Now Read This!

December 24, 2014December 22, 2014

The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer: The Yellow â€œMâ€

By Edgar P. Jacobs, translated by Clarence E. Holland (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-21-2

Master storyteller Edgar P. Jacobs pitted his distinguished duo of Scientific Adventurers Captain Francis Blake and Professor Philip Mortimer against a wide variety of perils and menaces in stunning action thrillers which merged science fiction, detective mysteries and supernatural thrillers in the same timeless Ligne claire style which had done so much to make intrepid boy reporter Tintin a global sensation.

The strip debuted in Le Journal de Tintin #1 (26^th September 1946): an anthology comic with editions in Belgium, France and Holland. The new anthology was edited by HergÃ©, with his eponymous star ably supplemented by a host of new heroes and featuresâ€¦

Le Marque Jaune was the third astounding exploit of the peerless pair, originally serialised in Le Journal de Tintin from August 6^th 1953 to November 3^rd 1954, before being collected as the sixth drama-drenched album in 1956.

This moody stand-alone extravaganza is the first in the modern Cinebook sequence with the True Brits for once on home soil as they struggle to solve an eerie mystery and capture an apparently superhuman criminalâ€¦

The tale begins a few days before Christmas on a night raining cats and dogs. The guards at the Tower of London are dutifully going about their appointed tasks when a sudden power cut douses all the lights.

By the time Beefeaters and Yeomen can find alternative lighting the damage is done. The Jewel Room is ransacked, the Imperial Crown missing and the wall emblazoned with a large letter M in a bold circle of yellow chalk.

The shocking travesty is but the latest in an outrageous series of incredible crimes by someone the newspapers have taken to calling The Yellow Mâ€¦

Incensed by the latest outrage the Home Office assigns MI6 to the case and their top man Blake is seconded to assist Chief Inspector Glenn Kendall of Scotland Yard. So serious is the matter that Blake instantly cables his old comrade Professor Mortimer, dragging the bellicose boffin back from a well-deserved vacation in Scotland.

London is ablaze with rumour and speculation about the super-bandit. The old warhorses adjourn to the Centaur Club in Piccadilly to discuss events but as they settle in for a chinwag, Mortimer gets a fleeting impression that they are being spied uponâ€¦

Suddenly they are interrupted by four fellow members also hotly debating the case. Sir Hugh Calvin is a judge at the Central Criminal Court; Leslie Macomber edits the Daily Mail and Professor Robert Vernay is a prominent figure in the British Medical Association and they all are hotly disputing Dr Jonathan Septimus – of the Psychiatric Institute – who propounds a theory that the phantom felon is a prime example of his pet theory of â€œThe Evil Influence of Cellular Developmentâ€â€¦

The enlarged group continues the verbal back-and-forth into the small hours and when they finally break up Vernay follows his habit of walking home. He does not make it. The police find only his hat and a chalked letter in a circleâ€¦

The flamboyant rogue seems to be everywhere. When Blake and Mortimer interview Macomber, Calvin and the terrified Septimus next day, the invisible enigma somehow gets close enough to leave his mark on the MI6 officer’s coat, before sending a mocking cable warning the Mail’s Editor that more and worse is comingâ€¦

That night Macomber is abducted from his office in plain view of his staff and Kendall is found in a dazed state after failing to protect Judge Calvin from a mystery intruderâ€¦

Septimus concludes that he is next and convinces Blake to get him out of London. The pair board a train for Suffolk with a complement of detectives but even these precautions are not enough. The psychiatrist is impossibly plucked from the Express before it is wrecked in a horrific collision with another train.

In London, cerebral Mortimer has been researching another angle with the assistance of Daily Mail archivist Mr. Stone and has found a decades-old link between the missing menâ€¦

It all revolves around a controversial medical text entitled â€œThe Mega Waveâ€ and a scandalous court case, but when the Professor tries to secure a copy of the incredibly rare volume from the British Museum Library he is confounded by the Yellow M who invisibly purloins the last known copy in existenceâ€¦

That evening he shares his thoughts with the returned Blake, unaware that his house has been bugged. Hours later a mysterious cloaked intruder breaks in but has a fit after passing some of Mortimer’s Egyptian souvenirs. The noise arouses the household and the masked burglar is confronted by Blake, Mortimer and burly manservant Nasir.

Incredibly the villain defeats them all with incredible strength and electrical shocks, even shrugging off bullets when they shoot himâ€¦

Exploding through a second story window the M laughs maniacally as they continue futilely firing before running off into the London night. In their shock the adventurers return to the drawing room and trip over the intruder’s listening devicesâ€¦

Later the recovered Kendall visits just as a package arrives. It contains an anonymous note from someone wishing to share information and directs Blake to a late night rendezvous at Limehouse Dock. The message also contains a desperate note from the missing Septimus begging Blake to complyâ€¦

Well aware that it’s a trap and over Mortimer’s strenuous protests, Blake and Kendall lay plans to turn the meeting to their advantage. Left at home the Professor is surprised by a late visit from Stone. The remarkably efficient researcher has found a copy of The Mega Wave and rushed over to show Mortimer.

As Blake manfully braves the foggy waterfront and walks into deadly danger Mortimer is reading the tome, deducing who is behind the plot and perhaps even how the malign miracles are pulled offâ€¦

In Limehouse the empty commercial buildings become a spectacular battleground as Blake and the police confront the masked man who easily holds them all at bay with incredible feats of speed and strength, before breaking out of the supposedly impenetrable blue cordon and escaping.

In his destructive flight he tumbles into the frantic Mortimer who is dashing in to warn his old friend. Changing tack, the boffin gives chase, doggedly following the superhuman enigma through parks and sewers until he finds himself in a hidden basement laboratory being assaulted by mind-control devices devised by the sinister mastermind actually behind the entire campaign of vengeance and terrorâ€¦

As the smirking villain gives an exultant speech of explanation, triumph and justification, Mortimer sees the fate of the abducted men and meets the human guinea pig who has been terrorising London at the behest of a madman. It is the very last person he ever expected to see again, but as he reels in shock Blake and Kendall are on his trail, thanks to the efforts of an avaricious cabbie with a good memory for facesâ€¦

As Christmas Day dawns Blake and Kendall lead a raid on the hidden citadel to rescue Mortimer, but the wily savant has already taken dramatic steps to secure his own release and defeat his insane, implacable opponent…

Fast-paced, action-packed, wry and magnificently eerie, this fabulously retro thriller is an intoxicating moody mystery and a sheer delight for lovers of fantastic fiction. Blake & Mortimer are the graphic personification of the Bulldog Spirit and worthy successors to the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Allan Quatermain, Professor Challenger, Richard Hannay and all the other valiant stalwarts of lost Albionâ€¦

In 1986 this story was reformatted and repackaged in a super-sized English translation, the last of six volumes with additional material (mostly covers from the weekly Tintin added to the story as splash pages) as part of a European push to win some of the lucrative Tintin and Asterix market here, but failed to find an audience. There were no more translations until January 2007 when Cinebook released this tome to far greater approval and much successâ€¦

Gripping and fantastic in the truest tradition of pulp sci-fi and Boy’s Own Adventures, Blake and Mortimer are the very epitome of dogged heroic determination; always delivering grand, old-fashioned Blood-&-Thunder thrills and spills in timeless fashion and with astonishing visual punch. Any kid able to suspend modern mores and cultural disbelief (call it alternate earth history or bakelite-punk if you want) will experience the adventure of their livesâ€¦ and so will their children.

This Cinebook edition also includes a selection of colour cover sketches and roughs plus a biographical feature and chronological publication chart of Jacobs’ and his successors’ efforts.
Original editions Â© Editions Blake & Mortimer/Studio Jacobs (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) 1987 by E.P. Jacobs. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2007 Cinebook Ltd.

December 23, 2014December 22, 2014

Moomin: the Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip volume 5

By Tove and Lars Jansson (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-89729-994-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Moomins Aren’t Just For Christmas, But For Lifeâ€¦ 10/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20^th century: equally adept at shaping words and images to create worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components such as pen and ink, manipulating slim economical lines and patterns to realise sublime realms of fascination, whilst her dexterity made simple forms into incredibly expressive and potent symbols.

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and practically bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Her father Viktor was a sculptor, her mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars and Per Olov became a cartoonist/writer and photographer respectively. The family and its close intellectual, eccentric circle of friends seems to have been cast rather than born, with a witty play or challenging sitcom as the piece they were all destined to act in.

After intensive study from 1930-1938 (University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and L’Ecole d’Adrien Holy and L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris) she became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War. Intensely creative in many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945: SmÃ¥trollen och den stora Ã¶versvÃ¤mningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood), a whimsical epic of gentle, inclusive, accepting, understanding, bohemian, misfit trolls and their strange friendsâ€¦

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm, and achieved some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of Chamberlain and other European leaders in the build-up to World War II. She was also an in-demand illustrator for many magazines and children’s books, and had started selling comic strips as early as 1929.

Moomintroll was her signature character. Literally.

The lumpy, gently adventurous big-eyed romantic goof began life as a spindly sigil next to her name in her political works. She called him â€œSnorkâ€ and claimed she had designed him in a fit of pique as a child – the ugliest thing a precocious little girl could imagine – as a response to losing an argument about Immanuel Kant with her brother.

The term â€œMoominâ€ came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited by warning her that a Moomintroll guarded the kitchen, creeping up on trespassers and breathing cold air down their necks. Snork/Moomin filled out, became timidly nicer – if a little clingy and insecure – acting as a placid therapy-tool to counteract the grimness of the post-war world.

The Moomins and the Great Flood didn’t make much of an initial impact but Jansson persisted, probably as much for her own edification as any other reason, and in 1946 the second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators have reckoned the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon.

When it and her third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or occasionally The Happy Moomins) were translated into English in 1952 to great acclaim, it prompted British publishing giant Associated Press to commission a newspaper strip about her seductively sweet and sensibly surreal creations.

Jansson had no misgivings or prejudices about strip cartoons and had already adapted Comet in Moominland for Swedish/Finnish paper Ny Tid.

Mumintrollet och jordens undergÃ¤ng – Moomintrolls and the End of the World – was a popular feature so Jansson readily accepted the chance to extend her eclectic family across the world.

In 1953 The London Evening News began the first of 21 Moomin strip sagas which promptly captivated readers of all ages. Tove’s involvement in the cartoon feature ended in 1959, a casualty of its own success and a punishing publication schedule. So great was the strain that towards the end she had recruited her brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975. The three strips in this volume were all scripted by Lars and illustrated by his sister.

Free of the strip, Tove returned to painting, writing and her other creative pursuits, generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and another nine Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as thirteen books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Tove Jansson died on June 27^th 2001 and her awards are too numerous to mention, but consider this: how many modern artists – let alone comics creators – get their faces on the national currency?

Her Moomin comic strips have long been available in Scandinavian volumes and the discerning folk at Drawn & Quarterly have translated these into English for your – and especially my – sheer delight and delectation.

Moomintrolls are easygoing free spirits, bohemians untroubled by hidebound domestic mores and societal pressures. Moominmama is warm and capable but overly concerned with propriety and appearances whilst Moominpappa spends most of his time trying to rekindle his adventurous youth or dreaming of fantastic journeys. Their son Moomin is a meek and dreamy boy who adores their permanent guest Snorkmaiden – although that impressionable gamin prefers to play things slowly whilst waiting for somebody potentially betterâ€¦

This fifth oversized (312 x 222mm) monochrome hardback compilation gathers the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st strip sagas and is a particular favourite, comprising a trio of epic length sequences commencing with ‘Moomin Winter’ as the worst snow season in living memory begins and the nonconformist family decide that this year they will return to traditional ways and hibernate as proper Moomintrolls shouldâ€¦

However happenstance and their own magnanimous natures work against them as other locals – less prepared for the winter’s icy blasts – keep turning up seeking succour, solace and shelter. Naturally no decent creature could turn away neighbours – or even complete strangers – in needâ€¦

First it’s timid Miss Fluffins nervously tapping on the door then a little later the quirkily obnoxious Gromf imposing himself upon them, but the truly disruptive influence only arrives after a most odd Christmas when the snow lies metres deep around the house. Delivered through an upstairs window by the indefatigable parcel post is a box containing a baby Niblingâ€¦

Abandoning all hope of a successful hibernation, the Moomins become unwilling but polite hosts to them all although, as Niblings are such legendary troublemakers, it’s understandable that Moominmama first goes on a heroic expedition to all the neighbours, striving to find a suitable home (i.e. somebody else’s) for the little miteâ€¦

She even briefly considers the draconian local orphanage before relenting and returning home with the nosy, chaos-causing little critterâ€¦

As well as having voracious eating habits, the Nibling is less than welcome for its incessant curiosity and stunningly forthright rudeness. As the snowbound days pass the inquisitive meddler sniffs out every shameful secret of the household from Fluffins’ strangely masculine habits to Snorkmaiden’s binge eating, young Moomintroll’s aspirations to thespianism or the fearsome Gromf’s addiction to knitting doiliesâ€¦

These secrets and others it uses to virtually run the house. Moominpapa retires to his study to reminisce and read the papers whilst his long-suffering wife resorts to the thankless tasks of housework to keep busy. Eventually however, as the months go by the Moomins decide it’s time for drastic action and try to starve all their increasingly unwelcome guests outâ€¦

Sadly, as ever, the hosts are too gracious and well-mannered to persist for long and soon the boy troll and incessant Nibling are skiing through the winter wilderness hunting grizzly and moose for the larder. A little later, things come to a comical head when the assemblage decides to share all their secret peccadilloes thus depriving the mischievous Nibling of its powerâ€¦

This comedy of manners is followed by a boisterously sedate and surreal adventure as ‘Moomin Under Sail’ finds Moominpapa and family joining neighbour Too-Tikki (the eminently practical and capable lady was based on Jansson’s life partner, graphic artist Tuulikki PietilÃ¤, and first appeared in the novel Moominland Midwinter) in building a wooden sailing ship and going voyagingâ€¦

The construction is well underway, with everyone contributing in their own unique way, when a wandering poet appears and names the vessel â€œMermaidâ€ – which rash Moomin misspells as â€œMurmadeâ€ when painting the hull – before moving on, and all too soon the travellers are underwayâ€¦

At least they would be if they hadn’t built their boat on a hill and now can’t shift it. Fortunately Too-Tikki knows a rather irascible but polite giant Booble named Mr. Edward who she can convince to move the river for themâ€¦

And in a roar of waters they are off, hurtling out to sea in search of wonder, mystery and romance. It comes all too soon as food and whisky starts to vanish and â€“ at least for the ever-imaginative Snorkmaiden â€“ passion is found when the terrified shipmates discover that the beguiling, advantage-taking poet has stowed awayâ€¦

Young Moomin is less than sanguine that his one and only has become besotted with the unscrupulous scribbler and is secretly delighted when a school of seagoing wild Niblings board the vessel and eat all his odesâ€¦

None too soon they depart, taking the poet with them whilst leaving one of their cubs behind. The rapacious tyke is rather sweet but has a disturbing taste for paper and leather goodsâ€¦

Things begin to go further awry as the babe eats all the charts so Too-Tikki captures some clouds for the child to chew, accidentally precipitating a colossal hurricane which rips their sails away. Happily the clouds make a suitable substitute. There’s even some left to give to Mr. Edward when the aggrieved Booble suddenly shows upâ€¦

Sighting land the Moomins and Co go ashore to re-supply and hear worrying stories of a pirate marauder dubbed the â€œBloody Maryâ€ before heading back out to sea and encountering a Marie Celeste-like conundrum and inevitable encountering the dread privateers.

Imagine the surprise of the Murmade mariners when they discover the wild freebooters are in fact old acquaintancesâ€¦

This amazing, enchanting collection concludes with a salutary tale of unrequited love as Moomin makes a new friend and becomes involved with ‘Fuddler’s Courtship’. The meek and rather scruffy young man is a collector of many things – but most especially buttons – and reveals to his new chum that he is hopelessly in love with quirky, overly romantic and lonely Mymbleâ€¦

Despite their misgivings over the clear mismatch, Moomin and Snorkmaiden attempt to facilitate affairs but the target of the Fuddler’s affections is currently enamoured of a dynamic strongman. Although she’s prepared to give any new suitor a chance, his clumsiness, diffidence, messiness and collecting habits soon drive Mymble back to her photos of the oblivious Sebastianâ€¦

With his confidence crushed Fuddler retreats to his coffee-can home to be depressed, provoking Moomin and Snorkmaiden to call in newspaper psychiatrist Dr. Hatter. It is a terrible mistakeâ€¦

The Shrink is a mass of complexes and neuroses and soon he has infected almost everybody with one of his problems. Moreover Mymble finds the tortured â€œgeniusâ€ utterly fascinating.

Moomin then tries everything – even a helpful ghost – to drive Hatter away, but only succeeds in having his entire family locked up. Happily the Fuddler has a collection of keys and other cage-opening gimmicks amongst his copious possessionsâ€¦

The course of true love continues to run anything but smoothly for all concerned until one night the Fuddler meets a sweet, confused and messily charming collector of shells and stones. Her name is The Jumbleâ€¦

Wrapping up the Wild Things wonderment is the short essay ‘Tove Jansson: To Live in Peace, Plant Potatoes, and Dream’: a comprehensive biography and commentary by Alisia Grace Chase (PhD) which celebrates the incredible achievements of this genteel giant of literature.

These are truly magical tales for the young laced with the devastating observation and razor sharp mature wit which enhances and elevates only the greatest kid’s stories into classics of literature. These volumes are an international treasure and no fan of the medium – or carbon-based lifeform with even a hint of heart and soul – can afford to be without them.
Â© 2010, 2014 Solo/Bulls. All other material Â© its creators. All rights reserved.

December 22, 2014December 21, 2014

Asterix and the Actress

By Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion Books)
ISBN: 978-0-75284-658-8

A son of Italian immigrants, Alberto Aleandro Uderzo was born on April 25th 1927 in Fismes on the Marne. He dreamed of becoming an aircraft mechanic but even as a young child reading Mickey Mouse in Le PÃ©tit Parisien he showed artistic flair. Albert became a French citizen when he was seven and found employment at thirteen, apprenticed to the Paris Publishing Society, where he learned design, typography, calligraphy and photo retouching.

When World War II came he spent time with farming relatives in Brittany and joined his father’s furniture-making business. Brittany beguiled and fascinated Uderzo and when a location for Asterix‘s idyllic village was being mooted, that beautiful countryside was the only choice…

In the post-war rebuilding of France, Uderzo returned to Paris and became a successful artist in the recovering nation’s burgeoning comics industry. His first published work, a pastiche of Aesop’s Fables, appeared in Junior and in 1945 he was introduced to industry giant Edmond-FranÃ§ois Calvo (whose own comic masterpiece The Beast is Dead is far too long overdue for a commemorative reissueâ€¦).

Tireless Uderzo’s subsequent creations included the indomitable eccentric Clopinard, Belloy, l’InvulnÃ©rable, Prince Rollin and Arys Buck. He illustrated Em-RÃ©-Vil’s novel Flamberge, dabbled in animation, worked as a journalist and illustrator for France Dimanche and created the vertical comicstrip ‘Le Crime ne Paie pas’ for France-Soir.

In 1950 he illustrated a few episodes of the franchised European version of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel Jr. for Bravo!

An inveterate traveller, the artistic prodigy met Rene Goscinny in 1951. Soon bosom buddies, they resolved to work together at the new Paris office of Belgian Publishing giant World Press. Their first published collaboration was in November of that year; a feature piece on savoir vivre (gracious living) for women’s weekly Bonnes SoirÃ©e, following which an avalanche of splendid strips and serials poured forth.

Jehan Pistolet and Luc Junior were created for La Libre Junior and they resulted in a western starring a â€œRed Indianâ€ who eventually evolved into the delightfully infamous Oumpah-Pah. In 1955, with the formation of Ã‰difrance/Ã‰dipresse, Uderzo drew Bill Blanchart for La Libre Junior, replaced Christian Godard on Benjamin et Benjamine and in 1957 added Charlier’s Clairette to his portfolio.

The following year, he made his debut in Tintin, as Oumpah-Pah finally found a home and a rapturous audience. Uderzo also drew Poussin et Poussif, La Famille Moutonet and La Famille Cokalane.

When Pilote launched in 1959 Uderzo was a major creative force for the new enterprise, collaborating with Charlier on Tanguy et Laverdure and devising – with Goscinny – a little something called Asterixâ€¦

Although the gallant Gaul was a massive hit from the start, Uderzo continued illustrating Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure, but once the first hilarious historical romp was collected in an album as AstÃ©rix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the hit series would demand most of his time – especially since the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas.

By 1967 Asterix occupied all Uderzo’s time and attention, and in 1974 the partners formed IdÃ©fix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation. When Goscinny passed away three years later, Uderzo had to be convinced to continue the adventures as writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes until 2010 when he retired.

After nearly 15 years as a weekly comic serial subsequently collected into book-length compilations, in 1974 the 21st (Asterix and Caesar’s Gift) was the first published as a complete original album before serialisation. Thereafter each new release was an eagerly anticipated, impatiently awaited treat for the strip’s millions of fansâ€¦

More than 325 million copies of 35 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making his joint creators France’s best-selling international authors, and now that torch has been passed and new sagas of the incomparable icon and his bellicose brethren are being created by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conradâ€¦

One of the most popular comics on Earth, the collected chronicles of Asterix the Gaul have been translated into more than 100 languages since his debut, with twelve animated and live-action movies, TV series, assorted games, toys, merchandise and even a theme park outside Paris (Parc AstÃ©rix, naturellement)â€¦

Like all the best stories the narrative premise works on more than one level: read it as an action-packed comedic romp of sneaky and bullying baddies coming a-cropper if you want, or as a punfully sly and witty satire for older, wiser heads. English-speakers are further blessed by the brilliantly light touch of master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who played no small part in making the indomitable little Gaul so very palatable to English tongues.

Many of the intoxicating epics are set in various exotic locales throughout the Ancient World, with the Garrulous Gallic Gentlemen reduced to quizzical tourists and bemused commentators in every fantastic land and corner of the civilisations that proliferated in that fabled era. The rest – more than half of the canon – take place in and around Uderzo’s adored Brittany, where, circa 50 B.C., a little hamlet of cantankerous, proudly defiant warriors and their families resisted every effort of the mighty Roman Empire to complete the conquest of Gaul.

The land is divided by the notional conquerors into provinces of Celtica, Aquitania and Amorica, but the very tip of the last named just refuses to be pacifiedâ€¦

Whenever the heroes were playing at home, the Romans, unable to defeat the last bastion of Gallic insouciance, futilely resorted to a policy of absolute containment. Thus the little seaside hamlet was permanently hemmed in by the heavily fortified garrisons of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

The Gauls couldn’t care less, daily defying and frustrating the world’s greatest military machine simply by going about their everyday affairs, protected by the miraculous magic potion of resident druid Getafix and the shrewd wits of the diminutive dynamo and his simplistic, supercharged best friend Obelixâ€¦

Firmly established as a global brand and premium French export from the mid-1960s onwards, Asterix the Gaul continues to grow in quality as new creators toil ever onward, crafting further fabulous sagas and building a stunning legacy of graphic excellence and storytelling goldâ€¦

Uderzo’s seventh session as sole auteur was AstÃ¨rix et Latraviata released in 2001 as the 30^th volume of the ever-unfolding saga. The English language version was released that same year as Asterix and the Actress.

The revelatory epic opens with romance in the air as Obelix and his lifelong pal return to the village laden down with boars and more battered keepsakes of the ongoing battle with the woefully outmatched Romans.

They amiably amble into a huge surprise party. The heroes share the same birthday and their friends have arranged the event to commemorate the occasion. Even their mothers have come down for a visit from fashionable regional capital Condatumâ€¦

Soon a feast is in full swing but after handing over their spectacular gifts – a fabulous jewelled sword for Asterix and an equally splendid Roman helmet for Obelix to add to his huge collection – culled from the parents’ fashionable souvenir shop, the mothers begin a battle of their own with their sons.

Fed up with waiting for their hardworking husbands to arrive from the Big City, the impatient matrons start in on the birthday boys with lectures about settling down and providing some grandchildrenâ€¦

Overruling Asterix and Obelix’s complaints, the insistent Sarsaparilla and Vanilla conduct acutely embarrassing interviews with the village’s contingent of eligible females – and their potential mothers-in-law – and even organise a formal dance to show off their sons’ matrimonial potential, but the matchmaking is a succession of fiascos since the oafish louts just don’t want to play ballâ€¦

Fathers Astronomix and Obeliscoidix are now long overdue. Unknown to all they have been arrested by Prefect Bogus Genius. The wily official has a problem which needs some clever and extremely delicate handling…

Already in custody is dipsomaniac former legionary Tremensdelirious (see Asterix and Caesar’s Gift), who sold the aforementioned sword and helmet to the Gaulish souvenir traders. Sadly the items’ true owner is Caesar’s greatest enemy Pompey and thus proof positive that the usurping former tribune is back in Europe. The items must be quietly recovered before Rome realisesâ€¦

Well aware of the ferocious reputation of the sons of his Gaulish captives, the Prefect enacts a devious scheme suggested by his spies. Mighty Obelix turns to jelly whenever he sees the beautiful Panacea (another village Ã©migrÃ© now living in Condatum with her husband Tragicomix – as first seen in Asterix the Legionary) so the devilish conspirator has hired the Empire’s greatest actress Latraviata to impersonate her and steal back the incriminating evidenceâ€¦

As the despondent dads tire of waiting for rescue by their doughty boys and strike a deal with their cellmate Tremensdelirious, Decurion Fastandfurius is pretending to be a merchant escorting â€œPanaceaâ€ back to her home village. The poor thing has a very selective case of amnesiaâ€¦

In that certain Gaulish village on the coast of Armorica the actress is readily accepted with only Druid Getafix in the least suspicious. Soon her fawning attention to besotted Obelix wins her the helmet but Asterix is not so easily wooed. That changes when a spat with his now-jealous bosom buddy results in a mighty blow to the head which deprives him of his usually superior witsâ€¦

If not for overprotective mother Vanilla the plot would have succeeded then and there, but she stops the ingÃ©nue making off with the sword and calls in Getafix to cure her addled son. Unfortunately the magic potion has a bizarre effect on the little zombie and Asterix goes wild, acting like an animal and scrapping with Obelix before hurtling out to sea like a torpedoâ€¦

He regains his senses on a rock in the middle of nowhere just as a massive storm erupts about him and only survives due to the intervention of old frenemies The Pirates and a particularly accommodating dolphinâ€¦

In the meantime Latraviata and Fastandfurius have secretly secured the sword and started back for Condatum. Still unaware of their true nature, the freshly reconciled Asterix and Obelix – who are heading in the same direction to find out what has delayed their dads – cadge a lift on the infiltrators’ cart.

Elsewhere, other agents are coming into play. A certain spy has already informed Caesar of trouble brewing and the real Panacea, having seen Astronomix and Obeliscoidix’s wrecked shop, has rushed off with Tragicomix to warn the villageâ€¦

As the heroes head for the city, they are baffled to see Romans so busy fighting each other that they don’t even notice their Gaulish nemeses, and everything comes to a startling head when Panacea apparently meets herself on the roadâ€¦

After explanations, apologies and a surprising change of heart on behalf of one of the conspirators, Asterix and Obelix dash on to Condatum to rescue their fathers, only to stride straight into a major melee as Caesar and Pompey’s forces furiously clashâ€¦

Of course it all works out in the end and cartoon dog-lovers everywhere will rejoice in the last moment arrival of the missing wonder mutt Dogmatixâ€¦and the introduction of his new â€œwifeâ€ and family. Apparently some heroes can successfully combine romance and dutyâ€¦

Packed with outrageous action, good-natured joshing, clever targeted raucous family humour, bombastic spectacle and a torrent of punishing puns to astound and bemuse youngsters of all ages, this rollicking affirmation of life’s eternal verities further confirmed Uderzo’s reputation as a storyteller whilst his stunning illustrative ability affords glimpses of sheer magic to lovers of cartoon art. Asterix and the Actress proves that the potion-powered paragons of Gallic Pride will never lose their potent punch.
Â© 2001 Les Ã‰ditions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny-Uderzo. English translation: Â© 2001 Les Ã‰ditions Albert RenÃ©, Goscinny/Uderzo. All rights reserved.

December 22, 2014December 21, 2014

Yuletide Treat Timeâ€¦ Now Give This!

Marvel Platinum: The Definitive Guardians of the Galaxy
By Arnold Drake, Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Bill Mantlo, Jim Valentino, Keith Giffen, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Gene Colan, Mike Mignola, Timothy Green, Paul Pelletier & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-601-4
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: All-out Fights ‘n’ Tights Fun â€¦ 8/10

December 21, 2014

Cochlea & Eustachia

By Hans Rickheit (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-801-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Unseasonably Strange but Utterly Irresistibleâ€¦ 9/10

Hans Rickheit was born in 1973 and has been producing skilfully crafted art in many different arenas since the 1990s, beginning with self-published mini-comics before graduating to full-sized, full-length epics such as Kill, Kill, Kill and The Squirrel Machine. He has also worked in film, music, gallery works and performance art.

A Xeric award beneficiary, he came to broader attention in 2001 with the controversial graphic novel Chloe, and has since spread himself wide contributing to numerous anthologies and periodicals, creating beguiling webcomics and instigating the occasional anthology or minicomic of his own such as Chrome Fetus.

That last was the original venue for the strangely surreal binary sorority known as Cochlea & Eustachia. They first manifested in issue #5 in 2001, with obscure and occulted follow-ups in The Stranger, Proper Gander, Hoax, Typhon, Blurred Visions and Pood. Most recently they have destructively scurried and ambled through Rickheit’s webcomic pages (http://www.chromefetus.com/) and now are ready to inflict their distracting blend of ingÃ©nue iconoclasm and chaos chic through the printed page of a splendidly olde worlde graphic compilation.

A keen student of dreams, Rickheit has been called obscurantist, and indeed in all his beautifully rendered and realised concoctions meaning is layered and open to wide interpretation.

His preferred oeuvre is the recondite imagery and sturdily fanciful milieu of Victorian/Edwardian Americana which proved such rich earth for fantasists such as Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth, whilst his fine, studied, meticulously clear line is a perfect, incisive counterpoint to the frequently challenging logic-bending of miasmic mystery and cosmic confusion.

In Short: pay attention, scrutinise carefully and make up your own mindâ€¦

In a shabby, battered manse peculiar contraptions and bizarre trophies of things that should never have existed – let alone be stuffed and mounted – abound.

The master of the house is another strange creature and as he awakes from a unique bier and begins to wander the rooms, unseen and undetected wanton mischief makers Cochlea and Eustachia rouse also and resume their apparently aimless peregrinations through the walls, nooks and crannies of the edifice that rests atop a sea of animal skullsâ€¦

The nubile, girl-like creatures scutter about in dream-like journeys and progressions, avoiding and yet stalking the wheelchair bound savant as he continues his labours, cultivating creatures of incomprehensible oddityâ€¦

Soon chances occur for more manufactured calamity and a wildly sedate chase ensues, resulting in capture, shocking indignity and a clash with monsters and giant robots, but as the episode escalates we are left to wonder are the elfin wanderers a binary or in fact trinary partnership?

Or is the truth – if such a thing can ever be pinned down and vivisected – something even more baroque and uncanny?

All that basically means is that I wouldn’t dream of spoiling this sinisterly absurdist confection from one of the most impressively singleminded craftsmen working in comics today, and if you are at all tempted or intrigued you must buy this splendidly slewed and offbeat chronicle.

Scary, beautiful, disturbing and often utterly inappropriate, the full-colour exploits of the masked misfit misses is accompanied by an enticing extra tale in muted monochrome as the mysterious masqueraders return to declare ‘How It Works’, after finding a possibly handsome stranger stashed in a box in a starkly surreal swampâ€¦

Visually reminiscent of the best of Rick Geary, Jason Lutes and Charles Burns whilst being nothing like them at all, Rickheit presents a singularly surreal and mannered design; a highly charged, subtly disturbing delusion that will chill, bewilder and possibly even outrage many readers.

It is also compelling, seductive, sublimely quirky, blackly hilarious and nigh-impossible to forget. As long as you’re an adult and braced for the unexpected, expect this to be one of the best books you’ll read this decade – or any otherâ€¦
Cochlea & Eustachia Â© 2014 Hans Rickheit. This edition Â© 2014 Fantagraphics Books Inc.

December 20, 2014December 18, 2014

Tales of an Imperfect Future

By Alfonso Font (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-494-1

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: For Starry-Eyed Cynics Everywhereâ€¦ 8/10

Barcelona-born creator Alfonso Font Carrera was born on August 28^th 1946. He studied Fine Arts and worked as an illustrator before slipping into comics in the 1960s with westerns tales in HazaÃ±as del Oeste and Sioux for Ediciones Toray.

He soon graduated to horror stories and historical crime dramas about infamous criminals for the Selecciones Illustradas Agency and in 1970 began contributing material to British publisher Fleetway on strips such as Black Max in Thunder and Lion, soon thereafter graduating to America with work for mature magazine publishers Warren and Skywald.

With writer Carlos EchevarrÃa, he created ‘GÃ©minis’ (AKA Phil Jackson) and moved to Paris in 1975 to work for major comics magazine Pif Gadget devising ‘Sandberg, PÃ¨re et Fils’ with Patrick Cothias, ‘Les Dossiers MystÃ¨re’ (written by Solet, and sharing art chores with Carlos GimÃ©nez and Adolfo Usero) and the Roger LÃ©cureux-scripted ‘Les Robinsons de la Terre’.

From 1976-1982 he also freelanced for Scoop, Tousse Bourin and Super-As and at that time, incensed by publishers reprinting his work without permission or payment, he became active in Creators Rights issues and worked with GimÃ©nez, Victor Mora and Usero as the â€œWorkshop Premiaâ€ seeking to create a union for comics professionals.

In the mid 1980s Font returned to Spain, contributing to new, home-grown publications like Cimoc, Ã€ Tope, and Circus whilst creating (with Mora) ‘Sylvestre’ and ‘Tequila Bang’.

For the Spanish iteration of 1984 he created signature sci fi gadabouts Clarke & Kubrick – who subsequently appeared in Cimoc and Rambla – and began a series of self-scripted, mordantly cynical and sardonic science fiction tales under the umbrella title ‘Cuentos de un futuro imperfecto’ which we know as Tales of an Imperfect Futureâ€¦

Seemingly never sleeping, he went on to create parody-laced aviation hero ‘Frederico Mendelssohn Bartholdy’, ‘El Prisionero de las Estrellas’, and classical adventure serial ‘Jann PolynÃ©sia’ – which evolved into the iconic ‘John Rohner’ for Cimoc and ‘Carmen Bond’ for Ã€ Tope

In 1987 he started a fruitful association with French publications Pilote and Charlie Mensuel with his series ‘Taxi’ and, after a brace of independent albums for Planeta publishers, revived John Rohner at Norma publishers.

Always occupied he went on to create ‘Privado’ and medieval warrior ‘Bri D’Alban’ for Cimoc, whilst collaborating on cop series ‘Negras tormentas’ (‘Black Storms’) with writer Juan Antonio De Blas. He even began occasionally illustrating Italy’s venerable western superstar Tex for Bonelli. In 1996 he returned to American pages with his erotic series ‘Dra, Dare’ for Penthouse Comix.

A major force in European graphic storytelling, Font has won numerous awards including The Grand Prize at Comic Barcelona and a Haxtur Award.

His artwork is loose, fluid, intricate and utterly electrifying and now Dark Horse have translated the original European collection of Tales of an Imperfect Future into a stunning oversized (287x224mm) monochrome hardback edition that will delight fans of grittily fantastic fiction.

Any Brit who grew up reading the short complete sagas exemplified and perfected in 2000AD‘s Tharg’s Future Shocks, Pulp Sci-Fi or Tales from Beyond Science will be right at home – unless casual (human and robot) nudity is a problemâ€¦

Written and illustrated by Font throughout, the anthological nature of the tales is linked by the simple bridging device of a grotesque alien directly telling us that humanity is simultaneously a threat and embarrassment to the universe. However, rather than go to the time and expense of eliminating us, the Great Powers are offering us one last chance to change our ways and by way of inducement have provided some stories taken from our most probable futures to illustrate just why we’re so much of a problemâ€¦

The hard science hagiography commences with ‘Tanatos-1 Comes Home’ as the smug hierarchal rulers of earth gloat over the news that the AI super-weapon they created to destroy the alien fleets of Kloron has spectacularly succeeded.

As boffin Commander Grenh describes to the xenophobic top Bankers, Clerics and Military leaders how his programming compels the indestructible Tanatos-1 to unceasingly and implacably seek out all life in the universe and eradicate it, veteran General Alto Kervis asks himself why it has turned around and now nears Earthâ€¦

‘Rain’ introduces hard-working, long suffering blue-collar spacers Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke, stuck on a sodden world going slowly madâ€¦

When the incessant deluge apparently causes a malfunction, hated computer Hal 2001 insists they go outside to fix the problem but Stanley is convinced the useless metal martinet is trying to kill its human mastersâ€¦

Barbed humour gives way to barbarian fantasy in ‘Day of Glory’ as valiant John Smith battles devils and monsters to save his princess and his people. Tragically the wonder warrior is in for disappointment and shock once he impossibly defeats the sinister Overlord of Klaarnâ€¦

Cracks appear in the foundations of the Military-Industrial complex when a vile capitalist proves to the government why the war they’re fighting must never end in ‘Stocks’, whilst

‘The Hunt’ prophetically takes the Hunger Games trope and ongoing war between â€œOne-Percentersâ€ and the rest of us to its logical conclusionâ€¦

Originally crafted in the mid 1980s, it follows two super-rich brats as they stalk each other with lethal weapons through the dystopian wastelands inhabited by the poor. Of course, even when they’re killing each other for sport on a reality show, the oligarchs still find a way to bloodily exploit the despised discarded millionsâ€¦

‘â€œLike a Plagueâ€’ then offers an excoriating morality tale about our suicidal ecological irresponsibility before Stanley and Arthur return in ‘Cyberratic’.

Having finally escaped the rain-drenched hellhole and their creepily disturbing electronic taskmaster, the unlikely heroes hit the Welcome Satellite for some R&R but stumble into a major mechanical malfunction on the totally-automated resort. Luckily a small droid keeps pulling their fat out of the robotic fire, but you’d think such passionate machine-haters would stop for a moment to ask why and how their little saviour escaped the malfunction plagueâ€¦

‘The Final Enemy’ offers a bleak glimpse at the thinking behind the soldiers who will fight in the final atomic Armageddon whilst black humour informs the tale of Earth explorers who land on paradise and destroy it forever with ‘The Kiss’â€¦

Similar silliness informs the trash-inundated post-apocalyptic world of ‘The Cleaner’ when humanity’s last survivors activate a miraculous device to get rid of the cause and effects of the pollution which destroyed the worldâ€¦

Although meant as a comedic interlude, the next vignette sadly comes across as dated and just a touch homophobic by today’s elevated standards, detailing the shock and peril a solitary explorer endures when he discovers his government-mandated and supplied robotic sexual companion is not a â€œBettyâ€ but an over-zealous ‘Valentino’â€¦

Far more safe and salutary territory finds ‘Earth Control at Your Service, Sir.’ addressing a version of the Cold Equations quandary as two astronauts bringing an end to global famine realise that they won’t reach Earth if both men keep breathing the rapidly diminishing oxygen supply. As they struggle to make an impossible decision they have no inkling that the authorities on a starving world have their own ideasâ€¦

‘The Siege’ bloodily traces the rampage of a merciless murderous maniac as a fractured city endures police martial law and the ceaseless hunt for society’s greatest menace and the tormented tomorrows tumble to a close with the bleak sad tale of a doomed and dying spacer’s escape into fantasy and one last passionate rendezvous with beloved ‘Green Eyes’â€¦

Scary, satirical, suspenseful and superbly intoxicating Tales of an Imperfect Future offers a powerful panoply of graphic pleasures for every lover of comics adventure and science fiction wonders by a master of art long overdue for fame in the English-speaking world.
Tales of an Imperfect Future Â© 2014 SAF Comics, www.safcomics.com. All rights reserved.

December 19, 2014December 18, 2014

Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole

By Leonard Brandt Cole with an introduction by Bill Schelly (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-762-8

The early days of the American comicbook industry were a whirlwind of spectacular exuberance and the front covers of the gaudy pamphlets that endlessly proliferated were all crafted to scream â€œBuy Me! Buy Me!â€ from within a sea of similar sights.

As such, that first visual contact was crucial to success and one of the greatest artists ever to mesmerise kids out of their hard-earned dimes was Leonard Brandt Cole (28^th August 1918 – December 5^th 1995) who had a master designer’s knack for combining captivating ideas and imagery with eye-popping style and technique.

Although he also illustrated quite a few interior strips (for Holyoke, Ajax, Farrel and Gilberton), Cole’s true gift and passion was devising attention-grabbing cover images rendered in what he called â€œposter colorsâ€.

Whether on Horror, Superhero, Science Fiction, Sports, Humour, Crime, War, Western, Rugged Adventure, Jungle, Romance or Funny Animal titles, his stellar, absorbing art was instantly recognisable and in great part is what defines the Golden Age of Comics for us todayâ€¦

His influence doesn’t end there, however. A shrewd businessman and editor, Cole started his own studio-shop to manufacture stories for assorted companies and parlayed it into publishing company (initially by buying existing properties from client Novelty Press in 1949) and then diversifying through his Star Comics line into genre novels, prose-pulps, puzzle-books and general magazine periodicals.

Frequently he would combine his electric primary colours over a black background adding instant extra punch to his renditions of masked champions, soaring spaceships, macabre monsters and a legion of damsels in love or distressâ€¦

Before joining the nascent comics industry in the early 1940s, Cole’s background was in science and printing. He studied veterinary science (he held a doctorate in Anatomy and Physiology from the University of Berlin) but was working as a lithographic Art Director when he made the seemingly sideways transition into illustration and comics.

Incredibly this colossal (272 pages, at 337x235mm), durably Flexibound compendium is his first major retrospective, bringing together a multitude of his most impressive works in one immense, colourful and informative volume

The astounding career of a comicbook Renaissance man is covered in fascinating detail in ‘Comics by Design – the Weird Worlds of L.B. Cole’ by pre-eminent historian of the medium Bill Schelly, whose appreciation ‘Fever Dreams in Four-Color Form’ is followed by his erudite biography and timeline of the artist, divided into four discrete periods.

Each section is augmented by photos, covers, original artwork and even comics extracts – ranging from panels and splash pages to complete stories (such as Paul Revere Jr.) – covered in lavish detail in ‘Into Comics’ and ‘Cole as Publisher’ whilst ‘Out of Comics’ focuses on his later move into commercial art, education and illustration.

In the 1980s Cole was â€œrediscoveredâ€ by comics fandom and achieved minor celebrity status through appearances at conventions. ‘Art Among the Junk’ covers this period up until his death when he began recreating his iconic covers as privately commissioned paintings for modern collectors.

The true wonder of this glorious phantasmagorical collection follows in ‘The Comics Covers of L.B. Cole’ which showcases long runs of the artist’s stunning covers – nearly 350 eye-popping poster images – from such evocative titles as 4Most, All-Famous Police Cases, Blue Bolt, Captain Aero, Cat-Man Comics, Classics Illustrated, Contact Comics, Confessions of Love, Criminals on the Run, Dick Tracy, Flight Comics, Frisky Animals, Ghostly Weird Stories, Killers, Jeep Comics, Mask, Popular Teen-Agers, Power Comics, Ship Ahoy, Shocking Mystery Cases, Spook, Sport Thrills, Startling Terror Tales, Suspense Comics, Target Comics, Terrors of the Jungle, Top Love, Toy Town, Western Crime Cases, White Rider and Super Horse and many moreâ€¦

The pictorial feast doesn’t end there though as ‘Further Works’ gathers a host of his non-comics covers including books such as The Greatest Prison Breaks of All Time, Murders I’ve Seen, Raging Passions and Love Hungry, as well as magazine covers for joke periodicals like Wit and Wisdom, Sporting Dogs and World Rod and Gun. Gentleman’s publications and â€œsweat magsâ€ such as Man’s True Action, Man’s Daring Adventures and Epic (Stories of True Action) also feature: all augmented with articles, working sketches and original drawings and paintings. There’s even a selection of his superb animal studies and anatomical and medical textbook illustrations, plus private commissions, recreations and unpublished or unfinished worksâ€¦

Black Light is a vast and stunning treasury of fantastic imagery from a bygone age by a master of visual communication that no fan of popular art could fail to appreciate, but for comics lovers it’s something else too: a seductive gateway to astounding worlds of imagination and breathless nostalgia impossible to resist.
Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole Â© 2015 Fantagraphics Books. All comics, artwork, photos, illustrations and intellectual properties Â© 2015 the respective copyright holder. All rights reserved.

December 18, 2014December 17, 2014

Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Essential Kurtzman volume One

By Harvey Kurtzman (Kitchen Sink Books/Dark Horse Books)
ISBNs: 978-1-61655-563-4

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Buy It Now, Love It Foreverâ€¦ 10/10

Well this is embarrassingâ€¦

About a month ago, after literally years of waiting impatiently, I finally reviewed one of the earliest classics of our art form, impetuously deciding that at least some of you might find and delight in Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book through second-hand and pre-owned suppliers.

Apparently, even as I was whining about the thing not being in print, superbly crafted copies of a wonderful new deluxe hardcover edition were winging their way around the planet thanks to the perspicacity of those fine people at Dark Horse and Kitchen Sink.

That will teach me to actually read some of the online reports and press releases we’re bombarded with here at Grumpy Old Luddite Centralâ€¦

Still my humiliation is your good fortune as this magnificently oversized (297x184mm) masterpiece is ready to buy and just in time to make this Holiday Season a time of wickedly barbed merrimentâ€¦

Here in Britain we think we invented modern satire, and quite frankly it’s a pretty understandable notion, with â€œThe Great 1960s Satire Boomâ€ producing the likes of Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, Bernard Levin, Richard Ingrams, Alan Bennett, Paul Foot, Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Miller, David Frost and institutions such as The Establishment club, That Was the Week that Was and the utterly wonderful Private Eye (long may She reign, offend, fly at Gads and survive repeated libel and defamation writs – there’s a Christmas Annual out even as we speakâ€¦).

Sadly our American cousins were not so magnanimously blessed. Their share of genuine world-changing, liberal-lefty rib-tickling intellectual troublemakers only really comprised Tom Lehrer and Harvey Kurtzman. Of course it is a very large country of excitable citizens, with an unbelievable number of guns equally distributed amongst smart folks, idiots and outright lunaticsâ€¦

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

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

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

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

In 1959, having left Mad over issues of financial control and with both follow-up independent ventures Trump andÂ Humbug cruelly defunct, the irrepressible Kurtzman convinced Ballantine Books to publish a mass-market paperback of all-new satirical material. That company had just lost the rights to publish Mad‘s phenomenally best-selling paperback reprint line and were cautiously amenable to a gambleâ€¦

The intriguing oddment saw the Great Observer in top form, returning to his comic roots by spoofing and lambasting strip characters, classic cinema, contemporary television and apparently unchanging social sentiments in a quartet of hyper-charged tales. Unfortunately the project was the first of its kind in America and met with far less than stellar success. No one had ever published 140 pages of new comics in one savage bite before, and even the plenitude of strip reprint books packing bookshop shelves and newsstand spinners were always designed with one eye on the kids’ market.

This new stuff was strictly for adults who would happily follow newspaper or magazine strips but didn’t want to be seen carrying a whole book of them. Duly enlightened, Kurtzman instead returned to safer ground and launched Help! just in time for the aforementioned Swinging Sixties’ satire boomâ€¦

The slim monochrome package might not have changed the nation but it certainly warped and affected a generation of budding cartoonists and writers. Quickly becoming a legend – and nearly a myth in many fan circles – Jungle Book was rescued from limbo in 1986 when cartoonist, publisher and comics advocate Denis Kitchen released the entire lost volume as a deluxe oversized collectors hardback edition through his Kitchen Sink Press.

Adjudged by The Comics Journal as #26 in the â€œTop 100 Comics of the 20^th Centuryâ€, the racy, revelatory controversial – and in 1959 completely ignored – tome’s full title is Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book: Or, Up from the Apes! (and Right Back Down) – In Which Are Described in Words and Pictures Businessmen, Private Eyes, Cowboys, and Other Heroes All Exhibiting the Progress of Man from the Darkness of the Cave into the Light of Civilization by Means of Television, Wide Screen Movies, the Stone Axe, and Other Useful Arts and this latest edition brilliantly gilds the graphic lily with a host of extra features and treats.

Augmented by a wealth of candid photos, covers and sketches from other works, this new chronicle of craziness offers an effusive Introduction by Gilbert Shelton and a fascinating and informative essay by Kitchen entitled ‘It’s a Jungle Out There!’ which reveals the tone of the times and discloses the background behind the novel novel’s creation.

Also included is the 1986 Kitchen Sink edition’s ‘Intro’ by rabidly devoted fan Art Spiegelman and, after the words and picture-fest concludes, a captivating ‘Epilogue’ ensues in the form of a scholarly ‘Conversation between Peter Poplaski and R. Crumb’â€¦

The material itself is gloriously timeless and revelatory. In 1959 it gave the author an opportunity to experiment with layout, page design, narrative rhythms and especially the graphic potential of lettering, all whilst asking pertinent, probing questions about the world rapidly changing all around him.

Each tale in the quartet is prefaced by Kurtzman’s own commentary as shared with comics historian Dave Schriener for the 1986 Editionâ€¦

‘Thelonius Violence, Like Private Eye’ is ostensibly a parody of groundbreaking TV show Peter Gunn, with the jazz-loving, hipster â€œWhite Knight for Hireâ€ scoring chicks and getting hit an awful lot as he infallibly and oh-so-coolly tracks a killer whilst protecting blackmail victim Lolita Nabokovâ€¦

The tale is slick and witty and sublimely smart, whereas the next piece (barely) contains a lot of pent-up frustration for past sins and misdemeanours.

In creating ‘Organization Man in the Grey Flannel Executive Suite’ Kurtzman accessed his experiences working for low-rent publishers and bosses (such as Marvel’s Martin Goodman) to create the salutary tale of a decent young man’s progress up the corporate ladder at Shlock Publications Inc.

The quasi-autobiographical, impressionable and ambitious naÃ¯f in question is Goodman Beaver (who would be resurrected for Help! and eventually, improbably evolve into Little Annie Fanny) and his transformation from sweet kid to cruel, corrupt, exploitative average business jerk makes for truly outrageous reading.

The title comes from a trio of contemporary bestsellers on the subject of men in business: Executive Suite by Cameron Hawley (1952), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson in 1955 and William H. Whyte’s 1956 drama The Organization Man.

‘Compulsion on the Range’ simultaneously spoofs top-rated western Gunsmoke and the era’s growing fascination with cod psychology and angst-ridden heroes as Marshal Matt Dolin‘s far-reaching obsession with out-shooting infallible outlaw Johnny Ringding which takes him to the ends of the Earthâ€¦

The cartooning wraps up with an edgily barbed tribute to Great Southern novels like Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre or assorted works of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, filtered through a glorious froth of absurd melodrama, frustrated passions and steamy sex (by all accounts the Very Best Kind), all outrageously delivered via astoundingly rendered caricatures and inspired dialect and accent gags.

The tale was inspired by the time Kurtzman spent in Paris, Texas during his wartime serviceâ€¦

In ‘Decadence Degenerated’ us’n sees thet nothin’ evah changes in sleepy ole Rottenville. Then wun naht, when the boys is jus’ a-oglin’ purty Honey-Lou as ushul, sommin’ goes awry an’ it all leads to murdah an’ lynchin’ befoah some snoopy repohtah who claims he frum up Noath turns up thinkin’ he can fin’ the truthâ€¦

Soon vi’lint passions is furtha aroused and nuthin’ kin evah be the same aginâ€¦

Funny, evocative and still unparalleled in its depth, ambition and visual potency, Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book inspired and influenced creators and storytellers as disparate as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Terry Gilliam. This is a masterpiece of our art form which no true devotee can afford to be without.
Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book (Essential Kurtzman Volume One) Â© 2014 Kitchen, Lind & Associates, LLC. All contents Â© and/or â„¢ their respective creators or rights holders. All artwork and stories Â© the estate of Harvey Kurtzman unless noted. Â All rights reserved.

December 17, 2014December 17, 2014

Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives volume 3

By Joe Samachson & Arturo Cazeneuve (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1694-8

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero the most significant event in the industry’s history was the combination of individual stars into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was resoundingly confirmed: readers just couldn’t get enough of garishly-hued mystery men, and a multitude of popular characters would inevitably increase readership.

Plus, of course, a mob of superheroes is just so much cooler than one (or one-&-a-half if there’s sidekicks involvedâ€¦).

The creation of the Justice Society of America in 1941 utterly changed the shape of the budding industry. Soon after the team debuted, even All American Comics’ publishing partner National wanted to get in on the act and thus created their own squad of solo stars, loaded with a bunch of their proprietary characters who hadn’t made it onto the roster of the cooperative coalition of AA and DC stars.

Oddly those eager editors never settled on a name and National’s squad of non-powered mystery men Crimson Avenger and Wing, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Sir Justin, the Shining Knight, Vigilante, Green Arrow and Speedy – who debuted as a unit in Leading Comics #1 in 1941 – were retroactively and alternatively dubbed The Law’s Legionnaires and/or The Seven Soldiers of Victory.

They never even had their own title-logo but only appeared as solo stars grouped together on the spectacular covers, the last half-dozen of which (by Luis Cazeneuve and Jon Small,) preface each of the epic sagas cunningly crafted by writer Joe Samachson and illustrator Arturo Cazeneuve in this final spectacular collection of Golden Age delights.

The tales in this third deluxe hardback compendium were originally presented in the quarterly Leading Comics #9-14 (spanning Winter 1943/1944 to Spring 1945), after which the title overnight converted to a vehicle for funny animal stars, making the team one of the earliest casualties of the changing fashions which eventually saw the virtual demise of superhero comics.

Following an incisive discourse, fascinating background and compelling history lesson from comics legend Roy Thomas in his Foreword, that war-time wonderment resumes with a startling romp entitled ‘The Chameleon of Crime!’

The sagas generally followed a basic but extremely effective formula (established by Mort Weisinger in the Soldiers’ first outing) wherein the heroes would meet to assess a many-headed threat before heading off individually to handle a portion of the problem solo, only reuniting to tackle the final foe together.

Here that plan deviates slightly as a conglomeration of five gangsters hiding out in a swanky underworld resort get to talking about the heroes they have fled from, and are overheard by a sixth. Disguise artist Mr. X boasts that he can outwit any and all of Seven Soldiers champions and a substantial amount of money is wageredâ€¦

The villain’s first targets are â€œThe Crimsonâ€ and Wing as ‘Mr. X Marks the Spot!’, smugly warning his oblivious foes of his plan to steal a giant gem before promptly getting thrashed and nearly caughtâ€¦

The malevolent mastermind plays it smarter in ‘The X-ploits of Mr. X!’, but still can’t resist giving The Vigilante a heads-up before robbing a rodeo show. This time he has to threaten innocent bystanders to escape without the swag but with his skin intactâ€¦

Two bets down and feeling rattled, Mr. X’s duel with the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy involves an assault on ‘The House That Couldn’t be Robbed!’ Here the Crime Chameleon takes an undercover, backseat role, keeping his identity hidden from his own men, but still can’t outmanoeuvre the quick-thinking patriotic partnersâ€¦

A text chapter entitled ‘Interlude at Hoodlums’ Hideout’ finds the frustrated mastermind back at the crime hotel being gibed by Red Heister, Dodo the Dip and Lazy Dyers – all recent winners in the larcenous communal wager – but still boasting that his final schemes will succeed.

Anxious gambler Blackie Kraul feels his portion of the bet might still be saved and secretly writes a warning to the Shining Knightâ€¦ exactly as Mr. X intendedâ€¦

Returning to comics format, the daring double-cross occurs in ‘The Gorilla and the Gangster!’ as the valiant Paladin tackles a gang using a huge ape to smash steel bars and rip open safes. Thanks to the interference of Blackie however the Shining Knight falls into Mr. X’s trap and only good fortune and overwhelming determination allow the hero to triumphâ€¦

Again frustrated and sent scurrying for safety, the infuriated X tries one final ploy to save face by defeating Green Arrow and Speedy. Trusting only himself and acting as High Society magician ‘Inco the Unknown!’ the scofflaw plunders at will but comes a cropper after mistakenly deducing that effete partygoer and prospective victim Mr. Ponsonby is actually the Emerald Archer’s alter egoâ€¦

Again defeated, Mr. X flees. Sadly for him after each clash he has left a tiny clue, so when the heroes put their heads together for the ‘Conclusion’ they soon deduce the location of the hoodlum hotel and corner both the criminal charlatan and the foolish thugs who first pitted him against the Law’s Legionnairesâ€¦

Leading Comics #10 featured an exotic adventure in the Pacific as ‘The King of the Hundred Isles!’ finds the Seven Soldiers searching the vast ocean for a missing museum expedition. When a sudden storm sinks their ship too, the rescue team are separated and scattered throughout a myriad of strange little fiefdomsâ€¦

The calm aftermath sees a number of odd new alliances as ‘Crusoe and Crusoe Inc.!’ focuses on the novel team of Crimson Avenger and Speedy, marooned on a desolate rock until a band of mysteriously-displaced American gangsters arrive on a mission of murder for their mysterious boss.

Despite a few tense moments the makeshift hero-team eventually overcomes and leaves in the thugs’ motor-launchâ€¦

Elsewhere, Green Arrow and Vigilante have washed up on an isle decorated with buildings much like their hometowns and encounter ‘His Majestyâ€¦ King Baby-Face!‘: a notorious mobster who had vanished from the USA years before.

Hiding out, Baby-Face Johnson had taken over the simple island populations with his legion of crooks and become obsessed with collecting fish. All that is lost now though as heroes and villain spectacularly clash and a major earthquake shatters everything the transplanted tyrant’s unhappy slaves had builtâ€¦

Sidekicks Stripesy and Wing scrambled ashore on a small paradise populated by the gentle descendants of English mariners in the midst of a crisis. After two centuries of self-sufficiency the population put up no fuss when representatives of â€œThe Kingâ€ finally arrived to make them pay taxes in ‘Taskmasters and Toilers!’

However when the costumed newcomers point out that their ruler is a knave and impostor it leads to another War of Independence for the beleaguered colonists, only this time the heroic rebels are defeatedâ€¦

On yet another of the Hundred Isles the long-missing scientists of the museum mission are passing their days cataloguing new piscine discoveries. Their enforced idyll ends when a pack of American wiseguys show up demanding their latest find for the King’s collection.

Luckily for ‘The Fortunate Fish!’, that was the moment Star-Spangled Kid and Shining Knight arrived on the Paladin’s flying horseâ€¦

As Wing and Stripesy face death and torture the colonists begin a counter attack in ‘Revelation of Roguery!’ and are greatly aided by the fortuitous arrival of The Kid and Sir Justin. With freedom in the air the costumed quartet quickly link up with their missing comrades in time to tackle Baby-Face and his army of felons, ensuring ‘Kingdom’s End!’

Issue #11 traces the fall of hardened racketeer Handsome Harry as he misplaces his talismanic chapeau in ‘The Hard-Luck Hat!’

Almost immediately the Seven Soldiers are on his trail and crush his gang in a furious fight. Only Harry escapesâ€¦

The story continues as the mobster’s hat falls into the hands of a shifty haberdasher who sells it to haughty J. Billington Bilker in ‘The Banker and the Bandit!’ The secret scoundrel is being squeezed by a bookie and agrees to let his cash-fat institution be robbed, but fortune is not on his side as Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy get involved in the caseâ€¦

With Bilker jailed, his house and possessions – including that hat – are scooped up at auction by gang-boss Gas-pipe Grogan who has an inspired notion in ‘Muggs at Mealtime!’ Putting the squeeze on the restaurant industry by â€œtaxingâ€ table salt Grogan thought he had tasted ultimate success until The Vigilante weighed inâ€¦

The freewheeling, infelicitous fedora then ended up with Grogan’s flunky Bozo who had far less ambitious plans to get rich. He targeted a swank store owner with memory problems, intending to slowly fleece ‘The Absent-Minded Victim!’ but had the misfortune of meeting superhero-in-mufti Lee Travisâ€¦

The eagle-eyed Crimson Avenger soon involved himself and partner Wing in the cruel scam, ending Bozo’s greedy dreams foreverâ€¦

The discarded, peripatetic titfer blew away on a breeze and landed on ‘The High-Hatted House!’ of inventor John Harrison just as band of escaped convicts broke in, drawing the Shining Knight into a deadly dilemma before justice and mercy finally prevailedâ€¦

That dilapidated topper then fell into the hands of a thrift-store owner who stuck it on his shop mannequin just in time for a maverick financier to buy the whole ensemble.

Mr. Jordan intended ‘The Dummy Director!’ to be his protest proxy on a Board ruled by a financial bandit but had grievously underestimated the murderous ruthlessness of his offended Chairman.

Luckily millionaire Oliver Queen was already on the case, acting as Green Arrow to ensure the guilty parties were all properly punishedâ€¦

The tale turns full-circle in ‘Hat’s Haven’ as the lucky lid lands at the feet of a hobo. Recognising it instantly, hungry fugitive Handsome Harry immediately feels its power and soon is benefiting from a cunning con involving the â€œHaven for Homeless Hoboesâ€.

His shelter is in fact a college of criminality but before too long the Law’s Legionnaires have infiltrated the institution, determined to end Harry’s crooked ways for goodâ€¦

Leading Comics #12 saw crotchety Croesus Weldon Darrel issue ‘The Million Dollar Challenge!’ to the Seven Soldiers, offering that princely sum to charity in return for their participation in an eccentric five-way treasure hunt. Naturally the heroes agree and ‘The Cache in the Canyon!’ soon finds Vigilante in the Wyoming badlands hunting for a box of valuables. Sadly the wild country is also the stamping grounds of a murderous bunch of bandits who immediately jump to some wrong conclusionsâ€¦

Crimson Avenger and Wing head to a small town to test ‘The Power of the Press!’ discovering an old hollow newspaper printer is the location of a fortune in jewels. Of course the cheap thugs currently in possession of the press have their own ideas about â€œfinders keepersâ€ and accuse the heroes of theftâ€¦

Green Arrow and Speedy trace a meteorite to a museum in search of ‘The Safe from the Sky!’ only to find themselves hunted by the police whilst Shining Knight’s pursuit of ‘The Puzzle of the Pyramid!’ leads to a monumental boobytrapped modern edifice with crooks ready to murder and frame himâ€¦

Stripesy and the Star-Spangled Kid gain some inkling of what’s really going as ‘Murder in Miniature!’ sees the Red, White and Blue Duo investigating a toy town built to stash crooks’ cash and falling foul of the local law before the team reunites for the shocking ‘Conclusion’ to expose the astounding secret of the enigmatic, eccentric and unscrupulous moneymanâ€¦

Issue #13 featured ‘Trophies of Crime!’ and opens in an art museum where an odd assortment of mementoes donated by the Seven Soldiers hints at incredible feats of skulduggery.

Once upon a time the infamous Barracuda was intent on retiring from a life of extremely successful felony. To while away his idle hours he organised a collection of artefacts for his personal Black Museum and began acquiring them by callously sacrificing his top lieutenants to distract the Magnificent Seven whilst others went after his targetsâ€¦

Learning early of the scheme the Legionnaires split up to stop them and ‘Crime’s Cornerstone!’ finds Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy battling killer robots to secure what appears to be a simple stone building block even as in a fantastic construction of steel and glass the Shining Knight battles a band of burglars over ‘The Cup of the Borgias!’

A bold robbery and seemingly impossible murder draws Vigilante to an experimental plantation where a ruthless gang try every dirty trick to steal ‘The Rubber Dagger!’ only to fail at the last moment whilst the Crimson and Wing take to the seas in search of a shard of canvas from ‘The Sails of the Sally C.!’ as Green Arrow and Speedy happen upon a strange and deadly bidding war with mobsters trying everything to get ‘The Iron Band!’ a simple metal worker purchases from a jewellers.

In every case Barracuda’s hoods came off worst but the mastermind escaped, at least until the Seven left their ‘Mementos of Victory’ on public display and laid a perfect trapâ€¦

The short reign of the Seven Soldier of Victory ended in Leading Comics #14 (Spring 1945) with a fabulous flight of fantasy that ranged them against ‘The Bandits from the Books!’ after a chance encounter with scientific paragon Dr. Wimsett who has discovered a process which brings fictional characters to life.

Whilst the likes of Humpty Dumpty and Old King Cole are happy mooching around the laboratory, a select group of very bad eggs the scientist had locked in a room take the first opportunity to abscond to the outside world to make mischiefâ€¦

Their plans were overheard by helpful Humpty who happily shares the secrets with the Seven, so before long Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy are shadowing Long John Silver, his crew and a band of renegade natives from Last of the Mohicans to ‘Treasureless Island!’, whilst Green Arrow and Speedy follow Shakespeare’s roistering rogue on a gluttonous binge in ‘Food for Falstaff!’

Crimson Avenger and Wing hunt malignant Uriah Heep and the Old Man of the Sea as they brutally acquire modern wealth in ‘Hypocrites, Incorporated!’ even as Shining Knight battles ‘The Giant Who Got a Job!’ and a few of his big friends from the fairytales whilst Vigilante has his work cut out trying to wrangle ‘Little Men with Big Ideas!’ as the marauding armies of Lilliput go on a rampage in farms and a toystoreâ€¦ Soon however the troublemakers are all back in the lab but have one last card to play before they can be banished ‘Back to the Books!’â€¦

Frantic fantasy would also have been the theme of the next adventure had there been one, but Leading abruptly transformed into a cartoon animal comedy anthology for the Summer issue. The changeover was so sudden that story was already competed. ‘The World of Magic: Joe Samachson’s Script for Leading Comics#15’ offers a wondrous glimpse of what might have beenâ€¦

Moreover, when Paul Levitz rediscovered the script in 1974, editor Joe Orlando had it adapted as a chapter-play serial in Adventure Comics #438-443, illustrated by artists Dick Dillin, Tex Blaisdell, Howard Chaykin, Lee Elias, Mike Grell, Ernie Chua/Chan, JosÃ© Luis GarcÃa LÃ³pez & Mike Royer.

It’s a true shame room couldn’t be found to include that saga here tooâ€¦

With an informative ‘Biographies’ section to round off the nostalgic wonderment, it only remains to say that these raw, wild and excessively engaging costumed romps are amongst some of the best but most neglected thrillers of the halcyon Golden Age. Happily, modern tastes too have moved on and these yarns are probably far more in tune with contemporary mores, making this a truly guilty pleasure for all fans of mystery, mayhem and stylishly retro superteam tusslesâ€¦

December 17, 2014

Yuletide Treat Timeâ€¦ Now Give This!

Gotham Central book 1: In the Line of Duty
By Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka & Michael Lark & Stephen Gaudiano (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1923-9 (HC) Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : 978-1-4012-2037-2 (SC)
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Great Treats for Dark Nightsâ€¦ 10/10

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