Now Read This!

November 2, 2012November 5, 2012

Hereville book 2: How Mirka Met a Meteorite

By Barry Deutsch (Amulet) – Uncorrected Proof copy
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0398-0

After years of disappointing experience I generally prefer to review finished copies rather than previews or proofs: there’s a lot that can change in the final stages and besides there’s far more to a book than content. How it feels, smells and even withstands handling is as crucial as the narrative wonderment inside.

Nevertheless when I was offered this proof copy (originally distributed to attendees of the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con) I jumped at the earliest opportunity to see how the uniquely engaging Mirka Hirschberg had continued on her path to heroic glory. Even in less-than-finished form I just had to see the second Hereville chronicle and discover exactly How Mirka Met a Meteoriteâ€¦

Suffice to say it was superbly satisfying and you should all be prepared to put up with me reviewing it again once I lay hands on a proper copyâ€¦

Mirka Hirschberg is an 11-year old girl in a Hassidic family. That’s not surprising: everybody in parochial, patriarchal, rural Hereville is Jewish and Orthodox. Mirka, however, is a bit different: as well as being intelligent and argumentative, the little rebel is also unconventionally forthright, stubborn and impatient. Thanks to these unfeminine quirks she has become a bona fide sword-wielding hero, the unlikely boss of a politely, cunningly carnivorous troll who is a Guardian of Wonders and grudging Frenemies with an actual witch.

Thankfully for Hirschberg family’s already shaky reputation only three of her 8 sisters (and little brother Zindel) are party to any of this shameful situation although, as usual, stepmother Fruma probably knows far more than she is letting onâ€¦

Still, Mirka’s instinctive resistance to thousands of years of tradition (which state that girls are inferior to boys and should thus remain separate from and secondary to male pursuits and occupations) always chafes. Moreover, the strict directive that females should stick to the womanly things they are born for is now harder than ever to understand or acceptâ€¦

Mirka is a warrior at heart and has many secrets to keep. She has a frivolous and forbidden book under her bed – a catalogue of fabulous beats – consorts with monsters and now has a great big sword to similarly conceal from her generally disapproving familyâ€¦

Tasked with the care and training of eight girls (and, until he’s old enough, one boy), step-mother Fruma spends most of her time keeping house and drilling her daughters on how to be proper wives and mothers, but she too is forthright, disputatious and very, very wiseâ€¦

After her duel with the troll Mirka was grounded for the longest time. With no other option she buckled down and even learned to knit – after a fashion – but her duties still bored her and she ached to find foes to fight and menaces to master.

In consequence Fruma took her aside and taught her chess, imparting a modicum of wisdom and lots to ponder to her wayward child.

The games result in Mirka being given her freedom at last, but no sooner does she explode out of the house than she again clashes with bully boys Yitzchok and Manis before wisely running off into the woods.

She searches out the troll and compels him to give her a fencing lesson, but baulks when it turns out to be hard, repetitive work. She also spitefully foments unrest between the macabre monster and the witch, but the scheme goes awry and the troll accidentally summons a meteorite which will smash the hag’s hidden house in 15 minutes timeâ€¦

Terrified and repentant, Mirka runs a desperate marathon to warn the witch. Just in time the Weird Woman disposes of the hurtling hunk of hot rock and archly assures Mirka that the exhausted girl’s problems have only just begunâ€¦

Feeling fully a victor Mirka heads home, but that feeling fades when the two bullies pounce on her and, conveniently ignoring Negiah – the rule forbidding physical contact between unrelated males and females – start to rough her up and shove dirt in her mouth. Suddenly the brutal boys are knocked silly and, turning, Mirka sees that her saviour is herself. A faster, stronger, better Mirkaâ€¦

Pushy, effusive and so very unladylike, the newcomer explains that she was originally a meteoroid sporting and having fun with her sisters in deep space until she was summoned to Earth by the troll and latterly transformed into a doppelganger of Mirka by the Witch.

Moreover, now that she’s stuck here she wants to stay and have fun – and the first step is to surreptitiously share Mirka’s lifeâ€¦

The idea quickly pales. Even looked after by wise sister Rochel â€œMettyâ€ is soon the cause of much trouble. The double is a better student and daughter and slowly insinuates herself into the household, not just doing the dull stuff well, but also taking over all the good things Mirka actually enjoyedâ€¦

Lonely, hungry and cut off from her family, Mirka is forced to take desperate action and confronts Metty. In response the meteor maid challenges the frail human to three contests: loser to leave Hereville foreverâ€¦

The battles against her new and improved double don’t go well. Metty is everything Mirka dreams of being and the forlorn, outclassed lass hates her for it. Thankfully Rochel and Zindel have a wise solution in mind, but even then the adventure isn’t over and Mirka gets taken on the ride of her life before finally getting her feet back on solid ground and safely under the full family tableâ€¦

Once again combining the most admirable aspects of Jewish Identity and cultural character – Family, Faith, Honour, Courage, Loyalty and self-deprecating Humour – with rollicking adventure and supernatural suspense, this second saga of one of the best female characters in all of fiction touches every base.

Readers will experience joy, heartbreak, alienation, redemption and action-packed sheer wonder as the ideal young rebel triumphs over adversity and becomes a far better but not different person in another superb display of graphic narrative mastery.

There are many books and graphic novels dealing with â€œthe Jewish Experienceâ€ and even some dealing with the thorny issue of Orthodoxy, but none that so adeptly show that a girl can be such a believably indomitable, tuchus-kicking, day-saving champion. Mirka is a great role model for all youngsters and hopefully the star of many more adventures in the years to come.

Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite is scheduled for a November 1^st release.

November 1, 2012October 31, 2012

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man volume 2: Spectacular

By Paul Tobin, Roberto Di Salvo, Jacopo Camagni, Ronan Cliquet, Amilton Santos & Terry Pallot (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4560-8

Since its earliest days Marvel has always courted the youngest comicbook audiences. Whether through animated movie or TV tie-ins such as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, Super Rabbit Comics, Duckula, assorted Hanna-Barbera and Disney licenses and a myriad of others, or original creations such as Tessie the Typist, Millie the Model, Homer the Happy Ghost, Li’l Kids or even Calvin, the House of Ideas has always understood the necessity of cultivating the next generation of readers.

These days however, accessible child-friendly titles are on the wane and with Marvel’s proprietary characters all over screens large and small, the company usually prefers to create adulterated versions of its own pantheon, making that eventual hoped-for transition to more mature comics as painless as possible.

In 2003 the company created a Marvel Age line which updated and retold classic original tales by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and combined it with the remnants of its failed manga-based Tsunami imprint, which was also intended for a junior demographic. The experiment was tweaked in 2005, becoming Marvel Adventures with the core titles transformed into Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man and the reconstituted classics replaced by all-original yarns. Additional titles included Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes, The Avengers and Hulk. These iterations ran until 2010 when they were cancelled and replaced by new volumes of Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes and Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man which carried on the established continuities.

This digest-sized collection collects issues #5-8 of that second (2010) iteration and picks up where Spider-Man: Amazing left off. Paul Tobin continues scripting whilst 16-year old Peter Parker rounds out his first year as a reluctant – if driven – superhero: the mysterious Spider-Man.

Even after all the time he has prowled the streets and skyscrapers of New York, fighting crime and injustice, he’s still just a kid learning the ropes and pretty much in over his head all the timeâ€¦

Illustrated by Roberto Di Salvo, the drama begins with the hero battered and close to death following his savage battle with manic assassin Bullseye. Meanwhile top gang enforcer Flip is still masterfully doing his illegal job, which he hates, especially all the lying to his wife – when big boss Berto Torino calls him in for a special mission.

Somewhere Spider-Man is holed-up and helpless. If Flip can find and finish the pestiferous punk there’s a $2 million pay-off up for grabsâ€¦

Across town Peter’s girlfriend Sophia Sanduval is frantic with worry. As a mutant who can communicate with animals and a part-time operative of the Blonde Phantom Detective Agency, â€œChatâ€ has got a lot of unusual resources at her disposal, but not even Wolverine and the X-Men can help her lost and wounded boy wonderâ€¦

Happily her bestial buddies make more progress. A horde of animals locate the unconscious wall-crawler and loyally cluster around his unconscious, recuperating form in a protective cordonâ€¦

Alerted by her birds, Chat rushes across town to his side, but the brutally efficient Flip is also closing inâ€¦

By the time she reaches Peter, the Mafioso is dealing with the severely battered wall-crawler – but her animal shelterers have already performed a redemptive miracleâ€¦

In school next day the bandage-bedecked Peter Parker is properly teased and quizzed by his class-mates, especially ex-girlfriend Gwen Stacy and her controversial new beau Carter Torino (her father is a New York cop who turns a blind eye to Parker’s vigilante sideline and the boy is the unwilling heir-apparent to the city’s paramount criminal empire).

Taking it all in stride, Peter also gets a stern talking-to from Chat and Police Captain George Stacy, both urging the guilt-fuelled hero to take it easy for a while. There’s little chance of that however, when a class trip to a museum is interrupted by murderous maniac Dr. Octopusâ€¦

When the still-sub-par Spider-Man leaps painfully into the fray, the furious Chat is forced to call in a favour and reinforcements by asking morally ambivalent psionic mutant Emma Frost AKA Silencer to take a telepathic hand in the affairâ€¦

An artistic fill-in by Jacopo Camagni, Ronan Cliquet & Amilton Santos sees a hilarious training session with Wolverine and ghostly X-Man Kitty Pryde turn into a bizarre comedy of errors when the Torinos try to buy off Spider-Man, whilst protestors (pro and anti) at a mutant rights rally are attacked by gun-toting gangsters afraid of losing their jobs to super-powered thugs-for-hireâ€¦

The flirty and fearsome Silencer rears her seductive head again in the final tale (art by Di Salvo & Terry Pallot), when Chat gets all snarky after refusing to introduce the increasingly bugged Peter to her enigmatic and never-seen older sister.

Burning with curiosity, Peter has trouble keeping within his boundaries, even after Chat helps him disastrously try out a new and â€œless-unluckyâ€ heroic identity, but sparks fly when Silencer asks for their aid in taking out deadly mutant fire-starter Cinder and subsequently repays Chat by messing with Spider-Man’s obsessive mindâ€¦

These Spidey super stories are extremely enjoyable yarns, but parents should note that some of the themes and certainly the violence might not be what everybody considers â€œAll-Ages Super Hero Actionâ€ and would perhaps better suit older kidsâ€¦

Fast-paced and impressive, bright and breezy with lots of light-hearted action and loads of sly laughs, this book really sees the alternative web-spinner hitting his wall-crawling stride with the violence toned down and â€œcartooned-upâ€ whilst the stories take great pains to keep the growing youth-oriented soap opera sub-plots pot-boiling on but as clear as possible.

Never the success the company hoped, the Marvel Adventures project was superseded in 2012 by specific comics tied to Disney XD television shows designated as â€œMarvel Universe cartoonsâ€, but these collected stories are still an intriguing and perhaps more culturally accessible means of introducing character and concepts to kids born sometimes two generations or more away from those far-distant 1960s originating events.
Â© 2010, 2011 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

October 31, 2012October 30, 2012

Showcase Presents Ghosts

By Leo Dorfman & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-85768-836-1

Boo! Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: a perfect slice of sinister comics spookiness for everyoneâ€¦ 8/10

American comicbooks started rather slowly until the invention of superheroes unleashed a torrent of creative imitation and established a new entertainment genre. Implacably vested in World War Two, the superman swept all before him (occasional her or it) until the troops came home and the more traditional themes and heroes resurfaced, and eventually supplanted the Fights ‘n’ Tights crowd.

Whilst a new generation of kids began buying and collecting, many of the first fans also retained their four-colour habit but increasingly sought older themes in their reading matter. The war years had irrevocably altered the psychological landscape of the readership and, as a more world-weary, cynical young public came to see that all the fighting and dying hadn’t really changed anything, their chosen forms of entertainment (film and prose as well as comics) increasingly reflected this.

As well as Western, War and Crime comics, celebrity tie-ins, madcap escapist comedy and anthropomorphic funny animal features were immediately resurgent. Gradually another cyclical revival of spiritualism and public fascination with the arcane led to a wave of impressive, evocative and shockingly more-ish horror comics. These spanned the range from EC and Simon & Kirby’s astoundingly mature and landmark scary fictions to grotesquely exploitative eerie episodes from pale imitators and even wholesome, family-friendly fear tales from the industry’s biggest players.

The company that would become DC Comics bowed to the inevitable and launched a comparatively straight-laced anthology that nevertheless became one of their longest-running and most influential titles with the (December 1951/January 1952) release of The House of Mystery, at the same time turning venerable anthology Sensation Comics (the magazine that had starred Wonder Woman since 1942) into a fantasy vehicle with he-men such as Jonny Peril battling the encroaching unknown with issue #107.

That conversion was completed when the title became Sensation Mystery with #110 in July 1952.

Everything changed when a hysterical censorship scandal and governmental witch-hunt created a spectacular backlash (feel free to type Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, April- June 1954 into your search engine at any timeâ€¦ You can do that because it’s more-or-less still a free country).

The crisis was curtailed by the industry adopting a castrating straitjacket of self-regulatory rules. Horror titles produced under the aegis of the Comics Code Authority became sanitised, anodyne affairs in terms of Shock and Gore, even though the appetite for suspense was still high. For example: in 1956 National introduced the sister title House of Secrets which debuted with a November-December cover-date and specialised in taut human interest tales in a fantasy milieu.

Stories were dialled back into marvellously illustrated, rationalistic, fantasy-adventure vehicles which dominated the market until the 1960s when super-heroes (which had started to creep back after Julius Schwartz began the Silver Age of comics by reintroducing the Flash in Showcase #4, 1956) finally overtook them. When the cape-and-cowl craziness peaked and popped, sales began bottoming out for Costumed Dramas and comics faced another punishing sales downturn.

Nothing combats censorship better than falling profits. As the end of the 1960s saw the superhero boom end with so many titles dead and some of the industry’s most prestigious series circling the drain too, the publishers took drastic action.

This real-world Crisis led to the surviving players in the field agreeing to loosen their self-imposed restraints against crime and horror comics. Nobody much cared about gangster titles but as the liberalisation coincided with another bump in public interest in all aspects of the Worlds Beyond, the resurrection of spooky stories was a foregone conclusion and obvious â€œno-brainer.â€

Even ultra-wholesome Archie Comics re-entered the field with their rather tasty line of Red Circle Chillersâ€¦

Thus, with absolutely no fanfare at all, spooky comics came back to quickly dominate the American funnybook market for more than half a decade. DC started by converting The House of Mystery and Tales of the Unexpected into mystery suspense mags in 1968 and followed by resurrecting House of Secrets (August-September 1969) which had been cancelled in 1966.

Soon supernatural mystery titles were the dominant force in the marketplace and DC began a steady stream of launches along narrowly differing thematic lines. There was gothic horror romance title Sinister House of Secret Love, a combat iteration in Weird War Tales and from late summer 1970 a bold new book which proudly boasted â€œTrue Tales of the Weird and Supernatural!â€ and challenged readers to read on if they daredâ€¦

This first monochrome encyclopaedia of the eerie and uncanny collects the first 18 issues of Ghosts, covering like a shroud September/October 1970 to September 1973 with lead scripter and supernatural enthusiast Leo Dorfman producing most of the series’ original material for a title he is generally credited with creating.

Dorfman was one of the most prolific scripters of the era (also working as David George and Geoff Brown) and a major scripter of comic horror stories for many DC and Gold Key titles.

The thrills and chills begin with a graphic ‘Introduction’ from Tony DeZuniga – probably scripted by editor Murray Boltinoff – before ‘Death’s Bridegroom’ (Dorfman & Jim Aparo) told of a conniving bluebeard conman who finally picked the wrong girl to bilk and jilt. Sam Glanzman illustrated the fearsome tale of a shipbuilder slain while sabotaging a Nazi U-Boat who returned as a vengeful ‘Ghost in the Iron Coffin’, after which ‘The Tattooed Terror’, by John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Sy Barry, offers a slice of Golden Age anxiety from Sensation Mystery #112 (November 1952) when a career criminal is seemingly haunted by his betrayed partner.

Broome, Infantino & Frank Giacoia then relived ‘The Last Dream’ (Sensation Comics #107, December 1951-January 1952) when a 400-year old rivalry resulted in death for a 20^th century sceptic, and this initial issue ends with a Western mystery in ‘The Spectral Coachman’ by Dorfman & Tony DeZuniga.

Issue #2 began with a predatory ghost-witch persecuting a Carpathian village in ‘No Grave can Hold Me’ by Dorfman, John Calnan & George Tuska, whilst ‘Mission Supernatural’ (art by Bob Brown & Wally Wood) revealed a WWII secret which perpetually plagued a modern English airport.

A brace of revered reprints begin with light-hearted romp ‘The Sorrow of the Spirits’ from House of Mystery #21 (December 1953, by Jack Miller, Curt Swan & Ray Burnley) wherein a plague of famous phantoms attempted to possess their descendents’ bodies whilst ‘Enter the Ghost’ (Joe Samachson & Ruben Moreira from House of Mystery #29, August 1954) found an actor endangered by a dead thespian jealous of anyone recreating his greatest roleâ€¦

With Dorfman still writing the lion’s share of the new material, DeZuniga illustrated the sorry fate of an unscrupulous diver who was seduced by the discovery of a ‘Galleon of Death’ whilst Miller & Irwin Hasen’s ‘Lantern in the Rain’ (originally from Sensation Mystery #113, January/February 1953) recounted an eerie railroad episode, and Dorfman & Glanzman reunited to tell an original tale of ‘The Ghost Battalions’ who still haunted the world’s battle sites from Gallipoli to Korea.

Dorfman & DeZuniga visited 17^th century Scotland for #3’s opening occult observation wherein a sea-born princess demanded her child back from a wicked Laird in ‘Death is my Mother’, after which ‘The Magician who Haunted Hollywood’ (George Kashdan & Leonard Starr, from HoM #10, January 1953) revealed how actor Dick Mayhew might have been aided by a deceased escapologist when he played the starring role in the magician’s bio-picâ€¦

‘The Dark Goddess of Doom’ drawn by Calnan, revealed how a statue of Kali dealt with the ruthless collector who stole her, after which the anonymously authored ‘Station G.H.O.S.T.’ (limned by Moreira from HoM #17, August 1953) disclosed how a man’s scheme to corruptly purchase a house haunted by his ancestor went weirdly awry.

Tuska drew the saga of a WWII pilot who crashed into a desert nightmare and fatefully met a ‘Legion of the Dead’, whilst after a reprinted fact file on ‘Ghostly Miners’, Jerry Grandenetti depicted the story of a French landowner who unwisely disturbed a burial ground and met ‘The Screaming Skulls’â€¦

Ghosts #4 began with the secret history of one of America’s most infamous killers in ‘The Crimson Claw’ (Tuska & cover artist Nick Cardy) before ‘The Ghostly Cities of Gold’ (Grandenetti) revealed the truth about fabled, haunted Cibola and the first reprint featured ‘The Man Who Killed his Shadow’ (Miller, Swan & Burnley, HoM #16, July 1953) wherein a murdered photographer reached from beyond the grave for justice.

Thereafter Ernie Chan drew ‘The Fanged Spectres of Kinshoro’ with a Big Game hunter pitting 20^th century rationality against an ancient Ju-Ju threat, whilst the superb team of Bob Haney, Ramona Fradon & Charles Paris had a chance to shine again with ‘The Legend of the Black Swan’ (HoM #48, March 1956) wherein three sceptical American students in Spain have an eerie encounter with doomed 17^th century sailors. This issue then concluded on ‘The Threshold of Nightmare House’ with Calnan & Grandenetti illustrating the inevitable doom of a woman who was haunted by her own ghostâ€¦

During the invasion of China in 1939 a greedy Japanese warlord met his fate – and the spirits of the Mongol warriors whose tomb he robbed. Issue #5’s lead tale ‘Death, the Pale Horseman’ (by Dorfman & Art Saaf) was followed by ‘The Hands from the Grave’ (Calnan) which somehow saved a young tourist from an early death, after which reprint ‘The Telltale Mirror’ (by an unknown author & Grandenetti from HoM #13, April 1953) showed the dread downside of owning a looking glass that reflected the futureâ€¦

Original yarn ‘Caravan of Doom’ (Jack Sparling), which told of an uncanny African warrior aiding enslaved Tommies in WWI Tanganyika, was balanced by the uncredited reprint ‘The Phantom of the Fog’ (illustrated by Moreira, from HoM #123, June 1962) wherein valiant rebels overthrow a petty dictator with the apparent aid of an oceanic apparition, before Grandenetti’s ‘The Hearse Came at Midnight’ ended the issue with spoiled college frat boys learning an horrific lesson about hazing and initiation ritesâ€¦

With Ghosts #6 the page count dropped from 52 to 32 pages and the reprint stories were curtailed in favour of all-new material. Proceedings began with Dorfman & Saaf’s cautionary tale of an avaricious arcane apothecary when ‘A Specter Poured the Potion’ before ‘Ride with the Devil’ (Calnan) told of a most unexpected lift for an unwary hitchhiker whilst ‘Death Awaits Me’ (Grandenetti) revealed the eerie premonition that marked the bizarre death of dancer Isadora Duncan.

A rare DC outing for mercurial comics genius Richard E. Hughes closed this slimline edition with ‘Ghost Cargo from the Sky’, illustrated by Sparling and exposing the incredible power of wishing to Pacific Islanders in the aftermath of WWII.

Michael William Kaluta stood in for Cardy as cover artist for #7 but Dorfman remained as writer, beginning with ‘Death’s Finger Points‘ (Sparling art) as a bullying Australian sheep farmer fell foul of the aborigines he’d abused, whilst President in waiting Lyndon B. Johnson was only the latest VIP to learn the cost of ignoring a Fakir’s warning in the Saaf-illustrated ‘Touch not my Tomb’. Calnan then closed things out with ‘The Sweet Smile of Death’ in a doomed romance between a 20^th century photographer and a flighty Regency phantom who refused to let this last admirer goâ€¦

‘The Cadaver in the Clock’ (art by Buddy Gernale) opened Ghosts #8, as a succession of heirs learned the downside of an inheritance which perforce included a mummified corpse inside a grand chronometer, but Glanzman’s ‘The Guns of the Dead’ showed a far more beneficial side to spectres when US marines were saved by their deceased yet unstoppable sergeant in 1944. ‘Hotline to the Supernatural’, lovingly limned by the wonderful Nestor Redondo, recounted numerous cases of supernatural premonition, whilst ‘To Kill a Tyrant’ (Quico Redondo) implausibly linked the incredible last hours of Rasputin to the so-necessary death of Stalin decades laterâ€¦

Issue #9 begins with Calnan’s ‘The Curse of the Phantom Prophet’ as an Indian holy man continued his war against the insolent British and rapacious white men long after his death by firing squad, ‘The Last Ride of Rosie the Wrecker’ (gloriously illustrated by Alfredo Alcala) detailed the indomitable determination of a destroyed US tank that shouldn’t have been able to move at all, and Grandenetti’s ‘The Spectral Shepherd of Dartmoor’ showed how a long-dead repentant convict still aided the weak and imperilled in modern Britain. Events end on an eerie note when vacationers see horrific apparitions but discover that ‘The Phantom that Never Was’ has created a real ghost out of a hoax disaster in a genuine chiller drawn by Bob Brown & Frank McLaughlin.

Fact page ‘Experimenters Beyond the Grave’ by Dorfman & Win Mortimer details the attempts of Harry Houdini, Mackenzie King and Aldous Huxley to send messages from the vale of shades before the storytelling resumes in #10 with the Gerry Talaoc/Redondo Studio illustrated tale of a Vietnamese Harbinger of Doom in ‘A Specter Stalks Saigon’. Increasingly a host of superb Filipino artists would take on the art chores for the ubiquitous Dorfman’s scripts such as ‘The Ghost of Wandsgate Gallows’ by Chan, which detailed the inevitable fate of an English noble who hired and then betrayed a contract killer. Although naval savant Sam Glanzman could be the only choice for the US maritime mystery ‘Death Came at Dawn’, Nestor Malgapo artfully handled the horrific saga of ‘The Hell Beast of Berkeley Square’ which for decades slaughtered guilty and innocents alike in prosperousMayfairâ€¦

Ghosts #11 opened with Eufronio Reyes (E.R.) Cruz’s contemporary thriller wherein Nazi war criminals recovering long hidden loot finally paid for their foul crimes in ‘The Devil’s Lake’, before Chan delineated a subway journey where the ‘Next Stop is Nowhere’.

Past master Grandenetti visually captured ‘The Specter Who Stalked Cellblock 13’ of San Quentin, and Bob Brown returned to illustrate the story of a church organ which killed anyone who played it in ‘The Instrument of Death’, before Jack Sparling charted the sinister coincidences of ‘The Death Circle’ which dictated that every US President elected in a year ending in zero has died in office.

Of course not everyone today is happy that the myth has been debunkedâ€¦

Ghosts #12 featured ‘The Macabre Mummy of Takhem-Ahtem’ (Calnan art) which was more a traditional monster-mash than purportedly true report, after which ‘Chimes for a Corpse’ (Grandenetti) saw a German watchmaker die for his malicious treatment of an apprentice before the always amazing Glanzman-limned ‘Beyond the Portal of the Unknown’ closed proceedings in magnificent style when French soldiers in 1915 uncover a terrible tomb and unleash a centuries old vendetta of vengeanceâ€¦

Dorfman & Brown opened issue #13 with ‘The Nightmare in the Sandbox’, which detailed a war of voodoo practitioners carried out in Haitian garden, whilst ‘Voice of Vengeance’ (Calnan) depicted the macabre vengeance of marionettes on the embezzling official who silenced their maker. ‘Have Tomb, Will Travel’ (Talaoc) sees contract killers who used a scrap yard to lose their latest corpse discover their brand new car comes with his unquiet spirit as an angry extra before Nestor Redondo depicts the inexplicable experience of two lost GIs who spend a night in a castle that isn’t there and endure ‘Hell is One Mile High’â€¦

In #14 an heirloom wedding dress that came with a curse didn’t stop Diane Chapman from marrying her young man in Gernale’s ‘The Bride Wore a Shroud’, whilst ‘Death Weaves a Web’ (by George Kashdan & Chan) found a bullying uncle live to regret destroying his little nephew’s spider collection – but not for longâ€¦

‘Phantom of the Iron Horseman’ (Talaoc) saw a young train driver and a host of passengers saved from disaster by the spirit of his disgraced grandfather and the issue ends with a catalogue of global portents that warned of the appalling Aberfan tragedy in 1966 in Cruz’s ‘The Dark Dream of Death’.

Gernale opened #15 with ‘The Ghost that Wouldn’t Die’, another case of domestic gold-digging, ectoplasmic doppelgangers and living ghosts, whilst ‘A Phantom in the Alamo’ (Carl Wessler & Glanzman) revealed the ghastly fate of the American who sold out the valiant defenders to the Mexican invaders. Alcala lent his prodigious gifts to the Balkan tale of a corpse collector who abandoned morality and began profiteering from his sacred trust in ‘Who Dares Cheat the Dead?’ and Rico Rival delineated a gripping yarn wherein a corrupt surgeon was haunted by the hit-and-run victim he’d silenced in ‘Hand from the Grave’.

Ghosts #16 told of a Spanish gypsy cursed to see ‘Death’s Grinning Face’ whenever someone was going to die in a stirring thriller from Rival, and Glanzman again displayed his uncanny knack for capturing shipboard life – and death – when after 25 years a deserter finally joins his dead comrades in ‘The Mothball Ghost’. Talaoc then delineated Napoleon Bonaparte’s services to France after the Little Corporal died and became ‘The Haunted Hero of St. Helena’â€¦

Issue #17 saw a phantom lady save flood-lost children in Dorfman & Alcala’s moving ‘Death Held the Lantern High’ after which editor Murray Boltinoff & Talaoc revealed ‘The Specters Were the Stars’ when a film company tried to capture the horror of the 1920 Ulster Uprising before Kashdan & Calnan exposed the seductive lure and inescapable power of gypsies using ‘The Devil’s Ouija’ to combat centuries of prejudiceâ€¦

This first terrifying tome terminates with Ghosts #18 and Alcala’s account of a hateful Delaware medicine chief who still lured white men to his watery ‘Graveyard of Vengeance’ centuries after his death, whilst Abe Ocampo detailed the surprising ‘Death of a Ghost’ at the hands of an very smug inventor who had just moved into a haunted mansion.

Frank Redondo described how villagers in old Austria knew young Adolf would come to a bad end because the boy had ‘The Eye of Evil’ and the spookiness at last ceases with ‘Death Came Creeping’ by Ernesto Patricio & Talaoc when a visiting Egyptian merchant and his unique pet stop an American sneak thief’s predations in an age-old mannerâ€¦

These terror-tales captivated the reading public and critics alike when they first appeared and it’s almost certain that they saved DC during one of the toughest downturns in comics publishing history. Now their blend of sinister mirth, classic horror scenarios and suspense set-pieces can most familiarly be seen in such children’s series as Goosebumps, Horrible Histories and their many imitators.

Everybody loves a good healthy scare – especially today or even on those dark Christmas nights to come – and this beautiful gathering of ethereal escapism is a treat fans of fear and fantastic art should readily take to their cold, unbeating hearts.
Â© 1971, 1972, 1973, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

October 30, 2012November 5, 2012

Ralph Azham volume 1: Why Would You Lie to Someone You Love?

By Lewis Trondheim, coloured by Brigitte Findakly and translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-593-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: one for the boys and girls who grew up but never stopped imaginingâ€¦ 8/10

With over 100 books bearing his pen-name (his secret identity is actually Laurent Chabosy), writer/artist/editor and educator Lewis Trondheim is one of Europe’s most prolific comics creators: illustrating his own work, overseeing animated cartoons of adaptations of previous successes such as La Mouche (The Fly) and Kaput and ZÃ¶sky or editing the younger-readers book series Shampooing for Dargaud.

His most famous tales are such global hits as ‘Les Formidables Aventures de Lapinot’ (translated as The Spiffy Adventures of McConey), (with Joann Sfar) the Donjon series of nested fantasy epics (translated here as the conjoined sagas Dungeon: Parade, Dungeon: Monstres and Dungeon: the Early Years) and his utterly beguiling cartoon diaries sequence Little Nothings.

In his spare time, and when not girdling the globe from convention to symposium to festival, the dourly shy and neurotically introspective savant has written for satirical magazine Psikopat and provided scripts for many of the continent’s most popular artists such as Fabrice Parme (Le Roi Catastrophe, VÃ©nÃ©zia), Manu Larcenet (Les Cosmonautes du futur), JosÃ© Parrondo (Allez Raconte and Papa Raconte) and Thierry Robin (Petit PÃ¨re NoÃ«l).

Trondheimis a cartoonist of uncanny wit, outrageous imagination, piercing perspicacity, comforting affability and self-deprecating empathy who prefers to scrupulously control what is known and said about himâ€¦

His latest English language project (originally released by Belgian outfit Ã‰ditions Dupuis in 2001) returns to the realm of anthropomorphic fantasy in a saga designed as six volumes of wryly cynical faux-heroism revolving around failed Messiah and all-around disappointment Ralph Azham.

In his mountainous rural village, teenaged slacker Ralph is barely tolerated. He’s lazy, rude to his elders, constantly flouts authority, is always mouthing off and perpetually gets into trouble. Moreover when he turned blue on the Night of the Double Moon – a certain sign of magical powers and an indicator that one may be the long-awaited Chosen One – he subsequently failed the tests of The Envoy and was ignominiously returned to the village.

Now he’s just an obnoxious waste of space whose only gift is the unnerving ability to tell when someone is pregnant or going to dieâ€¦

The desolate village is slowly expiring too. Situated in a depressing gully and old riverbed, the place comprises barely a dozen families now; the hard subsistence toil gradually forcing the farmers to emigrate to the less hostile but crowded lowlands. Also, with the annual visit from the rapacious marauding barbarian horde forever looming, the place has precious little comfort or security to offer the dour citizens.

When the elders send Ralph out on a useless herb-gathering mission so they can have a council meeting without his annoying presence, the pariah is accosted by coquettish, scheming Claire who tries to seduce him and make him take her away from it all. After all, a boy with his gifts could surely make some money in the civilised parts of the worldâ€¦

Ralph spurns her and returns to eavesdrop on the village meeting, but when she follows and forcefully tries again, her big brother Piatch observes everything and attacks in a vain effort to defend her long-spent honour. The running fight crashes through the village and many of the indignant elders join in. When the well-thrashed Ralph furiously exposes many of their marital secrets he finds himself confined to the pigsty for two months by the shamed and outraged citizensâ€¦

Later that night his long-suffering father Bastien passes Ralph food and a knife, sadly recalling those distant days when the entire populace thought the boy was their literal ticket to salvation. After all, when the Chosen One was finally found, his mighty powers would totally destroy the terrible threat of predatory conqueror Vom Syrus and save the entire nation.

The whole episode was ill-starred. On their last night together, father and son were trapped in a cave-in and Ralph discovered his unsettling but militarily useless power. Even after they escaped death by suffocation, the airborne pilgrimage to fabled Astolia went tragically wrong – just how bad only Bastien knew for certain – and when the boy was returned to the village the populace’s high expectations soon soured.

They’d been taking it out on Ralph ever sinceâ€¦

In the pigpen Claire tries once more to sway the fed-up and furious boy wonder, but he’s already declined one attempt to help him escape. Wastrel Ralph has no intention of ever leaving his doting dad. Later as Bastien quizzes him on why he’s still there the alarm is sounded. The horde is nearâ€¦

The village is perfectly divided. Exactly half want to fight whilst the others favour abject surrender and throwing themselves on the invaders’ mercies. Unbelievably, now they desperately need Ralph to settle matters as the tie-breaking vote. The outcast is utterly unable to ignore the irony or resist the temptation to make them all squirm, but he is distracted by the ailing Filbert kid. The lad isn’t very well and it is another night of the Double Moonâ€¦

When the militant faction proves to be the most determined to win and acquiesces to Ralph’s outrageous and humiliating demands the vote is cast and the villagers begin building a huge deadfall trap to kill as many Horde raiders as possible, guided by the pariah’s father who was once a military engineer.

As the labours progress, further hidden secrets of Ralph’s interesting time in Astolia are revealed, but even as the weary folk return to their homes the trap is sprung: not by the invaders but rather one of their own.

Sore loser Mortimer knew that only he was right and thus couldn’t abide by the results of the voteâ€¦

In the cascade of rocks little Raoul Filbert was injured and as the enraged mob hunt for the new village pariah, forgotten Ralph carries the wounded child to the wise woman Auntie Milla. As she tends to the lad something happens to Ralph too. Soon he realises that his powers have changed and he can see dead peopleâ€¦

When he meets his father he realises that the ghost of the Envoy from his long-ago journey is attached to Bastien and soon the awfulÂ truth of his boyhood trip to Astolia comes tumbling outâ€¦

Milla too was part of the conspiracy, and now that Ralph knows the horrible, selfish cause for his years of abuse and ostracization he severs all ties with his father. Suddenly the alarm sounds and the old soldier rushes back to the village where the horde has arrived. Dejected Ralph picks up the sleeping Raoul and follows, but in the dark nobody has noticed that the little lad’s head has turned blueâ€¦

In a wild and cataclysmic display of arcane power Raoul destroys half the village and routs the panicked barbarians, but once they have recovered their wits the Horde outriders give chase. However when the azure couple are cornered, Ralph’s new gift and the spirits of the pursuers’ previous victims combine to save them both, before a final cataclysm erupts and wipes out the invaders and most of the village tooâ€¦

After one final fractious confrontation with the surviving elders, Ralph heads for the plains and summons the latest Astolian Envoy to take him and Raoul to the city where the new Chosen One can be trained. However, as they prepare to take off on the civil servant’s triple-headed winged reptile, Claire rushes up, demanding to join them.

She feels she has the right since her cat ears and tiger stripes have turned a vibrant shade of blueâ€¦

Mesmerising and superbly enjoyable, this unfolding epic features a truly intriguing and clay-footed hero in a fantastic world of regrettably shallow and typically callous everyday folk, venal, self-serving and barely worth saving even if a Messiah can be foundâ€¦

This engagingly sly and witty fantasy adventure tale for grown-ups begins here in a 96-page, full-colour landscape (218x168mm) sturdy hardcover edition and promises to become another must-not-miss epic masterpiece from one of the world’s greatest comic geniuses.

October 29, 2012November 5, 2012

You’ll Never Know Book 3: Soldier’s Heart

By C. Tyler (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-588-8

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: an ideal example of Art for Our Sakeâ€¦ 10/10

In 2009 illustrator, educator, performer and occasional cartoonist Carol Tyler (The Job Thing, Late Bloomer) published the first of a trilogy of graphic memoirs examining her tempestuous relationship with her father. Chuck, a veteran of World War II and by all measures A Good and Decent Man, had been a mystery and painful cipher to his girl for years but everything changed one day in 2002.

After six decades of brusque taciturnity and scarily obsessive sublimating self-reliance, during which he had edited his service career out of his life, Chuck suddenly and explosively opened up about his time in Africa and Europe. However, he would not or could not recall his later experiences in Italy and France as the War staggered to a closeâ€¦

Disease and growing infirmity had suddenly produced in her once strong-but-distant father a terrifying openness and desire to share his long-suppressed war experiences and history.

As if suddenly speaking for an entire generation who fought and died or survived and somehow soldiered on as civilians in a society with no conception of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, Chuck Tyler began to unburden his soul.

Galvanised and hungry to learn more, Carol began creating an album of his army years but soon came up against a mental blank-period: one for which no corroborating records existed. For, as much as he could effusively recall, there was so much more that had been excised from Chuck’s mind and apparently erased by the governmentâ€¦

It became a quest: a relentless search for hidden truths which abruptly collapsed when the irritably mutable elder suddenly turned on her and the painful, frustrating search for the past.

In 2010, second volume Collateral Damage was released and found Carol coping with her own husband Justin‘s infidelities, mental dilemmas, betrayal and desertion. This led to a resumption of the father-and-daughter recording and re-ordering of Chuck’s recollections of Italy and France (including the infamous Battle of the Bulge) whilst re-examining her own agonisingly chaotic, self-destructive existence and hidden demons.

Carol was forced to examine her troubled past through a new lens. How much did growing up the child of a devoted, loving husband who was incomprehensibly somehow a coldly, unapproachable father, shape her own parade of life-errors and marital mishaps?

Could she prevent her increasingly wild daughter Julia from perpetuating the cycle by making the same bad choices she had?

As her parents’ physical and mental states inexorably deteriorated, Chuck had become obsessed by the mystery of the missing months he’d forgotten and a potential â€œGovernment Pay-outâ€. In his more open and lucid moments he gratefully accepted Carol’s aid in trying to solve the dilemma and so the pair began to explore numerous Federal and Veteran’s Administrative archives and resourcesâ€¦

During an increasingly critical reappraisal of the family’s shared experiences, Carol subsequently discovered how her mother Hannah or â€œRedâ€ had coped with dark tragedies and suppressed secrets on the Home Front, and gained enhanced perspective but no satisfactory answers to the continuing conundrum of her father.

Rushing to finish her self-appointed task of turning her father’s life into a comprehensible chronicle whilst her parents both visibly declined with every visit, Carol’s personal life was also becoming uncontrollable and too much to endureâ€¦

Exploring three generations of a family born out of collateral damage and which never truly escaped WWII, the saga concludes with the revelatory breakthrough moments of Soldier’s Heart, opening with a moving visual introduction by Carol and Red before revealing how Julia’s spiralling behaviouralÂ problems brought a chastened and resolutely repentant Justin back into the fold. Julia’s troubles prove to have a biological and psychological basis and, whilst Justin came back into their lives, he never made it to Carol’s bed. As the once-marrieds moved into a new holding pattern, the cartoonist’s military searches brought her to the actual man of her dreams but family loyalty kept him from her tooâ€¦

With ‘The Mind’ awhirl Carol found solace and renewed balance by adopting a miraculous dog before embarking on a frighteningly close shave involving Chuck, a gun and a mouse in ‘The X-mas Tale’ whilst New Year ruminations on the price soldiers always pay and how we honour the fallen in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Walking the Mat’ bring the pensive and elegiac narrative to ‘Dad’s Army Scrapbook and Tour of Duty Highlights part V: Rhineland Dec. 1944-Mar. 1945’â€¦

Here at last the researches find a crucial turning point as Chuck’s broken memories and the records pinpoint a discrepancy – although the old soldier’s recall describes his duties and exploits up to March when he was sent home, the files show that he didn’t get back to America again until Novemberâ€¦

Further investigations and a growing network of helpful contacts lead them towards the National Archives Personnel Records Center in St. Louis and Carol resolves to take her folks on an epic road trip to Missouri. Although personally revelatory, the excursion turns into a frustrating bureaucratic nightmare in ‘Prairie Trek by Truck with Hannah and Chuck’ and advances the Tour of Duty Scrapbook not one jot.

Now the project’s very last hope is a ‘Trip to the National Archives and WWII Memorial â€“ Washington, D.C. 2004’ but the journey is almost finished before it’s begun when Chuck’s latest home-improvement project turns the family home into an asbestos-soakedÂ death-trap and the old man’s toxic other self resurfaces.

With relations between father and daughter at their lowest ebb for years, the Washington excursion begins with little hope for success but leads unbelievably to a spectacular and moving breaking of the mental dam and subsequent epiphany of shocking proportionsâ€¦

The story doesn’t end there but moves on to re-begin for the Tyler clan and there’s still one last moving ‘Epilogue’ before the close of this very special, grimly life-affirming account.

Ruminative, pensive and moodily elegiac with a series of stunning set-piece illustrations eerily reminiscent of American master of stoic isolation Edward Hopper blending into a mixed palette of cartooning and illustration disciplines, C. Tyler’s art adroitly mirrors her eclectic, entrancing non-sequential story-form, with a beguiling, bewildering array of styles meshing perfectly and evocatively to create a fully immersive comics experience.

Offering warmth, heartbreak, horror, humour, angst, tragedy, triumph and hope in a seductive display simultaneously charming and devastatingly effective, this grand narrative is itself constructed like a photo album (hardback, landscape and copiously expansive at 310x265mm) redefining the eternal question â€œHow and Why Do Families Work?â€

The mystery of the Soldier’s Heart is a magnificent conclusion to Tyler’s triptych of discovery and one no lover of comics or student of the human condition should miss.

October 28, 2012October 28, 2012

Tiny Titans: The First Rule of Pet Clubâ€¦

By Art Baltazar & Franco with Geoff Johns (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2892-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: just buy it â€“ it’s so funny you’ll burst â€¦ 10/10

The links between animated features and comicbooks are long established and I suspect, for young consumers, indistinguishable. After all, it’s just entertainment in the endâ€¦

DC’s Cartoon Network imprint was arguably the last bastion of children’s comics in Americaand consolidated that link between TV and 2D fun and thrills with stunning interpretations of such television landmarks as Ben 10, Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and others.

The kids’ comics line also produced some truly exceptional material based on TV iterations of their proprietary characters such as Legion of Super Heroes, Batman: Brave and the Bold and Krypto the Super Dog as well as material like Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! which was merely similar in tone and content.

Perhaps the imprint’s finest release was a series ostensibly aimed at beginning readers but which quickly became a firm favourite of older fans and a multi-award winner too.

Superbly mirroring the magical wonderland inside a child’s head where everything is happily mixed up together, Tiny Titans became a sublime antidote to continuity cops and slavish fan-boy quibbling (erm, uhâ€¦ I think you’ll find that inâ€¦) by reducing the vast cast of the Teen Titans Go! animated series, the greater boutique of the mainstream comicbooks and eventually the entire DC Universe to little kids and their parents/guardians in the wholesome kindergarten environment ofSidekickCityElementary School.

It’s a scenario spring-loaded with in-jokes, sight-gags and beloved yet gently mocked paraphernalia of generations of strip readers and screen-watchersâ€¦.

Collecting issues #19-25 (spanning October 2009 – April 2010) of the magically madcap and infinitely addictive all-ages mini-masterpiece, this fourth volume begins on a romantic note with Deep in Like.

Art Baltazar and co-creator Franco (Aureliani) have mastered a witty, bemusingly gentle manner of storytelling that just happily rolls along, with the assorted characters getting by and trying to make sense of the great big world having â€œAdventures in Awesomenessâ€. The method generally involves stringing together smaller incidents and moments into an overall themed portmanteau tale and it works astoundingly well.

After a handy and as-standard identifying roll-call page ‘Imagine Me and Youâ€¦’ finds scary blob Plasmus and tiny winged Bumblebee brighten up each other’s drab day before a similar cupid moment affects the Brain and M’sieu Mallah whilst the diligent Robin finds his attempts to finish his homework disturbed by a succession of pesky lasses including Starfire, Batgirl and Duella all caught up in a ‘Like Triangle’.

‘Dates’ sees Bumblebee and Plasmus inadvertently cause chaos during an afternoon movie monster mash and even the ‘Intermission’ after which a sly sight gag for the oldies derides the company’s many Wonder Girls in ‘Jump Rope’.

The hallowed anthropoid obsession of DC is highlighted in ‘New Recruits’ when Beast Boy chairs a meeting of the Titans Ape Club after which The Kroc Files finds ultimate butler Alfred, roguish reptile Kroc and Plasmus each demonstrating ‘How to Enjoy a Lollipop’.

The issue ends with a word puzzle and the next promises to disclose The Hole Truth about Raven, beginning with a daybreak disaster at ‘Home with the Trigons’. Raven’s dad is an antlered crimson devil – and a teacher at the School – so when he oversleeps his sorceress scion gets him to work on time by opening a few wormholes. Of course leaving those dimensional doors around is just asking for troubleâ€¦

Meanwhile it’s washday at Wayne Manor but Alfred won’t let Robin, Beast Boy or Aqualad go down ‘To the Batcave’. However even the dapper domestic can’t withstand united pester-power and eventually he gives in and learns to regret itâ€¦

Following a perplexing maze game, the All Pet Club Issue! launches when Starfire and mean sister Blackfire write home for their beloved critters Silky and Poopu so that they can go to the secret social event, whilst can-do kid cyborg actually builds himself a brace of chrome companions in ‘Pet-Tronics’â€¦

With ‘Club Hoppin” the entire school gathers with their uniquely compatible pets and even interview some new guys – specifically the tongue-tied and thunderstruck Captain Marvel Junior and his fuzzy pal Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny. With so many members the club then has to find roomier quarters leading to a painful tryst of Beast Boy and Terra in ‘Meanwhile, on the Moonâ€¦’

There’s a brilliant vacuum-packed bonus pin-up of the Tiny Titans in space from Franco before Hot Dogs, Titans, & Stretchy Guys! finds the kids back on solid ground and wrapped up with the DCU’s many flexible fellows as ‘Offspring into Action’ introduces Plastic Man’s excitably bonny boy.

In ‘Just Playing and Bouncing’ when Bumblebee spends some time with the diminutive Atoms Family she loses control of their Teeny-Weeny, Super Duper Bouncy Ball and accidentally gets Plastic Man, Offspring, Elongated Man and Elastic Lad all wound up before helplessly watching it bowl over Principal Slade and Coach Lobo in ‘Coffee Dog Latte’.

Thankfully Robin has the right gimmick in his utility belt to set things straight but can’t stay since he’s en route to his Bird Scouts meeting where potential new members Hot Spot and Flamebird are trying out for Hawk, Dove, Raven and Talon. Sadly when shiny Golden Eagle turns up the girls want to make him the new leaderâ€¦

A semi-regular ‘Epilogue’ page often supplies one more punch-line to cap each themed issue and this one leads directly into a convoluted and confounding Elastic Four pin-up which in turn precedes a spookily uproarious tale of Bats, Bunnies, and Penguins in the Batcave! Oh My!...

It all begins in ‘Ice to Meet Ya!’ when Wayne Manor’s large penguin population get into a turf war with the house rabbits and the Batcave’s regular inhabitants are displaced in ‘Driving Me Batty’. The conflict escalates in ‘All in the Batman Family’ and Robin gets a rather stern admonition from his senior partner to put things right or elseâ€¦

Happily the ever-so-cute and capable Batgirl is willing to lend a hand – but unfortunately so too are the kids she’s baby-sitting (Tim and Jason – and you’ll either get that or you won’t) and the impishly infuriating Batmiteâ€¦

With even Batcow helping, things son start calming down but ‘Meanwhile, at the Titans’ Treehouseâ€¦’ not all of the fugitive Bat bats have heard the good newsâ€¦

Once your ribs have stopped hurting you can then enjoy a Tiny Titans Aw Yeah Pin-up by Franco before The All Small Issue! starts with assorted big kids accidentally drinking ‘Milk! Milk!’ from the Atoms’ fridge and shrinking away to nearly nothing. Good thing the Atomic nippers think to call their dad, who’s with fellow dwindlers Ant, Molecule and substitute Atoms Adam and Ryan (another in-continuity howler, fans) for a Team Nucleus meetingâ€¦

That compressive cow-juice causes more trouble in the ‘Epilogue’ before a Blue Beetle puzzle clears the mind prior to an outrageous ending in Superboy Returns! in a fairly cosmic crossover – with additional scripting from Geoff Johns.

When Conner Kent shows up all the girls are really impressed and distracted, whilst across town Speedy is trading a lot of junk he shouldn’t be touching to Mr. Johns’ Sidekick City Pawn Shop and Bubblegum Emporium in ‘Brightest Day in the Afternoon!’ When Starfire and Stargirl then buy the seven different coloured â€œmood ringsâ€ from the shop they and BFFs Duella, Batgirl, Wonder Girl, Terra and Shelly, are turned into Green, Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Violet and Indigo Lanterns!

Soon the Tiny Titans are up in the air again and ticking off the Guardians of the Universe and their Green Lantern Corps.

It all ends well though, first in an Emerald ‘Epilogue’ and then a lavish pin-up of a passel of the Pistachio peace-keepersâ€¦

Despite being ostensibly aimed at super-juniors and TV kids, these wonderful, wacky yarns – which marvellously marry the heart and spirit of such classic strips as Peanuts and The Perishers with something uniquely mired and marinated in pure comic-bookery â€“ are unforgettable tales no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, entertaining, and wickedly intoxicating. What more do you need to know?

October 28, 2012October 28, 2012

Benny and Penny in Lights Out!

By Geoffrey Hayes (Toon Books/Raw Junior)
ISBN: 978-1-935179-20-7

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: another intoxicating item to be read and re-read as your kids begin the joy of obsessively collecting wonderful comicsâ€¦ 10/10

In times past the commercial comics industry thrived by producing copious amounts of gaudy, flimsy pamphlets subdivided into a range of successful, self-propagating and seamlessly self-perpetuating age-specific comics. These eye-catching items scrupulously generated innumerable tales and delights intended to entertain, inform and educate such well-defined target demographics as Toddler/Kindergarten, Young and Older Juvenile, General, Boys and Girls periodical publications, but nowadays the English-speaking world can only afford to maintain a few paltry out-industry, licensed tie-ins and spin-offs for a dwindling younger readership.

Where once cheap and prolific, strip magazines in the 21^st century are extremely cost-intensive and manufactured for a highly specific – and waning – niche market, whilst the beguiling and bombastic genres that originally fed and nurtured comics are more immediately disseminated via TV, movies and assorted interactive games media.

Happily, old-school prose publishers and the newborn graphic novel industry have a different business model and far more sustainable long-term goals, so the magazine makers’ surrender has been turned into a burgeoning victory, as solid and reassuringly sturdy Comic Books increasingly buck the pamphlet/papers trend.

So the latest crop of kids are far more likely to find their formative strip narrative experiences between the card-covers of enchanting and enthralling tomes, which are now almost the only place willing and able to train and bring youngsters into the medium and the art-form.

It’s not a new phenomenon: enchanting and exciting strips in standard book-formats date from long before my own halcyon salad – or perhaps Farley’s Rusks – days. My distant childhood was littered with Edward Ardizzone’s Tim All Alone books, the first jumbo sized translated Tintin hardbacks, John Ryan’s Captain Pugwash adventures and so many others.

â€¦And don’t forget every Christmas also brought a wealth of strip and prose annuals from Rupert Bear to Tiger Tim for the â€œTiniesâ€ before moving inexorably onto Beano and Dandy, Eagle, Victor, Lion, Smash!, Valiant, 2000AD and so onâ€¦

Here the splendidly prolific and wondrously gifted Geoffrey Hayes revisits his adorable mouse moppets in a mildly spooky yarn just in time for Halloween!

Hayes is a veteran of the Children’s entertainment scene, having written and/or illustrated more than 40 books including Otto and Uncle Tooth, Bear by Himself, the Patrick Bear series and Margaret Wise Brown’s When the Wind Blew among so many others.

He proudly reaffirms that Benny & Penny‘s murine misadventures are wholly drawn in coloured pencil, so here’s another mouse-sized bite of the cherry that will utterly enchant every youngster who sees them and elder who reads them out – and don’t forget to do the voices tooâ€¦

Boisterous big brother Benny is a tough little tyke, and when bedtime comes he’s too excited playing with his torch to settle down. Flipping off the lights he gives little Penny an awful fright and teases her about the â€œBoogey Mouseâ€.

Penny is a good girl who tidies up her toys and, with the lights back, on settles down with her book in bed. Her brother however still isn’t sleepy and tries to spoil her quiet time by acting like a dinosaur and spoiling her reading about princessesâ€¦

Finally, after chasing a bug out of the window Benny seems ready for bed, but since he can’t find his pirate hat, jumps out of the window to fetch it. A rather long times passes and Penny gets worried so, constantly telling herself there is no Boogey Mouse, she cautiously ventures out into the scary darkness of the garden to find her brotherâ€¦

The starry night-garden reveals thrills, chills and a spooky wonderland of animals and mini-beasts – but definitely no monsters – before Benny finally finds his hat, and by the time their mother checks on them they’re safely back in bed. Only now the near-exhausted lad wants his little sister to read him a storyâ€¦

Aimed at the four-and-older readers and released as a child-sized (236x162mm), gloriously evocative, beguilingly beautiful 32 page full colour hardback, Benny and Penny in Lights Out! is another visual feast that kids and their minders will savour over and over again.

Toon Books/Raw Junior was founded by Art Spiegelman and FranÃ§oise Mouly to provide high-quality comics stories that could entice pre-schoolers and beginning readers into a life-long relationship with graphic narrative and traditional reading.

With a select pantheon of creators they have produced many brilliant books sub-divided into First Comic for brand new readers (Level 1), (Easy-to-Read for Emerging Readers Level 2) and Chapter Books for Advanced Beginners (Level 3).

Most books also include parents/teachers tips on ‘How to Read Comics with Kids’ and the company supports their publications with on-line tools. TOON-BOOKS.com offers interactive audio-versions read by the authors – in a multitude of languages – and a â€œcartoon makerâ€ facility which allows readers to become writers of their own adventures.

October 27, 2012October 26, 2012

What-a-Mess

By Frank Muir & Joseph Wright (Carousel, Picture Corgi)
ISBNs: 0-552-52105-I (Carousel)Â Â Â Â Â 978-0-55252-105-5 (Corgi)

Once a hugely popular franchise, the subtly superb and wryly fantastic adventures of What-a-Mess have all but disappeared from today’s library lists and Athenaeum book-shelves. Written by Frank Muir and illustrated by Joseph Wright, the gloriously engaging, dolorously delightful yarns starred a philosophically trenchant, galumphing great ugly-duckling dog and spawned 22 further books, in assorted styles and formats, as well as two seasons (48 episodes in total between 1990 and 1995) of a successful trans-Atlantic TV cartoon series.

Joseph Wright is still a brilliant but enigmatic jobbing illustrator who generally keeps to himself and lets his wonderfully manic art do his talking for him. He is most well known these days as the provider of hilariously gory perfectly perfidious pictures for the Little Dracula series of books by Martin Waddell – a task he toiled at from 1986 onwards and which again resulted in a fondly remembered American cartoon series.

Frank Herbert Muir was born on February 5^th 1920 inRamsgate,Kent and spent the next 77 years of his life becoming a British entertainment legend. His formative years were spent in his grandmother’s pub, before moving toLondon.

Despite possessing an astounding vocabulary, phenomenally disciplined, cultured diction and a plummy, posh voice, Muir was educated atChathamHouseGrammar SchoolandLeytonCountyHigh Schoolfor Boys, not the public-school system he so miraculously mimicked. He proudly and often averred â€œI was educated in E10, notEtonâ€â€¦

During WWII he served as a photographic technician in the Royal Air Force and when demobbed began writing radio scripts for comedians Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley. This led to his teaming with life-long writing partner Denis Norden, and their creation of the venerable comedy show Take it from Here reinvented the Funny Business. Their first major innovation was the invention of iconic sitcom family The Glums, and the team quickly became a keystone and shaper of British humour (â€¦for instance, they originally coined the much-beloved phrase â€œInfamy, Infamy, they’ve all got it in for meâ€) so when Edwards moved over to the new-fangled television medium Muir & Norden went with himâ€¦

Scriptwriter, satirist, scholar, author, performer, star of Radio and Television, Muir was also the BBC’s Assistant Head of Light Entertainment during the 1960s and followed up by becoming London Weekend Television’s first Head of Entertainment in 1969, and worked constantly and brilliantly in his many careers until his death on January 2^nd 1998. Ten months later, he and Norden were joint recipients of their last of so many honours: the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Writer of the Year Award for 1998.

Muir and his family shared their home with a succession of Burmese cats and Afghan Hounds, and these latter were the inspiration for the simply magical picture book story featured here.

Prince Amir of Kinjan was a very clumsy and confused puppy. Excitable, inquisitive, rash and so very careless, the long-nosed, long-legged, pot-bellied pooch always hurtled from here to there, rolling in things, overturning objects and generally causing a sticky calamity all over the place.

There were always things trapped in, nastily glued to or even growing on him – and usually a small yellow duck stuck to the crusted fringe on his head. Even his serene, gracious and long-suffering mother so often said â€œWhat-a-Mess!â€ that the mucky moppet actually believed that it was his nameâ€¦

No wonder the dire doggy was so confused and pondered – whenever he wasn’t rushing about, tearing furniture or eating something he shouldn’t – over what kind of beast he actually wasâ€¦

This resplendent riot of frolicsome folderol then follows the scruffy scamp as he searches in the house, garden and pond for his true identity and a meaning to his life. Using observation, logical deduction and rationalist reasoning, the daft beast notes his definite physical similarities to a big fat bee, an expensive haute couture hat and a goldfish, earning the consequent ire of assorted humans, a compost heap, gravity and merciless, short-tempered ducks â€¦

Even when, at the end of a particularly trying day – for all concerned – the pooped pup slinks home to mother and she tells him what he truly is, Prince Amir still gets a firm hold of the wrong end of the stickâ€¦

A lost classic of very clever kids’ comedy, Muir’s tale rattles along, combining delectable irony with empathy and surreal slapstick whilst Wright’s astonishingly busy illustrations convey pathos and naifish enthusiasm and idiocy with glib ease. Moreover every colourful conception is additionally crammed with deliciously bizarre background detail: madcap marginals, surreal sidebars and outrageous off-focus action involving a host of animals and far less natural charactersâ€¦

Bright, brash, beautiful and brilliant, these books are a sublime treat and long overdue for a fresh release in today’s wonder-starved world.
Text Â© 1977 Frank Muir. Illustrations Â© 1977 Joseph Wright.

October 27, 2012October 26, 2012

Marvel Super-Hero Squad – Infinity Sword Quest

By Mark Hoffmeier, Cort Lane, Todd Dezago, Eugene Son, Christopher Jones, Marcelo Dichiara & Leonel Castellani (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4741-1

The link between children’s comics, television and toys is a long established and mutually beneficial one and too vast to go into here. Suffice it to say that these used to be the big three methods of parting kids from their money and sparking their budding imaginations.

Even if the printed page now lags far behind, there are still moments when they can again fill every moment of a consumer’s life. Of course these days that definition includes children up to and including age 120.

In 2006 Hasbro released an action-figure line of Marvel icons portrayed in the Japanese Chibi or â€œSuper Deformedâ€ style, which reduces (tee hee) characters to chubby, cute child-like caricatures. Although intended for a fairly young market, the toys were fervently collected by all ages and types of fan, leading inexorably in 2009 to an animated cartoon entitled The Super Hero Squad Show.

Amongst further merchandising and licensing spin-offs was a one-shot tie-in comicbook followed by a continuing funnybook feature (initially online daily at Marvel.com) dedicated to the far kinder, gentler adventures of good guys and bad guys who inhabited the fantastic, thrill-packed but angst-free environs of Super Hero City.

This nifty Pocketbook edition collects strip material from Marvel Super Hero Squad #1-4, Super Hero Squad #1-2 plus Marvel Super Hero Squad: Hero Up! and, should you be wondering, the tales reprinted here are still part of the overarching comics continuity, with Marvel classifying this absolutely alternate Reality as Earth-91119â€¦

Here’s all you need to know: the heroes live in a huge and pleasant city doing good things whilst the nasties all lurk in a bad part of town dubbed Villainville.

The child-friendly fun mostly consists of stopping supreme evil genius Doctor Doom from getting his galvanised gauntlets on mysterious but awesomely powerful crystals known as â€œInfinity Fractalsâ€. These shiny shards are imbued with all sorts of uncanny properties that the wicked weirdo and his mean and moody minions are eager to possessâ€¦

It all begins on ‘Freaky Fractal Friday’ (by Mark Hoffmeier, Cort Lane & Christopher Jones) when Wolverine’s hot dog lunch is interrupted by M.O.D.O.K. invading X-Men HQ in search of one of the precious power-stones. In the ensuing battle the fractal switches their minds and the late-arriving Hulk, Thor and Iron Man are completely fooledâ€¦

Happily Ms. Marvel is not and foils the great-big-giant-evil-head in mutant’s clothing when he invades the heroes’ Heli-Carrier in search of more Fractalsâ€¦

‘And Lo, There Shall be a Reptil!!’ (Todd Dezago, Lane & Marcelo Dichiara) introduces brash and obnoxious teenager Humberto Lopez, who dug up a Fractal in his garden and gained the power to change into various bits of dinosaurs.

Naturally he made a costume to fight crime but only made himself a target for Doom, Abomination and The Blob until Captain America stepped in. The Super Hero Squad then took over the garrulous Reptil’s mystery man education and made the short-tempered Wolverine his personal teacherâ€¦

The same creative team crafted ‘Imperius Wrecks!’ which sees Dr. Doom causing sub-sea quakes which accidentally destroy Namor the Sub-Mariner‘s underwater city. This causes the rather pompous Prince of Atlantis to mistakenly invade the surface world and, even with the regular champions and additional heroes She-Hulk, Ant-Man, Tigra, The Thing, Falcon and Hawkeye – in their swim-suits, naturally – the battle goes badly, especially after Doom offers his own team to the aquatic invaders.

Against the Atlantean armies and Crimson Dynamo, The Toad, Bulldozer, Whirlwind, Zzaxx, The Melter and Paste Pot Pete, the good guys are hard-pressed until Iron Man salvages Doom’s submerged machine and Namor learns who his real enemy isâ€¦

‘Every Inhuman Has its Day’ (Eugene Son, Cort Lane & Dichiara) finds Reptil on patrol in Pterodactyl form before saving a colossal dog from deadly dragon Fin Fang Foom and the rest of Doom’s cronies. Adopting the stupendous stray, Humberto soon discovers that the pooch he calls â€œSkippyâ€ has powers too and can get out of any pen, cage or locked room.

â€¦And that’s when mighty Inhumans Black Bolt, Medusa, Triton, Gorgon and Karnak arrive, determined to rescue young Crystal‘s teleporting pet from the humans who must have stolen himâ€¦

Even with the assistance of the Silver Surfer the Super Hero Squad are in for the fight of their lives before calmer heads – and paws – prevailâ€¦

After a flurry of gorgeous pin-ups and variant covers the terrific tales continue with ‘Baby on Board!’ by Dezago & Leonel Castellani, wherein Doom at last reveals the origin of the incredible Fractals scattered all over Earth.

Fragments of a gigantic cosmic scimitar which exploded aboveSuperHeroCity, the glowing shards offer infinite power to their possessor and the Steel Supremo’s latest plan to get them involves using his time machine to travel back to before the Infinity Sword detonatedâ€¦

Unbelievably the heroes have been forewarned by a mysterious comicbook which detailed the Demon Doctor’s entire plan and they pre-emptively attack the Lethal Legion in their stronghold. During the frantic fray the time machine is damaged and everyone except Reptil is turned into a baby.

It’s a good thing that, even as toddlers, Doom and Iron Man were the smartest inventors on the planetâ€¦

‘Bowling for Squaddies!’ (Dezago & Dichiara) finds the nefarious Wrecking Crew of Wrecker, Thunderball, Piledriver and Bulldozer sneaking out of Villainville for a night off when Doom catches them. As punishment he despatches them to help the petrifying Grey Gargoyle steal some art-work. When they are confronted by the assembled Super Hero Squad the newcomer’s â€œstone touchâ€ proves a huge advantage. Sadly it’s not a power he can turn off and soon even the bad guys have been temporarily turned into statues after which Hulk takes centre stage in ‘The Fixit!’ (illustrated by Castellani) and proves that sometimes brute force is the answer to every problemâ€¦

A Valentine’s Day debacle is declared when ‘Love is in the Air!’ (Dezago & Castellani) and bad girls Enchantress and Mystique compete to see who can get most boys to love them. Little drips like Mole Man are no effort but what about the Super Hero Squad? And to prove their love the Dashing Defenders could be made to hand over all the recovered Fractals stockpiled in their HQâ€¦

Of course it all goes pear-shaped not heart-shaped and the wicked women only just escape, after which this first cheerful Chibi cartoon chronicle concludes with a brace of short romantic interludes illustrated by Dichiara.

‘Reptil’s’ Lonely Valentine!’ shows how the cocky schoolboy waits in vain for a billet-doux from some (or even one) of his female classmates and completely misses the potential true love doing everything bar kicking him to get his attention, whilst ‘Hulk’s Secret Valentine!’ finds the Bellicose Behemoth teased and lectured by his hooked-up hero comrades before finally revealing his own true loveâ€¦

Graced with vivid Hero Profiles of Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, Falcon & Silver Surfer and stuffed with cool covers and mini-poster pin-ups, this tiny tome is a light-hearted, clever, wholesome and often intentionally hilarious treat. These teeny-weeny epics are a delightful way of bringing youngsters into the superhero fold – especially Marvel’s truly vast pantheon of characters – and, just like their original iterations, well able to stand up to infinite re-readingsâ€¦
Â© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

October 26, 2012October 26, 2012

The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm

By Norman Hunter, illustrated by W. Heath Robinson (Puffin/Red Fox and others)
ISBNs: PSS33 (1969 Puffin edition)Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 978-1-86230-736-0 (Red Fox 2008)

Although I’m pushing a number of comic-based kids books this week I’d be utterly remiss if I didn’t also include at least one example of the venerably traditional illustrated novel which used to be the happily inescapable staple of bedtime for generations. This particular example is particularly memorable, not simply because it’s a timeless masterpiece of purely English wit and surreal invention, but also because most editions are blessed with a wealth of stunning pictures by an absolute master of absurdist cartooning and wry, dry wit.

Norman George Lorimer Hunter was born on November 23rd, 1899in Sydenham; a decade after that part of Kentbecame part of the ever-expanding Countyof London. He started work as an advertising copywriter and moved into book writing soon after with Simplified Conjuring for All: a collection of new tricks needing no special skill or apparatus for their performance with suitable patter, Advertising Through the Press: a guide to press publicity and New and Easy Magic: a further series of novel magical experiments needing no special skill or apparatus for their performance with suitable patter published between 1923 and 1925.

He was working as a stage magician in Bournemouthduring the early 1930s when he first began concocting the genially explosive exploits of the absolute archetypical absent-minded boffin for radio broadcasts. The tales were read by the inimitable Ajax – to whom the first volume is dedicated – as part of the BBC Home Service’s Children’s Hour.

In 1933 The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm was published in hardback with 76 enthrallingly intricate illustrations by W. Heath Robinson to great success, prompting the sequel Professor Branestawm’s Treasure Hunt (illustrated by James Arnold & George Worsley Adamson) four years later.

During WWII Hunter moved back to Londonand in 1949 emigrated to South Africawhere he worked outside the fiction biz until his retirement. He returned to Britainin 1970, following the release of Thames Television’s Professor Branestawm TV series which adapted many of the short stories from the original books in the summer of 1969.

Following the show Hunter resumed writing: another 11 Branestawn tomes between 1970-1983, plus a selection of supplemental books including Professor Branestawm’s Dictionary (1973), …Compendium of Conundrums, Riddles, Puzzles, Brain Twiddlers and Dotty Descriptions (1975), …Do-it-yourself Handbook (1976) and many magic-related volumes.

Norman Hunter died in 1995.

William Heath Robinson was born on May 31^st 1872 into something of an artistic dynasty. His father Thomas was chief staff artist for Penny Illustrated Paper. His older brothers Thomas and Charles were also illustrators of note.

After schooling William tried unsuccessfully to become a watercolour landscape-artist before returning to the family trade and in 1902 produced the fairy story ‘Uncle Lubin’ before contributing regularly to The Tatler, Bystander, Sketch, Strand and London Opinion. During this period he developed the humorous whimsy and penchant for eccentric, archaic-looking mechanical devices that made him a household name.

During the Great War he uniquely avoided the Jingoistic stance and fervour of his fellow artists, preferring instead to satirise the absurdity of conflict itself with volumes of cartoons such as The Saintly Hun. Then, after a 20-year career of phenomenal success and creativity in cartooning, illustration and particularly advertising, he found himself forced to do it again in World War Two.

He died on13th September 1944.

Perhaps inspired by the Branestawm commission, Heath Robinson’s 1934 collection Absurdities hilariously describes the frail resilience of the human condition in the Machine Age and particularly how the English deal with it all. They are also some of his funniest strips and panels. Much too little of his charming and detailed illustrative wit is in print today, a situation that cries out for Arts Council Funding or Lottery money, perhaps more than any other injustice in the sadly neglected field of cartooning and Popular Arts.

The first inspirational Professor Branestawm storybook introduces the dotty, big-domed, scatterbrained savant as a ramshackle cove with five pairs of spectacles – which he generally wears all at once – and his clothes held together with safety pins â€¦probably because the many explosions he creates always blow his buttons off.

The wise buffoon spends most of his days thinking high thoughts and devising odd devices in his â€œInventoryâ€ whilst his mundane requirements are taken care of by dotty, devoted, frequently frightened or flustered housekeeper Mrs. Flittersnoop. Branestawm’s best chum is the gruff Colonel Dedshott of the Catapult Cavaliers, although said old soldier seldom knows what the scientist is talking aboutâ€¦

The over-educated inspirationalist and his motley crew first appeared in ‘The Professor Invents a Machine’ which saw the debut of an arcane device that moved so quickly that Branestawm and Dedshott were carried a week into the past and accidentally undid a revolution in Squiglatania – and ended up upsetting everybody on both sides of the argument.

In ‘The Wild Waste-Paper’ Mrs. Flittersnoop’s incessant tidying up caused a spill of the Professor’s new Elixir of Vitality and the consequent enlargement and animation of a basket full of furiously angry bills, clingy postcards and discarded envelopes, whilst in

‘The Professor Borrows a Book’ the absent-minded mentor mislaid a reference tome and had to borrow another from the local library.

A house full of books is the worst place to lose one, and when the second one went walkies Branestawm had to borrow a third or pay the fine on the second. By the time he’d finished the Professor had checked out fourteen copies and was killing himself covertly transporting it from library to libraryâ€¦

When his stuff-stuffed house was raided by ‘Burglars!’ the shocked and horrified thinker was driven to concoct the ultimate security system. It was the perfect device to defend an Englishman’s Castle – unless he was the type who regularly forgot his keys and that he had installed an anti-burglar machineâ€¦

When he lost a day because he hadn’t noticed his chronometer had stopped, the Professor invented a new sort of timepiece that never needed winding. Even the local horologist wanted one.

Sadly the meandering mentalist had forgotten to add a what-not to stop them striking more than twelve and as the beastly things inexorably added one peal every hour soon there were more dings than could fit in any fifty-nine minutes. ‘The Screaming Clocks’ quickly became most unwelcome and eventually an actually menace to life and limbâ€¦

The Professor often thought so hard that he ceased all motion. Whilst visiting ‘The Fair at Pagwell Green’ Mrs. Flittersnoop and Colonel Dedshott mistook a waxwork of the famously brilliant bumbler for the real thing and brought â€œhimâ€ home to finish his pondering in private. Sadly the carnival waxworks owner alternatively believed he had a wax statue that had learned to talkâ€¦

‘The Professor Sends an Invitation’ saw the savant ask Dedshott to tea but forget to include the laboriously scripted card. By means most arcane and convoluted, the doughty old warrior received an ink-smudged blotter in an addressed envelope and mobilised to solve a baffling cipher. Of course his first port-of-call had to be his clever scientific friend – who had subsequently forgotten all about upcoming culinary eventsâ€¦

‘The Professor Studies Spring Cleaning’ found Branestawm applying his prodigious intellect and inventive acumen to the seasonal tradition that so vexed Mrs. Flittersnoop before inevitably finding a way to make things worse. He thus constructed a house-engine that emptied and cleaned itself. Of course it couldn’t really tell the difference between sofa, couch cupboard or housekeeperâ€¦

‘The Too-Many Professors’ appeared when the affable artificer invented a solution which brought pictures to life. Flittersnoop was guardedly impressed when illustrations of apples and chocolates became edibly real but utterly aghast when a 3-dimensional cat and elephant began crashing about in the parlour.

So it was pretty inevitable that the foul-smelling concoction would be spilled all over the photograph albumsâ€¦

In a case of creativity feeding on itself, ‘The Professor Does a Broadcast’ relates how the brilliant old duffer was asked to give a lecture on the Wireless (no, not about radio, but for itâ€¦). Unaccustomed as he was to public speaking, the tongue-tied boffin had Dedshott rehearse and drill him until he could recite the whole speech in eleven minutes. Of course the scheduled programme was supposed to last half an hourâ€¦

A grand Fancy Dress Ball resulted in two eccentric pillars of Pagwell Society wittily masquerading as each other. Naturally ‘Colonel Branestawm and Professor Dedshott’ were a great success but when the Countess of Pagwell‘s pearls were purloined whilst the old duffers changed back to their regular attire nobody noticed the difference or believed themâ€¦

‘The Professor Moves House’ found the inventor forced to rent larger premises because he had filled up the old one with his contraptions. However Branestawm’s attempts to rationalise the Moving Men’s work patterns proved that even he didn’t know everything. At least the disastrous ‘Pancake Day at Great Pagwell’ rescued his reputation when his magnificent automatic Pancake-Making Machine furiously fed a multitude of friends and civic dignitaries. The Mayor liked it so much he purchased it to lay all the municipality’s pavementsâ€¦

This gloriously enchanting initial outing ends with ‘Professor Branestawm’s Holiday’ as the old brain-bonce finally acquiesced to his housekeeper’s urgent urgings and went for a vacation to the seaside. Keen on swotting up on all things jellyfish the savant set off but forgot to check in at his boarding house, prompting a desperate search by Dedshott, Flittersnoop and the authorities.

Things were further complicated by a Pierrot Show which boasted the best Professor Branestawn impersonator inBritain: so good in fact that even the delinquent dodderer’s best friends could not tell the difference.

With the performer locked up in a sanatorium claiming he wasn’t a Professor, it was a lucky thing the one-and-only scatty scholar was unable to discern the difference between a lecture hall and a seaside show-tentâ€¦

As I’ve already mentioned, these astonishingly accessible yarns were originally written for radio and thus abound with rhythmic cadences and onomatopoeic sound effects that just scream to be enjoyed out loud. This eternally fresh children’s classic, augmented by 76 of Heath-Robinson’s most memorable character caricatures and insane implements, offer some of the earliest and most enduring example of spiffing techno-babble and fabulous faux-physics â€“ not to mention impressive iterations of the divine Pathetic Fallacy in all its outrageous glory â€“ and no child should have to grow up without visiting and revisiting the immortal, improbable Pagwell Pioneer.

In 2008 a 75^th Anniversary edition of The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm was released by Red Fox but you’re just a likely to find this uproarious ubiquitous marvel in libraries, second-hand shops or even jumble sales – so by all means doâ€¦
Â© 1933 Norman Hunter. All rights reserved.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: