Review: Tiny Tyrant

Tiny Tyrant by Lewis Trondheim (writer) and Fabrice Parme (artist), translated by Alexis Siegel, First Second Books, 2007 (from original stories published 2001-2004), 120 pages of strip, US$12.95

This is a collection of a dozen stories about Ethelbert (Adalbert in the original French), a little boy who is absolute monarch of the pocket-handkerchief kingdom of Portocristo. He is spoilt, selfish and greedy, an untrammelled id who generates absurd chaos all around him, but who somehow never loses the sympathy of the small child inside the reader.

The tone is that of an animated cartoon, with the bizarre Looney Tunes logic of Trondheim’s stories matched by Parme’s cartooning, which is reminiscent of the modernist animation of Gene Deitch crossed with the decorative impulses of Ronald Searle. Free-form, borderless panels are anchored by coloured page backgrounds, and in this edition the art is given a miniaturist delicacy by the size of the paperback – about half the dimensions of the standard European album page for which Parme presumably drew these strips.


The translation is pretty much seamless, although the much-used phrase “Miss Prime Minister” sounds odder to British ears than it would to French or American (a tip: should you ever meet a British PM, just say, “Hello, Prime Minister,” not “Hello, Mister Prime Minister”).


Tiny Tyrant is playful and inventive, and frequently very funny. It’s also exquisitely pretty. Another little gem from First Second.

Review: The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics

The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics, edited by David Kendall, approximately 500 pages of strip, Constable & Robinson, 2007, £12.99
Features: “I Saw It!” by Keiji Nakazawa, translated by Project Gen
“The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman” by Raymond Briggs
Charley’s War, first instalment, by Pat Mills (writer) and Joe Colquhoun (artist)
“Snow” by Askold Akishin
“Desert” by Carol Swain”
“Lone Hawk” by Archie Goodwin (writer) and Alex Toth (artist)
“The Landings in Sicily” (uncredited)
“Landscape!” by Archie Goodwin (writer) and Joe Orlando (artist)
“The 5.56 Blues” by Don Lomax
“Souvenirs!” by Archie Goodwin (writer) and John Severin (artist)
“A Bullet for Me” by Darko Macan (writer) and Edvin Biukovic (artist)
“Combat Zone” by Darko Macan (writer) and Edvin Biukovic (artist)
“The Legion of Charlies” by Tom Veitch (writer) and Greg Irons (artist)
“You Only Lose Once”, art by Sam Glanzman
“Breakout at St Lô”, art by Sam Glanzman
“Pearl Harbor”, art by Sam Glanzman
“Your Luck Just Ran Out …” by Alexey Malakhov
“Last Day in Vietnam” by Will Eisner
“The Casualty” by Will Eisner
“The Road to Glory” (uncredited)
“Sand” by Marc Chadbourn (writer) and Nathan Massengill (artist)
“Long Distance Runner” by Danijel Zezelji
“A Bowl of Rice” by Ilya
“Slaughterhouse Safari” by Fabian Goranson
“School Essays of Berlin Kids About the Year 1945”, adapted into comics by Ulli Lust, translated by Kai Pfeiffer
“Casting Stones” by Eric Drooker


I was tempted just to leave this review at the contents listing. I mean, 500 pages of comics including complete works by Will Eisner, Alex Toth, Archie Goodwin, John Severin, Raymond Briggs (author of When the Wind Blows), Eric Drooker (of Flood) and Keiji Nakazawa (his first-hand account of the Hiroshima bombing, which he later expanded into Barefoot Gen)? It’s not a hard choice, is it?


There is a wide range of material here, from American, British, Japanese, German, Russian and Croatian writers and artists. Many of the stories deal with the Second World War or Vietnam, but others cover conflicts from the Great War to modern Burma. Styles range from Goranson’s autobiographical art-comics approach to an encounter with FARC guerillas in Columbia to Briggs’ caricatured satirical fable of the Falklands War and Veitch and Irons’ bizarre underground tale of Vietnam veterans possessed by the spirit of Charles Manson, by way of the high-calibre mainstream US comics story-telling of Archie Goodwin and his cohorts from Warren magazines.


The main mode of war comics omitted here is what you might call the “war is fun” school, exemplified by Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandos in the US and Captain Hurricane in Britain. Several publishers are not represented, presumably because they were unwilling to have their stories reprinted here. They include DC Thomson, so there’s nothing here from Commando or Warlord, and also DC Comics and EC Comics, so there’s no Kubert, Kanigher or Kurtzman (although the cover of the book has obviously been borrowed from an issue of Frontline Combat). Some Tardi or Hugo Pratt would have been welcome, too, but you can’t have everything.


Reproduction is generally good, but some of the material originally intended for US magazines or British half-tabloids suffers from reduction to 15.6 by 23.4 cm pages. The second of the long (and rather dreary) representatives of the British “picture library” format appears to have been scanned from a rather muddy published copy, as have the three Sam Glanzman stories which are the other weak point of the book (pedestrian stuff, with no narrative drive or fluidity of panel-to-panel progression), but which hog all of the available colour pages. I would rather that Briggs’ “The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman” had been reproduced in the colours in which its author painted it.


But all this is quibbling. This is a varied, thoughtful collection. As a one-volume survey of an entire genre of comics, it is hard to imagine it being done better. It is also heartening that Robinson has taken a second step into market for big comics anthologies, after its Mammoth Book of Best New Manga last year. Perhaps we can hope for a Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics or Horror Comics or Romance Comics or …

Can the Batusi be far behind?

See here for the original (link via the Absorbascon).

Panel
The Brave and the Bold issue 5 “The Lords of Luck” Chapter 5 “The Batman of Tomorrow” by Mark Waid and George Pérez (storytellers), Bob Wiacek (inks), Tom Smith (colours), Rob Leigh (lettering) and Joey Cavalieri (editor), September 2007, DC Comics

Better than Supergirl

Ladies and Gentlemen, Beryl the Peril is …

Panel
Beryl, art by Steve Bright, Dandy Summer Special 2007, DC Thomson

Review: Trains Are … Mint

Trains Are … Mint issue 1, by Oliver East, Rolling Stock Press, 2006, 36 pages of strip, £4.99

Trains Are … Mint issue 2, by Oliver East, Rolling Stock Press, 2006, 36 pages of strip, £4.99

Enough with the boffo yuks. No more flying people in tights for now, or men with guns, or car chases. Here instead is an illustrated account of a walking tour of local railway stations in Northern England.

No, wait, come back!

This small press comic is worth a look, if you are in a certain mood. There’s a third issue, too, but I haven’t seen that yet.

Oliver East’s Trains Are … Mint is an odd fish. For one thing, there are no trains, mint or otherwise. (“Mint” is a term of approbation, by the way.) Instead, East shows us his path as he walks from one small railway station to another. There’s no story as such, just a sort of illustrated diary. Nothing much happens, and though East is sometimes favourably impressed by the dull suburban stations he visits, it is hard for the reader to feel the same.


The artwork is sketchy and naïf, finished, I think, in marker pen and watercolour. Almost everything shown is urban landscape. People, when encountered, are simplified down, sometimes shown only as their hollowed out clothes. The lettering approximates to handwriting.

Colour, pacing and use of space all build up a sense of drizzly Sunday melancholia. There is an acuteness of observation, and an occasional asperity of humour, that lends these two comics a very specific feeling of place and culture.


Sometimes, on a grey day, you just want to sit and watch the raindrops trickle down the window, drinking milky tea and eating a slice of battenburg cake. This is a comic for those times.

Reviews: Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun, Martha Washington Dies

Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular issue 1, written by Fabian Nicieza and Dan Slott, lettering by Dave Lanphear, editor Nicole Boose, cover by Paul Pelletier, Dave Meikis and Will Quintana, 39 pages of strip, Marvel Comics, September 2007, US$3.99
Features: Squirrel Girl, art by Kieron Dwyer, colour by Pete Pantazis
Deadpool and the Great Lakes Initiative “Drunk with Power”, art by Nelson, colour by Giulia Brisco
Big Bertha and Deadpool “A Date with Density", pencils by Paul Pelletier, inks by Dave Meikis, colour by Will Quintana
Flatman and Deadpool “Fight or Fold?”, art by Clio Chiang

It’s nice to see that that, although so many of its core super-hero titles are being bound ever tighter into cross-continuity big events, Marvel continues to publish titles that provide lighter-toned stand-alone stories: not just the Marvel Adventures line, but the likes of Spider-Man Family, Hulk and Power Pack, X-Men: First Class and the occasional special about the third-rate super-heroes from the Great Lakes, of which this is the latest.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag. A major problem is the presence of the repulsive psychopath Deadpool. It is possible to make casual, amoral slaughter funny, but it’s hard and requires a careful balance of tone. Deadpool’s repeated killing of Mr Immortal raises a laugh, because we know Mr Immortal will recover (the clue is in his name), and because repetition of an absurdity is an old comedy standby. But the gratuitous killing of a passing character called Grasshopper right at the end is just plain nasty and leaves the book with a bad aftertaste (but see the comments section for more on this - added 16 July).

“Drunk with Power” is the weakest thing here, laboured and stolid in plot, dialogue and artwork. “A Date with Density” is nimbler on all counts, but still rather pedestrian.

“Fight or Fold?” is lovely little throwaway piece, with light, dancing artwork from Chiang.


But the best thing here is the Squirrel Girl sequence. Nicieza and Slott skewer the dark, gloomy, adolescent tone of the Civil War period Marvel comics, but still provide a coherent story about a delightful, upbeat character that works for those of us who haven’t read the Civil War books. Dwyer’s compositions are clear and fluid, finished with a rough, energetic line. It’s a shame about the ending, but otherwise, these two stories easily justify reading this comic.


Oh, and a message to toy manufacturers: please tool up a model Squirrel-A-Gig right now. Well, when you've finished with those librarian figures, anyway.


Martha Washington Dies by Frank Miller (writer), Dave Gibbons (artist), Angus McKie (colourist), Diana Schutz (editor), 17 pages of strip, Dark Horse Comics, July 2007, US$3.50

In which Martha Washington dies, surprisingly enough; in a blaze of light, at the age of one hundred, after speechifying a bit. No man-eating badgers are involved.

Miller provides an uneventful coda to the Martha Washington series, with touches as unsubtle as the previous episodes (“And now the barbarians sing their chants and set off their bombs and pray for the Armageddon we’ll never let them have”), but without the jokes. Gibbons’ artwork is as meticulous as ever.

I have seen some online criticism of Dark Horse for publishing something so inconsequential. But this chapter will serve a purpose by providing a definitive end to the upcoming omnibus The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century. For those who already have the preceding stories in one form or another, this separate publication is surely a positive and helpful thing, staving off the Hobson’s choice of expensive duplication or incomplete story.

Oh, Now Why Isn't This For Real?

(Click to enlarge)


From Rex Libris: I, Librarian by James Turner, SLG Publishing, 2007

We Interrupt This Blog ...

... for possibly the most remarkable statement ever issued on behalf of the British Army:

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
Major Mike Shearer, Basra

Nothing at all to do with comics, of course. At least, not yet. Perhaps we'll see a story inspired by it in Commando Picture Library one day.

Next, the Electronux

The Guardian reports that police in England and Wales are to be issued with helmets equipped with digital cameras, so that they can record the incidents they are called to.

Just like Johnny Alpha, then.


Reports that Gordon Brown has offered an advisory post at the Home Office to Nelson Bunker Kreelman are as yet unconfirmed.

Panels
Strontium Dog “Death’s Head” part 2, by John Wagner and Alan Grant (writers), Carlos Ezquerra (artist) and Steve Potter (letterer), 2000AD prog 179, c1980, reprinted in Strontium Dog: The Early Cases, Rebellion, 2005

Dandy Downer

Lew Stringer has spotted that the subscription page for The Dandy - home of Desperate Dan and Beryl the Peril - now lists it as appearing fortnightly, down from weekly.

Presumably, publishers DC Thomson plan to sell more of each issue by keeping it on sale twice as long. The risk, of course, is that The Dandy will lose visibility and momentum, leading to falling sales. Let’s hope that the former is the outcome.

It’s a sad state of affairs. The Dandy is due to turn 70 this December, and is Britain’s longest running comic still in production. Indeed, even globally it is, I think, beaten only by Detective Comics in the USA (first published earlier in 1937) and by TBO in Spain (first published in 1917) – if the latter is still going. The Dandy had a major revamp in 2004 aimed at aligning it with the tastes of modern children while keeping it as a comic, rather than turning it into a children’s magazine. It would be a pity if that turns out to have been in vain.

Shiny shiny

Christina Strain’s rich, silky colours on Runaways, particularly the second set of panels (featuring Karolina) that I posted yesterday, kept reminding me of someone’s work, but I couldn’t remember whose. Then it struck me: Ron Embleton.


I don’t imagine that there was any direct influence. More likely, they were both thinking of someone like Titian. But any pretext to post some pretty pictures is fine by me.


Pictures
Plate by Ron Embleton from Caesar’s Legions: The Roman Soldier 753 BC to 117 AD by Nicholas V Sekunda, Simon Northwood and Michael Simkins, illustrated by Richard Hook, Angus McBride and Ron Embleton, omnibus edition published by Osprey Publishing, 2000

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, by Angus P Allan (writer) and Ron Embleton (artist), TV 21 issue 143, 14 October 1967, reprinted in Action 21 issue 2, August 1988

Reviews: Black Canary, Runaways

Black Canary issue 1 “Living With Sin” part 1 by Tony Bedard (writer), Paulo Siqueira (penciller), Amilton Santos (inker), ILL (colourists), Pat Brosseau (letterer) and Mike Carlin (editor), 22 pages of strip, DC Comics, Early September 2007, US$2.99

Black Canary ponders Green Arrow’s marriage proposal while she and the little girl, Sin, who she is looking after are drawn by Canary’s ex-husband into a plot by the League of Assassins.

This is a perfectly competent slice of super-hero soap opera. Bedard’s script and Siqueira’s pencils tell an easily followed, coherent tale. Bits of backstory are provided painlessly. You could pick up this issue without any familiarity with the characters involved and still understand how they relate to each other and what is going on. Only the assassin Elvises in a flashback sequence have much zing to them, but this is still a solid and quite entertaining piece of work.


The only problem is that the nominal heroine of the piece, Black Canary, comes across as by far the least distinct personality here. Green Arrow, Sin, Canary’s ex, even Batman in a five panel cameo, all are delineated in a more lively manner than Black Canary, who comes across as a rather generic goody. It is of a piece with this that the lead villain is obsessed with Green Arrow, not with the supposed star of the show. That’s a particular pity, as this mini-series is Black Canary’s last outing before she is relegated to sidekick status in Green Arrow’s book. But perhaps it is also an indication of why.


Runaways issue 27 “Dead-End Kids” part 3 by Joss Whedon (writer), Michael Ryan (penciller), Rick Ketcham and Jay Leisten (inker), Christina Strain (colourist), VC’s Joe Caramanga (letterer) and Nick Lowe (editor), cover by Jo Chen, 24 pages of strip, Marvel Comics, August 2007, US$2.99

The teenage Marvels find themselves stuck in New York in 1907, where they encounter rival super-powered gangs called Wonders.

Whedon’s story is pretty straightforward, with amusing enough dialogue and some nice touches such as the appearance of the Yellow Kid himself. The attempts to parallel present day Marvel, especially a character who appears to be a direct counterpart to the Punisher, are perhaps a little overdone.


But even more appealing is the artwork by Ryan, Ketcham and Leisten, with sympathetic colouring by Strain. This is lushly detailed and rendered, but still clear and focused on its storytelling purpose.