Posts

Posted on

Giles: the Collection 2014


By Giles (Hamlyn)
ISBN: 978-0-600-62456-1

Your Last-Minute Christmas Dilemmas Solved!

For the latter part of the 20th century, cartoonist Carl Giles owned Christmas. His annual end of year collections of wry social commentary through engaging graphic brilliance epitomised everything English for us and a truly global population of fans and admirers.

Ronald Giles – AKA Karloff/Karlo AKA “Carl” (aren’t school friends simply the best?) – was born in Islington in 1916 and left school at 14 to work as an office-boy for Superads: a company which supplied cartoonists for companies needing animation commercials.

The work appealed to the boy Giles and he eventually graduated to cartoonist and animator himself, working with film mogul Alexander Korda and latterly newspaper star Roland Davies, who was then adapting his own beloved strip Come On, Steve into a string of animation short features.

In 1937 Giles joined socialist Sunday periodical Reynolds News; producing topical cartoons and the strip Young Ernie and, exempted from military service because he was deaf in one ear and blind in one eye, mastered his craft there through the darkest days of WWII.

In 1943 his work caught the eye of the editor of the Sunday Express, who invited Giles to work on the Evening Standard before changing his mind and offering him a more prestigious and lucrative position with the Daily Express as well as the Sunday edition.

Reluctantly quitting Reynolds News (he was never at ease with his new employers’ Right Wing political stance), “Karlo” began his meteoric rise to wealth and household namehood with his first panel cartoon appearing on Sunday, October 3rd 1943.

Although unable to serve as a soldier, Giles contributed to the War Effort through animated films for the Ministry of Information and cartoons for the Railway Executive Committee and in 1945 became the Daily Express‘ “War Correspondent Cartoonist”, embedded with the 2nd Army and Coldstream Guards – a job which took him to the concentration camps Bergen/Belsen when they were liberated by the Allies…

Throughout that traumatic time his drawings kept the Allies amused and, once hostilities ceased, Giles began carving out a comfortable, unassailable position in the consciousness of the nation, with his gently scathing, joyously seditious, outrageously busy and brilliantly rendered panels poking fun at the reader and the changing world through the collective lens of a hilarious hoi-polloi family dominated by a terrifying matriarch known as “Grandma”…

Although he also worked on commercial ads (Fisons, Guinness and others), freelanced for magazines such as Men Only and produced Christmas cards and other material for charitable institutions such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (of which he was made Life President), the Royal National Institute for the Deaf and the Game Conservancy Research Fund, the Daily and Sunday Express became his home for the next half century and he produced rare gems and marvels there.

From August 5th 1945 to his retirement in 1991 the “Giles Family” reigned supreme in the nation’s comedy consciousness, with the artist practically dictating how a vast swathe of the population reacted to the news, and from 1946 the best of each year’s output was collected into an annual, with all material selected – and sometimes remastered – by the artist himself.

The series was phenomenally popular and every year celebrity fans (Politicians, Heads of State, the Royal Family and the Great and Good of Sport and Entertainment) would vie for the honour of writing a Foreword, before another tumultuous rib-tickling year was reprised and recapped with genuine warmth, sly sarcasm and biting wit…

When the artist retired in 1991, later editions – no longer released by Express Newspapers – began to include some of his other works and, following Giles’ death in 1995, the volumes switched to thematic compilations rather than strictly chronological reportage.

This year’s model was compiled by John Field – who also contributed the Introduction: Giles and Society – whilst political commentator John Sergeant follows in the footsteps of such notables as Frank Sinatra, Margot Fonteyn, Spike Milligan, Sean Connery and Sir Malcolm Sargeant (no relation) in supplying a pithy appreciative Foreword before the latest selection of best bits begins with a selection of cartoons starring ‘Police’…

Reprinting selected gags from Christmas Eve 1945 to March 28th 1989, Giles reveals how much and how little the common man’s relationship to the “Boys in Blue” has changed, after which ‘Sport’ features in a string of palpable hits – and no misses – spanning August 1950 to July 1988.

The cartoonist frequently turned his eagle eye upon his own profession and ‘Journalism’ offers some of the most trenchantly effective jabs and barbs from November 15th 1945 through to February 23rd 1989, after which a special section entitled ‘Giles and Journalism’ features cartoons from the war years and some later events when the artist was the news and not merely its interpreter…

‘The Economy’ always provided great material for classic cartoons and the panels culled from June 2nd 1946 to March 29th 1987 recall some of the grimmest and most hilarious moments in modern memory, whilst the related topic of ‘Shopping’ (December 13th 1951 – December 9th 1990) offers full reign to the lovable anarchists of the Giles Family to be on their best and worst behaviour to end this latest outing on a raucous, riotous high…

With a biographical essay on the author’s ‘Cartoons at the British Cartoon Archive’ this book is another superb example of genius at work and proves once more why Giles was voted “Britain’s Favourite Cartoonist of the 20th Century”. If you’ve never been exposed to the artistic brilliance of the man and our collective history, this tome might well be your year…
Text and images © 2013 Express Newspapers. Giles® is a registered trademark of Express Newspapers. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Quick and Flupke: Fasten Your Seat Belts


By Hergé, translated by David Radzinowicz (Egmont UK)
ISBN: 978-1-4052-4742-9

Georges Prosper Remi, known all over the world as Hergé, created a genuine masterpiece of graphic literature with his tales of a plucky boy reporter and his entourage of iconic associates. Singly, and later with assistants including Edgar P. Jacobs, Bob de Moor and other supreme stylists of the select Hergé Studio, he created 23 splendid volumes (originally produced in brief instalments for a variety of periodicals) which have since grown beyond their popular culture roots and attained the status of High Art.

Globally renowned for his magnificent Tintin adventures, Hergé also did much to return comics to the arena of mass entertainment, a position largely lost after the advent of television, video-recording and computer games.

However the bold boy and his opinionated dog were by no means his only creation. The author was a prodigious jobbing cartoonist in the years before Tintin finally assured him immortality and produced a minor pantheon of other topical strips and features such as Tim the Squirrel in the Far West, The Amiable Mr. Mops, Tom and Millie and Popol Out West.

Among the best of the rest were the tales of Jo and Zette Legrand and their chimpanzee Jocko – in much the same wholesome action vein as Tintin – and the episodic, all-ages shenanigans of a pair of mischievous ragamuffins in pre-WWII Belgium.

In 2005 Egmont translated three escapades of Jo, Zette and Jocko into English (although there are more just sitting out there, all foreign and unreadable by potential fans too lazy to learn French or any of a dozen other civilised languages…) and in 2009 tried again with two collections of the Master’s second most successful creation: the rambunctiously subversive, trouble-making working-class rapscallions Quick and Flupke.

The two scallywags (precursors and thematic contemporaries of such beloved British boy acts as The Bash Street Kids, Winker Watson, Roger the Dodger et. al.) had for more than a decade – January 1930 to May 1940 – rivalled the utterly irresistible Tintin in popularity and almost certainly acted as a rehearsal room for all the humorous graphic and slapstick elements which became so much a part of future Tintin tales.

In 2009 Egmont had a brief stab at reviving the likely lads and it was only the general public’s deplorable lack of taste and good sense which stopped the kids from taking off again…

On leaving school in 1925 Hergé began working for the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siécle where fell under the influence of its Svengali-like editor Abbot Norbert Wallez. A dedicated boy-scout himself, Remi produced his first strip series The Adventures of Totor for Boy Scouts of Belgium monthly magazine the following year, and by 1928 he was in charge of producing the contents of Le XXe Siécle‘s children’s weekly supplement Le Petit Vingtiéme.

He was unhappily illustrating The Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonette, written by the staff sports reporter, when Abbot Wallez asked him to create a new adventure series. Perhaps a young reporter who would travel the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues?

Having recently discovered the word balloon in imported newspaper strips, Remi decided to incorporate the innovation into his own work. He would produce a strip both modern and action-packed – and most importantly heavily anti-communist. Beginning January 10th 1929, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets appeared in weekly instalments in Le Petit Vingtiéme running until May 8th 1930.

At about this time the cartoonist also began crafting weekly 2-page gag strips starring a pair of working class rascals in Brussels who played pranks, got into good-natured trouble and even ventured into the heady realms of slapstick and surrealism: the sort of yarns any reader of Dennis the Menace (ours, not the Americans’) would find fascinatingly familiar.

Originally running in black and white in Le Petit Vingtiéme the lads larked about for over a decade until the war and mounting pressures of producing Tintin meant they had to go. They were rediscovered in 1985 and their collected adventures ran to a dozen best-selling albums.

Fasten Your Seat Belts contains a superbly riotous celebration of boyish high spirits beginning with hose-pipe pranks in ‘The Big Clean’, before a rare good deed leads to strife with ‘A Poor Defenceless Woman’ and a day ‘At the Seaside’ ends up in another round of boyish fisticuffs whilst their arch-foe the policeman succumbs to the irresistible temptations of a catapult in ‘Everyone Gets a Turn’.

Quick – the tall one in the beret – then learns to his cost ‘How Music Calms the Nerves’ and discovers the drawback of ‘Pacifism’, whilst portly Flupke tries tennis and finds himself far from ‘Unbeatable’.

‘Advertising’ then proves to be a dangerous game and an annoying insect meets its end in ‘Instructions for Use’ after which ‘Quick the Clock Repairer’, proves to be something of an overstatement and ‘Football’ just another reason for the pals to fall out…

Although unwelcome ‘At the Car Showroom’, some Eskimos seem happy to share in ‘A Weird Story’ whist Hergé himself turns up in ‘A Serious Turn of Events’, even as the kids are disastrously ‘At Odds’ over a funny smell.

Then ‘Quick the Music Lover’ cleverly deals with a annoying neighbour, Flupke goes Christmas Skiing in ‘That’s How It Is’ and another good turn goes bad in ‘All Innocence’ before a sibling spat gets sorted through ‘Children’s Rights’ and Quick cocks up cuisine with ‘The Recipe’…

A ‘Yo-yo’ causes traffic chaos and a milk run goes spectacularly awry in a buttery ‘Metamorphosis’ before this magical blast from the past concludes with cleverly appealing ‘Tale Without a Tail’.

Still happily available, this book and the simple, perfect gags it contains show another side to the supreme artistry and sheer addictiveness of Hergé – and no lover of comics should consider his life complete without a well-thumbed copy of their own…

Now we’ve got them, available for folk too lazy to learn French (or Dutch or German or…) in a glorious full-colour make-over and they are the perfect light read for kids of all ages.
© Hergé – Exclusivity Editions Casterman 1991. All Rights Reserved. English translation © 2009 Egmont UK Limited. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Showcase Presents Rip Hunter… Time Master


By Jack Miller, Bill Ely, Ruben Moreira, Mike Sekowsky & Joe Giella, Joe Kubert, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Nick Cardy, Alex Toth, various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3521-5

The concept of curious chrononauts is as old as the science fiction genre itself, and every aspect of literature has displayed fascination with leaving the Now for the Then and Thence. As the 1950s closed and the superhero genre slowly re-established itself in comicbooks, National/DC – who had for half a decade been a prime purveyor of bold, he-man fantasy action – successfully scored one last plainclothes hit with the infinite potential of temporal exploration.

With costumed cavorters reappearing everywhere the company combined time-travel vistas with their tried-and-true Adventuresome Quartet format (most effectively utilised for Jack Kirby’s groundbreaking Challengers of the Unknown) and, on a creative high and riding a building wave, introduced a dauntless team of comfortingly ordinary folks as Rip Hunter… Time Master debuted in Showcase #20, cover-dated May/June 1959.

Studious yet manly inventor Hunter had just finished building flying globes which could crack the time barrier and, like any sensible man, wanted his best friend Jeff Smith and girlfriend Bonnie Baxter to share in his fun-filled jaunts. Bonnie’s little brother Corky also came along for most rides…

Series creator Jack Miller was a serious history buff who filled the stories with the very latest in historical facts and theories, but that never got in the way of strong, rousing storytelling from the outset, and the series’ one potential flaw – the lack of a consistent art-team – became a huge bonus in the early days as a procession of top-flight illustrators took turns rendering the strangest and most evocative moments in comics history… to date…

It all began with ‘Prisoners of 100 Million BC’ (Miller & Ruben Moreira): a novel-length introductory exploit which saw the daredevil physicist, engineer Jeff, adoring Bonnie and little Corky travel back to the Mesozoic era, utterly unaware that they were carrying two criminal stowaways.

Once there the thugs hi-jacked the Time Sphere and held it hostage until the explorers helped them stock up with rare and precious minerals. Reduced to the status of mere castaways, Rip and Co. became ‘The Modern-Day Cavemen’ until an erupting volcano caused ‘The Great Beast Stampede’ enabling the time travellers to finally turn the tables on their abductors…

Miller was always careful to use the best research available but never afraid to blend historical fact with bold fantasy for Hunter’s escapades, and the epic follow-up ‘The Secret of the Lost Continent’ (Showcase #21, July/August, 1959 and illustrated by Mike Sekowsky & Joe Giella) saw the Time Masters jump progressively further back in time in search of fabled Atlantis.

A dramatic meeting with Alexander the Great in 331BC led the temporal voyagers on a trail of clues back centuries to ‘The Forbidden Island’ of Aeaea in 700BC to uncover the truth about legendary witch Circe before finally reaching 14,000BC and ‘The Doomed Continent’. Only on arrival did they see that the legendary pinnacle of early human achievement was actually a colony of stranded extraterrestrial refugees…

Rip Hunter appeared twice more in Showcase before winning his own comic, and those succeeding months would see the Silver Age of superheroes kick into frantic High Gear with classic launches coming thick and fast.

Even so, the Time Masters continued slowly building their own faithful audience, happy to explore the traditionally fantastic. Nearly a year later after the initial run they returned in Showcase #25 (March/April 1960 and spectacularly illustrated by Joe Kubert) as ‘Captives of the Medieval Sorcerer’ after Rip’s old college professor requested passage for a scholarly colleague to the kingdom of Ritannia a thousand years past.

Unfortunately the studious Dr. Senn was a charlatan in search of mystic power and his machinations almost led the time team to doom in ‘The Valley of the Monsters’ before Rip discovered the hoax and ended ‘The Sorcerer’s Siege’…

Kubert stuck around to reveal ‘The Aliens from 2000B.C.’ (Showcase #26, May/June 1960) as Rip and the gang travelled to ancient Egypt to verify recently unearthed pottery shards only to clash with extraterrestrial criminals planning on playing gods with the natives. After a daring ‘Escape from the Doomed Village’ the lads linked up with space cops to crush the baddies and their incredible pet monsters in time to win ‘The War of the Gods’…

Ironically, time moved rather slowly for new titles in those days and Rip Hunter… Time Master finally launched another year later sporting a March/April 1961 cover-date. With Ross Andru & Mike Esposito in the drawing seats Miller hit the ground running and ‘The Thousand-year-Old Curse’ captivatingly traced an ancestral doom afflicting the Craig family which brought Rip firstly to New England in pioneer times before further backtracking to Switzerland in 1360A.D. to uncover ‘The Secret of the Volcano Creature’. One final jaunt to feudal Europe revealed the truth after a climactic clash with ‘The Wizard of the 10th Century’…

Two months later #2 began with a sightseeing trip to Greece spoiled when a giant monster escaped from a hidden cave. Ever-curious, Rip followed the evidence and took the team back to meet ‘The Alien Beasts of 500B.C.’ becoming embroiled in an undocumented civil war.

Deposed dictator Demades had gained control of cosmic animals originally captured by stranded alien Big-Game hunter Nytok and intended using them to reassert his rule over Greece until the Time Masters intervened and caused ‘The Battle of the Alien Beasts’. That debacle almost led to ‘Rip Hunter’s Last Stand’ but of course the ingenious future-man had a trick or two up his sleeve…

In #3 an old coin with Corky’s face on it took the chrononauts to Scandinavia in 800A.D. and right into a royal power struggle for ‘The Throne of Doom’. As Corky was a perfect doppelganger for incumbent young King Rollo, all manner of deadly confusions occurred, especially once the boy was targeted by wicked usurper ‘Svend – ‘The Duke with Creature Powers’. Luckily modern know-how exposed the truth about the beasts under the villain’s control before ‘The Battle of the Warriors’ eventually saw Right and Justice restored…

Nick Cardy took over the art duties with #4 as a time-lost avian Vornian arrived in the modern world and the Timesters offered to return him to his home amongst ‘The Bird-Men of 2000B.C.’ Of course the adventurers became involved in a war between legendary King Hammurabi and Vornian rebels where ‘The Ancient Air Raid’ of the insurgents inevitably led to a clash with ‘The Avenging God of Gilgamesh’… or did it?

In #5 ‘The Secret of the Saxon Traitor’ saw the team trying to rewrite established history and clear the name of a long-reviled traitor, but the books never mentioned invading spacemen or ‘The Creatures of Doom Valley’ and the spectacular finale of ‘The Ancients vs. The Aliens’ proved that sometimes history gets it right all along…

The sensational Alex Toth then came aboard for two issues beginning with ‘The Secret of the Ancient Seer’ in #5, as a convocation of contemporary scientists asked Rip to investigate an 8th century Baghdad prophet who predicted Columbus’ discovery of America and, more worryingly, imminent doom from a fireball that would strike Earth in one week’s time. On arriving in Asia, the team discovered the prophecy actually originated in ‘The Doomed City’ of Herculaneum just before the eruption of Vesuvius…

With no solution in the past Rip returned to the present and devised his own astounding solution to ‘The Menace of the Meteorite’…

This astonishing yarn was followed in RHTM #7 by ‘The Lost Wanderers in Time’, as the futurist foursome embarked on a desperate chase through unrecorded history in search of a cure for a disease devastating South American Indians: a spasmodic voyage which eventually took them back a million years to clash with ‘The Last Dinosaur’ before a remedy for ‘The Green Death’ was found in the least likely place…

With #8 veteran illustrator Bill Ely came aboard as regular artist, limning almost every story until the series ended. His first venture was ‘The Thieves Who Stole a Genie’, which found the explorers following gangsters who had stolen their spare Time Sphere to secure Aladdin‘s magic lamp. The trail led to 14th century Baghdad where ‘The Battle of the Genies’ was only interrupted by an invasion. Of course canny Rip had the perfect answer for ‘The Attack of the Ommayads’…

When an archaeologist dug up a rocket-ship he asked the team to travel back and track down ‘The Alien King of 1,000 B.C.’: a breathtaking romp which subsequently found Corky and Rip almost expiring after ‘The Adventure on Planet Zark’, whilst Bonnie and Jeff remained Earthbound and down until a ‘One-Man Alien Army’ saved them and the ancient world from conquest and death.

In issue #10 ‘The Execution of Rip Hunter’ began after a research trip to the 3rd century A.D. led to Bonnie’s abduction. Whilst Roman soldiers tackled the boys, a hypnotic spell transformed her into ‘Bonnie – Queen of Palmyra’ and controller of an impossibly powerful beast her abductors needed to fend off Roman invasion in ‘All Hail the Conquering Creature’…

A classic science fiction gem surfaced in #11 where ‘The Secret of Mount Olympus’ was exposed after the team visited 2nd century B.C. Greece. After meeting a witch Jeff was changed into a griffin and supreme god Zeus demanded Rip perform a small task to save him, resulting in a ‘Dead End on Calypso Island’ before the true nature of the pantheon was revealed and ‘The Invasion of Mount Olympus’ resulted in the team’s escape and the gods’ departure.

Long-time Legion of Super-Heroes fans might recognise this tale as the basis for a major plot stream concerning the Durlan member Chameleon Boy…

For #12 a threat to modern Earth was revealed after a burning meteor erupted from beneath Stonehenge. ‘The 2,200-Year-Old Doom’ first led the heroes back to the building of the monument before at long last travelling into their own future to learn how the fallen star would destroy mankind.

Then, after popping back to when the meteor first hit and seeing the destruction of ‘The Impossible Beasts of One Million B.C.’ Rip finally devised ‘Earth’s Last Chance’ to save Today and all our Tomorrows…

In #13 ‘The Menace of the Mongol Magician’ found Rip working with a renowned scientist on a magic Chinese tapestry, but their trip to the time of Kublai Khan was only a devious scam to warp history. Once there the villainous “Professor” planned to supply the Khan’s enemies with modern weapons in return for magical secrets. However, after making off with ‘The Hijacked Time Sphere’ he was promptly betrayed by his ally. Luckily, Rip and Jeff had their own answer to ‘The Mongol Ambush’ and everything turned out as it should…

‘The Captive Time-Travellers’ in #14 resulted from Rip and a group of scientists examining an invulnerable artefact purported to have been devised by Leonardo Da Vinci. A subsequent conversation with the great man himself revealed that the container held the world’s most destructive explosive…

When one of the 20th century technicians stole the bomb and a Time Sphere ‘The Future Fugitive’ headed for 2550A.D. to sell the weapon to a dictator, so Rip and Co. followed only to become ‘The Prisoners of Time’. And that’s when the bomb’s actual builders turned up…

The cleverly captivating fantasy frolics conclude for now with issue #15 and ‘The Earthlings of 5,000,000 B.C.’ wherein a rampaging alien monster in modern-day America proved to be an Earthling of astonishingly ancient vintage.

When Rip and the gang travelled back to search out the answer to the mystery they found an entire unsuspected civilisation and became ‘The Experimental Creatures’ of that society’s scientists. They only barely escaped the cosmic calamity of ‘The Day the Earth Died’ but returned safely with the knowledge of what happened to the last tragic survivor’s species…

These stories from a uniquely variegated moment in funnybook history were the last vestiges of a different kind of comic tale and never really affected the greater push towards a cohesive, integrated DC Universe. They are, though, splendidly accessible and thoroughly enjoyable adventure tales which should be cherished by every frenzied fan and casual reader.
© 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Spirou & Fantasio volume 4: Valley of the Exiles


By Tome & Janry, colour by Stephane De Becker & translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-157-0

For the majority of English-speaking comic fans Spirou might be Europe’s biggest secret. The phenomenally long-lived character is a rough contemporary – and shrewdly calculated commercial response – to Hergé’s iconic Tintin, whilst the comic he has headlined for decades is only beaten in sheer longevity and manic creativity by our own Beano.

Conceived in 1936 at Belgian Printing House Éditions Dupuis by boss-man Jean Dupuis, his proposed new magazine targeted juvenile audiences and launched on April 21st 1938; neatly bracketed in the UK by DC Thomson’s The Dandy (4th December 1937) and The Beano (July 30th 1938). In America a small comicbook publisher was preparing to release a new anthology entitled Action Comics…

Spirou was to be edited by 19 year-old Charles Dupuis and derived its name from the lead feature, which described the improbable adventures of a plucky Bellboy/lift operator employed at the glamorous Moustique Hotel (a sly reference to the publisher’s premier periodical Le Moustique).

Spirou the hero – whose name translates as both “squirrel” and “mischievous” in the Walloon language – was realised by French cartoonist François Robert Velter under his pen-name Rob-Vel for his Belgian bosses in response to the phenomenal success of Hergé’s carrot-topped boy reporter Tintin – a guaranteed money-spinning phenomenon for rival publisher Casterman.

The eponymous magazine launched with the plucky Bellboy (and his pet squirrel Spip) as the leads in an anthology weekly which bears his name to this day; featuring fast-paced, improbable cases which gradually evolved into astonishingly addictive high-flying surreal comedy dramas.

Spirou and his pals have reigned supreme in the magazine for most of its life, with a phalanx of truly impressive creators continuing Velter’s work – beginning with his wife Blanche “Davine” Dumoulin, who took over the strip when her husband enlisted in 1939. She was aided by Belgian artist Luc Lafnet until 1943 when Dupuis purchased all rights to the feature, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (“Jijé”) took over, introducing current co-star and foil Fantasio to the mix.

Somewhere along the way Spirou & Fantasio switched to journalism, becoming globe-trotting reporter and photographer, continuing their weekly exploits in unbroken four-colour glory. In 1946 Jijé’s assistant André Franquin assumed the creative reins, adding a phenomenally popular magic animal dubbed Marsupilami to the cast (first seen in Spirou et les héritiers in 1952 and now a solo-star of screen, plush toy store, console games and albums all his own), crafting increasingly fantastic tales until 1969.

Franquin was in turn succeeded by Jean-Claude Fournier who updated the feature over nine stirring adventures which tapped into the rebellious, relevant zeitgeist of the times with tales of environmental concern, nuclear energy, drug cartels and repressive regimes.

Even so, by the 1980s the boy Spirou seemed outdated and without direction; three different creative teams began alternating on the serial, until it was at last revitalised by the authors of the adventure under review here.

Philippe Vandevelde – writing as Tome – and artist Jean-Richard Geurts, best known to lovers of Bande dessinées as Janry, revisited, adapted and referenced the beloved Franquin era, reviving the feature’s fortunes and resulting in fourteen wonderful albums between 1984 and 1998. This one, from 1989 and originally entitled La vallée des bannis – ‘Valley of the Banished’ – was their ninth (and the 41st chronological collection of the evergreen adventurers).

Once their tenure concluded Tome & Janry’s departed and both Lewis Trondheim and the team of Jean-Davide Morvan & Jose-Luis Munuera took over, bringing the official album tally to fifty (there also are a bunch of specials, spin-offs and one-shots, official and otherwise) before in 2009 Fabien Vehlmann & Yoann (Yoann Chivard) were announced as the new “Keepers of the Flame”…

Valley of the Exiles! concludes the excellent two-part escapade (which began in Running Scared) with the roving reporters retracing the steps and uncovering the whereabouts of two explorers who had vanished in 1938 whilst attempting to climb a mountain and discover a legendary lost valley in the inscrutable, isolated Himalayan nation of Yurmaheesun-shan…

Since 1950 that tiny nation had been subject to repeated invasions by rival super-powers and was currently a hotbed of rebellion, insurgency and civil war, but Spirou and Fantasio were utterly determined to solve the ancient mystery.

Thus they linked up with renowned eccentric Dr. Placebo: world renowned authority on medical condition Spasmodia Maligna and a man convinced that the only cure for the condition – prolonged, sustained and life-threatening synchronous diaphragmatic flutters (hiccups to you and me) – is to be scared out of one’s wits.

He sponsored a “medical” mission to find the lost valley and thus the lads, Spip and five disparate, desperate perpetual hiccup-sufferers crept across the Nepalese border despite the most diligent attentions of military overlord Captain Yi.

That formidable martinet was tasked with keeping all foreigners – especially journalists – out of the occupied country as it underwent enforced pacification and re-education, but thanks to native translator Gorpah (a wily veteran guide who once proved invaluable to another red-headed reporter, his little white dog and a foul mouthed-sea captain!) the daring band were soon deep in-country.

Only minutes behind were Yi’s troops in tanks, armoured cars and attack helicopters – which naturally provided plenty of opportunities for the annoyingly obnoxious singultus flutterers to be satisfactorily terrified – but there was still little evidence of a breakthrough cure…

Just as the fugitives found their first clue as to the site of the lost valley they were taken captive by native rebels. With still no hiccup cure found the beleaguered explorers attempted a daring later escape, but even as they all piled into a lorry a monumental storm broke out…

When one of their pursuer’s vehicles plunged over a cliff, the valiant escapees formed a human chain to rescue the driver but Spirou and Fantasio were washed away and lost in the raging flash flood …

In The Valley of the Exiles! the story resumes with the battered, weary duo entombed deep within a Himalayan mountain. Slowly, blindly they grope their way towards a faint light and emerge through ancient, barbaric idol’s head into the very place they’ve been seeking…

Utterly enclosed by peaks the Valley is an idyllic paradise, but its very isolation has led to the development of a number of truly unique species of flora and fauna. There are colossal carnivorous water lily-pads, ferociously determined man-eating turtles, electric geckoes, the seductive Hammock Flytrap and many more bizarre and potentially lethal creatures.

The one that most imperils the lost boys however is the diminutive Manic Midgie – a mosquito-like bug that carries the disease “raging hostiliasis”. Not long after one bites Fantasio, poor Spirou realises that his best friend has become a homicidal maniac determined to kill him and everything else in range…

The deranged lad soon goes completely off the deep end, and only luck and a handy itching-powder boxing glove plant prevents the reporter’s gory demise…

Wounded, hunted by his best friend and perhaps the only human in the apparently inescapable enclosed wilderness, near-despondent Spirou and Spip begin to explore their incredible prison and find a rough shack: proof that at some time other humans had been there.

Further investigation reveals it to be the last resting place of the lost explorers Siegfried and Maginot. The mystery of the 1938 expedition is solved – even though Spirou has no way of filing this scoop!

More worryingly, Maginot’s copious notes on the creatures of the valley offer some grim hypotheses as to the nature of the nature in this fantastic hidden gorge: creatures inimical to both the body and mind of man. Plants that cast illusions, murderous mammals that mimic harmless life, bugs whose bite produces madness…

Crazed beyond imagining – and burbling hilarious, fourth-wall breaking nonsense – Fantasio is determinedly hunting his old friend and the frantic chase drives the limping hero deep into a hidden temple where he uncovers the secret of a fantastic lost civilisation of Backik: a race banished by Mongol conquerors /to this distant valley. The reluctant settlers lived just enough for the manic-midgies to bring their unlucky lives crashing down into doom and disaster…

As Spirou lurches through the eerie tombs of the fallen Backiks Fantasio ambushes him and is ready to finish off his former friend when a mysterious figure attacks…

Some time later Spirou awakens in the warming sunlight of the valley, with deranged Fantasio securely bound beside him. Resolved to escape this fantastic trap and get his crazy pal back to civilisation and medical assistance, our red-headed hero begins to explore his best options only to feel the terrifying sting of a mosquito…

Packed with oodles of action and a host of incredible surprises and revelations, Valley of the Exiles is a truly splendid escapade, with thrills, chills, spills, a mountain of choice comedy moments and eccentric, surreal mysteries to keep readers spellbound.

This refreshingly engaging, lightly-barbed, action-adventure is a breath of fresh air in a marketplace far too full of adults-only carnage, sordid cheesecake titillation, testosterone-fuelled breast-beating, teen-romance monsters and cloying barbarian fantasy. Easily accessible to readers of all ages and drawn with all the beguiling style and seductively enticing élan which makes Asterix, Lucky Luke, The Bluecoats and Iznogoud so compelling, this is another cracking read every bit as deserving of household name-hood as those series… yes, even that other red-headed kid with the white dog…
Original edition © Dupuis, 1989 by Tome & Janry. All rights reserved. English translation 2013 © Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

WIN FREE STUFF SPECIAL OFFER! Solve your Christmas Present Woes Here!

Thanks to the generosity of those fine people at Titan Comics we have a spiffy, brand, spanking new copy of Steed and Mrs Peel to give away so it’s time to show your True Brit Grit by answering three little questions – they be waiting for you at the end of this review…

Posted on

Steed and Mrs. Peel volume 1: A Very Civil Armageddon


By Mark Waid, Caleb Monroe, Steve Bryant, Will Sliney, Yasmin Liang & Chris Rosa (Boom! Studios/Titan Books)
ISBN: 987-1-60886-306-8

Generally when I write about the Avengers here we’re thinking about an assembled multitude of Marvel superheroes, but – until the recent movie blockbuster stormed the world – for most non-comics civilians that name usually conjured up images of dashing heroics, old world charm, incredible adventure and bizarrely British festishistic attire.

It’s easy to see how that might lead to some consumer confusion…

The (other) Avengers was/were an incredibly stylish and globally popular crime/spy TV show made in Britain which glamorously blended espionage with arch, seductively knowing comedy and deadly danger with elements of technological fantasy from the 1960s through to the beginning of the 1980s. A phenomenal cult hit, the show and its sequel The New Avengers is best remembered now for Cool Britannia style action, kinky quirkiness, mad gadgetry, surreal suspense and the wholly appropriate descriptive phrase “Spy Fi”.

The legacy of the series is still apparent in many later hit shows as The Invisible Man (both TV spy iterations), Chuck, the new Mission: Impossible movies and even Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Enormously popular all over the globe – even Warsaw Pact Poland was crazy for Rewolwer i melonik (or A Revolver and a Bowler Hat) – the show gradually evolved from a gritty crime/vengeance thriller entitled Police Surgeon in 1961 into a paragon of witty, thrilling and sophisticated adventure lampoonery with suave, urbane British Agent John Steed and dazzlingly talented amateur sleuth Mrs. Emma Peel battling spies, robots, criminals, secret societies, monsters and even “aliens” with tongues very much in cheeks and always under the strictest determination to remain cool, dashingly composed and exceedingly eccentric…

The format was a winner. Peel, as played by (Dame) Diana Rigg, had been a replacement for landmark character Cathy Gale – the first hands-on fighting female in British television history – who left the show in 1964 to become Bond Girl Pussy Galore in the movie Goldfinger. However Rigg’s introduction took the show to even greater heights of success and recently bereaved actress Emma Peel’s huge popularity with viewers cemented the archetype of a powerful, clever, competent woman into the nation’s psyche and forever banished the screaming, eye-candy girly-victim to the dustbin of popular fiction.

Rigg left in 1967 (she married James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and another feisty female was found in the person of Tara King (Linda Thorson) to carry the series to its demise in 1969. Its continued popularity in more than 90 countries eventually resulted in a revival during the late 1970s. The New Avengers saw glamorous Purdey (Joanna Lumley) and brutishly manly Gambit (Gareth Hunt) acting as partners and foils to the agelessly debonair and deadly Steed…

The show has remained a hugely enticing cult icon. There was a rather ill-conceived major motion picture in 1998, and in 2007 America’s TV Guide ranked the TV iteration the 20th Top Cult TV Show Ever. During its run and beyond, the internationally adored series spawned toys, games, collector models, a pop single and stage show, radio series, posters and books and all the myriad merchandising strands that inevitably accompany a media sensation.

Naturally, as a popular British Television program these Avengers were no stranger to our comics pages either.

Following an introductory strip starring Steed & Gale in listings magazines Look Westward and The Viewer plus the Manchester Evening News (September 1963 to the end of 1964), legendary children’s staple TV Comic launched its own Avengers strip in #720 (October 2nd 1965) with Emma Peel firmly ensconced. This serial ran until #771 (September 24th 1966) and the dashing duo also starred in the TV Comic Holiday Special, whilst a series of young Emma Peel adventures featured in June & Schoolfriend.

The feature then transferred to DC Thomson’s Diana until 1968 whereupon it returned to TV Comic with #877, depicting Steed and Tara King until 1972 and #1077.

In 1966 there was a one-off, large-sized UK comicbook from Mick Anglo Studios whilst in America, Gold Key’s Four-Color series published a try-out book in 1968 using recycled UK material under the rather obvious title John Steed/Emma Peel – since Marvel had already secured an American trademark for comics with the name “Avengers”…

There were also a number of wonderful, sturdily steadfast hardback annuals for the British Festive Season trade, beginning with 1962’s TV Crimebusters Annual and thereafter pertinent TV Comic Annuals before a run of solo editions graced Christmas stockings from 1967-1969 plus a brace of New Avengers volumes for 1977 and 1978.

Most importantly, Eclipse/ACME Press produced a trans-Atlantic prestige miniseries between 1990 and 1992. Steed & Mrs. Peel was crafted by Grant Morrison & Ian Gibson with supplementary scripting from Anne Caulfield.

That tale was reprinted in 2012 by media-savvy publishers Boom! Studios and acted as a kind of pilot for the current iteration under review here. The adventures of Steed and Mrs. Peel Ongoing began soon after and this initial compilation – collecting issues #0-3 from August to December 2012 – form a worthy reintroduction for the faithful and happily accessible introduction for notional newcomers as the dedicated followers of felons return for another clash with memorable TV antagonists The Hellfire Club.

These baroque bounders appeared in the TV episode ‘A Touch of Brimstone’ and so warped the maturing personalities of young Chris Claremont and John Byrne that they later created their own version for a comicbook they were working on – the Uncanny X-Men…

The drama here opens in ‘A Very Civil Armageddon: Prologue’ (written by Boom! chief creative guru Mark Waid and illustrated by Steve Bryant) as, back in the style-soaked Swinging Sixties, our heroes are called upon to investigate ‘The Dead Future’ and how an active – albeit murdered – agent can seemingly age decades overnight.

The situation reminds Mrs. Peel of the mind-bending, lethally effective fun-and-games perpetrated by the insidious Hellfire Club and its now-defunct leader the Honourable John Clever Cartney…

Further inquiries take them to the latest incarnation of the ancient Gentleman’s Club where the futurist Ian Lansdowne Dunderdale Cartney disavows any knowledge of the matter or his dad’s old antisocial habits. In fact the current scion is far more absorbed with the World of Tomorrow than the embarrassing peccadilloes of the past. However it’s all a trap and whilst Emma is attacked by a killer robot maid Steed is ambushed – only to awaken as an old man 35 years later in the year 2000AD!

Forever undaunted, the temporarily separated Derring-Duo refuse to believe the improbable and impeccably strike back individually to uncover the incredible answer to an impossible situation…

The main feature, by Waid and Caleb Monroe with art from Will Sliney, then sees ‘London Falling’ as the long-dreaded nuclear Armageddon finally happens, leaving Steed, Peel and a swarm of politicians, Lords and civil servants as the only survivors in a battered atomic bunker beneath a utterly devastated Houses of Parliament.

The shattered, shaken remnants of Empire and Civilisation are astounded to discover that the only other survivors are ghastly atomic mutants and a coterie of exceptionally well-stocked and fully prepared members of the Hellfire Club…

‘Life in Hell’ finds the former foes joining forces and combining resources, but Steed and Peel are convinced that something is “not kosher”. For one thing former members of once-important political committees and knowledgeable generals keep disappearing, but most importantly Ian Cartney and his deplorable sister Dirigent are now known to be masters of their father’s dark arts of illusion, trickery and brainwashing…

Steed rumbles to the nature of an audaciously cunning Psy-Ops espionage scheme almost too late as Emma is once again transformed into a ferocious, whip-wielding bondage nightmare in the concluding instalment ‘Long Live the Queen’. Of course, a good spy, like a boy scout, is always prepared and the dapper detective cleverly turns the tables on his foes just in time for a rollicking, explosively old-fashioned comeuppance…

Wry, arch and wickedly satisfying, this opening salvo in the reborn franchise is a delight for staunch fans and curious newcomers alike and this volume also includes a vast (28) covers and variants gallery by Joseph Michael Linsner, Phil Noto, Joshua Covey & Blond, Mike Perkins & Vladimir Popov and Drew Johnson to astound the eyes as much as the story assaults the senses…

© 2013 StudioCanal S.A. All rights reserved.

OK. All clued in?

Would you like to own this book without paying? If so then this is your chance.

All you have to do is enter this piffling little contest and trust to luck…

It’s free and absolutely anybody can join in. You can enter as many times as you want but there’s only one prize and my word is final in every instance.

Below are three multiple choice questions. Simply send your best guesses using Leave a Reply and we’ll pull a correct entry out of our digital bowler hat on December 1st.

Do Not Text, Tweet, Telephone or Telepath us. Just append the name of the lucky person you want to receive the prize with the three letters of your divination in the review’s comment section and we’ll take it from there.

Please do not send us your address. If you win we’ll contact you and ask for where you want the book sent.

Unless you’re residing at the ends of the Earth (in which case the parcel may take a little longer to arrive) the winner should have this treasured possession in time for Christmas, even with British post-privatised post practises…

Ready… Set… Go!

  1. The Avengers were known by what title in Poland?
    1. A Revolver and a Bowler Hat.
    2. Hard Hat and Leather Boots.
    3. Umbrellas and Kicks.
  2. Mrs Peel was Steed’s second karate-kicking female fighting partner. Who preceded her?
    1. Sue Storm.
    2. Tara Tempest.
    3. Cathy Gale.
  3. Patrick MacNee & Honor Blackman produced an infamous Avengers spin-off novelty pop single in 1964. What was it called?
    1. These Boots Are Made for Kicking.
    2. Have some Madeira, M’Dear.
    3. Kinky Boots.

Good luck one and all…

Posted on

Uncanny Avengers volume 3: The Apocalypse Twins


By Rick Remender, Gerard Gorman Duggan, Daniel Acuña & Adam Kubert (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-564-2

In the aftermath of the Avengers versus X-Men publishing event, company-wide reboot MarvelNOW! repositioned and recast the entire continuity in the ongoing never-ending battle to keep old readers interested and pick up new ones.

What You Need to Know: Once upon a time mutant Avenger Wanda Maximoff – daughter of arch-villain Magneto and known to the world as the Scarlet Witch – married android hero The Vision and they had (through the agency of magic and her unsuspected chaos-energy fuelled ability to reshape Reality) twin boys. Over the course of time it was revealed that her beloved sons were not real and they subsequently vanished (for further details see Marvel Platinum: the Definitive Avengers).

As years passed her loss slowly drove Wanda mad, and when she finally slipped completely over the edge the resultant slaughter-spree destroyed many of her Avengers team-mates. The effects of her actions subsequently reshaped the entire Marvel Universe, resulting in climactic reboot Avengers Disassembled.

The team had barely recovered from that catastrophe before she overwrote Reality again, altering recent Earth history such that mutants ruled over a society where humans or “sapiens” were an acknowledged evolutionary dead-end living out their lives and destined for extinction within two generations.

It took every champion on Earth and a huge helping of luck to put that genie back in a bottle (another colossal crossover – House of M), and in the aftermath less than 200 mutants were left on Earth…

The Witch was partially rehabilitated and began her quest for redemption during the aforementioned Avengers versus X-Men with the World’s Mightiest Heroes striving against the remaining mutants for control of Hope Summers: a girl born to be mortal host to the implacable force of cosmic destruction and creation known as The Phoenix.

However the primal phenomenon instead possessed a quintet of X-Men, corrupting them by manifesting their dream of making Earth a paradise for besieged, beleaguered Homo Superior.

In the ensuing conflict humanity was briefly enslaved before, inevitably, the selfish appetites of the Phoenix Force caused those possessed to turn upon each other. Soon its transcendent power transformed rallying figurehead and mutant freedom-fighter Cyclops into another apparently unstoppable, insatiable “Dark Phoenix”.

At that crossroads moment his beloved mentor Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men and formulator of the aspiration of peaceful mutant/human co-existence returned, only to be killed by his most devoted disciple…

Professor X’s death united X-Men and Avengers but, in the days following the expulsion of the Phoenix Force, progress and reconciliation stalled. The mostly human world festered with resentment even as new mutants began to manifest, and liberated mankind again fell into its old habits: intolerance, violence and bigoted, vigilante outrages…

When undying über-Nazi the Red Skull stole Xavier’s brain and appropriated the deceased mutant’s awesome telepathic abilities, his terrorist outrages were halted by a new team of Avengers: one formed by Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. to counter the rising tide of inter-species hostility…

Having been born out of one wave of genocidal race-hatred, the Sentinel of Liberty was painfully aware that America’s mutant minority had been poorly served – if not actively institutionally discriminated against – and sought to make amends by continuing Xavier’s utopian vision. To that end he convened the high-profile, affirmatively-active Avengers Unity Division, comprising human and mutant heroes working together.

The quintessential Avenger chose former government agent Havok (Cyclops’ brother Alex Summers) to lead the team, which consisted of himself, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Wolverine, Sunfire,and the squad’s bloody baptism of fire saw them stop the Skull’s freakish army of bio-engineered S-Men and seemingly prove the promise of the premise.

However at a very public press conference inducting two new members – Wonder Man and the Wasp – they were attacked by ancient enemy Grim Reaper. The clash ended when mutant Rogue slaughtered the psychopath in full view of the horrified watching world. In one shocking instant the entire enterprise seemed utterly undermined with all that hard-won pro-mutant progress wasted…

Collecting Uncanny Avengers #6-11 (cover-dated June to October 2013), and the spin-off Uncanny Avenger AU #8 (July), this astounding celebration of the magic of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction kicks everything into time-busting cosmic overdrive as the harried heroes fall prey to the bewildering machinations of arch-nemesis Kang the Conqueror and his most potent pawns The Apocalypse Twins…

It all begins in Scandinavia in 1013AD where/when a young, cocky and rebellious Thor is attacked by En Sabah Nur, immortal mutant Apocalypse and agent of the all-powerful Space Gods dubbed Celestials. The grotesque creature believes he is safeguarding the future by promoting the triumph of only the very strongest mutants, but all the petulant Thunderer knows is that he has been shamed and thrashed by a freak with an unfair advantage – star-forged armour…

Apocalypse is guided in his seemingly random attacks by former enemy Pharaoh Rama-Tut who advocates pre-emptive attacks on certain beings: those whose descendents would one day unite to resist the mutant advocate of Survival of the Fittest: the ancestors of a group called Avengers…

In Asgard Thor learns that his father Odin is subject a non-aggression pact with the Celestials but is too headstrong and angry to put aside his grievance. When sternly told to drop the matter, the furious godling finds suspiciously handy help from his malevolent half-brother Loki who shows him a spell which can enchant Thor’s battle-axe JarnBjorn into a weapon capable of rending even Celestial armour…

Delighted with his new unstoppable blade, Thor goes looking for a rematch and does not see that a stranger has been masquerading as his brother…

The Storm Lord arrives in primitive London just as Apocalypse attacks the next name on Rama-Tut’s list; a warrior named Folkbern Logan…

The Pagan soldier has been attacked by Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen and Thor is the answer to his prayers, wielding JarnBjorn with devastating effect. Saving Logan, destroying the servants and grievously wounding Apocalypse he returns to Asgard only to be severely admonished by Odin, even as elsewhen Apocalypse realises he has been played for a fool by Rama-Tut. The real winner is Kang who quietly takes his intended prize – a weapon even Space Gods cannot endure…

In our present, Apocalypse has been recently killed and many deadly creatures vie for the dubious honour of assuming his mantle and role as mutant messiah/exterminator of humanity. Thus on solar-orbiting Starcore Station his appalling son Genocide petitions the Celestials to accept him as their new agent…

The Celestials are a crucial component in the mechanics of the cosmos, their only interest being the raw, unstoppable processes of evolution. However when the enigmatic Apocalypse Twins materialise, they exercise their claim as true heirs by using JarnBjorn to achieve the impossible: executing the omnipotent Celestial Gardener and thereby endangering the very fabric of existence…

On Earth Havok has just successfully defended Rogue from murder charges at a S.H.I.E.L.D. hearing and attempts to keep her busy and out of sight by sending her after Magneto when news arrives that Earth’s alien early warning satellite The Peak is under attack.

Wanda meanwhile is trying to talk with WonderMan. Their relationship has been strained ever since she killed and resurrected him and the traumatised energy being is undergoing a few confusing life-changes. For one thing he’s now become a pacifist. He will help the team in every way possible… except by fighting…

Despite all efforts the Avengers are unable to save The Peak from the Twins, who use the fallen Celestial’s vehicle to send the station crashing down on Rio de Janeiro. Although Thor and Sunfire are able to save the city from obliteration the rest of the team are more concerned with a secret they have just uncovered: Wolverine’s hidden role in the death of the Twin’s birth-father – the former X-Man Warren Worthington, AKA Archangel…

Whilst all this is occurring Captain America is fighting for his life in war-torn South Sudan and manoeuvred into uncovering a message from a mysterious ally purporting to know what is actually going on.

The Twins are also aware of layers of deceit. Raised by Kang in time-warped isolation Eimin and Uriel are beginning to suspect their patron’s motives and each other’s dedication. These qualms do not prevent them from detonating an atomic blast just as the rest of the Avengers arrive to supplement Thor and Sunfire…

The Marvel Universe is a busy place and whilst this saga was unfolding another major event was simultaneously unfolding in the pages of Age of Ultron. There, a time-warping event created an alternate Earth where the malign mechanoid took over the world from a point in Earth’s future. The epic spawned a plethora of “extra” issues – such as Uncanny Avengers #8AU – wherein the characters from the alternate timeline spawned by the temporal tribulations offered decidedly different tales of our most famed champions.

In this chronal digression – written by Gerard Gorman Duggan and illustrated by Adam Kubert – we glimpse the formative years of the Apocalypse Twins as Kang temporarily frees his twisted children from his private concentration camp in 4145AD. The Lord of Time had been raising them in such harsh conditions to temper them for future roles, but now seeks to test his charges with a first mission of assassination.

The target is veteran Red, White and Blue Sentinel of Justice Colonel America but the operation does not go according to plan…

Returning with #9 to the regularly scheduled tale Ragnarok Now! displays the deepening rift in the Unity team as the resurgent adult Apocalypse Twins continue their campaign for mutant ascendancy by constituting their own squad of Horsemen to winnow humanity and its heroes. These heralds of Mutant Rapture and human disaster are not the bio-engineered creatures their true father preferred however.

The children of En Sabah Nur instead opt for a quartet of dead horrors to pave their way to triumph…

In Sudan meanwhile, Captain America digests information received from the godlike Immortus – another “master of time” and purportedly Kang’s reformed future self. The decidedly untrustworthy savant has entrusted the Star Spangled Avenger with the actual nature of reality and revealed why the Twins must be stopped as well as the ghastly consequences should they win the ongoing war to control all times, spaces and realities…

When Cap then learns of Wolverine’s murderous past actions the team splits over philosophy and pragmatism. Havok is hard-pressed to keep the heroes united before the onslaught of the Twins’ zombie Horsemen, Sentry, Banshee, Daken and Grim Reaper: all deadly killers with deep emotional ties to the heroes and all of whom died at the hands of Avengers…

As the Unity squad splits up to tackle the Apocalypse agents, the calamitous clashes only mask the Twins’ secret agenda: they have seemingly seduced the reality-shredding Scarlet Witch to their cause, convincing her to use her world-warping curse to bring about their long-desired ascendancy as instigators of the Mutant Rapture…

To Be Continued…

Scripted by Rick Remender and illustrated by Daniel Acuña, this rather confused and somewhat convoluted, but exceedingly spectacular, complex and ambitious epic may be a bit daunting for casual readers but dedicated followers of mutant mayhem will no doubt adore the fantastic premise and blockbusting scope of events.

Also provoking much applause and approbation are a gallery of covers and variants by John Cassaday & Laura Martin, Milo Manara and Jim Cheung, whilst the selection of 21st century extra content in the form of AR icon sections includes trailers, character bios, creator commentaries and oodles more. The Marvel Augmented Reality App pages grant access to story bonuses once you download the little dickens – free from marvel.com – onto your smart-phone or Android-enabled tablet. So you should do that too, right?
™ & © 2013 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. All rights reserved. A British Edition published by Panini Publishing, a division of Panini UK, Ltd.

Posted on

Spain: Rock, Roll, Rumbles, Rebels & Revolution


By Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez (Burchfield Penney Art Center/Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-782-2

Manuel Rodriguez was one of the pioneering lights of America’s transformative Underground Commix movement: a mainstay of the counterculture which subversively reshaped the nation’s psyche in the 1960s and 1970s. However, although always a left-leaning radical, infamous for his raucously hyper-violent, audaciously sexual urban vigilante Trashman, Spain was also a quietly dedicated craftsman, historian, educationalist and graphic biographer.

Born in Buffalo, New York state in 1940, the Hispanic kid spent a lot of time with notorious biker gang the Road Vultures and these experiences, as much as his political upbringing and formal education at the SilvermineGuildArtSchool in New Canaan, Connecticut (1957-1960), moulded and informed his entire creative career.

In the 1960s he became a regular contributor to landmark alternative magazine the East Village Other, which not only utilised his burgeoning talents as illustrator and designer but also commissioned, in 1968, his groundbreaking tabloid comicbook Zodiac Mindwarp. That insert proved so successful that EVO subsequently sponsored a regular anthology publication. Gothic Blimp Works was a turning point and clarion call in the evolution of underground publishing.

However, the excessive exploits of Trashman – “Agent of the 6th International” – against a repressive dystopian American super-state were only the tip of the creative iceberg. Ardent left-winger Spain founded the trade organisation the United Cartoon Workers of America whilst contributing to many of the independent comics and magazines which exploded out of the burgeoning counterculture movement across the world.

Manuel Rodriguez was also an erudite and questioning writer/artist with a lifelong interest in history – especially political struggle and major battlefield clashes, and much of his other work revealed a stunning ability to bring these subjects to vibrant life.

The breadth, depth and sheer variety of Spain’s work – from gritty urban autobiography (American Splendor, Cruisin’ with the Hound: the Life and Times of Fred Tooté) to psycho-sexual sci fi (Zap Comix, Skull, Mean Bitch Thrills) is a testament to his incredible talent but the restless artist also found time to produce a wealth of other cartooning classics.

Amongst his dauntingly broad canon of comics material are literary adaptations (Edgar Allen Poe, Sherlock Holmes’ Strangest Cases), historical treatises (War: The Human Cost) and biographies (Ché {Guevara}: a Graphic Biography, Devil Dog: the Amazing True Story of the Man who Saved America {Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler}) as well as educational and design works such as You Are a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience and Nothing in This Book Is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are (both with Bob Frissell).

He also produced the ongoing comics serial The Dark Hotel for American current affairs, politics and media news aggregation website Salon.

In 2012 Spain finally lost a six-year battle against cancer and this superb book – actually the Exhibition catalogue for a career retrospective at the prestigious Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College – celebrates his tumultuous life and spectacular contribution to the art form of graphic narrative with a compelling series of essays as well as a superb selection of the great man’s best pieces including some little known lost treasures.

The appreciation begins with ‘Stand Up’ by Anthony Bannon (Executive Director, BPAC), before the biographical ‘Grease, Grit and Graphic Truth’ by Edmund Cardoni (Executive Director, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center) explores Spain’s past, whilst

‘Keep the Flames of Buffalo Burning’ by Don Metz examines his lasting effect on comics and society.

However the true value of this chronicle is in the 60+ covers, designs, story-pages, roughs, panel excerpts and strips both vintage and recent, monochrome and full-colour which demonstrate the sheer talent and drive to communicate that fuelled Spain for his entire life.

The Partial Spain Bibliography 1969-2012 and Selected Spain Exhibitions only hint at the incredible depth and lasting legacy of his career and I’m praying that some enlightened publisher like Fantagraphics or Last Gasp is already toiling on a comprehensive series of “Complete Works of…” volumes…

Stark, shocking and always relevant, the communicative power of Spain is something no true lover of comics can afford to miss.
© 2012 Burchfield Penney Art Center. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Wolfsmund volume 2


By Mitsuhisa Kuji, translated by Ko Ransom (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1935654-79-7

There’s not much to found regarding pseudonymous woman of mystery Mitsuhisa Kuji other than that she has worked as assistant to both Kentaro Miura (Berserk) and Kaoru Mori (Emma, Anything and Something), but this simply means that we can appreciate her solely through her work, such as this fearsomely nihilistic and bleakly beguiling historical re-enactment of the legend of William Tell as collected in this second English-language volume of Wolfsmund…

Set in 14th century Switzerland and drawing on historical records, the serial debuted in 2009 as Ookami no Kuchi: Wolfsmund in Seinen publication Fellows! – with four tankōbon volumes collected thus far – and details the struggle of three formerly autonomous alpine cantons, Uri, Unterwalden and Shwyz, for freedom and independence from the oppressive domination of invaders from what is rapidly becoming the oppressive and savagely rapacious Habsburg Empire.

Unconventionally, rather than starring dashing heroes, this interpretation of the oft-told folktale centres around the monolithic fortress of Wolfsmund, situated in the Sankt Gotthard Pass: an impenetrable keep, barrier and waystation between mountain passes which dictates and controls the population’s ability to move, flee and find allies, intelligence or war materiel. The castle complex forms a crucial trade bottleneck between Germany and Italy and houses a garrison of hard-hearted soldiers commanded by a human monster in angelic form.

Wolfram the Bailiff is a sadistic sentinel with a dark genius for ferreting out insurrection, disposing of freedom fighters and crushing the people’s hopes. So far nobody has survived falling under his excoriating gaze…

The horrific murderously medieval passion play resumes with ‘Hans and Eva Part One’ as another would-be rebel dies from torture and the aging innkeeper of Uri again publicly rows with his lovely and extremely young wife. Gossip is rife amongst the villagers and for once it’s all true: she married him for his money; he wanted her for her body.

Neither of them is fulfilling their side of the bargain, however…

The resistance fighters of the area are more concerned with their impossibly bad luck. Somehow, valued, experienced men keep falling to Wolfram’s agents: it’s almost as if someone is informing on them…

Eva is unhappy. She loves jewels and wants Hans to buy her more, and so the grizzled barkeep makes another secret journey to Wolfsmund to relate conversations overheard in his hostelry. In the meanwhile however Eva haughtily dons all her bling and defiantly parades around Uri where some very desperate men at last put two and two together…

The dark fable concludes in ‘Hans and Eva Part Two’ as with their cover blown the innkeeper and his repentant bride seek safe passage from Wolfram only to learn to their cost what the beautiful psychopath thinks of traitors and betrayers.

The pair are left to the tender mercies of the rebels and only the intervention of the mysterious dark prostitute who plies her trade in the inn outside the mountain keep’s gates – known as the Wolf’s Mouth – prevents Eva’s death at the hands – and nastier members – of the resistance men. The greedy child does not escape justice though…

The remainder of this increasingly dark and shocking saga relates the appalling story of ‘Cedar and Juwel’ as, with the struggle intensifying and Wolfram’s reprisals hitting ever harder, an itinerant street performer and her little girl arrive at the pass. The debased woman Cedar wants to return to her home in Germany and will happily ply the tricks of more than one trade to get there, and she doesn’t seem to care whether her daughter Juwel comes with her or not…

However, after seducing a Bishop she comes to the attention of Wolfram – a far harder audience to impress. The savage games he plays with both mother and child lead to a concatenation of tragedies which compel the mysterious Madam of the Inn to blow her own cover, heralding the foreboding return of the land’s inevitable liberator… the last son of William Tell…

This stunningly bleak and breathtakingly vicious examination of the human cost of national liberation is rendered with astounding skill in a powerful semblance of woodblock-etching (in the manner of Albrecht Dürer): stark, uncompromising illustration which perfectly compliments the daunting milieu, adamantine scenery and cruelly brutal episodes wherein heroes of “the Eternal Alliance” repeatedly try and fail to pass through the Wolf’s Maw or fool the brutally deadly cherub in command…

Harsh, uncompromising and visceral, this unhappy saga is best enjoyed by older readers, and those who realise that not every ending is a happy one…

Wolfsmund is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

© 2010 Mitsuhisa Kuji. All rights reserved.

Posted on

Marada the She-Wolf


By Chris Claremont & John Bolton (Titan Books)
ISBN: 987-0-85768-632-9

Scantily clad hot chicks swinging swords have been a staple of fantasy comics from their very inception, and probably nobody has done it better – certainly visually – than Chris Claremont and John Bolton. So this smartly recycled, supremely satisfying, luxuriously oversized (302 x 226mm) hardback compilation of their collaborative fantasy saga should be a welcome addition to the shelves of all aficionados of wild adventure and stirring sagas – especially in a world where mystical/historical dramas like Game of Thrones, Atlantis and Da Vinci’s Demons are garnering new interest in “Things Old, Things Forgotten”…

As detailed in Jo Duffy’s Introduction and collection Editor Steve Cook’s background essays ‘Birth of a Warrior’, ‘The Art of War’, ‘Epic Tales’ and ‘Legacy’ these stories – set in the cosmopolitan days of Imperial Rome – originally ran in Epic Illustrated (Marvel’s answer to Heavy Metal magazine) beginning with #10, February 1982. Originally the strip appeared in beautiful monochrome wash-and-line, and although I would have preferred them to have been left that way for this collection, Bolton’s sensitive conversion of the art to painted colour is lush, lovely and stunningly effective.

By the way, that possibly waspish crack about recycling doesn’t just refer to the art, superb though it is. The original story started life as a Red Sonja yarn for black and white anthology Bizarre Adventures, before Claremont & Bolton reworked the thing and, by inserting the whole kit and caboodle into the “real” world of the Ancient Roman – albeit embroidered with Celtic myth and legend – added a satisfying layer of dramatic authenticity to the mix which still leaves it head-and-shoulders above all other Sword and Sorcery “Bad Girls” tales, as well as most fantasy fiction…

The literary pre-game warm-up also includes an effusive memo from the author as ‘Claremont on Bolton’ offers more creative insight on why these seldom-seen stories are just so darn good before the wonderment unfolds in the initial tale ‘Marada the She-Wolf: The Shattered Sword’.

The ferociously independent warrior woman is a wandering mercenary whose grandfather was Julius Caesar. When her parents fell into political disfavour she was whisked from the Eternal City to live free and grow wild. Now, years later in the deserts around Damascus she is rescued from slavers by charismatic Warrior-Magician Donal MacLlyanllwyr, but the indomitable Marada he remembers is gone and all he liberates is a broken doll, traumatised by some unspoken horror and utterly devoid of will and spirit.

Mystically transporting her to the arboreal citadel of Ashandriar amidst the misty hills of distant Britain, the baffled soldier seeks the aid of patron sorceress Rhiannon to diagnose, if not cure her malady.

As she gradually recovers the warrior woman forms a bond with Donal’s daughter Arianrhod; a girl of vast, if unschooled, magical power. Before long the ghastly secret of Marada’s malaise is revealed when a demonic creature invades the mystic keep, killing Donal and abducting Arianrhod.

Enraged and desperate Marada is forced to brave Hell itself and slash her way through an army of devils to rescue the child she now considers as much daughter as friend from the wizard and demon conclave who initially broke her as part of a convoluted scheme to reign on Earth…

The re-galvanised She-Wolf is ultimately victorious but the horrific confrontation leaves her and Arianrhod stranded in East Africa. With no other option, the triumphant, exhausted duo begin the long walk home to Albion…

From Epic #12, ‘Royal Hunt’ is a shorter, self-contained tale wherein Marada and Arianrhod, after escaping the Infernal Realm, are taken by Ashake, barbaric Empress of the Amazonian kingdom of Meroë. The Battle Queen offers her captives the dubious distinction of being her quarry in a hunt (a competent if cheekily uninspired variation of Richard Connell’s landmark 1924 short story – and equally influential 1932 movie The Most Dangerous Game).

Sadly both predator and prey are unaware that malign male mercenaries are lurking about, with the worst of all intentions for the unsuspecting women…

Hard fought combat and the sudden intervention of the sneaking male scum makes allies of Ashake and Marada and leads to the voyagers’ final tale, ‘Wizard’s Masque’ (Epic Illustrated #23-24, April & June 1984) which finds the long-lost Europeans aboard the merchant ship Raven, bound for Roman port Massilia. However impetuous Arianrhod gets bored with their slow progress and attempts a transportation spell, opening a portal to nether realms and letting something really ghastly out of hell…

Beating the beast back, Marada falls though the gap in reality to materialise on an Arabic pirate ship currently engaged in a life-and-death clash with soldiers of an Eastern Kaydif. Her sudden presence turns the tide and soon she is partner to flamboyant corsair Taric Redhand, who swears to get her back to her home and lost “daughter”…

Unfortunately Marada has also been noticed by sinisterly seductive sorcerer Jaffar Ibn Haroun Al-Rashid. Although he purports to be a friend – and potential lover – able to reunite her with The Raven, he conceals a connection to the same demonic alliance that originally targeted the She-Wolf in faraway Rome. He is also, in all things, a creature of passion and self-serving convictions, capable of absolutely anything to achieve his own ends…

Ultimately however, the lost warrior woman knows she can only depend upon herself to find her way back to Arianrhod and home…

Moody, passionate and powerfully evocative, this is a classic work of comics fantasy that at last has a home and format worthy of it, and will certainly all delight fans of the genre.
© & ™ 2013 John Bolton and Christ Claremont. All rights reserved.