EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 28 © 2019 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

94 The Bookshelf: Krazy Kat, Jet-Ace Logan, and Gwendoline in Bondage l illustrators is also available in the USA from budplant.com Krazy Kat By George Herriman Hardcover 632 pages Taschen $200.00 (US), £150.00 (UK) Jet-Ace Logan By Kurt Caesar and Ron Turner Flexi cover 272 pages Book Palace Books £25.00 (UK) Tokyo Sweet Gwendoline By Hajime Sorayama, Katsuya Terada, Rockin’ Jelly Bean Softcover 72 pages Editions Treville $49.95 (US), £37.50 (UK) This one is a no-brainer, as the strip ‘Krazy Kat’ is one of the most respected worldwide. Among the strips’ many fans were Picasso, Bill Watterson, Charles Schulz, Will Eisner and Bobby London, to name just a few. Taschen brings us a beautiful book collecting all the colour Sunday strips of the eponymous character in a thick (and heavy) 12 by 18- inch hardbound book (packed inside its own cardboard box with a handle). For those who have lived under a rock and know nothing about what went on in the past century, the premise of the strip is quite basic and simple: a guileless, carefree, simple-minded cat named Krazy nurses an unrequited love for a mouse named Ignatz who despises him and always ends up throwing a brick at Krazy’s head. The background of the strip is also quite simple, consisting mainly of a desert with an occasional cactus tree. As to how something so innocuous could get such admiration from readers and critics might have some people scratching their heads. Getting used to Herriman’s slapstick and surrealistichumourmightgetsomeaccustoming to, but once you do, you’ll find this is a work of genius! However, it’s Herriman’s visual and verbal creativity that make this a comic praised by ‘intellectuals’ as ‘serious art’. Don’t be fooled by the apparent simplicity of the drawings, after all it was Picasso who said, “The hardest an artist can do is forget how to draw.” Again, Taschen delivers the goods and this book is recommended to both fans of silly humour and admirers of art at its highest level. Continuing with their Fleetway Picture Library Classics collection, Book Palace re- introduces us to the science fiction series ‘Jet- Ace Logan’. A sort of staple among British sci- fi comics, Jet-Ace Logan appeared in different formats, but the version presented here is from the Thriller Picture Library series published originally as 64-page softcover black-and-white pocket-size comic bookswith twopanels per page. The hero of the series is Jim ‘Jet-Ace’ Logan, an ace interplanetary pilot of the RAF. The stories are set about a 100 years in the future, although scenes taking place back in Earth look very much like England in the fifties. Logan is accompanied by his regular co-pilot (and comic relief) Plum-Duff Charteris, a sort of Sancho Panza-like companion. The stories featured here have everything from alien invasions, mysterious planets with an earth-like population living in the past, and others with weird aliens. What is absolutely astonishing is the artwork we have courtesy of British Ron Turner and Italian Kurt Caesar, two artists who were considered masters of their craft in their countries of origin. Both gentlemen excelled in a realistic style that is unfortunately absent frommost comic books today. Strangely enough, their styles are very similar, both mastering pen and ink along linework and gorgeous use of light and shadow. We get four different adventures collected in this volume. All are fun to read and stunningly illustrated by two masters of the medium. Although the price might seem excessive for the small amount of pages, this book is large-sized (10 by 14 inches). Inside we find a collection of erotic art by some of Japan’s most popular illustrators, based on John Willie’s classic ‘Sweet Gwendoline’ comics and his bondage photography. The artists in question are Hajime Sorayama, famous for his realistic and sexy female robots, Katsuya Terada, known for his work on Iron Man and Hellboy , and the wildly mysterious Rockin’ Jelly Bean, known for his lowbrow art. Seriously, the latter artist wears a bird-like mask (incidentally, bringing to mind the ‘Avengers’ episode discussed at the end of this issue) and nobody knows what he actually looks like. As for the artwork, we get three very different anddistinctive graphic styles. Sorayama is themost realistic of the three and his bondage imagesmight havemore thanone person frowning orwincing at them. Terada’s images are more manga-oriented although featuring girls missing their limbs (usually replaced by artificial metallic ones). Rockin’ Jelly Bean relies on graffiti-like street art mixed with lowbrow pop surrealism and punk rock bringing to mind the work of American illustrators Coop and Frank Kozik. So there is something for all tastes, if you happen to be a fan of lowbrow, manga and bondage art. The artwork was first displayed at the Vanilla Gallery in Ginza, Japan, in September 2018, and this book, commemorating the event, was published in June 2019.