Category: Sport

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Speed Racer Classics


By Tatsuo Yoshida, translated by Nat Gertler (Now Comics)
ISBN: 0-70989-331-34 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

During the 1960s when Japanese anime was first starting to appear in the West, one of the most surprising small screen hits in America was a classy little cartoon series entitled Speed Racer. It first aired on Japan’s Fuji Television from April 1967 to March 1968;  52 high velocity episodes that steered into US homes mere months after. Back then nobody knew the show was based on and adapted from a wonderful action/science fiction/sports comic strip created in 1966 by manga pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida for Shueisha’s Shōnen Book periodical.

The comic series was itself a recycled version of Yoshida’s earlier racing hit Pilot Ace.

The original title Mach GoGoGo was a torturously multi-layered pun, playing on the fact that boy-racer Gō Mifune – more correctly Mifune Gō – drove the supercar “Mach 5”.

“Go” is the Japanese word for five and a suffix applied to ship names whilst the phrase Gogogo is the usual graphic sound effect for “rumble”. All in all, the title means “Mach-go, Gō Mifune, Go!” which was adapted for US screens as and its assumed simpleton viewers Go, Speed Racer, Go!, initially running from 1967 and for decades in syndicated reruns…

In 1985 Chicago-based Now Comics took advantage of the explosion in comics creativity to release a bevy of full-colour licensed titles based on popular nostalgic icons such as Astro Boy, Green Hornet, Fright Night and the TV cartoon version of Ghostbusters, but started the ball rolling with new adventures of Speed Racer. Gosh, I wonder who owns the rights to all those great comics and if we’ll ever see them revived in modern collections?

The series was a palpable hit and in 1990 the company released this stunning selection of Yoshida’s original stories in a smart monochrome edition graced with a glorious wraparound cover by Mitch O’Connell. It was probably one of the first manga books ever seen in US comic stores. Although the art was reformatted for standard comic book pages the stories are relatively untouched with the large cast (family, girlfriend, pet monkey and all) called by their American TV nomenclature/identities, but if you need to know the original Japanese designations and have the puns, in-jokes and references explained, there are many Speed Racer websites to consult and there have been many more translated collections in familiar tankōbon style editions…

Pops Racer is an independent entrepreneur and car-building genius estranged from his eldest son Rex, a professional sports-car driver. Second son Speed also has a driving ambition to be a pro driver (we can do puns too, just so’s you know) and the episodes here follow the family concern in its rise to success, peppered with high drama, political intrigue, criminal overtones and high octane excitement (whoops!: there I go again)…

The action begins with ‘The Return of the Malanga’ as – whilst competing in the incredible Mach 5 – Speed recognises an equally unique vehicle believed long destroyed when running this same gruelling road-race. The plucky lad becomes hopelessly embroiled in a sinister plot of remote-controlled murder and vengeance after learning that the driver of the resurrected supercar crashed and died under mysterious circumstances years ago. Now, the survivors of that tragic incident are perishing in a series of fantastic “accidents”; are these events the vengeance of a restless spirit or is an even more sinister force at work?

In ‘Deadly Desert Race’ the Mach 5 is competing in a trans-Saharan rally when Speed is drawn into a personal driving duel with spoiled Arab prince Kimbe of Wilm. When a bomb goes off, second son Racer is accused of attempting to assassinate his rival and must clear his name and catch the real killer by traversing the greatest natural hazard on the planet whilst navigating through an ongoing civil war: a spectacular competition climaxing in a blistering military engagement…

After qualifying for the prestigious Eastern Alps Competition, our youthful road ace meets enigmatic Racer X: a masked driver with countless victories, a shady past and a hidden connection to the Racer clan before ‘This is the Racer’s Soul!’ reveals the true story of Pops’ conflict with Rex Racer when criminal elements threaten to destroy everything the inventor stands for.

After the riveting race action and blockbusting outcome, this volume concludes with a compelling mystery yarn as – in ‘The Secret of the Classic Car’ – Speed foils the theft of a vintage vehicle by organised crime before being sucked into a nefarious scheme to obtain at any cost a lost secret of automotive manufacture hidden by Henry Ford. When the ruthless thugs kidnap Speed, Pops catapults into action just as the gang turns on itself with the saga culminating in a devastating and insanely destructive duel between rival super-vehicles…

These are delightfully magical episodes of grand, old-fashioned adventure, realised by a master craftsman, well worthy of any action fan’s eager attention, so even if this particular volume is hard to find, other editions and successive collections from WildStorm, DC and Digital Manga Publishing are still readily available.

Go, Fan-boy reader! Go! Go! Go!…
Speed Racer ™ & © 1988 Colour Systems Technology. All rights reserved. Original manga © Tatsuo Yoshida, reprinted by permission of Books Nippan, Inc.

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Oor Wullie & The Broons: Cooking Up Laughs!


By Robert Duncan Low, Dudley D. Watkins, Ken H. Harrison & various (DC Thomson)
ISBN: 978-0-84535-614-9 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

August 24th is National Waffle Day so here I am burbling at you again and hoping this Crimbo I’ll get a day-diary with less distracting factoids…

Published eternally in perfect tandem, The Broons and Oor Wullie are two of the longest-running newspaper strips in British history, having appeared continuously in Scottish national newspaper The Sunday Post since their dual debuts in the March 8th 1936 edition. Both boisterous boy and gregariously engaging inner city clan were co-created by writer/Editor Robert Duncan Low (1895-1980) in conjunction with Dudley Dexter Watkins (1907-1969); DC Thomson’s greatest – and signature – artist. Three years later the first strips were collected in reprint editions as special Seasonal Annuals; alternating stars and years right up to the present day and remaining best-sellers every single time.

The shape and structure of British kids cartoon reading owes a massive debt to R.D. Low who was probably DC Thomson’s greatest creative find. He started at the Scottish publishing monolith as a journalist, rising to the post of Managing Editor of Children’s Publications where – between 1921 and 1933 – he conceived and launched the company’s “Big Five” story-papers for boys. Those rip-roaring illustrated prose periodicals comprised Adventure, The Rover, The Wizard, The Skipper and The Hotspur.

In 1936 his next brilliant idea resulted in The Fun Section: an 8-page pull-out supplement for The Sunday Post consisting primarily of comic strips. The illustrated accessory launched on 8th March and from the very outset The Broons and Oor Wullie – both laudably limned by the incomparable Watkins – were its incontestable star turns…

Low’s shrewdest move was to devise both strips as domestic comedies played out in the charismatic Scottish idiom and broad homespun vernacular. Ably supported by such features as Chic Gordon’s Auchentogle, Allan Morley’s Nero and Zero, Nosey Parker and other comics pioneers, they laid the groundwork for the company’s next great leap, which came in December 1937 when Low launched DC Thomson’s first weekly pictorial comic.

The Dandy was followed by The Beano in 1938 and early-reading title The Magic Comic a year after that. War-time paper shortages and rationing sadly curtailed this strip periodical revolution, and it was 1953 before the next wave of cartoon caper picture-papers. To supplement Beano & Dandy, the ball started rolling again with The Topper, followed by a host of new titles like Beezer and Sparky.

Low’s greatest advantage was always his prolific illustrator, whose style, more than any other, shaped the look of DCT’s comics output until and even beyond the bombastic advent of Leo Baxendale who shook things up in the mid-1950s. Hailing from Manchester and Nottingham, Watkins was an artistic prodigy. He entered Glasgow College of Art in 1924 and before long was advised to get a job at Dundee-based DCT, where a 6-month trial illustrating boys’ stories led to comic strip specials and some original cartoon creations.

Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks and Wandering Willie, The Wily Explorer made him a dead cert for both lead strips in the Fun Section and, without missing a beat, in 1937 Dudley D. added The Dandy’s sagebrush superman Desperate Dan to his weekly workload, and The Beano‘s placidly and seditiously outrageous Lord Snooty seven months later.

Watkins soldiered on in unassailable magnificence for decades, drawing some of the most lavishly lifelike and winningly hilarious strips in illustration history. He died at his drawing board on August 20th 1969. For all those astonishingly productive years he had unflaggingly drawn a full captivating page each of Oor Wullie and The Broons every week.

His loss was a colossal blow to the company and Thomson’s top brass preferred to reprint old Watkins episodes in both newspaper and Annuals for seven years before replacement artists were agreed upon. Dandy reran his old Desperate Dan stories for twice that length of time.

An undeniable, rock-solid facet of Scots popular culture from the very start, the first Broons Annual (technically Bi-Annual) appeared in 1939, alternating with a first Oor Wullie book a year after (thanks to those wartime paper restrictions, no annuals at all were published between 1943 – 1946) and for millions of readers no year can truly end without them.

Every kid who grew up reading comics has their own personal nostalgia-filled nirvana, and DC Thomson have always sagely left that choice to us whilst striving to keep all eras alive with carefully-tooled collectors’ albums like this substantial (225 x 300 mm) hardback Gift Book. Bright and breezy, the compilation focuses on the characters’ relationship with food – particularly Scotland’s unique and evocative cuisine – through festive occasions, seasonal celebrations and in everyday contexts: especially in comedic situations as comfort or consolation or even hard-won prizes. It’s also jam-packed with some of the best-written, most impressively drawn strips ever conceived: superbly timeless examples of cartoon storytelling at its best.

Moreover, rather than chronological arcs tracing particularly bleak and fraught beginnings in British history through years of growth, exploration and cultural change, we’re treated to a splendid pick-&-mix protocol: a surprise on every turn of a page with Low & Watkins ably succeeded by Tom Lavery, Peter Davidson, Robert Nixon, Ken H. Harrison, Iain Reid, Tom Morton, Dave Donaldson, Morris Heggie and more.

So What’s the Set Up?: the Brown family dwell together in a tenement flat at 10 Glebe Street in timelessly metafictional Scottish industrial everytown Auchentogle (sometimes called Auchenshoogle and soundly based on Glasgow’s working class Auchenshuggle district). As such it’s an ideal setting to tell gags in, relate events and crystalise the deepest, most reassuring cultural archetypes for sentimental Scots wherever in the world they might actually be residing. And naturally, such a region is the perfect sounding board to portray all the social, cultural and economic changes that came after the war…

Adamant, unswerving cornerstone of the family feature is long-suffering, ever-understanding culinary commander-in-chief Maw Broon, who puts up with cantankerous, cheap, know-it-all Paw and their battalion of stay-at-home kids. These comprise hunky Joe, freakishly tall beanpole Hen (Henry), sturdy Daphne, gorgeous Maggie, brainy Horace, mischievous twins Eck and the unnamed “ither ane” plus a wee toddling lassie referred to only as “The Bairn”.

Not officially in residence yet always hanging around is sly, patriarchal bewhiskered buffoon Granpaw: a comedic gadfly who spends more time at Glebe Street than his own cottage, constantly trying to impart his decades of out-of-date, hard-earned experience to the kiddies… but do they listen?

Offering regular breaks from inner-city turmoil whilst simultaneously sentimentalising, spoofing and memorialising more traditional times, the clan constantly adjourn to their “But ‘n’ Ben” (a dilapidated rustic cottage in the Highlands) to fall foul of weather, the countryside and all its denizens: fish, fowl, farm-grown, temporary and touristic…

As previously stated, Oor Wullie also launched on March 8th 1936 with his own collected Annual assemblages unfailingly appearing in the even years. His operating premise is sublimely simply and eternally fresh: an overly-imaginative, impetuous scruff with a weakness for mischief, talent for finding trouble and no hope of ever avoiding parental or adult retribution when appropriate shares what just happened…

Wullie – AKA William MacCallum – is the archetypal good-hearted rascal with too much time on his hands. He can usually be found sitting on an upturned bucket at the start and finish of his page-a-week exploits. The regular supporting cast includes Ma and Pa, local beat-Bobby P.C. Murdoch, assorted teachers and sundry other interfering adults who either lavish gifts or inflict opprobrium upon the little pest and his pals Fat Boab, Soapy Joe Soutar, Wee Eck and others. As a grudging sign of changing times, in later years he’s been caught in the company of sensible wise-beyond-their-years schoolgirls like Rosie and Elizabeth…

A compilation in monochrome – with some full-colour pages – Cooking Up Laughs! was released in 2016 as part of the admirable drive to keep early material available to fans: a lavishly sturdy hardback (still readily available through internet vendors) offering a tasty and tantalising selection curated with an emphasis on the eating habits of the stars; well, these northern stars at least….

Eating has always been a perennial and fundamental aspect of both strips (don’t get me started on the sociological value and importance of food in communal/tribal settings: I’ve been to college twice and did all the reading they told me to!), and the topic even generated a spin-off line of Maw Broon Cook Books…

Divided by colour cover or title-pages from previous Annuals, the endless escapades of the strip stars comprise the happily standard fare: kids outsmarting older folk to score sweets and prohibited provender; pompous male adults making galling goofs and gaffes when cooking; family frolics and festival events: rules of rationing and home-grown garden gifts; etiquette outrages: potent penalties for gorging; stolen candies, Christmas revels, how to drink Tea and even some full-colour puzzle pages to digest…

Also on show are Scots-specific treats and techniques such as Clootie Dumpling disasters; the mysteries of Fruit; the makings of “a Piece”; fabled Fish Suppers and the miracle of Cheps; how to present Crofter’s Porridge; the marvel of Mince ‘n’ Tatties; better things to do with Neeps; dieting dos and don’ts and every manner of sweet or savoury sampling of succulence and sinfulness…

With snobs to deflate, bullies to crush, duels to fight, chips to scoff, games to win and rowdy animals (from cats to coos) to escape, the eternally affable humour and gently self-deprecating, inclusive frolics make these superbly crafted strips an endlessly entertaining, superbly nostalgic treat.

Packed with all-ages fun, rambunctious homespun hilarity and deliriously domestic warmth, these examples of comedic certainty and convivial celebration are a sure cure for post-modern glums and Bank Holiday blues… and you can’t really have a happy holiday without that, can you?
© D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd. 2016.

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Retro Classics: The Victor Presents: Alf Tupper – The Tough of the Track


By various anonymous and Peter Sutherland (Retro Classics/DC Thomson)
No ISBN, digital only edition

If you grew up British any time after 1960 and read our comics you probably cast your eye occasionally – if not indeed fanatically – over DC Thompson’s venerable “Boys’ Paper” The Victor. For over 100 years the Dundee-based company has been a mainstay of British reading entertainment with its strong editorial stance informing and influencing a huge number of household names over the decades.

Post-WWII, Victor was very much the company’s flagship title for action/adventure and featured amongst its grittily realistic pantheon of stars a perpetually grimy, soot-stained, incorrigibly working-class young(ish) sportsman called Alf Tupper; forever immortalised as The Tough of the Track. Gathered here is a clever compilation of early episodes from a sublimely never-ending soap opera story (sampled from the 1960s, illustrated by Peter [Mike Fink, Spy 13, Kit Carson, Battler Britton, Super Detective Library, Cowboy Comics Library, Thriller Picture Library] Sutherland) commemorating the unique DC Thomson comics experience and offering a splendid taste of the Running Man’s gritty charms.

The main tenet of Thomson adventure philosophy was a traditional, humanistic sense of decency. Talented, determined distance runner Tupper might be a poor, rough, ill-educated working-class orphan competing – we’d call it “punching up” – in a world of hostile “Toffee-Nosed Swells”, but he strives tirelessly and excels for the sheer reward of sportsmanship, not for gain or glory.

He’s the kind of man most decent folk used to want their kids to grow up into…

Friendly, helpful, short-tempered but big-hearted (and looking a little like everyman Norman Wisdom), Alf was actually created by in 1949 by Bill Blaine before featuring in a non-stop series of prose stories in “Boys Story-Paper” The Rover. The majority of those exploits were written by Gilbert Lawford Dalton with single illustrations by Len Fullerton, Ian McKay, Fred Sturrock, Jack Gordon, George Ramsbottom, Calder Jamieson and James “Peem” Walker.

As the 1950s ended the publisher was finally accepting that their readers no longer wanted all-prose periodicals, and comic strips were the way to go. Alf was retooled as just such a pictorial headliner, transferring to The Victor where he persevered if not prospered, carrying on until the title folded. His last 20th century appearance was in 1992 for The Sunday Post: training for the impending Barcelona Olympics. However, his spirit truly was indomitable and in April 2014 Tupper came out of enforced retirement, to begin a monthly page-per-issue strip in monthly international magazine Athletics Weekly…

Vulgar but decent, rowdy, earthy, barely-educated and perpetually sticking it to all those posh boys monopolising athletics, Alf was a proudly individualistic sportsman and one of the greatest natural distance runners who ever lived. He fought prejudice, discrimination, poverty and especially privilege to win races, medals and accolades. When he wasn’t training, competing or eating fish & chips (his secret weapon for success), the comic strip Alf was a welder in the northern industrial town of Greystone, originally apprenticed to shifty, shiftless Ike Smith before eventually setting up in business for himself.

Tupper was all about determination overcoming ill-fortune, adversity and even enemy action… and he just hated to be beaten. When he occasionally was, he didn’t dwell on excuses, but resolved to win the rematch…

Our True Brit sporting legend apparently had a big influence on the development of many of our actual sporting greats, such as Brendan Foster CBE, and the reason why can be seen in this carefully edited compilation of weekly episodes beginning with a race for the Greystone Harriers that ends in a fist fight with a fellow runner and Alf being kicked off the team and out of the club…

Barred from competing, Alf races along the verge of the track and beats them all…

As an apprentice welder, Alf spent lots of time in sports venues that were being refurbished and helped himself to empty tracks and unused facilities, gradually being noticed by coaches and selectors. However, every attempt to integrate him with the country’s top athletes ended in some smug elitist saying the wrong thing or even sabotaging the uppity oik; with Alf paying a working man’s penalty for it…

Further complicating Tupper’s life was his exploitative Aunty Meg, who controlled his wages, pawned his kit and prizes and generally gaslit him until he finally ran away from home – or rather the shed she rented to him…

In this brief collection, Alf’s career slowly progresses, comprising many clashes with the Greystone running elite, an on-off relationship with Olympic sporting academy Granton Hall, shoes and kit crises, high profile competitions in London, France, Belgium and beyond, hitchhiking troubles, clashes with the law and brushes with gamblers and race fixers, and dalliances with different distances and even other disciplines such as hurdles, long jump, 4X4 relay and steeplechase …and plenty of “boxing” too.

His biggest battle was against a top sports dietician who banned fish & chips and made him eat salads…

Wry and full of olde-worlde pluck, this seasoned sporting sampler is a wonderfully accessible slice of truly British nostalgia and a certain delight for every fan of classic competition and great comics.
VICTOR™ & © D.C. Thomson & Co. Associated text, characters and artwork © D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

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The Detective Chimp Casebook


By John Broome, Mike Tiefenbacher, Carmine Infantino, Irwin Hasen, Alex Kotzky, Gil Kane, Joe Giella, Sy Barry, Bernard Sachs & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-7795-2165-1 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Detective stories are a literary subgenre wherein an investigation by amateur or professional (active or retired) into a legal transgression or moral/social injustice plays out before the consumer, who may or may not include themselves in the process. Like exploration and adventuring, fantasy, horror and science fiction, Detective stories blossomed in white western societies during the mid-19th century: spreading from magazines and prose novels to later forms of entertainment media such as plays, films and radio shows, with early crime puzzle solvers including C. Auguste Dupin, Judge Dee/Di Gong An, Sherlock Holmes, Jules Maigret, Father Brown, Lord Peter Wimsey, Sexton Blake and Hercule Poirot. Tales targeting youngsters generated their own sleuthing stars: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and more, sparking a subgenre especially popular on television…

Comic strips developed detective stalwarts like Hawkshaw, Dick Tracy, Charlie Chan, Kerry Drake ad infinitum: all contributing to a tidal wave of fictive crimebusters that in many ways inspired true literary legends – Philip Marlow, Sam Spade, Simon Templar, Mike Hammer and so on. Where there is such variety and richness, strange yet rewarding things may blossom, none more rewarding than those seen in graphic narratives. Gathered here is the original, seminal comics lunacy in the hirsute form of Detective Chimp: a Florida-based do-gooder who – thanks to an extremely unconventional official lawman – became assistant sheriff of a major coastal metropolis.

In later years, wit and whimsey fell prey to the all-consuming fan-drive for rationality and reason (at least in comic book science terms) and both the police primate and his comic book host Rex the Wonder Dog were given origins rationalising and explaining their mighty mentalities. You can see the first hint of that at the end of this compilation which gathers the madcap monkeyshines of an ape answering to Bobo, as first seen in The Adventures of Rex The Wonder Dog #4 and thereafter #6-46, plus a canny codicil from  DC Comics Presents #35: spanning July 1952 to September/October 1959 and including a moment of animal magic from July 1981. Also in here is material from DC Special #1, Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp #1, Tarzan #231, 234 & 235, Amazing World of DC Comics #1 and Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #6. And while we’re at it, let’s get one thing straight: I know and you know chimpanzees are APES. The author(s) did too, but to have more fun and engage euphony I – as they did – reserve the right to use many terms associated with both primates and prosimians throughout…

We now pause for me to pontificate some more…

Boasting a March 1937 cover-date, Detective Comics #1 was the third and final anthology title devised by luckless comics pioneer Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. In 1935, the entrepreneur had seen the potential in Max Gaines’ new invention – the Comic Book – and reacted quickly, conceiving and releasing packages of all-new strips in New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine and follow-up New Fun/New Adventure (ultimately Adventure Comics) under the banner of National Allied Publications. These publications differed from similar prototype comics magazines which simply reprinted edited collations culled from established newspaper strips. However, these vanguard titles were as varied and undirected in content as any newspaper funnies page.

Detective Comics was different. Specialising solely in tales of crime and crimebusters, the initial roster included (amongst others) adventurer Speed Saunders, Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, Gumshoe Gus and two series by a couple of kids from Cleveland named Siegel & Shuster – espionage agent Bart Regan and two-fisted shamus Slam Bradley…

Within two years the commercially inept and unseasoned Wheeler-Nicholson had been forced out by his more savvy business partners, and his company eventually grew into monolithic DC (for Detective Comics) Comics. Surviving a myriad of changes and temporary shifts of identity and aims, it’s still with us – albeit primarily as a vehicle for the breakthrough character who debuted in the 27th issue…

In the years when superheroes were in retreat and considered a bit foolish, DC concentrated on genre stars. At the end of 1951 they launched Rex the Wonder Dog (#1 cover-dated January/February 1952), based equally on Rin Tin Tin, Lassie and their own miracle mutt Streak – the original Green Lantern’s dog who had ousted Alan Scott and Co. from his own title in the dying days of the Golden Age.

Rex solved crimes, saved lives in disasters, fought dinosaurs and saved the world, but that wasn’t enough and real-world legal restrictions dictated his title required other strips to qualify for favourable postal shipping rates. In #4 (July/August 1952), a future back-up feature was trialled. Written by John Broome, drawn by Carmine Infantino and inked by Sy Barry, the tale of a little chimp who helped solve the murder of his beloved owner captivated readers. Infantino always claimed this hirsute anthropoid crimebuster was his favourite character…

In The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #4 readers were invited to ‘Meet Detective Chimp!’ in a charming comedy thriller. It was the first outing of undeniably captivating comics lunacy revealing how, when Oscaloosa Florida’s Sheriff Chase snared the killer of prominent businessman and owner of Thorpe Animal Farm, it was only with the valiant and uncanny help of a certain young chimp. He consequently adopts and deputises the beast, with Bobo thereafter acting as assistant sheriff right up until the final issue. The hairy savant also enjoyed a revival at the end of the century and fresh fame in the 21st as new generations of creators and fans rediscovered him…

Response must have been overwhelming and immediate in 1952, because mere months later ‘The Return of Detective Chimp!’ came with #6 (cover-dated November/December – and remember, this was the company that took 3 years to give The Flash his own title…). Broome again scripted the hirsute Hawkshaw – as he would almost all (I’m presuming: records are sadly incomplete) – in a delightful succession of what we would call “Cosy Mysteries”. Infantino was inked by Joe Giella as the chimp – with the aid of an enraged nesting bird – solved a family murder, restored a sabotaged will and settled a family inheritance in a wild romp setting the pattern for years to come…

Illustrated by Alex (The Sandman, Plastic Man) Kotzky, #7 settled in for the long haul and exposed ‘Monkeyshines at the Wax Museum!’, with Bobo catching the killer of amiable murder-enthusiast Len Billings, after which Irwin (Green Lantern, Wildcat, Justice Society of America, Dondi) Hasen & Giella highlighted how ‘Death Walks the High Wire!’ as the savvy simian proved a circus trapeze accident was anything but, even deputising some four-legged performers to bring the assassin to justice…

For RtWD #9 (May/June 1953), Broome, Hasen & Bernard Sachs indulged a passion for sports as Bobo saved his favourite baseball star from kidnappers in ‘Crime Runs the Bases’ before uncovering ‘Monkey Business on the Briny Deep!’ (Broome, Hasen & Giella, July-August 1953). Here, Bobo became an inveterate but dilettante hobby fanatic, exploring a different fascination each episode which would miraculously impact on the current case. This time it was sea fishing that netted cunning thieves, whilst in #11 it was horses and jockeys, as the impressionable assistant solved ‘The Riddle of the Riverside Raceway!’ (Hasen & Giella): befriending a prize steed, stymying race-fixing gangsters and collaring the FBI’s Most Wanted fugitive…

Th chimp made and lost a new friend next with Hasen & Giella limning the saga of how ‘The Million Dollar Gorilla!’ was killed by a big game hunter’s jealous love-rival before Infantino (inked by Sy Barry) embraced Bobo’s new love of Westerns in #13’s ‘The Case of the Runaway Ostrich!’. This hobby afforded the hairy half-pint much opportunity to display his roping and riding skills when corralling a rare bird rustler…

In RtWD #14 (March/April 1954, with art by Hasen & Sachs) Bobo became a Flying Fool addicted to aircraft just in time to stumble over ‘Murder in the Blue Yonder!’ and catch the killer of his flight instructor, after which Infantino settled in for the long haul as his favourite character became a lifeguard and solved ‘The Case of the Fishy Alibi!’, wherein a gambler almost pulls off the perfect crime. For #16 Bobo’s new passion for scuba diving/ spearfishing exposes a millionaire’s murderer in ‘Monkey Sees, Monkey Does!’ Two months later Bobo cracked ‘The Case of the Suspicious Signature!’ (September/October 1954) when his new passion for autograph collecting accidentally lands him in a Hollywood star’s kidnapping…

When Chase starts paying his deputy in cash as well as room-&-board and bananas, Bobo goes ape over finance with ‘The Case of Bobo’s Bankbook!’ leaving him in the right place at the right time to foil a big heist, prior to succumbing to more basic fascination in #19’s ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil!’ Bobo falls for visiting movie star Moka and takes up bodybuilding to impress her, but it proves no help at all when “The Most Famous Female Chimpanzee in the World” is kidnapped and he needs all his old skills to save the day…

With Sy Barry inking Infantino, ‘Detective Bobo… Chimp-Napped!’ sees the deputy abducted when his circus chums hit town again, just in time to thwart a jewel snatch, after which #21’s ‘The Secret of the ‘Indian’ Monkey!’ offers opportunity for dressing up when a historical pageant uncovers a treasure map and draws thieves like flies. In #22’s topical tale – inked by Giella – the chimp goes ape for sci fi stories yet still foils a cunning robbery scheme after ‘Bobo Rides a Flying Saucer!’ RtWD #23 saw Sheriff Chase’s only hobby – stamp collecting – key to solving ‘The Secret of the Spanish Castle!’ as a misdelivered letter inadvertently draws the lawgivers into a robbery/hostage situation, whilst Bobo’s temporary love of railways is the spur for ‘The Mystery of the Silver Bullet!’ when locomotive driver Mike Layton allows the chimp onto the footplate just as hijackers attack…

A dalliance with firefighting in #25 proves ‘Where There’s Smoke – There’s Trouble!’ as Bobo joins the Junior Forest Rangers just when a couple of thieves trying to hide their loot in the woods start throwing lighted cigarettes around, and #26 sees the simian Sherlock take up Egyptology in time to solve ‘The Mystery of the Missing Mummy!’ (Giella inks) and save Chase from being entombed forever…

After months of eating premium-promotion cereal, the eager ape at last opens the pack containing ‘A Whistle for Bobo!’ and subsequently drives everyone crazy as an impromptu traffic cop… until one car packed with brigands and boodle refuses to stop. Then a string of robberies by the Goliath Gang again sees him seeking to build up his physique by using ‘Bobo’s Amazing Jungle Gym!’ That turns into bad news for the bandits…

Broome & Infantino transformed Detective Chimp into ‘The Scientific Crook-Catcher!’ (#29 September/October 1956) when the savvy simian sneaks into a symposium of savants disguised as human professor and wowing the assembled savants by tracking down quick-change disguise artist Larry the Lynx, after which a duel with a jewel thief and rendezvous with a robbing raven presents ‘A Jailbird for Bobo!’…

The special deputy met his match in a gang of boy do-gooders in ‘Clue of the Secret Seven!’ but even collaboratively collaring a brace of escaped convicts was no preparation for tackling the maritime ‘Mystery of the Talking Fish!’ (#32) after returning to diving to hunt for sunken treasure. When Bobo’s friend Alice Rogers – inheritor of the animal farm in the first adventure – needs a favour, the detective is more than happy to be companion to her new albino Guereza monkey. However, when it vanishes, Bobo attempts to impersonate a creature he has never seen, whilst seeking to find ‘The Mystery Monkey from Zanzibar!’ leads to the capture of its opportunistic abductors instead…

Infantino tested a range of stylistic innovations on Detective Chimp and excels in #34’s ‘The Case of the Chimpanzee’s Camera!’ when Bobo takes up photography and snaps a trio of paranoid thieves casing their next caper, whilst ‘Bobo’s New York Adventure!’ sees the little ape in the Big Apple, pinch-hitting for a monkey TV star and stumbling into Oscaloosa’s Most Wanted: murderous jewel thief “Dangerous Jack” Diamond…

Giella inks in #36 as ‘The Mystery of the Missing Missile!’ sees Bobo and Secret Seven pal Tommy Wheeler stymie thieves and test a new invention before the chimp takes a vacation in human guise and unearths ‘The Treasure of Thunder Island!’ In #38 he catches canny counterfeiters whilst accidentally debunking the theories of a scientist who believes he can make animals talk in ‘The Amazing Experiment of Professor Snodgrass!’

For the next case ‘Bobo Goes to Sheriff’s School!’ as Chase sends the assistant in his place to a detection and criminology seminar. It disturbs the chimp’s latest passion of collecting marbles but the substitution works out okay as the chimp outshines all human attendees and even catches a couple of robbers along the way, after which ‘Bobo the Baby Sitter!’ recovers escaped circus star Kangy (the Boxing ’Roo) and nabs a brace of thieving fugitives prior to becoming ‘Bobo – Sleuth on Skis!’ when freak weather turns Oscaloosa into a snowcapped winter playground for thieves…

Giella inks a road rage riot in #42 as hot-rod fanatic Bobo drives a kiddie stock car for the Secret Seven in a big meet, becoming ‘Demon of the Speedways!’ after his new invention allows him to pip all rivals at the post. This attracts the unwanted attention of a gang boss in need of  super-fast getaway car, but does not end well for him…

Keen on being a model citizen, Bobo resolves to ‘Stop That Litterbug!’ in #43, accidentally intercepting a scrap of paper worth millions to the desperate men who lost it, before Giella’s last inking hurrah confirms ‘Where There’s Smoke – There’s Bobo!’ as the ape’s drive to be a fireman almost costs him his real job – until he encounters crooks at a fire – after which a logical outcome of Bobo’s career comes to pass in penultimate episode ‘The Case of the Monkey Witness!’ Here the anthropoid must testify against crime boss Legs Dunne, with the mobster’s gang seeking to end him before the trial begins…

Bobo’s last case came in #46 as he joins a Little League team and becomes ‘The Chimp-Champ of Baseball!’ (September/October 1959), all while preventing a pair of crooks escaping custody.

And that was that…

To make room for resurgent superheroes, The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog folded with that issue and – other than an occasional reprint – Bobo vanished for years. The covers of most of those re-appearances are displayed at the back of this book and are listed there, but before that one last story falls under the aegis of this pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths collection.

DC Comics Presents had an occasional back-up series offering short tales of lost stars and in #35 (July 1981) Mike Tiefenbacher & Gil Kane (who had drawn the majority of exploits starring Bobo’s canine companion) revealed ‘Whatever Became of Rex the Wonder Dog?’ Here the canine marvel teamed with now-ancient and decrepit ape Bobo to solve one last mystery, inadvertently restoring themselves to youthful health and vitality for another round of action adventures…

The collection closes with gallery of images under the umbrella of ‘The Ape Files’ which include the 1969 cover to DC Special #1 (an “All-Infantino Issue”), those for Joe Kubert’s covers for Tarzan #231, 234, 235 (which carried Bobo reprints) and Amazing World of DC Comics #1: another Infantino mega montage. Brian Bolland’s preliminary pencil art for Helmet of Fate: Detective Chimp #1 is augmented by the finished full-colour piece before all the ape antics end with Infantino & Bill Wray’s page on Bobo from Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #6, a brief biography ‘About the Ape’ and similar treatment for creators Broome and Infantino.

In this century an ape solving crimes is less of a sure-fire winner – as many other hirsute DC gumshoes could attest – and Detective Chimp speaks many human tongues, consults with Batman and works with Shadowpact and for Justice League Dark: a far different beast operating on less charming levels. However, if you’re looking for daft laughs, sublime wit and astounding artwork, this is a book worth casing…
© 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1952, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1985, 2007, 2023 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Gomer Goof volume 9: Good Golly, Mr. Goof!


By Franquin, with additional texts by Delporte, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-064-7 (PB Album/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924 and began his career in a golden age of European cartooning. Beginning as assistant to Joseph “Jijé” Gillain on the strip Spirou, he inherited sole control of the keynote feature in 1946, and creating countless unforgettable new characters such as Fantasio and The Marsupilami.

Franquin – with Jijé, Morris (Lucky Luke) and Willy “Will” Maltaite (Tif et Tondu) – was a co-founder of a creative force of nature dubbed La bande des quatre – “the Gang of Four” – who revolutionised and reshaped Belgian comics with their prolific and engaging “Marcinelle school” graphic style.

Over two decades Franquin enlarged Spirou & Fantasio’s scope and horizons, until it became purely his as the strip evolved into the saga of globetrotting journalists. They visited exotic places, exposed crimes, explored the incredible and clashed with bizarre, exotic arch-enemies, but throughout, Fantasio remained a full-fledged – albeit entirely fictional – reporter for Le Journal de Spirou, regularly popping back to the office between assignments. Sadly, lurking there was an arrogant, accident-prone junior tasked with minor jobs and general dogs-bodying. He was Gaston Lagaffe – Franquin’s other immortal invention…

There’s a long tradition of comics personalising fictitiously back-office creatives and the arcane processes they indulge in, whether it’s Marvel’s Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious Editor and underlings at The Beano and Dandy – it’s a truly international practise. Somehow though after debuting in Le Journal de Spirou #985 (February 28th 1957), the affable conniving dimwit grew beyond control, to become one of the most popular and ubiquitous components of the comic, whether as a guest in Spirou’s adventures or his own comedy strips and faux reports on the editorial pages he was supposed to paste up…

Initial cameos in Spirou yarns and occasional asides on text pages featured a well-meaning foul-up and ostensible office gofer Gaston who lurked amidst the crowd of diligent toilers: a workshy slacker working (sic) as a gofer at Le Journal de Spirou’s head office. That scruffy bit-player eventually and inevitably shambled into his own star feature…

In terms of schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise favourite beats and elements of well-intentioned self-delusion as seen in Benny Hill or Jacques Tati and recognise recurring riffs from Some Mothers Do Have ’Em and Mr Bean. It’s slapstick, paralysing puns, infernal ingenuity and inspired invention, all to mug smugness, puncture pomposity, lampoon the status quoi? (there’s some of that punning there, see?) and ensure no good deed going noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gaston/Gomer obtains a regular salary – let’s not dignify what he does as “earning” a living – from Spirou’s editorial offices: reporting to top journalist Fantasio, or complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and the other staffers, all whilst effectively ignoring any tasks he’s paid to handle. These officially include page paste-up, posting (initially fragile) packages, collecting stuff inbound and editing readers’ letters (that’s the official reason fans’ requests and suggestions are never acknowledged or answered)…

Gomer is lazy, over-opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry, a passionate sports fan and animal lover, with his most manic moments all stemming from cutting work corners, stashing or consuming contraband nosh in the office or inventing the Next Big Thing.

This leads to constant clashes with colleagues and draws in notionally unaffiliated bystanders like traffic cop Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, as well as any simple passers-by who should know by now to keep away from this street.

Through it all our office oaf remains eternally affable, easy-going and incorrigible. Only three questions really matter here: why everyone keeps giving him one last chance, what can gentle, lovelorn Miss Jeanne possible see in the self-opinionated idiot and will ever-outraged capitalist financier De Mesmaeker ever get his perennial, pestiferous contracts signed?

In 1973 Gaston – Gaffes, bévues et boulettes was the 11th collected album (albeit rejigged in 2018 to become the 16th European compilation). It became in 2022 Cinebook’s 9th translated compilation, once more offering non-stop all-Franquin comics gags in single page bursts with some script contributions from Yvan Delporte (The Smurfs, Steve Severin, Idées noires).

Our well-meaning, overconfident, overly-helpful know-it-all office hindrance invents more stuff making life unnecessarily dangerous and continues his pioneering and perilous attempts to befriend and boost fauna and flora alike, always improving the beleaguered modern mechanised world. As he concentrates on avoiding his job, Gomer’s big heart swells to nurture his animal pals. His adopted feral cat and black-headed gull still accompany illicit studio companions Cheese the mouse and goldfish Bubelle, but their hyperactive gluttonous presences generate much chaos, especially as they have learned to work together now. Not only must Gaston face starvation on a daily basis, but even the street’s shopkeepers find themselves in a silent war of nutrition attrition…

The dreamer also fosters the belief that he is a musical prodigy only awaiting discovery, but in a wave of Christmas strips everyone else remains violently unconvinced, as they are of his painful innovations in furniture design. Gomer’s chum and opposite number Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street is a like-minded soul and born accomplice, ever-eager to slope off for a chat, and a confirmed devotee of Gomer’s methods of passing the time whilst at work. He is always ready to help, as here when assisting in facing the out-of-control cactus from Aunt Hortense’s home again or joining his pal’s bike racing escapade…

Sport is important to the Goof, but rugby, soccer, basketball, billiards and – technically – ice skating all prove faithless and painful masters, but such is his passion, however, that Gomer is allowed to report on one peculiar particular match he played goal keeper in, as seen in illustrated text report ‘A Match to Remember’…

Despite resolute green credentials and leanings, Gomer is colour-blind to the problems his antiquated automobile cause, even after all his attempts to soup up the antique. Many strips focus on his doomed love affair with and manic efforts to modify and mollify the accursed motorised atrocity he calls his car. The decrepit, dilapidated Fiat 509 is more in need of merciful euthanasia than engineering interventions for countering its lethal road pollution and violent and unpredictable failures to function. Here, new tweaks certainly impress passing wildlife if not obsessive gendarme Longsnoot in splendidly daft road dalliances intermixed with repeated visits to his friends at the zoo. Hint: none of them wear clothes…

Also suffering a succession of painful reversals, benighted yet fanatical business bod De Mesmaeker turns up repeatedly here with ever more crucial contracts for poor office manager Prunelle to sign and for Gomer to accidentally shred or otherwise intercept and eradicate.

A new edifice of the Establishment to undergo the Goof effect is the local Customs officer who on more than one occasion deeply regrets asking if the geek in the poisonous car has anything to declare, although brief explorations of motorcycling and yoga don’t cause that much carnage relative to the general aura of weird science prototypes, arcane chemical concoctions and the in-house manic menagerie able to shred chairs and open sardine tins with a bash of the beak. At least Gomer understands why redecorating costs are so high and frequent…

Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin and occasional co-scenarists/idea providers like Roba, Bibi, Michel, Delporte & Jidéhem (AKA Jean De Mesmaeker: just one of many in-joke analogues who populate the strip) to flex whimsical muscles, subversively sneak in some satirical support for their beliefs in pacifism, environmentalism and animal rights and sometimes even appear in person as does poor Raoul Bluecoats Cauvin…

These gags are sublime examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading. Why haven’t you got your Goof on yet?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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Marvel Masterworks Daredevil volume 15


By Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Michael Fleischer, David Micheline, Ralph Macchio, Josef Rubinstein, Steve Ditko, Paul Gulacy & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2927-5 (HB/Digital edition)

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. A second-string hero for much of his early career, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due mostly to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. DD fought gangsters, super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping and wisecracking his way through life and life-threatening combat, utterly unlike the grim, moody, quasi-religious metaphor he became.

After a disastrous on-again, off-again relationship with his secretary Karen Page, Murdock took up with Russian emigre Natasha Romanoff, infamous and notorious ex-spy Black Widow but their similarities and incompatibilities led to her leaving as Matt took up with flighty trouble-magnet heiress Heather Glenn…

Spanning July 1979 to July 1981 this monumental Masterworks tome compiles Daredevil #159-172 and material from Bizarre Adventures #25 (March 1981), consolidating and completing a Hero’s Transformation begun by Jim Shooter with a bold, apparently carefree Scarlet Swashbuckler devolving into a driven, terrifying figure. Daredevil became here an urban defender and compulsive avenger: a tortured demon dipped in blood. The character makeover was carried on initially by Roger McKenzie in the previous volume and continues with Frank Miller collaborating until he fully takes control: crafting audaciously shocking, groundbreakingly compelling dark delights, and making Daredevil one of comics’ most momentous, unmissable, “must-read” series.

Preceded by an appreciative commentary and Introduction from latterday scripter Charles Soule, the revitalisation resumes with ‘Marked for Murder!’ (McKenzie, Miller & Klaus Janson) wherein infallible assassin-master Eric Slaughter comes out of retirement for a very special hit on the hero of Hell’s Kitchen. Meanwhile elsewhere, veteran Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich works a nagging hunch: slowly piecing together dusty news snippets that indicate a certain sight-impaired attorney might be far more than he seems…

The spectacular showdown between the Crimson Crimebuster and Slaughter’s hit-man army inevitably compels his covert client to eventually do his own dirty work: brutally ambushing and abducts DD’s former flame Natasha Romanoff, The Black Widow…

After a single-page info-feature on ‘Daredevil’s Billy Club!’ the saga continues in DD #160 with our hero having no choice but to place himself ‘In the Hands of Bullseye!’ – a stratagem culminating in a devastating duel and shocking defeat for the villain in #161’s ‘To Dare the Devil!’

The next issue offered a fill-in tale from Michael Fleisher & Steve Ditko wherein another radiation accident impairs the hero’s abilities and induces amnesia just as a figure from his father’s pugilistic past resurfaces. Becoming a boxer for crooked promoter Mr. Hyle, Murdock unknowingly relives his murdered dad’s last days in ‘Requiem for a Pug!’ … until his memories return and justice is served…

Stunning David v Goliath action belatedly comes in #163 as the merely mortal Man Without Fear battles The Incredible Hulk in ‘Blind Alley’ (McKenzie & Miller, inked by Josef Rubenstein & Janson) wherein Murdock’s innate compassion for hounded Bruce Banner accidentally endangers Manhattan and triggers a desperate, bone breaking, ultimately doomed attempt to save his beloved city…

In #164 McKenzie, Miller & Janson deliver an evocative ‘Exposé’, retelling the origin saga as meticulous, dogged Urich confronts the hospitalised hero with inescapable conclusions from his diligent research and a turning point is reached…

The landmark tale is followed by accompanied by Miller’s unused cover for Ditko’s fill-in, preceding a mean-&-moody modern makeover for a moribund and over-exposed Spider-Man villain. DD #165 finds the Scarlet Swashbuckler in the ‘Arms of the Octopus’ after Murdock’s millionaire girlfriend Heather is kidnapped by Dr. Otto Octavius. Her company can – and do – rebuild his mechanical tentacles with Adamantium, but “Doc Ock” stupidly underestimates both his hostage and the Man Without Fear…

The long-running plot thread of Foggy Nelson’s oft-delayed wedding finally culminates with some much-needed comedy in #166’s ‘Till Death Do Us Part!’, with true tragedy coming as old enemy The Gladiator has a breakdown and kidnaps his parole officer. With visions of Roman arenas driving him, tormented killer Melvin Potter only needs to see Daredevil to go completely over the top…

David Michelinie wrote #167 for Miller & Janson, as a cruelly wronged employee of tech company the Cord Conglomerate steals super-armour to become ‘…The Mauler!’ and exact personal justice. Constantly drawn into the conflict, DD finds his sense of justice and respect for the law at odds when another unavoidable tragedy results…

The tale is backed up by an info feature revealing the ‘Dark Secrets’ of DD’s everyday life and segues neatly into the story that changed everything.

In Daredevil #168 Miller took over the writing and with Janson’s art contributions increasing in each issue rewired the history of Matt Murdock to open an era of noir-tinged, pulp-fuelled Eisner-inspired innovation. It begins when Daredevil encounters a new bounty hunter in town and reveals a lost college-days first love. Back then diplomat’s daughter Elektra Natchios shared his secret until her father was kidnapped and murdered before her eyes, partly due to Matt’s hasty actions. She left him and vanished, apparently becoming a ninja assassin, but is now tearing up the town hunting for Eric Slaughter. Matt cannot help but get involved…

When Daredevil last defeated Bullseye, the killer was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and in #169, escapes from hospital to enact another murder spree. He is deep in a delusional state where everyone he sees are horn-headed scarlet-clad ‘Devils’. A frenetic chase and brutal battle results in countless civilian casualties and great anxiety as Daredevil has a chance to let the manic die… but doesn’t.

Yet another landmark resurrection of a tired villain begins in DD #170 as Miller & Janson decree ‘The Kingpin Must Die’. The former crimelord of New York faded into serene retirement in Japan by impassioned request of his wife Vanessa, until this triptych of terror sees him return more powerful than ever. It begins when the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen hears rumours the syndicate that replaced Wilson Fisk are trying to kill him. Apparently he has offered all his old records to the Feds…

When Vanessa hires Nelson & Murdock to broker the deal, all hell breaks loose, assassins attack and Mrs Fisk goes missing. Further complicating matters, having survived brain surgery Bullseye offers his services to the syndicate, mercenary killer Elektra senses a business opportunity and a murderously resolute Kingpin sneaks back into the country resolved to save Vanessa at any cost…

The title at last returned to monthly schedule with #171 as the city erupted into sporadic violence with civilians caught in the crossfire. DD dons a disguise and goes undercover but is soon ‘In the Kingpin’s Clutches’ and sent to a watery grave prior to Fisk gambling and losing everything…

The sags ends in all-out ‘Gangwar!’ as, with Vanessa lost and presumed dead, Wilson Fisk destroys the Syndicate and takes back control of New York’s underworld with Daredevil scoring a small toxic victory by apprehending the Kingpin’s assassin, all the while aware that every death since Bullseye’s operation has been because Murdock was not strong enough to let the monster die…

And deep in the bowels of the city, an amnesiac woman wanders, a future trigger for much death and destruction to come…

To Be Continued…

With the Marvel Universe about to change in incomprehensible ways, this tome pauses here but still finds room to focus on a solo outing for a cast regular. In Bizarre Adventures #25 (with cover and ‘Lethal Ladies’ frontispiece included), Ralph Macchio scripted an espionage tale for an older reader-base. The devious spy yarn of double and triple cross saw agents betraying each other while trying to ascertain who might be working for “the other side”.

‘I Got the Yo-Yo… You Got the String’ sets Black Widow in her proper milieu, despatched by S.H.I.E.L.D. to assassinate her former tutor Irma Klausvichnova as she hides in an African political hot spot. Of course, as the mission proceeds, Natasha learns she can’t trust anybody and everything she knows is either a lie or a test with fatal consequences…

The chilling, twist-ridden tale is elevated to excellence by the powerful monochrome tonal art of Paul Gulacy who packs the piece with sly tributes to numerous movie spies and the actors – such as Michael Caine and Humphry Bogart – who first made the genre so compelling.

The bonus gallery section opens with pertinent pages from Marvel Comics 20th Anniversary Calendar (1981) – June’s entry by Miller & Janson and their Spider-Man vs DD plate from Marvel Team-Up Portfolio One. Next come original art pages and covers, a House ad for Elektra’s debut plus the original art, cover artwork  and finished product for Marvel Super-Heroes Megazine #2 plus covers of #3, 4 & 6 (by Michael Golden, Lee Weeks, Scott McDaniel and others), and Miller’s cover and frontispiece for Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller volume 1 as well as his introduction from that collection.

As the decade closed, these gritty tales set the scene for truly mature forthcoming dramas, promising the true potential of Daredevil was finally in reach. Their narrative energy and exuberant excitement are dashing delights no action fan will care to miss.

…And the next volume heads full on into darker shadows, the grimmest of territory and the breaking of many more boundaries…
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Trish Trash Rollergirl of Mars – The Collected Edition


By Jessica Abel, with Lydia Roberts & Walter various (Super Genius/Papercutz)
ISBN: 978-1-5458-0167-3 (TPB/Digital edition) 978-1-5458-0166-6 (HB)

Our fascination with Mars has never faltered and now that we’re almost within touching distance, the Red Planet’s allure and presence in our fiction has never been more broad-based and healthily imaginative. Amidst all the recent TV, movie and literary product, one of the most engaging treatments was an enthralling comics serial detailing the life of an extraordinary young woman in exceedingly trying times.

After Earth collapses in an ecological and economic meltdown, recently arrived first settlers on Mars were trapped under an increasingly burdensome fixed economic structure and oppressive corporate plutocracy. Two centuries later, an entire class of indentured servants eke out a fraught existence, harvesting water and food with machines rented from Arex (“we’re the air that you breathe”). The air they don’t breathe is meagre, toxic, dust-filled and a bit radioactive…

On Mars, everything belongs to The Company, and people usually live from cradle to grave in crippling debt. There is, ostensibly, a chance to escape: mandatory offworld mining missions to the asteroid belt. These Temporary Labor Assignments, however, are regarded as a quick ticket to certain death.

All tyrannies need bread and circuses though. On Mars that’s Hoverderby…

Based on an ancient Earth entertainment, teams of women race around a hover track in flying boots, scoring points by beating each other up. It’s the planet’s most popular spectator sport and Arex own that too…

Trish Nupindu is seven-and-a-half (on Mars. In Earth terms she’s 15): a smart, recently-orphaned kid who’s really good with engines and most mechanical systems. Stuck on her aunt’s water farm, Trish dreams of becoming a Hoverderby star and is utterly discontented with the state of her existence. All “Marty” reel from the force of crushing, inescapable poverty and Trish totally believes her only chance of getting out from under a system stacked from the get-go against ordinary people is to become a media star of the great game.

Bold and impatient, one day she sneaks off to join the local team and is suckered into a binding intern’s contract, even though she’s under-age…

Trish doesn’t even get to play: the team manager wants her because she’s good at fixing the hoverboots continually malfunctioning due to the all-pervasive dust. Her world turns upside down after she and avowed-revolutionary/pal Marq discover a native Martian. Recalled from near-death, the mythical creature opens their eyes to a whole new world, and “her” secrets will change forever not just the way Hoverderby is played but also the very economic balance of power on the Red Planet – if the ruthless upper echelons of Arex don’t stop them first…

The inspirational drama is backed up by extensive supplemental features such as the rules of Hoverderby; Derby Gear: Then and Now; illustrated specifications for Radsuits; fact-features on The Homestead Debate, Native Martians, Ares Collective Statement of Debt (ACSOD), TLAs and Asteroid Mining all delivered in the manner of wiki pages. Also on show are data bursts on legendary water miner Ismail Khan, faux kids’ comics “True Tales of the Early Colonists” and a complete Timeline of Mars Colonization.

Jessica Abel has been wowing readers and winning prizes since 1997 when she took both the Harvey and Lulu awards for Best New Talent. Previous graphic delights include the fabulous Artbabe, Growing Gills, Life Sucks, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, collections Soundtrack and Mirror, Window plus the Harvey-winning La Perdida.

Trish Trash began gradually unfolding in 2016: a sublime blend of subversive human drama and hard science fiction thriller with a supremely human and believable lead taking charge and changing the world. After three album releases, the entire saga was made available in this oversized (218 x 284 mm) hardback, plus paperback and eBook editions, at least one of which you really must see ASAP.
© Jessica Abel and Dargaud. All rights reserved. All other editorial material © 2018 by Super Genius.

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Super Boxers – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Ron Wilson, with John Byrne, Armando Gil & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-939766772 (album PB)

It’s been a long while since Marvel regularly published an all-original graphic novel as opposed to a reprint collections, but once upon a time long ago they were market leader in the field with an entire range of “big stories” told on larger than normal pages (285 x 220mm rather than the customary 258 x 168mm) featuring not only proprietary characters but also licensed assets like Conan and creator-owned properties. They also took chances on unusual and cross-genre tales such as this little oddity which falls squarely into the category of a guilty pleasure and lost treasure…

In the near future, Corporations have assumed control of Earth, with the result that the rich have gotten richer – and more bored whilst an underclass excluded from all rights and privileges scuttles to survive in the dirt beneath their lavish skyscrapers. Gosh, where do they get such outlandish ideas?

As the poor daily trade freedoms and dignity for another meal, in the world of the mega-rich and their wholly-owned economically active contributing citizens, survival is just as harsh and all-pervasive. Businesses survive and grow by consuming each other and everything is produced to facilitate that overweening drive: product, entertainment, people.

Corporations are in a perpetual state of Cold War, ostensibly working together but always looking for an edge to ensure another hostile takeover. Delcos is one such business: CEO Marilyn Hart has never been one of the boys, and now her colleagues, sensing weakness, are closing in for the kill…

In the world below, Max Turner is a star. A scrapper to his core, he works as a prize-fighter: an old fashioned palooka using his fists (augmented by cybernetic gloves, boots and body armour) to get by in a brutal arena of social Darwinism: delivering dangerous entertainment for his daily bread. The Corporations also have Super Boxers: pampered, gussied up, genetic thoroughbreds with their entire lives geared to those explosive moments when they unleash their pedigreed savagery in high-tech arenas for the pleasure and profit of their owners. The greatest of these sporting warriors is the godlike Roman Alexis.

Of course, every society has its malcontents and gadflies: when a slumming talent scout for Marilyn Hart “discovers” Max, the dumb but honest gladiator becomes a pawn in a power play that threatens to tear the corporate world to tatters – but would that really be such a bad thing?

None of that matters to Max or Roman. For them it’s about personal honour. Tech doesn’t matter, rewards don’t matter, freedom doesn’t matter. It all about being the best…

Ron Wilson (Luke Cage, Marvel Two-in-One, The Thing, Arion the Immortal, Fantastic Four) is probably nobody’s favourite artist, but he is a skilled, workmanlike illustrator with a great line in brooding brutes and street cred, whilst Armando Gil’s fluid inks do much to sharpen the static, lumpen scenarios, as do the varied tones of colourists Bob Sharen, Steve Oliff, John Tartaglione, Joe D’Esposito and Mark Bright. The letters are provided by Mike Higgens.

Scripted by John Byrne from Wilson’s plot, this is a harsh, nasty, working-class fable reminiscent of boxing movies like Michael Curtiz’s epic 1937 classic Kid Galahad by way of the Rocky movies, with socio-political undertones on a par with European comics like Métal Hurlant or 2000AD.

Ugly, uncompromising, brutal, this is the kind of book to show anybody who thinks comics are for sissies and is long overdue for revival.
© 1983 Ronald Wilson. All Rights Reserved.

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Legends of the DC Universe Carmine Infantino


By Carmine Infantino, with Arthur Peddy, Alex Toth, Joe Giella, Frank Giacoia, Frank McLaughlin, Joe Kubert, Bernard Sachs, John Giunta, Sy Barry, George Roussos, John Celardo, Dave Hunt, Tony DeZuñiga, Joe Orlando, Klaus Janson, Carl Gafford & Linda Kachelhofer: written by Gardner F. Fox, Robert Kanigher, John Broome, Joseph Greene, Arnold Drake, Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Cary Bates & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-6054-9091-5 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Shining Star Remembered… 10/10

Born on May 24th 1925, Carmine Michael Infantino was one of the greatest comic artists America ever produced: a multi award-winning innovator there when comic books were born, he reshaped the industry in the Silver Age and was still making fans when he died in 2013.

As an artist he co-created among others Black Canary, Detective Chimp, King Faraday, Pow-Wow Smith, the Silver Age Flash, Elongated Man, Strange Sports Stories, Deadman, Batgirl and The Human Target whilst placing his unique stamp on characters such as Adam Strange and Batman. Infantino worked for many companies, and at Marvel ushered in a new age by illustrating the licensed Star Wars comic whilst working on titles and characters such as The Avengers, Daredevil, Ms. Marvel, Nova, Star-Lord and Spider-Woman. His work on two separate iterations of Batman newspaper strips is fondly remembered and whilst acting as Art Director and Publisher of National DC, Infantino oversaw the most critically acclaimed period in the company’s history, overseeing the “relevancy” era and poaching Jack Kirby from Marvel to create the Fourth World, Kamandi, The Demon, OMAC and more…

Very much – and repeatedly – the right man at the right time and place, Infantino shaped American comics history in a manner only Kirby ever equalled, and this long overdue bumper compendium barely touches all his contributions to DC’s history. Hopefully we’ll be seeing a few more in future…

After appreciative and informative Introduction ‘Carmine the Icon’ by author/ historian J. David Spurlock, this small sampling from decades of triumphs opens with hard-hitting social commentary as ‘The Plight of a Nation’ details how the Justice Society of America (The Flash, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Dr. Mid-Nite, The Atom and Black Canary) hunt a gang of thieving hoodlums whilst tackling the true threat – how charismatic hoods like the Crimson Claw Gang have become insidious role models for youngsters…

Scripted by John Broome, and limned in collaboration with Arthur Peddy, Alex Toth & Bernard Sachs, the saga from All-Star Comics #40 (April/May 1948) tackled head-on the glamour of crime, goad of poverty and contemporary obsession with “juvenile delinquency” but still offered spectacular action and drama to sweeten the harsh message…

Black Canary was one of the first of the pitifully few female heroes to hold a star spot in the DC Universe – or indeed any comics before 1980s. She followed Wonder Woman, Liberty Belle, antihero Harlequin and Red Tornado (who masqueraded as a man to comedically crush crime – with a couple of kids in tow, too!). The Canary predated Merry, the Gimmick Girl – remember her? No, you don’t – and disappeared with the majority of costumed crusaders at the end of the Golden Age: a situation that was not remedied until her revival with the Justice Society of America in 1963.

Created by Robert Kanigher & Infantino in 1947, the Canary echoed worldly, dangerous women cropping up in crime novels and Film Noir movies better suited to the more cynical Americans who had endured a World War and were even then gearing up for a paranoiac Cold one. Clad in a revealing bolero jacket, shorts, fishnet stockings and high-heeled pirate boots, the devastating shady lady – who looked like Veronica Lake – began life as a thief…

In the desperate days of post-war uncertainty, continuity was negligible and nobody cared much about origins. All that mattered was pace, plot, action and spectacle. Flash Comics #86 (August 1947) was just another superhero anthology publication, suffering a slow sales decline wherein perennial B-feature Johnny Thunder had long since passed his sell-by date. Although a member of the Justice Society of America, Johnny was an old-fashioned comedy idiot; a true simpleton who just happened to control a lightning-shaped genie – Thunderbolt.

His affable, good-hearted bumbling had carried him through the war, but changing fashions had no room for a hapless (adult) hero anymore. In the tale presented here, when he meets a seductively masked female Robin Hood who stole from crooks, the writing was on the wall. In debut yarn inked by Joe Giella, ‘The Black Canary’ tricks him and T-Bolt into acquiring an invitation to a crime-lord’s party, where she lifts the ill-gotten loot and leaves Johnny to mop up the hoods. It was lust at first sight and the beginning of a legend…

In the same issue Infantino allowed his wacky sense of humour full expression in another tale of The Ghost Patrol – three French Foreign Legion aviators who were killed in the early days of WWII but somehow stuck around to fight Nazis and other evils. Scripted by John Wentworth ‘The Case of the Extra Ghost!’ finds ectoplasmic trio Fred, Pedro and Slim in post-war America investigating a haunted house and scuppering a scheme to defraud its latest inheritor…

Flash Comics #90 (December 1947, written by Kanigher & inked by Joe Giella) featured a sporty tale for lead hero The Flash to shine in. Scientist Jay Garrick was exposed to fumes of “Hard Water” to become the first “Fastest Man Alive” – one of the Golden Age’s leading stars. In this instance he uses his gift to save a baseball team from defeat and their mangers from death by despair by filling ‘Nine Empty Uniforms!’ after which fellow superstar Green Lantern/Alan Scott solo stars in Kanigher-scribed tale ‘The Unmasking of the Harlequin!’ (All-American Comics #95, March 1948) wherein the Emerald Gladiator again clashes with the mesmerising super thief when mysterious imitators frame them both for vicious crimes…

Tiny Titan and eternal apparent underdog The Atom was solid B-Feature throughout the Golden Age and here – courtesy of Infantino and writer Joseph Greene – solves the ‘Mystery of the Midway Tunnel!’ (Comic Cavalcade #28, August/September 1948) as college student Al Pratt resorts to his masked persona when his professor – a former GI turned civil engineer – finds his dream project is being sabotaged by gangsters.

Times were changing and superheroes vanishing as the forties closed and new times called for fresh ideas. Created by Kanigher & Bob Oksner, Lady Danger appeared in Sensation Comics#84-93: determined, safety-averse crime reporter Valerie Vaughn who regularly risked life and limb in pursuit of a scoop. Infantino and an unknown author produced another gripping tale for #87 (cover-dated March 1949), uncovering skulduggery at a charity bazaar whilst looking for ‘The Needle in the Haystack!’

Crime comics were not the only beneficiary of the decline of Mystery Men. Science fiction also enjoyed renewed public popularity and DC responded with two themed anthologies: Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space. Each combined stand-alone tales of fantastic imagination with continuing character features such as Captain Comet or – as here – Future Paladins The Knights of the Galaxy. Scripted by Kanigher as “Dion Anthony” and inked by Frank Giacoia, Joe Giella & John Giunta, Mystery in Space #3 (August/September 1951) led with ‘Duel of the Planets!’ as Round Table champion Lyle finds his comrades divided over Mercurian member Millo when the first planet declares war on the rest of the galaxy…

The biggest trend of the era was Romance Comics as almost every publisher jumped on the bandwagon created by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby in 1947. Amongst National/DC’s tranche of tearjerkers was Secret Hearts and in #8 (February/March 1952) Infantino (& Giacoia) limned a case study of Ann Martin, counsellor for Romance, Inc. Anonymously scripted, ‘Condemned Love!’ details how a client responds to learning her current beau is married…

Infantino regularly claimed his favourite character was not human but an hirsute anthropoid crimebuster. In The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #4 (July/August 1952) readers were first invited to ‘Meet Detective Chimp!’ in charming comedy thriller by Broome and inked by Giacoia. The first outing of seminal comics lunacy saw Oscaloosa, Florida sheriff Chase solve a murder at the Thorpe Animal Farm with the help of Bobo and consequently adopt and deputise the super-smart simian. Bobo was assistant sheriff right up until the final issue (#46, November 1959) and has enjoyed new fame in the 21st century when a new generation of creators and fans rediscovered him.

Despite years when superheroes all but vanished America’s comic book industry never really stopped trying to revive the genre. When Showcase #4 was released in 1956 it was on the back of two successful DC launches: Captain Comet (December 1953-October 1955) and Manhunter from Mars (November 1955 until the end of the 1960’s and almost the end of superheroes again!) What made the new Fastest Man Alive stand out and stick was style!

Cover-dated September/October 1956, the epochal issue was released in late summer and from it stems all today’s print, animation, games, collector cards, cos-play, TV and movie wonderment.

Once DC’s powers-that-be decided to try superheroes once more, they too moved pretty fast. Editor Julie Schwartz asked office partner, fellow editor and Golden Age Flash scripter Kanigher to recreate a speedster for the Space Age: aided and abetted by Infantino & Joe Kubert, who had also worked on the Jay Garrick incarnation.

The new Flash was Barry Allen, a forensic scientist simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in exploding chemicals from his lab. Supercharged by the accident, Barry took his superhero identity from a comic book featuring his childhood favourite. Now a major talent rapidly approaching his artistic and creative peak Infantino designed a sleek, streamlined bodysuit, as Barry Allen became point man for the spectacular revival of a genre and an entire industry.

Scripted by Kanigher & inked by Kubert, ‘Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!’ sees Barry endure his electrical metamorphosis and promptly go on to subdue bizarre criminal mastermind and “Slowest Man Alive” Turtle Man, after which ‘The Man Who Broke the Time Barrier!’ – scripted by Broome – sees the Scarlet Speedster battling a criminal from the future: ultimately returning penal exile Mazdan to his own century, and proving the new Flash was a protagonist of keen insight and sharp wits as well as overwhelming power.

The return of costumed heroes was cautious and gradual and Infantino continued drawing his regular fare extraordinarily well. For Western Comics #73 (January/February 1959) he illustrated “Indian Lawman” Pow-Wow Smith with this example – ‘The Return of the Fadeaway Outlaw!’ scripted by Gardner Fox, with Sioux sleuth Ohiyesa again outwitting a bandit who specialises in astounding escapes…

Inevitably the superhero boom dominated comic books with the Scarlet Speedster in the vanguard of the revolution. A new star was born in The Flash #112 (April/May 1961 by Broome, Infantino & Giella) as ‘The Mystery of the Elongated Man’ introduced an intriguing super-stretchable newcomer to the DC universe, who might have been hero or villain in a beguiling tantaliser. The continuing adventures of the Scarlet Speedster were the bedrock of the Silver Age Revolution, with key writers Broome and Fox setting an unbelievably high standard for superhero adventure in sharp, witty tales of technology and imagination, illustrated with captivating style and clean simplicity by Infantino.

Fox didn’t write many Flash scripts at this time, but the few he did were all dynamite; none more so than the full-length epic which changed the scope of US comics forever. ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (Flash #123, September 1961 and inked by Giella) introduced the concept of alternate Earths to the continuity which grew by careful extension into a multiversal structure comprising Infinite Earths. Once established as a cornerstone of a newly integrated DCU through a wealth of team-ups and escalating succession of cosmos-shaking crossover sagas, a glorious pattern was set which would, after joyous decades, eventually culminate in the spectacular awe-inspiring Crisis on Infinite Earths…

During a benefit gig, Flash accidentally slips into another dimension where he finds the comic book hero upon whom he based his own superhero identity actually exists. Every ripping yarn he’d avidly absorbed as an eager child was grim reality to Jay Garrick and his comrades on the controversially designated “Earth-Two”. Locating his idol, Barry convinces the elder to come out of retirement just as three old foes make their own comebacks.

It was a time when anything was worth a punt, and Schwartz’s dream team indulged in in a truly bizarre experiment combining tried-&-tested science fiction tropes with America’s greatest obsession. Try-out title The Brave and the Bold dedicated five issues (#45-49) to testing the merits of Strange Sports Stories and here #49 (August/September 1963) sees a unique conquest by stealth as ‘Gorilla Wonders of The Diamond!’ sees an all-anthropoid team play baseball with a hidden agenda in a captivating coup by Fox, with Infantino producing some of his most innovative drawing for Giella to ink.

By the end of 1963, Julius Schwartz had spectacularly revived much of DC’s line – and the entire industry – with his modernisation of the superhero, and was then asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled and nigh-moribund Caped Crusaders. Bringing his usual team of top-notch creators with him, Schwartz stripped down and back to core-concepts, downplaying aliens, outlandish villains and daft transformations to bring a cool modern take on crimebusting. He even oversaw a streamlining and rationalisation of the art style itself.

The most apparent innovation was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol, but far more importantly, the stories also changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace re-entered the comfortable and absurdly abstract world of Gotham City. Infantino was key to the changes that reshaped a legend – but this was while still pencilling The Flash – so, despite generating the majority of covers, Infantino’s interior art was limited to alternate issues of Detective Comics with the lion’s share of narrative handled by Bob Kane’s then-uncredited deputies Sheldon Moldoff, Giella, Chic Stone & others, plus occasional guest artists like Gil Kane…

Infantino’s part in the storytelling revolution began with Detective #327 – written by Broome and inked by Giella at the peak of their own creative powers. ‘The Mystery of the Menacing Mask!’ is a cunning “Howdunnit?”, long on action and moody peril, as discovery of a criminal “underground railroad” leads Gotham Gangbusters Batman & Robin to a common thug seemingly able to control them with his thoughts…

When Schwartz took editorial control he finally found a place for a character who had been lying mostly fallow ever since his debut and six subsequent walk-ons in The Flash. Designed as a modern take on Golden Age great Plastic Man, The Elongated Man was Ralph Dibny, a circus-performer who discovered an additive in soft drink Gingold which granted certain people increased muscular flexibility. Intrigued, Dibny refined the drink until he had a serum bestowing the ability to stretch, bend and compress his body to an incredible degree.

When the back-up spot opened in Detective (a position held by Martian Manhunter since 1955 and only vacated because J’onn J’onzz was promoted to lead in House of Mystery) Schwartz had Ralph slightly reconfigured as a flamboyant, fame-hungry, brilliantly canny globe-trotting private eye solving mysteries for the sheer fun of it. Aided by his equally smart but thoroughly grounded wife Sue, the vignettes were patterned on classic Thin Man films starring Nick and Norah Charles, blending clever, impossible crimes with slick sleuthing, garnished with outré heroic permutations and frantic physical antics.

The complex yet uncomplicated sorties, drenched in sly dry wit, began in Detective #327 with ‘Ten Miles to Nowhere!’ (by Fox & Infantino, who inked himself in early episodes). Here Ralph, who publicly unmasked to become a celebrity, discovers someone has been stealing his car every night and bringing it back as if nothing had happened. Of course, it must be a criminal plot of some sort…

Almost all of Infantino’s Silver Age stories have been collected somewhere but as he was transitioning to managerial levels he co-created one last landmark character just as DC faced an existential crisis. As the 1960s ended and costs spiralled, the superhero boom became a slow but certain bust, with major stars no longer able to find enough readers to keep them alive. The taste for masks was again diminishing in favour of traditional genres, and one rational editorial response was to reshape costumed characters to fit evolving tastes.

Publishers swiftly changed gears and even staid, cautious DC reacted rapidly: making masked adventurers designed to fit the new landscape. Newly revised and revived costumed features included roving mystic troubleshooter The Phantom Stranger and Golden Age colossus The Spectre. Supernatural themes and horror-tinged plots were shoehorned into the superhero titles that weathered the trend-storm. Arguably, the moment of surrender and change arrived with the creation of Boston Brand in the autumn of 1967, when science fiction anthology Strange Adventures was abruptly retooled as the home of an angry ghost…

Without fanfare or warning, Deadman debuted in #205 with ‘Who Has Been Lying in My Grave?’ by Arnold Drake, Infantino & George Roussos wherein we attend the funeral of high wire acrobat Brand: a rough, tough, jaded performer who had seen everything and masked a decent human heart behind an obnoxious exterior and cynical demeanour. As “Deadman”, he was the star attraction of Hills Circus and lover of its reluctant owner Lorna Carling, as well as a secret guardian for the misfits it employed and sheltered. That makeshift “family” included simple-minded strongman Tiny and Asian mystic Vashnu, but also had some bad apples too… like alcoholic animal trainer Heldrich and chiselling carnival Barker Leary. The aerialist kept them in line… with his fists, whenever necessary…

One fateful night, Brand almost missed his cue because of Leary and Heldrich’s antics but also because he had to stop local cop Ramsey harassing Vashnu. It would have better if he had been late, because as soon as he started his act – 40 feet up and without a net – someone put a rifle slug into his heart…

Despite being dead before he hit the ground, Brand was scared and furious. Nobody could see or hear him screaming, and Vashnu kept babbling on about the chosen of Rama Kushna – “the spirit of the universe”. The hokum all came horribly true as that entity made contact, telling Brand that he would walk among men until he found his killer…

The sentence came with some advantages: he was invisible, untouchable, immune to the laws of physics and able to take possession of the living and drive them like a car. His only clue was that witnesses in the audience claimed that a man with a hook had shot him…

Outraged, still disbelieving and seemingly stuck forever in the ghastly make-up and outfit of his performing persona, Deadman’s first posthumous act is to possess Tiny and check out the key suspects. Soon the dormant Hercules finds that the cop and Heydrich are involved in a criminal conspiracy, but they definitely are not Brand’s murderers…

Eventually Infantino returned to his drawing board – primarily for Marvel – but returned to DC in the 80s. The House of Mystery #296 (September 1981) shows his mastery of horror themes and short stories in ‘Night Women’: written by Gerry Conway, with John Celardo inking and Carl Gafford colouring, but the move was primarily to draw The Flash again (from 1981 with #296), but here we see a lesser known yarn from DC Comics Presents #73 (September 1984) teaming the Vizier of Velocity with Superman in ‘Rampage in Scarlet’. Written by Cary Bates, with Dave Hunt inking and Gafford on hues, it sees the heroes unite to save an alien civilisation from an army of Phantom Zone villains, after which Secret Origins #17 (August 1987) reprises ‘The Secret Origin of Adam Strange’, with Conway, Tony DeZuñiga & Joe Orlando joining Infantino in revisiting the artist’s other signature Silver Age star.

This book closes with a complete miniseries similarly reviving one of Infantino’s lost 1950’s triumphs. King Faraday debuted in Danger Trail #1 (July 1950): a two-fisted globe-trotting US spy co created by Kanigher & Infantino. The book was cancelled with the fifth issue and one last tale was published in Worlds Finest Comics #64 (May/June 1953). An attempt to revive The Intercontinental Operative failed in early 1964 when reprints of his adventures appeared in Showcase #50-51 under the code title I… Spy! King eventually joined the integrated DCU in 1979 as a guest in Batman #313, scripted by Len Wein.

In 1993 the writer gave the spy a second shot in a 4-issue miniseries spanning cover-dates April to July, inked by Frank McLaughlin & coloured by Linda Kachelhofer. Danger Trail (volume 2) #1-4 comprises ‘The Serpent in the Garden File’ as the aging agent chases a mystery schemer around the world in ‘Chapter One: On the Road Again!’, drops a growing pile of bodies in ‘Chapter Two: Hot Pursuit!’ and discovers his quarry is not the usual ideological adversary and that no friend can be trusted in ‘Chapter Three: Coiled to Strike’.

With the world at stake, Faraday – and notional ally Sarge Steel – at last confront the pitiless hidden enemy in ‘Chapter Four: Into the Snake Pit’ and barely save the day again…

Although the book features every pertinent cover by Infantino, the comic delights conclude with a stellar ‘Cover Gallery’ of graphic glories inked by Giacoia, Giunta, Giella, Drake, Roussos & Orlando plus a brief biography.

These tales are pure comics gold: must-not-miss material any fan would be crazy to miss.
© 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1956, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1967, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1993, 2023 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Sabrina the Teenage Witch The Complete Collection volume 1: 1962-1972 (Sabrina’s Spellbook Book 1)


By George Gladir, Frank Doyle, Dick Malmgren, Al Hartley, Dan DeCarlo, Joe Edwards, Rudy Lapick, Vince DeCarlo, Bob White, Bill Kresse, Bill Vigoda, Mario Acquaviva, Jimmy DeCarlo, Chic Stone, Bill Yoshida, Stan Goldberg, Jon D’Agostino, Gus LeMoine, Harry Lucey, Marty Epp, Bob Bolling, Joe Sinnott & various (Archie Comic Publications)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-94-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Created by George Gladir & Dan DeCarlo, Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch premiered in Archie’s Mad House #22 (cover-dated October 1962): a throwaway character in a gag anthology which was simply one more venue for comics’ undisputed kings of kids comedy. She proved popular enough to become a regular in the burgeoning cast surrounding the core stars Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and Jughead Jones.

By 1969, the high school enchantress had grown popular enough to win her own animated Filmation TV series (just like Archie and Josie and the Pussycats) and graduated to a lead position in Archie’s TV Laugh Out before finally winning her own title in 1971.

That first volume ran 77 issues (from 1971-1983) and, when a hugely successful live action TV series launched in 1996, ed comic book adaptation followed in 1997. That version folded in 1999 after a further 32 issues.

Volume 3 – simply entitled Sabrina – was based on new TV show Sabrina the Animated Series ran for 37 issues (2000- 2002) before a back-to-basics reboot saw the comic revert to Sabrina the Teenage Witch with #38, carefully blending elements of all previous print and TV versions.

A creature of seemingly infinite variation and variety, the mystic maid continued in this vein until 2004 and issue #57 wherein – acting on the global popularity of Japanese comics – the company switched format: transforming series into a manga-style high school comedy-romance in the classic Shoujo manner.

Another recent version abandoned whimsy altogether, depicted Sabrina as a vile and seductive force of evil in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. This no-frills. massively monochrome compilation re-presents all her appearances – even cameos on covers of other Archie titles – from that first decade, starting with an informative and educational Introduction courtesy of Editor-in-Chief Victor Gorelick before unleashing the wonderment in a year-by-year cavalcade of magic, mystery and mirth.

Clearly referencing Kim Novak as seen in Bell, Book and Candle, ‘Presenting Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ (George Gladir, Dan DeCarlo, Rudy Lapick & Vince DeCarlo from Archie’s Mad House #22) showcased a sultry seductress with a wicked edge preying on mortals at the behest of Head Witch Della, all whilst secretly hankering for the plebeian joys of dating…

Leading off the next year’s chapter, the creatives reunited in Archie’s Mad House #24 (February 1963), with ‘Monster Section’ depicting Sabrina bewitching boys the way mortal girls always have, whilst ‘Witch Pitch’ sees the young beguiler ordered to ensorcel the High School hockey team – with mixed results…

AMH #25 (April) focuses on the supernatural clan’s mission to destroy human romance. In ‘Sister Sorceress’ Della orders Sabrina to split up dating couple Hal and Wanda – with catastrophic results – before ‘Jinx Minx’ (#26, June) sees Sabrina go too far with a love potion at a school dance…

Bob White’s Archie’s Mad House #27 cover (August 1963) leads into #28’s ‘Tennis Menace’ (inked by Marty Epp) as Sabrina’s attempts to enrapture a rich lad go infuriatingly awry. AMH #30 (December) offers pin-up ‘Teen-Age Section’ drawn by Joe Edwards, with Sabrina comparing historical ways of charming boys with modern mortal methods…

The 1964 material opens with a love potion pin-up ‘Teen Section’ by Edwards (AMH #31, February) before Gladir & Edwards’ ‘Ronald the Rubber Boy Meets Sabrina the Witch Queen’ finds the magic miss disastrously swapping abilities with an elastic-boned pal.

Issue #36 (October, by Edwards) sees her failing to jinx her friends’ recreational evening in ‘Bowled Over’, after which (AMH #37, December) finds Gladir reunited with Dan & Vince DeCarlo for a spot of ‘Double Trouble’ when gruesome Aunt Hilda tries to fix Sabrina’s appalling human countenance, only to become her unwilling twin…

In 1965 Sabrina’s only appearance was a Harry Lucey-limned ad for Archie’s Mad House Annual, whereas a year later she triumphantly returned with illustrator Bill Kresse handling Gladir’s script for ‘Lulu of a Boo-Boo’ (AMH #45, February 1966). Here the witch-girl’s attempts to join the In-Crowd constantly misfire whilst ‘Beach Party Smarty’ (#48, August) confirms this new trend, as her spells to capture a hunky beau go badly wrong…

For ‘Go-Go Gaga’ (AMH #49, September) Gladir & Kresse pit the bonny bewitcher against a greedy entrepreneur planning to fleece school kids in his over-priced dance hall, whilst #50’s ‘Rival Reversal’ finds her failing to conjure a date before ‘Tragic Magic’ proves even sorcery can’t keep a teen’s room clean…

Art team Bill Vigoda & Mario Acquaviva join Gladir for 1967’s first tale. ‘London Lore’ (AMH #52, February) with Sabrina transporting new boyfriend Donald to the heart of the Swinging Scene (it meant something else back then) but ill-equipping him for debilitating culture-shock, after which ‘School Scamp’ (Gladir + Dan, Jimmy & Vince DeCarlo, from AMH #53, April) again proves magic has no place in human education…

In #55 Gladir, Dan DeCarlo & Lapick prove Sabrina’s wishing to help a doubly dangerous proposition in ‘Speed Deed’, whilst in #58 (December, Chic Stone & Bill Yoshida) the trend for ultra-skinny fashion models leads to a little shapeshifting in ‘Wile Style’…

1968 opens with Gladir, Stone & Yoshida exploring the downside of slot-car racing in ‘Teeny-Weeny Boppers’ (AMH #59, February) after which ‘Past Blast’ (#63, September by Gladir, Stan Goldberg, Jon D’Agostino & Yoshida) sees our mystic maid time-travel in search of Marie Antoinette, Pocahontas and Salem sorceress Hester. The year wraps up with ‘Light Delight’ (Gladir, White, Acquaviva & Yoshida: AMH #65, December) as Sabrina’s aunts Hilda and Zelda try more modern modes of witchy transport…

With Sabrina’s television debut, the end of 1969 saw a sudden leap in her comics appearances to capitalise on the exposure and resulted in a retitling of her home funnybook. Again crafted by Gladir, White, Acquaviva & Yoshida, ‘Glower Power’ comes from Mad House Ma-Ad Jokes #70 (September) with her duelling another teen mage before the cover of Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #1 (December: by Dick Malmgren & D’Agostino) leads into ‘Super Duper Party Pooper’ and the instant materialisation of a new sitcom lifestyle for the jinxing juvenile.

Sabrina yearns to be a typical High School girl. She lives in suburban seclusion with Hilda & Zelda and Uncle Ambrose. She has a pet cat – Salem – and is tentatively “seeing” childhood pal Harvey Kinkle. The cute but clueless boy reciprocates the affection, but is far too scared to rock the boat by acting on his own desires.

He has no idea that his old chum is actually a supernatural being…

This opening sally depicts what happens when surly Hilda takes umbrage at the antics of Archie and his pals after they come over for a visit, whilst ‘Great Celestial Sparks’ (pencilled by Gus LeMoine) reveals what lengths witches go to when afflicted with hiccups…

A full-on goggle-box star, Sabrina blossomed in 1970, starting with a little flying practice in ‘Broom Zoom’; boyfriend trouble in ‘Hex Vex’; fortune-telling foolishness in ‘Hard Card’; amulet antics in ‘Witch Pitch’ and kitchen conjurings in ‘Generation Gap’: all by Gladir, LeMoine, D’Agostino & Yoshida from Mad House Ma-Ad Jokes #72 (January). The issue also offered sporting spoofs in ‘Bowl Roll’ (Dan DeCarlo).

The so-busy cover of Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #2 (March 1970) segues into Gladir, Dan D, Lapick & Yoshida’s ‘A Plug for The Band’ with Sabrina briefly joining The Archies’ pop group, whilst LeMoine contributes a brace of half-page gags – ‘Sassy Lassy’ and ‘Food Mood’ – and limns ‘That Ol’ Black Magic’, wherein the winsome witch’s gifts cause misery to all her new friends in Riverdale…

Dan D’s & Lapick’s June cover for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #3 leads into Malmgren-scripted ‘Double Date’, with hapless Harvey causing chaos at home until Ambrose finds a potential putrid paramour for Aunt Hilda. The creatives then launch an occasional series on stage magic with ‘Sabrina Tricks’ pages, before single-pagers ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips’, ‘The Hand Sandwich’, ‘The Sampler’, ‘Never on Sundae’ and ‘Finger Licken Good’ reveal a growing divide between house-proud Hilda and accident-prone, ever-ravenous Harvey.

Interspersed by three more ‘Sabrina Tricks’ pages, mystic mayhem continues with mini-epic ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ (Malmgren, LeMoine, D’Agostino & Yoshida) as our witch girl disastrously attempts to make Jughead Jones more amenable to Big Ethel’s amorous overtures. The food fiascos resume with LeMoine-limned ‘Good and Bad’, as Sabrina’s every good intention is accidentally twisted to bedevil her human pals.

Taken from Mad House Glads #74 (August 1970), Gladir & LeMoine’s half-page chemistry gag ‘Strange Session’ is oddly balanced by the painterly ‘Blight Sight’ of long-forgotten never-was Bippy the Hippy, before we’re back on track and at the beach for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #4 (September, by Gladir, Vigoda, Lapick & Yoshida). In ‘To Catch a Thief’ Sabrina again assists Ethel in pinning down elusive, love-shy Jughead, and rounding out the issue are single page pranks ‘Beddy Bye Time’ (DeCarlo & Lapick), another ‘Sabrina Tricks’ lesson and seaside folly ‘In the Bag’ from LeMoine & D’Agostino.

ATVL-O #5 (November) offers up Gladir, Vigoda & Stone’s ‘I’ll Bite’ as Sabrina’s hungry schoolfriends learn the perils of raiding Hilda’s fridge and Gladir, DeCarlo & Lapick’s ‘Hex Vex’ as Della storms in, demanding tardy Sabrina fulfil her monthly quota of bad deeds…

Sabrina is an atypical witch: living in the mundane world and assiduously passing herself off as normal, and 1971 opens with DeCarlo & Lapick’s cover for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #6 (February) and ‘Match Maker’ by Frank Doyle, Harry Lucey & Epp as Hilda tries getting rid of Harvey by making him irresistible to Betty & Veronica. No way that can go wrong…

‘Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch’ (Gladir, LeMoine, D’Agostino & Yoshida) then uses her powers openly with some kids and learns a trick even ancient crone Hilda cannot fathom. Bolstered by a ‘Sabrina Tricks’, ‘Carry On, Aunt Hilda’ (Malmgren, LeMoine & Lapick) hilariously depicts lucky stars shielding Harvey from the wrath of irascible Aunt Hilda…

Bowing to popular demand, the eldritch ingenue finally starred in her own title from April 1971. Dan D & Lapick’s cover for Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch #1 hinted at much mystic mirth and mayhem which began with ‘Strange Love’ (Doyle, Dan D & Lapick). This revealed a jealous response to seeing Harvey with another girl, supplemented by ‘Sabrina and Salem’s Catty Quiz’ before hippy warlock Sylvester comes out of the woodwork to upset Hilda’s sedate life in ‘Mission Impossible’ (Malmgren, LeMoine & D’Agostino).

Another ‘Sabrina Puzzle’ neatly moves us to Doyle, Dan D & Lapick’s ‘An Uncle’s Monkey’ with Harvey and a pet chimpanzee pushing Hilda to the limits of patience and sanity…

The cover of Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #7 (May) precedes a long yarn by Doyle, Bob Bolling & D’Agostino as ‘Archie’s TV Celebrities’ (the animated Archies, Sabrina and Josie and the Pussycats) star in ‘For the Birds’ with a proposed open-air concert threatened by the protests of a bunch of old ornithology buffs.

Thanks to Malmgren, LeMoine & D’Agostino, our celebrity pals tackle an instrument-stealing saboteur in ‘Sounds Crazy to Me’, before Sabrina cameos on the cover of Jughead #192 (May, by Dan DeCarlo & Lapick) before heading for the cover of her second issue (DeCarlo & Lapick, July). Within those pages Malmgren scripts ‘No Strings Attached’ as The Archies visit their bewitching buddy just as Hilda turns Harvey into an axe-strumming rock god…

‘Witch Way is That’ sees Hilda quickly regret opening her house to Tuned In, Turned On, Dropped Out Cousin Bert, prior to Malmgren, Lucey & Epp showing Archie suffering the jibes and jokes of ‘The Court Jester’ Reggie – until Sabrina adds a little something extra to the Andrews boys’ basketball repertoire..

At this time the world underwent a revival of supernatural interest and Gothic Romance was The Coming Thing. In a bold experiment, Sabrina had a shot at a dramatic turn as Doyle, Bolling, Joe Sinnott & Yoshida crafted ‘Death Waits at Dumesburry’: a relatively straight horror/mystery with Sabrina facing a sinister maniac in a haunted castle she inherits…

Rendered by LeMoine & D’Agostino, the cover of Jughead’s Jokes #24 (July 1971) brings us back to comedy central, as does their cover for Archie’s TV Laugh-Out #8 (August) and Malmgren’s charity bazaar-set tale ‘A Sweet Tooth’, with the winsome witch discovering even her magic cannot make Veronica’s baked goods edible…

Dan DeCarlo’s cover for Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch #3 (September) foreshadows a return to drama but in modern milieu as ‘House Breakers’ (Malmgren, DeCarlo & Lapick) finds Harvey and Sabrina stranded in an old dark mansion with spooks in situ, after which ‘Spellbinder’ (Doyle, Al Hartley) sees Hilda cringe and curse when human catastrophe Big Moose pays Sabrina a visit.

Hartley & D’Agostino fly solo on ‘Auntie Climax’ as irresistibility spells fly and both Archie and Hilda are caught in an amorous crossfire before Malmgren, Bolling & Lapick show our cast’s human side in ‘The Tooth Fairy’ as Archie, Jughead and Sabrina intervene to help a juvenile thief caught in a poverty trap …

A trio of DeCarlo & Lapick covers – Archie’s TV Laugh Out #9 (September), Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals #66 (October) and Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch #4 (October) segue into the teen thaumaturge’s fourth solo issue, where Doyle, Goldberg & D’Agostino set the cauldron bubbling with ‘Hex Marks the Spot’ as Aunts Hilda and Zelda nostalgically opine for their adventurous bad old days but something seems set on thwarting every spell they cast, after which ‘Which Witch is Right?’ (LeMoine pencils) finds obnoxious Reggie Mantle uncovering Sabrina’s sorcerous secrets.

Goldberg & Sinnott illustrate ‘Switch Witch’ as officious Della suspends Sabrina’s powers as a punishment and can’t understand why the girl is delirious instead of heartbroken, whilst Hartley & Sinnott contribute a run of madcap one-pagers from Gladir, Malmgren and Doyle with clue-packed titles such as ‘Out of Sight’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘The Teen Scene‘, ‘So That’s Why’ and ‘Time to Retire’.

Wrapping up the issue is ‘The Storming of Casket Island’ by Doyle, LeMoine & D’Agostino, blending stormy sailing, sinister swindling skulduggery and menacing mystic retribution…

More covers follow: Archie #213 and Archie’s TV Laugh Out #10 (both November by Dan D & Lapick) and Archie’s Christmas Stocking #190 (December, Hartley & D’Agostino), which latter also contributes Hartley & Sinnott’s ‘Card Shark’, with Sabrina joining Archie and the gang to explore the point and purpose of seasonal greetings postings. DeCarlo & Lapick’s cover of Betty and Me #39 brings the momentous year to a close…

The last year covered in this titanic tome is 1972, kicking off with DeCarlo & Lapick’s cover for Archie Annual #23, before their Sabrina’s Christmas Magic #196 cover (January) opens on a winter wonderland of seasonal sentiment. It all starts with ‘Hidden Claus’ (by featured team Hartley & Sinnott) as Sabrina ignores her aunt’s mockery and seeks out the real Father Christmas – just in time to help him with an existential and labour crisis…

‘Sabrina’s Wrap Session’ offers tips on gifting and packaging whilst ‘Hot Dog with Relish’ sees the witch woman zap Jughead’s mooching canine companion and make him a guy any girl could fall for. Doyle, Goldberg & Sinnott concocted ‘The Spell of the Season’, depicting our troubled teen torn between embracing Christmas and wrecking it as any true witch would. Guess which side wins the emotional tug-of-war?

More handicraft secrets are shared in ‘Sabrina’s Instant Christmas Decorations’ before Hartley & Sinnott’s ‘Sabrina Asks… What Does Christmas Mean to You?’ and ‘Sabrina Answers Questions About Christmas’, after which cartoon storytelling resumes with ‘Mission Possible’ as Hilda & Zelda find their own inner Samaritan.

Despite a rather distressing (and misleading) title ‘Popcorn Poopsie’ reveals a way of making tasty decorative snacks whilst ‘Sabrina’s Animal Crackers’ tells a tale of men turned to beasts before a yuletide ‘Sabrina Pin-Up’ and exercise feature ‘Sabrina Keeps in Christmas Trim’ return us to the entertainment section.

An all-Hartley affair, ‘Sabrina’s Witch Wisher’ examines what the vast cast would say if given a single wish, after which Doyle, Goldberg & Sinnott conclude this mammoth meander down memory lane by revealing how an evil warlock was punished by becoming ‘A Tree Named Obadiah’. Now – decked out in lights and tinsel – he’s back and making mischief in Veronica’s house…

An epic, enticing and always enchanting experience, the classic adventures of Sabrina the Teenage Witch are sheer timeless comics delight that no true fan will ever grow out of – and who says you have to?

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