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COMIC STRIP ANTHOLOGY SERIES MAGAZINE REVIEW! EUREKA PRESENTA SMACK! #'s 1-5 (Massimo Fano Pubblicita 1968)

It is a durn shame that in order to read some of those English GUNSMOKE comic strips (o'er there called GUN LAW just like the real deal teevee series was) I have to pick up these late-sixties Eyetalian reprint mags featuring this somewhat legendary strip along with a whole slew of other comic page wonders all translated into Dagoese. You would thing that someone out there in comic reprint land'd publish a collection of that long-running comic and in the mother tongue t'boot, but I guess Fantagraphics is too busy to bother and I doubt any English companies are up on the idea so I guess I'll have to deal with what I can get and make do even if I feel like-a Chico Marx trying to read these.

I guess there was a market for English-language comic strips in late-sixties Italy because not only does GUN LAW appear in most all of these issues of SMACK! but a slew of other strips of Amerigan and Merrie Olde origin pop up as well. For a guy who loved to pour through the funny papers as a single-digiter a book like this sure heaves up them good ol' kiddiehood memories gettin' an eyefulla these efforts which are so well-crafted and artistic you'd think that it would take a good ten hours to delineate one single panel let alone an entire strip.

Lessee what strips are presented here anyway? Almost all of 'em are serious adventure/mystery styled comics, some which even still exist only because there must be a load of centenarians out there who remember them from their youth and want to keep on reading no matter how irrelevant and useless they have become. Frank Robbins' JOHNNY HAZARD is one standout what with the imitation Milton Caniff style and the cube-shapes heads. Even a Dragon Lady-esque villainess appears which proves that if you gotta swipe, swipe from the best! Future Marvel bullpenner George Tuska shows up with BUCK ROGERS which I must admit looks pretty good with his own variation on the Caniff form. Did I ever tell you that my folks got me a BUCK ROGERS collection of strips dating from the very first to the (then) present day for Christmas one year, but I quit reading it after about twenty pages because I actually thought that the thirties-vintage art was ikky and the storyline was just too turdsville! Not only that but the concept of a Yellow Peril sweeping over all of those nice white people was just too creepingly rayciss even if at the time I didn't really give a bother about such things! Sheesh, too bad the Chinese didn't overcome the Amerigan continent because the food woulda been better and well, at least they know how to dish out the punishment! Then again I understand that they can get violent and have problems using the restroom facilities, but those are just rumors spread by angry Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese people I guess. Anyway, considering China's growth as a major world power maybe there still is hope that they'll overrun us someday!

STEVE ROPER --- eh! MARK TRAIL was for the rural crowd but I liked the artwork before that guy who also did THE RYATTS took over and began to cut corners. You should see what it looks like these days with some female cartoonist (it figures) turning it into some lame attempt to appeal to the gender flowing hognose ring types. Time to euthanize and I mean right now!

There are other serious strips getting the Berlitz here from such obscurities as NICK HALIDAY (never heard of it) and BAT MASTERSON (doesn't make it next to the actual show) not to mention an English effort called CAROLINE BAKER which comes off rather dull and stiff figured as a good many of these realistic continuity type comics can get. Even that old hag MARY WORTH slips into one of these books ruining who know's life with her do-gooderisms. 

Surprisingly enough some humor strips show up in the cracks, like WILL YUM (unfunny in any language) and FRED BASSETT who I hope to heaven has had his 'nads lopped off. A Don Fellman fave called THE STRANGE WORLD OF MR. MUM also manages to wind its way into these pages which would figure given how this pantomime strip needs hardly any translation. Despite what Fellman thinks I'll take HENRY over it any day.

But whaddabout GUN LAW you say? Harry Bishop's art is up there with the rest of those pre-hippie era adventure strip stylists and it seems as if the guy did his research what with his renditions of buildings, Indian garb and white people dress for that matter. No slapdash job here! Chester is still with Matt even though by the time these strips were done the guy was long gone from the TV series. His continued appearance woulda pleased my mom who thought that Festus was just another B.O. Plenty. I wish I could tell you how the stories go and if they match the bared-wire intensity of at least those early episodes but heck, I can't make a word outta what them spaghetti benders have 'em sayin'!

Still, if someone ever comes out with an anthology of this well, I probably won't be first in line to get it but maybe second, third or fourth.

In closing, here's a GUN LAW comic that does not appear in any of these mags but I thought I'd print the thing for what I would call obvious reasons. Y'see, I found out that whenever I publish a post with the pic of some beautiful undressed doll I get an additional 200 more hits than usual, and given that the average amt. of hits per post I get is 225 it ain't like I got much choice.