Author: Now Read This

 

By Hsi Kao, illustrated by Sun Pin, Li Hou-mi & Feng Chih-chung (Foreign Language Press, Peking)
No ISBN

Set in the period immediately following the victory of the Moaist forces in China, this startlingly engaging slice of graphic propaganda tells of the ultimate defeat of the Slave-Owning class in the sheltered Liangshan Mountains of Szechuan Province and the eventual coming together of the people under a new, Democratic system.

I’m not going to comment on the obvious political overtones – indeed, bias – of this story, but concentrate on the quality of the piece as an artefact of graphic narrative. I will however reiterate my long-held belief that the wedding of powerful words and beautiful pictures is an almost irresistible tool for disseminating ideas. Any force that wishes to capture hearts and minds should be wary of this. Perhaps distressingly, many such forces are.

Although most of China was semi-colonial and Feudal prior to 1950, the Liangshan Mountains region, ancestral home of the Yi People and an area of minority ethnicity, held to a slave-owning system, with landed nobles actually owning the peasants who worked that land. Even after Mao’s victory, this region remained unstable and disputed until 1956. This allegorical tale relates the battle for independence of the small village of Walo.

In 1945 this village had rebelled, but after initial victory they were re-enslaved by their previous owner. In 1950 the victorious People’s Liberation Army secured regional autonomy and tried to reconcile the Yi and their deposed masters, but the latter proved to be duplicitous and plotted to undo the democratic reforms.

Depicted as a classic heroic struggle between the evil Louhunglaha and his former chattels Latieh, Wuniu, Yipo and Mukuo, this is a thrilling picture story of chases and battles, beautifully illustrated in strong black and white brush strokes, where the goodies win and the baddies are defeated.

The craftsmanship of this tale is impeccable and if you are prepared to acknowledge different ideologies as readily as we comic fans embrace different species, religions, mythologies, histories or physical laws, you might have a whale of time with this little beauty.

© Foreign Language Press, Peking 1977. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Steve Ditko (Eclipse Books)
ISBN: 0-913035-83-1

Before his time at Marvel young Steve Ditko perfected his craft doing short stories for Charlton Comics. The short complete tale was once the sole staple of the comic book profession, when the plan was to deliver as much variety as possible to the reader. Sadly that particular discipline is all but lost to modern comic creators.

Apparently the title came from a radio show which Charlton licensed, and the lead character certainly acts more as voyeur or host than active participant, speaking to “camera” and asking the reader for opinion and judgement as he presents a selection of funny, sad, scary and wondrous human interest yarns all tinged with a hint of the weird and supernatural, and all rendered unforgettable by the sheer genius of Ditko’s storytelling mastery and his full, lavish brushwork. I have many of these stories in the comic versions, but the crisp black and white art reproduced here puts them to shame. This art is gorgeous!

I suspect, but don’t know, that Joe Gill scripted most of these stories, although if anyone has any information I’d be delighted to hear from you. This glorious little gem should be permanently in print and used as a primer for any artist who wants a career in comics.

© 1990 Robyn Snyder. Tales of the Mysterious Traveler is ™ Sword in the Stone Productions.

 

By Various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 1-85286-955-0

This Simpsons collection reprints issues #24 – 27 of the monthly comic aimed at younger fans of the hit TV series. Nonetheless there is very little evidence of toning down or simplification in these edgy, barbed spoofs and gag strips, produced by a talented if not well-known crew of jobbing professionals.

Concocting the madness and mayhem herein contained are Peter Alexander, Jamie Angell, Tim Bavington, Jackie Behan, Jeanine Crowell Black, Shaun Cashman, Terry Delegeane, Jeff Filgo, Scott M. Gimple, Stephanie Gladden, Todd J. Greenwald, Rob Hammersley, Carl Harmon, Tim Harkins, Nathan Kane, Tim Maile, Bill Morrison, Phil Ortiz, Chris Simmons, Mary Trainor, Doug Tuber and Chris Ungar wrangled by the ubiquitous Matt Groening.

The US Presidential Race and Media manipulation get a banana-fingered mauling in ‘Send in the Clowns’ and the regular spoof comic book section features a selection from the truly imaginary ‘Li’l Homey’, as the young Homer pastiches Home Alone. ‘Marge Attacks’ sees the long-suffering matriarch become a TV personality when she tries to stamp out obnoxious TV chat shows. Itchy and Scratchy make baseball a bloodsport in the wordless short feature ‘Game Called Because Of Pain’, a strip from their own (non-existent) comic. The volume is also peppered with short one or two page gag strips featuring the show’s truly disturbing cast of regulars.

Side Show Bob stars in ‘Get off the Bus’, as his attempt to do a good deed goes calamitously awry, and Captain McCallister (the weird bearded fisherman-guy) tells a salty – and definitely fishy – Tale of the Briny Deep. But the undisputed star of this book is the wonderful ‘They Fixed Homer’s Brain!’, an hysterical and touching pastiche of Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon, wherein Homer volunteers for a radical experiment to increase his intelligence – for a cash reward naturally – only to find a brief and tragic new rapport with Lisa (the Smart One). All the best comedy is touched by sadness and this is a lovely little example of that maxim. It’s also the funniest strip in the entire book with both wit and gross-out gags that could make a statue smirk.

Like the show, this strip just keeps getting better and more daring. In the 1950s and 1960s we used the Carl Barks Duck strips as a benchmark for all-ages comic entertainment. The Simpsons has the potential to become the modern equivalent.

© 1996, 1998 Bongo Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

By Jim Massey & Robbi Rodriguez (Oni Press)
ISBN: 978-1932-6646-21

There are a lot of comedy comics around these days, many of which target their own playgrounds and make delightful sport with their own crowd. Maintenance is one such, and it’s a great one.

Creators Jim Massey and Robbi Rodriguez obviously love dumb movies, comic books and the wackiest of Sci-Fi trivia, and their ability to translate that into funny, fast-paced and magnificently more-ish reading should take them far.

Doug and Manny are just a couple of working stiffs trying to get by. Janitors, in fact. The job’s not glamorous, not well-paid, and is often physically unpleasant. Oh, and potentially lethal too. Doug and Manny do clean-up at MT, Harmony, the secret testing ground of the World’s most successful evil think tank.

When not bitching and griping they can be found getting rid of the less savoury detritus of the world’s maddest scientists – the slime from Marauding Gigamorphs, Man-Sharks, Time-bending troglodytes, mutant peanut armies, explosions, carnivorous Zombie Kittens, duplicitous imbecilic aliens and, of course, the dripping pools of sarcasm left by all those ungrateful boffins. How are a couple of simple working guys going to get by?

With hysterically, knowing wit, as little effort as possible and your undying critical and financial support for this brilliant series.

© 2006, 2007 Jim Massey & Robbi Rodriguez. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Rick Geary (NBM/Comics Lit)
ISBN 1-56163-498-0

Quirky crime-historian Rick Geary presents another captivating slice of morbid fascination in this subtly engrossing account of one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the nineteenth century, via the vehicle of his graphic novel series ‘A Treasury of Victorian Murder’.

In unsettled Kansas, in the period immediately following the American Civil War, a family of German speaking immigrants settled near the Osage Trail and built a General Store-cum-Hotel equidistant between the nascent townships of Cherry Vale, Parsons and Thayer. By the time they vanished four years later, as few as ten but probably many, many travellers and settlers had been robbed and murdered, before the Benders simply vanished from the sight of man.

Geary, with supreme style and dry wit, presents the facts and the best of the rumours in his inimitable cartoon style to create yet another unforgettable masterpiece of Gothic whimsy.

© 2007 Rick Geary. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Carol Lay (Last Gasp)
ISBN 0-86719-659-9

During the creative boom of the late 1980s, a vast outpouring of comic material found its way onto the shelves, much of it excellent, dealing with a variety of topics and genres in a number of styles. When the boom became a bust lots of great strips died along with the trash – of which there was an incredible amount. Also a casualty was the spirit of innovation and expectation.

Good Girls, published by Fantagraphics (and later Rip-Off Press), featured two series by professional and underground cartoonist Carol Lay. Along with the tribulations of Miss Lonely Hearts – an agony aunt of sorts – was the ongoing saga of a lost baby heiress (“Richest Woman in the World”) raised by African Tribesmen who practised female ritual disfigurement. Eventually the adult Irene Van de Kamp is returned to modern western society, where even her billions cannot buy her acceptance and piece of mind.

To Western eyes she is truly hideous. It is to the credit of the character, that she endures cheerfully, however, eschewing any kind of corrective surgery or procedures. By her own deeply held aesthetic lights, she is beautiful and wants to remain that way.

Using the art and narrative style of traditional romance comics as a vehicle, Lay examines social mores and aesthetic taboos, and especially power of conformity to affect the most primal of emotions, Love and Desire (with a huge side order of Greed). Don’t let my pomposity fool you, though. This is a romance, and a daring, funny charming one at that.

Her skill as artist and storyteller in relating the picaresque tribulations are subtly subversive, and you will soon lose any reservations you might initially have been inflicted with. This is wonderful example of grow-up comic literature. The initial series never reached a conclusion, and this volume also contains all-new episodes that conclude the saga of the beautiful, irrepressible and indomitable Irene.

© 2007 Carol Lay. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Various (Bongo Comics)
ISBN: 1-85286-669-1

The Simpsons phenomenon quickly fed back into its cartooning roots, and Bongo Comics was formed as an adjunct to the television show, to provide extra Springfield madness for the masses.

It is a credit to all concerned that the comics (issues #6 through #9 of which are reprinted here) manage to capture much of the tone, quality and thankfully, humour of the series, whilst paying their own eccentric tributes to the comic industry via the vehicle of ‘including’ comic books that Bart Simpson would be reading.

In this volume are: ‘Be-Bop-a-Lisa’ as the smart one sells out her musical integrity by creating “Speed Jazz” or Spazz music, whilst ‘Chief Wiggum’s Pre-Code Crime Comics’ provides the cautionary tale ‘The End of El Barto’. Homer stars in ‘The Greatest D’oh on Earth’, a tale of the worst circus in the world, and Rainier Wolfcastle stars in ‘Dead to the Last Drop’ from the highly dubious McBain Comics.

The entire cast feature in the Fantasic Voyage parody ‘I Shrink, Therefore I’m Small’, and the spoofing continues with Mrs Krabappel’s adventure as ‘Edna: Queen of the Congo’. The publishing business itself gets a cartoony kicking when Lisa’s “sexed-up” diary (courtesy of Bart, naturally) becomes the latest tell-all best-seller in ‘The Purple Rose of Springfield’, and the merriment concludes with a Popeye pastiche selection from ‘Barney Gumble Comics’entitled ‘Asleep at the Well’.

It’s difficult to judge creative input when producing work for such a highly defined and recognised licensed property, but the excellent work of Bill Morrison, Andrew Gottlieb, Gary Glasberg, Tim Bavington, Phil Ortiz, Luis Escobar, Stephanie Gladden, Steve and Cindy Vance and Nathan Kane, under the presumably beady eye of Matt Groening, keeps the gags coming and the pace frenetic, so all concerned deserve a group pat on the back.

This is another timeless piece of comic ordinance that we should use to get kids of all ages into comics. And of course, once we have them, we need stuff of this quality around to keep them.

© 1994, 1995 Bongo Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.