Classic Comics Press specialise in reprinting classic American comic strips in affordable print-on-demand packages. The House of Harley has been enjoying its bumper-sized Complete Collection of Kelly Green stories.

Kelly Green was a collaboration between two newspaper cartoonists – writer Leonard Starr (Mary Perkins on Stage) and artist Stan Drake (The Heart of Juliet Jones). They both achieved considerable success in the field but by the early ’80s working on ‘continuity’ newspaper strips – in which a story was serialised a few panels a day over many months – had become a thankless task, due to competition from faster-moving TV soap operas and reduced print sizes, which did a disserve to any detail in the drawings.

But both Starr and Drake’s work was popular in Europe thanks to syndication, and the idea of creating for that continent’s extensive adult comics market (all-but-non-existent in the US at the time) appealed to them. Starr pitched the idea for Kelly Green to Dargaud and the duo were commissioned to make a series of colour books, all of which are reprinted here in crisp black and white, including one which has never been published in English before.

Kelly is the wife of a cop who dies in the course of his duty on page 1 of the first story. To earn a living she becomes a ‘go-between’, an occupation I was not aware of but I suppose it makes sense that when a crook demands a ransom for a stolen artwork or a kidnapped daughter, a neutral party might be paid to make the exchange. Either way, it won’t surprise any follower of crime fiction to learn that the deals Kelly has to navigate are never what they seem. And from there the stories unfold.

We learn very quickly that Kelly is a tough and resourceful cookie, who has picked up the tricks of the trade from her husband and is well placed to deal with the shady and duplicitous characters she encounters in the course of her work. It is also strongly suggested that she took the job to preserve a sense of danger and excitement in her life.

Kelly’s job takes her from one US city to another, all depicted in carefully researched and observed detail, with artist Drake making extensive use of models and photographic reference. He and Starr attributed a sizable chunk of the strip’s appeal to the sense of exoticism it provided for a European public, who at the time were in awe of Hollywood and all things American…

Occasionally the reliance on photo reference gives Drake’s panels a stiff, collaged look – and on those occasions it doesn’t flow quite like a comic should, it stops the reader in their tracks. See a couple of examples below…

But most of the book is a delight of vibrant life and movement. Look at how Drake draws Kelly’s flowing hair, which is almost a character in its own right, such is the attention it gets.

And only a blind person could ignore the enthusiasm with which Kelly was drawn by Drake, who took every opportunity to depict her and her supporting cast in far more risqué situations than were permitted in US newspaper strips.

All of which lovingly crafted storytelling goes into creating a comic strip cocktail of crooked cops, peeping toms, disappearing rock stars, spoilt rich kids, exploding cars, death by swimming pool, estranged families, fake suicide, a plane crash in a blizzard, dog thieves, casinos and topless bars, a cross-dressing disguise, a deadly game of golf, a millionaire in a wheelchair, an angry bear, a political assassination and a comic convention (!).

There’s five highly entertaining stories spread across this 264-page collection, which is half the size and weight of an old telephone directory – just the right heft to deliver a sharp crack to a blackmailer’s skull and make them regret they ever tangled with you.

Kelly Green: The Complete Collection is available from Classic Comics Press.