Now Read This!

May 6, 2014

Buddy Buys a Dump: the Complete Buddy Bradley Stories from â€œHateâ€ volume III

By Peter Bagge with Joanne Bagge (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-745-1

Peter Bagge is best regarded these days as a fiery, cauldron-mouthed, superbly acerbic and well-established award-winning cartoonist, animator and musician, responsible for incredibly addictive, sharply satirical strips examining contemporary American life, through a small but memorable cast of sharply defined characters compellingly reflecting his views.

Born in Peekskill, Westchester County, New York in December 1957, he was one of four kids in a ferociously Catholic military family. Like esteemed colleague Robert Crumb a generation earlier, Bagge escaped that emotionally toxic, fight-filled environment as soon as possible, moving to New York City in the mid-1970s to study at the celebrated School of Visual Arts.

He soon dropped out and began working in the vibrant alternative publishing field, producing strips and panels for Punk Magazine, Screw, High Times, East Village Eye, World War Three and others.

Meeting like-minded artists he began self- and co-publishing comics, and when Crumb saw copies of Comical Funnies (produced with new chum John Holstrom in 1981 and the birthplace of the unsavoury star of this collection), Bagge was offered space in and eventually the Editorship of the seminal commix magazine Weirdo in 1983.

He augmented his 3-year tenure there with various paying gigs at Screw, Swank, Video X, Video Games Magazine, The Rocket, Bad News and elsewhere.

In 1984 Bagge relocated to Seattle, Washington State and began his association with alternative/Independent publisher Fantagraphics. The following year his spectacularly idiosyncratic cartoon magazine Neat Stuff launched as a thrice-yearly vehicle of outrageous personal expression and societal observation.

His stark, manic, topically surreal strips, starring old creations like Studs Kirby, Junior, Girly Girl and quintessential ineffectual rebel Buddy Bradley swiftly turned the cartoonist into a darling of the emerging West Coast Grunge scene, and before too long Neat Stuff and its successor Hate made Bagge a household nameâ€¦ at least in more progressive householdsâ€¦

As the 90’s became the next century, Bagge’s quasi-autobiographical Buddy starred in a succession of titles and strips (collected in Buddy Does Seattle and Buddy Does New Jersey); the cartoon character’s excitable existence mirroring typical life in that chaotic lost decade. In 2001 the author began releasing Hate Annuals wherein, amongst other strident graphic treats, middle-aging Buddy was seen having fully transitioned from angry teen slacker to working dad with a family to supportâ€¦

This deliciously hilarious and painfully uncompromising full-colour collection gathers those traumatic middle years of Harold â€œBuddyâ€ William Bradley Jr.– originally seen in Hate Annual #1-9, 2001-2011 – and opens with ‘Are You Nuts?’ as the irascible everyman is almost beguiled by crazy friend and occasional co-worker Jay Spano into buying a dilapidated aquabus and going into the guided-tour business in scenic New Jersey.

Naturally, his certifiably crazy wife Lisa has a few opinions on the matterâ€¦

A year later ‘A-Rod Goes to the Moon’ featured the catastrophic day when the Bradley women go for a â€œLadies weekendâ€ and leave Buddy in charge of not only his own baby boy, but sister Bab’s maladjusted brood. Soon however with half the kids in the neighbourhood tagging along, Buddy realises the depths of his folly and opts for a tried and true solution to his unwanted responsibilitiesâ€¦

‘The Domestication of Lisa Leavenworth-Bradley’ focuses on the little woman’s obsession with homemaking and search for a way to occupy her dull, dire days which translates to Buddy having to look for a better place for them to dwell, whilst in ‘Buddy Bradley gets a â€œRealâ€ Job’ the old collectibles shop gets so stale that our hero takes gainful employment as a UPS delivery man.

However the shocking scams and appalling attitudes of his fellow honest workers soon drive him back to the relatively honourable profession of trading in junk, nostalgia and dreamsâ€¦

‘Fuddy Duddy Buddy’ saw a drastic change in the visual aspect of the family man as, after a medical scare, he shaved his head, began sporting an eye-patch and took to wearing a naval captain’s cap. He also made a move to the nastier part of Jersey to fulfil his lifelong dream of running a rubbish dumpâ€¦

With Lisa and toddler Harold safely if reluctantly ensconced in the big house attached to the tip, ‘Skeletons in the Closet’ then focuses on Buddy and Jay’s shift into the surprisingly lucrative scrap metal business, and the resurfacing of the most unsavoury of Buddy’s siblings and their childhood hoodlum friends. It seems folks are asking unwelcome questions about old Stinky Brown (a pal of Buddy’s who disappeared years ago), prompting gun-nut brother Butch Bradley and his cronies to move the bodyâ€¦ but only finding that someone had already taken itâ€¦

‘The Future’s in Scrap!’ surprisingly finds Buddy and Jay prosperous if shabby partners in an exponentially expanding business, whilst ‘Lisa Leavenworth-Bradley Discovers her Creative Outlet’ details how the bored mother seeks out a fresh hobby and new friends only to finds herself embarrassingly embroiled in an all-girl band with strip club ambitionsâ€¦

With things looking pretty sweet and stable in ‘Heaven’, the abrasive, raucous comedy takes a darkly observational turn in ‘Hell’ when Lisa drags the family back to Seattle to meet her ferociously religious mom and obnoxious dad.

It transpires that the parents she despises are both in dire health and legal straits and, after meeting her creepy fundamentalist foster brother and sex offender cousin, Buddy realises why his wife became the neurotic mess she is.

When Buddy and Harold return to the East Coast Lisa isn’t with themâ€¦

Everything wraps up without really ending in ‘Fuck it’ as, whilst Lisa struggles to cope with her folks’ decline in Seattle, back in the Garden State the man and his boy make big dramatic and definitely felonious changes to their livesâ€¦

Just like the eponymous star character, the hopefully still unfolding story of Buddy Bradley has slowly matured from razor-edged, broadly baroque, comedically clamorous observations and youthful rants into sublimely evocatively enticing treatises on getting by and getting older, although the deliciously fluid drawings and captivating cartoon storytelling remains as fresh and innovative as ever.

Bagge has always been about skewering stupidity, spotlighting pomposity and generally exposing the day-to-day aggravations and institutionalized insanities of modern life, but the strips in Buddy Buys a Dump also offer a beguiling view of passion becoming, if not wisdom, certainly shrewd appreciation of the unchanging verities of life: a treat no cartoon-coveting, laughter-loving rebel should missâ€¦
Â© 2013 Peter Bagge. This edition Â© 2013 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

May 5, 2014May 5, 2014

Wolverine: Killable

By Paul Cornell, Alan Davis, Mirco Pierfederici, Mark Farmer & Karl Kesel (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-541-3

Perennially punching-above-his-weight, feral fury James Howlett, AKA Logan, AKA Wolverine has been many things in his very long life, but some of the most significant changes have only occurred in recent years.

Possibly the most significant new deal comes in this cruelly cutting collection written by Paul Cornell which was originally released as issues #7-13 of Wolverine volume 5 (cover-dated September 2013 to March 2014) and presaged a new look, new title and potentially new character to comeâ€¦

At the conclusion of the previous saga the Canadian Crusader and a desperate coterie of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had repulsed an invasion by a sentient virus from an incredible alien â€œmicroverseâ€ which almost united humanity under one all-dominant intellect.

However, although Wolverine’s astounding healing factor had proven crucial in defeating the infective invasion, the defeated pathogenic plunderer had managed to turn off his mutant healing ability in the final encounter, leaving the formerly immortal warrior little more than a tough old guy with enhanced senses and really heavy metal bonesâ€¦

Before this transformativeÂ unfolds, ‘Mortal’ (illustrated by Mirco Pierfederici & Karl Kesel) describes how the barely recuperating James Howlett adapts to his new normal and realises for the first time just how much of his previous moment-to-moment existence revolved around instantly healing from everything ranging from a shaving cut to jumping off a building.

Now aging and feeling constant and protracted niggling pain, he realises he has to unlearn all the instincts and reactions of at least one lifetime. He simply cannot fathom how to continue as a hero and hunter, no matter how much advice is offered by the likes of sympathetic comrade warriors Nick Fury Jr., the Beast, Thor and Stormâ€¦

Rattled, unsure and perhaps afraid for the first time in his life, he doesn’t need the call to arms that comes when the news arrives that mutants and metahumans who can control viruses are being systematically murdered all over the planetâ€¦

Alan Davis & Mark Farmer return to illustrate the 6-part ‘Killable’ which begins as Wolverine sneaks a hand-picked team into African world power Wakanda, seeking to steal crazed criminal The Host from custody.

She is the last remaining being with the power to affect micro-organismsâ€¦

S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to confirm that the recently repulsed Virus has returned and may be controlling one of the most technologically advanced and paranoid nations on Earth but as Storm, Fury and unflappable surgeon Victoria Frankenstein (she pronounces it â€œFronken-schteenâ€) spring the incarcerated metahuman, Wolverine is inevitably confronted by the lethally efficient Black Panther and is soon in a ferocious fight he can’t win.

With some relief he accepts a truce when the Feline Avenger offers it. It seems the Panther was well aware of the viral threat and was simply using the infiltration to make it tip its communal handâ€¦

However even as the mission winds down Wolverine receives a shocking communication. Murderous mutant Mystique has invaded his home at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and threatened the students under his careâ€¦

By the time he reaches America it’s all over, but instead of killing kids the spitefully manipulative witch has simply trashed all his possessions and stolen his most treasured memento – an ancient Katana.

It doesn’t take much to deduce her motives. She’s messing with his head whilst issuing a challenge on behalf of her new boss Sabertoothâ€¦

Victor Creed is Wolverine’s most despised and tenacious foe, possessed of the same powers and skills he once boasted but now leader of a manic deviant sect of ninja cult The Handâ€¦

Promising the assembled X-Men not to do anything stupid, Wolverine nevertheless sneaks off to track down Creed and his sword. He hasn’t fooled Kitty Pryde however and she follows him, even as elsewhere S.H.I.E.L.D. technos attempt to weaponise the furiously unstable Host in their plan to destroy the Virus which is slowly taking over the planetâ€¦

It’s clearly open season on Wolverine. En route to his rendezvous with Mystique his aircraft is blasted out of the sky by mercenary Batroc the Leaper who sees an easy chance to enhance his rep by killing the most infamous mutant on Earth. Instead the blistering battle only inspires Logan to some semblance of his former combative self. He and Kitty continue their pursuit of Creed’s creatures to Montana where another ambush – by acupuncture assassin Fiber – is narrowly circumvented, but not without more long-term damage to Wolverine’s ailing bodyâ€¦

The world is falling city by city to the Virus as The Host’s power slowly builds, and as she marshals her expanding resources she lets slip that only the microversial microbe monster could restore Wolverine’s healing factorâ€¦

Mystique’s trail leads to Alberta, Canada and a shopping mall built on the site of the estate where James Howlett was born in the 18^th century. Wolverine’s birthplace seems like a suitably poetic venue for a final showdown, but the innocent bystanders still inside only add distraction and potential disaster to the mix.

Reluctantly enlisting the aid of local cops, Pryde and Wolverine search the near-deserted complex and are not surprised when the building goes into lockdown, trapping them in the dark with fanatical ninjas and a gauntlet of aggrieved old enemies including Lord Deathstrike and Silver Samurai.

The embattled mutants are also keenly aware that shapeshifting Mystique could be any one of their enemiesâ€¦ or alliesâ€¦

And in the greater world S.H.I.E.L.D.’s latest data indicates that the Virus is only thirty minutes away from infecting the entire world’s populationâ€¦

As Kitty and Wolverine battle for their lives in Canada, the hyper-energised Host is deployed to attack the Virus, but that means little to exhausted, punch-drunk, pushed beyond his limits Logan who abandons every vestige of humanity in his struggle to survive.

And when he is at his lowest ebb, Sabertooth attacksâ€¦

Beaten, crushed and demoralised, Wolverine lies bleeding on the floor as one of the bystanders approaches him.

The body is the last host of the defeated and globally retreating Virus. With no chance of victory it offers to restore his healing powers and return him to all he was if he will only offer it sanctuaryâ€¦

As Wolverine sees another bizarre vision of the cosmic observer known as The Watcher (indicating that whatever is going on it’s of significance to the entire universe), he croaks â€œNoâ€â€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Non-stop visceral action and shocking suspense carry this explosive yarn from high-octane start to explosive finish and this gripping yarn also includes a beautiful gallery of covers and variants by Davis & Farmer, Matthew Waite, Leinil Francis Yu and David Lopez. Also upping the entertainment ante are the now-standard added extras provided by of AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App) which give access to story bonuses once you download the code â€“ for free â€“ from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

May 3, 2014May 5, 2014

Superior Spiderman: the Superior Venom

By Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage, Humberto Ramos & Victor Olazaba, Javier Rodriguez & Ãlvaro LÃ³pez and various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-584-0

With this superb reinterpretation of the Amazing Arachnid iteration clearly approaching an ending or final resolution, the tension in this sublime series is again ratcheted up by scripter Dan Slott in The Superior Venom which collects issues #22-25 of Superior Spider-Man (4th September-13th November 2013) and Superior Spider-Man Annual #1.

Where Were You Whenâ€¦?: in an apocalyptic final battle Peter Parker apparently died and Doctor Otto Octavius took over his body. The hero’s mind had been imprisoned in the dying body of the super-villain where, despite his every desperate effort, at last Peter perished with and within that decrepit, expiring frame.

This left the coldly calculating Octopus permanently installed in the Wondrous Wallcrawler’s body and successfully living out Parker’s life, albeit with a few minor but necessary alterations, upgrades and improvementsâ€¦

At first the situation did not seem utterly hopeless. As his foe exulted in triumph, Parker had inflicted his full unvarnished memories on the psychic invader, forcing unwary Otto to experience every ghastly moment of tragedy and sacrifice which combined to make Spider-Man the compulsive do-gooder that he was.

From that enforced emotional turmoil came a bitter understanding. Ock had a change of heart and swore to live the rest of his stolen life in tribute to his greatest enemy; earnestly endeavouring to carry on Spider-Man’s self-imposed mission, guided by Peter’s abiding principle: â€œwith great power comes great responsibilityâ€â€¦

However Octavius’ ingrained monomania proved impossible to suppress and the usurper constantly toiled to prove himself the better man: augmenting Parker’s paltry gadgets and slapdash methodology with millions of spy robots to patrol the entire city at once, constantly adding advanced tech and refining new weaponry to the suit and even acting pre-emptively rather than merely reacting to crises as the original hadâ€¦

Otto even took Parker’s frame back to college because he arrogantly refused to live life without a doctorate and even briefly tried to rekindle his new body’s old relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

The new, ultra-efficient Spider-Man became New York’s darling and even Mayor J. Jonah Jameson embraced the Web-spinner; practically adopting Spider-Man as his deputy – to the utter incredulity of an imperceptible psychic fragment of Peter which still screamed in frustration within the deepest recesses of the hero’s overwritten consciousnessâ€¦

The helpless ghost was an unwilling passenger, unsuspected by Octavius yet increasingly privy to the villain’s own barely-suppressed memories. Simultaneously, more and more of Parker’s oldest friends began to suspect something amissâ€¦

Police CSI Officer and ex-girlfriend Carlie Cooper knew Peter’s secret identity and recalled the last time Spidey fought Doc Ock, when the killer broke her arm. He claimed then that he was Peter trapped in the villain’s bodyâ€¦

The public initially seemed happy with how Spider-Man had changed. Not only was he more efficient, but far more brutal too. This new hard-line attitude actually increased the webslinger’s approval rating and, following a hostage siege, his status peaked after he executed the psychotic perpetrator Massacreâ€¦

Eventually Octavius realised there was a noble passenger in his head and eradicated the last vestiges of his enemy’s presence – at the cost of many of Parker’s useful memories – but the trade-off was a fully liberated mind able to make darker decisions whilst instigating his revolution in crime-fighting.

Helping Jameson after Spider-Slayer and other super-felons rioted on The Raft, the hero blackmailed the Mayor into donating the now empty edifice as a base of operations. The superior wallcrawler designed a new costume, built giant Arachnaut war-tanks and even hired a gang of henchmen to help him clean up the city for the decent, law-abiding citizens.

Despite winnowing â€œParker’sâ€ personal life to a less distracting level, Ock still wanted that elusive doctorate and whilst negotiating the petty bureaucracy of Academia Parker began a romance with brilliant Anna Maria Marconi â€¦

From his transformed citadel on the now-renamed Spider Island II, Spider-Man watches over his city through the electronic eyes of thousands of tiny Spider-bots, keeping a special lookout for resurgent hidden criminal mastermind Goblin King (an updated and even crazier Green Goblin Norman Osborn) who was slowly completing his own campaign to take over the underworld with his Goblin Army Cult.

To that end the emerald maniac transformed young Phil Urich – latest iteration of The Hobgoblin – into a Goblin Knight to lead his armies to inevitable victoryâ€¦

Meanwhile, Carlie shared her suspicions about Spider-Man with friend and Police Captain Yuri Watanabe (who secretly moonlights as costumed vigilante The Wraith) and together they set about gathering definitive proofs of their suspicions regarding the Wallcrawler.

Since Spidey now has an Island fortress and a mercenary gang to pay for, they even had a money trail to followâ€¦

However Carlie’s investigations alerted all the wrong people and she was abducted by the Goblin Armyâ€¦

This rocket-paced chronicle opens with ‘Hostage Crisis’ from Superior Spider-Man Annual #1, scripted by Christos N. Gage and illustrated by Javier Rodriguez & Ãlvaro LÃ³pez, which sees potential disaster stemming from the leaked (cover) story that Peter Parker is the technical wizard building all the Superior Spider-Man’s gadgets.

The secretly embedded hero/villain is just starting to repair his relationship with Aunt May and her wealthy husband (J. Jonah’s dad Jay Jameson): helplessly re-experiencing the lad’s abiding affection for the gracious old lady when vampiric villain Blackout kidnaps her.

The darkness-generating undead psychopath has got wind of the Parker connection and wants Peter to sabotage Spider-Man’s gadgets, but he has not reckoned on the insane degree of sadistic violence the new hardline Superior Wallcrawler might inflict on anyone threatening those under his protectionâ€¦

Sadly for the increasingly complacent Octavius, he is equally unaware that May is a witness to the ferocious punishment beating the Webslinger delivers. Thus, even though the upshot of the rescue is that the Parker clan is categorically â€œoff-limitsâ€ to every rational denizen in the criminal fraternity, May now wants Peter to sever all ties to the monstrous Spider-Manâ€¦

And even more disturbing, nobody ever accused the Green Goblin of rationalityâ€¦

Over in Superior Spider-Man the 4-part saga ‘Darkest Hours’ commences with ‘Beginnings’ as Betty Brant investigates a new Crime Master, terrified that he may be her wayward brother Bennet when old boyfriend Eugene â€œFlashâ€ Thompson intervenes.

He still has feelings for the plucky journalist and is prepared to risk his top-secret, covert US operative job for herâ€¦

Once upon a time Spider-Man spawned an implacable enemy called Venom: a deranged and disgraced reporter named Eddie Brock who bonded with Parker’s alternate costume: a semi-sentient alien parasite called the Symbiote which the wallcrawler first picked up during Secret Wars.

Brock became a savage, shape-changing, dark-side version of the Wallcrawler, but after numerous spectacular clashes, the arachnid adversaries eventually reached a brooding dÃ©tente and Venom became a â€œLethal Protectorâ€, dispensing a highly individualistic brand of justice everywhere but New York City.

Since thenmany other hosts have bonded with the ebony parasite, including Brock’s wife Ann Weying, Mac Gargan AKA the Scorpion, mobster Angelo Fortunato, Mayoral assistant Edward Saks and even Franklin Richards and members of the Fantastic Four.

Eventually the Government took control of the Symbiote and offered it – with strings attached – to Flash: Spider-Man’s greatest fan and a war-hero who came back from Afghanistan without his legs.

A recovering alcoholic, Eugene became the star of a military black-ops operation which uses the Symbiote to carry out under-the-radar missions vital to US security.

In return, Thompson gets to be a hero (of sorts), feel useful again, serve his country and get out of his wheelchair prison for 48 hours at a time. Agent Venom even became a Secret Avenger, serving directly under Steve Rogers.

Of course there were drawbacks: the parasite is a voracious deadly menace, constantly seeking to permanently bond to its wearer, and is classed as one of the most dangerous entities on the planet. If the new Venom should go berserk, or if the human host stays bonded for more than two days, his war-room controllers will simply detonate explosives attached to Thompson’s body and start the project over with another volunteer. It’s what they had to do with the previous wearer, after allâ€¦

Now however Flash is risking everything for Betty, infiltrating the gang with his shapeshifting abilitiesâ€¦

Elsewhere his oldest friend Dr. Peter Parker is taking things to a new level by launching his own tech start-up company. Apparently gripped by exuberance – if not monomania – the very proud owner of Parker Industries is showing around his major investors, May and Jay Jameson, introducing them to medical maverick Elias Wirtham and offering his aunt the gift of a lifetimeâ€¦

The doughty old lady has lived with chronic pain ever since her leg was injured in a criminal attack, but now Peter has devised a cybernetic implant which will enable her to walk normally againâ€¦

In a seedier part of town Captain Watanabe searches for her missing partner Carlie Cooper and comes to the understandable but erroneous conclusion that Spider-Man is responsible for her abrupt disappearanceâ€¦

As the Spider henchmen continually scan the city for signs of the Goblin Gang they notice Venom battling Crime Master’s gang and alert their boss. Soon the entirety of the Spider force is tracking what they perceive as one of the most dangerous entities on the planetâ€¦

In ‘Complications’ the spectacular clash results in Flash’s defeat, but the new Spider-Man has no recent memory of Parker’s school days bully so when Venom escapes the Wallcrawler sets off in relentless, obsessive pursuit.

Deep in a hidden place Carlie is suffering at the hands of the Green Goblin who is desperate to glean all she knows about Spider-Man (information the troubled Osborn has himself forgotten)â€¦

Eager to introduce May and Jay to new significant other Anna Maria, â€œPeterâ€ arranges a dinner party at his apartment, but the preparations are interrupted when wheelchair-bound Flash turns up, looking to his old friend for shelterâ€¦

Another plot strand begins in the Mayor’s office where Jonah Jameson, fed up with Spider-Man’s exploitative extortion, commissions shady genius Tyler Stone of Alchemax to build a new generation of Spider-Slayer robots to protect the city.

The unscrupulous technologist is happy to turn the project over to his new protÃ©gÃ© Michael O’Mara who unbeknownst to any is the temporally stranded Spider-Man of 2099â€¦

The dinner party is a disaster. Peter is obsessively concentrating on Flash and doesn’t realise how disturbed old-fashioned May is that the prospective mother of the next generation of Parkers is a â€œlittle personâ€. After all, he never once mentioned Anna Marie’s dwarfismâ€¦

Too furious and impatient to play it cautiously, Peter shrugs off all the nonsensical emotionalism, concentrating on tricking Thompson – and the precious Symbiote – into his labs with the lure of fully responsive cybernetic legsâ€¦

The bait works and soon Spider-Man joins Dr. Wirtham (who moonlights as Robin Hood bandit Cardiac) in overseeing a procedure whose real purpose is to separate the man from the Symbiote.

It all goes horrifically awry and the ghastly invader attaches itself to the Wallcrawler, consequently reawakening the very worst instincts of the insane old Doctor Octopus and the fanatical, amalgamated defender of the weak becomes a sinisterly new horror: ‘The Superior Venom’â€¦

As the diabolically driven creature goes on a crimebusting rampage, treating muggers, murders and litterbugs with equal savagery, the Green Goblin declares war on his rival (and cheap knock-off) Roderick Kingsley who has been franchising super-villain gigs as the Hobgoblin.

On a roll and finally losing patience with his cop captive, Osborn doses Carlie with mutagenic chemicals to transform her into one of his faithful acolytes. The forcibly crazed new Monster seems delighted to join his vile viridian familyâ€¦

The Parker clan’s troubles also peak when Mary Jane Watson attempts to broker a peace between May and Peter and only succeeds in forcing her ex to terrifyingly transform into Venom before everybody’s appalled eyes. Luckily Yuri arrives to drive him off, giving MJ time to call in the Avengers to take down the out of control Ã¼ber-symbioteâ€¦

In ‘Conclusion’, with the city being devastated by the alien horror Flash – unable to survive without the ravening parasite – manages to trick the beast back into his body, seemingly giving the now coolly rational Octavius a golden opportunity to claim all his recent aberrant violent behaviour was caused by previous exposures to the creature.

â€¦But whilst Parker’s friends and family are prepared to accept that line, ever-suspicious Iron Man has secured proof that the Superior Spider-Man has been lying from the very startâ€¦

Worst of all, the possession of Otto by the beast has awaked an aggravating ghost in his head he had thought long deadâ€¦â€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

This carnage-crammed chronicle includes a covers-&-variants gallery by J.G. Jones, J. Scott Campbell, Humberto Ramos, Skottie Young, Stefano Caselli & Frank Kozik and more up-to-the minute AR icon sections (Marvel Augmented Reality App pages which provide access to story bonuses and content on your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet).

Spider-Man has been reinvented so often it’s almost become commonplace, but this iteration – for however long it lasts – is one no lover of relentless action and diabolically devious drama should miss: clever, cunning, shocking and completely addictive.

May 2, 2014May 5, 2014

The Chimpanzee Complex volume 1: Paradox

By Richard Marazano & Jean-Michel Ponzio, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-002-3

One thing French comics creators excel at is challenging, mind-blowing, astoundingly entertaining science fiction. Whether the boisterous, mind-boggling space opera of Valerian and Laureline, the surreal spiritual exploration of Moebius’ Airtight Garage or the tense, tech-heavy brooding of Orbital, our Gallic cousins always got it: the genre is not about tech or monsters; it’s about people encountering new and uncanny ideasâ€¦

Prolific, multi-award winning Richard Marazano was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses in 1971. He initially pursued a career in science before switching to Fine Arts courses in AngoulÃªme and debuted in bande dessinÃ©e in the mid 1990s. Although an extremely impressive artist and colourist when illustrating his own stories (Le Bataillon des LÃ¢ches, Le Syndrome d’Abel), he is best known for his collaborations with other artists such as Michel Durand (Cuervos), Marcelo Frusin (L’ExpÃ©dition) and Xavier Delaporte (Chaabi) to name but a few.

His partnerships with artist Jean-Michel Ponzio are especially fruitful and rewarding. As well as Le Complexe du ChimpanzÃ© – the trilogy under discussion here – the daring duo have also produced the taut, intricate social futurism of Genetiksâ„¢ and high-flying paranoic cautionary tale Le Protocole PÃ©lican.

Jean-Michel Ponzio was born in Marignane and, after a period of scholastic pick-&-mix during the 1980s, began working as a filmmaker and animator for the advertising industry. He moved into movies, designing backgrounds and settings; listing Fight Club and Batman and Robin among his many subtle successes.

In 2000 he started moonlighting as an illustrator of book covers and edged into comics four years later, creating the art for Laurent Genfort’s T’ien Keou, before writing and illustrating Kybrilon for publisher Soliel in 2005. This led to a tidal wave of bande dessinÃ©e assignments before he began his association with Marazano in 2007. He’s still very, very busy and his stunning combination of photorealist painting, 3D design and rotoscoping techniques grace and enhance a multitude of comics from authors as varied as Richard Malka to Janhel.

Cinebook began publishing The Chimpanzee Complex in 2009 with the beguiling and enigmatic ‘Paradox’ which introduces the world to a bizarre and baffling cosmic conundrum.

February 2035: experienced but frustrated astronaut Helen Freeman is still reeling from the latest round of cutbacks which have once again mothballed NASA’s plans to send an expedition to Mars. The young mother is resigned to living an Earthbound life in Florida with the daughter she has neglected for so long, but just as she tentatively begins to repair her relationship with young, headstrong Sofia her world is again turned upside down when a call comes from her ex-bosses.

Bowing to the inevitable despite Sophia’s strident objections, she and her old boss Robert Conway are whisked away under the tightest of security conditions to a US aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean under the draconian control of Top Brass Spook Konrad Stealberg.

Here they learn that, days previously, an unidentified object splashed down from space and was recovered by divers.

The artefact was the Command Module of Apollo 11 and it carried the still-living Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin: legendary heroes and the first men to walk on the moon. Baffled and bewildered, the recovered astronauts have steadfastly refused to speak to anybody except NASA representativesâ€¦

Helen is the first to get any information from them, and whilst Stealberg’s technician’s check every bolt, wire and component of the capsule, she and Robert carefully quiz their greatest idols. When the lost astronauts learn they have been in space for 66 years they are horrified. When they learn that history records they returned safely and died unremarkably years later they go ballistic: exhibiting what Freeman describes as the traumatic shock response peculiar to space voyagers categorised by NASA as â€œthe Chimpanzee Complexâ€â€¦

Impatient martinet Stealberg has harder questions: if – as every test they can think of indicates – these men are the real thing, who or what landed on Earth all those decades ago?

And most importantly, when they were feted by the world in 1969, was third astronaut Michael Collins one of us or one of â€œthemâ€?

Exerting military privilege he peremptorily kicks Conway out whilst press-ganging Helen onto his staff, and transfers mystery men and their capsule to his ultra secure Red Hills Creek Base in Coloradoâ€¦

Helpless but conflicted, Freeman plays along, enjoining Robby to explain and take care of Sofia. If she had been angry before, the daughter’s reaction to this further enforced absence from a mother she feels doesn’t want her will be terribleâ€¦

Events move very fast at the paranoid levels of the Military-Industrial complex, and as Helen continues her interviews with the biologically perfect astronauts she begins to discover inconsistencies and memory-lapses in their stories.

That’s enough for Stealberg to initiate other, harsher procedures but before they can be implemented Helen is awoken from fantastically real dreams of exploring Mars to a new crisis: Armstrong and Aldrin are dead. From the state of their corpses they have been for decadesâ€¦

In Florida Robby is still trying to assuage Sofia’s feelings, telling her that Mum will be home soon. There’s no chance of that, however, as Stealberg has moved on with his plans and arranged a private meeting with the President.

The result is the re-commissioning of the completed but mothballed Mars exploration shuttle with the intention of revisiting the site of the Apollo moon landings. As NASA’s top flier and an expert on the Mars vehicle Helen is going tooâ€¦ whether she wants to or not.

Twelve days later, amidst massive public uproar and speculation at the ludicrous cover story for the sudden moon-shot, Helen and her crew are introduced to the rest of the exploration team and she realises with horror that her professional career is based on a lie.

NASA has never had an American monopoly on spaceflight: the military had been running a clandestine, parallel program since the very start, funded by siphoning the Agency’s operating budget and personally instigated by ex-Nazi rocket pioneer Werner von Braunâ€¦

The launch is televised around the world, trumpeted as a final shakedown flight before closing the costly space program forever. Aboard the blazing javelin, Helen and close companion Aleksa ponder the coincidence of heading for the moon in the week they were originally scheduled to take off for Mars, but are more concerned that mission leader Stealberg has filled the shuttle with mysterious, classified containersâ€¦

All too soon the vehicle establishes orbit over the moon and a Lander touches down on the most hallowed site in the history of technology.

It’s a huge shock: the paraphernalia left by the missions doesn’t match the records and there is a strange trail of footprints. Following them the terrified explorers discover the mummified, space-suited, long dead bodies of Armstrong and Aldrin, even as high above pilot Kurt matches velocities with a piece of space junk and discovers the Apollo 11 Command Moduleâ€¦with Collins’ corpse in itâ€¦

Moreover, there’s a recorded distress message in the primitive computers: a 66-year old Russian cry for aid originating from Marsâ€¦

And that’s when Stealberg reveals his biggest secret, summoning booster rockets and a second-stage shuttle from deep orbit whilst breaking out the cryogenic coffins that will keep the crew alive as they travel on to Mars and an appointment with the truth, whatever it might beâ€¦

This is a stunning hard-science magical mystery tale, dripping with wide-eyed wonder, leavened by solid, reassuring cynicism in Marazano’s economical script and brought to intoxicating life by the hyper-realism of Ponzio. A deft blend of intrigue, hope, paranoia and abiding curiosity, The Chimpanzee Complex is a tale no lover of fantasy and suspense should ignore.

May 1, 2014May 5, 2014

House of M Ultimate Edition

By Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel, Tim Townsend & various (Marvel/ Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-0-184653-582-6

Once upon a time the mutant Scarlet Witch married the android Vision and they had – through the agency of magic and Wanda Maximoff‘s undiagnosed ability to reshape reality – twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her sons were not real, and as the years passed the shock of that revelation drove her insane.

After tipping completely over the edge Wanda engineered the destruction of her other family – the vast and varied assemblage of superheroes called the Avengers – and even caused the death of former husband and some of her oldest friends.

The World’s Mightiest Heroes were shut down and rebooted in a highly controversial storyline known as Avengers Disassembled, which resulted in the formation of both The New and Young Avengers. The publishing event also spilled over into the solo titles of team members and affiliated comicbooks such as the Fantastic Four and Spectacular Spider-Man, which all ran parallel story-arcs to accompany the Big Show.

Said Show consisted of the worst day in the team’s history as the Witch manipulated people and events: betraying her oldest, closest companions and causing the destruction of everything they held dear. The chaos-storm was only ended when mystic master Doctor Strange and mutant patriarch Charles Xavier took the dazed and crazed Wandainto their personal care.

This follow-up company crossover conjunction – released originally and primarily as an 8-issue miniseries from August to November 2005 – saw reality rewritten again as Wanda apparently had another major lapse in concentration; rejigging history such that mutants now dominated a society where normal humans (â€œsapiensâ€) were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations. Moreover her true father Magneto ruled the mutants, head of a glorious dynasty which exerted political control over the entire planet.

It took a dedicated band of heroes and a great deal of luck to put that genie back in a bottle, but in the aftermath almost no mutants were leftâ€¦

Re-presenting the core fortnightly miniseries House of M this Ultimate Edition also contains covers and variants by Esad Ribic, Joe Quesada, Terry Dodson, John Cassaday, Brandon Peterson, Mike McKone, Greg Land, Salvador Larocca, Chris Bachalo and Joe Madureira, as well as a critical overview of the tale and its attendant spin-off miniseries entitled ‘The Legacy of the House of M’, but annoyingly only a quarter of The Pulse – an inspired 12 page faux issue of that world’s top mutant gossip mag, which offered engaging and pertinent snippets of congruent stories in other titlesâ€¦

Following a handy scene-setting recap page the drama begins in devastated former mutant homeland Genosha, where Xavier frustratedly admits that his psychic surgeries are not helping Wanda.

The desire to restore her non-existent children is too strong and she constantly tinkers with reality to make her whims real. After much impassioned debate with her despondent father Magneto and brother Quicksilver, Professor X finally admits defeat and considers other optionsâ€¦

Meanwhile in New York Wonder Man, Ms. Marvel and The Falcon visit the New Avengers at Stark Tower preparatory to the latest iteration of the team going public. Thus they are on hand when the X-Men come calling: summoned by Xavier to discuss the final fate and disposition of the Scarlet Witch.

In Genosha her father and brother argue on: one seeing no option but the final sanction and the other determined that Wanda must not die.

Opinion is just as divided amongst Avengers and X-Men. Unable to reach a decision, the assemblage opt to visit Wanda and try to get through to her one last time, but by the time they reach Genosha she is gone.

Fearing the world might end at any second they frantically search until they are all consumed by a blinding lightâ€¦

The second chapter begins in a very different New York, where decrepit nonagenarian war hero Steve Rogers draws a well deserved pension, millionaire celebrity Peter Parker, his wife Gwen and their son Richie as well as May and Ben Parker all live in lofty luxury and teeming billions of mutants run the world, all safeguarded and policed by colossal robotic Sentinelsâ€¦

All the heroes who sought out the Witch now live perfect lives that match their deepest, most secret hearts’ desires, but there is a painful undercurrent of tension amongst the rapidly declining, soon to be extinct Homo Sapiensâ€¦

Wolverine awakes screaming. His greatest desire has always been to recover his lost memories: destroyed and discarded by more than a century of brainwashing, mind-wiping and intervention by a succession of sinister enemies. As consciousness returns he remembers everything.

Especially how a moment ago the world was completely differentâ€¦

In this new universe he is leader of an elite team of mutant peacekeepers. The Red Guard are the prime enforcers of the House of M and agents of the Royal Family of Magneto: de facto rulers of Earth.

Appalled, he leaps from the ominous floating aircraft carrier dominating New York and plunges to Earthâ€¦

Healing factor in overdrive he then lurches through the streets of the city searching for Xavier and a solution to this insurmountable problem. Hard on his heels are his former subordinates in the Red Guard, all convinced their ruthless commander has gone crazy.

In his frantic flight, the desperate fugitive stumbles into old comrade Luke Cage who is, in this world, a cunning gangster leading a band of human rebels fighting mutant oppression. Shockingly, amongst his motley crew is masked archer Hawkeye – one of the cruellest casualties of the Scarlet Witch’s first killing spreeâ€¦

Playing with his grandchild in the idyllic paradise of Genosha, Magneto is unaccountably troubled at the perfection of his existence even as, in New York, Sentinels track and attack Cage’s â€œHuman Avengersâ€. Thanks to teleporter Cloak, Wolverine and a few of the gang escape, taking with them a strange little girl named Layla Miller.

She is a mutant and amongst her arcane and undisclosed power-set is the ability to reawaken a person’s memories of the world Wanda overwroteâ€¦

Convinced Magneto had used his crazy daughter to remake the world to his advantage, Wolverine is exultant to have a weapon that can offset all the dictator’s advantages, and with Cage begins tracking down and restoring his former allies. The game plan remains unchanged: find Xavier and use his telepathic powers to force the Witch to restore the real world.

In Genosha, meanwhile, Magneto again finds himself drawn to the simple tomb of his greatest friend and occasional enemy Charlesâ€¦

The next stage in Wolverine’s campaign is to use his now restored and grimly determined Avenger and X-Men allies to take control of the helicarrier above New York, piloting it to Genosha and engaging the House ofÂ M’s forces whilst Layla works her own special mutant magic and reawakened mystic master Stephen Strange deals with Wandaâ€¦

Throughout the horrifying ordeal everybody involved has assumed that Magneto made his daughter reorder reality to suit his dark ambitions, but the Doctor’s confrontation shockingly reveals a different hand and motive behind the grand change and, as the universe begins to unravel once more, the appalled and furious Master of Magnetism unleashes his own power against the traitor who betrayed his friends, family, species and planetâ€¦

â€¦And at the heart of the chaos and carnage Wanda Maximoff, whether at the peak of her madness or in a chilling moment of clarity, utters three little words.

â€œNo more Mutantsâ€â€¦

Dawn breaks on New York City and all the battered participants at the centre of the apocalyptic struggle awake in their own – as far as they know – proper beds. For those that remember, the world seems back to its true state, but after gathering together the shell-shocked protagonists compare notes and realise some things don’t jibe.

Wolverine still has all the memories of his long and previously clouded life; Wanda has vanished; there is evidence that Hawkeye might be alive again and, most unbelievable of all, the almost one million members of the mutant sub-species are now only human.

Across the Earth less than 200 super-powered Homo Superior remain. Governments are scrabbling to process the fact and form policies whilst the pedagogues of the religious right claim God has smitten the unclean and exhort decent – human – men and women to finish the good workâ€¦

Scientist Henry Pym has an even more chilling warning. Reminding us of Einstein’s dictum â€œEnergy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to anotherâ€, he ominously ponders on where all the powers, radiations and assorted exotic energies formerly wielded by the ex-mutant population have goneâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Although Marvel continuity was skilfully interwoven throughout the event, this particular tale stands alone perfectly without any need to refer to the many attendant miniseries: offering an engaging, fast-paced thriller by Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel & Tim Townsend, brimming with tension and stuffed with bombastic action

House of M is an action-packed, spectacular adventure that will delight lovers of epic Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy and beguile casual readers looking for an easy entry into the madcap world of Costumed Dramas.

April 30, 2014May 5, 2014

Captain America: Loose Nuke

By Rick Remender, Carlos Pacheco, Nic Klein, Klaus Janson, Mariano Taibo & various (Marvel/Panini UK)

ISBN: 978-1-84653-578-9

After spending twelve years in the hellish Dimension Z, raising a child and saving the indigenous people from the depredations of insane Hitlerian Ã¼ber-geneticist Arnim Zola, the Star Spangled Avenger finally returned Earth with the experimenter’s turncoat daughter Jet Black to discover mere hours had passed in the â€œrealâ€ world.

The extra-dimensional life sentence had cost Steve Rogers too much. As well as his boy Ian, on-again-off-again girlfriend Sharon Carter had also perished in the rescue bid which returned him to a world he barely remembered and no longer felt a part ofâ€¦

Collecting issues #11-15 of Captain America volume 7 (November 2013-March 2014), the breakthrough saga begins with ‘A Fire in the Rain’: opening in a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility where doctors work to remove the last vestiges of Zola’s pernicious poisons from Cap’s battered body.

As the hero dwells on his dying mother’s words, uttered in their Depression-era New York City hovel decades ago, the medical expertise of Henry Pym and Bruce Banner excise the final remnants of a virus which was slowly growing a clone of the Nazi’s consciousness inside Captain America: a biological Fifth Column furiously fighting for control of the weary body.

In recovery the doctors and S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill acknowledge that, despite a dozen relative years having passed, Rogers still looks like a young man. The Super Soldier serum that originally created him might well have made the Avenger immortalâ€¦

Jet meanwhile is being brutally debriefed by the new movie-compliant Nick Fury Jr. (long story short: he’s the African-American son of the original – see Battle Scars for further details) but is compelled to let her go when Cap arrives and has her remanded to his own custody.

The super-girl bred and trained for war saved his life in Dimension Z at great personal cost and he is determined to give her a decent life in the strange new world they both feel lost inâ€¦

Meanwhile in the eastern European state of Nrosvekistan normal daily commerce is grotesquely interrupted when a bare-chested madman with the Stars and Stripes on his face begins wantonly killing men, women and children. Frank Simpson, AKA Nuke, underwent many top secret procedures at the Weapon Plus program to turn him into a Captain America for the Vietnam generation.

Sadly the result was a drug-addled super-psychotic obsessed with American casualties who now wants to win all the wars his proud nation lost or walked away fromâ€¦ just like the recent peace-keeping mission to this Balkan backwaterâ€¦

In Brooklyn, Rogers moves Jet into his memento-stuffed apartment but, still unable to reconnect with his distant life, subsequently torches every scrap of his past before turning his face to the uncertain futureâ€¦

The extended ‘Loose Nuke’ saga then opens with a chilling flashback as determined devoted socialist Ran Shen literally wakes a sleeping dragon to gain the power necessary to reshape the unforgiving, disappointing world.

In the now, the Falcon calls on Captain America to learn the shocking details of his extra-dimensional odyssey and realises his closest friend is on the edge of a nervous breakdownâ€¦

In Nrosvekistan the army has been deployed but cannot match the manic ferocity of Nuke and his as yet undisclosed backers. The conflict is about to become a major political embarrassment for the USA, however, as Daily Bugle freelancer Samantha Chan – on the trail of a clique of missing billionaires – films the bloodbath and attempts to post it onlineâ€¦

And in China Ran Shen – now called the Iron Nail – plans amidst the satisfying horrors of his punishment camp: a hidden mine where greedy exploitative capitalists are made to toil and die in the conditions they have forced on billions of others across the globeâ€¦

‘Live Weapons!’ fills in some backstory as in 1969 the original Nick Fury confronts a S.H.I.E.L.D. sleeper agent who appears to have changed sides and joined Mao Zedong‘s inner circle. Moreover Ran Shen then tried to oust the Chairman and failed, making him persona non grata everywhereâ€¦

When Shan used the dragon’s power to escape S.H.I.E.L.D. custody not even the cunningly infiltrated soviet Winter Soldier was able to stop himâ€¦

Once more in the present, Falcon takes a call to get Captain America ready for action somehow. Images of a madman slaughtering civilians and planting American flags over their bodies are about to go public, and Maria Hill needs a true icon of the nation to be seen ending his rampage if her internet blocking strategy failsâ€¦

She also needs someone to stop a freelance reporter from dropping America into another potentially lethal media firestorm by any means necessaryâ€¦

The resulting battle of ideological wonder warriors further decimates the battered little country and serves to give Cap even more reason to doubt the point of his existence, especially since, after subduing the psychologically impaired and pitiable Nuke, Rogers resolves to find out what made a patriot into a monsterâ€¦

From his hidden realm, former S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Shen is pleased that his ambition to drive an Iron Nail into the heart of the West is proceeding. Thus he causes his unwitting deluded pawn to detonate like his namesake in the very heart of his hated foe’s citadel, whilst simultaneously activating the long-dormant and extremely classified Weapon Minus test warrior: an LSD-dosed, psychedelic psychological super soldier codenamed Dr. Mindbubble ready, willing and extremely able to share his terrifying sensibilities with the wider capitalist worldâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Carlos Pacheco, Nic Klein, Klaus Janson & Mariano Taibo, this blockbusting battle of ideologies is augmented by a covers-and-variants gallery from Pacheco & Dean White, Jim Cheung & Laura Martin, Leonel Castellani and Francesco Mattina, plus AR icon add-on sections which allow the Marvel Augmented Reality App to grant access to story bonuses once you download the code – for free – from marvel.com onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet.

Fast, furious and ferociously controversial, this long-overdue examination of a patriotic icon with a conscience representing a nation which has increasingly sidelined its people is a welcome twist that should challenge and delight fans old and new alike.

April 29, 2014May 5, 2014

Young Romance 2: the Early Simon & Kirby

By Joe Simon & Jack Kirby,restored by Chris Fama & edited by Michael GagnÃ© (Fantagraphics Books)

ISBN: 978-1-60699-732-1

As the popularity of flamboyant escapist superheroes waned after World War II, newer yet more familiar genres such as Crime and Horror came to the fore in American comics, as audiences increasingly rejected upbeat fantasy for grittier, more sober older themes in mass entertainment.

Some, like Westerns and Funny Animal comics, hardly changed at all, but gangster and detective tales were utterly radicalised by the temperament of the post-war world.

Stark, uncompromising, cynically ironic novels and socially aware, mature-themed B-movies that would become categorised as Film Noir offered the new civilian society a bleakly antiheroic worldview that often hit too close to home and set fearful, repressive, middleclass parent groups and political ideologues howling for blood.

Naturally the new forms and sensibilities seeped into comics, transforming good-natured, two-fisted gumshoe and Thud-&-Blunder cop strips of yore into darkly beguiling, even frightening tales of seductive dames, big pay-offs and glamorous thugs.

Sensing imminent Armageddon, the moral junkyard dogs bayed even louder as they saw their precious children’s minds under seditious attackâ€¦

Concurrent to the demise of masked mystery-men, industry giants Joe Simon & Jack Kirby – who were already capitalising on the True Crime boom – famously invented the comicbook Romance genre with mature, beguiling, explosively contemporary social dramas that equally focussed on the changing cultural scene and adult-themed relationships. They also, with very little shading, discussed topics of a sexual natureâ€¦

Beginning with the semi-comedic prototype My Date for Hillman in early 1947, S & K plunged in full force with Young Romance #1 in September of that year for Crestwood Publications: a minor outfit that had been creating interesting but not innovative comics since 1940 as Prize Comics.

Here, however, following Simon’s plan to make a new market out of the grievously uncatered-for older girls of America, they struck gold with stories addressing the serious issues and hazards of relationshipsâ€¦

Simon & Kirby presaged and ushered in the first American age of mature comics – not only with the creation of the Romance genre, but with challenging modern tales of real people in extraordinary situations – before seeing it all disappear again in less than eight years. Their small stable of magazines produced for the loose association of companies known as Prize/Crestwood/Pines blossomed and wilted as the industry contracted throughout the 1950s.

Not since the invention of Superman had a single comicbook generated such a frantic rush of imitation and flagrant cashing-in. Young Romance #1 was a monumental hit and the team swiftly expanded: releasing spin-offs Young Love (February 1949), Young Brides and In Love under a unique profits-sharing deal that quickly paid huge dividends to the creators and their growing studio of specialists as well as the publisher.

All through that turbulent period comicbooks suffered impossibly biased oversight and hostile scrutiny from hidebound and panicked old guard institutions such as church groups, media outlets and ambitious politicians.

A number of tales and titles garnered especial notoriety from those social doomsmiths and when the industry buckled and introduced a ferocious Comics Code, it castrated the creative form just when it most needed boldness and imagination. Comics endured more than a decade and a half of savagely doctrinaire self-imposed censorship until changing society and plummeting profits forced the art form to adapt, evolve or die.

Those tales from a simpler time, exposing a society in meltdown and suffering cultural PTSD, are mild by modern standards of behaviour but the quality of art and writing make those pivotal years a creative highpoint long overdue for a thorough reassessment.

In 2012 Fantagraphics released Young Romance: the Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics and that superb compilation, unable to do justice to the sheer volume of breakthrough material, has happily spawned this magnificent sequel, dedicated to the master creators’ first bold experiments with their astonishingly adult new genre.

Fictionalising â€œTrue Crime Casesâ€ was tremendously popular at the time, and of the assorted outfits that generated such material nobody did it better than S&K. That technique of first-person confession also naturally lent itself to the just-as-hard-hitting personal sagas of a succession of archetypal women and girls who populated their new comicbook smash.

Although their output as interchangeable writers/pencillers/inkers (possibly aided by Joe’s brother-in-law Jack Oleck in the story department) was prodigious and astounding, other hands frequently pitched in, so although these tales are all credited to S & K, art-aficionados shouldn’t be surprised to detect traces of Bill Draut, Mort Meskin, Al Eadeh, George Roussos or other stalwarts lurking in the backgroundsâ€¦

‘Introduction: A New Comic Book Genre Begins’ by Bill Schelly scrupulously traces the trajectory of the innovation and its impact on the industry before the shocking revelations begin with ‘I was a Pick-Up!’ from Young Romance #1 (September/October1947).

Here discontented teenager Toni Benson relates the circumstances that led to her being dumped by a sleazy rich kid in an underworld dive and of the sullied knight who saved her from a nasty end, whilst from the same issue ‘Misguided Heart’detailed how factory worker June Collins was slowly seduced by sleazy owner’s son Karl Barton until shy, self-effacing blue-collar Sherman could stand it no longerâ€¦

Story length varied from seven to fifteen pages and ‘Marriage Contract!’(YR #3, January/February 1948) took a gloriously expansive time to detail how destitute but proud slum-dweller Kitty Burke escaped parental pressure if not poverty by refusing to wed the career criminal her dad brokered for her, eventually finding happiness with a decent man prepared to honestly work his way to success, whilst the 8-page ‘Her Best Friend’s Sweetheart!’from the same issuetook a more light-hearted tone to detail how a soldier’s buddy sneakily put the moves on the girl he was supposed to be watching overâ€¦

Young Romance #4 revealed how excessively hard to please Nancy Hunter finally and painfully learned she would never find true love by only being a ‘Blind Date!’after which a brace of yarns from Young Romance #5 (May/June 1948) begins with ‘I Fell in Love With My Star Pupil!’:a fascinating study in small-town prejudice which found newly qualified teacher Mary Temple slandered, shunned and censured by petty, dirty minds in rural Pinesville when she began teaching an illiterate full-grown man the knowledge he needed to better himself. ‘Gold Digger’thensaw spoiled, avaricious Rusty Taylor taken down a peg or two when the boys she’d been exploiting brought in a ringer to teach her a much-needed lessonâ€¦

Simon & Kirby took much of their tone if not content from the movie melodramas of the period such as Smash-Up; the Story of a Woman or Johnny Belinda and Noir romances like Blonde Ice or Hollow Triumph and, unlike what we might consider suitable for romantic fiction today, their comicbook stories crackled with tension, embraced violent action and oozed unsavoury characters and vicious backstabbing, gossiping hypocrites.

‘Disgrace!’in #6 featured coal miner’s daughter Katie Markos who despised the raw brutal violence of boxing which offered her brother his only escape from poverty, but she was horrified at the relentless attraction she felt for his next opponent â€œKillerâ€ Grantâ€¦

The creators were not afraid of complex plots either. ‘War Bride’,the first of two selections from Young Romance #7 (September/October 1948), saw French miss Janine Arday brought to America to marry her man, only to see him die on the docks as she debarked.

Stuck without a man to guarantee her citizenship, she desperately accepted a pre-proposal from wealthy French Ã©migrÃ© Aristide Renault but after moving onto his estate found herself increasingly attracted to freewheeling idler Tony, son of the housekeeper Mrs. Cummings.

This tale would be considered mature even by today’s sophisticated standardsâ€¦

The second tale reversed the standard format as male confessor Frank Craig revealed ‘I Stole for Love!’and catalogued the foolish thoughts which forced him to embezzle funds for a devoted bride who only wanted him, not useless trinketsâ€¦

A couple from Young Romance #8 lead with ‘Love or Pity’wherein eager bride-to-be Ginny Harlan finds her perfect life destroyed by vicious gossip when her brother is erroneously implicated in mail fraud. Happily her man Ken is a decent straight shooterâ€¦

By contrast ‘Love Can Strike So Suddenly’offers a lavish exotic adventure wherein manipulative, ambitious Evie injects herself as a chaperone into her older sister’s life: accompanying the serious Ann on a business trip to India organised by dreamy tycoon Warren Wright.

The kid’s aplomb and composure swiftly dissipate once she meets the unflappable pilot/guide Bascomb Fuller who preferred the moody soubriquet â€œDeadeyeâ€â€¦

‘Was Love to be My Sacrifice!’ from Young Romance #9 (January/February 1949) took a hard look at careers as Chris Lorraine increasingly rebelled at being one half of a sister-act – the part that wanted nothing to do with her mother’s ruthless dream of stardom by proxy. Despondent, frustrated Chris was far more interested in marriage to their long-suffering agent Samâ€¦

With Young Romance a runaway success, the first spin-off debuted in February 1949 and from Young Love #1 comes the complex and intriguing ‘The Man I Loved Was a Woman-Hater’wherein vacationing Karen Nelson was saved from drowning by a reclusive artist who promptly ignored her thereafter. Unable to leave well enough alone she soon discovered a manipulative vixen who still had a ferocious financial and moral hold upon the surly but magnificent Pete Lewisâ€¦

Young Romance #10 (March/April 1949) provides two more challenging melodramas beginning with ‘This Man I Loved was a Mama’s Boy!’as Julie Decker finally meets her prospective mother-in law and realises how completely under her thumb brilliant young doctor Orin Fleming truly is.

It takes a deadly family joyride with her wild, juvenile delinquent brother-in-law-to-be before everybody is horrifyingly shaken out of their cloying, smothered rolesâ€¦

‘Unwanted!’meanwhile focuses on a young girl fresh out of prison unwillingly drawn back towards her old life by controlling boyfriend and gangster Joe Crane.

When a well-meaning bank clerk steps in to save her, the bandit plans a savage revengeâ€¦

This sublime ride back to a time of hungry hearts and dark desires ends with ‘Too Wise for Romance!’from Young Love #2 wherein a star-struck but luckless performer descends into a tawdry life as a bar-hostess and taxi-dancer, blithely unaware that the boy she casually spurned has never forgotten herâ€¦

Augmenting this parade of earthy fantasy is a beguiling feature ‘About the Restoration’ needed to compile this full-colour wonder and ‘Biographies’ of the canny creatives involved.

This is an extremely engaging, strikingly powerful and thoroughly addictive collection of great stories by brilliant masters of the comics arts and one no lover of the medium should missâ€¦

April 28, 2014May 5, 2014

Henry Speaks for Himself

By John Liney, edited by David Tosh (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-733-8

Henry was one of the most venerated and long-lived of American newspaper comics strips. Created by veteran cartoonist Carl Anderson as a silent, pantomimic gag-panel first seen on March 19^th 1932 for The Saturday Evening Post, it was picked up by the legendary strip advocate and propounder William Randolph Hearst who brought it and the then-69 year old Anderson to his King Features Syndicate in 1934. The first comic strip appeared on December 17^th with a full colour Sunday half-page following on March 10^th 1935.

The Saturday Evening Post had to content itself with a new feature entitled Little Lulu by Marjorie Henderson Buell. I wonder how that worked outâ€¦?

Being a man of advanced years, Anderson employed Don Trachte to assist with the Sundays whilst John J. Liney performed the same role for the Monday to Saturday black and white iteration. This continued until 1942 when arthritis forced Anderson to retire. Trachte and Liney became the de facto creators of the feature – although the originator’s name remained on the masthead for the next two decades.

Liney (1912-1982) had started as a staff cartoonist on the Philadelphia Evening Ledger and began selling gag ideas to Anderson in 1936 before landing the full-time assistant’s job. After assuming the illustrator’s role in 1942 he took over sole writing responsibilities for the daily in 1945, continuing Henry until 1979 when he finally retired.

His own name had been adorning the strip since 1970.

Liney was also a passionate teacher and educator on comics and cartooning, with a position at Temple University. Nevertheless he still found time to write and draw a comicbook iteration of the mute and merry masterpiece from 1946 to 1961.

Major licensing monolith Western Publishing/Dell Comics had been successfully producing comicbooks starring animation characters, film icons and strip heroes since the mid 1930s, and when they launched Henry – first in Four Color Comics #122 and #155 (October 1946 and July 1947) and then in his own 65 issue title from January 1948 – they successfully argued for a radical change in the boy’s make-up.

The newspaper strip had always been a timeless, nostalgia-fuelled, happily humour-heavy panoply of gags and slapstick situations wherein the frankly weird-looking little bald kid romped and pranked in complete silence, with superb cartooning delivering all the communication nuance the vast international audience needed.

Now however, with children seen as the sole consumers, the powers-that-be felt that the little mutant should be able to speak and make himself understood. Liney easily rose to the challenge and produced a sublime run of jolly, wild, weird and often utterly surreal endlessly inventive adventures – some approaching â€œStream-of-Consciousnessâ€ progressions that perfectly captured the ephemeral nature of kids’ concentration. He also introduced a captivating supporting cast to augment the boy, and his appealingly unattractive, forthright and two-fisted inamorata Henrietta.

This splendid softcover collection gathers some of the very best longer tales from the comicbook run in the resplendent flat primary colours that are so evocative of simpler – if not better – days and begins after a heartfelt reminiscence in the Foreword by Kim Deitch, after which Editor, compiler and devotee David Tosh outlines the history of the character and his creators in ‘Henry – the Funniest Living American’.

He thengoes on to explain ‘The Dell Years’ before offering some informative ‘Notes on the Stories’.

The magical story portion of this collection is liberally interspersed with stunning cover reproductions; all impressively returning to the quiet lad’s pantomimic gag roots, a brace of which precede a beautiful double-page spread detailing the vast and varied cast Liney added to mix.

Then from issue #7 (June, 1949) we find ‘Henry is Thinking Out Loud!’ as the boy keeps his non-existent mouth shut and explores the medium of first person narrative, inner monologues and thought-balloons whilst getting into mischief looking for odd jobs to doâ€¦

October’s edition, Henry #9, introduced the good-natured, cool but increasingly put-upon Officer Yako in ‘You Can’t Beat the Man on the Beat!’ in an escalating succession of brushes with the law, bullies, prospective clients and darling Henrietta.

That bald boy still hadn’t actually uttered a sound, but by #14 (August 1950) he had found his voice, much to the amusement of his layabout Uncle (he never had a name) who eavesdropped on the assorted kids comparing their ‘Funny Dreams’.

After a quartet of covers Henry #16 (December 1950) found Liney playing with words as ‘Rhyme Without Reason’ found all the characters afflicted with doggerel, meter, couplets and all forms poetic with Liney even drawing himself into the madcap procession of japes and jests, whilst ‘A Slice of Ham’ from issue #22 (December 1951) cleverly riffed on Henry’s ambitions to impress Henrietta by becoming an actor. This yarn includes a wealth of Liney caricatures of screen immortals such as Chaplin, Gable, Sinatra and more, whilst introducing a potential rival for Henry’s affections in cousin Gildaâ€¦

In #24 (April 1952) Henry ‘Peeks into the Future’ by outrageously pondering on his possible careers as an adult, before plunging into Flintstone or Alley Oop territory – complete with cave city and dinosaurs – as a result of studying too hard for a history test in ‘The Stone Age Story’ from issues #29, February 1953.

After four more clever funny covers, growing up again featured heavily with ‘Choosing Your Career’ (#45, March 1956) as the little fool road-tested a job as a home-made cab driver and accidentally slipped into law enforcement by capturing a bandit.

In #48 (December 1956) Henry attended a fancy dress party and became ‘The Boy in the Iron Mask’, and this completely charming compilation closes by reprising that sojourn in the Stone Age with #49 (March 1957)’s ‘Rock and Roll’â€¦

Concluding the comedy capers is fond personal reminiscence ‘Henry and Me’ by David Tosh; a man justifiably delighted to be able to share his passion with us and hopefully proud that this book gloriously recaptures some of the simple straightforward sheer joy that could be found in comicbooks of yore.

Henry Speaks for Himself is fun, frolicsome and fabulously captivating all-ages cartooning that will enthral anyone with kids or who has the soul of one.

Henry Speaks for Himself Â© 2014 Fantagraphics Books Inc. All comics and drawings Â© 2014 King Features, Inc. All other material Â© its respective creators. This book was produced in cooperation with Heritage Auctions.

April 26, 2014April 25, 2014

Dirty Pair: Biohazards

By Toren Smith & Adam Warren (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 1-56060-008-X (softcover), 1-56060-007-1 (hb), 1-900097-04-4 (UK edition)

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a genuine international collaboration that merged the best of Japanese and American sensibilities to create something genuinely appealing and tremendously fun.

In a fast and furious future of 2141AD, intergalactic proliferation of human civilisation has led to a monumental bureaucracy, greater corruption and more deadly criminals preying upon the citizens of the United Galactica.

Thus the constant need for extra-special Trouble Consultants: pan-planetary private paramilitary police employed by the 3WA (or Worlds Welfare Work Association) to maintain order in hotspots across the sort-of civilised universeâ€¦

Kei and Yuri are team #234, officially designated â€œThe Lovely Angelsâ€ after their sleek and efficient starship. They are lethal, capable and infallible. Whenever they are deployed, they strike fast and hard and never failâ€¦

â€¦Although the collateral damage they propagate is completely unimaginable and usually causes client worlds to regret ever asking for their aid in the first placeâ€¦.

Much to the crisis agents’ disgust and chagrin, the universe knows them best as The Dirty Pair and planetary authorities have to be in the most appalling straits to let them helpâ€¦

The concept was conceived for light novels by Japanese author Haruka Takachiho (Crusher Joe) in 1985 and quickly made the jump to TV, movie and OVA anime, but there was no comics/manga iteration (until over a decade later), inspiring Adam Warren and Toren Smith of Manga translation company Studio Proteus to approach independent publisher Eclipse Comics with an idea for a comicbook miniseriesâ€¦

The result was Biohazards; 4 issues (December 1988 to April 1989)of licensed light-hearted, manic murder and monstrous mayhem which was then swiftly collected in a brash and breezy graphic album. The many reprintings from the franchise’s successors Dark Horse in the USA and Manga Books in the UK heralded a blistering run of wry and raucous adventures that still read as well today as they did when the Japanese comics experience was seen as a rare, quaint and exotic oddityâ€¦

In ‘Biohazard’ the deadly babes are going about their lawful but excessively violent business – subsequently and of course unintentionally devastating a colossal space station and killing fifty civilians – when a call comes from Alex Goldin, Security Director of corporate paradise Pacifica.

He has a thorny problem to manage: a brutally efficient theft of personality-preserving bio-construct Brainchips and tissues samples, plus the loss of a full-grown clone, is only the latest skirmish between rival bioengineering industrialists Kelvin O’Donnell and Abraham Streib.

The escalating battle between magnates too powerful to censure compels the obsequious and duplicitous Goldin to tread softly. Both men are massive wealth-creators: master-makers of bio-weapons, body augmentations and innovative medicines, but he still doesn’t want anything incurable or unkillable loose on his streets if their economic struggle continues.

The organo-industrialists are both experts in skirting what rules and regulations exist and officially test their wares on their private manufacturing moons but you never knowâ€¦

The situation is particularly tenuous at present because O’Donnell, thanks to the unfortunate lab accident, is a space-chipmunk.

â€¦Or rather the brainchip encoding his personality currently resides in a Whelan’s Pseudo-Fuzzy in the possession by Streib. When cyborg chief enforcer M97 destroyed O’Donnell’s almost matured Adonis-like new body in the raid, the triumphant genegineer couldn’t resist an opportunity to gloat. After all, with no spare chips, no proper body to put them in and O’Donnell on a leash, surely Streib has finally wonâ€¦

Triumphant Streib is actually no better off. After similar bioagent â€œmisfortunesâ€ over the years of their rivalry, his organic head is now stuck on a robot body whilst his organics are so messed up he can’t be cloned or brainchipped.

Tracking O’Donnell’s chip to Streib’s private estate, Goldin has called on 3WA and is now stuck with Kei and Yuri. In the final assessment he needs someone from outside the system to rescue O’Donnell’s brainchip and genetic material from Streib without starting a horrific WMD war that will end life on Pacificaâ€¦

What could possibly go wrong?

With their enigmatic, electronics-warping alien super-cat Mughi the girls easily infiltrate the vast compound just in time to find Streib employing horrific techno-organic warbeasts to hunt O’Donnell.

Employing the catastrophic violence they are renowned for, the Dirty Pair easily lay waste to the human soldiers and rapacious mechanoids, but rather than turn the little Fuzzy over to Goldin they are cajoled and are convinced by the little cutie to take him to his own lab where he has himself transferred into one of his own trademarked warbeasts.

And up until then the case had been practically catastrophe-freeâ€¦

‘Complications’ occur when Kei sees the body O’Donnell will eventually return to and gets all girly-fluttery and romantically entangled; allowing herself to be convinced that they should take Streib down for good.

It’s not hard to get Yuri to agree and soon Lovely Angels and wrathful warbeast are breaking into Streib’s main lab citadel.

As the girls convincingly crush all resistance O’Donnell discovers a deliciously illegal bioagent weapon which will prove his rival’s downfall – even in Pacifica’s courts – and asks Yuri to hold onto it as they escape, but in the resultant firefight the canister is breached and she is doused in something very nastyâ€¦

Luckily, rather than a disease or toxin it’s â€œonlyâ€ a chemical to enhance aggression and violence and ‘Outbreak’ finds Yuri descending into a berserker mode even more dangerous than her regular state; ruthlessly efficient and wildly careless of consequences. Manically outfighting the army and air force despatched to stop them, she and the astounded Kei and O’Donnell soon completely destroy a major population centre before escaping M97 and his fanatically pursuing cohortsâ€¦

With Yuri fully recovered from the combat craziness, the Angels decide to take the battle to the arrogantly gloating and seemingly unimpeachable Streib, infiltrating his industrial moon Telek and ultimately reducing it to slag and space dust and free-floating bio-bombs in their own inimitable style.

However there are two more surprises in store: a rather predictable last stab from the stylishly indefatigable M97 and a more personal heartbreak bombshell for Kei once Goldin gets his hands on O’Donnellâ€¦

Both incredibly information-dense and astonishingly action-packed, this cool, light-hearted cyber-punk space opera romp is a solidly satisfying slice of Sci Fi magic that will delight all fans of tech-heavy blockbusters, and the book comes with an afterword by co-author Toren Smith – heavily illustrated with Adam Warren sketches – detailing the love of hard science and social extrapolation which flavoured and textured the creators’ trans-Pacific interpretation of Haruka Takachiho’s concept.

The digest-sized (210 x 150mm) UK edition has the tag line â€œin the tradition of Red Dwarfâ€ and that assessment is not a million miles from the truth, as long as you factor in sexy death-dealing ingÃ©nues, wry socio-political commentary, very skimpy costumes and oodles of cartoon carnage.

Fun and frolics future-style: you know you want itâ€¦

April 25, 2014April 27, 2014

Papyrus volume 3: Tutankhamun, the Assassinated Pharaoh

By Lucien De Geiter, coloured by G. Vloeberghs & translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1- 905460-84-7

British and European comics have always been happier with historical strips than our American cousins (a pugnacious part of me wants to say that’s because we have so much more past to play with – and yes, I know they’re responsible for Prince Valiant, but he’s an exception, not a rule) and our Franco-Belgian brethren in particular have made an astonishing art form out of days gone by.

The happy combination of familiar exoticism, past lives and world-changing events blended with drama, action and especially broad humour has resulted in a genre uniquely suited to beguiling readers of all ages and tastes.

Don’t take my word for it – just check out Asterix, AdÃ¨le Blanc-Sec, The Towers of Bois-Maury, Iznogoud or Thorgal to name but a few which have made it into English, or our own much missed period classics such as Olac the Gladiator, Dick Turpin, Janus Stark, Heros the Spartan or Wrath of the Gods; all far too long overdue for collection in album form, I might add.

Papyrus is the magnificent magnum opus of Belgian cartoonist Lucien de Gieter. It premiered in 1974 in legendary weekly Spirou, running to more than 30 albums, a wealth of merchandise, a television cartoon show and a video game.

De Gieter was born in 1932 and studied at Saint-Luc Art Institute in Brussels before going into industrial design and interior decorating. He made the jump into sequential narrative in 1961, first through ‘mini-rÃ©cits’ (fold-in, half-sized-booklets) inserts for Spirou, starring his jovial little cowboy ‘Pony’, and later by writing for art-star regulars such as Kiko, Jem, Eddy Ryssack and Francis.

He then joined Peyo’s studio as inker on ‘Les Schtroumpfs’ (The Smurfs) and took over the long-running newspaper strip ‘Poussy’.

In the 1960s De Gieter launched South Seas mermaid fantasy ‘TÃ´Ã´Ã´t et Puit’ whilst Pony was promoted to the full-sized pages of Spirou, deep-sixing the Smurfs gig to expand his horizons working for Tintin and Le Journal de Mickey.

From 1972-1974 he assisted cartooning legend Berck on ‘Mischa’ for Germany’s Primo, whilst applying the finishing touches to his latest project: a historical confection which would occupy his full attention and delight millions of fervent fans for the next forty years.

The annals of Papyrus encompass a huge range of themes and milieus, blending Boy’s Own adventure with historical fiction and interventionist mythology, gradually evolving from traditionally appealing â€œBigfootâ€ cartoon style and content towards a more realistic, dramatic and authentic iteration, through light fantasy romps – leavened and flavoured with the latest historical theories and discoveries – starring a fearlessly forthright boy fisherman favoured by the gods to become a hero of Egypt and friend to Pharaohs.

As a youngster the plucky â€œfellahâ€ was blessed by the gods and given a magic sword courtesy of the daughter of crocodile-headed Sobek.

The lad’s first task was to free supreme god Horus from imprisonment in the Black Pyramid of Ombos thereby restoring peace to the Double Kingdom, but his most difficult and never-ending duty was to protecting Pharaoh’s wilful, high-handed and safety-averse daughter Theti-Cheri – a princess with an unparalleled gift for seeking out troubleâ€¦

Tutankhamun, the Assassinated Pharaoh is the third Cinebook translation (17^th in the series and originally released in 1994 as ToutÃ¢nkhamon, le Pharaon assassinÃ©), skilfully blending fact and fantasy into a strange and disturbing tale of grave robbery, unquiet ghosts and madnessâ€¦

It all begins with a squabble between the Mayor of the City of the Dead and his equivalent civil servant for the City of Thebes. The vast desolate region of imperial tombs, sepulchres and lesser burials is being systematically ransacked by blasphemous thieves and, whilst aforementioned Executive of the Interred Paur claims the sacrilegious raids must be the work of roving Bedouins, Thebes’ Mayor Paser posits that the defilers’ knowledge of the sites indicates they must be Egyptiansâ€¦ perhaps even some of Paur’s workers or tomb guardsâ€¦

Bored with the interminable bickering, Theti-Cheri drags away Papyrus and court jester Puin to join her father’s lion hunt in the deep desert. Amidst the hustle and bustle the jolly dwarf is left behind and forced to frustratingly follow on his astoundingly smart donkey Khamelot.

Naturally this leads to him being attacked by the self-same decrepit man-eater Pharaoh is trying to eradicate, and as Puin frantically flees the hungry cat he sees chariot-borne scout Papyrus save a fellah from brutal grave guards.

The grateful peasant is a plant however and secretes a golden tomb treasure on the boy hero before knocking him outâ€¦

When Papyrus comes to he is surrounded by soldiers and accused by Paur’s captain Rhama of tomb-robbing. A crowd of suspiciously incensed citizens even try to stone him to death and Pharaoh has no choice but to have the boy imprisoned for trial.

However, before the doughty lad can gather his wits, Paur attempts to assassinate him with snakes and then kidnaps him from his temple cell, hiding the drugged and unconscious form in a secret access shaft to the grave of tragic boy king Tutankhamunâ€¦

Falling through into the tomb proper, Papyrus’ spirit is accosted by the ghost of Ankhsenamun and discovers from Tutankhamun’s beloved child-bride that his own peasant great-grandfather played a major role in the tragic romance and short, complex reign of the murdered Boy-Kingâ€¦

As Papyrus learns the incredible, unpalatable truth about the legendary ruler’s fate, in the physical world Puin and Khamelot have informed Theti-Cheri of the plot and the impetuous Princess has rushed to the site and subsequently trapped herself in the tomb whilst gold-crazed Paur’s men close in to murder everybody who knows of the Mayor of the City of the Dead’s perfidyâ€¦

However the blasphemous bandits have not reckoned on Pharaoh’s cunning perspicacity or a certain donkey’s loyal ingenuityâ€¦

This is another astounding amazing adventure which will thrill and enthral fans of fantastic fantasy – although some of the finer points of Pharaonic marriage customs might distress fainter-hearted parents and guardians – and De Gieter’s clever merging of gothic romance, ghost story and archaeological revelation make for a particularly impressive treat..

Papyrus is a brilliant addition to the family-friendly pantheon of continental champions who marry heroism and humour with wit and charm, and anybody who has worn out those Tintin or Asterix volumes would be wise beyond their years in acquiring all these classic chronicles.
Â© Dupuis, 1994 by De Gieter. All rights reserved. English translation Â© 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

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