Rachel Rising #7 (Abstract Studio)

Creator: Terry Moore

So Rachel Rising has passed the six issue mark and the end of its introductory arc. In the first chapter following that arc, we get more character development and complications. The mysterious woman who seems to be at the centre of everything that happen appears in a different guise for the first time, or at least possesses the mind of a passerby to mutter her quotation at Rachel, "And they shall fall like snow". This is slightly spoiled in an uncharacteristic slip up on the part of Terry Moore as he holds the readers hand to tell them exactly what she is referring to:

"Death. She's talking about death."

I've not known Moore not trust his readers to interpret the work themselves before, and this is just clumsy and irritating. It feels so clunky that I'm not sure if it's a piece of misdirection put in by the artist, but even then it feels out of kilter with how the rest of the story has been told thus far (if such a thing had happened in the first couple of issues then I may well have dropped the title).

Nevertheless we shouldn't make too much of this. It stands out more because the rest of the comic has been so good, and Moore is such a great storyteller normally. The remaining sixteen (of eighteen) pages is as good as ever. We have a new character introduced in Detective Corpell who is investigating the crash that ended issue six, declarations of love to a corpse, more people coming back from the dead and a rather macabre Star of David. That final scene with the Star of David leads one to speculate that this could be something to do with the Holocaust, but would that be too obvious? I'm hopeful that it won't lead into some sort of hackneyed revenge tale, but will remain much more interesting and fulfil the promise it shows, and which Terry Moore's pedegree reinforces.

The underlying themes within this work are starting to emerge, and they are consistent with the artist's previous work in that the themes are ultimately about the personal relationships we create with each other in our everyday lives, and the importance of these relationships even in the face, especially in the face, of bigger, more dramatic events that happen both around and to us. In Strangers in Paradise we had the whole crime thing, in Echo there was the imminent man-made apocalypse, and here it is people dying violent deaths and then coming back. In all of these the important things, the aspects that Moore lingered on longest and that readers cared about, were the relationships the characters had built up with each other. Here we have Rachel, Jet, Aunt Johnny and Earl, and what the reader cares about is what they mean to each other. I would say that more than death, what readers fear in all of Terry Moore's work is that the characters will do something to betray each other, to hurt each other emotionally, and a desire to see people treat each other with kindness and love is no bad thing.

Anyway after all that, I'm still unsure as to where it is all leading. What I am sure about is that, wherever the journey leads, it is incredible fun getting there.

Courtney Crumrin (Oni Press)

Written & illustrated by: Ted Naifeh
Holly Hart is a young girl, a tween, who moves to a new town thanks to the success of her father's recent novel, a political thriller that it is hinted was little more than hack work. Their new house is next to a rather Adams Family looking mansion belonging to Professor Crumrin and his niece Courtney. Holly soon finds herself taking up with Courtney after a supernatural encounter in the local woods. Courtney, much to Holly's delight, is actually a witch. Courtney, rather taken by having somebody who wishes to spend time with her, begins to teach Holly  how to cast spells. Thus begins the downfall of Holly Hart.


All ages comics, whatever has become of you? It seems like the American comic industry is little interested in pursuing the next generation of comic fans, intent instead to weigh down ever more ludicrous super-hero icons with more violence and sex than the concepts where ever designed to hold, in order to cater for an audience of (mainly) men who have never grown up, but like selfish children wish to keep hold of their toys and not let anybody else have them, demanding that The Avengers, Spider-Man, Batman or whoever speak to them and their lives at 42 in the same way they did when they were 12.

At least there are some in the industry trying to produce work accessible to all ages, and behind a cover that puts one in mind of Mike Mignola's Hellboy lurks this charming and entertaining comic. Ted Naifeh's art is cartoonish enough so that the supernatural elements feel more like creatures from Scooby Doo than from Stephen King, which is ideal in this context. Storywise there is enough meat here to keep readers young and old enthralled, with clearly defined characters, a subplot concerning the possible demise of Courtney's uncle, and revelations at the conclusion of the issue that make you want to read the next issue as soon as possible. I particularly like Holly's first choice of spell to learn which is one to make her the most poular kid in school. For somebody who has always been an outsider, looking enviously on at the kids who belonged, this would surely be the first thing you would leap upon. Whilst in the story it seems to show a certain shallowness of character, I think it also shows the very strong desire all humans have to want to belong to something.

All in all if you like good fantasy stories well told then you should certainly take a look at Courtney Crumrin, safe in the knowledge that you can also read it together with your children. 

Fatale (Image)

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artists: Sean Phillips

There has been a bit of an internet buzz about some mainstream comics since DC launched their New 52 last year, stealing some of Marvel's thunder, for which they only have the rather insipid and frat boy Avengers vs X-Men as an answer (and we're talking comics here, not films so the Avengers movie doesn't count in this context). However not everything notable about the DC relaunch has been for the better. There have been some well executed comics, particularly Action Comics, Animal Man and All Star Western, but there has also been a good deal of concern about sexist attitudes coming through in their depiction of certain female characters. Let us not forget that they have also let Rob Liefeld write one of the regular series who, although he may be a nice enough person who can deliver flashy, if poorly executed artwork, has never learned even the rudiments of how to write, and possibly never thought that it is a skill that you have to learn.

Ironically amongst all this, the comic that has been arguably the runaway success story is from the company Liefeld help set up in direct competition with Marvel and DC. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips seem to have been on a determined mission to show the world that literate, articulate crime stories the equal of books by Hammett, Chandler, Ellroy and Rankin, can be told within the comics medium. In Fatale they have added Lovecraftian horror to these stories to great effect.

When it comes to detective fiction, comics have one great advantage over both films and novels in that it is easy to refer back to earlier parts of the text to understand something brought to light later on, or to clarify something a character said, or to understand some subtle relationship one character may have to another. This means that ultimately, in the hands of skilled creators, these comic stories can be denser and more complex than anything delivered in other media. Four chapters into the story of Fatale and the creators have constructed just that, a piece that takes full advantage of the comics medium, which rewards reading together with the other issues close to hand.

From interviews with Brubaker we know that the story will eventually return to closer to present day, but at the moment it is depicting events from the 1950s, classic noir territory. Corrupt cops, morally dubious protagonists and the titular femme fatale are all present, but this is far from noir by numbers as Brubaker and Phillips weave genuine horror into the proceedings. So well grounded is the reader in the grim world we know from detective fiction that the horrific elements, when they do rear their heads, are much more shocking as we are suddenly reminded that this is a horror comic. There are plenty of developments to keep our interest piqued as the lengths men will go to for Josephine, the fatale of the title, are revealed, and there are hints that it never ends well for any of them, echoed at the end by something uttered to our main lead for this section, the journalist Hank Raines whose life has fallen to pieces since meeting her. In addition we also get more insight to the corrupt cop, Walt Booker, which lends a degree of sympathy to him. That's the thing with this book, the human characters seem neither good nor evil but human, with all the contradictions of character that entails.

This is a wonderful book, and Sean Phillips art just oozes atmosphere. Alan Moore once said in an interview about V For Vendetta that it wasn't "Alan Moore's V For Vendetta" but his and artist David Lloyd's, as the book was very much a collaboration. That is very much the case here, and one cannot imagine Fatale being the comic it is without one or the other of the creators. They work together so well that it has the feel of a comic made by one writer/artist, with writing and art merging so well that it is futile to try to separate the two. As with their comic Criminal, there are articles included in the individual issues which will not be collected in the trade paperbacks, as a reward to readers for supporting the series, and these make these comics well worth buying in the floppy format. Where else would you find informative and interesting articles on the inspirations for Chandler's Phillip Marlowe, Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. The only real problem is Ed Brubaker recommends so many good books, you may well fill your reading list from now until Christmas.

The Secret Service (Marvel Icon)

Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Dave Gibbons
Co-Plotter: Matthew Vaughn
Colourist: Angus McKie
Editor: Nicole Boose
I have mixed reactions when I hear that a book has been written by Mark Millar. Sometimes he puts out stuff that has this reader purring with delight. Work such as Saviour (the little I saw of it), The Ultimates, The Authority easily falls into this category. At other times he seems to court controvery for its own sake, with little beneath the surface, such as Kick-Ass and his 2000AD strips. However the one defining thing is that he knows how to construct a story so even when delivering shallow, meaningless drivel it is at least well written and makes sense to the reader, so when I heard that he and Dave Gibbons would be working on a book together, it seemed well worth checking out. There was one final concern which regarded the inclusion of Matthew Vaughn and its seeming parallel development as a film property and comic, the fear being that the comic would be neutered by the need to only inlude scenes that would make a good film.

It would seem that any fears were unfounded as this is a wonderful comic that confounds expectations. We have all the hallmarks of a James Bond film, the big, exciting introductory scene, suave and sophisticated agent, Jack, dining with his boss on wine and fish in the Westminster. Each of these is wittily undercut by the inclusion of a twist. The first scene is a daring rescue of Mark Hamill which doesn't quite go as expected, and the dinner with the agent is interrupted by a text from Jack's sister telling him his nephew is in trouble with the law again, as it turns out our sophisicated agent is from a rather less sophisticated background, less James Bond and more Jeremy Kyle. This is all good stuff, but it is in the depiction Jack's sister and her family that Mark Millar really shows his chops. Rather than stereotypical and slightly condescending, this is a lot more realistic. Certainly it is exagerated, but the actions, the language, the atmosphere are all spot on.

As you would expect from such an established and talented pro, Dave Gibbons turns in some wonderful art that does its job so perfectly you barely notice it as he manages to drag you into this world without once pulling you out of it due to clumsy panel transitions, strange page design, or wierd looking bodies that don't fit together like any real world human being. Expressions too are perfectly rendered so we always have a good idea about what the different characters ma be thinking and feeling.

This is an excellent book, and when the end came I found myself wishing the next issue was already available, and you can't ask for much more than that.

Goliath (Drawn & Quarterly)

Creator: Tom Gauld

A Page 45 Comic Book of the Month

This is the first long form work that I have read by Tom Gauld, having been entertained by his cartoons in The Guardian for a while now. His style is such that it was difficult to see whether it would sustain a longer narrative. It is with some pleasure that not only does it sustain such a work, but it helps to enhance its meaning.

The style itself is one of seemingly simple, cartoonish figures (closer to the Schulz end of the spectrum than Eddie Campbell), and panels drawn with a confidence that allows for quite extensive use of negative space. Gauld's panel layouts are never cluttered, his page design quite elegant, and the use of splash pages effective. His panel borders are hand drawn, and the shaky line lends an extra human quality to the look.

All of this contributes to the matter-of-fact attitude that is used to communicate the story. There's no over the top melodrama that you would imagine Marvel possibly using to put over the tale of David and Goliath, no over emoting. Rather the artist takes this gentle, peace loving character and shows the events that lead to his tragic demise, in much the same way that the source material puts across the story with little emotion, but to much different effect.

As for the story, we all know the tale of David and Goliath. What Tom Gauld does here is show Goliath of Gath not as a violent, fearsome hero of the Philistines, but as a more peaceable fellow caught up in the machinations of his senior officer and the apathy of his King:


"...I believe I can end this stalemate and win the war in two weeks at a maximum cost of two Philistine lives."

To be fair to the Captain, he does seem to be concerned with ending the war with the least amount of casualties to his side, but this requires a sacrifice, and he certainly isn't going to use a skilled warrior. Thus Goliath is chosen, especially as his height makes him seem tougher and more convincing as a champion of the Philistines, which comes as some surprise to the man himself. The first time he sees the speech he has to shout challenging the enemy send one man to try to kill him, he faints. When he comes round he is a little confused:

"There's been a mistake...I'm not the champion. I'm the fifth-worst swordsman in my platoon...""

Assured by his Captain that there is no risk and he is merely doing his bit for the cause, Goliath continues to shout this message day after day until one day, as we all know, he is killed by a stone launched from the sling of David. This scene is shown with exactly the same lack of melodrama as the rest of the story, even down to the decapitation, and the simplicity and rapidity with which the death of this character we truly feel for happens is heartbreaking.

"Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith."
- King James Bible

This death scene is much more affecting in Tom Gauld's comic than the above description. What the artist appears to have done is to have given us a deconstructionist text, forcing the reader to look at the David and Goliath story from a different angle, forcing us to question our inbuilt assumptions about firstly this story, and secondly about the use of violence as a means to an end, and the presentation of this violence, which occurs often in the Old Testament, within a body of work that influences politics and society today (as an example you only have to look at the homophobic reaction of some members of the Christian community who will hold up selective quotes from the Old Testament as some sort of justification).

The decapitation of Goliath, for whom we feel a great deal of sympathy in this comic, raises memories of the horrific decapitations that have been broadcast over the internet by certain religious extremists, and this should make us question our assumptions that the Old Testament should be held up as a moral guide, rather than the gentler New Testament, which is rather less quoted by the intolerant given its propensity for tolerance and forgiveness.

Ultimately what Gauld forces us to confront is the human cost of war and violence. As with the novel, All Quiet on the Western front, so with Goliath - if we humanise the enemy we find that he is more like us than we would have believed, and our desire for violent confrontation is greatly diminished. This is a crucial message given the bloodshed of the last decade.

Too Much Sex & Violence (Self-Published)

Writer: Rol Hirst
Artists: Andrew Cheverton, Paul Rainey, Kelvin Green, Nigel Lowrey, Mark Renhard, Martin Eden, Adrian Bamforth, Rob Wells, Stephen Prestwood, Neil Cavenham, Dave Metcalfe-Carr, Ryan Taylor, Tony McGee
Without a doubt the healthiest part of British comics is the small press scene. Every so often I dip into this whirlpool of creativity and am always impressed by the sheer diversity of material on offer. Unfortunately it used to take a little effort to stay involved in my pre-web days, as it was mainly all mail order from the reviews and classifieds in Comics International. Being by nature a procrastinating bugger, I never stuck around long enough to really appreciate it's true gems and so missed out on The Jock by Rol Hirst with various artists. I did manage to get the first couple of issues of Escape Comittee, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but then just sort of let things fall by the wayside. Rol has a reputation as a quality writer, and the issues of Escape Committee that I read verified this, so when Reggie Rigby mentioned The Jock in his Fool Britannia column over on the Comics Bulletin website (a column you really should read) it piqued my curiosity enough to put the name Rol Hirst in google, which ended in me paying over some money for issues one and two of Too Much Sex and Violence).

This is a lovely looking comic, all glossy cover in full cover, issue one in particular setting the tone with the blood-spattered old fashioned stone road sign saying, "Welcome to Fathomsby".  You can't help but hear Ian Curtis singing, "This is the way, step inside" on Joy Division's Atrocity Exhibition. Instantly we know that things are going to be a little strange and a little disorientating during our stay in this town. Once that fateful step inside is taken, we are introduced to a cast of characters both weird and wonderful. This is very much an ensemble strip resembling the television show, The League of Gentlemen, with our outsider viewpoint being taken by Detective Inspector Sam Kamara who has been sent to work in Fathomsby as some sort of punishment for something he did back home:

     "They tell me it's the force equivalent of being sent to Siberia..."

The warning signs start when the taxi carrying him will not go into the town so he has to walk in, and is not eased any by the sight that greets him on entering the police station.

The fun coninues as we are introduced to what will presumably be the major players. There's a local radio DJ who also happens to be a vampire, a sex shop owner who lets people suckle her, young kids with a big gun threatening the wrong old man, the local gangster who clearly has the local police dancing to his tune, a woman in Leicester who sees the sexual fantasies other people are having in her own head, and her partner who has gone to explore Fathomsby and who communicates his experiences to her through expressive comic strips rather than a letter. The first issue finishes with a dysfunctional family, irnoically called the Modelles, finding a dead body on the beach, whilst the second issue continues to develop some of the plot lines and the various characters, whilst introducing a paedophile after a cure, a nun with a very personal cure for his affliction, and an incredibly intimidating female Chief Constable.

Phew!

That's a lot to fit in, especially in these days of comics taking at least six issues to tell a story that shouldn't be streched to six pages. There's every danger that introducing so many different characters will make things feel too dense, and that there will be a lack of room to satisfactorily establish them as very distinct characters that reader can easily differentiate. However it was only when I came to make my notes for this review that I realised just how many characters there were. It is a masterful job in establishing character quickly and efficiently, not letting the reader get bored, not including reams of exposition, but just providing the scene to display the most telling aspect of their personalities. In some ways this reminds of Paul Grist's Jack Staff, except I wasn't as confused reading Too Much Sex and Violence as I was when I first encountered Grist's wonderful comic. It all flows so seemlesly, so well. This is someone who knows his stuff.

Whilst I enjoyed the construction though, there were some issues I had with the art. The first problem is a little inconsistency. There are a host of artists working on this due to the very practical reasons that they need to spend time making a living and so may not have the time it takes to commit to a comic book that isn't going to pay. That's no problem as all of the artists can clearly tell a story, and although some of the styles did not agree with me from an aesthetic perspective, that's a purely personal view. I'm sure some of the artists that I liked will not be to everybody's taste either. However I think that it may have been more effective to have a single style, or similar styles, for each of the different points of view, which would then be used to gently manipulate the reader's expectations of, or feelings about, the different characters. As an extreme example, I could just imagine Milo Manara drawing the Kathy sections (she who sees everybody's sexual fantasies), and Sean Phillips on the local gangster etc.. (I'm not decrying the work of the artists on these particular sections; just trying to demonstrate the point by using artists whose style most people will be familiar with). There could be very practical reasons for not being able to do this, but I think it would be effective. On the whole though, I like the art, and the variation in styles helps to contribute to that slight feeling of disorientation in the reader as they continue to explore the strange town.

All in all this is a delightfully British comic, very much in the tradition of the League of Gentlement television show, the Strangehaven comic, with the slightly strange feeling communicated by the old Amicus horror anthology films such as Dr Terror's House of Horrors. It is a wonderfully perverse, pleasingly strange strip. In any civilised world this would be picked up by one of the major publishers. As it is everybody should buy it, not just to support homegrown talent (although this is no more than talent on this comic deserves) or to encourage the creators to keep going and provide us with more, but simply because if you don't then you're simply missing out on a brilliantly splendid comic. Don't take my word for it though. Go here and grab yourself a copy to check it out. Get the digital copy at just 99p if you're extremely risk-averse and see what the fuss is about.

daytripper (DC vertigo)

Creators: Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon

A Page 45 Comic Book of the Month

In an episode of the “Wonders of the Universe” television programme, Professor Brian Cox demonstrated how all life is made up of elements that result from the death of a star. In other words, we are all dependent on the process of death and rebirth. The latest Vertigo offering from the Brazilian brothers Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, takes this concept as its central theme in a story about the sheer joy of being alive.

Daytripper opens with words penned by our protagonist, Bras de Olivia Domingos, about death:

“When the cancer that had spread throughout most of his brain finally took the best of him...”

These are words that Bras has written about a stranger in his job as an obituary writer (incidentally this is a text book example of the storytelling technique of introducing character). The words are dark and gloomy and depressing, in marked contrast to the words at the end, also about death but written by Bras' father, Benedito, on the birth of Bras' son, and intending to accept death as part of the celebration of life. The most important part of the letter begins:

“Only when you accept that one day you'll die can you let go...and make the best out of life.”

In the letter, Benedito explicitly spells out the theme of death and rebirth:

“This baby is the new master of your life. He is the sole reason for your existence. You'll surrender your life to him, give him your heart and soul because you want him to be strong...to be brave enough to make all his decisions without you.”

“Your life is out of your hands now...just like mine has been since the day you were born.”

There are obvious shortfalls in telling a story like this, the most obvious being the potential for it to come across as smug and sickly sweet. The two brothers neatly avoid many of the problems, and the only real misstep is in the first chapter, which feels too melodramatic and out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the book. The bar owner's death at the hands of his nephew feels overly contrived. Why wouldn't the nephew simply ask for some money or a loan. Shooting his uncle and an innocent bystander seems counter productive to his aims.

Of course it needs to be remembered that this was a DC Vertigo series, and as such there are likely inbuilt assumptions about the reader base. Given that Vertigo readers tend to have come from a super-hero reading background, a certain amount of overt violence is probably expected. Obviously this is a huge generalisation, but it would certainly explain this opening chapter, which would originally have been the first issue of the comic with the aim of hooking the readers in. If this had been a release by a different publisher (e.g. Fantagraphics) then I imagine the first chapter would have been different in feel and would have presented a much more cohesive whole as a collected work. However this is a minor point and it certainly does not detract from the artisitic success of Daytripper.

In terms of technique, the most obvious little trick employed throughout this book is the use of full bleeds on certain panels on most pages. This seems to serve to do a couple of things. On a subconscious level it attracts the readers eye, emphasising what is happening in that panel and making it stand out a little more on the page. The other is in the evocation of atmosphere. A quick example would be in the second chapter, where certain panels with the sea bleed to the edge of the page, giving a feeling of calm, whilst also placing emphasis on the sea as an important part of the chapter. This is also used in the busy marketplace, and we feel like we are part of a bustling market.

The style of art used is itself interesting. On the scale of abstract to realism, it veers towards the cartoony end. However at the end of the book Fabio states that they wanted a world which felt real:

“Every reference, every photo, every color and every character, everything was made to reproduce feelings. A feeling that you were alive, happy, lonely, afraid or in love. We wanted that feeling that life was happening right there, in front of every one of us, and we were living it.”

To this end, the use of a more abstract style makes perfect sense, especially if we agree with Scott McCloud's assertion, in Understanding Comics, that the more cartoony style allows the reader to project themselves into the image more completely:

“...when you enter the world of the cartoon...you see yourself.”

Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics. 1993)

This style perfectly fits a book about the world within each of us rather than the world around us, and this is definitely a story about our inner world, how we see and understand ourselves and fully appreciate the joy of life and through this the world around us.

Daytripper is a truly wonderful experience. There are numerous touching scenes, particularly in chapter eight where Bras never appears, but we see the positive impact he has made as a husband and father. Ultimately this is how our lives will be judged a success or not. The amount of money we make, or supposed power we wield are, in the end, meaningless. It is how we are seen by our loved ones – friends, partners and, most importantly, children. The impact on children is the most important because they are completely reliant on their parents, not just for feeding and housing them, but to demonstrate how people should behave within themselves and towards one another. This seems to be one of the messages of the book. As we see the positive impact Bras has had on his son, we also witness the positive impact his father made on him.

This is a great book, which came out last year and deserves to be on everybody's must-read list. It is uplifting and thought provoking without being cloying or didactic, and it stays in the mind so long that one read is not enough. The good thing is that subsequent readings will reveal further meanings, but all these meanings will be personal to that particular reader.

Dotter of her Father's eyes (Jonathan Cape)

A Page 45 Comicbook of the Month


Writer: Mary M Talbot
Artist: Bryan Talbot

Dotter of her Father’s Eyes is one of the more interesting comics to have been released recently, and it starts with the way the title is set out. On the book it is “Dotter of her Father’s Eyes”, a lower case “h”, where one would normally expect “Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes”.  It’s a small thing, and something I only noticed when I was looking at the cover as I started to write this, but it’s a good example of how much this book rewards close and repeated readings. The lower case here is significant as the whole book is about gender, about the oppression of women during the twentieth century and their changing status.

The book deals with Mary Talbot’s upbringing and her relationship with her father, a leading Joycean scholar, in parallel with that of James Joyce’s tragic daughter Lucia. The narrative rarely takes place in the present, but in an early scene where Mary is chatting to two of here colleagues about Lucia Joyce who ask if she is finding parallels, she replies:

“I bloody hope not! She spent most of her life in mental institutions.”

As the story goes on though, we do find some parallels, but the gender has changed. Lucia is oppressed and opposed in her creativity, and dealt with coldly, by her mother, who seems bitter that Lucia is, initially at least, able to be more independent than her mother could ever have dreamed of being. It isn’t spelled out in the book, but one gets the impression that her mother’s deep lying resentment comes from having the burden of being responsible for raising a family whilst her husband indulges every artistic whim, dragging the family hither and thither with little to no security other than can be obtained by his reputation as a Modernist genius.

Lucia has a talent and a drive for dance, and it is her relentless pursuit of this, which only mirrors her father’s relentless pursuit of literary perfection, which results in her persecution and mental instability. Ultimately she is betrayed by her father, on whom she should have been able to rely as a fellow artist, in this exchange:

“Lucia, dearest, this latest obsession is doing you no good. You have to stop. Find some other creative outlet. This dancing is too much for you.”

“But it’s my life, Babbo. How can I not dance?”

“Lucia, Lucia. Be content. It’s enough if a woman can write a letter and carry an umbrella gracefully.”

Although Lucia is not committed to an asylum until her brother does it after she attacks her mother during an argument, it feels like this is where she is broken. The one person you would expect support from, who seems to pride himself on how unconventional he is, reveals his own conventional prejudices on a woman’s place in society.

As mentioned before, there do appear to be parallels between Mary and Lucia. These help show how the role of women in society has changed somewhat over the years, but more importantly also help bring home the impact of these attitudes due to Mary being brought up in a “normal” (for want of a better word) household in the north-west of England. For somebody like me, from a similar area if not era, Mary’s story brings the message home very effectively.

Mary’s story shows her father, her “cold mad feary father” to be emotionally distant and angry, with the occasional bouts of closeness. He is emotionally and physically violent towards his daughter, and loves to put her down. Two instances of this come to the fore immediately. The first is when Mary’s mother is reading out her good school report which states that Mary always tries, to which her father retorts, “Mary is always trying. How true!”. this scene goes on to show him decrying all women using a latin phrase from a poem. When he should be building up his daughter’s confidence, he seems to wish to demolish it simply so he can, in his own eyes, look clever. The other is when she completes her BA at Preston Polytechnic, whilst she has a young family to tend to, and to which he says, “B.A? Bloomin’ Awful!”. However unlike Lucia, Mary is empowered to stand up for herself, to defy this misogynist:

“No, Dad. Brilliant Achievement!”

To be honest, the emotional response in the reader at this point is to cheer her to the rafters.

There are other obvious parallels between Lucia and Mary’s experiences. Mary too desires to be a ballerina. In a class at her primary school the children are being asked what they wish to do when they grow up. A girl who answers that she would like to be a nurse gains approval, “Well that’s a nice job for a girl...". Mary makes a rather innocent but cutting answer:

“And Mary, what about you?”

“I want to be a ballerina, Sister Bernadette.”

“Well now, that’s pretty, I suppose. And if God doesn’t want you to be a ballerina, what else would you like to do?”

“Draw a pension, Sister.”

This is an allusion to a remark made by one of her working class neighbours who where looking after her whilst her mother was at work after school. Class runs through this as well, which is to be expected of a story emerging from Britain, but it is pretty much subsumed by that of gender. After all women where subject to prejudice and misogyny regardless of what class they belonged to.

One scene that does need to mentioned is the rather horrific birth scene. I was born in the same era as Mary and Bryan’s sons in 1970, and the thought that women had to experience such neglect for the physical and emotional well being during birth such a short time ago is quite appalling.

In all of this I have failed to mention Bryan Talbot’s artwork. In most cases with an artists so well known, you could say that it was in his usual style and up to his usual standard. Unfortunately that is never the case with Mr. Talbot. It is up to his usual standard in every way. In terms of pure storytelling, this is a comic which a lot of artists would do well to study. Clear and concise, it gets all the information required over to the reader so that you are never forced to read a page two or three times just to understand what is going on at the most fundamental level.

Any reader of Bryan’s though would understand that the man has no set style. He has a huge range, using what is most appropriate to the story being told, whether that is the intense science fiction action caperings of Luther Arkwright, the distressing but uplifting “Tale of One Bad Rat”, the experimental “Alice in Sunderland” or sundry others.  In this he has used a ligne clair style for the most part, with deviation for some of the more emotionally dramatic sequences involving Lucia. Particularly effective is the page design for Lucia’s committal to asylum.

Overall there is so much to this book that it will take me a few more readings to fully appreciate everything that is being said. There is a lot more to it than I have mentioned here, and I look forward to Mary M Talbot’s historical graphic novel. If it is a fraction as good as this then it will still be better than 99% of everything else.

The Goon #37 (Dark Horse Comics)

Creator: Eric Powell
Colours: Dave Stewart
As usual, Eric Powell provides an atmospheric cover, reminiscent of Will Eisner if that master had ever turned his hand to a gangster comic with horror elements. For this issue we see a frail old lady manning a picket line, whilst looming ominously behind her (and the phrase “looming ominously" could have been invented for this scene) is some sort of supernatural creature that resembles a demonic gorilla.


This all bodes well for your typical Goon story, all over-the-top violence against ugly and evil things whilst wisecracks are duly quipped, from which the reader emerges smiling and feeling fully entertained. However there is something more to this tale, a solid core that demands to be taken seriously. Powell has something to say with this tale, and he sugar coats the pill enough that it’s been swallowed before the US Conservatives grasp that they’ve been sold something that is (shock!) liberal. A brave move given the way the loud but essentially dumb US extremists on the right tend to attack anything seen as remotely left wing (so as an aside, we keep reading about legends of the comic industry needing help with hospital bills, and the rest of the civilised world looks on with astonishment when the idea of introducing universal health care free at the point of service is held up as some sort of deal with the devil. Seems strange when people can’t afford to get ill, but who am I to question the land of the free?).

Anyway, I digress. The story itself is an old EC style moral horror story. We start with the old lady from the cover going to work in a factory. She looks like she should be retired, but she has no money after her husband and her son were killed in a mine collapse. She works in the Pentagram Girdle Factory, which the Fire Marshall knows is a fire hazard but refuses to condemn, him being in the pocket of the factory owner. Inevitably there is a fire but the factory owner is cleared, and even comes out with a tidy profit from the insurance.

 The surviving factory workers decide to go on strike and, following an encounter with the corrupt police and some strike breakers, seek the protection of the Goon. The rest follows what happens when the Goon encounters the factory owner’s muscle, with a little EC twist in the final scene.

It’s funny but on rereading this I couldn’t find many of the one liners I automatically assumed were there. I remember being just as entertained, but the quips are few and far between. There are however some moments of real tragedy and absolute pathos, such as the trapped factory workers jumping to their deaths, and the little girl whose mother was killed confronting the factory owner. As has been mentioned, it’s an EC style morality tale, so the melodrama is cranked up, and the art is suitably expressive. Eric Powell really does have Eisner’s way with facial expressions, and his chops as regards storytelling ability are never in doubt.


The editorial in The Goon is usually bawdy and lewd and funny as anything. This time though, Eric Powell uses the page to reveal that the inspiration for this story was a real life incident, identical to that told in the story. The photos that go with this of the dead women lying on the floor are as shocking as they are heartbreaking, and leave one with some food for thought and a feeling of humility in the face of the suffering these women went through, and the strength they had for the ultimate triumph which resulted in safer working conditions.


The Goon always comes highly recommended, but this issue is definitely one you should not miss out on.