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A Love for the Ages


By Florence Cestac & Daniel Pennac translated by Edward Gauvin (Europe Comics )
No ISBN: 978-1-910395-63-9 (digital edition)

A writer and an artist go into a restaurant. They make comics for a living, but tonight the talk is of love. Before long, the entire place is involved in the conversation. No, not conversation, Story. Any relationship that has, is or may develop is irrelevant here. The writer is talking about years ago when an impressionable waif encountered and observed the most incredible romance and was forever after beguiled…

Now it’s time to immortalise the affair through words and pictures, and like that keenly observed life of domestic paradise, it must be perfect…

Memories flow, snippets are recalled and a story within a story unfolds and gels. Years back, before the Riviera reinvented itself as a haunt of international snobs and wastrels, inland from Nice in rural La-colle-sur-loup, old folks congregated in picturesque village enclaves and  grandparents got stuck with the youngsters in summer.

Bored and watchful, our kid and his local pals’ best chance of amusement was watching Jean and Germaine Bozignac: she, a delightfully feisty and affably bubbly sharing soul, and he, a hideously ugly yet startlingly charismatic and charming rogue. By all lights, Jean should have been a blight on the community: a cheating cardsharp who never worked after being cut off and disowned from his aristocratic wine-growing family. Yet somehow, the disgraced Marquis was adored by most and accepted by all.

Jean and Germaine were inseparable and lived by, with and through books, and on the day the little the writer-to-be learned that the cashiered lord’s reduced circumstances stemmed solely from his refusing to give up house servant Germaine, the passionate child’s future was set. This was what Love Should and Must be…

Expansive yet grounded, witty, compelling and outrageously funny in all the right ways, A Love for the Ages is the kind of tale our continental cousins excel at: light, fluffy, hilarious yet packed with heartbreaking moments and lined with hidden steel to hit hard when you least expect it.

Only available in English digitally at present, this is what it means to be in love all your life – and trust me I know whereof I speak: my good lady wife has put up with me for nearly 33 years and all I’ve ever had are flesh wounds, contusions and minor bouts of food poisoning. If that’s not proof of a love divine, then what is?
© 2015 DARGAUD – Cestac & Pennac. All rights reserved

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Gothic Tales of Haunted Futures


By Trina Robbins, Anne Timmons & Scott A. Ford; Letty Wilson; Luz Bianca & Kaylee Rowena; Mikaela Lucido & Jade Zhang; Leizl Buenaventura & Saida Temofonte; Cameron Lucente; Jamie Isfeld; Cait Zellers; Sztehlo; Leonie O’Moore & Skylar Partridge; Arlo Everett, B. Sparks & Paul Coy; Allison Pang & Irma ‘Aimo’ Ahmed; Matt McGrath & V. Gagnon; Joyce Chau; Skylar Kardon; Merissa Mayhew & Lyndon Radchenka: edited by S.M. Beiko (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-989754-03-0 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-989754-04-7 (digital)

Sometimes, it’s all about enthusiasm and the urge to create and collaborate. Here, I suspect someone said “there’s not enough romance comics” and someone else said “I like scary stories” and another person chipped in “what about science fiction?” and the next thing you know, there’s an entire anthology of spooky, futuristic love stories all mashed-up for discerning comics tastes, just waiting to be kick-starter-ed…

The result is utterly wonderful…

Following an inspirational Foreword by editor S.M. Beiko, we take off for the future with veteran cartoonist Trina Robbins in collaboration with Anne Timmons, Scott A. Ford & Lyndon Radchenka, who reveal a patient devotion that outlasts the grave on the ‘Ghost Planet’, after which a moody illustration from Mika segues into Letty Wilson’s ‘Glasshouse’, which finds an unexpected bountiful blessing from a passing stranger delivered to a strange community in dire need of renewal…

Luz Bianca & Kaylee Rowena recount a fateful chance encounter ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’, before Mikaela Lucido & Jade Zhang update the old chestnut of party kids and dangerous dares in ‘Bloody Mary and the Smart Mirror’, after which Leizl Buenaventura & Saida Temofonte detail how a doomed astronaut finds a spectral reason to live after a visitor helps him go ‘Home’..

‘Under the Bed’ depicts a grim battle between life and death by Cameron Lucente, and following a moody spot illo from Katie Fleming, an unexpected down side to social media relationships is highlighted by Jamie Isfeld’s ‘@LissaTruLuv’…

Alaire Racocot’s monochromatic night illustration leads to Cait Zeller’s colourful tale of ‘The Lichtenberg Lady’ lighting up the lonely nights of a solitary lightning strike survivor, after which a lonely soul rediscovers past passion through musical recordings in ‘Ghosting’ (by Sztehlo) whilst – following a chaotic clinch courtesy of Kielamel Sibal – Leonie O’Moore, Skylar Partridge & Lyndon Radchenka find love for an ancient creature at the bottom of the sea in ‘Sunken Scream’…

A hard science veneer burnishes quasi-spiritual romp ‘Slow Orbit’ by Arlo Everett, B. Sparks & Paul Coy, as an aging computer exorcist looks for an exit strategy that will keep her breathing in deep space and finds love is the answer, before more potent pictorial moments of madness – by Caeles and Seren Krakens – convey us to ‘A Certain Tea House’ where Allison Pang & Irma ‘Aimo’ Ahmed reveal the regrets, ruminations and revenge of an aged spaceport courtesan who repays an old debt with her last breaths…

Matt McGrath, V. Gagnon & Lyndon Radchenka then detail the First Contact repercussions of ancient civilisation ‘The Crowned Ones’ as they impinge on the life of a lost human explorer, after which Joyce Chau reveals how a certain ‘Gap’is closed when a space scavenger awakens a long-depowered and rather clingy automaton, and Skylar Kardon & Lyndon Radchenka’s ‘New Blood’ details how even in Tomorrow’s City of Lights, the erotic allure of a vampire is more than some mortals can withstand…

Merissa Mayhew ends the emotional narratives with a story of hope sustained and finally fulfilled in ‘Until One Day’ as frustrated Josephine endures constant death and rebirth to finally be with the woman of her dreams…

Topped off with a brace of (possibly cover?) illustrations from Nicholai Avigdor Melamed and Cameron Lucente; full ‘Creators’ biographies, and list of ‘Backers’ who contributed to this book’s publication, Gothic Tales of Haunted Futures is a delicious compote of dark passions, sinister fancies and sardonic experiences, perfect for stirring passions and pleasing the eyes.

Gothic Tales of Haunted Futures © 2020 S.M. Beiko. Individual © belongs to each creator in this book. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Adam Strange


By Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, Carmine Infantino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1313-8 (TPB)

Oooh, look! Married With Jetpacks. It’s a glimpse of true heaven…

For many, the Silver Age of comics is the ideal era. Varnished by nostalgia (because that’s when most of us caught this crazy graphic bug), the clean-cut, uncomplicated optimism of the late 1950s and early 1960s produced captivating heroes and villains who were still far less terrifying than the Cold War baddies which troubled the grown-ups. Boy. look how much things have changed today…

The sheer talent and professionalism of the creators working in that spectacularly vivid world resulted in triumph after triumph which brightened young lives and still glow today with quality and achievement.

One of the most compelling stars of those days was an ordinary Earthling who commuted to another world for spectacular adventures, armed with nothing more than a ray-gun, a jetpack and his own ingenuity. His name was Adam Strange, and like so many of that era’s triumphs he was the brainchild of Julius Schwartz and his close team of creative stars.

Showcase was a try-out comic designed to launch new series and concepts with minimal commitment of publishing resources. If a new character sold well initially, a regular series would follow. The process had already worked with great success. Frogmen, The Flash, Challengers of the Unknown and Lois Lane had all won their own new titles or feature spots in established books, and Editorial Director Irwin Donenfeld now wanted his two Showcase editors to create science fiction heroes to capitalise on the twin zeitgeists of the Space Race and current popular fascination with movie monsters and aliens.

Jack Schiff came up with the future crimefighter Space Ranger (premiering in issues #15-16) and Schwartz went to Gardner F. Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Bernard Sachs to craft the saga of a modern-day explorer in the most uncharted territory yet imagined.

Showcase #17 (cover-dated November/December 1958) launched ‘Adventures on Other Worlds’. It told of an archaeologist who, whilst fleeing from enraged villagers in Peru, jumps a 25 ft. chasm only to be hit by a stray teleport beam from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. He materialises in another world filled with giant plants and monsters, and is rescued by a beautiful woman named Alanna who teaches him her language.

‘Secret of the Eternal City!’ reveals that planet Rann is recovering from atomic war, and the beam was in fact a simple flare: one of many sent in an attempt to communicate with other races. In the four years since (speed of light, right? – Alpha Centauri is about 4.3 light years from Sol), the Zeta-Flare travelled through cosmic radiation, converting it into a teleportation beam. Until the radiation drains from his body Strange will be a very willing prisoner on a fantastic world.

And an incredibly unlucky one apparently, as no sooner has he started acclimatising than an alien race named The Eternals invade, seeking a mineral to grant them immortality. Adam’s courage and wits enable him to defeat the invaders only to have the radiation finally fade, drawing him home before the adoring Alanna can administer a hero’s reward. And thus was established the principles of a truly beguiling series. Adam would intercept a Zeta-beam hoping for some alone time with his alien sweetheart, only to be confronted with a planet-menacing crisis.

The very next of these, ‘The Planet and the Pendulum’ saw him obtain the crimson spacesuit and weaponry that became his trademarks in a tale of alien invaders also introducing the subplot of Rann’s rival city-states: all desperate to progress and all at different stages of recovery and development. This tale also appeared in Showcase #17.

The following issue featured the self-explanatory ‘Invaders from the Atom Universe’ and ‘The Dozen Dooms of Adam Strange’, wherein our hero must outwit the dictator of Dys who planned to invade Alanna’s city of Rannagar. With this story, Sachs was replaced by Joe Giella as inker, although he would return as soon as #19’s Gil Kane cover: the first to feature the title “Adam Strange” over the unwieldy “Adventures on Other Worlds”.

‘Challenge of the Star-Hunter’ and ‘Mystery of the Mental Menace’ are classic puzzle tales wherein Strange must outwit a shape-changing alien and an all-powerful energy-being. These were the last in Showcase (cover-dated March/April1959) as, with the August issue the former archaeologist took over the lead spot and cover of the anthological Mystery in Space.

As well as a new home, the series also found a new artist. Carmine Infantino, who had worked such magic with The Flash, applied his clean, classical line and superb design sense to create a starkly pristine, sleekly beautiful universe that was spellbinding in its cool but deeply humanistic manner, and genuinely thrilling in its imaginative wonders.

MIS #53 began an immaculate run of exotic high adventures with ‘Menace of the Robot Raiders!’ by Fox, Infantino & Sachs, followed in glorious succession by ‘Invaders of the Underground World’ and ‘The Beast from the Runaway World!’

With #56 Murphy Anderson became a semi-regular inker, and his precision brush-&-penwork made the art something of unparalleled beauty. ‘The Menace of the Super-Atom’ and ‘Mystery of the Giant Footprints’ are sheer visual poetry, but even ‘Chariot in the Sky’, ‘The Duel of the Two Adam Stranges’ (MIS #58 and #59, inked by Giella) and ‘The Attack of the Tentacle World’, ‘Threat of the Tornado Tyrant’ and ‘Beast with the Sizzling Blue Eyes’ (MIS #60-62, inked by Sachs) were – and remain – light years ahead of the competition in terms of thrills, spectacle and imagination.

Anderson returned with #63, debuting more recurring foes who employed ‘The Weapon That Swallowed Men!’ before #64’s chilling ‘The Radio-active Menace!’ and, ‘The Mechanical Masters of Rann’ both afford splendid thrills to feed young readers’ every sense – especially that burgeoning sense of wonder.

The far-flung fantasy and cosmic romance continued with ‘Space Island of Peril’ by Fox, Infantino & Giella: a duel with an alien super-being planning to throw Rann into its suns, followed in #67 by the sly ‘Challenge of the Giant Fireflies’, with Adam’s adopted home menaced by thrill-seeking creatures who live on the surface of our sun.

Murphy Anderson returned as inker-in-residence with ‘The Fadeaway Doom’, wherein Rannian General Kaskor made a unique attempt to seize power by co-opting the Zeta Beam itself. ‘Menace of the Aqua-ray Weapon!’ had a race from Rann’s primeval past revive to take possession of their old world, whilst #70 saw ‘The Vengeance of the Dust Devil’threaten not just Rann, but also Earth…

Inked by Giella, ‘The Challenge of the Crystal Conquerors’ was a sharp game of bluff and double-bluff with the planet at stake, but #72 was a radical departure from the tried-&-true formula. ‘The Multiple Menace Weapon’ found Adam diverted to the year 101,961AD to save his Rannian descendants before dealing with the threat to his own time and place. This was followed by the action-packed mystery thriller ‘The Invisible Raiders of Rann!’

The puzzles continued with #74’s complex thriller ‘The Spaceman who Fought Himself!’ – inked by Anderson, and leading to Mystery in Space #75’s legendary team-up with the freshly-minted Justice League of America against despicable Kanjar Ro. ‘Planet That Came to a Standstill’ is indisputably one of the best tales of DC’s Silver Age and a key moment in the development of cross-series continuity.

After that 25-page extravaganza it was back to 14 pages for #76’s ‘Challenge of the Rival Starman!’ as Adam becomes involuntary tutor and stalking-horse for an alien hero. ‘Ray-Gun in the Sky!’ is an invasion mystery inviting readers to solve the puzzle before our hero does, whilst ‘Shadow People of the Eclipse’ pits the interplanetary activist against a bored alien thrill-seeker. In #79’s ‘The Metal Conqueror of Rann’ Adam fights a more personal battle to bring adored Alanna back from the brink of death, and ‘The Deadly Shadows of Adam Strange’ sees an old foe return to wreak a bizarre personal revenge on the Champion of Rann.

MIS #81 tested our hero to his limits as the lost dictator who caused Rann’s nuclear armageddon returns after a thousand years to threaten both of Adam’s home-planets in ‘The Cloud-Creature that Menaced Two Worlds’, whilst a terrestrial criminal’s scheme to conquer Earth is thwarted as a result of Adam stopping ‘World War on Earth and Rann!’.

Issue #83’s penultimate peril pits him against the desperate ‘Emotion Master of Space!’ and this volume concludes with the return of relentless Jakarta the Dust-Devil who shrugs off ‘The Powerless Weapons of Adam Strange!’…

For me, Adam Strange, more than any other character, epitomises the Silver Age of Comics. Witty, sophisticated, gloriously illustrated and fantastically imaginative, and always fighting beside him, bold, capable, intelligent, beautiful and – for the pre-pubescent oiks comprising the majority readership – unattainable Alanna. The happy-ever-after was always just in reach, but only after one last adventure…

These thrillers from a distant time still hold great appeal and power for the wide-eyed and far-seeing. This tome carries a universe of wonder and excitement: by far and away some of the best written and drawn science fiction comics ever produced. Whether for nostalgia’s sake, for your own entertainment or even to get your own impressionable ones properly indoctrinated, you really need to go on his voyage of discovery.
© 1958-1963, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Salvatore volume 1: Transports of Delight


By Nicolas de Crécy, coloured by Ruby & Walter, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-593-1 (TPB)

Nicolas de Crécy was in the Class of ’87 – the first year to graduate from the École supérieure de l’image d’Angoulême. After a stint at Disney he moved into bande dessinée and has released upwards of 3 dozen books and albums since he began professionally working in 1990: both one-offs like Journal d’un fantôme, Escales, Plaisir de myope and La Nuit du grand méchant loup and serials such as Léon la came, Monsieur Fruit, and Salvatore.

That last one is about a dog who’s a grease-monkey…

Salvatore mends cars: a mechanic and absolute wizard with all things metallic and oil-spattered, but a grumpy sod who dislikes customers so much he built his garage on the peak of a mountain to discourage them. However, he is simply so good that they all come anyway, prepared to put up with the hassle and his attitude, if only he will fix their ailing vehicles.

Moreover, Salvatore has a secret he needs peace and quiet for and that’s so attractive…

He has plenty of pain in his life but has struggled on, buoyed by an artisan’s dedication and sensibilities. It’s what makes him such an exceedingly good mechanic. One day, the tragically short-sighted widow Amandine pulls into his frosty, cloud bedecked garage with a suspicious knocking in her engine and his life changes for ever…

As well as practically blind, Amandine is heavily pregnant with twelve piglets (not unknown for a sow of her breed) and something softens within the cold canine. Offering her the unexpected hospitality of his fondue lunch, the spanner jockey nevertheless succumbs to his one weakness – “borrowing” a surplus part from her vehicle for his great project.

The little mutt has a dream and is prepared to sacrifice his principles to achieve it. Once, he loved and lost Julie. The bitch – don’t know what breed or her pedigree – moved to South America and since then he has devoted all his spare time to building a fantastic vehicle to follow her, where undoubtedly, love will reunite them forever…

His super-car is almost ready: the last part necessary can be picked up on the way; all he has to do is reach an understanding with its current owner – a perfectly reasonable bull named Jerome. Amandine, however, has not quite left his life: visually impaired to a comic degree, and heavily pregnant, she cannot be trusted to drive a small family runabout down a snow-capped alpine slope…

Her chaotic and magnificently slapstick journey leaves her and the car stranded many kilometres away atop a Parisian garret where she prematurely delivers her dozen babies. Horribly one little piggy goes missing on the way to hospital, and one fine day that stray waif will have a huge impact on Salvatore’s fate…

First seen in 2005 as Transports Amoureux (beautifully coloured by Ruby) ‘Transports of Love’ seamlessly segues here into the second album, Le Grand Départ –‘The Grand Departure’ – with tints and hues provided here by Walter.

Finally off on his dream trip in the almost-perfect Julie-Mobile, Salvatore has hit a snag. Jerome might be an amenable type, but the wife who just divorced him is not. She took the car – including that desperately needed final component – as part of the settlement and had it dismantled as an art installation – or possibly just out of sheer spite.

Amandine, meanwhile, has broken out of hospital with eleven piglets, driven by maternal hormones to find her missing infant. The lost cherub has fallen into odd circumstances, amongst sewer scum, political activists and a seductively dark and twisted catwoman siren of the underworld…

Hard-pressed by defrayed and delayed desire for his distant Julie, Salvatore’s ethics have degenerated to the point where he’s contemplating fraud and outright theft to get that vital last component. Fortunately, he has allied with a mysterious and peculiarly moralistic tiny mute man with a knack for computers. Perhaps together they can find a way to ease true love’s path?

Surreal and joyously whimsical, but with a delightfully dark edginess, this lost delight from multi-award winning cartoonist de Crécy – who revolutionised French comics with such popular and groundbreaking works as Période glaciaire /Glacial Period and The Celestial Bibendum – is a hypnotically addictive, daftly sophisticated fable of the dangerous accelerant called love and remains one of the best comics you STILL haven’t read.

Funny, gently adventurous, subversively satirical and filled to bursting with empathy and pathos, this beguiling yarn will schmooze itself into your head and make itself far too comfortable to have removed…
© 2005 Dupuis, by de Crécy, Ruby. © 2006 Dupuis, by de Crécy, Walter. English edition © 2010 NBM. All rights reserved.

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The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Gwen Stacy


By Stan Lee, Gerry Conway, Gil Kane, John Romita Sr., Frank Giacoia, Tony Mortellaro & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1026-2 (TPB/Digital editions)

In fiction, the relationship of love and death is grimly inescapable and has produced some remarkable moments. If we’re thinking of the romance of the moment let’s not forget what happened to the actual St. Valentine…

In these days of an infinitude of fan-sites, publicity cycles and gleeful spoiler-mongers, it takes major effort to keep a shock-ending from the readership, but back in 1973 comics consumers had only word-of-mouth and the story itself. Thus, the eponymous stories in this compilation staggered everybody when they were first published…

The Amazing Spider-Man was always a comic book that matured with – or barely ahead – of its fan-base, and this curated collection of the World’s Most Misunderstood Hero features the tragic build-up and a life-altering failure: one that forever altered the tone and timbre of his existence even…

After a rather nervous nativity, the webslinger became a certified sensation with kids of all ages. Before long the quirky, charming, thrillingly action-packed comics soap-opera would become the model for an entire generation of younger heroes impatiently elbowing aside the staid, (relatively) old thirty-something mystery-men of previous publications and hallowed tradition.

Outcast, geeky high school kid Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after attempting to cash-in on the astonishing abilities he’d developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. Due to the teenager’s arrogant neglect, his beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered. The traumatised boy determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in dire need.

For years the brilliant young hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation, whilst his heroic alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe…

The isolated High School nerd grew up and went to college but despite having more friends, due to his guilt-fuelled double-life he struggled there too. His one glimmer of hope and joy came from finding true love with policeman’s daughter Gwen Stacy…

Re-presenting Amazing Spider-Man #96-98 and 121-131, this selection also includes prose essays ‘I Remember Gwen – An Introduction’ (by Ralph Macchio) and ‘An Afterword’ which segue into to a bittersweet ‘Epilogue’…

Peter and his ever-expanding cast of comrades were practically household names and the darlings of college campuses and the media intelligentsia throughout America and the world. Stan Lee’s scripts tapped into the always-evolving zeitgeists of the times and the deft use of soap opera plots kept older readers glued to the series even if the bombastic battle sequences didn’t. And here a sharp reminder came – that in those days at least – funnybooks were not immune to tragedy…

The drama commences as Gwen, still reeling from the recent loss of her father, reunites with Peter after time in London getting her head together. Amazing Spider-Man #96 (May 1971) saw deeply disturbed and partially amnesiac industrialist Norman Osborn abruptly remember he once had another menacingly macabre persona and subsequently launch an attack on Peter in ‘…And Now, the Goblin!’ by Lee, Gil Kane & John Romita.

The author/editor had long wanted to address the contemporary drugs situation in his stories but was forbidden by Comics Code Authority strictures. When the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare approached him to tackle the issue, Lee crafted this tale. When it was denied Code approval, he went ahead and published it anyway…

Although the return of the madman who knew all Spider-Man’s secrets was the big fan-draw, the real meat of the tale was how Osborn’s son Harry – a perfectly normal rich white college kid (and Peter’s best friend) – could be drawn into a web of addiction, abuse and overdose…

Frank Giacoia began inking Kane for the second instalment –‘In the Grip of the Goblin!’ – as the elder Osborn ran riot, nearly killing the webslinger and preparing for a final deadly assault, even as his son lay dying, before the saga spectacularly concluded with ‘The Goblin’s Last Gasp!’ In the clinch, the villain’s deeply-buried paternal love proved his undoing and Parker’s salvation…

That seemed to be the end of it. Life went on, Peter and Gwen reconciled and grew even closer and villains came and went. A couple of years later, everything changed as the culmination of a decade of suspense and simmering intrigue boiled over on ‘The Night Gwen Stacy Died’ (#121, June 1973).

Here Gerry Conway, Kane, Romita & Tony Mortellaro delivered the initial instalment of a 2-part tale which stunned fans as Peter’s greatest efforts proved utterly insufficient to save his intended from the insane rage of a resurgent Green Goblin. Ultimate nemesis Norman Osborn had recovered lost memories of his evil alter ego after Harry fell back into drug abuse. Restored to his malign potency the elder Osborn kidnapped Spider-Man’s girlfriend to force a final confrontation…

The tragic episode leads inexorably to ‘The Goblin’s Last Stand!’ one issue later and a grim and gritty new direction…

Rounding out this slim compilation is that promised bonus. Originally seen in Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #1 (January 1999), ‘The Kiss’ is a lovely in-filling reminiscence from John Marc DeMatteis & John Romita, Sr. as a lost love is fondly recalled…

Happily, most romances don’t end in quite such distraught manner but sadness is a big part of the deal. Still, nothing ventured, no one gained…
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Clumsy


By Jeffrey Brown (Top Shelf Productions)
ISBN: 978-0-97135-976-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

If you’re a fan of Jeffrey Brown’s cartoon exploits you might understandably admit to a small degree of confusion. In 2012 he scored his first global best-seller with a hilarious spin on the soft and nurturing side of the Jedi experience in Darth Vader and Son, following up with equally charming and hilarious sequels Vader’s Little Princess, Star Wars: Jedi Academy and others. You’ll probably adore his latest treats – the Lucy & Andy Neanderthal series…

Before that, Jeffrey Brown was the sparkling wit who had crafted slyly satirical all-ages funny stuff for The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror, Marvel’s Strange Tales and Incredible Change-Bots and similar visual venues.

The original is yet another Jeffrey Brown: instigator and frequent star and stooge of such quirkily irresistible autobiographical Indy comics classics as Bighead, A Matter of Life, Little Things, Funny, Misshapen Body,Undeleted Scenes and the 4-volume “Girlfriend Trilogy” – Unlikely, AEIOU and Every Girl is the End of the World For Me and opening shot Clumsy, …

Whichever Brown’s your preferred choice, he’s a cartoonist of rare insight and unflinching revelation who still makes you laugh out loud when not prompting you to offer a big consoling hug…

Brown was raised in Michigan but relocated to Chicago in 2000 to attend the School of the Arts Institute. He studied painting but before graduating switched to drawing comics. Clumsy was released in 2002, quickly becoming a surprise hit with fans and critics alike.

The material is both delicious and agonising in its forthright simplicity: a sequence of non-chronological pictorial snippets and vignettes detailing in no particular order how a meek, frumpy, horny, inoffensively charming art-school boy meets a girl and tries to carry out a long-distance relationship.

Every kid who’s gone to college, got a job or joined the services has been through this, and for every romance that makes it, there a million that don’t.

Drawn in a deceptively Primitivist style with masterful staging, a sublime economy of phrase plus a breathtaking gift for generating in equal amounts belly-laughs and those poignant lump-in-throat moments we’ve all experienced and forever-after regretted, this is a skilful succession of stolen moments which establish one awful truth.

We’ve all been there, done that and then hoarded those damned photos we can’t even look at any more…

With titles like ‘My Last Night with Kristyn’, ‘Don’t Touch Me’, ‘I Draw her Naked’, ‘I Farted’, ‘But I Want to Make Love’ and ‘You Can Ask Me’, a mosaic of universal joy and despair forms as we watch Jeff and Theresa meet, blossom, exult, dream, plan and part…

Packed with hearty joyous wonder and brimming with hilarious examples of that continual and seemingly tireless teen-lust us oldsters can barely remember now, let alone understand, Clumsy is a magical delight for anybody safely out of their Romeo & Juliet years and a lovely examination of what makes us human, hopeful and perhaps wistfully incorrigible…
© 2002 Jeffrey Brown.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Complete Joe Kubert Years


By Joe Kubert with Burne Hogarth, Hal Foster, Frank Thorne, Robert Kanigher, Russ Heath & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-982-3 (TPB/digital editions)

For those that care, it’s a week until St. Valentine’s Day, and once more I’m foregoing gift recommendations in favour of comics-related pep talks. This year, you can see here how some relationships – albeit in cartoon form – have weathered the test of time. One of the longest drives a strip that – despite a shift in social sensibilities and general growth in consensus attitudes – still has lot to offer on many levels…

Soon after first publication in 1912, Tarzan of the Apes became a multi-media sensation and global brand. More novels and many, many movies followed: a comic strip arrived in 1929, followed by a radio show in 1932 with the Ape-Man inevitably carving out a solid slice of the comic book market too, once that industry was firmly established.

Rivalling and frequently surpassing DC and Marvel at the height of their powers, Western Publishing were a big publishing/print outfit based on America’s West Coast. They specialised in licensed properties and the jewels in their crown were comics starring the Walt Disney and Warner Brothers cartoon characters.

As publishers, they famously never capitulated to the wave of anti-comics hysteria that resulted in the crippling self-censorship of the 1950s. Dell Comics – and latter imprints Gold Key and Whitman – never displayed a Comics Code Authority symbol on their covers. They never needed to.

Dell also handled other properties like movie or newspaper strip franchises, and would become inextricably associated with TV adaptations once the small screen monopolised modern homes. In 1948, Dell produced the first all-new Tarzan comic book. The newspaper strip had previously provided plenty of material for expurgated reprint editions until Dell Four Color Comic #134 (February 1947).

That milestone featured a lengthy, captivating tale of the Ape-Man scripted by Robert P Thompson – who wrote both the radio show and aforementioned syndicated strip – with art by the legendary Jesse Marsh.

Marsh & Thompson’s Tarzan returned with two further tales in Dell Four Color Comic #161, cover-dated August 1947. This was a frankly remarkable feat: Four Colour was an umbrella title showcasing literally hundreds of different properties – often as many as ten separate issues per month – so such a rapid return meant pretty solid sales figures.

Within six months, the bimonthly Tarzan #1 was released (January/February 1948), beginning an unbroken run that only ended in 1977, albeit by a convoluted route…

After decades as solid Whitman staples, licensed Edgar Rice Burroughs properties transferred to DC – not just Tarzan and his extended family, but also fantasy pioneers John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar and others – with the new company continuing the original numbering.

Tarzan #207 had an April 1972 cover-date and the series carried on until #258 in February 1977. Thereafter, Marvel, Malibu and Dark Horse extended the Jungle Lord’s comic canon…

The early 1970s were the last real glory days of National/DC Comics. As they lost market share to Marvel, their response was controversial: delivered in the form of landmark superhero material eschewing fantasy and super-villains in favour of social commentary. However their greatest strength lay – as it always had – in the variety and quality of its genre divisions. War, Mystery & Supernatural, Romance, and Kids’ titles remained strong and the company’s eye for a strong brand was as keen as ever.

The Ape Man and his family were a Dell/Gold Key mainstay and global multi-media phenomenon, so when DC acquired rights they justifiably trumpeted it out, putting one of their top creators in sole charge of the legend’s monthly exploits, as well as generating a boutique bunch of ERB titles in a variety of formats.

DC’s incarnation premiered in a blaze of publicity at the height of a nostalgia boom and was generally well received by fans. For many of us, those years provided the definitive graphic Tarzan, thanks solely to the efforts of the Editor, publisher and illustrator who shepherded the Ape-man through the transition.

They were all the same guy: Joe Kubert.

Kubert was born in 1926 in rural Southeast Poland (which became Ukraine and might be Outer Russia by the time you read this). His parents took him to America when he was two. and he grew up in Brooklyn. According to his Introduction, his earliest memory of cartooning was Hal Foster’s Tarzan Sunday strips…

Joe’s folks encouraged him to draw and the precocious kid began a glittering career at the start of the Golden Age, before he was even a teenager. Working and learning at the Chesler comics packaging “Shop”, MLJ, Holyoke and assorted other outfits, he began his lifelong association with DC in 1943.

A canny survivor of the Great Depression, he also maintained outside contacts, dividing his time and energies between Fiction House, Avon, Harvey and All-American Comics, where he particularly distinguished himself on The Flash and Hawkman. In the early 1950s he and old school chum Norman Maurer were the creative force behind publishers St. Johns: creating evergreen caveman Tor and launching the 3D comics craze with Three Dimension Comics.

Joe never stopped freelancing: appearing in EC’s Two-Fisted Tales, Avon’s Strange Worlds, Lev Gleason Publications & Atlas Comics until 1955 when, with the industry imploding, he took a permanent position at DC, only slightly diluted whilst he illustrated the contentious and controversial newspaper strip Tales of the Green Berets (1965 to 1968). From then on, he split his time drawing Sgt. Rock and other features, designing covers and editing DC’s line of war comicbooks.

And then DC acquired Tarzan…

This monumental archive collects the entirety of his work with the Ape-Man: stories from Tarzan #207-235 (April/November 1972 to February/March 1975): a tour de force of passion transubstantiated into stunning comic art, with Kubert writing, illustrating and lettering.

Moreover, the vibrant colours in this epic re-presentation are based on Tatjana Wood’s original guides, offering readers a superbly authentic and immersive experience whether you’re coming fresh to the material or joyously revisiting a beloved lost time.

The only disconcerting things about this stellar compilation are the cover reproductions, which appear in all their iconic glory but manipulated to remove DC’s trademark logos. The mightiest force in the modern jungle is still Intellectual Property lawyers…

The tense suspense begins with Kubert’s Introduction to earlier collections before his adaptation of debut novel Tarzan of the Apes opens with a safari deep in the jungle. A pretty rich girl is driving her white guide and native bearers at a ferocious pace as she desperately hunts for her missing father.

When a bronzed god bursts into view battling a panther, she watches aghast as human impossibly triumphs over killer cat and then pounds his chest whilst emitting astounding screams. As the terrifying figure vanishes back into the green hell, the girl’s questions are grudgingly answered by the old hunter who relates a story he has heard…

‘Origin of Tarzan of the Apes’ reveals how, following a shipboard mutiny, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke – and his wife Lady Alice – are marooned on the African coast with all their possessions, including a vast library of books and Primers intended for their soon-to-be-born baby…

Against appalling odds, they persevered with Greystoke building a fortified cabin to shelter them from marauding beasts, particularly the curious and savage apes roaming the region. Despite the birth of a son, eventually the jungle won and the humans perished, but their son was saved by a grieving she-ape who adopted the baby to replace her own recently killed “Balu”…

The ugly, hairless boy thrived under Kala’s doting attentions, growing strong but increasingly aware of intrinsic differences. He only discovered the how and why after years of diligent effort: through sheer intellectual effort and the remnants of his father’s books and papers, Tarzan learned to read and thereby deduced that he was a M-A-N…

The tale within a tale continues in ‘A Son’s Vengeance: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 2’ as the boy rises to prominence amongst his hirsute brethren and through imagination and invention masters all the beasts of his savage environment. Eventually, brutal, nomadic natives settle in the area and Tarzan has his first contact with creatures he correctly identifies as being M-E-N like him…

The new situation leads to the greatest tragedy of his life as a hunter of M’Bonga‘s tribe kills beloved, devoted Kala and Tarzan learns the shock of loss and overpowering hunger for revenge…

Issue #209 revealed how civilisation finally caught up with Tarzan as ‘A Mate For the Ape-Man: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 3’ saw him meet and save American Jane Porter, her elderly father and his own cousin…

Just as had happened years earlier, these unlucky voyagers were marooned by mutineers. Discovering John Clayton’s cabin, the castaways find the lost peer’s diary, which is of especial interest to William Clayton, the current Lord Greystoke. As tensions rise and humans die, Tarzan takes his golden-haired mate deep into the impenetrable verdure…

It all concludes neatly and tantalisingly in ‘Civilisation: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 4’ wherein the innately noble Tarzan returns Jane to her fiancé William, just in time for the westerners to be rescued by Naval Officer Paul D’Arnot.

When the dashing French Lieutenant is captured and tortured by M’Bonga’s warriors, Tarzan rescues and nurses him back to health. In return, the grateful sailor teaches him to speak human languages that up until that moment he could only read and write in. By then, however, the navy vessel and saved souls have all sailed away, each carrying their own secrets with them…

With no other options, lovelorn Tarzan accompanies D’Arnot back to civilisation. The eternal comrades eventually settle in Paris with Tarzan practically indistinguishable from other men…

Even today ‘Origin of the Ape-Man’ is still the most faithful adaptation of ERB’s novel in any medium: potent and evocative, fiercely expressive: a loving, utterly visceral translation of the landmark saga.

Kubert’s intent was to adapt all 24 Burroughs novels and intersperse them with short, complete tales, but the workload, coupled with his other editorial duties, was crippling. To buy some time #211 combined old with new as ‘Land of the Giants’ partially adapted and incorporated Don Garden & Burne Hogarth’s newspaper classic ‘Tarzan and the Fatal Mountain’: Sunday strip pages #582-595 which had originally ran from May 3rd to August 2nd 1942.

A clash with crocodiles lands Tarzan in a lost valley where giant natives are persecuted by deformed, diminutive outworlder Martius Kalban: a sadist hungry for the secrets of their prodigious size and strength. Even after gaining his dark desire, Kalban finds himself no match for the outraged Ape-Man…

It’s followed by ‘The Captive!’: a latter-day exploit beginning a run of yarns based on the short stories comprising ERB’s book Jungle Tales of Tarzan as the relationship between Ape-Man and elephants is explored with each saving the other from the ever-present threat of the hunters of M’Bonga…

The Jungle Tales reworkings continue with ‘Balu of the Great Apes’ with childhood friends of Tarzan becoming incomprehensibly aggressive after the birth of their first baby, before ending with ‘The Nightmare’ as starving Tarzan steals and gorges on meat and drink from the native village. The resultant food poisoning takes him on a hallucinogenic journey never to be forgotten: one that almost costs his life when he can no longer tell phantasm from genuine threat…

Following Kubert’s Introduction to Tarzan #215-#224, the pictorial wonderment resumes with another vintage visual treat as ‘The Mine!’ (Tarzan #215, December 1972) incorporates material originally seen in 1930s Sunday newspaper strips (by Foster & George Carlin) embedded in an original tale by Kubert.

As before, deadline pressure again compelled Kubert to combine original with found material, detailing how Tarzan is captured by slavers and pressed into toil deep in the bowels of the earth for a sadistic mine owner. Naturally, he soon chafes at enforced servitude and leads a savage workers’ revolt to overturn and end the corporate bondage…

Issue #216 took another route to beating deadlines with old pal Frank Thorne pencilling Kubert’s script for ‘The Renegades’: leaving hard-pressed Joe to ink and complete the story of a murderous raid which wipes out a Red Cross mission.

Investigating the atrocity, Tarzan discovers the “maddened savages” responsible are actually white men in disguise; stealing supplies for a proposed expedition to plunder a lost treasure vault. When he catches the culprits, Tarzan’s vengeance is terrible indeed…

‘The Black Queen!’ was all-new, all-Kubert, as the Jungle Lord almost saves a man from crocodiles. Acceding to the ravaged victim’s last wish, Tarzan then travels to his distant country and overturns the brutal regime of tyrannical Queen Kyra – who rules her multicultural kingdom with whimsy, ingrained prejudice and casual cruelty…

The equally selfish choices of American millionaire tycoon Darryl T. Hanson blight his family as his search for ‘The Trophy’ decimates the fauna of Tarzan’s home and leads to a clash of wills and ideologies which can only end in tragedy…

With #219, Kubert began an epic 5-issue adaptation of ERB’s sequel novel The Return of Tarzan. It opens in Paris as the unacknowledged son of long-vanished Lord Greystoke tries to adapt to his new life as a civilised man of leisure.

One night, his natural gallantry draws him to the side of a woman screaming for help and he is attacked by a gang of thugs. After easily thrashing the brigands he is astounded to find her accusing him of assault and simply bounds effortlessly away from the gendarmes called to the disturbance. The entire trap had been engineered by a new enemy; Russian spy and émigré Nikolas Rokoff beside his duplicitous toady Paulvitch…

The rightful heir to the Greystoke lands and titles silently stood aside and let his apparently unaware cousin William Cecil Clayton claim both them and the American Jane Porter after the wild one rescued her from attacking apes in the jungle. Missing her terribly, Tarzan has chosen to make his own way in the human world beside French Naval Officer D’Arnot. In the course of his urbane progression, Tarzan had exposed the Russian cheating at cards to blackmail French diplomat Count De Coude and earned himself a relentless, implacable foe, forever.

When Rokoff subsequently tries to murder Tarzan, the vile miscreant agonisingly learns how powerful his jungle-bred enemy is…

With physical force clearly of no use, Rokoff’s latest plan is to put the Ape-Man through a ‘Trial by Treachery’: manufacturing “evidence” that Tarzan is having an affair with the Comte’s wife. Once again, the civilised beast underestimates his target’s forthright manner of handling problems and is savagely beaten until he admits to the plot and clears the innocent woman’s name…

With news of Jane’s impending marriage to Clayton, Tarzan seeks to ease his tortured mind with action, and the next chapter sees him in Algeria where, sponsored by the grateful, ashamed Count, he works for the French Secret Service in Sidi Bel Abbes, ferreting out a traitor in the turbulently volatile colony. His hunt leads to a likely turncoat and subsequent brutal battle with Arab agent provocateurs, but things start to turn his way after he liberates a dancing slave who is the daughter of a local sheik.

When word of Jane comes from D’Arnot, Tarzan throws himself even more deeply into his tasks and falls into another ambush organised by Rokoff. This time his ‘Fury in the Desert’ seems insufficient to his needs …until his newfound friend the Sheik rides to the rescue…

The intrigue further unfolds in ‘Return of the Primitive’ as Tarzan finally uncovers a link between Rokoff and spies at Sidi Bel Abbes. Mission accomplished, he is then posted to Capetown and aboard ship meets voyager Hazel Strong, a close friend of Jane’s who reveals the heiress had never forgotten her tryst with an Ape-Man.

Unable to watch Jane enter into a loveless marriage, Hazel took off on an ocean cruise…

The story rocks Tarzan’s mind, but not so completely that he fails to notice Rokoff is also aboard and murderously dogging his footsteps. This time, the Tsarist is properly prepared and that night the jungle man vanishes from the ship…

Rokoff’s act of assassination is a purely pyrrhic victory. Soon after reaching Capetown the villain insinuates himself into the Clayton wedding party but when their yacht’s boilers explode next morning, he, Hazel, Clayton, Jane and her father are left adrift in a lifeboat…

Tarzan, meanwhile, has survived being tumbled overboard and spent days swimming hundreds of miles. He now washes up on the same beach his parents were left upon decades ago. Staggering inland, he finds himself in the cabin his father built before being stolen and adopted by Kala the She-Ape.

John Clayton is forgotten, for fate has brought Tarzan home…

A man changed by his time amongst other men, the Jungle Lord instinctively saves a native warrior from certain death and is astonished to find himself declared chieftain of the Waziri nation.

…And off the coast, a lifeboat filled with dying travellers espies land and wearily sculls towards a welcoming beach in the heart of primeval forests…

Revelling in his newfound status, popularity and freedom, Tarzan enquires about the fabulous jewelled ornaments of his new friends and learns of an incredible lost metropolis. Soon he is curiously journeying to ‘The City of Gold’ to encounter debased, degenerate sub-men led by a gloriously beautiful Queen.

La is high priestess of lost Atlantean outpost Opar, but can barely control her subjects enough to allow the perfect specimen of manhood to escape to safety. Both she and Tarzan know they are destined to meet again…

Refusing to be cheated of their sacrifice, the bloodthirsty Oparian males search far into the jungle and soon encounter the Clayton yacht survivors. When the primitives attack the human strangers and carry off Jane, Rokoff shows his true colours, leaving William to his fate. This callous act also inadvertently clears the path for Tarzan to finally claim his inheritance and reunite with Jane. All the Jungle Lord has to do is break back into Opar, save his one true love from ‘The Pit of Doom!’ and escape the wrath of spurned Queen La…

That mission accomplished, he and Jane return to the beach in time to witness William’s dying confession and accept the succession to the estates and title of Lord Greystoke…

The adaptation is followed by an original adventure codicil, seeing Tarzan rescue a beautiful maiden from attacking apes to find she comes from La, now in peril of her life…

In Opar, another Beast Man insurrection has left the Queen imperilled by her subjects and threatened by a gigantic mutant whom she tearfully reveals is her sibling in ‘Death is My Brother!’ With no choice, Tarzan regretfully battles the nigh-mindless brute and proves to the insurgents that his wrath is greater than their malice…

A third and final Kubert text missive of fond reminiscences about Tarzan #225-235 leads into original tale ‘Moon Beast’ which sees a mother and child brutally slaughtered and Tarzan captured: framed for the hideous crime by cunning medicine man Zohar. When the vile trickster overreaches himself, the captive lord breaks free but still has to deal with the mutant brute Zohar employed to perpetrate the atrocity…

Kubert only produced the cover for #226, as deadline pressures finally caught up with him. The contents – not included here – featured a retelling of the Ape-Man’s origins by Russ Manning, taken from the Sunday newspaper strips of 15thNovember 1970-7th February 1971.

Back for #227, Joe took Tarzan out of his comfort zone as ‘Ice Jungle’ saw young warrior Tulum endure a manhood rite at the top of a mountain. Also converging on the site for much the same reason is American trust-fund brat J. Pellington Stone III: determined to impress his father by bagging a legendary snow ape. Sensing impending doom, Tarzan follows them both and is proved correct in his assessment…

After single-handedly killing an immense Sabretooth tiger in an unexplored region of the continent, Tarzan is captured by pygmies intent on offering him as sacrifice to a mighty monster that has terrorised them for years. However, a ‘Trial By Blood!’ sees the Ape-Man cleverly outwit a giant lizard and teach tribal elders a valuable lesson in leadership, after which albino queen Zorina seeks to extend her power by making him her consort.

The mighty wanderer wants nothing to do with ‘The Game!’, and, after the kingdom descends into savage civil war, sees ironic Fate deal the white queen a telling death blow…

With Tarzan #230 (April/May 1974), the title transformed into a sequence of 100-page giants, mixing new material with reprints of ERB characters and thematically-aligned stars from DC’s vast back-catalogue.

Leading off that issue was a brief all-Kubert vignette as ‘Tarzan’ saves a deer from a lioness. It neatly segues into ‘Leap into Death’ starring Korak, Son of Tarzan (written by Robert Kanigher, with Kubert pencilling and inks from Russ Heath). Here the titanic teen nomad hunts for his stolen true love Meriem and barbarian Iagho who   abducted her, before stumbling into a nest of aggressively paranoid bird-people who learn to respect his courage before flying away with his lover…

The next issue featured the start of another-Kubert-adapted Burroughs novel: possibly the most intriguing conception of the entire canon.

‘Tarzan and the Lion Man Part One’ sees a movie company on location in the deep jungle. They are making a picture about a white man raised by animals who becomes undisputed master of all he surveys. The chain of coincidences grows more improbable as actor Stanley Obroski is a dead ringer for Tarzan… which probably explains why he is taken by savages set on torturing the Jungle Legend to death…

Rescued by Tarzan, Stanley explains how the expedition was attacked, unaware exactly how much trouble his fellow actors are in. During Obroski’s absence, stand-in Rhonda Terry and starlet Naomi Madison are kidnapped by El Ghrennem‘s Arab bandits. They think the production’s prop map leads to an actual valley of diamonds…

When Tarzan finds the rest of the film crew, he is mistaken for Stanley and drawn into their search for the missing women. The plucky Americans have already made a mad dash for freedom, however, and Rhonda has been captured by creatures she simply cannot comprehend…

After a fascinating bonus section revealing Kubert’s ‘Layouts and Thumbnails’ for the opening chapter, ‘Tarzan and the Lion Man Part Two’ reveals Rhonda taken by apes who speak Elizabethan English, and made the subject of a fierce debate. Half of the articulate anthropoids want to take her to “God” whilst the other faction believes her a proper prize of their liege lord “King Henry VIII”…

After being briefly recaptured by El Ghrennem, Naomi too is taken by the talkative Great Apes. When Tarzan discovers the kidnapper’s corpses, he follows a trail up an apparently unscalable escarpment. Rescuing and returning Miss Madison to her surviving friends, “Stanley” then re-ascends the stony palisade to discover an incredible pastoral scene complete with feudal village and English castle…

Tracking Rhonda, he enters the citadel and meets a bizarre human/ape hybrid calling himself God. The garrulous savant explains that once he was simply a brilliant Victorian scientist pursuing the secrets of life. When his unsavoury methods of procuring test-subjects forced him to flee England and relocate to this isolated region of Africa, he resumed his experiments and transformed himself into a superior being, before making the apes into fitting servants.

Now they have a society of their own – based on the history books he brought with him – and his experiments near completion. Having already extended his life and vitality far beyond its normal span by experimenting upon himself, God is now ready to attain immortality and physical perfection. All he has to do is consume Tarzan…

Of course, the madman has no conception of his captive’s capabilities, and when the Ape-Man and Rhonda promptly vanish from his dungeon it sends the palace into turmoil and God into a paroxysm of insanity…

The chaos also prompts already ambitious apostate King Henry to begin a revolt to overthrow his creator. As ‘Part Three‘ opens, war between Church and State is in full swing and Tarzan battles to rescue Rhonda whilst God’s castle becomes a flaming hell. Losing her in the chaos, Tarzan is forced into a hasty alliance with God, unaware that maniacal monarch Henry has taken her back to the jungles below the escarpment, and into a region where God casts his scientific failures…

All too soon Henry is dead and Rhonda is facing beings even stranger than talking apes. Thankfully, ‘Part Four‘ (preceded by another fascinating Kubert Layout spread) sees the Ape-Man arrive in time to save and return her to the film party in a dazzling, tragic conclusion…

Kubert ended his close association with Tarzan in #235’s ‘The Magic Herb’. Here, the hero saves a couple from a crashed aeroplane and siblings Tommy and Gail urge him to help them find a legendary flower that might cure the man’s fatal ailment. However, something about them makes Tarzan deeply suspicious…

Nevertheless, he takes them to the primeval lost valley where it grows, only to be betrayed as the intruders frame him: throwing the jungle lord to the resident lizard men and fleeing with specimens that will make them millionaires in the outside world. Sadly, the treacherous pair have completely misunderstood the powers of the plant and pay the ultimate price all betrayers must…

Wrapping up the astounding thrills and captivating artistry, more revelatory treasures from ‘Joe Kubert’s Tarzan Sketchbook’ trace the art process from page-roughs to competed page.

Supplemented by Creator Biographies of Burroughs and Kubert, this tome is an unmissable masterpiece of romance fantasy, wild adventure and comics creation no lover of the medium or genre can do without.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Complete Joe Kubert Years © 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 2005, 2016 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademark Tarzan and Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. All rights reserved.

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Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed?


By Liz Prince (Top Shelf Productions)
ISBN: 978-1-89183-072-3 (PB/Digital edition)

There’s an irrepressible rumour going about that Love makes the World Go Round. My grasp of physics isn’t strong enough to confirm or deny the hypothesis but I have read enough comics in my time to spot a magical and unmissable celebration of the all-consuming emotion when I see one.

Liz Prince originally hailed from Sante Fe, New Mexico before upping sticks and heading across county in an Eastward direction to attend the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Massachusetts, not Lincolnshire).

She is a cartoonist – one of many – who thankfully opted to create a visual journal of her life and saw that one subject kept monopolising her attention. She is also an inspired raconteur who knows how to spin a graphic yarn in adroitly truncated form. Thus, this slim collection which gathers a whole bunch of sublimely intimate, hilariously real moments spent with and apart from her equally fascinating man Kevin and the awesome force which is their cat Science.

Contained in this marvellous monochrome paperback posy are vignettes exploring the giddy silliness of fresh physicality, quirkily adorable breaking of bathroom taboos, the agony and relief of momentary solitude, incidents of intimate accommodation and lots of lovely eternal challenges that test every couple… especially the often bloody traumas of explaining to the incumbent household pet that they are not necessarily “Number One” any more…

Fronted by a suitably droll but downbeat pictorial Introduction ‘On Liz Prince’ by legendary lovelorn doodler Jeffrey Brown, Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? is thankfully still available – and instantly so if you opt for a downloadable versions (Kindle, Comixology etc.), or preferably direct from Top Shelf Productions – so if you want to share some romantic fellow feeling or just need to see that there’s still hope for all the lonely hearts, this a graphic gem you should promptly treat yourself to.
© & ™ Liz Prince 2005. All rights reserved.

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Popeye volume 1: Olive Oyl & Her Sweety (The E.C. Segar Popeye Sundays


By Elzie Crisler Segar with Sergio Ponchione, Cathy Malkasian & various(Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1- 68396-462-9 (PB/digital edition)

Popeye popped up in the Thimble Theatre comic strip for January 17th 1929. The strip was an unassuming feature that debuted on 19th December 1919: one of many newspaper cartoon funnies to parody, burlesque and mimic the era’s silent  movies serials. Its more successful forebears included C.W. Kahles’ Hairbreadth Harry and Ed Wheelan’s Midget Movies / Minute Movies .

These all used a repertory company of characters to play out generic adventures firmly based on those expressive cinema antics. Thimble Theatre‘s cast included Nana and Cole Oyl, their gawky daughter Olive, diminutive-but-pushy son Castor, and Horace Hamgravy, Olive’s sappy, would-be beau.

The series ticked along for a decade, competent and unassuming, with Castor and Ham Gravy (as he became) tumbling through get-rich-quick schemes, fear-free adventures and simple gag situations until September 10th 1928, when explorer uncle Lubry Kent Oyl gave Castor a present from his latest exploration of Africa: a hand-reared Whiffle Hen – most fabulous of all birds. It was the start of something groundbreaking.

Whiffle Hens are troublesome, incredibly rare and possessed of fantastic powers, but after months of inspired hokum and slapsick shenanigans, Castor was resigned to Bernice – for that was the hen’s name – when a series of increasingly peculiar circumstances brought him into contention with the ruthless Mr. Fadewell, world’s greatest gambler and king of the gaming resort of ‘Dice Island’.

Bernice clearly affected writer/artist E.C. Segar, because his strip increasingly became a playground of frantic, compelling action and comedy during this period…

When Castor and Ham discovered that everybody wanted the Whiffle Hen because she could bestow infallible good luck, they sailed for Dice Island to win every penny from its lavish casinos. Sister Olive wanted to come along but the boys planned to leave her behind once their vessel was ready to sail. It was 16th January 1929…

The next day, in the 108th instalment of the saga, a bluff, irascible, ignorant, itinerant and exceeding ugly one-eyed old sailor was hired by the pair to man the boat they had rented, and the world was introduced to one of the most iconic and memorable characters ever conceived. By sheer, surly willpower, Popeye won the hearts and minds of readers: his no-nonsense, grumbling simplicity and dubious appeal enchanting the public until by the end of the tale, the walk-on had taken up full residency. He would eventually make the strip his own…

The Sailor Man even affably bulldozed his way onto the full-colour Sunday Pages which form the main course of this curated collection spanning 2nd March 1930 through February 28th  1932.

This paperback is the first of four that will contain the entire Segar Sunday canon and is designed to be stored in a forthcoming slipcase. Spiffy as that sounds, the wondrous stories are also available in digital editions if you want to think of ecology or mitigate age and muscle strain in your spinach-deprived muskles…

Since many papers only carried dailies or Sundays, not necessarily both, a system of differentiated storylines developed early in American publishing, and when Popeye finally made his belated appearance, he was already a fairly well-developed character.

Thus, Segar concentrated on more family-friendly gags – and eventually continued mini-sagas – and it was here that the Popeye/Olive Oyl modern romance began: a series of encounters full of bile, intransigence, repressed hostility, jealousy, mind games and passion which usually ended in raised voices and scintillating cartoon violence – and they are still as riotously funny now as then. Olive was well ahead of her time: the serendipitous stick insect knew her mind and always gave better than she got…

Preceding the vintage treats, this tome also offers some modern and very lovely laudatory comic strips in Sergio (DKW; Grotesque; Memorabilia) Ponchione’s ‘Have a Segar’ and Cathy (Percy Gloom; Eartha) Malkasian’s ‘Oomph – A Popeye Short’: each offering their unique interpretations of Segar’s now meta-real cast and how they changed the world…

When the wondrous weekly full-page instalments start we see Castor Oyl heading home at the heart of the Depression accompanied by Ham Gravy who is appalled to find a ghastly sailor man pitching woo at his (presumed) sweet patootie. When the rival suitors clash, it’s Olive who has the final word …and throws the last punch!

From there onwards, in done-in-one gag instalments an unlikely but enduring romance blossomed (withered, bloomed, withered some more, hit cold snaps and early harvests – you get the idea…) as Olive pursued her man and Popeye vacillated between ignoring her and moving mountains to impress her. As she always kept her options open, he spent a lot of time fighting off – literally – her other gentlemen callers…

A mercurial creature, the maiden miss Oyl spent a lot of her time trying to stop her beau’s battles – tricky, as he spent his time ashore as an extremely successful “sprize fighter” – but would batter mercilessly any floozy who cast cow eyes at the devil-may-care matelot…

In these early formative Sundays, we see how Castor becomes Popeye’s manager and how originally-philanthropic millionaire Mr. Kilph moves from eager backer to demented arch enemy, willing to pay any price to see Popeye pummelled. Opponents include husky two-fisted guys with names like Bearcat, Mr. Spar, Kid Sledge, Joe Barnacle, Kid Smack, Kid Jolt, The Bullet, Johnny Brawn, an actual giant dubbed Tinearo and even a trained gorilla (Kid Klutch), but none ever win and Kilph goes crazier and crazier…

Among many timeless supporting characters, mega moocher J. Wellington Wimpy debuts here as a lazy and corrupt ring referee in extended, trenchant and scathingly witty sequences about boxing. Rowdy, slapstick cartoon violence is at a premium – family values were different then – but Segar’s worldly, probing satire and Popeye’s beguiling (but relative) innocence and lack of experience keeps the entire affair in hilarious perspective whilst making him an unlikely and lovable waif, albeit one eternally at odds with cops and rich folk…

We see softer sides of the sailor-man as he repeatedly gives away multiple purses – and even houses – to widows and “orphinks”, and his rebellious core with numerous jail sentences self-commuted. Popeye always escapes, but – being scrupulously fair-minded – never fails to turn himself in when his latest escapade ends.

After a riot of fun, bonkers pugilism and mad love, this initial outing closes with the Sailor Man’s bold disclosure that the secret of his strength is spinach. Cue a riot at Rough-House‘s seedy diner…

Segar famously considered himself an inferior draughtsman – most of the world disagreed and still does – but his ability to weave a yarn was unquestioned, and grew to astounding and epic proportions in these strips.

Week after week he was creating the syllabary and graphic lexicon of a brand-new art-form: inventing narrative tricks and beats that generations of artists and writers would use in their own cartoon creations.

Popeye is fast approaching his centenary and well deserves his place as a world icon. How many comics characters are still enjoying new adventures 93 years after their first? These volumes are the perfect way to celebrate the genius and mastery of E.C. Segar and his brilliantly flawed superman. These are books that belong in every home and library.
This edition of Popeye Volume 1: Olive Oyl and Her Sweety is © 2021 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All Segar comics and drawings © 2021 King Features Syndicate. Inc./ ™Hearst Holdings, Inc. Strips provided by Bill Blackbeard and his San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, “Have a Segar!” © Sergio Ponchione. Translation © Jamie Richards. “Oomph” © Cathy Malkasian. All rights reserved.

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Showcase Presents Hawkman volume 1


By Gardner F. Fox, Bob Haney, Joe Kubert, Gil Kane, Murphy Anderson, Howard Purcell, Carmine Infantino & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1280-3 (TPB)

Not all passions are romantic: mine is to finally have all old comics forever available in curated editions. These astoundingly engaging Silver Age tales are another treat inexplicably unavailable in modern, full-colour editions, either physically or digitally.

On a timely note, however, this book does highlight one of the most effective and enduring romantic crime-busting, world-saving partnerships in comics…

With the superhero revival in full swing by 1961, Editorial genius Julius Schwartz turned to resurrecting one of DC’s most visually arresting and iconic Golden Age characters. Once again eschewing mysticism for science fiction (the original Hawkman was a reincarnated Egyptian prince murdered by a villainous priest), Schwartz picked scripter Gardner F. Fox – who created the Golden Age great – and artist Joe Kubert to construct a new hero for the Space Age.

This titanic tome is still readily available from online retailers and packs a big punch, gathering the works of the Winged Wonders from The Brave and the Bold #34-36, #42-44 and #51; The Atom #7; Mystery in Space #87-90 and Hawkman #1-11: cumulatively spanning February/March 1961 to December 1965/January 1966.

Katar Hol and his wife Shayera Thal are police officers on their own planet of Thanagar. They’ve travelled to Earth from the star system Polaris in pursuit of a spree-thief named Byth who assaulted a scientist and stole a drug bestowing the ability to change into anything. Thus the scene was set in ‘Creature of a Thousand Shapes’ which graced The Brave and the Bold #34 (cover-dated February/March 1961): a spectacular work of graphic magic, with the otherworldly nature of the premise rendered captivatingly human by the passionate, moody expressiveness of Kubert’s art. It is a minor masterpiece of comic storytelling, and still a darned good read.

The high-flying heroes returned in the next issue, now stationed on Earth to study Terran police methods. In ‘Menace of the Matter Master’ they defeat a plundering scientist who has discovered a means to control elements, before ‘Valley of Vanishing Men’ takes the strange visitors from another world to the Himalayas to discover the astounding and ironic secret of the Abominable Snowmen.

Last chance in the try-out session, B&B #36 then sees them defeat a modern day wizard in ‘Strange Spells of the Sorcerer’ and after, save Earth from another Ice Age whilst defeating ‘The Shadow Thief of Midway City’.

With the three-issue audition over, the publishers sat back and waited for the fan letters and sales figures… and something odd happened: fans were vocal and enthusiastic, but the huge sales figures just weren’t there. It was inexplicable. The quality of the work was plain to see on every page, but somehow not enough people had plunked down their dimes to justify an ongoing Hawkman series

A year later DC tried again. The Brave and the Bold #42 (June/July 1962) featured ‘The Menace of the Dragonfly Raiders’ and found Katar and Shayera returning to Thanagar just in time to encounter a bizarre band of alien thieves. Here was superhero action in a fabulous alien locale and the next issue maintained the exoticism – at least initially – before Hawkman and Hawkgirl returned to Midway City to defeat a threat to both worlds – ‘The Masked Marauders of Earth’.

One last B&B issue followed – #44, October-November 1962 – with two splendid short tales. ‘Earth’s Impossible Day’focused on Shayera’s desire to celebrate a holiday tradition of Thanagar whilst eerie doomsday thriller ‘The Men who Moved the World’ explored lost civilisations and the return of Earth’s original owners… and then the Hawks vanished again. It certainly looked like this time the magic had faltered.

That, however, was not the end of the saga. Convinced he was right, Schwartz retrenched. Enjoying some success with the new Atom title and mindful of the response when he had teamed the Flash and Green Lantern in the summer of 1962, the editor had writer Fox include the Winged Wonder in ‘The Case of the Cosmic Camera’ (The Atom #7, June/July 1963): an interplanetary thriller illustrated by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson. This invasion rollercoaster ranged from the depths of space to Earth’s most distant past.

This new clean-limbed version clearly found fan-favour and in 1963 Hawkman returned! Again!

Mystery in Space had been the home of Adam Strange since issue #53 and with #87 (November 1963) Schwartz moved the Winged Wonders into a back-up slot; even granting them occasional cover-privileges. Still written by Fox, Kubert’s moody art had been superseded by the clean, graceful illustration of Anderson. ‘The Amazing Thefts of the I.Q. Gang!’ was followed a month later by ‘Topsy-Turvy Day in Midway City!’

With the management now on board, guest appearances to maximise profile were easier to find. Hawkman briefly returned to The Brave and the Bold with #51 (December 1963/ January 1964) to team with Aquaman and face the ‘Fury of the Exiled Creature!’

This quirky tale of monsters, magic and mayhem in sunken Atlantis was written by Bob Haney and illustrated by the criminally neglected Howard Purcell, and then it was back to Mystery in Space #89 and the ‘Super-Motorized Menace!’the month after that.

These were brief, engaging action pieces, before issue #90 offered a full length story teaming the Hawks and Adam Strange in a legendary End-of the-World(s) epic. ‘Planets in Peril!’ – illustrated by Carmine Infantino & Murphy Anderson – was the last Hawkman back-up. From the next month, and after three years of trying, Hawkman would soar in his own title.

Cover-dated April/May 1964, Hawkman #1 is a gem of an issue by Fox & Anderson. Two of the most visually arresting characters in comics, the Hawks had one of the most subtle and sophisticated relationships in the business. Like Sue and Ralph Dibney (Elongated Man and wife) Katar and Shayera are equal partners, and both couples were influenced by the Nick and Nora Charles characters of the Thin Man movies. Like those progenitors, the interplay of the Hols at home or at work is always rich in humour and warmth.

In ‘Rivalry of the Winged Wonders’, and whilst accommodatingly recapping their origins for newcomers, the couple decide to turn their latest case into a contest. Hawkgirl (eventually and more appropriately Hawkwoman) would use Thanagarian super-science to track and catch a band of thieves whilst Hawkman limited himself to Earth techniques and tools in solving the crime.

This charmingly witty yarn is balanced by action thriller ‘Master of the Sky Weapons’ as ancient Mayan warrior Chacthreatens the world with unearthed alien super weapons whilst the second issue featured the ‘Secret of the Sizzling Sparklers!’ – an action-packed thriller concerning trans-dimensional invaders – and closed with ‘Wings across Time’: a mystery revolving around the discovery of the flying harness of the legendary Icarus.

Another brain-teaser opened the third issue. Scientific bandits proved less of a menace than ‘The Fear that Haunted Hawkman’ whilst ordinary thugs and an extraordinary alien owl converged to make our heroes ‘Birds in a Gilded Cage’.

Issue #4 opened with a tale that would revolutionise DC comics. ‘The Girl who Split in Two!’ introduced Zatanna, daughter of a magician who had fought crime in the 1940s only to “mysteriously disappear”.

From the very first issue, and for over a decade, Zatarra was a hero in the Mandrake mould who fought evil in the pages of Action Comics. During the Silver Age, Gardner Fox had Zatarra’s young and equally gifted daughter search for the missing mage by teaming up with a selection of superheroes he was currently scripting (if you’re counting, these tales appeared in Hawkman #4, The Atom #19, Green Lantern #42, and in the Elongated Man back-up strip in Detective Comics #355. A very slick piece of backwriting latterly included the high-profile Caped Crusader via Detective #336 – ‘Batman’s Bewitched Nightmare’.

The saga concluded in Justice League of America #51 and ‘Z – As in Zatanna – and Zero Hour!’)…

This wide, long-running experiment in continuity proved that there was a dedicated fan-base out there with a voracious appetite for experimentation and relatively deep pockets. Most importantly, it finally signalled the end of the period where DC heroes largely lived and battled in self-imposed worlds of their own.

Back-up ‘The Machine that Magnetized Men!’ is another fine tale, as the Pinioned Paladins use reason and deduction to defeat thieves who are impossible to touch.

‘Steal, Shadow – Steal!’ in number #5 is the first full-length thriller, as the ruthless Shadow Thief returns seeking revenge, and believing that causing the next Ice Age is an acceptable consequence of his schemes. Issue #6 is another epic, and one that turned DC’s peculiar obsession with gorillas into a classic adventure.

‘World Where Evolution Ran Wild!’ draws our heroes to fabled Illoral, where a scientist’s explorations and interventions have stretched Natural Selection to un-natural limits. Bold, brash and daft in equal proportions, this is a fabulous romp and seeing again the cover where Hawkman struggles for his life against a winged gorilla makes the adult me realise those DC chaps might have known what they were doing with all those anthropoid covers!

By issue #7 (April-May 1965) the world was gripped in secret agent fever as the likes of James Bond, the Man from U.N.C.L.E., and a host of others sashayed across our TV screens. Comics were not immune, though spies had been a staple threat there for decades. Before Hawkman joined the gang however, he had to deal with the rather mediocre threat posed by ‘The Amazing Return of the I.Q. Gang!’

They were quickly returned to prison and the Hawks moved on to face the ‘Attack of the Crocodile-Men!’: a high-octane super-science thriller that introduced C.A.W. – the Criminal Alliance of the World…

Another supremely captivating cover adorned #8, as the Hawks fought an ancient Roman artificial intelligence built by the not-so mythical Vulcan himself in ‘Giant in the Golden Mask!’, before defeating an alien Harpy who’d been buried for half a million years in ‘Battle of the Bird-Man Bandits’.

Hawkman #9 saw The Atom as guest star when an old villain returned with a seemingly perfect revenge plan for full-length super-thriller ‘Master Trap of the Matter Master!’, after which #10 saw a playful Fox at his best in both ‘Hawkman Clips the Claws of C.A.W!’ – another espionage drama with a delicious subplot as the Winged Wonder aids a sexy CIA agent with a big secret of her own, before solving ‘The Magic Mirror Mystery’: a fair-play tale brainteaser with lots of high-flying action to balance the smart stuff.

This glorious first volume closes with another superb full-length epic as ‘The Shrike Strikes at Midnight!’ and our heroes trail a super-powered, winged bandit all over the world and on to the star system Mizar, in a gripping tale of crime, super-villainy, aliens, revolutions and even dinosaurs.

Hawkman grew to be one of the most iconic characters of the second superhero boom, not just for the superb art but also because of a brilliant, subtle writer with a huge imagination. These tales are comfortably familiar but somehow grippingly timeless. Yet comics are a funny business; circumstances, tastes and fashions often mean that wonderful works are missed and unappreciated. Don’t make the same mistake readers did in the 1960s. Whatever your age, read these astounding adventures and become a fan. It’s never too late.
© 1961-1966, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.