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Shame – New, Revised Review


By Lovern Kindzierski, John Bolton & Todd Klein (Renegade Arts Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-1-987825-04-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An adult Fairy Tale for when the kids have all passed out… 10/10

Life is full of folk-loric warnings:

Red Sun at Morning: Sailor take Warning.
Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.
Appearances can be Deceiving.

A cliché is a truth repeated so often you get bored and stop listening to the message…

Comics are unequivocally a visual medium and that’s never been more ably demonstrated than in this seductively bewitching allegorical fable from writer Lovern Kindzierski, painter John Bolton and letterer Todd Klein.

Originally released as a 3-part miniseries between 2011 and 2013, the entire saga is housed now in its proper setting: a lavish and sublime full-colour hardback tome, liberally garnished with beguiling bonus features.

So if you’re sitting comfortably – with all the doors locked and windows covered – let’s begin…

Once upon a time in ‘Conception’ a benevolent but painfully unprepossessing witch named Mother Virtue spent all her days doing little favours and grand good deeds for the ordinary and unfortunate, and for these kind actions she was beloved by all. Spiritually, she was probably the most perfect woman in the world, but as for her looks…

She lived life well and grew old and content, but one day after decades of joyous philanthropy, a single selfish thought flashes idly through her mind. Momentarily she longs for a daughter and wishes for it to be true: that she might be a mother in fact as well as name…

It is just the opening malign Shadow of Ignorance Slur needs. Employing dark magics, he instantly impregnates the champion of Good with a malign seed of evil and in gloating triumph brags to the wise-woman that her daughter will be a diabolical demon well-deserving of the name Shame…

Deeply repenting that selfish whim and now dreading the horrors yet to come, Mother Virtue methodically transforms her idyllic cottage in the woods into a floral prison dubbed Cradle; reluctantly repurposed to isolate and eventually contain the thing cruelly growing in her belly. The miserable matron-to-be also assembles a contingent of Dryads to care for and guard the baby.

Once Virtue finally births Shame, she quickly abandons the devil’s burden to be reared in the mystic compound, where it grows strong and cruel but so very beautiful…

After much concentrated effort, however, slavish minions of Shame’s sire finally breach Cradle’s green ramparts and begin schooling the child in vile necromancy to ensure her dire, sordid inheritance. Armed with malefic potency, Shame slowly refashions her garden guardians into something more pliable and appropriately monstrous…

As the devil’s daughter physically ripens, Slur himself comes to his evil child and through him Shame learns the terrifying power of sex. With the aid of an infernal incubus which has stolen seed from many men, she quickens a child in her own belly and eventually births a beautiful baby girl.

Into that infant Slur pours Mother Virtue’s soul; gorily ripped from the despondent dotard’s aging carcase at the moment of her granddaughter’s delivery. Even the nunnery Virtue had locked herself within was no proof against the marauding Shadow of Ignorance…

And with her despised mother now her own child, securely bound within the selfsame floral penitentiary, Shame goes out into the world to make her mark…

‘Pursuit’ takes up the story sixteen years later. The Virtue infant has grown strong and lovely, despite every effort of the malformed and mystically mutated Dryads and Shame’s own diabolical sorcery which have toiled mightily but with no effect in a campaign of corruption which made every day of her young life a savage test of survival.

This daily failure makes Shame – now elevated by her own evil efforts to queen of a mortal kingdom – furious beyond belief.

When not burning witches and wise women who might threaten her absolute domination or having her unconquerable armies ravage neighbouring realms, the haughty hell-spawn spies upon her mother/child with infernal devices, but always comes away bitterly disappointed and incensed….

Elsewhere, a knight of great valour lies dying and mournfully bids his afflicted son Merritt farewell. Today we’d say he has Down’s syndrome but in that far ago and long away time the husky lad simply labours under an extra burden in his desire to be a true hero…

Even with his last breaths, the swift-failing father dreads how his foolish, naïve, beloved boy will fare in a world ruled by the Queen who has ended him…

The hopeless dreaming youth is stubborn above all else and, when Merritt discovers the vegetable hell-mound of Cradle, stories his mother told him long ago run again through his head. A strange, inexplicable yearning compels him to overcome the appalling arcane odds to break in and liberate the beautiful prisoner… although she actually does most of the work…

Free of the malefic mound, all Virtue’s mystic might returns and, far away, Shame’s world reels. Mocking Slur cares little for his daughter but much for his plans and thus reveals Merritt is Destiny’s wild card: a Sword of Fate who might well reshape the future of humanity. Of course, that all depends on whose side he joins…

As the young heroes near the capital they are ambushed. After a tremendous mystic clash, Merritt awakens in a palace with a compelling dark-haired angel ministering to his every need and desire. Meanwhile, far below in a rank, eldritch dungeon, Virtue languishes and patiently adjusts her plans…

This eldritch esoterically erotic epic concludes in classic fashion with ‘Redemption’ as Merritt falls deeper under the sultry sway of the dark queen. As he slowly devolves into her submissive tool of human subjugation, in a fetid subterranean stinkhole, Virtue – under the very noses of her tormentors – weaves her intricate magic with the paltry and debased materials at hand…

Even cradled in the Queen’s arms, the warrior Merritt is still a child shaped by his mother’s bedtime stories and when Virtue contacts him he readily sneaks down to her cell, dreams of nobility and valiant deeds filling his slow, addled head…

Now the scene is set for a final fraught confrontation between mother and daughter, but first Virtue sends Merritt straight to Hell on a vital quest to recover the Hope of the World…

The narrative core of all fairytales is unchanging and ever powerful, so tone and treatment make all the difference between tired rehash and something bold, fresh and unforgettable. This tale certainly qualifies…

Moreover, the photo-based hyper-realised expressionism of John Bolton’s lush painting transforms the familiar settings of fantasy standards and set-pieces into something truly bleak and bizarre to match the grim, earthily seedy meta-reality of Kindzierski’s script.

Bracketed with a Foreword by Colleen Doran and Preface from author Kindzierski at the front and creator commentary courtesy of ‘From the Imagination of John Bolton and Lovern Kindzierski’ at the nether end – featuring an in-depth interview adjudicated by publisher Alexander Finbow and supplemented with a stunning treasure trove of pre-production art, designs and sketches – this astoundingly attractive tome also includes a tantalising glimpse of things to come in the shape of an 8-page preview of forthcoming sequel Tales of Hope…

Dark and nasty yet packed with sumptuous seductions of every stripe, the salutary saga of Shame is every adult fantasist’s desire made real and every comic fan’s most fervent anticipation in one irresistible package…
Shame the story, characters, world and designs are © Lovern Kindzierski, John Bolton and Renegade Arts Canmore Ltd.

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Stinky


By Eleanor Davis (Toon Books/Raw Junior)
ISBN: 978-0-9799238-4-5

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Smells Like a True Favourite… 9/10

Once upon a time – and for the longest time imaginable – comics were denigrated as a creative and narrative ghetto cherished only by children and simpletons. For decades the producers, creators and lovers of the medium struggled to change that perception and gradually acceptance came.

These days most folk accept that word and pictures in sequential union can make stories and tell truths as valid, challenging and life-changing as any other full-blown art-form.

Sadly, along the way the commercial underpinnings of the industry fell away and they won’t be coming back…

Where once there were a host of successful, self-propagating comics scrupulously generating tales and delights intended to entertain, inform and educate such specific demographics as Toddler/Kindergarten, Young and Older Juvenile, General, Boys and Girls periodical publications, nowadays Britain, America and most of Europe can only afford to maintain a few paltry out-industry licensed tie-ins and spin-offs for younger readerships.

The greater proportion of strip magazines are necessarily manufactured for a highly specific – and dwindling – niche market, whilst the genres that fed and nurtured comics are more effectively and expansively disseminated via TV, movies and assorted games media.

Thankfully old-fashioned book publishers and the graphic novel industry have a different business model and far more sensible long-term goals, so the lack has been increasingly countered and the challenge to train and bring youngsters into the medium taken up outside the mainstream – and dying – periodical markets.

I’ve banged on for years about the industry’s foolish rejection of the beginner-reading markets, but what most publishers have been collectively offering young/early consumers – and their parents (excepting, most notably the magnificent efforts of David Fickling Books and their wonderful comic The Phoenix) – has seldom jibed with what those incredibly selective consumers are interested in or need.

In recent years however the book trade has moved with the times and where numerous publishing houses have opened comic medium divisions, one in particular has gone all-out to cultivate tomorrow’s graphic narrative nation.

Toon Books/Raw Junior was established by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly as an imprint of the groundbreaking and legendary alternative magazine to provide high-quality comics stories to entice pre-schoolers and starter-readers into a lifelong love affair with strips in particular and reading in general.

Their burgeoning stable of talented creators have produced a wealth of superbly superior comic tales in three accredited educational standards (Level 1: First Comic for brand new readers, Level 2: Easy-to-Read for Emerging Readers and Level 3: Chapter Books for Advanced Beginners) and the company even supplements their publications with an online tool.

TOON-BOOKS.com offers follow up such as interactive audio-versions read by the authors – and in a multitude of languages – and a “cartoon maker” facility which allows readers to become writers of their own adventures about the characters they have just met in the printed editions. Many books include a page of tips for parents and teachers on ‘How to Read Comics with Kids’…

This particular yarn from Eleanor Davis sticks tight to traditional fare winningly rendered as she introduces a gloomy, anxious swamp monster whose smelly, dank world of pickled onions, possums, slugs, toads and especially stench seems likely to be upset forever after new neighbours move in…

There’s a town near the swamp and in it are kids. Kids who like baths and eat cake smell weird…

Stinky is especially nervous of a new kid. Somehow he’s even worse than the others. He’s called Nick, eats apples, likes toads and is building a tree house in Stinky’s swamp! Determined to drive off the newcomer, the moist monster undertakes a campaign of terror but the little human pest just accepts all the nasty surprises and keeps on building…

And thus begins an epic struggle which will result in a most unique friendship…

Gently hilarious, beautifully illustrated and heart-warmingly proving that it takes all sorts to make a world, Stinky is a fabulous walk on the wild side you’ll find impossible to forget – especially as your hosts have been kind enough to provide you with a detailed map to follow…
© 2008 RAW Junior, LLC. All rights reserved.

Why not check out the scene at: http://www.toon-books.com

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Black Panther volume 1: A Nation Under Our Feet


By Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-302-90053-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: The Cat’s Whiskers for Comics Fans… 8/10

Regarded as the first black superhero in American comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther‘s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since July 1966 when he first met the Fantastic Four. You can even see how far we’ve all come in his fiftieth anniversary year as that intriguing introductory tale in included at the back of this slim new volume…

T’Challa, son of T’Chaka, is an African monarch whose hidden kingdom is the only source of a miraculous alien metal upon which the country’s immense wealth was founded. Those mineral riches – supposedly derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – had enabled Wakanda to become one of the wealthiest and most secretive nations on Earth. For much of its history it has been an isolated, utopian technological wonderland.

The tribal resources and people of Wakanda have been safeguarded since time immemorial by a human champion who derived cat-like physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb which ensure the generational dominance of the nation’s Panther Cult and Royal Family.

The “Vibranium” mound had ensured the country’s status as a secret superpower for centuries but increasingly made Wakanda a target for subversion and incursion in modern times.

Now this sleek, extremely engaging restart – collecting Black Panther volume 6 #1-4 and spanning June-September 2016 – introduces a whole new era of political unrest to Africa’s oldest surviving kingdom and Earth’s most advanced (human) nation…

Scripted by correspondent and author Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) and illustrated by Brian Stelfreeze (Batman: Shadow of the Bat, Day Men) the story opens as T’Challa resumes the throne he had so recently surrendered to his sister Shuri before global catastrophe, economic collapse and consecutive invasions from Sub-Mariner‘s Atlantis and Thanos‘ extraterrestrial Black Legion wrought havoc amongst the Wakandans.

Now as he strives to reassure his people, a moment of indiscipline amongst his soldiers provokes disaster. As T’Challa addresses striking miners at the Great Mound, a gesture is misinterpreted and guards fire on protesters. Only the Black Panther’s senses can detect the presence of another influence, shaping emotions and triggering the escalating clash which follows…

Meanwhile, in The Golden City of Wakanda another crisis brews. A member of his formidable Dora Milaje elite bodyguards has acted beyond her station; punishing a local chieftain’s abusive treatment of wives and daughters with uncompromising finality.

For taking the law into her own hands Aneka must die…

Near the Nigandan Border a political cell of super-powered rebels takes stock. “The People” are dedicated to fomenting violent change in Wakanda using ancient sorcery, unsuspected connections to the palace and the fervent dream of a new nation…

Aneka’s resolve to face her fate bravely is challenged and swiftly withers when her comrade-in-arms and lover Ayo explosively breaks her out of jail. Wearing the latest in (stolen) Wakandan cybernetic war-armour, the women head into the wilds, seeking nothing but freedom but all too soon they are diverted by the horrific plight of abused women they continually encounter.

As the furious fugitives punish the awful ravages of malevolent bandits and rogue chiefs, emancipated women flock to their bloody banner. Wakanda’s growing civil war finds itself faced with a third passionate, deadly faction ready to die for their cause…

And in a place supposedly far removed from the cares of the world, recently deceased Queen Shuri is challenged by a mysterious stranger on The Djalia, the ethereal Plane of Wakandan Memory. Shuri is not destined for peace or rest but has a task to finish if the spirits of her ancestors are to be believed…

Tragically, as the opposing forces and ideologies converge in a very earthly hiding hole, the extremely rich white man funding much of the chaos gloats and further refines his grand plans…

To Be Continued…

Fast-paced, compelling and gloriously readable, this splendid blend of political thriller, action epic and mystic revelation comes with a stunning cover-&-variants gallery by Alex Ross, Stelfreeze, Olivier Coipel, Gabrielle Dell’Otto, Mark Brooks, Ryan Sook, Todd Nauck & Rachelle Rosenberg, Felipe Smith, Larry Stroman, Mark Morales & Jason Keith, Funko, Skottie Young, John Tyler Christopher, Neal Adams Dale Keown, Mike McKone & Frank Martin, Sanford Greene, Frank Cho, Jamal Campbell and Kyle Baker. There’s also a map of Wakanda and its encroaching border nation, a fascinating glimpse ‘Behind the Scenes with Brian Stelfreeze’ offering commentary, insights and a wealth of production art and sketches, and a feature on ‘Process and Development’ tracing typed word to printed page…

Moreover, following a comprehensive Black Panther Chronology and Creator Biographies, is followed by that aforementioned Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Joe Sinnott classic. Here ‘The Black Panther!’ attacks the FF as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father.

A full-on rollercoaster ride no fan of Fights ‘n’ Tights furore will want to miss.
© 2016 MARVEL. All rights reserved.

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Justice League of America: The Silver Age volume 1


By Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, Carmine Infantino, Bernard Sachs & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6111-5

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Comic Perfection and the ideal Stocking Stuffer… 10/10

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – by which we mean the launch of Superman in June 1938 – the most significant event in the industry’s progress was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was irrefutably proven – a number of popular characters could multiply readership by combining forces.

Plus of course, a whole bunch of superheroes is a lot cooler than just one – or even one and a sidekick…

And so the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a true landmark in the development of comic books, and, when Julius Schwartz began reviving and revitalising the nigh-defunct superhero genre in 1956, the key moment would come a few years with the inevitable teaming of reconfigured mystery men…

When wedded to the relatively unchanged big guns who had weathered the first fall of the Superhero at the beginning of the 1950s the result was a new, modern, Space-Age version of the Justice Society of America and the birth of a new mythology.

When the Justice League of America was launched in issue #28 of The Brave and the Bold (March 1960) it cemented the growth and validity of the genre, triggering an explosion of new characters at every company producing comics in America and even spread to the rest of the world as the 1960s progressed.

Spanning March 1960 to January 1962, this latest paperback collection of timeless classics re-presents The Brave and the Bold #28-30 and Justice League of America #1-8 and also includes a titanic team-up from Mystery in Space #75 (May 1962).

That moment that changed everything for us baby-boomers came with issue #28 of The Brave and the Bold, a classical adventure title that had recently become a try-out magazine like Showcase.

Just in time for Christmas 1959 ads began running…

“Just Imagine! The mightiest heroes of our time… have banded together as the Justice League of America to stamp out the forces of evil wherever and whenever they appear!”

Released with a March 1960 cover-date, that first tale was written by the indefatigable Gardner Fox and illustrated by the quirky and understated Mike Sekowsky, inked by Bernard Sachs, Joe Giella and Murphy Anderson.

‘Starro the Conqueror’ saw Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and J’onn J’onzz – Manhunter from Mars defeat a marauding alien starfish whilst Superman and Batman stood by (in those naive days editors feared that their top characters could be “over-exposed” and consequently lose popularity). The team also picked up an average American kid as a mascot. “Typical teenager” Snapper Carr would prove a focus of fan controversy for decades to come…

Confident of his material and the superhero genre’s fresh appeal Schwartz had two more thrillers ready for the following issues. B&B #29 saw the team defeat a marauder from the future who apparently had history on his side in ‘The Challenge of the Weapons Master’ (inks by Sachs and Giella) whilst #30 saw the debut of the team’s first mad-scientist arch-villain in the form of Professor Ivo and his super android Amazo. ‘The Case of the Stolen Super Powers’ by Fox, Sekowsky & Sachs ended the tryout run and three months later a new bi-monthly title debuted.

Perhaps somewhat sedate by histrionic modern standards, the JLA was revolutionary in a comics marketplace where less than 10% of all sales featured costumed adventurers. Not only public imagination was struck by hero teams either.

Stan Lee was apparently given a copy of Justice League by his boss Martin Goodman and told to do something similar for the tottering comics company he ran – and look what came of that!

Justice League of America #1 featured ‘The World of No Return’, introducing trans-dimensional tyrant Despero to bedevil the World’s Greatest Heroes, but once again plucky Snapper Carr was the key to defeating the villain and saving the day.

The second issue, ‘Secret of the Sinister Sorcerers’, presented an astounding conundrum. The villains of Magic-Land sneakily transposed the location of their dimension with Earth’s, causing the Laws of Science to be replaced with the Lore of Mysticism. The true mettle of the costumed crusader heroes (and by this time Superman and Batman were allowed a more active part in the proceedings) was shown when they had to use ingenuity rather than their powers to defeat their fearsome foes and set two worlds to rights.

Issue #3 introduced the despicable Kanjar Ro who attempted to turn the team into his personal army in ‘The Slave Ship of Space’, and with the next episode the first of many new members joined the team.

Although somewhat chronologically adrift there’s solid sense in placing the next tale in this position as Mystery in Space #75 (May 1962), as the team guest-star in a full-length thriller starring Adam Strange.

Strange was an Earth archaeologist who regularly teleported to a planet circling Alpha Centauri where his wits and ingenuity saved the citizens of Rann from all sorts of interplanetary threats.

In ‘The Planet that came to a Standstill!’, Kanjar Ro attempts to conquer Strange’s adopted home, and our gallant hero has to enlist the aid of the JLA before once again saving the day himself. This classic team-up was written by Fox, and illustrated by the irreplaceable Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson.

Green Arrow saved the day in the science-fiction thriller ‘Doom of the Star Diamond’, but was almost kicked out in #5 as the insidious Doctor Destiny inadvertently framed him ‘When Gravity Went Wild!’

‘The Wheel of Misfortune’ saw the debut of pernicious and persistent master of wild science Professor Amos Fortune, who used weaponised luck to challenge the masked marvels whilst #7 was another alien invasion plot centred on an amusement park, or more specifically ‘The Cosmic Fun-House!’.

The never-ending parade of perils then concludes for the moment with January 1962’s JLA #8. ‘For Sale… the Justice League!’ is a smart crime caper wherein a cheap hood finds a mind-control weapon that enslaves the team before simple Snapper once again saves the day.

These tales are a perfect example of all that was best about the Silver Age of comics, combining optimism and ingenuity with bonhomie and adventure. This slice of better times also has the benefit of cherishing wonderment whilst actually being historically valid for any fan of our medium. And best of all the stories here are still captivating and enthralling transports of delight.

These classical compendia are a dedicated fan’s delight: an absolute gift for modern fans who desperately need to catch up without going bankrupt. They are also perfect to give to youngsters as an introduction into a fabulous world of adventure and magic – especially with forthcoming iterations of the team due in both TV animation and live action movie formats.
© 1960, 1961, 1962, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Angel Catbird volume 1


By Margaret Atwood, Johnnie Christmas & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-50670-063-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fuzzy Fantasy for Grown-ups… 8/10

Margaret Atwood is a multi-award winning novelist with a string of laudable, famous books (The Handmaid’s Tale, The Blind Assassin) to her name and a couple of dark secrets. As disclosed in her Introduction to this fun-packed fantasy romp, she loves cats and comics and has done so for most of her life…

Thus Angel Catbird; a series of original, digest-sized, full-colour hardbacks relating the adventures of creatures who have lived unknown amongst us from time immemorial and the crossbreed newcomer who shakes up their worlds…

Scripted and co-designed by Atwood, the lively saga is illustrated by Johnnie Christmas, coloured by Tamra Bonvillain and lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® and begins as genetic engineer and new private sector worker Strig Feleedus rushes to finish a crucial “super-splicer” formula for his creepy boss at Muroid Inc.

Owner Dr. Muroid has a thing for rats and is extremely eager for Strig to complete his assignment. The perpetual harassment even extends to covert surveillance through his mechanically augmented rat spies…

Upon learning Feleedus has made a midnight hour breakthrough, the deranged doctor pesters his wage-slave into bringing the results straight in, provoking a horrible accident involving Strig, his pet cat Ding, a passing owl, a speeding automobile and the spilled gene-splicing agent prototype…

When Strig comes to, he has been transformed into a bizarre human/cat/bird hybrid who can fly and voraciously gobble down rats, but that’s only the beginning…

Despite eventually regaining his original form, Strig is suddenly made aware of a whole new world he never imagined possible. His senses – especially smell – have become greatly heightened. Co-worker Cate Leone, for example, becomes far more interesting when his nose comes into play. Most intriguing is the fact that somehow Feleedus can understand what birds and alley-cats are saying…

Before long, Strig is submerged in an astonishing new existence: one where animals live exotic alternative lives as half-humans and one to which he has been admitted only through the auspices of his accidental exposure to the super-splicer compound.

Tragically, when he discovers just why Muroid wanted the serum in the first place, it sparks a deadly and explosive interspecies war with the “Angel Catbird” and his shapeshifting animal allies on one side and mad Muroid’s mutant rat hordes on the other….

To Be Continued…

This turbulent tome also includes a wealth of intriguing extras including a large art gallery by illustrative stars such as David Mack, Fábio Moon, Tyler Crook, Matt Kindt, Jen Bartel, Troy Nixey, David Rubín and Charlie Pachter; a fascinating and extensive annotated Sketchbook section from both Christmas and Atwood, plus a detailed and informative rundown on how Tamra Bonvillain turns line-art into extraordinarily complex colour pages.

This book has an ulterior motive and secret life too. The story is frequently footnoted with facts and advice on how to protect felines and avians from harm which originate from the charity catsandbirds.ca, and the tale you enjoy is designed to promote their message of simultaneously keeping cats safe and saving bird lives. Why not look them up and make a donation?

Playful and sly with slickly hidden, razor-sharp edges, this a fable of frolicsome fantasy all mixed up with Fights ‘n’ Tights fun that will delight animal lovers and old-fashioned superhero fans.
Angel Catbird™ & © 2016 Margaret Atwood. All rights reserved.

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Dog Butts and Love. And Stuff Like That. And Cats


By Jim Benton (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-846-8

Although in something of a decline these days, for nearly 200 years gag-panels and cartoon strips were the universal medium to disseminate wit, satire, mirth, criticism and cultural exchange. Sadly, after centuries of pre-eminence, these days the cartoon has been all but erased from printed newspapers – as indeed the physical publications themselves have dwindled in shops and on shelves.

However, thanks to the same internet which is killing print media, many graphic gagsters and drawing dramatists have enjoyed resurgence in an arena that doesn’t begrudge the space necessary to deliver a cartoon in all its fulsome glory…

Mainstream cartooning remains an unmissable daily joy to a vast, frequently global readership whose requirements are quite different from those of hard-core, dedicated comic fans, or even that ever-growing base of intrigued browsers just starting to dip their toes in the sequential narrative pool.

Even those stuck-up holdouts who have pointedly “never read a comic” have certainly enjoyed strips or panels: a golden bounty of brief amusement demanding no commitment other than a moment’s close attention. Truth be told, it’s probably in our genes…

And because that’s the contrary nature of things, those gags now get collected in spiffy collections like this one (and also in e-book editions) to enjoy over and over again…

With that in mind, here’s a long-delayed peek at some less well known strips by one of America’s most innovative and mordantly surreal creative stars.

Jim Benton began his illustration work making up crazy characters in a T-Shirt shop and designing greetings cards. Born in 1960, he’d grown up in Birmingham, Michigan before studying Fine Arts at Western Michigan University.

Now earning a living by exercising his creativity he started self-promoting the weird funny things he’d dream up and soon was coining beaucoup bucks from properties such as Dear Dumb Diary, Dog of Glee, Franny K. Stein, Just Jimmy, Just Plain Mean, Sweetypuss, The Misters, Meany Doodles, Vampy Doodles, Kissy Doodles, jOkObo and It’s Happy Bunny in a variety of magazines and other venues…

The particular gags, jests and japes began life on Reddit and are delivered in a huge variety of styles and manners: each perfectly in accord with whatever sick, sweet, clever, sentimental, whimsical or just plain strange content each idea demanded.

Despite the risk of laughing yourself sick, you’ll want to see how some dads treat their kids; learn how deer see the hunters; explore the wonder of breasts; observe the lighter side of inebriation, seduction and mate-selection and much more.

You might discover Not-Facts that will change your life after gleaning Benton’s take on aliens, zombies, ghosts, assorted movie franchises, busking, business fashions and evolution in single page giggle-bombs ranging from strident solo panels to extended strips; silent shockers to poetically florid and verbose tracts.

You will laugh out loud and want more.

You will also want to send “How to explain things to the stupid” to all your friends.

Don’t.

Just make them buy their own copy of this glorious book.
© 2014 Jim Benton.

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The Case of Alan Turing


By Eric Liberge & Arnaud Delalande, translated by David Homel (Arsenal Pulp Press)
ISBN: 978-1-55152-650-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A tale of Topical Tragedy… 8/10

After decades of cruel injustice and crushing, sidelining silence, British mathematician Alan Turing – one of the greatest intellects in humanity’s history – has at last become the household name and revered pioneer of science he has always deserved to be.

As well as books and films describing the amazing achievements and appalling way this brilliant, misunderstood man – arguably the creator of the modern world we inhabit – was treated by society, there’s now a second graphic novel (so if you’re interested you should also seek out Jim Ottaviani & Leland Purvis’ The Imitation Game: Alan Turing Decoded) delineating the factual stuff whilst trying to get beneath the skin of a most perplexing and unique individual.

This gloriously oversized (231 x 13 x 287 cm) full-colour hardback biography – also available as an e-book – was first released in Europe as Le Cas Alan Turing in 2015 and employs an emphatic literary approach, more drama than documentary.

The moving script by author Arnaud Delalande (La Piege de Dante) – via award-winning translator David Homel – only touches on Turing’s early, troubled home life and post-war scandals as the genius descended into self-loathing and court-mandated chemical castration to “cure” his “social deviancy”.

Allegations or accusations of homosexuality destroyed many men until officially decriminalised in Britain’s 1967 Sexual Offences Act, and although Turing was posthumously pardoned in 2013 his loss to suicide probably deprived the entire world of a generation of marvels…

The major proportion of this tale concentrates on World War II and Turing’s work as a cryptographer and inventor at British code-breaking centre Bletchley Park, where the insular young man struggled to convince his officious, unimaginative superiors to let him construct a mechanical brain to defeat the Wehrmacht’s presumed-infallible Enigma machines. Turing’s victories cemented his reputation and ensured that the battle against fascism was won…

The key figures are all there: sometime fiancée Joan Clark, Professor Max Newman, and the weak, shady rent-boy who brought about Turing’s eventual downfall and demise, as are less well known figures: the MI5 operative who was his constant shadow before and after the war, boyhood lost love Christopher Morcom and many other unsung heroes of the intelligence war…

Played out against a backdrop of global conflict, Turing’s obsession with Walt Disney’s Snow White and a recurring motif of poisoned apples – the method by which the tormented soul ended his life – figure largely in a tale which reads like a movie in the making. Moreover, this powerful tale of an outsider’s temporary triumphs and lasting impact is beautifully and compellingly rendered by master of historical comics Eric Liberge (Monsieur Mardi-Gras Descendres, Le Dernier Marduk, Tonnerre Rampant, Les Corsaires d’Alcibiade), affording it an aura of unavoidable, impending destiny…

Balancing out the tragedy of chances missed is an informative photo-illustrated essay on ‘The Cryptography War’ by historian, educator and government consultant Bruno Fuligni detailing the development and use of different kinds of cipher and codes, how Enigma changed the rules of the spying game and how Turing changed it all again…

This is an astoundingly effective way to engage with a true story of incredible accomplishment, dedication and terrifying naivety, one that ends with horrific loss to us all and forever-unanswered sentiments of “What If?” and “If Only…”
Text © Éditions des Arènes, Paris 2015. Translation © 2016 by David Homel.

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Glenn Gould – A Life Off Tempo


By Sandrine Revel, translated by Montana Kane (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-065-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Classical Interlude with real Artistic Appeal… 10/10

Publisher NBM have struck a seam of gold with their growing line of European biographies and their latest is one of the most impressive and thought-provoking to date.

Glenn Gould РA Life Off Tempo has been lovingly crafted by Sandrine Revel, author, cartoonist and comics artist (Jouvence la Bordelaise, Sorcellerie et dependences, R̩surgences, Femmes en voie de resociabilisation, Le Jardin Autre Monde) as well as journalistic press illustrator for Sud Ouest Dimanche, Milan Presse and other magazines.

She’s also a devoted and passionate fan of the star of this elegiac and beguiling book: so much so that she’s also provided a menu of Appendices at the back to augment your appreciation and understanding of an archetypal troubled genius…

Painted in a number of extremely welcoming and effective styles, A Life Off Tempo offers up snippets from the strange, solitary and woefully short life of a Canadian musical child prodigy who hit the heights, changed the scene and left the world early as all revelatory, game-changing artists seem to do…

As you’ll see here, Gould – dubbed “the JD Salinger of the classical music world” – died in 1982 as the result of a stroke, nearly fifty years after his birth, and it’s as he dies that we share moments of his clearly difficult life, all deftly woven into a non-chronological narrative, dotted with observation from the paltry few people he allowed to get close to him.

You may or may not know he was a classical pianist with a unique style and manner who revolutionised how certain pieces were played and heard…

…Or how he opened up the Soviet Union to Western cultural arts tours despite playing less than 200 concerts in his entire career…

…And that he was either crippled by hypochondria ore suffered from a number of physical and psychological ailments as well as what might well have been undiagnosed Asberger’s Syndrome – or an ASD, to use today’s terminology. He certainly loved animals, despised cruelty and always bundled up as if he were freezing to death…

At the height of his fame Gould abandoned live performance to write music and experiment in recording techniques. He became a critic and broadcaster and invented pseudonymous identities so that he could savage his own recordings.

He was clearly a difficult man and beloved mystery to those around him, and this graphic account astutely gives you the how if not always the why…

The deliciously oversized (280 x 208 mm) full-colour, resoundingly substantial hardback is not a formal history or biography text, even though we meet Gould at various stages of his life and share key events and intimate moments.

You obviously won’t feel how his interpretations of hallowed pieces by Bach, Beethoven, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Mozart and more shook up the musical world – although if you follow the aforementioned ‘Appendices’ at the back and listen to the suggested playlist, track down the recordings cited in the ‘Glenn Gould Discography’ or use the ‘Further Reading’ and ‘Further Viewing’ lists to get a firm grip on the maestro’s output you’ll experience the innovation and won’t be at all disappointed…

Impassioned, enchanting and marvellously moving, this enigmatic engagement with a singular creative individual is a fabulous treat for lovers of comics and music and will stay for all time in your head like a favourite tune.
© Dargaud 2016 © 2016 NBM for the English translation.

Glenn Gould – A Life Off Tempo will be released on December 1st 2016. It can be pre-ordered now. It is also available wherever e-books are sold.
For more information and other great reads see http://www.nbmpub.com/

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Batman: Birth of the Demon


By Dennis O’Neil, Norm Breyfogle & Tom various (DC Comics)
ISBNs: 1-56389-080-1 (original hardcover);                         1-56389-081-X (trade paperback)

Debuting twelve months after Superman, in May 1939 “The Bat-Man” (joined within a year by Robin, the Boy Wonder) cemented DC/National Comics as the market and conceptual leader of the burgeoning comicbook industry.

Having established the scope and parameters of the metahuman with their Man of Tomorrow, the magnificently mortal physical perfection and dashing derring-do of the human-scaled adventures starring the Dynamic Duo rapidly became the swashbuckling benchmark by which all four-colour crimebusters were judged.

Batman is in many ways the ideal superhero: uniquely adaptable and able to work in any type or genre of story, as is clearly evident from the dazzling plethora of vintage tales collected in so many captivating volumes over the years, vying equally with the most immediate and recent tales collected into albums scant moment after they go off-sale as comicbooks….

One the most impressive and well-mined periods is the moody 1970-1980s when the Caped Crusader evolved into a driven but still coldly rational Manhunter, rather than the dark, out-of-control paranoid of later days or the costumed boy-scout of the “Camp”-crazed Sixties.

There had been many “Most Important Batman” stories over the decades since his debut in 1939 but very few had the resounding impact of pioneering 1987 experiment Batman: Son of the Demon which capped a period when DC were creatively on fire and could do no wrong commercially.

Not only did the story add new depth to the character, but the package itself – oversized (294 x 226 mm), on high-quality paper, available in both hardback and softcover editions – helped kickstart the fledgling graphic novel marketplace. In 1991 the tale spawned an equally impressive sequel – Batman: Bride of the Demon – and a year later Scripter Supreme Denny O’Neil joined with illustrator Norm Breyfogle who painted this staggering saga (lettered by Ken Bruzenak) to complete a trilogy of outstanding graphic landmarks by providing Batman’s quintessential antithesis with an origin…

In the 1970s immortal mastermind and militant eco-activist Ra’s Al Ghul was a contemporary – and presumably thus more acceptable – embodiment of the venerably inscrutable Foreign Devil designated in a less forgiving age as the “Yellow Peril” and most famously embodied in Dr. Fu Manchu.

This kind of alien archetype had permeated fiction since the beginning of the 20th century and is still an overwhelmingly potent villain symbol even today, although the character’s Arabic origins, neutral at that time, seem to painfully embody a different kind of ethnic bogeyman in today’s terrorist-obsessed world.

Possessed of immense resources, an army of zealots and every inch Batman’s physical and intellectual equal match, Al Ghul featured in many of most memorable stories of the 1970s and 1980s. He had easily deduced the Caped Crusader’s secret identity and wanted his masked adversary to become his ally…

Here the war between these astounding rivals has reached the end-stage. Al Ghul has extended his lifespan for centuries through arcane means, but as this saga begins the immortal warlord is dying; his network of life-restoring Lazarus Pits dismantled and destroyed by the implacable Batman. Moreover, every attempt to create a new version of the geographically-sensitive chemical bath is anticipated by the Dark Knight and foiled with brutal efficiency. With few options remaining the demon’s daughter Talia takes charge of the last possible potential pit but finds Batman – her one true beloved – waiting for her. She has no idea that he too is near his life’s end…

The lovers discuss how the Batman had anticipated all the possible moves of the Demon’s Head. He reveals how archaeologists had got a certain ancient manuscript to him at the cost of their lives, and how he had deduced its true meaning…

The scene then resets to 500 years previously in an Arabian kingdom. Here a good and brilliant doctor of peasant origins creates a unique immersion treatment to save the son of the ruling potentate from a mystery disease. The remedy came after a retreat to the desert where the doctor experienced visions and where he believes he battles a bat-demon…

However, when the prince emerges from the boiling chemical pit, he is an uncontrollable savage who assaults and kills the healer’s wife. Despite all he has done, the doctor is denied use of the Pit to revive her and soon learns first hand of the callous disregard rulers have for their subjects…

Subjected to unimaginable cruelty, the healer is left to die in the desert before being saved by a poor poet he has recently helped. Together they unite with a bandit chief to topple the wicked sultan and carve out a bloody empire. Using the Pit, they also extend their lives and plan to reconstruct the world into a fairer place.

Sadly, somewhere along the way the allies fall out as their organisation grows in strength and as centuries pass one of the triumvirate leaves a document that might spell the Demon’s undoing…

Returning to modern times the tale ends in a climactic duel between the dying giants on the lip of the last Lazarus Pit…

Epic, revelatory and powerfully mythic, Birth of the Demon is an emotionally evocative fable crammed with action, spectacle and suspense: one of the most moving mature-reader tales in Batman’s canon and one to delight fans and casual readers alike.

If you’re new to these older tales, or just want the entire saga in one (slightly smaller) package, all three Al Ghul stories are available in one collected volume – Batman: Birth of the Demon (Collected) first released in 2012.

© 1990 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons


By Agnès Rosenstiehl (Toon Books/Raw Junior)
ISBN: 978-0-9799238-1-4 (HB)                    978-1-935179-23-8 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Sheer Delight from First to Last… 10/10

Kids love to read and will do so for their entire lives if you start them off with the right material. Thankfully, after too many years without, the bookshelves and digital stores are stuffed with just such graphic narrative treasures. This particular award-winning cartoon treat for the very young comes from the magnificently prolific and talented Agnès Rosenstiehl, who has been one of France’s greatest kids’ authors for decades.

Rosenstiehl was born in 1941 to an artistic Parisian family, and, after attending Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse à Paris and the Sorbonne, has been enchanting European nippers with her efforts since 1968. I lost count at 159 books. There are probably more…

Her most popular and ubiquitous character is an adventurous tyke named Mimi Cracra (48 tomes thus far) who in 2008 hopped the pond and landed as Silly Lilly in a supremely engaging selection of vignettes showing the tot learning about and exulting in the ever-changing planetary cycle…

Crafted as mini-tales for very young and emerging readers, the explorations begin in playful callisthenics in Spring and ‘Silly Lilly at the Park’; moves on to Summer and ‘Silly Lilly at the Beach’; shuffles on in sensible warm clothes to Fall and ‘Silly Lilly and the Apples’, romps in Winter as ‘Silly Lilly Plays in the Snow’ before inexorably coming around to Spring again with ‘Silly Lilly and the Swing’.

Toon Books/Raw Junior was established by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly as an imprint of the groundbreaking alternative comics magazine to provide high-quality comics stories which would entice pre-schoolers and starter-readers into a lifelong love affair with strips in particular and reading in general.

Released as a child-sized (236 x 152 mm) landscape package, this magically compelling full-colour 32-page picture treat is available in both hardback and softcover: the kind of comforting illustrated exploration that opens young eyes to all the world’s wonders and will be read over and to again.
© 2008 RAW Junior, LLC. All rights reserved.