Month: June 2011

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Isle of 100,000 Graves


By Fabien Vehlmann & Jason, coloured by Hubert and translated by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-442-9

Multi-award winning French comics author Fabien Vehlman was born in 1972, began his comics career in 1996 and has been likened to the legendary René Goscinny. He’s best known for the wonderful Green Manor series (illustrated by Denis Bodart), Seven Psychopaths with Sean Phillips, the as-yet-untranslated Seuls (drawn by Bruno Gazzotti) and Wondertown with Benoit Feroumont. In 2011 Vehlmann assumed the writing reins on legendary series Spirou.

Jason is secretly John Arne Saeterrøy: born in Molde, Norway in 1965 and an overnight international cartoon superstar since 1995 when his first graphic novel Lomma full ay regn (Pocket Full of Rain) won that year’s Sproing Award (Norway’s biggest comics prize). He won another Sproing in 2001 for the series Mjau Mjau and in 2002 turned almost exclusively to producing graphic novels. He is a global star among the cognoscenti and has won many major awards from all over the planet.

Now in his first collaboration with a writer, Jason adds his uniquely laconic anthropomorphic art-stylings to a surprisingly edgy, deliciously dark and blackly comedic tale of sundered families, sinister secrets and bombastic buccaneers.

Holding his signature surreality in check, Jason perfectly captures the odd tale of homely little girl Gwenny who leaves her appalling mother to search for her long-lost father: gone for many a year in search of pirate treasure.

The self-assured and devious lass tricks her way onto a pirate vessel, outwits the murderous corsairs long enough to reach the eponymous Isle of 100,000 Graves (even tricking one of the scurrilous brotherhood into becoming her unwilling protector) and then abandons them to a horrendous fate as the uncanny denizens of the lost land attack…

The island is home to a cult of torturers and killers called the Hangman’s Academy: an institution dedicated to preserving the traditions and teaching the myriad skills necessary to becoming a top-flight inquisitor and officially-sanctioned executioner. Moreover, the scary school has recently run out of live specimens for maiming and murdering…

As Gwenny single-mindedly searches for signs of her missing dad, she meets Tobias, a killer-in-training sadly out of place amongst his fellow students. With his aid she survives incalculable horrors before freeing the surviving pirates as a callous distraction. When they escape a colossal battle with the hooded executioner ensues…

Gwenny, however, is not distracted: she’s found the answer to her questions…

Mordantly hilarious, this superbly cynical fable rattles along in captivating fashion: a perfect romp for older kids and a huge treat for fans looking for something a little bit different…

Jason’s work always jumps directly into the reader’s brain and heart, using his beastly repertory company to gently pose eternal questions about basic human needs in a soft but relentless quest for answers. That you don’t ever notice the deep stuff because of the clever gags and safe, familiar “funny-animal” characters should indicate just how good a cartoonist he is. His collaboration here with the sly and sardonic Vehlmann has produced a genuine classic that we’ll all be talking about for years to come…

© Jason and Fabien Vehlmann. All Right reserved.

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Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips volume 2 1936-1937


By Roy Crane (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-391-0

The comics industry evolved from newspaper strips and these circulation boosting pictorial features were, until relatively recently, utterly ubiquitous, hugely popular with the public and thus regarded as invaluable by publishers who used them as an irresistible sales weapon to guarantee consumer loyalty, increase sales and  ensure profits. Many a scribbler became a millionaire thanks to their ability to draw pictures and spin a yarn…

It’s virtually impossible for us to today to understand the overwhelming power of the comic strip in America (and the wider world) from the Great Depression to the end of World War II. With no television, broadcast radio far from universal and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most folk, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. “The Funnies” were the most common recreation for millions who were well served by a fantastic variety and incredible quality.

From the very start humour was paramount; that’s why we call them “Funnies” or “Comics”, after all. From these gag and stunt beginnings, blending silent movie slapstick, outrageous antics, fabulous fantasy and vaudeville shows, came a thoroughly unique entertainment hybrid: Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs.

Debuting on April 21st 1924 Washington Tubbs II was a comedic gag-a-day strip not dissimilar from confirmed family favourite Harold Teen (by Crane’s friend and contemporary Carl Ed).

Tubbs was a diminutive, ambitious young shop clerk when the strip began, but gradually he moved into mock-heroics, then through harm-free action into full-blown, light-hearted, rip-roaring adventure series with the introduction of pioneering he-man, moody swashbuckling prototype Captain Easy in the landmark episode for 6th May, 1929.

As the tales became increasingly more exotic and thrill-drenched the globe-trotting little dynamo clearly needed a sidekick who could believably handle the combat side of things, and thus in the middle of a European war Tubbs liberated a mysterious fellow American from a jail cell and history was made. Before long the mismatched pair were inseparable comrades; travelling the world, hunting treasure, fighting thugs and rescuing a bevy of startlingly comely maidens in distress…

The two-fisted, bluff, completely capable and utterly dependable, down-on-his-luck “Southern Gentleman” was something not seen before in comics, a raw, square-jawed hunk played straight rather than the buffoon or music hall foil of such classic serials as Hairsbreadth Harry or Desperate Desmond. Moreover Crane’s seductively simple blend of cartoon exuberance and compelling page-design was a far more accessible and powerful medium for action story-telling than the static illustrative style favoured by artists like Hal Foster (just starting to make waves on the new Tarzan Sunday page).

Tubbs and Easy were as exotic and thrilling as the Ape Man but rattled along like the tempestuous Popeye, full of vim, vigour and vinegar, as attested to by a close look at the early work of the would-be cartoonists who followed the strip with avid intensity: Floyd Gottfredson, Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner and especially young Joe Shuster…

After a couple of abortive attempts starring his little hero, Crane bowed to the inevitable and created a full colour Sunday page dedicated to his increasingly popular hero-for-hire. Captain Easy debuted on 30th July 1933, in madcap, two-fisted exploits (originally) set before his fateful meeting with Tubbs.

Following a foreword from historian, archival publisher and critic Rick Norwood, ‘Stealing Color From Black and White’ a fascinating extended introduction by award-winning cartoonist Paul Pope and ‘Three Strip Monte’ a brief history of Crane’s career gambles by legendary strip historian Bill Blackbeard, this second volume (of four) really begins with ‘Gold of the Frozen North’ as the dour, sour soldier of fortune reaches the chilly snow-swept mining boom-town of Bugaboo.

Exhausted after his part in the war between Nikkateena and Woopsydasia (as seen in Roy Crane’s Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips volume 1) all Easy wanted was a meal and a bed, but his innate chivalry defending a bar-girl’s honour soon had him on the run from Nikky Eskota, the savage gang-boss who ran the town. He then compound the error by helping beautiful Gizzy escape the brute’s amorous attentions and escorting down the frozen river to trade her fathers’ diamonds.

Of course the wicked thug dispatched an army of heavies to stop them…

This spectacular icy wilderness adventure ran from 8th December 1935 to 19th April 1936, after which ‘The Hook-Nosed Bandit’ (4th April -8th August 1936) found the footloose hero heading to the trouble-soaked nation of Hitaxia where his penchant for trouble soon branded him a wanted criminal fugitive and landed him in the midst of a civil war. As usual a pretty girl was the immediate cause of his many woes and the method of his eventual escape… that and the advent of a bombastic new companion – unconventional millionaire inventor Mr. Belfry.

With Easy and Belfry’s daughter languishing in a Hitaxian jail the sagacious entrepreneur acted to end the crisis in unique manner with a handy shipment of pigs…

When the Belfry’s returned to America, Easy accompanied them only to become embroiled in a whirlwind cops ‘n’ robbers thriller as mobsters and businessmen alike tried to obtain by every means fair and foul ‘The Diamond Formula’ (16th August – 13th December 1936): the inventor’s new process for creating gems from coal or sugar…

After this wild and woolly New York set romp, Crane opted to take the theme into wholly different territory as Easy takes a mild-mannered old daydreamer from Belfry’s Gentleman’s Club on the Screwball comedy of ‘Dinwiddy’s Adventure’ – a fast-paced rollercoaster romp of intrigue, suspense and multiple practical jokes, with a twist and turn on every gloriously rendered page first published between 13th December 1936 and March 14th 1937…

The Club also provided the maguffin for ‘Lost at Sea’ (March 21st – May 9th 1937) as hen-pecked and harassed Benjamin Barton hired the laconic Southern Gentleman to engineer his escape from his ghastly social climbing wife and wastrel children. Barton even left them all his money: the rattled old goof simply wanted peace and quiet and perhaps a little fishing. Despite all Easy’s best efforts he didn’t get it…

Clearly on a roll with the emphasis on comedy Crane then introduced one of his wackiest characters in ‘The King of Kleptomania’ (16th May – November 14th 1937), as an audacious, freeloading, lazy, good-for-nothing hobo actually turned out to be Kron Prinz Hugo Maximillian von Hooten Tooten; the audacious, freeloading, lazy, good-for-nothing spendthrift heir to a European nation who was paid by the Dictator of Kleptomania to stay away and not seek his rightful throne.

Saving the bum’s life in America only caused the lovable leech to attach himself to Easy, but after going through his bi-annual stipend of $25, 000 in mere days “Hoot” decided to welsh on his deal with the despot and take back his country. Against his better judgement and to his lasting regret, Captain Easy goes along for the ride and is soon knee deep in ineptitude, iniquity and revolution…

With the war over Easy is stranded in Ruritanean Europe and stumbles into an espionage plot culminating in a welcome reunion and ‘The Firing Squad’ (21st November 1937 – 15th May 1938). Framed and jailed again Easy is to be shot so it’s luckily that the captain of the aforementioned executioners is his long-lost pal Wash Tubbs!

Risking life and diminutive limb to save his old pal, Wash also rescues sultry spitfire Ruby Dallas who promptly entangles them in her desperate tale of woe. Ruby was unfortunate enough to have witnessed a murder in America and has been on the run ever since. The killer was a prominent millionaire with too much to lose so he’s been hunting her ever since, but once the trio escape murderous cutthroats, slavers and assassins they soon settle his hash…

When he began the Sunday page Crane’s creativity went into overdrive: an entire page and vibrant colours to play with clearly stirred his imagination and the results were wild visual concoctions which achieved a timeless immediacy and made each instalment a unified piece of sequential art. The effect of the pages can be seen in so many comic and strips since – even in the works of such near-contemporaries as Hergé and giants in waiting like Charles Schulz.

These pages were a clearly as much of joy to create as to read. In fact, the cited reason for Crane surrendering the Sunday strip to his assistant Les Turner in 1937 was NEA Syndicate’s abrupt demand that all its strips be henceforward produced in a rigid panel-structure to facilitate them being cut up and re-pasted as local editors dictated. You can actually see the day that happened in this volume.

Whilst the basic drawing of Crane and Turner is practically indistinguishable the moment when the layout and composition were shackled stands out like a painful sore thumb. Crane just walked away from his playground, concentrating on the daily feature, until in 1943, contract expired he left the NEA to create the aviation adventure strip Buz Sawyer.

In this selection Roy Crane’s irrepressible humour comes perfectly into focus and this enchanting serial abounds with breezy light-hearted banter, hilarious situations and outright farce – a sure-fire formula modern cinema directors still plunder to this day.

Easy is Indiana Jones, Flynn (the Librarian) Carsen and Jack (Romancing the Stone) Cotton all at once and clearly set the benchmark for all of them.

This superb hardback and colossal second collection is the perfect means of discovering or rediscovering Crane’s rip-snorting, pulse-pounding, exotically racy adventure trailblazer. The huge pages in this volume (almost 14 ½ by 10½ inches or 21x14cm for the younger, metric crowd) provide the perfect stage to absorb and enjoy the classic tale-telling of a master raconteur.

This is storytelling of impeccable quality: unforgettable, spectacular and utterly irresistible. These tales rank alongside the best of Hergé, Tezuka, Toth and Kirby and unarguably fed the imaginations of them all as he still does for today’s comics creators. Now that you have the chance to experience the strips that inspired the giants of our art form, how can you possibly resist?

Captain Easy strips © 2011 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books, all other material © the respective copyright holders. All rights

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Ultimate Comics Captain America


By Jason Aaron & Ron Garney (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-489-8

In 2000, when Marvel hived off portions of their established continuity into a separate, darker, grittier universe more relevant to the video game-playing, movie-watching 21st century readers than the 1960s Lee/Kirby/Ditko ongoing monolith, they started with the most popular characters – Spider-Man and the X-Men – only gradually adding analogues for the remaining characters and trademarks.

Even when the Mighty Avengers finally appeared, renamed the Ultimates in 2002, readers were only sparingly brought up to speed on the assorted back-stories of the alternative heroes and villains – including a remarkably familiar yet staggeringly different “Living Legend of World War II”.

Frail Steve Rogers still underwent radical experimentation to become America’s first super-soldier and after a brief stellar career as the living symbol of his war-beleaguered nation, disappeared in a blazing explosion. He was resurrected from a block of ice in modern times and re-assumed his place at the forefront of masked heroes. However, this Sentinel of Liberty was no costumed boy-scout, but rather a deadly and remorseless warrior: a master strategist and supremely skilled street-fighter always ready to apply the ultimate sanction. In short: a conscienceless killer.

In Ultimate Comics Captain America the eternal soldier is on the trail of rogue states seeking to duplicate the super-soldier serum which created him at the behest of his new government masters, when he is captured and subjected to horrendous torture and indoctrination by a living ghost…

Whilst Steve Rogers slept in the ice, America continued its march to global dominance and when the Vietnam conflict escalated the Military sought to recreate Captain America by transforming starry-eyed patriotic kid Frank Simpson into a living embodiment of the American war machine…

Tragically Vietnam was a different kind of war and Simpson (an iteration of the deeply troubled villain Nuke created by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli in Daredevil: Born Again) broke under the weight of the dirty jobs and corrupt missions he was assigned to carry out. One day he walked into the jungle and was never seen again…

Now Simpson is back and has clearly discovered how to duplicate the serum that empowers him; selling it to North Korea, Iran and anybody else dedicated to the downfall of the “the Land of the Free”…

Ignoring official orders to stand down, Steve Rogers hunts his successor – who has already thoroughly defeated him once – only to stumble on the USA’s greatest nightmare. Overmatched, outfought and easily captured by Simpson, Rogers is subjected to a terrifying re-education program that opens his eyes to what his country became whilst he slept and the kind of nation Captain America now stands for…

The stark, savage and nihilistically modern Ultimates Comic universe is well-stocked with dark-and-gritty doppelgangers of the gleaming pantheon crafted by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but since its inception at the turn of the century, the imprint has resolved into something which can easily stand on its own merits, as seen in this wonderful tale (originally published as Ultimate Comics Captain America #1-4).

With the impending imminent release of the latest Captain America movie, a large number of graphic novel collections starring the Sentinel of Liberty have been commissioned and this brutal, beautiful fable of frustrated idealism and corrupted patriotism is one of the very best of recent vintage, in this, that or any other universe.

Written by Jason (Scalped) Aaron, revisiting the source material of his Vertigo classic The Other Side and stunningly illustrated by Ron Garney, whose art on the mainstream hero (see Captain America: Operation Rebirth) returned the Star-Spangled Avenger to dizzying heights of popularity after decades in the doldrums, Ultimate Comics Captain America is a breathtaking, thought-provoking examination of duty and honour and a fabulously entertaining rollercoaster ride of action and adventure for older readers. It’s also a gloriously accessible tale for anybody approaching the character for the very first time…

Tense, compelling, morally challenging and explosively cathartic, this saga of conjoined yet eternally antagonistic ideologies in savage confrontation is absolute comics gold of the very highest quality: challenging, compelling and wildly satisfying.

™ and © 2011 Marvel Entertainment LCC and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. A British edition released by Panini UK Ltd.

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Congress of the Animals


By Jim Woodring (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-437-5

As with every true art form, some practitioners in the world of comics simply defy easy categorisation and their works are beyond most reviewers and critics’ skills (mine certainly). Some are just so pedestrian or so mind-numbingly bad that one simply can’t face writing about them. Others are so emphatically wonderful that no collection of praise and analysis can do them justice.

At the pinnacle of the funnybook pyramid is Jim Woodring, in a position he has maintained for years and clearly appears capable of holding for years to come. Woodring’s work is challenging, spiritual, philosophical, funny, beautiful and extremely scary. Moreover, even after reading that sentence you will have absolutely no idea of what awaits you the first time you read any of it, or indeed – even if you’re a long term devotee – when opening a new silent masterpiece novel such as Congress of the Animals. Cartoonist, Fine Artist, toy-maker and artistic Renaissance Man Jim Woodring’s eccentric career has delighted far too small an audience since his first mini-comics in 1980. No matter that you may have avidly adored his groundbreaking Fantagraphics magazine series Jim (1986); its nominal spin-off Frank (of which the latest volume Weathercraft won The Stranger 2010 Genius Award for Literature), Tantalizing Stories, Seeing Things or the more mainstream features such as his Star Wars and Aliens tales for Dark Horse, you will still have no idea how you will respond to his next work.

Woodring grows rather than constructs surreal, abstract, wild, rational, primal cartooning: a clean-lined, solidly ethereal, mannered blend of woodblock prints, Robert Crumb, Dreamscapes, religious art and monstrous phantasmagoria. His stories are a logical, progressional narrative – usually a non-stop chase from one invention to the next – clouded with multiple layers of meaning but totally devoid of speech or words, supremely dependent on the intense involvement of the reader as fully active participant.

Congress of the Animals is another vertiginous vehicle following dog-faced Frank and his regular crew of irregular types in a manic fable of dangerous arrogance, casual self-deceit and painful reparations, insane exploration of dire and dreadful alternate dimensions and even the first inklings of what might one day be True Love and always without a single word of dialogue or description. Here, the drawn image is always king…

Clearly Woodring’s work is not to everyone’s taste or sensibilities – otherwise why would you need me to plug his work – and as always, his drawings have the perilous propensity of repeating like cucumber and making one jump long after you’ve put the book down, but he is an undisputed master of graphic narrative and an innovator always making new art to challenge us and himself. And, of course, he makes us love it and leaves us hungry for more…

All art-forms need such creators and this glorious hardback monochrome tome could well change your reading habits for life.

Go on, aren’t you tempted, tantalized or terrified yet? What about curious, then…?

© 2011 Jim Woodring. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books. All rights reserved.

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Grimjack: Demon Knight


By John Ostrander & Flint Henry with an introduction by Roger Zelazny (First Publishing)
ISBN: 978-0-91541-970-8

Grimjack originally appeared during the American comic industry’s last great flourishing in the 1980’s. Created by playwright John Ostrander and Young Turk Tim Truman as a back-up feature for Mike Grell’s Starslayer, the series ran in issues #10-18 before graduating to its own title at First Comics. It almost survived the company’s demise more than a decade later. In a crowded marketplace, and almost irrespective of who was doing the drawing, this hard-boiled-detective/fantasy action strip was a watchword for quality entertainment.

The ’80s were a fantastic time for comics creators and consumers. It was like an entire new industry opening up within the original, moribund mainstream; the proliferation of the Direct Sales market and dedicated specialist retail outlets allowed new companies to start experimenting with format and content, whilst punters had a bit of spare cash to play with. Moreover much of the “kid’s stuff” stigma had finally dissipated – the country was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be an actual art-form…

Consequently many new companies began competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown accustomed – or resigned – to getting their four-colour kicks from DC, Marvel Archie and/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese material had been slowly creeping in but by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse and First among others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads into traditional markets.

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Chicago-based First Comics was an early frontrunner, with Frank Brunner’s Warp, Starslayer and Jon Sable from Mike Grell and Howard Chaykin’s iconic American Flagg!, as well as an impressive line of comicbooks targeting a more sophisticated audience.

In 1984 they followed Marvel and DC’s lead with a line of impressive, European-styled over-sized graphic albums featuring new, out-of-the-ordinary comics sagas (see Time2, Time Beavers, Mazinger or Beowulf to see just how bold, broad and innovative the material could be)…

John Gaunt is a perpetually reincarnating warrior-mercenary calling himself Grimjack: a combination private eye, Ronin and problem-solver-of-last-resort, just scratching out a living in the fantastic pan-dimensional city of Cynosure. This incalculably vast metropolis intersects with every place in the multiverse at one time or another and the strangest of the strange inhabit its core regions.

All manner of beings constantly rub shoulders (if they have them) with gods, monsters, robots and things less quantifiable in a cruelly capitalistic commercial wonderland where the laws of physics can change from house to house but the law of supply and demand is utterly inviolable…

In his long lives Gaunt has been many things, but first and foremost he is a hero of the Demon Wars – a period in Cynosure’s history when the city overlapped the assorted regions of Hell and unspeakably vile devils from a host of infernos ran amok in the metropolis until the valiant Demon Knights drove them off forever.

Now, in this all-new tale, Gaunt is hired by the Office of the Chronost-Marshall to find who has interfered with the city’s chronology, unleashing a devastating time-storm. Surly, rebellious and unpleasant, Gaunt is still the only operative tough and crazy enough to brave the fourth dimensional vortex and shut down the maelstrom. Unfortunately, he never reckoned on stumbling into his own tragic past and meeting again his one true love…

As the Demon Wars reached their crescendo long ago a sorely wounded John Gaunt stumbled into a paradise dimension named Pdwyr and found brief bliss with the glorious, pacifist princess Rhian, before his companion Major Lash betrayed the entire race to the infernal hordes and watched their paradise become a last bastion of Hell…

Now Gaunt has arrived in Pdwyr once more – just after his earlier self departed – and faces the ultimate temptation: changing history to save the only woman he ever loved and the only place he ever felt at peace, or letting events unfold again in all their horrific predestined brutality…

Whatever he decides will be wrong…

The combination of cynical dry wit, mordant, bitter-edged fantasy and spectacularly imaginative action made Grimjack one of the best series of the era and the ghastly human tragedy of this epic aside is a treat no comics fan should miss. Moreover, this graphic narrative, beautifully illustrated by Flint Henry and colourist Martin Thomas, is designed with new readers in mind so there’s no reason for anyone to avoid a brutally magical encounter with a genuine original of the genre(s)…
© 1989 First Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: Little Snow White, The Three Sluggards & The Shoemaker & the Elves


Adapted by David Wenzel & Douglas Wheeler (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-130-8

The immortal German folktales gathered by historians, philologists and lexicographers Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm have been told to enthralled generations of children all over the planet for nearly two centuries – they were first collected and published in 1812 – becoming an intrinsic part of human life. However these dark and powerful parables – they all have meanings and moral, after all – became increasingly enfeebled and sanitised over the decades as parents, entertainment purveyors and educators constantly diluted the details for their own reasons.

Here scripter Doug Wheeler (Swamp Thing, Classics Desecrated) and fantasy artist Dave Wenzel (Warlords, The Hobbit) return to the source material – but not too slavishly – for a dark and luscious pre-interpretation of three of the original classics in a glorious, fully painted hardcover edition first released by NBM in 1995.

You already know the key points of ‘Little Snow White’ which takes up the lion’s share of this terrific tome, but major restorations include the fact that the little princess was only seven when the malicious and jealous queen ordered her death; that the triumphant step-mother gleefully eats the heart of a wild pig fully believing it to be Snow White’s and, after finally being murdered (three truly harrowing attempts) in the dwarves’ home, the radiant child was interred in a crystal coffin for seven years – inexplicably maturing there into a beautiful, if dead, young woman before she was finally revived.

When the Prince finally aroused her from the deathly slumber it wasn’t with a kiss either…

Good triumphed at last and evil was sadistically punished in the end, after which ‘The Shoemaker and the Elves’ provides a sweet and savoury palate cleanser in a cheerfully enchanting Christmas tale of Good Deeds rewarded after which ‘The Three Sluggards’ relates in a single captivating page how the laziest king in the world selected his ideal successor.

The original tales are so ubiquitous, so ingrained in our lives that there’s no possibility of any one version ever becoming definitive, but that’s not really the point. These particular iterations, as graphically realised by Wheeler and Wenzel, are a superb synthesis of immortal legend and comic art mastery that will enthral every reader no matter how over-familiar you think they might be. One of those perfect books that belongs on every bookshelf.
© 1995 by David Wenzel & Doug Wheeler.

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Rick O’Shay and Hipshot: The Great Sunday Pages


By Stan Lynde (Tempo Books)
ISBN: 0-448-12522-6

Once upon a time westerns were the most popular genre in American mass entertainment, with novels, magazines, films, radio shows, TV series, comicbooks and of course newspaper strips all devoted to “Men Doin’ What They Gotta Do”: Riding Ranges, Rounding up stuff, Gun-fighting and all the other timeless iconic cultural activities we all think we know…

Over the decades hundreds of western strips have graced the pages and increased the circulation of newspapers; from singing cowboy film-star Roy Rogers to Red Ryder, Casey Ruggles, the Lone Ranger, Lance and so many more. Even staid Britain got into the act with such lost masterpieces as Buffalo Bill, Matt Marriot and Wes Slade ranking highest amongst fans around the world…

With such a plethora of material concentrated in one genre it’s no surprise that different takes would inevitably develop. Thus alongside Stagecoach, The Ox-Bow Incident, High Noon, How the West Was Won, Soldier Blue or Unforgiven there blossomed less traditional fare such as Destry Rides Again, Cat Ballou, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Evil Roy Slade or Blazing Saddles.

Falling straight into the same comedy western territory as The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw and Support Your Local Sheriff – but predating both – came one of the earliest and most successful modern gag-a-day continuity strips, blending iconic scenarios with memorable characters, playing out their daily antics against a spectacular backdrop of lavishly illustrated natural beauty.

Stan Lynde was born in Montana on 23rd September 1931, the son of a sheep farmer who grew up with a passion for comic strips. His first efforts appeared in the High School paper and after studying journalism at Montana State he served in the Navy from 1951-1955, where he created the strip Ty Foon for a Services magazine. After the Navy Lynde tried a succession of jobs and ended up in New York working for the Wall Street Journal.

Whilst there Lynde created Rick O’Shay which eventually found a home with the mighty Chicago Tribune Syndicate (home of Gasoline Alley, Terry and the Pirates and many others) launching as a Sunday page on April 27th 1958 and adding a daily black and white strip from 19th May that year.

Lynde produced the strip until 1977 when he left the Syndicate to produce another wonderful western Latigo (1979-1983). Tribune-News Syndicate owned Rick O’Shay outright and continued the feature with substitutes Marian Dern, Alfredo Alcala and Mel Keefer, but it just wasn’t the same and the strip was allowed to die in 1981.

Rick O’Shay took western conventions to sly and whimsical extremes as it followed the life of Rick, Deputy Marshal of the little town of Conniption. The series was set in the rugged Montana countryside where Lynde grew up and to which he returned as soon as the strip proved successful enough to support him.

Conniption was too small for a full Marshal and whatever order needs to be kept was easily handled by the easy-going Deputy Rick and his friend, grizzled veteran gunslinger Hipshot Percussion. Apart from drinking, fighting and gambling, the township’s most serious problem was criminally bad puns, personified in the likes of saloon owner Gaye Abandon, newspaper editor Clarion McCall, hotelier Auntie Climax, town drunk Mooch McHooch, gunsmith Cap’n Ball, banker Mort Gage, gambler Deuces Wilde and a feisty kid named Quyat Burp. The town’s spiritual needs were catered to by Reverend Jubal Lee and the local Indian tribe is led by Chief Horse’s Neck…

Eventually the dailies began spoofing contemporary events like the James Bond craze, pop music and TV shows but the Sunday episodes (such as the grand selection from 1972-1976 reprinted in this paperback sized, regrettably monochrome collection) retained their integrity and continued to spoof the Old West.

Bright and breezy slapstick rib-ticklers and laconic, tongue-in-cheek jokes involving drunks, card-games, guys joshing with each other, the malicious recalcitrance of horses and other inanimate objects plus the perennial duels of Hipshot as a succession of goofy young wannabes regularly called the old gun-hawk out to steal his rep played and replayed continuously; all set against the breathtaking geography of Montana’s “Big Sky Country”…

Lynde is still working in the western genre, producing the strip Grass Roots, new material for Swedish magazine Fantomen, assorted graphic novels and, since regaining the rights to Rick O’Shay for his own Cottonwood Publishing company, new works and chronological collections of this classic strip.

This nifty and delightful book from 1976 actually belonged to my wife until I took greedy full-possession of it: part of that glorious 1970s era of easily concealable paperback collections featuring classic strips like Peanuts, the Perishers, Mad, Broom Hilda, B.C., Wizard of Id and so many other magical ways to lose yourself whilst teachers droned on around you in interminable obliviousness.

Most of the books were even returned at the end of term, although some unscrupulous educators operated a “confiscation is forever” policy…

Fun and fulsome entertainment, this little gem won’t be easy to track down, but if giggles, guffaws and gunfights are your thing you’ll definitely want to round up the latest Rick O’Shay Cottonwood releases…
© 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 The Chicago Tribune. All Rights Reserved.

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The Rainbow Orchid Volume Two


By Garen Ewing (Egmont UK)
ISBN: 978-1-4052-5047-4

Garen Ewing’s stunning pastiche of the genre pioneered by the groundbreaking Hergé continues in this even better middle instalment of The Rainbow Orchid.

The character of plucky Julius Chancer and his adventuresome pals began popping up around 2003 in self-published mini-comics and small press publications before migrating to and unfolding online (still available to view at the website www.rainboworchid.co.uk ) to rapturous praise from industry and public alike. Tintin publisher Egmont sagaciously picked up the series and this fabulous old fashioned tale of globe-girdling, treasure-seeking derring-do has quickly become a notable addition to the ranks of magnificent all-ages full-colour adventure albums.

The story is set in the Roaring 1920s and relates how young yet capable archaeological assistant Chancer is drawn into a web of international intrigue, corporate skulduggery and rip-roaring peril by his boss’ latest client. Said employer is renowned historical researcher and gentleman breeder of orchids Sir Alfred Catesby-Grey, who once ran a very hush-hush government artefact-hunting department dubbed the Empire Survey Branch.

Now working freelance, Sir Alfred was approached by Lord Reginald Lawrence who had been tricked into an impossible wager by dastardly entrepreneur Urkaz Grope. At stake was the “Trembling Sword of Tybalt Stone” a priceless antique that has been the seat of the family’s honour since 1445, and without which Lord Lawrence would have to surrender all his estates and titles…

To win the wager Lawrence needed an example of Iriode Orchino – the rainbow orchid, a mythical bloom last seen by Alexander the Great over two thousand years ago. After some initial reservations Catesby-Grey dispatched Julius and a disparate group including Lord Lawrence’s daughter Lily to track down the Orchid whilst he pursues some enquires amongst his old clandestine colleagues…

After some deadly clashes with Grope’s murderous fixer Evelyn Crow and her hired thugs, Julius, Lily, American impresario Nathaniel Crumpole and pilot Benoit Tayaut reach India, narrowly escaping blazing doom as their aeroplane crashes. Rendezvousing with British Civil Servant Major Fraser-Tipping the explorers begin the next stage of their trek with Crow and cronies in deadly hot pursuit…

In England journalist William Pickle, who broke the story of the orchid wager, is a prisoner of a secret society although his newshound colleague George Scrubbs is diligently on his trail. Grope’s plans to bully and buy his way into the upper echelons of English Society proceed apace and Catesby-Grey is uncovering some previously unsuspected military and political interest in the project…

In India after another brutal attack by Crow’s goons the desperate voyagers find an unexpected ally in Meru, servant of the dead missionary who was the last man to see a rainbow orchid.

Heading into the wastes of Hasan Wahan, Julius and his enlarged party are unaware that they have a traitor in their group. After making one more incredibly lucky and fantastic discovery and nearing the end of their quest, Evelyn Crow launches another murderous assault and one of our plucky heroes seemingly plunges to their death…

In a saga delightfully referencing the Golden age of Adventure Literature; everything from Margery Allingham’s Campion tales to Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger stories, Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain to John Buchan’s Richard Hannay tales and so very much more, Ewing has managed to synthesise something vibrant, vital, fresh and uniquely entertaining for modern readers of all ages.

Enchantingly engaging, astonishingly authentic and masterfully illustrated in the seductive Ligne Claire style, this is a magical yarn which ranks amongst the very best of graphic narratives. With the final instalment imminently in sight we can only hope that there’s more to follow that long-awaited event.

Pure comics mastery – and where else could you get hot fresh nostalgia, just like your granddad used to love?

© 2010 Garen Ewing. All rights reserved.

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The World of Pont

New, Revised Review

By Graham Laidler, with an introduction by Richard Ingrams (Nadder Books 1983)
ISBN: 0-90654-038-0

Graham Laidler was born in Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne-on July 4th 1908, son of a prominent painter and decorator. Educated at Newcastle Preparatory school and Glenalmond in Perthshire, he was 13 when his father died and the family relocated to Buckinghamshire. Always captivated by cartooning he channelled his artistic bent into more traditionally profitable avenues to support his widowed mother and trained as an architect at the London School of Architecture from 1926-1931.

Always dogged by ill-health Laidler moonlighted as a cartoonist and in 1930 began a long-running domestic comedy strip entitled The Twiffs for the Women’s Pictorial. In 1932 he was diagnosed with a tubercular kidney and advised to live in healthier climates than ours. In August of that year he sold his first cartoon to that prestigious bulwark of British publishing Punch.

He was so popular that editor E.V. Knox took the unprecedented step of putting him under exclusive contract. With financial security established and his unique arrangement with Punch in place Laidler travelled the world and drew funny pictures, mostly of The English both at home and abroad generating 400 magnificent, immortal cartoons until his death in 1940, aged 32.

A charmingly handsome and charismatically attractive young man, Laidler visited Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, America and many other places. He won his nickname and nom-de-plume in Rome during an incident with two “Vestal Virgin” travelling companions after which he was forevermore “Pontifex Maximus”…

His greatest gift was a surgical gift for observation of social and cultural minutiae: gleaning picaresque detail and broad attitude which translated through his gently humorous graphic commentaries into simultaneously incisive and gentle, baroque and subtle picture plays encapsulating the funniest of moments on every subject pertaining to the great Enigma of Being English in Public and Getting Away with It…

His work was collected into a number of books during his lifetime and since, and his influence as humorist and draughtsman can still be felt.

Although he excelled in the strip cartoon format Pont’s true fully mastery was in telling a complete story with a single perfect drawing. His cartoons exemplified the British to the world at large and to ourselves.

During World War II the Nazis, with typical sinister efficiency, used his drawings as the basis of their anti-British propaganda when they invaded Holland, further confirming to the world the belief that Germans Have No Sense of Humour.

As Pont, for eight too-brief years, Graham Laidler became an icon and global herald of English life and you would be doing yourself an immense favour in tracking down his work. If you like Ealing comedies, Alistair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, St Trinian’s and the Molesworth books or the works of Thelwell or Ronald Searle, you won’t regret the search.

Unbelievably, despite his woefully small output there still doesn’t seem to be a definitive collection of his work. One again I implore any potential publisher reading this to take the hint, but until then, for the rest of us there’s just the thrill of the hunt and the promised bounty in seeking out The British Character, The British at Home, The British Carry On, Most of us are Absurd, Pont and this magical compendium The World of Pont, which comprises the perfect primer by sampling the best of his drawn divinations from his themed Punch series’ ‘The British Observed’, ‘The British at War’, ‘Popular Misconceptions’, ‘The British Woman’ and last but certainly not least, ‘The British Man’.

If you love good drawing and sharp observational wit you’ll thank me. If you just want a damn good laugh, you’ll reward yourself with the assorted works of Pont.
© 1983, 2007 the estate of Graham Laidler.

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Hawkmoon: the Jewel in the Skull


By Michael Moorcock, adapted by Gerry Conway, Rafael Kayanan, Rico Rival & Alfredo Alcala (First Publishing)
ISBN: 0-915419-32-7

Michael Moorcock began his career as a comics writer and editor at age 15, writing and editing such classic strips as Tarzan, Dogfight Dixon, Jet Ace Logan, Captain Condor, Olac the Gladiator and many, many other British stalwarts before making the jump to prose fiction, where he single-handedly revitalised the genre with the creation of Elric and the high-concept of the Eternal Champion.

As literary fantasy heroes began finding comicbook outlets and analogues it was only a matter of time before Moorcock’s astonishing pantheon of paladins began making inroads into the graphic adventure market. After a series of superlative adaptations of his epochal Elric epics were released by Marvel and First Publishing in the 1980s, the latter company expanded the franchise and began publishing miniseries of the darkly satirical and highly engaging History of the Runestaff.

Also part of Moorcock’s vast and expansive “Eternal Champion” shared universe, the novels comprising The Runestaff detail the struggles of an embattled and beleaguered band of heroes in a dystopic future Europe struggling to survive the all-conquering armies of decadent and fascistic superpower Granbretan. The astonishingly addictive and archly hilarious core books The Jewel in The Skull, The Mad God’s Amulet, The Sword Of The Dawn, and The Runestaff have been collected into an omnibus edition entitled The History of the Runestaff if you feel the inclination to check out the source material…

In a mischievous reversal of British comics tradition the proto-steampunk Dark Empire of Granbretan are ruthless, rapacious, all-conquering bad-guys whilst the beleaguered underdog heroes are French and the star is a German!

Stuffed with English phonetic in-jokes and puns the series is a deeply witty and sardonic critique on the times it was written in. Wicked Baron Meliadus is ruler of the fabulous duchy of Kroiden – famed today for its trams and… well, not even trams really… and the debased gods the Wicked Englander marauders worship include Aral Vilsn, Chirshil, Jhone, Phowl, Jhorg and Rhunga – sound ’em out; we’ll wait…

In this adaptation of the first novel, originally released as a four issue miniseries in1987, the wonderment begins as doughty warrior Count Brass inspects the land of the Kamarg; domains he won after destroying the previous demented, despotic incumbent. After an eventful tour Brass returns home and renews a long-standing debate with his aide and friend Bowgentle about the relative merits of the burgeoning Empire of Granbretan.

A seasoned campaigner, the Count feels the Empire’s initial depredations are acceptable if the world stands united at the end whilst the philosopher/poet feels that there’s a creeping sickness corrupting the souls of the agents of expansion. The comrades get a chance to assess for themselves when Ambassador Baron Meliadus of Kroiden arrives seeking a non-intervention pact with the tiny but powerful state Brass shepherds.

Offering every courtesy to the visiting dignitary the Count allows himself to be swayed by the Baron’s honeyed words until the Granbretanian, obsessed with Brass’ daughter Yisselda, refuses to take “no” for an answer and attempts to abduct her. After grievously wounding Bowgentle, Meliadus is soundly thrashed and sent packing by the outraged father and henceforth a state of war exists between the Empire and the Karmarg.

Frustrated and humiliated Meliadus swears an oath by the mythical Runestaff to defeat Count Brass, possess Yisselda and ravage the Kamarg. Returning to the dark heart of the Empire the Baron plots a horrible revenge, unaware of the staggering forces his incautious oath has set in motion…

His vile thoughts turn to Duke Dorian Hawkmoon von Köln, a recently captured prince who valiantly resisted the Empire’s brutal conquest of his nation. Now a broken toy of Granbretan’s debased scientists, Hawkmoon will be the perfect instrument of revenge once the devilish doctors of Londra have done with him…

Meliadus offers Hawkmoon freedom if the broken hero will infiltrate the Karmarg and steal Yisselda and the Duke agrees, but rather than accept his word Meliadus takes the precaution of having a black jewel inserted into Dorian’s skull. Not only will it relay back all the Duke sees, but should he rebel it will eat into his skull and consume his brain…

The second chapter opens with Hawkmoon’s cunningly staged epic escape and soon the Hero of Köln is welcomed into the safe haven of Count Brass’ castle. His mission well underway the princely pawn is troubled by dreams of a Warrior in Jet and Gold, but his waking hours are filled with spiritual healing as the champions of the Kamarg and especially lovely Yisselda mend his broken warrior’s soul.

Moreover Brass is not fooled for a moment and undertakes to free Hawkmoon from the influence and lethal effects of the ebony jewel…

The reprieve is temporary and the Jewel in the Skull is only rendered dormant. To completely remove its threat Hawkmoon must travel to far Hamadam in search of the wizard Malagigi, who holds the secret of neutralising the brain-devouring bauble. However, before that can be contemplated the little kingdom must face the massed armies of Granbretan under the furious command of twice-thwarted Baron Meliadus…

With a revitalised Hawkmoon commanding a troop of harrying rough-riders the impossible feat is accomplished in grand style (thanks in no small part to the powerfully imaginative illustration of Rafael Kayanan and inkers Alfredo Alcala & Rico Rival) and as the Dark Empire retreats in stunned astonishment to lick its wounds and assuage its shaken pride, the tormented Duke heads East to Turkia seeking his personal salvation.

The final chapter sees him find his destined squire/companion Oladahn (smallest of the Mountain Giants), finally meet the mysterious warrior in Jet and Gold, defeat decadent sorcerer Agonosvos the Immortal and forge a new alliance when he rescues warrior-queen Frawbra and her city from insurrection instigated by Granbretan.

Masterminding the attempt is the rapacious and quite mad Meliadus, leading to a fate-drenched final confrontation…

There’s a tremendous amount of plot stuffed into each issue, often giving a feeling of ponderous density to the proceedings but it’s always leavened with plenty of action and one spectacular high concept idea after another. Whilst no substitute for Moorcock’s stunning fantasy tour de force, the graphic novel Jewel in the Skull is a bombastic and devastatingly effective adaptation that will delight all fans of fantastic fantasy.
© 1988 First Publishing, Inc and Star*Reach Productions. Original story © 1967 Michael Moorcock; used with permission.