Now Read This!

By Jack Kirby, Dick & Dave Wood, Wally Wood & Dick Ayers (Pure Imagination Publishing)
ISBN: 1-56685-009-6

Sky Masters of the Space Force is a beautiful strip with a chequered and troubled back-story, which you can discover for yourself when you buy the book. Even comics-god Jack Kirby spent decades trying to forget the grief caused by this foray into the newspaper strip market during the height of the Space Race before finally relenting in his twilight years and giving his blessing to collections and reprints.

I’m glad that he did because the collected work is one of his greatest achievements, even with the incredible format restraints of one tier of tiny panels per day, and a solitary page every Sunday. Fifty years later this hard-science space adventure is still the business!

Against a backdrop of international and ideological rivalry turned white-hot when the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik in 1957, the staid George Matthew Adams syndicate decided to finally enter the 20th century with a newspaper feature about space. After approaching a reluctant DC Comics (then known as National Periodicals Publications) a deal was brokered, and Jack Kirby, inked by Wally Wood – later to be replaced by Dick Ayers – and initially fed scripts by the brothers Dick and Dave Wood (no relation to Wally), began bringing the cosmos into our lives via an all-American astronaut and his trusty team of stalwarts.

The daily strip debuted on September 8th 1958 and ran until February 25th 1961 (a scant few months before Alan Shepherd became the first American in Space on May 5th), and the Sunday colour page told its five long tales (The Atom Horse, Project Darkside, Mister Lunivac, Jumbo Jones and The Yogi Spaceman) in a separate continuity from February 8th 1959 until 14th February 1960.

Sky Masters, burly Sgt. Riot, astronaut’s daughter Holly Martin and her feisty brother Danny (who do they remind me of?) were all introduced in The First Man in Space and the human tragedy of that moody tale informs all the following stories, even as grim yet heady realism slowly grew into exuberant action and fantastic spectacle. Sabotage, Mayday Shannon, The Lost Capsule, Alfie, Refugee, Wedding in Space, Weather Watchers and finally The Young Astronaut form a meteoric canon of wonderment that no red-blooded armchair adventurer could possibly resist.

This volume also contains an abundance of essays, commentary and extras such as sketches and unpublished art, which more than compensates for the Sunday pages being printed in black and white.

Quite honestly I can’t be totally objective about Sky Masters. I grew up during this period and the “Conquest of Space” is bred into my sturdy yet creaky old bones. That it is also thrilling, challenging and spectacularly drawn is almost irrelevant to me, but if any inducement is needed for you to seek this work out let it be that this is one of Kirby’s greatest accomplishments. Now go enjoy it…

© 2000 Pure Imagination.

By Aleksandar Zograf (Slab-O-Concrete)
ISBN: 1-899866-13-2

Aleksandar Zograf is a fiercely creative artist, and very dedicated. During the Balkan conflict that scarred the end of the last century he ignored all entreaties to leave his home in Panchevo, Serbia, preferring to remain, suffer and share the privations that tested his countrymen and record his life, impressions and dreams in a series of astoundingly powerful mini-comics and cartoons.

This slim collection gathers not just strips of an autobiographical nature, but also many pieces garnered from the author’s interest in Dreams, The Unconscious and Hypnagogic states.

Rather than dilute the absorbing power of his moody artwork and unique story-telling perspective I’ll simply state that his particular graphic narratives and his gripping, heavy art are some of the most enthralling I’ve ever encountered, and if you’re at all interested in the alternative and cutting edge in comics, you need to tack down Zograf’s work.

© 1992-1998 Aleksandar. Zograf. All Rights Reserved.

By Jean de Brunhoff (Egmont)
ISBN: 978-1-4052-3820-5

Jean de Brunhoff’s beautiful, whimsical characters return in Babar’s Travels (first published in France in 1932 as Le Voyage de Babar). Newly crowned King and just married to Celeste, Babar and his bride set off on honeymoon in a glorious yellow balloon only to be trapped in a terrible storm and blown to an island where they are attacked by savages.

In an era where it seems any journalist or lawyer with an eye to the main chance seems to lurk outside bookshops or libraries waiting to scream “Foul!”, it’s heartening to see a publisher respect the historical context of old material from less-enlightened times without bowdlerising the content. Kids today don’t pick up racist or sexist attitudes from books about talking animals, they get them from other people, so it’s great that Egmont are prepared to risk a potential publicity storm here.

Rescued by a friendly whale, Babar and Celeste are once again marooned before being picked up by an ocean-going liner and mistakenly sold to a circus. Meanwhile back at home mischievous young cousin Arthur has played a trick on Rataxes the Rhinoceros which has terrible consequences.

Escaping from the circus, Babar and Celeste make their way to the house of the Old Lady who first befriended Babar long ago (The Story of Babar, ISBN: 978-1-4052-3818-2). She takes them in, and they all go on a skiing holiday before Babar invites her to join them in the land of Elephants. But when they arrive they find Arthur’s pranks have provoked a war with the Rhinoceros’ which has ravaged the country! Now King Babar must save his nation from defeat by a mighty foe…

These are immortal children’s tales, gloriously illustrated and winningly told. They combine adventure and comfort in equal measure, thrilling children without frightening them, displaying values of boldness, ingenuity and fraternity by simply using them to entertain.

2008 Edition. All Rights Reserved.