January 2011 Archives

Spirou & Fantasio Book 2: In New York

By Tome & Janry

Cinebook

As I pointed out when commenting on Cinebook's Spirou & Fantasio Book 1, the series itself has been going a whole lot longer, from the late 1930s in fact, and many a talented cartoonist has penned the strip in that time, as can be seen by the following Youtube video:

Book 1 proved an uneasy introduction to Spirou & Fantasio bombarded as we were with a backlog of characters all with their own agendas, mannerisms, and running gags that those not privy to last seventy odd years of fun and games could truly appreciate.

Cinebook's reason for starting their English speaking collections with that story in the outback may well have been because it was Tome & Janry's debut working on the book, or that the book took a modern turn visually. Whatever the reason, it didn't work as effectively as it could.

Spirou & Fantasio In New York remedies its predecessor's failings by featuring its two main protagonists, even their pet squirrel Spip is conveniently removed from the main story, albeit as part of the plot.

The story goes like this:

Financially embarrassed, our two reporters (Spirou and Fantasio of course) scrape enough together for a pizza only for its packaging to reveal them winners of a million dollar prize... The snag being they have to go to New York to collect it. They'd earlier turned down a job for the pitifully-paying Turbine Magazine for a story that needs covering in the USA, but with the magazine fronting the readies for the plane ticket.

This book was made back in the 80s when magazine publishers had money, even stingy ones; though this still sounds extravagant to me, but, hey, it's only a comic strip!

Of course, once our boys get there they hit a snag, a major one, in the form of the Mafia...
Don Cortizone and his boys have had more than their run of bad luck of late, the mobster business has taken a dive, and too many of his people are getting whacked or suffering near misses when gifts arrive only to be exploding bombs...

What's worse is their rivals, a Chinese triad, led by The Mandarin (either one hell of a shy guy or someone whose schoolboy hero must've been The Octopus from Will Eisner's The Spirit) are trying to take over Mafia turf.

If it sounds like some it's some hard-boiled crime fiction story, let me put an end to that thought now, our Italian bad boys decide it's all down to Murphy's Law, which is basically that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and it obviously is for them.

Don Cortizone has decided that the way to remedy this is to involve someone who's got good luck. To this end his legitimate pizza-making company ran the million dollar prize competition under the pretext that whoever won must be lucky. How little the big Mafia guy knew...

Once in New York Spirou & Fantasio are told they can collect their prize money if they'll help Cortizone do over The Mandarin, but the boys will have none of it; they've been duped, and what's more they're good guys and tell the big boss-man to take a hike. But before this adventure can get short the triad do something really silly... they steal Spip the squirrel!

Our boys are now on board with Cortizone's plans to break into The Mandarin's place over in Chinatown, and that's when the madness truly begins.

All in all, this is a coherent fun adventure with some nicely expressive and well-exaggerated cartooning, and plenty of running gags.

There is a kind of benign prejudice or cultural imperialism that strips like this, and indeed Asterix the Gaul, are able to express, that we Brits would shy away from for fear of political incorrectness, but since the main characters themselves fall foul of any one-upmanship themselves and Spirou & Fantasio shows the folly of all humanity, I veer on the side of forgiveness personally.

So, yes, a much improved collection for the casual browser to pick up on this time: one is able to gauge better why the series has proved such a long-term international success, receiving its own animated TV series along the way, as the following Youtube video shows:

For more on Spirou & Fantasio visit: www.cinebook.com

CARTER'S COLUMN ran into air turbulence and a whole lot more besides the last twelve months and a tad bit longer...

It started as The Daily Discovery's star reporter Carter (incorruptible but bad-punning bloke), Lauren (blond bombshell & award-winning camerawoman), Chunky (alien with muscles to spare!) and a robot pilot flew out East.

Their objective? To do a story on Dragon Brand Cigars, and find out if the claim they they "Sooth the savage brow" was just an advertising buy-line!

Alas, danger struck almost immediately: Bodhisattva Fighter Pilots shoot their plane out of the sky causing them to crash land in the Himalayas where they nearly froze to death before getting separated, shot at, attacked by Yetis, kidnapped by rabid Mongols, and propositioned by that charming rogue, Gorgeous Khan... And not all of those things happened to Carter! ...Nor necessarily in that order.

But happen they did, and many were the Sunday morning when readers' breakfast discussions would revolve around whether or not their intrepid hero would get himself out of the fix he'd just landed himself ingloriously in during the cliff-hanger final panel of that particular instalment... It's true! We know for a fact that this happened in at least one household, and once at least. We're journalists: we don't make this stuff up you know!

Suffice to say, after 52 episodes, like the SAS on statins, Managing Editor Joe Stone flew his luxury plane in and managed to help save the day.

We've left the Yetis behind (safe with their Tibetan master), Gorgeous Khan and his rascally lads licking their wounds, the mysterious Bodhisattva Fighter Pilots miffed, and a renegade robot swearing revenge; and we officially bid an extremely fond farewell to pencil artist Gary Crutchley this week as we get the chance to reveal the last of his sketches, along with some memorable panels from previous episodes...

Some of the friends and foes we've made along our year and a bit journey may return... But it will be a while. For now The Daily Discovery's team are busy watching in-flight movies and filing reports on some of the individuals (or should that read culprits?) who have been helping bring their adventures live to the world each week...

If Shang Ri La La La was just an epic prequel wait until the adventure unfolds in earnest.

Stay tuned and return next Sunday for more from the world of non-stop adventure that is Carter's Column!

For more information on the creators:

For Paul H Birch: www.myspace.com/paulhbirch

For Gary Crutchley: www.gcrutchley.blogspot.com

For Mats Engesten: www.go.to/engesten

For John Robbins: www.mylifeinshorts.blogspot.com

For Andrew Dodd: www.andydoddartoons.co.uk

CLICK ON the Farmageddon strip below for it to fill your screen.

Farmageddon will be here every Saturday... Click on the RSS feed to make sure you don't miss out!

Below is a preview video for the Farmageddon animation series that is in development!

For more on Farmageddon visit: www.farmadeggon.tv

For more on Niel Bushnell visit: www.nielbushnell.com and www.qurios.com

For more on Gordon Fraser visit: www.freewebs.com/gordonfraser/

Secret Invasion

By Brian Michael Bendis, Leinel Francis Yu & Various

Marvel

I picked this up at Yardley Library in Birmingham; who have a healthy stock of graphic novels in many genres that appeal to diverse age groups; plus at least a couple of the librarians who have recommended titles to me before, so it's always a pleasure to use their services.

Alas, this is a collection whose real appeal is to the current Marvel Comics fan, rather than the average reader... And if you're an old time comics fan it's probably best you sit down before leafing through this.

It collects, what I presume, was a major company crossover series; wherein all the lives of the characters in the Marvel world are affected (too often companies use this as a way to kill off poorer selling titles or try new costumes out on characters).

The plot is this: Skrulls, those shape-changing aliens that have been around since the earliest issues of The Fantastic Four, have been disguising themselves covertly as sleeper-agent superheroes, and now the latest Skrull invasion is in operation no one knows who to trust. Now, as even Marvel superheroes' greatest fans will note, one of the major logistical problems with this company (brilliant as it has been, don't get me wrong) is that whenever two heroes meet up with each other they slug it out before becoming friends and then battling the real villains... So a bumper collection revolving around that premise has an uphill task from Day 1.

And here's the other catch, the book doesn't actually start from tha tDay 1, things have obviously lead up to this happening but there's no explanation anywhere in the book. Here again we return to my repeated beef with Marvel collections: I understand the fiscal reasoning why when collecting something that may start and begin elsewhere (often because it's an ongoing series) one can't afford to rewrite/letter for the collected version of the actual strip, but an explanatory single page text feature outlining things in context is pretty easy to do; instead we get a full page of credits that, as it happens, uses fonts that are pretty damned hard to read.

For kids who bought this in a serialised format, here it is all over again behind two covers, for the rest of us there's a lot of pages to go through and still come up with the same conclusion one did early on: that it's not a very satisfactory read.

I haven't got a clue who many of the characters are, and neither do I come to care (meaning I won't want to rush out and buy the comics they're in), and there are far too many non-sequiturs that don't come off as adding any further dimensionality. The book makes me feel old, and old beyond my years! But then, I'd think most kids coming fresh to this not being dyed-in-the-wool fans would want more too.

I like the premise that the Skrulls may be pursuing a takeover of Earth as a way to save us from ourselves; both because we've gone too far down our ecological and more so political naivety and as part of some strongly held religious cleansing process; but those aspects have to be dug deep to be found.

There's a couple of one-liners, the first about the man and the other spoken by Captain America himself that captures the essence of that character perfectly; there are some nice pages and panels visually; but overall it's all too much of an unfocussed slugfest for me.

There are several shorter strips included along with the main saga in this collection, pleasant enough vignettes in themselves but you are left wondering where on earth they fit into the main story.

I'm sure thousands love this collection but personally I just wish Marvel would spend more time putting their comic book mentalities to one side (not throwing them out, just putting them to one side for a little bit) and looking at how the rest of the publishing world acts so it can really come up with a top notch product when it puts out collections of its standard comics.

SPEECH BALLOONS' apologies for technical problems and air turbulence causing a brief delay in your viewing Episode 52's conclusion to the Carter's Column saga: Shang Ri La La La.

Click on the strip below and it will expand to fill your screen.

Our many thanks to Gary Crutchley for joining us pencil artist on this year long journey!

For more information on the creators:

For Paul H Birch: www.myspace.com/paulhbirch

For Gary Crutchley: www.gcrutchley.blogspot.com

For Mats Engesten: www.go.to/engesten

For John Robbins: www.mylifeinshorts.blogspot.com

For Andrew Dodd: www.andydoddartoons.co.uk

CLICK ON the Farmageddon strip below for it to fill your screen.

Farmageddon will be here every Saturday... Click on the RSS feed to make sure you don't miss out!

Below is a preview video for the Farmageddon animation series that is in development!

For more on Farmageddon visit: www.farmadeggon.tv

For more on Niel Bushnell visit: www.nielbushnell.com and www.qurios.com

For more on Gordon Fraser visit: www.freewebs.com/gordonfraser/

Yakari Book 8: Yakari and the White Fleece

By Derib & Job

Cinebook

Yakari is a young children's comic series about a native American Indian (or whatever the currently politically correct description is), written Job and drawn by Derib, both from Switzerland.

In 2005 it won the Youth Prize for 7 - 8 Year Olds at Angoulême in France.

The series has had several foreign language editions published, and been adapted into animation for TV.

When Bold Crow gores beyond his tribe's hunting grounds this lucky talisman is taken by an eagle swooping down and taking it to its nest high up in the mountains, causing the warrior to fall ill, perhaps terminally.

Little Yakari's totem, and spirit guide, is a golden eagle, and the lad is in initially unsure if it is the same bird who has taken the talisman. It proves not to be, but Yakari decides it his duty to recover the stolen prize. Thus begins a journey to the top of the mountain, and a decision that must be made on reaching its summit.

Yakari, we find, can talk to animals, leading to some interesting stops along the way, chief among them meeting the mountain goats that the book takes its White Fleece name from - creatures that live so high up he has never come across them before.

Falling somewhere between quest and light-hearted adventure for the young, it is a simple but pleasant enough tale.

Click on the screen below to view an exert from the Yakari cartoon series:

For more on Yakari visit: www.cinebook.com

STRAWBERRY ALE is a new one-shot published by Unico Comics.

Written by Michael Burness and illustrated by Caroline Parkinson, this slim-line independent lasts 18 black and white pages long and comes wrapped in a colour cover.

The events all take place within the space of one summer's day wherein, as Burness explained: In a quaint English pub two men sit down and discuss humanity's past, present and possible future. Like all men the chat gets more intense between these two friends as the more they drink."

And, as becomes quite apparent, as the story unfolds: "One man is God and his friend is the Devil".

Reminiscent of the Peter Ustinov novel The Old Man and Mr Smith in terms of intent, but with added British quirkiness for good measure.

This reader found Strawberry Ale an excellent little read: seriously!

For more information on Stawberry Ale and other Unico Comics visit: www.unicocomics.co.uk

Billy & Buddy Book 2: Bored Silly With Billy

By Roba

Cinebook

Originally titled Boule et Bill when it debuted over in Europe back in the late 1950s, this is the tale of a little boy and his dog.

British cartoonist/historian Lew Stringer has already noted that this series first saw UK publication in the Valiant weekly comics in the mid 1960s under the series title It's A Dog's Life (see: www. lewstringer.blogspot.com). Much as I was aware of that myself, I'd incorrectly assumed the artist was Franquin, for the style is not too dissimilar with a more rounded jovial Dik Browne touch added to the mix.

A collection of over forty single page vignettes, averaging seven panels a page each with the final one bringing the punchline.

Peanuts, Fred Bassett and a million other such creations ring in one's mind when you think of strips of this nature. It's the very innocence of the stories in this collection that appeals, and without moralistic agenda.

Not groundbreaking but who cares, it's lasted the test of time by having its own gentle warmth as shown by the very apparent love and friendship of Billy and Buddy have for each other... Even when bickering, or woofing at each other.

For all these series title changes over the years, it's interesting to note that its current UK version features the names of Jimi Hendrix's sidekicks in The Band of Gypsies; Billy Cox and Buddy Miles.

For more on Billy & Buddy collections visit: www.cinebook.com

CLICK ON Episode 51 of Shang Ri La La La below and it will expand to fill your screen.
For more information on the creators:

For Paul H Birch: www.myspace.com/paulhbirch

For Gary Crutchley: www.gcrutchley.blogspot.com

For Mats Engesten: www.go.to/engesten

For John Robbins: www.mylifeinshorts.blogspot.com

For Andrew Dodd: www.andydoddartoons.co.uk