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Wandering Son Book 1


By Shimura Takako, translated by Matt Thorn (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-416-0

Huge fan though I am of the ubiquitous digest-sized monochrome format that makes up the greatest part of translated manga volumes, there’s a subtle enhanced superiority to these hearty and satisfyingly substantial oversized hardback editions from Fantagraphics’ new manga line (see also Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories) that just adds extra zest to any work of pictorial narrative. Especially effective is this second intriguing offering which follows two youngsters experiencing the most difficult times of their lives…

Shuichi Nitori is a boy freshly transferred into a new school. He’s starting Fifth Grade and on the cusp of puberty. He’s also in a bit of a quandary. Slim, androgynous and, let us be frank, rather pretty, he is constantly thinking about wearing girls clothes…

On his first day he is befriended by Yoshino Takatsuki; a tall, burly tomboy who harbours similar secret yearnings. Her instinctive friendliness towards Shuichi is shared by pretty Saori Chiba, who is happy with her own gender but troubled in almost everything else. Always over-eager to please, she is a ball of inexplicable guilty feelings and even at her young age is considering becoming a Christian…

From the start both girls encourage Shuichi to submit to his urges. Yoshino’s clueless mother keeps buying dresses which the despairing daughter gives to her confused new pal, whilst Saori, also acutely aware of the Nitori boy’s underlying otherness, actively encourages him to cross-dress, even buying him an extravagant frock for his birthday, which almost kills their budding friendship stone-dead.

It is Saori who successfully suggests that the unsuspecting class perform The Rose of Versailles as their end-of-term play with all the girls playing the male roles – and vice versa…

(The Rose of Versailles is a monumentally popular Shōjo manga tale and later, movie and musical, by Riyoko Ikeda which tells the story of Lady Oscar: a girl raised as a man by her soldier father who eventually became a dashing Palace Guard and the darling of Marie Antoinette’s Court.)

Both Shuichi and Yoshino are hard-pressed to deny their overwhelming mutual need: boy wants to be girl and girl, boy. Inevitably the need proves too great and both succumb. Yoshino has her hair cut and goes out in her brother’s school uniform only to be chatted up by an older woman in a burger bar. Shuichi’s periodic capitulations are less public, but increasingly important to his happiness and wellbeing – and to be honest – he does make an astonishingly pretty little girl, more even than Roger Taylor in that Queen Video – but utterly pure, innocent and raunch-free…

Nevertheless, no matter how much Shiuchi and Yoshino wish they could exchange gender, time and biology inexorably march on and the changes of puberty are causing their treacherous bodies to horrifyingly betray them…

From any other culture this type of story would be crammed with angst and agony: gratuitously filled with cruel moments and shame-filled subtext, but Takao Shimura’s genteel and winningly underplayed first volume in this enchanting school saga (which began in Comic Beam monthly in December 2002, has been collected in eleven volumes and is still going strong) is resplendent with refined contentment, presenting the history in an open-minded spirit of childlike inquiry and accepting optimism that turns this book into a genuine feel-good experience.

But of course there is more to come in the distressingly-difficult futures of Shuichi and Yoshino…

This moving and gently enticing volume also includes a helpful watercolour character chart, a pronunciation guide for Japanese speech and ‘Snips and Snails, Sugar and Spice’, a fantastically useful guide to Japanese honorifics as used in Wandering Son, by translator Matt Thorn which explains the social, gender and age ranking and positions so ingrained in the nation’s being. Trust me, in as hide-bound and stratified a culture as Japan’s, this background piece is a complete necessity…

The comics portion of this volume is printed in the traditional back-to-front, right-to-left format.

© 2003 Takako Shimura. All rights reserved.

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World of Krypton


By Paul Kupperberg, Howard Chaykin, Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte (DC/Tor Books)
ISBN: 0-523-49017-8

For fans and comics creators alike continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, the worst casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is great stories that suddenly “never happened”. The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Silver Age readers buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy and Adventure Comics) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our rainy days filling in the incredible blanks about the lost world through the delightful and thrilling tales from those halcyon publications.

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s Superman – and an issue of Superman Family – carried a back-up series entitled ‘The Fabulous World of Krypton’ relating “Untold Tales of Superman’s Native Planet” (so long overdue for a complete trade paperback collection) by a host of the industry’s greatest talents which further explored that defunct wonderland.

Many of those twenty-seven vignettes were referenced alongside the key Krypton-starring issues of the Superman franchise in 1979 when scripter Paul Kupperberg and artists Howard Chaykin, Murphy Anderson & Frank Chiaramonte synthesised the scattered back-story details into DC’s first miniseries World of Krypton.

Although never collected into a graphic novel, this glorious indulgence was resized into a nifty black and white paperback book in 1982, supervised by and with an introduction from the much-missed, multi-talented official DC memory E. Nelson Bridwell (who was always the go-to guy for any detail of fact or trivia concerning the company’s vast comics output). This magical celebration of life on the best of all fictional worlds is a grand old slice of comics fun and nostalgia long overdue for a critical reappraisal and a wider audience.

The story opens with Superman reviewing a tape-diary found on the moon: a document from his deceased father Jor-El which details the scientist’s life, career and struggle with the nay-saying political authorities whose inaction doomed the Kryptonian race to near extinction.

As the Man of Steel listens on, he hears how Jor-El wooed and won his mother Lara Lor-Van despite all the sinister efforts of the planetary marriage computer to frustrate them, how he discovered anti-gravity and invented the Phantom Zone ray, uncovered the lost technology of a dead race which provided the clues to Kal-El’s escape rocket, and learns his father’s take on Superman’s many time-twisting trips to Krypton…

He feels his father’s pain when Brainiac stole the city of Kandor, when rogue scientist Jax-Ur blew up the inhabited moon of Wegthor, when civil war almost wracked the planet thanks to the deranged militarist General Zod and when his own cousin Kru forever disgraced the noble House of El…

Heavily referencing immortal classics such as ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ (Superman volume 1 #141, November 1960), Fabulous World of Krypton mini-epics ‘Jor-El’s Golden Folly’, ‘Moon-Crossed Love’, ‘Marriage, Kryptonian Style’ and a host of others, this epochal saga from simpler and more wondrous times is a sheer delight for any fan tired of unremitting angst and non-stop crises…

Moreover the sensitive and meticulous reformatting of the original miniseries by editor Bridwell and designers Bob Rozakis, Shelley Eiber & Alex Saviuk makes this book one of the most smoothly readable of all paperback comic collections.

Although not that easy to find, World of Krypton is still worth tracking down and until DC get around to gathering the Krypton chronicles into the kind of compendium they deserve this is still your best shot at seeing the evolution of a world we all wanted to live on back in the heady days of yore…
© 1982 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Speed Racer Classics


By Tatsuo Yoshida, translated by Nat Gertler (Now Comics)
ISBN: 0-70989-331-34

During the 1960s when Japanese anime was first starting to appear in the West, one of the most surprising television hits in America was a classy little cartoon series entitled Speed Racer. It first aired in 1967-1968 (52 high velocity episodes) and back then nobody knew the show was based on and adapted from a wonderful action/science fiction/sports comic strip created by manga pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida in 1966 for Shueisha’s Shōnen Book periodical.

The comic series was itself a recycled version of Yoshida’s earlier racing hit ‘Pilot Ace’.

The original title ‘Mach Go Go Go’ was a torturously multi-layered pun, and played on the fact that boy-racer Gō Mifune – more correctly Mifune Gō – drove the super-car Mach 5. “Go” is the Japanese word for five and a suffix applied to ship names whilst the phrase Gogogo is the usual graphic sound effect for “rumble”. All in all, the title means “Mach-go, Gō Mifune, Go!” which was adapted on US screens as “Go, Speed Racer, Go!”

In 1985 Chicago-based Now Comics took advantage of the explosion in comics creativity to release a bevy of full-colour licensed titles based on popular nostalgic icons such as Astro Boy, Green Hornet, Fright Night and Ghostbusters, but started the ball rolling with new adventures of Speed Racer.

The series was a palpable hit and in 1990 the company released this magical selection of Yoshida’s original stories in a beautiful monochrome edition graced with a glorious wraparound cover by Mitch O’Connell. It was probably one of the first manga books ever seen in American comic stores.

Although the art and stories are relatively untouched the large cast, (family, girlfriend, pet monkey and all) are called by their American identities, but if you need to know the original Japanese designations and have the puns, in-jokes and references explained, there are many Speed Racer websites to consult.

Pops Racer is an independent entrepreneur and car-building genius estranged from his eldest son Rex, a professional sports-car driver. Second son Speed also has a driving ambition to be a pro driver (we can do puns too, you know) and the episodes here follow the family concern in its rise to success, all peppered with high drama, political intrigue, criminal overtones and high octane excitement (whoops!: there I go again)…

The action begins with ‘The Return of the Malanga’ as, whilst competing in the incredible Mach 5, Speed recognises an equally unique vehicle believed long destroyed whilst running this same gruelling road-race. The plucky lad becomes hopelessly embroiled in a sinister plot when he learns that the driver of the resurrected car crashed and died in mysterious circumstances years ago and now all the survivors of that tragic incident are perishing in a series of fantastic “accidents”…

Are these events the vengeance of a restless spirit or is there an even more sinister explanation…?

In ‘Deadly Desert Race’ the Mach 5 is competing in a trans-Saharan rally when Speed is drawn into a personal driving duel with spoiled Arab prince Kimbe of Wilm. When a bomb goes off young Racer is accused of attempting to assassinate his rival and has to clear his name and catch the real killer by traversing the greatest natural hazard on the planet in a spectacular competition and a blistering military battle…

After qualifying for the prestigious Eastern Alps competition the young ace meets the mysterious Racer X: a masked driver with a shady past who has a hidden connection to the Racer clan. ‘This is the Racer’s Soul!’ reveals the true story of Pops’ conflict with Rex Racer when criminal elements threatened to destroy everything the inventor stood for.

After the riveting race action and blockbusting outcome, this volume concludes with a compelling mystery yarn as in ‘The Secret of the Classic Car’ Speed foils the theft of a vintage vehicle and is sucked into a criminal plot to obtain the lost secret of automotive manufacture hidden by Henry Ford.

When ruthless thugs kidnap Speed, Pops launches into action and the saga culminates in a devastating duel between rival super-cars…

These are delightfully magical episodes of grand, old-fashioned adventure, perfectly rendered by a master craftsman and worthy of any action fan’s eager attention, so even if this particular volume is hard to find, other editions and successive collections from WildStorm and Digital Manga Publishing are still readily available.

Go, Fan-boy reader! Go! Go! Go!
Speed Racer ™ and © 1988 Colour Systems Technology. All rights reserved. Original manga © Tatsuo Yoshida, reprinted by permission of Books Nippan, Inc.

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Showcase Presents Green Lantern volume 5


By Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Mike Grell & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-224-6

Returning to the usual phonebook-sized black and white tome, this fifth collection starring the Emerald Gladiator of Earth-1 (re-presenting the contents of Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76-89 – barring the all-reprint #88 – and the emerald back-up strips from Flash #217-221, 223-224, 226-228, 230-231, 237-238, 240-243, 245-246) generated groundbreaking, landmark tales from Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams that totally revolutionised the industry, whilst registering such poor sales that the series was cancelled and the heroes unceremoniously shipped into the back of another comicbook. Gradually the emphasis shifted back to crime, adventure and space opera and Green Lantern grew popular enough for his own solo title once more….

By the end of the 1960s America was a bubbling cauldron of social turmoil and experimentation. Everything was challenged and with issue #76 (April 1970 and the first issue of the new decade) Denny O’Neil and comics iconoclast Neal Adams utterly redefined superhero strips with their relevancy-driven stories; transforming complacent establishment masked boy-scouts into uncertain, questioning champions and strident explorers of the revolution.

‘No Evil Shall Escape My Sight!’ (inked by Frank Giacoia) is a landmark in the medium, utterly re-positioning the very concept of the costumed crusader as newly-minted ardent liberal Green Arrow challenged GL’s cosy worldview when the lofty space-cop painfully discovered real villains wore business suits, had expense accounts, hurt people just because of skin colour and would happily poison their own nests for short-term gain…

Of course, the fact that the story is a brilliant crime-thriller with science-fiction overtones magnificently illustrated doesn’t hurt either…

O’ Neil became sole scripter with this story and, in tight collaboration with ultra-realistic art-genius Adams, instantly overturned contemporary costumed dramas with their societally-targeted relevancy-driven protest-stories. The book became Green Lantern/Green Arrow with Emerald Archer Oliver Queen constantly mouthing off as a radical, liberal sounding-board and platform for a generation-in-crisis whilst staid, quasi-reactionary GL Hal Jordan played the part of the oblivious but well-meaning old guard.

At least the Ring-Slinger was aware of his faults and more or less willing to listen to new ideas…

At the time this compendium of stories first appeared DC was a company in transition – as indeed was America itself – with new ideas (which, in comic-book terms meant “young writers”) being given much leeway: a veritable wave of fresh, raw talent akin to the very start of the industry, when excitable young creators ran wild with imagination… Their cause wasn’t hurt by an industry in rapid commercial decline: costs were up and the kids just weren’t buying funnybooks in the volumes they used to…

‘Journey to Desolation’ in #77 was every bit as groundbreaking.

At the conclusion of the last issue an immortal Guardian of the Universe – hereafter known as “the Old Timer” was assigned to accompany the Emerald Duo on a voyage to “discover America”: a soul-searching social exploration into the dichotomies which divided the nation. First stop brought the trio to a poverty-stricken mining town run as a private kingdom by a ruthless entrepreneur happy to use agent-provocateurs and Nazi war criminals to keep his wage slaves in line.

When a young protest singer looked likely to become the next Bob Dylan and draw unwelcome publicity, he had to be eliminated – as did the three strangers who drove into town at just the wrong moment…

Although the heroes provided temporary solutions and put away viciously human criminals, these tales were remarkably blunt in exposing bigger ills and issues that couldn’t be fixed with a wave of a Green Ring; invoking an aura of helplessness that was metaphorically emphasised during this story when Hal was summarily stripped of much of his power for no longer being the willing, unquestioning stooge of his officious, high-and-mighty alien masters…

The confused and far-more-mortal Green Lantern discovered another unpalatable aspect of human nature in ‘A Kind of Loving, a Way of Death!’ when Black Canary joined the peripatetic cast. Seeking to renew her relationship with Green Arrow, she was waylaid by bikers, grievously injured and taken in by a charismatic hippy guru. Unfortunately Joshua was more Manson than Messiah and his brand of Peace and Love only extended to white people: everybody else was simply target practise…

The plight of Native Americans was stunningly high-lighted in ‘Ulysses Star is Still Alive!’ as corporate logging interests attempted to deprive a mountain tribe of their very last scraps of heritage, once more causing the Green Knights to take extraordinarily differing courses of action to help, whilst #80 added a science fiction gloss to a tale of judicial malfeasance in ‘Even an Immortal Can Die!’ (inked by Dick Giordano).

When the Old Timer used his powers to save Green Lantern rather than prevent a pollution catastrophe in the Pacific Northwest, he was chastised by his fellow Guardians and dispatched to the planet Gallo for judgement by the supreme arbiters of Law in the universe.

His earthly friends accompanied him and found a disturbing new administration with a decidedly off-kilter view of justice…

Adams’ staggering facility for capturing likenesses added extra-piquancy to this yarn that we’re just not equipped to grasp four decades later, with the usurping, overbearing villain derived from the Judge of the infamous trial of anti-war protesters “The Chicago Eight”.

Insight into the Guardians’ history underpinned ‘Death Be My Destiny!’ when Lantern, Arrow and Canary travelled with the now-sentenced Old Timer to the ancient world of Maltus (that’s a pun, son: just type Thomas Robert Malthus into your search engine of choice or even look in a book) and found a world literally choking on its own out-of-control population. The uncanny cause cast unlovely light on the perceived role and worth of women in modern society…

Green Lantern/Green Arrow #82 returned briefly to traditional yarn-spinning in ‘How do you Fight a Nightmare?’ (with additional inks from Berni Wrightson) as Green Lantern’s greatest foe unleashed Harpies, Amazons and all manner of female furies on the hapless hero before Black Canary and Green Arrow could turn the tide, whilst ‘…And a Child Shall Destroy Them!’ crept into Hitchcock country to reintroduce Hal Jordan’s old flame Carol Ferris and take a pop at education and discipline in the chilling tale of a supernal mutant in thrall to a doctrinaire little martinet.

Wrightson also inked #84’s staggering attack on out-of-control consumerism, shoddy cost-cutting and the seduction of bread and circuses in ‘Peril in Plastic’ before the comics world changed forever in the two-part saga ‘Snowbirds Don’t Fly’ and ‘They Say It’ll Kill Me…But They Won’t Say When!’

Depiction of drug abuse had been strictly proscribed in comicbooks since the advent of the Comics Code Authority, but by 1971 the elephant in the room was too big to ignore and both Marvel and DC addressed the issue in startlingly powerful tales that opened Pandora’s dirty box forever. When the Green Gladiators were drawn into conflict with a vicious heroin-smuggling gang Oliver Queen was horrified to discover his own sidekick had become an addict…

This sordid, nasty tale did more than merely preach or condemn, but actively sought to explain why young people turned to drugs, just what the consequences could be and even hinted at solutions older people and parents might not want to consider. Forty years on it might all seem a little naïve, but the earnest drive to do something and the sheer dark power of the story still delivers a stunning punch.

For all the critical acclaim and astonishingly innovative work done, sales of Green Lantern/Green Arrow were in a critical nosedive and nothing seemed able to stop the rot. Issue #87 featured two solo tales, the first of which ‘Beware My Power!’ introduced a bold new character to the DCU. John Stewart was a radical activist: an angry black man always spoiling for a fight and prepared to take guff from no-one. Hal Jordan was convinced the Guardians had erred when they appointed Stewart as Green Lantern’s official stand-in, but when a bigoted US presidential candidate tried to foment a race war the Emerald Gladiator was forced to change his tune.

Meanwhile bankrupted millionaire Oliver Queen was faced with a difficult decision when the retiring Mayor of Star City invited him to run for his office. ‘What Can One Man Do?’ written by Elliot Maggin, posed fascinating questions for the proud rebel by inviting him to join “the establishment” he despised, and do some lasting good. The decision was muddied by well-meaning advice from his fellow superheroes and the tragic consequences of a senseless street riot…

Issue #88 was a collection of reprints (not included here) and the series went out on an evocative, allegorical high note in #89 as ‘…And Through Him Save a World…’ (inked by Adams) pitted jobs and self-interest at Carol Ferris’ aviation company against clean air and pure streams in an naturalistic fable wherein an ecological Christ-figure made the ultimate sacrifice to save our planet and where all the Green Heroes’ power could not affect the outcome…

Although the groundbreaking series folded there, the heroics resumed a few months later in the back of The Flash #217 (August-September 1972). ‘The Killing of an Archer!’ began a run of short episodes which eventually led to Green Lantern regaining his own solo series. The O’Neil, Adams & Giordano thriller related how Green Arrow made a fatal mistake and accidentally ended the life of a criminal he was battling. Devastated, the broken swashbuckler abandoned his life and headed for the wilderness to atone or die…

The next episode ramped up the tension as a plot against the Archer was uncovered by Green Lantern and Black Canary in ‘Green Arrow is Dead!’ whilst ‘The Fate of an Archer’ saw Canary critically injured and GL track down Oliver Queen just in time to save her life…

Dick Giordano assumed full illustration duties with ‘Duel for a Death List!’ and the concluding ‘Death-Threat on Titan!’ (Flash #220-221) as the feature returned to its science fiction roots to concentrate solely on Green Lantern once more. In this pacy yarn aliens with an ancient link to the GL Corps began eliminating ring-wielders in preparation for a fantastic strike against the Guardians of the Universe.

Issue #223 continued the interstellar intrigue as an alien interloper attacked in ‘Doomsday… Minus Ten Minutes!’ whilst the next issue presented a clever, thoroughly grounded crime-caper ‘Yellow is a Dirty Little Color!’

In #226-Neal Adams drew his last GL tale ‘The Powerless Power Ring!’ before Dick Dillin, Giordano & Giacoia completed the trilogy in #227-228 with ‘My Ring… My Enemy!’ and ‘My Enemy… Myself!’ wherein atmospheric phenomena, bad mushrooms and invading aliens all combined to make the will-powered weapon a lethal liability.

Flash #230-231 featured ‘The Man From Yesterday!’ and ‘The Man of Destiny!’ (Dillin & Tex Blaisdell) as GL saved one of America’s Revolutionary heroes from aliens who had shanghaied him centuries previously, whilst #233-234 ‘World That Bet on War!’ & ‘And the Winner is Death!’ (Dillin, Terry Austin & Giordano) pitted the Emerald Avenger against gambling-crazed extraterrestrials who used soldiers from Earth history as their games-pieces…

With Flash #237-238 and 240-243 new art sensation Mike Grell came aboard for a six part saga that precipitated Green Lantern back into his own title. Beginning with ‘Let There Be Darkness!’ (inked by Bill Draut) the watchword was “cosmic” as the extra-galactic Ravagers of Olys undertook six destructive, unholy tasks in Green Lantern’s space sector. After thwarting their scheme to occlude the sun over planet Zerbon, destroying the photosynthetic inhabitants, the hero picked up a semi-sentient starfish sidekick in ‘The Day of the Falling Sky!’(Blaisdell inks) whilst preventing the artificial world of Vivarium from collapsing in upon itself.

‘The Floods Will Come!’ brought the Olys to planets Archos, where they attempted to submerge all the landmasses and drown the stone-age dwellers thriving there and Jotham, where the Ravagers almost extinguished the sun in ‘To Kill a Star!’

Earth was the target in ‘All Creatures Great and Small!’ as the Olys used their incredible technology to shrink all mammals but no sooner had Green Lantern negated that threat than the invaders’ de-evolutionary weapons were activated in ‘Dust of the Earth!’ (Austin inks).

Luckily a hominid GL was even more formidable than his Homo Sapiens self…

The buzz of the O’Neil/Grell epic assured Green Lantern of his own series once more, but before the re-launch Flash #345-346 presented one last two-part, back-up bonanza as Dillin & Austin illustrated the eerie mutation of vegetable-themed villain Jason Woodrue who transformed himself into a horrendous monster in ‘Perilous Plan of the Plant Master!’ before subjecting GL to ‘The Fury of the Floronic Man!‘

From challenging tales of social injustice back to plot-driven sagas of wit and courage, packed with a shining, optimistic sense of wonder and bristling with high-octane action, these evergreen adventures signalled the end of the Silver Age of Comics. Illustrated by some of the most revered names in the business, the exploits in this volume closed one chapter in the life of Green Lantern and opened the doors to today’s sleek and stellar sentinel of the stars.

© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Fantastic Four – Marvel Illustrated Books


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Joe Sinnott
(Marvel Illustrated Books)
ISBN: 0-939766-02-7

Here’s another look at how our industry’s gradual inclusion into mainstream literature began and one more pulse-pounding paperback package for action fans and nostalgia lovers.

One thing you could never accuse entrepreneurial maestro Stan Lee of was reticence, especially when promoting his burgeoning line of superstars. In the 1960s most adults, – including the people who worked there – considered comic-books a ghetto. Some disguised their identities whilst others were “just there until they caught a break.” Stan, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko had another idea – change the perception.

Whilst the artists pursued their imaginations waiting for the quality of the work to be noticed, Lee proactively pursued every opportunity to break down the slum walls: college lecture tours, animated TV shows, ubiquitous foreign franchising and of course getting their product onto the bookshelves of “real” book shops.

After a few abortive attempts in the 1960s to storm the shelves of bookstores and libraries, Marvel made a concerted and comprehensive effort to get their wares into more socially acceptable formats. As the 1970s closed, purpose-built graphic collections and a string of new prose adventures tailored to feed into their all-encompassing continuity began to appear.

Whereas the merits of the latter are a matter for a different review, the company’s careful reformatting of classic comics adventures were generally excellent; a superb series of primers and a perfect new venue to introduce fresh readers to their unique worlds.

The project was never better represented than in this classy little Kirby cornucopia of wonders with crisp black and white reproduction, sensitive editing, efficient picture-formatting and of course, three superb yarns from the very peak of Lee & Kirby’s magnificent partnership…

The first story ‘When Strikes the Silver Surfer!’ pitted the bludgeoning, tragic, jealousy-consumed Thing in unabashed, brutal battle with the Silver Surfer, an uncomprehending alien of incomprehensible power, trapped on Earth and every inch a “Stranger in a Strange Land”. When the gleaming godling turned to the Thing’s blind girlfriend Alicia Masters for tea and sympathy, her brooding boyfriend immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion…

Alicia was the pivotal actor in the follow-up two-part tale ‘What Lurks Behind theBeehive’ and the concluding ‘When Opens the Cocoon!’ a sinister saga of science gone mad which served to introduce a menace who would eventually become a major star in Marvel’s firmament.

The action opens as gifted sculptress Alicia is abducted to a technological wonderland where a band of rogue geniuses have genetically engineered the next phase in evolution but now risk losing control of their creation even before it can be properly born… As the Fantastic Four frantically searches for the seemingly helpless girl, she has penetrated the depths of the incredible hive and discovered the secret of the creature known only as “Him”.

Alicia’s gentle nature is the only thing capable of placating the nigh-omnipotent newborn creature (who would eventually evolve into the tragic cosmic voyager Adam Warlock), but as the FF finally arrive to save the day events spiral out of control and imminent disaster looms large…

It’s easy to assume that such resized, repackaged paperback book collections of early comics extravaganzas were just another Marvel cash-cow in their tried-and-tested “flood the marketplace” sales strategy – and maybe they were – but as someone who has bought these stories in most of the available formats over the years, I have to admit that these handy back-pocket versions are among my very favourites and ones I’ve re-read most – they’re just handier and more accessible – so why aren’t they are available as ebooks yet?
© 1966, 1967, 1982 Marvel Comics Group, a division of Cadence Industries Corporation. All rights reserved.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer: The Family Man


By Jamie Delano, Ron Tiner, Sean Phillips, Steve Pugh, Dean Motter & others (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-978-9

You’ve either heard of Hellblazer by now or you haven’t, so I’ll be brief. Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, John Constantine is a mercurial modern wizard, a morally ambivalent, self-serving trickster, neither friend nor foe to mankind and a hell-addicted chancer who plays with magic on his own terms for his own ends. Or so he’d have you think…

He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. He is nothing like Keanu Reeves. Sometimes though, he’s all there is between us and the void… the magician that is, not the actor…

After years of tackling primordial, unearthly horrors and all manner of thaumaturgic terrors John Constantine finally faced the greatest Bete Noir of modern times when he faced an all-too human killer in one of the most disturbing sagas of the series’ always controversial history…

Collecting the chilling extended epic from Hellblazer #23-24 and #28-33, the first inkling of the terror in store comes with ‘Larger Than Life’ (laid out by Dean Motter and illustrated by Ron Tiner) as the urban mage checks in with an old acquaintance and opens the door on a storm of blood and horror. Jehosophat “Jerry the Dealer” O’Flynn is a trader in arcane artefacts as well as more mundane commodities, but the day Constantine popped in his host was knee deep in novel trouble – in fact he was being hounded by creatures from literature who wanted him to come home…

Devotees of Jasper Fforde’s Bookworld series will feel they’re on familiar ground here but this sag is much more terror-tale than fantasy fable and first saw print in 1989…

Tiner assumed full artistic chores with the next issue as Constantine, living in O’Flynn’s empty house, encountered one of the trader’s nastiest customers. When an old gentleman came calling for his reserved merchandise the shifty sorcerer took a crafty peek and realised Jerry had been sourcing victims for ‘The Family Man’ – a serial killer who slaughters entire households.

What the killer gave Jerry was even more revolting…

In ‘Thicker Than Water’ (illustrated by Tiner and Kevin Walker) the trickster was visited by the ghosts of the Family Man’s latest foray, killed after Constantine handed Jerry’s research to that nice old man. Meanwhile retired policeman Sammy Morris has been thinking.

He’s been thinking he should have killed the man at Jerry’s place: so he taps a few old contacts on the Force and soon has all their files on John Constantine. Now he knows the unsuspecting man’s friends, his habits and that the troublesome loner has a father, sister and niece in Liverpool – a proper little family unit…

Whilst Constantine dealt in his own ruthless manner with the people profiting from the serial killer’s trades to O’Flynn, the monster paid a visit to Constantine’s kin with brutal, bloody results and the unsettled urban mage realised that he must be next on the “to-do” list…

Preparing himself for a completely unfamiliar kind of mortal combat, Constantine turned to old mate Chas Chandler, subsequently turning the cab driver into another target in ‘Sick at Heart’.

Hunted, horrified and knowing the rest of his family are next, the Hellblazer went undercover and on the run, dreading yet keenly anticipating a final confrontation with his relentless nemesis in ‘Fatality’ (Delano, Tiner and Mark Buckingham).

Sean Phillips illustrated the eerie aftermath of that final clash in ‘Mourning of the Magician’ as the surviving members of the Constantine clan gathered for the funeral and the exhausted, emotionally numbed wizard was forced to confront his troubled childhood whilst laying to rest one more unquiet spirit.

‘New Tricks’ is a savage, darkly amusing chiller from guest writer Dick Foreman and artist Steve Pugh as Constantine was dragged into a nasty scrap when a series of disappearances led to a reincarnated feral horror in a junkyard and ‘Sundays are Different’ ends this volume on an uncharacteristically gentle note as Delano, Motter & Mark Pennington provided a surreal moment of rest and contemplation when Constantine travelled to the strangest place he’d ever known before coming back to Earth with a soft bump and a refreshed attitude. Good thing too, because there’s horror aplenty still in store…

Hellblazer has always held up a dark mirror to the times it was written in, whilst somehow consistently maintaining a timeless quality of sublime shock and horror that no fan of suspense could ever resist. If you haven’t experienced the truly British taste of sour fear, sardonic whimsy and nihilistic aplomb under bleak, unrelenting adversity there’s no better time to start. He’s ready when you are…

© 1989, 1990, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon 1952


By Milton Caniff (Checker Book Publishing Group)
ISBN: 978-1-933160-55-9

Steve Canyon began on 13th January 1947, after a canny campaign to boost public anticipation following Milt Caniff’s very conspicuous resignation from his previous masterpiece Terry and the Pirates. Caniff, master of suspense and used to manipulating reader attention, didn’t show his new hero until four days into the first adventure – and then only in a ‘file photograph’. The primed and ready readership first met Stevenson Burton Canyon, bomber pilot, medal-winning war-hero, Air-Force flight instructor and latterly, independent airline charter operator in the first Sunday colour page, on 19th January 1947.

Almost instantly Caniff was working at the top of his game, producing material both exotic and familiar and, as always dead on the money in terms of the public zeitgeist and taste. Dropping his hero into the exotic climes he had made his own on Terry, Caniff modified that world based on real world events, but this time the brooding unspoken menace was Communism not fascism. Banditry and duplicity, of course, never changed, no matter who was nominally running the show…

Caniff was simply being contemporary, but he was savvy enough to realise that with the Cold War “hotting up” in Korea, Yankees were going to be seen as a spy in many countries, so he made that a part of the narrative. When Canyon officially re-enlisted the strip became to all intents and purposes a War feature…

This sixth volume covers the period April 9th 1952 to May 14th 1953 and shows how, as the Korean conflict stuttered to a weary impasse, Caniff began reinstating characters, plots and situations he had temporarily shelved when the fighting began. Now, his charismatic cast were edging into another post-war world…

Steve Canyon stories seldom had a recognisable beginning or end and the narrative continually flowed and followed upon itself, but for convenience the publishers have broken the saga into generally discrete tales which begin here with ‘Operation Stray’ which ran from April 9th to July 24th 1952. Following Steve’s tumultuous reunion with always out-of-reach true-love Summer Olsen the dutiful old warrior is hastily dispatched to the far North to shepherd a top-secret salvage joint-mission for the US Navy and Air Force.

Plucky Nimbus Neil lived with her meteorologist father on isolated Reynard Island in the Aleutians, where she taught Inuit children and read too much poetry. One night she spotted a Soviet secret weapon crash into the chilly seas, precipitating a desperate scheme to covertly retrieve the device before the Communists caught wise and started their own recovery plan. Further complications involved the lonely lass being irresistibly drawn to surly seaman Lieutenant Arthur Forge but being unwilling to desert her dad and educational dependents – and then the crafty Commies turned up…

The soap opera shufflings and Cold War shenanigans quickly transformed into a ruthless kidnap drama and shooting match which ended in tragedy and disaster…

As the uncharacteristically downbeat drama concluded Steve was frantic to reconnect with Summer, whom he’d abandoned to undertake this last mission. Determined to get back to her he cadged a ride with a motley crew of voyagers on bush pilot Tern’s charter plane which dropped him into a thoroughly different kind of adventure in ‘The Deep Woods’ (July 25th – December 11th).

When the plane crashed over rough country Canyon saved obnoxious businessman Roy G. Himmerskorn and his world-weary, abused and neglected spouse, scandalous good-time girl Miss Mizzou, in time to be “rescued” by charismatic bandit “Bonbon” Caramel. Of course, the murderous woodsman had heard that somebody on the plane had stolen diamonds on them, so his solicitousness wasn’t exactly a charitable act…

There’s a plethora of twists and turns in this sharp thriller beyond the criminal element and when morally uptight Mr. Himmerskorn makes an unwelcome play for the tarnished Miss Mizzou the trek out of the arboreal wilderness takes a decidedly nasty turn with spectacular consequences…

Meanwhile, Summer Olsen has also been forced into another tight corner and has taken a job with Steve’s nemesis Copper Calhoun… a deal with the devil that will have far-reaching repercussions…

With the “will-she, won’t-she” marriage to Summer on indefinite hiatus the lovesick, shell-shocked aviator took a position at an Airbase in definite need of his unique brand of problem solving.

‘Indian Cape’ ran from December 12th 1952 to May 14th 1953 and found newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Canyon trying to explain the price of vigilance to an obstreperous community of NIMBY-Americans (Not In My Back Yard) who fully appreciated the protection of jet fighters – as long as they didn’t fly over their heads or make any noise.

The happy townsfolk of friendly Middle America weren’t too keen on servicemen hanging around their wives and daughters, either.

As if the bristling animosity wasn’t enough to test Canyon’s coping skills, hotshot flyboys Pipper the Piper and Murky Murphy seemed hell-bent on exacerbating every situation with their high-jinks, a generation-gap was growing between Indian Cape’s kids and elders, town businessmen were trying to blackmail the Air Force and military contractor Calhoun Industries seemed to be involved in some underhand, if not criminal, activity. To smooth things over the company sent in their own trouble-shooter, Summer Olsen…

This skilful passion-play perfectly shows Caniff’s sublime ability to delineate character and the art is some of the most subtly refined of his later period. This sharp and brilliantly enacted drama firmly put the series back on its original narrative tracks and there was even better to come…

Most cartoonists – or workers in any field of artistic endeavour – go to their graves never attaining the giddy heights wherein they are universally associated with a signature piece of unequivocally supreme work. How incredible then when somebody achieves that perfect act of creation, not once but twice – and does so seven days a week for 64 years? Enticing, enthralling, exotic, action-packed and emotionally charged, Steve Canyon is a masterpiece of graphic narrative: a full-immersion thrill and a passport to the halcyon best bits of another age. Comics just don’t get better than this.

© Checker Book Publishing Group 2006, an authorized collection of works © Ester Parsons Caniff Estate 1952. All characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of the Ester Parsons Caniff Estate. All rights reserved.

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Asterix and the Big Fight, Asterix in Britain and Asterix and the Normans


By René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo, translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Orion)
ISBNs: 978-0-7528-6616-1, 978-0-7528-6618-5 and 978-0-7528-6622-2

Asterix the Gaul is one of France’s most exciting and rewarding contributions to global culture: a cunning little champion of the underdog who resisted the iniquities, experienced the absurdities and observed the myriad wonders of Julius Caesar’s Roman Empire with brains, bravery and a magic potion which bestowed incredible strength, speed and vitality.

One of the most-read comics in the world, his chronicles have been translated into more than 100 languages; with 8 animated and 3 live-action movies, assorted games and even into his own theme park (Parc Astérix, near Paris). More than 325 million copies of 34 Asterix books have sold worldwide, making Goscinny & Uderzo France’s bestselling international authors.

The diminutive, doughty hero was created by two of the art-form’s greatest masters, René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo who were already masters of the form and at the peak of their creative powers. Although their perfect partnership ended in 1977 with the death of the terrifying prolific scripter Goscinny, the creative wonderment still continues – albeit at a slightly reduced rate of rapidity.

Asterix launched in 1959 in the very first issue of Pilote (with a teaser page appearing a week earlier in a promotional issue #0). The feature was a massive hit from the start. Initially Uderzo continued working with Charlier on Michel Tanguy, (Les Aventures de Tanguy et Laverdure), but soon after the first epic escapade was collected as Astérix le gaulois in 1961 it became clear that the series would demand most of his time – especially as the incredible Goscinny never seemed to require rest or run out of ideas (after the writer’s death the publication rate dropped from two books per year to one volume every three to five). By 1967 the strip occupied all Uderzo’s time and attention. In 1974 the partners formed Idéfix Studios to fully exploit their inimitable creation and when Goscinny passed away three years later Uderzo was convinced to continue the adventures as writer and artist, producing a further ten volumes since then.

Like all great literary classics the premise works on two levels: younger readers enjoy an action-packed, lavishly illustrated comedic romp of sneaky, bullying baddies getting their just deserts whilst wrinklier readers enthuse over the dry, pun-filled, sly and witty satire, enhanced for English speakers by the brilliantly light touch of master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who played no small part in making the indomitable Gaul so palatable to the Anglo-Saxon world.

The stories were set on the tip of Uderzo’s beloved Brittany coast in the year 50BC, where a small village of redoubtable warriors and their families resisted all efforts of the Roman Empire to complete their conquest of Gaul. Unable to defeat these Horatian hold-outs, the Empire resorted to a policy of containment and the little seaside hamlet is perpetually hemmed in by the heavily fortified garrisons of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

The Gauls don’t care: they daily defy the world’s greatest military machine by just going about their everyday affairs, protected by a magic potion provided by the resident druid and the shrewd wits of a rather diminutive dynamo and his simplistic best friend…

Asterix and the Big Fight first ran in Pilote #261-302 in 1964 (originally entitled Le Combat des chefs – ‘The Battle of the Chiefs’) and saw another Roman scheme to overwhelm the hirsute hold-outs when Totorum’s commander Centurion Nebulus Nimbus and his aide-de-camp Felonius Caucus tried to use an old Gaulish tradition to rid themselves of the rebels.

The Big Fight is a hand-to-hand duel between chiefs with the winner becoming ruler of the loser’s tribe. All the Romans have to do is find a puppet, have him defeat fat, old Vitalstatistix and their perennial problem goes away for good. Luckily just such a man is Cassius Ceramix: chief of Linoleum, a hulking brute and, most importantly, a keen lover of all things Roman…

Even such a cunning plan is doomed to failure whilst Vitalstatistix uses magic potion to increase his strength, but what if the Druid Getafix is taken out first?

When the Romans attempt to abduct the old mage, Obelix (who had fallen into a vat of potion as a baby and grew into a genial, permanently superhuman, eternally hungry goliath) accidentally bounces a large menhir off the druid’s bonce, causing amnesia and a touch of insanity…

Although not quite what was intended, the incapacitation of Getafix emboldens the plotters and the Gallo-Roman Ceramix’s challenge is quickly delivered and reluctantly accepted. With no magic potion, honour at stake and the entire village endangered, desperate measures are called for. Asterix and Obelix consult the unconventional (even for druids) Psychoanalytix – who specialises in mental disorders – and Vitalstatistix is forced to diet and begin hard physical training!

Unfortunately when Obelix shows Psychoanalytix how Getafix sustained his injury the net result is two crazy druids, who promptly begin a bizarre bout of magical one-upmanship. As the crucial combat begins and Vitalstatistix valiantly battles his hulking, traitorous nemesis, Getafix accidentally cures himself, which is lucky as the treacherous Nebulus Nimbus and Felonius Caucus have no intention of losing and have brought along their Legions to crush the potion-less Gauls, should Ceramix let them down…

Manic and deviously cutting in its jibes at the psychiatric profession, this wildly slapstick romp is genuinely laugh-a-minute and one of the very best Goscinny tales.

Following the established pattern, after a “home” adventure our heroes went globe-trotting in their next exploit – although not very far…

Asterix in Britain originated in 1965 (Pilote #307-334) and followed Caesar’s conquest of our quirky country. It was never a fair fight: Britons always stopped in the afternoon for a cup of hot water and a dash of milk and never at the weekend, so those were the only times the Romans attacked…

After the conquest, in Cantium (Kent) one village of embattled Britons were holding out against the invaders and they had sent Anticlimax to Gaul where his cousin Asterix had successfully resisted the Roman for absolutely ages. Always happy to oblige the Gauls whip up a barrel of magic potion and the wily warrior and Obelix accompany Anticlimax on the return trip. Unfortunately, during a brief brouhaha with a Roman galley in the channel, the invaders discover the mission and begin a massive hunt for the rebels and their precious cargo…

As the trio make their perilous way to the village in Cantium, the entire army of occupation is hard on their heels and it isn’t long before the barrel goes missing…

Simply stuffed with good natured jibes about British cooking, fog, the Tower of Londinium, warm beer, council estates, the still un-dug Channel tunnel, boozing, the Beatles (it was the swinging Sixties, after all), sport, fishing and our national beverage, this action-packed frenetic chase yarn is possibly the funniest of all the Asterix books… if you’re British and possess our rather unique sense of humour, don’tcha know…?

Asterix and the Normans debuted in Pilote #340-361 in 1966 and showed how Vikings (who would eventually colonise parts of France as Northmen or “Normans”) first encountered our heroic Gauls and learned some valuable lessons…

The action opens with Chief Vitalstatistix reluctantly taking charge of his spoiled teenaged nephew Justforkix, intending to make a man of the flashy brat from Lutetia (Paris). The country girls go for his style and modern music (spoofing Elvis Presley in the original and the Rolling Stones in the English translation) and the lad’s glib tongue even convinces the Bard Cacofonix that his “unique” musical talent would be properly appreciated in the big city…

Meanwhile a shipload of Vikings have fetched up on the beach, looking for the answer to a knotty question. Rough, tough and fierce, the Scandinavians have no concept of fear, but since that have heard that the emotion can make people fly they’re determined not to leave until they know all about experiencing terror…

They’ve met their match in the Gaulish villagers, but Justforkix is a different matter. The once-cool lad is a big ball of cowardy-custardness when confronted by the Normans, so the burly barbarians promptly snatch him, insisting he teach them all about that incomprehensible emotion…

Canny Asterix knows fighting the Normans is a waste of time but reasons the only way to get rid of them is to teach them what fear is like. If violence won’t work then what’s need is something truly horrible… but Cacofonix and his assorted musical instruments are already on their way to fame and fortune in Lutetia. If only Obelix and Dogmatix can find him and save the day…

Daft and delicious this superbly silly tale abounds with comedy combat and confusion; a perfect mix of gentle generational jibing and slaphappy slapstick with a twist ending to boot.

Outrageously fast-paced, funny and magnificently illustrated by a supreme artist at the very peak of his form, these historical high jinks cemented Asterix’s growing reputation as a world treasure and as these albums are available in a wealth of differing formats and editions – all readily available from a variety of retail and internet vendors or even your local charity shop – there’s no reason why should miss out on all the fun.

Be warned though, that if pure continuity matters only Orion, the current British publisher, has released the nearly 40 albums in chronological order – and are in the process of re-releasing the tales in Omnibus editions; three tales per tome.

Asterix is sublime comics storytelling and if you’re still not au fait with these Village People you must be as Crazy as the Romans ever were…
© 1964-1965 Goscinny/Uderzo. Revised English translation © 2004 Hachette. All rights reserved.

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Isle of 100,000 Graves


By Fabien Vehlmann & Jason, coloured by Hubert and translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-442-9

Multi-award winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been likened to the legendary René Goscinny. He’s best known for the wonderful Green Manor series (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, the as-yet-untranslated Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti) and Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont. In 2011 Vehlmann assumed the writing reins on legendary series Spirou.

Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterrøy: born in Molde, Norway in 1965 and an overnight international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won that year’s Sproing Award (Norway’s biggest comics prize). He won another Sproing in 2001 for the series Mjau Mjau and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels. He is a global star among the cognoscenti and has won many major awards from all over the planet.

Now in his first collaboration with a writer, Jason adds his uniquely laconic anthropomorphic art-stylings to a surprisingly edgy, deliciously dark and blackly comedic tale of sundered families, sinister secrets and bombastic buccaneers.

Holding his signature surreality in check, Jason perfectly captures the odd tale of homely little girl Gwenny who leaves her appalling mother to search for her long-lost father: gone for many a year in search of pirate treasure.

The self-assured and devious lass tricks her way onto a pirate vessel, outwits the murderous corsairs long enough to reach the eponymous Isle of 100,000 Graves (even tricking one of the scurrilous brotherhood into becoming her unwilling protector) and then abandons them to a horrendous fate as the uncanny denizens of the lost land attack…

The island is home to a cult of torturers and killers called the Hangman’s Academy: an institution dedicated to preserving the traditions and teaching the myriad skills necessary to becoming a top-flight inquisitor and officially-sanctioned executioner. Moreover, the scary school has recently run out of live specimens for maiming and murdering…

As Gwenny single-mindedly searches for signs of her missing dad, she meets Tobias, a killer-in-training sadly out of place amongst his fellow students. With his aid she survives incalculable horrors before freeing the surviving pirates as a callous distraction. When they escape a colossal battle with the hooded executioner ensues…

Gwenny, however, is not distracted: she’s found the answer to her questions…

Mordantly hilarious, this superbly cynical fable rattles along in captivating fashion: a perfect romp for older kids and a huge treat for fans looking for something a little bit different…

Jason’s work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, using his beastly repertory company to gently pose eternal questions about basic human needs in a soft but relentless quest for answers. That you don’t ever notice the deep stuff because of the clever gags and safe, familiar “funny-animal” characters should indicate just how good a cartoonist he is. His collaboration here with the sly and sardonic Vehlmann has produced a genuine classic that we’ll all be talking about for years to come…

© Jason and Fabien Vehlmann. All Right reserved.

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Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips volume 2 1936-1937


By Roy Crane (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-391-0

The comics industry evolved from newspaper strips and these circulation boosting pictorial features were, until relatively recently, utterly ubiquitous, hugely popular with the public and thus regarded as invaluable by publishers who used them as an irresistible sales weapon to guarantee consumer loyalty, increase sales and  ensure profits. Many a scribbler became a millionaire thanks to their ability to draw pictures and spin a yarn…

It’s virtually impossible for us to today to understand the overwhelming power of the comic strip in America (and the wider world) from the Great Depression to the end of World War II. With no television, broadcast radio far from universal and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most folk, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. “The Funnies” were the most common recreation for millions who were well served by a fantastic variety and incredible quality.

From the very start humour was paramount; that’s why we call them “Funnies” or “Comics”, after all. From these gag and stunt beginnings, blending silent movie slapstick, outrageous antics, fabulous fantasy and vaudeville shows, came a thoroughly unique entertainment hybrid: Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs.

Debuting on April 21st 1924 Washington Tubbs II was a comedic gag-a-day strip not dissimilar from confirmed family favourite Harold Teen (by Crane’s friend and contemporary Carl Ed).

Tubbs was a diminutive, ambitious young shop clerk when the strip began, but gradually he moved into mock-heroics, then through harm-free action into full-blown, light-hearted, rip-roaring adventure series with the introduction of pioneering he-man, moody swashbuckling prototype Captain Easy in the landmark episode for 6th May, 1929.

As the tales became increasingly more exotic and thrill-drenched the globe-trotting little dynamo clearly needed a sidekick who could believably handle the combat side of things, and thus in the middle of a European war Tubbs liberated a mysterious fellow American from a jail cell and history was made. Before long the mismatched pair were inseparable comrades; travelling the world, hunting treasure, fighting thugs and rescuing a bevy of startlingly comely maidens in distress…

The two-fisted, bluff, completely capable and utterly dependable, down-on-his-luck “Southern Gentleman” was something not seen before in comics, a raw, square-jawed hunk played straight rather than the buffoon or music hall foil of such classic serials as Hairsbreadth Harry or Desperate Desmond. Moreover Crane’s seductively simple blend of cartoon exuberance and compelling page-design was a far more accessible and powerful medium for action story-telling than the static illustrative style favoured by artists like Hal Foster (just starting to make waves on the new Tarzan Sunday page).

Tubbs and Easy were as exotic and thrilling as the Ape Man but rattled along like the tempestuous Popeye, full of vim, vigour and vinegar, as attested to by a close look at the early work of the would-be cartoonists who followed the strip with avid intensity: Floyd Gottfredson, Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner and especially young Joe Shuster…

After a couple of abortive attempts starring his little hero, Crane bowed to the inevitable and created a full colour Sunday page dedicated to his increasingly popular hero-for-hire. Captain Easy debuted on 30th July 1933, in madcap, two-fisted exploits (originally) set before his fateful meeting with Tubbs.

Following a foreword from historian, archival publisher and critic Rick Norwood, ‘Stealing Color From Black and White’ a fascinating extended introduction by award-winning cartoonist Paul Pope and ‘Three Strip Monte’ a brief history of Crane’s career gambles by legendary strip historian Bill Blackbeard, this second volume (of four) really begins with ‘Gold of the Frozen North’ as the dour, sour soldier of fortune reaches the chilly snow-swept mining boom-town of Bugaboo.

Exhausted after his part in the war between Nikkateena and Woopsydasia (as seen in Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips volume 1) all Easy wanted was a meal and a bed, but his innate chivalry defending a bar-girl’s honour soon had him on the run from Nikky Eskota, the savage gang-boss who ran the town. He then compound the error by helping beautiful Gizzy escape the brute’s amorous attentions and escorting down the frozen river to trade her fathers’ diamonds.

Of course the wicked thug dispatched an army of heavies to stop them…

This spectacular icy wilderness adventure ran from 8th December 1935 to 19th April 1936, after which ‘The Hook-Nosed Bandit’ (4th April -8th August 1936) found the footloose hero heading to the trouble-soaked nation of Hitaxia where his penchant for trouble soon branded him a wanted criminal fugitive and landed him in the midst of a civil war. As usual a pretty girl was the immediate cause of his many woes and the method of his eventual escape… that and the advent of a bombastic new companion – unconventional millionaire inventor Mr. Belfry.

With Easy and Belfry’s daughter languishing in a Hitaxian jail the sagacious entrepreneur acted to end the crisis in unique manner with a handy shipment of pigs…

When the Belfry’s returned to America, Easy accompanied them only to become embroiled in a whirlwind cops ‘n’ robbers thriller as mobsters and businessmen alike tried to obtain by every means fair and foul ‘The Diamond Formula’ (16th August – 13th December 1936): the inventor’s new process for creating gems from coal or sugar…

After this wild and woolly New York set romp, Crane opted to take the theme into wholly different territory as Easy takes a mild-mannered old daydreamer from Belfry’s Gentleman’s Club on the Screwball comedy of ‘Dinwiddy’s Adventure’ – a fast-paced rollercoaster romp of intrigue, suspense and multiple practical jokes, with a twist and turn on every gloriously rendered page first published between 13th December 1936 and March 14th 1937…

The Club also provided the maguffin for ‘Lost at Sea’ (March 21st – May 9th 1937) as hen-pecked and harassed Benjamin Barton hired the laconic Southern Gentleman to engineer his escape from his ghastly social climbing wife and wastrel children. Barton even left them all his money: the rattled old goof simply wanted peace and quiet and perhaps a little fishing. Despite all Easy’s best efforts he didn’t get it…

Clearly on a roll with the emphasis on comedy Crane then introduced one of his wackiest characters in ‘The King of Kleptomania’ (16th May – November 14th 1937), as an audacious, freeloading, lazy, good-for-nothing hobo actually turned out to be Kron Prinz Hugo Maximillian von Hooten Tooten; the audacious, freeloading, lazy, good-for-nothing spendthrift heir to a European nation who was paid by the Dictator of Kleptomania to stay away and not seek his rightful throne.

Saving the bum’s life in America only caused the lovable leech to attach himself to Easy, but after going through his bi-annual stipend of $25, 000 in mere days “Hoot” decided to welsh on his deal with the despot and take back his country. Against his better judgement and to his lasting regret, Captain Easy goes along for the ride and is soon knee deep in ineptitude, iniquity and revolution…

With the war over Easy is stranded in Ruritanean Europe and stumbles into an espionage plot culminating in a welcome reunion and ‘The Firing Squad’ (21st November 1937 – 15th May 1938). Framed and jailed again Easy is to be shot so it’s luckily that the captain of the aforementioned executioners is his long-lost pal Wash Tubbs!

Risking life and diminutive limb to save his old pal, Wash also rescues sultry spitfire Ruby Dallas who promptly entangles them in her desperate tale of woe. Ruby was unfortunate enough to have witnessed a murder in America and has been on the run ever since. The killer was a prominent millionaire with too much to lose so he’s been hunting her ever since, but once the trio escape murderous cutthroats, slavers and assassins they soon settle his hash…

When he began the Sunday page Crane’s creativity went into overdrive: an entire page and vibrant colours to play with clearly stirred his imagination and the results were wild visual concoctions which achieved a timeless immediacy and made each instalment a unified piece of sequential art. The effect of the pages can be seen in so many comic and strips since – even in the works of such near-contemporaries as Hergé and giants in waiting like Charles Schulz.

These pages were a clearly as much of joy to create as to read. In fact, the cited reason for Crane surrendering the Sunday strip to his assistant Les Turner in 1937 was NEA Syndicate’s abrupt demand that all its strips be henceforward produced in a rigid panel-structure to facilitate them being cut up and re-pasted as local editors dictated. You can actually see the day that happened in this volume.

Whilst the basic drawing of Crane and Turner is practically indistinguishable the moment when the layout and composition were shackled stands out like a painful sore thumb. Crane just walked away from his playground, concentrating on the daily feature, until in 1943, contract expired he left the NEA to create the aviation adventure strip Buz Sawyer.

In this selection Roy Crane’s irrepressible humour comes perfectly into focus and this enchanting serial abounds with breezy light-hearted banter, hilarious situations and outright farce – a sure-fire formula modern cinema directors still plunder to this day.

Easy is Indiana Jones, Flynn (the Librarian) Carsen and Jack (Romancing the Stone) Cotton all at once and clearly set the benchmark for all of them.

This superb hardback and colossal second collection is the perfect means of discovering or rediscovering Crane’s rip-snorting, pulse-pounding, exotically racy adventure trailblazer. The huge pages in this volume (almost 14 ½ by 10½ inches or 21x14cm for the younger, metric crowd) provide the perfect stage to absorb and enjoy the classic tale-telling of a master raconteur.

This is storytelling of impeccable quality: unforgettable, spectacular and utterly irresistible. These tales rank alongside the best of Hergé, Tezuka, Toth and Kirby and unarguably fed the imaginations of them all as he still does for today’s comics creators. Now that you have the chance to experience the strips that inspired the giants of our art form, how can you possibly resist?

Captain Easy strips © 2011 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books, all other material © the respective copyright holders. All rights