By Leo Baxendale
Publisher: Irmantas Povilaika by arrangement with Rebellion Publishing Ltd
Well, isn’t this a delight! A hardback collection of the entire Leo Baxendale’s Mervyn’s Monsters, originally published in Buster and Giggle way back in 1968. This is all thanks to some incredibly hard work by Irmantas Povilaika who previously curated a fantastic slipcase edition of Ken Reid strips – so you know it’s going to be good. With no original artwork to work from, each page had to be scanned from the original comics – a challenge in itself – but the end result is extremely satisfying.
For any whipper-snappers not already in awe, Leo Baxendale is a behemoth of British cartooning. He created the Bash Street Kids, Minnie the Minx and Sweeny Toddler for the Beano, worked on Wham!, Smash! and Pow for Odhams, and Buster for Fleetway. His manic, madcap cartooning style was funny, daft and endlessly entertaining, and inspired more than a handful of future cartoonists.
Mervyn’s Monsters was created as an amalgam of the humour and adventure strips that, on their own, were the backbone of Buster. Baxendale fused them together to allow for a longer storytelling experience that combined outrageous cliffhanger endings each week, James Bond-style gadgets and wacky creatures galore.
The basic premise is that schoolboy Mervyn has a host of monsters at his disposal, allowing his services to be retained by the British secret service. His nemesis is Mush, a sinister agent of CRUSH, who is always up to no good. Hence plastic clouds that shoot peas, clockwork brick walls, palm-tree missiles, and electronic spy vultures, with a rich assortment of mad monsters scattered around to assist.
For a good third of the book it reads more like a graphic novel as the story rolls on from one surreal situation to another, then changes gear slightly for a multi-week adventure about abominable snowmen, and other shorter tales. In this format, it’s easy to see it’s a work in progress, not least when a monster’s name changes from Gloopy to Squelchy by the following week, and Mervyn himself, six months into the strip’s existence, gets a significant nose job.
With an introduction by Lew Stringer, it’s frantic, it’s absurd, an it’s a lot of fun, and for those of you that miss the golden age of British comics, it’s a monstrous treat too.
Get your copy: The limited edition books come in two formats: hardcover (with free print) at £33.54 and paperback at £25.84. Prices include UK postage. The books are available exclusively from: www.kazoop-comics-shop.com
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