Results tagged “Alan Moore” from Birmingham Mail - Speech Balloon

HORROR IS a subjective matter, especially with comics where your first exposure tends to be alone, and so all the scarier a reading experience.

GHASTLY GRAHAM Ingels in E.C. titles such as The Crypt of Fear, old Doc Wertham with his paranoia-strewn psychological treatise Seduction of the Innocent. Yeah, these are the frameworks within which horror comics start getting discussed by academic and novice alike. But me, I was born in a far different time to when such items first came out.

Those comics, and reference books to them, didn't touch me in quite the same way as other books would. So let me take you on a fleeting visit through my own personal years of growing up disgracefully with the horror comics' genre.

Picture the late sixties and a small shy boy. His mother was generous beyond belief, allowing him the majority of the weekly titles that were then available at the newsagents across the road. One such was Fleetway's Lion. Within its pages were episodes of the world's greatest criminal mastermind, The Spider. A cruel looking man, decked out in black with web-spinning artillery aplenty. As illustrated by Birmingham's very own Reginald Bunn he showed little mercy in his quest for power, bringing fear and excitement in equal measures to my innocent young mind. I didn't even know horror existed as a genre back then but all such future strips have had to measure up to that magnificent strip.

There was a spinner rack in that shop. You picked magazines by an equation that measured height with maturity. On the lower rungs were imported Marvel and DCs, in the middle were horror and crime fiction mags, and at the top Playboy and its soft porn imitators. I can't recall exactly when, but a lad (whom I didn't particularly like) showed me a copy of Warren's Famous Monsters film-fumetti mag. It was okay, but nothing special. Yet it did attract me enough to search out that middle section again and the worlds of Creepy and Eerie. But they stopped popping up in any newsagents I could get on my bike and ride to. No, I wouldn't get to see those fiendish large covers again until I was all grown-up and from the moment I started strolling into comic shops that stocked them I devoured them like others would Big Macs.

Publisher James Warren's initial success was down to the company bringing back into the medium EC artists. Names included Wally Wood, Al Williamson, Frank Frazetta and Reed Crandall; whose stirring period-set pieces were rendered with such exquisite detail that I literally felt transferred to the very localities illustrated.

The true value of those early days was in Archie Goodwin who wrote and edited many of the early issues. Goodwin would match a story with the strengths of an artist's style, a practical idea but quite novel in its day. As such, the tales were well written, albeit they tended towards the accepted conventions of the genre with shock/surprise ending. The edge of terror abated somewhat as Uncle Creepy walked into the final panel giving a deadpan joke slant to the proceedings.

New artists came in like Steve Ditko, who on the Goodwin-penned Collector's Edition designed his pages to give an innovative slant with flashback sequences that created what remains one of the all-time horror comic classics. And it only took 10 pages.

Goodwin of course went on to pastures greener and artists came and went. The Warrens fluctuated between reprint and new work, for many years being kept afloat by the Captain Company mail order service in the back of the books. Many European and South American artists were first introduced to English speaking countries through the Warren mags, but home-grown talent still kept its foot in the door, especially the writers.

The seventies were the times of sexploitation, blaxploitation and a thousand hoary stereotypes. Warren's writers reflected those times, some pretty near the knuckle and the titles have been rebuked for doing so, but trust me on this one, you really have to check the titles out during their mid to late period. There was some fascinating stuff going on, a lot of it being trial and error, mainstream fiction writing cloaked in sci-fi and horror with storytelling techniques nurtured that would not enter the predominant American superhero genre until a full decade later.

Marvel, DC and Charlton came out with many harmless monster and ghost books over the years. Things I would buy when nothing else was available. To this day, I prefer the also-ran anthologies at Charlton. There, weirdness and absolute schlock were given free rein under the artistic pens of Tom Sutton, Joe Staton and, again, that man Ditko.

Continue back with me on my trip down memory lane, where the ghosts of my past snigger in the shadows. There's this longhaired blond nodding his head gently in Bogarts on New Street. However, it's not the sound of some Led Zeppelin clones he's gleefully acknowledging but an item his new big friends refer to as underground comix. Cartoony tales of adult escapades and impossible intakes of drugs in most cases, but there were others, rough diamonds in the whole of comic's wasteland that displayed a voice of reason crying out to tell you about the atrocities of the world.

Skull Comics is the most renowned title others will mention in this sub-genre. It was EC horror inspired, finding a home for the collective works of Jaxon, Spain Rodriguez and Richard Corben (whose The Rats in the Wall was described by Steve Bissette as the best adaptation of a H.P. Lovecraft story into comics) and others such as Tom Veitch and Greg Irons.

Together and individually G.I. and T.V. (as they affectionately called themselves when they would cameo within their own strips) related tales that on the surface could sicken or at the least be morbidly humorous, with the true gut emotion being the things they considered as wrong with society. A good example of Greg Irons' solo work can be found in Slow Death #10, where his tales about cancer remain unnerving thirty or so years after them first being committed to print.

Modern horror comics of course bow before Swamp Thing. When DC asked Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben to steer the course of their property the company obviously felt sales were that bad nothing mattered. What they didn't realise was that these boys were born to boogie with the bogey men, and, as spiritual followers of Veitch and Irons, they brought us horror of a psychological, environmental and blood-curdling form and staked their patch to make some seriously significant commercial sales for the genre. With the acclaim that the series brought DC it invested in further titles that eventually lead to the whole Vertigo imprint.

Hellblazer was first out of the gate. Writer Jamie Delano forced me to wallow in the birth pains of a cosy England mired by Thatcher's political stormtroopers giving slow birth to the current Me generation. The first 10 issues remain some of my favourite work by artist John Ridgway. The photo-realism craft of the Rayner/Buckingham may have looked more urban contemporary for the time but it didn't move me in the same way as the dichotomy presented in Ridgway's classic renditions against Delano's mannered words. There have been other writers and many artists on the title since it began, some of the writers having pretty credible runs, a much-panned film too but it remains a solid cult favourite.

When Neil Gaiman gave us The Sandman its dark fantasy proved popular, it brought in a large female following, and sales kept rising. Those were facts you couldn't argue with.

Moore would end his run on Swampy to go into self-publishing and later teach us ABC. Artist Rick Veitch took over (brother of Tom, they had collaborated in 1973 with Two-Fisted Zombies). He surprised the doubting Thomases with his skill. He himself would leave after an affair concerning censorship.

Many books would debut in Swamp Thing's wake (and a general 80s horror boom); both good and bad, derivative and innovative. There was DeMatteis' Greenberg the Vampire, the confusing Blood: A Tale, Death Rattle, Stig's Inferno, Mr Monster, Black Zeppelin, Fly in My Eye (Steve Niles's first books), Yummy Fur, Deadtime Stories, Deadworld, Horror, Faust, Gore Shriek and Shriek (both of which contained a good contingent of young British creators).

In 1983 Bruce Jones, who had moved from Warren to making Ka-zar a title worth reading at Marvel, became a writer/editor at the recently formed Pacific Comics.

Twisted Tales again told stories in that modernish EC/Warren manner, and some very nice art indeed came out. When I look back on the titles that Jones did at Pacific what still impresses most is his production work and graphic art direction. They are factors too few comic publishers truly appreciate.

When Pacific ran into financial difficulties Eclipse Comics took over publishing. Twisted Tales became Tales of Terror and Aliens Worlds ended up as Alien Encounters, pale imitations that eventually ceased to exist. But Jones had long since moved onto writing novels and scripts for the HBO TV channel . He only returned to comics in recent years, initially producing short pieces for anthologies under the Vertigo imprint at DC then redefining The Hulk at Marvel. Then he bounced back with a two-year exclusive deal for DC in the summer of 2004, with horror books promised as part of the deal, and Deadman being first out of the coffin box.

People tend to forget about Twisted Tales, more easily recalling what Bissette and Totleben cryptically referred to as "The October Project", as they themselves prepared to leave Swamp Thing. When it eventually saw the twilight of night under the name of Taboo, it was the next stage in comic book horror. A lovingly produced black and white anthology album.

There were stories that certainly went for the jugular but Bissette wasn't just using the title to show ripped out organs. He was gathering work that reflected on real problems: child abuse, phobias, and the callousness of humanity hidden just under the skin. Hey, he was just trying to put out a coffee table tome on a regular basis that still retained some of those old underground comix values he himself had been inspired by! Bissette went through several printers trying to get #2 printed. He made it in the end, but it was going to be uphill from then on. And it was, despite the fact that this is where From Hell first appeared. Officially, Steve Bissette no longer does comics.

Considering the popularity of British horror creators in the US, few comics have found any success here in the UK.

In 1971, New English Library brought out Dracula and Frankenstein, largely uninspired European reprints. For the underground, Napalm Kissers Mike Matthew and Steve Gibson did their bits in the pages of Knockabout. Mini-series such as Shock Therapy and The Last Kiss came and went and the juvenile IPC/Fleetway Scream actually wasn't too bad at all, we were all just caught up in where we thought 2000AD was growing to give it a chance.

Ironically, before it went belly-up, Trident nearly had something going with Mark Millar's earliest outing in Saviour - he fortunately he appeared to rework those ideas into his Canon Fodder series within 2000AD.

The main worthy outlet for the genre from Britain was the Dez Skinn edited House of Hammer. As the name suggests, much of the work was initially based upon films, in the form of text features, interviews and comic strips by the likes of Steve Moore, Brian Bolland, Angus McKie and John Bolton. Personally speaking, I came to these late as reprint strips dedicated to one artist or another and published in America by Eclipse. House of Hammer had one continuing character in Father Shandor, a priest who fought the demoness Jaramshella, subsequent stories were serialised in Warrior and eventually A1.

So there we go, scattershot reminisces of some of my wayward readings. I've bounced back and forth down the decades in the telling, and notice I've hardly had a word to say about recent times, which more or less means there's little out there from the mainstream that I think's worth my shekels. Although it has to be said, hasn't that young Steve Niles done well for himself.

I've hinted about how society has moulded the thinking behind horror in general, and comics in particular, but never really given you an answer why. That's your decision, there's an awful lot of variety in the stuff that I've mentioned and you might want to dig among the back issue bins and get the same buzz from them that I did, and still do with quite a few of the comics.

Your mother might not like it, nor might mine, but if you've taken time out to read the whole of this piece, then the chances are you will!

These days there are new horror comics, The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Britain's Charlie Adlard being a popular one internationally, while Dead Ahead that I'm lucky enough to be involved with myself features the art of living legend Alex Nino who brought so many Warren magazines to life, and for those interested in the horror comics medium new and old they'd do well to check out From the Tomb, a magazine dedicated to that very subject.

CRIME, DETECTIVE & Thriller Collections.

Nowheresville
By Mark Ricketts
(Image)

Mark Ricketts' art has come on a bundle since I last saw it - I can't remember where, but I'm sure it was a Caliber Press comic published back in the 90s, but not his actual Nowhereseville titled comic.

This here's a Zen beatnik crime novel, a murder mystery that mixes Chandler and Kerouac. It's hard not to think of Howard Chaykin at every turn of the page, and one's particularly drawn to the odd similarity with Black Kiss both in use of b/w art and plot situations here and there. But Ricketts has ironically got some credible reviews while that particular Chaykin trope got slagged and amusingly, mostly, by people who hadn't seen it.

Nowheresville has strong enough legs to stand on its own two feet without too many comparisons. It rambles occasionally, with the beatnik take probably being the excuse but overall it has got nice art, an interesting okay story and shows a good promise for future work that I will check out.

On the Road to Perdition: Sanctuary, Book 2 0f 3
By Max Allan Collins & Steve Lieber
(Paradox Press/DC Comics)

Now known to the world at large via the Tom Hanks starring film, this Lone Wolf & Cub influenced prohibition mob dram finds father and son, Michael O'Sullivan senior and Junior travelling, making deals and waiting for old scores to be settled as the Two Jacks come after them, and between it all a shrewd lass named Quennie who knows how to play her cards tight and close to her chest.

A fulfilling drama for despite being part of an arc this section is self-contained. The black and white digest format works satisfactorily but it use four panels page grids and that's always been an aggravating point with me, two and six even wise are fine, but four flattens content too sharply and tends towards repetition if used in the widescreen manner or just plain dull in terms of design, just two or three can work well in this format if it suits the story as DC Thomson's Commando has proved for decades.

A good book to read with the captions telling a narrative whereas - ironically seeing what happened with the original graphic novel - most comic book writers are these days too busy practicing writing movie scripts in their comics.

Danger Girl: Odd Jobs
By J Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell, (with Joe Chiodo & Arthur Adams)
(WildStorm/DC)

Daft stories, incredulous plots, plenty of death-defying drama, that's the bread and butter of this collection, featuring the book's regular writers and several art stylists.

Not all the jokes work but the action generally does for these she-spies with an eye towards danger even on their days off!

There's a definite filler feel to this collection but it's a decent romp. Any more pages and it probably wouldn't have worked though.

From reincarnated pharaohs to Hawaiian jungle adventures it's all inside - a bit like some long lost issue of DC's The Inferior Five wherein it would have guest-starred Dumb Bunny with two clever girlfriends.

Top 10 Book 2
By Alan Moore & Gene Ha/Zander Cannon
(ABC/DC)

The Hill Street Blues for superheroes scenario that is Top 10 was my favourite of Moore's ABC books. The stories are less so a mystery or crime needing to be solved as much as a puzzle we haven't the obvious clues to, and a bit like an exemplary 2000AD Future Shock in part.

The subplots develop with characters coming and going, and longstanding issues tie into current events. Tightly drawn, perhaps in homage to the work of the late Harvey Kurtzman with its visual background antics, and possibly Moore's scripts requesting as such. A good sold read. There was a touch of Rick Veitch's Bratpack in some of the plot ideas running over the last couple of issues in this collection.

As a whole it explores different cultures in an entertaining way, preaches tolerance while going for the wonderfully contradictory big explosion effect.

Batman: Hong Kong
By Doug Moench & Tony Wong
(DC/Titan)

You have to question whether when the offer to have internationally-applauded manga artist Tony Wong work DC Comics it had them then needing to come up with a project or whether there was a story already in development that they felt suited his artwork. A mote point perhaps as Doug Moench delivers a story that uses all the usual Batman mythos trappings without getting bogged down in cliches.

A computer nerd hacks into a snuff movie broadcast - only this is reality TV taken to extremes. Commissioner Gordon doesn't believe him and the hacker suffers the consequences. Cue Batman's involvement - having failed to save both the youth's life and a similar murder setting, things escalate with clues leading all the way to Hong Kong, meaning Bruce Wayne and Alfred take a business/vacation there.

Batman finds himself out of sorts, able to do a crime-fighting job but lacking the cultural (more than language) barrier to get his mean demeanour across. Fortunately, his presence has influenced a young lad enough to become a hero called NightDragon.

They work together and a story of the past unravels - of loving uncles each taking a different path in life, one a police officer the other a tong leader. Gang wars, fighting, a mystery, then an inevitable couple of twists to the tale, but all along it avoids being The Corsican Twins.

Moench is really trying to show a difference in his story via cultural divides. It's also a good adventure. Wong's art doesn't always work for me here. A little too stiff and manga stylised for my personal tastes, but there's no doubt it's good stuff - even if I'm half-sure there's at least one curious art swipe: what looks to be a Norm Breyfogle figure with a John Byrne drawn head on it... It can't be. Can it?

The Iron Wagon
By Jason (Fantagraphics Books)

A sombre detective tale based on a 1909 novel by Stein Riverton (an alias for Norwegian Sven Elvestad), and adapted by the similarly pseudonymous Jason.

I did not expect to like this book as first impressions are always of the visual kind when leafing a work of the comics' medium, and Jason's flat simple art style and use of anthropmorphics without any intrinsic reason did not initially impress. As it is, the style lends itself quite well to evoking this other-time and quieter place while reminding us that all times can be filled with the dark melancholies that enthuse the human mind.

Psychology may have been a brave new science when Riverton first wrote his novel and its affectations and substances are put to use by Asbjorn Krag the detective who comes to what will become Oslo to solve a murder.

One has an eerie concern that this tale could slip into a funny animal version of TV cop show Columbo but it doesn't. In fact there's quite a bit of police procedural activity floating in the background. And there is more than one mystery that needs solving.

A satisfying read that can sit comfortably, and quietly proud, on your graphic novel shelves.

Also in this genre: Johnny Double by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso is stylish, Honour Among Punks - The Complete Baker Street Graphic Novel by Guy Davis & Gary Reed a good mystery on an alternative world full of sub-cultures, A Treasury of Victorian Murder by Rick Geary always a gem, Batman: Evolution by Greg Rucka, art by Shawn Martinbrough, John Watkiss, William Rosado, Phil Hester, inks by Steve Mitchell is a bit of a hit and miss collection, The Hound of the Baskervilles adapted by Philip Page & Marilyn Pettit not the best example of British publishing getting into the graphic novel market, CSI: Miami by Various rather bland for my tastes, Catwoman: Selina's Big Score by Darwyn Cooke a cracking good read, Catwoman: Relentless by Ed Brubaker, Cameron Stewart & Javier Pulido, Mike Manley additional inks pretty good,

Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles, Volume 3 by Max Allan Collins and Rick Fletcher a decent collection, and The Bloody Streets of Paris by Jacques Tardi and Leo Malet is absolutely excellent.

SUNDAY GRAPHIC novel reading choices...

Tom Strong's Terrific Tales
By Alan & Steve Moore plus others (ABC/WildStorm/DC).

A solid collection of the first five-issue offshoot from parent title Tom Strong, this features solo stories about the extended family.

Alan Moore's stories tend to be about Tom himself and play around with the comics storytelling medium or have a philosophical viewpoint as strong subtext to them, and feature strong traditional EC-esque art by the likes of Paul Rivoche and Jerry Ordaway. Whereas Steve Moore, that non-relation who helped the A-Man break into the British comics business, concentrates on telling the story itself first and foremost.

The S-Man has being doing it that long he knows what's required inside out: his strengths are as a short story writer, 6 pages and he's in a league where few others can match sheer plot value paced evenly for an intricate twist in the tail to deliver reader satisfaction. He develops the back-chronology of Tom when he was young, and future expositions with the babe that is Jonni Future, as desirably drawn by Art Adams - It's an updating of those old pulp derived stories that artist Matt Baker et al at the Iger Shop use to pump out for Planet Stories back in America's Golden Age of comics, although I must confess I can also see a bit of Warren's The Goblin from its 3rd issue as a starting point for the origin tale told her.

A-Man's daughter, Leah, chips in with a suitably silent visual gag tale about King Solomon for Sergio Aragones to draw and make us raise a smile, published prior to her work on Albion. Also along for the ride are artists Jason Pearson, Jaime Hernandez and stalwart Alan Weiss all doing strong work.

It's a good package throughout. It won't change your life but quality entertainment not to be missed.

Daredevil: Yellow
By Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale (Marvel Graphic Novel)

Collecting a six issue series from the Eisner award-winning team who also work on the Heroes TV show.

This is an expansive retelling of the Daredevil stories as put to the printed page by Lee, Wood and Everett all those decades ago, filtered through the nuances of Miller's run on the series, all told in diary boook form as a love letter that will never be sent to Daredevil's first love Karen Page.

It's nice in places but ultimately has little point. A more inexpensive viewpoint can be obtained via the original 60s comics collected in the Essentials series, and they probably contain more action too.

The Chronicles of Conan Volume 6: The Curse of the Golden Skull & Other Stories
By Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Neal Adams and Others (Dark Horse)

Collecting #35-42 of the original Marvel comic, apart the cover credited guys we have Rich Buckler on #40 and Ernie Chan inking most of John Buscema's pages. However, it should be noted that despite Buscema completing the bulk of the visual work within its #37's Neal Adams one-off that gives the collection its title, and cover image.

That's name value rather than stand out tale as such, but Adams' visuals do stir the loins more than Buscema, despite both offering master classes in comics visual grammar with nearly every page. You may look at the panels/angles and think haven't you seen them a thousand other places, yes, but that's because they work - a full stop or a comma means something - and across the breadth of a page designed to make a statement they - including Buckler, do it consummately.

The plot? Conan's working for empire-gathering Turan, the king unaware his son wants Conan's head (and quite likely his own!), so we get tales of gems and girls who promise the world but offer only monsters that lurk in the night all over the desert sands. Either way it's Conan's sword that always saves the day.

No great surprise story wise. But the collection works quite well gathered as one epic tale despite its disjointedness. It's a good romp, you know.

It's actually been digitally re-coloured and re-lettered - the digital lettering adding an enormous amount of typos in the process, especially in the latter half, spoiling the reading flow ands begging the question if the book collection's editor was doing his job properly.

Thomas does his Comic Book Artist/Alter-Ego style stroll down memory lane with long text features.

Ghost in the Shell: Man-Machine Interface
By Shirow Masmune (Dark Horse)

Super cyborg Motoko Aramaki investigates global net security break-ins by terrorists, downloading into several alter-egos along the way, and they're all bodacious females.

Visually ultra-impressive, regardless of the distracting uberbabe figures. There are some fantastic graphic ideas hinted at that could be developed further by other artists. It's nonetheless hard to decipher what's actually going on in the story a lot of the time, until, ironically, it moves from its post-modern science fictional overtures into to universal new age philosophy.

It's a colour digest collection, I'm told a larger size was available previously and easier to read, but the size was not a problem. Masmuune filled too many elements, captions and likewise with filler intended for affiliated games etc when he should have been concentrating on the core story.

Quimby Mouse
By Chris Ware (Fantagraphics)

An over-sized coffee table book collectting strips from the ACME Novelty Library comic, as with the award-winning Jimmy Corrigan it exudes with Ware's tasteful flair for design.

The strips themselves feature multi-panelled Quimby tales, many silent, some quirky superhero pastiches in The Hurricane, and biographical material. One way or another the whole book feels like some peculiar homage to Ware's beloved late maternal grandmother.

I admire Ware's artwork - his Quimby, although he might detest this comparison, comes on like Marshall Rogers taking off Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin doing Krazy Kat doodles, while his Hurricane shows a love if not some distinct swipes for Golden Age comic book artists like CC Beck and more tellingly Joe Schuster. He's a literate chap but tells a tale without being over-wordy. However, as a whole, the book does not engage me.

I know the book is heartfelt and no doubt highly personal, and a little cathartic but I felt I was too aware of the multi-faceted, albeit subtle techniques he brings to bear admiring technique and style over content.

The Originals
By Dave Gibbons (Vertigo/DC)

Mr Gibbons can stand tall for the praise due for the accomplishments he has made with his first major solo work, The Originals.

Lauded as one half of the men who brought us The Watchmen, he's collaborated with the best and that's because he's always been recognised as a consummate draughtsman, defining his skills as the years have gone by.

In The Originals, Gibbons appears to take several of his personal interests and blend them together - it presumes to take a skewed look back on a brief time in British history when youth rebellion meant the clock had moved on from Teddy Boys to the division of mods and rockers. Lesley, or Lel, our hero is of the former in type.

It's a world like ours was but rather Dan Dare-ish with odd touches like hovering motor scooters, although that quaintness is offset with some violence .

It's a story of a young man's dreams coming true, getting shattered and decisions that need to be made at still a tender age (although life experience teaches us that we tend to keep similar mistakes all our life). It's fun, exhilarating, capturing a real youth feel of optimism.

The comparison to Pete Townsend and The Who's Quadrophenia is readily apparent even though you suspect Gibbons was probably more of a Small Faces fan himself. But it has the breath to stretch out and express emotion and query life as we are actually reading it - as opposed to the immediate rush a record gives us or the secondary contemplation one has after walking home after going to the movies. Gibbons writes clear and intelligibly, just like he draws. And only Dave Gibbons, only him, could have utilised all his skills to make this such a deservedly novel well-designed book: from its irregular almost square size to the art & lettering dancing beautifully with the page composition. In a way only independent mavericks have tried successfully before, ironically this very straight artist beats them at their own game. It's a book the mainstream could enjoy and not just the comics fan.

SATURDAY'S COLLECTION of graphic novel reviews...

Ministry of Space
By Warren Ellis & Chris Weston (Image/Titan)

Dan Dare meets neu-realism in this variable history story that sees the British steal German technology before the Yanks and Ruskies can get a look in during the fading hours of WWII.

It postulates the theory that space exploration would have continued on as a part of Britain's empirical nature instead of us becoming an inward looking trading post of diminishing returns.

Sir John Dashwood is an air commodore with the RAF an it is his ruthless spirit that makes it all happen, hiding a deadly secret in his doing that at the end the Americans have discovered and will reveal so. This proves Dashwood's downfall and Britain's folly - it doesn't quite ring true as every nation hides its war crimes with a smile and sadly generally gets away with it.

The last panels suggest racism would still be profoundly here but it just wouldn't be in the same way - But if so surely the Americans would have blacks in chains still? One change doesn't mean every nation will stay in isolation.

Regardless, it captures the height of empirical ambition, the sterling stiff upper lip, and a God's kingdom on Earth approach as exemplified by William Blake.

To this artist Weston deliver his exacting art in to evoke not only Hampson with modern mannerisms but as an apprentice to Don Lawrence also serves the memory of his mentor well.

American Splendour
By Harvey Pekar & Various (Ballantine/Titan)

A hefty album collecting two previous collections.

For those new they will find a collection of vignettes of generally high quality about the drudgery of daily working class life in Cleveland, USA. Boring? No.

There are insights into the human character, nuances and prejudices made and lost , and honesty from Pekar himself, and a point, moral or otherwise to the stories.

Robert Crumb's on board but there are plenty of delights from the other male and female artists.

I used to read the annual oversized comic version of American Splendour that Pekar self-published and this acts not only as a reminder of some good stories but how I saw a small-business man self-publish and treat his artists with apparent integrity - an attitude that's stayed at the back of my head and I've taken as a blueprint for any endeavour I've been personally involved with since.

Barnum! In Secret Service to the USA
By Howard Chaykin, David Tishman & Niko Henrichon (Vertigo-DC).

Sheer carny hokum that must have been written with tongue firmly planted in cheek!

The premise: that scientist Nikola Tesla is trying to take over the United States, as that nation's growth into Empire and future world dominator... and obviously kill of President Grove Cleveland in the process!

To prevent this, P.T. Barnum and his circus troop become special agents on behalf of the president. It's almost a two fingers-up assault on the revisionist pulp hero material that's pumped out these days. It's also an honest to goodness adventure of the sorts we all to rarely see these days.

A lot of it will leave younger readers bored rigid. It has to be admitted it feels the story has been padding out somewhat and Henrichion's quaint illustrative style isn't going to appeal to the X-fans out there, but there's some fun moments in it,.

I got get the feeling Chaykin's main interest was the history and politics side of this. The book ends happily enough, with that comic book sense that there might be a reprise, but I doubt sales would make it. To be frank I don't know how a hard cover collection came about unless there was also potential movie deals happening at the time. Regardless, I'm a sucker for almost anything Chaykin put out.

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman Volume II
By Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill (DC/WildStorm)

The group reform and take on the aliens from HG Wells' War of the Worlds - it both loses and gains over the first collection. Charactersisations expand beyond their own chronoligical definitions, but maybe we prefered them otherwise. Cameos from John Carter and Gulliver Jones on Mars in the prologue were a welcome sight, however, an explansion of their roles would have been welcomed.

Supplementary text stories and covers round out the collection. All in all, there's enough meat on the story with the villains suitably menacing, doubly so when characters change allegancies.

100 Bullets: Samurai
By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (DC/Vertigo)

Quite why this collection of 100 Bullets #43-49 is subtitled Samurai confuses me - Caged Creatures might be more appropriate. The book's in two parts, the first featuring a con doing time and thinking he's little chance of surviving other prisoners, the second and more interesting, if initially, apparently more predictable, involves the illegal hunting of caged tigers. There's lots of mean and moody action, and it's all very cinematic

A mysterious man called Graves gives individuals 100 bullets to do whatever they want, promising that they'll get off scott free, but the 100th bullet must be for the individual themselves. The first story in this collection needs some awareness of the series' continuity, the second more accessible to non-series readers.

Creatures of the Night
By Neil Gaiman & Michael Zulli (Dark Horse Books)

Zulli has adapted two short stories by Gaiman, The Price and The Daughter of Owls.

They are brief reads despite their individual page count, and beneficial for it. Each tells a dark fairy tale suitable for all ages. The one a story about a cat battling the devil, the other a girl thought of as a demon herself.

Zulli gives thanks to Barry Windsor-Smith in his credits. That artistic influence was always there in Zulli's work and initially it may well have hindered his progression though made him a little more commercial, now he takes the essence of the storytelling that is Windsor-Smith's true skill (rather than the absolutely wonderful drawings themselves that people first admire) and uses that in a natural flow that makes the book work.

I expected not to like this and was very pleasantly surprised. Nothing deep but an effective collection.

HOW TO get the best use out of a dead tree... Birch's Bark continues.

Supreme: The Story of the Year
By Alan Moore & Various (CheckerBPG)

This collection found Alan Moore moving on from his 1962 concepts and the odd conceit to clear the way for his ABC line of thinking. It's the tale of Superman (in all but name) given some modern spin.

The theme is faithful to the heart of what traditionally makes a hero and yet is clothed in new technology theories (reminding us perhaps of that age-old tale of The Emperor's New Clothes and the moral implicit within it?).

Where the story fails is Moore's overused plot device of the villain of the piece always being the person you'd least expect... simply because he or she has been standing next to you through thick and thin for several hundred pages! Still we fall for it the nine times out of ten that he uses this because we get carried along with the characterisations and never look for any other would be red herrings.

Visually, Rick Veitch gives a more than decent take on pre-modern American comic art styles for the flashback scenes produced within, but, curiously, Moore's words are best complimented by the various Image/Rob Liefield styled guys on this particular book. There is a downside to this, if what I hear is true, because I understand that apart from Liefield none of the creators have received monies from this particular collection.

Bruce Wayne: Murderer?
By Various (DC/Titan)

There's an old plot creaking away in this book, The Count of Monte Christie used it to some effect, among others. Basically, Batman's alter ego of Bruce Wayne is accused of killing a former lover. Did he, didn't he? That's the game the extended Batman family have to play within this collection and they do it well enough with Nightwing (Dick Grayson, the original Robin) getting the best lines.

The Best of Ray Bradbury: The Graphic Novel
By Various (iBooks)

The contents within were first published as a mini-series from Topps, and apparently previously collected by Bantam. They were also available for viewing online as a subscription service from Stan Lee's Sunday Comics on www.Komikweks.com.

You can't fault the standard of artwork; from Richard Corben to P Craig Russell it's all top-notch stuff. And Bradbury is a world-renowned science fiction author so there's little doubt that the book should at least attract the browser's attention.

The trouble is, while there's a star team on the bench they don't deliver the goods when they're out on the field.

I think the main problem is that these adaptations follow too closely Bradbury's texts, or at least the prose part of what comics is about. They linger and seek to resonate when they should allow the pictures themselves to activate and engage. Not always, but often enough to make it a less than a cohesive whole. Strangely, having just stated that, it's the more painterly artists like Jon J Muth and John Van Fleet whose work comes off as having least pretensions towards the conventions of what constitutes real art and actually take the stories to a higher plane.

The Story of Tao: 1
By Andy Seto and Ding Kin Lau (ComicsOne.Corp)

Mixing various Eastern cultures' ideals of heroism to bring about a manga style adventure of gods walking the earth kung fu-ing each other and seeking forbidden romance on the side. It doesn't always come off, and you probably need to see yet another 100 pages of what is no doubt an epic before really getting into it, but there are some interesting enough visual moments.

King Volume 3
By Ho Che Anderson (Fantagraphics Books)

What little I had seen of Anderson's art previously made me recall the poor man's painter division that developed in America after Bill Sienkiewicz's shift in art style after once being labelled a Neal Adams clone. This is opposed to the one year in art school swipers who got work in the UK once Simon Bisley made it big, by the way.

Anderson's artwork lacked definition. It was sketchy without style. Frankly, it did not move me in any way. He either got a lot better or I wasn't looking hard enough before. I'm still not enamoured of his art but it works well in tandem with the story he's telling in this volume.

The story is indeed a very terse one, because we know the inevitable outcome that will come in the final pages. I say "we" but sadly, do the young still know who Martin Luther King was and what he achieved?

Anderson doesn't portray King as a complete saint, but a man, that's what kept my interest.

Remembrance of Things Past: Combray
By Marcel Proust, adapted by Stephane Heuet (NBM Comics Lit)

Some consider Proust brilliant, others unreadable. Having never read him apart from in this graphic novel adaptation I have to assume it's somewhere in between with some good pruning by Heuet.

Proust lived between 1871 and 1922 so his wordy descriptions reflect those times and the bourgeois society he lived in. The book is basically a man remembering events in his youth, you keep expecting them to tie in to each other but they don't. And that's irritating. However, the passages do act as an interesting barometer to the social history of the times albeit that one feels like a voyeur. It never truly engages the reader, but it has its moments. The art follows the clear line European school method but it is only functional rarely doing more than illustrate the words.

The Invisibles Book 7: The Invisible Kingdom
By Grant Morrison & Various (Vertigo-DC/Titan)

The series may well have gone on too long but Morrison brought most of the bits together to play mind games for the Mission Impossible crowd one last time so that The Prisoner in each of us could break free to politely shout "Hooray!" for a genuinely satisfying climax. The changing tour of duty for the artists in the latter part of the book actually works better for me than the first part that is predominately drawn by Phillip Bond.

A HIGHLIGHT of the International Comic show next week will be the ticket only Watchmen event hosted by artist Dave Gibbons.

With the Watchmen Hollywood film gearing for release in March and interest in the graphic novel stronger than ever its co-creator Gibbons is soon to become very hot property indeed.

So Speech Balloon was delighted to grab a quick chat with him as he prepares for his weekend in Birmingham where he will be promoting his new book Watching the Watchmen.

The book, published by Titan next month, details his collaboration with writer Alan Moore and the origins of the comic and he says will be stuffed with pages of original scripts, sketches and artwork.