Posts

Posted on

Studs Terkel’s Working: a graphic adaptation


By Harvey Pekar & various, edited by Paul Buhle (The New Press)
ISBN: 978-1-59558-321-5

Further pushing the boundaries and stoking the social conscience of American comics, the truly unique Harvey Pekar, with a coterie of his best artistic collaborators, has adapted a landmark book by an immense talent and irreplaceable social commentator.

Louis Terkel was born in New York on May 16th 1912, son of a Jewish tailor. When he was eight the family (father Samuel, mother Anna and older brothers Ben and Meyer) moved to Chicago where the family ran a rooming house. The later writer “Studs” cited this crossroads of society as the root of his interest in and understanding of broad humanity.

He studied law, married, and worked at many professions including hotel concierge, actor, and even writer; working with the Depression-era Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers Project before finding a true home in broadcast radio: everything from soap opera, voiceovers, news and sports announcing, disc-jockeying, advertising and scripting.

In 1952, he turned his semi-improvisational, picaresque television-drama Studs’ Place into a five-days-a-week, hour-long radio chat show entitled The Studs Terkel Program, where he interviewed the Great and the Good and every shade of person in-between for 45 unbroken years. In 1956 he published his first book Giants of Jazz, and followed it with many other volumes of non-fiction, all exploring the historical role of the common man, and exploring the social condition and context of the nation. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two. Studs died on Halloween, 2008, due to complications from a fall.

He was probably America’s greatest proponent of Oral History; the lives of ordinary people in their own words, compiled to form a human-scaled understanding of the past and present seemed so much more open and honest than great events starring great men, written down by great story-tellers.

In 1974 he released the epic Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (ISBN: 0-39447-884-5) to such critical acclaim that it was adapted as a Broadway show in 1978 and a PBS TV show in 1982. And now that other champion of the “Ordinary Joe” Pekar, in conjunction with acclaimed social historian and academic Paul Buhle, has produced this magical tome that graphically expands on this seminal work, and will undoubtedly whet readers’ appetites for the rest of the book – and perhaps a few more serious tomes. It’s certainly what our industry and art-form – too long considered frivolous, juvenile and crassly commercial – could do with…

Thanks to the startlingly varied artistic approaches and skills of fellow adaptors Pablo G. Callejo’s, Gary Dumm, Danny Fingeroth, Peter Gullerud, Bob Hall, Ryan Inzana, Sabrina Jones, Peter Kuper, Terry LaBan, Dylan A.T. Miner, Pat Moriarity, Emily Nemens, Joan Reilly, Sharon Rudahl, Nick Thorkelson, Anne Timmons and Lance Tooks what could have been a worthy but dull illustration of sparkling interviews with a broad spectrum of ordinary Americans becomes in fact a sparkling visual extravaganza that perfectly marries the text to the icon-ized hopes, joys, regrets and passions of the interviewees.

Sub-divided into the categories Working the Land, Pecking Order, Footwork, In the Spotlight, Behind a Desk, Appearance, Cleaning Up, Second Chance and Looking After Each Other (From Cradle to Grave) the 28 individual stories here range from the tragic indifference of The Hooker, the passion of the Union Organizer and the frustration of the migrant Farm Worker to the simple joy and fulfillment of the Mail Carrier and the Baby Nurse with each tale more moving than the last.

The New Press is a not-for-profit alternative to Corporate publishers, established in 1990 and dedicated to innovation in publishing and the promotion of creative works of educational, cultural and community value. They’re not in it for the money and you can find out more about them at www.thenewpress.com.

Then you can buy this magnificent piece of narrative art and give them the wherewithal to do something else that’s great to read and a benefit to our art form.

© 2006 Harvey Pekar & Paul Buhle. All Rights Reserved

Posted on

The Rainbow Orchid Volume 1 (the Adventures of Julius Chancer)


By Garen Ewing (Egmont UK)
ISBN:  978-1-4052-4853-2

Finally getting what he deserves is creator Garen Ewing whose delightful pastiche of the adventure genre pioneered by Hergé at last gets the full-colour album treatment with the first volume of The Rainbow Orchid.

The character of plucky young daredevil Julius Chancer and his adventuresome pals began popping up around 2003 in a self-published mini-comic and a few other small press publications (Gosh, I wish there was a less loaded or pejorative term for magazines produced by devoted, if unpaid, creators) and has been unfolding online ever since to rapturous praise from industry and public alike. Now Egmont, who also publish Tintin, (last time I mention him, I promise) have picked up the series and we should see this fabulous tale of old fashioned derring-do become a solid reader favourite on its own merits.

In a tale delightfully reminiscent of Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion tale ‘Look to the Lady/the Gyrth Chalice Mystery’ (and wasn’t he originally a pastiche of Lord Peter Wimsey?) and with just a hint of Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger stories, this first of three volumes set in 1920s Britain introduces Julius Chancer, young but capable assistant to Sir Alfred Catesby-Grey, renowned historical researcher and gentleman breeder of orchids.

Sir Alfred is approached by Lord Reginald Lawrence, scion of an ancient and noble house, who has been tricked into an impossible wager by the dastardly entrepreneur Urkaz Grope. At stake is the “Trembling Sword of Tybalt Stone” a priceless antique that has been the seat of the family’s honour since 1445, and without which Lord Lawrence would have to surrender all his estates and titles…

To win the wager Lawrence needs an example of Iriode Orchino – the rainbow orchid, a mythical bloom last seen by Alexander the Great over two thousand years ago. Although Catesby-Grey pooh-poohs the whole story, Julius remains hopeful, perhaps as tempted by the prospect of adventure and paid bills as by the urgings of plucky Lady Lily, Lawrence’s daughter and a silent film actress recently returned from Hollywood to the bosom of Empire.

Grope is an ominous presence throughout, with a highly secret agenda of his own and no principles at all, whilst the vulgarly intrusive journalist William Pickle has no decency, no morals and definitely no fear as he sniffs out news and controversy like an obsessed ferret, whilst Lily’s Movie Publicity Agent Nathaniel Crumpole always seems in the thick of whatever trouble is brewing – can even an American be that determinedly naive?

The boy Chancer determines to risk all in tracking down the orchid and despite a series of viciously calculated ploys by Grope and his gang of cutthroats sets off with Lily and Crumpole for Karachi and the fantastic flower’s last known whereabouts…

Enchantingly engaging, astonishingly authentic and masterfully illustrated in the legendary Ligne Claire style, this is a wonderful tale that ranks amongst the very best all-ages graphic narratives and although the wait for the next volume might seem interminable the online presence and added value items which can be found at www.rainboworchid.co.uk should keep your bated breath puffing along until then.

Magic, pure graphic magic. Where else could you get hot fresh nostalgia, just like your granddad used to love?

© 2009 Garen Ewing. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Shadow 1941: Hitler’s Astrologer – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Denny O’Neil, Michael W. Kaluta & Russ Heath (Marvel)
ISBN: 0-87135-341-5

A year after Howard Chaykin and DC catapulted The Shadow into the grim’n’grungy contemporary arena (see Blood and Judgment, ISBN: 978-0-93028-916-4) the dream-team that had first returned him to comic-book prominence reunited for this larger-than-life grand romp, ably abetted by the inking skills of master artist Russ Heath.

Denny O’Neil and Michael Kaluta had produced a stand-out series of adventures in the early 1970s (collected as The Private Files of the Shadow ISBN: 0-930289-37-7), set in the spy and gangster-ridden ‘thirties, and in many ways this complex yarn is a final chapter in that astounding graphic procession.

On Easter Sunday 1941 a beautiful woman is pursued through the teeming crowds of Times Square theatre-goers by sinister thugs until rescued in the nick of time by agents of The Shadow. She is Gretchen Baur, sent to America by Josef Goebbels himself to gather astrological data for the Reich’s Ministry of Propaganda, and the confused young thing cannot understand why agents of her own government have tried to abduct her.

The Shadow reveals that she is an unwitting pawn in a deadly battle for supremacy within the Nazi Party that revolves around her father, Der Führer’s personal astrologer…

And thus begins a tense and intricate mystery conspiracy thriller that ranges from the bloody streets of New York through the killer skies to the very steps of Hitler’s palace in Berlin as a desperate plan to subvert the course of the war comes up hard against a twisted, thwarted love and a decades-long hunt for vengeance.

Positively Wagnerian in style, this action-packed drama exudes period charm and nobody has ever realised The Shadow and his cohorts as well as Kaluta, although I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the sub-par colouring from the usually sound Mark Chiarello, Nick Jainschigg and John Wellington. Perhaps a slight case of too many cooks…?

Once again I’m not holding my breath for a definitive, corrected new edition but if anything ever needed to be gathered into an “Absolute Edition” it’s the disparate adventures of man in the black slouch hat with the girasol ring…
© 1988 The Condé Nast Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

A Mess of Everything


By Miss Lasko-Gross (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-956-1

I’m appalled to say that I actually missed the release of this very talented creator’s book Escape From “Special”: the initial autobiographical foray and first of a planned trilogy of tomes following the life and progress of a smart and troublesome girl-child with overly-understanding parents surviving the blandly oppressive horrors of growing up normal.

So I approached this second collection of tales, ranging from single page statements to fully rounded short stories, with a completely open mind: and I’m pleased to say that A Mess of Everything is one of the most entertaining books I’ve read in years, a picture-perfect blend of honest reflection, graphic invention and shared fragile humanity from a woman who knows how to captivate an audience.

Melissa has reached those difficult teen years. She’s not pretty, not a follower, not a conformist: but she’s experiencing the feelings that every kid feels and dealing with it her way. As Grunge Music begins to dominate the teen-scene, Melissa has to deal with anxiety, a paucity of friends, drugs, booze, shoplifting, letting off steam, feeling horny, wanting a “true love” (Lord, didn’t we all?), second-hand eating disorders and having a Perfect Older Sister…

If it wasn’t for the mini-comics she can’t stop producing, life might be completely unbearable…

Miss Lasko-Gross has been producing graphic narrative for most of her life, editing the Pratt Institute’s Static Fish comicbook, working in Mauled, House of Twelve 2.0, Legal Action Comics, Aim and others whilst generally living the kind of life that inevitably leads to superbly readable books like this one.

Frank, funny and painfully familiar these beautifully realised vignettes of the kind of outsider-we’d-all-like-to-be are a worthy addition to the burgeoning pool of exceptional graphic autobiographies such as American Splendour and Persepolis. Unflinching, uncompromising, this adult look at growing should be compulsory reading for ever teenager – just to prove life has always been like that…

Now where can I lay my hands on that first volume…?

© 2009 Miss Lasko-Gross. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Showcase Presents the Atom volume 1


By Gardner Fox, Gil Kane & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1363-3

Julius Schwartz had already ushered in the Silver Age of American Comics with his Showcase successes Flash, Adam Strange and Green Lantern, but his fourth attempt to revive and revitalize a “Golden Age Great” had stalled when Hawkman (debuting in Brave and the Bold #34, February/March 1961) could not find an immediate audience. Undeterred, he persevered with the Winged Wonder, but also moved forward and for Showcase #34 (September/October 1961) retooled the pint-sized strongman of the 1940’s Justice Society of America into a fascinating science-fiction champion and eternal underdog.

Ray Palmer was a young physicist working on the compression of matter and a teaching Professor at Ivy Town University. He was wooing career girl Jean Loring, who wanted to make her name as a trial lawyer before settling down as Mrs. Palmer (c’mon, it was the 1960s). One evening Ray found an ultra-dense fragment of White Dwarf Star Matter, which took his researches in a new direction. By converting some of the degenerate matter into a lens he could shrink objects, but frustratingly they always exploded when he attempted to restore them to their original state.

As fiercely competitive as his intended bride, Ray kept his progress secret until he could perfect the process. Meanwhile the couple took a group of youngsters on a science hike to Giant Caverns, where a cave-in trapped the entire party. As they all lay trapped and dying Ray secretly activated his reducing lens to shrink himself, using the diamond engagement ring he was carrying to carve a tiny fissure in the rock wall into an escape hole. Fully expecting to detonate any second, he was astounded to discover that some peculiar combination of circumstances allowed to him to return to his normal six foot height with no ill effects.

With his charges safe he returned to his lab to find that the process only worked on his own body; all other subjects still catastrophically destructed. Somewhat disheartened he pondered his situation – and his new-found abilities…

And thus ended ‘The Birth of the Atom!’, a taut and intriguing short tale written by Gardner Fox and dynamically illustrated by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson, which was supplemented by the spectacular ‘Battle of the Tiny Titans!’ wherein a six-inch tall, teleporting alien went on a crime-spree in Ivy Town, the unwilling slave of petty thief Carl Ballard.

Jean was called in to defend a bank-teller accused of embezzlement – after all, the woman claimed her cash-drawer was emptied by a little genie – and Ray determined to clandestinely help her using his newest innovation, a suit made from White Dwarf material, which could alter not only his height but also his weight and mass. The story is thrilling and entrancing, not to mention astonishingly inventive (including such gimmicks as the Atom traveling along telephone wires) but the art – allowing Kane to combine the usual long-shots, mid-shots and close-ups with glorious, balletic, full-body action poses – made this and all subsequent Atom adventures a symphony of human dynamism. Some text pages featuring a potted history of the original Al Pratt Atom and the science behind that phone trick filled out Showcase #34… and Schwartz was back on track with another instant hit.

The second try-out issue opted for a complete single story. ‘The Dooms From Beyond!’ is a spectacular tale of witches, curses and murderous trickery in pursuit of an inheritance, capped with biographies of Fox, Kane and Anderson – a true rarity in a time when publishers still preferred their staff worked in anonymity.

The final Showcase try-out again featured two adventures, and the first of these ‘Prisoner in a Test Tube!’ introduced a recurrent theme in the Tiny Titan’s career: Cold War Espionage. The American/Soviet arms-and-ideas race figured heavily in the life of physicist Ray Palmer and in the collegiate circle of Ivy Town where even Jean’s father was a scientist carefully watched by both CIA and KGB. In this pensive thriller a brief moment of East-West détente allowed the Reds to replace a visiting Hungarian Professor with a deadly doppelganger until the Atom took a diminutive hand, whilst it was back to basics with super-science and criminal conundrums in the mystery of ‘The “Disappearing Act” Robberies!’

Editor Schwartz knew he had a sure thing. Barely breaking stride to count the sales figures the bi-monthly Showcase stint segued into a bi-monthly feature title. The Atom #1 debuted with a June/July 1962 cover date featuring a spectacular full-length yarn entitled ‘Master of the Plant World!’ which pitted the hero against Jason Woodrue (later famed as the Floronic Man), an extra-dimensional botanist who had enslaved Earth’s supernatural plant spirits in a schemes to conquer our world.

‘The Oddest Man on Earth!’ was another superb scientific mystery, counter-pointed by the return of Carl Ballard in the action-packed revenge thriller ‘The Prisoners who Vanished!’ and with #3 the hero finally found a costumed arch-foe as the flamboyant thief Chronos began his obsessive career in ‘The Time Trap!’

That issue was doubly significant, if singly themed. The second tale, ‘The Secret of the Atom’s Lamp!’ introduced Ray’s mentor and colleague Professor Alpheus Hyatt and his “Time-Pool” a six-inch energy field that opened on to other eras. Hyatt thought it an intriguing but useless scientific oddity, occasionally extracting oddments from it by blindly dropping a fishing line through it. Little did he know his erstwhile student was secretly using it to experience rousing adventures in other times and locations, such as this initial exploit in which the diminutive daredevil visited Arabia in 850AD to discover the true story of Aladdin. This charming, thrilling and unbelievably educational yarn set a format and high bench-mark for some of the Atom’s best and most well-loved exploits.

Our hero joined the Justice League of America with issue #14 (September 1962) and the Atom #4 (December 1962/January 1963) featured ‘The Machine that Made Miracles!’ a prototypical crossover in which the hero helped League mascot Snapper Carr solve a baffling mystery that had aliens at the bottom of it, whilst ‘The Case of the Innocent Thief!’ was a cool crime procedural yarn, as once more a client of Jean Loring’s occasioned some clandestine legal aid from the Tiny Titan…

Issue #5 opened with a sharp science-fiction thriller as the Mighty Mite journeyed to a sub-atomic civilisation in ‘The Diamond of Deadly Dooms!’ (with a delightful art contribution from the great Mike Sekowsky) whilst ‘The Specter of 3000-Moons Lake!’ tested the hero’s detective skills in an eerie tale of bogeymen and bandits.

‘The Riddle of the Two-Faced Astronaut!’ in #6 was actually a crafty crime-caper, but the real highlight was another Time-Pool tale when our hero met and mastered infamous rogue Dick Turpin in ‘The Highwayman and the Mighty Mite!’, whilst the next issue formed part of Editor Schwartz’s charm offensive to promote Hawkman when the Winged Wonder met Tiny Titan in a full-length spectacular, world-threatening epic ‘The Case of the Cosmic Camera!’

Justice League villain Dr. Light opened a campaign to pick off his foes piecemeal when he subjected the Atom to a ‘Lock-up in the Lethal Lightbulb!’ in #8 and master craftsman Sid Greene inked the deft mystery of ‘The Purloined Miniatures’ which completed that issue. ‘The Atom’s Phantom Double!’ was another high-tech fantasy, complimented by ‘The Seaman and the Spyglass!’ (Greene again) wherein the Mighty Mite proved instrumental in Hans Lippershey’s invention of telescopes and helped explorer Henry Hudson shape the destiny of the USA, courtesy of the ubiquitous Time-Pool.

‘Ride a Deadly Grenade!’ was another breathtaking Cold-War spy-thriller, whilst ‘The Mysterious Swan-Maiden!’ was just a crafty scam, but Atom #11 truly tested the Mighty Mite’s deductive mettle with both ‘Trouble at the Ten-Year Club’ and the Greene inked fantasy thriller ‘Voyage to Beyond!’

A technological master-criminal briefly made our hero his weapon-of-choice in ‘Danger… Atom-Gun at Work!’ and the charming Time-Pool tale ‘The Gold-Hunters of ’49!’ allowed the Tiny Titan to meet his literary hero Edgar Allan Poe in #12, with which issue Greene became the regular inker (necessitated by Hawkman finally getting his long-awaited – Murphy Anderson illustrated – solo-feature).

Chronos returned in #13’s ‘Weapon Watches of the Time-Wise Guy!’, and Anderson returned to ink the procedural drama of ‘I Accuse Ray Palmer… of Robbery!’, but super-science was increasingly the order of the day as our hero had to endure ‘The Revolt of the Atom’s Uniform!’ in #14 and both spies with ‘Illusions for Sale!’ and the crafty Hyper-Thief in ‘The Super-Cracker who Defied the Law!’ in #15.

Atom #16 was another mind-boggling novel where yet another criminal scientist brought about the ‘Fate of the Flattened-Out Atom!’ and this immensely dynamic treat for eyes and imagination concludes with #17’s ‘Case of the Hooded Hijackers!’ (wherein Gil Kane displayed his love of gangster movies and talent for caricature) and finishes big with another magical Time-Pool extravaganza when the Tiny Titan visits the year 1888 and retrieves ‘Jules Verne’s Crystal Ball!’

The Atom was never a major name or huge success, but from reading these witty, compelling tales by Gardner Fox, where Gil Kane first mastered the fluid human dynamism that made him a legend, you’d be hard-pressed to understand why. This is sheer superhero perfection. Why not try a bit… just a tiny bit?

© 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Showcase Presents: the Justice League of America


By Gardner Fox, Denny O’Neil, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Dillin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-82856-188-5

By 1968 the new superhero boom looked to be dying just as its predecessor had at the end of the 1940s. Sales were down generally in the comics industry and costs were beginning to spiral, and more importantly “free” entertainment, in the form of television, was by now ensconced in even the poorest household. If you were a kid in the sixties, think on just how many brilliant cartoon shows were created in that decade, when artists like Alex Toth and Doug Wildey were working in West Coast animation studios. Moreover, comic-book heroes were now appearing on the small screen. Superman, Aquaman, Batman, the Marvel heroes and even the JLA were there every Saturday in your own living room…

It was a time of great political and social upheaval. Change was everywhere and unrest even reached the corridors of DC. When a number of creators agitated for increased work-benefits the request was not looked upon kindly. Many left the company for other outfits. Some quit the business altogether.

This fourth monochrome volume reflects the turmoil of the times as the writer and penciller who had created every single adventure of the World’s Greatest Superheroes since their inception gave way to a “new wave” writer and a fresh if not young artist. Collecting issues #61-83 (and re-presenting the stirring covers of #67 and 76: giant editions which reprinted issues #4, 14 & 31, and #7 &12, respectively), this tome covers a society in transition and a visible change in the way DC comics stories were told.

Kicking off the festivities is ‘Operation: Jail the Justice League!’, a sharp and witty action-mystery with an army of super-villains by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky and the superb Sid Greene wherein the team must read between the lines as Green Arrow announces that he’s quitting the team and super-hero-ing!

George Roussos replaced Greene as inker for ‘Panic from a Blackmail Box’, a taut thriller about redemption involving the time-delayed revelations of a different kind of villain, and ‘Time Signs a Death-Warrant for the Justice League’, where the villainous Key finally acts on a scheme he initiated way back in Justice League of America #41. This rowdy fist-fest was Sekowky’s last pencil job on the team (although he returned for a couple of covers). He was transferring his attentions to the revamping of Wonder Woman (for which see the marvellous Diana Prince: Wonder Woman volumes 1–4).

Fox ended his magnificent run on a high point with the two-part annual team-up of the League and the Justice Society of Earth-Two. Creative to the very end, his last story was yet another of the Golden-Age revivals which had resurrected the superhero genre. Issues #64 and 65 featured the ‘Stormy Return of the Red Tornado’ and ‘T.O. Morrow Kills the Justice League – Today!’ with a cyclonic super-android taking on the mantle of the comedic 1940s “Mystery Man” who appeared in the very first JSA adventure (if you’re interested, the original Red Tornado was a brawny washer-woman named Ma Hunkle).

Fox’s departing thriller was the artistic debut of Blackhawk artist Dick Dillin, a prolific draughtsman who would draw all the JLA’s exploits for the next twelve years, as well as many other adventures of DC’s top characters like Superman and Batman. His first jobs were inked by the returning Sid Greene, a pairing that seemed vibrant and darkly realistic after the eccentrically stylish, almost abstract Sekowsky.

Not even the heroes themselves were immune to change. As the market contracted and shifted, so too did the team. With no fanfare the Martian Manhunter was dropped after #61. He just stopped appearing and the minor heroes (ones whose strips or comics had been cancelled) got less and less space in future tales.

Denny O’Neil took over the scripting with #66, a rather dated and heavy-handed satire entitled ‘Divided they Fall!’ wherein defrocked banana-republic dictator Generalissimo Demmy Gog (did I mention it was heavy-handed?) used a stolen morale-boosting ray to cause chaos on a college campus. O’Neil was more impressive with his second outing. ‘Neverwas – the Chaos Maker!’: a time-lost monster on a rampage, but the compassionate solution to his depredations better fitted the social climate and hinted at the joys to come when the author began his legendary run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow.

‘A Matter of Menace’ featured a plot to frame Green Arrow, but is most remarkable for the brief return of Diana Prince. Wonder Woman had silently vanished at the end of #66 and her cameo here is more a plug for her own adventure series than a regulation guest-shot. This is followed by a more traditional guest-appearance in #70’s ‘Versus the Creeper’ wherein the much diminished team of Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern and Atom battle misguided aliens inadvertently brought to Earth by the astoundingly naff Mind-Grabber Kid (most recently seen in Seven Soldiers and 52) with the eerie Steve Ditko-created anti-hero along for the ride if largely superfluous to the plot.

Eager to plug their radical new heroine, Diana Prince guested again in #71’s ‘And So My World Ends!’ a drastic reinvention of the history of The Martian Manhunter from O’Neil, Dillon and Greene which, by writing him out of the series, galvanised and reinvigorated the character for a new generation. The plot introduced the belligerent White Martians of today and revealed how a millennia long race war between the Whites and Greens devastated Mars forever.

‘Thirteen Days to Doom!’ was a moody gothic horror story in which Hawkman was turned into a pillar of salt by demons, precipitating a rare guest-shot for Hawkgirl, but excellent though it was the entire thing was but a prelude to O’Neil’s first shot at the annual JLA/JSA team-up in issues #73 and 74. ‘Star Light, Star Bright… Death Star I See Tonight!’ and ‘Where Death Fears to Tread!’ related the fearsome tale of Aquarius, a sentient but insane star, that magically destroyed Earth-Two until our heroes (with their surviving Golden Age counterparts) manage to restore it, but not without some personal tragedy.

As a result the Black Canary chose to emigrate to Earth-One, handily becoming the team’s resident Girl Superhero, and picking up a new if somewhat unreliable power in the process. The repercussions of her move and Green Arrow losing all his wealth made Justice League of America #75 one of O’Neil’s best. ‘In Each Man there is a Demon!’ (inked by new regular Joe Giella) found the team literally battling their own worst aspects and the heroes’ confidence was further rocked when the enigmatic Joe Dough compromised their beloved mascot in ‘Snapper Carr… Super-Traitor!’

The greater social awareness parading through comics at this time manifested in the next epic two-parter, which also revived another Golden Age Great (presumably to cash-in on the mini-boom in screen Westerns). The Vigilante – a cowboy-themed superhero who battled Bandits and Badmen in a passel of DC titles from 1941-1954 – alerted the team to ‘The Coming of the Doomsters!’, just in time to foil the alien invaders who used pollution as their secret weapon in ‘Come Slowly Death, Come Slyly!’ Another landmark of this still-impressive tale was the introduction of the JLA Satellite, as the team moved from a hole in a mountain to a high-tech orbiting fortress.

‘Night of the Soul-Stealer!’ saw an alien collecting heroic spirits in a magic box, but it was only a prelude to a greater threat as issue #81 revealed his good intentions as the ‘Plague of the Galactic Jest-Master’ threatened to inflict a greater horror upon our entire universe.

This book ends with another grand collaboration between JLA and JSA as property speculators from outer space sought to raze both Earths in ‘Peril of the Paired Planets’, and only the ultimate sacrifice of a true hero could avert trans-dimensional disaster in the concluding ‘Where Valor Fails… Will Magic Triumph?’

Although an era of greatness had ended, it ended at the right time and for sound reasons. These thoroughly wonderful thrillers mark an end and a beginning in comic-book storytelling as whimsical adventure was replaced by inclusivity, social awareness and a tacit acknowledgement that a smack in the mouth couldn’t solve all problems. The audience was changing and the industry was forced to change with them. But underneath it all the drive to entertain remained strong and effective. Charm’s loss is drama’s gain and today’s readers might be surprised to discover just how much punch these tales had – and still have.

But for that you need to get this book…

© 1968, 1969, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Lucky Luke: Billy the Kid


By Morris & Goscinny, translated by Luke Spear (CineBook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-11-3

It’s hard to think of one of Europe’s most beloved and long-running comics character’s being in any way controversial, but when the changing times caught up with the fastest gun in the West (“so fast he can outdraw his own shadow”) and Lucky Luke moved with them, the news made headlines all over the world.

Lucky Luke is a rangy, laconic, good, natured cowboy who roams the fabulously mythic Old West, having light-hearted adventures with his horse Jolly Jumper and Rantanplan (“dumbest dog in the West” and a charming spoof of cinema canine Rin-Tin-Tin), interacting with a host of historical and legendary figures of the genre.

His continued exploits over more than 60 years have made him the best-selling comic character in Europe, (more than 300 million albums in 30 languages thus far), with spin-off games, computer games, animated cartoon and even live-action movies.

He was created by Belgian animator, illustrator and cartoonist Maurice de Bévère – who signed himself Morris – for the 1947 Annual (L’Almanach Spirou 1947) of Le Journal de Spirou, launching into his first adventure ‘Arizona 1880′ on December 7th 1946.

Before then, while working at the CBA (Compagnie Belge d’Actualitiés) cartoon studio Morris met future comics super-stars Franquin and Peyo, and worked for weekly magazine Le Moustique as a caricaturist (to my eyes Lucky Luke looks uncannily like the young Robert Mitchum who graced so many mid-1940s B-movie Westerns).

He quickly became one of “la Bande des quatre” or Gang of Four, which comprised the creators Jijé, Will and his old comrade Franquin, and who were the leading proponents of the loose and free-wheeling artistic style known as the “Marcinelle School” which dominated Spirou in aesthetic contention with the “Ligne Claire” style used by Hergé, EP

Jacobs and other artists in Tintin Magazine.

In 1948 the Gang (all but Will) visited America, meeting US creators and sightseeing, and Morris stayed for six years, meeting René Goscinny, scoring some work from the newly formed EC sensation, Mad, and making copious notes and sketches of the swiftly disappearing Old West. His research henceforward resonated on every page of his life’s work.

Working alone until 1955 when he reunited with Goscinny (see our recent Iznogoud review for the low-down on that most prolific of comics writers) Morris produced another nine albums worth of affectionate sagebrush parody before, working in perfect unison, Luke attained the dizzying heights of superstardom, commencing with ‘Des rails sur la Prairie’ (Rails on the Prairie), which began in Spirou on August 25th 1955.

In 1967 the straight-shooter switched teams, leaving Spirou for Goscinny’s magazine Pilote with the tale ‘La Diligence’ (the Stagecoach). Goscinny produced 45 albums with Morris before his death, from when Morris continued both alone and with other collaborators. Morris died in 2001 having drawn fully 70 adventures, plus the spin-off adventures of Rantanplan, and the team of Achdé and Laurent Gerra took over franchise, producing another three tales to date. In a most peculiar aside I feel I must mention that Morris was apparently voted the “79th Greatest Belgian” in the 2005 Walloon election of De Grootste Belg. If so, I demand a recount…

Lucky Luke first appeared in Britain syndicated in the weekly comic Film Fun and again in 1967 in Giggle where he was renamed Buck Bingo. In all these venues as well as the numerous attempts to follow the English-language successes of Tintin and Asterix albums from Brockhampton and Knight Books, Luke had a trademark cigarette hanging insouciantly from his lip, but in 1983 Morris – no doubt amidst both pained howls and muted mutterings of “political correctness gone mad” – substituted a piece of straw for the much-traveled dog-end, which garnered him an official tip of the hat from the World Health Organization.

The latest attempt to bring Lucky Luke to our shores and shelves comes from Cinebook, and the first of the twenty (and counting) available albums is Billy the Kid, Morris and Goscinny’s eleventh collaboration.

As Luke rides into the troubled town of Fort Weakling he finds the populace cowed and broken by the vile depredations of the infamous William Bonney. The desperado robs the bank every couple of days, and the stage coach every time it leaves town, helps himself to caramels without paying, and won’t let the saloon serve anything but drinking chocolate.

His deadly aptitude with a six-gun means that no one will swear out a complaint let alone testify against the vicious little bully, and when Luke accepts the job of sheriff it takes brains and cunning rather than his legendary skill with a shooting iron to free the town from the tiny grip of the world’s meanest 12 year old…

Although the dialogue is a trifle stiff in places, this is a grand old hoot in the tradition of Destry Rides again and Support Your Local Sheriff (or perhaps Alias Smith and Jones or Evil Roy Slade are more your style?) superbly executed by master storytellers, and a wonderful introduction to a unique genres for kids of all ages.

And in case you’re worried, even though the interior art still has our hero chawin’ on that ol’ nicotine stick, trust me, there’s very little chance of anyone craving a quick snout, but quite a high probability that they’ll want more Lucky Luke Albums…
© Dargaud Editeur Paris 1971 by Goscinny & Morris. © Lucky Comics. English translation © Cinebook Ltd.

Posted on

Batman Chronicles volume 7


By Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-176-2

This seventh volume of chronological Batman yarns covers Batman #12-13, Detective Comics #66-70 and World’s Finest Comics #7, and features adventures that were produced during the darkest days of World War II. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that many of these Golden Age treasures are also some of the best and most reprinted tales in the Batman canon. With chief writer Bill Finger at a peak of creativity and production, everybody on the Home Front was keen to do their bit – even it that was simply making kids of all ages forget their troubles for a brief while…

‘The Crime of Two-Face’, (Detective Comics #66, August 1942) by Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, is a classical tragedy in crime-caper form as Gotham DA Harvey Kent (the name was later changed to Dent) was disfigured in court and went mad – becoming the conflicted villain who remains one of the Caped Crusader’s greatest foes.

Batman #12 (Aug/Sept 1942) follows with another four classics. ‘Brothers in Crime’ by Don Cameron and Jerry Robinson, reveals the tragic fates of a criminal family whilst the Joker returns in ‘The Wizard of Words’ by Finger, Kane Robinson and George Roussos. Jack Burnley illustrated the spectacular daredevil drama ‘They Thrill to Conquer’ and ‘Around the Clock with Batman’ recounts a typical “day in the life” of the Dynamic Duo complete with blazing guns, giant statues and skyscraper near-death experiences.

From World’s Finest Comics #7 (Fall 1942) comes an imaginative thriller ‘The North Pole Crimes!’ whilst Detective Comics #67 features the Penguin as ‘Crime’s Early Bird!’ before Two-Face’s personal horror-story continues in ‘The Man Who Led a Double Life’ from #68.

Batman #13 (Oct/Nov 1942) tugged heartstrings as ‘The Batman Plays a Lone Hand’ but was on more traditional ground when the Joker organized a ‘Comedy of Tears’ (by Jack Schiff, Kane, Robinson & Roussos), and although ‘The Story of the Seventeen Stones!’ (drawn by Burnley) is a deliciously experimental murder-mystery, the heroes slipped into comfortable Agatha Christie – or perhaps Hitchcock territory – as they tackled a portmanteau of crimes on a train in Cameron, Kane, Robinson and Roussos’ ‘Destination: Unknown!’

Joseph Greene scripted the Joker’s next escapade in the marvelous case of ‘The Harlequin’s Hoax!’ from Detective Comics #68 and this brilliant book concludes with the decidedly different threat of ‘The Man Who Could Read Minds!’ another off-beat thriller from Don Cameron that premiered in Detective Comics #70.

This wonderful series of Golden Age greats is one of my absolute favourite collected formats: paper that feels comfortingly like newsprint, vivid colours applied with a gracious acknowledgement of the power and limitations of the original four-colour printing process and the riotous exuberance of an industry in the first flush of success The tales here show the creators and the characters at their absolute peak and they’re even more readable now that I don’t have to worry if I’m wrecking an historical treasure simply by turning a page. I can only pray that other companies like Marvel, Archie and the rest follow suit.

Soon.

© 1942, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Superman Chronicles volume 5


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Wayne Boring, Jack Burnley and the Superman Studio (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-895-9

By the time these tales first saw print Superman was a bona fide phenomenon, and had utterly changed the shape of the fledgling comicbook industry. There was a popular newspaper strip, foreign and overseas syndication and the Fleischer studio was starting production on some of the most expensive -and best – animated cartoons ever produced. Thankfully the quality of the source material was increasing with every four-colour release, and the energy and enthusiasm of Siegel and Shuster had transferred to the burgeoning studio that grew around them to cope with the relentless demand.

This fifth collection of the Man of Steel’s earliest adventures, reprinted in the order they originally appeared, takes us from the beginning of the year to May of 1941; another astounding voyage of thrills and chills that covers his appearances in Action Comics #32-36, the bi-monthly Superman #8-9 as well as his first landmark appearance in the legendary publication World’s Best Comics #1.

As ever, each tale is preceded by the original cover illustration, and the unsung talents of Paul Cassidy and especially Fred Ray should be appreciated for the huge part they played in capturing the attentions of the millions of kids who were daily bombarded by a growing multitude of garish, gaudy mystery-men

We lead off with Action Comics #32 (cover-dated January 1941), ‘The Gambling Racket of Metropolis’ (although like many stories of the time there was no original title and it’s been designated as such simply to make my job a little easier…) wherein the Action Ace crushes an illicit High Society gambling operation that has wormed its nefarious way into the loftiest echelons of Government, a typical Jerry Siegel social drama magnificently illustrated by the great Jack Burnley

Superman #8 (Jan/Feb 1941) was another spectacular and varied compendium containing four big adventures ranging from the fantastic fantasy ‘The Giants of Professor Zee’ (illustrated by Paul Cassidy), topical suspense in ‘The Fifth Column’ (Wayne Boring & Don Komisarow), common criminality in ‘The Carnival Crooks’ (Cassidy again) and concluding with an increasingly rare comic-book outing for Joe Shuster – inked by Boring – in the cover-featured ‘Perrone and the Drug Gang’, as the Metropolis Marvel battled doped-up thugs and the corrupt lawyers who controlled them.

Action Comics #33 and 34 are both Burnley extravaganzas wherein Superman goes north to discover ‘Something Amiss at the Lumber Camp’, before heading to coal country to save ‘The Beautiful Young Heiress’; both superbly enticing character-plays with plenty of scope for eye-popping super-stunts to thrill the gasping fans.

Superman #9 (March/April 1941) was another four-star thriller with all the art credited to Cassidy and the Shuster Studio. ‘The Phony Pacifists’ is an espionage thriller that capitalised on increasing US tensions over “the European War”, ‘Joe Gatson, Racketeer’ recounts the sorry end of a hot-shot blackmailer and kidnapper, ‘Mystery in Swasey Swamp’ combines eerie happenings with ruthless spies and the self-explanatory ‘Jackson’s Murder Ring’ pits Superman against an ingenious gang of commercial assassins.

The success of the annual World’s Fair premium comic-books had convinced the editors that an over-sized anthology of their characters, with Superman and Batman prominently featured, would be a worthwhile proposition even at the exorbitant price of 15¢ (most 64 page titles retailed for 10¢ and would do so until the 1960s). The 96 page World’s Best Comics #1 (and only) debuted with a Spring cover-date, before transforming into the venerable World’s Finest from issue #2 onwards. From that landmark edition comes a gripping disaster thriller ‘Superman vs. the Rainmaker’ illustrated by Cassidy, whilst Action Comics #35 headlined a human interest tale with startling repercussions in ‘The Guybart Gold Mine’, and this volume concludes with Superman mightily stretched to cope with the awesome threat of ‘The Enemy Invasion’, a canny taste of things to come if America entered Word War II.

Stories of corruption, disaster and social injustice were typical of the times, but with war in the news and clearly on the horizon, the content of Superman adventures was changing: and so, necessarily, did the scale and scope of the action. The raw intensity and sly wit still shone through in Siegel’s stories which literally defined what being a Super-hero meant, but as the world became more dangerous the Man of Tomorrow simply became stronger and more flamboyant to deal with it all, and Shuster and his team stretched and expanded the iconography that all others would follow.

These Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price. What more so you need to know?

© 1940, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Superman: the Third Kryptonian


By Kurt Busiek, Dwayne McDuffie, Rick Leonardi & Renato Guedes (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-005-5

After interminable page counts and the never-ending angst of hyper-mega-ultra braided multi-part cross-overs, it’s quite nice to pick up an – admittedly slim – endeavour of more modest means and intent: to wit, a book with a couple of stories that actually begin, occur and end.

Collecting the contents of Action Comics #847, Superman #668-670 and Superman Annual #13, this tome actually has three yarns to delight, beginning with Busiek, Leonardi, and Dan Green’s mini-epic in which all the survivors of lost Krypton on Earth, including Power Girl, Clark and Lois’ adopted son Chris (don’t fret, it’s all explained in the story) and even Krypto are targeted for destruction by brutal space pirate Amalak, hungry to take vengeance for the misdeeds of the long dead Kryptonian Empire.

Imagine how the irascible rogue reacts when he discovers that unbeknownst to all, an actual survivor of that long-dead galactic aggressor state has been living secretly on Earth for years…

Good old-fashioned romp though it is, the real meat of this tale is the rewriting of Kryptonian history (Again! Better keep a scorecard handy!) for the post-Smallville/Superman Returns generation. As the disparate continuities of TV, Cinema and comic-books are massaged closer to homogeneity, the best of the old is being refitted to the new and if the result is more readers then I’m all for it.  This is an uncomplicated adventure thriller with nostalgic overtones that has a lot to recommend it.

‘The Best Day’ (Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Guedes and José Wilson Magalhães) is a sheer delight, beautifully executed. In a quiet moment Superman and Supergirl take the Kent clan on a picnic to the stars and we get a chance to see beloved characters interact in joy and relaxation, when the skies of a million universes aren’t collapsing around their invulnerable ears. It’s a brave, rewarding return to old ways and I want to see more of it.

So go no further than ‘Intermezzo’ (McDuffie and Guedes), another introspective segment sliced from a longer epic, short on punching but big on emotional wallop as Jonathan and Martha Kent share secrets and reveal close-held fears as their adopted son struggles off-camera with another “Never-Ending Battle.”

It’s the gentle moments and the emotional beats that give the best adventure fiction its edge, and this book has them in delightful quantities. This is the stuff that made Superman a legend, and I’m so very glad it making a comeback.

© 2007, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.