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100 Bullets volume 5: The Counterfifth Detective


By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-467-1

All societies have policemen and the kind of cop absolutely depends on the kind of society. When that society is utterly secret and consists of thirteen ruthless criminal dynasties that have covertly controlled America since Columbus landed, the kind of peacekeeper needed to keep them honest and actively cooperating has to be a man uniquely honest, smart and remorseless.

Such a man is Agent Graves…

Beginning as one of the best crime-comics in decades, 100 Bullets gradually, cunningly transformed itself into a startlingly imaginative conspiracy thriller of vast scope and intricate intimate detail. With this fifth volume (collecting issues #31-36 of the much missed adult comic book) close followers might assume they finally have a handle on what’s going on, and how the characters are shaping up but once more Azzarello and Risso have plenty of surprises to unleash and chairs to kick out from under us…

Milo Garrett is trouble: brooding, violent and always looking for a fight. That’s not the best résumé for a private investigator, but it gets Milo through the nights and through the week. However his soul-deadened life a takes a decidedly strange turn when he wakes up in a hospital bed with his face bandaged like a mummy. Being a tough guy doesn’t help much when you’re catapulted through a speeding car windscreen…

He has a visitor: a sleek old gentleman named Graves who offers him a briefcase with an untraceable gun, 100 bullets and a dossier on just how he got there. What Graves doesn’t offer is any answers…

Psychotically independent, ever-suspicious and always spoiling for another drink and another fight Garrett revisits the case he was working on. He was hired to recover a stolen painting, but when his client is murdered he knows he’s stepped into something big and dirty. Unable to let go he digs deeper and finds the ultra-rich Megan Dietrich (see 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call) up to her neck in something that clearly terrifies her: something that scares everybody connected to this case…

As the body-count mounts Graves’ reawakened “Minutemen” surface, and although Garrett doesn’t know it yet he is caught between a centuries-old criminal cabal and the squad of paramilitary peacekeepers they betrayed and (they believed) destroyed.

Events spiral as monstrously ambiguous hitman Lono stalks his next – unspecified – target and once Milo finally sees the mysterious painting which apparently reveals a hidden secret of the criminal Trust that runs America, the detective is pretty sure of the only way this mess can end…

Deeply unsettling yet spectacularly compelling this yarn turns the hardboiled gumshoe genre on its head as it weaves a unique web of intrigue that gradually built into a monolithic saga of institutional corruption and personal honour. The unfolding saga remains an astoundingly accessible and readable thriller as the mystery of the Trust is revealed and Agent Graves begins the final stage of a plan decades in the making: 100 Bullets promises that the best is already here, but even better is waiting…

Entertainment-starved story fans – grown-up, paid-up, immune to harsh language and unshaken by rude, nude and very violent behaviour – should make their way to their favourite purveyor of fine fiction immediately and get every one of these graphic novels – at all costs.

© 2002 Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso and DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Hotwire Comics volume 3


By various, edited by Glenn Head (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-288-3

The third magnificent, oversized compendium of cutting edge cartooning and alternative artistic visions has finally arrived and once more combines famed and possibly less well-known creators in a bold, brassy high-quality, giant-sized (9×12 inch or 230x304mm) full colour and black and white anthology of new tales and concoctions. There’s even a multi-page psychedelic, phantasmagorical fold-out ‘The Magnificent Pigtail Show’ from the incredible Steven Cerio.

Beginning with art-pieces – David Sandlin’s ‘Studio of Sin’ and Tim Lane’s ‘Greetings From Hotwire USA’ – the sequential narratives launch with Michael Kupperman’s ‘Meet McArf!’, a decidedly smooth shaggy dog story, the eerie childhood reminiscence ‘Car-Boy’s Family’ from Max Andersson and ‘Bottomless’ a salutary tale of excessive appetite from Eric Watkins and Chadwick Whitehead.

The first of a series of ‘Feral Spheres’ – monochrome artworks by David Paleo – is followed by ‘Denial’ and ‘The Bully’, two moody introspections from Jayr Pulga and Sam Henderson’s gross-out gag-strip ‘At a Frat Party or a Sports Game or Something Like That’, before editor Glenn Head enthrals with the cheery chiller ‘Candyland Clinic.’

After Paleo’s second ‘Feral Sphere’ the always fascinating Mary Fleener describes how and why she bought a gun in ‘The Judge’ and Rick Altergott reveals the sordid saga of a sweet young thing who was just too ‘Keen on a Clown!’, after which sordid shocks Head returns with some  ‘Psychedelic Smut’.

Onsmith’s beguiling ‘Dispossession by Tornado’ is followed by another ‘Feral Sphere’ and Mark Dean Vega reinterprets some of our most beloved comics characters in his mouth-watering ‘Popeyeconography’ before Doug Allen’s grotesquely funny ‘Hillbilly’s Dun Gawn Ta College’ and the ever offensive Johnny Ryan provides insight to life with ‘The Cockhorns’.

Following the aforementioned Cerio foldout section Tim Lane crafts a chilling tale of hobos riding the rails in ‘Spike’, Danny Hellman illustrates a truly lovely clash in ‘Alice Versus the Sandman’, R. Sikoryak retells the story of Hamlet using Hank Ketcham’s oddly appropriate cartoon cast in ‘The Menace of Denmark’ and Mack White provides a surreal and terrifying glimpse into ‘Roadside Hell.’

Another ‘Feral Sphere’ precedes, for my money, the very best piece in this collection. The darkly mannered tale entitled the ‘Passion of Atte’ by Matti Hagelberg is a complex, brooding tale of vanishment and suicide – or is it?

‘Infernal Combustion’ is a bold, old-fashioned paranoid nightmare by David Sandlin, followed by one last ‘Feral Sphere’ and Danny Hellman’s delightful ironic parable ‘Tales of the Sodom Ape Men and the Electronic God’, Stephane Blanquet provides so much more than just a ‘Drawing’, Karl Wills delivers a punchy space fable in ‘Connie Radar’ and Mats!? chills and thrills with his deeply disturbing discourse ‘Sleep Walker.’

The final tale is the classy history of an unsung hero from another, more wicked time:  Glenn Head relates the rather sad and nasty tale of ‘Vulvina, the Ventriloquist’s Dummy Daughter!’ which closes another startling, offensive, compelling and thoroughly wonderful box of cartoon delights for brave, hungry souls in search of different kicks. Strictly for those of you over voting age, this is a treat no real comics aficionado can afford to miss.

All artwork and stories © 2010 the respective creators. All rights reserved.

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Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon 1948


By Milton Caniff (Checker Book Publishing Group)
ISBN: 978-0-97416-641-4

By the second year of his new strip Milton Caniff was already working at the top of his game, producing material both exotic and familiar, and once again dead on the money in terms of the public zeitgeist and taste. After defeating the wily Herr Splitz, ex-war-hero and charter pilot Steve Canyon is asked to ferry Dr. Deen Wilderness to the Middle East, to set up Health Centres for American enclaves, where business interests were busy establishing themselves and becoming the multinational Corporations of today.

Back then, of course, Caniff was merely being contemporary, but he was savvy enough to realise that with the Cold War beginning any Yankee was going to be seen as a spy in such climes, so he made that a part of the narrative. Canyon was unofficially asked to “keep his eyes open” by the US Navy. When his team land (Happy Easter and Fireball Feeney tagging along for dramatic and comedic purpose), they were immediately embroiled in an espionage plot to enflame the indigenous population.

Caniff never bracketed his tales, preferring to simply keep the action rolling ever on, but for convenience the publishers have broken the saga into discrete units. ‘Medical Sabotage’ ran from November 25th 1947 to March 27th 1948 and described how the mission became the subject of competing propaganda machines and murderous skulduggery by a Communist spymaster using the pseudonym “Chief Izm”.  The climactic battle between Canyon and Izm left Steve and Happy stranded in mountain country, at the mercy of attacking nomad bandits.

Which is where the second adventure begins: ‘The Nine Maid’ started on Sunday the 28th of March, and ran until May 23rd, an exotic piece of froth with the guys trying to stay alive as captives of a mysterious masked woman playing Joan of Arc for the mountain tribes. Claiming to be descended from survivors of the Ninth Crusade the sultry, charismatic freedom fighter eventually enlisted our heroes’ aid in her struggle.

‘Operation Convoy’ began on Sunday May 24th, and saw Steve, Happy and the Nine Maid trapped in a city, futilely evading their foes and the Communist agitators who pay them. When they’re captured, a little Arab girl calling herself “Convoy” offered to free them if Canyon would marry her! Their escape was fraught and frantic but only led to more trouble when they were all picked up by the unconventional Soviet Submarine commander Captain Akoola – “the Shark”. Akoola was a beautiful and doctrinaire woman who gradually thawed not because of Canyon’s virile yumminess, but because she responded to Convoy’s orphan plight. Taking a lead from the Count of Monte Cristo, the two females conspire to liberate the Americans by dumping their supposed corpses overboard…

Adrift at sea Steve and Happy washed onto the Burma Coast for ‘Plantation Sabotage’ (September 4th – November 3rd) wherein raunchy widow Miss Fancy and the brutal, jealous ‘Rak’ – whose attempts to get rid of Canyon were prompted by a much more personal type of intrigue – interfered with the smooth running of plantation life. But even here a shadowy agitator was enflaming the native croppers, with the profiteering Rak’s tacit approval. The tense drama promptly resulted in ‘Puppy Love’ (November 4th 1948 to January 8th 1949) when Rak’s son Reed Kimberley joined the story and the extended cast.

Reaching Rangoon Steve and Happy were unaware that the boy would do anything to avoid returning to America. Reed becomes enmeshed in the snares of native bargirl and teen hellion “Cheetah” whose depredations led to a mid-air hostage crisis which ends this second collection on a tragic cliffhanger…

What Milton Caniff was developing in those post-war years is indistinguishable from the glossy, exotic soap operas and dramas that are the back-bone of modern commercial television. Fast-paced, constantly evolving dramas fed by sub-plots, charismatic characters, exotic locales, non-stop action, and even political intrigue, all wrapped up in a heady mix of sexual tension and sharply observed humour. It seems that we can reproduce the techniques but have lost most of the charm, wit and sheer élan…

Steve Canyon is comic storytelling at its best. Beautifully illustrated, mesmerising black and white, sagas of war, espionage, romance, terror, justice and cynical reality: a masterpiece of graphic narrative every serious fan and story-lover should experience.

© 2003, Checker Book Publishing Group, an authorized collection of works
© Ester Parsons Caniff Estate 1947, 1948, 1949.All characters and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of the Ester Parsons Caniff Estate. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying


By Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Jim Aparo, Tom Grummet, Mike DeCarlo & Bob McLeod (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-0-9302-8963-8

Batman is in many ways the ultimate superhero: uniquely adaptable and able to work in any type or genre of story – as is clearly evident from the plethora of vintage tales collected in so many captivating volumes over the years.

One less well-mined period is the grim 1980s era when the Caped Crusader was partially re-tooled in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, becoming a driven, but still level-headed, deeply rational Manhunter, rather the dark, out-of-control paranoid of later days or the costumed boy-scout of the “Camp” crazed Sixties.

Robin, the Boy Wonder debuted in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson: a juvenile circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by a mob boss. The story of how Batman took the orphaned Dick Grayson under his scalloped wing and trained him to fight crime has been told, retold and revised many times over the decades and still regularly undergoes tweaking to this day.

Grayson fought beside Batman until 1970 when, as an indicator of those turbulent times, he flew the nest, becoming a Teen Wonder college student. His creation as a junior hero for younger readers to identify with had inspired an incomprehensible number of costumed sidekicks and kid crusaders, and Grayson continued in similar innovative vein for the older, more worldly-wise readership of America’s increasingly rebellious youth culture.

Robin even had his own solo series in Star Spangled Comics from 1947 to 1952, a solo spot in the back of Detective Comics from the end of the 1960s wherein he alternated and shared with Batgirl, and a starring feature in the anthology comic Batman Family. During the 1980s he led the New Teen Titans first as Robin but eventually in the reinvented guise of Nightwing, re-establishing a turbulent working relationship with Batman. This of course left the post of Robin open…

After Grayson’s departure Batman worked solo until he caught a streetwise urchin trying to steal the Batmobile’s tires. This lost boy was Jason Todd, whose short but stellar career as the second Boy Wonder was fatally tainted by his impetuosity and tragic links to one of the Caped Crusader’s most unpredictable foes.

Todd’s unsuspected emotional problems and his murder were controversially depicted and dealt with in Batman: a Death in the Family. In the shock and loss of losing his comrade the traumatised Dark Knight was forced to re-examine his own origins and methods, becoming darker still…

After a period of increasingly undisciplined encounters Batman was on the very edge of losing not just his focus but also his ethics and life: seemingly suicidal on his frequent forays into the Gotham nights. Interventions from his few friends and associates had proved ineffectual. Something drastic had to happen if the Dark Knight was to be salvaged.

Luckily there was an opening for a sidekick…

In this volume, collecting a crossover tale that originally appeared in Batman #440-442 and New Teen Titans #60-61 (plotted by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, scripted by Wolfman with the Batman chapters illustrated by Jim Aparo & Mike DeCarlo, and the Titans sections handled by Pérez, Tom Grummett & Bob McLeod) a new character entered the lives of the extended Batman Family; a remarkable child who would change the shape of the DC Universe.

In ‘Suspects’ Batman is rapidly burning out, and not only his close confederates but also an enigmatic investigator and a mystery villain have noticed the deadly deterioration. Whilst the criminal mastermind embroils the wildly unpredictable Two-Face in his scheme, the apparently benevolent voyeur is hunting for Dick Grayson: a mission successfully accomplished in the second chapter, ‘Roots’.

The original Robin had become disenchanted with the adventurer’s life, quitting the Titans and returning to the circus where the happiest and most tragic days of his life occurred. Here he is confronted by a young boy who knows the secret identities of Batman and Robin…

‘Parallel Lines’ unravels the enigma of Tim Drake, who as a toddler was in the audience the night the Flying Graysons were murdered. Tim was an infant prodigy, and when, some months later he saw the new hero Robin perform the same acrobatic stunts as Dick Grayson he instantly deduced who the Boy Wonder was – and by extrapolation, the identity of Batman.

A passionate fan, Drake followed the Dynamic Duo’s exploits for a decade: noting every case and detail. He knew when Jason Todd became Robin and was moved to act when his death led to the Caped Crusader going catastrophically off the rails.

Taking it upon himself to fix his broken heroes Drake determined to convince the “retired” Grayson to became Robin once more – before Batman made an inevitable fatal mistake. It might all have been too little to late, however, as in ‘Going Home!’ Two-Face makes his murderous move against a severely sub-par Dark Knight…

Concluding with a raft of explosive and highly entertaining surprises with ‘Rebirth’ this often-overlooked Bat-saga introduces the third Robin (but who would get into costume only after years of training – and fan-teasing) whilst acknowledging both modern sentiments about child-endangerment and the classical roles of young heroes in heroic fiction. Perhaps a little slow and definitely a bit too sentimental in places, this is nevertheless an excellent, key Batman story, and one no fan should be unaware of.

Short, sweet and simply superb, here is a Batman – and Robin – much missed by many of us, and this tale, like so many others of the 1980s, is long overdue for the graphic novel treatment. To the Bat-Files, old chums…
© 1989,1990 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Files of Ms. Tree volume 3: The Mike Mist Case Book


By Max Collins, Terry Beatty & Gary Kato (Renegade Press)
ISBN: 0-840031-02-7

Despite being one of the most popular genres in literature and the fact that most fiction books are bought and read by women, Private Eye yarns are desperately short of female protagonists. Marry that with the observation that “gumshoe” comics are also as rare as hen’s teeth and it’s a wonder that a series such as Ms. Tree ever got off the drawing board.

The secret – as always – was quality.

The black widow of detective fiction first appeared in 1981 as a serial in the anthology comic Eclipse Magazine, produced by Max Allan Collins (crime novelist and new writer of the Dick Tracy strip) with young humour cartoonist Terry Beatty.

She soon won her own solo title, Ms. Tree’s Thrilling Detective Stories (later simply Ms. Tree), and although the marketplace was not friendly to such a radical concept the series ran for 50 issues, and 2 specials, from three publishers (Eclipse, Aardvark-Vanaheim and Renegade Press) before finally dying in 1989. She was promptly revived as a DC comic in 1990 for another 10 magnum-sized issues as Ms. Tree Quarterly/ Ms. Tree Special; three more blood-soaked, mayhem-packed, morally challenging years of pure magic.

Astonishingly, there are no contemporary collections of her exploits – despite Collins’ status as a prolific and best-selling author of both graphic novels (Road to Perdition, CSI and prose sequences featuring his crime-creations Nathan Heller, Quarry, Nolan, Mallory and a veritable pantheon of others).

In the first volume we briefly met Mike Tree, an archetypal detective who married his secretary and partner Mike (“nobody calls me Michelle… twice”) Friday, only to be murdered on their wedding night. The Widow Tree hunted down his killer, setting herself on a path of blood-soaked vengeance. En route she uncovered a vast web of corruption and made an eternal enemy of Mob boss Dominic Muerta: locking together forever in a bloody vendetta.

This third volume, released in 1986, diverged from the chronological retelling of her adventures to re-present a selection of one-shots and specials that co-starred another Collins/Beatty shamus, one originally intended for a far more impressionable audience that gore-hardened Comic-book fans.

The Mike Mist Minute Mysteries began as a part of a tabloid section entitled The Comics Page, which was syndicated for a year or so (1979-1980) in a dozen small newspapers, and latterly in Mystery Magazine. The strip featured a cool, smooth PI who, in 12 panels or less, introduced a crime, deduced a culprit and caught the felon, in neat fair-play duels with the reader. He was generally not aided by the self-fulfilling cop Lieutenant Dimm. The feature was rife with sly in-jokes for fans of detective fiction: whether prose, TV or filmic…

Some of these little gems were collected into a comic-book by Eclipse in 1981 and a selection of those works-in-progress form the opening chapter of this red-handed collection, beginning with the very first conundrum, ‘Death Takes a Powder’, swiftly followed by ‘The Butler Didn’t’, ‘You Only Die Once’, ‘Silence Isn’t Golden’, ‘No Laughing Murder’, ‘Crime Takes a Hike’, ‘Damsel in This Dress’, ‘Too Damp Bad’ and ‘Death Has an Eerie Ring.’

When Ms. Tree launched Mist became an occasional guest: an associate and friend who handled over-spill cases, and eventually scored his own back-up strip in the monthly comic. Inevitably this led to a number of official team-ups – “Mist-Tree Tales” (the liberal use of atrocious puns as concealed and/or offensive weapons was a signature and standard M.O. of all Mist-adventures…)

‘Murder at Mohawk’, from Ms. Tree #9 found accidentally sharing a resort hotel, just a blizzard traps an unsavory cast of characters into an unsolved robbery/murder thirty years old… By this time Gary Kato had joined the team as letterer, art assistant and sometime penciller. Thus Beatty’s art took on a seductively Steve Ditko-esque appearance, especially in such Mist’ back-up teasers as ‘The Long and the Short of Death’ and ‘See no Evil…’, whilst Collins added some autobiographical verity by making Mist a comicbook and record collector in ‘Wertham Was Right’ and ‘Four Color Phony’. After the seasonal ‘Claus for Alarm’, ‘Suitable for Framing’, ‘Snow Job’, ‘Disappearing Act’, ‘Woman in White’ and ‘Blood Will Tell’ our second full-length feature begins.

‘Death, Danger and Diamonds: Dear, Dead Darling’ is a high-octane, hard-bitten hot potato which saw Mist looking to avenge a murdered client (so many of his paying customers ended up dead it became a running gag in the strip. As Tree used to teasingly point out – at least with her cases it was usually the bad-guys who ended up on slabs…) To that end the pair masqueraded as husband and wife; playing bait for a seasoned killer in the concluding ‘Hawaiian Ice.’

‘Death, Danger and Diamonds’ was released as a 3D comic during the brief revival of the form in the mid 1980s. Ray Zone’s eye-popping “separations” expertise is absent from this 2D, black and white collection, but the addition of a four page 3D thriller ‘A Pair of Eyes’ serves to keep the theme in the frame…

There’s another batch of Mist-only Minute Mysteries before the final long-playing tale. ‘Railroaded’, ‘Shattered Alibi’, ‘Staged Suicide’, ‘Blind Suspicion’, ‘No Shot in the Dark’ (with Ms. Tree in attendance), ‘Lucky Number’, ‘Overdrawn Account’ and ‘Tag! You’re It…’ all display the requisite observational antics before ‘Music to Murder By’ finds Mist and Tree hunting a murderer through the heady halls of a vinyl record convention (although to be fair this was produced in the time before CDs, let alone those infernal I-Poddy contraptions…).

The much-abused “more-valuable-dead-than-alive-rock-musician” plot gets an early but quite superior outing in this gripping, stylish thriller which closes the charming, chilling collaboration between two of the sharpest, deadliest gumshoes in the biz.

Despite the tragic scenarios, ruthless characterisations and high body-count, this is yet another clever, scathingly funny casebook steeped in the lore of detective fiction, stuffed with added asides and extras for the cognoscenti. In fiction absolutely no one can be trusted and since you get the chance to match wits with both scumbags and sleuths, these tales are simply steeped in the truly magical gratification factor that allows the reader an even chance to mete out some vicarious justice…

Ms. Tree is the closest thing the American market has ever produced to challenge our own Empress of Adventure Modesty Blaise: how she can be left to languish in graphic obscurity is a greater mystery than any described in this compelling collection. Track down all her superb exploits and pray someone has the street smarts to bring her back for good…

© 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986 Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty. All Rights Reserved.

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The Classic Pin-Up Art of Jack Cole


By Jack Cole, edited by Alex Chun (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-284-5

Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of American Comics’ Golden Age, crafting landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero genres. His incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed Hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. As the Golden Age faded, Cole could see the writing on the wall and famously jumped into gag and glamour cartooning, becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour saucy pictures began running in Playboy with the fifth issue.

Ever-restless, Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and in May 1958, achieved a life-long ambition by launching the syndicated domestic comedy Betsy and Me. On August 13th 1958, at the moment of his biggest break he took his own life.

The unexplained reasons for his death are not as important as the triumphs of Cole’s artistic life and this captivating paperback (reprinting a rare hardback compilation from 2004) provides a fascinating insight into a transitional moment in his artistic development.

When Cole began his move from comic-books into the “adult world” of cartooning, he adopted the nom-de-plume “Jake” whilst he honed his dormant gag-skills (sequential narrative being so far removed from the “quintessential moment” illustration needed for a single picture telling an entire story). Working in beautiful ink and wash creations he began submitting to the cheaper end men’s magazines: ubiquitous little throwaway digests with titles such as Romp, Stare, Joker, Laugh Riot and Breezy, packed with photos of saucy vixens like Betty Page and her cheesecake ilk – and lots and lots of debatably risqué gags.

Nor was he the only artist making the pilgrimage: other funnybook stars on the move included Bill Ward, Jefferson Machamer, Dan DeCarlo, Bill Wenzel and Basil Wolverton.

This charmingly innocent compendium of Lush Ladies, Willing Wantons, Savvy Sirens, Naive Nymphs (always stunningly beautiful women) collects his 100 or so published sales, divided into Line Art, Washes and an astounding selection of Originals – images shot from the actual artwork and not printed pages, revealing all the detail and unedited work a budding creator could need or desire.

This beguiling glimpse into a major artist’s processes and the sexual mores of an entire generation are an intoxicating treat and that the work is still utterly addictive is a treasure beyond compare.

© 2004, 2010 Fantagraphics Books All right reserved.

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Mome volume 17: Winter 2010


By various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-152-7

Mome is more magazine than book and features strips, articles, graphic artworks and occasionally interviews from and about a variety of talented, dedicated creators ranging from the internationally renowned to the soon-will-be… It is intense, occasionally hard to read and crafted to the highest production standards. Considered by many to be the successor to Art Spiegelman’s seminal Raw, it doesn’t come out nearly often enough.

This volume features the long-awaited conclusion of Paul Hornschemeier’s melancholic masterpiece ‘Life With Mr. Dangerous’; which has been an unmissable delight since the very first issue, as well another gripping instalment of T. Edward Bak’s pictorial biography of Georg Wilhelm Steller, the German naturalist who roamed the far Northern climes in the 18th century. Here with ‘Wild Man Chapter 2: A Bavarian Botanist in St. Petersburg, part 1’, things take a decidedly colourful turn as we glimpse the wild rover’s intriguing childhood.

Before that however Rick Froberg astounds with his sporadically placed monochrome visual essays ‘Foresight’, ‘Solidarity’, ‘Privacy’ and ‘Altruism’, Dash Shaw (see The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century AD) teams up with Tom Kaczynski to create a fantastic cyber-nightmare science-fiction story, ‘Resolution’ and Laura Park amuses and moves with her subtly enchanting ‘On the Bus’.

Animator and cartoonist Olivier Schrauwen concocts a stunning surreal saga in ‘Chromo Congo’ parts 1& 2, Sara Edward-Corbett delivers an astoundingly lovely aquatic escapade in ‘Zzzzz’, and Renée French continues the haunting and disturbing ‘Almost Sound’, whilst Ted Stern’s anthropomorphic sad-sacks Fuzz & Pluck return in the second part of their nautical misadventure ‘The Moolah Tree’ and the eighth part of Wolfgang’s ‘Nothing Eve’ follows them.

I’ve said this before and it bears repeating. ‘Nothing Eve’ is a fantastic, stylish, visually compelling urban drama, but the protracted storyline desperately needs a recap section. At least the inevitable future collection will allow the full power and verve of the narrative to compete fairly with the magical illustration.

Stand-alone standouts this time are the eerie war-story ‘Devil Doll’ by Michael Jada and Derek Van Gieson, the quirky ‘These Days I’m Not so Sure’,  also by Van Gieson, and the ever-excellent Josh Simmons’ salty sea-shanty ‘Head of a Dog’. The superb Hornschemeier provides the compelling covers and Kaela Graham delivers a captivating profusion of incidental illustrations to charm and alarm…

Whether you’re new to comics, new to the areas beyond the mainstream or just want something new; these strips and this publication will always offer a decidedly different read. You may not like all of it, and perhaps the serializations should provide those recaps (I’m never completely happy, me) but Mome will always have something you can’t help but respond to. Why haven’t you tried it yet?

Mome © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. Individual stories are © the respective creator. All Rights Reserved.

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Artichoke Tales


By Megan Kelso (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-344-6

Megan Kelso has been producing unique, idiosyncratic, thought-provoking comics stories for more than twenty years; the very best of which can be seen in her award-winning collections Queen of the Black Black and The Squirrel Mother. She works far too slowly for my greedy nature to be completely happy with, but as the results are always superb I’m just going to have to “Man Up” and count myself lucky whenever something new hits the bookshelves…

Artichoke Tales is a generational saga which recounts, like film run backwards, the aftermath, events of and build-up to a tragic and devastating civil war on a serene, stable agrarian culture: a land of farmers, foragers and fisher-folk who all look like they’re sporting vegetable hair-dos. Don’t be fooled though – despite the stalks sprouting from their skulls these are not Arcadian vegetable characters dreamily dwelling in their own sylvan Pogle’s Wood: these are people, gullible, fallible and intensely complex.

Kelso first created her artichoke people for a short tale in the anthology comic Girlhero, and began working on this longer story in 1999, citing such thematic influences as the Little House on the Prairie books, Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds and Anthony Minghella’s movie Cold Mountain for this gently compelling, beguiling story of the Quicksand family, apothecaries to the village of Ladle and how an insane and unwelcome split between North and South sorely wounded not only the nation but three generations of women caught up in it…

Young Brigitte was gathering herbs for her grandmother when she once more met the charming soldier Adam. Military types weren’t particularly welcome and Northerners even less so, despite all the years that had passed since the War, but young hormones and the promise of something fresh and exotic have always won out over common sense…

Torn between newborn passion, a sudden hatred for her boring old life and fear of the unknown Brigitte forces Grandma Charlotte to tell the previously unspoken history of the conflict and how it shaped the Quicksand family: a tale of pride, high-handedness and avoidable mistakes that led to those bitter prejudices which still scarred people on every side.

Told in a stunning minimalist manner which demands the reader’s closest scrutiny and collaboration, the refined and simplified drawings unfold story within story, like the skin of an onion, as the truths peels away to reveal some depressingly universal truths about families, society and the use of power. Despite the engagingly simple art and storytelling style this is not a book for younger readers, so parents read this beautiful parable before you let your kids at it…

Those of you without impressionable progeny can just go right ahead and dig in: Artichoke Tales is truly magical and is waiting for your avid, appreciative attention and consumption…

© 2010 Megan Kelso. All Rights Reserved.

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Thelwell Goes West


By Norman Thelwell (Magnum/Eyre Methuen)
ISBN: 0-417-01110-5

Norman Thelwell is one of Britain’s greatest cartoonists, and instead of astounding you with my encyclopedic knowledge of this superb national treasure I heartily recommend his official website (www.thelwell.org.uk/biography/biography.html) as well as Steve Holland’s excellent Bear Alley…

Thelwell’s genteel yet rowdily raucous cartooning combined Bigfoot abstraction with a keen and accurate eye for detail, not just on the horse-riding and countryside themes that made him a household name, but on all the myriad subjects he turned his canny eye and subtle brushstrokes to. His pictures are an immaculate condensation of a uniquely United Kingdom: everything warmly resonant, resolutely Post-War, Baby-Booming British, without ever being parochial or provincial – and where all animals and inanimate objects loathe humanity and will go to any extreme to vex or even harm us…

His work has international implications and scope, neatly distilling and presenting us to the world. There are 32 books of his work and every aficionado of humour – illustrated or otherwise – could do much worse than own them all.

From 1950 when his gag-panel Chicko first began in the Eagle, and especially two years later with his first sale to Punch, he built a solid body of irresistible, seductive and always funny work. He appeared in a host of magazines, comics and papers ranging from Men Only to Everybody’s Weekly. In 1957 his first collection of cartoons Angels on Horseback was released and in 1961 he made the rare return journey by releasing a book of original gags that was subsequently serialised in the Sunday Express.

His dry, sly, cannily observed drawings were a huge success and other books followed to supplement his regular periodical appearances. He is of course most famous for his countryside and equine subjects. The phrase “Thelwell Pony” is an instant verbal shortcut to a whole other world of adroit, goblin-like little girls constantly battling malevolent, chubby mini-horses gifted with the guile of Machiavelli, the mass and temerity of a deranged mule and the cheery disposition of Bill Sikes.

The artist’s fascination and endless reservoir of dressage drollery originated with a pair of short obnoxious muses in the field next door to his home, where also roamed two shaggy ponies. They were, his own words “Small and round and fat and of very uncertain temper” – and apparently owned by “Two little girls about three feet high who could have done with losing a few ounces themselves….”

“As the children got near, the ponies would swing round and present their ample hindquarters and give a few lightning kicks which the children would side-step calmly as if they were avoiding the kitchen table, and they had the head-collars on those animals before they knew what was happening. I was astonished at how meekly they were led away; but they were planning vengeance – you could tell by their eyes.”

His observations were best depicted in the classic Penelope and Penelope Rides Again, but in this instance he cast his gaze a little further afield for a wickedly insightful and memorable draughted discourse weighing the benefits and pitfalls (oh, so very many painful falls) of Brit and Yank riding preferences and techniques.

After his introductory comparison/blueprint ‘The English Rider’ and ‘The Western Horseman’ Thelwell pits cocky little Cowboys against surly Show-jumping Schoolgirls in such compelling, picture packed chapters as Western Riding, What to Wear, Western Horses, Quick on the Drawl, How to Understand Your Horse, On the Trail, How to Manage a Mean Horse, How to Cross Water and Rodeo Dough before ending with a comprehensive Western Quiz.

So which is best: East or West?

The answer, of course, is simple: Avoid all close equine encounters and read this book instead.
© 1975 Norman Thelwell.

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Temperance


By Cathy Malkasian (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-323-1

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a charismatic leader drags an entire nation into a phony war, manipulating facts, twisting good people’s lives, destroying their innocence and fomenting an atmosphere of sustained paranoia and unthinking patriotism – if not jingoistic madness. Then he shuffles out of the picture and lets his successors deal with the mess he’s created: those remnants divided equally into well-meaning but clueless ditherers and now-fanatical disciples who think only they can run the show…

The land is in turmoil. Pa is raising a ruckus trying to get his monstrous ark built before the ruthless invaders begin the final attack. Eldest girl Peggy and little Minerva follow as he carves a wake of destructive energy through the landscape. Pa has galvanised the local villagers and they await his command to enter the fortress-city within the monolithic edifice, dubbed “Blessedbowl.”

When Pa begins once more to assault his oldest lass, only hapless Minerva and the trees are witness to the unleashed savagery. Suddenly, a young man rushes to Peg’s rescue, captivating forever the cowering Min. His name is Lester, but despite a terrific struggle the rescuer is no match for Pa’s maniacal vigour. The young man is left brain-damaged and maimed.

Pa bids Min see to Lester. The Doomsayer is lost in his preparations again. The Crisis has arrived…

Three decades pass. Min has married Lester and a thriving community exists within Blessedbowl, a permanent subsistence/siege economy built on paranoia: isolated and united by a common foe that has never been seen and is therefore utterly terrifying. Moses-like, Pa remained behind when the ark was sealed, to fight a rearguard action. Min is now his regent, efficiently running the closed ecology and economy, bolstered by the devoted attention of Lester, the amnesiac war-hero who lost so much when the invisible enemy launched their final assault…

Min controls the community through reports from the distant front and Lester guards the city within Blessedbowl’s hull. But now his befuddled memory is clearing, and Min, hopelessly in love with him, faces the threat that all that has been so slowly built may come crashing swiftly down…

And this is just the tip of the iceberg in a vast story that might just be the best thing I’ve read this year. Created during America’s longest-running war (9 years and counting…) this multilayered, incisive parable examines how families and countries can be twisted by love, fear and leaders’ lies yet still seemingly prosper. As much mystical generational fantasy as veiled allegory this enchanting story will open your eyes on so many levels. As events spiral beyond all control the astounding outcome, whilst utterly inevitable will also be a complete surprise… and just wait until you discover the identity of the eponymous narrator “Temperance”…

Mythical, mystical, metaphorical, lyrical, even poetic, here is a literal epic which blends Shakespearean passions with soft Orwellian terrors. King Lear and 1984 are grandparents to this subtly striking tale of freedoms and honour – personal and communal – surrendered to a comfortable, expedient slavery. Combining trenchant social commentary with spiritually uplifting observation, illustrated in the softest pencil tones – reminiscent of English World War II cartoons (particularly Pont and Bateman, but also the animations of Halas and Batchelor) this is joy to read, a delight to view and a privilege to own.

We must all do so …

© 2010 Cathy Malkasian. All right reserved.This edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books, Inc.