Hexagon Comics: Strangers #15: Enter: The Freeshooters

 

STRANGERS 15: ENTER: THE FREESHOOTERS by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Roberto Castro, Gabriel Mayorga, José Luis Ruiz; cover by Roberto Castro

7x10 squarebound trade paperback,

94 p. b&w

ISBN-13: 978-1-64932-473-3. US$14.95

https://www.hexagoncomics.com/shop-strangers-15-enter-the-freeshooters.html

Contents:

- Foreword by J.-M. & Randy Lofficier

- THE COMING OF THE FREESHOOTERS story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Roberto Castro

- THE MARK OF SET story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Roberto Castro

- THE RETURN OF WAKI story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by Gabriel Mayorga

- TIGER & THE EYE: TRANSITION story by Jean-Marc Lofficier; art by  José Luis Ruiz

HOMICRON, a NASA scientist whose body is possessed by a mysterious alien from planet Alpha.

STARLOCK, a servant of the Towers, supremely powerful cosmic entities. 

FUTURA is a mysterious woman from a parallel dimension.

GOLDEN BOY, champion of Urth, “brother” of Futura, empowered by the Great Mind...

ARIANROD, a princess from the ancient Fomore race, who is also the Mistress of the Sword of Fire and Ice...

These characters, all “strangers” to Earth, are brought together by TANKA, a former jungle lord who has been recruited by entities from our planet’s farthest future to be their agent and is now empowered to protect our world from extra-terrestrial menaces.

In this fifteenth volume, the Strangers face the terrifying power of Set!

Introducing a new group of heroes from the four corners of time: The Freeshooters! And guest-starring: Waki! Tiger and The Eye!

Roberto Castro delivers his usual clean line art and Mayorga I have mentioned in previous reviews and is a talent to keep an eye on. Not forgetting Perez and his fine line delineation. All three provide some eye catching work while Lofficier seems to be having a lot of fun presenting the characters and well pace action.

I reviewed Classic Freeshooters yesterday and I think the one thing that works here is something I have mentioned before: good continuity and control of the storylines so that things do not become a mess. Lofficier is involved in the planning, plotting and scripting and that is probably why it all works.  We saw how at Marvel Roy Thomas maintained control (he just seemed to write everything but didn't he just tried to keep continuity going) 

The re-introduction of these heroes to modern times can't be faulted and reminds me of some of the great small Indie publishers of the 1980s -like AC Comics before they lost their way into "cheesecake". It is fresh in an age where comics seem to be just grabbing at the latest craze in the belief they will attract more readers. This incarnation we have Lana Lightning but why not? An all male group seems a bit boring and one thing I was told by a few female comic readers was that they like to see a woman in the mix as "then you can be THAT character" A Western gunfighter? Why not -it might inspire the odd cosplayer.

It is a really enjoyable read and the art has no faults. Wondring about that airship on the cover? Buy a copy of the book and find out what it's doing there!

Hmm. I Was Wrong

 I stand corrected on something I wrote yesterday. Not the reviews -all the books from Hexagon Comics and Kult Creations have been great fun. 

Rather the line where I wrote that I found another unlisted anywhere British hero from the British Golden Age. It was pointed out to me by someone who reads Comics Bits magazine that in the last two or more years I have found a couple dozen characters that are forgotten.

The British Golden Age reprint books do not sell -it is really a work of love (and finance draining) and so I decided that what I will do is publish the strips of these characters in Comic Bits although how many issues I publish depends. People who read it tell me they learn something new and love it but, again, sales are very poor which I did not expect since I run blogs and Face Book pages with a lot of members who are Golden Age fans (I am told).

We'll see if I can get an issue out by Christmas so keep checking back!

Hexagon Comics: Jed Puma

 

JED PUMA CLASSIC; cover by Alfredo Macall

7x10 squarebound trade paperback,

104  p.

b&w

ISBN-13: 978-1-64932-478-8. US$14.95

https://www.hexagoncomics.com/shop-jed-puma-classic.html

 

Contents:

- Foreword by J.-M. & Randy Lofficier

- JED PUMA CLASSIC #1: The Deer Skin; art by Carlo Cedroni

- ROXY CLASSIC #1: The Old Sheriff; art by Mario Cubbino

English adaptation by J.-M. & Randy Lofficier.

Thanks to our “Classics” reprint program, it is now possible to discover the first adventures of Hexagon's “silver age” characters who inspired new versions of these heroes.

This issue features:

* Jed Puma by Italian artist Carlo Cedroni, a western hero created in 1965 who never carried weapons and used only martial arts, a character remarkably ahead of his time.

* Roxy by Italian artist Mario Cubbino, another western hero also created in 1965, the story of a young man seeking revenge on his father's killers.

Fans of Westerns shoul;d love this. If you were or areinto martial arts comics then this one has you covered. There's humour of course and it's nice to see Jed and (can I call him a side-kick or partner?) Tashi acting as equals. There were times I was reminded of TVs Kung Fu series and a Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer movie -which isn't bad!

Nice clean art and the bad guys are bad guys and they get their just desserts in the end.

Roxy can be described as a vengeance Western starrring a boy, his horse and a puma! Jed Puma is well drawn and I liked it but I think Roxy just about has the edge here. Nice slick black and white art and a story that is not as lame as it might sound at first -it was actually far better than I expected but after the first few pages introducing the character it picks up.

Again, unless you have been collecting and reading French comics these characters will mean nothing to you so this is your chance to learn more.  

I have to admit that I had heard of Jed Puma before (over the years I got confused and kept thinking he was called "Joe Puma"!) way back when I was in the old Bristol Book Centre in Gloucester Road, Bristol. You could buy all sorts of pulps and even comics in there -run by an American woman who had been an opera singer-  and I was looking through some Sax Rohmer Fu Manchu books and a French man who was looking for Doc Savage pulps started a conversationwhich led to him seeing I had some Archie Comics and he told me how one of his comic favourites was Jed Puma. How he described it seemed a tad weird but when I found the Cool French Comics web page I got to see what the character looked like.

As I noted in my review of Freeshooters, this type of collection both introduces characters to a new audience while keeping comics history alive.  A book for a good fun read.

Louane - yeux (clip officiel)

 

Whoops, I Did It Again!

I did it again.  

Yup, quite by chance I found another previously unlisted British super hero from the 1940s -as outlined in Comic Bits 3 I keep finding these characters and mainly when I am not looking so, from now on, I will NOT be looking for old British characters (I may be lying there).

More news later.

________________________________________________________________

A4

Colour/BW

80pp

£10.00 UK

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/comic-bits-no-3-2026/paperback/product-q6wqden.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Comic Bits is the only journal dealing with the Platinum, Golden, Dark and Silver Ages of British comics and the creators involved.

This edition looks at the number of British "Bat men" -characters lost to time. The Bat by William McCail stars in his only ever appearance

We take a look at Tom Browne and Oliver Veal recognised as creators of what became the "British style" for over 100 years.

Prolific creator Terry Bave and his wife Sheila give us a glimpse of working in Silver age weekly comics.

Then there three rarities: the first is the origin of T.N.T. Tom a true star of Swan comics. Secondly we have the other star of Swan in Dene Vernon -Ghost Investigator. His very first pouting from 1940.

Third...well, a massive shock was the discovery of a super heroine not mentioned in any sources and this one off appearance drawn by E. H. Banger (we look at his career in this issue as well) -after 60 years Wanda the Wonder Girl is revealed!

Comic strips from some of the greats of British comics add extra zing to this issue.

Hexagon Comics: The Freeshooters Classic

 

THE FREESHOOTERS CLASSIC; cover by Luca Pozza

7x10 squarebound trade paperback,

124 p.

b&w

ISBN-13: 978-1-64932-492-4; US$15.95

https://www.hexagoncomics.com/forthcoming-books-the-freeshooters-classic.html

Contents:

- Foreword by J.-M. & Randy Lofficier

- ANDREIOS: The Lion of the Thermopylae; art by Franco Oneta

- LAM LIGHTNING: The Ten Masks; art by Stelio Fenzo

- LONE BARDO: The Adventure Begins; art by Carlo Cedroni

In our recently published Strangers No. 15, we introduced a new group of characters, The Freeshooters, four heroes pulled from various periods of Earth’s history. They consisted of Ivan Karine, Lone Bardo, Andreios and Lana Lightning.

Thanks to our “Classics” reprint series, you are now able to discover a sample of the original stories that featured these characters.

* Lone Bardo is a character inspired by Phileas Fogg, the star of Jules Verne’s classic Around the World in Eighty Days. It was created in 1958 by Carlo Cedroni, the author of Jed Puma.

* Andreios is a Greek warrior circa 480 BC, the date of the famous battle at the Thermopylae between Greeks and Persians, depicted in Frank Miller’s celebrated graphic novel, 300. Andreios was created in 1967 by Franco Oneta, better known as the artist on Zembla.

* Finally, Lightning Lam is a western graphic novel by Stelio Fenzo that originally appeared in 1968. The story takes place in the South just after the Civil War and follows the adventures of recently demobilized Confederate Captain Robert Lamm.

 You can always tell you are in for an old school adventure when the character has his revolver grip attached to a lanyard. Ahhh, the waft of nostalgia! 

This adventure begins with our hero martial arts training and an interruption that leads he nd his manservant James on to a new adventure. I love how, on getting to India, the pair take to pennyfarthing bicycles to get around LOL! ah, the 1880s and the English abroad. It is a very nice, clean art style from Cedroni and quite an enjoyable romp -I hope part 2 is on the table ready to print!

Oneta's art on Andreios is also nice and clean. All seems to be as accurate as you can get when it comes to buildings, clothing and unlike one artist who drew ancient Greeks on saddled horses, the ones accurately depicted in this story are not. Do I tend to boringly keep referring to historical stuff in reviews?  That's age and reading a lot for you.

Lightning Lam I was reading through and something kept niggling my brain about the Fenzo art and I think it's because it was reminding me of someone else. I believe Mike Ploog art although a couple times there was a hint of Eisner. It's a nicely paced Western and we get few of those these days.

All-in-all this is a very nice Classic collection and so many old characters and comics are lost to us because no one really cares if it isn't Marvel, DC or Image and it's black and white. 

It is a very good collection for comic enthusiasts who might collect the odd French comic because they like the style but cannot read French as these are obviously all translated to English. I know there are comic collectors that will buy a specific genre -Victorian or Edwardian world travelling adventurers such as Lone Bardo.  Others will collect comics set in ancient times and until tal;king to one I never realised that it was such a big collection interest (I was told to never call it a "craze" ). And we have the Western and that genre is a huge one for collectors.

So this book covers three collector types but what it does, more importantly (maybe only for comic historians?), is it preserves the history of comics from France that appeal to any comic reader but which would otherwise be forgotten.  This collection is fun and full of adventure and action and well worth making part of your collection.

 

 

 

Fat Larry's Band - Zoom (Official Music Video)

 

Ultra Man by D'Israeli

 

Do I Hate Thomson? Can People NOT Read?

 Can I just point out that I have NEVER said that I hated D C Thomson or it's pre 2000s comics.  They have some great characters that have been left to rot and be forgotten. To me that is a waste.

Major Victory -some unedited pages

 

NAPOLEON by The Roncy Boys

 

20 Shoppers Down In Sainsbury's ...could be a new urban rap track?

 Have no fear things are just going a little slower than usual as I try to -TRY- get bacjk to a regular pattern of work. 

I am on page 174 of a new ufo related book which has taken all of my energy to fight through eye and hand problems as well as life stuff which has been a huge burden (I'd mention sleep paralysis twice in one night does not help but who cares?).

Oh, I did publish a few wildlife papersbut....we are here for comics, right?

So stand by and I must take this opportunity to sincerely apologise to Sainsbury's supermarket where the horde of zombies I dealt with turned out to be shoppers. I can only offer my eye problem as an excuse.

Laura Frank - Kiss My (Official Video)

 

Kult Creations: The Siters Three: Gravesmoor

 

 A 44 page, 

black and white, 

American comic-sized, square-bound graphic novel 

Order via the Kult Creations page https://kultcreations.blogspot.com/

writer John A. Short and artist David Hitchcock 

 Telling the folk horror tale of three witches in the seventeenth century. A strange and terrible ancient creature stalks the countryside outside the village of Gravesmoor in England... Can Becca Nox, Elsbeth Crowe and Isabella Goodacre discover a weakness in a monster that can't die - while avoiding the clutches of arch-witch-finder Abraham King? A tale not for the faint of heart. 

I think that I have already stated that Hitchkock's style is very suited for horror -his art on the Nosferatu series in Shockwave for one.  Well, this book arrived todayand I needed cheering up so... I read it (I CAN read I don't just look at pretty pictures. All the time).

Anyone visiting this blog regularly should know that I am a big horror fan and sci-fi-horror. One thing I love is the prelude of a dying or injured man and the "you...have to...stop it...millions will die!" and then the person dies. The TV series The New Avengers used that trope more than once. In this case we have a shocked Parliamentarian soldier (a "Roundhead" fighting against Royalists during the English Civil War) whose comrades have all been killed after being confronted by a mysterious force -even musket-shot did not stop it. His words say it all:

 "I tell y',there's more horrors an' spirits an' secrets out there in this world  than most folks would ever know..."

Oooh -gives yuh the shivers dunnit me dears?

From a witch's vengeance for the local squire not paying her for what she did for him to a young woman being hanged as a witch because she never drowned in the water -Yeah, real thing: if you were thrown in the water and drowned you were innocent -Yay! If you bobbed up and never drowned -boo! Hiss! Witch! And they killed you any way. Then the witch helping out at an "infestation" (old phrase for poltergeist activity). All three linked up by Mr Treacle a rather snazzy looking black cat.

Then we have my main man: The Man of the Forest, the Old Man of the Wood, Herne the Hnter or, here, Jack Greenherne.

The story goes on with gore and horror aplentyas well as some back story. All wonderfully drawn by Hitchcock.  

The  story and script is well written, it should be since it is John Short and he's been around a while.  It's interesting how he can write the humorous almost Carry On movies comic strips or add a good old fashioned British tongue-in-cheek quips and jokes and then shift over to pure horror.

Seriously, you need to get a copy of this if you are into horror comics. The biggest compliment I can give the book is that it gave me a big chunk of nostalgia and memories of old Hammer/Tenser movies.

This is a horror comic in the only format a horror comic should be in -black and white. Kult Creations is rather like Hexagon Comics in that both produce excellent entertainment but both seem to be slept on by the comic readers. 

10 out of 10

Hexagon comics:The End of the Partisans

 

 

7x10 squarebound trade paperback,

88 p.

b&w

ISBN-13: 978-1-64932-491-7; US$15.95

 

Story by  Jean-Marc Lofficier; art & cover by Mario Guevara

1945. World War II is over, but a new, even more terrible conflict is about to erupt.

From San Francisco to Borneo, via London, Paris, Senegal, the Caucasus, and Iraq, the Partisans are forced to return to service, risking their lives to thwart the designs of the mysterious Egyptian god Set...

Featuring Apollo, Baroud, Count Saint-Germain, Corsak, Dan Diamond, the Guardian of the Republic, the Senegalese Guard, Imhotep, the Black Lily, Red Feather, Sadko, Tanka, Wazilla, and Xiu Kappa!

Bonus: a 20-page portfolio gallery of all the Partisans by Mario Guevara.

Over the last 10 months I have not had a very good time and not lifted a pen to draw anything for months. I even put off wanting to review these books but I am glad I relented.

I love that cover. art and the text design works well with it. Guevara has a rather sketchy looking style combined with what looks like a wash of some kind. I may be wrong but who knows.  The one thing I will write is that I have always been a little 50-50 when it comes to Guevara's style but I think that with this book his work is the best I have seen to date. I loved it and it actually got me comic art interested again.

There is a little guide to Partisan members but then.... oh, then come the pin up pages. Gorgeous and I wish I had room on my walls as I'd definitely print these out as posters (maybe one day). The art actually reminds me, if you are old enough you will know what I mean, 1970s black and white comic magazines and I have fond memories of the ones from Atlas Seaboard!

As for the stories well, Lofficier does all the writing so it all flows well keeping characteristion good and the pacing of action well done. Having one person in overall charge of writing and planning out storylines helps -a bit like Roy Thomas used to do at Marvel. Lofficier seems to keep things fresh and he has a good selection of French Golden and Silver ages characters to select from.

That freshness in the story and the artwork is something a comic fan should be interested in and if I had to say "buy this one" to see what is going on at Hexagon this would be the one. It really is fun and action and we get to see the inception of an idea for something called C.L.A.S.H.

Check out the Hexagon site and if you want to buy a copy please consider buying from the company as it helps them.