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Star Trek: Year Four


By David Tischman, Leonard O’Grady, Steve Conley, Gordon Purcell, Joe & Rob Sharp & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-62302-515-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Cosmic Christmas Cracker… 8/10

Star Trek debuted on American televisions on September 8th 1966 and pursued its declared “five-year mission” for three seasons comprising 79 episodes and running until June 3rd 1969.

Although a moderate success, the series only truly became a phenomenon after going into syndication, running constantly in American local TV regions throughout the 1970s. It was also sold all over the world, popping up seemingly everywhere and developing a remarkably devoted fanbase.

The stellar brand is probably one of the biggest franchise engines on Earth, permeating every merchandisable sector imaginable and becoming part of global popular culture and idiom. You can find daily live-action or animated screen appearances constantly screening somewhere on the planet, toys, games, conventions, merchandise, various comics iterations generated in a host of nations and languages and a reboot of the movie division proceeding apace even as I type this. There’s even a new rebooted TV series beginning in 2017…

Many companies have published comicbook adventures based on the exploits of Gene Roddenberry’s greatest brainchild. Currently IDW have the treasured funnybook license and have combined choice selections of older exploits from other publishers with great new tales.

In 2012 the company began adapting, updating and retelling classic episodes of the original Five Year Mission in the context and with the likenesses of actors from the 2008 rebooted film franchise (as re-imagined by J. J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman). To supplement that graphic reconfiguration IDW also initiated another strand: exploring the most fundamental aspect of the mythology by crafting new tales from the never-filmed Fourth Year of the original mission…

To be strictly accurate, the 1973-1974 animated series from Filmation/Norway Productions is considered by most fans to cover that year and indeed a few of the characters from that era have made it into this book…

This full-colour collection – also available as an eBook – gathers tales from July-December 2007, comprising the first six issues of Star Trek: Year Four plus material from Focus on… Star Trek. It begins with a scene-setting recap from series scripter David Tischman & visiting illustrator Leonard O’Grady who reintroduce the cast via the ‘Captain’s Personal Log’…

Tischman & Steve Conley then get boldly going as the Enterprise encounters a bizarre syzygy of planets, moons and asteroids forming a double helix. Beaming down to The Strand, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr.McCoy meet flamboyant geneticist Dr. Othello Beck who has appropriated the millennia-old abandoned medical facility and its wealth of data.

Seemingly benign and welcoming, Beck is happy to show them his recent successes such as subservient, recreated alien lifeforms, both alluring and ferociously aggressive. However, when a security officer is butchered and McCoy’s technical questions start to hit home, a dreadful secret is uncovered and Beck’s actual motives are revealed. It’s not long until the shooting starts…

Conley then illuminates a tale of civil strife as the Enterprise stops at ice world Aarak 3 to replenish her stores of Dilithium Crystals and finds the kingdom riven by rebellion and terrorism. Whilst King Marak welcomes the technological advancement trading crystals brings, many of his subjects still worship the mineral and consider bartering it to offworlders as blasphemy and sacrilege…

Of course, once Kirk and his crew begin to investigate and both sides try to kill them a different picture begins to emerge…

Veteran Trek artist Gordon Purcell illustrates the next mission as a stopover on colony world Phi-11 reveals that the entire population died suddenly of brain trauma. When the crew start acting oddly, it becomes clear that a lethal virus has invaded the sterile corridors of the USS Enterprise. Unfortunately for Nurse Christine Chapel, the truth is far stranger and soon she is battling her mind-controlled comrades to return a lost sentience to its place of origin…

Social commentary was a key part of the original TV series and here manifests as the Federation ship begins a cultural exchange mission on Viden – a world where the entertainment industry is the planetary government.

Tempers fray and Kirk’s landing party are arrested when an extra is killed on the set of a popular show, and soon the “spacemen” visitors are involved in a ratings war. If rival networks cannot outbid each other to own the Federation sensation they are ready and willing to eradicate them in a wry romp by Tischman and artists Joe & Rob Sharp.

In issue #5 Conley returned to depict the horrific results of a deep space experiment. Gemini was intended to prove the existence of Quark Gluon plasma, and went ahead despite the warnings of Enterprise helmsman Arex who predicted the unleashed energies could create an uncontrollable gravitational anomaly that would cause incalculable harm.

Of course the doomsayer is correct and the resulting phenomenon sucks in the Gemini Station, all its scientists and visiting supervisor Spock…

With the Quark Gluon cloud rapidly becoming a black hole, the entire region is endangered and to make matters worse a communication is received demonstrating that somewhere inside the anomaly the Vulcan is still alive…

Happily, both the time-dilated Spock and his shipboard replacement Temporary Science Officer Chekov have simultaneously and separately concocted a desperate last-ditch survival plan…

Wrapping up this volume of untold voyages, Tischman & Purcell reunite to detail a doomed rescue mission with the Enterprise systematically scanning the third planet of the Gobi system for signs of lost hospital ship USS Pasteur.

What they find instead is an automated horror-factory where an ancient robotic nursery system strip-mines visiting life for DNA and other elements to create a new generation of trans-species babies for sterile clients who have long since died out…

With a full covers-&-variants gallery by Kelsey Shannon, Conley & Joe Corroney, this is another fabulously enticing, expansive and engrossingly epic compendium of thrills, offering wonderfully engaging stories to delight young and old, fan or casual reader alike, and well worthy of your eager attentions.
STAR TREK ® and © 2008 CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Savage Sword of Conan volume 1


By Robert E. Howard, Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema, Pablo Marcos, Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Alfredo Alcala, Alex Niño & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-838-6

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Rare Bird Well Worth Carving Up… 9/10

During the 1970’s the American comic book industry opened up after more than fifteen years of cautious and calcified publishing practises that had come about as a reaction to the censorious oversight of the self inflicted Comics Code Authority: a publishers’ oversight body created to keep the product wholesome after the industry suffered their very own McCarthy-style Witch-hunt during the 1950s.

One of the first literary hardy perennials to be revisited was Horror/Mystery comics and from them came the creation of a new comics genre. Sword & Sorcery stories had been undergoing a prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of softcover editions of Lord of the Rings in 1954 and, by the 1960s, revivals of the two-fisted fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Fritz Lieber and others were making huge inroads into buying patterns across the world.

The old masters had also been augmented by many modern writers. Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter and others kick-started their prose careers with contemporary versions of man against mage against monsters. The undisputed overlord of the genre was Robert E. Howard with his 1930s pulp masterpiece Conan of Cimmeria.

Gold Key had notionally opened the field in 1964 – and created a cult hit – with Mighty Samson. Then came Clawfang the Barbarian’ in Thrill-O-Rama #2 in 1966. Both steely warriors battled in post-apocalyptic technological wildernesses but in 1969 DC dabbled with previously code-proscribed mysticism in Nightmaster (Showcase #82 -84), following on from the example of CCA-exempt Warren horror anthologies Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella.

Marvel tested the waters with barbarian villain – and Conan prototype – Arkon in Avengers #76 (April 1970) and the same month went all-out with short supernatural thriller ‘The Sword and the Sorcerers’ in their own watered-down horror anthology Chamber of Darkness #4.

Written by Roy Thomas and drawn by fresh-faced Barry Smith (a recent Marvel find who was just breaking out of the company’s still-prevalent Kirby house-style) the tale introduced Starr the Slayer – who also bore no small resemblance to the Barbarian-in-waiting…

Conan the Barbarian debuted with an October 1970 cover-date and – despite some early teething problems, including being cancelled and reinstated in the same month – the comic-strip adventures of Howard’s primal hero were as big a success as the prose yarns they adapted. Conan became a huge hit: a pervasive brand that prompted new prose tales, movies, TV series, cartoon shows, a newspaper strip and all the other paraphernalia of global superstardom.

And American comics changed forever.

In May 1971, Marvel moved into Warren’s territory for a second time, after an abortive attempt in 1968 to create an older-readers, non-Comics Code Spectacular Spider-Man monochrome magazine.

Savage Tales offered stories with stronger tone, mature sexual themes, less bowdlerised violence and partial nudity. It was the perfect place to introduce Futuristic Femizon Thundra and the macabre Man-Thing whilst offering more visceral vignettes starring the company’s resident jungle-man Ka-Zar and red-handed slayer Conan…

The anthology had an eventful reception and the second issue didn’t materialise until October 1973 as part of Marvel’s parent company Curtis Distribution. Conan starred in the first five issues before spinning off into his own adult-oriented monochrome magazine which debuted in August 1974. Free of all Code-mandated restrictions, The Savage Sword of Conan became a haven for mature storytelling with top flight artists queuing up to flex their creative muscles.

In 2007, after winning the license to publish Conan comics, Dark Horse began gathering Marvel’s Savage Sword canon in a series of Essentials-style, 500+ page volumes.

This first titanic tome – also available as an eBook – collects pertinent material from Savage Tales #1-5 and Savage Sword of Conan #1-10: collectively covering May 1971 through February 1976; a period when the character was swiftly becoming the darling of the comics world and his chief scribe Roy Thomas was redefining what American comics could say, show and do…

It all starts here with a much-reprinted classic.

‘The Frost Giant’s Daughter’ is a haunting, racy tale written by Howard and originally adapted in line and tone by Barry Smith for Savage Tales #1. It was later coloured and adulterated for the all-ages comicbook (#16) as it detailed how a lusty young Cimmerian chased a naked nymph into the icy winter and found himself prey in a trap set by gods or monsters…

By the time Savage Tales returned after a two-year hiatus, Barry Windsor-Smith had pretty much left comics but agreed to illustrate ‘Red Nails’ if he could do it his way and at his own pace.

The result was an utter revelation, moody, gory, soaked in dark passion and entrancing in its savage beauty. With some all-but invisible art assistance from Pablo Marcos this journey into the brutal depths of obsession and the decline of empires is the perfect example of how to bow out at the top of one’s creative game.

The adaptation began in ST #2 as Conan and pirate queen Valeria survive a trek through scorching deserts to fetch up in a vast walled city. Stealing inside they find immense riches casually ignored as the last members of the tribes of Tecuhlti and Xotalanc pick each off or wait for the monsters infesting the place to take them…

Soon they are embroiled in a simmering, oppressive war of extinction…

The third issue completed the ghastly epic as the slow war between rival branches of a decadent race explodes into a paroxysm of gore and aroused monsters…

Savage Tales #4 (May 1974) held a brace of tales. ‘Night of the Dark God’ was limned by Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Marcos & Vince Colletta from Howard’s tale The Dark Man. It revealed how Conan came hunting the abductors of his childhood first love and found them just as a terrify mystery idol began exerting its own malefic influence on a hall full of already-enraged warriors…

‘Dweller in the Dark’ was Smith’s swan-song and saw the wandering warrior become a plaything for lascivious Queen Fatima of Corinthia. Her lusts were matched only by her jealousy, however, and it wasn’t long before she had turned against Conan and tried to feed him to the monster lurking below the city…

The fifth and final Conan appearance in Savage Tales was ‘Secret of Skull River’: a wry and laconic yarn Thomas adapted from a John Jakes plot, illustrated by Jim Starlin & Al Milgrom. The barbarian sell-sword is hired to remove a wizard whose experiments are polluting a town. The reward Conan claims for his murderous services surprises everybody…

From there it was only a short jump to his own mature-themed starring vehicle, but although Savage Sword starred Conan it was initially a vehicle for numerous barbarian themed yarns – such as a serialised reprinting of Gil Kane’s epic Blackmark – and other Howard properties such as Bran Mac Morn or Red Sonja. Those aren’t included here, but are well worth searching out too…

The SSOC experience opens with the first issue and ‘Curse of the Undead-Man’ by Thomas, John Buscema & Pablo Marcos, adapted from Howard’s short story Mistress of Death. Here Conan encounters old comrade Red Sonja amongst the fleshpots of The Maul in Zamora’s City of Thieves before falling foul of sorcerer Costranno: a mage for whom being chopped to mincemeat is only a minor inconvenience…

Thomas wrote all the SSOC Conan material included here: blending adaptations of Howard’s stories – Conan’s and his other two-fisted fighting men as well – and such successor authors as Lin Carter or L. Sprague de Camp with original tales.

A stunning visual tour de force, ‘Black Colossus’ in #2 was illustrated by Buscema & Alfredo Alcala; detailing how antediluvian priest Natohk returns from death to imperil the kingdom of Princess Yasmela until stalwart general Conan leads her armies to a victory against armed invaders, uncanny occultism and a legion of devils…

SSOC #3 held two tales, beginning with Buscema & Marcos’ ‘At the Mountain of the Moon-God’ with Conan high in Yasmela’s court and attempting to head off the kingdom’s annexation from encroaching neighbours and encountering mountain-dwelling bandits and a demon pterosaur…

The issue concluded with ‘Demons of the Summit’ – an adaptation of People of the Summit by Björn Nyberg & de Camp – turned into comics by Thomas & Tony DeZuniga as an encounter with more high-living brigands brings the Cimmerian into conflict with a dying race of wizards who want his latest curvy companion to mother their next generation…

Issue #4 features Howard’s ‘Iron Shadows on the Moon’ realised by Buscema & Alcala. Having lost a war whilst leading a Kozak horde, Conan flees into the Vilayet Sea with escaped slave Olivia after killing enemy general Shah Amurath.

On an uncharted island they then encounter ancient statues which come to life at the moon’s touch. The bloodthirsty horrors fall upon a band of pirates watering on the island and after leading them to victory against the supernatural fiends Conan manoeuvres himself into the captain’s role and begins a life of freebooting piracy…

Howard’s ‘A Witch Shall Be Born’ took up most of Savage Sword of Conan #5. Illustrated by Buscema and The Tribe (DeZuniga; Steve Gan; Rudy Mesina; Freddie Fernandez and others) it saw virtuous Queen Taramis replaced by her demonic twin sister Salome, who debauched and ravaged the kingdom of Kauran whilst her accomplice Constantius has her guard captain Conan crucified. After (almost) saving himself, the Cimmerian recuperates with the desert-raiding Zuagirs, and after ousting their brutal chieftain Olgerd Vladislav returns to save Taramis and revenge himself upon the witch…

The epic is balanced by two shorter tales in the next issue. ‘The Sleeper Beneath the Sands’ is a Thomas original with art by Sonny Trinidad and reveals how Olgerd encounters a caravan of clerics en route to pacify an elder god buried since time immemorial beneath the desert. The rejected bandit-lord senses a chance for revenge but soon regrets allowing the beast to wake and luring Conan into its path…

Howard’s Celtic thriller ‘People of the Dark’ is radically adapted by Thomas and stunningly illustrated by master stylist Alex Niño next as, in modern times, Jim O’Brien plots to kill rival Richard Brent to win the hand of Eleanor.

However, a fall into an ancient cavern transports the would-be killer into antediluvian prehistory where – as Conan – he battles the debased descendents of things which were once men. In that forgotten hell a burden is placed upon him and, once returned to the present, O’Brien faces another monster and pays a millennial debt…

‘The Citadel at the Center of Time’ by Thomas, Buscema & Alcala in #7 finds the Cimmerian leading his desert-raiding Zuagirs and attacking a caravan only to be confronted by a sabretooth tiger.

After despatching the wanton killer, Conan learns from the surviving merchants of a great ziggurat with vast riches and only attendant priests to guard them.

Ever-needful of loot to placate his greedy followers, Conan leads an expedition against the eerie edifice but soon finds himself captured and offered up as a sacrificial tool to time wizard Shamash-Shum-Ukin and battling dinosaurs, beasts and brutes from many ages before finally settling his score with the time-meddler…

SSOC #8 offered a wealth of short sharp shockers beginning with ‘The Forever Phial’, illustrated by Tim Conrad doing his best Windsor-Smith riff. Here immortal wizard Ranephi desires to end his interminable existence and manipulates a certain barbarian into helping him out…

The main part of the issue continues Thomas & Kane’s adaptation of Howard’s King Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon, which had begun in Giant-Size Conan but faltered when Marvel ended their oversized specials line.

‘Corsairs Against Stygia’ – inked by Yong Montano – resumes the tale with shanghaied King Conan leading a slave revolt on the ship he’s been abducted upon. Back in Aquilonia a cabal of nobles backed by Stygian wizard Thutothmes have usurped his throne… Having taking control of the ship Conan opts to infiltrates the evil empire to rescue the stolen talisman known as the Heart of Ahriman and end the conflict…

Wrapping up this segment is Lin Carter’s evocative poem ‘Death Song of Conan the Cimmerian’ adapted by Thomas and Jess Jodloman…

Issue #9 offered another new tale by Thomas & Marcos as Conan’s Zuagirs raid another priest-packed caravan and come under the diabolical influence of a small statue with great power. ‘The Curse of the Cat-Goddess’ corrupts, divides and promises many great things: causing the doom of many brothers in arm before the iron-willed Cimmerian ends its seductive threat…

The adaptation of The Hour of the Dragon finally concludes in this hefty tome’s final chapter as SSOC #10 reveals how ‘Conan the Conqueror’ (rendered by Buscema & The Tribe – a loose agglomeration of Marvel’s Filipino art contingent (Tony DeZuniga; Steve Gan; Rudy Mesina; Freddie Fernandez and others)) sneaks into Stygian capitol Khemi to defeat snake-worshipping priests, immortal vampire queen Akivasha and Thutothmes’ inner circle before stealing back the Heart of Ahriman and heading home to occupied Aquilonia to destroy wizard king Xaltotun and his human lackeys and reclaim his stolen throne…

With a painted covers gallery Рreproduced only in black-&-white here Рby Buscema, Marcos, John Romita, Adams, Boris Vallejo, Mike Kaluta, Ni̱o, Frank Magsino, Frank Brunner and Bob Larkin, plus pin-up/frontispiece art by Marcos, Adams and Esteban Maroto, this weighty collection provides a truly epic experience for all fans of thundering mystic combat and esoteric adventure.

If the clash of arms, roar of monsters, gloating of connivers and destruction of empires sets your pulses racing and blood rushing, this titanic tome is certainly your cup of mead. There are plenty of Thrones in peril, but this all-action extravaganza of sex, slaughter, snow, sand and steel is no Game. Get it and see what real intrigue and barbarism are like…
Savage Sword of Conan® and© 2007 Conan Properties International, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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The Dandy Annual 2017


By many and various (DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.)
ISBN: 978-1-84535-605-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Another Crucial Christmas Staple… 9/10

For many British fans Christmas means The Dandy Annual and Beano Book (although Scots worldwide have a pretty fair claim that the season belongs to them with collections of The Broons and Oor Wullie making every Yule truly cool) and both are available this year to continue a magnificent Seasonal tradition.

The Dandy comic actually predated the Beano by eight months, completely revolutionising the way children’s publications looked and, most importantly, how they were read. Over the decades it produced a bevy of household names that delighted generations and their end of year celebrations were bumper bonanzas of the comic’s weekly stars in brief or extended stories.

The Dandy Annual 2017 is a particularly welcome occasion for traditionalists since the actual comic was cancelled in 2010, subsequently failed as an online edition and now only exists in the minds and failing memories of old folk like me. Moreover the frantic, helter-skelter gag making continues here unabated, just as it always has…

Following the star-studded front (and back) double-page spreads by the Sharp Brothers, timeless superstar super cowboy Desperate Dan gets into more trouble with his colossal Cow Pies thanks to Ken W. Harrison.

Offering four complete strips per page, Funsize Funnies are fast and furious minicomics providing multiple bangs for your buck, with veteran characters such as Korky the Cat, Corporal Clott, Greedy Pigg, Smasher, Bully Beef and Chips and Dirty Dick joining newer turns like Kid Cops and Pinky’s Crackpot Circus. These generally three-panel-wonders come courtesy of modern mirth masters AR!, Lew Stringer, Nick Brennan, Karl Dixon, Nigel Aucterlounie and others and segue neatly into an episodic comedy thriller as Secret Agent Sally and her hapless hunky sidekick Gus investigate an Arctic Science Station and encounter a monster, before the laughs loop back with Nigel Parkinson’s terrible twins Cuddles and Dimples, priming the taste-buds for a team-up tale featuring most of the cast in ‘The Great Dandy Bake-Off’…

Desperate Dan experiences some banking woes before the deeply surreal Pepperoni Pig eludes Big Bad Wolf to deliver her first pizza of the season whilst Beryl the Peril looks for a hobby and only finds trouble. Then Andy Fanton’s Bad Grandad and Mason & Stringer’s Postman Prat pay for their sins and skateboard addict Ollie Fliptrik (Dixon) turns beach sand adversity to his advantage

A lengthy exploit of canine marvel Agent Dog 2 Zero frustrating feline felonies leads to tonsorial terror for Cactusville residents when Aunt Aggie decides it’s time Desperate Dan had a haircut, after which Pepperoni Pig rides her Vespa hard and The Jocks and the Geordies renew their age-old class war…

After Secret Agent Sally turns monster-hunter, Jamie Smart’s My Dad’s a Doofus proves the folly of fast food and Bad Grandad nearly spoils Christmas, as a prelude to another octet of Funsize Funnies. More parental grief is provided by Cuddles and Dimples before schoolboy Charley Brand and his robot pal Brassneck resurface to play one too many classroom pranks…

Postman Prat has a snow day after which Wilbur Dawbarn revives devious child of privilege Winker Watson to again wreak terror on the masters at his boarding school whilst Beryl the Peril goes ballooning with Greedy Pigg and Corporal Clott.

Boy boffin Blinky modernises letter writing to Santa, Pepperoni Pig clashes with the wolf again and snow proves no obstacle to wheel-crazy stunter Ollie Fliptrik.

There are plenty of reprise opportunities for Brassneck, My Dad’s a Doofus, the Funsize Funnies gang, Desperate Dan, Blinky, Bad Grandad and Cuddles and Dimples before Secret Agent Sally and Gus broach a master villain’s icy lair and the Jocks and the Geordies finally find something to agree on…

Another colossal star-studded collaboration finds all the Dandy regulars competing in dire dance-off ‘Sickly Come Dancing’. Then it’s back to jolly solo strips for Brassneck, Winker Watson, My Dad’s a Doofus, Pepperoni Pig, Postman Prat, Blinky and the Funsize crowd before Ollie Fliptrik makes merry mayhem…

The cataclysmic conclusion of Secret Agent Sally’s icy escapade follows short stints from Beryl, Grandad, Dan and Cuddles and Dimples and then it’s one more wave of madcap mirth from the cast in solo stories before Desperate Dan closes the book and brings the house down for another year…

A great big (285 x 215 mm), full colour hardback, The Dandy Annual provides an unmissable Xmas treat; as it has for generations of kids and grandparents, and this year the wealth of talent and accumulations of fun are as grand as they ever were.

Fast, funny and timelessly exuberant, this is a true bulwark of British culture and national celebration at this time of year. Have you got yours yet?
© DC Thomson & Co., Ltd 2016.

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Yakari and River of Forgetfulness (volume 10)


By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominque, translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-140-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Cartoon Perfection… 10/10

Children’s magazine Le Crapaud à lunettes was founded in 1964 by Swiss journalist André Jobin who then wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre who chose the working name “Derib”. The illustrator had begun his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs/The Smurfs), working on Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Spirou. Together they created the splendid Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure comics gold a few of years later with their next collaboration.

Launched in 1969, Yakari detailed the life of a young Oglala Lakota boy on the Great Plains; sometime after the introduction of horses by the Conquistadores but before the coming of the modern White Man. This year has been a landmark one. The 39th album was released – a testament to the strip’s evergreen vitality and the quality of its creators – and Job announced his retirement. Further albums will be written by Joris Chamblain.

Overflowing with gentle whimsy, Yakari enjoys a largely bucolic existence; at one with nature and generally free from strife. For the sake of our delectation, however, the ever-changing seasons are punctuated with the odd crisis, generally resolved without fuss, fame or fanfare by a little lad who is smart, compassionate, brave… and can converse with all animals…

Derib – equally at home with enticing, comically dynamic “Marcinelle” cartoon style yarns and devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustrated action epics – went on to become one of Europe’s most prolific and revered creators. It’s a crime that such groundbreaking strips as Celui-qui-est-né-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic on AIDS ever published), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne) haven’t been translated into English yet, but we still patiently wait in hope and anticipation…

Many of Derib’s stunning works over the decades feature his beloved Western themes, magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes and Yakari is considered by fans and critics to be the feature which first led him to deserved mega-stardom. Continentally released in 1989, La rivière de l’oubli was the 15th European album (and now Cinebook’s tenth translated tome): a compellingly rendered, superbly suspenseful yarn offering dazzling wonder and guaranteed enjoyment from a minimum of foreknowledge…

Whilst riding on his valiant pony Little Thunder, Yakari spots a bear cub in distress over a waterfall and rushes in to save it. The noble act ends in disaster as both are washed away in the rushing torrent. Then the little boy sustains a hard blow to the head in the foaming waters…

Some time later he washes ashore far downstream and is picked up by a distressed, confused she-bear who has lost her cub. When the battered little one in her arms calls her “momma” she makes a potentially tragic assumption and carries Yakari off to her den…

Little Thunder meanwhile has traced the river to the spot where his friend emerged. Finding nothing, the wonder pony returns to the camp and informs Yakari’s human friends Rainbow and Buffalo Seed of the accident. After all three have exhausted every avenue of search, they dejectedly call off the search.

Back in the cave the strange cub finally awakes. His head hurts and he can’t remember his name or anything really, so is understandably relieved when the bear tells him she’s his mother. Apparently, her playful, wayward Honeycomb was lost and had an accident and the Great Spirit changed his scent and appearance, but now that mother has found him again all will be well…

The next day she begins teaching him how to be a bear again, but this oddly transformed cub is just so weak and feeble. Conversely, he begins to wonder if there has been some kind of terrible mistake…

As his friends continue their hunt for him, “Honeycomb” greets another new day with growing anxiety. He’s failing every simple task mother sets him, and all too soon her patience is exhausted. Everything changes when she gives the cub a light cuff that sends him flying across a clearing. When his head stops spinning, Yakari instantly realises what’s happening and is soon consoling a heartbroken mother who now realises her son is gone.

Yakari is not so sure though, and whilst searching near the river stumbles upon Rainbow and Buffalo Seed riding Little Thunder. Joyously reunited, they renew their efforts to bring Momma bear and Honeycomb back together…

Whilst maintaining gripping tension, Job’s joyously inventive tale is a stripped down marvel of restraint, allowing Derib’s beguiling artwork and boisterous pacing to carry the tale to its inevitable happy ending: another visually stunning, seductively smart and happily heart-warming saga to delight young and old alike.

Yakari is one of the most unfailingly entertaining all-ages strip every conceived and deserves to be in every home, right beside Tintin and Asterix.
Original edition © Le Lombard (Dargaud- Lombard S. A.) 1989 Derib + Job. English translation 2012 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Through the Habitrails: Life Before and After My Career in the Cubicles


By Jeff Nicholson (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80286-2

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epic Self-Exploration and Terrifyingly Revelatory Erudition… 9/10

To cheekily hijack a common aphorism, Comics Will Eat Itself whenever an opportunity occurs. The way creators, readers, devotees and collectors respond to the medium is infinitely fascinating to us and has formed the basis of many stellar strips and novels: not just in the arena of Graphic Autobiography but also in other picture/prose genres…

For a brief while and every so often, Jeff Nicholson was a comicbook creator. His most well known works are probably 1980s self-published satirical parody series Ultra Klutz and the award-winning Colonia. After this last concluded in 2006, Nicholson quit comics.

Somewhere in between those two radically different creations, he produced one of the scariest yet most compelling ruminations on the experiences and compulsions of making picture stories and working as an artist-for-hire ever put to paper.

From 1990 to 1997 Through the Habitrails appeared episodically in Steve Bissette’s groundbreaking horror anthology Taboo and there has never been a better examination of an (extra)ordinary guy being creative on command, turning visual tricks and drafting wonders whilst under corporate pressure and an obsessive personal need to make art…

Moreover, he crafted the experience as a mesmerising blend of autobiography and toxic, paranoid terror-tale; rendered even more isolating and crushing by adopting a fiercely bleak science fictional tone and deeply symbolic method of illustration…

After Matt Fraction qualifies the vicissitudes of the modern work experience in his ‘Foreword’ Bissette’s Introduction offers history, context and untrammelled appreciation in ‘Never on Monday: Through the 21st Century Habitrails’ and ends by explaining how Nicholson was persuaded to return to his sinister seminal work to update – if not placate – his growing legion of (perhaps unwanted) admirers…

Lettered throughout by Chad Woody, the cartoon catharsis begins with ‘Increasing the Gerbils’ as a literally faceless wage slave – drawing to order in a corporate studio which is only a small division of a massive mercantile monolith – describes his increasingly intolerable life. The office is crammed and ponderously industrious and incorporates tubes and tunnels in the walls where creepy rodents run maze-like from room to room: a Byzantine and barely explicable connection with the serried, unknowable Powers That Be…

None too slowly, the line between employee and subject beast of burden begins to blur…

Another unwholesome aspect of the job is how Management wanders the halls, arbitrarily tapping the workers and consuming their vital spirit, as grimly revealed in ‘It’s Not Your Juice’…

The steps taken to remain an individual are touched on in ‘No End’ and pitifully laid out in ‘Jar Head’ as the worker describes the use and variety of intoxicants used by the not-quite-captive Creatives to maintain output before his attention shifts to describing the fate of ‘The Doomed One’: the worker who did not bend to an oppressive, self-selected yoke but instead tried to rebel. Her fate was incomprehensible and appalling but not unexpected…

Such pressure to perform can not be endured forever and our pictorial peon eventually found release in walking and wandering in his downtime. The shocking repercussions of ‘Escape #1: “El Muerte”’ were expansive but still tantalised him with a promise of better… once he returned to work…

Not all needs can be met by the benefits of being a corporate drudge. Nevertheless, it’s the most likely place to meet potential mates. When ‘Futile Love’ happens and goes horribly wrong, naturally it provokes another deviation from protocol and ‘Escape #2: “The Dry Creek Bed”’ quietly carries him far away but ultimately only back to where he started from…

The unshakable drive to resist only brings uncomfortable attention from the managers who simply demand ‘Be Creative’, but after another pointless close call the worker heads home and in a barren wasteland discovers a possible answer to all his problems: a weapon he secretes as a tiny, prospective notion of rebellion he chooses to call ‘Animal Control’…

With a glint of hope and a possible ally in reserve, the thought that one of his fellows might be untrustworthy begins to dominate, but the truth about and fate of ‘The Infiltrator’ leaves nobody wiser or happier…

The hunger for space and wish for clarity push the artist into ever-greater unsanctioned ventures but ‘Escape #3: “Concow”’ again proves that no matter how far you go, what awaits is never going to be a welcome surprise…

A near-escapee who was dragged back into the fold attempts to rationalise his twice-lost liberty with the suffocating security of wage slavery and constant draining by creating an exposé. Sadly his assumptions about the value and efficacy of his ‘Dark Spiral’ can only end one way and the artist must resort to collusion with his dark side as delineated by ever-encroaching sometime ally ‘The Gerbil King’…

With work and notional reality fully at war, a catastrophic climax approaches as ‘Jimmy’ enters his life and changes everything forever…

Was that all a little vague? I certainly hope so because this is something you really need to work your way through on your own. The tone fits though: don’t read this unless and until you’re psyched up and suitably apprehensive…

The material has been collected a number of times since it first appeared but this superb Dover Edition offers what we smart-arse cognoscenti never expected: a continuation of the tale and dialogue with the creator from a place and position far less dark than that animal-infested region of the 1990s.

Preceding an ‘Afterword by Jeff Nicholson’ and the now-mandatory ‘About the Author’ feature, the comics self-diagnosis concludes with ‘Epilogue 1: Beyond the Habitrails’ and ‘Epilogue 2: Ghost Town Studio’: bringing us up to date in an equally abstracted but far more upbeat manner and supposing that at the end of some tunnels – or tubes – there can be light, not darkness…

Barbed with allegory, using metaphor like a scalpel and employing all the darkly surreal glamour and oppressive verve of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich, this potent dose of exploratory surgery for the soul simultaneously dissects why comics are made and why some of us must make them whilst telling one of the scariest tales of modern times.

Although certainly an acquired taste, Through the Habitrails is a must-see, never-forget graphic novel for anybody with a vested of intellectual interest in the Ninth Art.
© 1994, 1996, 2016 by Jeff Nicholson. Foreword © 2016 Matt Fraction. Introduction © 1996 Stephen Russell Bissette. All rights reserved.

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Batman: The Golden Age volume 1


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Whitney Ellsworth, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-6333-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Vintage Comicbook Perfection… 10/10

For anyone who’s read more than a few of these posts, my tastes should be fairly apparent, but in case you’re in any doubt, here’s a flat-out confession: I’m that shabby, possibly crazy old geezer muttering at the checkout about how things were better before, and all new things are crap and not the same and…

You get the picture. Now, ignore all that. It’s true but it’s not relevant here.

Batman: The Golden Age is the latest paperback-format (there’s also a weightier, pricier but more capacious hardback Omnibus available) re-presentation of the Dark Knight’s earliest exploits.

Set in original chronological order, it forgoes glossy, high-definition paper and reproduction techniques in favour of a newsprint-adjacent feel and the same flat, bright-yet-muted colour palette which graced the originals.

There’s no fuss, fiddle or Foreword, and the book steams straight into the meat of the matter with the accumulated first year and a half of material masked mystery-man plus all those stunning covers spanning Detective Comics #27-45; Batman #1-3 and the Dynamic Duo’s story from New York World’s Fair Comics 1940; cumulatively covering all the groundbreaking escapades from May 1939-November 1940.

As Eny Fule Kno, Detective #27 spotlighted the Gotham Guardian’s debut in the ‘Case of the Chemical Syndicate!’ by Bob Kane and close collaborator/co-originator Bill Finger.

This spartan, understated yarn introduced dilettante playboy criminologist Bruce Wayne, drawn into a straightforward crime-caper wherein a cabal of industrialists were successively murdered. The killings stopped when an eerie figure dubbed “The Bat-Man” intruded on Police Commissioner Gordon‘s stalled investigation and ruthlessly exposed and dealt with the hidden killer.

The next issue saw the fugitive vigilante return to crush ‘Frenchy Blake’s Jewel Gang’ before encountering his very first psychopathic killer and returning villain in Detective #29. Gardner Fox scripted the next few adventures beginning with ‘The Batman Meets Doctor Death’, featuring a deadly duel of wits with deranged, greedy general practitioner Karl Hellfern and his assorted instruments of murder: the most destructive and diabolical of which was sinister Asiatic manservant Jabah…

Confident of their new villain’s potential, Kane, Fox and inker Sheldon Mayer encored the mad medic for the next instalment in ‘The Return of Doctor Death’, before Fox and Finger co-scripted a 2-part shocker which introduced the first bat-plane, Bruce’s girlfriend Julie Madison and undead horror The Monk in an expansive, globe-girdling spooky saga. ‘Batman Versus the Vampire’ concluded in an epic chase across Eastern Europe and a spectacular climax in a monster-filled castle in issue #32.

Detective Comics #33 featured Fox & Kane’s ‘The Batman Wars Against the Dirigible of Doom’: a blockbusting disaster thriller which just casually slipped in the secret origin of the Gotham Guardian, as mere prelude to intoxicating air-pirate action, after which Euro-trash dastard Duc D’Orterre found his uncanny science and unsavoury appetites no match for the mighty Batman in ‘Peril in Paris’.

Bill Finger returned as lead scripter in issue #35, pitting the Cowled Crusader against crazed cultists murdering everyone who had seen their sacred jewel in ‘The Case of the Ruby Idol’ – although the many deaths were actually caused by a far more prosaic villain, after which grotesque criminal genius ‘Professor Hugo Strange’ (inked by new kid Jerry Robinson) debuted with his murderous man-made fog and lightning machine in #36, and all-pervasive enemy agents ‘The Spies’ ultimately proved no match for the vengeful masked Manhunter in #37.

Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) changed the landscape of comicbooks forever with the introduction of ‘Robin, The Boy Wonder’: child trapeze artist Dick Grayson whose parents were murdered before his eyes and who thereafter joined Batman in a lifelong quest for justice, by bringing to justice mobster mad dog Boss Zucco…

After the Flying Grayson’s killers were captured, Batman #1 (Spring 1940) opened proceedings with a recycled origin culled from portions of Detective Comics #33 and 34. ‘The Legend of the Batman – Who He Is and How He Came to Be!’ by Fox, Kane & Moldoff offered in two perfect pages what is still the best ever origin of the character, after which ‘The Joker’ (Finger, Kane & Robinson – who produced all the remaining tales in this astonishing premiere issue) introduced the greatest villain in DC’s criminal pantheon via a stunning tale of extortion and wilful wanton murder.

‘Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters’ follows as the old adversary returns with laboratory-grown hyperthyroid horrors to rampage through the terrified city and ‘The Cat’ – who later added the suffix ‘Woman’ to her name to avoid any possible doubt or confusion – plied her felonious trade of jewel theft aboard the wrong cruise-liner and fell foul for the first time of the dashing Dynamic Duo.

The initial issue ends with the ‘The Joker Returns’ as the sinister clown breaks jail to resume his terrifying campaign of murder for fun and profit before “dying” in mortal combat with the Gotham Guardian.

Following a superb pin-up (originally the back cover of the premier issue) of the Dynamic Duo by Kane, the tense suspense and all-out action continues with Detective #39 and ‘The Horde of the Green Dragon’ – oriental Tong killers in Chinatown – by Finger, Kane & Robinson, after which ‘Beware of Clayface!’ finds the Dynamic Duo solving a string of murders on a film set which almost sees Julie Madison the latest victim of a monstrous movie maniac…

Batman and Robin solved the baffling mystery of a kidnapped boy in Detective #41’s ‘A Master Murderer’ before enjoying their second solo outing in four comics classics from Batman #2 (Summer 1940).

It begins with ‘Joker Meets Cat-Woman’ (Finger, Kane, Robinson & new find George Roussos) wherein svelte thief, homicidal jester and a crime syndicate all tussle for the same treasure with the Caped Crusaders caught in the middle.

‘Wolf, the Crime Master’ offers a fascinating take on the classic Jekyll & Hyde tragedy after which an insidious and ingenious murder-mystery ensues in ‘The Case of the Clubfoot Murderers’ before Batman and Robin confront uncanny savages and ruthless showbiz promoters in poignant monster story ‘The Case of the Missing Link’.

‘Batman and Robin Visit the New York World’s Fair’ comes from the second New York World’s Fair Comics. Finger, Kane & Roussos followed the vacationing Dynamic Duo as they track down a maniac mastermind with a metal-dissolving ray, after which Detective Comics #42 again finds our heroes ending another murder maniac’s rampage in ‘The Case of the Prophetic Pictures!’ before clashing with a corrupt mayor in #43’s ‘The Case of the City of Terror!’

An unparallelled hit, Batman stories never rested on their laurels. The creators always sought to expand their parameters as with Detective #44 and a nightmarish fantasy of giants and goblins in ‘The Land Behind the Light!’, after which Batman #3 (Fall 1940) has Finger, Kane, Robinson & Roussos rise to even greater heights, beginning with ‘The Strange Case of the Diabolical Puppet Master’: an eerie episode of uncanny mesmerism and infamous espionage…

Then a grisly scheme ensues as innocent citizens are mysteriously transformed into specimens of horror and artworks destroyed by the spiteful commands of ‘The Ugliest Man in the World’ before ‘The Crime School for Boys!!’ sees Robin infiltrate a gang who have a cruel and cunning recruitment plan for dead-end kids…

‘The Batman vs. the Cat-Woman’ then reveals the larcenous lady in well over her head when she steals for – and from – the wrong people…

The issue also offered a worthy Special Feature as ‘The Batman Says’ presented an illustrated prose Law & Order pep-talk crafted by Whitney Ellsworth and illustrated by Robinson…

The all-out action concludes here with a magnificent and horrific Joker jape from Detective Comics #45 as ‘The Case of the Laughing Death’ displays the Harlequin of Hate undertaking a campaign of macabre murder against everyone who has ever defied or offended him…

Including full Creator biographies and with Batman covers by Kane, Robinson & Roussos and all the other general action ones by Fred Guardineer & Creig Flessel, this is a stunning monument to exuberance and raw talent. Kane, Robinson and their compatriots created an iconography which carried the Batman feature well beyond its allotted life-span until later creators could re-invigorate it. They added a new dimension to children’s reading… and their work is still captivatingly accessible.

Moreover, these early stories set the standard for comic superheroes. Whatever you like now, you owe it to these stories. Superman gave us the idea, but writers like Finger and Fox refined and defined the meta-structure of the costumed crime-fighter.

Where the Man of Steel was as much Social Force and wish fulfilment as hero, Batman and Robin did what we ordinary mortals wanted to do. They taught bad people the lessons they deserved…

These are tales of elemental power and joyful exuberance, brimming with deep mood and addictive action. Comicbook heroics simply don’t come any better.

One final thing: I’m still that guy in paragraph one, right? I’ve read these stories many, many times, in every format imaginable, and I’d like to thank whoever decided that they should also be available in as close a facsimile to the originals as we can get these days.

More than anything else, this serves to perfectly recapture the mood and impact of that revolutionary masked avenger and, of course, delights my heavily concealed inner child no end.
© 1939, 1940, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Sidney Smith’s The Gumps


By Sidney Smith, edited and compiled by Herb Galewitz (Charles Scribner’s Sons)
ISBN: 978-0-68413-997-5

Chances are you’ve never heard of him, but Robert Sidney Smith (February 13th 1877-October 20th 1935) is probably one of the most influential creators in the history of popular entertainment. A pretty big claim, I admit, but true nonetheless.

Smith was a pioneer of what we call continuity and the most successful early cartoonist to move the medium on from situational, gag-a-day variations on a theme (a style which dominates again today in almost all popular strips like B.C., Blondie or Beetle Bailey) and build a relationship based on progress with his avid audience.

The Gumps grew from a notion of influential comic strip Svengali Joseph Medill Patterson – Editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune – who shaped the development of such iconic institutions as Little Orphan Annie, Gasoline Alley, Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates and so many more. He handed the idea to Smith to make magic with….

The ongoing saga of a middle class American family began in 1917 and ran for 42 years, inviting readers to share the – largely comedic – tribulations of chinless wonder Andy Gump, his formidable wife Minerva, son Chester, cat Hope, dog Buck and fearsome elderly cook/housemaid Tilda.

Andy was a regular blowhard with lots of schemes to make his fortune, Min was shrewish and nagging, the boys were troublesome and Tilda was a nosy tartar. The domestic scene occasional drifted into thrilling adventure and flights of fancy whenever eccentric, two-fisted globetrotting millionaire Uncle Bim paid a visit…

It sounds hackneyed now, but that’s because The Gumps wrote the book on what daily story narratives should be: a lot of laughs, plenty of vicarious judgement, the occasional tragedy, oodles of long-drawn out tension and characters everyone recognised if not actually identified with…

Having enticed and beguiled a nation, The Gumps was one of the earliest strips to make the jump to celluloid. More than four dozen Universal Pictures 2-reel comedies were released between 1923- 1928 starring Joe Murphy as the gormless patriarch. These followed fifty or more animated cartoons produced and directed by Wallace A. Carlson with scripts credited to Smith which were first seen between in 1920 and 1921.

The Gumps became an early sensation of radio (1931-1937), paving the way for all later family soap operas which mimicked the irresistible format.

Most importantly, as the strip progressed, its growing popularity became a key driver in the rise of comics syndication. Eventually Sidney Smith’s baby was being seen across America and the world and he became one of the most highly-paid artists in the history of the medium.

His salary was enormous and kept rising. The grateful Patterson frequently rewarded him with a new extravagance to show his gratitude. The legend goes that racing mad speed-freak Smith was driving his latest luxury Rolls Royce when he died in a smash-up in 1935…

After his shocking death, Patterson parachuted in sports cartoonist Gus Edson. He was a creditable replacement but the indefinable pizzazz was gone. Whether it was something unique to Smith or simply that times were changing will never be known. Readership declined steadily – although it took decades – and the feature finally folded on October 17th 1959, by which time less than twenty papers carried it.

There will probably never be a comprehensive or complete Gumps collection: the art is still wonderful and most of the gags remain well-conceived and effective. The real problem is the pacing and verbosity of the text in the panels.

Smith was writing and drawing a new way to tell stories and had to be sure the majority of his audience were with him. For lots of modern readers, blessed with a hundred years of progress, much of the material can seem interminably slow. Not so back then: many of Smith’s boldest innovations caused uproar and shock on a periodic basis…

This sterling monochrome landscape hardback from 1974 (254 x 231 x 23 mm) offers the best of all possible worlds; extracting salient snippets, events and extracts from key storylines whilst providing fascinating commentary and context where necessary…

On Thursday February 8th 1917 Sidney Smith’s funny animal strip Old Doc Yak ended with the sagacious ruminant moving out of their house and wondering who the next tenants might be. The following Monday – February 12th – the doors opened on the Gump clan. The magic started strong and just kept on going…

Packed with photos and plenty of astonishing facts, Herb Galewitz’s ‘Introduction’ offers the run-down on the strip and its creator whilst also providing a glimpse at the star in the making through ‘Sidney Smith’s Sports Cartoons’. Also revealed are ‘The Last Old Doc Yak’ strip and a handy pictorial introduction to the cast before ‘The Early Years – 1917-20’ sees the stories begin to unfold…

Scenes of wedded bliss and domestic contention abound as Andy and Min contend with household chores, wayward furnaces, gardening, child-rearing and each other. As ticked off as they got, the happy marrieds seldom let their adversarial moments linger or fester…

‘Andy On Vacation – 1922’ shows our hero’s take on bucolic pastimes such as fishing, hiking and cooking after he and Min take separate holidays and Andy finds himself at a lakeside cabin with the least welcoming couple in history. Mr. Gump doesn’t mind: it takes all sorts and he’s willing to be accommodating…

The satire cup overflows when the pontificating prawn then enters politics. ‘Andy Runs for Congress – 1922’ provides plenty of scope for character assassination, skulduggery and corrupt shenanigans before all the votes are finally cast and counted…

The Gumps really hit its peak after moving en masse into melodrama as with ‘The Vindication of Tom Carr – 1929’ wherein romantic series regular Mary Gold‘s one true love is wrongfully convicted of robbery. Smith sagely portrayed the trial in daily bulletins which built tension and sympathy in equal amounts. When the travesty of justice saw the real culprit rapaciously move in on Mary, the assembled readership was aghast and astoundingly vocal in their protests…

They went absolutely crazy when the vile predator’s machinations led shockingly to ‘The Death of Mary Gold – 1929’. The story then moved from the comics section to the Front Page as readers registered their disapproval even as the sales of papers carrying the strip skyrocketed…

Uncle Bim was an exotic semi-regular whose appearances always caused sparks. His lonely years of prospecting and wealth-gathering looked likely to end when he met Millie De Stross but her social-climbing mother had other ideas. These brought her to near ruin when the gullible old lady met unscrupulous embezzler and conman Townsend Zander who masqueraded as royalty in ‘The Count Bessford Affair – 1933’…

With Mama firmly in the crook’s pocket, the scoundrel demanded marriage to Millie as part of his illegally-obtained payment. When that went wrong he resorted to kidnap and blackmail.

The audience was breathless and terrified. Their favourite funny page feature had a track record of letting the good guys suffer and killing off heroines…

When ‘The Disappearance of Uncle Bim – 1933’ was finally resolved, the distraught millionaire and his intended rushed to the altar but Zander had one last card to play, resulting in ‘A Foiled Wedding! – 1934’…

The villain’s outrageous claim to have already wed Millie led to more courtroom drama and ‘A Legal Hassle! – 1934’ which allowed the reprehensible and haughty Mama De Stross to sue Bim for his fortune, so Andy took the beleaguered suitor to his old holiday haunt for ‘An Interlude at Shady Rest – 1934’…

Batteries fully recharged, the irrepressible Gumps returned to the fray and at last defeated Zander and Mrs. De Stross, resulting in a long-delayed happy ending of sorts with ‘Bim and Millie, United at Last – 1934’.

Of course that meant the newlyweds had to cope with ‘Mama De Stross, Mother In Law – 1934′…

These too-brief tastes of Smith’s amazing graphic narrative achievements are supplemented by a selection of shorter vignettes such as a glimpse at the unique service of housemaid ‘Tilda’ and the wiles of child prodigy ‘Chester Gump’ as well as a peek at successor ‘Gus Edson’s The Gumps‘.

Also on view is an appreciation of Smith’s gag-panel displaying the oriental wisdom of ‘Ching Chow’.

Although disquieting – if not actually disturbing – to modern eyes, this philosophy-spouting comedy Chinaman first appeared on January 27th 1927 and on Smith’s death was taken over by Stanley Link. Regarded as an irreplaceable cartoon “fortune cookie” by many editors, the panel was crafted by a succession of creators and ran until June 4th 1990, outliving The Gumps by almost forty years…

The examples seen here are counterbalanced by a ‘Comparison of Chester Gump and Stanley Link’s Tiny Tim‘ and followed by a photo-feature ‘Miscellany’ displaying a wide range of Gumps books and merchandise to end this cartoon celebration…

Studious and genuinely enticing for students of the comic form and anybody interested in the development of both soap operas and sitcoms, this book provides insight and a fascinating visual tour of a phenomenon and world we’ve mostly outgrown, but one worth celebrating for all that.
© 1974 The Chicago Tribune/N.Y. News Syndicate Inc. All rights reserved.

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Beano Annual 2017


By many and various (DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.)
ISBN: 978-1-84535-603-3

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: No Christmas Complete Without One… 9/10

For many British fans Christmas means The Beano Book and/or its companion tome The Dandy – although Scots worldwide have a pretty fair claim that the season belongs to them with collections of The Broons and Oor Wullie making every Yule truly cool. Happily in these parlous times of uncertainty both are available this year to maintain a magnificent Seasonal tradition and a smidgen of comforting stability.

Unmissable treats for generations of kids and grandparents, this year both great big (285 x 215 mm) full-colour hardback Annual offerings are packed with a wealth of talent and as great as ever…

Beano Annual 2017 takes us through key points of the year and offers a wildly anarchic gathering of stars, opening and closing with chaotically star-stuffed double page spreads by Nigel Parkinson.

The panoply of perilous perishing kids unleashes Dennis the Menace and Gnasher, David Sutherland’s Bash Street Kids, Roger the Dodger, Gnasher and Gnipper!, Calamity James, Minnie the Minx and Bananaman in daily doses of crime and punishments – and the cartoon attractions do so on a regular basis throughout the book as they track through a year in the life of the characters…

However, colossal themed team-ups are all the rage these days, so we have some of those too, as Beanotown Adventures offers a shocking mash-up of little horrors amusing in unison.

Nigel Parkinson delineates the Valentine’s Day calamity after Minnie gets hold of Cupid’s machine gun and starts dispensing love-bullets to all and sundry, providing unspeakable horror and embarrassment to the other characters all over town…

Shorter strips that follow include Nigel Aucterlounie’s The Numskulls, more Bash Street Kids, Wilbur Dawbarn’s Billy Whizz and return engagements for Roger, Dennis, Gnasher, and Minnie, whose time-travel caper takes us from January to St. George’s Day. Then Ball Boy and Bananaman endure inclement weather and the hay fever rites of Spring…

Easter with the Bash Street Kids leads to another multi-star Beanotown Adventure set on a flatulence-filled May Fourth – yes! Star Wars Day…

The recurring cast pop up thick and fast in quick solo japes or extended excursions such as Bananaman’s clash with the book’s recurring masked villain “Boy Genius”

Amongst the storm of madcap mayhem, Laura Howell’s know-it-all Angel Face puts her foot down and The Numskulls endure even more allergy aggro in Edd’s Head before the Bash Streeters have their own brush with Boy Genius.

More solo strips from old pals then carry us into high summer as ‘Beach Bother’ sees the entire unsavoury cast hit the seaside for another aggregated Beanotown Adventure…

Diverse hands take all those sullen kids ‘Back to School’ and all too soon Halloween rears its misshapen, badly carved orange heads; but even doughty Bananaman can’t stop the little louts sneaking out to a stone age monument for a mass Beanotown party only to encounter ‘The Creature from the Big Rocks Henge!’…

All too soon it’s Yule time again and after a silly streak of solo stories, the cast all reunite for the big closer as the esteemed Mr. Dickens gets a hilarious kicking in ‘A Christmas Beano Carol’…

Fast, irreverent and timelessly exuberant, The Beano Annual is a cornerstone of British culture and national celebration at this time of year. Have you got yours yet?
© DC Thomson & Co., Ltd 2016.

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Rocket Raccoon and Groot Complete Collection


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Bill Mantlo, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Keith Giffen, Mike Mignola, Timothy Green II & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6713-6

Although heralded since its genesis in the early 1960s with making superheroes more realistic, The House of Ideas has also always maintained its close connection with outlandish and outrageous cosmic calamity (as seen in their pre-superhero “monster-mag” days), and their pantheon of much-travelled space stalwarts maintain that delightful “Anything Goes” attitude in all of their many and varied iterations.

The pair of interstellar oddments featured here are creative oddments who took a very long time to achieve their stellar potential and have done particularly well out of recent reboots and re-imaginings: both in comicbooks and through large and small screen reinterpretations…

Collecting Groot’s debut from Tales to Astonish #13; Incredible Hulk # 271, Rocket Raccoon volume 1 #1-4, and pertinent material from Marvel Preview #7, Annihilators #1-4 and Annihilators: Earthfall #1-4, collectively ranging from November 1960 to February 2012, this fun-filled paperback compendium offers a wealth of thrills and expansive action and a fair slice of witty satire to boot…

The sidereal shenanigans begin with an absolute classic of the gloriously whacky “Kirby Kritter” genre, predating the birth of the Marvel Age. Crafted by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Kirby & Dick Ayers, ‘I Challenged Groot! The Monster from Planet X’ (Tales to Astonish #13, November/December 1960) reveals how a studious biologist saves humanity from a rapacious walking tree intent on stealing Earth cities and shipping them back to his distant world.

Rocket Raccoon was a minor character who first appeared in backup serial ‘The Sword in the Star’. His debut was in Marvel Preview #7 in 1976 but that particular tale comes later.

In 1982, writer Bill Mantlo brought him into the mainstream of the Marvel Universe with a star role in Incredible Hulk #271 (May). Like Wolverine years before, the hairy iconoclast then simply refused to go away quietly…

Illustrated by Sal Buscema, ‘Now Somewhere In the Black Holes of Sirius Major There Lived a Young Boy Name of… Rocket Raccoon!’ found the jade juggernaut stranded on an alien world where sentient animals used super-scientific gadgetry to battle robot clowns to preserve the security of humans who seemed incapable of caring for themselves. When Green-skin arrived, a simmering civil war broke out…

With the Hulk safely removed from the combat zone, Rocket faded from view for a few years before returning in a newfangled format for comicbooks: a mini series…

The 4-issue Rocket Raccoon miniseries (cover-dated May to August 1985 and crafted by Mantlo, Mike Mignola, Al Gordon & Al Milgrom) presented a bizarre and baroque sci-fi fantasy blending the charm of Pogo with the biting social satire of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest all whilst ostensibly describing a battle between Good and Evil in a sector of space crazy even by funnybook standards.

Rocket was one of many talking animals in the impenetrable, inescapable Keystone Quadrant; a Ranger in charge of keeping the peace in a troubled atmosphere where robots and anamorphic beasties went about their ordained task of caring for the distinctly odd and carefree humans known as The Loonies on their idyllic, sybaritic planet Halfworld.

When a brutal shooting war between voracious apex toymakers Judson Jakes and Lord Dyvyne leads to Rocket’s girlfriend Lylla Otter being kidnapped, the planet goes crazy wild, or perhaps… ‘Animal Crackers’.

In rescuing her, Rocket and faithful deputy Wal Rus have to contend with a murderous army of mechanised Killer Clowns, face an horrific, all-consuming bio-weapon at ‘The Masque of the Red Breath’, and even team up with arch-foe and disreputable mercenary bunny Blackjack O’Hare in ‘The Book of Revelations!’ before finally uncovering the horrendous truth behind the mad society they so unquestioningly defend…

The final chapter shakes everything up as ‘The Age of Enlightenment’ sees the end of The Loonies, allowing the Raccoon and his surviving companions to escape the confines of the eternally segregated Keystone Quadrant into the greater universe beyond…

Next – eschewing continuity but at least presented here in the original monochrome – is that first Rocket romp from Marvel Preview #7.

‘The Sword in the Star’ was an epic combination of Druillet’s Loan Sloane stories with Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, detailing the interstellar search by Prince Wayfinder of Ithacon to find a new home for his dying people. That exodus took them from 1500 years in Earth’s future to prehistory where, on their second stop, the Once and Future King landed on a ‘Witch World!’ where trees tried to kill the imperial exile and a sarcastic, heavily-armed rodent helped him confront a sinister sorceress dubbed Kirke…

Impressively rendered by Keith Giffen in full Euro-mode, the story ended on a cliffhanger you won’t see resolved here…

In 2006 a massive crossover involved most of Marvel’s 21st century space specialists in a spectacular Annihilation Event, leading writing team Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning to confiscate and reconfigure the Guardians of the Galaxy concept for modern times and tastes.

Among the stalwarts in the big event were Silver Surfer, Galactus, Firelord (and other previous heralds of the world-eater), Moondragon, Quasar, Star-Lord, Thanos, Super–Skrull, Rigellian Colonizer Tana Nile, Gamora (“Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy”), Ronan the Accuser, Nova, Drax the Destroyer, a Watcher and many previously established alien civilisations such as the Kree, Skrulls, Xandarians, Shi’ar et al., all falling before an invasion of rapacious Negative Zone bugs and beasties unleashed by insectoid horror Annihilus..

After that shooting match subsided the decimated sectors and empires were left helpless as all-subsuming technological parasite The Phalanx struck, absorbing and thriving inside the machines and electronic engines the shaken civilisations were using to rebuild in a follow-up apocalypse designated Annihilation: Conquest.

To counter the threat Star-Lord Peter Quill was tasked with turning a bunch of Kree convicts into a Penal Strike Force (a highly engaging intergalactic Dirty Half-Dozen): Galactic Warrior Bug (originally from 1970’s phenomenon Micronauts), then-current Captain Universe, Shi’ar berserker Deathcry, failed Celestial Madonna Mantis, Groot and a so-very-far-from-home Rocket Raccoon…

From those sidereal sagas came a new Guardians of the Galaxy plus a pack of Cosmic Crusaders known as Annihilators. Their first 4-issue miniseries spanned May to August 2011 and carried a back-up strip starring Rocket and Groot by Abnett, Lanning and Timothy Green II.

After the wars, not all the heroes were feted – or even remembered – and Rocket is forced to take a job in the mail room of intergalactic corporation ‘Timely Inc’. He loathes the entire experience but when somebody sends a Killer Clown after him soon slips into old habits and goes looking for guns, grenades and answers…

He doesn’t find them on Planet X when seeking out Groot, but does save his old pal from certain death in ‘There is Unrest in the Forest, There is Trouble with the Trees’…

When Groot speaks of events Rocket can’t remember, the little warrior realises his mind has been tampered with and the trail leads right back to Halfworld…

The place has completely changed. ‘It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World’ now, containing the most dangerous mind in creation, and once Rocket discovers who excised his memories and why, it’s only a little leap of imagination to realise he’s been drawn into a subtle snare with potentially catastrophic consequences…

Armed with knowledge – and heavy ordnance – he and Groot then shut down the manipulator and save the universe through a carefully applied ‘Brain Storm’…

In November 2011 Annihilators: Earthfall offered another 4-issue miniseries with Abnett, Lanning & Green reprising Rocket and Groot’s danger-magnet escapades at the back of each. In ‘Batteries Not Included’ our unlikely heroes find themselves in one perilous situation after another with no idea of how they got there.

Only gradually do they realise they’ve been kidnapped by insidious impresario Mojo: turned into unwilling showmen and merchandising franchise with the prospect of painful death arising at every moment.

Understandably unhappy, they renegotiate terms in the most destructive manner possible…

This razor-sharp, spectacular slice of riotous star-roving action is a non-stop feast of tense suspense, surreal fun and blockbuster action: well-tailored, on-target and certain to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comics incarnation.
© 2013 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde volume 3: The Birthday of the Infanta


Adapted by P. Craig Russell with Galen Showman (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-214-5 (Signed HC)        978-1-56163-775-1 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Comicbook Gift of the Graphic Magi… 9/10

Craig Russell began his illustrious career in comics during the early 1970s and came to fame young with a groundbreaking run on science fiction adventure series Killraven, Warrior of the Worlds.

Although his increasingly fanciful, meticulous classicist style was derived from the great illustrators of Victorian and Edwardian heroic fantasy and his visual flourishes of Art Nouveau were greatly at odds with the sausage-factory deadlines and sensibilities of the mainstream comicbook industry, the sheer power and beauty of his illustrative work made him a huge draw.

By the 1980s he had largely retired from the merciless daily grind, preferring to work on his own projects (generally adapting operas and plays into sequential narratives) whilst undertaking the occasional high-profile Special for the majors – such as Dr. Strange Annual 1976 (totally reworked and re-released as Dr. Strange: What Is It that Disturbs You, Stephen? in 1996) or Batman: Robin 3000.

As our industry grew up and coincided with the global fantasy boom, Russell returned to the comics industry with Marvel Graphic Novel: Elric (1982), further adapting prose tales of Michael Moorcock’s iconic sword-&-sorcery star in the magazine Epic Illustrated and elsewhere.

Russell’s stage-arts adaptations had begun appearing in 1978: first in the independent Star*Reach specials Night Music and Parsifal and then from 1984 at Eclipse Comics where the revived Night Music became an anthological series showcasing his earlier experimental adaptations; not just operatic dramas but also tales from Kipling’s Jungle Books and other favourite literary landmarks.

In 1992, he began adapting the two volumes of Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde – a mission he continues to date, deftly balancing tales of pious allegorical wonderment with a wry touch and clear, heartfelt joy in the originating material of a mercurial misunderstood, much-maligned master of devastating, so-quotable epigrams who was briefly the most popular man in London Society…

First published in May 1888, The Happy Prince and Other Tales was Oscar Fingall O’Flahertie Wills Wilde’s first book for children with the lead story merely one of a quintet of literary gems. The others within were The Nightingale and the Rose, The Devoted Friend, The Remarkable Rocket and The Selfish Giant.

It was followed in 1891 by A House of Pomegranates; Wilde’s second book of stories for children which held The Young King, The Fisherman and his Soul, The Star-Child and our subject today The Birthday of the Infanta, with adaptor Russell utilising all his skills to staggering effect to deliver a masterpiece of sardonic whimsy and casual cruelty.

In the glittering court of the King of Spain, the monarch is celebrating his beautiful daughter’s twelfth birthday. For such an occasion the normally closeted, haughty child is allowed to play with other, lesser youngsters whilst conniving courtiers look on and seek any moment of advantage which might further their own prospects.

There’s little chance of that, however. The King is not the man he was and has languished in growing misery since his beloved wife died soon after delivering the sole heir. So bereft is he at the loss of his flighty French bride’s boundless spirit and joyous joie de vivre that he cannot bear to have her interred. Instead her mummified corpse still occupies the chapel in the grand palace…

Thus the Infanta grew up isolated by her elevated position and swamped with magnificence, drowning in privilege and inundated in all things beautiful, but deprived of companionship. Today she takes full advantage of the youthful playthings around her, revelling in every boisterous dance and all attentions paid by the sons and daughters of the Court. The entertainments are even more thrilling: acrobats, jugglers, jongleurs, dancers, magicians and wild beasts all amaze, but nothing delights the lovely child more than the hideous, malformed dwarf-boy who dances for her, lost in his own simple, insensate world.

The deformed, inadvertent fool is a present from two particularly noxious nobles who had seen him capering innocently in the forests and promptly made off with him. The blithe simpleton knows nothing of this, only that his actions in this immaculate garden of boughs and flowers make the most beautiful creature in the world happy… and that her laughter is music to him…

His idiot caperings concluded, the dwarf is given a perfect white rose by the Infanta before the nobles’ children are escorted away. This casual, indifferent act drives him to even greater paroxysms and in his head a dangerous idea forms…

Later he sneaks into the Palace, finding room after room of breathtaking opulence and dazzling magnificence until he reaches at last the Infanta’s apartments. Curiously peeking in, he spies a coarse, misshapen monster mimicking his every move. Never has he seen such a thing of such utter ugliness…

What follows is one of the saddest, most relentless withering denouements in literature; a thinly-veiled yet ferocious condemnation of the brutal force of vanity and deadly power of surface glamour devastatingly depicted with debilitating detail by Russell and his assistant/letterer Galen Showman.

Bring tissues, and probably a stiff drink. You’ll need them.

A deeply moving, studiously horrific and truly tragic fairytale that shows not all endings are happy or even just, The Birthday of the Infanta displays Wilde’s razor-edged social commentary and scathingly beautiful cynicism to full effect; denying us the requisite happy ending and harbouring a cruel barb to prick and train the conscience…

This unsettling yet unmissable adaptation signalled another high point in Russell’s astounding career: another milestone in the long, slow transition of an American mass market medium into a genuine art form.

Most importantly, this and the other volumes in the series are incredibly lovely and irresistibly readable examples of superb writing (so please read Wilde’s original prose tomes too) and sublime examples of comics at their most potent.
© 1998 P. Craig Russell. All rights reserved.