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JSA volume 1: Justice Be Done


By James Robinson, David S. Goyer & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-620-0

After the actual invention of the comicbook superhero – for which read the launch of Superman in 1938 – the most significant event in the genre, and indeed industry’s progress was the combination of individual sales-points into a group. Thus what seems blindingly obvious to us with the benefit of four-colour hindsight was proven – a number of popular characters could multiply readership by combining forces and readerships. Plus of course, a whole bunch of superheroes is a lot cooler than just one – or even one and a sidekick.

The Justice Society of America was created in the third issue of All-Star Comics (Winter 1940/1941), an anthology title featuring established characters from various All-American Comics publications, by the simple expedient of having the heroes gather around a table and tell each other their latest adventure. From this low key collaboration it wasn’t long before the guys – and they were all guys (except Red Tornado who pretended to be one – don’t ask!) until Wonder Woman premiered in the eighth issue regularly joined forces to defeat the greatest villains – and social ills of their generation.

Within months the concept had spread far and wide…

And so the Justice Society of America is rightly revered as a true landmark in the development of comic books, and, when Julius Schwartz revived the superhero genre in the late 1950s, the key moment would come with the inevitable teaming of the reconfigured mystery men into a Justice League of America. From there it wasn’t long until the original and genuine returned. Since then there have been many attempts to formally revive the team’s fortunes but it wasn’t until 1999 on the back of both the highly successful revamping of the JLA by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter and the seminal but critically favoured new Starman by Golden Age devotee James Robinson, that the multi-generational team found a concept and fan-base big enough to support them.

This first volume collects the prequel tale from JSA: Secret Files #1 and the first complete story-arc from JSA #1-5, detailing with great style and remarkable facility (considering the incredibly convoluted continuity of the feature) how the last active survivors of the original team, Wildcat, Flash and Green Lantern/Sentinel, unite with the inheritors of the veteran team’s legacy to continue the tradition, train the next generation of heroes and battle one of the oldest evils in the universe.

It all begins with the death of the Sandman, octogenarian Wesley Dodds, who beats the odds one last time to thwart an unstoppable ancient foe and warn his surviving comrades of the peril to come…

At Dodds’ funeral a horde of death-demons attack the mourners after the hero known as Fate is murdered, and the assembled mourners – legacy heroes Sand, Stargirl, Hourman, Atom Smasher, Starman and Obsidian, plus Black Canary, Wonder Woman (actually her mother Hippolyta) and the aforementioned trio above are sent on a tripartite mission to rescue three babies; one of which is the new incarnation of the magical hero Doctor Fate.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to all, a wild card has been introduced with the unexpected return of another departed comrade in the guise of a new and deeply troubled Hawkgirl…

Although deeply fixed in the vast backstory of the DC universe, ‘Gathering Storm’, ‘The Wheel of Life’, ‘Old Souls’ and ‘Ouroboros’, illustrated by Scott, Benefiel, Stephen Sadowski, Mark Propst and Michael Bair, is a accessible superhero-rebirth saga, wonderfully compelling with a frenetic pace that keeps the reader barrelling along. The struggle against the mystery villain is pitched perfectly, with plenty of clues for the old-timers and enough character illustration to educate and satisfy those who have never heard of “the Dark Lord…”

With the revival and reintroduction of Hawkgirl and Doctor Fate achieved, the volume concludes with ‘Grounded’ (illustrated by Derec Aucoin and Bair) focusing on the history and new powers of the latest Sandman and introducing a new Mister Terrific to the team, whilst foreshadowing horrors yet to come…

Complex, thrilling, breathtaking; this is the very best modern superhero comics can aspire to: adding to rather than subtracting from the shared mythology whilst not afraid to dump the utterly unsalvageable bits of stuff that just won’t play today – never once forgetting that it’s all about entertainment…

Although this will never be a universally acclaimed graphic novel like Maus or Watchmen, for dyed-in-the-wool tights and fights fans JSA: Justice Be Done is just what the Doctor ordered and what Fate decrees…
© 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Super Boxers – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Ron Wilson, with John Byrne & Armando Gil (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 939766-77-9

It’s been a long while since Marvel published an all-original graphic novel as opposed to a reprint collection, but not too long ago they were the market leader in the field with an entire range of “big stories” told on larger than normal pages (285 x 220mm rather than the now customary 258 x 168mm) featuring not only proprietary characters but also licensed assets like Conan and even creator-owned properties.

They also took chances on unusual and cross-genre tales such as this little oddity which falls squarely into the category of a “guilty pleasure”.

In the near future Corporations have assumed control of Earth, with the result that the rich have gotten richer – and more bored – whilst an underclass excluded from all rights and privileges scuttles to survive in the dirt beneath their lavish skyscrapers. As the poor daily trade their freedoms and dignity for another meal, in the world of the mega-rich and their wholly-owned contributing citizens, survival is just as harsh and all-pervasive.

Businesses survive and grow by consuming each other and everything is produced to facilitate that overweening drive: product, entertainment, people.  The Corporations are in a perpetual state of Cold War, ostensibly working together but always looking for an edge and a hostile takeover. Delcos is one such business: CEO Marilyn Hart has never been one of the boys, and now her one-time colleagues, sensing weakness, are closing in for the kill…

In the world below Max Turner is a star. A scrapper to his core, he works as a prize-fighter: an old fashioned palooka using his fists (augmented by cybernetic gloves, boots and body armour) to get by in a brutal arena of social Darwinism, providing dangerous entertainment for his daily bread. The Corporations also have Super Boxers: pampered, gussied up, genetic thoroughbreds with their entire lives geared to those explosive moments when they unleash their pedigreed savagery in high-tech arenas for the pleasure and profit of their owners. The greatest of these sporting warriors is the godlike Roman Alexis.

But every society has its malcontents and gadflies: when a slumming talent scout for Marilyn Hart “discovers” Max, the dumb but honest gladiator becomes a pawn in a power play that threatens to tear the corporate world to tatters – but would that really be such a bad thing…?

None of that matters to Max or Roman. For them it’s about personal honour. Tech doesn’t matter, rewards don’t matter, freedom doesn’t matter. Only being the best…

Ron Wilson is probably nobody’s favourite artist, but he is a workmanlike illustrator with a good line in brooding brutes, and Armando Gil’s fluid inks do a lot to sharpen the static, lumpen scenarios, as do the varied tones of colourists Bob Sharen, Steve Oliff, John Tartaglione, Joe D’Esposito and Mark Bright. The letters are provided by Mike Higgens.

Scripted by John Byrne from Wilson’s plot, this is a harsh, nasty, working-class tale reminiscent of such boxing movies as Michael Curtiz’s epic 1937 classic Kid Galahad by way of the Rocky movies, with socio-political undertones that would have been far more comfortable in a European comic like Metal Hurlant or 2000AD.

Ugly, uncompromising, brutal, this is the kind of book to show anybody who thinks that comics are for sissy-boys…
© 1983 Ronald Wilson. All Rights Reserved.

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Vatican Hustle


By Greg Houston (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-571-9

The zeitgeist of the moment seems to be nostalgia, and especially a post-modern re-examination of some of our most unfortunate cultural milestones, but at least the graphic novels that are coming out of these historic plunderings are varied and readable if not universally palatable…

Another sparkling example of the phenomenon is the potentially controversial little gem under review here from cartoonist, caricaturist, designer, educator, actor and big fan of old movies Greg Houston.

This baroque, grotesque and immensely appealing pastiche of Blaxploitation movies and the no-nonsense, in your face attitudes of the early 1970s introduces Baltimore’s coolest private eye Boss Karate Black Guy Jones, who is reluctantly commissioned by Lumpy Fargo, the city’s biggest crime boss, to rescue his wayward, dim daughter from the sticky clutches of Geech Bradford, the White Pimp…

The sordid trail leads inevitably to Rome, porn capital of the world, and, after a brief brush with the legitimate, inclusive end of skin-flicks, directly to the Vatican, long perceived among industry insiders as the source of all the really nasty freaky stuff…

Meanwhile the Pope is getting horny and anxious. Chickee Falzbar his official drug dealer and wingman is late, and the brutish, two-fisted, leather-jacketed Pontiff is looking to score some tail, kick some butt and raise a little Hell. There’s a ba-aad hassle coming and Jones is gonna need all his skills to rescue Brandi Fargo from the callous hands of God’s chosen representative on Earth…

Beneath the outrageous parody and shockingly impious (nigh slanderous) treatment of Catholic tenets and icons is a witty mystery and genuinely funny adult romp which pokes bad-tasting fun at everything from Lepers to Clowns to Hobos, college girls, the sex trade and even rock ‘n’ roll, all rendered in a busy, buzzy, black and white line that appeals and appals in equal amounts.

If you’re of a religious mien and likely to take offence at religion mocked don’t buy this book.

If you are a fan of frantic fisticuffs of fury and martial arts mayhem this ain’t the book for you neither as there practically isn’t none, but if you’re eligible to vote, open (and broad) minded, can whistle the theme to Shaft and love to laugh, this might just be your favourite book of the year…

© 2009 Greg Houston. All rights reserved.

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Sand & Fury – a Scream Queen Adventure


By Ho Che Anderson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-321-7

After the groundbreaking graphic journalism of his examination of Martin Luther King (see King – a Comic Biography: the Special Edition) Ho Che Anderson has turned his talents to pure fiction in a startling and visceral re-interpretation of the legend of the banshee (or Bien Sidhe) transplanted to the cold nights and inhospitable deserts of the American west.

Against a backdrop of a serial killer stalking the area a stranded young woman is picked up by a striking woman in a fancy car. Despite her misgivings the girl soon warms to her rescuer, sharing her life and dreams. She has no idea that her life will soon end.

Whilst seeking answers to her own obscured past the driver instinctively knows she is an Angel of Death drawn to the side of people soon to die. Is she a cursed witness or somehow the facilitator? As she discovers some truths in rapid, slashes of flashbacks and jumps forward she zeroes in on the killer: someone she knew intimately.

However, when she meets another of her kind the secrets revealed only lead to a greater mystery; one infinite in scope and terrifyingly ancient in execution…

Citing Dario Argento, David Lynch, Richard Sala and Charles Burns as inspiration and with hints and overtones of Trashy Road Movies, Celtic mythology, the cosmology of H.P. Lovecraft and the modern bogeyman of Serial Killers this is a scary, sexy, gory story that heeds your full attention but delivers a devastating punch. Anderson is as much designer as illustrator and both his art and his stories are stark, powerfully arresting, even challenging concoctions.

The art, jagged black and white with judicious doses of red, isn’t prettied up and the narrative isn’t spoon fed. The reader will have to work to glean the meaning here, but the end result is more than worth the effort.

Sand & Fury © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All content © 2010 Ho Che Anderson. All rights reserved.

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Unlovable volume 2


By Esther Pearl Watson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-314-9

This arrived cold: I had never heard of the strip nor the magazine Bust where it has run for years, but as I’m always up for something new I sat down and lost myself in the world of Tammy Pierce, Texas Teen…

Ostensibly based on an actual diary the artist found in a gas-station restroom in 1995, this concluding volume resumes with the innermost thoughts, dreams and experiences of a dumpy, utterly ordinary girl surgically displayed for our examination in a catchy, breathless, effusive warts ‘n’ all style as she endures her Sophomore year of High School, from Christmas Eve 1988 to the Summer of 1989.

When you’re a teenager some things are truly timeless and universal: parents are unreasonable and embarrassing, siblings are scum and embarrassing and your body is embarrassingly finding new and horrifying ways to betray you almost daily… Your friends can’t be trusted, you’re attracted to all the wrong people and sometimes you just know that no one will ever love you…

Drawn in a two colour, faux-grotesque manner (you can call it intentionally primitive and ugly if you want) the page by page snapshots of a social hurricane building to disaster is absolutely captivating. Although this is a retro-comedy experience, behind her fatuous obsession with fashion, boys, music (equal parts Debbie Gibson and The Smiths!), social acceptance and traitorous bodily functions, Tammy is a lonely bewildered child that it’s hard not to feel sorry for. Actually it’s equally hard to like her (hell, its difficult to curb the urge to slap her at times) but that’s the point after all…

If you live long enough you’ll experience the pop culture keystones of every definitive era of your life at least twice more. The base, tasteless and utterly superficial aspects of the 1980s are currently in vogue for the current generation, which is too young to remember them – but you and I can get all nostalgic for the good bits and blithely ignore all the bad stuff: this big little hardback (408 pages, and about 15x15cm) is a delightful and genuinely moving exploration of something eternal given extra punch with the trappings of that era of tasteless self-absorption.

Like those other imaginary diarists Nigel Molesworth, Bridget Jones and Adrian Mole Tammy Pierce’s ruminations and recordings have something concrete to contribute to the Wisdom of the Ages and this book is humorous delight tinged with gentle tragedy – although that’s more in the readers apprehension of how her life eventually turned out…

Modern and Post-Ironic, Unlovable is unmissable.  Now please excuse me, I’ve got to put on my legs warmers and chunky sweater and hunt down a copy of volume 1…

© 2010 Esther Pearl Watson. All rights reserved.

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Joe and Azat


By Jesse Lonergan (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-570-2

Here’s a wonderful little waste of time: cartoonist Jesse Lonergan drew upon his youthful experiences as an American Peace Corps volunteer in the nation of Turkmenistan in the days after the fall of the Berlin Wall when the Soviet collapse released many countries from seventy years of iron repression…

Granted autonomy and self-rule virtually overnight, a lot of Warsaw Pact countries didn’t fare well with instant democracy and Free Market Capitalism. In Turkmenistan, their new leader Turkmenbashy (with 99½ % of the vote because “everybody likes him”) was a real pip, renaming the days of the week after himself and using the nation’s entire budget to send a book of his poetry into space. In a pitifully arid country, he built a river through his capital city – because all great cities have rivers running through them. Images of the ruthless potentate are everywhere: it’s a shame nobody ever found oil in the country…

This is a charmingly subtle tale of culture shock and national misapprehensions as young Joe grapples with the outrageous differences between his liberal and wealthy homeland and the rules, laws and ingrained prejudices of a newly liberated society.

Nervous and alone the Yankee lad slowly finds a friend in the astonishingly upbeat and forward looking Azat: an ambitious convert and zealot for “The American Way”, although most of Joe’s time is spent futilely apologising and explaining that what that actually means is as far removed from the US Movies Azat is addicted to as the decades of Russian propaganda he grew up with.

Becoming almost part of the family (as complex and dysfunctional as any western one) he is caught in the tidal wave of Azat’s enthusiastic aspirations and daily frustrations, but never seems able or willing to staunch or crush them, even though he knows how hopeless they ultimately are…

Poignant, bittersweet, with an end but no conclusion, this is a superbly understated dissertation on the responsibilities and power of friendship, the poison of unattainable dreams and the unthinking cruelty of cultural imperialism, illustrated in a magically simplistic and irresistibly beguiling manner: a delight for any fan searching for more than simple jokes and action. Reading this would actually be time very well spent…

© 2009 Jesse Lonergan. All rights reserved.

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The Year of Loving Dangerously


By Ted Rall & Pablo G. Callejo (NBM/ComicsLit)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-565-8

If you live long enough you’ll experience the pop culture keystones of every definitive era of your life at least twice more. The base, tasteless and utterly superficial aspects of the 1980s are currently doing the rounds again as the current generation – which was too young to remember them – get all nostalgic for the good bits and blithely ignore all the bad stuff: same as it ever was…

…Except for Ted Rall. The contemporary essayist and American political cartoonist, like everybody who was actually there, also recalls the decade that most tellingly shaped his life and has now written a largely autobiographical graphic novel memoir for rising comics star Pablo G. Callejo to beautifully illustrate.

For us Brits it was Union-Bashing, loads-a-money, poverty, excess, daft hair and Thatcher, whilst America endured trickle-down Reaganomics, insider dealing, covert warfare and poodle rock – so nobody really got off lightly either side of the pond…

In 1984, through a series of concatenating disasters and no fault of his own (well, not too much) college student Ted Rall was expelled from Columbia University, lost his apartment and was dumped onto the streets of New York with only a couple of dollars in his pocket.

Homeless and desperate in a land with no safety-net (not much different from Britain in the 80’s, in all honesty) he faced a short, bleak future, with very few options, the best of which was jumping off the dormitory building roof…

His happy salvation came as he sat in a diner. Accidentally picking up a young woman he spent a night at her pad and discovered a new career. For nearly a year he bounced from pick-up to assignation to one-night-stand, not for cash but only bed and board.

This book follows his narrowest of escapes from poverty, addiction, sexual infection and extreme loss of self-respect as, with the dubious aid of the luckiest dope-fiend in the city, Ted claws his way back to semi-respectability and security (as a stock market trader!) by means he clearly still doesn’t quite understand decades later.

What ought to be a salutary parable about the wages of sin is actually a sincere, sensitive and immensely humane tale of triumph over adversity, free from bragging, tawdry prurience or sordid machismo and truly funny in a heartwarming manner. Rall the student gigolo is a charming, if hapless, protagonist and the non-judgemental treatment of casual sex is wonderfully refreshing, as is the good hard look at the heart and soul rather than the surface veneer of the decade.

Not a book for everybody, but rational adults with an eye to an endearing human drama will love it.

© 2009 Ted Rall & Pablo G. Callejo. All rights reserved.

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The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion


Compiled by Brian M. Kane, with an introduction by Ray Bradbury (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-305-7

One of the greatest and most successful comic strips of all time, Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur launched on Sunday 13th February 1937, a glorious weekly full-colour window not onto the past but rather onto what history should have been. It followed the life and adventures of a refugee boy driven by invaders from his homeland who rose to become one of the mightiest heroes of the age of Camelot.

Created by the incredible Harold “Hal” Foster, the noble lad grew to manhood in a heady sea of wonderment, siring a dynasty and roaming the globe whilst captivating and influencing generations of readers and thousands of creative types in all the arts. There have been films, cartoon series, and all manner of toys, games and collections based the strip – one of the few to have lasted from the thunderous thirties to the present day (over 3750 episodes and counting) and even in these declining days of the newspaper strip as a viable medium it still claims over 300 American papers as its home.

Foster wrote and illustrated the strip until he retired in 1971 when, after auditioning such notables as Wally Wood and Gray Morrow, Big Ben Bolt artist John Cullen Murphy was selected by Foster to continue the legend. In 2004 Cullen retired (he died a month later on July 2nd) and the strip has soldiered on under the extremely talented auspices of Mark Schultz and Gary Gianni ever since.

This glorious book – available in both hardback and softcover – is a complete updating of a 1992 celebratory edition, and features a complete story index and précising of the 3757 adventures to date, including a summary and overview of Val’s life; some key historic interviews and articles on the creators gathered over the years from such disparate sources as Everyday Magazine, the St Louis Dispatch and The Comics Journal covering Foster’s last recorded interview, an examination of Cullen Murphy’s pre-Valiant career, a look at the contribution of both Murphy and uncredited “ghost penciller” Frank Bolle and a brand new appreciation of Schultz and Gianni’s tenure.

A well as a copious and fascinating collection of printed pages, unpublished art, working drawings and candid photographs this superb black and white book also houses a sixteen page full-colour selection of episodes from each creator.

Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring Prince Valiant is a World Classic of storytelling, and this book is something no fan should be without. If however you have never experienced the majesty and grandeur of the strip this thoroughly readable and tantalising appreciation might also be your gateway to a life-changing world of wonder and imagination…

Prince Valiant © 2009 King Features Syndicate. All other content and properties © 2009 their respective creators or holders. All rights reserved.

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Moon Mullins: Two Adventures


By Frank H. Willard (Dover)
ISBN: 0-486-23237-9

An immensely popular newspaper strip in its day, Moon Mullins grew out of gentle – if rambunctious – Irish ethnic humour to become the comedy soap opera (one of the very first of its kind) that everybody followed.

Create by Frank Willard, a two-fisted, no-nonsense type with a cracking ear for dialogue, an unerring eye for social faux pas and an incorrigible sense of fun, the strip debuted on June 19th 1923. Willard wrote and drew both the dailies and Sunday segments until his death in 1958, whereupon his assistant Ferdinand “Ferd” Johnson (who had begun working with Willard scant months after the strip launched, and continued even whilst working on his own strips Texas Slim and Lovey-Dovey) assumed full authorship until his retirement in 1991 – an uninterrupted tenure of 68 years.

The Feature was marketed around the globe by the mighty Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate, and recounted the raucous, hand-to-mouth, lowbrow life and tribulations of Moonshine Mullins, lovable rogue and unsuccessful prize-fighter who was just getting by in tough circumstances, spending his time in bars, on the streets and most tellingly at the pokey boarding house of Emmy Schmaltz, located at 1323 Wump Street. Mullins was amiable and good-natured, liked to fight, loved to gamble, was slick with the ladies and had the worst friends imaginable…

He also had an iconic little brother, named Kayo, who was the visual prototype for all those tough kid heroes in Derby Hats that populated Simon & Kirby’s early work. Brooklyn and Scrapper and all those other two-fisted, langwitch-mangling’ cynical, sassy tykes took their cues from the kid who often had the last word. The other mainstay of the strip was lanky landlady Emmy Schmaltz, a nosy interfering busybody with inflated airs and graces and a grand line in infectious catchphrases.

Other regulars included Uncle Willie – Moon’s totally dissolute bad relation; the saucy, flighty flapper (Little) Egypt – our hero’s occasional girlfriend, a dead ringer for silent film sensation Louise Brooks and, incomprehensibly, Emmy’s niece, and Mushmouth – a black character who will make modern audiences wince with pain – although, in this strip which celebrated and venerated working class culture, he was far more friend than foil or patsy.

One final regular was the affluent Lord Plushbottom, whose eye for the ladies – particularly Egypt – constantly brought him to Emmy’s boarding house. At the period of this review he is a jolly English bachelor, completely unaware that the spidery spinster has set her cap for him. In 1933, after a decade of hilarious pursuit, she finally got her man.

This still readily available book collects and reprints two marvellous extended adventures which were originally formatted and released in 1929 and 1931 by Cupples & Leon – a publishing company which specialized in reprinting popular strips in lush, black and white albums; very much a precursor of both comic-books and today’s graphic novels.

In the first story Mullins is given a car in payment for $30 he foolishly lent Emmy’s ne’er-do-well brother Ziggy, unaware the vehicle is stolen. This is a delightful shambolic, knockabout episode with striking slapstick and clever intrigues which result in the entire cast behind bars at one time or another. It should be remembered that the cops in these circumstances are always everybody’s enemy and fools to themselves…

The second tale describes how Lord Plushbottom treats Emmy and Egypt to a Florida holiday unaware that he’s also paying for Moon and Mushmouth to join them after a brilliantly inventive and madcap road-trip.

Each adventure is delivered via the incredibly difficult method of one complete gag-strip per day combining to form an over-arching narrative… and they’re all wonderfully drawn and still funny.

Moon Mullins was one of the key strips in the development of both cartooning and graphic narrative; hugely influential, vastly, constantly entertaining and perfectly drawn. With such a wealth of brilliant material surely it’s only a matter of time until some fine publisher releases a definitive series of collected editions. Until then there’s always this…
© 1929, 1931 The Chicago Tribune. All Rights Reserved.

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Sandkings – A DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel


By George R. R. Martin, adapted by Doug Moench, Pat Broderick & Neal McPheeters (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-20-X

During the 1980s DC, on a creative roll like many publishers large and small, attempted to free comics narrative from its previous constraints of size and format as well as content. To this end, legendary editor Julie Schwartz called upon contacts from his early days as a Literary Agent to convince major names from the prose fantasy genre to allow their early classics to be adapted into a line of Science Fiction Graphic Novels.

This macabre and compelling novelette by George R.R. Martin was first published in the August 1979 issue of Omni Magazine and has won a bunch of literary glittering prizes including the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Poll Awards.

In 1995 it was rather harshly re-imagined as the debut episode of the relaunched TV anthology series The Outer Limits, premiering on 26 March: a terrifying parable of cruelty and obsession. Good as it was, this version pales into insignificance when compared to the prose original’s tone and setting, which adaptors Doug Moench, artist Pat Broderick, painter/colourist Neal McPheeters and lettering mastermind Todd Klein have scrupulously adhered to here.

As always, any adaptation – no matter how well executed – is absolutely no substiture for experiencing an artist’s work the way it was originally intended. So Go Read The Story. It’s one of the most reprinted and collected short stories of the last thirty years. However, as this is a place to review graphic novels, let’s proceed on the assumption that you already have or will…

The often inconsistent Broderick was on top form for this chilling cautionary tale of pride and human vice, perfectly augmented by the subtle tones of McPheeters whilst Moench’s idiosyncratic writing style is perfectly harnessed to catalogue the descent of Simon Kress, playboy, businessman, collector of alien animals and the planet Baldur’s most affluent closet sadist.

Kress is fascinated by animals. Not the cute, cuddly, unconditional love sort, but rather the kinds that rip and claw and eat each other. Returning from a trip he finds that his Earth Piranha had done just that, and his carrion hawk was gone too. Only his Shambler was still alive. His biggest regret was that he had missed all the action.

Bored and finding nothing interesting at his usual xeno-fauna outlets, he stumbles upon the strange emporium of traders Wo and Shade, and discovers the bizarre hive-mind arthropods dubbed Sandkings. Like ant colonies these creatures build homes and make war upon each other in a perpetual dance of resource redistribution. Their glass tank housed four queens or “Maws” who will produce colour-coded warriors to fight and drones to build beautiful hive-castles. To better produce new “citizens” the Maws can and will eat anything …

The creatures also possess a rudimentary telepathy, enough to assess the power of their owner, and reshape their environment to reflect and venerate his appearance. Relentless, creative killers that will worship him… how could any arrogant sociopath resist?

Soon the creatures are the toast of the playboy’s dissolute cronies. Parties where Kress’ debauched friends pit their pets against the Sandkings become legendary, and nothing can stand up to them: not Shamblers, Silver Snakes, Sand Spiders… No organic creature can survive long once it encroaches on their territory, since when not battling each other the creatures join forces to destroy any intruder. As the colonies increase in size, so necessarily does their tank. …

When Jala Wo checks up on her sale she finds most of the Sandkings thriving but one faction lags behind in castle-building. The Black, Red and White armies are healthy and vigorous, their eerie citadels displaying Kress’s face over and over again but the Orange bugs are suffering decline. Kress has been starving the creatures and wrecking their constructions to make them fight harder…

As the playboy sinks further into cruel depravity, his sickened girlfriend protests, even setting the planetary authorities on him. Judicious bribery easily solves that problem whilst the Sandkings themselves prove the perfect way to dispose of her. Unfortunately during her murder the tank breaks and the creatures all escape into the confines of his house and estate.

Panicked now, Kress goes on a bloody rampage, clearing up all the details (and witnesses) that could implicate him in murder and illegal xeno-form trafficking, but the damage is done. The Sandkings are loose, having staked new territory. Moreover they have declared war on the god who treated them so harshly… And that’s where the story really begins.

This chilling adaptation is comfortably traditional in its delivery, fully allowing the story to shine, and is a perfect companion to DC’s other adaptations. It a huge pity they’re all currently out of print. This is an experiment the company should seriously consider resuming and I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: all these previously published DC Science Fiction Graphic Novels would make an irresistible “Absolute” compilation…
Sandkings © 1979 Omni International, Inc.  © 1981 George R. R. Martin.  Illustrations © 1986 DC Comics Inc.  All Rights Reserved.