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February 10, 2016February 9, 2016

Sub-Mariner & the Original Human Torch

By Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, Rich Buckler & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9048-6

Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner is the hybrid offspring of a sub-sea Atlantean princess and an American polar explorer; a being of immense strength, highly resistant to physical harm, able to fly and thrive above and below the waves. Created by young Bill Everett, Namor technically predates Marvel/Atlas/Timely Comics.

He first caught the public’s attention as part of the elementally electrifying Fire vs. Water headlining team in Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939 and soon to become Marvel Mystery Comics) alongside the Human Torch, but had originally been seen in a truncated version in the monochrome Motion Picture Funnies, a weekly promotional giveaway handed out to moviegoers earlier in the year.

Quickly becoming one of the new company’s biggest draws, Namor gained his own title at the end of 1940 (cover-dated Spring 1941) and was one of the last super-characters to go at the end of the first heroic age. In 1954, when Atlas (as the company then was) briefly revived its â€œBig Threeâ€ (the Torch and Captain America being the other two), Everett returned for an extended run of superb fantasy tales, but even so the time wasn’t right and the title sunk again.

When Stan Lee & Jack Kirby began reinventing comic-books in 1961 with Fantastic Four, they revived the forgotten amphibian as a troubled, semi-amnesiac, yet decidedly more regal and grandiose anti-hero, understandably embittered at the loss of his sub-sea kingdom which had seemingly been destroyed by American atomic testing.

He also became a dangerous bad-boy romantic interest: besotted with the FF’s golden-haired Sue Stormâ€¦

Namor knocked around the budding Marvel universe for few years, squabbling with assorted heroes such as Daredevil, the Avengers and X-Men, before securing his own series as part of â€œsplit-bookâ€ Tales to Astonish with fellow antisocial antihero the Incredible Hulk,

In 1988, as part of Marvel’s 50^th Anniversary celebrations, that phenomenal half-century of comicbook history was abridged, amended, updated and generally prÃ©cised by avowed fan and self-appointed keeper of the chronology Roy Thomas and his writing partner Dann Thomas who collaboratively commemorated the Avenging Son’s contribution in 12-part Limited Series miniseries The Saga of the Sub-Mariner. The saga was rapturously drawn by Rich Buckler.

Roy and Rich did the same with The Saga of the Original Human Torch – a 4-part series which ran from April to July 1990 – and both sides of the tempestuous coin are triumphantly tossed together in this splendidly all-encompassing, no-nonsense textbook of historic Fights ‘n’ Tights mythologyâ€¦

It all begins thousands of years ago with ‘A Legend a-Borning’ from The Saga of the Sub-Mariner #1 (November 1988) with Buckler inked by Bob McLeod. A short history of the sinking of antediluvian Atlantis and its eventual reoccupation by nomadic tribes of water-breathing Homo Mermanus follows. The water-breathing wanderers splendidly flourish deep in the icy waters, and their story leads to a certain American research vessel which sails into icy waters in 1920â€¦

Its depth-charging and icebreaking has horrendous consequences for the citizens of the depths and in response Emperor Thakorr organises a possibly punitive expedition. Instead his daughter Princess Fen uses experimental air-breathing serums to infiltrate the ship and forms a brief liaison with Captain Leonard McKenzie. They even marry but neither is aware that the voyage has been arranged by unscrupulous telepath Paul Destine who is drawn to the area by an uncanny device of ancient power and originsâ€¦

Whilst Destine is being buried under a catastrophic avalanche trying to excavate the artefact, a raiding party from Atlantis boards the ship and drags Fen back home. She believes her husband is killed in the attackâ€¦

Nine months later a strange, pink-skinned baby is born beneath the deep blue seaâ€¦

The story resumes years later with teenaged Namor experiencing prejudice firsthand as he plays with his blue-skinned chums and royal cousin Prince Byrrah. The passing of his callow years are interspersed with his grandfather’s disdain, his mother’s tales of the fabled â€œAmericansâ€ and the annoying girl Dorma who is always hanging aroundâ€¦

Every day seems to point out another way in which he differs from his people, such as his ever increasing strength, ability to live unaided on the surface and the wings on his ankles which give him the power of flight.

Life changes forever when the youngster is salvaging a sunken ship and shockingly encounters a brace of clunky mechanical men from the surface world doing the same.

In panic he attacks, severing the control cables which connect to a ship far above and proudly hauling them to Atlantis as a prize. For once grandfather is delighted: especially when the face plates are pried open and he sees dead surface-men within.

He’s ever more gleeful when Byrrah suggests Namor should go beard the Surfacers in their own realm to pay them back for the past destruction of Atlantis. Young, feisty and gullible, Namor sets off, ready to live up to his name which means ‘Avenging Son’â€¦

‘A Prince in New York’ spectacularly depicts the fantastic reign of terror and destruction Sub-Mariner wrought upon the city until distracted and talked down by plucky blonde policewoman Betty Dean. It then reveals how he learns to despise Nazi Germany’s maritime depredations before ‘A Fire on the Water’ details how New York Special Policeman the (original) Human Torch is deputised to stop him at all costsâ€¦

He never quite succeeds but the ongoing clash resulted in some of the most astonishing scraps in comics history. With the city almost wrecked by their battles Betty Dean again steps in to calm the boiling waters and the next chapter – inked by Richardson & Company – introduced the ‘Invaders!’ as Hitler incomprehensibly decides to eradicate Atlantis with depth charges and U-boats. The act of wanton hatred merely secures the Sub-Mariner’s fanatical aid for the Allied Powers.

With Thakorr wounded, the people elect Namor Emperor by popular acclaim before watching him swim off to crush the Axis and their super-powered servants. He fights with and beside the Torch, Captain America, Bucky, Spitfire and Union Jack. By the time the war is won and Namor returns to his realm, Byrrah and his crony Commander Krang have turned recuperating Thakorr against his interim emperor and Sub-Mariner finds himself banished. Only Lady Dorma’s impassioned intervention prevents the homecoming becoming a bloodbathâ€¦

With nowhere else to go Namor rejoins his surface superhero friends to create the post-war All-Winners Squad, before eventually being summoned home by his cousin Namora. Atlantis has been ravaged by air-breathing gangstersâ€¦

Seeking vengeance they team up with Betty for a short-lived crusade against criminals, madmen and monsters until again recalled to the rebuilt underwater kingdom.

Namor’s years away had gradually diminished his mighty hybrid abilities, but now-recovered Thakorr orders Atlantis’ greatest scientists to restore them so the Sub-Mariner can renew the Realm’s war against all surface-menâ€¦

Instead, Namor attempts diplomacy but his State Visit to the United Nations resulted in violent protests and the death of a bystander. He returns to his grandfather a bitter man, but still argues against war, no matter how hard General Krang and Byrrah urge itâ€¦

When Atlantis is wracked by seaquakes Namor leads a patrol to the polar cap above and discovers freshly-exhumed Paul Destine is responsible. The psychic had found a fantastic Helmet of Power which magnified his gifts exponentially and decided to test his new abilities on the closest population centreâ€¦

Enraged Namor’s physical might is useless against the tele-potent madman and in an instant Destine wipes his fishy foe’s memories and sends him to live as an amnesiac amongst the dregs of New York, blindly awaiting his future ‘Dark Destiny’ (McLeod inks)â€¦

The epic history lesson reaches the dawn of the Marvel Age decades later as ‘Rage and Remembrance’ recaps the epochal events after new Human Torch Johnny Storm restores the memory of a weary derelict and unleashes the rage of the Sub-Mariner once again. With his mind and most of his memories back Namor instantly heads home to find Atlantis razed and his people scattered. Blaming the humans, he launches a series of blistering attacks on the Fantastic Four whilst attempting to win the heart of the clearly conflicted Invisible Girlâ€¦

As months pass he discovers his people had relocated and rebuilt Atlantis. Namor is re-elected Emperor over the protests of Byrrah and betrothed to Lady Dorma, unknowingly earning the eternal enmity of Warlord Krang who has always wanted herâ€¦

His war against the surface-men continues, escalating into a brief invasion of New York, a turbulent alliance with the Hulk and clash with the ‘Avengers!’ (Mike Gustovich inks) which results in the revival of his now-forgotten Invaders comrade Captain Americaâ€¦

Sub-Mariner’s pointless sorties against mankind continue as he forcefully adds the X-Men and Magneto to his roster of enemies whilst still trying to take Sue Storm away from Reed Richards.

After repelling an invasion by sub-sea barbarian Attuma he softens and again attempts to gain official recognition for Atlantis. Whilst he is making his embassage, however, Krang seizes control of Atlantis. After battling Daredevil, Namor returns too his kingdom, deals with the usurper and more-or-less dials back his campaign against the surface. Sadly this peace is interrupted as Destine again strikes inviting the new monarch to a ‘Rendezvous with Destiny!’ (McLeod inks).

Time and events telescope from now on as ‘Losses in Battle’ rapidly traces Namor’s showdown with the mental maniac, alliance with the Inhuman Triton and battles with Plantman, Dr. Dorcas, Tiger Shark, the Thing and a host of others, as well a reunion with Betty Prentiss (nee Dean) and rise of the sinister antediluvian Serpent Cult of Lemuria which first devised the formidable Helmet of Power in eons past.

Also revealed is how Namor’s marriage to Dorma is thwarted by murderous Lemurian LLyra and his subsequent agonising first and last meetings with his fatherâ€¦

‘Blood Ties’ then details his meeting with and adoption of Namora’s teenaged daughter Namorita, clashes with Doctor Doom and MODOK, an alliance of Byrrah and Llyra and origins of the Defenders before ‘Triumphsâ€¦ and Tragedy!‘ (inked by McLeod & Co) brings us to a cameo-packed conclusion, relating Namor’s enforced alliance with Doom, admission into the Mighty Avengers and loss of two of his greatest lovesâ€¦

Although appearing a tad rushed, the writing is strong: offering fresh insights for those familiar with the original material whilst presenting the chronicles in an engaging and appetising manner for those coming to the stories for the first time. Moreover Buckler’s solidly dependable illustration capably handles a wide, wild and capacious cast with great style and verve.

Balancing the watery wonderment is the later and far shorter comics chronology of Sub-Mariner’s arch ally and favourite enemy as first seen in The Saga of the Original Human Torch.

It starts with ‘The Lighted Torch’ by Thomas, Buckler & Danny Bulanadi, which shows how the Flaming Fury burst into life as a malfunctioning humanoid devised by troubled and acquisitive Professor Phineas Horton. Instantly igniting into an uncontrollable fireball whenever exposed to air, the artificial innocent was consigned to entombment in concrete but escaped to accidentally imperil the metropolis until it/he fell into the hands of a malign mobster named Sardo.

When the crook’s attempts to use the android as a terror weapon dramatically backfired the hapless newborn was left a misunderstood fugitive – like a modern day Frankenstein’s monster. Even his creator only saw the fiery Prometheus as a means of making money.

Gradually gaining control of his flammability, the angry, perpetually rejected android decides to make his own way in the worldâ€¦

Instinctively honest, the creature saw crime and wickedness everywhere and resolved to do something about it. Indistinguishable from human when not afire, he joined the police as Jim Hammond, tackling ordinary thugs even as his volcanic alter ego battled such outlandish bandits as Asbestos Lady. Before long the Torch met Betty Dean when New York City Chief of Police John C. Wilson asked him to stop the savage Sub-Mariner from destroying everything. The battles are spectacular but inconclusive but only end after Betty intervenes and brokers a tenuous ceasefire.

Later, a brusque reunion with Horton sets the Torch of the trail of his creator’s former assistant Fred Raymond. Hammond is too late to stop Asbestos Lady murdering the Raymonds in a train wreck but adopts their little boy Toro who gains the power to become a human torch as soon as he meets the artificial avenger. The partners in peril become a team who set ‘The World on Fire!’; battling beside Namor in the Invaders for the duration of WWII.

They even play a major role in ending the conflict in 1945 when they storm a Berlin bunker and incinerate Hitler, before rising ‘Out of the Ashesâ€¦’ (inked by Alfredo Alcala) by battling Homefront hostiles, exposing Machiavellian android mastermind Adam-II who, with knowledge of the future, attempts to assassinate a group of strangers who would all eventually be Presidents of the USA. The Fiery Furies formed the backbone of the All-Winners Squad, battling maniacs and conquerors from tomorrow, continuing their campaign against crime long after their comrades retiredâ€¦

When a family crisis benches Toro, the Torch soldiers on with new sidekick Sun Girl until he returns. The reunion is destined to short and far from sweetâ€¦

The hot history lesson concludes in ‘The Flaming Fifties!’ (inked by Romeo Tanghal) as Jim Hammond bursts from a desert grave during a nuclear test explosion, revived from a chemically-induced coma mimicking death. His last memory was of being ambushed by gangsters and sprayed with a chemical which inhibited his flame and knocked him out. Blazing back to the ambush site he attacks his assailants and discovers four years have passedâ€¦

When they try the same solution again the compound no longer works on his atomically charged form and after a band of G-Men burst in the truth comes out. The Torch and Toro vanished in 1949 and when pressed the crooks admit to having got their chemical cosh from the Russians. More chillingly, they paid for it by handing Toro over to the Redsâ€¦

After spectacularly rescuing and deprogramming the Soviets’ flaming secret weapon, the Torch brings Toro home and they continue their anti-crime campaign against weird villains, Red menaces and an assortment of crooks and gangsters but before long tragedy again strikes as the atomic infusion finally reaches critical mass in Jim’s android body.

Realising he is about to flame out in a colossal nova, the Human Torch soars into the desert skies and detonates like a supernovaâ€¦

The pre-Marvel Age adventures of the Torch end here but devotees already know Jim Hammond was resurrected a number of times in the convoluted continuity that underpinned the modern House of Ideasâ€¦

This substantial primer into the prehistory of the Marvel Universe also includes a quartet of original art covers plus a brace of full-colour, textless covers.

Fast, furious and fabulously action-packed, this is a lovely slice of authentic Marvel mastery to delight all lovers of Costumed dramas.
Â© 1988, 1989, 1990, 2014 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

February 9, 2016February 8, 2016

Booster Gold volume 4: Day of Death

By Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2643-5

After the cosmos-crunching Crisis on Infinite Earths re-sculpted the DC Universe in 1986, a host of characters got floor-up rebuilds for the tougher, no-nonsense, straight-shooting New American readership of the Reagan-era.

A number of corporate buy-outs such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question were assimilated into DC’s roster with their own hotly hyped solo titles. There were even a couple of all-new big launches for the altered sensibilities of the Decade of Excess such as Suicide Squad and a shiny, happy, headline-hungry hero named Booster Gold.

The blue and yellow paladin debuted amidst plenty of hoopla in his own title (cover-dated February 1986 – the first post-Crisis premiere of the freshly integrated superhero line) and presented a wholly different approach to the traditional DC costumed boy-scout.

Created, written and drawn by Dan Jurgens, the saga featured a brash, cockily mysterious metahuman golden-boy jock who had set up his stall as a superhero in Metropolis, actively seeking corporate sponsorships, selling endorsements and with a management team in place to maximise the profit potential of his crusading celebrity.

Accompanied everywhere by sentient flying-football-shaped robot Skeets, the glitzy showboat soon encountered high-tech criminal gang The 1000 and a host of super-villains, earning the ire of many sinister masterminds and the shallow approbation of models, actresses, headline-hungry journalists, politicians and the ever fickle publicâ€¦

His time came and went and Booster’s title folded, but he lived on as a Justice Leaguer International where he became part of comics’ funniest double-act riffing off the aforementioned Blue Beetle.

Booster and Ted Kord (technically the second Blue Beetle) were the class clowns of Maxwell Lord’s Justice League International: a couple of obnoxiously charming frat-boys who could save the day but never get the girl or any respect. When Lord murdered Beetle, precipitating an Infinite Crisis, Booster was shattered but redefined himself as a true hero in the multiversal conflagrations of 52 and Countdown.

In landmark weekly maxi-series 52 and ultimately Infinite Crisis, the intriguing take on Heroism diverged down strange avenues when Booster – a hero traditionally only in it for fame and fortune – became a secret saviour, repairing the cracks in Reality caused by all the universe-warping shenanigans of myriad universal, multiversal Crises and uncontrolled time-travel.

Working at the instruction of enigmatic and irascible mentor Rip Hunter: Time Master, Booster surrendered all his dreams of acclaim to save us all over and over and over again.

This fourth time-bending full-colour trade paperback collects Booster Gold volume 2 #20-25 and Brave and the Bold volume 3 #23 from July to December 2009, and continues reviewing catastrophic conflicts from the time-line guardian’s never-ending battle to keep history on track and mankind in existence.

The action opens with ‘Shadows of Tomorrow’ from Brave and the Bold volume 3 #23 July 2009, by Jurgens and inker Norm Rapmund as, in his citadel beyond chronology, Booster is shocked to see his mentor Rip rematerialise in a badly beaten state, muttering the name â€œMagogâ€. A little checking reveals the name belongs to a hulking horned metahuman: a hero – of sorts – and despite the recuperating Hunter’s pleas to leave well enough alone, Booster slips into the time-stream to confront the military-trained hardlinerâ€¦

The trail leads to war-torn Kahndaq during the US occupation and a tenuous team-up with a colleague who is everything Booster despises: a self-righteous hero who thinks the ends justify the means, even with the lives of hostage children precariously in the balanceâ€¦

Booster Gold #20 featured ‘1952 Pick Up’ (by Keith Giffen, Pat Oliffe & Rapmund) – a light-hearted homage to B-movie sci fi and the Fantastic Four as the time traveller fetches up in early 1950s Nevada on the site of a clandestine and forgotten American space shotâ€¦

Before long he’s captured by covert operatives Frank Rock and Karin Hughes from an invisible agency dubbed Task Force X and embroiled in a secret mission involving traitorous Russian rocket scientistsâ€¦ and if he’s not extremely careful Booster could erase the timeline of a close future-friend and colleagueâ€¦

The major portion of this collection then moves on to cover some unexpected fallout of the murder of the Dark Knight.

The only non-Time Master to know Booster’s secret was Batman. His deductive skills were beyond par and after noticing recurring anomalies around the shooting of Barbara Gordon the Dark Detective intuited Booster had tried hundreds of times to prevent it. Batman held his tongue as well as many photographs which proved Booster was not just a flashy, sensation-seeking bumblerâ€¦

Now as ‘Day of Death’ begins Booster raids the Batcave to retrieve that evidence only to be jumped by the Gotham Guardian’s successorâ€¦

Before he can even attempt to explain, they are both ambushed by the mysterious chronal raider called Black Beetle continuing to carry out his campaign to unmake history. Pausing only to gloat for a second the Beetle vanishes, followed an instant later by the substitute Batmanâ€¦

And in the background a second glass tube appears. They both contain the uniforms of Robins who died in battleâ€¦

As I’m sure you all recall: following an all-out invasion by the New Gods of Apokolips, the original Batman was apparently killed at the conclusion of Infinite Crisis. The world at large was unaware of the loss, leaving the superhero community to mourn in secret whilst a small, dedicated army of assistants, protÃ©gÃ©s and allies – trained over years by the contingency-obsessed Dark Knight – formed the Network to police Gotham City in the days which followed: marking time until a successor could be found or the original restoredâ€¦

Most of the Bat-schooled battalion refused to believe their inspirational mentor dead. On the understanding that he was merely lost, they eventually accepted Dick Grayson (the first Robin and latterly Nightwing) as a stand-in until Bruce Wayne could find his way back to themâ€¦

Now however Grayson has clearly been excised by Black Beetle and Booster has to rectify the situation before time unravels even furtherâ€¦

A new chapter opens with the Beetle conferring with a cloaked superior even as Booster consults his infinitely upgraded cybernetic companion who is keyed into to the ever-changing intricacies of the time-stream. Skeets informs Booster that the landmark first battle between the Teen Titans and the Ravager now ended with the young heroes’ deaths and like an intricate line of dominoes led to the eradication of most of Earth’s adult defendersâ€¦ and worseâ€¦

Inserting himself into the appropriate moment to rectify the glitch, Booster is shocked to see Ravager’s terrifying father Deathstroke the Terminator aligned with Black Beetle to ensure the Titans’ doomâ€¦

Overwhelmed and beaten, Booster awakes to discover he’s failed again. The Teen Titans are dead and Rip Hunter is screaming at him. Also on the scene is mystic mystery Raven. She originally caused the Titans to unite, hoping to use them to stop her demonic sire Trigon conquering Earth, but nowâ€¦

Hunter quickly ferries Booster and the witch to 2020AD to see what becomes of humanity. His actual plan is to find Black Beetle and try to glean the reason for his insane actsâ€¦

In that particular future Trigon idly presides over the last remnants of mankind with the Beetle at his side, but as Booster finds himself battling the demon lord, Hunter and Raven have united with a few strangely familiar characters in one glorious, last-ditch attempt to banish Trigon and unmake this fractured reality.

Although they are triumphant, the real battle is lost elsewhere as the Beetle raids Trigon’s treasure vault and steals the artefact he’s been after all along. Despite his best efforts Hunter is too slow to stop the Machiavellian monster stealing a scarlet scarab which promises unlimited power to the one who knows its secretâ€¦

With the greater game lost and the Beetle off the field, Booster finally has the leeway needed to fix the most urgent section of time and correct history, but is it all too little too late?

Everything is wrapped up and the scene set for the next catastrophic crisis when ‘Day of Death Aftermath’ sees Booster return to the Batcave for those photos and get the shock of his utterly unconventional lifeâ€¦

Fantastically absorbing and entertaining, this riotous romp is tragically a true fans’ story for die-hard comics mavens, with in-jokes and shared historical moments adding to the unbridled enthusiasm and exuberance of a classy time-busting tale. That’s a great pity since this is also a fabulously well-crafted story that a wider audience would certainly appreciate if only they had sufficient back-grounding.

I’m in touch with the continuity and still struggled occasionally but I’d love to be proved wrong and see if a total innocent could follow this nuanced little gem and get the buzz it gave meâ€¦

Who’s game to give it a go?
Â© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

February 8, 2016February 7, 2016

Yakari and the Wolves

By Derib & Job, coloured by Dominque and translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-29-8

Le Crapaud Ã lunettes is children’s magazine founded in 1964 by Swiss journalist AndrÃ© Jobin who wrote for it under the pseudonym Job. Three years later he hired fellow French-Swiss artist Claude de Ribaupierre who’d begun his own career as an assistant at Studio Peyo (home of Les Schtroumpfs), working on Smurfs strips for venerable weekly Spirou. Together they created the well-received Adventures of the Owl Pythagore before striking pure gold two years later with their next collaboration.

Launching in 1969, Yakari detailed the life of a little Sioux boy on the Great Plains; sometime between introduction of horses by the Conquistadores and the coming of modern White Men.

Stuffed with bucolic whimsy, the beguiling series celebrates the generally simple and joyous existence of noble wanderers in tune with nature and free from strife. Things are punctuated with the odd crisis but usually resolved without fame or fanfare – usually by a little lad who is smart, compassionate and valiant, and can converse with all animalsâ€¦

As â€œDeribâ€, de Ribaupierre – equally excellent in both the enticing, comically dynamic â€œMarcinelleâ€ cartoon style and with devastatingly compelling meta-realistic action illustration â€“ went on to become one of the Continent’s most prolific and revered creators through such groundbreaking strips as Celui-qui-est-nÃ©-deux-fois, Jo (the first comic on AIDS ever published), Pour toi, Sandra and La Grande Saga Indienne).

Many of his stunning works over the fruitful decades have featured his beloved Western themes, built on magnificent geographical backdrops and epic landscapes, and Yakari is considered by fans and critics alike to be the feature which primed the gun. With the uncharacteristically moodily and atmospheric tale unfolding here, that transition to his more dramatic milieux has never been more evidentâ€¦

Yakari au Pays des Loups was first serialised from June 1981 to April 1982 and promptly became the eighth European album, (and Cinebook’s sixth British Yakari release in 2008 and as always by being fabulously free of tight continuity, the epic encounter works perfectly read in isolation: easily accessible for young kids and/or their adult minders meeting the bold little Brave for the first timeâ€¦

The tale begins as the seasons turn and winter hits the nomads. Moving camp, they return to a place one man knows too well. Three winters past he had a terrible experience and now becomes obsessed with expiating a long-carried burden of shameâ€¦

The kids are all delighted to be rambunctiously sporting in the snow, but when Yakari casually reports something he saw, Tormented Wolf rides off in a fury. The wary brave drives deeper into the snowy passes and soon finds what he dreaded: tracks of a large wolf with a limpâ€¦

Puzzled Yakari discusses the experience with many adults and his pony Little Thunder, and has real fright later when, gathering firewood, a grizzled old wolf with a limp starts eying him upâ€¦

Tormented Wolf again erupts onto the beast’s trail only to return once more, frustrated and angry. He isn’t staying, but only returned to get supplies and don his ceremonial hunting headdress. Yakari doesn’t really understand why the other grown-ups look upon his departure with pityâ€¦

That night, safe in his tent Yakari has one of his special dreams about wolves and their driven stalker. He awakes next morning to see the limping lupine’s tracks all around his tepee. Little Thunder absolutely refuses to take him into the foothills after the predator, so the lad gamely trudges off alone, even as far ahead, Tormented Wolf again replays in his head that fateful battle with a mighty opponent which left them both scarred and brokenâ€¦

Far behind Yakari fearfully continues. For his entire life he has heard scary stories about wolves but when his totem Great Eagle appears with some sage words the boy begins to reassess his prejudicesâ€¦

It’s a timely meeting, because as soon as the bird takes flight the limping wolf appears for a chat. â€œThree legsâ€ then initiates Yakari into the secret world of the â€œSinging Clanâ€ and shares their founding legend before inviting him to play with the pack’s new cubsâ€¦

He then asks the brave boy to arrange one final, fateful meeting between Tormented Wolf and the four-footed tribe he so remorselessly hunts, in the certain knowledge that this climactic confrontation will end the animosity foreverâ€¦

Darker in tone than most Yakari yarns, this is also one of the most heart-warming and rewarding, with a subtle moral hiding inside a grand tale of redemption and reformationâ€¦ Â The evergreen exploits of the valiant little voyager who speaks with animals and enjoys a unique place in an exotic environment is an unmissable celebration of marvellously moving and enticingly entertaining adventure, honouring and eulogising an iconic culture with grace, wit, wonder and especially warmth. These gentle sagas are true landmarks of comics literature and Yakari is a strip no fan of graphic entertainment should ignore.
Original edition Â© LE LOMBARD (Dargaud- Lombard s.a.) 1981, by Derib + Job. English translation 2008 Â© Cinebook Ltd.

February 5, 2016February 4, 2016

Yoko Tsuno volume 4: Daughter of the Wind

By Roger Leloup translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-94-6

Yoko Tsuno began first began gracing the pages of Spirou in September 1970 and is still going strong. As detailed by Roger Leloup, the astounding, all-action, uncannily edgy, excessively accessible exploits of the slim, slight Japanese scientific-adventurer are amongst the most intoxicating, absorbing and broad-ranging comics thrillers ever created.

Leloup’s brainchild is an expansively globe-girdling, space-&-time spanning series devised by the monumentally talented Belgian maestro after leaving his job as a studio assistant on Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin to strike out on his own.

Compellingly told, superbly imaginative but always solidly grounded in hyper-realistic settings which boast utterly authentic and unshakably believable technology and scientific principles, these illustrated epics were at the vanguard of a wave of strips featuring competent, clever and brave female protagonists which revolutionised Continental comics from the 1970s onwards.

Happily they are as timelessly engaging and potently empowering now as they ever were.

The very first stories ‘Hold-up en hi-fi’, ‘La belle et la bÃªte’ and ‘Cap 351’ were brief introductory â€“ and possibly beta-testing – vignettes before the superbly capable Miss Tsuno and her always awestruck and overwhelmed male comrades Pol Paris and Vic Van Steen properly hit their stride with premier extended saga Le trio de l’Ã©trange which began in 1971 with the May 13^th edition of Spirouâ€¦

In the original European serialisations, Yoko’s adventures alternated between explosive escapades in exotic corners of the world and sinister deep-space sagas with the secretive and disaster-plagued alien colonists from Vinea, but for these current English translations, the extraterrestrial endeavours have been more often than not sidelined in favour of realistically intriguing Earthly exploits.

There have been 27 European albums to date and this one was first serialised in Spirou #2081-2100 (2^nd March to July 13^th 1978) before emerging the following year as exotically enthralling album La Fille du vent. A sublimely understated espionage epic with solid hard-science sci fi overtones, it was chronologically the ninth album, yet due the quirks of publishing reached us Brits as Cinebook’s fourth translated tome, offering readers a long-awaited glimpse into the history of the ultra-efficient oriental enigmaâ€¦

The stupendous saga opens with Yoko calming Vic and Pol as their passenger flight makes its daunting landing at Hong Kong’s Kai-Tak Airport. They have taken a rushed flight because Yoko has received a worrying communiquÃ© about her father, sent by the eminent Chen Wu Chengâ€¦

On arrival they are picked-up by a joint team of Chinese and Japanese intelligence operatives sharing a unique problem. Seiki Tsuno is a brilliant scientist; a geophysicist who has been working for decades to find a way to counter the horrific typhoons which regularly devastate coastal regions across the Pacific. He recently succeeded, but only after first discovering exactly how to create the catastrophic whirlwindsâ€¦

Now Yoko’s hosts inform her that her father’s financial backer Ito Kazuki has conspired with elements of the Japanese government and greedy business interests to steal the research with the intention of using the typhoon-making process as a weapon to restore Japan to its days of military glory and pre-eminence.

The elder Tsuno and Kazuki are now at war and the storms they make are wrecking the climate of the entire region. In their desperation these national agencies want Yoko to talk to her father and make him stop before it’s too late. Moreover, with all Kazuki’s resources in play, they need her to approach her dad secretly so as not to alert the enemy millionaire to the missionâ€¦

Thus this long, circuitous trip from the coast of China to Yoko’s family home, which eventually concludes with her being parachuted in from a high-altitude seaplane at night. Over strident objections from Vic and Pol, the â€œDaughter of the Windâ€ has accepted the mission, but it’s not until she’s actually plunging towards the giant statue of the Buddha and temple above her family home that Yoko act on the suspicions she’s been harbouring.

Disabling her electronic tracker, Yoko shifts orientation and lands far from her specified target site. Almost immediately her caution pays dividends as she spots armed masked men waiting around the area where she was supposed to land. Doffing her gear she quietly heads for the temple where a monk helps her avoid the faux ninjas and reach her father’s house.

There she is joyously reunited with aged Aoki: a former Imperial pilot who joined the household as a gardener and practically raised Yoko whilst her parents conducted their own, more important, adult affairsâ€¦

He reveals the truth: there is war between Kazuki and her father, but the millionaire plans to trap and use her as a bargaining chip over Seiki and ultimately achieve total control of Japanâ€¦

As Yoko radios Pol and Vic the ninjas strike and only familiarity with her father’s inventions allow her and Aoki to escape, aided by the sudden explosive appearance of her European friends. A hectic and explosive seaborne chase ensues but after Kazuki throws one of his typhoons at them Yoko and her friends are caught and taken by submarine to the mad millionaire’s near-sacrilegious undersea base whilst old Aoki is left clinging to a buoyâ€¦

Kazuki seems like a reasonable man and offers Yoko a position with his organisation – which she naturally declines – but does concede to run his TV and telecommunications equipment as he moves to his momentous endgameâ€¦

Whilst Yoko tells her incarcerated pals of her lonely neglected childhood and the tragic story of failed Kamikaze Aoki and how he came to live with her grandfather, Seiki Tsuno – who has picked up the aging gardener from the buoy – moves towards his final showdown with Kazuki: a very public duel between the madman’s typhoon-maker and his own whirlwind eradication process.

The researcher is confident of his invention’s efficacy but never expected Kazuki to cheatâ€¦

Yoko isn’t surprised at her captor’s double-dealing and when the would-be warlord is distracted by his recently created waterspout growing completely beyond his control, leads Pol and Vic in a daring escape back to her dad who has only one appalling solution to the rapidly-expanding super-stormâ€¦

Sadly it involves two pilots simultaneously flying into the typhoon with a massive explosive device and has only a remote chance of workingâ€¦

Building to a thundering climax and truly tragic conclusion, this potent large-scale human drama showed both a softer side and more mature aspect of our star, confirming she was a truly multi-faceted adventurer, at home in all manner of scenarios and easily able to hold her own against the likes of James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Tintin or other genre-busting super-stars: as triumphantly capable facing spies and madmen as alien invaders, weird science or unchecked forces of natureâ€¦

As always the most effective asset in these breathtaking tales is the astonishingly authentic and staggeringly detailed draughtsmanship and storytelling, which superbly benefits from Leloup’s diligent research and meticulous attention to detail, honed through years of working on Tintin.

This is a magnificently wide-screen thriller, tense, complex and evocative, which will appeal to any fan of blockbuster action fantasy or devious derring-do.
Original edition Â© Dupuis, 1979 by Roger Leloup. All rights reserved. English translation 2009 Â© Cinebook Ltd.

February 4, 2016February 3, 2016

Modesty Blaise: Ripper Jax

By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78329-858-7

Modesty Blaise and her lethally adept, knife-throwing, compulsively platonic partner Willie Garvin gained fearsome reputations as infallible super-criminals heading underworld gang The Network before retiring young, rich and healthy. With honour intact and their hands relatively clean, they cut themselves off completely from careers where they made all the money they would ever need and far too many enemies – a situation exacerbated by their heartfelt conviction that killing was only ever to be used as a last resort.

When devious British Spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant sought them out they were slowly dying of boredom in England. The wily old bird offered them a chance to have fun, get back into harness and do a bit of good in the world. They jumped at his offer and have been cleaning up the dregs of society in their own unique manner ever since â€¦

From that tenuous beginning in ‘La Machine’ (see Modesty Blaise: the Gabriel Set-Up) the dynamic duo went on to crush the world’s vilest villains and most macabre monsters in a perpetual storm of tense suspense and inspirational action for nearly forty yearsâ€¦

The inseparable associates debuted in The Evening Standard on 13^th May 1963 and over the passing decades went on to star in some of the world’s most memorable crime fiction, all in approximately three panels a day.

Creators Peter O’Donnell & Jim Holdaway (who had previously collaborated on Romeo Brown – a lost strip classic equally deserving of its own archive albums) produced a timeless treasure trove of brilliant graphic escapades until the illustrator’s tragic early death in 1970, whereupon Spanish artist Enric Badia Romero (and occasionally John Burns, Neville Colvin and Pat Wright) assumed the art reins, taking the partners-in-peril to even greater heights.

The series has been syndicated world-wide and Modesty has starred in 13 prose novels and short-story collections, several films, a TV pilot, a radio play, an original American graphic novel from DC and nearly one hundred comic strip adventures until the strip’s conclusion in 2001.

The serial exploits are a broad blend of hip adventuring lifestyle and cool capers, combining espionage, crime, intrigue and even – now and again – plausibly intriguing sci fi and supernaturally tinged horror genre fare, with ever-competent Modesty and Willie canny, deadly, yet all-too-fallibly human defenders of the helpless and avengers of the wrongedâ€¦

Reproduced in stark and stunning monochrome – as is only right and fitting – Titan Books’ superbly scrupulous chronological serial re-presentations of the ultimate trouble-shooters resume here, with O’Donnell & Romero offering four more masterpieces of mood mystery sand mayhem only pausing for intriguing Introduction ‘Modest Morality’: an insightful overview of the wonder woman’s ethics and motivation from author and incurable fan-addict Simon Barnes (How to be a Bad Birdwatcher, The Sacred Coombe, Ten Million Aliens).

The suspenseful dramas open with Ripper Jax (originally run in The Evening Standard from May 4^th to October 2^nd 1995), wherein Modesty and Willie repay an old blood-debt to psychometricist and antiquarian bookseller Mr. Haley. The old gentleman has a daughter who’s a bit of a wild child and now she’s been kidnapped by psychotic, knife-throwing gang boss Ripper Jax.

The thoroughly nasty flesh-peddler is after two million pounds hidden by a thief who is beyond his usual means of coercion and persuasion, but for a man who can find things by mental divination all things are possibleâ€¦

Naturally the Dynamic Duo leap to the distraught dad’s defence, but a little pre-raid intelligence-gathering around the villain’s medieval castle in Ireland not only reveals the huge odds arranged against them but also that it might not be a simple abduction and trade that’s going onâ€¦

Moreover, Jax soon knows the troubleshooters are coming but doesn’t care. He’s always wanted to test his knives and skill against the legendary bladesman Willie Garvinâ€¦

The scene shifts to the antipodes for The Maori Contact (3^rd October 2^nd 1995 – March 1^st 1996) as Willie helps some old friends finish a magnificent, hand-carved traditional Waka. The 100-foot native war-canoe is the crowning triumph of British sculptor Jason Nash and his wife Carol, but they have no idea of the problems brewingâ€¦

In London, Modesty is just learning from Jason’s uncle Sir Gerald Tarrant that Carol has inherited millions of pounds from a crazy relative she had no notion of, even as Willie and Jason foil an abduction attempt which leaves one kidnapper dead and poor hubby with blood on his handsâ€¦

Rushing out on the first jet to New Zealand, Modesty and Tarrant are unaware that Carol’s sole rival for the inheritance is already on his way ahead to them, having hired one of the few criminal organisations in the world undaunted by the lethal reputations of Blaise and Garvin.

Not prepared to leave it at that, Carol’s unknown enemy also recruits an army of local riff raff to play back-up, but has completely underestimated the devious duo’s experience in whittling down overwhelming odds and uncanny ability to find helpful allies in the strangest placesâ€¦

A startling glimpse into Modesty’s criminal days running The Network underpins Honeygun (March 4^th to August 2^nd 1996), revealing how her life was saved by a merciless mercenary killer.

Sadly the striking Eurasian assassin was too depraved and kill-hungry to be allowed to join Modesty’s gang and left in a huff with a solemn promise that Modesty owed her a debt which would one day be called inâ€¦

Years later that obligation becomes a deadly burden when Willie and â€œthe Princessâ€ are relaxing in their Tangiers home. Modesty is spending time with her occasional paramour Dr. Giles Pennyfeather when Honeygun resurfaces, orchestrating a heist which goes bloodily awry.

Trapped in the Kasbah with the cops closing in, the sociopathic killer calls in her debt and Modesty reluctantly spirits her away before the police can swoopâ€¦

Blaise’s misgivings over the rescue are soon proved true when Honeygun kills an Israeli diplomat and his chauffeur and subsequently abducts Giles from his hospital to remove a bullet from one of her henchmen wounded in the exchange of fireâ€¦

Torn by guilt, Modesty resolves to stop Honeygun for good. Before long she and Willie have tracked the crazy killer and her increasingly anxious army of hired guns to a derelict Roman fort and begun the perilous task of extracting Giles and cutting down the odds. With the worst storm in decades brewing, Modesty has to deal with one final hiccup when her darling doctor refuses to leave without his critically injured patientâ€¦

This catalogue of compelling crookedness and catastrophic crime-busting concludes with a gripping yarn wherein Modesty and Willie rush to the rescue of old friends Dinah and Stephen Collier in the raw heart of the Guatemalan jungle.

The professor and his blind, psychic wife were working for Blaise’s occasional lover John Dall, divining potential drill sites for the billionaire’s oil company when they were taken by a gang of rebels led by the charismatic maniac Durango (August 5^th 1996 to January 3^rd 1997)â€¦

Rapidly swinging into action, Blaise and Garvin go native and attempt to infiltrate the band in the manner that’s worked so well so often, but things go south swiftly when Durango turns out to be old Network adversary Lazaya who instantly recognises them and decides to ransom them insteadâ€¦.

With everything going wrong the partners in peril have to think fast, act boldly and ruthlessly exploit every advantage to save their friends and themselves, but as always the final arbiter is a study in applied violenceâ€¦

These are incomparable capers crafted by brilliant creators at the peak of their powers; revelling in the sheer perfection of an iconic creation. Unforgettable shock and suspense-stuffed escapades packed with sleek sex appeal, dry wit, terrific tension and explosive action, the stories grow more appealing with every rereading and never fail to deliver maximum impact and total enjoyment.
Modesty Blaise Â© 2014 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.

Modesty Blaise: Ripper Jax is available for pre-order now and will be published on March 4^th 2016.

February 3, 2016February 2, 2016

Silent Invasion Book One: Secret Affairs

By Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock (NBM)
ISBN: 978-0-91834-850-0

The 1980s were an immensely fertile time for English-language comics-creators. In America a fresh wave of creativity had started with the birth of dedicated comics shops and, as innovation-geared specialist retailers sprung up all over the country, operated by fans for fans, new publishers began to experiment with format and content, whilst eager readers celebrated the happy coincidence that everybody seemed to have a bit of extra cash to play with.

Consequently those new publishers were soon aggressively competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown resigned to getting their on-going picture stories from DC, Marvel, Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material began creeping in and by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads.

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Even shoestring companies and foreign outfits had a fair shot at the big time and a much great material came – and, almost universally, just as quickly went – without getting the attention or success they warranted.

By avoiding the traditional family sales points such as newsstands, more mature material could be produced: not just increasingly violent and with nudity but also far more political and intellectually challenging too.

Moreover, much of the â€œbrain-rotting trashâ€ or â€œsilly kid’s stuffâ€ stigma had finally dissipated and America was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging sequential narrative as a for-real, actual Art-Form, so the door was wide open for gosh-darned foreigners to make a few waves tooâ€¦

One of the most critically acclaimed and just plain fun features came from semi-Canadian outfit Renegade Press which, spun out by a torturous and litigious process from Dave Sim’s Canadian Aardvark-Vanaheim enterprise, set up shop in the USA and began publishing at the very start of the black and white comics bubble in 1984. Renegade quickly established a reputation for excellence, picking up a surprisingly strong line of creator-based properties and some genuinely remarkable and impressive series such as Ms. Tree, Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire, Normalman, Flaming Carrot, the first iteration of Al Davison’s stunning Spiral Cage and compulsive, stylish Cold War, flying-saucer paranoia-driven series The Silent Invasion amongst others.

That last was a stunningly stylish saga, bolting 1950s homeland terrors (invasion by Reds; invasion by aliens; invasion by new ideasâ€¦) onto Film Noir chic and employing 20-20 hindsight to produce a truly fresh and enticing concept in the Reagan-era Eighties. I firmly believe that in this business nothing good stays lost, but now I’m fed up waiting for it to be rediscovered so I’m going to review my battered old copies as no one has tried to revive it yet. At least they’re still availableâ€¦

This first superbly oversized monochrome tome – a whopping 298 x 2058 mm – gathers the lead story from the first three issues of The Silent Invasion with co-creators Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock concocting a delightful confection combining all the coolest genre elements of classic sci-fi, horror, spy, conspiracy theory, crime, romance and even comedy yarnsâ€¦

The 1950s in American were a hugely iconic and paradoxical time. Incredible scientific and cultural advancements and great wealth inexplicably arose amidst an atmosphere of immense social, cultural, racial, sexual and political repression with an increasingly paranoid populace seeing conspiracy and subversive attacks in every shadow and corner of the rest of the world.

Such an insular melting pot couldn’t help but be fertile soil for imaginative outsiders to craft truly incisive and evocative tales dripping with convoluted mystery and taut tension, especially when wedded to the nation’s fantastic – and then-ongoing – obsessions with rogue science, flying saucers, gangsterism and espionageâ€¦

They were also obsessed with hot babes and bust sizes, but more of that elsewhereâ€¦

Preceded by a terse and still topical Introduction from Frank Miller, this towering collection from 1988 kicks off with ‘Chapter One: Atomic Spies’ in a dark desert landscape 22 miles outside Union City in April 1952.

Private eye Dick Mallet sees a strange light in the skies and in the morning the cops find his crashed car. There’s no sign of the infamous and distinguished Dickâ€¦

A month later reporter Matt Sinkage is still unhappy with his piece on â€œThe Truth Behind Flying Saucersâ€ but his muttering and musing is interrupted by a hot blonde banging on the door of his foreign-sounding neighbour Ivan Kalashnikov.

Arriving at his desk on the Sentinel, Sinkage can’t believe the audacity of the Air Force’s official line about â€œmarsh gasâ€ and starts screaming at his Editor Frank Costello who just bawls him out – again – and sends him off to cover real newsâ€¦

Instead Sinkage heads out to the site of the latest sighting and starts interviewing local yokels. That night fiancÃ©e Peggy cooks him a meal but his mind is elsewhere, on that night six months back in Albany when he saw a UFO and impetuously chased after it: a night everyone but him remembersâ€¦

Later, in a bar, Matt continues badgering Frank until the booze gets to him. Eventually Sinkage slinks back to his apartment. Ivan’s door is open and a quick glance reveals the foreigner and others in front of a huge, weird machine and Matt realises they must be Reds! Atomic spies!

Before the reporter can react, Kalashnikov pulls a really strange gun and shoots. Next morning Sinkage awakes with another sore head and fuzzy memoryâ€¦

Days later Matt again collides with Mr K’s pretty friend Gloria Amber, but fails to get another look at his neighbour’s place. Undeterred, he resorts to asking her out to lunch and somehow provokes the old guy into taking a sudden trip out of town. Things get even stranger when Gloria comes running to him, being chased by what she claims are Red agentsâ€¦

Spiriting her away, Matt doesn’t hear the pursuers accosting his landlord, claming to be Federal Menâ€¦

‘Chapter Two: Secrets and Insidious Machinations’ finds the fugitives deep in the suburbs with Matt’s sedate brother Walter. The reporter is still seeing flying saucers and can’t understand why everybody else thinks they’re just jets, whilst back in Union City Frank is getting a grilling from FBI Agent Housley.

They’re old acquaintances: the G Man regularly pops by to suppress one news item or anotherâ€¦

This time though they want the vanished Sinkage and are not happy that Costello has no idea of the gadfly’s current location. Back in suburbia, things are none too comfortable either. Stuck-up sister-in-law Katie is convinced Matt and his new floozy are up to no good and wants them out. At least she doesn’t know the FBI are scouring the city for them. Enigmatic Gloria, however, is more concerned that Sinkage is sleepwalking and having strange nightmaresâ€¦ just like Kalashnikov feared he mightâ€¦

Matt and Gloria are just heading out in Walter’s borrowed car when Peggy pops by. She can’t understand why her man is with a flashy trollop and pointedly won’t talk to her. Gloria has told Matt the real Reds are after Kalashnikov’s memoirs and convinced him to drive her to a quiet town in the desert where a â€œcontactâ€ will protect them both. Mr K meanwhile has called in his own heavies to chase the couple, unaware that the FBI have visited Walter and Katie. A net is closing around Sinkage and the mystery woman he implicitly trustsâ€¦ but really shouldn’t.â€¦

The tension mounts in this volume’s concluding ‘Chapter Three: The Stubbinsville Connection’ as a mysterious Council of shadowy men gather to discuss the Sinkage problem. As Housley’s report continues, it become clear the reporter was also involved in the Albany event and near-panic ensuesâ€¦

In a cheap motel Matt’s suspicions are back. Gloria vanished from their room for a while during the night and hasn’t mentioned itâ€¦

They’re confirmed a little later when she helps Kalashnikov’s hoods Zanini and Koldst abduct her and rough him up. Bach at Walter’s house the FBI turn up to interview them about Matt. They claim they’re the only Feds working on the case and no other government officials have been there before themâ€¦

Katie has had enough and spills all she knows. The agents instantly go into overdrive and organise all their forces to head for sleepy, remote Stubbinsville. Matt meanwhile has recovered and called the only guy he still trusts, his researcher Dan Maloney. That worthy warns him of the confusing profusion of agents all claiming to be working for the government, before sharing the same info with Frank Costelloâ€¦

As Housley’s team fly in, Matt has decided to go on, hitchhiking to the rendezvous with a quirkily affable farmer who happily joins him in â€œprankingâ€ the cops who have just arrested Zanini, Koldst and Gloriaâ€¦

Reunited with his oddly-compliant mystery amour, Matt hurtles on to Stubbinsville in a stolen car but with less than 100 miles to go Gloria falls ill. She makes him promise to get her there at all costsâ€¦

As the assorted pursuers converge, she directs Matt to a lonely wilderness area, but the forces of law and order have spotted them and follow. As the net closes a fantastic and terrifying light show ignites the dark skies. By the time Housley reaches the specified target area, all he finds is a comatose Sinkage.

As days pass, Matt finds himself free with all charges dropped, but he’s oddly content. Despite another blatant cover-up and no clue as to who all the various parties hounding him actually were, he knows what he knows and wonders when Gloria will be backâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Potently evocative, impeccably unique and fabulously cool, The Silent Invasion is a boldly imagined and cunningly crafted adventure long-overdue for a modern revival: an unforgettable gateway to an eerily familiar yet comfortably exotic era of innocent joy and a million â€œtop secretsâ€ which no fan of fantastic thriller fiction should ignore.
Â© 1988 Michael Cherkas & Larry Hancock. Introduction Â© 1988 Frank Miller. All rights reserved.

January 29, 2016

Lucky Luke volume 7: Barbed Wire on the Prairie

By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-24-3

Lucky Luke is a good-natured, lightning-fast gunslinger who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his sarcastic horse Jolly Jumper, interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures. His continued exploits over seven decades have made him one of the best-selling comic characters in Europe (over 80 collected books and more than 300 million albums in 30 languages thus far), with the usual spin-off toys, computer games, animated cartoons and a plethora of TV shows and live-action movies.

He was created in 1946 by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de BÃ©vÃ¨re (â€œMorrisâ€) and was first seen the 1947 Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou, before launching into his first weekly adventure ‘Arizona 1880’ on December 7^th 1946.

Prior to that, while working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’ActualitiÃ©s) cartoon studio, Morris met future comics superstars Franquin and Peyo, and joined weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist – which is probably why (to my eyes at least) his lone star hero looks uncannily like the young Robert Mitchum who graced so many memorable mid-1940s B-movie Westerns.

Morris quickly became one of la Bande des quatre or â€œThe Gang of Fourâ€ comprising JijÃ©, Will and his old comrade Franquin: the leading proponents of the loose, free-wheeling artistic style known as the â€œMarcinelle Schoolâ€ which predominated in Spirou in aesthetic contention with the â€œLigne Claireâ€ style used by HergÃ©, EP Jacobs and other artists on Tintin magazine.

In 1948 said Gang (all but Will) visited the USA, meeting American comics creators and sightseeing. Morris stayed for six years, linking up with fellow traveller RenÃ© Goscinny, scoring some work from the newly-formed EC sensation Mad and making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly vanishing Old West.

That research would resonate on every page of his life’s work.

Working solo until 1955, Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush spoofery before reuniting with Goscinny, who became the hero’s regular wordsmith as Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Spirou on August 25^th 1955.

In 1967 the six-gun straight-shooter switched sides, transferring to Goscinny’s own magazine Pilote with ‘La Diligence’ (The Stagecoach). Goscinny eventually produced 45 albums with Morris before his untimely death, from whence Morris continued both singly and with fresh collaborators.

Morris himself died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus some spin-off sagas crafted with AchdÃ©, Laurent Gerra, Benacquista & Pennac, Xavier Fauche, Jean LÃ©turgie, Jacques Pessis and others all taking a crack at the venerable franchiseâ€¦

Moreover, apart from that very first adventure, Lucky (to appropriate a quote applied to the thematically simpatico TV classic Alias Smith and Jones) â€œin all that timeâ€¦ never shot or killed anyoneâ€â€¦

He was first seen in Britain syndicated to weekly comic Film Fun during the late 1950s and again in 1967 in Giggle where he was renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues – as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums – Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip. However in 1983 Morris – no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of â€œpolitical correctness gone madâ€ – deftly substituted a piece of straw for the much-mauled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The most recent and successful attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook (who have rightly restored the foul weed to his lips on the interior pages, if not the coversâ€¦) and Ma Dalton was the seventh of their 58 (and counting) albums, now available both on paper and as e-books.

Chronologically the album Des barbelÃ©s sur la prairie, first appeared in 1967: Luke’s 29^th chronicle and Goscinny’s 20^th collaboration with Morris, offering an engagingly classic confrontation and deviously diabolically bloodless solution wherein all the laconic lawman’s legendary speed proved as nothing when battling bad men with numbers, tradition and intransigence on their sideâ€¦

It all begins with a suitably mock-heroic paean to western mythology, eulogizing the role of cattle and birth of cowboys before introducing overfed, self-satisfied cattle baron Cass Casey, casually chowing down on cow meat in boisterous cow-town Cow Gulch.

The big man is blissfully unaware that salad-farmers Vernon and Annabelle Felps are currently building a home and planting their crops on the small parcel of the prairie they recently purchased. That means nothing to Casey’s men as they indifferently guide a mooing massive herd through house and garden alikeâ€¦

When the vegetable man heads into town to remonstrate with the cattle king, Vernon would have killed for his impertinence but for the quiet yet lethally loaded intervention of a wanderer trying to eat his steak in peaceâ€¦

Casey thinks he’s powerful enough to do whatever he wants, but within seconds he’s the only man drawing down on the legendary Lucky Luke. A little whilst the burly boss’ hand is healing, the Lone Rider is accompanying Vernon back to a home-cooked meal of tasty greens. He’s still there when vengeful Casey sends his thundering herd back to trample everything.

Not long after, Cass’ men are all trussed up, those steers are stampeding though Cow Gulch and Vernon has done the unthinkableâ€¦

As the authors brilliantly detail, back then the battle between settlers and ranchers reached obsessive fever pitch after barbed wire was invented. Despite being used to fence off legally owed property, the stuff was so contentious to free ranging cattlemen that shops stocking it would be destroyed and cowboys reacted with unimaginable fury when it was usedâ€¦

The very mention of it causes local stores to shut for business but Vernon is implacable and mail-orders a few bales. In response, the coach carrying it to him is robbed and vandalised and the Felps’ house is razed to the groundâ€¦ again.

Hating bullies, Luke adopts a cunning disguise and sneaks a shipment past the ever-vigilant vigilantes and before long the wide open prairie has its first enclosureâ€¦

Casey reacts in the expected manner and before long a full-fledged war is brewing.

When Luke organises and trains all the other crop-growing Settlers, Casey increases his night raids and shattering cattle stampedes.

Once Luke decides to get personally involved and bring in more wire, the Cow King calls in all the other cattle barons who congregate in town for a big dinner before taking decisive final action. The prognosis looks bleak for everybodyâ€¦

And then the Western Wonder has a most intriguing notion which seems certain to end the mounting crisis in a bloodless manner and give all parties concerned an appetite for conciliationâ€¦

Fast-paced, seductive slapstick and wry cynical humour beef up this splendidly trope-heavy tribute to classic westerns: another grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides Again and Cat Ballou, superbly executed by sublime storytellers and providing a wonderful introduction to a unique genre for today’s kids who might well have missed the romantic allure of an all-pervasive Wild West that never wasâ€¦
Â© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. Â© Lucky Comics. English translation Â© 2007, Cinebook Ltd.

January 28, 2016

Hellboy volume 2: Wake the Devil

By Mike Mignola with James Sinclair & Pat Brosseau (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-095

Hellboy was first seen in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 (August 1993) before formally debuting. That launch was in miniseries Seed of Destruction with John Byrne helping out his new â€œLegendâ€ stable-mate, scripting over Mignola’s plot and art. Unquestionably the Devil-may-care demon hunter was the most singular, popular and long-lived of the imprint’s fascinating output.

This second outing was an all-Mike extravaganza (with James Sinclair contributing colours and Pat Brosseau printing all the words), as Wake the Devil offered a decidedly different take on the undying attraction of vampires. This particularly impressive Second Edition of the modern classic also has a few extras and leads off with a poetically incisive appreciation in Alan Moore’s Introductionâ€¦

As a baby Hellboy was confiscated from Nazi cultists by American superhero The Torch of Liberty and a squad of US Rangers who interrupted a satanic ritual predicted by Allied parapsychologist Professor Trevor Bruttenholm and his associates on December 23^rd 1944.

They were waiting at a ruined church in East Bromwich, England when the abominable infant with a huge stone right hand appeared in a fireball. Raised by the Professor, the child grew into a mighty warrior fighting a never-ending secret war. Bruttenholm trained the infernal foundling whilst forming an organisation to destroy supernatural threats – the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. â€œHellboyâ€ became its lead agentâ€¦ the world’s most successful paranormal investigatorâ€¦

In the previous volume Hellboy and his fellow outrÃ© BPRD investigators Elizabeth Sherman and Dr. Abraham Sapien lost their aged mentor, but uncovered and (possibly) frustrated a hellish scheme involving the mad monk Rasputin and the Elder Gods he served.

The undying wizard – agent for antediluvian infinite evil the seven-sided serpent Ogdru-Jahad who-sleeps-and-waits-to-be-reawakened – was responsible for initially summoning Hellboy to Earth as part of the Nazi’s Ragna Rok Project â€¦

Now the Russian’s alliance with Himmler, Hitler and their mystic Nazi think-tank is further explored as somewhere deep inside Norway’s Arctic Circle region, a driven millionaire visits a hidden castle. He is seeking the arcane Aryans long-closeted within, eager to deliver a message from â€œThe Masterâ€. In return he wants sanctuary from the imminent end of civilisationâ€¦

In New York City a bloody robbery occurs in a tawdry mystic museum and the BPRD are soon being briefed on legendary Napoleonic soldier Vladimir Giurescu. The enigmatic warrior wasn’t particularly wedded to any side in that conflict and was probably much older than reports indicatedâ€¦

More important is the folklore which suggests Giurescu was mortally wounded many times but, after retreating to a certain castle in his homeland, would always reappear, renewed refreshed and deadlier than ever.

In 1882 he was in England and clashed with Queen Victoria‘s personal ghost-breaker Sir Edward Grey, who was the first to officially identify him as a â€œVampireâ€. In 1944 Hitler met with Vladimir to convince the creature to join him but something went wrong and Himmler’s envoy Ilsa Haupstein was ordered to arrest Giurescu and his â€œfamilyâ€. The creatures were despatched in the traditional manner and sealed in boxesâ€¦ one of which has been stolen from that museum. Moreover, the murdered owner was once part of the Nazi group responsible for Ragna Rokâ€¦

The BPRD are always considering worst-case scenarios, and if that box actually contained vampire remainsâ€¦

The location of the bloodsucker’s fabled castle is unknown, but with three prospects in Romania and only six agents available, three compact teams are deployed with Hellboy on his own to the most likely prospectâ€¦

Although not an active agent, Dr. Kate Corrigan wants Hellboy to take especial care. All the indications are that this vampire might be the Big One, even though nobody wants to use the â€œDâ€ wordâ€¦

In Romania, somehow still young Ilsa Haupstein is talking to a wooden box, whilst in Norway her slyly observing colleagues Kurtz and Kroenen are concerned. Once the most ardent of believers, she may have been turned from the path of Nazi resurgence and bloody vengeanceâ€¦

Her former companions are no longer so enamoured of the Fuehrer’s old dream of a vampire army anyway. Leopold especially places more faith in the creatures he has been building and growingâ€¦

Over Romania, Hellboy leaps out of the plane and engages his jet-pack, wishing he was going on with one of the other teams and even more so after it flames out and diesâ€¦

He has the limited satisfaction of crashing into the very fortress Ilsa is occupyingâ€¦

The battle with the witch-woman’s grotesque servants is short and savage and as the ancient edifice crumbles Chapter Two reveals how on the night Hellboy was born Rasputin suborned Ilsa and her two companionsâ€¦

He made them his disciples for the forthcoming awakening of Ogdru-Jahad, saving them from Germany’s ignominious collapse. Now the Russian’s ghost appears to her and offers another prophecy and a great transformationâ€¦

Deep in the vaults, Hellboy comes to and meets a most garrulous dead man, unaware that in the village below the Keep the natives are recognising old signs and making all the old preparations againâ€¦

Hellboy’s conversation provides lots of useful background information but lulls him into a false sense of security, allowing the revenant to brutally attack and set him up for a confrontation with the ferocious forces responsible for the vampire’s powerâ€¦

Battling for his life, the BPRD star is a stunned witness to Giurescu’s resurrection and cause of his latest demise, whilst far above Rasputin shares his own origins with acolyte Ilsa, revealing the night he met the infamous witch Baba Yagaâ€¦

Nearly three hundred miles away Liz and her team are scouring the ruins of Castle Czege. There’s no sign of vampires but they do uncover a hidden alchemy lab with an incredible artefact in itâ€¦a stony homunculus. Idly touching the artificial man Liz is horrified when her pyrokinetic energies rush uncontrollably into the creature and it goes on a rampageâ€¦

With the situation escalating at Castle Giurescu, Hellboy decides to detonate a vast cache of explosives with the faint hope that he will be airlifted out before they go off, but is distracted by a most fetching monster who calls him by a name he doesn’t recognise before trying to kill him.

If she doesn’t, the catastrophic detonation mightâ€¦

As the dust settles and civil war breaks out amongst the Norway Nazis, in Romania Ilsa makes a horrific transition and Hellboy awakes to face Rasputin, even as the BPRD rush to the rescue. Tragically Abe Sapien and his squad won’t make it before the revived and resplendent Giurescu takes his shot and the world’s most successful paranormal investigator is confronted and seduced by uncanny aspects of his long-hidden infernal ancestryâ€¦

With all hell breaking loose, the displaced devil must make a decision which will not only affect his life but dictate the course of humanity’s existenceâ€¦

The explosive ending resets the game for Rasputin’s next scheme but the weird wonderment rolls on in a potent epilogue wherein the mad monk visits his macabre patron Baba Yaga for adviceâ€¦

Bombastic, moody, suspenseful and explosively action-packed, this is a superb scary romp to delight one and all and the pot is sweetened with an Afterword from Mignola and another astounding Hellboy Gallery with pinups from our man Mike, Bruce Timm, P. Craig Russell, Derek Thompson, Dave Cooper, Jay Stevens and Olivier Vatine, rendering this a supernatural thriller no comics fan should be without.
Â© 1993, 1994, 1997, 1999 and 2003 Mike Mignola. Introduction Â© 1997 Alan Moore. Hellboy is â„¢ Mike Mignola. All rights reserved.

January 27, 2016January 26, 2016

Persia Blues volume 2: Love and War

By Dara Naraghi & Brent Bowman (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-977-9

All creative people are a little bit chained to their art-form, and Iranian ex-pat Dara Naraghi far more so than most. As well as his own celebrated Big City Blues comic he’s been responsible for adapting to comics such licensed properties as Robert Patterson’s Witch & Wizard novels, Terminator: Salvation, It! The Terror From Beyond Space and Ghostbusters, writing for DC, Image and IDW and running his own publishing house Ferret Press.

His breakthrough graphic anthology Lifelike set new standards for expressive exploratory tale-telling and he was a founding member of comics creators collective PANEL. He also scripts (and occasionally draws) utterly wonderful tales covering every aspect of the human experience from wild fantasy to chilling slice-of-life in a splendid series of webcomics.

Artist and illustrator Brent Bowman has created art for the Age of Empires collector card game and worked at Caliber Press and Image Comics. He too is a member of PANEL, devoted to pushing the envelope (probably after covering it with doodles and sketches) of graphic narrative.

Together they have conceived a trilogy of graphic novels cunningly blending real-world reportage with fantastic fantasy in a mythic manner both intriguing and captivating. Initial outing Persia Blues: Leaving Home won the 2014 Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo prize for Best Graphic Novel.

That tome introduced spirited young woman Minoo Shirazi who had a history of troublemaking and parental issues in two very different worlds dubbed for discomfort â€œThereâ€ and â€œHereâ€â€¦

Far away and long ago a bold warrior woman with an inexplicable incendiary power in her hands battled beside her lover Tyler against brigands and worse to retrieve a holy book in the heyday of the Persian Empire. We’ll call that â€œHereâ€â€¦

Over â€œThereâ€ in our world, a forthright, independent Iranian architecture student named Minoo was seen at various moments of her life, constantly challenging the authority of her father and the far more dangerous agents of the theocracyâ€¦

In Ancient Persia the war-woman painfully and at first-hand learned of the eternal struggle between the light of Ahura Mazda and dark evil of demonic Ahriman, before becoming embroiled in the struggle – as did her scholarly lover – when a priest was slaughtered by the devil-lord Himself.

A giant, wingless talking griffon then despatched them to distant Persepolis to meet her long-lost mother. The divine messenger also decreed Minoo the Warrior would play a crucial role in the battle between good and evil and must accept her fateâ€¦

En route, they encountered famed and legendary Anusiya battling an horrific army of scorpion men and other beasts. Dashing to join the hard-pressed Persian Royal Guard, they turned the tide and the grateful soldiers escorted them to an audience with the Emperorâ€¦

In modern times when word of Minoo’s latest brush with the authorities reached her father, once-eminent history professor Bijan Shiraz took unwelcome and unwanted steps to protect the last member of his family.

For years he had been a thorn in the side of the religious fundamentalists rewriting and revising the grand and glorious history of Persia to suit the self-serving demands of a theocratic, clerical dictatorship and consequently his entire family had sufferedâ€¦

Bijan and his wife Manijeh argued for years. She wanted the family to leave but the scholar refused to leave the proud history of Persia in the hands of revisionists. Minoo often listened, terrified her parents were divorcing, but older brother Ramin was always there to calm her fearsâ€¦

Three years ago Minoo and her father discussed her recent graduation. Her prospects had long been a brittle bone of contention, and she would not accept the aging intellectual’s argument that she should pursue a Master’s Degree. Not in a country that openly suppresses choice and opportunity for womenâ€¦

She was utterly astounded when he reveals he had changed his mind and would use all his resources, contacts and waning influence to secure her a University place outside Iranâ€¦

And in Persepolis the supreme ruler is revealed as Empress Purandokht, Queen and Protector of the Persian Empire who greets her wandering daughter but does not recognise herâ€¦

This is a tale of interconnected contrasts, with the modern scenes – deliberately convoluted by mixing the chronological sequence of flashback events – rendered in stark black line whilst the exotic and thrilling Persian adventure is presented as lush, painterly pencil-grey tones.

Moreover, although the general dialogue and idiom of the ancients is what you’d expect in an historical drama, Tyler and mystic Minoo speak like American 20-somethings, eventually admitting to Purandokht they are from somewhere called â€œColumbusâ€â€¦

Following a graphic reintroduction to the major players and a quick recap in ‘Our Story Thus Far’ the twin-tracked tale-telling recommences over â€œThereâ€ in Tehran eleven years ago as young teenager Minoo goes ski-boarding for the first time and meets a boy. Over-protective Ramin’s response is not what she anticipatedâ€¦

Way back â€œHereâ€ Tyler and Minoo soon get bored cooling their heels in the palace and – avoiding Purandokht’s hyper-maternal oversight – sneak out to find the nation’s ultimate hero Rostam who might be the only hope to defeat Ahriman’s converging dark forcesâ€¦

Modern Minoo meanwhile is still settling in at the University of Ohio in America. It is one year agoâ€¦

Her fellow Students are all very welcoming but the culture is so different in its minutiae and daily details. However, when she introduces herself to her father’s old friend Professor Yazdi she finds him with a charming young man discussing his Graduate Degree. His name is Tyler Clarke and he is obsessed with the culture and history of Iran. Even more so apparently, after meeting Minooâ€¦

In the wilds of Persia, a wild ride and valiant quest at last leads the strange warriors to mighty Rostam and his wonder steed Rakhsh. Finishing off the demon he has been toying with the heroic marvel joyously accompanies them back to embattled Persepolisâ€¦

In Columbus as Tyler and Minoo get better acquainted, the scene suddenly shifts to Iran twelve years previously. The Shiraz family are fragmenting and the kids are dealing with Bijan and Manijeh’s divorce very differently. Jumping ahead seven years, the dutiful daughter is still arguing with dad after he’s been beaten upâ€¦ againâ€¦

Rostam’s tumultuous return to Persepolis is none too soon: his glorious welcome parade is barely begun when the monster armies of Ahriman turn upâ€¦

Ten years ago in Tehran, Minoo finally gets to watch football-crazy Ramin play, even if the trip nearly gets her arrested. It’s the best game of his life and the last time she will ever see himâ€¦

The battle for Persepolis is long and hard and only the direct intervention of Ahura Mazda saves overmatched Minoo when her flame powers failâ€¦

In America six months ago Tyler took Minoo camping and learned a lot about her, such as her family history and troubles and the fact that she is a demon with a game consoleâ€¦

â€œHereâ€ as Persepolis reels from the catastrophic assault, â€œThereâ€ in Tehran twenty-one years ago another parental clash left Minoo alone with Daddy, who proudly read his little girl the far-from-bedtime story of the Seven Labours of Rostamâ€¦

Although forced from the battlefield Ahriman is undeterred and directly attacks Purandokht in the palace. Although her formidable daughter is in time to drive the devil off, the queen is stricken by the beast’s poisonsâ€¦

In Tehran eleven years ago the fractured family gather at the hospital. Manijeh’s chemotherapy has failed and surgery is now the only option. Minoo cannot comprehend her father’s reactionsâ€¦

As before, glimpses of a greater truth come from a brace of Epilogues. The first sees Minoo in Columbus three months ago: Skypeing with the dad she still doesn’t trust but blithely unaware of the trouble he’s in, whilst the second focuses on Persepolis where a distraught daughter is confronted by the all-wise Griffon. He challenges the warrior woman’s understanding of her strangely incomplete existence and asks difficult questions about the father she cannot rememberâ€¦

To Be Concludedâ€¦

Gilded with excerpts of classical poetry by Rumi (13^th century Persian poet, jurist, scholar, theologian and Sufi Mystic JalÄl ad-DÄ«n Muhammad RÅ«mÄ« AKA JalÄl ad-DÄ«n Muhammad BalkhÄ« or simply â€œour masterâ€: very cool and totally worthy of your further attentionâ€¦), this is a smart and subtle melding past and present, fact and fiction, revelling in exploiting reader expectation and confusion whilst crafting a beguiling multi-layered tale of family, responsibility, guilt, oppression and the hunger for independence which carries the reader along, promoting wonder and second-guessing whilst weaving a tantalising tapestry of mystery.

Engaging, rewarding and just plain refreshingly different, Persia Blues looks set to become a classic for all time…
Â© 2015 Dara Naraghi and Brent Bowman.

January 26, 2016January 25, 2016

In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way

By Marcel Proust, adapted and illustrated by StÃ©phane Heuet and translated by Arthur Goldhammer (Gallic Books)
ISBN: 978-1-90831-390-4

I love comics, both in form and function, and wouldn’t ever be without them. I also read the odd book or two.

Valentin Louis Georges EugÃ¨ne Marcel Proust, although arguably an acquired taste, wrote what is considered by many to be one of the very best ones – actually a succession of them classed as one big one – and even though there are no uncanny monsters, rampaging robots or alien invasions and precious few fights of any sort, the incredibly bold and ambitious StÃ©phane Heuet has undertaken to adapt Ã la recherchÃ© du temps perdu to the comics medium and has gone about it in a most satisfying manner.

Long known in English as Remembrance of Things Past, the current graphic narrative iteration produced by the adaptor and his erudite translator has plumped for the contemporary option In Search of Lost Time for its umbrella title – which is what it was called when originally translated by C. F. Scott-Moncrieff, who turned the seven volumes (3200 pages) of delicately phrased French into English between 1922 and 1931.

When Penguin’s 1995 edition was released, the complete reworking by scholars from three countries settled upon the latter as a more fitting title. Now the forthcoming pictorial volumes will also be distinguished thus and given individual titles to demarcate each singular tome.

What’s it about? In broad short form it ponders the huge social changes which occurred in France, especially the diminution of aristocracy and the advancement of the Middle Classes from the TroisiÃ¨me RÃ©publique (French Third Republic – 1870 until the Nazis installed the Vichy Government in 1940) to the fin de siÃ¨cle or turn of the 20th century, as seen by one family and their rather large coterie of friends, lovers, social associates, climbers and hangers on.

It’s also about the force of memory and nostalgia and how the senses can become irresistible doorways into our pasts. It’s about a guy recalling the village where he grew up. It is a vast achievement with over 2000 characters, acknowledged as a masterpiece of the written word. You really should try it some time.

We’re talking about Heuet’s adaptation now though, and in this first volume – reissued by Gallic Books as a magnificent, oversized full colour hardback – adapts the initial tome Swann’s Way plus ancillary tales Swann in Love and Place-Names: The Name in a staggering potent, gloriously understated and phenomenally powerful Ligne Claire style which seems the very epitome of all that is French.

The collection is augmented by a compelling and beautiful map of Paris in those days, a fascinating and educational ‘Translator’s Introduction’ from esteemed scholar Arthur Goldhammer discussing underlying themes and motifs such as the effects of music, a full illustrated Glossary of terms and contextual ephemera, and a breathtakingly lovely pictorial guide to the 71 key characters introduced at this stage, courtesy of ‘The Narrator’s Family Tree’.

Also included are a non-fictive biography of the author himself and a beguiling glimpse at ‘Proust’s Family Tree’, complete with maps and views of the rural idyll which inspired the novel.

Most people know only two things about Ã la recherchÃ© du temps perdu: the Narrator is never named or identified and everything kicks off when a pastry – a Madeleine – he dips in his tea as an adult triggers an avalanche of involuntary memories, taking him back to his childhoodâ€¦

As the Narrator ponders how night in his bedroom opens his mind to recollection, the revelations of our story begin in ‘Combray’; a quiet hamlet his family lived in for much of his childhoodâ€¦

The times were full of little incidents he barely understood. His parents were of a certain social standing. There were people they welcomed into the home, others they sought to entice there and some they actively – if politely – sought to ostraciseâ€¦

One of the most intriguing was the inspirationally debonair demi-outcast Charles Swann.

Sometimes he was welcome and at other times not. He had a daughter named Gilberte who the young Narrator found oddly fascinatingâ€¦

That’s all you’re getting. The whole point of these intricate revelations and interlocking relationships is unpicking them yourself, and Heuet’s methodically efficient yet light and inspired visuals make that job a sheer delightâ€¦

Accompanying the bucolic yet cosmopolitan travails and aspirations of the family is the tangential and hugely absorbing tale of Swann in Love which offers further insights into and revelations of the great man’s other life in Paris. Through an extended period it traces the over-educated sophisticate’s meeting with a fashionable demimondaine name Odette de CrÃ©cy and follows the course of their placidly tempestuous affair to a most familiar denouement where a most surprising conclusion is reachedâ€¦

Ending this initial foray into literature is Place-Names: The Name, which returns to the inner landscape of the Narrator for an elegiac and stunningly beautiful celebration of childhood intrigues and obsession, couched in terms of place visited and those others merely longed-for. Simultaneously tempering and honing those early passions is a period spent in Paris where the wide-eyed boy unknowingly added to his store of precious memories through his frequent but irregular afternoon meetings with the characters of the Champs-ElysÃ©esâ€¦ particularly the whimsical and unpredictable Gilberte Swannâ€¦

This is a sweet and subtle, marvellously European confection both beguiling and oddly fulfilling. The stylish, muted palette and seeming preponderance on head-shots might at first deter potential readers – Lord, I hope not – but that’s nothing to quibble over: Heuet’s skill comfortably accommodates the wide cast and will certainly entice and reward any reader prepared to persevereâ€¦

Classics Illustrated used to adapt books into comic form and they became a short-cut for school cheats who couldn’t be bothered to read great literature or were too busy to study for exams. This superb tome – and all its companion volumes – is far more than a prÃ©cis in pictures; this worshipful adaptation is a companion to, not a substitute for; and thus is another brilliant example of the range of our art-form, and well worthy of your serious attention.
First published in France as Du cÃ´tÃ© de chez Swann: Ã‰dition IntÃ©grale by Ã‰ditions Delcourt 2013. Â© Ã‰ditions Delcourt 2013. Translation Â© Arthur Goldhammer 2015. All rights reserved.

In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way will be released on February 1^st 2016 and is available for pre-order now.

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