Category: Westerns

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Outlaw Territory volume 1


By Many & Various (Image Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-60706-004-8

The Western is a rather odd entertainment genre which can be sub-divided into two discrete halves: the sparkly, shiny version that dominated kids’ books, comics and television for decades, best typified by heroes such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry – and the other stuff: the material typified by the efforts of Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef…

In comics, that kind of cowboy yarn – grimy, gritty, excessively dark and nihilistic – was done best for years by Europeans in such strips as Charlier & Giraud’s Lieutenant Blueberry or Bonelli and Galleppini’s Tex Willer: iconic sagas which have only recently made their mark on US culture…

Outlaw Territory is of the latter variety; an anthological series offering fervid snapshots of  the sort of bleak, brutal incidents and accidents that were latterly sanitised for kiddie consumption but which in the end are probably just as far from the historical truth as any six-gun shootout on Main Street…

The iconic trappings of the Western make the milieu well-nigh irresistible to creative folk. We all want a crack at a cowboy yarn and this invitational series drew in a vast number of writers, artists and colourists who all took their shot – and occasionally more than one – resulting in this evocative initial paperback compilation of dark vignettes covering all aspects of the genre.

This first collection gathers stories by veteran and neophyte comics-creators who all have a spirited go at making something fresh out of a well-worn subject and, whilst the quality might occasionally falter, the rampant enthusiasm never does…

The moody moments begin with a painterly and poetic dialogue-free treatise on the traditional vengeance quest in ‘Daniel 5:27’ by Moritat, after which ‘Ballad of a Bad Man’ from Joe Kelly, Max Fiumara & letterer Thomas Mauer (who inscribes almost all of the tales in this collection) details the family traumas and depths plumbed to make a stone-cold killer…

Joshua Ortega & Trevor Goring deliver an iconic view of cruel and unusual punishment delivered at ‘Sundown’ before Shay, Dean Kotz & Ramiro Diaz Legaspe reveal a Civil War skirmish between aged experience and youthful enthusiasm for possession of ‘The Dispatch’ and Jose L. Torres & Jorge Molina Manzanero stylishly recount the story of a Mexican bounty hunter gripped by the ‘American Dream’…

Ivan Brandon, Andy Macdonald, Daniel Heard & Kristyn Ferretti offer a different spin on a legendary moment in history with ‘The First Car in Mexico – or, the End of Pancho Villa’ whilst ‘The Most Civilized Establishment from Ocean to Ocean’ sees two would-be bandits dealt the most terrifying experience of their sorry lives in a spooky chiller by James Patrick, Khoi Pham & Jeremy Colwell.

‘Ahiga’ concentrates on rip-roaring gunplay and a bold jailbreak in a violent vignette from Christian Beranek & Koray Kuranel whilst Joshua Hale Fialkov & Christie Tseng plump for macabre moodiness as ‘Incident over Thirty-Six Days in the Colorado Rockies’ examines the instinct for survival in sub-zero conditions which seizes both a bounty hunter and his captive…

As depicted by Greg Pak & Ian Kim, institutional racism and casual genocide in ‘Rio Chino’ results in payback from most a most unusual avenger, after which ‘One Man’s Land’ by Stephen Reedy & Giorgos Gousis finds a fanatical territorial dispute devolving into murderous farce before Steven Grant, Shannon Eric Denton & John Choins deliver a wicked spin on the tried-and-true tragedy of ‘The Bounty Killer’…

Greed for gold leads bad men to an extremely baroque and ugly end in Chris Moreno’s ‘He Will Set Your Fields on Fire’ whereas Fred Van Lente, Johnny Timmons & Danika Massey contrive deviously beautiful closure for a merciless beast after he meets ‘The Weaponsmith’ and M. Sean McManus & Michelle Silva craft a “Western Style Romance” when a sadistic brute meets his just end in a whorehouse after mistreating ‘Nora’…

A very nasty father/son bonding experience informs ‘The Apprentice’ by Steve Orlando, Tyler Niccum & Matt Razzano whilst ‘Griswold’s Song’ – by Chad Kinkle & Ming Doyle – elegiacally examines a life short, unwise and bloody before Leonard N. Wallace & Christopher Mitten detail the grisly fate of Indian Hunters who hate each other more than the painted devils hungry to inflict their ‘Savage Practices’ upon them…

‘For Old Times’ Sake’ by Pat Loika, Jose Holder & Garry Henderson has old adversaries reunite in scarlet-spattered showdown after the intervening years have pulled each to the opposing side of the law, before cattle dispute leads to bloody murder in ‘Gutshot’ (Michael Woods, David Miller & Philip Fuller) and ‘Them What Comes’ from mpMann details a protracted siege and most unusual meeting of East and West…

Frank Beaton & Melika Acar scrutinise the ‘Craftsmanship’ of a hangman-turned-outlaw, Nemo Woodbine & Yeray Gil Hernandez detail the work practises of an exceedingly accomplished lady in ‘We Never Sleep’ and Josh Wagner & Joiton lavishly perform the sorry saga of an unrepentant rogue in ‘The Ballad of Sid Grenadine’.

‘The More Things Change’ by Skipper Martin, Christopher Provencher & Ellen Everett references big sky country and a truly twisted romance before Orlando, Niccum & Razzano reunite to trace the career-path of a long-in-the-tooth manhunter ‘Working on Christmas’…

A band of unlovely brutes are served their just deserts in Noble Larimer, Jason Cheeseman Meyer & John Forucci’s ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ after which the mythic movie showdown scenario is given a smart makeover in ‘We Meet at Twelve’ by P. J. Kryfko, William Simpson &Mark Murphy before Simon Fraser craftily opts for a monochrome delivery and outrageous bad-taste black comedy to outline a bloody shaggy dog tale in ‘Ass Meat’…

Wrapping up this first foray into contemporary Western wonderment, project instigator Michael Woods & illustrator Chad Sell share a gory story of frontier surgery and doing what’s right in ‘Memories’; calling to a close a superb compendium of mini-epics encapsulating the Good, The Bad, the Ugly and most especially the Fascinating for us literary mavericks and any newcomers keen on trying out new entertainment territory…
© 2009 Michael Woods. Outlaw Territory™ and its logos are trademarks of Michael Woods. All stories and characters likenesses are trademarks of their respective creators unless otherwise noted.

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The Survivors! volume one: Talons of Blood

talons
By Hermann, translated by Kim Thompson and Dwight R. Decker (Fantagraphics Books)
No ISBN. ASIN: B000O15YBK

Welcome to another Wild West Wednesday with an indulgent peek at a favourite book I first read way back in 1982, crafted by a Belgian master of graphic narrative.

Hermann Huppen’s comics career began in 1963 but really took off three years later when he joined with writer Greg (Michel Régnier) to create cop series Bernard Prince for Tintin. The artist then added to his weekly chores with Roman adventure serial Jugurtha (scripted by Jean-Luc Vernal). In 1969 Hermann expanded his portfolio further by adding the Greg-penned western Comanche to his seamlessly stunning output…

Bernard Prince and Comanche made Hermann a superstar of the industry – a status he has built upon with further classics such as The Towers of Bois-Maury, Sarajevo-Tango, Station 16 and many more.

However, in 1978 Hermann bravely dropped guaranteed money-spinner Bernard Prince (he stayed with Comanche because of his abiding love for western- themed material) when a rival publisher offered him the opportunity to write and draw his own strip.

The result was Jeremiah: a saga of survival and friendship in a post-apocalyptic world created for German magazine Zack. Another instant hit, the series has subsequently seen print in Spirou, Metal Hurlant and many other places around the world and subsequently gathered in 33 Albums to date, most of which can be read as stand-alone tales.

Inexplicably, despite its American settings and the sheer quality of the stories and art, the series has never really caught on in the US. Fantagraphics were the first to introduce the unlikely hero and his world – retitled The Survivors! – with this volume from the opening years of the specialised Comicbook Direct Sales marketplace.

That heady air of enterprise and openness to new and different kinds of illustrated experiences somehow didn’t spread to Jeremiah, however, and the series ended after just two translated volumes.

Catalan took up the challenge next with a single album in 1990, after which Malibu released a triptych of 2-issue comicbook miniseries between January and September 1991.

At the end of 2002, Dark Horse Comics partnered with Europe’s Strip Art Features syndicate to bring the series to the public attention again; releasing two of the later albums with no appreciable response or reward, despite tying in to the broadcasting of J. Michael Straczynski and Sam Egan’s woefully disappointing TV series based on the strip.

In 2012 the publishers had another shot: releasing the first nine European albums in three of their always-appealing Omnibus editions…

So now I’m having a go.

I’m not publishing anything, just categorically stating that Jeremiah – in whatever printed iteration you can find it – is one of the finest bodies of sequential graphic storytelling and illustrative excellence ever put to paper, so if you love science fiction, gritty westerns, rugged adventure or simply bloody good comics, track down Hermann’s masterpiece and give it a go.

In case you need a bit of plot and context, here’s what happens in the first tale as delivered by Fantagraphics. La Nuit des rapaces was released as a French-language Album in April 1979 and picked up by the US Indy publisher in 1982, and describes how America died, not due to political intrigue or military error but as the result of a grotesque and appalling race war.

When the dust settled and the blood dried, the republic was reduced to pockets of survivors scavenging in ruins or grubbing out a life from leftover machines and centuries old farming practises. It was a new age of settlers, pioneers and bandits. There was no law but brute force and every walled community lived in terror of strangers…

In that pitiless world, Jeremiah was an unhappy, rebellious teen who craved excitement and despised his little dirt-grubbing stockaded village of Bend’s Hatch.

He got his wish the night he didn’t get home before the gates were locked. Stuck in the desert wastelands the callow boy encounters nomadic scavenger Kurdy Malloy and ends up beaten and unconscious. The assault saves his life…

Finally reaching home next morning, Jeremiah finds the village razed and burning, with everything of value taken – including all the able-bodied men women and children…

Assuming Kurdy to be at least partly responsible, Jeremiah tracks the wanderer and finds him being tortured by other outlaws is the desert wastes. A rather botched rescue results in them establishing an uneasy truce and Kurdy begins training the kid in the necessities of life on the run.

Jeremiah is determined to find his people and their trail leads to the thriving outlaw town of Langton. The sordid, makeshift metropolis is divided in two: ordinary folk trying to get by and a small army of thugs led by a debauched and baroque madman named Mr. W. E. Birmingham… and never, ever call him “Fat-Eye”…

A ruthless egomaniac, Birmingham only feels affection – warped but genuine – for his collection of steely-eyed raptors kept in a vast aviary atop his colossal fortress-castle in the centre of town. From this citadel his thugs run roughshod over everybody else, but recently the body-count has been rising too quickly and tempers are fraying. There’s a whiff of potential revolution in the air…

That’s soon amplified into a ferocious storm of outright rebellion as wily Kurdy’s unconventional tactics stir things up amongst the transient whores and desperadoes whilst Jeremiah’s accusations incite the resident populace. Birmingham has been selling white slaves to the detestable and resurgent savages of the Red Nation and when the Indians’ chief is spotted in town, a riot leads to lynchings…

Impatient for vengeance, inexperienced, impetuous Jeremiah sneaks into Birmingham’s castle and almost ruins everything by getting caught, but Kurdy has another devious plan in mind…

When the shooting subsides the settlers are bloody but triumphant and Kurdy has been convinced – against his own best judgement and self-interest – to join Jeremiah in invading the Red Nation in search of the missing slaves…

Fast-paced, explosively engaging with wry and positively spartan writing, Talons of Blood lets beautiful pictures tell a thrilling story and is one the best homages to the wild west ever crafted. Try it and see…
The Survivors! volume one: Talons of Blood © 1982 Koralle, Hamburg.

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The Bluecoats volume 5: Rumberley


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-108-2

The myths and legends of the filmic American West have fascinated Europeans virtually since the actual days of owlhoots and gunfighters. Hergé and Moebius were passionate devotees and the wealth of stand-out Continental comics series ranges from Italy’s Tex Willer to such Franco-Belgian classics as Blueberry and tangential children’s classics such as Yakari. Even colonial dramas such as Pioneers of the New World and Milo Manara & Hugo Pratt’s Indian Summer fit the broad-brimmed bill.

As devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who has scripted every best-selling volume – Les Tuniques Bleues (or as we know them The Bluecoats) debuted at the end of the 1960s, specifically created to replace Lucky Luke when the laconic gunslinger defected from weekly anthology Spirou to rival publication Pilote.

The substitute swiftly became one of the most popular bande dessinée series in Europe.

Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour school, and when he died suddenly in 1972 his replacement, Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte slowly introduced a more realistic – but still overtly comedic – illustrative tone and manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936 and, after studying Fine Art in college, joined publishing giant Dupuis as a letterer in 1952.

Born in 1938, scripter Cauvin is also Belgian and before entering Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling – comedy writing – and began a glittering and prolific career at Spirou. In addition to Bluecoats he has written dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. The Bluecoats alone has sold more than 15 million copies of its 60 (and counting) album series.

As translated for English audiences, our sorry, long-suffering protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch; a pair of worthy fools in the manner of Laurel & Hardy: hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen posted to the wild frontier and various key points of fabled America during the War Between the States.

The original format featured single-page gags set around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but from the second volume Du Nord au Sud (North and South) the sad-sack soldiers went back East to fight in the American Civil War (a tale was rewritten as 18th album Blue rétro to describe how the chumps were drafted during the war).

Every subsequent adventure, although often ranging far beyond America and taking in a lot of thoroughly researched history, is 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 especially critical of the army and its inept commanders. Ducking, diving, even deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except sometimes he’s quite smart and heroic if no other (easier) option is available.

Chesterfield is a big burly professional fighting man; a career soldier who has passionately bought into all the patriotism and esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirks his duty and wants to be a hero. He also loves his cynical little troll of a pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers and simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in…

Rumberley was the fifth translated Cinebook album (chronologically the 15th Franco-Belgian volume) and a far darker affair than usual. After a horrific battle Union and Confederate forces are spent and exhausted, although the Blues have advanced far into the South as a result of the sustained slaughter. However, with dwindling food and little ammunition the Generals decide to fall back and re-supply with fresh troops and munitions.

The only problem is what to do with the wounded. After all, bringing them back to safety would only slow down the rearward advance…

Then one bright privileged spark has the notion of just billeting the unfit Union soldiers on the nearest – albeit enemy – town…

Amongst the dead and dying are grievously injured Chesterfield and war-crazy Captain Stark. Even Blutch is there, although his leg wound might be minor, self inflicted or possibly even utterly bogus…

Their reception by the women, children, aged and infirm of Rumberley is hostile to say the least, but the Union dregs have no place else to go and no strength left to leave anyway. Forcibly appropriating the livery stable as a field hospital, Blutch and Chesterfield aid the exhausted doctors and surgeons as best they can but the simmering tension and occasional assaults by the townsfolk indicates that there is real trouble brewing and this kettle is about to boil over very soon…

And then the townsfolk start drifting away and rumours spread that a Confederate force is approaching Rumberley. The doctors opt to move their charges out, and Blutch finds himself in the uncanny position of staying behind as rearguard when Chesterfield decides to buy them time to get away…

When it comes, the battle is a bizarre affair. The Rebs are fit but have little ammunition so the Bluecoats give a good accounting of themselves, but are almost done for when Stark unexpectedly leads a life-saving cavalry charge of the Union wounded to save them. During the insane clash the town buildings are set afire and the citizens of Rumberley rush back to save their home and possessions…

And then something strange happens: the killing stops and Blues, Greys and civilians work together to save rather than destroy…

Here is another hugely amusing anti-war saga targeting younger, less world-weary audiences. Historically authentic, and always in good taste despite an uncompromising portrayal of violence, the attitudes expressed by the down-to-earth pair never make battle anything but arrant folly and, like the hilarious yet insanely tragic war-memoirs of Spike Milligan, these are comedic tales whose very humour makes the occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting.

Funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the sort of war-story and Western which appeals to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1979 by Lambil & Cauvin. English translation © 2011 Cinebook Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Yakari and River of Forgetfulness (volume 10)


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominque, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-140-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Cartoon Perfection… 10/10

Children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded in 1964 by Swiss journalist André Jobin who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre who chose the working name “Derib”. The illustrator had begun his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs/The Smurfs), working on Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Spirou. Together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few of years later with their next collaboration.

Launched in 1969, Yakari detailed the life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains; sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores but before the coming of the modern White Man. This year has been a landmark one. The 39th album was released – a testament to the strip’s evergreen vitality and the quality of its creators – and Job announced his retirement. Further albums will be written by Joris Chamblain.

Overflowing with gentle whimsy, Yakari enjoys a largely bucolic existence; at one with nature and generally free from strife. For the sake of our delectation, however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart, compassionate, brave… and can converse with all animals…

Derib – equally at home with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of Europe’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime that such groundbreaking strips as Celui-qui-est-né-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic on AIDS ever published), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we still patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Many of Derib’s stunning works over the decades feature his beloved Western themes, magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes and Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the feature which first led him to deserved mega-stardom. Continentally released in 1989, La rivière de l’oubli was the 15th European album (and now Cinebook’s tenth translated tome): a compellingly rendered, superbly suspenseful yarn offering dazzling wonder and guaranteed enjoyment from a minimum of foreknowledge…

Whilst riding on his valiant pony Little Thunder, Yakari spots a bear cub in distress over a waterfall and rushes in to save it. The noble act ends in disaster as both are washed away in the rushing torrent. Then the little boy sustains a hard blow to the head in the foaming waters…

Some time later he washes ashore far downstream and is picked up by a distressed, confused she-bear who has lost her cub. When the battered little one in her arms calls her “momma” she makes a potentially tragic assumption and carries Yakari off to her den…

Little Thunder meanwhile has traced the river to the spot where his friend emerged. Finding nothing, the wonder pony returns to the camp and informs Yakari’s human friends Rainbow and Buffalo Seed of the accident. After all three have exhausted every avenue of search, they dejectedly call off the search.

Back in the cave the strange cub finally awakes. His head hurts and he can’t remember his name or anything really, so is understandably relieved when the bear tells him she’s his mother. Apparently, her playful, wayward Honeycomb was lost and had an accident and the Great Spirit changed his scent and appearance, but now that mother has found him again all will be well…

The next day she begins teaching him how to be a bear again, but this oddly transformed cub is just so weak and feeble. Conversely, he begins to wonder if there has been some kind of terrible mistake…

As his friends continue their hunt for him, “Honeycomb” greets another new day with growing anxiety. He’s failing every simple task mother sets him, and all too soon her patience is exhausted. Everything changes when she gives the cub a light cuff that sends him flying across a clearing. When his head stops spinning, Yakari instantly realises what’s happening and is soon consoling a heartbroken mother who now realises her son is gone.

Yakari is not so sure though, and whilst searching near the river stumbles upon Rainbow and Buffalo Seed riding Little Thunder. Joyously reunited, they renew their efforts to bring Momma bear and Honeycomb back together…

Whilst maintaining gripping tension, Job’s joyously inventive tale is a stripped down marvel of restraint, allowing Derib’s beguiling artwork and boisterous pacing to carry the tale to its inevitable happy ending: another visually stunning, seductively smart and happily heart-warming saga to delight young and old alike.

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly entertaining all-ages strip every conceived and deserves to be in every home, right beside Tintin and Asterix.
Original edition © Le Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard S. A.) 1989 Derib + Job. English translation 2012 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Lucky Luke volume 9: The Stage Coach


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-40-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Classic Seasonal Adventure… 9/10

One could quite convincingly argue that the USA’s greatest cultural export has been the Western. Everybody everywhere thinks they know what Cowboys and Indians are and do, but the genre has migrated and informed every aspect or art and literature all over the planet. Comics particularly have benefited from the form, with Europe continuing to produce magnificent works even in these latter years when sagebrush sagas are less dominant in America than they have been for decades.

This side of the pond, westerns were a key component in every nook and cranny of popular fiction from the earliest days. Newspapers were packed with astoundingly high quality strips ranging from straight dramas such as Gun Law and Matt Marriott to uniquely British takes like Bud Neill’s outrageous spoof Lobey Dosser, whilst our weekly anthology kids comics abounded with the episodic exploits of Texas Jack, Desperate Dan, Colorado Kid, Davy Crockett, Kid Dynamite and more.

As previously mentioned, Europe especially embraced the medium and expanded the boundaries of the genre. In Italy Tex (Willer) remains as vital as ever as it approaches its 70th anniversary, far outdistancing later revered and much-exported series such as Captain Miki, Il Grande Blek, Cocco Bill,  Zagor, Larry Yuma, Ken Parker, Magico Vento and Djustine.

The Franco-Belgian wing also has a long tradition and true immortals amongst its ponderosa Pantheon: from all ages-comedic treats such as Yakari, OumPah-Pah, Chick Bill or The Bluecoats to monolithic and monumental mature-reader sagas like Jerry Spring, Comanche, Sergeant Kirk, La Grande Saga Indienne, Buddy Longway or the now-legendary Blueberry…

Topping them all in terms of sales and fame however is a certain laconic lone rider…

Lucky Luke is seventy years old this year: a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast quick-draw cowboy who roams a fabulously mythical Old West on his super-smart horse Jolly Jumper, having light-hearted adventures and interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures of the genre.

He’s probably the most popular Western star in the world today. His unbroken string of laugh-loaded exploits has made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (83 albums selling well in excess of 300 million copies in 30 languages at the last count), with spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and even a passel of TV shows and live-action movies.

As alluded to above he was dreamed up in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) for that year’s Seasonal Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou, before launching into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946 in the famed weekly comic.

Prior to that, Morris had become acquainted with future comics super-stars Franquin and Peyo while working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio and by contributing caricatures to weekly magazine Le Moustique. He quickly became one of “la Bande des quatre” (The Gang of Four) comprising creators Jijé, Will and Franquin: all leading proponents of the loose, free-wheeling art-style dubbed the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in rival magazine Tintin.

In 1948 the Gang (all but Will) visited the USA, meeting American creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, encountering fellow Franco-tourist René Goscinny and scoring some work from newly-formed EC sensation Mad whilst making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West.

That research resonates on every page of his life’s work.

A solo act until 1955, Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate parody before formally teaming up with Goscinny, who became the cool cowboy’s regular wordsmith. Luke rapidly attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began serialisation in Spirou with the August 25th 1955 edition.

In 1967 the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with ‘La Diligence’ (The Stagecoach). Goscinny & Morris produced 45 albums together before the author’s death in 1977, after which Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris passed away in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus launching the spin-off comics careers of Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin). The immortal franchise was left to fresh hands, beginning with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac who have carried on the undying tradition.

Curiously, apart from the initial adventure, Lucky (to appropriate a quote applied to the thematically simpatico Alias Smith and Jones) “in all that time… never shot or killed anyone”. He did however smoke prodigiously, like all the cool cowboys and – if the stereotype still applies – most Frenchmen…

Lucky Luke was first seen in Britain syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun, then reappeared in 1967 in Giggle, renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums from Brockhampton and Knight Books – Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip, but in 1983, Morris – no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” – substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

Unquestionably, the most successful attempt at bringing Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves is the most recent. Cinebook – who have rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages, if not the covers – have translated 60 albums thus far with the 61st scheduled for a December release.

The Wagon Train was their ninth – still readily available both on paper and as an e-book – and first published on the Continent in 1964 as Lucky Luke – La Caravane: the 24th European release and Goscinny’s fifteenth collaboration with Morris. It’s also one of their most traditional tales; playing joyously with the tropes and memes of the genre and clearly having as much fun as the future readers were going to…

In begins in dusty Nothing Gulch as a bedraggled procession of “Prairie Schooners” limp into town. Expedition head Andrew Boston is arguing with unscrupulous guide Frank Malone who is demanding even more money before completing his commission to bring the hopeful settlers to California. When heated words are replaced with gunplay, a dusty observer ends the fracas before blood is shed…

Boston has heard a lot about Lucky Luke and promptly starts a multi-pronged charm offensive to get the Sagebrush Stalwart to take over guiding the party to the fabled Golden State. Our hero is flattered but not interested, until Boston wheels out his big guns and has the kids ask in their own unique ways…

Despite being prepared to use children to emotionally twist the cowboy’s arm, the twenty or so wagon-loads of pioneers are an affable if odd bunch from all over the world and soon Luke is leading them across prairies and through deserts and mountains.

However as the days pass an exceedingly large number of accidents and mishaps occur and before long it cannot be denied that somebody is clearly attempting to sabotage the expedition…

As close calls and near-death escapes mount Lucky splits his attention between blazing a trail and playing detective but the list of suspects is just so large. Anybody from the undertaker in his hearse to the inventor in his constantly evolving horseless converter-car (there’s more than a passing similarity to TV’s Whacky Races here!); the suspiciously French Barber/Surgeon, creatively foul-mouthed mule driver or even the no-nonsense School Marm could be the culprit. But then again there are so many others who act out of the ordinary…

Nevertheless, the voyage proceeds and as the would-be homesteaders survive the temptations of bad towns and other dens of vice and iniquity, bad food, and inclement weather a sense of community builds. Sadly that’s soon tested to the limit when word comes of that Sioux Chief Rabid Dog is on the warpath…

Despite all these traditional trials and tribulations Luke persists and before long the Promised Land is reached and a vile villain is finally exposed…

Cleverly barbed, wickedly ironic and joyously packed with classic cowboy set-pieces, this splendidly slapstick spoof of a crucial strand of the genre is another grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Support Your Local Sheriff (maybe Paint Your Wagon, Evil Roy Slade or Cat Ballou are more your style?), superbly executed by master storytellers for any kids who might have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never was…

And in case you’re worried, even though the interior art still has our hero chawin’ on that ol’ nicotine stick, trust me, there’s very little chance of anyone craving a quick snout, but quite a strong probability that they’ll be addicted to Lucky Luke Albums…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2007 Cinebook.

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Yakari and the Coyote


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominque, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-101-3

Children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded in 1964 by Swiss journalist André Jobin who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre who chose the working name “Derib”. The illustrator had begun his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs), working on Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Spirou. Together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few of years later with their next collaboration.

Launched in 1969, Yakari detailed the life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains; sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores and before the coming of the modern White Man. This year the 39th album was released: a testament to the strip’s evergreen vitality and the quality of its creators.

Overflowing with gentle whimsy, Yakari enjoys a largely bucolic existence; at one with nature and generally free from strife. For the sake of our delectation, however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart, compassionate, brave… and can converse with all animals…

Derib – equally at home with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime that such groundbreaking strips as Celui-qui-est-né-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic on AIDS ever published), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we still patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Many of Derib’s stunning works over the decades feature his beloved Western themes, magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes and Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the feature which first led him to deserved mega-stardom. Originally released in 1986, Yakari et le coyote was the twelfth European album (and Cinebook’s ninth translated tome), but – as always – is both stunningly simple and effectively timeless; offering certain enjoyment from a minimum of foreknowledge…

One bright sunny day, the boy brave is playing by the river, when his trusty chums the beavers bring him a present. They have found a dilapidated birch-bark canoe and hope Yakari can repair it so they can have some real fun…

Next morning finds the lad and his human friends Rainbow and Buffalo Seed hard at work. Before long the vessel is seaworthy again and the trio are ready for their maiden voyage. As befits a proper hunter, Buffalo Seed insists on bringing his bow and arrows with him…

The current soon catches them and the kids get a huge thrill shooting roaring rapids with no more than a few bumps and a thorough soaking. They continue on in exhilarated contentment, but no one notices that the bellicose little hunter’s moccasins have vanished…

Feeling hungry, they paddle ashore far downstream and begin gathering food, where Rainbow’s search ends in a happy surprise as her foraging uncovers three coyote cubs playing tug-of-war with Buffalo Seed’s shoes. She then endures a far scarier shock when she runs into the cubs’ snarling mother…

Fleeing in terror Rainbow calls for Yakari to explain, but the pups’ magnificent father has already interceded and calmed down his over-protective mate. Admitting to swiping the footwear, the crafty one then invites the children back to meet the family and his great friend and fellow trickster crow…

After a wonderful afternoon of play the children head back to the canoe and Coyote goes hunting, but the humans now have a new problem: Buffalo Seed is missing…

In the morning Rainbow and Yakari are awoken by Coyote, who has news. Their cocky companion tried to hunt a cougar and now the bad-tempered, unreasonable, hungry beast has the human boy trapped in a cave. The foolish hunter had made the great mistake of getting too close to the big cat’s cubs…

Normally, Coyote would handle things, but cougars are their greatest rivals, and this situation needs careful handling…

Leaving Rainbow to watch mother coyote teaching her babies useful survival tricks, Yakari, Crow and Coyote – only stopping infrequently to play a few harmless jests on other animals – pick their way up a rocky cliff face where an extremely irate cat patiently waits for his elected prey to come out of the hole he’s barricaded himself in…

Back at the Sioux encampment, Yakari’s faithful steed Little Thunder had grown concerned. With the children gone for days, the pony broke out of the corral and started tracking them down. Now in the woods below far below, the wonder steed finds Rainbow and the coyote family. However Yakari and the wily papa are elsewhere, facing a rather dangerous impasse…

The irate cougar will not be reasoned with and is determined to kill Buffalo Seed. Thus, unable to overpower the brute, the new companions have devised a risky plan that should draw him away from the cave entrance long enough for the boy to get out. Sadly, even with Coyote and crow distracting the already-angry cat, the real problem will be getting away from the fast-moving hunter, once he notices he’s been fooled…

And then Yakari hears the drumming of hoofbeats…

Superbly suspenseful, joyously inventive and offering a hilarious twist to counter the tension, this is another visually stunning, seductively smart and happily heart-warming saga to delight young and old alike.

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly entertaining all-ages strip every conceived and deserves to be in every home, right beside Tintin and Asterix.
Original edition © Le Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard S. A.) 2000 Derib + Job. English translation 2011 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Small Press Sundays

Like so many others I started out in the business making minicomics, collaborating on fanzines and concocting stripzines with fellow weirdoes, outcasts and addicts. Even today, seeing the raw stuff of creativity in hand-crafted paper pamphlets – or better yet professionally printed packages which put dreamers’ money where their mouths are – still gets me going in ways which endanger my tired old heart…

With that in mind here are two more superb offerings from one of my favourite independent publishers of the moment…

Wolf Country #5

By Jim Alexander, Will Pickering, Jim Campbell & Liz Howarth (Planet Jimbot)

Go read this review then come back here.

As well as stunning graphic novels, anthologies and one-shots, independent publisher Planet Jimbot (likely lads Jim Alexander & Jim Campbell) also produce proper periodical comicbooks, and damned good ones. Vying for the accolade of their very best of the moment (neck and neck with GoodCopBadCop, depending on which one I’m actually holding) is their eerie otherworld socio-political saga blending the most evocative and captivating genre tropes of Westerns with supernatural horror stories: Wolf Country.

Complementing the recent release of the first WC trade paperback collection, this latest instalment in the expanding saga returns us to The Settlement where a dwindling congregation of devout vampires prove their faith daily by eking out a peril-fraught existence in the midst of their unnatural, pagan enemies; assorted tribes of bestial werewolves.

The ferocious, uncontrollable Lycanthropes infest the badlands surrounding the enclave as well as the distant city-state carved out by their forward-looking, progressive vampire brethren who are increasing, leaving the faith in favour of temporal comfort and scientific progress. Sides are being drawn in an inevitable clash of belief systems…

The Settlement has just survived the latest full-moon assault by another pack, this time employing a giant monster wolf. They only survived because of the intervention of heavily-armed Kingdom troops who have imposed their own draconian style of martial law. In the days following, brutal Sergeant Urquhart has tortured settler-scout Carmichael, convinced he knows where the missing boy celebrity Luke – famed in the city as the prophesied “Boy Who Killed Wolf” as gone…

Temporary leader Natasha is in turmoil. Her husband Halfpenny would not stand for these atrocities, but he has been spirited away to the Kingdom on some mystery mission for The High Executor…

Her tensions only increase after she contacts Luke through dreams and discovers he has discarded all notions of his foretold destiny and made a life for himself amongst the wolves, humans and lycanthropes in the vast unknown wilds…

Halfpenny would be unable to help even if he knew. His time in civilisation has found him used as a Judas Goat to get close to radical, rebel vampires in a no-go zone dubbed Free State. The attempt led to death, a carefully instigated riot and even greater submersion in the fetid swamp of City politics, but also a tantalising glimpse at a true sacrament of faith and mystery that he must pursue…

Back at the Settlement, Natasha does the only thing she can to spare Carmichael’s agonies and offers to lead Urquhart to where the fugitive Luke and his new family enjoy a life of wild freedom…

To Be Continued…

After a thoroughly beguiling and meticulous stage setting and plot seeding process, Wolf Country is gearing up to a fantastic second act that promises drama, action, suspense and even more mystery. Don’t wait for the next book compilation, climb aboard the feral express right now…
Story © 2016 Jim Alexander (story) & Will Pickering (art).
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/266647799/wolf-country5

The Samurai

By Jim Alexander, Luke Cooper, Jim Campbell & Ed Murphy (Planet Jimbot)

Clearly men of broad and wide-ranging tastes in term of comics adventure, Jim Alexander and regular collaborator Luke Cooper have turned their creative juices loose on the venerable sub-genre of itinerant Bushido warriors with this deceptively enthralling one-shot.

A nameless, weary swordsman, The Samurai is first seen returning home after faithful service in the wars against Mongol invaders. Tragically, a longed-for reunion with his family is forever forestalled when he finds their dismembered corpses in his burned-out village. Implacably he begins stalking the vile bandits who killed them…

However, in his righteous rage he underestimates his foes and is nearly despatched to join his loved ones until fate monstrously intervenes…

A broken, brooding nomad, his hunt for the remaining marauders takes him to a wooded region and another ravaged house in a ‘Burning Forest Clearing’. His decision to search the dwelling for survivors is a grave mistake as he is ambushed by diabolical cannibals and left for dead, but when a little girl comes to his aid he finally finds the strength to overcome.

Good thing too, as the flesh eaters have returned for their next meal…

An iconic blend of exotic action and philosophy liberally dosed with classic supernatural elements and overtones, this is a no-nonsense romp to delight the senses and fire the hearts of all lovers of ancient oriental excitement.
© 2016 Jim Alexander (story) & Luke Cooper (art)
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/273712752/the-samurai

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Wolf Country volume One


Jim Alexander, Luke Cooper, Will Pickering & various (Planet Jimbot)
No ISBN:

Jim Alexander has been around and done a lot. His other comic stories have been published by Marvel, DC, 2000AD and so many more bastions of graphic narrative success and distinction. He writes with sharp sophistication, an inherent understanding that comics are primarily pictorial and the certain knowledge that the majority of his audience are not morons.

His scripts always have a great sensitivity to place and a strong sense of directed motion, with sparse, spartan self-control that lets his smartly seditious ideas percolate. (Despite what the much-missed Alan Rickman may have said, “Subtlety is everything”).

With a few good men and women he is quietly creating a little wave of interest through the business through self-publishing enterprise Planet Jimbot (officially with work-partner Jim Campbell, and a number of splendidly effective artists): generating addictive, well-considered tweaks on established genre models such as superhero yarns, police procedurals (GoodCopBadCop), Samurai revenge sagas and a captivating distillation of westerns, horror movies and dystopian sci fi entitled Wolf Country.

As rumours percolate of a screen option for this last series, the first four issues and two vignettes from anthology Amongst the Stars have been enticingly reconfigured into a stunning graphic novel collection, perfect for introducing a larger audience to the otherworld religio-political saga with seductive echoes of Unforgiven, The Searchers and the Underworld franchise (although thankfully devoid of the silly fang-&-claw fights and skin-tight leather bodysuits…)

Somewhere far from here and now a land exists where blood-drinkers have built a nation. In The Kingdom, however, the people are moving from a religion-based culture to a modern meritocracy where science increasingly dominates: run by a progress-minded government and bureaucracy methodically ditching the old ways in favour of a soulless, ruthless, rationalist super-state whilst offering pious lip-service to dissenters and bribing the citizenry with a gory menu of bread and circuses…

Their brave new world is surrounded by ancestral enemies: humans who transform into beasts when the moon is full, whose toxic vital fluids mean instant death to the faithful and apostates alike.

The beasts control the wild lands beyond the city-state, but an uncompromising sect of devout vampires, adhering to the tenets of their faith, inhabit a fort in the desolate badlands, challenging the monsters and hostiles of Wolf Country. By the Grace of God – and largesse of the Kingdom – the fundamentalists struggle daily for survival in their frontier outpost following the doctrines of Holy Scriptures and confronting their eternal enemies in the traditional ways.

The drama opens as Alexander and illustrator Luke Cooper take us into the dreams and nightmares of the leader of that isolated, endangered enclave. From their beds Halfpenny and his wife Natasha foresee the next attack on their embattled fort and know that without the supplies grudgingly air-dropped to them by the increasingly hard-line secular government they cannot survive.

When the moon-maddened assault comes, the Faithful fight valiantly but are almost overwhelmed by the time crates of fresh plasma and silver bullets blossom in the night skies…

The scene switches to the city three years earlier, where a young man finds himself the unwilling star of a long-awaited, prophesied future. The destiny stalking ‘Luke’ catches him when a gigantic wolf-thing goes rogue in the metropolis yet is somehow miraculously destroyed by the inconsequential waif.

Now, the celebrated “Boy Who Killed Wolf” has freshly relocated to The Settlement. Following a close encounter with the hirsute savages, young Luke explains what actually happened that night to his companion, mentor and chief scout Carmichael…

His impossible feat made Luke a sensation and a symbol of prophecy proved; but the adulation and agendas of others disgusted him and upon reaching his majority and -despite being an unbeliever – he fled to The Settlement to live his own life and find his own answers. When disaster strikes Luke goes native, remaining alone in the wilderness after he and Carmichael narrowly escape a wolf attack…

Will Pickering takes over the illustration for ‘Kingdom Come’ as Halfpenny reluctantly transports a captured werewolf back to the decadent, science-loving Kingdom. It’s not his idea. As the helicopter ferries the sacrificial beast for the populace’s next bloodletting spectacle, Halfpenny is ordered to go with it whilst a squad of arrogant, impious, heavily-armed troops billet themselves in his spartan home.

The High Executor wants to interview the leader of the quaint religious freaks since there has been fallout over The Settlement’s loss of the legendary, beloved “Boy Who Killed Wolf”…

Later, whilst atheist Sergeant Urquhart attempts to intimidate and dominate the Settlers, in faraway City Chambers Halfpenny learns the real reason he has been summoned…

‘Wax and Wane’ then sees Urquhart forcing the deluded religious throwbacks in joining his sortie against the lupine tribes just as the moon enters its most dangerous phase.

Meanwhile in the Kingdom, Halfpenny is dragooned into being a stalking horse for the draconian Department of Purity, interviewing radical spokesman Fabian in his bloodily bohemian stronghold of wrong-thinkers and backwards-lookers…

Back in the Badlands, natural enemies Carmichael and Urquhart warily test each other out and quite forget who their real enemies are, whilst a universe away Halfpenny’s interview with Fabian goes disastrously awry. The rebel has honeyed words and access to sacred writings which shake the devout outsider to his core, but before he can properly form a response the Executor’s troops move in and the slaughter begins…

At the Settlement, with the soldiers and able-bodied men still deep in-country, the massed wolf tribes attack the fort with an incredible monster…

The brooding tension explodes into horrifying action as the stockade walls are breached before the ‘Cavalry’ arrive, whilst in the Kingdom a full-blown riot ensues, forcing Halfpenny to reveal the uncanny abilities which underpin his ferocious reverence to Scripture…

And in the bloody aftermath at the fort, an unchecked, out-of-control Urquhart turns his sadistic attention on the settlers – and particularly Carmichael – in his quest for the truth about Luke’s whereabouts and in pursuit of the other hidden directives he’s been given by his scheming rationalist masters…

To Be Continued…

Complex, multi-layered and instantly engaging, Wolf Country takes a chilling proposition and dares the reader to pick sides in a burgeoning conflict between Church and State, science and mysticism, the sacred and the profane and every station in between. Moreover, despite the death, deviancy and destruction on show there is clear evidence that there is something deeper going on, so jump aboard and stick around: the best is certainly yet to come…
© 2016 Jim Alexander (story), Luke Cooper (art © Wolf Country intro, #1) Will Pickering (art #2-4).

Wolf Country volume One is available direct from the Planet Jimbot shop so go to:Wolf Country TPB volume 1

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Lucky Luke Volume 8 Calamity Jane


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Pablo Vela (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-25-0

Lucky Luke is seventy years old this year: a rangy, good-natured, lightning-fast quick-draw cowboy who roams the fabulously mythic Old West on his super-smart and stingingly sarcastic horse Jolly Jumper, having light-hearted adventures and interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures of the genre.

He’s probably the most popular Western star in the world today. His unbroken string of laugh-loaded exploits has made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (82 albums selling in excess of 300 million copies in 30 languages at the last count), with spin-off toys, computer games, assorted merchandise, animated cartoons and even a passel of TV shows and live-action movies.

He was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (“Morris”) for L’Almanach Spirou 1947 of Le Journal de Spirou (the Christmas Annual), before springing into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7th 1946.

Prior to that, Morris had met future comics super-stars Franquin and Peyo while working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio and contributing caricatures to weekly magazine Le Moustique. He quickly became one of “la Bande des quatre” (Gang of Four) comprising creators Jijé, Will and Franquin: all leading proponents of the loose, free-wheeling art-style dubbed the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP Jacobs and other artists in rival magazine Tintin.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, meeting fellow tourist René Goscinny, scoring some work from newly-formed EC sensation Mad whilst making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West.

That research resonates on every page of his life’s work.

A solo act until 1955, Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate parody before formally partnering with Goscinny, who became his regular wordsmith. Lucky Luke rapidly attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began serialisation in Spirou with the August 25th of 1955. In 1967 the six-gun straight-shooter changed horses in midstream, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with ‘La Diligence’ (The Stagecoach).

Goscinny & Morris produced 45 albums together before the author’s death in 1977, after which Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators. Morris passed away in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus beginning spin-off adventures for Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin).

The immortal franchise was left to fresh hands, beginning with Achdé, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac who have produced another ten tales to date.

Curiously, apart from the initial adventure, Lucky (to appropriate a quote applied to the thematically simpatico Alias Smith and Jones) “in all that time… never shot or killed anyone”. He did however smoke, like all the cool cowboys did…

Lucky Luke was first seen in Britain syndicated to weekly comic anthology Film Fun, then reappeared in 1967 in Giggle, renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums from Brockhampton and Knight Books – Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip, but in 1983 Morris, no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad”, substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

Unquestionably, the most successful attempt at bringing Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves is the current incarnation. Cinebook (who have rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages, if not the covers…) have translated 58 albums thus far. Calamity Jane was their eighth, still readily available both on paper and as an e-book edition.

It was first published Continentally in 1967: the 30th European offering and Goscinny’s twenty-first collaboration with Morris. It’s also one of the team’s better tales, blending historical personages with the wandering hero’s action-comedy exploits and as such it’s a slice of Horrible Histories-tinged Americana you can’t afford to miss.

It all begins with our hero taking a welcome bath in a quiet river, only to be ambushed by a band of Apaches spoiling for a fight. Their murderous plans are ruined by a bombastic lone rider who explosively drives off the raiders in a hail of gunfire before stopping to laugh at the embarrassed Luke. His cool, confidant rescuer is tough, bellicose, foul-mouthed, tobacco-chewing and infamous: although born Martha Jane Cannery most folk just call her Calamity Jane…

She’s becomes more amenable after learning who Luke is and over coffee and a scratch meal, mutual respect develops into real friendship. Recounting her (remarkably well-researched) history she learns in return why Luke is in the region: someone has been supplying the Indians with guns just like the ones that almost killed him earlier…

Keen to help, Calamity joins Lucky and they ride into frontier town El Plomo and another little crisis. The saloon prefers not to serve ladies… until Jane convinces them to change the policy in her own unique manner.

The glitzy dive is owned and operated by unctuous, sleazily sinister August Oyster who instantly suspects that legendary lawman Luke is there because of his own underhand, under-the-counter activities…

As the cowboy heads off to check in with the sheriff, Calamity gets into games of chance and skill with the sleazy Oyster and his hulking henchman Baby Sam, swiftly causing an upset by winning his hotel and saloon. Happily, Lucky is back on the scene by the time the grudging grouse has to officially hand over his money-making venture.

Flushed with success, the new proprietor starts making changes and no man cares to object to the Calamity Jane Saloon and Tearoom (Reserved for Ladies). They’ll happily buy her beer and whiskey too, but not even at gunpoint will they eat her crumpets…

Oyster and Baby Sam are frantic, however: the saloon was crucial to their side business selling guns to renegade Apaches and they have to get it back before increasingly impatient Chief Gomino takes matters into his own bloodstained hands…

Still hunting for the gunrunners and pretty certain who’s behind the scheme, Luke is constantly distracted by the petty acts of sabotage and even arson plaguing Calamity, but even as he finds his first piece of concrete proof, Oyster instigates his greatest distraction yet: organising the haughtily strait-laced Ladies Guild of El Plomo to close down the insalubrious saloon and run its new owner out of town…

Never daunted, Luke calms his tack-spitting pal down and deftly counterattacks by sending for an etiquette teacher to polish rough diamond Jane enough to be accepted by the ferocious and militant guildswomen. It is the greatest challenge urbane and effete Professor Robert Gainsborough (an outrageously slick caricature of British superstar actor David Niven) has undertaken and his eventual (partial) success leaves him a changed and broken man…

Stymied at every turn, the panicking August Oyster is soon caught red-handed by the vigilant vigilante, but it is too late. Frustrated and impatient, Gomino has decided to raid the town in broad daylight and seize his long-promised guns and ammo from their hiding place.

The terrifying marauders however have not reckoned on the steely fighting prowess of Lucky Luke and the devil woman they superstitiously call “Bang! Bang!”…

Cleverly barbed, wickedly witty and spectacularly playing with the key tropes of classic sagebrush sagas, this raucous romp is another grand escapade in the comedic tradition of Destry Rides Again and Support Your Local Sheriff, superbly executed by master storytellers as a wonderful introduction to a venerable genre for today’s kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never was…

Also included here is a photo pin-up of the actual Martha Jane Cannery in her gun-toting prime and, in case you’re worried, even though the interior art still has our hero drawin’ on that ol’ nicotine stick, trust me, there’s very little chance of any reader craving a quick snout (or crumpets wild west style), but quite a strong likelihood that they’ll be addicted to Lucky Luke albums…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics.

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Yakari and the White Fleece


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominique, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-055-9

In 1964 Swiss journalist André Jobin founded a new children’s magazine entitled Le Crapaud à lunettes. He then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre who opted for the pen-name “Derib”. His own career began when he joined Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs), as an assistant working on Smurfs strips for the weekly Spirou. Together, Jobin and de Ribaupierre crafted the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a couple of years later with their next collaboration.

Launching in 1969, Yakari detailed the life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains; sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores and before the coming of the modern White Man.

Overflowing with gentle whimsy and wholesome suspense, the beguiling strip explores a captivating, bucolic existence at one with nature and generally free from strife. For the sake of our entertainment however the seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis and generally resolved without fame or fanfare by a little Sioux lad who is smart, compassionate, brave… and able to converse with all animals…

Derib – equally excellent in both enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and with devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators.

It’s a crime that such groundbreaking strips as Celui-qui-est-né-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic on AIDS ever published), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we remain in a state of hopeful anticipation…

Many of his most impressive works over the decades have featured his beloved Western themes, magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes, and Yakari is considered by most fans and critics to be the feature which catapulted him to deserved mega-stardom.

Originally released in 1984, Yakari et la toison blanche was the eleventh European album and Cinebook’s lucky 13th, but chronology and continuity addicts won’t suffer unless they are of a superstitious turn of mind since this tale is both stunningly simple and effectively timeless; offering certain enjoyment from a minimum of foreknowledge…

The tribe are nomadic; perpetually moving with the seasons and this tale opens as they make camp at the base of a mighty mountain range. Two warriors leave to round up wild mustangs but as they scale the lower ranges, over-eager Bold Crow ignores an omen and is attacked by a golden eagle. The diving raptor knocks him from his pony and, while he lies stunned, snatches away his medicine pouch and personal talisman.

Playfully scaling the rocks nearby, Yakari, Rainbow and blustering Buffalo Seed see Watchful Snake bringing comatose Bold Crow back and rush to see what has happened…

Even medicine man He Who Knows cannot wake the fallen hunter, and Yakari is worried that somehow his own totem Great Eagle has caused the tragedy. Determined to intercede on the fallen warrior’s behalf and recover the stolen pouch, Yakari sets off to climb the mountain on his wondrous pony Little Thunder.

Eventually, though, even the wonder horse can no longer keep his footing and after conferring with a helpful elk and a timid clan of marmots the little lad heads on alone, always aiming for the highest peak where the eagles live…

Nearing the top Yakari spots the giant bird of prey and with some relief realises it is not his adored Great Eagle who has caused the injury to Bold Crow’s spirit. Before he can decide what to do next however, the bold boy is distracted by strange sounds and sees a herd of mountain sheep playfully butting heads.

From his vantage point the weary boy can see his people far below and for miles around. It’s the only thing that saves him as the weather suddenly changes and an ice storm hits. Unable to climb down in the tempest, he heads for a cave higher up the rock face and frantically scrabbles in. With snow pounding down he crawls as far as he can through the darkness and falls asleep in the withering cold…

He awakes alive, surprised and gloriously warm, to find himself at the centre of a huge heap of smiling, fleecy mountain goats. Over breakfast he tells the welcoming family of his quest. They too have reason to be wary of the great raptor, as it has been know to menace newborn kids and generous Broken Horn offers to guide him as close as she can…

Sadly even carrying Yakari, they cannot get close enough to the inaccessible eagle’s eyrie and have to retreat. Rather than admit defeat however, the lad has a plan, but it all rests upon his ability to weave and braid the fleeces shed by his new friends into a certain form…

Now all that remains is to regain the summit, brave the hunter’s lair and survive the inevitable counterattack, but at least thanks to a last-minute arrival, the goats are not his only allies in the deadly heights…

Always visually spectacular, seductively smart and happily heart-warming, Job’s beguiling script again affords Derib a splendid opportunity to go absolutely wild with the illustrations; creating a dizzying, breathtaking scenario which only makes his eventual victory even more unlikely until it actually happens…

The exploits of the valiant voyager who speaks with beasts and enjoys a unique place in an exotic world is a decades-long celebration of joyously gentle, marvellously moving adventure, honouring and eulogising an iconic culture with grace, wit, wonder and especially humour.

These seductive sagas are true landmarks of comics and Yakari is a strip no parent or fan of graphic entertainment should ignore.
Original edition © Le Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard S.A.) 2000, by Derib + Job. English translation 2010 © Cinebook Ltd.