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1066: William the Conqueror


By Patrick Weber & Emanuele Tenderini, translated by Pierre Bison and Rebekah Paulovch-Boucly (Europe Comics)
No ISBN:

Although I’ve never for a moment considered history dry or dull, I can readily appreciate the constant urge to personalise characters or humanise events and movements, especially when the job is undertaken with care, respect, diligence and a healthy amount of bravado.

Excellent case in point is this superb, digital-only retelling from 2011, postulating on individual motives and actions whilst relating the events leading up to the most significant moment in English – if not full-on British – history (apart from all the other ones). Other individual and national opinions may apply…

In case you were one of those who were asleep, surreptitiously ogling a classmate who didn’t even acknowledge your existence, or carving your name into a desk or a body part: on October 14th 1066, a force of French invaders led by William, Duke of Normandy clashed with the forces of Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson in East Sussex near Hastings (most historians agree that the actual bloodletting happened in a place later dubbed “Battle” and commemorated thereafter by the edifice of Battle Abbey).

Translated into a compelling and lovely digital edition thanks to the benevolence of the collective imprint Europe Comics, 1066: William the Conqueror opens with historian and author Patrick Weber’s foreword ‘Before Setting Sail’, revealing how the magnificent Bayeux Tapestry closely inspired the fictionalised account he crafted with veteran comics illustrator Emanuele Tenderini (Dylan Dog, Wondercity, World of Lumina).

The story is gripping and savvy, putting flesh and bones on a wide range of complex characters all trapped in a web of royal intrigue and savage power politics, long before Halley’s comet appeared in the skies over northern Europe more than a millennium ago. The war of nerves between the kings and kingmakers of proto-England, machinations of the ferocious Godwinson clan and untrammelled ambitions of the Norman Duke play out against the pitiful backdrop of a rich and powerful country suffering for lack of coherent – or even barely capable – leadership. The parallels to today are painful to behold and we all know how it turned out.

Here though is a possible explanation of why…

Most marvellous of all, this is also a brilliantly compelling adventure yarn with readers not sure who to root for before the big action finish…

Adding lustre to the tale is bonus section ‘Deep Within the Inner Stitchings’: an accessible exploration of the Tapestry accompanied by character sketches and designs.

Potent, beguiling, evocative and uncompromising, this a retelling any fan of history and lover of comics will adore,
© 2015 – Le Lombard – Tenderini & Weber. All rights reserved.

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Hellboy: Weird Tales


By Mike Mignola, Fabian Nicieza, John Cassaday, Eric Powell, Tom Sniegoski, Tommy Lee Edwards, Randy Stradley, Joe Casey, Sara Ryan, Ron Marz, J. H. Williams III, Jim Pascoe & Tom Fassbender, Will Pfeifer, John Arcudi, Jill Thompson, Matt Hollingsworth, Alex Maleev, Jason Pearson, Scott Morse, Akira Yoshida & Kia Asamiya, Bob Fingerman, Doug Petrie, Evan Dorkin, Andi Watson, Mark Ricketts, Kev Walker, Craig Thompson, Guy Davis, Stefano Raffaele, Ovi Nedelcu, Seung Kim, Steve Parkhouse, Steve Lieber, Jim Starlin, P. Craig Russell, Simeon Wilkins, Roger Langridge, Gene Colan, Eric Wright, Dave Stewart, Clem Robins (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1616555108 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-63008-121-8

After the establishment of the comicbook direct market system, there was a huge outburst of independent publishers in America and, as with all booms, a lot of them went bust. Some few, however, were more than flash-in-the-pans and grew to become major players in the new world order.

Arguably, the most successful was Dark Horse Comics who fully embraced the shocking new concept of creator ownership (amongst other radical ideas). This concept – and their professional outlook and attitude – drew a number of big-name creators to the new company and in 1994 Frank Miller & John Byrne formally instituted the sub-imprint Legend for those projects major creators wanted to produce their own way and at their own pace.

Over the next four years the brand counted Mike Mignola, Art Adams, Mike Allred, Paul Chadwick, Dave Gibbons and Geof Darrow amongst its ranks; generating a wealth of superbly entertaining and groundbreaking series and concepts. Unquestionably the most impressive, popular and long-lived was Mignola’s supernatural thriller Hellboy.

The hulking monster-hunter debuted in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 (August 1993) before formally launching in 4-issue miniseries Seed of Destruction (with Byrne scripting over Mignola’s plot and art). Colourist Mark Chiarello added layers of mood with his understated hues. Once the fans saw what was on offer there was no going back…

What You Need to Know: on December 23rd 1944 American Patriotic Superhero Torch of Liberty and a squad of US Rangers intercepted and almost foiled a satanic ceremony predicted by Allied parapsychologist Professors Trevor Bruttenholm and Malcolm Frost.

They were working in conjunction with influential medium Lady Cynthia Eden-Jones. Those stalwarts were waiting at a ruined church in East Bromwich, England when a demon baby with a huge stone right hand appeared in a fireball. The startled soldiers took the infernal yet seemingly innocent waif into custody.

Far, far further north, off the Scottish Coast on Tarmagant Island, a cabal of Nazi Sorcerers roundly berated ancient wizard Grigori Rasputin whose Project Ragna Rok ritual seemed to have failed. The Russian was unfazed. Events were unfolding as he wished…

Five decades later, the baby had grown into a mighty warrior engaging in a never-ending secret war: the world’s most successful paranormal investigator. Bruttenholm spent years lovingly raising the weird foundling whilst forming an organisation to destroy unnatural threats and supernatural monsters – The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. “Hellboy” quickly became its lead agent.

Moreover, as the decades of his career unfolded, Hellboy gleaned tantalising snatches of his origins, hints that he was an infernal creature of dark portent: born a demonic messiah, somehow destined to destroy the world and bring back ancient powers of evil. It is a fate he despises and utterly rejects, even though the universe keeps inexorably and relentlessly moving him towards it…

Hellboy was swiftly attributed the status of ‘legend’ in the comics world, starting as the particular vision of a single creator and, by judicious selection of assistants and deputies, cementing a solid take on the character in the hearts of the public. That’s just how it worked for Superman, Batman and Spider-Man and a big part of the same phenomenon was the eagerness of fellow creators to play in the same universe. Just how that and this collection came about is detailed in Editor Scott Allie’s Introduction preceding a blazing welter of strange and bizarre entertainment…

Originally an 8-part comics series wherein a star-studded cast of creators tell their own stories in their own varied styles under the watchful supervision of the big cheese himself in his unique infernal playground, Hellboy’s Weird Tales was gathered into a 2-volume set in 2004. This luxurious hardback and digital reissue originated in 2014, supplementing the original miniseries with back-up stories from Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #2-4.

Dramas that add to the canon nestle alongside bizarre and humorous vignettes that simply live for the moment and begin with ‘How Koschei Became Deathless’ crafted by Mignola, Guy Davis, Dave Stewart & Clem Robins. The filler from Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #2 & 3 details the valiant trials of a noble warrior and the bad bargain he made, after which a crafty man turns the tables on the world’s wickedest witch in ‘Baba Yaga’s Feast’ (H:TWH #4).

The mother of monsters returns in Fabian Nicieza & Stefano Raffaele’s ‘The Children of the Black Mound’ wherein a future soviet dictator has his own youthful and life-altering encounter with the queen of magic.

John Cassaday spoofs classic newspaper strips with rollicking pulp science hero in ‘Lobster Johnson: Action Detective Adventure’, after which Nazi-bashing nonsense, Eric Powell explores Hellboy’s childhood and early monster-mashing in ‘Midnight Cowboy’ whilst Tom Sniegoski & Ovi Nedelcu raise our spirits with an older ghostbuster failing to tackle a playful posse of spooks in ‘Haunted’…

A classical doomed East/West war romance ghost tragedy is settled by Tommy Lee Edwards & Don Cameron in ‘A Love Story’, setting the scene for more Japanese myth busting in ‘Hot’ by Randy Stradley & Seung Kim wherein the B.P.R.D. star clashes with an unhappy Tengu water spirit inhabiting a mountain hot spring…

Joe Casey & Steve Parkhouse then celebrate the glory days of test pilots and the right stuff in ‘Flight Risk’, when Hellboy gets involved in a competition to see who’s got the best jetpack, after which ‘Family Story’ (Sara Ryan & Steve Lieber) sees him acting as counsellor to the mum and dad of a rather diabolical kid, before we slip into all-out arcane action to retrieve a time bending artefact from a Guatemalan temple in ‘Shattered’ by Ron Marz & Jim Starlin.

A stakeout with an over-amorous fellow agent leads to unanticipated consequences in ‘Love is Scarier than Death’ by J. H. Williams III, whilst Will Pfeifer & P. Craig Russell’s dalliance with an undying theatre troupe traps our hellish hero in a ‘Command Performance’.

The entertainment motif continues in John Cassaday’s ‘Big-Top-Hell-Boy’ as the B.P.R.D. try to exorcise a mass-murderous circus in Germany before Hellboy and Abe Sapien battle zombies in the ‘Theatre of the Dead’ by Jim Pascoe & Tom Fassbender, illustrated by Simeon Wilkins.

The aquatic avenger sort of stars in comedic daydream ‘Abe Sapien: Star of the B.P.R.D.’ by John Arcudi & Roger Langridge, after which Jill Thompson takes ‘Fifteen Minutes’ to offer us the other side’s view of the eternal struggle whilst Matt Hollingsworth &Alex Maleev show us that the struggle against evil starts before we’re even legally alive in ‘Still Born’…

Indomitable psychic firestarter Liz Sherman acknowledges personal loss and the dreadful cost of the job in Jason Pearson’s ‘The Dread Within’ before Scott Morse conjures up a calmer moment for Hellboy in ‘Cool Your Head’ before Akira Yoshida & Kia Asamiya return us to ghost-riddled Japan for an unconventional duel with childish spirits in ‘Toy Soldier’…

Bob Fingerman’s ‘Downtime’ pits the cream of the B.P.R.D. against the vexatious thing inhabiting the office vending machine, after which Doug Petrie & Gene Colan follow Liz and Abe on typical ‘Friday’, even as artificial hero Roger the Homunculus foolishly seeks ‘Professional Help’ during a devious demonic assault (as recorded by Evan Dorkin).

Andi Watson tackles Hellboy’s infernal heritage and possible future during a social function where he is – as always – the ‘Party Pooper’, after which team leader/psychologist Kate Corrigan endures an acrimonious reunion with her dead-but-still-dreadful mother in ‘Curse of the Haunted Dolly’ by Mark Ricketts & Eric Wright, whilst Kev Walker pits bodiless spirit Johann Krauss against a thing from outer space in ‘Long Distance Caller’.

The narrative portion of this stellar fear & fun fest rightly focuses on Hellboy himself as Craig Thompson takes the warrior on an extended tour of the underworld in ‘My Vacation in Hell’ but there’s still a wealth of wonder to enjoy as Mike Mignola’s Hellboy Weird Tales Gallery offers a selection of potent images by Cameron Stewart, Maleev, Dave Stevens with Dave Stewart, Steve Purcell, William Stout, Leinil Francis Yu, Phil Noto, Gary Fields with Michelle Madsen, J. H. Williams III, Rick Cortes with Anjin, Galen Showman with Michelle Madsen, Ben Templesmith, Frank Cho with Dave Stewart, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Lee Bermejo with Dave Stewart and Scott Morse.

Baroque, grandiose, scary, hilarious and even deeply moving, these vignettes alternate suspenseful slow-boiling tension with explosive catharsis, and trenchant absurdity, proving Hellboy to be a fully rounded character who can mix apocalyptic revelation with astounding adventure to enthral horror addicts and action junkies alike or enthral jaded fun-lovers in search of a momentary chuckle. This is a classic compendium of dark delights you simply must have.
™ & © 2003, 2009, 2014 Mike Mignola. Weird Tales is ® Weird Tales, Ltd.

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John Constantine, Hellblazer volume 2: The Devil You Know (New Edition)


By Jamie Delano, David Lloyd, Richard Piers Rayner, Mark Buckingham, Bryan Talbot, Mike Hoffman, Dean Motter & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3302-0 (TPB)

Originally created by Alan Moore during his groundbreaking run on Swamp Thing, John Constantine is a mercurial modern wizard, a dissolute chancer who plays like an addict with magic on his own terms for his own ends. He is not a hero. He is not a nice person. Sometimes, though, he’s all there is between us and the al-consuming void…

Granted his own series by popular demand, Constantine premiered at the height of Thatcherite Barbarism in Britain, during the dying days of Reaganite Atrocity in the US, to become a founding father of DC’s adult-oriented Vertigo imprint. Ah, what happy, simple times they seem now…

This collection – available in paperback and digital formats – collects Hellblazer #10-13, Hellblazer Annual #1 plus 2-part tangential miniseries The Horrorist: cumulatively spanning January to October 1988 and revelling in the renaissance of comicbook horror these yarns spearheaded, and which thrive to this day.

Back in 1987, Creative Arts and Liberal Sentiments were dirty words in many quarters and the readership of Vertigo was pretty easy to profile. British scripter Jamie Delano began the Constantine solo series with a relatively safe horror-comic plot about an escaped hunger demon, introducing us to Constantine’s unpleasant nature and odd acquaintances – such as Papa Midnite – in a tale of infernal possession and modern voodoo, but even then, discriminating fans were aware of a welcome anti-establishment political line amidst the metaphorical underpinnings.

The wonderment begins by concluding an epic eldritch saga started in Hellblazer: Original Sins (go read that, it’s great too) as the sanctimonious Resurrection Crusade attempt to re-enact the birth of Christ and their rivals the Damnation Army try to stop them, using Constantine as their weapon. Both sides learn that such a vile trickster is never to be trusted. ‘Sex and Death’ is by Jamie Delano with art from Richard Piers Rayner & Mark Buckingham.

The same team are responsible for the next trinity of linked stories ‘Newcastle’: A Taste of Things to Come (from #11 of the monthly comic) forms the beginning of an origin of sorts for the sordid sorcerer as we flashback to 1978 where punk rock singer/would-be wizard John Constantine takes a motley assortment of mystic wannabees into a possessed nightclub for what they think will be a simple exorcism.

It’s anything but, and the horrific events twist the survivors for the rest of their lives… ‘The Devil You Know’ features the mage’s return (from an insane asylum and worse) and revenge on the hellbeast that shaped his life….

Issue #13 finds him ‘On the Beach’, chilling after all the horror, but still somehow sucked into an ecological nightmare. What follows is an epic tale of two Constantines, as a ghastly heritage of magic and monstrosity is revealed.

Taken from the first Hellblazer Annual in 1989, ‘The Bloody Saints’ parallels the urban occultist’s squalid existence against the history of Kon-Sten-Tyn, mighty mythic Merlin‘s apprentice and a putative successor to King Arthur.

A glamorous rogue and unprincipled cheat, Kon-Sten-Tyn steals Merlin’s magic, makes pacts with devils, feigns conversion to Christianity, assumes unearned sainthood and generally does whatever he wants in a vividly dark, outlandish comedy terror beautifully illustrated by Bryan Talbot.

Also from the Annual comes an illustrated version of ‘Venus of the Hard-Sell’ originally “recorded” by Constantine’s punk band Mucous Membrane. Whatever you think it is, you’re wrong. Just get the book, revel in it and the wonderful creativity of writer/artist Dean Motter.

The 2-part miniseries The Horrorist fills the remainder of the book. Written by Delano and stunningly painted by David Lloyd, this is a bleak, cold fable which finds – in a state just like ‘Antarctica’ – an emotionally paralysed Constantine dutifully hunting across traumatised cityscapes and wretched broken America for a destructive force wreaking bloody havoc. All the trauma and misery of an uncaring world is the irresistible tool of a third world survivor and only more suffering seems to satisfy her…

As the creature called Angel passes, a typhoon of guilt, fear and terror is inevitably unleashed, savagely ending unfulfilled lives. She can’t be stopped by any means the wizard has used before, but there is one appalling tactic he can try…

John Constantine is probably the most successful horror comic character ever, with mood, tension and his surly, smug, intransigent attitude easily overwhelming and outlasting mere gore and splatter time after time. Ambivalent and ever-changing, the antihero of this series and the worlds he exposes never fail to deliver shock after shock.

Delivered by creators capable and satiric, but still wedded to the basic tenets of their craft, these superb examples of contemporary horror fiction – inextricably linking politics, religion, human nature and sheer bloody-mindedness as the root causes of all ills – are still powerfully engaging. Beautifully constructed, they make a truly abominable character seem an admirable force for our survival. The art is clear, understated and subtly subversive, while the slyly witty, innovative stories jangle at the subconscious with scratchy edginess.

This is a book no fear-fan should miss.
Hellblazer 10-13, Hellblazer Annual © 1988, 1989, 2011 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. The Horrorist #1-2 © 1995, 1996, 2011 Jamie Delano & David Lloyd. All Rights Reserved.

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Archie’s Weird Mysteries


By Paul Castiglia, Fernando Ruiz, Rich Koslowski & various (Archie)
ISBN: 978-1-879794-74-0 (TPB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Family Friendly Seasonal Fear Fest… 8/10

MLJ were a publisher who promptly jumped on the “mystery-man” bandwagon following the debut of Superman. They began their own small but inspirational pantheon of gaudily clad crusaders in November 1939, starting with Blue Ribbon Comics, and followed up by Top-Notch and Pep Comics. The content was the standard blend of costumed heroes, two-fisted adventure strips, prose pieces and gag panels.

After a few years, Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (hence MLJ) spotted a gap in their blossoming market. From December 1941 the costumed heroes and two-fisted adventure strips were gradually nudged aside by a far less imposing paragon: an “average teen” enjoying ordinary adventures like the readers, but with the laughs, good times, romance and slapstick emphasised.

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

In six pages, eponymously entitled ‘Archie’ introduced goofy Archie Andrews and pretty girl-next-door Betty Cooper. Archie’s unconventional best friend and confidante Jughead Jones also debuted in that first story, as did the scenic small-town utopia Riverdale.

The feature was an instant hit and by the winter of 1942 had won its own title. Archie Comics #1 was the company’s first non-anthology magazine and with it began the gradual transformation of the entire company. With the introduction of rich, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, all the pieces were in play for the comicbook industry’s second Genuine Phenomenon (Superman being the first).

By 1946 the kids had taken over, so the company renamed itself Archie Comics, retiring its costumed characters years before the end of the Golden Age and becoming, to all intents and purposes, a publisher of family comedies.

Its success, like the Man of Steel’s, changed the content of every other publisher’s titles, and led to a multi-media industry including TV, movies and a chain of restaurants. In the swinging sixties pop hit “Sugar, Sugar” (a tune from their first animated television show) became a global smash. Wholesome garage band “The Archies” has been a fixture of the comics ever since.

Adapting seamlessly to every trend and fad of youth culture since before there even was such a thing, the host of writers and artists who’ve crafted the stories over the decades have made the “everyteen” characters of utopian Riverdale a benchmark for childhood development and a visual barometer of growing up.

At the end of the last century, one of those fads was for savvy band of teens to fight Vampires and Demons in a small town…

It led to Archie’s Weird Mysteries: a French/American animated TV co-production with the regular cast encountering all manner of bizarre phenomena, creatures and situations after Archie starts writing a school newspaper column on mysteries and cryptozoology.

That small screen enterprise led to a comic book iteration mostly created by Paul Castiglia, Fernando Ruiz & Rich Koslowski – backed up by letterer Vickie Williams and colourists Rick Taylor Stephanie Vozzo – with parody and contemporary satire leading the thematic charge …although the company also used the broad church the series presented to reintroduce a number of those early MLJ super-doers; sadly, not included in this all-strange phenomena compilation…

In this splendidly entertaining paperback and digital collection, the warring gal-pals and extended cast of the small-town American Follies are plunged deep into terror territory as Archie‘s Weird Mysteries #2 (March 2000) reveals how the gang are targeted by a spooky movie monster in ‘Shriek’.

The deft – and suitably daft in appropriate places – spoof of film franchise Scream is followed here by a delightful and arch tribute to the incomparable Scooby-Doo phenomenon as ‘A Familiar Old Haunt’ (#6 July) sees Archie signing up for “Bo and Gus’s Paranormal Investigation Camp” with Jughead, Betty and Veronica joining him in a borrowed panel van. Even Jughead’s faithful mutt Hot Dog tags along. The freak du jour is a bizarre vegetable horror, but it’s no match for a bunch of pesky kids….

Archie‘s Weird Mysteries #10 (July) found a fashion for many beards and chest hair at Riverdale High. However, hirsute attractiveness and rampant testosterone can’t explain why girls and boys are all going follicle crazy until Archie uncovers a ‘Bigfoot on Campus’…

At the height of competitive sports season school principal Mr. Weatherbee is kidnapped by aliens who need his (sadly non-existent) baseball expertise to beat a band of bullying space jocks in ‘U.F.O. Uh-oh!’ (#7 August) after which ‘The Scarlet Chronicles’ (AWM #10 July) introduces vampire hunter Scarlet Helsing to readers who might have missed her starring role in the TV show. As seen in the brace of cartoon episodes reprised here, the beautiful young warrior was drawn to Riverdale and allied with the town’s reclusive paranormal expert Dr. Beaumont to battle the assembling forces of darkness…

New ground is broken with issue #12 (April 2001) as ‘The Return of Scarlet’ sees the slayer suborned by a cabal of bloodsuckers and set upon Beaumont and Archie. Naturally, Betty is ready to lead the gang in their counterattack…

Complimenting the chronicles is a lighthearted cartoon ‘Guide to Fighting Vampires’ from issue #15 (September 2001) wherein Scarlet lists a number of methods for defeating the Darkness before this fun-filled fear fest concludes with behind-the-scenes text feature ‘Scarlet’s Guide to Archie’s Weird Mysteries’; interviewing Castiglia and Ruiz on their role in the TV iteration and how the comic book spun out of it.

Co-starring all the crucial supporting characters we know and love, these smartly beguiling skits are a prime example of just why Archie has been unassailable for generations: providing decades of family-friendly fun and wholesome teen entertainment – complete with goblins, ghosts and ghouls as required…
© 2011 Archie Comic Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Tower in The Sea


By B. Mure (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-36-3 (PB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: A Mesmerising Mystical Magnum Opus in the Making… 9/10

Most forms of fiction, depend on strong – or at least memorable – characters and plenty of action to capture the attention. You need to be really good and quite brave to try anything outside those often-infantile parameters. B. Mure is that good.

They are a Nottingham based artist and storyteller whose other notable work is the remarkable webcomic Boy Comics. You should check that out too.

In 2018, B. Mure pulled together threads and ideas from years of planning, dreaming and doodling, to begin building an epic fantasy saga. It started with Original Graphic Novel Ismyre, introducing a strange ancient city of song and tired wonders, unsettled by magical eco-terrorists and weaponised flora, where a sculptor’s works inspired and moved the strangest of folk. This magical city was entering a period of “interesting times”…

That was closely followed by sequel Terrible Means, which seemingly had very little to do with the protagonists of the first, but instead took readers back to a time when wizardly green rebels Niklas, Henriett and Emlyn were simply researchers whose studies divined a growing imbalance in the natural ecosystem…

Now the third instalment is here and The Tower in the Sea again slips to a different point in time and tale, providing a fresh approach to what is shaping up to be a vast and expansively multi-layered saga. Moreover, understanding and narrative connection depends as much on scene and place as actors involved: with sea, sky and terrain as expressive as the gloriously bizarre animalistic characters that have most of the speaking parts in the drama…

Ismyre is currently more dictatorship than civil metropolis, and for years gifted children have been spirited away from it by a clique of outlaw magicians. The prizes are taken across ferocious seas to a hidden island and schooled in magical arts – especially divination. Our story begins and ends with little Miriam, brought to the citadel of knowledge by adventurous operative Emlyn…

Welcomed by imposing leader August Humble, Miriam slowly settles in for the long haul, often wondering if she’ll ever see her dashing saviour again…

Her dreams of the general future are far more specific and emphatic on other issues of importance. In fact, the coming years are plagued by increasingly terrifying visions of apocalyptic disaster, and neither scholarly tomes, skilled teachers or devoted classmates can ease the traumas or even clarify the too-vague portents in her head.

Miriam’s course becomes clearer only after she learns why divination is outlawed in Ismyre and how the school of the Tower in the Sea was first established. Sadly, now the tortured girl feels that her intuitions are presaging the imminent and actual End of the World…

Determined to be part of the action, Miriam – with the reluctant aid of classmates Efrim and Cassius – secretly breaks the school’s most inviolable rule: attempting to build a boat to take her back to the mainland where she can hopefully do some good. Typically, before that comes to pass, the totally unexpected happens…

The word “tapestry” is one much overused but it really fits the gradual unpeeling of layers comprising the history of Ismyre: beautiful images coming together, small self-contained stories unfolding depending upon where you start from, yet all part of a greater whole, always promising more and clearer revelations further ahead. You must read all these books but (so far) it really doesn’t matter where you start from. So, it might as well be here, right?

Sadly, this glorious celebration is not available digitally yet, but that just means you can give physical copies to all your friends, suitably gift-wrapped and ready to be properly appreciated by all the tactile senses as well as cerebral ones…

An anthropomorphic, luscious and compellingly realised world of wonder to savour and ponder over is waiting for you…
© B. Mure, 2019. All rights reserved.

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To Hell You Ride


By Lance Henriksen, Joseph Maddrey, Tom Mandrake & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-162-9 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-870-7

With all the chaos and kerfuffle besetting the world, it’s possibly therapeutic to dip into fantasy and disaster that we can control to some extent. In that spirit, here’s a good old-fashioned horror yarn to curl your toes in these eco-political end times…

Originally released as a 5-part miniseries from December 2012 to July 2013, To Hell You Ride was a lifetime dream project for actor Lance Henriksen (Aliens, Millennium, Near Dark) inspired by a visit to the town of Telluride, Colorado in the 1970s.

He saw his idea as a movie, but eventually, after working with screenwriter and documentarian Joseph Maddrey (Nightmares in Red, White and Blue), shifted his ideas to sequential narrative, with horror veteran Tom Mandrake (Swamp Thing, Grimjack, Martian Manhunter, Batman) rendering the project into stunning creepy visuals. Finishing the package were colourists Cris Peter & Mat Lopes and letterer by Nate Piekos of Blambot®.

Told in parallel time periods and trenchant flashbacks, the drama begins in the snow-swamped Colorado Mountains of 1880 where a greedy trapper plunders Indian graves and finds gold. A year later, the sacred ground is utterly defiled, turned into a pit of depravity as dozens of prospectors rip up the terrain in search of yellow metal.

The tribe’s only response is to begin a ritual of atonement. Undertaken by their holiest warriors – “The Old Ones” – even this act of pious desperation is despoiled. Interrupted by miners, four celebrant warriors are killed and their derailed devotions slowly poison the environment, becoming a curse for future generations and another prime example of ‘White Man’s Guilt’… that is, none at all…

The ritual is not done, however, and continues to proceed at its own pace…

More than a century later, drunk, lost and perpetually angry Native American Seven George (his true name is “Two Dogs”) continues being a pain in the ass to everybody. Yet again, sheriff Jim Shipps gives the kid a pass, but by the time the young man reaches his desolate, dilapidated shack, he’s become aware that something’s changed: an unnatural alteration that’s killing the birds…

Thankfully, he knows the history and takes steps to protect himself from an interrupted ritual that’s coming back and coming to a close…

The never-ending wounds to the region have affected both his father Six George and grandfather Five George in their own times, bring trouble and death to those who could least risk it, and as Two Dogs sits in a jail cell at Christmas, waiting for his own fate to unfold, the unnatural takes over. Soon the mountain town is buried in a wall of white, courtesy of ‘The Alchemy of Snow’…

Greedy town officials like Cubby Boyer just see another way to make money. Snow tourists rapidly flood in, but the joy and profits freeze once the visitors start dying: victims of a bloody, explosive ‘Metamorphosis’…

All the region’s wildlife is frightened and aware of big change coming. With chaos growing and a news blackout intensifying the crisis, Two Dogs and Shipps are forced to work together, but certainly not with the same ends in mind…

As the death toll mounts government spooks move in, setting up a quarantine line to keep America safe from “plague carriers” and “contaminated snow”… And they’re not really real Feds either…

Although the lands’ original occupiers feel their time is returning, they can’t hold a solid front, dividing into factions based on ancient spirits. With the Spider and the Trickster apparently walking the land, somehow, only Two Dogs knows what’s really needed. He begins his personal ‘Ghost Dance’ to the ever-present Watchers from the Spirit World, seeking to save who he can of the terrified survivors but, ultimately all that’s left is to accept his fate and ready himself for his ‘Death Song’…

Perhaps here is the solution he’s been searching for…?

Deftly blending contemporary horror themes with judiciously cherrypicked – or just plain cod – First Nations mythology, To Hell You Ride is not as spiritually astute as it would like but is far more fun than you possibly imagine: a superbly chilling race against doom with epic undertones and potent symbology.

Adding to the experience is text feature ‘Origins’, detailing how the story evolved over decades and supplemented with character studies, commentary, notes and developmental drawings of Two Dogs, The Watchers, Jim Shipps, Mary Ambrose, Cubby Boyer & the Town, The Spider, The Trickster, Smokin’ Bones, and recurring key image The Appeal to the Great Spirit (derived from Cyrus E. Dallin’s sculpture of the same name).

Sheer, unalloyed spooky delight, this is a magical yarn that really would make a brilliant movie. Why hasn’t anybody thought of it?
To Hell You Ride™ © 2012, 2013 Lance Henriksen, Joseph Maddrey & Tom Mandrake. All rights reserved.

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Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives volume 3


By Steve Ditko & various, edited by Blake Bell (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-60699-498-6 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Immaculate Seasonal Yarn-Spinning… 10/10

Once upon a time the anthological title of short stand-alone stories was a top product of the comicbook profession, delivering as much variety as possible to the reader. At the peak of that period, nobody could touch Steve Ditko for variety of touch and tone, not to say sheer volume…

Ditko was one of our industry’s greatest talents and one of America’s least lauded. His fervent desire to just get on with his job and to tell stories the best way he could – whilst the noblest of aspirations – was, at best, a minor consideration and more usually a stumbling block for the commercial interests which controlled all comics production and still exert an overwhelming influence upon the mainstream bulk of comicbook output today.

Before his time at Marvel, young Ditko perfected his craft, creating short, sharp visually attractive vignettes for a variety of companies, and it’s an undeniable joy today to be able to look at this work from such an innocent time when he was just breaking into the industry: tirelessly honing his craft with genre tales for whichever publisher would have him, utterly free from the interference of intrusive editors.

This superb full-colour series of archival hardback collections (also available as digital editions) reprints those early efforts for Charlton Comics published between June 1957 through July 1958 – with material produced after the draconian, self-inflicted Comics Code Authority sanitised the industry following Senate Hearings and a public witch-hunt.

Here are wonderfully baroque and bizarre supernatural or science fiction and fantasy stories – presented in the order he completed and delivered them rather than the more logical, but far-less-revealing, chronological release dates. Moreover, they are all helpfully annotated with a purchase number to indicate approximately when they were actually drawn. Sadly, there’s no indication of how many (if any) were actually written by the moody master, so it’s safest to assume co-creator credits go to the utterly professional Joe Gill…

This third tension-packed presentation reprints another heaping helping of Ditko’s ever-more impressive works: most of it courtesy of the surprisingly liberal (at least in its trust of its employees’ creative instincts) sweat-shop publisher Charlton Comics.

And whilst we’re being technically accurate, it’s also important to reiterate that the cited publication dates of these stories have very little to do with when Ditko crafted them: as Charlton paid so little, the cheap, anthologically astute outfit had no problem in buying material it could leave on a shelf for months (sometime years) until the right moment arrived to print. The work is assembled and runs here in the order Ditko submitted it, rather than when it reached the grubby sweaty paws of us readers. It also coincides with a brief period when the company began releasing double-sized giant issues…

Following another historically informative Introduction with passionate advocacy by Editor Blake Bell, concentrating on Ditko’s military service experience and admiration and relationship with artist, educator and major influence Jerry Robinson, the evocatively eccentric excursions open with ‘From All Our Darkrooms…’ as first seen in Out of This World #4 (cover-dated June 1957) wherein photographers worldwide begin seeing otherwise-invisible aliens in the prints…

When a brash and ecologically unsound new owner threatens an ancient stand of trees he falls foul of ‘The Menace of the Maple Leaves’ (Strange Suspense Stories #33, August).

Ditko was astoundingly prolific – as was writer Gill – and increasingly Charlton’s various mystery and sci fi mags offered more than one effort per issue. As well as the cover to Unusual Tales #8 (also August), the tireless creator crafted ‘Will Power’, a classical tale of the power of love and statues coming to life and ‘The Decision’ wherein a wise precaution saves humanity from a robotic rampage after which Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #4 (July) sees a devious long con wrecked by paranormal intervention in ‘The Forbidden Room’…

A dictatorial brute earns a grim comeuppance in ‘The Strange Fate of Captain Fenton’ in Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #6 (December), before the cover of This Magazine is Haunted volume 2 #12 (July) ushers in a titanic tale of mythological woe and the end of ‘The Last One’, whilst, for one misguided soul in Strange Suspense Stories #35 (December), ‘Free’ is just another cruel word.

The belligerent threat of a ‘Stranger in the House’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #5, October) is tackled through divine intervention, but far more mundane answers are forthcoming for the devilish spy on the run in ‘All Those Eyes’ in Out of This World #6 (November).

A quartet of later-rendered tales from This Magazine is Haunted v2 #12 come next: beginning with alien inimical invaders dubbed ‘The Faceless Ones’ who pick the wrong human to replace, whereas random, kind fate saves humanity from ‘The Thing on the Beach’. A tragic, lonely ventriloquist is unable to escape ‘His Fate’, and the showbiz theme expands to involve a crooked impresario holding shrunken people captive in ‘The Messages’…

Behind the cover of This Magazine is Haunted volume 2 #13 (October) a lonely scientist and man’s best friend thwart ‘The Menace of the Invisibles’, before Strange Suspense Stories #34 (November, and with cover included) discloses an ironic fate for a manic Nazi hidden in the sands who can’t escape ‘The Desert Spell’…

The cover – and its original art – for Out of This World #5 (September) are accompanied by ‘The Night They Learned the Truth’ – a twisted tale of nervous villagers extending a traditional unwelcome to a strange foreigner after which the cover to Unusual Tales #9 (November) segues into a tale of corrupt businessman getting what he deserves in ‘He’s Coming for Me!’…

Two more from Out of This World #5 begin with bizarrely multi-layered tale of retribution ‘I Made a Volcano’, and wrap up with maritime monster mash ‘The Thing from Below’, after which ‘Father Help Me!’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #6, December) adds a technological twist to the ancient dilemma of a good parent afflicted with an evil child…

A last contribution to Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #5, ‘Live for Reunion’ confronts a troubled child with a ghostly dilemma, before ‘Clairvoyance’ (Unusual Tales #9, November 1957) tackles the thorny problem of a super-child who only wants to be ordinary…

Guilt drives an unscrupulous businessman to see ‘The Scar’ everywhere in another mood message from Strange Suspense Stories #34, before more Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #6 resume with the hunt for a progress-wrecking guru in ‘Where is Kubar?’ and conclude with the unhappy revelations of a hypnotist who sees too much after saying ‘Look Deep into My Eyes’…

Next up is a tale from one of Charlton’s earliest leading characters and the eponymous star of this volume. The title was developed from a radio show that Charlton licensed the rights to, with the host/narrator acting more as voyeur than active participant. “The Mysterious Traveler” broke the fourth wall and spoke directly to us, asking readers for opinion and judgement as he shared a selection of funny, sad, scary and wondrous human-interest yarns, all tinged with a hint of the weird or supernatural.

When rendered by Ditko, whose storytelling mastery, page design and full, lavish brushwork were just beginning to come into its mature full range, the works of Tales of the Mysterious Traveler were always exotic, esoteric and utterly mesmerising…

From issue #6 – and following a deftly compartmentalised cover dated December 1957 – comes ‘Tomorrow’s Punishment’, as a gang of crooks use a fortune-telling mirror to carry out their capers, after which a close encounter for a beggar makes him ‘The Man Who Saw Again’ (Tales of the Mysterious Traveler#8 from July 1958).

‘The Man Who Lost His Face’ is a tight alien invasion fable from Strange Suspense Stories #34 that leads seamlessly into a case of medical time travel salvation on a most fortuitous ‘Night Call’ (Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #6) before Cold War counter espionage makes an accidental hero of ‘The Atomic Clerk’ in Strange Suspense Stories #34.

Another cover and its original art (Out of This World #6, November) leads into a potent tale of unnatural nature in ‘The River’s Wrath’, after which Unusual Tales #9 shares a tale of perceived ‘Escape’ for an unrepentant fugitive, whilst ‘The Night of Red Snow’ shows an insular town the power of unfettered art and imagination…

‘Plague’ also comes from Out of This World #6, revealing how a bitter scientist almost destroys the world, before the cover to Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #5 (November 1958) precedes a triptych of thrillers beginning with ‘The Sultan’ whose thirst for oil leads to inescapable doom, carries on with the shocking vision an arrogant climber sees ‘Above the Topmost Peak’, and ends with a deadly case of mistaken identity for deep seas divers in ‘The Man Below’…

From Strange Suspense Stories #34 (March 1958) comes a painful homily of trust despoiled when an elderly salesman honestly earns a miracle, only to realise he can’t rely upon his nearest and dearest, before this timeless celebration concludes with a selection from This Magazine is Haunted volume 2 #13 (October, 1957).

A craven white hunter steals an idol but cannot escape ‘The Drums’, even as a bum becomes ‘The Man Who Changed Bodies’, but can’t avoid the pitfalls of his own nature before a driven victim futilely hunts for a hated transgressor in ‘He Shall Have Vengeance’…

This sturdily capacious volume has episodes that terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, plots and stripped-down dialogue that let the art set the tone, push the emotions and tell the tale, from times when a story could end sadly and badly as well as happily and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

These stories also display sharp wit and honest human aspiration and integrity, making ithis another superb collection in its own right as well as a telling tribute to the genius of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists.

This is something every serious comics fan would happily kill or die or be lost in time for…
Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 3. This edition © 2012 Fantagraphics. Introduction © 2012 Blake Bell. All rights reserved.

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Captain America: Dark Designs – a Novel of the Marvel Universe


By Stefan Petrucha & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1789093483 (PB) eISBN: 978-1789093490

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Epic Fights ‘n’ Tights Adventure… 8/10

After a few half-hearted and ultimately abortive attempts in the 1960s and a more strategic – but no less enduring – attempt at the close of the 1970’s, Marvel finally secured a regular presence on prose bookshelves in the 1990s with a select series of hardback novels. Since then, those fans who want to supply their own pictures to gripping MU exploits have enjoyed a successive string of text thrills in all formats…

In recent times, British publisher Titan Books have been repackaging and rereleasing many of those prose powerhouse publications, and this handy paperback from 2016 is the tenth in their Novels of the Marvel Universe line.

Scripted by novelist, educator and comics writer Stefan Petrucha (X-Files, Walt Disney Comics & Stories, Nancy Drew: Girl Detective, Time Tripper) this explosive thriller also manages to pile on mood and psychological pressure in a tale of the Star-Spangled Avenger that addresses one of the biggest fears of modern times…

Although newcomers and casual fans won’t notice, Captain America: Dark Designs is deeply embedded in the minutiae of Marvel’s comic book continuity, as the WWII hero – who was frozen in ice for decades – faces the horror of voluntarily returning to the icy isolation of hibernation when, in the course of his hectic crime-busting, terrorist-thrashing activities, he is diagnosed as carrier of a deadly virus that can wipe out all life on Earth…

However, even as he contemplates his fate from a quarantine cage, his greatest enemy The Red Skull is planning one last hurrah. The Nazi fiend has previously survived his own death by occupying a clone of Steve Rogers but has subsequently developed an advanced form of the virus riddling Cap’s genetic structure.

With oblivion and increasing helplessness tormenting him, the swiftly-fading Skull unleashes Adolf Hitler’s last battalion of robotic Sleepers, resolved that his hated enemy will precede him to the grave, even if all Earth burns in the process…

Despite the assistance of Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D., Iron Man and a host of other guest stars, the onus of saving himself and preserving humanity ultimately rests on the broad shoulders of the indomitable Sentinel of Liberty whose tireless efforts always seemed able to extract miracles from the most hopeless of situations.

However, it’s a devilish twist of fate that truly saves the day this time…

Strong, accurate characterisation, fast-paced, non-stop yet feasible action and ever-ratchetting tension make this a book impossible to put down, and supplementing the high-octane thrills are a wealth of monochrome illustrations by cap artists Steve Epting, Jackson Guice, Michael Lark, Jay Leisten, Steve McNiven, Mike Perkins, Dexter Vines and Patrick Zircher, making this compulsive page-turner a solid example of how comics books can transfer to prose and why they should…
© 2019 Marvel.

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Melusine volume 1: Hocus Pocus & volume 2: Halloween


By Clarke (Frédéric Seron) & Gilson, coloured by Cerise and translated by Erica Jeffrey (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-905460-20-5 (PB Album Hocus Pocus) 978-1-905460-34-2 (PB Album Halloween)

Teen witches have a long and distinguished pedigree in fiction and one of the most engaging of all first appeared in venerable Belgian magazine Le Journal de Spirou in 1992. Mélusine is actually a sprightly 119 years old and spends her days working as an au pair in a vast monster-packed chateau whilst studying to perfect her craft at Witches’ School…

The feature ranges from one-page gag strips on supernatural themes to short tales detailing her rather fraught life, the impossibly demanding master and mistress of the castle and her large circle of peculiar family and friends.

Collected editions began appearing in 1995, with the 26th – En rose et noir – published in 2018. Five of those have thus far made it into English translations thanks to the fine folk at Cinebook.

The name derives from European folklore: in olden days Melusine or Melusina was term for a flighty female spirit or elemental inhabiting a sacred spring or well…

The strip was devised by writer François Gilson (Rebecca, Cactus Club, Garage Isidore) and top flight cartoon humourist Frédéric Seron – AKA Clarke – whose numerous features for all-ages Spirou and acerbic adult humour publication Fluide Glacial include Rebecca, Les Cambrioleurs, Durant les Travaux, l’Exposition Continue… and Le Miracle de la Vie.

Under the pseudonym Valda, Seron also created Les Babysitters and, as Bluttwurst, Les Enquêtes de l’Inspecteur Archibaldo Massicotti, Château Montrachet, Mister President and P.38 et Bas Nylo.

A former fashion illustrator and nephew of comics veteran Pierre Seron, Clarke is one of those insufferable guys who just draws non-stop and is sublimely funny. He also doubles up as a creator of historical and genre pieces such as Cosa Nostra, Les Histoires de France, Luna Almaden and Nocturnes and apparently is free from the curse of having to sleep…

Hocus Pocus was the 7th M̩lusine album, originally released in 2000, and offers a fine place for newcomers to start as the majority of the content is 1- or 2-page gags which Рlike a young, hot Broom Hilda Рmake play with fairy tale and horror film conventions and themes.

When brittle, moody Melusine isn’t being bullied for her inept cleaning skills by the matriarchal ghost-duchess who runs the castle, or ducking cat-eating monster Winston and frisky vampire The Count, she’s avoiding the attentions of horny peasants, practising her spells or consoling dreadfully unskilled classmate Cancrelune. Her boyfriend is a werewolf, so she only sees him a couple of nights a month…

Her days of toil are occasionally spiced up with and put in perspective by sports days such as blindfolded broom-flying contests and there’s always dowager Aunt Adrezelle who is eager and happy to share the wisdom of her so-many centuries…

After a splendid succession of quick-fire japes and jests, things take on a touch of continuity here and even tension when scandalous cousin Melisande pops in for an extended visit.

Spurning the dark, dread and sinisterly sober side of the clan, Melisande becomes a Fairy Godmother: all sparkles, fairy-cakes, pink bunnies and love. She’s simplicity, sweetness and light itself in every aspect, so what’s not to loathe…?

No sooner does the twinkling twit start to grow on everybody, however, than she falls victim to one of The Count’s periodic bite-fests and slowly metamorphoses into a true witches’ witch: skin-tight black leather, batwings and always ready for wicked transformations and sorcery duels at the drop of a pointed hat…

The situation comes to a head and the cauldron boils over in eponymous extra-long episode ‘Hocus Pocus’ wherein Melusine and Melisande finally face off to decide which witch is worst…

Clever, wry, sly, fast-paced and uproariously funny – whether physically printed on traditional paper or in digital incarnations – this compendium of arcane antics is a great taste of the magic of European comics and a beguiling delight for all lovers of the cartoonist’s art…

The second English-language collection happily offers more of the same. Mélusine is still a sprightly 119-year old, spending the days au pairing in a vast monster-packed, ghost-afflicted chateau whilst diligently studying to perfect her hereditary craft at Witches’ School…

The long-lived feature and attendant books have become an annual event, with a new collection every year: always offering everything from single page gag strips to full-length comedy tales on supernatural themes detailing her rather fraught life, the impossibly demanding master and mistress of the castle and a large circle of exceedingly peculiar family and friends.

Halloween was the 8th European Mélusine album, originally released in 2001: gathering a wealth of superb seasonally sensitive strips, and another great place for newcomers to start as the majority of the content comprises short gags starring the sassy sorceress.

Daunting dowager Aunt Adrezelle is always eager and happy to share the wisdom of her so-many centuries but so, unfortunately, is family embarrassment cousin Melisande who still spurns the dark, dread and sinisterly sober side of the clan to work in Fairy Godmothering field. She’s all insufferable sparkles, bunnies, love, it’s so hard not to loathe such a delirious confection of simplicity, sweetness and light itself…

This turbulent tome riffs mercilessly on the established motifs and customs of Halloween. Here, kids fill up to lethal levels on sweets and candies, monsters strive to look their worst, teachers try to keep the witches-in-training glued to their books and grimoires. Their over-excitable students rashly experiment on what to do with pumpkins – including how to grow, breed or conjure the biggest ones – all whilst the fearfully pious local priest and his flock endeavour to ruin all the magical fun…

Even ghastly Melisande gets in on the party atmosphere – in her own too nice-to-be-true manner – illuminating the happy shadows with too much sunshine and saccharine before the collection ends with extended, eponymous ‘Halloween’ wherein Melusine and Cancrelune learn the true meaning of the portentous anniversary after they inadvertently join the creaky, clacking cadavers of the Risen Dead as they evacuate their graves on the special night to fight and drive away for another year the Evil Spirits which haunt humanity…

Read before bedtime on paper or screen – and don’t eat any hairy sweets…
Original edition © Dupuis, 2000 by Clarke & Gilson. All rights reserved. English translation 2007 © Cinebook Ltd.

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Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson


By Bernie Wrightson, with Howard Chaykin, Nicola Cuti, Bill Dubay, Carmine Infantino, Bruce Jones, Budd Lewis & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-809-5 (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Masterfully Macabre Masterpieces… 9/10

Once upon a time the short complete tale was the sole staple of the comic book profession, where the intent was to deliver to the reader as much variety and entertainment fulfilment as possible. Sadly, that particular discipline is all but lost to us today…

Towards the end of the turbulent 1960s, a lot of fresh talent was trying to break into the comics industry at a time when a number of publishers were experimenting with cheaper black & white magazines rather than four-colour comic books. Companies like Warren, Skywald and a minor host of imitators were hiring kids who then honed their craft in public – just like their forebears had to.

A respectable number of those Young Turks – such as Bruce Jones, Mike Kaluta, Jeff (now Catherine) Jones, Al Weiss and “Berni” Wrightson (a young man who soon became a living legend even in that prestigious cabal), grew into major talents whilst crafting pastiches of the EC Comics they had loved as kids – and paved the way when the comics market again turned to shock, mystery and black comedy to sell funny-books.

Bernard Albert Wrightson was born a few days before Halloween (October 27th) 1948 in Dundalk. Maryland. His artist training came via TV, reading comics and a correspondence course from the Famous Artists School, and his first professional publication was fan art, printed in Creepy #9 (June 1966). Around that time, he was toiling as an illustrator for The Baltimore Sun, and after meeting his EC idol Frank Frazetta at a convention gravitated to New York City. Hooking up with the above-cited band of newcomers, and other hopefuls like Al Milgrom and Walter Simonson, Wrightson was soon crafting short horror tales for National/DC, Marvel and other eager publishers. His first rank reputation was cemented with the co-creation (beside writer Len Wein) of Swamp Thing.

His close and productive association with DC ended in 1974, as he left to work at Warren on more adult-oriented tales allowing him to try different techniques: a bountiful period of experimentation that culminated with his joining Jeffrey/Catherine Jones, Kaluta and Barry Windsor-Smith in expressive narrative arts collective The Studio. During this period, he also produced commercial commissions, film material and humorous strips for National Lampoon whilst creating a series of astoundingly complex plates for his signature work: an illustrated rerelease of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.

In later years he illustrated posters, trading cards and graphic novels such as Creepshow, Cycle of the Werewolf and Freakshow (with Bruce Jones) among other print collectibles, before returning to mainstream comic books. His notable successes include The Weird and Batman: The Cult with Jim Starlin, and Spider-Man: Hooky and The Hulk and the Thing: The Big Change as well as a number of Punisher miniseries and OGNs.

Wrightson died in 2017. At the time he was working with Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) on a new Frankenstein miniseries, and almost finished it. The ultimate professional to the last, Bernie made provision for another artist to complete the job before passing. We’ll be reviewing that particular wonder later on this month…

This stellar compendium – available in hard copy and digital incarnations – gathers Wrightson’s monochrome, two-colour and full-colour offerings – stories, illustrations and frontispieces – from Creepy #9, 62-64, 66-71, 73, 75-77, 83, 86, 87, 95, 113 & 138 and Eerie #57, 58, 60-68, 70-72, 68 spanning 1966-1982.

The uncanny yarns and portentous depictions appeared in black-&-white magazine anthologies Creepy and Eerie, and those Warren stories have been gathered into a spectacular oversized (284 x 218 mm) hardback compendium – part of a series of all-star artist compilations which also includes superstars Rich Corben and Steve Ditko amongst others.

The terrors begin here with the short shockers from Creepy, but only after fellow raconteur and horror stylist Bruce Jones shares his memories of the great man and those early days in his evocative Foreword…

The dark visions commence with Wrightson’s gripping adaptation of ‘Edgar Allen Poe’s The Black Cat’ (Creepy #62): a man slowly going mad enters into a deadly war of wills and nerve with his wife’s pet…

Moving from his signature linework into deft grey-marker tones for Bruce Jones’s ghastly tale of mutant madness and deviant sexual seduction, Wrightson delivers a potent shocker with the tale of ‘Jenifer’ in issue #63 and compounds the horrors of existential loneliness for his next doomed hero’s icy obsession with ‘Clarice’ (also scripted by Jones in #77)

He inked Carmine Infantino on Jones’ ‘Country Pie’ in #83, a wry variation on both serial killer modernity and American Gothic sensibilities, after which Bill DuBay joins the unlikely artistic duo to expose an Edwardian-era Dime-novel hero in moving sentimental mystery ‘Dick Swift and his Electric Power Ring’ (Creepy #86).

Thematic shades of Ray Bradbury inform Nicola Cuti’s ‘A Martian Saga’ in #87, but the bleak dark humour is all Wrightson – as is the stylish pen-&-ink drawing – whereas the Jones-penned fable of ‘The Laughing Man’ (#95) – which sees a white hunter’s brutal deeds come back to haunt him – comes via stunning grey tones and manic shock that is pure poetic karma…

The Eerie escapades are fewer but just as memorable and start with classic beast hunting fervour as greedy chancer George Summers attempts to capture ‘The Pepper Lake Monster’. Written and drawn by Wrightson from Eerie #58, the stark, heroic chiaroscuro conceals a deliciously mordant and sardonic sting in the tale, after which DuBay details the fears of children who see monsters in the moodily grey-toned vignette ‘Nightfall’ (#60), before Wrightson fulfils a lifetime ambition in issue #62.

A huge fan of classical horror writers, the artist chillingly adapted H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘Cool Air’, detailing the uncanny fate of bizarre lodger Dr. Munoz who warmly befriends a young writer but cannot find a home cold enough to suit him…

Budd Lewis, Wrightson & Howard Chaykin combined to craft a strange tale of ‘Reuben Youngblood: Private Eye!’ who finds himself trapped in a world of intrigue, zeppelins and Nazi vampires in a rambunctious romp entitled ‘Beware the Scarlet Combine’…

Although largely a black-&-white magazine outfit, Warren occasionally sprang for full-painted colour and the all-Wrightson saga of ‘The Muck Monster’ in #68 gave the artist the opportunity to flex his painterly muscles and revisit past glories in a tale of cometary catastrophe to complete the narrative section of our celebrations.

Happily, that’s not the end of the visual valuables, as a ‘Creepy and Eerie Frontispiece and Illustration Gallery’ delivers a selection of images (33 in total, including covers and back covers) designed to introduce the anthological treats of the magazines via narrators Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie: allowing Wrightson’s sense of macabre humour full rein in panels, pages and other concoctions in assorted media and various degrees of seriousness…

This voluminous volume has episodes which terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, stripped down plots and a dark yet always playful wit which lets the art set the tone, push the emotions and tell the tale, from times when a story could end sadly as well as happily and only wonderment was on the agenda, hidden or otherwise.

These stories display a sharp wit and dark comedic energy which seems largely lacking these days, channelled through Wrightson’s astounding versatility and storytelling acumen: another cracking collection of his works not only superb in its own right but also a telling affirmation of the gifts of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists.

This is a book serious comics fans would happily kill, die or be lost in a devil-dimension for…
Creepy, the Creepy logo and all contents © 1966, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1982 2011 by New Comic Company. All rights reserved.