Now Read This!

By Rullier & Stanislas (Humanoids/DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0385-X

I carp on about the overwhelming predictability and numbing sameness of the American comics industry an awful lot. In fact I sometimes wonder if I’ve become bigoted and provincial in my old age. After much soul-searching I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not me, but everything else in the universe that’s wrong.

Seriously though, when it comes to comics and strips, America has historically had an unforgiving attitude to the non hero/horror/SF material, or even the just plain foreign. And before you mention Manga, think about just how many strips the Japanese (and Korean and Hong Kong Chinese etc. etc.) produce in an unbelievably broad number of genres and formats that we never see flopped and translated, especially without the support of a blockbuster toy/TV/card fad to give them a big push.

Huge kudos are then due to DC for linking up with the European publishers Humanoids (Les Humanoides Associes) on another attempt to bring some quality and variety to a fearfully moribund and declining market.

Laurent Rullier has been relating the human adventures of thrill-addicted accountant Victor Levallois since the 1980s. This first translated tale relates how a bored young office worker in 1948 find himself embroiled in a money-laundering scheme and ends up as a dissolute émigré in Indochina just as the Vietnamese begin their war against the occupiers of their country.

Artist Stanislas renders the real word in a powerfully engaging Naïve-ist style (which the back cover blurb laboriously likens to Hergé’s Tin Tin) to create a sharp, and compelling human drama that successfully plays against a powerfully iconic period of history.

I regret that even DC’s market clout couldn’t bring this sort of work to a broad enough comic community to sustain itself and generate some variety in the home crop, but maybe a few concerts might eventually open wide those floodgates..

English version © 2004 Humanoids Inc., Los Angeles (USA). All rights reserved.

By Jack Kirby (Marvel Comics)
ISBN: 0-7851-1687-7

Jack Kirby’s return to Marvel in the mid 1970’s was much hyped at the time but swiftly turned out to be controversial. His new work and creations (The Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, 2001, Machine Man) found friends rapidly, but his return to earlier creations Captain America and Black Panther divided the fan base. Kirby was never slavishly wedded to tight continuity, and preferred, in many ways, to treat his stints on titles as another “Day One”.

And that is the reason a fresh collection of such works is always so welcome. His commitment to wholesome adventure, breakneck action and breathless wonderment combined with his absolute mastery of the comic page and unceasing quest for the Next Big Thrill make for a captivating read. His comics should be on every School Curriculum if we want youngsters to get into Graphic Narrative.

Black Panther reprints issues 1-7 from 1977-1978 and disappointed many fans who were expecting some kind of conclusion or continuance to the long-lauded Don MacGregor epic ‘The Panther Vs The Klan,’ which had been abruptly cancelled the previous year. What they got was a rollercoaster ride of classic Kirby as the Hereditary King of a Hi-tech African Lost Kingdom pursues legendary time machines, fights future men and secret samurai clans, thwarts the plots of super-rich artefact collectors and foils schemes to nuke his hidden homeland.

My only quibble is with the editorial decision to chop the final story in this volume off at the knees and leave the reader hanging without a conclusion. This is no way to garner new readers. It doesn’t matter that there’s going to be a second volume. Cliff-hangers are for comics not books.

If you’re going to create a new market for comics as books you really ought to consider the value to the consumer of a product with a beginning, a middle, and most importantly a satisfactory end!

© 2001, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

By Will Eisner. (Dark Horse 2003) 128 pages ISBN: 1569714274
(Kitchen Sink Press 1986) 128 pages
ISBN: 0-87816-022-1 Hardcover ISBN: 0-87816-023-X Softcover

It is pretty much accepted today that Will Eisner was one of the creative forces that created the comic book industry, but still one of his lesser known milestones escapes public acclaim.

From 1936 to 1938 he worked as a jobbing cartoonist in the comics production firm known as the Eisner-Eiger Shop, creating strips to be published in both domestic US and foreign markets. Using the pen-name Willis B. Rensie he wrote and drew the saga of the mysterious American known only as “The Hawk”, as he roved the 18th century Caribbean seas with his piratical band. An intellectual and dreamer, he had been taken as a slave, and now dedicated his life to destroying the slave trade and punishing injustice.

With a stalwart and scurvy crew of characters at his back this charismatic blend of Robin Hood, Sir Francis Drake and the Count of Monte Cristo captivated readers all over the world in single page installments of swashbuckling thrills and spectacular bravura art and narrative ingenuity that appeared in newspapers and weekly magazines as far apart as England, South America, France, and Australia.

Long considered a lost classic, it was gathered into an awesome collected edition (measuring 14.8 x 10.6 x 0.6 inches) by Dennis Kitchen thanks mainly to the good fortune and graces of another comics legend, Al Williamson, who had been a huge fan of the strip when it ran in ‘Paquin’ – a weekly strip anthology magazine he read growing up in Bogota, Colombia.

Years later the professional artist Williamson acquired an almost complete run of publisher’s proof sheets – in Spanish – which when translated and re-lettered would form the basis of this volume. Fellow well-wishers in France, England and Australia also contributed pages for an almost complete run.

Almost lost again, Hawks of the Seas was re-issued by Dark Horse as part of their Will Eisner Library (although at a more modest and bookshelf friendly 10.2 x 6.8 x 0.6 inches) and stands as a fascinating insight into this creator’s imaginative power, moral and philosophical fascinations and spellbinding ability to tell a great story with magical pictures. It’s also a superb adventure tale of pirates and derring-do that will captivate kids of all ages, so forget Jack Sparrow and get on the trail of The Hawk!

© 1986 Kitchen Sink Press. 2003 Will Eisner. All rights reserved.

By Joss Whedon & John Cassaday (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-1677-X

The high-quality tension continues unabated in the second collection of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s exemplary take on the world’s most popular team of misunderstood mutant super-heroes, reprinting Astonishing X-Men issues #7-12.

Rejoined by a team-member they’d believed long dead, the team take stock in the wake of the discovery of some dangerous intelligence. Not only is their campaign for public approval stalled due to the fact of an apparent cure for mutants, but also they realise that the Federal organisation S.H.I.E.L.D., through its subsidiary S.W.O.R.D., has possibly entered into an alliance with an alien civilisation to exterminate Earth’s mutant population. To make matters worse it seems one of the new team is either a traitor or an impostor…

Spectacular action and unforgettable dialogue are the standard for this series, and Whedon and Cassaday are playing at the top of their game. If only all X-Men stories could be this good…

© 2004, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

By Joe Gill & Steve Ditko
No ISBN

Steve Ditko is one of our industry’s greatest talents and probably America’s least lauded. His fervent desire to just get on with his job and to tell his stories the best way he can, whilst the noblest of aspirations, will always be of least consideration to the commercial interests that control production. So it’s a sheer delight to be able to look at his work from a happier time and a more innocent perspective.

In this slim volume, collecting four adventures of the giant ape Konga (‘The Land of Frozen Giants’– #8, ‘Monster Hunter’ – #11, ‘The Lonely One’ – #12 and ‘The Peacemaker’ – #13), plus the sci-fi short ‘Why He Survived’ (also from Konga #8), we see a confident artist nearing the peak of his powers making a frankly daft and cheesy “King Kong” knock-off look great and read well. Ditko’s uncanny ability to marry the intensely dramatic with the subversively “cartoony” is used to superb effect in the adventures of a misunderstood giant gorilla wandering the world, unknowingly fighting evil with innocence. Credit should also be given to the prolific, under-rated and much-missed Joe Gill, whose tight, economical and sly scripting on literally every subject and genre make so many Charlton titles into lost gems.

(N.B. Konga was originally a movie-tie in/licensed comic for a 1950s B-Movie. It survived its origins to become a relatively long-running title – at least by Charlton Comics’ standards.)

Also included in this high-quality black and white book – so appropriate considering the artist’s philosophical and creative fascinations – is a checklist of Ditko’s comic work, and a couple of ‘Flora the Explorer’ comedy shorts from Henry Boltinoff – another underappreciated mainstay of those more innocent and uncontroversial days.

© 1989 Robyn Snyder. All Rights Reserved.