Read a bunch of American manga recently. They are:
TSA12
The Spirit Archives 12 – I read the first Spirit archive edition, and this is the latest one I could find. It is from 1946 and collects those stories published just after Will Eisner was discharged from the military – he served the war years in Washinton DC illustrating for the Army. The stories in this edition somehow seem a bit tame – there are no grotesque creatures, and the Spirit is typically involved in bringing down gangsters, or corrupt officials, or tricking shysters by using their art against him. He also tends to get defeated often and have the crap beat out of him, only to be saved by Ebony White, his little negro assistant, or Blubber, the eskimo boy he brings back to be his assistant after Ebony goes off to school to get an education. Great.
Since there had been some war years where other artists had taken over The Spirit while Eisner was away, with his return Eisner uses Dolan to re-tell the origin of the Spirit in this collection’s second story, explaining how The Spirit was created when eager beaver detective Denny Colt was doused in Dr Cobra’s special serum. There are other strange episodes, such as the one of the Siberian Dagger, with Niechevo, the great Siberian sleuth; then there’s the one about the re-discovery of the atom bomb (and,bizarrely, its re-re-rediscovery by a demented child genius); Ebony White’s investigation into black serviceman Fraternization H. Shack on behalf of As Ever Orange, a stuck-up African-American southern belle; Arctic adventures chasing blind pirates when the Spirit comes together with his new sidekick, the erudite Inuit kid Blubber; a nutty adventure out west to the town where everyone looks like Dolan (watch what happens when they strike oil); “The Fly” is a truly great, ironic story about someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time during a brutal gang war, a peripheral story to a Spirit adventure about a diamond hoax perpetrated by faded royalty; another truly great story, “The Trolly”, about a corrupt official meeting the people he’d betrayed on the trolly… as corpses; the chase for a compulsive graffittiist; mayhem and bondage (at Ellen’s hands) and a strange modus operandi by a thug who makes marks that look like lipstick on victims (so the boys in blue have to go around testing lips); more sadism inflicted on the Spirit by his lady friends (Hell hath no fury…); murder at a cocktail party; a bizarre story where a suicidal civil servant digs up and speaks to an ancestor who retreated for society many hundreds of years ago, and how he re-engages (funny gold tooth tales); a nice story of Ebony and Blubber getting acquainted as they wait for the Spirit to return for his birthday party with lots of invited guests; finally, there’s the interesting story of Mathilda Dolan’s sister. I’m amazed that Eisner would show anything as bizarre as the mock ad phrase “She’s ugly! She’ engaged! She uses Pool’s”! A funny scene when the Spirit escapes from a very sexy Ellen when he sees runaway crooks zooming past where they are having a picnic. He really knows how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when it comes to the ladies. A story in the Bucket of Blood about prospectors fighting over a magic icon. The Rubber Band tells the tale of Dolan trying to get out of town and away from his crime-fighting so that his mind doesn’t snap, only to have it follow him to his hideout… in the form of a scammer who faked his own death. Weird. The final story shows Ebony’s struggle with soda pop addiction and the Spirit’s mission to break up a ring of Russian spies who have planted atomic bombs all over North America (?!?!).
One nice thing – the book is full of sexy woman, most of whom love The Spirit. First there is the little German pixie Hildie, who joins a gang of urchins, not to mention the very shapely Ellen Dolan, Satin, Orcha Chornya (wearing what looks like Moscow street hooker duds), As Ever Orange, the Russian spy Gurka Fyfe and the insatiable Nylon Rose.