Now Read This!

February 9, 2022February 8, 2022

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 seriesâ€¦

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 â€œGirlfriend Trilogyâ€ – Unlikely, AEIOU and Every Girl is the End of the World For Me and opening shot Clumsy, â€¦

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 hugâ€¦

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 moreâ€¦

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 partâ€¦

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 incorrigibleâ€¦
Â© 2002 Jeffrey Brown.

February 8, 2022February 7, 2022

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 levelsâ€¦

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 routeâ€¦

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 canonâ€¦

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 stripsâ€¦

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 â€œShopâ€, 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 Tarzanâ€¦

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 lawyersâ€¦

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 heardâ€¦

‘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 babyâ€¦

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 â€œBaluâ€â€¦

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-Nâ€¦

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 himâ€¦

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 revengeâ€¦

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 cousinâ€¦

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 verdureâ€¦

It all concludes neatly and tantalisingly in ‘Civilisation: Origin of the Ape-Man Book 4’ wherein the innately noble Tarzan returns Jane to her fiancÃ© 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 themâ€¦

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 menâ€¦

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 3^rd to August 2^nd 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-Manâ€¦

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’Bongaâ€¦

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 threatâ€¦

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 bondageâ€¦

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 â€œmaddened savagesâ€ 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 indeedâ€¦

‘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 crueltyâ€¦

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 tragedyâ€¦

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 Ã©migrÃ© Nikolas Rokoff beside his duplicitous toady Paulvitchâ€¦

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 isâ€¦

With physical force clearly of no use, Rokoff’s latest plan is to put the Ape-Man through a ‘Trial by Treachery’: manufacturing â€œevidenceâ€ 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 nameâ€¦

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 â€¦until his newfound friend the Sheik rides to the rescueâ€¦

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 cruiseâ€¦

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 shipâ€¦

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 lifeboatâ€¦

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 homeâ€¦

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.

â€¦And off the coast, a lifeboat filled with dying travellers espies land and wearily sculls towards a welcoming beach in the heart of primeval forestsâ€¦

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 againâ€¦

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 Laâ€¦

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 Greystokeâ€¦

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 lifeâ€¦

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 maliceâ€¦

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 atrocityâ€¦

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 15^thNovember 1970-7^th 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 assessmentâ€¦

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 blowâ€¦

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 Â Â abducted her, before stumbling into a nest of aggressively paranoid bird-people who learn to respect his courage before flying away with his loverâ€¦

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 Tarzanâ€¦ which probably explains why he is taken by savages set on torturing the Jungle Legend to deathâ€¦

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 diamondsâ€¦

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 comprehendâ€¦

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 â€œGodâ€ whilst the other faction believes her a proper prize of their liege lord â€œKing Henry VIIIâ€â€¦

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, â€œStanleyâ€ then re-ascends the stony palisade to discover an incredible pastoral scene complete with feudal village and English castleâ€¦

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 Tarzanâ€¦

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 insanityâ€¦

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 failuresâ€¦

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 conclusionâ€¦

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 suspiciousâ€¦

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 mustâ€¦

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 Â© 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 2005, 2016 Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademark Tarzan and Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. All rights reserved.

February 7, 2022February 6, 2022

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 coupleâ€¦ especially the often bloody traumas of explaining to the incumbent household pet that they are not necessarily â€œNumber Oneâ€ any moreâ€¦

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.
Â© & â„¢ Liz Prince 2005. All rights reserved.

February 6, 2022

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 17^th 1929. The strip was an unassuming feature that debuted on 19^th December 1919: one of many newspaper cartoon funnies to parody, burlesque and mimic the era’s silent Â 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 10^th 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 periodâ€¦

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 16^th January 1929â€¦

The next day, in the 108^th 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 ownâ€¦

The Sailor Man even affably bulldozed his way onto the full-colour Sunday Pages which form the main course of this curated collection spanning 2^nd March 1930 through February 28^th ^Â1932.

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 musklesâ€¦

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 gotâ€¦

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 worldâ€¦

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 â€¦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 ideaâ€¦) 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 callersâ€¦

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 â€œsprize fighterâ€ – but would batter mercilessly any floozy who cast cow eyes at the devil-may-care matelotâ€¦

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 crazierâ€¦

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 folkâ€¦

We see softer sides of the sailor-man as he repeatedly gives away multiple purses – and even houses – to widows and â€œorphinksâ€, 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 dinerâ€¦

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 Â© 2021 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All Segar comics and drawings Â© 2021 King Features Syndicate. Inc./ â„¢Hearst Holdings, Inc. Strips provided by Bill Blackbeard and his San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, â€œHave a Segar!â€ Â© Sergio Ponchione. Translation Â© Jamie Richards. â€œOomphâ€ Â© Cathy Malkasian. All rights reserved.

February 5, 2022February 4, 2022

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 comicsâ€¦

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 figuresâ€¦ 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 ownersâ€¦ 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 â€œmysteriously disappearâ€.

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 â€“ As in Zatanna â€“ and Zero Hour!’)â€¦

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. â€“ the Criminal Alliance of the Worldâ€¦

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.
Â© 1961-1966, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

February 4, 2022February 3, 2022

Cedric volume 2: Dad’s Got Class

By Laudec & Cauvin with colours by Leonardo and translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-003-0 (Album PB & Digital edition)

Time for another rumination on romance, and this one has both kinds that afflict Young Boys of an Impressionable Age: older women and the unattainable classmateâ€¦

At least our continental cousins have discovered the secret of finding the funny side of the horrors of young loveâ€¦

Raoul Cauvin was one of Europe’s most successful comics scripters. Born in Antoing, Belgium in 1938, he joined publishing giant Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 after studying Lithography. Happily, he soon discovered his true calling – comedy writing – and began a glittering, prolific career at Le Journal de Spirou where he devised (with SalvÃ©rius) the astoundingly successful Bluecoats amongst dozens of other long-running, award winning series. Those included Sammy, Les Femmes en Blanc, Boulouloum et Guiliguili, Cupidon, Pauvre Lampil and Agent 212: cumulatively shifting more than 240 separate albums topping 45 million books in total thus far. Bluecoats alone has sold in excess of 15 million copies thus far.

We lost him to cancer on 19^th August 2021.

His collaborator on sharp, witty yet kid-friendly family strip CÃ©dric is Italian born, Belgium-raised Tony de Luca who studied electro-mechanics and toiled as an industrial draughtsman until he could make his break into comics.

Following a few fanzine efforts in the late 1970s, Laudec landed soap-style series Les Contes de CurÃ©-la-Fl’Ã»te at Spirou in 1979. He built it into a brace of extended war-time serials (L’an 40 in 1983 and MarchÃ© Noir et Bottes Ã Clous in 1985) whilst working his way around many of the title’s other strips. In 1987 Laudec united with Cauvin on the first CÃ©dric shorts and the rest is historyâ€¦ and science and geography and PE andâ€¦

We have Dennis the Menace (the Americans have one too but he’s just not the same) and the French-speaking world has CÃ©dric: an adorable lovesick rapscallion with a heart of gold and an irresistible streak of mischief dogging his heels. Collected albums of the variable-length strips – ranging from a Â½ page to half a dozen – began appearing in 1989 (with 34 released so far) and are always amongst the most popular and best-selling on the Continent, as is the animated TV show spun off from the strip.

This second Cinebook translation – from 2009 and originally continentally released as CÃ©dric 4: Papa a de la classe – hauls straight in to the love action as the little lout is invited to a party at the palatial home of posh-boy and romantic rival The Right Honourable Alphonse Andre Jones-Tarrington-Dupreeâ€¦

Previously, overly-imaginative Cedric had been utterly enamoured of his teacher Miss Nelly, but once new girl Chenjoined the class his life changed forever. Chen is different: her skin isn’t the same colour as everyone else’s and she talks really funny. He just can’t stop thinking about herâ€¦

All’s fair in love and war as ‘Milady and the Geisha’ finds Dupree tricking Cedric into wearing the most embarrassing fancy dress costume imaginable, only to see his devilish scheme badly backfire, after which ‘There are Flakes, and then there are Flakesâ€¦’ reveals how not everything falling from the sky is snow, before ‘Cats, Cats, Catsâ€¦’ sees Cedric and best pal Christian try to extort extra New Year’s gifts from feline fancier Aunt Jean only to fall at the first hurdleâ€¦

A young man’s initial encounter with grooming products and cologne is always a heady experience and ‘The A-Scent of Man’ shows the result of Cedric’s lack of impulse control, whilst grown-ups take centre stage in ‘A Story That’ll Make Your Hair Stand Up Straight’ as Grandpa starts dangerously criticising his useless son-in-law’s visit to a tonsorial stylist, after which ‘To Each His Own’ renews the simmering war after each tries – and fails – to hang a picture on the living room wallâ€¦

When Chen falls ill, Cedric goes to extreme efforts to be with and be like her in ‘Love, Love, Love’ before ‘Tails of All Sorts’ finds Cedric and Grandpa checking out each other’s romantic fascinationsâ€¦

Kicking and screaming, Cedric is forced into the local Cub Scout group, and even after yomping all over the countryside in ‘Valderee, Valderah’ uses every opportunity to sabotage the experience. Just as he’s being kicked out, however, the Girl Guides march past with little Chen happily with them in line.

When she becomes obsessed with her headphones, Cedric decides to record a message for his darling Chen, but his delivery is no match for his heartfelt enthusiasm in ‘Message Not Received’ and – after Mum and Dad have one of those blazing row over nothing – Grandpa has to explain a few painful facts of life about ‘The Big Scene’ to the appalled kidâ€¦

‘Hair Apparent’ deals with the 8-year-old’s first attempt at shaving whilst ‘A Tough Choice’ finds the cash-strapped kid having to choose between a present for Mum or Chen, before the episodic antics end on a slapstick high note with another Cubs camping trip disrupted when ‘A Man Misses His Calling’ finds Cedric seemingly lost in the woodsâ€¦

Rapid-paced, warm and witty, the exploits of this painfully keen, adorably amorous scallywag are a superbly charming example of how all little boys are just the same and infinitely unique. Cedric is a splendid family-oriented strip perfect for enticing youngsters and old folk alike – but should not to be considered a â€œHow-Toâ€ manual for romanceâ€¦
Â© Dupuis 1991 by Cauvin & Laudec. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

February 3, 2022

Trent volume 3: When the Lamps are Lit

By Rodolphe & LÃ©o with colour by Marie-Paule Alluard, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-836-4 (Album PB)

I’m thinking about relationships and romance at the moment, and comics have always explored pair-bonds as a fundamental aspect of any genre they exploit. It’s not always about simple attainment of a dream either. Sometimes, failure and the loss of love is more powerful, rewarding and/or entertaining than â€œTrue Love Waysâ€. The attendant emotion certainly has generated some astoundingly moving fictionâ€¦

European comics audiences have long been fascinated with the mythologised American experience, whether it be the Big Sky Wild West or later eras of crime-riddled, gangster-fuelled dramas. They also have a vested historical interest in the northernmost parts of the New World which has resulted in some pretty cool graphic extravaganzas.

LÃ©o is actually Brazilian artist and storymaker Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira Filho: born in Rio de Janeiro on December 13^th, 1944. Attaining a degree in mechanical engineering from Puerto Alegre in 1968, he was a government employee for three years, until forced to flee the country because of his political views. While a military dictatorship ran Brazil, he lived in Chile and Argentina before illegally returning to his homeland in 1974. To survive, he worked as a designer/graphic artist in Sao Paulo and created his first comics art for O Bicho magazine.

In 1981 he migrated to Paris, seeking to pursue a career in Bande DessinÃ©e, and found work with Pilote and L’Echo des Savanes as well as more advertising and graphics fare. The big break came when Jean-Claude Forest invited him to draw stories for Okapi which led to regular illustration work for Bayard Presse. In 1988 LÃ©o began his long association with scripter and scenarist Rodolphe D. Jacquette – AKA Rodolphe.

His prolific, celebrated writing partner has been a giant of comics since the 1970s: a Literature graduate who transitioned from teaching and running libraries to creating poetry and writing criticism, novels, biographies, children’s stories and music journalism. In 1975, after meeting Jacques Lob, he expanded his portfolio to write for a vast number of artists and strip illustrators in magazines ranging from Pilote and Circus to Ã€ Suivre and MÃ©tal Hurlant. Amongst his most successful endeavours are Raffini (with Ferrandez) and L’Autre Monde (Florence Magnin) but his collaborations in all genres and age ranges are too numerous to list here.

In 1991 he began working with LÃ©o on a period adventure series of the far north. Taciturn, introspective and fiercely driven Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant Philip Trent premiered in L’Homme Mort, forging a lonely path through the 19^th century Dominion over eight tempestuous, hard-bitten albums between then and 2000. He also prompted the collaborators’ later fantasy classics Kenya (and its spin-offs), Centaurus and Porte de Brazenac.

Cast very much in the classic adventure mould perfected by Jack London and John Buchan, Trent is a man of few words, deep thoughts and unyielding principles who gets the job done whilst stifling emotional turmoil boiling deep within him, but is the very embodiment of the phrase â€œstill waters run deepâ€â€¦

As ‘Quand S’allument Les Lampes’, this third adventure comes from 1993, with the solitary man and his faithful hound â€œDogâ€ trudging into and through another snow-wrapped town (stunning rendered as always by Leo) to eventually make camp alone in the frozen woods beyond. His thoughts dwell on the warm loving families therein, and wander back, as they always will, to Agnes.

He had saved her – but not her brother – and was given a clear invitation that he had never acted upon. Now, under the cold stars, he makes a decision. Applying for leave, he travels to Providence with marriage in mind, but on arrival finds a dilapidated, empty house and learns that his Miss St. Yves had reached the same conclusion years agoâ€¦ and with another manâ€¦

Shaken and crushed, he finds a saloon and picks up a whisky glassâ€¦

Weeks later, a penniless broken staggering shambles, he plagues the barkeeps of a nameless frontier railtown, pitied and despised by residents as they go about their business and try to avoid the rummy in the gutter.

Howling constantly with desolated loss, Trent’s only human connection is bar girl Mary Lou, but he is blind to her more than Christian interest. Wendley City is all bustle and terror. The railway will bring wealth – and is already reaping dividends – but it’s also drawn out human wolves. Seemingly invisible outlaws dubbed â€œthe Coalmenâ€ have targeted elderly residents for months, cruelly torturing and killing to extract the savings of the weakest townsfolkâ€¦

After another night of atrocity, an outraged posse manages to wound a suspect before losing him. The fugitive hides under the stoop drunken sot Trent is slumped on, and in gratitude offers the despised reprobate a job if he has the stomach for bad business and can sober upâ€¦

The final act contains a brutal denouement and reveals a cunning and extended undercover scheme to catch the Coalmen, but one that turned on the implacable Mountie’s honest despair and deadly near all-consuming brush with loss and lonelinessâ€¦

Mission accomplished, the quiet man returns to duty and the wastelands he patrols to preserve the safety of the families he cannot find a way to joinâ€¦

Another beguiling and introspective voyage of internal discovery, where environment and locales are as much lead characters as hero and foe, When the Lamps are Lit offers suspense, action, drama and poignant evocation in a compelling confection that will appeal to any fan of widescreen cinematic crime fiction or epic western drama.
Original edition Â© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1993 by Rodolphe & LÃ©o. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2017 Cinebook Ltd.

February 1, 2022

Rosa Parks

By Mariapoala Pesce & Matteo Mancini, translated by Nanette McGuiness (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-291-5 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-292-2

It must be quite hard to say something new – or even get under the accumulated skin – of a legend, and doubly so when the single act the entire world knows them for is not the beginning or end, but rather a middle moment in a long life of impassioned exceptionalismâ€¦

On December 1^st 1955, â€œnegroâ€ seamstress Rosa Parks rode the bus home. She had taken said public transport vehicle many times before and until that moment had always followed the rules. This was in Montgomery, Alabama, where â€œJim Crowâ€ laws had been steadily snatching back every vestige of freedom and liberty won with shot and shell during the War Between the States, almost from the moment the shooting stoppedâ€¦

Thus, on those commuter routes – as everywhere else – white people had priority, and if a black person was seated, they had to get up and literally move to the back of the bus to let â€œtheir bettersâ€ sit down.

On that evening, weary Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, even when told to by the white bus driver. She knew there would be consequences, anticipated them and was ready for them. Perhaps she wasn’t so sure where that act of passive defiance would take her and the entire countryâ€¦

That moment is as much part of mythology as history, but here – via some intriguing extrapolation from writer Mariapoala Pesce (Angela Davis; Alice in Austenland; La Fattoria Degli Animali) and illustrator/designer Matteo Mancini (Una divisa per nino) – we take a look at what made the moment: who Rosa Parks was before and what she became after that act of wanton lawbreakingâ€¦

Preceded by thoughtful author’s preface ‘Does it still make sense to talk about Rosa Parks?’ the story is then told through a distant lens, beginning in a taxicab on December 1^st 2014, where a hot young rapper frets and slowly gets acquainted with the elderly blue collar driver. They’re different generations of black man, but as the ride progresses, conversation shows how much has changed and how much they’re still alikeâ€¦

The star is wearing an â€œI Can’t Breatheâ€ shirt and that cause celebre sparks talk of another more distant timeâ€¦

And thus is told an intimate tale of the thoughtful family woman who weathered instant infamy and dangerous notoriety to become an eternal activist, iconic institution and tireless campaigner for employment equality, civil rights education, literacy and an end to sexual abuse and exploitation of black women and girls.

The captivating tale within a tale is augmented by ‘Martin Luther King’s Letter to Citizens of Montgomery, AL’; an essay by Stephanie Brooks detailing ‘Rosa Parks After’; a bibliography of Further Reading and a beautiful, capacious and extensive sketch and design section.

Intriguing and entertaining, Rosa Parks offers a powerful and enriching approach to a much-lauded but little known example of humanity at its very best.
Â© Mariapoala Pesce 2020 for the text. Â© Matteo Mancini 2020 for the illustrations. Â© for the original Italian EditionBeccoGiallo S.r.l. 2020. All rights reserved.

Rosa Parks will be published on February 17^th 2022 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

January 31, 2022January 30, 2022

The Fall of Homunculus

By Pentti Otsamo (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1896597157 (PB)

Joel and Anna are a young couple just getting by. They both have great artistic aspirations, but when Anna falls pregnant their previously harmonious partnership begins to unravel. Does Joel’s confusion and reluctance mean that they are not as compatible as he’d believed? Does Anna’s willingness to put her career on hold show her lack of dedication to her art?

Unless they truly communicate, how can they learn what each truly wants and needs?

This pensive Graphic Novella is a brief yet telling examination of the creative urge and process that makes some telling points about competing human drives, and the nature of creativity.

Such a gentle tragedy makes no great leaps forward or claims to innovation, but this tale is honest and engaging, and the inviting and expressive black and white artwork is subversively addictive.

Regrettably out of print and currently unavailable in digital editions, this a beguiling and rewarding yarn long overdue for a comeback and creative reassessment. Get it if you can.
Â© 1998 Pentti Otsamo. All Rights Reserved.

January 30, 2022January 28, 2022

Showcase Presents Superman Volume 2

By Otto Binder, Jerry Siegel, Jerry Coleman, Bill Finger, Robert Bernstein,Â Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, Curt Swan, Kurt SchaffenbergerÂ & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1041-0 (TPB)

Although we all think of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic creation as the epitome of comic book creation, the truth is that very soon after his launch inÂ Action Comics #1, Superman became a fictional multimedia star in the same league as Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes.

Far more people have seen or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read him – and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strips. By the time his 20^th anniversary rolled around, he had become a radio star; helmed a series of 17 astounding animated cartoons; been turned into literature by George Lowther’s novel; and spawned two movies, He was a perennial success for toy and puzzle manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were many more, a stage musical, a franchise of stellar movies and an almost seamless succession of games, bubble-gum cards and TV cartoons, beginning in 1966 with The New Adventures of Superman and continuing ever since. Even Krypto got in on the small-screen actâ€¦

However, that’s not all there is to these gloriously engaging super-sagas culled from the Metropolis Marvel’s lead feature in Action Comics #258-277 and the all-star sagas from Superman #134-145 (reliving the period November 1959 to May 1961, and including selected snippets from Superman Annuals #1 & 2) presented in crisp, clean monochrome for this sterling second Showcase Presents collection. Of course, in an ideal worldÂ – or even just a little bit better than this one â€“ we’d be able to see these tales in glorious full colour either on paper or digitallyâ€¦

During the 1950s, even as his back-story was expanded and elaborated, Superman had settled into an ordered existence. Nothing could really hurt him, nothing ever changed, and pure thrills seemed in short supply. With the TV show supplying live action, the Comics Code-hamstrung funnybook writers concentrated on supplying wonder, intrigue, imagination and, whenever possible, a few laughs as wellâ€¦

The wholesome intrigue and breathtaking fantasy commence here with Action Comics #258’s ‘The Menace of Cosmic Man’. This sharp mystery written by Bill Finger – illustrated by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye – focuses on an impoverished European dictatorship which suddenly announces it has its own all-powerful costumed champion: drawing Lois Lane and Clark Kent into a potentially deadly investigation. Action #259’s hallucinogenic thriller ‘The Revenge of Luthor!’ (Jerry Siegel & Al Plastino) delivers a seemingly impossible clash between the Man of Tomorrow and his own younger self which almost led to death for Lois and school sweetheart Lana Langâ€¦

Solo title Superman #134 (January 1960) sees a full-length epic from Otto Binder, Boring & Kaye as ‘The Super-Menace of Metropolis’ has the Caped Kryptonian apparently undertake a concerted attack upon humanity, leading to shocking revelations in ‘The Revenge Against Jor-El!’ before a blockbusting final battle against an unsuspected Kandorian foe in ‘Duel of the Supermen!’

There’s the usual heartbreak for Lois when Superman and Supergirl perpetrate a romantic hoax on the world to thwart a potential alien attack in ‘Mighty Maid!’ (Action #260, Binder & Plastino), as Superman #135 served up three Siegel stories beginning with the Plastino illustrated Untold Tale ‘When Lois First Suspected Clark was Superman!’ before ‘Superman’s Mermaid Sweetheart!’ (Boring & Kaye) reintroduces Clark’s college love Lori Lemaris in another superbly effective, bittersweet tear-jerker, after which Plastino’s ‘The Trio of Steel!’ finds the Man of Steel again battling his most impossible foe in a classy conundrumâ€¦

Action #261 revealed the secret history of ‘Superman’s Fortress of Solitude!‘ by unravelling a cunning criminal plot against the indomitable hero in a clever yarn from Siegel, Boring & Kaye, after which ‘When Superman Lost his Powers!’(#262, Robert Bernstein, Boring & Kaye) sees the Daily Planet staff trapped in another dimension where the Man of Tomorrow is merely mortal and Lois’ suspicions are again arousedâ€¦

Superman #136 began with ‘The Man who Married Lois Lane!’ (Bernstein, Boring & Kaye) wherein the frustrated reporter finally gives in, settling for a superman from the future with tragic results, after which another Untold Tale reveals how the world first learned ‘The Secret of Kryptonite!’ (Jerry Coleman & Plastino) and how, as ‘The Super-Clown of Metropolis!’, Superman is blackmailed into attempting to make a millionaire misanthrope laugh in a smart, character-driven yarn from Siegel & Plastino.

Action #263 introduced ‘The World of Bizarros!’ (Binder, Boring & Kaye) as the ghastly doppelganger uses an imperfect duplicator machine to create an entire race in his broken image, after which Superman #137 – ‘The Super-Brat from Krypton!’ by Siegel, Curt Swan & John Forte – reveals how an energy duplicate of baby Kal-El is raised by criminals to become ‘The Young Super-Bully’ before finally confronting his noble counterpart in ‘Superman vs. Super-Menace!’

In Action Comics #264, a clash with the newly-minted artificial race culminates in the Caped Kryptonian almost becoming ‘The Superman Bizarro!’ in a tense thriller from Binder, Boring & Kaye whilst ‘The â€œSupermanâ€ from Outer Space!’ in #265 (Binder, Swan & Forte) details the tragically short career of Hyper-Man, planetary champion of Earth-like world Oceania, before Superman #138 debuts ‘Titano the Super-Ape!’: a chimpanzee mutated into a Kryptonite-empowered King Kong clone with a devotion to Lois and big hatred for the Man of Steel: a beloved masterpiece by Binder, Boring & Kaye combining action, pathos and drama to superb effect.

‘Superman’s Black Magic!’ (Siegel & Plastino) balanced the epic tear-jerker with a clever yarn seeing the Action Ace instigate a devilish sting to catch superstitious crooks whilst ‘The Mermaid from Atlantis!’ ( Siegel, Boring & Kaye) finds newlywed Lori Lemaris attempt to trick Superman into finally proposing to Lois.

Action #266 has the heroic hunk ‘The Captive of the Amazons’ and trapped on another world. The queen wants the Man of Tomorrow for her sixth husband and is prepared to destroy Earth to make her dreams come trueâ€¦

Superman #139 opens with ‘The New Life of Super-Merman!’ as the Caped Kryptonian and Lori scheme to marry Lois off to a nice, safe multi-millionaire who really loves her in a rather dated and potentially offensive tale by Siegel, Boring & Kaye, whereas ‘The Jolly Jailhouse!’ (Coleman & Plastino) is safe and solid entertainment, providing a light-hearted clash between a would-be dictator and the World’s Most Uncooperative political prisonerâ€¦ Clark Kent.

‘The Untold Story of Red Kryptonite!’ (Binder, Boring & Kaye) then delivers a dramatic dilemma, a redefinition of the parameters of the deadly crimson mineral, and plenty of thrills with the Man of Steel forced to risk deadly danger and lots of informative flashbacks to rescue a sunken submarineâ€¦

Binder, Boring & Kaye produced spectacular 2-chapter clash ‘Hercules in the 20^th Century!’ and ‘Superman’s Battle with Hercules!’ (Action #267-268, and separated here by the cover of all-reprintÂ Superman Annual #1) as Luthor brings the Hellenic demi-god to Metropolis to battle â€œevil kingâ€ Superman. Events turn even more serious when the legendary warrior falls for Lois and marshals all the magical powers of the Olympians to destroy his unwitting rivalâ€¦

Although later played for laughs, most of the earlier appearances of Superman‘s warped double were generally moving comic-tragedies, such as issue #140 wherein Â Binder, Boring & Kaye’s ‘The Son of Bizarro!’ sees the fractured facsimile and wife Bizarro-Lois have a perfect, human baby. The fast growing tyke is super-powered but shunned by the populace of the world of monsters.

His simple-minded, heartbroken father has no choice but to exile his son in space where chance brings the lad crashing to Earth as ‘The Orphan Bizarro!’. Sent to the same institution where Supergirl resided, â€œBaby Busterâ€ is soon a permanent headache for the Girl of Steel until a tragic accident seemingly mutates him. Eventually his distraught father comes looking for him at the head of an angry army of enraged Superman duplicates and a devastating battle is narrowly avoided with a happy ending only materialising due to the introduction of ‘The Bizarro Supergirl!’â€¦

Action Comics #269 tells a clever tale of identity-saving when Lois tricks Clark into standing before ‘The Truth Mirror!’(Siegel, Swan & George Klein), whilst Superman #141 again shows the writer’s winning form in ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton!’ Illustrated by Boring & Kaye, the epic Grand Tragedy shows in ‘Superman Meets Jor-El and Lara Again!’ how an accident maroons the adoptive Earth hero in the past on his doomed home-world. Reconciled to dying there with his people, in ‘Superman’s Kryptonian Romance’ Kal-El finds love with soul-mate Lyla Lerrol, only to be torn from her side and returned to Earth against his will in concluding chapter ‘The Surprise of Fate!’

This bold saga was a fan favourite for decades thereafter, and remains one of the very best stories of the period.

In Action #270 Binder, Swan & Forte provide a whimsical interlude in ‘The Old Man of Metropolis!’ as the Metropolis Marvel glimpses his own twilight years whilst ‘Voyage to Dimension X!’ – Binder & Plastino in #271 – sees him narrowly escape his greatest foe’s latest diabolical plot.

Superman #142 opened with ‘Lois Lane’s Secret Helper!’ (Binder & Kurt Schaffenberger, as faithful Krypto tried to play matchmaker before ‘Superman Meets Al Capone!’ has the time-lost Man of Tomorrow clash with the legendary mobster (Binder, Boring & Kaye) before battling a wandering ‘Flame-Dragon from Krypton!’ with some helpful assistance from his best super-buddies in a sharp yarn from Siegel, Boring & Kaye.

Another prototype team-up featured in Action #272’s ‘Superman’s Rival, Mental Man!’: a clever criminal-sting by Siegel, Swan & Kaye centring around Lois’ unsuspected talents as a comic strip creator, whilst over in Superman #143, ‘The Great Superman Hoax!’ (Bernstein, Boring & Kaye) sees a criminal try to convince Lois that he is actually the Man of Might. ‘Lois Lane’s Lucky Day!’ (Siegel & Forte) then finds the daring reporter busting a crooked carnival – with a little covert Kryptonian help – before ‘Bizarro Meets Frankenstein!’ (Binder, Boring & Kaye) finds the befuddled duplicate invading Earth to prove he is the scariest monster of all timeâ€¦

Action #273 has Superman turn the table on the pestiferous Fifth Dimensional pixie by invading ‘The World of Mxyzptlk!’– a light-hearted romp from Siegel & Plastino – and in the next issue lose his abilities to Lois in ‘The Reversed Super-Powers!’ (Siegel & Schaffenberger.

Superman #144 led with Siegel, Swan & Kaye’s combative thriller ‘The Super-Weapon!’, after which Siegel & Plastino revealed the Untold Tale of ‘Superboy’s First Public Appearance!’ before going on to describe the terrifying plight of Superman, Supergirl and Krypto as ‘The Orphans of Space!’

Action #275 delivers a classic clash with alien marauder Brainiac, whose latest weapon is ‘The Menace of Red-Green Kryptonite!’ (Coleman, Boring & Kaye) after which Superman #145 opens on a salutary fable by Siegel, Swan & Kaye proving why Lois can’t be trusted with ‘The Secret Identity of Superman!’

Bernstein & Plastino’s ‘The Interplanetary Circus!’ then holds Earth hostage until the Man of Steel agrees to join them, but even after outwitting those interplanetary scoundrels, Superman is utterly flummoxed by the incredible events of ‘The Night of March 31^st ‘ – a deliciously surreal, whimsical and bizarre mystery-puzzle from Siegel, Swan & Sheldon Moldoff.

This second superb collection concludes with the stirring cover of Superman Annual #2 and a scintillating double-page Map of Krypton by Siegel & Plastino which enflamed the imagination of every kid who ever saw itâ€¦

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence, and with the character undergoing another radical overhaul at this time, these timeless tales of joyous charm and wholesome wit are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great times past but as an all-ages primer of wonders still to comeâ€¦
Â© 1959, 1960, 1961, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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