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Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse in Color

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse in Color 

By various and produced by Another Rainbow Publishing Inc. (Pantheon Books 1988)
ISBN 0-394-52519-9

Carl Barks is one of the greatest exponents of comic art that the world has ever seen, and he did almost all his work with Walt Disney characters. His work reached and affected untold millions of readers and he all too belatedly won far-reaching recognition.

One of his most talented associates, potentially even more influential and certainly much less lauded, is Floyd Gottfredson. Another strip artist who started out in the Walt Disney animation studios during the Depression of the 1930s, Gottfredson was asked by Disney himself to take over the fledgling Mickey Mouse newspaper strip. He would plot, occasionally write, but mostly draw the strip for forty-five-and-a-half years.

He took a wild and anarchic rodent from slap-stick beginnings, via some of the earliest adventure continuities in comics history as detective, explorer, aviator and even cowboy, through to the gentle suburban sitcom gags of a newly middle-class America that syndicate policy eventually forced upon him. Along the way he produced some of the most amazing strip adventures the industry has ever seen.

Mickey Mouse in Color is a lavish volume reprinting the best of the early strips with fascinating text and feature articles including interviews with the man himself, but the real gold is the cartoons themselves.

A mix of Sunday page yarns comprising ‘Rumplewatt the Giant (1934)’, ‘Dr. Oofgay’s Secret Serum (1934)’, the magnificent ‘Case of the Vanishing Coats (1935)’ and the whimsical ‘Robin Hood Adventure (1936)’ although superlative, are mere appetisers. The best stories and biggest laughs come with the rollickin’ comedy thrill-ride serials ‘Blaggard Castle (1932)’, ‘Pluto and the Dogcatcher (1933)’, ‘The Mail Pilot (1933)’ and the gloriously entertaining and legendary ‘Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot (1939)’.

Consistency is as rare as longevity in today’s comic market-place, and the sheer volume of quality work produced by Gottfredson that has remained unseen and unsung is a genuine scandal. Books like this should be welcomed, cherished, and most importantly, kept permanently in print.

© 1988 The Walt Disney Company. All Rights Reserved.

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Swamp Thing: Spontaneous Generation

Swamp Thing: Spontaneous Generation 

By Rick Veitch & Alfredo Alcala (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-260-6

The post-Alan Moore Swamp Thing comics have long been overlooked, and DC’s inevitable collecting of these tales is a genuine treat for fans of the muck monster and horror-fans in general. Writer-artist Rick Veitch, aided by veteran inker Alfredo Alcala, produced a run of mini-classics with these stories from Swamp Thing issues # 71-76 that built on Moore’s cerebral, visceral writing as the world’s planet elemental became increasingly involved with ecological matters.

Having decided to “retire”, Swamp Thing (an anthropomorphic plant with the personality and mind of murdered biologist Alec Holland) is charged with facilitating the creation of his/its successor, but the process has become contaminated by consecutive failures and false starts, leading to a horrendous series of abortive creatures and a potentially catastrophic Synchronicity Maelstrom.

Alec, his “wife” Abigail and the chillingly charismatic magician John Constantine have to combine forces – and indeed some body-fluids – to create a solution before the resultant chaos-storm destroys the Earth. ((see Hellblazer: Original Sins ISBN 1-84576-465-X and Swamp Thing: Regenesis ISBN 1-84023-994-8)

More than a decade and a half after the initial run, and with some necessary distance from grossly unfair comparisons to his predecessor, Veitch’s Swamp Thing stories can be seen as innovative, sly and witty, by a creator capable and satiric, but still wedded to the basic tenets of his craft, “keep them surprised, keep them wondering, keep them spooked”. You can do all this to yourself just by buying this book.

© 1988, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved

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Swamp Thing: Regenesis

Swamp Thing: Regenesis 

By Rick Veitch, Alfredo Alcala & Brett Ewins (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84023-994-8

With renewed interest in the big green guy due to his return to the DC Universe it seemed inevitable that all those issues not written by Alan Moore should eventually find their way between the glossy, stiffened covers of compilation albums.

This batch (Issue’s 65 – 70 of the second series) follows the plant elemental’s return to Earth and his lover Abby, and their complicated plan to have a child together. This they can only accomplish, with the grudging assistance of modern mage John Constantine (see Hellblazer: Original Sins ISBN 1-84576-465-X).

Also encountered along the way are DC stalwarts Batman, Jason Woodrue, Solomon Grundy and even 1950s hero Roy Raymond, TV Detective, as well as Moore’s eccentric cast of supporting characters. At time of publishing these tales were handily and unfairly dismissed, but they hold up very well and it’s good to see them aired when they can be assessed on their own merits. Trippy, but eminently enjoyable.

© 2005 DC Comics

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Swamp Thing: Love in Vain

Swamp Thing: Love in Vain 

By Joshua Dysart, Enrique Breccia & Timothy Green II (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-195-2

Swamp Thing is gradually trudging back to its horrific roots as Joshua Dysart touches all the old bases of exotic Louisiana Bayous, lonely women in rotting plasterboard shacks, do-it-yourself homunculi, and the latest return of arch-enemy Anton Arcane, whose periodic escapes from Hell are a guarantee of world-threatening gore and deplorability.

Also on show is a tent-Revival Evangelist whose congregations have a habit of disappearing in a volume of tales that although strikingly illustrated by the venerable Enrique Breccia (“Love in Vain”) and Timothy Green III (“A Measure of Faith”) seem to temporarily – we hope – treading water.

All punned out. Stopping now.

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: True Brit

Superman: True Brit 

Kim “Howard” Johnson & John Cleese, John Byrne & Mark Farmer
ISBN 1-4012-0022-2

I must be very hard to please. I’m always barking on about value and innovation, asking the producers of my favourite waste of time to be bold and try different things. So a Superman story using the talents of comic legend John Byrne and comedy superstar John Cleese should surely fill that bill?

Sadly, it would appear not. The premise of the alien foundling landing elsewhere than heartland America is a fundamental part of the Superman mythology now, and comedy is always a welcome break in such a messianic concept, but for Rao’s sake can’t the jokes be funny and the settings fresh? Let’s see what you get if that pesky rocket landed in a Welsh mining community or Birmingham or County Mayo rather than just cobble together a porridge of middle class suburbia, Wallace and Grommit backgrounds, Mary Poppins hand-me-downs and public school cast-offs.

This must have sounded so great around a restaurant table in a pitch meeting but the end result is just so terribly, terribly clichéd and pedestrian, merely slavishly pandering to American held myths of what the British are, do and think. I can hear editors saying “yeah, but our readers won’t get that so why don’t we…” all through this. And every time they said it the answer should have been “Nothing new there, then”.

Am I offended? Not particularly. Self deprecating humour is part and parcel of the British psyche. I just don’t like paying for old jokes and rejected shtick that was done better in the 1970’s (most notably in 2000AD‘s Kaptain Klep strip – some of Kev O’Neill’s best early work – and which you should track down).

I can understand importing major talent from outside the industry for a fresh approach. I can see the need for big names to expand the brand. What I can’t see is permitting sub-standard work. Surely they can do better than this?

And don’t call me Shirley.

© 2004 DC Comics

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Swamp Thing: Bad Seed

Swamp Thing: Bad Seed 

By Andy Diggle & Enrique Breccia (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84023-954-9

This revival of the Swamp Thing sees a return to the basics of the pre-Alan Moore version (against which all others must inevitably be measured), whilst keeping much of the extended continuity and what has become the Vertigo sensibility.

The plot ties up all the loose ends that floated about after the demise of the previous series wherein the daughter of the Bog God took over his mantle whilst he (it?) became the avatar of all the elemental configurations of Earth. Author Diggle brings back the original, re-establishes relationships with Alec Holland, Abigail, their daughter Tefé and flavour of the month John Constantine. More importantly, he and comics veteran Breccia return the sometimes overly cosmic lead character to – you should excuse the pun – his horror roots.

This one starts slow but I suspect, if following creators keep their feet firmly planted on or below the ground, we could all be in for some good reading in the seasons to come.

© 2005 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

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The God Interviews

The God Interviews 

By Natalie d’Arbeloff (NdA Press)
ISBN 978-0-9064-8713-6

Natalie d’Arbeloff is an artist, printmaker and author who creates comic strips on her blog featuring, I’m assuming, her semi-autobiographical character Blaugustine. In this book she has a series of chats with God – a friendly, mild-mannered, clean-shaven chap – about the kind of things that you would – if you’d been granted an interview. You know… ‘What’s it all about? Why does bad stuff happen? Are you really there?’

This gently philosophical – rather than theosophical – examination is whimsical and introspective, but never ponderous, delivered in a big, simple cartoon style and vivid, eye-catching colour, reminiscent of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine film. With an easy humour that would be appreciated by older children of all ages with the same questions.

There aren’t really any big new answers but to paraphrase Bob Dylan it’s not really about answers, but how we seek them, right?

See also www.nataliedarbeloff.com and www.nataliedabeloff.com/blaugustine.html

© 2006 Natalie d’Arbeloff. All Rights Reserved.

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Samurai Champloo vol 1

Samurai Champloo vol 1 

By Masaru Gotsubo. Created by Manglobe (Tokyopop)
ISBN 1-5918-2282-3

A novel spin on the traditional samurai adventure genre is the basis of this manga, adapted from a successful anime (that’s cartoon show to you and me) in that although set in the civil war torn Edo period of seventeenth century Japan, the creators have eschewed the usually slavish concentration on period authenticity in favour of style-setting creative anachronism.

As well as hip, modernistic dialogue worthy of a summer blockbuster, characters may sport Raybans and goatees in addition to swords and bows. Think of it like setting Macbeth in Al Capone’s Chicago.

Trust me. In this context and used judiciously, as here, it does work, and with surprising effect.

The plot concerns the wanderings of a disparate trio who have fallen together under harsh circumstances. Erroneously branded as outlaws, they travel through a wildly dangerous country, hide-bound but simultaneously lawless as civil war tears their society apart.

Mugen is a wild, undisciplined mercenary from Okinawa (an independent nation at this period of time), continually hungry and more animal than man. Jin is his polar opposite, refined, skilled, a perfect Samurai. He is so tightly wound, however, that he is almost paralysed by his lack of a reason to fight or to live. The catalyst in this relationship is Fuu, who they discover working as a waitress. She is a paradox and has a deeply held secret agenda. She “hires” them both as her bodyguards as she embarks on an obsessive quest to find a mysterious Samurai who smells of Sunflowers.

In their travels they encounter bandits, battles, ninjas and nobility with their own plans for the trio. All the trappings of traditional Japanese historical adventures are present but the skewed perspective of twenty-first century comedy-drama sensibilities bring some much needed lightness to the often ponderous and oppressive doom-laden destiny and Giri-bound honourable slaughter of the genre-form. In Samurai Champloo most of the slaughter – and there is a vast amount – is for laughs.

Champloo is a corruption of the Okinawan word “champuru” which means mix, fusion or hybrid. This splendid combination of fashion, street sensibility and stripped down basics of a genre provides thrills and laughs in equal measure, whilst providing a strong narrative thread and engaging characters to carry the reader along. And don’t forget the mystery. What could anybody want with a samurai who smells of sunflowers?

© 2005 Masaru Gotsubo. © Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos. All Rights Reserved.

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Modesty Blaise: The Green-Eyed Monster

Modesty Blaise: The Green-Eyed Monster 

By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84023-864-X

This volume is the first to feature Enric Badia Romero as sole artistic hand, following the unexpected death of the legendary Jim Holdaway partway through ‘The Warlords of Phoenix’ and as a means of easing him into the job author O’Donnell was asked to quickly write a lighter tale to follow up the epic. ‘Willie the Djinn’ plays well to the new artist’s strengths, and although there are echoes of a previous O’Donnell and Holdaway Romeo Brown adventure, this tale of kidnapped dancing girls, oil sheikhs and military coups is a short, sweet romp, and a nice change of pace to the usual storm of murder, intrigue and revenge.

Those elements return in full in the eponymous ‘Green-Eyed Monster’ as the spoiled and obnoxious daughter of a British ambassador is kidnapped by South American rebels and Modesty and Willie must use all their skills to get her out of the terrorists’ clutches, escape the deadly jungles and resist the overwhelming temptation to kill her themselves.

‘Death of a Jester’ closes out the volume as our heroes stumble across a bizarre murder that leads to another job for British spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant. A man in Jester’s garb is impaled by a knight’s lance and thrown to lions in a caper that revolves around Mediaeval Re-enactments, a band of bored and dangerous British ex-commandos and the impossible theft of the Navy’s latest super torpedo.

The infectious whimsy of the early 1970s was becoming increasingly present but under the strictly controlled conditions of the prolific and ingenious O’Donnell, Blaise and Garvin continued to carve out a well deserved reputation for excellence in these magnificent tales of modern adventure. Certified Gold.

© 2005 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.