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November 1, 2018November 1, 2018

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Silver Age volume 1

By Otto Binder, Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, Robert Bernstein, Al Plastino, George Papp, Jim Mooney, Curt Swan, John Forte & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-8157-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Astounding All Ages Entertainmentâ€¦ 9/10

Once upon a time, in the far future, a band of super-powered kids from dozens of alien civilisations took inspiration from the greatest legend of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited that legend to join themâ€¦

And thus began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as first envisioned by writer Otto Binder & artist Al Plastino in early 1958, just as the revived comicbook genre of superheroes was gathering an inexorable head of steam. Since that time the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history tweaked and rebooted, retconned and overwritten again and again to comply with editorial diktat and popular whim.

This glorious, far-and-wide ranging trade paperback and eBook collection assembles the many preliminary appearances of these valiant Tomorrow People and their inevitable progress towards and attainment of their own feature; including all pertinent material from Adventure Comics #247, 267, 282, 290, 293, and 300-310, Action Comics #267, 276, 287 and 289, Superboy #86, 89, 98 and Superman #147, cumulatively spanning April 1958 through July 1963.

The many-handed mob of juvenile universe-savers debuted in Adventure Comics #247 (cover-dated April 1958) in a Superboy tale wherein three mysterious kids invited the Boy of Steel to the 30^th century to join a team of metahuman champions all inspired by his historic career.

Devised by Otto Binder & Al Plastino, the throwaway concept inflamed public imagination and, after a slew of further appearances throughout Superman Family titles, the LSH eventually took over Superboy’s lead spot in Adventure for their own far-flung, quirky escapades, with the Caped Kid Kryptonian reduced to merely â€œone of the in-crowdâ€â€¦

However here the excitement was still gradually building as the kids returned more than 18 months later in Adventure #267 (December 1959) for Jerry Siegel & George Papp to play with.

In ‘Prisoner of the Super-Heroes!‘ the teen wonders turn up to attack and incarcerate the Boy of Steel because of a misunderstood ancient record they have uncoveredâ€¦

The following summer Supergirl met the Legion in Action Comics #267 (August 1960, by Siegel & Jim Mooney) as Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy secretly travel to â€œmodern dayâ€ America to invite the Maid of Might to join the team, in a repetition of their offer to Superboy 15 years previously (in nit-picking fact they claimed to be the children of the original team – a fact glossed over and forgotten these days: don’t time-travel stories make your head hurtâ€¦?).

Due to a dubious technicality, young and eager Kara Zor-El fails her initiation task at the hands of ‘The Three Super-Heroes’ and is asked to reapply later – but at least we get to meet a few more Legionnaires, including Chameleon Boy, Invisible Kid and Colossal Boyâ€¦

With editors still cautiously testing the waters, it was Superboy #86 (January 1961) before ‘The Army of Living Kryptonite Men!’ (by Siegel & Papp) who turned the LSH into a last-minute Deus ex Machina to save the Smallville Sentinel from juvenile delinquent Lex Luthor‘s most insidious assault.

Two months later in Adventure #282, Binder & Papp introduced Star Boy as a romantic rival for the Krypton Kid in ‘Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes!’

In Action #276 (May 1961) Siegel & Mooney introduced ‘Supergirl’s Three Super Girl-Friends’, which finally saw her crack the plasti-glass ceiling and join the team, sponsored by Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl. We also meet for the first time Bouncing Boy, Shrinking Violet, Sun Boy and potential bad-boy love-interest Brainiac 5 (well at least his distant ancestor Brainiac was a very bad boyâ€¦)

Next comes a pivotal two-part tale. ‘Superboy’s Big Brother’ (by Robert Bernstein & Papp from Superboy #89, June 1961) reveals how an amnesiac, super-powered space traveller crashes in Smallville, speaking Kryptonese and carrying star-maps written by the Boy of Steel’s long-dead fatherâ€¦

Jubilant, baffled and suspicious in equal amounts, Superboy eventually, tragically discovers ‘The Secret of Mon-El’ by accidentally exposing the stranger to a lingering, inexorable death, before desperately providing critical life-support by depositing the dying alien in the Phantom Zone until a cure can be foundâ€¦

With an August 1961 cover-date Superman #147 unleashed ‘The Legion of Super-Villains’ (Siegel, Curt Swan & Sheldon Moldoff): a stand-out thriller featuring the adult Luthor and correspondingly mature wicked future bad guys coming far too close to destroying the Action Ace until the temporal cavalry arrivesâ€¦

Bernstein & Papp seemingly give Sun Boy a starring role in ‘The Secret of the Seventh Super-Hero!’ (Adventure #290, November 1961) – a clever tale of redemption and second chances, followed in #293 (February 1962) by a gripping thriller from Siegel, Swan & George Klein. ‘The Legion of Super-Traitors’ posits the future heroes turning evil, prompting Saturn Girl to recruit a Legion of Super-Pets including Krypto, Streaky the Super Cat, Beppo, the monkey from Krypton and Comet the magical Super-horse to save the world – and yes, I typed all that with a reasonably straight faceâ€¦

‘Supergirl’s Greatest Challenge!’ by Siegel & Mooney (Action #287 April 1962) sees her visit the Legion (quibblers be warned: for some reason it was mis-determined as the 21^st century in this story) and saved future Earth from invasion.

She also met a telepathic descendent of her cat Streaky. His name was Whizzy (I could have omitted that fact but chose not to – once more for smug, comedic effect and in sympathy with cat owners everywhere)â€¦

Action #289 originally hosted ‘Superman’s Super-Courtship!’ wherein the Girl of Steel scours the universe for an ideal mate for her cousin. One highly possible candidate is the adult Saturn Woman, but her husband Lightning Man objectsâ€¦

Perhaps charming at the time, but modern sensibilities might quail at the conclusion that his perfect match was a doppelganger of Supergirl herself, albeit thankfully a little bit olderâ€¦

By the release of Superboy #98 (July 1962), the decision had been made. The buying public wanted more Legion stories and after ‘The Boy with Ultra-Powers’ (Siegel, Swan & Klein) introduces a mysterious lad with greater powers than the Boy of Steel, focus shifts to Adventure Comics #300 (cover-dated September 1962) where the futuristic super-squad finally land their own gig; even occasionally taking an alternating cover-spot from the still top-featured Boy of Steel.

Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes opened its stellar run with ‘The Face Behind the Lead Mask!’ by Siegel, John Forte & Plastino: a fast-paced premier pitting Superboy and the 30^th century champions against an impossibly unbeatable foe until Mon-El, long-trapped in the Phantom Zone, briefly escapes a millennium of confinement to save the dayâ€¦

In those halcyon days humour was as important as action, imagination and drama, so many of the early exploits were light-hearted and moralistic. Issue #301 offered hope to fat kids everywhere with ‘The Secret Origin of Bouncing Boy!’ by regular creative team Siegel & Forte, wherein the process of open auditions was instigated.

These provided devoted fans with loads of truly bizarre and memorable applicants over the years whilst here allowing the rebounding human rotunda to give a salutary pep talk and inspirational recount of heroism persevering over adversity.

Adventure #302 featured ‘Sun Boy’s Lost Power!’ with the golden boy forced to resign until fortune and boldness restore his abilities after which ‘The Fantastic Spy!’ in #303 provides a tense tale of espionage and possible betrayal by new member Matter-Eater Lad.

The happy readership was stunned by the events of #304 when Saturn Girl engineered ‘The Stolen Super-Powers!’ to make herself a one-woman Legion. Of course, it was for the best possible reasons, but still didn’t prevent the shocking murder of Lightning Ladâ€¦

With comfortable complacency utterly destroyed, #305 further shook everything up with ‘The Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire!’ who turns out to be the long-suffering Mon-El finally cured and freed from his Phantom Zone prison.

Normally I’d try to be more obscure about story details – after all my intention is to get new people reading old comics – but these â€œspoilerâ€ revelations are crucial to further understanding here and besides you all know these characters are still around, don’t you?

Pulp science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton took over the major scripting role with Adventure #306, introducing ‘The Legion of Substitute Heroes!’ (still quirkily, perfectly illustrated by John Forte): a group of rejected audition applicants selflessly banding together and clandestinely assisting the champions who had spurned them, after which transmuting orphan Element Lad joins the big league.

He is seeking vengeance of the space pirates who had wiped out his entire species in ‘The Secret Power of the Mystery Super-Hero!’ whilst in #308 readers seemingly saw ‘The Return of Lightning Lad!’

Actual Spoiler Warning: skip to the next paragraph NOW!!!

Otherwise you’ll find out it was actually his similarly empowered sister who – once unmasked and unmanned – took her brother’s place as Lightning Lassâ€¦

Penultimate escapade ‘The Legion of Super-Monsters!’ was a straightforward clash with embittered applicant Jungle King who took his rejection far too personally and gathered a deadly clutch of space beasts to wreak havoc and vengeance after which the future tension temporarily subsides with ‘The Doom of the Super-Heroes!’ from #310: a frantic battle for survival against an impossible foe

The Legion is undoubtedly one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in American comicbook history and largely responsible for the growth of the groundswell movement that became Comics Fandom.

Moreover, these sparkling, simplistic and devastatingly addictive stories, as much as the legendary Julie Schwartz Justice League, fired up the interest and imaginations of a generation of young readers and built the industry we all know today.

These naive, silly, joyous, stirring and utterly compelling yarns are precious and fun beyond any ability to explain – even if we old lags gently mock them to ourselves and one another. If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to enrich your future life as soon as possible.
Â© 1958-1963, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 31, 2018October 29, 2018

I Luv Halloween Volume 1

By Keith Giffen & Benjamin Roman (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59532-831-1

Are you sick? Are you depraved, demented or just plain ‘not right’?

If So, it’s not necessary – but it won’t hurt either – if you pick up this darkly wicked little tome to reaffirm your skewed view of reality.

First seen in 2005, it spawned two further paperback volumes, a hardback Ultimate Edition in full-colour and, latterly, eBook editions (similarly converted from moody monochrome to gaudy sunset shades and blood-spatter hues thanks to the tender ministrations of Michael Kelleher and Glasshouse Graphicsâ€¦

This holiday is primarily one where kids of varying ages go mooching about begging for sweets and threating mayhem. It used to be about predatory monsters roaming the land, terrorising the citizenry and making mischief. Here, those worlds collide and colludeâ€¦

Every Halloween, Finch, Moochie, Pig Pig, Bubbles and Squeek, Li’l Bith, Mush and the rest of the kids get together for their annual sugar-coated loot-fest.

But this year it’s all botched up from the get-go ’cause the very first old lady they accost just gives them fruit, and everyone knows if you don’t get candy right from the start it’s nothing but rubbish all evening.

Drastic steps have to be taken, or else this Halloween is ruinedâ€¦

You don’t know drastic until you see what this band of masked reprobates get up to. These are not your average trick-or-treatersâ€¦

Along the way you’ll also meet that friendly old policeman, the vicious, bullying older kids and that really stacked chick who lives next door as well as her doofus boyfriend. See their ultimate fates and give thanks it’s just a comic!

And as the night unfolds – with each kid given his/her/its own chapter to play in – we’ll see that theirs is a very bleak and nasty kind of fun with a vicious undercurrent to the shenanigans. You might even call it tragicâ€¦

Comics veteran Keith Giffen flexes his comedy – and bad taste – muscles in an irresistible confection that would win nodding approval from Charles Addams and the producers of any self-respecting splatter movie. The jovial malice is uniquely captured by the totally enchanting art of Benjamin Roman, whose inexplicably charming grotesques are the stuff of any animation studio’s dreams. If you don’t believe me just check out the stupefying Sketchbook section and frankly alarming Creator Bio featureâ€¦

Toys based on these sick puppies will sell and sell and sell – if you can bear to liberate them from any stout packaging or go to sleep in the same room as themâ€¦

If you have no fear of the dark, if you love a gross joke, have a soft side that can be hit by a brilliantly sad twist or two and especially if you don’t care what your immediate family or the clergy think of you, then you really want to read this book. Over and over and over and over again. Amenâ€¦
Â© 2005 Keith Giffen & Benjamin Roman. All Rights Reserved.

October 30, 2018October 29, 2018

Creepy Presents Alex Toth

By Alex Toth, with Archie Goodwin, Gerry Boudreau, Rich Margopoulos, Roger McKenzie, Doug Moench, Nicola Cuti, Bill DuBay & Steve Skeates and Leopoldo DuraÃ±ona, Leo Summers, Romeo Tanghal, Carmine Infantino & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-692-1 (HB)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â eISBN: 978-1-63008-194-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Festive Flurry of Fearsome Funâ€¦ 9/10

Once upon a time the short complete tale was the sole staple of the comicbook profession, where the intent was to deliver as much variety and entertainment fulfilment as possible to the reader. Sadly, that particular discipline is all but lost to us todayâ€¦

Alex Toth was a master of graphic communication who shaped two different art-forms and is largely unknown in both of them.

Born in New York in 1928, the son of Hungarian immigrants with a dynamic interest in the arts, Toth was something of a prodigy and after enrolling in the High School of Industrial Arts, doggedly went about improving his skills as a cartoonist.

His earliest dreams were of a strip like Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, but his uncompromising devotion to the highest standards soon soured him on newspaper strip work when he discovered how hidebound and innovation-resistant the family-values based industry had become whilst he was growing up.

At age 15 he sold his first comicbook works to Heroic Comics and, after graduating in 1947, worked for All American/National Periodical Publications (who would amalgamate and evolve into DC Comics) on Dr. Mid-Nite, All Star Comics, The Atom, Green Lantern, Johnny Thunder, Sierra Smith, Johnny Peril, Danger Trail and a host of other two-fisted fighting features.

On the way he dabbled with newspaper strips (see Casey Ruggles: the Hard Times of Pancho and Pecos) and confirmed that nothing had changedâ€¦

Constantly aiming to improve his own work, he never had time for fools or formula-hungry editors who wouldn’t take artistic risks. In 1952 Toth quit DC to work for â€œThrillingâ€ Pulps publisher Ned Pines who was retooling his prolific Better/Nedor/Pines comics companies (Thrilling Comics, Fighting Yank, Doc Strange, Black Terror and others) into Standard Comics: a comics house targeting older readers with sophisticated, genre-based titles.

Beside his particularly favourite inker Mike Peppe and fellow graphic artisans Nick Cardy, Mike Sekowsky, Art Saaf, John Celardo, George Tuska, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Toth set the bar incredibly high for a new kind of story-telling. In a cavalcade of short-lived titles dedicated to War, Crime, Horror, Science Fiction and especially Romance, the material produced was wry, restrained and thoroughly mature.

After Simon & Kirby invented love comics, Standard, through artists like Cardy and Toth and writers like the amazing and unsung Kim Aamodt, polished and honed the genre, regularly turning out clever, witty, evocative and yet tasteful melodramas and heart-tuggers both men and women could enjoy.

Before going into the military, where he still found time to create a strip (Jon Fury for the US army’s Tokyo Quartermaster newspaper The Depot’s Diary) Toth illustrated 60 glorious tales for Standard; as well as a few pieces for EC and others.

On his return to a different industry – and one he didn’t much like – Toth split his time between Western/Dell/Gold Key (Zorro and many movie/TV adaptations) and National (assorted short pieces, Hot Wheels and Eclipso): doing work he increasingly found uninspired, moribund and creatively cowardly.

Soon he moved primarily into TV animation: character and locale designing for shows such as Space Ghost, Herculoids, Birdman, Shazzan!, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and Super Friends among many others.

He returned sporadically to comics, setting the style and tone for DC’s late 1960’s horror line in House of Mystery, House of Secrets and especially The Witching Hour and illustrating more adult fare for Warren’s Creepy, Eerie and The Rook.

In the early 1980s he redesigned The Fox for Red Circle/Archie, produced stunning one-offs for Archie Goodwin’s Batman or war comics (whenever they offered him a â€œgood scriptâ€) and latterly contributed to landmark or anniversary projects such as Batman: Black and White.

His later, personal works included European star-feature Torpedo and the magnificently audacious Bravo for Adventure!: both debuting at the independent magazine publishing company owned by Jim Warren.

Alex Toth died of a heart attack at his drawing board on May 27^th 2006.

The details are fully recounted in Douglas Wolk’s biographically informative Foreword, as are hints of the artist’s later spells of creative brilliance at DC Comics, the growing underground movement and nascent independent comics sceneâ€¦

The erudite and economical Mr. Evanier even finds room to describe and critique the differing art techniques Ditko experimented with during his brief tenureâ€¦

Whilst working for Warren (only intermittently and between 1965 and 1982) Toth enjoyed a great deal of editorial freedom and cooperation. He produced 21 starkly stunning monochrome masterpieces – many self-penned or written by fellow legend Archie Goodwin – and all crafted without interference from the Comics Code Authority’s draconian and nonsensical rules.

They ranged from wonderfully baroque and bizarre fantasy, to spooky suspense and science fiction yarns, limited only by the bounds of good tasteâ€¦ or at least as far as horror tales can beâ€¦

The uncanny yarns appeared in black-&-white magazine anthologies Creepy (# 5-7, 9, 75-80, 114, 122-125, 139) and Eerie (2, 3, 64, 65 and 67), affording the master of minimalism time and room to experiment with not only a larger page, differing styles and media, but also dabble in then-unknown comics genresâ€¦

Those lost Warren stories were gathered into this spectacular oversized (284 x 218 mm) hardback compendium (or assorted eBook formats): part of a series of all-star artist compilations – which also include Rich Corben, Bernie Wrightson, Steve Ditko amongst others – and begins here – after an appreciative Foreword from critic and historian Douglas Wolk – with the short shockers from Creepy.

Moodily rendered in grey wash-tones ‘Grave Undertaking’ comes from Creepy #5 (October 1965). Scripted by Goodwin the period piece relates the shocking comeuppance of a funeral director who branches out into providing fresh corpses for the local medical school, after which December issue #6 provides insight into ‘The Stalkers’ as a troubled soul seeks psychoanalytic help for the hallucinations of aliens plaguing himâ€¦

Prophetic visions play a part in ‘Rude Awakening!’ (#7, February 1966) as man flees omens of being gutted by a madman before Toth reverts to his minimalist line style for ‘Out of Time’ (#9 June). Here a murderous mugger seeks sanctuary for his latest crime and ends up making a devil’s bargainâ€¦

A long absence ended in November 1975 as Creepy #75 heralded a wealth of new stories from Toth, beginning with the Gerry Boudreau written crime-thriller ‘Phantom of Pleasure Island’ wherein a mob-owned San Diego funfair is plagued by a sinister sniper. Private Eye Hubb Chapin is on the case, but his dogged determination to find the killer opens a lot of festering sores his client should have left well aloneâ€¦

Spectacularly experimental and powerfully stark, ‘Ensnared!’ scripted by Rich Margopoulos; #76, January 1976) is another paranoiac psychodrama with science fictional underpinnings before Toth begins writing his own stories in Creepy #77 (February) with a wash and tone tour de force depicting the strange fate of missing air mail pilot ‘Tibor Miko’ in 1928.

March’s issue #78 continued the tonal terrors with another 1920s tale exposing the stunning secret of a celluloid icon in ‘Unreeal!’ before we storm into Indiana Jones territory with ‘Kui’ (#79, May) as a couple of anthropologists make the holiday find of a lifetime on a deserted tropical islandâ€¦

This tranche of Toth treats ends with ‘Proof Positive’ from June’s issue #80 wherein a gang of fraudulent patent lawyers and their ruthless honeytrap pay the ultimate price for gulling the wrong inventorâ€¦

When Toth returned in January 1980 his first story was another chilling collaboration with old comrade Archie Goodwin. Creepy #114’s ‘The Reaper’ was rendered in overpowering scratchy line and solid blacks, detailing how a virologist with six months to live decides he’s not dying alone and leaving a world of idiots behind himâ€¦

Issue #122 (October 1980) found Toth inking veteran illustrator Leo Duranona for the Roger McKenzie-scripted civil war yarn ‘The Killing!’ Here a Northern party occupying a mansion enduring conflicting passions of lust and vengeance before death inevitably settles all scores.

Doug Moench writes, Leo Summers draws and Toth inks & tones ‘Kiss of the Plague!’ (#123, November) as a welter of grisly murders slowly subtracts the inhabitant of a seemingly accursed house after which ‘Malphisto’s Illusion’ (#124, January 1981) finds Nichola Cuti, Alexis Romero (AKA Romeo Tanghal) & Toth explaining in grisly detail just how a stage magician pulls off his greatest trick and #125’s ‘Jacque Cocteau’s Circus of the Bizarre’ (McKenzie, Carmine Infantino & Toth) maintains the entertainment motif with a short shocker about a freak show like no otherâ€¦

Toth’s last Creepy appearance was another collaboration with Goodwin. Issue #139 (July 1982) again featured the master’s moodily macabre tone painting in a grim post-apocalyptic rumination on ‘Survival!’

Toth’s tenure on companion anthology Eerie #2 was relatively brief and began with the second issue (March 1966). ‘Vision of Evil’ was the first of two Goodwin tales limned in tone and bold line, revealing the fate of an overly-arrogant art collector who couldn’t take no for an answer, whilst #3’s ‘The Monument’ (May 1966) saw an equally obnoxious architect accidentally engineer his own doom by stealing ideas from an old idolâ€¦

Eerie #64 offered intolerance, fear and sentiment in equal measure in ‘Daddy and the Pie’ (written by Bill DuBay). In Depression era America a very alien stranger is made welcome by one hard-up family despite the barely repressed hostility of his neighboursâ€¦

A very modern monster’s exploits comprise the end of this stupendous collection as Steve Skeates pens a wry tale of serial killers and doughty detectives in old London town. ‘The Hacker is Back’ (#65 April) depicts a maniac’s return to slaughter after a decade’s hiatus and leads to an inconclusive resolution before ‘The Hacker’s Last Stand!’ (#67 August) find forces of law and order overwhelmed by a killing spree unlike any otherâ€¦

This voluminous volume has episodes which terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, stripped-down plots and a mordant tone which lets the art set the tone, push the emotions and tell the tale, from times when a story could end sadly as well as happily and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

These stories display the sharp wit and dark comedic energy which epitomised both Goodwin and Warren, channelled through Ditko’s astounding versatility and storytelling acumen: another cracking collection of his works not only superb in its own right but also a telling affirmation of the gifts of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists.

This is a book serious comics fans would happily kill, die or be lost in a devil-dimension forâ€¦
Creepy, the Creepy logo and all contents Â© 1965, 1966, 1975, 1976, 1980. 1981, 1982, 2015 by New Comic Company. All rights reserved.

October 29, 2018

Misty Volume 2: featuring The Sentinels & End of the Line

By Malcolm Shaw, Mario Capaldi, John Richardson & various (Rebellion)
ISBN: 978-1-78108-600-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Sinister Thrills and Treats for Every Stockingâ€¦ 9/10

Like most of my comics contemporaries I harbour a secret shame. Growing up, I was well aware of the weeklies produced for girls but would never admit to reading them. My loss: I now know that they were packed with some great strips by astounding artists and writers, many of them personal favourites when they were drawing stalwart soldiers, marauding monsters, evil aliens or strange superheroes (all British superheroes were weird and off-kilterâ€¦).

I actually think – in terms of quality and respect for the readership’s intelligence, experience and development – girls’ periodicals were far more in tune with the sensibilities of the target audience, and I wish I’d paid more attention to Misty back thenâ€¦

Thus, I’m delighted to share another peek at superb comics fare from a British publication every bit as iconoclastic and groundbreaking as its contemporary stablemate 2000AD, albeit not as long-lastingâ€¦

Despite never living up to expectations – for all the traditional editorial reasons that have scuppered bold new visions since the days of Caxton – Misty was nothing like any other comic in the British marketplace.

Girls’ comics always had a history of addressing modern social ills and issues but this Girls’ Juvenile Periodical viewed events and characters through a lens of urban horror, science fiction, moody historical mysteries and tense suspenseful dramas. It was also one of the best drawn comics ever seen and featured stunningly beguiling covers by unsung legend Shirley Bellwood, a veteran illustrator who ought to be a household name because we’ve all admired her work in comics and books since the 1950s – even if we’ve never been privileged to see her by-lineâ€¦

Unlike most weeklies, Misty was created with specific themes in mind – fantasy, horror and mystery – and over its too-short existence specialised in a string of usually self-contained features serialised like modern graphic novels, rather than ever-unfolding, continuing adventures of star characters.

Although adulterated from comics legend Pat Mill’s original grand design, Misty launched on February 4^th 1978 and ran until January 1980 whereupon it merged with the division’s lead title Tammy, extending its lifeline until 1984. As was often the case, the brand lived on through Annuals and Specials, which ran from 1979 until 1986â€¦

Another in the unmissable series working under the umbrella of The Treasury of British Comics, this second compact monochrome softcover compilation offers two more complete part-work novellas from the comic’s canon of nearly 70 strip sagas, starting off with the time-bending, socially aware saga The Sentinels.

Scripted by Malcolm Shaw (Misty‘s Editor and writer of dozens of strips in Britain and Europe) and illustrated by the wonderful and much travelled Mario Capaldi (Care Bears, James Bond Junior, Zorro, Thundercats, The Famous Five, A Christmas Carol and dozens of strips for Misty, Tammy, Hurricane, Eagle, Jinty, TV Action, Roy of the Rovers and others), The Sentinels leads off here.

The eerie tale of privation, intolerance, family discord and alternate universes originally ran between February 4^th and April 22^nd 1978 and revealed how in Birdwood on a post-war estate stood two identical tower blocks.

At least, once upon a time they were. Now whilst one is still a gleaming modern tribute to high rise modernism, somehow its twin sister had devolved into squalor and misuse: a sky-high slum tenants fled from and where apparently people vanished never to be seen again. The council had been under pressure to demolish the failing tower for yearsâ€¦

One day as Jan Richards comes home she learns that her family have been evicted from home. After exhausting all avenues, her mum and dad refuse to let the family be broken up and the kids put into care so they break into the evil block and begin squatting in one of the flatsâ€¦

Almost immediately bizarre things start happening: Jan meets her dad in places he can’t be, she sees visions out of the windows that can’t possibly be true – and aren’t when she goes outside to check – and then her beloved dog Tiger attacks herâ€¦

The uncanny experiences continue as the squatters make the most of their new lives but Jan’s anxiety only increases. When at last she discovers the incredible secret of the ramshackle Sentinel sister, the result is the loss of her father, valiant, noble Tiger and best friend Sally and finding herself trapped in a Britain where evil reigns triumphantâ€¦

Potent, suspenseful and wickedly edgy, The Sentinels seamlessly blends powerful social commentary with traditional themes of loss and female agency whilst telling a chilling tale of parallel world peril. How this was never made into a film or Kids thriller series in the vein of Timeslip, Chocky or Children of the Stones is utterly beyond me – and it’s still not too late, as the tale’s themes are more relevant today than they’ve ever beenâ€¦

From the same year (but serialised between August 12^th and November 18^th) and illustrated by the great John Richardson, End of the Line is a more traditional yarn of paranoia and loss, again scripted by the taken far too early Malcolm Shaw and once more presenting a story with plenty of contemporary parallels.

Richardson was a highly gifted artist with a light touch blending Brian Lewis with Frank Bellamy: a veteran visual storyteller who worked practically everywhere in Britain from 2000AD (Mean Arena, The V.C.s) to DC Thomson (Pussy Muldoon) to Marvel UK, as well as national newspapers (Amanda) and for specialist magazines such as Custom Car, Super Bike and Citizen’s Band. Here, his deft touch provides a smooth transition between slick modernity and Victorian moodiness in the saga of Ann Summerton.

The teenager and her mum are still coming to terms with the loss of breadwinner Andrew Summerton, even though he’s been gone two years now. He was one of seven men who perished in the construction of super-deep new London subway The Windsor Line.

Mum has moved on enough to be considering marriage to the deeply unpleasant â€œUncleâ€ Neville Chandler, but Ann just doesn’t like himâ€¦

Today the family are guests at the grand opening of the line, and invited to ride on the first scheduled journey along the Windsor. It’s a PR disaster however as Ann collapses in hysterical panic. She claims to have seen her dad and the other lost engineers slaving in a tunnel off the main routeâ€¦

Despite the ministrations of doctors and the chiding abuse of Neville, Ann can’t get the image out of her mind. Despite the very real threat of psychological incarceration she returns to the tube again and again and uncovers evidence of a much earlier attempt to build a railway tunnel on the same route. The Prince Albert line also suffered a catastrophic collapse and was abandoned in Victorian timesâ€¦

Ann eventually convinces a local reporter there might be something in the story, but when he goes missing – one amongst a slowly growing tide of disappearances – she decides to take action herself and is soon propelled into a world of nightmare and the private fiefdom of an ancient madman who has created a kingdom of the damned beneath the streets of the modern metropolisâ€¦

Evocative and dripping tension, End of the Line is a classic horror-mystery to delight anyone with a love of gothic mood and historical adventureâ€¦

Augmenting the strip thrills and chills is a reconditioned text feature appendix revealing how ‘â€¦Your Face is Your Fortuneâ€¦’ with an extended exploration of the prognosticatory clues a person’s feature reveal about themâ€¦

This engaging and tremendously compelling tome is another glorious celebration of a uniquely compelling phenomenon of British comics and one that has stood the test of time. Don’t miss this fresh chance to get in on something truly special and splendidly entertainingâ€¦
The Sentinels and End of the Line are Â© 1978 & 2017 Rebellion Publishing, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Misty is â„¢ Rebellion Publishing, Ltd. and Â© Rebellion Publishing, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

October 28, 2018October 27, 2018

Showcase Presents The House of Secrets volume 1

By Mike Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Steve Skeates, Robert Kanigher, Raymond Marais, Sam Glanzman, Jack Kirby, Mark Evanier, Jack Oleck, Mary Skrenes, Jerry Grandenetti, Bill Draut, Jack Sparling, Dick Dillin, Dick Giordano, Werner Roth, Neal Adams, Sid Greene, Alex Toth, Mike Royer, Mike Peppe, Don Heck, Wally Wood, Ralph Reese, John Costanza, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Gray Morrow, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Rich Buckler, Bernie Wrightson, Al Weiss, Tony DeZuÃ±iga, Jim Aparo, Sergio AragonÃ©s, Nestor Redondo, Jose Delbo, Adolfo Buylla & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1818-8

It’s the time for over-eating and spooky stories so let’s pay a visit to a much-neglected old favouriteâ€¦

American comicbooks started slowly until the creation of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and invented a new genre.

Implacably vested in the Second World War, the Overman swept all before him (and very occasionally her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional genres resurfaced and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Although new kids kept on buying, much of the previous generation of consumers also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in the reading matter. The war years altered the psychological landscape of the world 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 and prose as well as comics) reflected this.

As well as Westerns, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent, but gradually another of the cyclical revivals of spiritualism and public fascination with the arcane led to them being outshone and outsold by a wave of increasingly impressive, evocative and shocking horror comics.

There had been grisly, gory and supernatural stars before, including a pantheon of ghosts, monsters and wizards draped in mystery-man garb and trappings (The Spectre, Mr. Justice, Sgt. Spook, Frankenstein, The Heap, Sargon the Sorcerer, Zatara, Monako, Zambini the Miracle Man, Kardak the Mystic, Dr. Fate and dozens of others), but these had been victims of circumstance: The Unknown as a power source for super-heroics.

Now the 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 though Adventures Into the Unknown was actually pipped by Avon who had released an impressive single issue entitled Eerie in January 1947 before at last launching a regular series in 1951.

By this time worthy monolith Classics Illustrated had already long milked the literary end of the medium with 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 â€œmature marketâ€ gap and invented the Romance comic (Young Romance #1, September 1947) but they too saw the sales potential for macabre mood material, resulting in the seminal anthologies Black Magic (launched in 1950) and boldly obscure psychological drama vehicle Strange World of Your Dreams (1952).

Around that time the company that would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the December 1951/January 1952 launch of The House of Mystery.

When the hysterical censorship scandal which led to witch-hunting hearings (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April-June 1954 into your search engine at any timeâ€¦ You can do that because it’s apparently a free country now) was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules.

Horror titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority were sanitised and anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore but since the appetite for suspenseful short stories was still high, in 1956 National introduced sister title House of Secrets which debuted with a November/December cover-date.

Plots were dialled back into marvellously illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which would dominate the market until the 1960s when superheroes (which had started to creep back in 1956 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 slew of other costumed cavorters generated a gaudy global bubble of masked mavens which even forced the dedicated anthology suspense titles to transform into super-character split-books, with Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero monopolising House of Mystery whilst Mark Merlin – later Prince Ra-Man – sharing space with Eclipso in House of Secrets.

When caped crusader craziness peaked and popped, Secrets was one of the first casualties. The title folded with #80, the September/October 1966 issue.

However, nothing combats censorship better than falling profits and by the end of the 1960s the Silver Age superhero boom was over, with many titles gone and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drainâ€¦

This real-world Crisis led to surviving publishers of the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles anymore but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, the resurrection of scary stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious â€œno-brainer.â€

Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with their rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillersâ€¦

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all House of Secrets was resurrected with issue #81, cover-dated August/September 1969 – just as big sister The House of Mystery had done a year earlier.

Under a bold banner declaiming â€œThere’s No Escape Fromâ€¦ The House of Secretsâ€, writer Mike Friedrich, Jerry Grandenetti & George Roussos introduced a ramshackle, sentient old pile in ‘Don’t Move It!’ after which Bill Draut limned the introduction of bumbling caretaker Abel (with a guest-shot by his murderous older brother Cain from HoM) in ‘House of Secrets’.

The portly porter then kicked off his storytelling career with the Gerry Conway & Jack Sparling yarn ‘Aaron Philip’s Photo Finish!’ and the inaugural issue was put to bed with a Draut limned ‘Epilogue’â€¦

HoS #82 is a largely Conway scripted affair as Draut drew both ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets‘ and the ‘Epilogue’, whilst cinema shocker ‘Realer Than Real’ was illustrated by Werner Roth & Vince Colletta.

Written by Marv Wolfman, ‘Sudden Madness’ was a short sci fi saga from the brush of Dick Giordano, whilst Conway regaled us with ‘The Little Old Winemaker’ (Sparling art): a salutary tale of murder and revenge. ‘The One and Only, Fully-Guaranteed, Super-Permanent, 100%’ is Wolfman again and realised by Dick Dillin & Neal Adams – a darkly comedic tale of domestic bliss and how to get itâ€¦

After Draut & Giordano’s ‘Welcome to the House of Secrets‘ piece, superstar Alex Toth made his modern HoS debut with the Wolfman-written fantasy ‘The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of’, Mikes Royer & Peppe visualised the sinister love-story of ‘Bigger Than a Breadbox’ before Conway & Draut revived time-honoured gothic menace for a chilling fable ‘The House of Endless Years’.

Conway & Draut maintained the light-hearted bracketing of the stories as #84 began with ‘If I Had but World Enough and Time’ (Len Wein, Dillin & Peppe), a cautionary tale about too much television. The tension grows with Wolfman & Sid Greene’s warning against wagering in ‘Double or Nothing!’ and Steve Skeates, Sparling & Jack Abel’s utterly manic parable of greed ‘The Unbelievable! The Unexplained!’, before Wein & Sparling mess with our dreams in ‘If I Should Die before I Wakeâ€¦‘

Cain and Abel acrimoniously open HoS #85 after which Wein & Don Heck disclose what happens to some ‘People Who Live in Glass Housesâ€¦’ whilst art-legend Ralph Reese illustrates Wein’s daftly ironic ‘Reggie Rabbit, Heathcliffe Hog, Archibald Aardvark, J. Benson Babboon and Bertram the Dancing Frog’â€¦

John Costanza contributed a comedy page entitled ‘House of Wacks’ and Conway, Gil Kane & Neal Adams herald the upcoming age of slick and seductive barbarian fantasy with the gloriously vivid and vital ‘Second Chance’.

Issue #86 featured the eerily seductive ‘Strain’ with art by George Tuska, a powerful prose puzzler ‘The Golden Tower of the Sun’ written by Conway with illustrations from Gray Morrow, after which the writer and Draut tug heartstrings and stun senses in the moving, moody madness of ‘The Ballad of Little Joe’â€¦

The issue ends with an episode of the peripatetic, post-apocalyptic, ironic occasional series ‘The Day after Doomsday’ courtesy of Wein & Sparling.

The chatty introductions and interludes with Abel were gradually diminishing to make way for longer stories and experimental episodes such as #87’s ‘And in the Darknessâ€¦ Light’; sub-divided into ‘Death Has Marble Lips!’, a sculptural shocker from Robert Kanigher, Dillin & Giordano; sinister sci fi scenario ‘The Man’ from Wolfman, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito and excellent weird pulps pastiche ‘The Coming of Ghaglan’ by Raymond Marais & talented newcomer Michael Wm. Kaluta.

Much the same was #88’s dread duo ‘The Morning Ghost’ by Wolfman, Dillin & Frank Giacoia and ‘Eyesore!’ by Conway & Draut.

Most of the covers were the magnificent work of Neal Adams but HoS #89 sports a rare and surprisingly effective tonal image by Irv Novick (although attributed here to Gray Morrow): a gothic romance special with period thrillers ‘Where Dead Men Walk!’ – drawn by Morrow – and ‘A Taste of Dark Fire!’ from Conway & Heck.

This latter tale debuted Victorian devil-busting duo Father John Christian and Rabbi Samuel Shulman who appeared far too infrequently in succeeding years (see also Showcase Presents the Phantom Stranger volume 2).

Tuska illustrated Skeates’ futuristic thriller ‘The Distant Dome’ in #90, whilst Wolfman, Rich Buckler & Adams described the short, sharp lives of ‘The Symbionts’, after which Mike Friedrich & Morrow end this SF extravaganza with the perplexing tale of ‘Jedediah!’

Issue #91 was almost entirely Conway scripted and led with a South American revolutionary rollercoaster ‘The Eagle’s Talon!’ illustrated by Grandenetti & Wally Wood. Sparling limned faux-factual feature ‘Realm of the Mystics’, after which writer/artist Sam Glanzman produced a potent parable of alienation in ‘Please, Don’t Cry Johnny!’ and Murphy Anderson wrapped up the wonderment with Conway’s deadly doppelganger drama ‘There are Two of Meâ€¦ and One Must Die!’

Issue #92 was one of those rare moments in comics when all the factors are in perfect alignment for a major breakthrough. Cover-dated June/July 1971, the 12^th anthological issue of House of Secrets cemented the genre into place as the industry leader as Len Wein & artist Bernie Wrightson produced a throwaway thriller set at the turn of the 19th century. Here gentleman scientist Alex Olsen is murdered by his best friend and his body dumped in a swamp.

Years later his beloved bride, now the unsuspecting wife of the murderer, is stalked by a shambling, disgusting beast that seems to be composed of mud and muckâ€¦

‘Swamp Thing’ was cover-featured – also eerily illustrated by Wrightson – striking an instant and sustained chord with the buying public. It was the bestselling DC comic of that month and reader response was fervent and persistent. By all accounts the only reason there wasn’t an immediate sequel or spin-off was that the creative team didn’t want to produce one.

Eventually however, bowing to interminable pressure, and with the sensible idea of transplanting the concept to contemporary America, the first issue of Swamp Thing appeared on newsstands in the Spring of 1972. It was an instant hit and an immortal classic.

The remaining pages in that groundbreaking HoS issue aren’t bad either, with Jack Kirby & Mark Evanier scripting the psychodrama ‘After I Die’ for old Prize/Crestwood Comics stable-mate Bill Draut to illustrate, whilst ‘It’s Better to Giveâ€¦’ by Virgil North (AKA Mary Skrenes) provided an early chance for Al Weiss & Tony DeZuÃ±iga to strut their superbly engaging artistic stuff.

The issue ends with a sudden shocker by Conway & Dillin entitled ‘Trick or Treat’

House of Secrets #93 (August/September 1971) saw the title expand from 32 to 52 pages – as did all DC’s titles for the next couple of years, opening the doors for a magnificent period of new material married to the best of the company’s prodigious archives for an appreciative, impressionable audience.

Jim Aparo made his HoS debut in the Skeates scripted spook-fest ‘Lonely in Death’ and so did macabre cartoonist Sergio AragonÃ©s in ‘Abel’s Fables’, after which the reprint bonanza began with ‘The Curse of the Cat’s Cradle’ (originally from My Greatest Adventure #85) stupendously depicted by Alex Toth.

Jack Abel’s ‘Nightmare’ was followed by golden oldie ‘The Beast from the Box’; courtesy of Nick Cardy and House of Mystery #24, after which Lore (Shoberg) contributed a page of ‘Abel’s Fables’ before the entertainment ended with the chilling ‘Never Kill a Witch’s Son!’ by John Albano & DeZuÃ±iga, rounding out the fearsome fun in period styleâ€¦

Issue #94 began by revealing ‘The Man with My Face’ (art by Sparling) and ‘Hydeâ€¦ and Go Seek!’ by Wein & DeZuÃ±iga, whilst ‘The Day Nobody Died’ (George Roussos; Tales of the Unexpected #9) and ‘Track of the Invisible Beast!’ (Toth from House of Mystery #109) provided vintage voltage before another AragonÃ©s ‘Abel’s Fables’ and ‘A Bottle of Incenseâ€¦ a Whiff of the Past!’ by Francis (Gerry Conway) Bushmaster, Weiss & Wrightson closed proceedings in devilishly high styleâ€¦

Albano & Heck showed domesticity wasn’t pretty in ‘Creatureâ€¦‘, everybody got a nasty case of chills in ‘And Thing That Go Bump in the Night!’ (credited to Sparling but probably Tuska & Win Mortimer) before ‘The Last Sorcerer’ (Bernard Baily from HoM #69) and ‘The Phantom of the Flames!’ – a rare DC illustration job for the great Joe Maneely from HoM #71.

The dark dramas close with Jack Oleck and Nestor Redondo’s ‘The Bride of Death’. Issue #95 also included a couple of Lore’s ‘Abel’s Fables’, a Sparling ‘Realm of the Mystics’ and a Wein & Sparling ‘Day after Doomsday’.

‘World for a Witch’ by Oleck & Draut opened the next peril-packed issue, followed by a high-tension, high-tech Toth reprint ‘The Great Dimensional Brain Swap’ (HoS #48) and Wein, Dillin & Jack Abel’s ‘Be it Ever So Humbleâ€¦’ whilst Oleck & Wood’s ‘The Monster’ describes a different kind of horror.

‘The Indestructible Man’ (by unsung master-draughtsman Bill Ely, and originally seen in Tales of the Unexpected #12) closes the show. Also lurking within this issue is another agonisingly funny AragonÃ©s ‘Abel’s Fables’ contributionâ€¦

The penultimate issue in this sparkling collection – incomprehensibly still the only way to access these chilling classics – led with classical creep-show ‘The Curse of Morby Castle’ by Sparling after which Skeates & Aparo return to ‘Divide and Murder’ and AragonÃ©s strikes again in ‘Abel’s Fables’.

Blasts from the past ‘The Tomb of Ramfis’ (HoM #59, by the fabulous John Prentice) and ‘Dead Man’s Diary’ (drawn by Ralph Mayo for HoM #46) are demarcated by another trenchant Wein & Sparling ‘Day after Doomsday’, before Jose Delbo delineates a manic monster-fest entitled ‘Domain of the Damned’.

The last issue in this magnificent monochrome compendium opens with a glorious intro page from Mark Hanerfeld & Kaluta, after which the artist entrancingly illustrates Albano’s tough-as-nails-thriller ‘Born Losers’ and Toth illuminates the ‘Secret Hero of Center City’ (originally seen in HoM #120).

After one more AragonÃ©s ‘Abel’s Fables’ Wein, Mikes Roy & Peppe reveal why ‘The Night Train Doesn’t Stop Here anymore!’ and another John Prentice treat is served up in ‘The Fatal Superstition’ (HoM #35) before the great Adolfo Buylla celebrates the end of the affair in grisly fashion with ‘Happy Birthday, Herman!’

These terror-tales captivated the reading public and critics alike when they first appeared and it’s no stretch to posit that they probably saved the company during one of the toughest downturns in comics publishing history. Now their blend of sinister mirth, classic horror scenarios and suspense set-pieces can most familiarly be seen in such children’s series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and their many latterday imitators.

If you crave beautifully realised, tastefully splatter-free sagas of mystery and imagination, not to mention a huge supply of bad-taste, kid-friendly cartoon chills, book your stay at the House of Secrets as soon as you possibly canâ€¦
Â© 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 27, 2018October 25, 2018

Archie & Friends All Stars volume 5: Archie’s Haunted House

By Fernando Ruiz, Batton Lash, Dan Parent, George Gladir, Stan Goldberg, Mark McKenna, Henry Scarpelli, Rich Koslowski, & various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-879794-52-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Family Friendly Fear Fest for Kids of All Agesâ€¦ 8/10

Archie Andrews has been around for more than seventy years: a good-hearted lad lacking in common sense whilst Betty Cooper, the pretty, sensible girl next door – with all that entails – waits ardently nearby, loving the great ginger goof.

Veronica Lodge is a rich, exotic and glamorous debutante who only settles for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him too, though.

Despite their rivalry, Betty and Veronica are firm friends. Archie, of course, can’t decide who or what he wantsâ€¦

Archie’s unconventional best friend Jughead Jones is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo, providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. That charming triangle (with significant additions over the years) has been the basis for decades of funnybook magic and the concept is eternally self-renewingâ€¦

Adapting seamlessly to every trend and fad of youth culture since before there even was such a thing, the host of writers and artists who’ve crafted the stories over the decades have made the â€œeveryteenâ€ characters of utopian Riverdale a benchmark for childhood development and a visual barometer of growing up.

In this paperback and digital collection, the warring gal-pals and extended cast of the small-town American Follies are again plunged deep into whimsy and fable as writers Fernando Ruiz, Batton Lash, Dan Parent & George Gladir delve into the Dark Side for a selection of spooky spoofs and all-ages arcane adventureâ€¦

The weird wonders begin with Ruiz & Mark McKenna’s ‘â€¦Clothes Make the Monster’ (Archie & Friends #135, September 2009) as the gang opt for a Halloween costume party at Riverdale High only to fall foul of a sinister sorceress whose bewitched outfits transform the kids into the monsters they’re dressed asâ€¦

Thankfully resident genius Dilton Doily has a plan and an unsuspected talentâ€¦

An extended gothic extravaganza that ran across a host of titles follows. The epic and episodic ‘â€¦This Old Houseâ€¦’ was devised by Lash, Stan Goldberg & Henry Scarpelli) and opened in World of Archie #17, December 1995, with succeeding chapters erupting in Archie #442 (December 1995), Betty and Veronica #95 and Archie’s Pal Jughead Comics #93, both out for January 1996.

When Reggie vandalises a ramshackle, condemned property it sparks heated debate amongst the gang, all of whom have sentimental memories of the old pile from their younger days.

With the city council being urged to finally pull it down the teens are divided between demolition and declaring it a local landmarkâ€¦

The politicking ensues in ‘House of Riverdale! Part 1’ even as Archie is plagued by nightmares of the dilapidated dwelling’s old occupants. Second chapter ‘Thou Protest Too Muchâ€¦’ finds the gang on a picket line preserving the building until Veronica’s dad delivers the good news. The place has been saved for posterity. It turns out that it might not be good news, though, as in a nearby town Sabrina (the Teenaged Witch) pores over ancient records of the original inhabitants and readies herself to interveneâ€¦

The tension increases in ‘House of Riverdale! Part 3′ as Betty also does a little digging and connects the seemingly-benevolent name Father Riverdale to a nasty piece of work named Leander van Dermeulen whose 19^th century crusade against progress resulted in a magic cult, a police shootout and a dying curseâ€¦

Fourth chapter ‘Worn Out Welcome’ finds the terrified Archie reversing his position and petitioning the council to tear down the house before the curse can be reactivated – with the expected reaction from the adults. Betty meanwhile, sneaks into the house to find some of her friends already there and totally ensorcelledâ€¦

‘House of Riverdale! Part 5′ sees Archie call on trusted comrade Jughead for help only to lose him to the dire domicile before everything comes to a head in ‘Fall of the House of Riverdale!’ As the malign ghost of van Dermeulen meets his match in ultra-nonconformist Juggy, unlikely hero Archie takes drastic action to save the day in the estate’s ghastly groundsâ€¦

With the main event concluded, lighter fare follows as B&V discover ‘An Axe to Grind’ (Betty and Veronica Spectacular #85, November 2008) with Dan Parent & Rich Koslowski revealing how the boys’ plans to crash a girls-only Halloween party go appallingly awryâ€¦

The same issue also provides a gallery of faux movie posters ‘Riverdale Style’, fashions and tips for ‘The Ultimate Halloween Bash!’ plus recipes and treats for all ‘Archie Zombies’ before the spooky shenanigans conclude with Gladir, Ruiz & Koslowski’s ‘For Monsters Only!’

First seen in Tales from Riverdale Digest #30 (December 2008) this sly shocker finds Archie and Jughead in full vampire ensemble but stumbling into a sinister soiree for actual devils, demons and creatures of the nightâ€¦

Co-starring all the adorable supporting characters we know and love, these smartly beguiling skits are a marvellous example of just why Archie has been unsurpassed in this genre for generations: providing decades of family-friendly fun and wholesome teen entertainment – complete with goblins, ghosts and ghouls as requiredâ€¦
Â© 2010 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

October 26, 2018October 25, 2018

The Funniest Book Ever! (Proven with Science!)

By Jaimie Smart, James Turner, Laura Ellen Anderson, Jess Bradley, Gary Northfield, James Stayte & various (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-013-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Silly, Sensational, Unmissableâ€¦ 9/10

Nearly Christmas Again! Soon the kids will be on holiday and perpetually underfoot. Moreover, parents and extended family will be looking for presents they can afford and actually comprehend.

What about a book? A really, Really Funny Book?

Very much in the manner of classic Christmas Annuals, The Funniest Book Ever! is another wonderful compendium of captivating comics from the fabulous weekly Phoenix, designed to incapacitate your unruly young ‘uns with cartoon japery and adventure. Moreover, as it proudly boasts on the cover it’s all done with SCIENCE! So, it’s even scholastically advantageous.

Since its premiere in 2012, The Phoenix has offered humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a traditional-seeming weekly comics anthology for girls and boys. The vibrant parade of fun and fantasy has won praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – a dedicated and growing legion of totally engaged kids and parents who read it avidlyâ€¦

Jam-packed within these glossy, full-colour pages are more exploits culled from the periodical pages, starring a pantheon of firm favourites, all curated by a team of junior boffins endeavouring to ascertain and confirm their theory that the universe is held together by fundamental forces best described as â€œThe Seven Laughsâ€â€¦

Acting as a proof of each are seven of the magazine’s most memorable features, as the highly technical treatise begins with Belly Rumble, an argument defined here by more arcadian action from twin stars locked in a spiralling orbit of mutually assured distraction as the execute an ongoing vendetta between implacable woodland warriorsâ€¦

Concocted with feverishly glee by Jamie Smart, Bunny vs. Monkey has been a Phoenix fixture from the first issue: recounting a madcap war of nerves and ideologies between animal arch-enemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia which masquerades as a more-or-less mundane English Wood.

The tail-biting tension and rural war of wits and wonder-weapons began when an obnoxious simian intruder popped up after a disastrous space shot went awry. Having crash-landed in Crinkle Woods – a scant few miles from his blast-off site – Monkey believes himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite the continual efforts of sensibly reasonable Bunny to convince him otherwise.

For all his patience, propriety and poise, the laid-back long-ears simply cannot contain the incorrigible idiot ape, who is a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating troublemaker. Things soon escalated once the simian interloper teamed up with an utterly mad scientist skunk who is master of many malign sciences and technologiesâ€¦

In this tranche of turbulent tiny terrors Monkey manifests mayhem and endures great pain after declaring ‘Down with Spring’ before weaponizing Angling in a ‘Fish Off’ with Bunny and abusing history with a wooden Trojan trap in ‘There’s a Moose Loose!’

‘Leaf it Alone!’ finds the hyperactive simian turning simple garden chores into a mini-apocalypse whilst his on-going partnership with the skunk leads to an invisible bovine in the snows. However, their ‘Ca-Moo-Flaaj’ is as nothing compared to Bunny’s natural advantagesâ€¦

After perverting a simple carrot with chemistry, Skunky anticipates ‘The Biggest, Mostest Enormousest Explosion in the World!’ but has not reckoned on sometime guinea pig Action Beaver‘s unique appetites. A true contender for that honour arrives when Humanz chase astoundingly gifted birds into the woods and barely escape ‘The Kakapo Poo Kaboom!’ with their livesâ€¦

Even so, the nosy bipedal interlopers stick around causing problems until the critters unite to remove them using ‘A Bear Bum!’â€¦

A hunt for ‘Worms!’ then leads to a cacophonous din after which a dragon incursion leads to a need for knight service in ‘Arise, Lord Wuffywuff!’

The abrupt menacing return of ‘Skunky!’ only provides disappointment and confusion, but his crazed influence remains once he unleashes his devastating, colossal De-Forester 9000, resulting in the unthinkable as Bunny and Monkey declare ‘The Truce!’ that leads to the mega-munching machine’s demise.

By the time Action Beaver becomes ‘The Messenger!’ for Skunky’s poison letters, all bets are off again and it’s every critter for himself, leading to a doomed summit meeting at a hot spring in ‘Time to Get Along!’

The sinister scientist then proves you can have too much of a good thing after his Multiplyer accidentally creates a tidal wave of ‘Doughnuts!’ before a special event proclaims ‘An Exclusive Bunny Vs Monkey Detective Story: The Curious Case of the Pig in the Night Time’ with our entire outrÃ© cast going through their Sherlock Holmesian motionsâ€¦

‘The Order of the Moose!’ is a secret woodland society sworn to protect nature at all costs and after we see them spectacularly underperform this section concludes with Monkey and Skunky testing their nine-megaton ‘Explosive Sweets!’â€¦

The next component of the larger debate is the Cosmic Chuckle and that means a heaping helping of Star Cat: one of the wildest rides in the wondrous weekly anthology as crafted by the astoundingly clever James Turner (Super Animal Adventure Squad, The Unfeasible Adventures of Beaver and Steve).

The strip began in issue #0 and has been synchronising orbits irregularly ever sinceâ€¦

The premise is timeless and instantly engaging, revealing the far-out endeavours of a bunch of spacefaring nincompoops in the classic mock-heroic manner. There’s so very far-from-dauntless Captain Spaceington, extremely dim amoeboid Science Officer Plixx, inarticulate and barely housebroken beastie The Pilot and Robot One, who quite arrogantly and erroneously believes himself one of the smartest thinkers in the cosmos.

The colossal, formidable void-busting vessel they traverse the universe in looks like a gigantic ginger tom because that is what it is: half-cat, half-spaceship. What more do you need to know?

Hypothesised here are a brace of extended exploits beginning with ‘Just Deserts’ as the intrepid band crash on to super Saharan sand world and suffer the agonies of the damned – sort of – before ‘Computational Capers’ finds them back in space and battling a tyrannical computer with ideas above his (work) stationâ€¦

Evil Cackle cites Evil Emperor Penguin as proof of concept. The strip was conceived and created by children’s book illustrator/author Laura Ellen Anderson (Kittens, Snow Babies) and stars a bad – brilliant but Bad – bird who lurks in a colossal fortress beneath the Antarctic, where he strives tirelessly towards his stated goal of absolute global domination.

His only assistance – if you can call it that – comes in the form of an army of hench-minions: most notably stylish, erudite administrative lackey Number 8 and cute, diminutive, fuzzy, loyal, utterly inventive abominable snowman clone Eugene.

Evil Emperor Penguin had originally whipped up a batch of 250, but none of the others are anything like Eugeneâ€¦

EEP then appointed the fluffy, bizarrely inventive tyke his Top Minion but somehow never managed to instil within him the proper degree of ruthless evilness. The hairy halfwit is, however, a dab-hand with engineering, building stuff and cooking spaghetti hoops, so it’s not a total lossâ€¦

The polar pirate starts this particular campaign of terror by attempting to crash a sporty party for the world’s top brass in ‘Human Nature’ parts I & 2. To assist his gatecrashing the Annual World Leader Olympics, the bad bird has to wear a human-shaped robot suit and that’s never a good thing, is it?

Everybody loves cute kittens, which is what Debra is counting on when she uses soppy Eugene to infiltrate the fortress and steal all the Spaghetti Hoops in ‘What’s New Pussy Cat’. She’s the cousin of Evil Cat (EEP’s insidious rival in the Word Domination stakes) and with the team – and even Evil Cat – helplessly trapped, they must all surrender all pride and dignity and call on jolly unicorn Keith to save them in ‘Rainbows to the Rescue’â€¦

The nefarious nonsense recommences with 2-part thriller-chiller ‘I Will CrÃ¨che You’ wherein EEP’s incredible De-Agefying Youth Juice causes havoc after Evil Cat breaks into the citadel and everybody gets a rejuvenating soakingâ€¦

The ice escapades conclude with ‘Eugene’s Day Off’: an unremitting stream of great experiences for the faithful servitor, but, for the Penguin Potentate – having to make do with substandard substitute Neill – a string of catastrophic, humiliating and painful disastersâ€¦

Wild Card calculation Squid Fits leads us inexorably to Jess Bradley’s diverting digressions Squid Bits! A proof of Laugh #4: that features gags, absurd Things To Do and odd innovations ranging from Monster Fashion to Red Panda’s Insult Guide and Cut ‘n’ Keep Characters to Official Words for Everyday Sounds!

These Fishy fascinations precede the arrival of next stellar party particle star turn as Critter Titter invites a closer inspection of Gary’s Garden.

This marvellous minibeast comedy-adventure is crafted by Gary Northfield (Beano‘s Derek the Sheep, The Terrible Tales of the Teeytinysaurs) and explores human nature through the fauna and flora unnoticed at our feet.

Human laggard Gary, like most of us, doesn’t do as much as he should in his back yard – and the assorted birds, beasts and bugs despise him for it – but at least it means they can all live their lives in relative peace and quietâ€¦

The occasional series began in The Phoenix #2, and this seditious sampling opens with an army of brassed-off birds raiding the lazy lump’s kitchen cupboards, after which nocturnal raiders reveal the basics of bin-raiding whilst at the treeline an ambitious bug steals a golden acorn and dissolves into ego mania as a six-limbed Sith lordâ€¦

As Larry Ladybird hunts for his beloved Elaine and dreads her elopement with Dracula, in the pond a tadpole is daydreaming with amazing consequences and an art class is being disrupted by a most intransigent slug.

When Stunt Slug‘s attention-grabbing scheme goes awry, a motley band of beasts, birds and bugs occupy themselves by entering the Great Garden Bake Off – in a festive extra-long episode before the examples end with the debut of a chitinous band of merrie â€œmenâ€ and a new Ladybird Robin Hoodâ€¦

Barbarian Celebrity Chef Gorebrah! crushes evil whilst concocting outrageous recipes and tasty treats so he’s the ideal exemplar of the Gastronomic Guffaw: offering a selection of dishes and disasters including prehistoric demonic biscuits embedded in glacial ice, princess-flavoured milkshakes, monopolised by cloud-dwelling giants, smoky sausage bats and a duel with a rival gustatory wild man.

Later mirth -&-mayhem packed menus include the gnomish origins of pasta salad and the creepiest dish in the world, saved from an alien invader deep inside an Antarctic culinary schoolâ€¦

Th scientific arguments crash to a halt with the Uncontrollable Giggle as Looshkin – the Adventures of the Maddest Cat in the World!! – seals the thesis with a sleek sheen of feline frenzy and surreal Shock and Awe.

Devised by Jamie Smart (yeah, the guy who invented Bunny vs. Monkey, Corporate Skull and bunches of other brilliant strips for Beano, Dandy and others) this is a brilliantly bonkers addition to the vast feline pantheon of truly horrifying hairballs infesting the graphic universe.

This anarchic kitty is just like yours: cute, innocently malign and able to twist the bounds of credibility and laws of physics whenever the whim takes himâ€¦

Quite naturally, the epic begins with an origin of sorts as Mrs Alice Johnson brings home a kitten from the pet shop. Not one of the adorable little beauties at the front of the store, though, but the odd, creepy, lonely little fuzzy hidden at the back of the storeâ€¦

The Johnsons are not your average family. Firstborn son Edwin watches too many horror films and keeps a book of spells in his room whilst Dad is a brilliant inventor who needs peace and quiet to complete his fart-powered jet-pack or potato-powered tractor. It’s not long before those days are gone for goodâ€¦

The sweet little daughter isn’t all she seems either: when kitten Looshkin is subjected to an innocent tea party in the garden, her toys all secretly warn the cat of the horrors in store. All too soon teddy bear Bear is subjected to a hideous cake-arson assault.

Surprisingly, Looshkin takes it all in stride and even escalates the carnage and chaos whenever and however he can. It seems he has found his natural homeâ€¦ or is it all in his be-whiskered little head?

The selection opens with ‘How to Make Friends and Annoy Bears’ as the cat’s nocturnal pranks result in cacophonous calamity after which ‘ThbthbtThhhhhhhhhhhHonk!’ reveals the lengths some folk will go to in executing the perfect raspberryâ€¦

‘Danger Sausage’ might not be everyone’s ideal superhero but Looshkin thinks he’s the business, after which a frog glove-puppet claims ‘I’m Not to Blame’ when a bulldozer destroys the gardenâ€¦

‘Wooooooo – cough – oooooooh!!’ proves that even ghosts know when they’re outclassed in the scaring stakes after which ‘Meanwhile in Croydon’ finds the frenetic feline getting a job in marketing and ‘Nee-Naw! Nee-Naw! Nee-Naw! Neeeee-Nawww!’ sees the transition to a nursing career after almost fatally injuring Mr. Johnson.

Science then goes Boink! and reality gets temporarily inverted with the mind-bending ‘Big Silly Blue Cat Who Are You and What are you Doing in my House? before consistency, if not normality, are restored in ‘With Great Power Comes Giant Lasers’ as a certain cat becomes US president and leader of the Free World. Don’t scoff; stranger things have happenedâ€¦

‘Due to an Incident involving Angry Clowns There Now Follows a Change in our Usual Programming’ see the madcap mouser drawn into the mesmerising power of old sitcoms whilst ‘Doorbell Ding Dong!!’ opens a war of postal one-upmanship between cat and Bearâ€¦

The brain-blasting advent of the cat’s mercurial Great Uncle Olaf begins with ‘Loooshkin! Oh Looshkin, Where Are You? You’ve Been Missing for Ages’ but is soon sidelined when Edwin’s magical library is used to call up something dreadful by ‘The Lump Whisperer’â€¦

When Looshkin indulges in some prognostication the outcome is never in doubt especially for ‘Pig!’, but the cat is back on terrifying form in ‘Ooooh!! I’m Bustin’!’ when an outbreak of gastric unhappiness coincides with the sudden sabotage of every toilet in town…

There’s a big surprise for all concerned when Looshkin invents a vicious new game in ‘A New Challenger Appears!’ before everything wraps up in seasonal spirit with a bizarre trip to the twilight zone of yule tide with ‘A Christmas Special!!’

Arguments thus presented, (see what I did there?) this bonanza tome – packed with fun, thrills and the type of bizarre, nonsensical wonderment kids love but can’t explain to anyone over 21 – leaves it to you to judge the veracity of the science. That’s best done by reading and rereading The Funniest Book Ever: a superb package of British-style children’s humour and adventure any parent should be proud to own. Christmas is Saved!
Text and illustrations Â© 2018 Jaimie Smart, James Turner, Laura Ellen Anderson, Jess Bradley, Gary Northfield, James Stayte as appropriate. All rights reserved.

October 25, 2018October 23, 2018

Rex Generations

By Ted Rechlin (Rextooth Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-59512-229-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Marvellous Monster Madness and Science with a Biteâ€¦ 9/10

I’ve never met a kid who didn’t love dinosaurs, and that gleeful fascination doesn’t fade with age or what we laughingly regard as maturity.

Ted Rechlin clearly ascribes to that belief too, and has made it his life’s work, whether it’s in his six – and counting – books (including End of the Ice Age, Jurassic and the award-winning Sharks: A 400 Million Year Journey) or in freelance commissions for the likes of DC Comics, Dark Horse or Dover Publications.

Rex Generations is an incredibly informative and engaging book about family, rendered with great deftness, gleeful aplomb, and packed with the latest scientific thinking regarding arguably the most famous species of big lizard (or is that bird?) on Earth.

In case you weren’t paying attention, the clan in question is thundering great tyrannosaur Cobalt and his feisty mate Sierra, just getting by in what is nowadays Hell Creek, Montana.

This stunning full-colour hardback, however, opens in the Mesozoic bit of the Cretaceous Period, or approximately 66 million years ago on a very special night. Here our anxious apex predators proudly celebrate the hatching of four eggs, heralding the start of the next generation, after which we’ll closely follow the pack over the next decade or so. The parents teach and provide in a dangerous environment packed with a wide variety of dangerously capable prey, rival predators and unknown perils of every description.

This is dinosaurs and natural history, not Lady and the Tramp with really big teeth, so brace yourself and your own youngsters with a little spoiler alert: not everybody present at this antediluvian nativity is going to make itâ€¦

Compelling, beguilingly educational and splendidly entertaining, T. Rex Generations is a glorious celebration of Earth’s Saurian inhabitants and our enduring love affair with them. More, Please!
Â© 2018 Ted Rechlin. All rights reserved.

October 24, 2018October 23, 2018

Of Dust and Blood – the Battle at Little Big Horn

By Val Mayerik & Jim Berry & various (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-183-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Potent, Powerful, Unmissableâ€¦ 9/10

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 The Battle at Little Big Horn noted 268 US dead and 55 severely wounded menâ€¦ 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 caredâ€¦

My point is that the reason you’ve heard of one but not the other is the force of publicityâ€¦

After Custer’s debacle and the slaughter of the 7^th Cavalry, the Anheuser-Busch brewery commissioned prints of a painting memorialising â€œCuster’s Last Fightâ€ 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 heroismâ€¦

With historical veracity at a supreme disadvantage, the ill-judged clash at Little Big Horn – alternatively described by the winning side 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 into examining the event on their own terms and applying the perspective of history to the events and the shameful, bloody aftermathâ€¦

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 self-published through Kickstarter contributions, this stunning oversized (315 x 238 mm) full-colour hardback second edition (also available in digital formats) explores truth and myth whilst adding another powerful fictive component to the sprawling patchwork.

Following Berry’s mood-setting and painfully timely Introduction – superbly augmented by a linework Map of The Battle of the Greasy Grass/Little Big Horn by fellow graphic scholar 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 familyâ€¦

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 tragic confrontationâ€¦

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 of further reading for interested parties and a moving page of dedications dubbed ‘Philamayaa’â€¦

This is a wondrous and sobering experience any comics fan or student of human nature must seek out share.
Â© 2018 Jim Berry, all rights reserved. 2^nd Edition. All fictional characters are trademarks of Jim Berry and Val Mayerik.

Of Dust and Blood will be published on October 30^th 2018 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

October 23, 2018October 22, 2018

Alien: The Illustrated Story

By Archie Goodwin & Walter Simonson, from a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon and a story by Dan O’Bannon & Ronald Shusett (Heavy Metal/Futura)
ISBN: 978-0-93036-842-5Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 978-1-78116-595-9 (Titan Books Facsimile 2012)

Alien was released in 1979 and utterly redefined the science fiction cinema genre. It pretty much did the same for horror stories too.

Creeping in on the back of the jolly adventuring romps of the Star Wars phenomenon and its shiny, happy, Valerian rip-offs â€œhomagesâ€, Dan O’Bannon’s dark tale and Ridley Scott’s grimly meticulous vision reintroduced the vital element of apocalyptic terror that had been absent from the medium since the headiest, most utterly paranoiac days of 1950s B-Movies.

You know the plot: a bunch of interstellar miners are diverted by their untrustworthy bosses to a lost planet where they find an extraterrestrial shipwreck. One of the humans is infected by something uncanny and beyond the explorers’ meagre imaginings and brings aboard a ghastly killer that grows and hides and changes. Picking off the crew one by one, it cannot be stopped, escaped from or killedâ€¦

Lots of films have had comics adaptations: good bad or indifferent. Very few have ever come as close to capturing the stunning, senses-overloading feel – rather than the plot or look or detail – of the source material, although all of those too are well-catered for in this slim but superb graphic extravaganza from the award-winning creative team of Archie Goodwin & Walt Simonson (see Manhunter: The Special Edition for perhaps their ultimate moment of comics collaboration).

Spectacular, engrossing, visually innovative (in both storytelling and lettering/calligraphic effects) and absolutely absorbing, this hard-to-find gem – either in the original US edition from Heavy Metal Productions, this mass-market UK edition from Futura, or any of the later reissues in a variety of formats and sizes – is a true landmark of comics, long overdue for a definitive release with plenty of bonus features and preferably only in the original large, square European Album format pleaseâ€¦
Â© 1979 by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

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