Category: Comedy

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The Art of Archie: The Covers


By various, edited by Victor Gorelick & Craig Yoe (Archie Books)
ISBN: 978-1-936975-79-2 (HB/Digital edition)

For most of us, comics mean buff men and women in capes and tights hitting each other, lobbing trees about, or stark, nihilistic genre thrillers aimed at an extremely mature and sophisticated readership of confirmed fans – and indeed that has been the prolific norm for nearly twenty years.

However, over the decades since 1933 when comic books were invented, other forms of sequential illustrated fiction genres have held their own. One that has maintained a unique position over the years – although almost now completely transferred to television – is the teen-comedy genre begun by and synonymous with a carrot topped, homely (at first just plain ugly) kid named Archie Andrews.

MLJ were a small outfit which jumped wholeheartedly onto the superhero bandwagon following the debut of Superman. In November 1939 they launched Blue Ribbon Comics, promptly following with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the accepted blend of costumed heroes, two-fisted adventure strips and one-off gags. Pep made history with its lead feature The Shield – the industry’s first superhero clad in the American flag – but generally MLJ were followers not innovators.

That all changed at the end of 1941. Even while profiting from the Fights ‘n’ Tights phalanx, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in their blossoming market and in December the action strips were joined by a wholesome, ordinary hero; an “average teen” who had invitingly human-scaled adventures that might happen to the readers, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick heavily emphasised.

Pep Comics #22 introduced a gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed goof showing off to the pretty blonde next door. Taking his lead from the popular Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey Rooney, Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman, tasking writer Vic Bloom & artist Bob Montana with the job of making it work.

So effective and all-pervasive was the impact and comforting message the new kid offered to the boys “over there” and those left behind on the Home Front that Archie and the wholesome image of familiar, beloved, secure Americana he and the Riverdale gang represented, one could consider them the greatest and most effective Patriotic/Propaganda weapon in comics history…

It all started with an innocuous 6-page tale entitled ‘Archie’ which introduced the future star and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper. Archie’s unconventional best friend and confidante Forsythe P. “Jughead” Jones also debuted in that first story, as did the small-town utopia they lived in.

The premise was an instant and ever-growing hit. In 1942 the feature graduated to its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first non-anthology magazine and began an inexorable transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the industry’s second Phenomenon (Superman being the first).

By May 1946 the kids had taken over and, retiring its costumed champions years before the end of the Golden Age, MLJ rebranded, renamed itself Archie Comics, and became to all intents and purposes a publisher of family comedies. This overwhelming success, like the Man of Tomorrow’s, forced a change in the content of every other publisher’s titles and led to a multi-media industry including a newspaper strip, TV, movies, pop-songs and even a chain of restaurants. Intermittently the costumed cut-ups have returned on occasion but Archie Comics now seems content to specialise in what they do uniquely best…

Our eponymous high-schooler is a good-hearted lad lacking common sense and Betty – pretty, sensible, devoted girl next door, with all that entails – loves the ridiculous redhead. Ronnie is spoiled, exotic and glamorous and only settles for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him too, though. Archie, of course, can’t decide who or what he wants…

This never-tawdry eternal triangle has been the basis of seventy years of charmingly raucous, gently preposterous, frenetic, chiding and even heart-rending comedy encompassing everything from surreal wit to frantic slapstick, as the kids and an increasing cast of friends grew into an American institution.

Adapting seamlessly to every trend and fad, perfectly in tone with and mirroring the growth of teen culture, the host of writers and artists who have crafted the stories over the decades have made the archetypal characters of Riverdale a benchmark for youth and a visual barometer of growing up American.

Archie’s unconventional best friend Jughead is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo: providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. There’s even a likeably reprehensible Tybalt figure in the crafty form of Reggie Mantle – who first popped up to cause mischief in Jackpot Comics #5 (Spring 1942).

This beguiling triangle edifice (plus annexe and outhouse) has been the rock-solid foundation for eight decades of comics magic. …and the concept seems eternally self-renewing and self-perpetuating…

Archie has thrived by constantly reinventing its core characters, seamlessly adapting to the changing world outside the bright, flimsy pages, shamelessly co-opting youth, pop culture and fashion trends into its infallible mix of slapstick and young romance.

Each and every social revolution has been painlessly assimilated into the mix with the editors tastefully confronting a number of social issues affecting the young in a manner both even-handed and tasteful over the years.

The cast is always growing and the constant addition of new characters such as African-American Chuck (an aspiring cartoonist), his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Hispanic couple Frankie & Maria and a host of others like spoiled wild-child home-wrecker-in-waiting Cheryl Blossom, and Kevin Keller, an openly gay young man and clear-headed advocate, capably tackling and dismantling the last major taboo in mainstream comics.

A major component of the company’s success has been the superbly enticing artwork and especially the unmistakable impact afforded via the assorted titles’ captivating covers.

This spectacular compilation (a companion and sequel to 2010s Betty & Veronica collection) traces the history and evolution of the wholesome phenomenon through many incredible examples from every decade. Augmented by scads of original art, fine art and commercial recreations, printer’s proofs and a host of other rare examples and graphic surprises no fan of the medium could possibly resist, this huge hardback (312 x 235mm) and digital delight re-presents hundreds of funny, charming, intriguing and occasionally controversial images as well as background and biographies on the many talented artists responsible for creating them.

Moreover, also included are many original artworks – gleaned from the private collections of fans – scripts, sketches, gag-roughs, production ephemera from the initial art-to-finished-cover process, plus an extensive, educational introductory commentary section stuffed with fascinating reminiscences and behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

The picture parade begins with some thoughts from the brains behind the fun as ‘It’s a Gift’ by Publisher/Co-CEO Jon Goldwater and ‘You Can Judge a Book by its Cover!’ by Editor-in-Chief/Co-President Victor Gorelick. Then ‘On the Covers’ issues guidance from cartoonist, Comics Historian and perpetrator Craig Yoe before taking us to the 1940s where ‘In the Beginning…’ details the story of Archie with relevant covers and the first of a recurring feature highlighting how later generations of artists have recycled and reinterpreted classic designs.

‘A Matchless Cover’ leads into the first Artist Profile – ‘Bob Montana’ – incorporating a wealth of cracking Golden Age images in ‘Who’s on First!’ before chapters dedicated to specific themes and motifs commence with a celebration of beach scenes ‘In the Swim’, after which artist ‘Bill Vigoda’ steps out from behind his easel and into the spotlight.

‘Deja Vu All Over Again’ further explores the recapitulation of certain cover ideas before ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll!’ examines decades of pop music and “guest” stars such as the Beatles, whilst ‘Archie’s Mechanically Inclined’ probes a short-lived dalliance with an early form of home DIY magazines.

The life of veteran illustrator ‘Al Fagaly’ leads into a selection of ‘Fan Faves’ ancient and modern before the biography of ‘Harry Sahle’ segues neatly into a selection of cheerleading covers in ‘Let’s Hear It for The Boy!’

It wasn’t long after the birth of modern pop music that the Riverdale gang formed their own band and ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, The Archies!’ focuses on those ever-evolving musical prodigies with scenes from the Swinging Sixties to the turbulent Rap-ridden 21st century, after which the history ‘Joe Edwards’ leads into a barrage of smoochy snogging scenes in ‘XOXOXO!’

Always a keen follower of fads and fashions. the Archie crowd embraced many popular trends and ‘Monster Bash!’ concentrates on kids’ love of horror and recurring periods of supernatural thrills, after which a bio of ‘Dan Parent’ leads unerringly to more ‘Celebrity Spotting!’ with covers featuring the likes of George Takei, Michael Jackson, Simon Cowell, J-Lo, Kiss, the casts of Glee and Twilight, and even President Barack Obama. all eagerly appearing amongst so very many others.

‘Art for Archie’s Sake’ dwells on the myriad expressions of junior painting and sculpture and, after the life story of the sublimely gifted ‘Harry Lucey’, ‘The Time Archie was Pinked Out!’ details the thinking behind the signature logo colour schemes used in the company’s pre-computer days.

‘Life with Archie’s a Beach!’ takes another look at the rise of teenage sand and surf culture through the medium of beautifully rendered, scantily clad boys and girls, whilst – after the lowdown on writer/artist ‘Fernando Ruiz’ – ‘Dance! Dance! Dance!’ follows those crazy kids from Jitterbug to Frug, Twisting through Disco and ever onwards…

‘The Happiest of Holidays’ highlights the horde of magical Christmas covers Archie, Betty and Ronnie have starred on whilst ‘Rhyme Time’ reveals the odd tradition of poetry spouting sessions that have been used to get fans interested and keep them amused.

A history of the inimitable ‘Samm Schwartz’ precedes a look at classroom moments in ‘Readin’, Writin’, an’ Archie – with a separate section on organised games entitled ‘Good Sports!’ – after which the life of legendary art star ‘Dan DeCarlo’ neatly leads to another selection of fad-based fun as ‘That’s Just Super!’ recalls the Sixties costumed hero craze, as well as a few other forays into Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy…

‘Let’s Get this Party Started’ features covers with strips rather than single images and is followed by a biography of ‘Bob Bolling’ before ‘A Little Goes a Long Way!’ concentrates on the assorted iterations of pre-teen Little Archie comics. This is then capped by the eye-popping enigma of teen taste as visualised in the many outfits over changing decades revealing ‘A Passion for Fashion’…

‘Come as You Aren’t’ is devoted to the theme of fancy dress parties after which the modern appetite for variant covers is celebrated in ‘Alternate Realities’ (with stunning examples from Fiona Staples, Tim Seeley and Walter Simonson amongst others) all wrapped up by the gen on artistic mainstay ‘Bob White’.

The entire kit and caboodle then concludes with an assortment of surreal, mindblowing covers defying categorisation or explanation in ‘And Now, For Something Completely Different’, proving that comics are still the only true home of untrammelled imagination: featuring scenes that literally have to be seen to be believed…

Enchanting, breathtaking graphic wonderment, fun-fuelled family entertainment and enticing pop art masterpieces, these unforgettable cartoon confections truly express the joyous spirit of intoxicating youthful vitality which changed the comic industry forever and comprise an essential example of artistic excellence no lover of narrative art should miss.

Spanning the entire history of American comicbooks and featuring vintage images, landmark material and up-to-the-minute modern masterpieces, this is a terrific tome for anybody interested in the history of comics, eternally evergreen light laughs and the acceptable happy face of the American Dream.
™ & © 2013 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. All covers previously published and copyrighted by Archie Comic Publication, Inc. (or its predecessors) in magazine form in 1941-2013.

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Bluecoats: The Dirty Five


By Willy Lambil & Raoul Cauvin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-004-3 (Album PB/Digital edition)

Devised by Louis “Salvé” Salvérius & Raoul Cauvin – who scripted the first 64 volumes until retirement in 2020 – Les Tuniques Bleues (or Dutch co-incarnation De Blauwbloezen) debuted at the end of the 1960s: created to replace Lucky Luke when that laconic maverick defected from weekly anthology Le Journal de Spirou to rival publication Pilote.

From its first sallies, the substitute strip swiftly became hugely popular: one of the most popular bande dessinée series in Europe. In case you were wondering, it is now scribed by Jose-Luis Munuera and the BeKa writing partnership…

Salvé was a cartoonist of the Gallic big-foot/big-nose humour school, and after his sudden death in 1972, successor Willy “Lambil” Lambillotte gradually adopted a more realistic – but still overtly comedic – tone and manner. Lambil is Belgian, born in 1936 and, after studying Fine Art in college, joined publishing giant Dupuis in 1952 as a letterer.

Born in 1938, scripter Cauvin was also Belgian and – before entering Dupuis’ animation department in 1960 – studied Lithography. He soon discovered his true calling was comedy and began a glittering, prolific writing career at Le Journal de Spirou.

In addition, he scripted dozens of long-running, award winning series including Cédric, Les Femmes en Blanc and Agent 212: more than 240 separate albums. Les Tuniques Bleues alone has over 15 million copies of its 66 (and counting) album sequence. Cauvin died on August 19th 2021, but his vast legacy of barbed laughter remains.

Here, designated The Bluecoats, our long-suffering protagonists are Sergeant Cornelius Chesterfield and Corporal Blutch; worthy, honest fools in the manner of Laurel & Hardy: hapless, ill-starred US cavalrymen defending America during the War Between the States.

The original format offered single-page gags set around an Indian-plagued Wild West fort, but from second volume Du Nord au Sud the sad-sack soldiers were situated back East, fighting in the American Civil War.

All subsequent adventures – despite often ranging far beyond the traditional environs of the sundered USA and taking in a lot of genuine and thoroughly researched history – are set within the timeframe of the Secession conflict.

Blutch is your run-of-the-mill, whinging little-man-in-the street: work-shy, mouthy, devious and ferociously critical of the army and its inept orchestrators and commanders. Ducking, diving, deserting whenever he can, he’s you or me – except at his core he’s smart, principled and even heroic… if no easier option is available.

Chesterfield is a big, burly professional fighting man; a proud career soldier of the 22nd Cavalry who passionately believes in patriotism and the esprit-de-corps of the Military. He is brave, never shirking his duty and hungry to be a medal-wearing hero. He also loves his cynical little troll of a pal. They quarrel like a married couple, fight like brothers but simply cannot agree on the point and purpose of the horrendous war they are trapped in: a situation that once more stretches their friendship to breaking point in this cunningly conceived instalment.

Coloured by Vittorio Leonardo, Les cinq salopards was originally serialised in Le Journal de Spirou (#2357-2368) before collection into another mega-selling album in 1984: the 33rd European release. In 2020 it was Cinebook’s 14th translated Bluecoats volume.

The Dirty Five offers a lighter touch and more adventuresome fare with the underlying horror salved by a farce-driven mission that degenerates into ridiculously surreal black comedy.

As is so often the case, the Union forces are stalemated with no advance possible. Even the 22nd Cavalry – still under the ruthless leadership of utterly deranged, apparently invulnerable Gentleman maniac Captain Stark – are helpless; reduced after countless pointless assaults to a force of three: Stark himself, Sergeant Chesterfield and poor treacherous Blutch…

With no end in sight and the infantrymen stuck in dugouts, dodging enemy artillery fire, boredom and idiotic orders, the ordinary foot soldiers are infuriatingly idle, forcing the commandeering general into a frenzy of inspiration…

What’s needed is one last push and if they have no cavalry, then volunteers must be found to repopulate the 22nd. Thus, the eager sergeant and appalled corporal are sent out amongst the civilian population to recruit a force of daring horsemen to turn the tide…

The mission has brought the pals to the edge of murder. They are at odds from the start, with the Sergeant proudly keen to recruit new warriors and convinced they will all be happy to die for their country, whilst Blutch is determined not to be the cause of more pointless deaths and maimings…

By the time they leave nearby Frogtown, they are at each other’s throats, mostly thanks to Blutch having frittered away the bribe fund of recruiting cash and “losing” all the enlistment papers signed by the suckers Chesterfield bamboozled with flowery speeches and cheap booze…

The mission is a complete fiasco but takes a decidedly dark turn when they meet a prison guard escorting a group of criminals to their executions. Chesterfield believes it’s the perfect solution to their problem and soon the still-squabbling squaddies are touring Greenbush State Prison looking for a few bad men…

There are plenty, but the job is no done deal. The first convict – a deserter – chooses to stay and be hanged than go back to serve under Stark…

In the end only, five doomed men ostensibly sign up to serve their country, but it soon becomes clear they might not be completely sincere. That’s not Chesterfield’s concern. He knows he’s done his duty once the felons are delivered to the General.

Blutch has more nuanced worries. Apart from the sheer insanity of letting loose – and even arming – religious serial killer Reverend Osgood, obsessive horse thief/cannibal Shorty Fink, karate killer Yang and the murderously psychopathic duo of blind knife thrower Rupert and his lethal human targeting system Abel there’s the purely practical problems of getting the killer quintet back to the front lines: a mammoth task that takes all the soldiers’ individual ingenuity and ultimately unity and teamwork to accomplish.

Of course, once the Bluecoats complete their mission and the Five officially join the 22nd, the real problems begin, not just for the Northern regiments but also for the Confederate forces so defiantly opposing them…

Combining searing satire with stunning slapstick, The Dirty Five mordantly manipulates the traditions of war stories to manifest a beguiling message about the sheer stupidity of war and crushing cruelty of obsessions equally effective in deprogramming younger, less world-weary audiences and even us old lags who have seen it all.

These stories weaponise humour, making occasional moments of shocking verity doubly powerful and hard-hitting. Funny, thrilling, beautifully realised and eminently readable, Bluecoats is the best kind of war-story and Western appealing to the best, not worst, of the human spirit.
© Dupuis 1984 by Lambil & Cauvin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2020 Cinebook Ltd.

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Billy & Buddy volume 8: Fetch and Carry On


By Christophe Cazenove & Jean Bastide in the style of Roba, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-070-8 (Album PB/Digital)

Known as Boule et Bill in Europe (at least in the French speaking bits – the Dutch and Flemish call them Bollie en Billie or perhaps Bas et Boef if readers first glimpsed them in legendary weekly Sjors), this evergreen, immensely popular cartoon saga of a dog and his boy first debuted at Christmas in 1959.

The perennial family favourite resulted from Belgian writer-artist Jean Roba (Spirou et Fantasio, La Ribambelle) putting his head together with Maurice Rosy: the magazine’s Artistic Director and Ideas Man, who had also ghosted art and/or scripts on Jerry Spring, Tif et Tondu, Bobo and Attila during a decades-long, astoundingly productive career at the legendary periodical.

Intended as a European answer to Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Boule et Bill quickly went its own way, developing a unique style and personality and becoming Roba’s main occupation for the next 45 years. He had launched the feature as a mini-récit (32-page, half-sized freebie inserts) in the December 24th edition of Le Journal de Spirou.

Like Dennis the Menace in The Beano, the strip was a huge hit from the start, and for 25 years held the coveted and prestigious back-cover spot. It was even syndicated to rival publishers and became a popular feature in Le Journal de Mickey, rubbing shoulders with Walt Disney’s top stars. Older Brits might recognise the art as early episodes – retitled It’s a Dog’s Life – ran in Fleetway’s weekly Valiant from 1961 to 1965…

A cornerstone of European life, the strip has generated a live-action movie, four animated TV series, computer games, permanent art exhibitions, sculptures and even postage stamps. As with a select few immortalized Belgian comics creations, Bollie en Billie were awarded a commemorative plaque and have a street named after them in Brussels…

Large format album compilations began immediately, totalling 21 volumes throughout the 1960s and 1970s from publisher Dupuis. These were completely redesigned and re-released in 1985 when Roba moved to Dargaud and became his own editor. The standard albums (43 to date) are supplemented by a range of early-reader books for toddlers. Assorted collections are available in 14 languages, selling well in excess of 25 million copies.

Roba crafted more than a thousand pages of gag-strips in his beguiling, idealised domestic comedy setting, all about a little lad and an exceedingly smart Cocker Spaniel. Long before his death in 2006, the auteur wisely appointed successors for the strip, which has thus continued to this day. He began by surrendering the art chores to his long-term assistant Laurent Verron in 2003, and the successor subsequently took on the scripting too upon Roba’s passing. Verron was soon joined by gag-writers Veys, Corbeyran, Chric & Cucuel whilst this tome comes courtesy of new team Christophe Cazenove & Jean Bastide. In this collection Verron is present as illustrator of the “cabochons”: illustrated icons at the top of each strip. They’re what old folks like us employed before emoticons…

As Billy and Buddy, the strip returned to British eyes in 2009: stars of enticing Cinebook compilations introducing to 21st century readers an endearingly bucolic sitcom-styled nuclear family set-up consisting of one bemused, long-suffering and short-tempered dad; a warmly compassionate but constantly wearied and distracted mum; a smart but mischievous son and a genius dog who has a penchant for finding bones, puddles and trouble.

As the feature accommodates the passage of time, we see a few more mod-cons and a bigger role for girls – such as skipping sharpie Juliet – but, in essence, nothing has changed… and that’s the whole point…

Bill est un gros rapporteur! was the 37th European collection, comfortingly resuming in the approved manner and further exploring the evergreen relationship of a dog and his boy (and tortoise) for our delight and delectation. Available in paperback and digital editions and delivered as a series of stand-alone rapid-fire, single-page gags, Fetch and Carry On is packed with visual puns, quips, slapstick and jolly jests and japes: all affirming the gradual socialisation and behaviour of little Billy as measured in carefree romps with four-footed friends and an even split between parental judgements and getting away with murder…

Buddy is the perfect pet for an imaginative and playful boy, although the manipulative mutt is overly fond of purloined food, buried bones (ownership frequently to be determined), and as seen in this volume sleeping where he really shouldn’t. When not being a problem, he’s also ferociously protective of his boy, tortoise and ball.

The pesky pooch simply cannot understand why everyone wants to constantly plunge him into foul-tasting soapy water, but it’s just a sacrifice he’s prepared to make to be with Billy…

Buddy’s fondly platonic relationship with tortoise Caroline is played up in this book and his knack for clearing off whenever Dad has one of his explosive emotional meltdowns over the cost of canine treats, repair bills or the Boss’ latest impositions is dialled down, but most of the traditional themes and schemes are revisited abundantly

Our inseparable duo interact with many pals – particularly Billy’s school chum Pat – who acts as confidante and best two-legged crony in all mischief making – and at every carefree moment they all play pranks, encounter other animals, dodge surveillance, hunt and hoard (bones, toys, shoes, phones and other crucial household items), rummage in bins, wilfully and/or honestly misunderstand adults, cause accidents and cost money, with both kid and mutt equally adept at all of the above.

This time, domestic chaos is heightened by the introduction of classmate Celia’s new French Bulldog Brice. The pedigreed dog meets all the breed standards – which means he makes noises like a ruptured steam train when eating, sleeping or even just watching the others in bewilderment and becomes a cause celebre for the growing cast. A rival retriever makes his bow too: Pixel might look like a movie star mutt but he’s not a patch on mastermind Buddy…

Another much explored story strand involves Billy emulating a zookeeper, and his many attempts to train Buddy via “treat encouragement” – a system the dog instinctively distrusts and much time is spent comedically exploiting the doggy message retrieval system of widdling on lampposts…

And of course, when Buddy and Caroline aren’t futilely trying to teach Billy and Pat how to talk to human girls Celia and Hazel, hostile neighbour Madame Stick and her evil cat Corporal are a on hand to spoil all fun and frustrate their frolics…

Roba was a master of this cartoon art form and under his successors the strips remain genially paced, filled with wry wit and potent sentiment: enchantingly funny episodes running the gamut from heart-warming to hilarious, silly to surreal and thrilling to just plain daft.

This collection is exactly what fans would expect and deserve: another charming tribute to and lasting argument for a child for every pet and vice versa. Here is a supremely engaging family-oriented compendium of cool and clever comics no one keen on introducing youngsters to the medium should be without.
Original edition © Dargaud, 2016 by Cazenove & Bastide in the style of Roba © Studio Boule & Bill 2016. English translation © 2022 Cinebook Ltd.

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Bunny vs Monkey: Multiverse Mix-Up!


By Jamie Smart & with Sammy Borras (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78845-292-2 (Digest PB)

Bunny vs. Monkey has been a staple of The Phoenix from the first issue in 2012: detailing a madcap vendetta gripping animal archenemies amidst an idyllic arcadia masquerading as more-or-less mundane but critically endangered English woodlands.

Concocted with gleefully inspired mania by cartoonist and novelist Jamie Smart (Fish Head Steve!; Looshkin; Flember), these trendsetting, mindbending yarns have all the tail-biting tension and animal argy-bargy of a uniquely off-kilter magnum opus – not to be confused with the veritable magnificent octopus – although there’s them occasionally popping up too…

It all began yonks ago after an obnoxious little simian slapped down in the wake of a disastrous British space shot. Crashlanding in Crinkle Woods – scant miles from his launch site – lab animal Monkey believed himself the rightful inheritor of a strange new world, despite all efforts from reasonable, sensible, genteel, contemplative forest resident Bunny to dissuade him. For all his patience, propriety and good breeding, the laid-back lepine just could not contain the incorrigible idiot ape, who was – and is – a rude, noise-loving, chaos-creating loutish troublemaker…

Problems are ever-exacerbated by other unconventional Crinkle critters, particularly a skunk – AKA Skunky – who has a mad scientist’s attitude to life and a propensity to build extremely dangerous robots and overly technological super-weapons…

Here – with artistic assistance from design deputy Sammy Borras – the war of nerves and mega-ordnances is rekindled after briefly seeming to be all over. Our unruly assortment of odd bods cluttering up the bucolic paradise had finally picked sides and sorted it all out and – with battles ended – even apparently forgot the ever-encroaching Hyoomanz…

Rather than the traditional opening and tales ranked by changing seasons, this titanic trade paperback archive of insanity offers two massive chapters subdivided into short instalments. The astounding new adventure opens in Part One and ‘Pond Life’ wherein a quiet moment of skating in the chilly evening of a New Year is going so well until our apish antagonist renews old dreams of a planet united under his rule and the banner of “Monkeyopia”.

Sadly, the banner is attached to a staff with a really pointy end… and ice is really brittle…

An epoch of bewildering calamity commences when animal alternates from a parallel universe pop in through a portal. On their home plane everyone is evil but even so, their abduction of pan–universal innocent Pig Piggerton goes terribly wrong: stranding the instigator of the ‘Pig Swap’ on the wrong realm…

Meanwhile, Skunky has temporarily got rid of his annoying Monkey mate with some pointless make-work in ‘Snow Fun’ and ‘Evil Pig’ has introduced himself to the other Crinkle critters. Of course, Monkey must prove he’s the most wicked…

With Skunky, Monkey and the transplanted Pig all menacing and recruiting minions, confused Bunny calls on everyone to again ‘Choose Your Side’, but things get a bit out of hand when Metal Steve, Metal E.V.E. and brain-battered, bewildered former stuntman Action Beaver all join in the party games…

Thankfully, Eve allies with the good guys and Bunny affirms that their prime directive is “protecting the woods at all costs”: ‘A Mammoth Task’ made even harder once Skunky and Monkey unleash giant undergrounds monsters…

Dedicated to doom and destruction, the bad boys try – and ultimately fail – to synthesize Mongolian Death molluscs in ‘With Snails & I’ and try to pluck the ‘Big Moon’ out of the night sky before clashing with Evil Pig…

The transplanted transdimensional then meets his counterpart’s best bud Weenie Squirrel and has ‘A Falling Out’ even as Monkey unleashes exploding duplicates in ‘All A-Clone’ before trying his hand at scary documentary making in ‘The Sand-Witch Project’. All that cloning around comes back to bite him in the form of ‘Monkeysaurus’

Desperate for peace and quiet, Bunny, Eve and superfast Ai seek solace and silence in the river, but find only more mad excitement when evil spies get into difficulties and require their ‘Canoooe’, unaware that temporary allies Evil Pig, Skunky and Monkey were messing with serums and animals and had ‘Gone Batty’…

When Skunky tries to upgrade obsolete robotic oaf Metal Steve, reformed Eve is trapped in his bandwidth and is transformed into ‘Eve 2.0’, whilst Evil Pig – still seeking to win over Weenie – instead subverts Steve into ‘Alan the Unicorn’…

Existence gets truly meta when godlike human beings abruptly intervene, inadvertently sharing a glimpse behind the cosmic curtains of reality and by inflicting a distressing touch of The Matrix in ‘The First Glitch’ offers our quotidian cast of layered realities a hideous glimpse of what reality really means. Thoroughly re-educated, the bad guys then lose control of another experiment, unleashing shapeshifter ‘Polymorph’ on the easily embarrassed denizens of the Woods.

Fearless and stupid, Monkey discovers a sleeping beast and refuses to listen when everyone tells him ‘Don’t Wake the Bear’…

After too long and portentous an interval, the evil doppelgangers return, banishing their counterparts across many ‘Dimensions’ before ending the multiverse itself. Only Bunny escapes and with the unlikeliest of allies begins exploring ‘The Infinite’ and – thanks to a Portable Dimension Hopper – seeks ways to restore reality and rescue his comrades from the Real World.

That means many appalling experiences including ‘Babysitting’ toddler-versions of all his friends and foes, clashing with ghosts, vampires and Halloween Dimension beings before – as ‘Grumpy Bunny’ – saving a cowboy realm from the perils of a ‘Wilder West’. Bridging warring lava and frost dimensions ‘Of Fire and Ice’ that are also infested with familiar variants of everyone he knew, the thankless quest finally pays off in a commerce dimension ruled by an ‘Office Monkey’ only too glad to be rid of the annoying anarchic duplicate pestering his people and threatening his bottom line…

When the idiot ape eats Bunny’s travel tech, the status quo starts to resettle but by then the voyagers have found a dystopian desert where civilisation has gone ‘Mad to the Max’. Happily, Skunky is there to fix the gadget and get them on their way to the Christmas Dimension, and then out of the land of ‘Ho Ho Oh No’: so lovely that no one ever leaves…

The assembled animals ultimately prove that’s not true, but only at the cost of their ship which is badly hit, leaving them ‘Doomed’ to fall between 9.7 billion dimensions until they unselfishly work together in a team up. As a result they touch down at the Very End of Existence Itself! Stuck in a formless void, only Bunny and Skunky seem able to go on and use the lack of working time to recreate useful bits of what’s been eradicated. Once they rerun ‘The Birth of Science’ it’s not too long before they’re ready to fix everything and open a portal… sparking a massive time loop…

Forewarned by déjà vu, the voyagers overreact and reality goes boink! again, dumping everyone into the dimension of excrement and causing a nasty ‘Pooey Christmas’…

It looks like a fresh beginning for all as Part Two opens with ‘A New Start’. The nice animals are having picnics and Skunky and Monkey are building better mecha-weapons, but something’s still not quite right, and when the miscreants unleash transforming terror ‘Octoplops’ the repercussions really aren’t that bad…

Still off his game, cupcake-addicted Monkey is easily exposed as a ‘Thief!’ and Weenie and Pig endure the sheer horror of losing their ‘Ducky’ to a mystery fiend, before an escaped Time Droid goes berserk and generates a ‘Looooooop’ in reality…

Thanks to Transmogrification Pants, Bunny is assaulted by fake friends he never knew in ‘Pants for the Memories’ whilst Skunky, Monkey, the Beaver and Metal Steve are stuck inside their own malfunctioning ‘Chameleotron’: a chaotic debacle that results in Monkey being sucked back into the appalling ‘Poo Dimension’ where he accidentally liberates a fearsome alternate self who is a genuine threat to everyone in Crinkle Woods…

A brief dalliance as superhero ‘Brave Bunny’ quickly palls for our genteel star and ‘Law and Order’ is brutally abused when ultra-efficient Office Monkey begins to modernise and corporatize the green paradise…

Initially set back and hindered by the workforce he has to work with, OM retrenches and debuts his polluting ‘Furps’ engine (don’t ask and don’t breathe in!) before forming a merger with Skunky…

The other critters are all enjoying ‘Lobnut Day!’ and trying to gather the most nuts, but wise up when the apish alternate dimension asset-stripper launches Monkey Corp. and seeks to put all the furry time-wasters ‘To Work’. However, by casually betraying Skunky, Office Monkey has sown the seeds of his own downfall and his ‘Streamlining’ the Woods into a modernistic business park triggers a groundswell of consumer resistance…

After losing a contest and being acclaimed ‘The Worst Inventor’ Skunky joins that rebellion, and ‘Wrong Monkey’ finds him planning to dismantle the corporate stronghold of Monkeytopia, revealing to the astounded woodlanders that the menace is not the annoying idiot they’re used to, but an extradimensional invader…

That said, the mercurial monochrome megamind recruits some alternate selves with his Time-o-tron and he and ‘Father Skunky’ plunge into the vortex void to unmake their current dire situation…

Tragically, all that multiversal mismanagement causes a few ‘Portal Problems’ and an unwise stopover at their starting point (three in one book!) prompts an unexpected self-promotion as  Office Monkey exploits the confusion to become Boss Level and ‘Takeover’ the universe…

Ejected from Reality, archnemesis Bunny is flung into the Poo Dimension where his usual enemy has become ‘King Monkey’. Implausibly, he has a plan to save the day and put everything back the way it was… more or less…

The narrative animal anarchy might have pawsed (not sorry!) for now but there’s more secrets to share thanks to detailed instructions on ‘‘How to Draw Cowboy Monkey!’, ‘How to Draw Hellcage Monkey!’ and ‘How to Draw Office Monkey!’ to wind down from all that angsty parallel peril and future-bending furore…

The zany zenith of absurdist adventure, Bunny vs Monkey is weird, wild wit, brilliantly bonkers invention, potent sentiment and superb cartooning all crammed into one eccentrically excellent package. These tails never fail to deliver jubilant joy for grown-ups of every vintage, even those who claim they only get it for their kids. This is the kind of comic parents beg kids to read to them. Shouldn’t that be you?
Text and illustrations © Jamie Smart 2023. All rights reserved.

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Marsupilami volume 6: Fordlandia


By Yann & Batem; created by Franquin, coloured by Leonardo and translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-80044-026-5 (Album PB/Digital edition)

One of Europe’s most popular and evergreen comic stars is an eccentrically irascible, loyally unpredictable, super-strong, rubber-limbed yellow-&-black ball of explosive energy with a seemingly infinite elastic tail. The mighty manic Marsupilami is a wonder of nature and icon of European entertainment invention who originally spun-off from another immortal comedy adventure strip…

In 1946 Joseph “Jije” Gillain was crafting the eponymous keystone strip for flagship publication Le Journal de Spirou when he abruptly handed off the entire kit and caboodle to his assistant André Franquin. The apprentice gradually shifted format from short complete gags to pioneer longer adventure serials, and began introducing a wide and engaging cast of new characters.

For 1952’s Spirou et les heritiers, he devised a beguiling and boisterous South American critter and tossed him like an elastic-arsed grenade into the mix. Thereafter – until his resignation from the feature – Franquin frequently included the bombastic little beast in Spirou’s increasingly exotic escapades…

The Marsupilami returned over and over again: a phenomenally popular magical animal who inevitably grew into a solo star of screen, toy store, console games and albums all his own.

In 1955 a contractual spat with Dupuis resulted in Franquin signing up with publishing rivals Casterman on Le Journal de Tintin: collaborating with René Goscinny and old pal Peyo and concocting raucous gag strip Modeste et Pompon. However, Franquin quickly patched things up with Dupuis and returned to Le Journal de Spirou. In 1957, he unleashed Gaston Lagaffe, whilst still legally obligated to carry on his Tintin strip work too and, in 1959, writer Greg and background artist Jidéhem formally began assisting him, but after ten more years the artist had reached his Spirou limit. In 1969 Franquin quit for good, taking his mystic yellow monkey with him…

Plagued by bouts of depression, Franquin passed away on January 5th 1997, but his legacy remains: a vast body of work that reshaped the landscape of European comics. Moreover, having learned his lessons about publishers, Franquin retained all rights to Marsupilami and in the late 1980’s began publishing his own adventures of the rambunctious miracle-worker…

Tapping old comrade Greg as scripter and inviting commercial artist/illustrator Luc Collin (pen-name “Batem”), he launched his new raucous comedy feature. The first of these was La Queue du Marsupilami, released in 1987 (translated by Cinebook as The Marsupilami’s Tale) by Franquin’s own Marsu Productions. Ultimately, his collaborators monopolised the art duties, and in recent years, crass commercialism triumphed again. Since 2016 the universes of Marsupilami and Spirou have reconnected, allowing the old gang to act out in shared stories again…

Fordlandia was released in November 1989: the sixth of 33 solo albums (not including all-Franquin short-story collection/volume #0 Capturez un Marsupilami), a gripping comedy action romp, bigging up the fantasy element and capitalising on both weird-but-true history and a growing cast of regular players…

Blessed with a talent for mischief, the Marsupilami is a deviously adaptive anthropoid regarded as one of the rarest animals on Earth. It inhabits the rain forests of Palombia, speaking a language uniquely its own, and has a reputation for causing trouble and instigating chaos. The species is rare and is fanatically dedicated to its young. Sometimes that extends to associates of different species…

The tale is set in the timeless but increasingly fragile teeming life-web of the Palombian rainforest, as it endures its latest environmental disaster. The current grandiose folly of the humans from Palombian capital city Chiquito is a huge dam that has dried up the Amazonian tributary of the once inaccessible Rio Huaytoonarro.

El Presidente’s pride & joy – dubbed “Huetnomor” – has triggered a domino effect for all who depend upon the river waters, from the ubiquitous piranha and crocodiles infesting it to the savage Havoca folk exploiting it, and the lost and broken degenerates of many nations hiding along its length…

Normally such projects would have failed from human malfeasance or due to the interference of the mighty Marsupilami and his extended clan, but our golden wonder is currently preoccupied by a mystery: the disappearance of his adored mate Marsupilamie …and even rival primate Mars the Black …

A creature of great empathy and primordial sensitivity, the bereft beast quickly deduces they have been taken by an old enemy: vile hunter Bring M. Backalive…

Left alone to care for their three cubs, Marsupilami’s vengeful screams alert jungle-dwelling white kids Sarah and Bip, who have been raising themselves in the green hell – with a little oversight from the Marsupilami patriarch they call “Marsu”. The human youngsters soon save the babies from drugged darts and – as enraged papa goes after the abductors – set off on a parallel investigation which takes then to disreputable shanty town and den of thieves Leyofdasaus…

It’s a canny move, as the rogues and scoundrels squatting and rotting there are currently being beguiled by a deadly glamour queen also looking for Backalive. A serial millionaire marrier, “Gringa” Rosanna Roquette is tracking down a couple of old spouses whilst ostensibly seeking the location of 20th century lost city Fordlandia.

If you’ve never heard of the place I strongly urge you to crank up your search engine of choice right now…

Also converging on the tatty township and the craven hunter is animal trainer Noah, currently helping Mars’ beastly bride Venus find her missing mate. Soon he and she are working with Sarah and Bip to save all the stolen Marsupilamis.

Marsu’s search has been plagued by misfortune. He too is closing in on Backalive and his former flunky (dissolute riverboat captain Bombonera) but cannot stop Roquette and the shabby captain teaming up and heading for the fabled missing metropolis…

Fortune finally shifts the good guys’ way when Marsu links up with Sarah, Bip, Noah and Venus. By dubious means, they then secure their own steamboat from an outcast who used to work in Fordlandia. After many more trials and tribulations, they finally confront the tawdry trapper and consequently uncover a bizarre and deranged plot by one of Rosanna’s former husbands…

Croesus Gummyfeather is convinced the world will soon suffer a second biblical flood and has been paying Backalive to gather two of every animal to stock his fabulous flying ark, and the inevitable confrontation between all aggrieved parties occurs just as the cloud-wracked heavens open…

And, as the deluge kicks off a climactic clash, back at Huetnomor, the engineers and architects wish they hadn’t skimped and grafted and cut so many corners when building the massive – but apparently soluble – hydro-megalith…

Combining astute political commentary with high octane blockbuster action and outrageous comedy antics, this tale is a superbly smart fantasy and masterfully madcap rollercoaster of hairsbreadth escapes, close shaves and sardonic character assassinations, packed to the whiskers with wit and hilarity.

These eccentric exploits of the garrulous golden monkeys are moodily macabre, furiously funny and pithily pertinent, offering engagingly riotous romps and devastating debacles for wide-eyed kids of every age all over the world.
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 1991 by Franquin, Yann & Batem. All rights reserved. English translation © 2021 Cinebook Ltd.

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Gomer Goof volume 4: The Goof is Out There


By Franquin, translated by Jerome Saincantin (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-439-7 (PB Album/Digital edition)

Like so much in Franco-Belgian comics, it started with Le Journal de Spirou. The magazine had debuted on April 2nd 1938, with its engaging lead strip created by Rob-Vel (François Robert Velter). In 1943, publishing house Dupuis purchased all rights to the comic and its titular star, after which comic-strip prodigy Joseph Gillain (Jijé) took the helm for the redheaded kid’s exploits. Ultimately the publisher would become a character in its own periodicals publications…

In 1946 Jijé’s assistant André Franquin was handed creative control of the Spirou strip. He gradually switched from short gag vignettes to extended adventure serials, introducing a broad, engaging cast of regulars and in 1952 created phenomenally popular wonder-beast The Marsupilami. Debuting in Spirou et les héritiers, this critter grew into a spin-off star of screen, plush toy stores, console games and albums in his own right. Franquin continued crafting increasingly fantastic tales and absorbing Spirou sagas until his resignation in 1969.

Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium on January 3rd 1924. Drawing from an early age, the lad only began formal art training at École Saint-Luc in 1943. When the war forced the school’s closure a year later, he worked at Compagnie Belge d’Animation in Brussels, where he met Maurice de Bévére (AKA Lucky Luke creator “Morris”), Pierre Culliford (“Peyo”, of The Smurfs and Benny Breakiron) and Eddy Paape (Valhardi, Luc Orient). All but Peyo signed on with Dupuis in 1945.

Franquin began his career as a jobbing cartoonist and illustrator, producing covers for Le Moustique and scouting magazine Plein Jeu. During those early days, Franquin and Morris were tutored by Jijé, at that time chief illustrator at LJdS. He made them – and fellow newbie Willy Maltaite (AKA “Will” – Tif et Tondu, Isabelle, Le jardin des désirs) – into a smoothly functioning creative bullpen known as La bande des quatre or “Gang of Four”. They would ultimately revolutionise Belgian comics with their prolific and engaging “Marcinelle school” style of graphic storytelling…

Jijé handed Franquin all responsibilities for the flagship strip part-way through Spirou et la maison préfabriqué (#427, June 20th 1946) and eager office junior ran with it for two decades; enlarging the feature’s scope and horizons until it became purely his own. Almost every week fans met startling new characters like comrade and rival Fantasio or crackpot inventor and Merlin of mushroom mechanics the Count of Champignac…

Spirou & Fantasio became a globetrotting journalist team, visiting exotic places, exposing crimes, exploring the fantastic and clashing with a coterie of bizarre and exotic arch-enemies. Throughout all that, Fantasio was still a full-fledged reporter for Le Journal de Spirou and had to pop into the Dupuis office all the time. Sadly, lurking there – or was it just in the artist’s head? – was an accident-prone, smugly big-headed office junior in charge of minor jobs and dogs-bodying. Franquin called him Gaston Lagaffe…

There’s a long history of fictitiously personalising those mysterious back room creatives and all the arcane processes they indulge in to make our favourite comics, whether it’s Stan Lee’s Marvel Bullpen or DC Thomson’s lugubrious “Mr. Editor” and underlings at The Beano and Dandy. Let me assure you that it’s a truly international practise and the occasional asides on text pages featuring well-meaning foul-up/office gofer Gaston (who debuted in #985, cover-dated February 28th 1957) grew to be one of the most popular components of the comic, whether as short illustrated strips or in faux editorial reports in text-feature form.

On a strictly personal note, I still think current English designation Gomer Goof (this name comes from an earlier, abortive attempt to introduce the character to American audiences) is unwarranted. The quintessentially Franco-Belgian tone and humour doesn’t translate particularly well (la gaffe translates as “blunder” not “idiot”) and the connotation contributes nothing here. When he surprisingly appeared in a 1970s UK Thunderbirds annual as part of an earlier syndication attempt, Gaston was rechristened Cranky Franky. Perhaps they should have kept that one or, best of all, his original designation…

In terms of actual schtick and delivery, older readers will recognise beloved beats of Benny Hill and Jacques Tati in timeless elements of all-consuming, grandiose self-delusion, and recognise recurring situations from Some Mothers Do Have ’Em or Mr Bean. It’s all surreal slapstick, paralysing puns, infernal ingenuity and invention, pomposity lampooned and no good deed going noticed, rewarded or unpunished…

As previously stated, Gomer makes his living (let’s not dignify or mis-categorise what he does as “work”) at the Spirou editorial offices: occasionally reporting to go-getting journalist Fantasio, complicating the lives of office manager Léon Prunelle and other staffers, generally ignoring the minor design jobs like paste-up, “gofer-ing” and office maintenance he’s paid to handle. There’s also editing readers’ letters… the official reason why fan requests and suggestions are never answered…

Gomer is lazy, peckish, opinionated, ever-ravenous, impetuous, underfed, forgetful and eternally hungry, with his most manic moments all stemming from “inventing”, cutting work corners and stashing or illicitly consuming contraband food in the office…

This leads to constant clashes with police officer Longsnoot and fireman Captain Morwater, yet the office oaf remains eternally easy-going and incorrigible. Only two questions are really important here: why does Fantasio keep giving him one last chance, and what can gentle, beguiling, flighty, impressionable, utterly lovelorn secretary Miss Jeanne possibly see in the self-opinionated idiot?

Originally released in 1969 as the sixth collection of Le Journal de Spirou strips Gaston – Un gaffeur sachant gaffer, this fourth Cinebook compilation eschews longer cartoon tales and comedic text “reports” from the comic’s editorial page to deliver non-stop all-Franquin comics gags in single-page bursts.

It begins at the New Year and here the office hindrance – as ever – invents stuff that makes life harder for everyone; amiably passes on bugs and ailments; sets driving records no one can believe or probably survive and scotches attempts by financier De Mesmaeker (in-joke analogue of fellow creator Jidéhem – real name is Jean De Mesmaeker ) the explosively irate businessman whose ever-failing efforts to get his contracts signed render him a constant foil for and unfortunate victim of the Goof…

There is also an unwelcome return for his devastating musical invention as the recurrent saga of his truly terrifying Brontosaurophone/Goofophone continues to disrupt commerce, glass, the environment and most organic life in earshot…

Set in snowy, foggy wonderlands, Gomer disastrously pioneers powered ice skating before revolutionising record keeping and book storage with his mechanical successor to ladders, prior to embarking upon an extended sequence of episodes wherein Gomer’s attempts to do away with unsightly, annoying, constantly shedding Christmas tree needles results in the birth of a monster. He should never have dabbled with glue and pressure hoses, but at least he had his Goofophone music to console him…

All too soon, though, he’s back to breaking laws physicists consider sacrosanct – such as when he began dabbling with perpetual motion technology – or upsetting traffic cops, firemen and clients. Somehow, always and in all ways, the Goof keeps letting down his colleagues and employers, like when he decided to fix the big clock on the building exterior, or tweaked the overstretched office fuse board to accommodate his new secret electric stove…

Many strips involve manic efforts to modify the motorised atrocity he calls his car: an appallingly decrepit and dilapidated Fiat 509 auto(barely)mobile desperately in need of his many well-meant attempts to counter its lethal road pollution. It’s the reason he always has the sniffles or wears some kind of bandage, plaster or splint…

At heart, though, Gomer is a Good Samaritan and champion of animals. Many strips here prove how his love of all creatures great and small trumps minor considerations like personal safety, traffic laws or city ordinances, even though his distinctly novel approach to cookery borders on criminal perversity…

This time out there’s also a deep concentration on home – and office – improvements and novel – if somewhat risky – variations on established and beloved sports all given a fresh makeover by the unique innovator, such as when he showed Prunelle and Fantasio how he had beefed up bouncy amusement “the spacehopper”…

And he should never ever have been allowed to bring his chemistry set to work…

In this volume, we meet his opposite number from across the road. Jules-from-Smith’s-across-the-street is a like-minded soul and born accomplice always eager to slope off for a chat, and a devotee of Gomer’s methods of passing the time whilst at work. He even collaborates on such retaliations as Gomer inflicts on officer Longsnoot…

Far better enjoyed than précised or described, these strips allowed Franquin to flex whimsical muscles and even subversively sneak in some satirical support for his beliefs in pacifism and environmentalism. However, at their core the gags remain supreme examples of all-ages comedy: wholesome, barbed, daft and incrementally funnier with every re-reading.

Have you started Goofing off yet?
© Dupuis, Dargaud-Lombard s.a. 2009 by Franquin. All rights reserved. English translation © 2019 Cinebook Ltd.

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The Dandy Book 1972


By many & various (D.C. Thomson & Co.)
ISBN: 978-0-85116-043-6 (HB)

For generations of British fans Christmas means The Beano Book, The Broons, Oor Wullie and making every December 25th magical. There used to be many more DC Thomson titles, but the years have gradually winnowed them away. Thankfully, time means nothing here, so this year I’m concentrating on another Thomson Christmas cracker that made me the man wot I am. As usual my knowledge of the creators involved is woefully inadequate but I’m going to hazard a few guesses anyway, in the hope that someone with better knowledge will correct me whenever I err.

The Dandy comic predated The Beano by eight months, utterly revolutionising the way children’s publications looked and – most importantly – how they were read. Over decades it produced a bevy of household names that delighted millions, with end of year celebrations being bumper bonanzas of the weekly stars in magnificent bumper hardback annuals.

Premiering on December 4th December 1937, The Dandy broke the mould of its hidebound British predecessors by utilising word balloons and captions rather than narrative blocks of text under sequential picture frames. A colossal success, it was followed on July 30th 1938 by The Beano. Together they revolutionised children’s publications. Dandy was the third longest running comic in the world (behind Italy’s Il Giornalino – launched in 1924 – and America’s Detective Comics in March 1937).

Over decades the “terrible twins” spawned countless cartoon stars of unforgettable and beloved household names who delighted generations of avid and devoted readers…

The Christmas Annuals were traditionally produced in the wonderful “half-colour” British publishers used to keep costs down whilst bringing a little spark into our drab and gloomy young lives. The process involved printing sections with only two (of potentially 4) plates, such as blue/Cyan and red/Magenta as seen in this majority of this tome. The versatility and palette range provided was astounding. Even now the technique screams “Holidays” to me and my contemporaries, and this volume uses the technique to stunning effect.

As you can see, the fun-filled action begins on the covers and continues on the reverse, with front-&-back covers and Introduction pages occupied by superstar Korky the Cat (by Charlie Grigg) setting the tone with a sequence of splendid seasonal sight gags.

D.C. Thomson were also extremely adept at combining anarchic, clownish comedy with solid fantasy/adventure tales. The eclectic menu truly opens with some topical environmentalism working as drama in Paddy Brennan’s ‘Guardian of the Red Raider’. Such picture thrillers still came in the traditional captioned format, with blocks of typeset text rather than word balloons. Here, bedridden schoolboy Freddy Gibbon “adopts” a vixen and her cubs, secretly safeguarding them from harm until they can fend for themselves.

From there we revert to the cheeky comfort of simpler times as Dirty Dick – by the incredibly engaging Eric Roberts (no, not the actor) – finds our perennially besmudged and befouled boy on his best and cleanest behaviour in anticipation of a visit from his American penfriend. However, in comics good intentions count for nothing…

Appropriately switching to black and blue plates, we next meet eternal enemies Bully Beef and Chips. Drawn by Jimmy Hughes, the thuggish big kid’s antics invariably proved that a weedy underdog’s brain always trumped brutal brawn, as here where little Chips orchestrates well-deserved payback after Bully forces little lads to play with his dangerously-rigged Christmas crackers…

Hugh Morren’s The Smasher was a lad cut from the same mould as Dennis the Menace and in the first of his contributions carves a characteristic swathe of anarchic destruction, when seeking to join a cowboy movie location shoot,

A quick switch to red & black – and all the tones between – signals the advance of hard-pressed squaddie Corporal Clott (by David Sutherland) who again bears the brunt of cruel misfortune and surly Colonel Grumbly when ordered to provide a slap-up feed for a visiting General…

The prolific Roberts always played a huge part in making these annuals work and next up his signature star Winker Watson hosts double-page picture puzzle ‘Catch the Imps!’: testing mind, eye and vocabulary before Shamus O’Doherty’s Bodger the Bookworm is seduced away from his comfortable reading to play football… with catastrophic repercussions…

Back in black & blue, traditional chaotic school hijinks get a cruel and crazy feudal spin in Ron Spencer’s Whacko! before we stay on topic but jump 500 years to the then-present and a different take on the education crisis. Whilst much comics material was based on school as seen by pupils, George Martin’s Greedy Pigg featured a voracious teacher always attempting to confiscate and scoff his pupils’ snacks. This time, he forsakes tuck boxes and extends his reach to the fodder fed to zoo animals – and gets what he deserves after masquerading as a gorilla…

Unforgivably racist but somehow painfully topical, Hughes’ Wun Tun and Too Tun the Chinese Spies traces the misadventures of badly-briefed oriental agents in old Blighty. Here they get lost in and misunderstand the point of sewers, after which Sutherland’s Desperate Dan offers a range of incidents deriving from the sagebrush superman letting his beard grow out of control.

The daftness drifts into more brilliantly entertaining eco-messaging as Peter Potter’s Otters – by Grigg employing his dramatic style – sees a gamekeeper’s son contrive to rescue a family of river-dwelling “pests” from the community seeking to eradicate them…

Jack Edward Oliver’s My Woozy Dog Snoozy proves utterly useless as a security guard, but does usher in green & black tones to welcome back Korky the Cat, whose clash with a fish farm’s “security guards” segues into a doggerel dotted Zany Zoo feature. An examination of The Smasher’s evolutionary forebears heralds a resumption of blue hues as Roberts delivers another classic Winker Watson yarn that is now sadly drenched in controversy and potential offense.

It begins when the Third Form lads of Greytowers School act on their love of the BBC’s Black and White Minstrel Show (look it up, but be prepared to be appalled before realising just how far we’ve come…): adding a blackface minstrel skit to the Christmas Concert. When chastised and rebuffed by form master Mr. Creep, schoolboy grifter Winker institutes a cunning scheme – worthy of Mission Impossible or Leverage – to make the teacher the butt of a joke and star of the show…

The green scene enjoys one last outing for a lengthy police spoof. Created by John Geering and played strictly for laughs, P.C. Big Ears was an overzealous beat copper with outrageous lugholes whose super-hearing and faithful dog Sniffer helped him crush “crime”. Here the dynamic duo are hot on the trail of a truant schoolboy, but pay a irritating price for their dutiful diligence, after which another light-hearted drama ensues, courtesy of Bill Holroyd.

With premium blue & red plates back in play home-made mechanoid Brassneck kicks off an avalanche of trouble after a service by his inventor. Uncle Sam pal warns the robot-boy’s pal Charley Brand that the automaton might be a little fragile for a while but is blithely unaware how rowdy and boisterous school can be. When a couple of unavoidable buffets trigger wild outbursts, Brassneck’s antics close the school, empty the parks and even cause animal escapes from the zoo before order is finally restored…

Desperate Dan then catches cold and almost decimates the environment in his efforts to get warm and stop sneezing before Korky the Cat suffers the downside of camping, and pint-sized hellion Dinah Mite (drawn by Ron Spencer) tests some possible careers should she ever leave school.

Another blue section opens with animal gags in Jokey Jumbo and Winker Watson puzzle feature ‘It’s as Easy as ABC’ before My Woozy Dog Snoozy compounds his worthlessness when a burglar breaks in.

A switch to red and black sees Corporal Clott suckered by a spiv and become the proud new owner of a lethally destructive vacuum cleaner after he replaces the naff motor with a leftover jet engine. Blue tones are back as George Matin’s big-footed klutz Claude Hopper learns why he’s not cut out for a job waiting tables and Korky the Cat wins a fancy dress competition by being extremely cool…

More red & blue pages picture Dirty Dick at his dustily destructive worst before a switch to yellow & black plates finds Greedy Pigg imitating a tramp to get scrumptious handouts before Wun Tun and Too Tun the Chinese Spies return in another distressingly outdated and inappropriate espionage episode.

Rendered in red and black. Sandy Calder powerfully illustrates Scruffy the Bad-Luck Doggie as ordinary kid Danny Dunlop saves a scrappy mutt from bullies trying to drown it, but takes some time and effort – and a few hard knocks – adjusting to being the owner of a semi-feral delinquent dog…

Sentiment surrenders to surreal silliness and yellow hues as Desperate Dan teaches a dog how to be fierce, before Bodger the Bookworm enflames his family by practising matchstick tricks and Korky successfully poaches a fish in more ways than one, after which black & blue tones detail a pretty Darwinian battle for survival and supremacy amongst alley cats as Boss of the Backyards (by Murray Ball – whose wonderful Footrot Flats strips are just crying out for a modern archival edition) sees a tough newcomer challenge a wild moggy in the kingdom of bins and backstreets…

Dirty Dick is tarred by own insolence – and tar – in a very early example of photobombing and My Woozy Dog Snoozy turns the tables on his longsuffering owner, before P.C. Big Ears finds his own hound complicit in apple scrumping. Corporal Clott then dumps the colonel in a frozen river and Korky again profits from his thieving ways…

Another flush of red & blue captures Bully Beef and Chips causing chaos with a doctor’s play set and Greedy Pigg outsmarted by the dog he borrowed to steal food for him, and true blue drama Bold Ben’s Boulder (by Victor Peon?) has a young boy save his uncle’s fortune and life when Burmese bandits go on a kidnapping spree before one final flush of red & black sees Desperate Dan solve a lighting crisis with a little illuminating larceny…

With Puzzle Answers and the aforementioned Korky endpapers wrapping up proceedings, let’s celebrate another tremendously fun book; with so much merriment on offer I can’t believe this book is 51 years old, and still available through second hand outlets.

The only thing better would by curated archive reissues and digital editions…
© D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd, 1971.

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Merry Christmas Every One!

In keeping with my self-imposed Holidays tradition, here’s another pick of British Annuals selected not just for nostalgia’s sake but because it’s my wife’s house and my rules…

After decades when only American comics and memorabilia were considered collectable or worthy, a resurgence of interest in home-grown material means there’s lots more of this stuff available. So, if you’re lucky enough to stumble across a vintage volume, modern facsimile or even one of the growing number of digital reproductions increasingly cropping up, I hope my words can convince you to expand your comfort zone and try something old…

Still topping my Xmas wish-list are more collections from fans and publishers who have begun to rescue this magical material from print limbo in (affordable and annotated) new collections…

Great writing and art is rotting in boxes and attics or the archives of publishing houses, when it needs to be back in the hands of readers once again. As the tastes of the reading public have never been broader and since a selective sampling of our popular heritage will always appeal to some part of the mass consumer base, let’s all continue rewarding publishers for their efforts and prove that there’s money to be made from these glorious examples of our communal childhood.

These materials were created long ago in a different society for a very different audience. As such much material is inadvertently funny, blatantly racist and/or sexist and pretty much guaranteed to offend somebody sooner or later. Think of it as having to talk to your grandparents about “back when everything was better”…

If you don’t think you can tolerate – let alone enjoy – what’s being discussed here, maybe it’s not the book you need today. Why not look at something else or play a game instead?

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Archie: 80 Years of Christmas (Archie Christmas Digests book 3)


By Dan Parent, Angelo DeCesare, Francis Bonnet, Pat & Tim Kennedy, Bill & Ben Galvan, Jeff Shultz, J. Torres, Hal Lifson, Bob Bolling, Mike Pellowski, Dexter Taylor, Kathleen Webb, Dan DeCarlo & family, Stan Goldberg, Henry Scarpelli, Holly G!, John Lowe, Rudy Lapick, Frank Doyle, Dan DeCarlo, Alison Flood, George Gladir, Jon D’Agostino, Joe Edwards, Chic Stone, John Rosenberger, Dick Malmgren, Al Hartley, Joe Sinnott, Victor Gorelick, Bill Vigoda, Terry Szenics, Mario Acquaviva, Harry Lucey, Tom Moore, Harry Sahle, Bob Montana & various (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-64576-927-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: An Unmissable Tradition… 9/10

As long-term readers might recall, my good lady wife and I have a family ritual we’re not ashamed to boast of or share with you. Every Christmas, we barricade the doors, draw the shutters, stockpile munchies (healthy ones, because we’re old now), bank up the fires and lazily subside into a huge pile of seasonal comics from yesteryear.

(Well, I do: she also insists on a few monumental feats of cleaning and shopping before manufacturing the world’s most glorious and stupefying meal to accompany my reading, gorging and – eventually, inevitably – snoring… Oh, so much snoring and from all ends!)

The irresistible trove of funnybook treasures generally comprises older DC’s, loads of Disney’s and British annuals, but the vast preponderance is Archie Comics.

From the earliest days this American institution has quite literally “owned Christmas” via a fabulously funny, nostalgically charming, sentimental barrage of cannily-crafted stories capturing the spirit of the season through a range of cartoon stars from Archie to Veronica, Betty to Sabrina and Jughead to Santa himself…

For most of us, when we say “comic books” thoughts turn to anthropomorphic animals or steroidal types, and women in too-skimpy tights and G-strings: hitting each other, bending lampposts and lobbing trees or cars about. That or stark, nihilistic crime, horror or science fiction sagas aimed at an extremely mature and sophisticated readership of confirmed fans…

Throughout the eight decades of the medium, other forms and genres have waxed and waned. One that has held its ground over the years – although almost completely migrated to TV these days – is the genre of teen-comedy, begun by and synonymous with a carrot topped, homely (at first, just plain ugly) kid named Archie Andrews.

MLJ were a small publisher who jumped on the “mystery-man” bandwagon following the debut of Superman. In November 1939 they launched Blue Ribbon Comics, promptly following-up with Top-Notch and Pep Comics. Content was a standard blend of costumed heroes and two-fisted adventure strips, although Pep did make a little history with its first lead feature The Shield, who was the American industry’s first superhero to be clad in the flag (see America’s 1st Patriotic Hero: The Shield).

After initially revelling in the limitless benefits of the Fights ‘N’ Tights game, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (MLJ, duh!) spotted a gap in their blossoming market. In December 1941 their stable of costumed cavorters and two-fisted adventurers were gently nudged aside – just a fraction at first – by a wholesome, improbable and far-from-imposing new hero: an unremarkable (except, perhaps, for those teeth) teenager who had ordinary adventures just like the readers might, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick emphasised.

Inspired by the hugely popular Andy Hardy movies, Goldwater developed the concept of a youthful everyman protagonist: tasking writer Vic Bloom & artist Bob Montana with the job of making it all work. Their precocious new notion premiered in Pep #22: gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-headed and obsessed with impressing the pretty blonde girl next door.

An untitled 6-page tale introduced hapless boob Archie and wholesome Betty Cooper. The boy’s unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones also debuted in the story, as did idyllic small-town utopia Riverdale. It was a huge hit and by the winter of 1942 the kid and his pals won a title of their own.

Archie Comics #1 was MLJ’s first non-anthology title and with it began a slow, inexorable transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of ultra-rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon…

By 1946, the kids were in charge and the publisher rebranded as Archie Comics: retiring most of its costumed cohort years before the end of the Golden Age, becoming to all intents and purposes a publisher of family-friendly comedies. The hometown settings and perpetually fruitful premise of an Eternal Romantic Triangle – with girl-hating best bud Jughead and scurrilous rival Reggie Mantle to test, duel and vex our boy in their own unique ways – the scenario was one that not only resonated with the readership but was infinitely fresh…

Like Superman, Archie’s success forced change in content at almost every other publisher, building a multi-media brand which encompasses TV, movies, newspaper strips, toys, games and merchandise, a chain of restaurants and, in the swinging sixties, a pop music milestone when Sugar, Sugar – from the animated TV cartoon – became a global pop smash. Clean and decent garage band “The Archies” has been a fixture of the comics ever since…

The Andrews boy is good-hearted, impetuous and lacking common sense, Betty his sensible, pretty girl next door loves the ginger goof, and Veronica is rich, exotic and glamorous: only settling for our boy if there’s nobody better around. She might actually love him too, though. Archie, of course, is utterly unable to choose who or what he wants. Over the years, other girls like Cheryl Blossom and pop Pussycat Valerie have also added to his confusion…

Unconventional, food-crazy Jughead is Mercutio to Archie’s Romeo, providing rationality and a reader’s voice, as well as being a powerful catalyst of events in his own right. That charming House of Luurve (and Annexe of Envy) has been the rock-solid foundation for seven decades of funnybook magic. Moreover, the concept is eternally self-renewing…

This eternal triangle has generated thousands of charming, rowdy, gentle, frenetic, chiding and even heart-rending humorous dramas ranging from surreal wit to frantic slapstick, with the kids and a constantly expanding cast of friends – junior genius Dilton Doily, genial giant jock Big Moose and aspiring cartoonist Chuck amongst many others – growing into American institutions and part of the nation’s cultural landscape.

Archie’s world thrives by constantly re-imagining its core archetypes: seamlessly adapting to the changing world outside its bright, flimsy pages, shamelessly co-opting youth, pop culture and fashion trends into its infallible mix of slapstick and young romance. Every social revolution has been assimilated into the mix and, over decades, the company has confronted most social issues affecting youngsters in a manner always both even-handed and tasteful.

Constant addition of new characters such as African-Americans Chuck and his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Latinx couple Frankie and Maria, spoiled Cheryl Blossom and gay teen Kevin Keller have contributed to a wide and appealingly broad-minded scenario.

One of the most effective tools in the company’s arsenal has been the never-failing appeal of seasonal and holiday traditions. In Riverdale it was always sunny enough to surf at the beach in summer and it always snowed at Christmas…

The Festive Season has never failed to produce great comics stories, and Archie also started early (1942) and kept on producing memorable year-end classics. The stories became so popular and eagerly anticipated that in 1954 the company created a specific oversized title – Archie’s Christmas Stocking – to cater to demand, even as it kept the winter months of its other periodicals stuffed with assorted tales of elves and snow and fine fellow-feeling…

For this extra-festive celebratory commemoration, the editors have done something rather smart and savvy. Most collections – and there have been many – have advanced forward chronologically to whenever “now” is, but this one postulates a countdown back to the earliest natal nonsense, and thus we begin with a selection from The 2020s, but only after brief overview ‘80 Years of Holiday Hijinks’…

Santa’s globetrotting troubleshooter Jingles the Elf – who cannot be seen by adults – has been a seasonal Archie regular for decades. Here Dan Parent & Jim Amash – with colourist Glenn Whitmore & letterer Jack Morelli – reveal ‘That Elf is Shelved!’ (from Archie Comics Jumbo Digest #315, January 2021) as the playful but exhausted pixie pops in to Riverdale and becomes a helpless tool of Archie’s inability to pick just one girl…

Betty & Veronica Jumbo Comics Digest #289 (January 2021) declares ‘You’re Baking Me Crazy!!’ as Parent, Bob Smith, Whitmore & Morelli depict the eternal rivals competing to create the best Gingerbread House, but making a cookie rookie mistake by letting Jughead judge…

The same creative team unleashed a ‘Blast From the Past’ (World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #315, December 2020) as the gang help Pop Tate decorate his diner and recall when they all made him ornaments. It was soooo long ago, but soon they’re squabbling over which one was best …and best-beloved…

Archie Comics Jumbo Digest #304 (January 2020), finds Angelo DeCesare, the Kennedy Bros!, Smith, Whitmore & Morelli introducing old-fashioned Dad Andrews to social media in ‘Yule Tube’ after which ‘It’s the Thoughtlessness That Counts’ (World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #94, January 2020 by Francis Bonnet, Bill & Ben Galvan) again sees Archie reel from misdirecting his gifts…

Distant decade The 2010s opens with ‘Santa Sleighed’ (Archie & Me Comics Digest #12, November 2018 by Parent, Jeff Shultz, Jim Amash, Whitmore & Morelli) as the fabled deliveryman makes an unscheduled pit stop at the Lodge mansion, before Little Archie makes trouble – and a big mess – trying to impress grade schoolers Betty & Veronica in ‘Snow Problem!’, courtesy of J. Torres, Bob Bolling & Amash as first seen in Archie Comics Double Digest #257 (February 2015). The era ends with Hal Lifson, Bill Galvan Amash, Phil Felix & Barry Grossman conjuring ‘An Old School Yule’ (Archie Double Digest #233, December 2011) with the world-weary teens recalling their childhoods when Christmas was fun, and going attic and basement diving to reconstruct a Christmas their parents can actually enjoy…

Stopping our retrograde voyage in The 2000s, ‘Christmas Cookies’ stars Little Jughead in a foody fable by Mike Pellowski, Dexter Taylor, Al Milgrom, Bill Yoshida & Grossman. It comes from Archie’s Double Digest Magazine #148 (February 2004) and sees the entire class required to create an original Holidays dish. Juggie’s is exceptional and its effects are global – even reaching Santa at the Pole…

That darned attention-seeking elf returns in ‘Jingles All the Way’ (Archie #543, February 2004, by Kathleen Webb, Stan Goldberg, Amash, Vickie Williams & Grossman), trying to pry Archie away from Betty & Veronica for some guy time and good deeds. However, its greedy Jughead who finds somewhere the pixie can really make a difference…

Archie’s Holiday Fun Digest Magazine #9 (December 2004) provides Betty & Veronica’s ‘Holiday Style’ pinups by Parent, as a prelude to Webb, Shultz, Henry Scarpelli & Yoshida celebrating ‘A Dreamy Teen Christmas’ (Betty & Veronica #156, February 2001), with the rivals asked to decorate a very special tree for a charity bash, but unable to cease sparring over Archie…

Cheryl Blossom #28 (January 2000, by Holly G!, John Lowe, Yoshida & Grossman) finds Riverdale’s most spoiled brat in a war of excess with Veronica. Their flashy cash contest seeks to prove who’s swankiest, but the ‘Holi-Daze’ leave Betty and the plebian kids better off. Then The 1990s test failing memories with feelgood drama ‘Mall Be Home for Christmas’ (Archie & Friends #13, February 1995, by Parent, Rudy Lapick, Yoshida & Grossman), as Ronnie’s up-to-the-wire shopping spree coincides with a freak storm, trapping the entire class in a plush arcade on Christmas: Happily, money solves all problems…

Archie’s Christmas Stocking #1 (January 1995, by Frank Doyle, Dan DeCarlo, Alison Flood, Yoshida & Grossman) delivered ‘A Jingle for Justice’ as the elf’s seasonal sojourn uncovers an embezzler attempting to impoverish Veronica’s dad, after which Little Archie learns how poor people survive the season. Thanks to impoverished Sue Stringly, the kind-hearted but naïve little lad learns some hard truths and grows into a better boy in ‘Shine a Little Light’ (Archie Giant Series Magazine #607, January 1990 by Bolling, Mike Esposito, Yoshida & Grossman).

The 1980s offers pictures of Christmas pasts in ‘Archie’s Christmas Photo Album’ by George Gladir, Parent & Jim DeCarlo as first seen in Archie… Archie Andrews, Where Are You? Comics Digest Magazine #54, February 1988), before Joe Edwards & Dan DeCarlo, explore ‘Christmas Past, Present and Future’ when Ronnie mistakenly thinks Daddy is selling up and moving them out. Archie and Me #161 (February 1987, by Gladir, Chic Stone, Lapick, Yoshida & Grossman) sees Archie accidentally prevent school being closed with his lucky ‘Goof Spoof’, after which teen witch Sabrina learns how her aunts are crucial to Santa’s big night in ‘With a Little Help From His Friends’ (Archie Giant Series Magazine #515, January 1982 by Gladir, Goldberg & Jon D’Agostino). Issue #512 (December 1981) then details Archie’s rejection of faux yule logs and subsequent calamity in search of the real deal in ‘Christmas List’ by Gladir, Goldberg, Lapick, Yoshida & Grossman…

Little Archie #163 (February 1981 by Bolling & Grossman) then saw Little Veronica learn some hard truths of her own when Sue Stringly recruited her to help save ‘The Christmas Ducks’ before the decade closed with silly but satisfying sight gag ‘Carry Tarry’ courtesy of Archie’s Jokebook Magazine #265, February 1980…

The 1970s opens with ‘Christmas Togetherness’ by Doyle, Dan DeCarlo Jr. with Jimmy DeCarlo & Yoshida from Archie Giant Series Magazine #488 (December 1979), as the red-headed fool ponders the perfect gift for mom and dad, after which Sabrina and her family cleverly divert Head Witch Della’s plan to sabotage the Season in ‘And a Zappy New Year’ (AGSM #479, January 1979, by Gladir, Dan DeCarlo, Lapick, Yoshida & Grossman). The previous issue, released the same month, offered a traditional comedy of errors as the easily-distracted Andrews boy got his parcels mixed up in ‘Wisecracker’ by Dick Malmgren, D’Agostino & Grossman, before January 1975 unwraps Doyle, DeCarlo & Lapick’s ‘Plastic Santa’ (AGSM #230) as Mr Lodge is bombarded by the kids’ polemic about the meaning of the Season and still finds a way to make a profit…

AGSM #192 (January 1972) explored ‘Past and Present’ in a yarn by Al Hartley, Joe Sinnott & Yoshida wherein shopping-traumatised Archie hallucinates about the good old, pre-industrial days, coincidentally heralding the jump to The 1960s…

Hartley went solo on gag strip ‘Make Their Christmas Wish’ from AGSM #150 (January 1968), followed by Doyle, Goldberg, Vince DeCarlo, Yoshida & Grossman’s ‘Party Pooper’ from the same issue as Archie suffers greatly to organise a surprise soiree for his parents, and Gladir, John Rosenberger & Victor Gorelick’s ‘Gift Tift’ (AGSM #144, January 1967) wherein conniving Reggie outsmarts himself in the cold war to win Ronnie away from Archie…

AGSM #31 (January 1965) offers a ‘Betty Pin Up’ by assorted DeCarlo’s & Lapick before #20 (January 1963) sees everyone trying to get at Archie’s ‘Black Book Bonanza’ in a wild romp by Doyle, DeCarlo’s & Lapick, after which the same team in the same title see Reggie ‘Go For Broke’ after ruining Archie’s flashy perfume gift and reaping a whirlwind of pungent regret.

Staying with AGSM #20, Doyle, Bill Vigoda, Terry Szenics & Grossman continue Reggie’s agonising learning curve as ‘Not Even a Moose’ finds him playing foolish pranks on the naïve, short-tempered giant. The prankster discovers the dangers of telling innocent people there is such a man as Santa…

Veronica’s ‘Pin Up Page’ by Dan DeCarlo from AGSM #15 (January 1962) then segues into gag page ‘Gift Rapped’ (Archie’s Jokebook Magazine #52, February 1961), detouring to AGSM #10 (January 1961, by Vigoda & Mario Acquaviva) where the red menace fumbles a ‘Gift Collection’ and trashes Christmas for the entire school. The period closes with Tom Moore’s gag page from the same issue proving rival Reg and Arch have ‘More Pull Than Talent!’

Heading rapidly for the opening stretch, we explore the feature’s golden age of The 1950s beginning with a wily witticism by slapstick genius Harry Lucey who reveals ‘Santa’s Surplus’ in a certified classic from Archie’s Jokebook Magazine #39 (March 1959), whilst Archie #98 (February 1959) shares Vigoda’s take on Shopping with Veronica in ‘Package Deal’ and Doyle, Lucey & Grossman’s skating themed fiasco ‘Deep Freeze’…

Vigoda, Acquaviva & Grossman crafted party panic in ‘Tree to Get Ready’ (Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #40, January 1959) before the age of optimism ends with ‘Dis-Missile’ by Doyle, Dan and Vince DeCarlo & Lapick from AGSM #4 (1957) as our helpful B&V coordinate school letters to Santa and trigger a clerical crisis…

We end as it all began in The 1940s where Harry Sahle crafted ‘Mush, Oscar!, Mush!’ for Archie #12 (Winter 1944). Starring Archie’s Dog Oscar it again proved that – although well-intentioned – even the pets in the Andrews home were disaster magnets – especially if there was snow on the ground and ice on the pond…

We close with ‘The Case of the Missing Mistletoe!’ from Winter 1942 by Bob Montana. It featured in Archie #1, and found Archie and Jughead more baffled than ever and at loggerheads after unknowingly taking identical twins to a Christmas party…

These are joyously effective and entertaining tales for young and old alike, crafted by some of Santa’s most talented Helpers, epitomising the magic of the Season and celebrating the perfect wonder of timeless all-ages storytelling. What kind of Grinch could not want this book in their kids’ stocking (from where it can most easily be borrowed)?
© 2021 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Walt Disney’s Donald Duck by Carl Barks volume 11: Christmas For Shacktown


By Carl Barks & various (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-574-7 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utter Acme of All-Ages Entertainment… 10/10

Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon in 1901, growing up in the rural areas of the West during some of the leanest times in American history. He tried his hand at many jobs before settling into the profession that chose him. His early life is well-documented elsewhere if you crave detail, but briefly, Barks worked as an animator at Disney’s studio before quitting in 1942 to work in the new-fangled field of comic books.

With studio partner Jack Hannah (another animator turned occasional strip illustrator) Barks adapted a Bob Karp script for a cartoon short into Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. It was published in October of that year as Dell Four Color Comics Series II #9 and – although not his first published comics work – was the story that shaped the rest of Barks’ career.

From then until his official retirement in the mid-1960s, he worked in self-imposed seclusion, writing, drawing and devising a vast array of adventure comedies, gags, yarns and covers that gelled into a Duck Universe of memorable and highly bankable characters, including Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952) and Magica De Spell (1961) to supplement Disney’s stable of illustrated actors.

His greatest creation was undoubtedly the crusty, paternalistic, money-mad giga-gazillionaire Scrooge McDuck: world’s wealthiest septuagenarian waterfowl and the harassed, hard-pressed, scene-swiping co-star of this tome.

Whilst producing all that landmark material, Barks was just a working guy, crafting covers, drawing other people’s scripts and contributing his stories to a burgeoning canon of Duck Lore. Only in the 1980s – after Gladstone Publishing began re-packaging his work and other Disney strips – did Barks discover the devoted appreciation he never imagined existed…

So potent were his creations that they inevitably fed back into Disney’s animation output, even though his brilliant comics were produced for licensing company Dell/Gold Key, and not directly for the Disney studio. The greatest tribute was undoubtedly the animated series Duck Tales: heavily based on his Scrooge comics output.

Barks was a fan of wholesome action, unsolved mysteries and epics of exploration, and this led to him perfecting the art and technique of the comedy blockbuster: blending wit, history, science, plucky bravado and sheer wide-eyed wonder into rollicking rollercoaster romps which captivated readers of every age and vintage. Without the Barks expeditions, there would never have been an Indiana Jones…

Throughout his working life, Barks was blissfully unaware that his efforts – uncredited by official policy as was all Disney’s strip and comic book output – had been singled out by a rabidly discerning public as being by “the Good Duck Artist”. When some of his most dedicated fans finally tracked him down, Barks’ belated celebrity began.

In 2013 Fantagraphics Books started collecting his Duck materials in carefully curated archival volumes, tracing the output approximately year-by-year in hardback tomes and digital editions that finally did justice to the quiet creator. These will eventually comprise the Complete Carl Barks Disney Library…

The physical copies are sturdy and luxurious albums – 193 x 261 mm – that would grace any bookshelf, with volume 5 – Walt Disney’s Donald Duck: “Christmas on Bear Mountain” (for reasons irrelevant here) acting as debut release and showcasing works from 1947. Today we’re revisiting 1951-1952, with volume 11 offering another landmark Seasonal tale that critically reshaped the supposedly throwaway, 2-dimensional miser into the richly rounded character beloved by billions…

It begins eponymously with Bark’s most enduring creation in top form. The elder McDuck had debuted in ‘Christmas on Bear Mountain’ (Four Color #178, December 1947): a handy comedy foil stemming from a Yuletide tale of woe and joy. He was a miserly relative who seethed in opulent isolation, hating everybody and meanly opting to share the gloom by tormenting his nephew Donald and his junior houseguests Huey, Louie and Dewey – by gifting them his mountain cabin for the Holidays. Scrooge schemed, intent on terrorising them in a bear costume, but fate had other ideas…

After the tale ended Barks realised that although the old coot was creepy, menacing and money-mad, he was also energetic and oddly lovable – and thus far too potentially valuable to be misspent or thrown away. Further appearances proved that he was right and his expedient maguffin was undoubtedly his greatest cartoon creation. The Downy Dodecadillionaire returned often, eventually expanding to fill all available space in tales set in the scenic metropolis of Duckburg.

Here. shifted slightly out of publishing chronology – because McDuck is not about wasting time or money – we open eponymously with the lead tale from Four Color #367. Cover-dated January 1952, ‘A Christmas For Shacktown’ begins as Donald’s nephews take a detour through the bad side of town and realise they cannot allow all the poverty-stricken children they see endure a festive season without food or toys…

Their discussion also inspires Daisy Duck, who resolves to organise a solution, and before long her women’s club is tapping Duckburg’s citizens for contributions. Daisy herself asks Donald – who’s experiencing a personal cashflow crisis and can’t afford his own Yule celebrations – who might make up her final $50 shortfall. When the nephews suggest Scrooge McDuck, Donald is reluctantly despatched to beg a donation, and does not relish the conversation…

That last 50 bucks is to buy turkeys and provide the joyless waifs with a train set, but after a titanic tussle, Donald can only get the skinflint to agree to $25… and that’s only for the food, not silly fripperies like toys…

Rapidly regrouping, Donald and Daisy are overwhelmed when the nephews hand over their savings and tell their “Unca Donald” to similarly donate the money put aside for their presents, but it’s still not enough and the trio then head off to shovel snow from sidewalks to make up the difference.

Ashamed and emboldened, Donald resolves to get what’s needed from Scrooge, embarking upon a series of increasingly wild stunts – including recruiting despicable rival Gladstone Gander – that culminates in disaster when Scrooge’s overloaded money vault collapses under the weight of its own reserves, plunging his entire fortune into the bowels of the Earth.

Confronted with penury, the despondent tycoon is saved by Donald and the boys who devise a means of retrieving the loot which gives the miser a new perspective on the value of toys: a view that rightly translates into Shacktown enjoying the best Christmas ever…

A month prior to that yarn, anthological Walt Disney Comics & Stories #135 (cover-dated December 1951) featured The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill’ wherein the old money magnate debuted his monolithic money bin, and invites Donald and the boys to inspect it… if they can get past all his baroque and byzantine security measures. Sadly, the visit also inspires the dastardly Beagle Boys to try to empty it…

WDC&S #136 (January 1952) then finds Donald suffering a braggart’s boasts again as his despised super-lucky rival recounts ‘Gladstone’s Usual Good Year’. Driven to distraction, Donald resorts to cheating just to raise his own spirits and something very unlikely occurs…

For #137, Donald and the nephews head to the mountains after he sells a song. Sadly, ‘The Screaming Cowboy’ is a particularly annoying tune that Donald smugly plays on every juke box in the region: the ominously named Avalanche Valley…

Scrooge returned in (WDC&S #138 March 1952), acting in a most uncharacteristic manner as ‘Statuesque Spendthrifts’ revealed him locked in financial combat with the proudly philanthropic Maharajah of Howduyustan to prove who was truly “the richest man in the world”. The battle revolved around who could donate the most ornate, ostentatious and gaudy monument of Duckburg’s founder…

When Huey, Dewey & Louie’s latest hobby – racing pigeons – inspires Donald’s disdain, the mean Unca attempts to sabotage and gaslight them, but learns his lesson when ‘Rocket Wing Saves the Day’ (WDC&S #139, April) after he has an accident…

The family – and even outrageous inventor Gyro Gearloose – are united in WDC&S #140, working to uncover annoying wastrel ‘Gladstone’s Terrible Secret’, and the chaos-creating boffin is back in #141, much to Donald’s dismay and the nephews’ delight: upsetting the natural order with machines giving beasts human attributes in ‘The Think Box Bollix’…

Four Color #408 (July/August 1952) was an All-Donald/All Barks affair and opens with a brace of single page gags, starting with ‘Full-Service Windows’ as the wily retailer finds a cheap and easy way to clean his shop front and compounding interest with ‘Rigged-Up Roller’ (alternately called ‘Rigged Up Lawn’) wherein the nephews must find a new way to keep the yard maintained…

The main event was extended action adventure ‘The Golden Helmet’ wherein bored museum guard Donald stops a suspicious individual poking about in a Viking longship and uncovers a hidden deerskin map. It reveals how explorer Olaf the Blue discovered America in 901 AD, and left a golden helmet which confirms when and how the nation was born.

The museum authorities are exultant… but only until the meddler returns with his lawyer Sharky. Azure Blue claims to be the descendant of Olaf and invokes the ancient “code of discovery” law. It dictates that as proof of the event, the helmet also confers ownership of the continent on the heirs… but only if Azure finds it first…

Almost resenting his earlier dreams of adventure, Donald recruits his nephews and dashes off with the museum curator to Labrador. They are all intent on saving Americans from becoming Blue’s slaves: battling deadly weather, constant misfortune and the machinations of Azure and Sharky in a superb action romp anticipating, Dan Brown, The Librarian and the National Treasure screen franchise…

The fun finishes with Donald’s Nephews ‘Awash in Success’ beside a faulty drinking fountain, counterbalanced by a Donald and Scrooge single from Four Color #422, (cover-dated September/October 1952) with the money-wise miser benefitting from bulk buying in ‘Stable Prices’.

Back on track and sampling Walt Disney Comics & Stories (#142, July 1952) sees Donald drag the kids on a ‘Houseboat Holiday’ to keep their summer vacation pranks and hijinks at a manageable level. Instead, he finds himself at the centre of a storm of freak calamities and life-threatening disasters. Its only marginally less fraught one month later when he takes them to the desert as ‘Gemstone Hunters’ and is bamboozled by cunning fraudsters and again humiliated by Gladstone…

The remainder of Four Color #422 follows, opening with a follow-up action excursion. In ‘The Gilded Man’ avid stamp collector Donald believes he’s tracked down a hugely valuable item and heads for British Guiana, with the nephews in tow and Gladstone hot on his trail.

The quest is for fabled El Dorado, and the jungle trek ultimately leads them to victory of a sort after exposing the secrets of the ancient golden god…

Two more one-pagers wrap up the issue: detailing correct precautions for saving a cat in ‘Armored Rescue’ before adapting an old idea to avoid social commitments in ‘Crafty Corner’…

Scrooge stole the spotlight again in WDC&S #144 (September) as another storage crisis in his vault compelled the old bird to try and learn a new trick. In an effort to make room, he hires insanely profligate Donald to share the secret of ‘Spending Money’ but is far from satisfied with what he learns…

The story portion of this tome terminates with the remainder of Four Color #367, with ‘Treeing Off’ showing how the nephews brighten up the Christmas decorating, after which Donald pays the price for presumption with mistletoe in ‘Christmas Kiss’ and the boys have the last word when adapting modern science to list writing in ‘Projecting Desires’ (AKA ‘Stamp-Sized Christmas List’).

The comics are augmented by a sublime Cover Gallery proving the Master’s gift for visual one-liners in Four Color (volume II) 367, 408 & 422, and Walt Disney Comics & Stories#135-144 which intercut context, commentary and validation in ‘Story Notes’ for each Duck tale gathered here. Following Donald Ault’s essay ‘Carl Barks: Life Among the Ducks’, ‘Biographies’ then introduces commentators Ault, R, Fiore, Craig Fischer, Jared Gardner, Rich Kreiner, Ken Parille, Stefano Priarone and Matthias Wivel and why they’re saying all those nice and informative things. We close as ever with an examination of provenance in ‘Where Did These Duck Stories First Appear?’

Carl Barks was one of the greatest exponents of comic art the world has ever seen, with almost all his work featuring Disney’s Duck characters: reaching and affecting untold billions across the world. You might be late to the party but don’t be scared: it’s never too late to climb aboard the Barks Express.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck “A Christmas For Shacktown” © 2012 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All contents © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.