Category: Science Fiction

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The Strange Investigators 01: The Snake Job


By Luke Melia & Bobby Peñafiel
ISBN: 978-1-50581-207-7

At the luxury end of the self-publishing spectrum is this superbly high-end production number: a proper full-colour graphic novel in everything but page count.

Luke Melia and his collaborative artistic cohorts have been making superbly engaging contemporary genre stories for a while now (see Occulus and The White Room of the Asylum) and this light-hearted paranormal lark is the first chapter of their next graphic novel foray.

Complete in one issue, The Snake Job introduces young entrepreneurs Alex, Katelyn and Tony who have found a unique niche market for their services: so unique, in fact, that there’s no money in it and precious few customers.

The newly launched Strange Investigators – that’s a job description not a character assessment – aren’t having the best time getting the business on an even footing. Investigating “anything unusual or unexplained” hasn’t been the cash-cow they expected and they really need to make some money to pay for all the really expensive paranormal detection kit they’re using.

That’s why, after a long period of prevarication, Alex finally agrees to accept “the Snake Job” Katelyn’s had on her desk for weeks.

Alex claims there’s no mystery to how a big serpent got on to a tropical island beach, but Tony and Katelyn think his strident reluctance to take the case is simply because their CEO is afraid of wasps…

With the lights cut off and no other choice, three days later Alex and Tony are on an all-expenses-included jaunt paid for by a company eager to build an hotel on some nice unspoiled beaches.

The afflicted isle is pretty much as imagined, and the lads aren’t expecting much more than sand, sunburn and poking an adder with a high-tech stick. They couldn’t be more wrong…

This sucker is big, it’s proper supernatural and the natives aren’t especially keen to see some outsiders trying to kill it with flamethrowers and explosives…

Ranging from wryly trenchant to outright hilarious, this funny foray into fantastic worlds and humdrum zero-hours Contretemps of the Unknown promises to be another superb and unmissable treat.

© 2015 Luke Melia.
Self published and available to buy on Amazon in print and also as a PDF version to buy on Luke’s gumroad page ( https://gumroad.com/lukemelia) at “pay whatever you want – even free”.

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Oink: Heaven’s Butcher


By John Mueller (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-590-0

From 1995 to 2000 budding artistic talent John Mueller produced a couple of miniseries for Kitchen Sink Press which became lost classics. Two decades later and now a far more seasoned creator, Mueller has returned to his first work, tinkering, tweaking and visually remastering it into an eye-popping painted saga of depravity, oppression, rebellion and survival for a new generation of fans.

The tale is brutally simple and begins in ‘Awakenings’ as a seasoned and unrepentant killer on Death Row unburdens himself to a concerned and devout cleric…

Once upon a time in a devastated, dystopian world, a slave in Public Slaughterhouse 628 began to think and to question. He wondered especially why the hogs he carved up for his and his masters’ nourishment looked so much like him and his fellow workers.

The crushing religious dogma and vicious punishments meted out by the Warden Superior and his cruelly bullying Angels offered no answers. Neither masters nor slaves had ever heard words like “gene-splicing” or “DNA”, which had worked arcane magic creating a separate species halfway between pigs and humans…

One day however, weary old worker Spigot screamed the questions Oink had painfully learned not to… and paid a terrible price…

In his dreams Oink had a vision of a god far different from the one he had been programmed to believe in. Realising he had been made as a cog in a horrible machine he took up his slaughter axe and decided to change his world one human at a time.

Of course he soon found ways to speed up the process – such as burning down the monstrous meat factory he was reared in…

‘Lies’ found him as the only subject of conversation in the houses of the unholy where the Warden ushers Judas and his savage posse the Angels of Mercy into the sanctum of the puissant Cardinal Bacaar. That formidable ecclesiastic is in every respect the creator and guiding light of this brutal existence…

As the rebel pig-man explores the world beyond the slaughterhouse he is soon cornered by the sadistic hunters, but the Angels have never faced a fugitive like Oink before and he quickly defeats and escapes them.

His flight takes him deep into the industrialised wasteland beyond church confines where he is taken in by an old woman named Mary and her hulking maimed and mute grandson Herbert.

She had been brutally blinded by the new regime but all their tactics haven’t robbed her of the memories of how the world used to be. She begins teaching Oink of the scientific travesties Cardinal Bacaar created, but neither the vengeful rebel nor Herbert are there when Judas and the Angels burst in and end her…

Pushed beyond all reason and tantalised by truths just out of reach, Oink – with the heartbroken Herbert at his side – determines to take the battle to the technological devil priest and liberate his own people from further horror in ‘Pigs’.

The suicide raid on the Cardinal’s Birthing Factory is ruthless and appallingly effective but it is only the penultimate step. There is still Bacaar to deal with and that can only end one way…

Harsh, barbarous, oppressive and Orwellian (as much Animal Farm as 1984), the slight narrative and familiar premise here is successfully bolstered by stunning artwork from Mueller, and this anniversary edition also includes his phenomenal ‘Oink Sketchbook’ featuring dozens of images over twelve pages of pencil drawings, painted roughs, panel details and more, plus ten further pig picture portraits in the ‘Oink Pin-up Gallery’ by Mueller, Tomoslav Torjanac, Justin “Coro” Kaufman, Mica Hendricks, Jason Minauro, Brett Parson and Nate Van Dyke.
© 1995, 2015 John Mueller. All rights reserved.

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Valerian and Laureline book 8: Heroes of the Equinox


By Méziéres & Christin, with colours by E. Tranlé; translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-213-3

Valérian and Laureline is the most influential science fiction comics series ever created; an innovation-packed, Big-Ideas bonanza stuffed with wry observation, knowing humour, intoxicating action and underpinned throughout by sardonic sideswipes at contemporary mores and prejudices.

Val̩rian: Spatio-Temporal Agent debuted in weekly Pilote #420 (November 9th 1967) and was an instant hit. It swiftly evolved into its current designation as his feisty, fire-headed female sidekick developed into the equal partner Рand eventually scene-stealing star Рof light-hearted, fantastically imaginative, visually stunning, time-travelling, space-warping fantasies.

Nevertheless the so-sophisticated series always found room to propound a satirical, humanist ideology and agenda, launching telling fusillades of political commentary and social satire to underpin the astounding imagination of the space opera.

At first the tough, bluff, taciturn affably, capable – if unimaginative – by-the-book space cop just did his job: tasked with protecting official universal chronology (at least as per Terran Empire standards) by intercepting or counteracting paradoxes caused by incautious time-travellers.

When Valérian landed in 11th century France during debut tale ‘Les Mauvais Rêves (‘Bad Dreams’ and infuriatingly still not translated into English), he was rescued from doom by a capable young woman named Laureline. He brought her back to the 28th century super-citadel and administrative capital, Galaxity, where the indomitable firebrand took a crash course in spatiotemporal operations and began accompanying him on his missions.

Heroes of the Equinox was originally serialised in the monthly Pilote (issues #M47 to M50 from 21st March to June 27th 1978) before being collected later that year as eighth album Les héros de l’équinoxe: a sparkling, over-the-top spoof of superheroes and political ideologies which also found time and space to take a good-natured, gentle poke at the eternal battle of the sexes.

Spectacularly visual and imaginatively designed, the story starts as a quartet of vastly disparate planetary champions depart for the distant and distressed world of Simlane, where an ancient and cultivated civilisation is experiencing a uniquely tragic crisis…

The heroes comprise three dedicated – almost fanatical – supermen whilst Galaxity – far more concerned with courting public opinion than actually helping – have packed off a handy and presently unoccupied Spatio-Temporal agent named Valerian, just to show willing…

With Laureline mocking him for the entire trip, Earth’s Prime Champion touches down on Simlane to be greeted by a crowd of effusive oldsters from a glorious city of once magnificent but now crumbling edifices with an incredible story to tell.

The inhabitants of the derelict tourist trap are uniformly old and sterile and desperately need a new generation of children to repopulate the world, but their manner of achieving their goal is unique. For the lifetime of their civilisation, every hundred equinoxes the best and bravest males of Simlane venture to isolated Filine, Island of Children in a fierce and often deadly competition. The winner then somehow spawns a whole new generation who sail back on little boats to re-people the world.

That didn’t go entirely according to plan last time so the planetary leaders have invited four prime specimens from other worlds to do the necessary this time – much to the anger and dismay of a creaky host of crotchety, doddering indigenous old would-be sire-heroes…

At the packed but painfully weathered Great Theatre the assembled geriatrics are treated to a destructive floor show as the brazen alien warriors display their prowess. Bombastic Irmgaal of Krahan is a godlike superman wielding a flaming sword whilst proletarian technological wonder Ortzog of worker’s paradise Boorny reveals the power of a united people through his blazing, flailing chains. Mystic nature boy Blimflim of elysian, arcadian Malamum calmly displays the gentle irresistibility of the spirit harnessed to willpower. Each couldn’t be more different yet the result of each display is catastrophic destruction.

When eager eyes turn to Galaxity’s representative, Valerian simply shoots a chip off a distant stone cornice with his blaster… to tumultuous disinterest…

Dwarfed by the Herculean alien supermen, he shambles off to prepare for the great contest and dawn finds him with his fellow contestants ready to brave the stormy skies for the grand prize and glory…

This is one of the most visually extravagant and exuberant of all the albums, with a huge proportion of the book dedicated to the fantastic foursome overcoming their particular challenges and monstrous foes in astounding demonstrations of bravura puissance and awesome might… well, three of them anyway. The earthman’s travails are generally nasty, dirty smelly and ingloriously dangerous…

Eventually however all the warriors prove themselves a credit to their particular lineage and system before facing one final test. It’s in the form of a simple question: “If you sired the next generation how do you envision their future?”

Each strange visitor propounds a glorious agenda of expansion according to the customs and principles of his own culture but it’s the rather diffident and lacklustre vision of the Terran slacker that wins the approval of the incredible being who is the eternal mother of Simlane’s repopulation…

When the trio of failed supermen wash up on the shores of the city, the people realise who has fathered their soon-to-arrive new sons and daughters and patiently wait for the equinox tide to bring them over.

Laureline, horrified to discover that each successful father is never seen again, quickly sails to the Island of Children and navigates the trials which so tested the wonder men with comparative ease. She arrives at the misty citadel atop Filine in time to see an army of disturbingly familiar-looking toddlers tumble into little sailboats…

Broaching the idyllic paradise further she finally meets the Great Mother and sees what the breeding process has made of her reprehensible, sleazy, typically male partner…

Reaching an accommodation with the gargantuan progenitor, Laureline negotiates the release of her partner and they are soon winging home to Terra, with him having to listen to just what she thinks of him whilst praying Galaxity’s medical experts can make him again the man he so recently was…

Sharp, witty and deliciously over-the-top, this tale is a wry delight, spoofing with equanimity human drives, notions of heroism and political and philosophical trendiness with devastating effect. Whether super-heroic fascism, totalitarian socialism or even the woolly mis-educated, miscomprehendings of new age eco-fundamentalists who think aromatherapy cures broken legs or that their kids are too precious to be vaccinated and too special to share herd immunity, no sacred cow is left soundly unkicked…

However, no matter how trenchant, barbed, culturally aware and ethically crusading, Valerian and Laureline stories never allow message to overshadow fun and wonder and Heroes of the Equinox is one of the most entertaining sagas Méziéres & Christin ever concocted, complete with a superb sting in the tale…

Between 1981 and 1985, Dargaud-Canada and Dargaud-USA published a number of selected albums in English (with a limited UK imprint from Hodder-Dargaud) under the umbrella title Valerian: Spatiotemporal Agent and this was the fourth, translated then by L. Mitchell.

Although this modern Cinebook release boasts far better print and colour values plus a more fluid translation, total completists might also be interested in tracking down the 1983 edition too…
© Dargaud Paris, 1978 Christin, Méziéres & Tran-Lệ. All rights reserved. English translation © 2014 Cinebook Ltd.

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Twin Spica volume 6


By Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-935654-03-2

This beguilingly intimate paean to the unyielding allure of the stars came out of Kou Yaginuma’s poignant vignette ‘2015 Nen no Uchiage Hanabi’ (‘2015: Fireworks’), published in Gekkan Comic Flapper magazine in June 2000.

Subsequently expanded and enhanced, the themes and characters grew into a spellbinding coming-of-age epic which wedded hard science and humanist fiction with lyrical mysticism wrapped up in traditional tales of school-days friendships and growing up.

Small, unassuming Asumi Kamogawa has always dreamed of going into space. From her earliest moments the lonely child gazed with intense longing up at the stars, her constant companion and confidante an imaginary friend dubbed Mr. Lion.

When Asumi was a year old, the first Japanese space launch had ended in catastrophe after rocket-ship Shishigō (“The Lion”) exploded: crashing back to earth on the city of Yuigahama where the Kamogawas lived. Hundreds were killed and many more injured.

Among the cruellest casualties was Asumi’s own mother. Maimed and comatose, the matron took years to die and the long, drawn-out tragedy deeply traumatised her tiny, uncomprehending daughter. The shock also crushed her grieving husband who had worked as a designer on the rockets for Japan’s fledgling Space Program.

In the wake of the disaster, Tomoro Kamogawa was assigned by the corporation who had built the ship to head the reparations committee. Guilt-wracked and personally bereaved, the devastated technologist visited and formally apologised to each and every survivor or victim’s grieving family. The experience harrowed and crushed him.

He is certainly no fan of the space program now; having lost his wife, his beloved engineering career and his pride to the race for the heavens. He raised his daughter alone, working two – and often three – menial jobs at a time for over a decade and cannot countenance losing the very last of his loved ones to the cold black heavens…

In response to the Lion disaster, Japan set up an Astronautics and Space Sciences Academy. After years of passionate struggle and in defiance of her father’s wishes, in 2024 Asumi – an isolated, solitary, serious but determined teenager – was accepted to the Tokyo National Space School. Without her father’s blessing, she reluctantly left Yuigahama and joined the new class.

Amongst the year’s fresh intake were surly, abrasive Shinnosuke Fuchuya (an elementary school classmate who used to bully her as a child back in Yuigahama), jolly Kei Oumi, chilly Marika Ukita and spooky, ultra-cool style-icon and fashion victim Shu Suzuki who all gradually became the shy introvert’s closest acquaintances.

Every day Asumi closed inexorably upon her stellar goal. Ever since the crashing rocket had shattered her family, she had drawn comfort from the firmament, with Mr. Lion staring up at the heavens by her side; both especially drawn to the twinkling glow of Virgo and the alluring binary star Spica.

And now she was so tantalisingly close…

Small, poor, physically weak but resolutely capable, Asumi endures and triumphs over every obstacle and she still talks with Mr. Lion – who is very probably the ghost of a Shishigō crewman…

All any student at the Academy can think of is going to space, but they are harshly and constantly reminded that most of them won’t even finish their schooling. At just four feet, eight inches tall Asumi constantly struggles to meet the arduous physical requirements but has already survived far greater problems. She is still adjusting to the busy life of Tokyo, sleeps in tawdry communal women’s dorm “The Seagull”, struggles with many of her classes and subsists on meagre funds, supplemented by part-time jobs…

Individual stories are divided into “Missions” with volume six covering numbers 25-29, and also including a mesmerising sidebar tale of Asumi’s childhood as well as another entrancing autobiographical vignette from the author’s own teenage years.

‘Mission: 25’ begins with standoffish Ukita in big trouble in the deep woods. Asumi’s entire class are enduring a brutal survival exercise in the wilds but the former rich girl – who has recently escaped her overbearing father’s domination – also suffers from some secret mystery malady. Moreover she has recently decided to go off her meds.

Now she is weak and bleeding, lost where no one can help her…

As the carefully monitoring teachers move in to save Ukita, Asumi reaches her classmates at the designated target zone. They are astounded to find that she has made her way to them without the compass they all had in their survival kits…

With only Ukita a no-show, Asumi abandons her own position of safety to go back into the woods and search for her, unaware that the object of her concern is slowly recovering at the teachers’ monitoring post.

As previously seen in a sequence of flashbacks, the enigmatic girl has an ancient and unexplained connection to the boy who became Mr. Lion…

Long ago in Yuigahama, a lad obsessed with rockets met a frail and sickly rich girl, stuck in isolation in a big house. Her name was Marika Ukita and they became friends despite her condition and the constant angry intervention of her father.

She was beguiled by his tales of space flight and the history of exploration, and shared the only joyous moment in her tragic life, when her over-protective dad took her to see a play called Beauty and the Beast…

During the big annual Fireworks Festival the boy made a lion-mask of the Beast to wear, but she never came. He had to break into the mansion to show her. She was very sick but wanted to dance with him…

Later the dying daughter had quietly rebelled when told she was being packed off to a Swiss sanatorium. She slipped out of the house when no-one was watching and vanished. The boy knew where she had gone and rushed off to save her…

In the Now as slowly recovering Cadet Ukita see her classmates all head back into danger for her, she experiences awful memories: visions of a man wealthy enough to replace a lost daughter through money and science but not show her any love. Furious yet inexplicably delighted, Ukita begins to realise that she has friends who will risk everything for her…

‘Mission: 26’ finds the exhausted little astronaut-to-be back home safely at the Seagull hostel, blithely unaware that romantically interested party Kiriu and his fellow orphan Akane have been missing their Asumi.

Instead she is busy teaching Ukita – still plagued with memories of her father’s draconian efforts to keep her healthy but never caring if she was happy – how to be sociable. Soon they realise how much they share in respect to love of the stars…

Asumi’s joy soon dissipates when she learns of Kiriu’s latest crisis and that little sister Akane has been hospitalised with sunstroke. The determined tyke was sitting outside waiting for her astronaut friend to visit…

Returning to the orphanage that night Kiriu is astounded to find Asumi there, and even more astonished when she invites him to come see the stars with her…

‘Mission: 27’ offers more insight into Mr. Lion’s past as a special guest lecturer visits the Space School. Astronaut Ryohei Haijima is a god to the star-struck kids but he seems almost apologetic and embarrassed to be there, with no pride in his achievements.

Mr. Lion knows his story. As boys they were at school together and worked on rocketry projects that gave them both ineffable pleasure. They both became astronauts, and if Haijima hadn’t artfully relinquished his position to the desperately eager Lion, he would have died in the Shishigō disaster.

On hearing this, Asumi decides to reintroduce the despondent victim of Survivor’s Guilt to his boyhood friend…

Focus shifts to ultra-cool Shu Suzuki with ‘Mission: 28’ as the laconic rich kid goes missing for a week whilst his classmates suffer the next devilish practical course devised by their tutors to separate potential space explorers from ordinary mortals. Concerned, they all begin searching for him and learn an extraordinary story.

Suzuki too has problems with parents. As the first son of a wealthy business and political dynasty he was groomed from birth to inherit the mantles of duty and government, but when he refused and chose the stars he was disowned. As his friends converge on the lost boy he invites them all to sit with him and fold origami stars, wryly revealing he’s been working for the past week to pay for his tuition…

The ongoing saga pauses here after ‘Mission: 28’ finds the class practising in a space shuttle trainer. As usual the tests are rigged, unfair and a complete surprise but as she bitterly complains – as always – Oumi realises that a strange calmness and complacency has become Ukita’s new emotional state.

Stressed to their limits the students look forward to the imminent summer vacation and when Oumi stridently suggests they all head for the beach together, Fuchuya states he has to go home. Undaunted, Oumi points out that Yuigahama is a seaside town – and must have a beach – whilst Asumi reminds them that the town’s annual Fireworks Festival is forthcoming…

With the holiday plans a fait accompli, the kids separate and Ukita finds the irrepressible Suzuki moving his meagre belongings into the library. Soon all of them are helping him kit out the attic he intends to squat in, astounded at the beautiful book-crammed annexe, filled floor to ceiling with tomes about space…

And then it’s time for the holidays and Asumi heads back to Yuigahama, looking forward to the Festival and seeing Fuchuya’s wonderful grandfather again. She’s going to be very disappointed…

To Be Continued…

Although the main event goes into a holding pattern here, further insights into Asumi’s childhood are forthcoming as ‘Tiny, Tiny Aqua Star’ reveals how the little outcast was ostracised and bullied by her fellows for claiming she had an astronaut lion ghost for a friend. The unflaggingly honest waif never knew her shy classmate Shinnosuke Fuchuya was quietly keeping the worst of the class’s abuse away from her…

Life was still pretty unpleasant, however, but took a sweet upturn when old Mr. Fuchuya (the lad’s granddad) gave her one of his handmade sparklers to light at the Fireworks Festival.

More disturbing was the urgent and savage demand of one of her tormentors. Following the death of her mother, Yuzo wanted Asumi to show her the place where you see ghosts, even if it cost both their lives…

The manga miracles then conclude with ‘Another Spica’ which sees author Yaginuma in autobiographical mode once more, harking back to his ambition-free teens, chopping pineapples in his crappy job and enduring the self-castigating hell of a first date…

These unforgettable tales originally appeared in 2004 as Futatsu no Supika 6 in Seinen manga magazine Gekkan Comic Flapper, aimed at male readers aged 18-30, but this ongoing, unfolding saga is perfect for any older kid with stars in their eyes…

Twin Spica filled sixteen collected volumes from September 2001 to August 2009, tracing the trajectories of Asumi and friends from callow students to accomplished astronauts and has spawned both anime and live action TV series.

This sublime serial has everything: plenty of hard science to back up the informed extrapolation, an engaging cast, mystery, frustrated passion, alienation, angst, enduring friendships and just the right blend of spiritual engagement with wild-eyed wonder; all welded seamlessly into an evocative, addictive drama.

Rekindling the magical spark of the Wild Black Yonder for a new generation, this is a treat no imagineer with head firmly in the clouds can afford to miss…

© 2011 by Kou Yaginuma. Translation © 2011 Vertical, Inc. All rights reserved.
This book is printed in the Japanese right to left, back to front format.

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Orbital book 4: Ravages


By Serge Pellé & Sylvain Runberg, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-088-7

Serge Pellé & Sylvain Runberg’s mismatched pair of Diplomatic Peacekeeper agents return in the conclusion of the sinister saga begun in Orbital: Nomads, subtly tweaking and deftly twisting that cunning epic of far-flung, futuristic political intrigue into a full-on horror story of relentless alien terror…

What you need to know: After decades of pariah-status and exclusion, 23rd century Earth finally joined a vast Confederation of interstellar civilisations, despite grave and abiding concerns about humanity’s aggressive nature and xenophobic tendencies shared by many of the member species. On Earth the feeling was largely mutual…

Prior to the humanity’s induction a militant “Isolationist” faction had graduated from politics to horrific terrorism: committing atrocities both on Earth and distant worlds where mankind had already developed colonies and bases. Ultimately they failed to prevent humanity’s inclusion in the pan-galactic union and were sidelined in global politics.

Neither they nor the ill-will they fostered really went away…

One particular Confederation worry was the way humans had treated the alien civilisation of the Sandjarrs, whose world was invaded in Earth’s all-consuming drive for territory and exploitable resources. The subsequent atrocities almost exterminated the stoic desert dwellers…

The vast bureaucracy of the Interworld Diplomatic Office works through operatives assigned in pairs to troubleshoot throughout the galaxy, defusing crises before they can become flashpoints of violence, and recently IDO’s first human recruit Caleb Swany had been surprisingly teamed with Sandjarr Mezoke Izzua: a situation clearly designed as a high-profile political stunt.

So was their initial mission: convincing an Earth mining colony on the moon Senestem to peacefully surrender a profitable planetary industry to the aliens who actually own the satellite it was situated on. Overcoming outrageous odds and problems, the unlikely team of rookies resolved the issue in true diplomatic manner with a minimum of casualties and nobody really happy or satisfied…

Released in France in 2010, Orbital: Ravages is the fourth album released by Cinebook and picks up as Caleb and Mezoke find a simple state function is rapidly devolving into an interspecies crisis…

The Galactic Great-and-Good are on Earth to confirm the end of Human/Sandjarr hostilities in a series of spectacular Reconciliation Ceremonies, but the political glad-handing is in danger of imploding after Kuala Lumpur’s human fisherman clash with a hitherto unsuspected enclave of star-spanning cannibalistic alien gypsies known as the Rapakhun…

One of the greatest benefits of induction into The Confederation has been the infusion of alien technologies which have cleansed and reinvigorated the gravely wounded ecosystem of long-abused and much-polluted Earth. Now, however, the newly restocked, abundant seas and mangrove swamps around Malaysia are blighted by the mass extinction of millions of valuable fish. The humans blame the uninvited aliens, requiring Swany and Mezoke – accompanied by Caleb’s old mentor Hector Ulrich (instrumental in brokering Earth into the Confederation) – to forcefully intervene; promising all aggrieved parties that the truth will be found and shared.

This might be tricky: much of mankind is still anti-alien, and local economies are fragile, whilst the Rapakhun are apparently no innocent angels. Many space civilisations despise them. The stellar nomads are flighty wanderers who go where they please and refuse to be represented in or on Confederation Councils.

Moreover, all the cosmic bigwigs on Earth are only concerned with their precious Reconciliation Ceremonies, looking good and validating their controversial decision to admit Earth to the Civilised Worlds of the galaxy…

Whilst Caleb and Mezoke are fully occupied with the freshly-arrived delegation of Sandjarr dignitaries, fish are still dying and when human fisherman get too close to the agreed-upon neutral zone they are suddenly exterminated, outraging many watching members of the Malaysian Navy.

Although Caleb attempts to downplay and even suppress the concatenation of bad news in hope of keeping the Ceremonies alive the slaughter of fishermen provokes a “patriotic” clique in the Navy peacekeeping force to look the other way when the locals decide to deal with the nomads once and for all…

The riots and bloodshed are appalling and the IDO agents realise they need to know more about the Rapakhun: someone needs to visit their last port of call and see what the nomads are really capable of…

The story resumes in the grimily cosmopolitan Shah Alam district of Kuala Lumpur where impoverished human and alien scrap-merchants work, salvaging materials and tech from defunct starships. As tensions rise everywhere, one of the greedy toilers makes a grisly discovery and dies horribly in exactly the same manner as the fishermen in the swamps…

Caleb meanwhile, over Mezoke’s protests, is in full-spin-control mode; weaving a pack of placatory lies to the journalists of uncounted watching worlds. Unable to leave Earth mid-crisis, the IDO agents have recruited enigmatic human star-pilot Nina and her secretly-sentient Neuronome ship Angus to canvas the distant world of Dehadato, last port of call of the nomadic Rapakhun, but before they can report anything a vast riot breaks out in the Shah Alam.

The Fishermen’s Quarter is ablaze, a war-zone rife with scared and angry humans and aliens, but when Caleb, Mezoke and Hector fly over the scene of destruction and looting they are brought down by rioters and have to fight their way out…

Thanks to IDO intervention, canny bargaining, judicious bribery by city officials and an unlikely detente between the extraterrestrial scrap merchants and ambitious new spokesman of the Fisherman’s Federation, the situation is soon damped down and all sides again tensely wait for answers…

On Dehadato Nina and Angus are exploring the Rapakhun’s last campsite and uncover scenes of horrific devastation, even as in Kuala Lumpur Confederation leaders are thinking about cutting their losses and cancelling the Reconciliation Ceremonies, terrified that the situation is fast becoming politically untenable.

It takes all of Caleb’s strident persuasiveness to convince them – and Mezoke – to continue the itinerary of events. However he only gets his first inkling that they might be right when he’s informed that a body as been found in the city, butchered in the same extreme and inexplicable manner as the fishermen in the swamp…

Back on Dehadato, Nina and Angus have rescued a poacher from the folly of his actions in pursuing monstrous, colossal and protected Nargovals. As the Sülfir recovers he imparts snippets of information about the stellar nomads and an incredible beast which was here before the Rapakhun left.

The doughty hunter only tried for the unstoppable leviathans which killed his entire poaching team after first ensuring there were no more Varosash on the planet. They had apparently departed with the gypsy cannibals…

Caleb has already concluded that the Rapakhun are behind all his problems, but as he stalks them in the Mangrove swamps, word comes from Nina that stops him in his tracks. It may already be too late though. At the biggest sports arena in the city, thousands of avid Speedball fans – human and not – are packed together and reaching a fever pitch of excitement, unaware that a hideous invisible killer, the very essence of all mankind’s fear of alien monsters, is about to consume them all…

Can the disunited Caleb and Mezoke with the pitifully few allies they can call upon end the invisible and rapacious threat before it ends humanity?

Nina and the Sülfir think they have a plan. Risky and probably fatal, but a plan nonetheless…

Fast-paced, action-packed, gritty and spectacular, Ravages is pure space-opera, with delightfully complex sub-plots fuelled by political intrigue and a vast unexplored canvas tantalising readers at very moment.

One of the most beguiling sci fi strips of all time, Orbital is a delight every fan of the future should indulge in…
Original edition © Dupuis 2010 by Runberg & Pellé. All rights reserved. English translation © 2011 by Cinebook Ltd.

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Neomad Book 1: Space Junk


By Sutu & The Love Punks (Gerstalt Comics/Big hART)
ISBN: 978-1-922023-14-8

I have no first hand experience of the Australian Experience. Most of what I do know comes from movies, TV or Midnight Oil and Men at Work records.

…And comics of course, ranging from the country’s 1950s DC reprints – both flimsy pamphlets and Christmas Annuals – to their lengthy and venerable take on Lee Falk & Ray Moore’s strip icon The Phantom plus some few precious strips such as Southern Squadron and The Jackaroo (from homegrown superhero anthology Cyclone!) during the 1980s and 1990s when American Indie publishers went for hunting quality material from around the world to fill their empty pages.

Things are way better these days with outfits like Gestalt Comics producing superbly original graphic novels like Torn, Eldritch Kid and Vowels for international audiences, many with the unique flavour of the Land Down Under.

Now, in conjunction with Arts and Social Change organisation Big hART, cartoonist, illustrator and computer-designer Stuart “Sutu” Campbell has joined forces with a talented bunch of kids to produce a multimedia entertainment epic, the barest fraction of which comprises this deliriously engaging and anarchically excellent graphic novel.

The lads are all from Ieramagudu (Roebourne) on the edge of the Pilbara Desert, within the Murujuga National Park and Cultural Heritage Site.

The area is home to approximately one million petroglyphs dating back more than 30,000 years: a place of artistic expression and creativity for almost as long as mankind has existed…

Far more recently, Sutu and Big hART – as part of the Yijala Yala Project – have been teaching some of the kids growing up there computer-colouring techniques whilst the youngsters have been sharing their imaginations, enthusiasm and ideas. The collective result is Neomad, blending ancient indigenous customs and spirituality with dystopian futurism, eternal verities and the never-ending struggle for survival…

Space Junk is the first part of a sci fi trilogy which opens as young Mav relates a fireside interview with his Maali – a paternal grandfather of great sagacity and insight. The oldster was telling the story of the boy’s birth whilst imparting the customs of their people until the night sky was suddenly lit by a falling star.

That’s good luck. Everybody knows that when a star falls at night it brings new life…

Elsewhere but nearby in 2076AD, a tech-smart tribe of youthful extroverts are out illegally tapping the water pipeline when they see a plummeting, blazing rocket booster burn across the heavens.

Jahmal, Edwin, Dan, Jarried, Stanley, Deshawn and the rambunctious rest of the self-appointed Love Punks are more interested in fun than profit and their piratical, good natured squabbling soon sets off an alarm. Panic quickly changes back to cocky determination and bravado so the creepy spybot which races in to determine what’s wrong is soon reduced to spare parts in their accumulated arsenal of recycled, repurposed junk…

The posse are all far less sanguine when the authoritarian cops dubbed the Segz steam in on hover platforms and give frantic chase…

The helter-skelter pursuit careens across the wasteland, past a boy and his Maali sitting at a fire. The rush of wind portentously extinguishes the flames and Mav decides he’d better join his fellow Love Punks…

The high-speed chase roars deeper into the plains – annoying the heck out of assorted wildlife – and Mav catches up to them just as they reach the foot of a monstrous red rock plateau. Things look grim until someone has the bright idea to shove the power crystal from the sabotaged spybot into their faltering and overloaded hoverquad’s engine…

Suddenly hurtling up the vertical rock face and leaving the disgusted Segz far below, the Punks hit the plateau top in time to see the booster crash down and, ever curious, head over to explore.

Cooling the surprisingly intact debris with their purloined water the boys quickly realise that what they’ve got is not simple space debris. Etched onto the vehicle’s slowly cooling side is a strangely disturbing petroglyph similar to the thousands of age-old designs which can be found all over Murujuga…

To Be Continued…

Raucous and riotous, this hell-for-leather rollercoaster of joyous fun is but the beginning of a colossal tale that will take the Love Punks to the ends of the universe to discover the secrets of everything…

Crafted by Sutu with Senior Colourist Haw Kong and featuring contributions from Junior Colourists – and actors – Alison Lockyer, Ashton Munda, Brodie Tahi Tahi, Corbyn Munda, Dannette Wilson, Eric Wedge, Jahmal Munda, Jarried Ashburton, Jordan Coppin, Layla Walker, Maverick Eaton, Max Coppin, Nathaniel Edwins, Sidney Eaton, Tonina Smith, Troydan Long, Vynka Parker, William Eaton and Woedin Wilson, the book comes with a section of photo-features including a boisterous introduction to the real Love Punks, some facts about Murujuga National Park, a glossary of words from the Aboriginal Yindjibarndi and Ngarluma languages (which pepper the text) plus plugs for Book 2: The Last Crystal, the award-winning Love Punks interactive video game, the live-action films and documentaries…

Worthy, impressive and above all else tremendously entertaining, this is a book kids will love and want to be part of for years to come.
© 2013 Big hART.

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Oculus


By Luke Melia, Vincent Smith, David Anderson & various (Tabella Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-50276-589-5                  eBook ASIN: B00IC4EQJ2

As I’m sure you know by now, I’m a huge advocate of comics creators with the drive and dedication to take control of their own destinies. Late last year I reviewed a superbly written graphic horror tale called The White Room of the Asylum by Luke Melia and a coterie of artists which utterly amazed and impressed me.

Now with a chameleonic, Iain Banks-like shift of genres the indie artistic entrepreneurs are back – specifically writer/letterer Melia, illustrator Vinny Smith and colour-artist David Anderson – with a distinctly disturbing sci fi cop drama that is every bit as gripping and smart…

By 2027 the world has been completely altered by a social media innovation of astounding power and devastating simplicity.

Oculus sells an implanted chip which allows users to record and/or share in real-time whatever they’re seeing and hearing. The service connects with any or all other possessors of the implant and the company claims that to comprise most of the planet.

Live streaming intimate moments of an individual’s everyday life can be with one person, a selection of friends and acquaintances or the entire world. The facility has completely changed every aspect of society.

It has especially transformed the law and policing. It’s really hard to claim innocence if the victim has shared you committing the crime with thousands of viewers and the Oculus mainframe has a record of you doing it…

Police forces are more tech resource teams, video researchers and IT bods than boots-on- the-ground coppers – except for the bellicose, tooled-up, OTT tactical teams designated SABU (Special Armed response and Bomb disposal Unit) – so feckless young graduate Shane Edwards‘ first day in the Major Crimes Department of the New Oxford Constabulary is something of a letdown.

He’s already having a tragic life. Despite his being the son of the Mayor – who had to very blatantly pull strings to get him into the police – his best friend (he so wants her to be more) and Oculus intimate Emma Hudson is going through hell because her sister is going to jail.

It’s not official yet but Lauren was observed killing her cheating boyfriend in full view of an enrapt and aghast global audience…

After meeting department boss Alan Campbell and the shockingly small team of detectives, Shane is swiftly dubbed ‘Another Girl in the Office’ by astonishingly abrasive colleague Jane. Dogsbody Chris seems okay but the new kid doesn’t even meet old lag Jeff who is supposed to be his mentor and partner…

That introduction only comes in the middle of the night when the grizzled and rather unconventional old plod turns up on the doorstep to drag him to a crime scene emergency. He won’t even let Shane change out of his pyjamas and slippers…

Incident reporting has also been revolutionised by Oculus. Why wait for a scream or a phone call when most crimes are seen by somebody somewhere as they happen; be they perp, witness, victim or even police officer…?

This particular “Shout” is for a grotesquely bloody murder picked up all over the Oculus network, but by the time they arrive on scene, the story is already staring to unravel.

For starters, the girl seen being repeatedly stabbed, screaming her lungs out and expiring is Isobel Bendis, who slashed her wrists and died weeks earlier – and Jane should know: she was the officiating officer and attended the funeral a fortnight previously…

Ascertaining that the broadcast was faked, Jeff employs a particularly cool piece of kit called a Repeat Torch which illuminates the outlines of living bodies on solid objects such as walls… just like electromagnetic Luminol…

The hazy blue rays show two living persons – presumably the grisly, prankish fraudsters – manufacturing the body dump. Following the ghostly trail leads Shane and Jeff through the sewers and into the underground transit system, where the gobsmacked coppers realise at last that they been played from start to finish by some very clever individuals…

The startling events of Oculus are rendered in full colour and cunningly augmented with a wealth of satirical ads for such items as the voyeuristic ‘Extreme Jobs’ site, ‘Wild-Sight’, ‘The Oculus Cloud‘, ‘Life in Third Person’ and decision-making app ‘Indie-Sysiv’ – all concocted by Luke & Vivienne Melia, Vinny Smith, David Anderson, Michael Kennedy, Christian David Navarro, Jenna Kyle, James Smith, Bobby Peñafiel and Roel S. Palmaira.

Key background information is provided by a series of faux magazine interviews with the social revolution’s inventor Alan Jensen (designed and illustrated by Ephraim Zev Zimmerman) and following the first of these – ‘The Origins of Oculus’ – the saga resumes with the entire Major Crimes unit – all five of them – reviewing events.

Cliff has established that the “murder” broadcast was recorded, not live, and sent from the username “Dolos”, tagged with a large variety of terms such as “Free”, “Sex”, “Star Trek” and “Anime” all cunningly designed to catch the eye of the widest possible audience…

Unfortunately due to budget constraints Campbell can’t sanction a costly activity report from the Oculus Corporation for what looks like a nasty student prank. Still smarting from looking like a fool and being seen trudging through sewers in pyjamas and tiger slippers, Shane vigorously disagrees. He argues that whoever did this is organised, meticulous, capable of fooling everybody who saw into believing it was real… and live. Dolos also had no problems digging up and stealing a corpse to carry it off…

Campbell relents and agrees to let Shane and Jeff continue to work on it as long as costs stay down: after all, these days there simply isn’t that much work for detectives to do…

Jeff has been in the force for a very long time and knows lots of strange people. Thinking one of them might have a handle on the matter, he drags his excitable understudy to a basement flat to meet inventor and hacker Bentley, a most peculiar individual clearly long off his meds and living in a wonderland of paranoia and bizarre hand-made devices…

‘0.4% Chance It Could Destroy The World’ sees the first lead found as the batty boffin suggests back-street Oculus implants and breaks into the high security Oculus Corporation database records.

Armed with Dolos’s account inception date and the enigma’s Friends List, the dynamic duo hit the quiet streets of New Oxford where Jeff suggests trying a far more traditional method of finding things out…

Fat Maisey is a low-level street rat and if anyone knows about illegal Oculus implants he will. Sadly the chase after the little weasel only leads our heroes into an armed ambush and ultra-violent counter-operation involving the gun-toting gung-ho grunts of SABU…

Barely escaping with their lives Shane and Jeff head back to the station whilst elsewhere two conspirators bicker and agree to speed up the pace of their plan…

Still felling out of his depth, Shane talks things over with “just friends” Emma before going out on a date with old college acquaintance Anna Rice. They end up in bed but since Anna’s idea of having a great time is being seen getting off by hundreds of strangers, close friends and especially herself, Shane’s night does not have a happy ending…

Following another Jensen interview (‘The Origins of PADs and Broadcasting’) the next chapter ‘How Could I Ever Truly Respect Her?’ opens with the boy wonder getting some well deserved ragging from his mentor.

Even Shane’s mum tuned in to the open broadcast and he is – for the third day running – the laughing stock of the New Oxford Constabulary. At least Jeff is amused enough to share some of his own tragic personal history, but inexplicably Emma seems furious with the bewildered newbie…

Events suddenly overtake the mental self-flagellation when Campbell calls them all in to a meeting which also includes members of Operations and Counter-terrorism divisions. All assembled are advised to tune in to a certain Oculus Drive path where Dolos is again broadcasting.

Definitely live this time, the mystery prankster is loading a gun in a public toilet somewhere in New Oxford…

As the frantic law officials follow the progress of the gloved perpetrator through his – or her – own eyes, Shane recognises The Francis Castle Shopping Centre. Dolos, now sitting at the central fountain pretending to read a newspaper, adds more Tag-terms to the live feed: words like “Francis Castle”, “massacre” and “hundreds dead”…

The bigwigs freak out and SABU are dispatched, but Shane uses his own Oculus system to link with a stranger shopping at the mall. Convincing Gabrielle to walk over to the fountain, the police use her eyes but see that no one is there, even though Dolos’s open channel shows the chilling conundrum staring right back at the baffled teenager over his paper…

When the enigma’s eyes show him unwrapping a bomb and scrawling the word “Kaboom” on a wall, full-panic mode kicks in and masked-and-armoured SABU officers storm the centre, frantically evacuating the citizens and using the Dolos view to trail him to the bomb.

Once again there is nothing there, and the baffled cops are just turning to go when a colossal detonation rocks the building…

After Jensen’s ‘How Oculus Changed the Entertainment Industry’ a telling flashback of Shane and Emma at college leads to gloom and despondency in the present as the NOC reel in the aftermath of a disaster that has left 35 dead and hundreds injured.

Brain-fried from constantly reviewing the impossibly divergent Oculus recordings, Jeff and Shane go book-shopping to clear out the nonsensical but inescapable theory of an invisible maniac being behind all their woes…

The second-hand tome is for Jeff’s friend Bryce: a very smart lady who owned a research company which dabbled in camouflage and stealth technologies – although her real area of expertise was human cloning. ‘Oh, And By The Way, There Are Six Of Them’ sees Shane astonished to meet a sextet of his partner’s pal as they pursue the assorted blind alleys regarding becoming unseen…

However, as they all congregate to review the combined synched footage of numerous victims, one of Bryce does identify an anomaly who might just be an accomplice of Dolos…

As Shane tries to re-establish a personal life free of shame and snickering rozzers, the wheels of modern police procedure roll on and soon the mystery man in the recordings is identified and arrested… but only after a little illicit assistance from Bentley…

The next Jensen feature deals with ‘Education and the Workplace’ after which Jeff and Shane conduct their first interview with terrified Rhys Ennis who, after literally spilling his guts, does so metaphorically and explains how the anonymous Dolos hired him…

The kid is clearly just a pawn and the NOC eventually let him go. It’s only later as Jeff tells his protégé about Bryce that Shane realises in a burst of exasperated inspiration the simple trick the terrorists devised to cheat a system the entire world believes cannot be fooled…

As the police swing into action Shane heads home for much needed sleep, but is soon awakened by a live cast from Emma. From under her bed she – and Shane – can see a man with a gun stalking murderously through her house…

Jeff arrives ahead of his partner and chases the assailant off and by the time Shane arrives there’s nothing to do but comfort the distraught Emma. His mentor however has cornered the intruder and with Shane scrupulously tuned in goes down in a hail of bullets in ‘You Can’t Unsee Shit Like That, No Pun Intended’…

Bracketed by Jensen interviews ‘Oculus Health Implications & the Law’ and ‘The Future of Oculus’, the incredible truth behind a devilish and misconceived scheme finally comes out in ‘So What Went Wrong?’

However even as Jeff’s colleagues arrest Dolos and sweat the incomprehensible truth out of the last person Shane ever expected to see, events conspire to prove that nothing is as it seems and nobody can really be trusted…

Originally released as an eBook in February 2014, this full-colour printed trade-paperback edition is now available (complete with cover gallery by Anderson) delivering a superbly imaginative, compelling and suspenseful future crime yarn no lover of whodunits will want to miss.
© 2014 Luke Melia, Vinnie Smith and David Anderson. All rights reserved.

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Orbital volume 3: Nomads


By Serge Pellé & Sylvain Runberg, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-080-1

The truest thing that can be said about French science fiction is that it always delivers amazing style and panache even when the underlying premise might be less than original. In Serge Pellé & Sylvain Runberg’s beautiful Orbital series a seemingly-mismatched pair of Diplomatic Peacekeeper agents are deployed to quell incipient brushfire wars and mediate internal pressures within a vast pan-species intergalactic alliance, but the hoary “buddy-movie” format is a mere skeleton for eye-popping missions, star-spanning intrigue and intense personal interactions which are always are handled with deft wit and great imagination, never failing to carry the reader along in a blaze of fantastic fun…

What you need to know: after decades of pariah-status galactic exclusion, Earth in the 23rd century has finally been allowed to join a vast Confederation of interstellar civilisations, despite grave and abiding concerns about humanity’s aggressive nature and xenophobic tendencies.

A militant “Isolationist” faction on Earth had moved from politics to horrific terrorism in the immediate run-up to formal induction, committing atrocities both on Earth and distant worlds where mankind had developed colonies and mining bases, but ultimately they failed to prevent humanity’s inclusion in the pan-galactic union.

One particular Confederation worry was the way humans had treated the alien civilisation of the Sandjarrs, whose world was invaded in Earth’s all-consuming drive for territory and exploitable resources. The subsequent atrocities almost exterminated the stoic, pacifistic desert creatures…

Interworld Diplomatic Office operatives are assigned in pairs to troubleshoot throughout the galaxy, defusing crises before they can become flashpoints of violence. IDO’s first human recruit Caleb Swany had been surprisingly teamed with Sandjarr Mezoke Izzua, a situation clearly designed as a high-profile political stunt, as was their initial mission: convincing an Earth mining colony to surrender a profitable planetary mining industry back to the aliens who actually own the moon Senestem it was situated on…

Moreover, even though Earth is a now a member of the Confederation, with humans well placed in all branches of interstellar service, the Isolationist cause is still deeply cherished by many, needing only the slightest spark to reignite…

Orbital: Nomads is the third epic album published by Cinebook (originally released in 2009 as ‘Nomades’), and picks up soon after Caleb and Mezoke’s hard-won solution was implemented.

The Galactic Great-and-Good have arrived on Earth to very publicly celebrate and affirm the end of Human/Sandjarr hostilities in a series of spectacular Reconciliation Ceremonies, but the political glad-handing looks to be upstaged by another interspecies crisis…

One of the greatest benefits of induction into The Confederation has been the infusion of alien technologies which have cleansed and reinvigorated the ecosystem of long-abused and much-polluted Earth.

Now however an incident has occurred in the newly restocked, abundant seas and mangrove swamps around Malaysia, with the sudden death of millions of fish leading to a bloody clash between local fishermen and an unsuspected enclave of a race of nomadic space-gypsies called The Rapakhun…

In Kuala Lumpur Caleb is reminiscing with his old mentor Hector Ulrich – instrumental in brokering Earth into the Confederation and Swany into the Interworld Diplomatic Office – when news arrives of the trouble.

This will be tricky: much of mankind is still anti-alien, and locale economies are fragile, whilst the Rapakhun are no innocent angels. Many space civilisations despise them: the stellar nomads are flighty wanderers who go where they please, refuse to be represented in or on Confederation Councils and worst of all, practice cannibalism…

Many Confederation races despise them and by the time Caleb and Mezoke arrive on scene events have escalated and tensions heightened to fever pitch as a committee of human fishermen face off against Rapakhun spokeswoman Alkuun.

The ancient tries to explain that the problem was an escaped Elokarn. The wanderers’ gigantic domesticated aquatic beasts have all been excessively agitated since arriving on Earth…

With the Diplomatic Agents assuring all parties that tests are being undertaken to ascertain not only why the Elokarn went crazy but also why the fish are dying off again, the situation seems contained, but when Alkuun invites the human guests to join in their holy consumption of a still-living and eager Rapakhun male they are physically revolted.

No amount of explanation that the willing, deeply spiritual and hugely prestigious sacrifice is meant to strengthen and invigorate the gods of Earth can offset the grisly sight…

Returning to Kuala Lumpur, Mezoke and Caleb are anxious. Although the Malaysian Navy are policing the area, the IDO agents know full well the tenuous trust humans place in any alien species, but their attention is unfortunately diverted by the sudden arrival of Caleb’s old friend Lukas Vesely.

The scrawny teen of his youth has become a hulking, good-natured member of Ulrich’s security force and seems very keen to relive the good old days. Caleb, of course, has no idea of Lukas’ usual duties, which include brutally and mercilessly dealing with any isolationist protests which might give visiting aliens the wrong impression about Confederate Earth…

In the mangrove swamps fish are still dying and when another group of fisherman get too close to the agreed-upon neutral zone Ulrich’s forces overreact and vaporise them, outraging many watching members of the Malaysian Navy…

Caleb and Mezoke are otherwise fully occupied as the delegation of Sandjarr dignitaries have arrived. The aloof and stand-offish nature of the guests of honour provoke Mezoke to surly silence, and reports from Senestem take the shine off their supposed triumphant solution whilst test results from the mangrove swamps all prove inconclusive. No contamination of any sort has killed the fish: the culprit is some unknown form of energy…

Caleb attempts to downplay and even suppress the concatenation of bad news in hope of keeping the Reconciliation Ceremonies alive over Mezuke’s objections until she reveals a shocking truth about her life before joining IDO…

The death of the fishermen meanwhile has reached the populace and a “patriotic” clique in the Navy peacekeeping force has colluded to look the other way if the fishermen want to deal with the nomads once and for all…

By the time the IDO agents learn of the incursion the appalling bloodshed has ceased and, wading through a site of unspeakable carnage, Caleb and Mezuke decide to split up. The rapidly destabilising situation on Earth must be carefully managed but most crucial is to send an urgent investigation team to the last world the Rapakhun visited and find out exactly what the wanderers are really capable of…

To Be Continued…

Fast-paced, action-packed, gritty space-opera with delightfully complex sub-plots fuelled by political intrigue and infighting elevates this tale to lofty and exotic heights, proving Orbital to be a series well worth watching…
Original edition © Dupuis 2009 by Runberg & Pellé. All rights reserved. This edition published 2011 by Cinebook Ltd.

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Dirty Pair: Dangerous Acquaintances


By Toren Smith & Adam Warren (Manga Books)
ISBN: 978-1-900097-06-0 (UK edition)

In the fast and furious future of 2141AD, intergalactic proliferation of human civilisation has led to a monumental bureaucracy, greater corruption and more deadly criminals preying upon the citizens of the United Galactica.

Thus the constant need for extra-special Trouble Consultants: pan-planetary private paramilitary police employed by the 3WA (or Worlds Welfare Work Association) to maintain order in hotspots across the (sort-of) civilised universe…

Kei and Yuri are team #234, officially designated “The Lovely Angels” after their sleek and efficient starship. They are lethal, capable and infallible. Whenever they are deployed, they strike fast and hard and never fail…

However, the collateral damage they inevitably cause is utterly unimaginable and usually makes client worlds regret ever asking for their aid in the first place….

Much to the crisis agents’ disgust and chagrin, the ever-present media have dubbed them “The Dirty Pair” and any planetary government unlucky enough to need them generally regards them less as first choice and more a last resort …

The concept was originated for light novels by Japanese author Haruka (Crusher Joe) Takachiho in 1985 before making the jump to TV, movie and OVA anime. Oddly there was no comics iteration until over a decade later. This situation prompted Adam Warren and Toren Smith of manga translation company Studio Proteus to approach independent publisher Eclipse Comics with an idea for a US comicbook miniseries…

The result was Biohazards; a riot of light-hearted, manic murder and monstrous mayhem which was then swiftly collected in a brash and breezy graphic album. The reprintings from US franchise inheritor Dark Horse (and Manga Books in the UK) heralded a blistering run of wry and raucous adventures that still read as well today as they did when the Japanese comics experience was seen as a rare, quaint and exotic oddity…

In the follow-up Dangerous Acquaintances – originally released as a 5-issue miniseries from Eclipse between June 1989 and March 1990, before first being gathered into a trade paperback in 1991 – the catastrophically unlucky private sector peacekeepers are enjoying a spot of well-deserved downtime on planet Rocinante – a world riotously celebrating its 25th year of independence – when soused-to-the-gorgeous-gills Kei spots an unwelcome but very familiar face…

‘Things Past’ explains that although free, single and over 21, the planet is in turmoil due to the imminent arrival of a host of dignitaries on experimental super liner “The Lyra” (one of only three vessels capable of jumping to warp within a planet’s gravity-well) and the increasingly desperate outrages of terrorist cell United Galactica/Free Rocinate.

None of that means anything to the drunken danger girl: all she can think about is getting her hands on a woman who once betrayed and nearly killed her…

Back when she and Yuri were mere trainee cadets they were constantly and humiliatingly surpassed in every discipline by Shasti. Their rival was a bioroid built by 3WA to be the ultimate Trouble Agent: a tetrad possessing a perfectly designed body and, thanks to multiple uploaded personalities, able to shift instantly between being the ideal warrior, detective, spy or social specialist, amongst others.

She never failed on any mission but there were worries that her schizoid mind-menu might have made her crazy…

Back in the present Kei refuses to calm down and chaotically pursues her target through massing crowds with the constantly complaining Yuri hot on her heels. As ‘Dangerous Acquaintances’ opens, they track Shasti across town and Yuri casts her mind back to their last mission with her, when they were all assigned to bring in a deadly sociopath named Lacombe…

On present-day Rocinante the totally-tanked pursuers catch up with the oblivious target at a shopping plaza in time to see her trading a briefcase with a suspicious-looking bearded stranger. Unfortunately, when they confront her, Shasti has lost none of her combat advantages…

As the bioroid orders her accomplice to flee, Yuri’s mind flashes back to the mission when Shasti’s instability kicked in and she inexplicably proclaimed her love for the lethally compelling Lacombe…

The reverie is shattered as the planet’s Special Police storm in, brutally arresting the Trouble Agents whilst letting their meek-seeming “victim” go, and ‘Unquiet Zone’ finds the furious, sober and mortally hung-over operatives sprung simply because the cops need their cell for more provably-crazy UG/FR fanatics.

As Kei and Yuri hit the streets their fragile ears are bombarded with a public broadcast announcing the imminent arrival of the dignitary-stuffed, treasure-laden “Lyra” and, horrified, they realise where Shasti will strike, even if not what exactly she’s after…

Whilst the determined pair are planning to sneak aboard the wonder-ship, in an opulent hotel room their despised foe is giving her band of revolutionaries a final inspirational pep-talk, but her minds are focused on the moment long ago when she and her team of Trouble Agents cornered Lacombe.

The mission was going perfectly until she switched sides, joining the insanely seductive terrorist and murdering all her comrades. Or so she thought…

On the Lyra, Yuri and Kei have endured all manner of hell, (barely) dressed as hospitality hostesses constantly groped by the great and good of many civilisations. The ruse has however allowed them to find Shasti’s inside man and after a little “enhanced interrogation” he reveals his freedom-loving leader’s plan.

Except, of course, Shasti has been lying to the UG/FR all along. Now in control of the prototype ship, the bioroid activates the lockdown protocols and sealing everybody in. Whilst the still oblivious rebel cadres carve a bloody swathe through the imprisoned plutocrats, she undertakes her true goal: stealing the entire experimental warp section right out of the super-liner…

Locked cabins and robotic security lasers are no match for angry Angels and in ‘One of My Turns’ the apparently unkillable agents bust out and, tooling up with ballistic ordinance from the Lyra’s museum exhibit of ancient weapons, go hunting…

As the suddenly engine-less Lyra plunges to fiery doom at the ‘Ground Zero’ of Rocinante’s capital city, in deep space the engine section module reappears and Shasti waits for a rendezvous with her murderous beloved. She has no idea that the women she betrayed, almost murdered and unforgettably humiliated have made the jump with her and are hungrily approaching to take a decade’s-worth of bloody vengeance…

At once incredibly information-dense and astonishingly addictive, these deliciously daft yet cool, light-hearted cyber-punk space operas offer a solidly satisfying slice of futuristic fantasy to delight all fans of tech-heavy blockbusters. Also included is a pastiche-packed, behind-the-scenes farcical feature as Adam Warren shockingly reveals ‘Just How the Dirty Pair Gets Done!!’ to leaven all that savage comedy with some outrageous silliness…

The digest-sized (210x150mm) UK editions have the tag line “in the tradition of Red Dwarf” and that assessment is not a million miles from the truth – as long as you factor in sexy death-dealing ingénues, sharp socio-political commentary, incomprehensibly skimpy costumes and utter oodles of cartoon carnage.

Brutally wry, explosively funny, hilariously action-packed and extremely spectacular, this is a truly stellar romp to get every sci fi aficionado panting for more.
The Dirty Pair © 1994 Haruka Takachiho. English language version © 1994 Adam Warren and Studio Proteus. All rights reserved.

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Rael: Into the Shadow of the Sun


By Colin Wilson (Acme Press/Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-87008-465-9

Colin Wilson has been a major force in world comics for decades. Born in New Zealand in 1949, he studied at Christchurch School of Art at the end of the 1960s and became a freelance illustrator. In 1977 he created his own influential fanzine Strips and in 1980 migrated to Britain, finding success and a modicum of fame at 2000AD drawing Tharg’s Future Shocks, Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper.

After two years he moved to France and created dystopic sci fi trilogy Dans l’Ombre du Soleil for publisher Glenat. The acclaimed series brought him to the attention of Jean-Michel Charlier and his idol Jean Giraud/Moebius. Soon he was illustrating one of the most popular characters in the world – La Jeunesse de Blueberry (Young Blueberry) – to universal acclaim.

Since then he’s expanded his horizons even further, working on the Star Wars franchise, WildStorm’s US revision of Battler Britton and crime thriller Point Blank (with Ed Brubaker), triumphantly returned to 2000AD, and remained a force in European comics. He’s even joined a select band of stars to have worked on Sergio Bonelli Editore’s iconic spaghetti western Tex Willer.

Back in 1988 British publisher Acme Press – in conjunction with Eclipse Books – re-translated (Wilson wrote the first album in English and had it translated into vernacular French by writer Frank Giroud) the opening book in his gripping sci fi trilogy as Rael: Into the Shadow of the Sun.

Despite its superb artwork and thrilling premise it sank without trace on the comics-boom saturated shelves of US and UK Direct Sales Stores.

Far too long overdue for a modern re-release, our story opens as a handful of hardy, human survivors scavenge on an Earth ravaged by genetic and ecological catastrophe. Their latest risky venture is a trap however and an unknowable time later leader Rael and his wary comrades awaken in an incredible new environment: clean, antiseptic, sterile and orbiting high above the broken world they were born into…

The satellite habitat is one of three occupied when the world collapsed, but now even this technological paradise is under threat. There’s mutiny amidst the workers and even worse…

As explained by dictatorial leader Madame Steiner, The Genesis Project is the result of positive and pre-emptive action by responsible individuals answerable to no government. In only twenty years three perfect artificial worlds were constructed and subsequently saved the worthy when Earth succumbed to war and man-made disease.

Now the hardy newcomers are being given the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the project, but Steiner is not being completely candid. As the deeply suspicious Rael finds when he accidentally opens the wrong door, Chief Medical Officer Doctor William Canaris daily deals with a growing menace: a contagion inexorably ravaging the sky-dwellers which the prisoners from Earth seem immune to…

The survivors have been shanghaied for medical experimentation and, if any survive, slave labour to replace the mutineers. When they discover this and violently react the soldiery comes down hard and Rael seizes his chance to escape…

Driven ever deeper into the bowels of the monumental construct by trigger-happy hunters, the lost and wounded fugitive eventually collapses, even as far above Canaris meticulously works his way through the prisoners, making a major medical breakthrough…

Far away, when consciousness returns Rael finds himself tended to by a strange hermit named Oliphant. The recluse evinces no interest in Steiner and her schemes or the rest of depleted humanity, but instead reveals the incredible secrets of “his” inner world.

Most unbelievable is the pristine natural ecosystem at its centre: a preserve of rocky peaks and verdant forests used by the upper echelons of Genesis Society as their own playground.

Moreover, although Oliphant refuses to acknowledge them either, the environment has its secret guardians: autonomous robotic Constructs which originally built the satellites and now work passively against Steiner’s rapacious practises. Befriending the outsider they reveal to Rael the shocking truth behind the planet’s collapse…

With outrage boiling through his being and all his friends slowly being expended, the rebel Earthman then charismatically convinces the robot sentinels to make a stand, leading a rebellion that might be the very last expression of human freedom…

Fast-paced, beautifully illustrated and still astoundingly timely in content, Into the Shadow of the Sun is a masterpiece of fantastic fiction which truly deserves a comprehensive new edition and another shot at the A-List of graphic entertainments.

© 1988 Editions Glenat. English Edition © 1988 Acme Press/Eclipse Books. All artwork © 1988 Colin Wilson. All rights reserved.