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September 30, 2024September 27, 2024

Kingdom Come – New Edition

By Mark Waid & Alex Ross, with Todd Klein & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9096-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

With documentary The Legend of Kingdom Come out and another commemorative edition scheduled for early next year, it’s time to revisit this modern classic once more and prep for all the furore to come. It’s also a damn fine read to amble into the festive season with…

In the mid-1960s a teenaged Jim Shooter wrote a couple of stories about the Legion of Super-Heroes set some years into the team’s own future. Those stories of adult Legionnaires revealed hints of things to come that shackled the series’ plotting and continuity for decades as eager, obsessed fans (by which I mean all of us) waited for the predicted characters to be introduced, presaged relationships to be consummated and heroes to die. By being so utterly impressive and similarly affecting, Kingdom Come accidentally repeated the trick decades later, subsequently painting the entire post Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe into the same creative corner until one of the company’s periodic continuity reboots unleashed possibility and uncertainty again…

Envisaged and designed by artist Alex Ross as DC’s answer to groundbreaking epic Marvels, Kingdom Come was originally released as a 4-issue Prestige Format miniseries in 1996 to rapturous acclaim and numerous awards and accolades. Although set in the future and an “imaginary story” released under DC’s Elseworlds imprint, it almost immediately began to affect the company’s mainstream continuity.

Set approximately 20 years into the future, the grandiose saga details a tragic failure and subsequent loss of Faith for Superman and how his attempt to redeem himself almost leads to an even greater and ultimate apocalypse. The events are seen through the eyes and actions of Dantean witness Norman McCay, an aging cleric co-opted by Divine Agent of Wrath the Spectre after the pastor officiates at the last rites of dying superhero Wesley Dodds. As the Sandman, Dodds was cursed for decades with precognitive dreams which compelled him to act as an agent of justice.

Opening chapter ‘Strange Visitor’ reveals a world where metahumans have proliferated to ubiquitous proportions: a sub-culture of constant, violent clashes between the latest generation of costumed villains and vigilantes, all unheeding and uncaring of the collateral damage they daily inflict on the mere mortals around and in all ways beneath them. The shaken preacher sees a final crisis coming, but feels helpless until the darkly angelic Spectre comes to him. Taken on a bewildering voyage of unfolding events, McCay is to act as the ghost’s human perspective whilst the Spirit of Vengeance prepares to pass final judgement on Humanity.

First stop is the secluded hideaway where farmer Kal-El has hidden himself since the ghastly events which compelled him to retire from the Good Fight and the eyes of the World. The Man of Tomorrow was already feeling like a dinosaur when newer, harsher, morally ambiguous mystery-men began to appear. After the Joker murdered the entire Daily Planet staff and hard-line new hero Magog consequently executed him in the street, the public applauded the deed. Heartbroken and appalled, Superman disappeared for a decade. His legendary colleagues also felt the march of unwelcome progress and similarly faded from sight.

With Earth left to the mercies of dangerously irresponsible new vigilantes, civil unrest escalated. The younger heroes displayed poor judgement and no restraint, with the result that within a decade the entire planet had become a chaotic arena for metahuman duels.

Civilisation was fragmenting. The Flash and Batman retreated to their home cities and made them secure, crime-free solitary fortresses. Green Lantern built an emerald castle in the sky, turning his eyes away from Earth and towards the deep black fastnesses of space. Hawkman retreated to the wilderness, Aquaman to his sub-sea kingdom whilst Wonder Woman retired to her hidden paradise. She did not leave until Armageddon came one step closer…

When Magog and his Justice Battalion battled the Parasite in St. Louis, the result was a nuclear accident which destroyed all of Kansas and much of Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska. Overnight the world faced starvation as America’s breadbasket turned into a toxic wasteland. Now with McCay and the Spectre invisibly observing, Princess Diana convinces the bereft Kal-El to return and save the world on his own terms…

In ‘Truth and Justice’ a resurgent Justice League led by Superman begins a campaign of unilateral action to clean up the mess civilisation has become: renditioning “heroes” and “villains” alike, imprisoning every dangerous element of super-humanity and telling governments how to behave, blithely unaware that they are hastening a global catastrophe of Biblical proportions as the Spectre invisibly gathers the facts for his apocalyptic judgement.

In the ensuing chaos, crippled warrior Bruce Wayne rejects Superman’s paternalistic, doctrinaire crusade and allies himself with mortal humanity’s libertarian elite – Ted (Blue Beetle) Kord, Dinah (Black Canary) Lance and Oliver (Green Arrow) Queen – to resist what can only be considered a grab for world domination by its metahuman minority. As helpless McCay watches in horror, Wayne’s group makes its own plans; one more dangerous thread in a tapestry of calamity…

At first Superman’s plans seem blessed to succeed, with many erstwhile threats flocking to his banner and his doctrinaire rules of discipline, but as ever there are self-serving villains with their own agendas. Lex Luthor organises a cabal of like-minded compatriots – Vandal Savage, Catwoman, Riddler, Kobra and Ibn Al Xu’ffasch (“Son of the Demon” Ra’s Al Ghul) – into a “Mankind Liberation Front”. With Shazam-empowered Captain Marvel as their slave, this group are determined the super-freaks shall not win. Their cause is greatly advanced once Wayne’s clique joins them…

‘Up in the Sky’ sees events spiral into catastrophe as McCay, still wracked by his visions of Armageddon, is shown the Gulag where recalcitrant metahumans are dumped. He also witnesses how it will fail, learns from restless spirit Deadman that The Spectre is the literal Angel of Death and watches with growing horror as Luthor’s plan to usurp control from the army of Superman leads to shocking confrontation, betrayal and a deadly countdown to the End of Days…

The deadly drama culminates in a staggering battle of superpowers, last moment salvation and a second chance for humanity in a calamitous world-shaking ‘Never-Ending Battle’…

Thanks to McCay’s simple humanity, the world gets another chance and this edition follows up with epilogue ‘One Year Later’ ending the momentous epic on a note of renewed hope…

This particular edition – released as a 20^th Anniversary deluxe hardback, a standard trade paperback and in digital format – came with an introduction by author and former DC scribe Elliot S. Maggin, assorted cover reproductions and art-pieces, an illustrated checklist of the vast cast list plus a plethora of creative notes and sketches in the ‘Apocrypha’ section, and even hints at lost glories in ‘Evolution’: notes, photos and drawings for a restored scene that never made it into the miniseries. We will have to see what Kingdom Come DC Compact Comics Edition additionally offers when it’s released next May…

Epic, engaging and operatically spectacular, Kingdom Come is a milestone of the DC Universe and remains to this day a solid slice of superior superhero entertainment, worthy of your undivided attention.
© 1996, 2006, 2008, 2016, 2019 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because Quality Counts …9/10

September 29, 2024September 26, 2024

Superman – The Silver Age Dailies volume 2:1961-1963

By Jerry Siegel, Wayne Boring, Curt Swan & Stan Kaye with Otto Binder, Leo Dorfman, Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger & Robert Bernstein (IDW Publishing Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-6137-7923-1 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

The American comic book industry – if it existed at all – would be an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. Spawning an army of imitators and variations within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel grew to encompass cops-&-robbers crimebusting, socially reforming dramas, sci fi fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East sucked in America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

From the outset, in comic book terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook biz, the Man of Tomorrow irresistibly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media. Although we all think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as epitome and acme of comics creation, the truth is that very soon after his springtime debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel was a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse.

We parochial and possessive comics fans too often regard our purest and most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers and their hyperkinetic kind long ago outgrew their four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized modern media creatures instantly familiar in mass markets, across all platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have seen and heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comic books. His globally syndicated newspaper strips alone were enjoyed by countless millions, and by the time his 20^th anniversary rolled around, at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial star, headlined a series of astounding animated cartoons, become a novel attraction (written by George Lowther) and helmed two films and his first smash, 8-season live-action television show. He was a perennial sure-fire success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and in his future were even more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark, Smallville, Superman & Lois), a stage musical, franchise of blockbuster movies and almost seamless succession of games, bubble gum cards and TV cartoons. These started with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and have continued ever since. Even superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the previous century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and often the planet – it was seen by millions, if not billions, of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books. It also paid better.

And rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture. Mutt and Jeff, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped their humble tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Most still do…

So it was always something of a risky double-edged sword when a comicbook character became so popular that it swam against the tide (after all, weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?) to became a genuinely mass-entertainment syndicated serial strip. Superman was the first original comic book character to make that leap – about six months after he burst out of Action Comics – but only a few successfully followed. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and groundbreaking teen icon Archie Andrews made the jump in the 1940s and only a handful like Spider-Man, Howard the Duck and Conan the Barbarian have done so since.

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16^th January 1939, supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5^th of that year. Originally crafted by luminaries like Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task required the additional talents of Jack Burnley and writers like Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz. The McClure Syndicate feature ran continuously until May 1966, appearing at its peak, in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers – a combined readership of more than 20 million. Eventually, Win Mortimer and Curt Swan joined the unflagging Boring & Stan Kaye whilst Bill Finger and Siegel provided stories, telling serial tales largely divorced from comic book continuity throughout years when superheroes were scarcely seen.

Then in 1956 Julie Schwartz kicked off the Silver Age with a new Flash in Showcase #4 and before long costumed crusaders began returning en masse to thrill a new generation. As the trend grew, many publishers began to cautiously dabble with the mystery man tradition and Superman’s newspaper strip began to slowly adapt: drawing closer to the revolution on the comicbook pages. As Jet-Age gave way to Space-Age, the Last Son of Krypton was a comfortably familiar icon of domestic America: particularly in the constantly evolving, ever-more dramatic and imaginative comic book stories which had received such a terrific creative boost when superheroes began to proliferate once more. The franchise had been cautiously expanding since 1954 and by 1961 Superman was seen not only in Golden Age survivors Action Comics, Superman, Adventure Comics, World’s Finest Comics and Superboy, but also in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and Justice League of America. Such increased attention naturally filtered through to the more widely-read newspaper strip and resulted in a rather strange and commercially sound evolution…

This second expansive hardback collection (spanning August 1961 to November 1963) opens with a detailed Introduction from Sidney Friedfertig, explaining the provenance of the strips; how and why Jerry Siegel was tasked with retuning recently published yarns from comic books; making them into daily 3-&-4 panel black-&-white continuities for an apparently more sophisticated and discerning newspaper audience. This frequently required major rewrites, subtle changes in plot, direction and tone and – on occasion – merging more than one funnybook story into a seamless new exploit to excite and amuse sensible, mature grown-ups.

If you’re a veteran fan, don’t be fooled: the tales retold here might seem familiar, but they are not simple rehashes: they’re variations and deviations on an idea for a readership perceived as completely separate from kids’ comics. Even if you are familiar with the original source material, the adventures here will read as brand new, especially as they’re gloriously illustrated by Boring (with a little occasional assistance from Swan) at the very peak of his artistic powers. After years away from the feature Boring had replaced his replacement Swan at the end of 1961, regaining his position as premiere Superman strip illustrator to see the series to its eventual conclusion. As an added bonus the covers of the issues the adapted stories came from have been included as a full, nostalgia-inducing colour gallery…

The astounding everyday entertainments by Siegel & Boring commence with Episode #123 from August 14^th to September 16^th, 1961 revealing how meek Clark Kent mysteriously excels as a policeman whilst wearing a legendary old cop’s lucky tin star in ‘The Super Luck of Badge 77!’: based on one of the same name by Otto Binder & Al Plastino from Superman #133 (November 1959). Running in papers from September 18^th to 5^th November and first seen in Superman #126 (January 1959 by Binder, Boring & Stan Kaye) ‘Superman’s Hunt for Clark Kent’ details how a Kryptonite mishap deprives the hero of his memories, leaving him lost in Metropolis and trying to ferret out the secret of his other identity, before Episode #125 – November 6^th to December 23^rd – finds a restored Clark as ‘The Reporter of Steel’ (once a Binder, Boring & Kaye yarn from Action Comics #257, October 1959), wherein Lex Luthor very publicly inflicts the mild-mannered journalist with unwanted superpowers, setting Lois Lane off on another quest to prove her colleague is actually a Caped Kryptonian.

‘The 20^th Century Achilles’ ran from Christmas Day 1961 through January 20^th 1962, adapted from an Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan & Kaye thriller in Superman #148 (October 1961). It detailed how a cunning crook holds the city hostage to his apparent magical invulnerability whilst ‘The Man No Prison Could Hold’ (January 22^nd – February 24^th by Finger, Boring & Kaye from Action Comics #248, in January 1959) sees Clark and Jimmy Olsen captured by a Nazi war criminal using slave labour to construct a mighty vengeance weapon. Unbeknownst to all, the Man of Steel has good reason to foil every escape attempt and stay locked up…

An old-fashioned hard lesson informs the Kryptonian Crimebuster’s short, sharp shock treatment of ‘The Three Tough Teenagers’ (February 26^th to March 31^st and based on a Siegel & Plastino collaboration contemporaneously appearing in Superman #151 (February 1962)). Perhaps the headline-grabbing nature of youth in revolt was too immediate to resist? Usually timing discrepancies in publication dates could be explained by the fact that submitted comic book yarns often appeared months after completion, but here it feels like neither iteration of the franchise was willing to surrender sales-garnering topicality…

Swan illustrated portions of the Siegel/Boring strip version of ‘The Day Superman Broke the Law’ (2^nd to 28^th April), derived from the original by Finger & Plastino in Superman #153, May 1962. Here, the hero falls foul of a corrupt city councilman rewriting ordinances to hamper him, after which the Kryptonian became ‘The Man with the Zero Eyes’ (30^th April to June 2^nd from an uncredited tale in Superman #117, November 1957 and first limned by Plastino) as a space virus causes super-freezing rays to uncontrollably erupt from his eyes.

Spanning 4^th – 23^rd June, ‘Lois Lane’s Revenge on Superman’ grew out of a comedy tale by Siegel, Swan & George Klein in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #32 (April 1962). For adults, however, there’s a dark edge apparent as the frustrated journalist revels in humiliating her ideal man when a magic potion turns him into a baby…

‘When Superman Defended his Arch-Enemy’ – published from 25^th June to August 4^th as adapted from Action Comics #292 (September 1962 by writer unknown & Plastino) – sees the Metropolis Marvel acting as defence Counsel for ungrateful mad scientist Luthor after the fleeing maniac dismantles a sentient mechanoid on a world of machine intelligences…

Daily from 6^th August to September 8^th,‘Lois Lane’s Other Life’ retold Siegel, Swan & Klein’s tale from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #35 (August 1962) as the dauntless reporter changes her appearance to go undercover but subsequently loses her memory, after which ‘The Feud Between Superman and Clark Kent’ – September 10^th to 27^th October, and originally crafted by Hamilton & Plastino for Action Comics #292, with a cover-date of October 1962) depicts the two halves of the hero separated by Red Kryptonite. Sadly, the goodness and nobility are all in the merely human Clark part and he must avoid his merciless alternative fraction’s murderous clutches until the effect wears off…

First conceived by Siegel, Swan & Klein (in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #38, January 1963), ‘The Invisible Lois Lane’ was more comedy than drama, but here filled newspaper pages between October 29^th and December 1^st as the undetectable investigator quickly sees her quarry switch from Clark to Superman. It takes super-ingenuity to convince her otherwise…

‘The Man Who Hunted Superman’ (December 3^rd 1962 to January 19^th 1963) originally appeared as Leo Dorfman & George Papp’s Boy of Steel blockbuster ‘The Man Who Hunted Superboy’ in Adventure Comics #303 (December 1962), finding Clark subbing for a prince in a Ruritanian kingdom, complete with adoring and compliant princess bride, until the Action Ace could topple a highly-placed usurper and save the kingdom. Then ‘Superman Goes to War’ (January 21^st to February 23^rd, initiated by Hamilton, Swan & Klein in Superman #161, May 1963) as Lois and Clark visit a film-set sponsored by the US military and are inadvertently caught up in a real, but unconventional, alien invasion…

From February 25^th to April 20^th Red K stripped our hero of his powers, leaving ‘The Mortal Superman’ forced to fake it due to an unavoidable prior engagement in a terse reinterpretation of the Dorfman & Plastino yarn seen in Superman #160, April 1963. The Man of Steel, for good and sound patriotic reasons, allows himself to be locked up for the alleged murder of Clark Kent in ‘The Trial of Superman’ (22^nd April -May 25^th), seen later in its original format as Hamilton & Plastino’s thriller in Action Comics #301, June 1963.

Hardworking, obsessive editor Perry White loses his memory and falls into the clutches of criminals who use his investigative instincts to uncover Earth’s greatest secret in ‘The Man who Betrayed Superman’s Identity’ between 27^th May and July 6^th (adapted from Dorfman, Swan & Klein’s suspenseful romp in Action Comics #297, February 1963) whilst, with adult sensibilities fully addressed, genuine tragedy and pathos pushes Siegel & Boring’s reworking of ‘The Sweetheart that Superman Forgot’ – running 8^th July to August 17^th – to the heady heights of pure melodrama as Superman loses his powers, memories, and use of his legs; but meets, falls in love and loses a girl who only wants him for himself. In one of the most adult of stories of his canon, the hero recovers his astounding gifts and faculties but has no notion of what he’s lost and who waits for him forever alone: a depth of emotion the author could only dream of approaching in the Plastino-illustrated original version appearing in Superman #165 (November 1963).

Painfully locked into un-PC, sexist comedy tropes of the era, from August 19^th to September 14^th comes ‘Superman, Please Marry Me’ wherein a novelty record of Lois purportedly begging her ideal man to give in makes the reporter’s life a living hell in a “tweaked-for-married-readers” yarn based on Siegel, Swan & Klein’s ‘The Superman-Lois Hit Record’ in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #45 (November 1963). From the same issue, ‘Dear Dr. Cupid’ by Siegel & Kurt Schaffenberger is a light-hearted turn running from September 14^th to October 12^th detailing how the “news-hen’s” surprising and unsuspected gift for doling out advice as an Agony Auntie leads to a series of disturbing gifts from an unexpected admirer…

The epic escapades conclude with October 14^th -November 23^rd 1963’s ‘The Great Superman Impersonation’ (based on Robert Bernstein & Plastino’s Action Comics #306, November 1963) with Clark kidnapped by foreign agents who pass him off as the Man of Tomorrow to facilitate the takeover of a Central American republic: big mistake, especially as Superman is in a playful mood…

Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1961-1963 is the second of three huge (305 x 236 mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Action Ace and a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons.

If you love the era, these stories are great comics reading, and this is a book you simply must have – especially as there’s still no sign of any digital editions yet.
Superman ™ & © 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

September 28, 2024September 26, 2024

Ugly Mug #8

By many and various aligned to The House of Harley, including Denny Derbyshire, Ed Pinsent, Julian Geek, Alberto Monteiro, John Bagnall, & various (House of Harley)
ISBN: N/A (A4 softcover)

Comics may be a billion dollar business these days, but thankfully it remains at its heart and soul all about doing something creative and waiting for people to react. Hopefully, they’ll be appreciative and give you lots of money… or at least try to swindle you out of your rights. That latter one’s not actually that bad, as it does mean you’re doing something others want…

What I want – and at last have – is the latest annual extravaganza from artistic iconoclasterers The House of Harley; one more supercharged in your face-area assemblage of stories, thoughts and even continued serials from people who don’t care if pastors complain, social workers worry or the Telegraph pitches a disingenuous, profit-seeking hissy-fit….

At this fertile, dynamic pictorial coalface are folk who would draw strips and cartoons even if the act carried the threat of exile or death penalty: concocting and unleashing the kind of word-wedded images the industry and art form continually renews and reinvents itself with.

Every year The House of Harley unleashes an annual (well duh!) anthology of short stories, posterworks, tableaux, diagrammatic diatribes – even further continued characters and serials, and also invites international guests to get what’s needful off their artistic chests, and it’s well past time you indulged their splendid efforts.

This year’s industrial strength model proudly lurks behind a wraparound cover from John Bagnall and boasts much “modern machinery invented by returning Ugly Mug contributors” beginning with a polemical parade through hidden depths in ‘Sound of the Underground’, before Jack of all Trades helpfully shares the way to handle wasps nests and Ed Pinsent details the repercussions upon R.S.D. Laing, Record Collector after ‘He travels back in time to get a rare LP!’…

Half page hilarity ensues as ‘Mark E. Smith: Music Teacher’ goes that extra mile for a young violinist whilst nudist larks abound in ‘Life with Freda Nipple’ with a second outing for each at the far end of surreal and epic historical fable ‘Bearskin’ by Denny Derbyshire, whereafter apish anarchy is astoundingly unleashed in Julian Geeks ‘Jungle Ruck’.

The savage outbursts are followed by the eighth arcane instalment of Pinsent’s beguiling ‘Windy Wilberforce’ serial The Saga of the Scroll (fear not, back issues of Ugly Mug are available to all with the wherewithal), and we conclude with some more brief bits featuring Mark E. and Freda, before being escorted off the premises by an assortment of ‘Big backsides’ as depicted by Brazilian guest creator Alberto Monteiro.

Proudly proffering “vinyl mania, whirling microphones, stuffed tigers, cable inspections, terrible mistakes, old mining railways, time travel on the cheap, floating ziggurats, tree portals, strange clouds, hand-cranked cars, mating season orgies, smoking spoil-heaps and a Tunnock’s shortage” here is more racy fare than any British X-mas Annual of yore. These cunning creations teem with turbulent narrative force and visual clout, and come packed to the gills with wry and witty visual oomph, an ideal example of the compulsion to leave our marks wherever we can.

Buy one. Read one. Do one yourself.

You know you want to…
All contents © their respective creators.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Wild Fun and the Epitome of Sheer Creativity Perfection… 8/10

For all this and much more please check out houseofharley.net/shop

September 27, 2024September 26, 2024

The Eyes of the Cat

By Moebius & Jodorowsky (Humanoids)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-032-1 (HB/Digital edition) ISBN: 978-1-59465-042-0 (Yellow Edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Many of the world’s greatest comics exponents are cruelly neglected these days. It’s not because they are out of vogue or forgotten, it’s simply that so much of their greatest material lies out of print. This little gem is one of them…

Born in Tocopilla, Chile in 1929, Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky has been a filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, world traveller, philosopher, spiritual guru and comics writer. The controversial creative polymath is known for such films as Fando y Lis, El Topo, The Holy Mountain, Sante Sangre, The Rainbow Thief, The Dance of Reality and others, plus a vast and influential comics output, including Anibal 5 (created whilst living in Mexico), Le Lama blanc, Aliot, The Meta-Barons, Borgia, Madwoman of the Sacred Heart, The Son of El Topo, Showman Killer, Knights of Heliopolis and so many more, created with some of South America and Europe’s greatest artists. His decade-long collaboration with Moebius on Tarot-inspired Sci Fi epic The Incal (1981-1989) utterly redefined and reinvented what comics could aspire to and achieve…

Most widely regarded for his violently surreal avant-garde films, loaded with highly-charged, inspired imagery – blending mysticism and what he terms “religious provocation” – and his spiritually-informed fantasy and science fiction comics tales, Jodorowsky is also fascinated by humanity’s inner realms and has devised his own doctrine of therapeutic healing: Psychomagic, Psychogenealogy and Initiatic massage. He still remains fully engaged and active in all these creative areas to this day and has never stopped creating. Most of his lifelong themes and obsessions are seamlessly wedded together in this glorious re-release of his very first comics collaboration with the creator most inextricably associated with him.

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud was born in the suburbs of Paris on May 8^th 1938 and raised by his grandparents after his mother and father divorced in 1941. In 1955, he attended the Institut des Arts Appliqués where he became friends with Jean-Claude Mézières who, at 17, was already selling strips and illustrations to magazines like Coeurs Valliants, Fripounet et Marisette and Le Journal de Spirou. Giraud, apparently, spent most of his college time drawing cowboy comics and left after a year…

In 1956, he visited Mexico, staying with his mother for eight months before returning to France and a full-time career drawing comics. These were mostly westerns such as Frank et Jeremie for Far West and King of the Buffalo, A Giant with the Hurons and others for Coeurs Valliants, all in a style based on French comics legend Joseph Gillain AKA Jijé. Giraud spent his National Service in Algeria in 1959-1960, where he worked on military service magazine 5/5 Forces Françaises and, on returning to civilian life, became Jijé’s assistant in 1961, working on the master’s long-running (1954-1977) Western epic Jerry Spring.

A year later, Giraud and Belgian writer Jean-Michel Charlier launched the serial Fort Navajo in Pilote #210. Remarkably quickly its disreputable, antihero lead character Lieutenant Blueberry became one of the most popular European strips of modern times. From 1963 to 1964, Giraud produced a number of strips for satire periodical Hara-Kiri and – keen to distinguish and separate the material from his serious day job – first coined his penname “Moebius”…

He didn’t use it again until 1975 when he joined Bernard Farkas, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Philippe Druillet – all inspired science fiction fans as the founding fathers of a revolution in narrative graphic arts as created by “Les Humanoides Associes”. Their groundbreaking adult fantasy magazine Métal Hurlant utterly enraptured the comics-buying public and Giraud again sought a discreet creative persona for the lyrical, experimental, soul-searching material he was increasingly driven to produce: series such as The Airtight Garage, The Incal and the mystical, dreamy flights of sheer fantasy contained in Arzach…

To further separate his creative twins, Giraud worked inks with a brush whilst the futurist Moebius rendered with pens…

After a truly stellar career which saw him become a household name, both Giraud and Moebius passed away in March 2012.

As explained in Jodorowsky’s Foreword, this magnificently macabre minimalist monument to imagination came about as brief tale in a free, promotional premium “Mistral Edition” of Métal Hurlant constituted their very first collaboration – outside the creative furnace that was the pre-production phase of doomed & aborted movie Dune, where they first met. Also included in that imaginative movie production dream-team was Dan O’Bannon, Douglas Trumbull, H.R. Giger and Chris Foss, and some secrets of that time are also shared here.

Les Yeux du chat was realised between 1977 and 1979: a dark fable that is sheer beauty and pure nightmare rendered in stark monochrome and florid expansive grey-tones. Text is spartan and understated: more poetic goad than descriptive excess or expositional in-filling.

There’s a city, a boy at a window, an eagle and a cat. When their lives intersect, shock and horror are the inescapable result…

Available in a number of formats since 2011, this is a visual masterpiece no connoisseur of comics can afford to miss.
© 2013 Humanoids, Inc. All rights reserved.

September 26, 2024September 25, 2024

Adrift on a Painted Sea

By Sue Bird and Tim Bird (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-82-0 (TPB)

A child – every child’s – late life obsession to understand their parents and find similarities and differences in the lives each generation has led. What we remember and how we frame such recollections afflicts all of us. It also becomes increasingly important as we get older, a truism that washes all through this elegiac and ruminatory collation where comics storyteller Tim Bird details his response to finding the lost (more actually forgotten and mis-recalled) paintings of his recently deceased mother Sue.

Contemporary found facts just don’t jibe with his own childhood memories and he cannot resist finding what the truth actually is…

What Tim irrefutably knows is that when not running a house, being a wife and rearing two kids, Sue Bird was a talented and compulsive artist, who from childhood created for the sheer joy of it. She loved the sea, shores and marine life, nature studies and still life painting. As a kid she even won competitions and her artworks toured in shows.

Or did they?

Mum created passionately and privately, and never tried to sell her work. After her death during the Covid pandemic, Tim uncovers some paintings and drawings – and a few scraps of newspapers squirreled away. Whilst still coming to terms with the awful restrictions that made her passing so cruel and unfair, he is increasingly gripped with his own passion: a hunger to know what’s what and what happened…

Using the recovered bounty of her dozens of paintings and by talking to anyone still alive who knew her, Tim reevaluates his own past and relationship with Sue Bird, using her artworks as markers and chapter posts for a new sort of artistic statement. Moreover, as he seeks to unravel and reconfigure his fudged and muddy impressions of their times together, other shared milestone moments re-emerge: Northumberland beaches no one else enjoyed, listening to the Shipping Forecast and just sharing a drive to make things…

Using his comics as a skeleton and her paintings as meat on those bones, Bird applies his reshaped consciousness to the past and as his quest brings him closer to his own young family, engineers those feelings and discoveries into a visual eulogy to her and the power of memory, loss, and – always and forever – family.
© Tim Bird 2024.

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because Some Cannot Be Forgotten… 9/10

Adrift on a Painted Sea is published on 1^st October 2024 and is available for pre-order now.

September 25, 2024September 24, 2024

Showcase Presents Sgt. Rock volume 4

By Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012- (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In America after the demise of EC Comics in the mid-1950’s and prior to game-changing Blazing Combat magazine, the only certain place to find controversial, challenging and entertaining US war comics was at DC. In fact, even whilst Archie Goodwin’s stunning but tragically mis-marketed quartet of classics were waking up a generation, the home of Flash, Green Arrow and the Justice League of America was a veritable cornucopia of gritty, intriguing and beautifully illustrated battle tales presenting combat on a variety of fronts and from differing points of view.

Whilst the Vietnam War escalated, 1960s America increasingly endured a Home Front death-struggle pitting deeply-ingrained Establishment social attitudes against a youth-&-freedom oriented generation with a radical new sensibility. In response DC’s (or rather National Periodical Publishing, as it then was) military-themed comic books became even more bold and innovative…

For what seemed like forever at the time, the “combat-happy Joes” of Easy Company and their indomitable invincible “top-kick” Sgt Rock were one of the great and enduring creations of American comics. The gritty meta-realism of Robert Kanigher’s ordinary guys in a constant welter of life-or-death situations captured the imaginations of generations of readers, young and old. So pervasive is this icon of pictorial combat that it’s hard to grasp that Rock is not an immortal industry prototype like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman – with us since the earliest moments of the industry – but was in fact a late addition to and child of the Silver Age of Comics: debuting as just another Kanigher & Joe Kubert tale in war anthology G.I. Combat (#68, January 1959). Happy 65^th Anniversary you G.I. guys!

The archetypal and idealised “common man” sergeant was an anonymous boxer who wasn’t especially skilled or gifted but simply refused to be beaten: absorbing all punishment dealt out to him. When ‘The Rock!’ enlisted, that same Horatian quality soon attained mythic proportions as he held back an overwhelming Nazi attack by sheer grit and determination, remaining bloody but unbowed on a field littered with dead and broken men. The tale inspired an instant sequel or two before – in Our Army at War #83 (June 1959) – the mythmaking truly began…

This fourth monumental military milestone collects in chronological publishing order and stark, stunning monochrome, more of the groundbreaking classics which made Sgt. Rock a legend. These grimly gritty, epically poetic war stories are taken from still-anthological Our Army at War #181-216 (bracketing cover-dates June 1967 – February 1967): a period when American comics underwent a spectacular renaissance in style, theme and quality, even as the Vietnam war took over the nation’s consciousness and conscience.

They are also still criminally unavailable in modern editions – colour and/or digital – but hope and profit motives still cling on…

Scripted throughout by Writer/Editor Kanigher and illustrated primarily by Russ Heath and/or Joe Kubert, the terse episodes herein begin with #181 as the taciturn topkick meets ‘Monday’s Coward – Tuesday’s Hero’ with Heath depicting how the sarge helps three deserters find their fates whilst Easy escort them to a firing squad, after which a change of venue – to North Africa – sees ‘The Desert Rats of Easy!’ (#182, Kanigher & Heath) avenge their comrades of Baker Company by destroying a cunningly concealed munitions dump…

A general industry shift towards mystery and supernatural themes was impacting all sectors of DC’s output and OAaW #183’s ‘Sergeants Don’t Stay Dead!’ tipped into symbolism and metaphysics as a dying soldier’s drawing and an exploding tank seemingly send the titanic topkick back into earlier manifestations as a key combatant in the Revolutionary, Civil and First World wars, prior to Kubert illustrating a terse ethical psycho-drama in #184 as Rock and his comrades risk their lives saving a ‘Candidate for a Firing Squad!’ who is happy to see them all die if he can save his own skin…

Unsafely ensconced in Europe again, ‘Battle Flag for a G.I.’ finds the weary warriors endangered by a starry-eyed young patriot whose battle banner imperils and – ultimately – inspires them all before #186 reprinted the Kanigher/Kubert classic from OAaW #90 as ‘3 Stripes Hill!’ revealing how Rock won his stripes, after which Heath returns for #187’s ‘Shadow of a Sergeant!’ as a hero-worshipping replacement dogs Rock’s heels and gets too close to the action…

Kubert & Jack Abel limn ‘Death Comes for Easy!’ as Easy are knocked off-kilter by fortune-telling replacement “Gypsy” after which #189 tackles the unsettling topic of child-soldiers in Kanigher, Kubert & Abel’s ‘The Mission was Murder!’ When French resistance fighters are killed, their kids regroup as Unit 3 to assist Rock and Easy in eradicating a hidden Nazi radar station, after which Our Army at War #190 (an 80-page Giant reprint issue) offers another chance to read Kubert’s ‘What Makes a Sergeant Run?’ as Rock shares his hard-earned war wisdom with the young and the hapless, as first seen in OAaW #97.

Air Ace and proud Navajo flier Johnny Cloud co-stars in 191’s ‘Death Flies High!’ as the soldiers and airman complete a downed bomber’s mission against a lethal windmill(!) after which Kubert & Abel illustrate another Unit 3 thriller as Rock is captured and faces ‘A Firing Squad for a Sergeant!’, before Kubert flies solo in #193in a flashback to Easy’s African campaign. ‘Blood in the Desert’ sees the tough top kick playing bodyguard to a farmer obsessed with making the sands bloom, even if he must irrigate it with his own blood…

Kubert writes and draws the next Unit 3 yarn in #194 as a mission goes sour and Rock is caught by sadistic Colonel Koldbludt. The gleeful torturer really wants the kid guerillas and in ‘A Time for Vengeance’ regrets getting his wish…

Kanigher & Kubert reunite for #195 as Rock and the kids hit a ‘Dead Town!’ dripping with recent blood and ancient history to liberate slave labourers before another Kubert all-alone tale foresightedly explores PTSD before we even had the term when Rock reaches his limit in ‘Stop the War… I Want to Get Off’ and a mysterious figure helps him out with a perspective-altering voyage through history…

In OAaW #197, Kanigher & Heath place Rock’s guys and Unit 3 between the German army and a doomed French village in ‘Last Exit for Easy’ (if you are precious about chronology the inexplicable placement of this yarn just after Dunkirk will drive you bonkers, but just remind yourself it’s only comics and you’ll survive), after which Kanigher & Kubert return to basics for # 198’s ‘Plugged Nickel!’ as the sarge proves the true value of good luck keepsakes in combat and tackles an alpine fortress and its ‘Nazi Ghost-Wolf’ in #199…

As much to celebrate the era as the anniversary, Our Army at War #200 inducted proto-hippie ‘The Troubadour’ in a bizarre tale of frontline pacifism and protest (delivered in rhyme and sans word balloons, too!). It’s supplemented by a classy ‘Special Battle Pin-up’ by Kubert and precedes a subtle shift in narrative emphasis beginning with #201’s ‘The Graffiti Writer!’ as Easy company slog across battlefield and devastated villages only to discover that “Kilroy was here!” first…

The ”combat happy Joes” take centre stage in #202 after learning (erroneously) that ‘The Sarge is Dead!’ but their battles briefly pause for an 80-Page Giant in #203 which offers similarly-themed reprint ‘Easy’s Had It!’ (by Bob Haney & Kubert from #103), exploring what happens when Rock is wounded and the company must fight without their guiding light and lucky talisman…

OAaW #204 & 205 were also reprint issues, represented here by their superb Kubert covers, but #206 resumes abnormal military service with ‘There’s a War On!’ as a Nazi psy-ops expert targets Rock with drugs, women and real food, but still fails to break his resolve, after which ‘A Sparrow’s Prayer’ harks back to North Africa where a tough spot seemed to need a devout recruit’s ardent orisons to save his companions’ bodies and souls…

Heath returned as regular artist with # 208 as ‘A Piece of Rag… a Hank of Hair!’ found Easy in a French village and reluctant babysitters to a little girl used a decoy by SS killers, before ‘I’m Still Alive!’ focussed on a replacement who was convinced his days were numbered…

Our Army at War #210 delivered a much-demanded sequel when Easy infiltrated an Italian fishing village and found their cheeky bugbear was still there first in ‘I’m Kilroy!’

A spiritual tone pervades #211’s Alpine adventure ‘The Treasure of St. Daniel!’ as the liberation of a small village reveals the location of a long lost treasure and the fact that the greedy occupiers didn’t really leave, after which a bombing raid renders the sarge deaf in in the middle of a joint US/UK commando raid in ‘The Quiet War!’

A small tale with big impact comes in #213’s ‘A Letter for Bulldozer!’ as the company strongman is torn apart by an envelope he dares not open, prior to the arrival of disruptive loner PFC Willy Hogan who leans too late how to be Easy in 214 ‘Easy Co… Where Are You?’ before the new material concludes with ‘The Pied Piper of Peril!’ in #215, wherein French kids appear to prefer their retreating Nazi overlords to the liberating Americans. Of course, there’s a simple nasty explanation if only Rock can find it…

Designated Sgt. Rock’s Prize Battle Tales, 80-Page Giant OAaW #216 ends this combat catalogue with Kanigher & Kubert’s classic yarn ‘Doom over Easy!’ – as seen originally in #107 – with the usually savvy soldiers afflicted by crippling superstition until the sergeant steps in…

Robert Kanigher at his worst was a declarative, heavy-handed and formulaic writer, but when writing his best stuff – as here – his stories are imaginative, evocative, iconoclastic and heart-rending. He was a unique reporter and observer of the warrior’s way and the unchanging condition of the dedicated and so very human ordinary foot-slogging G.I. He was also a strident and early advocate of equality and integration.

With superb combat covers from Kubert or Heath fronting each sortie, this battle-book is a visually vital compendium and certified delight for any jaded comics fan seeking something more than flash and dazzle. A perfect example of true Shock and Awe; these are stories every comics fan and combat collector should see, and one day we’ll have them in the full archival dress and trimmings they deserve…
© 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

September 24, 2024

Bloom County: Real, Classy, & Compleat 1980-1989

By Berkeley Breathed (Little, Brown & Co./IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-976-9 (HB/Digital editions)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in far less enlightened times.

Oh Joy! Oh Joy! More American elections!

This review is a blatant deception. As usual, I’ve cited a specific release you should have – especially if you’re a hedonistic sucker for the comfortingly tactile and simultaneously intoxicating buzz of a sturdy, well-bound block of processed tree, glue, stitches and inks containing wonderful stories and images – and it’s worth every penny. Actually, though, I’m really telling you to take a look at one remarkable creator’s entire output…

For most of the 1980s and half of the 1990s, Berke Breathed dominated the American newspaper comic strip scene with his astoundingly funny, edgy-yet-surreal political fantasy Bloom County (8^th December 1980 to August 6^th). All his stuff is fully available digitally – so don’t dawdle here with my reviews, just get them now!

At the top of his game and swamped with dazzling awards like Pulitzer prizes, Breathed retired from strip work to concentrate on a series of lavish children’s fantasy picture books – such as Red Ranger Came Calling and Mars Needs Moms! They rank among the best America has ever produced. Get them too.

His first foray into the field was 1991’s A Wish for Wings That Work: a Christmas parable featuring Breathed’s signature character, and his most charmingly human. Opus is a talking penguin, reasonably well-educated (for America), archaically erudite, genteel, emotionally vulnerable; insecure yet unfalteringly optimistic (think Alan Alda in a tux and fat-suit). His two most fervent dreams are to be reunited with his absent mother one day, and that in the fullness of time he might fly like a “real” bird…

Between 2003 and 2008, Breathed revived Opus as a Sunday strip, but eventually capitulated to a career-long antipathy to manic deadline pressures in newspaper production and the often-insane, convoluted contradictions of editorial censorship. It seemed his ludicrous yet appealing cast of misfits – all deadly exponents of irony, sarcasm and common sense residing in the heartland of American conservatism – were done and gone for good.

Ultimately, however, the internet provided a platform for the opinionated artist to resume his role as a gadfly commentator on his own terms. Since 2015, Bloom County has returned to mock, expose and shame capitalism, celebrities, consumerism, popular culture, politicians, religious leaders and people who act like idiots. He does it at his own pace (only seven strips in 2023!) and became guardian of America’s artistic soul when he began – with permission – to incorporate Bill Watterson’s immaculate clowns Calvin and Hobbes into his outings.

These post-2015 efforts, unconstrained by syndicate pressures to not offend advertisers, are also available in book collections. You’ll want those too, and be delighted to learn all that Bloom County treasure is available in digital formats – fully annotated to compensate for the history gap if you didn’t live through events such as Iran-Gate, Live-Aid, Star Wars (both cinematic and military-industrial complex versions), assorted cults and televangelists experiencing less that divine retribution and the other tea-cup storms that have made us Baby Boomers so rude and defensive…

Once more, I’m recommending an entire canon of work rather than a specific volume, but Bloom County, Outland, Opus and – oh, heaven, unbound! – the triumphant second coming of the Bloom County crew of recent years are absolute classics of comics creation: political, polemical, sardonic, surreal, groundbreaking, witty, acerbic, frequently angry and always, ALWAYS cripplingly funny.

I barely survived those years and can honestly admit it’s probably the best treatise of modern history and social criticism you will ever see.

Set firmly in The Heartland – what we’ve all accepted as Trump’s fact-resistant, rationality-immune base territory – the strip pitilessly lampoons fads, traditions and icons through the lens of youngsters and a menagerie of astute talking animals living in or around the Bloom Boarding House. Also adding to the confusions are bastions and bulwarks of American society: horny ambulance-chasing jock lawyer Steve Dallas, Vietnam survivor Cutter John, liberal feminist school teacher Bobbi Harlow, New Age hippie Quiche Lorraine, corrupt Senator Bedfellow, and many more lampoonable archetypes, like fundamentalist Christians and Donald Trump…

The true stars though are the kids and beasts who perpetually vex, perplex and test them, asking questions and taking radical action to set the old order “all higgledy-piggledy” – such as their creation of a third force in politics: The Meadow Party that has (unsuccessfully, thus far) fought every presidential election since 1980…

Hilarious, biting, wildly imaginative and crafted with a huge amount of sheer emotional guts and empathy, these strips are simply incomparable. If you love laughter, despise chicanery and crave unique characters and great art, this is a universe you simply must inhabit.

… And while you’re at it, get those other books I mentioned. It can’t be Christmas without them. When the family have almost ruined the holiday, of if you find yourself somewhere other than where you’d want or expect to be, this is what you want to restore your spirits. Kids too.
© 2017, 2020 Berkeley Breathed. All Rights Reserved.

September 23, 2024

Iron Fist Epic Collection: The Fury of Iron Fist volume 1 1974-1977

By Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Doug Moench, Tony Isabella, Chris Claremont, Doug Moench, Tony Isabella, Gil Kane, Larry Hama, John Byrne, Arvell Jones, Keith Pollard, Pat Broderick, Dick Giordano, Dan Green, Vince Colletta, Aubrey Bradford, Bob McLeod, Al McWilliams, Frank Chiaramonte, Dan Adkins, Dave Hunt & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9164-3 (TPB/Digital edition

Comic books have always operated within the larger bounds of popular trends and fashions – just look at what got published whenever westerns or science fiction dominated on TV – so when the ancient philosophy/health-&-fitness discipline of Kung Fu made its unstoppable mark on domestic entertainment in the West, it wasn’t long before the “Chop Sockey” kicks and punches found their way en masse onto the four-colour pages of America’s periodicals.

As part of the first Martial Arts bonanza, Marvel converted a forthcoming license to use venerable pulp fictional villain Fu Manchu into a series about his son. The series launched in Special Marvel Edition #15, December 1973 as The Hands of Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu and by April 1974 (#17) it became his exclusively. A month later the House of Ideas launched a second orient-informed hero in Iron Fist; a character combining Eastern combat philosophy with high fantasy, magic powers and a proper superhero mask and costume. Happy 50^th Anniversary!

The character owed a hefty debt to Bill Everett’s pioneering golden Age super-hero Amazing Man who graced various Centaur Comics publications between 1939 and 1942. The tribute was paid by Roy Thomas & Gil Kane who adopted and translated the fictive John Aman’s Tibetan origins into something that gibed better with twin 1970’s zeitgeists of Supernatural Fantasy and Martial Arts Mayhem…

This collection gathers the far-ranging first years of publishing True Survivor and “Living Weapon”, as delivered in Marvel Premier #15-25, Iron Fist #1-15 and Marvel Team-Up #63-64 (spanning May 1974 to December 1977). These saw the high-kicking wonder uncover his past and rediscover his heritage and humanity before inevitably settling into an apparently inescapable role of costumed crusader as half of superhero and detective bromance Power Man and Iron Fist.

The saga began on a spectacular high in Marvel Premier #15 with ‘The Fury of Iron Fist!’ by Thomas, Kane and inker Dick Giordano, as a teenaged masked warrior defeats the cream of a legendary combat elite in a fabled other-dimensional city before returning to Earth.

Ten years previously little Daniel Rand had watched his father and mother die at the hands of Harold Meachum whilst the party of millionaire adventurers risked Himalayan snows to find the legendary city of K’un Lun. Little Danny had travelled with his parents and business partner Meachum in search of the fabled city – which only appeared on Earth for one day every decade. Wendell Rand had some unsuspected connection to the fabled Shangri La but was killed before they found it, whilst Danny’s mother sacrificed herself to save the child from wolves and her murderous pursuer.

As he wandered alone in the wilderness, the city found Danny. The boy spent ten years training: mastering all forms of martial arts in a militaristic, oriental, feudal paradise while enduring countless arcane ordeals, living only for the day he would return to Earth and avenge his parents. After conquering all comers and rejecting immortality, the Iron Fist returned to Earth, a Living Weapon able to channel his force of will into a devastating super-punch…

From the outset the feature was plagued by its inability to sustain a stable creative team, although, to be fair, story quality never suffered, only plot and direction. Reaching New York City in #16, ‘Heart of the Dragon!’ (Len Wein, Larry Hama & Giordano) found Iron Fist reliving the years of toil which had culminated in a trial by combat with mystic dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, which won him the power to concentrate his fist “like unto a thing of Iron” as well as other unspecified abilities. The epic clash permanently branded his chest with the seared silhouette of the fearsome wyrm.

His recollections are shattered when martial arts bounty hunter Scythe attacks, revealing that prospering murderer Meachum knew the boy was back and had put a price on his head…

Danny had not only sacrificed immortality for vengeance but also prestige and privilege. As he left K’un Lun, supreme ruler of the city the August Personage in Jade Yu-Ti had revealed that murdered Wendell Rand was his brother…

Marvel Premier #17 saw Doug Moench take over scripting as Iron Fist stormed Meachum’s skyscraper headquarters – a ‘Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance’ converted into a colossal 30-storey death trap. The assault led to a duel with cybernetically-augmented giant Triple-Iron and a climactic confrontation with his parents’ killer in #18’s ‘Lair of Shattered Vengeance!’

The years had not been kind to Meachum. He’d lost his legs to frostbite returning from the high peaks, and, upon hearing from Sherpas that a boy had been taken into K’un Lun, had spent the intervening decade awaiting in dread his victims’ avenger…

Filled with loathing, frustration and pity, Iron Fist turns away from his intended retribution, but Meachum dies anyway, slain by a mysterious Ninja as the deranged multi-millionaire attempts to shoot Danny in the back…

In #19, Joy Meachum and her ruthless uncle Ward – convinced Iron Fist had killed the crippled Harold – step up the hunt for the returnee via legal and illegal means, whilst the shell-shocked Living Weapon aimlessly wanders the strange streets of Manhattan. Adopted by enigmatic Colleen Wing, Danny meets her father, an aging professor of Oriental Studies who has fallen foul of a ‘Death Cult!’

In his travels the aged savant had acquired ancient text The Book of Many Things, which, amongst other items, held the secret of K’un Lun’s destruction. The deadly disciples of Kara-Kai are determined to possess it, and after thwarting their next murder attempt Danny tries to make peace with Joy, but instead walks into an ambush with the bloodthirsty Ninja again intervening and butchering the bushwhackers…

A period of often painful inconsistency began as Tony Isabella, Arvell Jones & Dan Green took over with #20. The Kara-Kai cultists renew their attacks on the Wings whilst Ward Meachum hires an army of killers to destroy the Living Weapon in ‘Batroc and other Assassins’ – with the identity of the ninja apparently revealed here as the elderly scholar…

Marvel Premier #21 introduced the ‘Daughters of the Death Goddess’ (Vince Colletta inks) as the Wings are abducted by cultists and bionic ex-cop Misty Knight debuts, first as foe but soon as an ally. When Danny tracks down the cult he discovers some shocking truths – as does the Ninja, who had been imprisoned within the ancient book by the August Personage in Jade in ages past and recently possessed Professor Wing in search of escape and vengeance.

All was revealed and the hero exonerated in #22’s ‘Death is a Ninja’ (“A. Bradford” inks) with the Ninja disclosing how, as disciple to sublime wizard Master Khan, he had attempted to conquer K’un Lun and been imprisoned within the crumbling tome for his pains. Over years he had discovered a temporary escape and subsequently manipulated the Wings and Iron Fist to secure permanent release and the doom of his jailers. Now exposed, he faces the Living Weapon in a final cataclysmic clash…

A measure of stability began with #23 as Chris Claremont, Pat Broderick & Bob McLeod took the series in a new direction. With his life’s work over and nearly nine years until he could return “home”, Danny is now a man without purpose – until whilst strolling with Colleen he stumbles into a spree shooting in ‘The Name is… Warhawk!’ When the cyborg-assassin has a Vietnam flashback and begins heedlessly sniping in Central Park, the Pride of K’un Lun instantly responds to the threat – and thus begins his career as a superhero…

In ‘Summerkill’ (inked by Colletta), the itinerant exile battles alien robot the Monstroid and opens a long and complicated association with Princess Azir of Halwan, as the mysterious Master Khan resurfaces, apparently intent on killing her and seizing her country…

Marvel Premier #25 was the last of the run and start of the hero’s short but sweet Golden Age as John Byrne became regular penciller for ‘Morning of the Mindstorm!’ (inked by Al McWilliams). Whilst Colleen is driven to unconsciousness and abducted and her father pushed to the edge of insanity by mind-bending terrorist Angar the Screamer, Danny – made of far sterner stuff – overcomes the psychic assault and tracks the attackers to Stark Industries and into his own series…

Iron Fist #1 (November 1975) featured ‘A Duel of Iron!’ as he is manoeuvred into battling Iron Man, even as Colleen escapes and runs into Danny’s future nemesis Steel Serpent before being recaptured and renditioned to Halwan. Following a spectacular, inconclusive and ultimately pointless battle, Danny and Misty Knight also head for Halwan in ‘Valley of the Damned!’ (#2, inked by Frank Chiaramonte) with K’un Lun’s finest recalling a painful episode from his youth wherein best friends Conal and Miranda chose certain death beyond the walls of the regimented war-paradise rather than remain in the lost city where they could not love each other…

As Master Khan begins to break Colleen, Danny & Misty stopover in England where nuclear horror The Ravager slaughters innocents by blowing up London Airport and the Post Office Tower (we rebuilt it as the BT Tower, so don’t panic), compelling Iron Fist to punch way above his weight in ‘The City’s Not For Burning!’ Inevitably it ends in ‘Holocaust!’ as the unmasked Ravager is revealed to be old villain Radion the Atomic Man. He fatally irradiates Danny until the wounded warrior fortuitously discovers the cleansing, curative power of the Iron Fist before storming to his greatest triumph yet…

With Misty recuperating, Danny befriends guilt-ridden IRA bomber Alan Cavenaugh before tackling another of Khan’s assassins in ‘When Slays the Scimitar!’, after which Iron Fist & Misty finally infiltrate Halwan in #6, courtesy of crusading lawyer Jeryn Hogarth, who also promises to secure Danny’s inheritance and interests from the Rand-Meachum Corporation.

The Pride of K’un Lun doesn’t much care, since brainwashed Colleen has been unleashed by Khan, determined to kill her rescuers in ‘Death Match!’…

None of the earthly participants are aware that, from a hidden dimension, Yu-Ti is observing the proceedings with cold calculation…

Using his Iron Fist to psychically link with Colleen, Danny breaks Khan’s conditioning and at last the malignant mage personally enters the fray in #7’s ‘Iron Fist Must Die!’: a blistering battle which breaches dimensions and exposes the August Personage in Jade’s involvement in Wendell Rand’s death. Given the choice between abandoning his friends on Earth or returning to K’un Lun for answers and justice, the Living Weapon makes a true hero’s choice…

With Iron Fist #8 Danny returns to New York and attempts to pick up the pieces of a life interrupted by more than a decade of pointless obsession. Unaware that Steel Serpent now works for Joy Meachum, Danny joins the company until merciless mob boss Chaka and his Chinatown gangs attack the business ‘Like Tigers in the Night!’ (inked by Dan Adkins). In resisting the invasion Iron Fist is fatally poisoned.

Sportingly offered an antidote if he survives a gauntlet of Chaka’s warriors, Danny triumphs in his own manner before ‘The Dragon Dies at Dawn!’ (Chiaramonte inks) but when a hidden killer bludgeons Chaka, Danny is again a fugitive from the cops and dubbed the ‘Kung Fu Killer!’ (Adkins) until he, Colleen and Misty expose the entire plot as a fabrication of the gangster.

IF #11’s ‘A Fine Day’s Dawn!’ sees the Living Weapon square off against Asgardian-empowered thugs the Wrecking Crew and, with Misty a hostage, compelled to fight Captain America in #12’s ‘Assault on Avengers’ Mansion!’ – until the Pride of K’un Lun and the Sentinel of Liberty unite to turn the tables on the grotesque god-powered gangsters…

In the intervening time Cavenaugh arrives in New York, but cannot escape the reach of his former Irish Republican comrades. They hire hitman Boomerang to kill the defector and ‘Target: Iron Fist!’ with little success, whereas the villain introduced in issue #14 comes a lot closer: even eventually eclipsing Iron Fist in popularity…

‘Snowfire’ – inked by Dan Green – finds Danny and Colleen running for their lives in arctic conditions when a retreat at Hogarth’s palatial Canadian Rockies estate is invaded by deadly mercenary Sabre-tooth. It just wasn’t their week as, only days before, a mystery assailant had ambushed Iron Fist and somehow drained off a significant portion of his Shou-Lao-fuelled life-force. Despite being rendered temporarily blind, the K’un Lun Kid ultimately defeats Sabre-tooth, but the fiercely feral mutant would return again and again…

With Claremont & Byrne increasingly absorbed by their stellar collaboration on revived and resurgent mutant horde The X-Men, something had to go and Iron Fist#15 (September 1977) was their last Martial Arts mash-up for a while. The series ended in spectacular fashion as – through a comedy of errors – Danny stumbles into battling Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Banshee and Phoenix in ‘Enter, the X-Men!’.

The cancellation was unplanned, as two major subplots remained unresolved: Misty had disappeared on undercover assignment investigating European gang boss John Bushmaster whilst Danny again had his chi siphoned off by Steel Serpent. Fans didn’t have to wait long: Claremont & Byrne had already begun a stint on Marvel Team-Up and turned the Spider-Man vehicle into their own personal clearing house for unresolved plot-lines. MTU #63-64 (November & December 1977 and inked by Dave Hunt) revealed the secret of K’un Lun exile Davos in ‘Night of the Dragon’, with Steel Serpent sucking the power of the Iron Fist from Danny, leaving him near death. Risking all she had gained, Misty broke cover and rushed to his aid…

With the wallcrawler and Colleen (the girls using team codename Daughters of the Dragon) to bolster him, Iron Fist defeats Davos to reclaims his birthright in ‘If Death Be My Destiny…’ before shuffling off into a quiet retirement and anonymity.

… But not for long…

Although suffering a few grim patches, the greater bulk of the Iron Fist saga ranks amongst the most exciting and enjoyable Costumed Dramas of Marvel’s second generation. If you want a good, clean fight comic this is probably one of your better bets, especially if you’re a fan of original artwork as this titanic tome closes with a house ad and fabulous selection, shot from Byrne’s inked pages and original pencil character sketches…

Now a screen star and solid stanchion of Marvel’s massive continuity, Iron Fist easily outgrew his opportunistic, faddy roots and is waiting to shake hand with you. Are you going to keep the birthday boy waiting any longer?
© 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2015 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

September 22, 2024September 20, 2024

Popeye: The Great Comic Book Tales by Bud Sagendorf

By Bud Sagendorf, edited & designed by Craig Yoe (Yoe Books/IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-60010-747-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68406-381-9

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Forest Cowles Sagendorf (March 22^nd 1915 – September 22^nd 1994) died 30 years ago today. He was a master of cartoon comedy adventure only known for one stellar character.

There are few comic stars to have entered communal world consciousness, but a grizzled, bluff, uneducated, visually impaired old sailor with a speech impediment is possibly the most well-known of that select bunch. He’s a true global icon but today we’re talking about and celebrating the second genius who crafted his salty exploits…

Elzie Segar had been producing Thimble Theatre since December 19^th 1919, but when he introduced a coarse, brusque “sailor man” into the saga of vaudevillian archetypes Ham Gravy and Castor Oyl on January 17^th 1929, nobody suspected the giddy heights the scrappy walk-on would reach. Once old swab Popeye appeared, he wouldn’t go and he’s still going strong under the aegis of cartoonist R. K. Milholland (Something Positive, New Gold Dreams, Midnight Macabre, Classically Positive, Super Stupor) who took over from Hy Eisman (Kerry Drake, Little Iodine, Bunny, Little Lulu, The Katzenjammer Kids) in 2022.

Way back in 1924 Segar created second daily strip The 5:15: a surreal domestic comedy featuring weedy commuter and would-be inventor John Sappo and his formidable wife Myrtle which endured in one form or another as a topper/footer-feature accompanying the main Popeye Sunday page throughout the author’s career. It even survived Segar’s untimely death, eventually becoming the trainee-playground of Popeye’s second super stylist Bud Sagendorf…

After Segar’s demise in 1938, Doc Winner, Tom Sims, Ralph Stein and Bela Zambouly all worked on the newspaper strip even as animated short features brought “The Sailor Man” to the entire world via the magic of movies. Sadly, none of the films had the eccentric flair and raw inventiveness which had rocketed Thimble Theatre to the forefront of cartoon entertainment…

Born in 1915, Forrest “Bud” Sagendorf was barely 17 when his sister – who worked in the Santa Monica art store where Segar bought his supplies – introduced the star struck kid to the master who became his teacher and employer as well as a father-figure. In 1958, Sagendorf took over the strip and ALL merchandise design, becoming Popeye’s prime originator…

When he did, his loose, rangy style and breezy scripts brought the strip itself back to the forefront of popularity and made reading it cool and fun all over again. He wrote and drew Popeye in every graphic arena – including the majority of licensed merchandise – for 24 years. When Sagendorf retired in 1986, Underground cartoonist Bobby London took over the sailor-man’s voyages until his death in 1994.

Bud had been Segar’s assistant and apprentice and learned the ropes from a master. When Dell Comics – America’s king of licensed periodicals – asked him to write and illustrate Popeye’s comic book adventures, the title began in 1948 and carried on for three decades.

When Popeye first appeared, he was a rude, crude brawler: a gambling, cheating, uncivilised ne’er-do-well. He was embraced as the ultimate working-class hero: raw and rough-hewn, practical, but with an innate, unshakable sense of what’s fair and what’s not; a joker who wants kids to be themselves – but not necessarily “good” – and someone taking guff from no one. Naturally, as his popularity grew, Popeye mellowed somewhat. He was still ready to defend the weak and had absolutely no pretensions or aspirations to rise above his fellows but the shocking sense of dangerous unpredictability and comedic anarchy he initially provided was sorely missed – but not in Sagendorf’s comicbook yarns…

Collected in this enchanting full-colour edition is an admittedly arbitrary, far from definitive selection of the Young Master’s compelling Dell funnybook canon, spanning February/April 1948 to September 1957. The many other yarns are available in IDW’s Popeye Classics series and if you like this you’ll be wanting those in the fullness of time.

Stunning, seemingly stream-of-consciousness stories are preceded here by an effusively appreciative Introduction by Jerry Beck before ‘Ahoy, Ya Swabs!’ relays official history and private recollections from inspired aficionado and historian/publisher Craig Yoe, augmented by a fabulous collation of candid photos, original comic book art and more. Especial gems are Bud’s 1956 lessons on backgrounds from the Famous Artists Cartoon Course, series of postcards and the Red Cross booklet produced for sailors.

Popeye’s fantastic first issue launched cover-dated February 1948, with no ads and offering duo-coloured (black & red) single page strips on the inside front and back covers. From that premiere a full-coloured crisis comes as ‘Shame on You! or Gentlemen Do Not Fight! or You’re a Ruffian, Sir!’ sees our salty swab earning a lucrative living as an occasional prize-fighter. That all ends when upcoming contender Kid Kabagge and his cunning manager Mr. Tillbox use a barrage of psychological tricks to put Popeye off his game. The key component is electing his sweetie Olive Oyl President of a fictitious Anti-Fisticuff Society to convince her man to stop being such a beastly ruffian and to abandon violence. It works… but only until the fiery frail learns that she has also been gulled…

Next up is the lead tale from #9, (October/November) as ‘Misermites! or I’d Rather Have Termites!’ details how peaceful coastal town Seawet is plagued by an invasion of plundering dwarves. When the pixie-ish petty pilferers vanish back to their island with “orphink kid” Swee’ Pea as part of the spoils, Popeye and Wimpy give chase and end up battling a really, really big secret weapon…

‘Witch Whistle’ comes from Popeye #12 (April/May 1950) and sees the swabbie revisit embattled kingdom Spinachovia where old King Blozo is plagued by a rash of vanishing farmers. The cause is nefarious old nemesis The Sea Witch whose vast army of giant vultures seem unbeatable until Popeye intervenes…

Popeye #21’s (July-September 1952) ‘Interplanetary Battle’ taps into a growing fascination with UFOs as Wimpy innocently seeks to aid his old pal. When no prize fighter on Earth will box with Popeye, the helpful vagabond moocher broadcasts a message to the universe. What answers the call is a bizarre shapeshifting swab with sneaky magic powers…

An engaging Micawber-like coward, cad and conman, incorrigible insatiable J. Wellington Wimpy debuted in the newspaper strip on May 3^rd 1931: an unnamed and decidedly partisan referee in one of Popeye’s pugilistic bouts. The scurrilous but so-polite oaf struck a chord and Segar gradually made him a fixture. Always hungry, eagerly soliciting bribes and a cunning coiner of many immortal catchphrases – such as “I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” and “Let’s you and him fight” – Wimpy was a perfect foil for the simple action hero and increasingly stole the entire show… and anything else unless it was extremely well nailed down…

From Popeye #25 (July-September 1953), ‘Shrink Weed’ details how some “wild spinach” reduces the old salt and baby Swee’ Pea to the size of insects with outrageous and potentially dire consequences before the entire cast visit ‘The Happy Little Island’ (#27, January-March 1954) and confront subsurface creatures doing their darndest to spoil that jolly atmosphere.

An epic thrill-fest manifests in ‘Alone! or Hey! Where is Everybody? or Peoples is All Gone!’ (#32, April-June 1955) as humans are abducted from all over the coast, leading Popeye into another ferocious battle with evil machines and his most persistent enemy, after which another family sea voyage results in the cast being castaway on an island of irascible invisible folk in ‘Nothing!’ (#34, October-December 1955). The fun concludes in sheer surreal strife as Popeye #41 (July-September 1957) displays capitalism at its finest when Olive gets a new boyfriend: one with a regular job and prospects. Stung to retaliate, Popeye devises ‘Spinach Soap!’ to secure his own fortune, but being an un-ejjikated, rough-&-ready sort, appoints Wimpy as his boss and administrator. Big mistake…

There was only one Segar and only one Sagendorf but there has always been more than one Popeye. Most of them are pretty good, and some are truly excellent. The one in this book is definitely one of the latter and if you love lunacy, laughter and rollicking adventure you must now read this.
Popeye: The Great Comic Book Tales by Bud Sagendorf © 2018 Gussoni-Yoe Studio, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Popeye © 2018 King Features Syndicate. ™ & © Heart Holdings Inc.

September 21, 2024September 20, 2024

The Littlest Pirate King

By David B. & Pierre Mac Orlan, translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-403-0 (HB)

Just one more day, me Buckos!

Tim Burton has pretty much cornered the market on outlandish, spooky fairy tales masked as edgy all-ages fantasy, but if you and your kids have a fondness for scary fables and macabre adventure with a uniquely European flavour you might want to seek out this supremely impressive yarn of unquiet buccaneers and phantom piracy.

Pierre Mac Orlan was one of the nom-de-plumes of celebrated French author, musician and performer Pierre Dumarchey who – between his birth in 1882 and death in 1970 – managed to live quite a number of successful, productive and action-packed lives. As well as writing proper books for sensible folk, he also crafted a wealth of artistic materials including children’s fables like this one, hundreds of popular songs and quite a bit of rather outré pornography.

A renowned Parisian Bohemian, Mac Orlan sang and played accordion in nightclubs and cabaret. He was wounded in the trenches in 1916, subsequently becoming a war correspondent. When the conflict ground to a conclusion, he evolved into a celebrated film and photography critic as well as one of France’s most admired songwriters and novelists.

By contrast, David B. is a founder member of the groundbreaking strip artists’ conclave L’Association, and has won numerous awards including the Alph’ Art for comics excellence and European Cartoonist of the Year. He was born Pierre-Françoise “David” Beauchard on February 9^th 1959, and began his comics career in 1985 after studying advertising at Paris’ Duperré School of Applied Arts. His seamless blending of Artistic Primitivism, visual metaphor, high and low cultural icons, as seen in such landmarks as Babel, Epileptic and Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations, Nocturnal Conspiracies and many more, are here augmented by a welcome touch of morbid whimsy and stark fantasy imbuing this particular gem with a cheery ghoulish intensity only Charles Addams and Ronald Searle might possibly match.

Mac Orlan’s tale perhaps owes more to song than storybook, with its oddly jumpy narrative structure, but M’sieur B.’s canny illustration perfectly captures the true flavour and spirit of grim wit as it recounts the tale of the ghostly crew of The Flying Dutchman, accursed mariners destined to wander the oceans, never reaching port, destroying any living sailors they encounter and craving nothing but the peace of oblivion.

Their horrendous existence forever changes when, on one of their periodic night raids, they slaughter the crew of a transatlantic liner but save a baby found on board. Their heartless intention is to rear the boy until he is old enough to properly suffer at their skeletal hands, but as years pass the eagerly anticipated day becomes harder and harder for the remorseless crew to contemplate…

Stark and vivid, scary and heartbreakingly sad, as only a children’s tale can be, this darkly swashbuckling romp is inexplicably not a global classic in every home (yet) but remains a classy act with echoes of Pirates of the Caribbean (which it predates by nearly a century) that will charm, inspire and probably cause a tear or two to well up.
© 2009 Gallimard Jeunesse. This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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