Willie and Joe. The WWII Years. Bill Mauldin. Fantagraphic Books. (2008)

A very handsome, two volume set of the wartime cartoons by Bill Mauldin that enraged General Patton, who wanted to throw Bill Mauldin in jail for "spreading dissent" and were loved by the millions of infantry soldiers who lives he illustrated. What makes this much more than an interesting historical document is that the jokes are still funny long after the context for them has receded far from the public memory. These were intended for a very specific audience who would read them in a very specific context. The were being read by soldiers and civilians who were in a war and would read the public context for the cartons as much as the actual content. It was this that caused General Patton such rage, the context gave the content a dangerous edge. Today, when they context of WWII is as far away as the Jurassic Age all we have is the content and that makes reading them a completely different experience.

Bill Mauldin realised that being a soldier, war time or peacetime, is primarily a job, much like any other job that functions within a large bureaucracy and management structure. The cartoons are about people at work, the absurd constrictions and the petty rules that define work, the comradeship that exists between people thrown into work together and the uneasy relationships between those who give orders and those who obey them. That the context is military at peace or war is far less importance that the shared experience of anyone who has had a job and the frustrations and oddities that come with working. In particular reading the cartoons of his unshaven GIs at war in Europe, the struggle in not with the enemy it is with the Army and sometimes with your fellows. It rings as true now as it did for the audience in the trenched and tents who saw that someone actually understood what it was like to do what they did.

In the last months of his life Bill Mauldin received thousands of letters and cards from old veterans and their relatives, they knew that he was on their side and in a war that is deeply precious knowledge. This box set is worth getting because a talented artist still shines as brightly today as he did over sixty years ago.

Rocco Vargas. The Dark Forest. Daniel Torres.Dark Horse Comics (2001).

A gorgeous piece of romantic science fiction, the future as it should be with beautiful, stylish art and a solid thoughtful story. A mysterious virus has swept through the solar systems computer network, it has displayed only the message " The world breathes through the forest..." and vanishes as mysteriously as it arrives. Rocco Vargas, one time space explorer, night club owner and science fiction writer and Dr. Jill Covalsky, a scientist, both wonder about the message and find that it may have more meaning than has been realised. When an attempt is made on Jill Covalsky's life the chase is on to find the true meaning of the phrase. When it is revealed it is as gloriously sweeping and galactic as it should be.

This is science fiction about the possibilities of the future, it is as lushly romantic as the great travel posters of trains and ocean liners from the 1930's were, they are full of promise and the glamour of technology. The future is rushing ahead at full speed. The style of the book is very distinctive, it is the 1950's catapulted ahead into an retro future with flying cars that have tail fins and look like they came straight off the set of Grease.

Daniel Torres has drawn the future like it should have been, robots everywhere, technology that feels as futuristic as it should populated by a cast that wear double-breasted suits as naturally as breathing. The detail of his art is wonderful, he has a number of crowd scenes which are full of life and carefully differentiated characters. Daniel Torres is willing to go for a big idea as well, to give his story a wide scope that matches the huge vision of the future. A pleasure to read.

Mister X. The Archives. Dean Motter & Co. Dark Horse Books (2008)

I did not catch this comic at all, there is nothing astray with the production, the writing or the art, it simply did not grip me as a reader. The basic premise of the stories is an interesting one, the architect of a Utopian city returns to try and undo the changes made to his work that have created a cityscape that drive the inhabitants mad. This is a sharp concept with huge room for interesting and varied stories and the ambition of the idea does not quite make it through to the execution. The stories are solid and the plots and reveals are well constructed, they are just smaller that the concept calls out for. The focus is on too small group when it should be on the great panorama of the city and the extraordinary interactions possible between its inhabitants and their urban context. The stories shrink rather than expand.

The book is very stylish, Dean Motter is a graphic designer and the book shows the strong influence of design ideas, the images of the cityscape seem to come from Metropolis and have lovely sweeps of Art Deco, the cast step out of the world of film noir with updated 1940's clothing and styles. The mix is interesting and the various artists who worked on the stories respond with great expression and energy.

There is not a believable emotional core to the book that can reach out to the reader and draw them into Radiant City and have them join the cast, it always remains a spectacle at one remove. In the film noir stories there was a centre of sweaty desperation that drew in the viewer, that made you hope for a better ending than you know will arrive. This comic has captured the clothes but not the heart of those stories and looses the true spirit it was hoping to evoke. There were a million stories in the Naked City there too few in Radiant City.

Escape in Iraq. The Thomas Hamill Story. Thomas Hamill & Paul T. Brown. Stoeger Publishing (2004)

On Friday April 9th 2004 Thomas Hamill was kidnapped by Iraqi fighters and on Sunday May 2nd 2004, 24 days later he escaped and was rescued by a military patrol. This gripping book is the story of how Thomas Hamill found himself in Iraq, how he survived his captivity, how his family survived the pressure of his absence. Thomas Hamill was not a solider, nor did he have any special training. The reason he was in Iraq was the most basic one imaginable, he need the money that that he could earn there as a civilian contractor to support his family back in America. In America Thomas Hamill had to drive trucks long distance to support his farm and family and the struggle to make ends meet was just getting harder all the time. Iraq represented a great chance to accumulate some money to get a little ahead and take pressure off his family.

His convoy was attacked and he was injured and taken prisoner. I think it was the fact that he was not a solider that was a contributing factor to his survival, he was just a regular working man much like the people he met. The differences were balanced by strong similarities and they achieved a sort of rapport that allowed him to survive. His descrptions of the kindness he was shown, the small interactions he had with his captors are very moving. He was never sure if he would be killed, he kept his spirit enough to finally sieze his chance to escape.

For a non-American reader like myself, the deep and strongly expressed religious faith that Thomas Hamill expresses all the time is very striking. This book is a great reminder that we humans really are extraordinary beings.

The Emperor's Pearl. Robert Van Gulik. University of Chicago Press (1994)

This is one of a series of books featuring the fictional adventures of a real Chinese historical figure, Judge Dee, he is remembered as a master detective as well known in China as Sherlock Holmes is in Europe. The books are formal, very stylish, neatly plotted and a pleasure to read. Judge Dee is the magistrate in Poo-yang, the "mother-father official" for the area, as a magistrate his remit runs far beyond criminal justice, he is the chief civil administrator for the district. Presiding at a local boat race one of the crew mysteriously dies and it is quickly established that he was poisoned. A little later a woman is found murdered in a remote house and further murders occur.

Judge Dee actively investigates both and finds a neatly constructed plot that includes the possible whereabouts of The Emperor's Pearl, a jewel that went missing from the Imperial Palace a hundred years before. This ads a dangerous political edge to the mysteries and Judge Dee has to act very quickly to get to the root the problem.

As ever in the series the central mysteries are nicely constructed, the pieces are logically connected and the steady reveals are nicely paced and do not seek to cheat the reader. There is a satisfactory set of possible suspects and the conclusion is satisfying and effective.

The mystery itself is only half the charm of the book, the setting is wonderfully evoked, Robert Van Gulik was a notable Chinese scholar as well as a diplomat and he created the setting with confidence details and very smart characterisation. The cast are developed with wit and skill and Judge Dee is a rounded, fallible man who can find that he has read the situation incorrectly and regrets it. The illustrations in the book, also by Robert Van Gulik, done in a "Chinese" style are a pleasure and add greatly to the atmosphere. All told a excellent period detective novel with a striking and unusual setting.

Conan Doyle Detective. Peter Costello. Robinson (2006)

This is a shadow biography of Arthur Conan Doyle, tracing his life through the real life crimes that he was interested in or involved in. Part of the argument running through the book is that the rational, deductive methods that Sherlock Holmes used were the natural thinking processes that Conan Doyle used and applied to crimes that caught his attention. It is an interesting book with a lot of curious detail and the author makes the most of the evidence.

There is a notable weakness in the book however and that is the lack of direct evidence in a lot of cases, there are a lot "could have" and "must have" moments in the book. Peter Costello pushes the evidence to the limit, he does not overstep the mark, there is a little more argument and suggestion than substance. This is not to suggest that the book is flimsy or that Peter Costello has not done formidable research, he has, it is simply that direct evidence from Conan Doyle can be scarce.

Where there is a direct involvement the details are collected and the story is very effectively told, the case of George Edalji is told with great clarity and skill. The whole context for the episode is gone into and the additional details are fascinating. The same is true for the Oscar Slater case, the long tails of each case are followed up to the very recent past. Equally Conan Doyle's championing of the spiritualist cause, something which evokes embarrassment rather than anything else in other writers, is treated with respect and candour. The intertwining of spiritualism and criminal activity is explored with care and there is a surprising amount of evidence brought to light. The great affection Peter Costello has for Arthur Conan Doyle both as the creator of the immortal Sherlock Holmes and as a man who was willing to work to fight injustice is clear and elevates the book. This is a worthy addition to the books about a great and honourable man.

Hellboy. The Companion. Stephen Weiner, Jason Hall, Victoria Blake. Dark Horse Books (2008)

Given the facts that only committed Hellboy fans are likely to buy this book and committed Hellboy fans would buy it pretty much regardless of the quality, this is accessible, entertaining and a treat for any Hellboy fan. In keeping with the quality control exercised throughout the franchise, this is thoughtful, well produced and literate. It does a very nice job of both extending and explaining the literary roots and context of Hellboy and diving headfirst into the details and revelling in them.

The core of the book are the character profiles by Victoria Blake and Rachel Edidin, these cover just about every character who cross any page in any Hellboy or B.P.R.D. book. This should be inaccessible to anyone but a committed fan and possibly even a step too far for a lot of them. Thanks to fine writing by Victoria Blake and Rachel Edidin this is a series of intriguing micro biographies of a wonderfully assorted cast of characters. There is a notable absence of referential defensiveness in the writing, the reader does not have to possess a degree of prior knowledge to enjoy the profiles. They are informative and comprehensive, the various illustrations, old and new, from Mike Mignola, has been chosen with care.

The Official Timeline by Jason Hall is really for committed fans only, it is also just fantastic. It has the correct level of detail, catches all the highways and byways that are explicit and implicit in the stories and creates a breathtaking view of the world of Hellboy. The Literary Heritage of Hellboy, an essay by Stephen Weiner, and the Further Reading section round of the volume in fine style with the essay showing the breath and depth of the influences and sources that Mike Mignola lovingly draws upon for his work.

I read this book straight through, I appreciated and enjoyed the authors care, attention and talent and they have increased my enjoyment of the various Hellboy comics and films greatly.