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The Dangerous Journey


By Tove Jansson, translated by Sophie  Hannah (Drawn & Quarterly/Enfant)
ISBN: 978-1-77046- (HB) eISBN: 978-1-77046-638-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Warm Storytelling for the Darkest Nights… 10/10

Tove Jansson was one of the greatest literary innovators and narrative pioneers of the 20th century: equally inspired in shaping words and making images to create whole worlds of wonder. She was especially expressive with basic components like 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 and as this collection shows, so was her brother…

Tove Marika Jansson was born into an artistic, intellectual and rather bohemian Swedish family in Helsinki, Finland on August 9th 1914. Patriarch Viktor was a sculptor and mother Signe Hammarsten-Jansson a successful illustrator, graphic designer and commercial artist. Tove’s brothers Lars – AKA “Lasse” – and Per Olov became – respectively – an author/, cartoonist and art photographer. 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 inhabit.

After extensive and intensive study (from 1930-1938 at the 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), Tove became a successful exhibiting artist through the troubled period of the Second World War. Brilliantly creative across many fields, she published the first fantastic Moomins adventure in 1945. Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Little Trolls and the Great Flood or latterly and more euphoniously The Moomins and the Great Flood) was a whimsical epic of gently inclusive, acceptingly understanding, bohemian misfit trolls and their rather odd friends…

A youthful over-achiever, from 1930-1953 Tove had worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish satirical magazine Garm: achieving some measure of notoriety with an infamous political sketch of Hitler in nappies that lampooned the Appeasement policies of European leaders in the build-up to WWII. 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 “Snork” 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 with her brother about Immanuel Kant.

The term “Moomin” came from her maternal uncle Einar Hammarsten who attempted to stop her pilfering food when she visited, 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 second book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published. Many commentators believe the terrifying tale a skilfully compelling allegory of Nuclear Armageddon. You should read it now… while you still can. When it and third illustrated novel Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll or sometimes 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 undergäng – 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. Jansson’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 recruited brother Lars to help. He took over, continuing the feature until its end in 1975.

Liberated from the strip’s pressures, Tove returned to painting, writing and other creative pursuits: generating plays, murals, public art, stage designs, costumes for dramas and ballets, a Moomin opera and 9 more Moomin-related picture-books and novels, as well as 13 books and short-story collections strictly for grown-ups.

Tove Jansson died on June 27th 2001. Her awards are too numerous to mention, but just think: how many artists get their faces on the national currency?

Whenever such a creative force passes on, the greatest tragedy is that there will be no more marvels and masterpieces. Happily, so tirelessly prolific was Tove that her apparently endless bounty left plenty of material for later creators and collaborators to pick over. One such example is this stunning children’s rhyming picture book, part of a series using her characters.

In a wonderfully peaceful place, there’s a girl called Susanna and a cat. Life is pretty idyllic but the brooding human wants action, not contentment…

When she makes an unwise move near the napping moggy, it precipitates a strange event, and a lengthy, laborious trek by many modes of transport through strange lands, supplying all the adventure a girl could ask for. Thankfully, there are some oddly familiar and exceedingly helpful characters heading in the same approximate direction…

Finished in 1970, this metaphysically moody and marvellous allegorical meandering was Jansson’s last picture book for kids, as she graduated to even darker themes addressing mature issues. As a narrative it is utterly compelling, and, for an example of kids’ doggerel, translator Sophie Hannah keeps the rhythm and rationale rolling along with exemplary invention.

Witty, thrilling and disturbingly lovely in dark ways The Dangerous Journey is every youngster’s perfect introduction to sequential narratives, and a beguiling reminder to oldsters why we love them…

Entire contents © Tove Jansson, 1970 Moomin Characters™. Translation © 2010, 2018 Sophie Hannah. All rights reserved.

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1066: William the Conqueror


By Patrick Weber & Emanuele Tenderini, translated by Pierre Bison and Rebekah Paulovch-Boucly (Europe Comics)
No ISBN: digital only

Although I’ve never for a moment considered history dry or dull, I can readily appreciate the constant urge to personalise characters or humanise events and movements, especially when that job is undertaken with care, respect, diligence and a healthy amount of bravado.

An excellent case in point is this superb, digital-only (still!) retelling from 2011, ruminating upon and postulating about individual motives and actions, whilst relating the verifiable events leading up to the most significant moment in English – if not full-on British – history  – apart from all the other ones. Other individual and national opinions may apply…

In case you were one of those who were asleep, surreptitiously ogling a classmate who didn’t even acknowledge your existence, or carving your name into a desk or body part: on October 14th 1066, a force of French invaders led by William, Duke of Normandy clashed with the forces of Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson in East Sussex near Hastings (most historians agree that the actual bloodletting happened in a place later dubbed – for no apparent reason – “Battle” and commemorated thereafter by the edifice of Battle Abbey.

Translated into a compelling, lively and lovely digital edition thanks to the benevolence of the collective imprint Europe Comics, 1066: William the Conqueror opens with historian and author Patrick Weber’s foreword ‘Before Setting Sail’, revealing how the magnificent Bayeux Tapestry closely inspired the fictionalised account he crafted with veteran comics illustrator Emanuele Tenderini (Dylan Dog, Wondercity, World of Lumina).

The story is gripping and savvy, putting flesh and bones on a wide range of complex characters, all trapped in a web of royal intrigue and savage power politics, long before Halley’s comet appeared in the skies over northern Europe more than a millennium ago. The war of nerves between the kings and kingmakers of proto-England, machinations of the ferocious Godwinson clan and untrammelled ambitions of the Norman Duke play out against the pitiful backdrop of a rich and powerful country suffering for lack of coherent – or even barely capable – leadership. The parallels to today are painful to behold and we all know how the last shambles played out.

Here, though, is a possible explanation of why…

Most marvellous of all, this is also a brilliantly compelling adventure yarn with readers not sure who to root for before the big action finish…

Adding lustre to the tale is bonus section ‘Deep Within the Inner Stitchings’: an accessible exploration of the Tapestry, accompanied by character sketches and designs.

Potent, beguiling, evocative and uncompromising, this a retelling any fan of history and lover of comics will adore.
© 2015 – Le Lombard – Tenderini & Weber. All rights reserved.

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Superman: The Silver Age Dailies volume 3 – 1963-1966


By Jerry Siegel & Wayne Boring (IDW Publishing/Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-6134-0179-4 (HB)

his book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

The American comic book industry – if it existed at all – would be utterly unrecognisable without Superman. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form. Spawning an army of imitators and variations within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of breakneck, breathtaking action and wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel grew to encompass cops-&-robbers crimebusting, socially reforming dramas, sci fi fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East sucked in America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

From the outset, in comic book terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook biz, the Man of Tomorrow irresistibly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media. Although we all think of the Cleveland boys’ iconic invention as epitome and acme of comics creation, the truth is that very soon after his springtime debut in Action Comics #1 the Man of Steel was a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse.

We parochial and possessive comics fans too often regard our purest and most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers and their hyperkinetic kind long ago outgrew their four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized modern media creatures instantly familiar in mass markets, across all platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have seen and heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comic books. His globally syndicated newspaper strips alone were enjoyed by countless millions, and by the time his 20th anniversary rolled around, at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial star, headlined a series of astounding animated cartoons, become a novel attraction (written by George Lowther) and helmed two films and his first smash, 8-season live-action television show. He was a perennial sure-fire success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and in his future were even more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark, Smallville, Superman & Lois), a stage musical, franchise of blockbuster movies and almost seamless succession of games, bubble gum cards and TV cartoons. These started with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and have continued ever since. Even superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the previous century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and often the planet – it was seen by millions, if not billions, of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books. It also paid better.

And rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture. Mutt and Jeff, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped their humble tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar. Most still do…

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16th January 1939, supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that year. Originally crafted by luminaries like Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring), the mammoth task required the additional talents of Jack Burnley and writers like Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz. The McClure Syndicate feature ran continuously until May 1966, appearing at its peak, in over 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers; a combined readership of more than 20 million. Eventually, Win Mortimer and Curt Swan joined the unflagging Boring & Stan Kaye whilst Bill Finger and Siegel provided stories, telling serial tales largely divorced from comic book continuity throughout years when superheroes were scarcely seen.

Then in 1956 Julie Schwartz kicked off the Silver Age with a new Flash in Showcase #4 and before long costumed crusaders began returning en masse to thrill a new generation. As the trend grew, many publishers began to cautiously dabble with the mystery man tradition and Superman’s newspaper strip began to slowly adapt: drawing closer to the revolution on the comicbook pages. As Jet-Age gave way to Space-Age, the Last Son of Krypton was a comfortably familiar icon of domestic America: particularly in the constantly evolving, ever-more dramatic and imaginative comic book stories which had received such a terrific creative boost when superheroes began to proliferate once more. The franchise had been cautiously expanding since 1954 and by 1961 Superman was seen not only in Golden Age survivors Action Comics, Superman, Adventure Comics, World’s Finest Comics and Superboy, but also in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and Justice League of America. Such increased attention naturally filtered through to the more widely-read newspaper strip and resulted in a rather strange and commercially sound evolution…

This third and final  hardback collection (encompassing November 25th 1963 to its end on April 9th 1966) opens with a detailed Introduction from Sidney Friedfertig, disclosing the provenance of the strips; how and why Siegel was tasked with repurposing recently used and soon to be published scripts from comic books; making them into daily 3-and-4 panel black-&-white continuities for an apparently more sophisticated, discerning newspaper audience.

It also offers a much-needed appreciation of the author’s unique gifts and contributions…

If you’re a veteran comic book fan, don’t be fooled: the tales “retold” here might seem familiar but they are not rehashes: they’re variations and deviations on an idea for audiences seen as completely separate from the kids who bought comic books. Even if you are familiar with the traditional source material, the serialised yarns here will read as brand new, especially as they are gloriously illustrated by Wayne Boring at the peak of his illustrative powers.

After a few years away from the feature, Boring had returned to replace his replacement Curt Swan at the end of 1961, regaining the position of premiere Superman illustrator to see the series to its demise. Moreover, as the strip drew to a close many strip adaptations began appearing prior to the “debut” appearances in the comics. As an added bonus, the covers of the issues these adapted stories came from have been included as a full, nostalgia-inducing colour gallery…

Siegel & Boring’s astounding everyday entertainments recommence with Episode #145, ‘The Great Baroni’ (November 25th to September 14th 1963), revealing how the Caped Kryptonian helps an aging stage conjuror regain his confidence and prowess. It’s based on a tale by Siegel & Al Plastino from Superboy #107 (which had a September 1963 cover-date).

‘The Man Who Stole Superman’s Secret Life’ (December 16th 1963 to 1st February 1964 as first seen in Superman #169, May 1964, by Siegel & Plastino) was a popularly demanded sequel to the story where the Man of Tomorrow lost his memory and powers, but fell in love.

When his Kryptonian abilities returned he returned to his regular life, unaware that he had left heartbroken Sally Selwyn behind. She thought her adored Jim White had died…

Now as Clark investigates a crook who is a perfect double for Superman, he stumbles into Sally and a potentially devastating problem…

Episode #147 – February 3rd to March 9th – saw the impossible come true as ‘Lex Luthor, Daily Planet Editor’ (by Leo Dorfman, Swan & George Klein from Superman #168 April 1964) reveals how the criminal genius flees to 1906 and lands the job of running a prestigious San Francisco newspaper – until a certain Man of Tomorrow tracks him down…

March 9th saw Clark, Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane begin ‘The Death March’ (originally an Edmond Hamilton & Plastino tale from Jimmy Olsen #76, April 1964): an historical recreation turned agonisingly real after boss Perry White seemingly has a breakdown. Of course, all is not as it seems…

‘The Superman of 800 Years Ago’ has a lengthy pedigree. It ran in newspapers from April 6th to May 18th but was adapted from an unattributed, George Papp illustrated story, ‘The Superboy of 800 Years Ago’. That debuted in Superboy #113 (June 1964), and was in turn based upon an earlier story limned by Swan & Creig Flessel from Superboy #17 at the end of 1951. Here a robotic Superman double is unearthed at a castle in Ruritanian kingdom Vulcania, so our inquisitive hero time-travels back to the source to find oppressed people and a very familiar inventor. Suitably scotching the plans of a usurping scoundrel, he leaves a clockwork champion to defend democracy in the postage stamp feudal fiefdom…

‘Superman’s Sacrifice’ was the 150th daily strip sequence, running from May 18th to June 20th (adapted from a Dorfman & Plastino thriller first seen in Superman #171, August 1964). Here the Man of Steel is blackmailed by advanced alien gambling addicts Rokk and Sorban, who want to wager on whether Superman will kill an innocent. If he doesn’t, they will obliterate Earth. The callous extraterrestrials seem to have all the bases covered and, even when the Metropolis Marvel thinks he’s outsmarted them, the wicked wagerers have an ace in the hole…

It’s followed by another tale from the same issue wherein Hamilton & Plastino first described ‘The Nightmare Ordeal of Superman’ (June 22nd – July 25th) wherein the Action Ace voyages to another solar system just as its power-bestowing yellow sun novas into red. Deprived of his mighty powers, our hero must survive a primitive world, light-years from home; battling cavemen and monsters until rescue comes in a most unlikely fashion…

The author of ‘Lois Lane’s Love Trap’ was unattributed, but the tale was drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger when seen in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane # 52 (October 1964). As reinterpreted here by Siegel& Boring (July 27th to August 22nd) however, it tells how Lois and Clark travel to the rural backwoods to play doctor and cupid for diffident lovers, after which August 24th to October 10th depicts ‘Clark Kent’s Incredible Delusions’ (seen in comic books in Superman #174, January 1965 by Hamilton, Swan, Plastino & Klein).

Incredible incidents begin after a visitor to the Daily Planet casually reveals he is secretly Superman. Not only does he have the powers and costume, but Clark cannot summon his own abilities to challenge the newcomer. Can Kent have been hallucinating for years? The real answer is far more complex and confusing…

A tip of the hat to a popular TV show follows as a deranged actor trapped in a gangster role kidnaps Lois and her journalistic rival, determined to prove her companion is a mobster and ‘The “Untouchable” Clark Kent’ (October 12th – November 7th): a smart caper transformed by Siegel from a yarn by Dorfman, Swan & Klein in Superman #173 November 1964.

‘The Coward of Steel’ (Siegel & Plastino, Action Comics #322, March 1965) ran November 9th to December 19th, revealing how Superman’s pipsqueak act becomes all-consuming actuality after aliens ambush the hero with a fear ray.

The year changed as Lois went undercover to catch a killer in ‘The Fingergirl of Death’ (Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane # 55 by Otto Binder & Schaffenberger; February 1965), reinterpreted here by Siegel & Boring from December 21st 1964 to January 23rd.

‘Clark Kent in the Big House’ – January 25th to March 6th – by Binder & Plastino was seen in Action #323 April 1965 and saw Clark in a similar situation: covertly infiltrating a prison to get the goods on an inmate. Sadly, once he’s there the warden has an accident and nobody seems to recognise Kent as anything other than a crook getting his just deserts…

There was more of the same in ‘The Goofy Superman’ (March 8th to April 12th, taken from Robert Bernstein & Plastino’s tale from August 1963’s Superman #163). This time though, Red Kryptonite briefly makes Clark certifiably insane. After he is committed and gets better, he sticks around to clear up a few malpractices and injustices at the asylum before heading home. A different K meteor causes extremely selective amnesia ‘When Superman Lost His Memory’ (from April 14th to May 22nd and originally by Dorfman, Swan & Klein from Superman #178 July 1965). This time the mystified Man of Steel must track down his own forgotten alter ego…

‘Superman’s Hands of Doom’ was the 160th strip saga, running May 24th through June 26th, as adapted from a Dorfman & Plastino thriller in Action #328 (September 1965). It detailed the cruelly convoluted plans of big-shot crook Mr. Gimmick who tries to turn Superman into an atomic booby trap primed to obliterate Metropolis, after which a scheming new reporter uses dirty tricks to make her mark at the Planet, landing ‘The Super Scoops of Morna Vine’ (June 28th– August 21st) through duplicity, spying, cheating and worse in a sobering tear-jerker first conceived and executed by Dorfman, Swan & Klein in Superman #181, November 1965.

The comic book version of ‘The New Lives of Superman’ – by Siegel, Swan & Klein – didn’t appear until Superman #182 in January 1966, but the Boring version (such an unfair name for a brilliant artist!) ran in papers from August 23rd – October 16th 1965: detailing how Clark has an accident which would leave any other man permanently blind. Not being ordinary, Superman had to find another secret identity and hilariously tries out being a butler and disc jockey before finding a way for Clark to return to reporting…

Something like the truly bizarre ‘Lois Lane’s Anti-Superman Campaign’ was seen in SGLL #55 (Dorfman & Schaffenberger, January 1966). As reinterpreted by Siegel & Boring for an adult readership from October 18th to December 18th, the stunts produced for the Senatorial race between her and Superman are wild and whacky (and could never happen in real American politics, No Sirree Bob Roberts!), even if 5th Dimensional pest Mr. Mxyzptlk is behind it all. (and wouldn’t that be a comforting reason for the last year of campaigning…)

Running December 20th 1965 through January 8th 1966, as adapted from a Dorfman & Pete Costanza thriller in Superman #185 (which eventually saw full-colour print in April 1966), ‘Superman’s Achilles Heel’ offers a slick conundrum as the Man of Might must wear a steel box on his hand after losing his invulnerability in one small area of his Kryptonian anatomy. The entire underworld tries to get past that shield, but nobody really thinks the problem through…

The end of the hallowed strip series was fast approaching, but it was business as usual for Siegel & Boring who exposed over January 10th through February 26th ‘The Two Ghosts of Superman’ (Binder & Plastino from Superman #186, May 1966) as our hero goes after crafty criminal charlatan Mr. Seer. Fanatical fans might be keen to see the cameo here from up-&-coming TV superstar Batman before the curtain comes down…

The era ended with another mystery. ‘From Riches to Rags’ (Dorfman & Plastino from Action Comics #337, May 1966) has Superman compulsively acting out a number of embarrassing roles – from rich man to poor man to beggar-man and so forth. Spanning February 28th to April 9th, it sees a hero at a complete loss until his super-memory kicked in and recalled a moment long ago when a toddler looked up into the night sky…

Superman: The Silver Age Dailies 1963-1966 is the last of three huge (305 x 236 mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Man of Steel and a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons. If you love the era or just crave simpler stories from less angst-wracked times these yarns are great comics reading, and this is a book you simply must have…
Superman ™ & © 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Chronicles of Legion volume 1-4: Rise of the Vampires, The Spawn of Dracula, Blood Brothers & The Three Faces of Evil



By Fabien Nury, Mathieu Lauffray, Mario Alberti, Zhang Xiaoyu, Tirso, Eric Henninot & various, translated by Virgine Selavy (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-093-1 (vol. 1), 978-1-78276-094-8 (vol. 2), 978-1-78276-095-5 (vol. 3), 978-1-78276-096-2 (vol. 4) – album HBs/Digital editions.

This book includes Discriminatory Content included for dramatic effect.

We’ve all been in love with vampires since the golden age of Victorian Gothic and it’s taken the undead in some extremely odd directions (I personally draw the line at sparkly immortal kissy-face boy-toys, but to each his own)…

Thankfully our European cousins have a more sanguine view of such matters and innate respect for tradition even when they reinterpret the old classics. Prolific scribe Fabien Nury (Stalin’s Death: A Real Soviet History, Once Upon a Time in France, The Master of Benson Gate, Necromancy as well as the epic Je Suis Légion with John Cassaday) began in 2011: a generational saga putting a fresh creepy spin on the legend whilst keeping a steady eye on the tone of what has gone before…

Les Chroniques de Legion was illustrated by round-robin art-team Mathieu (Star Wars, Long John Silver) Lauffray, Mario (Nathan Never, Morgana, assorted DC covers) Alberti, the enigmatic Zhang Xiaoyu (Crusades, Savage Highway) & Tirso Cons (Eye of the Devil, Le Manoir murmurs), reflecting the tale’s beguiling skirmishes occurring across a number of evocative eras.

First volume Rise of the Vampires found its English-language voice in 2014, opening in 1476 as barbaric warlord Vlad Tepes finally falls before the overwhelming armies of the invading Moslem horde. His stubborn Transylvania a crushed and broken province, the infamous leader had been dragged from the arms of his favourite concubine and beheaded by exultant general Selim Bey. Working for the invaders, Vlad’s despised and treacherous brother Radu knew that the story was not over yet…

As the victorious Turk ravishes his despised enemy’s beloved, Dracula’s implacable sibling rival is just too late to stop his brother’s malign blood invading the Moslem’s body and eating his devout mind. In an instant, Selim Bey’s is gone, overwritten by the undying Impaler…

Nor can Radu stop the sanguine horror escaping, and after “Selim” murders the Sultan and vanishes, the Transylvanian turncoat endures all the anger and hatred of the Ottomans. Of course, since his blood is just as accursed as Vlad’s, Radu’s story doesn’t end with his body’s destruction either…

In 1521, Vlad is on the move once more, inhabiting the body of Gabriella Del La Fuente. This recent orphan voyages to the New World; contracted to marry audacious conquistador Hernan Torres. A flower of the aristocracy, her perfect beauty is only marred by a strange scarlet mark on the back of her neck… a blemish shared with her recently-departed father Victor and a long-dead Turk named Selim Bey…

She has no idea Radu reached the Americas long ago, and transformed them to a hell of his own devising. The other brother has sustained his own arcane life by equally esoteric means, only in his case the intellect was scattered and diminished by the swarm of rats who consumed him and passed on his essence for the longest time…

Russia in 1812, and an undying warrior spirit wears French Hussar Armand Malachie. As Napoleon’s broken armies flee vengeful Cossacks after the battle of Berezina, he convinces his faithful subordinates Kholya, Stern, Hartmann and Feraud to desert with him. Detouring to the Wallachian Mountains, they hunt for valuable loot Armand had heard about: the “Lost Treasure of Vlad Dracula Tepes”…

It’s all a lie. The true reason for the diversion is that Dracula sensed far-distant Radu had allowed an unprecedented atrocity to be created and the time has come to end their infinitely extended vendetta forever…

London, 1887: elderly lawyer Morris Webster contacts friendless, antisocial clerk and gambling addict Victor Douglas Thorpe with an offer that will forever liberate the morose wastrel and ne’er-do-well from the drudgery of his impoverished Whitechapel life. For reasons inexplicable, Thorpe has been selected by immensely rich aristocratic recluse Lord Byron Cavendish to inherit all his lands and properties… upon successful conclusion of a personal interview, of course…

To Be Continued…

 

The Chronicles of Legion volume 2: The Spawn of Dracula

The epic war between immortal blood-drenched brothers continues in the second translated volume with a reiteration of the gory facts: Vlad Tepes Dracula and his younger brother Radu possess the power to extend their lives beyond what anyone else would think of as death. Their consciousnesses are carried in their blood, and by transferring the potent ichor to other living beings they can possess and dominate any number of victims infinitely. Both have lived for centuries and for all that time they have hated each other…

Here the story expands across three theatres of war with their unceasing attempts to destroy each other centred in very different eras. However,  rather than disparate clashes over time and space, these duels comprise glimpses of an extended, ceaseless campaign of terror with mere mortals callously disposable tools, weapons and cannon fodder…

The opening act occurs in 1885 as gambling addict and utter swine Victor Douglas Thorpe enters the palatial home of reclusive Lord Byron Cavendish. Should the upcoming interview go well, the impoverished cad will soon be heir to the largest fortune in the Empire…

The conference goes exactly as the unseen benefactor intends. When the successful applicant returns to London, he bears a strange red mark and is no longer quite himself.

Centuries earlier in 1521, Gabriella Del La Fuente bears the same scarlet sigil as she is escorted through the green hell of the New World to a meeting with her powerfully placed future husband. Guided by the conquistador’s enticingly masculine mulatto bastard Martin, the Doña’s party – rough soldier, cloying Spanish priests, avaricious self-important dignitaries and her fanatically loyal bodyguard Carlos – slowly make their way through the jungles until an uncanny sense warns of danger ahead…

Seconds later they are attacked by a horde of screaming barbarian warriors seemingly immune to pain and mortal harm, fighting on after being holed by musket fire or even beheaded.

Moments before her body’s imminent demise, Gabriella recognises her brother’s bloodmark on an attacker’s neck and, even as faithful, steadfast Carlos comes to her rescue, Vlad realises Radu has beaten her to this new continent and made himself at completely home.

Miles away, seeing through the dying eyes of his puppets, the other undying scion of Transylvania screams in fear and fury…

With daylight the much-diminished party struggles on towards Torres’ citadel and half-constructed cathedral, with the bride-to-be increasingly succumbing to lust as she cares for her wounded and septic future son-in-law. Once inside the Mission, she is forced back into the role of diffident contract-bride, but Hernan is no easy man to love. His thoughts are solely of preserving a legacy and creating a legitimate dynasty, and her bringing more grasping priests and fanatical Inquisitors to plague him has not endeared her to the Great Man…

Reduced to the status of closeted brood-mare, Gabriella has Carlos capture a huge eagle and, by allowing it to bite her, gains a mighty avian frame from which to view the world and survey her own inexorable rise to power. As he slowly recovers, Martin too falls under her spell, but this bewitching has nothing to do with her blood…

In late 19th century England an aristocrat’s estate burns in a vast and deliberate conflagration, but the new Lord has no regrets and looks only forward, never back.

In 1812 a band of deserters from Napoleon’s army have reached Targovishte. Armand Malachie has led faithful surviving subordinates Kholya, Stern, Hartmann and Feraud to the Wallachian Mountains in search of the treasure of Dracula, but the long-suffering peasants there, rapidly recognise who the dashing French Hussar is carrying inside him…

When an innkeeper passes on a message from Radu, arrogant Vlad disregards it, but later engages in a pointless clash with a band of Cossacks leading to the death of his mortal host…

As his men abandon his corpse to the snows, the embarrassed immortal marshals his fading strength to reanimate the cadaver and follow in search of a new meat-home…

And in 1887, Victor Douglas Thorpe attends the funeral of his so-suddenly and suspiciously deceased benefactor and is accosted by the woman who carries his unborn child. Her entreaties go unacknowledged and, as he is driven away in his livered carriage, she bitterly damns him…

To Be Continued…

 

The Chronicles of Legion volume 3: Blood Brothers

The unstinting war of immortal sanguinite siblings flows into a third translated volume as here some hint of what caused their enhanced states of being and eternal enmity is at last revealed. Still unfolding, across varied theatres of war, very different aspects of their inhumanity, our saga resumes in 1812 where Transylvanian snows conceal so many creatures which are Radu, collectively awaiting the next move of the Napoleonic deserters lured to this frozen wasteland by dreams of finding Dracula’s gold.

The teller of those tales was Captain Armand Malachi who led his battle-hardened comrades to Wallachia Mountains before dying in battle. At least that’s the way they all saw it. Vlad, riding Malachi, found it expedient to fall down when “killed” but now, with his host form actually ceasing to function in the crippling cold, the eternal warrior is forced to transfer his accommodations to something more welcoming and sustaining. When he catches up to his former friends, however, their understandable reaction leads to more violence and in the end only poor Kholya remains of any real use…

Half a world away and back in 1521, Gabriella, bearing a sign marking all the blood-ridden, stoically endures the vigorous dynastic intentions of future husband Hernan. She had endured the New World to be his comfortable, church-sanctioned brood-mare but is now far more interested in the Conquistador’s bastard son.

Her empire-building is not only imperilled by her treacherous body’s needs, but also by the impossibly powerful, indefatigably hostile natives bearing the taint and preternatural vitality of brother Radu.

When the “Indios” mount a full attack on the half-built compound, the Europeans barely repel the assault, and then only at the cost of the Doña’s steadfast and mystically augmented Carlos, whom she impetuously sacrifices to preserve Martin. In the gory aftermath, Hernan’s son realises what she is and what she’s done, but when they foolishly consummate their overwhelming passion, the constantly spying priests of the Inquisition make their own move. They are of course, no match for the powers of a Dracula…

Soon Hernan is gone too and Gabriella turns her attentions to making the New World her own. All that remains to bar her progress is firmly embedded Radu…

London in 1887 is the centre of the universe and formerly impoverished scoundrel Victor relishes his return to it, even as the latest embodiment of a monster. The new Lord Cavendish takes his place amongst the aristocracy of the Athenaeum Club but cannot escape their haughty disapproval and even outright hostility. No one knows why the immensely wealthy old oligarch settled his title and the largest fortune in the Empire upon such a blatant parvenu blackguard, but they all have suspicions…

When Chief Superintendent Warren of Scotland Yard and solicitor Mr. Morris Webster attempt to extort the new Peer with a fabrication of supposition and innuendo, they are unaware that they are challenging a sadistic absolute monarch carrying centuries of experience in removing threats to his security, but his summary treatment of them is as nothing to the way the next chancer is dealt with…

Soon afterwards the holder of Thorpe’s old gambling debts attempts to reassert his old hold on the former addict and foolishly uses Esther Harrington as leverage. When he was human, Thorpe had left her pregnant and penniless without a second thought, but as new Lord Cavendish is more concerned about making a statement than any sum of money. Before long Whitechapel’s grimy streets first run red with his all-encompassing vengeance and then explosively burn in a furious storm of purging flame.

Afterwards Cavendish cannot really explain why he lets Esther live or why he sets her up with a fortune and a new life… in distant India…

And in the cold snows of a dark night, Roma gypsies gather around a campfire where an old man tells the story of two brothers who were held hostage by the Ottoman Sultan to keep their lordly father compliant. The boys dealt with enforced captivity in different ways. Tough, rebellious Vlad bided his time and nursed his hatred whilst softer, weaker sibling Radu quickly capitulated, becoming a favourite plaything of the Sultan.

One day an aged pilgrim came to court carrying a box with two scorpions in it and Vlad discovered the means to fulfil all his dreams, but at such an incredible cost…

To Be Concluded…

 

The Chronicles of Legion volume 4: The Three Faces of Evil

Bleak, thrilling and sumptuously sinister, this last instalment feels a little rushed as the wetware war of brothers escalates across separate eras. With the Carpathian brothers clashing continually, and taking everyone in their proximities to hell with them, the fate of the unborn abomination is undisclosed…

However, as Vlad and Radu exploit their specific advantages and specialities, the physical clashes enter the terrifying realm of 20th century global conflicts and espionage endeavours, with corpses piling high everywhere. However, and as always, throughout their entwined existences, no one gets out alive and at last the bloody chess game and extended proxy wars can only be settled up close and personally: face to face and ichor to ichor…

Ultimately there a victor of sorts, but it doesn’t feel like it…

With illustrator Eric Henninot (Little Jones, Carthago, XIII Mystery) stepping in to limn a portion of the cataclysmic conclusion, the winner appears to be attrition and weariness, but is there one last bite in one of these beasts?

Physically unfolding as a quartet of luxurious oversized (211 x 282mm) full-colour hardbacks, as well as in digital editions, this superbly illustrated and beguiling told serial saga presents an intoxicatingly absorbing jigsaw of terror and tragedy that is a stunning and ambitious treat for all fans of fang and fear…
The Chronicles of Legion and all contents © Editions Glénat 2011-2012. Translated editions © Titan Comics, 2014 & 2015.

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Spinning (New Edition)


By Tillie Walden (Avery Hill Press)
ISBN: 978-1-91039-595-0 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Modern Classic Everyone Should Read… 10/10

Transitions are important. In fact, they are literally life changing. Here’s another one captured and shared by the amazing Tillie Walden…

We usually attribute wisdom and maturity in the creative arts to having lived a bit of life and getting some emotional grit in our wheels and sand in our faces, but that’s not the case for Texas-raised Tillie, whose incredible canon includes I Love this Part, On a Sunbeam, Are You Listening? and Clementine, not to mention award-winning debut graphic novel The End of Summer… and the revelatory biography we’re featuring today.

If you’re a completist, you’ll also want her picture book My Parents Won’t Stop Talking (created with Emma Hunsinger), Tegan and Sarah: Crush 2 and even her Cosmic Slumber Tarot set.

You don’t need a mask to have an origin story, and it’s a rare person – or perhaps indicative of self-deception or mental illness – who never ponders who they are or how they got to right here, right now. It’s a process that’s infinitely rewarding for creators and their readers. Spinning is a perfect example of an extremely talented person taking a basic human drive, exploiting it and turning it into magic. It’s a very personal origin story, which may have great relevance and meaning for many seeing it – and it’s got costumes too…

As previously stated, Walden has created a bunch of books and they mostly have little bios that say that she’s from Austin, Texas, as if that’s some kind of warning or character reference. Later ones say that she lives in Vermont with her wife and two cats and teaches at the Center for Cartoon Studies.

So how did that all happen?

Intimate and revelatory, some of the story is here: snapshots concentrating on her middle school years, back when she was a competitive ice skater, moodily rendered in moody tones of purple and yellow that somehow emphasise the impression of a child under a stark and lonely spotlight, or maybe a chicken in speeding headlights…

There’s something worrisome and uncomfortable about the kind of family that allows – or worse, pushes – a child into a punishing regime of intense training in pursuit of sporting excellence (or any other kind with a monetary benefit attached). I’ve heard all the arguments for and frankly, I don’t care. I was in a choir from age 5 to the end of secondary school, and I know just when it stopped being fun and became a burden…

Tillie back then was a kid who had to get up hours before school, travelling mostly on her own to isolated rinks and push relentlessly just to be one of the few seeking to excel at figure and synchronised skating. There were countless hours of sleep deficit, cruelly screaming or smotheringly solicitous coaches, equally exhausted and brittle girls just as reluctant to be there and always perishing cold. And that’s only how each day started.

… And then the family abruptly upped sticks from New Jersey to resettle in Austin, Texas…

The next few years are revisited with punishing candour and beguiling charm, employing the conceit of specific moves in a skating program as indicators/chapter headings. We open with ‘Waltz Jump’, covering her East Coast life and cross-country transition to a whole new world as soon as 5th grade classes ended…

‘Scratch Spin’ sees scorching August heat as the new kid meets teammates and/or rivals Michaela, Jennifer, Rosalind, Dasha and Little Dasha: as Tillie quickly learns that nothing she knew before applies here. At least coach Caitlin seems supportive and not another screaming harpy…

To supplement the misery, boost her grades and ostensibly offset bullying, Tillie is enrolled in a private girls’ school and sent for private cello lessons, proving her parents knew nothing about girls or school. Even skating has changed. Now she must attend two different rinks at separate times of day, constantly test to qualify and of course, endure more new friends… and otherwise.

Although Carly, Trinity, Sarah and the rest are all nice enough, it somehow only reinforces Tillie’s feelings of isolation and discomfort…

‘Flip Jump’ features first crushes, new bestie Lindsay, scary moments with adored brother John and a creepy old guy, with young Miss Walden triumphantly rejoining the traveling competition circuit, whilst ‘Axel’ celebrates her turning 12 and becoming bogged down in all the complex social interactions she just doesn’t understand, but which increasingly obsess her class and teammates. There’s also a bitterly regretted missed chance to confront the bully who made her life hell for a year…

Increasingly aware that skating is now a chore, not a choice, Tillie begins to ‘Spiral’ after a near fatal accident she refuses to tell anyone about, but which has lasting repercussions. There’s a life changing moment when she realises how much she enjoys drawing and how good she is at it, and a far happier discovery: classmate Rae likes her every bit as much as Tillie likes her – and in just the same way.

‘Spread Eagle’ sees that critical first love brutally end when her girlfriend’s parents find out and take preventative action: something Tillie would have far preferred to the understanding talk her own mother forces upon her, and which leads to the skater coming out to anyone who cares to listen…

As art grows to consume her, skating declines as an interest but paradoxically boosts her ability to win. Nevertheless, a crisis inevitably approaches and ‘Counter’ focuses on her at age 16, simultaneously seeking to bolster her skate ranking and planning on leaving Texas as soon as possible. SATs loom large on everyone’s horizon and Tillie has to endure extra tutoring despite having no intention of going to college. The arrangement almost makes her another crime statistic, but the real result of her narrow escape is realisation that her entire life is all about being tested and narrowly passing or surviving…

Floating days go by in a non-involved haze, before she eventually wakes up and takes charge. ‘Lutz’ addresses all her biggest challenges coming at once, yet another near-death experience, a life-altering unburdening and a decision at last made, leading into the liberating whirl of ‘Twizzle’ to free herself from twelve years a slave to other people’s wishes and the beginning of her own life…

That’s further addressed in the biographical Author’s Note that closes this magnificent and moving memoir. I said earlier that this was a part of Tillie Walden’s story; for more – as much as she’s willing to share – you’ll need to read her other books, both the biographical and fully fictional ones. Get them, read them, tell a friend. Give generously and wisely as the festive season unfolds…
© 2017 Tillie Walden. All rights reserved. This edition published 2024. All rights reserved.

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Dracula Marries Frankenstein! – An Anne of Green Bagels Story


By Susan Schade & Jon Buller (Papercutz)
ISBN: 978-1-62991-815-0 (TPB)

Papercutz are a company committed to publishing comics material for younger readers, combining licensed properties such as Asterix, The Smurfs and Nancy Drew with intriguing and compelling new concepts such as The Wendy Project and this tasty tantalising gem, a tried and true Halloween treat.

In her first adventure – where she found her long-missing dad – Anne Blossom and her family moved to the sleekly antiseptic metropolis and model community of Megatown. It was initially an uncomfortable fit. On her first day at school the other kids dubbed her “Anne of Green Bagels” because of the health-food spirulina lunch her grandmother had baked…

Eventually, however, she settled in, the town grew more human, and she made some friends. In this follow-up tale Anne and one of those pals – Otto Immaculata – decide to make a movie and, being fans of spooky stories, opt for a thriller-feature starring Frankenstein and Dracula.

As is always the way in these ventures, whilst scouting shooting venues, the plot evolves and by the time they have convinced the exceedingly eccentric owner of gothic mansion Herringbone Hall (which actually predates the entire city of Megatown) the project has morphed into a romcom tentatively entitled Dracula Marries Frankenstein…

The project proceeds apace, but when the usually sweet dowager Augusta Herringbone realises the kids are contemplating and condoning “same-sex marriage” she reacts in a most peculiar and astounding manner!

Moreover, when her over-the-top response goes viral, Herringbone Hall suddenly catches fire! Has the kid’s innocent summer-fun project unleashed a wave of hatred and intolerance in Megatown, or is there an even more incredible secret to be exposed? Maybe this ill-starred tale is a horror story after all…

Smart, funny and warmly inclusive whilst tackling adult issues in an accessible manner, Dracula Marries Frankenstein melds mystery, laughs and adventure in the grand style, all delivered by creative – and wedded – couple Susan Schade & Jon Buller in their hybrid graphic novel; alternating illustrated text chapters with cartoon strip episodes, in the manner & format of our own, equally alternatively life-stylish Rupert Bear Annuals.

An excellent and eminently re-readable children’s romp for modern times and forward-thinking families.
© 2017 Susan Schade & Jon Buller.

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Tosh’s Island

Version 1.0.0

By Linda Sargent, Joe Brady & Leo Marcell, adapted by Kate Brown (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-333-2 (Digest HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Powerful, Moving and Memorable… 9/10

British comics’ triumph The Phoenix has been generating fun, fantasy and wild adventure for kids since 2012, scoring some impressive results – such as Bunny Vs Monkey, Mega Robo Bros and No Country – and generally lifting the standards of comics literature and quality of graphic novels for children.

Now, thanks to writers Linda Sargent (drawing on her own childhood experiences) & Joe Brady, and illustrator Leo Marcell, the comic periodical has developed a far more traditional kind of children’s drama: one that should rank beside such potent “real-world” fantasies as A Dog So Small, The Family from One End Street or The Secret Garden.

Tosh’s Island is set in bucolic Kent hops country in the era between the end of rationing and advent of mobile phones, and follows the decline and resurgence of an indomitable spirit coming to terms with the cruellest and most unjust of circumstances.

It begins as Tosh is getting ready for secondary school: helping dad ready the hops and prepare the Oast House for Autumn and having him tell again the story of her being The Gooseberry Girl found under a bush. It’s much better than the ordinary story of how they adopted her. Tosh is fit and active and great at rounders, loves her bike, climbing with best friend Millie, and making up fantastic tales – especially about mermaids…

And suddenly, one afternoon it all starts to go wrong.

Slowly pain visits her, increasingly wracking her body and sucking all the energy out of her. The doctor thinks it’s nothing, but soon Tosh is constantly, chronically suffering. Not wanting to make a fuss, she soldiers on, but soon, it’s impossible to keep her suffering – and fears – secret. As big school starts, she finds everything harder, and old and new friends soon start talking about and taunting the troublesome attention-seeker.

Thankfully, her parents believe her, moving heaven and earth to get to the bottom of the mystery. There’s always hope of a recovery or at least end to pain, and treats like a visit to the beach. Here she meets a lonely French boy as forlorn as her – and as imaginative. Together they build a mind palace of refuge, an island for mermaids and shark rides and castles in the air. Corresponding with Louis will save Tosh’s sanity, but only after inadvertently causing her immense grief and embarrassment…

The mystery and misery continue until at last the right diagnosis and even treatment is found, but it certainly not all good news…

A forceful and evocative personal history of fortitude and resolve mesmerisingly clad in whimsy, charm and beguiling imagination, Tosh’s Island is a brilliant introduction to real world problems any kid can grasp and be moved by, in exactly the way books like Animal Farm, Tarka the Otter or Lord of the Flies negotiate the transition from sheltered child to understanding proto adult… and all in utterly entrancing pictures.

Do not miss this landmark tale.
Text © Linda Sargent & Joe Brady, 2024. Illustrations © Leo Marcell, 2024. All rights reserved.

Tosh’s Island will be published on October 10th 2024 and is available for pre-order now.

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Ghosts and Ruins


By Ben Catmull (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-678-2 (HB/Digital edition)

If you know the works of Sidney Sime and Edward Gorey, the horror comics of Bernie Wrightson and Michael Kaluta or simply love to peep through your interlocked fingers at the films of Tim Burton or the creepy backgrounds in Charles Addams’ creations, you’re clearly an aficionado of silly, spooky business and know mordant fantasy plays best when played for laughs.

With that in mind, you might be interested in this macabrely monochrome inconceivably un-famous coffee-table art book from cartoonist Ben Catmull (Monster Parade, Paper Theater). It classily celebrates the stuff of nauseating, stomach-churning terror and sinister, creeping suspense in a series of eerie illustrated plates crafted in scratchboard on Masonite – for extra-spooky darkness!

All that audaciously arcane art is wedded to epigrammatic prose snippets to comprise tantalising skeletons of stories best left untold and consequences safely ajudged as unimaginable…

The engrossing landscape hardback (268 x 222mm but digital views may vary!) combines gloomy gothic imagery with wry & witty updates on uncanny situations in a procession of locations best left well enough alone, commencing with six views of the dank domicile of diabolical ‘Drowned Shelley’ and a single ghastly glimpse of ‘The Buried House’.

A queasy quartet then divulges the doings of the ‘The Disgusting Garden’, after which one sight of ‘The Secluded House’ leads inexorably to a triptych revealing ‘The Woman Outside the Window’…

Four frightful frames of ‘Wandering Smoke’ miasmically meander towards ‘The Order of the Shadowy Finger’ – five in full – before giving way to three glimpses of ‘The Lighthouse’; a visit to a domicile all ‘Hair and Earwigs’ and thence to numerous views of the monstrous masterpieces hewn by horrific revenant ‘The Sculptor’…

On view is the ‘Labyrinth of Junk’ once concocted by a demonic carpenter, but that is as nothing compared to the sheer terror of ‘The Crawling House’ and the ghastly practises of a ‘Lonely Old Spinster’…

Mordantly blending bleak, spectral dread and anxious anticipation with timeless scary scenarios, this terrifying tease – a kind of IKEA Fall Catalogue of the Damned – is a sheer delight no lover of Dark Art could conceivably resist…
© 2013 Ben Catmull. This edition © 2013 Fantagraphics. All rights reserved.

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Bunny vs Monkey Book 10: The Great Big Glitch!


By Jamie Smart, with Sammy Borras & Paul Duffield (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-308-0 (Digest HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Because… Just Because… 10/10

Bunny vs Monkey has been the inspirationally bonkers breakout star of The Phoenix since the first issue in 2012: recounting a madcap vendetta gripping animal archenemies set amidst an idyllic arcadia, masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands. Concocted with gleefully gusto – but increasingly with cerebral cosmic crescendo in mind – by cartoonist/comics artist/novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Max and Chaffy, Flember), these trendsetting, mind-bending yarns have been wisely retooled as best-selling, graphic albums available in remastered, double-length digest softcover and hardback editions such as this one. All the tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy began yonks ago after an obnoxious little beast plopped down in after a disastrous British space shot. OR DID IT?

Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab animal Monkey believed himself the rightful owner of a strange new world, despite every effort of genteel, contemplative, reasonably sensible forest resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and good breeding, the laid-back lepine could not contain or control the incorrigible idiot ape, who to this moment remains a rude, troublemaking, chaos-creating, noise-loving lout intent on building his perfect “Monkeyopia” and/or being a robot, with or without the aid of evil supergenius Skunky or “henches” Metal Steve and Action Beaver…

Daily wonders and catastrophes were exacerbated by a broad band of unconventional Crinkle creatures, none more so than monochrome mad scientist Skunky, whose intellect and cavalier attitude to life presents as a propensity for building dangerous robots, bio-beasts and sundry other super-weapons. He is, at his core, a dangerously inquisitive thinker and tinkerer…

Here – with artistic assistance from design deputy Sammy Borras – the war of nerves and mega-ordnances resumes and culminates, even though everybody thought all the battles had already ended. We even seemingly explain the odd behaviour of intermittently encroaching Hoo-mans…

Once again divided into seasonal outbursts – OR IS IT? – this tenth magnificent hardback archive asylum of weirdness opens in traditional manner: with our lop-eared protagonist snug at home amidst winter snows as incurable innocent Pig Piggerton comes frantically calling. It appears his woodlouse pet ‘Mister Bum Bum’ is in dire need of it to be warm and summery.

Thankfully, after a recent return from the Puddle of Eternity (thanks to a fluke of the Molecular Stream) Bunny is now completely connected to nature and able to manifest a small patch of magic sunshine. When Monkey turns up in another death-machine, it is Pig who actually saves the day…

The hairy halfwit (I’m being generous here) is mad and manic as ever, unleashing ICBM ‘Wieners!’, and ‘Shark Attack’ cannonades the largely shellshocked populace (superfast Aye-aye Ai, Weenie Squirrel, Metal E.V.E., Lucky the Red Panda, mysterious Le Fox and the rest) all try to ignore, but as ‘Doctor Pig’ seeks to help the hopeless with a brand new therapy recently discovered, deep underground Monkey & Skunky experience something strange and start to suspect every they know might be wrong after feeling the force of ‘The Glitch’…

The skunk knows all about “Simulation Theory” even if you and I don’t, and makes some plans. Elsewhere, Hoo-man Toby and faithful assistant Alice finally admit there’s something deeply wrong in their system and start looking for answers by resetting the year back to January again – OR DO THEY…?

In Crinkle Woods, life manically meanders on with mad inventions and fantastically odd food fomenting foolishness in ‘Un-Lucky’, ‘Pug of Dooom!’, ‘Piggy Pog Pog’, on a culinary ‘Journey for the Wobbleberries’, and in clash of escalating titans ‘Big Me’. Anarchy reigns when Monkey’s ‘Bloblems’ and ravaging ‘Jelly Plops’ threaten, but no one really grasps what it all means until ‘The Second Glitch’…

With Toby now fatally intwined and connected to the Crinkle critters in ways he cannot fathom, and which restarting the year won’t fix, a rash of irrationality – even by Woodland standards – ensues in ‘Roll ‘em Up!’ and ‘Mine’. Toby’s fate is sealed when he inserts himself into the world of ‘Weirdos’ and he gets stuck there – OR DOES HE?

Even sensible, naïve robot Metal E.V.E. doesn’t believe the Hoo-Man is just a park warden and all too soon he is both appalled spectator and collateral casualty in spiralling strangeness as seen in ‘When in Rome’, ‘Extreeeeme!’ (debuting social media manipulator/teen Hyee-Hee-Heena Pootle B. Thunderbum to the menagerie) or ‘And Now, a Special Presentation’. Such ‘Warning Signs’ are useful to Skunky who instinctively understands what’s really going on. As Toby continues searching for his glitch – only stopping for ‘Biscuits’ – our lax lepine steps up as a problem-solving ‘Magic Bunny’, prompting a woodlands ‘Pause!’ as Skunky takes control.

Experiencing rather disturbing ‘Deja Vu’, some sort of truth unfolds in ‘The Story So Far’, delivering revelation and ‘An Escape’ as Skunky crafts a figurative shark just to jump it and enter the fabled ‘Land of the Hoo-Mans’, bringing the rest with him to help and hinder his acquiring ‘Stolen Tech’.

…and then all the critters get ‘Upgrades’…

With Bunny a magical Guardian of the Woodlands, Monkey a robot and his chief hench turned into an Action Cow, ‘Beefy Squirrel’ uses her new physique and superstrength to save Pig as metamorphic ‘Module Madness’ grips the critter cast. She needn’t have fussed, as her pal becomes super-secret agent ‘Codename P.I.G.’ to counter the chaos.

Deep below Crinkle Woods, the King of the Undercreatures craves ‘Yum Yums’ and strikes a shady deal with one stalwart supposed hero, sparking a fearsome clash with terror-beast Boggoth on ‘Fight Night’, and another between upgraded stars in ‘Bunny vs Monkey’. It swiftly draws in Beefy Squirrell for ‘Surf’s Up!’, before cosmically unfortunate red panda Lucky is convinced to try ‘Just One Wish’ on the troublesome upgrade module.

Metal E.V.E. evaluates the merits of change in ‘Transform!’, leading to Skunky’s ascension as ‘The Architect’ of reality and rueful admission ‘That Escalated Quickly’. Finally, magic Bunny and compelling, morally ambiguous outsider refusenik Le Fox unite to confront ‘The Omnipresent Skunky’ and battle beside everyone left ‘All in This Together’, before even greater revelations are exposed and calm(ish) order is restored with all ‘Finally Happy’, despite it being – just for a bit – ‘Metal Steve’s World’ and an ephemeral plane of ‘The Endless’ only truly sorted and made wonderfully again thanks to Bunny in ‘The Release’.

There’s also ‘An Epilogue’ with Le Fox explaining things, but unless you’re as smart and fun-loving as your kids, it won’t do you adults any good…

The agonised, anxiety-addled animal anarchy might have ended for now, but there’s a few more secrets to expose, thanks to detailed instructions on ‘How to Draw Wizard Bunny!’, ‘…Buff Weinie!’ and ‘…Action Cow!’, as well as previews of other treats and wonders available in The Phoenix to wind down from all that cosmic furore…

Another book for your kids to explain to you, the zany zenith of absurdist adventure, Bunny vs Monkey is weird wit, brilliant invention, potent sentiment and superb cartooning all crammed into one eccentrically excellent package. These tails never fail to deliver jubilant joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. Is that you?

Text and illustrations © Fumboo Ltd. 2024. All rights reserved.
Bunny vs Monkey: The Great Big Glitch! is published on October 10th 2024 and available for pre-order now.

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Dracula: A Symphony in Moonlight and Nightmares


By John J Muth (NBM/Marvel-Epic)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-060-8 (HB) (Marvel Graphic Novel #25: 978-0-87135-171-5)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As part of an adventurous foray into the then-budding world of graphic albums, the Marvel Graphic Novel line combined experimental projects and storytelling alongside glorified giant comic books. This particularly arty package from came from gallery guy/award winning children’s book illustrator Jon J. Muth.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 28th 1960, he is much travelled, and studied sculpture and shodō (brush calligraphy) in Japan, and in England mastered painting, drawing and printmaking. For a brief moment, years ago, he was a new force in sequential art, scoring much attention on Sandman: The Wake, Lucifer: Nirvana, Swamp Thing: Roots, and The Mystery Play, after turning heads at Marvel and Epic with Moonshadow and Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown.

Also a writer, in 1986 Muth appropriated and accommodated elements of Bram Stoker’s classic novel, reweaving them as the framework for a painterly tour-de-force of gothic set-pieces and moving, intimate images. Familiarity with the original’s plot is not essential – if not actually ill-advised – as mood rather than narrative is favoured in Dracula: A Symphony in Moonlight and Nightmares, and the pictures are of paramount interest even if, jarringly and inexplicably, Muth’s narrative mixes first-hand accounts from protagonists Lucy Seward and her father, prose and “newspaper excerpts”, with faux film-script pages into this dark tale of bloody obsession.

For all these problems, it was picked up by NBM in 1992 and re-issued as a gloriously enlarged upscale hardcover album (with eventually a paperback edition) which particularly enhanced those extended sections where Muth’s paintings were allowed to carry the story without the distraction of text.

Although this is so much more “Graphic” than “Novel” and not quite as clever as first seems – all beautiful surface with no depth at all – it is staggeringly pretty, and a delight for any fan with an appreciation of the visual arts and dark delights.
© 1986, 1992 John J Muth. All rights reserved.