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Sunday, October 31, 2004
Covering Fun With The Flash #198
Here’s a look at a superhero comic from 30+ years ago. Nothing too weird for the blogworld, many do it all the time including my fellow ACAPCWOVCCAOE members Jamican Al and Big Rex Friendly . What I think is different is that I’m going to spotlight a book that isn’t just wackiness from the days of Julie Schwartz but also has its own sense of tragedy. Keep in mind unlike other bloggers I don’t have access to a scanner so I can only share with you the cover scan I got from The Grand Comics Database. No biggie, I’m really only going to go over the cover anyway.
The covers of The Flash comics in the 60’s and some of the 70’s could be counted on to be some of the most mind-bending of what some call the Silver Age of superhero comics. One of my favorites is the big head cover which is horrific in its simplicity. They were all gimmicks designed to maximize the sales off the newsstand but many of these covers are still beloved for their mix (crash?) of commerce and imagination.
This one in particular is drawn by the great Gil Kane, an artist who people associate with Silver Age DC books but with characters like Green Lantern and the Atom instead of the Flash. This is one of the few issues of The Flash Kane drew the cover and interiors for and as usual he did a fantastic job (even with Vince Colletta inking). But look at what’s going on. When people talk about Carmine Infantino’s rein as Editorial Director at DC they talk about gorillas on the cover but another staple Infantino put in place was characters crying. Here we have a cover that has out hero crying because he wants to help and yet doesn’t even know if he’s a hero or not. It makes a potential reader want to go through the book to find out what the Hell’s going on. The idea of this human with amazing abilities unable to help out three innocent kids is really hitting the audience over the head with a sense of tragedy. It’s a bit melodramatic but I feel in the context of a superhero book it fits perfectly.
Of course I was also struck by the fact that Flash is praying and the cover invokes the word “God.” The DC superheroes are gods in their own universes. It’s no wonder that Alan Moore, in his unmade Twilight of the Superheroes story, came up with churches for Superman and Captain Marvel. Here was someone that asking for a higher power where he is the higher power to many people, probably those kids. Not to mention he's turning to God for the reason many people do, to look for an absolutely certain sense of self. I may be an atheist but this fascinated me when I first saw this cover. Some may think that this portrayal of a titan with “clay feet” is a tad ham-fisted and I can see where they’re coming from. Yet I see it instead as pretty sincere in a way that seems naïve by our standards.
The story that corresponds with the cover and the back-up are certainly competent but I don’t want to go over them. That’s because there’s a tragedy to the phenomenon of these covers. When we first see them our minds go wild wondering what could possible happen to these characters that they end in such wild situations. When we read the stories inside the fact is that they can never live up to what’s going on in our imaginations. This isn’t to say that the reader isn’t lucky to enjoy the talents of John Broome, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino and others. It’s just for ever different person who looks at these covers there is a different story. When you open the book there is only one. Well folks maybe you can come up with your own story from this cover (that’s actually a strategy Schwartz used for his writers). I’m sure they will be nothing if not honest.
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Happy Halloween
Because I love you all and every holiday we celebrate together as a happy, friendly society. Here's something truly scary.
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Friday, October 29, 2004
Not so big now are you, college boy?
I spent the day applying to colleges and watching my new Simpsons and Futurama DVDs so there's not going to be too much in the way of content tonight boys and girls. While I might have a good post over this weekend for right now I do have this neat little link to share. Some guy is letting people on the internet downloading Fahrenheit 9/11 for free. Michael Moore has said he's cool with it so download the shit out of that movie!
What does this have to do with comic books? If you guessed "nothing at all" give yourself a pat on the back, you're right!
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Thursday, October 28, 2004
Ahh Yass!
The LA Weekly features a new strip starring the two men who have had more influence on my life than anyone else, Doofues Andersen and Henry Hotchkiss.
Found via The Comics Journal message board.
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Fun With Evan Dorkin
Since his site doesn't appear on the Comic Weblog Updates page I thought I would point out that the lovely Evan Dorkin has three reviews up at his site and they're all worth reading. One is Vangaurd's edition of Wally Wood's The Wizard King, the other is the Walking Dead trade paperback (well the intro to it anyway), and Action Heroes Archives Vol.1 - Captain Atom. Dorkin tears into all the books with his usual gusto.
Reading the reviews I did come to this realization: Robert Kirkman's success makes as much sense to me as Brian Michael Bendis'. They both get heaps of praise from tons of people but when I look at the work of either I just can't for the life of me see what there is to like. Bendis fills his characters' mouths with dialogue that's way too smart for it's own good and therefore comes off as disgustingly unrealistic. He also seems crippled in the ability to end his stories well. I gave the first two Powers trades a chance but just could not hang with all the build up to an ending that doesn't seem worth it. Kirkman doesn't have those exact problems, but his whole livelihood seems to be about bringing back a type of "classic" way of telling superhero stories. Because God knows nobody's interested in archiving those essential comics of the past. Also, when I read Invincible #1 there was a scene where the kid's Dad and the Dad's friend were going on about how well the kid looked in his new superhero suit. When I read that I said to myself "that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen in a comic book." When I say that understand I've got a near-full run of DC's mid-90's book Fate.
So to sum it all up: Evan Dorkin writes good reviews and I don't like the work of those more successful than me. Is it jealousy, insecurity, me being angry for no reason or are Bendis and Kirkman just overrated bastards? I'm going with all of the above.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004
From the Mouth of The Mont!
Thanks to Scott Saavedra and Neilalien for finding this radio interview with Gerard Jones author of Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book on NPR's Talk of the Nation. I must ask, am I the only that finds just a teensy bit of irony in Chris Claremont (or as I call him, The Mont) calling in and making this inference?
The Mont: [T]he irony of that was as more and more of the creative writing community and as importantly the editorially community came out of fandom the stories tended to be much more about, sadly, the minutiae of the characters. They became more and more isolated for a time from the world around them.
Host Neil Conan: Inside baseball almost.
The Mont: Yeah. And while they were very exciting for the converted there wasn't a lot to speak to people who were just wandering in and taking a look at them.
Because if someone who had never read comics but just saw X-Men 2 wanted to read the latest issue of Uncanny X-Men...
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Rabbit! Run! Rabbit!
Dave Fiore has already gone down Grant Morrison's writing in the latest issue of WE3 (see preview pages here) so I thought I would go over what has made the book excellent for me, namely the artwork of Frank Quitely.
I have enjoyed Quitely's artwork before in The Authority and New X-Men but I feel what we are reading now in WE3 will be remembered as the height of his skills (and if he can come up with something to top this I'll be first in line to read it). The other books I mentioned proved Quitely was a master of creating exciting action and illustrating texture all with in a simple style that is very easy on the eyes. Here Quitely takes that style and uses some great visual acrobatics to make a simple Frankenstein-like story into one of the best books of the year. These aren't antics put on the page simply to draw attention to them, the art on WE3 works beautifully with the storytelling skills Morrison is employing.
The first issue impressed many readers with its "security camera grid" pages that built the tension until we got a cathartic double-page spread starring the protagonists of the book. It turns out that was just the tip of the iceberg. The second issue has a great sequence on pages six, seven and eight where many small panels are used inside bigger ones to actualize this tremendous sense of anarchy. I love the aforementioned Mr. Fiore's title for it: a "Wall of Violence." Pages ten and eleven also have this great sequence where Number 2's mayhem is illustrated in a way that puts film's latest trend of "bullet-time" to shame. It’s with these arrangements that Quitely makes the reader care more about the blood being spilled and ergo makes the reader care more about the story and its characters.
It's not just the sequences with fancy panel works that impress, either. The entire attack of the rats scene plays up Quitely's mastery of creating detail without the artwork ever feeling too busy or bogged-down. The bridge of the bottom panel on page 18 would looks so stark in the air if it weren’t for the thousands of bio-enhanced rats attacking the runaway robo-rabbit, -cat and -dog. This is a gory comic, although never does it feel sensationalistic, and that realization seems at its clearest when you see the end bit of a rat hanging out of Number 1’s mouth.
Reading this book I did feel that this is the proper evolution American action/adventure comics should take after the achievements of artists Walt Simonson, Howard Chaykin and Frank Miller. I know Morrison talked about creating a "Western Manga" with this book and while I wouldn't say manga isn't and influence it feels like those three artists and the innovations they brought to comics starting in the 1970's really feels like an immediate precursor to the stuff we are reading in this book now. Or do I just talk about Chaykin too much?
The next issue doesn't come out until January, eh? Oh well, who said the good things in life aren't worth waiting for?
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Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Shirtless Men Drink Free!
Some might be excited about the release of Green Lantern: Rebirth #1 coming out tomorrow. DC is probably happy with how the book is doing. Good for them but I would only get excited about the book if it featured the best Green Lantern.
Found via Boblog.
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It's Clobbering Time, Toho Style!
You know, I've always wished I was a teenage in the 1970's. For some reason the movies and music seem like something I would enjoy hearing and seeing as they came out. The comics seem like something I would enjoy as well. Instead of waiting for Marvel to take their time with these Essential titles I could have just picked up the latest issue of Tales of the Zombie right there and then. Not to mention I could pick up comics like this that have little chance of being reprinted:
Godzilla vs. The Fantastic Four? Now that worth $0.35! Throw in some Logan's Run comics (which actually ended two years before this issue came out) and I'd be a happy kid.
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Monday, October 25, 2004
Keeping it Casual
In my life I’ve had a few friends who have enjoyed comics as much as I do. Most of them are not like me, making that weekly trek into the comic book store and buying a few single issues to read for the rest of the week. Instead the majority of them are casual comic book fans. Most of the commentary about fandom describes those who arrive at the Direct Market store of their choice once (or more!) a week. That is probably who the major publishers of American comics are thinking of when they come up with what they think will sell. That certainly makes sense in some ways, but I think we should take a look at those who enjoy comics without such an intensity of purchasing and activity. Instead of painting with a broad brush and trying to come up with a Webster’s-worthy definition of what a casual comic book fan is, let me just describe to you what the friends who I feel fall into this category are like.
The first thing to notice is that the majority of them are reading comics through collected editions and graphic novels. They buy them through bookstores or some of the better comic book stores around them. Guess which is easier to find and drive to. A lot are reading these books because they borrowed them from a friend, either a fellow casual fan or someone who is more into comics. The books are bought usually about once to three times a year. The reason for buying them will usually be because they recognize the content from somewhere else or simply they liked what they saw in the store. Using strictly anecdotal evidence from experience with my small group of friends I can say that some of the more popular books are Preacher (and some other Garth Ennis stuff, like Punisher), Dan Clowes’ stuff, Maus (one of my friend’s parents actually owned this one), Tony Millionaire’s stuff, Frank Miller’s work like Dark Knight Returns and Sin City (a case of my casual friend knowing more about a title than me, not the last time this would happen), Hellboy, Watchmen and the Simpsons comics from Bongo. Something else that’s popular is the work of Jhonen Vasquez but for the life of me I’ll never understand the appeal of that.
That isn’t to say that it is always about graphic novels/trade paperbacks. I had one of my casual friends actually turn me onto Demo before I even knew about it. We were already shopping at the magnificently large Amoeba Music on Sunset when I suggested we also go to Meltdown Comics down the street. My friend didn’t read a lot of comics but was a toy fan so it was a go. When we got there I was looking through the Amy & Jordan book while my friend was discovering a new title that just came out a few months ago. She asked me if I had any idea what it was and I said no. She bought up the first and the third issues and seemed to really like them. The next month I would buy the second and fourth issues for her ay my store (she didn’t have time to make it to another comic book store any time soon) and found it to be a book that could be pretty good sometimes. I suppose it doesn’t always have to be the rabid comic fan that has to foist books onto his/her friends.
I suppose I bring this type of fan up because many publishers and other comic fans want to “convert outsiders” to the world of comics. Not an impossible task but I doubt one would find such luck getting a ton of folks to start changing their schedules so every Wednesday lunch break is a run to the comic shop. Instead of casual fans going that way I can see a lot more rabid comic fan going the way of the casual friends I have described above. Again I should say this hardly describes all casual fans. If anyone has any stories like these but are a little different I would love for you to share them.
P.S. This is a good site.
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The Best Fake News Out There
Hey folks, it's Jon Stewart on 60 Minutes! For those of you who haven't read the Daily Show book America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction might I suggest it just for the very funny parodies of Mallard Fillmore and Doonsebury. Also, it's got something special for you folks who find the Supreme Court really erotic.
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Sunday, October 24, 2004
More Simpsons Stuff
This post has evidence that reveals what some of us have only only speculated: Grant Morrison and Mark Millar get in knock-down, drag-out fights at the drop of a hat. Also, I want an "Ultimate Me" shirt.
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Saturday, October 23, 2004
Finally, "The Rake Scene" on DVD!
For some reason today has been a real negative day. I made the mistake of thinking too much about the comic book industry and all the commentary that goes on about it on the Internet. It's a subject that I find to be pretty depressing if one dwells on it for too long. So I decided to post something completely positive that I know will cheer me up and hopefully it will make some of you happy as well. That is this:
Coming out Dec. 21. That's right, it's the best season of The Simpsons yet on DVD and only six months after the last one. Conan O'Brien's back for some more audio commentaries which kicks-ass in my book.
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Friday, October 22, 2004
Comic Book Songs
In this post I have decided to take two songs that share the name of (or a similar name with) two comic book characters, both Marvel properties, and see how they stack up next to the characters with the same or similar moniker. We’ve got one heavy metal song and one hip-hop song; two genres of music that I think go well with superhero comics. Let’s take a look.
The Song: Iron Man
The Artist: Black Sabbath
(For an even better Iron Man picture I suggest you head over to David Welsh’s blog Precocious Curmudgeon)
The Sound: Could it be the greatest heavy metal song ever? That will be debated for years to come but Sabbath’s song of a rejected superhero certainly has what it takes. A menacing feel, somewhat silly lyrics delivered with utter conviction and most importantly, a brilliant riff. The monster that emerges from Tony Iommi’s Gibson SG is not only manically sinister it is also catchy and creates a great groove that the rhythm section of drummer Bill Ward and bassist Geezer Butler push forward very powerfully. The sound of it coming out from the horror movie intro of the song is surely one of rock’s finest moments.
Ward’s lyrics tell us of a man “turned to steel in the great magnetic field.” He was once a savior of the human race but since he didn’t get enough respect he now “kills the people he once saves.” It feels almost like a sci-fi version of a song Johnny Cash might have song, just not as smart or authentic. Not that it hurts the song much. Ozzy Osbourne’s high pitched vocals wail the story to the same tune as the aforementioned riff, creating the sense that there’s this tightly run army of heavy metal musicians behind the vengeful Iron Man. The song continues into a fury of multiple guitars soloing and a rhythm section almost flying out of control as the listener is left to imagine the carnage in his/her mind.
The Stack-Up: As Iron Man has always been one of my favorite metal songs I figured it would be worth checking out the comic book hero of the same name. While Sabbath’s song created this great adolescent male sci-fi epic (the type that has appeared in so many metal songs since) the character has never done it for me.
I found out that Tony Stark doesn’t kill the people he once saved but I got over it. I still had to deal with the fact that Iron Man doesn’t have one of those great neuroses that other Marvel comic characters have that makes them so relatable and interesting. Granted he is an alcoholic but that’s just seemed like a plot device grafted onto the character too late in the game to seem real enough for me. Spider-Man was a mess of guilt from the start and the X-Men were always a (usually ham-fisted) parable for minority oppression. These speak to kids who are just finding their favorite superheroes.
Iron Man has lots of different armor but he’s still just a rich guy in a suit. He’s not an icon that is attractive to a young person’s stunted sense of rebellion like Black Sabbath or Spider-Man. Tony Stark just feels too much like The Man and after all, The Man wants to shut rock ‘n’ roll down.
The Song: Dr. Octagon
The Artist: Dr. Octagon
The Sound: Yeah, I know it's not exactly Dr. Octopus, but I like this song so much that I decided it's close enough to be incldude here.
Kool Keith, going by the alias Dr. Octagon here, is known to be as talented as he is strange and make no mistake about it, he is strange. The rhymes of many of the songs on Dr. Octagonecologyst sound like Chuck D if D spewed out word salad inspired by Marvel Comics and porno mags. An excerpt:
It's costing androids leaving humans with hemorrhoids
Thinking more of what they can't explore, like
the cartoon Donald Duck is giving fellatio on the floor
with Reed Richards, looking at The Thing's naked pictures
Taking Ex-Lax to relax with the needle and thread
sewing up all the other buttcracks
That’s either really deep or completely nonsensical, either one’s fine with me. Keith delivers these words as if they were as normal as a shopping list which is what makes them sound so good. Keith’s low-end tone and easy flow has been proving irresistible since the early 90’s when he was in Ultramagnetic MC’s. Sir Menelik takes the first and third verses of the song and sounds to me like a less gifted Kool Keith. I would prefer if the song was just Keith but I don’t mind Menelik’s rhymes that much.
Dr. Octagonecologyst helped to introduce the world to the production talents of Dan the Automator. The beat to Dr. Octagon is mellow as well as gloriously psychedelic. Sounds echo and synths hold long chords while the drums keep a slow and simple groove. It’s not one of the standout tracks like Earth People or Blue Flowers, but it’s not without its charm.
The Stack-up: Dr. Octopus is one of those many Spider-Man villains that is based on another animal himself. It’s basically a mad scientist, nothing new there, but one that has a great visual with those four mechanical arms going after Spidey. He’s just one of the many odd characters that pop up in superhero comic books. It’s that sense of the fantastic, not too far off from the sense of the absurd, which fires up the lyrics of Kool Keith.
That absurdness isn’t really the main point to the Spider-Man stories. With most of the original Spider-Man comics it seemed fighting the villain was never as important as the “tormented nerd” part of the Peter Parker/Spider-Man mythos. Most stories had Spidey losing the villain in the beginning only to beat him near the end of the book with all the soap opera elements going on in between.
It’s when you read issue after issue of this stuff do you start to get off on not just the sort of weird characters like Dr. Octopus or The Thing but real oddballs like Ego the Living Planet or Armin Zola (his brother Emile did better). It’s that off-kilter fun that isn’t too far off from what’s entertaining about the music off of Dr. Octagonecologyst or Deltron 3030. The character Dr. Octopus might not be as crazy as the song that he inspired but he lives in a world that certainly helped to create that manic joy which Keith and Automator create.
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Thursday, October 21, 2004
Warn Me If My Head Explodes While I'm Writing This
Today was going to be a good day. I had two tests at school that were both open-book and open-note. I'm going to see Mitch Hedberg and Stephen Lynch at the Wlitern tonight. Pretty sweet, right? That's what I thought...until Mike Sterling brought something to my attention that pissed me off really, really, really, really bad.
As I mentioned at the end of my post about the DC Solicits I don't get the reason why anyone would buy this or this ($89.95!) or this ($350!). To me it is the height of materialism. I thought I had said all I needed to say until I saw what Mike linked to, a replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite that went for $1,475 on eBay. Every word of the following is true: while in my car driving to school I was screaming loudly to myself about how so much money can be so easily spent on something like that. The sad thing is that poor ol' Han isn't the worst or the last of them.
I've since calm down a little but the whole mentality of buying (and buying and buying and buying...) these "collectibles" is a great example of people filling their lives with useless junk for no good reason. Hell, I even use to have some McFarlane Toys (the Alcie Cooper and Freddy Krueger ones) and I certainly read enough comics, although I am cutting down on that lest my wallet tries to slit my throat. Still I can't understand how some people can get to the point where they can spend $149.95 on the X-Men Cerebro Helmet Replica. There's just so many better ways to spend money and time.
Should I even talk about how people with that much expendable income could contribute to the World Wildlife Fund so maybe they'll have a world to live in first? Should I even suggest the idea that those who have enough time searching for the perfect piece of Star Trek memorabilia could maybe volunteer for Habitat for Humanity so others might one day have the luxury to search for crappy shit on the Internet (and that's what it all comes down to, people who have overdosed on luxury)? Do I risk sounding like some kind of shrill, guilt-ridden, politically correct college kid ruing other people's use of their good fortune? Is it even worth it? I feel like there's no turning back. People who have dived headfirst into the world of geekery don't change their ways. Instead they spend their lives with all those meaningless pop culture artifacts to help them forget whatever it is that makes them act like this in the first place.
The more I think about it I wonder if everyone who is really into comics, toys, fantasy novels, etc. has some kind of problem. If that's true then I'm Exhibit A in proving that case. Maybe I'll feel different tomorrow, although feeling better or worse I don't know.
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Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Lucky Me
With all the talk of contests going on I think I'll add to it. I have been informed by Ken at Ringwood that one of the winners of his Hard Time contest is...ME! I won with a prison name so dirty I'm not going to list it here.
I will tell you fine folks to pick up Hard Time. It certainly could use the help.
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Monday, October 18, 2004
Locas in Love
Hey want to read and hear an interview with one of the greatest living cartoonists, the one Jaime Hernandez? Want to hear his reaction to seeing the new book Locas for the first time? Well folks, Graphic Novel Review has got you covered!
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DC Solicts
If comic book blogging means anything it means getting a hard-on whenever these friggin’ solicitations from DC come out. Even though I’m probably going to buy 0.0000001% of the books here and would rather be seen wearing an “I Love Osama Bin Laden’s Touch” shirt than reading these books that’s no reason for me to go on about them like I’m Mr. Comics. Last time I did this I was angry for no good reason and people seemed to love it. Now I’ve got a cold again and I’m damn, damn annoyed which might influence the tone of today’s post. So let’s look at what January hold for readers of DC (as always, Digested Cummerbunds):
Batman
Look at that: Cliff Chaing, Sean Phillips and Matt Wagner…so many good artists on these Batman books. Too bad they’re just doing the covers and the interior art will never live up to the illustration on the front. But hey, if Phillips and others are getting more money and people who would never read Sleeper or Human Target are finding about these guys I guess it can’t be too bad.
Oh, are there going to be more Gotham Central trades? I liked the first one and would like to follow the book in trade form. No way am I taking on another monthly book, I’m looking to minimize those. But seriously, put out another trade DC and I’ll buy it.
Superman
Hey, a Superman book by Scott McCloud! This must have been the book that he asked Derek Kirk Kim to do. I loved McCloud’s Superman Adventure stories but again I’ll probably wait for the trade. Of course whether a trade will happen or not is a bit of a gamble. But what’s life without risk?
DCU
Alright, the sequel to Bizzaro Comics, Bizzaro World! This does have Derek Kirk Kim in it as well as lots of the artists from the last book (which was admittedly hit and miss but overall I liked it). We also get to read Harvey Pekar’s first superhero story which is simply odd enough for me to read the book at all.
Beyond the DCU
Space Ghost done seriously? Looks like crap. Maybe it isn’t but I just can’t see how anyone can prefer a 0.5-dimensional cartoon show star to the gloriously weird talk show host. I shudder to think this means we’ll probably get a serious Birdman or Blue Falcon book next year or so. Coming soon: Ben Raab and Doug Mahnke on Sealab 2020: The Punishment Below.
Wildstorm
More Majestic? I like the character and Abnett and Lanning’s take on the guy. Maybe I’ll pick this up. And hey, variant covers! Those are…silly.
And concerning The Intimates, you will never go wrong with boxing nun puppets. Never.
Vertigo
Constantine/Hellblazer gets a big push because of the movie, no surprise there. As someone who’s barley read any of the series I like the idea of the “greatest hits” trade Rare Cuts. Hopefully for new readers there won’t be confusion over the fact that the movie and comic have different tiles. There probably will though. Remember, when it comes to comics if it can go bad it will go bad over and over again.
And finally, is there any chance that DC Direct could put advertisements for various charities on the packaging for such items as the Composite Superman figure and Keanu Reeves as Constantine Statue? Honestly, anybody who has enough money to buy those pieces of junk has enough to send some money on something worthy.
Is the comic book world filled with people who have more money than taste? Stay tuned.
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Sunday, October 17, 2004
They were bigger than U.S. 1!
Looks like Team America didn't do too well at the box office. I think the problem stems from the fact that the film didn't feature the real Team America:
Oh R.U. Reddy, where have you gone?
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Saturday, October 16, 2004
He said to tell you he had a real good time!
Fooling around on the Internet as I do I came across this link for Chris Ware objects. I knew about the Rusty Brown Lunchbox and Vinyl Jimmy Corrigan figure but I never knew of the Chicago Hero Statuette. Created for Chicago Comics' 10th anniversary it has this credit:
Designed by Chris Ware, sculpted by Alex Ross.
Well, that's a collaboration I never expected to see.
EDIT: Some anonymous soul has posted a link to Ross' depiction of Jimmy Corrigan. It's something to see, I'll say that.
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Friday, October 15, 2004
Talkin’ Chaykin: The Scorpion #1
Part 1: The Shadow
Part 2: Blackhawk
Part 3: Black Kiss
We’re going back here folks, back to 1975. That was the year that Atlas/Seaboard published the first issue of Howard Chaykin’s The Scorpion. It wasn’t the first book that featured work solely written and drawn by Chaykin, the anthology Star*Reach featured his Cody Starbuck stories in 1971. But Scorpion is still a glimpse of a young artist just discovering his storytelling talents. I thought I should include some early Chaykin into my little series here (of which this entry could be the last, I haven’t decided yet) so here we go.
The Scorpion shares many of the characteristics of a typical Chaykin adventures story like Blackhawk. There’s the chance for Chaykin to flex his history buff muscles. Moto Frost, a.k.a. The Scorpion is a man that has been around for a long time. He’s fought in the Civil War, been a special envoy for President Theodore Roosevelt and fought in World War I. Now this seemingly immortal adventure has shown up in 1930’s New York and is “providing justice…for a price.”
If The Shadow was Chaykin’s take on a decades old pulp hero then The Scorpion is Chaykin’s own pulp hero created from the ground up. The story here is hardly as maniacal as The Shadow. While that book had a post-Flagg! Chaykin working without the Comics Code, this has a pre-Flagg! Chaykin working within the Code and, as Jeff Rovin’s article for The Comics Journal #114 proves, working for a very conservative publisher. Not that Chaykin delivered a sub-par story. It may not have a lot of that Chaykin-pizzazz but The Scorpion is a fine adventure comic.
The story unfolds in a very straightforward manner, a big contrast compared to Blackhawk or American Flagg! where there were plenty of twists and turns in the plot. The Scorpion does have that typical “Chaykin-man” cockiness and love for adventure. He’s also got a smart and equally cocky woman by his side, his best gal Miss Bishop. The villains are greedy and murderous as Hell. It’s nothing new, but done well. One thing I felt that was missing was Chaykin’s sharp dialogue. The book isn’t filled with stilted, exposition-heavy talk like other books; there is some natural feeling to the dialogue. It’s still nothing like we would see in Flagg! where emotions and characterization shines through easily and people are constantly talking over each other.
The art also isn’t as adventurous as we would later see but Chaykin still does prove himself to be one of the great adventure artists with this book. Pages may have many panels on them but they are there to create the right sense of pace and never make the page feel busy. Some of the layouts such as the one on page seven arrange the simple rectangular panels in a way that looks exciting and really gets the feeling of urgency an action scene requires. Chaykin’s line here is a lot looser than we usually see, even looser than on Black Kiss or Challengers of the Unknown (the issue that came out this week as great). Nothing wrong with that, I like the look a lot and it should be noticed that while his line is looser this is Chaykin trying to be his most photorealistic. A lot of the art reminded me of another young artist just starting out at the time, Walt Simonson whose Manhunter series with Archie Goodwin came out only two years ago. Both take the tropes of the typical adventure story and use them to show off some real talent that has proven to create wonderful later work in both cases.
There were three issues of The Scorpion put out by Atlas/Seaboard. The second one was rushed with Simonson, Michael Wm. Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson and others helping Chaykin with the artwork. The third book had nothing to do with Chaykin or his incarnation of The Scorpion. Chaykin did create the character of Dominic Fortune that appeared in various Marvel books and is seen as his way to continue working on The Scorpion character. There’s no chance we’ll see any of the above reprinted but at that same time you none of it should cost you too much in the back issue bins.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Bizarro, I Love You
Looks like I haven't been so lacking in posts as I thought I would be. Granted, this has been a slow week for me.
Anyway, 70's Marvel finally gets its due (hopefully). Witness the cover for the Sealab Season 2 DVD (due 2/05):
Sorry but this was the largest pic I could find. Also, the cover image might change before the release date, but I hope not
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Set Your TiVO
Can't we have one reality show that doesn't feature a hip-hop influenced manga creator? From Pop Culture Bored:
TOKYO TRIBES CREATOR ON EXTREME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION
Press Release
On Sunday October 17th, 16 million people will get to meet Santa Inoue, Japan’s premiere hip-hop manga creator, when he helps to create a dream on ABC’s # 1 television series: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
Perfectly-timed to TOKYOPOP's North American debut of Inoue's book, TOKYO TRIBES, this high-profile primetime television appearance is sure to acquaint the rest of the world with a manga creator already so very well known in Japan.
TOKYO TRIBES, available in stores now, is a vivid, somewhat surreal vision of urban youth that transcends genres and conventions, and raises the bar for manga storytelling. A hard-hitting, fantastical tale of Tokyo street thugs battling it out in the concrete sprawl of Japan's capital, Tokyo Tribes is now making its debut on North American bookshelves. Inoue’s seminal series has done so well in Japan that it has already generated a catalog of urban merchandise and apparel.
See the pictures here.
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Tuesday, October 12, 2004
10/12/98
I know I risk making my blog too serious with this and the last post, but I think something happened on this date that we as people cannot afford to forget.
THE ULTIMATE SILENCE
October 12, 1998
Six years ago today, Matthew Shepard was murdered for being homosexual.
What will you do to end the silence?
Click here to post this on your own page or weblog
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Monday, October 11, 2004
Please Help
Before I get to the real important stuff I would like to alert you readers about this blog of mine and its future. School, work and other pieces of Hell have caught up to me. I’ve had to reduce my comic book buying by a lot, but hopefully I’ll be able to pick some more collections now. Because of all this I’ll probably be updating this blog once a week, usually around Friday. Hopefully Brill Building will mean quality over quantity. At the very least it will mean a lack of quantity over quantity. I'm also going to lose the subtitles for this blog that appear on the Comic Weblog Update site, mainly so I don't have to worry about thinking of a title other than the one for the latest post I have up.
For now though I’d like to write about something a bit more important than my plans for this blog. Recently the actor and activist Christopher Reeve, best known for playing Superman, passed away. I don’t have to tell you that the heroism he displayed on screen hardly came close to the heroism he displayed in real life. The man was instrumental in raising money and awareness for stem cell research. Sen. John Kerry even mentioned him during the last presidential debate. While it is a controversial issue, I and many others feel that it has to be the future of medicine. We are so close to finding a cure for, amongst other things, cancer, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s and spinal cord injuries.
If you are like me and you live in California I urge you to vote yes on Proposition 71. It will authorize hundreds of millions of dollars towards stem cell research in the state. Also, and this isn’t restricted to citizens of one state, there is the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation which is always looking for donations. Any amount will help towards making these cures a reality.
"Our government is supposed to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people; beyond that we have the responsibility to help others. Time is absolutely critical."
-Christopher Reeve
U.S. Senate testimony supporting stem cell research
March 5, 2003
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Friday, October 08, 2004
Separated at Birth?
I planned to have an essay on The New Frontier as well as a Talkin' Chaykin piece (probably the last one) on the first issue of the Atlas book The Scorpion. Real life, which is so overrated, has unfortunately intervened and those will have to wait. Hopefully I will have them up next week. In the meantime I suggest you check out Matt's on The New Frontier and the Atlas Archive's info on The Scorpion. Also, I give you this:
Weird, huh?
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Thursday, October 07, 2004
Brubaker Booked
I would love to write Archie comics, really, but there's no money in that. -Ed Brubaker
The contents of the latest issue of The Comics Journal is up. The issue is due out Oct. 13.
We are notified that due to webmaster's illness the links will be updated next week, although we do already get a peek of what's to come. We get a look at the cover by Sean Phillips starring his fellow Sleeper creator Ed Brubaker. Pretty funny, although I'm sure we'll hear moaning and groaning about how it's another creator's face pasted across the cover after only a few months from the Phoebe Glockner issue.
Former comics blogger Sean T. Collins reviews New X-Men and The Goon while current comics blogger Tim O'Neill takes a look at Autobiographix.
We can already get a taste of the Ed Brubaker interview conducted by Tom Spurgeon, who I think lived near Brubaker for a while. I'm reading it as of this writing, and I hope it will be interesting to read about his evolution from autobio cartoonist to writer of The Authority. Brubaker has already revealed (this is news to me but I don't no about anybody else) that Matt Hollingsworth has bolted comics for Dreamworks. I hope he does well there, but I'll miss his brilliant coloring work. And don't forget the Cerebus coverage (samples here and here)!
The comics section features some of George Leonard Carlson's Jingle Jangle Comics. I liked what I read in the Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Comics so I'll be looking forward to this.
The commentary features more of Dirk Deppey on Nu-Marvel, a manifesto by Eddie Campbell and another column by one of my favorite comics pundits, Steven Grant. Exclusive for internet readers is Spurgeon's advice for mini-comic artists about trying to sell your stuff in stores.
To me this mag just keeps getting better and better. I really can't wait.
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Page Count
See, I don’t read as many comics a week as most people out there in the comics blogosphere. In fact, this week I’ve decided to drop most of the titles I buy for monetary reasons. I’m coming close to going “trades only” but I think I can squeak buy picking up Sleeper, She-Hulk, Ex Machina and whatever Grant Morrison writes. I’ll be buying The Comics Journal whenever it comes out as well. Lucky for me it seems they’re going to be putting actual comics into it. Yup, I’m nothing if not lucky.
But hey, I don’t want to feel left out in the amazing and exciting world of weekly comics reviews. So I came up with a little plan. I’m going to review pages from the two books that came out this week. Hopefully this will not be as bad as I think it will be. Just so we keep everything clear, I count only the pages of the book that have actual content on them, although I do spotlight an ad at the end.
Page 5 of Y the Last Man Pick of the Week!
This page features something we just don’t see much of in comics anymore: ridiculous looking mascots annoying the survivors of an apocalyptic plague. We get a taste of Yorick’s antics as this basketball-headed cheerleader on page four but instead of the two four gave us, five gives us four very funny panels that are all tens in my book. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t write reviews after math class. A
Page 10 of Majestic
I’ve really been warming up to Karl Kerschl’s art, of which I wasn’t familiar with at all before this mini-series. The way he draws people reminds me a little of J.H. Williams III but unlike Williams Kerschl’s layouts are strictly meat-and-potatoes. This is a quiet scene done very well. The close-ups sandwiched between two longer shots do a lot for the mood. It was a great decision to have the camera of the final panel, where Majestros is articulating his crisis, hovering over the figures. B+
Page 20 of Majestic
Ah, a good ol’ splash page of some super-duper action. It seems no matter how old I get something about that, when it’s done well, will make me happy. Here it was done good by being set up by the two previous pages of story. The giant sound effect, actually two it looks like, works great to establish the action. B
Page 16 of Y the Last Man
Ending a decent enough action scene we get a brilliant escape by Y and 355 that they could only pull of in San Francisco. The shout out to “Rice-a-Roni” gave me a bit of a smile. Pia Guerra’s artwork is as clear and effective as ever. I especially liked the second panel with the two baddies looking like split bowling pins that are only too soon going to get hit by a public transportation bowling ball. B
Page 17 of Majestic
There’s a good looking, if unimaginative, sea-monster for you. Nothing wrong with it, and again the action works well for me. Again we end with a long shot that lends an air of the ominous to the proceedings. B-
Ad of the Week: Child’s Play DVD
XXL terror in an XXS package? I believe the XXS part, but I have to go with Dee “The Former Voice of MSNBC” Snider here and say that it is just a doll and not an effective horror movie monster. Jason Voorhees is a killing machine that even Corey Feldman couldn’t rid the world of. Chucky can be stopped by just getting stepped on. There were many great horror movies that came out in the 80’s, but the Child’s Play franchise (and that new one looks like a mess) is not one of them.
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Superman meets Asterix
Now if we could only get Superman to meet Tin-Tin!
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Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Spaced
Brian : It's from Vulva.
Tim : Who's Vulva?
Brian : An old friend of mine.
Tim : You've got a friend called Vulva? Who's called Vulva?
Brian : Her real name's Ian.
Tim : What do you mean, her real name's Ian?
Brian : She's non-gender-specific.
Tim : Oh what, you mean he's a trannie?
Brian : (Smiles) More than that.
Tim: You mean he's a big, fat trannie?
I didn't really expect to have anything to post this day, but just I watched four of the Spaced episodes on a tape that Tom made for me. Bloody Hell was it good, and I've got more episodes to go.
Shit (Trio would probably censor that), if my life was a TV show that would be it. I mean that's what they said about Degrassi, and while deep down inside I'm a young Canadian high school student just discovery my sexuality, on the outside I'm a pretty big nerd. This show seems too nerdy to be real, but yet it is. It beautifully is. The direction, the dialogue, the characterization...it would suck if after all I've heard about this show it ended up being crap, but it isn't. No, it isn't. Never in my years would I thought there would be a sitcom that features a character reading a Zenith comics, has the same character declare a funny and brilliant take-down of Rocky Horror and has a ton of Sam Raimi references in it.
Believe me folks when I tell you I needed a smile today and I got it. I got a great big one thanks to some wacky British people. And isn't that how it should be?
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Tuesday, October 05, 2004
The spell you’re under will rob you of your virgin soul
Can I just talk about Thor for no reason? See, I like Thor, or at least Thor when the book was being done by Walt Simonson, Jack Kirby and a few others (I still haven’t read any of the book since it started over in the late 90’s, but depending on whose on it I might check out this upcoming revamp). Hell, some of my favorite stuff by Don Heck is the two-parter introducing Mr. Hyde. But as some have pointed out through the years, Thor has never been as popular a Marvel character. The guy’s not quite in Caleb Hammer territory but despite his history of being one of those original heroes of the Lee/Kirby/Ditko 60’s Marvel he has never been as beloved as The Thing, Hulk, Spider-Man or many other Marvel characters. Former Thor writer Warren Ellis wrote how nobody, fan or publisher, has really cared that much about Thor, either the book or the character.
I have a hypothesis about that. See, Marvel cares about intellectual property. They care about studios and manufacturers coming to them to pay them the big bucks for the rights to put their characters in Saturday morning cartoons or toothbrushes or whatever. But if a big time movie guy wanted to make a movie about the son of Odin he wouldn’t have to go to Marvel, would he? Norse mythology is completely public domain; anybody can come up with a comic, movie, cartoon or whatever about Thor beating up bad guys. The look would have to be different as Marvel probably has probably copyrighted the look of their Thor, but some of these adaptations of superhero books are different enough anyway why go through the hassle of throwing a bunch of money at Marvel?
I think Marvel knows that and knows that if Thor was as popular as the X-Men franchise a lot of people could cash in on the trend without Marvel seeing a cent of it. So Marvel doesn’t think twice of putting out eight books starring Wolverine in one week but Thor is only seen as an Avenger member who has his own book that will do, at best, ok but not spectacular numbers.
As a Thor fan, I guess there’s something good about that. I have the stories I like and I enjoy them. I don’t have to worry about being bombarded with terrible spin-off after terrible spin-off that make me forget why I liked the books in the first place. And unlike Iron Man, who only has one kick-ass song by Black Sabbath that I’ve felt the character has never lived up to anyway, Thor has Kiss’ “God of Thunder” (quoted above) and Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song.” Well, the “The Immigrant Song” is about Vikings, but I consider it a good soundtrack to a Thor comic.
We are your overlords.
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Monday, October 04, 2004
The Comics Industry is a Hideous Bitch Goddess
This TCJ board thread dealing with Vince Coletta really fascinates me. I'm always interested in the seedier side of the comics biz, and some of tales told here dealing with Coletta get pretty seedy. For example:
An unpleasant anecdote about his stint as DC art director: when Denys Cowan showed him his portfolio, Colletta (according to Cowan) replied that DC already had a black artist.
There's also a delightful tale about Coletta trying to screw over Gene Colan and Marv Wolfman from the latest issue of Back Issue as well as Russ Maheras' recollection of meeting the man.
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Fun with Comics
WARNING: I've been battling a cold lately. I think my writing has taken a hit and this post might not be one of my best.
So this weekend I read Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier in its entirety. It was a wonderful experience and I do plan to do a write up about it. Looking up the reactions to NF I was struck by something and I want to write about.
Many people praised NF for bringing a sense of wonderment or just plain fun back into reading a comic book. Many derided the lack of fun in superhero comics and some others even had problems with NF because it took some fun out by bringing politics into the story.
Now, we can go back and forth about how fun (or mature or innocent or whatever) superhero comics should be. I want to get to something else, although pondering those ideas is a part of it. Many people have made it clear that NF reminded them why they liked superhero comics when they were younger and was a welcome return to that as opposed to how dark things have gotten in other superhero books. I wonder if that sense of fun that people miss in superhero stories isn’t just a case of those comics changing but also is a reality of growing older. Things are just not going to seem as fun when you were 10-years-old as opposed to 30-years-old. The reason so many of us keep going back to the heroes we liked when were younger is because we want to recapture that sense of wonder when we were younger.
Is the world of superhero comics kept alive mainly because so many readers are looking for a nostalgia kick? In that case, what happens when those readers die off?
Hmmm, some comics pundit deriding the mentality of superhero comic book fans, never seen that before.
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Sunday, October 03, 2004
Wuxtry! Wuxtry!
Lest I turn this place into Howard Chaykin central, but I just got to share this tip. Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew creator Scott Shaw! says this on his message board:
The great Russ Heath is currently working on a four-issue adaptation of Phillip Wylie's GLADIATOR, scripted by Howard Chaykin. DC will be publishing it.
How awesome. I loved the Wylie novel and it seems perfect for comics (it is said to be an influence on Siegel and Shuster). Heath is of course a much-beloved artist known for his war and western comics, amongst other works. Like many my age I discovered him when he drew the second issue of the Vertigo Enemy Ace book, written by Garth Ennis. Now more of his work will be readily available, scripted by Chaykin no less. Hot diggity.
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Saturday, October 02, 2004
Ian's Nostalgia Trip
When I was a kid there was only thing that captured my imagination more than comics and that was video games. But with my subscription to Nintendo Power I got both.
One strip I always remembered was Howard & Nester, which eventually just became Nester and eventually just left the pages of NP. Every issue the cartoon version of the president of the Nintendo Fun Club and his red-headed friend landed in a different video game. You can read the strips at The Howard & Nester Comics Archive. I recommend the Duck Tales strip that works ever so hard to avoid any copyright infringement and the Maniac Mansion strip because that game was just so weird (unfortunately they don't put a hamster in the microwave like you could in the game). As for who did these strips, your guess is as good as mine.
Another comic that NP had was a tie-in to Zelda: A Link to the Past. The translated serial by Shotaro Ishinomori were fun little adventure stories for fans of the game (easily my favorite Zelda game).
There was a Metroid strip that ran around the time Super Metroid came out, but I can't find that. There's been attempts to translate and distribute the manga here in the states, but rights issues seemed have slowed that process down. There was also a Captain N comic (my Mom bought one for me at Pic-N-Save) that is only notable as being the first published work of Joe Quesada.
Now if we can only get an Earthbound comic. That game ruled.
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Friday, October 01, 2004
Talkin’ Chaykin pt. 3, Black Kiss
First let me thank Mike for selling me the 12 issues of this series. My gratitude also goes out to him for letting me borrow the first 27 issues of American Flagg.
I’ve often brought up the fact that Chaykin treats his characters and the situations they’re in more realistically than your typical 80’s superhero comic book from Marvel or DC. That’s probably true, but I don’t think that tells the whole truth. What is closer to the whole truth is that Chaykin’s work often revels in being over-the-top. This is apparent while reading Flagg where you have these giant sound effects, a talking cat and characters named Medea Blitz and Sam Luis Obispo. The Shadow really couldn’t pay proper respects if it didn’t share the over-the-top characters and situations found in the original pulp fiction of the time (a classic example of that translating into comics is the scene where a punk rock club is filled with Shadows, a cool visual for the sake of having a cool visual). Black Kiss might be a more “ground-level” story than Flagg or The Shadow, but it just might be the most over-the-top thing Chaykin has done. Not with comic panel acrobatics or mind-blowing superheroics, but with lots of bloody violence and raw fucking.
The story takes place in Los Angeles of the then present time (the year 1989) but feels like it is set in the times of Raymond Chandler’s fiction. Old movie stars and music are brought up through out the storyline. You’ve got crooked cops, hit men, a jazz musician in trouble and some gorgeous dames with dark secrets. Characters act just as tough and mean as anything in a post-war black-and-white noir film, but with one difference.
Black Kiss works great as a crime story with a horror twist in the end (I won’t spoil it) but it also works well as porn. Many pages are devoted to the carnal pleasures of every kind its players indulge in. Often times in comics and films sex scenes stop the story cold but here they betray nothing in the story. They have the same nastiness that the non-sex scenes have the non-sex scenes have the same intensity as the sex sessions. It feels like Chaykin decided to do a noir story in the fashion of The Postman Always Rings Twice or The Big Sleep, but doesn’t have to worry about the Hayes Code. Sensuality was certainly a part of those films, but there was no way the creators could be explicit with it. Chaykin took his freedom as a cartoonist working for an independent comic book company, Vortex, and decide to be as explicit as he could. Nothing here goes on behind closed doors that we don’t see.
I haven’t talked enough about Chaykin’s artwork, even though that’s a pretty important part of his work. Black Kiss is in glorious black and white, again continuing the semblance of the great noir films. It also gives Chaykin a chance to be looser and sketchier with his line. Faces and bodies often have loose lines on them to create cheeks, chins and nipples. This is something quite noticeable with all the close-ups in the book. Chaykin has made no secret the influence Alex Toth has had on his work (he wrote the intro to Image’s first volume of Zorro reprints) and in black and white, with the looser style and the urban setting that influence really shines here. In terms of the anatomy of the bodies as well as the action and pacing I can see another artist who was enamored by cinema, Gil Kane. Chaykin in fact started out as a gopher for Kane.
Here’s a page from issue 12 (warning: not safe for work unless you work someplace cool). The long panels and aforementioned close-ups give away the inspiration from cinema. You got a great Ken Bruzenak sound effect on that page, but they aren’t splashy like they are in other Chaykin books. Like his contemporary Frank Miller, Chaykin has seemed to have put less and less stock in photo-realism of characters. I think the beginnings of this is seen in Black Kiss and is followed through in more recent works like Mighty Love and Challengers of the Unknown.
Black Kiss sits along Flagg as Chaykin’s most realized work. He doesn’t have to worry about working with company-owned characters. It is a genre piece, but is hardly a by-the-numbers crime story. Of course there’s no censorship to be found at all in the book and that’s why it works. It’s an artist doing his own thing his own way.
Black Kiss is available in a trade paperback from Fantagraphics Books. Kind of ironic seeing how Editor Louis Stathis gives Fanta head Gary Groth a lot of gruff for an interview in some magazine way back when. Hardly the strangest thing that has to do with Black Kiss.
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