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Jak volume 13 (1981)


By Jak (Express Newspapers)
ISBN: 0-85079-117-0

I reviewed one of Jak’s earliest collections a few years back and churlishly bemoaned the lack of contextual grounding, utterly forgetting that a brief time later the editors of the series began doing just that so here’s another bite of a superb cartoon cherry that’s still not impossible for the determined fan to find.

The truly sad if not terrifying thing about rereading topical news cartoons years if not decades later is how distressingly familiar the subjects and hot topics are.

For example this volume taken from 1981 features an impending Royal Wedding, bombings in Ireland, nuclear contamination, BP cocking up the planet, banking scandals, insane cuts in military spending, increased unemployment – especially for school and college leavers, brutal spending cuts, a chancellor who couldn’t add up (Geoffrey Howe back then), cynical disinformational bitching about overpaid Council and public sector workers plus a Tory government falling apart and attacking itself and its partners.

However, that time the Government saved itself by fighting a war with somebody thousands of miles away over oil, but there’s no chance of that happening aga…

Hey, wait a minute…

Even the quirky “silly season” stories seem afflicted by generational déjà vu then and now: ITV’s breakfast show was suffering a star-strapped meltdown, the space shuttle was big news (the first not last ever flight into orbit), Prince Andrew was embarrassing us in the eyes of the world, a major acting star went spectacularly off the rails and we were “all in it together” with even rich people cutting down on luxuries (slightly) and England had an appalling football team…

This compendium even closes with the threat of impending war in Libya…

Sometimes our industry is cruel and unjust. This collection of cartoons by Raymond Allen Jackson, who, as Jak, worked for thirty years as political cartoonist for London Evening Standard – renamed by this time as The Standard – is one of many that celebrated his creativity, perspicacity and acumen as he drew pictures and scored points with and among the entire range of British Society.

His gags, produced daily to a punishing deadline as they had to be topical, were appreciated, if not feared, by toffs and plebs alike and were created with a degree of craft and diligence second to none. Even now, decades later, they are still shining examples of wit and talent. Most of them are still scathingly funny too.

Artists like Jak who were commenting on contemporary events are poorly served by posterity. This particular volume (re-presenting a selection of single panel-gags from September 5th 1980 to October 19th 1981), like all of these books, was packaged and released for that year’s Christmas market, with the topics still fresh in people’s minds. Thirty years later – although the drawing is still superb – although the minutiae might escape a few – the trenchant wit, dry jabs and outraged passion which informed these pictorial puncture wounds is still powerfully present. And clearly human nature never changes…

It’s just a huge shame that the vast body of graphic excellence that news cartoonists produce has such a tenuous shelf-life. Perhaps some forward looking university with a mind to jazzing up their modern history or social studies curricula might want to step up and take charge of the tragically untapped and superbly polished catalogue of all our yesterdays…
© 1981 Express Newspapers Limited.

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Heartburst – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Rick Veitch (Marvel/King Hell Press)
ISBN: 0- 939766-82-5  King Hell edition ISBN: 978-0-98002-060-1

Once upon a time Marvel led the publishing pack in the development of high quality original graphic novels: mixing creator-owned properties, licensed assets like Conan, special in-continuity Marvel Universe tales and even new series launches in extravagant over-sized packages (a standard 285 x 220mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168mm based on the globally accepted European album format) which felt and looked instantly superior to the standard flimsy US comicbook no matter how good, bad or controversial the contents might be.

This terrifically appetising tale, developed under the company’s creator-owned Epic imprint in 1984, was one of the most experimental of those heady early days: a bold and impressive allegory of and attack on the assorted bigotries still too proudly cherished and even boasted of by so many in those distant days… in the 21st century we’re far less concerned with what you buy, pray to, look like or sleep with, aren’t we?

The drama begins with ‘Heartbeat’ as on a far-distant Earth colony circling Epsilon Bootis the theocratic authorities are in a state of constant crisis. In the centuries since humans first landed they have polarised into a closed, dogmatic and militaristic society, devoted to the worship of gods who regularly and actively communicate with them.

They have no truck with heretical Earth scientists like Miss Rimbaud whose explanation that the Holy Sponsor’s electronic teachings are merely old TV broadcasts. They don’t want to hear that those 1950s attitudes are discredited now. They absolutely won’t tolerate any hint of ending their campaign to sterilise and eradicate the native Ploo…

The indigenous natives are in dire distress: beautiful, friendly bright green beings, sexually and genetically compatible with humans and permanently emitting an aphrodisiac musk Terrans cannot resist. If the race is to be kept pure the Ploo simply cannot be allowed to survive…

Young Sunoco Firestone (most humans have good scriptural names like Pepsi, Schlitz or Bilko) is present when his uncle Inquisitor Xerox interrogates Rimbaud. Her story strikes a disturbing chord in the lad, already pushed to breaking point by recurring dreams of a magical well and a cosmic voice calling to him… When he sees a forbidden Ploo exotic dancer in a banned sector of town Sunoco is irresistibly drawn to her and the biologically inevitable happens…

Obsessed with his alien soul-mate Maia, shaken by his delirious fall into miscegenation and terrified because the Sacred Broadcasts have suddenly stopped, Sunoco snaps and abandons his life, joining Maia as a traveling entertainer, experiencing daily delight as the world rapidly goes to hell and beyond. But even though free, happy and proud; with Maia pregnant the dream voice won’t leave him alone, hinting at some incredible celestial destiny whilst the eternally vigilant gene-police are stepping up their pogroms and getting closer to the desperate fugitives…

With ‘Heartrhythm’ the forces of oppression close in and the lovers are separated as Sunoco is captured and the planet descends into outright civil war with the faithful eradicating the last Ploo and their turncoat human lovers. Broken and desperate Firestone agrees to become a spy for the human army, but when he meets the enigmatic Rimbaud he changes sides once more and finally discovers the secret of the voice and a fantastic universal power that will shape the destiny of two worlds in ‘Heartburst’…

Rick Veitch is a criminally undervalued creator, with a poet’s sensibilities and a disaffected Flower-Child’s perspectives informing a powerful social and creative consciousness and conscience. This spectacularly mind-bending romp synthesizes the total late 20th century American experience from the bland triumph of cultural imperialism to the spiritual disenfranchisement of Vietnam whilst telling an uplifting story of love and hope – a really neat trick if you can do it…

This sly, dry, funny, impressively adult and breathtakingly reflective full painted yarn proves that he can and Heartburst should be on the must read list of any serious fan…

In 2008 Veitch released a remastered, slightly smaller-dimensioned edition under his own King Hell Press imprint. Heartburst and Other Pleasures also includes three short graphic collaborations with those other outré  masters of unconventional love Alan Moore and Steve Bissette: including ‘Mirror of Love’, ‘Underpass’, ‘Try to Remember’ as well as unseen art-pages. This too is well worth  tracking down or you could simply order direct from the man himself by typing www.rickveitch.com into your favourite search-engine, remembering always to keep a credit card handy – preferably your own…
© 1984, 2008 Rick Veitch. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Batgirl volume 1


By Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Don Heck & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1367-1

Today comics readers are pretty used to the vast battalion of Bat-shaped champions infesting Gotham City and its troubled environs, but for the longest time it was just Bruce, Dick and occasionally their borrowed dog Ace keeping crime on the run. However in Detective Comics #233 (July 1956 and three months before the debut of the Flash officially ushered in the Silver Age of American comicbooks) the editorial powers-that-be introduced heiress Kathy Kane, who sporadically suited-up in chiropteran red and yellow for the next eight years.

In Batman #139 (April 1961) her niece Betty started dressing up and acting out as her assistant Batgirl, but when Editor Julie Schwartz took over the Bat-titles in 1964 both ladies unceremoniously disappeared in his root-and-branch overhaul.

In 1966 the Batman TV series took over the planet, but its second season was far less popular and the producers soon saw the commercial sense of adding a glamorous female fighter in the fresh, new tradition of Emma Peel, Honey West and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. especially when clad in a cute cape, shiny skin-tight body-stocking and go-go boots…

Of course she had to join the comics cast too and this Showcase edition re-presents her varied appearances as both guest-star and headliner in her own series, beginning with her four-colour premiere…

In ‘The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl’ (Detective Comics #359, cover-dated January 1967) writer Gardner Fox and the art team supreme of Carmine Infantino and Sid Greene introduced young Barbara Gordon, mousy librarian and daughter of the Police Commissioner to the superhero limelight, so by the time the third season began on September 14, 1967, she was well-established.

Whereas in her small screen premiere she pummeled the Penguin, her funnybook origin featured the no-less-ludicrous but at least visually forbidding Killer Moth in a clever, fast-paced yarn involving blackmail and murder that still stands up today and which opens in fine style this long-awaited monochrome celebration of the brief but stellar career of one of the most successful distaff spin-offs in the business.

Her appearances came thick and fast after that initial tale: ‘The True-False Face of Batman’ (Detective #363, by Fox Infantino and Greene) was a full co-starring vehicle as the new girl was challenged to deduce Batman’s secret identity whilst tracking down enigmatic criminal genius Mr. Brains, after which she teamed-up with the Girl of Steel in World’s Finest Comics #169 (September 1967) wherein the uppity lasses seemingly worked to replace Batman and Superman in ‘The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot’; a whimsical fantasy feast from Cary Bates, Curt Swan & George Klein.

Detective #369, illustrated by Infantino and Greene, somewhat reinforced boyhood prejudices about icky girls in the classy thriller ‘Batgirl Breaks Up the Dynamic Duo’ which segued directly into a classic confrontation in Batman #197 as ‘Catwoman sets Her Claws for Batman!’ by Fox, Frank Springer and Greene. This frankly daft tale is most fondly remembered for the classic cover of Batgirl and Catwoman (with Whip!!!) squaring off over Batman’s prone body – comic fans have a psychopathology all their very own…

Gil Kane made his debut on the Dominoed Daredoll (did they really call her that? – yes they did, from page 2 onwards!) in #371′s ‘Batgirl’s Costumed Cut-ups’, a masterpiece of comic-art dynamism that inker Sid Greene could be proud of, but which proffered some rather uncomfortable assertions about female vanity that Gardner Fox probably preferred to forget – and just check out the cover of this tome if you think I’m kidding.

Batgirl next surfaced in Justice League of America #60, February 1968, wherein the team barely survived a return match with alien invader Queen Bee and were temporarily transformed into ‘Winged Warriors of the Immortal Queen!’ (by Fox, Mike Sekowsky & Greene whilst in the June-July The Brave and the Bold (#78) Bob Brown stepped in to draw her in for Bob Haney’s eccentric crime-thriller ‘In the Coils of the Copperhead’ wherein Wonder Woman found herself vying with the fresh young thing for Batman’s affections. Of course it was all a cunning plan… wasn’t it?

That same month another team-up with Supergirl heralded a sea-change in DC’s tone, style and content as the girls were dragged into ‘The Superman-Batman Split!’ (World’s Finest Comics #176) with Bates providing a far darker mystery for the girls and boys (including Robin and Jimmy Olsen) to solve whilst artists Neal Adams & Dick Giordano began revolutionising how comics looked with their moody, exciting hyper-realistic renderings.

Although Barbara Gordon cropped up in the background of occasional Batman adventures that was the last time the masked heroine was seen until Detective Comics #384, (February 1969) when Batgirl finally debuted in her own solo feature. Written by Mike Friedrich and illustrated by the phenomenal team of Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson ‘Tall, Dark. Handsome …and Missing!’ began a run of human-scaled crime dramas with what all the (male) scripters clearly believed was a strong female slant as in this yarn wherein librarian Babs developed a crush on a frequent borrower just before he inexplicably vanished.

Batgirl investigated and ran into a pack of brutal thugs before solving the mystery in the second part, ‘Hunt For the Helpless Hostage!’ (Detective #385), after which the lead story from that issue rather inexplicably follows here.

‘Die Small… Die Big!’ by Robert Kanigher, Bob Brown & Joe Giella is one of the best Batman adventures of the period, with a nameless nonentity sacrificing everything for a man he’s never met, but Babs is only in three panels and never as Batgirl…

Adventure Comics #381 (June 1969) made far better use of her skills as she went undercover and was largely at odds with the Maid of Steel whilst exposing ‘The Supergirl Gang’ in a tense thriller by Bates & Win Mortimer. Batgirl shared the second slot with Robin in alternating adventures, so she next appeared in Detective #388 which welcomed aboard newspaper strip veteran Frank Robbins to script ‘Surprise! This’ll Kill You!’ a sophisticated bait-and-switch caper which saw Batgirl impersonate herself and almost pay with her life for another girl’s crimes. Spectacularly illustrated by Kane & Anderson the strip had expanded from eight to ten pages but that still wasn’t enough and the breathtaking thrills spilled over into a dramatic conclusion in ‘Batgirl’s Bag of Tricks!

Although the tone and times were changing there was still potential to be daft and parochial too, as seen in ‘Batman’s Marriage Trap!’ (Batman #214, by Robbins, Irv Novick & Giella) wherein a wicked Femme Fatale set the unfulfilled spinsters of America on the trail of Gotham’s Most Eligible Bat-chelor (see what I did there? I’ve done it before too and you can’t stop me…). Not even a singular guest-shot by positive role-model Batgirl could redeem this peculiar throwback – although the art rather does…

‘A Clue… Seven-Foot Tall!’ (from Detective #392, October 1969, by Robbins, Kane & Anderson) was another savvy contemporary crime-saga which also introduced a new Bat cast-member in the form of disabled Vietnam veteran and neophyte private eye Jason Bard (who would eventually inherit Batgirl’s spot in Detective Comics). Here and in the concluding ‘Downfall of a Goliath’ Babs and Bard sparred and joined forces to solve a brutal murder in the world of professional basketball.

In issues #396 and 397 (February and March 1970) Batgirl faced the very modern menace of what we’d now call a psycho-sexual serial killer in the chilling and enthralling mystery ‘The Orchid-Crusher’ and ‘The Hollow Man’: a clear proof of the second string character’s true and still untapped potential…

The anniversary Detective #400 (June 1970) finally teamed her with Robin in ‘A Burial For Batgirl!’(Denny O’Neil, Kane & Vince Colletta) a college-based murder mystery that referenced the political and social unrest then plaguing US campuses, but which still found space to be smart and action-packed as well as topical before the chilling conclusion ‘Midnight is the Dying Hour!’ (Detective #401).

With issue #404 Babs became the sole back-up star as Robbins, Kane & Frank Giacoia sampled the underground movie scene with ‘Midnight Doom-Boy’ mischievously spoofing Andy Warhol’s infamous Factory studio in another intriguing murder-plot, diverting to and culminating in another branch of Pop Art as Batgirl nearly became ‘The Living Statue!’

In ‘The Explosive Circle!’ (#406, with Colletta back to ink) the topic du jour was gentrification as property speculation ripped Gotham apart, but not as much as a gang of radical bombers, leading to the cry ‘One of Our Landmarks is Missing!’ The next issue (#408) saw the vastly underrated Don Heck take over as artist, inked here by Dick Giordano on ‘The Phantom Bullfighter!’ wherein a work-trip to Madrid embroiled Batgirl in a contentious dispute between matadors old and new, leading to a murderous ‘Night of the Sharp Horns!’

Inevitably fashion reared its stylish head in a strip with a female lead, but Robbins’ immensely clever ‘Battle of the Three “M’s”’ (that’s mini, midi and maxi to you straights out there) proved to be one of the most compelling and clever tales of the entire run as a trendsetting celebrity found herself the target of an unscrupulous designer, leading to a murderous deathtrap for Babs in ‘Cut… and Run!’ Clearly inspired, Robbins stayed with girlish things for ‘The Head-Splitters!’ (Detective #412) and Heck, now inking himself, rose to the occasion for a truly creepy saga about hairdressing that features one of the nastiest scams and murder methods I’ve ever seen, ending in a climactic ‘Squeeze-Play!’…

Babs reunited with Jason Bard for an anniversary date only to stumble onto an ‘Invitation to Murder!’ (another celebrity homage; this time to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) – a classy fair-play mystery resolved in ‘Death Shares the Spotlight!’

A cop-killing had torn apart the city and Babs’ father Commissioner Jim Gordon was taking it badly in ‘The Deadly Go-Between!’, but militant radicals weren’t the only threat as seen in the concluding episode ‘A Bullet For Gordon!’, which presaged a far greater role for the once-anodyne authority figure and leading to the character’s integral role in today’s Bat-universe.

Robbins and Heck also revealed a shocking secret about the Commissioner that would build through the remaining Batgirl adventures, beginning with ‘The Kingpin is Dead!’, concerning a “motiveless” hit on an old gang-boss all cleared up in spectacular fashion with ‘Long Live the Kingpin!’ in #419.

‘Target for Mañana!’ saw Babs and her dad travel to Mexico on a narcotics fact-finding mission only to fall foul of a sinister plot in ‘Up Against Three Walls!’ before the series took a landmark turn in ‘The Unmasking of Batgirl’ as a charmer broker her heart and Babs decided to chuck it all in and run for Congress in ‘Candidate For Danger!’

Detective Comics #424 (June 1972) featured ‘Batgirl’s Last Case’ as “Battlin’ Babs” overturned a corrupt political machine and shuffled off to DC, leaving Jason to manage on his own, but that wasn’t quite the end of her adventures. Superman #268 (October 1973) found her battling spies in the Capitol beside the Man of Steel in ‘Wild Week-End in Washington!’ courtesy of Elliot S. Maggin, Curt Swan & Bob Oksner and repeating the experience a year later in ‘Menace of the Energy-Blackmailers!’ (Superman #279, by Maggin, Swan & Phil Zupa.

This eclectic but highly entertaining compendium concludes with one last Supergirl team-up, this time from Superman Family #171 (June/July 1975) wherein a distant descendent of the Empress of the Nile used magic to become ‘Cleopatra, Queen of America’ overwhelming even Superman and the Justice League before the Cape and Cowl Cuties finally lowered the boom…

Batgirl’s early exploits come from and indeed partially shaped an era where women in popular fiction were finally emerging from the marriage-obsessed, ankle-twisting, deferential, fainting hostage-fodder mode that had been their ignoble lot in all media for untold decades. Feminism wasn’t a dirty word or a joke then for the generation of girls who at last got some independent and effective role-models with (metaphorically, at least) balls.

Complex yet uncomplicated, the adventures of Batgirl grew beyond their crassly commercial origins to make a real difference. However these tales are not only significant but drenched in charm and wit; drawn with a gloriously captivating style and panache that still delights and enthralls. This is no girly comic but a full-on thrill ride you can’t afford to ignore…
© 1967-1975, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Richard Corben Complete Works volume 2: Underground


By Richard Corben and various (Catalan Communications)
ISBN: 978-0-87416-026-X

Although never a regular contributor to the comicbook mainstream, animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist Richard Corben is one of America’s greatest living proponents of sequential narrative: an astoundingly accomplished artist and unique, uncompromising auteur with an unmistakable style and vision.

Corben flowered in the independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s to become a globally revered, multi-award winning creator. He is most renowned for his mastery of the airbrush and his delight in sardonic, darkly comedic horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.

Born in Anderson, Missouri in 1940, he graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1965 from the Kansas City Art Institute and began working as an animator. At that time, the Underground movement was just stating to revolutionise, reinvigorate and liberate the medium of comics as a motley crew of independent-minded creators across the continent began making and publishing stories that appealed to their rebellious, pharmacologically-enhanced sensibilities and unconventional lifestyles.

Most of them had been reared on and hugely influenced by 1950s EC Comics or Carl Barks’ Duck tales – and usually both.

Corben started the same way, producing the kind of stories that he would like to read, in as variety of small-press publications including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Fever Dreams and his own Fantagor often signed with his affectionate pseudonym “Gore”. As his style matured and his skills developed Corben’s work increasingly began to appear in more professionally produced venues. He began working for Warren Publishing in 1970 with tales in Eerie, Creepy, Vampirella, Comix International and latterly, the aggressively audacious adult science fiction anthology 1984. He also famously re-coloured a number of reprinted Spirit strips for the revival of Will Eisner’s the Spirit magazine.

In 1975 Corben submitted work to the French fantasy phenomenon Métal Hurlant and subsequently became a fixture in the magazine’s American iteration Heavy Metal after which his career really took off. Soon he was producing stunning graphic escapades for a number of companies, making animated movies, painting film posters and producing record covers such as the multi-million-selling Meatloaf album Bat Out of Hell. He never stopped making comics but preferred his own independent projects with collaborators such as Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jones and Jan Strnad.

This regrettably out-of-print collection is the second of three collecting his early strip efforts, mostly taken from Fantagor, offering a unique insight into his burgeoning mastery and displaying more powerful, wickedly whimsical and sardonic suspense tales in the EC vein. The first few are in black and white beginning with ‘Inna Pit’ a post apocalyptic comi-tragedy followed by an anti-capitalist eco-fable entitled ‘Dumb Story’

‘Razar the Unhero’ (written by “Starr Armitage” in 1970) is a dark and sexily violent spoof of Sword and Sorcery epics with a deprecating edge whilst Herb Arnold signed his real name to his script for ‘Chard’: a far more straightforward barbarian adventure saga. ‘The Story of Otog’, based on an ancient Japanese folk tale and adapted by Corben and Harvey Sea, is an impressive and moving early taste of more ambitious things to come…

Obnoxious, smug Razar was far too enjoyable a character to abandon and he returned in all his mendacious glory in ‘Necromancer’, a far less jolly romp and the last monochrome tale contained here whereas the Jan Strnad penned ‘To Spear a Fair Maiden’ returned to outrageous tomfoolery, bloody violence and Frat-Boy crassness as the itinerant warrior was hired by a desperate father to save the world by deflowering his daughter before a wizard can turn her valuable virginity into a deadly spell. Of course things do not go as planned…

‘The Secret of Zokma’ is a truly grim and horrific tale of exploration and contamination balanced by the grotesque and hilarious parable of backwoods infidelity ‘Lame Lem’s Love’ and this volume concludes with ‘The Temple’ – a whimsical and vituperative reinterpretation of the Garden of Eden myth with a sting in the tail…

Corben’s infamous signature-stylisation always includes oodles of nudity, extreme and graphic violence and impossibly proportioned male and female physiques, and there’s plenty of all included here. His groundbreaking work reshaped our art-form and the fact that so much of his canon is currently unavailable in English is a crime. Not only are these early works long overdue for a definitive re-issue but all his rude, riotous, raucously ribald revels need to be re-released now…
© 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1986 Richard Corben. © 1986 Catalan Communications. All rights reserved.

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Metropolis


By Thea von Harbou, illustrated by Michael W. Kaluta (Donning/Starblaze)
ISBN: 0-89865-519-6

People who work in comics adore their earliest influences, and will spout for hours about them. Not only did they initially fire the young imagination and spark the drive to create but they always provide the creative yardstick by which a writer or artist measures their own achievements and worth. Books, comics, posters, even gum cards (which mysteriously mutated into “Trading Cards” in the 1990s) all fed the colossal hungry Art-sponge which was the developing brain of the kids who make comics.

But by the 1970s an odd phenomenon was increasingly apparent. It became clear that new talent coming into the industry was increasingly aware only of comic-books as a source of pictorial fuel. The great illustrators and storytellers who had inspired the likes of Howard Chaykin, Bernie Wrightson, Mike Kaluta, P. Craig Russell, Charles Vess, Mike Grell, and a host of other top professionals were virtually unknown to many youngsters and aspirants. I suspect the reason for this was the decline of illustrated fiction in magazines – and general magazines in general.

Photographs became a cheaper option than artwork in the late 1960s and as a broad rule populations read less and less each year from that time onwards.

In the late 1980s publisher Donning created a line of oversized deluxe editions reprinting “lost” prose classics of fantasy, illustrated by major comics talents who felt an affinity for the selected texts. Charles Vess illustrated Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, P. Craig Russell created magic for The Thief of Bagdad and Mike Grell depicted the word’s greatest archer in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire.

Arch period stylist Mike Kaluta worked on something a little more exotic; illustrating the original film scenario (a broad shooting script used by movie-makers in the days before dialogue) written by Thea von Harbou after her husband returned from a trip to America.

Herr “von Harbou” was German expressionist genius Fritz Lang, and his account of his fevered impressions, responses and reminiscences became the ultimate social futurist fiction film Metropolis – possibly the most stirring, visually rich and influential movie of the silent era – and officially the most expensive film ever made during the pre-talkies era.

If you haven’t seen the film… Do. Go now, a new re-re-restored version was released in 2010 – the most complete yet. I’ll wait…

The plot – in simple terms – concerns the battle between proletarian workers and the rich, educated elite of a colossal city where workers toil in hellish, conformist subterranean regiments to provide a paradise for the bosses and managers who live like gods in the lofty clouds above.

It would be the perfect life for Freder, son of the grand architect Joh Fredersen, except for the fact that he has become besotted with Maria, an activist girl from the depths. The boy will move Heaven and Earth to have her love him. He even abandons his luxuries to become a worker near her…

Distraught Fredersen renews his tempestuous relationship with the crazed science-wizard Rotwang, once ally and rival for the love of the seductive woman Hel.

Rotwang offers his aid but it is a double-edged sword. He kidnaps Maria and constructs an incredible robotic replacement of her, to derail her passive crusade and exact his own long-deferred revenge…

This “novelisation” – for want of a better word – is as engrossing as the film in many ways but the story is elevated by the incredible illustrations produced by Kaluta -5 full page artworks in evocative chalk-and-pastel colour, two incredible double-page spreads in black line plus 32 assorted monochrome half-frames and full pages rendered in black & white line, grey-tones, charcoal, chalk monotones and pastel tints – an absolute banquet for lovers of art deco in particular and immaculate drawing in general.

Whilst no substitute for the filmic experience, this magnificent book is a spectacular combination of art and story that is the perfect companion to that so-influential fantasy masterpiece beloved by generations of youngsters.
© 1988 by the Donning Company/publishers. Art © 1988 Michael W. Kaluta. All rights reserved.

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Hawkman volume 4: Rise of the Golden Eagle


By Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Joe Bennett & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1092-2

After an intense and impressive run of savage sagas (not all of which have been collected in graphic novels yet – and yes, that’s a hint…) Hawkman was eased out of his own book as a result of the impending Infinite Crisis company crossover event and – presumably – less than stellar sales…

Despite being amongst DC’s most popular and visually striking characters, Hawkman and Hawkwoman always struggled to find enough of an audience to sustain their numerous solo titles. From the very beginning as second feature in the Golden Age Flash comics they battled through many excellent yet always short-lived reconfigurations. From ancient heroes to space-cops and (post-Crisis on Infinite Earths) Thanagarian freedom fighters, they never quite hit the big time they deserved…

Created by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville, Hawkman premiered in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940) with ultimately Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Kubert carrying on the strip’s illustration, whilst a young Robert Kanigher cut his teeth as writer on the late run of the strip. Carter Hall was a playboy archaeologist whose dormant memory was unlocked by a crystal dagger. He realised that once he was Prince Khufu of ancient Egypt, murdered with his lover Chay-Ara by High Priest Hath-Set. With his returned memories the eternal struggle was destined to play out once more…

Hall fashioned an outlandish uniform and anti-gravity harness, becoming a crime-fighting phenomenon. Soon the equally reincarnated Shiera Sanders was fighting and flying beside him as Hawkgirl. Together the gladiatorial “Mystery-Men” battled modern crime and tyranny with weapons of the past for over a decade before vanishing with the bulk of costumed heroes as the 1950s began.

Hawkman’s last appearance was in All Star Comics #57 (1951) as leader of the Justice Society of America, but the husband and wife hellions were revived and re-imagined nine years later as Katar Hol and Shayera Thal of planet Thanagar by Julie Schwartz’s crack creative team Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert – a space-age interpretation which even survived 1985’s winnowing Crisis. Their long career, numerous revamps and retcons ended during the 1994 Zero Hour crisis.

After the universe-shuffling a new team of Winged Wonders appeared (See Hawkworld) – refuges from a militaristic Thanagarian Empire who found new purpose on Earth.

When a new Hawkgirl was created as part of a revived Justice Society comicbook at the end of the 20th century, fans knew it was only a matter of time before her Pinioned Paramour rejoined her (see JSA: the Return of Hawkman). Immediately regaining his own book, the hero had been synthesized into a mélange of all previous versions: a reincarnating, immortal berserker-warrior who finally seemed to strike the right note of freshness and seasoned maturity. Superb artwork and stunning stories didn’t hurt either.

The current Hawkman remembers all his past lives: many millennia when and where he and Chay-Ara fought evil together as bird-themed champions, dying over and over at the hands of an equally renewed Hath-Set. Most importantly, Kendra Saunders, the new Hawkgirl, differs from all previous incarnations since Chay-Ara was not reborn in this instance but instead possessed the body of her grand-niece when that tragic girl committed suicide. Although Carter Hall still loves his immortal inamorata his companion of a million battles is no longer quite so secure or sure of her feelings…

Rise of the Golden Eagle (collecting issues #37-45 of the monthly comicbook) begins with a mysterious vendetta targeting the Pinioned Paladin as old enemy Fadeaway Man, leads an army of foes in a series of brutal attacks on Hawkman. However it seems the teleporting villain is not the real mastermind here…

Written by Justin Grey & Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Joe Bennett, Dale Eaglesham, Stephen Sadowski, Ruy Jose, Wade von Grawbadger, Lary Stucker Drew Geraci and Jack Jadson the all-out action and suspense begins with the legion of monstrous antagonists overwhelming the Winged Wonders until a new ally appears…

Former Teen Titan Charley Parker is Golden Eagle and claims to be the son of Hawkman – or at least the child of one of his past incarnations. Eager to join the immortal warriors, he is on hand and fighting valiantly when another ambush occurs and Kendra is grievously wounded. Eventually when his mentor is killed Parker ends up replacing the brutally murdered Carter Hall…

However, Parker has a secret nobody suspected and, just when the embittered and vengeance-crazed Kendra thinks she can trust him, reveals his astonishing secret and a master-plan that stretches across decades and light-years to the other side of the universe…

Meanwhile the true Hawkman has returned to life sans any shred of patience and compassion, determined to make an end to all his assembled enemies once and for all…

Tense, gripping and utterly compelling, this is the berserker warrior Hawkman always hinted he could be and the epic tale is both complex and gratuitously fulfilling; a perfect storm of art and story that every hard-bitten fights ‘n’ tights devotee will adore.

After a too brief but incredibly impressive run (something of a given and a tradition with Hawkman) the immortal Winged Wonder disappeared from his own title at the end of this volume as the exigencies of the Infinite Crisis left him missing whilst his pinioned partner Hawkgirl took over the book (see Hawkgirl: The Maw, Hawkman Returns and Hath-Set for details), but at least with books like this to remind us of just how good he could be there won’t be to much time passed until his next phoenix like revival…
© 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Teen Angst: A Treasury of ’50’s Romance


By Everett Raymond Kinstler, Matt Baker & various, compiled and edited by Tom Mason (Malibu Graphics)
ISBN: 0-944735-35-5

Ever felt in the mood for a really trashy read? These tacky tales of love from another age are a delicious forbidden and oh, so guilty pleasure

There’s no real artistic or literary justification for today’s featured item, and I’m not even particularly inclined to defend some of material within on historical grounds either. Not that there isn’t an undeniable and direct link between these enchantingly engaging assignations and affairs and today’s comic book market of age-and-maturity-sensitive cartoons and, when taken on their own terms, the stories do have a certain naively beguiling quality.

The story of how Max Gaines turned freebie pamphlets containing reprinted newspaper strips into a discrete and saleable commodity thereby launching an entire industry, if not art-form, has been told far better elsewhere, but I suspect that without a ready public acceptance of serialised sequential narrative via occasional book collections of the most lauded strips and these saucy little interludes in the all-pervasive but predominantly prose pulps, the fledgling comic-book companies might never have found their rabid customer-base quite so readily.

This cheap and cheerful black and white compilation, coyly contained behind a cracking Madman cover, opens with a couple of fascinating and informative essays from Tom Mason whose ‘Bad Girls Need Love Too’ provides historical context whilst and Jim Korkis covers the highpoints of the genre in ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’ and provides background for some but sadly not all of mostly uncredited star turns revived here.

Creative credit for most of these torrid tales is sadly lacking but the unmistakable fine line feathering of Everett Raymond Kinstler definitely starts the ball rolling here with a selection of his exotic frontispieces from Realistic Romances #2 and Romantic Love #7 (both from September-October 1951) and Realistic Romances #4, February 1952 before segueing into the equally stirring saga ‘Our Love was Battle-Scarred!’ (Realistic Romances #8, November 1952) – a tear-jerking tale of ardour amidst the air-raids whilst ‘Jinx Girl’ from Realistic Romances #7, (August 1952 and possibly drawn by John Rosenberger) follows an unlucky lassie’s traumatic tribulations until her man makes her complete and happy…

From that same issue comes ‘Triumphant Kisses’ a cautionary tale of a small town spitfire who would do (almost) anything to get into showbiz and ‘Dangerous Woman!’ (Romantic Love #7) – a parable of greed and desire from the great Matt Baker.

That gem-stuffed issue also provided the scandalous ‘I Craved Excitement!’ whilst Realistic Romances #6 (June 1952) revealed the shocking truth about the ‘Girl on Parole’ by Kinstler. There’s a lighter tone to ‘Kissless Honeymoon’ (Realistic Romances #2) whilst Baker excels again with the youth oriented sagas ‘I Was a Love Gypsy’ and ‘Fast Company’ from Teen-Age Romances #20, February 1952 and Teen-Age Temptations #9, July 1953 respectively.

Somebody signing themselves “Astarita” drew the brooding ‘Fatal Romance!’(Realistic Romances #2) and the war reared its opportunistic head again in ‘Lovelife of an Army Nurse’ (Baker art from Wartime Romances #1 July 1952), whilst ‘Make-Believe Marriage’ from the same issue examined the aftermath on the home-front.

‘Thrill Hungry’ (Realistic Romances #6) showed it was never too late to change, ‘His Heart on My Sleeve’ (Teen-Age Temptations #5) displayed the value of forgiveness and ‘Deadly Triangle’ (Realistic Romances #2) warned of the danger of falling for the wrong guy…

‘Notorious Woman’ (Teen-Age Temptations #5) continued the cautionary tone whilst ‘Borrowed Love’ (Realistic Romances #2) and ‘Confessions of a Farm Girl’ (Teen-Age Romances #20) end the graphic revelations in fine style and with happy endings all around.

These old titles were packed with entertainment so as well as a plethora of “mature” ads from the period the book also contains a selection of typical prose novelettes, ‘I Had to be Tamed’, ‘Reckless Pasttime’ and ‘The Love I Couldn’t Hide’ which originally graced Teen-Age Romances #20 and 22.

Hard to find, difficult to justify and perhaps hard to accept from our sexually complacent viewpoint here and now, these stories and their hugely successful ilk were inarguably a vital stepping stone to our modern industry. There is a serious lesson here about acknowledging the ability of comics to appeal to older readers from a time when all the experts would have the public believe that comics were made by conmen and shysters for kiddies, morons and slackers.

Certainly there are also a lot of cheap laughs and guilty gratification to be found in these undeniably effective little tales. This book and the era it came from are worthy of far greater coverage than has been previously experienced and no true devotee can readily ignore this stuff.
© 1990 Malibu Graphics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Buck Danny volume 1: Night of the Serpent


By Francis Bergése, colours by Frédéric Bergése translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebooks)
ISBN: 987-1-905460-85-4

I’ve finally picked up some of the newest translated versions of a favourite continental classic serial, courtesy of the wonderful Cinebooks; a fine publishing outfit dedicated to bringing more of the fabulous wealth and variety of European comics to the infamously resistant English-speaking World.

All-American Naval Aviator Buck Danny was created by Georges Troisfontaines and drawn by Victor Hubinon before being handed to Jean-Michel Charlier, then working as a junior artist. Troisfontaines was director of the Belgian publisher World Press Agency whilst Charlier’s fascination with human-scale drama and rugged realism had been seen in such “true-war” strips as L’Agonie du Bismark (‘The Agony of the Bismark’– published in Spirou in 1946).

With fellow master-storytellers Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny, Charlier formed the Édifrance Agency, which promoted and specialised in communication arts and comics strips. Charlier and Goscinny were editors of Pistolin magazine (1955 to 1958) and created Pilote in 1959.

Charlier’s greatest triumph is the iconic Western Blueberry (created in 1963 with Jean Giraud/Moebius). Charlier wrote Buck Danny until his death whereupon his artistic collaborator Francis Bergése (who had replaced Hubinon in 1978) took sole charge of the adventures of the Yankee Air Ace.

Like so many artists involved in stories about flight Francis Bergése (born in 1941) started young with both drawing and flying. He qualified as a pilot whilst still a teenager, enlisted in the French Army and was a reconnaissance flyer by his early twenties. At age 23 he began selling strips to L’Étoile and JT Jeunes (1963-1966) after which he produced his first aviation strip Jacques Renne for Zorro. This was soon followed by Amigo, Ajax, Cap 7, Les 3 Cascadeurs, Les 3 A , Michel dans la Course and many others.

Bergése worked as a jobbing artist on comedies, pastiches and WWII strips until 1983 when he was offered the plum job of illustrating the venerable and globally syndicated Buck Danny. When Charlier died Bergése took over the writing too and even found time in the 1990s to produce some tales for the European interpretation of Great British icon Biggles. He retired in 2008, passing on the creative chores of Buck Danny to illustrator Fabrice Lamy and scripter Fred Zumbiehl.

Buck Danny premiered in Spirou in January 1947 and continues to this day. The strip describes the improbably long and historically significant career of the eponymous Navy pilot and his wing-men Sonny Tuckson and Jerry Tumbler. It is one of the world’s last aviation strips and a series which has always closely wedded itself to current affairs such as The Korean War, Bosnia and even Afghanistan.

Like all the Danny tales this premier edition is astonishingly authentic: a breezy and compelling action thriller – originally published as Buck Danny #49: La nuit du serpent in 2000 – with colouring by Frédéric Bergése (I’m assuming that’s his son, but I’m not certain) which blends mind-boggling detail and technical veracity with good old fashioned blockbuster adventure.

At Kunsan Airbase, South Korea a veteran American pilot goes on dawn border patrol only to be hit by an uncanny light which blinds him and seems to negate all his F-16’s guidance systems. Despite his best efforts the jet crashes in the De-Militarized Zone and the North Koreans claim a flagrant breaking of the truce and a huge publicity coup.

Strangely though, the downed Colonel Maxwell is still missing. The Communists don’t have him and the pilot’s tracking devices indicate he’s still out there somewhere: lost in the No Man’s land between North and South.

The American military swings into action, determined to rescue their pilot, clean up the mess and deny the Reds either a tangible or political victory. Danny, Tumbler and Tuckson are at a Paris air show when they get the call and are soon en route to Korea for a last-ditch face-saving mission.

However as the trio prepare to join the covert rescue mission, evidence emerges which casts doubt on the authenticity of the alleged super-weapon. Meanwhile Colonel Maxwell has stumbled into a fantastic secret under the DMZ…

Fast-paced, brimming with tension and spectacular action, this is a classically designed thriller which effortlessly plunges the reader into a delightfully dizzying riot of intrigue, mystery and suspense before its captivating conclusion.

Suitable for older kids and boys of all ages the Adventures of Buck Danny is one long and enthralling tour of duty no comics fan or armchair adrenaline-junkie can afford to miss. Bon chance, mes braves…

© Dupuis, 2000 by Bergése. English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Stigmata


By Lorenzo Mattotti & Claudio Piersanti (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-409-2

In his latest magnificent endeavour, European giant of graphic narrative Lorenzo Mattotti (see Fires) has teamed with novelist and screenwriter Claudio Piersanti to produce one of the most powerful and evocative examinations of religious experience in recent times with their evocative collaboration Stigmata.

This impressive hardback describes the Job-like trials and tragedies of a brutal, alcoholic shipwreck of a man pushed beyond the brink of tolerance and sanity who finds a kind of peace and resolution, but unlike his Old Testament antecedent the protagonist here begins in misery with nothing before losing even those graces and by the end of his travails has found precious little knowledge or understanding but a sort of peace…

Drunken, brutal, dissolute, middle-aged and heading nowhere, the last thing he needed was holes in his hands that bled but wouldn’t heal. Already despised and feared, the lonely bum worked at a bar, but the wounds and the blood were upsetting even those gin-soaked sots. Moreover people were following him, thinking he possessed some divine secret or power to heal…

Eventually he snapped, wrecking the bar and confronting the vicious gangster who ran it… Some folks were calling him “the Saint”. He didn’t think it was funny…

As the city becomes even more savage and ugly he takes off; tracking down his uncle who worked in a carnival. When he finds the travelling show his uncle is gone – arrested for stealing – but the Carnies accept him and he strikes up a romance with the vivacious Lorena. Even working as a handyman his bleeding hands interfere, but the canny show-people turn it their advantage and set him up in a booth dispensing piety and miracle from his shabby, tawdry “House of Blessings.”

Travelling from town to town he finds a kind of peace but the Carnies’ secret sideline of burglary brings police attention. When his old gangster boss tracks him down and delivers a hideous punishment he destroys the Stigmatic’s last shred of hope and Lorena’s life forever…

And then the storm hits… a tempest of Biblical proportions that changes everything…

Stunning and evocative and rendered in a cacophony of swirling miasmic lines, this fearsome modern parable is a fierce interrogation of faith and destiny which asks uncompromising and uncomfortable questions about the price of Grace and the value of belief. Are these trials, so like Job’s cruel yet purposeful tests, the tough love of a benevolent father, the whims of a despicable devil or the random vagaries of an uncaring fate?

Emotive, shocking and utterly compelling, Stigmata is a grotesque and beautiful metaphysical rollercoaster with existential angst and blind faith gripping each other’s philosophical throats and squeezing really hard. No rational reader or mature comics fan can afford to miss this dark shining delight.

© 2010 Lorenzo Mattotti & Claudio Piersanti. All rights reserved.

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The Story of Lee volume 1


By Seán Michael Wilson & Chie Kutsuwada (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163- 594-8

Here’s a lovely simple treat for romantics everywhere and manga fans in particular and, like the subject matter itself, the product of more than one country. Written by British émigré and current resident of Japan Seán Michael Wilson and illustrated by Manga Shakespeare artist Chie Kutsuwada, The Story of Lee follows the budding romance of a dedicated but restless Hong Kong girl as she meets and falls for a young Scottish poet and teacher.

Lee is a young woman with frustrated dreams dutifully working in her father’s shop in Hong Kong. The situation is uncomfortable: the elder means well, but he disapproves of almost everything she does and is not reluctant to tell her so. Even as he chides and disparages Lee his constant pushing for her to achieve something whilst staying true to his old-fashioned ideas is pulling her apart. Moreover, Wang, the nice, proper Chinese boy he perpetually and insistently forces upon her, is creepy and just turns her off.

Lee has a secret: she is a closet poet and besotted with western culture, particularly pop music. In these unwelcome fascinations she is clandestinely supported by her frail and aging grandmother and her unconventional Uncle Jun, a globe-trotting playboy who long ago abandoned convention and tradition to follow his dreams to America.

Lee is 24 and being gradually worn away when the gorgeous temporary teacher Matt MacDonald wanders into the store. He is Scottish; polite, charming, exotic and, as Lee discovers when empting the wastepaper basket, a sensitive and talented poet…

Soon Lee is defying her father as her relationship with Matt inexorably deepens, but when tragedy strikes her life is further complicated as Matt prepares to leave for home. And then he drops the bombshell and asks her to go with him…

Never strident but compellingly seditious, this charming tale uses the powerful themes of cultural differences, mixed-race-relationships, family pressures and the often insurmountable barrier of generational gulf warfare to weave an enchanting tale of desire, duty and devotion.

It all ends on a gentle cliffhanger and I can’t wait to see how it all resolves in the next volume… So will you when you pick up on this mature, addictive story.

©Seán Michael Wilson & Chie Kutsuwada.