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The Dead Rider: Crown of Souls


By Kevin Ferrara (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978- 1-61655-750-8 (TPB/Digital edition)

Westerns are very much in the eye of the beholder. Some of my very favourites are The Seven Samurai, The Thirteenth Warrior and Outland… and nary a six-gun or Stetson in the bunch. Like all genres, it’s about tone and themes and timbre; motivation and resolution, rather than just slavish attention to tropes and forms. Trappings and locations are not as important as the Why and the How…

A fascinating case in point is Dead Rider. Conceived and crafted by writer, artist and historian Kevin Ferrara (Aliens/Predator, Green Lantern, Creepy) it offers a miasmic merging of classical EC-styled tongue-in-cheek terror amidst grittily familiar sagebrush locales, resulting in a beautifully rendered if meandering yarn about true love, magical misery and vengeance forestalled, but never escaped…

Originally released as two comic book issues, the saga came to an abrupt ending before concluding, with this graphic album, the reviving and completing of the tale.

Near frontier town Magruder, Nevada in the 1890s a vile owlhoot calling himself The Cobra is hunting a man. Having successfully diverted a similarly-employed cavalry troop into a wild goose chase, the rogue relishes the prospect of tackling legendary gunman The Dead Rider. The scoundrel has no idea what he is about to confront, or that his prospective prey is being watched over by a local shaman with much more than skin in the game…

After brutalising and terrorising the township, Cobra secures the clue he needs and rides off to his date with destiny whilst the wise man rushes to warn the much-sought-after rider who currently resides in an old iron mine. The décor doesn’t trouble the wanted man much. After all, he’s been an ambulatory rotting corpse for years now and physical feeling is a long-forgotten luxury…

Once, Jacob Bierce was a gentle, loving man whose only desire was to wed his adored paramour Sarah. However, thanks to a string of cruel accidents and malign misfortunes, Jacob fell under the power of a scheming and manipulative Bog Witch who made him immortal… by turning him into a walking corpse. The downside was retaining his mind and conscience, even during the appalling, frequently recurring moments when the sorceress possessed his body to go on killing sprees.

Thus, the revenant’s formidable reputation, the authorities pragmatic despatching of deranged General Cavanaugh and a troop of soldiers to capture the notorious Dead Rider and Cobra’s obsession with immortalising his own reputation by killing the zombie fugitive…

As all the disparate players converge for a final showdown, the Witch has one last eldritch card to play; she’s been collecting the last vestiges of the dead to build a potent artefact: the Crown of Souls. She does not, however, fully appreciated the power of true friendship, the force of love from beyond the grave or the obsessive nature of glory-crazed military men…

Although the plot carries s some gaping inconsistencies and the dialogue is sometimes uninspired, The Dead Rider is rendered in a spectacularly lush manner reminiscent of the best of Graham Ingels, Bernie Wrightson, Scott Hampton or Thomas Yeates and races along, offering scads of action and wry humour as well as a classic tragedy-laced horror hero that would certainly score well with modern moviegoing aficionados.

Fast, fun and fabulous, this turbulent tome comes with a Gallery of sketches, roughs, covers and unused art pages, plus accompanying commentary, and is a sure-fire guilty pleasure for fans seeking quality art and something off the path of comics’ mainstream.
© 2007, 2008, 2015 Kevin Schnaper. All rights reserved.

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Mr. Monster Presents… The Secret Files of Dr. Drew


By Jerry Grandenetti, Marilyn Mercer, Abe Kanegson with Will Eisner, compiled and edited by Michael T. Gilbert (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-532-0 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-999-5

Superheroes pretty much carried American comic books in the early years, but after WWII the Fights ‘n’ Tights boom started fading and new kinds of champions from more traditional forms rose to the fore. Simultaneously – as had happened following the end of the Great War – the public’s entertainment appetites turned from patriotic adventure to pedestrian crime and supernatural themes, and funnybooks quickly cashed in on the trend.

In conjunction with dedicated horror anthology titles, regular comics publications also dabbled in monsters (such as The Heap in aviation adventure title Airboy for example – although he had been sloshing around since the early 1940s) and a new kind of two-fisted ghostbuster began manifesting in lots of different publications.

One of the very best was sagacious supernatural sleuth Dr. Desmond Drew, who appeared bimonthly in Ranger Comics from June 1947 to August 1951: helming 14 captivating cases crafted by Will Eisner’s top creative crew: writer Marilyn Mercer, artistic wunderkind Jerry Grandenetti and master calligrapher Abe Kanegson.

Although never a breakout hit or cover feature, the startlingly effective tales – spanning Ranger Comics #47 to 60 – were oft-reprinted before publisher Fiction House finally closed its doors. The yarns had a life-altering effect on modern comics auteur Michael T. Gilbert, who claims these eerie escapades as a major influence on his own Mr. Monster character.

The hows, whens and whys of the Ghostbreaking Guardian – as well as his eventual fate – are investigated in fascinating, abundantly illustrated ‘Introduction: The Secret Files of Dr. Drew!’, scrupulously compiled by Gilbert for this superb archival and that history lesson is the perfect aperitif before the fabulously chilling and enthralling tales are disclosed…

Once you’ve absorbed all there is to know from a fan devoted to sharing his great knowledge, the curious Case Files commence with an arcane parable of greed and vengeance as – preceded by a 2-page cartoon intro from Mr. Monster himself – ‘The Strange Case of the Absent Floor!’ (Ranger #47, June 1949) opens wide…

The “Stalker of the Unknown” was visually based on actor Basil Rathbone in his role of Sherlock Holmes, and debuted sans origin tale: fully-formed with plenty of idiosyncratic baggage to flesh him out. From his foreboding mansion atop brooding Bone Hill, the consulting detective of all things unnatural would sally out in an old-fashioned horse-drawn buggy to tackle ancient horrors in the new Atomic Age: especially in the twisted streets of the city stretched out below his daunting abode…

The initiating escapade sees him rectify a long-standing miscarriage of justice after an elevator operator begs him to investigate an unsuspected floor in the old Wainwright Building: an edifice which never boasted a thirteenth storey until the night an oddly dressed couple boarded his lift…

Incredible peril lurked far closer to home in ‘The Philosopher’s Stone!’ (RC #48, August) since Drew actually owned that potent talisman. However, as he could never get it to work, the doctor had no qualms in lending it to his old friend Gordon Kyle. When Kyle was found instantly aged into decrepitude, a frantic hunt for a remorseless ancient predator begins…

For #49 (October), a young woman paralysed and in utter agony draws the ghostbreaker into battle against a vicious spurned lover employing ‘The Witch’s Doll!’ to gain vengeance, after which ‘The Devil’s Watch!’ (December) pits Drew against his greatest adversary when attempting to deny the Devil a legally-purchased old soul… which just happens to now reside in an innocent young musician…

When ethereal fog heralds a spate of debilitating sickness, victims – all male – are heard to utter ‘The Gypsy Girl!’ (#51, February 1950) before sinking into death. It takes all Drew’s resources to connect the outbreak to a witch-burning three centuries previously, and achieves critical personal importance after he learns his own ancestor was one of the witnesses at Gypsy Anna’s trial. Thankfully, fate and wisdom provide the key to banishing the vengeful spirit in the nick of time…

The hardest part of his struggle against a Balkan bloodsucker haunting a movie set is being dragged out of Bone Hill and flown to Hollywood in ‘The Mark of the Vampire!’ (#52, April) but his clash with bizarre cult ‘The Order of Elusa!’ (Ranger #53, June) proves far more arduous as the primordial murderous sect is located at the bottom of the sea and its immortal wizards almost seduce and corrupt the paranormal paragon with his greatest weakness: ancient, undiscovered, secret knowledge…

When an aqueduct project falters, construction bosses call in the dark detective to dispel a ship full of land-locked phantom buccaneers in ‘The Pirates of Skull Valley!’ (#54, August) before ‘The Curse of the Mandibles!’ (#55, October) finds a desperate client trying to prevent his imminent murder by a spirit which has – over centuries – decimated his entire family. The true culprit behind the string of deaths is even stranger and more incomprehensible than can be imagined…

‘Sabrina the Sorceress!’ (#56, December) is a common criminal charlatan, but when the fake medium is accused of murdering her client she suddenly faces true supernatural terror beside – and despite – Drew, after which the man of mysteries saves an anxious bridegroom from dying at the hands of his spectral bride in ‘Druid Castle!’ (#57, February 1951).

Summoned to the local penitentiary, the thaumic troubleshooter faces body-snatching refugees from the 4th dimension in ‘The Dartbane Horrors!’ (April), before voyaging to Paris to clash with despised rival psychic Salazar whilst solving a string of murders perpetrated by an unworldly fiend who favours ‘The Ancient Reek of Brimstone!’ (June).

The Keeper of Knowledge pauses his comic book crusade in London, bringing a theatrical monster to justice with the assistance of a ghostly actress holding the crucial secret of ‘Sandini’s Trunk!’ (Ranger Comics #60, August 1951).

This fabulous grimoire harbours further delights such as reminiscence-packed reverie ‘The Jerry Grandenetti Interview!’ (conducted by Gilbert before the master draughtsman died in 2010) as well as ‘The Secret Files of The Spirit’s Ghosts!’: a section copiously investigating ‘The Creators!’ and even laying to rest a true enigma of comics history by explaining the abrupt disappearance of Abe Kanegson (who completely dropped off the map in 1950 and was never seen again by his comics colleagues)!

Rendered in the unmistakeable style of classic Eisner’s Spirit episodes, with mature scripting from Marilyn Mercer (who left comics to become a writer, journalist and fashion editor) and Kanegson’s flamboyantly expressive lettering graphics, these are astonishingly compelling comic treasures no fan of the medium or lover of sinister suspense should dismiss. There’s even a selection of Ranger Comics covers and original inked art.

Eerie, gripping and timelessly enthralling, this is a minor masterpiece of monster-mashing comics fiction: one you’d be thrice-damned and really quite accursed to miss.
Mr. Monster Presents… The Secret Files of Dr. Drew™ & © 2014 Michael T. Gilbert. Introduction, Jerry Grandenetti interview and creator biographies © 2014 Michael T. Gilbert. All rights reserved.

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Dungeon Zenith volume 5 Fog and Tears


By Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim & Boulet, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-68112-316-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Somewhere way out there, is a planet called Terra Amata. On this world of rich history and diverse ways of life, there’s a castle in a fantastic land of miracles, quests and adventures. Once upon a time it was also a rather dangerous meeting place dubbed the Dungeon…

As primarily crafted by prolific artisans Joann Sfar (Les Potamoks, Professeur Bell, Les olives noires, The Rabbi’s Cat) and Lewis Trondheim (Little Nothings, Stay, Ralph Azham) in collaboration with associates of a collective of bande dessinée creators (L’Association) – the Donjon saga has generated 59 volumes since debuting in 1998. A cult hit all over the world, it began as spoof and parody of roleplaying fantasy games, but as so often with stories of innate charm and high quality, it grew beyond its intentions…

After a cruelly long hiatus, English translations recently resumed, repackaged in full-colour album-sized paperbacks, forming sub-divisions of a vast, eccentrically raucous, addictively wacky generational franchise which welds starkly adult whimsy to the weird worlds of Sword & Sorcery sagas. These omnibus tomes take a legion of horribly human anthropomorphic stars into territories even wilder than those seen in Dungeon: Early Years, Parade, Zenith and Monstres. Latterly, adjuncts such as Antipodes and Bonus joined the sprawling braided mega-saga set on an alien world very much like ours in all the ways that really matter…

Dungeon reveals Terra Armata in time-separated epochs via periodic glimpses of a fantastic edifice on an unstable world where magic is a natural resource. Anthropomorphic inhabitants of the surreal realm include every kind of talking beast and bug, as well as monsters, demons, smart-a$$es, wizards, politicians and always – in all ways – strong, stroppy women-folk, making sense and taking charge. Whenever you look there’s always something happening and it’s usually quite odd…

Nominal star throughout the eons is a duck with a magic sword enabling – and eventually compelling – him to channel and/or be possessed by deceased heroes and dead monsters. At the time of these tales – long before his ethical downfall and rise to the unassailable rank of Grand Khan of dying, burning Terra Armata – he is simply Herbert of Craftiwich: and as usual he’s in a lot of trouble…

Just so we’re all on the same page: the “Dungeon” referred to is (mostly) an eternal hostelry and meeting place for wandering heroes, villains and extras we readers see over centuries. Adventures are staged as figurative times of day. Prequel series Potron-Minet relates to the dawn of the establishment, Donjon Zénith – the focus of today’s lesson – concentrates on a glorious hey-day, whilst the decline takes up Crépuscule – the twilight years.

Joining master craftsmen Sfar & Trondheim and supplying the art is Gilles Roussel AKA “Boulet”. He was born in the Parisienne sous-préfecture (sub-prefecture) of Meaux on February 1st 1975 and studied at the Graduate School of Decorative arts in Strasbourg, before creating comics like Raghnarok in 2001. Three years later he was one of the first to publish autobiographical webcomics (“Blog BD”) and became a leading light in the burgeoning field: a doyen of Paris’ Festival des blogs BD. Amongst jobs for magazines like Psikopat and Tchô, Boulet’s milestones include La Rubrique Scientifique, science comics series Project Octopus (from 2017), and many key literary collaborations such as Erik le Viking with Terry Jones (2008) and Par bonheur, le lait with Neil Gaiman (2015). In 2006, he took over the art for Donjon Zénith from Trondheim.

As so lavishly translated by NBM, Fog & Tears shares French Donjon Zénith tomes 9 &10: Larmes et brouillard and Formule incantatoire: seeing valiant Herbert in the worst trouble of his life in the eponymous opening instalment. The Dungeon has been captured by magical villain Delacour and all attempts to recapture it have failed. Now Herbert’s allies plan to take it back…

The duck has bigger problems. The dashing lover has just had a son with his beloved: a Kochak warrior princess. Isis is adamant that the infant will undergo all the rituals of her people, and he will accompany her into a frozen hell. He’s keen to accede to her every wish but the devout steppe-dwellers are intensely stubborn and unyielding and the duck is worried about his boy’s chances. Herbert has learned the Opasnyye Rite involves throwing infants into a pit of hungry wolves and seeing what happens…

After travelling deep into the icy region and utterly failing to talk Isis out of it, Herbert steals the baby and makes a run for home with an outraged army of fanatical military marvels on his heels. With Kochak ninjas and – far worse – Isis in close pursuit, the duck rejoins his abandoned allies and smuggles the waif onto the infiltration mission to Delacour’s Dungeon. Elsewhere, Dragonista couple Marvin and Pirzween – and their own newborn – survive a visit from Isis, leaving the outraged mother doubting her faith and the infant’s chances of survival.

In the aftermath, the duck duke and a dedicated band of necromancers slip into the keep, as do an army of outraged Kolchaks. In response, Delacour unleashes a plague of ghosts from profane coffer the Vault of Souls before fleeing. If the chest is not closed, the dead will overrun the world…

As chief necromancer Horus seeks to hold back the dead, Isis and her acolytes reclaim the baby, dragging poor misguided Herbert back north with them so he can witness the ritual that will make his son a Kolchak and the inheritor of the kingdom…

When all the tragedy ends, her father the Ataman realises that now his only chance for a true heir rests with him and recapturing the duck and his apostate daughter can wait…

In second chapter ‘Incantatory Spells’ his abandoned comrades – Marvin and Pirzween – take centre stage as Herbert’s ally Alcibiades recruits them for a convoluted conjurors’ quest to close the mystic chest still spewing ghosts into the world of the living. With only rapidly-weakening Horus holding back the host, Marvin undergoes humiliation multiple agonizing self-inflicted penances and even more humiliation as he chases down a string of components that will allow his magic wielding allies and comrades to stop the undead invasion.

It’s not the succession of weird wizards and constant stupid diversions that get to him though, it’s sneaking about in cowardly disguises – like when the mighty lizard must impersonate an elf – and Pirzween’s constant back-seat warrior-ing that ticks him off. That and her stupid girlish manner around old school flame/utterly unnecessary mystical quest-mate Blaise…

In the end though, even Herbert – and especially Blaise – have to agree that it’s Marvin’s idea and muscle that save the day and end the threat…

To be Continued…

Please be warned: these cartoon tales are a bit more sophisticated than general English or American fare. I know you’re okay with vicariously indulging in extreme and excessive depictions of violence, but if you fear your children, loved ones, livestock or servants might be adversely affected by mild swearing or nipples on birds and lizards, take whatever appropriate action you choose (which I believe is the magic phrase “it’s only a comic, dear”).

The rest of us will just carry on without you…

Surreal, earthy, brilliantly outlandish, sharply poignant, wittily hilarious and powerfully tragic, this is a subtly addictive read delivered via vibrant, wildly eccentric cartooning that is an absolute marvel of exuberant, graphic style. Despite being definitely not for younger readers, Dungeon Zenith is the kind of near-the-knuckle, illicit and smart epic older kids and adults will adore. And for the fullest comprehension – and even more insane fun – I strongly recommend acquiring all attendant incarnations too.
© Editions Delcourt 2022, 2023-2005. (Donjon Zénith tomes 9 &10 by Boulet, Joann Sfar Lewis Trondheim). © 2023 NBM for the English translation.

Dungeon: Zenith Vol. 5 – Fog & Tears will be released on October 17th 2023 and is available for pre-order now. For more information and other great reads please go to http://www.nbmpub.com/.

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Nine Lives to Live – A Classic Felix Celebration


By Otto Messmer, edited by David Gerstein (Fantagraphics Books)
ISBN: 978-1-56097-308-9 (HB)

It might surprise you to know, but funny kitties actually pre-date the internet. They are still big at trick or treat time though…

Unless you’re as old as me, Felix is a hilarious, antic-enjoying talking cat of incredibly ancient vintage. His origins are confused, contentious and still challenged. I’m going with…

Felix was created by Otto Messmer for Australian Pat Sullivan’s animation studio between 1915 and 1917 and was an overnight global hit. Those moving picture cartoons led to a long supplementary career as a newspaper strip, as well as a plethora of merchandisable products in many other media.

Messmer wrote and drew the Sunday newspaper strip – which first premiered in London papers – before the feature finally launched in the USA on August 19th 1923. As Messmer’s employer and boss, Sullivan re-inked those initial strips, signed them, and then took the credit for both strips and even the animated cartoons, which Messmer carried on directing until 1931.

Otto quietly toiled on, producing Sunday pages and daily strips for decades. In 1955, his assistant Joe Oriolo took over the creative duties: simultaneously starting a campaign to return the credit for Felix’s invention and exploits to the “true” originator. It wasn’t until the 1960s that shy, loyal, brilliant Otto Messmer finally admitted what most of the industry had known for years…

As the cat evolved via successive movie shorts – and eventually numerous TV appearances – an additional and ever-expanding paraphernalia of mad professors, clunky robots and the fancy feline’s fantastical Bag of Tricks gradually became icons of Felix’s magical world, but most of that is the stuff of a later time and – hopefully one day – another collected volume.

The early work collected here comes from the halcyon 1920’s and displays a profoundly different kind of whimsy. Fast-paced slapstick, fantastic invention and, yes, a few images and gags that might arch the collective metaphorical eyebrow of our more enlightened times; these are the strips that caught the world’s imagination more than a century ago.

This was a time when even the modern citizens of America and Great Britain were social primitives compared to us – or at least so I’d like to think… until I read a paper or watch the news…

The imagination and wonderment of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and Cliff Sterrett’s Polly and her Pals – both so similar to Felix in style, tone and execution – got the same responses from their contemporary readership and with the same sole intent: make the reader laugh.

Our modern response of casually and frequently lazily labelling as racist or sexist any such historical incidence in popular art-forms, whilst ignoring the same “sins” in High Art, is the worst kind of aesthetic bigotry, and usually prompted by opportunistic bias or dog-whistle opportunism and it really truly ticks me off.

Why not use those incensed sensibilities to confront the still-present injustices and inequalities so many people are still – and often increasingly – enduring rather than take a cheap shot at the bygone, far-less-enlightened world when most creators had no conception of the potential ramifications of their efforts?

Sorry about that, but the point remains that the history of our artform is always going to be curtailed and covert if we are not allowed the same “conditional discharge” afforded to film, ballet, opera, painting or novels. When was the last time anybody demanded that Oliver Twist was banned or shunned because of its depiction of a Jew? And if you’re going to legislate against Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Nuns on the Run or Twelfth Night, don’t do it unless you want bigots and cretins to vote for you.

The modern rush to brand or Other any form of existence lived after Oliver Cromwell died actually shuts down debate before anything can be achieved to fix or even address the issue…

And it’s rants like that that really scare people…

None of which alters the fact that Felix the Cat is a brilliant and vitally important comic strip by an unsung genius. The wonderful work collected here – which include hundreds of rowdily phantasmagorical Daily and Sunday strips plus a comprehensive biography, filmography and TV videography section – perfectly encapsulates the wonder, universal charm and rapid-fire, surreal gags that enchanted generations and will still delight and enthral youngsters of all ages.

It’s long past time that this cat came back…
© 1996 O.G. Publishing Corp.

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Captain Midnight Archives volume 2: Captain Midnight Saves the World


By William Woolfolk, Leonard Frank, Leonard Starr, Dan Barry & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-243-5 (TPB) eISBN: 978-1-62115-921-6

Created by broadcast scripters Wilfred G. Moore and Robert M. Burtt, Captain Midnight began as a star of radio serials in the days when troubleshooting All-American aviators were the acme of adventure genre heroes. The Captain Midnight Program soldiered on from 1938 to 1940 until the Wander Company acquired sponsorship rights to promote their top product: Ovaltine.

From there on, national radio syndication led to a newspaper comic strip (by Erwin L. Hess, running June 29th 1942 until the end of the decade); a movie serial (1942) and – later – two TV serials (1953 and 1954-1956) before being overdubbed, retitled and syndicated as “Jet Jackson, Flying Commando” well into the 1960s. There was a mountain of now-legendary merchandise such as the infamous Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring…

And there was a comic book franchise – one recently reinvigorated for 21st century audiences.

The hero’s basic origin related how after the Great War ended, pilot and inventor Captain Jim Albright returned home having earned the sobriquet “Captain Midnight” after a particularly harrowing mission that concluded successfully at the witching hour. He then formed a paramilitary “Secret Squadron” of like-minded pilots to continue making the world a better place – often at the covert behest of the President – using guts and gadgets to foil spies, catch crooks and defend the helpless.

Captain Midnight truly hit his stride after Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, becoming an early Home Front media sensation throughout the war years. However, his already fluid backstory and appearance underwent a radical makeover when he switched comic book horses in midstream.

This stunningly engaging collection gathers a slew of often gruesome science fiction-themed tales taken from the latter end of the Fawcett Comics run. Captain Midnight #48, 50, 52-56, 58, 60, 62, 64 and 66 collectively spanned February 1947- August 1948. As times and tastes changed, the venerable title folded with the next issue.

Following a fervent Introduction from Batton Lash discussing the career of the much-travelled, constantly evolving “Monarch of the Airways” and the telling differences between radio, screen and comic book iterations, the contents explosively unfold with a tragic dearth of credit and attributions. Much comic material from this era is criminally unattributed, but writers known to be active on Midnight at this juncture include Bill Woolfolk and Otto Binder, whilst artists look like the unflagging Leonard Frank and young legends-to-be Leonard Starr and Dan Barry.

From issue #48 ‘Captain Midnight Visits the Golden Asteroid’ sees Albright and his mechanic Ichabod Mudd piloting their newly invented rocket-ship to investigate a new stellar body only to find that the astronomer who discovered it has an ulterior and nefarious motive for getting to the stellar wanderer.

Illustrated by Frank from #50, ‘Captain Midnight Spikes the Sun Gun’ pits the modern Edison against devilish Dr. Pyrrho who has found a way to inflict destructive heat on the already sweltering citizens of the American Southwest, after which a return prospecting trip to our nearest neighbour uncovers ‘The Moon Creatures’ (Woolfolk) who aggressively resisted all attempts to human colonise Luna…

With the solar system now a regular destination for exploration, Albright began occasional sorties to the planets and picked up some new recurring foes. The first was a plundering barbarian from Pluto who raids Earth for its Uranium reserves in #52’s ‘Captain Midnight versus the Space Raider!’ (Binder & Frank). The resultant chase and recovery takes our hero to Mars and first contact with an unsuspected race also under threat of merciless assault by the murderous Jagga…

After driving the fiend off and recovering his ill-gotten gains, Midnight next encounters the ruthless Plutonian inflicting ‘Peril on Venus’ in #53. By sending him packing once again, the inventor consequently aids the long-lost last survivors of Atlantis in getting their failing colony onto an even keel in a world overrun by dinosaurs…

In #54, Midnight and Icky find yet another embattled civilisation – on Ceres. A literally golden kingdom is fending off Jagga’s bacterial onslaught and meteor bombardments. With the Air Aces’ assistance, the monster is finally driven off in ‘The Asteroid Battle’.

There’s a double dose of super-scientific spectacle in #55, beginning with Albright’s perhaps unwise invention of a monumental dirigible intended as ‘The Sky Airport’. When common thugs steal the mobile monolith and use it as a base for air raids on banks, the heartbroken genius is forced into desperate action to clear his conscience…

This is followed by another interplanetary incident as ‘Captain Midnight Finds the Lunar Lair’ and finally brings Jagga to justice in the form of a trial in Earth’s courts. Unequivocally guilty, the beast is sentenced to death by electrocution in #56’s ‘The Last Rites of Jagga’ (Frank art) but said execution proves to be a major mistake and Midnight is called upon to deliver the sentence in his own infallible scientific manner…

A new threat emerges in #58 ‘On the Planet of Peril’ when an unknown race reanimates Earth’s greatest villains and monsters. A month later ‘Captain Midnight Battles the Ice Age’ finds our interplanetary explorers on Neptune: changing that world’s climate to give its humanoid inhabitants a big step up the ladder to civilisation, whilst issue #60 sees the return of earthly arch-enemy Dr. Osmosis who terrifies and torments humanity with his explosive ‘Flying Saucers of Death’…

Captain Midnight #62 detailed the inventor’s efforts to save America’s ‘Farmers on the Moon’ from sabotage as Earth agricultural entrepreneur Jim Klaw sought to maintain his produce monopoly at all costs…

A new extraterrestrial enemy debuted in #64 as ‘Beyond the Sun’ (Frank) introduced shapeshifting tyrant Xog: a gaseous monster from Saturn who boarded America’s newest spaceships as step one in his plans for interplanetary domination. When Midnight thwarted the scheme and rescued hostage Terrans, the vile king swore vengeance…

It came in the final tale in this superbly retro rollercoaster of rocket-powered fun – from #66 with art by Frank – as Xog transforms the good Captain into sentient gas before invading Earth. Happily, even ‘Without a Body’, Albright is too much for the malign marauder and once more saves the day and the world…

With a stunning gallery of covers by Frank, Charles Tomsey, Dan Barry and Mac Raboy, plus cool mini-features such as ‘Captain Midnight’s Air Lingo’, ‘US Army Aviation Badge Insignia’ and ‘Famous Planes’, this fabulous feast of fearsome fantasy is guaranteed to satisfy the yearnings of every starry-eyed space cadet, whatever their age.
Captain Midnight Archives volume 2: Captain Midnight Saves the World! ® and © Dark Horse Comics 2014. All rights reserved.

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Creepy Presents Alex Toth


By Alex Toth, with Archie Goodwin, Gerry Boudreau, Rich Margopoulos, Roger McKenzie, Doug Moench, Nicola Cuti, Bill DuBay, Steve Skeates,Leopoldo Durañona, Leo Summers, Romeo Tanghal, Carmine Infantino & various (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-692-1 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-63008-194-2

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

Alex Toth was a master of graphic communication who shaped two different art-forms and is largely unknown in both of them.

Born in New York in 1928, the son of Hungarian immigrants with a dynamic interest in the arts, Toth was a prodigy and, after enrolling in the High School of Industrial Arts, doggedly went about improving his skills as a cartoonist.

His earliest dreams were of a strip like Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, but his uncompromising devotion to the highest standards soon soured him on the newspaper market when he discovered how hidebound and innovation-resistant that family-values-obsessed industry had become whilst he was growing up.

At age 15, he sold his first comic book works to Heroic Comics and, after graduating in 1947, worked for All American/National Periodical Publications (who would amalgamate and evolve into DC Comics) on Dr. Mid-Nite, All Star Comics, Green Lantern, The Atom, Johnny Thunder, Sierra Smith, Johnny Peril, Danger Trail and a host of other two-fisted fighting features.

On the way he dabbled with newspaper strips (see Casey Ruggles: the Hard Times of Pancho and Pecos) and confirmed that nothing had changed…

Constantly aiming to improve, he never had time for fools or formula-hungry editors who wouldn’t take artistic risks. In 1952 Toth quit DC to work for “Thrilling” Pulps publisher Ned Pines who was retooling his prolific Better/Nedor/Pines companies (Thrilling Comics, Doc Strange, Fighting Yank, Black Terror and others) into Standard Comics: a comics house targeting older readers with sophisticated, genre-based titles.

Beside his particularly favourite inker Mike Peppe and fellow graphic artisans Nick Cardy, Mike Sekowsky, Art Saaf, John Celardo, George Tuska, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Toth set an incredibly high bar for a new kind of story-telling. In a cavalcade of short-lived titles dedicated to War, Crime, Horror, Science Fiction and especially Romance, the material produced was wry, restrained and thoroughly mature. After Simon & Kirby invented love comics, Standard, through artists like Cardy and Toth and writers like amazing, unsung Kim Aamodt, polished and honed the genre, routinely turning out clever, witty, evocative and yet tasteful melodramas and heart-tuggers both men and women could enjoy.

Before going into the military, where he still found time to create a strip (Jon Fury for the US Army’s Tokyo Quartermaster newspaper The Depot’s Diary) ,Toth illustrated 60 glorious tales for Standard; as well as some pieces for EC and others.

On his return to a different industry – he didn’t much like – Toth split his time between Western/Dell/Gold Key (Zorro and movie/TV adaptations) and National (assorted short pieces, superhero team-ups, Hot Wheels and Eclipso): doing work he increasingly found uninspired, moribund and creatively cowardly.

Before long he moved primarily into television animation: character and locale designing for Space Ghost, Herculoids, Birdman, Shazzan!, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? And Super Friends among so many others. He returned sporadically to comics, setting the style and tone for DC’s late 1960’s horror line in House of Mystery, House of Secrets and especially The Witching Hour, whilst illustrating more adult fare in Warren’s Creepy, Eerie and The Rook.

In the 1980s he redesigned The Fox for Red Circle/Archie, produced stunning one-offs for Archie Goodwin’s Batman and war comics (whenever they offered him “a good script”) and contributed to landmark/anniversary projects like Batman: Black and White. His later, personal works included European star-feature Torpedo and magnificently audacious Bravo for Adventure!: both debuting at the publishing company owned by Jim Warren.

Alex Toth died of a heart attack at his drawing board on May 27th 2006.

The details are fully recounted in Douglas Wolk’s biographically informative Foreword, as are hints of the artist’s later spells of creative brilliance at DC, the growing underground movement and nascent independent comics scene. Whilst working for Warren (intermittently and between 1965 and 1982) Toth enjoyed a great deal of editorial freedom and cooperation. He produced 21 starkly stunning monochrome masterpieces – many self-penned or written by fellow legend Archie Goodwin – and all crafted without interference from the Comics Code Authority’s draconian and nonsensical rules.

They ranged from wonderfully baroque and bizarre fantasy to spooky suspense and science fiction yarns, limited only by the bounds of good taste… or at least as far as horror tales can be. The uncanny yarns appeared in monochrome anthologies Creepy (# 5-7, 9, 75-80, 114, 122-125, 139) and Eerie (2, 3, 64, 65 and 67), affording the master of minimalism time and room to experiment with not only a larger page, differing styles and media, but also dabble in then-unknown comics genres.

Those lost Warren stories were gathered into this spectacular oversized (284 x 218 mm) hardback compendium (and eBook): part of a series of all-star artist compilations including Corben, Wrightson, Ditko and more – hereafter an appreciative Foreword from critic and historian Douglas Wolk.

The terror treats open with the short shockers from Creepy and – moodily rendered in grey wash-tones –‘Grave Undertaking’ comes from #5 (October 1965). Scripted by Goodwin, the period piece relates the shocking comeuppance of a funeral director who branches out into providing fresh corpses for the local medical school, after which December’s #6 offers insight into ‘The Stalkers’, as a troubled soul seeks psychoanalytic help for hallucinations of aliens plaguing him…

Prophetic visions play a part in ‘Rude Awakening!’ (#7, February 1966) as a guy flees omens of being gutted by a madman, before Toth reverted to his minimalist line style for ‘Out of Time’ (#9, June). Here a murderous mugger seeks sanctuary for his latest crime and ends up making a devil’s bargain…

A long absence ended in November 1975 as Creepy #75 heralded a wealth of new stories from Toth, beginning with Gerry Boudreau’s crime-thriller ‘Phantom of Pleasure Island’ wherein a mob-owned San Diego funfair is plagued by a sinister sniper. Private Eye Hubb Chapin is on the case, but his dogged determination to find the killer opens a lot of festering sores his client should have left well alone…

Spectacularly experimental and powerfully stark, ‘Ensnared!’ (scripted by Rich Margopoulos for #76, January 1976) is another paranoiac psychodrama with science fiction underpinnings, before Toth begins writing his own stories in Creepy #77 (February). A wash-&-tone tour de force depicting the strange fate of missing air mail pilot ‘Tibor Miko’ in 1928…

March’s issue #78 continued the tonal terrors with another 1920s tale exposing the stunning secret of a celluloid icon in ‘Unreeal!’ before we storm into Indiana Jones territory with ‘Kui’ (#79, May) wherein a couple of anthropologists make the holiday find of a lifetime on a deserted tropical island.

This tranche of Toth treats ends with ‘Proof Positive’ from June’s issue #80 wherein a gang of fraudulent patent lawyers and their ruthless honeytrap pay the ultimate price for gulling the wrong inventor. When Toth returned in January 1980 his first story was another chilling collaboration with old pal Goodwin. Rendered in overpowering scratchy line and solid blacks, Creepy #114’s ‘The Reaper’ details how a virologist with six months to live decides he’s not dying alone and leaving a world of idiots behind him…

Issue #122 (October 1980) found Toth inking veteran illustrator Leo Durañona for the Roger McKenzie-scripted civil war yarn ‘The Killing!’ Here a Northern raiding party occupying a mansion endure conflicting passions of lust and vengeance before death inevitably settles all scores.

Doug Moench writes, Leo Summers draws and Toth inks & tones ‘Kiss of the Plague!’ (#123, November 1980) as a welter of grisly murders slowly subtracts inhabitant of a seemingly accursed house, after which ‘Malphisto’s Illusion’ (#124, January 1981) finds Nichola Cuti, Alexis Romero (AKA Romeo Tanghal) & Toth explaining in grisly detail just how a stage magician pulls off his greatest trick. #125’s ‘Jacque Cocteau’s Circus of the Bizarre’ (McKenzie, Carmine Infantino & Toth) maintains the entertainment motif with a short shocker about a freak show like no other…

Toth’s last Creepy gig was another Goodwin collaboration. Issue #139 (July 1982) again featured the master’s moodily macabre tone painting in a grim, post-apocalyptic rumination on ‘Survival!’

Toth’s tenure on companion anthology Eerie #2 was relatively brief, beginning with the second issue (March 1966). ‘Vision of Evil’ was the first of two Goodwin tales limned in tone and bold line, revealing the fate of an overly-arrogant art collector who wouldn’t take no for an answer, whilst #3’s ‘The Monument’ (May 1966) saw an equally obnoxious architect accidentally engineer his own doom by stealing ideas from an old idol…

Eerie #64 offered intolerance, fear and sentiment in equal measure in ‘Daddy and the Pie’ (written by Bill DuBay). In Depression-era America a very alien stranger is made welcome by one hard-up family despite the barely repressed hostility of his neighbours…

A very modern monster’s exploits comprise the end of this stupendous collection as Steve Skeates pens a wry tale of serial killers and doughty detectives in old London town. ‘The Hacker is Back’ (#65 April) depicts a maniac’s return to slaughter after a decade’s hiatus and leads to an inconclusive resolution before ‘The Hacker’s Last Stand!’ (#67 August) finds forces of law and order overwhelmed by a killing spree unlike any other…

This voluminous volume has episodes which terrify, amaze, amuse and enthral: utter delights of fantasy fiction with lean, stripped-down plots and a mordant tone 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 the sharp wit and dark comedic energy which epitomised both Goodwin and Warren, channelled through Toth’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 © 1965, 1966, 1975, 1976, 1980. 1981, 1982, 2015 by New Comic Company. All rights reserved.

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Solomon Kane volume 1: The Castle of the Devil


By Scott Allie, Mario Guevara, Dave Stewart & various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-282-6 (TPB)

Although Marvel have resumed control of Robert E. Howard’s star turns, they haven’t yet re-issued all the prior efforts of the previous licensee yet. That’s a shame as this particular tome has Halloween written all over it. Until they do, why not scour shoppes and online sites for a copy. The exercise will probably do you good and who knows what else you might find?

Following on from their revitalisation – if not actual creation – of the comic book Sword and Sorcery genre in the early 1970s (with their magnificent adaptation of pulp superstar Conan the Barbarian), Marvel Comics quite naturally looked for more of the same. They found ample material in Robert Ervin Howard’s other warrior heroes such as King Kull, Bran Mac Morn and dour Puritan Avenger Solomon Kane.

The fantasy genre had undergone a global prose revival in the paperback marketplace since the release of soft-cover editions of Lord of the Rings (first published in 1954), and the 1960s resurgence of two-fisted action extravaganzas by such pioneer writers as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline and Fritz Lieber. This led to a generation of modern writers like Michael Moorcock and Lin Carter kick-starting their careers with contemporary interpretations of man, monster and mage. Without doubt, though, nobody did it better than the tragic Texan whose other red-handed stalwarts and tough guys such as El Borak, Steve Costigan, Dark Agnes and Red Sonya of Rogatino excelled in a host of associated genres and like milieus.

Solomon Kane debuted in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales in a gripping tale of vengeance entitled “Red Shadows”. He made seven more appearances before vanishing in 1932 as his creator concentrated on far more successful Conan. Three further tales, some epic poems and a few unfinished ideas and passages remained unpublished until 1968, when renewed interest in the author’s work prompted publishers to disinter and complete the yarns.

Apart from two noteworthy 4-colour exceptions, during the 1970s and 1980s, Marvel was content to leave Solomon Kane to monochrome adaptations of canonical Howard stories (in Dracula Lives, Savage Sword of Conan, Monsters Unleashed and other older-reader magazines), but with his transfer to the Dark Horse stable the Holy Terror flourished in broader, lavishly-hued interpretations of the unfinished snippets left when the prolific Howard took his life in 1936.

Beginning in 2008 and released as a succession of miniseries, these nearly-new adventures offer modern fans a far darker, more moody glimpse at the driven, doom-laden wanderer.

Kane is a disenfranchised English soldier of fortune in the 17th century on a self-appointed mission to roam the Earth doing God’s Work: punishing the wicked and destroying devils and monsters. With no seeming plan, the devout Puritan lets fate guide his footsteps ever towards trouble…

Expanded upon and scripted by Scott Allie from tantalisingly unfinished fragment The Castle of the Devil, this initial volume collects a 5-issue story-arc from September 2008-February 2009 and also includes a short piece which originally featured online in the digital MySpace Dark Horse Presents site in June 2008.

The drama opens as the surly pilgrim bloodily encounters bandits and an horrific wolf-beast in Germany’s Black Forest, losing his horse in the attack. Proceeding on foot he finds a boy hanging from a gibbet and cuts the near-dead body down. Soon after, he meets mercenary John Silent, another Englishman in search of fortune…

From his new companion, Kane learns local lord, Baron von Staler, has an evil reputation and will not be happy to have his affairs meddled with. The puritan doesn’t care: he wants harsh words with the kind of man who would execute children…

Despite genuine misgivings, the insufferably jolly Silent insists on accompanying his clearly suicidal countryman. Soon the pair are admitted to a bleak and terrifying Schloss built on the remains of an old abbey…

Von Staler is not the mad tyrant they had been warned of. The gracious, pious old warrior with devoted servants and a beautiful young Moorish wife welcomes them in, offering the hospitality of his hearth and charming them with his easy manner. The lord is appalled by the tale of the hanged boy, denying any knowledge of the atrocity and swears to bring the culprits to justice.

Over supper he and his bride Mahasti explain that their ill-repute is unjustly earned. The simple peasants have unfairly conflated him with the manse’s previous accursed inhabitants: a chapter of monks who murdered their own Prior two centuries past.

Vater Stuttman had been a holy man until he sold himself to Satan. His desperate brethren had been forced to entomb and starve him to contain his evil. With the church determinedly ignoring their plight, the chapter faded from the sight of Man and eventually Staler’s family had purchased the lands, building their ancestral seat upon the ruins.

The peasants however, still called it “the Church of the Devil”…

Gratified to find a man as devoted to God as himself, Kane relaxes for the first time in months, thankful to spend a night in a warm bed with people as devout as he. The truth begins to out at ‘The Dead of Night’ as Silent goes prowling within the castle and kills one of the Baron’s retainers, even as Kane’s rest is disturbed by shameless Mahasti offering herself to him…

Spurning her advances, the furious puritan leaves the citadel to wander the forest, and again encounters the colossal wolf thing. Back in his bed Silent, nursing a deep wound, dreams of beleaguered old monks and their apostate Prior…

In ‘Offerings’ the truth slowly begins to dawn on the melancholy wanderer after discourse with the strangely ill-tempered Silent. Something is badly amiss in the household, but when Kane and the Baron ride out that morning, all suspicions are stayed by the discovery of another gibbet and another boy. This one, however, is nothing but ragged scraps for the crows that festoon his corpse, and Kane’s rage is dwarfed by the ghastly uncomprehending shock and disbelief of the Baron…

The servants are not so flustered and something about their muted conversations with the master sits poorly with the morose Englishman. In the castle, Mahasti finds Silent a far more amenable prospect, happy to listen to the secrets she wants to share…

‘Sound Reasons and Evil Dictates’ offer more insights into the incredible truth about von Staler, as Kane takes his countryman into his full confidence before Silent and Mahasti ride out into the wild woods, meeting a ghost who reveals the terrifying truth about Vater Stuttman and the appalling thing the monks uncovered two hundred years past…

The demonic cadaver whispered unknowable secrets to one of that long-gone congregation and has continued for all the days and years since. Now the man who was Father Albrecht is ready to welcome it and its appalling kin back to full, ravening life in these benighted grounds…

Von Staler and Kane are arguing and, as accusations become blows, the secret of ‘The Wolf’ is at last revealed, even as faithful retainers capture Mahasti and Silent, leaving them on the gibbets as fodder for a quartet of horrors returning for their fleshly tribute in ‘His Angels of the Four Winds’. Savagely battling his way free of the castle, Kane is only in time to save one of the monsters’ victims, but more than ready to avenge centuries of slaughter and blasphemy in ‘The Chapel of the Devil’: grimly cleansing the tainted lands in the ‘Epilogue: Wanderers on the Face of the Earth’…

The art is beguiling, emphatically evocative with Mario Guevara’s pencils astonishingly augmented by a painted palette courtesy of colourist Dave Stewart, and the book is packed with artistic extras and behind-the-scenes bonuses. These include a gallery of covers and variants and ‘The Art of Solomon Kane’ with sketches and designs by the penciller, architectural shaper Guy Davis and illustrators John Cassaday, Stewart, Laura Martin & Joe Kubert. The tome terminates with that aforementioned digital vignette wherein Kane applies his own savage wisdom of Solomon to a troubled village of ghost-bedevilled souls in ‘The Nightcomers’…

Powerful, engaging and satisfactorily spooky, this fantasy fear-fest will delight both fans of the original canon and lovers of darkly dreaming, ghost-busting thrillers.
© 2009 Solomon Kane Inc. (SKI). Solomon Kane and all related characters, names and logos are ™ © and ® SKI.

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G.I. Zombie – A Star-Spangled War Story


By Justin Grey, Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Hampton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5487-2 (TPB)

When DC rebooted their entire continuity with the New 52 in 2011, most reader and critical attention was focussed on big-name costumed stars. However, the move also allowed creators to revisit older genre titles from those eras when superheroes were not the only fruit.

A number of venerable war titles and stars were revisited and re-imagined (even iconic and presumed-sacrosanct Sgt. Rock) and many novel ideas and treatments were created – although largely ignored by the audiences they were intended to attract.

One of the most appealing, fashionably intriguing and well-realised appeared in a revitalised Star Spangled War Stories, outrageously blending the global war on terror, then-current socio-political disaffection and Earth’s ongoing fascination with the walking dead to spawn a spectacular, tongue-in-cheek blockbuster romp tailor-made for TV or movies.

Perhaps that was the point all along…

Written by Justin Grey & Jimmy Palmiotti and illustrated by Scott Hampton, the serialised saga from SSWS volume 2 #1-8 spanned cover-dates September 2014 to May 2015 and was collected into one riotous read, albeit augmented by a smart little epilogue culled from Star Spangled War Stories: Future’s End #1 (September 2014).

The premise is deliciously simple and sublimely subversive. Soldier Jared Kabe has been the Republic’s most secret weapon for decades: an unkillable agent infallibly serving the nation in secret through most of its wars and so many of its unpublicised black-ops counter-strikes against America’s implacable enemies.

And just so we’re on the same page here, he’s unkillable because he’s already dead…

When not battling on numerous officially sanctioned war fronts, this perfect operative has tackled pervasive social ills such as drug cartels and human traffickers, and it’s just this kind of simple mission which leads to an unlife-changing moment as his commanding officer/ handler Codename: Gravedigger pairs him with maverick – but still breathing – agent Carmen King.

They were only supposed to infiltrate a biker gang militia, but the case takes on a life of its own when the smelly redneck nut-jobs buy medium-range missiles and a deadly bio-agent to use on Washington DC.

After an astounding amount of cathartic bloodshed, Carmen is soon deep undercover, playing house with a slick madman running a clandestine organisation of would-be world conquerors. Jared meantime strives to prevent the strike on the government. He succeeds by bringing the missile down in unlucky Sutterville, Tennessee, only to discover to his horror that he has a personal connection to the payload and must face a horrific ‘Small Town Welcome’…

As Jared and Special Forces units struggle to contain a spreading contagion, Carmen is deep underground in a sybaritic paradise housing an enclave of wealthy fanatics in Utah. Everyone is eager to remake the world to their specifications, but even whilst playing along with the head loon, she has one eye on the citadel’s labs and armoury and the other on her ‘Exit Strategy’…

Southern crisis contained, Kabe rushes to rendezvous with King, selecting a uniquely undead methodology to enter the subterranean fortress: one offering ‘Door-to-Door Delivery’, but the head paranoid panics and chooses to abandon his base and acolytes in the ‘The Living Desert’. Taking Carmen and a few select, trusted individuals, he flees to San Francisco after first employing his private nuclear option…

‘Two the Hard Way’ sees Jared survive the detonation – and another bio-bomb outbreak – before heading for the coast where Carmen’s cover has been blown and she is attempting to blast her way out.

With the disclosure of Kabe’s past connections to the madmen-in-charge, ‘The Final Countdown’ begins with the G.I. Zombie, Carmen and a dedicated cadre of special agents invading a locked-down fortress determined to prevent the “City by the Bay” becoming another glowing toxic crater…

The main event magnificently completed, there’s a little extra treat for readers: ‘United States of the Dead’ appeared in Star Spangled War Stories: Future’s End #1, part of a company-wide publishing event set “five years from now”. It reveals how a zombie bio-agent has been used to infect Gotham City with Kabe and Co. in play to stop the rot to save the world…

With cover and variants by Dave Johnson, Howard Porter and the late, great and much-missed Darwyn Cooke, this is a fabulous high-velocity action adventure: fast paced, devastatingly action packed and simply dripping with sharply mordant black comedy moments. G.I. Zombie is the kind of graphic extravaganza you use to convert folks who hate comics. Are you ready to be turned?
© 2014, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Wilderness Collection


By Claire Scully (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-910395-74-5- (HB)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Know Your Place… 9/10

The most wondrous thing about comics is their sheer versality. In terms of narrative, exposition, mood-setting and information dissemination, nothing comes close, and the range of visualisations span near-abstract construction to hyper-realism. If the end-consumer is particularly receptive, the author can even dial back on narrative or plot or characterisation and let a succession of carefully-applied images make a story unique to each reader. It’s like jazz for your head and before your very eyes…

In all the most telling ways, we’re still monkeys clinging to rocks: we can’t help but respond viscerally to our environment: cowed or elated by stony heights, drawn to and pacified by pools and gardens, inexplicably moved to fear or joy by forests. It’s in our blood and bones: nobody stands on a mountaintop or looks down into the Grand Canyon and says “meh”…

Wherever we are, the landscapes in our heads still unfold before or curl back on us. We may have left the caves and trees and sunlit shores, but we now mimic those ancient sanctuary havens in our dwellings. We climb high and burrow deep and our architecture has visceral, compulsive, instinctive power over us.

Walk by a Victorian school, across a Roman viaduct or study the oppressive, aggressive triumphalism of Nazi-built buildings or battle emplacements – we’re all still part of the wild with Nature in our veins and bones. Just don’t stand too long near towering desert mile-spires or vertical palaces based on knickknacks or vegetables or sex-toys…

When someone really talented and truly invested channels such primal responses, the fires of creativity can push right into the hindbrain to our inner primitive. The Wilderness Collection does that. A timely amalgamation of three earlier rambles through realities – Internal Wilderness, Desolation Wilderness and Outer Wilderness – the sequenced images comprise a hardback handbook of purely and sublimely visual triggers: experiences enhanced by the rough tactile textures of the card they are printed on. This is the culmination of a project examining the relationship between Landscape and Memory.

The first steps come in nocturnal shades of blue as Internal Wilderness presents “a journal of a sequence of events occurring over a period of time and location in space” before the ceaseless peregrination reaches the warm reds, oranges, browns and fading greens of the Desolation Wilderness which depicts “a sequence of events occurring over a period of time in the search for a location in space”.

Careful now, you are nearing a stopping point if not an end, as Outer Wilderness explores the wildest places on the route: “a sequence of events occurring over an unimaginable period of time in the vastness of space” – melding animal, mineral and vegetable in a manner reminiscent of Basil Wolverton in his visionary, inspirational element….

Creator Claire Scully has inscribed and sequenced compelling scenes of rocks and trees and waters and skies and other things less definable, across different seasons and times of day in such a fashion that you must look and pause and ponder.

This is a graphic missile targeting recollection and imagination; one that hits with serenely devastating impact.

If you are still human or at least a primate looking for challenge, this will make you think: you won’t be able to help yourself…
© 2019 Claire Scully. All rights reserved.

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The Demon by Jack Kirby


By Jack Kirby & Mike Royer & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7718-5 (HB/Digital edition)

Jack “King” Kirby shaped the very nature of comics narrative. A compulsive storyteller, Jack was an astute, spiritual man who had lived through poverty, gangsterism, the Depression and World War II. He had seen Post-War optimism, Cold War paranoia, political cynicism and the birth and death of peace-seeking counter-cultures. He was open-minded and utterly wedded to the making of comics stories on every imaginable subject.

He began at the top of his game, galvanising the comicbook scene from its earliest days with long-term creative partner Joe Simon: creating Blue Bolt, drawing Captain Marvel and adding lustre to Timely comics with creations such as Red Raven, Hurricane, Captain America and The Young Allies.

In 1942 Simon & Kirby moved to National/DC and hit even more stellar highs with The Boy Commandos, Newsboy Legion, Manhunter and The Sandman before the call of duty saw them inducted into the American military.

On returning from World War II, they reunited and formed a creative studio working primarily for the Crestwood/Prize publishing outfit where they invented the entire genre of Romance comics. Amongst that dynamic duo’s other concoctions for Prize was a noir-ish, psychologically underpinned supernatural anthology Black Magic and its short-lived but fascinating companion title Strange World of Your Dreams.

All their titles eschewed traditional gory, heavy-handed morality plays and simplistic cautionary tales for deeper, stranger fare, and until the EC comics line hit their peak were far and away the best and most mature titles on the market.

Kirby understood the fundamentals of pleasing his audience and always strived diligently to combat the appalling state of prejudice about the comics medium – especially from industry insiders and professionals who despised the “kiddies world” they felt trapped in.

When the 1950s anti-comics comics witch hunt devastated the industry, Simon & Kirby parted ways. Jack went back to DC briefly and created newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force before partnering with Stan Lee at the remains of Timely Comics to create the monolith of stars we know as Marvel.

After more than a decade there he felt increasingly stifled and side-lined and in 1970 accepted an offer of complete creative freedom at DC. The jump resulted in a root and branch redefinition of superheroes in his quartet of interlinked Fourth World series.

After those controversial, grandiose groundbreaking titles were cancelled Kirby looked for other concepts to stimulate his vast creativity and still appeal to an increasingly fickle market. General interest in the Supernatural was rising, with books and movies exploring the unknown in gripping and stylish new ways, and the Comics Code Authority had already released its censorious choke-hold on mystery and horror titles, thereby saving the entire industry from implosion when the superhero boom of the 1960s fizzled away.

At DC’s suggestion, Kirby had already briefly returned to his supernatural experimentation in a superb but poorly received and largely undistributed monochrome magazine. Spirit World launched in the summer of 1971, but as before, editorial cowardice and back-sliding scuppered the project before it could get going. You can see what might have been in a collected edition re-presenting the sole published issue and material from a second, unreleased sequel in Jack Kirby’s Spirit World…

With most of his ideas misunderstood, ignored or side-lined by the company Kirby opted for more traditional fare. Never truly defeated though, he cannily blended his belief in the marketability of the mystic unknown with flamboyant super-heroics to create another unique and lasting mainstay for the DC universe: one that lesser talents would make a pivotal figure of the company’s continuity.

This compilation gathers the entire eerie 16-issue run from August/September 1972 through January 1974 and opens with a fulsome Introduction detailing how The Demon came to be from Kirby’s then-assistant Mark Evanier before the astounding adventures begin…

Inked by Mike Royer, The Demon #1 introduces a howling, leaping monstrosity (famously modelled after a 1939 sequence from Hal Foster’s Arthurian epic Prince Valiant) battling beside its master Merlin as Camelot dies in flames: a cataclysmic casualty of the rapacious greed of sorceress Morgaine Le Fey.

Out of that apocalyptic destruction, a man arises and wanders off into the mists of history…

In our contemporary world (or at least the last quarter of the 20th century) demonologist and paranormal investigator Jason Blood has a near-death experience with an aged collector of illicit arcana. This culminates in a hideous nightmare about a demonic being and the last stand of Camelot. He has no idea that Le Fey is still alive and has sinister plans for him…

And in distant Moldavia, strange things are stirring in crumbling Castle Branek, wherein lies hidden the lost Tomb of Merlin…

Blood is wealthy, reclusive and partially amnesiac, but one night he agrees to host a small dinner party, entertaining acquaintances Harry Mathews, psychic UN diplomat Randu Singh, his wife Gomali and their flighty young friend Glenda Mark. The soiree does not go well.

Firstly, there is the painful small talk, and the sorcerous surveillance of Le Fey, but the real problems start when an animated stone giant arrives to “invite” Blood to visit Castle Branek. This shattering voyage leads to Merlin’s last resting place but just as Blood thinks he may find some answers to his enigmatic past, Le Fey pounces. Suddenly he starts to change, transforming into the horrific beast of his dreams…

Issue #2 – ‘My Tomb in Castle Branek!’ – opens with wary villagers observing a terrific battle between a yellow monster and Le Fey’s forces, but when the Demon is defeated and Blood arrested, only the telepathic influence of Randu in America can help him. Le Fey is old, dying, and needs Merlin’s grimoire, the Eternity Book, to extend her life.

Thus, she manipulates Blood – who has existed for centuries unaware that Merlin’s hellish Attack Dog the Demon Etrigan is chained inside him – to regain his memories and awaken the slumbering master mage. It looks like the last mistake she will ever make…

Kirby’s tried and trusted approach was always to pepper high concepts throughout blazing, breakneck action, and #3 was one the most imaginative yet. ‘The Reincarnators’ finds Blood back in the USA, aware at last of his tormented history, and with a small but devoted circle of friends. Adapting to a less lonely life, he soon encounters a cult able to physically regress people to a prior life – and use those time-lost beings to commit murder…

The Demon #4-5 comprise one single exploit, wherein a simple witch and her macabre patron capture the reawakened, semi-divine Merlin. ‘The Creature from Beyond’ and ‘Merlin’s Word’s … Demon’s Wrath!’ introduced cute little monkey Kamara the Fear-Monster (later used with devastating effect by Alan Moore in Saga of the Swamp Thing #26-27) and features another startling “Kirby-Kritter” – Somnambula, the Dream-Beast…

It seems odd in these blasé modern times but The Demon was a controversial book in its day – cited as providing the first post-Comics Code depiction of Hell and one where problems were regularly solved with sudden, extreme violence.

‘The Howler!’ in issue #6 is a truly spooky yarn with Blood hunting a primal entity of rage and brutal terror that transforms its victims into murderous lycanthropic killers, whilst #7 debuts a spiteful, malevolent young fugitive from a mystical otherplace.

‘Witchboy’ Klarion and his cat-familiar Teekl were utterly evil little sociopaths in a time where all comicbook politicians were honest, cops only shot to wound and “bad” kids were only misunderstood: another Kirby first…

An extended epic, ‘Phantom of the Sewers’ skilfully combines movie and late-night TV horror motifs in the dark and tragic tale of actor Farley Fairfax, cursed by the witch he once spurned. Unfortunately, Glenda Mark is the spitting image of the departed Galatea, and when, decades later, the demented thespian kidnaps her (in ‘Whatever Happened to Farley Fairfax?!!’) to raise the curse, it could only end in a flurry of destruction, death, consumed souls and ‘The Thing That Screams’…

This 3-part thriller is followed by another multi-part masterpiece (The Demon #11-13). ‘Baron von Evilstein’ is a powerful parable about worth and appearance featuring the ultimate mad scientist and the tragic, misunderstood monster he so casually builds. It’s a truth that bears repeating: ugly doesn’t equal bad…

Despite all Kirby’s best efforts The Demon was not a monster hit – unlike his science-fiction disaster drama Kamandi – and by #14 it’s clear that the book was in its last days. Not because the sheer pace of imagination, excitement and passion diminished – far from it – but because the well-considered, mood-drenched stories were suddenly replaced by rocket-fast eldritch romps populated with returning villains.

First back was Klarion the Witchboy who creates a ‘Deadly Doppelganger’ to replace Jason Blood and kill his friends in #14-15, before the series – and this wonderful treasury of wicked delights – ended in a climactic showdown with the ‘Immortal Enemy’ Morgaine Le Fey…

Kirby carried on with Kamandi, returned to The Sandman, explored WWII in The Losers and created the magnificent Omac: One Man Army Corps, but still could not achieve the all-important sales the company demanded. Eventually he returned to Marvel and new challenges such as Black Panther, Captain America, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man and especially The Eternals.

As always in these wondrously economical collections it should be noted that the book comes stuffed with un-inked pencilled pages and roughs in bonus feature ‘The Art of Jack Kirby’, and Evanier’s fascinating, informative Introduction is, as ever, a fact-fan’s delight.

Jack Kirby was and is unique and uncompromising: his words and pictures are an unparalleled, hearts-and-minds grabbing delight no comics lover could resist. If you’re not a fan or simply not prepared to see for yourself what all the fuss has been about then no words of mine will change your mind.

That doesn’t alter the fact that Kirby’s work from 1937 to his death in 1994 shaped the entire American comics scene and indeed the entire comics planet – affecting the lives of billions of readers and thousands of creators in all areas of artistic endeavour for generations and still winning new fans and apostles every day, from the young and naive to the most cerebral of intellectuals. His work is instantly accessible, irresistibly visceral, deceptively deep and simultaneously mythic and human.

He is the King and time has shown that the star of this book is one of his most potent legacies.
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