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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

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Ultimate Comics Captain America


By Jason Aaron & Ron Garney (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-489-8

In 2000, when Marvel hived off portions of their established continuity into a separate, darker, grittier universe more relevant to the video game-playing, movie-watching 21st century readers than the 1960s Lee/Kirby/Ditko ongoing monolith, they started with the most popular characters – Spider-Man and the X-Men – only gradually adding analogues for the remaining characters and trademarks.

Even when the Mighty Avengers finally appeared, renamed the Ultimates in 2002, readers were only sparingly brought up to speed on the assorted back-stories of the alternative heroes and villains – including a remarkably familiar yet staggeringly different “Living Legend of World War II”.

Frail Steve Rogers still underwent radical experimentation to become America’s first super-soldier and after a brief stellar career as the living symbol of his war-beleaguered nation, disappeared in a blazing explosion. He was resurrected from a block of ice in modern times and re-assumed his place at the forefront of masked heroes. However, this Sentinel of Liberty was no costumed boy-scout, but rather a deadly and remorseless warrior: a master strategist and supremely skilled street-fighter always ready to apply the ultimate sanction. In short: a conscienceless killer.

In Ultimate Comics Captain America the eternal soldier is on the trail of rogue states seeking to duplicate the super-soldier serum which created him at the behest of his new government masters, when he is captured and subjected to horrendous torture and indoctrination by a living ghost…

Whilst Steve Rogers slept in the ice, America continued its march to global dominance and when the Vietnam conflict escalated the Military sought to recreate Captain America by transforming starry-eyed patriotic kid Frank Simpson into a living embodiment of the American war machine…

Tragically Vietnam was a different kind of war and Simpson (an iteration of the deeply troubled villain Nuke created by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli in Daredevil: Born Again) broke under the weight of the dirty jobs and corrupt missions he was assigned to carry out. One day he walked into the jungle and was never seen again…

Now Simpson is back and has clearly discovered how to duplicate the serum that empowers him; selling it to North Korea, Iran and anybody else dedicated to the downfall of the “the Land of the Free”…

Ignoring official orders to stand down, Steve Rogers hunts his successor – who has already thoroughly defeated him once – only to stumble on the USA’s greatest nightmare. Overmatched, outfought and easily captured by Simpson, Rogers is subjected to a terrifying re-education program that opens his eyes to what his country became whilst he slept and the kind of nation Captain America now stands for…

The stark, savage and nihilistically modern Ultimates Comic universe is well-stocked with dark-and-gritty doppelgangers of the gleaming pantheon crafted by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but since its inception at the turn of the century, the imprint has resolved into something which can easily stand on its own merits, as seen in this wonderful tale (originally published as Ultimate Comics Captain America #1-4).

With the impending imminent release of the latest Captain America movie, a large number of graphic novel collections starring the Sentinel of Liberty have been commissioned and this brutal, beautiful fable of frustrated idealism and corrupted patriotism is one of the very best of recent vintage, in this, that or any other universe.

Written by Jason (Scalped) Aaron, revisiting the source material of his Vertigo classic The Other Side and stunningly illustrated by Ron Garney, whose art on the mainstream hero (see Captain America: Operation Rebirth) returned the Star-Spangled Avenger to dizzying heights of popularity after decades in the doldrums, Ultimate Comics Captain America is a breathtaking, thought-provoking examination of duty and honour and a fabulously entertaining rollercoaster ride of action and adventure for older readers. It’s also a gloriously accessible tale for anybody approaching the character for the very first time…

Tense, compelling, morally challenging and explosively cathartic, this saga of conjoined yet eternally antagonistic ideologies in savage confrontation is absolute comics gold of the very highest quality: challenging, compelling and wildly satisfying.

™ and © 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Congress of the Animals


By Jim Woodring (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-437-5

As with every true art form, some practitioners in the world of comics simply defy easy categorisation and their works are beyond most reviewers and critics’ skills (mine certainly). Some are just so pedestrian or so mind-numbingly bad that one simply can’t face writing about them. Others are so emphatically wonderful that no collection of praise and analysis can do them justice.

At the pinnacle of the funnybook pyramid is Jim Woodring, in a position he has maintained for years and clearly appears capable of holding for years to come. Woodring’s work is challenging, spiritual, philosophical, funny, beautiful and extremely scary. Moreover, even after reading that sentence you will have absolutely no idea of what awaits you the first time you read any of it, or indeed – even if you’re a long term devotee – when opening a new silent masterpiece novel such as Congress of the Animals. Cartoonist, Fine Artist, toy-maker and artistic Renaissance Man Jim Woodring’s eccentric career has delighted far too small an audience since his first mini-comics in 1980. No matter that you may have avidly adored his groundbreaking Fantagraphics magazine series Jim (1986); its nominal spin-off Frank (of which the latest volume Weathercraft won The Stranger 2010 Genius Award for Literature), Tantalizing Stories, Seeing Things or the more mainstream features such as his Star Wars and Aliens tales for Dark Horse, you will still have no idea how you will respond to his next work.

Woodring grows rather than constructs surreal, abstract, wild, rational, primal cartooning: a clean-lined, solidly ethereal, mannered blend of woodblock prints, Robert Crumb, Dreamscapes, religious art and monstrous phantasmagoria. His stories are a logical, progressional narrative – usually a non-stop chase from one invention to the next – clouded with multiple layers of meaning but totally devoid of speech or words, supremely dependent on the intense involvement of the reader as fully active participant.

Congress of the Animals is another vertiginous vehicle following dog-faced Frank and his regular crew of irregular types in a manic fable of dangerous arrogance, casual self-deceit and painful reparations, insane exploration of dire and dreadful alternate dimensions and even the first inklings of what might one day be True Love and always without a single word of dialogue or description. Here, the drawn image is always king…

Clearly Woodring’s work is not to everyone’s taste or sensibilities – otherwise why would you need me to plug his work – and as always, his drawings have the perilous propensity of repeating like cucumber and making one jump long after you’ve put the book down, but he is an undisputed master of graphic narrative and an innovator always making new art to challenge us and himself. And, of course, he makes us love it and leaves us hungry for more…

All art-forms need such creators and this glorious hardback monochrome tome could well change your reading habits for life.

Go on, aren’t you tempted, tantalized or terrified yet? What about curious, then…?

© 2011 Jim Woodring. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Grimjack: Demon Knight


By John Ostrander & Flint Henry with an introduction by Roger Zelazny (First Publishing)
ISBN: 978-0-91541-970-8

Grimjack originally appeared during the American comic industry’s last great flourishing in the 1980’s. Created by playwright John Ostrander and Young Turk Tim Truman as a back-up feature for Mike Grell’s Starslayer, the series ran in issues #10-18 before graduating to its own title at First Comics. It almost survived the company’s demise more than a decade later. In a crowded marketplace, and almost irrespective of who was doing the drawing, this hard-boiled-detective/fantasy action strip was a watchword for quality entertainment.

The ’80s were a fantastic time for comics creators and consumers. It was like an entire new industry opening up within the original, moribund mainstream; the proliferation of the Direct Sales market and dedicated specialist retail outlets allowed new companies to start experimenting with format and content, whilst punters had a bit of spare cash to play with. Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally dissipated – the country was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be an actual art-form…

Consequently many new companies began competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown accustomed – or resigned – to getting their four-colour kicks from DC, Marvel Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material had been slowly creeping in but by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse and First among others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads into traditional markets.

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Chicago-based First Comics was an early frontrunner, with Frank Brunner’s Warp, Starslayer and Jon Sable from Mike Grell and Howard Chaykin’s iconic American Flagg!, as well as an impressive line of comicbooks targeting a more sophisticated audience.

In 1984 they followed Marvel and DC’s lead with a line of impressive, European-styled over-sized graphic albums featuring new, out-of-the-ordinary comics sagas (see Time2, Time Beavers, Mazinger or Beowulf to see just how bold, broad and innovative the material could be)…

John Gaunt is a perpetually reincarnating warrior-mercenary calling himself Grimjack: a combination private eye, Ronin and problem-solver-of-last-resort, just scratching out a living in the fantastic pan-dimensional city of Cynosure. This incalculably vast metropolis intersects with every place in the multiverse at one time or another and the strangest of the strange inhabit its core regions.

All manner of beings constantly rub shoulders (if they have them) with gods, monsters, robots and things less quantifiable in a cruelly capitalistic commercial wonderland where the laws of physics can change from house to house but the law of supply and demand is utterly inviolable…

In his long lives Gaunt has been many things, but first and foremost he is a hero of the Demon Wars – a period in Cynosure’s history when the city overlapped the assorted regions of Hell and unspeakably vile devils from a host of infernos ran amok in the metropolis until the valiant Demon Knights drove them off forever.

Now, in this all-new tale, Gaunt is hired by the Office of the Chronost-Marshall to find who has interfered with the city’s chronology, unleashing a devastating time-storm. Surly, rebellious and unpleasant, Gaunt is still the only operative tough and crazy enough to brave the fourth dimensional vortex and shut down the maelstrom. Unfortunately, he never reckoned on stumbling into his own tragic past and meeting again his one true love…

As the Demon Wars reached their crescendo long ago a sorely wounded John Gaunt stumbled into a paradise dimension named Pdwyr and found brief bliss with the glorious, pacifist princess Rhian, before his companion Major Lash betrayed the entire race to the infernal hordes and watched their paradise become a last bastion of Hell…

Now Gaunt has arrived in Pdwyr once more – just after his earlier self departed – and faces the ultimate temptation: changing history to save the only woman he ever loved and the only place he ever felt at peace, or letting events unfold again in all their horrific predestined brutality…

Whatever he decides will be wrong…

The combination of cynical dry wit, mordant, bitter-edged fantasy and spectacularly imaginative action made Grimjack one of the best series of the era and the ghastly human tragedy of this epic aside is a treat no comics fan should miss. Moreover, this graphic narrative, beautifully illustrated by Flint Henry and colourist Martin Thomas, is designed with new readers in mind so there’s no reason for anyone to avoid a brutally magical encounter with a genuine original of the genre(s)…
© 1989 First Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: Little Snow White, The Three Sluggards & The Shoemaker & the Elves


Adapted by David Wenzel & Douglas Wheeler (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-130-8

The immortal German folktales gathered by historians, philologists and lexicographers Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm have been told to enthralled generations of children all over the planet for nearly two centuries – they were first collected and published in 1812 – becoming an intrinsic part of human life. However these dark and powerful parables – they all have meanings and moral, after all – became increasingly enfeebled and sanitised over the decades as parents, entertainment purveyors and educators constantly diluted the details for their own reasons.

Here scripter Doug Wheeler (Swamp Thing, Classics Desecrated) and fantasy artist Dave Wenzel (Warlords, The Hobbit) return to the source material – but not too slavishly – for a dark and luscious pre-interpretation of three of the original classics in a glorious, fully painted hardcover edition first released by NBM in 1995.

You already know the key points of ‘Little Snow White’ which takes up the lion’s share of this terrific tome, but major restorations include the fact that the little princess was only seven when the malicious and jealous queen ordered her death; that the triumphant step-mother gleefully eats the heart of a wild pig fully believing it to be Snow White’s and, after finally being murdered (three truly harrowing attempts) in the dwarves’ home, the radiant child was interred in a crystal coffin for seven years – inexplicably maturing there into a beautiful, if dead, young woman before she was finally revived.

When the Prince finally aroused her from the deathly slumber it wasn’t with a kiss either…

Good triumphed at last and evil was sadistically punished in the end, after which ‘The Shoemaker and the Elves’ provides a sweet and savoury palate cleanser in a cheerfully enchanting Christmas tale of Good Deeds rewarded after which ‘The Three Sluggards’ relates in a single captivating page how the laziest king in the world selected his ideal successor.

The original tales are so ubiquitous, so ingrained in our lives that there’s no possibility of any one version ever becoming definitive, but that’s not really the point. These particular iterations, as graphically realised by Wheeler and Wenzel, are a superb synthesis of immortal legend and comic art mastery that will enthral every reader no matter how over-familiar you think they might be. One of those perfect books that belongs on every bookshelf.
© 1995 by David Wenzel & Doug Wheeler.