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Iznogoud and the Magic Computer (volume 4)


By Goscinny & Tabary translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-79-3 (PB Album)

How are you coping with voluntary incarceration? If you’re feeling a little frustrated, why not chill out with a good book – instantly available via digital purchasing and still accessible if you go the physical delivery route as a spiffy paperback tome – and see what real frustration looks like and costs…

During his too-short lifetime (1926-1977) René Goscinny was one of the most prolific, most read writers of comic strips the world has ever seen.

He still is.

Among his most popular comic collaborations are Lucky Luke, Le Petit Nicolas and, of course, Asterix the Gaul. There are so many others, too such as this timeless classic…

Scant years after the Suez crisis, the French returned to the deserts when Goscinny teamed with sublimely gifted Swede Jean Tabary (1930-2011) who numbered Richard et Charlie, Grabadu et Gabaliouchtou, Totoche, Corinne et Jeannot and Valentin le Vagabond amongst his other hit strips.

Together they produced imbecilic Arabian (im)potentate Haroun el-Poussah. However, it was the strip’s villainous foil, power-hungry vizier Iznogoud who stole the show – possibly the conniving little weasel’s only successful scheme.

Les Aventures du Calife Haroun el Poussah was created for Record, with the first instalment appearing in 1962 in the January 15th issue. A minor hit, it latterly jumped ship to Pilote – a magazine created and edited by Goscinny – where it was refashioned into a starring vehicle for the devious little rat-bag who had increasingly hogged all the laughs and limelight.

Like all great storytelling, Iznogoud works on two levels: for younger readers as a comedic romp with sneaky baddies coming a cropper, and as a pun-filled, witty satire for older, wiser heads, much like its more famous cousin Asterix. Happily, it’s also translated here by master translators Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge who made the indomitable little Gaul so very palatable to the English tongue. Best of all, the deliciously malicious whimsy is always heavily-laden with manic absurdity and brilliantly applied creative anachronism to keep the plots bizarrely fresh and inventive.

Our insidious anti-hero is Grand Vizier to affable, generous, easy-going Haroun Al Plassid, Caliph of Ancient Baghdad, but the sneaky little toad has loftier ambitions, or as he is always shouting “I want to be Caliph instead of the Caliph!”…

The revamped series launched in Pilote in 1968, quickly becoming a huge European hit, with 29 albums so far (with 14 translated into English to date). The series has been carried on by Tabary’s children Stéphane, Muriel and Nicolas, in his own solo comic, and has spun-off into a game, TV cartoon show and live action movie.

Goscinny died in 1977, having completed a dozen book’s worth of wonderment and Tabary assumed the scripting as well as the superbly stylish illustration, moving to book-length complete tales, rather than the compilations of short punchy stories that typified their collaborations.

This fourth Cinebook album was the sixth French album (released in 1970 as L’ordinateur magique) and features a clenched and grasping fistful of short, sharp salutary tales beginning – after a handy catch-up profile page – with ‘A Calculated Risk’, wherein the cunning conniver, desperate to forestall a pact between the Caliph and mighty military neighbour Sultan Pullmankar, hires forward-thinking I-Bee’Em and his ponderous problem-solving “computer” to stop the signing of the treaty. The big grey box might be brilliant, but it’s agonisingly slow in reaching its infallible conclusions…

Things then get hilariously surreal after Iznogoud and his long-suffering, bumbling assistant Wa’at Alahf discover a mystic crossroads that can lead unwary travellers onto an unending, pointless journey from which they can neither escape nor return. Dashing back to Baghdad to lure the Caliph onto ‘The Road to Nowhere’, our wicked wayfarers eventually realise that they’ve been stuck on it all along…

Eventually reality resumes and back home and itching to take over, the Vile Vizier then seeks to employ the tragic gifts of lonely hermit Ghoudas Gho’ld: a direct descendent of legendary King Midas in ‘The Golden Handshake’. All Iznogoud has to do to remove the Caliph is get the accursed involuntary metal-maker back to the palace without him touching anything. Easy, no? No…

There’s more tacit skulduggery afoot in ‘The Caliph’s Sceptre’ when Iznogoud hires a master thief to sneak him into the high-security vault where the Staff of Office is cached. If he can prevent the Caliph from presenting it to the people in the annual reaffirmation of worthiness to rule ceremony, the Vizier can legally assume control of the country. Of course, it doesn’t quite play out that way…

This fine kettle of funny fish concludes with ‘The Mysterious Ointment’ as fabled explorer Notsobad the Sailor returns to the port of Basrah. Having forgotten to bring the undetectable Occidental poisons he promised the Vizier, the wily voyager palms him off with a tube of “Schpouk toothpaste’.

Assured the container holds a lethal and undetectable toxin, Iznogoud embarks on an eccentrically convoluted campaign to convince the Caliph and the court that cleaning one’s choppers is the latest and most beneficial of scientific advancements. Care to guess how well that goes?

Snappy, fast-paced hi-jinks and gloriously agonising pun-ishing badinage abound in this mirthfully infectious series which is a household name in France where “Iznogoud” is common parlance for a certain type of politician: over-ambitious, unscrupulous – and often of diminutive stature.

When first released here in the 1970s, these tales made little impression, but hopefully have finally found an appreciative audience among today’s more internationally aware, politically jaded comics-and-cartoon savvy Kids Of All Ages…
© 1970 Dargaud Editeur Paris by Goscinny & Tabary. All rights reserved.

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T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Classics volume 4


By Wally Wood, Steve Skeates, Ralph Reese, Dan Adkins, Ogden Whitney, Chic Stone Mike Sekowsky, George Tuska, John Giunta, Frank Giacoia & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-084-1(TPB) eISBN: 978-1-62302-611-0

The meteoric lifespan and output of Tower Comics is one of the key creative moments in American comicbook history. The brief, bombastic saga of The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves was a benchmark of quality and sheer bravura fun for fans of both the then-still-reawakening superhero genre and that era’s spy-chic obsession.

In the early 1960s, the Bond movie franchise was going from strength to strength, with blazing action and heady glamour utterly transforming the formerly low-key espionage genre. The buzz was infectious: soon Men like Flint and Matt Helm were carving out their own piece of the action as television shanghaied the entire bandwagon with Danger Man and the irresistible Man from U.N.C.L.E. – premiering in September 1964 – bringing the whole shtick inescapably into living rooms across the planet.

Archie Comics editor Harry Shorten was commissioned to create a line of characters for a new distribution-chain funded publishing outfit – Tower Comics. He brought in creative maverick Wally Wood, who sensibly called on some of the biggest names in the industry to produce material in the broad range of genres the company demanded (there was magnificent anthology war-comic Fight the Enemy and wholesome youth-comedy Tippy Teen as well as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and its spin-offs Undersea Agent, Dynamo and NoMan).

Samm Schwartz & Dan DeCarlo handled the funny stuff – which outlasted everything else – whilst Wood, Larry Ivie, Len Brown, Bill Pearson, Steve Skeates, Dan Adkins, Russ Jones, Gil Kane and Ralph Reese contributed scripts for themselves and the industry’s other top talents to illustrate on the interlinked adventure series.

With a ravenous appetite for super-spies and costumed heroes growing in comic-book popularity and amongst the general public, the idea of blending the two concepts seemed inescapable…

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 appeared with no fanfare or pre-publicity on newsstands in August 1965 (with a cover off-sale date of November). Better yet, all Tower titles were in the beloved-but-rarely-seen 80-page Giant format, offering a huge amount of irresistible action and drama in every issue.

All that being said, these tales would not be so revered if they hadn’t been so superbly crafted. As well as Wood, the art accompanying the compelling, subtly more mature stories was by some of the greatest talents in comics: Reed Crandall, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Ayers, Joe Orlando, Frank Giacoia, John Giunta, Steve Ditko and others.

This fourth fabulous compilation compiles and collates T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #11, Dynamo #3 and includes both issues of second spin-off No-Man – all originally released between November 1966 and March 1967 – with the incomparably cool concept and characters going from strength to strength and a spirit of eccentric experimentation and raucous low comedy slipping in to sweeten the pot…

For those who came in late: When brilliant Professor Emil Jennings was attacked by the forces of the mysterious Warlord, the savant perished. Happily, UN troops salvaged some of his greatest inventions, including a belt that increased the density of the wearer’s body until it became as hard as steel, a cloak of invisibility and a brain-amplifier helmet…

The prototypes were divided between several agents to create a unit of super-operatives to counter increasingly bold attacks of multiple global terror threats such as the aforementioned Warlord.

First chosen was affable, honest but far from brilliant file clerk Len Brown who was, to everyone’s surprise, assigned the belt and codename Dynamo. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent NoMan was once decrepit Dr. Anthony Dunn who chose to have his mind transferred into an android body and was then gifted with the invisibility cape. If his artificial body was destroyed Dunn’s consciousness could transfer to another android body. As long as he had a spare ready, he could never die…

Indomitable operative Guy Gilbert of crack Mission: Impossible style T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Squad was asked to beta-test an experimental super-speed suit. As gung-ho Lightning, he was proud to do so, even if every activation of the hyper-acceleration gimmick shortened his life-span…

After the death of telepathic agent Menthor, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. bigwigs created a new – flying – agent. Worryingly, the only operative capable of piloting the heavily-armed aerial warsuit was unscrupulous former mercenary Craig Lawson. Although ruthlessly effective, his attitude continues to give cause for concern …

The super-science spookshow resumes – in both paperback and digital formats – with the November 1966 debut issue of a second spin-off title. NoMan #1 was another sterling selection of superspy sagas with most of the writer credits once again an unresolved secret lost to posterity…

However, we know Gil Kane & Paul Reinman tackled the art for ‘Fingers of Fate’ as a robbery spree seems to implicate famed personages and celebrities in crimes they could not have committed. The trail of the real culprits leads the android agent to India to scotch a scheme to discredit global fingerprinting databases…

John Giunta illustrates ‘Secret in the Sky’ as NoMan battles criminal genius The Gnome after the diminutive demon seizes control of the world’s weather, after which Lightning foils ‘The Warp Wizard’s Master Plan’ (scripted by Steve Skeates with art from Chic Stone), when the teleporting bandit devises a seemingly unbeatable new weapon…

Subtly entrancing art veteran Ogden Whitney limns NoMan as the android agent is ‘Trapped in the Past’ by aliens and remains to render the tragedy of ‘The Good Subterranean’ who tried to reform despite a wave of human intolerance…

Next up is T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #11 (March 1967) which opens with the team’s top agent in big trouble and replaced by a deadly duplicate. ‘The Death of Dynamo’ (art by Dan Adkins & Wood) sees criminal society S.P.I.D.E.R. almost succeed but for one crucial oversight…

Steve Skeates, Mike Sekowsky & Frank Giacoia the detail ‘Lightning vs The Vortex’, pitting T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’s super-speedster against a wily crook with the – stolen – power to create tornados before immortal android NoMan escapes ‘The Trap’ set by telepathic tyrant The King and saves Humanity from mental enslavement in a terse thriller by Skeates & Giunta.

Drama gives way to sly whimsy in ‘Understudy for Dynamo’ (illustrated by Stone) wherein T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent Dan Atkins – AKA Dynamite – is tapped to wear the power-inducing Thunderbelt until Dynamo recovers from exhaustion and pneumonia. Sadly, the substitute is keen but not so able…

The anthological exploits conclude with another quirky outing for winged wonder Raven written and illustrated by legendary craftsman Manny Stallman. ‘The Case of Jacob Einhorn’ finds robot-obsessed Mayven the Poet hired to kill a celebrated Nazi-hunter before he can expose escaped war criminals to the UN. Determined to stop her is a former mercenary who can still learn a few things about being a hero…

A star from the get-go, Dynamo quickly won his own giant-sized solo title. With a March 1967 cover-date, issue #3 kicked off with the husky hero spectacularly battling an alien invasion inside T.H.U.N.D.E.R. HQ that quickly escalates to endanger the entire city. Illustrated by Stone, Wood & Adkins, ‘The Unseen Enemy’ is a potent blockbuster yarn that promises an unmissable return match…

Ralph Reese scripted hilarious romp ‘Bad Day for Leonard Brown’ for Stone to draw as the simplistic hunky he-man hero falls foul of regular girlfriend Alice, sultry fellow agents Diana Dawn and Kitten Kane as well as steely sex siren Iron Maiden all whilst diligently trying to keep a new laser weapon out of the hands of diabolical demagogue Demo…

Stone sticks around to limn Dynamo’s battle against middle eastern despot Phyllis Tyne, as the strongman is forced to reprise ‘The Feats of Samson’ after which Paul Reinman renders a sham marriage to T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent Kitten which exposes S.P.I.D.E.R.’s high crimes in the oil industry and leads to ‘Honeymoon or High Noon?’

The issue ends with another lighthearted romp for Wally Wood’s cartoon alter ego as wily Agent William “Weed” Wylie tries to quell a South American revolution sponsored by rival cabals S.P.I.D.E.R. and Red Star. Drawn by George Tuska, ‘Weed Vs T.H.U.N.D.E.R.’ results in the scrawny pragmatist punching way above his weight when the villains co-opt the super-agents with mindbending gases…

This volume closes with the contents of NoMan #2 (March 1967) as Whitney illustrates ‘Dynamo vs NoMan’ – wherein Spider technologist Doctor Cyber usurps control of the Invisible Agent’s legion of android bodies – and follow-up thrill ‘The Weird Case of the Kiss of Death’ as a reincarnated Egyptian queen sustains her immortal life by consuming life force. Not, however, one enclosed in a plastic body…

Skeates & Stone then detail how battle-wounded Lightning loses his memory of a hidden S.P.I.D.E.R. stronghold in ‘The Web Tightens’ before Whitney returns for ‘Target NoMan’ as hidden organisation Reconquer schemes to resurrect the most evil man in history, before the espionage excitement pauses with Skeates & Whitney’s ‘A Quick Change of Mind’. Here a madman pillages scientists’ mentalities in pursuit of the ultimate weapon, only to fail thanks to the ultimate secret agent…

With stories all shaded in favour of fast pace, sparse dialogue, explosive action and big breathtaking visuals, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was decades ahead of its time and certainly informed everything in Fights ‘n’ Tights comics which came after it. These are truly timeless comic classics which improve with every reading, so do yourself a favour and add these landmark super-sagas to your collection.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Classics volume 4 © 2014 Radiant Assets, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Giant


By Mikaël, translated by Matt Maden (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-253-3 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-254-0

As a purported land of promises and untapped opportunity, America has always fascinated storytellers – especially comics-creators – from the “Old World” of Europe: an inclination and interest that has frequently delivered potent and rewarding results. This continentally-published yarn – by self-taught, multi-disciplined, multi award-winning French-born Québécois auteur Mikaël (Junior l’Aventurier, Rapa Nui, Promise) was first released by Dargaud in 2018 as two European albums and now breaks into English via a monolithically oversized hardback (229 x 305mm) edition that gets the entire story done-in-one.

Everything about this stylish Depression-era drama is big and powerfully mythic. In March 1932, with poverty wracking the nation and the world, and Herbert Hoover dreading the upcoming Presidential election, immigrants and natives flock to Manhattan and the bustling, dangerous construction site that will one day be Rockerfeller Center. Casualties are high as we focus on the Irish contingent rushing daily into the skies to rivet and weld a concrete and steel colossus into New York City’s ever-changing skyline.

The story unfolds through the eyes of fresh-off-the-boat new recruit Dan Shackleton who joins the crew after the death of “high-steel” man Ryan Murphy. Dan is a garrulous, easy-going son-of-the-sod, but even he has difficulty befriending the taciturn, thoughtful, barely-human behemoth everyone calls Giant. A formidable worker, Giant lives in a grubby flop-house and keeps to himself, but affable Dan persists and eventually the big man almost-imperceptibly thaws – at least enough that Shackleton becomes unwitting witness to a strange ritual…

Hiding a tragic secret that dates back to the recent Irish War of Independence, the Big Man is a solitary creature of fiercely controlled passions who keeps his every opinion to himself. A dutiful worker, Giant was given the task of informing Murphy’s widow in Ireland when he died. Instead, he began impersonating the dead man in a string of letters containing the bulk of his own carefully-hoarded wages and savings. Over months, a bizarre one-sided relationship develops that metastasizes into a full-blown crisis after the silent bruiser falls foul of organised crime. When the letters and money stop, Mary Ann Murphy and her children take ship for America to be reunited with her beloved husband. As the wounded colossus recuperates, he has no idea of the troubles that are heading his way…

Tapping into a wealth of powerful socially-crusading movies that have immortalised pre-WWII America and packed with period detail and mythology, pungent political commentary, a broad cast of moving characters and timeless drama, this is a human-scaled tale playing out amongst mighty edifices – both human and architectural – with warmth, passion, humour and beguiling humanity.

Supplemented with an Introduction by Jean-Louis Tripp and a stunning selection of production sketches, covers and other art, Giant is a stunning saga of uncommon folk in perilous times and one no lover of grand stories could possibly resist.
© 2018 Dargaud-Benelux. © 2020 NBM for the English Translation. All rights reserved.

Giant is scheduled for UK release April 23rd 2020 and is available for pre-order now.
Most NBM books are also available in digital formats. For more information and other great reads go to NBM Publishing at nbmpub.com.

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Twilight of the Assholes – The Chronicles of the Era of Darkness 2005-2009 (Book 2)


By Tim Kreider (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-398-9 (PB)

This book is intended to make adults laugh and think. If the title isn’t clue enough, please be warned that these pages contain nudity, sexual imagery, intentionally insulting images of political figures and rational opinions clothed in harsh language and thought-provoking political comedy. Some people think the author didn’t go far enough, but hey…
If that sort of thing offends you or you believe that blasphemy is a sin and/or a crime, read no further and don’t buy this book. The rest of us will just have to manage without you.

The opening years of the 21st century were plagued with horrors and disasters exacerbated by a hideous global proliferation of lying, greedy, venal, demented and just plain stupid rulers leading governments who finally elevated politicians to that phylum of useless tools and pimples on the butt of humanity once only occupied by lawyers and faith healers. Since then, bankers, astrologers, “influencers”, doorstep evangelists, celebrity gossip columnists and all types of psychics joined their rarefied ranks and I’m thinking I need to cut down on coffee or reassess my critical parameters…

With the benefit of a decade’s distance it’s clear that we didn’t learn anything and have only devolved into even worse as a species – if only in selecting people to guide and be in charge of us…

I can’t currently bring myself to laugh at the current crop of imbeciles-in-charge as we all collectively watch the bravest and noblest amongst us be daily betrayed, fobbed off and cheated of the money, tools and support they need to save lives in hospitals across the planet. All I can do is look back at when some folk – me especially – believed we could never do any worse in choosing leaders. Looks like were wrong then and now I’m looking for another hit of graphic retaliation and indulgent graphic stress-release…

If you require similar, this old paperback is readily available in digital formats. Trust me, only the names have changed: the assholery remains the same…

When George Dubya Bush acceded to the throne of America there were a lot of apologetic liberals and whooping goons. There was also essayist and cartoonist Ted Kreider.

Born in 1967 and raised on comicbooks whilst actually paying attention in school, Kreider is an erudite and passionate man with thoughtfully reasoned opinions on politics, religion and the human condition among the many other things. He is also an extremely gifted writer and cartoonist who began self-publishing in 1994.

By 1997 The Baltimore City Paper had picked up his deliciously polemical panel strip-with-accompanying essay ‘The Pain – When Will it End?’ and they were closely followed by the Jackson Planet Weekly, Illinois’ Indy in Bloomington-Normal, The New York Press, The Stranger, Philadelphia Weekly plus other independent and alternative papers. In September 2000 Kreider began releasing the material as a webcomic.

Although at the time a self-confessed left-leaning Democrat, that never stopped him punishing his own camp’s many gaffes, goofs, lies, embarrassments and ideological idiocies. Like our own Gerald Scarfe and Steve Bell with Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair/em>, Kreider was lucky enough (if you discount elevated blood-pressure, maxed-out sense of disbelief and perpetually outraged moral compass) to have been given the gift of a perfect incumbent target in the Bush administration of 2000-2008 and the right-wing anti-intellectual, Christian-fundamentalist crusade/pogrom that brought them to power and still remains to blight he world – fully as much as every other dogmatic, monied special interests group does…

Along the way, Kreider also managed to incense other churches and faiths from Catholics to Moslems, all manner of bigot from racists to homophobes and outrage proponents of all those other aspects of modern US society that makes all us non-Americans nervous and giggly in equal measure.

Subtitled ‘Volume II of the Chronicles of the Era of Darkness 2004-2009’ and this weighty and hilariously biting collection of gags and commentaries covers the – to Kreider especially – incomprehensible re-election and second term of the Republican Saviour and his dark apostles Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice and the rest, whilst still finding room and Reasonable Cause to pictorially pummel Chinese expansion, assorted religions’ definitions of life and attitudes to sex, aspects and definitions of Freedom, geopolitics and Big Oil.
Under his excoriating lens also fell Intelligent Design, the new Russian Empire, Secret Fantasies of the rich and statesmanlike, Crackpot Theories and all sorts of Science: from the author’s spirited defence of Pluto’s planet-hood to Human-Animal Hybrids, Parallel Universes and new roles for the Giant Squid…

With stunning examples of the cartoonist’s eternal roles as social conscience, intellectual champion, puncturer of pomposity and lampooning last bastion of grace under oppressive political pressure, Kreider boldly kicked the shins of the smug over-class and stamped on the toes of all the entrenched whited sepulchres and obnoxiously applied shibboleths that made him annoyed and ashamed of huge swathes of his fellow Americans. Not that Britain or any other colonial power has any moral high ground to sneer down from…

The collected work covers the period November 4th 2004 to October 29th 2009 and includes the shocked rapture of a Democratic win and the nation’s first non-white president – and ends with a shaky dawning suspicion that all politicians might just be the same. Same as it ever was…

Particularly effective sallies to relive include ‘Jesus vs. Jeezus’, ‘The Conservative Christian’s Guide to Compassion’, ‘I “heart” Saddam’, ‘The War on Christmas’, ‘Americans vs. ‘Muricans’, ‘What is Freedom?’, ‘Me & George, We Got Problems’, ‘Silver Linings of the Holocaust’, ‘What You Can Do to Fight the War on Sex’, ‘Everything I Know I Learned from the Bush Administration’, ‘Secret Vices of the Liberals’, ‘Republican Sex Toys’, ‘God: Republican or Democrat?’, ‘After All the Money’s Gone’, ‘We Even Yet?’ and the 5-part ‘Contributions of the World’s Religions’ but there’s guaranteed to be something to shock or offend everybody here – you might even be compelled to think for yourself and question a little bit more…

Forensic, withering humour and viciously necessary satire tellingly rendered combined with savage yet personable, winningly intimate reportage make this one of the best cartoon coshes ever applied to the politics of this century, and I mourn with honest grief the fact that Kreider has left the current Republican administration alone all this time…

I look forward with desperation – if not hope – to more from him in light of confirmation that people didn’t get less stupid, rulers never change their spots and religions have all amped up dictating what their followers can think or feel…

You have to laugh, don’t you…?
Cartoons and text © 2011 Tim Kreider. All rights reserved.

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An Age of Reptiles Omnibus volume 1


By Ricardo Delgado with colours by James Sinclair & Jim Campbell (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-683-1 (TPB)

As we’re confronted with the prospect of our own extinction-level event – yes, that’s hyperbole, but tell that to the scared millions who can’t actually envisage a world without themselves in it – let’s enjoy ourselves whenever and however we can. For me that’s comics, so let’s look at a classic paperback tome now available in digital editions…

There’s an irresistible, nigh-visceral appeal to dinosaurs. Most of us variously – and too often haphazardly – over-evolved apes seem to be irresistibly drawn to all forms of education and entertainment featuring monster lizards of our primordial past.

Designed as a purely visual experience, this hypnotically beguiling series of sequences from Ricardo Delgado still represents one of the most honestly enchanting brushes with prehistory ever imagined. Age of Reptiles opens a window onto distant eons of saurian dominance and – completely devoid of sound or text – provides a profound, pantomimic silent movie that focuses on a number of everyday experiences which simply have to be exactly how it was, way back then…

Crafted by one of the most respected concept and storyboard men in Hollywood (with credits for Men in Black, The Incredibles, WALL-E, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Matrix and much more) these dino-dramas and sauro-sagas offer – even in comics – a unique reading experience that must be seen to be believed, which is why I’m forgoing my usual laborious forensic descriptive blather in favour of a more general appreciation…

The tales originally appeared as a sequence of miniseries between 1993 and 2010 before being subsequently collected as individual compilations. In 2011 this titanic tome, part of Dark Horse’s excellent and economical Omnibus line, gathered the material into one handy Brachiosaur-sized book to treasure forever.

Following the expansive praise of Animator, Director and Producer Genndy Tartarkovsky in his Foreword, the original introductions to initial outing ‘Tribal Warfare’ (from Ray Harryhausen, Burne Hogarth and John Landis) precede a fantastic extended clash between a pack – or perhaps more properly clan – of Deinonychus and a particularly irate opportunistic and undeterrable Tyrannosaur.

The savage struggle, literally red in tooth and claw, takes both sides to the very edge of extinction…

As in all these tales, the astoundingly rendered and realised scenery and environment are as much leading characters in the drama as any meat and muscle protagonists. Moreover, all the other opportunistic scavengers and hangers-on that prowl the peripheries of the war, are ever-eager to take momentary advantage of what seems more a mutual quest for vengeance than a simple battle for survival…

That theme is further explored in ‘The Hunt’ (with then-Disney chief Thomas Schumacher offering his observations in the attendant introduction) wherein the eat-or-be-eaten travails of a mother Allosaurus end only after she dies defending her baby. The culprits are a determined and scarily-organised pack of Ceratosaurs who latterly expend a lot of energy trying to consume the carnosaur’s kid amidst scenes of staggering geographical beauty and terrifying magnificence.

Their failure leads to the beast’s eventual return and a bloody evening of the score. Think of it as Bambi with really big teeth and no hankies required…

The theme of unrelenting and ruthless species rivalry and competition is downplayed or at least diverted for the final episode. ‘The Journey’, with introduction and appreciation by educator and illustrator Ann Field, concentrates on an epic migration across the barren surface of the world as millions of assorted saurians undertake a prodigious and arduous trek to more welcoming feeding and spawning grounds. Because that’s how life works, they are dogged every step of the way by flying, swimming and remorselessly running creatures looking for their next tasty meal…

Supplementing the feral beauty of these astonishing adventures is a full Cover Gallery from the assorted original miniseries and earlier book compilations; Delgado’s fulsome and effulgent Essays on his influences (‘Ray Harryhausen and the Seventh Voyage to the Drive-In’, ‘Desi Arnaz and the Eighth Wonder of the World’, ‘Real Dinosaurs: the Art of Charles R. Knight’ and ‘Zen and ZdenÄ›k Burian’) plus a fabulous, copious and – if you think you’re an artist – envy-invoking Sketchbook section, with everything from quick motion studies to full colour preliminary pieces for the final artwork..

Although occasionally resorting to a judicious amount of creative anachronism and historical overlap, Delgado has an unquestioned love for his subject, a sublime feel for spectacle and an unmatchable gift for pace and narrative progression. Coupled to the deft hand which imbues the vast range and cast of big lizards with instantly recognisable individual looks and characters, this always ensures that the reader knows exactly who is doing what. There’s even room for some unexpectedly but most welcome rough-love humour in these brilliantly simple forthright, primal dramas…
© 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2009, 2010, 2011 Ricardo Delgado. All rights reserved.

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High Soft Lisp


By Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-318-7 (TPB)

Please pay attention: this book contains stories and images of an adult nature, specifically designed for adult consumption employing the kind of coarse, vulgar language most kids are fluent in by the age of ten. If reading about such things is likely to offend you, please stop now and go away. Tomorrow I’ll write about something with violence and explosions, so come back then.

In addition to being part of the graphic and literary revolution that is Love and Rockets (where his astonishingly compulsive tales of Palomar and the later stories of those characters collected as Luba gained such critical acclaim), Gilbert Hernandez has produced compelling stand-alone tales such as Sloth, Grip and Girl Crazy. They are all marked by his bold, simplified line artwork and a mature, sensitive use of the literary techniques of Magical Realist writers Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel García Márquez: techniques which he has added to and made his own.

Love and Rockets is an anthology comics publication featuring slick, intriguing, sci-fi-ish larks, heart-warming, terrifying, gut-wrenching soap-opera fantasy and bold experimental comic narratives that pretty much defy classification. The synthesistic Hernandez Bros still captivate with incredible stories that sample a thousand influences conceptual and actual – everything from Archie Comics and alternative music to German Expressionism and luchadors.

Palomar was the conceptual and cultural playground “Beto” created for extended serial Heartbreak Soup: a dirt-poor Latin-American village with a vibrant, funny and fantastically quotidian cast. Everything from life death, adultery, magic, serial killing and especially gossip could happen in Palomar’s meta-fictional environs – and did – as the artist explored his own post-punk influences: comics, music, drugs, comics, strong women, gangs, sex, family and comics, and all in a style somehow informed by everything from Tarzan comics to Saturday morning cartoons and The Lucy Show.

Happily, Beto returns to Palomar constantly, usually with tales involving the formidable matriarch Luba, who ran the village’s bath house, acted as Mayor (and sometimes police chief) as well as adding regularly and copiously to the general population. Her children, brought up with no acknowledged fathers in sight, are Maricela, Guadalupe, Doralis, Casimira, Socorro, Joselito and Concepcion.

Luba eventually migrated to the USA and reunited with her half-sisters Petra and – the star of this volume – Rosalba “Fritz” Martinez. This collection was compiled from assorted material that first appeared in Love and Rockets volume II and Luba’s Comics and Stories, with some new pages and many others redrawn and rewritten.

Fritz is a terrifyingly complex creature. She is a psychiatrist and therapist, former B-Movie actress, occasional belly dancer, persistent drunk, ardent gun-fetishist, as well as a sexually aggressive and manipulative serial spouse. Beautiful, enticingly damaged, with a possibly-intentional speech impediment, she sashays from crisis to triumph and back again, and this moving, shocking, funny chronicle uses the rambling recollections of one of her past husbands – motivational speaker Mark Herrera – to follow her life from High School punkette outsider through her various career and family ups and downs…

Under the umbrella title of ‘Dumb Solitaire’, what purports to be the memoir of Senor Herrera reveals in scathing depth the troubled life of the woman he cannot stay away from in an uncompromising and sexually explicit “documentary” which pulls no punches, makes no judgements and yet still manages to come off as a feel-good tale.

Available in physical and digital formats, High Soft Lisp is the most intriguing depiction of feminine power and behaviour since Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – and probably just as controversial – with the added advantage of intoxicating drawing adding shades of meaning that mere text just cannot impart.

Very funny, very moving, remarkable and unmissable: no mature fan of the medium should deprive themselves of this treat.
© 2010 Gilbert Hernandez. All Rights Reserved.

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Thorgal volume 5: The Land of Qa/The Eyes of Tanatloc


By Rosiński & Van Hamme, translated by Luke Spear (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-80-9 (Album PB)

One of the very best and most celebrated fantasy adventure series ever created, Thorgal deftly accomplishes the seemingly impossible: pleasing critics and selling in vast quantities.

The prototypical Game of Thrones saga debuted in iconic weekly Le Journal de Tintin in 1977 with album compilations beginning three years later. The far-reaching, expansive generational saga has won a monolithic international following in numerous languages and dozens of countries, generating a flotilla of spin-off series, and thus naturally has found a strong presence in the field of global gaming.

In story-terms, Thorgal offers the best of all weird worlds, with an ostensibly historical setting of bold Viking adventure seamlessly incorporating science fiction elements, magic, horrendous beasts, social satire, political intrigue, soap opera, Atlantean legends and mythically mystical literary standbys such as gods, monsters and devils.

Created by Belgian writer Jean Van Hamme (Domino, XIII, Largo Winch, Blake and Mortimer) and Polish illustrator Grzegorz Rosiński (Kapitan Żbik, Pilot Śmigłowca, Hans, The Revenge of Count Skarbek), the feature grew unstoppably over decades. The creative duo co-completed 29 albums between 1980 and 2006 when Van Hamme moved on. Scripting duties fell to Yves Sente who collaborated on a further five collections until 2013.

In 2016, Xavier Dorison wrote one and in 2018 Yann (Yannick Le Pennetier) another, after which the latter remained as scripter whilst RosiÅ„ski took a break with Fred Vigaux illustrating 2019’s L’Ermite de Skellingar: the 37th tome in the sequence…

By the time Van Hamme departed, the canon had grown to cover not only the life of the titular hero and his psionically-gifted son Jolan, but also other indomitable family and cast members through a number of spin-offs (Kriss de Valnor, Louve, La Jeunesse de Thorgal), gathered under the umbrella title Les Mondes de Thorgal – with each eventually winning their own series of solo albums.

In 1985, American publisher Donning released a brief but superb series of oversized hardcover book translations but Thorgal never really found an English-speaking audience until Cinebook began its own iteration in 2007.

What Has Gone Before: As a baby Thorgal was recovered from a ferocious storm at sea and raised by Northern Viking chief Leif Haraldson. Nobody could possibly know the fortunate foundling had survived an interstellar incident which destroyed a starship full of super-scientific aliens…

Growing to manhood, the strange boy was eventually forced out of his adopted land by ambitious Gandalf the Mad who feared the young warrior threatened his own claim to the throne. For his entire childhood, Thorgal had been inseparable from Gandalf’s daughter Aaricia and, as soon as they were able, they fled together from the poisonous atmosphere to live free from her father’s lethal jealousy and obsessive terror of losing his throne…

Danger was always close but after many appalling hardships, the lovers and their new son finally found a measure of cautious tranquillity by occupying a small island where they could thrive in safety…

The original series wanders back and forth through the hero’s life and Cinebook’s fifth double-album edition (comprising 10th epic Le pays Qâ and sequel saga #11 Les Yeux de Tanatloc from 1986, and available in both paperback and digital formats) reveals how Thorgal Aegirsson’s dreams of a life of splendid and secure isolation are forever ended by an old enemy…

The Land of Qa opens in the deepest winter as Thorgal and Aaricia’s island home is invaded by a band of mercenaries. The warrior and his wife are hosting new friends Argun Tree Foot and his tempestuous nephew Tjall the Fiery but the idyllic holiday ends in rage and humiliation as vicious pirates abduct the aged armourer and Jolan.

Before the enraged father can head after them, he is intercepted by a former acquaintance: ruthless thief Kriss of Valinor. She has taken a profitable commission and ensured Thorgal’s assistance despite their past animosities and potential objections. Gloatingly enjoying the upper hand, Kriss even acquiesces when Aaricia forcefully insists on coming with them…

The situation escalates into madness when Kriss’ allies/clients arrive, sailing a boat through the winter skies, held aloft by a series of vast balloons. Jolan and Tree Foot are already far out at sea, in a more conventional vessel, but their ultimate destination is anything but familiar…

Aboard the sky-ship, Thorgal and his companions, having been rendered unconscious by alien technology, are given a subliminal history lesson by a high priest of the distant Land of Qa – a region resembling pre-Columbian Central America. Since his own memories of his alien origins have been suppressed, the astounding tale of two warring men of godlike power who elevated savage primitives into warriors able to subjugate a continent means nothing to Thorgal…

He has no conception that he is the son of one of those pale deities and grandson of the other. All he knows is that he must steal the magic mask of one of them for the other, and his despised partner-in-crime Kriss cannot be trusted…

The mission seems doomed from the start. As Jolan and Tree Foot are unceremoniously marooned in a strange, arid land by their captors, far away and high above them the sky-ship is ambushed by enemy vessels. The horrific skirmish leaves Thorgal, Aaricia, Tjall and Kriss stranded in wild jungles miles from their target-destination: the imperial city of Mayaxatl and the almighty Ogatai who is their destined victim…

Compounding the crisis, Jolan and Tree Foot have also discovered a lost city. Xinjin is the capital of Ogatai’s puissant alien enemy, and holds secrets that somehow trigger strangely familial intuitions in Thorgal’s psychically precocious son…

And in the lush jungles, the father too experiences unwelcome premonitions and vague memories of people he has never met…
The saga continues – but does not conclude – in The Eyes of Tanatloc as the distanced and separated family works to reunite, driven by unknown and inexpressible forces. After endlessly battling horrific beasts, enduring and defeating deadly swamps and the perils of their own motivations, Thorgal’s party finally escapes the green hell and begins their assault on Mayaxatl. It has left them all exhausted and changed…

All the while, in Xinjin, dying Tanatloc has been subtly training little Jolan, trying to explain to his wary descendent the nature of the powers they share and their unearthly origins. The tutelage is sadly wasted, as high priest Variay subverts and derails his God’s efforts for his own reasons and with the intention of installing the boy as the new god-king of Xinjin…

To be Concluded…

A rousing generational fantasy epic, Thorgal is every fantasy fan’s ideal dream of unending adventure: by turns ingenious, expansive, fierce, funny, phenomenally gripping and incredibly complex. this cunningly crafted, astonishingly addictive tale offers a keen insight into the character of a true, if exceedingly reluctant, hero and the waves he makes in a fabulous forgotten world. What fanatical fantasy aficionado could possibly resist such barbaric blandishments?
Original editions © Rosiński & Van Hamme 1986, Les Editions du Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard SA). English translation © 2009 Cinebook Ltd.

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Batman: False Faces


By Brian K. Vaughan with Scott McDaniel, Rick Burchett, Scott Kolins, Marcos Martin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2228-4 (TPB)

Like most “overnight successes” writer Brian K. Vaughan actually plugged away for those requisite few years before hitting it big with series such as Ex Machina and Y: The Last Man and original works such as the magnificent Pride of Baghdad.

This collection – readily available in digital formats and a just a bit trickier to get in paperback form – purports to be a Batman compendium (better sales potential, I’d imagine) but is in fact a general gathering of (much but not all) DC Universe material by Vaughan in his formative days. Following a mendaciously wry – and potentially litigious – Introduction, the first yarn is a 3-part tale from Batman #588-590 (April-June 2001), illustrated by Scott McDaniel & Karl Story.

The star is the Dark Knight’s underworld alter-ego Matches Malone as ‘Close Before Striking’ offers a very readable psycho-drama revealing the true (and updated) origin of the underworld alias whilst taking readers on a traumatic excursion into the dark side of undercover work. It’s followed by the delightfully dark and whimsical ‘Mimsy Were the Borogoves’ from Detective Comics #787, December 2003. With art from Rick Burchett & John Lowe, this stand-alone story features a deeply demented encounter with The Mad Hatter, and is undoubtedly the best thing in the book…

There’s only a tenuous Batman link in the next tale, which originally saw print as Wonder Woman #160-161 (September & October 2000). Drawn by Scott Kolins with inks from Dan Panosian & Drew Geraci, ‘A Piece of You’ finds shape-changing Bat-villain Clayface attacking the Amazing Amazon when he learns of her origin. Since she was formed from Magic Clay, he reasons that he can absorb her – and her magical abilities – into his own mass. And stone me; he’s right! Action-packed and tongue in cheek, this daft but readable thriller also guest stars former Wonder Girl Donna Troy, Nightwing and Robin.

Somewhat messily, the tome ends with a mere snippet from Batman: Gotham City Secret Files #1 (April 2000) which introduced themed villain The Skeleton, before promptly forgetting all about him. ‘Skullduggery’ is limned by Marcos Martin & Mark Pennington, and although competent, rather lets down a very enjoyable trawl through the Fights ‘n’ Tights work of one of the best writers in comics. If you enjoy superhero tales or are a Vaughan aficionado, please don’t let this slight defect deter you from a great slice of comic book fun.
© 2000, 2001, 2003, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Avengers Epic Collection volume 1 1963-1965: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes


By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Larry Lieber, Larry Ivie, Don Heck, Dick Ayers & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-8864-3(TPB)

After a period of meteoric expansion, in 1963 the burgeoning Marvel Universe was finally ready to emulate the successful DC concept that had cemented the legitimacy of the Silver Age of American comics.

The concept of putting a bunch of all-star eggs in one basket which had made the Justice League of America such a winner also inspired the moribund Atlas outfit – primarily Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko – into inventing “super-characters” of their own. The result – in 1961 – was the Fantastic Four.

Nearly 18 months later, the fledgling House of Ideas had generated a small but viable stable of costumed leading men (but only sidekick women) so Lee & Kirby assembled a handful of them and moulded them into a force for justice and soaring sales…

Seldom has it ever been done with such style and sheer exuberance. Cover dated September 1963, The Avengers #1 launched as part of an expansion package which also included Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and The X-Men…

Marvel’s Epic Collections – available in trade paperback and digital formats – are only one of many archival series faithfully compiling those groundbreaking tales and this premier volume gathers #1-20 of The Avengers (spanning March 1963 to September 1965) is a sequence no lover of superhero stories can do without…

The suspenseful action kicks off with ‘The Coming of the Avengers!’: Instead of starting at a neutral beginning Stan & Jack (plus inker Dick Ayers) presumed buyers had a passing familiarity with Marvel’s other heroes and so wasted very little time or space on introductions.

In Asgard, immortal trickster Loki is imprisoned on a dank isle, hungry for vengeance on his noble half-brother Thor. Whilst malevolently observing Earth, the god of evil espies the monstrous, misunderstood Hulk and mystically engineers a situation wherein the man-brute seemingly goes on a rampage, simply to trick the Thunder God into battling the monster.

When the Hulk’s teen sidekick Rick Jones radios the FF for assistance, devious Loki scrambles and diverts the transmission and smugly awaits the blossoming of his mischief. Sadly for the schemer, Iron Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp also pick up the redirected SOS. As the heroes all converge in the American Southwest to search for the Jade Giant, they realise that something is oddly amiss…

This terse, epic, compelling and wide-ranging yarn (New York, New Mexico, Detroit and Asgard in 22 pages) is Lee & Kirby at their bombastic best, and remains one of the greatest stories of the Silver Age (it’s certainly high in my own top ten Marvel Tales) and is followed by ‘The Space Phantom’ (Lee, Kirby & Paul Reinman), wherein an alien shape-stealer almost destroys the team from within.

With latent animosities exposed by the malignant masquerader, the tale ends with the volatile Hulk quitting the team in disgust, only to return in #3 as an outright villain in partnership with ‘Sub-Mariner!’ This globe-trotting romp delivers high-energy thrills and one of the best battle scenes in comics history as the assorted titans clash in abandoned World War II tunnels beneath the Rock of Gibraltar.

Inked by George Roussos, Avengers #4 was a groundbreaking landmark as Marvel’s greatest Golden Age sensation returns for another increasingly war-torn era. ‘Captain America joins the Avengers!’ has everything that made the company’s early tales so fresh and vital. The majesty of a legendary warrior returned in our time of greatest need: stark tragedy in the loss of his boon companion Bucky, aliens, gangsters, Sub-Mariner and even subtle social commentary and – naturally – vast amounts of staggering Kirby Action. It even begins with a cunning infomercial as Iron Man unsuccessfully requests the assistance of the company’s other fresh young stars, giving readers a taste of the other mighty Marvels on offer to them…

Reinman returned to ink ‘The Invasion of the Lava Men!’: another staggering adventure romp as the team battle incendiary subterraneans and a world-threatening mutating mountain… with the unwilling assistance of the ever-incredible Hulk…

However, even that pales before the supreme shift in artistic quality that is Avengers #6.

Chic Stone – arguably Kirby’s best Marvel inker of the period – joined the creative team just as a classic arch-foe debuts. ‘The Masters of Evil!’ reveals how Nazi super-scientist Baron Zemo is forced by his own arrogance and paranoia to emerge from the South American jungles he’s been skulking in since the Third Reich fell, after learning his despised nemesis Captain America has returned from the dead.

To this end, the ruthless war-criminal recruits a gang of previously established super-villains to attack New York City and destroy the Avengers. The unforgettable clash between valiant heroes and the vile murdering mercenaries Radioactive Man, Black Knight and the Melter is an unsurpassed example of prime Marvel magic to this day.

Issue #7 followed up with two more malevolent recruits for the Masters of Evil as Asgardian outcasts Enchantress and the Executioner ally with Zemo, just as Iron Man is suspended from the team due to misconduct occurring in his own series. This was the dawning of the close-continuity era where events in one series were regularly referenced and even built upon in others. The practise would quickly become a rod for the creators’ own backs and lead to a radical rethink…

It may have been ‘Their Darkest Hour!’, but #8 delivered the team’s greatest triumph and tragedy as Jack Kirby (inked with fitting circularity by Dick Ayers) relinquished his drawing role with the superbly entrancing invasion-from-time thriller which introduced ‘Kang the Conqueror!’ Riffing on the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, the tale sees an impossible powerful foe defeated by the cunning of ordinary teenagers and the indomitable spirit of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes…

Whenever Jack Kirby left a title he’d co-created, it took a little while to settle into a new rhythm, and none more so than with these collectivised costumed crusaders. Although Lee and the fabulously utilitarian Don Heck were perfectly capable of producing cracking comics entertainments, they never had The King’s unceasing sense of panoramic scope and scale which constantly sought bigger, bolder blasts of excitement.

The Avengers evolved into an entirely different series when the subtle humanity of Heck’s vision replaced Kirby’s larger-than-life bombastic bravura. The series had rapidly advanced to monthly circulation and even The King could not draw the massive number of pages his expanding workload demanded. Heck was a gifted and trusted artist with a formidable record for meeting deadlines and, progressing under his pencil, sub-plots and character interplay finally got as much space as action and spectacle. After Kirby, the stories increasingly focused on scene-stealing newcomer Captain America: concentrating on frail human beings in costumes, rather than wild modern gods and technological titans bestriding and shaking the Earth…

Inked by Ayers, Heck’s first outing was memorable tragedy ‘The Coming of the Wonder Man!’ wherein the Masters of Evil plant superhuman Trojan Horse Simon Williams within the heroes’ ranks, only to have the conflicted infiltrator find deathbed redemption by saving them from the deadly deathtrap he creates…

Another Marvel mainstay debuts with the introduction of (seemingly) malignant master of time Immortus, who briefly combines with Zemo’s devilish cohort to engineer a fatal division in the ranks by removing Cap from the field in ‘The Avengers Break Up!’ A sign of the Star-Spangled Sentinel’s increasing popularity, the issue is augmented by a Marvel Masterwork Pin-Up of ‘The One and Only Cap’ courtesy of Kirby & Ayers…

An eagerly-anticipated meeting delighted fans when #11 declared ‘The Mighty Avengers Meet Spider-Man!’: a clever and classy cross-fertilising tale inked by Chic Stone. It features the return of the time-bending tyrant conqueror as he attempts to destroy the team by insinuating a robotic duplicate of the outcast arachnid within their serried ranks. It’s accompanied by Heck’s Marvel Master Work Pin-up of ‘Kang!’ and is followed by a cracking end-of-the-world thriller with guest-villains Mole Man and the Red Ghost doing their best avoid another clash with the Fantastic Four.

This was another Marvel innovation, as – according to established funnybook rules – bad guys stuck to their own nemeses and didn’t clash outside their own backyards….

‘This Hostage Earth!’ (inked by Ayers) is a welcome return to grand adventure with lesser lights Giant-Man and the Wasp taking rare lead roles, but is trumped by a rousing gangster thriller of a sort seldom seen outside the pages of Spider-Man or Daredevil, premiering Marvel universe Mafia analogue the Maggia and another major menace in #13’s ‘The Castle of Count Nefaria!’

After crushingly failing in his scheme to frame the Avengers, Nefaria’s caper ends on a tragic cliffhanger as Janet Van Dyne is left gunshot and dying, leading to a peak in melodramatic tension in #14 – scripted by Paul Laiken/Larry Ivie & Larry Lieber over Stan’s plot – as the traumatised team scour the globe for the only surgeon who can save her.

‘Even Avengers Can Die!’ – although of course she doesn’t – resolves into an epic alien invader tale with overtones of This Island Earth with Kirby stepping in to lay out the saga for Heck & Stone to illustrate. This only whets the appetite for the classic climactic confrontation that follows as the costumed champions finally deal with the Masters of Evil and Captain America finally avenges the death of his dead partner.

‘Now, by My Hand, Shall Die a Villain!’ in #15 – laid-out by Kirby, pencilled by Heck and inked by Mike Esposito – features the final, fatal confrontation between Cap and Zemo in the heart of the Amazon, whilst the other Avengers and the war-criminal’s cohort of masked menaces clash once more on the streets of New York City…

The battle ends with ‘The Old Order Changeth!’ (broken down by Kirby before being finished by Ayers) presaging a dramatic change in concept for the series; presumably because, as Lee increasingly wrote to the company’s unique strengths – tight continuity and strongly individualistic characterisation – he found juggling individual stars in their own titles as well as a combined team episode every month was just incompatible if not impossible…

As Cap and substitute sidekick Rick Jones fight their way back to civilisation, the Avengers institute changes. The big-name stars retire and are replaced by three erstwhile villains: Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

Eventually, led by perennial old soldier Captain America, this relatively powerless group with no outside titles to divide the attention (the Sentinel of Liberty did have a regular feature in Tales of Suspense but at that time it featured adventures set during WWII), evolved into another squabbling family of flawed, self-examining neurotics, enduring extended sub-plots and constant action as valiant underdogs; a formula readers of the time could not get enough of and which still works today…

Acting on advice from the departing Iron Man, the neophytes seek to recruit the Hulk to add raw power to the team, only to be sidetracked by the Mole Man in #17’s kFour Against the Minotaur!’ (Lee, Heck & Ayers), after which they then fall foul of a dastardly “commie” plot ‘When the Commissar Commands!’ – necessitating a quick trip to thinly-disguised Viet Nam analogue Sin-Cong to unwittingly battle a bombastic android…

This brace of relatively run-of-the-mill tales is followed by an ever-improving run of mini-masterpieces: the first of which wraps up this initial Epic endeavour with a 2-part gem providing an origin for Hawkeye and introducing a rogue-ish hero/villain.

‘The Coming of the Swordsman!’ introduces a dissolute and disreputable swashbuckler – with just a hint of deeply-buried flawed nobility – who attempts to force his way onto the highly respectable team. His rejection leads to him becoming an unwilling pawn of a far greater menace after being kidnapped by A-list would-be world despot the Mandarin.

The conclusion comes in the superb ‘Vengeance is Ours!’ – sublimely inked by the one-&-only Wally Wood – wherein the constantly-bickering Avengers finally pull together as a supernaturally efficient, all-conquering super-team…

The bonus features in this titanic tome include September 1963 house ads for the imminently debuting Avengers, augmented by production-stage correction photostats and original art by Kirby, Ayers, Heck and Wood.
These immortal tales defined the early Marvel experience and are still a joy no fan should deny themselves or their kids.
© 2019 MARVEL.

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Gag on This: the Scrofulous Cartoons of Charles Rodrigues


By Charles Rodrigues, edited by Bob Fingerman (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-856-4 (HB)

Charles Rodrigues (1926-2004) is one of the most influential – and certainly most darkly hilarious – American cartoonists of the last century. However, as papers and periodicals began abandoning en masse the grand tradition of spot gags in the 1980s, he and his surly, smartly illustrious compatriots began to fade from cultural consciousness. Now it seems almost nobody remembers him, but thankfully literary crusaders like Fantagraphics are doing their bit to recall and immortalise him and them in splendid hardback and digital archives such as this one…

Rodrigues’ surreal, absurd, insane, anarchic, socially disruptive and astoundingly memorable bad-taste gags and strips were delivered with electric vitality and galvanising ferocity in a number of magazines. He was most effective indulged in Playboy, The National Lampoon (from the first issue on) and Stereo Review – the pinnacle of a career which began after WWII and spanned the entire last half of the 20th century in every type and style of magazine.

After leaving the Navy and relinquishing the idea of writing for a living, Rodrigues used his slice of the G.I. Bill provision to attend New York’s Cartoonists and Illustrator’s School (now the School of Visual Arts) and in 1950 began schlepping gags around the low-rent but healthily ubiquitous “Men’s Magazine” circuit.

He graduated from girly-mags to more salubrious publications and in 1954 began a lengthy association with Hugh Hefner in his revolutionary new venture, whilst maintaining contributions to what seemed like every publication in the nation. His panel gags appeared everywhere from Esquire to TV Guide; Genesis to The Critic. He even found time to create three strips for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate: Eggs Benedict, Casey the Cop (not the Henry Boltinoff standby of decades of DC comics) and Charlie.

The quiet, genteel, devout Catholic’s lasting monument and undisputed magnum opus, though, was the horde of truly appalling, subversive, offensive, trenchantly wonderful one-offs crafted on a variety of favourite themes for The National Lampoon, whose editor Henry Beard sought him out in the earliest pre-launch days of 1969. He offered Rodrigues carte blanche, complete creative freedom and a regular full-page spot…

The artist stayed aboard from the 1970 debut until 1993, a mainstay of the legendary comics section with sickeningly mordant, brilliant results which were recently compiled in preceding collection Ray and Joe…

Here, bracketed by a copious and informative biography by Editor Bob Fingerman and a heartfelt ‘Introduction’ by brother-doodler Sam Gross (sometime Cartoon Editor at the shockingly indulgent Lampoon), this monumental monochrome collection features a vast selection of explosively hilarious, wittily twisted visual broadsides gathered into a smart procession of tawdry topics…

After starting out strong by lambasting our most basic drives in ‘Dirty Cartoons for Your Entertainment’ and ‘A Peeping Tome’, focus shifts to weird fantasy in ‘Moon Madness’ and contemporary traumatic tropes in ‘Assassin’ before going too far, too soon with some ‘Cartoons Even We Wouldn’t Dare Print’…

Because one can never truly get enough, it’s quickly back to bawdy basics with ‘Cartoons of a Sexual Nature’ after which other appetites are quenched with ‘Cuisine de Machine’, exposing the horrors only automats and vending machines can inculcate whilst ‘Would You Want Your Daughter to Marry One?’ deals with freaks and outcasts at their most intimate moments of weakness…

Some truly outrageous innovations are launched and sunk in a large section devoted to ‘Entrepreneurs’ before controversy is courted – and subsequently walks off with a huge settlement – in ‘Goddam Faggots!’ More societal hypocrisies are skewered in kHandicapped Sports’ and things get good and bloody in ‘Hemophunnies’.

Rodrigues was blessed (or cursed) with a perpetually percolating imagination and eye for the zeitgeist, so the contents of ‘The Celebrity Memorabilia Gallery’ are truly baroque and punishingly peculiar, whereas ‘Hire the Handicapped’ merely offers genuinely groundbreaking solutions to getting the less-able back to work before this selection of Good Works concludes with much needed advice on ‘Good Ways to Kill: A Rock Performer!’…

Trenchant observation informs the visual catalogue of ‘Man in Morgue’ but it’s just sheer bad taste in play with follow-up chapter ‘Man in Toilet’ and macabre relationship counselling for ‘Men’s Liberation’ (in dealing with wives or mothers).

At the halfway stage of this colossal collection there’s time for ‘More Handicapped Sports’ before poking fun at the blind in ‘Out of Sight’, exploring the particular wrinkles of ‘Senior Sex’ and dutifully re-examining ‘The Seven Deadly & Other Sins’ – which, you will recall, include Pride, Envy, Anger, Covetousness, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Anti-Colostomyism, Conformity, Vomitry, Bitchiness and Dalmatianry – before galloping off at a strangely artistic tangent to present ‘Sex Cartoons Drawn With a Hunt Pen’…

Scenes (never) overheard at the ‘Sex Change Clinic’ naturally segue into an itemised itinerary of disasters involving ‘Sex Robots’ and (un?)naturally culminate in ‘More Cartoons Even We Wouldn’t Dare Print’ and another period of play for ‘Handicapped Sports’…

All aspects of human misbehaviour appealed to Rodrigues’ imagination (I truly wonder what he would have made of the online shenanigans exhibited by humanity in our age of mostly-voluntary Lockdown and Social Isolationism) and many are featured in ‘Sexentrics’ and its playful sequels ‘Sexports’ and ‘Sleazy Sex Cartoons’, all of which quite naturally lead to ‘Life on Death Row’…

Unwholesome variety (and a penchant for conspiracies) is the spice of ‘A Group of Cartoons Requested by S. Gross’ before deviating eastwards and into the past to expose ‘Soviet Sex’ after which we head back to jail to walk ‘The Last Smile’.

Shambling into the hilarious last lap we endure some ‘Tough Sex’, show ‘Cartoons About the Blind (The Kind They Wish They Could See)’ and get gritty in kSons of the Beaches’ before heading to the ‘…Circus!’ and ending everything with ‘Those Darned Serial Killers!’…

These horrific and hilarious assaults on common decency celebrate and commemorate a lost hero of popular cartooning and consummate professional able to turn his drawing hand to anything to get the job done. This astoundingly funny gag-art grimoire is brilliantly rendered by a master craftsman and one no connoisseur of black comedy will want to miss, especially as we all need a good, guilty horselaugh more than ever now…
This edition © 2015 Fantagraphics Book. All strips and graphics by Charles Rodrigues © Lorraine Rodrigues. Introduction © 2015 Sam Gross. Biography © 2015 Bob Fingerman. All rights reserved. This edition © 2011 Fantagraphics Books.