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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.

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Essential Thor volume 2


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3381-0

Even more than the Fantastic Four The Mighty Thor was the arena in which Jack Kirby’s creative brilliance blended with his questing exploration of an Infinite Imaginative Cosmos: dreaming, extrapolating and honing a dazzling new kind of storytelling graphics with soul-searching, mind-boggling concepts of Man’s place in the universe.

His unforgettable string of pantheons began in a modest little fantasy title called Journey into Mystery where, in the summer of 1962 a tried-and-true comicbook concept (feeble mortal transformed into God-like hero) was employed by the fledgling Marvel Comics to add a Superman analogue to their growing roster of costumed adventurers. This gloriously economical monochrome tome re-presents the end of that catch-all title as the Asgardian’s increasingly popular exploits saw the title become The Mighty Thor.

Gathered here are Journey into Mystery issues #113-125 plus the Annual for 1965, and without breaking stride, Thor #126-136 and the 1966 Annual, all in clean, crisp black and white for your delectation.

Lonely, crippled American doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to encounter the vanguard of an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, Blake found a gnarled old walking stick, which when struck against the ground turned him into the Norse God of Thunder!

Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked. As the months swiftly passed the rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs gradually gave way to a vast panoply of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces. By issue #113, the magnificent warrior’s world of Asgard was a regular milieu for the hero’s adventures, and in ‘A World Gone Mad!’ by Stan Lee, Kirby and Chic Stone, the Thunderer, after saving the Shining Realm from invasion, once more defied his father Odin to romantically pursue the mortal nurse Jane Foster – a task made rather hazardous by the return of the petrifying villain Grey Gargoyle.

A long-running plot strand – almost interminably so – was the soap-opera tangle caused by Don Blake’s love for his nurse – a passion his alter ego shared. Sadly the Overlord of Asgard refused to allow his son to love a mortal, which acrimonious triangle provided many attempts to humanise and de-power Thor, already a hero few villains could cope with.

These issues also carried a spectacular back-up series. Tales of Asgard – Home of the mighty Norse Gods gave Kirby space to indulge his fascination with legends and allowed both complete vignettes and longer epics (in every sense of the word). Initially adapted myths, these little yarns grew into sagas unique to the Marvel universe where Kirby built his own cosmos and mythology, underpinning the company’s entire continuity. Here he revealed ‘The Boyhood of Loki!’, scripted as ever by Lee and inked by Vince Colletta, a pensive, brooding taste of the villain to be.

JiM # 114, began a two-part tale that introduced a new villain of the sort Kirby excelled at, a vicious thug who suddenly lucked into overwhelming power. ‘The Stronger I Am, The Sooner I Die!’(Lee, Kirby & Stone) saw Loki imbue hardened felon Crusher Creel with the power to duplicate the strength and attributes of anything he touched, but before he was treated to ‘The Vengeance of the Thunder God’ (inked by Frank Giacoia as the pseudonymous Frankie Ray) we’re indulged with another Tale of Asgard – ‘The Golden Apples.’ Issue #115’s mini-myth was ‘A Viper in our Midst!’ with young Loki clandestinely cementing relations with the sinister Storm Giants – sworn enemies of the Gods.

A longer saga began in #116, as Colletta settled in as the regular inker for both lead and second feature. ‘The Trial of the Gods’ revealed more of fabled Asgard as Thor and Loki underwent a Trial by Combat, with the god of mischief cheating at every step, whilst ‘Into the Blaze of Battle!’ found Balder the Brave protecting Jane Foster whilst her godly paramour travelled to war-torn Vietnam seeking proof of his step-brother’s infamy. These tales were supplemented by the stellar novellas ‘The Challenge!’ and ‘The Sword in the Scabbard!‘ which saw Asgardian cabin-fever develop into a quest to destroy a threat to the mystic Odinsword, which unsheathing would destroy the universe…

Journey into Mystery #118’s ‘To Kill a Thunder God!’ ramped up the otherworldly drama as Loki, attempting to cover his tracks, unleashed an ancient Asgardian WMD – the Destroyer. When it damaged the mystic hammer of Thor and nearly killed the hero in ‘The Day of the Destroyer!’, the God of Mischief was forced to save his step-brother or bear the brunt of Odin’s anger. Meanwhile in Tales of Asgard the Quest further unfolded in ‘The Crimson Hand!’ and ‘Gather, Warriors!’ as a band of hand-picked Argonauts joined Thor’s flying longship in a bold attempt to forestall Ragnarok.

With the Destroyer defeated and Loki temporarily thwarted Thor returned to America ‘With My Hammer in Hand…!’ only to clash once more with the awesome Absorbing Man. However before that bombastic battle there’s not only the next instalment of the Asgardian Argonauts who boldly ‘Set Sail!’ but also the admittedly superb digression of Journey into Mystery Annual #1, wherein the God of Thunder fell into the realm of the Greek Gods for the landmark heroic hullabaloo ‘When Titan’s Clash! Thor vs. Hercules!’ This incredible action-epic is augmented here by a beautiful double-page pin-up of downtown Asgard – a truly staggering piece of Kirby magic.

The attack of the Absorbing Man resumed with ‘The Power! The Passion! The Pride!’ and seemed set to see the end of Thor: a cliffhanger somewhat assuaged by ‘Maelstrom!’ wherein the Argonauts of Asgard epically encountered an uncanny storm… In JiM #122 ‘Where Mortals Fear to Tread!’ the triumphant Crusher Creel was shanghaied by Loki to attack Asgard and Odin himself, an incredible clash that led to a cataclysmic conclusion ‘While a Universe Trembles!’ Meanwhile ‘The Grim Specter of Mutiny!’ invoked by seditious Loki was quashed in time for valiant Balder to save the Argonauts from ‘The Jaws of the Dragon!’ in the increasingly spectacular Ragnarok Quest.

With the threat to ended Thor returned to Earth to defeat the Demon, a witchdoctor empowered by a magical Asgardian Norn Stone left behind after the Thunder God’s Vietnamese venture. Whilst he was away Hercules was dispatched to Earth on a reconnaissance mission for Zeus. ‘The Grandeur and the Glory!’ began another extended story-arc and all-out action extravaganza, which bounced the Thunderer from bruising battle to brutal defeat to ascendant triumph.

Issue #125 ‘When Meet the Immortals!’ was the last Journey into Mystery: with ‘Whom the Gods Would Destroy!’ the comic was re-titled The Mighty Thor and the drama escalated unabated, culminating with ‘The Hammer and the Holocaust!’ In short order Thor crushed the Demon, seemingly lost his beloved Jane to Hercules, was deprived of his powers and subsequently thrashed by the Grecian Prince of Power but still managed to save Asgard from an unscrupulous traitor who had usurped Odin’s mystic might.

Meanwhile in the Tales of Asgard instalments the Questers homed in on the cause of all their woes. ‘Closer Comes the Swarm’ pitted them against the flying trolls of Thryheim, and ‘The Queen Commands’ saw Loki captured until Thor answered ‘The Summons!’, promptly returning the Argonauts to Asgard to be shown ‘The Meaning of Ragnarok!’

In all honestly these mini-eddas were, although still magnificent in visual excitement, becoming rather rambling in plot, so the narrative reset was neither unexpected nor unwelcome…

Instead of ending, the grandiose saga actually grew in scope with Thor #128 as ‘The Power of Pluto!’ introduced another major foe. The Greek God of the Underworld had tricked Hercules into replacing him in his dread, dead domain, just as the recuperated Thunder God was looking for a rematch, whilst in Tales of Asgard Kirby pulled out all the creative stops to depict the ‘Aftermath!’ of Ragnarok: for many fans the first indication of what was to come in the King’s landmark Fourth World tales half a decade later…

‘The Verdict of Zeus!’ condemned Hercules to the underworld unless he could find a proxy to fight for him, whilst at the back of the comic the assembled Asgardians faced ‘The Hordes of Harokin’ as another multi-chaptered classic began, but for once the cosmic scope of the lead feature eclipsed the little odysseys as ‘Thunder in the Netherworld!’ saw Thor and Hercules carve a swathe of destruction through an unbelievably alien landscape – the beginning of a gradual side-lining of Earthly matters and mere crime-fighting. Thor and Kirby were increasingly expending their efforts in greater realms than ours…

‘The Fateful Change!’ saw the younger Thunder God trade places with the Geghiz Khan-like Harrokin, whilst in issue #136, Thor defeated the invasion plans of Rigellian Colonizer Tana Nile in ‘They Strike from Space!’, but it was merely prologue for a fantastic voyage to the depths of space and a unique universal threat, whilst “Harokin” faced a dire dilemma in ‘The Warlock’s Eye!’.

Thor #132 found the Thunderer laying down the law on ‘Rigel: Where Gods May Fear to Tread!’ whilst ‘The Dark Horse of Death!’ arrived in the Tales of Asgard segment looking for its next doomed rider… The following issue is a Kirby Classic, as ‘Behold… the Living Planet!’ introduced the malevolent Ego, sentient world and master of the living Bio-verse, a stunning visual tour de force that threw one High Concept after another at Thor, his new artificial pal Recorder and the reeling readership, whilst Harokin’s saga ended in one last ride to ‘Valhalla!’

The threat of invasion over, Thor returned to Earth to search for Jane, finding her with ‘The People Breeders!’ – a hidden enclave where the geneticist High Evolutionary was instantly evolving animals into men. His latest experiment had created a lupine future-nightmare ‘The Maddening Menace of the Super-Beast!’ so it’s just as well the Thunder God was on hand. ‘When Speaks the Dragon!’ and ‘The Fiery Breath of Fafnir!’ pitted Thor and his Warriors Three comrades Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg against a staggering reptilian monstrosity: a threat finally quashed in #136’s ‘There Shall Come a Miracle!’

The lead story in that issue is a turning point in the history of Thor. ‘To Become an Immortal!’ saw Odin transform Jane Foster into a Goddess and emigrate to Asgard, but her frail human mind could not cope with the wonders and perils of the Realm Eternal and she was mercifully restored to mortality and all but written out of the series. Lucky for the despondent Thunder God the beauteous Warrior-Maiden Sif was on hand…

With this story Thor’s closest link to Earth was neatly severed: from now on his many adventures on Midgard were as a tourist or beneficent guest, not a resident. Asgard and infinity were now his true home, a situation quickly proved by the bombastic clash that closes this volume. ‘If Asgard Falls…’ is set in the Gleaming City during the annual Tourney of Heroes (and comes from The Mighty Thor Annual #2, 1966): a martial spectacular of outlandish armours and exotic weaponry that turned decidedly serious when the deadly Destroyer was unleashed amidst the wildly warring warriors…

These transitional Thor tales show the development not only of one of Marvel’s fundamental continuity concepts but more importantly the creative evolution of the greatest imagination in comics. Set your commonsense on pause and simply wallow in the glorious imagery and power of these classic adventures for the true secret of what makes graphic narrative a unique experience.

© 1965, 1966, 1967, 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird


By Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-917-3

Cartoonists have more than their fair share of individuals with a unique perspective on the world. Elzie Segar, Ronald Searle, Charles Addams, George Herriman, Gerald Scarfe, Rick Geary, Steve Bell, Berke Breathed, Ralph Steadman, Bill Watterson, Matt Groening, Norman Dog, Gary Larson – the list is potentially endless. Perhaps it’s their power to create entire sculptured worlds coupled with the constant promise of vented spleen that so colours their work – whether they paint or draw.

Born Scott Richardson, Tony Millionaire clearly loves to draw and does it very, very well; seamlessly referencing classical art, the best of children’s books and an eclectic blend of pioneer draughtsmen like, George McManus, Rudolph Dirks, Cliff Sterrett, Frank Willard, Harold Gray as well as the aforementioned Segar and Herriman with European engravings from the “legitimate” side of the ink-slinging biz. He especially cites Johnny (Raggedy Ann and Andy) Gruelle and English illustrator Ernest H. Shepard (The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh) as formative influences.

As well as assorted children’s books and the fabulous Sock Monkey, Millionaire produces a powerfully bizarre weekly strip entitled Maakies which delineates the absurdly rude and surreal adventures of an Irish monkey called Uncle Gabby and his alcoholic nautical comrade Drinky Crow (see Drinky Crow’s Maakies Treasury for further details).

In 2007 he produced the acclaimed and award-winning Billy Hazelnuts, the salutary tale of a Golem built from garbage by oppressed, vengeful rats and mice. Originally a ghastly, fly-bedecked monstrosity Billy was rescued and redeemed by little girl scientist Becky who gave him Hazelnut eyes and a fresh-baked confectionary body, and they went through a series of uniquely fantastic adventures.

Now he’s back in another strident, striking, fantastical folktale voyage. Irascible, good-hearted, fiery-tempered and super-strong, Billy is adapting to life on Rimperton Farm but has a few philosophical problems with the natural world: notably everything in it is icky, oozy and wants to eat everything else in it.

After a titanic tussle with the farm cat and an owl, Billy reluctantly takes responsibility for a newly hatched owl chick – an ugly, vicious, violent baby brute that keeps consuming whole chunks of his baked body…

After consulting the confectionary conjuror and all-around wise man Rupert Punch, Billy resolves to return the chick to its lost mother, undertaking a hazardous and utterly surreal journey through Millionaire’s incredible signature land-, sea- and sky-scapes, with the malevolent and opportunistic farm cat “assisting”, but he’s got to hurry: the ungrateful baby bird has already eaten the back of his head and an entire arm…

Rendered in Millionaire’s captivating black and white line, this darkly frantic race against time is a charmingly belligerent fantasy yarn with the requisite happy ending that will appeal to kids on any age, full of action, wonder, imagination and good intent, clearly promising that the author will soon be the worthiest contemporary successor to Baum, Sendak, the Brothers Grimm and Lewis Carroll.

Brilliant, scary, poignant and lovely, make Billy Hazelnuts a part of your leisure-life now.

© 2010 Tony Millionaire. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: R.I.P. – the Deluxe Edition


By Grant Morrison, Tony S. Daniel, Sandu Florea, Lee Garbett & Trevor Scott (DC Comics/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-137-3

After a sustained and vicious campaign of brutal psychological warfare, the all-encompassing criminal hegemony calling itself the Black Glove has succeeded in destabilising the already dubious mental equilibrium of Batman. The Glove’s enigmatic, quixotic leader Dr. Hurt is on the verge of his greatest triumph…

Grant Morrison’s controversial, much-touted extended saga relating “the Death of Batman”, promised much and managed to leave many fans confused, angry and unsatisfied, but us older lags knew full well that whatever happened, however long it took, Bruce Wayne would be back and the dance would begin all over again. So let’s take a look at this culminatory saga on its isolated, intrinsic merits and not as part of the hysterical “Buy Me! Buy Me!” huckster-hype: a solitary book starring one of the industry’s most resilient stars.

I’m reviewing the rather lovely Deluxe British edition produced by Titan Books: a lavish oversized hardback that really feels like a special event and which collects the contents of Batman #676-683 plus the portentous prelude from DC Universe #0, and also includes an extensive cover gallery – including all the variants – and a sketch section by Morrison and artist Tony S. Daniel.

After the aforementioned prelude (by Morrison & Daniel), a confrontation and mutual warning for the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince, ‘Midnight in the House of Hurt’ (which begins Sandu Florea’s cracking contribution as inker) sees the villainous clan commence their end-game as distracted, exhausted, head-over-heels-in-love Batman is dragged through further tribulations. The criminal cabal invite the Joker to join their Black Glove, whilst in ‘Batman in the Underworld’ the hero’s greatest allies begin to suspect that he’s out of control: even Bruce Wayne is no longer sure…

The first inkling of a counterplan comes with a glimpse of Batman’s earliest cases – a time when the master strategist had time to plan for every possible contingency. With his closest confidante apparently dead a radical new Caped Crusader stalks Gotham – the outlandish Batman of ‘Zur En Arrh’. Death and Chaos rule on the streets in ‘Miracle on Crime Alley’ and the utterly unpredictable Clown makes his characteristically savage move in ‘The Thin White Duke of Death’…Naturally it’s not what anybody expected…

Let’s be clear here: at the time of the original comics publication, for the industry and fan-base the Death of Batman was already a done deal. With the mega-crossover event Final Crisis rumbling along like a gaudy juggernaut, everybody “knew” that Bruce Wayne was a goner and only waited to see how, so when ‘Hearts in Darkness’ finally appeared with a resplendent, resurgent, triumphant Batman vanquishing and vanishing, leaving a slew of unanswered questions, there were howls of protest.

However these are readers who were aware of a greater picture that involved the entire DCU. For the purposes of this collection though and any casual reader picking it up, there is a solid narrative conclusion which is marvelously supplemented by the two-issue postscript ‘Last Rites’ which follows.

Illustrated by Lee Garbett and Trevor Scott, ‘The Butler Did It‘ and ‘The Butler Did It Again’ focus on Alfred Pennyworth as he adapts to a life without Master Bruce and his driven alter-ego. Looking backwards and to the future these contemplative pieces pinpoint some key moments of Batman’s serried history whilst carefully planting those clues that would inform the adventures of his successor and even lay a trail of breadcrumbs that would lead to the return of Bruce Wayne…

With the addition of such fashionably despised elements as Bat-Mite and Black Casebook continuity (see Batman: the Black Casebook), as well as deferring/postponing the traditional last chapter explanation and wrap-up, Morrison caught a lot of flak for this tale, but in all honesty, with the value of distance and hindsight this whole thing actually works very well, indeed.

Pretty, enthralling beautiful and magnificently compulsive, this is a Bat-book well worth another look.

© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Titan books, who published this edition, are responsible for a huge number of publications; their magazines and graphic novels range from British and World comics and strip classics to fantasy, science fiction, licensed product and DC/Vertigo material for all tastes. Their fabulous new website/blog should beopen for business as you read this. Why not check them out as soon as you’re done here?

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NoMan


By various (Tower Books)
ISBN: 42-672

I’ve often harped on about the mini-revolution in the “Camp-superhero” crazed 1960s that saw four-colour comicbook classics migrate briefly from flimsy pamphlet to the stiffened covers and relative respectability of the paperback bookshelves, and the nostalgic wonderments these mostly forgotten fancies still afford (to me at least), but here’s one that I picked up years later as a marginally mature grown man.

Although the double-sized colour comics T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, its spin-offs Undersea Agent, Dynamo, NoMan and the magnificent war-comic Fight the Enemy were all distributed in Britain (but not, I think their youth-comedy title Tippy Teen) these monochrome, re-sized book editions, to the best of my knowledge, were not.

It doesn’t matter: to my delight, it seems that even today the format and not the glow of childhood days recalled is enough to spark that frisson of proprietary glee that apparently only comic fans (and Dinky Toy collectors) are preciously prone to.

Of course it doesn’t hurt when the material is as magnificent as this…

The history of Wally Wood’s immortal spies-in-tights masterpiece is convoluted, and once the mayfly-like lifetime of the Tower Comics line ended, not especially pretty: bogged down in legal wrangling and petty back-biting, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that the far-too brief careers of The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves was a benchmark of quality and sheer bravura fun for fans of both the reawakening superhero genre and the 1960s spy-chic obsession.

In the early 1960s the Bond movie franchise went from strength to strength, with action and glamour utterly transforming the formerly understated espionage vehicle. The buzz was infectious: soon Men like Flint and Matt Helm were carving out their own piece of the action as television shanghaied the entire bandwagon with the irresistible Man From U.N.C.L.E. (beginning in September 1964), bringing the whole genre inescapably into living rooms across the world.

Creative maverick Wally Wood was approached by veteran MLJ/Archie Comics editor Harry Shorten to create a line of characters for a new distribution-chain funded publishing outfit – Tower Comics. Woody called on many of the industry’s biggest names to produce material for the broad range of genres the company envisioned: Samm Schwartz and Dan DeCarlo handled Tippy Teen – which outlasted all the others – whilst Wood, Larry Ivie, Len Brown, Bill Pearson, Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins, Russ Jones Gil Kane and Ralph Reese all contributed to the adventure series.

With a ravenous public appetite for super-spies and costumed heroes exponentially growing the idea of blending the two concepts seems a no-brainer now, but those were far more conservative times, so when T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 appeared with no fanfare or pre-publicity on newsstands in August 1965 (with a cover off-sale date of November) thrill-hungry readers like little me were blown away. It didn’t hurt either that all Tower titles were in the beloved-but-rarely-seen 80 Page Giant format: there was a huge amount to read in every issue!

All that being said the tales would not be so revered if they hadn’t been so superbly crafted. As well as Wood, the art accompanying the compelling, rather more mature stories was by some of the greatest talents in the business: Reed Crandall, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando, Frank Giacoia, John Giunta, Steve Ditko and others.

This slim, seductive digest stars the UN Agency’s number two troubleshooter (after the iconic Dynamo) in four stirring spy thrillers featuring a winning combination of cloak-and-dagger danger, science fiction shocks and stirring super-heroics. Although UN commandos failed to save brilliant Professor Jennings from the mysterious Warlord, they rescued some of the scientist’s greatest inventions, including a belt that could increase the density of the wearer’s body, a brain-amplifier helmet and a cloak of invisibility.

These prototypes were divided between several agents, creating a unit of superior fighting men to counter the increasingly bold attacks of global terror threats such as the aforementioned Warlord.

Inexplicably, the origin tale ‘T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent NoMan’ which told how aged Dr. Anthony Dunn had his mind transferred into an artificial android body equipped with the invisibility cape is not included here, but the book’s back cover features a Wood pin-up “file page” which distils the powers and background into a handy recap. In those long-ago days kids didn’t much care for long-winded and endless reworkings of past detail: origins just weren’t as important as beating bad-guys….

Incredibly strong, swift and durable, NoMan had one final advantage: if his artificial body was destroyed his consciousness could transfer to another android body. As long as he had a spare ready, he could never die.

The action starts with ‘In the Warlord’s Power’ (by Bill Pearson, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando and Wood) as the artificial agent has to defend an entire Missile Base from an assault by an army of Zombie-men, swiftly followed by ‘NoMan Faces the Threat of the Amazing Vibraman’ (Pearson, John Giunta, Wood & Tony Coleman) wherein the threat was far les esoteric but no less deadly: a freelance villain who used devastating sound weapons.

Next the Invisible Agent tackled a fiendish Mastermind equipped with his own android army in ‘The Synthetic Stand-Ins’ by Steve Skeates, Mike Sekowsky & Frank Giacoia, and the explosive adventures rush to a classy climax in ‘The Caverns of Demo’ (astoundingly illustrated by Gil Kane, Wood and Dan Adkins) wherein NoMan faced an entire island of Neanderthal Beast-Men controlled by an arch criminal who had stolen his cloak of invisibility! Sheer magic!

Supplemented by an exciting ‘NoMan in Action’ fact-feature this is a book that would have completely blown away pre-teen me and still has all the impact of a blockbuster bomb. These are truly timeless comic tales that improve with every reading and there’s precious few things you can say that about…
© 1966 Tower Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.