For many Western readers (and me for that matter) our view of manga, especially if we haven’t read a huge amount of it, will be shaped by the most obviously visible works – some classics from Tezuka, perhaps, the iconic Akira, Ghost in the Shell, some of the very popular series from the likes of Viz Media or Kodansha. But just as with Western comics there is a wide, diverse array of subjects and styles tackled in Japanese comics – it’s just that most of the time we only see the biggest and most popular ones here, skewing our vision of the J-comics scene. Sean is determined to balance that view with collections like Ax, reminding us that just as we have a thriving Indy scene creating some unusual and vibrant work here, so too does Japan, and all credit to him and Top Shelf for bringing some of it to us. Before I hand over to him, I should also point you to the fine Irish comics podcast The Comic Cast which has a recent interview with Sean where he talks in depth about his work and about life working in comics in Japan. Now, over to Sean:

Our collection of indie style Japanese manga, ‘AX: alternative manga’ came out Autumn 2010 from Top Shelf and was immediately received with open arms (it’s hard to receive a book with closed arms, I’ve found. You tend to drop it). Ax is: “ the premier Japanese magazine for alternative comics, heir to the legendary Garo. Published bi-monthly since 1998, the pages of Ax contain the most innovative, experimental, and personal works in contemporary manga — the flourishing underground of the world’s largest comics industry.” (Top Shelf). It contained 33 stories by the likes of Yoshihiro Tatsumi (A Drifting Life), Imiri Sakabashira (The Box Man), Kazuichi Hanawa (Doing Time), Yusaku Hanakuma (Tokyo Zombie), Akino Kondoh, Shin’ichi Abe, etc.

Let me tell you something about how it came about. The idea for AX came in 2007/2008 in discussions between myself and the editor of the main Japanese AX, Mitsuhiro Asakawa. We wanted to show the wonderful, strange, inventive stuff being produced in AX to people outside of Japan. So we made a little pact together to do this. First thing we did was make a flyer to describe what AX is about, what contents it has, and show various of the highly individualistic covers. I gave this out at the Bristol Comic con and at NY con in 2008 – so anyone who has it, hold on to it, as it’s already a piece of manga history.

The next thing we did was to translate into English a very rare interview between Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Masahiko Matsumoto, originally conducted several year ago (Matsumoto has unfortunately died since then). In it they are discussing the early days of manga in the 1950’s, and the development of the gekiga style of mature manga more suited to adult readers.  We planned to do a book all about the development of the gekiga style, called ‘Gekiga Archives’.

(Yoshiro Tatsumi (left) and Masahiko Matsumoto (right) in 2004).

I went to NYCC in 2008 and showed various publishers the Gekiga Archives sample, the AX flyer and told them what the basic plan was regarding making 2 books: an English version of Gekiga Archives and an English collection of stories from AX.  Since we were not ready on all the extensive research need for Gekiga Archives (and we are still not, Asakawa has been too busy!), we decided to do the AX collection first. It was one of those ideas that everyone liked right away and so we had no problem getting a publisher for it, settling on Top Shelf because I admired their attitude and approach and the quality of their books.

(covers of two books by the third key gekiga creator, Yoshiharu Tsuge, who has not yet had any books out in English. From Sean’s ‘AX/gekiga’ lecture)

I also started doing my ‘Ax/Gekiga’ lecture then, showing rare visuals and info from the 1950’s and 1960’s  period of Tatsumi, Matsumoto and Yoshiharu Tsuge. I  go over the development of the gekiga style, its dominance in the late 50’s and it’s influence on mainstream manga. And then lead into visuals from AX, as the modern day inheritor of the tradition these early creators started. I’ve done in so far in Bristol, NY, San Deigo, San Francisco, Minneapolis and even in Japan itself (where unfortunately most young manga fans have forgotten about the word gekiga). At the APE lecture in San Francisco in Nov 2008, Top Shelf had made up a couple of hundred copies of an ‘AX sampler’, a 14 page booklet, containing snippets from various stories. Another wee collectible thing!

So, after a lot of hard work by myself, Asakawa and the lads at Top Shelf (Leigh, Brett, Chris and Rob) we finally got AX volume one ready and launched it at San Diego in summer 2010. It was touted as one of the most hotly anticipated books of the festival and it’s reception proved this was the case. We sold a large amount in that time and it was voted by the manga critics there as one of the key books to come out that year.   This was later confirmed when Publishers Weekly selected it as one of the best ten books published in 2010. In fact their critics poll put it at joint second best (with Chris Ware’s latest in the top position). Not bad! Much to our delight, critics loved the book: “This fantastic collection features eye-opening work by 33 representative artists. … Ax provides… a home for the perverse and the profound. Libraries committed to sophisticated comics collections and to adventurous (mature) readers must buy this volume and those that follow.” – Library Journal (starred review)… “This brilliantly curated, 400-page collection highlights the best experimental Japanese comics I’ve ever seen.” -Whitney Matheson, USA Today’s Pop Candy…”A world’s worth of material, this is a book that every serious fan of manga should read.” — Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide.

But it wasn’t all positive. Quite a few reviewers in the US took exception to the scatological toilet humour and some of the sexual content. Some noting that the book was spoilt by these elements and would have been better off without them. Myself and Asakawa, of course, disagreed. The moto of AX, both in Japanese and the English version is “Manga should be independent, manga should be open, manga should be experimental”. So, if this truly is a manga of openness and experimentation, where artists can express themselves, then we can hardly start saying: ‘Yes, you can do what you wish – ah, except for THIS thing, or THAT thing or this list of OTHER things.’ It slightly defeats the whole point, I think you’d agree.

So, what’ next? Volume 2 of course! The mock cover for which is here below. Blue this time and with a style different from the slightly sexy cover of volume 1 – which some prudes also objected to – in order to display another aspect of the wide range of manga that’s inside. This volume will probably have only about 20 stories in it, instead of the 33 of volume 1. As we want to focus a bit more this time.

But before that! Another related and very exciting thing is we have almost finished producing a book by Masahiko Matsumoto, called ‘Cigarette Girl’ (a 250 page book, also with Top Shelf, due summer 2012). Matsumoto was, as I say above, a key early creator of the gekiga style and this is his first book be published in English. His stories are roughly in the vein of Tatsumi’s ‘big city alienation’ style, but with a lighter touch and more humourous approach. It will greatly extend understanding of the gekiga style – looking forward to it!

FPI would like to thank Sean for taking the time to share his thoughts with us here. You can follow more of Sean’s work via his blog here. The first volume of Ax was published by Top Shelf and is available now, while the second volume is in progress and should be released later in 2012.

By Jess Fink

Top Shelf

“1885: an age of industrial revolution and sexual frustration. Pricilla is a woman with needs, and her inventor husband Robert is a little too busy with his experiments to keep her fully satisfied. Science to the rescue! With a few gears and springs, the proper appendages, a little lubrication, and a lot of love, Chester 5000 is born! He’s the perfect tool for the job… but what if Chester is more than just a machine? What are the consequences of trying to engineer love?”

“Chester 5000: Because sometimes love comes with detachable body parts.”

That was Top Shelf’s tag line for this little piece of robo-erotica, and although it delivers both the plot and the bawdyness of Chester 5000 XYV well enough, it doesn’t deliver the sweetness, the joyous whimsy, the romance, the empowering sexuality of Chester 5000. This isn’t porn, even though the sex scenes are hardcore stuff, this is erotica…. after all, erotica is simply better done pornography, with a story that actually matters.

So Jess Fink’s Chester 5000 XYZ; a lush, intricate, cyberpunk-y love story, definitely falls under the heading of erotica. With no speech, only a few sound effects, and the black and white artwork – it also evokes an erotic world of the silent movies, lush, luxurious stuff, where the sex is never leery, never lascivious but is very real, very believable – yes, even with a robot. Trust me.

And it’s very female friendly erotica at that – gorgeously drawn, a love story, a relationship story, a story of female sexuality, of a woman making her own choices, doing without the bad relationship she no longer wants and heading out on her own with nothing but a giant, asexual vibrator.

Chester 5000 XYV is the name of the robot given to Priscilla by her ohh too busy, ohh too easily sated husband Robert. Initially repulsed, her physical needs are simply too strong, and Chester is very much the gentle-robot, suave, well-dressed, attentive, but even when she does falls into the robot’s expert caresses, it takes more rejection to convince Pricilla to consumate the new relationship – and that needs a new attachment for her metal plaything.

Off on the strangest of affairs, Chester and Pricilla fall in love, with the robot the most attentive of suitors. Too attentive for Robert, who packs Chester off elsewhere. The course of true love, even in a steamy robo-love-story, rarely runs smooth.

As the sweat pours, as the action happens, it’s the moments between that make this worth reading (yes, reading). There’s a lovely little story here that delights amongst the hardcore stuff. As we see robot and woman fall in love, as we see husband realise his terrible mistake…. and we get to see some of what makes Chester so much fun – the lightness, the frivolity beyond the hard sex, the subtlety of facial expression, the delicate body language that does so much…

And Fink carries all this subtlety through into the sex scenes as well, with her art shifting, as you get the briefest of glimpses above – the sex scenes become almost organic, her panels and artwork so full of sensual curves, edges blur, overlap, twist deliciously round, mimicing the lusty abandon all throughout. It’s a curvaceous work of art, something rarely seen. These sweaty, orgasmic moments are realistic, joyous and satisfyingly fun for all involved, participant and reader alike.

Fink serialised the Chester 5000 XYV story online as a webcomic, but this Top Shelf edition, a lush black and white mini hardcover, is an object of beauty in itself. Not for everyone, and certainly, absolutely adults only, but it’s mix of beautifully drawn whimsy, a genuinely interesting romantic storyline balancing out the realistic sex is very well done.

By Chris Eliopoulos

Top Shelf Productions

Another interesting looking kids/ all -ages book from Top Shelf. I have to admit I saw this and just thought it was a little too over the top, a little too cramped, with so much going on in a lot of the panels that, combined with a really strange extremely limited colour palette, I just looked at it and immediately thought it wasn’t for me.

And I guess that may be exactly right – it’s not for me. It’s designed to be appealing to a younger reader, something immediately obvious when Molly caught sight of it. And really enjoyed it. No problem with the colours, no problem at all with the artwork. Her only problem came with reviewing it. Nowadays something as simple as writing a review has to find its way into a complex timetable ofschoolwork, friends, crap TV, music, and other stuff that she and her other just pre-teen friends manage to fill their waking hours with.

However, when all else fails…. bribery always works. So, suitably rewarded for completing this…. here’s Molly….

Okie Dokie Donuts is all about Big Momma, who owns a donut shop called Okie Dokie Donuts where she makes and fills her own donuts with her old and clumsy assistant Henry. Everyone loves Okie Dokie Donuts, and it’s all because Big Mamma makes them with love!

Everything is fine until the arrival of a salesman from a company that make some of the worst inventions ever. But he overhears Big Mamma talking about maybe needing a little help around the donut shop and convinces her that Mr Baker (the Brilliant Apparatus Kooks Every Recipe) is the answer…..

It isn’t the answer. All it takes for everything to go wrong is for Henry to mistake Mr Baker for the rubbish bin. Oh dear, Mr Baker thinks the rubbish is ingredients, and starts making some really, really disgusting donut fillings.

This is one of my favourite bits of this very funny book, the number of really disgusting, but really hilarious fillings. Chocolate fish and strawberry socks don’t sound very nice at all do they? And I really laughed when Mr Baker announced the chocolate and fish flavour donuts…. the worst donut ever, but a great look on Big Mamma’s face…

Everything in Okie Dokie Donuts is crazy, from the people singing songs at the start to the very silly and funny ways Mr Baker goes wrong and causes chaos for Big Mamma. It made me laugh a lot. I think Okie Dokie Donuts would be fun for children, and fun for adults as well.

By Eric Skillman and Jhomar Soriano

Top Shelf

With Liar’s Kiss we have something for fans of Chandler, Hamnett, Elroy et al, a very solid, very enjoyable slice of hard-bolied detective story – a bit of comic noir. Sure, it’s not up there with those gentlemen, and it’s absolutely loaded with noir clichés, and it’s a little to quick and easy to resolve, but it’s damn good anyway.

Those cliches first; the failed private investigator down on his luck, the secretary who knows all, runs all, and knows it’s unlikely she’s ever going to get paid in full on time by her no-hoper boss. The police who see the P.I. as a leech, a waster, not worthy of anything but contempt. The femme fatale who knows more, so it seems, than she’s letting on. It’s all in here.

And, depending on how much you’re a fan of this sort of thing, those clichés lining up actually add to the enjoyment. You’re on familiar, comfortable ground here. You know exactly what to expect, you know just what you want from it, and Liar’s Kiss delivers everything, just the way you like it. And then there’s Skillman’s great noir dialogue going on, just like you should have been able to see in the pages.

The one beautiful twist Skillman does throw into the mix, the one thing marking it out as original is right there in the first few pages – as we see this on the very first page:

So, just another down at heel private dick doing a surveillance job for a rich husband suspecting his wife is up to no good eh? Standard stuff, yes?

Well, no, not at all. Sure, Johnny Kincaid is a rich guy, and he’s suspicious of his bored, beautiful, morally ambiguous second wife. And he did hire cynical Nick Archer to make sure she’s being a good homebody. And sure, Archer dutifully mails Kincaid photographic proof that his wife spends her nights quietly chaste in their house.

But it’s all just a scam, one that Archer and Mrs Kincaid have put together, just so they can get together to do this:

That’s the twist. That’s the clever spin on the story Skillman delivers right at the start. It puts you off balance right away, reveling in all the familiar noir cliches, but knowing the twist is what’s going to make this interesting.

From here, the whole thing goes horribly wrong. Old man Kincaid turns up dead, and even though Mrs Kincaid was obviously nowhere near the house when he was killed, she can’t say anything to clear her name without ruining her chances of inheriting her old man’s fortune. Her real problem is that it’s the carefully composed photos by Archer that put her at the scene of the crime. And thanks to the clever plan of moving the clocks forwards before she left her pill assisted hubby sleeping sound, the police think she was there when her old man was murdered. Ooops.

The only hope Mrs Kincaid has in clearing her name is Archer. But he’s just a terrible joke of an investigator, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to prove what he knows to be true. Or is there?

I’m going no further into the plot, bar to tell you that it’s full of twists and turns, building up from a noir procedural in the first half to race towards a revelatory final part where it all (nearly) gets resolved in a hugely satisfying way. You’ll certainly find yourself going back to revisit the story, fresh knowledge from the conclusion colouring the passions and actions of the cast throughout.

If you like your noir dark, snappy and thrilling, Liar’s Kiss is going to be as perfect an example of the genre in comic form as you’ll have seen for many a year. Skillman nails the dialogue – it feels just right, has the rhythm, the feel. Just read the panels above and below this – spot on.

And the art from Soriano is a perfect mix of striking character linework, thin and spidery, butting up against some deep blacks – I saw Eduardo Risso in there, but halfway through it really started to remind me of José Munoz’s classic black and white work with Carlos Sampayo in Alack Sinner. And that’s about as classic and noir as I can think of when it comes to comics right now.

It might not break any new ground, but what it does it does very well, and the end result makes Liar’s Kiss a sharp, fast, well written, excellently drawn piece of hardboiled noir.

By Robert Venditti and Mike Huddleston

Top Shelf

Tight, Hollywood ready action thriller is not the first thing you’d mention if I asked you to name a typical Top Shelf book. Of course, this may well be a good thing – maybe it simply proves that there’s not really any such thing as a typical Top Shelf book?

So, in addition to the recent rom-com drama of Gingerbread Girl, the left-field literary adventuring of the LOEG, the all-ages work of Owly, Korgi, Johnny Boo et al, we have these Hollywood ready thrillers cropping up in the wake of Venditti and Weldele’s The Surrogates.

And make no mistake The Homeland Directive has big budget Hollywood thriller written all over it, although seeing Vendetti’s Surrogates didn’t set the world alight at the movie theatres recently may put the spoilers on that. But even though it may never get to be the film it probably deserves to be, it doesn’t mean it’s any less cinematic and Hollywood blockbuster in its scope.

This has all those key elements you probably look for in a smart, fast paced thriller, whether it’s movies, books or comics. The strangest thing about comics is that something so commonplace throughout other media is practically a rarity in our little medium. Weird huh?

The plot is simple – we’re in the well-trodden corridors of high level conspiracy here, with Venditti covering terrorism, national security, the role of the state in surveiling its subjects, the role of those subjects in questioning the state. But he does it in a fast paced thriller, that fair rockets along from start to finish, one big breathless rush of story that never lets up the excitement.

Now, given that one of the leads is Dr Laura Regan, “one of the world’s foremost authorities on viral and bacterial“, it shouldn’t be too hard to work out how someone in power intends to carry out their plot (although the particular delivery method itself is a deviously clever one), but knowing how it’s going to happen isn’t a detriment to your enjoyment. Not at all.

Regen quickly finds herself on the wrong side of the law, framed for the murder of her research partner, on the run, and with the clock ticking towards something very, very nasty about to be unleashed across America. There are bad guys on her trail, her every move is being traced by a team at the secretive Bureau Of Consumer Advocacy (BOCA) – the Federal agency that tracks you, electronically, from cradle to grave.

Her only help comes in the form of an unlikely trio of rogue federal agents, including an escapee from BOCA….. although as with a few things in here, it’s probably best not to think to deeply into how they got together. In the best tradition of thriller writing…. sometimes these things just are.

The story itself, although nicely done, does seem, at times, a little like a thriller by the numbers, employing a fair few ideas and tricks we’ve seen or read many times before in countless smart thrillers. So you have all the chases, the surveillance, the cyber-tracking, the political intrigues… the works. But that lack of originality isn’t so bad – in a way it’s like accusing a new band of nicking a song, when really you know that all they’ve done is nick a few chords – after all, there’s only soo many ways you can take the original elements and mix them all up.

The characterisation is light here, with several characters only really getting enough page time to be painted in the broadest of strokes, but just as the lack of originality doesn’t hurt the reading experience, neither does the lightweight characterisation – there’s simply too little time to get to know the cast.

So the individual elements may have a familiar feel, the characters may be light on characterisation but it’s not a problem – it’s the clever and effective manner in with Vendetti has put them all together that makes the book such an enjoyable read. It feels as good as some of the European thrillers I’ve read and enjoyed – and that’s high praise indeed.

But what perhaps gives The Homeland Directive it’s unique edge is the artwork. Mike Huddleston really pulls everything out of the bag for this one … mixed media, styles, sepia, colours bursting from the page – so much so that on first flicking through the book it all looked a little all over the place.

But once I started reading it became clear that this was no accidental thing – each character, each plot strand, every different situation – they all have their own particular look. Once this slots into place, you realise that Huddleston is doing something quite brilliant, something that really adds to the tone of the book.

The Homeland Directive is a great thriller. It’s also a fairly predictable one. But hopefully, you’ll realise that it’s not a problem – this is all about the fun and thrills of getting from one end of the book to the other, and Venditti’s story, alongside the inspired visuals from Huddleston, really do the trick. Who needs a movie – just read this and you have that movie experience in a way several hundred million dollars would never be able to match.

By Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover

Top Shelf

First off – a quick note on that cover. Tim Leong’s design skills really make the book stand out on the shelf, and the clever reversal of the images on the book’s back cover very graphically mirror what we’re about to read inside.

Now mental illness presented as quirky and cute drama doesn’t sound that appetising, but that’s what Gingerbread Girl is going for. And it nearly, so nearly, makes it.

Young Annah genuinely believes she’s got a missing sister, somewhere out there, just out of reach and out of sight. But we’re pretty sure she’s delusional, since her sister, according to Annah, only exists because she was created by her scientist father when he excised one particular part of the young girl’s brain – “the Penfield Homunculus“…… (and yes, it is a genuine thing – thank you Wikipedia)

She honestly, completely believes it too; Ginger was grown from this strangely human shaped grey matter, and released into the world, for reasons she never really thinks about, or at least doesn’t share.

And that’s the starting point for Annah’s personality – that this Gingerbread Girl exists. All we have to decide, all her friends have to decide is whether she could she really be right; does the mysterious Ginger exist, or is it merely the imaginings of a delusional and terribly broken mind?

Full credit to Paul Tobin for the story and Colleen Coover for the art – taking something this deranged and creating a lightweight, quirky as anything comic is impressive. Against this strange little concept, Tobin and Coover hang a modern tale of cute and quirky life, all confused sexuality, difficult decisions, and out and out weirdness.

Annah’s portrayed as high maintenance, flighty, flirty, prone to rash flights of fancy, difficult to pin down, even more difficult to join in anything even amounting to a relationship. Annah blames Ginger for most of this, hiding behind her sister – the one who got all the feelings and emotions, that she’s now incapable of showing.

But most of the cast around her know Annah’s ways, and many of them put it down to a complex and disturbing reaction to her parent’s particularly messy divorce. And although it’s always played light, there’s some seriously messed-up behaviour going on in this young girl’s head.

It’s hard to mix whimsy this sweet with thought provoking, but Gingerbread Girl attempts it, and almost pulls it off. It’s certainly sweet and cute, it’s certainly got that modern romantic comedy drama feel to it.

But the thought provoking is where it falls down slightly. Annah’s posssible / probable / definite (take your pick) mental illness is never really addressed, it’s always pushed too far back in the mix, something to be tolerated, ignored, and almost trivialised…. so many of the conversations about her here could have ended with the trite phrase of “oh, that’s just the way she is“. No more explanation is offered, investigated, or needed by anyone here.

But remember, this is a woman who believes in a ghostly sister, a girl so hideously traumatised by her childhood that the idea of dad experimenting on her is preferred to thinking about the divorce. This is a woman so convinced in the exstence of this Girgerbread Girl that she uses self harm in an attempt to divine her sister…

And it’s a shame we never go deeper into the ideas here, because with a few more pages, with a little deeper delving into her mind we’d have got something really beautifully bittersweet, rather that the cutesy, quirky lightness we read in the 100-odd pages of Gingerbread Girl. It puts in our heads ideas of childhood trauma, of retreat into imagination, of mental fracturing, how a child’s escape can filter through to adulthood, poisoning their ability to interact, socialise, have meaningful relationships.

Just the analysis of how deep the trauma runs and thinking of how terrible it must be to feel so emotionally isolated that you could possibly invent a twin to take the feelings away. Now that’s strong stuff.

But it’s merely danced around here. The dance moves may be enticing, but there’s no substance to them, just empty-ish gestures.

I’m not saying I didn’t like it, it whiled away a very pleasant evening, enjoying what is, at it’s heart a tender, quirky comedy drama – and lord knows we don’t get enough of those in comics.

Coover’s art is very cute. But cute does downplay just how nice her pages are to look at; simple characters set against detailed, flowing backgrounds, all set off prettily by a gentle gold-orange toning on the pages – not something you got in Gingerbread Girl’s serialisation on the Top Shelf 2.0 webcomic site. (It’s still up there if you want to see, but treat it as an inferior preview, not a substitute for buying the book, eh?). She’s a very natural line, creates a lovely gentle flow of her characters as they drift through the book. One of the nicest storytelling quirks on display here is undoubtedly the multiple narrators; each scene focuses on Annah and then drops away, spinning off to someone in her life, whether important or not. The artist’s eye follows the supporting character, as a camera pans away, and they expound on what we’ve just seen, or fill in some back story, either theirs or some aspect of Annah’s. Everyone seems to get a go; boyfriends, girlfriends, shop assistants, passers-by, street magicians, even the pigeons get their turn.

It’s a clever, cute trick. Maybe overused a little, but still works for the most part.

Speaking of overused…. I’ve probably overused cute in this look at Gingerbread Girl, but that’s really the key word here. It should be a mixture of deeply unsettling,disturbing AND cute. I could have done with a touch more bitterness to take away some of the saccharin. But cute and quirky comedy drama still makes this something to pick up and enjoy.

We don’t normally point readers to another comics site to buy their titles (obviously we’d like to point you to our own site!), but this is pretty special – our chums at one of the best independent comics publishers around, Top Shelf, are having a huge sale to help give their coffers a good push and help finance the next year’s worth of top publishing and they need the help of comics lovers:

“To help us continue doing what we do, please participate in this sale. With the economy as it’s been, it’s getting harder and harder to keep publishing such quality material. But if enough people participate, we’ll be able to finish paying for this year’s amazing releases, and “kick start” a full rollout for next year. Thanks in advance for your support (as the comics community IS the best community)!”

There are some 175 comics and graphic novels from TS in the sale, including, Chris Staros tells us, over 100 that are going for only $1 to $3, total bargain. We’ve no hesitation in pointing you to the Top Shelf site and advising you to grab these bargains while you can – bargain for your, good reading to be had plus supporting one of our best publishers, win-win all round. TS has a great range, from some lovely works for younger readers to some fascinating work for mature readers and some downright hilarious works as well, from the Alec omnibus to Blankets to the wonderful Owly and the addictive American Elf, the powerful Swallow Me Whole or lovely Korgi and so many more. Basically you can’t go wrong – one of the reasons we like TS so much is it is clear that the guys choose to publish comics they want to read themselves, the love of a good book is clearly foremost, and that means you can pretty much take it as read that if they thought it was a book that deserved publishing then it really does deserve reading. Do yourselves a solid favour and pick up some fab comics (tip from TS, if ordering from outside the US, to alleviate heavy postage charges your best bet is to order one big bunch altogether rather than several separate smaller orders).

By Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill

Knockabout / Top Shelf

Hmmm, this review was meant to appear before Century 1969 came out. Except, had I have written it after just reading 1969, with Moore and O’Neill’s reduced team of Extraordinary Gentlemen in swinging, psychedelic London, it would have been a confused, frustrated review, as taken in isolation, on that first read, 1969 isn’t particularly satisfying reading at all.

But, as you’ll find if you can bear with me through what promises to be a far longer review than I initially thought, it’s something that can’t be taken in isolation, and certainly shouldn’t be read just once. It’s something that eventually yields the possibility of greatness. And be warned, this is a long, sprawling journey through the League thus far, and when I eventually get to 1969, there are spoilers, but nothing you probably haven’t already read pretty much everywhere online.

But before we get to 1969, lets look at the problems I found first time round, problems that have been getting worse throughout the LOEG volumes…..

LOEG started out, at least to me as a reader, as a simple wish fulfilment thing…. a “wouldn’t it be cool if all these great fictional characters got together and had some adventures” sort of thing.

Volumes 1 & 2 are beautifully constructed, great reads, with some fantastic art from O’Neill – as we share the adventures of Moore’s disparate band of Victorian misfits: Mina Murray, Allan Quartermain, Captain Nemo, Dr Jeckyll (and his monstrous alter-ego), and Hawley Griffen (The Invisible Man).

Two great adventures with the League battling against threats to the Empire, whether it’s the mysterious M (do I really need to avoid spoilers 11 years after publication?) using secret anti-gravity Cavourite to do battle with Fu Manchu in Volume 1 or the League versus HG Wells’ Martian Tripods in Volume 2.

But in addition to the story, we had the extra elements – Moore’s brilliant stories, together with O’Neill’s great artwork sat atop a fun little game of look at all the extra stuff that writer and artist have loaded into their pages to make it more interesting. So much so that Jess Nevins got a book out of each volume, detailing every last significant and not so significant literary and cultural reference Moore and O’Neill had included. (Nevins’ extensive online annotations are referenced at the end of this review).

But somewhere it seemed to switch and instead of the story sitting over the fun extras, it seemed to have become some sort of massive pop culture, genre fiction test, with every page so packed with obscure references to all manner of weird genre fiction characters. Somewhere along the line it just felt like the basic idea of telling a great story with all the extras as a bonus had been forgotten.

So ….. I read Century 1969.

Then I went back and read 1910, just to get a better idea of what was going on. And it just felt so frustrating, the narrative simply swamped by the details and references and I found myself continually losing the flow, thoughts wandering as the questions came thick and fast.

So I went back. I picked all the prior Leagues off the shelf and sat down to revisit them, without benefit or recourse to any annotations, just reading them as is, just concentrating on the story as I see it. And I’m right, there’s definitely a shift in the priorities of the League over the development of the series. Volume 2 is where the problems begin, where there are just a few too many instances of the reference overwhelming the narrative in a panel. But it’s not overwhelming, probably due to Moore doing most of the really reference heavy stuff in the enormous Almanac text section at the back.

Then we get to The Black Dossier and suddenly it all gets very complex very quickly – suddenly we’re playing spot the reference all too often. Except, I have to admit, this re-reading of The Black Dossier immediately after the first two volumes, and with the events of 1910 and 1969 fresh in my mind really opened it up for me – and suddenly, having freed myself from continually questioning my knowledge of who, what, where and why – it turns into a really good book – far, far more enjoyable read than I remembered from the first time round.

In fact, freed from worrying too much about what I’m missing and concentrating instead on just enjoying what is right there in front of me, The Black Dossier turns out to be a cracking mystical espionage thriller as a rejuvenated Mina and Quartermain join Orlando to pick their way through a crumbling post Orwellian Britain of 1958, hunting “The Black Dossier”, doggedly pursued by analogues of James Bond, Emma Peel and Bulldog Drummond, all working for the new “M”, Harry Lime.

And once the espionage thriller of the comic bits fell into place, all the non-comic bits got a damn sight more interesting without constantly fretting I was “reading them right”.

Now, maybe it’s just the novelty of “getting it” at last, but I’ve got to say, on this read through, I actually enjoyed The Black Dossier a little more than the first two volumes, the density of the material didn’t plague me so much, the enjoyment of Moore and O’Neill’s work was there all along, it just needed me to finally read it for myself rather than be overly concerned about everything extra.

Again, as with Volume 2′s almanac, the dissociation of the text heavy, reference laden material from the main comic story is what really makes it a great book.

Which then brought me right back to Century. It’s got none of that dissociation – everything is right there in the main story – and frankly it suffers because of it. The effort needed to stop yourself analysing every tiny detail in both text and art is frankly incredible. The way both 1910 and 1969 are written makes it so hard just to treat them as simple comic narratives.

But, but, but, but, but……. the thing is, having deliberately gone through the previous three books with a devil may care, get what I can and enjoy it for that attitude, my mind was in the right place to do it again, even though it did require a lot more work to stay focused on the actual story, since every panel screams out “look at me, what does this mean, who is this meant to be, what clever, real world pop fiction, counter cultural reference are you missing here?”…….

(Sing along everyone… to the tune of “Mack The Knife”, Moore and O’Neill revisit familiar Whitechapel themes in Century 1910)

A quick recap on Century: 1910: A now reduced League of Mina, Alan and Orlando (by now a trio in the bedroom as well as in the adventure game) are joined by gentleman thief AJ Raffles and the supernatural detective Tom Carnaki in an attempt to avoid the birth of a potential anti-christ moonchild.

We follow their frankly rather bumbling attempts at investigating, meet Captain Nemo’s daughter, enjoy a little Brechtian musical accompaniment as potential Whitechapel fiend MacHeath is back in town (brilliantly adapted by Moore, who’s never been afraid to dazzle us with a song or two in his time), and discover that Oliver Haddo (the League’s Aleister Crowley) is the guiding hand behind a “moonchild” that may be the potential end of the world.

The end of 1910 is a downbeat, dour thing, promising much misery and bleakness to come…

(The end of Century 1910, as the seeds of the League’s discontent are clear. From League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 1910 by Moore and O’Neill)

And now, we’re (finally) bang up to date in Century 1969 (you knew I’d get here eventually).

The trio of Mina, Alan and Orlando, having at least temporarily diverted Haddo and the forthcoming apocalypse, are in swinging, end of the 60s London, with the hippy dream starting to dissolve and the flower children finding that things aren’t as rosy in the garden as they’d thought, even with all the Tadukic Acid Diethylamide flying around.

London’s full of gangsters (although all of them seem to be some facet of Reggie and Ronnie Kray), and even the young, beautiful pop stars are being found face down in their pools. Of course, this being the world of the League there’s a 50/50 chance of it being drugs or evil black magicians, back from the dead.

Alerted by Prospero to the possibility of Haddo’s cult having another go at the whole moonchild thing, Mina, Alan and Orlando decamp to the headquarters Mina used during her disastrous early 60′s super-team League phase….

(A stripped down League sit in the depressing shell of Mina’s failed 60s superteam HQ, from Century 1969, by Moore and O’Neill)

Basically, now we’re in the realms of copyright and out of the public domain, there’s a lot of disguising of names, with Moore doing literary cartwheels to find the analogues he’s after… so welcome to the world where Oliver Haddo (Crowley) is jumping from body to body as he needs to, still threatening to bring about the apocalypse at some point. Except here he’s thinking it might be a good idea to utilise the puffy lipped lead singer of pop combo The Purple Orchestra, who’ve recently finished their recording of “Infernal Eminences“.

(So that’s Jagger and The Rolling Stones, fresh off “Their Satanic Majesties Request” with Jagger written as Terner, as in Turner, the character Jagger played in the film “Performance”…. yes, it does get complicated, but stay with it).

Haddo’s obviously been doing this for a while now, and has numerous plots on the go. But it’s the “Performance” era Jagger who he settles on as the perfect vessel for his transference ritual, a means to keep his spirit alive, and it’s during their performance at the Hyde Park festival he’s going to make his move (and here, it’s Hyde Park named after Edward Hyde – only a little thing, but it’s these little things, throughout the entire League storyline that really begins to impress, as it becomes obvious that Moore really does have everything, absolutely everything, perfectly cross-referenced and working as one giant, continuous storyline).

Meanwhile the League is falling apart because Mina, always it’s stable, controlling influence, is falling apart. She’s tired, she’s bored, she’s struggling to cope with growing old without actually ageing. And frankly, all the lycra super-suits, casual lesbianism and drugs in the world aren’t helping. Mina’s trying to shrug off her Victorian past and get with it, desperately trying (and failing) to gain some traction on her never changing life…….

(Mina’s terrible portent of the future, both her own immortal one and that of the League, mirrored beautifully by O’Neill’s art – the eye popping colours of the League HQ a mere escape from the drab, dreary outside world)

For a great deal of the first half of 1969 we shift between Haddo’s plotting and Mina’s group wandering vaguely around London, name-dropping old haunts and being all referential for the sake of it, with far too many panels seemingly consisting of the League in the background and a game of spot the character reference happening in the foreground.

And all the way through, a certain Jack Carter, just prior to heading up north (if you haven’t already, go and watch Get Carter, the Michael Caine one obviously) is put on a collision course with all this magic stuff. His boss happens to be the gangster with his hooks into Basil Fotherington-Thomas of the Purple Orchestra (he’s the one who ended up face down in the pool thanks to a little black magic in the first few pages, obviously a Brian Jones reference, but the name comes from the brilliant Molesworth books – keep up, keep up).

(Just before he heads up North, Carter has one last London job to deal with…. from Century 1969 by Moore and O’Neill)

You can see how it’s all tying together can’t you? And I’ve got to say, Moore, as you’d expect. weaves everything together pretty bloody marvellously, as the various strands of the story are drawn slowly together.

But there’s always that feeling that it’s all too reference laden, and despite really trying hard, there were times when it did all get a little too much. The weird thing with this particular volume is that although it’s reference laden, these contemporary, pop culture references are actually far easier to get, especially for us Brits.

But the problem is still there – the references you do get are great, but because it’s the League, you’re always looking for more,and it’s the looking that yanks you right out of the story.

(Car wash trouble with the super-spies, from Century 1969 by Moore & O’Neill)

Take the scene above…. a conflagration of super-spies having a shunt at the car wash, with Lady Penelope’s Parker in attendance, the ominous Mogul corporation ever present in the background.

Now, Parker’s easy, ST would be Simon Templar (the Saint), and that Aston means the blue jumper wearing, golf club wielding bloke is Jimmy Bond.

But the bloke on the left? The flat capped onlooker, another M? What can it all mean, what can it all mean, what can it ALL mean, WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? – you see how it’s so easy to get dragged out of the storyline can’t you? (Answers to at least some of those questions at Jeff Nevins’ annotations).

It’s not the question here of whether or not you get the references, it’s just that you feel there are so many of them, it makes the task of sticking with the story itself difficult. That’s the problem with Century 1969.

(Oh, they should worry Mina, they really should. From Century 1969, by Moore and O’Neill)

The second part of 1969 is O’Neill’s playground, with Mina and Haddo battling each other across the astral plane whilst Mina’s in the throes of a full-blown devastating Taddy/acid trip, all the horrors of her life and the weight of her depression and longevity brought to vivid, psychedelic life in her tripping mind.

It’s beautifully drawn, with O’Neill joined in his exuberance by colourist Ben Dimagmaliw and letterer Todd Klein having a great time being as eye-poppingly psychedelic as possible.

Meanwhile, in between the acid trip moments, the Purple Orchestra play on, with Terner delivering a subtly different version of Sympathy For The Devil (beautifully done by Moore, perfect fit to the original, another example of just how damn good he is at fitting everything to his particular need).

(Sing along time again… this time it’s “Sympathy For The Devil”, Moore and O’Neill bring all the elements together in Century 1969)

But Moore can’t resist throwing in a last gasp of cultural reference, and this is the one that’s probably got the most commentary thus far, as Moore literally riddles his way around a young man who’s “familiar with all the great magicians” and who eventually becomes the final resting place of Haddo’s spirit before popping off through a wall just short of platform 10 at Kings Cross. It smacks of wish-fulfilment, a game of link up every evil wizard we can, up to and including he who can’t be named.

Despite that slightly clumsy (at least I thought so, others are declaring it a genius inclusion – what do I know?), I did think the climax, fought on the astral plane and in the seedy environs of London, is fantastic, perfectly paced, with O’Neill’s visuals matching Moore every step of the way.

It builds and builds, until the brightest yet thematically darkest bit of League history comes crashing down for a 70s punk epilogue, and O’Neill shifts to a 70s palette of dour, cold, dirty protest browns.

Next time it’s Century 2009, but will there be a League around to experience it?

(Shhh… you know who. From Century 1969, by Moore and O’Neill)

So, here we are….. and having read the entire League a couple of times during this, and having read 1910 and 1969 God knows how many times, I have to say I’ve completely changed my view of the whole League series.

In fact, I’ve just, in preparation for winding this up, read 1969 once again. And it’s just damn brilliant stuff. It rewards me each time, with each re-reading, with something else, some minor part falls into place, it just builds and builds and builds and builds into something really wonderful.

It is truly a wonderful, magnificent comic. Not that I’d have known on that first, frustrating read. And I fully expect, when Century 2009 eventually rolls round (meant to be Spring 2012, but expect it to shift to later in the year) to find the same frustrating first read and a book that just gets better and better and better with repeated reading.

Sure, there are faults with it all being too draped in references, but hopefully, in the course of reading this far, you’ve been witness to how, provided you actually read it for yourself rather than being overly concerned that you’re getting it all, it’s something that really rewards repeated readings.

It’s not the best thing Moore’s ever written, but bloody hell, it’s close. And I’d never have said that after reading 1969 for the first time, what seems like so long ago.

I shall leave you, dear reader, thanking you kindly for staying this long, with a little treat, an image borrowed from The Mindless Ones recent (and as always, quite brilliant) look at some of the greatest League moments – as we meet the League in Volume 2, stepping from their carriage to face the threat of Martian invasion. Quite simply perfection in comic form:

Okay, having got all that over with, I must admit, I did succumb to one further reading of the whole damn thing, this time with a laptop and various annotation sites open. And although I hope I’ve shown you it’s not, as I once thought, essential to do so, it does open the whole thing up even more. Should you wish to do the same, here they are:

Jess Nevins is pretty much the go to guy for your League annotations: Volume 1, Volume 2, The Black Dossier, Century 1910, Century 1969.

But with this latest volume several other mad souls have stepped into the breach, all with something worth reading…. The Mindless Ones blog annotations to Century 1969 are excellent: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (and a fourth to come). And Newsarama have produced a cheat sheet for our US chums, who may be a little bemused by all the Brit-centric stuff.

By Ludovic Debeurme

Top Shelf

Lucille, the 544-page graphic novel by French artist/writer/singer Ludovic Debeurme, has recently been translated into English and published by Top Shelf. It arrives with an impressive pedigree: it was released in France in 2006 and won the prestigious René Goscinny Prize, was named one of the 5 ‘essential’ graphic novels of the Angoulême International Comics Festival and has received almost universal acclaim.

The weight of its reputation, and the book itself, bring advance respect. I acknowledged this as I hefted the book, but read it with critical attention.

The story follows two teens living in a small French fishing village: Lucille, an anorexic girl with no self-confidence who lives with her divorced mother, and Arthur, the son of an alcoholic Polish fisherman. Debeurme divides the graphic novel into chapters, and switches between the stories of the two characters until they eventually meet and form a relationship – which isn’t until nearly halfway through the book.

Debeurme introduces us to his characters and their situations in an unhurried, careful fashion. Initially it seems that Lucille is a typical skinny, insecure teen who wants a boyfriend but is embarrassed by her sexual desires. Arthur is presented as a rather unlikable boy who suckers a kid into believing he can commune with Satan, all as a cover for his problems with his drunken father and his own compulsion for counting.

The claire linge, almost-crude, artwork allows for no hiding from the story. There are no panels or speech balloons: just expressive forms and text.

The effect is to uncover the vulnerability of all the characters, not just Lucille and Arthur, but their parents and friends also. The issues behind Lucille’s body dysmorphia are presented with understanding and sympathy. She spends some time in the Beauregard Clinic to address her anorexia, and Lucille observes the dysfunctional relationship between another patient, Maude, and Maude’s daughter. Lucille offers good advice to Maude, which she ignores, but Lucille likewise can’t untangle her complicated relationship with her mother. This mirroring of problems between people and generations lends a resonant complexity to the story lines.

In Arthur Debeurme examines the father-son dynamic: the love, hate and guilt that Arthur feels for his abusive father, Vladimir. Vladimir carries his own burdens however, especially after a terrible accident at sea that involves the father and son. Their story is tragic, especially in the way that Debeurme indicates that patterns of behaviour replicate between generations if nothing is done to interrupt it.

Lucille and Arthur (now called Vladimir) attempt to escape by running away together to Italy, but their insecurities and inexperience mean they are unprepared for the complexities of relationships in the outside world.

In a terrible moment of violence that consumes Vladimir towards the end of the graphic novel, Debeurme depicts him as skeletal with rage: an outward transformation replicating the internal self-loathing that fuels Lucille’s anorexia.

Lucille deserves the accolades and awards. It is easy to be fooled by its apparent simplicity of form and narrative structure, but Debeurme uses it to lay bare the heartaches and wounds that cause people to suffer and make mistakes, even as they reach for love. There is an underlying affection for everyone in the story – an appreciation of the universal struggle people endure in life no matter their circumstances. It lends a kindness to the story that takes the edge off its poignancy.

This is the type of mature and thoughtful work that reminds us that graphic novels can offer an important insight to the predicament of the human condition.

Maura McHugh is a busy, busy author; among her works you can read a recent review of the 1st issue of her fascinating Róisín Dubh here and you can keep up with Maura’s latest works via her site.

(action packed page from Infinite Kung-Fu by and (c) Kagan McLeod, published Top Shelf)

Leigh Walton at fine Indy publisher Top Shelf points us to a fab new video trailer for Kagan Mcleod’s Infinite Kung-Fu (which they are launching at San Diego Comic Con in a week’s time) – damn, but this is super-funky! I love the scratched old 70s B movie look to it, and make sure you watch right to the end for the cool animated finale! And if that isn’t enough to whet your appetite you can nip over to the Top Shelf site for a good sized preview look at the book!