted tuberculosis) and subsequent recovery, the evocatively eccentric excursions open with a monochrome meander into the realms of satire with the faux fable – now we’d call it a mockumentary – ‘Starlight Starbright’ as first seen in From Here to Insanity (volume 3 #1 April 1956) before “normal” service resumes with financial fable ‘They’ll Be Some Changes Made’ (scripted by Carl Wessler from Atlas’ Journey Into Mystery #33, April 1956).

Here a petty-minded pauper builds a time machine to steal the fortune his ancestors squandered, after which a crook seeking to exploit a mystic pool finds himself the victim of fate’s justice in ‘Those Who Vanish’ (Journey Into Mystery #38, September 1956) again scripted by Wessler.

Almost – if not all – the Charlton material was scripted by astoundingly prolific Joe Gill at this time, and records are spotty at best, so let’s assume his collaboration on all the material here begins with ‘The Man Who Could Never Be Killed’ (Strange Suspense Stories #31, published in February 1957). This yarn of a circus performer with an incredible ethereal secret segues into ‘Adrift in Space’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #8 June 1958) as a veteran starship captain pushes his weary crew over the edge, whereas ‘The King of Planetoid X’ from the previous MoUW (February) details a crisis of conscience for a benevolent and ultimately wise potentate…

The cover of Strange Suspense Stories #31 (February 1957) leads into ‘The Gloomy One’ as a misery-loving alien intruder is destroyed by simple human joy, before the cover to Out of This World #5 (September 1957) heralds that issue’s ‘The Man Who Stepped Out of a Cloud’ and an alien whose abduction plans only seem sinister in intent. MoUW #5 (October 1957) tells the story of a young ‘Stowaway’ who finds fulfilment aboard a harshly-run space ship after which Out of This World #3’s cover (March 1957) ushers us to an apparent alien paradise for weary star-men in ‘What Happened?’

Next up is a tale from one of Charlton’s earliest star characters. The title came from a radio show that Charlton licensed the rights to, with the lead/host/narrator acting more as voyeur than active participant. The Mysterious Traveler spoke directly to camera, asking readers for opinion and judgement as he shared a selection of funny, sad, scary and miraculous human-interest yarns, all tinged with a hint of the weird or supernatural. Whenever rendered by Ditko, whose storytelling mastery, page design and full, lavish brushwork were just beginning to come into its mature full range, the contents of Tales of the Mysterious Traveler were always exotic and esoteric and utterly beguiling.

From issue #2 (February 1957), ‘What Wilbur Saw’ reveals the reward bestowed on a poverty-stricken country bumpkin who witnessed a modern-day miracle, after which Out of This World #3 covers a cautionary tale of atomic mutation in ‘The Supermen’ before the eerie cover to OoTW #4 (June 1957) signals a chilling encounter for two stranded sailors who briefly board the ‘Flying Dutchman’ whilst SSS #32’s cover (May 1957) dabbles in magic art when a collector is victimised by a thief who foolishly stumbles into ‘A World of His Own’.

From the same issue comes a salutary parable concerning a rich practical joker who goes too far before succumbing to ‘The Last Laugh’, after which ‘Mystery Planet’ (SSS #36, March 1958) offers a dash of interplanetary derring-do as valiant agent Bryan Bodine and comely associate Nedra confound intergalactic pirates piloting a planet-eating weapon against Earth!

A similarly bold defender liberates ‘The Conquered Earth’ from alien subjugation (OoTW #4, June 1957) whilst in ‘Assignment Treason’ (Outer Space #18. August 1958) the clean-cut hero goes undercover to save Earth from the predatory Master of Space as OoTW #8 (May 1958) and ‘The Secret of Capt. X’ reveals the inimical alien tyrant threatening humanity is not what he seems…

The cover to Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #3 (April 1957) makes way for three fantastic thrillers, beginning with ‘The Strange Guests of Tsaurus’ as an alien paradise proves to be anything but, then ‘A World Where I Was King’ sees a clumsy janitor catapulted into a wondrous realm to win a kingdom he doesn’t want. Diverting slightly, Fightin’ Army #20 (May 1957) provides a comedic interlude as a civil war soldier finds himself constantly indebted to ‘Gavin’s Stupid Mule’ before ‘A Forgotten World’ wraps up MoUW #3’s contributions with a scary tale of invasion from the Earth’s core. ‘The Cheapest Steak in Nome’ turns out to be defrosted from something that died millions of years ago in a light-hearted yarn from MoUW #7 (February 1958)…

The cover to MoUW #4 (July 1957) precedes more icy antediluvian preservations found in the ‘Valley in the Mist’ whilst the one for Strange Suspense Stories #33 (August 1957) leads into a bizarre corporate outreach project as the ‘Director of the Board’ attempts to go where no other exploitative capitalist has gone before. Next, it’s back to MoUW #3 for a brush with the mythological in ‘They Didn’t Believe Him’ after which ‘Forever and Ever’ (SSS #33) reveals an unforeseen downside to immortality and Out of This World #3 sees a stranger share ‘My Secret’ with ordinary folk despite – or because of – a scurrilous blackmailer…

‘A Dreamer’s World’ from Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #5 (October 1957) follows the chilling cover thereof as a test pilot hits his aerial limit and discovers a whole new existence, whilst Unusual Tales #7 (May 1957) traces the tragic path of ‘The Man Who Could See Tomorrow’ before the cover of Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #4 (August 1957) opens a mini-feast of voyeur’s voyages beginning with that issue’s ‘The Desert’: a saga of polar privation and survival.

TotMT #3 (May 1957) shows the appropriate cover and a ‘Secret Mission’ for a spy parachuted into Prague, whilst #4 offers ‘Escape’ for an unemployed pilot dragged into a gun-running scam in a south American lost world; ‘Test of a Man’ sees a cruel animal trainer receive his just deserts and ‘Operation Blacksnake’ grittily exposes American venality in the ever-expanding Arabian oil trade. Returning to Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #5, ‘The Mirage’ torments an escaped convict who thinks he’s escaped his fate, whilst Texas Rangers in Action #8 (July 1957) sees a ruthless rancher crushed by the weight of his own wicked actions as ‘The Only One’, after which stunning covers to Unusual Tales #6 and 7 (February and May 1957) lead into our final vignette – ‘The Man Who Painted on Air’: exposing and thwarting a unique talent to preserve humanity and make a few bucks on the side…

This sturdily capacious volume has episodes that terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, plots and stripped-down dialogue that let the art set the tone, push the emotions and tell the tale, from times when a story could end sadly as well as happily and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

These stories display the sharp wit and contained comedic energy which made so many Spider-Man/J. Jonah Jameson confrontations an unforgettable treat half a decade later, and this is another cracking collection not only superb in its own right but as a telling tribute to the genius of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists. This is something every serious comics fan would happily kill or die or be lost in time for…
Unexplored Worlds: The Steve Ditko Archive Vol. 2. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. Introduction © 2010 Blake Bell. All rights reserved.

Today in 1914, Jerry Siegel was born. Don’t make me have to finish this heads-up…

In 1937 Huey, Dewey & Louie Duck debuted. Ditto.

In 1959 The last issue of UK icon Comet was published and a decade later across the Pond Sidney Smith’s The Gumps ended. It had begun in 1917 as you’d know if read Sidney Smith’s The Gumps.