Month: January 2011

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The Building


By Will Eisner (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 978-0-87816-025-9 Hardcover 0-87616-024-8

William Erwin Eisner was born in 1906, on March 6th in Brooklyn, and grew up in the ghettos of the city. They never left him. After time served inventing much of the visual semantics, semiotics and syllabary of the medium he dubbed “Sequential Art” in strips, comicbooks, newspaper premiums and instructional comics he then invented the mainstream graphic novel, bringing maturity, acceptability and public recognition to English language comics.

In 1978 Poorhouse Press released A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories, a collection of four original short stories in comics form. All the tales centre around 55 Dropsie Avenue, a typical 1930’s Bronx tenement, housing poor Jewish and immigrant families. It changed America’s perception of strips and led to 20 further masterpieces from Eisner, consequently opening the door for creators to escape their own creative ghettos of superheroes, funny animals and other juvenilia. At one stroke comics grew up.

Eisner was a consummate creator, honing his skills not just on the legendary Spirit but with years of educational and promotional material. In A Contract With God he moved into unexplored territory with truly sophisticated, mature themes worthy of Steinbeck and F. Scott Fitzgerald, using pictorial fiction as documentary exploration of social experience.

Restlessly plundering his own childhood and love of human nature as well as his belief that environment was a major and active character in fiction, Eisner created The Building; a beguiling portmanteau saga of four lost souls and the pile of bricks and mortar that shaped their lives.

The 14-storey corner-edifice stood at a busy intersection for 80 years but New York is a hungry city and it was eventually torn down, replaced in short months by a prestigious new office complex. One day a quartet of ghosts appeared outside the gleaming new Hammond Building, invisibly waiting for something to happen…

Monroe Mensh had lived in the old building for years. One day a senseless tragedy changed his life forever and plagued with guilt, he spent his remaining days trying to atone. He never did, at least not to his own satisfaction…

Gilda Green could have had her pick of boys, but loved Benny, an unsuccessful poet. After years of waiting she settled for a dentist, security and lifelong dissatisfaction. Gilda never stopped seeing Benny; meeting for lunches and sometimes more outside the old pile as it gradually fell into disrepair. One day she didn’t keep her appointment…

Antonio Tonatti loved music but was never good enough for the big-paying gigs. He started working construction but had an accident. He couldn’t work but the settlement provided enough to live on, so he began playing again on the street corner, just to keep occupied and to make folks feel happier. For decades and more he played. Even whilst the new building was going up he played his corner, until one day he never turned up…

P. J. Hammond came from money and was forced into the family’s Real Estate business. He hated it but eventually became an even bigger bastard than his father. He spent most of his life acquiring properties on that street but the old building eluded him for decades, forcing him into ever greater excess and expense. By the time he finally acquired it he had no capital left to exploit his victory. When he was finally forced to sell, the new owners condescended to name the new skyscraper after him. He didn’t live long enough to gloat…

One morning four ghosts waited outside the Hammond Building, hoping that fate and circumstance would give them a final opportunity to fulfil the existences their sorry lives had not…

Eisner’s elegiac fascination with city life, deep empathy with all aspects of the human condition and instinctive grasp of storytelling produced here a gloriously comi-tragic melodrama, moving and uplifting in the classic manner of such films as It’s a Wonderful Life, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir or The Enchanted Cottage.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry…

Sometimes the Medium is the Message, especially when the artefact is a substantially solid tome delivering magical artwork in seductive, nostalgic sepia line and tone – and if, like smug old me you’re rereading a signed, numbered hardcover with tipped in illustrative plate for the umpteenth time – then you’re as near to paradise as any jaded old realist can get, but to be frank any edition of Will Eisner’s The Building that you can get, you really, really should…

Art and story © 1987 Will Eisner. © 1987 Kitchen Sink Press. All Rights Reserved.

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Anarcoma


By Nazario, translated by David H. Rosenthal (Catalan Communications)
No ISBN

Here’s another warning: this book is filled with graphic homosexual acts, full frontal nudity and coarse language: if that causes you any offence don’t buy this book and don’t read this review. The rest of us will manage without you.

You know what it’s like: sometimes you’re just in the mood for something challenging, different or just plain nasty and nothing better sums up that feeling than this startling pastiche of film noir chic transposed into the even grimmer, darker and nastier milieu of the gay-underworld of post-Franco Spain.

Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a right-wing general who ruled the country from 1947 until his death in 1975, “on behalf” of a puppet monarchy helpless to resist him. His repressive Christian-based attitudes held the country in an iron time-lock for decades as the rest of the world moved an around him. Vera Luque Nazario was an intellectual, college professor and cartoonist living under the fascist regime, but inspired by the freedom and exuberant graphic license displayed in American underground commix, especially the works of R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton and possibly Spain Rodriguez.

In an oppressive state that openly advocated the “curing” of homosexuals, Nazario founded an artist’s collective or “contracultural group” in 1971 to produce home-grown underground commix (El Rollo Enmascarado, Paupérrimus, Catalina, Purita and others) often incurring the wrath of the Francoist censors and police. His work received far fairer treatment outside Spain, appearing in such groundbreaking mature magazines as It, Actuel, Oz, Gai Pied, and L’Echo des Savanes.

When Franco died the country opened up and there was a tumultuous cascade of artistic expression. Extremely strident adult material designed to shock began to appear in new magazines such as El Víbora, Cannibale and Frigidaire. After years of comics production multi-talented artist Nazario eventually moved into design and record cover production. In recent years he has concentrated on painting and his first prose novel was released in 2006.

Anarcoma began as strip in a porn magazine, but that quickly folded and the artist transferred the feature to El Víbora in 1979, reveling in homoerotic excess in a magazine with no censorial boundaries. It ran for years and this hardcover translation is but the first collection of many.

Symbols of freedom never came more outrageously formed that Anarcoma; a spectacularly endowed, star-struck transvestite private detective who hangs all-out in the notorious red-light district of Las Ramblas. A stunning blend of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall “she” works as prostitute and club entertainer while pursuing her dream of becoming a real gumshoe like the ones in the American movies she adores…

Life is complicated: ex-army buddy Humphrey is her current her boyfriend, but he won’t leave his wife and kids and Anarcoma’s hobby has won her no friends among both the cops and the criminal gangs run by the ruthless Captain Seahorse. Moreover there are even weirder and more dangerous folk around…

After a series of profound prose appreciations from Alberto Cardín and Ludolfo Paramio and a thoroughly absorbing cartoon cast-list, the ultra-explicit adventure begins…

The city is in turmoil: Professor Onliyu’s latest invention has been stolen. Nobody knows what it does but everybody wants it and Anarcoma thinks she has a lead…

The trail leads through all the sleaziest dives and dens, and implicates almost everybody at one time or another, but when the manic religious order The Black Count and his Knights of Saint Represent and feminist paramilitaries Metamorphosina and her One-Eyed Piranhas start their own conflicting campaigns for the missing machine, Anarcoma is distracted and almost loses her life to a mysterious sex-robot XM2.

Luckily her charms extend and affect even artificial he-men…

Outrageously brutal and sexually graphic, this devastatingly ironic genre mish-mash is audacious and bizarre, but unflinchingly witty as is probes the role of hero in society and eulogises the heady power of liberation.

Anarcoma was first released in 1980, but even by today’s laxer standards the incredibly violent and satirically, staggeringly baroque pastiche is a shocking, controversial piece of work. Raw, shocking and wickedly delightful; the perfect walk on the wild side for people with open minds and broad tastes.
© 1983 by Nazario. English edition © 1983 Catalan Communications. All Rights Reserved.

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Essential Werewolf By Night volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Mike Ploog, Doug Moench & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1839-8

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was the en mass creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in superhero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules. Almost overnight nasty monsters (and narcotics – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too) the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always the watch-world was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in Marvel moved ahead with a line of scary superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire – before chancing something new in a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist.

Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2 (preceded by western masked hero Red Wolf in #1, and followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider) although the title, if not the character, was cribbed from a classic monster-short thriller from Marvel Tales #116, July 1953.

Marvel had a long-time tradition of using old (presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got nominal starts as throwaways in an anthology…

This copious compendium collects in moody monochrome the early adventures of a young West Coast werewolf and includes Marvel Spotlight #2-4, Werewolf By Night Volume 1 #1-21, Giant-Size Creatures #1, a guest appearance in Marvel Team-Up #12 and the appropriate half of a horror crossover with Tomb of Dracula #18 and begins with the landmark first appearance which introduced young Jack Russell, a teenager with some very disturbing dreams…

‘Werewolf by Night!’ (Marvel Spotlight #2, February 1972, written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Mike Ploog from an outline by Roy & Jeanie Thomas) described the worst day of Jack’s life – his 18th birthday, which began with nightmares and ended in something far worse.

Jack’s mom and little sister Lissa were wonderful but his new stepfather Philip and the creepy chauffeur Grant were another matter… That night at his party Jack had a painful seizure and fled into the Malibu night transforming into a ravening vulpine man-beast. The next morning he awoke wasted on the beach to discover that his mother had been gravely injured in a car-crash. Something had happened to her brakes…

He crept into her hospital room and she told him the story of his blood-father; an Eastern European noble who loved her deeply but locked himself away three nights every month… The Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthopy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reached eighteen. Jack was horrified and then realised how soon his sister would reach her own majority…

With her dying breath Laura Russell made her son promise never to harm his stepfather, no matter what…

Scenario set with the wolf-boy transforming for three nights every month, the weird, wild wonderment began in earnest with the beast attacking Grant the chauffeur – who had fixed those brakes – but the beast-boy refrained, even in vulpine form, from attacking Philip Russell…

The untitled second instalment saw the monster rescue Lissa from a skeevy biker gang (they were everywhere back then) and narrowly escape the police only to be abducted by a sinister dowager seeking knowledge of a magical tome called the Darkhold – an eldritch spellbook that was the basis of the Russoff curse, whilst the third tryout issue ‘Island of the Damned!’ introduced Buck Cowan, an aging writer who became Jack’s best friend as the pair began to jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s stepfather.

The elder Russell had apparently sold off Jack’s inheritance leaving the boy nothing but an old book. Following a paper trail to find proof Philip had had Laura Russell killed led the pair to an offshore fortress, a dungeon full of horrors and a ruthless mutant seductress…

That episode ended on a cliffhanger, presumably as added incentive to buy Werewolf By Night #1(September 1972) wherein Frank Chiaramonte took over inking with ‘Eye of the Beholder!’ as deadly freak Marlene Blackgar and her monstrous posse captured the entire Russell family looking for the Book of Sins. Once more, as night fell a fearsome force of supernature awoke to accidentally save the day…

With ‘The Hunter… and the Hunted!’ Jack and Buck left the grimoire that had caused so much trouble with Father Joquez, a Christian monk and scholar of ancient texts, but even so they were still hunted because of it. Jack left the rural wastes of Malibu for a new home in Los Angeles, trading concrete for forests but life was no easier.

Dying scientist Cephalos wanted to harness Jack’s feral life-force to extend his own and lived but briefly to regret. Meanwhile Joquez succeeded in translating the Darkhold, but his accomplishment allowed an ancient horror to possess him in ‘The Mystery of the Mad Monk!’ and whilst the werewolf was saddened to end such a noble life it felt far happier dealing with millionaire sportsman Joshua Kane, who wanted a truly unique head mounted on the wall of his den in ‘The Danger Game’ (inked by Franke Bolle).

Half-naked, exhausted and soaked to his now hairless skin Jack next had to deal with Kane’s psychotic brother who wanted the werewolf for his pet assassin in ‘A Life for a Death!’ by Len Wein and Ploog, before ‘Carnival of Fear!’ (Wein, Ploog & Bolle) found the beast a captive of the mystic Swami Calliope and his deadly circus of freaks. The wolf was now the subject of an obsessive police detective too. Lou Hackett was an “old-school cop” – an old buddy of trophy-hunter Joshua Kane and every bit as charming: but his off-the-books investigation had hardly begun when the Swami’s plans fell apart in the concluding ‘Ritual of Blood!’ (inked by Jim Mooney).

The beast was safely(?) loose in the backwoods for #8’s quirky monster-mash when an ancient demon possessed a cute little bunny in ‘The Lurker Behind the Door!‘ (Wein, Werner Roth & Paul Reinman) before returning to LA and ‘Terror Beneath the Earth!’ (Conway, Tom Sutton & George Roussos) and impeding a nefarious scheme by business cartel the Committee. These out-of the-box commercial gurus somehow had a full dossier on Jack Russell’s night-life and a radical plan to use monsters and derelicts to boost sales in a down-turned economy.

However their bold sales scheme to frighten folk into spending more was over before it began as the werewolf proved to be far from a team-player in the wrap up ‘The Sinister Secret of Sarnak!’

Werewolf by Night #11 saw Marv Wolfman sign on as writer for ‘Comes the Hangman’ (illustrated by the incredible Gil Kane and Tom Sutton), in which we learned something interesting about Philip Russell and the Committee, whilst Jack’s attention was distracted by a new apartment, a very odd neighbour and a serial kidnapper abducting young women to keep them safe from “corruption.” When he took Lissa Russell the hooded maniac soon found himself hunted…

The concluding chapter ‘Cry Werewolf!’ introduced the criminally underappreciated Don Perlin as inker, who would in a few short months become the strip’s penciller for the rest of the run, but before that Ploog and Chiaramonte returned for another session, introducing a manic mystic and a new love-interest (not the same person) in ‘His Name is Taboo’. An aged sorcerer wanted the werewolf’s energies for his own arcane purposes but his adopted daughter Topaz found her loyalties divided and her psionic abilities more help than hindrance to the ravening moon-beast.

‘Lo, the Monster Strikes!’ pitted the wolf against Taboo’s undead son and saw revelation and reconciliation between Philip and Jack Russell. As a result the young man and new girlfriend Topaz set off for Transylvania, the ancestral Russoff estate and a crossover confrontation with the Lord of Vampires.

Tomb of Dracula #18 (March 1974) began the clash in ‘Enter: Werewolf by Night’ (by Wolfman, Gene Colan & Tom Palmer) as Jack and Topaz investigated a possible cure for lycanthropy, only to be attacked by Dracula. Driven off by the girl’s psychic powers the Count realised the threat she posed to him and determined to slay her… In Werewolf by Night #15 ‘Death of a Monster!’ (Wolfman, Ploog & Chiaramonte) the battle of the beasts resolved into a draw, but only after Jack learned of his family’s long connection to Dracula…

Sadder, wiser but no less accursed, Jack headed back to America with Topaz but a unplanned stopover in Paris led to an impromptu clash with a modern incarnation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame (he doesn’t sing and he’s not very gentle here) in Ploog’s farewell performance ‘Death in the Cathedral!’

Issue #17 ‘The Behemoth!’ by Mike Friedrich and Don Perlin, saw Jack and Topaz escape Paris only to fall into the Committee’s latest scheme as the blustering Baron Thunder and his favourite monster tried to make the werewolf their plaything again, before the secret of Jack’s mystery neighbour was revealed in ‘Murder by Moonlight!’ as Thunder attacked again aided by witch-queen Ma Mayhem. However that was all a feint for the Committee to kidnap Lissa who would, one day, be a werewolf too…

Whilst searching for his sister Jack fell foul of two undead film-stars haunting the Hollywood backlots in #19’s ‘Vampires on the Moon’ whilst Giant-Size Creatures #1 re-imagined a failed costumed crusader to introduce a new hairy hero in ‘Tigra the Were-Woman!’ (Tony Isabella, Perlin and Vince Colletta) as Greer Nelson, one-time feminist avenger The Cat, was “killed” by Hydra agents, revived by ancient Cat-People and became an unwilling object of temporary affection to the feral and frisky Jack Russell…

Following ‘Waiter, there’s a Werewolf in my Soup!’ a text piece also from Giant-Size Creatures that explained the genesis of Marvel’s horror line, WBN #20 brought aboard Doug Moench to wrap up all the disparate plot threads in ‘Eye of the Wolf!’, a rushed but satisfactory conclusion featuring many werewolves, Thunder, Mayhem and lots and lots of action.

With the decks cleared Moench began to make the series uniquely his own, beginning with #21’s ‘One Wolf’s Cure… Another’s Poison!’ as the writer began playing up the ever encroaching 18th birthday of little Lissa and engineered the final reckoning with off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his hunt for the werewolf…

With the stage set for some truly outrageous yarn-spinning (all covered in a second Essential volume) this first compendium ends with a slight but engaging Marvel Team-Up #12 wherein Wein, Conway, Ross Andru and Don Perlin produced ‘Wolf at Bay!’ as the Wall-Crawler met the Werewolf and battled malevolent Mage Moondark in foggy, fearful San Francisco.

Topped off with the werewolf’s text entry from the Marvel Universe Handbook and an unused Ploog cover for Marvel Spotlight #4, this moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action covers some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history; tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling. If you must have a mixed bag of lycanthropes, bloodsuckers and moody young misses – this is a far more entertaining mix than many modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…

© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2005 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman versus Terminator: Death to the Future


By Alan Grant & Steve Pugh (DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-476-8

I’ve never been all that partial to crossovers combining licensed characters. It seems to contravene an intrinsic law of narrative integrity simply for petty profit when two (or more) disparate headlining money-spinners are shoehorned into a story with scant regard for intrinsic values and often necessitating ludicrous plot-maguffins simply to make the match work. How many of these packages actually convert die-hards and newbies into comics fans?

Pleasantly countering that admittedly Grumpy Old Attitude is this rather effective star-sandwich that adds rather than combines the terrifying potential tomorrow of the Terminator films and Dark Horse comicbooks to the bright shiny world of Superman…

Sarah Connor and her son John are on the run and their prolonged flight has brought them to Metropolis, but even the home of Superman is not proof against unstoppable killer robots from a dystopian tomorrow where rogue computer Skynet has almost completed its program to exterminate humanity.

With Terminators ripping up his streets the Man of Steel is quick to step in and soon learns that the unconventional boy he’s protecting is destined to save mankind – but only if he isn’t murdered before he can begin…

Unknown to all, the cybernetic assassins have an ally: a techno-organic psychopath known as the Cyborg Superman. His insider knowledge allows Skynet to specifically upgrade its next wave of walking time-bombs against the Man of Tomorrow, and with the present looking shaky Superman is whisked into the turbulent future to join an old friend in taking the battle directly to Skynet.

With the capable Connors and Lois Lane holding the fort, assisted by Supergirl and Superboy, shady billionaire-technocrat Lex Luthor offers his double-edged assistance… but is he protecting his empire or prospecting for the future’s unborn secrets?

Meanwhile thirty years way Superman and humanity’s last defenders risk everything on a last-ditch raid on Skynet, but even with victory achieved there’s a nasty surprise awaiting the Caped Kryptonian when he gets back from the future…

Originally released as a four issue miniseries collaboration between DC and Dark Horse in 1999, this gripping script from the always-entertaining Alan Grant and stunning illustration from Steve Pugh, Mike Perkins and colourist David Stewart drive the high-octane, high-tension thriller with non-stop energy, delivering a killer punch that will delight fans of both franchises and perfectly proves that when it comes to spectacle and intensity, comics always have the home-ground advantage.
Text and illustrations © 1999, 2000 DC Comics, Inc., Canal+ DA and Dark Horse Comics, Inc. All other material © 2000 Dark Horse Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Harvey Kurtzman’s Strange Adventures


By Harvey Kurtzman & various (Epic Comics/A Byron Preiss Book)
ISBN: 0-87135-675-9

Creative cartoon genius Harvey Kurtzman is probably the most important cartoonist of the last half of the 20th century. His early triumphs in the fledgling field of comicbooks (Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and especially the groundbreaking Mad magazine) would be enough for most creators to lean back on but Kurtzman was a force in newspaper strips (See Flash Gordon Complete Daily Strips 1951-1953) and a restless innovator, a commentator and social explorer who kept on looking at folk and their doings and couldn’t stop creating.

He invented a whole new format when he converted the highly successful colour comicbook Mad into a black and white magazine, safely distancing the brilliant satirical publication from the fall-out caused by the 1950s comics witch-hunt which eventually killed all EC’s other titles.

He pursued comedy and social satire further with the magazines Trump, Humbug and Help!, all the while still creating challenging and powerfully effective funny strips such as Little Annie Fannie (for Playboy), The Jungle Book, Nutz, Goodman Beaver, Betsy and her Buddies and many more. He died far too soon in 1993.

This intriguing oddment from 1990 saw the Great Observer return to his comic roots by spoofing and lambasting strip characters, classic cinema and contemporary sentiments in a series of vignettes illustrated by some of the biggest names of the time.

After a captivating introduction from ex-student Art Spiegleman, a stunning pin-up from Moebius and an overview from project coordinator Byron Preiss, the fun begins with a typically upbeat cartoon appreciation from R.Crumb: ‘Ode to Harvey Kurtzman’ which was coloured by Eric Palma, after which the Harvey-fest begins in earnest…

‘Shmegeggi of the Cave Men’ visually revives the author’s legendary Goodman Beaver, dislocating him to that mythic antediluvian land of dim brutes, hot babes in fur bikinis and marauding dinosaurs to take a look at how little sexual politics has progressed in a million years – all exquisitely painted by cartoonist, movie artist and paleontological illustrator William Stout, after which Sergio Aragonés adds his inimitable mania to the stirring piratical shenanigans of the dashing ‘Captain Bleed’ (with striking hues supplied by his Groo accomplice Tom Luth).

Western parody ‘Drums Along the Shmohawk’ is an all Kurtzman affair as the scribe picks up his pens and felt-tips to describe how the sheriff and his stooge paid a little visit to the local tribe…

Cartoonist, fine artist and illustrator Tomas Bunk contributes a classically underground and exuberant job depicting ‘A Vampire Named Mel’ whilst arch-stylist Rick Geary helps update the most famous canine star in history with ‘Sassy, Come Home’.

Limey Living Legend Dave Gibbons utilises his too-seldom-seen gift for comedy by aiding and abetting in what we Brits term “a good kicking” to the superhero genre in the outrageous romp ‘The Silver Surfer’ and the cartoon buffoonery concludes with Kurtzman and long-time associate Sarah Downs smacking a good genre while it’s down and dirty in ‘Halloween, or the Legend of Creepy Hollow’.

But wait, there’s more…

This seductive oversized hardback also has an abundant section devoted to creator biographies supplemented with pages and pages of Kurtzman’s uniquely wonderful pencil rough script pages – almost like having the stories printed twice…

Fun, philosophical fantasy and fabulous famous, artist folk: what more do you need to know…
© 1990 by Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc. Each strip © 1990 Harvey Kurtzman and the respective artist. All Rights Reserved.

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Agent 13: Acolytes of Death – A TSR Graphic Novel


By Flint Dille, Buzz Dixon & Dan Spiegle (TSR)
ISBN: 0-88038-800-5

Tactical Studies Rules was a backroom venture started in 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye which they grew into the monolithic role-playing and recreational fantasy empire TSR, Inc. revolutionising home entertainment in the days before cheap home computers and on-line video games.

Beginning with formally published scenarios and rules for Dungeons and Dragons, Cavaliers and Roundheads and others including gaming versions of Marvel Comics characters, Movies, TV shows and cartoon classics like Rocky and Bullwinkle, they swiftly branched out into figures and miniatures, magazines, models, table-top war games, fantasy fiction, collector card-sets and inevitably comics – firstly licensing their properties to companies like DC (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and many more before inevitably creating their own line of comicbook and graphic novel “Modules” in the 1990s, based on their own game product, licensed properties such as Indiana Jones, Buck Rogers and even their critically acclaimed fantasy novels.

One of my very favourites is an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink period pulp action romp based on their kids novel series Agent 13: the Midnight Avenger (by Flint Dille and David Marconi) which shamelessly blended elements of the Shadow, Indiana Jones and Mandrake the Magician with classic horror and conspiracy thrillers to produce frantic fast-paced adventures of international intrigue and supernatural suspense set in the days before World War II.

Acolytes of Death is actually the second graphic novel volume (its predecessor Agent 13: the Midnight Avenger adapted to comics form the two novels The Invisible Empire and The Serpentine Assassin) but works as stand-alone saga which finds the indomitable super-spy, trained in the mysteries of ancient Lemuria, engaging his world-wide band of undercover operatives in a deadly quest.

It’s 1939 and at stake is humanity itself as immortal villain and would-be global dictator Itsu nears the end of his undying life. Preparing to enact an arcane ritual to renew his sinister eldritch energies, he convenes all the forces of darkness subject to his will: secret societies, witches, zombies and the world’s first vampire, to seek out the ideal venue for his unholy rebirth…

He has to be stopped: after all, just one of his wicked schemes is manipulating the nations of the Earth into another World War. He has other plans he hasn’t even started yet…

Agent 13’s uncanny powers are a result of his having been trained by the Brotherhood; Itsu’s cult of wizards and ninja-like Jinda Warriors, but the heroic tough guy rebelled and has been destroying these instigators of terror and chaos ever since…

Now in a rollercoaster race from Soviet Russia to Spain to New Orleans, 13, his dedicated associates and the sultry, morally ambivalent mercenary China White struggle to prevent the Dark Savant’s ultimate triumph, but can 13 trust his allies and the omens when so much is at stake…?

Fast-paced, far-fetched, joyous and frenetic, this is pure non-stop, action-packed nonsense of the sort beloved by fans of summer blockbuster movies, stirring and silly but utterly engrossing. The script rattles along and the incredible art by unsung genius Dan Spiegle (ably augmented by letterer Carrie Spiegle and colourist Les Dorscheid) is mesmerising in its expansive majesty.

Published in the extravagant, sleekly luxurious over-sized 285mm x 220mm European album format, this tantalising tome, as a graphic “module” also contains a fold-out map, counters, gaming data and background as well as a rule-set, just in case you and some judiciously selected friends feel like having a go at changing the spectacular ending…
© 1990 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Agent 13 is a trademark owned by Flint Dille and David Marconi.

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Miss Don’t Touch Me volume 2


By Hubert & Kerascoet, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN:  978-1-56163-592-4

The first volume introduced innocent housemaid Blanche who one night espied a psychopathic murderer in the house next door. Intending to silence the witness “the Butcher of the Dances” mistakenly killed Blanche’s sister Agatha and her employers sacked her to avoid a scandal, throwing the pious innocent onto the streets of fin de siècle Paris. She found refuge and unique employment within the plush corridors of The Pompadour, arguably the city’s most exclusive and lavishly opulent bordello.

Fiercely hanging on to her virginity against all odds Blanche became Miss Don’t Touch Me, a spirited and energetic proponent of the “English Method” – specifically, she became an excessively enthusiastic flagellating dominatrix beating the dickens out of men who delighted in the exquisite pain and exorbitant cost. The first volume ended with Justice for both Blanche and the Butcher…

This delightfully audacious and risqué sequel opens with Blanche, virtue still infamously intact, as the most popular attraction at the Pompadour, which is undergoing an expensive and disruptive refit. However the girl is unhappy with her life and tries to flee, buy and even blackmail herself out of Miss Don’t Touch Me’s contract. She is made brutally aware of how business is really done in the twilight world of the courtesan-for-hire…

Thoroughly trapped, Blanche loses all hope until she becomes slowly enamoured of the Apollo-like young dandy Antoine, one of the wealthiest men in the country and a man apparently content to simply talk with her… At the same time her unscrupulous, conniving mother returns to Paris and begins to avail herself of her daughter’s guilt-fuelled generosity and social contacts…

Blanche’s velvet-gloved imprisonment seems destined to end when her bon vivant boy begins to talk of marriage, but as suddenly her life at the brothel begins to unravel. Obviously the aristocrat’s dowager mother has no stomach for the match, but social humiliation is not the same as the malicious lies, assaults, attacks and even attempted poisoning that Blanche experiences.

Moreover, the genteel dominatrix’s mother seems to hold a hidden secret concerning Antoine’s family and, if they are to be wed, why doesn’t the prospective groom want his bride-to-be to give up her day – or more accurately – evening job?

Originally published in France as Le Prince Charmant and Jusqu’a ce que la Mort Nous Separe this enticing, knowing and hugely enthralling tale follows the inspired murder-mystery of volume 1 with a classic period melodrama of guerilla Class Warfare that promises tragic and shocking consequences, especially once Antoine mysteriously disappears and the apparently benevolent brain surgeon Professor Muniz begins his terrifying work…

A compelling saga full of secrets, this engagingly sophisticated confection from writer/colorist Hubert, illustrated with irrepressible panache by Kerascoet (artistic collaborators Marie Pommepuy and Sébastien Cosset) will further delight the wide variety of grown-up readers who made the first book such a popular and critical success.

© 2008, 2008 Dargaud by Kerascoet & Hubert. All Rights Reserved. English Translation © 2010 NBM.

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Penelope Rides Again


By Thelwell (Mandarin)
ISBN: 978-0-74930-735-6

Norman Thelwell is one of Britain’s most beloved cartoonists and his appeal hasn’t dwindled since his untimely death in 2004. If you want to know more about this brilliant creator – and see more of his work before you inevitably succumb and start hunting down the 42 assorted books themselves – you should simply crank up your preferred search-engine and go hunting. I especially recommend his official website www.thelwell.org.uk/biography/biography.html or the always entrancing and revelatory Bear Alley from British comics art scholar Steve Hollands.

Thelwell’s superbly gentle cartooning combined Bigfoot abstractions with a keen and accurate eye for background detail, not just on the riding and countryside themes that made him a household name, but on all the myriad subjects he turned his canny eye to. His pictures are an immaculate condensation of everything warm yet charged and resonant about being Post-War, Baby-Booming British, without ever being parochial or provincial. His work has international implications and scope, neatly achieving that by presenting us to the world. There are dozens of books to enjoy, both humorous and instructional, and any aficionado of humour and masterful draftsmanship could do much worse than own them all.

From 1950 when his gag-panel Chicko first began in the Eagle, and especially two years later with his first sale to Punch, he built a solid body of irresistible, seductive and always funny work. He appeared in innumerable magazines, comics and papers ranging from Men Only to Everybody’s Weekly. In 1957 Angels on Horseback, his first collection of published cartoons was released, and in 1961 he made the rare reverse trip by releasing a book of all-new cartoons that was subsequently serialised in the Sunday Express.

A Leg at Each Corner was a huge success and other books followed. Eventually this led to the strip collected in the book reviewed here, a hilarious weekly account of the dubious joys of riding and the ineffable love between little monsters and the demented children who try to ride them.

Apparently Thelwell’s short, obnoxious muses originated in the field next door to his home, where roamed two shaggy ponies. As he recalled years later…

“Small and round and fat and of very uncertain temper” – apparently owned by “Two little girls about three feet high who could have done with losing a few ounces themselves….”

“As the children got near, the ponies would swing round and present their ample hindquarters and give a few lightning kicks which the children would side-step calmly as if they were avoiding the kitchen table, and they had the head-collars on those animals before they knew what was happening. I was astonished at how meekly they were led away; but they were planning vengeance – you could tell by their eyes.”

Those determined little lasses were a lasting inspiration and led to a long-running newspaper strip featuring the equine trials and tribulations of an irrepressible young lady and her hairy true love which ran under the title Penelope in the Sunday Express sporadically from 1962 to 1971.

Also regularly appearing were a coterie of equally stalwart, philosophical stable-mates including the unflappable Fiona on her Old English Sheep-horse and Billy Bog-Spavin and Magnus – a couple of boys whom you’d think would know better – daily risking life and limb on the surly backs of squat, demonic steeds.

Of course the real star is the shambling, greedy, lazy and downright hostile Kipper – clearly a thinly disguised Przewalski’s Horse (world’s most savagely truculent herbivore – look it up and see!) who spent most of the strip’s run in  the Sunday Express from 1962 to 1971 eating, throwing, kicking and generally frustrating that sweetly determined little girl.

This second collection is far harder to find than the first, which leads me to ask why some savvy publisher hasn’t already gathered both these delightful books into one irresistible complete edition? Timeless laughs, brilliant art and cute fluffy critters (except the ponies): who could resist?
© 1989 Norman Thelwell and Express Newspapers Plc.

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Fearless Fosdick


By Al Capp (Kitchen Sink Press)
ISBN: 978-0-87816-108-9

Al Capp’s Li’l Abner is rightly considered one of the greatest comic strips ever created, a devastatingly satirical, superbly illustrated, downright brilliant comedic masterwork which lampooned anything and everything America held dear and literally reshaped their popular culture. Generations of readers took Capp’s outrageous inventions and graphic invectives to their hearts. Many of the strips best lines and terms entered the language as did the role-reversing college bacchanal known as Sadie Hawkins Day and some fictional shticks even became licensed and therefore “real” – just Google “Shmoo” and “Kickapoo Joy-juice” to see what I mean…

Apart from the satirical and funny bits you can say pretty much the same about Chester Gould’s legendary lawman Dick Tracy – a landmark creation which has influenced all popular fiction, not simply comics. Baroque villains, outrageous crimes and fiendish death-traps have pollinated the work of numerous strips, shows and movies since then, but the indomitable Tracy’s studied use – and startlingly accurate predictions – of crime fighting technology and techniques gave the world a taste of cop thrillers, police procedurals and forensic mysteries such as CSI decades before our current fascination took hold.

In August 1942 Alfred Gerald Caplin, as he didn’t prefer to be known, took a studied potshot at the cartooning game, joyously biting the hand that fed him (grudgingly and far from enough) when he introduced a frantic, barbed parody of Tracy into Li’l Abner, Fearless Fosdick (as depicted by “Lester Gooch”) was a deadpan, compulsively honest, straight-laced cop who worked for a pittance in a corrupt, venal crime-plagued city, controlled by shifty, ungrateful authorities i.e. typical bosses. Fosdick slavishly followed the exact letter of the law, if not the spirit: always over-reacting, and often shooting litterbugs and Jay-walkers whilst letting bandits and murderers escape.

The extended gag began as a sly poke at strip cartoonists and syndicates whom Capp portrayed as slavering maniacs and befuddled psychotics manipulated by ruthless, shameless, rapacious exploiters. It became so popular on its own admittedly bizarre merits that Fosdick’s sporadic appearances quickly generated licensed toys and games, a TV puppet show and a phenomenally popular advertising deal for Wildroot Cream-Oil hair tonic.

The hard-hitting, obtuse he-man hero was the impulsive Abner’s “Ideel” and whenever the crime-crusher appeared as a strip within the strip the big goof aped his behaviour to outlandish degree. When Fosdick married as part of a bizarre plot Abner finally capitulated to devoted girlfriend Daisy Mae’s matrimonial aspirations and “married up” too, even though he didn’t really want to!

Fosdick made the jump to comicbooks; edited reprints of the strip appeared from Toby Press, a promotional comic – ‘Fearless Fosdick and the Case of the Red Feather’ – followed and in 1956 Simon and Shuster published Al Capp’s Fearless Fosdick: His Life and Deaths which forms the basis of the classy Kitchen Sink softcover under review here.

Prefaced with an absorbing and informative introduction by award-winning crime and comics writer Max Allan Collins – who took over Dick Tracy when Gould retired – this magical tome relates five of the very best felonious fiascos and forensic farces beginning with ‘Introducing: AnyFace!’ from 1947, wherein Abner is hired to protect cartoonist Lester Gooch as he crafts the tale of a crook with a plastic face.

The fiend is un-catchable since he can mimic anybody, constantly fooling Fosdick into shooting the wrong guy. Eventually the cop starts killing people preemptively – just in case – but in the “real” world as Abner gets more engrossed in the serial, Gooch, always bonkers as a bag of badgers (because only certified loons would create comics strips) is suddenly cured, casting the conclusion into desperate doubt! Confused? Good: that’s the point!

Next from 1950 comes ‘The Case of the Poisoned Beans’ in which madman Elmer Schlmpf randomly contaminates a tin of “Old Faithful”- the city’s most popular brand of beans. So popular are they that most shops and restaurants refuse to take them off sale and the populace won’t stop buying them. As no panic ensues and indifference rages Fosdick begins shooting citizens who won’t stop eating the beans. Better a safe, clean police bullet than a nasty case of poison…

‘Sidney the Crooked Parrot’ (1953) was once Fosdick’s faithful pet, but living with the obsessive do-gooder turned the bird into a vengeance-crazed criminal genius. Cunningly causing Fearless to lose his job, the bird then organises a campaign of terror, but even humiliated, derelict and starving the unswerving righteousness of the super-cop finds a way to triumph…

‘The Case of the Atom Bum’ (1951) saw the dapper detective helpless to halt the depredations of a radioactive hobo who robbed with impunity since the slightest wound could cause him to detonate like a human atom bomb. Forced to ignore and even – shudder!! – abet the ne’er-do-well, Fosdick was going even more insane with frustrated justice – and then he snapped…

This hysterical black and white collection concludes with the utterly surreal ‘Case of the Chippendale Chair’ from 1948, which begins only after certifiably cured and sane cartoonist Lester Gooch is kidnapped by thugs working for the syndicate who torture him until he is crazy enough to produce Fearless Fosdick once more…

Once more demented, Gooch sets to delivering a startling saga of murder, theft and general scofflawing to sate the nation’s desire for graphic gang-busting with a new mastermind ravaging the palaces of the rich. Who can possibly be behind such brilliant crimes? (The clue is in the title…) and as Fosdick ineptly yet unerringly closes in on the culprit the collateral casualties mount. Still, isn’t justice worth a few sacrifices?

Madcap and hilariously ultra-violent, these eccentric yarns are credited with inspiring Harvey Kurtzman to create Mad and clearly shaped decades of American comics comedy. Fosdick kept on turning up until 1972, leavening the hillbilly high-jinks, satire and social commentary with some healthy recreational slapstick slaughter, justifiable homicides and preemptive cold-case clean-up.

If you have a taste for over-the-top hilarity and stunning draftsmanship this is a book you absolutely must track down. Consider it a constabulary duty to be done…
Strip material © 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1990 Capp Enterprises, Inc. Introduction © 1990 Max Allan Collins. Entire Contents © 1990 Kitchen Sink Press, Inc.

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Axa volumes 1: Axa: The Beginning and 2: Axa the Desired


By Donne Avenell & Enrique Badia Romero (Ken Pierce Books)
Vol. 1 ISBN: 0-912277-04-1 Vol. 2 no ISBN

During the 1970s the British newspaper underwent radical changes in style and particularly content as lip service to female liberation and the sexual revolution allowed editors to wedge in even more semi-clad women for men to ogle even while bragging that now the chicks were in control of their own lives.

One place where that policy actually manifested in truly strong female role models as opposed to vapid eye-candy and fluff-piece fashion flash-in-the-pans was the comics page where the likes of Modesty Blaise, Scarth, Amanda and a wave of other capable ladies walked all over the oppressor gender both humorously and in straight adventure scenarios.

They still got their kit off at every imaginable opportunity, but that was just tradition and the idiom of the medium…

By 1978 the fuss and furore had somewhat subsided and aggressive, take-charge naked chicks had become commonplace, but when Star Wars reinvigorated public interest in science fiction the old concept of a scantily-clad, curvaceous beautiful barbarienne toiling through post-apocalyptic wonderlands resurfaced. The concept must have appealed mightily to the features editor of The Sun when it first crossed his desk, especially with Modesty Blaise illustrator Enrique Badia Romero attached to the proposal as artist…

Veteran writer Donne Avenell (who had cut his teeth on hundreds of British comics icons and such major international features as The Phantom and assorted Disney strips) provided racy, pacy, imaginative and subversively clever scripts for glamour-strip star Romero, who had begun his career in Spain in 1953, producing everything from westerns, sports, war stories and trading cards, often in conjunction with his brother Jorge Badía Romero. He even formed his own publishing house.

“Enric” began working for the higher-paying UK market in the 1960s on strips such as ‘Cathy and Wendy’, ‘Isometrics’ and ‘Cassius Clay’ before assuming the art duties on the high-profile Modesty strip in 1970, only leaving when this enticing new prospect appeared. Political and editorial intrigue saw Axa cancelled in the middle of a story in 1986 and Enric soon returned to Blaise until creator Peter O’Donnell retired in 2001. Since then he has produced Modesty Blaise material for Scandinavia and a number of projects such as Durham Red for 2000AD.

Axa ran in The Sun Monday to Saturday from 1978 to her abrupt disappearance in 1986 and other than these slim volumes from strip preserver Ken Pierce has never been graced with a definitive collection. It should be noted also that at the time of these books the strip was still being published to great acclaim.

The first black and white volume opens with an informative essay ‘Introducing Axa’ by publisher and historian Maggie Thompson outlining the history of and indifference to nudity in British newspaper strips after which ‘The Beginning’ takes us to 2080AD and a domed city where restless, buxom, anti-social amazon Axa chafes under the stifling oppressive security of the State which controls the citizens’ lives down to the most minute detail.

Throwing off her shackles and her clothes she leaves her assigned mate Jon, breaks out and flees to the post-apocalyptic wastelands created by The Great Contamination, populated only by mutants and monsters. In a cave she is attacked by a giant spider and saved by Matt, a debased (but hunky) warrior of the Middle People tribe. Taken to their village she discovers that the free primitives are just as hide-bound and oppressive as the City Men. Fleeing the village with the captivated Matt she finds a gleaming long-sword and finally discovers the secret of total true freedom is the ability to defend oneself…

Matt convinces her to return to the Middle Men, but she is betrayed and condemned to be a breeding female, but finds unwelcome release when she and her fellow captives are taken by raiding mutants. Easily escaping, she follows the raiders, intent on freeing the other captive women, once more linking up with the double-crossing Matt.

Surviving the monsters of the wilderness they catch up with the raiders only to be captured. After a climactic battle where Axa’s arguments and beliefs are more effective than any weapons, the rescued women are freed…

This segues straight into ‘The Chosen’ as Axa discovers that her fierce nature and astounding exploits has led the Middle People to declare her a goddess. Bemused by the attention at first she soon finds at it’s all a ploy by the wily tribe’s leader. Goddesses are locked up in temples where they can’t interfere or change the way the people are governed…

Never defeated, Axa breaks out and battles her way to freedom, dragging the ambivalent and indecisive Matt with her. Trekking through a beast-infested desert she is soon lost, alone and near death when she is rescued by Jon. Thinking he has come to join her she awakes to find herself a prisoner, returned to the Dome for therapy.

Sanitized and “Depersonalised’ with mind-bending drugs she once more becomes a decent citizen, but the lure of freedom is too strong and once more she rebels. Throwing off the chemical cosh Axa once more makes a break for the outside, but this time with the sanction of the Dome’s ruler who wants the unconquerable woman to undertake an impossible mission…


The second volume, containing the next two adventures, opens with a text appreciation and recap by Catherine Yronwoode after which Axa the Desired begins with the unstoppable freedom-seeker heading towards the coast, closely followed by the reluctant Jon, torn between his desire for her and disgust with the tainted world beyond the Dome.

Soon they have found a colony of survivors eking out an existence from the slowly healing seas, but are betrayed only to be rescued by two sailors from a foreign land. Jon has had enough and bolts back for the safety of the Domed City and Axa takes ship with the mariners, but the constant storms which batter the poisoned seas destroy their boat and she is washed ashore on an island where the old civilisation seems to have survived.

Appearances are deceiving: the lifestyle of the islanders is about to end as their stockpiled resources of guns and food and gasoline are all but gone. All but handsome Jason Arkady are decrepit dotards and their enclave was doomed until the healthy, hopefully fertile Axa turned up…

Initially horrified, the suave Jason almost turns the wild-woman’s head, but as the mad cracks in the isolated island-culture begin to show, she bolts and discovers that her companion from the shipwreck has been hiding out on the beach, secretly aided by Jason…

When the three try to escape, the suppressed insanity of the Arkady clan boils over in a cascade of blood, bullets and conflagration…

The next saga – also called ‘the Desired’ – sees the trio reach what was once Europe where the biggest surprise was Axa’s discovery of another Dome, just like the one she fled from but located at the bottom of a shallow sea. However this bastion of technology is even worse than her old home as the rulers are women who have dominated their own men and use mutants adapted to aquatic conditions as slaves and beasts of burden.

Even after all her woes at male hands Axa cannot abide the loss of any creature’s liberty and rejects the overtures of the Sea Women to join their society. Moreover when the slaves’ long-planned revolt erupts she manages to avoid taking sides and broker a solution acceptable to all…

These tales are classically European if not British in style: lavishly drawn, cunningly written, expansive in scope and utterly enchanting in their basic simplicity. Eminently readable and re-readable, perhaps the distant promise of a major motion picture (although the project has been in a development wasteland much like the one seen here since 2005) might lure a bold publisher into producing some definitive collectors editions…

© 1981, 1982, Express Newspapers, Ltd. First American Collectors Edition Series © 1982 Ken Pierce, Inc.