"The Mysterious Phone Interference Spot." COMICS! Sometimes The Bole Of A Tree Is Just The Bole of A Tree!

This time John decides to publicly embarrass himself by looking at something way out of his league- LOVERBOYS by Gilbert Hernandez. He strained himself so badly he couldn't really think of anything to put here. Aw, bless. LOVERBOYS by Gilbert Hernandez

Anyway, this... LOVERBOYS Story and Art by Gilbert Hernandez Dark Horse Books, $19.99 US, $21.99 CAN (2014)

This is an original graphic novel by the dizzyingly prolific Gilbert “Betty” Hernandez. Now, I am an unforgiving man and so don't fool yourself for one Holmfirth Second that there are any kudos to be had in these parts simply for sheer volume of output, or even length of service. The rule of thumb hereabouts is generally that the more a comics author produces regularly then the less worthy of note it is. Given the vast quantities of pages which the Comics Machine demands filling each month it's little wonder that even the most talented authors find their gifts become stretched, until they are present only in homeopathic quantities. And those are the most talented, never mind the rest of the Trex merchants. Ugh. Of course if there's a rule of thumb then there's always going to be someone who defies it so strongly they don't just break it, they snap it right the Hell off. These people are the true geniuses (genii? Or are those the dudes in lamps?) These people are pretty easy to notice. After all they just broke your thumb, figuratively speaking. Yes, Gilbert Hernandez is one of them. And in LOVERBOYS he's on fine figuratively speaking thumb snapping form.

LOVERBOYS by Gilbert Hernandez

Because the big thing about geniuses, which we've established Gilbert Hernandez is, is that everything they do is worthy of attention. Me, I'll buy everything Gilbert Hernandez does. Eventually anyway; I have fiscal responsibilities beyond paper entertainment, alas. So, yeah, well spotted, LOVERBOYS isn't the kind of thing I'd generally seek out subject-matter wise. By way of engorged contrast to all those war comics I morbidly maunder about to excess, I guess LOVERBOYs is about what people get up to in times of peace; they get up to each other, up to the nuts, in fact. Folk in LOVERBOYS are very much making love not war, but as the philosopher Patrick Benetar trilled, Love Is A Battlefield. And so it proves here, but rather than a Stoeger .22 calibre Luger or a North American P-51 Mustang the weapons of choice herein are emotions and genitals. Yes, cockle warmingly, people will always find a way to hurt each other. We're an inventive species alright. In LOVERBOYS everyone is just looking for happiness but everyone is still getting hurt.

LOVERBOYS by Gilbert Hernandez

It may seem weird that I liked LOVERBOYS so much, because I am, for my sins, English. Being English I am genetically wired to recoil in flustered distaste from any hint of emotion, and to hide my face behind the paper whenever feelings are invoked at the breakfast table. Basically, and I think I speak for all Englishmen everywhere in this, getting through, say, as a for example, no offence and all that, Matt Fraction's backmatter is as pleasant as having to change the nappy of another person's child. And yet despite all that, despite the perfectly healthy English aversion to emotional engagement, despite the fact that LOVERBOYS is all about emotions I was all over LOVERBOYS like an embarrassing rash (a dash of penicillin, I'm thinking).

LOVERBOYS by Gilbert Hernandez

Mostly I liked it because Gilbert Hernandez, but also because I am quite an emotionally dark man and because LOVERBOYS is a very dark book. This darkness is beguilingly furtive and runs counter to the bright and open style art Hernandez employs throughout. It's a very loose and energetic style, a kind of rendering down to cartoony fundamentals, the apparent carelessness of which is belied by the strength with which such a style delivers its (many) emotional blows. It's a deceptively simple style and its chief deception is in making the complex interaction of the large cast across a lengthy time span appear as direct and lucid as an Archie comic. Which it sure as shooting isn't. But then, unforgivably, I haven't really told you what LOVERBOYS is. Hold on! The precis bus has just pulled into the station. Talk about timing. (Smooth, huh?) Anyway, the disparate characters of LOVERBOYS all orbit the flamboyantly chested teacher Mrs. Paz and their emotional interactions spiral to a crescendo which result in collateral damage; damage which extends nor only to insidiously infect the children of the town, but also the actual physical town of Lágrimas itself, when the explosiveness of the situation stops being figurative and becomes dangerously literal. At the risk of being awarded a cash prize for Perceptiveness I'm kind of thinking a lot of LOVERBOYS is metaphorical rather than literal. We have a Mrs Paz (i.e. Peace) who lives in the town of Lágrimas (Tears), all the cats have disappeared, people's jobs (teacher aside) are nebulous and just in case there's any doubt there is a mysterious bunker in which whispering secret stealing “little people” live alongside dynamite. But alongside this in baffling harmony are quite perfectly realistic human interactions. The mundane and the fantastic are intertwined in LOVERBOYS like, uh, lovers. And like such coupling any friction between the two disparate elements is purely pleasant.

LOVERBOYS by Gilbert Hernandez

Oh, don't worry the book's called LOVERBOYS but it's visually a PG-13, with nary the sight of a gristle whistle and all the spelunking in lady caves happens off page. The emphasis is very definitely on the emotional fallout and undercurrents the physical stuff sets in motion. A lot of the time LOVERBOYS reminded me of a Douglas Sirk movie, but one where Douglas Sirk died on the first day of shooting thus forcing Russ Meyer to step in and with the end results so heavily censored that all the heaving and shrieking ended up on the cutting room floor. So, you know, don't be giving this book that teeth grinding stuff about how it's just some old dude whacking off in public, because all that's on show here are the insidious dangers and slow damage incurred by the innocent search for happiness. Which is to say - life. And if you find life itself worth whacking off over you better pace yourself or you'll chafe. Pacing, however, isn't a problem for Gilbert Hernandez who keeps on keeping on and here with LOVERBOYS proves himself once more EXCELLENT!

Sometimes Love speaks through - COMICS!!!

"If Only I Could Convince BEVERLY That He's As IMPORTANT As I Know He Is." COMICS FOLK! Sometimes It's 65 Pictures For 65 Years!

It's the 7th October 2015 and that means it's been 65 years of the chunky wee thermodynamic miracle Howard Victor Chaykin! Today is his day, so I'm going to shut my yapper and below the break you can feast your eyes on 65 images culled from The Chaykin Section in The Kane Garage Archives. Raise your root beers high and let's all drink to another 65 years of the amazing Mr. Chaykin!

THE SHADOW by Chaykin, Bruzenak & Wald

Anyway, this...

  Happy Birthday, Mr. Chaykin and thanks for all the - COMICS!!!

“I'm Looking For A Creep With Big Feet!” COMICS! Sometimes Travel Can Limit Your Horizons To The Size of an Iso-Cube!

In which John beggars belief by actually following up on his threat to look at the Judge Dredd Mega Collection. This time out various, and largely unpleasant, xenomorphs get a quick course in The Law from Professor Joseph Dredd. JUDGE DREDD by McMahon, Wagner & Frame

Anyway, this... ALIEN NATIONS JUDGE DREDD: THE MEGA COLLECTION #75 Artwork by Dean Ormston, Ashley Wood, Ian Gibson, Mick McMahon, Karl Richardson, Cam Kennedy, Tony Luke & Jim Murray Written by Alan Grant, John Wagner & T. C. Eglington Lettered by Tom Frame, Fiona Stephenson & Annie Parkhouse Coloured by D'Israeli & Chris Blythe Originally serialised in 2000Ad Progs, 204,1033, 1133-1134, 1241 & 1855-1857, Judge Dredd Megazine 1.11-1.17, 2.53 – 2.56,& 2.73 -2.76 and Judge Dredd Mega Special 1995 © 1981, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1997,1999, 2001, 2013 & 2015 Rebellion A/C Judge Dredd created by Carlos Ezquerra, Pat Mills & John Wagner £9.99 UK (2015)

This volume of the Hatchette/Rebellion partwork is yet more big chinned future cop thrills, but this time in the form of a (mostly) scrotnig smorgasbord of encounters between our autocratic anti-hero and various alien races. This is handy because it gives an idea of certain types of Dredd tales which occur in-between the mega death events. There are many kinds of Dredd tales and this collection is hardly exhaustive but it catches a fair few of them between its hard covers; covers adorned as ever with the pleasantly minimalist design of B&W line art with a red flash to catch the eye. It also allows me to look at a wide variety of Dredd artists including Mick (nee Mike) McMahon. Which is nice. (MICK MCMAHON!)

JUDGE DREDD by Ormston, Grant & Frame

A smidge over half the book is taken up by the opening double bill of Raptaur and Skar, both of which are fine examples of the longstanding tradition British comics have of providing off-brand (and slightly tweaked to avoid litigation) versions of pop culture faves. (For corroboration see my previous babbling about Action Weekly, if you really feel you must. I don't recommend it as even my family refuse to read my writing.) Here, in Skar particularly, it's Alien, as in the fantastic 20th Century Fox movie presentation. (Of which I have also written tediously on previous occasions). There would come a point when Judge Dredd would actually face the licensed acid blooded xenomorph itself; it would be drawn by Henry Flint and it would be pretty great, actually. I  guess no such permission had been given back when these strips appeared so it's Skar and Raptaur. Raptaur has a slight edge as a concept since the tweak there is it's Alien crossed with Predator. Dredd would also eventually face Predator and it would be drawn by Enrique Alcatena and it would be forgettable.

JUDGE DREDD by Wood, Wagner & Frame

As it happens Skar is quite forgettable too. It's not bad , it's just a bit distended for what it is. Generally John Wagner seems to be keen to let his artists have a pretty free hand, and on occasion he seems to write stories intended to showcase the art, and so story depth and density become less of an issue. This isn't a bad approach (comics being a primarily visual medium, or so I hear) but it does depend on how the reader reacts to the particular artist. Alas, I'm not an Ashley Wood man. I stubbornly maintain he is great at illustration but poor on storytelling. Here Wood's art is, I think, intended to carry the piece in arms made sturdy by atmospheric layouts and oppressive blacks. Unfortunately what happens in my eyes is there’s a bunch of confusing layouts with the use of black seemingly an excuse not to draw things, and this approach is implemented so excessively it nudges the whole thing into visual tedium. Also, I wanted to slap that airbrush(?) out of his hands. Raptaur, on the other hand is written by Alan Grant and is a much denser affair. As well as the whole finding out what this thing is and how to kill it business, Grant also provides little snap shots of city life along the way for colour, atmosphere and humour. There's even a real sense of danger for Dredd ; he gets several right batterings, and some stand out Dredd Hard! Moments (the bit where he stabs himself in the hand because he is losing his grip above a vast drop is pure Dredd Hard!). But Grant's clearly writing with story rather than atmosphere in mind, so obviously he wins. Mind you he also wins because he's got Dean Ormston on art. Here Ormston's art is still developing but it's developing quickly. His quirky line is made robust by a queasy colouring job with a palette informed by some imaginary but very toxic children's cereal; it's all slightly off primary hues laid over gnarly figures, which tip over into the truly grotesque when occasion demands. Raptaur and Skar are two very different beasts in teh end; two very different approaches to the same genre staple; how you react to either will depend on you, but I think Raptaur takes it. There's also a short Raptaur Returns thing which combines Ormston's art with Tony Luke's modeling (CGI?) to produce a fresh take on Raptaur as a toothy poo.

JUDGE DREDD by Gibson, Grant, Wagner & Frame

Acting as a kind of breather before the next chunk of fascistic fun we get a short one episode humour piece in which Dredd is tasked with showing an alien ball of feathers and eyes around the city. Alas, the alien isn't as cute as he looks and if “Diplomatic Immunity!” didn't work for Joss Ackland it sure as shit isn't going to work in The Big Meg. It's fun but slight and Ian Gibson's art is the real draw (ho!) Here Gibson is drawing as “Emberton” because for some reason there was a period where he confused the nuts off me by appearing in 2000AD under a couple of names (I think one started with “Q...”). For a bit back then I honestly thought there was some kind of Ian Gibson Movement or something. It would have been better than the wave of Bisley manques we did get. Oops, little bit of bitterness showing there.

JUDGE DREDD by McMahon, Wagner & Frame

Next up is Howler which is big fat lump of Mick McMahon. Again , as with Skar above, John Wagner's story is the barest whiff of a thing; this time it is clearly just there so Mick McMahon can do whatever the Hell he wants for 36 or so pages. Since I would quite happily look at Mick McMahon's drawings of the contents of his fridge, the fact that he's drawing a story about an alien who thinks shouting loud enough to make people explode is going to make him King of Mega City One is just a dream made paper. Basically here McMahon's art is in line with that Legends of The Dark Knight I talked about a bit back. The illusion of depth is created not by perspective but by the layering of flat elements. It reminds me a lot of the work of Oliver Postgate (Noggin The Nog and all that); it's easy to imagine McMahon's figures lolloping across the panel with their arms and legs moving in a weirdly convincing but thoroughly unrealistic way. This is uber reductive cartooning, all geometric shapes and straight lines; the genius is in the measure of character which still informs everything McMahon draws. Mick McMahon is a living genius – FACT! Also, Judge Dredd gets his head dunked in a lav. Watch out for toothy poos!

JUDGE DREDD by Kennedy, Wagner, Blythe & Frame

The traddest effort comes next in the form of Prey. I don't know who T.C. Eglington is but s/he does a decent job in providing a story about weird murders in an aid camp set post Chaos Day (see Vol.s 49 & 50). There's nothing amazing here but it's solid stuff and manages to lightly touch on a couple of real issues. Richardson's art is in the more traditional North American style (e.g. Ethan Van Sciver i.e. the Green Lantern one, not the more talented, arty one) and the end result is probably likely to be more to the taste of palates not used to 2000AD's traditionally richer mix. Then again look at Cam Kennedy. Don't mind if I do, cheers! Kennedy sees out the volume with a couple of tales. I was all ready to bang on about how it was a damned shame that Kennedy, a uniquely kinetic artist, had never found real success over in the Americas. Then I remembered he did all those comics based on the children's entertainment Star Wars so he's probably doing a-okay. Here he's doing better than a-okay because he's drawing Judge Dredd. And Judge Dredd and Cam Kennedy are like boots and feet – they are meet. Like all the great Dredd artists Kennedy has his own spin on The Chin. Literally in fact, because Kennedy's Dredd-chin looks like a crispy baked potato. In a good way. Kennedy's two strips are by John Wagner and are light hearted affairs with a varied roster of aliens for Kennedy to depict in his signature crumbly and lolloping style. Solid stuff, showing Dredd's softer side and given that extra oomph that only Cam can. Braced between Kennedy's efforts is a frothy piece combining escalating disaster and alien religious extremism, all of which is given whatever entertaining weight it has by Jim Murray's art. Murray's art is in that fully painted style popularised by Bisley and mills' The Horned God way back when; a style adopted by many but which only few could manage. Luckily Murray's one of the few.

JUDGE DREDD by Murray, Wagner & Frame

Like my comb-over in a stiff wind, this volume is a bit all over the place but that's a nice change of pace from the nerve shredding marathon of the Epics. I appreciated the varied art styles and the various tones of the tales. While it doesn't hold together as a book that's because it was never meant to. However, it is like reading a really big Judge Dredd Mega Special or something. I had fun and some of that fun was was spectacular (Mick McMahon!) and sometimes it involved Tony Luke's toothy poos. But overall it was GOOD! (But if you like Mick McMahon you can take that up to VERY GOOD!)

The question is not whether there is life in space but rather whether they read – COMICS!!!

“It's A Set Back, That's All.” COMICS! Sometimes No Face Is So Stony Time Cannot Erode It!

In which I look at a couple of Judge Dredd collections available over here (the UK) in a format which may be unfamiliar to some of you. Still trying to get the spring back in my step so bear with us, eh? JUDGE DREDD by Flint, Wagner, Blythe & Parkhouse

Anyway, this... DAY OF CHAOS: THE FOURTH FACTION JUDGE DREDD THE MEGA COLLECTION Vol. 49 Art by Ben Willsher, Colin MacNeil, Henry Flint & Leigh Gallagher Written by John Wagner Coloured by Chris Blythe Lettered by Annie Parkhouse Hatchette/Rebellion, £9.99 (2015)

DAY OF CHAOS: ENDGAME JUDGE DREDD THE MEGA COLLECTION Vol. 50 Art by Ben Willsher, Colin MacNeil, Henry Flint, Edmund Bagwell and Dave Taylor Written by John Wagner Coloured by Chris Blythe Lettered by Annie Parkhouse Hatchette/Rebellion, £9.99 (2015)

“Nothing will ever be the same!!!”, such is the fraudulent shriek prior to every pile of Comics Event Trex ever, but the only events which consistently deliver on this promise are Judge Dredd events. Most every year or two in the pages of 2000AD or The Judge Dredd Megazine, Judge Joseph Dredd's world will be shaken to its increasingly shaky core and the consequences will rumble realistically on through subsequent issues before subsiding and sliding beneath the onslaught of the next event and its own terrible outcomes. So interesting are the times Dredd lives in one can only assume his Mum pissed off a Chinese mystic. (1) Ah, but Dredd didn't have a Mum; he's a clone, one of a few from the very source of the Justice system itself – Eustace Fargo. A future cop in a future America; an America boiled into insanity by past atomic wars and reconfigured as a fascistic police state; Judge Dredd is The Law. Dredd serves the State because he believes the State best serves The People. And if The People get in the way of The State then The People get their heads cracked. In his own stony faced way Judge Dredd loves Mega City One. It is his love that is breaking your face, it just looks like a nightstick. Clearly, Judge Dredd would hold little love for Henry David Thoreau who claimed, that “He serves The State best who opposes The State most.”(2) So it may very well be ironic that in these two collections which form one big story, Judge Dredd faces off against disgruntled Sovs who are going to serve the State greatly - by unleashing viral retribution for the sins of thirty years past. Thirty years ago Judge Dredd pushed the button to end The Apocalypse War and wiped East Meg One off the map. For the past thirty years the Sovs have waited and planned. Today they act. For today is The Day of Chaos.(3)

JUDGE DREDD by Flint, Wagner, Blythe & Parkhouse

Potential readers might be feeling put off at this point by the implied weight of history but they shouldn't be. John Wagner wrote these books and John Wagner has been the main Dredd architect for longer than most of you have been alive. Age has not withered him. In short, John Wagner knows what he's doing. While the scope and severity of the events which unfold are impressive and horrific indeed, it's worth acknowledging both the quiet efficiency with which Wagner builds his story and the new reader friendly way in which he does so. In no time at all the essential information required is slickly delivered to the reader's mind via their eyes (the previous Chief Judge is in penal servitude; the new Chief Judge seems reasonable; Dredd is bored on The Council of Five; the Mayor turned out to be a serial killer called PJ Maybe; mayoral elections are imminent; and a scientist who has invented something very nasty indeed is being sought by certain someones with mischief in mind). It's a lot of plates to keep spinning but Wagner does so magnificently, slowly zooming in on certain events as other events recede and then adroitly shifting emphasis to keep the story interesting, intriguing and trucking implacably along to an an ending which may be inevitable, but never once seems predictable. His characters all possess some, and are defined by actions and words so economically it's easy to miss the skill involved. There's a lot of skill involved is what I'm saying there.

JUDGE DREDD by Flint, Wagner, Blythe & Parkhouse

It's called DAY OF CHAOS so no high fives for knowing where it's all going (it's going to go badly; the only question is how badly is it going to go) but fascinatingly Wagner goes to incredible lengths to put the inevitability of it in doubt. His genius move is in loading the dice in the Judges' favour. They have a psychic who is on the (crystal) ball, they have Judge Dredd, the new Chief Judge is a reasonable man, well, what could go wrong! Quite a lot of things as it turns out. But the crux of the Judge's f*** up, the pivot around which all the pain revolves is so brilliantly simple and so damning of The System I actually barked with laughter. Things go badly for a bit, but they are what someone with the soul of an ant might call “within acceptable parameters”. And then...oh, dear. (4) Waging a War on Terror turns out to be trickier than the Judges' might think. After all you can't shoot Terror in the face.

JUDGE DREDD by Willsher, Wagner, Blythe & Parkhouse

Fear, Fire and Mortis on the other hand are a different matter. Yes, the three Dark Judges turn up (Death's AWOL) but Wagner uses them more to reflect the extent of the stakes than as a threat in themselves. Usually a Big Meg shaking event in their own right, here they are just the cyanide sprinkles that adorn this dish of revenge; one served very cold indeed. DAY OF CHAOS is so dark that The Dark Judges act as something of a respite, that's how dark this one gets. (It's quite dark, are you getting that?) This is an attack on a Mega City and the deaths incurred are Mega-Deaths. After all the comic book universes which have died without a drop of blood, just a timorous winking out of existence, it's bracing and, yes, shocking to see so many dead. The business of death is a horrible business and DAY OF CHAOS never lets you forget it. By the time you get to the bit about the key under the door you'll be so starved of light that one simple act of humanity will blind you. Because despite all the sturm und drang, all the body pits, all the betrayals, all the torture and the serial killers and the dead, the dead, the dead, oh, the dead, John Wagner never forgets the humanity which makes it all bearable, which stops it al from being pointless. DAY of CHAOS is entertainment but it's also grueling stuff and as weird as that may sound entertainment-wise it's far less weird and far more honest than the weightless extinction of entire civilisations which at most cause Spider-Man to cry a tiny spider-tear.

JUDGE DREDD by Flint, Wagner, Blythe & Parkhouse

By necessity, as these episodes originally appeared weekly, the art for such a long form tale is by diverse hands . Cunningly they've kept the team to a minimum and the main story is handled by Willshire, MacNeil, Gallagher and Flint. Each of whom is a talented artist and so have unique styles, but there (sensibly given the intense density and extended duration of the epic) seems to be some attempt to conform to a base level of consistency, so that confusion is kept to a minimum but, crucially, some sense of individuality is also retained. Everyone on these pages is great, bringing solid skills to the service of pages packed with detail and information which, in lesser hands could have been inert and dull. It would be rude to pick a favourite, but luckily I am a rude man so, in a close contest Henry Flint wins; he does so purely because his style so strong and he finds room to unobtrusively include playful visual quotes from Frank Miller at least three times - the Prague enclave's architecture is straight out of RONIN; a bed in a hotel is the “heart” bed from SIN CITY; and his ladies lips are HELL AND BACK lips if ever I saw 'em. Dave Taylor and Edmund Bagwell provide art on a couple of post Chaos Day tales and the cleanliness and lightness of their approaches act as a welcome respite from all the darkness prior. Did I mention DAY OF CHAOS was dark? I know I forgot to mention it was VERY GOOD!

JUDGE DREDD by Flint, Wagner, Blythe & Parkhouse

Now, I believe the two volumes above have been recently released in North America in TPB format, but that's not the format I read them in. No, because I am Special my books form part of the Judge Dredd Mega Collection partwork (4) published by Hatchette/Rebellion. This is a proposed 80 hardback volume set of reprints of Judge Dredd strips, each fortnightly volume being organised by theme/storyline. They are not released sequentially - the 49 and 50 refer to where they will fit in the final collection. Anyway, this Judge Dredd Mega Collection has settled in at £9.99 an issue. And as I say, they are hardbacks, which is always nice, and they have a uniform trade dress with the spine building up a picture of 2000AD characters (rather than just Dredd characters for some reason; also this makes it hard to find a particular story, but I think if that's the most pressing of your concerns you are blessed indeed). None of them have fallen apart yet and despite the paper smelling like you suspect that bloke who fell in the radioactive waste at the end of Robocop did (i.e all chemically), everything seems sturdy enough. Obviously the newer stuff reprints better than the old stuff but them's the breaks. I'll be sticking with the series as long as I can and if you want me to look at any of the other volumes let me know, I'm only too happy. Actually, happy might be a bit strong. Not unopposed to the idea, say. Or I might do it anyway. Let's be straight here, I'm not your slave, pal!

But I am a slave to – COMICS!!!

(1) No evidence has been found to back up the fact that this is indeed an ancient Chinese curse. The source seems to have been mistranslation, or invention, on the part of Westerners resident there. Still a nifty saying though. Gremlins are real though, right? (2) Judge Thoreau would likely have been expelled from The Academy of Law after the first semester and strongly encouraged to take his fancy schmancy ideas with him on The Long Walk; bringing law to the lawless in the Cursed Earth until death. (3) Winningly, it has completely slipped the Sovs' collective mind that they initiated the Apocalypse War and the truth has become twisted so that they are now the victims. I'm not entirely unsympathetic, Dredd went a bit far but, y'know, you get in the pit you got to face the bear. If it gives you a bloody good mauling it's on you. (4) See, it's okay getting away with all these allegedly illegal wars and allegedly illegal drone killings and giving yourselves an 11% pay rise then voting for a Benefits Cap and selling bits of us to China and demonising the poor and allegedly sticking your bits in dead pigs mouths but what they forget, what they always forget, is one day they might need We, The People to trust them. And that trust just isn't going to be there. Because no one ever gets away with anything. (Except whoever did for Red Rum, obviously). (5) Partworks have experienced a resurgence of late but they were a staple in the 1970s when it would be possible to build, oh, say for instance, a replica of Hitler's skeleton by purchasing 206 fortnightly volumes. The first volume (Hitler's skull) would be offered at a knock down price, the second volume (Hitler's femur, say) at a slightly higher price, with the regular price kicking in around the third volume. Eventually part work fatigue would set in as people would get tired of paying for each of Hitler's vertebrae and the series would quietly disappear from the newsagents. In the 1970s a cardboard box containing an unfinished Fuhrer skeleton was a staple of most homes. At least that's how my dad explained those bones in the back of the cupboard that time. In retrospect, thinking about it now, I'm having my doubts about my Dad. He was away from home a lot...Oh.

"MY HAND!" COMICS! Sometimes They Go UP! Diddley Om Pom! Sometimes They Go Down!

Oh! Good Day! Here’s a thrilling feature for your perusement and entertattlement right fine and glissome, no mistakers. Hmm. Bit rusty. Pokkita-Pokkita-Pokkita! Rum bugger’s coming at us out of the sun! Don’t worry it’ll all be over by Christmas. Or in three minutes. Depends what we’re talking about, you big dreamweasel, you! C hocks away..!

The Red Baron by Puerta, Veys & Bence

Anyway, this... THE RED BARON 1. The Machine Gunners' Ball Art by Carlos Puerta Written by Pierre Veys Coloured by Carlos Puerta Translated by Mark Bence Cinebook, 6.99(UK)/11.95(US) (2014) Originally published as Baron Rouge – Le Bal De Mitrailleuses, Zephyr Editions (2012)

This, the first of a series of three slim graphic novels, is about The Red Baron. Yes, like in Peanuts, but this is the real one not a dog on a kennel indulging in violent fantasies. The Red Baron was the name given to a real-life WW1 German ace (christened Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen; phew!) because he flew a big red plane and was a sort-of-kinda-Baron (Wikipedia tells me “Baron” here is really a slightly fudged translation of “Feiherr” which has stuck, despite the more accurate German names for him being "The Red Battle Flyer" or "The Red Fighter Pilot", because the German language hadn’t quite picked up on the 20th Century revelation that tedious precision is the death of sexy brevity.) Despite being a stranger to the concept of camouflage von Richtofen racked up 80 confirmed kills in a variety of planes, not all of which were his famous triplane or as red as a hooker’s lippy. He was also an interesting occurrence of the cult of celebrity when that kind of thing was a rarity rather than the norm. His fame even transcended battle lines and his (propagandistically ghost polished) autobiography (Der rote Kampfflieger (1917)) was a big success even in England, where most of the men he killed were born. Von Richtofen himself disowned the book shortly before dying under circumstances which people with time on their hands still argue about to this day.

The Red Baron by Puerta, Veys & Bence

All that's not just by way of impressing on you how good I am at looking stuff up, but also to briefly hint at the fact that the guy was pretty interesting and his life provides multiple opportunities for fictional representation. Unfortunately Puerta and Veys seem to have picked a singularly dull, and for this reader, unrewarding approach. The first 8 pages are promising as a dogfight unfolds as the Baron (for brevity) muses on war. There's a quick juxtaposition of nature vs man-made predation, some successfully cinematically staged aerial shenanigans, and at the last a wrong footing of expectations as the Baron declares war is pretty tip-top, thanks. “War is a fabulous thing”, he thinks and I think that's interesting; that we might be going to interesting places. Someone who likes what he does might be enlightening. A nice little counterweight to Kubert & Kanigher's Enemy Ace who, also based on the Baron, represented the man of war who was born to it but regretted his birthright bitterly. Rather than a man trapped by war, why not a man freed by war; that's interesting. But it turns out it isn't. Apparently that would just be a psychopath, not in the medical sense but in the pulp nonsense sense; the James Patterson sense. Dismayingly soon the Baron is revealed via flashbacks to have voices in his head which allow him to predict his enemies movements, and he relaxes of an evening by smashing people's heads in with his walking stick like Edward Hyde in full flight. It's around this point I start to suspect that historical veracity might not be of paramount importance to the authors.

The Red Baron by Puerta, Veys & Bence

Which is odd because it's clearly at the forefront of Carlos Puerta's thoughts. Now, as irritating as I may find the usage of photos in lieu of actual drawing I can usually concede some point in favour of their use. Here that point is that through this visual remix, this arftificial collation of actual moments of recorded history, Puerta does deliver a striking visual approximation of the time and place. Obviously that time has gone but, also obviously, so has that place, There’s no little value in faithfully depicting a time when Europe looked like a the picture on an organic bread wrapper, what with its mills, stone bridges and horses and carts. No one can deny, not even a churl such as I, that Puerta goes all in on trying to convincingly conjure up a phantom land long churned under by two world wars. and firmly replaced by urban sprawl, McDonalds, hypermarkets and arguable planning decisions. He does a good job too, despite photo sourcing always seeming stiff to me; the hand of the artist clear in every considered combination of elements. He does a good job but he doesn't do a great job, because his admirable visual resurrection of Europe has people in it and people are the bane of photo referencing. The first time we meet the Baron he removes his headgear to reveal the face of Christian Bale, while in the school flashbacks he wears the face of Jude Law. This is confusing as people tend to keep the same face throughout their life, rather than change them like haircuts. To be fair the the Baron appears as Jude Law in scenes where he is unutterably smug, so at least Puerta's choices are spot on. Not to sound too misanthropic but Puerta's world would be great if it wasn't for the people in it.

The Red Baron by Puerta, Veys & Bence

It's a decent comic but I didn't like it. While Puerta strains for historical accuracy Veys undoes him by being vague on dates and places, and the stink of anti-semitism (which was everywhere) is notable by its absence. To his credit, however, the clear class divisions are well presented with the Baron drawing short of kicking the bullies' ringleader apart because he's of a higher social caste, and the apparent impunity with which the Baron sprays the cobbles of Berlin with paupers' brains rings true. But if it's supposed to be a psychological portrait of a sky borne serial killer it falls fall short of being anything but comic booky. At one point the Baron even declares “I know which moves they'll make the minute their moronic brains dream up the idea.” which is far too close to Midnighter for comfort. And since his fantastic brain is so predictive it is bizarre indeed that he hurts his hand by sticking it in a propellor (even more bizarre is that this sequence is presented with redundant repetition in a style more 1970s Roy Thomas than anything else(!)). In this strange age where loyalty comes with a card I was hoping to find something (anything) in here about how the whole honour, loyalty, duty schtick drove these long gone people to throw themselves into Hell. I left the book no wiser on that score, but it was pretty enough so, OKAY!

Okay, that's a start but now I need to catch up on some - COMICS!!!

“If We Pull This Off, I’m Gonna Sh*t!” MOVIES! Sometimes I Catch A Flick Or Two!

Sorry! I hate the silent times too, but needs must sometimes. Alas, due to circumstances and stuff I haven’t read any comics for weeks. This is no reflection on comics, but it does leave me with little to lighten your lives with. It may well be that absence makes the heart grow fonder but it doesn’t make writing any easier. (Secrets Made Flesh Dept: Not writing is an astonishingly easy habit to get into. Scarily so.) So bear with me as we all endure a warm up about some movies I watched while gormlessley slumped in a chair at various points during the last howdiddly ever long it’s been. I have prefaced each with the best thing my long suffering life partner said about the movie in question. Those are the best bits, but if she thinks she’s getting paid for ‘em she can go whistle.

Anyway, this… THE MONSTER SQUAD (1987) Directed by Fred Dekker Written by Shane Black & Fred Dekker Starring: Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, Stephen Macht, Duncan Regehr, Tom Noonan, Brent Chalem, Ryan Lambert, Ashley Bank, Michael Faustino, Mary Ellen Trainor, Stan Shaw, Lisa Fuller, Jason Hervey, Adam Carl, Carl Thibault, Tom Woodruff Jr., Michael Reid MacKay, Jack Gwillim and Leonard Cimono as “Scary German Guy”

“If he’s up tonight, you’re handling him.”

I watched this with “Gil” because he’s at that stage where he wants to watch a horror flick even though he still gets nightmares and wanders into the room to startle me into incontinence at all hours of the night. To temper his disappointment that I wouldn’t let him watch EVIL DEAD 2 or MOTEL HELL (what can I say, cinematically speaking I’m a high-brow fucker). I found this on one of those streaming services we appear to have subscribed to in such abundance I suspect someone thinks we have a lot more time (and money!) on our hands than we actually do. Also, I’ve wanted to watch this for years. Whenever I’ve read about it it sounded like a solid bit of fun so it seemed like the perfect choice for some of that bonding stuff I’ve read about before the boy starts hating me in about, oh, two years. Turned out it was a bit of a mess (I suspect some poor editing decisions and studio tinkering there) so quite a lot of it didn’t make sense. But then again this is a kids movie so expectations are adjusted accordingly. It’s kind of THE GOONIES but with the Universal monsters chucked in (i.e. Dracula, Frankenstein(‘s Monster), the Mummy and The Creature From The Black Lagoon; it’s 2015 now so someone will need this list, I’m afraid). The kids are engaging and just rude enough for “Gil” to think he was getting away with something, and it was spooky enough for him to get comfortably creeped out while being occasionally gory enough for me to reconsider my decision. All the adults are familiar faces and all of them are enjoyable but Tom Noonan’s Monster and Macht and Shaw’s cop buddy double act stood out most. The script is as snappy as you’d expect from Shane Black; sure, it’s no KISS KISS BANG BANG but it’s crisp and clever and, remember, (it’s crucial this) it’s for kids. Fred Dekker directs and seeing his name reminded me I enjoyed NIGHT OF THE CREEPS way back when I had hair, and I don’t know where he ended up, but two movies I like makes me hope he’s happy out there. “Gil”, our lady of multiple streaming subscriptions, and even myself, The Bitterest Man In England, all had a GOOD! time.

PROMETHEUS (2012) Directed by Ridley Scott Written by Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall, Emun Elliott, Benedict Wong, Kate Dickie with Peter O’Toole as “T.E. Lawrence”

“How could anyone think that was good!?!”

It was a good question. A better question than the movie merited, I think. Jesus, I hardly have the highest of standards (I just ordered LIFEFORCE on blu-ray. Oho! Now who’s judging who! You scamp!) but PROMETHEUS was a bloated, ponderous and, in essence, thuddingly dull exercise in polishing the ancient crock of horseshit made famous by Erich Von Daniken with all the Brasso 21st Century CGI could bring to bear. It looked good, but looking good isn’t enough. Having failed to float through life on my spectacular physical beauty alone I can assure you of that, PROMETHEUS. Actual grown ass adults have told me this is an intelligent movie, this despite the fact that the script is basically all that silly shit Jack Kirby turned to creative gold back in the 1970s with The Eternals and all that Celestials stuff. All those millions of dollars and thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of people-hours, and a sun faded and badly foxed 1970s Jack Kirby comic still comes out on top. The level of intellect on show here is just pitiful. It’s just a stupid, stupid, stupid movie. And while stupid isn’t a deal breaker (see below), it’s unpleasantly stupid; there’s no fun in it and that, muchachos, is a deal breaker. On a couple of occasions the movie forgets its pretensions and lowers itself to deliver an action scene but these are poorly executed and weightless. The bloody thing is even badly directed is what I’m getting a there. Christ, everyone on screen acts like a complete moron. All the time. It’s like being at work. Charlize Theron states at one point that she has spent “trillions” on getting them all into space; she should have saved some money on interior décor and employed a better crew. These cretins are mostly scientists but they wilfully endanger themselves and everyone around them like safety and control aren’t actually built into scientific endeavour. The pilot (who we are supposed to like because he is Idris Elba and he has a squeeze box which once belonged to Stephen Stills) is so stupid he doesn’t move the ship closer to the whatever; consequently we spend a fifth of the movie watching people to-ing and fro-ing from one place where they endanger themselves to another place in which they endanger themselves. (The pilot is also so stupid he spent his money on a squeeze box which once belonged to Stephen Stills. Who gives a flying fuck. Memo to writers: Just because you think something is cool doesn’t mean everyone else does. Stephen fucking Stills. I ask you.) I could spend all night writing my way through every stupid thing in PROMETHEUS but it’s not like they aren’t all right here in front of everyone who watched it. If you didn’t see them you chose not to. The best scene in the movie is a clip from LAWRENCE OF ARABIA which sums up the whole thing nicely with a bit of tweaking: “Of course it’s shit! It’s not minding it’s shit that’s the trick!” Yeah, yeah, Fassbender is great in it, but if he wanted to be the best thing in CRAP! he should have pursued a career in scat.

TERROR AT THE OPERA (1987) (AKA OPERA , and THAT’S THE LAST TIME I LET YOU PICK A FILM, SONNY JIM) Directed by Dario Argento Written by Dario Argento and Franco Ferrini Starring: Cristina Marsillach, Ian Charleson, Urbano Barberini, Daria Nicolodi, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, Antonella Vitale, William McNamara

“You like some real shit you do.”

This is not a good movie but it was an amazingly enjoyable one. I used to watch shedloads of naff crap like this while pissed off my tits, but I am older now and I don’t drink around “Gil” (don’t worry, in all other respects I am a terrible, terrible parent. He’s currently playing that new MGS, so prison beckons for this bad Dad. (Also: A fire whale; WTF, Japan?)) Luckily, this movie is so exuberantly preposterous from soup to nuts it’s like watching something while shitfaced without actually having to get shitfaced. Jesus, where to start with this thing. I guess it’s the Phantom of The Opera but updated to be absolutely addlepated. Like some sadistic pre-teen’s idea of The Phantom of The Opera; with all the nuance and intellectual rigour that suggests. It’s the kind of movie where someone plays their own mother in a flashback by putting on a wig; it’s the kind of movie where someone knocks out the killer and instead of dropping a sewing machine on his head (or just running right the fuck off) creeps back reeeeaaaaalllllllyyyyy s-l-o-w-l-y to remove his mask (that ends well for her); it’s the kind of movie where they are putting on a production of Verdi’s Macbeth but the only Shakespeare I recall anyone quoting is from Hamlet; it’s the kind of movie where someone says “If you had ten pairs of hands it would still be a pile of crap!” and it’s the best line in the movie; it’s the kind of movie where everyone is dubbed badly, even the people who seem to be English speakers; it’s the kind of movie where a small child castigates her mother for being naked all the time, and it’s the second best line in the movie; it’s the kind of movie where the ventilation system in an apartment building allows fully grown adults to scamper around it like it’s one of those kids play tunnel things they have in pubs which end with a slide into a ball pool; it’s the kind of movie where the Italian police forensics department apparently can’t tell the difference between a dummy and a human corpse without weeks of tests; it’s the kind of movie that doesn’t have three good lines; it’s the kind of movie where people go on holiday to the Swiss alps and relax by tying a bluebottle to a piece of fishing line and film it buzzing about (I have no idea. Really. Answers in the comments. Please. Hurry!); it’s the kind of movie where someone has paid Bill Wyman to do some of the music (perhaps Stephen fucking Stills was busy squeezeboxing. Stephen fucking Stills. Just don’t.); it’s the kind of movie where while you know the plan to unmask the killer will be ridiculous it still manages to exceed your expectations by several football pitches (why is that dude inside the cage?!? Why didn’t he just walk over and open it from the outside?!?); it’s the kind of movie where ravens out act the humans by a comfortable margin; all of which is to say it’s unique. Hopefully. However, in all fairness the bit with the aural misdirection involving the lady carrying crockery was good.

Cineastes and horror connoisseurs will be baying for my face on a stick by now because this was directed by Dario Argento who they regard as a genius. Sadly, I’m not here to make friends, so they are all wrong and a bunch of delusional fools, every man Jack of them. No offence. Argento’s movies are essentially exercises in sumptuously executed set pieces of sadism strung together by ridiculous horseshit with, at best, one person who can actually act in the cast; which is fine. Honest. Recently I’ve watched THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, CAT O’NINE TAILS and DEEP RED; all were entertaining exercises in style over sense (the clockwork dwarf: WTF?!?), but here the style is leaden, the set pieces outstay their welcome, the token actor has been omitted and the unrelenting deluge of horseshit suggest the knackers yard is on the cards for this ailing nag of a movie. If anyone says this is a good movie ask them what lenses Brian DePalma used on MISSION TO MARS and I bet they can tell you. Bully for them! But I’m not that kind of movie fan(atic), just a casual viewer so TERROR IN THE OPERA was CRAP! (but FUN!)

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000) Directed by Kar Wai Wong Written by Kar Wai Wong Starring: Tony Chiu Wai Leung, Maggie Cheung, Ping Lam Siu, Tung Cho ‘Joe’ Cheung, Rebecca Pan, Kelly Lai Chen, Man-Lei Chan

“She had to be sewed into those dresses, you know.”

Despite the fact that at no point during the sprightly 98 minutes running time of this slow punch to the heart of a movie does anyone wrestle a big starfish with a mouth like a lady’s woo-woo, use dressmaker’s scissors to cut open a sternum, blow up a werewolf with dynamite or, indeed, do anything more physically exhilarating than run to avoid the rain while buying some noodles this is almost certainly the best movie here. I would tell you what it’s about but since part of the joy of the movie is having it unfold in front of you I’m not going to. Tough shit, kiddo; going in cold is how the grownups do it. Know this though: IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE is pure cinema; a supersaturated wonder of movie making. It’s very definitely the best movie I watched out of all of these thus far, and I suggest very strongly that you just trust me on this one. Find someone you love, watch it together and let it carry you both with it. Warning: emotions may occur. Cinema? It’s still got it. EXCELLENT!

THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980) Directed by David Lynch Written by Christopher De Vore, Eric Bergen and David Lynch. Based on the books by Frederick Treves and Ashley Montagu Starring: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt,, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Freddie Jones, Michael Elphick and Stephen Stills as “Squeezebox Johnny”

“You can watch that one on your own. It’s very good, but it’s too sad.”

Worst superhero movie ever. EVER. I mean, really. You know how when JURASSIC PARK came out there was CARNOSAUR, and when (the children’s entertainment) STAR WARS hit big there was STAR CRASH and a billion other ropey rip-offs? Well this big pile of blatant opportunism is clearly the latest cheap, quick cash in on Marvel©®’s exquisite cinematic concoctions. Oh, the hot stink of money has brought all the chancers and Johnny-Come-Latelies out of the woodwork, all wanting a slice of that fat cash pie but without wanting to put any of the artistic effort of Marvel®© in. None of them have been more abject than this effort from some David Lynch guy. I don’t who he is but he’s clearly no auteur like Joss Weed On. Any fule kno that the first flick should be the origin, but this Lynch guy just sails right past that stuff with a really muddled and unclear opening. Mind you, that’s probably just as well because, apparently, Elephant Man is the result of his mom being either raped or trampled by elephants. You have to be operating at the giddy heights of a Mark Millar to get away with something that sick. And this David Lynch guy? He’s no Mark Millar. Then later on this rapey tramply shit gets retconned into an illness, like that makes it more realistic or something. Lynch seems to consistently miss the point about super heroes at every opportunity. It’s not just about having a costume and fancy name; you got to have powers, dude. Elephant Man’s powers seem to be an inability to speak properly, the power to shamble very slowly around and, best of all, the power to build ornate matchstick models of buildings he can only see a bit of from his Elephant Den window. Look out crime! And all the while El Phanto’s dressed up like some cheap DARK MAN rip-off. I hate it when reviewers tell creators what they should do as it displays an arrogant obliviousness of monumental proportions but, for instance, and I’m just saying this to help, Elephant Man could spit peanuts like bullets or maybe strangle people with his trunk (which he does not have! Look up elephants some time, David Lynch! They are trunk city! And ears! Ears like palm leaves!) Sure, Lynch does have enough sense to give Elephant Man a rogues gallery but even this is an opportunity for further Fail. The first bad guy is a boozy porter who hurts Elephant Man’s feeling by bringing whores to laugh at him. A thrilling fight does not ensue; no, he gets fired by Top Hat Man, who is kind of Elephant Man’s mentor; like Ras Al Ghul in Batman Begins, but not evil. Oops, spoiler. Next up is (promisingly) a kind of Joker played by a stubbly old man with a face like collapsed fruit studded with British Teeth© who steals Elephant Man off to his spooky carnival lair. Hopes are raised for a kind of riff on Killing Joke but, no. Instead, once again Top Hat Man turns up and after a bit of shouting takes Elephant Man home. A bit of shouting; it’s not exactly BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT is it? Clearly he’s no Christopher Nolan, this Lynch guy. And Elephant Man’s kryptonite? His big weakness? Turns out it’s not having enough pillows. That’s lamer than Donald Blake.

Oh, and in a pitiful bid to make this industrial sized lump of Fail seem more interesting it’s all set in this sort of made up Steampunk world with hissing pipes and top hats and frock coats. But it’s totes lame steampunkery because no one has a calliope chain-gun or even a zeppelin hat. Now, I’m not one for pointing fingers but the roles for women in this are appalling; they are either nurses, whores or entertainers. Sexist much, Mr. Lynch? And don’t get me started on non-Caucasian representation! What is this, Victorian England? I think we need a strongly worded article from The Beat. Stat! Honestly, this Lynch guy can’t get anything right; at one point we get the obligatory shirtless bit, but John Hurt’s no Chris Hemsworth amiright, Beat gals? No one wants to ogle some pasty English dude who looks like he’s sculpted from tubers.

Not only does Lynch film it in B&W like it’s the 1940s or something but, fatally, nobody in this film is less than forty, they are all like old and stuff. If I wanted to watch old people I’d be, well, I’d be a pervert. Ugh, old people, with their crêpe faces and fear of Social Media! Entertainment is just for the under thirty-fives! Check your demographics, David Lynch! Old people don’t watch movies that’s why there are dominos and sleeping! No one ever made a profit by taking the audience for complacent fools, so Lynch has reaped what he sowed and, I hear, has had to run off to television. Mind you he’ll find the competition tougher than he expects now the crème of comics like Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick are wallowing about in the old cathode ray money trough. Frankly, cinema’s better off without chancers like this David Lynch fellow. Here’s to the next Phase of Marvel movies! Excelsior! (Oh, c’mon, THE ELEPHANT MAN will always be EXCELLENT! It doesn’t even need saying.)

Yes! There it is, finally, that endearing combination of lofty disdain, overworked and painfully obvious humour, terrible grammar and disproportionate sarcasm which means I have entered that heavenly zone of judgemental prickishness for which I am renowned. Next time (at some point) – COMICS!!!

Under the radar

I am a big fan of Javier Pulido, and you might be too?  So consider this a Public Service Announcement because I own a comic book store and do very little every day than think about how to order comic books, and somehow my brain, as well as the brain's of my two store managers, didn't process the fact that Pulido wrote and drew the ninth issue of the otherwise largely-a-waste-of-trees GUARDIANS TEAM-UP.  Star-Lord and Spider-Man, and other guest stars and a really funny bit with a major Marvel organization... and I don't really want to spoil anything because there was a lot to love in this issue. There's an AMAZING three-page sequence, set in a night club, and totally silent (because it is so loud) -- here's just one page of it, and it really show you that Pulido *gets* comics.

You're probably not buying this comic... and I wouldn't recommend the SERIES (at all), but this one issue?  A must-buy if you like Pulido, or classic Marvel team-up comics (this is really the best issue of MARVEL TEAM-UP I've ever read), this baby is for you.  It is really EXCELLENT.

The other thing I am oddly liking this week is ULTIMATE END by Bendis and Bagley -- this is the best DC "Crisis on Earth n" comic that I've read in decades.  But the bit that I really like is subtle and quiet and that's how each meeting earth has its own font -- the "Ultimate Universe" characters with thier mixed-case font, and the... well, it isn't precisely clear what the non-UU Ultimate characters are from, but they use a more traditional "616" font.  It's a neat effect.

I think ULTIMATE END is a GOOD comic.

As always, what do YOU think?

“Eat The OTHER ONE!” Sometimes I Love The Craft Of Those Who Make Comics About Lovecraft!

My patience having finally reached its end with regards the odd susurrations which emanated nightly from the fireplace in the south library, I tasked the scrofulous fool who tends to my needs with the dismantling of said edifice. Within seconds the lumpen oaf had caused to be dislodged a stone possessed of enough heft to crack his simple-minded foot in twain.  Ignoring his repellent and startlingly blasphemous utterances I knelt to seize a now-revealed sheaf of papers adorned with runes and symbols which resisted my understanding even as the lower orders resist cleanliness. Shooing the shambling, nay, hopping, cretin of a manservant from the room I set about the package. And it is those contents which, together with their effects upon my quite febrile mind, I shall now proceed to relate. RAT GOD by Corben, Corben, Corben, Corben-Reed & Piekos

Anyway, this… CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED #5 Art by Gabriel Andrade Written by Alan Moore Coloured by Digikore Studios Lettered by Jaymes Reed Avatar, $3.99 (2015) Crossed created by Jacen Burrows and  Garth Ennis

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED is a comic by Gabriel Andrade and Alan Moore which is notable for the effectiveness with which the pair of storytellers have, over these five issues, ratcheted up the tension, even though the ultimate result was never in doubt. If there ever was any doubt then issue 5 scrapes it all away with a sadistic thoroughness by leading us by the hand and simply and directly pointing out just how badly everyone has misjudged the situation thus far. I liked the thing with the ostrich rustling, that was sneaky. Sure, everyone knew the terrain we were in, everyone knew that things were going to turn to shit; the only question was the precise consistency and extent of that shit. Well, now we know. Now. We . Know. Shit! The only question remaining is the same as that on the old Chainsaw Massacre poster: “Who Will Survive? And What Will Be Left of Them?”

CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED by Andrade, Moore, Digikore & Reed

The other thing CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED is is possibly the only comic which has the balls to treat Islam as a part of Western society like all the other parts of Western society; that is as a part just as likely to survive a catastrophic upheaval as, say, Christianity, ostriches or people’s libidos. But you know, don’t worry about it, let’s keep holding that golliwog thing against him, eh? (On second thoughts, since most comic book writers base their portrayals of Christians on John Lithgow in Footloose (CUT LOOSE!) maybe Islam’s better off as is). My only reservation with CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED (besides how long it takes to type) is the nature of the threat; if the Crossed are just us (well, you; I’m beyond reproach) without the social brakes on then conditioning those brakes back in will just make them, er, us again. Or maybe that’ll be Moore and Andrade’s point. In the meantime CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED is an intelligent and really quite frightening demonstration of the fatal consequences of complacency. VERY GOOD!

PROVIDENCE #1 Art by Jacen Burrows Written by Alan Moore Coloured by Juan Rodriguez Lettered by Kurt Hathaway Avatar, $3.99 (2015) Providence created by Jacen Burrows and Alan Moore

If CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED is a tip-top exercise in feral terror then PROVIDENCE, er, isn’t. Yet. Fairness is my curse (it’s true!) and so it’s hard to judge one issue in; PROVIDENCE is paced for the long haul (12 issues) and the slow burn’s part of the deal and also part of the terrain. The terrain of CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED is scorched earth and brazen violence, while PROVIDENCE is set squarely in the more sedate and stately terrain of H P Lovecraft’s oeuvre. That is , a terrain which appears stolid and mundane but soon crumples under the weight of the Hell which exists without. Of course before all Hell cuts loose (FOOTLOOSE!) Moore and Burrows have to spend time convincing us of the stultifying and repressed normality shortly to be torn apart. And maybe, juuuuuuust maybe, they do too good a job of that.

PROVIDENCE by Burrows, Moore, Rodriguez & Hathaway

Mind you, some of it is just super –enjoyable, particularly Moore’s insouciant use of decompression to pump up the suspense about the guy in the park and the tasty contrast between those spicily enticing parts with the dense pudding of exposition surrounding them. Look, there’s nothing wrong with decompression but using it for everything is like putting ketchup on every meal (Tip: don’t). So it’s nice to be reminded that when used well decompression can, uh, work well. Also of note is the classy way the book concealed the exact nature of the chink in our protagonist’s armour until the precise point at which it wanted it to strike home, and sent me spinning back to reconsider much of what went before. Burrows’ stiff and largely neutral art aids this particular appearances-can-be-deceptive reveal well, and while the mannered distance of the visuals may be quite in line with Lovecraft’s signature icy disdain I like a bit more life in my lines. The only really dud bit was the text at the end where Moore doesn’t seem willing to trust his readers and so flenses any uncertainty out of the preceding pages in a way which is both exhaustive and exhausting. Also, it’s clear the book is extraordinarily well disposed towards persons whose sexuality is other than the commonly accepted norm. Hey, I’m just saying, is all.  There's still everything to play for but, yeah, PROVIDENCE was GOOD!

RAT GOD #5 Art by Richard Corben Written by by Richard Corben Coloured by Richard Corben with Beth Corben Reed Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot Tingit Translations by Lance A. Twitchell Dark Horse, $3.99 (2015)

Serendipity strikes like a panther (there’s one in the book; good words there, eh? Seriously, this is Patreon level shit, people) as Richard Corben also splashes gaily about in the eldritch and gibbous influences of the Great Dour One, H P Lovecraft (with a pinch of Poe to boot). Of course the unapologetically pulpy Corben does so to blatantly different effect than Moore and Burrows’ cool exercise in control. RAT GOD is far more playful than PROVIDENCE, and all the better for it because instead of merely playing at Lovecraft Corben plays off Lovecraft.

RAT GOD by Corben, Corben, Corben, Corben-Reed & Piekos

In RAT GOD Corben has, over five feisty issues, brought the full plumminess of his fleshy and fecund style to bear on a tale of backwoods mutations, diseased family trees, pendulous breasts, Bombay Mix vegetation and splattery action. Corben’s approach to Lovecraftian lore is a far more red blooded and lusty one than the haughty reserve on display in PROVIDENCE. The collars are still starched but the necks within have a meaty quality suggesting the essential frailty their manners seek to mask. And the typically Lovecraftian catastrophic impact of dark forces on unsuspecting lives is hilariously played out in miniature every time violence sends our stiff protagonist into a burst of rag-doll-ish frenzy. As ever with Corben there’s a slapstick quality to the action which comically underlines the desperation of true violence. Sure, technically speaking writing wise Corben’s no Alan Moore, but as haphazard as his proceedings may sometimes appear, the irrepressibly antic tone of his approach can’t help but get him, and us, closer to the thing that truly scared Lovecraft - the animal in humanity. VERY GOOD!

In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits reading – COMICS!!!

“Thy Opinion Hath Been NOTED, Wrinkled One.” COMICS! Sometimes I Wonder If It's Gil -BERT or Gil-BEAR! And Then I Just Settle for GODHEAD!

In which a vain attempt is made to engage with The Present and some words are written about comics produced during these times known as Modern. In a display of staggering arrogance at no point is any excuse proffered for the extended absence of the author, although he would like it to be known that upon occasion it is necessary for him to work for a living. Would that it were otherwise. BLUBBER by Gilbert Hernandez

Anyway, this... Yeah, I know, what the world needs more of is middle-aged white males talking about what they like. Condemned as I am by the circumstances of my birth to a prison of unearned privilege, all I can offer by way of recompense are these words; as ungrammatical and dismayingly keen on cant as they may be. However, in the interests of diversity please note that while there is little I can do about being a middle-aged white male without multiple hospital stays and a bunch of therapy, I did at least show willing and wrote the following while wearing my wife’s knickers.

VALHALLA MAD#1 Art by Paul Maybury Written by Joe Casey Coloured by Paul Maybury Lettered by Russ Wooton Graphic Design by Sonia Harris Flats by Ricky Valenzuela Valhalla Mad created by Maybury & Casey Image Comics, $3.50 (2015)

I bought VALHALLA MAD for the art of Paul Maybury which I previously encountered in SOVEREIGN, a comic which now appears to be defunct despite its dense pleasures. Chris Roberson wrote that one but this one's written by Joe Casey, who here has done one of those comics which are inexplicably basically about some Big Two characters but, you know, in the literary equivalent of those disguise kits you get from joke shops with the big pink plastic nose, the Groucho 'tache and the lens-less specs fit only to fool only vegetation and estate agents. So VALHALLA MAD is clearly not a comic about Thor and The Warriors Three because there are only three of them in total not four, and they all have different names: The Glorious Knox, Greghorn The Battlebjorn and Jhago The Irritator. (Extra bonus comedy points for Jhago The Irritator).

VALHALLA MAD by Maybury, Casey, Wooton, Harris & Valenzuela

It's a light comedy which is amusing enough (they rescue a plane but unbeknownst to they, their arrival caused it to crash in the first place!) Much sport is made of the voluminous verbiage of the Stan Lee Style and a generally pleasant time is had by all, not least our three protagonists who have graced Earth with their presence for a glorified pub crawl. Or there may be more to it than that as the final page appears to promise. It's a lot of talking is what it is, and with the exception of the odd typo (e.g. "feint" for "faint") it's propulsive and amusing enough stuff but visually it doesn't give Maybury much to work with. Good job he packed his Awesome this time out and he goes to town on it nevertheless. His boldly chunky style of cartooning brings the otherworldly and the mundane together while never losing the humour of the juxtaposition. Throughout the molten flow of his line is broad enough to encompass two realities and it's ultimately his art which makes VALHALLA MAD #1 GOOD!

BLUBBER #1 By Gilbert Hernandez Fantagraphics, $3.99 (2015)

If VALHALLA MAD is the stag do then BLUBBER is the morning after where you wake up in a strange and distant field covered in sick while a stray dog humps the back of your head. Yes, it’s the one man kick to the nuts of rational thought that is Gilbert “Berty” Hernandez. Here he’s unleashed one of those baffling one-off comics that just exist because, well, because he wants it to. Is this the first in a new ongoing series of madcap anthropomorphic laff mags based around mutilation and sexual degradation? Or will the next time we see this be some sixty years hence in some pricey Fantagraphics boxed set big enough to hide a chopped up dog in? Trick question! The next time we see this will be in a court of law when Gilbert Hernandez is called to account for crimes so bizarre and outlandish we’ll have to redefine the concept of human society just to register the correct level of disgust. I particularly like the way this looks like a kids’ comic but it isn’t (unless you want to go to jail or your kids are The Children of The Damned). I was going to moan about how he got the name of his character wrong in the first strip but, y’know, the fact he didn’t murder anyone while making this bizarre farrago of puce faced lunacy probably outweighs that. Hard is the heart that weighs a typo heavier than a human life.

BLUBBER by Gilbert Hernandez

It’s a pint pot of horror poured in a teacup of visual discipline. Because as ostentatiously obtuse and unremittingly repellent as things get “Los Boss” Hernandez sticks to his grid like a fly to a fast moving windshield. It’s this friction between the boiling horror and the discipline of craft that sets that itch you just can't shift to work in your startled mind. Sandwiched inbetween the Charles Manson's Discovery Channel stuff is a bleakly funny exercise in unsettling obfuscation the equal of Lynch or (maybe a Beckett). I could feel profundity pressing against the tender membranes of my eyes as I read. Mind you, at other points I could also feel my mind pulsing and straining, like the overworked and exhausted sphincter of a pensioner at stool, as it tried at punishing cost to impose some meaning, some sense onto this EXCELLENT! comic.

Like the lady nearly sang, I can't live if living is without - COMICS!!!

"People Come Here For Their Holidays." NOT COMICS! PROSE! Sometimes They Probably Aren't Going To Win Any Awards From The UK Tourist Board!

What could be better than War Comics? Western comics! But what’s better than Western comics? Why it's surely when I don’t talk about comics at all, and start banging on about some book like I even know what the Hell I’m talking about! Truly, we here at The Savage Critics know how to serve your needs. Look, you’re probably going on holiday, so why not let a complete stranger recommend a really upsetting, but very well-written book? Dettol©® won’t help with this boo-boo, because this? This isn’t just violence, this is…GBH!

Anyway, this… GBH By Ted Lewis SOHO CRIME (Soho Press, Inc), h/b, £19.99 (2015)

As all connoisseurs of thatch-cheeked 1970s Brit-crime authors know, the very great Ted Lewis popped his clogs in 1982 so what we actually have here is a 2015 reprint of his final, sublimely unpleasant novel from 1980. This edition is ballyhooed as its first publication in America, so I thought I’d better let America know it was out, and what America has let itself in for. Then America can run out and buy it and tuck into the magic of Ted Lewis. Don’t make me feel like I’ve wasted my time here, America! I know you’re out there, America! I can hear you breathing.

First up, even if you don’t realise it you’re probably aware of Ted Lewis’ work from JACK’S RETURN HOME (1970) which was filmed in 1971 as “Get Carter” by Mike “Flash Gordon” Hodges. Everyone’s seen that one, and if they haven’t, well, they just aren’t trying and those people need to up their game; just like the poor in Cameron’s Britain. Word on the street is that it was also filmed Blaxploitation style(?) by George Armitage in 1972 as “Hit Man” starring Bernie Casey and Pam Grier. I haven’t seen that one, but I imagine it’s…something. In 2000 another movie called “Get Carter” appeared and I did see that one; it starred Sylvester “F.I.S.T” Stallone and it was…nothing. As remakes go it was like Blackpool Tower is to the Eiffel Tower. And I mean a plastic souvenir Blackpool Tower that’s fallen behind the radiator in that tat and crap shop; the one next to the fortune teller’s with the picture of Madame Zsa Zsa shaking Sid Little’s hand in the window. So successful was the 1971 movie that the novel was renamed thereafter, and even today Hodges’ movie remains an unsettlingly accurate visual record of a time and place best left gone. Due to its surface wit and style “Get Carter” is frequently perceived as a stylish lad flick, but it is in fact the deeply unpleasant story of a vile man who is quite happy dishing shit out but reacts quite badly when some of it splashes on him. There were two print sequels (JACK CARTER’S LAW (1974) and JACK CARTER AND THE MAFIA PIGEON (1977)) and while the quality decreases as the titles lengthen, neither are quite as pointless as the end of the original might lead you to believe. They are a good time, but not a great time, basically. From what I’ve read (7 of his 9 novels) Ted Lewis never actually wrote a wholly bad book as such and, even better, he wrote a couple of real corkers. GET CARTER being one and GBH being t’other.

GBH is often referred to as Lewis’ “lost masterpiece”; over here (in the UK; the clue’s in my name) it’s only seen print in 1980 and 1994, and in paperback at that. So you are being truly singled out for special attention, America. Don’t throw this back in Soho Press’ face! Anyway, “lost” means no one bought it, I guess, because in the 10 years since GET CARTER Lewis had written some good books but hadn’t had a run of consistent crackers like that one everyone liked, so he’d probably slipped out of the public eye somewhat. Also, drinking. Unfortunately there aren’t any hard and fast rules about booze and creativity; some authors thrive on it but, let’s face it, most only think they do. Largely because they are drunk and their senses are impaired, obviously. After five pints even a ceaseless self-loather like me thinks he’s fucking marvellous, so Christ alone knows what happens in writers’ heads, modest folk that they often be. Anyway, it was his liver to do with what he would. Where the booze paid off (that price – Lewis died at 42. Ker-ching! Beat that Hot UKDeals!) was in a pretty honest portrayal of it, particularly on these pages. Like many a man in a hard-boiled yarn George Fowler sucks the booze down like it’s going out of fashion. Unlike most men in hard-boiled yarns the liquor isn’t used to enhance his manliness (and by proxy that of the (mostly male) audience) but rather ends up unmanning him. George Fowler gets very drunk indeed and the man who wrote George Fowler knew what it was like to get very drunk indeed. Getting very drunk indeed doesn’t do anyone any favours; fact. And getting very drunk indeed is the last thing a man in George Fowler’s position needs. George Fowler needs his wits about him. Because George Fowler is trapped in Mablethorpe. Out of season.

Uncredited photo of Ted Lewis from the back cover of JACK CARTER's LAW.

See that probably fell a bit flat because America probably isn’t as up on Mablethorpe as it expects the rest of the world to be on, say, Portland. (No, me neither.) So, Mablethorpe is a British seaside resort; a loose but highly centralised collection of shops, hotels, bars, bright lights and fast, thrillingly rickety rides which clings to the coast purely to soak up cash off visiting inlanders during what we laughingly refer to here as Summer. Things have probably changed by now, but back when the book was written (and is set) the British seaside’s charms were more of an exercise in collective wishful thinking than an actuality. Mablethorpe! Where dreams come alive! No one has ever said that. Cheap and cheerful was the order of the day back then, British seaside wise, but we didn’t know any better so we made do. Donkey rides! Postcards of toothbrush tashed husbands leering at ladies melons! Chips trod in vomit A sea too brown for comfort, and too cold to breach! Proper holidays they were. Out of season things were even less fun, with just the sea sullenly remaining but now even browner and colder; a vast turd consommé. The suicide rate in such places probably challenged that of dentists. And Lewis beautifully evokes this drab Purgatory Fowler has exiled himself to, from the awful architecture beneath the perpetually overcast sky to the snippy, chippy malcontents who fill the hours until the brief salvation of the next Summer with booze and backbiting. Fowler stands out amongst them as a sophisticate because Fowler is from The Smoke (i.e. London) and the attention his novelty attracts distracts him from his problems, but because of his problems attention’s the last thing he needs.

Fowler’s problems are back in The Smoke and he’s not overly keen for them to appear here in The Sea. When the book opens we know he has some problems, set-backs if you will, but not what they are. In a series of alternating chapters (The Sea, The Smoke, etc) we find them out as these twin narratives reveal Fowler’s twin losses; first that of his lifestyle and then, perhaps, that of his sanity. Or maybe his sanity’s already flown the coop and the final loss will somewhat more final in nature. Hard to tell with a bloke like George, sanity wise. Now, Jack Carter’s a crap but George Fowler is a monster. Of course, like all good monsters George thinks he perfectly normal, so it’s a clever move to tell the tale (mostly) from his POV. And then we did this, and then we did that, says George , all matter of fact, all low heart rate and slow eye-blink, and then the pieces come together in your mind and you choke back a bit of sick, but you can see George is wondering what all the fuss is about, of course, he continues, after that we had to clean up, and you wonder where the door is, but Ted Lewis has locked it behind him, and it’s just you and George now. And then the lights go off.

George is such a deep, dark pit of shit in fact that it’s entirely due to the titanic level of skill Lewis applies throughout that this reader could not only bear the big shitter longer than a page but even, every now and again, caught themselves actually rooting for him. Sure, I felt dirty but I admired the trick. George is a nasty man in a nasty business but he sees neither as such; he’s just a man and business is, well, business. And we get to know George’s business intimately as the book progresses, and while business may be good for him it is also very, very bad for others. Actually, it’s bad for him as well but he can’t see that. Lewis was always good at showing men arrogant in their belief that they were untouched by the things that damaged others, and then detailing the slow explosion of their unravelling when this belief evaporated like Scotch Mist. (Which is a drink; get me?) That’s only a piece of the parting gift Ted Lewis gave us here, as GBH also provides a convincing depiction of the underworld of the time, with its nasty antics and corrupt symbiosis between villains, filth and hacks and a good old wallow in the abhorrent brutality of a life lived in crime without once glamourising it. Some people (men, mostly) come away from GET CARTER liking Jack, but I can’t see anyone coming away from GBH liking George. It doesn’t mean you won’t feel for him though, because Ted Lewis’ parting shot is to convince us that even evil can love; but it’s still evil for all that. VERY GOOD!

Evil might well love but it gives short shrift to - COMICS!!!

“I'm Not Sure I Ought To Have To DO It Alone." COMICS! Sometimes I Return With You Now To Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear…!

A bit of a break from war comics this time out. Because if there's one thing I know you folks love more than war comics it's Western comics. Damn, if I pander any harder I'm liable to break something! THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO by Truman, Magyar, Lansdale, Parsons & Joyce

Anyway, This...

THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO #1-4 Art by Timothy Truman & Rick Magyar Written by Joe R. Lansdale Lettered by Brad K. Joyce Coloured by Sam Parsons TOPPS Comics, $2.50ea (1994) The Lone Ranger created in 1933 by Fran Striker or George W. Trendle

When I was a kid I used to watch The Lone Ranger but then he got some curtains, and that was the end of that joke. A joke there almost as old as The Lone Ranger himself. Because not only did I (being a man whom we have established in past instalments is basically dust about to happen) watch the B&W TV show but so did my dad when he was a kid in Canada. That’s two very different places separated by decades, tons of water, different opinions on how to spell the word colour, and more miles than I can honestly be bothered to look up today. I checked with “Gil” and he only knows The Lone Ranger from the “poorly received” 2013 movie. He enjoyed it mind you, but since “poorly received” is polite Tinseltown speak for “the audience avoided it like it was trying to rub shit in their eyes” I imagine he was in the minority on that one. Prior to that there was a 1981 LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER movie, which even I’d forgotten about. I guess what I’m getting at is that by 1994 when these comics appeared The Lone Ranger’s appeal was somehat shy of raging like a prairie fire. While these comics would do nothing to change that state of affairs (a two-hour TV pilot was broadcast in 2003 on the WB channel and someone will one day admit to seeing it) they are by a talented team and if you’re partial to a Lansdale or Truman shindig you’ll probably like these comics too.

THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO by Truman, Magyar, Lansdale, Parsons & Joyce

Posterity may have given this series short shrift but be assured that here the pair bring the same scruffy panache they brought to their three Jonah Hex series for Vertigo. Anyone who has read their salty take on the man with the fried egg eye will know that Lansdale & Truman are as safe a pair of hands as could be found for a property like this. Timothy Truman’s art always looks like it has escaped from The Old West as it is. Even when tasked with superheroes such as Hawkman Truman’s art brings with it a singularly malodorous air of malnutrition and poor sanitation. And I mean that in a good way. I like a strong style; you should see my ties. So, when depicting a world where malnutrition and poor sanitation were something to aspire to then Timothy Truman’s the man, true. His whole body of work shows an obvious affinity for The Old West, so much so that back in 1985 his SCOUT series for Eclipse Comics had been basically set in a futuristic dystopia informed by Native American mythology which was, well, the Old West, just with better hardware and totemic demons. (If I recall correctly there was even a serape a la The Man With No Name in the first issue.) Scout is also, commonly, the name of Tonto’s horse, but that may be a stretch to test Reed Richards there. Here, even though it’s an oater, Truman doesn’t just have to draw horses and horseshit and saloons and spittoons though, because this is also a Joe R Lansdale joint so Truman’s art also has to encompass visual absurdities which range from the plain unsettling to the plumb appalling. He’s up to it though. The tranquil horror of an unfeasibly large pile of bodies is as queasily affecting as a land boat racing across the prairies is ridiculously impressive. Nor does Truman stint none on the small scale stuff, with the creature on the loose (no spoilers) possessing a ball crawling combination of dainty finickitiness and implacability which static images shouldn’t really be able to impart, but my crawling balls can assure you they do here. The art here isn’t pretty and nor is precision at a premium; the utter dicksplash of a Governor looks like Ronald Reagan for only a couple of panels, but it’s enough to make the bit where The Lone Ranger And Tonto give him his comeuppance via sarcasm and cigars that much sweeter. But the value of Truman’s imprecision is the flexibility it allows him, flexibility shown to no greater effect than when a creature swallows a man whole in a series of panels which will have you gingerly touching your own throat like a defrocked vicar in a moment of stress.

THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO by Truman, Magyar, Lansdale, Parsons & Joyce

While I’m trying to avoid spoiling this one it should be as clear as the river when the snows thaw that this time out The Lone Ranger and Tonto are up against a mite more than cattle rustlers or bank robbers. What they are up against is whatever fell out of Joe R Lansdale’s head while he was writing it, and what falls out of Joe R Lansdale’s head during the writing process can err towards the bizarre. And I mean that in a good way. I like a strong imagination; like when you used yours to picture my ties back there. Joe R Lansdale is of course America’s primo mojo storyteller hissownself. He writes weird fiction and crime basically. He ain’t exactly Don DeLillo, but sometimes you don’t want Don DeLillo. After all, you are large, you contain multitudes. So, stop putting yourself down. Comic reviews and a pep talk, no charge! You may know Joe R Lansdale’s work from the movies BUBBA Ho-TEP (2002) and Cold in July (2014), or the episode of MASTERS OF HORROR “Incident On And Off A Mountain Road” (2005). All of which are worth reading in their papery incarnations even if you have seen them. He’s also done a series of books starring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine which are profane and brutally violent in a way which never feels cheap because of the underlying moral horror which fuels them. Could be Hap and Leonard are a Lone Ranger and Tonto for the modern world, though they’d probably break your jaw and steal all your vanilla cookies for suggesting it. In photographs Lansdale looks like he’s stolen Robert Mitchum’s torso, and perpetually sports an expression of guarded tolerance at the very idea that someone would want to do a damnfool thing like take his picture with one of them new-fangled camera doohickeys. Basically the guy writes like he’s trying to smash through a wall. He’s good is what he is. And I don’t say that just because Joe R Lansdale ran his own dojo and could drop kick me so hard I’d be wearing my ass for a hat. No, he’s a good writer. The End. Part of why he’s a good writer is how lightly he wears his ingenuity. Instead of calling a fucking press conference to celebrate his meta antics when they occur he just ups and gets it done.

THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO by Truman, Magyar, Lansdale, Parsons & Joyce

Look, huddle in here round this imaginary fire and picture the scene with me…we’re way back now in the primitive hell of 1994 and TOPPS want to revive the Lone Ranger IP but, well, look, no one wants to start any trouble here but there’s no way around this, while The Lone Ranger’s okay it’s his mate who’s the issue. Because if you have The Lone Ranger you have to have Tonto. (Oh I sense your confusion what with his name being Lone and that, but his name means there aren’t any other Rangers with him rather than he prefers his own company.) Although Tonto was tardy, turning up first in the 11th episode of the radio serial, thereafter he was always with The Lone Ranger. Because after that like Silver, silver bullets, powder blue tasselled jackets and white Stetsons, Tonto is always part of the deal with The Lone Ranger. Tonto had, over time, become built in and by 1994 he’s now part of the origin, being as he’s the one who rescues Allen King/Bill Andrews/John Reid/Luke Hartman/Uncle Tom Cobbley and thus enables him to make the peculiar decision to turn his dead brother’s vest into a mask, and ride about hither and yon firing ostentatiously expensive bullets at men of low character. Which stuff is all just dandy, if highly suggestive of a particularly flamboyant form of PTSD, but Tonto is a Native American and that kind of character has not been, uh, well served in popular literature. For starters his name, unfortunately, means “silly” in Spanish. (In early Martin Amis novels “tonto” means fucked in the head, for some reason. I don’t know why; I’ll ask him next time I see him.) While he spoke in broken English (Tonto not Martin Amis) this was because he had (naturally enough) learnt it as a second language (still talking about Tonto here, not Martin Amis). Despite this actually making Tonto smarter than a monolingual like, say, oh, me his lack of verbal facility was often taken as a sign of stupidity. Luckily, Joe R Lansdale knows how to work round that stuff; he just writes Tonto like an intelligent human being.

THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO by Truman, Magyar, Lansdale, Parsons & Joyce

Which is smarter than it sounds and the smartness doesn’t stop there; he builds the obvious baggage the character brings right into the story itself. Throughout the mini-series references are made to the dime novels portraying the adventures of The Lone Ranger and Tonto. These are clearly meant to represent their earlier movies, books, comics, newspaper strips, etc with their, uh, less than ideal portrayal of Tonto and their possibly Ranger-centric approach. Again and again Truman’ delightfully scrofulous townsfolk treat The Lone Ranger like a movie star while his sidekick is kicked to the side. And it’s this stress between reality and public perception which is as threatening to the pair as any skin feasting fiend. Joe R Lansdale and Timothy Truman’s tale then is not just about a frightsome beast or revenge for sins past but also about two friends whose bond is riven by success and secrets. The entertainment is all in the ride because the end is never in doubt. After all, as all us old gits know, it’s part of The Lone Ranger’s credo that to have a friend one must be one. And The Lone Ranger and Tonto are many things to many people in many ages but they will always be friends to each other. (However, I suspect Tonto is the smarter of the two). THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO is whip-crack smart and scruffy stuff. In 2006 Dynamite would have greater success with a Lone Ranger series but I haven’t read that; I read this one and it’s GOOD!

They are how the West was won - COMICS!!!

“You're Catching On, Buster!" COMICS! Sometimes I Don’t Want To Ruffle Any Feathers But I Do Have To Say That Nazis Seem Like Really Quite The Most Awful People!

I read a 1960s DC war comic. It was pretty neat. Don’t worry, it’s inevitable that we’ll hit some real shockers soon, but not this week.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

Anyway, this…
OUR ARMY AT WAR #160
“What Is The Color Of Your Blood?”
Art by Joe Kubert
Written by Robert Kanigher
Sgt Rock created by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher
DC Comics, $0.12 (1965)

This yellowing and elderly comic clutched in my yellowing and elderly hands is remarkable for a number of reasons. The most amusing of those reasons is Robert Kanigher’s lovably hyperbolic reaction to a letter criticising his work on WONDER WOMAN: “What is one more scar to a walking battlefield?” This being OUR ARMY AT WAR and not WONDER WOMAN the precise criticism is irrelevant so Kanigher doesn’t print it. Kanigher’s steely indifference in the face of such criticism is, however, important so he does share that with us. “What is one more scar to a walking battlefield?” Fantastic stuff. Due to its relevance Kanigher is however able to share with us the rest of the letter which, fortuitously, is praise, this time for the Enemy Ace strip. Yes, as you’ve probably gathered from previous entries in the appallingly persistent “Old Man! Old Comics!” things I do, one of the very special pleasures of reading an old comic is the dip into the psyche of the Comics Scene Past it allows via the letters page. Usually, because I err towards old war comics, this is an exciting peek into the minds of readers who were inclined to address their excitable letters to fictional characters (“Hi, Sgt Rock! Remember when you shot that Jerry in the face? How did his brains taste?”) and correct mistakes regarding weaponry (“…the Koch-Wobbler sub-machine gun was in fact useless in prolonged firefights due to its tendency to overheat and loudly question why everyone couldn’t just get along.” ) The thrilling fusion of imagination and pedantry on display is an entertainment in itself, and an important indicator of how seriously the audience took this stuff. Well, some of the audience. Admittedly most of the audience neglected to write in and probably forgot these books as soon as they finished them, but, still, someone out there was listening. In recognition of this DC’s war comics would occasionally try to say something worth listening to. OUR ARMY AT WAR #160 is one such issue.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

OUR ARMY AT WAR#160 is a Message Issue and, no, the message isn’t that you can’t hurt Robert Kanigher’s feelings with your WONDER WOMAN criticisms but rather that everyone should knock that racist shit off. From my privileged view point (white, male, one cat, no hair) it’s easy to think such a message is like telling everyone not to wash their hair in lava ,or not to keep tigers under the bed, and yet rumour has it that racism persists. Sure there’s a black President in The Americas but there was also all that pretty racist stuff about him being a Hawaiian muslim or something. (Those damn Hawaiians! Always causing a fuss! I don’t want to sound anti-Hawaiian here but…etc.) Things are by no means sorted on the racial equality front in 2015 and terrible, terrible things still happen to remind us of that. But things are… better (said the complacent middle aged white man) in 2015 so the clumsy but heartfelt sentiments on show here might seem a tad toothless. But not all times are these times. And this comic didn’t come out in 2015; it came out in 1965. That may well have been ten years after Rosa Parks changed everything by not going to the back of a bus but those ten years of Civil rights progress had been filled with tear gas, violence and death. In 1965 there may well have been the Voting Rights Act but there were also the Watts Riots (Aug 11-17, 1965) and the assassination of Malcolm X (21 Feb 1965). Offering up a plea for racial equality in a comical periodical might not exactly have been literary gunpowder, but in 1965 it was still far from empty gum flapping.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

Throughout I’m treating this comic as a Kubert & Kanigher collaboration because comics are (ideally) a collaborative art form and Kubert & Kanigher worked closely together on the Rock comics. The storytelling with its in media res opening, repetitive reinforcement of key points, flash-backs, direct to the point of bluntness dialogue, use of quotes to highlight simple metaphors and the general ability to impart something quite rickety with the illusion of solidity is Kanigher at the top of his “get it done” game. Kubert’s art has an extra level of commitment here, with that lively looseness of line bolstered by the blunt impact of his blacks to smooth the eye through.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

As I’ve said in the past I think Joe Kubert was quite keen on his comics being edifying so I can quite see the whole message thing originating from him, Kanigher giving the thing shape, and then the two batting it back and forth until time ran out and they just had to go with what they’d got. The result is not exactly buffed to a high gloss, but for all the slips into silliness and end runs past realism “What is The Color of Your Blood?” works well as a four colour punchy polemic.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

As is traditional Sgt Rock headlines OUR ARMY AT WAR but for much of this blockbuster battle yarn Jackie Johnson takes centre stage. Because you aren’t old and daft you probably don’t read a lot of DC war comics so it’s maybe worth pointing out that Jackie Johnson is the black member of Easy Co. From my intensive researches (i.e. reading Codename: Gravedigger in MEN OF WAR) I can tell you that this is unrealistic as blacks and whites were segregated during WW2, with black soldiers relegated to menial and unpleasant tasks while the white soldiers did the fighting. However, due to further research (i.e. reading SGT ROCK comics) I can assure you that Sgt Rock stories are not supposed to be documentaries so, yes, there’s a black soldier in Easy Co. In 1965 America was still firmly impaled on the Punji sticks of the Vietnam War and soldiers (back before they were allowed porn vids) were notorious for reading comics. Sometimes people wonder how DC’s war comics lasted as long as they did and, simplistically, I think it’s because even though they were (mostly) about WW2 they allowed America to acknowledge and deal with the wars that came after. Anyway, racial segregation in the US Army had ended in 1948 so by 1965 black soldiers could die with white soldiers, which just goes to show equality isn’t all pony rides and ice cream. It also shows why Easy Co. anachronistically included a black soldier - it was an attempt to reflect the diversity of the armed forces audience of the time.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

The exact individuals whom Jackie Johnson is supposed to be an amalgamation of varies according to who you ask, as this story revolves around boxing I’m going to stick with Jackie Johnson being a combination of Jack Johnson & Joe Louis, who were both boxers. They also both play directly into the ideas and themes Kubert & Kanigher are utilising. Man, that’s a chalk and elbow patches sentence right there. Before we get to that dusty stuff I have to tell you about the dust up it’s attached to. In essence then, Rock, Wild Man (he of the eerily prescient hipster beard) and Jackie Johnson are captured by Nazis, amongst whose number a familiar face is found. Fate (as if working against a really tight deadline with little room for such niceties as plausibility) has conspired to bring Jackie face to face with, one Uhlan who is not only a German boxer, but the very same German boxer to whom Jackie had memorably lost the heavyweight boxing championship prior to WW2 (!) Memorably for Jackie that is, not you because it didn’t really happen so how would you remember it? Turns out Jackie remembers it enough for everyone as we see in a series of flashbacks in which Jackie saves Easy Co. via a succession of typically Kanigher-esque acts awesomely entertaining in their unfeasibility, but then looks all sad and Sgt Rock stands near him and does one of his little monologues which explain Jackie’s sadness in a manly way. Basically, Jackie has really taken his Stateside loss at the hands of a Nazi, and the later use of his defeat as Propaganda, really badly. He needs to toughen up a bit; what if someone did something really awful like criticise his work on WONDER WOMAN?

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

Having won once the Nazi reckons twice can’t hurt and so elects to do so in an impromptu rematch. The idea here is to have a bit of fun during a rare spot of down time to demonstrate to his cackling pals the racial superiority of the white race. (Why, I do the same myself when running long macros at work!) Of course it’s implicit that once Jackie even starts to look as though he’s winning the Nazis will kill Rock, Wildman & Jackie because, well, Nazis are big jerks. So, at this point of suspense I naturally change the subject and start going on about Jack Johnson: Jack Johnson (1878-1946) was the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion. His landmark 1908 win followed several years of doggedly pursuing the chance to fight for the title, and then fourteen rounds of hitting the Canadian Tommy Burns in the face. What’s important here isn’t his title but the fact that his victory was seen as a bit of an affront to believers in the self-same superiority of the white race which the Nazi in this story is so keen to prove. Unfortunately for Jack Johnson that was quite a lot of people in his own country at that point in history. Mind you, in their defence none of them were Nazis. This led to a string of white opponents being thrown at Johnson and the creation of the horrible term “Great White Hope”, because the hope was that the white man would put this uppity, um, fellow in his place. The white man repeatedly failed to do so until April 5 1915 when Johnson lost his title to Jess Willard. It’s this “Great White Hope” thing which is informing Kubert & Kanigher’s work here. The reference to the whole ugly deal of a white guy knocking a black guy down and thus proving the superiority of an entire race in one victorious act of thuggish brutality is inescapable. In Jack Johnson’s day apparently it all seemed pretty reasonable, but by 1965, thankfully, it’s a view presented as the childishly delusional nonsense it clearly is.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

Joe Louis (1914-1981) has an even more direct connection to the narrative at hand. Joe Louis was also black and also a boxer, but following wise advice had played it safe and played it quiet in direct contrast to Jack Johnson whose flamboyance had really upset certain folk (white folks, I’m talking about whites folks there). Canny management had built Joe Louis up as a respectable and honourable sporting figure in the public eye. People were okay supporting Joe Louis. Which was good because Joe Louis would take on a symbolic aspect he probably could have done without. Jackie Johnson’s first loss to Uhlan echoes Joe Louis’ 1936 defeat at the gloves of Max Schmeling (1905-2005), a white German boxer. The state of things in Germany were frankly distressing at that time and so this victory was seized upon as proof positive of the Aryan superiority preached by the kind of people who think putting skulls on uniforms is an adult fashion decision. In 1938 a rematch occurred, and things with the Nazis were getting so bad so quickly the world was having trouble ignoring it. War was coming. The rematch was no longer only about black vs white, but also about Fascism vs Democracy. And so two men hitting each other for money took on a ridiculously potent symbolism. Records show that on the night of June 22, 1938 the myth of Aryan supremacy got in the ring with an athletic black man and lasted two minutes and four seconds. No, Joe Louis did not fall that night.   Despite his failure Schmeling, surprisingly, wasn’t stuck in an oven or shot but served his country as a paratrooper in WW2. The boxer Jackie faces is also a paratrooper. So, no, see, all these connections aren’t simply in my head. Now, I would like to tell you that following the fight Nazi Germany admitted it was wrong, apologised to everyone, rethought its philosophy and became a socialist utopia where men and women of all colours joyfully worked together to achieve the goal of peaceful space colonisation, but I would be lying. In fact Nazi Germany carried on merrily turning the world to fiery dung as though nothing had happened. Because apparently settling the whole racial superiority in the ring thing only counts if the white guy wins.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

Where there’s boxing there’s blood, and that together with its colour is crucial in the racial power play on these pages. The Nazis were big on blood and not just the spilling of that of others, but the (supposed) purity of their own. While he’s being smacked about Jackie is constantly taunted as to the colour of his blood by the Nazi. Now, the Nazi obviously doesn’t believe Jackie’s blood is black, that would be ridiculous, it’s just the whole bending another to your will thing beloved of bullies everywhere. Because he believes the others’ lives are at stake Jackie won’t fight back, but equally he won’t give the Nazi the satisfaction of saying what he wants to hear. Luckily (cough) Rock and Wild Man break free and are beaten to the ground which allows the narrative to fudge the next bit nicely. Rock tells Jackie to take the guy’s face off and maybe Jackie hears him or maybe Jackie doesn’t, either way Jackie starts swinging and Jackie starts winning.

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

Seeing Uhlan guy in trouble the Nazis immediately fire on both of them to erase the mistake they have made, which is less than sporting of them. Wild Man and Rock now take out the Nazis without any trouble because (cough) Easy Company jump out of a bush and because it’s time for the big finish. Jackie and NAME are wounded but a transfusion could just save the Nazi’s life..! Sorry, no prize today for guessing what happens next.

Look, as inelegantly arrived at as it may be there is still a power in the final scenes where Jackie’s blood saves the Nazi’s life and the dude immediately recants his vicious idiocy. Yeah, turns out that there are actually two messages in this book - one is to knock that racist shit off, and the other is that people can change. As bumpy a narrative ride as it may be OUR ARMY AT WAR#160 turns out to be both right thinking and remarkably generous of spirit, and you know that can’t ever be less than VERY GOOD!

OUR ARMY AT WAR by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

What's the only kind of dynamite that can stop a war? COMICS!!!! They are "Top-Special"!

"ARRRRRRRRUUUUGGGH!" COMICS! Sometimes I Should Have Probably Just Watched Valley of the Gwangi Instead!

There’s a new JURASSIC PARK movie out! I’m not particularly bothered! I won’t be going to see it! But I did read a comic adaptation of the first movie! So why waste happenstance! And that’s about as zeity as my geisty gets.

JURASSIC PARK by Kane & Perez, Simonson, Workman & Smith Anyway, this… JURASSIC PARK#1 -4 Art by Gil Kane & George Perez Written by Walter Simonson Lettered by John Workman Coloured by Tom Smith Based on the screenplay by David Koepp Based on the novel by Michael Crichton and on adaptations by Michael Crichton & Malia Scotch Marmo TOPPS COMICS, $2.95ea (1993)

In 1978 Michael Crichton wrote and directed the entertaining slice of speculative hooey WESTWORLD. This had robots run amuck in a theme park. Because genius cannot be hurried it would take Crichton a further 12 years to come up with the idea of replacing the robots with dinosaurs, which he did in his 1990 novel JURASSIC PARK. It would take a further 3 years before Steven “ALWAYS” Spielberg would deliver the technically innovative but peculiarly unsatisfying movie of the same name. As a tie-in the short lived TOPPS Comics threw this four issue adaptation out into the world. Several years later I bought them off E-Bay because I saw Gil Kane’s name on the listing. Last week I found them in the garage and finally read them. Which brings up to date, I think. I haven’t read the book so I’m not getting into that. I am as scientific as a chimp so I’m not getting into that either. But I do know I don’t really like JURASSIC PARK the movie and I know that because I’ve never owned it. And this is from a man who owned FALL TIME, TRACES OF RED and FTW on VHS. Yet never JURASSIC PARK. This is less because while JURASSIC PARK has many leathery denizens Mickey Rourke isn’t one of them, and more down to the fact I found JURASSIC PARK a bit underwhelming. I mean, it’s okay when you’re sat in front of it but as soon as you go and do something else there’s a nagging sense that you’ve just done something for the last 127 minutes but a maddening lack of specifics about what exactly that thing was. Usually when that happens I’m wearing a dress with blood in my hair and there’s a uniformed man outside with a bullhorn and some well-armed friends. All you know is it definitely involved Jeff Goldblum and a cup of water. For something that cost $63 million that seems like a remarkably poor return. Usually you can point at something about a movie and say That! That! is why it failed to entertain! But JURASSIC PARK is well directed, well scripted, ably cast, brimming with special FX which are special and, y’know, dinosaurs and…none of that ever actually comes together to make a good movie; it’s just stubbornly bland. As much of an achievement as the FX were at the time surely the eternal achievement of JURASSIC PARK is making a movie about resurrected dinosaurs running amok in an island paradise less engaging than sneaking a fart out.

JURASSIC PARK by Kane & Perez, Simonson, Workman & Smith

Of course, I had already been somewhat spoiled on the old dinosaurs running amuck front by Pat Mills and Various European Gentlemen’s FLESH in 2000AD (1977-1978). Despite “Pat Mills and Various European Gentlemen’s FLESH” sounding like something that would be seized at Customs, it was in fact a luridly violent strip aimed at children which involved time travelling Future Cowboys harvesting dinosaurs, in the course of which the tables quickly, predictably, and violently turn. It was fast, nasty and punched its point home like it was trying to grab your spine. In comparison JURASSIC PARK is like a dinosaurs’ tea party where the worst that happens is T-Rex spills milk on a doily and the Velociraptors say something unfortunate about someone’s sister. I don’t want to be crass (but we aren’t always all we want to be) but how many deaths are there in JURASSIC PARK? Four or five? Six tops. That’s pitiful. There are six deaths on every page of FLESH. And if there aren’t (because someone will take me literally) it feels like there are. The deaths in JURASSIC PARK are frictionless punchlines to efficient action set-ups. The deaths in FLESH, however, are nasty and brutal with much screaming and precision about exactly what is happening and how unpleasant it all is. Look, In FLESH you get dialogue like “Gotta STAB this she-hag right in the BRAIN!” and that’s always going to trump “Have some ice cream. Twenty two flavours and I tested every one!” Sure, no one talks like people do in FLESH but then no one is going back in time dressed as cowboys and farming dinosaurs for future supermarkets. YET! If you’re calling foul on dialogue on that creative battlefield you’re getting hung up on the wrong barbed wire, pal. Maybe that’s it - JURASSIC PARK tries to marry spectacle to respectability. Come on, anyone trying to make a respectable dinosaurs run amuck movie has failed at the first hurdle. Basically then, I remain ashamed that I enjoyed CARNOSAUR more.

JURASSIC PARK by Kane & Perez, Simonson, Workman & Smith

I can’t actually speak to how well the adaptation and the movie line up because I was unwilling to give up some of my valuable time spent staring into the middle distance and being disappointed in myself to rewatch it. And if you think that makes all this pointless exercise in self-amusement then have a banana! Take two; knock yourself out! Flash Fact: this is my free time. Anyway, parts of the comics adaptation are ridiculously faithful and I’m kind of thinking Walter Simonson simply and efficiently adapted the script (or at least a near to shooting script). I mean that’s basically all he does. I’m not making any huge perceptive leaps here. That’s no foul. Obviously expectations may be raised because of all that pushing-of-comics-into-weird-new-shapes-in-order-to-evoke-the-experience-of-the-movie he (and Archie Goodwin) did with ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY. (I may have mentioned it previously. At length.) But Simonson doesn’t do that here so don’t be expecting what he hasn’t done. What he has done is deliver a meat’n’taters movie on the page. In fact, the most interesting thing visual invention wise is how John Workman positions his (as ever) wonderful lettering FX; they really help shunt the eye through the pages. Also interesting are the slight deviations from the movie I could identify. Unless I’m wrong there’s an extra scene with the lawyer at an amber mine (more lawyers talking to capable men in short sleeved shirts outdoors; that’s what JURASSIC PARK needed!) and I know I’m not wrong when Simonson has Kane & Perez illustrate Sam Neill’s “no one in the audience has ever heard of Raptors but you need to be aware of how awesome they are or all this build up simply won’t work…”speech to that random kid as a kind of dream sequence.

I also thought Bob Peck was in charge of the luckless wage slave bit at the start, but here it looks like it’s Howard Victor Chaykin sporting some shades. (And another thing, I mean, seriously, the whole fiasco is down to employers thinking they don’t have to adhere to basic Health & Safety because, what, it impacts on the “bottom line” and affects “targets” (trans: “money”). There’s a lot of huffing and puffing trying to make the lawyer the villain (because tradition) but all that dude wants is everyone to do what the law says. Fuck that dude, with his safety concerns; I hope he dies humiliatingly hiding in a portable loo. Look, I don’t care how cuddly Richard Attenborough is, he still values human life less than a theme park ride. That misty eyed reminiscence thing about the flea circus? Get real, people, Life is the Circus to Richard Attenborough and we, the people, are THE FLEAS! Dude’s a cock of the first order. Does he get eaten? No, he does not. That’s bloody Rule #1 in dinosaurs run amok movies- payback! Payback for the shitters of the world! Ultimately JURASSIC PARK is toothless (Oh God, that’s some great wordplay. Professional level shit there, John; keep that up! Publishers will be “interested” (trans: “money”) so it’s no wonder I can’t be doing with this movie.) Mind you maybe Gil Kane did that as a joke (recap: the Howard Chaykin in shades thing) because Gil Kane seems to be playing pretty loose character design wise.

JURASSIC PARK by Kane & Perez, Simonson, Workman & Smith

Oh, yeah, that’s why I have these comics – Gil Kane. No, not because I ever believed the lie of easy riches implicit in the “Special Collector’s Edition” status of these books with their protective sheaths (which you have to re-insert the comics back into; if you close your eyes you can imagine putting a French tickler on Gumby) and the trading cards included therein. Man, never has a generation been so betrayed as the Comics Fans of the ‘90s. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were all going to be rich. None of us learned life skills because we were going to cash on our mint holofoil BALLJUGGLER#1s and live a life resembling a blizzard of jizz and glitter but with added cats in speedboats. None of us can actually even talk to people never mind hold down a job! Shit like this is why I’m in favour of regulation. Well, that and the whole global financial collapse which threw my country rightwards and into the arms of the Tories. Other than that though, it’s definitely the whole trading cards thing. So, Gil Kane. We were talking about Gil Kane; well, Gil’s here but so is George Perez. Look, I have no beef with George Perez’ work usually; it’s fine. A bit busy and stolid for me personally, but if you want a lot of superheroes all in one place George Perez can do that pretty well. But, man, here in the place where there are no superheroes his heavy lines and consequent dearth of suggestive space where the reader’s mind can play really flattens Kane’s work into inertia. I guess it’s decent enough stuff; he keeps Kane’s basics intact, nothing is omitted. In fairness there are a couple of “imaginary” scenes where the detail gets pared back and in those bits Perez and Kane are a team to reckon with. But Perez’ signature insistence on specificity really hurts Kane’s inherent grace and flow. It’s just a less than ideal combination; both men on their own – smashing, but together, meh, not so much. Hey, that’s how it goes sometimes.

JURASSIC PARK by Kane & Perez, Simonson, Workman & Smith

The salt’n’marshmallow art combo sure makes some of Kane’s faces look weird as well. There certainly seems to have been some kind of power struggle over Laura Dern’s face (artistically speaking). There’s no doubt in my fat and generous heart that Gil Kane was a phenomenal artist but he could only draw two ladies faces- either a goddess or a crone. Laura Dern is neither; she just looks like a normal human being. I’m saying it looks like George Perez redrew her face. Actually I don’t really know what’s going on with the faces here. Kane nails Wayne Knight (artistically speaking) but his Samuel L Jackson looks like he’s never heard of Samuel L Jackson, his Richard Attenborough looks like he’s got a mossy skin disease instead of a beard and (the late, great) Bob peck who looks like Gil Kane drew him in reality doesn’t look like Gil Kane drew him here. I find the face work in these comics fascinating but I can tell from the depth and regularity of your breathing that you want to move on. Why am I even talking about faces! It’s a comic about dinosaurs run amuck and I’m talking about faces! There’s the crux of the matter right there. I never got within about 2000 miles of Gil Kane but you don’t have to be Thought Jacker to guess he probably turned up here to draw dinosaurs, not a bunch of mostly normal looking people in drab clothes ambling about impressively unmemorable set designs. Eventually Kane does get to draw dinosaurs but Walter Simonson, tumbling into the trap of hyper-fidelity to the source, has knacked the pacing. So the bits where Gil can go dino-crazy are well worth showing up for but they are also kind of cramped and hurried. Meanwhile there are all these pages of weird faces saying words, none of which are why anyone turned up, least of all the audience.

JURASSIC PARK by Kane & Perez, Simonson, Workman & Smith

I love Walter Simonson and I love Gil Kane, John Workman is a little cracker and George Perez ain’t never done me no harm so these comics weren’t a total wash. But Honesty, like Christ, compels me to admit they’ve both done better work elsewhere and there are even better dinosaur run amuck comics. So, sure, given the talent involved JURASSIC PARK may be EH! but then that goes for the movie too. So, as adaptations go it’s spot on.

What I want to know is, if dinosaurs were around for so long how come they never invented – COMICS!!!

"Pop...EVERYTHIN' I Want Costs MONEY!" COMICS! Sometimes I Slap Leather!

Sorry, that garage clearing was a beast. Still, look what I found:

Hawk, Son of Tomahawk by Thorne & Kanigher Anyway, this... TOMAHAWK# 135 Art by Frank Thorne, John Severin Written by Robert Kanigher, Jerry DeFuccio DC Comics, $0.15 (1971) Tomahawk created by Fred Ray & Ed Frances Herron Hawk, Son of Tomahawk created by Mr & Mrs Tomahawk

Here's a DC Western book I'd never heard of and didn't realise I owned. It's got a Joe Kubert cover that looks like an “Egg-timer Special” but still has time for a sweet charcoal effect background, and slips its lack of detail past by walloping you with a fistful of impact. Yeah, Joe Kubert could do you a cover like no other. Joe Kubert was also the Editor here, which explains the presence of Robert Kanigher on typewriter hammerin'. Back then Editors had a favoured stable (Western wordplay, cheers.) of talent whose most valued attributes were timeliness and dependability rather than flash, pizzaz or having performing hair. Kanigher was a sturdy workhouse who Kubert was always happy to employ because he knew that he could ask Kanigher for a 12 page oater by lunchtime tomorrow and Kanigher would deliver - like it was his job or something. Basically, books edited by Joe Kubert tend to have a lot of Robert Kanigher in them because Robert Kanigher got it done. And I tend to have a lot of Joe Kubert edited books because I like the weird genres they put him in charge of (War, Westerns, Apemen and Tor (always Tor)). Just in case you were thinking I was engaged on some stealth rehabilitation of Robert Kanigher or something.

Hawk, Son of Tomahawk by Thorne & Kanigher

The book is called SON OF TOMAHAWK but the indicia reveals it is actually TOMAHAWK, this discrepancy is due to the recent replacement of Tomahawk in the main strip by his son Hawk, Son of Tomahawk. The repercussions of this are documented in the letters page where the level of bewilderment, guarded optimism and plain dislike show comic fans' embrace of change is timeless in its consistency. Unfortunately, I lack any kind of context for this comic so I had to look up Tomahawk and it turns out his adventures were originally set during in the Revolutionary War where he fought on the wrong side (I'm British, natch). In this book he wanders about in his vest puffing on a corncob pipe while his son has all the fun. His son, Hawk, Son of Tomahawk, is a design classic in the same way as a Plymouth Fury. A Plymouth Fury that some crackjob's driven into a wall. Because Frank “Every Rose Has Its” Thorne's art here is characteristically light on detail it's hard to pin down Hawk, son of Tomahawk's look too specifically, as Thorne's work becomes more nebulous the harder you look at it. Basically though Hawk, son of Tomahawk, with his skunk streaked DA, tasselled jacket with tribal decals, and drainpipe jeans would make even Vegas Elvis do a double take. But then this is a new kind of Western hero.

Hawk, Son of Tomahawk by Thorne & Kanigher

Or at least I think it is; this is the only issue I own so it might just be an outlier in what is otherwise a run as salty and plain ornery as SCALPHUNTER or JONAH HEX. Here though it looks like every effort is being made to avoid offence, even to the extent of having a pacifist hero. Hawk, Son of Tomahawk's mum is a Native American and he has a toddler brother decked out in tribal duds. Which is nice, but they are pretty generic and later when some other Native Americans show up they are all stoic and dignified. Which is fine, very respectful and that but it's hardly the stuff of high drama. Luckily, there's always the White Man. I don't know why the White Man gets such a raw deal (reads a history book; cries. Okay, **** the White Man.) The story starts by some bad white guys harassing a peddlar who gives Hawk, Son of Tomahawk a catalogue as a reward. Now, remember the Old West was like a giant open air lunatic asylum where the only recreational activities were murder, rutting, trains and drinking until blindness set in. So a catalogue in the Old West would have been like the Internet but with less naked people involved in wallpaper paste accidents and less pictures of cats hating us. Seriously, Hawk is enraptured and decides immediately to set out to gain enough riches to buy some scented candles, Sea-Bison or a life-size cardboard glow-in-the-dark Abe Lincoln. Whatever; I don't know what they had in those things; vittals and gingham or something. Anyway, he bumps into his big pal who is just setting out with a treasure map. That's quite a coincidence to you, but if you had 12 pages you'd tend to think of it as expedient. There's a nice bit where they find the Ghost Mountain inside another mountain, but the gold turns out to be in a Native American burial ground. (Joke about America being one big Native American burial ground removed on grounds of taste.)

Hawk, Son of Tomahawk by Thorne & Kanigher Up until exhaustion and gold fever set in Hawk, son of Hawk's pal is pretty okay but then he gets all racist and violent like a Farcry game on legs. That's not because he's white though, let's be clear here; gold turns the guy's head, at which point he becomes a big murderous racist. This is good because if someone had more time they could “read” this story about the corrupting effect of the capitalist system and how its emphasis on reward sets people against one another. Or something. Mind you, I don't know if Kanigher accidentally stumbles on this, I've just had a brain fart, or it's actually built-in. It's not every comic that has the brass balls to declare that even The White Man isn't the villain, it's the system of exploitation in which he exists which is the true villain! Socialist Pacifist Western Comics for The Win! Anyway, the whole trapped underground with a violent racist thing is pretty unfortunate for Hawk, Son of Tomahawk, what with his Mum being a Native American. Even worse, he's in a 1970s comic where it seems they are actively trying to get away from the usual Western thing of plugging varmints and owlhoots at the drop of a stetson. Luckily, he's in a 1970s comic where it's still entirely okay for the greed addled white dude to get speared by a toppling corpse because this makes it both no one's fault and karmically just.

Hawk, Son of Tomahawk by Thorne & Kanigher

Basically, and admirably, Kanigher attempts to deliver a message via a tale without villains, heroes or excessive violence. Since all those things are the reasons comics are entertaining its no surprise their lack makes the result a little dull. But I do have to admire how Kanigher leaps out of his own trap built of good intentions. I was entertained after all, just in a different way than usual. It's efficiently and pleasantly drawn by Frank Thorne, whose art has a fluid grace not entirely unlike that of Joe Kubert. Thorne would later become famous for drawing Red Sonja and spend many happy years producing his own comics featuring ladies in a state of undress, and judging Red Sonja-a-like contests while dressed as a wizard. In many ways, I think we can all agree, Frank Thorne won.

AMERICA: "A Glance at Yesterday" by Sam Glanzman

After the lead feature Sam Glanzman gets roped in to do one of his typically informative double page spreads. I’m used to seeing these pop up in war comics so it’s interesting to note he was versatile enough to do The Old West too. Here kids get to thrill to a picture of a wagon train being burned, which is surrounded by informative illustrations of weapons the native Americans would have used to slaughter the same kids' ancestors and some of the headdresses they might have sported to do so. It's nice, dusty looking stuff and it's even nicer to be reminded that space fillers could be quality gear.

"SPOILERS" by Severin & DeFuccio The final 8 pages are a (probably reprinted) story called “Spoilers” by Jerry DeFuccio and illustrated by John Severin. This is a really dense tale with an attention to detail in the text which suggests it is an attempt to adapt a true story into comics. Maybe not though, because during a quick spin around the Internet I found no mention of “Kirby's Raiders” circa 1865. I did, however, find some really interesting pictures of naked people who had been involved in wallpaper paste accidents, and also of cats hating us. It's a nice yarn about a Confederate who goes back home to one of those mansions apparently everybody in the South seems to have lived in (well, everybody white). You know the ones with the big pillars and a big pile of fixings for them thar mint juleps out back. Unfortunately those Northern bastards have been at it and left it not unlike when a burglar breaks in and dumps one out on your bed (apparently it’s from the adrenalin; it makes you loose). As revenge Kirby forms his Rangers and they go around stealing gold from that darned gubbermint. Kirby takes a break, disperse his gang, hides the cash and takes up on a farm where he helps out with his honest toil until a bunch of locusts turn up. Basically, Kirby sees he has become a spoiler like the darn Yankees and the locusts. It ends with a hilariously underplayed final panel where he muses on the lesson he has learned and we are informed that the money he hid earlier had also fallen victim to the locusts. It’s left unsaid, but if I know my westerns then that guy’s life was short and punctuated by violent inquiries as to the location of the loot from his former colleagues. John Severin draws the holy Hell out of it all in his characteristic style - sharp as a craft knife and loaded with detail. Two decent strips and an informative space filler makes TOMAHAWK #135 a comic which is GOOD!

In 1971 for fifteen slim cents you could get Joe Kubert, Frank Thorne, Sam Glanzman and John Severin. Now that's – COMICS!!!

"WHO'S Stubborn?" COMICS! Sometimes Only The Sea Sees!

No, no, no! Oh, Sgt Rock, the optimum method of seagull attracting is to be a small child stood in St Ives holding a rapidly collapsing ’99, as my still somewhat traumatised son will attest. Naturally I realise it isn’t the fault of the seagull but rather that of the idiots who persist in feeding them in flagrant contravention of the many signs prohibiting this precise behaviour. (I am particularly proud of how middle-aged that sentence sounds; it’s the written equivalent of rolling up my jacket sleeves and nodding fiercely along to a shitty Phil Collins “number”. At a wedding.) SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

Anyway, this... OUR ARMY AT WAR #258 Art by Russ Heath, Sam Glanzman Written by Robert Kanigher, Sam Glanzman DC Comics, $0.20 (1973) Sgt Rock created by Joe Kubert, Robert Kanigher & Bob Haney

This comic came out in 1973 and is set during a war which ended in 1945. As I peck these words out it’s 2015 and while you’ve probably heard of that war (The Second World War) you’ve probably never heard of this comic. There’s no real reason for you to have done so. I only found it because I’ve had to start clearing out the garage because someone had the crazy notion that we should put a car in there. Sheer madness, I trust you’ll agree. Obviously then, I’ve been sorting through my comics, and I read this one and thought I’d write about it precisely because it is a good example of the kind of comic that’s rarely mentioned; a 1970s DC war comic. 1970s DC war comics get the high hat because they aren’t as good as 1950s EC war comics and also, everybody probably (and rightly) feels a bit hinky about war as entertainment. This sensitivity to tastelessness can be seen right there in this issue's letter column:

Allan Asherman there, making sure everyone's on the same pag viz a viz reality and war. Besides Sgt Rock the book is also bulked out by other strips, most notably one of Sam Glanzman's unaffected and clear eyed depictions of serving aboard the USS Stevens. It's a particularly bleak tale drawn in Glanzman's Kuberty and roughly blunt signature style. Basically, Sam Glanzman is pretty great, you know?

USS STEVENS by Sam Glanzman

Anyway, this isn’t the old Comics Were Better Back Then! or the rarer Hey, Look a Lost Masterpiece! it’s just a look at one of hundreds of thousands of comics produced in the past before it slips into the obscurity it was intended for. Well, slips back into my garage, because this one’s a keeper.

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

Keeping it as basic as basic training then, the cover is by Joe Kubert but that’s not all of Joe Kubert’s contribution. If you squint at the print below the opening splash page it’s possible to see that the Editor was also Joe Kubert. Joe Kubert (1926-2012) was a titanic comics talent whose staggeringly voluminous output consisted largely (but not solely) of war comics. And Tor comics. In his later years he would attempt to connect more directly with the world by addressing the Bosnian conflict (Fax From Sarajevo ( 1990)) and by dealing with a chunk of personal issues in a series of OGNs addressing the Holocaust (Yossel, April 19, 1943 (2003)), parental expectations (Jew Gangster (2005)) and the reality of war (Dong Xoai, Vietnam, 1965 (2010)). All of them were visually striking if slightly over earnest comics which, disarmingly, sought to impart the importance of decency, respect and empathy. An admirable aim he pursued right up to the end of his life, and which saturates his final comics series (Joe Kubert Presents (2013)) And, yes, even his Tor comics. Here though, with OAaW#258, the mighty Joe Kubert’s visual contribution is a typically arresting cover featuring Sgt Rock wrestling a very yellow fellow indeed. Sgt Rock’s foe is a Japanese soldier and his icteric aspect may be down to a touch of malaria and an attendant pinch of jaundice, but let’s face it it’s probably down to the heavy handed colouring of the day. But wait, weren’t Sgt Rock and Easy Company active in the European Theatre which was kind of light on Japanese soldiers and, it should be noted, a really poor choice for a night out as theatres go? Every so often Robert Kanigher would find a reason to shift Sgt. Rock to the Pacific. This was largely for reasons of variety, I expect. While Bob Haney actually wrote the prototype Rock’s first appearance in OAaW#81 (1959), Kanigher created him (Rock, not Haney) in an editorial capacity and he and Joe Kubert further refined the character into his iconic state. Kanigher wrote the vast majority of Rock’s antics so it was probably primarily for the sake of his own sanity that he changed things up intermittently.

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

Of course the audience of the time (children, soldiers, degenerates, reprobates) couldn’t be counted on to have seen the previous issue so a quick catch up was always appreciated. The first page of this issue is one such catch-up. Today you might get a page of poorly proof read text, the tone of which can vary from the functional to the humorous. Here we get a Russ Heath splash page, which may very well just be an exercise in visual exposition, but it’s one done with such design flair and general artistic excellence I’d certainly hang that bad boy on my wall. Check it out. Check it out again. Still rocking, right? All the information a reader needs is represented visually right there. Rock’s haunted face has pride of place in a position suggesting the elements surrounding him are thoughts/memories, and the smoke trail of the falling plane carries the eye down while it gluts itself on the surrounding detail. You’d have to be trying very hard indeed not to interpret the visuals here correctly. Admittedly, yes, all the information a reader needs is repeated in the text box. But while this image-text repetition results in a certain level of redundancy intrinsic to the form at this time (i.e. 1973, not 2015) this occurs less frequently than you might expect in the following pages, but it does occur. I hold that this repetitiveness is entirely intentional and a natural result of the bifurcation of the workload, rather than bad writing per se. Say an editor asks a writer to write a script and assigns it to an artist, where’s the guarantee that they’ll get back a seamless piece of entertainment? It’s over there having tea with Lord Lucan is where that is. So, you make sure the writer writes it all down and you make sure the artist draws it all too; belt and braces, basically. Comics was different back then; it was better. No, of course it wasn’t. The rewards back then were pitiful. I’ve read this comic a couple of times and I can’t actually find the names “Robert Kanigher” or “Russ Heath” credited as writer or artist respectively. These dudes expected nothing. These dudes weren’t going on chat shows anytime soon, or getting their snout in the TV cash-trough, or snorting uncut Hollywood; they were making a comic and doing it as well as they could. Which in Russ Heath’s instance was phenomenally, in case I don’t make that clear later. Heath’s the star of this strip but Kanigher’s no slouch.

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher Robert Kanigher (1915-2002) was, reportedly, not well loved by his peers but as far as posterity is concerned that carries as much weight as a politician’s promise. You pick up this book and you'll just find Robert Kanigher’s a decent writer. This sucker just chugs along. It’s 14 pages long but it feels like three times that, and in a good way. In another way he’s a very bad writer because the strip is just a succession of events that aren’t actually thematically connected or any of that fancy stuff; but it entertains. Since that was his job - he’s a good writer here. For the bulk of the issue Rock is alone and adrift yet Kanigher singularly fails to let us into Rock’s head except via his terse and basic narration of events.

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

Most writers wouldn’t exercise such restraint. There are no revelations about Rock’s past; it’s all about his present. This is good because Rock is a pretty basic character. Whatever you throw at him, he doesn’t fall. He endures. He’s a rock. That’s it. (It works, don’t knock it.) Having flashbacks to Rock’s first sweetheart, harvesting waving fields of corn, labouring in the steel mill and being dandled on Pappy’s knee etc. would dilute him. Sure, such after the fact encumbrances would appear in other Rock comics and be so poorly policed that at one point if you totted them up he’d got three Dads, like some shitty sit-com or something. In this comic there’s none of that; just a man existing moment to moment. Because that's how you survive a situation this horrific. Well, in this comic anyway. However, Kanigher’s nerve buckles when it comes to having faith that this stoic castaway stuff will keep the audience attentive. So we have a flashback with Easy Co. storming a pill box so that the kids get their customary action scene, complete with Kanigher’s signature move – the "TNT-whatsit" phrase ("Looks like that flyin' swastika is goin' to put us in the ice-box --with a TNT ICE-BERG!"). In his defence Kanigher does use the scene to establish the particular quality of Rock the issue will pivot around; his stubbornness. And, let's face it, editorial may have required certain “Sgt Rock” elements to appear in every issue; I think that’s pretty likely. A more organic outburst of action occurs when Rock lands on one of those tiny islands the Pacific hosts which are as numerous as my grudges, and he encounters some Japanese soldiers. A sequence of violence is then depicted by Russ Heath who, with ink, brush and genius, manages to communicate all the desperate tension and explosive movement of such an encounter. Being the shy type I’ve never been attacked by Japanese soldiers on a beach but for a few seconds Russ Heath sure made me feel like I had. Just Rock and the Japanese officer are left and, sensibly enough, they decide to pool their resources until they get back to the war.

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

I know, I know, you’re ahead of me here and are already thinking of John Boorman’s 1968 movie HELL IN THE PACIFIC. This movie starred Lee Marvin and Tosihro Mifune as WW2 enemies stranded on a Pacific island who first fight then unite, before the War inevitably returns and with it, duty. And this bit in the comic is, indeed, like that fine movie, but it isn’t 103 minutes long it’s 14 pages long. Kanigher & Heath don’t have the room to do more than nod in the movie’s direction but it’s a firm nod. So, I guess there’s a bit of pop culture referencing going on there; some homaging, yeah? You didn’t realise they did that before Community did you! This basic premise was also, uh, homaged somewhat more extensively in an episode of Battlestar Galactica, but that hadn’t happened in 1973 and I doubt Robert Kanigher had seen it unless he was prone to prophetic visons of crap culture. Depends how hard he was hitting the sauce, I guess. I know I’ve seen a few sights that way (badgers on mopeds!) One of the interesting things about the movie is that Marvin and Mifune never stray from their native languages so the audience shares their frustrations and breakthroughs, this is a great idea but probably not one the public warmed to as the movie was a huge financial loss. Kanigher & Heath don’t have time for all that smart malarkey so it turns out the Japanese officer can speak English.

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

In a pithy masterclass on exposition, Kanigher establishes how that is ("My mother taught it in school." BANG! Job done.) Kanigher cannily uses the officer to have Rock fill us in on the story so far, which is one time too many really. As though sensing this Russ Heath wades in and draws the balls off of what is basically several panels of two men sitting and talking. The standout here is the bit where Russ Heath takes us under the surface of the sea to show a shark shadowing the raft and its oblivious passengers. A certain kind of easily excited blogger might start telling you that this shark represents the war which exists independently of the two men’s attention and could explode into their lives without warning. Me, I think Russ heath is keeping both himself and his readers awake and just really drawing that shark the way sharks should be drawn - really well. Look at that panel. Damn, the song Russ Heath’s art sang in 1973 is so strong in this comic I can hear it all the way in th efuture year of 2015.

As I’ve said the strip is only 14 pages long (did you catch that?) and yet Rock’s journey takes days, weeks even. Kanigher acquits himself well, but it’s Russ Heath’s art which leaves you feeling you’ve shared Rock’s journey and appreciating its span while he generously spares you the actual tedium of it. Heath’s opening splash is a majestic thing but the double pager that follows it up is equally strong. Having established Rock is adrift on the previous page Heath uses the top panels on the next page to punch home how long Rock’s been floating and the cost it’s had on him. Alternating (and enlarging) Day-Night-Day panels punctuated by repetitious babble take the eye across to the seagulls which become in Rock’s sun-fried mind, and before our eyes, planes swooping down from the top right with their bullet trails diagonally strafing the combat happy joes of Easy Co., who push across to the right against the bullets and take us to the page turn. That’s some pretty sweet visual storytelling right there.

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

In a later sequence similar to the one at the top of page two Heath manages to make it send a different message; this time the panels again indicate an indeterminate but large amount of time has passed but Rock seems barely to have moved. The maddeningly slow pace of drifting depicted there, because unless some weather is happening the sea isn’t really rushing anywhere.

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

Again and again, on every page it’s Heath’s eye for detail which convinces. Heath pays everything the same level of interest and doesn’t play favourites. As a result his people are convincing in posture and expression within a world that seems concrete. He actually draws the sea for a start, then there’s the stances in the tussle on the raft, the body blown back by bullets, the predatory grace of a shark, everything, all the way down to the scabs on Rock’s head.

Just another comic; just another day at work for Russ Heath & Robert Kanigher. Our Army at War #258 is just VERY GOOD!

SGT ROCK by Heath & Kanigher

In the end all rocks must crumble but some things endure. Yeah, I'm talking about COMICS!!!

“Who Will Buy My Biggish Shoes?" COMICS! Sometimes I Suddenly Realise What A Weird Idea Laugh Tracks Are!

This time out it’s The Bojeffries Saga by Steve (RESIDENT ALIEN) Parkhouse and Alan (CROSSED PLUS ONE HUNDRED) Moore. What? Yes, I am still in a mood. THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA by Steve Parkhouse & Alan Moore

Anyway, this… THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA Art by Steve Parkhouse Written by Alan Moore Top Shelf Productions, £9.99 (paper), £2.50 or something equally paltry (Digital) (2014) The Bojeffries Saga created by Steve Parkhouse and Alan Moore

Collected herein are all the extant Bojeffries Saga stories drawn by the sublime Steve Parkhouse and written by the astonishing Alan Moore. Having them all in one place is extraordinarily handy as the stories themselves were spread around a number of publications (WARRIOR, DALGODA, A-1, etc?) over a period of several decades and I don’t know about you (I’ve heard tales though) but my days of rooting about in longboxes like a pig hunting truffles are long gone. It’s just unseemly for a man of my age, you know. Also, I don’t live anywhere near my LCS. There’s even a previously unpublished strip to round out the book and further tempt the unconvinced. Anyway, a little clearing of the throat and we’re off. AAAahhhurrruHHHffluGGH-ACK-ACK! Oh, god, what is that! Um, it’s a fact: The Bojeffries Saga started in 1983 within issue 12 of Dez Skinn’s UK based monthly B&W anthology magazine WARRIOR. And, let’s be honest here, most of the appeal went over my then thirteen year old head. Far more appealing to my teeny tastes were Moore’s splashy reinvention of super-heroics (with Garry Leach and Alan Davis) in Miracleman and his (and David Lloyd’s) boldly political reinvention in V For Vendetta of The Abominable Dr Phibes as a stylish gutting of the vigilante trope (V isn’t a hero, just sayin’). In comparison with such lurid company The Bojeffries Saga was a somewhat more sedate proposition with, it turned out, equally lasting if far more subtle pleasures. The Bojeffries Saga didn’t change the course of capes comics forever and nor did it encourage people to protest capitalism en masse while sporting masks depicting a crap traitor purchased from a multi-national corporation. However, it did make me laugh. Which I think is the point of a comedy.

THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA by Steve Parkhouse & Alan Moore

Yes, The Bojeffries Saga is a comedy; it is essentially a comic book sit-com about a family. But one written by Alan Moore so the situation in question is, mostly, a humble British terraced house, and the family domiciled therein could only be described as a nuclear family because the baby is a sentient China Syndrome. Grandad Podlasp is a rapidly de-evolving Cthulloid mess, Glinda is a walking super-ego unfettered by self-awareness or restraint, uncle Raoul is a werewolf who isn’t the full shilling, uncle Festus is a vampire singularly failing to adapt to modernity, Reth, the son, consciously refuses to age past eleven and in their ridiculous midst paterfamilias Jobremus Bojeffries is just trying to keep the household running. Now the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum, what might be right for you might not be right for some! SHAZBAT! and I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson, today, and all that, right? No, America, because not all comedy is like your comedy.

THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA by Steve Parkhouse & Alan Moore

The Bojeffries Saga is nothing like all that business, because The Bojeffries Saga is quintessentially British and very consciously of its time. This does not (Does. Not.) mean it is dated and its humour has faded. It’s still funny and fresh because Parkhouse & Moore’s comic is so beautifully executed I suspect it will prove to have a half-life equal to one of the aforementioned irradiated baby’s motions. Also, by having its nonsensical cast rub up against the actual times in which it was produced like a needy moggy, it produces a kind of satirical static electricity every time the book is opened. You know what I mean. Timeless, innit. On these pages Parkhouse & Moore build up a picture of a Britain that never existed but a picture so informed by authenticity of detail and experience it becomes, satirical excesses aside, a historical document of a Britain which did exist. Remarkable.

THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA by Steve Parkhouse & Alan Moore

And it is, yes, that’s right, it is the little things. (No, see, I’m not making a joke about my penis here, because I have standards (but mostly because you expected one)) If The Devil is in the details then on the evidence of The Bojeffries Saga he’s got quite the sense of humour. (He’s still The Devil though; shun him!) Details, then. Christ, it’s like being back at school this. Okay, details it is. One chapter is written as a libretto by Moore and, logically enough, visually choreographed by Parkhouse as a dance number, and while the lightly comical way this captures and satirises the various gender and class divisions of the average British street of the time is remarkable in its efficiency and precision, being older than your pubes I was most struck by the reminder that car alarms were once as alien as having a werewolf as an Uncle. When the Bojeffries go on holiday the accumulation of only ever-so-slightly embellished detail made it feel like a recovered memory of all the tepid yet in retrospect deeply odd holidays I had endured as a child. Bloodbaths in Little Chefs initiated by PTSD riddled children’s toys (“Action Ears”!) aside, obviously. And industry? Remember when Britain had industries? When the majority of people worked in factories. Making stuff. And things. We used to be the best in the world at that! Making stuff and, er, things. Stanchions and that. Grommets. Instead today half the populace is employed in ringing up the other half of the populace to see if they have had an accident at work (not your fault!) or have purchased PPI recently. And the other half (yes, the third half. Glad to see you’re awake.) of the population have made a lifestyle choice to be poor and are getting fat on my taxes, isn’t that right David Cameron. Ey, David Cameron? Poverty is a “lifestyle choice” alright, you utter ****. (It’s okay, Brian, no need to get Legal involved, nobody reads this shit.)

THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA by Steve Parkhouse & Alan Moore

So, yeah, cough, uh, in one of the summers between terms working hard to piss away my parent’s dreams by failing to get a decent degree I worked for about three seconds in a pet food factory. In a very Bojeffries Saga touch I filled and assembled big cardboard Christmas crackers meant for dogs. They had dog biscuits in ‘em, rather than a very poor joke, a vinyl fish that can tell how sexy you are and a paper crown, obviously; what are you, nuts? The knack was in the folding; skills for life there. Now, limited as my horny handed experience was I can attest that Moore and Parkhouse’s chapter on Raoul’s workplace and their hilariously incendiary night out captures perfectly the bizarrely banal behaviour which passes for normalcy on the factory floor. Yes, in a dismayingly hilarious way Parkhouse and Moore convey all the fun and magic of the now mostly extinct manufacturing environment; with all its tedium, casual racism, cheeky misogyny and ever present threat that unspoken grudges will suddenly flare into violence. Good times, no, but the dog crackers got through. The later chapters might betray a slackening of the satirical noose as the targets seem slightly more obvious, the battles already lost. Mocking Reality TV probably only means something to people who still bear a grudge over the national shock when the light entertainer and Tory (natch) Leslie Crowther exhorted the British public in 1984 (game, set and natch) to “Cuhmm Ahhn DAWHN!”, and they did. It wasn’t Reality TV, but it was the thin end of the wedge. After Leslie Crowther, the deluge. So it’s 2015 and Reality TV has become as accepted as car alarms, but once both were new and both were funny and The Bojeffries Saga is a record of that time. History moves quicker now but The Bojeffries Saga just about kept up.

THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA by Steve Parkhouse & Alan Moore

I mean no disrespect to Steve Parkhouse when I say that Alan Moore’s the draw here because Moore’s the writer and that’s how comics, a primarily visual medium, works. Also, public awareness-wise Steve Parkhouse has missed a trick or two by not dressing like a Victorian dandy or worshipping a sock. Those being actual “lifestyle choices”, David Cameron, as opposed to poverty - which is not. Cowardly one sided baiting of our majority emboldened leader aside, the success of The Bojeffries Saga is down to Steve Parkhouse as much as Alan Moore, but it needs both to succeed, as anyone who has ever read the repellent and woeful Big Dave (which Parkhouse drew for 2000AD) will back me up. That piece of **** has never been reprinted, which is a mercy; for while there was nothing wrong with Parkhouse’s art the, ahem, script by Grant "Rebel, Rebel" Morrison (MBE) and Mark "The Socialist"Millar (MBE) is everything The Bojeffries Saga is not. And I mean that in a really bad way. A really bad way indeed. Posterity got it right by having The Bojeffries Saga survive and so we can still appreciate the lively and joyous art of Steve Parkhouse. Sure, the art on the part of Steve Parkhouse is a delight here, but then when is Steve Parkhouse’s art not a delight. (That’s rhetorical.) Right from the very first episode Parkhouse uses his deft draughtsmanship to conflate the scruffy fun of Leo (Bash Street Kids) Baxendale with the fidgety detail of Robert (Oh, come on now, really? Fritz The Cat, then.) Crumb while also providing facial cartooning the equal of Naoki (Monster) Urasawa. Parkhouse’s art develops, during the volume, from a fastidious approach with a slightly surreal filigree to a looser, and thus, more sprightly approach. Both styles are great but seeing the development flow through his work over the course of these pages is greater still. And Alan, Oor Alan, what of Alan Moore? Alan Moore seems to be having a ball here. Stylistically he shimmies about all over the shop, which is always a sign he’s enjoying his mystical self. There’s a libretto here, a story in the style of a (really) old Brit comic, plenty of fucking about with phonetics, and it’s all pretty ticklish round the funnybone region. Mind you, he still has a tendency to take a running joke and push it so hard that whether or not it passes through The Wall and breaks the tape like Seb Coe (a Tory) depends entirely on the reader. Other than that slight criticism, I’d have to say that The Bojeffries Saga by Steve Parkhouse and Alan Moore was very, very funny, which in real terms equates to VERY GOOD!

Sure, I could have saved us all a lot of grief and just said it was Eastenders by Monty Python directed by Mike Hodges, but where in that lot is there anything about - COMICS!!!

"I Have Got To Be Sure, You Old Poop!" COMICS! Sometimes Democracy Comes Second!

Yes! Beat out that rhythm on a drum! Here's the only comic reviews worth reading on The Internet. No, Not really. No, not really in the mood either but if I don't put something up They come round and stand outside my windows in silent judgement. Hoopla! Also, don't forget to Save The Hibbs - HERE! LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES by Jaime Hernandez

Anyway, this... GILBERT AND JAIME HERNANDEZ' LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES ISSUE 7 IS “FRISKILY AGAINST THE PRIVATISATION OF THE PENAL SERVICE” IN AN ISSUE WHICH IS “BOUNCY.”

LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES #7 Everything by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez Fantagraphics, $14.99 (2014) Love And Rockets created by Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez

My LCS always forgets to send me this because, I guess, they are young and they think my aged mind is rotted like the teeth of a candy addicted child, and probably also being like super old and intellectually vulgar I can't appreciate The Good Stuff. That John, they think, he just likes 1970s war comics and Howard Victor Chaykin. He's just not been the same, that John, since his cock left him for the circus, they say opening themselves to a libel suit. Or slander. I'm not the lawyer, that’s the other chap. Either way, you know what I mean. Eventually though I remember to ask for it and they send it and it arrives and I read it. Write what you know, right? Have you seen this stuff? Look, someone in Comics needs to talk to someone in a position of authority pretty damn sharpish before things get out of hand. I'd say send Tom Spurgeon because he is disturbingly level headed about everything but they'd bang him up before he got a word out, what with his not exactly being dissimilar to that rangy dude out of Manhunter.

LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES by Gilbert Hernandez

So, no, don't send him, but someone needs to be sent. Because on the evidence of the last few LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES it's just a matter of time before Gilbert Hernandez flies a dirigible painted to resemble a giant, solitary boob at the Superbowl while spraying jellybeans and blue urine from an intricate system of nozzles and feeder tubes while playing MMMBop! at a volume sufficient to shatter skulls like plates chucked at a fireplace. Gilbert Hernandez' contributions here look like he just got a felt pen and proceeded to set down a bunch of pages so ridiculously bizarre that they threaten at any moment to explode into a nightmarishly profound revelation about the very nature of reality itself. I mean, after the dirigible thing, people are going to ask why no one saw the warning signs, and we're all going to have to hide our copies of LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES and act sheepish until the hullabaloo dies down. Then the other one, that Jaime, he's doing his thing about relationships and the past and learning to live, learning to die and all that, and I realise he is excellent at it but all that? it's just not me but BOOMSHAMALAMABINGBANG! he then only goes and equals the derangement which fists its way through every page of his siblings efforts, and what we have here is a comic so insanely aflame with creative fire that we have to break the Emergency Glass and throw the word ART! at it. No doubt, no doubt at all, The Bros Hernandez are still simply the best; better than all the rest; NA NA NA NA STEAMY WINDOWS! BONUS: KIDS! Can you spot the two Thomas Harris references in the preceding? Bully for you; you'll still get old and hate everything you once held dear! EXCELLENT!

REVIEW: FRACTION, CHAYKIN & BRUZENAK’S SATELLITE SAM #12 WISHES IT “HAD MORE THAN ONE LIFE TO GIVE FOR ITS COUNTRY” WHILE ALSO REGRETTING “TAPING “EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND”.”

SATELLITE SAM #12 Art by Howard Victor Chaykin Written by Matt Fraction Lettered by Ken Bruzenak Image Comics, $3.50 (2015) Satellite Sam created by Matt Fraction & HowardVictor Chaykin

Show me the man who has greater love for Howard Victor Chaykin and Ken Bruzenak. (Show me! Show me!) No, that guy doesn’t count he’s just some bum you bribed with a cot and two squares to say that. Me, I’m the real deal; I‘m the original walking bias when it comes to Howard Victor Chaykin and Ken Bruzenak so it pains me to say that this (the twelfth; what will be the first in the third trade paperback; what is already $42.00 in real money) issue of Satellite Sam is the only one so far to actually have worked. A bit. That’s just me though. Matt Fraction described this comic as “the ultimate Howard Chaykin(sic) comic” apparently blind to the arrogant condescension within his glib shilling. (What about all the Howard Victor Chaykin comics Howard Victor Chaykin wrote and drew? What about The Shadow: Blood And Judgement, Blackhawk: Blood and Iron, American Flagg!, Time2, Midnight Men, Black Kiss, Black Kiss2, and all the ones that aren’t as good as those (but are still better than Satellite Sam)? Sweet Mother of Pearl, the unmitigated gall of the man.) Anyway, in this issue characters suddenly realise the series is almost over and stop aimlessly noodling about and start blurting lines more suited to those movies Sally Field and Brian Dennehy are in that only children and people old enough to have varicose veins in their eyes watch, because only they are at home during the day. “I'm just another hole your Daddy left behind that you can't fill!” shrills one character and we all pretend that this isn't just a Empty Bullshit Moment unattached to anything in the preceding issues. It's the pact we make with today's writers. A pact signed in lattes.

SATELLITE SAM by Howard Victor Chaykin, Matt Fraction & Ken Bruzenak

As full of blazingly manipulative yet calorifically negligent emotional bombast as this issue is it's still better than any of the preceding issues. Mainly, it's better because every scene isn't at least a third too long, hanging about like a hammy actor reluctant to leave the stage and Howard Victor Chaykin seems to no longer, apparently, be drawing in a state of arousal so heated he can barely see. Ken Bruzenak remains flawless as ever. When people tell you this comic was mature, provocative and insightful always remember it was dumb enough to have a character blackmail a writer and for that not actually be a joke. As it enters the home stretch it looks like SATELLITE SAM will wind up being a gauche muddle of half-digested research that expects everyone to share its naive shock that in the past there was racism, homophobia and sexual intercourse other than the missionary position. Anyway, this thing is over soon and then we can all concentrate on an actual Ultimate Howard Victor Chaykin Comic. One that will hopefully be better than OKAY!

REVIEW: MAHNKE, ALAMY, IRWIN, CHAMPAGNE, MENDOZA AND MORRISON'S THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS #1 "RESTS ITS BALLS FOURSQUARE ON THE CHIN OF FANDOM."

THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS #1 Art by Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy, Nark Irwin, Keith Champagne, Jaime Mendoza Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Gabe Eltaeb, David Baron Lettered by Steve Wands DC Comics, $4.99 (2015) Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

It was VERY GOOD! Because it was smart and entertaining but mostly because Mahnke & a crowded taxicab of inkers' art just plain fit like flesh on a skull. Those dudes are the dreamiest team. I hear inkers are on the outs what with there being no real need to divide the work that way for the hyper streamlined assembly line of 21st comic book production. I hope some teams stay together: this Sunday 5-a-side Team obviously, and Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, John Romita Jnr & Klaus Janson, Jack Kirby & Mike Royer, oh wait...Anyway back at Grant Morrison, we can't talk about the artists more than Grant Morrison now, can we? He'll get in a right snit. So, yeah, really now, can we have a moratorium on whining about Internet criticism within the books themselves. This childishly one sided last-wordism is even more distasteful as it always comes from the writers  criticism can’t touch.  Like Elvis sang, why are writers always first to feel the hurt and always hurt the worst. Or was it children? Is there even a difference? Questions. Anyway, thanks, Elvis; see yourself out. Loves his Mum, you know. Also, for someone so keen to be understood Morrison is remarkably opaque about the nature of his eggy Evil here. It’s the critics; no, wait, it’s the comics companies; no wait, it’s the fans; hang on, it's Terry Blesdoe from next door but one to me Mum; no, wait, it’s poor people; no, wait, it’s rich people; no wait, it’s Alan Moore! (It’s always Alan Moore! That utter, utter shit! Look at him over there apparently minding his own business, but we know he’s really biding his time. Oh, we’ve got your (big) number, Alan Moore!)

THE MULTIVERSITY: ULTRA COMICS by Mahnke, Alamy, Irwin, Champagne, Mendoza, Morrison, Eltaeb, Baron & Wands

I think (and I didn’t think too hard) it ended up being just that nasty old Negativity; it’s Bad Thoughts that are Dragging Us All Down, Maaaaan! If You Can’t Saying Anything Nice…Then You’re Evil. Seems fair enough. That’s the world’s problems sorted out then; who’s for a cuppa! Maybe I’m wrong. No doubt a small Commonwealth of vastly more gifted bloggers will shortly refract their own intelligence through the prism of this comic to reveal its hidden intricacies which, naturally, were there all along! It’s a smart book but it's a canny sort of smart; it’s all surface and any depth is dependent on the willingness of the reader to muck in and add it. I mean, seriously, there’s a bit about what’s the difference really between soldiers and murderers (Maaaaan)? #BIKOBAR! So, yeah, everyone just be nice; the Corporations are coming to save us!  Which is about the level of connection with the real world I’d expect from someone who lives in a castle with a medal from the Queen. MULTIVERSITY thus far is a mixed bag; MULTIVERSITY is pastiche, capiche? And Morrison can do pastiche well (Thunderworld) and he can do pastiche badly (Mastermen) so it all tends to even out. Here Grant Morrison's pastiche is of Grant Morrison so, of course , it works really well. When you can no longer impersonate yourself it's time to turn off the lights. It's not that time yet. Despite the niggling sense that behind the wonderful, intentionally slightly off-kilter art someone was throwing their toys out of their pram, this was smart and entertaining; it was VERY GOOD!

REVIEW: BURNHAM & MORRISON'S NAMELESS #3 “PREFERS ‘(NOT ENOUGH) LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING’ TO ‘GYPSIES, TRAMPS AND THIEVES’” LARGELY DUE TO “MISGIVINGS ABOUT FEDORAS FOR PIGS.”

NAMELESS #3 Art by Chris Burnham Written by Grant Morrison Coloured by Nathan Fairbairn Lettered by Simon Bowland Logo and Design by Rian Hughes Image Comics, $2.99 (2015) Nameless created by Chris Burnham & Grant Morrison

There are two reasons why this book works as well as it does (and it works very well indeed): Chris and Burnham. If it wasn't for Chris Burnham's Sunday joint textured art I'd have noticed that the first issue was a dense blizzard of folderol designed more to excite than deliver. Were Chris Burnham not so wonderful at imbuing every panel with sneakily discombobulating detail and at setting said panels in slyly unbalanced page designs I'd have maybe thought that the only real development in issue two was the jolly obvious “flu” reveal. And had it not been for Chris Burnham's deftly unsettling scale games in this, the most recent issue, better folk than I would have perhaps suspected that the pace was somewhat, ahem, leisurely and that narratively this should have all happened within the first two issues at most.

NAMELESS by Burnham, Morrison, Fairbairn & Bowland

Luckily though I was aware of none of that so dazzled was I by Chris Burnham's muscularly disturbing performance here. I didn't even notice that for someone so magically special and all that our hero is pretty crap. Even though NAMELESS remains basically Event Horizon - But Not Shit NAMELESS is VERY GOOD! because last time I looked NAMELESS still had Chris Burnham.

NEAL, SCHIGEL, KOCHALKA, WICKS, SIENKIEWICZ, DESTEFNO, DEPORTER, BRUBAKER, WEISER, HI-FI, JIHANIAN, KUBINA AND LEIGH'S SPONGEBOB COMICS #43 BELIEVES IN “FROM EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR ABILITY, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED” AND SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE WITH EVEN A SHRED OF GODDAMN HUMAN DECENCY.

SPONGEBOB COMICS #43 Art by Nate Neal, Gregg Schigel, James Kochalka, Maris Wicks, Bill Sienkiewicz, Stephen DeStefano, Vince DePorter, Charles Brubaker Written by Nate Neal, James Kochalka, Maris Wicks, Joey Weiser, Vince DePorter, Charles Brubaker Coloured by Hi-Fi, Levan Jihanian, Monica Kubina Lettered by Rob Leigh

This isn't a particularly spectacular issue of SPONGEBOB COMICS; it does remain, however, beautifully illustrated and amusing enough to be a papery riposte to the idea that this kind of thing must needs be crapped out hackery. I mention it not because Bill Sienkiewicz has provided a cover with the titular spongiform loon in his best Wolversponge pose, but because Bill Sienkiewicz also provided a pull out two-page poster of Spongebob as a kind of symbiotic melange of kitchen utensils and undersea cretin. What this means, in effect, for people of a certain age is that Bill Sienkiewicz has provided a poster in a children's comic which readily brings to mind his creator owned '90s epic of child-murder, mental breakdowns, talking birds and general nutjobbery, STRAY TOASTERS. Now, tell me that ain't GOOD!

SPONGEBOB COMICS by DeStefano, Weiser, Jihanian & Leigh

We're having an Election over here but when the dust settles and it's all over no matter who is in charge we'll still have – COMICS!!!

“PREPARU POR LA BATALO!” COMICS! Sometimes They Are Bilingual (But Not Single)!

And now a word from our sponsors: Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Remember: Comics is better with Brian Hibbs in it! So heed the call! Or, y’know, read the linked article, think about it and after a period of sober reflection make a considered decision. Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! We now return to our regular programming:

It’s Event Season! And so in the much loved tradition of ignoring what you 'orrible lot want to hear about let’s look at an Event from last year involving a primitive sedentary aquatic invertebrate with a soft porous body clad in a quadrilateral outer garment covering the body from the waist to the ankles, with a separate part for each leg ,whose name contains the diminutive of Robert. Or: Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

Anyway, this… SPONGEBOB COMICS #32-36 Showdown at The Shady Shady Shoals Parts 1 - 5 Art by Derek Drymon with Jerry Ordway Written by Derek Drymon Coloured by Hi-Fi Lettered by ComicCraft United Plankton Pictures, $2.99 each (2014) Spongebob Squarepants created by Stephen Hillenburg

The larger corpus collectively titled Showdown at The Shady Shoals is composed of five episodic portions which originally appeared in Spongebob Comics #32 -36 , and occupied one half of each of those issues. The remaining portion of each individual periodical was given over to the regular assortment of short comedic features by a variety of talent including, but by no means limited to, Tony Millionaire.

Image by Drymon, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

In Showdown At The Shady Shoals Spongebob attempts to sew into a friendship belt the statistics of all the battles fought by his idol, Mermaid Man. Spongebob diligently harvests this information from old issues of his Mermaid Man comics but completion of the crafted keepsake is threatened when the finale of Mermaid Man’s first battle with Viro Reganto is found to be missing. Or is not found to be not missing. Look, I don’t have time for this; it isn’t there, basically, Buster. Luckily for our porous pal and his loyal cretin of a chum, Patrick, help is at hand down the road at The Shady Shoals Retirement home, wherein resides the witless old fool which Mermaid Man has become. Is the key to Spongebob’s quest contained within the withered cranium of the aged aquatic ace? Whither Viro Reganto? Has Viro Reganto in fact literally withered, because it’s been a while and, let’s be honest,  Mermaid Man has weathered about as well as an untreated fence. Will we ever know whether Viro’s weathered and withered or whether he’s weathered with vigour?  Can you rely on the memory of someone like Mermaid Man? What if you can’t? Isn’t it sad in that movie when they point out that all we are is our memories, and when we lose them we too are lost? I don't want to lose myself!!! Will Mermaid Man stop shouting? Can a sea cucumber be found who is capable of assessing the karmic balance of events as they unfold? Will the narrative adhere to the device commonly known as Chekov’s Sentient Tidal Wave Trapped In A Decommissioned Submarine (i.e. “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a sentient tidal wave trapped in  decommissioned submarine, before the story closes the sentient tidal wave trapped in a decommissioned submarine must return to menace our porous protagonist and his aged allies. If it’s not going to menace our porous protagonist and his aged allies, it shouldn’t be trapped in there. Also, a submarine is  naval wessel, Captain. Phasers to stun!”)? Is a villain who resembles a cross between a man and a manta ray called Man Ray plain wasted on children? Are they really going to pepper Viro Reganto’s dialogue with Esperanto and provide a key to this real-life “universal language” each issue in various hilarious forms? Will you just go and track these issues down, already!?!

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

Basically Showdown at The Shady Shoals is stupid from soup to nuts. It’s stupid nut soup. That doesn’t mean Derek Drymon's script isn’t very clever though. Clever croutons bobbing about in the stupid nut soup. Er. Anyway…The story is split between the “past” and the “present” and, logically enough, so is the art. In the “present” Derek “Double Threat” Drymon draws events in the style of the Spongebob cartoon with a soupçon of his own style to keep it distinctive. So far, so good but also, so far pretty much par for the course for Spongebob Comics (which are never less than GOOD!) The clever bit is having the “past” sequences drawn by Jerry “My Way or The“ Ordway. This is just a fantastically apt choice because the “past” isn’t the “past”, see, it’s actually Spongebob’s old Mermaid Man comics, and Mermaid Man is very much a ridiculous riff on Nick Cardy/Ramona Fradon-era Aquaman. Last I heard Jerry Ordway was bemoaning being out of vogue and light on work, so it’s kind of nice his  getting a payday out of hamming up the datedness others saw as a lack in his work. I say others because I, that is me, don’t think classy action dynamics ever dates and Jerry Ordway is all about classy action dynamics. So: Jerry Ordway never dates, you feel me. And before you start thinking that self-satirising is all someone as old as Jerry Ordway’s fit for, I’ll just point out he’s doing a bang up job on Semiautomagic in Dark Horse Presents for Alex De Campi. And that one’s nothing like Spongebob Squarepants. And another thing about Jerry Ordway is…no, just joking, I’m done. Just spreading the Jerry Love is all.

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

There’s a lot of cleverness in the unobtrusive way Drymon makes hay with the uh, elastic setup of Spongebob’s universe. It’s set underwater but this impacts so rarely on anything that it’s easily forgotten, so you don’t actually get the joke about rescuing people from drowning until a character points out the stupidity of this. In fact so easily forgotten is the undersea setting that this trick is pulled more than once with equal success.  Or it might be that my memory’s not so hot either. And here's another illustration of the good use the strip puts the, uh, mutable milieu of Spongebob to: well, I mean, back there it all  got a bit confusing didn’t it? With the “past” and “present”, but the “past” isn’t even the past it’s actually the comics so in effect the comics Spongebob owns are taken as historical documentation of actual events. And you don’t blink at that because, why not?

It’s Spongebob’s show, but Mermaid Man’s the star. I like Mermaid Man right from the name down. I particularly like his name because it reminds me of that time I was a young man and I had nothing in the house except some rice and marmalade. So I concocted what I dubbed Marmarice. Mermaid Man, Marmarice? Really, John? Hey, similar enough for government work, pal. Sure, I like Mermaid Man more on the cartoon show because he was voiced by the late and very great Ernest Borgnine (who I believe wiser minds have dubbed “the dreamiest”) but his paper incarnation retains the cadences of the character’s speech so well you can hear a ghostly overlay of Borgnine’s gruff blustering as you read every buffoonery filled bubble. Drymon's ability to conjure the characters' vocal counterparts isn’t limited to Mermaid Man though. Everyone sounds right and I guess that’s down to the writing. Although, on reflection the fact that I’m looking at a sponge with a face probably cues my brain in on which “voice” to “hear” with my “mind-ears”. Of course, in the case of new characters like Viro Reganto I don’t have a voice pre-loaded but thanks to the preening machismo of his dialogue and posture it’s not hard to pull a suitable voice from the memory library. (Personally, I plumped for Ricardo Montalban’s Khan.)

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

Because I live in deadly fear of actually improving at this writing nonsense I’ve almost forgotten to mention what might be the most important fact about Showdown at The Shady Shoals – it’s very funny. I have quite purposefully not used any of the jokes (altho' I have shown some; there was no way round that) because while you can spoil the plot of something if it’s well written there’s still pleasure to be had (I don’t re-read Watchmen every two years because I forgot what happens, you know?) but jokes? Good jokes are hard and there’s plenty of them here and I thought it would be poor show to ruin them. All the humour is kid friendly, but no less funny for that. There’s a range of humour from ridiculous conceits, deadpan mocking of capes conventions, slapstick, wordplay and a hilarious answer to what would happen if superheroes existed in the real world. Since this is Spongebob rather than, say, Miracleman’s flesh flapping on barbed wire and subsequent icily dehumanised paradise we get sink fixing and stairwell painting. It’s funny stuff; it's fit for ll ages. Although I do realise humour is personal so you may disagree, in which case you’re wrong.

Image by Drymon, Ordway, Hi-Fi & ComicCraft

Yes, I did consider writing this in Esperanto but then I thought about the shape your face would take in response and thought better of it. Also, that's a lot of work but I did think about it. It might even have been worth the effort because Showdown At The Shady Shoals (Spongebob Comics#32-36) is VERY GOOD!

Postscript:

Ernest Borgnine died in 2012.

Marmarice tastes like the devil’s shit. John went hungry that night. He likes to believe he is now a much better person.

Jerry Ordway remains at large.

Hey, Kids! COMICS!!!

"In This Issue: EVERYONE DIES!" Sometimes It's Not Just The G.I. Who is Immortal!

Being a gallery of comics covers featuring The Unknown Soldier, drawn mostly by Joe Kubert (1926-2012). Yes, okay, a cursory bit of staid analysis and a little tearful nostalgia too, but mostly some timelessly exciting imagery. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did (and continue to). Art by Gerry Talaoc

Anyway, this... It will be readily apparent to even the most bleary of eyes that the majority of the covers below are by Joe Kubert. The rare exceptions are by Ernie Chua (Ernie Chan) and Al Milgrom. The difference is striking. Noting that difference is certainly no slur on either man as Joe Kubert had few equals when it came to cover art and design, and even fewer equals when it came to war comic cover design.

Because Kubert provide covers for the majority of the Faceless G.I.'s escapades this gallery, incomplete as it may be, highlights several aspects of Kubert's cover art. There's no escaping Kubert's fondness for the cover delivering the chilly thrill equvalent to the "He's Behind You!" of children's pantomimes. (e.g. #166,#174, #181 etc) Joe Kubert would never get tired of this device and because Joe Kubert was an amazing talent it never got old. So amazingly talented was Joe Kubert that he could produce covers which could still capture the eye despite teetering dangerously close to the generic. (e.g. #185, #192,#193 etc) Back then it was not uncommon for covers to be held on file for use in the event of a deadline chrunch, so this explains the lack of specificity here rather than any disinterest on Kubert's part. Those are the least of these covers, and they are also the fewest. (They are still good though.) Outnumbering them by far are images so pulpily explosive I want to go and find out what's going on inside that comic right now. And I already know!

And just as I can recall the exact page of Gullivar Jones: Warrior of Mars where I fell in love with Gil Kane's work, so I can remember exactly which comic cover sold me on Joe Kubert for life. It's #195. An American relative visited us when I was under 10 and brought with them a pile of comics. Yes, even then everyone knew no good would come of me. I can't remember any of the other comics but I remember that one. I remember that one because the charge of violent menace coming off it was almost palpable. I recall that for several months I kept it beneath my bed and, when feeling brave, would lean over and inch it out with my finger until I could take its horrid promise no more and scoot it hurriedly back into the darkness. Brrrr!

Sometimes I think The Unknown Soldier is in danger of being forgotten by Comics, but I shouldn't worry because Comics will never forget Joe Kubert and their legends are entwined. He co-created him after all.

Enjoy!

The Unknown Soldier was created by Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher

So, no, I don't have the final issue. Humph!

You know what those were right? COMICS!!!

"Plus, I Was HIGH As F***ing S***." COMICS! Sometimes Justice Is Like A Cop Who Gets Shot In The Face, It Must Go Hooded!"

Half-term's over! So, at the risk of sounding like I’m the kind of guy who smells like wet newspaper and breathes like his nose doesn’t work, I took a look into Archie’s Dark Circle. Putting my trademark amusingly poor intimations that I am talking about peering up a man called Archie’s arse aside for the moment let's consider that Black Mask comic that came out not an incredibly long time ago. THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

Anyway, this... REVIEW: SWIERCYZNSKI & GAYDOS’ BLACK MASK IS “NOT GUILTY OF ANY CRIMES INVOLVING CONGESS WITH DOMESTICATED FOWL ,AS FAR AS WE CAN TELL”: THREE STARS!!!!

BLACK MASK #1-2 Art by Michael “Gay Deer” Gaydos Written by Duane “Scrabble” Swierczynski Lettered by Rachel “One Shot” Deering Coloured by Kelly “Irish Pants” FitzPatrick Cover by Howard Victor “Flashdance” Chaykin and Jesus “Wept” Arbuto Archie Comic publications, $3.99 each (2015) Black Hood created by Harry “Mama's Little Baby Loves” Shorten in Nineteen Goddamn Forty

I guess my LCS sent this because Howard Victor Chaykin did the covers; it certainly isn’t because I’m a fan of Archie Comics.  In fact I’m not even going to pretend I know anything about Archie Comics and, frankly, while I am paid a King’s ransom (a really unpopular king judging by the ransom) to do this I’m not paid enough for me to bother doing any research. It seems though that until recently Archie Comics survived far longer than anyone had any right to expect by producing amiable exercises in non-threatening nostalgia. This nostalgia was of a very American stripe and centred largely around milkshakes, paper crowns and perpetually deferred troilism. However, a few years back someone at Archie (hopefully someone actually called “Archie”.) realised Eisenhower was dead, Korea was never going to actually officially surrender and people of all colours could now use the drinking fountains. Basically, it was time to move with the times and, without ever actually having read any of their stuff, it seems they’ve done a pretty decent job. Archie Comics proper continue on but now with gay people and gun crime, and for the teen crowd there’s Archie versus zombies (with added patricide and pet sadness) and Sabrina versus Leatherface, Pumpkinhead and Cthulhu.  Well, maybe something like that, because as I say I haven’t actually bothered to read any of that stuff. Despite Archie Comics taking the absurd approach of putting some thought into what they’ve done and employing talented, creative people this seems to have paid off for them with success both in sales terms and critical reception. I certainly hope no one learns from their example!

THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

So, Black Mask is produced under Archie’s Dark Circle imprint. Archie’s Dark Circle is, as I just said, part of Archie Comics’ ongoing revelation that  Zap! Pap! Pap! comics aren’t just for people who eat mashed beets anymore! Yeah! Fuck the fucking fuck off, Pops, because Dark Circle is for slightly older teens - being basically Archie’s version of Marvel’s MAX. Here, within Archie’s Dark Circle (hurr!), people are free to do what they want to do; provided what people want to do is say “fuck a doodle doo” and get shot in the face. Black Mask is a character I have no history with (e.g. I was unaware until 30 seconds ago that Rick Burchett did some pretty sweet work on the character back in the ‘90s) so I just read this comic like any other jackass. Is it true to the character? I don’t know. There it is -the kind of quality reviewing that keeps you coming back.

THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

Physically these issues are pretty unpleasant things with the cover stock being disagreeably tactile; like the scratch pad on the side of a box of matches. Ugh! Nice art though by Howard Victor Chaykin on my covers. Inside it’s Michael Gaydos doing his very best “Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Alex Maleev…!” In fact someone should go check on Alex Maleev to see if he's okay. Michael Gaydos' art here is so much “Alex Maleev” it's not entirely beyond possibility that he fried Maleev up with some onions to ingest his essence. Y'know, like they used to do in primitive cultures, mostly around Brighouse. Look, cards, table and all that; Gaydos’ art isn’t a style I like, which doesn’t mean it isn’t any good, it just means I don’t like it. Here it’s basically the same style as Alex Maleev - all photo references and digital manipulation. To my eyes it all looks like a collage where the elements don’t sit quite right, locations are sparsely peopled, the acting veers from corpse-like to boggle eyed mania and inertia constantly presses a pillow over the face of any sense of motion. It's kind of like fumetti but with scribbling on top. (In Italy (Ay! Caramba!) I hear fumetti means all comics but I’m not in Italy, so here I just mean photographic comics. I’m very popular in Italy so I wanted to avoid any confusion amongst my Italian fans. Auf Wiedersehen, mes amis!) Unluckily for Gaydos I was reared on the revived Eagle with its Doomlord fumetti and, y’know, Alex Maleev & Michael Gaydos aren’t fit to touch the hem of Doomlord’s spangly space gown. Scribble on Doomlord and he'd take you down with a hot blast from his ring. Honestly, the art’s fine; I’m just old. Sometimes you’re just old, and shouting “Just try fucking drawing!” says more about your ossified tastes than the work at hand, so you're probably as well just waving it through and keeping schtumm. The style wasn't to my taste but it was well executed. Man, this is some even handed shit I’m doling out today. Take a picture!

THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

Really, old man carping aside, the photographic realism underlaying it all is a good choice because I get what they are after. Yeah, I get what they are after; they are after communicating a real sense of place, that place being Philadelphia. Grounding the somewhat outré events in a hyper mundane setting isn’t a bad idea at all. Because these are some seriously outré (French for “out there”) events. Usually I get my wattles flapping over the, uh, “languorous” pacing of modern comics but here I think maybe Black Mask goes a bit too fast. Sure the hustle helps you crest the speed bumps of disbelief but the brisk pace tends to rush past stuff better dwelt on. It feels like Swierczynski is trying to get to a place where he can start his story proper, but I think he’s got enough of a proper story here already.  Hopefully he’ll develop some of the stuff he’s touched on because faceache’s partner is just there, the lady is too nice, faceache’s back at work a bit quick (would you even go back to work in that state?), the drug habit is a bit “comic booky” (it only has consequences when narratively required) but, but, but, you know, shit’s happening. I mean, we’re two  issues in and more has happened than in a year of most books. In the second issue the bad guys have already framed our protagonist with a combination of cat burglary and Unknown Soldier level mimicry. These pivotal bad guys just appear and do their job and while I don't want to see them quipping at each other for six bloody issues before they actually do something it's all, y'know, a bit sudden. The book goes for an odd tone – a little bit grounded but with plenty of pulp daftness. Our hero is one unlucky sumbitch and while I'm not going into it much to avoid spoilers, well, I’m not saying they lay it on a bit thick but I was waiting for a scene where he caught his balls in a drawer while looking for his socks. And it...works. I'll give it that. Beyond his plotting and tone (which is due to Gaydos in great part) I liked Swierczynski's writing. By which I mean his writing writing – the words. Not so much the dialogue, which is okay in that real-people-don't-talk-like-this-except-in-movies-but-let's-pretend-they-do way, but rather the narration. This is in that flat style crime books favour but Swierczynski doesn’t pare it back so much it’s like the narrator’s got neurological damage (“I pulled the trigger. And I didn’t stop until the fast things stopped coming out. My shoes are brown. Cake is nice.” (Brubaking as it’s called; it’s a joke! Lighten up, or you’ll get lines on your face!)) (Hard) boiled down as it is Swiercynski, retains a sense of character, and that's no small writing trick to pull.

THE BLACK HOOD by Gaydos, Swierczynski, Deering & Fitzpatrick

Oh yeah, so going back a bit, the creators are clearly all about a convincing real world setting. Philadelphia is, apparently, real. (I know! You come for the scans but you stay for the facts!) In the letters column Duane Swierczynski says that apparently some people call it ‘Killadelphia’. Having endured certain other people’s backmatter in the past I suspected a bit of, um,over dramatizing there but, because I am a fair man, I googled it and, yes, Philadelphia is apparently “the murder capital of the USA”, which is some kind of achievement. With, no doubt, a heavy heart indeed Duane Swierczynski makes the place look even worse. People love that don’t they? There are going to be letters galore for this book, and I bet you a night down the Bingo not one (Not. A. Single. Solitary. One.) will say “Actually, there are some very nice bits of Philadelphia, and to be honest I don’t think you’re doing the place any favours at all.” No, it’ll all be about how the letter writer had to kick their way through piles of burning dogs to get to their LCS and how they were stabbed ninety seven times just cleaning the oven and ,damn, if Black Hood hasn’t just captured to a tee the filthy depravity that is every square Hellish inch of Philadelphia (motto: “Stay the fuck away!”) Bunch of lightweights, I say. Check Basingstoke out sometime: everyone there uses each others faces as toilets – out of choice! So, yeah, people are weird; people’s pride manifests in strange ways, but it always manifests in some way. I think it would be a mite healthier if the creatives involved took pride in having made an enjoyable and decent comic. If you enjoyed Alex Maleev’s work on Daredevil but wished it was better written Black Mask might well be the book for you. Black Mask is GOOD! I'll probably keep getting it – result!