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Bigby Bear Book One


By Philippe Coudray, translated by Miceal Ogriefa (BiG/Humanoids)
ISBN: 978-1-59465-806-8(HB)

Bordeaux-born in March 1960, writer, photographer and illustrator Philippe Coudray specialises in cartoons and books for children. Working with his brother Jean-Luc, he co-crafted the Drôles sequence of books and comics series Théocrite.

Howevwr, Philippe conceived and executed his signature creation L’Ours Barnabé – the philosophically absurdist ruminations of an artistic bear and his woodland companions all on his own…

When not crafting kids’ comics or surreal otherworldly gags (such as Loin de Tout) Philippe writes articles and such like for magazines such as Capsule Cosmique, Psikopat, Perlin and Fripounet as well as books such as Guide to Hidden Animals: Treatise on Cryptozoology. His works have been used by the government to combat illiteracy in France and translated into many languages; none more so than L’Ours Barnabé which has appeared in Japan, China, Germany Sweden, and twice in America. The first time was as Benjamin Bear (twice nominated for Eisner Awards and winning China’s 2012-2013 Panda Prize) and latterly here as the beguiling and frequently beguiled Bigby…

As much children’s storybook – although having no narrative structure and relying on episodic vignettes to deliver charming and visually challenging puzzles and riddles – as graphic novel, these collected strips feature an affably gentle bruin living wild and honing his artistic skills in a bucolic forest and mountain idyll, observing the world and pondering big questions in a surreal and often absurdist daze.

Visual tricks and double-takes abound as he and his rabbit chum encounter other animals and aliens, ignore the laws of the universe, carve, sculpt, paint, compose, garden and wander for the sheer joy of creativity. Subtly posing questions to make youngsters think – about art, science, psychology, mathematics, ecology and much more – Coudray never misses an opportunity to share a solid laugh with his readers and reinforce his message that life would be great if we all just mellowed out and got along with each other.

He’s also more than happy to pepper the strips with the occasional telling moment of social commentary if the chance arises…

Genteel fun, bemusing whimsy and enchanting illustration cloaking a supremely inclusive philosophy of curiosity, enquiry and cohabitation, Bigby Bear is a delightful example of how to enjoy life and crucial reading for young and old alike. Get the digital edition immediately before backing it up with the wonderfully tactile, sturdy hardback your kids will want to paw and peer at over and over again…
© 2012-2018 La Boîte à Bulles and Philippe Coudray. All rights reserved.

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Shade, the Changing Man volume: The American Scream


By Peter Milligan, Chris Bachalo, Mark Pennington & various (DC/Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0046-6 (TPB)

Even before DC hived off its “Mature Readers” sophisticated horror/hero series to become the backbone of the self-sustaining Vertigo line in 1993, the company had begun to differentiate between standard all-ages superhero sagas, new stand-alone concepts such as Gilgamesh II, Skreemer, Haywire or World Without End and edgy, off-the-wall, quasi-costumed fantasy and supernatural suspense titles as Doom Patrol, Black Orchid, Animal Man, Sandman, Hellblazer and Swamp Thing. Perhaps the most radical and challenging was a darkly psychedelic reworking of Steve Ditko’s lost masterpiece of modern paranoia Shade the Changing Man.

In the original 1977 mainstream series Rac Shade was a secret observer from the other-dimensional Meta-Zone. Framed for terrorism and sedition, he went rogue; using untried stolen technology to combat a wave of insanity that emanated from “the Area of Madness” within the Zero-Zone separating his world from ours. Said madness threatened both universes and Shade was resolved to stop it, despite the best efforts of sinister self-serving forces from Earth and Meta determined to destroy him.

When Peter Milligan, Chris Bachalo & Mark Pennington began to rework the character, much of Ditko’s original concept remained but was brutally tweaked for the far more cynical and worldly readers of the Blank Generation…

This collection – available in old-fashioned trade paperback and almost otherworldly digital formats – re-presents the first six issues of the new Shade from July to December 1990 and begins by introducing deeply disturbed Kathy George, patiently awaiting the final sanction on spree-killer Troy Grenzer.

Years previously, the unrepentant psycho-killer butchered her parents – and almost her too – and when her black boyfriend tackled the knife-wielding manic the Louisiana police shot her saviour instead of the white assailant…

Now in the final hours before Grenzer finally sits in the electric chair on ‘Execution Day’, Kathy is experiencing wild hallucinations. That’s nothing new: following the deaths of everyone she’d ever loved, Kathy was committed to an asylum until her inheritance ran out. Then she was released, apparently “too poor to be crazy” anymore.

Becoming a thief and a grifter, she wandered America until a radio report informed her Grenzer was about to be put to death. Inexplicably, Kathy found herself heading back to Louisiana…
On Death Row, things aren’t going according to plan. Bizarre lights, strange visions and electrical phenomena interrupt the execution and, as a fantastic reality-warping explosion occurs, Grenzer’s body vanishes…

On a hillside overlooking the prison, Kathy is pursued by an animated electric chair and Grenzer materialises in her car – only he claims not to be the serial killer but Rac Shade: a secret agent from another dimension who left his own body in an otherworldly Area of Madness to mentally occupy the now-vacant corpse of the serial killer.

It isn’t the craziest thing Kathy has ever heard, and even if it isn’t true, at least she has a chance to personally kill the man who destroyed her life…

As the drive away together, insane things keep happening. Shade explains that his transition to Earth caused a rupture in the fabric of the universes – a trauma in Reality…

Slowly acclimatising, Shade explains his original body is clad in experimental technology and his “M-Vest” connects his subconscious to the chaos of the Madness zone. His job was to come here and stop a plague of materialised insanity threatening both worlds, but now he’s actually given it easier access to ours…

After a climactic struggle with her own ghosts and traumas, Kathy reluctantly agrees to help the semi-amnesiac Shade in his mission.

Meanwhile at a Mental Hospital, uncanny events culminate in a ghastly reordering of people and matter itself: a horrific nigh-sentient phenomenon dubbed “the American Scream” breaks through from somewhere else and threatens all life and rationality on Earth. With casual daydreams, flights of fantasy and vicious whims increasingly given substance and solidity, the government – well aware of the crisis – dispatched Federal Agents Stringer and Conner to investigate…

The quest proper begins as the fugitives from justice troll through the hinterlands of American Culture and its Collective Unconscious, ending up in Dallas where obsessed author Duane Trilby, determined to discover ‘Who Shot JFK?’, finds himself conversing with the tarnished martyr himself. As the murdered president returns to the scene of the crime, the city starts to literally unravel, with a giant idolatrous bust of the victim bursting through the tarmac of Dealey Plaza, incessantly screaming for answers…

The chaos affects Shade, as the last vestiges of Grenzer’s personality repossess the body they share, determined to at last add Kathy to his tally of victims, even as Agents Stringer and Conner – convinced she is connected to Grenzer’s abrupt disappearance from his own execution – follow her to Texas. With madness rampant, Shade and Kathy are drawn into Trilby’s materialisation of events, becoming JFK and Jackie, inexorably heading toward death in that open-topped car…

The measured insanity escalates in ‘All the President’s Assassins!’ as Trilby saves Shade/JFK and slowly reveals his own personal tragedy: one which drove him to solve an impossible conundrum and avoid an agonising admission…

All the while, the Metan’s consciousness is being dragged into a succession of traumatised participants before realising he must defeat this outbreak of the American Scream quickly or surely fragment and die…

Escaping into his own past on Meta in ‘Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know’, Shade physically re-experiences his early life, whilst in Dallas Stringer and Conner apprehend Kathy.

A lovelorn, impressionable poet, young dropout Rac Shade was tricked into becoming an agent and sent to Earth because it was apparently the source of devastating waves of insanity plaguing Meta, but en route he was sucked into the Area of Madness, meeting the American Scream face to face…

Falling back to Earth, Rac frees Kathy and they flee, arriving in Los Angeles in time to struggle with the dark underbelly of the film industry as it comes to murderous, sadistic life and starts stalking the stars and moguls who create the vicious yet glorious land of dreams. First singled out are the cast and crew of in-production zombie epic Hollywood Monsters, who endure shame and career destruction as impossible film-clips of their deepest secrets and darkest transgressions manifest. Soon after, mutilations and deaths begin, before a psychedelic crescendo is reached in ‘Hollywood Babble On II’ with Shade and Kathy fighting their way through a physically-realised and highly biased history of Tinsel Town triumphs and travesties, before finally seizing control of the noxious narrative and beating the Madness at its own game…

Sporting a stunning cover gallery by Brendan McCarthy, this terrifying tome is darkly ironic and blackly comedic, whilst gripping and dripping with razor-edged social commentary. Shade, the Changing Man added a sparkling brew of sardonic wit to the horror and action staples of the medium and remains one of the most challenging and intriguing series in comics history. Check it out.
© 1990, 2003, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Violette around the world volume 1: My Head in the Clouds

By Teresa Radice & Stefano Turconi, translated by Terrence Chamberlain (EuroComics/IDW) ISBN: 978-1-68405-188-5 (HB Album) eISBN: 978-1-68406-411-3

Globetrotting Viola volume 1: Treasure Everywhere!
By Teresa Radice & Stefano Turconi, translated by Terrence Chamberlain (Europe Comics – Digital Only) No ISBN

There’s never been a more fruitful time for comics and graphic novels than today but the digital revolution has thrown up a few confusing moments for dithery old guard reviewers like me. Here’s a perfect case in point.

Europe comics is a collective syndicate of continental publishers from numerous countries collaboratively releasing the best of European material in translated digital formats. They also act as agents, so many of their digital releases eventually end up as physical books for English-language publishers like NBM, IDW and Cinebook.

Quite rightly, these publishers also have their own digital editions, and naturally these feature small variations and deviations in the final product. All in all, however, it’s no big deal. There is no “correct” edition and the art and story reman fundamentally the same. You pays yer money and takes yer choice…

In this instance I bought and reviewed both, so could you, if you so pleased…

Scripted by Teresa Radice and painted by Stefano Turconi – a prolific Italian husband-&- wife team who have co-created many books for varying ages of kids, such as Mickey and the Great Sea of Sand, The Forbidden Harbour and the Orlando Curioso series – this award-winning historical romp from 2013 follows the life of a young circus girl in very memorable times…

Alternatively dubbed Violette or Viola Vermeer, our young star Рdaughter of a cannonball woman and an insect trainer Рis a fourth-generation performer of the Cirque de la Lune, currently chafing under the strictures of having to attend a draconian school for ladies in fin de si̬cle Paris.

She would far rather be travelling the land with her friends and family, and her scholastic inattention – and love of animals – keeps landing her in hot water with the stuffy schoolmarms of the posh institution she’s trapped in…

Her life takes an interesting and life-changing turn after meeting an itinerant painter named Henri. She ends up trailing him all over the metropolis, trying to return a lost sketchbook to the absent-minded dauber. The quest takes her all over the City of Lights and into places I am not going far more educational than her usual classroom: even to the resplendently scandalous Moulin Rouge, resulting in her downtrodden attitude being replaced by a new zest for living and a brand-new sense of adventure and purpose…

A breezy, light-hearted coming of age tale about diversity and acceptance set in a glamourous historical wonderland, this superb yarn also includes loads of captivating extra art by Turconi and a potted biography of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to aide amusement and elucidation…
Globetrotting Viola: Treasure Everywhere! © 2016 TUNUÉ (Tunué s.r.l.) – Teresa Radice & Stefano Turconi
Violette around the world: My Head in the Clouds text and illustrations © 2013 Teresa Radice & Stefano Turconi – Tunué. All rights reserved.

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Batman: The TV Stories

By Bill Finger, David Vern Reed, France Herron, Dave Wood, Gardner Fox, John Broome, Dick Sprang, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Sheldon Moldoff, Charles Paris, Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella, Sid Greene, Bob Kane & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4495-8 (TPB)

Debuting a year after Superman, “The Bat-Man” (and latterly Robin, the Boy Wonder – who celebrates his 80th anniversary this month) cemented National Comics – AKA DC – as the market and genre leader of the nascent comicbook industry and epitome of swashbuckling derring-do. Batman bloomed at this time and the impetus enabled him to endure and survive the decline of superheroes at the end of the 1940s.

By the end of 1963, Julius Schwartz having – either personally or by example – revived and revitalised DC’s costumed champion line-up – and by extension the entire industry – with his modernization of the superhero, was asked to work his magic with the creatively stalled and nigh-moribund Caped Crusaders.

Bringing his usual team of top-notch creators with him, the editor stripped down the core-concept, downplaying all the ETs, outlandish villains and daft transformation tales that had sustained the no-longer dark knight, bringing a cool modern take to the capture of criminals whilst overseeing a streamlining rationalisation of the art style itself.

The most apparent change to us kids was a yellow circle around the Bat-symbol but, far more importantly, the stories also changed. A subtle aura of genuine menace had crept back in…

At the same time, Hollywood was preparing to produce a television series based on the Caped Crusaders and, through the sheer karmic insanity that permeates the universe, the producers were basing their interpretation upon the addictively daft material the publishers had turned their Editorial backs on, not the “New Look Batman” that was enthralling the readers.

The TV show premiered on January 12th 1966 and ran for 3 seasons (120 episodes in total), airing twice weekly for its first two seasons. It was a monumental world-wide hit and sparked a wave of trendy imitation. The resulting media hysteria and fan frenzy generated an insane amount of Bat-awareness, no end of spin-offs and merchandise – including a still-fabulously watchable movie – while introducing us all to the phenomenon of overkill.

“Batmania” exploded across the world and then as almost as quickly became toxic and vanished. To this day, no matter how much we might squeal and foam about it, or what has occurred since in terms of comics, games or movies, to a huge portion of this planet’s population Batman is always going to be that “Zap! Biff! Pow!” costumed buffoon…

And what’s wrong with that?

Still adored by a large portion of the fans – as evidenced by Batman ’66: a splendid recent series of tales crafted in the style of the show – this collection gathers comics stories spanning 1948 and 1966, which inspired episodes of the TV phenomenon. Available in paperback and digitally, the titanic treats are prefaced by ‘Holy —-! (Choose any word that begins with an “S”)’, an Introduction by Bat-movie producer Michael Uslan, adding context before the wonderment commences with ‘The Riddler’ by Bill Finger, Dick Sprang & Charles Paris.

Detective Comics #140, October 1948 revealed how cheating carnival con-man Edward Nigma took an obsession with puzzles to perilous extremes: becoming a costumed criminal to match wits with the brilliant Batman in a contest that threatened to set the entire city ablaze.

From Batman #53 (June/July 1949), ‘A Hairpin, A Hoe, A Hacksaw, A Hole in the Ground’ came courtesy of Finger, Lew Sayre Schwartz, Bob Kane & Paris, detailing how The Joker resolved to prove to the world that he was the greatest clown in history. His research was a big problem for Gotham…

The Harlequin of Hate played an encore in Batman #73 (October/November 1952 as David Vern Reed, Sprang & Paris’ ‘The Joker’s Utility Belt’ saw the Dynamic Duo temporarily stymied when the crime clown devised his own uniquely perverse iteration of the heroes’ greatest weapon and accessory…

‘The Mad Hatter of Gotham City’ – by Finger, Sheldon Moldoff & Paris – debuted in Detective Comics #230 (April 1956): a chapeau-obsessed collector and thief whose greatest ambition is to possess Batman’s cowl, after which Dave Wood, Moldoff & Paris expose ‘The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero’ (Batman #121, February 1959), wherein a scientist turns to crime after his experiments afflict him with a condition that will kill him if his temperature rises above freezing point. Although cured in this yarn, the villain would return taking the name Mr. Freeze in later appearances…

Skipping ahead to the Schwartz-era, Batman #169 (February 1965) highlights wily, bird-themed bad-man The Penguin who contrives to make the Caped Crusaders his unwilling ‘Partners in Plunder!’ in a crafty caper conceived by France Herron, Moldoff & Joe Giella, before another archfoe resurfaces in ‘The Remarkable Ruse of the Riddler’ by Gardner Fox, Moldoff & Giella.

After an absence of decades, the Prince of Puzzlers returned to bamboozle Batman (#171, May 1965) in a clever book-length mystery which did much to catapult the previously forgotten villain to the first rank of Bat-Baddies.

His main rival had never really gone away but also got an upgrade in (generally harmless) insanity, as typified by ‘The Joker’s Comedy Capers!’ from Detective Comics #341, July 1965. Here John Broome, Carmine Infantino & Giella revealed how envy apparently inspired the Mountebank of Menace to emulate classic cinema comedians in bold crimes. As usual all was not what it seemed and a killer punchline was waiting for all involved…

Broome, Moldoff & Giella then posed ‘Batman’s Inescapable Doom-Trap’ in Detective Comics #346 (December 1965), highlighting the Caped Crimebuster’s escapology skills as a magician-turned-thief alpha-tests his latest stage-stunt on the unwilling, unwitting hero…

The TV series eventually required a new star to boost ratings: a female hero who would become a mainstay of the comics and who stylishly closes this compilation…

A different Batgirl – Betty Kane, teenaged niece of the 1950s Batwoman – was already a nearly-forgotten comics fixture but for reasons far too complex and irrelevant to mention was conveniently ignored to make room for a new, empowered woman in the fresh tradition of Emma Peel, Honey West and the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. She was considered pretty hot too, which was always a plus for television back then…

‘The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl’ launched a hip and capable new iteration designed to soar in the Swinging Sixties. DC had plenty of notice of her screen launch and took pains to establish her long before the third season began on September 14th 1967.

Cover-dated January 1967 – so actually on sale at the end of 1966 – Detective Comics #359 left the comicbook premiere to Gardner Fox and art team supreme Infantino & Sid Greene, who produced a ripping yarn introducing mousy librarian Barbara Gordon, daughter of the venerable Police Commissioner, into the superhero limelight. Thus, by the time the show aired, she was already well-established among comics fans at least….

The tale itself reveals how secretly capable Babs (a shy, retiring kung fu expert, dressed in a masquerade bat-costume) accidentally foils the kidnapping of Bruce Wayne by deadly extortionist Killer Moth. Whereas her TV analogue fought the Penguin on the small screen, her print origin features the no less ludicrous but at least visually forbidding super-thug in a clever yarn that still stands up today.

Touted as “the comics that inspired the 1960s TV show!” this is a delicious slice of Fights ‘n’ Tights ephemera, free of angst or excess baggage: a comics rollercoaster packed with fun and adventure for all ages and the ideal remedy for the Lockdown Blues.
© 1948, 1949, 1952, 1956, 1959, 1965, 1967, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Shuri volume 1: The Search for Black Panther


By Nnedi Okorafor, Leonardo Romero, Jordie Bellaire, VC’s Joe Sabino & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1523-0 (TPB)

Lauded as the first black superhero in American comics and one of the first to carry his own series, the Black Panther‘s popularity and fortunes have waxed and waned since the 1960s when he first attacked the FF (Fantastic Four #52; cover-dated July 1966) as part of an extended plan to gain vengeance on the murderer of his father.

T’Challa, son of T’Chaka was revealed as an African monarch whose hidden kingdom was the only source of a vibration-absorbing alien metal upon which the country’s immense wealth was founded. Those mineral riches – derived from a fallen meteor which struck the continent in lost antiquity – had turned his country into a technological wonderland.

The tribal wealth had long been guarded by a hereditary feline champion deriving physical advantages from secret ceremonies and a mysterious heart-shaped herb that ensured the generational dominance of the nation’s warrior Panther Cult.

In recent years, Vibranium made the country a target for increasing subversion and incursion. After one all-out attack by Doctor Doom – culminating in the Iron Dictator seizing control of Wakanda – T’Challa was forced to render all Vibranium on Earth inert, defeating the invader but leaving his own homeland broken and economically shattered.

During that cataclysmic clash T’Challa’s flighty, spoiled brat half-sister Shuri took on the mantle of Black Panther, becoming the clan and country’s new champion whilst her predecessor struggled with the disaster he had deliberately caused and recuperated from near-fatal injuries.

Despite initially being rejected by the divine Panther Spirit, Shuri proved a dedicated and ingenious protector, serving with honour until she perished defending the nation from alien invader Thanos. When T’Challa resumed his position as warrior-king, one of his earliest tasks was resurrecting his sister. She had passed into the Djalia (Wakanda’s spiritual Plane of Memories) where she absorbed the entire history of the nation from ascended Elders. On her return to physicality, she gained mighty new powers as the Ascended Future…

Now – thanks to the equally formidable magic of a bravura role in a blockbuster movie – a slightly reimagined Shuri stars in her own series, blending established comics mythology with the fresh characterisation of a spunky, savvy youthful super-scientist.

Written by multi award-winning fantasy author Nnedimma Nkemdili “Nnedi” Okorafor (Binti, Who Fears Death, Lagoon, Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Black Panther: Long Live the King, Venomverse War Stories) and illustrated by Leonardo Romero (Hawkeye, Captain America, Doctor Strange), this first collection – gathering #1-5 of Shuri (spanning December 2018-April 2019 and available as a trade paperback or digitally) – finds Wakanda in turmoil.

In the aftermath of the nation’s first (official) manned space mission, King T’Challa is ‘Gone’, leaving Shuri to initially revel in the sheer joy and freedom of technological creation. However, the pressures of her family position always bedevil her. If it’s not frequent overtures from a mystery hacker she’s befriended and dubbed Muti or the constant chidings of the Ancestral Spirits who connect her to the Djalia, it’s her unwelcome invitation to join a secret society of women who have covertly steered and safeguarded Wakanda for generations…

The Sisters of the Elephant’s Trunk have a cherished goal: despite the nation recently becoming a constitutional monarchy, they want Shuri to step up in T’Challa’s absence and be the country’s spiritual leader … a new Black Panther…

Her answer in ‘The Baobab Tree’ pleases no one, but she has no time for second thoughts as sister-in-law Storm comes to her with news that T’Challa is now lost in space. The crisis is further compounded after Queen Mother Ramonda also vanishes. When Shuri resorts to spiritual means of locating her missing family, the ritual accidentally catapults her astral personality across the universe and into the vegetable body of a Guardian of the Galaxy…

Trapped but never helpless, Shuri’s brains save the alien heroes from dire peril and a deadly energy-eating bug in ,Groot Boom’, but her return to Earth brings more trouble as the energy-insectoid follows to cause chaos in ‘Timbuktu’ – thanks in large part to the machinations of opportunist supervillain Moses Magnum…

With catastrophe all around and the planet in deadly peril, Shuri calls in a favour and Iron Man responds to assist in preventing ‘The End of the Earth’ but ultimately Shuri knows that the call of the Panther cult must be answered no matter what she wants…

To Be Continued…

Featuring a superb variant covers gallery by Skottie Young, Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Fonteriz & Rachel Martin, Jamal Campbell, Travis Charest, John Tyler Christopher, Afua Richardson plus a Movie photo cover and character designs by Romero, this is a fast-moving, funny and supremely inventive romp: a splendidly fresh take on female superheroics that is compulsive reading for any fan of tight continuity, breathtaking action and smart characterisation as well as everyone who fell in love with the super-smart young woman who stole every scene in the Black Panther movie. What are you waiting for?
© 2019 MARVEL. All rights reserved.

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Thor Marvel Masterworks volume 15

By Len Wein, David Anthony Kraft, Steve Englehart, John Buscema, Pablo Marcos & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9919-9 (HB)

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

Months swiftly passed with the Lord of Storms tackling rapacious extraterrestrials, Commie dictators, costumed crazies and cheap thugs, but these soon gave way to a vast kaleidoscope of fantastic worlds and incredible, mythic menaces, usually tackled with an ever-changing cast of stalwart immortal warriors at his side…

Whilst the ever-expanding Marvel Universe had grown ever-more interconnected as it matured through its first decade, with characters literally tripping over each other in New York City, the Asgardian heritage of Thor and the soaring imagination of Jack Kirby had most often drawn the Thunder God away from mortal realms into stunning, unique landscapes and scenarios.

However, by the time of this power-packed compendium, the King was long gone and was in fact readying himself to return to the House of (mostly his) Ideas, and only echoes of his groundbreaking presence remained. John Buscema had visually made the Thunder God his own, whilst a succession of scripters struggled to recapture the epic scope of Kirby’s vision and Stan Lee’s off-kilter but comfortingly compelling faux-Shakespearean verbiage…

This power-packed hardback and digital compilation gathers the contents of Thor #242-254, Annual #5 and Marvel Spotlight #30 spanning December 1975 through December 1976, and leads with a forthright Introduction from writer/editor Len Wein on his assumption of the title.

After a rapid, round-robin flurry of writers who detailed how lordly Odin went missing and was found and freed from bondage to a pantheon of Egyptian gods, a semblance of creative stability resumed with #242 as Wein joined John Buscema & Joe Sinnott to commence their tenure with epic time travel tale ‘When the Servitor Commands!’

In the 20th century, the colossal all-conquering construct scoops up Thor, his lover Jane Foster (mystically imbued with the life force of goddess Sif) and visiting Asgardians Fandral the Dashing, Voluminous Volstagg and Hogun the Grim at the behest of despotic chrononaut – and old enemy – Zarrko the Tomorrow Man…

The time tyrant claims to be on the side of the angels this time: looking for heroes to help stop a trio of entropic entities travelling back from the end of eternity, callously destroying all life as they go. Although suspicious, the assembled crusaders agree to help stop< ‘Turmoil in the Time Stream!’ caused by the uncanny Time-Twisters…

Clashes with vagrant monsters and warriors plucked from other eras barely slows the heroes, but neither do they hinder the widdershins progress of the Armageddon entities in ‘This is the Way the World Ends!’ However, by the time the voyagers discover ‘The Temple at the End of Time!’ which originally spawned the Time-Twisters and end the crisis before it began, Zarrko has already reverted to type and tried to betray them… much to his own regret…

A rematch between Thunder God and extraterrestrial Flaming Fury sparks up in #246 as ‘The Fury of Firelord!’ follows the unworldly alien’s meeting with a lovely witch working for Latin American rebel and would-be tin pot dictator El Lobo. Whilst Thor heads south to stop a civil war, in Asgard his boon companion Balder comes to a staggering conclusion: Odin may be back in body but his spirit is still ailing. In fact, the All-Father might well be completely insane…

When Thor also succumbs to sinister gypsy enchantments and ‘The Flame and the Hammer!’ unite to crush the feeble democracy of Costa Verde, once again vibrant valiant Jane is there to save the day…

An out-of-chronology break follows as the 30th issue of try-out title Marvel Spotlight delivers a tale of the Warriors Three. In ‘A Night on the Town!’ (by Wein, Buscema & Sinnott) Fandral, Volstagg and Hogun are drawn into a tale of love on the rocks when their Manhattan carousal is interrupted by a woman’s suicide attempt. Her call for help soon impels the heroic trio to save her fiancé from a life of crime and leads to action, adventure and ultimately matrimony…

Back in Thor #248, ‘There Shall Come… Revolution!’ (inked by Tony DeZuñiga) starts the build-up to anniversary issue #250 with the earthbound Asgardians called back to the Realm Eternal by bold Balder whose battered body is living proof that Odin has become a brutal, vicious tyrant. The rebellion builds in kThe Throne and the Fury!’ (by Wein, Buscema & DeZuñiga, and featuring the first of a series of covers by returning Jack Kirby) as Thor and Company batter their way into the godly citadel. As the heroes seek to ally with old enemy Karnilla the Norn Queen, amidst the madness, Jane assumes the form of Sif just in time to join in a potential universe-shattering battle as Odin is proved an imposter and defeated in ‘If Asgard Should Perish…!’

In the aftermath – AKA #251 – the search for the true All-Father takes Thor into the underworld to see if Odin is dead. Despite cataclysmic combat against the legions of the dead, ‘To Hela and Back’ proves a frustrating waste of time, barely ameliorated by a new clue in #252. ‘A Dragon at the Gates!’, by Wein, Buscema & DeZuñiga, sees the Thunderer undertake a quest for knowledge that draws him into another brutal battle with ultimate troll Ulik which concludes in the next issue with ‘Chaos in the Kingdom of the Trolls’ and seeming defeat for the Prince of Asgard…

These issues also include a return for venerable back-up series Tales of Asgard, Home of the Mighty Norse Gods: a saga of Thor’s boyhood by David Anthony Kraft & Pablo Marcos wherein the young warrior learns the value of restraint and self-reliance while learning how to wield Mjolnir in The Weapon and the Warrior!

Thor’s hunt for his father will be continued in the next Masterworks volume but this one holds still more action and drama in the form of Mighty Thor Annual #5 which depicted ‘War of the Gods!’

Crafted by Steve Englehart, Buscema & DeZuñiga, it opens with the origin of Asgard’s gods and explains the geographical limitations of pantheons and worship before adolescent Thor is drawn by his earthly worshippers into battle with a pantheon he never knew of.

As the territorial clash between Norsemen and invading Greeks escalates, Asgardians and Hellenics fight to the death but aloof Odin and Zeus know a secret that makes all the bloodshed simultaneously pointless and crucial…

This peek into the underpinnings of the ever-expanding Marvel cosmology is followed by the cover of Mighty Thor #254 (which reprinted #159, due to another deadline crisis) and concludes with Kirby’s wraparound cover for Marvel Treasury Edition #10 (which collected the original Mangog saga from Thor #154-157), house ads, original pre-correction cover art for #253 and a gallery of Buscema art pages.
The tales gathered here may lack the sheer punch and verve of the early years but fans of ferocious Fights ‘n’ Tights fantasy will find this tome still stuffed with intrigue and action, magnificently rendered by artists who, whilst not possessing Kirby’s vaulting visionary passion, were every inch his equal in craft and dedication, making this a must-read for all fans of the character and the genre.
©1975, 1976, 2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Norman Pettingill: Backwoods Humorist


By Norman Pettingill, edited by Gary Groth, with an introduction by Robert Crumb (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-319-4 (HB)

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Sulk in your house and you’re on your own, mate. Here’s another comedy treat you can enjoy via assorted digital means, or if you prefer you can support the local economy by buying a hardback copy and waiting… and waiting… and waiting…

It’s a big planet and there are many places to hide an artistic prodigy. That’s never been more capably proved than in the case of Norman Pettingill, a lost hero of the workaday craft aesthetic who lived and died in Wisconsin, revelling in a backwoods life lived off the land. He supported his family with personalised cartoons, jobbing art such as postcards and commercial signage, commissioned illustrations and through simply stunning personal works: mostly natural scenes and reportage of the hunting and fishing community he lived in.
Pettingill worked in seclusion (and we all know what that’s like now, don’t we?) until his incredibly intense, ribald and frenetic postcard art was discovered by Robert Crumb who immediately reprinted them in his Underground Commix magazine Weirdo.

These over-sized scenes were multi-layered, packed with hundreds of characters acting in micro-scenes and grotesquely raw and vulgar: like Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel (the Elder), Basil Wolverton and Leo Baxendale working all on the same page.

This superb book, rough and rustic – with a wooden front cover for the hardback version – tells the life-story of this truly driven artist; who could no more stop drawing than breathe underwater. Self-taught and clearly besotted with the creative process, Pettingill was not afraid to fill a page with copious extras, and the work gathered here, collected by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (conservators of folk art of the American mid-west) shows a true original equally at home drawing pictures to pay bills and making masterpieces because he couldn’t stop himself.

On view are astoundingly frantic, charmingly gruesome postcard tableaux, featuring hunters, boozers and what we’d call hillbillies, but Pettingill knew them as the folk next door, as well as more intimate creations: family collages, entrancing pen-&-ink studies of beasts and birds he lived amongst – and hunted. There are even doodles he adorned the envelopes of letters with.

His surreal, bawdy, raw concoctions mirrored and presaged the graphic license and social freedoms of the 1960s counterculture (although he really started his own artistic journey twenty years earlier), but even though his fans today include such iconoclastic cartoonists as Crumb and Johnny Ryan, Pettingill’s appeal is far wider than simple grist for us doodle-pushers.

With his fondly cynical, wry observation and piercingly incisive eye, Norman Pettingill became a societal camera onto a time and place in rural – and even wild – America that we seldom see nowadays: an honest raconteur, part of a tradition that includes and spans the fierce and gentle ranges from Garrison Keillor’s elegiac (and positively provincial) Lake Wobegon tales to the razor-edged self-examination of Southern kinfolk and mid-west archetypes typified by the gagsters of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour: a purely American humour by and for the ordinary guy.

This retrospective of Pettingill’s art presents more than a hundred of his most telling monochrome pieces and will appeal to cartoon-lovers and people watchers equally.
© 2010 Fantagraphics Books. Individual contributions © 2010 their authors. Unless otherwise noted all photography and art © 2010 John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Art from the collections of Glenn Bray, R. Crumb & Jim Pink © 2010 the estate of Norman Pettingill.

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X-Men Epic Collection volume 1 1963-1966: Children of the Atom


By Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, Werner Roth, Alex Toth & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-8904-6 (TPB)

In 1963 things really took off for the budding Marvel Comics as Stan Lee & Jack Kirby expanded their diminutive line of action titles, putting a bunch of relatively new super-heroes (including hot-off-the-presses Iron Man) together as the Avengers; launching a decidedly different war comic in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and creating a group of alienated heroic teenagers who gathered together to fight a rather specific, previously unperceived threat to humanity.

Those halcyon days are revisited in this splendid trade paperback and eBook compilation: gathering from September 1963 to August 1966, the contents of X-Men#1-23.

Issue #1 introduced Cyclops, Iceman, Angel and the Beast: very special students of Professor Charles Xavier, a wheelchair-bound telepath dedicated to brokering peace and integration between the masses of humanity and the emergent off-shoot race of mutants dubbed Homo Superior. The story opens as the students welcome their newest classmate, Jean Grey, aka Marvel Girl, a beautiful young woman with the ability to move objects with her mind.

No sooner has the Professor explained their mission than an actual Evil Mutant, Magneto, single-handedly takes over American missile base Cape Citadel. A seemingly unbeatable threat, the master of magnetism is nonetheless driven off – in under 15 minutes – by the young heroes on their first mission …

It doesn’t sound like much, but the gritty dynamic power of Kirby’s art, solidly inked by veteran Paul Reinman, imparted a raw energy to the tale which carried the bi-monthly book irresistibly forward. With issue #2, a Federal connection was established in the form of FBI Special Agent Fred Duncan, who requested the teen team’s assistance in capturing a mutant who threatened to steal US military secrets in ‘No One Can Stop the Vanisher!’.

These days, young heroes are ten-a-penny, but it should be noted that these kids were Marvel’s first juvenile super-doers since the end of the Golden Age, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that in this tale of a terrifying teleporter the outmatched youngsters needed a little adult supervision…

Issue #3’s ‘Beware of the Blob!’ displays a rare lapse of judgement as proselytising Professor X invites a sideshow freak into the team only to be rebuffed by the felonious mutant. Impervious to mortal harm, The Blob incites his carnival cronies to attack the hidden heroes before they can come after him, and once again it’s up to teacher to save the day…

With X-Men #4 (March 1964) a thematic sea-change occurs as Magneto returns at the head of ‘The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!’ Intent on conquering a South American country and establishing a political powerbase, he ruthlessly dominates Mastermind, Toad, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, who are very much his unwilling thralls in the bombastic struggle that follows. From then on, the callow champions-in-training are the hunted prey of many malevolent mutants.

‘Trapped: One X-Man!’ in issue #5 sees early results in that secret war as Angel is abducted to Magneto’s orbiting satellite base Asteroid M, and only a desperate battle at the edge of space eventually saves him…

‘Sub-Mariner Joins the Evil Mutants!’ is a self-explanatory tale of gripping intensity elevated to magical levels of artistic quality as superb Chic Stone replaced Reinman as inker for the rest of Kirby’s tenure. The issue also incorporates a stunning ‘Special Pin-up page’ starring “Cyclops”.

Genuine narrative progress is made in ‘The Return of the Blob!’ as their mentor leaves on a secret mission, but not before appointing Cyclops acting team leader. Comedy relief is provided as Lee & Kirby introduce Beast and Iceman to the Beatnik-inspired “youth scene” whilst the high action quotient is maintained courtesy of a troubled teaming of the Blob and Magneto’s malign brood…

Another and very different invulnerable mutant debuted in ‘Unus the Untouchable!’: a wrestler with an invisible force field who attempts to enlist in the Brotherhood by offering to bring them an X-Man. Also notable is the first real incident of “anti-mutant hysteria” after a mob attacks Beast: a theme that would become the cornerstone of the X-Men mythos and the delights include a ‘Special Pin-up page’ featuring ‘The Beast’.

X-Men #9 (January 1965) is the first true masterpiece of this celebrated title. ‘Enter, the Avengers!’ reunites the mutants with Professor X in the wilds of Balkan Europe, as deadly Lucifer seeks to destroy Earth with a super-bomb, subsequently manipulating the teens into an all-out battle with the awesome Avengers. This month’s extra treat is a ‘Marvel Masterwork Pin-up’ of ‘Marvel Girl’

This is still a perfect Marvel comic story today, as is its follow-up ‘The Coming of Ka-Zar!’: a wild excursion to Antarctica, featuring the discovery of the Antediluvian Savage Land and the modern incarnation of one of Marvel/Timely’s oldest heroes (Kazar the Great was a pulp Tarzan knock-off who translated to the comics page, originating in October/November 1939’s Marvel Comics #1).

Dinosaurs, lost cities, spectacular locations, mystery and all-out action: it doesn’t get better than this…

After spectacular starts on most of Marvel’s Superhero titles (as well as western and war revamps), Kirby’s increasing workload compelled him to cut back to simply laying out most of these lesser lights whilst Thor and Fantastic Four evolved into perfect playgrounds and full-time monthly preoccupations for his burgeoning imagination. The last series he surrendered was the still-bimonthly X-Men wherein an outcast tribe of mutants worked diligently and clandestinely to foster peace and integration between the unwary masses of humanity and the gradually-emergent “coming race” of Homo Superior.

The King’s departure in #11 was marked by a major turning point. ‘The Triumph of Magneto!’ sees our heroes and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants both seeking a fantastically powered being dubbed The Stranger. None are aware of his true identity, nature or purpose, but when the Master of Magnetism finds him first, it spells the end of his war with the X-Men…

With Magneto gone and the Brotherhood broken, Kirby relinquished pencilling to other hands, providing loose layouts and design only. Alex Toth & Vince Colletta proved an uncomfortable mix for #12′s tense drama ‘The Origin of Professor X!’ it opened a 2-part saga introducing Xavier’s half-brother Cain Marko and revealed that simplistic thug’s mystic transformation into an unstoppable human engine of destruction.

The story concludes with ‘Where Walks the Juggernaut’: a compelling, tension-drenched tale guest-starring the Human Torch, and most notable for the introduction of penciller Werner Roth (using the name Jay Gavin). He would be associated with the mutants for the next half decade. His inker for this first outing was the infallible Joe Sinnott.

Roth was an unsung veteran of the industry, working for the company in the 1950s on such star features as Apache Kid and the inexplicably durable Kid Colt, Outlaw, as well as Mandrake the Magician for King Features Comics and Man from U.N.C.L.E. for Gold Key. As with many pseudonymous creators of the period, it was his DC commitments (mostly romance stories) which forced him to disguise his moonlighting until Marvel grew big enough to offer him full-time work.

From issue #14 and inked by Colletta, ‘Among us Stalk the Sentinels!’ celebrated the team’s inevitable elevation to monthly publication with the first episode of a 3-chapter epic introducing anthropologist Bolivar Trask, whose solution to the threat of Mutant Domination was super-robots that would protect humanity at all costs. Sadly, their definition of “protect” varied wildly from their creator’s, but what can you expect when a social scientist dabbles in high-energy physics and engineering?

The X-Men took the battle to the Sentinels’ secret base but became ‘Prisoners of the Mysterious Master Mold!’ before wrapping up their ferrous foes with ‘The Supreme Sacrifice!’

Veteran Dick Ayers joined as inker from #15: his clean line blending perfectly with Roth’s clean, classicist pencils. They remained a team for years, adding vital continuity to this quirky but never top-selling series.

X-Men #17 dealt with the aftermath of the battle – the last time the US Army and government openly approved of the team’s efforts – and the sedate but brooding nature of ‘…And None Shall Survive!’ enabled the story to generate a genuine air of apprehension as Xavier Mansion is taken over by an old foe who picks them off one by one until only the youngest remains to battle alone in climactic conclusion ‘If Iceman Should Fail..!’

‘Lo! Now Shall Appear… The Mimic!’ in #19 was Lee’s last script: the pithy tale of a troubled teen possessing the ability to copy the skills, powers and abilities of anyone in close proximity. The writing reins were turned over to Roy Thomas in #20, who promptly jumped in guns blazing with ‘I, Lucifer…’: an alien invasion yarn starring Xavier’s arch-nemesis as well as Unus the Untouchable and the Blob. Most importantly, it revealed in passing how Professor X lost the use of his legs.

With canny concluding chapter ‘From Whence Comes Dominus?’, Thomas & Roth completely made the series their own, blending juvenile high spirits, classy superhero action and torrid soap opera with beautiful drawing and stirring adventure.

At this time Marvel Comics had a vast and growing following among older teens and college kids, and the youthful Thomas spoke and wrote as they did. Coupled with his easy delight in large casts, this would increasingly make X-Men a most welcoming read for any educated adolescent …like you or me…

As suggested already, X-Men was never one of young Marvel’s top titles but it found a devout and dedicated following, with the frantic, freakish energy of Kirby’s heroic dynamism comfortably transiting into the slick, sleek attractiveness of Roth as the fierce tension of hunted, haunted juvenile outsider settled into a pastiche of college and school scenarios so familiar to the students who were the series’ main audience.

The action pauses here with a crafty 2-parter resurrecting veteran Avengers villain Count Nefaria who employs illusion-casting technology and a band of other heroes’ second-string foes (Unicorn, Porcupine, Plantman, Scarecrow and the Eel, if you’re wondering) to hold Washington DC hostage and frame the X-Men for the entire scheme.

‘Divided… We Fall!’ and ‘To Save a City!’ comprise a fast-paced, old-fashioned Goodies vs. Baddies battle with a decided sting in the tail. Moreover, the tale concludes with Marvel Girl yanked off the team as her parents insist she furthers her education by leaving the Xavier School to attend New York’s Metro University…

To Be Continued…

Supplemented by a copious gallery of original art pages – by Kirby, Reinman, Roth & Ayers – a wealth of evocative house ads and an unseen never used alternate cover by Kirby & Stone, these quirky tales are a million miles removed from the angst-ridden, breast-beating, cripplingly convoluted X-brand of today’s Marvel and, in many ways are all the better for it. Superbly rendered, highly readable adventures are never unwelcome or out of favour, and it should be remembered that everything here informs so very much of the mutant monolith. These are stories for dedicated fans and rawest converts. Everyone should have this book.
© 2019 MARVEL.

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The Garden


By Sean Michael Wilson & Fumio Obata (Liminal 11)
ISBN: 978-1-912634-16-3 (HB)

We’re all locked up in our own heads as much as in our homes these days, and constantly in search of solutions to ease anxiety however we can. Please allow me then – in timely fashion and most serendipitously – to get in an early plug for this forthcoming sublime gem laced with helpful suggestions on healing mindfulness.

Not only is the message calming and helpful – and delivered in beguiling imagery guaranteed to reset your outraged Alpha Waves – but it also guarantees a solidly entertaining read while helping to moderate your hunger for physical relaxation and contemplative rejuvenation.

Until recently equally at home in Britain and Japan, Scottish author Seán Michael Wilson (Breaking the Ten, The Story of Lee) was inspired to write The Garden after being asked by a comics newcomer if there were any about gardening. After taking a beat and realising the range of subjects covered in graphic novels was quite limited – and getting smaller – the writer, educator and dedicated Humanist – who has previous form on cerebral topics and non-mainstream graphic narratives – decided to create one himself…

Wilson originally took a degree in psychology, with a postgraduate diploma in clinical hypnotherapy before transferring to the Ninth Art. In comic form, besides more traditional fare, he has co-crafted political and philosophical tracts such as Goodbye God – An Illustrated Examination of Science Vs. Religion and Portraits of Violence – An Illustrated History of Radical Thinking and adapted many Western and Eastern literary classics such as Wuthering Heights, Sweeney Todd, Book of Five Rings and Tao Te Ching. This is a man with wide interests who has learned how to kick back and slow down…

His collaborator here is equally distinguished with similar antecedents. Author, educator, artist and animator Fumio Obata (Just So Happens, DC Thompson, Internazionale) was born in Tokyo in 1975, before moving to the UK at age 16. His BA Illustration degree from Glasgow School of Art was compounded with a Masters in Communication Design from the Royal College of Art before he began pursuing a comics career in Britain and Europe.

In this gloriously welcoming hardback, the classic tale of early success leading to burn-out and transformative healing through new purpose follows formerly high-flying financier Joanna who spectacularly and very publicly suffers an emotional meltdown.

Recovering in her house, a conversation with sister Samantha sets her on a path to a new life that begins with a trip to Japan and a course in creating traditional Zen designs at the Garden Institute of Kyoto.

Once there, Joanna learns that it’s not actually all about her at all…

Filled with delightful human moments and a broad cast of appetising characters, Joanna’s learning curve is a marvellously tempting invitation to combine our personal urban nightmare with a more bucolic experience that Williams was a appeal to the suppressed nature lover in us all, and the life-changing challenge even comes with an appealing Poem of the Garden to start your own verdant rebirth…

Calm, contemplative and mentally refreshing, The Garden is a seed of surprise just waiting for you to plant it…
© 2020 Sean Michael Wilson & Fumio Obata. All rights reserved.
The Garden is scheduled for release on May 21st 2020 and is available for pre-order now.

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Mickey’s Craziest Adventures


By Lewis Trondheim & Keramidas, with Brigitte Findakly: translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger & David Gerstein (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-694-2 (HB) eISBN 978-1-68406-124-2

In his ninety years of existence, Walt Disney’s heroic everyman Mickey Mouse has tackled his fair share of weirdos and super freaks in tales crafted by creators from every corner of the world. A true global phenomenon, the little wonder has staunchly overcome all odds, and he’s always done so as the prototypical nice guy beloved by all. Mickey might have been born in the USA, but he belongs to all humanity now and thus some of his very best comics adventures come from countries like Denmark, Holland, Italy and France. This translation of a saga by Lewis Trondheim & Keramidas ranks right up at the top of the list…

With over 100 books bearing his pen-name (his secret identity is actually Laurent Chabosy), writer/artist/editor/animator and educator Lewis Trondheim is one of Europe’s most prolific comics creators: illustrating his own work, overseeing cartoons adaptations of previous successes such as La Mouche (The Fly) and Kaput and Zösky or editing the younger-readers book series Shampooing for Dargaud.

His most famous tales are such global hits as Les Formidables Aventures de Lapinot (seen in English as The Spiffy Adventures of McConey), the Donjon series of nested fantasy epics (co created with Joann Sfar and translated as conjoined sagas Dungeon: Parade, Dungeon: Monstres and Dungeon: the Early Years), comedy fable Ralph Azham and an utterly beguiling cartoon diaries sequence entitled Little Nothings.

In his spare time – and when not girdling the globe from convention to symposium to festival – the dourly shy and neurotically introspective savant wrote for satirical magazine Psikopat and provided scripts for many of the continent’s most popular artists such as Fabrice Parme (Le Roi Catastrophe, Vénézia), Manu Larcenet (Les Cosmonautes du futur), José Parrondo (Allez Raconte and Papa Raconte) and Thierry Robin (Petit Père Noël).

Ostensibly retired but still going strong, Trondheim is a cartoonist of uncanny wit, outrageous imagination, piercing perspicacity, comforting affability and self-deprecating empathy who prefers to scrupulously control what is known and said about him…

Nicolas Kerimidas (Donjon Monstres, L’Atelier Mastodonte, Donald’s Happiest Adventures) is a French cartoonist hailing from Grenoble who studied animation at the Gobelins School. He worked at Walt Disney Animation France’s Montreuil Studious for almost a decade before switching to comics as illustrator of Didier Crisse’s Luuna. He branched out and carried on, scripting his own stuff as well as being a much sought-after artist for others…

Patterned on Gold Key’s fabulous 1950-1960s run of anthological Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Mickey’s Craziest Adventures purports to be a restored – but tragically incomplete – compilation of a lost serial that ran in those vintage comics, “rediscovered” by the author and artist. The overwhelmingly successful conceit of this little gem – available in hardback and digital formats – is that we all love comics and can’t resist the mystery of an unread one we’ve never heard of…

After opening with essay ‘A Forgotten Treasure’ the yarn jerks into high gear once the “found” pages appear, starting with ‘Chapter 2’ as Mickey gives Donald Duck a lift to Uncle Scrooge‘s Money Bin. On arrival, they witness the entire kaboodle swiped via Gyro Gearloose‘s shrinking ray before being perilously diminished themselves!

Hot pursuit takes our heroes into a primeval world of (comparatively) giant insects and backyard jungles, but the game is afoot and even stranger hazards await them as they pursue the mystery bandits…

With cameos from most of Duckburg and Mouseton’s pantheon of major and minor stars and veteran villains such as Pegleg Pete and the Beagle Boys, this pell-mell romp across the world also encompasses monsters, cavemen, outer space perils and even the gods themselves, to create an unmissable delight for both aged aficionados like you and me and the newest generation of fans.

Frantic, frenzied fun for one and all. You know you have to have it!
© 2016 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.