True Brit: A Celebration of the Great Comic Book Artists of the UK

True Brit: A Celebration of the Great Comic Book Artists of the UK
Edited by George Khoury
TooMorrows Publishing, Raleigh, USA July 2004

'True Brit' (200 pp) from the American publishing company TooMorrows (which specializes in books on comics and graphic art) is, unfortunately, out of print. 

Copies in reasonable condition can be found at affordable prices at your usual online retailers. TooMorrows does offer a digital version / pdf for sale; this has color illustrations throughout (the printed version is entirely in black and white, save for a short insert of color pages).

'True Brit', with its pages packed with illustrations and crammed with tiny-font text, is one of those books made for the fans of both comic books and their artists. The book profiles 21 artists, spanning an era from ca. 1940 to 2003.

David Roach leads off the contents with a chapter on 'The History of British Comic Art'; this is indispensable reading for anyone wanting to understand how comic strips and comic books are formatted and distributed in the UK market, a process considerably different from that in place in the US. It provides a good overview of the evolution of comics in the UK from their introduction in the 19th century on up to the early 21st century.

The ensuing profiles cover both the Greats of UK comics, such as Frank Bellamy, Frank Hampson, and Sydney Jordan, as well as those artists - Brian Bolland, Alan Davis, Bryan Hitch, etc. - who began working for British publishers in the late 70s / early 90s, and then went on to fame and fortune providing work for US publishers like Marvel and DC.

The interviews make for interesting reading. Practically all of the interviewees display traditional English rectitude and self-effacement, along with the dry humor common to Brits. 

One thing that emerges quite clearly from the interviews is that the UK publishers were (and are) not very friendly towards their talent. Workplace benefits common to the US - such as allowing artists to retain possession of their original art - were rare in the UK. 

According to Brian Bolland, among the reasons he left IPC to work for the US publishers: 

For one thing the page rate was better; we got our own name printed - you know, we got credit - and we got our artwork back. All stuff we didn't get at home (i.e., the UK). We'd get reprint fees, royalties probably. We didn't get any of this at home here....we were all becoming aware that in American comics you had certain legal rights which were honored by the publishers.....it seemed like a very attractive proposition. 

One fault I have with 'True Brit' is book's formatting; it takes some getting used to, as it adopts a number of awkward layouts for both the text and the illustrations............ 

Some of the profiled artists are ones unfamiliar to me, such as Leo Baxendale, Hunt Emerson, and Ken Reid. These were artists who focused on humor strips, and their work was aimed both at the newspaper-based readership, and comic books for children, which historically has represented a significant portion of the market in the UK.

Given that many of those artists considered as being 'new' back in 2004, when the book was published, have now entered into retirement (or semi-retirement) the main value of 'True Brit' for American audiences is to familiarize them with the work of these British artists during the 90s and early 2000s. 

While it's a given that most American comic book fans will be acquainted with Kevin O'Neil's work on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, there is a lot of outstanding work for other titles in both the UK and the US that is showcased here and will undoubtedly lead readers to seek out............for me, it was the 1982 - 1983 DC series Camelot 3000, featuring artwork by Brian Bolland.

Summing up, if you are a fan of British comics and British artists, then getting a copy of 'True Brit' is well worth the effort. Don't be at all surprised if some of the works described in this book pique your interest and lead you to seek comics that you may have been unaware of.......

Book Review: Jem

Book Review: 'Jem' by Frederik Pohl

1 / 5 Stars

‘Jem’ first was published in hardcover in 1979. This Bantam paperback version (312 pp) was released in April 1985, and features cover artwork by Peter Grudynas.

The novel is set in the early 21st Century (an elderly Carl Sagan still attends scientific conferences). The Cold War continues to be fought, however, instead of being a contest between the ideologies of Capitalism and Communism, there is a three-way conflict between the People (the overpopulated regimes of Asia); Fuel (Arab nations; Venezuela; the UK); and Food (the USA and Russia) Blocs.

When a habitable planet, the ‘Jem’ of the book’s title, is discovered within range of FTL starships, each Bloc exerts significant effort to dispatch a colonizing expedition. In due course each of these expeditions endeavors to set up, and maintain, a base on Jem. This is no easy task; the side of the planet facing the star Kung is eternally hot, humid, and illuminated with a dull reddish glare. The colonizers discover three sapient races on Jem: the Krinpit, who resemble overgrown crayfish; the belowground-dwelling Creepies; and the Balloonists, who live an exclusively aerial lifestyle.

The opening chapters chronicle the gritty reality of eking out a living on Jem, when resources are scarce and unseen dangers have a habit of picking off the unwary. Inevitably, the humans succeed in learning how to communicate with the native inhabitants of the planet, and, just as inevitably, tensions rise as each Bloc seeks to establish itself as the prime power on Jem.

As the Cold War back on Earth begins an ominous slide into Hot War, the humans grubbing for existence on Jem suddenly become not just colonists, but perhaps the final remnants of Homo sapiens………..if they don’t succeed in wiping each other out………

Along with Niven and Pournelle, John Varley, and Gene Wolfe, Frederik Pohl (1919 – 2013) was one of the most visible authors in sf in the late 70s and early 80s, when – thanks to the success of sf in television and movies - the genre became much more prominent as a commercial entity.

Pohl’s novels of the period – Gateway, The Cool War, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Chernobyl –all were reasonably well-written, if not particularly imaginative in their scope. In this regard, 'Jem' ’s sci-fi packaging is meant to serve as a vehicle for Pohls’ (somewhat rueful) exploration of humanistic themes – such as man’s ideology-driven propensity to self-destruction, versus his understanding that overcoming racial, ethnic, and political barriers is the only sure path to survival.

However much Pohl intended 'Jem' to an allegorical treatment, the novel itself is overly long and rambling, and, like Pohl’s other novels, leaves the narrative to fend for itself while devoting most of its prose to detailing the various interchanges between the novel’s large cast of characters.

These interchanges are not exclusive to the novel’s human cast, but also apply to lead characters from the Krinpit and Balloonist races, too, further overburdening the narrative with what is nowadays referred to – usually by critics of The Walking Dead - as an overdependence on ‘character development’.

The final chapters of 'Jem' regain some sense of urgency as the inter-colony conflicts come to echo the violence breaking out back on Earth, but this urgency winds up dissipating in the novel’s conclusion, which strikes an unconvincing note of humanistic optimism.

The verdict ? Unless you're a dedicated fan of Frederik Phol, you'll want to pass on ‘Jem’ .

Judge Dredd: The League of Fatties

Judge Dredd: The League of Fatties
by T. B. Grover (story) and Ron Smith (art)
from 2000 AD Progs 273 - 274 (July 17 - 24, 1982)
reprinted in Judge Dredd: Fatties (2000 AD / Rebellion, July 2013)

From its early days, the editors and writers at 2000 AD comics had a politically incorrect stance on any number of social issues, and took special pleasure is producing satirical treatments of these topics.

Starting in the early 80s, obesity was one topic that got satirized in selected episodes of Judge Dredd. These stories are not only hysterically funny, but a sly dig at Americans; at that time, British popular culture portrayed the USA as being the Wonderland of the Overweight.

'The League of Fatties', a two-part storyline that appeared on consecutive issues of 2000 AD, showed no mercy towards its hapless victims. 

It's hard to imagine any modern comic daring to satirize the obese in the way that this comic does, with its use of the Belliwheel (to support enormous paunches), fatties diving headfirst into garbage cans for scraps of discarded food, 'kamikaze' fatties launching themselves from clifftops onto the beds of trucks carrying provisions, and the Fatties' slogan: 'Gluttony Will Prevail !'   

Battle for the Planet of the Apes Part II

Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Part II of VII
by Doug Moench (script) and Alfredo Alcala (art)
Planet of the Apes (Marvel / Curtis) No. 24, September 1976

In this second installment of the series, Alfredo Alcala takes over the art chores from Sonny Trinidad and Vincente Alcazar. Not to fear; Alcala's art is amazing, and he takes special care in rendering the partially-melted faces of the radioactive wasteland's mutants !

Part One is here. 

Part Two is here.

Part Three is here.

Part Four is here.

Part Five is here.

Part Six is here.

Book Review: Protectorate

Book Review: 'Protectorate' by Mick Farren

5 / 5 Stars

‘Protectorate’ (250 pp) was published by Ace Books in January 1985; the cover art is by Dan La Mountain. 

[A sequel, titled ‘Their Master’s War’, was published by Del Rey Books in 1987.]

‘Protectorate’ takes place several hundred years in the future, after Earth has been subjugated – with shocking swiftness – by a race of insectoid aliens known as the Wasps. A global plague, possibly introduced by the Wasps, has depopulated 80 % of the planet; the survivors live in one of the three massive cities left on Earth.

Resistance to the Wasps is futile. Not only do they wield technology considerably more advanced than that of Earth, but the Wasps also have the ability to sense hostility being directed their way by any human in close proximity – leading the Wasps to retaliate by causing the suspect’s skull to spontaneously implode...... !

In the largest of the three cities, a middle-aged man - known simply as the Protector - is the highest-ranking individual on Earth, for he is the planet’s sole interlocutor with the Wasps. The Protector’s every waking moment is preoccupied with placating the Wasps, and thus allowing mankind to continue to exist. To ensure that the city’s population is content with this status quo, the Protector is perfectly willing to allow his paramilitary police force, the so-called ‘Killers’, to brutally quash dissent.

As the novel opens, Jeen Vayim, a poet and storyteller, is down on his luck. His latest gig – appearing at the home of an aristocrat living in one of the opulent mansions of the Upper City – has not gone well. Vayim is obliged to return to the gritty warrens of the Lower City, and a stool at Denhagels Tavern, there to nurse a beer and ponder his dwindling finances.

Someone else is at the Tavern this night…..a charismatic young man surrounded by a cohort of beautiful, fawning women. The young man’s name is Gwyann, and his background is a mystery.

Jeen Vayim is ready to dismiss Gwyann as yet another cult leader hoping to find acolytes among the disadvantaged population of the Lower City. But as Vayim soon discovers, Gwyann is no ordinary back-alley prophet. For he has powers that allow him to defy the Wasps…..powers that are making the Protector, and his Killers, increasingly uneasy……..

‘Protectorate’ is one of the better non-cyberpunk sf novels of the 1980s. Author Mick Farren avoids the type of narrative that typified the ‘alien encounter’ sf of that era, as epitomized by the works of C. J. Cherryh, in which the struggle for human and alien to understand and comprehend each other eventually leads to mutual respect and comity. In ‘Protectorate’ the Wasps remain cryptic and unknowable, heightening the possibility that the actions of their truculent human subjects will trigger a devastating retaliation.

Farren also avoids making ‘Protectorate’ a simplistic novel about heroic earthlings rising up against their alien oppressors; righteousness is absent from the tiers of the city, as the warring factions commit all manner of atrocities in order to gain control of the city and influence with the Wasps.

The verdict ? If you like an offbeat novel about Earth under alien occupation, a novel with regular episodes of violence and mordant humor, then ‘Protectorate’ is worth getting.

Martelaine

Martelaine
by John Workman
from Heavy Metal magazine, August 1981

This is an offbeat little strip from an early 80s issue of Heavy Metal.

At first glance, 'Martelaine' seems like a satire of a 70s-era Romance comic, or maybe a satire of a cheesy T & A comic. But beneath the humor there is an underlying note of unease that comes to fruition in the final two panels of this black and white comic from John Workman (who was the art director for the magazine from 1977 - 1984). 

The overtone of creepiness is aided and abetted by Workman's economical, but carefully crafted, penciling of his heroine's facial expressions.