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The Beano and The Dandy: Comics in the Classroom


By many & various including Dudley D. Watkins, Leo Baxendale, Eric Roberts, Alan Morley, Chick Gordon, Ron Spencer, A.G. Martin, John K. Geering and more (DC Thomson & Co)
ISBN: 978-1-84535-347-6 (HB)

My current editor informs me that it’s half term (AGAIN!?) so here’s a timeless day out revisiting a classic era of halcyon educational highlights heavy on tuck shop excesses, lethally harmful pranks and state-sponsored beatings for comedic effect – nostalgia at its most pungent and effective. And, as is so often the case in case of what old people cherish, This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Released as part of the 70th Anniversary celebrations of the comics company that has more than any other shaped the psyche of generations of children, this impressive magnificent and still readily available hardback compilation rightly glories in the incredible wealth of quality that has paraded through the flimsy pages of The Beano and The Dandy. This splendidly oversized (299 x 205mm) 144 page hardback compilation takes as its broad theme the antics of characters who have waged an incessant war against boredom and repression amidst the chalk-clouded, grubby corridors of school, risking corporal punishment, exhausted writing hands and ritual humiliation to keep us all amused and rebellious at heart.

Tragically, neither it nor its companion volumes are available digitally yet, but hope springs ever eternal…

Admittedly this book goes through some rather elaborate editing, design and paste-up permutations to editorially explain to modern readers the vast changes to the once-commonplace that’s happened in intervening years. Naturally the process has quietly dodged the more egregious terms and scenarios that wouldn’t sit well with 21st century sensibilities, although to my enlightened sensibilities the concentration on whacking children on the bottom does occur with disturbing frequency – the Bash Street Kids even had their fearfully expectant upraised bums as the strip’s logo for a few years!

However, viewed as a cultural and historical memoire, this is a superb comic commemoration of one of our greatest communal formative forces, with a vast number of strips and stories carefully curated from a hugely transformative period in national history. They’re also superbly timeless examples of cartoon storytelling at its best…

Until it folded, was briefly reborn as a digital publication in 2012, and died again, The Dandy was the third-longest running comic in the world (behind Italy’s Il Giornalino which launched in 1924 and America’s Detective Comics in March 1937). The Dandy premiered on December 4th 1937: breaking the mould of traditional UK predecessors and competitors by using word balloons and captions on some strips, rather than just the narrative blocks of text under the sequential picture frames that had been the industry standard.

A huge success, it was followed on July 30th 1938 by The Beano – and in concert they revolutionised the way children’s publications looked and, most importantly, how they were read. Over many decades the “terrible twins” spawned so many unforgettable and beloved household names who delighted countless avid and devoted readers, and their unmissable end of year celebrations were graced with bumper bonanzas of the comics’ weekly stars in extended stories in magnificent hardback annuals.

During WWII, rationing of paper and ink forced the “children’s papers” into an alternating fortnightly schedule: on September 6th 1941, only The Dandy was published. A week later just The Beano appeared. The rascally rapscallions only returned to normal weekly editions on 30th July 1949, but the restrictions had not hurt sales. In fact, in December 1945, The Beano #272 became the first British comic to sell a million copies, and the post-war period saw more landmarks as the children’s division of DC Thomson blossomed over the ten years, with innovative characters and a profusion of talented cartoonists who would carry it to publishing prominence, even as the story papers died back in advance of more strip anthologies like The Topper (1953) and The Beezer (1956)…

This compilation primarily concentrates via random extracts and selected strips on the development of established 1940s stars – like Biffo the Bear (1948), Lord Snooty (1938), The Smasher (1938, but completely reinvented in 1957), Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan (both 1937), who all survived the winds of change to grow into beloved and long-lived favourites in the new era. They’re highlighted beside the most successful new characters of the fifties -mostly school-aged if not actually school-based – including Dennis the Menace (1951), Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger and Little Plum (all 1953) and The Bash Street Kids (1956 or 1954 if you count prototype When the Bell Rings! as the same).

Nevertheless there’s also a wonderful selection of less well known features on view…

This superb celebration of Celtic creativity is packed literally cover-to-cover with brilliant, breakthrough strips with the mirth starting on the inside front with an outrageous 2-colour Frontispiece tableau by Leo Baxendale of When the Bell Rings! It’s mirrored at the back of the book by a similarly hilarious spread starring Biffo by indisputable cartoonist Dudley D. Watkins…

Within these suitably dog-eared pages you will find cracking examples of Alan Morley’s Old Ma Murphy, Korky the Cat, Hooky’s Magic Bowler Hat (by wonderful Chick Gordon), The Pocket Grandpas (both the 1940’s prose feature and the 1970’s strip drawn by Ron Spencer), Big Eggo, Miss Primm (Morley again), Tough Nellie Duff (“the Strong Arm School Marm”), and Billy Butter the Brainy Goat.

More substantial offerings honour Biffo the Bear (by both Dudley D. Watkins and Leo Baxendale) and Dennis the Menace, Our Teacher’s a Walrus and Lord Snooty (both by incredibly prolific Watkins), as well as Winker Watson and the unforgettable, irrepressible Dirty Dick (both illustrated by the unique Eric Roberts).

Greedy Pigg, Mr Mutt and Jammy the Sammy were all by the indefatigable A.G. Martin whilst Baxendale’s immortal Bash Street Kids, Desperate Dan (by Watkins), Whacko! And Robin Hood’s Schooldays (by Spencer again) are well represented too; but it’s the tantalising glimpses of such minor celebrities as Dopey Dinah, Bamboo Town, and Keyhole Kate that I’d like to see more of sometime.

There’s a raft of bonus features such as an article on long-lost prose stories like Jimmy the Double Dunce, and Through Fire and Flood with Bobby Trent, a complete 8 page full-colour Bananaman strip from 1985 that was given away in schools and dentists, by John K. Geering, and the unpublished final episode (#837 if you’re counting) of the Jocks and the Geordies from the Dandy.

This strip was never completed and is presented as unlettered black line art, with the artist’s script printed below: a fascinating insight for anybody seeking a career in the industry. In fact this book is a treasure trove for the aspiring pro as many strips are reproduced from original camera-ready artwork – with printers’ instructions, editor’s notes and even un-erased pencil lines on show – highly educational for those looking for secrets and details of “the process”.

Notwithstanding all that, the true magic of this collection is the brilliant art and stories by a host of talents that have literally made Britons who they are today, and bravo to DC Thomson for letting them out for a half-day to run amok once again.
© 2008 DC Thomson & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Fantastic Four Epic Collection volume 10: Counter-Earth Must Die (1976-1978)


By Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Bill Mantlo, Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Jim Shooter, Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, Ron Wilson, Joe Sinnott, Sam Grainger, John Tartaglione, George Roussos, Dave Hunt, Tony DeZuñiga & various (MARVEL)
ISBN 978-1-3029-5544-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Monolithic modern Marvel truly began with the adventures of a small super-team who were as much squabbling family as coolly capable costumed champions. Everything the company is now stems from the quirky quartet and the groundbreaking, inspired efforts of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby…

Cautiously bi-monthly and cover-dated November 1961, Fantastic Four #1 – by Stan, Jack, George Klein & Christopher Rule – was raw and crude even by the ailing company’s standards: but it seethed with rough, passionate and uncontrolled excitement. Thrill-hungry kids pounced on its dynamic storytelling and caught a wave of change starting to build in America. It and succeeding issues changed comics forever. As seen in the premier issue, maverick scientist Reed Richards, his fiancée Sue Storm, their close friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s bratty teenaged brother Johnny survived an ill-starred private space-shot after Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

All four permanently mutated: Richards’ body became elastic, Sue became (even more) invisible, Johnny Storm burst into living flame and tragic Ben shockingly devolved into a shambling, rocky freak. After the initial revulsion and trauma passed, they solemnly agreed to use their abilities to benefit mankind. Thus was born The Fantastic Four.

Throughout the 1960s it was indisputably the key title and most consistently groundbreaking series of Marvel’s ever-unfolding web of cosmic creation: a forge for new concepts and characters. Kirby was approaching his creative peak: unleashing his vast imagination on plot after spectacular plot, whilst Lee scripted some of the most passionate superhero sagas ever seen. Both were on an unstoppable roll, at the height of their powers and full of the confidence only success brings, with The King particularly eager to see how far the genre and the medium could be pushed… which is rather ironic since it was the company’s reticence to give the artist creative freedom which led to Kirby’s moving to National/DC in the 1970s.

Without Kirby’s soaring imagination the rollercoaster of mind-bending High Concepts gave way to more traditional tales of characters in conflict, with soap-opera leanings and super-villain-dominated Fights ‘n’ Tights dramas. This stripped-down, compelling compilation gathers Fantastic Four #168-191 and Annual #11, plus crossover components from Marvel Two in One #20 and that title’s first Annual. Collectively spanning cover-dates March 1976 to February 1978 they cemented a change of pace that would eventually move the title away from the glory days of Kirby even as he enjoyed a partial return as cover artist…

A new direction had kicked off with FF #164, courtesy of Thomas and then-neophyte illustrator George Pérez, backed up by veteran inker Joe Sinnott. Now, after another clash with The Hulk, the team seems forever shattered as Ben – returned to human form by extended exposure to the Jade Juggernaut’s gamma radiation – contemplates life as an ordinary mortal and former superhero…

Returned to the massed ranks of humanity the ex-Thing is less than delighted at achieving his greatest desire as Rich Buckler pencils #168’s ‘Where Have All the Powers Gone?’, wherein Reed is forced by contractual obligation to replace him with Hero for Hire Luke Cage.

However, although human again, happiness still eludes Grimm with events taking a worse turn in #169 as ‘Five Characters in Search of a Madman!’ finds Cage attacking his new teammates thanks to the machinations of a veteran FF foe. Pérez & Sinnott reunite for concluding chapter ‘A Sky-Full of Fear!’ as Ben returns to his team and spectacularly saves the day wearing a Thing exoskeleton suit constructed by Reed. Sadly. although the original and genuine is back at last (sort of), there’s no time to pause for applause as the yarn segues directly into Fantastic Four Annual #11.

Momentous time-travel saga ‘And Now Then… The Invaders!’ by Thomas, John Buscema & Sam Grainger, sees Marvel’s First Family flash back to 1942 to retrieve a cylinder of miracle-metal Vibranium. When it somehow then fell into Nazi hands it had started to unwrite history and on arrival, the FF are attacked by WWII super-team The Invaders – comprising early incarnations of Captain America, Sub-Mariner and the original, android Human Torch. The time-repair task goes far better once all the heroes finally unite to assault a Nazi castle where the Vibranium is held, but after the modern quartet return to their own restored era, Ben realises the mission isn’t over yet…

Thanks to Uatu the Watcher, the action continues in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #1 as – with the present unravelling around him – Ben blasts back to 1942 yet again. ‘Their Name is Legion!’ (Thomas, Sal Buscema, Grainger, John Tartaglione & George Roussos) finds him linking up with Home Front Heroes the Liberty Legion (collectively The Patriot, Thin Man, Red Raven, Jack Frost, Blue Diamond, Miss America and The Whizzer) to thwart Nazis Skyshark and Master Man, Japanese agent Slicer and Atlantean turncoat U-Man’s invasion of America. The battle proves so big, it spills over to concludes in Marvel Two-In-One #20 (October 1976) in a shattering ‘Showdown at Sea!’ pitting the massed heroes against diabolical Nazi boffin Brain Drain, courtesy this time of Thomas, Sal B & Grainger.

Cover-dated June Fantastic Four #171 reveals ‘Death is a Golden Gorilla!’ (Thomas, Pérez, Buckler & Sinnott) as a giant alien anthropoid rampages through Manhattan until corralled by the FF. Calmed down and physically reduced to standard gorilla proportions, the talking ape delivers a desperate plea for help from the High Evolutionary. Bill Mantlo scripts Thomas’ plot and Pérez & Sinnott excel themselves as ‘Cry, the Bedeviled Planet!’ sees the heroes head for the other side of the Sun to save Counter-Earth from certain annihilation only to meet their nemesis in the depths of space…

Thomas writes and John Buscema steps in as penciller with #173’s ‘Counter-Earth Must Die… At the Hands of Galactus!’ Inexplicably, the world-devourer debates minor deity High Evolutionary: offering hope to his intended repast before despatching the heroes across the universe in search of a planet that will voluntarily sacrifice itself for Counter-Earth…

‘Starquest!’ (Thomas, Buscema & Sinnott) follows each unsavoury search to its logical conclusion, but as the Evolutionary abandons rhetoric for cosmic combat in a desperate delaying tactic, Sue Richards accidentally locates a civilisation willing to make the ultimate gesture…

Returned and augmenting the Evolutionary, a reunited FF attack Galactus ‘When Giants Walk the Sky!’ (drawn & inked by JB), with the Devourer delivering a cruel delayed punishment to Ben before consuming the planetary substitute and realising he has been tricked in a bizarre and wry conclusion that only adds fresh complications to the First Family of the Marvel Universe. Then another new direction begins with #176 and Thomas, Pérez & Sinnott revealing that ‘Improbable as it May Seem… The Impossible Man is Back in Town!’ The mighty manic shapeshifter – having just saved everybody from Galactus – returns to Earth with our heroes and promptly turns the city upside down in his relentless search for amusement and entertainment. The high point of the day is his impromptu visit to the Marvel Bullpen where even more hilarity and hysteria ensue…

By the time the flustered four drag him back to the Baxter Building in #177, it’s straight into an ambush as ‘Look Out for the Frightful Four!’ finds their evil counterparts gaining the upper hand. There are only three – The Wizard, Sandman and Trapster – but with our heroes shackled there’s no better time for a casting call of evil. Soon a succession of potential fourths (like latterday B-Listers Texas Twister and Captain Ultra) are filing through in search of fame and glory…

Also in the queue are a few valiant allies such as Thundra and Tigra – who almost manage a last-minute rescue – until an unstoppable mystery candidate crushes all opposition and hurls the Thing into the antimatter Negative Zone. Inked by Dave Hunt, FF #178 ‘Call My Killer… The Brute!’ sees the devious, deadly monster revealed as the Reed Richards of Counter-Earth, carrying grudges and enacting his own masterplan until Impossible Man – oblivious to everything since discovering television – responds to the horrific home invasion in typical manner. The Fantastic Four, Thundra and Tigra soon rescue Ben and drive off the bad guys, but in the melee the Brute is fittingly lost in the Negative Zone.

At least, one of the Reeds is…

A joint effort by Thomas, Gerry Conway, Ron Wilson & Sinnott, FF #179 shows the good Dr. Richards ‘A Robinson Crusoe in the Negative Zone!’, and – deprived of his stretching powers (a long running plot-thread finally paying off) – struggling to survive in hostile conditions against appalling monsters… until ultimate predator Annihilus finds him…

Back on Earth, everything seems fine and the deadly doppelganger continues to insinuate himself into all aspects of FF life. The power loss works to his advantage and Reed’s oldest friend Ben is distracted by a giant robbing robot and increasingly flirtatious Tigra…

FF #180 was a new Jack Kirby cover on a deadline-busting reprint from issue #101, so only it stands between us and next episode ‘Side by Side with… Annihilus??’ (#181 by Thomas, Wilson & Sinnott) as the zone-marooned supergenius allies with the antimatter monster. Meanwhile, Ben, “Impy”, Tigra and Thundra form an impromptu quartet to sort out that robot and Susan Richards – just starting to suspect something’s wrong with her man – is distracted when former governess and still-current witch Agatha Harkness flamboyantly abducts her old charge Franklin from Sue’s arms.

Fantastic Four #182 reveals nigh-omnipotent Annihilus has a problem he can’t handle: an incredibly adaptable, constantly mutating android recently banished to the Zone after failing to destroy the quirky quartet. Now its creator has regained control and ‘Enter: The Mad Thinker!’ (Mantlo with Len Wein, Jim Shooter, Archie Goodwin, Sal Buscema & Sinnott) sees Reed and Annihilus working together to stop it, even as on Earth evil Reed tricks the Thing and Torch into the Negative Zone too. Sue, meanwhile, rushes to spooky Whisper Hill to confront Harkness, arriving just in time to see the eldritch elder and Franklin spirited away by ghostly beings…

Her return to the Baxter Building is even more traumatic as the now-exposed Brute attempts to murder her, culminating in a spectacular all action conclusion from Mantlo, Sal B & Sinnott as #183’s ‘Battleground: The Baxter Building!’ sees all opposing elements clash and an unexpected turn of events restore the status quo with one last-minute change of heart and tragic sacrifice…

A new era dawned as Wein took became writer/editor and his artist partners Pérez & Sinnott began as they meant to go on. In FF #184, ‘Aftermath: The Eliminator!’ sees romantic rivals Tigra and Thundra go their own ways as the restored First Family searches for Franklin, reaching the Whisper Hill mansion just as a mystic cyborg begins removing all traces of the edifice and its former occupier. Brutal, pointless battle proves useless but science scores again in #185 as Reed tracks the Eliminator to the Colorado Rockies. The team, with Richards using tech to pinch-hit for his lost powers, head incognito for isolated town New Salem and once there discover ‘Here There Be Witches!’… and they be hostile…

Sequel ‘Enter: Salem’s Seven!’ delivers an explanation for Harkness’ actions, Franklin’s abduction and tantalising hints of a hidden town of mystic refugees led by deranged demagogue Nicholas Scratch, whose dark secret doesn’t stop him unleashing a septet of sorcerous sentinels on the cosmic-powered but woefully human heroes. It does, sadly, ultimately lose him the support of his peers and the battle: resulting in #187 depicting the victorious heroes (and “the help”) heading home just in time for ‘Trouble Times Two!’

When “Master of Sound” Klaw and the almighty Molecule Man ambush the FF, the furious fight raises the ire of TV-addicted Impy with the resultant rumble resolved by Molecule Man’s disembodied intellect possessing Reed’s weary body. In #188 ‘The Rampage of Reed Richards!’ sees the city wrecked and events of cosmic import occur, with Uatu the Watcher closely observing as the heroes triumph in the end, but only at the cost of their leader’s confidence.

Weary, devoid of superpowers, Richard makes the only logical decision and calls it a day for the team…

At the time tensions were especially enhanced as the next issue was another reprint (from FF Annual #4 and again represented here only by Keith Pollard’s cover art from #189). Normal service resumed with #190 as incoming writer/editor Marv Wolfman collaborated with Sal Buscema & Tony DeZuñiga to reassess past glories in ‘The Way It Was’. Here, shellshocked Ben and girlfriend Alicia Masters review the glory days leading up to his current unemployment, before #191 closes this compilation’s story component with ‘Four No More’ wherein Wein, Pérez & Sinnott detail the decommissioning of the Baxter Building and track the fond farewells as the team go their separate ways. However, there’s time and space for one last hurrah as the scurrilous Plunderer tries to steal all the FF’s toys and rapidly learns to regret his impertinence…

To Be Continued

This power-packed package also includes house ads, original cover art, pertinent pages by Sinnott from The Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976, and the Kirby/Sinnott Marvel Comics Memory album Calendar 1977 plus the new material from The Fabulous Fantastic Four Marvel Treasury Edition #11 (December 1976). This bombastic oversized tabloid edition featured a bevy of classic yarns and is represented here by front-&-back cover art by Kirby & John Verpoorten, plus a Marie Severin & Frank Giacoia frontispiece/contents page. Also on view is the letters page from FF #176, explaining how the Impossible Man’s visit to the Marvel Bullpen came about, and the Jim Steranko covers from Marvel Index #4: Fantastic Four from 1977 as well as Peter Iro’s monochrome frontispiece and a cover rough by Dave Cockrum.

Although the “World’s Greatest Comics Magazine” never quite returned to the stratospheric heights of the Kirby era, this collection offers a tantalising taste-echo of those heady heights and a promise of change. These extremely capable efforts are probably most welcome to dedicated superhero fans and continuity freaks like me, but will still thrill and enthral the generous and forgiving casual browser looking for an undemanding slice of graphic narrative excitement. Even if artistically the work varies from only adequate to superb, most fans of Costumed Dramas will find little to complain about and there’s lots of fun to be found for young and old readers. So why not lower your critical guard and have an honest blast of pure warts ‘n’ all comics craziness? You’ll almost certainly grow to like it…
© 2024 MARVEL.

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The Phantom: The Complete Sunday Archive volume Four 1950-1953


By Lee Falk, Ray Moore & Wilson McCoy, with Dick Wood, Pat Fortunato, Bill Lignante, José Delbo, Sal Trapani & various (Hermes Press)
ISBN: 978-1-61345-137-3 (HB/Digital edition)

This book includes some Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

In this month of romantic anticipation and disillusionment, it’s worth remarking that every iconic hero of strips and comics has a dutiful, stalwart inamorata waiting ever so patently in the wings for a moment to spoon and swoon. Here’s another date with one of the earliest and most resolute…

Born Leon Harrison Gross, “Lee Falk” created the Ghost Who Walks at the request of his King Features Syndicate employers who were already making history, public headway and loads of money with his first strip sensation Mandrake the Magician. Although technically not the first ever costumed champion in comics, The Phantom became the prototype paladin to wear a skin-tight body-stocking and the first to have a mask with opaque eye-slits…

The generational champion debuted on February 17th 1936, in an extended sequence pitting him against an ancient global confederation of pirates. Falk wrote and drew the daily strip for the first two weeks before handing over illustration to artist Ray Moore. The spectacular and hugely influential Sunday feature began in May 1939.

For such a long-lived, influential series, in terms of compendia or graphic collections, The Phantom has been quite poorly served in the English language market (except for the Antipodes, where he has always been accorded the status of a pop culture god). Many companies have sought to collect strips from one of the longest continually running adventure serials in publishing history, but in no systematic or chronological order and never with any sustained success. That began to be rectified when archival specialists Hermes Press launched their curated collections…

This fourth fabulous curated conclave of rain forest romances and jungle action is a lovely landscape hardback (or digital) tome, displaying alternately complete full colour Sunday episodes or crisp monochrome instalments shot from press proofs and digitally remastered. Released in March 2016, its 208 pages are stuffed with sumptuous visual goodies like panel and logo close-ups, comics covers and original art, opening with publisher Daniel Herman’s Introduction ‘The Phantom Sundays March On’. This recaps all you need to know about the ongoing feature and discloses how the advent of a woman superhero might have changed the strip’s dynamic forever…

For those who came in late: 400 years ago, a British mariner survived an attack by pirates, and – after washing ashore on the African coast – swore on the skull of his father’s murderer to dedicate his life and that of his descendants to destroying all pirates and criminals. The Phantom fights evil and injustice from his fabulous lair deep in the jungles of Bengali. Throughout Africa and Asia he is known as the “Ghost Who Walks”…

His unchanging appearance and unswerving war against injustice led to his being considered an immortal avenger by the uneducated, credulous and wicked. Down the decades, one heroic son after another has inherited the task, fought and died in an unbroken family line, with the latest wearer of the mask indistinguishable from the first and proudly continuing the never-ending battle.

In his first published exploit, the Phantom met and fell for wealthy American sophisticate Diane Palmer. His passion for her was soon reciprocated and returned and she became a continuing presence in both iterations of the series as ally, partner, sounding board, a means of reader identification and naturally a plot pawn and perennial hostage to fortune. She was also a handy conduit as the hero occasionally shared four centuries of Phantom history, hearing tales of ancestral Ghosts Who Walked in earlier eras. As was the fashion of the feature almost every saga included powerful, capable and remarkably attractive women as both heroes and villains.

However as the new ultra conservative Fifties decade progressed, that femme fatale policy was gradually but increasingly downplayed. In Falk & Wilson McCoy’s opening tale ‘The Mysterious Passenger’ (running from May 14th 1950 to July 16th 1950), Diana is wholly absent as the mysterious “Mr. Walker” and his faithful wolf companion Devil board ship for Bengali, only to be quickly framed for a huge jewel theft…

Marooned in the vast trackless ocean after jumping ship, the pair are soon hot on the trail of the plunderers and soon bring them to justice.

Evil never sleeps, however, and in the Phantom’s absence horse thieves visited his “native” stable boy Toma and stole the hero’s fabulous steed Hero. ‘The Jungle King’ (July 23rd – October 22nd 1950) proves a far harder proposition to keep than to take, though, and when Mr Walker returns and sets out to recover the wonder horse, the trail leads all over the world and ultimately to an emotional showdown with the world’s richest sportsman and racehorse owner…

A key component of the Phantom’s appeal is the weight of history built into the premise, and that’s perfectly exploited in ‘The Phantom’s Ring’ (October 29th 1950 to June 10th 1951), as the signet that has adorned the fingers of every masked champion since the first one goes missing. Recognised by educated and illiterate alike across Africa and the east, the “Death’s head” has been used to mark felons and acted as a symbol of the ghost’s power for centuries. Now a succession of ne’er-do-wells briefly possess and exploit the soft power of the trinket, but the seasoned detective and his “dog” are rapidly gaining on them and dispensing plenty of jungle justice even without the skull printing adornment. Pursuit of the ring even ends a modern pirate brotherhood – much like the one the first Phantom fought – and acts as cupid bringing a prince and a pauper together forever…

Order restored, a tale very much of its time follows as The Phantom must rescue scientist Dr Archer and his pretty daughter June from cannibal terrors ‘The Rope People’ (June 17th to November 4th 1951), by repeating the herculean tasks he (in actuality his grandfather) had performed generations ago, after which ‘Tale of Devil’ (November 11th 1951 to March 23rd 1952) finds the mighty lupine relentlessly stalked by sadistic visiting royalty with vacant spots on his palace wall and a fondness for bear baiting and other acts of organised animal cruelty.

However, Devil is beloved by Prince Hirk’s son and wife, and even before the Phantom can save his faithful hound – and after the potentate refuses to change his ways – the royal family find a way to stop him for good…

An actual feel-good tale of redemption and repentance, the saga is followed by a return to all-out action as ‘The ‘Copter Pirates’ (March 30th to July 13th 1952) finally reintroduces potential Ghost-Who-Walks-wife Diana Palmer, as she sets out to rejoin her masked man in darkest Bengali, only to be kidnapped. An unwilling spoil of war taken by thieves plundering passenger planes with helicopters, she soon overwhelms unstable lothario Drake and is able to keep him at bay until the Phantom organises an army (navy?) of local tribal fisherfolk to search hundreds of islands and spectacularly lower the boom on the aerial upstarts…

A sublime lost opportunity comes next as ‘The Female Phantom’ (July 20th – October 12th 1952) introduces one of the only woman Crimebusters in US comics of this era. Reunited with “Kit Walker”, Diana has him delve into the meticulous family chronicles to reveal how, a few generations previously, the feisty twin sister of a former Ghost Who Walked took her brother’s place to police the jungles of Bengali after he was shot battling river pirates. Girl Phantom Julie briefly substituted for Kip, saving a hostage missionary that she later married, and kept the Phantom’s Peace until the natural order was restored.

The concept obviously intrigued Falk who carried it on in sequel saga ‘Diana and the Bank Robbers’ (October 19th 1952 to February 1st 1953) wherein Diana “borrowed” Julie’s well-preserved fitted costume for a prank and was captured and entombed by ruthless bullion thieves. Discovered and rescued by super-steed Hero, Diana then let the true, many masked manhunter settle their hash and resumed her rightful place as asker of leading questions…

Closing this section of this compilation, she enquires about ‘The Chain’ (February 8th – May 24th 1953) welded to the Phantom’s throne in the Skull Cave, just in time to reinvigorate the exhausted hero whose constant attempts to forestall an impending tribal war have led him to the brink of resignation and retirement…

As the couple listen to elder Woru, they learn how a similar situation plagued the fearsome forest peacekeeper’s own father and how, after solving his crisis of confidence, escaping slavery, saving his own intended (Kit Walker’s mother-to-be) from abduction and destroying a human monster through sheer persistence, the weary victor attached the links in hopes that they would serve as a reminder for all who followed in his footsteps…

And they do…

Closing this tome ‘Focus: The Female Phantom in the Comics’ discusses the female Phantom (who never appeared again in the 1950s) and provides two tales from her resurrection in the 1960s – albeit not in family oriented strips but in those rowdily anarchic comic books.

Between 1966 and 1967 King Features Syndicate dabbled with a comic book line of their biggest stars Flash Gordon, Popeye, Mandrake and The Phantom: developed after the Ghost Who Walks had enjoyed a solo-starring vehicle under the broad and effective aegis of veteran licensed properties publisher Gold Key Comics. The Phantom was no stranger to funnybooks, having been featured since the Golden Age in titles such as Feature Book and Harvey Hits, but only as straight reformatted strip reprints. The Gold Key exploits were tailored to a big page and a young readership, a model King maintained for their own run.

Here, from the era of superhero saturation and The Phantom #20 (cover dated January 1967, scripted by Dick Wood and illustrated by Bill Lignante) ‘The Adventures of the Girl Phantom’ expands upon the strip sequence above as Julia again dons the purple leotard, mask and gun belt to counter a crime wave following Kit’s incapacitation due to fever. Although more than a match for normal bandits, poachers and evil Europeans, she almost succumbs to the sinister plots of gang boss Lamont until her ferocious jungle cat Fury comes to her aid…

Closing the extra treats is vignette ‘The Secret of the Golden Ransom’ from Charlton’s The Phantom #30 ( February 1969, by Pat Fortunato, José Delbo & Sal Trapani) as Julie and faithful (human) friend Maru face a flamboyant pirate who demands a unique payment for returning her captive brother, the “real Phantom”…

If the kind of fare you’d encounter in a 1940s Tarzan movie or noir thriller might offend, you should consider carefully before starting this book, but if you’re open to oldies with historical cultural challenges there’s a lot to be said for these straightforward and pioneering thrillers. Finally rediscovered, these lost treasures are especially rewarding as the material is still fresh, entertaining and addictively compelling. However, even if it were only of historical value (or just printed for Australians – manic devotees of the implacable champion from the get-go) surely the Ghost Who Walks and fiancée/wife-who-waits is worthy of a little of your time?
The Phantom® © 1950-1953 and 2018 King Features Syndicate, Inc. ® Hearst Holdings, Inc. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks presents the Black Panther volume 2: Look Homeward


By Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Larry Lieber, Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart, Len Wein, John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Gene Colan, Frank Giacoia, George Tuska, Don Heck, Bob Brown, Tom Palmer, Syd Shores, Mike Esposito, Joe Sinnott, Dave Cockrum & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4905-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

These stories are timeless and have been published many times before but here we’re boosting another example of The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line: designed with economy in mind and newcomers as target audience. These books are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and smaller – like a paperback novel. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for digital editions, that’s no issue at all.

This tome gathers in whole or in part more early Black Panther adventures prior to his winning his own solo series. Included are The Avengers #77-79, 87, 112, 126, Daredevil #69, Astonishing Tales #6-7, Fantastic Four #119 and Marvel Team-Up #20, spanning June 1970-August 1974 and almost all showing The Great Cat as a collaborator. peripatetic guest star and team player…

Acclaimed as the first black superhero in American comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther’s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since he first appeared in the summer of 1966. As created by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and inker Joe Sinnott, T’Challa, son of T’Chaka, is an African monarch whose secretive, hidden kingdom is the only source of vibration-absorbing wonder mineral Vibranium. The miraculous alien metal – derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – is the basis of Wakanda’s immense wealth, making it one of the wealthiest and most secretive nations on Earth. These riches allowed the young king to radically remake his country, creating a technological wonderland even after he left Africa to fight as one of America’s mighty Avengers, beginning with #52 (cover-dated May 1968). At that time, the team had been reduced to Hawkeye, The Wasp and a recently re-powered Goliath. This changed when they welcomed new recruit Black Panther on the recommendation of Captain America…

This impactful assemblage of tales opens as the tone of the times shifted and comics titles entered a period of human-scaled storytelling dubbed “Relevancy”. Here Roy Thomas, John Buscema & Tom Palmer pit the heroes against a far more mundane and insidious menace – billionaire financier Cornelius Van Lunt who manoeuvres Tony Stark to bankruptcy to gain the team’s services. The Avengers (currently Cap, Goliath, The Vision, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) were compelled to become the mystery magnate’s ‘Heroes for Hire!’ to save their sponsor…

Sal Buscema then popped in to pencil ‘The Man-Ape Always Strikes Twice!’ as the embattled champions are targeted by a coterie of vengeful villains competing to join a new league of evil, spectacularly culminating in a grand clash with the aforementioned anthropoid, The Swordsman, Power Man, Living Laser and The Grim Reaper in ‘Lo! The Lethal Legion!’, which heralded the artistic return of big brother John and the apparent destruction of the malevolent miscreants.

It was the dawning era of crossover tales and gently simmering subplots in all-Thomas scripted titles, and the experimentation led T’Challa to Daredevil #69 (October 1970) where the author, Gene Colan & Syd Shores paired the heroes in a tale of kid gangs and the rise of the “Black Power” movement. The African king had been seeking to understand America by working undercover as high school teacher Luke Charles, where his need to save a good student from bad influences leads to tragedy, disaster and ‘A Life on the Line’…

Jumping to Avengers #87 (April 1971) T’Challa’s conflicted duties prompt the Black Panther to reviews his bombastic origin before opting to take leave of his comrades and reassume the throne of his hidden kingdom in ‘Look Homeward, Avenger’ (Giacoia & Sal B), segueing into Astonishing Tales #6 (June 1971, by Larry Lieber, George Tuska & Mike Esposito) as the Lord of Latveria invades Wakanda. ‘The Tentacles of the Tyrant!’ depicts Doctor Doom resolved to seize its Vibranium, only to be outwitted and fall to the furious tenacity of its king and prime defender in ‘…And If I Be Called Traitor!’ (by Gerry Conway, Colan & Giacoia).

Roy Thomas and his artistic collaborators were always at the forefront of Marvel’s second generation of creators: brilliantly building on and consolidating Lee, Kirby and Ditko’s initial burst of comics creativity whilst spearheading and constructing a logical, fully functioning wonder-machine of places and events that so many others could add to. He was also acutely aware of the youthful perspective of older readers which might explain a bizarre face-saving shuffle seen in Fantastic Four #119 (February 1972) as the African avenger cautiously adopts the designation “Black Leopard” – presumably for contemporary political reasons… In Illustrated by John B & Joe Sinnott, ‘Three Stood Together!’ offers Thomas’ damning, if shaded, indictment of South Africa’s apartheid regime as Wakanda’s king is interned in white-ruled state Rudyarda, leading to The Thing and Human Torch busting him out whilst clashing with mutual old enemy Klaw, who is attempting to steal a deadly new superweapon…

Escalating cosmic themes and colossal clashes recall the King to America in Avengers #112 (June 1973 by Steve Englehart, Don Heck & Frank Bolle) wherein a rival African deity manifests to destroy the Panther God’s human avatar in ‘The Lion God Lives!’ and T’Challa and his valiant comrades must tackle a threat that is not what it appears to be. It’s followed by the concluding chapter of a battle between Stegron the Dinosaur Man and the unlikely alliance of Spider-Man and Ka-Zar. When the clash expands from the Savage Land to Manhattan in Marvel Team-Up #20 (April 1974), the scaly rapscallion’s plans to flatten New York by releasing ‘Dinosaurs on Broadway!’ (Len Wein, Sal B, Giacoia & Esposito) is only foiled by the Black Panther’s help.

However it’s T’Challa’s deductive abilities that save the day and a group of hostages in Avengers #126 when ‘All the Sights and Sounds of Death!’ (Englehart, Bob Brown & Cockrum) finds villains Klaw and Solarr invading Avengers Mansion in a devious attempt to achieve vengeance for past indignities. The manner in which King T’Challa solves the case convinces The Black Panther that is once more time to take up the reins of rule in Wakanda…

But that’s a tale for the next volume..

With covers by John & Sal Buscema, Herb Trimpe, Don Heck, Gil Kane, John Romita and Ron Wilson, this tidy tome is a wonderful, star-studded precursor to the Black Panther’s solo exploits and a perfect accessory for film-fans looking for more context. It also offers art lovers a chance to enjoy the covers to reprint title Marvel’s Greatest Comics #39 & 40, by Jim Starlin & Sinnott and Sal Buscema respectively, as seen in November 1972 and January 1973 as well as unused Kirby/Sinnott cover art, and Jack’s origins designs for precursor the Coal Tiger.

These terrific tales are ideal examples of superheroes done exactly right and also act as pivotal points as the underdog company evolved into a corporate entertainment colossus. There are also some of the best superhero stories you’ll ever read…
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Green Arrow/Black Canary: Till Death Do They Part


By Judd Winick, Cliff Chiang, Amanda Conner, Mike Norton, André Coehlo, Wayne Faucher, Rodney Ramos, Patricia Mulvihill, Paul Mounts, David Baron & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-77950-929-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic and comedic effect.

Green Arrow is Oliver Queen, a cross between Batman and Robin Hood and one of DC’s Golden All-Stars. He’s been a fixture of the company’s landscape – often for no discernible reason – more or less continually since his debut in More Fun Comics # 73 in 1941. In those heady days origins weren’t considered as important as image and storytelling, so originators Mort Weisinger & George Papp never bothered, leaving later workmen to fill in the blanks. France Herron, Jack Kirby and his wife Roz crafted one that stuck in ‘The Green Arrow’s First Case’ at the start of the Silver Age superhero revival (Adventure Comics #256, January 1959), and variations of it still impact modern iterations.

As a fixture of the DC Universe GA was one of the few costumed heroes to survive the end of the Golden Age, consistently adventuring in the back of other heroes’ comic books, joining the Justice League during the Silver Age return of costumed crusaders before eventually evolving into a spokes-hero of the anti-establishment during the 1960’s period of “Relevant” comics, courtesy of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. Under Mike Grell’s 1980/1990s stewardship he became a gritty and popular A-Lister: an urban hunter dealing harshly with corporate thugs, government spooks and serial killers rather than costumed goof-balls.

…And then he was killed and his son took over the role.

…And then the original came back…

Black Canary was one of the first of relatively few Golden Age women crimebusters in DC’s universe, following Wonder Woman, Liberty Belle and Red Tornado (who actually masqueraded as a man) and predating Merry the Gimmick Girl. Bullet Girl, Phantom Lady and Mary Marvel all began their careers in the same time frame but only joined the DC pantheon after the Golden Age officially ended, snapped up in canny acquisitions that are still paying dividends. The Black Canary (Dinah Lance nee Drake) was created by Bob Kanigher & Carmine Infantino, debuting in Flash Comics #86, August 1947. She derived from a surge in femme fatales (mostly criminals or simply misunderstood) debuting due to equivalent exemplars appearing in gritty film noir B-features, but disappeared with most of the other print superdoers at the end of the Golden Age. However she was one of the first to be revived with the Justice Society of America in 1963.

Originally an Earth-Two crimefighter transplanted to our world, BC has been ruthlessly retconned over and again, but most often now Dinah Laurel Lance is the daughter of an earlier, wartime champion. However you feel about the character, two consistent facts have remained since her reintroduction/assimilation in Justice League of America #73-75 (see Crisis on Multiple Earths vol 1 please link to July 9th 2022 and The Justice League Hereby Elects  please link to September 15th 2017): she has vied with Wonder Woman herself for the title of premiere heroine and she has been in a stormy romantic relationship with Green Arrow ever since.

The tempestuous affair – which actually began during the Summer of Love – finally reached a dramatic culmination some years ago when the couple at last named the day, with this fearsomely dramatic and cripplingly funny tome gathering those unforgettable moments in a celebratory chronicle to warm the hearts and chill the souls of sentimental thrill seekers everywhere.

Reprinting Green Arrow and Black Canary Wedding Special and issues #1-14 of the monthly Green Arrow and Black Canary comic book that sprang from it, the saga begins with a hilariously immature retelling of the path to wedlock from scripter Judd Winick & Amanda Conner. Here the first cute-meet, passion, spats and tender moments are reviewed culminating in riotous hen-nights, rowdy stag-parties and a tremendous battle as a huge guard of dishonour – comprising most of the villains in the DCU – attack the assembled heroes when they’re utterly off-guard…

Naturally the bad guys are defeated, the ceremony concludes and the newlyweds head off to enjoy their wedding night.

And then – in circumstances I’m not going to spoil for you – Green Arrow dies again…

Obviously it doesn’t end there. The dramatic moment acts as springboard for a major restart. In the first issue of the new series Winick & Cliff Chiang’s ‘Dead Again’ only shows Ollie Queen in flashbacks as the Black (Widow) Canary goes on a brutal crime-crushing rampage.

‘Here Comes the Bride’ finds her slowly going off the rails. Only Ollie’s son Connor Hawke – heir to the Arrow mantle – seems able to get through to her where friends and allies like Green Lantern, Superman, Oracle and even Ollie’s old sidekicks Speedy and Red Arrow urge her to move on. As usual it takes the ultra-rational Batman to divine what really happened on the wedding night and send the grief spiral into useful new territory…

In ‘The Naked and the Not-Quite-So-Dead’ Dinah and latest Speedy Mia Dearden infiltrate the secret island paradise of the sinister miscreants who secretly abducted and imprisoned Green Arrow (notice how vague I’m being; all for your benefit?) and find where Ollie is currently; and constantly proving to be more trouble than he can possibly be worth. Conner is also on hand, but whilst attempting to spring his wayward dad also falls captive to uniquely overwhelming forces…

‘Hit and Run, Run, Run!’ ramps up the tension as the heroes all escape – but not before one of their number is gravely wounded by a mystery assailant, prior to ‘Dead Again: Please Play Where Daddy Can See You’ turning the tables and revealing that it’s Ollie’s turn to fall apart as his son and protégé fights for life…

With André Coehlo illustrating, heart-warming reverie ‘Child Support’ (another sequence of poignant flashbacks) describes Green Arrow’s history with his family and the extended team Arrow coterie of sidekicks. Soon, however, Dinah must drag Ollie back from the brink of utter despair when brain dead Connor is abducted from the hospital and life-support machines keeping him breathing…

Cliff Chiang returns for ‘Haystack – First Needle’ as the hunt goes global and felons from Prague to New Jersey to London, England learn that the green team don’t act like heroes when one of their own is imperilled.

Illo 2 here please


Limned by Mike Norton & Wayne Faucher ‘Greetings from Faraway Lands’ introduces super tech thief Dodger. As the team stalk the mastermind behind the botched hit on Ollie and abduction of dying Connor, this lovable rogue slowly graduates from an initially unwilling ally into something far more for one naively impressionable archer. With dubious intel now targeting global threat Ras Al Ghul as their foe and his League of Assassins as the murder weapon, ‘Haystack part 3: the Needle’ – by Winick, Norton & Rodney Ramos – exposes even more duplicity and misinformation as a rushed rescue mission successfully liberates a covert captive hero long gone but somehow unmissed…

Sadly for Ollie & Dinah, it’s the wrong one and a semi-delirious Plastic Man joins the expanding cast of hunters for new story arc ‘A League of Their Own’. Winick, Norton & Faucher’s opening chapter ‘Rubber and Glue’ introduces an alternative/impostor League of Assassins with their own outré agenda and incredible resources but as Team Arrow ‘Step Up to the Plate and Swing Away’ in ever stranger locales, it becomes increasingly clear that ‘The Man Behind the Curtain’ is not someone they regularly face.

In fact ‘The Son of the Father, the Father of the Son’ exposes a friend not an enemy behind the plot; albeit one motivated by tragedy and desperation and trapped in the vile manipulations of a true mad scientist mastermind’s vengeance-tinged plot and opportunistic attempts to build a super-powered slave army…

Unexpectedly defeated by the valiant acts of Team Arrow, the malign malefactor gets his comeuppance and a vastly changed, amnesiac but mostly cured Connor  rejoins his family in ‘Home Again, Home Again’ and as father and son seek to bond as they never could before, Oliver Queen realises that always ‘One Door Closes, Another Opens’…

To Be Continued…

The book concludes with a stunning and often hilarious variant cover gallery by Ryan Sook, Cliff Chiang, and Amanda Connor, reminding us that Green Arrow and Black Canary are characters who epitomise the modern adventure hero’s best qualities, even if in many ways they are also the most traditional of “Old School” champions. This witty and wild ride is a cracking example of Fights ‘n’ Tights done right and is well worth an investment of your money, time and emotional commitment.
© 2007, 2008, 2009, 2021 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Quick & Flupke: Fasten Your Seatbelts & Under Full Sail


By Hergé, translated by David Radzinowicz (Egmont UK)
ISBN: 978-1-4052-4742-9 (PB Album Seatbelts)  978-1-4052-4743-6 (HB/Sail)

These books include Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Georges Prosper Remi – known to all as Hergé – created a genuine masterpiece of graphic literature with his tales of a plucky boy reporter and his entourage of iconic associates. Singly, and later with assistants including Edgar P. Jacobs, Bob de Moor and other supreme stylists of the select Hergé Studio, he crafted 23 splendid volumes (originally produced in brief instalments for newspaper periodicals) which have since grown beyond their popular culture roots and attained the status of High Art.

Globally renowned for the magnificent Tintin adventures, Hergé also did much to return comics to the arena of mass entertainment, a position largely lost after once television, video-recording and computer games became household standards. However, the bold boy and his opinionated dog were by not his only landmark. In the years before the junior journalist finally assured him immortality Remi was a prodigious jobbing cartoonist, generating a minor pantheon of topical strips and features such as Tim the Squirrel in the Far West, The Amiable Mr. Mops, Tom and Millie and Popol Out West. Among the best of the rest were the tales of Jo and Zette Legrand and their chimpanzee companion Jocko – in much the same wholesome action vein as Tintin – and episodic, all-ages shenanigans of a pair of mischievous ragamuffins in pre-WWII Belgium.

In 2005 Egmont translated three escapades of Jo, Zette and Jocko into English – although many more are just sitting fallow out there, all foreign and unreadable to potential fans too lazy to learn French or any of a dozen other civilised languages. In 2009 the publisher tried again with two collections of the Master’s second most successful creation: Quick et Flupke, gamins de Bruxelles.

These rambunctiously subversive, trouble-making working-class rapscallions and scallywags were precursors and thematic contemporaries of such beloved British boy acts as The Bash Street Kids, Winker Watson, Roger the Dodger et al, and literally hundreds of continental strips, and for more than a decade (from January 1930 to May 1940) rivalled untouchable Tintin in popularity. They undoubtedly acted as a rehearsal room for the humorous graphic and slapstick elements which became so much a part of future Tintin tales.

Just over a decade ago Egmont had a brief stab at reviving the likely lads and it was only the general public’s deplorable lack of taste and good sense which stopped the kids from taking off again…

On leaving school in 1925, Hergé began working for Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siècle, falling under the influence of its Svengali-like editor Abbot Norbert Wallez. Remi produced his first strip series The Adventures of Totor for Boy Scouts of Belgium monthly magazine the following year, and by 1928 was in charge of producing the paper’s children’s weekly supplement Le Petit Vingtiéme.

He was unhappily illustrating L’Extraordinaire Aventure de Flup, Nénesse, Poussette et Cochonnet (The Extraordinary Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonette) – written by the staff sports reporter – when Abbot Wallez beseeched him to create a new adventure serial. Perhaps a young reporter who would travel the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues?

Having recently discovered the word balloon in imported newspaper strips, Remi decided to incorporate that innovation into his own work. He designed a strip both modern and action-packed – and heavily anti-communist. From January 10th 1929, weekly episodes of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets appeared in Le Petit Vingtiéme, running until May 8th 1930. Around this time he also developed weekly 2-page gag strips starring two working-class rascals on the streets of Brussels. They played pranks, got into good-natured trouble and even ventured into the heady realms of slapstick and surrealism: the sort of antics any reader of Dennis the Menace (ours, not the Americans’) would find fascinatingly familiar.

Officially the strip launched on January 23rd, but it only featured one half of the duo and was not truly complete until the partnership was formed with the introduction of Flupke three weeks later. Thus it’s joyeux anniversaire today lads, or Gelukkige verjaardag if you’re feeling a little Flemish…

Originally a black-&-white fixture in Le Petit Vingtiéme, the lads larked about for more than a decade until the war and mounting pressures of producing Tintin meant Hergé had to let them go. They were only rediscovered in 1985, when their collected adventures ran to a dozen best-selling albums – so there’s still plenty left out there to be translated into English…

Fasten Your Seat Belts contains a sublimely riotous celebration of childish high spirits, beginning with hosepipe pranks in ‘The Big Clean’, before a rare good deed leads to strife with ‘A Poor Defenceless Woman’ and a day ‘At the Seaside’ results in another round of fisticuffs. After that, their archfoe the policeman succumbs to the irresistible temptations of a handy catapult in ‘Everyone Gets a Turn’…

Quick – the tall one in the beret – learns to his cost ‘How Music Calms the Nerves’ and discovers the drawback of ‘Pacifism’, whilst portly Flupke tries tennis and finds himself far from ‘Unbeatable’…

‘Advertising’ proves to be a dangerous game and an annoying insect meets its end in ‘Instructions for Use’, whilst ‘Quick the Clock Repairer’ fall far short of his billing, and ‘Football’ becomes just another reason for friends to fall out. Although unwelcome ‘At the Car Showroom’, some Eskimos (you’re going to have to suspend some modern sensitivities every now and again, remember) seem happy to share in ‘A Weird Story’ whist Hergé himself turns up in ‘A Serious Turn of Events’, even as the kids are disastrously ‘At Odds’ over a funny smell in their proximity. Soon after, ‘Quick the Music Lover’ deftly deals with an annoying neighbour, Flupke goes Christmas skiing in ‘That’s How It Is’ and another good turn goes bad in ‘All Innocence’, before a sibling spat is sorted through ‘Children’s Rights’ before Quick cocks up cuisine despite possessing ‘The Recipe’…

A handy ‘Yo-yo’ causes traffic chaos and a milk run goes spectacularly awry in a buttery ‘Metamorphosis’ prior to this breezy blast from the past concluding with a cleverly appealing ‘Tale Without a Tail’.

Regrettably hard to find now (and long past time for a digital edition if not paper reissue), this book and the simple, perfect gags it contains show another side to the supreme artistry of Hergé – and no connoisseur of comics can consider life complete without a well-thumbed copy of their own…

Exactly the same holds true for sequel volume Quick & Flupke: Under Full Sail. Once upon a time in Belgium and many other places, the escapades of two mischievous scallywags rivalled the irresistibly indomitable adventurer Tintin in popularity. It wasn’t that big a deal for Hergé and his publishers as Quick & Flupke was being produced by a studio team in concurrently with the dashing boy reporter. The gag strip became a test lab for humorous graphic elements, so much a part of the future world classic that the little terrors often cameoed in the major magazine vehicle…

Running from January 10th 1929 to May 8th 1930, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets appeared in weekly instalments in Le Petit Vingtiéme, generating a huge spike in sales. Editor Wallez allowed Hergé to hire Eugène Van Nyverseel and Paul “Jam” Jamin as art assistants and naturally wanted to see a return in terms of more product. According to Remi’s later recollections  he returned from a brief, well-earned vacation to find his staff had played an office prank by announcing that he was about to launch a second weekly strip…

Briefly flummoxed, Remi rapidly concocted a strip starring a little rascal over the next few days, based largely on his own childhood and French film Les Deux Gosses (The Two Kids). The impertinent pair (or at least one of them) premiered in the January 23rd 1930 issue of Le Petit Vingtiéme. The feature became Quick & Flupke three weeks later when a pint-sized partner in peril appeared, initially answering to “Suske” before evolving into Flupke (which is Flemish for “little Phillip”)…

Unleashed weekly in 2-page monochrome exploits, two working class Brussels louts played pranks, made mischief and ventured into heady realms of slapstick and surrealism in yarns any reader of Bart Simpson would find fascinatingly familiar. Readers everywhere loved them and the strip became immensely successful, but Hergé paid it little heed, frequently only beginning each week’s episode a day or even hours before press time. The fare was rapid-fire, pun-packed, stand-alone and often fourth-wall breaking which – as eny fule kno – never gets old.

Despite being increasingly sidelined after Hergé devised The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko for Cœurs-Vaillants at the end of 1935 – so Happy 90th to them, too! – our likely lads larked about for ten years, increasingly becoming an artefact of the assistants (and latterly artist Johan de Moor) until the global war and the pressure of producing Tintin meant they had to go.

Unimpeachable urchins Quick & Flupke were rediscovered in 1985, and – after a brief TV incarnation – returned to print where their remastered, collected escapades ran to12 full-colour albums in Europe and India until 1991. As English translations, we only ever saw a couple of volumes like this oversized (221 x 295 mm) hardcover compendium: delighting us with nearly two dozen sparkling romps for laughter-starved lovers of classic comics comedy.

Hopefully, now we’ve got a burgeoning digital reading base, they will all be available for folk too lazy to learn French (or Dutch or German or…) as digital editions. These lost classics are long-overdue for rediscovery and are perfect light reading for kids of all ages.
© Hergé – Exclusivity Editions Casterman 1986, 1991. All Rights Reserved. English translation © 2009 Egmont UK Limited. All rights reserved.

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Lucky Luke volume 59 – Bride of Lucky Luke


By Morris & Guy Vidal, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-305-5 (Album PB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Doughty, dashing and dependable cowboy “good guy” Lucky Luke is a rangy, implacably even-tempered do-gooder able to “draw faster than his own shadow”. He amiably ambles around the mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures on his petulant and rather sarcastic wonder-horse Jolly Jumper. Over nine decades, his exploits have made him one of the top-ranking comic characters in the world, generating nearly 90 individual albums and spin-off series like Kid Lucky and Ran-Tan-Plan, with sales totalling upwards of 300 million in 30 languages. That renown has translated into a mountain of merchandise, toys, games, animated cartoons, TV shows and live-action movies and even commemorative exhibitions. No theme park yet, but you never know…

Originally the brainchild of Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère (AKA “Morris”) Lucky only truly expanded to global dominance via his 45 volume collaboration with superstar scripter René Goscinny (from Des rails sur la Prairie/Rails on the Prairie beginning August 25th 1955 to La Ballade des Dalton et autres histoires/The Ballad Of The Daltons And Other Stories in 1986).

On Goscinny’s death, Morris worked alone again and with others, founding a posse of legacy creators including Achdé & Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean Léturgie, Jacques Pessis and more, all taking their own shots at the venerable vigilante. Morris soldiered on both singly and with these successors before his passing in 2001, having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus numerous sidebar and spin-off sagebrush sagas.

The taciturn trailblazer draws on western history as much as movie mythology and regularly interacts with historical and legendary figures as well as even odder fictional folk in tales drawn from key themes of classic cowboy films – as well as some uniquely European notions, and interpretations. As previously hinted, the sagebrush star is not averse to being a figure of political change and Weapon of Mass Satire…

Cinebook’s 59th Lucky Luke album was officially the frontier phenomenon’s 54th individual European exploit, originally seen au continent in 1985 as La Fiancée de Lucky Luke by Morris and jobbing scripter Guy Vidal – journalist, screenwriter, Editor-in-Chief of Pilote and author of books and comics such as Les Gringos, Une Éducation algérienne, Médecins sans frontières and many more.

Regrettably, in many places this yarn is a painfully dated monument to the sexist attitudes of the era it was written in. The book has been translated as Bride of Lucky Luke (occasionally Lucky Luke’s Fiancée) and here comes with an apologetic preface from the editors asking for a little understanding and forbearance.

I suspect these will become increasingly common in future with long-lived stars, as modern sensibilities clash with social and culturally outmoded material crafted for popular consumption over everchanging decades…

While we’re carping there’s an odd frisson of campaigning change throughout reviving a barely cooled hot button of the era. From inception, Luke laconically puffed on a trademark roll-up cigarette which hung insouciantly and almost permanently from his lip. However, in 1983 Morris – amidst pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” –  substituted a piece of straw for the much-travelled dog-end, thereby garnering for himself an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organisation. Here however, although Lucky still chaws that barley stalk, most other characters still abuse tobacco in its assorted forms, drawing pointed remarks from one of the tale’s most powerful characters, primly dragging her reformist civilising nonsense into the land of unreconstructed, unsavoury he-men…

In scenes reminiscent of the Navy’s pleas in South Pacific, the tale opens in typical frontier town Purgatory where they ain’t got dames women are absent and pioneers are reverting to loutish, unwashed barbarism.

In St Louis – where US civilisation officially ends – the situation is exacerbated by an oversupply of single, marriageable women, compelling civic authorities to organise wedding wagon trains to ship willing wives-to-be to eager, not particularly picky bachelors. The process is fraught with peril and takes a terrible toll on wagon-masters and guides, so these powers that be want Lucky Luke to lead the next trek out…

Teaming up with old pal Hank Bully (The Stagecoach), Luke eventually agrees: ferrying fifteen spinsters of variable vintage – one of whom is not what they seem – across the prairies: overcoming natural hazards, the country’s previous occupants, freshly-imported villainy and a multitude of stereotypical him-versus-her cliches (especially about cooking, clothes, “queer fear” and driving) before some moments of novelty appear.

Strident Jenny O’Sullivan might want a husband, but she also has ironclad principles and spends much time lecturing anyone who can’t get away on the perils of strong drink and tobacco. That zeal even persists after she’s kidnapped by the nefarious Daltons. However, when the wagons arrive in Purgatory, one of the prospective husbands is unavailable – having been arrested – and Lucky is gulled/compelled to step in and agree to wed her. It’s that or take her back to St Louis…

Grasping the wrong end of the stick, Averell, Jack, William and devious, diminutive yet dominant Joe swoop and snatch, but soon learn they have saved their greatest enemy from a life of domestic drudgery, startling cooking and daily uplifting lectures. Happily for them, Lucky always puts duty before everything and rescues the most vicious and feared outlaws in America before finding a solution to his own dilemma and reuniting Jenny and her contracted spouse/consort…

Then he can go back to being as lonesome a cowboy as humanely possible…

Happily Lucky Luke also cherishes the old ways and is ready to set things right his way…

Augmented by a reproduction of an actual certificate of Holy Matrimony stemming from the widespread historical practise of catalogue weddings, Bride of Lucky Luke vacillates between being a wickedly wry exploration of the battle of the sexes and cheap misogyny, which can work for most readers but isn’t ideal for young readers to absorb unquestioningly. Nevertheless, the art and many of the gags do work on more mature levels so bear in mind that in Europe, this series is not strictly kids’ stuff. The yarn revels in classic set-piece slapstick and witty wordplay: poking fun at the fundamental components of the genre and relationships, whilst successfully embracing tradition with wild action.

Fine for older kids possessing some perspective and social understanding – and probably still safer than most Laurel and Hardy films or whatever TikTok clip the waifs of the coming generation can still access, these early exploits follow the grand old tradition of Destry Rides Again or Cat Ballou, superbly executed by a master visualist, commemorating the romantic allure of a Wild West that never was…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1985 by Morris & Vidal. © Lucky Comics. English translation © 2016 Cinebook Ltd.

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Showcase Presents Secrets of Sinister House


By Mary Skrenes, Len Wein, Jack Oleck, Frank Robbins, Michael Fleischer, Mary DeZuñiga, Lynn Marron, Sheldon Mayer, Joe Orlando, John Albano, Robert Kanigher, Maxene Fabe, E. Nelson Bridwell, Steve Skeates, John Jacobson, Fred Wolfe, George Kashdan, Leo Dorfman, Dave Wood, Don Heck, Tony DeZuñiga, Alex Toth, Mike Sekowsky, Jack Sparling, John Calnan, Vince Colletta, Frank Giacoia, Doug Wildey, Dick Giordano, Michael William Kaluta, Bill Draut, Nestor Redondo, Alfredo Alcala, Alex Niño, Sergio Aragonés, June Lofamia, Sam Glanzman, Lore Shoberg, Ruben Yandoc, Abe Ocampo, Rico Rival, Gerry Taloac, Larry Hama, Neal Adams, Rich Buckler, Jess Jodloman, Wayne Howard, Romy Gamboa, Don Perlin, Ed Ramos, Mar Amongo, Vicente Alcázar, Ernie Chan, Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane, Sy Barry, Jerry Grandenetti, Ramona Fradon, Howard Chaykin, Win Mortimer, Angel B. Luna, Bernard Sachs & various (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-4012-2626-8 (TPB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

US comic books just idled along rather slowly until the invention of Superman provided a flamboyant and dynamic new genre, subsequently unleashing a torrent of creative imitation and imaginative generation for a suddenly thriving and voracious new entertainment model. Implacably vested in World War II, these Overmen swept all before them until the troops came home. As the decade closed, however, traditional literary themes and conventional heroes resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Whilst a new generation of kids began buying and collecting, many of the first fans also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought more mature themes in their reading matter. The war years had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership and as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film, theatre and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this. As well as western, war and crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap/escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, before another cyclical revival of spiritualism and a public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative, shockingly addictive horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, wizards and monsters draped in mystery man trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, Dr. Fate, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic and dozens more), but these had been victims of circumstance: “the Unknown” as a power source for superheroics. Now focus shifted to ordinary mortals thrown into a world beyond their ken with the intention of unsettling, not vicariously empowering, the reader. Almost every publisher jumped on the increasingly popular bandwagon, with B & I (which became the magical one-man-band Richard E. Hughes’ American Comics Group) launching the first regularly published horror comic in the Autumn of 1948. Technically their Adventures Into the Unknown was pipped by Avon. The book and comics publisher had released an impressive one-shot entitled Eerie in January 1947 but didn’t follow-up with a regular series until 1951, whilst Classics Illustrated had already exhausted the literary end of the medium with child-friendly comics adaptations of The Headless Horseman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both 1943), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1944) and Frankenstein (1945) among others.

If we’re keeping score this was also the period in which Joe Simon & Jack Kirby identified another “mature market” gap and invented the genre of romance comics with Young Romance #1 (September 1947). They too realised the sales potential of spooky material, resulting in their seminal Black Magic title – launched in 1950 – and boldly obscure psychological drama anthology Strange World of Your Dreams (1952). The company that became DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running, most influential titles with the launch of The House of Mystery (cover dated December 1951/January 1952).

After the hysterical censorship debate which led to witch-hunting Senate hearings in the early 1950s was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulation, titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, but the audience’s appetite for suspense was still high and in 1956 National introduced sister titles Tales of the Unexpected and House of Secrets. Stories were dialled back from uncanny spooky phenomena yarns to always marvellously illustrated, rationalistic fantasy adventure vehicles and – eventually – straight monster-busting Sci Fi tales that dominated the market until the 1960s. That’s when superheroes (who had begun to revive after Julius Schwartz began the Silver Age of comics by reintroducing The Flash in Showcase #4) finally overtook them.

Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom and a growing coterie of costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which forced even dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character books. Even ACG slipped tights and masks onto its spooky stars. When the caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, superheroes began dropping like Kryptonite-gassed flies. However nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and, at the end of the 1960s with the cape-and-cowl boom over and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain, the surviving publishers of the field agreed on revising the Comics Code, loosening their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics.

Nobody much cared about gangster titles but, as the liberalisation coincided with yet another bump in popularity for supernatural entertainments, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion. Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with their rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillers…

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all spooky comics came back to quickly dominate the American funnybook market for more than half a decade. DC led the pack, converting The House of Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected into mystery-suspense anthologies in 1968 before resurrecting House of Secrets a year earlier. However horror wasn’t the only classic genre experiencing renewed interest. Westerns, war, adventure and love story comics also reappeared and – probably influenced by the overwhelming success of the supernatural TV soap Dark Shadows – the industry mixed classic idioms to invent gothic horror romances. The fad generated Haunted Love from Charlton, Atlas/Seaboard’s Gothic Romances from whilst undisputed industry leader National/DC opened Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love and Sinister House of Secret Love.

Cover-dated October/November 1971, 52-page Sinister House of Secret Love #1 offered book-length graphic epics in the manner of gothic romances like Jane Eyre before reforming into a more traditional anthology package Secrets of Sinister House with #5 (June/July 1972) and reducing to the traditional 36-page package with the next issue. That format remained until cancellation with #18 (June/July 1974). In keeping with the novel enterprise, the dark, doomed love stories were extra-long affairs such as the 25-page Victorian period chiller ‘The Curse of the MacIntyres’ (by Mary Skrenes & Don Heck) headlining issue #1, recounting how recently-bereaved Rachel lost her scientist father and fell under the guardianship of her cousin Blair. Moving to his remote Scottish castle she readily befriended Blair’s son Jamie but could not warm to the little person (they say “dwarf”) cousin Alfie.

As weeks passed however she becomes increasingly disturbed by the odd household and the family’s obsessive interest in “mutations”…

There was room for a short back-up and the Jane Eyre pastiche is nicely balanced by a contemporary yarn of hippies in love. Undying passion and ghostly reincarnation in ‘A Night to Remember – A Day to Forget!’ by an unknown author, effectively illustrated by John Calnan & Vince Colletta.

Editor Joe Orlando and scripter Len Wein closely collaborated on the Tony DeZuñiga limned ‘To Wed the Devil’ in #2, wherein beautiful, innocent Sarah returns to her father’s estate to discover the place a hotbed of Satanism where all the old servants indulge in black magic rituals. Moreover her father is forcing her to abandon true love Justin and wed the appalling and terrifying Baron Luther Dumont of Bohemia to settle an outstanding debt. This grim bodice-ripper tale saw the return of Victorian devil-busting duo Father John Christian & Rabbi Samuel Shulman who appeared far too infrequently in succeeding years (see also Showcase Presents the House of Secrets vol. 1 and Showcase Presents the Phantom Stranger vol. 2) whose last-minute ministrations saved the day, quelled an unchecked evil and of course provided the obligatory Happy Ever After…

SHoSL #3 was the most impressive of these early issues and ‘Bride of the Falcon’ was a visual feast from Alex Toth, Frank Giacoia & Doug Wildey, with author Frank Robbins detailing a thoroughly modern mystery. American proofreader Kathy Harwood answers a Lonely Hearts ad in her own magazine and soon finds herself in Venice, Italy, engaged and trapped on the isolated Isola Tranquillo with tragic, scarred, lovelorn and heartsick Count Lorenzo Di Falco – and his paralysed mother. Something isn’t right, though, and as her wedding day approaches, a series of inexplicable deaths occurs. Soon, the romance-obsessed dreamer realises she is in deadly danger. Luckily, poor but handsome gondolier Roberto has constantly refused her demands that he stop bothering her. The gripping psychological thriller is supplemented by Michael Fleischer’s prose ghostly romance ‘Will I Ever See You Again’ as illustrated by Jack Sparling…

In #4, ‘Kiss of the Serpent’ (Mary DeZuñiga, Michael Fleisher & Tony DeZuñiga) takes us to Bombay (you can call it Mumbai if you’re feeling modern and PC) where freshly orphaned teacher Michelle Harlinson has taken a job arranged by her uncle Paul. Dazed by loss and the sheer exoticism of India, she is drawn into a terrible vendetta between her gorgeous wealthy employer Rabin Singh and his jealous brother Jawah. But as the foolish American finds herself falling under the seductive sway of Rabin, she uncovers a history of murder and macabre snake-worship that can only end in more death and heartbreak…

With the next extra-sized issue (cover-dated June/July 1972) the title became Secrets of Sinister House wherein Lynn Marron, Fleisher, Mike Sekowsky & Dick Giordano produced the eerie ‘Death at Castle Dunbar’ with modern American Miss Mike Hollis invited to the desolate Scottish manse to complete a history of Clan Dunbar. However, most of the family and staff are inexplicably hostile, despite being unaware of the writer’s true agenda…

Mike’s sister Valerie had married the Laird Sir Alec before apparently drowning in an accident. Hollis is even more convinced when, whilst snooping in the darkened midnight halls, she meet’s Val’s ghost. Certain of murder, Mike probes deeper, uncovering a deeply-concealed scandal and mystery, becoming a target herself. However, when there are so many suspects and no one to trust, how long can it be before she joins her sibling in the spirit world?

SoSH #6 sees transition to a standard horror-anthology completed by the addition of a schlocky comedic host/raconteur along the lines of Cain, Abel and the Mad Mod Witch. Charity offers her laconic first ‘Welcome to Sinister House’ (presumably scripted by editor Joe Orlando and illustrated by the astonishingly gifted Michael Wm. Kaluta), before pioneering industry legend Sheldon Mayer – who would briefly act as lead writer for the title – begins replacing romance with mordant terror and gallows humour by asking ‘When is Tomorrow Yesterday?‘ (limned by Alfredo Alcala) for a genre-warping tale of time-travelling magic and medicine. ‘Brief Reunion!’ by John Albano, Ed Ramos & Mar Amongo has a hitman feel the inescapable consequences of his life, before veterans Robert Kanigher & Bill Draut show a murdering wife that Karma is a vengeful bitch in ‘The Man Hater’.

Issue #7 opens in ‘Panic!’ by Mayer and the sublimely talented Nestor Redondo, who together teach a mobster’s chiselling bookkeeper a salient lesson about messing with girls who know magic; Sergio Aragonés opens occasional gag feature ‘Witch’s Tails’ and Mayer & June Lofamia futilely warn a student taking ship for America ‘As Long as you Live… Stay Away from Water!’ Sam Glanzman  illustrates Mayer’s twice-told tale of ghostly millennial vengeance in ‘The Hag’s Curse and the Hamptons’ Revenge!’ before cartoonist Lore Shoberg draws some ‘Witch’s Tails’ to end the issue.

‘The Young Man Who Cried Werewolf Once Too Often’ illustrated by Draut in #8 finds a most modern manner of dealing with lycanthropes, after which Maxene Fabe & Ruben Yandoc’s ‘Playing with Fire’ sees a bullied boy find a saurian pal to fix all his problems and E. Nelson Bridwell & Alex Niño again feature a wolf-man – but one who mistakenly believed lunar travel could solve his dilemma during a ‘Moonlight Bay’…

Secrets of Sinister House #9 shows what could happen if impatient obnoxious neighbours are crazy enough to ‘Rub a Witch the Wrong Way!’ (Mayer & Abe Ocampo), and Kanigher & Rico Rival revealed ‘The Dance of the Damned’. Here, an ambitious ballerina learns to regret stealing the shoes and glory of her dead idol, before Jack Oleck & Rival depict obsessive crypto-zoologists learning a hard lesson and little else whilst hunting ‘The Abominable Snowman’…

In #10 Steve Skeates & Alcala’s ‘Castle Curse’ finds a family torn apart by vulpine heredity, whilst Gerry Taloac’s ‘The Cards Never Lie!’ tells how a gang turf war ends badly because nobody will listen to a fortune teller, before a greedy hunchback goes too far and learns too much in his drive to surpass his magician master in ‘Losing his Head!’ by Larry Hama, Neal Adams & Rich Buckler.

Following another Kaluta ‘Welcome to Sinister House’, Fabe & Yandoc craft a period tale of greedy adventure and just deserts in ‘The Monster of Death Island’, after which all modern man’s resources are unable to halt the shocking rampage of ‘The Enemy’ (by persons unknown). More Aragonés ‘Witch’s Tails’ precede an horrific history lesson of 18th century asylum ‘Bedlam’ (John Jacobson, Kanigher & Niño) and generations of benighted, deluded exploited souls within, prior to SoSH #12 leading with Sekowsky & Wayne Howard’s salutary tale of a greedy, ruthless furrier who became ‘A Very Cold Guy’. Oleck & Niño explore ‘The Ultimate Horror’ of a hopeless paranoid whilst – following more Aragonés ‘Witch’s Tails’ – Bridwell & Alcala adapt W. F. Harvey’s classic chiller of ravening insanity ‘August Heat’.

Shock and awe is the order of the day in #13, as giant animals attack a horrified family in Albano & Alcala’s decidedly deceptive ‘Deadly Muffins’, and Oleck & Niño wryly mix nuclear Armageddon and vampires in ‘The Taste of Blood’, before Albano & Jess Jodloman wrap up with ‘The Greed Inside’: a nasty parable about wealth and prognostication. ‘The Man and the Snake’ is another Bridwell & Alcala adaptation depicting Ambrose Bierce’s mesmerising tale of mystery and imagination, but the original thrillers in #14 are just as good. ‘The Roommate’ by Fred Wolfe, Sekowsky & Draut sees a college romance destroyed by a girl with an incredible secret whilst ‘The Glass Nightmare’ (Fleisher & Alcala) teaches an opportunistic thief and killer why you shouldn’t take what isn’t yours. #15 begins with ‘The Claws of the Harpy’ (Fleisher & Sparling) and a very human murdering monster reaping a whirlwind of retribution, following up with Oleck & Romy Gamboa’s proof that there are more cunning hunters than vampires in ‘Hunger’ and culminating in a surprisingly heartwarming and sentimental fable in Albano & Jodloman’s ‘Mr. Reilly the Derelict!’

Despite the tone of the times, Secrets of Sinister House was not thriving. The odd mix of quirky tales and artistic experimentation couldn’t secure a regular audience, and a sporadic release schedule exacerbated the problems. Sadly, the last few issues, despite holding some of the best original material and fabulous reprints, were seen by hardly any readers. The series vanished with #18. Still, they’re here in all their wonderful monochrome glory and well worth the price of admission on their own.

An uncredited page of supernatural facts opens #16, after which George Kashdan & Don Perlin proffer a tale of feckless human intolerance and animal fidelity in ‘Hound You to Your Grave’, whilst the superb Vicente Alcázar traces the career of infamous 18th century sorcerer the Count of St. Germain who proudly boasted ‘No Coffin Can Hold Me’ (scripted by Leo Dorfman?) before Kashdan returns with newcomer Ernie Chan to recount the sinister saga of the world’s most inhospitable caravan in ‘The Haunted House-Mobile’.

Perhaps ironic in choice as lead #17’s ‘Death’s Last Rattle’ (Kashdan & uniquely marvellous Ramona Fradon) combines terror with sardonic laughs as a corpse goes on trial for his afterlife, even as an innocent living man was facing a jury for the dead man’s murder, whilst ‘Strange Neighbor’ by Howard Chaykin and ‘Corpse Comes on Time’ from Win Mortimer tell classic quickie terror tales in a single page each. To close the issue, the editor raided the vaults for one of the company’s oldest scary sagas.

‘Johnny Peril: Death Has Five Guesses’ by Kanigher, Giacoia & Sy Barry was first seen in Sensation Mystery #112 (November/December 1952) pitting the perennial two-fisted troubleshooter against a mystery maniac in a chamber of horrors. But was Karl Kandor just a deranged actor or something else entirely?

The curtain fell with #18, combining Kashdan & Calnan’s all-new ‘The Strange Shop on Demon Street’ – featuring a puppet-maker, marauding thugs and arcane cosmic justice – with a selection of reprints. From 1969, Murphy Anderson’s ‘Mad to Order’ by was another one-page punch-liner and Dave Wood – as D.W. Holtz – & Angel B. Luna offered New Year’s Eve enchantment in ‘The Baby Who Had But One Year to Die’, and ‘The House that Death Built’ (Dorfman & Jerry Grandenetti) sees plundering wreckers reap watery doom for their perfidy.

Once again the best was left till last as ‘The Half-Lucky Charm!’ by an unknown writer and artists Gil Kane & Bernard Sachs (Sensation Mystery #115, May 1953) follows a poor schmuck who could only afford to buy 50% of Cagliostro’s good luck talisman and finds his fortune and life being reshaped accordingly…

With superbly experimental and evocative covers by painters Victor Kalin, Jerome Podwil, George Ziel, and comics regulars DeZuñiga, Nick Cardy, Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Sparling, and Luis Dominguez, this long-overlooked and charmingly eclectic title is well overdue for a critical reappraisal, and fans of brilliant comics art and wry, laconic, cleverly humour-laced mild horror masterpieces should seek out this monochrome monolith of mirth and mystery.

Trust me: you’ll love it…
© 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 2010 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Oh My Goddess! volume 2


By Kosuke Fujishima, original translation by Dana Lewis, Alan Gleason & Toren Smith (Dark Horse Manga)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-457-9 (tankōbon TPB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-756-4

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times and cultures.

All over the world, college days offer plenty of opportunities for romance, comedy and comics creativity. Apparently manga always gets there first and explores avenues you never even realised existed….

Fujishima Kosuke was born in Chiba, Japan on July 7th 1964, and, after completing High School, got a job as an editor. His plans to be a draughtsman had foundered after failing to secure a requisite apprenticeship, and he instead joined Puff magazine in that administrative role. Life started looking up after he became assistant to manga artist Tatsuya Egawa (Be Free, Golden Boy, Magical Taluluto). Fujishima graduated to his first solo feature in 1986: writing and illustrating police series You’re Under Arrest until 1992. In 1988, he began a consecutive second series: a fantasy comedy that would reshape his life. Despite other series such as Paradise Residence and Toppu GP over intervening decades, Aa! Megami-sama – alternatively translated as Ah! My Goddess and Oh My Goddess! became his signature work and one that has made him a household name in Japan.

The saga began in the September 1988 issue of Kodansha’s seinen (“teen boys/young males”) periodical Monthly Afternoon and ran until April 2014, generating enough material for 48 tankōbon volumes and a supplementary series whilst spawning anime, special editions, TV series, musical albums, games and all the attendant spin-offs and merchandise mega-popularity brings. In 2020 there were 25 million physical copies of the books in circulation and an unguessable number of digital sales. It has won awards, been translated across the globe in print and on screens and has a confirmed place in comics history…

Oh My Goddess! is a particularly fine example of a peculiarly Japanese genre of storytelling combining fantasy with loss of conformity and maxed out embarrassment. In this case, and as seen in volume 1’s opening chapter ‘The Number You Have Dialled is Incorrect’, when nerdy engineering sophomore Keiichi Morisato dials a wrong number one night, he inadvertently connects to the Goddess Technical Help Line.

When captivatingly beautiful and cosmically powerful minor administrative deity Belldandy materialises in his room offering him one wish, he snidely asks that she never leave him. That rash response traps her on Earth, unable even to move very far beyond his physical proximity. Her powers are mighty, but come with many provisos and restrictions. The most immediate and terrible repercussion manifests quickly as he is ejected from his student residence for having a girl in his room…

In a structured society like Japan there’s plenty of scope for comedy when a powerful and beautiful female seemingly dotes on a barely average male, especially as Keiichi’s new girlfriend seems to all observers unwilling to ever leave his side. Captivating Belldandy’s profligate use of divine powers, utter naivety and tendency to attract chaos and calamity make the bonded pair’s search for a new home a fraught exercise, but after a few foredoomed forays the odd couple settle in a temple gifted them by a Buddhist priest. The proximity quandary is settled by Belldandy using her powers to enrol at his school, the Nekomi Institute of Technology. However, the clearly “European” newcomer can’t help but draw unwelcome attention, particularly from Keiichi’s macho, petrolhead fellow students and creepy lecturer Dr. Ozawa. The lifelong rival of Morisato’s favourite teacher “Doc” Kakuta is suspicious when all his students switch to the classes Belldandy audits and he commences a covert campaign to get rid of her…

College is a series of crucial interconnections and – other than Belldandy – Morisato is inexplicably closest to his colleagues in the Nekomi Institute of Technology Motor Club: a gang of overbearing, exploitative, bullying gearhead maniacs who gleefully spend his money, eat his food and get him into trouble. However, the earthbound divinity/clingy girlfriend’s hardwired role is to aid those in need and whenever she detects a problem she addresses it, dragging her poor partner along for the ride…

More trouble materialises as campus queen Sayoko Mishima realises the lovely new lass threatens her social supremacy and so the predatory Mean Girl sets her destructive sights and wealth on stealing Belldandy’s hapless chump of a “boyfriend”. The goddess is fully aware of the interloper’s mystical bad mojo and takes kind, gentle but firm retaliatory action when necessary. Sadly, Sayoko is determined, inspired and relentless.

With chaos following him everywhere, increased angst occurs after Morisato finally finds the nerve to move beyond the painfully platonic life sentence he’s locked into. Of course, books like Going Steady for Dummies get him no closer to even kissing his goddess, and their first stab at an intimate dinner date is a disaster. It’s further compounded when constant financial shortfalls force him to accept his little sister Megumi into his secrets and inner circle. Miss Morisato is a gossip spreader and imaginative tale teller. What family furore she will make of him living with a gorgeous exotic foreigner cannot be imagined. She causes chaos from the start: bearing enough cash to tide them over – but only if Keiichi boards her for a week while she takes some important entrance exams. There’s no way the kid won’t expose Belldandy’s supernatural nature to the world, but what big brother should have fretted over was the actual tests, as Megumi aces her exams and is admitted to Nekomi Tech, right beside him… and his goddess.

This second volume gathers Chapters 10-16 where, having adapted to being inextricably linked to a naïve, beautiful goddess, you’d think life would settle down for our socially inadequate misfit student. However,  things keep getting more complicated for Keiichi. His college society are determined to prove them their dominance: swiping his cash and getting him into trouble. In ‘An Honest Match’ they arbitrarily settle his money woes by signing him up to an art class: one run by scheming Sayoko, who seeks to crush his spirit by making him and Belldandy nude models, exposed to everyone’s judging gaze. The goddess has other ideas…

The impossible romance of that first kiss edges closer to reality on a gentle day out together in ‘This Life is Wonderful’ before manic mundanity returns in ‘Love is the Prize’ as the Nekomi cycle club pressgang Morisato into competing in a dangerous race with rivals of the Ushikubo University Motorcycle Club – with Belldandy as an unofficial prize! – before events precipitate a ‘System Force Down’ on a 4-day Nekomi beach retreat as Belldandy’s powers run amok. Unbeknownst to her, the fault has been divinely manufactured by her wayward, oft-demoted, even more powerful older sister Urd, who uses the crisis to visit Earth and scope out Morisato. Intrigued by what she finds the salacious, sex-obsessed  meddler makes him her pet project, but the scheme backfires and she too ends up stuck in the world of mortals with oh-so-lucky Keiichi in ‘Oh My Older Sister!’

Her bombastic nature erupts to the fore during the Nekomi Campus festival where Urd manipulates events and people to star a war to confirm ‘I’m the Campus Queen’, but she’s met her match in Sayoko, who participates in a cheesy beauty/talent contest and drags poor Belldandy unto the line of fire too. By the time the furore ends it’s the anniversary of Morisato’s careless wish and ‘What Belldandy Wants Most’ finds him – and her – in contemplative mood. Eager as always to advance the relationship he wants to get her a ring, but must first earn enough to buy one. The result is almost constant humiliation and many near-death experiences as he takes a number of jobs to fund the gift, but at least the reward is worth the effort…

To Be Continued…
This mainly monochrome compendium is peppered with brief full colour sections and – as is also traditional – the main story is augmented by mini features. Goddess Side Story ‘Oh My Manga Artist!’ offers 4-panel gag strips ‘The Shield’, ‘The Trap’ and ‘The Paper’, a selection of ‘Letters to the Enchantress’ from the US series’ original comic book incarnation and ‘Editor’s Commentary on Vol. 2’: another expansive collection of factoids detailing significant cultural clues that might bypass most readers.

Decades after it began Oh My Goddess! remains a beguiling, engaging and eminently re-readable confection, at once frothy fun and entrancing drama. Think of it as a Eastern take on Bewitched or I Dream of Genie, especially as the painfully awkward forbidden romance develops: one that both mortal and immortal protagonists are incapable of admitting to. Throw in the required supporting cast of friends, rivals, insaniacs, petrol-heads, weird teachers and interfering entities, and there’s almost too much light-hearted fun to be found in this bright and breezy manga classic.
© 2006 by Kosuke Fujishima. All rights reserved. This English language edition © 2006 Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

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Superman: The Golden Age Dailies 1942 to 1944


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Whitney Ellsworth, Wayne Boring & the Superman Studio (IDW/ Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-383-5 (HB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

In this month of romantic anticipation and disillusionment, it’s worth reminding ourselves that every iconic hero of strips and comics has a dutiful, stalwart inamorata waiting ever so patently in the wings for their moment to spoon and swoon or be rescued. Here’s another vintage outing for one of the earliest and most resolute…

The American comic book industry – if it existed at all – would be utterly unrecognisable without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s unprecedented invention was first fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation, and 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, Avengers and their hyperkinetic kind long ago outgrew four-colour origins to become fully mythologized modern media creatures 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. These globally syndicated newspaper strips alone were enjoyed by countless millions, and by the time his 20th anniversary rolled around, at the very start of what we call the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial star, headlined 17 astounding animated cartoons, become a novel attraction (written by George Lowther) and helmed two feature films and his first smash 8-season live-action television show. Superman was a perennial sure-fire success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers all over the planet.

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 humble, tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Most still do…

The daily Superman newspaper strip launched on 16th January 1939, augmented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th 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 additional talents like strip veteran Jack Burnley and writers including 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.

This is the first volume of the Library of American Comics collection, which picks up from the Sterling/Kitchen Sing softcover editions which ceased production in 1999. All of the material is long overdue for re-release and digital editions. Here, however, the never-ending battle resumes with Siegel & Shuster and their helpers addressing the world war had just become part of. This superb collection – still not available digitally, despite its superb quality and sublime content – opens with an Introduction by John Wells discussing the Man of Tomorrow’s role of during those days of combat and fear, comprises episodes #20-30, pages 967 through 1814, and publication dates February 16th 1942 to October 28th 1944. It begins with ‘Lair of the Leer’ (February 16 – May 23 1942, #967-1050) as following Pearl Harbor, Clark Kent tries to enlist but fails the physical. In his eagerness, the hero had accidentally activated his super vision and read an eye chart in another room!

Marooned at home, Superman instead counters a wave of sabotage instigated by a murderous maniac dubbed The Leer and addresses Congress, swearing to defend the homeland while America’s brave boys settle the fascists overseas…via a string of Japanese, Italian and German operatives, seeking to destroy government, shipping transport infrastructure and arms plants. As he tirelessly stops these attempts, savvy Lois Lane investigates and soon is in the thick of the action…

The challenge is swiftly taken up by the master spy who mistakenly targets male reporter Clark, but gets snoopy Lois anyway; a mistake that leads to his undoing and his end…

Dialling down fury and spectacle, strips 1051-1115 reveal the secret of ‘The Steel Mill Poet’ (May 25-August 8) as Lois & Clark visit critical war industry site the Canby steel mill where fanciful dowager Mrs Canby believes her cousin’s odes and ditties will uplift the sweaty toilers. With morale plummeting Superman goes looking for her vanished husband, and finds himself playing cupid to two generations of steel tycoons whilst also scotching a sabotage scheme unlike any other…

The naval war features heavily in ‘The Monocle Menace’ (August 10-November 21, #1116-1205) as a new malicious mastermind targets shipping and support services by creating a evil Superman doppelganger, although his real objective is a secret formula. As usual Lois is first on the case and has a ringside seat to an ever-escalating battle of super-powers against super science; even saving her hero when the Man of Steel succumbs to sinister mesmerism and seemingly switches sides!

With Wayne Boring taking more and more of the drawing duties, Seasonal whimsy informs the 23rd exploit as Hitler, Mussolini and General Tojo combine forces to shatter the moral of the world by having ‘Santa Claus Kidnapped’ (November 23-December 19, strips 1206-1229). This compels Superman to go undercover in Berlin, saving Saint Nick and giving the German resistance a big boost before returning to truly nasty business by countering ‘The Villainy of the Voice’ (December 21 1942 to April 17 1943, and 1230-1331). Here an anonymous plotter uses a whispering campaign of insinuation and innuendo to terrorise key workers until Lois and Clark expose the rat and his insidious gang of spying blackmailers and extortionists…

As the Daily Planet’s top reporters are despatched to “war-torn Europe”, Lois &Clark accidentally encounter super spy ‘The Nefarious Noname’ (April 19-June 26, 1332-1391) and are sucked into a Hitchcockian chase around London in pursuit of stolen Allied invasion plans. “Luckily” Superman is also on hand to help them against the freakish, many-eyed psionic mutant terror commanding the enemy agents and a ferocious battle of powers and war of wills ends with the right side victorious again…

Returning safely to America, LL & CK are just in time to see how ‘The Sneer Strikes’ (June 28 – August 21, #1392-1439) as the brother of the Leer targets Japanese Internment Camps in a remarkably even-handed exploration of what we now consider one of the darkest ethical moments in US history. Hopefully that’s not a statement I’ll have amend over the next four years…

Back then though, the reporters’ investigative visits uncover spy schemes and escape plots, forcing the Man of Steel to use his disguise powers to go undercover, infiltrating the Nipponese gang as they attempt to destroy US/Chinese relations and foil a West Coast invasion. The war was slowly turning in the Allies’ favour and reader burnout was growing, so it’s no surprise story #27 moved into solid mystery territory with ‘Where is Lois Lane?’ (August 23 – November 18, #1440-1518) as Clark and Jimmy Olsen realise the woman working at the Daily Planet with them has vanished. Moreover, every aspect of her non-work life – home, neighbours, friends – has been eradicated…

It’s even more confusing when she suddenly reappears, claiming everyone else is crazy. Maybe its because she’s been replaced by an enemy agent wearing her face and form carrying out a bizarre ploy to make Superman her slave and destroy the US economy…

A different kind of whimsy is in play when Lois’s niece – a habitual liar who could shame Baron Munchausen, if not the 47th President – debuts in ‘Little Susie’s Fibs’ (November 19 1943 – February 19 1944, #1519-1598). The fabricating deceiver is an inveterate troublemaker, and when she sees Clark become Superman the scene is set for an avalanche of chaos, after Susie confronts Kent. Of course, he denies everything but cannot find a way to prove he is NOT the Man of Steel telling a lie, and the fantastic hilarity goes into overdrive when ‘The Mischievous Mr. Mxyztplk’ first manifests (February 21 – July 19, #1599-1727). Forewarned by medium Madame Zodia, Lois & Clark are still utterly unprepared for a spate of poltergeist phenomena at the Planet building, heralding the arrival of a fun-addicted magical imp who doesn’t care who gets hurt whilst he’s getting his giggles…

As if his antics aren’t enough to fully occupy the Action Ace, the “Most Beautiful Woman in the World” chooses that moment to stop covering her face, no longer caring about the fights and accidents her looks generate. With men rioting and suiciding everywhere, the imp sets his heart on her too, but Miss Dreamface seeks to steal Superman’s, even though faithful old flame Ted is still chasing her too. The frenzy mounts and peaks in Metropolis, setting the scene for tragedy and disaster, even if true love eventually finds a way to restore order…

Acclaimed favourite of the Superman radio show, the Daily Planet copy boy got his first taste of pictorial fame in concluding sequence #30 ‘King Jimmy Olsen’ (July 20-October 28 1944, #1728-1814). Here the dauntless is lad abducted by hidden super-scientific kingdom Thymaung. The boy is the exact double of ruler Rahma, and a council of usurpers want to replace their noble boy king with a pliable primitive they can control and who will front their campaign to conquer Earth. Unfortunately for them, Superman tracks down his pal, but insists the kid plays along until the Man of Tomorrow can safely liberate the captive king. A whirlwind ride of action, fantasy and first love, it heralds a new era of decreasingly political satire in favour of gender stereotyping and reinforcement masked as a comedic “battle of the sexes”. There will be more of that next time -and all through the “Atomic age” of the 1950s & 1960s…

For now though, these yarns offer timeless wonders and mesmerising excitement for lovers of action and fantasy. The raw-boned early Superman is beyond compare. If you can handle the warts of the era or just crave simpler stories from less angst-wracked times, they are ideal comics reading, and this a book you simply must see.
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