Darkie's Mob by John Wagner & Mike Western

Yet again, I have more to write about than I have time to write it.

This comic is about a Bastard.

It’s not that surprising when you look at who the writer was. John Wagner has created several other Bastards, Judge Dredd, Johnny Alpha and my personal favourite Harry Exton to name a few. All, in their own way, epitomes of Bastardry.

It’s established early on in the story that Darkie is not who he appears to be, (trust me on this, if you don’t know what I’m talking about don’t try to find out, just buy this book and go with it until the bitter end.) but his ability to keep this group of British Tommie’s alive whilst operating behind enemy lines is how he earns a grudging respect from his men.

Darkie appears out of nowhere just as a leaderless group of squaddies are about to be slaughtered by Japanese troops. His familiarity with the Burmese terrain and his insistence on taking the fight to the enemy drags the squaddies out of their despair and reforms them into an elite fighting unit, many faces are lost along the way and one or two are even gained, but inevitably, there’s only one way that this story can end. But it’s how we get there that’s the joy.

Darkie’s Mob act as a guerrilla strike team operating in enemy territory on their own terms, causing as much havoc and mayhem to the occupying Japanese forces as possible. Darkie clearly holds a personal vendetta against the Japs and makes no bones about the fact that he’s there to kill as many as he can, regardless of the cost. And that cost is often to himself. In one particularly memorable scene, Darkie is crucified on the roof of a Jap prison camp building and left to die in the blazing sun. Let’s not beat around the bush here, this is a very gruesome comic, in both the actions of the Japanese and in Darkie’s savage retribution which he takes as often as possible, always throwing himself head first into the slaughter and expecting the same of his men.

The thrust of the ongoing story of the book is the exploration of the characters, chiefly Captain Darkie and Private Shortland, who’s diary acts as narration for the strip. Through Shortland we see how the men’s attitude toward their dictatorial Captain changes as they begin to trust his judgement and come to realise that their lives are a secondary concern in the greater effort of the war. This of course is exactly what Darkie wants of them and it’s left to the reader to decide whether they have been deftly manipulated by Darkie or reached their own conclusions. But, like most strips published in British weekly anthologies, the overall story is told through a series of connected, shorter tales, in this book the stories are of varying lengths, each one recounting a particular mission, whether it be the freeing of prisoners from a POW camp, or the destruction of a bridge in use by the Japs. It’s interesting that some of the stories begin mid mission and throw us straight in to a fire fight, running along at break neck speed with bodies falling left and right, and not until several panels on do we learn the purpose of the battle. It keeps us as readers on our toes and as these were originally published just a few pages at a time, it gets the action going from the first panel.

 

All of the Darkie’s Mob strips were drawn by Mike Western. Western’s work is perfectly suited to black and white, it’s stark and brutal, but most importantly despite the uniforms you can tell the difference between the characters. As you can see from the images included in this post, his panels and layouts are irregular which adds a sense of chaos to the action scenes, but the broken borders pull the eye across the page with a mad energy, and it works, the combination of writing and art force you to read this strip at speed, which I’m sure was the intention, but I’d recommend you turn back now and then just to absorb Western’s incredible talent.

It’s worth mentioning that I don’t usually seek out WWII comics (I much prefer WWI aviation) but this strip kept me engrossed from start to finish. I expected a rip-roaring Boy’s Own adventure, but what I got was a much more bitter tale, one that doesn’t flinch away from playing it’s “Heroes” as flawed, severely flawed. If there was more I’d buy it, but this volume reprints the whole strip.

Mad Thinker Reads…………………

Strips Where They Don’t Like It Up ‘Em

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Alex Toth's Zorro

Here’s another blog that I’ll have to whip through (no pun intended) as I’m once again ahead on my reading and behind on my blogging. So, short and to the point it will be.

ISBN: 978-1582400907

Firstly, it’s worth a mention that this book is sold under several slightly different titles depending on where you look for it. The title from the indicia of this second edition is: The Complete Classic Alex Toth Zorro, but the cover title is “The Complete Classic Adventures of Zorro by Alex Toth” and the spine has a slightly different word order too. Normally this wouldn’t pose much of a problem, but these stories have been reprinted previously by Eclipse under a similar title, the only difference being that they were split over two volumes, so it is worth checking which edition you are looking at before purchase or you may end up with only half of the strips.

Whilst I’ve admired Toth from a distance for some time the combination of my income versus expenditure and the recent trend of repackaging the slightly more obscure Ditko and Kirby strips has kept me from buying any Toth reprints. But I always like to mention why a particular book has ended up on my bookshelf and in this instance, it was about sixty percent character to forty percent creator. I’m an unabashed fan of Zorro. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from a fanboy, I’m the first to admit that there have been several absolutely awful adaptations of the Fox, but the original pulp serial, The Curse of Capistrano and the first talkie film, The Mark of Zorro (1940) starring Tyrone Power are what Zorro is all about for me.

So it was primarily my love of the character coupled with an interest in seeing more of Toth’s work that inspired me to get a copy of this book. (I also just love comics from this era, pre superhero, late 50’s, etc.)

I wasn’t disappointed.

From the opening pages I was pulled in to the over the top drama and swashbucklery of the strip. It’s pure adventure from beginning to end. Many of the villains and story lines are peculiar to the Disney series from the late 1950’s, however even if you aren’t familiar with the Disney series they are still satisfying strips without any prior knowledge of the TV series.

In terms of Toth’s style I found it reminiscent of Ditko, not in form but in the artists intent. Both Toth and Ditko have an unwavering devotion to tell the story in the most succinct way possible. On the page at least, Toth’s ego is non-existent. There’s no grandstanding or undeserved splash pages. Everything on the page is there to further the story rather than to highlight the artists ability. Toth’s lines are quite loose and almost impressionistic in places, with several silhouette panels that work perfectly with the subject matter. With some artists this might give an impression of laziness, but Toth uses it as part of the composition of panel, as a way to highlight the relevant aspect without the panel looking cluttered or confusing. There is one particularly beautiful panel, which unfortunately I can’t provide a scan of, where two characters are standing in the shadow of a tree, it would have been perfectly acceptable for Toth to have drawn the subjects in silhouette, but instead the characters are defined with the individual shadows of the trees branches falling on them. After seeing this and a few other panels I was convinced that some of the strips were produced at short notice, where as with other episodes Toth had a little more time to compose the strips before publication.

Another strong point in regard to Toth’s line work is his ability to draw recognisable emotion on his characters without it looking like pantomime. This is something that I’ve mentioned on this blog before as a particular bug-bear of mine, few comic book artists, even some of the greats, have struggled with this. But Toth, in this volume accomplishes it with a minimum of fuss and a economical use of lines. There are only a few artists that I think have mastered this and seeing Toth’s ability in this book, I would include him in that woefully short list.

 

Toth tells us in his introduction that the cape is an element of Zorro’s costume that he did not enjoy drawing. There’s a certain irony there, because, like faces, few comic artists are proficient at drawing drapery, which, considering how many characters wear cloaks is damning really. Toth’s use of the cloak as a dramatic element is fantastic, there are things you can get a cloak to do in a comic that would never be satisfactorily described in prose and would be impossible to capture on film. Toth clearly appreciated this and even though he found it a pain in the arse to draw, he makes great use of it in several scenes. So, yes Toth’s understanding of and ability to draw drapery is up there with Jerry Robinson and Steve Ditko.

In short, these two-hundred or so pages have more than adequately shown me why Toth is held in such high regard and I’m pretty sure that you’ll be reading more blogs about whatever Toth comics I can get hold of in the not too distant future.

Mad Thinker Reads…………

The Amazing Adventures of Don Diego De La Vega.

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Century 21: Classic Comic Strips From the Worlds of Gerry Anderson

Volume 1, Adventure In The 21^st Century ISBN: 9781905287932

Volume 2, Invasion In The 21^st Century ISBN: 9781905287949

Volume 3, Escape From Aquatraz ISBN: 9781904674085

Volume 4, Above & Beyond ISBN: 9781904674153

The first thing I need to mention before this post gets going is my absolute ignorance of all things Anderson. I don’t recall ever seeing a single episode of any of the puppet shows and in broad terms, the premise of the shows were not known to me.

So the obvious question is: Why would I buy these four volumes if I have no interest in the Anderson Universe?

The short answer is: Frank Bellamy. But there is a little more to it than that. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of British comics from the 50s to the 70s and the talent that was involved in these strips in incredible. The Anderson shows were a huge phenomenon in the 60s, so it makes sense that the talent employed to further these characters adventures in a comic strip was the cream of the crop. In these pages you’ll find strips from Ron Embleton, Mike Noble, Don Harley and of course, Frank Bellamy to name a few. But, getting back to that short answer, for me at least, Frank Bellamy is the deal clincher.

Again, it’s no secret that I’m totally in love with Bellamy’s art. Regardless of the other strips reprinted I’d still want to own the few pages of his strips that are in each volume. Bellamy worked on the Thunderbirds strips and these are well represented in these books and they are an absolute joy to behold. I believe that these strips highlight some of Bellamy’s best work and any one interested in his art should really take a look at these books.



Frank Bellamy Thunderbirds strip. Scan from original comic. Bellamy draws the best explosions I've ever seen.



But the other strips don’t fall short either. I was particularly impressed by Mike Noble’s contributions, but every strip has merits. It’s to be expected, these strips aren’t reproduced in any particular order, they’re essentially cherry picked by Chris Bentley, the editor, from either the best or generally most interesting strips that appeared over the run of the original comic. In most instances the reading order is unimportant, but there are a couple of moments, particularly with the Fireball XL5 strip, when it’s obvious that a story printed in volume four takes place directly before a story reprinted in volume two. It’s not a big deal though, even for a reader like myself, who has no previous knowledge of any of the strips or characters, the writers are able to put enough subtle back story into the strips that you feel you have a grasp of the characters and situations almost instantly.

In the introduction for the first volume written by Chris Bentley, we’re told that a considerable amount of the original art was available for these reprint editions. Whilst all of the pages are reproduced to a high standard, there was one instance when, mid way through a strip, I found myself flipping back to the contents page to see who the second artist on a particular strip was. I was surprised to see that the credits listed only one artist. When I flipped back to the strip I realised that I wasn’t looking at a different artist, I was actually seeing pages that had been reprinted from the original boards, whereas the first few pages of the strip had been reproduced from a copy of the comic because the original art was not available. The difference was incredible. The level of detail that was strikingly obvious in the art board pages was non-existent in the comic pages. I think this speaks volumes for the care and attention taken by the publisher in reprinting the strips to the highest possible standards whenever possible.

There is one glitch with reprinting these strips in this format. Some instalments were printed in the centre spread of the comic. In a floppy comic without a spine, there was no problem printing panels that ran from one page, across the break and onto the opposite page. But because of the spine in these reprints this format doesn’t print in a reader friendly layout. To be honest, there’s not much that can be done about this. The only reasonable options are to artificially create a unprinted strip down the centre of the art to allow the minds eye to patch the parts together, or, as in this case, to create an overlap, so that each page prints a little over half the full image which allows the art to be viewed in spite of the spine crease. It’s a difficult call to make and one that is never going to please everyone. Personally, I’d have rather seen the former option, but it does come down to personal taste.

Unfortunately, the overall quality of the books is a fraction below standard. As I said above, the printing is fantastic, but the paperback editions feel very flimsy (I believe that there are hardback editions available, but my copies and the ISBN’s above are paperback), with lightweight card covers that I’ve protected with plastic covers as you would see on library paperbacks (available from www.bookprotectors.com if you’re interested). I imagine that this decision was made in order to keep the costs down, but I saw a copy on a shelf in Waterstones a while back that looked incredibly worn, so I’d be aware that they won’t stand up to wear and tear too well. This is a shame because the content is fantastic but the package leaves something to be desired.

As ever, there are a couple of down points with these volumes, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that they are all related to the package as opposed to the content. The content is superb, with some of the finest British artists to ever have worked in the medium represented in these books. Anyone interested in a master class of story telling should give these books a go. Recommended.

So this was another one of my purchases that I was unsure of before I started reading it. But all things considered, it’s worked out quite well I think.

Mad Thinker Reads…………..

FAB, SIG, PWOR and any other TLA’s that come to mind.



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Steve Ditko Omnibus Vol. 1

Collects Shade, the Changing Man 1-8, Stalker 1-4 & shorts from Strange Adventures, Plop, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Weird War Tales, Secrets of Haunted House, Tales of the Unexpected, Time Warp, Ghosts and Mystery In Space.

With an introduction by Jonathan Ross.

A year or so back, I very nearly purchased a couple of Ditko series from DC, namely Shade: The Changing Man and Stalker. For some reason that I can’t remember now, I ended up buying the ACG books that Ditko contributed to from the 60’s. In retrospect it worked out quite well, because there’s nothing in this volume that I already own, but I have to say that I’m not entirely satisfied.

In terms of Ditko’s input for this omnibus edition, his art is fantastic. If The Creeper was Ditko & DC’s attempt to recapture the kookiness of Spider-Man, then, visually, Shade is this volumes Dr. Strange. There are lots of motifs and design elements from the Dr. Strange strip that crop up again and again in the panels of Shade. Most obviously there is the unusual window pattern seen on Strange’s Bleeker Street residence that is repeated, in very similar circumstances in Shade. But there’s also the similarity in the unearthly dimensions that our hero travels through. Pure Ditko design. There are several examples of Ditko’s excellent visual style, but where this series falls short is in the narrative.



Shade #4 pg.7, Scanned from original comic

 Unfortunately, Shade, which is plotted by Ditko and written by Michael Fleisher, has quite a confusing plot, with characters jumping in and out of the story and what is meant to convey a sense of mystery only lends itself to perplexity. Perhaps perplexity is too strong a word, but it certainly had me turning back the pages to figure out who was who, but worst of all, trying to work out how we got from point A to point B.

Having said that, the basic plot itself is intriguing, Rac Shade, a government operative from another reality which borders our own, is wrongly convicted of treason and ends up on Earth with the secret technology of the M-Vest, which projects force-fields and distorts the perception of antagonists. The action moves between Earth and Shade’s home world freely as Shade discovers plots within plots. I’ll admit that my knowledge of the modern DC Universe is seriously incomplete, but I’m surprised that Shade’s world hasn’t been incorporated into it in the same way that Kirby’s Fourth World has. DC you’re missing a trick.



Stalker #2, p14. Scan from original comic not this volume.

 The other series reprinted in this volume is Stalker from 1975, written by Paul Levitz. Wally Wood provided inks for these issues and as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Wood’s inks on Ditko’s pencils produce unusual results. They look great, but they don’t look like any other Ditko work. Having said that, Ditko’s greatest strength is his panel composition and layout, essentially the way he tells the story rather than the rendering of figures and backgrounds, and this is still Ditko laying it out before us. Levitz takes his time telling this tale and the story feels like it’s just about to start on it’s main thrust before it was cancelled on #4. It opens with what appears to be a straight sword & sorcery story, but there are plenty of visual hints that we are going to be heading in a different direction, but the cancellation of the title meant that any further development failed to happen.

The rest of the page count (there are about 450 pages in total) is taken up with short stories anywhere between two to twelve pages from the titles mentioned above. They cover a range of genres from horror and sci-fi to comedy. It’s roughly half of the page count that is taken up with these short, one off strips and I’m surprised to say that these were the high point of this volume for me. Having bought this book primarily for the Shade and Stalker stories I enjoyed seeing Ditko bring his incredibly accomplished visual story telling back to his starting point in 1953 with these condensed tales. There are lots in here, accomplished with varying degrees of success depending on the writer, but they are all masterfully laid down by Ditko, with a couple of real gems scattered in, which I’m not going to name because I want you to experience to same surprise that I did whilst reading through.

In comparison to the other mainstream collections of Ditko that have been released over the last few years, I have to say that I found this to be the weakest. If you enjoy short and sharp Horror tales I’d recommend the first volume of the Steve Ditko Archives, Strange Suspense from Fantagraphics, if you prefer super-hero fare there’s always the first 38 issues of Spider-Man, or my personal favourite, volume 2 of the Action Heroes Archives featuring Blue Beetle II, The Question and Captain Atom.

But, if you’re already familiar with Ditko, there’s plenty here to like, just be aware that it will fall short of most of his earlier work.

Mad Thinker Reads…………………………

His Christmas Presents Quicker Than He Writes About Them.

Fighting American by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby

Publisher: Titan

ISBN: 9780857681157

Paperback, 200 pages

I’ll have to keep this post short and sweet. I’m reading comics quicker than I have opportunity to write about them at the moment. So, at lightning speed, a quick rundown of Fighting American by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby.

This is the paperback volume printed by Titan Books in 2011. There was an earlier hardback printed by Marvel in the 90’s, but you’ll pay considerably more for that one and as far as I’m aware, it reprints the same material.

This reprint collects the original seven issue run of Fighting American, published by Prize Comics starting in 1954 and the two issues commissioned by Harvey Comics in 1966, of which only the first issue saw print.

The general package is very good, including a brief introduction by Joe Simon that puts the Fighting American’s origin in context. I was particularly happy with the colour retouching. It’s not too bold, it’s basically been cleaned up and realigned.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Fighting American, the character is a riff on Captain America, complete with his own Bucky called Speed Boy. The first couple of issues of the comic are pretty typical super-hero fare, inspired by Marvel’s short lived relaunch of Captain America in the 50’s. Marvel’s Captain America soon folded, but Fighting American managed to keep afloat for about a year (the issues were published on a bi-monthly schedule.) So why did two characters that were so similar fare so differently?

Well, the obvious answer is that Captain America didn’t have Simon & Kirby producing it. But there is a little more to it than that. I mentioned above that the first couple of issues were standard super-hero adventure, but as the series progressed the tone of the strip changed dramatically by becoming less dramatic. By the time the stories found their feet they were making their mark by poking fun at Fighting American and super-hero books in general. Speed Boy becomes much more than just a sidekick, in many of the stories he plays the straight man, saving the oblivious F.A. from certain doom on more than one occasion. The villains are ridiculously over the top stereotypes of Red Menace threats with names like Poison Ivan and Hotsky Trotski, which I suppose aren’t too dissimilar to the names used in his later Fourth World stories (Big Barda, Granny Goodness, Lashina.) and the stories range from Commie smashing to racket busting to extraterrestrial threats. Yes, the whole field is covered, with tongue firmly in cheek for the majority.

Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t similar Kirby work out there, but if there is anything comparable, I haven’t come across it. In very broad terms I’d describe it as Captain America crossed with The Spirit.

By the end of the book we move on to the Harvey Comics issues. Whilst I’m happy at the inclusion of these comics, they don’t have the sparkle that the original run did. From the look of the stories I would say that the involvement of Simon & Kirby was minimal for these issues. But, being a bit of a completist, it’s great that they are reprinted here.

For more detailed information regarding the creation and credits for the Prize issues, plus some other interesting bits, I’d recommend that you have a look at these and related pages at Kirby Museum: Fighting American.  

So there you go a (nearly) short and snappy post of a great curiosity from the Simon & Kirby library. It’s certainly worth owning and it’s available at a reasonable price.

Mad Thinker Reads………………….

Our Dear Departed Grandpa Jack & Uncle Joe.