December 2008 Archives

ALEX NINO began his comic strip career in 1965 and was to establish himself as one of the pre-eminent comic book artists in the Philippines, where he had been born.

From 1971 on American publishers wisely began hiring his talents and he produced countless pages for DC, Marvel, Warren, Heavy Metal and Dark Horse working on characters such as Black Orchid, Captain Fear, Conan, Tarzan and Vampirella as well as adapting classic novels into some astounding sequential art.

Concurrent with this period, portfolio material and the now-legendary Satan's Tears collection of his early work accorded him international acclaim.

While major animation companies such as Pixar kept Nino busy for a number of years the comic book field has not lost out completely.

Alex Nino has illustrated the three issue zombie mini series Dead Ahead, published by Image Comics, he is said to be developing the sequel to the "breathtaking comic book" God the Dyslexic Dog and has a few other things in development. To compliment this, DC began reprinting his horror material in Showcase Presents: House of Mystery from Volume 2 onwards and Auad Publishing recently brought out the visual tour de force that is The Art of Alex Nino.

To find out more about the extraordinary talent that is Alex Nino visit: www.auadpublishing.com and http://alanguilan.com/museum/alexnino.html

CLASSICAL COMICS recently started adding to its line of critically revered graphic novel adaptations of the works of Shakespeare by adding Charles Dickens, Jane Eyre and Mary Shelley to their imprint. Here are my thoughts on each book.

Jane Eyre
By Charlotte Bronte, Script adaptation by Amy Corzine, Art by John M Burns
(Classical Comics)

I've been fortunate enough to view copies of John M Burns's black and white art for this book for well over a year now, and quite a few of the coloured pages too. Every time I see them I come out with the same old line to the people at Classical Comics, "This one's an award-winner - Put it up for as many as you can!" I know I'm like a broken record (that's something they used to make out of vinyl, kids!) but quite frankly I don't care.

John M Burns, for those unaware, is a master craftsman of the comic strip medium. Schooled in our proud British illustrative tradition, perfectly at home on the comic book page as much as the now neglected newspaper comic strip, he is also well versed in both adventure and romance and to some degree both skills are called upon in this graphic novel adaptation.

Period dramas are big news on our terrestrial television stations, and the film world continues to see their currency. It's not just some romantic link for more innocent times, it's the fact that stories of an elder pedigree were put together to work, to be read and enjoyed by as wide a populace that could read.

Personally I have a problem with anything that lingers around the parameters of being a bodice ripper but there you go, each to their own.

For those unaware, Jane Eyre is the story of an orphaned child sent to live with her non-blood related aunt. The girl refuses to be subservient and is blamed for the things her cousins do and so is sent to a pauper's boarding school. Many more trials and tribulations are made but we are made to see the important humanitarianism that the new middle classes could bring about alongside the atypical bullying we've come to witness in such sagas.

Jane becomes a teacher herself at the school, then a governess, finding employment and a home at Thornfield Hall but it is some time before she meets its gruff master, Mr Rochester. They are blunt with each other but over time a general distain grows to a gradual respect, and eventually an unspoken love. During these developments of affection we are witness to some wonderful discourses between the pair.

Some may find the turns of phrase and colloquialisms in the full version a little hard to grasp - not that the words are difficult but the unfamiliarity of the way they are expressed - and for that reason I can see where the abridged text using more modern expressions could prove the more popular read. However, I much enjoyed the full-bodied text, rich in its language, with Jane giving as good as she gets, thus showing the first flowering of women' s emancipation in an admirable, subtle manner.

These dialogues add tremendously to the humour that can be found deep in this romance, and tragedy.

I'll not give the game away but even as the couple express their love openly tragedy does indeed wait to stab them from the wings. This twist in the tale takes place roughly half way through the story and there are more changes of fortune for Jane before the end of the story.

As the reader will find for themselves from the various supplementary text features at the rear of this book, a substantial amount of the novel's plot was derived from Charlotte Bronte's own ordeals in life, but equally so her own life followed suit with some of the chapters; as if she was either channelling her own future life or living out her own fantasies in the real world.

I have to say the novel itself, as noted before, with its affectations towards subdued bodice ripper romance doesn't always grab me, but the fine persuasive lines of conversation between the action certainly engages my attention and so I forgive the former.

A few points, again, on Mr Burns's art: whether it is the script adaptation or his own presence of style, he reclaims comic book storytelling for storytelling sake. The use of a surprise/shock page ending to induce enthusiasm to turn over to the next page has been taken for granted as a pre-requisite, Burns gives us moments within the page itself that are just a vital, startling and positively rewarding in their artistic merit.

While the fully painted art that is published is admirable, there is a great part of me that wishes this were printed in black and white - while the colour doesn't hide the detail it does disguise the fact that these were drawings created in pencil then ink, with attention to detail in the folds of a curtain as much as the flaring nostrils of a horse. This is not slick work this is consummate drawing with thought and concentration given before a pencil line is delivered. People should be impassioned enough to want to take up drawing themselves, for the sheer pleasure of it as its own reward.

Burns is an artist's artist and doesn't fail to deliver, picture the scene: it's early Sunday evening and the Birmingham International Comics Show 2008 has just finished so there's a handful of comic book creators in need of a stiff drink, once deposited in the nearest city centre public house someone brings out a copy of this book, and it's not me, it's followed swiftly by a chorus of: "I've got that!" from most of the artists gathered. Simply put the book caught their eye at the show and they bought it.. Professionals they were and are, and talented ones too, but the level of expression they had for Classical Comics' Jane Eyre proved that even these seasoned stars paid their venerable due respect to a master of the form.

If this doesn't find its way into graphic novel award nominations some serious questions about why not have to be asked.

A Christmas Carol
By Charles Dickens, Script Adaptation by Sean Michael Wilson, Pencils by Mike Collins, Inks by David Roach, Colouring by James Offredi.
(Classical Comics)

While I was at a gathering where professionals applauded Burns' Jane Eyre, I went out of my way to interrupt a conversation Mike Collins, pencil artist on Classical Comics' A Christmas Carol was having with cartoonist Lew Stringer (my apologies for that, Lew!) to tell him I'd liked what I'd seen at the time, liked it a lot.

The ever-delightful Karen Wenborn had handed me review copies of Classical's books only a few hours previously. I'd not had chance to study them to any great length but in flicking through them I was struck by this book, being highly impressed with the overall look and feel of the story's visual layout.

Mike has worked on all sorts of comics from Judge Dredd to a forthcoming Dr Who graphic novel, with The X-Men and Batman thrown in for good measure.

He's a commercial comic book artist in the best sense. His work always shows the visual punctuation of the old British school (as perhaps influenced by the likes of the aforementioned Burns, along with Ron Embleton and Martin Asbury to my mind) but it's always been with an American twang to it - as initially influenced by that Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson clean line look they produced for Superman, then updated by those who were just breaking through or at their peak as he himself entered the profession - guys like Alan Davis and John Byrne (who may have lived on the American continent for most of his life but was born in West Bromwich just like Collins!).

Whether I'm wrong or right about the actual influences, these are the kind of artists one can see he processed intuitively to make his work, clean accessible and readily translatable on the printed page - not via overt cheating by prolonging in the shadows for mood, but by physical interaction both between characters and with the page itself.

Within that framework - by use of perspective, angles and depth of clarity - Mike Collins work has returned A Christmas Carol to the ghostly horror story it is.

Far too many other adaptations of this classic in many media have diluted the impact of that particular facet to the story. They have given more attention to its humour often to the level of a farce, or sentimentality reigns at the end with its more valued theme 'a celebration of life' debased to play second fiddle at best.

The plot itself is universally known but those other adaptations take liberties with the aspects they have wished to portray, curious since it's not an overlong story anyway. Scrooge is a miser and is visited by Christmas spirits who show him the error of his ways so that he repents.

To be frank with you, unlike Jane Eyre, I suggest most readers choose the full version to read - not that there's anything wrong with the abridged per se - but that Dickens' novel is not a long one, his words still common currency in this our England: common, direct and meaningful, yet still rich and evocative in their combinations to move the listener - Yes, read this out loud I did a section of it to my daughter.

What Mike does is move the story gently but firmly with the characters well defined from the off - and they are characters rather than the caricatures of them we've come to expect down the ages. His pacing then adds some fair degree of suspense - a constant use of different levels of perspectives within a single panel frame comes into play here.

I'm wondering if over the last couple of years he'd picked up DC Comics' Showcase editions of The Phantom Stranger where the main artist, the late Jim Aparo, another clean storytelling artist like Mike, and one whose graphic design background lent itself to multiple perspective levels and so may have guided Mike into following suit for this particular book.

Whatever, his angles and choice of frames increases the tension and add terror, even at times eliciting a feel of light claustrophobia on viewing. Scrooge's own antics engage fear, concern and worry. They draw the reader in and carry them through on a true journey of self-discovery for Ebenezer Scrooge, and to some degree those around him.

You may view this book in another light, being too over familiar with the story yourself, but I think that the very ease with which this has all been achieved makes it all the more admirable.

To say I enjoyed its very accessibility comes across as crass and undervaluing what Mike Collins has done. This is a big comic. Kids will get it, grown-ups will get it, and so will comic book fans of various ages - who to be honest may well be more superhero orientated than this book's raison d'etre, but there you go; they can enjoy it too.

The script adaptation by Sean Michael Wilson, with frequent Collins collaborators David Roach inking and James Offredi colouring each do their job, and I don't mean to be disrespectful here, but it's Mike who makes this book the enjoyable page turner it is.

Yes, I still consider that Jane Eyre should be the book Classic Comics have nominated for graphic novel awards, but as an all round success of their achievements and, presumed, intentions as a company: to marry original novel and the graphic narrative of the comics medium together and make the resultant accessible to the great unwashed non-comics reading public, kids, schools, moms and dads etc - A Christmas Carol is a runaway success as far as I'm concerned.

Frankenstein
By Mary Shelley, Script adaptation by Jason Cobley, Line Art by Declan Shalvey, Art direction by Jon Haward, Colouring by Jason Cardy & Kat Nicholson.
(Classical Comics)

I confess I've never read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel before. The various films and other comic book adaptations from the past, yes. I know they diverge greatly from the original, I've read many a newspaper or magazine article telling me so, and vocally heard it from rabid fans too. This here, being the genuine article supplemented, or rather working in conjunction with the comics medium, surprises me somewhat.

It's even less about the monster than I had supposed, in fact all the other characters take a back seat to Frankenstein himself. And I'm not sure if he's actually qualified as a doctor in it! Regardless, he creates a monster, though we're not quite sure how, and he is appalled by it - The monster is likewise aghast its own existence and in time begins to operate as a serial killer destroying those Frankenstein held dear, until he promises he will create it a female companion in the same manner.

Frankenstein agrees, but later reneges on the deal, among his reasons being that he fears the creatures might breed an army of themselves who would one day take over humanity.

The story is narrated by one Robert Walton, a would be explorer come Darwin in the making, via his own love letters to his betrothed, for when his the ship rescues Frankenstein being intelligent men of their class they talk and the monster-creator's secret life is told in flashback during the length of the book.

It's a grim tale, and I can't say I gain any emotional fondness for Frankenstein - he did the deed and I somehow don't feel the level of remorse he claims to have for doing so. More a feeling that his creation wasn't as wonderful as he thought it would be so is shamefully humilated by it, less so remorseful.

Still, it reads well, and I think the adaptor Jason Cobley appears to have paced the structural breakdown well. Artist Declan Shalvey is a name that's been bandied about to me for a while now, and by people I respect, so I've been eager to see his work properly. I've previously only come across the odd illustration that looks like there's a blooming talent there, but not any full strips. This is a large undertaking for an artist just starting out, and Classical has brought in Jon Haward as art director to help in that area.

Having seen some pages very recently, I thought Jon may have been producing layouts that Declan then finished but the How to section at the rear of the book proves this is not necessarily to be the case. It seems that Declan would draw the pages then Jon suggest alterations to heighten the storytelling, in the example shown that proved to be the right choice from Jon.

For the most part Declan's work moves the story along fine, but the art is definitely subordinate to the story in this case, more visualising texts, and I would personally have preferred it to be much more defined. I wondered if this could be the digital colouring but again the How to Section didn't seem to indicate as such.

This is such a mammoth project for, with all due respect, a novice artist, and a bit similar to how I felt about Classical's Henry V , drawn by Neill Cameron. If I were editor, I would probably have gone with a more experienced, seasoned artist in both cases for such page counts. That stated, the learning curves that Neill must have undergone on Henry V improved his skills no end as can be seen in the liberated manner he has subsequently produced his appealing manga stylisations on Mo-bots within the pages of The DFC.

I'm not saying that I expected the level of the great Mike Ploog or that master of the macabre Bernie Wrightson both who have previously made their own mark illustrating Frankenstein and it is unfair for a young artist to be compared to them, but in the commercial world of publishing these are things that cannot be ignored. I'm hoping the efforts Declan has put into this will, as with Neill Cameron, provide dividends on a personal creative level for him and I look forward to investigating that out for myself.

You can see more for yourself via bookstores, comic shops and by visiting www.classicalcomics.com

SPEECH BALLOONS has been able to feature exclusive and rare artwork for the world to see and that continues here on Boxing Day.

Back in November Speech Balloons ran a feature on artist Ken Hooper (Aquaman, Indiana Jones etc) that featured a new pencilled image of Swamp Thing, a book he had worked on previously. Here we present that same image now inked by Rick J Bryant (Babylon 5, Shade, The Changing Man etc).

The pair have collaborated before previously, but as the pencil artist himself noted, the success of this piece means that it is "official notice of availability for cover art" from them, as of now.

A VERY Merry Christmas to one and all whether you're reading this on the 25th or later!

We continue to hang our email festive cards on the Speech Balloons wall, even today.

Below, Santa shows us what he gets up to on his days off, courtesy of Paul Brian Garvey, who animation fans will know has worked on films for Dreamworks but comics fans will recall fondly as part of the Akin & Garvey inking partnership on many series including Rom, Spaceknight, The Micronauts and The Incredible Hulk . Expect more on Mr Garvey soon.

TODAY'S EMAIL Xmas Greetings for you to share!

First up, this year's greetings courtesty of superstar artist Michael Golden and writer/editor Renee Witterstaetter.

Next up, you can't seem to open a comic or newspaper without seeing her work these days - which just goes to show talent can be rewarded! - Wolverhampton born and Birmingham based cartoonist Laura Howell!

Next, another Brummie based talent: From the pages of the venerable Punch magazine to adapting Terry Pratchett's work into graphic novels and more work for the German comics market than anyone with a cold can sneeze at, Brummie based, Mr Graham Higgins.

Finally, for today, greetings from the artist on this season's big-seller Gears of War, Liam Sharp.

And that last one's also a little teaser to reveal: the Giant-Size Band-Thing will strut its humongous stuff once more when you least expect it in 2009!

MORE EMAIL Festive Greetings have been arriving... It is the season to be jolly so let us share them with you!

Above, a colourful creation by cartoonist David M Windett who has been appearing in THE DFC of late.

And our other image this time around, a cheeky christmas elf courtesy of Spectacular Spider-Man artist Andie Tong.

WAR IS Hell, but that hasn't stopped it being a popular theme for boys' adventure comics.

Recent years have found many classic British war strips collected into books that have many a mainstream bookshop happy via their healthy sales, but only one comic still tells tales of daring-do on a regular basis, and that is D.C. Thomson's Commando comic.

These days Commando tells tales from throughout all of history, and one of its main writers is Ferg Handley, who is also responsible for many an enjoyable tale for Panini's Spectacular Spider-Man. An exclusive two-part interview with Ferg can be found at: www.commandomag.com a website dedicated to the war comic.

THIS YEAR'S Christmas Email cards have been arriving, so it's time to share their joy...

First up, from the wild wests of America, Wizard Fan Award Award-winner for Favourite Colour artist, the one and only Moose Baumann! Some of Moose's recent books have included Dead Ahead at Image and Ghostbusters for IDW.

Next up, again from over in the States, currently adapting Stephen King's The Stand... Wolverhampton's wanderer Michael Perkins and his dear lady.

Next up, simply one of the best cartoonists in the world - and you know that's true when such diverse publications as The Beano, The Radio Times and Fiesta have happily published his work - the great Hunt Emerson and good lady.

Finally, a writer for both 2000AD and The DFC, the ever-modest and increasingly good (and I'm actually being honest about the later!) Mr Tony Lee.

Merry Xmas one and all!

ONCE MORE a small presentation of exclusive email Christmas cards received last year from people within the comic book industry.

Above, a wonderful one by superstar artist Mike Golden and writer/editor/agent and very nice lady, Renee Witterstaetter.

Our second presentation above is a typically modest one from Dr Who comic book writer Tony Lee, whom we trust will also be making a swift return to the pages of The DFC!

Next up, international greetings from Asian publisher, Elfin.

Finally, two much appreciated email cards, but I unfortunately can't recall who from! Enjoy anyway!

Merry Christmas one and all!

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.