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March 27, 2014March 26, 2014

Marvel Knights Spider-Man: 99 Problems

By Matt Kindt, Marco Rudy & Val Staples (Marvel Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-576-5

The Marvel Knights imprint began as a way to produce slightly darker and more mature miniseries starring favourite characters in stories aimed at older readers. Whilst more askance than outside regular continuity, the adventures of familiar stalwarts could be counted as canon or discarded as the readership pleased, but eventually the Knights tales were all absorbed into the mainstream and the imprint generally retired.

In 2013 the subset was revived with a few new limited seriesâ€¦

The classic days of the Amazing Arachnid (i.e. pre-or-post Otto Octavius as The Superior Spider-Man) briefly returned and were subject to a visually impressive plot-light treatment in Marvel Knights Spider-Man: 99 Problems #1-5 which ran from December 2013 to April 2014 and featured a startling scenario for everybody’s favourite original hard-luck hero.

In case you forgotâ€¦

Outcast, orphaned science-nerd schoolboy Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and, after seeking to cash-in on the astonishing abilities which subsequently developed, suffered an irreconcilable personal tragedy. His beloved guardian Uncle Ben was murdered by a burglar Peter could have stopped but didn’t because he refused to get involved.

Permanently traumatised and feeling irreconcilably responsible for Ben’s death, the 15-year old determined henceforward to always use his powers to help those in need.

Parker loved and lost many more close friends and family during his crime-busting, world-saving career, but eventually won a measure of joy from all the heartache when he married the girl next door, Mary Jane Watsonâ€¦

For years the brilliant, indomitable everyman hero suffered privation and travail in his domestic situation whilst his notorious alter ego endured public condemnation and mistrust as he valiantly battled all manner of threat and foe.

He made a lot of enemiesâ€¦

Sometimes basics is best in storytelling and the plot here is one constant chase and battle as Parker takes a crummy freelance photo gig and is ambushed, drugged and kidnapped in ‘Let the Games Begin’â€¦

Spider-Man battles his way off a plane past a gauntlet of costumed villains but the ‘Arachnophobia’ even continues in the ocean before ‘Combat’ transfers the action to a submarine stuffed with prior punks and perils until the battered but incomprehensibly driven Wallcrawler meets at last ‘The Most Dangerous Player’ on a tropical island.

He thinks he’s worked it all out but Peter still hasn’t faced the instigator of his woes and master of his 99 foes. That happens in the blistering conclusion ‘Game Over’â€¦

Scripter Matt Kindt’s catalogue of carnage moves things along at a rollercoasting rocket’s pace but the artwork here deserves the most attention.

This tale is primary a stunning exercise in visual acuity and dexterity from Marco Rudy and colourist Val Staples. Explosive, panoramic, even psychedelic in places, the pictorial narrative sublimely pushes Parker to the extreme limits as the hero faces an army of enemies before finally uncovering the twisted brain behind the concerted attack and finding his ultimate enemy is neither who nor what he ever expectedâ€¦

With covers and variants by Rudy and Carlo Barberi, this is a stripped down, breathtaking primal comics experience that will delight fans of high octane Fights ‘n’ Tights action.

March 26, 2014March 25, 2014

My Little Monster volume 1

By Robico translated by Joshua Weeks (Kodansha Comics USA)
ISBN: 978-1-61262-597-3

Solidly appealing to lovers of traditionalÂ ShÅjo (â€œgirls’ comicsâ€) comes a grand and sassy tale of Right Girl, Right Time, Wrong Boy from enigmatic mangaka Robico, dealing with the thorny topic of wasteful distractions at schoolâ€¦

Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun or ‘The Monster Sitting Beside Me’ debuted in Dessert Magazine in 2008 with the first volume of a dozen collections appearing a year later. The serial ran until June 2013 and spawned a highly successful anime adaptation.

Shizuku Mizutani is a schoolgirl determined to succeed. Only one person has ever gotten higher grades than her throughout her entire scholastic career – and she’s still burned up about it – but otherwise she’s solidly – comfortably – set her sights on exceptional achievement and a great job and nothing’s going to force her off her well-planned, carefully projected course.

Her teen travails begin in ‘My Classmate Yoshida-kun’ as she explains how she’s never seen the boy who sits next to her. He got into a fight on his first day and hasn’t come to school since. That was three years ago.

Now for some incomprehensible reason the ideal student is stuck delivering printouts to the epic absconder as a â€œfavourâ€ (bribe) to teacher Saeko-Sensei. She finds him in the skeevy games arcade where he hangs out. Shizuku wasn’t expecting much, but Haru Yoshida fails to live up to even those low expectations.

He’s a veritable wild boy: manic, ill-mannered, actively extremely rude and his associates are little better than thugs and gangsters.

He even attacks her, accusing her of spying on him.

All the school rumours must be true; how he hospitalised three upperclassmen and was suspendedâ€¦

The ice broken, Saeko then pushes her star student to lure the boy back to school (his suspension being long expired) but when he starts regularly attending tongues start wagging. He then arbitrarily decides they’re friends and begins to follow Shizuku everywhereâ€¦

She’s never been more angry or frustrated. He’s always there, distracting her, getting in the way of her future. She can’t stop thinking about himâ€¦

Following a brace of humorous of mini-strips ‘I was Running as Fast as I Could!’ and ‘Spot-Billed Duck’ the School Daze resume with ‘I Don’t Hate You’ as the apparently imprinted malcontent begins appearing everywhere she goes and captivatingly showing his softer, fragile side.

Unfortunately he’s painfully gullible and falls for many embarrassing pranks from his classmates which he responds to with devastating violence. Soon he has gained an irresistibly dangerous reputationâ€¦

He also seems to start noticing other girls, but why should Shizuku care about that? She’s far more upset to learn that he was the student who beat her test scores and that even after three years of skipping education he’s probably still smarter than herâ€¦

And now for some reason she’s finding it impossible to bear down and study, the only thing she used to be good atâ€¦

And then Haru kisses herâ€¦ but decides they can still be friends anywayâ€¦

After micro strips ‘Because She’s a Lady’ and ‘It’s Hard Not to Say It’, the main event starts again with ‘Weird’, wherein the wild boy starts displaying the attention span of a mayfly.

Adopting and then palming off a chicken on his newfound friends and tutoring vacuous Asako Natsune so she can avoid going to Afterschool Classes instead of partying are bad enough, but most significantly he utterly ignores the change in their own relationship, or even that they have oneâ€¦

Two small interludes with ‘Natsume and Haru’ then lead into the final chapter as Shizuku is forced to admit to herself how much Haru has changed her life. However when she finally confesses just how much she likes the annoying, confusing oaf, all he can say in response is that she’s not a ‘Nuisance’â€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Wrapping things up are two final cartoon vignettes ‘Just as Short’ and ‘That Guy’, plus a Comment from the author and a section of handy Translation notes.

Sweet, cruel and silly by turns, this is a delightful coming of age comedy, brimming with those crucial, critical moments that stay with you for decades after high school ends, but cleverly leavened with light charming characters and situations all superbly illustrated by a master of the genre.

Not everybody’s cup of tea but sheer poetry for those of us who remember love can – and should – be fun.
Â© 2009 Robico. English translation Â© 2014 Robico. All rights reserved.

This book is printed in ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

March 25, 2014March 24, 2014

Kiddo

By Antoine CossÃ© (Records Records Records Books)
ISBN: 978-0-9566330-1-9

Since Britain grew up and joined the rest of the world in accepting comics as a valid and viable art form, the shelves of Albion have been positively groaning with a wealth of superbly fascinating graphic narratives of all types; especially since a number of bold new publishers have either picked up and translated Asian and European material or confidently released new stuff from creators around the world.

Antoine CossÃ© is a French graphic storyteller living in London. He left Paris to study at Camberwell College of Arts and graduated in 2006 with a degree in illustration. He then began a seemingly non-stop barrage of moody, funny and evocative strips catering to his own need to explore the absurd, the fanciful and the unexpected lurking behind the humdrum passage of everyday lives and kindly invited a growing fan-base to join him in his explorations.

Following a number of short strips, features and collaborations, in 2012 he produced his debut graphic novel – Kiddo – for British outfit Records Records Records Books: an enigmatic, helter-skelter cartoon progression practically devoid of words which combines elements of epic dystopian science fiction with unceasing kinetic forward motion redolent in tone – if not style and content – to the ceaselessly energetic strip works of AndrÃ© Barbe.

Lavishly packaged as a black and white hardback (comfortingly reminiscent of those classily sturdy children’s books of my youth) the stark events unfold as a solitary man plunges through jungles and wastelands, seeking who knows what in a scary big world.

Encountering beasts, a woman, hardship, hunger, booze, a giant monster dog, war, strange phenomena and the encroaching remnants – or perhaps discards – of civilisation, he moves ever onward to a chaotic closing conundrumâ€¦

Deeply sly, beguiling reductive and intoxicatingly Primitivist, Kiddo is an irresistibleÂ surge of purely visual drama and a mystery for its own sake which will delight all aficionados of the medium who value comics for their own sake and don’t need answers spoon-fed to them.
Â© 2012 Antoine CossÃ©. Â© & â„— Records Records Records Books.

March 24, 2014March 23, 2014

Stranger Than Life – Cartoons and Comics 1970 – 2013

By M.K. Brown (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-708-6

Sometimes there’s no need to babble on for ages. Sometimes a book just sells itself. However I’m far too vain a reviewer to let things lie without interjecting a few facts and opinions. You guess which is whichâ€¦

Mary K. Brown was usually my favourite cartoonist in National Lampoon where her uniquely personal, bizarrely surreal, evocatively awry cartoon observations and visions graced the wildly eclectic Funny Pages section for decades.

Her other regular gigs included stints in Playboy, Wimmin’s Commix, Mother Jones, Twisted Sisters, Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and elsewhere. She was one of a rarefied group of creators tapped by Art Spiegelman for his prestigious The Narrative Corpse project and one of her most intense cartoons was transformed into the other animation segment of the Tracy Ullman Show. (the one you know became The Simpsons).

She keeps her private life to herself but her astounding facility as a painter – particularly watercolours – has won her a second career as a gallery artist.

Now after far too long a time, she’s back as Fantagraphics adds her to its growing list of all-star cartoonist retrospectives; celebrated here with an astonishingly wide-ranging collection and treasury of her gags, drawings and strips.

It’s tempting to say that Brown’s work is no-nonsense, but in fact it’s all Nonsense: of the highest, weirdest, wildest, wackiest and most elevated pedigree. It’s human, humane, off-beat and off-kilter: beautifully designed and rendered – whether in line or colour – and ranges from the most audaciously cringeworthy visual puns (‘Overwrought Iron’) to manically absurdist almost stream-of-consciousness narratives, satirising suburban banality and angst or almost genteelly walloping Post Modern self absorption, consumerism and decadent ennuiâ€¦

Moreover, this vast and comprehensive compendium (250 pages at 280 x 216mm) understands the value of pictures over words, so Bill Griffith’s Foreword ‘Here’s My Checklist for Everything I want in a Cartoonist’ is brief and punchy as is Brown’s own Introduction, leaving all the more room for her stunning pictorial confections – although she does interject with valuable commentary and background information whenever she feels like it.

And why not? It’s her bookâ€¦

The works are divided into themed sections beginning with ‘Housepeople’, starring faddy folks from the nouveau riche punk to the domestic goddess in poems, gags and strips like the eponymous ‘Stranger Than Life’, ‘How to Make a Pair of Pants in 20 Minutes’ ‘Snakes in the Bathroom’, ‘Free Glue Sample’, ‘White Girl Dreams’ and much moreâ€¦

Her astonishing gift for observation was never better seen than in pieces set ‘In the Workplace’: with outrÃ© panels augmenting manic features such as ‘Revenge and Forgiveness (A Dental Fantasy)’, ‘Russ de la Rocca – Worm Trainer of the Americas’, ‘Transference’, ‘The Fly Brothers in Hollywood’ or ‘Coping with Chain Saw Massacres’, whilst ‘Science and Technology’ encompasses ‘Fear of the Known’, grasshoppers and their ‘Inroads into Science’ and the ever-thorny conundrum ‘Women: What do They Want?’â€¦

‘A Seedy Part of Town’ concentrates on domestic investigation and features more searching questions from the appallingly plebeian White Girl and ‘Earl D. Porker – Social Worker’ after which ‘Romance and Social Studies’ reveals how ‘Love Makes the World Go ‘Round’, offers a unique ‘Love Story’ and exposes secrets of the ‘Singles Bar’. Also featured is Brown’s faux bodice ripper ‘A Promise to Remember’, and the packed-to-bursting chapter climaxes with ‘Party Time Paper Dolls’ and the many small adventures of ‘Mercury, Messenger of God’.

The wonders of the world are examined in ‘Travel and Nature’ with particular attention paid to ‘Highlights of Guatemala’, ‘Loud Ties in Nature’, ‘Camel Racing in the Desert’, and sundry bestial broadsides. This chapter also reprints ‘Another True-Life Pretty Face in the Field of Medicine’ (which was adapted as the aforementioned animated adventures of Dr. N!Godatu on the Ullman show), as well as the mad Mountie serial ‘Saga of the Frozen North’, and is as ever surrounded by many more panel gags and mini strips.

The cartoon carnival concludes with ‘Way Out West’: a selection of equestrian and cowboy pieces accompanied by the really true secret reason Brown produced so many of the crazy things.

Included are ‘Custer’s Last Night Stand’, ‘Hillbilly Song Jubilee Roundup Time’, a triptych of ‘Beans Morocco’ sagebrush yarns, a series of strangely sensational gun illustrations and all five chapters of that dern peculiar soap opera ‘Western Romance’â€¦

After a steadfastly odd comicstrip ‘Self Portrait’ by the ever-entertaining Brown, cartoonist Roz Chast adds her own observations to an appreciative Afterword to end this beguiling parade of literary legerdemain and graphic incomprehensionâ€¦

Clever, challenging and utterly addictive humour that is once seen, never forgotten. And that is a fact.

Stranger Than Life: Cartoons and Comics 1970 -2013 Â© 2014 Fantagraphics Books. All comics and text by M.K. Brown are Â© 2014 M.K. Brown. All other material Â© 2014 the respective creators. All rights reserved.

March 23, 2014March 22, 2014

Fantastic Four: First Family

By Joe Casey, Chris Weston & Gary Erskine (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1703-2

The Fantastic Four has long been considered the most pivotal series in modern comicbook history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging the readers’ impassioned attentions.

More a family than a team, the roster has changed many times over the years but always eventually returns to theÂ original configuration of Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch, who have together formed the vanguard of modern four-colour heroic history.

The quartet are actually maverick genius Reed Richards, his wife Sue, their trusty college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s obnoxious and impetuous younger brother Johnny Storm; survivors of an independent, non-governmental space-shot which went horribly wrong once ferociously mutative Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

When they crashed back to Earth, the foursome found that they had all been hideously changed into outlandish freaks.

Richards’ body became elastic, Sue gained the power to turn invisible and form force-fields, Johnny could turn into self-perpetuating living flame, and poor, tormented Ben was transformed into a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command.

The sheer simplicity of four archetypes – mercurial boffin, self-effacing distaff, solid everyman and hot-headed youth, uniting to triumph over accident and adversity – shone under Stan Lee’s irreverent humanity coupled to Jack Kirby’s rampant imagination and sense of adventure.

However, after decades of erratic quality and floundering plotlines following the original creators’ departures, Marvel’s First Family began a steady climb in quality at the beginning of the 21^st century which culminated in their own blockbuster film franchise.

To augment the increased casual interest, in 2006 a canny, edgy retelling of the team’s earliest days was produced as a 6-issue miniseries by scripter Joe Casey and illustrators Chris Weston & Gary Erskine, re-examining the quartet’s coming to terms with their new status in terms far more in keeping with the cynical, jaded 21^st centuryâ€¦

It opens with ‘There’s Was a Crashâ€¦’ as USAF General Walter Montgomery is called to a top secret military installation where four survivors of a fallen space-shot are being held. They were human once but have been hideously mutated by Cosmic radiation.â€¦

The boy keeps bursting into flames, whilst his older sister is totally transparent. The pilot has become a rock-like atrocity and the General’s old friend Dr. Richards has been reduced to a catatonic mound of shapeless flesh.

His coma has nothing to do with the accident however. The scientist is locked into a cerebral mindscape where he is being lectured to by a fifth cosmic ray survivorâ€¦

The entity is explaining some facts of life. The facility they are in is a Air Force base designed to hold a variety of cosmically mutated humans. This is not the Government’s first Rodeoâ€¦

In ‘Late-Night Creeping’ Sue Storm surreptitiously escapes her cell to check on her companions, but boyfriend Reed is still beyond reach inside his own head. Dr. Franz Stahl is currently explaining to him that a fallen meteor supercharged with C-radiation has been transforming humans under USAF supervision for months and his own forced evolution is the most significant result.

Seeing Richards as a kindred spirit, the mind-ghost shares his radical theories of evolutionary dominance with his fellow future man but Richards remains unconvincedâ€¦

‘The Afterburn’ sees Ben Grimm’s fiancÃ©e run screaming from him and prompting a minor riot, allowing Stahl to take matters into his own psychic hands and instigate a further distracting crisis. Provoking one of his fellow monstrous transformees to go on a ‘Cosmic Ray Rampage’, the doctor escapes whilst the super-powered quartet gamely assist the soldiers in stopping the unholy horror.

In return Montgomery agrees to release the four on their own recognizance with assurances of Federal backingâ€¦

‘Remember the Alamo’ occurs just after the events of Fantastic Four #1, beginning when the heroes escape the atomic destruction of Mole Man‘s Monster Island. Reed later briefs Montgomery and they plan to formalise the team. However, Reed is still being regularly mentally shanghaied by Stahl, whose agenda to improve humanity begins with the culling of his own far-too mundane family in ‘Domestic Disturbance’â€¦

Ben then heads for a disastrous drink in his old neighbourhood in ‘The Homecoming Dance’ even as Johnny, Reed and Sue all realise that their old â€œnormalâ€ lives are forever denied them.

A Mole Man monster resurfaces in New York ready for ‘Round Two’ and Franz again tries to convince the elastic hero to aid his plan to forcibly fix mankind, but Sue begins to worry that her man has lost all interest in a normal domestic futureâ€¦

After General Montgomery sets up the four in a fabulous new, government funded HQ – The Baxter Building – the outcasts quickly begin to fall apart in ‘The Ties That Bind’ and no one is available when Stahl invades the Air Force’s secret Cosmic facility in ‘Evolutionary Modern’, intent on taking the life-warping meteor

In ‘Cold, Hardâ€¦’ Sue, Johnny and Ben discuss Reed’s distraction and underhandedness whilst the subject of their grievances has opted to tackle Franz in ‘Alone + Easy Target’â€¦

As they rush to save him, Reed is locked in psychic combat with Stahl, who has used the meteor to mutate the base personnel into a legion of monsters and has begun his ‘Extinction Event’ for humanity. The battered hero is losing however until his erstwhile cosmic comrades fight their way in and are pulled into the mental arena of ‘Signs and Salvation’ to happily tip the balanceâ€¦

The titanic battle ends with a ‘Mind’s Eye Open’ leaving the four closer than ever and set upon together ‘Finding Destiny’â€¦

Dark, grimly post-modern and disregarded by many purists, First Family nevertheless offers a compelling rationalisation of epochal events from simpler times framed in the context of a more cynical century and certainly inviting to fans of a more grounded, less optimistic society. It’s also a pretty good yarn for open-minded fans who love the baroque theatrics of modern superhero stories.
Â© 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

March 22, 2014March 20, 2014

Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1959-1961

By Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, Wayne Boring &Stan Kaye with Otto Binder, Robert Bernstein & Jerry Coleman (IDW Publishing Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-6137-7666-7

It’s indisputable that the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s Superman. Their 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 impossible army of imitators and variations within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel grew to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, 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.

In comicbook terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, the Man of tomorrow relentlessly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media.

Although we all think of Cleveland boys’ iconic creation as the epitome and acme of comicbook creation, the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 Superman became 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, Wonder Woman, X-Men, Avengers and Superman long ago outgrew their four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized modern media creatures instantly familiar in mass markets, platforms and age rangesâ€¦

Far more people have seen or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comicbooks. The globally syndicated newspaper strips alone reached untold millions. 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 regular, starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, two films and a novel by George Lowther.

He was a perennial success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were three more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a franchise of blockbuster movies and an almost seamless succession of games, bubblegum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since.

Even superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen actâ€¦

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the last century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and perhaps the planet – with 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 doâ€¦

So it was always something of a risky double-edged sword when a comic-book character became so popular that it swam against the tide (after all weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?) to became a genuinely mass-entertainment syndicated serial strip.

Superman was the first original comicbook character to make that leap – almost as soon as he was created – but only a few have ever successfully followed. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and groundbreaking teen icon Archie made the jump in the 1940s and only a handful like Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian have done so since.

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16^th January 1939 and was supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5^th of that year. Originally crafted by such luminaries as Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring) the mammoth task soon reqired 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 more than 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers, boasting a combined readership of more than 20 million. Eventually artists Win Mortimer and Curt Swan joined the unfailing Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye whilst Bill Finger and Seigel provided the stories, telling serial tales largely separate and divorced from comicbook continuity throughout years when superheroes were scarcely seen.

In 1956 Julie Schwartz opened the Silver Age with a new Flash in Showcase #4. Soon cosumed crusaders began returning en masse to thrill a new generation. As the trend grew, many companies began to experiment with the mystery man tradition and the Superman newspaper strip began to slowly adapt: drawing closer to the revolution on the comicbook pages.

As the Jet age gave way to the Space-Age, the Last Son of Krypton was a vibrant yet comfortably familiar icon of domestic modern America: particularly in the constantly evolving, ever-more dramatic and imaginative comicbook stories which had received such a terrific creative boost as super heroes gradually began to proliferate once more. Since 1954 the franchise had been cautiously expanding and in 1959 the Caped Kryptonian could be seen not only in Golden Age survivors Action Comics, Superman, Adventure Comics, World’s Finest Comics and Superboy but now also in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and soon Justice League of America.

Such increased attention naturally filtered through to the far more widely seen newspaper strip and resulted in a rather strange and commercially sound evolutionâ€¦

After author and educator Tom De Haven’s impassioned Foreword, Sidney Friedfertig’s Introduction explains how and why Jerry Siegel was tasked with turning recently published comicbook tales into daily 3-and-4 panel continuities for the apparently more sophisticated and discerning newspaper audiences. This meant major rewrites, frequently plot and tone changes and, in some cases, merging two stories into one.

If you’re a fan, don’t be fooled: these stories are not mere rehashes, but variations on an idea for an audience perceived as completely separate from kids’ funnybooks.

Even if you are familiar with the comicbook source material, the adventures gathered here will read as brand new, especially as they are gloriously illustrated by Curt Swan and latterly Wayne Boring at the very peak of their artistic powers.

As an added bonus the covers of the issues those adapted stories came from have been added as a full nostalgia-inducing colour galleryâ€¦

The astounding everyday entertainment commences with Episode #107 from April 6^th to July 11^th 1959.

‘Earth’s Super-Idiot!’ by Siegel, Swan & Stan Kaye is a mostly original story which borrows heavily from the author’s own ‘The Trio of Steel’ (Superman #135, February 1960, where it was drawn by Al Plastino) detailing the tricks of an unscrupulous super-scientific telepathic alien producer of â€œRealiesâ€ who blackmailed Superman into making a fool and villain of himself for extraterrestrial viewers.

If the hero didn’t comply – acting the goat, performing spectacular stunts and torturing his friends – Earth would suffer the consequencesâ€¦.

After eventually getting the better of the UFO sleaze-bag, our hero returned to Earth with a bump and encountered ‘The Ugly Superman’ (July 13^th–September 5^th, first seen in Lois Lane #8 April 1959, written by Robert Bernstein and illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger).

Here, the eternally on-the-shelf Lois agreed to marry a brutish wrestler, and the Man of Tomorrow, for the most spurious of reasons, acted to foil her plansâ€¦

Episode #109 ran from September 7^th to October 28^th 1959 and saw Superman reluctantly agree to try and make a dying billionaire laugh in return for the miserable misanthrope signing over his entire fortune to charity.

Some of the apparently odd timing discrepancies in publication dates can be explained by the fact that submitted comicbook stories often appeared months after they were completed, so the comicbook version of Siegel’s ‘The Super-Clown of Metropolis’ didn’t get published until Superman #136 (April 1960) where Al Plastino took the art in completely different directionsâ€¦

‘Captive of the Amazons’ – October 29^th 1959 to February 6^th 1960 – combined two funnybook adventures both originally limned by Boring & Kaye. The eponymous equivalent from Action #266 (Jul 1960) was augmented by Bernstein’s tale ‘When Superman Lost His Powers’ (Action Comics #262) detailing how super-powered alien queen Jena came to Earth intent on making Superman her husband. When he refused she removed his Kryptonian abilities, subsequently trapping now merely mortal Clark with other Daily Planet staff in a lost valley of monsters where Lois’ suspicions were again arousedâ€¦

Episode #111 ran from 8^th February – 6^th April. ‘The Superman of the Future’ originated in Action #256 (September 1959, by Otto Binder, Swan & Kaye) and both versions seemingly saw Superman swap places with a hyper-evolved descendent intent on preventing four catastrophic historical disasters, but the incredible events were actually part of a devious hoaxâ€¦

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #10 (July 1959 by Siegel & Schaffenberger) offered up a comedy interlude as ‘The Cry-Baby of Metropolis’ (April 7^th to May 28^th) found Lois – terrified of losing her looks – exposing herself to a youth ray and rapidly regenerating into an infant, much to the amusement of arch-rival Lana Lang and Supermanâ€¦

Episode #113 May 30^th – July 2^nd featured ‘The Super-Servant of Crime’ (by Bernstein, from Superman #130, July 1959) which saw the hero outsmarting a petty crook who had bamboozled the Action Ace into granting him five wishes, after which ‘The Super-Sword’ (4^th July to August 13^th and originally by Jerry Coleman & Plastino for Superman #124, September 1958) pitted the Kryptonian Crimebuster against a ancient knight with a magic blade which could penetrate his invulnerable skin. Once more, however, all was not as it seemedâ€¦

Siegel, Boring & Kaye’s epic ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ from Superman #141, November 1960) was first seen in daily instalments from August 15^th to November 12^th 1960, telling a subtly different tale of epic love lost as an accident marooned the adoptive Earth hero in the past on his doomed home-world. Reconciled to dying there with his people, Kal-El befriended his own parents and found love with his ideal soul-mate Lyla Lerrol, only to be torn from her side and returned to Earth against his will in a cruel twist of fate.

The strip version here is one of Swan’s most beautiful art jobs ever and, although the bold comicbook saga was a fan favourite for decades thereafter, the restoration of this more mature interpretation might have some rethinking their decisionâ€¦

Wayne Boring once more became the premiere Superman strip illustrator with Episode #116 (November 14th – December 31st), reprising his and Siegel’s work on ‘The Lady and the Lion’ from Action #243 August 1958, wherein the Man of Steel was transformed into an inhumanÂ beast by a Kryptonian Ã©migrÃ© the ancients knew as Circeâ€¦

Siegel then adapted Bernstein’s ‘The Great Superman Hoax’ and Boring & Kaye redrew their artwork for the Episode (January 2^nd – February 4^th 1961) which appeared in Superman #143, February 1961, and saw a cunning criminal try to convince Lois and Clark that he was actually the Man of Might, blissfully unaware of who he was failing to fool.

Then February 6^th to March 4^th had Superman using brains as well as brawn to thwart an alien invasion in ‘The Duel for Earth’ which originally appeared as a Superboy story in Adventure Comics #277 (October 1960) by Siegel & George Papp.

Superman #114 (July 1957) and scripter Otto Binder provided Siegel with the raw material for a deliciously wry and topical tax-time tale ‘Superman’s Billion-Dollar Debt’ – March 6^th to April 8^th – wherein an ambitious IRS agent presented the Man of Steel with an bill for unpaid back-taxes, whilst Episode #120 (April 10^th – May 13^th) introduced ‘The Great Mento’ (from Bernstein & Plastino’s yarn in Superman #147, August 1961): a tawdry showbiz masked mind-reader who blackmailed the hero by threatening to expose his precious secret identityâ€¦ Â

The final two stories in this premiere collection both come from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane – issues #24, April and #26, July respectively – and both were originally crafted by Bernstein & Schaffenberger.

In ‘The Perfect Husband’ (15^th May to July 1^st), begun and ended by Boring but with Swan pinch-hitting for 2 weeks in the middle, Lois’ sister Lucy tricks the journalist into going on a TV dating show where she meets her ideal man, a millionaire sportsman and war hero who looks just like Clark Kent.

Then ‘The Mad Woman of Metropolis’ finds Lois driven to the edge of sanity by a vengeance-hungry killer, a rare chance to see the girl-reporter and shameless butt of so many male gags show her true mettle by solving the case without the Man of Tomorrow’s avuncular, often patronising assistanceâ€¦

Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1959-1961 is the first in a series of huge (305 x 236mm), 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, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, Bringing Up Father, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons.

If you love the era, these stories are great comics reading, and this is a book you simply must have.
Superman â„¢ and Â© 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

March 21, 2014March 29, 2014

The Blighted Eye – Original Comic Art from the Glenn Bray Collection

By many and various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-695-9

When I talk about the field and art form of comics the intent is generally to celebrate and advertise the triumphs and talents of writers and artists – or maybe colourists, letterers or even publishers – but almost never about consumers.

However there are people who just read comics and there are those whose passion for the medium goes even deeper. These individuals have as much – or maybe even more – to do with shaping and promoting our medium than all the restâ€¦

Paramount amongst those is Glenn Bray, whose fascination for illustrated narrative encompasses comics, collector cards, film and wrestling ephemera, music, outsider art and in fact most aspects of popular culture.

He is a driven champion of modern creativity and amongst his greatest passions is an undiagnosed compulsion to collect original art.

Bray was in on the start of the Underground Commix revolution, smuggling comics to stores back when they were still illegal. He’s the guy who first brought Carl Barks out of retirement and bought his very first Duck painting, showed us young kids the astounding art of Basil Wolverton and won belated fame for retired sculptor, draughtsman and philosopher Stanislav Szukalski.

The inveterate fan’s been quietly amassing mementos and knowledge from his California home since 1965 and has subsequently become the premiere cultural archivist, educator, publisher and patron of some of the most influential artists in graphics and sequential art. He also cherishes the works of creators we’ve forgotten and those who should be famous but just aren’t.

Yet.

Moreover, by befriending, interviewing, recording and always freely sharing his collection and studies of the people he’s admired – and often supported – Bray established the basis for most of today’s scholastic and journalistic resources and records, used by practically all of us expounding and propounding the joys of comics and illustrative narrative.

This astounding monolithic hardback (410 gleaming, glossy 302 x 268mm pages with some eye-popping 6-stage fold-outs) is teeming with photos of people, places and things that have captivated the preserver of everything our bigoted teachers, pontificating, bastions of the Old Guard and smug Social Betters always told us had no worth, merit or valueâ€¦

Most importantly of course (for us here at least) are his hundreds of examples of art – all shot here from the originals in Bray’s frankly unbelievable collection – a veritable museum (and feeling as heavy as one) of genius in your hands: a pantheon of comics achievement, each and every one gathered and preserved for only one reason: because Glenn liked itâ€¦

Illustration superstar Robert Williams’ historical biography ‘The Archive of Lost Souls’ starts the show, after which author and publisher Todd Hignite offers an informative commentary in ‘Who Enters Here Leaves Hope Behind’, but the true nature and devotion of the collector really comes through in ‘The Glenn Bray Interview’ by Doug Harvey (artist and Art Critic for the LA Times and Art Issues) before the true wonder unfolds in the exotic, eclectic, picture-packed pages which follow.

This is an imposing and shockingly beautiful compendium no lover of the medium could possibly ignore, and it’s not all Bray has in terms of Art, artefacts, funny books or ephemera. Perhaps there’s a sequel or companion compendium to comeâ€¦

That’s how I usually wrap up one of these reviews and it should be enough to convince you to get The Blighted Eye immediately if not sooner, but I’d kick myself if I didn’t list the artists whose works appear here.

So, whether a single page and/or panel or many different pieces, each of these masters and journeymen deserve a mention and you can read on or stop here.

Charles Addams, Rick Altergott, Bob Armstrong, Boris Artzybasheff, Carl Barks (so wonderfully many), Art Bartsch, H.M. Bateman Hand Bellmer, Mark Beyer, Jack Bilbo, Gene Bilbrew, Mahlon Blaine, Al Bryant, R.O. Blechman and Charles Burns.

Ernesto Cabral, E.H. Caldwell Studio, Al Capp, Serge Clerc, Dan Clowes, Ron Cobb, Jack Cole (another host of stunning volume and variety), Astley David Montague Cooper, Robert Crumb, Xavier Cugat, Jack Davis, Gene, Kim and Simon Deitch.

Bray was instrumental in popularising the European Krampus tradition and ‘Devil Cards’ features a sub-exhibition of examples of the Christmas Devil by Kim Deitch, Coop, Bob Armstrong, Spain, Mark Beyer, Carol Lay, Charles Burns, Drew Friedman, Rick Griffin, Hunt Emerson, Jan Ross, Gary Leib, Robert Williams, Bill Ward, J.D. King, Evert Geradts, XNO, S. Clay Wilson, Crumb, Ever Meulen, Peter Pontiac, Savage Pencil, Norman Pettingill, Byron Werner & Karl Wills.

The greater precession resumes with Gustave DorÃ©, Pascal Doury, Albert Durbout, Bill Elder, Vince Fago, John Fawcett, Al Feldstein, Virgil Finlay, Kelly Freas, lots more Drew Friedman, Ernst Fuchs, a wealth of Evert Geradts, Eugenie GoldschmedingÂ Chester Gould and Vernon Grant.

Underground icon Justin Green is followed by a quartet of stylish noir book covers by Gerald Gregg and many pieces by boon companion Rick Griffin plus pieces by Bill Griffith, Milt Gross, George Grosz, Olaf Gulbrannson, V.T. Hamlin, Harman Ising Productions, Yoshifumi Hayashi, Geoffrey Hayes and tragic underground pioneer Rory Hayes.

There’s Russ Heath, Jaime Hernandez, George Herriman, Ryan Heshka, Al Hirshfeld, Alfred Hitchcock (yes really! Him!). Then see some Bill (Smokey Stover) Holman, Lawrence Hubbard, Graham Ingels, Cameron Jamie, Russ Johnson, Daniel Johnston, Andrew Jones, Kaz, Ota Keiti, Hank Ketchum, Frank King, Marian Konarski, Bernie Krigstein and the inimitable Harvey Kurtzman.

Stanley Link, Lippert Pictures, Bobby London, Travis Louie, Jay Lynch, Don Martin, Jefferson Machamer, Donald McGill, Otto Mesmer, Ever Meulen, Zach Mosely, Willard Mullin, Alan Odle, Jim Osborne and much, much Gary Panter.

A stunning selection of vintage Virgil Partch is followed by Mervyn Peake, Savage Pencil and Norman Pettingill. Dutch master Peter Pontiac follows, as does Richard Powers, George Price, Roger Price and Jacques Pyon as well as Gardner Rea, Bruno Richard, W. Heath Robinson and Charles Rodrigues.

See also Jan Ross, Big Daddy Roth, Antonio Rubino, Jenny Ryan and the iconoclastic Johnny Ryan. Bud Sagendorf, F. San Millan, Charles Schneider, Charles Schulz, Jim Shaw, Gilbert Shelton, Marc Smeets, Clark Ashton Smith, Otto Soglow, â€œSpainâ€ Rodriguez, Irving Spector, Cliff Sterrett, G.E. Studdy, Joost Swarte, Stanislav Szukalski, Richard Taylor, Roy Tomkins, Jill Tipping, Tomi Ungerer and Irving Tripp & John Stanley.

Next follows another fascinating sub-section devoted to ‘Unknown Artists’ listed by a single nom-de-plume – just their work or no name – which includes Bubba ’69, Heilman, J. Ford, D.C. Lucchesi, J. Kennedy, Jaro, Kringo, Mr. Harrell Lee Littrel, P.J. McGivern, David Moore, Panchi, Dennis Rushton, R.H.L., Smith, E.A. Sojay and Weird Wanda (Doreen Ross).

Our voyage of discovery recommences with stuff from Jeffrey Vallance, Hans Van Bentem, Bob Van Den Born, Vica (Vincent Krazousky), George William Wakefield, Ray Walters, Bill Ward, Chris Ware, Byron Werner, a sublime spread of Ogden Whitney ‘Herbie’ pages, Gluyas Williams, Robert Williams, Skip Williamson, Karl Wills, Gahan Wilson, S. Clay Wilson, an apocalyptic selection of Basil Wolverton masterworks, Lawson Wood, Wallace Wood, Jim Woodring, XNO, cartoon colossus Art Young and Bob Zoell.

Surely after reading all that you need some great pictures to look at? So go buy the book and ease your Blighted Eyeâ€¦

March 20, 2014March 19, 2014

Amazing Spider-Man volume 10: New Avengers

By J. Michael Straczynski, Mike Deodato Jr., Joe Pimentel & Tom Palmer (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7852-1764-4

When the original hard-luck hero became a full-time Avenger (as seen in New Avengers: Breakout), Peter Parker foolishly hoped that his life might finally be on the upswing, but of course every step forward results in two leaps back for the Wondrous Wallcrawlerâ€¦

Crafted by scripter J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Mike Deodato Jr. with Joe Pimentel & Tom Palmer, New Avengers collects Amazing Spider-Man #519-524 (June-November 2005) and examines a period of tense and fractious adaptation in the ultimate loner’s life beginning with ‘Moving Up’ and the tragic aftermath of a fire which has destroyed May Parker‘s house and rendered both the old lady and her family/tenants Peter and Mary Jane homeless.

As the heartbroken women rummage through ashes and rubble for any salvageable mementos, billionaire Tony Stark arrives and invites them all to live in his grandiose and futuristic skyscraper in the centre of Manhattan. It’s the very least he can do for his new Avenging comrade, but the grateful trio have no idea of the trouble they’ve stepped into by acceptingâ€¦

Meanwhile, all over America the glorified parvenu gangsters who currently control the criminal organisation Hydra are being rounded up by passionate and disgruntled usurpers determined to return the once-deadly secret society to its fanatical terrorist rootsâ€¦

The rejuvenated evil underground empire begins its terrifying resurgence in ‘Acts of Aggression’ by unleashing their greatest weapon: a squad of super-powered killers insidiously patterned on Iron Man, Captain America, Hawkeye and Thor. Their first cataclysmic rampage is only barely contained by the assembled New Avengers.

However, Peter doesn’t need his Spider Sense to realise that there’s some deeper game in play, and by using his press contacts at the Daily Bugle discovers the chaos was used to cover the arrival of smuggled missile componentsâ€¦

His overconfident buddies are more interested in catching the hit-and-run â€œHydra-vengersâ€ and Mary Jane is all wrapped up in her imminent stage debut, so nobody is ready for the next surprise.

Whilst Peter follows a slim lead and accidentally exposes the criminal cabal’s new Supreme Hydra, his wife heads back to Stark Tower and experiences ‘Unintended Consequences’ when she is door-stepped by a sleazy tabloid journalist who says he knows her secretâ€¦

Terrified of Spider-Man’s identity being exposed she thinks fast and brazenly bluffs, but next morning awakens to headlines screaming that she’s having an affair with party-mad playboy Tony Starkâ€¦

Hydra meanwhile have moved up their schedule, planning to launch a rocket filled with assorted plagues, bacilli and toxins into America’s largest aquiferâ€¦

Having finally convinced Iron Man and the others, ‘Moving Targets’ finds Spider-Man infiltrating the subterranean Hydra Bunker and confronting an army of gun-toting maniacs as well as the facsimile Avengersâ€¦

Desperately trying to stay alive until Captain America, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Wolverine and Stark can find him, the Astounding Arachnid is forced to take ‘Extreme Measures’ when the toxic rocket blasts offâ€¦

Everything neatly wraps up in ‘All Fall Down’ as Spidey saves the day but has to recuperate from the lethal – for anyone else – germ exposure. With Peter incapacitated, Stark deals with Mary Jane’s media situation in a manner both slick and terrifying…

It’s not all good though: there’s a recurring and possibly fatal medical complication the weary Wallcrawler refuses to share with either family or his heroic friendsâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

With covers by Deodato Jr., Kaare Andrews, Terry & Rachel Dodson and Tony Harris – augmented by behind-the-scenes designs stage pages – this canny chronicle delivers a rocket-paced, straightforward thriller stuffed with sentiment and outrageous hilarity (amongst other mad moments Aunt May has a disturbing fling with Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis – at least as far as her nephew is concerned: it’s loaded with sly laughs for the rest of usâ€¦).

Despite the foreshadowed conclusion this is a cracking Fights ‘n’ Tights romp every action fan will adore. This is super-heroics at its most satisfying.
Â© 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

March 19, 2014March 17, 2014

Uber

By Kieron Gillen, Canaan White & Keith Williams (Avatar Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59291-218-6

There’s something of an immediately post-WWII zeitgeist in effect in Britain at the moment: exhibitions, documentaries, a few exceedingly good TV dramas (Bletchley Circle, Murder on the Home Front, Foyle’s War) and even some comics.

Being British, writer Kieron Gillen grew up reading war comics like Battle and so has our peculiarly manic and trenchant viewpoint – engendered by the works of Pat Mills, John Wagner, Tom Tully, Alan Hebden and Gerry Finley-Day – to augment his own uniquely dark and sardonic imagination, previously displayed in strips and comics as varied as Phonogram, Save Point, Dark Avengers: Ares, Thor, Uncanny X-Men, Iron Man and many more.

Now he has applied the implausible metahuman trappings of the American superhero comicbook to the bleak, gritty, apocalyptically human scaled drama of â€œthe Last Good Warâ€ to produce a vicious, nasty and utterly enthralling sci-fi-tinged epic of staggering scope and power.

This first full-colour trade paperback compilation, illustrated with stark, gory verve by Canaan White & Keith Williams, collects issues #0-5, and posits a much debated â€œWhat Ifâ€¦?â€ as Germany’s GÃ¶tterdÃ¤mmerung is averted at the very last moment by a very nasty miracleâ€¦

Blending scrupulous historical research with a canny take on human nature, the story begins with the triumphant Russians barbarously overrunning Berlin on the night of April 24^th 1945, even as arch-patriot General Sankt delivers at long last a handful of incomprehensible human weapons to General Heinz Guderian, just as that demoralised, defeated Reichsmann readies himself for the end.

Five days later in a secret base near the Swiss border, a trusted scientist for Projekt U murders her former colleagues and sabotages the outpost before dashing towards the advancing American forces, carrying an incredible secretâ€¦

With Hitler putting a gun into his mouth word comes of an impossible turnaround. The human â€œBattleshipsâ€ Siegmund, Siegfried and Seiglinde, supplemented by lesser supermen and wonder women, have ravaged and repulsed the despised subhuman Sovietsâ€¦

The Generals realise even these Wunderwaffen (the result of years of ruthless research) cannot reverse Germany’s fate, but by their ghastly actions and uncanny efforts the nation may be able to negotiate a favourable armistice that won’t leave the country broken forever.

Der Fuhrer, however, totally demented and wantonly vengeful, wants Grand Opera outcomes: Wagnerian Cataclysm and the world made into a rubble heap that would make Berlin seem merely scratchedâ€¦

The madman appals his closest cronies when he orders Seigfried to execute a million Russian prisoners of war before despatching his ghastly Hell-kinder to destroy Paris and resume his holy war on Russia.

Meanwhile British spy Stephanie has made it back to England – having en route despatched two of the Ãœbermensch she helped create – and convinced Winston Churchill to fast-track the Allies’ own Human Tank project.

To facilitate this, she had brought stolen samples of the transformative crystalline chemical Woden’s Blood and copies of artefacts and documents used by Nazi scientist Professor Metzger.

The ancient – possibly extraterrestrial – inscriptions and records the biochemist was working from go to BletchleyPark where brilliant cryptologist Alan Turing lets his new Electronic Brain loose on deciphering the still untranslated majority of the writingsâ€¦

Woden’s Blood only upgrades 1 in every 5000 humans, and needs repeated, gradual applications, but even so the harried Allies still find enough volunteers to get the ball rolling, and as weeks pass they slowly become a plausible answer to the now limited and stalled German superhuman project.

In the intervening time, Battleship Sieglinde has led her less-developed and incomplete Mark 2 comrades in the march upon so-recently liberated Paris to carry out Hitler’s demands for punishment. Now as the fanatical Ãœber Soldaten prepare to raze the city they are ambushed by a hastily prepared Expeditionary Force of Anglo American Human Tanks.

They are not enoughâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Savage, brutal and visually shocking, this stunning, doom-drenched drama crackles with tension, drips with mystery and suspense and comes with a chilling 20+ page gallery of covers, variants and ancillary artwork, and will appeal to lovers of fantasy fiction and unreal war stories alikeâ€¦

Â© 2013 Avatar Press Inc. Uber and all related properties â„¢ & Â© 2013 Avatar Press Inc.
Uber will be released on April 1^st 2014

March 18, 2014March 17, 2014

Usagi Yojimbo book 7: Gen’s Story

By Stan Sakai (Fantagraphics)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-304-1

Usagi Yojimbo (which translates as â€œrabbit bodyguardâ€) first appeared as a background character in Stan Sakai’s anthropomorphic comedy The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy, which premiered in 1984 amongst the assorted furry ‘n’ fuzzy folk Albedo Anthropomorphics #1. He subsequently graduated to a solo act in Critters, Amazing Heroes, Furrlough and the Munden’s Bar back-up series in Grimjack.

In 1955, when Sakai was two years old, his family moved to Hawaii from Kyoto, Japan. He left the University of Hawaii with a BA in Fine Arts, and pursued further studies at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design in California.

His early forays into comics were as a letterer – most famously for the inimitable Groo the Wanderer – before his nimble pens and brushes found a way to express his passion for Japanese history, legend and the filmic works of Akira Kurosawa and his peers, and transformed a proposed story about a human historical hero into one of the most enticing and impressive fantasy sagas of all time.

And it’s still more educational, informative and authentic than any dozen Samurai sagas you can nameâ€¦

Although the deliriously peripatetic and expansive period epic stars sentient animals and details the life of a peripatetic Lord-less Samurai eking out as honourable a living as possible by selling his sword as a Yojimbo (bodyguard-for-hire), the milieu and scenarios all scrupulously mirror the Feudal Edo Period of Japan (roughly the 17th century AD by our reckoning) whilst simultaneously referencing other cultural icons from sources as varied as Zatoichi and Godzilla.

Miyamoto Usagi is brave, noble, industrious, honest, sentimental, gentle, artistic, empathetic, long-suffering and conscientious: a rabbit devoted to the tenets of Bushido. Â He simply cannot turn down any request for help or ignore the slightest evidence of injustice. As such, his destiny is to be perpetually drawn into an unending panorama of incredible situations.

This evocative and enticingly seventh black-&-white blockbuster collects yarns from Fantagraphics’ Usagi Yojimbo comicbook volume 1, #32-38 plus an extra attraction from funny animal anthology Critters #38, offering a selection of complete adventures tantalisingly tinged with supernatural terror and drenched in wit, irony and pathos.

Following a lavish and laudatory Introduction from Groo-some co-worker Sergio AragonÃ©s, the historical drama resumes as the restless, roaming Miyamoto encounters street performer ‘Kitsune’ whose beguiling beauty and dexterity with spinning tops turns many a head.

Of course whilst everybody’s gaping in astonishment the foxy lady is picking their pocketsâ€¦

The philosophical wandering warrior takes it in his stride but when crooked gambler Hatsu‘s customary conniving tricks provoke a bloody fight in an inn, Kitsune is forced to show the still blithely unaware bunny her other – far more lethal skills – to save their livesâ€¦

‘Gaki’ (literally â€œHungry Ghostâ€) then delightfully skips backs to the bunny’s boyhood as a Bushido disciple of master warrior Katsuichi, wherein that venerable warrior teaches his fractious student a valuable and terrifying lesson in staying alert, after which ‘Broken Ritual’ (from a plot by AragonÃ©s) offers a magnificent ghost story of honour regained.

It begins when the Yojimbo wanders into a village of terrified peasants cowering from the nightly horrors of a spectral warrior. The unhappy revenant is General Tadaoka, an old comrade of Usagi’s and, as the story of the defeated soldier’s frustrated attempt to commit Seppuku comes out, the heart-sore hare realises what he must do to give his deceased friend peaceâ€¦

Once, Miyamoto Usagi was simply the son of a small-town magistrate who had spent years learning the Way of Bushido from his stern, leonine master: not just superior technique and tactics, but also Katsuichi’s creed of justice and restraint which would serve the Ronin well throughout his turbulent life.

Mere months after graduating, Usagi was personally recruited by the personal bodyguard of Great Lord MifunÄ—. The young man advanced quickly and was soon a trusted bodyguard too, serving beside the indomitable Gunichi. It was a time of great unrest and war was brewingâ€¦

In his third year of service the Lord’s castle was attacked by Neko Ninja assassins and, although the doughty heroes managed to save their master, the Lord’s wife Kazumi and heir Tsuruichi were murdered. Realising ambitious rival Lord Hikiji was responsible, MifunÄ— declared warâ€¦

The epic conflict ended on the great Adachigahara plain when MifunÄ—’s general Todo switched sides and the Great Lord fell. At the crucial moment Gunichi also broke, fleeing to save his own skin and leaving the helpless Usagi to preserve the fallen Lord’s head – and honour – from shameful desecrationâ€¦

The next tale here returns to the days after that tragic betrayal and finds the hunted Usagi hiding in the wild forest known as ‘The Tangled Skein’ and taking shelter in the hut of an old woman. The crone was in fact a demonic Obakemono and, easily overpowering the fugitive, was set to devour Usagi when dead MifunÄ— returned to repay his most faithful servant for his unswerving loyaltyâ€¦

This is followed by an extended contemporary tale featuring old frenemy ‘Gen’ and the title tale of this tome.

When the irascibly bombastic, money-mad bounty-hunter and conniving thief-taker bites off more than he can chew, he is lucky Usagi is there to rescue him. Whilst the roguish rhino is recovering from severe wounds, however, the Ronin is approached by a haughty but destitute noblewoman and is drawn into ‘Lady Asano’s Story’ and her quest for vengeance against the traitor who destroyed her clan and family.

The Yojimbo is looking for a way to let her down gently when the dowager recognises GennosukÃ© as the lost son of her most trusted generalâ€¦

The bitter bounty hunter wants nothing to do with her but when the traitor Oda – now the town magistrate – arrests the lady and Usagi learns of his companion’s awful upbringing in ‘Sins of the Father’ he decides to help even if Gen won’t.

The attempt fails and he is captured, compelling the rhino to get involved in ‘Lady Asano’s Revenge’: an epic final confrontation of Shakespearean proportionsâ€¦

The sober, weary pair of itinerants then trek to another village in time for more trouble and ‘The Return of Kitsune’. The shady entertainer has been plying her trade and accidentally stolen a very dangerous letter: one detailing a proposed rebellion and scheme to profiteer from the crisis. Now she in hiding from the mercenaries of a hugely powerful and influential merchantâ€¦

However after the ill-starred trio savagely end the threat in typical bloodletting fashion a hidden faction springs a galling surprise on the weary victorsâ€¦

‘The Last Ino Story’ ends the story section of this volume with a tale of brooding emotional drama and features the return of the Blind Swordspig; a blood-spilling porcine outlaw with a huge price on his head whose incredible olfactory sense more than compensates for his useless eyes.

Although Ino was a ruthless, blood-spilling villain he valiantly helped Gen in a desperate crisis, and the thief-taker returned the favour by leading everyone to believe his profitable quarry had perished.

Now, after fighting their way out of a vicious bandit ambush, the bounty hunter and his bunny buddy discover the swine has simply settled down as an innocuous farmer, but his violent past will not leave him be. Ino is dying of an infected arrow wound and his frantic young wife Fujiko begs them to save him any way they canâ€¦

This medieval monochrome masterwork also includes a gallery of covers to charm and delight one and all.

Despite changing publishers a few times the Roaming Rabbit has been in continuous publication since 1987, with more than 30 collections and books to date. He has guest-starred in many other series (most notably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its TV incarnation) and even almost made it into his own small-screen show.

There are high-end collectibles, art prints, computer games and RPGs, a spin-off sci-fi comics serial and lots of toys. Sakai and his creation have won numerous awards both within the Comics community and amongst the greater reading public.

Fast-paced yet lyrical, informative and funny, the saga alternately bristles with tension and thrills and often breaks your heart with astounding tales of pride and tragedy.

Simply bursting with veracity and verve, Usagi Yojimbo is the perfect comics epic: a monolithic magical saga of irresistible appeal that will delight devotees and make converts of the most hardened hater of â€œfunny animalâ€ stories.

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