Author: Now Read This

By Walt Kelly (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN 1-56097-753-1

The Our Gang (later to be known as the Li’l Rascals) movie shorts were one of the most popular series in American Film history. Beginning in 1922 they featured the fun and folksy humour of a bunch of “typical kids” (atypically though, there was full racial equality and mingling – but the little girls were still always smarter than the boys) having idealised adventures in a time both safer and more simple. The rotating cast of characters and slapstick shenanigans were the brainchild of film genius Hal Roach (he directed and worked with Harold Lloyd, Charley Chase and Laurel and Hardy amongst many others) and these brief cinematic paeans to a mythic childhood entered the “household name” category of popular Americana in amazingly swift order.

As times and tastes changed Roach was forced to sell up to the celluloid butcher’s shop of MGM in 1938, and the features suffered the same interference and loss of control that marred the later careers of Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton.

In 1942 Dell released an Our Gang comic book that was written and drawn by Walt Kelly, who, consummate craftsman that he was, restored the wit, verve and charm of the glory days with a progression of short-comic stories that elevated the lower-class American childhood to the mythic peaks of Dorothy in Oz, or Huckleberry Finn.

Over the course of the first eight issues so lovingly reproduced in this glorious collection Kelly moved beyond the films – good and otherwise – to craft an idyllic story-scape of games and dares, excursions, adventures, get-rich-quick-schemes, battles with rival gangs and especially plucky victories over adults, mean, condescending, criminal or psychotic. Given much leeway, Kelly eventually settled on his own cast but aficionados and purists can still thrill here with the classic cast of Mickey, Buckwheat, Happy/Spanky, Janet and Froggy.

Today’s comics have nothing like this to offer to a contemporary audience. Many readers might not even be able to appreciate the skill, narrative charm and lost innocence of this style of children’s tale. If so I genuinely pity them, because this is work with heart and soul, drawn by one of the greatest exponents of graphic narrative America has ever produced. I hope their loss is not yours.

© 2006 Fantagraphics Books. All Rights Reserved.

By Milton Caniff (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 0-930193-22-9 (hardcover) ISBN: 0-930193-21-0 (softcover)

Milton Caniff wasn’t an overnight sensation. He worked long and hard before he achieved his stellar status in the comic strip firmament, before Terry and the Pirates brought him fame, and Steve Canyon secured his fortune. The strip which brought him to the attention of legendary Press Baron “Captain Joseph Patterson” – in many ways the co-creator of Terry – was an unassuming daily feature about a little boy who was hungry for adventure.

Caniff was working for The Associated Press as a jobbing cartoonist when a gap opened in their strips department. AP was an organisation that devised and syndicated features for the thousands of local and small newspapers which could not afford to produce the cartoons, puzzles, recipes and other fillers that ran between the local headlines and the regional sports.

Over a weekend Caniff came up with Dickie, a studious lad who would read a book and then fantasize himself into the story, taking his faithful little white dog “Wags” with him. The editors went for it and Dickie Dare began on July 31st, 1933. Caniff would write and draw the adventures for less than eighteen months before moving on, although his replacement Coulton Waugh steered the series until its conclusion two decades later.

The first day-dream was with Robin Hood, followed by a frantic, action-packed visit with Robinson Crusoe and Friday, battling hordes of yelling savages and scurvy pirates. Rugged combat gave way to fantastic mystery when he read Aladdin, resulting in a lavish and exotic trip to the fabled Far East. This adventure closed near Christmas, and when his father read Dickie the story of the Nativity, Caniff began his long tradition of creating seasonally topical strips. The visit to Bethlehem ended on Christmas morning, and one of Dickie’s presents triggers his next excursion, when he starts reading of General George Armstrong Custer.

King Arthur is next, followed by Captain Kidd the Pirate, but by then Caniff was chafing under the self-imposed limitations of his creation. The strip had become formulaic and there was no real tension or drama in mere dreams. In a creative masterstroke, he revised the strip’s parameters, and by so doing produced the prototype for a masterpiece.

On 11th of May, 1934, Dickie met his uncle, globe-trotting author and two-fisted man-of-action Dan Flynn, and one week later the pair embarked on a Round-the-World trip. Caniff had moved swiftly, crafting a template that would become Terry and the Pirates. The wide-eyed, nervy All-American kid with the capable adult pal and adventurer, whilst a subject of much controversy and even scurrilous modern disparagement was a literary archetype since before Treasure Island and adapting the relationship to comic-strips was commercially sound, a decision that would hit a peak of popularity with the horde of sidekicks/partners that followed in the wake of Robin the Boy Wonder six years later.

No sooner have Dickie and Dan taken ship for Africa than the drama begins, as restless Dickie discovers a hidden cargo of smuggled guns. Aided by feisty Debutante Kim Sheridan and sailor Algy Sparrow, they foil the scheme, but not before Dickie is captured by Kuvo, the Arab chieftain awaiting the guns. Pursued by the French authorities, Kuvo retreats to a desert fortress where Kim, disguised as a native slave-girl, rescues the lad, only to be caught herself. The full-tilt action comes to a splendid conclusion before the boys, with Algy in tow as butler, head for Tunis where they stumble across a plot to use a World War I U-Boat for ocean-going piracy.

This long adventure (beginning on September 13th) is a thoroughly gripping yarn that encompasses much of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, as the boys escape the pirates and aid the Navy in hunting down the villains. There’s loads of action and an astonishing amount of tension but the tale ends a tad abruptly when Caniff, lured away by Patterson, simply drops the feature and Coulton Waugh takes over the storyline on Monday 3rd December.

With no break in the tale Waugh rapidly (14 episodes) wraps up the saga, and even has Dickie home by Christmas. From the New Year the strip would chart new waters with Waugh at the helm, aided and briefly replaced by assistant and spouse Odin Burvik, whilst he wrote his seminal book on Comics and also when he was producing the strip Hank for the New York magazine PM. Dickie Dare eventually ended its run in October 1957 with the now adult adventurer beginning a new career as a US Navy Cadet.

Although usually dismissed as a mere stage on the road to his later mastery, and certainly long before Milton Caniff – and studio partner Noel Sickles – made the chiaroscurist breakthroughs in line-art that revolutionised the form, these tales of Dickie Dare should be appreciated on their own merits. Full of easy whimsy and charm the strip evolved into a rip-roaring, all-ages thriller, full of wit and derring-do, in many ways an American answer to Hergé’s Tintin. It’s long overdue for rediscovery by the mass-market, and while we’re at it, let’s see some of the work that the criminally under-valued Waugh originated too.

Artwork originally © 1933-1934 The Associated Press.
Other contents this edition © Richard Marschall All Rights Reserved.

By Wing Shing Ma (DrMaster Publications)
ISBN 13: 978-1-59796-041-0

The timeless, relentless Chinese classic originally published by Hong Kong outfit Jademan Comics has been collected and digitally remastered in this trade paperback series. The protagonist, tough and classically good-looking, is named Hero, a husband and father, and he is the latest in a long line of Guardians tasked with protecting a magic sword that is powered by blood. His line has been giving their lives to safeguard the blade for generations, and the ability to endure personal sacrifice is bred to the bone in them.

When a Gangster tries to steal the Blood Sword, the resultant battle results in the death of much of Hero’s family and begins a cat-and-mouse vendetta that encompasses half the planet. The villains are unrelenting, thoroughly evil, and masters of every fighting art and dirty trick. Hero and an incomprehensibly wide circle of friends and associates – who come and go with dazzling brevity – fight an unceasing battle to preserve the sword and avenge his family.

Hong Kong comics are beautiful. They’re produced using a studio art-system that means any individual page might be composed of painted panels, line-art, crayons and art pencils, just literally anything that will get the job done. And that presumably is to enhance not so much a nuance of plot but rather a detail of the mysticism and/or philosophy of Kung Fu that my western sensibilities just aren’t attuned to.

Because that’s fundamentally what this genre of comic is: One glorious, lavish spectacular exhibition of Kung Fu mastery. Like much of the region’s cinema, all other considerations are suborned to the necessity to get the fighting started and to keep it going. If you’re looking for characterisation, sharp dialogue or life-altering experiences, look elsewhere. If, however, you’re seeking Good Guys whomping Bad Guys in extended, eye-popping manner, you might want to give this a go. Be warned though, it is by nature a cliff-hanger tale, so be prepared to wait for succeeding volumes.

Gorgeous, thrilling, adrenaline eye-candy – and no wire-work.

© 2007 Yasushi Suzuki. © 2007 DGN Production Inc.

Early Strips in Full Color

By Richard F. Outcault with an introduction by August Derleth (Dover Publications)
ISBN: 0-1-486-23006-6

Richard F. Outcault is credited with being the father (fans and historians are never going to stop debating this one, but Outcault is one of the prime-est contenders) of the modern comic strip with his creation The Yellow Kid for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World in 1895 (the feature was actually entitled Hogan’s Alley). He was legendarily fickle and quickly tired of his creation, and of the subsequent features he created for William Randolph Hearst in the New York Journal during that period of bitter newspaper circulation warfare that gave rise to the term “Yellow Journalism”.

In 1902, he created a Little Lord Fauntleroy style moppet called Buster Brown, but the angelic looks concealed a boy perpetually wedded to mischief, pranks and poor decision making. Once again he quickly became bored and moved on, but this strip was another multi-media sensation, which captured public attention and spun off a plethora of franchises.

Buster was a merchandising Bonanza. By a weird circumstance, Buster Brown Shoes became one of the biggest chain-stores in America, and in later years produced a periodical comic book Premium (a giveaway magazine free to purchasers) packed with some of the greatest comic artists and adventure stories the industry had ever seen. Outcault may have dumped Buster, but the little darling never quit comics.

In this reproduction of a collection from 1904 entitled Buster Brown and his Resolutions, featuring fifteen glorious full colour strips from the first two years of the run, we meet the seemingly angelic Hellion and his faithful dog Tige, and see that if unfortunate happenstance doesn’t create chaos in the ordered and genteel life of the well-to-do Mr. and Mrs. Brown, little Buster is always happy to lend a hand. Each lavish page, rendered in a delightfully classical, illustrative line style – like Cruickshank or perhaps Charles Dana Gibson – ends with a moral or resolution, but one that is subversively ambiguous. As Buster himself says “People are usually good when there isn’t anything else to do.”

Historically pivotal, Buster Brown is also thematically a landmark in content, and a direct ancestor of the mischievous child strip that dominated the family market of the 20th century. Could Dennis the Menace (“Ours” or “Theirs”), Minnie the Minx or Bart Simpson have existed without Buster or his contemporary rivals The Katzenjammer Kids? It’s pointless to speculate, but it’s no waste of time to find and enjoy this splendid strip.

© 1974 Dover Publications. All Rights Reserved.

By Josh Simmons (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-855-8

A young man walks through the woods, until he sees a ramshackle old house. Outside he meets two young women and they strike up a conversation. Filled with high spirits they decide to explore the dilapidated old mansion.

The place is a wreck. As they cautiously move deeper into the vast manse the boy and blonde girl feel an attraction. When they discover that the back of the house has collapsed and is under water, forming an inviting pool, all three all dive in and play in the water.

In a submerged room the boy and the blonde share a kiss. The dark girl knows something has happened, that all the relationships have shifted. With a new tension they continue to explore, but nothing feels innocent now. And then the staircase collapses…

Josh Simmons has set himself a daunting task. This entire tale is told without words. Settings, scenario and character are established and the narrative undertaken purely by making pictures and by manipulating light and dark and panel and space.

The manner in which an idyll becomes a terrifying, crushing, tragic nightmare is powerful, seductive and truly overwhelming in its delivery. Simmons has succeeded in crafting a true graphic narrative, a thrilling story in a manner and with a force that no other medium could.

Silent, compelling, wonderful: This is a book no serious reader should ignore and no budding creator should miss.

© 2007 Josh Simmons. All Rights Reserved.

MR. PUMP’S LEGACY
Part 1 of THE STRATOSHIP H.22

By Hergé, translated by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner (Egmont UK)
ISBN 13: 978-1-4052-1245-8

George Remi, world famous as Hergé, had a long creative connection to Catholicism. He had created Tintin at the behest of the Abbot Norbert Wallez, editor of the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siécle, before moving on to such strips as the mischievous ‘Quick and Flupke’, ‘Tim the Squirrel in the Far West’, ‘The Amiable Mr. Mops’, ‘Tom and Millie’ and ‘Popol Out West’, all while continuing the globe-trotting adventures of the dauntless boy reporter and his faithful dog.

In 1935, between working on The Blue Lotus and The Broken Ear he was approached by Father Courtois, the director of the French weekly newspaper Coeurs Vaillants (‘Valiant Hearts’). The paper already carried Tintin, but Courtois also wanted a strip that would depict the solid family values and situations that the seemingly orphaned boy reporter was devoid of. He also presumably wanted something less subversive than the mischievous, trouble-making working-class boy rascals ‘Quick and Flupke’.

He needed a set of characters that would typify a good, normal family: A working father, a housewife and mother, young boy, a sister, even a pet. Apparently inspired by a toy monkey called Jocko, Hergé devised the family Legrand. Jacques was an engineer, and his son Jo and daughter Zette were average kids; bright, brave, honest, smart and yet still playful. Mother stayed home, cooking and being concerned a lot, and they had a small, feisty monkey for a pet – although I suspect as Jocko was tailless, he might have been a baby chimpanzee, which “As Any Fule Kno” is actually a species of ape.

The first adventure was ‘The Secret Ray’ which is not currently available in English. A ripping yarn of scientific bandits, gangsters, mad professors, robots and, regrettably, some rather ethnically unsound incidences of cannibal savages, this is very much a product of its time in too many respects. Although Hergé came to deeply regret (and wherever possible amend) his many early uses of that era’s racial stereotyping, the island dwelling natives in Le “Manitoba” Ne Répond Plus and L’ Éruption Du Karamako (which first ran in Coeurs Vaillants from January 19th 1936 to June 1937) will now always be controversial.

It’s a true pity that such masterful and joyous work has to be viewed with caution, read strictly in context and be ascribed subtext and values that simply weren’t intended, merely because the medium is pictorial and its meaning passively acquired rather than textual, and which can therefore only be decoded by the conscious effort of reading. I also wonder how much was a quiet, sensitive artist led by an aggressively proselytising, missionary Church’s doctrine and policy… How much Church opposition was there to Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935 for example? And don’t get me started on Nazi Germany and the Vatican…

‘Mr. Pump’s Legacy’ is much less culturally and commercially troublesome. When septuagenarian millionaire-technocrat, speed-fiend (that’s velocity, not pharmacology) and adrenalin junkie John Archibald Pump, the “American Collar-Stud King” dies in a car crash (at 155 mph, so he probably went surprised but happy) he leaves a ten million dollar prize: The first person or persons to fly non-stop between New York and Paris at an average speed of 1000 kilometres per hour will secure said cash. But if nobody wins within one year the money will revert to his ne’er-do-well nephews.

The contest captures world imagination in the Age of Speed, and many try for the prize, including S.A.F.C.A., the aeronautical company that Jacques Legrand works for. Very soon both the engineer and his family become the targets of skulduggery and sabotage as his groundbreaking design gradually becomes a beautiful flying machine. Assaults, poison-pen letters and threats, murder attempts, blackmail and even kidnapping, nothing can stop the project whilst the canny Jo and Zette are there to foil them. Even when the completed plane is targeted by an aerial bombardment, the resourceful children have a solution. Starting the plane, they fly away from the bomber, but become lost in the night and clouds.

With their fuel almost exhausted they spot a tiny island in a vast sea and manage to land the plane safely. How can they return the ship in time to win the Prize? Without food, water, fuel or any idea where they are, can they survive long enough to be found?

Combining all-ages thrills and slap-stick comedy with magical art and superb designs, the masterful Hergé, a creator rapidly reaching the peak of his powers, has produced in this cliff-hanging volume of adventure a lost classic, and one worthy of much greater public attention. With Christmas looming it could be the best £6.99 you’ll spend this year…

© 1951, 1979, 2007 Editions Casterman, Paris& Tournai. All Rights Reserved.
English text © 1987, 2005 Egmont UK Limited. All Rights Reserved.