Birdman and Chicken

They wouldn't call a children's comic, Krazy, these days. But in 1976, they did. And for 79 fun-filled issues, the short-lived British comic which played host to the Krazy Gang, Cheeky, Pongo Snodgrass and Hit Kid was genuinely one of the funniest and most anarchic titles around.
One particular highlight was Trevor Metcalfe's Batman spoof, Birdman & Chicken AKA Dick Lane and Mick Mason AKA The Krazy Crusaders. in many ways, a forerunner to Bananaman which made its first appearance in DC Thomson's Nutty very soon after, every one of the hapless avian superhero duo's adventures against foes as diverse as The Giggler, Dr .Doom, Sour-Puss, The Puzzler and The Tremble Twins. The stories begin in full colour but end up in black and white.
A particular highlight is Metcalfe's penchant for alliterative captions particularly when producing one of the story's many cliff-hangers, for example, "Will the ruthless rogue really wreck our rash raiders on the rocks?" or "Next week - our superstars search for a scheming scalliwag - the Scarecrow!"
In short: over forty years old, but still lots of fun.

Meet Birdman and Chicken (the Boy Blunder) in this admirable reprint of the original '70s titles. Appearing in all but a few issues of a British kids' comic called Krazy (it missed the first eight, and had just one week off in the middle of a stonking 16-month run), it proves almost insufferably of its age, but still has many good qualities. Designed to riff off the TV version of Batman more than anything, it has a vocab of near-constant bird puns, preferably with alliteration ("Holy Herons...", "Holy Hawks...", "Holy Hornbills..." – you get the message), and no end of almost slapstick bonkersness, all done with a very concise two-page-a-week format. This keeps the pages turning to this day, but for the over-the-top script being so hard to take in anything but the smallest of doses.

People who knew they wanted this in their lives, whether because they remembered it fondly or just have a general 70s comics interest, will definitely rate the wonderfully sharp reproduction, with all the blacks concise and all the colour still blazing today. (OK, only the first quarter of my preview file was coloured, but I feel sure that's the case throughout.) We don't even stick to the weekly, as all the duo's Annual appearances that sustained some life in the franchise for a few years are here, too. People coming to this cold will feel just that – cold, and that this is one irredeemably dated and uber-cheesy yuck strip that has not got much in common with today's sensibilities and styles at all. But if this is your thing, and you know what to expect, this will be a wonderful purchase.