Category: War Stories

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Commando Presents #2: The Fear Files volume 1


By Du Feu & Francisco Cueto, Alan Hebden & Patrick Wright, Kek W. & Jaume Forns, Georgia Standen Battle &Vicente Alcazar, & various (Heritage Comics/DC Thomson & Co.)
No ISBN: Digital only publication

DC Thomson is probably the most influential comics publisher in British history. In the 1930s The Dandy and The Beano revolutionised children’s comedy comics, whilst newspaper strips Oor Wullie and The Broons (both created by writer/Editor R. D. Low and legendary artist Dudley D. Watkins) have become a genetic marker for Scottishness. The company uniquely portrayed the occasional toff, decent British blokes and working class heroes who grew from the prose-packed pages of Adventure, Rover, Wizard, Skipper, Hotspur and latterly “strip picture papers” like Victor and Warlord.

Their comics for girls also shaped generations and still evoke passionate memories. Don’t take my word for it either; just ask your mum or grandmother about Judy, Bunty, Diana, Mandy and the rest…

After decades of savvy consumer-led publication for youngsters, in 1961 the company launched a digest-sized comics title dubbed Commando. Broadly the dimensions of a paperback book, it boasted 68 pages per issue – at an average of two panels a page – for single, stand-alone adventure tales, as well as venerable British extras like themed-fact pages.

Not to belabour the point, but each issue told a complete combat story (usually of WWI or II – although all theatres of conflict have featured since), a true rarity for British comics which usually ran material in one or two-page instalments over many weeks. The sagas were tasteful yet gripping yarns of valour and heroism: stark monochrome dramas charged with grit and authenticity. Full-painted covers made them look more like novels than comics and they were a huge and instant success. They’re still being published today.

The company is always looking for ways to reach fresh audiences and has recently moved into digital publishing of old and new stories in a big way and this timely compilation of supernaturally themed battle tales is an ideal way to announce their Heritage Comics imprint (expect more reviews in coming months).

Under the umbrella designation Commando Presents (#2) this blockbuster tome collects a quartet of macabre military missions as The Fear Files volume 1, opening with a letter to the readers from “The Commando Team.” Each episode in this selection is accompanied by its original wraparound cover and prefaced with a background page on the contributors. What more do you need in terms of briefing?

The weird war tales begin with prolific and well-travelled Chaco’s cover for ‘Ghost with a Gun’, scripted by the pseudonymous Du Feu, and limned by veteran Spanish artist Francisco Cueto (Young Marvelman, Annie Oakley and countless strips for Fleetway, DCT and European publishers). The tale was first seen in Commando #104 (1964): a classic yarn of repentance and salvation as wounded corporal Ben Walker is visited by ghosts as he bleeds out on a Belgian battlefield in 1944. The former Hussar from 1815 and a private from the Great War need an intermediary to help right the wrongs they died committing; perhaps they can help Walker in return and finally win eternal rest?

Packed with action and beautifully rendered, this private war is everything you need from a spooky saga. It’s followed by an Ian Kennedy cover accompanying another winning tale from the wonderful Alan Hebden (2000 AD, Meltdown Man, Rat Pack, El Mestizo, Major Eazy). Illustrated by Patrick Wright (Eagle, Battle Picture weekly, 2000 AD, Modesty Blaise), ‘Night of Fear’ comes from #984 (1984), detailing how vampire-obsessed British flying officer John Knowles sees his dream come true in 1943 after his Mosquito is brought down by bats and he lands in German-controlled Transylvania. Encountering two very different examples of Romanian nobility in the castle of Count Rempavi (work it out chums!), Knowles and his co-pilot Howard Garforth must complete their mission and get back to Blighty even if it means uniting with the strangest of allies…

Tom Foster’s cover for ‘Operation Silver Bullets’ (Commando #5381, 2020) leads into a frantic special ops mission as detailed by Kek W – AKA Nigel Long (2000 AD, Monster Fun Halloween Spectacular, Judge Dredd Megazine) – & Jaume Forns Bargeno (Wendy, Three Musketeers, Ben-Hur). Surviving a wolf attack as a boy, Adam Hanley became an expert on the beasts and in WWII was seconded to a special unit of Army Intelligence. The civilian professor was expected to brief and equip a combat team to counter an horrific Nazi terror weapon: man-made werewolves!

Sadly, monsters were not the only threat and a traitor in the commando unit almost ended the blood-soaked mission before it began – until a shocking transformation tipped the scales in Hanley’s favour…

Closing the account for now, Mark Harris’ cover leads into the eerie exploits of one the notorious “nachthexen”: Soviet women/bomber pilots who terrorised the Germans invading Russia. Written by Georgia Standen Battle (Beano, The Dandy, The Broons, Oor Wullie, Commandos vs Zombies) & legendary artist Vicente Alcazar (dozens of strips for DC, Marvel, Archie, Red Circle, Warren, Charlton Comics, War Picture Library, Space: 1999, UK Star Trek), ‘Night Witch’ comes from #5519 (2022) and details the short lethal lives of Women Flyers and Navigators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. Despised by their male colleagues and equipped with outdated biplanes and rudimentary armament, they harass and harry the enemy with astounding efficacy, but things change for former aviation teacher Irina Popova after a crucial encounter.

Already plagued by dreams of burning, when Irina loses her best friend Katya in a blast of anti-aircraft fire, it triggers a strange change in her. When her plane is attacked by a far superior German night-fighter, her hate and rage seem to cause the enemy to explode in a fireball. Her navigator Vera thinks it coincidence, but Irina fears it means she has become a true witch…

Moody and menacing, the story of how her gifts grow and what happens when she faces the enemy ace dubbed “the Witch Hunter” make this the most potent saga of the collection.

Bolstered by ‘The Fear Files Art Galley’ of 11 additional horror-themed Commando covers by Joaquin Chacopino Fabre, Kennedy, Foster, Harris, Neil Roberts and Graham Manley, this is a tremendous catalogue of magical military exploits: one you’d be wise to and well rewarded for tracking down.
© DC Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2022.

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G.I. Zombie – A Star-Spangled War Story


By Justin Grey, Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Hampton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5487-2 (TPB)

When DC rebooted their entire continuity with the New 52 in 2011, most reader and critical attention was focussed on big-name costumed stars. However, the move also allowed creators to revisit older genre titles from those eras when superheroes were not the only fruit.

A number of venerable war titles and stars were revisited and re-imagined (even iconic and presumed-sacrosanct Sgt. Rock) and many novel ideas and treatments were created – although largely ignored by the audiences they were intended to attract.

One of the most appealing, fashionably intriguing and well-realised appeared in a revitalised Star Spangled War Stories, outrageously blending the global war on terror, then-current socio-political disaffection and Earth’s ongoing fascination with the walking dead to spawn a spectacular, tongue-in-cheek blockbuster romp tailor-made for TV or movies.

Perhaps that was the point all along…

Written by Justin Grey & Jimmy Palmiotti and illustrated by Scott Hampton, the serialised saga from SSWS volume 2 #1-8 spanned cover-dates September 2014 to May 2015 and was collected into one riotous read, albeit augmented by a smart little epilogue culled from Star Spangled War Stories: Future’s End #1 (September 2014).

The premise is deliciously simple and sublimely subversive. Soldier Jared Kabe has been the Republic’s most secret weapon for decades: an unkillable agent infallibly serving the nation in secret through most of its wars and so many of its unpublicised black-ops counter-strikes against America’s implacable enemies.

And just so we’re on the same page here, he’s unkillable because he’s already dead…

When not battling on numerous officially sanctioned war fronts, this perfect operative has tackled pervasive social ills such as drug cartels and human traffickers, and it’s just this kind of simple mission which leads to an unlife-changing moment as his commanding officer/ handler Codename: Gravedigger pairs him with maverick – but still breathing – agent Carmen King.

They were only supposed to infiltrate a biker gang militia, but the case takes on a life of its own when the smelly redneck nut-jobs buy medium-range missiles and a deadly bio-agent to use on Washington DC.

After an astounding amount of cathartic bloodshed, Carmen is soon deep undercover, playing house with a slick madman running a clandestine organisation of would-be world conquerors. Jared meantime strives to prevent the strike on the government. He succeeds by bringing the missile down in unlucky Sutterville, Tennessee, only to discover to his horror that he has a personal connection to the payload and must face a horrific ‘Small Town Welcome’…

As Jared and Special Forces units struggle to contain a spreading contagion, Carmen is deep underground in a sybaritic paradise housing an enclave of wealthy fanatics in Utah. Everyone is eager to remake the world to their specifications, but even whilst playing along with the head loon, she has one eye on the citadel’s labs and armoury and the other on her ‘Exit Strategy’…

Southern crisis contained, Kabe rushes to rendezvous with King, selecting a uniquely undead methodology to enter the subterranean fortress: one offering ‘Door-to-Door Delivery’, but the head paranoid panics and chooses to abandon his base and acolytes in the ‘The Living Desert’. Taking Carmen and a few select, trusted individuals, he flees to San Francisco after first employing his private nuclear option…

‘Two the Hard Way’ sees Jared survive the detonation – and another bio-bomb outbreak – before heading for the coast where Carmen’s cover has been blown and she is attempting to blast her way out.

With the disclosure of Kabe’s past connections to the madmen-in-charge, ‘The Final Countdown’ begins with the G.I. Zombie, Carmen and a dedicated cadre of special agents invading a locked-down fortress determined to prevent the “City by the Bay” becoming another glowing toxic crater…

The main event magnificently completed, there’s a little extra treat for readers: ‘United States of the Dead’ appeared in Star Spangled War Stories: Future’s End #1, part of a company-wide publishing event set “five years from now”. It reveals how a zombie bio-agent has been used to infect Gotham City with Kabe and Co. in play to stop the rot to save the world…

With cover and variants by Dave Johnson, Howard Porter and the late, great and much-missed Darwyn Cooke, this is a fabulous high-velocity action adventure: fast paced, devastatingly action packed and simply dripping with sharply mordant black comedy moments. G.I. Zombie is the kind of graphic extravaganza you use to convert folks who hate comics. Are you ready to be turned?
© 2014, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories


Adapted by Gou Tanabe, translated by Zack Davisson (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-312-1 (Tankobon paperback/Digital edition)

If you’re one of those people who’s never read a manga tale, or who’s been tempted but discouraged by the terrifying number of volumes these tales can run to, here’s a delicious feast of fantasy fables complete in one book revealing all that’s best about comics from the East in one darkly digestible big gulp.

Most manga can be characterised by a fast, raucous, even occasionally choppy style and manner of delivery but this volume of emphatically eerie adaptations is atmospheric, suitably scary and marvellously moody: just as you’d hope when recreating classic tales by the undisputed master of supernatural terror…

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was frail, troubled and remarkably ill-starred. Born August 20th 1890, he was truly afflicted with a hunger to write, but only achieved any degree of success after his death in March 1937 – following a life of desperate penury – from complications of intestinal cancer. Once he was gone, his literary star ascended, with posthumous publications making him a household name who changed the face of fiction forever.

His stories have deeply affected generations all over the world. One person particularly moved is international literary specialist Gou Tanabe who has previously adapted the works of Maxim Gorky and Anton Chekov to manga form.

Perfectly capturing the relentlessly oppressive and inescapably sombre sense of approaching fatality permeating most of Lovecraft’s potent prose, ‘The Temple’ was written in 1920 and first published 5 years later in the September issue of Weird Tales. The adaptor’s mildly updated version (migrated from WWI to WWII) originated in esteemed anthology magazine COMIC BEAM in March and April 2009: detailing the depredations of U-Boat U-29 and the doomed fools who man her.

After a particularly rewarding campaign, German Navy Commander Karl Heinrich Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein and his officers are taking the night air when they notice a dead British mariner gripping the sub’s handrail. Whilst trying to unlock the mariner’s death grip and eject the corpse, one of them salvages an ancient artefact – a small carved head – and pockets it.

From that moment, their voyage is damned…

Soon, madness and mishap grip the vessel. Death decimates the crew and inexorably the survivors drift ever deeper into depths both physical and metaphorical. When only one remains, he finds the U-boat drawn to a fantastic city and magnificent temple sunken beneath the waves. It is filled with statuary like the little head in his pocket…

Just as he raises his pistol to end the horror, the shattered sole survivor sees shining lights in the sunken edifice…

Lovecraft penned ‘The Hound’ in September 1922 and Weird Tales published it in 1924. Gou Tanabe’s chilling interpretation debuted in July 2014 in the online edition of Comic Walker. The tale is grim, grisly, exquisitely decadent and supremely shocking, detailing the extravagant excess of English gentleman grave-robbers and diabolist magical parvenus St. John and our unnamed narrator.

Bored and indolent, they renew their sordid, blasphemous hobby in a Dutch boneyard, exhuming an arcane trinket from a grave sealed for half a millennium and reap a ghastly bounty after liberating a vengeful howling horror…

After its first foray into the material world, the surviving dabbler attempts every stratagem to escape or expiate the beast, and finds some things have no use for apologies or reparations…

Concluding this first (hopefully of many) Lovecraft treasure trove is another export from Comic Walker (August 2014 this time).

‘The Nameless City’ was written in January 1921 and published 10 months later in The Wolverine. Tapping into the contemporary vogue for arcane exploratory adventure as also favoured by the likes of literary horrorist brethren Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, and latterly August Derleth and Robert E. Howard, here Lovecraft shares the story of an itinerant western wanderer (think Indiana Jones without no sense of humour or chance in Hell) who survives Arabian deserts only to stumble upon a previously unsuspected deserted conurbation suddenly exposed by the roaring eternal winds.

Genned-up on local legends, the explorer cannot resist entering the vast metropolis. However, as he plunges deeper within, he finds thousands of boxes like a legion of coffins and realises the occupants are far from human. They may not even be dead…

Enthralling, understated and astoundingly effective, these classic tales have been reverently adapted and packaged in an inexpensive, digest-sized monochrome paperback that will delight avowed aficionados and beguile terror-loving newcomers alike.

© 2014 Gou Tanabe. All rights reserved. This English-language edition © 2017 Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

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Night and the Enemy


By Harlan Ellison & Ken Steacy (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels/Graphitti Designs)
ISBN: 978-0-486-79961-2 (Dover TPB/Digital edition) 978-0-936211-07-7 (Graphitti Designs Limited Editions HB)

Harlan Ellison’s dark and chilling space war tales are always eminently readable. This gloriously impressive re-issued volume – good luck on getting your hands on the 1987 premium hardback! – gathers five of the best and most celebrated, taken from the long-running sequence of novellas and short-stories detailing Mankind’s extended intergalactic struggle against a race of star-spanning rivals. They’re adapted and interpreted in a variety of visual formats by air-brush wizard and aviation-addict Ken Steacy, together with a new prose framing-sequence from the author.

Humanity’s literary battle against the Kyben spanned ten generations and involved all manner of technologies, up to and including time-travel. Probably the most famous of them is the award-winning Demon with a Glass Hand, adapted as both an episode of The Outer Limits TV show in 1964 and as one of the very best of the long-gone and much-lamented DC Graphic Novel series, but that’s a graphic extravaganza we’ve already covered elsewhere…

Right here, right now, this classy full-colour album-sized paperback resurrects a glorious artefact first released by Comico and Graphitti Designs in 1987, just as the market for English-language graphic novels was taking off. It also piles on the treats by adding a brace of fabulously informative and keenly reminiscent Introductions: ‘In these Pages, the War Still Wages’ from author Ellison and ‘…As We Go Forward, Into the Past!’ by astoundingly multi-talented adaptor Ken Steacy.

Closing down the show are more goodies: an eye-popping glimpse at Steacy’s visual virtuosity in the feature ‘Afterwords & Pictures’, sharing unpublished art, roughs, layouts and finished covers, as well as working models and more, and the original Afterwords ‘War Artist’ and ‘Whispers from the Telling Box’ by Steacy & Ellison respectively from the 1987 edition.

Following a specially created ‘Prologue’ by E & S, the pictorial panoply shifts seamlessly into the earliest tales of the epic conflict, beginning with the apocalyptic ‘Run for the Stars’: a traditional panels and balloons strip describing life and its imminent end on Deald’s World after the hordes of Kyba drop in. It’s followed by ‘Life Hutch’, a grim survival tale combining blocks of text with big bold images in both lavish colour and stark monochrome, highlighting a soldier-survivor’s battle against a malfunctioning robot…

‘The Untouchable Adolescents’ is a bright and breezy art job disguising a tragic and powerful parable of good intentions gone awry, whilst sardonic 2-pager ‘Trojan Hearse’ rates just one powerful, lonely illustration for its cunning tale of invasion. ‘Sleeping Dogs’ is a moody epic which fittingly concludes the short sagas with the story of a force of liberating Earthmen who trample all over a few aliens in their rush to defeat the Kyben… and realise too late they’ve poked the wrong bear…

Fans will be delighted to find this volume also carries an original entry in the annals of the Earth-Kyba conflict with prose & picture piece ‘The Few… The Proud’: at the time of this collection’s original release, Ellison’s first new story for the sequence in 15 years.

This epic tome was a groundbreaking landmark at the time of its original release and remains an innovative, compelling treat for both old and new fans of the writer, lovers of seductively unconventional graphic narrative and of course comic readers in general.

Written by Harlan Ellison ®. © 1987, 2015 The Kilimanjaro Corporation. All Rights Reserved. New material by Harlan Ellison®. © 2015 The Kilimanjaro Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Cover and illustrations © 1987, 2015 Ken Steacy. All Rights Reserved.

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Hurricane Isle: The Best of Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs


By Roy Crane, edited by Rick Norwood (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-809-0 (HB)

Modern comics evolved from newspaper cartoons and comic strips, and these pictorial features were until relatively recently utterly ubiquitous and hugely popular with the public. They were also highly valued by publishers who used them as an irresistible sales weapon to guarantee and increase circulation and profits.

It’s virtually impossible for us to today to understand the overwhelming power of the comic strip in America (and the wider world) from the Great Depression to the end of World War II. With no television, broadcast radio barely established and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most folk, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. They were the most common recreation for millions who were well served by a fantastic variety and incredible quality. Crucially this notionally free entertainment kept readers loyal to the papers that ran a family’s favourites…

From the very start humour was paramount; hence the terms “The Funnies” and “Comics”, and from these gag and stunt beginnings – a blend of silent movie slapstick, outrageous fantasy and raucous vaudeville shows – came a thoroughly entertaining mutant hybrid: Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs.

Washington Tubbs II was a comedic gag-a-day strip not much different from family favourite Harold Teen (by Crane’s friend and contemporary Carl Ed). As first depicted on April 21st 1924, Tubbs was a diminutive, ambitious and bumbling young store clerk when the feature debuted, but after only three months Crane re-evaluated his little enterprise, making a few changes which would reshape the entire art form…

Having Wash run away to the circus (Crane did much the same in the name of research). the artist gradually moved the strip into mock-heroics, then through a period of gently boisterous action romps to become a full-blown, light-hearted, rip-roaring adventure series. It was the first of its kind and dictated the form for decades thereafter. Crane then sealed its immortality with the introduction of prototype he-man and ancestral moody swashbuckler Captain Easy in the landmark episode for 6th May, 1929.

As the yarns became more exotic and thrill-drenched, our globe-trotting little dynamo clearly needed a sidekick and sounding board. After a number of bright and breezy types were tried and discarded, Crane decided on one who could believably handle the combat side of things, and thus, in the middle of a European war in the fairytale kingdom of Kandelabra, Tubbs liberated a mysterious fellow American from a dungeon and history was made.

Before long the mismatched pair were inseparable; tried-and-true travelling companions hunting treasure, fighting thugs and rescuing startlingly comely damsels in distress…

The bluff, two-fisted, completely capable and utterly dependable, down-on-his-luck “Southern Gentleman” was something not seen before in comics: a taciturn, raw, square-jawed hunk played completely straight rather than the previously popular buffoon or music hall foil seen in such classic serials as Hairsbreadth Harry or Desperate Desmond.

Moreover, Crane’s seductively simple blend of cartoon exuberance and design was a far more accessible and powerful medium for action story-telling than the static illustrative style favoured by artists like Hal Foster who was just beginning to make waves on the new Tarzan Sunday page at this time.

Tubbs & Easy were as exotic and thrilling as the Ape Man but rowdily rattled along like the tempestuous Popeye, full of vim, vigour and vinegar, as attested to by a close look at the early work of the would-be cartoonists who followed the strip with avid intensity. Floyd Gottfredson, Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner and especially young Joe Shuster were eager fans taking notes and following suit…

After a couple of abortive attempts starring his little hero, Crane eventually bowed to the inevitable and created a full colour Sunday page dedicated solely to his increasingly popular hero-for-hire. The Captain Easy feature debuted on 30th July 1933, in wild and woolly escapades set prior to his fateful meeting with Tubbs.

Both together and separately, reprinted exploits of these troubleshooters became staples of the earliest comic books – specifically The Funnies from October 1936 and The Comics, from March 1937 onwards.

With an entire page and vibrant colours to play with, Crane’s imagination ran wild and his fabulous visual concoctions achieved a timeless immediacy that made each page a unified piece of sequential art. The effect of these can be seen in so many strips since, especially the works of such near-contemporaries as Hergé and giants in waiting like Charles Schulz. They have all been collected in the 4-volume Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips. Sadly, no digital versions yet, but there’s always hope…

Those pages were a clearly as much of a joy to create as to read. In fact, the cited reason for Crane surrendering the Sunday strip to his assistant Les Turner in 1937 was NEA Syndicate’s abruptly and arbitrarily demanding that henceforward, all its strips be produced in a rigid panel-structure to facilitate being cut up and re-pasted as local editors dictated. Crane just walked away, concentrating on the daily feature. In 1943 he quit NEA completely, to create wartime aviator strip Buz Sawyer, and Turner became the able custodian of the heroes’ fate.

Wash Tubbs ran until January 10th 1988.

Before all that, however, Wash was the affable and undisputed star of a never-ending parade of riotous monochrome daily escapades and this superb hardback opens with two of them: part of a cherry-picked compilation of ten of the very best adventures of the bombastic buddies. Hopefully it will one day lead to another complete reprinting such as the 18-volume series covering the entirety of the Wash Tubbs run – 1934-1943 – that was published by NBM from 1987-1992. Good luck finding those…

Before the non-stop nonsense begins author and pre-eminent comic strip historian Ron Goulart details all you need to know about the tales in ‘A History of Lickety Whop’ whilst editor Rick Norwood provides further background information in his copiously illustrated Introduction, after which we’re plunged into astounding adventure on eponymous ‘Hurricane Isle’ (which originally ran from February 23rd to June 6th 1928)…

At this time Wash and fellow inveterate fortune-hunter Gozy Gallup are gloating over securing an ancient map which once belonged to the dread pirate Edward Teach… AKA Blackbeard!

As they research the infamous buccaneer and scrabble to find a ship to take them where they need to go, they are unaware that aggrieved enemy Brick Bane – the “Bandit King of Mexico” – is hard on their heels and hungry for vengeance. Stalking them as they journey from New Orleans to the Caribbean, he takes a nasty sea captain into his confidence and arranges for that sinister salt to hire out his ship to the treasure seekers. The skipper is unsavoury brute Bull Dawson: destined to become Tubbs’ – and later Easy’s – greatest, most implacable foe…

After travelling to the island with them Dawson, having already removed Bane, springs his trap and turns Wash and Gozy into enslaved labourers, digging with the crew to find the fabled horde. The lads soon rebel and escape into the jungle to search on their own, and also abortively attempt to steal Dawson’s ship.

The wily brute is too much for them, however, and even after the boys finally locate the loot, the malicious mariner reappears to take it from them. The sadistic swine is preparing to maroon them when Bane arrives with a ship full of Mexican bandits and a shooting war begins…

With bullets flying and bodies dropping, Wash and Gozy convince affable deckhand Samson to switch sides and the trio take off for civilisation with the treasure in the hold…

Money comes and goes pretty freely for these guys but by the time ‘Arabia’ (July 30th – December 12th 1928) opens, they are still pretty flush and opt for a luxurious Mediterranean cruise. Unfortunately Wash’s propensity for clumsy gaffes raises the ire of very nasty sheik Abdul Hoozit Hudson Bey and the affronted potentate swears vengeance when the ship docks in Tunis.

As if icing fate’s cake, when wandering through the bazaar Wash is glamoured by a pair of gorgeous eyes and inadvertently seals his doom by attempting to rescue a girl from a seraglio: Jada is not only a distressed damsel but Bey’s favourite wife…

Heeding the French authorities’ advice to leave town quickly, the lads take off on a camel caravan into the Sahara. They have no idea they are heading into cunning Bey’s trap…

The fact that Jada is the favourite of the incensed chieftain saves them temporarily, but when the sheik finally finds a way to surreptitiously assassinate them, she and her devoted slave Bola dash into the deep desert to save them, and the quartet strike out for safety and freedom together.

That trek dumps them in the clutches of Bey’s great rival Abdullah Bumfellah and leads to a tribal shooting war. Happily, Bola has been busy and found a Foreign Legion patrol to save the day.

And that’s when Jada drops her bombshell. She is actually a princess from a European principality, sold to Bey by her father’s Grand Vizier so that he could steal the throne. Now that she’s free again, Jada must return to liberate her poor people. Despite having to get back to America, Wash won’t shut up about wishing he’d gone with her…

He soon gets the chance. Spanning April 11th through July 6th 1929, ‘Kandelabra’ became the most significant sequence in the strip’s history: introducing Captain Easy in a riotous, rousing Ruritanian epic which we join after Wash reunites with Jada in the postage stamp kingdom she had been so cruelly stolen from.

Our little go-getter infiltrates the government and rises to the rank of admiral of the landlocked realm before overplaying his hand and beingframed for stealing the army’s payroll. Delivered to a secret dungeon he (partially) escapes and finds a gruff fellow American who refuses to share his name but insists on being called “Easy”…

Busting out his new ally, Wash and the stranger are soon caught in a bloody revolution when the aggrieved army mutinies. Before long the Vizier’s cronies are ousted, the vile villain accidentally orchestrates his own demise and regally restored Jada declares the birth of the continent’s newest democracy…

In ‘Desert Island’ (February 6th – June 7th 1930) Bull Dawson returns to steal Tubbs’ entire fortune, and flies off across America in a bid to escape with his ill-gotten gains. The robbery becomes a nationwide sensation and we join the action as Wash & Easy pursue the fugitive. Tracking Dawson to San Francisco, they continue the chase as the malign mariner takes off in a schooner with our heroes first stowaways and, before long, prisoners…

The sadistic Bull lose face after being thrashed in a no-holds barred fight with Easy, which was mere subterfuge to allow the southern soldier of fortune to pick Dawson’s pocket and recover Wash’s easily portable $200,000 in cash. As the battered thug recuperates, the vessel is hit by a monster typhoon which apparently leaves our heroes sole survivors aboard shattered shards of the schooner.

The wreck fetches up on a desolate Pacific atoll where the boys soon fall into the routine of latter-day Robinson Crusoes. The isolated idyll becomes cruelly complicated when they find the place is already home to a young woman who was the only survivor of an attack by roving headhunters from Borneo. Mary Milton is brave, competent and beautiful and before long the lonely pals are fierce rivals for her affections…

The situation grows dangerously intense and only stabilises when the savages return, forcing the warring suitors to stand together or fall separately…

I think it’s about time that I remind everyone that these stories were crafted a long time ago for audiences with far less progressive ideas than us. There’s no deliberate intention to belittle or deride, but these lovely pages are certainly piled high with outdated assumptions and behaviour. If you are unable to forgive or set aside such treatment, please give this book a miss.

When the brutal battle ends, the westerners are in possession of a sturdy war canoe and opt to risk their lives on an epic ocean odyssey to the nearest outpost of civilisation. It’s only after the voyagers are far out to sea that Wash agonisingly recalls that he left his stash of dollars behind…

The next adventure (running from June 9th – October 1930) immediately follows on, with the weary travellers reaching French Indo-China and, thanks to a friendly soldier, escaping far inland via a mighty river. After days of travel they reach the previously hidden kingdom of Cucumbria and fall foul of the toad-worshipping emperor Igbay Umbay who takes one look at Mary and decides he has to have her…

Being a coward who stole the throne from his brother, this Grand Poobah hasn’t the nerve to simply take her, and so orchestrates a succession of scurvy schemes to get rid of Wash and Easy. Naturally, the boys are too smart and bold to fall for them.

Infuriatingly rising in power and status, aided by young prince Hilo Casino – freshly returned from college in America – the Americans finally seem be out of Umbay’s hair after they agree to lead his armies against supernatural rebel leader ‘The Phantom King’…

Despite deep misgivings “General” Easy and his aide Washington Tubbs embark upon a campaign that will ravage the hidden kingdom, unseat an emperor, cost thousands of lives and lose them the girl they both love…

A year later, ‘Down on the Bayou’ (March 12th to July 25th 1931) found the world-weary wanderers nearing home again, only to be arrested as they approach New Orleans in a stolen plane. They were fleeing a clever frame-up in infamous Costa Grande, but without any proof could only evade their US Navy captors and flee into the swampy vastness of the Mississippi Delta…

Lost for days and starving, they are picked up by vivacious gangster’s moll Jean who recruits them into a gang of smugglers and rum-runners who inhabit a huge plantation somewhere between Pelican Island and Barataria, dedicated to various criminal enterprises. Tubbs & Easy soon comfortably settle in amidst the rogues and outcasts, but everything changes when Jean’s brother returns from a smuggling trip. His name is Bull Dawson…

He is prevented from killing our heroes by Jean and the huge Cajun in charge of the outlaw outpost, but takes it badly. With his gang of deadly bodyguards in tow, Bull decides to take over the whole enterprise. A couple of murders later he’s big boss, but also oddly friendly to his most despised enemies.

Maybe it’s a ploy to put them off guard, or perhaps it has more to do with the gang of Chicago mobsters who have come down South, to put an end to the bootlegging mavericks cutting into their profits…

The troubles and bloodshed escalate exponentially and Jean drops her final bombshell: she’s a federal agent working with the Coast Guard to smash the budding criminal empire!

Once the dust settles she has one final surprise in store. In all the years of their friendship Wash could never get his taciturn pal to talk of his past or even reveal his real name. Now the government girl gives Mr. William Lee a message which sends him rushing across country to an old plantation home. Here the astounded Wash hears all about his pal’s shocking life, sordid scandals and abandoned wife… and then he learns the whole truth…

Soon, the impediments and lies which blighted Easy’s life are all removed and the wanderer settles in to a well-deserved retirement with the girl he always loved but could never have. Tubbs moves on, quickly reuniting with old chum Gozy Gallup…

Some weeks later, ever-restless Wash is riding a tramp steamer headed for Europe, intent on paying Jada a visit in Kandelabra but – falling foul of rustic transportation systems – ends up in the similar but so different Principality of Sneezia…

Apart from pretty girls, the tiny kingdom has only one point of interest: the world’s dinkiest railway service. Run by aged expatriate American Calliope Simpson, ‘The Transalpina Express’ (August 13th – November 21st 1931) links Sneezia to sister kingdom Belchia and is the most unique and beloved (by its intoxicated customers at least) service in the world.

Wash is especially keen to learn the business, since being the engineer has made octogenarian Cal the most irresistible man in two countries, fighting off adorable young women with a stick…

Someone’s greatest dream comes true when Simpson finally elopes with one of his adoring devotees and Washington Tubbs become sole operator of the Express, but his joy at all the feminine attention soon sours when Belchia and Sneezia go to war, and both sides want to use his train to move men and material into combat. Of course, the dilemma can only end in disaster and before long our boy is running for his life again…

There’s a big jump to the next yarn which finds Wash and Easy reunited and stowing away on the wrong-est ship imaginable. Quickly caught, they are understandably assumed to be part of the contingent of prisoners bound for the final destination – ‘Devils Island’ (June 9th to August 30th 1932)…

No sooner are they mixed in with the hopeless prison population than the planning of their inevitable escape begins. However, success only leads to greater peril as they and their criminal confederates take ship with a greedy captain subject to murderous bouts of paranoia and madness…

‘Whales’ (April 24th – August 30th 1933) is probably the most shocking to modern sensibilities of the perennial wanderers’ exploits. Here Wash & Easy are drugged in a Dutch cafe and dumped aboard one of the last sailing ships to work the whaling trade. Elderly and nostalgic Captain Folly has been convinced by psychotic First Mate Mr. Slugg to compete one last time against the new-fangled factory whaling fleets, unknowingly crewing his creaking old ship with shanghaied strangers…

The grim minutiae of the ghastly profession are scrupulously detailed as our heroes seek some means of escape, but with Slugg becoming increasingly unbalanced – and eventually murdering Folly – bloody mutiny leads to the ship foundering. Both factions – or at least the survivors of each – are subsequently marooned on arctic Alaskan ice, where (naturally) our heroes find the only pretty girl in a thousand square miles…

This fabulous treasury of thrills concludes with one last battle against Bull Dawson after the incorrigible monster links up with gorgeous grifter Peggy Lake, who fleeces gullible Wash of his savings and disappears into the endless green wilderness of the swamps of ‘Okefenokee’ (June 13th – July 24th 1935).

The crime leads to a massive police manhunt through the mire before the boys personally track down the villains and deliver one more sound thrashing to the malodorous malcontent and his pretty patsy…

Rounding off this superb collection is a thorough ‘Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs Episode Guide’ by Rick Norwood, a glorious graphic Mexican travelogue feature by Crane in ‘An Afterword in Pictures’ and informative biography section ‘About the Authors’…

If I’ve given the impression that this has all been grim and gritty turmoil and drama thus far, please forgive me: Crane was a superbly irrepressible gag-man and his boisterous, enchanting serials resonate with breezy, light-hearted banter, hilarious situations and outright farce – a sure-fire formula modern cinema directors plunder to this day.

Easy was the Indiana Jones, Flynn (The Librarian) Carsen and Jack (Romancing the Stone) Cotton of his day – and, clearly blazed a trail for all of them – whilst Wash was akin to Danny Kaye or our own Norman Wisdom: brave, big-hearted, well-meaning, clay-footed, irrepressible and utterly indomitable everymen… just like all of us.

This superb monochrome landscape hardback (274 x 33 x 224 mm) is a wonderful means of discovering or rediscovering Crane’s rip-snorting, pulse-pounding, exotically racy adventure trailblazer.

This is comics storytelling of the very highest quality: unforgettable, spectacular and utterly irresistible. These tales rank alongside her best of Hergé, Tezuka and Kirby, irrefutably informing the creations of all of them. These strips inspired the giants of our art form. How can you possibly resist?
Hurricane Isle: The Best of Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs © 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy Strips © 2015 United Features Syndicate, Inc. All other material © the respective copyright holders. All rights reserved.

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Captain Midnight Archive volume 1: Captain Midnight Battles the Nazis


By Dave Gormley, Leonard Frank, Carl Pfeufer, Dan Barry & anonymous & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 78-1-61655-242-8 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-884-4

Captain Midnight began his bombastic life as a radio serial star in the days when two-fisted, troubleshooting aviators were the acme of adventure genre heroes. Created by broadcast writers Wilfred G. Moore and Robert M. Burtt, the show was conceived by Chicago ad-men to promote Skelly Oil in the American Midwest.

The Captain Midnight Program soldiered on from 1938 to 1940 until the Wander Company acquired the sponsorship rights to promote their top product: Ovaltine. From there on, not even the sky was the limit: national radio syndication led to a newspaper comic strip (by Erwin L. Hess, running from June 29th 1942 until the end of the decade); a movie serial (1942) and – later – two TV serials (1953 and 1954-1956 – but syndicated as “Jet Jackson, Flying Commando” well into the 1960s). There was also a mountain of merchandise such as the legendary Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring…

There was also a comic book franchise or more accurately two…

The core premise was that after World War One ended, pilot/aviation inventor Captain Jim Albright  returned home having earned the sobriquet “Captain Midnight” after a particularly harrowing mission that concluded successfully at the witching hour. Founding a paramilitary “Secret Squadron” of like-minded pilots, he did good deeds – often at the covert behest of the President – employing guts and gadgets to foil spies, catch crooks and defend the nation.

Captain Midnight really hit his stride after the attack at Pearl Harbor, becoming an early Home Front media sensation. However, his already fluid backstory and appearance underwent a radical makeover when he switched comic book horses in mid-stream.

This stunningly engaging full-colour collection gathers tantalising snippets from the vast comicbook canon of the “Sovereign of the Skies”, rather arbitrarily collected from Dell Comics anthologies The Funnies #59 (September 1941) and Popular Comics 76 & 78 (June and August 1942) as well as Fawcett Comics’ Captain Midnight #4-6, 9, 12, 31, 44, 47, 58 and 61, released between January 1943 and March 1948. The solo title was initially released fortnightly with #1 bearing a September 30th 1942 cover-date.

Much of this material is unattributed but amongst the regular writers were Joseph J. “Joe” Millard, Wilford Hamilton Fawcett, Bill Woolfolk and Otto Binder whilst artists included Jack Binder and his art stable, as well as the engagingly workmanlike Leonard Frank, Carl Pfeufer, Ken Bald, Jack Keller, Sheldon Moldoff and – latterly – young but constantly improving legends-to-be Leonard Starr and Dan Barry.

Following a fond appreciation and passionate reminiscences from David Scroggy in his effusive Introduction, the cartoon classics begin with an action-packed but confusing chapter from The Funnies #59. Here Dave Gormley depicts the Captain – still clad in regulation leather jacket, aviator flight cap and goggles – and his Secret Squadron in pursuit of nefarious archenemy Ivan Shark before Popular Comics #76 finds them battling to prevent the insidious Ivan’s airborne conquest of America.

Popular Comics #78 (with art by Bob Jenney) renews and continues that titanic struggle as Shark’s henchman Gardo rushes to his master with information that could destroy democracy forever…

When Fawcett took over the comic book license in 1942, they gave Albright a stripped-down operation, flashier gimmicks and a rather striking superhero costume. They also abandoned continued serials in favour of short complete adventures as the Sky Sovereign added Nazi and Japanese villains to his macabre rogue’s gallery.

The initial Fawcett offering comes from Captain Midnight #4 (January 8th 1943) as the sabotaging ‘Gremlins of Graham Field’– possibly illustrated by Frank? – are exposed as malevolent Nazi dwarves whilst #5 sees Albright and his ward Chuck Ramsay overseas in Alexandria proving that ‘The Beasts That Flew Like Birds’ (Pfeufer) were not ancient vampires but far more insidious and dangerous modern monsters…

Plucky mechanic and comedy stooge Icky was one of three regular holdovers from the radio roster of the Secret Squadron and eventually won his own back-up strip and codename: Sergeant Twilight.

A brace of tales from #6 begins with ‘Presenting Ichabod Mudd, Cowboy!’ wherein the homely oaf accidentally exposes Nazis masquerading as cattle rustlers in Nevada, and intent on preventing the government feeding its troops, after which ‘Broadcast of Death’ sees other Nazis jamming shortwave radio communications and morale-lifting programs… until the Captain and his crew step in.

Three tales from Captain Midnight #9 (June 1943) opens with ‘Silent Wings of Destruction’ as the Monarch of the Skies tracks down undetectable planes bombing US war production plants and discovers an astounding Nazi aviation advancement. In ‘Black Tornadoes’ a German inventor unleashes all the fury of nature against the Midwest until the Captain tracks him down, and Albright’s robotic ‘Samson the Mechanical Man’ proves a major asset after uncovering enemy agents in the lab…

Three more classics come from #12 (September 1943). ‘The Puzzle of the Flying Houses’ spots spies using cloud-cover and dwelling-shaped zeppelins to photograph military secrets whilst ‘Buy War Bonds!’ offers a breathtaking ad of the period before ‘The Sinister Angels’ suborning South American peasants and fomenting rebellion are ultimately exposed by our heroes as craftily disguised foreign agents.

A big jump to Captain Midnight #31 (April 1945) opens post-war proceedings with ‘Sgt. Twilight’s Flying School’ as lovably bumbling goof Icky is gulled into teaching a gang of wily thugs how to commit seemingly impossible crimes with aircraft… before finally wising up and lowering the boom…

Issue #44 (September 1946) heralds the resurrection of a deadly foe as ‘Return of the Shark’ sees the villain copying Albright’s latest invention to facilitate robbing planes in mid-air before a literally mad scientist forces Captain Midnight to participate in a deadly ‘Invention Duel to the Death’…

December 1946’s CM #47 tangentially addresses growing public interest in horror stories as ‘Fangs of the Werewolf’ (Frank art) sees Midnight hunt an amnesiac GI in the US Sector of newly-partitioned Germany. Here he meets maniacal Nazi holdout Storm von Cloud planning a wave of terror with his sinister Werewolf Corps commandos.

As the 1940s drew to a close technological advancement, science fiction and crime became the most popular topics for action tales, and from #58 (December 1947) ‘Test Tunnel’ uses all those elements to great effect as Shark discovers Midnight’s true identity and lays a lethal trap in Albright’s latest plane-proving system…

Wrapping up this glorious grab-bag of Golden Age goodies is a tale of dogged endurance as ‘Captain Midnight Masters Glacier Peak’ (#61, March 1948; credited to Leonard Starr, but it looks like Dan Barry to me) sees Albright embroiled in a brutal struggle between rival Arctic expeditions to claim acclaim and vast riches at the top of the world…

With an eye-popping gallery of covers by Gormley, Binder, Mac Raboy and Frank, plus mesmerising period ads and mini-features such as ‘Captain Marvel Secret Messages’, ‘Captain Midnight’s Air Quiz’, ‘Captain Midnight’s Air Insignia’ and ‘Fawcett Comix Cards’ this is a superbly engaging feast of comics history and timeless thrills.
Captain Midnight Archives volume 1: Captain Midnight Battles the Nazis ® and © Dark Horse Comics 2013. All rights reserved.

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The Bluecoats volume 15: Bull Run


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

Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (and/or Dutch-language iteration De Blauwbloezen) debuted at the end of the 1960s: created to supplant the irreplaceable Lucky Luke when that laconic maverick defected from weekly anthology Le Journal de Spirou to rival publication Pilote.

From its first sallies, the substitute strip swiftly became hugely popular: one of the most popular bande dessinée series in Europe. In case you were wondering, it is now scribed by Jose-Luis Munuera and the BeKa writing partnership and we’re up to 66 tomes…

Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour school, and after his sudden death in 1972, successor Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte gradually adopted a more realistic – yet still overtly comedic – tone and manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936 and, after studying Fine Art in college, joined publishing giant Dupuis in 1952 as a letterer.

Born in 1938, scripter Cauvin was also Belgian and – before entering Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 – studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling was comedy and began a glittering, prolific writing career at Le Journal de Spirou.

In addition, he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. Les Tuniques Bleues sold alone has over 15 million copies… and counting. Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of barbed laughter remains.

Here, designated The Bluecoats, our long-suffering protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch; worthy, honest fools in the manner of Laurel & Hardy: hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen defending America during the War Between the States.

The original format offered single-page gags set around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but from second volume Du Nord au Sud, the sad-sack soldiers were situated back East, perpetually fighting in the American Civil War.

All subsequent adventures – despite often ranging far beyond the traditional environs of the sundered USA and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history – are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.

Blutch is your run-of-the-mill, whinging little-man-in-the street: work-shy, mouthy, devious and ferociously critical of the army and its inept orchestrators and commanders. Ducking, diving, deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except at his core he’s smart, principled and even heroic… if no easier option is available.

Chesterfield is big and burly, a professional fighting man and proud career soldier of the 22nd Cavalry who passionately believes in patriotism and the esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirking his duty and hungry to be a medal-wearing hero. He also loves his cynical little troll of a pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers but simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in: a situation that once more stretches their friendship to breaking point in this cunningly conceived instalment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Peach Slices


By Donna Barr (Aeon/Mu)
ISBN: 978-1-89225-325-5 (TPB Director’s Cut)

We can’t let another Pride Month go by without plugging again one of the earliest, best and most ingenious Gay comics icons ever conceived. Moreover, as he and his companions first appeared in 1988 (published by Thoughts and Images) we can wish him a resplendent 35th Anniversary too!

The Desert Peach is the supremely self-assured and eminently efficient gay brother of Erwin Rommel, the legendary German soldier universally hailed as “the Desert Fox”.

Set primarily in Africa during World War II, this priceless lost gem of a series effortlessly combines hilarity, absurdity, profound sensitivity and glittering spontaneity in stories describing the dalliances and daily tribulations of Oberst Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel. This younger sibling also dutifully served his fatherland, albeit as an unwilling and reluctant cog in the iniquitous German War Machine: one determined to remain a civilised gentleman under the most adverse and unkind conditions.

However, although in his own ways as formidable as his beloved brother, the caring, gracious and genteel Peach is a man who loathes causing harm or giving offence. Thus, he spends his service commanding the dregs of the military in the ghastly misshapes of the 469th Halftrack, Gravedigging & Support Unit of the Afrika Korps, always endeavouring to remain stylish, elegant, polite and ever-so-patient with and to the assorted waifs, wastrels and warriors on both sides of the unfortunate all-encompassing conflict.

It’s a thankless, endless task: the 469th harbours the absolute worst the Wehrmacht has ever conscripted, from malingerers and malcontents to useless wounded, shiftless conmen, screw-ups and outright maniacs.

Pfirsich unilaterally applies the same decorous courtesies to the sundry natives inhabiting the area as well as the rather tiresome British and Anzac forces – not all of whom are party to the clandestine non-aggression pact Pfirsich has covertly agreed with his opposite numbers in the amassed Allied Forces. In fact, the only people to truly annoy the peace-loving Peach are boors, bigots, bullies and card-carrying Blackshirts…

The romantic fool is also passionately in love with and engaged to Rosen Kavalier: handsome Aryan warrior and wildly manly Luftwaffe Ace, but arguably the true star of these fabulous frothy epics is the Peach’s long-suffering, unkempt, crafty, ill-mannered, bilious and lazily scrofulous orderly Udo Schmidt.

This is a man (we’re at least assured of that!) of many secrets, whose one redeeming virtue is his uncompromising loyalty and devotion to the only decent man and tolerable officer in the entire German army.

This eccentric aggregation of extras, excerpts and exotica was first released in 1993, collecting extraneous material from a variety of sources and covering the period 1987-1993: as much an affectionate art-book as delicious dose of non- or mis-canonical hi-jinks.

The entire package was subsequently re-released in 2006 in a Director’s Cut edition which added issue #25 of the sporadic series: a WWI Transylvanian Hammer-Horror pastiche entitled ‘Beautiful’ to the mix and includes reminiscences, background commentary and creator-kibitzing regarding all the esoteric tales and titbits.

The gloriously engaging affair begins with an Unused Pin Design and splendid Badge Design taken from the San Diego Comic-Con 1989, after which a quartet of stunning and bizarre Beer Labels (for ales created by micro brewer Wendell Joost in 1988) precedes ‘Peach on Earth’ (from A Very Mu Christmas 1992) – one of the very best Christmas stories ever produced in the notoriously twee and sentimental comics biz.

Set in the harsh December of 1945, it follows demobbed and repatriated Pfirsich as he wanders through his broken and occupied homeland: avoiding trouble and American troops but not the gnawing starvation and freezing snows which would kill so many returning, defeated German soldiers. On the verge of despair and death, the Peach is brusquely adopted by a strange, brittle and utterly fearless little boy who has only known the Fatherland in the throes of decline, but still looks eagerly to a brighter tomorrow…

This is followed by a rather risqué Rosen Kavalier pinup from 1991’s Paper Phantasies and an unused strip commissioned by Rip Off Press, after which ‘Whipping Boy’ offers a full-on adult escapade of unconventional lovers, as is ‘I Am What I Am… (I Think)’. This was a “Desert Peach Pitt Stop” that languished unpublished until this collection preserved it.

Bits ‘n’ Pieces was a short-lived self-published magazine the indefatigable author used to disseminate assorted works which never made it into the regular, normal-length Desert Peach title, and ‘The Veteran’ comes from the first issue in 1991. It returns focus to the motley cast of the hapless 469th for a pleasurably philosophical foray starring a most peculiar and innocent warrior named Thommi, whilst – following a frolicsome Desert Peach pinup from the 1989 Amazing Heroes Swimsuit Special – ‘Hindsight’ (Bits ‘n’ Pieces #1) dips into personal politics before ‘Reflections’ (BnP #3, 1991) offers a few New Year’s observations on the cast and stars from Barr herself.

1991 San Diego Comic-Con’s booklet provided another beguiling Pinup before ‘Udo and the Phoenix’ (Xenophon#1, 1992) relates another tale of the spirited Arab horse accidentally owned by Udo and cared for by the equally magnificent Pfirsich.

Next, ‘Reluctant Affections’ (BnP #1 before being redrawn as ‘Pigeonholed’ for Gay Comics #16) explores a tender, fragile moment and adorable chink in the macho armour of uber-Mensch Rosen…

‘The More Things Change’ comes from 1992 benefit book Choices, debating the abortion issue with characteristic abrasive aplomb, after which ‘Sweet Delusions’ (Wimmin’s Comix #16, 1991) gets down to the eye-watering nitty-gritty of Rosen & Pfirsich’s love life and ‘Wet Dream’ (Bits ‘n’ Pieces #3) follows up with more of the same in a hilariously wry maritime moment.

Barr’s creations are never far from always internally consistent flights of extreme fantasy, as observed in glorious diversion ‘The Oasis’ (Centaurs Gatherum 1990) with Pfirsich and brother Erwin finding a strategically priceless waterhole with a fantastic secret and forced to spend a truly outrageous time trapped as hybrid half horses…

This captivating chronicle concludes with a selection of ‘Peach Pits’ miscellanea: illustrations, roughs and small press items culled from the Desert Peach Musical books, T-shirts and posters. There’s some fascinating rough layouts from the aforementioned ‘Peach on Earth’, an unused page from DP #17 (the superb ‘Culture Shock’ as seen in The Desert Peach: Marriage & Mayhem and assorted stuff from Zine Zone #13, 1992. Even more extras include covers from Germanophilic Amateur Press Association magazine “Krauts”, and shirt designs before the whole outrageous escapade ends well with an implausibly “true tail” starring half-horse Stinz Löwhard, Pfirsich and Erwin in a ‘Character Revolt’ from 1987’s Fan-toons #19.

Desert Peach adventures are bawdy, raucous, satirical, authentically madcap and immensely engaging: bizarre (anti) war stories which rank amongst the very best comics of the 1990s. Even now they still pack a shattering comedic kick and – if you’re not quite braced – poignantly emotional charge.

The Desert Peach ran for 32 intermittent issues via a number of publishers and was collected as 8 graphic novel collections (1988-2005). A prose novel, Bread and Swans, a musical and an invitational collection by other artists (Ersatz Peach) were also created during the strip’s heyday. A larger compendium, Seven Peaches, collected issues #1-7 and Pfirsich’s further exploits, as part of the now much-missed Modern Tales webcomics collective.

Illustrated in Barr’s fluidly seductive wood-cut and loose-line style, this book is an absolute must-have item for lovers of wit, romance, slapstick, high drama and belly-laughs as well as grown-up comics in general.

All the collections are pretty hard to locate these days but if you have any facility with the digital world they can still be found. There’s also chatter that Robot Comics will be re-releasing the entire saga digitally sometime soon. Let’s hope so…
© 1987-1993 Donna Barr. All rights reserved. The Desert Peach is ™ Donna Barr.

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Hugo Pratt: Battler Britton – War Picture Library


By Hugo Pratt & V.A.L. Holding (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-766-4 (HB/Digital Edition)

Hugo Eugenio Pratt (June 15th 1927-August 20th 1995) was one of the world’s paramount comics creators, and his enthralling graphic narratives inventions since Ace of Spades (whilst still a student at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts) in 1945 were both many and varied.

His signature character – based in large part on his own exotic early life – is the mercurial soldier (perhaps sailor would be more accurate) of fortune, Corto Maltese.

After working in both Argentinean and English comics for years Pratt returned to Italy in the 1960s. In 1967 he produced a number of series for monthly comic Sgt. Kirk. In addition to the Western lead character, he created pirate strip Capitan Cormorand, detective feature Lucky Star O’Hara, and a moody South Seas adventure called Una Ballata del Mare Salato (A Ballad of the Salty Sea).

It folded in 1970, but Pratt took one of Ballata’s characters to the French weekly, Pif Gadget, before eventually settling in with legendary Belgian periodical Le Journal de Tintin. Corto Maltese proved as much a Wild Rover in reality as in his historic and eventful career…

However, a storyteller of such vast capabilities as Pratt was ever-restless, and as well as writing and illustrating his own tales, he scripted for other giants of the industry.

Battler Britton was first seen in January 1956. “The fighting ace of Land, Sea and Air” debuted in The Sun (back when it was actually a proper comic and before the title was appropriated for the tabloid red top screed joke it is today); the feisty True Brit brainchild of Mike Butterworth and the astounding Geoff Campion.

In 1958 the doughty dauntless pilot graduated to the front cover and lead spot, before taking over completely in 1959 when the periodical briefly became Battler Britton’s Own Weekly. He even transferred to sister title Knockout during 1960-1961 before joining the roster after merging with Lion. Britton persevered and carried on until 1967…

He was a major draw for Amalgamated/Odhams/Fleetway and also a key returning feature in the publisher’s range of complete digest series, illustrated by such astounding luminaries as Francisco Solano Lopez, Pat Nicolle, Graham Coton, Ian Kennedy… and Hugo Pratt.

Britton was a regular standby – in reformatted reprint form – in numerous Fleetway Christmas Annuals for years after his comics sorties ceased. Why there has never been a concerted effort to restore this treasure trove of comics glory in some kind of archival format is utterly beyond me, but at least he’s with us in this bold compilation gathering yarns limned by the master of adventure which first saw print in Thriller Picture Library #297 & Battler Britton Annual 2. Both were written by Val Holding: a former paratrooper and store detective before moving into comics writing. Amongst his many triumphs was a run on other Air Ace Paddy Payne. He eventually became Fleetway’s Managing Editor of Juvenile Publications.

Most British companies produced Seasonal Specials, hardcover Annuals and digest-sized anthology publications. DC Thomson still publishes Commando Picture Library and used to sell romance, school dramas and a science fiction title (Starblazer) to match their London competitors’ successful paperback book titles.

Those ubiquitous delights included Super Picture Library, War Picture Library, Air Ace Picture Library, Action Picture Library and Thriller Picture Library: half-sized, 64-page monochrome booklets with glossy soft-paper covers. Presenting complete stories in 1 to 3 panels a page, they were regularly recycled and reformatted.

Here the result is a brace of stunningly rendered enthralling all-action romps beginning with the 1945-set ‘Battler Britton and the Rockets of Revenge’ wherein the top pilot is parachuted into occupied Poland to secure the secrets of a V2 missile that has fallen into the hands of a partisan unit. Typically, that means getting his hands dirty again: dodging bullets, fighting traitors and frustrating the Gestapo before ultimately triumphing and leaving the Abwehr a nasty surprise…

‘Battler Britton and the Wagons of Gold’ focuses on 1941, with Britton in the Adriatic, testing procedures for landing Spitfires on British aircraft carriers. When an urgent request comes in, he’s off to Yugoslavia – currently losing to the Nazi war machine.

Sent on a simple reconnaissance run, he can’t help downing a few Stukas and strafing German ground forces before coming to the assistance of freedom fighters desperately shipping the country’s entire monetary reserves away from the rapacious Nazis.

It’s not long before Battler trades his plane for a lorry to frustrate the swiftly pursuing Germans and deliver the bullion into the safe hands of the Royal Navy, despite the Nazis’ ardent efforts to catch and kill him and his new allies…

Swift, straightforward and startlingly compelling, these bread & butter war stories sustained British comics readers for decades and have seldom looked so good doing it. If you’re a connoisseur of graphic thrills don’t miss these airy escapades.
© 1959, 1961, 1964, 2020 Rebellion Publishing IP Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Invasion 1984!


By John Wagner, Alan Grant, Eric Bradbury & various (Rebellion Studios)
ISBN: 9-781-78108-675-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

For most of the industry’s history, British comics were renowned for the ability to tell a big story in satisfying little instalments. This, coupled with supremely gifted creators and the anthological nature of our publications, guaranteed hundreds of memorable characters and series seared themselves into the little boy’s psyche lurking inside most adult males.

One of the last great weeklies was Battle: a strictly combat-themed confection which began as Battle Picture Weekly, launching on 8th March 1975. Through absorption, merger and re-branding (as Battle Picture Weekly & Valiant, Battle Action, Battle, Battle Action Force and Battle Storm Force), it reigned supreme in Blighty before itself being combined with Eagle on January 23rd 1988.

Over 673 blood-soaked, testosterone-drenched issues, it carved its way into the bloodthirsty hearts of a generation, producing some of the best and most influential war stories ever.

Happily, many of the very best – like Charley’s War, The Sarge and El Mestizo – have been preserved and revisited in resilient reprint collections, but there’s still loads of superb stuff to rediscover, as typified by recent releases from Rebellion Studios (stay alert for those in days to come, chums…!).

This is nothing like any of them…

This particular combat compendium re-presents possibly the most unconventional series in the title’s eccentric history one that ran in Battle from 26th March to 31st December 1983. The entire saga is done in one book and comes with an enthused Introduction from editor and veteran scripter (Death Wish, Survivor, Real Roy of the Rovers Stuff, Comic Book Hero) Barrie Tomlinson.

What we have in Invasion 1984! is a classic end of the world/alien attack yarn in the vein of HG Wells’ War of the Worlds, published in the months leading up to the long-awaited literary moment of prophesied dystopia foretold by George Orwell. Deep stuff for a kids’ comic primarily about how their grandads were shot at by German and Japanese soldiers. However, the topic was evergreen, the fantastic elements were commonplace at this time and the actual work was left to three of the industry’s biggest guns…

Credited writer “R. Clark” was in fact John Wagner working with his regular co-scripter Alan Grant. Wagner (Bella at the Bar, One-Eyed Jack, Joe Two Beans, Roy of the Rovers, Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Outcasts, Fight for the Falklands, Button-Man, The Bogie Man, Batman, A History of Violence, Darkie’s Mob, Rok of the Reds and countless more) was born in Pennsylvania in 1949, but returned to Greenock in Scotland with his war-bride mum and siblings 12 years later.

He began his professional comic career at the end of the 1960s, firstly in an editorial capacity with Dundee-based DC Thomson & Co. He became a freelance writer soon after and moved to IPC in London. With him came colleague Alan Grant…

Born in Bristol, Grant (February 9th 1949 – July 21st 2022) grew up a true Scot in the heart of Midlothian. Wayward and anarchic, after trying regular life a couple of times he began his comics career in 1967 as an editor for DC. Soon he was writing scripts – many with Wagner – and inventing characters, first for British outfits but eventually all over the world.

His triumphs include Tarzan, Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Batman, Lobo, L.E.G.I.O.N., Judge Anderson, The Bogie Man, Channel Evil, Kidnapped, The Demon, Robo-Hunter, Anarky, The Loxleys and the War of 1812, Rok of the Reds and so many more.

He also contributed to amateur fanzines, encouraging and supporting new talent; adapted classic literature to comics form for major art festivals; worked in animation; organized his own comic conventions (in home village Moniaive) and self-published and ran his own publishing house Berserker Comics. In 2020, he led a community outreach project to inform about CoVID-19 via a comic book.

Handling the art was arguably Britain’s most accomplished dramatic illustrator.

The incredible and prolific career of Eric Bradbury (January 4th – 1921 – May 2001) began in 1949 in Knockout. Born in Sydenham, Kent, he studied at Beckenham Art School from 1936 and served in the RAF as a bomber rear gunner during the war. Demobbed, he worked at Gaumont-British Animation, where he met other future cartooning and comics masters Mike Western, Ron Smith, Bill Holroyd, Harry Hargreaves and Nobby (AKA Ron) Clark. When the studio closed Clark and Bradbury were hired by comics everyman Leonard Matthews at Amalgamated Press (latterly Fleetway/IPC).

Frequently working with studio mate Western, Bradbury drew strips such as Our Ernie, Blossom, Lucky Logan, Buffalo Bill, No Hiding Place, The Black Crow and Biggles. He was an “in-demand” illustrator well into the 1990s on many landmark strips including The Avenger, Cursitor Doom, Phantom Force 5, Maxwell Hawke, Joe Two Beans, Mytek the Mighty, Death Squad, Doomlord, Darkie’s Mob, Crazy Keller, Hook Jaw, The Sarge, Invasion (the 2000 AD strip), The Mean Arena, The Fists of Jimmy Chang, The Dracula Files, Rogue Trooper, Future Shocks, Tharg the Mighty and so much more…

Together this triumphant triumvirate crafted a sublimely simple but compellingly cathartic scary story of doom and resurrection, which began and proceeded in real time one year into the future…

On March 21st 1984, astronomers detect a vast fleet of city-sized extraterrestrial craft heading directly for Earth. When space shuttle Columbia is despatched to intercept and extend peaceful greetings, it is blasted to atoms…

From then on, the 3-page weekly instalments catalogue the crushing of our planetary defences, military helplessness, mass panic and displacement of humanity. Terrified and running, people are picked off by silent skeletal warriors or bombed and ray-blasted into annihilation. Once the city-ships land, increasing numbers of shattered shell-shocked humans are captured and flown away…

Amongst the panicking masses fleeing London is language professor Edward Lomax who quite sensibly packs up his wife Marion and son Mike and tries desperately to get out of the capital. As Britain’s armed forces stubbornly resist to the last, the Lomaxes strive to escape the carnage and Edward confirms his own fighting spirit by killing dozens of the intruders with their own weapons.

Ultimately, resistance proves useless and civilisation falls in days, but just when Edward is ready to give up, he and his loved ones are somehow found and rescued by an unconventional unit of brutal killers…

Modern day Dirty Dozen Storm Squad have been tasked with finding the professor by the last free remnants of the army. Plucked from the rubble of London after days of constant running and killing, Lomax and his kin are whisked to a hidden Command Bunker in Bedfordshire, where General Lapsley and Britain’s Defence Secretary (the last survivor of Parliament) put him to work finding out how the invaders communicate and devising a way to talk to them…

The task becomes increasingly urgent after even nuking occupied cities fails to slow the invaders, and Storm Squad (Major “Mad Mac” McVicker, Sergeant Dent, Corporal Cheyney, Plank, creepy Geiger, repulsive deviant Burke and the rest) are despatched to capture some live “spooks” to experiment on…

The most savagely effective killers on Earth quickly succeed – despite sustained resistance from the aliens and opportunistic interference from humans quickly returned to primal self-reliance. With the world a depleted wreck mired in constant conflict, Lomax cracks the mystery, just as Storm Squad learn first-hand what’s become of the millions taken by the Spooks. It only makes more imperative his efforts to talk to the newcomers…

His inevitable success comes at a cost and illuminate a relentless countdown. The aliens have brought a ghastly plague into the bunker that is also ravaging what remains of life on Earth…

At last aware of why they’re here and determined to secure the spooks’ universal cure for illness, Earth’s last defenders deploy for their final sortie with an ultimate weapon of their own, knowing they won’t all be standing at the end…

Bombastic, brilliantly bellicose and mischievously misusing the British Bulldog Spirit, this grim game-changing fable is a delightful response to the toxic tone of the mid-Eighties, whilst still fabulously filling the brief of a boys’ combat yarn: offering casual heroism and vicarious carnage sans any moral nuance. It’s a case of us or them and we will always choose us…

This mostly monochrome masterpiece also includes the 5 full-colour covers the short series spawned plus biographies of all involved, offering the kind of uncomplicated unshaded thrills we all secretly yearn for…
© 1983, 2019 Rebellion Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved.