Month: March 2010

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The Punisher: Return to Big Nothing


By Steven Grant, Mike Zeck & John Beatty (Marvel/Epic)
ISBN: 0-87135-553-1

Ever woken up in one of those bad moods where you just want to bite everybody and kick their dog, but just can’t justify the expense of spleen?

Well you could give in to the urge but you might want to try my remedy: find a good, old-fashioned kick-ass, gratuitous comic story and let someone more qualified in mayhem-management handle the hard work whilst you vicariously reap the subsequent rewards in karma and entertainment value.

A faithful standby in such situations is always the Punisher: an unreconstructed and unrepentant slice of “because I said so” gloriously devoid of such tricky downers as conscience, remorse or annoying, shilly-shallying moral grey areas.

Debuting as a villain in Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), the Punisher was created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru, a reaction to such popular prose anti-heroes as Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan: the Executioner and other returning Viet Nam vets who all turned their training and talents to wiping out organised crime.

Frank Castle saw his family gunned down in Central Park after witnessing a mob hit, and thence dedicated his life to eradicating criminals everywhere. His methods are violent and permanent. It’s intriguing to note that unlike most heroes who debuted as villains (Wolverine comes to mind) the Punisher actually became more immoral, anti-social and murderous, not less: the buying public shifted its communal perspective – Castle never toned down or cleaned up his act…

After bouncing around the Marvel universe for a good few years a 1986 miniseries by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck (which I must review sometime soon) swiftly led to a plethora of “shoot-’em-all and let God sort it out” antics that quickly boiled over into tedious overkill, but along the way a few pure gems were cranked out, such as this intriguing and absorbing graphic novel which reunited the creative team, mysteriously released in 1989 under the generally creator-owned Epic imprint.

Still available in hardback and softcover in the so-satisfying oversized European format (284m x 215m) it sees the Urban Commando re-explore his early days as a Marine when his perpetual hunt for criminals reunites him with Supply Sergeant Gorman, his old Nam top-kick: a savage, cunning thug who couldn’t be outfought, and a man who murdered his own men to begin his career as a drug baron…

Years later Castle’s crusade has brought him to Las Vegas and to his horror the man he couldn’t beat is at the top of a pyramid of vice and death that leads from the US Army to the Asian drug-gangs that peddle death in the streets. Looks like the Punisher is going to need a bigger gun – or lots of them…

Hard, fast and deliciously brutal, this non-stop rocket-ride has everything that made the series so popular, stripped down to a form of costumed Noir that is absolutely irresistible. Grant, Zeck and Beatty completely understand the tough guy mystique of the character whilst the action and exotic locales fuel and feed the impression of a proper movie blockbuster that neither of the two actual films (so far) has got anywhere near.

If you truly need to see bullets fly and creeps die – then you need Return to Big Nothing.
© 1989 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Merchants of Venus – A DC Science Fiction Graphic Novel


By Frederick Pohl, adapted by Neal McPheeters & Victoria Petersen (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-08-0

Alternatively entitled ‘The Merchants of Venus Underground’ Pohl’s captivating novella appeared in the compilation The Gold at Starbow’s End in 1972; a biting satire on free market capitalism seamlessly blended into a gripping escapade of treasure hunting in the grand style of Jack London, Joseph Conrad or Carl Barks.

Audee Walthers works as a pilot on the desolate colony of Venus. Most of the work is babysitting tourists who come to see the ancient remnants of Heechee civilisation: million year old tunnels and incomprehensible technology from a star-faring race that upped and vanished overnight, long before our ancestors climbed down from the trees.

There isn’t much to see. The odd tool or prayer-fan,  bizarre and incomprehensible gadgets immune to aging and damage often dot the sub-surface tunnels the aliens left, and which are still being found regularly, but Venus is a big planet and everybody dreams of finding lost The Heechee jackpot:  a cluttered warren, actual images of the mysterious unknown creatures or best of all, understandable tech that will be usable and pay off in big rewards from the Government or Corporations.

Audee is especially keen on that fabled big find. His liver is failing and in a ruthlessly commercial society where everything is costed and paid for, he hasn’t got the cash to stay alive much longer. So when millionaire Boyce Cochenour and his popsy Dorotha Keefer hit “town” the pilot smells someone as desperate as he for hunting Heechee, and moves Heaven and Earth to meet them. Together they will find that special something or all die trying…

This enthralling yarn led to some of the very best adventure/science fiction novels ever written, and once you’ve read this review and are seeking out the graphic novel you should add Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Heechee Rendezvous, Annals of the Heechee and The Boy who Would Live Forever (A Novel of Gateway) to your shopping list. They’re not comics but they’re just as good…

During the 1980s DC, on a creative roll like many publishers large and small, attempted to free comics narrative from its previous constraints of size and format as well as content. To this end, legendary editor Julie Schwartz called upon contacts from his early days as a Literary Agent to convince major names from the fantasy literature world to allow their early classics to be adapted into a line of Science Fiction Graphic Novels.

This comfortably traditional adaptation from the highly experimental graphic novel series comes courtesy of painter and straight illustrator Neal McPheeters, who adapted the tale with his wife Victoria Petersen, with lettering from Todd Klein.

This is a fine tale well-told and effectively illustrated. It’s a great shame it and the other DC Science Fiction Graphic Novels are currently out of print. Collected together they’d make a killer “DC Absolute” compilation…
© 1972 Frederick Pohl. Illustrations © 1986 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Art of Herg̩ РInventor of Tintin: volume 2 1937-1949


By Philippe Goddin (Last Gasp)
ISBN: 978-0-86719-724-2

Georges Prosper Remi, known all over the world as Hergé, created a genuine masterpiece of graphic literature with his tales of a plucky boy reporter and his entourage of iconic associates. Singly, and later with assistants including Edgar P. Jacobs, Bob de Moor and other supreme stylists of the select Hergé Studio, he created twenty three splendid volumes (originally produced in brief instalments for a variety of periodicals) that have grown beyond their popular culture roots and attained the status of High Art.

On leaving school in 1925 he worked for the Catholic newspaper Le XXe Siécle where he fell under the influence of its Svengali-esque editor Abbot Norbert Wallez. A devoted boy-scout Remi produced his first strip series The Adventures of Totor for the monthly Boy Scouts of Belgium magazine the following year, and by 1928 he was in charge of producing the contents of Le XXe Siécle’s weekly children’s supplement Le Petit Vingtiéme.

He was illustrating The Adventures of Flup, Nénesse, Poussette and Cochonette, written by the staff sports reporter when Wallez asked him to create a new adventure series. Perhaps a young reporter who roamed the world, doing good whilst displaying solid Catholic values and virtues?

The rest is history, and for such a pivotal figure who better to recount it than Philippe Goddin, friend and acclaimed expert and the man who directed the Hergé Studio research and archives for a decade?

This intermediate volume of three follows the artist’s progress week by week and year by year through the heady successes of his major creations, diarising key events, clarifying the various tasks of a jobbing periodical cartoonist and noting the key personal moments of the man’s life – such as his affair with a friend of his wife Greg and the moment he discovered his agent had been embezzling from him.

Liberally illustrated with original art, printed and retouched pages and frames, copies of the comics and magazines the strips first appeared in and many photographs this is a fascinating insight into the working process of a graphic genius. The hundreds of pencil drawing and layouts alone are priceless to anyone with aspirations of a career in comics. If only other artists had been as scrupulously meticulous in preserving the many stages of their creations!

Beginning in 1937 the chapters follow the progress and output of all five Jo, Zette and Jocko tales from The Secret Ray through to Valley of the Cobras, new Tintin from The Broken Ear and Black Island to Land of Black Gold (ten albums), and the slapstick japes of Belgian urchins Quick and Flupke (twelve volumes), plus all the revision to the previous output that kept his work fresh – and available – to his growing legion of fans.

Covering the tumultuous war years, his temporary ostracising as a “collaborator”, his depression, breakdown and return to success and popularity this is a book that no fan can be without and no would-be storyteller can fail to profit from.

Art © Hergé/Moulinsart 2009. Text © Moulinsart 2009. All rights reserved.

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Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge: A Cold Bargain – Gladstone Comic Album #24


By Carl Barks (Gladstone)
ISBN: 0-944599-24-9

Gladstone Publishing began re-releasing Barks material – and a selection of other Disney comics strips – in the 1980s and this album is one of the very best. Whilst producing all that landmark innovative material Barks was just a working guy, generating covers, illustrating other people’s scripts when necessary and contributing story and art to the burgeoning canon of Donald Duck and other Big Screen characters, but his output was incredible both in terms of quantity and especially in its unfailingly high quality.

Printed in the large European oversized format (278mm x 223mm) this fabulous delicacy reprints the contents of Uncle Scrooge #17 (1957) and adds satire and Cold War commentary to Bark’s phenomenal list of narrative attributes. When a totally new element is discovered the Mallard Magnate liquidises a large part of his fortune (One trillion dollars and six kitchen sinks!) to secure the entire supply – a ball of “Bombastium” approximately the size of a large turnip.

Moreover even if nobody knows what exactly the stuff can do everybody knows Bombastium evaporates unless it remains frozen. Terrified that his acquisition will melt before he can make a profit Scrooge drags Donald Duck and his nephews on a voyage to the South Pole to safeguard his investment but has not reckoned on the ruthless determination of the Brutopian agents he outbid to achieve it…

This is one of Barks’ greatest tales: action, comedy, tragedy, politics and old fashioned sentiment all work together to produce a superbly memorable adventure. The bored nephews make a fake Bombastium ball to freak out the adults, a lonely, love-hungry penguin adopts and tries to hatch the element, and there’s gags and travail aplenty as the tale ranges from spy-thriller to absurdist fairytale and back.

The dialogue is a pure gold (“Greetings… Rich Pig of a Duck…”) and will delight anyone old enough to remember the peculiar dialectic and rhetoric of the East/West divide.

Also included here are the precautionary one-pager ‘The Secret Book’ and ‘All at Sea’, a tale pitting the Ducks against the depredations of the scurrilous Beagle Boys from Uncle Scrooge #31 (1960). and the book ends with another sterling one-page gag strip from Uncle Scrooge #5 (1954).

From the late 1940’s until the mid-1960s Carl Barks worked in productive seclusion writing and drawing a vast array of comedic adventure yarns for kids, creating a Duck Universe of memorable – and highly bankable characters like Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), and Magica De Spell (1961) to augment the stable of cartoon actors from the Disney Studio, but his greatest creation was undoubtedly the crusty, energetic, paternalistic, money-mad gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: the star of the show wherever he goes.

Even if you can’t find this particular volume (and trust me, you really want to) Barks’ work is now readily accessible through a number of publications and outlets. No matter what your age or temperament if you’ve never experienced his captivating magic, you can discover “the Hans Christian Andersen of Comics” simply by applying yourself and your credit cards to any search engine. The rewards are there for the finding, you poor, culturally deprived pig of a fan, you…
© 1990, 1960, 1957, 1954 The Walt Disney Company. All Rights Reserved.

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Manhunter: The Special Edition


By Archie Goodwin & Walter Simonson (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-374-6

One of the most celebrated superhero series in comics history, Manhunter catapulted young Walt Simonson to the front ranks of creators, revolutionised the way dramatic adventures were told and still remains the most lauded back-up strip ever produced. Concocted by genial genius Archie Goodwin as a support strip in Detective Comics (#437-443, October-November 1973 to October-November 1974) the seven episodes – a mere 68 pages – won six Academy of Comic Book Arts Awards during its far too brief run.

In case you’re wondering: Best Writer of the Year 1973 – Archie Goodwin,

Best Short Story of the Year 1973 ‘The Himalayan Incident’,

Outstanding New Talent of the Year 1973 – Walter Simonson,

Best Short Story of the Year 1974 ‘Cathedral Perilous’,

Best Feature Length Story of the Year 1974 ‘Götterdämmerung’ and

Best Writer of the Year 1973 – Archie Goodwin.

Paul Kirk was a big game hunter and part-time costumed mystery man before and during World War II. Becoming a dirty jobs specialist for the Allies, he lost all love of life and died in a hunting accident in 1946. Decades later he seemingly resurfaced, and came to the attention of Interpol agent Christine St. Clair. Thinking him no more than an identity thief she soon uncovered an incredible plot by a cadre of the World’s greatest scientists who had combined into an organisation to assume control of the planet once they realised that man now had the means to destroy it.

Since the end of the War the Council had infiltrated all corridors of power, making huge technological advances (such as stealing the hero’s individuality by cloning him into an army of superior soldiers), slowly achieving their goals with no-one the wiser, but the returned Paul Kirk had upset their plans and was intent on thwarting their ultimate goals…

This slim volume reprints the much-missed Mr. Goodwin’s foreword from the 1979 black and white album Manhunter: the Complete Saga and gathers in one spiffy single collection Kirk’s entire tragic quest to regain his humanity and dignity. Coloured by Klaus Janson and lettered by Ben Oda, Joe Letterese, Alan Kupperberg & Annette Kawecki, it tells of St. Clair and Kirk’s first meeting in ‘The Himalayan Incident’, her realisation that all is not as it seems in ‘The Manhunter File’ and their revelatory alliance in ‘The Resurrection of Paul Kirk.’

Now fully a part of Kirk’s crusade Christine discovered just how wide and deep the Council’s influence ran in ‘Rebellion!’ before beginning the end-game in the incredible ‘Cathedral Perilous’ and gathering one last ally in ‘To Duel the Master’…

With all the pieces in play for a cataclysmic confrontation, events take a strange misstep as Batman stumbles into the plot and threatens to inadvertently hand the Council ultimate victory. ‘Götterdämmerung’ fully lived up to its title and perfectly wrapped up the saga of Paul Kirk – which was a superb triumph and perplexing conundrum for decades to come.

In an industry notorious for putting profit before aesthetics the pressure to revive such a well-beloved character was enormous, but Goodwin and Simonson were adamant that unless they could come up with an idea that remained true to the spirit and conclusion of the original, Manhunter would not be seen again.

Although the creators were as good as word DC did weaken a few times and Kirk clones featured in the Secret Society of Super-Villains and the Power Company, but they were mere shabby exploitations of the original. Eventually however, an idea occurred and the old conspirators concocted something that was usable and didn’t debase the original saga. Archie provided a plot, and Walter began to prepare the strip.

And after years of valiant struggle Archie finally succumbed to the cancer that had been killing him. Anybody who had ever met Archie Goodwin will understand the void his death created. He was irreplaceable.

Without a script the project seemed doomed until Simonson’s wife Louise suggested that it be drawn and run without words: a silent tribute and the last hurrah for a true hero. Manhunter: the Final Chapter reunites all the characters and brings the sublime epic to a perfect resolution. Now it really is all over…

With a touching afterword from Walter and a couple of pin-ups thrown in, this book represents a perfect moment of creative brilliance and an undisputed zenith in comics storytelling. This is a tale no comic fan can afford to be without.
© 1973, 1974, 1999 DC Comics.  All Rights Reserved.

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JLA: Tower of Babel


By Mark Waid, Howard Porter & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84023-304-4

After battling every combination of ancient, contemporary and futuristic foes, the World’s Greatest Superheroes found themselves pitted against an unbeatable threat in this startling exploration of paranoia that originally ran in issues #42-46 of the monthly comic-book, and spread into JLA Secret Files #3 and JLA 80-Page Giant #1

As a taster to the main event the book begins with ‘Half a Mind to Save a World’, an intriguing take on Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage from Dan Curtis Johnson, Mark Pajarillo and Walden Wong, wherein the Atom leads a JLA team on a mission to forcibly evacuate an advanced civilisation of bacteria that have taken up residence in a small boy’s brain, but of course, the bacteria aren’t that keen on moving…

Tower of Babel begins with immortal eco-terrorist Ra’s Al Ghul’s latest plan to winnow Earth’s human population to manageable levels well underway. In ‘Survival of the Fittest’ (Waid, Porter and Drew Geraci) a series of perfectly planned pre-emptive strikes cripple the Martian Manhunter, Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Plastic Man and Green Lantern whilst Batman is taken out of the game by the simple expedient of stealing his parents’ remains from their graves.

With the Dark Knight distracted and his fellow superheroes disabled the action begins: suddenly humanity has lost the ability to read. Books, newspapers, complicated machinery instructions, labels on medicine bottles – all are now gibberish. The death toll starts to rise…

In ‘Seven Little Indians’ as the League attempt to regroup and fight back Batman realises that the tactics and weapons used to take out his allies, now including Superman, were his own secret contingency measures, designed with sublime paranoia in case he ever had to fight his super-powered friends…

Inserted next is ‘Blame’ by Dan Curtis Johnson, Pablo Raimondi, Claude St. Aubin and David Meikis from JLA Secret Files #3 which reveals how Talia, Daughter of the Demon, stole Batman’s anti-hero files and devices before Tower of Babel resumes with ‘Protected by the Cold’ as Batman leads a counter-attack despite the shock and fury of his betrayed comrades, and as the final phase kicks in and humans lose the power of speech too, the disunited team mounts a last-ditch assault on Al Ghul in ‘Harsh Words’ (illustrated by Steve Scott and Mark Propst). The same team handled the epilogue where the recovered heroes angrily seek to understand how their trusted friend could have countenanced such treachery…

The volume concludes with two thematically linked vignettes from JLA 80-Page Giant #1, ‘The Green Bullet’ by John Ostrander, Ken Lashley and Ron Boyd and ‘Revelations’ by Priest, Eric Battle and Prentis Rollins wherein Batman clears the Man of Steel of a trumped-up murder charge whilst Aquaman and Wonder Woman seek to deal with their obvious dislike and distrust of each other…

This volume (voted by multimedia reviews website IGN as number 20 on their list of the 25 greatest Batman graphic novels) is indeed one of the best Batman tales ever: a perfect, defining example of the man who thinks of everything, and is tough enough to prepare for the worst of all outcomes. As the Dark Knight was (temporarily) cast out of the League a new era began and the fans couldn’t have been happier. That’s a feeling you can share simply by picking up this startlingly impressive tale.
© 1998, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Black Widow: The Coldest War – A Marvel Graphic Novel


By Gerry Conway, George Freeman & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 0- 87135-643-0

By 1990 Marvel’s ambitious line of all-new graphic novels was beginning to falter, and some less-than-stellar tales were squeaking into the line-up. Moreover, the company was increasingly resorting to in-continuity stories with established – and company copyrighted – characters rather than creator-owned properties and original concepts.

Not that that necessarily meant poor product, as this intriguing superhero spy thriller proves. The Coldest War is set in the last days of the US/Soviet face-off with what looks to be a pasted-on epilogue added as an afterthought, but as the entire affair was clearly scripted as a miniseries – most probably for the fortnightly anthology Marvel Comics Presents – an afterword set after the fall of the Berlin Wall doesn’t jar too much and must have lent an air of imminent urgency to the mix.

The Black Widow started life as a svelte and sultry honey-trap Russian agent during Marvel’s early “Commie-busting” days. She fell for an assortment of Yankee superheroes – including Hawkeye and Daredevil – and finally defected; becoming an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and occasional leader of the Avengers. Throughout her career she has been considered competent, deadly, efficient and cursed to bring doom and disaster to her paramours.

Gerry Conway provides a typically twisty, double-dealing tale set in the dog-days of Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Perestroika” (“openness”) government when ambitious KGB upstarts undertake a plan to subvert Natasha (nee Natalia) Romanova and return her to Soviet control using the bait of her husband Alexei Shostokoff – whom she has believed dead for years. Naturally nothing is as it seems, nobody can be trusted and only the last spy standing can be called the winner…

Low key and high-tech go hand in hand in this sort of tale, and although there’s much reference to earlier Marvel classics this tale can be easily enjoyed by the casual reader and art fan.

And what art! George Freeman is a supreme stylist, whose drawing work – although infrequent – is always top rate. Starting out on the seminal Captain Canuck, he has excelled on Jack of Hearts, Green Lantern, Avengers, Batman (Annual #11, with Alan Moore), Wasteland, Elric, Nexus and The X-Files (for which he won the Eisner Award for colouring). He co-founded the design/colouring studio Digital Chameleon in 1991.

Here, inked by Ernie Colon, Mark Farmer, Mike Harris, Val Mayerik and Joe Rubinstein with colours from Lovern Kindzierski he produced a subtle and sophisticated blend of costumed chic and espionage glamour that easily elevated this tale to a “must-have” item.
© 1990 Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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King – a Comic Biography: The Special Edition


By Ho Che Anderson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-310-1

There are books to read, books you should read – and some perhaps, that you shouldn’t – and there are important books. The relatively new field of graphic novels has many of the first but precious few important books yet.

It’s hard enough to get noticed within the industry (simply excelling at your craft is not enough) but when we do generate something wonderful, valid, powerful, true to our medium yet simultaneously breaking beyond into the wide world and making a mark, the reviews from that appreciative greater market come thick and fast – so I’m not going to spend acres of text praising this superb, controversial and unique examination of the man that lived beside – not “behind” or “within” the myth of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Over the course of ten years (1993-2002) young Canadian cartoonist Ho Che Anderson struggled to produce three comics books that offered another perspective of a man who was as much sinner as saint, but whose determination, passion, energy and sheer luck drove a cleansing wedge into a rotting, repressive, stifled society and succeeded in opening enough doors for America’s racial underclass, so that forty years later a black American can govern the World’s greatest superpower.

Not that four decades is so brief an interlude: but than again, how many European or white Commonwealth countries can boast that their highest echelons of power have made even that much progress?

In both stark black and white and mesmerising colour, Anderson uses all the strengths and tools of sequential narrative to reveal, relate, question and challenge the oft-recounted facts of the Georgia Pastor’s life in this magnificent volume, released to celebrate Barack Obama’s – and the American people’s – landmark achievement. Gathered within are those hard-crafted three issues, extra and deleted scenes, the thematically linked one-shot Black Dogs and many other extras in one compelling tome, with a fascinating overview from Anderson; sketches and reminisces, a treatise on his working practises and a gallery of related art.

This is a true historical examination and a perfect example of comics at its most effective – biography not hagiography – and as important a landmark achievement for our art-form as Maus, Safe Area Goražde or American Splendor, Watchmen, Pride of Baghdad or Persepolis. Whenever and wherever we have to defend our Art from decriers and peddlers of prejudice, King will be one of the paltry few examples that cannot be contradicted or ignored. It’s a book no thinking fan can afford to miss.
King: The Special Edition © 2010 Fantagraphics Books. All content © 2010 Ho Che Anderson. All rights reserved.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer: Son of Man


By Garth Ennis & John Higgins (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84023-830-3

Garth Ennis ended a spectacular run on the urban wizard and all-around nasty-piece-of-work John Constantine in grand manner with Hellblazer: Rake at the Gates of Hell. By wrapping up all his loose ends and eradicating almost everything built during his tenure Ennis gave the regrettable impression that he was never coming back, but to every fan’s delight he returned with frequent collaborator John Higgins (see Pride and Joy) to craft this terrifying and pitiless tale of urban horror and twisted heritage set in the darkly charismatic London underworld.

During the Falklands War, when John Constantine was still in and out of criminal asylums, gang boss Harry Cooper asked a favour. Already well acquainted with the worst that Hell housed, the cocky young wizard knew true evil when it stuck a gun up his nose and was wise enough to comply.

With a few of his friends – for they weren’t all dead back then – he successfully resurrected Cooper’s dead son, and counted himself lucky to escape with his life and knees intact. No one, especially Cooper, needed to know just how he’d accomplished the impossible.

Twenty years later an older wiser man, he’s being harassed by Copper’s thugs and their bought coppers again. The kid’s all grown up now and taking over the family business, but his actions don’t make sense. Rather than making money, all his efforts seem destined to turn the city into a seething cauldron of race-hate and gang warfare: a literal Hell on Earth.

Now Constantine has to deal with the thing he brought back before it settles with him and all London too – but the outlook is far from rosy…

Collecting issues #129-133 of the monthly comicbook, this is an excellent blend of crime-thriller a la “Cool Britannia” with the signature black comedy-horror that Ennis has made his own, and the expressive, boldly subtle art of John Higgins perfectly captures the brutality, hilarity and sheer fear generated in this terrific thriller.

Grown-up comics simply don’t get better than this and both crime fans and horror lovers can pick this book up with no prior familiarity and still have the time of their lives…

© 1998, 1999, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Newave!- The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980’s


Edited by Michael Dowers (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-313-2

Everybody has at some stage in their lives used pictures to tell stories. It’s a fundamental step in the cognitive development of children and for some of us that magic never goes away. For most people the crushing weight of the world squelches the joy of creation so that we become observers and consumers rather than makers, but a privileged few carry on: drawing, exploring, and in some cases, where technology allows, producing and sharing.

This book explores, recounts and celebrates those driven artisans who came out of the “anything goes” 1960s and 1970s Underground Comix movement, craving a vehicle of expression, not caring about money, and with enough time to draw – or gather – artwork (mini comics people are notoriously generous, contributing work at the drop of a hat: just check out the huge array of notable creators listed below) before laboriously photocopying, cutting, folding, stapling and then distributing the miniscule but marvellous results.

Just by way of definition: most mini comix were home produced pamphlets using borrowed or when necessary paid for print processes. The most popular format was an 8½ x 11inch sheet, folded twice, and printed at local copy-shops (or made on school/work repro systems like early Xerox, Photostat, Mimeo or Spirit Banda machines) on letter-size – or any – paper. Because they weren’t big, they were called mini comix. Duh!

Although this book concentrates on a specific time, place and creative ethos, the phenomenon was truly world-wide and covered all genres from superhero knock-offs to the sexually explicit, violent, political and drug-related work that typified Newave! Nobody who wanted to and had access to the technology ever resisted making their own comics…

In this 892 page collection the many craftsmen who began the tradition that led inexorably to today’s thriving Alternative and Small Press publishing movements as well as the current internet comics phenomenon, discuss at length their motives and methods, and naturally the best of that adventurous decade are reprinted in crisp black and white.

Among the hundreds, (thousands?) of people who have made or contributed to mini comix many have gone on to more well-received and popular things. Some of them include (and feel free to save time, skip this section and just buy the book) Jeff Gaither, Michael Roden, Wayno, Artie Romero, Brad Foster, Fred Hembeck, Mary Fleener, The Pizz, Rick Geary, Dennis Worden, Steve Willis, Roy Tompkins, Tom Christopher, XNO, Clay Geerdes, Bob X, Jim Siergey, J.R. Williams, Jim Blanchard, Norman Dog, Molly Kiely, Mack White, Daniel Clowes, Doug Allen, Art Penn, Sam Henderson, Gary Whitney, George Erling, Bob Vojtko, Doug Potter, David Miller, Jim Ryan, Par Holman, Roger May, Meher Dada, Wayne Gibson, Tom Motley, Marc Arsenault, Ion, Bruce Chrislip, Dale Luciano, C. Bradford Gorby, Robin Ator, Douglas O’Neil, C. E. Emmer, Kurt Wilcken, Doug Holverson, Jamie Alder, Tom Hosier, Steven Noppenberger, W.C. Pope, Jim Gillespie, John Howard, Tucker Petertil, Gary Lieb, Bob Conway, and Jim Thompson.

I’ve done it myself, for fun – even once or twice for actual profit – and it’s an incredible buzz (I should note that I have a wife not only tolerant but far more skilled and speedy in the actual “photocopy, cut, fold, staple” bit and willing, if not keen, to join in just so she could see the oaf she married occasionally…)

The sheer boundless enthusiasm and joy of making comics is celebrated in this astonishingly vast, incredibly heavy and yet still pocket-sized hardback collection, with over 700 pages of the very best of that decade’s adult cartoons on show, accompanied by not just historical information on key publishers such as Brad Foster, Artie Romero, Steve Willis, Dennis Worden, Bob X, J.R. Williams, Roger May, Tom Hosier, George Erling, Bob Vojtko and others but also a list of website addresses so you can check out how the compulsion to create has survived into the 21st century.

A joy for every fan of the art-form: as long as they’re old enough to vote and strong enough to lift the thing.
Newave!- The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980’s © 2010 Michael Dowers and Fantagraphics Books. All contents © 2010 their respective creators. All rights reserved.