Black Max Volume One

Black Max
Volume One
Frank Pepper (story) and Alfonso Font (art)
Rebellion, October 2018

'Black Max Volume One' (112 pp) was published in October 2018 by Rebellion (UK). It's part of the 'Treasury of British Comics' imprint which issues graphic novel compilations of black-and-white comics that were serially published in the weekly 'Boy's Papers' and 'Girl's Papers' issued in the UK in the 70s and early 80s. 

Most of these comics are unknown to American readers, and are peculiarly.....British..........in tone. Who else would devote a comic strip to the adventures of a fox ?! 

These Boy's Papers were printed on newsprint, so the resolution of the artwork appearing in them necessarily was less than ideal. It's also likely that the original artwork for these comics has since been lost, and what appears in these graphic novels presumably is scanned from well-preserved printed papers.

Which brings us to 'Black Max' Volume One. I first learned about this title from a July, 2017 post at the blog 'Blimey ! The Blog of British Comics'.

In 1971, perhaps inspired by the success of the DC Comics title Enemy Ace, the UK Boy's Paper Thunder began publishing its own WWI aviator strip.

Written by Frank Pepper and illustrated by Alfonso Font, 'Black Max' was inventive in incorporating a supernatural element into its narrative: a German fighter pilot named Baron Maximilien Von Klorr (aka 'Black Max') commands a team of giant vampire bats (!) in attacks on Allied fighters in the skies over Western Europe. Brave Britisher Tim Wilson emerges as Von Klorr's staunchest opponent, as man, machine, and bat clash in duels to the death.

Pepper's scripts were designed for a readership of adolescent boys, so you're not going to find overly deep narratives here, particularly in light of the fact that the series was released as three-page installments in each weekly issue of Thunder. But that is a good thing, because the emphasis with 'Black Max' is on constant action and cliff-hanger endings designed to entice the reader to look towards the next weekly installment. 

It's also very clear that, even in the early 70s, 'Black Max', with its high body count, was more 'adult' in tone than the US comics of the same era, which had to adhere to the Comics Code.

Indeed, American readers might want to think of 'Black Max' as something that might have appeared in Eerie or Creepy rather than the Marvel / DC lineup.

Spanish artist Alfonso Font is of course a legend among European comics readers, and in the US, where his work for the Warren and Skywald magazines in the 70s was well received. My review of the English translation of his 80s sci-fi comic Prisoner of the Stars (El Prisionero de las Estrellas) is available here.

His black and white work in 'Black Max' is excellent and, in the contemporary era in which so much of comic art is simple line art designed to be readily adaptable to digital coloring schemes, a reminder of what can be done with the skillful use of shading and cross-hatching.

The nice thing about this Rebellion compilation is that at 8 1/2 x 11 inches it retains the formatting of the original strips, and doesn't shrink the dimensions of this trade paperback in order to satisfy the American graphic novel market (i.e., 7 x 10 1/4 inches). 

Too often too many compilations of European comics are shrunk to fit that US convention, and for middle-aged readers like me, whose eyesight is not what it used to be, that can make reading difficult.

Summing up, if you're a Baby Boomer and a fan of those great Silver Age DC war comics and characters like Weird War Tales, Our Army at War  (Sgt. Rock), Enemy Ace, and G.I. Combat (The Haunted Tank) as well as Marvel with its Sgt. Fury comics, then you owe it to yourself to grab a copy of 'Black Max'. And with this compilation subtitled 'Volume One', there is the promise of more Black Max Goodness on the way from Rebellion...............!?