Tom & Jerry Annual 1979

This annual includes some later artwork and the drawings arn't quite as good as before. The stories are up to spec though and include a memorable one where Tom becomes an ice skating waiter at a mountain top cafe in Switzerland.

In nearly all of the stories Tom is no longer chasing the mice but instead being menaced by ghosts or trying to become a TV advert star but then again that is probably because the "Tom chasing Jerry" meme works for a cartoon but gets old fast in a comic strip. The great thing about these comics is how they expanded the Tom & Jerry universe.

The best story however is a little more traditional (and has the classic era artwork natch). In one of my favourite Tom & Jerry stories Tom bores of chasing the mice takes up knitting, confused by this change of behaviour Jerry and Tuffy begin a scientific study of the cat...

Tom & Jerry Annual 1973

We approach the mid-70s and the Tom & Jerry cartoon has all gone a bit... hippie and peace and love.

Tom is no longer trying to catch the mice but instead is drinking tea with them and generally chilling out with them. That soon changes however but even then when he is catching them its because of some ulterior motive (i.e. money) than anything else.

Tom also tries his hand at a bit of sculpture and building a pirate ship. He does such a good job of the latter you wonder if his talents are being a bit wasted.

The stories in this annual are a lovely variety indeed including a Mouse Musketeers story supposedly set in pre-revolution France where Tom becomes a "pooseycat"!

Tom & Jerry Annual 1971

Another collection of Tom & Jerry cartoons from the 60s (or earlier) and also some stories from Droopy and a Professor Putter too. If you haven't read one of these annuals before you are in for a treat as they are very different to the cartoons and often enter a quite surreal turn of events.

Stories in this annual include Jerry and Tuffy joining a circus (disguised as baby elephants), Tom being terrorised by a toy woodpecker and all three of our friends hitching a ride down South to avoid the winter in a box car.

One of the best stories involves Tom trying to get some maple syrup for his pancakes and being thwarted at every turn by Jerry, Tuffy and a bear. Its all great fun with a sprinkling of hep cat lingo.

Tom & Jerry Annual 1972

If you are familiar with the Tom & Jerry cartoons then the annuals (the classic ones anyway) are actually very different. For a start the characters talk and often the story isn't "Tom trying to catch Jerry" but something often quite surreal... all with dialogue thats all quite hip (or was in say the 1950s).

Some of the stories in this annual for example include Tom as a hairdresser (trying to cut a  lion's hair natch) or trying to take a photo of an elusive snow rabbit. There are also a few comic strips starring Spike and Tyke, a pair of bulldogs.

What i like most about these stories are the ones that take place in Tom's house, especially behind the walls where Jerry lives with his friend Tuffy. The one where Tom forces Jerry and Tuffy do some home improvements for him is a highlight.

Asterix the gladiator

Personally an important book for me as it was the first Asterix book i ever read and introduced me to the amazing world of European comics. This is one of the earlier Asterix stories and while the artwork was still in the process of refinement, the storyline and Asterix universe was starting to come together. The meme of the pirate ship which (usually) gets sunk during the story starts here as does Obelix's habit of keeping the helmets of Romans he bashes.

Cacofonix is captured by the Romans and taken to Rome to be presented to Caesar. The great man for some reason does not really want a Gaulish bard with Cacofonix's "unique" voice so sends him off to the arena to be eaten by lions. Asterix and Obelix travel to Rome to rescue their friend and find the best way to do that is to become gladiators and enter the arena themselves...

While not one of the best Asterix volumes it certainly packs a punch so to speak. The plot is pretty good with plenty of fun at the expense of the Romans.

Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None

Ten people, previously unknown from each other, and from various walks of life are invited to a mysterious private island where they are all accused of having a guilty secret and are murdered one by one by an unseen hand. The murders also seem to parallel the fate of the ten little soldiers as written on a poem in every guest's room...

Beautifully recreated as a graphic novel this was Agatha Christie's masterpiece and her best-selling novel (and indeed the best selling mystery novel of all time) so the graphic novel edition has a lot to live up to. Does it succeed?

Not quite. Its an enjoyable read but is lacking in something. Maybe its lacking in atmosphere though the artwork is pretty gorgeous. There is also not much in the way of suspense, despite people dying left right and centre the murders.

Overall its a glossy experience but lacks enough substance to be truly recommended.

Iznogoud - the Caliph's vacation

I'm still not 100% sold on Iznogoud yet, it has lots of trademark Goscinny humour, satire and charm and is well drawn by Tabary but the stories are all rather short and follow the same formula : Iznogoud wants to get rid of the Caliph but his schemes fail miserably.

Its all fine and often funny but compared to a comic series like Asterix with its full length stories it does tend to suffer in comparison. Although you could argue all Asterix stories are the same (the village or the 2 main characters face peril but the magic potion saves the day) the longer format allows for a greater variety of story whereas i find Iznogoud can get a little samey after awhile.

(Though in fact after Goscinny died Tabary took over the writing as well as the artwork (as Uderzo has done with Asterix) and moved Iznogoud to full-length stories so those will be interesting to see one day when Cinebook translate them.)

All this criticism may seem a bit unfair of course, most comic stories suffer in comparison to the indomitable Gaul and i am not saying Iznogoud is bad by any means. Its an enjoyable and often very funny read. But it just lacks that little something to yet make it one of my favourites. Yet!

This collection of stories, Iznogoud Vol.2: The Caliph's Vacation revolve around a holiday theme. Iznogoud sees holidays as very dangerous so naturally is keen to get the Caliph to collect his bucket and spade and don some flip-flops!

Asterix and the chieftain's shield

Delving deeper into the pseudo-history (though there is a basis in historical fact behind much of it) of Asterix than any other book in series, Julius Caesar wishes to have a triumph in front of the Gauls carried aloft on the shield of Vercingetorix the chief of the Gauls during the Roman-Gaul wars. Unfortunately the shield wasn't kept after the Gaulish defeat at Alesia and the Roman hunt for this shield of course involves our heroes Asterix and Obelix who are in the area after accompanying their chief to a health spa...

There was a Vercingetorix infact and Caesar existed of course, the historical existence of Asterix et al has yet to be fully established of course.

I like this story a lot though it is maybe not amongst the very best adventures by Goscinny and Uderzo. There is a lot to enjoy with the storyline, the humour is often subtle and builds on earlier events.

The fact it fills in a fair bit of backstory behind one of the Asterix universe's main characters is also very welcome (and i won't spoilt it here...)

Blake & Mortimer (4) : The Francis Blake Affair

The fourth story as published in English by Cinebook but the thirteenth overall and the first completely new story after the death of the series' creator Edgar P. Jacobs, instead being created by the team of Jean Van Hamme and Ted Benoit. This story is quite different from the stories of Jacobs which heavily featured science fiction being a well plotted espionage drama however in appearance it shares the beautiful clear line artwork of Jacob's books and is joy to behold.

At the time of its publication the Francis Blake Affair gained some criticism for being spy drama and not science fiction focussed though was still successful enough to ensure that no fewer than seven further volumes have been written since.

In this story there is a high level mole at the heart of British intelligence and Francis Blake of MI5 is tasked to root the traitor out. However when it appears it is Blake himself who is the traitor he flees. Professor Mortimer of course cannot believe his friend would be a traitor and tries to find his friend. What follows is a well paced and taut spy thriller.

Yoko Tsuno (4) : Daughter Of The Wind

This series gets better and better, the first 2 were admittedly a bit odd and hard to get into but Book 4 really builds on the wonderful mystery of #3 to give us a terrific adventure involving typhoons, international intrigue and hi-tech toys that look like they came straight out of a Gerry Anderson show.

What i like about these Yoko Tsuno stories is that the author isn't afraid to give the character a past, and some background story which really adds to the appeal of the character. Otherwise she would be just a pretty geek who gets involved with sci-fi adventures for some random reason. This story involves her family and the sort of scientific work they are involved in and as well as that we discover her childhood mentor.

Its a well paced and intriguing story and even has some ninjas in it. Any story with ninjas in is a win of course. If the third book reminded me a bit of a Famous Five or Scooby Doo mystery then this one is more like a Gerry Anderson or Japanese anime. Both work really well with a character like Yoko. The artwork too is truly superb. Highly recommended.

Asterix and the Soothsayer

Not the very best Asterix book but still a very good story. This one tackles the issue of charlatans and irrational beliefs when a conman soothsayer descends on the Gaulish village by chance and quickly discovers that many of them are very gullible indeed. He then begins to live the life of luxury by telling the villagers what they want to know (becoming rich, successful et cetera) in return for free food. When the Romans discover his "power" over the villagers then the very existence of the village itself is in question...

This probably has one of the more adult plots in the series with plenty of social comment, such as how the best way to control men is through their women, and the best way to control them is to play on their anxieties and insecurities. How irrational belief can take hold of a community and end up with rational members being sidelined. You can also see some delicious satire against marketing and advertising and how it can blur our realities...

Overall it is not quite up the level of the very best Asterix books in terms of humour and action (the former is often very subtle but often inspired - one favourite was the soothsayer not minding that a goose bought to him to read didn't have entrails as he was fed up reading tripe - and the latter takes awhile to get going) although it is one of my favourites (indeed the second one i ever read) but still very worth your while.

Blake & Mortimer (3) : The Mystery Of The Great Pyramid Part 2

Part 2 of the Mystery of the Great Pyramid carries on from the brilliant Part 1, a lavish and intense adventure with wonderful artwork by Edger P. Jacobs.

The story takes on a more fantastical air in this second volume (part 1 being a more straight forward adventure with the occult mysteries of the pyramids as a backdrop). Here we delve head first into the ancient mysteries of Egypt. At its best Blake & Mortimer mixes classic adventure serials with occult mysteries or mysterious science and it is bang on the money here.

It is not flawless, like many of the Blake & Mortimer volumes it is a very dense piece of work with perhaps a little too much text. Everything has to be explained even if the artwork makes it clear what is happening, though in some ways it adds to the tension of the story by making the stories a little claustrophobic. Plenty to read then and plenty to wonder over. Highly recommended.

Pandora's Box (3) : Gluttony

The unenlightened and sneering type often deride comics as being only for children only or comprise only space battles and school hi-jinks. I'm not sure how they could handle a comic story about Mad Cow disease and factory farming but hopefully it would dent their incorrect world view a tad.

Thats exactly what we have here in Pandora's Box Vol.3: Gluttony, volume 3 in the Pandora's Box series (obviously). Each volume features a story based around one of the seven deadly sins and drawing inspiration on Greek myth. This story is on gluttony and how better to illustrate that story with modern agribusiness?

This beautifully illustrated story really engages with you and packs a powerful political punch. It targets not only the greed of agribusiness but also the consumers who want ever greater quantities of cheap meat. What is the true cost though, it could be deadly as this story points out.

Really this story needs to be read by everyone, i think it could bring home the message of the dangers and immorality of the likes of battery hens and modern factory farming more than a hundred dry editorials and newspaper articles could. Cinebook can only be applauded for translating and publishing quality pieces of work from the Continent for the British market, long may they continue!

Heather & Rose - the prickly pair (Judy Story Picture Library For Girls 223)

Following on from my review of a Judy annual lets review a picture story library book too. All of the popular comics especially from the DC Thomson stable produced these handy sized pamphlets back in the 70s and 80s, concentrating on just the one story. The one is about some girls from a Scottish children's home who go down to London to stay at a children's home there.

Everyone gets on great apart from two girls who fight continually and seem to hate each other. Oddly enough though when they play doubles in table tennis they blow everyone else away, its like they can read each other's thoughts.

Things come to a head when the two girls find they both have identical photographs of a woman who they think is their long-lost Mother. Are they sisters?

Its a great example of a British comic of the late 70s/early 80s. A bit twee perhaps but you get a picture of Classic Nouveaux on the back cover and if that isn't cool what is?

Judy Annual For Girls 1979

Well it is quite easy to know what British boys wanted from their comic book annuals (at least up until the 1980s) : war, spaceships, sport and more war. What about the girls? Lets take a look at the 1979 annual of the Judy girls comic. Of course there was no reason why boys couldn't read this just as no reason why girls couldn't read Battle but lets face it... few did.

A shame of course as the stories are interesting and a bit more varied than you often found in boy's comics. Take "The Summer House" which is a delightful little tale of evil spirits and gypsy curses! We also have stories about singing contests, a nurse, snow ball fights and a schoolgirl vet. All very innocent and maybe a bit twee these days and a bit stereotyped (naturally ponies crop up a few times) but thats fine in the grand scheme of things.

There does seem a rather overt moral tone behind some of the stories too, it probably is too late for me.

Asterix in Britain

When Asterix goes abroad often we are treated to a barrage of sometimes-crude but usually-hilarious national stereotypes and when Asterix visited our shores he found a land inhabited by tweed wearing stiff-upper lipped gentlemen who said "what?" a lot and drank warm beer. There is an element of truth in all stereotypes of course, what?

Asterix and Obelix come to Britain to deliver a barrel of magic potion to help the Britons out in their struggle against the Romans, unfortunately the barrel goes missing... and our heroes try and retrieve it before the Romans find it.

This truly is one of the best Asterix books, the humour is spot on, the story plotted and paced perfectly and the artwork is approaching its zenith. It can maybe be a bit wearing for all of the Britons to be posh ancient toffs and the stereotypes are a bit out of date now (our food has improved a bit from the days of boiled boar with mint sauce) but its still very good indeed. There are so many high-points to choose from but i especially liked the ancient Beatles, the endless warm beer jokes and the cart thief.

See how the French discovered rugby and tea became our national drink, you can learn so much history from these books...

Star Wars #42

I enjoyed reviewing the old Star Wars comic i found in my loft so much that i bought another of the Marvel comic series on Ebay. Number 42 this time, which i did have as a childhood as oddly i remember Han Solo's buff body in one scene as he is stripped to the waist and having steam or some kind of vapour blown over him. Er... yeah moving on...

Set in between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back this has the Rebel gang stuck on some kind of massive space station. Luke and Leia and the 2 droids are on the run from a Senator Greyshade meanwhile Darth Vader is searching for a cyborg rival. In the exciting cliffhanger Han Solo is forced into a gladiatorial combat where he is shocked to find out his opponent is Chewbacca!

The highlight of everything is the cover though, and boy does Darth Vader look angry! I suspect The Emperor erased all his unseen episodes of Masterchef off his Sky Plus.

Pandora's Box (2) : Sloth

The second of the Pandora's Box series, which takes one of the seven deadly sins as the basis for its story, this time tackles the sin of sloth with the story of an Olympic athlete desperate to win the 100m.

This story also takes on elements and inspiration from Homer's Iiliad epic tale of the Trojan War. A highly successful and clean sprinter has remained undefeated for a number of years but with the Olympics approaching he suffers an injury and falls behind on his training. It looks increasingly likely that a young rival will finally seize his crown.

One option is to become a drug cheat, will he take this option and is he prepared for the high price?

This is a truly involving and intelligent story packed full of emotion and thought provoking ideas. You just know the hero will take the fall and he does but not in the way that might be expected.

Star Wars #54

Years ago (a lot of years ago) i used to get the Star Wars comic every week. We're talking back in the late 70s and early 80s here. Like much else from my childhood the comics have long gone as i didn't have the foresight to know that people would pay good money for such things on a global visual network yet to be created one day. However one comic did survive as it was left at my Grandmothers' house and years later i made sure i would keep this one...

Star Wars #54 then was released on Valentine's Day 1979 and includes a Star Wars comic strip and two other stories (The Micronauts and The Warlock which i wasn't that interested in back then and not so much now either). The Star Wars comic started off a weekly comic telling of the first Star Wars movie but once they blew up the Death Star and Darth Vader went spinning off into space they had to continue the comic with an early example of the Extended Universe at least until Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980.

The story here concerns Luke, Leia and Tagge who appears to be some kind of galactic mafia boss who hates Vader. Luke and Leia are trying to discover why and how Tagge can fly TIE fighters into the atmosphere of the gas giant Yavin while at the same time evading Tagge's TIE fighter patrols. Of course the story here was set between the two films and no one but George Lucas knew that Luke and Leia were siblings, so we get a little bit of mild incest.

The cliffhanger has their ship under attack by TIE fighters and the intriguing teaser that next week is called "R2 D2 Casualty Of War", as to what happened in Star Wars #55 i couldn't remember, but obviously R2 was fine as he made the next film OK. Later on i began buying the collected volumes...

The complete Ro-Busters

One day when i was a (small) boy my parents bought me a comic, it was a newish title called Star Lord and it probably changed my life. Why, well it included an amazing comic strip about a group of misfit robots involved in disaster rescue and recovery called Ro-Busters. I immediately became a massive fan and to this day love the adventures of Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein which also had a big influence on my own comics i started making not long afterwards...

This amazing volume collects together all of their adventures from Star Lord and later on 2000AD (which i started reading because Ro-Busters moved there when Star Lord folded). In many ways Ro-Busters was inspired by the TV series Thunderbirds though with sarcastic robots instead of puppets obviously. The earlier adventures are fairly simple adventure stories but later on the stories began to mature and politics and social comment make their appearance, especially after the move to 2000AD. Despite being a comic strip primarily involving robots the stories managed to include amazing levels of emotion and soul...

Ro-Jaws, Hammerstein and the rather dodgy cyborg boss Mr Quartz are the stars of the strip though as time went on a whole host of secondary characters also began to build up including the deranged Mek-Quake. The collection takes us through to the conclusion of the script in an epic final story where the Ro-Busters are broken up and Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein try and escape the Earth. Later on they were reunited in Nemesis and the ABC Warriors of course...

Yoko Tsuno (3) : The Prey and the Ghost

Yoko Tsuno is a young Japanese woman who, like many people in the comicverse, always seems to have a knack of getting into trouble or being in the right time and place to get involved with a new adventure...

The first 2 books in the Yoko Tsuno i found a little difficult to get into because of the fantasical themes including aliens, time travel, cloning et cetera which stretched credibility a little far for a story which is drawn and written like a classic children's or young person's adventure. However this book is a (fairly) straight forward mystery adventure in a haunted Scottish castle and is very enjoyable indeed.

(And before anyone says i know its maybe a little unfair to criticise the earlier books in this way because the theme of most Yoko Tsuno books tends to be science fiction or fantasy but i felt this story worked a lot better than the first 2 released by Cinebook!)

When she almost runs down a girl running seemingly for her life Yoko is drawn into an adventure that involves mysterious deaths, ghosts and strange goings on. As the adventure draws on Yoko finds she maybe isn't in a ghost story after all but maybe something that is more Earthly yet also more deadly.

Yoko Tsuno by Roger Leloup is a beautifully drawn comic strip and this issue has an engaging and interesting story which brings to mind classic mystery dramas especially those set in ancient castles full of hidden passages and rooms!

• Cinebook page
• The Prey and the Ghost: Yoko Tsuno 3 (Amazon)

Asterix and the cauldron

Or it could be titled... "How to make money in the Ancient Roman world". In this volume Asterix is cast out from the village for bringing shame upon the village for losing the money of another tribe which had been held there to keep it out of the Romans' hands. Asterix and Obelix set off with the empty cauldron the money was held in to refill it with sestertii and restore honour to both himself and the village...

Earning an honest sestertus is easier said than done though, everything is tried including being a market trader, an actor, even a gladiator but no matter what they try the cauldron seems to remain as empty as always. Even Getafix's magic potion can't solve the problem this time or can it?

This is a hilarious volume in the series with plenty of satirical comment on the world of work and the market. Not one of the very best Asterix books but still a very enjoyable romp.

Orbital (2) : Ruptures

This continues the story of the future galaxy diplomatic corp duo (who seem to combine quiet diplomacy with kick-ass action quite seamlessly) who at the end of volume 1 in the Orbital series were on a rain swept planet about to be overrun by multi-legged beasties. This volume concludes the story of Caleb and Mezoke trying to avert a war on a rather miserable little planet.

This well-drawn story is actually quite complicated and at times you do lose track a bit about what is going on, various competing factions in the foreground and background of the story do make it a bit confusing sometimes though you do manage to (more or less) work out what is going on by the end! I wonder if it would have been better to spread this story across 3 volumes and have a little more back-story and explanation about whats going on?

Its a well-drawn graphic novel and the artist has created a compelling and realistic future. The story is also complex and immersive, many things that still confuse will hopefully be explained later in the series...

Tintin in America

Tintin in America, the third book in the series, continues the early theme of Tintin being a crime fighting superhero who just happens to be a journalist too (something which was toned down in subsequent books, though lets face it Tintin was seldom ever seen doing anything that remotely resembled being a journalist).

Tintin arrives in the USA to clean up Chicago and is almost immediately thrown into peril. The story is a break-neck series of adventures as Tintin battles Al Capone and has other adventures across the US.

Thus there isn't the intricate plot that marks out the later books, this one is more a series of events that just happen to take place in the same country however its still a good read. There is some great satire here such as the fancy metropolis that pops up overnight after the discovery of oil and social comment on the bad treatment of Native Americans (though they do look like they come straight out a Western movie).

It is full of stereotypes but these reflected the America that existed (and still does to an extent) in the minds of Europeans in the pre-war period. Their image of America largely came from the movies. Thus America is a land of skyscrapers, canyons, mobsters, Red Indians, cowboys and lynching! Quite a few movie references were thrown in by Herge.

The artwork is not up to quite the standard of the later books but still good. Its worth reading, you miss the ensemble that was built up in later books, but enough of the magic is still there.

Lucky Luke 3 : Dalton City

The third book in Cinebook's sequence of Lucky Luke introduces the Daltons, a gang of desperate men who are luckily (for everyone else) pretty stupid too. The Daltons escape from jail and set up their own outlaw town. In steps Lucky Luke, the man who shoots faster than his shadow, to bring them to justice.

Like the first 2 books this is a very enjoyable read with plenty of the humour those familiar with some of Goscinny's other works may find familiar. There is so much to enjoy here such as Luke's horse and its sarcastic quips, the Daltons all looking the same except for being different sizes and the rubbish telegraph operator. Its a great comedy western, it even has an overworked and overeager undertaker.

What i really enjoy about these stories is that even though Luke is a gunman without peer he seldom relies on his gunslinging to catch the bad guys rather using his cunning and trickery to enshare the bad guys in an intricate plan, though the stories would be a lot shorter of course if he did!

Morris' artwork is fine though one criticism is that it suffers from "lazy colouring" with whole chunks of the same frame in the same colour though this was common in older comic strips (early Asterix for example). Its only a minor point though, this is a great read.

Agatha Christie's Death On The Nile

A graphic novel adaptation of the Agatha Christie "whodunnit" classic? When its done as lavishly and as opulent as this then why not? Its a beautiful piece of work in full colour and is a hardback book too. The story is claimed to hark back more to the interwar mystery of the original book rather than later film adaptations starring the likes of Peter Ustinov but i have to admit i had him or David Suchet in my mind whenever Poirot appeared on page!

The story of course involves a murder that takes place on a luxury cruise down the River Nile in Egypt and the investigation (and further events) that take place later on. Famed detective Hercule Poirot is luckily one of the passengers on the cruise and begins to investigate the crime...

The only criticisms of this work is that sometimes it is a bit unclear what is going on because some of the characters are a bit similar looking and some of the panels probably could have done with being reorganised a bit to make the narrative flow more clearly. These are minor niggles though that do not detract from the sheer enjoyment you get from this stylish production that transports you to that lavish and mysterious 1930s world... where posh people had a rather unfortunate habit of being murdered.