Coming Up: "Tops: The Complete Collection of Charles Biro's Visionary 1949 Comic Book Series"
Out in January 2022 from Fantagraphics. Available for pre-order now from Amazon.
Details:
From their inception in 1935, comic books ― starring Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel ― had been primarily written for and aimed at adolescents. There were always the occasional outlier artists who pushed back against the commercial constraints of comic books and envisioned the next evolutionary artistic leap in the artform, and Charles Biro was one of those artists.
In 1949, the ambitious Biro ― who had previously co-created the realistically brutal comic Crime Does Not Pay ― edited and wrote an oversized comic aimed at adults called Tops. Like several other radical adult comics projects that would follow, it proved to be a commercial failure, and lasted only two Life magazine-sized issues. The original comics have since become a legendary holy grail among comics fans and historians, fetching as much as $6,000 on the collector’s market, written about, but rarely seen and never reprinted. Until now.
Fantagraphics’ Tops collects both issues of this oversized experimental comics in their entirety. These pulpy, sexy, and melodramatic stories were drawn by some of the best craftsmen working in comics at that time: Dan Barry, George Tuska, and others. It includes two stunning pre-EC crime tales illustrated by Reed Crandall, reminiscent of his Crime SuspenStories work. The actor Melvyn Douglas (believe it or not) takes the reader on a utopian tour entitled “How Would You Live Under A World Government?” ― a positive spin on global Socialism!
A treasure trove of fascinating and revelatory comics history for scholars and fans, this compilation includes an introduction by the editor, the historian and cartoonist Michael T. Gilbert, as well as several other essays providing background on the creation of the series and the publisher, editors, and cartoonists who realized it. It also includes an essay chronicling experimental, adult comics endeavors throughout the first half of the 20th century. Tops is a landmark work of historical importance and a mind-boggling reading experience from a bygone era meticulously restored and reproduced in a deluxe hardcover in its originally published dimensions.
Pop Artifact: Shogun Warrior Dragun toy
I was a tad too old for these, but always thought they were cool.
New music out today: Allen Ginsberg; Sturgill Simpson; Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders, more
Click the links to order from Amazon.
Heavy Sun, the soulful, debut from Lanois and his invigorating new all-star band. Recorded in Los Angeles and Toronto, the album fuses classic gospel and modern electronics, mixing gritty, human textures with crisp, digital accents and lush, swirling atmospherics to create a sound that's at once warmly familiar and boldly unexpected. The arrangements here are spacious and dreamy, anchored by rich, righteous organ topped with airy falsetto and mesmerizing four-part harmony, and the writing is buoyant and soulful to match, tapping into the shared uncertainty of the human condition to offer hope, comfort, and connection at a time when all three run in desperately short supply.
With his fifth album, Uma Elmo, Danish guitarist Jakob Bro presents a new trio featuring Arve Henriksen and Jorge Rossy. Astonishingly, given the trio's musical synergy, the first time these three musicians ever performed together was for the album's sessions at the Swiss Radio studio in Lugano, with ECM founder Manfred Eicher producing. DownBeat aptly noted in its review of Bro's previous album, Bay of Rainbows, that "Bro's guitar is luminous.his music both hypnotic and dramatic.
Coming Up: "Asterix and the Griffin" set for Oct. 21 release worldwide
The latest info on the upcoming Asterix book via an interview with "new" series writers Jean-Yves Ferri.
Didier Conrad sent a drawing to Éditions Albert René. A strange and mysterious drawing… It features our two heroes - created more than 60 years ago by the genius of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo - scaling a huge tree trunk in an attempt to reach Dogmatix who seems to be trying to get away from them… Is the little Gaulish canine making a bid for freedom?
The tree trunk is very unusual because it's carved into an effigy of an enigmatic creature with impressive teeth and a raptor's beak…
But what is this creature?
Jean-Yves Ferri tells us more "For me it all started with a sculpture of the Tarasque, a terrifying creature from Celtic legends ... Did our ancestors really believe that these peculiar monsters actually existed?
It's worth mentioning that in Roman times there weren't many explorers, so the terra was mostly incognita. Even so, extraordinary animals such as elephants and rhinoceroses had already been exhibited in Rome. Having seen them, why would Romans have any reason to doubt the existence of equally improbable creatures? And hadn't some of them (medusas, centaurs, gorgons...) been described very seriously before their time by the ancient Greeks?
Now it was time look at this bestiary and choose the animal that would be at the centre of the intrigue. Half-eagle, half-lion, with horse's ears and appropriately enigmatic - I opted for a Griffin!
The Romans were bound to go for it. But what about the Gauls? How would Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix, along with the Druid Getafix, get drawn into the epic, perilous quest to find this fantastical animal?
That's what you'll find out in the new album. And I'm not going to do what Wikipedia does and tell you EVERYTHING about it…"
Out April 27: "Monsters" by Barry Windsor-Smith - more than 35 years in the making
Coming from Fantagraphics Books. Available for order from Amazon now.
Details:
The year is 1964. Bobby Bailey doesn’t realize he is about to fulfill his tragic destiny when he walks into a US Army recruitment office to join up. Close-mouthed, damaged, innocent, trying to forget a past and looking for a future, it turns out that Bailey is the perfect candidate for a secret U.S. government experimental program, an unholy continuation of a genetics program that was discovered in Nazi Germany nearly 20 years earlier in the waning days of World War II. Bailey’s only ally and protector, Sergeant McFarland, intervenes, which sets off a chain of cascading events that spin out of everyone’s control. As the titular monsters of the title multiply, becoming real and metaphorical, literal and ironic, the story reaches its emotional and moral reckoning.
Monsters is the legendary project Barry Windsor-Smith has been working on for over 35 years. A 380-page tour de force of visual storytelling, Monsters’ narrative canvas is both vast and deep: part familial drama, part political thriller, part metaphysical journey, it is an intimate portrait of individuals struggling to reclaim their lives and an epic political odyssey across two generations of American history. Trauma, fate, conscience, and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the most ambitious graphic novel of Windsor-Smith’s career.
Monsters is rendered in Windsor-Smith’s impeccable pen-and-ink technique, the visual storytelling with its sensitivity to gesture and composition is the most sophisticated of the artist’s career. There are passages of heartbreaking tenderness, of excruciating pain, and devastating violence. It is surely one of the most intense graphic novels ever drawn.
Out May 14: half-speed remastered, vinyl 50th anniversary edition of Paul and Linda McCartney's classic RAM album
Details from the news release:
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Paul and Linda McCartney’s 1971 masterpiece RAM, the album will be reissued May 14, 2021, as a limited edition half-speed mastered vinyl pressing. You can pre-order it now from independent stores via Record Store Day or on Paul's official site.
Paul’s most recent release, the #1 album McCartney III, recorded in “Rockdown” last year, saw a return to the homespun, lo-fi style of the earliest days of his solo career. The eclectic charm and intimacy of 1970’s McCartney and 1971’s RAM found Paul redefining his post-Beatles creative identity, while unconsciously rewriting the rules of pop music and creating new genres along the way—or as Pitchfork would later describe RAM’s sustained influence on generations of fans and musicians alike, "inventing an approach to pop music that would eventually become someone else's indie-pop.”
The only album to be credited to both Paul and Linda McCartney, RAM was created mostly at Paul and Linda's farm in Scotland (following initial, more traditional studio sessions in New York). Unlike the completely solo sessions that resulted in Paul’s eponymous debut album, the recording of RAM found Paul and Linda enlisting a number of musicians, including Denny Seiwell who would become a founding member of Wings, Paul’s next musical adventure.
The RAM sessions were completed in early 1971, also yielding the standalone single Another Day, a worldwide hit that preceded RAM’s May 1971 release.
RAM’s singular sonic palette was unlike its predecessor—or anything else for that matter—and has grown exponentially in stature and influence over the decades. Critically polarizing at the time, the album was instantly beloved by fans, hitting #1 in the UK and giving Paul his first post-Beatles American #1 single, the GRAMMY-winning Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey. In recent years the record has continued to solidify its standing as one of the most loved in Paul’s unparalleled output. Fans and critics alike continue to sing its praises: Rolling Stone has hailed the album as a "masterpiece" and "a grand psychedelic ramble full of divine melodies,” Pitchfork has praised it as "a domestic-bliss album, one of the weirdest, earthiest, and most honest ever made,” and Mojo, perhaps most accurately of all, has deemed RAM “quintessentially McCartney."
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