Category: Sword & Sorcery

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Namor, the Sub-Mariner Epic Collection volume 5: The Invasion of New York 1972-1974


By Bill Everett, Steve Gerber, Mike Friedrich, Marv Wolfman, Howard Chaykin, Steve Skeates, Bill Mantlo, Dan Adkins, Alan Weiss, Sam Kweskin, Don Heck, George Tuska, Win Mortimer, John Tartaglione, Jim Mooney, Frank Giacoia, John Sinnott, Syd Shores, Don Perlin, Frank Chiaramonte, Frank Bolle, Vince Colletta, John Romita Sr., Gil Kane, Marie Severin, Franc Reyes & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In his most primal incarnation (other origins are available but may differ due to timeslips, circumstance and screen dimensions) Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the proud, noble and usually upset offspring of the union of a water-breathing Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer. That doomed romance resulted in a hybrid being of immense strength and extreme resistance to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Over decades, a wealth of creators added to the fishy tale and today’s Namor is hailed as Marvel’s First Mutant as well as the original “bad boy Good Guy”. He was created by young, talented Bill Everett, for non-starter cinema premium Motion Picture Weekly Funnies: #1 (October 1939) so – technically – Namor predates Marvel, Atlas and Timely Comics.

The Marine Miracleman first caught the public’s avid attention as part of an elementally appealing fire vs. water headlining team-up in the October 1939 Marvel Comics #1 (which renamed itself Marvel Mystery Comics from #2 onwards). The amphibian antihero shared honours and top billing with The Human Torch, having debuted (albeit in a truncated, monochrome version) in the aforementioned promotional booklet designed to be handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year. Our late-starter antihero rapidly emerged as one of the industry’s biggest draws, winning his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941).

His appeal was baffling but solid and he was one of the last super-characters to vanish at the end of the first heroic age.

In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its “Big Three” line-up – the Torch and Captain America being the other two – Everett returned for an extended run of sublimely dark, mordantly moody, creepily contemporary fantasy fables. Even so, his input wasn’t sufficient to keep the title afloat and eventually Sub-Mariner sank again. In 1961, as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby were reinventing superheroes with their Fantastic Four, they revived and reimagined the awesome, all-but-forgotten aquanaut as a troubled, angry semi-amnesiac. Decidedly more bombastic, regal and grandiose, this returnee despised humanity: embittered and broken by the loss of his subsea kingdom, which had been (seemingly) destroyed by American atomic testing. His urge for rightful revenge was infinitely complicated after he became utterly besotted with the FF’s Susan Storm…

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for years, squabbling with star turns such as The Hulk, Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil before securing his own series as one half of Tales to Astonish. From there he graduated in 1968 to his own solo title again.

Cumulatively spanning cover-dates June 1972 to September 1974, this subsea selection trawls Sub-Mariner #50-72, signalling the end of another era and rising dominance of genre fare in the superhero-saturated market of that period. Also dredged up and tipped in is a tentative attempt to revive his solo star status as seen in Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) just as horror-heroes began to wither away in the light of shiny space operas and resurgent superheroes as we all unwittingly bided our time until the advent of Star Wars unleashed a wave of Science Fiction sagas. Here, however, we see the triumphant glorious last hurrahs of originator Everett in salty sagas and dry land dramas…

Previously, Namor had endured months of escalating horror as old enemies including Prince Byrrah, Warlord Krang, Attuma, Dr. Dorcas and sinister shapeshifter Llyra perpetually assaulted his sunken kingdom. They were soundly defeated, but these constant clashes led to the murder of Namor’s bride-to-be Lady Dorma. He had been betrayed by his most trusted ally and, heartsick, angry and despondent, abdicated the throne, choosing to pursue the human half of his hybrid heritage as a surface dweller. The decision was fraught with more potential grief, leading to battles with surface world authorities; deranged psionic hermit Stephan Tuval and mind-tyrant Turalla; monster-maker Aunt Serr, M.O.D.O.K. and AIM. Namor seldom fought alone and initial clashes with old friends like Diane Arliss and Walt Newell (part-time undersea Avenger Stingray), Spider-Man, Daredevil and Human Torch Johnny Storm ultimately resulted in refreshed alliances, culminating in a poignant but brief reunion with his long-lost father Leonard McKenzie, a man Namor had for his entire life believed killed by Atlanteans in 1920.

When that tragic hostage to fortune was murdered by post-human horror Tiger Shark & Llyra, twice-orphaned, traumatised Namor lost his memory again, and was exploited as cannon fodder by Doctor Doom before eventually breaking free to retrench in bitter confusion and ponder his future…

Thus , a fresh start begins in #50 as Everett resurfaces to ask ‘Who Am I?’, with the bewildered amphibian reeling in confusion at the beach until his heroic instincts kick in and he saves a drowning teenager from seaweed and pollution. His actions are completely misunderstood and she savagely attacks him, before swimming off right out to sea…

Lesson learned, Namor concentrates on his own woes and sets off for Antarctica, eventually fetching up in the Ross Sea to explore the crumbling remains of the original Atlantis. His reveries are shattered when he is attacked by mutant crab creatures guarding the tomb of his beloved long-lost cousin and WWII partner in crimefighting Namora…

Confronting sinister leader Salamar the Sustainer, Namor discover a bizarre scheme to exploit the vast oil reserves under the ocean floor, and learns old foes are shaping events: treacherous cousin Byrrah and seemingly unkillable Llyra. He also meets again that abrasive teenager and discovers she is Namora’s wayward daughter…

As all hell breaks loose, former prince and newfound cousin Namorita make a break for it in a hail of blaster fire as ‘Armageddon… at Fifty Fathoms Full!’ (scripted by Mike Friedrich) exposes a scaly hidden hand behind the carnage. Byrrah is allied with the alien Brotherhood of Baddoon, who want the (radioactive!) oil reserves, albeit not for the reasons they share with the usurper. Ultimately, the aliens, Byrrah, and Salamar’s savage crab people can’t agree and the seagoing cousins are participants in a shattering showdown that results in environmental catastrophe…

Seeking to confirm Namorita’s account of how Namora died whilst dumping her with his old girlfriend Betty Dean Prentiss, Sub-Mariner cruises into a clash with ultra-nationalist Japanese mutant and future X-Man Sunfire as ‘The Atomic Samurai!’ – ever receptive to deranged patriotic ranting – falls under the sway of war criminal demagogue Dragon-Lord, last of the samurai. He plans to unleash his new Nipponese army and deadly defoliants upon America, a tactic that might destroy the oceans…

After a spectacular new incidence of the classic Golden Age “Fire vs Water” duel, Everett took full creative control for follow-up ‘…And the Rising Sun Shall Fall!’ wherein Sunfire sees sense and switches sides to save the seas, leading to all-out war in concluding half-chapter ‘Now Comes… the Decision!’,: a brief battle that leaves room in #54 for a “Mighty Marvel Mini Classic!” with Friedrich & Alan Weiss detailing how ‘Namor the First, Prince of Atlantis battles The Mer-Mutants’: a light but lovely puff piece involving a mermaid acting as a subsea honey trap for her hungry kin…

NtSM #55 sees Namor at last wave goodbye to “Nita” & Betty before revisiting Antarctica and enduring an unexpected and brutal encounter with scavenging wrecker ‘The Abominable Snow-King!’ The literally monstrous Torg’s ambition is to pit enslaved sea life against humanity but sinks once the Sub-Mariner gets involved, after which Friedrich & veteran illustrator Dan Adkins steer the abdicated Prince back to his forsaken kingdom in ‘Atlantis, Mon Amour!’ Sadly, he’s too late to stop his former subjects making a tragic fear-fuelled mistake that results in atrocity and genocide after aquatic alien refugee beg for aid…

When Everett returned he opened the doors to Marvel’s Atlas era-past with a tempestuous yarn that would eventually affect the entire continuity. ‘…In the Lap of the Gods’ reintroduced 1950s sensation Venus, whose impact would ripple out across the MU and ultimately reveal her hidden history as part of the Agents of Atlas sub-franchise.

It begins in a shattering storm as Namor rescues a lovely mystery woman stranded on a rock and stumbles into a long-running grudge match between the Hellenic gods of Love and War. A contemporary tale of dissent and unrest, the story reunites him with Namorita, who, in his absence, has become a college student and activist. Moreover, her favourite lecturer – Humanities Professor Victoria N. Starr – also has a concealed alter ego and lethal stalker: malign divinity and former pantheon mate Ares…

Having held at bay one angry god, Namor returns to Atlantis, resolved to restore the undersea nation to forefront of civilisation but his program of changes is stalled when ‘Hands Across the Waters, Hands Across the Skies…’ (Everett supervising, steering and inking dialoguer Steve Gerber & layout artist Sam Kweskin) uncovers a survivor and witness to the recent massacre of alien ambassadors by Atlanteans. Tamara of the Sisterhood claims to offer forgiveness and seek understanding, but many of the perpetrators would rather there were no testimony or recriminations to deal with. Most tellingly, the superstrong survivor and her pet monster have their own plans and soon the prince is sucked into more pointless battle…

With John Tartaglione inking Everett’s plot, Gerber & Kweskin forecast ‘Thunder Over the Seas!’, a tale of tragic miscomprehension as Namor again clashes with the surface world. As the Sub-Mariner’s new advisor, Tamara is targeted by Atlantean scout Lorvex – who is driven wild by her exotic beauty and rarity. Obsessively stalking and assaulting her, Lorvex drives her into Russian trawler nets where the rubicund refugee becomes a prized possession after the vessel and its contents are impounded by the US Coast Guard. Now Tamara is a cause célèbre and topic of heated debate at the United Nations…

Having dealt with Lorvex, Namor seeks out his new friend, and crashes into chaos as the war of words over the alien mermaid triggers the usual bellicose response amongst humans. By the time surface-dwelling Namorita summons her cousin to rescue Tamara, founding Avenger Thor has stepped in to keep the peace. Sadly it’s too late to stop ‘The Invasion of New York!’ (Everett, Gerber, Kweskin & Jim Mooney), with Lorvex exploiting the campaign to regain position and secretly abduct Tamara from UN custody. Enraged and resigned, Sub-Mariner acts decisively and violently to end the crisis, and accepts at last the fate he has been really fighting, finally accepting once more the throne and responsibilities of ruling Atlantis.

It was an open secret that Everett was dying at this time, but his Marvel friends and employers allowed him to work on until he couldn’t. Thus Sub-Mariner #61’s The Prince and the Pirate!’ – credited to Gerber, Everett, Win Mortimer & Mooney – opens with the old master pictorially revealing revelry in the subsea kingdom as Namor’s coronation ends before a new storyline starts on page 4 as Namorita and human guardian Betty Prentiss are abducted along with an entire passenger plane. The voyagers are victims of deranged geneticist Dr. Hydro who mutates them all (bar already amphibian Nita) into human-merman hybrids to populate his army of environmental conquest. When Namor tracks the ongoing abductions and invades mobile island Hydrobase to save his cousin, he is soundly defeated by the maniac’s super science. Moreover, the failed assault inspires Hydro to invade Atlantis and make it his new stronghold from which to convert the rest of humanity…

The drama plays out in #62 as Gerber, Sam Kweskin & Frank Giacoia explore ‘A Realm Besieged!’ before Tamara in Atlantis and Nita on Hydrobase thwart Hydro’s schemes; leaving the Sub-Mariner to ponder what to do with the hundreds of innocent, unwilling scaly amphibian freaks that neither Atlanteans or surface-dwellers want anything to do with…

Steve Gerber was a uniquely gifted writer who combined a deep love of Marvel’s continuity minutiae with dark irrepressible wit, incisive introspection, barbed socio-cultural criticism, a barely reined-in imagination and boundless bizarrely wilful surrealism. His stories were always at the extreme edge of the company’s intellectual canon and never failed to deliver surprise and satisfaction, especially when he couched his sardonic sorties in thinly veiled attacks on burgeoning cultural homogenisation and commercial barbarity.

With critical success Man-Thing he was holding up a mirror to many cordoned-off and taboo subjects and weaving history from scattered snippets of Marvel’s continuity. With his final stint on Sub-Mariner, Gerber expanded that universe exponentially, building by exploring pre-cataclysm history, aided by Howard Chaykin in back-up series ‘Tales of Atlantis!’ Here the first chapter – inked by Joe Sinnott – sees antediluvian, human-built Atlantis losing its war with rival superpower Lemuria and Emperor Kamuu and his bride Zartra prepare for the bloody end…

Over Everett’s posthumous plot, Gerber, Kweskin & Syd Shores produce #63 as ‘…And the Seas Shall Explode!’ sees seemingly dead Dr Hydro return to destroy the Atlanteans by triggering a volcano under their city and compelling Namor to take no chances and offer no mercy to save his subjects once and for all, Tales of Atlantis resumes as Gerber, Chaykin & Sinnott reveal how the fate of the first Atlantis is sealed by ‘Cataclysm!’ As hand-to-hand combat peaks, the city sinks beneath the seas, but its heritage is saved, carried away by missionary sorceress Zered-Na and her devout disciples; for which you need to scope out Gerber’s other contemporaneous assignments: Son of Satan in Marvel Spotlight and Man-Thing in Adventures into Fear. We’ve covered them elsewhere so feel free to scroll away in the search engines…

Here, though, and wading off at a weird tangent, Gerber, Don Heck & Don Perlin play with satire and pop culture in #64’s ‘Voyage into Chaos!’ When intolerant Atlanteans intern the aimless, despondent amphibian victims of Dr. Hydro, furious, ashamed Namor responds with a fit of fury, just as cool heads are needed to assess another astounding incursion. Soon, a quartet of strange visitors from magical dimension Zephyrland – Ariel the Musician, Ibbar the Scolar, Kabal the Wizard & Zargus the Warrior – are petitioning the Sub-Mariner to hop in their Golden Submarine and help them liberate their enslaved homeland from bestial, tone-deaf horror Virago the She-Beast. Willing and even eager to go for many reasons Namor joins them but is ambushed and defeated as soon as arrives in the land of golden meanies…

Third Tales of Atlantis episode ‘In the Wake of the Warriors!’ reveals how, five millennia later, nomadic clans of water-breathing Homo Mermanus settle in the ruins of the sunken city-continent and clash constantly, thanks to the enmity of sworn enemies Widow-Queen Elanna and King Stegor. They cannot see waves of destiny pushing their battle-hardened children towards an incredible coalition. Successive instalments ‘The Lurker in the Ruins!’ (Gerber, Mooney & Frank Chiaramonte in #65 and concluding chapter ‘The Sword in the Throne!’ inked by Sinnott in #66) ended the series abruptly as those children – destiny- touched Kamuu and Elanna’s daughter Zartra – after meeting ghosts and battling demons, unite the tribes to create the dynasty of sunken Atlantis that will lead millennia later to the coming later of Namor…

Back in the now, the series was struggling, sparking a rapid radical rebrand as Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner and #65 offering ‘The Cry of the She-Beast!’ as Gerber, Heck & Perlin detail how Virago crushes resistance at home, physically humiliates Namor and launches an attack across dimensions upon Atlantis. Her departure sparks a successful but so-costly revolution in Zephyrland and (with valiant Namor clinging to her hurtling Golden Submarine) provokes a shocking resurrection after splashing down on Earth in #66. ‘Rise, Thou Killer Whale’ (Gerber, Heck & Perlin) sees Virago driven away from Atlantis at great cost, only to stumble upon the tomb of defeated – but apparently only dormant – Orka the (humanoid) Killer Whale – who unites with a clearly kindred spirit to devastate the sunken city with an armada of crazed cetaceans…

The catastrophic clash leads to the Sub-Mariner again falling, but this time amidst toxic nerve gas dumped by surface dwellers. The chemical poisons alter his body chemistry, making it impossible to breathe air or maintain body moisture. Moreover, as the cloud of death expands currents wash it over Atlantis, plunging all within the perimeter – Virago and Orka included – into comas in landmark tale ‘Seawinds of Change!’ (Gerber, Heck & Frank Bolle).

Thankfully, whilst dying Namor heads for the surface to be found by old ally Triton of The Inhumans, who brings Namor to former foes the Fantastic Four. Smartest Man Alive Reed Richards swiftly diagnoses and rapidly constructs a bodysuit to provide constant artificial respiration – over Namor’s churlish and violent protests – and he heads home to finish his fight. Sadly, what he finds in #68 (January 1974, Mooney inks) leaves him ‘On the Brink of Madness!’ Only Tamara, Nita and Hydro’s amphibians escaped the nerve agent’s effects and now must calm down the bereft monarch. To stabilise the crisis, they relocate to vacant Hydrobase and direct Namor to a human scientist whose forcefield researches might provide a means to protect dormant Atlanteans from predators and further harm.

After seeking spiritual guidance from patron god Father Neptune, Namor sets off, but when the king without a kingdom seeks out Dr Damon Walthers, he discovers the genius’ works stolen by his assistant. Shot from the sky by neophyte supervillain Force, their initial clash is inconclusive but does draw the attention of passing student Peter Parker…

Meanwhile in Zephyrland, the war goes badly and the survivors consider calling in Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange…

George Tuska & Vince Colletta illustrate Prince Namor, the Savage Sub-Mariner #69 as Gerber rapidly wraps up his hanging plot threads in anticipation of a sudden cancellation. ‘Two Worlds …and Dark Destiny!’ sees Dr Strange offer aid, a pointless battle between spider hero and fishman and a final encounter with Force that leaves Namor victorious, in control of Walthers’ forcefield tech and Atlantis safely stored “under glass” until a cure can be found – an inauspicious but satisfactory stopping point. Confoundingly the series still had three issues to run with Marv Wolfman, Tuska & Colletta depicting ‘Namor Unchained!’ in #70 whilst adding further safeguards to sleeping Atlantis, until targeted by now-independent mutated fishmen grown by Dr. Dorcas under the guidance of an ambitious aquatic atrocity. The brutal duel delivers more deaths and butchery as #71 clamours ‘Comes the Pirahna!’ and the series finally sank with #72 (dated September 1974 and on sale from 18th June) as Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins & Colletta catered an alien encounter as Namor faced obnoxious humans and a lost interstellar shapeshifter in ‘From the Void It Came…’

The antihero resurfaced in Giant-Sized Super-Villain Team-Up #1 (cover-dated March 1975), revived as one half of a tag-team with fellow misunderstood autocrat Doctor Doom whilst seeking a cure for his people and his own condition. That sustained momentum led to the last tale here, a solo exploit taken from Marvel Spotlight #27 (April 1976) as Bill Mantlo & Mooney revealed ‘Death is the Symbionic Man!’ Incorporating Prime Earth’s military industrial villain Captain Simon Stryker (of alternate Earth epic Deathlok the Demolisher) the pacy yarn saw Sub-Mariner hunted for potential spare parts and powers by the messianic maniac and battling Stryker’s most deadly killer-cyborg yet…

Bonus material includes covers by Everett, John Romita, Rich Buckler, Sal Buscema, Al Weiss, Jim Starlin, Larry Lieber, Joe Sinnott, Gil Kane, Frank Giacoia, Mike Esposito, Vince Colletta, & Al Milgrom, supplemented with original art pages and personal commissions by “Wild Bill”. Also on view are House ads; the editorial page from #67 wherein Gerber explained the costume change plus Romita’s original designs for the new outfit. Special treats comprise Everett’s unused cover watercolour rough for Marvel Comics (1939) #2; the Everett cover and Franc Reyes frontispiece of Marvel Index #7b (1978); a stellar Venus pinup from Marvel Spotlight #2 (1972) and – following the announcement of Everett’s death – a visual memorial from editor and friend Thomas, limned by Marie Severin & Giacoia as it appeared in Sub-Mariner #65 (September 1973).

In comics, the best thing about “the Mighty falling” is that so often another time throws up fresh ideas and creators who will regenerate faded concepts. It a cycle as timeless and relentlessly repeating as the tides. The venerable Sub-Mariner always comes back stronger and more appetising, and you owe it to yourself to be ready for the next wave by getting to know these classics. Many early Marvel Comics are more exuberant than qualitative, but this volume, especially from an story-lover’s point of view, is a wonderful exception: historical treasures with narrative bite and indescribable style and panache that fans will delight in forever.
© 2025 MARVEL.

Today in 1923 French creator Jean Graton (Michel Vaillant) was born, sharing natal celebrations with comics genius Eddie Campbell (Alec, Bacchus, From Hell) in 1955 and colourist Christie Scheele in 1957.

Losses include cartoonist Virgil Partch in 1984; Belgian writer Henri Gillain (Il y a un sorcier à Champignac, Le Trésor d’Alaric, Nègre Blanc) in 1999; Mad mainstay Jerry DeFucchio in 2001 and Filipino artist Mar Amongo (DC anthologies, Noli Me Tangere, The Tiger’s Fang, Talons of Time) in 2005.

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Nightmares and Daydreams A.C. 2020


By Mirko Ili? (SelfMadeHero)
ISBN: 978-1-914224-52-2 (Album HB)

This book contains nudity, sexual images, depiction of bodily functions, scenes of distress, oppression and violence, but for Pete’s sake millions died, countless others are still enduring long term debilitating illness and it could all happen again. Grow a sense of proportion or read something else if those are your problems with what’s on show here.

We all respond to stress, horror, terror and slow strangling of hope in different ways. If nothing else, the COVID 19 pandemic (and those many ongoing, still-evolving sequels national governments are so keen to have us ignore at this moment) resulting in global lockdown showed us ourselves in ways we could never have previously imagined. As loved ones vanished from around us, human monsters made money and political capital of the viral winnowing, and forcibly isolated humans turned inward, looked outward from cosy cages and redefined who they were. Many discovered new or long-suppressed gifts and talents. Others just got in much closer touch with what they knew but never had time for, back when the world was “normal”…

Bosnian-born on January 1st 1956, Mirko Ili? is an artist. Living with dyslexia, he especially preferred the visual to the verbal in his formative reading years and made graphic design his area of expertise. Upon achieving success and acclaim he moved to the Big Apple, becoming art director of Time magazine’s international edition and The New York Times Op-Ed section. Before that, though, he was raised in Soviet-era Yugoslavia, absorbing every comic he could find. Shaped, changed and charged-up for life, he entered the magazine marketplace as a creator and storyteller whose efforts were seen far and wide thanks to eye-catching yarns in Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal, and Marvel’s Epic Illustrated among others, all riding a global fantasy art boom at that time.

Coming to America confirmed his ascent but took him ever further away from personalised graphic narratives. Design pays more than panels & captions, and Ili? prospered from prestigious, high profile works such as posters and book covers for Steven Heller, Milton Glaser and so many more. He crafted film titles, ad designs, album covers and all the rest of those image-potent fillips that command and reward inspired vision-realisers. With time came more acclaim and many examples of his art added to modern collections including MOMA, SFMOMA, the Smithsonian, Die Nueue Sammlung and various other global institutions.

If you need to know more than what the fulsome creator bio at the back of this tome offers, you should track down his 2012 biography (by Dejan Krši?) Mirko Ili?: Fist to Face…

Meanwhile and however, when almost everyone’s career was put on pause in 2020, Ili? the long-neglected comics storymaker reacted to enforced isolation, prolonged separation and the prospect of an actual Apocalypse by unearthing his own roots. Locked in, he reviewed comforting literary influences and artistic inspirations. Deprived of bustling casual human contact – comprising strangers, casual acquaintances and close friends – he sought ways to make sense and apply perspective and proportion to what so many of us regarded as our long anticipated well-earned Armageddon. Ili? started drawing as he wondered and waited for whatever end was coming…

As explained in supporting text pieces – a contextual Foreword from Mark Hellier and Dave McKean’s appraisal in a concluding Afterword – an inward expulsion of ideas was nourished by Ili?’s past via beloved works by favourite creators… not just comic stars like Tomaz Pengov, R. Crumb, Moebius, and especially Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland. Also revisited were craftspeople, artisans, designers, filmmakers, poets and musicians including Magritte, de Chirico and Egon Schiele; Marshall McLuhan, Leonard Cohen, The Velvet Underground and Dylan Thomas. Ili? referenced formative mythology and religious iconography (image 27 references Saint Sebastian – believed in mediaeval times to defend against plague) and his own earliest comics creations and student days at Zagreb’s School of Applied Arts, to feed his art making addiction and when the world’s new normal began as the year closed, the therapy comics became his A.C. (After Covid) 2020 collection…

As inferred already, 2020 began with Mirko Ili? drawing self-contained single-page stories/statements as something to do and to reflect the mood of unprecedented times. He continued that daily visual diary even as world lockdowns gradually lifted, channelling his continuing anxieties, observations and self-evaluations into striking, shocking surreal pantomimes blending bleak, traumatised imagination with personal motifs and inspirations…

Without another word that procession of explicit, scary, sad and evocative moments unfolds here with gregarious overwhelming humanity reduced to spectres and phantoms avoiding other people. One voluntary ghost is a driven aging artist roaming achingly familiar but alien empty streets. Over 70+ individual vignettes rendered in a variety of liberating styles to challenge the notion of confinement and unflinching rigidity a longer narrative forms. Skilfully manipulating self-imposed creative restrictions whilst inhabiting nested boxes/containers/cells of wordless pages & panels, shining through monochrome palettes and singular subject matter a record of loneliness and isolation running wild emerges.. And yet, somehow, each message of and within borders and boundaries is invested in sparking unique examples of freedom of thought, memory, and anticipation… be that better or worsening days or no future at all…

Extremely explicit, complex, challenging, compressed, claustrophobic, and memorably distressing, this somehow still-mightily engaging gallery of isolated incidents is fully annotated and supplemented by a Visual Reference Index, presenting one compulsive creator’s unflinching documentary testament and uncompromising inner monologues: a physical paradigm of processing in response to solitary daily “constitutionals” undertaken through an eerily distanced metropolis in the fervent hope of touching “normal” again and seeking out a better, more crowded tomorrow…

If you can handle it, you must not miss this marvellous, darkly beautiful memento mori to modern fragility and failures…
Nightmares and Daydreams A.C. 2020 © 2026 by Mirko Ili?, Foreword © Steven Heller. Afterword © Dave McKean. All rights reserved.

Nightmares and Daydreams: A.C. 2020 will be released in the UK on September 3rd 2026 and September 29th in the US. It is available for pre-order now and is supported in London by an exhibition running from 1st to 7th September at the Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ.

Today in 1875 pioneering US cartoonist Clare A. Briggs (A. Piker Clerk, When a Feller Needs a Friend, Ain’t It a Grand and Glorious Feeling?, The Days of Real Sport, Mr. and Mrs. and father of pioneering woman cartoonist “Miss” Clare Briggs!) was born, sharing the anniversary with the premiere of Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie strip in 1924; Carl Giles’ eponymous UK family gag panel Giles in 1946; the loutish launch of Reg Smyth’s Andy Capp in 1957 as well as the birth in 1966 of filmmaker/producer/writer James Gunn (Super, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vols 1 2 & 3, The Suicide Squad; the whole honking’ great DC Extended Universe; Creature Commandos, Peacemaker, Scooby-Doo & Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Brightburn, Superman).

Today also marks passing of creator Frank Godwin (Wonder Woman, War on Crime, Connie, Rusty Riley) in 1957 and groundbreaking black American cartoonist, fan art pioneer and underground comix exponent Richard Edward “Grass” Green (Xal-Kor the Human Cat, Holiday Out, Super Soul Comix) in 2002.

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Thorgal volume 0: The Betrayed Sorceress & Almost Paradise: Island of the Frozen Seas


By Grzegorz Rosinski & Van Hamme, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Europe Comics/Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-443-4 (Cinebook PB Album) 978-1-84918-614-8 (Cinebook Digital edition)
No ISBN (Europe Comics digital-only edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times, and imagery made for cultures far less prudish and body conscious than ours or the current US conception of Family Values. As such, there’s also probably far less explicit violence than you might be accustomed to. Sorry, Not Sorry.

One of the very best and most celebrated fantasy adventure series of all time, Thorgal accomplishes the seemingly impossible: pleasing critics and selling in vast quantities.

The prototypical Game of Thrones saga debuted in iconic weekly Le Journal de Tintin in 1977 with album compilations beginning three years later. A far-reaching, expansive generational saga, it has won a monolithic international following in fourteen languages and dozens of countries, generating numerous spin-off series, and thus naturally offers a strong presence in the field of global gaming.

In story-terms, Thorgal offers the best of all weird worlds, with an ostensibly historical milieu of bold Viking adventure seamlessly incorporating science fiction elements, dire magic, horrendous beasts, social satire, political intrigue, soap opera, Atlantean mystique and mythically mystical literary standbys such as gods, monsters and devils. Created by Belgian writer Jean Van Hamme (Domino, XIII, Largo Winch, Blake and Mortimer) and Polish illustrator Grzegorz Rosinski (Kapitan Zbik, Pilot smiglowca, Hans, The Revenge of Count Skarbek), the feature grew into an  unstoppable juggernaut over decades with the creative duo completing 29 albums between 1980 & 2006 when Van Hamme moved on. Thereafter, scripting duties fell to Yves Sente who collaborated on a further five collections until 2013 when Xavier Dorison wrote one before “Yann” AKA Yann Le Pennetier became chief scribe. In 2025, he and Rosi?ski released 36th epic-album Aniel after which Fred Vignaux took over as artist in residence with L’Emite de Skellingar. The current count is 43 tomes, with La vengeance de la déesse Skædhi published in 2025.

By the time Van Hamme departed, the canon had grown, spawning spin-off series to cover not only the life of the titular hero and his son Jolan, but also other indomitable family members. These include The Worlds of Thorgal – Kriss of Valnor (8 volumes); Thorgal – Wolf (7 volumes) and Thorgal – The Youth of Thorgal (11 books) plus an Homage imprint inviting other creators to tell non-canonical yarns set in the Thorgal universe. There’s five of them thus far since kicking off in 2023, with all additions lumped together under umbrella aegis Les Mondes de Thorgal…

In 1985, US publisher Donning released a brief yet superb series of oversized hardcover translations, but Thorgal never really found an English-speaking audience until Cinebook began its own iteration in 2007. The original Belgian series meandered back and forth through the hero’s life and Cinebook’s translated run began with the 7th and 8th albums combined in a double-length premiere edition (just like the one under view today). By that time the saga of ceaselessly wandering enigma Thorgal Aegirsson had properly gelled, but there were a few books before then, with our hero still finding his literary and graphic feet…

What you’ll learn from later volumes: Thorgal was recovered as a baby from a ferocious storm and raised by Northern Viking chief Leif Haraldson. Nobody could possibly know the fortunate foundling had survived a stellar incident which destroyed a starship full of super-scientific humanoid aliens. Growing to manhood, the strange boy was eventually forced out of his adopted land by ambitious usurper Gandalf the Mad who feared the young warrior threatened his own claim to the throne.

For his entire childhood Thorgal had been inseparable from Gandalf’s daughter Aaricia and, as soon as they were able, they fled together from the toxic atmosphere to live free from her father’s lethal jealousy and obsessive terror of losing his throne. Danger was always close but after many appalling hardships, the lovers and their new son finally found a measure of cautious tranquillity by occupying a small island where they could thrive in safety… or so they thought…

Here, however, in harder-hitting, initial escapades from 1980, the largely unexplained and formulaic Viking warrior is simply a hero in search of a cause. La Magicienne Trahie becomes eponymous debut book The Betrayed Sorceress, opening with a full-grown Thorgal tortured and left to die of exposure and drowning by arch enemy Gandalf before being fortuitously rescued by a red-haired woman who demands he work in her service for a year…

Accompanied by a loyal wild wolf, formidable mystic matron Slive is consumed with a hunger for vengeance and orders her reluctant vassal to undertake an arduous quest and great battles to retrieve a hidden casket and its mystical contents. Only after succeeding does the warrior discover that the target of her ire is Gandalf himself. Her complex scheme almost succeeds but the witch’s plans eventually lead to bloodshed, calamity, unsuspected connections to beloved Aaricia and the exposure of long-hidden secrets.

As the final clash climaxes, Gandalf is near death and the reunited lovers witness the sorceress’ last voyage into the coldest regions on Earth in a dragonship made of ice…

Bridging the first and second volumes, short follow-up exploit ‘Almost Paradise’ continues the saga and completes the first volume with Thorgal living again amongst Gandalf’s band, but only on sufferance and in constant daily hardship. Here, a lone ride through winter snows leads to his being hunted by ravening wolves before plummeting into a fantastic time-lost and timeless enclave at the bottom of an icy crevasse. In a tropical Eden Thorgal finds a trio of mysterious maidens.

Two vie for his attention and argue the seductive benefits of eternal life in a vast garden free of want and danger, but youngest girl Skadia craves the freedom of the outer world and is willing to lead the homesick warrior into horrendous peril to achieve her ends. Desperate to return to his true love, Thorgal escapes with the third immortal, suffering a nightmare journey back to the real world, but not without paying a painful price…

Second collected album L’lle des Mers gelées is included here as The Island of the Frozen Seas, opening in spring as Aaricia prepares to wed Thorgal and abandon Gandalf’s lands forever. Those dreams are shattered when giant eagles fly down and snatch her away. Soon all the warriors are pursuing in Drakkars (dragonships), heading ever northwards.

The pursuit leads to fractious moments aboard ship. Imminent mutiny is only forestalled when the Vikings encounter a fantastic vessel moving without oars or sails and – despite valiant resistance – the barbarians are soon all captive beside Aaricia. All, that is, save for Thorgal and future brother-in-law Bjorn Gandalfson who escaped capture by taking to a lifeboat…

At the top of the world, they meet strange tribes-folk perfectly adapted to arctic life. Thorgal continues hunting his bride-to-be, meeting and defeating her abductor, uncovering an incredible secret citadel and hearing an incredible story about his long-occluded origins before he can bring his beloved back home to her people…

Although lacking the wit and raw humour of later tales these works-in-progress are fierce, inventive and phenomenally gripping: cunningly crafted, astonishingly addictive formative episodes gradually building towards a fully-realised universe of wonder and imagination whilst offering insight into the character of a true, if exceedingly unwilling, hero.

Thorgal is every action fan’s ideal dream of unending adventure. What fanatical fantasy aficionado could possibly resist such barbaric blandishments?

The Europe Comics volume is a digital-only edition from the pan-continental collective imprint which collaborates to bring fresh and classic material to English speaking fans. Many of their selections are picked up by established print publishers like Top Shelf or Cinebook. In fact, this volume joined to Cinebook’s stable of titles at the end of 2018, under special enumeration as Thorgal volume 00: The Betrayed Sorceress. Although currently out of physical print it too is available digitally, so if you’re already a fan you can still add the book to your collection. The past awaits you, only a few keystrokes away…
© Editions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) 1980 Rozinski & Van Hamme. English translation © 2018 Cinebook Ltd.

Today in 1924 Golden Age artist/inker John Belfi (Justice Society of America, Sky Wolf, The Heap, Straight Arrow, Strong Bow, The Saint, Tarzan, Flash Gordon) was born, followed by Filipino illustrator Eufronio Reyes “E. R.” Cruz (The Shadow, Moon Knight, Sherlock Holmes, Eerie, G.I. Combat) in 1934. In 1941 Grzegorz Rosinski arrived, joined by writer Reed Waller (Omaha the Cat Dancer) in 1949, and colourist Dave Stewart (Hellboy, Daytripper, Shaolin Cowboy, The Goon, DC: The New Frontier, Star Wars, The Umbrella Academy) in 1972.

Today in 1991 the last episode of the fourth Batman newspaper strip was published.

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Werewolf by Night Marvel Masterworks: volume 3


By Doug Moench, Don Perlin, Virgilio Redondo, Yong Montaño, Gil Kane, Vince Colletta, Sal Trapani, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5550-2 (HB) 978-1-3025-2941-3 (Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in 1970, in the wake of losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators – Steve Ditko & Jack Kirby – they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was a mass release of horror titles rapidly devised in response to an industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales. The move was handily expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (plus narcotics and bent coppers – but that’s another story) again became acceptable fare on four-colour pages. Whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too) the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watch-word was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible…

When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of scary stars – beginning with a werewolf and traditional vampire – before chancing something new via a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist. With its title cribbed from a classic short thriller from a pre-Code horror anthology (Marvel Tales #116, July 1953), Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2. It had been preceded by western-era masked avenger Red Wolf in #1, and followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider, but this hairy hero was destined to stick around for a while.

This third chillingly crackers compendium compiles more moody misadventures of a good-hearted young West Coast lycanthrope who briefly shone as an unlikely star for the entire length of a trading trend, as confirmed here by the reprinted full-colour contents of Werewolf By Night volume 1 #22-30 and Giant-Size Werewolf #2-5, collectively spanning October 1974 to July 1975.

Jack Russell is a teenager with a rare but very disturbing condition. On her deathbed, his mother revealed unsuspected Transylvanian origins to her beloved boy: relating a family curse which would turn him into a raging beast on every night with a full moon as soon as he reached his 18th birthday.

And so it began…

After many months of misunderstanding as Jack tried to cope alone with his periodic wild side, Jack’s stepfather Philip Russell reluctantly expanded the backstory, revealing how the Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reached adulthood. Moreover, the feral blight would do the same to his little sister Lissa when she reached her own majority…

As Jack tried and repeatedly failed to balance a normal life with his monthly cycle of uncontrollable ferocity, he met eventual mentor and confidante Buck Cowan, an aging Hollywood writer who became Jack’s best friend and only confidante after the pair began to jointly investigate the wolfboy’s past. Their incessant search for a cure was made more urgent by little Lissa’s ever-encroaching birthday.

In the course of their researches they crossed swords with many monsters – human and otherwise – including off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his off-the-books investigation/hunt for a werewolf nobody believed in. A major if faceless foe was exposed in The Committee – a cabal of capitalists seeking to corner the monster market to boost sales who wanted to own the werewolf because he could scare the public, allowing them to create a panic-crazed sales boom – and even vampire lord Dracula.

However the biggest boost to Jack & Buck’s quest (other than Jack’s mutant girlfriend Topaz who could psionically calm the beast!) was learning from fellow lycanthrope Raymond Coker that there was a cure for their condition; sadly it was for a werewolf to kill another werewolf…

With the stage set for some truly outrageous yarn-spinning and Moench at the helm – and almost exclusively pencilled for rest of the run by the criminally underrated Don Perlin – the moonlight comics mysteries resume with the Vince Colletta inked Giant-Size Werewolf #2 as ‘The Frankenstein Monster Meets Werewolf By Night’. Roaming the streets of New York in ‘Prisoners of Flesh!’, the recently resurrected massive but mute monster hops a westbound freight train after overhearing a mystic named Danton Vayla can transplant souls into new bodies…

He arrives in Los Angeles just as Jack Russell discovers Lissa has been abducted by Vayla’s Satanist cult The Brotherhood of Baal who want ‘To Host the Beast’ before cataclysmically clashing with the monster who has only to let the diabolists sacrifice the werewolf and Lissa to gain his heart’s desire. Tragically the innately noble artificial man has far more empathy and compassion than the cultists and prefers his own sorry existence to benefiting from ‘The Flesh of Satan’s Hate!’

Werewolf By Night #22 (Moench, Perlin & Colletta) introduces crazed murder-maniac Atlas, who stalks and slays many of Buck’s movie friends. Moreover, when Russell’s periodically prowling Passenger encounters the ‘Face of the Fiend!’, Atlas beats the beast unconscious. In the morning light, bleary Jack is subsequently arrested for the latest murder…

LA detective Lieutenant Vic Northrup was a friend of deceased former foe Hackett and knows Russell is hiding something, but eventually releases the kid for lack of evidence. Picking Jack up from the station, Buck then reveals he has gleaned the inside story of Atlas and his own personal involvement in the story… just in time to become the next target…

Fortuitously, the werewolf is on hand when Atlas attacks again and the battle explodes into LA’s streets where disbelieving cops have to admit that ‘The Murderer is a Maniac!’

WBN #24 sees Buck introduces Jack to fringe scientist Winston Redditch who claims to have chemically isolated the constituents of the human psyche and thus might be able to suppress Jack’s regular bestial outbursts. Sadly, the benevolent boffin accidentally ingests the serum himself and unleashes ‘The Dark Side of Evil!’ The remorseless sadistic thug he becomes calls himself DePrayve and fights the werewolf to a standstill, giving Northrup opportunity to capture the hirsute “urban legend” which has stalked the city and drove Hackett crazy…

From #25 the art took a quantum leap in quality as Perlin – already co-plotting the stories – began inking his own pencils. When the beast busts out of custody ‘An Eclipse of Evil’ sees Redditch turning his warped attention to the lycanthrope as a potential guinea pig for further experimentation, only for both the feral fury and dastardly DePrayve to be targeted by a deranged vigilante and self-declared “protector of purity” (for which read woman abductor) calling himself The Hangman. The horrific three-way clash results in ‘A Crusade of Murder’, with Redditch hospitalised, the vicious vigilante in custody and battered, bloody-yet-unbowed Jack still free and still cursed…

Eschewing chronological order for the sake of unbroken continuity-clarity, January 1975’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #3 pops up here to reveal a ‘Castle Curse!’(Moench Perlin and inked by Sal Trapani) wherein Jack returns to Transylvania after receiving a monster-infested vision of former love interest Topaz in ‘Spawned in Dream… Slain in Nightmare!’ Jack drags Buck and Lissa ‘Home to Slay!’ in the Balkans, finding the old family estate under siege by pitchfork-wielding villagers who have all their worst fears confirmed when he goes hairy and gets hungry, before finally tracking down Topaz in the care – and custody – of a gypsy matriarch with an arcane agenda of her own.

The blood-crazed old witch has a tragic connection to the Russoff line and is exploiting Topaz’s recently-faded but now restored powers to enact a grisly ‘Vengeance in Death!’ upon the villagers by raising an army of zombies. The chain of events she set in motion can only end in slaughter…

Werewolf By Night #27 (March 1975) began a chilling and fantastic extended eldritch epic with the introduction of ‘The Amazing Doctor Glitternight’. Back in the USA, Jack’s feral alter ego runs loose on the isolated Californian coast and is drawn to a cave where a bizarre wizard makes monsters from what appears to be fragments of Topaz’s soul. The eerie mage is actually hunting for Topaz’s dead stepfather Taboo and will not be swayed or gainsaid, even after Jack’s uncontrollable were-beast eviscerates the weird stranger’s monstrous “masterpiece”…

The wizard intensifies his campaign in ‘The Darkness from Glitternight’, heaping horrors upon Jack and friends before capturing Lissa on her birthday and using dark magic to turn her from “simple, ordinary” werewolf into ‘A Sister of Hell’. The spectral re-emergence of Taboo proves a turning point as wolf battles demon-beast and everybody grapples with Glitternight before a ‘Red Slash Across Midnight’ seemingly results in a cure for one of the tortured Russell clan…

Slightly askance of publishing schedules but placed here for sensible reading continuity, April 1975’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #4 offers a long-delayed and much-anticipated clash with living vampire Morbius: beginning with ‘A Meeting of Blood’ (Moench & Virgil Redondo) with the former biologist and longsuffering haemovore tracking his old girlfriend Martine and discovering a possible cure for his own exsanguinary condition. Unfortunately, the chase also brings him into savage and inconclusive combat with a certain hairy hellion and the potential solution is forever lost…

Also included in that double-sized issue is Moench & Yong Montaño’s ‘When the Moon Dripped Blood!’, wherein Jack and Buck stumble across a group of rustic loons all-too-successfully summoning a ghastly elder god. Although great at consuming and converting human offerings and acolytes, the appalling atrocity is apparently no match for a ravening ball of furious fangs and claws…

This dose of shaggy suspense concludes with Giant-Size Werewolf #5 (cover-dated July) which shifted the cast into full-on dark fantasy mode. Scripted by Moench and illustrated by Montaño, ‘Prologue: I Werewolf’ recaps Jack’s peculiar problems before ‘The Plunder of Paingloss’ discloses how the leaders of dimensional realm Biphasia – permanently polarised between night and day – instigate a ‘Bad Deal with the Devil’s Disciple’ on Earth when demonist Joaquin Zairre kidnaps the werewolf…

With the beast dispatched though a ‘Doorway of the Dark Waters’, Jack is soon a pawn in a sorcerous war where ‘Fragile Magic’ on the world of light and darkness allows him and his allies to raid the ‘The Ark of Onom-Kra’ and expose a secret tyrant in ‘Silver Rain, Sardanus and Shadow’…

To Be Continued…

Kicking off the rather meagre bonus section and complementing the cover gallery by Gil Kane, Dan Adkins, John Romita Sr. is a selection of original art by Ron Wilson, Frank Giacoia, Perlin and Kane, topped off by an Introduction by Ralph Macchio first seen in 2018’s Werewolf By Night: The Complete Collection volume 2.

This moody masterpiece of macabre menace and aggressive animal action covers some of the most under-appreciated mindbendingly magical moments in Marvel history; tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling. If you feel the urge to indulge in a mixed bag of clawed killers, beastly bloodsuckers and moody young muses this is a far more entertaining mix than many modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 2024 MARVEL.

Today Marvel writer/editors Terry Kavanagh and Craig Anderson were born but we don’t when! Far more traditional and open, UK humourist/ cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather (Old Bill) arrived with all his papers sorted on this date in 1887, followed in 1909 by uniquely iconic creator Basil Wolverton (Spacehawk, Powerhouse Pepper, Mad Magazine, Plop!, The Bible). In 1916 comic book artist Mort Leav (The Heap) joined us, followed by Atlas artist/strip star Tony DiPreta (Joe Palooka, Rex Morgan M.D.) in 1921 and Silver Age artistic co-founder Murphy Anderson (Buck Rogers, Captain Comet, Atomic Knights, Hawkman, Flash, Adam Strange, The Spectre, Superman, Jonny Quest) in 1926.

Today in 1977 the 652nd and final issue of UK weekly Sparky was published.

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Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman volume 2


By Michael Jelenic, Adam P. Knave, Alex De Campi, Amy Chu, James Tynion IV, Heather Nuhfer, Lauren Beukes, Cecil Castelucci, Sara Ryan, Aaron Lopresti, Drew Johnson, Matthew Dow Smith, Ray Snyder, Neil Googe, Bernard Chang, Noelle Stevenson, Ryan Benjamin, Mike Maihack, Chris Sprouse & Karl Story, Christian Duce & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5862-7 (TPB/Digital edition)

Time to start planning for a Big Comics Anniversary later this year…

The Princess of Paradise Island originally debuted as a special feature in All Star Comics #8, cover-dated December 1941, but actually on sale from October 21st of that year). She was officially conceived by psychologist/polygraph pioneer William Moulton Marston and illustrated by Harry G. Peter, in a calculated attempt to offer girls a positive and forceful role model and, on forward-thinking Editor M.C. Gaines’ part, to sell more funnybooks to girls. Later research has since disclosed much of her genesis was due to Moulton’s wife – attorney turned psychologist Sarah Elizabeth Marston (née Holloway) who had worked with him to create the systolic lie detector process – and their live-in partner Olive Byrne.

Despite all the complexities and confusion surrounding her genesis, Wonder Woman was an instant hit and catapulted from the try-out into her own series as the cover-feature character of new anthology title Sensation Comics one month later. The Amazing Amazon then won her own eponymous supplemental title a few months after that, cover-dated summer 1942…

You already know the story: Once upon a time on a hidden island of immortal super-women, American aviator Steve Trevor of US Army Intelligence crashed to Earth. Near death, he was nursed back to health by young, impressionable Princess Diana. Fearful of her besotted child’s growing obsession with the creature from a long-forgotten and madly violent world, Diana’s mother Queen Hippolyte revealed the hidden history of the Amazons: how they were seduced and betrayed by men but rescued by the goddess Aphrodite on condition they forever isolate themselves from the mortal world and devote their eternal lives to becoming ideal, perfect creatures.

However, with the planet in crisis, goddesses Aphrodite and her sister Athena instructed Hippolyte to send an Amazon back with the American to fight for global freedom and liberty. Although forbidden to compete, closeted, cosseted Diana clandestinely overcame all other candidates to become their emissary: Wonder Woman.

On arriving in the Land of the Free she purchased the identity and credentials of lovelorn Army nurse Diana Prince, which elegantly allowed the unregistered immigrant to stay close to Steve whilst enabling the heartsick care-worker to join her own fiancé in South America.

The new Diana soon gained a position with Army Intelligence as secretary to General Darnell, further ensuring she would always be able to watch over her beloved. She little suspected that, although the painfully shallow Steve only had eyes for the dazzling Amazon superwoman, the General had fallen for the mousy but supremely competent Lt. Prince…

That set up enabled the Star-Spangled Sentinel to weather the notoriously transient comic book marketplace, surviving the end of costumed heroes’ Golden Age beside Superman, Batman and a few lucky hangers-on who inhabited the backs of their titles. She soldiered on well into the Silver Age revival under the auspices of Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, but by 1968 superhero comics were in decline again and publishers sought new ways to keep audiences interested as tastes – and American society – changed.

Back then, as her sales withered during the mid-1960’s, the entire industry depended on newsstand sales and if you weren’t popular, you died. Jack Miller, Denny O’Neill & Mike Sekowsky stepped up with a radical depowering and made comic book history with the only female superhero to still have her own title in that marketplace. Eventually, however, merely mortal trouble-shooter gave way to a reinvigorated Amazing Amazon who battled declining sales (thanks to a TV-inspired boost) until DC’s groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths after which she was once again fundamentally reimagined.

Minor tweaks in her continuity accommodated different creators’ tenures until 2011 when DC rebooted their entire comics line again and Wonder Woman once more underwent a drastic, fan-infuriating root-and-branch refit. Possibly to mitigate the fallout the publishers okayed a number of fall-back options such as this intriguing package…

Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman began as a “digital first” series online before collecting chapters into a new standard comic book. Crafted by a fluctuating roster of artists and writers, the contents highlighted every previous era and incarnation of the character – and even a few wildly innovative alternative visions – offering a wide variety of thrilling, engaging and sincerely fun-filled moments to remember. The physical iteration was enough to warrant a series of trade paperback compilations which – in the fullness of time and nature of circularity – gained their own digital avatars as eBooks too.

This second of three full-colour treasuries gathered Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #6-10 (March-July 2015) and offered another legion of talent and multitude of different visions, beginning with ‘Generations’ by Michael Jelenic & Drew Johnson, wherein an annual odyssey for the perfect gift for Amazon Queen – and rather forbidding mother – Hippolyta leads Diana into battle with mythical monsters, an old enemy and her own obsessive drive to overachieve…

Adam P. Knave & Matthew Dow Smith’s ‘Not Included’ pairs the potent Paradise Islander with Apokolyptian New God Big Barda against evil super-science and robotic hordes of The Brain and M’sieu Mallah, after which a decidedly different take by Alex De Campi & Neil Googe has Wonder Woman coming to the rescue of a commercial space station above the Second Rock from the Sun in ‘Venus Rising’. Amy Chu & Bernard Chang then go out-world to celebrate the core concept of Wonder Woman in ‘Rescue Angel’, as soldiers pinned down in Afghanistan are saved by Lt. Angel Santiago. The wounded warrior claims her outstanding actions under fire are the result of a vision from her beloved, long-cherished comic books…

Spectacular action and sinister skulduggery inform Heather Nuhfer & Ryan Benjamin’s clash between the Amazing Amazon and Lex Luthor, who triggers ‘Sabotage is in the Stars’ when the Indian government’s space program starts impacting Lexcorp’s projected profits. James Tynion IV & Noelle Stevenson introduce feisty teen Riley as guide to a culture-shocked young Diana in ‘Wonder World’ next, but as they bond over stupid boys and cheesy beachside entertainments, the girls are blithely unaware the foreign newcomer’s Amazon bodyguards are frantically searching for their AWOL charge…

‘The Problem with Cats’ by Lauren Beukes & Mike Maihack takes a light-hearted look at sisterhood and the rivalry between Wonder Woman and The Cheetah – or is it all in the over-active imagination of frustrated. grounded little African girl Zozo? Possibly the best yarn this go-round comes as frosty, testy and possibly hostile Daily Planet journalist Lois Lane is ordered to interview Wonder Woman.

The ice is only broken after an monster invasion leads to a splendid ‘Girl’s Day Out’, courtesy of Cecil Castelucci, Chris Sprouse & Karl Story before Sara Ryan & Christian Duce reveal a timely intervention that saves the life and emotional stability of ‘VIP’ pop star Esperanza, before Aaron Lopresti wraps up this parade of pulse-pounding peril and imago of insightful episodes with a brutal dragonslaying clash as ‘Casualties of War’ shows Diana’s abiding reluctance to engage in battle, but how sometimes there is just no other choice…

Augmented by a spectacular covers-&-variants gallery from Paul Davey, Shane Davis, Michelle & Alex Sinclair, Ben Caldwell & Francesco Francavilla, this is a scintillating snapshot of the astounding variety of visions Wonder Woman has inspired in her decades of existence, and one to delight fans old and new alike.
© 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1928 DC star artist/inker Joe Giella (Hopalong Cassidy, Flash, Adam Strange, Justice League of America, DC Comics Presents, Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Mary Worth) was born, with creator Dan Jurgens (Booster Gold, Superman, Captain America, Thor) arriving in 1959 and Jackson Guice (Micronauts, Action Comics, The Flash, Ruse) and Canadian cartoonist Bernie Mireault (Grendel, The Jam, Dr. Robot, McKenzie Queen) sharing a 1961 birthday.

In 20005, Atsushi Suzumi’s manga Venus Versus Virus began, as did Seinen anthology magazine Monthly Comic Alive one year later. In 2001 Tove Jansson died, predeceasing co-founder of The School of Visual Arts (AKA the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, NYC) Silas Rhodes in 2007, and Belgian creator, comics historian and Spirou editor Thierry Martens/Yves Varende.

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The Michael Moorcock Library – Elric: the Eternal Champion Collection


Adapted by James Cawthorn and Philippe Druillet, & various (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78586-955-6 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Michael Moorcock began his career at age 15; writing and editing classic British comic strips like Dogfight Dixon, Jet Ace Logan, Captain Condor, Olac the Gladiator, Tarzan and many, many other weekly favourites. As the swinging Sixties dawned he made the transition to prose fiction where he single-handedly revitalised a genre via the creation of Elric and the high-concept notion of an Eternal Champion.

Debuting in 1961, Elric is a landmark of fantasy and particularly its Sword & Sorcery subdivision: the foretold, fore-doomed last ruler of pre-human civilisation Melniboné, a race of cruel, nigh-demonic sorcerers. These arrogant, dissolute creatures are at the end of a slow, decadent decline after millennia of dominance over Earth. Albino Elric is physically weak, buoyed up by drugs, blood and dark magic, and of a brooding, philosophical temperament. He cares for little save his beautiful cousin Cymoril, who will die one day whilst he battles her loathsome usurping brother Prince Yyrkoon in service to a manipulative god of Chaos.

In this collection that day is right now as primary and premiere Elric artist Jim Cawthorne limns that final clash in a hugely personal adaptation from 1976, first and privately published by British concern Savoy Books in an edition that never really reached its natural audience…

“White Wolf” Elric doesn’t even want to rule, but it is his duty, and he is the only one of his debased race to see the (comparatively) freshly evolved race of Man as a threat to the Empire. He is owned if not actually possessed by terrible black sword Stormbringer: one of a matched pair of sorcerous weapons that steal the souls of their victims and feed that stolen life and vitality to the wielder…

Elric is a tragic incarnation of the restless Eternal Champion, reincarnated in every time, place and alternate dimension. His life is violence, blood and unending tragedy, exacerbated by dependence on that soul-drinking ebony blade and his sworn – if somewhat compelled and thus reluctant – allegiance to the chimerical Lords of Chaos.

Everybody knows all that, right?

The 13th volume in a proposed complete Michael Moorcock Library of comics adaptations (as well as reissue of the prose works), these yarns – chronologically at least – are the very first pictorial narratives of the doomed king; given an archival polish and pictorial upgrade by way of a brace of Introductions from Moorcock himself and Philippe Druillet. They are bolstered by a substantial contextual essay at the end. First, though, is time for a little history…

A migrated Tynesider lodged surreptitiously and contentedly in Ladbroke Grove at a time of great turmoil in the UK, James Cawthorn was an old friend, comics co-worker and always Moorcock’s preferred illustrator of the Last Emperor. Driven, solitary, universally respected and wedded to his craft, he wrote strips for Lion, Tiger and the UK weekly comics mill, painted murals and probably book covers; made backdrops for theatre productions; private art commissions; decorated apparel and/or instruments for musicians and bands like Hawkwind and Motörhead while toiling laboriously (and far too slowly and meticulously to be commercial) on beloved passion pieces like Stormbringer.

Cawthorne’s unique and potent adaptation of Moorcock’s epic book (a reworking of novellas Dead God’s Homecoming, Black Sword’s Brother, Sad Giant’s Shield and Doomed Lord’s Passing) was his masterpiece: released by admirers at Savoy because its owners Dave Britton & Michael Butterworth were prepared to pay in advance and wait for him to finish according to his own excoriatingly exaction standards. It was worth the wait when that epically huge cardstock album (600 x 430mm – 24 inches by 17!) finally blew away those lucky enough to get a copy. This reproduction gives readers everything they could want, but sadly cannot impart the wonderous sheer bloody size of it in your hands…

It was mostly missed here but hugely popular in German…

The complex convoluted story of that book’s creation holds even more revelations but are Moorcock’s to share, so let’s turn briefly to the tale itself.

Michael Moorcock’s irresistible blend of brooding Faustian tragedy and all-consuming action is (arguably) best enjoyed in his stories of Elric, but that restless imagination crafted many incarnations of his Eternal Champion able to stand on their own bloody merits and constantly shaped and reinterpreted by a vast and varied array of unique artistic visions. Elric is one doom-drenched, tragedy-attracting incarnation of the Eternal Champion, an aspect of a heroic force reincarnated in every time, place and alternate dimension. His specific life is bound to blood and self-torment, exacerbated by his dependence on a soul-drinking black sword and his sworn allegiance to callous and chimerical Lords of Chaos.

Here that angst-filled destiny come crashing around the hero’s head as brief moments of domestic contentment are washed away in blood when the eternal war between the Lords of Chaos and Order leads to the abduction of his human wife Zarozinia and Elric taking up the black blade for the final times. He reunites with old companion Moonglum and hunts down Jagreen Lern, Theocrat of Pan Tang as he attempts to conquer the world for his allies, the Dukes of Hell. The battles are long, savage, brutal and fantastical and result in the end of all that exists. However, it’s never been about when or where one dies but how and why…

Admit it, you should read more books, right?

Counterpointing that epic comics narrative is a contemporaneous appreciation from across the channel, where Europe also caught the cosmic zeitgeist of the era..

In the 1960s Elric’s oeuvre was translated by Moorcock & author Maxim Jakubowski introducing an up and coming illustrator to the world of Heroic Fantasy. Comics and fantasy storytelling took a huge leap forward in 1975 when Gallic comics collective Les Humanoides Associes began publishing groundbreaking magazine Métal Hurlant. However, one of their future visual mainstays had begun breaking borders and boundaries almost a decade earlier.

Photographer/artist Philippe Druillet started his comics career in 1966 with apocalyptic science fiction epic Le Mystère des abîmes (The Mystery of the Abyss) which introduced doom-tainted intergalactic freebooter and nomadic wanderer Lone Sloane in a tale of a far distant tomorrow thematically influenced in equal measure by H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and A.E. Van Vogt. We will get to his other works in the courses of times…

Born in Toulouse in 1944, Druillet was raised in Spain, and his comics work was grandiose, panoramic, deeply baroque and overwhelmingly cosmic in scope. He also pretty much rejected standard formats and panels layouts in favour of boldly shocking graphics. Druillet began working for Pilote in 1969 and revived his star-rover in numerous shorter pieces, initially published together in 1972 as The Six Voyages. This collection, however, focuses on his brief but inspirational dealings with Moorcock’s primary ill-fated cosmic traveller…

After preliminary tentative spreads in Moi Aussi, in 1969, a 21-plate portfolio entitled La Saga d’Elric le Necromancien was published. In 1973 Moorcock’s reworking of Michel Demuth’s text for the portfolio became Elric: The Return to Melniboné as published by Unicorn Bookshop in 1973. Its influence was far-reaching: just ask American creators like Keith Giffen, who repatterned his entire drawing style on what he saw…

Reproduced in its original monochrome, the brief interlude spectacularly and mind-alteringly details how the former Emperor reclaims his throne and position from apparently-ascendant rival Prince Yyrkoon and reacquaints himself with his bride-to-be Cymoril. Elric has no conception that the Lords of Chaos are closely watching and laying their plans for his future…

Closing the arcana and antiquities is ‘Elric and the Artists’ an incisively informative briefing by John Davey, detailing earlier efforts to visualise the Last Emperor, concentrating on his prose debuts, before going on to summarise and scrutinise the long history of graphic novel and comics interpretations.

Moorcock and his visual collaborators changed the comics world forever, This is how that all started…

Adapted from the works of Michael Moorcock related to the character of ELRIC © 2021, Michael & Linda Moorcock. All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are TM & © Michael Moorcock and Multiverse Inc.
Elric the Return to Melniboné was first published by Unicorn Bookshop, 1973. Stormbringer was first published by Savoy Books in 1976.

EC horror and romance maestro Jack Kamen was born today in 1920, and shares the date with eco-activist cartoonist Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld) from 1951; editor and scripter Jim Salicrup in 1957; British comics veteran/educator Nigel Kitching (Sonic the Comic) in 1959 and The Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder in 1974.

Today in 1960 an era ended with the final page published of Warren Tufts’ Lance.

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Legacy: The Shadow Rises (volume 1 of 3)


By The Fickling Brothers & Zak Simmonds-Hurn, with additional colours by Lou Ashworth, Alice Leclert & Ellie Wright (DFB/Phoenix)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-198-7 (TPB)

The Phoenix has been the shining saving grace of British kids’ comics since 2012, regaling rabid readers with anthology comics for girls, boys and all points between, offering humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a joyous parade of cartoon fun and fantasy. Although probably best known for its award-winning comedy stylings, the comic has always been pretty strong in its action and mystery yarns too, and this latest offering – by writers “The Fickling Brothers” (Tom & Will) and illustrator Zak Simmonds-Hurn (Dragon Guard, Know Your Monsters) – delivers the first full-on, all-action fantasy tome in a prospective trilogy aimed at the growing market for juniors-based magical adventure.

Flavoured with hints and notes of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings franchises and the glorious classic movie Willow, this cunningly contrived confection takes us to the embattled lands of the Jindari Empire, laying ground rules for a war of conquest by malign forces lurking beyond the Edge of the Great Void and craving control of all that lives free. The cruelly avaricious observer is Obaga, Queen of Shadows and as her minions constantly confirm, “the Shadow rises”…

With ebon emissaries sowing terror and discord, the crisis begins when blithely unaware ruler of Hightown Lord Edar of House Thawn, his sons Tarik and Lorban and faithful warrior mage Kal Jotan are ambushed by marauding dark raiders. Thankfully, before his defeat, Kal sends a magical message to Heaven’s Blade, the fortress-citadel that is home to all arcane knowledge and the current boarding school of Edar’s mystically-gifted daughter Scarlett Thawn.

When her studies are interrupted by tidings that she is now last surviving Thawn and ruler of Hightown, she accepts that she must leave. Her potent but daunting tutor Lord Igon soon despatches Scarlett (and her beastly familiar Rumpus) on the long journey home, and offers sage advice and an ancient scroll that is far from what it seems…

The scholar has long anticipated trouble and knows the world’s governing Council of Flowers is not up to confronting the forces of evil; The Shadow has contingency plans of her own. Most critical of these is having an impostor already in place governing Hightown by the time Scarlett arrives to take up the onerous responsibilities of command…

Thus begins a rousing quest saga as Scarlett treks across a weird, wild world to find bizarre animal allies, face incomprehensible threats and forsake her dreams of magical study for the duties of rulership, and discovers that friends and foes are impossible to distinguish and that “her” problems affect far more than just her subjects…

Also drafted and crafted by Zak and the Fickling lads is a fulsome supplementary section detailing background lore under the aegis and escutcheon of ‘A Compendium of the Creatures, Customs and Culture of Jindar and Other Curious Miscellany by Penadot Shrewd’. These context-compliant complimentary case histories include all you need to know now regarding ‘The Ancients’, ‘The Shadow’, ‘The Council of Flowers’, and all you might want about ‘Magic’ including ‘A Brief Lesson in Magic for Novices’ concentrating on ‘Fire, Ice and Acid Magic’.

If epic adventure and growing pains in the depths of the dark are your taste, this is an epic you’ll want to follow from the first step to the last gasp…
Text  and Illustrations © The Phoenix Comic  2026.

Legacy: The Shadow Rises will be published on May 7th 2026 and is available for pre-order now.

Today in 1912 groundbreaking Dutch comics god Marten Toonder (Tom Puss, Panda, Oliver B. Bumble) was born, followed in 1922 by legendary raconteur Dog Wildey (Tarzan, Outlaw Kid, Jonny Quest, Rio); Howard Cruse (Wendel, Stuck Rubber Baby, Barefootz) in1944; multi-syndicated strip cartoonist Jerry Scott (Zits, Baby Blues) in 1955 and modern comic book mavens Liam Sharp (Deaths Head II, Wonder Woman, Testament) in 1968 and Simon Spurrier (Harry Kipling, X-Men, Ghost Rider) in 1981.

Today in 1912, US political cartoonist Homer Davenport died, with later losses including Wonder Woman co-creator William Moulton Marston in 1947; John Forte (Legion of Super-Heroes, Tales of the Bizarro World) in 1966 and anthological comics horror-meister Jay Disbrow (Captain Electron, Valgar Gunnar of Gyro, Aroc of Zenith) in 2017.

Primal landmark Dutch newspaper strip Bulletje en Boonestaak debuted today in 1922.

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Richard Wagner’s THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG


Adapted by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane & Jim Woodring (DC Comics/ExPress Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-006-2 (DC TPB) 978-0-93295-620-0 (TPB ExPress Publishing)

Richard Wagner’s four epic operas Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfreid and Götterdämmerung (or The Rhinegold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods if you’re less pompous than me) is a classic reinterpretation of Germano-Norse myth and classic poems collected as the Icelandic Eddas. Over 26 years the master of German music distilled them into a cycle of staggering power, which people either love or hate. Great tunes, too.

Everybody loves the brilliant animated tribute-come-distillation starring Bugs Bunny entitled “What’s Opera, Doc?” – although they probably refer to it as “Kill the Wabbit!”…

All joking aside, the Ring Cycle is a true masterpiece of Western Culture and an immortal inspiration to purveyors of drama and historic fiction. In 1989 and 1990 long-time fans and comics superstars Roy Thomas (who had already integrated the plot into the canon of Marvel’s Mighty Thor) and the legendary and nearly mythical Gil Kane produced a four part, prestige-format miniseries that adapted the events into comic strip form. Latterly P. Craig Russell also adapted the saga in his own inimitable style.

Alberich the Nibelung is a dwarf shunned by all, but a cunning operator who still manages to charm the three Rhine Maidens. Commanded by the King of the Gods to guard an accursed treasure horde that even they could not tame or master, the river nymphs reveal the secret to the glib intruder. Whoever recasts ‘The Rhinegold’ into a ring will have all the wealth and power of the world, but must forever forswear love and joy. Never having known either, greedy Alberich easily forsakes such unsampled pleasures and seizes the treasure even All-Father Wotan dared not touch.

Meanwhile in Heaven, wily Loge has convinced Wotan to promise giants Fasolt and Fafner anything they wish if they will build the great castle Valhalla to house the world’s heroes. Assured that the trickster god can free him from his promise to the giants, Wotan accepts their price, but on completion the giants claim as recompense Freia: Goddess guardian of the Apples of Immortality.

Bound by their Lord’s sworn oath, the gods must surrender her, but malicious Loge suggests that Alberich’s stolen gold – now cast as that dreadfully anticipated ring – can be used by any other possessor without abandoning love. Thus the brothers demand the world-conquering trinket as a replacement fee…

In ‘The Valkyrie’, an unarmed warrior who calls himself Woeful is the sole survivor of a blood-feud. Fleeing, he claims Right of Hospitality from a beautiful woman in a remote cottage, but when her husband returns they all discover that he is a member of the clan Woeful just battled. Secure for the night in the holy bond of Hospitality, Woeful realises he must fight for his life in the morning when the sacred truce expires. Without weapons, he thinks little of his chances… until the woman reveals to him a magic sword embedded in the giant Ash tree that supports the house…

‘Siegfried’ is the child of an illicit union, raised by malicious, cunning Mime, a blacksmith who knows the secrets of the Nibelung. No loving parent, the smith wants the indomitable wild boy to kill the dragon Fafner – who used to be a giant – and steal the magical golden horde the wyrm guards so jealously. However, the young hero has his own heroic dreams and wishes to wake the maiden who slumbers eternally behind a wall of fire…

‘Twilight of the Gods’ reveals how all the machinations, faithlessness and oath-breaking of the Lords of Creation leads to ultimate destruction. Siegfried has won beauteous Brünnhilde from the flames, but their happiness is not to be. False friends drug him to steal his beloved, and wed him all-unknowing to a woman he does not love. A final betrayal by a comrade whose father was the Nibelung Alberich leads to the tormented hero’s death and inevitable consequences…

If you know the operas you know how much more remains to enjoy in this quartet of tales, and the sheer bravura passion of Kane’s art, augmented by the stirring painted palette of Jim Woodring, magnificently captures the grandeur and ferocity of it all. This primal epic is visual poetry and no fan should be without it.

Released by DC in 1991, as a 4 part prestige miniseries before collecting in one titanic tome, the book was re-issued by ExPress Publishing in 2002 and remains not only a high point in the careers of Thomas and Kane (who was particularly passionate about the source material and the debt modern heroic fiction owed to it) but also a landmark in graphic narrative. If you don’t have it already you must make it your life’s quest to get it.
© 1991 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 2000, Gil Kane went to his own heavenly reward. On the other hand, in 1799 Swiss teacher and creator of the modern comics medium Rodolphe Töpffer was born. In 1960 Grant Morrison showed up for the first time, and today is especially momentous as it saw the first appearance of Marsupilami as delivered by André Franquin in Le Journal de Spirou #721.

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Blackmark – 30th Anniversary Edition


By Gil Kane, with Archie Goodwin, Harvey Kurtzman & Neal Adams (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-456-7 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Gil Kane was one of the pivotal players in the development of the American comics industry, and indeed of the art form itself. Working as an artist, and an increasingly more effective and influential one, he drew for many companies since his 1940s debut: on superheroes, action, war, mystery, romance, movie adaptations and, perhaps most importantly, Westerns and Science Fiction tales. In the late 1950s Kane became one of editor Julius Schwartz’s key artists in regenerating the superhero. Yet by 1968, at the top of his (admittedly much denigrated) profession, this relentlessly revolutionary and creative man felt so confined by the juvenile strictures of the industry that he struck out on bold new ventures that jettisoned the editorial and format bondage of comic books for new visions and media.

His Name Is Savage was an adult-oriented black & white magazine about a cold and ruthless super-spy in the James Bond/Matt Helm/Man Called Flint mould, co-written by friend and collaborator Archie Goodwin. It was very much a precursor in tone, treatment and subject matter of many of today’s adventure titles.

The other venture, Blackmark (also with Goodwin), not only ushered in the comic book age of Sword and Sorcery, but also became one of the first Graphic Novels. Technically, as the series was commissioned by fantasy publisher Ballantine as eight volumes, it was also envisioned as America’s first comic Limited Series. Volume 1 was released in January 1971, with volume 2 just completed when the publisher cancelled the project. A generation Kane’s junior but a long term, seasoned collaborator, Roy Thomas reprinted those tales in Marvel’s monochrome magazines Savage Sword of Conan and Marvel Preview, with the artwork rejigged to accommodate the different page format.

That’s enough background. Blackmark tells the tale of a boy born into a war-ravaged, primitive future where atomic holocaust has resulted in a superstitious society that fears and shuns technology and science – like parts of the American Bible Belt. Similarly, feudal lords rule by might and terror, whilst rebel technophiles are hunted like dogs. One night, and when fleeing persecution, a married couple encounter a dying scientist-king who pays the woman to impregnate her with a son pre-programmed to be a messiah of science.

Blackmark is born into a life of poverty and toil. When his parents are killed by a wandering warlord he devotes his life to vengeance, and learns all the physical skills necessary when he is taken for a gladiator slave. It is (sadly) overwhelmingly familiar to us today, simply because it was so influential at the time – albeit with those few original purchasers who seem to have become the next generation of comics and literary creators.

Although the plot might seem old hat, the beauty and power of the illustration has never been matched. Kane designed the pages with blocks of text as part of the whole, rather than with willy-nilly blurb and balloons to distract the eye, and his evocative figure drawing has never been as taut, tense and passionate. Always suffering from deadline pressures, the artist called in colleagues Harvey Kurtzman & Neal Adams to help lay out and finish the project on time. The script, over Kane’s story, was provided by the incomparable Goodwin, as much a master as Kane himself; Nevertheless, Blackmark is very much quintessential Kane.

This compilation (incomprehensibly out of print and hard to find) collects original volumes 1 and 2 and presents them in a size far larger than the original standard paperback. As well as a fantasy masterpiece, and a spectacular comic romp, it preserves and presents a literal breakthrough in comic storytelling that should be on every fan’s must-read list.

And in bloody print…
© 2002 Fantagraphics Books & the estate of Gil Kane. All Rights Reserved.

Today in 1857 pioneering cartoon satirist and comic strip creator Frederick Burr Opper was born. He did Happy Hooligan, And Her Name Was Maud and Alphonse and Gaston and so have we, so go look back in wonder. In 1913 George McManus’ Bringing Up Father launched and charmed generations until 2000. Look for that too, but perhaps wonder why Red Ryder isn’t better represented here. After all its artist Fred Harman died today in 1982…

In comic books, unsung wonders Joe Certa (Martian Manhunter) and Don Heck (everything) were born in 1919 and 1929 respectively. In 1958 the utterly unique H. G. Peter passed away. He was still drawing Wonder Woman at the time. Less well known but just as dedicated, Kid Colt, Outlaw and drag racing comics illustrator Jack Keller passed on in 2003.

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The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire volume 1


By Mike Butterworth & Don Lawrence & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-755-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

For British – and Dutch – readers of a certain age and prone to debilitating nostalgia, The Trigan Empire (or The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire to give it its ponderous full title) was only ever about two things: boyish wish-fulfilment and staggeringly beautiful art.

The strip was created by Senior Group Editor Leonard Matthews and given to the editor of Sun and Comet to develop and continue. A trained artist, Mike Butterworth became writer of many historical strips such as Buffalo Bill, Max Bravo, the Happy Hussar, Battler Britton and Billy the Kid – and latterly a crime and gothic romance novelist with more than 20 books to his pen names.

Based in equal part on cinematic Sword & Sandal/Biblical epics and the space age fascination of a planet counting down to a moonshot, for the saga Butterworth combined his love of the past, a contemporary comics trend for science fiction and that long-established movie genre of manly blockbusters to construct a vast sprawling serial of heroic expansionism, two-fisted warriors, wild beasts, deadly monsters and even occasionally the odd woman.

The other primary influence on the series was the fantasy fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs (especially John Carter of Mars and Pellucidar) but without his concentration on strong and/or blatantly sexy women – usually as prizes for his heroes to save. In the formative days of the Trigan Empire, ladies dressed decorously, minded their manners and were dutiful wives or nurses… unless they were evil, vindictive or conniving…

The compellingly addictive, all-action thematic precursor to Warhammer, Civilisation and Warcraft might have been a short run venture had it not been for the art. The primary illustrator was Don Lawrence (Marvelman, Wells Fargo, Billy the Kid, Karl the Viking, Fireball XL5, Maroc the Mighty, Olac the Gladiator, The Adventures of Tarzan, adult comedy strip Carrie and his multi-volume Dutch magnum opus Storm), who painted each weekly instalment.

Initially he used watercolours before switching to quicker-drying gouaches, rendered in a formal, hyper-realistic style that still left room for stylistic caricature and wild fantasy, and one that made each lush backdrop and magnificent cityscape a pure treasure. Other, later artists included Ron Embleton, Miguel Quesada, Philip Cork, Gerry Wood and Oliver “Zack” Frey, as the strip notched up 854 weekly instalments, beginning in September 1965 and only ending in 1982. Along the way, it had also appeared in Annuals and Specials and become a sensation in translated syndication across Europe.

Even after it ended – and, thanks to these collections, it has recently resumed! – the adventure continued: in reprint form, appearing in the UK in Vulcan and across the world; in two Dutch radio plays; collected editions sold in numerous languages; a proposed US TV show and numerous collected editions from 1973 onwards. Surely someone must have a movie option in process: if only Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis were still around, we could completely close the creative circle…

Lawrence (17th November 1928 – 29th December 2003) inspired a host of artists such as Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons, but as he worked into the 1990s, his eyesight was increasingly hindered by cataracts and he took on and trained apprentices such as Chris Weston and Liam Sharp (who offers his own potent reminiscences in the Introduction to this first archival volume from Rebellion Studios’ Treasury of British Comics). Sharp collaborated with the venerable artist on his last Storm stories…

Inescapably mired in powerful nostalgia, but also standing up remarkably well on its own merits, this first collected volume re-presents the series from its enigmatic opening in high-end tabloid weekly magazine Ranger, combining comics with a large selection of factual features. The fantasy soon began to steal the show and was the most noteworthy offering for the entirety of the publication’s 40 week run, spanning 18th September 1965 to 18th June 1966. It then carried over – with a few other choice strips – into Look and Learn, beginning with #232: remaining until the magazine closed with #1049 (April 1982).

Ranger had been a glossy, photogravure blend of traditional comic anthology strips and educational magazine, and when it folded, the only publication able to continue The Trigan Empire in its full grandeur was Look and Learn…

One of our most missed publishing traditions is the educational comic. From science, history and engineering features in the legendary Eagle to a small explosion of factual and socially responsible boys and girls papers in the late 1950s to the heady go-getting heydays of the 1960s & 1970s, Britons always enjoyed a healthy sub-culture of comics that informed, instructed and revealed – and that’s not even counting all the pure sports comics!

Amongst many others Speed & Power, Treasure, World of Wonder, Tell Me Why, and Look and Learn spent decades making things clear, illuminating understanding and bringing the marvels of the changing world to our childish but avid attentions with wit, style and – thanks to the quality of the illustrators involved – astonishing beauty. Look and Learn launched on 20th January 1962: brainchild of Fleetway Publications’ then Director of Juvenile Publications Leonard Matthews. The project was executed by editor David Stone (almost instantly replaced by John Sanders), sub-editor Freddie Lidstone and Art Director Jack Parker.

For 20 years it delighted children, and was one of the country’s most popular children’s weeklies. Naturally there were many spin-off tomes such as The Look and Learn Book of 1001 Questions and Answers, Look and Learn Book of Wonders of Nature, Look and Learn Book of Pets and Look and Learn Young Scientist as well as utterly engrossing Christmas treat tradition The Look and Learn Book and – in 1973 – The Look and Learn Book of the Trigan Empire: the serial’s very first hardback compilation.

Strangely, many, many kids learned stuff they didn’t think they cared about simply because it filled out the rest of that comic that carried the Trigan Empire…

In this tome we review 25th June1966 through 17th May 1968, encompassing Ranger #1-40 and Look and Learn #232-331: subdivided for your convenience into 13 chapter plays of what we oldsters absorbed as one continuous unfolding procession of wonder…

Depicted with sublime conviction and sly wit, it begins with ‘Victory for the Trigans’ (18th September 1965 – 29th January 1966) as fishermen in the Florida swamps witness a spaceship crash. All aboard are dead, and after, the global news cycle wearies of the story, the craft is reduced to a sideshow attraction whilst scholars meticulously investigate its technology, dead voyagers and a huge set of journals written in an indecipherable language. No one succeeds and eventually, no one cares…

All except student Richard Peter Haddon, who spends the next half century looking for the key and – at age 70 – cracks the code, subsequently translating the history of a mighty race of aliens so very like earthmen…

From then on the scene switches to distant twin-sunned world Elekton, where numerous kingdoms and empires-in-waiting jostle for dominance. In many ways it’s like Earth a few thousand years before the birth of Christ… except for all the monsters, skycraft and ray guns…

In the wilds and wastes between the nations of Loka, Tharv, Davelli and Cato, brutish far-ranging tribes of nomadic Vorg hunt and clash and live brief free lives, until three brothers decide existence could be so much more…

Driven, compelling and charismatic, notional leader Trigo has a dream and convinces his siblings Brag and Klud to ask their people to cease following roving herds of beasts and settle by a river where five hills meet. Before long they have raised a city and begun the march to empire. Of course, all those defiant libertarians were initially resistant to becoming civilised, but that ended after the more advanced Lokans began hunting them for sport from their flying ships…

By the time Loka’s King Zorth finally gets around to conquering Tharv and formally annexing the lands of Vorg in his plan to become global dictator, Trigo has begun building his city and invited refugees from Tharv to join him. Amongst the many displaced survivors of Lokan atrocity is Peric – an architect and philosopher generally acclaimed as the smartest man alive. He is cared for by his daughter Salvia. Both will play major roles in the foundation of the Trigan Empire…

When Zorth at last turns to consolidation by taking Vorg, his air, sea and land forces are met by an unbeatable wall of death and history is rewritten. It comes at great cost, most notably to Trigo as victory is almost snatched from him when brother Klud attempts to murder him, seize power and betray their people to the Lokans…

With an empire established, one translated book ends, and Professor Haddon’s life’s work moves on to what we’ll call ‘Crash in the Jungle’ (5th February – 19th February 1966), introducing young warrior/pilot Janno. The son of Brag, he is childless Trigo’s nephew and heir apparent: enjoying many dynamic adventures as an imperial troubleshooter whilst being groomed for rule. Here, still wet behind the ears, the lad crashes in the plush rainforests of Daveli, befriends Keren – son of a formerly antagonistic aboriginal chieftain – and facilitates their alliance with the ever-expanding Trigan Empire. When Janno returns to pilot training, Keren is beside him and will be his constant companion in all further exploits…

Planetary chaos erupts next as ‘The Falling Moon’ (26th February – 28th May 1966) reshapes Elekton’s political map. When Gallas impacts sister moon Seres, the cosmic collision sends the satellite smashing into Loka where – forewarned – Zorth seeks to relocate his power base and entire populace by seeking sanctuary in Trigo’s city. Once admitted and welcomed, the Lokans bite the hand that shelters them by seizing the city. Valiant Brag manages to save wounded Trigo, but they are captured and enslaved by desert raiders of the Citadel…

As Janno and Keren escape to mount a futile resistance to the Lokans, slave worker Trigo foils an assassination and earns the gratitude of the Citadel king, who lends him a band of warriors to retake his own city. When they link up with Janno & Keren, Zorth’s defeat and doom are assured…

Time moves differently on Elekton and many events seem telescoped, but as the strip jumps to a new home, continuity manifests in ‘The Invaders from Gallas’ (4th June – 18th June) in Ranger before continuing in Look and Learn #232-237 from 25th June to 30th July 1966. As the fallen moon cools, aliens dwelling inside emerge to attempt the conquest of their new world via their mind control techniques. With the Trigans crazed and killing each other, only a deaf man holds the key to their survival…

Look and Learn #238-242 (6th August – 3rd September 1966) featured ‘The Land of No Return’ – which sees Janno accidentally sent along the River of Death (a rather cheeky “tribute” to Burroughs’ Mars stories), debunking an insidious religious belief that had for millennia curtailed life for Elekton’s elderly whilst ending a cult of elder-abusing slavers…

‘The Revolt of the Lokans’ (L&L #243-255, 10th September – 3rd December 1966) returns to the exiled former-conquerors who poisoned and deranged Trigo before retaking his city. Thankfully, Keren and Peric find a way to restore order to the city and its ruler, after which #256-264 (10th December 1966 – 4th February 1967) detail ‘War with Hericon’ as Trigo marries Lady Ursa, sister of King Kassar: ruler of the aloof, distant empire (a visual melange of Earth’s Persian and Byzantine kingdoms).

The diplomatic love match is soured by a single sinister malcontent when Yenni – a vengeful criminal outcast of both Hericon and Trigan – foments racial unrest in both realms and lets human nature do its worst…

Janno & Keren took the lead again in ‘Revolution in Zabriz’ (#265-273, 4th February – 8th April 1967), when despatched to survey a distant mountain outpost only to uncover a plot by its governor. He uses captive labour to finance a coup to oust Uncle Trigo and take over the empire, after which ‘The Lokan Invasion’ (L&L #274-279, 15th April – 20th May) sees the brothers-in-arms stumble into a devious scheme by chemist Vannu to destroy the Trigans by contaminating their water with amnesia-inducing potions…

Vengeful retaliation is once more the pivotal factor as ‘The Revenge of Darak’ (#280-290, 27th May – 5th August) reveals how Trigan’s greatest pilot betrays his emperor and is punished with slavery in the mines. After a year, he escapes and uses his insider knowledge to drive a wedge between Trigo and Brag, poison Peric and embroil Hericon in war. Thankfully, brotherly love trumps hurt feelings and justice conquers all…

A taste of horror comes with ‘The Alien Invasion’ L&L #291-297 (13th August – 23rd September) as energy beings land on Elekton. Able to possess organic brains, the intruders work their way up the planet’s food chain until Keren, Kassar and Trigo are fully dominated, but the cerebral tyrants have not reckoned on Peric’s wit or Janno’s cunning…

The first major role for a woman comes in ‘The Reign of Thara’ (L&L #298-316, 30th September 1967 – 3rd February 1968) as the royal family is ousted by deceit and a secret society of soldiers instals the daughter of Klud in Trigo’s place. Vain, haughty and imperious, she is intended to be a puppet of secret manipulators, but proves to possess too much pride and backbone to allow the empire to fall to mismanagement and enemy incursions. Happily, the actual Royal Family have survived their well-planned dooms and returned, leading an army of liberated slaves and a fleet of pirates sworn to Trigo’s service…

During the campaign, Kern & Janno befriend a rural bumpkin, obsessed with flying, and clownish Roffa becomes their third “musketeer”, playing a major role in the concluding tale here.

Spanning Look & Learn #317-331 (10th February – 17th  May 1968), ‘The Invasion of Bolus’ sees the trio captured by rogue scientist Thulla and pressganged into joining his mission to build a ship and conquer Elekton’s inhabited moon. Unable to defy or escape, they become unwilling members in his army, before defecting to the super-advanced but pacifistic Bolans. At least the lads left a warning before lift-off: one that – eventually – reaches Trigo & Peric.

As the Trigans rush to construct a rescue vessel, Thulla brutally seizes the moon people’s city and commences the second part of his plan: building a colossal ray cannon to destroy all life on Elekton. As Trigo’s ship takes off – too late to stop devasting blasts from Bolus – Janno & Keren are forced to desperate measures to save their people from the murderous madman…

Incorporating a tantalising teaser for the next volume and creator biographies, this spectacular visual triumph is a monument to British Comics creativity: one that simultaneously pushes memory buttons for old folk whilst offering a light but beautiful straightforward space opera epic readily accessible to the curious and genre inquisitive alike.

Is that you or someone you know?
The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire is ™ Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. © 1965, 1966, 1967 & 2019 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Literally born yesterday in 1928 Stanley Lieber – AKA Stan Lee – did a whole lot and appears many times in this blog. You should go look. In 1967 groundbreaking Acme Novelty Library cartoonist Chris Ware arrived, followed two years later by sound fella P.J. Holden (2000 AD, Judge Dredd, Warhammer) who we last covered in Bad Magic – A Skullduggery Pleasant Graphic Novel.

However, TODAY in 1946, Milton Caniff’s last Terry and the Pirates episode appeared. Whilst he rose to even greater heights with Steve Canyon, George Wunder carried Terry, Pat & Co. until 1973.

In 1963 Dave McKean was born, but otherwise today is one for the “loss” column, with Raeburn van Buren dying in 1987, Disney artist Tony Strobl in 1991, Barbarella creator Jean-Claude Forest in 1998 and wonderful Don Lawrence in 2003. As always you can search our engine or find one of your own preference for more…