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XIII volumes 1 & 2: The Day of the Black Sun & Where the Indian Walks


By William Vance & Jean Van Hamme, coloured by Petra (Cinebook)
ISBN: 978-1-84918-039-9 (Album PB/Digital Black Sun) 978-1-84918-040-5 (Album PB/Digital Indian Walks Sun)

One of the most consistently entertaining and popular adventure serials in Europe, XIII was created by writer Jean Van Hamme (Wayne Shelton, Blake and Mortimer, Lady S.) and artist William Vance when working on numerous strips such as Bruce J. Hawker, Marshal Blueberry, Ramiro, Bob Morane and more.

Van Hamme – born in Brussels in 1939 – is one of the most prolific writers in comics. After academically pursuing business studies he moved into journalism and marketing before selling his first graphic tale in 1968.

Immediately clicking with the public, by 1976 he had also branched out into novels and screenwriting. His big break was the monumentally successful fantasy series Thorgal for Le Journal de Tintin magazine. He then cemented his reputation with mass-market bestsellers Largo Winch and XIII as well as more cerebral fare such as Chninkel and Les maîtres de l’orge. Van Hamme has been listed as the second-best selling comics author in France, ranked beside the seemingly unassailable Hergé and Uderzo.

Born in Anderlecht, William Vance was the comics nom de plume of William van Cutsem, (September 8 1935 – May 14th 2018). After military service in 1955-1956 he studied art at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and promptly became an illustrator of biographic features for Le Journal de Tintin in 1962. His art is a classical blend of meticulous realism, scrupulous detail and spectacular yet understated action. In 1964 he began maritime serial Howard Flynn (written by Yves Duval) before graduating to more popular genre work with western Ray Ringo and espionage thriller Bruno Brazil (scripted by Greg). Further success followed when he replaced Gérald Forton on science fiction classic Bob Morane in Femmes d’Aujourd’hui, (and later Pilote and Tintin).

Constantly working on both serials and stand-alone stories, Vance’s most acclaimed work was his collaboration with fellow Belgian Van Hamme on a contemporary thriller based on Robert Ludlum’s novel The Bourne Identity…

XIII debuted in 1984, originally running – to great acclaim – in prestigious comics anthology Le Journal de Spirou. A triad of albums were rushed out – simultaneously printed in French and Dutch language editions – before the first year of serialisation ended.

The series was a monumental hit in Europe – although publishing house Dargaud were initially a little slow to catch on – but has fared less well in its many attempts to make the translation jump to English, with Catalan Communications, Alias Comics and even Marvel all failing to maximise the potential of the gritty mystery thriller. That all changed when Cinebook took over. To date all the original series and most of the spin-offs have seen print…

XIII: The Day of the Black Sun

The epic conspiracy thriller was first seen in Le Journal de Spirou #2408- 2411, triggering an epic journey of unrelenting action, mood, mystery and mayhem. Quickly packaged as debut album collection Le jour du soleil noir, it begins here in translated form on a windswept, rocky shore where retired Abe’s quiet day of fishing is ruined after he reels in a body…

Shockingly, his catch is still alive – despite being shot in the head – and as Abe’s wife Sally examines the near-corpse she finds a key sewn into his clothes and Roman numerals for “thirteen” tattooed on his neck. The area is desolate and remote and the fisherman has already gone for the only medical assistance he can think of: an alcoholic surgeon struck off for operating whilst inebriated…

After a tense, makeshift and rushed procedure ends in miraculous success, the three conspirators agree they can never tell anyone. Old Martha has performed a miracle in saving the presumably shipwrecked stranger, but if the authorities ever find out, she faces jail for practicing without a license.

There’s a further complication. The gunshot victim – a splendid physical specimen clearly no stranger to action or violence – has suffered massive and probably irreversible brain trauma. Although now sound in body, he has completely lost his mind. Language skills, social and reflexive conditioning and muscle memories remain intact, but every detail of his life-history have been utterly erased…

Some while later, as Martha explains all this to the swiftly recuperating stranger – whom Abe and Sally have named Alan after their own dead son – his lost past life explosively intrudes when contract killers invade the remote beach house with guns blazing. Terrifying skills he has no conception of instantly surface asaAlan lethally counters the attack, but too late to save anybody but himself and Martha…

In the aftermath, Alan finds a photo of himself and a young woman on one of the hitmen and, with Martha’s help, traces the image to nearby metropolis Eastown. Desperate for answers, and certain more killers must be coming, the human question mark heads out to confront unimaginable danger and hopefully find the answers he so urgently needs…

Eager to find the mystery woman he was clearly intimate with, he tracks the photo to the offices of the local newspaper, bringing him to the attention of a shady cop who recognises the amnesiac and makes sinister plans…

The woman in the photo is Kim Rowland, a local widow officially listed a “missing person”. When Alan goes to her house he finds the key he was carrying fits the front door. Inside is a scene of devastation, but a thorough search utilising gifts he was unaware he possessed turns up another key and a note warning someone named Jake that “The Mongoose” has found her and she must disappear…

As the search unfolds, Alan/Jake is ambushed by the dirty cop and newspaper editor Wayne. Gloating, Lieutenant Hemmings calls him “Shelton” and demands the return of a large amount of money the baffled amnesiac has no notion of. Alan/Jake/Shelton guesses the new key he found is for a safe-deposit box and bluffs the thugs into taking him to the biggest bank in town…

The bank manager there also knows him as Mr. Shelton and happily escorts him to his private room, but when Hemmings and Wayne examine the briefcase left in Shelton’s deposit box, a booby trap detonates. Taking advantage of the confusion, their prisoner snatches up the case and expertly escapes from the bank, despite the institution rapidly initiating lockdown procedures.

Later in a shabby hotel room, the agonised angry amnesiac considers the huge amount of cash in the case and – not for the first time – wonders what kind of man he used to be…

Preferring motion to inactivity, Alan prepares to leave, but stumbles into a mob of armed killers breaking into his room. In a blur of lethal activity, he escapes to the roof with the thugs in hot pursuit and crashes into another group led by a man called Colonel Amos…

The chilling executive calls his captive “Thirteen”, claiming to have previously dealt with his predecessors XI and XII over something called the “Black Sun case”…

The Colonel also very much wants to know who Alan is, and has some shocking facts already at his disposal. The most sensational is a film of the recent assassination of the American President, clearly showing the lone gunman to be the now-appalled Thirteen…

Despite Alan’s heartfelt conviction that he is not an assassin, Amos continues to accuse his memory-wiped captive of being an employee of a criminal mastermind. The Security Supremo wants the man in charge, but fails to take Alan’s submerged but instinctive abilities into account. He is taken completely by surprise when the prisoner rashly leaps out of a fourth floor window…

Somehow surviving the plunge and subsequent pursuit, the frantic fugitive heads for the only refuge he knows, but by the time he reaches Martha’s beachside house trouble has beaten him there…

Another band of killers is waiting; led by a mild-seeming man Alan inexplicably calls The Mongoose. This smug monster expresses surprise and admiration: he thought he’d ended Thirteen months ago…

Tragedy follows an explosion of deadly violence, as Alan goes into action. Henchmen are mercilessly despatched – albeit too late to save Martha – but The Mongoose escapes, swearing dire revenge…

With nothing but doubt, confusion and corpses behind him, the mystery man regretfully hops a freight train west and heads toward an uncertain future…

And so began one of the most compelling and convoluted mystery adventures ever conceived, with subsequent instalments constantly taking the questor deeper and deeper into danger, misery, frustration and – always – more death…

 

XIII volume 2: Where the Indian Walks

The epic conspiracy saga of unrelenting mood, mystery and mayhem began when a kind old man came upon a body on a windswept, rocky shore. The human flotsam was alive despite being shot in the head, and had a key sewn into his clothes and the Roman numerals for thirteen tattooed on his neck. He was treated by an alcoholic, struck-off surgeon and as he recuperated a complication emerged irreversible brain trauma. Language skills, muscle memories, even social and reflexive conditioning all remained, but every detail of his life-history was gone…

The bewildering journey resumes in Where the Indian Walks (originally collected in Europe as in Là où va l’Indien in late 1985, after earlier serialisation in Spirou #2462-2465, spanning 28th June to 9th July 1985).

Here and now, the human enigma’s search for Kim Rowland brings him to a military base where her dead husband was once stationed. His enquiries provoke an unexpected response and it takes a whole platoon to subdue him after Alan instinctively resists arrest with horrific force. Soon he is being interrogated by General Ben Carrington and his sexily capable aide Lieutenant Jones.

They claim to be from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, know an awful lot about black ops units and – eventually – offer incontrovertible proof that their memory-challenged prisoner is in fact officially deceased Captain Steve Rowland – and one of their select number…

Soon after, Carrington has Jones test the returned prodigal’s ingrained combat abilities. When Steve beats her, he’s made a strange offer…

The military spooks drop him off in Rowland’s home town of Southberg: clandestinely returned to his rat’s nest of a family just in time for the vultures to begin circling the dying body of paralysed patriarch Matt Rowland.

Steve’s wheelchair-bound pa still exerts an uncanny and malign grip over the town, local farmers and his own grasping, ambitious relatives. The surprise reappearance of another potential heir really sets the cat among the pigeons…

The sheer hostility of the avaricious relatives isn’t his problem, however: before Steve left town for the army, he pretty much made enemies of everyone in it. Even the sheriff has happily harboured a grudge foe years…

One who hasn’t is storekeeper Old Joe who shows the amnesiac home movies that give the obsessed Thirteen the most solid clue yet to his quarry. So stunned by the possibilities is Alan/Steve that he’s completely unprepared for the brutal murder attempt that follows. Luckily, the sheriff is on hand to stop it, but when the bruised and battered truth-seeker arrives back at the family mansion, Colonel Amos is waiting, applying further pressure to find the mastermind behind the President’s assassination. This time however it’s Kim he wants to question… as soon as Steve finds her…

The Forgetting Man ignores every distraction; using the scant, amassed film and photo evidence to narrow down the location of a cabin by a lake “where the Indian walks”. It has to be where Kim is hiding…

That single-mindedness almost proves the seeker’s undoing when the patriarch is murdered and his recently returned son perfectly framed for the killing…

With Thirteen again subject of a furious manhunt, Carrington and Jones reappear to help him reach the cabin, but when he finally confronts Kim, the anguished amnesic receives the shock of his life… just before the posse bursts in…

To Be Continued…

XIII is one most compelling and convoluted mystery adventures ever conceived, with subsequent instalments constantly taking the questing hero two steps forward, one step back (…and one step to the side too) as he encountered a world of pain and peril whilst unravelling a web of past lives he is told he led by people he can never trust…

Fast-paced, clever and immensely inventive, XIII is a series no devotee of mystery and murder will want to miss.
Original editions © Dargaud Benelux (Dargaud-Lombard SA), 1984 by Van Hamme, Vance & Petra. All rights reserved. These editions published 2010 by Cinebook Ltd.

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Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers volume 1


By Arnold Drake, Steve Gerber, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Don Heck, Al Milgrom, John Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6687-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

With the final Marvel Cinematic movie interpretation rapidly heaving to, here’s a timely collection ideal for boning up on some of the lesser-known characters, augment cinematic exposure and cater to film fans wanting to follow up with a proper comics experience.

This treasury of torrid tales gathers landmarks and key moments from Marvel Super-Heroes#18, Marvel Two-In-One #4-5, Giant-Size Defenders #5, Defenders #26-29 and the time-busting team’s first solo series as originally seen in Marvel Presents #3-12, collaboratively and monumentally spanning cover-dates January 1969 to August 1977. It features a radically different set-up than that of the silver screen stars, but is grand comic book sci fi fare all the same. One thing to recall at all times, though, is that there are two distinct and separate iterations of the team. The films concentrate on the second, but there are inescapable connections between them so pay close attention…

Despite its key mission to make superheroes more realistic, Marvel also always kept a close connection with its fantasy roots and outlandish cosmic chaos – as typified in the pre-Sixties “monsters-in-underpants” mini-sagas. Thus, this pantheon of much-travelled space stalwarts maintains that wild “Anything Goes” attitude in all of their many and varied iterations.

This blistering battle-fest begins with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Earth Shall Overcome!’: first seen in combination new-concept try-out/Golden Age reprint vehicle Marvel Super Heroes #18 (cover-dated January 1969 but on sale from mid-October 1968 – just as the Summer of Love was shutting down).

This terse, grittily engaging episode introduced a disparate band of freedom fighters reluctantly rallying and united to save Earth from occupation and humanity from extinction at the scaly claws of the sinister, reptilian Brotherhood of Badoon.

It starts when Jovian militia-man Charlie-27 returns home from a 6-month tour of scout duty to find his entire colony subjugated by invading aliens. Fighting free, Charlie jumps into a randomly-programmed teleporter and emerges on Pluto, just in time to accidentally scupper the escape of crystalline scientist/resistance fighter Martinex.

Both are examples of radical human genetic engineering: manufactured subspecies carefully designed to populate and colonise Sol system’s outer planets, but now possibly the last individuals of their respective kinds. After helping the mineral man complete his mission of sabotage – by blowing up potentially useful material before the Badoon can get their hands on it – the odd couple set the teleporter for Earth and jump into the unknown. Unfortunately, the invaders have already taken the homeworld…

The Supreme Badoon Elite are there, busily mocking the oldest Earthman alive. Major Vance Astro had been humanity’s first interstellar astronaut; solo flying in cold sleep to Alpha Centauri at a plodding fraction of the speed of light.

When he got there 1000 years later, humanity was waiting for him, having cracked trans-luminal speeds a mere two centuries after he took off. Now Astro and Centauri aborigine Yondu are a comedy exhibit for the cruel conquerors actively eradicating both of their species.

The smug invaders are utterly overwhelmed when Astro breaks free, utilising psionic powers he developed during hibernation, before Yondu butchers them with the sound-controlled energy arrows he carries. In their pell-mell flight, the escaping pair stumble across incoming Martinex and Charlie-27 and a new legend of valiant resistance is born…

The eccentric team, as originally envisioned by Arnold Drake, Gene Colan & Mike Esposito, were presented to an audience undergoing immense social change, with dissent in the air, riot in the streets and the ongoing Vietnam War being visibly lost on their TV screens every night.

Perhaps the jingoistic militaristic overtones were off-putting, or maybe the tenor of the times were against The Guardians, since costumed hero titles were entering a temporary downturn at that juncture, but whatever the reason the feature was a rare “Miss” for the Early Marvel Hit Factory. The futuristic freedom fighters were not seen again for years.

They floated in limbo until 1974 when Steve Gerber incorporated them into some of his assigned titles (specifically Marvel Two-In-One and The Defenders), wherein assorted 20th century champions travelled into the future to ensure humanity’s survival…

From MTIO #4, ‘Doomsday 3014!’ (Gerber, Sal Buscema & Frank Giacoia) sees Ben Grimm/The Thing and Captain America catapulted into the 31st century to free enslaved humanity from the Badoon, concluding an issue later as a transformed and reconfigured Guardians of the Galaxy climb aboard the Freedom Rocket to help the time-lost champions liberate occupied New York before returning home.

The fabulous Future Force repaid that visit in Giant Sized Defenders #5: a diverse-handed production with the story ‘Eelar Moves in Mysterious Ways’ credited to Gerber, Gerry Conway, Roger Slifer, Len Wein, Chris Claremont & Scott Edelman. Dependable Don Heck & Mike Esposito drew the (surprisingly) satisfying cohesive results: revealing how the Defenders met with future heroes Guardians of the Galaxy in a time-twisting disaster yarn where their very presence seemed to cause nature to run wild. It was simply an introduction, setting up a continued epic arc for the monthly comic book…

Beginning with ‘Savage Time’ (Defenders #26 by Gerber, Sal Buscema & Colletta) it depicts The Hulk, Doctor Strange, Nighthawk and Valkyrie accompanying the Guardians back to 3015 AD in a bold bid to liberate the last survivors of mankind from the all-conquering and genocidal Badoon. The mission continued with ‘Three Worlds to Conquer!’, becoming infinitely more complicated when ‘My Mother, The Badoon!’ reveals the sex-based divisions that so compellingly motivate the marauding lizard-men to travel and tyrannise, before triumphantly climaxing in rousingly impassioned conclusion ‘Let My Planet Go!’

Along the way the Guardians had picked up – or been unwillingly allied with – an enigmatic stellar powerhouse dubbed Starhawk. Also answering to Stakar, he was a glib, unfriendly type who referred to himself as “one who knows” and infuriatingly usually did, even if he never shared any useful intel…

Rejuvenated by exposure, the squad rededicated themselves to liberating star-scattered Mankind and having astral adventures, eventually winning a short-lived series in Marvel Presents (#3-12, February 1976-August 1977) before cancellation left them roaming the Marvel Universe as perennial guest-stars in such cosmically-tinged titles as Thor and the Avengers.

The team’s first solo run began with ‘Just Another Planet Story!’ – by Gerber, Al Milgrom & Pablo Marcos – with the Badoon removed from an exultant Earth and the now purposeless Guardians realising peace and freedom were not for them. Unable to adapt to civilian life they reassembled, stole their old starship The Captain America and rocketed off into the void…

These issues were augmented by text features dubbed ‘Readers Space’, episodically delineating the future history (there was only one back then!) of Marvel Universe Mankind – using various deceased company sci fi series as mile markers, way stations and signposts – and firmly establishing a timeline which would endure for decades.

In MP #4, Gerber & Milgrom descended ‘Into the Maw of Madness!’ as the noble nomads picked up Nikki, a feisty teenage Mercurian survivor of the Badoon genocide, and detected the first inklings that something vast, alien and inimical was coming from “out there” to consume our galaxy. They also met cosmic enigma Starhawk’s better half Aleta: a glamorous woman and mother of his three children. She was sharing his/their body at that time…

When the intrepid star-farers and their ship are swallowed by star-systems-sized monster Karanada they discover a universe inside the undead beast and end up stranded on the ‘Planet of the Absurd’ (Gerber, Milgrom & Howard Chaykin), allowing the author to indulge his taste for political and social satire as our heroes seek to escape a society comprising a vast variety of species which somehow mimics 20th century Earth…

Escape achieved, the fantastic fantasy escalates into top gear when they crash into the heart of the invading force and on a galaxy-sized planet in humanoid form. ‘The Topographical Man’ (inked by Terry Austin) holds all the answers they seek in a strange sidereal nunnery where Nikki is expected to make a supreme sacrifice: one that changes Vance’s life forever in ways he never imagined.

It all transpires as they spiritually unite to ‘Embrace the Void!’ in a metaphysical rollercoaster (Bob Wiacek inks) which at last ends the menace of the soul-sucking galactic devourer.

At this time deadlines were a critical problem and Marvel Presents #8 adapted a story from Silver Surfer #2 (1968) with the team finding an old Badoon data-log and learning ‘Once Upon a Time… the Silver Surfer!’ saved Earth from alien predators in a two-layered yarn attributed to Gerber, Milgrom, Wiacek, Stan Lee, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott…

Back on track for MP #9, Gerber & Milgrom revealed that ‘Breaking Up is Death to Do!’ as the Guardians’ ship is ambushed by the predatory Reivers of Arcturus, leading into the long-awaited and shocking origins of Starhawk and Aleta. It set the assembled heroes on a doomed quest to save the bonded couple’s children from brainwashing, mutation and murder by their own grandfather in ‘Death-Bird Rising!’ before concluding ‘At War with Arcturus!’ (both inked by Wiacek).

The series abruptly concluded just as new scripter Roger Stern signed on with ‘The Shipyard of Deep Space!’, as the beleaguered and battered team escape Arcturus and stumble onto a lost Earth vessel missing since the beginning of the Badoon invasion. Drydock is a mobile space station the size of a small moon, designed to maintain and repair Terran starships. However, what initially seems to be a moving reunion with lost comrades and actual survivors of the many gene-gineered human sub-species eradicated by the saurian supremacists is quickly revealed to be just one more deadly snare for the Guardians to overcome or escape…

This spectacular slice of riotous star-roving is a non-stop feast of tense suspense, surreal fun, swingeing satire and blockbuster action: well-tailored, and on-target to turn curious moviegoers into fans of the comic incarnation, and charm even the most jaded interstellar Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic.
© 1968, 1974, 1976, 1977, 2014 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.

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Superman vs. the Revenge Squad!


By Karl Kesel, David Michelinie, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern, Jon Bogdanove, Sal Buscema, Tom Grummett, Stuart Immonen, Ron Lim, Tom Morgan, Paul Ryan, Brett Breeding, Klaus Janson, Dennis Janke, Jose Marzan Jr., Denis Rodier& various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-487-9 (TPB)

The Man of Steel celebrates 85 years of continuous publication this year. His existence dictated and defined the entire US Comic book industry, but in this anniversary year, what’s most remarkable is how little of the truly vast variety of his exploits and achievements DC Comics currently consider worthy of us seeing…

Here’s another thrilling snapshot exemplifying an era of superb creativity following Superman’s 1987 reboot in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths. If you’re counting, the tale first appeared – in whole or in part – in Adventures of Superman #539, 542, 543, Action Comics #726, 730, Superman: Man of Steel #61 & 65 and Superman: Man of Tomorrow #7, cumulatively spanning October 1996 to February 1997.

By extracting pertinent episodes from a selection of sub-plots as well as entire episodes, a tag team of creators – writers Karl Kesel, David Michelinie, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson and Roger Stern in close conjunction with artists Jon Bogdanove, Sal Buscema, Tom Grummett, Stuart Immonen, Ron Lim, Tom Morgan, Paul Ryan, Brett Breeding, Klaus Janson, Dennis Janke, Jose Marzan Jr. & Denis Rodier – constructed a crafty and exciting romp pitting the Metropolis Marvel against a peculiar array of particularly irate enemies, all unknowingly working for a mysterious mastermind who was far from what he appeared…

The action commences with ‘Dopplegangster’ wherein a clone from the top-secret Cadmus Project intercepts a high-tech intruder and is infected with a hideous condition which brings all the long-suppressed and submerged evil of conventionally bred progenitor to the surface.

The invader is Misa, a spoiled, fun-loving, metahuman brat with incredible futuristic devices who had previously plagued Superman and the Project. Here, however, her skirmish with the re-grown Floyd “Bullets” Barstow has profound and lasting effects: accidentally transforming him into a troubled paranoid soul who might suddenly transform at any moment into a brutal Anomaly: armed with elemental shape-changing powers and unhindered any shred of conscience at all.

Meanwhile in Metropolis, Superman has his hands full defending the city and shuffling his new job as Editor of The Daily Planet, whilst venerable boss Perry White recovers from lung cancer and subsequent chemotherapy. Clark’s burden gets no easier when living weapons-platform Barrage returns in ‘Arms’, determined to kill Police Chief Maggie Sawyer whom he blames for the loss of his right limb. Moreover, anarchic troublemaker Riot – a raving loon who generates living duplicates every time he is struck – also pops up to make mischief and mayhem in ‘Losin’ It’.

‘Hero or Villain?’ concentrates on the history of Lex Luthor, providing insight and oversight to the multi-billionaire inventor who is currently under arrest and awaiting trial, even as alien superwoman Maxima frets and festers in her futile quest to find a suitable mate.

The Man of Steel was her first choice and he refused her (often violently) many times. Once again she tries to have her way with him and the forceful rejection sends her straight into the influence of someone who is gathering a team to destroy the Caped Kryptonian forever…

A unified assault begins in ‘The Honeymoon’s Over’ as Riot, Misa, Anomaly and Barrage meet Maxima and take their communal shot at the mutual enemy in ‘President of the United Hates’.

There is something not quite right about their enigmatic, shadowy leader and besides, what strategic genius would put five incompatible, uncontrollable egomaniacs in the same team and expect them to have a ghost of a chance against Superman?

The final, spectacular battle inevitably goes awry for the rogues in ‘Losers’, and as the dust settles all the evidence points to only one possible culprit for the Revenge Squad’s campaign of terror. But is it really that clear-cut?

Although a little disconnected in places – the storyline ran simultaneously and concurrently with another extended saga (collected in Superman Transformed!) and the excision of irrelevant pages doesn’t lend itself to a seamless and smooth read – this tale perfectly exemplifies the brilliant blend of cosmic adventure, fights ‘n’ tights action, soap opera drama and sheer enthusiastic excitement that typified the Superman franchise of this era.

This kind of close-plotted continuity was a hallmark of the 1980s-1990s Superman, and that such a strong tale could be constituted from snippets around the main story is a lasting tribute to the efficacy and power of the technique. Superman vs. the Revenge Squad! is a delightfully old-fashioned fun-fest that will delight fans of The Legend and followers of the genre alike. It should really be a part of everyone’s Krypton Chronicles, and DC are missing a trick not making it so…
© 1996, 1997, 1999 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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White Collar – a Novel in Linocuts


By Giacomo Patri (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
ISBN: 978-0-486-80591-7 (HB)

If you regularly access any kind of news in any format or platform, you won’t be at all in doubt or surprised by my calling this book to your attention now. As yet another western leader roils in yet another money/sleaze crisis (I’m not naming them, it will be someone just as guilty by the time you read this and they all have to go!) I’m reminded of the song published a dozen years after White Collar – Carl Sigman & Herb Magidson’s Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later than You Think)…

We tend to think of graphic novels as being a late 20th century phenomenon – and one that had to fight long and hard for legitimacy and a sense of worth – but as this stunning over-sized (286 x 218 mm) two-colour hardback proves, the format and at form was known much earlier in the century… and utilised for the most solemn and serious of purposes.

White Collar was created by jobbing illustrator, artist, educator and activist Giacomo Patri in 1937: encapsulating the tenor of those times as America endured the Great Depression with a view to inspiring his fellow creatives…

Unable to find a publisher for his shocking and controversial pictorial polemic, Patri and his wife Stella self-published the first edition, and happily found publishers for subsequent releases, but not the huge, hungry, underprivileged and angry audience it deserved.

Patri (1898-1978) was born in Italy and raised in the USA. Living in San Francisco from 1916, he overcame the devastating handicap of polio and worked numerous menial jobs until his interest in art carried him through the California School of Fine Arts. Thereafter, he became an illustrator for the San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers.

Patri had been interested in social justice and labour issues since the late 1920s, and – once the Depression hit – those beliefs only crystallised. Manual or “blue collar” workers had long organised and unionised to secure bargaining rights and fair wages, and Patri saw that office workers like himself were as in need of such power, autonomy and self-determination. The book was his way of convincing everyone else…

A compelling Introduction by his descendants Tito Patri & Georges Rey offers context, historical background and technical information on the production of linocut art as well as revealing how the creation of such cheap, language-transcending visual tracts became a commonplace method of dissemination.

For context, also included is the story of the artist/author’s troubles during the repressive, red-baiting Joe McCarthy years and beyond…

Following the salutary lesson is the Original Introduction by fellow artistic agitator and creative pioneer Rockwell Kent before Patri senior’s endeavours to enlighten his fellow illustrators and clerical staff begins. Unfolding over 128 bold images of stark metaphor and rousing symbology, the astounding visual record offers a clarion call to arms, tracing one family’s struggle between 1929 and 1933. It’s all delivered with beguiling subtlety and shocking, silent potency in plates of deepest black or startling orange.

This ‘Novel in Linocuts by Tito Patri’ is dedicated “To the great progressive Labor Movement, the Congress of Industrial Organisations” and remained both obscure and controversial for years. That wasn’t so much for its left leaning content as its uncompromising depiction of the abortion Catch-22: a truly heart-rending depiction of a family too poor to survive another mouth to feed but without the cash to pay a back street quack for an [illegal] termination. Maybe this book should be handed out free all over Middle America and the Christian South?

The world has moved on from replicating those dark days of Haves, Have-Nots and Why-Should-I-Cares? These days those with power actual police how The Poor and Godless use the bodies and wits they’ve generously been permitted. They can thus be guided into promoting National Growth and Prosperity… Thankfully this magnificent rediscovery remains a stirring, evocative and still movingly inspirational riposte, closing with a final assessment and plea from cartoonist, designer and contemporary activist Peter Kuper in his trenchant Afterword accompanying the Original Epilogue by John L. Lewis…

Inventive, ferocious in its dramatic effects, instantly engaging and enraging, this is a book every callous, indifferent “I’m All Right” Jackass and greedy, smug “Why Should I Pay For Your…” social misanthrope needs to see… or be struck repeatedly with.

© 1987 by Tamara Rey Patri. Introduction © 2016 by Tito Patri. Afterword © 2016 by Peter Kuper. All rights reserved.

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Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes volume 1


By Paul Levitz, Gerry Conway, Paul Kupperberg, Jack C. Harris, Mike Grell, James Sherman, Jim Starlin, Ric Estrada, Howard Chaykin, George Tuska, Walt Simonson, Mike Nasser, Juan Ortiz & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7291-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Once upon a time, 1000 years from now, super-powered kids from a multitude of worlds took inspiration from the greatest legend of all time and formed a club of heroes. One day those Children of Tomorrow came back in time and invited their inspiration to join them…

Thus, began the vast and epic saga of the Legion of Super-Heroes, as first envisioned by writer Otto Binder & artist Al Plastino when the many-handed mob of juvenile universe-savers debuted in Adventure Comics #247 (April 1958), just as a revived superhero genre was gathering an inexorable head of steam. Happy 65th Anniversary, Junior Futurians!

Since that time, the fortunes and popularity of the Legion have perpetually waxed and waned, with their future history continually tweaked and overwritten, retconned and rebooted time and time again to comply with editorial diktat and popular fashion. This cosmically-captivating compendium gathers a chronological parade of futuristic delights from Superboy and The Legion of Super-Heroes #234-240 (spanning December 1977- June 1978) and includes an untold tale of their earliest exploits from DC Super-Stars #17, as well as a major event from tabloid colossus All-New Collector’s Edition C-55.

This was a period when the recently impoverished superhero genre had once again flared into vibrant new life to gain its current, seemingly unassailable ascendancy. That prior plunge in costumed character popularity had seen the team lose their long-held lead spot in Adventure Comics, get relegated to a back-up slot in Action Comics and even vanish completely for a time. However, Legion fans are the most passionate of an already fanatical breed…

No sooner had the LSH faded than fan agitation to revive them began. After a few tentative forays as an occasional back-up feature in Superboy, the game-changing artwork of Dave Cockrum inspired a fresh influx of fans. The back-up soon took over the book – exactly as they had done in the 1960s, when the Tomorrow Teens took Adventure Comics from the Boy of Steel and made it uniquely their own…

Without warning or preamble, the adventure continues with Jack C. Harris, Juan Ortiz & Bob Smith exploring ‘The Secret of the Quintile Crystal’ (DC Super-Stars #17, cover-dated December 1977) as founders Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy relate to Superboy how a theft by diplomats beyond the reach of the law catapulted the kids – and their unique problem-solving gifts – to the forefront of United Planets Security Planning…

Superboy and The Legion of Super-Heroes #234 then offers a contemporary cosmic catastrophe, as a clash with a space dragon mutates a squad of teen heroes into a marauding amalgamated menace. When the call goes out ‘Wanted Dead or Alive: The Composite Legionnaire’ (by Gerry Conway, Ric Estrada & Jack Abel), ultimate mercenary Bounty goes after the victim and he won’t let sentiment or the remaining heroes interfere with ‘The Final Hunt!’. Happily, Superboy and energy-being Wildfire have enough power to stop the hunter and cure their companions…

Issue #235 featured the kind of story uber-dedicated fans adore. ‘The Legion’s Super-Secret’ – by Paul Levitz, Mike Grell & Vince Colletta) gives a glimpse into the covert cognitive conditioning Superboy endures every time he returns to his own era. When the process is abruptly interrupted because of a raid by resource hungry Sklarians, the Legionnaires fear the greatest hero of all time may expose the Future’s most dangerous biological deception.

Although a tense and rousing escapade, the sad truth is that this tale was conceived to placate sections of the audience who kept carping over why clearly fully mature characters were still being designated “Boy”, “Girl”, “Kid”, “Lass” and “Lad”. As if comics never had serious social problems and issues to address, right?

The lead story is far-surpassed by potent back-up ‘Trial of the Legion Five’ (Conway, George Tuska & Colletta), wherein some of the heroes are accused of causing the death of a citizen caught in the rampage of the now-defunct Composite Legionnaire. Their accuser is an old political adversary bearing a grudge and as ever, things are not what they seem…

S&LSH #236 was a power-packed portmanteau offering and brimming with vibrant new artistic talent. It begins with ‘A World Born Anew’ (written by Levitz & Paul Kupperberg with stunning art from then-neophytes James Sherman & Bob McLeod). When fantastically powerful alien property speculator Worldsmith arbitrarily terraforms the planet Braal, even a full Legion team is unable to stop him… until Princess Projectra deduces a better way to send the crazed capitalist packing.

Levitz, Mike Nasser/Netzer, Joe Rubinstein & Rick Bryant then provide an all-action prologue to greater sagas in the making as ‘Mon-El’s One-Man War’ finds the formidable Daxamite exerting all his energies to save an experimental star mine during a bloody incursion by war-crazed Khunds before the moment Legion fans had impatiently awaited for decades finally came…

‘Words Never Spoken’ by Levitz, Sherman & Rubinstein at long last saw Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl set the day…

No longer bound by responsibility, they had agreed to quit the team – because teammates (like cousins) weren’t allowed to marry – resulting in a huge tabloid-sized milestone released as All-New Collector’s Edition C-55 (March 1978).

Comic book weddings never start well and ‘The Millennium Massacre’ (Levitz, Grell & Colletta) coincided with a dastardly plot by their greatest foe to rewrite history. As the young marrieds stumble into a honeymoon ‘Murder by Moonlight’, Superboy and a select team voyage to 1988. They’re hoping to prevent the destruction of the United Nations and solve ‘The Twisted History Mystery’ before their comrades and the newlyweds perish in an interplanetary war, but the real showdown only occurs after a ‘Showdown at the End of Eternity’…

Augmented by a potted visual history of ‘Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes’ by Grell & Colletta, fact-features ‘The Origins and Powers of the Legionnaires’ and ‘Secrets of the Legion’ – by Levitz, Sherman & Abel- this epic event laid the groundwork for a darker, more compelling tone…

That began with #237’s ‘No Price Too High’ (Levitz, Walt Simonson & Abel) wherein the team’s financial backer R. J. Brande is abducted by maniac Arma Getten. He demands the team bring him ‘The Heart of a Star’, ‘The Stolen Trophy’ and life-sustaining artefact ‘The Crown of the Graxls’ in return for their patron’s life. Painfully aware that these objects hold the power ‘To Shake the Stars’, the team comply… Apparently…

Due to deadline problems #238 was a hasty reprint of Adventure Comics #359 & 360 and is represented here by its spiffy new Jim Starlin wraparound cover, but the intended tale when it finally emerged was an instant classic worth the wait.

Plotted and laid out by Starlin, with Levitz script and Rubinstein finishes, #239’s ‘Murder Most Foul’ saw rowdy, rebellious Ultra Boy framed for murdering a prostitute and a fugitive on the run from his former comrades. Only LSH Espionage Squad leader Chameleon Boy saw something behind the seemingly open-&-shut case, and his off-the-books investigation indicated there was indeed a Legion traitor: potentially the most dangerous opponent of all…

The final inclusion in this mammoth compilation is #240, delivering a brace of thrillers. Levitz, Harris, Howard Chaykin & Bob Wiacek opened with ‘The Man Who Manacled the Legion’ as old foe Grimbor the Chainsman kidnapped the UP President in a bizarre scheme to kill the heroes he held responsible for the death of his true love. The book does close on a tantalising high however, as Levitz, Kupperberg, Sherman & McLeod take us into the Legion Training Academy and introduce a bevy of new heroes eager to join the big guns.

Super dense (yes, I know, just go with it) Jed Rikane, invulnerable Laurel Kent and Shadow Lad (Shadow Lass’ younger brother) all show potential and flaws in equal amounts, but the mutant tracker mercenary is who really troubles Wildfire. ‘Dawnstar Rising’ shows not only her immense ability but a disregard for her comrades that might have lethal consequences in the days to come, unless the Legion somehow works its inclusive magic on her…

Rounding out the future fun, ‘Notes from Behind the Scenes’ provides glimpses at Levitz’s original presentation for tabloid edition, plots for a Queen Projectra tale and data cheat sheets for Saturn Girl and others.

The Legion is unquestionably one of the most beloved and bewildering creations in comics history, and largely responsible for the explosive growth of a groundswell movement that became American Comics Fandom. Moreover, these scintillating and seductively addictive stories – as much as Julie Schwartz’s Justice League of America or Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four – fuelled the interest and imaginations of generations of readers to create the industry we all know today.

If you love comics and haven’t read this stuff, you are the poorer for it and need to feed your dreams of a better tomorrow as soon as possible.
© 1977, 1978, 2017 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Shrine of the Morning Mist volume 1


By Hiroki Ugawa, translated & adapted by Jeremiah Bourque & Hope Donovan (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-343-8 (Tank?bon TPB)

Much manga may be characterised by a fast, raucous and even occasionally choppy style and manner of delivery but the first volume of Hiroki Ugawa’s atmospheric supernatural thriller -a moody saga of young love – takes its time to get all the elements in play rather than simply steaming in all guns blazing.

Set in Hiroshima Prefecture (noted for shrines and beautiful mist-draped landscapes) and specifically the city of Miyoshi, Asagiri no Miko or Shrine of the Morning Mist first appeared serialised in monthly periodical Young King OURS between Match 2000 and April 2013: running eventually to 9 volumes of eerie mystery, romance comedy and demonic action.

The saga opens in traditionally portentous manner and carefully unfolds the story of young Yuzu Hieda, one of 3 sisters who are hereditary “Miko” (a combination of shaman, spirit medium and priestess attached to Shinto shrines and temples) who attend to local places of worship. The siblings are particularly gifted with special powers to combat all the supernatural threats menacing the region.

Little more than a teenager herself, schoolgirl Yuzu is troubled by the reappearance of childhood sweetheart – and cousin – Tadahiro Amatsu. After 5 years away, he has come home only to be immediately targeted by evil forces. Despite being teased by sisters Tama and Kurako, Yuzu accompanies them to the railway station just in time to save the prodigal from a sinister, sorcerous old man obsessed with the boy’s blood.

Invited to stay with the Miko in their home, the withdrawn youngster is disquieted by the teasing and references to his past relationship with Yuzu, even though the father of the house proves to be a far-more unforgiving prospect…

Mystic forces are gathering round the introspective, solitary kid – with repercussions felt as far away as Tokyo – and over their dad’s objections Tadahiro is pressured into staying at the Hieda home where he can be properly safeguarded. However, next morning when the girls are at school, a monolithic, cyclopean demon attacks the house. The assault is instantly perceived by Yuzu who dashes back to save him, only to find her long-absent mother already there, having driven off the dark “kami”. Well, one of them, at least…

Typically even Mother Miyuki thinks Tadahiro and Yuzu are a perfect, predestined couple…

With questions swirling about him, such as “why is everybody so interested in my blood?” and “whatever happened to my parents?”, shell-shocked Tadahiro is blissfully unaware that the Miko are forming a protective Council around him, but even he knows something is up when dark newcomer Koma introduces herself and reveals she knew his long-departed father. Intimately…

To Be Continued…

This uncharacteristically slow-paced, contemplative and almost elegiac tale mystery was partially inspired by a classical tale recorded on the historic Inu Mononoke scroll and Hiroki Ugawa’s beautiful illustration perfectly captures a sense of brooding ancient powers at war, even during the most juvenile set-piece moments of awkward young romance and generational embarrassment comedy.

A slightly off-beat but intriguing tale for older readers, this monochrome volume is currently unavailable in digital editions but still readily available through online vendors.
© 2001 Hiroki Ugawa. All rights reserved. English text © 2006 TokyoPop inc.

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The Power of Shazam! Book One: In the Beginning


By Jerry Ordway, Peter Krause, Mike Manley, Curt Swan, Mike Parobeck, Rick Burchett, Kurt Schaffenberger, Glenn Whitmore& various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9941-5 (HB/Digital edition)

Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 in the summer of 1938. Created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, the character proved extremely popular across many disparate media, sparking a new kind of hero and story form. You’re here right now because of him…

Another of the most venerated and loved characters in American comics was created by Bill Parker & Charles Clarence Beck for Fawcett Publications as part of a wave of opportunistic creativity that followed that successful launch of Superman. However, although there were many similarities in the early years, the “Big Red Cheese” moved swiftly and solidly into the arena of light entertainment and even broad comedy, whilst – as the 1940s progressed – the Man of Tomorrow increasingly left whimsy behind in favour of action and drama.

At the height of his popularity, Captain Marvel hugely outsold Superman but, as the decade progressed and tastes changed, sales slowed. When an infamous copyright infringement suit filed in 1941 by National Comics was settled the Captain and his crew – like so many other superheroes – disappeared to become fond memories for older fans.

A syndication success, he was missed all over the world. In Britain, where a reprint line had run for many years, creator/publisher Mick Anglo had an avid audience and no product, so transformed Captain Marvel into atomic agent Marvelman, continuing to thrill readers into the 1960s.

Decades later, American comics experienced another superhero boom-&-bust, and the 1970s dawned with a shrinking industry and wide variety of comics genres servicing a base that was increasingly dependent on collectors and fans rather than casual or impulse buyers. National Periodicals/DC Comics needed sales and were prepared to look for them in unusual places.

Since the court settlement with Fawcett in 1953, they had pursued the rights to Captain Marvel and his spin-offs. Now, though the name itself had been claimed by Marvel Comics (via a quirky robot character published by Carl Burgos and M.F. Publications in 1967), the publishing monolith opted to tap into that discriminating if aging fanbase.

In 1973, riding a wave of national nostalgia on TV and movies, DC brought back the entire beloved cast of the Original Captain Marvel crew in their own kinder, weirder universe. To circumvent the intellectual property clash, they named the new title Shazam! (…With One Magic Word…) referencing the memorable trigger phrase used by myriad Formerly Fawcett-Marvels to transform to and from mortal form… a word that had entered the idiom and language due to the success of the franchise the first time around.

He’s been a star in DC’s firmament ever since, but one who’s endured much rejigging, refurbishment and narrative refinement, even if the fundamentals have never varied…

Homeless orphan and thoroughly good kid Billy Batson was selected by an ancient wizard to battle injustice with the powers of six gods/legendary heroes. By speaking aloud the wizard’s name – itself an acronym for the six patrons Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury – Billy would transform from scrawny boy to brawny (adult) warrior Captain Marvel: dispensing justice and mercy with the forgiving grace of an innocent child…

There have been many enjoyable, effective and fittingly contemporary treatments, but perhaps the very best was one fully embracing the original  tone: successfully recapturing the exuberance and charm – albeit layered with a potent veneer of modern menace.

It began with Jerry Ordway’s 1994 re-imagining in an Original Graphic Novel: based as much on the 1941 movie serial as the forceful yet fun comics of Bill Parker, Otto Binder, C.C. Beck, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Pete Costanza and their cohort of creative colleagues…

That groundbreaking yarn and the series it spawned became a thriving, vibrant cornerstone of DC Continuity. This reprint edition combines the OGN and first dozen issues (cover-dated March 1995-February 1996) of that series, each with a lovely painted Ordway cover. Adding to the appeal is a short but sweet contemporary treat from young readers title Superman & Batman Magazine #4, a new Introduction from Ordway and a swathe of extras at the end…

With Ordway doing everything but the lettering (that’s courtesy of John Costanza) the epic reboot opens in Egypt, where archaeologists Charles “CC” Batson and his wife Marilyn lead the prestigious Sivana Expedition in a search for knowledge and antiquities.

That doesn’t precisely fit with orders given to the sponsor’s ruthless representative Theo Adam, who has his own instructions regarding certain treasures. When the Batsons uncover the lost tomb of unknown dignitary “Shazam”, tensions boil over and murder occurs.

The historians had left their son in America with Charles’ brother, but taken their toddler Mary with them. After the bloodshed ends, both she and Adam have vanished without trace.

Some years later Billy Batson is a little boy living on the streets of ultra-modern art deco Fawcett City. His parents had left him with CC’s brother Ebenezer when they went away. When they never returned, the boy was thrown out as his uncle stole his inheritance. No one knows where Billy’s little sister is…

Sleeping in a storm drain, selling newspapers for cash, the indomitable kid is pretty street-savvy, but when a mysterious shadowy stranger who seems comfortingly familiar bids him follow into an eerie subway, Billy just somehow knows it’s okay to comply.

When he meets the wizard Shazam and gains the powers of the ancient Gods and Heroes he knows he has the opportunity to make things right at last. However, he has no conception of the depths evil corporate vulture Thaddeus Sivana can sink to, nor the role mystical exile Black Adam played in the fate of his parents…

Newly empowered by the wizard, Billy turns his life around, adapts to life as an underage superhero and spectacularly brings both murdering Theo Adam and his maniacal boss Sivana to justice whilst defeating his own wicked predecessor, before setting out to confront even greater challenges like finding his lost sister…

This superb and mesmerising retelling led to the most successful comic book revival Captain Marvel has yet experienced. Characters refitted there are potently realistic but the stories offer a young voice and sensibility. Moreover, the pulp adventure atmosphere conjured up by Ordway in conjunction with his sumptuous painted art and spectacular design make for a captivating experience, and his writing has never been more approachable and beguiling.

The author – with penciller Peter Krause & inker Mike Manley – would build on the tale in the series that followed: employing a cunning long-term scheme to adapt classic Golden Age tales to modern tastes under a slick veneer of retro fashion.

Before that though, Ordway, artists Parobeck & Rick Burchett, colourist Glenn Whitmore & Constanza delivered a smart vignette in Superman & Batman Magazine #4. Aimed at introducing the DCU to early readers, the comic saw Billy stumble into a museum robbery by an old enemy before saving ‘The Scarab Necklace’…

Ordway, Krause & Manley then began the long haul – in its own rather staid and timeless corner of the DCU – with The Power of Shazam! #1 as ‘Things Change’. Billy now has a job as an announcer/roving reporter for WHIZ radio and an apartment. He lives there alone, using his alter ego as his live-in “responsible adult” Uncle Eben. Billy has been sporadically mentored by the wizard who has also been fruitlessly seeking Billy’s vanished sister…

Captain Marvel has established himself as the champion of Fawcett City: defeating countless crooks, monsters and even the occasional supervillain.

A new chapter begins when one of them – IBAC – literally crashes the launch of a new Wayne-Tech facility sponsored by property speculator Sinclair Batson. The shallow sleazeball is apparently the son and heir of the real Ebeneezer Batson, but neither Billy or anyone else has ever heard of him…

Late for school again, the cousins unknowingly “meet” when the Big Red Cheese pulls Sinclair out of the skyscraper’s razed rubble. Always ready to schmooze, the speculator “rewards” the hero with an invitation to his next high society soiree…

Elsewhere, concerned school custodian Dudley H. Dudley has deduced Billy lives alone. He tries to help the scrappy little guy, interceding whenever head teacher Miss Wormwood targets the lad for “special attention”. Billy is baffled but grateful, yet has bigger problems, like IBAC and a scheming female racketeer with a hidden agenda and unknown powers…

Never one to miss a free meal, Billy attends the party as his older self: taking the opportunity to assess just what he’s missing in the mansion he grew up in and which should by rights be his. It’s an uncomfortable experience. When not fending off distant relatives who all recognise him somehow (Marvel is the spitting image of dead CC Batson) he’s being not-so-subtly hit on by ultraglamorous vamp Beautia Sivana. Thus it’s actually a relief when the wizard summons him to the Rock of Eternity to chastise him for misusing his abilities…

The confrontation is acrimonious and ends with Billy being stripped of his gifts and sent back to Earth… just as the Batson mansion goes up in flames, trapping everyone inside!

A vision of Hell ruled by demon queen Lady Blaze briefly paralyses the boy before Billy finds a way to get all the rich folk out, but in the aftermath the juvenile journalist pokes around and discovers a connection between embezzling Ebeneezer and mystic pyromaniac ‘The Arson Fiend’. Thankfully, Shazam is monitoring, and returns Billy’s powers when the flaming fury goes after the boy…

IBAC returns in TPoS! #3 as the Captain saves undercover cop Muscles McGinnis, before ‘Lost and Found!’ sees the lost sister subplot advanced by the introduction of rich Mary Bromfield. She’s a competitor in a Spelling Bee compered by Billy for WHIZ – as is perfect jock Freddy Freeman: another kid who will have a momentous impact on Batson’s life…

When adopted Mary and her devoted nanny Sarah Primm are kidnapped, super-thug IBAC again battles our hero, and the wizard realises the child he’s been searching for was under his nose all along. Moreover, if he couldn’t see her, who or what has been frustrating his efforts?

In ‘Family Values’ a staged fight between Cap and McGinnis magnifies the secret cop’s underworld standing whilst covertly providing proof of Mary’s identity. Billy then has a chat with her favourite doll as stuffed toy Mr. Tawky Tawny comes to life and joins the cast. By now, the boy takes weird happenings in his stride, but is still rattled enough to inadvertently reveal his secret identity to “Uncle Dudley”. Billy assumes the tiger’s animation was Shazam’s doing, but he couldn’t be more wrong…

When Tawky Tawny manifests to Mary, his urgings result in her saying “Shazam!” and transforming into an adult superhero in time to thrash the returned kidnappers. Tragically it’s not enough to save Nanny Primm, whose deathbed confession reveals her as Theo Adam’s sister, as well as her part in getting baby Mary back to the USA after the Batsons died…

Enraged and vengeful “Mary Marvel” goes after Adam – struck dumb by the wizard ever since he was briefly possessed by Black Adam – before regaining her composure. She then stumbles into a riot sparked by a mind-bending neo-Nazi as ‘Madame Libertine Strikes!’

In Hell, guilt-wracked Sarah Primm is being tortured by upstart Lady Blaze as part of a byzantine plot to rule all, which also includes Libertine. Escaping the justifiably angry superwoman, the racist killer returns to her grandfather’s laboratory just as he cracks open a suspended animation capsule that has kept a WWII terror alive for half a century…

As Billy and Mary are summoned to the Rock of Eternity to learn that the gifts of the gods are finite and when both use them at once their power halves, Fawcett City trembles at ‘The Return of Captain Nazi!’ As McGinnis meets the racket boss and accidentally gleans her horrific secret, the Aryan atrocity goes on a rampage. Clashing with Captain Marvel whilst robbing a bank, Nazi grievously injures Freddy Freeman and his grandfather, prompting Mary (who has a far more instinctive and effective grasp of the magic) to suggest that she and Billy further share it…

Freddy regains a modicum of health in ‘The Balance of Power’ as he also becomes a superhero: tapping into the Shazam force as Captain Marvel Junior, but his desire for revenge and rebellious nature make his a volatile ally at best…

Insight into the oddly timeless nature of Fawcett City comes in ‘After the Fall…’ (with additional art by Curt Swan) as Golden Age greats Bullet-Man, Minute-Man and Spy Smasher appear in a telling flashback detailing their last battle with Captain Nazi, and hinting at the Übermensch’s unfinished business today. The veteran heroes are still robust and spry in modern times and offer useful hints to reporter Billy, whose investigations mean he’s not around to stop the Aryan busting Theo Adam out of custody, or vengeance-mad Freddy going after them both. Worst of all with Mary powered up and soon joined by Captain Marvel, none of them are strong enough to stop the villains. With Blaze moving all her pawns into place, Captain Nazi finally completes his 50-year delayed mission, but learns that time is ruthless and unforgiving…

As the Marvels converge on the despondent fanatic and combine ‘…The Power of Shazam!’, Blaze strikes the Rock of Eternity, using a restored Black Adam to capture the wizard and drag him to Hell. For good measure, she also liberates humankind’s most pernicious spiritual predators and unleashes them to Earth…

Adam joins them there and – with the wizard gone – neither Mary nor Freddy can change back and surrender their portion of the power to Billy. The twisted nemesis savagely beats Captain Marvel: breaking limbs and leaving him near-death. As the Underworld Unleashed event impinges on these stories, Lady Blaze reveals her shocking connection to Shazam as ‘In the Beginning…’ (with additional art by Ordway) explores the origins of the wizard and all superheroes on Earth…

With the Demon Queen’s plans revealed and ultimate universal horror The Three Faces of Evil almost liberated, Tawny’s true nature is exposed, Earthbound Mary gathers allies for the final battle and the greatest sorcerer of all time is revived to join the fray…

With additional pencilling by Swan, ‘The Seven Deadly Enemies of Man’ pits a valiant team of veteran Fawcett champions against the infernal antagonists before charging off to face Blaze, with Black Adam’s pivotal power vacillating between destroying despised heroes and saving his sister Sarah from Hell…

With writer Ordway again joining Krause & Manley on illumination, it all thunders to a cataclysmic climax in ‘End Game’, as the heroes plunge into Hell, the truth about CC Batson and Fawcett City come to light and Shazam details the true extent of his manipulations of the city and its most valiant citizens. With order restored, the Marvels return just in time to expose the truth about Sinclair Batson and presage the appearance of possibly their greatest and most bizarre adversary…

A breathtaking joy from beginning to end, this superhero saga closes with those promised extras: a bevy of bonuses for everyone interested in how magic is made. These include author commentary, preliminary pencils and finished cover art for The Power of Shazam! OGN and trade paperback collection, the art deco-inspired retail poster and Ordway’s original story notes and preliminary pencils for TPoS! #8.

Much like the modern movie iteration, these comic classics triumph by remembering that fun is as important as thrills or action, and everything works best when three become one…
© 1994, 1995, 1996, 2020 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Mighty Marvel Masterworks Spider-Man volume 3: The Goblin and the Gangsters


By Stan Lee & Steve Ditko with Sam Rosen & Art Simek (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4617-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

The Amazing Spider-Man celebrated his 60th anniversary in 2022. However, I’m one of those radicals who feel that 1963 was when he was really born, so let’s start the New Year with acknowledgement of that opinion and warning of many more of the same over the year…

These stories are timeless and have been gathered many times before but this one is part of The Mighty Marvel Masterworks line: designed with economy in mind and newcomers as target audience. These new books are far cheaper, on lower quality paper and smaller, about the dimensions of a paperback book. Your eyesight might be failing and your hands too big and shaky, but at 152 x 227mm, they’re perfect for kids. If you opt for the digital editions, that’s no issue at all.

Marvel is often termed “the House that Jack Built” and King Kirby’s contributions are undeniable and inescapable in the creation of a new kind of comic book storytelling. However, there was another unique visionary toiling at Atlas-Comics-as-was, one whose creativity and philosophy seemed diametrically opposed to the bludgeoning power, vast imaginative scope and clean, gleaming futurism that resulted from Kirby’s ever-expanding search for the external and infinite.

Steve Ditko was quiet and unassuming, diffident to the point of invisibility, but his work was both subtle and striking: innovative and meticulously polished. Always questing for affirming detail, he ever explored the man within. He saw heroism and humour and ultimate evil all contained within the frail but noble confines of humanity. His drawing could be oddly disquieting… and, when he wanted, decidedly creepy.

Crafting extremely well-received monster and mystery tales for and with Stan Lee, Ditko had been rewarded with his own title. Amazing Adventures/Amazing Adult Fantasy featured a subtler brand of yarn than Rampaging Aliens and Furry Underpants Monsters: an ilk which, though individually entertaining, had been slowly losing traction in the world of comics ever since National/DC had successfully reintroduced costumed heroes.

Lee & Kirby had responded with The Fantastic Four and so-ahead-of-its-time Incredible Hulk, but there was no indication of the renaissance ahead when officially just-cancelled Amazing Fantasy featured a brand new and rather eerie adventure character…

This compelling compilation re-presents the rise of the wallcrawler as originally seen in Amazing Spider-Man #20-28 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 (spanning cover-dates January-September 1965) and is lettered throughout by unsung superstars Sam Rosen & Art Simek, allowing newcomers and veteran readers to comprehensively relive some of the greatest moments in sequential narrative.

The parable of Peter Parker began when a smart but alienated high schooler was bitten by a radioactive spider on a science trip. Discovering he’d developed arachnid abilities – which he augmented with his own ingenuity and engineering genius – Peter did what any lonely, geeky nerd would when given such a gift… he tried to cash in for girls, fame and money.

Creating a costume to hide his identity in case he made a fool of himself, Parker became a minor celebrity – and a vain, self-important one. To his eternal regret, when a thief fled past him, he didn’t lift a finger to stop the thug, and days later discovered that his Uncle Ben has been murdered by the same criminal…

Crazy for vengeance, Parker stalked and captured the assailant who made his beloved Aunt May a widow and killed the only father he had ever known. Since his social irresponsibility led to the death of the man who raised him, the boy swore to always use his powers to help others…

It wasn’t a new story, but the setting was familiar to every kid reading it and the artwork was downright spooky. no gleaming high-tech world of moon-rockets, mammoth monsters and flying cars here… this stuff could happen to anyone…

Amazing Fantasy #15 came out the same month as Tales to Astonish #35 – the first to feature the Astonishing Ant-Man in costume, but it was the last issue of Ditko’s Amazing playground. However, the tragic last-ditch tale struck a chord with the public and by year’s end a new comic book superstar launched in his own title, with Ditko eager to show what he could do with his first returning character since the demise of Charlton’s Captain Atom…

Holding on to the “Amazing” prefix to jog reader’ memories, the Amazing Spider-Man #1 hit newsstands in December sporting a March 1963 cover-date and two complete stories.

Sans frills or extras, the ongoing saga resumes here with Amazing Spider-Man #20. Ditko’s preference for tales of gangersterism drove the stories, but his plots also found plenty of time and room for science fictional fun , supervillain frolics and subplots involving Peter Parker’s disastrous love life and poverty-fuelled medical dramas involving always-on-the-edge-of-death Aunt May…

The wallcrawler had inexplicably become the whipping boy of publicity-hungry – and eventually obsessed – publisher J. Jonah Jameson, who bombarded the hero with libellous print assaults in newspaper the Daily Bugle. He was blithely unaware that the photos Parker sold him for his print attacks were paying Spider-Man’s bills…

With Amazing Spider-Man #20 and ‘The Coming of the Scorpion!’, Jameson let his compulsive hatred get the better of him: paying scientist Farley Stillwell to endow a private detective with insectoid-based superpowers. Unfortunately, the process drove mercenary Mac Gargan (originally commissioned to trail Parker and discover how the kid got all those exclusive photos) completely mad before he could capture Spidey, leaving the webspinner with yet another lethally dangerous meta-nutcase to deal with…

The issue closed with a stunning Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of ‘Peter Parker and Ol’ Webhead’…

A recurring humorous duel involved a rivalry between the Amazing Arachnid and fellow teen hero Johnny Storm – The Human Torch which reached new heights of hilarity in #21. ‘Where Flies the Beetle…!’ features a hilarious love triangle as the Torch’s girlfriend Doris Evans uses Peter Parker to make her flaming beau jealous. Unfortunately, the Beetle – a villain with high-tech insect-themed armour – is simultaneously stalking her: seeking bait for a trap. As ever, Spider-Man is simply in the wrong place at the right time, resulting in a spectacular fight-fest…

This issue also offers a stunning and much reprinted Ditko Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of ‘Spider-Man’ before ASM #22 preeeeeeeesents… ‘The Clown, and his Masters of Menace!’: affording a return engagement for the Circus of Crime with splendidly outré action and a lot of hearty laughs provided by increasingly irreplaceable supporting stars Aunt May, Peter’s girlfriend Betty Brant and J. Jonah Jameson, before #23 delivers a superb thriller blending the mundane mobster and thugs that Ditko loved to depict with the more outlandish threat of a supervillain attempting to take over all the city’s gangs.

‘The Goblin and the Gangsters’ is both moody and explosive, the supervillain’s plot foiled by a cunning competitor and the driven hero’s ceaseless energy, and this tale is complemented by a Ditko Marvel Masterwork Pin-up of ‘Spidey’ that Amazingly features all the supporting cast and every extant villain in his rogues’ gallery…

Another recurring plot strand debuted in #24, as a dark brooding tale had the troubled boy question his own sanity in ‘Spider-Man Goes Mad!’. This psychological stunner finds a clearly delusional wallcrawler seeking psychiatric help, but there is more to the matter than simple insanity, as an insidious old foe makes an unexpected return and employs psychological warfare to destroy…

Amazing Spider-Man #25 once again sees the Bugle’s obsessed publisher take matters into his own hands. ‘Captured by J. Jonah Jameson!’ introduces Professor Smythe – whose dynasty of robotic Spider-Slayers would bedevil the webslinger for years to come – hired by the bellicose newsman to remove Spider-Man for good.

Issues #26 and 27 comprised a captivating 2-part mystery exposing a deadly duel between the Green Goblin and an enigmatic new masked criminal. ‘The Man in the Crime-Master’s Mask!’ and ‘Bring Back my Goblin to Me!’ together form a perfect arachnid epic, with soap-opera melodrama and screwball comedy leavening tense crime-busting thrills and all-out action.

‘The Menace of the Molten Man!’ in #28 is a tale of science gone bad and remains remarkable today not only for the spectacular action sequences – and possibly the most striking Spider-Man cover ever produced – but also as the story in which Peter Parker finally graduates from High School.

Ditko was on peak form and fast enough to handle two monthly strips. At this time he was also blowing away audiences with another oddly tangential superhero. Two extremely disparate crusaders met in ‘The Wondrous World of Dr. Strange!’: lead story in the second super-sized Spider-Man Annual (released in October 1965 filled out with vintage Spidey classics).

The entrancing fable unforgettably introduced the Amazing Arachnid to arcane other realities as he teamed up with the Master of the Mystic Arts to battle power-crazed mage Xandu in a phantasmagorical, dimension-hopping masterpiece involving ensorcelled zombie thugs and the stolen Wand of Watoomb. After this, it was clear that Spider-Man could work in any milieu and nothing could hold him back…

Also included here from that immensely impressive landmark are more Ditko pin-ups comprising ‘A Gallery of Spider-Man’s Most Famous Foes’ – highlighting such nefarious ne’er-do-wells as ‘The Circus of Crime’, The Scorpion’, ‘The Beetle’ ‘Jonah’s Robot’ and ‘The Crime-Master’. These delights are supplemented by a page of original art from ASM #27.

Full of energy, verve, pathos and laughs, gloriously short of post-modern angst and breast-beating, these immortal epics are something no serous fan can be without, and will make an ideal gift for any curious newcomer or nostalgic aficionado.

Happy Unbirthday Spidey and many, many more please…
© 2022 MARVEL.

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Trog-Shots: A Cartoonerama


By Trog AKA Wally Fawkes (Patrick Hardy Books)
ISBN: 978-0-7444-0049-6 (Landscape PB)

Our last lost giant was someone who drew a beloved all-ages politically-barbed satirical children’s strip for decades and had a second cartoon career as a rapier-witted rottweiler going after society’s true devils.

I’m holding off discussing Flook until I have a decent collection to recommend without pauperising anyone, but until then here’s a collection of Trogs’s other other line of work to celebrate his genius and mourn his loss…  

The one thing I really don’t miss about the 1970s and 1980s is just how many truly ruthless bastards and utter swine were out, proud and loudly ruling us, America and all the other morally bankrupt countries. No matter how bad our current crop of greedy, shallow, inept, self-serving plutocrats might be, they are pitiful pikers when compared to the vicious, callous and ethically challenged rulers of our forefathers. Those guys were actually good at what they did and appreciated a good cover-up too…

That still didn’t keep them out of the sights of a legion of cartoonists like Ralph Steadman, Gerald Scarfe, Steve Bell and Wally Fawkes – who perpetrated his personal acts of socio-political vigilantism under the alias “Trog”. The nom de plume stems from “troglodyte”, but its derivation is hotly disputed to this day…

Born Walter Ernest Pearsall (June 24th 1924 – March 1st 2023) in Vancouver, Canada, Fawkes took his stepfather’s surname after  moving to Britain when he was seven. He taught himself to play clarinet and was never happier than when playing Jazz. His first pro gigs came in 1944 with George Webb, before joining Humphrey Lyttelton in the 1950s. Wally clearly enjoyed his three careers (which he termed “minority pursuits”), and was apparently beyond compare in all of them. I’m not qualified to comment on his jazz playing: I only ever saw him twice but certainly had a great time on each occasion…

If anything was less financially rewarding than playing music it was drawing cartoons, so Wally started doing that too. After reaching England in 1931, he had grown up in South London and – aged 14 – won a scholarship to study at Sidcup Art School. The lifelong comics fan studied there until the money ran out and then plunged into the world of work. When war came, pleurisy kept him out of the armed forces and he contributed to the home front effort by painting camouflage on factories and mapping mines for the British Coal Commission.

In 1942, Fawkes won a cartoon competition held by The Daily Mail, and the judge (the paper’s illustrious chief cartoonist Leslie Illingworth) found him a position at advertising agency Clement Davies. Three years later – on Wally’s 21st birthday – Illingworth hired him as a junior cartoonist. In 1949, Wally’s unique blend of luck and perseverance scored a huge hit when he began his whimsical fantasy masterpiece Flook.

Newspaper owner Lord Rothermere had just come back from America where he had seen Crockett Johnson’s strip Barnaby. When he got home, the magnate wanted something similar but British for The Daily Mail and asked young Fawkes if he could handle it…

Co-scripted by a Who’s Who of media stars (including Sir Compton Mackenzie, Humphrey Lyttelton, George Melly, Barry Norman, Barry Took, Keith Waterhouse and others) it ran in the increasingly ultra-conservative Daily Mail until 1984. A true fish out of water feature, Flook told the increasingly Bohemian, left-leaning and liberal tales of a fuzzy, carrot-nosed, shapeshifting alien innocent and his naive little Earth boy pal Rufus.

Eventually the strip escaped its Right Wing captivity and moved into working class organ The Daily Mirror/Sunday Mirror, before being killed by print tyrant Robert Maxwell.

That didn’t stop Fawkes, though. He still had his clarinet, ideals, imagination, innate unshakeable sense of injustice and a third job as one of the country’s greatest caricaturists and satirists…

From its earliest inception cartooning has been used to sell: initially ideas or values but eventually actual products too. In newspapers, magazines and especially comic books the sheer power of narrative with its ability to create emotional affinities is linked to unforgettable images and characters. When those stories affect the daily lives of generations of readers, the force they can apply in a commercial or social arena is almost irresistible.

In Britain, the cartoonist has held a bizarrely precarious position of power for centuries: deftly designed bombastic broadsides or savagely surgical satirical slices instantly inflicting ridicule, exposing and deflating the powerfully elevated and seemingly untouchable with shaped-charges of scandalous wit and crushingly clear, universally understandable visual metaphor.

For this kind of concept transmission, literacy and lack of education are no barrier. As the Catholic Church proved centuries ago with the Stations of the Cross, stained glass windows and idealised saints, a picture is absolutely worth a thousand words. Moreover, even more than work, sport, religion, fighting or sex, politics has is the very grist that feeds a pictorial gadfly’s mill…

Having for decades contributed regularly to The Spectator, New Statesman, Observer, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, The Week, Today, London Daily News, plus venerable anti-establishment periodicals Punch and Private Eye (all whilst freelancing as a book illustrator), Fawkes simply carried on lambasting politicians of all stripes and persuasions and caustically commenting on a declining global civilisation until 2005, when failing eyesight finally silenced his excoriating commentaries. One year earlier he had added “Political Cartoonist Of The Year” to his horde of tributes and awards…

Trog died on March 1st 2023, from simple, well-earned old age.

There are still no definitive collections of Flook or Trog’s highly influential (just ask devoted fans Nicholas Garland, Malky McCormick, Barry Fantoni, Steve Bell or Raymond Briggs) stabs at iniquity and hypocrisy, but this collection from 1984 is both representative of the man and his mirth and readily available.

Preceded by a telling, deconstructive and revelatory Foreword by bandmate and Flook co-writer Melly, Trog-Shots: A Cartoonerama re-presents 57 late 1970s/early 1980s art sallies and includes many gags from his regular “Mini-Trog” feature: a general social commentary comedy residency in The Observer.

Culled – as should have been so many of his unsavoury targets – from a time when Monetarism and Reagan took over the USA; Soviet leaders were dropping like flies and Apartheid had just started being rejected by the world, here is a rogues gallery of putrid politicians, scurrilous scandals, and social shout-outs. Here you’ll see the worst of political indifference impacting shoppers, the National Health Service, workers and miners. Here also be monstrous economic mismanagement, revolting journalists, feuding Royals, racist policemen acting beyond the law, sporting skulduggery and Cold War crises. There are starring roles for all the old lags from Jim Callaghan, Michael Foot & Neil Kinnock to Ted Heath, Thatcher, Howe, Tebbitt, Whitelaw, Lawson and all their malign ilk, plus lesser lights like Jeremy Thorpe, Arthur Scargill, and Davids Steele & Owen are soundly skewered and taken to task for what they had – and hadn’t – done…

Awash with astounding images, fascinating lost ephemera and mouth-watering art no fan could resist, this compact compendium is a beautiful fragment of cartoon history that will delight and tantalise, and forms a fitting tribute to a self-effacing master craftsman whose departure has left us all so much poorer. Hopefully, we will at least soon see his legacy back in print…
Collection © 1984 by Wally Fawkes. Foreword © 1984 by George Melly. All rights reserved.

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The Fosdyke Saga volume 1


By Bill Tidy (Wolfe Publishing)
ISBN: 72340499-2/978-0-72340-499-6 (Landscape PB)

The world became a far less smart and infinitely grimmer place over the last weeks, due to the loss of three cartooning giants many of you have probably never heard of.

As so little of their superb output is readily accessible to digital-age readers, I’m celebrating their amazing achievements and acknowledging my personal debt to them here with items that can still be easily sourced and the heartfelt advice that if you like to laugh and have a surreal bent, these are comedy craftsmen you need to know.

Today, let’s plunge full-on into a lost world of sheerly startling shoddy grandeur…

William Edward “Bill” Tidy (MBE) was born on the 9th of October 1933 and died on March 11th 2023. For most of those 89 years he charmed people and made them laugh. Happily, many of his books are available digitally, although incomprehensibly not his sublimely daft (and that’s “Daffft” as in daffodil not “Darhhhhhhhhhhft” as in Dalek or Darling) 14 volume “magnificent octopus” The Fosdyke Saga.

But first, a few words about amusing folk…

Nothing is universally funny, but other people’s idiosyncrasies come pretty close. Comedy is cruel and can be mean-spirited at its core: it all depends on who’s saying what and how. Bill Tidy’s Fosdyke Saga is a grand exemplar: combining a smart, painfully self-aware surreal blend of parody, insular localised legend and working-class aspiration with sheer surrealism.

It is therefore utterly inexplicable to the young or the “Johnny Foreigner” of our Empire Days. In this case that also includes people of other utterly alien cultures – like Americans or Millennials – but also probably incorporates anyone British from further south than bucolic Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, or Buckinghamshire’s austere Aston Clinton and hoity-toity Tring.

Indeed, rumour has it that until recently, travellers using the Grand Union Canal – grizzled, gruff and grubby bargees hauling coal and rubbing liniment down to the sunlit uplands whilst posh snobs pleasure-boating as disaster tourists trekked a little way into the grim north – had to have their passports checked and stamped at the Apsley/Kings Langley buffer quay…

Seriously though, once upon a time British humour was fiercely and proudly local, regional and factional: cherishing warring accents and nurturing civic rivalries, ancient prejudices (still got plenty of them, though, Ta Very Much!!) and generational grudges. Midlands comedians weren’t funny in Glasgow and Manchester mirth-makers stayed the heck out of Liverpool. But then, after the war – the second one – we began homogenising aspects of life.

In the world of laughter, everything now had a manic, off-kilter skew. Random madcappery abounded where once only genteel wit grazed. The Goon Show and its bastard offspring Do Not Adjust Your Set and Monty Python’s Flying Circus challenged the rational senses whilst racism, sexism, jingoism, wife/mother-in-law jokes, illicit sex, smut, double entendres, “my doctor said” and sporting jibes could no longer securely address all our giggling needs.

Over in a corner somewhere, the bigger picture, establishment inertia and adamantine class structures were still being poked at by a dying cadre of satirists. Then, suddenly, it were 1971 and cartoonist Bill Tidy had a splendidly wicked idea…

He was born in Tranmere, Cheshire and proudly embraced his Northern working-class heritage in everything he did. Raised and educated in Liverpool, his first published work was a cartoon in his school magazine.

Bill joined the Royal Engineers in 1952 and made his first professional cartoon sale three years later whilst posted in Japan. Demobbed and back in Blighty, Tidy joined a Liverpool art agency, creating small ads and doing illustrations for various magazines, and sold his cartoons wherever he could.

Regular clients soon included The Daily Mirror and Daily Sketch so he moved down to London. Time passed and he met other freelancers and in 1966 co-founded a workers club – The British Cartoonists Association. A true wit and natural raconteur, he was mesmerising to listen to and even more so if you were lucky enough to chat with him over a pint…

Although a master of done-in-one single image gags – such as the immortal “Is There Any news of the Iceberg?” (look it up – both the cartoon itself and the illustrated autobiography it now fronts), Tidy inevitably told big stories. He cherished strong narratives powering the engines of his work, and his tales were delivered in a loose flowing, hyper-energetic style perfectly carrying the machine-gun rapidity of his ideas and whacky wordplay.

In April 1967 he created The Cloggies – an Everyday Saga in the Life of Clog Dancing Folk – which ran in Private Eye until 1981 and thereafter The Listener until 1986. He had a few comic residencies: weird/evil science spoof Grimbledon Down (1970-1994 in New Scientist), Dr. Whittle (1970-2001 in General Practitioner) and – from 1974 – imbibers strip Kegbusters in the Campaign for Real Ale’s periodical What’s Brewing? Other regular venues included Classic FM Magazine, The Oldie, The Mail on Sunday, The Yorkshire Post and Punch. When that last venerable humour institution (1841-2002) went bust, Tidy unsuccessfully tried to buy it and keep it going…

Tidy also authored 20 books and illustrated 70 more. If you’re interested, my favourites are The Bedside Book of Final Words and Disgraceful Archaeology: or Things You Shouldn’t Know About the History of Mankind…

From cartooning and dedicated charity work with the Lords Taverners, he latterly drifted into radio and TV presentation, appearing on or hosting shows such as I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, Draw Me, Countdown, Watercolour Challenge, Blankety Blank and Countryfile. There will never be another like him.

The best way to remember him is through his work: most notably the multi-volume Fosdyke Saga as gathered in collections from the 1970s and 1980s (but not so much the 2016 compilation).

Perhaps a little context is appropriate. In 1906, author John Galsworthy began in The Man of Property a sequence of novels detailing the lives of an English upper-middle class “new money” family. Spanning half a century (1886-1936) and augmented by In Chancery and To Let, the generational tale was formally repackaged as The Forsyte Saga in 1922. From then onwards, the societal epic has been adapted regularly as movies, immense radio plays and – in 1967 – a groundbreaking BBC television serial. Galsworthy wrote two more trilogies of novels plus spin-off “interludes” – like Indian Summer of a Forsyte and Awakening – cumulatively known as the Forsyte Chronicles. The effort won him 1932’s Nobel Prize for Literature.

Generally, it all showed how even posh folk don’t get to be secure or content and remains a powerful literary presence. The saga was revived in 1994 in a new novel by Suleika Dawson.

The British truly love their television and the BBC especially have produced numerous game changing dramas – everything from the Quatermass stories to I, Claudius. However, their 26-part Forsyte Saga adaptation utterly captivated viewers in a whole new way, so in regard to what’s we’re reviewing here, a little further clarification is required.

The Galsworthy adaptation had originally run from January 7th to July 1st 1967, in BBC 1’s prestigious prime Saturday slot. It was augmented by repeat showings three days later on BBC 2, and the entire series was re-screened on Sundays from September 8th 1968 with the final episode in 1969 seen by 18 million viewers. Overseas sales were staggering (it was the first BBC product sold to the Soviet Union!) and worldwide viewing figures topped in excess of 160 million. All this in the era before home recordings were available. If you missed an episode of anything, all you could was endure other people’s smug gloating…

The TV sensation inspired much imitation, such as ITV’s Upstairs Downstairs, which ran on Sundays from October 10th 1971 to December 21st 1975… just as Bill Tidy’s delirious spoof was hitting its baggy-trousered stride…

I mention this simply because Upstairs Downstairs also highlighted disparities, similarities and interactions of upper-class toffs and working people in a weekly accessible form, but explored the same Edwardian and Georgian eras as Tidy’s wickedly whacky wonders. It ensured the cartoon’s strong historical underpinnings were familiar to the hoi-polloi Daily Mirror readership who might have slept through school, but avidly paid attention to the goggle box…

Just like its inspiration, The Fosdyke Saga is no stranger to media adaptations: spawning a TV series, a play co-written by Alan Plater, two radio series and latterday sequels…

Describing itself as “a classic tale of Struggle, Power, Personalities and Tripe” the story follows Josiah Fosdyke and his family, who in 1900 emigrate from Lancashire mining town Griddlesbury to cosmopolitan Manchester. The move follows another near-death experience “down pit” as the aspiration scab labourer crosses picket lines and nearly ends up another casualty of “King Coal”…

Resolved that this is no way to get ahead, Jos, wife Rebecca, daughter Victoria and sons Tom, Albert and newborn Tim eschew aid from Becky’s wealthy brother and head for Manchester – “where streets are studded wi’ meat pies!”…

A chance meeting with old Ben Ditchley – the Lancashire Tripe King – sets them on the path to prosperity. As Jos repeatedly impresses the self-made millionaire with his cunning and ruthless work ethic, Ditchley’s dissolute son Roger dishonours and debauches Vicky and ultimately is disinherited in Fosdyke’s favour. The end result is by-blow Sylvia Fosdyke, Victoria’s radicalisation and eternal involvement with the paramilitary wing of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and Roger’s lifelong vendetta to crush the family who cost him his inheritance…

The Fosdyke Saga ran from March 1971 to February 1985 and was purportedly personally killed by unctuous, sleazily gentrifying corporate bandit Robert Maxwell after he acquired Mirror Group Newspapers in 1984. This volume is a severely edited compilation of the first few years of the sublime bizarre strip, packed with gags about fierce powerful women (many with full beards and steel toecap boots), privation, music halls, and new inventions. It’s populated by rogues, scoundrels, wastrels and gobsmacked bystanders, and stuffed with shocking foodstuffs like pigs trotters, cowheels, tripe and assorted offal, pigs ears and pickled cabbage, Bavarian Death’s Head Infantry Sausage, Sauerkraut und Schweinwurst and Tinned Tripe for the Troops, all of which act as milestones tracing Fosdyke fortunes in war and peace…

After inheriting old Ben’s business, Jos imaginatively expands and diversifies, but family troubles and Roger’s machinations constantly confound his plans for repast supremacy. Sub-plots reference contemporary turning points like the Titanic’s launch, the Salvation Army movement, suffragettes and the King’s horse, poverty, depression and the day-by day-absurdist drama of the Great War at home, at the Front and everywhere in between…

We see how Tom converts from staunch Conscientious Objector to trench infantryman/POW (with Jos naturally seeking to corner the white feather trade), and Albert’s astounding duel of wills and imagination with Red Baron Von Richthoven and sordid French air ace Marcel Waive, as well as Tom’s thriving prison camp restaurant trade.

The tripeworks is sabotaged and bombed by zeppelins and Jos is accused of being the Salford Ripper, before being blackmailed by Roger for colluding with the enemy, but always the Fosdykes soldier on…

High points for young Ditchley include sending aviator Albert on countless suicide missions, fomenting the Manchester Tripe Wars, seducing a quasi-mystical Tripe Inspector, and hiring the murderous O’Malley Sisters to crush Jos’ trade. When Ditchley’s scheme is quashed by Vicky’s suffragette comrades, the cad enlists “Legendary Lancashire Lothario” T. Edgar Shufflebottom to seduce them in job lots, before being foiled by a simple twist of fate…

When straightforward murder fails too, Roger blackmails “Russian Nightingale” Nadine Buzom into compromising Jos just as little Tim ships out as a cabin boy and is lost at sea…

With the war ended, attacks on the factory resume, Albert is lost in an air race that lands him and Albion’s adored aviatrix the Hon. Cynthia Spofforth at the mercy of a lusty and frustrated Arab sheik and Tom heads west to America’s ease Prohibition woes with Fosdyke’s latest innovation. Sadly, Ditchley is already there, getting rich in Chicago with whisky-soaked offal in his illicit Tripe-Easy…

As Tom joins Elliot Ness and the Untouchables, the volume ends with Jos’s hunger to expand his markets landing him in big trouble: held captive by a Soviet Commissar who just wanted a million tons of free tripe for her starving people… until the elder Fosdyke’s devastatingly manly demeanour turns her Red head…

A forgotten treat for us oldsters and a potential new delight for smart youngsters, Bill Tidy’s surreal tour de force is a delicious treat just waiting to be rediscovered. Over to you…
© Daily Mirror Newspapers Limited 1972.