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Batman: Noël


By Lee Bermejo, with Barbara Ciardo & Todd Klein (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3213-9 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Fresh, Twisted Spin on a Seasonal Favourite… 9/10

Beginning with 1941’s Batman #9, the Dark Knight and festively-hued sidekick celebrated Christmas with specially crafted, tinsel-tinted topical tales (part warm spirituality, part Dickens homage, part O. Henry bittersweet irony, part redemption story), all perfectly encapsulating everything the festival ought to mean.

Although many his contemporaries – especially Superman – did likewise, the Batman Yule yarns somehow always got the balance between sentiment and drama just right. It led to the common comics fan assumption that Batman Owned Christmas. Given the evidence, it’s hard to dispute…

In 2011 writer-artist Lee Bermejo (Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, Joker, Before Watchmen: Rorschach) took his avowed love of Charles Dickens’ novels and the gritty, painterly heroic style he’d perfected and crafted a Times Best-Selling stand-alone Batman Original Graphic Novel. His creative partners in crime were colour-artist Barbara Ciardo award-winning letterer Todd Klein.

Available in deluxe hardback, Trade Paperback and eBook editions, Batman: Noël is a smart and imaginative reworking of Dicken’s redemptive masterpiece told from the point of view of Bob, a cheap hood with a guilty conscience and a sick kid. Bob’s got himself in a spot of bother with both his boss – The Joker – and the meanest bastard in Gotham, who’s selfishly using him to get to the killer clown…

Someone needs to have his views challenged and his path reset. Surely the Season will provide a miracle…

Featuring a big cast of star guests, this dark festive fable adds a bleak spin to the immortal events that will amaze and delight jaded readers, and also offers an Introduction by Jim Lee and many pages of production art and Author Commentary from Bermejo.

Batman Noël is a decidedly different take on one of the most fundamental cornerstones of the modern Christmas experience, and, while we’re recommending seasonal stuff, Dickens wrote four follow-ups to A Christmas Carol plus 22 other Christmas-themed or situated stories. They’re all in print – physically and digitally – so you should treat yourself to those too…
© 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Of Dust and Blood – A Story from the Fight at the Greasy Grass


By Jim Berry & Val Mayerik (Jim Berry)
ISBN: 978-0-692-63801-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Even More Potent, Powerful, Unmissable… 10/10

Back in October I reviewed a beautiful book published by NBM: a passionate and compelling re-examination of one of the most infamous and iconic moments in American history. I thought it was superb and said so in pixel-print.

After the review posted we were contacted by the writer of the book who very graciously thanked us. He also said that the original crowdfunded Kickstarter edition was not only better but how the book should be seen. He even sent us a copy to prove it.

He was right.

Here’s a tweaked review. Go buy this one. Even if you already have the perfectly excellent oversized, portrait format hardback edition. Get this one too. You won’t regret it…

Thanks to the twin miracles of humanity’s love of stories and the power of commercial narrative there’s no logic to how or why some events pass into the forgotten corners of history whilst others become touchstones of common experience or even actual living myths.

In 1875 final – official – tally of casualties for The Battle at Little Big Horn listed 268 US dead and 55 severely wounded men… and an unknown or unspecified number of native casualties.

Eleven years earlier the Chivington (Sand Creek) Massacre recorded a wildly estimated 500-600 killed and mutilated Cheyenne and Arapaho (two thirds of whom were women and children). To be fair, the figures might have been as low as 60 or 70 heathen souls, but practically nobody white really cared…

My point is that the reason you’ve heard of one but not the other is the force of publicity…

After Custer’s debacle and the slaughter of the 7th Cavalry, the Anheuser-Busch brewery commissioned prints of a painting memorialising “Custer’s Last Fight” and had them framed and hung in bars and saloons across America, forever connecting their product in the minds of generations of drinkers with unvarnished white heroism…

With historical veracity at a supreme disadvantage, the ill-judged clash at Little Big Horn – alternatively described by the winning side (on that day, at least) as the Battle of the Greasy Grass – has become the stuff of imagination and extrapolation.

Atrocity aside, that’s not necessarily a bad thing as it’s led numerous thoughtful creative types to examine the event on their own terms and applying the perspective of history to the events and the shameful, bloody aftermath…

Two of the very best are comics veteran Val Mayerik and journalist-turned-author Jim Berry who have here shaped the conflict to their own deeply moving ends with this superb offering. Originally crowdfunded through Kickstarter contributions, this stunning landscape format (295 x 192 mm) full-colour hardback explores truth and myth whilst adding another powerful fictive component to the sprawling patchwork.

Following Berry’s mood-setting and painfully timely Introduction – dramatically augmented by a linework Map of The Battle of the Greasy Grass/Little Big Horn by fellow graphic scholar and historian Rick Geary – the story (lettered by Simon Bowland) unfolds in rapid yet panoramic moments, and traces two ultimately converging paths.

On one side cavalry scout Greenhaw takes some time off to pen a letter to his beloved Rose, even as some distance away young Lakota warrior Slow Hawk performs the funeral rites for his brother. Now he is the last of his family…

Against the background of the tragically documented specifics of the inevitable, legendary greater clash, these two strangers are carried by events towards an inescapable and bloody confrontation…

Rendered with staggering virtuosity by Mayerik, the smaller moments and incidents contributing to the greater clash we all think we know are beguiling and breathtaking in their warmth and humanity, magnificently underscoring Berry’s incisive questioning of the point and merit of the battle.

Augmenting the visual narrative is a text essay describing what happened After the Battle and how commercial interests monetised and weaponised public sentiment against the Indians and led to America’s own final solution to the Indian Wars at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890.

Following on, Val Mayerik: The Process describes, with plenty of access to the artist’s sketchbook, how many of the most evocative images were created before this terrific tome concludes with a Bibliography (illustrated by Aaron McConnel of further reading for interested parties and a moving page of dedications dubbed ‘Philamayaa’… (it means “Thank You”)

This is a wondrous and sobering experience any comics fan or student of human nature must seek out share. And that’s best seen in the original edition.

© 2016 Jim Berry, all rights reserved. 1st Edition. All fictional characters are trademarks of Jim Berry and Val Mayerik.

Copies of the first edition Of Dust and Blood can be purchased on eBay.

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The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories



By John Stanley, Walt Kelly, Richard Scarry, Jack Bradbury, Klaus Nordling, Mike Sekowsky, Alberto Giolitti & various: edited and designed by Craig Yoe with Clizia Gussoni (IDW Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-60010-773-3(HB); 978-1-68405-009-3(TPB); eISBN: 978-1-68406-352-9

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Clue is in the Title… 10/10

Justifiably revered for his brilliant newspaper strip Pogo, and perhaps even his wonderful Our Gang tales, the incredible Walt Kelly also has a pretty strong claim to owning the traditional childhood Christmas. From 1942 until he abandoned comic-books for newsprint he produced stories and magazines dedicated to the season of Good Will for West Coast publishing giant Dell.

Santa Claus Funnies and Christmas with Mother Goose were a Holidays institution in both their Four Color and Dell Giant incarnations and the sheer beauty and charm of Kelly’s work defined what Christmas should be for two generations. Kelly transferred his affinity for the best of all fantasy worlds to the immortal Pogo but still was especially associated with the Festive season. Many publications sought out his special touch. Even the Christmas 1955 edition of Newsweek starred Kelly and Co on the cover.

And now, thanks to that dedicated champion preserver of America Comics Past Craig Yoe, I can add a wealth of other great creators and stories to our communal seasonal joy-fest, as this cracking tome – available in all physical and electronic formats – celebrates Yuletide comic classics.

Offering old masters and vintage delights from Santa Claus Funnies # 61, 91,128, 175, 205, 302, 361, 867, 1154 and 1274 (1944-1962) and 1962’s Santa Claus Funnies #1, plus material from A Christmas Treasury #1 1954, Sleepy Santa (1948), Ha Ha Comics #49 (1947), Santa and the Pirates (1953), Here Comes Santa (1960), Christmas at the Rotunda, Giant Comics #3 (1957) and Christmas Carnival volume 1 #2 (1954) this superb funfest opens with a silent short by Kelly revealing the Big (in red) Man’s working practice, & Mo Gollub introducing ‘The Christmas Mouse’ (from Santa Clause Funnies #126 and #175) before we enjoy a Seasonal message (illustrated by Mel Millar) revealing ‘Hey Kids, Christmas Comics!’

‘How Santa Got his Red Suit’ is a superbly imaginative, gnome-stuffed origin fable by Kelly from Santa Claus Funnies # 61, after which H.R. Karp & Jack Bradbury reveal the salutary saga of ‘Blitzen, Jr.’ as first seen in Ha Ha Comics #49 and a tragically uncredited team disclose in prose-&-picture format the magical adventure of ‘Santa and the Pirates’, taken from a booklet premium released by Promotional Publishing Co. NYC.

As rendered by the inimitable John Stanley SCF #1154’s ‘Santa’s Problem’ explores the good intentions and bad habits of polar bears before Mike Sekowsky contributes a concise and workmanlike adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens (from A Christmas Treasury #1) before Kelly returns with the heart-warming tale of ‘A Mouse in the House’ (SCF #128).

Stanley strikes again with ‘The Helpful Snowman’ (Here Comes Santa) offering aerial assistance to Kris Kringle whilst ‘Christmas at the Rotunda’ offers a classy version of ‘The Shoemaker and the Elves’ courtesy of Elsa Jane Werner & Richard Scarry, after which cognoscenti can see potent prototypes for Pogo characters in 1945’s ‘Christmas Comes to the Woodland’ (SCF #91): another whimsical Kelly classic.

Imbecilic but well-meaning elf Scamper causes mayhem and ‘Santa’s Return Trip’ in wry delight from John Stanley & Irving Tripp (from SCF #1274) after which Stanley & Dan Gormley craft an epic voyage for determined rugrats Cathy and David as they deliver ‘A Letter for Santa’ (Santa Claus Funnies #1).

Another masterful Kelly prose-&-picture fable then recounts the sentimental journey of ‘Ticky Tack, the Littlest Reindeer’ (SCF #205) and the animal crackerz continue as a lost puppy finds friendship and a new home in ‘Sooky’s First Christmas’ (Stanley & Gormley from SCF #867)…

Charlton Comics were late to the party for X-mas strips but their glorious Giant Comics #3 from 1957 provides here both Frank Johnson’s anarchic ‘Lil’ Tomboy in It Was the Day Before Christmas…’ and an extra-length action-packed romp for Al Fago to masterfully orchestrate in ‘Atomic Mouse in The Night before Christmas’. Separating those yarns is a deft updating of Clement Clark Moore’s ubiquitous ode in ‘The Night before Christmas’ by Dan Gormley from A Christmas Treasury #1…

In 1947, Walt Kelly set his sights on consolidating a new Holiday mythology and succeeded with outrageous aplomb in ‘The Great Three-Flavoured Blizzard’ (Santa Claus Funnies #175) as an unseasonal warm spell precipitates a crisis and necessitates the making of a new kind of snow, before the fabulous Klaus Nordling contributes a stylish comedy of errors with ‘Joe and Jennifer in the Wonderful Snowhouse’ from Christmas Carnival volume 1 #2.

Bringing things to a close Dan Noonan concocts a staffing crisis for Santa to solve with the aid of ‘Teddy Bear in Toyland’ (SCF #91, 1950) after which we enjoy a moment of sober reflection as ‘The Christmas Story’ – according to St. Matthew’s gospel and illuminated by Alberto Giolitti – (A Christmas Treasury #1) reminds us that for many people it’s not just about loot, excess and fantasy.

Kelly then ushers us out with a brace of end pieces encompassing a poetic hunt for the old boy and a silent silly symphony from ‘The Carollers’…

It absolutely baffles me that Kelly and his peers’ unique and universally top-notch Christmas tales – and Batman‘s too for that matter – are not re-released every November for the Yule spending spree. Christmas is all about nostalgia and good old days and there is no bigger sentimental sap on the planet than your average comics punter. And once these books are out there their supreme readability will quickly make converts of the rest of the world.

Just you wait and see…
The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories © 2018 Gussoni-Yoe Studio, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Material reprinted: Sleepy Santa © 1948 Belda Record & Publishing Co. Ha Ha Comics #49 © Creston Publications Corporation. Santa and the Pirates © 1953 Promotional Publishing Co. NYC. Christmas at the Rotunda © 1955 Ford Motor Company and Artists and Writers Guild, Inc. Giant Comics #3 © 1957 Charlton Comics Group Christmas Carnival vol. 1 #2 St. John Publishing Corp. ©1954. © Western Printing & Lithographing Co. 1948, 1950, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1960, 1961, 1962. © 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, Oscar Lebek/Dell Publishing, Western Printing & Lithographing Co.

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Last Minute Presents

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Perfect Childhoods caught in cartoons… 10/10 Each!

Goodnight Opus

By Berkeley Breathed (Little, Brown & Co.)
ISBN: 978-0-316-10853-9 (HB)                    978-0-316-10599-6 (PB)

After a desperately brief and glittering career as a syndicated strip cartoonist and socio-political commentator (so often the very same function) Berkeley Breathed retired his award-winning Bloom County and Outland vehicles and became a writer and illustrator of children’s books. He lost none of his perception or imagination, and actually got better as a narrative artist. He didn’t completely abandon his entrancing cast of characters and – as a happy ever after postscript – eventually revived them all for another go-round of satire and social advocacy. Yay!

This is a story about the magic of storytelling and features that universal innocent Opus the Penguin. One night, as she has done two hundred and nine times before, Granny starts to read the svelte and uncool waterfowl his favourite bedtime book. But this night is different. Tonight, Opus’ mind wanders and he “departs the text”…

And so begins a riotous flight of Technicolor fantasy as sedate monochromatic images give way to a powerful, vibrant and surreal romp that extends to the Milky Way and back, by way of animated monuments, the burned out Fairy of Sleep, and stopovers at some of the most exotic corners of the planet.

Less a story than an exuberant travelogue of Imagination, delivered in sharp and lyrical rhyme, this is a book to trigger dreams and promote creativity. A perfect primer to explain how to wonder and wander… So every kid, at any age, should own it.
© 1994 Berkeley Breathed. All Rights Reserved.

The Last Basselope – One Ferocious Story

By Berkeley Breathed (Little, Brown & Co.)
ISBN: 978-0-316-10761-7 (HB)                    978-0-590-47542-6 (PB)

Berke Breathed is no one-trick-pony and has never been limited to one specific season or holiday. He can do fun and wonder all year round…

Although not a proper Christmas story, this charming and tearfully funny tale is another joyous celebration of the wonder of childhood and how little adventures can become great big ones. Starring his best-loved characters (although I personally identified far too closely with Binkley) from Bloom County and Outland: jolly, unfulfilled Opus, Bill the Cat, Milquetoast the Housebug, Ronald-Anne (her mother named her for President Reagan – because he had done so much to advance the cause of Poor Black Women) and Rosebud, the eponymous Basselope of the title.

Opus is a dreamer of great dreams and a frustrated explorer. In his unassuming, shy way he lusts for glory and the heady wine of immortality and as everybody knows, that can only be found by Discovering Something.

Anything will do. And in the pages of the latest ‘National Geographic Enquirer’ he finds his dream waiting…

Organising a safari, our fish-fuelled fool heads for the woods at the back of the house in search of the most elusive beast in history; every crypto-zoologist’s Holy Grail.

How he finds The Last Basselope and what he actually learns is a magical journey into the uncharted wilds of childhood’s imagination which reveals the strength, power and character of true friendship.

This beautifully illustrated, captivating and multi-layered fable is ideal for the eternally young at heart and all those still looking for a path back to their own wonder years.
© 1994 Berkeley Breathed. All Rights Reserved.

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Harvey Kurtzman’s Marley’s Ghost


Adapted by Harvey Kurtzman & expanded by Gideon Kendall, Josh O’Neill, Shannon Wheeler & various (ComiXology Originals)
No ISBN, ASIN: B01LZAATMD

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Reverential Revisitation of a Cornerstone Christmas Classic… 9/10

Harvey Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the latter half of the last century – even more so than Jules Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert or Will Eisner.

His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking, game-changing Mad) would be enough for most creators to lean back on, but Kurtzman was also a force in newspaper strips (Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, commentator and social critic who kept on looking at folk and their doings and just couldn’t stop making art or sharing his conclusions…

He invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour comicbook Mad into a black-&-white magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fall-out caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles.

He then pursued comedy and social satire further with newsstand magazines Trump, Humbug and Help! all the while creating challenging and powerfully effective humour strips such as Little Annie Fanny (for Playboy), Nutz, Goodman Beaver, Betsy and her Buddies and many more. He died far too soon, far too young in 1993.

As recounted in Denis Kitchen’s appendix ‘The Origins of the Marley’s Ghost Graphic Novel’, despite helming a huge and influential comicbook sensation, by 1954 Kurtzman was looking to expand the influence and appeal of the medium even further.

Mad was reaching millions but he wanted to get to everybody and he wanted his efforts to be treated with respect…

His notion was to adapt – properly, faithfully, and not as an abridged, bowdlerized kiddie’s version such as seen in Classics Illustrated – a global masterpiece of literature. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was the perfect vehicle and Kurtzman feverishly set to in his spare time, producing more than 70 tightly laid out thumbnails and seven colour layouts, plus a complete page rendered by EC/Mad comrade Jack Davis.

The luxurious coffee-table book he’d envisioned foundered due to the timidity and short-sightedness of publishers – and quite possibly the toxic fug around comicbooks caused by Senate Hearings and Frederick Wertham’s hysterical campaign against teenage culture and fun…

Kurtzman shelved the project, but his papers and notes were discovered after his death and the result – adapted by writers Josh O’Neill & Shannon Wheeler and compellingly illustrated by Gideon Kendall – is a splendidly engaging addition to the novel’s legion of cross-media iterations. Just like Kurtzman knew it would be…

The tale is augmented here by Kurtzman’s original thumbnails and layouts, the Davis page and a wealth of development sketches generated by Kendall in completing the project.

Moreover, Marley’s Ghost is even more groundbreaking than Kurtzman ever imagined. Released as a digital book, it has garnered acclaim and awards even before its inevitable transition to physical form… which means, as long as you’re connected you can buy this as the most literal of last-minute gifts…

The Story? It’s what you’d expect and want, all executed with warmth, with and sublime grace. Scrooge Mean. Ghosts! Revelations! Scared Scrooge! Change of Heart! Happies all around! God bless us every one!

And if that was a spoiler in any manner, you have no right to be reading this review…

Here is a superb work long overdue and a comics god’s dream at long-last realised: a new old master of our art form no true devotee can afford to be without. And it’s fun and engaging enough to be an introducer to youngsters looking for comics to love.

Marley’s Ghost as adapted by Harvey Kurtzman is published by Kitchen, Lind & Associates, LLC. Adaptation © 2017 by Gideon Kendall, Josh O’Neill, & Kurtzman Properties LLC. All rights reserved.

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The Graphic Canon of Children’s Literature


By Many and various, Edited by Russ Kick (Seven Stories)
ISBN: 978-1-60980-530-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Amazing Recollections for Every Kid of Voting Age… 10/10

If you are of a certain age, you will remember that Christmas when you got The Book. What it was varies and you may not even have it now (probably not, in truth), but the getting of it, the cherishing of it in that moment, and the nostalgic debilitation recalling it brings now shaped your life. This book might well be it for someone you know and can’t think of a gift for…

Swallow the lump in your throat, grab a tissue and we’ll begin…

Once upon a time in the English-speaking world, nobody clever, educated or in any way grown-up liked comics. Now we’re an accredited really and truly art form and spectacular books like this can be appreciated…

The Graphic Canon is an astounding literary and art project, instigated by legendary crusading editor, publisher, anthologist and modern Renaissance Man Russ Kick. It seeks to interpret the world’s great books through the eyes of masters of crusading sequential narrative in an eye-opening synthesis of modes and styles. The project was initially divided into three periods roughly equating with the birth of literature and the rise of the modern novel.

Such was the success and impact of the feat that a number of side projects grew from the original, such as this startling confection celebrating the uniquely dual-purpose arena of stories for Children.

Make no mistake: this is not a simple bowdlerising “prose to strip” exercise like generations of Classics Illustrated comics, and you won’t pass any tests on the basis of what you see here. Moreover, these images will make you want to re-read the texts you know and hunger for the ones you haven’t got around to yet. Even those you think you’ve known for your entire life…

They certainly did for me…

Following the fascinating and agenda-setting ‘Editor’s Introduction’ the reimagination of centuries of wonder begins with a selection of Aesop’s immortal fables. Deliciously concocted by Roberta Gregory ‘The Miller, His Son, and the Donkey’ and ‘The Eagle, The Cat, and The Sow’ are followed by Peter Kuper’s refreshing interpretations of ‘The Ape and the Fisherman’ and ‘The Wasp and the Snake’.

Lance Tooks then takes torrid liberties but still makes magic with ‘The Lion in Love’, ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ and ‘The City Mouse and the Country Mouse’ before we move on to another timeless tale…

David W. Tripp offers a psycho-sexual take in his silent reworking of European fairy tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ after which Andrice Arp beguilingly details the saga of the ‘The Mastermaid’. Following that Norse fairy tale we head further north and east for Lesley Barnes’ iconic celebration of Russian folk tale ‘The Firebird’ before Miguel Molina offers a brace of scenes from Peruvian fairy tale ‘The Shepherdess and the Condor’.

The unfailingly entertaining Rachel Ball adapts a British yarn of abduction in ‘The Weardale Fairies’ after which Maëlle Doliveaux applies astounding collage and cut-paper acumen to ‘Four Fables’ by French mediaeval poet Jean de La Fontaine before a selection of Brothers Grimm tales opens with Kevin H. Dixon applying his studied blend of cultural appropriation and mordant insubordination to the ‘Town Musicians of Bremen’…

Chandra Free – with technical assistance from BLAM! Ventures – then scrupulously documents ‘A Tale of One who Travelled to Learn what Shivering Meant’ before Noah Van Sciver adapts ‘Star Dollars’ and ‘The Water-Sprite’.

E.T.A. Hoffman’s ‘The Nutcracker and the Mouse King’ is translated into pictorial beats by Sanya Glisic and Dame Darcy revels in the full horror of ‘The Little Mermaid’ by Hans Christian Andersen whilst Isabel Greenberg concentrates the old master’s imaginative whimsy for ‘The Tinderbox’.

Billy Nunez reinvigorates British fairy tale ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ by transposing it to rural China before Frank M. Hansen has wicked fun updating Mark Twain’s shockingly wry ‘Advice to Little Girls’.

Vicki Nerino liberally updates ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ – by Lewis Carroll in case you don’t know – and Keren Katz illustrates a triptych of ‘Fables for Children’ by Leo Tolstoy (The Birds in the Net, The Duck and the Moon, The Water Sprite and the Pearl, The Mouse Under the Granary and The Falcon and the Cock) after which Sandy Jimenez adds a sheen of Glam Rock iconoclasm to an extract of Jules Verne’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’.

Nabob of Nonsense Edward Lear is celebrated in ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ by Rick Geary and doubly so by Joy Kolitsky who colourfully interprets ‘Calico Pie’ and ‘The New Vestments’, after which R. Sikoryak stunningly reduces Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ to a quartet of symbolically eventful maps.

Lost story master George McDonald is represented by Dasha Tolstikova’s moving treatment of ‘At the Back of the North Wind’ and Molly Brooks adapts the first tantalising chapter of Johanna Spyri’s ‘Heidi’ before Eric Knisley redeems the fabulous and unfairly embargoed sagas of Joel Chandler Harris with a vivid take on ‘The Tar Baby (From Tales of Uncle Remus)’.

Molly Colleen O’Connell adapts Carlo Collodi’s ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ and Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’ is given a meta-textual going over by Lisa Fary, Kate Eagle & John Dallaire before Tara Seibel gives a modern spin to Oscar Wilde’s heartbreaking ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’.

Caroline Picard ambitiously and simultaneously covers four tales from ‘The Jungle Book’ by Rudyard Kipling – specifically ‘Rikki Tikki Tavi’, ‘Toomai of the Elephants’, ‘Kaa’s Hunting’, and ‘The White Seal’ – whilst Matthew Houston adds a graphically futuristic spin to his treatment of H.G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’.

Shawn Cheng adapts L. Frank Baum’s ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ in a single colour-splashed page and then does the same for the remaining 13 novels in ‘The Oz Series’ after which Sally Madden silently shows a key scene from ‘Peter Pan’ by J.M. Barrie and Andrea Tsurumi delicately details the retaking of Toad Hall from the end of Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’ before Juliacks turns in a most dramatic reinterpretation of Frances Hodson Burnett’s ‘The Secret Garden’…

Kate Glasheen adapts and modifies ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by Margery Williams, after which C. Frakes adapts ‘How the Potato Face Blind Man Enjoyed Himself on a Fine Spring Morning’ from Carl Sandburg’s ‘Rootabaga Stories’ and Matt Wiegle offers his rebus-filled silent take on Franklin W. Dixon’s ‘The Tower Treasure (A Hardy Boys Mystery)’ whilst Katherine Hearst goes wild with an eerie examination of ‘Peter and the Wolf’ as never imagined by Serge Prokofiev…

Astrid Lindgren’s immortal ‘Pippi Longstocking’ inhabits a decidedly off-kilter world thanks to Emelie Östergren, balanced by a sobering snippet from Anne Frank’s ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ from mainstream comicbook royalty Sid Jacobson & Ernie Colón, after which John W. Pierard treats us to a selection of contemporaneous (and Rude) ‘Schoolyard Rhymes’.

Hitting the home stretch of modernity, we close with a chilling and wordless adaption from Tori Christina McKenna of Richard Adams’ ‘Watership Down’ and a stunning recapitulation by Lucy Knisley J.K. Rowling’s ‘The Harry Potter Series’ – all of it. Really. In 8 pages…

Complementing the childhood obsessions is a ‘Gallery’ by 58 more artists, and ‘Contributors’, ‘Acknowledgments’, ‘Credits and Permissions’ and even an ‘Index’.

Each piece is preceded by an informative commentary page by Kick, and this sort of book is just what the art form comics needs to grow beyond our largely self-imposed ghetto, and anything done this well with so much heart and joy simply has to be rewarded.
© 2014 Russ Kick. All work © individual owners and copyright holders and used with permission. All rights reserved.

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Run Wild


By K. I. Zachopoulos & Vincenzo Balzamo (Archaia)
ISBN: 978-1-68415-024-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Spooky Family for a Cold Winter World… 9/10

Writer Kostas Zachopoulos’ heartfelt love affair with classic themes and genres continues in his latest collaboration with Vincenzo Balzamo (Immortal, Revenge: The Secret Origin of Emily Thorne).

Zachopoulos’ previous comics releases – Mon Alix, The Fang, Mr. Universe, Misery City – and his previous tale with Balzamo The Cloud have cumulatively and memorably tweaked and refreshed horror, crime and fantasy standards and this fresh offering should bring them the well-deserved glittering prizes found in the reading mainstream…

Run Wild is a bleak, dark, challenging and frequently frightening modern fairy tale with echoes of Alan Garner, Maurice Sendak and Ralph Steadman which subverts while combining a key core plot – the search for home and safety – with a chilling examination of what exactly constitutes humanity. A reminder to be careful what you wish for…

It’s night in the woods and scary. Flynn and Ava have just woken up and can’t find their mother. In fact, they can’t find anybody…

Sensible older sister Ava insists they leave the shack they’ve found themselves in, and search outside. She knows something is wrong with the world. Something has changed…

Flynn is close to panic. He needs to know why Mother has abandoned them. He needs to know what’s happened. He needs to know there’s no danger. But there is…

As they wander the sparkling, cold environs, they meet a giant talking fox named Beatrice who acts as their guide and guardian. She is taking them to Papa, who has all the answers – and is in fact the cause of all their woes – but the journey will be long and hard and pose many questions.

Moreover, they are all being hunted by a pack of relentless, savage beasts. Not ordinary animals: there are no more of those. These relentless pursuers used to be human. Now only Ava and Flynn remain of the old world, able to understand the reasons for how mankind changed and how to proceed from this new start.

Flynn realises his mother is out there somewhere, and hungers for reunion, but as they make their perilous way to the enigmatic Papa, Ava is increasingly despondent. She’s started to change into a beast too…

A tale of intellectual and spiritual hubris, man’s incessant meddling, overconfidence in technology and the perils of warring with our environment, Run Wild is gripping and beguiling mystery play examining our role in the world and offering stern rebukes and a hint of warning. Piling on devious sub-plots and shocking twists, Zachopoulos steers us into a maze of wonder and duplicity and never lets the tension slacken.

Available as an enticing hardback tome and in comfortably accessible digital editions, this byzantine, Cimmerian-toned, chimeric yarn is rendered in a gloriously evocative and expressionistic progression of painted pages by ever-more adept and imaginative Vincenzo Balzamo, providing a wealth of material for your next excess-fuelled nightmare…

This is unmissable stuff: so don’t.
™ and © 2018 Kostas Zachopoulos & Vincenzo Balzamo. All rights reserved.

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Batman: The Golden Age volume 5


By Bill Finger, Don Cameron, Ruth “Bunny” Lyon Kaufman, Horace L. Gold, Joseph Greene, Joe Samachson, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, Dick Sprang, Jack Burnley, Ray Burnley, Fred Ray, Norman Fallon & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8461-9 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timely and Evergreen Family Adventure… 10/10

Debuting a year after Superman, “The Bat-Man” (and latterly Robin, the Boy Wonder) confirmed DC/National Comics as the market frontrunner and conceptual leader of the burgeoning comicbook industry.

Having established the parameters of the metahuman with their Man of Steel, the physical mortal perfection and dashing derring-do of the strictly-human Dynamic Duo rapidly became the swashbuckling benchmark by which all other four-colour crime-busters were judged.

Batman: The Golden Age is a series of paperback feasts (there are also weightier, pricier, more capacious hardback Omnibus editions available, and digital iterations too) re-presenting the Dark Knight’s earliest exploits.

Presented in original publishing release order, the tomes trace the character’s growth into the icon who would inspire so many and develop the resilience needed to survive the stifling cultural vicissitudes that coming decades would inflict upon him and his partner, Robin.

Re-presenting a glorious and astounding treasure-trove of cape-&-cowl classics and iconic covers from Detective Comics #75-81, Batman #16-20 plus contemporary companion tales from World’s Finest Comics #10-11: this book covers groundbreaking escapades from April/May 1943 to December/January 1944: as the Dynamic Duo continually develop and storm ahead of all competition.

I’m certain it’s no coincidence that many of these Golden Age treasures are also some of the best and most reprinted tales in the Batman canon. With chief writers Bill Finger and Don Cameron at a peak of creativity and production, everybody on the Home Front was keen to do their bit – even if that was simply making kids of all ages forget their troubles for a brief while. These tales were crafted just as the dark tide was turning and an odour of hopeful optimism was creeping into the escapist, crime-busting yarns – and especially the stunning covers – seen here in the work of Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, Bob Kane Jack Burnley, Dick Sprang, Fred Ray and Stan Kaye…

The supplemental writers all pushed the boundaries of the adventure medium whilst graphic genius Sprang began to slowly supersede Kane and Burnley: making the feature uniquely his own while keeping the Dynamic Duo at the forefront of the vast army of superhero successes.

War always stimulates creativity and advancement and these sublime adventures of Batman and Robin more than prove that axiom as the growing band of creators responsible for producing myriad adventures of the Dark Knight hit an artistic peak which only stellar stable-mate Superman and Fawcett’s Captain Marvel were able to equal or even approach.

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The compelling dramas open with the landmark Batman #16 (cover-dated April/May 1943) and one of three tales by Cameron. ‘The Joker Reforms!’ (Kane, Robinson & Roussos art) sees the Clown Prince suffer a blow to the head and enjoy a complete personality shift… but not for long…, after which Ruth “Bunny Lyons” Kaufman scripted a bold and fascinating Black Market milk caper in ‘The Grade A Crimes!’ for Ray & Jack Burney to dynamically delineate.

‘The Adventure of the Branded Tree’ (Cameron and the Burnleys) has the Gotham Gangbusters heading to lumberjack country for a vacation to become embroiled in big city banditry before the issue wraps up with hilarious thriller-comedy ‘Here Comes Alfred!’ (Cameron, Kane, Robinson & Roussos) which foists a rotund, unwelcome and staggeringly faux-English manservant upon the Masked Manhunters to finally complete the classic core cast of the series in a brilliantly fast-paced spy-drama with loads of laughs and buckets of tension…

Detective Comics #75 (May 1943) introduces a new aristocrat of crime in pompous popinjay ‘The Robber Baron!’ (Cameron, Jack Burnley & Roussos) before the Joker resurfaces in #76 to ‘Slay ’em With Flowers’: a graphic chiller by Horace L. Gold, Robinson & Roussos.

Next up is Batman #17 which opens with the gloriously human story of B. Boswell Brown: a lonely, self-important old man who claims to be ‘The Batman’s Biographer!’ Unfortunately, ruthless robber The Conjurer gives the claim far more credence than most in a tense thriller by Cameron, Kane, Robinson & Roussos…

Counterbalancing the dark whimsy is ‘The Penguin Goes A-Hunting’ (Cameron, Jack & Ray Burnley): a wild romp wherein the Perfidious Popinjay undertakes a hubris-fuelled crime-spree after being left off a “Batman’s Most Dangerous Foes” list.

The same creative team concocted ‘Rogues Pageant!’ wherein murderous thieves in Western city Santo Pablo inexplicably disrupt the towns historical Anniversary celebrations after which Joe Greene, Kane & Robinson detail the Dynamic Duo’s brutal battle with a deadly gang of maritime marauders in the appealing ‘Adventure of the Vitamin Vandals!’

The creation of Superman propelled National Comics to the forefront of their fledgling industry and in 1939 the company was licensed to produce a commemorative comicbook celebrating the start of the New York World’s Fair, with the Man of Tomorrow prominently featured among the four-colour stars of the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics.

A year later, following the birth of Batman and Robin, National combined Dark Knight, Boy Wonder and Action Ace on the cover of the follow-up New York World’s Fair 1940.The spectacular 96-page anthology was a tremendous success and the oversized bonanza format was established, becoming Spring 1941’s World’s Best Comics#1, before finally settling on the now-legendary title World’s Finest Comics from the second issue, beginning a stellar 45-year run which only ended as part of the massive clear-out and de-cluttering exercise that was Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Until 1954 and the swingeing axe-blows of rising print costs, the only place Superman and Batman ever met was on the stunning covers by the likes of Burnley, Fred Ray and others. Between those sturdy card covers, the heroes maintained a strict non-collaboration policy.

Here World’s Finest Comics #10 (Summer 1943) features Finger, Robinson & Roussos’ ‘The Man with the Camera Eyes’: a gripping battle of wits between the Gotham Guardians and a crafty crook with an eidetic memory, before Finger, Kane & Roussos introduce a fascinating new wrinkle to villainy with the conflicted doctor who operates ‘The Crime Clinic’ in Detective #77. Crime Surgeon Matthew Thorne would return many times over the coming decades…

Issue #78 (August 1943) pushes the patriotic agenda with ‘The Bond Wagon’ (Joseph Greene, Burnley & Roussos) as Robin’s efforts to raise war funds through a parade of historical look-alikes is targeted by Nazi spies and sympathisers, after which Batman #18 starts with a spectacular, visually stunning crime-caper wherein the Gotham Gangbusters clash again with rascally rotund rogues Tweedledum and Tweedledee whilst solving ‘The Secret of Hunter’s Inn!’ (Samachson & Robinson).

‘Robin Studies his Lessons!’ (Samachson, Kane & Robinson) sees the Boy Wonder grounded from all crime-busting duties until his school work improves – even if it means Batman dying for want of his astounding assistance!

Bill Finger and the Burnley bros craft ‘The Good Samaritan Cops’: another brilliantly absorbing human interest drama focused on the tense but unglamorous work of the Police Emergency Squad before the action culminates in a shocking and powerful final engagement for manic physician and felonious mastermind Matthew Thorne. ‘The Crime Surgeon!’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson) here tries his deft and devilish hand at masterminding other crooks’ capers…

Over in Detective Comics #79 ‘Destiny’s Auction’ – Cameron & Robinson – offers another sterling moving melodrama as a fortune teller’s prognostications lead to fame, fortune and deadly danger for a failed actress, has-been actor and superstitious gangster…

World’s Finest Comics #11’s Batman episode reveals ‘A Thief in Time!’ (Finger & Robinson inked by Fred Ray), pitting our heroes against future-felon Rob Callender, who falls through a time-warp and thinks he’s found the perfect way to get rich.

Detective #80 sees the turbulent tragedy of deranged, double-edged threat Harvey Kent, finally resolved after a typically terrific tussle with ‘The End of Two-Face!’ (Finger, Kane, Robinson & Roussos), after which Batman #19 unleashes another quartet of compelling crime-busting cases.

There’s no mistaking the magnificent artwork of rising star Dick Sprang who pencilled every tale in this astounding issue, beginning with Cameron’s ‘Batman Makes a Deadline!’ as the Dark Knight investigates skulduggery and attempted murder at the City’s biggest newspaper. He also scripted breathtaking fantasy masterpiece ‘Atlantis Goes to War!’ with the Dynamic Duo rescuing that fabled submerged city from overwhelming Nazi assault.

The Joker rears his garish head again in anonymously-penned thriller ‘The Case of the Timid Lion!’ (perhaps William Woolfolk or Jack Schiff?) with the Harlequin of Hate enraged and lethal whilst tracking down an impostor committing crazy capers in his name… Samachson, Sprang and inker Norman Fallon then unmask the ‘Collector of Millionaires’ with Dick Grayson covertly investigating his wealthy mentor’s bewildering abduction and subsequent replacement by a cunning doppelganger…

‘The Cavalier of Crime!’ (Detective #81, by Cameron, Kane & Roussos) introduces another bizarre, baroque costumed crazy who tests his rapacious wits and sharp-edged weapons against the Dynamic Duo – naturally and ultimately to no avail…

The Home Front certainly seemed a lot brighter, as can be seen in Batman #20 which opens with the Joker in ‘The Centuries of Crime!’ (Cameron, Jack & Ray Burnley) with the Mountebank of Mirth claiming to have discovered a nefariously profitable method of time-travelling, whilst ‘The Trial of Titus Keyes!’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson) offers a masterful courtroom drama of injustice amended, focussing on the inefficacy of witness statements…

‘The Lawmen of the Sea!’ (Finger & the Burnley boys) finds the Dynamic Duo again working with a lesser known Police Division as they join The Harbor Patrol in their daily duties, uncovering a modern-day piracy ring, before the issue and this collection concludes on an emotional high with ‘Bruce Wayne Loses Guardianship of Dick Grayson!’ as a couple of fraudsters claiming to be the boy’s last remaining relatives petition to adopt him. A melodramatic triumph by Finger, Kane & Robinson, there’s still plenty of action, especially after the grifters try to sell Dick back to Bruce Wayne…

This stuff set the standard for comic superheroes. Whatever you like now, you owe it to these tales. Superman gave us the idea, and writers like Finger and Cameron refined and defined the meta-structure of the costumed crime-fighter. Where the Man of Steel was as much social force and wish fulfilment as hero, Batman and Robin did what we ordinary mortals wanted and needed to do.

They taught bad people the lesson they deserved.

The history of the American comicbook industry in almost every major aspect stems from the raw, vital and still powerfully compelling tales of DC’s twin icons: Superman and Batman.

It’s only fair and fitting that both those characters are still going strong and that their earliest adventures can be relived in chronological order in a variety of formats from relatively economical newsprint paperbacks to deluxe hardcover commemorative Archive editions – and digital formats too.

These are the stories that cemented the popularity of Batman and Robin and brought welcome surcease to millions during a time of tremendous hardship and crisis. Even if these days aren’t nearly as perilous or desperate – and there ain’t many who thinks otherwise! – the power of such work to rouse and charm is still potent and just as necessary. You owe it to yourself and your family and even your hamster to Buy This Book…
© 1943, 1944, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Juggler of Our Lady – the Classic Christmas Story


By R. O. Blechman with a Foreword by Jules Feiffer and Introduction by Maurice Sendak (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80030-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A truly immaculate confection… 10/10

Christmas is not just about shiny new toys and sparkly knitwear. It’s just as much about unearthing or revisiting old, beloved and almost totally forgotten treasures.

Here’s a superb case in point - a magnificent hardback picture-perfect gift that’s still readily available – thanks to the perspicacious souls at Dover Books…

Oscar Robert Blechman is a glittering star in America’s graphic arts firmament and an international superstar. Brooklyn-born in 1930, he has excelled as cartoonist, illustrator, author, animator/Director, editorial cartoonist, Editorial Director and ad-man.

He’s won awards for his commercials and TV specials and been venerated in an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art. His anti-Vietnam cartoons graced The Village Voice through the early 1970s whilst his cartoons and illustrations appeared in such prestigious vehicles as Punch, The New Yorker, Trump, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Show, Theater Arts and Humbug.

He’s also produced fascinating graphic narratives such as Georgie and can reasonably claim to have produced one of the very first English-language Graphic Novels… and thus beginneth today’s lesson…

In 1952 Blechman used his groundbreaking and soon-to-be phenomenally influential minimalist line-style – deftly augmented with judicious watercolours – to make a much-told tale all his own.

The Juggler of Our Lady was his first book: initially published by Henry Holt, and superbly fetishized and commemorated through brother-cartoonist Maurice Sendak’s fondly emotional Introduction in this sublime new pocket hardback edition. The slim tome became a landmark in graphic narrative and is beloved by generations.

Anatole France’s 1892 tale Le Jongleur de Notre Dame is probably the most widely accepted version of the original medieval religious-miracle legend but there have been so many others that the story is as much part of most people’s seasonal landscape as Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Blechman’s reinvigoration retains all the awe and wonder, whilst adding such a potent blend of wry humour, pitiful humility and gentle hope to the mix that it can make a grown man weep. In 1958 his book became an animated Terrytoons TV short with a huge impact when it was adapted by Al Kouzel & Gene Deitch and narrated by that legendary Spirit of Christmas Fun Boris Karloff…

You know the story: Cantalbert is an itinerant juggler who loves his work. He feels that if more people juggled there would less time for war and misery and folk would act better, feel better and be better.

Nobody, however, will listen and the despondent performer – hungry for spirituality – joins a monastery. Even here he does not fit in and is saddened by his lack of suitable talents to venerate The Lord and especially The Virgin Mary…

Everything comes to a head on Christmas Eve when the monks all display the magnificent presents they have made for the Madonna and poor Cantalbert has nothing worthy to give.

Later, when all is quiet, the sad juggler offers the only thing he knows and loves to the statue of The Virgin and something wonderful happens…

Deftly deconstructed and wondrously appreciated in a Foreword by Comics and Cartooning Titan Jules Feiffer, The Juggler of Our Lady is a masterpiece of graphic dexterity and an utterly beguiling experience no lover of the storytelling arts should be without.

Text and illustrations © 1997 R. O. Blechman. Foreword © 1997 2015 Jules Feiffer. Introduction © 1980 Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.
Check out www.doverpublications.com, your internet retailer or local comic or bookshop.

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The Beatles in Comics


By Michels Mabel, Gaet’s, Lu-K, Vox, Anne-Sophie Servantie, Ludivine Stock, Amandine Puntous, Romuald Gleyse, Julien Lamanda, Efix, Pierre Braillon, Ben Lebègue, Anthony Audibert, Bloop, Victor Giménez, Akita, Laurent Houssin, Richard Di Martino, Piero Ruggeri et Filipo Neri, Martin Trystram, Clément Baloup, Edwina Cosme et Christophe Billard, Patrick Lacan, Virginie de Lambert, Joël Alessandra, Odile Santi & various: translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-187-1 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Magical Mystery Tour for All… 10/10

Graphic biographies are all the rage at the moment and this one – originally released on the continent in 2016 – is one of the best I’ve seen and the most likely to appeal to a far larger mainstream audience than comics usually reach. It certainly deserves to…

If you’ve never heard of the Beatles there’s very little point in you carrying on any further.

Still with us? Okay then…

As if cannily repackaged popular culture factoids and snippets of celebrity history – accompanied by a treasure trove of candid photographs, song lyrics, posters and other memorabilia – aren’t enough to whet your appetite, this addition to the lore of the Fab Four adds a vital and enticing extra element.

The individual chronological articles and the comics vignettes they each precede are all written by Michels Mabel & Gaet’s, with an army of illustrators providing vivid and vibrant mini-strips, beginning with the meeting of ‘John, Paul and George’, as envisioned by Lu-K.

Vox details the euphoria of the first gigs in ‘Hamburg’ before Anne-Sophie Servantie details the iconic contribution of photographer ‘Astrid Kirchherr’ to the band’s growing mystique after which the crucial contribution of their tragedy-marked manger is explored in ‘Mister Epstein’ with vivid illustration from Ludivine Stock.

A tone of smug schadenfreude tinges Amandine Puntous’ ‘The Man Who Refused to Sign the Beatles!’ before Romuald Gleyse recalls the moment the magic finally gelled as a proper music producer takes the rowdy kids in hand with ‘George Martin’s Wager’.

With the world at their feet, a close brush with respectability and civil honours are covered in

‘The Queen’s Rebels’ by Julien Lamanda after which Efix encapsulates conquest of the New World and ‘The Beginning of Beatlemania’; with Pierre Braillon tackling key appearances on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ and Ben Lebègue depicting ‘Shea Stadium and the American Tour’.

Once they started getting successful, tensions began to fracture the band’s enthusiastic solidarity. The creation of the song ‘Yesterday’ (Anthony Audibert art) and an anticlimactic meeting of giants, as seen in Bloop’s ‘The Beatles and Elvis’ starts tracing the cracks, whilst movie sensation ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ – by Victor Giménez – and Akita’s visualisation of ‘John’s Opinion’ reinforce the tensions.

Courtesy of Laurent Houssin, ‘New Musical Horizons’ are explored, and Richard Di Martino celebrates ‘The Triumph of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ before the hammer falls with the death of their protective manager. ‘Goodbye Brian’ by Piero Ruggeri et Filipo Neri signals a creative explosion and the beginnings of financial disaster as conmen target the band resulting in a fractious ‘Trip to India’ (by Martin Trystram), the advent of ‘Yoko Ono’ (from Clément Baloup) and the musical masterpiece that is ‘The White Album’ as depicted by Edwina Cosme & Christophe Billard.

Patrick Lacan then visually traces the insane and inane conspiracy theories claiming ‘Paul is Dead’ before more artistic triumphs are balanced by incipient catastrophe in Virginie de Lambert’s ‘Abbey Road/Let it Be’.

From there it’s all about ‘The Break-up’ (Joël Alessandra) after which Odile Santi scrapbooks 1971 to now in the postscriptive ‘Post Beatles’ section…

The compelling and remarkable biography concludes on a deliciously whimsical note as ‘Do you want to know a secret?’ offers 18 absurd anecdotes to delight everyone who loves to hear classic absurdism. The Beatles in Comics is an astoundingly readable and beautifully rendered treasure for comics and music fans alike: one that resonates with anybody who loves to listen and look. Without it, you’re simply nowhere, man…

© 2016 Petit as Petit. © 2018 NBM for the English translation.
NBM books are also available in digital formats. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/