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Stingray… Stand By for Action

(Stingray comic album volume 2)

Stingray… Stand By for Action
By Ron Embleton, with Steve Kite, written, edited and compiled by Alan Fennel (Ravette Books/Egmont)
ISBN: 1-85304-457-1

This album from the early 1990s (when Gerry Anderson’s unforgettable creations enjoyed a popular revival on TV and in comics publishing) reprints three unforgettable strip thrillers from the legendary weekly comic TV21. Launching in late January 1965, TV Century 21 (its full title – the unwieldy “Century” was eventually dropped) captured the hearts and minds of millions of children in the 1960s.

Filled with high quality art and features, printed in glossy photogravure, TV21 featured such strips as Fireball XL5, Lady Penelope (Frank Bellamy’s Thunderbirds did not begin until the second year of publication), Supercar and Stingray. Anderson’s epic submarine series featured a crack team of aquanauts pitted against a bizarre and malevolent plethora of beings who lived beneath the waves. The BBC were represented by a full-colour strip starring The Daleks.

Although the reproduction leaves something to be desired, ‘The Monster Jellyfish’, ‘Curse of the Crustavons’ and ‘the Atlanta Kidnap Affair’ – all written by Alan Fennell – are cracking fantasy rollercoaster rides full of action and drama and illustrated with captivating majesty by the incredible Ron Embleton.

He supplemented his lush colour palette and uncanny facility for capturing likenesses with photographic stills from the TV shows, and whether for expediency or artistic reasons the effect on impressionable young minds was electric. This made the strips “more real” then and the effect has not diminished with time. This is a superb treat for fans of all ages, and this series is also long overdue for a deluxe collected edition.

© 1992 ITC Entertainment Group Ltd. Licensed by Copyright Promotions Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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Pin Up

Pin Up

By Aslan (Editions Carrere)
ISBN: 2-86804-000-4

This is just unashamed abuse of power on my part – and call me sexist if you want – but the pin-up and the fabulous female have been a part of comics and narrative art since the earliest of days, and the incredible paintings of Alain Gourdon, (also widely known for his sculptures in his native France) who uses the nom-de-plume ‘Aslan’ are both incredibly vivid and effective, but also often have a fantastic or secretive element of mystery to them that make them a joy to behold no matter what your sexual orientation might be.

This volume (sadly only available in French as far as I know) reproduces 110 of his best works – plus an illustrated playing card set he designed – from his sixty-year career, many of them from the magazine Lui where he was a regular contributor from 1964 to the early 1980s.

Stunning, eye-catching and magical (as long as you’re old enough) any aspiring artist could learn volumes from this book.

© Copyright Févier 1984 – Claude Carrére, Michel Lafon. All Rights Reserved.

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Green Arrow: Quiver

Green Arrow: Quiver

By Kevin Smith, Phil Hester & Ande Parks (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84023-509-8

Green Arrow has been a fixture in the DC Universe since the early 1940s and was one of the few costumed heroes to survive the end of the Golden Age. He carried on adventuring in the back of other heroes’ comic books, joined the Justice League and became the spokes-hero of the anti-establishment during the 1960’s Relevancy period in comics publishing, courtesy of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. Under Mike Grell’s stewardship he became a headliner, an urban hunter who dealt with corporate thugs and serial killers rather than costumed goof-balls. And then he was killed.

This revival, from the unconventional Kevin Smith (yes, Silent Bob!) and the wonderful art-team of Phil Hester and Ande Parks, brings him back from Heaven in the most refreshing manner I’ve seen in nearly five decades of comic reading. Collecting issues #1-10 of the monthly series this gloriously enjoyable refining of Green Arrow embraces the fundamental daftness of superhero comics to revitalise them. Replete with guest-stars, jam-packed with action and intrigue and wallowing in fun thanks to the sly, snappy dialogue of Smith, this is a costume-drama in a thousand and I’m certainly not going to spoil your fun by giving away any details.

Buy it, read it, love it!

© 2001, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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House of Clay

House of Clay

By Naomi Nowak (NBM)
ISBN13: 978-1-56163-511-5

Painter and illustrator Naomi Nowak paints a dreamy exploration of the uses and abuse of love in her tale of a young girl who turns her back on her wealthy family and identity. Calling herself Josephine she travels to the coast and takes a dreadful job in a sweatshop, sewing clothes for unpleasant bosses amongst broken women and girls.

Her off-duty wanderings bring her to an obnoxious old fortune teller and her fantasies lead her to some life changing conclusions in this stylish tale of emancipation and empowerment that manages to stay firmly grounded in the unreal.

Colourful, lyrical, sometimes bordering on the pretentious, but eminently readable and beautiful to look at, this different sort of graphic narrative has a great deal to offer the reader looking for more than fistfights or funny stuff.

© 2007 Naomi Nowak. All Rights Reserved.

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Batman: Rules of Engagement

Batman: Rules of Engagement
Batman: Rules of Engagement

By Andy Diggle & Whilce Portacio (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-619-1

Collecting the first six-part story-arc from the monthly comic book Batman Confidential, this impressive if perhaps overly-glossy high-tech adventure pits an inexperienced Batman against Superman’s arch-nemesis Lex Luthor.

During the first year of the Caped Crusader’s career, a prostitute is murdered in front of her baby, catapulting Batman into a hazy web of corruption and murder involving the US military and the shady world of corporate bidding for government contracts. Somehow at the bottom of it all is the financial monolith of Lexcorp. Can all the subterfuge, death and destruction simply be about money or has the wily billionaire another agenda?

Fast-paced, frenetic and concentrating more on gadgets and technology than mood or mystery, this sharp and shiny thriller from Andy Diggle and Whilce Portacio will perhaps delight the fans of the cinematic more than comic-book Dark Knight, but is an engrossing read for all that.

© 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone

Bugsy Malone

Illustrated by Graham Thompson (Armada)
ISBN: 0-00-0691247-8

Here’s a contender for “oddest album” from 1976 that’s not impossible to find or too expensive to own should I pique your curiosity enough. I don’t know an awful lot about artist Graham Thompson, except that he’s also worked on the Muppets and Monty Python properties, although if pushed I’d wager he’s an advertising artist first and foremost. His work here is a blend of Jack Davis and Mort Drucker with wash and marker colour, and most importantly it’s brilliantly effective and very good indeed.

There’s not a lot you can say about a gangster musical performed entirely by children that doesn’t verge on the unsettling, not to say downright creepy, these days, but this early graphic novel adaptation which accompanied the film release (sans music, naturally) makes for a really entertaining read, exuberant, charmingly silly and visually magical.

I wish we could see more of Thompson’s work, though. Anyone out there know anymore about him?

© 1976 National Film Trustee Company Ltd.

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Ronald Searle’s Non-Sexist Dictionary

Ronald Searle's Non-Sexist Dictionary

By Ronald Searle (Souvenir Press)
ISBN: 0-285-62865-8

Although perhaps a bit of a one-trick pony – and despite being twenty years old – this sharp and immaculately depicted slice of satirical buffoonery still affords a chuckle or two, but the truly magical aspect of this book is the unforgettable collection of black and white cartoons delivered with stunning absurdist candour and the peculiarly tragic warmth that only Searle can instil with his wild yet considered line-work.

By transposing such terms as “Semen” with “Sewomen” or “Hymn” with “Herm” he can still make us pause and ponder, but the total immersion that his bridled insanity delivers in his illustrations reaches much deeper and lasts so much longer. You will laugh, (it’s impossible not to) but you will also grieve and yearn and burn in empathised frustration at the marvels in this lost ordinance in the Battle of the Sexes.

Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant stuff!

© 1988 Ronald Searle.

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Elric: Sailor on the Seas of Fate

Elric: Sailor on the Seas of Fate

By Roy Thomas, Michael T. Gilbert & George Freeman (First Comics)
ISBN: 0-915419-24-6

Michael Moorcock’s irresistible blend of brooding Faustian tragedy and all-out action is best seen in his stories of Elric, last Emperor of the pre-human civilisation of Melniboné, and the adaptations scripted by Roy Thomas in the 1980s were a high watermark in the annals of illustrated fantasy.

This volume, collecting the miniseries which so impressively captured the otherworldly nature of Michael Moorcock’s ‘Eternal Champion’ concept, sees the weary doom-laden albino leave his beloved Cymoril and the Dreaming City of Imrryr to go questing for an unattainable peace of mind, only to take ship on a transdimensional galleon collecting heroes for an impossible mission. Aboard the eerie vessel he meets a motley band of warriors gathered from numerous alternate Earths in a desperate attempt to save the multiverse.

Risking the very nature of reality Elric has taken ship with three other aspects of the ‘Eternal Champion’; Corum, Erekosë and Dorian Hawkmoon. Together they must defeat Agak and Gagak, siblings from beyond the multiverse who intend to devour all of reality.

This mission and the long quest to return to Melniboné comprise the second novel in the Elric cycle (although Moorcock actually wrote most of the tales “out of chronological order”) but only purists need to concern themselves with that. The rest of us can simply revel in an unparalleled phantasmagoria of carnage and cosmic concepts, spectacularly brought to life by some of the most innovative workers in comics.

© 1987 First Comics, Inc. and Star*Reach Productions. Adapted from the original story by Michael Moorcock, © 1976. All Rights Reserved.

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Odd Visions and Bizarre Sights

Odd Visions and Bizarre Sights

By Simon Bond (Methuen)
ISBN: 0-413-52870-7

Cartoonist Simon Bond has been messing with people’s heads for decades, most notably with his suggestions of how to most usefully utilise deceased felines, but his truly skewed sensibilities also stretch into the realms of delusion and pure surreality. This nifty little book captures some of his weirdest – and of course, funniest – hallucinations and puts them where you can easily get at them when the humdrum world once more drags you down to its level.

Dry, gentle, incisive and peculiar in the Grand British Manner, this is one of Bond’s best collections and a guaranteed pick-me-up for those in need of a laugh with a question mark in it.

© 1983 Polycarp Ltd.

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Ex Machina, Volume 6: Power Down

Ex Machina, Volume 6: Power Down

By Brian K. Vaughn, Tony Harris, Jim Clark & JD Mettler (WildStorm)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-622-1

In this latest collection of superpower politics (collecting issues #26-29 of the regular comic plus ancillary miniseries Ex Machina: Inside the Machine) New York City Mayor Mitchell Hundred has to deal with a strangely familiar being who might just be a “Strange visitor from another World”. Not only does he (it?) arrive knowing far too many of the super-hero-turned civic leader’s darkest secrets, but he (probably not ‘it?’) precipitates a power-cut that blacks out most of Eastern North America – and that includes Canada!

Edgy, savvy, unpredictable and addictive, the ongoing exploits of the ‘Best Politician America Never Had’ are a continuing source of delight for we jaded comic fans and Ex Machina remains the smartest funny-book series being published today. If this can’t make the casual reader of comics into a slavering fan-boy then they deserve to stay dull, uninformed and disenfranchised.

© & ™ 2007 Brian K. Vaughn & Tony Harris. All Rights Reserved.