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Michael Moorcock’s The Swords of Heaven, The Flowers of Hell – UK Edition


By Howard V. Chaykin & Michael Moorcock (Star Books)
ISBN: 0-35230681-5

Presented as a Heavy Metal Presents… production this slim and scintillating fantasy thriller was one of the most successful early graphic novels, but has since slipped into seeming obscurity. Created Marvel-style (plot/art and then script) it teamed two of the medium’s most outspoken and popular creators on a project that still has a phenomenal amount of punch.

Michael Moorcock began his career as a comics writer and editor at age 15, on such strips as Tarzan, Dogfight Dixon, Jet Ace Logan, Captain Condor, Olac the Gladiator and many, many other British stalwarts before making the jump to prose fiction, where he single-handedly revitalised the genre with the creation of Elric and the high-concept of the Eternal Champion.

This very adult fantasy thriller is a part of that extended cycle of sagas (and if you’re a fan this tale immediately follows the novels The Eternal Champion and Phoenix in Obsidian) but if it’s all new to you everything you need to enjoy the epic is précised within the tale itself.

Urlik Skarsol, known as John Daker, is an aspect of the tragic fate-tossed Eternal Champion. Unlike most he is always aware of his true nature so when he incarnates on a new world he already knows it is another place of conflict and jeopardy.

Here he is Lord Clen of Clen Gar, a knight of the Dream Marches and wielder of a terrible soul-drinking black sword. His land is a buffer zone between the acid-scorched wastes of Hell and the lush highlands of Heaven, and for centuries his people have guarded the decadent body-warping elite above them from the desperate wild-men of the burned wildernesses.

A final confrontation is drawing inevitably closer, and death is in the air, but Clen holds one final awesome secret. The floating acid-spewing beasts known as Angels are not what they seem and their final fate will determine whether this world thrives or dies in blood and flame…

This is a classic romp from two masters of the form, painted with all verve and dash of Chaykin in his prime, and a treat fantasists and followers of exotic, erotic fantasy will simply adore.

© 1979 Howard V. Chaykin & Michael Moorcock.  All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold Batman Team-ups Volume 1


By Bob Haney, Neal Adams & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1209-4

The Brave and the Bold began in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales about a variety of period heroes: a format that mirrored the contemporary movie fascination with historical dramas. Written by Bob Kanigher issue #1 led with Golden Gladiator, the Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s now legendary Viking Prince. From #5 the Gladiator was increasingly alternated with Robin Hood, but the adventure format carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like Showcase.

Issue #25 (August-September 1959) featured the debut of Task Force X: the Suicide Squad, followed by Justice League of America (#28), Cave Carson (#31), Hawkman (#34), and since only the JLA hit the first time out, there were return engagements for the Squad, Carson and Hawkman. Something truly different appeared in #45-49 with the science fictional Strange Sports Stories, before Brave and the Bold #50 provided a new concept that once again truly caught the reader’s imagination.

That issue paired two superheroes – Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter – in a one-off team-up, as did succeeding issues: Aquaman and Hawkman in #51, WWII Battle Stars Sgt Rock, Captain Cloud, Mme. Marie and the Haunted Tank in #52 and Atom and Flash in #53. The next team-up, Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash, evolved rapidly into the Teen Titans. After Metal Men/the Atom and Flash/Martian Manhunter a new hero, Metamorpho, the Element Man debuted in #57-58. Then it was back to superhero pairings with #59, and although no one realised it at the time this particular conjunction, Batman with Green Lantern would be particularly significant.

After a return engagement for the Teen Titans in #60, the next two issues highlighted Earth-2 champions Starman and Black Canary, whilst Wonder Woman met Supergirl in #63. Then, in an indication of things to come, and in acknowledgement of the TV induced mania mere months away Batman duelled hero/villain Eclipso in #64. Within two issues, following Flash/Doom Patrol (#65) and Metamorpho/Metal Men (#66) Brave and the Bold #67 saw the Caped Crusader take de facto control of the title, and the lion’s share of the team-ups. With the exception of #72-73 (Spectre/the Flash and Aquaman/Atom) the comic was henceforth to be a place where Batman invited the rest of company’s heroic pantheon to come and play…

This first collection of Batman’s pairing with other luminaries of the DC universe (reprinting B&B #59, 64, 67-71 and 74-87) features the last vestiges of a continuity-reduced DC where individual story needs were seldom submerged into a cohesive overarching scenario, with writer Bob Haney crafting stories that were meant to be read in isolation, and drawn by a huge variety of artists with only one goal: entertainment.

The Brave and the Bold #59 (April-May 1965, illustrated by Ramona Fradon and Charles Paris) found Batman and Green Lantern reliving the plot of the Count of Monte Cristo as they resisted ‘The Tick-Tock Traps of the Time Commander!’ whilst a long-lost romantic interest brought the Caped Crusader into conflict with criminal combine Cyclops in ‘Batman versus Eclipso’ (#64, February-March 1966, illustrated by the great Win Mortimer).

‘The Death of the Flash’ in #67 (August-September 1966) was a terse high-speed thriller drawn with flair by Carmine Infantino and Charles Paris, and the next issue, with visuals from Mikes Sekowsky and Esposito, offered one of the oddest tales in DC’s long history as Metamorpho had to defeat a Gotham Guardian mutated into a vicious monster in ‘Alias the Bat-Hulk!’

Win Mortimer returned to illustrate Batman, Green Lantern and the Time Commander’s fractious reunion in #69’s ‘War of the Cosmic Avenger’ whilst Hawkman’s first Bat team-up ‘Cancelled: 2 Super-heroes!’ pitted the pair against a secret identity collector in a quirky tale with art by Johnny Craig and Chuck Cuidera, and Green Arrow, drawn by his Golden Age illustrator George Papp, helped Batman survive ‘The Wrath of the Thunderbird!’

After the aforementioned hiatus the Caped Crime-crusher took full possession of Brave and the Bold with #74’s fast-paced and funny ‘Rampant Run the Robots’ as the Metal Men tackled prejudice and evil inventors and in #75 The Spectre joined the Dark Knight to free Gotham City’s Chinatown from ‘The Grasp of Shahn-Zi!’ both tales drawn by the new semi-regular art team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.

Drawn by Sekowsky and Jack Abel, Plastic Man helped solve the mystery of The Molder in #76’s ‘Doom, What is Thy Shape?’ Andru and Esposito illustrated the Atom’s exploits in ‘So Thunders the Cannoneer!’ and Bob Brown stepped in to draw ‘In the Coils of the Copperhead’ wherein Wonder Woman found herself vying with the newly-minted Batgirl for Batman’s affections. Of course it was all a cunning plan… wasn’t it?

Neal Adams was a young illustrator who had worked in advertising and ghosted some newspaper strips whilst trying to break into comics. With #75 he had become a cover artist for B&B, and with #79 (August-September 1968) he took over the interior art for a groundbreaking run that rewrote the rulebook for strip illustration. ‘The Track of the Hook’ paired the Dark Knight Detective with the justice-obsessed Deadman: murdered trapeze artist Boston Brand  who was hunting his own killer, and whose earthy, human tragedy elevated the series’ costume theatrics into deeper, more mature realms of drama and action. The stories aged ten years overnight and instantly became every discerning fan’s favourite read.

‘And Hellgrammite is his Name’ found Batman and the Creeper battling an insect-themed super-hitman, and the Flash aided the Caped Crusader defeat an unbeatable thug in ‘But Bork Can Hurt You!’ (both inked by Dick Giordano) whilst Aquaman became ‘The Sleepwalker from the Sea’ in an eerie tale of mind-control and sibling rivalry.

Issue # 83 took a radical turn as the Teen Titans tried to save Bruce Wayne’s latest foster-son from his own inner demons in ‘Punish Not my Evil Son!’ but the next team-up was one that got many fans in a real tizzy in 1969. ‘The Angel, the Rock and the Cowl’ recounted a World War II exploit where Batman and Sgt. Rock of Easy Company hunted Nazi gold together, only closing the case twenty-five years later. Ignoring the kvetching about relative ages and which Earth we’re on, you should focus on the fact that this is a startlingly gripping tale of great intensity, beautifully realised, and one which has been criminally discounted for decades as “non-canonical”.

Brave and the Bold #85 is arguably the best of an incredible run. ‘The Senator’s Been Shot!’ reunited Batman and Green Arrow in a superb multi-layered thriller of politics, corruption and cast-iron integrity, wherein Bruce Wayne became a stand-in for a law-maker and the Emerald Archer got a radical make-over that turned him into the fiery liberal gadfly champion of the relevancy generation.

Boston Brand returned in #86, as Batman found ‘You Can’t Hide from a ‘Deadman!’ in a captivating epic of death, redemption and resurrection that became a cornerstone of Bat-mythology for the next three decades, and this spellbinding black and white collection of classic confrontations concludes with a decidedly different adventure written and drawn by Mike Sekowsky and starring the venerable comics icon he had made fresh and exciting all over again.

Entitled ‘The Widow-Maker’, it tells of the son of one of Batman’s foes who attempts to add to his tally of motoring murders by luring the Caped Crusader into a rigged high performance car race until Diana Prince, once and future Wonder Woman, steps in…

By taking his cues from news headlines, popular films and proven genre-sources, Bob Haney produced gripping adventures that thrilled and enticed with no need for more than a cursory nod to an ever-more onerous continuity. Anybody could pick up one of his concoctions and be sucked into a world of wonder. Consequently those tales are just as fresh and welcoming today, their themes and premises as immediate now as then and the glorious variety of artists involved still proves a constant source of joy and wonder. Here is a Bat-book literally everybody can enjoy.

© 1965-1970, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Justice League of America volume 3: The Injustice League


By Dwayne McDuffie, Ed Benes, Mike McKone, Joe Benitez & various (DC Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-84576-887-4

The third volume of the latest Justice League of America incarnation (collecting the JLA Wedding Special and issues #13-16 of the monthly comic) starts with a light touch as the heroes prepare various events for the upcoming nuptials of team leader Black Canary and her long time beau (sorry, I simply couldn’t stop myself) Green Arrow, but tragedy and death are lurking as a team of villains ambushes and nearly kills new hero Firestorm…

Following the events of Infinite Crisis, One Year Later and 52, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman convened as a star-chamber to reform the JLA as a force for good, and now in an eerie echo of that event Lex Luthor, the Joker and the Cheetah similarly sift the ranks of bad-guys looking to build a perfect team to destroy the World’s Greatest Superheroes…

One by one the heroes are picked off and of course things look darkest before the dawn but in most of the ways that matter this is a good old fashioned yarn given a shiny gloss of modern angst and sophistication, wrapped in the sort of bombastic action that modern readers thrive on, so you know all will end well and with terrific style.

Writer Dwayne McDuffie and rotating art teams Mike McKone & Andy Lanning, Joe Benitez & Victor Llamas and Ed Benes & Sandra Hope have concocted the kind of fights ‘n’ tights tale that kids of all ages live for, and the book also includes two short pieces to balance the action and drama.

‘A Slight Tangent’ by McDuffie, Benitez & Llamas, is a teaser to a larger, and presumably forthcoming, crossover between the League and their namesakes from the Tangent Universe (for which see also Tangent Comics volumes 1 and 2) and the book closes with the delightful character piece ‘Soup Kitchen’ wherein Red Arrow sees another kind of Christmas cheer courtesy of a sad old villain and creative team Alan Burnett and Allan Jefferson.

It’s always easy to work on a book with loads of media push and high concept momentum, but the real test is to soldier on when the spotlight turns elsewhere. With the quality of solid tale-telling on view here JLA addicts and fans of great reading clearly don’t have too much to worry about.

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Captain Britain and MI13: Vampire State


By Paul Cornell, Leonard Kirk, Mike Collins & others (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-439-3

There’s an old maxim of the industry that’s usually applied to war comics which goes something like this: when it’s for Britain it’s “how we won the War”, and when it’s for America it’s “how He won the War”,  which although obnoxious and rather insulting does illustrate a signal difference in approach and reader expectation.

It’s one that is most apparent in this final collection of the excellent superhero espionage thriller featuring a hodge-podge of Marvel’s UK-based champions. Although Captain Britain is the named lead he is one of the least used characters in the ensemble show, regularly yielding focus to team-mates such as mutant spymaster Peter Wisdom, sometime Avenger Black Knight, WWII veteran (and vampire) Spitfire, spirit of Albion Dr. Faiza Hussain and spooky “Big Gun” Blade the Vampire Slayer.

This time the multiracial, multi-species, multi-purpose super-team are faced with utter Armageddon as Count Dracula attempts to turn Britain into a homeland for vampires, using all his arcane resources and Marvel’s Nosferatu back-catalogue to supplement his ranks. It’s a great read for all but the added value for long-term fans – especially of those quirky Marvel UK creations – is immense as minor characters and forgotten folk literally litter every page.

Dark, shocking and completely compelling, this is the way all comics blockbusters should be handled: with wit and sensitivity to bolster the spectacle, and high concept body-count. This book collects issues #10-15 and the Annual wherein writer Paul Cornell has constructed a solid British war story utilising monsters and superheroes to superb collaborative effect, magnificently complimented by regular artist Leonard Kirk, Mike Collins Ardian Syaf, Adrian Alphona, Jay Leisten, Robin Riggs, Craig Yeung and Livesay. It is a pure backs-to-the wall excitement and the perfect end to a hugely underrated series.

Buy enough copies (and of previous collections Captain Britain and MI13: Secret Invasion and Captain Britain and MI13: Hell Comes to Birmingham) and there’s every chance of a comeback, no?

© 2009 Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. All Rights Reserved.

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Quick & Flupke: Under Full Sail


By Hergé, translated by David Radzinowicz (Egmont UK)
ISBN: 978-1-4052-4743-6

Finally making it into English are the adventures of two young scallywags that for a while rivalled the utterly irresistible Tintin in popularity and ones which certainly acted as a test lab for the humorous graphic elements so much a part of the future world classic.

Georges Prosper Remi, known all over the world as Hergé, created a genuine masterpiece of graphic literature with his tales of a plucky boy reporter and his entourage of iconic associates, but Tintin was by no means his only creation. Among the best of the rest are Jo, Zette and Jocko and these episodic all-ages comedy gems.

On leaving school in 1925 Hergé worked for the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siécle where he seems to have fallen under the influence of its Svengali-like editor Abbot Norbert Wallez. A dedicated boy-scout himself, he produced his first strip series The Adventures of Totor for Boy Scouts of Belgium monthly magazine the following year, and by 1928 he was in charge of producing the contents of Le XXe Siécle‘s children’s weekly supplement Le Petit Vingtiéme.

He was unhappily illustrating The Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonette, written by the staff sports reporter, when Abbot Wallez asked him to create a new adventure series. Perhaps a young reporter who would travel the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues?

Having recently discovered the word balloon in imported newspaper strips, Remi decided to incorporate the innovation into his own work. He would produce a strip that was modern and action-packed. Beginning on January 10th 1929, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets<; appeared in weekly instalments in Le Petit Vingtiéme running until May 8th 1930.

At about this time he also began crafting the weekly 2-page exploits of two working class rapscallions in Brussels who played pranks, got into mischief and even ventured into the heady realms of slapstick and surrealism in the kind of yarns that any reader of Dennis the Menace (ours, not the Americans) would find fascinatingly familiar.

Originally running in black and white in Le Petit Vingtiéme starting in January 1930 they larked about for over a decade until the war and the pressure of producing Tintin meant they had to go. They were rediscovered in 1985 and their collected adventures ran for 12 volumes.

Now we’ve got them, available for folk too lazy to learn French (or Dutch or German or…) in a glorious full-colour make-over and they are the perfect light read for kids of all ages.

© Hergé – Exclusivity Editions Casterman 1986.  All Rights Reserved.
English translation © 2009 Egmont UK Limited.  All Rights Reserved.

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Tarzan: the Jesse Marsh Years volume 1


By Gaylord DuBois & Jesse Marsh (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-238-3

I don’t know an awful lot about Jesse Marsh, other than that he was born on 27th July 1907 and died far too young – on April 28th 1966 – from diabetic complications at the height of a TV Tarzan revival he was in some part responsible for. What I do know, however, is that to my unformed, pre-fanboy, kid’s mentality, his drawings were somehow better than most of the other artists and that every other kid who read comics in my school disagreed with me.

There’s a phrase we used to use at 2000AD that summed it up: “Artist’s artist”, which usually meant someone whose fan-mail divided equally into fanatical raves and bile-filled hate-mail. It seems there are some makers of comic strips that some readers simply don’t get. It isn’t about the basic principles or artistic quality or even anything tangible – although you’ll hear some cracking justifications: “I don’t like his feet” (presumably the way he draws them) and “it just creeps me out” being my two favourites…

I got Jesse Marsh.

He was another Disney animator (from 1939) who became in 1945 a full-time comics illustrator of that company’s comicbook licensee Whitman Publishing. Their Dell and Gold Key imprints, based on the West Coast, rivalled DC and Marvel at the height of their powers, and famously never capitulated to the wave of anti-comics hysteria that resulted in the crippling self-censorship of the 1950s. Dell Comics never displayed a Comics Code Authority symbol on their covers – they never needed to.

Marsh jobbed around the movie properties, mostly on westerns like Gene Autry, until 1948 when Dell produced the first all-new Tarzan comic. A newspaper strip had run since 1929 and all previous books had featured expurgated reprints of those adventures until Dell Four Color Comic #134 (February 1947) which featured a lengthy, captivating tale of the Ape-Man scripted by Robert P Thompson, who wrote both the Tarzan radio show and the aforementioned syndicated strip.

‘Tarzan and the Devil Ogre’ is very much in the Burroughs tradition: the sometime Lord Greystoke and his friend D’Arnot aid a young woman in rescuing her lost father from a hidden tribe ruled over by a monster, an engrossing yarn made magical by the simple, underplayed magic of a heavy brush line and absolutely unmatched design sense.

Marsh was unique in the way he positioned characters in space, using primitivist forms and hidden shapes to augment his backgrounds, and as the man was a fanatical researcher, his trees, rocks, and constructions were 100% accurate. His animals and natives, especially the children and women, were all distinct and recognisable – not the blacked-up stock figures in grass skirts even the greatest artists too often resorted to. He also knew when to draw big and draw small: the internal dynamism of his work is spellbinding.

His Africa became mine, and of course the try-out tale was an instant hit. Marsh and Thompson’s Tarzan returned with two tales in Dell Four Color Comic #161, August 1947 – (a remarkable feat: Four Colour was a catch-all title that featured literally hundreds of different licensed properties, often as many as ten separate issues per month, thus so rapid a return meant pretty solid sales figures). In ‘The Fires of Tohr’ Tarzan and D’Arnot rescue a stranded professor and his niece as they search for a fabulous lost city, only to fall foul of a crazed queen of that ancient race, whilst in the second tale ‘Tarzan and the Black Panther’ the Lord of the Jungle crushes a modern slave trader who thinks himself beyond the reach of justice.

Within six months the bimonthly Tarzan #1 was released (January-February 1948), a swan-song for Thompson, but another unforgettable classic for Marsh – and the first of an unbroken run that would last until 1965: over 150 consecutive issues. In ‘Tarzan and the White Savages of Vari’ Greystoke rescued a lost prospector from a mountain kingdom of Neanderthals and the issue also featured the first of many pictorial glossaries, Tarzan’s Ape-English Dictionary, which gave generations of youngsters another language to keep secrets in…

‘Tarzan and the Captives of Thunder Valley’ introduced a few recurring characters such as Manu the monkey and the noble ape Gufta in the first of many a tale written by Editor and prolific scripter Gaylord DuBois wherein the Lord of the Jungle went to the aid of an English boy searching for his father, a scientist specialising in radioactive ores. The deadly plot uncovered threatened to destabilise the entire world and ended in a spectacular climax worthy of a Bond movie.

Issue #3 introduced Tarzan’s family. In ‘Tarzan and the Dwarfs of Didona’ Jane is left to mind the store when Boy (later called Korak) played with baboons and got lost on an island in the Great Lake. Threatened with blood sacrifice by aggressive white pygmies the dauntless lad could only wait for rescue – and a severe scolding…

This first magnificent hardback collection concludes with ‘Tarzan and the Lone Hunter’ (#4, July-August 1948), plunging the reader deeply into the fantastic worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs as old friend Om-At the cat man from the lost land of Pal-Ul-Don (introduced in the eighth novel Tarzan the Terrible) comes looking for his lost mate and embroils the ape-man and his brood in a deadly battle with a megalomaniacal witch-doctor…

Although these are tales from a far-off, simpler time they have lost none of their passion, inclusivity and charm whilst the artistic virtuosity of Jesse Marsh looks better than ever. Perhaps this time a few more people will “get” him…

© 1947, 1948, 2009 Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. Tarzan ® Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Comics Journal #300


By various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-147-3

Although it feels like it has always been part of our lives The Comics Journal only began business in 1976, interviewing creators, reporting on trends and events and generally assuming the critical role of critique-ing: a self-aware gadfly within and without our industry: celebrating the history and innovation of all aspects of cartooning and graphic narrative, keeping the balance between sales and artistic integrity firmly tipped on the side of the latter. It has for so, so long been the only place Americans hear of what the rest of the world of comics is doing.

Don’t panic! This isn’t a eulogy, but notice that the venerable organ has reached issue 300 and is celebrating with a fascinating collection of creator-chats as industry tyros and giants come together to interview, share, bitch and generally shoot the breeze about graphic narrative: a tactic that makes this the most compelling read of the year for anyone truly interested in what we all do and why.

After the always informative and breathtaking news sections Blood & Thunder and Journal Datebook – which include the results of 2009’s Eisner Awards – and a cartoon interview with supreme Editor Gary Groth (conducted and rendered by Noah van Scriver) the back and forth banter begins with the legendary Art Spiegelman and young cartoonist Kevin Huizenga – moderated by Groth and liberally illustrated – as are all the co-interviews – with work from both parties in case you’re unfamiliar with their oeuvre.

In short order Jean-Christophe Menu (iconoclastic European publisher and creator) interacts with Sammy (Kramer’s Ergot) Harkham, British invaders Dave Gibbons and Frank Quitely share opinions (and probably tea and biscuits), Dave (Daredevil, Batman: Year One, Rubber Blanket, Asterios Polyp) Mazzucchelli meets Dash (Bottomless Belly Button) Shaw, Alison Bechdel swaps views with Danica Novgorodoff, Howard Chaykin with Ho Che Anderson, Jaime Hernandez with Zak Sally and Ted Rall with Matt Bors.

Great care has been taken to match overlapping areas of shared experience, such as scripters Denny O’Neil with Matt Fraction, political cartoonists Jim Borgman and Keith Knight and historical fictioneers Stan Sakai with Chris (Crogan’s Vengeance) Schweizer with the result that the compelling overview provided of the industry and the art-form in both historical and practical terms is utterly mesmerising.

Topping out the issue are reviews of Acme Novelty Library #19, and the aforementioned Asterios Polyp: a critical overview of the history of comics journalism /criticism from Rich Kreiner entitled ‘The Firing Line Forms Here’ more of the same from R. Fiore in Funnybook Roulette: The Experience of Comics, an examination of Moebius – ‘The Constant Garage’ – from Continental Drift columnist Matthias Wivel, and the celebrations conclude with another superb R.C. Harvey Comicopia feature, an examination of manga’s recent decline (Bring the Noise by Bill Randall) and an examination of Alan Moore’s retreat from comics and the disappointments of movie adaptations from Tom Crippen (Post-Human Reviews: Age of Geeks).

This is a superb magazine for comics lovers: it won’t ever tell you where and when to buy but it will make you wonder why you do or don’t…
© 2009 Fantagraphics Books, Inc. All images/photos/text © their respective copyright holders.

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The Misadventures of Jane


By Norman Pett & J.H.G. (“Don”) Freeman (Titian Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-167-0

Jane is one of the most important and well-regarded comic strips in British, if not World, history. It debuted on December 5th 1932 as Jane’s Journal: or The Diary of a Bright Young Thing, a frothy, frivolous gag-a-day strip in the Daily Mirror, created by (then) freelance cartoonist Norman Pett.

Originally a comedic vehicle, it consisted of a series of panels with cursive script embedded within to simulate a diary page. It switched to the more formal strip frames and balloons in late 1938, when scripter Don Freeman came on board and Mirror Group supremo Harry Guy Bartholomew was looking to renovate the serial for a more adventure- and escape-hungry audience. It was also felt that a continuity feature such as Freeman’s other strip Pip, Squeak and Wilfred would keep readers coming back – as if Jane’s inevitable – if usually unplanned – bouts of near nudity wouldn’t…

Jane’s secret was skin. Even before war broke out there were torn skirts and lost blouses aplenty, but once the shooting started and Jane became an operative for British Intelligence her clothes came off with terrifying regularity and machine gun rapidity. She even went topless when the Blitz was at its worst.

Pett drew the strip with verve and style, imparting a uniquely English family feel: a joyous innocence and lack of tawdriness. He worked from models and life, famously using first his wife, his secretary Betty Burton, editorial assistant Doris Keay but most famously actress and model Chrystabel Leighton-Porter until May 1948 when Pett left for another newspaper and another clothing-challenged comic star.

His art assistant Michael Hubbard assumed full control of the feature (prior to that he had drawn backgrounds and male characters), and carried the series, increasingly a safe, flesh-free soap-opera and less a racy glamour strip, to its conclusion on October 10th 1959.

Now Titan Books have added the saucy secret weapon to their growing arsenal of classic British comics and strips, and paid her the respect she deserves with a snappy black and white hardcover collection, complete with colour inserts.

Following a fascinating and informative article taken from Canadian paper The Maple Leaf (which disseminated her adventures to returning ANZAC servicemen), Jane’s last two war stories (running from May 1944 to June 1945) are reprinted in their entirety, beginning with ‘N.A.A.F.I, Say Die!’ wherein the hapless but ever-so-effective intelligence agent is posted to a British Army base where somebody’s wagging tongue is letting pre “D-Day” secrets out and only Jane and her new sidekick and best friend Dinah Tate can stop the rot.

This is promptly followed by ‘Behind the Front’ wherein Jan and Dinah invade the continent tracking down spies, collaborators and boyfriends in Paris before joining a ENSA concert party, accidentally invading Germany just as the Russians arrive.

The comedy is based on musical hall fundamentals and the drama and action are right out of the patriotic and comedy cinema of the day (as you’d expect: but if you’ve ever seen Will Hay, Alistair Sim or Arthur Askey at their peak you’ll know that’s no bad thing) and this book also contains a lot of rare goodies to drool over.

Jane was so popular that there were three glamour/style books called Jane’s Journal for which Pett produced many full-colour pin-ups, paintings and general cheese-cake illustration. From these this book includes ‘The Perfect Model’ a strip “revealing” how the artist met his muse Chrystabel Leighton-Porter, ‘Caravanseraglio!’, an eight page strip starring Jane and erring, recurring boyfriend Georgie Porgie and 15 pages of the very best partially and un-draped Jane pin-ups.

Jane’s war record is frankly astounding. As a morale booster she was reckoned worth more than divisions of infantry and her exploits were cited in Parliament and discussed by Eisenhower and Churchill. Legend has it that TheMirror‘s Editor was among the few who knew the date of “D-Day” so as to co-ordinate her exploits with the Normandy landings. In 1944, on the day she went full frontal, the American Service newspaper Roundup (provided to US soldiers) went with the headline “JANE GIVES ALL” and the sub-heading “YOU CAN ALL GO HOME NOW”. Chrystabel Leighton-Porter toured as Jane in a services revue – she stripped for the boys – during the war and in 1949 starred in the film The Adventures of Jane.

Although the product of simpler, though certainly more hazardous, times, the charming, thrilling, innocently saucy adventures of Jane, patient but dedicated beau Georgie Porgie and especially her intrepid Dachshund Count Fritz Von Pumpernickel are landmarks of the art-form, not simply for their impact but also for the plain and simple reason that they are superbly drawn and huge fun to read.

After years of neglect, don’t let’s waste the opportunity to keep such a historical icon in our lives. You should buy this book, buy your friends this book, and most importantly, agitate to have her entire splendid run reprinted in more books like this one. Do your duty lads and lassies…

Jane © 2009 MGN Ltd/Mirrorpix. All Rights Reserved.

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The Six Voyages of Lone Sloane


By Philippe Druillet, translated by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier (NBM)
ISBN: 0-918348-97-8

Comics and fantasy story-telling took a huge leap forward in 1975 when French comics collective Les Humanoides Associes began publishing the groundbreaking magazine Métal Hurlant. However one of their visual mainstays had begun nearly a decade earlier.

Philippe Druillet was a photographer and artist who had started his comics career in 1966 with an apocalyptic science fiction epic Le Mystère des abîmes (The Mystery of the Abyss) which introduced a doom-tainted intergalactic freebooter and wanderer called Lone Sloane in a tale heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft and A.E. Van Vogt.

Druillet was born in Toulouse in 1944, and raised in Spain, and his comics work is panoramic, cosmic and deeply baroque. He began working for Pilote in 1969, and revived his star-rover in a number of short pieces gathered together as The Six Voyages in 1972. This collection from 1991 presents them in English and perfectly captures the Gothic intensity of the saga which inspired so many artists.

In ‘The Throne of the Black God’ Sloane’s ship is destroyed by a demonic chair that kidnaps him to a desolate world to await possession by a cosmic god of chaos, whilst in ‘The Isle of the Doom Wind’ the throne-riding sidereal vagabond thwarts space pirates. In the macabre romance ‘Rose’ he is trapped on a world of robotic junk and the occasional series leapt into interstellar overdrive with the oppressive battle-thriller ‘Torquedara Varenkor: the Bridge over the Stars’.

In ‘O Sidarta’ Sloane recaptured his long-lost super spaceship and began a quest to return to Earth and overthrow the despotic Imperium, a quest that culminated in startling revelations of his destiny in ‘Terra’: all of which were simply preludes for his next ambitious epic ‘Delerius.’

The stories here are mere skeletons for the high-concepts which fascinate the artist, and their true appeal lies in the startling graphic innovations in design and layout Druillet seemed to let explode from his pen and brain. Moreover the sheer energy of his work scintillates when reproduced on extra-large pages (310mm x 233mm). This is book every art lover of fan of the fantastic simply must have. Surely it’s time for another luxury collection to be released?
© Humanoides Associes 1991. English Translation © 1991 Dark Horse.

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Superman: The Man of Steel volume 3


By various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0246-2

With John Byrne’s controversial reboot of the world’s first superhero a solid hit, the collaborative teams tasked with ensuring his continued success really hit their stride with the tales collected in this third volume. Re-presenting Superman #4-6, Action #587-589 and Adventures of Superman #427-429 the drama began with an all-out battle against the deranged gunman ‘Bloodsport!’ courtesy of Byrne and Karl Kesel, before Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway concocted a longer yarn taking the Man of Tomorrow on a punishing visit to the rogue state of Qurac and a hidden race of alien telepaths called the Circle, in a visceral and beautiful tale of un-realpolitik.

‘Mind Games’ and ‘Personal Best’ (Adventures of Superman #427-428) combined a much more relevant, realistic slant with lots of character sub-plots featuring the staff of the Daily Planet whilst Byrne in Action Comics concentrated on spectacle and reader appeal. ‘Cityscape!’ in #587, teamed the Metropolis Marvel with Jack Kirby’s Etrigan the Demon as sorceress Morgaine Le Fay attempted to gain immortality by warping time itself.

‘The Mummy Strikes’ and ‘The Last Five Hundred’ (Byrne and Kesel, Superman #5-6) introduced the first hint of a romance between the Man of Steel and Wonder Woman before Lois and Clark became embroiled in an extraterrestrial invasion drama that all started half a million years ago, and in ‘Old Ties’ (Superman #6) Wolfman and Ordway revealed the catastrophic results of the Circle transferring their attentions to Metropolis.

This book concludes with a cosmic saga from Action Comics #588-589 as Byrne and Dick Giordano teamed the Caped Kryptonian with Hawkman and Hawkwoman in ‘All Wars Must End’, an epic battle against Thanagarian invaders before the Green Lantern Corps rescued the star-lost Superman in ‘Green on Green’ just in time to join forces with him to destroy an unstoppable planet-eating beast.

The back-to-basics approach lured many readers to – and back to – the Superman franchise, but the sheer quality of the stories and art are certainly what convinced them to stay. Such cracking superhero tales are a high point in the Man of Tomorrow’s decades-long career, and these chronological-release collections are certainly the easiest way to enjoy this impressive reinvention of the ultimate comic-book icon.

© 1987, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.