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June 19, 2021

Fantastic Four: First Family

By Joe Casey, Chris Weston, Gary Erskine & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-1703-2 (TPB)

The Fantastic Four is regarded as the most pivotal series in modern comic book history, introducing both a new style of storytelling and a decidedly different manner of engaging the readers’ impassioned attentions. In a year bursting with comics anniversaries, the FF are certainly the most significant, having debuted at the end of 1961 to revolutionise the American industry and spearhead a global change in the art form. They have endured upheaval and change but have never stopped influencing comics and the lager world of far-flung fantasy.

More a family than a team, the roster has changed constantly over years before inevitably returning to the original configuration of Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing and the Human Torch.

The quartet are actually maverick genius Reed Richards, his wife Sue, Reed’s college friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s obnoxious, impetuous younger brother Johnny Storm; survivors of an independent, non-governmental space-shot which went horribly wrong once ferociously mutative Cosmic Rays penetrated their ship’s inadequate shielding.

When they crashed back to Earth, the foursome found that they had all been hideously changed into outlandish freaks. Reed’s body became elastic and Sue gained partial control of energies that allowed her to turn invisible and latterly form force-fields. Johnny could transform into self-perpetuating living flame, but poor, tormented Ben was reduced to a horrifying brute who, unlike his comrades, could not return to a semblance of normality on command.

The sheer simplicity of four archetypes – mercurial boffin, self-effacing distaff, solid, tragic everyman and hot-headed youth – uniting to triumph over accident and adversity shone under Stan Lee’s irreverent humanity coupled to Jack Kirby’s rampant imagination and sense of adventure.

After decades of erratic quality and floundering plotlines following the original creators’ departures, Marvel’s First Family began a steady climb in quality at the beginning of the 21^st century culminating in their own troubled film franchise.

To augment increased casual interest, in 2006 a canny, edgy retelling of the team’s earliest days was produced as a 6-issue miniseries by scripter Joe Casey in conjunction with illustrators Chris Weston & Gary Erskine, re-examining the quartet’s coming to terms with their new status in terms far more in keeping with the cynical, jaded modern worldâ€¦

Available in trade paperback and digital editions, First Family opens with ‘There’s Was a Crashâ€¦’ as USAF General Walter Montgomery is called to a top secret military installation where four survivors of a fallen space-shot are being held. They were human once, but have been hideously mutated by Cosmic rays.â€¦

The boy keeps bursting into flames, whilst his older sister is totally transparent. The pilot has become a rock-like atrocity while the General’s old friend Dr. Richards has been reduced to a catatonic mound of shapeless flesh. His coma has nothing to do with the accident, however. The scientist is locked into a cerebral mindscape where he is being lectured to by a fifth cosmic ray survivorâ€¦

This entity is explaining some facts of life. The facility they are in is an Air Force base designed to hold a variety of incredibly mutated humans. Apparently, this is not the Government’s first cosmic rodeoâ€¦

In ‘Late-Night Creeping’, Sue Storm surreptitiously escapes her cell to check on her companions, but boyfriend Reed is still beyond reach, deep inside his own head. Dr. Franz Stahl is currently explaining to him that a fallen meteor supercharged with C-radiation has been transforming humans under USAF supervision for months and that his own forced evolution is the most significant result.

Seeing Richards as a kindred spirit, the mind-ghost shares his radical theories of evolutionary dominance with his fellow future man, but Richards remains stubbornly unconvincedâ€¦

‘The Afterburn’ sees Ben Grimm’s fiancÃ©e run screaming from him, prompting a minor riot. This allows Stahl to take matters into his own psychic hands, instigating a further distracting crisis. Provoking one of his fellow monstrous transformees to go on a ‘Cosmic Ray Rampage’, the doctor escapes whilst our super-powered quartet gamely assist the soldiers in stopping the unholy horror.

In return Montgomery agrees to release them on their own recognizance with assurances of Federal backingâ€¦

‘Remember the Alamo’ occurs just after the events of Fantastic Four #1, beginning as the heroes escape the atomic destruction of the Mole Man‘s Monster Island. Reed later briefs Montgomery and they make plans to formalise the quartet into a proper team. However, Reed is still being regularly mentally shanghaied by Stahl, whose agenda to improve humanity begins with the culling of his own disappointingly mundane family in ‘Domestic Disturbance’â€¦

‘The Homecoming Dance’ sees Ben indulging in disastrous drinks in his old neighbourhood even as Johnny, Reed and Sue all realise their old â€œnormalâ€ lives are forever denied them.

A Mole Man monster resurfaces in New York ready for ‘Round Two’ whilst Franz again tries to convince Richards to aid his plan to forcibly fix mankind, with Sue increasingly concerned that her man has lost all interest in a normal domestic futureâ€¦

After Montgomery situates the four in a fabulous new, government-funded HQ – The Baxter Building – the misfits quickly begin to fall apart in ‘The Ties That Bind’ meaning no one is available when Stahl – intent on taking the life-warping meteor – invades the Air Force’s clandestine Cosmic facility in ‘Evolutionary Modern.’

‘Cold, Hardâ€¦’ finds Sue, Johnny and Ben discussing Reed’s intermittent distraction and underhandedness even as the subject of their grievances has opted to tackle Franz in ‘Alone + Easy Target’â€¦

As they rush to save him, Reed is locked in psychic combat with Stahl, who has used the meteor to mutate Air Force personnel into a legion of monsters: the first step in his proposed ‘Extinction Event’ for humanity. The battered hero is losing, however, until his cosmic comrades fight their way in and are pulled into the mental arena of ‘Signs and Salvation’to tip the balanceâ€¦

The titanic battle ends with a ‘Mind’s Eye Open’ leaving the quartet closer than ever and set upon ‘Finding Destiny’togetherâ€¦

Dark, grimly post-modern and disregarded by many purists, First Family nevertheless offers a compelling reinterpretation and rationalisation of epochal events from simpler times framed in the context of a far more cynical century, and is certainly inviting to fans of a more grounded, less optimistic society. It’s also a pretty good yarn for open-minded readers who love the baroque theatrics of modern, film-fuelled superhero stories.
Â© 2006, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

June 18, 2021

Ofelia – A Love and Rockets Book: 11

By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-806-9 (TPB)

Please pay attention: this book contains stories and images of an extremely adult nature – specifically designed for consumption by mature readers – as well as coarse vulgar language most kids are fluent in by the age of ten.

If reading about such things offends you, please stop now and go away. Tomorrow I’ll do something with violence and explosions, so come back then.

In addition to being part of the ongoing graphic literary revolution that is Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly compulsive tales of Palomar gained vast critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced stand-alone tales such as Sloth, Girl Crazy, Julio’s Day and Hypnotwist: all distinguished by his bold, simplified line artwork and sensitive use of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel GarcÃa MÃ¡rquez: techniques which he has added to and made his own.

Love and Rockets – by Gilbert and brothers Jaime and Mario – was/is an anthology comics publication featuring sleek, intriguing, sci-fi-ish larks, heart-warming, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasies, terrifying manic monster stories and experimental comic narratives that pretty much defy classification. To this day, the Hernandez boys continue to captivate with incredible stories sampling a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Archie Comics and alternative music to German Expressionism and masked wrestlers.

Originally conceived for extended serial Heartbreak Soup, Palomar was a conceptual playground and cultural toybox; an impoverished Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. Everything from life, death, adultery, alien infiltration, magic making, hauntings, serial-killing and especially gossip happened in its meta-fictional environs as Gilbert plundered his own post-punk influences – comics, music, drugs, comics, strong women, gangs, sex, family and comics – in a style informed by everything from Tarzan strips to Saturday morning cartoons and The Lucy Show.

Beto – as he signs himself – returns to Palomar constantly, usually with tales involving formidable matriarch Luba, who ran the village’s bath house and cinema; acted as Mayor and sometimes law enforcer – as well as adding regularly and copiously to the general population. Her children, brought up with no acknowledged fathers in sight, are Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira, Socorro, Joselito and Conchita.

Luba is a character who defies easy description and I don’t actually want to: As one of the most complex women in literature, let alone comics, she’s somebody you need to experience, not learn of second-hand. You will certainly notice that she has absolutely enormous breasts. Deal with it. These stories are casually, graphically, sexually explicit, and appalling violence is also never far from the players livesâ€¦

Luba’s story is about Life, and sex and death happen, casually and often, usually to and with the wrong people at the wrong time. If harsh language and cartoon nudity (male and female) are an insurmountable problem for you, don’t read these tales; but it is genuinely your loss.

Throughout all those eventful years, normally always in the background and frequently sidelined, was Luba’s cousin Ofelia: confidante, babysitter, surrogate mum, family conscience and keen – if not especially detached – observerâ€¦

After a run of spectacular stories (all of which have been collected in a variety of formats and editions which I really must get around to reviewing in their entirety), the first incarnation of Love and Rockets ended. Luba and her extended family graduated to a succession of mini-series which focussed on her relocation to the USA to reunite with her half-sisters Rosalba (â€œFritzâ€) and Petra Martinez. The tone and content ranged from surreal to sad to funny to thrilling. The entire world can be found in those pages.

Although in an ideal world you would read that aforementioned older material first, there’s absolutely no need to. Reminiscence and the force of memory are as much a part of this potent passion-play as family feeling, music, infidelity, survival, punk rock philosophy, and laughter – lots and lots of laughter.

Brilliantly illustrated, these are human tales as earthy any as any Chaucer’s Pilgrims could tell, as varied and appetising as any of Boccaccio’s Decameron and as universally human as the best of that bloke Shakespeareâ€¦

This particular monochrome family album – available in paperback and digital editions -compiles assorted material first seen in Luba #3-9; Luba’s Comics and Stories #2-5 and Measles #3 and sees so-often sidelined â€œsisterâ€ Ofelia notionally promoted to headliner. Following a pictorial reintroduction to ‘Luba’s Family’, the ever-unfolding saga resumes with ‘Remember Me’ as the youngest kids swap tales of the fathers they have never known.

‘Luba and the Little Ones’ finds the ferocious matron calming down her very excitable progeny, before ‘Socorroâ€¦’details that girl’s educational problems. Apparently, she is too smart and her teachers want her transferred to a special schoolâ€¦

‘The Book of Ofelia Part One’ sees Luba and her mute, maimed and possibly former gangster husband Khamo reeling from the news that their faithful major domo is considering writing a book based on her cousin’s drama-drenched life. With friction mounting, the frustrated author and perennial babysitter casts her mind back to Palomar, where she sacrificed her relationship with lover Rico (â€œcall me Ooliâ€) to raise a wild toddler called Luba.

Back in the now, wise-beyond-her-years Casimira knows her quiet guardian is in contact with an old flame on the internetâ€¦

‘The Book of Ofelia Part Two’ expands on the theme as the prospective writer recalls years of fighting with her wilful, almost elemental charge, whilst pondering a too-long deferred decisionâ€¦

‘Spot Marks the Ex’ then exposes more family scandals as entrepreneurial Pipo tries to get rid of her former husband Gatoand deal with the ongoing problems caused by Luba’s daughter Doralis.

Much to the sponsors’ horror the teen star of Pipo’s popular Spanish-language kid’s show plans to come out as a lesbian, someone at the studio is giving the newspapers salacious scandals for their holier-than-thou gossip pages and her beloved son Sergio Jimenez (a soccer superstar and celebrity bad boy) is having an affair with Fritz Martinez – the very woman Pipo cannot get out of her own libidinously supercharged mindâ€¦

Fritz is a terrifyingly complex creature: psychiatrist, therapist, B-Movie actress, belly dancer, amorous drunk, gun-fetishist, sexually aggressive and a manipulative serial spouse. Beautiful, enticingly emotionally damaged, her â€œhigh soft lispâ€ more likely an affectation than genuine speech impediment, she sashays from crisis to triumph and back again, and (almost) everybody who wants hers can apparently have her – except increasingly impatient Pipoâ€¦

Moreover, as strident accountant Boots signs on to save Pipo’s company, the stressed and busy businesswoman begins to suspect Sergio and his stepfather Gato have some strange connection and are up to no goodâ€¦

‘El Show Super Duper Sensacional Fantastico de Doralis’ reveals the controversial gay star’s story of the irresistibly beguiling merfolk who live in secret amongst us, after which ‘Snail Trail’ introduces well-meaning young Hector who rescues Socorro and Joselito after they steal and crash a car.

He sees and is instantly enchanted by their Tia (that’s Aunt in Spanish, hombre) Fritz in ‘Bromear’ and in ‘Meeting Cute, Fucking Cuter’ falls hopelessly for the sexual predator: so much so, in fact, that he agrees to her request to date her quirky, buff, bodybuilding older sister Petra, thus leaving Fritz free for a sordid secret affair with toyboy acquaintance Sergioâ€¦

Sadly, whipped Hector finds he has more in common with Petra’s little daughter Venus. They both love the same comicbooks, movies and music and she doesn’t make him do things he’d rather notâ€¦

A garden party bids ‘Buen Viaje, Socorro’ and sees the smart girl’s last family fun before heading off to smart kid boarding school, after which ‘Luba One’ finds the downhearted mum dragged to a fetish party by Fritz and Pipo where she finds blonde sex god Fortunato: a man no woman can resist and a perfect lover who derives no joy from his conquestsâ€¦

Boots, mindful of the merman legend, speculates on his origins in ‘The Fortunato Files’ after which ‘The Goddess and the Goof’ finds Hector finally capitulating to pressure and taking gloriously gorgeous, Amazonian Petra out only to discover she is every inch as bewitching and satisfying as her sister. Conflicted by a surfeit of physical riches he ponders a big decisionâ€¦

After a little dance madness in ‘El Biale’, Venus and Doralis share a moment with one of the fallen star’s fans in ‘The Glamorous Life’ whilst ‘Boots Takes the Case’ has the tenacious little accountant assume a larger role. With Gato exposed as the source of the leaks and sorrowfully reaping his reward in ‘And Soâ€¦’, Boots proceeds to pry out more secrets in ‘Kisses for Pipo’; appraising key moments since the entrepreneur entered America as a teen, disclosing her past interactions with Sergio, Gato (and his current wife Guadalupe), Fortunato and Pipo’s latest fling Igorâ€¦

‘In Bed with Pipo’ targets her bizarrely twisted relationship with gun-obsessed Fritz, the men they occasionally share and a terrifying past experience when both were stranded in a country in the midst of an anti-Christian genocideâ€¦

Revelations include the horrific tale of how High-School junior Rosalba fell into an abusive relationship with a middle-aged cop, offering telling insights for her modern personasâ€¦

‘Luba Two’ delves deep into Khamo’s off-kilter arrangements with both cops and drug dealers whilst – after surreal sight-gag ‘Uno Dos Tres’ – ‘The New Adventures of Venus’ proves the latest generation can be just as determined and violently forceful. When the little comics lover discovers her best friend is a potential romantic rival, Venus takes excessive punitive action on the soccer fieldâ€¦

With the entire world on tenterhooks as a colossal meteor hurtles towards Earth, Fritz’s exploitative ex-husband Scott gets up to his old tricks in ‘The Beloved and the Damned’. He couldn’t have expected the savage beating a mysterious stranger delivers after ripping off kickboxing Petra’s baby sister though.

Unfortunately, the Avenger in question gets a taste for vigilantism and begins looking for other jerks in need of straightening outâ€¦

Khamo’s underworld connections then lead to a disquieting abduction and ‘Luba’s Science Lesson’ before ever-more conflicted Hector returns, still unable to choose between Petra and Fritz but currently distracted by his ex-girlfriend taking him to court as part of a whacko ploy to get him back in ‘And Justice for Some’.

That plan goes badly wrong after a stranger beats her to a pulp in the parking lot of the strip club she works atâ€¦

Boot’s ongoing investigations resurface as she explains ‘The Tao of Doralis’ before a very stoned ‘Hector‘ rescues non-English-speaking Luba from a bar, leading into flashbacks of ‘Khamo’ and her early days. That long, weird walk home also delivers more revelations about the enigmatic Fortunato before Luba and her taciturn husband at last reconcile in ‘Lovers and Hector’â€¦

Events then take a dark turn in ‘Sergio Rocks’ as the wild child is targeted by gangster gamblers, even as belly-dancing novice ‘Guadalupe’ strives to escape the overwhelming influence of her charismatic Tia Fritzâ€¦

Receding Ofelia resurfaces in ‘Luba Again’ as the cousins bitterly and violently argue over the proposed warts-and-all book and, after visual aside ‘Click!’, the determined author visits Socorro in ‘La Luba’ whilst long ostracised Maricela has a rather one-sided chat with step-dad Khamo in ‘Burning for You’â€¦

‘Pipo’s Burden’ revisits her still-growing obsession with Fritz whilst ‘Of Two Minds’ highlights Hector’s suspicions when he attends one of Petra’s boxing bouts and Fortunato works his magic on schoolteacher Guadalupe and Ofelia in ‘But the Little Girls Understand’ after which ‘Luba Three’ ushers in the beginning of the end of this family’s affairsâ€¦

‘Fritz and Pipo, Sittin’ in a Tree’ sees Sergio growing aggressively intolerant of his mother’s dilemma whilst still making casual use of Fritz himself. Soon the still-active vigilante has hospitalised the entrepreneur, and more tragedy strikes when Ofelia has a heart attack in ‘God Willing’â€¦

Once the violence begins it seems impossible to stop and in ‘Luba Four’ the so-dysfunctional family splinters even further when an abduction and punishment beating goes too farâ€¦

I’m certainly more obtuse – just plain dense or blinkered – than most, but for years I thought this stuff was all about the force of Family Ties, but it’s not: at least not fundamentally. Palomar is about love. Not the sappy one-sided happy-ever-after stuff in chick-flicks, but LOVE, that mighty, hungry beast that makes you instinctively protect the child that betrays you, that has you look for a better partner whilst you’re in the arms of your one true love, and hate the place you wanted to live in all your life. The love of cars and hair-cuts and biscuits and paper-cuts and stray cats that bite you: selfish, self-sacrificing, dutiful, urgent, patient, uncomprehending, a feeling beyond words. A Love that can hurt and even killâ€¦

A bit like the love of a great comicâ€¦

Funny, deeply moving, compelling and deftly capable of delivering shock after breathtaking shock, Ofelia is remarkable and unmissable: no true fan of the medium can afford to forego this treat.

June 17, 2021June 15, 2021

Incredible Hulk Epic Collection volume 5: Who Will Judge the Hulk? 1971-1972

By Roy Thomas, Harlan Ellison, Gary Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Archie Goodwin, Herb Trimpe, Sam Grainger, Sal Buscema, Dick Ayers, John Severin & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2206-1 (TPB)

Bruce Banner was a military scientist caught in a gamma bomb detonation of his own devising. As a result of ongoing mutation, stress and other factors cause him to transform into a giant green monster of unstoppable strength and fury.

After an initially troubled few years the gamma-irradiated gargantuan finally found his size-700 feet and a format that worked, becoming one of young Marvel’s most popular features. After his first solo-title folded, The Hulk shambled around the slowly-coalescing Marvel Universe as guest star and/or villain du jour, until a new home was found for him in â€œsplit-bookâ€ Tales to Astonish: sharing space with fellow misunderstood misanthrope Namor the Sub-Mariner, who proved an ideal thematic companion from his induction in #70.

As the 1970s opened the Incredible Hulk had settled into a comfortable – if excessively and spectacularly destructive – niche. The globe-trotting formula saw tragic, haunted Banner hiding and seeking cures for his gamma-transformative curse, alternately aided or hunted by prospective father-in-law US General â€œThunderboltâ€ Ross and a variety of guest-star heroes and villains.

Herb Trimpe had made the character his own, displaying a penchant for explosive action and an unparalleled facility for drawing technology – especially honking great ordnance, vehicles and robots. Scripter Roy Thomas – unofficial custodian of Marvel’s burgeoning shared-universe continuity – played the afflicted Jekyll/Hyde card for maximum angst and ironic heartbreak even as he continually injected the Jade Juggernaut into the lives of other stalwarts of Marvel’s growing pantheonâ€¦

This chronologically-curated trade paperback and digital compendium re-presents issues #139-156 plus a crossover tale from Avengers #88, encompassing cover-dates April 1971 to October 1972, and opens without delaying preamble as the Hulk – returned to Earth after an epic outer space excursion – encounters an old enemy in ‘â€¦Sincerely, the Sandman!’(Thomas, Trimpe & Sam Grainger) wherein the vicious villain turns Banner’s true love Betty Ross to brittle, fragile glass, after which #139’s ‘Many Foes Has the Hulk!’ looks in on archfoe The Leader‘s latest attempt to kill his brutish nemesis: employing illusion and exhaustion, as seemingly hundreds of old villains attack the man-monster all at onceâ€¦

A landmark crossover follows as Harlan Ellison, Thomas, Sal Buscema & Jim Mooney craft ‘The Summons of Psyklop!’for Avengers #88 (May 1971) wherein an insectoid servant of the Elder Gods abducts the Hulk to fuel their resurrectionâ€¦

This leads directly into Incredible Hulk #140 and ‘The Brute that Shouted Love at the Heart of the Atom’ (pencilled & inked by Grainger over Trimpe’s layouts). Trapped on a sub-atomic world, Banner’s intellect and the Hulk’s body are reconciled, and he becomes a barbarian hero to an appreciative populace, and lover of perfect princess Jarella, only to be snatched away by Psyklop at the moment of his greatest happiness.

The sudden return to full-sized savagery is the insectoid’s undoing and the Hulk resumes his ghastly existenceâ€¦ at least until #141 when an experimental psychologist provides a means to drain the Hulk’s gamma-energy and utilise it to restore crystalline, petrified Betty. He even uses the remaining gamma force to turn himself into a superhero in ‘His Name is â€¦ Samson!’ (with wonderful John Severin inking).

Next is a satirical poke at the â€œRadical Chicâ€ movement through the return of â€œfeministâ€ villain Valkyrie, with the Hulk made a media cause celebre by Manhattan’s effete elite in the wryly charming ‘They Shoot Hulks, Don’t They?’ Don’t fret, there’s plenty of monumental mayhem as wellâ€¦

Picking up the pace comes an inevitable but long-delayed clash as the Green Goliath battles Doctor Doom in a 2-part epic begun by Thomas, Dick Ayers & Severin wherein fugitive Banner finds ‘Sanctuary!’ in New York City’s Latverian Embassy. The deal is a bad one, however, since the Iron Dictator enslaves the Gamma scientist for his bomb-making knowledge, in an attempt to make his awesome alter ego into an unstoppable war machineâ€¦

The scheme goes awry in ‘The Monster and the Madman!’ (scripted by Gary Friedrich over Thomas’ plot), as brainwashed Banner shucks his mind-warped conditioning – thanks to Doom’s conflicted consort Valeria – just in time for the Hulk to deliver a salutary lesson in mayhem throughout the dictator’s domain.

Incredible Hulk #145 is a double-length package finding the man-monster invading a film-set in Egypt and accidentally awakening a prehistoric alien war-weapon in ‘Godspawn’. Crafted by Thomas, Len Wein, Trimpe & Severin, it offers plenty of joyfully mindless Hulk Smash action and a portion of pathos, even as, back in the USA, the military – in the form of Ross and Major Glenn Talbot – open dedicated anti-Hulk base â€œProject Greenskinâ€â€¦

Gerry Conway scripted Thomas’ plot for ‘And the Measure of a Man isâ€¦ Death!’, wherein the Jade Juggernaut faces sandstorms, bitter memories and the Israeli army in the deserts of Northern Egypt, even as in America the Hulk-buster base has already been infiltrated by android facsimiles constructed by the Hulk’s greatest foe.

Drawn instinctively homeward, the Gamma Goliath reaches the base just as said infiltration threatens the US President himself, leading to a catastrophic clash between the brute and The Leader in ‘The End of Doc Samson!’. The issue (#147) also includes a moving and powerful vignette ‘Heaven is a Very Small Place!’ wherein Thomas, Trimpe & Severin take the tormented titan to the very edge of paradise before horrifying reality again reasserts itselfâ€¦

Archie Goodwin debuted as scripter – with a little plotting assistance from a very junior Chris Claremont – in ‘But Tomorrowâ€¦ the Sun Shall Die!’ as lost love Jarella voyages to Earth and a longed-for reunion, just as Banner is apparently cured of his curse by radical solar-energy experimentation. Sadly, the princess from the micro-verse accidentally brings with her a super-assassin determined to end her life at all costs and the double voyage somehow sparks the sun into going novaâ€¦

Forced to become the monster once again to save his beloved, the Hulk is captured by Ross’s forces only to escape when an ancient threat crashes back to Earth in #149, hungry for radiation to survive in ‘â€¦ And Who Shall Claim This Earth His Own? The Inheritor!’

After dispatching that creepy crawler, the Gamma Goliath wanders into the wilderness where he encounters on-sabbatical X-Man Alec Summers. He had banished himself – with girlfriend Lorna Dane visiting at just the wrong moment – to the deserts of New Mexico, terrified of his uncontrollable cosmic power in #150’s ‘Cry Hulk, Cry Havok!’ When Lorna clashes with a menacing biker gang and an Emerald Giant violently protective of his privacy, Summers finally proves himself against the rampaging but easily distracted titanâ€¦

‘When Monsters Meet!’ then pits the Hulk against a flesh-consuming radioactive horror resulting from a disastrous cancer cure derived from Banner’s blood, before Friedrich, Dick Ayers & Frank Giacoia ask ‘But Who Will Judge the Hulk?’, as helpless, freshly captured Banner is sent to trial for the destruction wrought by his emerald alter ego. The guest-star-studded 2-parter concludes in suitable calamity and chaos in #153’s ‘My World, My Jury!’, which includes additional art by Trimpe & Severin.

After explosively escaping the kangaroo court, the fugitive fury discovers ‘Hell is a Very Small Hulk!’ (Goodwin, Trimpe & Severin) when he swallows a defective shrinking formula. The serum was created and discarded by the Astonishing Ant-Man, but any risk is acceptable in Hulk’s forlorn attempts to rejoin Jarella in her subatomic world.

Snatched up by the face-shifting Chameleon and assembled hordes of Hydra, the diminished brute still manages to quash their treasonous schemes – at the apparent cost of his life.

In actuality, the Hulk is shrinking in sporadic bursts, propelled into a succession of micro-worlds, including an impossible â€œEarthâ€ where Nazis seemingly won WWII. ‘Destination: Nightmare!’ reveals the incredible truth: meddling by a cosmic entity named Shaper of Worlds who tempts the Green Gargantuan with an empty paradise, before another shrinking spasm happily deposits Hulk on Jarella’s world in time for ‘Holocaust at the Heart of the Atom!’ (inked by Sal Trapani): pitting the monster against his worst nightmare – himself – before once again losing his true love to the vicissitudes of cruel fate and cosmic chanceâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Wrapping up the smashing fun are the covers to reprint collections Incredible Hulk Annual #3 and 4; original artwork and covers by Trimpe & Grainger, Ayers & Severin, Trimpe & Severin and a fascinating glimpse into editorial thinking in creating a coverâ€¦

The Hulk is one of the most well-known comic characters on Earth, and these stories, as much as the movies, TV shows and action figures, are the reason why. For an uncomplicated, honestly vicarious experience of Might actually being Right, you can’t beat these evergreen classics.
Â© MARVEL 2021

June 16, 2021June 15, 2021

Positive

By Tom Bouden, translated by Yves Cogneau with Charles â€œZanâ€ Christensen (Northwest Press)
ISBN: 978-0-98459409-2 (PB)

Here’s something short, sweet and utterly, comfortingly satisfying. Please enjoy.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a Lentivirus that attacks the jbody’s immune system. If untreated, the infection usually leads to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome – commonly known as AIDS. For the longest time, the condition was a killer, but can be controlled quite successfully now through a variety of medications, treatments and lifestyle modification.

At its height, the disease ravaged the world, and has killed approximately 38 million people and completely changed global society.

Sadly, how those testing positive for HIV were treated also revealed a lot about the people around themâ€¦

This powerful but truly uplifting graphic tome was created in 2008 by Belgian cartoonist Tom Bouden (Max and Sven; The Importance of Being Earnest; In Bed with David & Jonathan; Queerville): a means of exploding idiotic myths and explaining how a positive diagnosis actually changes the life of a someone with the disease and affects those around them.

Subtitled â€œA Graphic Novelette of Life with Aidsâ€, the charming tale is rendered in a traditional and welcoming Ligne Claire (like Tintin or Blake and Mortimer) style, and laced with plenty of warm humour to balance the tension, fear and pain, and begins eight years ago as young marrieds Sarah and Tim‘s latest row is interrupted by a visit from their doctorâ€¦

He has results that explain Sarah’s recent bout of assorted maladies, but needs her to take a second, confirmatory testâ€¦

And so begins a methodical discourse as the couple carefully share her diagnosis with friends, family and past intimates, delivered with compassion and sensitivity and braced with actual facts throughout. Navigating various treatments, dealing with work issues and living as normal as life as feasible, Sarah and Tim build support networks, while moving ever onward, embracing bucket lists and pill packs, discarding despair and fostering hope until they reach the stage where they can consider the next positive stepâ€¦ having a childâ€¦

Fronted by an emphatically positive Introduction from activist and Gay League executive Joe Palmer, this is a lovely, sensible and above all straightforward examination of HIV in the real world, but parents might want to police these pages if young children are around, as it contains forthright depictions of nudity and lovemaking.
Â© 2013 Tom Bouden. All rights reserved.

June 15, 2021June 14, 2021

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters

By Mike Grell, with Lurene Haynes & Julia Lacquement (DC Comics)
ISBN: â€Ž 978-1-4012-3862-9 (TPB)

It’s another big year for major comic book anniversaries. Here’s one nowâ€¦

First appearing in More Fun Comics #73 in 1941, Green Arrow is one of the very few superheroes to be continuously published (more or less) since the Golden Age of American comic books. On first look, the combination of Batman and Robin Hood seems to have very little going for him, but he has always managed to keep himself in vogue and in sight.

Probably the most telling of his many, many makeovers came in 1987, when – hot on the heels of The Dark Knight Returns – Mike Grell was given the green light to make the Emerald Archer the star of DC’s second Prestige Format Mini-Series.

Grell was considered a major creator at the time, having practically saved the company with his Edgar Rice Burroughs inspired fantasy series Warlord. He had also been the illustrator of many of GA’s most recent tales (in Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Action Comics and elsewhere, and was a firm fan-favourite after well-received runs on Legion of Super-Heroes, Aquaman, Phantom Stranger, Batman and others. During the early 1980s, he had worked on the prestigious Tarzan newspaper strip and created successful genre series such as Starslayer and Jon Sable, Freelance for pioneering indie publisher First Comics.

By the middle of the grim ‘n’ gritty Eighties, it was certainly time for an overhaul of the Battling Bowman. Exploding arrows yes, maybe even net or rope arrows, but arrows with boxing gloves on them just don’t work (trust me – I know this from experience!). Moreover, for his 1960s makeover, the hero had evolved into a tempestuous, social reformer using his gifts to battle for the little guy. Now, in a new era of corrupt government, drug cartels and serial killers, this emerald survivor adapted again and thrived once more.

Following a trenchant and outrageously entertaining Introduction from Mike Gold, the action unfolds, setting out a new path that would quickly lead to the hero becoming a major player at long last and, ultimately, a TV sensation.

The plot was brilliantly logical and controversial, concerning the superhero’s mid-life crisis. Weary and aging, Oliver Queen relocates to Seattle, struggling to come to terms with the fact that since his former sidekick, Speedy, is now a dad, he is technically a grandfather. With long-time ‘significant other’ Dinah Lance/Black Canary, he begins to simplify his life, but the drive to fight injustice hasn’t dimmed for either of them.

As she goes undercover to stamp out a pervasive drug ring, the Arrow becomes embroiled in the hunt for a psycho-killer dubbed â€œThe Seattle Slasherâ€. As he tracks a prolific beast slaughtering prostitutes, he becomes aware of a second – cross-country – slayer who has been murdering people with arrows – but only after the â€œRobin-Hood Killerâ€ murders a grave-digger in his new cityâ€¦

Eschewing his gaudy costume and gimmicks, Queen reinvents himself as an urban hunter to stop these unglamorous hidden monsters, and stumbles into a complex mystery leading back to World War II which involves the Yakuza, the CIA, corporate America and even Viet Nam war secrets that would eventually change the course of the Archer’s lifeâ€¦

The intricate plot effortlessly weaves around the destabilized champion and his love, while introducing new character Shado: exploring and echoing themes of vengeance and family in a subtle blending of three stories that are in fact one, and still delivers a shocking punch even now, through its disturbingly explicit examination of torture. These issues won the miniseries much undeserved negative press when first published. Although possibly tame to modern eyes this was eye-opening stuff at the time, which is a shame, since it diverted attention from the real achievement. That was narrative quality and sophistication, as this tale is arguably the first truly mature superhero yarn in the DCU.

Grell here produced a gripping, mystery adventure that pushes all the right buttons, conveyed by artwork – in collaboration with Lurene Haynes & Julia Lacquement – that was and remains a revelation. Beautifully demure yet edgily sharp when required, these painterly visuals and watercolour tones perfectly complement a terse, sparse script, and compelling ride any thriller writer would be proud of, and – controversy notwithstanding – this comicbook retooling quickly spawned a monthly series that evolved into one of the best reads of the 1990s.

It all starts here, and so should you.
Â© 1987, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

June 14, 2021June 13, 2021

The Killer Condom and Down to the Bone

By Ralf KÃ¶nig: translated by Jim Steakley and Jeff Krell (Northwest Press/Ignite! Entertainment)
ISBN: 978-0-96563-238-6 (Killer Condom PB) 978-0-96563-239-3 (Down to the Bone PB)
Digital editions by Northwest Press – no ISBN

Standard Disclaimer: These comedy stories contain rude words, explicit nudity, depictions of graphic and hilarious sexual situations and normal non-Biblical lifestyles. If any of these are likely to offend, what the hell are you doing here anyway?

I’d like to think that most social problems humanity suffers from can be fixed by a little honesty and a lot of communication – especially when it comes to relationships. Being able to laugh together probably helps too. In regard to sexual politics and freedom it’s an attitude Germany adopted decades ago. As a result, the country has an admirable record of acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community and a broad penetration (yes, I’m awful! And Not Funny!) of gay comics into the general population.

Undisputed king of home-grown graphic novels is Ralf KÃ¶nig, a multi-award-winning cartoonist, filmmaker and advocate with almost fifty titles – such as Suck My Duck; Santa Claus Junior; Prototyp; Archetyp; Antityp and StehaufmÃ¤nnchen– under his belt.

He was born in August 1960 and came out in 1979, crafting an unceasing parade of incisive and hilarious strips and sagas set in and around the nation’s ever-evolving gay scene. Much to his own surprise, he discovered that his work had vaulted the divide from niche market to become a staple of popular mass market book sales. Many of his works have been rereleased as eBooks from Northwest Press.

The two volumes covered here were major sellers all over the world: blending the sordid shock-chic of 1970s American crime films and TV shows like Dirty Harry, The Warriors or Kojak and schlocky Sci Fi-horror (as in Scanners or Critters) with absurdist humour and the delicious notion of New York’s toughest Top Cop being Out, Loud and obnoxiously Proudâ€¦

First released in Britain in 1991 and wholly embracing the conceit of being an art house movie, The Killer Condom originally debuted in 1987 as Kondom des Grauens: a whole-hearted genre spoof introducing disgraced and disgraceful New York detective Luigi Macaroni, called on by his reluctant and harassed boss to solve a rash of gory emasculations plaguing the area around the notorious pay-by-the-hour Hotel Quickie.

Brash, gruff and deliberately sleazy, Macaroni is too good a cop to get rid of, despite his brazen attitude, and begins to work just like in every other case his straight colleagues won’t touch. However, as he investigates the brutal street scene he quickly realizes that no human agency is biting the dicks off an escalating stream of unfortunate sinnersâ€¦

When he picks up a rent boy for a little relief, they too go to the Quickie and soon face terror beyond imagination and every man’s darkest nightmareâ€¦

Crafted at a time when HIV/AIDS was ravaging the gay community and scaring the pants off the wider world, this darkly trenchant satire adds a bizarre codicil to the still-ongoing debate about safe sex and condom use, but remains at its core an outrageously funny romp for grown-ups. In 1996, it and sequel Down to the Bone were adapted as a German comedy horror movie, latterly released in America as Killer Condom.
The Killer Condom Â© 1988 by Editions Kunst der Comics/Ralf KÃ¶nig. Revised Edition Â© 2009, Published by Ignite! Entertainment. All rights reserved.

Down to the Bone emerged in 1990. As Bis Auf die Knochen, it heralded the triumphant return of Detective Inspector Macaroni – an even-more embittered man following his failure to maintain a loving relationship. It’s New Year’s in New York and the city is darker and nastier than ever. In the dead of winter, a fresh horror stalks the streetsâ€¦

When a man hungry for negotiable affection encounters an oddly familiar â€œleathermanâ€ hooker, it turns into the last trick of his life. Meanwhile, celebrity restauranteur Joe Baluga meets a similar fate, as does another hapless John triggering another campaign of atrocity in the mouldy, worm-infested Big Apple.

This time, it’s not dicks that are disappearing: now entire bodies are being instantly reduced to bleached skeletons and the Captain needs the department’s top Queer to stop the rot. As the third victim is the wealthy son of an infamous billionaire, and just to be safe, the embattled chief assigns painfully straight whitebread Detective Brian Plumley to assist him – affording Macaroni an irresistible opportunity to play pranks and reaffirm his reputation as a total bastardâ€¦

As they trawl the leather bars and other outposts of â€œthe sceneâ€ they quickly establish an apparent link to the gay porn industry. But other than providing the inspector with a celebrity hook-up, the investigation stalls until a bizarre find proves that what they’re all hunting is far from humanâ€¦

From there the pieces swiftly fall into place and the escalating horror leads back to an old case involving carnivorous latex prophylactics. With bodies still dropping, Macaroni and a far-more woke Plumley track down an old mad scientist and his ghastly creation and encounter a deranged fundamentalist determined to enforce Biblical mandates at all costsâ€¦

Wry, witty, coarsely hysterical, these books marry the surly, unsavoury thrills of urban cop fiction with a bawdily outrageous whimsy that sadly won’t appeal to everybody, but if you love big raucous ludicrous belly laughs with your thrills and chills, these might well become some of your favourite reads.
Down to the Bone Â© 1990 by Editions Kunst der Comics/Ralf KÃ¶nig. Revised Edition Â© 2011, and published by Ignite! Entertainment. All rights reserved.

June 13, 2021June 11, 2021

The Mighty Thor Epic Collection volume 6: Into the Dark Nebula 1972-1973

By Gerry Conway, Stan Lee, Len Wein, John Buscema, Don Perlin, Marie Severin, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2248-1 (TPB)

With the constantly expanding Marvel Universe growing ever more interconnected as it matured, characters literally tripped over each other in New York City and its environs, but such was seldom the case with Thor.

The Asgardian milieu and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby had long drawn the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning new landscapes. When the unthinkable happened and the increasingly discontented King of Comics jumped ship from the House of (His) Ideas for arch-rival DC in 1970 an era ended. Left to soldier on, Stan Lee called in top artist John Buscema to carry a seemingly unbearable burden and after initial loss of focus and impetus – a new type of tale began to emergeâ€¦

In case you came in late: disabled doctor Donald Blake took a vacation in Norway only to stumble into an alien invasion. Trapped in a cave, he found an ancient walking stick which, when struck against the ground, turned him into the Norse God of Thunder! Within moments he was defending the weak and smiting the wicked.

Months swiftly passed with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces.

This bombastic transitional compendium (available in trade paperback and digital formats) reprints Mighty Thor #195-216, spanning January 1972 to October 1973, with the puissant Thunder God going both forward and back between mortal and godly realms. By the time of these monthly episodes, the Thunderer and select Asgardian companions were slowly devolving into a muddled, self-doubting band of fantasy spacemen roving the outer limits of the Marvel Universe under the earnest governance of young science fiction novelist Gerry Conway and a dedicated, talented but still unsettled string of artists. Now, at last, a new path was being forgedâ€¦

Illustrated by John Buscema & Vince Colletta, the action resumes with ‘In the Shadow of Mangog!’: the first chapter of another extended odyssey wherein Thor and friends are dispatched to the ends of the Universe. In another righteous rage, All-Father Odin had banished second son Loki to a fantastic world, momentarily forgetting that once there, the Prince of Evil might possibly awaken the most vicious, unbeatable monster in the Asgardian universe â€¦.

Now the Storm God and Warriors Three Fandral the Dashing, Voluminous Volstagg and Hogun the Grim find themselves lost ‘Within the Realm of Kartag!’ and facing slug-men and bewitching temptress Satrina, even as the All-Father and the hosts of the Shining City struggle to hold the liberated Mangog at bay. Meanwhile, on planet Blackworld, Lady Sif and her muscular shield-maiden Hildegarde undertake another Odinian quest and find themselves caught up in a time-bending nightmareâ€¦

Thor #197 witnesses the heroes overcoming all odds to find ‘The Well at the Edge of the World!’: meeting the conniving, all-powerful Norns and recruiting colossal former foe Kartag for their desperate return and rescue mission to shattered Asgard.

On Blackworld, Sif and Hildegarde encounter monsters and men making uncontrollable evolutionary leaps towards an unguessable future, but find an unlikely ally and guide in aged sailor Silas Grantâ€¦

The male heroes return to find Asgard in flaming ruins and the cataclysmic confrontation with Mangog nearing its apocalyptic end, whilst on Blackworld, Sif, Hildegarde and Silas met alien Rigellian Colonizer Tana Nile and the horrendous creature behind the evolutionary jumps. Simultaneously, the battle in Asgard reaches a horrific climax when Mangog is at last defeated ‘â€¦And Odin Dies!’

For #199, the ravaged home of the gods comes adrift in a dimensional void, allowing Thor – clutching to a desperate last hope – to cocoon his deceased father in a timeless force energy field. This prevents Death Goddess Hela from claiming his soul, but sadly, she isn’t the only deity hungry for the All-Father’s spirit. ‘If This Be Deathâ€¦!’ sees Grecian-Roman netherlord Pluto invading the broken realm to take Odin into his own dire domain.

â€¦And, on Blackworld, Tana Nile hints at the origin of the monstrous Ego-Prime, and how it can force such terrifying uncontrollable time-warps. Back in free-floating Asgard, things go from bad to worse as brave Balder‘s beloved Karnilladeserts him, just as invincible Pluto bests Hela and aims a killing blow at Thorâ€¦

The denouement was postponed as anniversary issue #200 hit the pause button to flashback to an earlier age. Crafted by Stan Lee, Buscema & John Verpoorten, ‘Beware! If This Beâ€¦ Ragnarok!’ spectacularly depicts the mythologised fall of the gods through the mystic visions of Volla the Prophetess, with only a bridging Prologue and Epilogue – by Conway & Buscema – revealing how the Norns save Thor’s life for the concluding battle against Pluto which resumes in #201 (with Jim Mooney providing lush finished art over Buscema’s layouts).

As Hela relinquishes her claim to the father of the gods and Odin enjoys a miraculous ‘Resurrection!’ on Earth, absentee Asgardians Heimdall and Kamorr seek out certain mortals for another Odinian master-plan, even before the battle with Pluto is fully concludedâ€¦

As they scour Midgard, on Blackworld Ego-Prime advances the in-situ civilisation to the point of atomic Armageddon. Sif barely transports her companions to Earth in time to escape thermonuclear conflagration. Luckily Thor, Balder, and the Warriors Three are in Manhattan to meet the refugees, since the deadly, now self-evolving, Ego-Prime has followed the fugitivesâ€¦

Thor #202 boasts ‘â€¦And None Dare Stand ‘Gainst Ego-Prime!’ (Colletta inks) although Silas, Tana Nile and the assembled Asgardians try their best as the now-sentient shard of Ego, the Living Planet rampages through the city. As it makes monsters and shatters entire streets, Odin calmly observes the carnage whilst Heimdall and Kamorr gather their human targets for the concluding ‘They Walk Like Gods!’

Odin’s complex machinations are finally exposed as Ego-Prime inadvertently creates a new race of 20^th century deities. Sadly, the All-Father’s single-minded scheme appals his son and weary, war-weary subjects, and their wholly understandable rebukes lead to their all being ‘Exiled on Earth!’ in #204 (Buscema & Mooney) and immediately targeted by satanic tempter Mephistoâ€¦

Soon, only the Thunderer is left to beat the devil: recklessly invading his private hell and gloriously liberating hundreds of demon-possessed humans from ‘A World Gone Mad!’ (Colletta inks). Their triumphant return, however, is merely to Midgard, not the gleaming spires of forbidden Asgardâ€¦

A new chapter opens when the Earthbound godling clashes brutally but inconclusively with an uncharacteristically out-of-control Absorbing Man Crusher Creel, just as Thor’s greatest enemy resurfaces in #206’s ‘Rebirth!’

After a destructive but inconclusive clash in the city, Thor tracks Creel to Rutland, Vermont just in time for the annual Halloween festival. Here Thor, Sif and Hildegarde clash with malign Loki and his all-powerful ‘Firesword!’ in an action-heavy duel elevated by a plethora of quirky comic creator cameos (thanks to the divine Marie Severin adding her caricaturing brilliance to Buscema & Colletta’s workmanlike illustration). Another extended sub-plot opens here as Sif vanishes, spirited away to the ends of the universe by lovelorn Norn Queen Karnilla â€¦

Sci fi themes predominate #208 as ‘The Fourth-Dimensional Man!’ manifests, pilfering the Thunderer’s ambient Asgardian energies to save his own world from disaster. Sadly, they are insufficient and malevolent Mercurio is compelled to tap his source directly, resulting in battle without mercy as Thor’s noble spirit gradually gives way to the despair of exile and constant lossâ€¦

Ceaselessly searching for Sif, Thor stops over in London (albeit not one any Briton would ever recognise, though) in #209. It’s just long enough to accidentally awaken a sleeping alien dormant since the building of Stonehenge, and the resultant clash between Thunder God and Demon Druid devastates much of England in ‘Warriors in the Night!’, after which our globe-girdling hero is ambushed in Red China by Mao’s soldiers in #210’s (Buscema, Don Perlin & Colletta)‘The Hammer and the Hellfire!’

The People’s Army are merely the action appetiser, however, since ultimate Troll Ulik has decided to conquer both his own people and Earth: moving pre-emptively to remove his greatest foe from the equationâ€¦

With New York City invaded by Troll warriors, #211 highlights ‘The End of the Battle!’ as fellow exiles and the Warriors Three join the fray.

The fighting-mad Asgardians rout the underworld insurgents just as a now utterly insane Balder resurfaces, warning that Asgard has been conquered.

With the Realm Eternal emptied of gods and occupied by sleazy lizard-men, Thor and his companions are soon hot on the trail of their missing race. Guided by saurian rogue Sssthgar and his serpentine horde, the heroes undertake a ‘Journey to the Golden Star!’ in #212 to discover their liege and kin meek chattels on a slaver’s auction blockâ€¦

Scripted by Len Wein over Conway’s plot, ‘The Demon Brigade!’ depicts Thor betrayed by the Lizard Lord and embroiled in a civil war between slaver races, before exposing Sssthgar’s secret and freeing his debilitated father. He also obtains a lead to the whereabouts of Sif and Karnilla, consequently plunging the dedicated band recklessly ‘Into the Dark Nebula!’ (Conway, Sal Buscema & Jim Mooney) to rescue the missing warrior maidens from asteroid miners who had purchased them.

They find their quarry besieged by the 4D Man and his army, who are intent on acquiring a malign, sentient source of infinite power, but events take an uncanny turn when ‘The God in the Jewel’ (John Buscema & Mooney) absorbs the women into its crystalline mass and flies off, intent on dominating all life in the universeâ€¦

Forced to become allies of convenience, the Asgardians and Mercurio strive together ‘Where Chaos Rules!’, resolved to freeing the captives and stop the rapacious gem god. Sadly, even after eventual victory leaves them all tenuous comrades, Thor’s trials are not doneâ€¦

To Be Continuedâ€¦

Also included is a lengthy gallery of original art pages and covers to delight and charm fans

The tales gathered here might lack the sheer punch and verve of The King, but fans of cosmic Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy – whether graphic or cinematic – will find this tome stuffed with intrigue and action aplenty, magnificently rendered by artists who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, were every inch his equal in craft and dedication. This chronicle is an absolute must for all fans of the medium and far-flung fantasy thrills.
Â© 2020 MARVEL

June 12, 2021June 11, 2021

Graylight

By Naomi Nowak (NBM)
ISBN13: 978-1-56163-567-2 (PB)

There are a number of uncomfortable if not altogether unpleasant truisms that still dominate the narrative arts, particularly in terms of gender appeasement: most prevalent and dominant of those – after â€œchuck in some sex scenesâ€ – are â€œguys need to see mindless action as often as possibleâ€ and â€œwomen require moments of pretty, contemplative stillness in their stories.â€

Mercifully, these hoary Tinseltown-spawned dictums are being constantly challenged and disproved these days (just take a look at the frighteningly charged stillness of the â€œquiet bitsâ€ in many European and particularly Scandi-crime screen gems such as the original Professor T), especially in the burgeoning yet still largely experimental graphic novel market, where the rules of narration are still being laid downâ€¦

In her third book, Graylight, painter and illustrator Naomi Nowak (House of Clay; Unholy Kinship) composes another dreamy, symbol-drenched inquiry into the complexities of love in a surreal, quasi-mystical tale of a troubled young woman whose complacency and bad habits suck her into an unimaginable amount of difficulty.

Sasha is beautiful, affable, friendly, utterly self-absorbed and an unrepentant thief. If she sees something see likes, she simply knows it will be better off with her. Sadly, that applies to people as much as objectsâ€¦

Years ago, a man killed himself, and his widow swore to their infant son Edmund that she would always protect her baby boy from bad things – such as women who drive husbands to their deathsâ€¦

As usual, Sasha is the centre of attention in the bar when journalist Erik spots her. She is holding court, shocking friends with her honesty about how wicked she is. She can feel no remorse for taking the things she wants. Erik is in town to interview reclusive author Aurora, and – now besotted with Sasha – brings her with him as his â€œphotographer.â€

The interview goes badly. Aurora is hostile, rearing a son nobody knew of: a sheltered young man called Edmund, who is protective of his mother but drawn to the moodily effervescent Sasha. Flirting with the reclusive boy as a matter of habit, Sasha is most attracted to an antique book, so she takes it.

Initially setting out to retrieve the book, Edmund is increasingly ensnared in Sasha’s charismatic spell. Aurora, seeing Sasha to be just the kind of woman she swore to protect her son from, knows a few spells of her own, and is quite prepared to use any and every means to keep her ancient promiseâ€¦

Colourful in misty pastels and shockingly bold lines, this oneiric, supernaturally-tinged drama blends the sensibilities of shÅjo manga (romantic stories for young girls) with the bleak, moody naturalism of Scandinavian landscape painting and the rich, sexually-charged texture of teen soap operas to produce a compellingly sinister love story of desire and consequence that is lyrical, often reflective and occasionally pretentious, but always eminently readable and utterly beautiful to look upon.

And here’s my point: this quiet, contemplative breed of graphic narrative has a great deal to offer readers seeking something a little different. This decrepit heterosexual male felt no need for a fistfight or car chase to keep my attention from wandering, and those dreamy, floaty moments greatly added to my appreciation of atmosphere and mood. If the action is starting to pall, why not try a little classic mood magicâ€¦?
Â© 2007 Naomi Nowak. All rights reserved.

June 11, 2021

David Boring

By Daniel Clowes (Pantheon/Jonathan Cape)
ISBN: 978-0-37540-692-8 (Pantheon HB) 978-1-022406-323-4 (Jonathan Cape PB)

One of the greatest assets of the comics medium is the ostensibly straightforward nature of its storytelling. With pictures wedded to text, what you see is so clearly what you get. So, whenever a master creator deliberately subverts that implicit convention, the result might be occasionally obscure or confusing, but is always utterly engrossing.

At the forefront of comics storytelling for almost four decades Daniel Clowes is, for many, an acquired taste. However, once he’s in your brain there’s certainly no shaking the things he can do with pen and ink, motive, character and the special kind of situational magic that inhabits the world of pictures and words on paper.

Born in Chicago in 1961, he began his career as a cartoonist with humour magazine Cracked before creating uniquely skewed short comic tales for Fantagraphics. His first piece debuted in Love and Rockets # 13 (September 1985): an introductory prelude to his retro-chic detective magazine Lloyd Llewellyn which launched soon after and ran in various incarnations for three years.

In 1989 he created anthology vehicle Eightball and began producing a variety of tales – short and serial-lengths – ranging from social satire, nostalgic absurdist anthropomorphic yarns to surreal, penetrating human dramas, all viewed through the lens of iconic popular cultures and social motifs. All that material has since been collected into graphic novels and two of these, Ghost World and Art School Confidential, have been adapted into critically acclaimed feature films.

His experiences in Hollywood combined with deep-seated childhood influences of noir movies and comics books combined and resulted in ‘David Boring’ – originally serialised in Eightball #19-21 before being collected by Pantheon Books in America and Jonathan Cape in Britain.

David Boring is the narrator of his own story, living a life of unsatisfactory gratification, harassed by his mother and obsessed by his absentee father – a second rate cartoonist and comic book artist who disappeared decades previously. David spends his days with his only real friend, a lesbian named Dot he has known since High School. David is listlessly indulging in his life’s work by searching for his perfect woman when an old friend suddenly shows up, triggering a series of bizarre events that should make his life a living action movie, but instead just steers him into increasingly unpalatable and mundane tragedies and horrorsâ€¦

Set against a backdrop of impending catastrophes, ranging from murder to the end of the world, David’s progress is trenchantly plebeian and low-key: an odyssey rendered drama-free by the protagonist’s relentless lack of – or rather resistance to – passion and unwillingness to fully engage in events occurring around him.

His world is full of sexual encounters, assaults, murders, chases and even global holocausts, but he passively accepts and adapts to it all.

Clowes has stated that he crafted this stunningly engaging and challenging tale as an exercise in writing an un-filmable comic. He has, but it was still optioned by Hollywoodâ€¦

This is another of those too-rare productions that shouldn’t really be reviewed, just read, with themes of adolescence, maturity, quest for self and the impending end of life delivered via a landscape of comics, film noir, mock-heroics and the irreducible knowledge that families make individuals; sublimely combining in a truly personal experience for every reader.

Be warned: the most telling narrative device used here is uncertainty. A tremendous amount of the story is left unstated: this is a saga littered with reader’s conclusions not the characters’ actions. Events are set in motion and consequences are noted, but the course of intervening actions if not experienced by David can only be surmised or extrapolated: David Boring is a protagonist with few of the overt drives of a regular narrative hero and his story is one that can’t happen to any one of usâ€¦

June 10, 2021June 9, 2021

Kevin Keller: Drive Me Crazy

By Dan Parent, Bill Galvan, Rich Koslowski & various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-58-7 (TPB)

Following the debut of Superman, MLJ were merely one of many publishers to jump on the mystery-man bandwagon, generating their own small but inspired pantheon of gaudily-clad crusaders.

In November 1939 they launched Blue Ribbon Comics, and swiftly followed up with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the era’s standard mix of masked champions, clean-cut, two-fisted adventurers, genre prose pieces and gags.

Not long after, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in the blossoming yet crowded market. In December 1941 the Fights ‘n’ Tights, heaving he-man crowd were gently nudged aside by a far less imposing hero; an ordinary teenager having everyday adventures just like the readership, laden with companionable laughs, good times and budding romance.

Goldwater developed the youthful everyman protagonist concept, tasking writer Vic Bloom & artist Bob Montana with making it all work. Inspired by and referencing the successful Andy Hardy movies (starring Mickey Rooney), their new notion premiered in Pep Comics #22. The unlikely star was a gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed kid desperate to impress the pretty blonde girl next door.

A 6-page untitled tale introduced hapless boob Archie Andrews and wholesomely fetching Betty Cooper. The boy’s wry, unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones also debuted in that vignette, as did idyllic small-town utopia Riverdale. The piece was a huge hit with readers and by the winter of 1942 the kid had won his own series and latterly a solo-starring title.

Archie Comics #1 was MLJ’s first non-anthology magazine and with it began an inexorable transformation of the company. With the debut of ultra-rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the industry’s second Genuine Phenomenonâ€¦

By 1946, the kids were in charge and MLJ officially reinvented itself as Archie Comics, retiring the majority of its costumed characters years before the end of the Golden Age to become, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family-friendly comedies.

The hometown settings and perpetually fruitful premise of an Eternal Romantic Triangle – with girl-hating Jughead to assist or deter and scurrilous love-rat rival Reggie Mantle to test, duel and vex our boy in their own unique ways – the scenario was one that not only resonated with fans, but was somehow infinitely fresh and engagingâ€¦

Like Superman, Archie’s success forced a change in content at every other US publisher (except Gilberton’s dryly po-faced Classics Illustrated), creating a culture-shifting multi-media brand encompassing TV, movies, newspaper strips, toys and merchandise, a chain of restaurants and – in the swinging sixties – a pop music sensation when Sugar, Sugar (taken from the animated TV cartoon) became a global summer smash hit. Clean and decent garage band â€œThe Archiesâ€ has been a fixture of the comics ever since just waiting for the comeback hitâ€¦

The perennial eternal triangle has generated thousands of charming, raucous, gentle, thrilling, chiding and even heart-rending humorous dramas expressing everything from surreal wit to frantic, frenetic slapstick, with the kids and a constantly expanding cast of friends (boy genius Dilton Doily; genial giant jock Big Moose and occasional guest Sabrina the Teenage Witch amongst so many others): growing into a national institution and part of America’s cultural landscape.

The feature thrives by constantly refreshing its core archetypes; boldly, seamlessly adapting to a changing world outside its bright and cheerful pages, shamelessly co-opting youth, pop culture, fashion trends and even topical events into its infallible mix of comedy and young romance. Each and every social revolution has been painlessly assimilated into the mix and over the decades the company has confronted most social issues affecting youngsters in a manner both even-handed and tasteful.

Constant addition of new characters such as African-American Chuck Clayton and his girlfriend Nancy Woods, fashion-diva Ginger Lopez, Hispanic couple Frankie Valdez and Maria Rodriguez, student film-maker Raj Patel and spoiled home-wrecker-in-waiting Cheryl Blossom all contributed to a wide, refreshingly diverse and broad-minded scenario.

In 2010 Archie jumped the final hurdle – for decades a seemingly insurmountable one for kids comicbooks – when openly gay student Kevin Keller joined the gang: becoming an admirable advocate capably tackling and dismantling the last major taboo in mainstream comics.

Created by writer/artist Dan Parent and inker Rich Koslowski, Kevin Keller debuted in Veronica #202 (September 2010), a charming, good-looking and exceedingly-together young man who utterly bowled over the rich go-getter. Ronnie was totally smitten with him, but Kevin was far more interested in food, sports and hanging out with Jugheadâ€¦

When he finally explained to Veronica why she was wasting her time, she became Keller’s best buddy as they had so much in common – stylish clothes, shopping and cute guysâ€¦

Immensely popular from the outset (Veronica #202 was the first comic book in the company’s long history to go into a second printing), Kevin struck a chord with the readership. Soon, frequent guest shots evolved into a miniseries before the new kid on the block inevitably won his own ongoing title.

Trade paperback & digital compilation Kevin Keller: Drive Me Crazy collects issues #5-8 of his groundbreaking solo title and opens with an effusive Introduction from actor, author and rights activist George Takei, in anticipation of his walk-on part in the opening chapter here.

Sacrificing chronological order for star attraction, ‘By George!’ comes from Kevin Keller #6 (January 2013) wherein a class project about inspirational heroes leads to the kids invading a local comic convention headlined by the Star Trek star, after which Mr. Takei surprises all concerned by returning the favour at Riverdale High. If only Kevin wasn’t so distracted by the return of old flame Brian and the promise of new romanceâ€¦

Eponymous tale ‘Drive Me Crazy!’ (Kevin Keller #5 December 2012) then targets the next milestone in a young man’s life as the affable pedestrian finally gains independence with the arrival of his first car. It is, in fact, an old jeep belonging to his dad (a retired army colonel) and the fun really hits high gear after Moose and Dilton offer to spruce it up and make it roadworthy in their own inimitable mannerâ€¦ just in time to play havoc with Kevin’s date with old pal Todd.

Back on track for #7 (March, 2013), ‘Decisions, decisions!’ finds Kevin dating aggressive bad boy Devon: a student determined to keep his status as a macho hetero male. Patience, love and understanding only go so far though, and when Kevin convinces Devon to finally come out, the misunderstood lout faces repercussions from his family and friends that Kevin never anticipatedâ€¦

Piling on the pressure, an old secret admirer who remained anonymous chooses this moment to identify himself to the ever-popular Mr. Kellerâ€¦

Everything boils over in concluding episode ‘Play by the Rules!’ (Kevin Keller #8, June 2013) when Veronica cons Kevin into starring in her self-penned stage drama Teenagers: The Musical! His proximity to former secret admirer Pauldrives Devon to jealousy and stalking, but thankfully in the unavoidable denouement, the only real casualty is Ronnie’s atrocity of a showâ€¦

Following the compelling comics is an ‘Official Kevin Keller Bonus Features’ section offering ‘Kevin, Betty and Veronica Fashions’, to supplement a cover gallery that includes modern cartoon masterpieces, remastered classic Archie images retrofitted to suit our 21^st century all-star and variant covers spoofing Star Trek and Superman.

Drive Me Crazy is superbly diverse, hilariously welcoming and magically inclusive collection for you, your kids and grandparents to enjoy over and over againâ€¦
Â© 2013 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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