{"id":12144,"date":"2014-07-12T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T08:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=12144"},"modified":"2014-07-12T11:04:26","modified_gmt":"2014-07-12T11:04:26","slug":"the-phoenix-presents-corpse-talk-season-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2014\/07\/12\/the-phoenix-presents-corpse-talk-season-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Phoenix Presents\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Corpse Talk Season 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Adam Murphy <\/strong>(David Fickling Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-910200-01-8<\/p>\n

The educational power of comic strips has been long understood and acknowledged: if you can make the material memorably enjoyable, there is nothing that can’t be better taught with pictures. The obverse is also true: comics can make any topic or subject come alive\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 or at least – as here – hilariously undead\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The conceit in Adam Murphy’s wonderful (Horrible Histories<\/strong> inspired?) cartoon feature Corpse Talk<\/strong> is that famous personages from the past are exhumed for a chatty, cheeky This Is<\/strong> (Was<\/strong>?) Your Life<\/strong> talk-show interview that, in Reithian terms, simultaneously \u00e2\u20ac\u0153elucidates, educates and entertains\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

It also often grosses one out, which is no bad thing for either a kids’ comic or a learning experience\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The third collected album release culled from the annals of The Phoenix<\/strong> (courtesy of those fine saviours of weekly comics at David Fickling Books) opens with introductory page ‘And Here’s your Host\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6’<\/em> and a creepy contents section ‘In the Guest Graveyard This Season’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Before the inspirational post-mortem autobiographies commence there’s also a splendidly informative archaeological burial-map entitled ‘Digging up the Bodies’<\/em> providing an effective contextual visual timeline for the likes of ‘Amelia Earhart’<\/em> and ‘Nikola Tesla’<\/em> to discuss their contributions to the modern world, whilst daring pirate ‘Anne Bonny’<\/em> provides a more lurid option for Careers Day, ably supplemented by an extra fact feature page ‘What a Drag!’<\/em> detailing one of the more unexpected problems for women dressing up as a male pirates\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Polar explorer ‘Ernest Shackleton’<\/em>, national hero ‘Joan of Arc’<\/em> and go-getting statesman and consolidator ‘Genghis Khan’<\/em> then respectively plead their post mortem cases, after which largely unsung explorer and scientist ‘Alexander von Humboldt’<\/em> finally gets his moment in the limelight before ‘Marie Curie’<\/em> – also augmented by a fact-page on her daunting ‘Killer Research’<\/em> – and ‘Emmeline Pankhurst’<\/em> describe how their singular contributions changed the world forever.<\/p>\n

Digging further back ‘Leonardo Da Vinci’<\/em> discusses his inventions, boy Pharaoh Tutankhmun<\/em> explains the strange reason for his many names in ‘King Tut’<\/em> and ‘Boudica’<\/em> reveals the shocking saga of her revolt against the Romans<\/p>\n

Author Murphy captivatingly indulges himself with the history of artistic inspiration (Katsushika) ‘Hokusai’<\/em> – also expanded by a page dedicated to ‘A Brush with Greatness’<\/em> – after which famous figures ‘Marie Antoinette’<\/em> and ‘Dick Turpin’<\/em> dish the dirt on the truth behind their legends and ‘Florence Nightingale’<\/em> remembers the bad old days with a supplementary examination of her later ‘Duvet Days’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

After ‘Grigori Rasputin’<\/em> and ‘Charles Dickens’<\/em> recount their own amazing careers a welcome break is offered in the form of a puzzle asking the reader to find and return the restless guests to their biers and sepulchres in ‘Body Count: the Graveyard’<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The cadaverous chat show resumes with ‘Winston Churchill’<\/em> and ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’<\/em> (complemented by ‘The Music Thief’<\/em> revealing the musical youth’s amazing powers of memory and discernment) after which ‘Mary Shelley’<\/em> discloses how her groundbreaking novel came about and ‘Julius Caesar’<\/em> details his rapid rise and fall.<\/p>\n

The strips then expand to two pages each for the contribution of his infamous paramour ‘Cleopatra’<\/em>, our own ‘Henry VIII’<\/em> and ‘Gandhi’<\/em>, whilst literary icon ‘Jane Austen’<\/em> includes her own appendix in ‘The Lost Austen’<\/em> – revealing what her sister Cassandra did to all her letters upon the author’s passing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Honest ‘Abe Lincoln’<\/em> reveals why he freed the slaves and ‘Albert Einstein’<\/em> discusses the nature of everything, whilst oddly merciful pirate ‘Blackbeard’<\/em> also offers extra bounty with the ghoulish catalogue of his death in ‘Dreaded, Deaded, Decapitated and Dunked’<\/em><\/p>\n

The mean man behind the myth is exposed in ‘Richard the Lionheart’<\/em> before ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’<\/em> takes four pages to detail their respective moments as queen, and Scots freedom fighter ‘William Wallace’<\/em> rousingly records his achievements before the interviews wrap up with the astounding journey of scientist, botanist and gentle hero ‘George Washington Carver’<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

To end the sessions on a fun note there then follows another quizzical corpse hunt in ‘Body Count: the Beach’<\/em> just to restore a little order to the proceeding.<\/p>\n

Smart, irreverent, funny and splendidly factual throughout The Phoenix Presents\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Corpse Talk Season 1<\/strong> cleverly but unflinchingly deals with history’s more tendentious moments whilst personalising the great and the good for the coming generation.<\/p>\n

It is also a fabulously fun read no parent or kid could possibly resist. Don’t take my word for it though, just check with the spirits in question…<\/p>\n