The Comics Bin

5PPDMY2R3S52

2012-01-22T23:24:00.001-08:00

5PPDMY2R3S52

CBR's Top 100 Comics of 2011

2012-01-22T22:18:00.000-08:00

Comic Book Resources has compiled their list of the "Top 100 Comics of 2011," which could double as my "to read" list. So, as a reminder to myself, I'm reblogging the list here, with a couple of comments on what I've read, and what looks good.

100-76 on the list
I've read Jim Woodring's psychedelic "Congress of the Animals," a twisting wordless tale that's ultimately a love story. I haven't yet read Chester Brown's "Paying For It," but it sounds intriguing -- or painful (it's hard to tell). Also tempting yet perhaps painful is Mark Waid's "Irredeemable." On the other hand, "Darkwing Duck" is just pure fun.

75-51
I've read the intro to "Archive Meets Kiss," but I'm not sure it's one of the best of 2011 -- I'll have to check it out. It's interesting that OMAC comes in at #52 on the list -- coincidence? And finally, "A Tale of Sand" written by the late Jim Henson of Muppet fame looks interesting.

50-26
I gave my wife a copy of Sarah Oleksyk's book "Ivy," and I also read the online version. The art is so engaging, and the story equally endearing. The other comic that I've read from this list is almost the complete opposite: "Chew." As the blurb says, "Layman and Guillory's insane tale of a cop who can read the history of any food he eats" is a cool premise, skillfully done.

From this section two books that I particularly want to read are "Pepper Penwell & The Land Creature of Monster Lake" and Carla Speed McNeil's "Finder:Voice." I saw McNeil at Portland's Stumptown Comics Fest, but I failed to get a copy of the Finder book at the time.

25-11
Unfortunately I haven't read any of the comics in this area. Ray Fawkes' "One Soul" is sitting on top of my "to read" pile right now, so I'm looking forward to that. Also, I've been following Vera Brosgol on twitter, and I'm eager to read her work of a teenage girl who's picks up a friendly specter that slowly turns scary in "Anya's Ghost."

10-1
Out of the top 10, most of CBR's selections are superhero series. There are three exceptions, all interesting.
I've read some of Kate Beaton's "Hark A Vagrant" online, and new stories of "Love & Rockets" is always a good thing, but Craig Thompson's "Habibi" is the oyster's pearl here. It's a massive work, years in the making, and a turning point for Craig Thompson. I've read it twice, but I feel I need to read it again before making any further proclamations.

Looking over this list, I evidently need to read a lot more comics.

"The Best of Archie's MadHouse"

2012-01-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid I read a comic-book story that completely baffled and amused me. Not a big deal, since I was often baffled & amused by comics, but this story has stuck with me. It's the story of Snowboy, by Dan Decarlo, originally printed in Archie's MadHouse Comics #22.

Snowboy's origin is a bit unclear, but his situation is he's a high-school student that's a bit different: he's a snow man. At first every one gives him the cold shoulder, but as he shows his sense of humor they start to warm to him. A pal sets him up with a blind date, a girl named Dagmar, and their relationship grows into true love. The more time Snowboy spends with Dagmar, the more his love grows, until finally "the warmth of Dagmar's love did something for Snowboy" -- it melted his snowy exterior revealing a normal teen-ager. Unfortunately, when he arrives at Dagmar's house she's become a snow girl.

This is a basic love story, and a teen coming-of-age story, wrapped within a science fictional setting, presented as an Archie comic. What's not to find amusing and baffling about that? It's an excellent example of the types of stories one would find in any issue of Archie's Mad House Comics. Now a set of these comics has been edited and reprinted by Craig Yoe, in a hardcover book called "The Best of Archie's MadHouse" published by IDW Books.

The volume is a hefty 200 pages, reprinting more than 60 gag pages and stories, and includes about a dozen Mad House covers, and some original art. If you're unfamiliar with MadHouse comics, they were from Archie, but separated in a distinct way. Archie Comics were interesting but predictable - mostly based around various love triangles with the characters of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Jughead, Moose, Ethel, Midge, and Dilton. MadHouse comics were utterly unpredictable, starting with the Archie characters, adding spoofs from popular music, movies and TV, and letting the Archie artists run wild. Similar to Mad Magazine, but some might say even more unconventional.

Like a MadHouse comic book, "The Best of Archie's MadHouse" is split into sections.

The Teen Age Section reprints some of the earlier Archie-centered gags, as well as the other mid-60s jokes on pizza, rock'n'roll music and dating. Probably the highlights of this section are the stories with Lester Cool and Chester Square. I found it interesting that in these stories Lester Cool is the disrupter, and also usually the victor. Nowadays the stereotype is that the "nerdy" underdog Chester might be the hero of the story.

The Monster Section gives the artists a chance to spoof the horror movies of the day. "The Son of Dr. Jerkyll" is another Twilight Zone-ish story by Dan DeCarlo where the hero attempts to give himself the face of Elvis facsimile Melvin Prestone. That story impressed me enough years ago that it is as clear in my memory as it is when I re-read it in the collection. Other mad scientists appear in this section, such as Dr. Syklops, Boris Karlaff, and a hippie version of Frankenstein's monster, but the most memorable original character from this section is probably Sabrina, the Teen-age Witch.

The "Way Out" section is a grab-bag of oddball stories of mermaids, cavemen and "The Discovery of Sleep." The best story from the "Outer Space" section is from my favorite Little Archie artist, Chic Stone. He takes a stock story of a Martian prince named Zyx on a reconnaissance mission to Earth before the invasion, and provides a wonderfully goofy and artistically rendered "Tale of Wail."

Archie comics originally started out as the MLG group, publishing superhero comics such as "The Shield" and "The Black Hood." "The Good Guy" section gives the Archie artists a chance to recall these heroes, and mix it up with a goofball hero (who nevertheless gets the job done) called Captain Sprocket. When I was a kid I loved these stories, although as an adult I find them less interesting than the other sections. They have a Shaggy Dog tale feeling to them, without any plot twists or character depth.

What I like about this book is that it gives people a chance to read the old MadHouse comics without breaking the bank.

Buying a set of MadHouse digest reprints off eBay would probably cost about $5-$10 per issue. "The Best of Archie's MadHouse" brings it all together for $34.99 (I found it for as little as $20 on Amazon.com). I also appreciated Yoe's introduction, although I felt it was a little light on meaty material. That's a complaint I've had about other Yoe projects, such as his book "The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers."

Another thing I learned is that Dan DeCarlo looks like his drawings, for example Snowboy. There's a photo of DeCarlo in the introduction, and you can see it in the chin, the hair, the smile.

I also liked that each excerpt showed which Madhouse issue it came from, as well as the artist and publication date. Some people, however, may find this information is printed too small.

There are a couple examples of original art in the book, but I would have liked to have seen more.

Yoe has his own quirks in designing books, and a couple of them show up here. All the page numbers are printed upside down, which may be a goof or a joke. Also, the cover has some faint comments embossed on it: "Don't read this" "Don't read this either." Yoe asks the readers if we would like to see more MadHouse, so it seems as if he's planning a series of reprints.

In all, "The Best of Archie's MadHouse" is a great introduction or reading copy for a collection of MadHouse stories. If you're looking for more depth into the background of the artists, the stories, or the Archie publishing group, you'll be disappointed. But, if you want an affordable way to see for yourself the madness that was MadHouse, buy this book. In this cold world of ours, the goofy love you find for MadHouse comics might melt your snowy exterior.

Crack Comics #44 - September 1946

2011-11-27T00:02:00.000-08:00

In a time before it was ironic to have a magazine called "Crack Comics," Quality Comics published this book, and the similar "Smash Comics." While Smash Comics starred mainly a Spirit lookalike called Midnight, and an oversized robot called Bozo the Iron Man, the main draw for Crack Comics was Captain Triumph.

Captain Triumph was sort of a Golden Age precursor to DC's Firestorm in that Lance Gallant had a ghostly twin brother with whom he communicated. When Lance rubbed the strange birthmark on his wrist he merged with the spirit of his brother Michael to form Captain Triumph. Captain Triumph was super-strong, fairly invulnerable, and his only weakness seemed to be that Lance Gallant was

As the splash page proclaims: "Lance Gallant calls forth the spirit of his dead twin brother, Michael, to form the indomitable Captain Triumph."

In this story, Lance, along with his comrades Biff and Kim, encounter a con-man named Silvertip, who poses as a mystic in order to rob the rich. Once Captain Triumph appears the balance of power is strongly in his favor. At one point the desperate Silvertip threatens to commit suicide as his only option to escape Captain Triumph.

Review: “Supergods” by Grant Morrison

2011-11-21T23:12:00.001-08:00

Grant Morrison, one of the top writers for DC in the 21st Century, believes in Super Heroes, both real and imagined. He explores the existence of these heroes in his book "Supergods." Subtitled "What masked vigilantes, miraculous mutants, and a sun god from Smallville can teach us about being human," the inside flap claims that "Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero." As I read deeper into the book, I began to wonder if this statement had a dual meaning in Mr. Morrison’s mind.

The book begins innocently enough. The first of four sections, "The Golden Age" roughly corresponds to the comic book industry’s acknowledged golden age from 1938 until the decline of superheroes in the early ‘50s, the publication of Frederck Wertham’s "Seduction of the Innocent," and the advent of the Comics Code.

The Silver Age section starts with an analysis of Mort Weisinger’s Superman stories from the late ‘50s and coasts into the early ‘70s with Jack Kirby’s creations of OMAC and the New Gods, and Marvel Comics’ Captain Marvel and other psychic/psychedelic comics.

The Dark Age starts in the early ‘70s, touching on the Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up when it’s discovered that Speedy is a drug addict, and then caroming off Frank Miller’s "The Dark Knight Returns," Alan Moore’s "The Watchmen," and Morrison’s own "Zenith," until bouncing once or twice off Image and Vertigo imprints and dropping into the depths somewhere around the year 2000.

The fourth section, comprising over 150 pages -- over a third of the book -- concerns the time period from 2000 until the present, an era that Morrison considers The Renaissance.

"Supergods" is marketed as a history of comics, and an analysis of the heroes, but the book actually follows two threads. After the Golden Age, we find Morrison mapping his autobiography onto the history of comics, showing how the comics have influenced his life, and how he in turn has influenced comics.

The psychoanalyses of the characters in the Golden Age are interesting, but read a bit too quickly, as if Morrison is reciting what he’s learned without having lived it. And it’s true. Born in the ‘60s, he may have read the Golden Age comics, but through a filter of a more modern time. Evidently he feels the same way, since only about 50 pages are devoted toward establishing the tropes from the birth era of the superheroes.

In the Silver Age, Morrison starts to weave his personal history into the comics, clearly expressing a preference for The Flash and DC’s "multiverse." At this point we begin to see glimpses of Morrison’s obsession: "If Barry [Allen, the Flash] lived on a world where Jay [Garrick, The Flash of Earth-2] was fictional, did that mean we, as readers, were also part of Schwartz’s elegant multiversal architecture?" For a full chapter he continues to explore how the existence of multiple universes has manifested itself to us, both in the comics and in the "real" world. He cites "cosmologists" who say that the multiverse is real, and then a few paragraphs later talks about the emergence of continuity in comics "first recognized by Gardner Fox, Julius Schwartz, and Stan Lee as a kind of imaginative real estate that would turn mere comic books into chronicles of alternate histories.

This chapter, "Infinite Earths," examines many of the key ideas that have captured Morrison’s attention, including the possibility of having real superheroes. "In so many ways, we’re already superhuman. Being extraordinary is so much a part of our heritage as human beings that we often overlook what we’ve done and how very unique it all is." He also considers what other dimensions might exist. "Superhero science has taught me this: Entire universes fit comfortably inside our skulls. Not just one or two but endless universes can be packed into that dark, wet, and bony hollow without breaking it open from the inside…To find out what higher dimensions might look like, all we have to do is study the relationship between our 3-D world and the 2-D comics. A 4-D creature could look ‘down’ on us through our wall, or clothes, even our skeletons…perhaps even our thoughts."

And then Morrison takes the biggest leap. He describes how he asked an artist to create a comic-book avatar of himself so that he might don this "fiction suit" and enter the comic-book work. At first I thought maybe this was some sort of mental writer’s exercise, but he describes being immersed so completely in the comic that it’s almost an altered state of consciousness. He describes how, while working on his comic "The Invisibles," he found characters actively resisting his will. "Perhaps, like a beehive or a sponge colony, I’d put enough information into my model world to trigger emergent complexity…I wondered if ficto-scientists of the future might finally locate this theoretical point where a story becomes sufficiently complex to being its own form of calculation and even become in some way self-aware…I imagined a sentient paper universe and decided I would try to contact it."

The Dark Age of superheroes concentrates mostly on "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns," and "Watchmen," which could be considered two of the most influential graphic novels of all time, but isn’t it perhaps irrelevant to mention such massive influences to the current generation? Morrison doesn’t do much to put these in context, except to exclaim that they are the context. Still, I appreciate his short survey of punk British comics that were also taking the stage, such as "Tank Girl" by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, Pat Mills’ "Marshall Law," and "Enigma" by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo. The most interesting part of the Dark Age section is how it corresponds to Morrison’s own life. Up until his late 20’s he claims to have been straight-edged, but he suddenly starts exploring alcohol, mushrooms and other mind-altering drugs. Flush with cash from his best-selling book "Arkham Asylum," and filling out his monthly income by writing a couple hundred pages a year, he begins to binge-travel and perform magical experiments. Reading about cross-dressing berdache shamans, he adopts a female alter-ego for some of the darker magical operations. At the end of the section Morrison describes a mystical experience which becomes a turning point in his life.

Curiously, the incident of Morrison’s mystical experience in Kathmandu ends the Dark Age, but also begins the Renaissance. He explains that while partying in Nepal, he begins to lose contact with the physical reality of his hotel room. The walls dissolve into ancient streets and archaic half-remembered dreams of childhood. He feels "presences" emerging from the surroundings, described as blobs of pure holographic meta material, or chrome angels, he intuits they may have come from Alpha Centauri. They lead him to their galaxy, where he accidentally offends the locals and is then given "The secret of the universe." This secret is something about how to "plug into" the information lattices of reality.

After his otherworldly vision, however, Morrison goes into a decline, locking himself away in his house, and eventually being checked into the hospital. What he describes as "boils, traditional sign of demon contact," the doctor cures with antibiotics. Even now Morrison can’t reconcile his experience. "What’s important about this experience is not whether there are ‘real’ aliens from a fifth-dimension heaven where everything is great and we’re all friends. There may well be, but I have no real proof."

I found that after this revelation the book began to meander as closed in on present day. The details are clearer, but the stories have less passion. The survey of superhero movies is about as constructive as a couple hours spent browsing the internet -- search phrase: "comic book movies." Similarly, his props for writers and artists at DC and Marvel in the first decade of the 21st century are admirable, but lack the context they will be given by history. The most interesting arc is his description of DC’s "Crisis" trilogy, which includes his own "Final Crisis." It’s also interesting to see how he waves off the "event fatigue" in comics in the new century, while failing to mention that it is problem caused primarily by the publishers, who saw such success and excess in the 1990’s that they are continuing to create hype rather than craft stories.

As comic history book go, Supergods is far from ideal. As mentioned, the Golden Age essays are only average. The illustrations are all only from DC Comics, which is the publisher that Morrison currently works with. Also, Morrison plays with time, to such a degree that it’s disturbing to someone who might rely on this book as history. For example, he juxtaposes the movie "The Dark Knight," which was released in 2008, with the events of September 11th, 2001, as if the movie somehow preceded the terrorist attacks. There are multiple other examples where events that may have been years apart, Morrison brings together for dramatic effect. And finally, if you’re looking for an objective account, look elsewhere. Morrison’s ego is not small, and he’s constantly infiltrating himself into the scene, or comparing the work in question to his own work. Moreover, he always seems to be pushing for the "next big thing," ignoring adequate comics which are interesting in their own time but don’t necessarily push the boundaries.

On the other hand, Grant Morrison is the most intriguing character in this book, and he stands up to his portrayal as a person who was influenced by comics, and has influenced comics. His personal beliefs, in the comics universe, in higher universes, in magic, and the membranes between these worlds is also mesmerizing, although a bit more bizarre. I don’t know if he’s being 100% truthful in these episodes, but they are definitely exceptional in the pantheon of comic creator stories. And the most interesting thing about Grant Morrison is his passion for superheroes, what they represent, and the possibility of fictional heroes creating the real world. It’s truly amazing, and shows in his works.

Summary: Supergods - adequate psychoanalysis of the superhero mythology, mesmerizing autobiography of Grant Morrison.

Mail Order Mysteries

2011-11-16T00:07:00.001-08:00

Recently I've extended my diet of podcasts beyond the two staples: "The New York Times Book Review", and "This American Life." I was looking for comic-book based podcasts, but so many of the so-called reviews are either blow-by-blow recaps of the latest issue of "The Ultimate Spider-man," or blatant fanboy gushing over the cool art, that I began to despair. Then I discovered boing-boing's "Gweek" podcast. It's an excuse for Mark Frauenfelder to discover interesting nooks and crannies of comics, pop music, movies and geek pop culture in general. In "Mail Order Mysteries" Mark interviews Kirk Demarais, who has compiled a book of the ads found in comics in the '60s, '70s and '80s, paired with actual samples of the merchandise which he has tracked down over the years. As Demarais writes:

"I turned to an overcrowded page of fascinating black-and-white drawings; I was captivated It was an ink-smudged window into an unfamiliar realm where gorilla masks peacefully lived among hovercrafts and ventriloquist dummies. A dozen pages later an outfit called the Fun Factory featured another full-page assortment of wonders, and elsewhere in the issue I found a hundred toy soldiers for a buck, an offer for a free million dollar bank note, and an ad for something called Grit."

In the interview Frauenfelder asks Demarais what the rarest of these sorts of toys might be. As I heard the question I figured it would be something like the missile-firing tank, or the rocket-firing submarine. I figured it would be something large and expensive. My mind briefly jumped back to the episode of "Get A Life" where Chris Elliot finally gets his Neptune 2000 in the mail. Not so! It turns out the the rarest mail-order toy is the remote control 7 Foot Life-size Ghost. I'm alone in the car listening to the interview on the way home from work. So, I'm surprised to hear my own voice aloud in the car. "No freakin' way!" I remember buying that ghost. I probably cut up a comic to get the coupon, and then probably put my own dollar into the envelope. I don't remember how long it took to arrive, but when you're in fifth grade anything longer than a week seems like forever. When it finally arrived I opened the package, which was suspiciously light even if it contained a ghost. It turns out the "ghost" was a white balloon, a white sheet of plastic indistinguishable from a disposable picnic tablecloth, and a small spool of fishing line. You were supposed to inflate the balloon, put it under the sheet of plastic, and use the fishing line as the remote control. I only remember trying it out on my door for about five minutes and spending maybe five more trying to get my sisters to walk past the ghost and be scared. After that the balloon probably popped turning into just so much trash. So, here's this guy on the podcast talking about trying to buy a vintage 7 Foot Life-size Ghost. He found one on e-Bay, but other people were bidding it up. Demarais is an associate college professor, and it happened that the auction ended during one of his lectures. At the end of the auction he had to put the class on hold while he attempted to snipe the Ghost. Unfortunately he lost the auction, but fortunately the winning bidder allowed Demarais to take photos of it for the book. How much was the winning bid? Over $300! "No freakin' way!" I said again. But, I knew it was obvious. The Ghost was such a piece of crap that any that were sold most likely ended up in the garbage before the next dawn. That's why crazy people end up spending over $300 on a piece of utter ephemera. Meanwhile, the interview intrigued me enough that I could be convinced to drop the $20 for the book "Mail Order Mysteries" just because of the memories it might bring.

Super Magician Comics Vol 4 No. 4 - Part 3

2011-10-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

The final installment of Super-Magician Comics #4, vol 4, is "Blackstone Solves the Riddle of the Rajpoot Ruby."

One of the most surprising things about this short story is that all the action takes place in the space of half an hour, and most of it occurs within a single room. The plot is relatively simple, but it's delivered in a way that's interesting, although I think most people can guess the guilty party before it's half over. Also, keeping with the magician motif, the story also turns around two key magic tricks which are explained in the course of events.

At first I thought the title might be a play on the words "Rajpoor Ruby," or "Rajpur Ruby," but Google didn't return anything significant for that phrase. Searching for "Rajpoot Ruby" returned a similarly named Charlie Chan episode titles "Rajput Ruby" from 1957, and a remake in the 80's. In any case, the phrase seemed familiar, but I don't know why.

The page layout is similar to the first story in the magazine, but I have a problem with both of them. It's odd to read -- going from left to right and top to bottom I'd expect the panel in the lower left to follow the center panel, but sometimes it hard to tell whether it works that way. It's almost as if the artists laid out the page panels first without regard to action, and then filled with a corresponding image according to the script.

True to form, Rhoda's outfit is extremely skimpy.

Check out the ad for war bonds. The text starts "Your sons, husbands and brothers who are standing today upon the battlefronts are fighting for more than victory in war. Interestingly, it doesn't add "fathers," which suggests the intended audience for this particular public service announcement isn't children, but adults. The faces and signatures are of the seven leader of the military, including General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, and future president Dwight D Eisenhower.

You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Super Magician Comics Vol 4 No. 4 -- Part 2

2011-10-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

(Continued from Part 1)
Ron Goulart's Encyclopedia of Comics has a page of information on Super-Magician Comics. According to Goulart Blackstone was the "first comic book offering the fictitious adventures of a real-life personality who wasn't a movie cowboy." He clarifies how Gibson created the comic, and also provides and interesting detail on why Street & Smith were so amenable to the series.

"Gibson had started ghosting Blackstone's magic books in the late 1920s . In 1941 he approached Street & Smith, publishers of both the Shadow pulp magazine and the comic book, and suggested a Blackstone comic. What made the deal especially appealing to S&S was the fact that Gibson guaranteed them that the magician would purchase half of each issue's print run to give away at his stage shows. The first issue (May 1941) was titled Super Magic Comics. With the second it became Super Magician. Blackstone grew younger and handsomer for his comic book appearances and also acquired a pretty assistant named Rhoda. On the covers he was frequently called the 'World's Greatest Living Magician.'"

Goulart implies that Gibson wrote all the Blackstone features, while other authors covered the backup stories. He also sheds a bit more light on the artists who worked on the comics.

"The early artwork, mediocre at best, was provided by the Jack Binder shop. Gibson later brought in some of his cronies, including James Hammon and Kemp Starrett, and the look of the feature improved greatly. Both men, along with Gibson, had been associated with the Ledger Syndicate in Philadelphia."

The layout in the "Red Dragon in Spheres of Satan!" is strangely loosely connected, as if in a dream. At first glance it seems to make sense, and then you wonder how the Komodo Dragon manages to fly when it looks like it's in repose, which leads you to wonder ask whether the Red Dragon is mounted on the Komodo, or simply flying next to it. The Komodo continues to inhabit the frames throughout the story, only occasionally acknowledged, like a fnord.

Since this is WWII, the plot concerns the Red Dragon and his sidekick uncovering a Japanese secret war weapon and vanquishing it. The characterization of the Japanese is so crude that it's mostly only interesting in terms of seeing the stereotypes that come out during war, and recognizing that we can still apply these lessons to today.

I'm not sure if the other backup story is an ongoing feature or not. "The Lady in White and the Shrinking Giant..." is oddly set in a hospital, but has little to do with the environment. A patient checks in because he believes that he is shrinking, and so is his pet turtle Algy. Eventually an unnamed nurse ("the Lady in White") solves the shrinking mystery. The art is reminiscent of Boody, although it's uncredited.

Read part 3 here.

Super Magician Comics Vol 4 No. 4 - August 1945

2011-10-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

In May of 1941 a new comic book called "Super Magic" hit the news stands. It portrayed a fictional magician loosely based on the real Harry Blackstone, Sr. In the comic, Blackstone solved crimes and captured evildoers, often at the request of government agencies such as the FBI. After the first issue, publisher Street & Smith renamed the periodical Super Magician Comics, and it ran under that name until slightly after World War II, hanging up the magic in 1947.

There's an interesting convergence in Super-Magician comics. The publisher was Street & Smith Publications, who also put out The Shadow pulp magazine. Walter B. Gibson, the creator of The Shadow, knew the real Harry Blackstone, and according to this article on Wikipedia, he ghost-wrote most of the magician's books, and also wrote the scripts to the Blackstone comics and radio show. This sort of melding of reality and fiction predates the fuzzy edges of 21st century reality TV shows by at least 60 years.

The cumulative effect of these stories didn't fall into a vacuum. The exploits of The Shadow and Harry Blackstone, on the radio, in pulps, and comics, inspired the imaginations and careers of many who heard them. The Amazing Kreskin, for example, explains how they started him on his road to stardom:

Walter B. Gibson's The Shadow was another character that captured Kreskin's imagination as a youth. Today, many copies of the pulp serial from the '30s are in his collection. "Gibson was an authority on crime and magic, and he was a friend of Houdini's," Kreskin said. "Through the character Lamont Cranston (The Shadow), Gibson combined the criminal mind and the crime fighter mind."

The Shadow, of course, became one of the most popular radio programs of all time, but it isn't the only character for which Walter Gibson is known. He also authored the Super Magician comics of the 1940s, often under the pseudonym Maxwell Grant. The main character was based on the real-life magician Harry Blackstone. The premise was that he performed magic and fought crime.

"I have a copy of every Super Magician comic book ever produced (it ran about six years), encased and in mint condition," Kreskin said. "I can't imagine what they're worth, but you know what? I don't care. These books and other items are part of the embroidery that make up the fabric of who I am. They're not for sale, and I don't care to have them appraised. That's not the point."

This issue from 1947 is uncredited, so the writer could have been Walter Gibson, but I couldn't find any corroborating evidence in any book or on the Internet.

The plot for the 14 page Blackstone story "Blackstone Battles Doctor Zero" is relatively simple: The FBI enlists Blackstone and his assistant Rhoda to investigate a strange character whom people have been visiting just before they get kidnapped. As Blackstone puts it "people go to Zero's and are seen there -- then they are found somewhere else, which makes it very uncanny!" The art is competent, although a bit sketchy. I like the "Little Nemo"-esque feeling of the inflating card players.

After the lead is another Blackstone piece, a bit of magic instruction, in "Blackstone Shows Tom and Dick How To Do the Color Trick."

I'll post the other stories, an 8 page Red Dragon story "Spheres of Satan", an 8 page Lady In White story "The Shrinking Giant", and an 8 page Blackstone story "The Riddle of the Rajpoot Ruby", in subsequent blog entries.

The Cinematic Approach to Comics - A Thought Balloon Experiment

2011-08-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

Take a look at the following pages from Detective #445 (March, 1974). They are from "Break-in At The Big House," the lead story in one of those DC 100 Pages issues (for only 60 cents -- oh, the '70s!). The story is part of a dramatic arc running across multiple DC Batman comics where Bats is wanted for murdering Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia. Multiple witnesses and videotapes make it seem like Batman really did gun her down in cold blood, although we know he hates the very idea of guns.

The DC Wiki has a good synopsis of the story:

"Batman breaks into Gotham Prison to question Ra’s al Ghul about the killing of Talia. Ra’s admits that he is responsible for the incident, then turns a gun on himself, and throws the gun towards Batman before he falls. Guards assume Batman is responsible for another murder, and the Caped Crusader must fight his way out past guards and convicts."

Read 'em? Good. Now let me interrupt to skip ahead thirty years.

At the Stumptown 2011 panel on teaching comics Diana Schutz from Dark Horse, and Brian Michael Bendis discussed the way they teach comics literacy and creation, often comparing comics to movies. Bendis offered a number of books he uses as references when he's teaching, including Ivan Brunetti's "Cartooning: Practice and Philosophy," and surprisingly, David Mamet's "On Directing Film." Both the Brunetti and Mamet books stress visual thinking and letting the images tell the story, adding dialog only when it naturally evolves the storyline. This means omitting "maid and butler" dialog, which explains to the reader what is going on, as well as text that's redundant to the visual.

Interestingly enough, Bendis also mentioned that the editors at Marvel are tending toward dropping thought balloons. This would align with the suggestions from Brunetti and Mamet, but also seems to truncate a dimension that's fairly prevalent in comics, especially Marvel superhero comics: the internal narrative. Think of an early Spider-man fight that didn't include Peter's personal worries about Aunt May, money, and whether Mary Jane was interested in him or not.

So, as a personal experiment, I decided to doctor up a random couple of pages and compare whether it was "better" with, or without the external narrative and the internal thought balloons. The preceding pages are the result. Compare the altered pages with the originally published art as it appeared in Detective #445:

Now, before anyone complains, the goal here isn't to alter Jim Aparo's art or Len Wein's writing, or even to show off my amateur Photoshop skills, but to take a new look at a comic that wasn't drawn to today's expectations, and see whether it meets the cinematic ideals espoused by Bendis, Brunetti, and Mamet. I simply want to pose the question "How is the reading process different when the narrative and thought balloons are removed?"

First, let's look at the narrative. Most of the information is already captured in the images: we don't need to know that it took an instant to climb the wall, or that a spotlight narrowly misses exposing Batman's break-in. That's clearly shown in the images. The only part of the narrative which isn't completely shown in the images on the first page is that Batman is considered the "world's greatest escape-artist," which seems irrelevant and overblown compared to the subtle action on the page.

On the second page the narrative gives us two more bits of information: first, that it has taken the Batman a while to successfully penetrate to Ra's Al Ghul's cell, and second that it is Ra's in the cell. Again, I found these bits of information irrelevant to the story. From frame 3 to frame 5 I can see that Batman changed into a prison guard's uniform. That must've taken a bit of time, so why restate it in the narrative?

When I was a kid I regularly skipped the narrative boxes. In my mind they mostly served to obscure the artwork, only occasionally producing an interesting footnote or editor's note. This little experiment shows my inner child was right on the money for narrative in comics.

So, can the same be said for the thought balloons? Is Batman's internal dialogue also irrelevant?

In this sequence the Batman has only four explicit thoughts. Of the four, two are spent explaining action we can already see on the page: the searchlight sweeping toward him, and the guards' approach. Two others, however, provide some insight into Batman's character. First, that he was a consultant on the prison's design, and he's exploiting that information to break in. Second, even the Batman worries about his physical limitations. These internal thoughts expose the humanity behind the mask, and help the reader identify more closely with the man who's trying to clear his name in a frame-up for murder.

As this site mentions, "thought balloons have fallen out of fashion in recent years in preference for narrative captions." So, this is just moving the thoughts from the position within the image, to one that's aligned along the top or bottom of the image. Personally, I'd rather have relevant thoughts integrated into the image (as a thought balloon), rather than an internal dialogue that's distanced from the character, a la Prince Valiant for example.

Bottom line? It's likely that the average comic from the '70s, and maybe from any time period, will have redundant captions that echo the action in the image. For the most part, it probably makes the comic stronger to eschew these narrative crutches, and to follow the ideals of Brunetti and Mamet. On the other hand, I think that losing thought balloons, or relegating them to the edges of the frame in a narrative box, cuts off one of my favorite aspects of comics: the ability to show the internal dialogue of the character in an immediate way.

Incidentally, if you want to read the full arc of this Batman / R'as al Ghul story, the site Pulp & Dagger says it was collected in a 1981 digest called the "Best of DC digest #9."

Review: "Smile" by Raina Telgemeier

2011-07-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

At its heart, “Smile” is an autobiographical story of a girl who trips while leaving a Girl Scouts meeting, smashes her front teeth, and spends several years with dentists. But it's also a teen coming of age story, a documentary of the 1987 San Francisco earthquake, and a fun slice-of-life memoir. In documenting her “dental drama,” Raina Telgemeier has created a wonderful, painful portrait of life as it revolved around friends, school, video games and dental procedures that lasted from sixth grade until high school.

What I liked most about “Smile” is how honest it is, including details both good and painful. Even on the 10th reading, I cringe at the pages that show Raina tripping and smashing her teeth. Likewise, when she’s betrayed in little ways by her friends, I feel the shame and hurt. Also, although I wasn’t a teenage girl in 1987, I identify with the details: Mario on Nintendo, the DuckTales video game, the 1987 SF Earthquake, and the faux MS yearbook signatures on the end pages. Even when young Raina and her friends see “The Little Mermaid” is its first release, we later see a figurine of Ariel on Raina’s desk when she’s in high school. Heck, even the details of the dental procedures are accurately captured in jaw-dropping detail.

I also appreciated how Telgemeier expands her story into a coming of age story that any middle school student can relate to. As Raina moves from 6th grade to high school, her dental problems follow her, but she also experiences day to day life: crushes on boys, getting pierced ears, girl friends who mature at different ages, and playing spin the bottle at a party. At one point Telgemeier is self-referential to her own memoir:

Mom: Lots of kids wear funny stuff to help fix their bodies…you probably just don’t realize it because no one talks about it.
Raina: Well, maybe someone should start talking about it!!
Raina (thinking): Maybe it would make us feel less like freaks.

The art is clean, and casually cartoony. Bug eyes, comic-book icons such as light-bulb ideas, helpful arrows labeling items (“oatmeal”), and the occasion character floating in love add to the ambience rather than detract. The backgrounds are almost architectural. I especially enjoyed the sense of timing, sometimes spending a full page to add emphasis to events. One example of this is when Raina skips out on the Valentine’s dance without meeting her friend Sam. Telgemeier has two 1/6-page frames with setting up Raina’s motivation outside the dance, two 1/3-page frames showing her indecision, and then a single page dedicated to Raina leaving alone while the “boomboom” of the music emanates from the gym.

I’d put Telgemeier in the same category as Judy Blume. While the audience for “Smile” is clearly younger teen girls, some middle-school boys will probably also enjoy it. One difference between Blume's books and "Smile" is that the publisher, Scholastic, has made an effort to omit anything scandalous from “Smile.” At Stumptown Comics Fest in 2010, Telgemeier mentioned there was a bit of censorship in the publishing process where Scholastic wanted a reference to "PMS" removed from the book, which she assented to.

One more comment: In addition to middle readers, every dentist should have a copy of "Smile" in the waiting room. In comparison to Raina’s journey, a cleaning or a filling for most patients should be a piece of cake.

"Smile" was nominated "Best Publication for Teens" for the 2011 Eisner Awards. Raina Telgemeier's website is http://goraina.com. You can read the entire story of Smile online, although it's not in color.

Review - Return of the Dapper Men

2011-07-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

A fairy by John R Neill

When I was a kid reading L. Frank Baum’s "Wizard of Oz" books, I’d sometimes stop mid-story to look at John R Neill’s drawings of fairies, gnomes and other magical creatures of the land, and get so entranced I’d lose all track of the time. The elegant lines of the dresses of the beautiful fairies, the curlicues embossing the Cowardly Lion, the pretty and mischievous smile of Ozma, the girl ruler, were so expertly rendered I saw them on the page as if they really existed. This sense of wonder and whimsy in the illustrations so perfectly matches Baum’s stories that, even though other artists have had their turn illustrating the Oz stories, in my mind they are as intertwined as a climbing rose and trellis.

In "Return of the Dapper Men," written by Jim McCann and illustrated by Janet Lee, the artists have tried to create a similar work of whimsy, combining a fairy-tale story with lavish artwork, bringing to mind Baum & Neill, the Brothers Grimm, Little Nemo and maybe a touch of William Joyce. The result hovers somewhere between a graphic novel and an extended picture book.

In the land of Anorev, time has stopped. The robots live and work aboveground, while the children play in the dark caves underground. Only two beings can travel between the two realms: the boy Ayden and a robot girl named Zoe. A robotic villain named Fabre tries to force Zoe to sprout wings and fly to the majestic broken angel that oversees the land on Anorev. Then, time starts again with the arrival of 314 dapper men, wearing bowlers and carrying umbrellas, flying into town. With their advent, dapper man 41 stirs Ayden, Zoe, and the rest of the beings in Anorev into working toward their destiny.

Dapper Man 41 and Ayden

The artwork is definitely worthy of a modern classic fairy tale. The characters sprawl over the page, with bits of detail filling the crannies. The art continuously reminded me of a melding of Winsor McKay’s Little Nemo meets Johnny Gruelle meets William Joyce’s Robots, but was rendered with Lee’s own style, too. A section at the end of the book explains Lee’s meticulous process in "The Making of a Dapper Page." In this digital era, it’s amazing to see an artist who, after doing the layout and illustration, then physically cuts out the images to overlay them on abstract painted backgrounds.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as absorbed by the story, which I found whimsical, without being enchanting. I think the main issue with the story is reflected in the introduction by Tim Gunn that. He proclaims

"’Return of the Dapper Men’ is a transformational experience, a morality tale that is certain to become an instant contemporary classic. The narrative is instantly captivating and always multi-dimensional. The reader will find puzzles, riddles, and anagrams that serve as catalysts for further investigation and research. Be armed with Google and Merriam-Webster.com in order to enjoy the full-tilt experience of this wondrous read."

Frankly, the problem is that the story is both treated too preciously and not seriously enough. McCann has allusions to September 11th, and to tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet and the drama of Tristan and Isolde, but the characters never seem engaged in the story. There are many wide-eyed proclamations, such as "The only boy to write. That’s why you are up here," and "There’s always time for lessons, especially when you have time." Occasionally characters appear to talk to the "camera." Some of the characters seem to be cast as antagonists, but the conflict is all spoken, and never acted on. The only actual threat to all the characters is that time had stopped, and now it’s starting again, which, I guess, means change? In time of no time, the children and the robots had forgotten how to share work and play, and now they have to move forward. Even in allegory, I didn’t find the story very compelling.

According to Wikipedia, when Baum was writing the Oz books, his "avowed intentions with the Oz books, and other fairy tales, was to tell such tales as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen told, bringing them up to date by making the characters not stereotypical dwarfs or genies, and by removing both the violence and the moral to which the violence was to point." Although his books were less gruesome than the Brothers Grimm, Baum failed to completely remove the violence. Even in a land where no one dies, the threat of being cut into small pieces and left there for all eternity struck a chord in my imagination that stayed with me. Also, the Wicked Witch, the Nome King, and the other antagonists showed enough malice to keep the plot exciting. I can't same the same about "Dapper Men," which I found beautiful, but not compelling.

It appears that "Return of the Dapper Men" is a series, so perhaps this volume is only the prelude to a larger story. Given time, we may find out why time stopped in Anorev, and who sent the Dapper Men, and whether Zoe will ever speak and the answer to many more questions. But, while this book has the artwork of a classic, the story was whimsical without wonder, and left me unfulfilled. "Return of the Dapper Men" was nominated "Best Publication for Teens" for the 2011 Eisner Awards.

Book Review: I Thought You Would Be Funnier by Shannon Wheeler

2011-07-07T13:22:00.000-07:00

Weeks ago I bought Shannon Wheeler’s newest book "I Thought You Would Be Funnier," but I haven’t reviewed it yet for a simple reason: I’m biased. I think that practically everything he does is funny. By way of explanation, I started to list all the work by Wheeler which I've admired, but it started to turn into a comic-artist version of A Fan's Notes (except, I hope, less crazy). Regardless, let's push on.

I started reading his Too Much Coffee Man strip years ago when it ran in the back of some local paper. TMCM was a new kind of superhero, similar to The Tick, except he didn't seem to have any powers other than a giant coffee cup attached to his head ( I know it's not part of the suit -- I've seen his skull!). The wry humor, interesting cast of recurring characters, and solid art grabbed and held my attention. TMCM had humor, insight, coffee and bathos. Well, I’m not sure if it had bathos, I’ve never understood bathos, but it had coffee. And Too Much Espresso Man.

Somewhere in the mid 90’s, Wheeler traveled all the way from Austin, Texas to a comic book show in Portland, Oregon where I met him in person and discovered that "Shannon" was a skinny guy with long curly hair. Up until then I’d thought he was a she. Not a big deal. It’s the body of work that’s important, not the person. I got over it, and so did my wife. I even got him to sign a book.

I guess Wheeler liked his trip to Portland, since he moved to town, and I got more opportunities to buy the books and merchandise at local comic book shows, book signings, Wordstock, and eventually the Stumptown Comics Fest. The Too Much Coffee Man T-Shirts (I’m wearing the "pit of despair" shirt right now), the Too Much Coffee Man coffee cups, the Too Much Coffee Man cereal caddy. Ok, I’m joking about the cereal caddy. But I’ve got many of his books: Too Much Coffee Man’s Guide for the Perplexed, for example, and Too Much Coffee Man’s How to Be Happy.

Did I mention I wrote a TMCM screen saver? I know it was 1996, because Windows 95 had just come out, and it was late. I designed the program so you could configure the jitters, the anxiety, and how randomly TMCM would meander across the screen. I was so proud that I emailed a copy to Mr. Wheeler, who politely ignored the copyright infringement and wrote back that he owned a Mac, and wasn’t sure whether anyone would be interested in a TMCM screen saver.

So, how far can the TMCM thing go? Pretty far, apparently, but before I could tire of it, Wheeler moved in a new direction: the boxed set of "Postage Stamp Funnies." Designed to recall the look and feel of Maurice Sendak’s Nutshell Library, it's a collection of Wheeler’s weekly cartoons from The Onion. At the book signing at Oregon Historical Society, Wheeler told me that Dark Horse balked at the cost of binding and boxing the comics, but somehow he got the project completed. They’re soooo cute!

Turned out the box set was part of a one-two punch, with the production of Too Much Coffee Man: The Opera. Announced as "the first opera based on a comic book," I thought it was a great idea. I heard early versions of the songs at Wordstock, but unfortunately missed the full productions in Portland and Astoria. Something to look forward to, I guess.

Shannon Wheeler's First Published New Yorker Cartoon

By that time Facebook had come out, and I’d friended Wheeler, and played a number of games of Jumble or WordTwist (something like that) with him. Like Homer Simpson to Mr. Burns, I don't think Wheeler remembered meeting me, but I was happy to see the occasional drawings he'd post on Facebook. Surprisingly, he started posting rejections from the New Yorker, and finally in 2009 announced his first sale to that esteemed, inscrutable, comic magazine. Frankly, the acceptance policy for comics at the New Yorker is a bit hard to fathom, but maybe that’s the charm. There’s something for everyone, whether you understand it or not.

Wheeler started collecting the comics rejected from the New Yorker, and voila, the result is "I Thought You Would Be Funnier." It’s a quick read - about 100 comics, all of them funny, and showcasing Wheeler’s now-distinctive style. You won’t find any Too Much Coffee Man, but there are a few that echo Too Much Espresso Man. In one cartoon workers are picking beans, and one worker asks another "Tell me again the difference between a cappuccino and a latte." In another, a clown confesses to his doctor "It hurts when I laugh."

But, as the great Dr. Emilio Lizardo once said, "Laugh-a while you can, monkey boy." Wheeler’s upcoming project is not all humor and coffee. He’s working with Oregonian columnist Steve Duin on a book called "Oil and Water," a graphic novel based on the Gulf Coast catastrophe of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Just like Wheeler's expansion from comics to opera, I look forward to this ambitious project mixing graphic novels with reporting.

In the meantime, "I Thought You Would Be Funnier" has two award nominations: in the running for the Eisner Best Humor Publication and the Harvey Special Award for Humor in Comics. Does that sound funny to you?

Shannon Wheeler’s website is http://www.tmcm.com

Review: Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel

2011-07-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

In “Ghostopolis” the relationship to the afterlife is slightly different than our own. Ghosts have a tendency to sneak back into the world of the living, and the living have the technology to visit the land of the dead. Agent Frank Gallows works for the Supernatural Immigration Task Force sending illegal ghosts back to the afterlife. While working on a case of a skeletal stallion, he accidentally sends terminally ill teen Garth Hale to Ghostopolis, which his boss Lieutenant Brock deems “a real screwup.” Fired from the force, Frank enlists the help of his ghostly ex-fiancée Claire Voyant and her barrier-breaking Plasmapod, a sort of hot-rod that can travel to the land of the dead, to find Garth and bring him back. Meanwhile, Garth wanders the realm, encountering his grandfather, and learning about Joe, the mysterious Tuskegee Airman who created the world of Ghostopolis, and Vaugner, the Machiavellian ruler of the land.

The story has a lot of characterization, and the dialogue includes many kid-friendly jokes that are actually funny. In one running joke, Benedict Arnold betrays himself as a traitor to both sides on multiple occasions. TenNapel shows his skill at comedic timing during the climactic fight scene when Vaugner asks “You know what I’ve got that you don’t?” In the next frame Garth replies “Diarrhea?” The exchange is made even funnier because the two combatants are in the shape of giant battling buildings.

The book is about death, but death taken in a comforting way. Given that, I guess it’s no surprise that some Christian themes come through. The airman Joe is a barely disguised version of God, and the crack into the next realm, beyond Ghostopolis could be seen as Heaven. TenNapel has publicly written about using Christian themes in his works, and a story about the afterlife seems a pretty obvious place to discuss Christianity. But for comparison, I found Ghostopolis less about Christianity than, for example, Aslan in the Narnia books by CS Lewis. For the most part the points are integral to the story and don’t seem moralistic or preachy.

TenNapel seems to have had a lot of fun with the seven territories of the afterlife: the Specters, the Will-O’-The-Wisps, the Mummies, the Goblins, the Zombies, the Boogeymen, and especially the Bone Kingdom. Dressed in Medieval armor garb, the Bone Kingdom reminded me of a perverse take on Prince Valiant.

The art is clean and comic, while moving toward realism when rendering the skeletons. I really enjoyed the scene where Garth and his nightmare are chased through the woods by the remains of velociraptors. Some reviews I’ve read complained about the coloring, but the addition of color seems to bring out the drawings where black and white might have been overly dark.

A truly great story, however, must have a truly great antagonist. In Ghostopolis, Vaugner turns out to be a tragic figure, but only in the final act. The extent of his powers, motivations and history is shrouded by the author until this time, and that weakens the character, leading to a slightly weaker story. In my opinion Vaugner would have been more tragic, more daunting if I’d known more about his motivation earlier. Also, his powers seem inconsistent: from atop his office building he’s able to detect and pinpoint Garth’s position in Ghostopolis. Later, however, he’s unable to find the boy in a slightly crowded street. Also, his bug henchmen start out threatening, but end up comic. Vaugner as a villain seems a bit arbitrary, weakening the story.

Bottom line, “Ghostopolis” is a fun read, with interesting characters, a rich landscape of the afterlife, and a satisfying conclusion. I’d recommend it to any student from 3^rd to 8^th grade – and adults will probably enjoy it too. Ghostopolis was nominated "Best Publication for Teens" for the 2011 Eisner Awards. Doug TenNapel's website is http://tennapel.com/comics.html. A movie version of Ghostopolis is listed on IMDB as “In development” for 2013.

Review: Hereville - How Mirka Got Her Sword

2011-06-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

"Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword" by Barry Deutsch is the story of a young girl who's looking for adventure beyond the houses of Hereville. While her stepmother wants her to do the chores and learn to knit, Mirka looks for dragons and witches. Eventually she finds a talking pig, a witch, and a troll, and has to deal with them all, becoming, as the tagline states, "Yet Another Troll-Fighting 11-Year-Old Orthodox Jewish Girl."

The book is packed with details and characters. Although we don't get to meet all eleven members of the Hirschberg family, Deutsch provides well-rounded versions of some of Mirka's siblings, her step-mother Fruma, and even the ghost of Mirka's mother. He also intersperses the dialog with Yiddish words and sayings like "Dybbuk and "Drai mir nit kain kop!" (providing footnotes on the translation), giving us an insider view on the events in Mirka's life.

The Jewish culture is deeply woven into this story, but is never preachy or obstructive to the narrative.
If anything it's an interesting alien world for most Americans, as well as opening a window into the lives of others. This article from the "Jewish Daily Forward" says it best: "By normalizing the rhythm and values of Jewish life, rather than singling them out as a topic for discussion, he manages to make Mirka just another adventure seeking pre-teen who just so happens to be Jewish."

I emailed Deutsch with a couple questions about Hereville.

Comics Bin: These magical aspects of the story - the talking pig, the witch, the troll - are you working off Jewish cultural stories, or are they your own inventions?
Barry Deutsch: They're my own inventions. There are a lot of Jewish cultural ideas in Hereville, of course, but the magic isn't one of them.

CB: Why Hereville?
Deutsch: Although this never came up in the book, the town is actually named "Aherville." "Aher" is Yiddish for "here."

CB: Is Hereville in the past, present, where?
Deutsch: It's set in a small town in the present-day US (or the recent past).

CB: Do you know a girl like Mirka?
Deutsch: I don't know anyone quite like Mirka!

The way Deutsch has rendered Hereville it could be located in any slightly rural area, perhaps another country in the present-day, or outside of New York in the 1940s. But the sepia coloration of the pages adds to the nostalgic, almost dreamlike qualities of the story. Deutsch never attempts to explain the pig, the witch or the troll, and although Mirka is surprised by them, she encounters them head-on, and thrives on the encounters. The ending is as satisfying as any tale from the Brothers Grimm or Aesop. I think that young and teen readers will enjoy the book through to the very end.

The art is clean, cartoonish, and consistent. Deutsch originally started drawing it as a webcomic for Girlamatic.com and then developed it into this book. The 57-page webcomic is still available online. The published book has been almost entirely redrawn and runs 139 pages. You can see a 15-page preview here. He creates digitally, using a Cintiq tablet and Photoshop to draw and color the story.

In addition to his work on Hereville, Deutsch also drew one of the back-up pages in Brendan Douglas Jones's epic "Breakfast of the Gods" (the one about Super Sugar Crisp Bear).

Hereville was nominated "Best Publication for Teens" for the 2011 Eisner Awards. The webpage is http://www.hereville.com/ and Deutsch's twitter handle is @barrydeutsch.

Wanted: Safe Bus Riders! - DC PSAs of the 50s and 60s

2011-06-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

In DC comics from the 60's you'll see a number of public service announcements with titles such as "People Are People!" or "Let Science Serve You!".

Even when I was a kid these well-intentioned 1-page morality tales seemed hokey and outdated, in the same vein as a Dick and Jane or "Around the Corner" reader.

Let Science Serve You!

Now, however, I look at them as a time capsule, reflecting the morals and hopes of the Camelot administration. They have the same wide-eyed optimism as the United Nations, or UNICEF, standing in stark contrast to the Tea Party and Neo-conservative zeitgeist of today.

Interestingly enough, most of the PSAs from DC were reportedly written by one man: Jack Schiff. Schiff was an editor at DC during the Golden Age, and worked on on all the Batman Comics during the 40's & 50's.

I don't know when DC began to run the public service comics -- other publishers had PSAs as early as World War II. For example, Bulletman’s appearance in "Paper Chase" in Master Comics no. 49 (Apr. 1944) promoted paper drives for the war. DC’s 1-page service comics were sponsored by an NGO called the National Social Welfare Assembly, which later changed its name to the National Human Services Assembly.

This site has a history of the character Johnny Everyman, whose stories ran in World’s Finest and Comics Cavalcade in the late 40’s.

“The Johnny Everyman stories were essentially public service stories. Each Johnny Everyman tale preached liberal ideas, usually involving understanding and respect for other races and nationalities. They often gave a detailed look at the lives and problems of these groups, in an almost documentary like way. They embedded this mix of educational information and social commentary in what the writers hoped would be an exciting adventure framework.”

The Superman Home Page, in an article about DC artist "Win" Mortimer, explains the backstory to Schiff's PSA projects.

Jack Schiff's pet project was a series of one-page public service announcements that he hoped would be read by young comics readers and serve to give a wholesome message. Schiff worked with the National Social Welfare Assembly, a group of psychologists and educators from several organizations, including Nobel Prize winner Pearl Buck, to produce a page which appeared every month in over thirty magazines from 1949 into the 1960's. After delivering his assignment of Superman Daily strips to Schiff, Mortimer was often asked if he might be able to do a single page and produced a large body of work for this project featuring Superman, Superboy, Green Arrow, Tomahawk, and Batman to name just a few. The topics varied from racism, to doing chores around the house, traffic safety and study tips. The pages were requested by schools and civic organizations by the thousands and DC printed them and sent them out in a conscious effort to be a good citizen at a time when, as then-publisher Jack Liebowitz said, "a lot of people came into the [comics industry] who didn't have any standards at all."

Searching Michigan State's Special Collections index I found a partial list of 75 of DC’s PSA comics. From that list Jack Schiff wrote at least 23 of them, if not more.

In an odd contrast to the altruistic PSAs, this site claims that Shiff, often demanded under the table kick-backs from artists and writers of the period. Hard to believe after reading all the good-natured stories from the man.

People Are People!

Here's an incomplete list of DC PSAs during the 1950s and 1960s:

"A Date with Effie" in Wonder Woman, no. 90 (May 1957) - About Volunteering For Community Service.
"A Message from Otto the Robot!" / Jack Schiff, script; Bernard Baily, art. in My Greatest Adventure, no. 60 (Oct. 1961)
"A Salute to Our American Indians!" in Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, no. 24 (Apr. 1961)
"Are You a Litter-Bug?" / Henry Boltinoff. in Wonder Woman, no. 99 (July 1958)
"Be a Good Citizen" (Superman) in Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, no. 34 (July 1962)
"Be Sure of Your Facts!" (Buzzy) in Wonder Woman, no. 107 (July 1959) - About Not Jumping To Conclusions.
"Be Sure of Your Facts" (Buzzy) / Jack Schiff, script; Win Mortimer, art; Gaspar Saladino, letters. in Mystery in Space, no. 7 (Apr./May 1952); and in Wonder Woman, no. 107 (July 1959) - In The Teen Humor Genre, About Not Jumping To Conclusions.
"Be Yourself, Your Best Self!" (Buzzy) / Jack Schiff, script; Win Mortimer, art. in Mystery in Space, no. 6 (Feb./Mar. 1952); and in Superboy, no. 18 (Feb./Mar. 1952) - In The Teen Humor Genre.
"Binky's Special Election Exhibit" (Binky) / Bob Oksner, art; Jack Schiff, script. in Wonder Woman, no. 86 (Nov. 1956) - About Voting
"Buzzy Learns About Careers in Nursing" (Buzzy) in Wonder Woman, no. 89 (Apr. 1957)
"Buzzy Scores One for the Handicapped!" (Buzzy) in Superboy, no. 13 (Mar./Apr. 1951); and in Star Spangled Comics, no. 114 (Mar. 1951) - Portraying A Hearing-Impaired Teenager ("Deaf Guy") Who Can Play The Piano.
"Carelessness is No Joke!" (Peter Porkchops) in Mystery in Space, no. 14 (June/July 1953) -
"Christmas in Many Lands" (Binky) in Wonder Woman, no. 72 (Feb. 1955) - In Quiz Format, About Christmas Customs In Norway, Mexico, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Chile And The U.S..

Nature's Bill of Rights

"Danger: Prejudice at Work" / Jack Schiff, script; Ruben Moreira, art; Ira Schnapp, letters. in Adventure Comics, no. 240 (Sept. 1957)
"Do You Know How to be a Good Baby-Sitter?" (Buzzy) in Wonder Woman, no. 80 (Feb. 1956)
"Do You Know Your Neighbors?" (Buzzy) in Wonder Woman, no. 78 (Nov. 1955); and in Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, no. 32 (Apr. 1962) - About Multiculturalism. Buzzy Visits Neighbors From Puerto Rico, Vermont, Japan, And Ireland.
"Do You Make Life Hard For Yourself?" in Wonder Woman, no. 106 (May. 1959) - Against Messy Bedrooms.
"Don't Give Fire a Place to Start!" (Superboy) in Wonder Woman, no. 67 (July 1954)
"Earn While You Learn!" / Ruben Moreira, art; Jack Schiff, script. in Wonder Woman, no. 92 (Aug. 1957) - On Summer Jobs.
"Formula for Success!" in Wonder Woman, no. 103 (Jan. 1959) - About Developing Talents Before Choosing A Vocation.
"Free Speech Free for All!" (Buzzy) in Wonder Woman, no. 115 (July 1960) - On Fairness In Political Campaigning.
"From Many Lands" in All American Men of War, no. 90 (Mar./Apr. 1962) - Page About International Commerce, "
"Get a Grip on Your Gripes!" in Wonder Woman, no. 119 (Jan. 1961) - About Not Losing One's Temper.
"Get Hip to Old Folks" / Morris Waldinger, art; Jack Schiff, script. in Doom Patrol, no. 106 (Sept. 1966)
"Get Your Ticket to the Treasury of Books!" (Superman) in Wonder Woman, no. 82 (May 1956) - About Public Libraries.

Wanted: Safe Bus Riders!

"Give Your Pet All the Breaks" (Binky) in Mystery in Space, no. 16 (Oct./Nov. 1953)
"Give Your Town a Present" (Superboy) / writer, Jack Schiff; artist, Win Mortimer; colorist, Bob Le Rose. p. 60 in The Greatest Golden Age Stories Ever Told (New York : DC Comics, 1990) - Originally Presented In 1949.
"Happy Hobby Time" (Superboy) in Sensation Comics, no. 109 (May/June 1952) - About Hobbies.
"Home Sweet Home" (Leave it to Binky) in Wonder Woman, no. 63 (Jan. 1954) - About Domestic Arguments.
"Hop on the Welfare Wagon" (Superman) / Jack Schiff, script; Win Mortimer, art; Ira Schnapp, letters. in Mystery in Space, no. 8 (June/July 1952) - Superhero Genre.
"How Not to Enjoy a Vacation!" in Wonder Woman, no. 93 (Oct. 1957) - About Planning Ahead For Vacation Travel.
"How to Make New Friends" (Binky) in Wonder Woman, no. 91 (July 1957); in 80 Page Giant, no. 12 (July 1965); and in Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, no. 58 (July 1965)
"How to Spend a Summer Week" (Binky) / Jack Schiff, script; Win Mortimer, art. in Mystery in Space, no. 15 (Aug./Sept. 1953); and in Wonder Woman, no. 85 (Oct. 1956) - On Finding Fun Things To Do In The Summer.
"It's Fun to Belong!" (Binky) in Wonder Woman, no. 81 (Apr. 1956) - About Joining Organized Activities.
"It's Fun to Help Others!" (Superboy) in Wonder Woman, no. 112 (Feb. 1960) and in Star Spangled War Stories, no. 89 (Feb./Mar. 1960)
"It's Fun to Learn!" in Strange Adventures, no. 109 (Oct. 1959) - Two Boys Clearing A Field For A Ball Field Learn About Levers And Fulcrums.
"It's Smart to Check and Double-Check" (Superman) / Jack Schiff, script; Win Mortimer, art. in Mystery in Space, no. 9 (Aug./Sept. 1952)
"Job Counselor" (Superboy) in Strange Adventures, no. 1 (Aug./Sept. 1950)
"Justice for All Includes Children (5)" in Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, no. 43 (July 1976) - Features Superman.
"Justice For All Includes Children (6)" / Continuity Associates, Inc. ;in Justice League of America, no. 134 (Sept. 1976); Claw the Unconquered, no. 9 (Sept./Oct. 1976); Tarzan, no. 253 (Sept. 1976)
"Justice For All Includes Children (7)" in Justice League of America, no. 136 (Nov. 1976); The Unexpected, no. 176 (Nov./Dec. 1976); Blackhawk, no. 249 (Nov./Dec. 1976); Kamandi, no. 46 (Oct. 1976)
"Keep Learning the Key to Success!" in Wonder Woman, no. 118 (Nov. 1960). - On Staying In School.
"Know Your Community" (Binky) in Mystery in Space, no. 17 (Dec./Jan. 1953/1954)
"Lend a Friendly Hand!" (Superman) in Wonder Woman, no. 116 (Aug. 1960) - On World Refugee Year.
"Look to the Stars!" in Wonder Woman, no. 102 (Nov. 1958) - About About The North Star.
"Lost, a Free Education" (Leave it to Binky) / Jack Schiff, script, Bob Oksner, pencils; Ira Schnapp, letters. in Mystery in Space, no. 4 (Oct./Nov. 1951); and in Wonder Woman, no. 101 (Oct. 1958) - In The Teen Humor Genre About Staying In School.

BEM Shows Up!

"Make Your Summer Count!" in Tomahawk, no. 111 (July/Aug. 1967) - About Cleaning Up A Vacant Lot, And Using The Broken Glass To Make A Mosaic Mural.
"New Stars for Old Glory" in Wonder Woman, no. 110 (Nov. 1959) and in Star Spangled War Stories, no. 87 (Nov. 1959) - Brief History Of The U.S. Flag, And The New States Alaska And Hawaii.
"Pennies for UNICEF!" (Superman) in The Flash, no. 133 (Dec. 1962)
"People Are People" (Superman) in Mystery in Space, no. 13 (Apr./May 1953)
"School Blues" (Buzzy) in Wonder Woman, no. 69 (Oct. 1954) - About Staying In School.
"Share Work with Others" (Superboy) in Sensation Comics, no. 107 (Jan./Feb. 1952) - About Sharing.
"Smoking is for Squares!" / Sheldon Moldoff, pencils; Jack Schiff, script. in Detective Comics, no. 332 (Oct. 1964); in Hawkman, no. 4 (Oct.-Nov. 1964); in Superboy, no. 116 (Oct. 1964); in Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, no. 52 (Oct. 1964); in Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, no. 80 (Oct. 1964) - Bob Hope Appearance.
"Special Christmas Quiz" / Reuben Moreira, art; Jack Schiff, script. in Wonder Woman, no. 144 (Feb. 1964)
"Superman" ;/ Al Plastino, Jack Schiff; in Action Comics, no. 143 (Apr. 1950)
"Teddy Roosevelt, Guardian of Nature" / Ruben Moreira, art; Jack Schiff, script. in Wonder Woman, no. 94 (Nov. 1957) - About Conservation.
"That Deep, Dark Secret!" (Buzzy) in Wonder Woman, no. 54 (July/Aug. 1952) - Black And White Public Service Page, About Talking Openly About Mental Illness.
"The Atom, Servant of Man" / Jack Schiff. in Batman, no. 128 (Dec. 1959); and in Superboy, no. 77 (Dec. 1959) - Educational Page Celebrating The "Radio-Isotope," Created At Oak Ridge, Tennessee, And Used By Scientists In Germany, Japan, Brazil, Canada And Nigeria.
"The Best Present of All!" (Binky) in Wonder Woman, no. 79 (Jan. 1956); reprinted in Wonder Woman, no. 111 (Jan. 1960) - On Christmas Giving Without A Lot Of Money.
"The Case of the Careless Camper!" (Peter Porkchops) in The Dodo and the Frog, no. 89 (Aug./Sept. 1956) - About Forest Fire Prevention.
"The Flushing Remonstrance" in Wonder Woman, no. 96 (Feb. 1958); also appears in Mystery in Space, no. 42 (Feb./Mar. 1958) - About Quakers Standing Up For Their Right To Worship In 1656. Page Done .

Health Myths Debunked!

"The Invisible Handicap!" / Jack Schiff, script; Sheldon Moldoff, pencils. ;in Detective Comics, no. 348 (Feb. 1965) - The "Handicap" Is Brain Damage.
"The Key to Success" (Buzzy) in Wonder Woman, no. 70 (Nov. 1954) - On The Importance Of A Good Attitude At Work.
"The Magic Card!" in Wonder Woman, no. 104 (Feb. 1959) - On Using The Library.
"The Red Feather Kid" (The Green Arrow) / writer, Jack Schiff; artist, George Papp; colorist, Bob Le Rose. p. 150 in The Greatest Golden Age Stories Ever Told (New York : DC Comics, 1990) - From 1949.
"The Team's the Thing!" (Leave it to Binky) in Sensation Comics, no. 108 (Mar./Apr. 1952) - On Teamwork.
"Time Out For Talk" in Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, no. 33 (May 1962) - About Peacemaking.
"Tips on Camping" (Binky) in Wonder Woman, no. 74 (May 1955)
"Tips on Summer Fun!" (Peter Porkchops) in Wonder Woman, no. 68 (Aug. 1954); reprinted in Wonder Woman, no. 108 (Aug. 1959) - About Manners And Fun.
"United Nations Day, October 24th" in Wonder Woman, no. 62 (Nov./Dec. 1953) - Black & White
"Wanted, A Teen-Age Code" in Wonder Woman, no. 95 (Jan. 1958) - About Party Crashing.
"Wanted: a Pal!" / Jack Schiff, script; Lou Cameron, art; Ira Schnapp, letters. in Adventure Comics, no. 251 (Aug. 1958); and in Wonder Woman, no. 100 (Aug. 1958) - About Close Friends.
"Wanted: Safe Bus Riders" / Bernard Baily, art; Jack Schiff, script. in Wonder Woman, no. 126 (Nov. 1961)
"Welcome Amigo!" (Binky) in Wonder Woman, no. 66 (May 1954) - Black And White About Welcoming A New Friend From A Family Of Mexican Migrant Workers.
"What Are You Getting Out of School?" (Buzzy) / Win Mortimer, art; Jack Schiff, script. in Wonder Woman, no. 77 (Oct. 1955) - Emphasizes The Social And Extracurricular Benefits Of Public Education.
"What's Your B.Q.?" in Wonder Woman, no. 105 (Apr. 1959) - "B.Q." Stands For "Brotherhood Quotient." Quiz-Format On Racial Equality And Equal Opportunity, In Cooperaton With The National Social Welfare Assembly.

Parents Have Rights, Too!

Smoking is for Squares!

Art Spiegelman & Joe Sacco

2011-05-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

I didn’t realize it until I'd heard him speak, but I grew up with Art Spiegelman.

The event at PNCA on 04/27/11 was titled “Tragedy, Comedy and Truth in Comics,” but interviewer Joe (“Palestine”) Sacco immediately jumped from that track, declaring instead that he wanted the conversation to circle around two themes: “the decisions that artists make (including the decision of how to make a living)” and “high and low.” After that, Sacco did a great job of asking questions and then sitting back as Spiegelman verbally explored the nooks and crannies of his body of work. In a similar way, I’m going to attempt to cover the highlights of the evening without too much editorializing.

Spiegelman, the author of the only comic book ever to have won a Pulitzer Prize, looked younger in person than he has in his recent photos – perhaps because he was so enthusiastic about his past and future projects. He started out with a bit of theory: "Putting words and pictures together may be what 'art' is now." He also referred to the idea of an “unreliable alloy,” how mixing words and images may be regarded as an imperfect blend. And of course that segued into Mad Magazine, and his early aspirations as an artist.

Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco discuss Garbage Can-dy

Mad Magazine was 10 years old when it influenced 15-year-old Spiegelman to create his imitation, "Blasé Magazine,” sporting a caricature of Kennedy on a cover dated “Feb . 1963.” It was a clever cover, and as Sacco pointed out "copying is a very good way of starting out." Only a year later Spiegelman had thrust his cartoons onto the local paper, and was drawing caricatures for the articles and cartoons to fill in the margins.

Sacco wondered how did immigrant parents take this turn of career? “Dad wanted a doctor, or a dentist,” answered Spiegelman. “If you’re a dentist, at night you can draw your cartoons, but if you’re a cartoonist nobody comes to the dentist at night." Luckily, the editor of the paper had faith in young Art, and helped him get an internship at Topps Bubble Gum Company, which led to a 40-year stint doing baseball cards, Garbage Candy, Wacky Packages, and a paid gig writing for his childhood inspiration, Mad Magazine.

(I couldn’t believe it! Here was a comic artist whose work I had followed since the late 80s, suddenly revealed as the creator of icons of my youth. I remember collecting cans and bottles to return to the 7-11 to buy Wacky Packages, which I plastered over my bedroom door. I also ate the Garbage Candy, lived through Garbage Pail Kids, and voraciously read some of the Mad Magazine gags he’d worked on.)

Not to say that his day job led to fame, but it let him work with some friends and influential cartoonists such as Jay Lynch, and Woody Gelman, co-creator of Popsicle Pete and of Bazooka Joe. The gig for Topps lasted for 40 years until he left to work for the New Yorker. At this point Spiegelman revealed the secret to cartoons in the New Yorker: “draw a cartoon you don't get.” He also found himself somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy of cartooning: top was painter, then illustrator, comic strip artist, comic book artists, and at the bottom we find tattoo artists.

From this point he jumped into a survey of his personal artistic efforts. He recalled meeting Met Robert Crumb when they were both doing bubblegum cards, which was a big setback for Spiegelman. “Crumb was so good.” But Crumb’s work influenced Spiegelman to “get in touch with your inner psychopath,” so he came up with “The Viper. “I'm not proud of my Viper period," said Spiegelman, “It was a poor imitation of Eisner…it was a period I went thru..." With patricide, incest, murder and sex The Viper left no taboo unbroken. But perhaps “The Viper” was a way to get this phase out of his system, for in in a comic called "Funny Aminals" (1972) he found real horror in his life rather than trying to invent horror. Based on his parents’ own experiences in the concentration camps, he created a 3-page version of Maus, with mice as the Jews, and cats as the Nazis. In a bit of self-analysis he said that Maus was a delayed response to his mother’s suicide in 1968.

Next he showed a slide of a 1-page comic titled “Don’t get around much anymore,” which he considers his third greatest achievement. One page took eight months to create, and when he was done he said “Cubism! I get it!” Incidentally, Spiegelman mentioned that this comic was also influential to comic artists as diverse as Alan Moore and Chris Ware. It was in the context of this page that Spiegelman gave his definition of a comic: “A narrative series of drawings made for publication.”

“So,” Sacco asked, “how did the Underground see your work at the time?”

“It was very Balkanized,” responded Spiegelman, “Only about eight people liked me.” He mentioned Zippy the Pinhead’s creator Bill Griffith, as well as Kim Deitch working with him on a magazine called “Arcade.” The he started working on “Breakdowns,” which ultimately led to Raw and Maus.

“Breakdowns” is an oversized hardcover comic book, and it feels like it’s “worth something.” Spiegelman reminisced about his trip to France in 1977 and seeing the comics culture there. He wanted to create a comic like that. “Every great cartoonist reinvents what comics is”, so he gravitated toward this idea for the form of a comic.

Detail of stained glass window for Spiegelman's old school

At the same time as he was looking for a new comic form, he was searching for content. “people want stories, so what story is worth doing?" At this point he remembered the 3-page Maus, and began his epic work that was eventually Maus and Maus II. During the talk he referred to some tricks he’d learned about linking word balloons and artwork to bring the eye into the correct narrative flow. He pointed out the layout of the page from Maus where the family hiding in the attic is betrayed by a Jew whom they’ve invited into their house. Because of the layout, showing the cats in the living room below the mice in the attic, the narrative must at times move top to bottom rather than left to right. Spiegelman pointed out how the word balloon overlapped the comic frames, moving the eye downward.

Jumping forward, Spiegelman announced he’s working on a book called “MetaMaus.” MetaMaus, slated for release Fall of 2011, attempts to answer three questions about his work on Maus: “Why mice? Why comics? Why the Holocaust?” He also showed a selection of his New Yorker covers, some unreleased (eg: Clinton getting a BJ in front of a firing squad). He also mentioned some of his current projects: A stained glass window for his old school, essays in comic form (“not everything needs to be 300 pages”), and comics for kids such as “Jack in the Box” and others in the vein of his Little Lit series.

Eventually time ran out, although I could have listened to Spiegelman talk about his work for twice as long. After the initial shock of learning that he’d created some of my childhood icons, I also enjoyed the resurgent memories of reading Maus for the first time, discovering each new issue of Raw, and reading the Little Lit stories with my kids. I remember asking Spiegelman signing my copy of Maus at Powell's books in 1992. So, through the years, and through Art Spiegelman’s body of work, we have grown up together reading comics.

Re-reading Daniel Clowes

2011-04-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

Last summer when Daniel Clowes was promoting the release of his book Wilson, I went to hear him talk at Powell's Books. I was struck by his comment that he thought Wally Gropius was the best comic book of the year. Later he stated on The Daily Beast that the book was "a brilliant, hilarious, deeply complex and wholly original work that rewards a fifteenth reading as much as a first."

Since then I've read Wally Gropius, and was enthralled by the art, but wondered at the story. It seems to be led by a waking dream, from one absurd episode to the next. I wondered what Clowes saw in the book on the fifteenth reading. So, I promised myself I'd re-read Wally Gropius, but first I wanted to align my viewpoint with Daniel Clowes. To do that, I figured I'd re-read all the Clowes books I could get my hands on.

This weekend I spent a couple hours reading and re-reading "Ice haven" and "David Boring." The former is much more closely related in format to "Wilson," in that it's a series of two-page stories focusing on a particular character from the town, with an artistic style particular to the character. For example, Vida Van Der Platz is a teenager in the story, and her first appearance includes panels with love letters to her "Dear Penrod" and is titled "Seventeen." A more baffling episode is the Blue Bunny sequence, evidently related to the thoughts of the toy blue rabbit owned by a child named George.

One thing that struck me after re-reading "Ice Haven" and "David Boring" in the same sitting was that the geologic formation in the center of the town of Ice Haven is the same shape as the hairdo of David Boring's ideal woman Wanda Kraml. The rock appears throughout the book, including the cover, and this last page.

Compare it to this shot of Wanda's hair

Is there something about this shape that Clowes has fixated on? Or, is it just too many re-readings on my part? From what Clowes has said about Wally Gropius, and also from his "internal dialog" on comics via the character Harry Naybors, my guess is that it's not coincidence.

Even more curious is the fact that most of David Boring was drawn prior to 2000, and yet many of the girlfriends are perfect likenesses of Scarlett Johansson, but I'll leave that tangled thread until another time.

Tintin in Black and White - Part 2

2011-04-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post I mentioned that when Hergé published Tintin in color he revised his work, tweaking the pacing and creating more polished and skillfully told stories. The example I gave was The Cigars of the Pharaoh, which was drawn from 1932 to 1934, and then redrawn in 1955 for color (the first English edition was 1971). So, Hergé had over 20 years to consider this work and make a list of changes. But the first color editions made their way into publication during World War II, when Hergé was already well-known across France and beginning to enter the European market. The earliest color editions were stories that had been printed in B&W only a couple years earlier. This raises the question "What changes, if any, did he make on the war-era stories as they moved from B&W to color?"

The Crab with the Golden Claws was drawn (with several interruptions) during WWII, and was published in a black & white volume in 1941. With the color edition appearing in 1943, it was among the earliest of the editions to be reprinted. It makes sense that this story would have fewer difference between the B&W and color editions, a comparison of the two shows some interesting differences.

It's tough to compare different editions, since it seems that tweaks are ongoing. Other than the obvious change of translating the story from French into the local language (English, in my case), other changes that have been made are revised fonts, cropping of panels, and the addition of the hors-texte (full page wordless panels). For this article I compared a reprint of the 1941 "Le Crabe Aux Pinces D'Or" with a mid-80's version of the color edition from Metheun / Magnet.

According to this article on Wikipedia, most of the changes made to the color edition were later, at the request of the American publisher:

"In the 1960s, the book was published in America with a number of changes. In the original, the sailor Tintin leaves bound and gagged in Captain Haddock's cabin, and the man who beats Haddock in the cellar, are black Africans. These were changed in the 1960s to a white sailor and an Arab due to objections by American publishers of having blacks and whites mixing together. [1] However, Haddock still refers to the man who beat him as a "Negro" in the English version. Also at the request of the Americans, scenes of Haddock drinking directly from the bottles of whisky on the lifeboat and the plane were taken out."In an interview, Hergé sarcastically stated that these moves were "justified" because "Everyone knows that Americans never drink whisky(!)" and "that there are no blacks in America(!)".

So, first let's look at the characters who are no longer black in the color editions. When Capt. Haddock is captured by the smugglers he's tied up and beaten by one of the crew members. Later the Captain escapes, and chases his tormentor down the street yelling "You have to arrest that Negro!" In the color edition the man has been change to look more like a Spanish sailor, but the text still refers to him as a Negro.

Another character named Jumbo is also changed from black to pink. The name "Jumbo" is a variation on a Swahili word that means "hello" or "chief." Also, the father from "Little Black Sambo" is named "Black Jumbo", so it seems that Herge meant for the character to be black. The Tintinologist site has a color version of the black character from 1958, which reinforces the suggestion that the change was made for American markets.

A less striking change is that someone decided to remove the names of the cafes in the color editions. Maybe this was just an overzealousness on the part of the translator. But it seems to me that if your story is set in Paris and Morocco, both Francophone countries, it's acceptable for the cafes to have French names.

In the B&W edition, at the beginning of the book, when Tintin sees the Thom(p)sons on the street, it's at the "Cafe du Sport." Later, in Morocco, the Captain waits for Tintin at the "Cafe du Port." In the color version both signs have been erased. As a side note, I like the way the letters are shown backward, as if seen through the sign via the sun.

Another translation-related change is where "Au Secours" has been erased, but still shows over the window frame.

A more artistic revision is evident in the scene where Tintin and the Captain start out across the desert after their plane wreck. In the original edition the handkerchiefs suddenly appear on the heads of Tintin and the Captain between the frames, as they also rapidly lose their coats. The revised edition has them still in their coats, sans hats. Then, the larger desert panel gives the space to suggest some time has passed, and shows them coat-less and wearing their handkerchiefs.

Another change requested by the American publisher is to omit panels where Captain Haddock has his lips to the whiskey bottle. The "Golden Claws" is the first time Tintin meets the Captain, and he's introduced as a drunken wretch whose alcoholic life has led to the point where he's working for smugglers. So, it's especially odd to include all the other pages where the Captain is stumbling and rambling from intoxication, yet to decided to hide two simple panels of him actually drinking from a bottle. Nevertheless, the change was made. In my opinion the edit neither helps nor hinders the story.

The final change is the one that has the most impact on the story: two sequences have been swapped for dramatic effect. The B&W version starts with Tintin in disguise, on the trail of Mr. Allan, to see if he can find where the first mate is holding Captain Haddock. Then, it has the humorous sequence where the Thom(p)sons accidentally stumble into a mosque. In my opinion the color version works much better, showing the Thompson's antics for comedic effect, and then heightening the tension for the final acts of the story with a furtive chase through the alleys of the port city.

So, what does it all mean?

Well, for one thing it tells me that editors aren't omniscient. It's significant that, while the American publishers were concerned about racial issues, they weren't concerned enough to pay attention to the character names, or how the characters are referred to in the story. Also, if they meant to sanitize the story to avoid offending people with racial stereotypes, why weren't other questionable caricatures, such as the Japanese agent, and the Arab shopkeeper altered?

More significantly are the changes done, and not done to the plot. The fact that most of the story and art is completely intact between the B&W edition and the color edition shows an artist at the height of his career, with the skill to render his imagination into a fully-realized world. But the willingness to swap the sequences at the end of the story also indicates an artist who can recognize faults in his own work, and take steps to improve it. The will to revise, coupled with the ability to render, is at heart the basis for most great artists.

I'd like to thank the Tintinologist.com site, who provided a great chart of the publication dates of the Tintin library.

Read Tintin in Black & White Part 1 - The Cigars of the Pharaoh. Also check out my review of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.

Dear Comics Diary, 2010

2011-03-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

Cover of J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic BiographyBetter late than never, here's my twitter diary of comics I read in 2010.
This list doesn't contain many of the single issue comics I read, just the compendiums and TPBs.

1/4/2010    Start the new year right with 'The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days' by Les Daniels & Chip Kidd
1/17/2010    "Reading ""Crisis on Infinite Earths"" compendium. ridiculously complete history of the creation"
1/30/2010    "Iron Man vs Dr Doom... explosions, intrigue, Camelot and time travel. Should be great, but I'm just not that into it."
1/30/2010    Read Hunter X Hunter #3 last night. Related to Battle Royale?
1/31/2010    Reading 2 vol. set of Humbug magazine. I <3 the annotations @ end. Exclnt companion to this. 2/4/2010    "Reading ""The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels"" Nice basic list of 60 graphic novels + discussion of graphic novels
2/4/2010    "Read 'The Flash: Emergency Stop' last night. Fun story with ""The Suit."" Also the ""Speed Force"" uniform."
2/10/2010    "The ""Incal Noir"" by Moebius & Jodorowsky is one of the best sci-fi graphic novels IMHO"
2/16/2010    "Reading 'Uncle Sam & the Freedom Fighters: Brave New World'. Good story, despite mutations. A luscious Phantom Woman."
2/18/2010    "Just discovered Naoki Urasawa's ""20th Century Boys"" #manga series. I'm hooked"
2/18/2010    20th century boys...for some reason I want to relate this to Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner. Why?
2/18/2010    About to read Batman: R.I.P. by Grant Morrison
2/18/2010    "I'm 1/2way thru ""Big Man Japan"". Mockumentary re: bygone days of monster fighters. sad,funny, odd #manga #japan"
2/20/2010    "The 2nd reading of Batman RIP makes more sense, but the story still has some odd gaps"
2/20/2010    "You caught me looking at "The Devil's Panties Volume 2"
2/20/2010    Kim Deitch is always a master. The art & story on 'Alias the Cat' enthrall me. Waldo is a devil!
2/21/2010    "Finished "Big Man Japan" The ending confused the kids--they haven't seen enough old monster movies vis a vis Ultraman"
2/24/2010    Nosing around TFAW in Milwaukie. Picked up the last copy they had of Stumptown #2. 2/25/2010    Reading comics w/the covers over my head: Countdown to Final Crisis. Mary Marvel just got powers back frm Black Adam
3/5/2010    Blog post: Reviews of what I read in February
3/6/2010    "On Vol 4 of Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys -- getting intense, building obstacles"
3/7/2010    Reading "J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography" by Rick Geary. 100 pg bio of the FBI "director for life."
3/7/2010    Fact: In 1960 the FBI had only 5 black employees, all servants to the director.
3/7/2010    Fact: in 1920 Hoover oversaw the detention of 6,328 immigrants as subversives. Only 1000 found ""guilty"" & none deported
3/7/2010    Geary's artwork on "Hoover" manages to be both utilitarian & occasionally impressionistic!
3/7/2010    what would Kirk do? 'Goats The Corndog Imperative' by Jonathan Rosenberg
3/11/2010    Reading "Diana prince:wonder woman" in Comics Journal #299."
3/16/2010    picked up Green Lantern #47 at #eccc10. Convoluted story by John Broome, art by Gil Kane . Loved it.
3/16/2010    I'd never read any of the "Pol Manning" GL stories
3/19/2010    BridgeCityComx Hey-o! Scott Pilgrim fans, listen up... the wait is over Vol. 6 is coming on July 20!
3/20/2010    Got this by Rucka & Lieber at #eccc10. Lieber said he was paid to stay away during film production
3/20/2010    Reading Stumptown #2 by Greg Rucka & Matt Southworth. Lots of #pdx scenery in the detective story
3/20/2010    "Reading Siege #1. Allusions to Iraq intel, Oklahoma city bombing, religious right"
3/20/2010    "Earlier I re-read Ellie Connelly ""preview"" --like a Victorian mystic tintin in america"    http://www.ellieconnelly.com
3/24/2010    Reading the "New Avengers, Vol. 1" by Brian Michael Bendis"
3/27/2010    Reading 'A Wrinkle in Time' to my 4th grader
3/27/2010    Finally reading 'The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers.' Seen 'em as a kid. Yes, they're still bizarre."
3/27/2010    Just read 'Avengers Disassembled.'
3/27/2010    Next up: 'Whiteout Vol. 1' by Rucka & Lieber. I just read why she killed her husband...sort of.
3/29/2010    The bizarre book of Boody Rogers
3/31/2010    Still reading Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys. Finished 5,6,7. Getting 8 & 9 next. How many volumes are there?"
3/31/2010    While I'm reading Naoki Urasawa's, I figured I'd also try his "Monster" Anyone hooked on that?"
4/1/2010    with Identity Crisis, Brad [Meltzer] was working out some serious personal issues heh."
4/4/2010    Nice turn of the story by Gaiman on "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" Did not disappoint a tried & true fan
4/4/2010    Also liked addt'l material esp. "Pavane" & "Black & White World". All stories tended to be a bit talky."
4/12/2010    Avengers on the brain! "Secret Invasion" last night, Avengers, Vol. 2 tonight"
4/21/2010    Looking forward to the release of 'Wally Gropius' by Tim Hensley. Reminds me of European "BD"s like tintin"
4/23/2010    Get the 1st chapter of Sarah Oleksyk's story "Ivy" free. Sarah will be at stumptown comics fest #pdxcomics"
5/18/2010    Read Yoshihiro Tatsumi's 'Black Blizzard'. Cinematic, I can see why he called it #gekiga, not #manga"
5/18/2010    Here's an excerpt from 'Black Blizzard'.
5/18/2010    gekiga -> manga is akin to Will Eisner calling his work 'graphic novels' as opposed to "comic books""
5/20/2010    Surprised by "The Farewell Appearance of Daphne Dean in 'The Flash Archives Vol 4'. Thot I'd read all the early Flash"
5/2/2010    Reading Veitch's 'The Maximortal,' a twisted vision of a "real" superman incl. Einstein, Oppenheimer & a faux Disney
5/12/2010    Finished Deitch's 'Shadowland'. Holy crud! "DaVinci Code"? More like a "Dali Code"! Amazine story & art!
5/12/2010    Reading 'Shadowland'. One review on Amazon says "This is Deitch's DaVinci code.""
5/14/2010    So, I started to read the #manga Old Boy. Vol 1 was intriguing. Maybe the female lead gets more believable
5/23/2010    Reading Chris Ware's 'Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth'
6/1/2010    Looks good! RT: @comicinfo: As FEAR AGENT Ends, Writer Rick Remender Reveals Secrets"
6/1/2010    Read 'Ghost World: Special Edition' last night. Good, but essentially GW + screenplay with some extras.
6/1/2010    re-reading the comic makes me want to watch the movie again...'Ghost World'
6/1/2010    Also read 'Mercury' by Hope Larson. Good story. The art style grew on me as I read it.
6/1/2010    Just read 'Brat Pack' by Rick Veitch -- definite talent for the gross & twisted. A mature tale of sidekicks gone bad
6/5/2010    Got 'Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka' @ the library. Did not realize it was vol. 6. Great stuff    want to start from beginning
6/5/2010    I read 1/2 of 'Persepolis' today. Surprisingly full of insight & humor. The art is honest & clean
6/6/2010    Saw they've got "20th Century Boys" dvd out. I'll have to rent it at Movie Madness #manga
6/8/2010    Reading 'Tales of the Fear Agent'-- great! 2-4 page sci-fi/noir tales reminiscent of 50's EC comics, with a bite."
6/13/2010    Reading 'Nightwing & Flamebird Vol. 1' by Greg Rucka, looking forward to vol 2."    http://amzn.to/dy1WtJ
6/16/2010    Cool! Another Portland comic. I've been reading Stumptown #pdxcomics
6/17/2010    Yes! reading 'Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, Vol. 8' tonight for bedtime."
6/17/2010    Also, if I stay awake long enough: 'Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, Vol. 1'. Start from the beginning this time"
6/18/2010    'Carl Barks: Conversations' is a fun, occasionally repetitive set of interviews w/Barks. Great to hear his perspective"
6/18/2010    'Carl Barks: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity' is a bit heavier, but still good bio. I preferred 'Conversations'
6/21/2010    Dan Clowes says 'Wally Gropius' is his "favorite book of the year by a wide margin..." I'm gonna buy it
6/21/2010    If you love Archie comics, prepare to be shocked by 'The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo'. Scandalous! (tee hee)
6/23/2010    on the nightstand: 'Hopeless Savages Volume 2' by @Hopelessjen and Bryan Lee O'Malley.
6/25/2010    Read 'Pluto:Urasawa x Tezuka Vol 3'. 8 vol. series is a retelling of "Greatest Robot on Earth"
6/25/2010    Interesting the way Urasawa re-imagines the story- art more "realistic" vs Tezuka's almost iconic style."
6/27/2010    Reading 'Haunted' by Philippe Dupuy. compelling scribbles, dredging up funny, dreamlike stories. running themes
6/27/2010    Haunted's running = pun (ow!) recurring plot of running, & themes that reappear. pits, art, dogs, guts, gaps, & forest friends
6/30/2010    Started 'Invincible Iron Man Omnibus Vol. 1' by Matt Fraction last night. Good bio-terror/Iron man/Stane plot
7/7/2010    Boing boing mentioned 'Basil Wolverton's Culture Corner' today. Great stuff!
7/20/2010    'Werewolves of Montpellier' looks good. I'll have to check it out.
7/30/2010    Sir, I am a poet. (Drew Weing's "Set to Sea")"
8/1/2010    Jean Craighead George = great kid eco-writer. 'Who Really Killed Cock Robin?' = one of my favorite 5th grade books
8/9/2010    Summer reading? Try 'Consider Phlebas' by Iain Banks. Episodic like Star Trek, yet 'way more graphic.
8/9/2010    'The Atrocity Archives' by Charles Stross is what happens when the "IT crowd" meets Cthulu.
8/9/2010    'The Jennifer Morgue' was more cohesive than "Atrocity Archives". If Ian Fleming played D&D..."
8/13/2010    Reading 'Naoki Urasawa's Monster #1'. Bit melodramatic, but not what I expected. Surgeon tracks a psycho killer
8/13/2010    'Temperance' sounds like a graphic novel spawn in the vein of philip dick.
8/14/2010    read 'Werewolves of Montpellier' last night. Clean art, laconic style, sparse dialog, nice story.
8/14/2010    1 reservation re:'Werewolves': the stylistic characters (crows, dogs, bunnies) all looked too similar
8/14/2010    Now I want to read more by Jason: 'I Killed Adolf Hitler': assassin goes back in time, Hitler steals time machine.
8/14/2010    More Jason 'The Left Bank Gang': Cartoonists Hemingway, Pound, Fitzgerald & Joyce struggle in Paris
8/25/2010    Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me. I still want this
8/26/2010    Read 'The Left Bank Gang' last night. Hemingway, Fitzgerald & Pound as starving cartoonists in 20's Paris, w/a twist
8/26/2010    Also started 'X-Men: Kitty Pryde and Wolverine'. Can't believe I've never read this story
9/2/2010    Note to self: Read 'The Best American Comics Criticism' 2010.
9/3/2010    Action is character. F Scott Fitz. shoulda been writing comics. An alternative: Jason's "Left Bank Gang"
9/8/2010    @GNReporter talks w/Cathy Malkasian re: Temperance. If you like allegory (eg Narnia Chronicles) you might like this
9/9/2010    Reading 'Petey & Pussy'. Crazy foul-mouthed cat & dog w/bald men heads have adventures. Weird!
9/10/2010    I've been reading quite a bit of Jason lately. Would you say he's of the Franco-Belgian school?
9/11/2010    My reviews of "I Killed Hitler", "Left Bank Gang" and "Werewolves of Montpellier".
9/13/2010    Peter Bagge's Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me = funny+thoughtful. I eschew Libertarian politics but he has some great points
9/25/2010    Amazon says 'X'ed Out' by Charles Burns will be out in October. Anyone read an early review copy? Looks good
9/26/2010    'The Last Musketeer' is a cartoon movie serial, mixing 3 musketeers, robots & alien invasions, yet still chivalrous
9/26/2010    I found 'You Can't Get There From Here' the least engaging. Frankenstein & monster have girl troubles.
9/26/2010    'Tell Me Something', similar to "Living & Dead", minus the zombies, plus thieves. Somehow more engaging."
9/26/2010    'Meow, Baby!' Jason strip & short gag stories w/mummies, skeletons, zombies & angels. In vein of laconic Gary Larson"
9/26/2010    'Almost Silent' by Jason collects "Meow, Baby" "Tell Me Something" "You Can't Get there..." & "The Living & The Dead"
9/26/2010    'Pocket Full of Rain' is Jason's "origin story." Collected from "Mjau Mjau" magazine, interesting in its unevenness."
9/26/2010    If you like silent films, romance flicks, or zombie movies, check out 'The Living and the Dead'. A sweet tale."
9/26/2010    Bits of weekend were filled with Jason's blank-eyed dog/crow people. After 3 books (see link) wanted to fill the set...
9/26/2010    'Hey, Wait...' is Jason's "A Separate Peace" carried through to the end.
10/1/2010    Been reading Rucka's 'Queen & Country Vol. 1'. Tight spy action in vein of Le Carre, but with strong female character.
10/1/2010    Now 'Queen & Country Vol 2' I'm liking Carla Speed McNeil's rendition of characters. None of the art pulls any punches
10/2/2010    Some comics I'm a total sucker for. eg: 'Tom Strong' is Doc Savage re-imagined w/a polyethnic/species cast
10/2/2010    Also Peter Bagge's 'Apocalypse Nerd'. Gotta love it 'cause he takes pot-shots at everyone, an epic Hate-fest
10/8/2010    Underground, by Jeff Parker & Steve Lieber, mentioned on BoingBoing today
10/13/2010    Anyone disillusioned w/voting this fall _must_ read 'Citizen Vince'. Gangsters v Pols in this Reagan era novel
10/23/2010    Reading 'Ocean' by Warren Ellis. Cool hard-tech solar system space thriller.
10/29/2010    Steve Lieber & Jeff Parker's "Underground" in glorious black & white."
11/16/2010    Getting 'The Freak Brothers Omnibus' for my birthday. Of all the drug-culture #comix, these guys are the funniest
11/16/2010    Also got 'Best American Comics Criticism'. Interesting love/HATE piece on Spider-man by Peter Bagge, & other essays
11/17/2010    The Freak Brothers showed up on my doorstep today
11/25/2010    Lying in bed reading the 'The Freak Brothers Omnibus'
12/4/2010    Reading Greg Rucka's "Queen & Country vol 3." Then going to get an x-mas tree
12/4/2010    Later... I'll pick up Naoki Urasawa's "20th Century Boys, Vol. 11". The twists & turns of the story are compelling
12/14/2010    Reading '3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man.' a 3-sided tale of a poor giant hired by the CIA in the 60's.
12/14/2010    Naoki Urasawa's '20th Century Boys' is still compelling @ vol 11. How many more? Some twists in this one!
12/15/2010    Some musings on "3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man" #graphicnovels #comics"
12/20/2010    Reading 'CHEW Vol. 1.' Mix of humor, sci-fi, "men in black" & cannibalism (mostly humor). Hard for some to stomach?
12/20/2010    Also on my "to read" pile: Chester Brown's "Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography" Looks great!"
12/29/2010    Jason's "dead mickey"

Meanwhile...

2011-03-12T10:39:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia Whatever happened to the dramatic soap-opera type comics that used to be in the daily papers? Probably fifty years ago some families would follow these sagas from day to day as the tensions built, and unwound. Today the Oregon still has Judge Parker, but it's been banished from to comic section, left to wander the classifieds.

Meanwhile, Mary Worth, Mark Trail, Rex Morgan MD, Apartment 3-G and Steve Roper drift along, still drawn, but drawing hardly any attention.

Here are some panels I clipped from those odd strips in the 80's, when they'd already lost readership. The story is frozen in time...

Black Terror in Exciting Comics #61

2011-03-09T23:14:00.000-08:00

In 1948 superheroes were losing their popularity, and comic fans were shifting their interests toward gangsters, teen and romance stories, and Westerns. Exciting Comics #61 from May, 1948 is a microcosm of that sentiment. Previously the Black Terror dominated the cover of this series, but in 1948 the covers feature mostly Judy of the Jungle. A few issues later, with Exciting Comics #67, the format drops superheroes entirely and changes to a Western comic, then ends its run.

The contents of comic reflect the publisher's confusion. Inside is an 8-page Judy of the Jungle story "The Deadly Triangle" by Ralph Mayo, this 10-page Black Terr story "The Deadly Choice" with art by Mort Lawrence, a three-page text story called "King of the Chimpanzees" by Charles S Strong and masthead art by Ralph Mayo, a one-pager gag called Zippy by Al Hartley, an eight-page Roger Dodger story by Art Gates, a story with Rick Howard, the Mystery Rider by a mystery artist, a 2-page "how-to" called Junior Judo, subtitled "Another Real Lesson in Judo" by and the last story is the last appearance ever of Strut Simmons in a 7-page story by Ed Good.

A side note about Mort Lawrence, who probably drew this Black Terror story. He is best known for his work on Atlas Comics' Young Men series (1953–1954) which reintroduced Captain America and Bucky as communist hunting super-heroes. He does a respectable job on this story, and I especially like the final two panels. You can see more of Lawrence's work here.

Here's the summary of "The Deadly Choice": A crime boss named Torch is released after five years of jail time and, despite the pleas from his girlfriend Candy, is determined to get his revenge on the D.A. who put him away. He hears the D.A.'s little girl has a rare disease called Cardocomitis, and plans to steal the girl's medicine. Fortunately for the D.A. and his daughter, pharmacist Bob Benton (aka The Black Terror), and his assistant Tim (aka Tim), are delivering the Cardocin medicine.

The thugs break in and grab the medicine. To avoid further danger to the DA and his daughter Bob and Tim let the thieves go, but as soon as they're clear the Terror Twins burst into action. I love the panel where they're crashing through the D.A.'s front door. This is the panel that shows of their powers the most, unfortunately they aren't in costume.

The thugs get away, and Bob decides to run an ad in the paper offering $10,000 to anyone who can provide some Cardomicin serum. Time is short, the girl can't last more than 3 days without her medicine, but luckily Torch answers the ad. For the meeting with the crime boss, Bob and Tim pose as an aging industrialist and his wife and pay a visit to the gangsters.

A fight ensues (still not in costume) and in the confusion Candy grabs the medicine in an effort to take it to the D.A.'s daughter. The chase ends up at the railroad yards where Torch tries to shoot his girlfriend. Candy pulls her own gun. "Don't make me do it, Torch," she says. "Ugh! I didn't thing you'd..." he replies.

The final two panels are my favorite in the story: "It'll be hard for a while, Candy-- but you'll forget." Says the Black Terror to Candy."Some day you'll be able to live the kind of life you really want."
"And you saved a kid's life..." adds Tim.

Reflecting the movement away from superheroes, this story is also a microcosm of the passage from superheroes in the 40's to the gangster comics in the 50's.The Terror Twins are hardly ever in costume, and show almost none of their powers. Except for the pharmacist angle, this story could have had Mickey Spillane characters rather than superheroes.

There's an emphasis on gangster dialogue, so much that it's almost annoying. Note the 6th panel of the 2nd page where the thug says "r-e-e-t" or during the fight scene on page 6 "pardon my boardin' house reach, toots!"

Unlike the earlier Black Terror stories, Jean is nowhere to be found. The leading lady is clearly Candy. She's drawn as if draped over the page, sultry, bad, yet trying so hard to be good.

I thought the caricatures were much more pronounced in these stories, almost in the style of Will Eisner or Jack Cole. Take, for example, The Torch's right-hand man Snake. Also, the artist took seemed to have a lot of fun drawing Candy throughout the story, and also the scenes when Bob and Tim are posing as the industrialist and his wife. Note, too, the curve of the car as it moves across the traintracks in the 3rd to last page.

Atmostpheric - Amazing Fantasy #15 sells for $1.1 million

2011-03-09T15:07:00.000-08:00

ComicConnect.com sold a copy of the first appearance of Spider-Man, Amazing Fantasy #15, for $1.1 million. According to Time Magazine that beats an auction of "Detective Comics #27, Batman's first appearance from 1939, to become the second most expensive comic ever sold (Suitably, Superman's first appearance in 1938's Action Comics #1 remains in first place; a copy sold last year for $1.5 million)."

Comics A.M. quotes the CEO of ComicConnect.com on the sale. “The fact that a 1962 comic has sold for $1.1 million is a bit of a record-shattering event," says Stephen Fishler, "That something that recent can sell for that much and be that valuable is awe-inspiring.”

Last weekend at the Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle a vendor had 5 of these in sealed CGC protectors. I was drooling over them, but didn't bother to ask the price. My son, however, was more interested in the Scott Pilgrim T-shirt he'd just bought. I can't help but wonder where to draw the line between fine art, nostalgia, madness and imagination. In this case are we seeing people who grew up with Spider-Man amassing enough money to purchase back their childhood?

I'm reminded of one time I was at my local comic book store Excalibur Comics in Portland. They had a copy of Amazing Fantasy for sale in the neighborhood of $500. A patron, who was a mechanic for the import garage from down the street, was calculating how many cars he'd have to fix to cover the cost of the comic (answer: 3).

Condition is everything when it comes to these types of prices, and it comes down to an ephemerality which borders on something closer to religious faith, or homeopathy. In contrast to the $1.1 million version of the comic, you can buy a Very Fine copy of Amazing Fantasy today from the same place that had the auction for only $160,000. These buyers, however, are pushing into the Wall Street investment area. Personally, I prefer to read my comics.

Incidentally, the one in the picture from the Time Magazine article (which I've shown above) is probably not the one that sold for $1.1 million. There's too much "Marvel chipping" on the picture.

Black Terror #11 - Part 2 "The Discovery"

2011-02-23T00:03:00.000-08:00

Although it doesn't have an obvious title, I've seen this story called "The Discovery".

This, and the 1-page text story "Peruvian Boy" by William B McClellan comic reflect FDR's "Good Neighbor Policy" and the US's focus on South America during WWII. In a way the clinical description of the geography of Chile has the feel of Disney's animated movies of the time, "Saludos Amigos" (1942) and "The Three Caballeros" (1944). Either that, or Nedor publications was just trying to ride on the coat-tails of an exotic location that had worked its way into popular culture.

The plot of this Black Terror story nearly parallels "Black Terror vs the Voice." Bob Benton gets a letter from an old friend, Dick Johnson, who has discovered a new source of gold on an island off the coast of South America. An analysis of the sample included with the letter shows it's not only rich in gold, but also platinum, and pitchblend which indicates the presence of radium. Bob decides to visit his friend, and just as he's inviting Tim along, Jean shows up and horns her way into the adventure.

Meanwhile Roger Chilling, the man who killed Dick's father, has his gang attack Dick, drive off his dog Thor, and bury the miner in the ground up to his neck.

Another "...meanwhile" and we discover the plane carrying Bob, Tim and Jean over the equator is being hijacked. The air pirates bring the plane down on an uncharted island, ruin the engine and leave in their own floatplane, stranding our heroes along with the rest of the air passengers. Luckily Tim and Bob jump into a nearby thicket and become the Terror Twins. They use their superhuman strength to create a rope bridge to the mainland, saving all the plane's passengers.

On the mainland they discover it's still a three-day trip by boat to Salvator Chile, so they commandeer a dugout and take Jean on the canoe ride of her life. From Salvator they're given a plane to fly to Baldpate Island.

Hearing the plane, Roger Chilling and his thugs run for their hideout. Luckily for Dick, Thor leads the Terror Twins straight to his master. The Black Terror and Tim are about to overwhelm the thugs when, somehow, they are overcome and knocked out.

The criminals toss the Terror Twins, and Dick into an underground river, then take Jean as hostage while they finish gathering soil samples to stake their claim. They're about to leave in the plan when Dick's dog stops them, only to be shot by one of the gangsters.

Through sheer will, and a little strength, the Terror Twins escape from the underground river and save Dick. They find Dick's dog, who turned out to be only wounded, and his scuttled boat, and they sail it full speed for the Chilean mainland. Once in Salvator they alert the authorities, who give the Terror Twins a fighter plane and also scramble the Chilean and Bolivian air forces to stop the thugs. In a two-panel finale, the Black Terror leaps from his plan to the fugitives' plane and arrests them.

Some questions the story raises:

Why did Roger Chilling kill Dick's father five years ago, and why doesn't he shoot Dick, rather than bury him up to his neck?
Why was the plane hijacked? Did the air pirates know Bob Benton / The Black Terror was on the plane? It's a complete hole in the story.
Once more Bob and Tim find themselves in a completely isolated setting, and Jean appears not to connect the dots between the pharmacist and the Black Terror... or does she? When she sees him coming out of the bushes she says "The Black Terror! I knew you'd turn up, somehow!" Is that a hint of sarcasm in her speech balloon?
What are the Terror Twins' powers? Strength, mostly, but their heads are apparently not invulnerable. Both Tim and The Black Terror are knocked unconcious on pages seven and eight by the butt of a gun. That leads me to ask again: why didn't the criminals just shoot them?
Why do the criminals have to file the claim in the US? Is Baldpate Island a US territory? (Or, perhaps a TERRORtory?) If it's off the coast of Chile it seems like they'd have to visit the Chilean authorities.

I love the care the artist put into making Dick's dog Thor a Bull Terrier. It really makes the dog sympathetic... a lot more than Dick, actually. I also like the script lettering in the captions, as well as the organic panels. It doesn't really add much to the layout, but I feel like the artist really cared about the captions.

Black Terror #11 - Part One "The Voice"

2011-02-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

As opposed to America's Best Comics, which had an anthology of heroes, Black Terror comics focused mainly on the eponymous hero, with a couple of text stories and gag strips thrown in on the side. The Black Terror #11 from August 1945 has two Black Terror stories, a 1-page text story called "Luzon Luck" by Charles S. Strong, a 1-page text story by Tex Mumford called "The Bank Bandits", a Mortimer Magic story by the cartoonist known as VEP (Victor E. Pazmiño), a 1-page text story "Peruvian Boy" by William B McClellan, and a 1-page cartoon called Adam the Chimp.

The lead-in for "The Voice" captures you with a cool image: "A gigantic skull and crossbones in the sky herald a mysterious death to the chosen victims of 'The Voice'! Guided by the whispered clues of dying men, Bob Benton, alias the Black Terror, and his fighting partner, Tim, go west for another spine-tingling, victorious adventure!"

In this story Bob and Tim travel west to Nevada to see an old classmate of Bob's named Fred Swanson. Fred's neighbors have been mysteriously killed after seeing a flying skull and crossbones. Bob, Tim and their friend Jean fly to Fred's property in Nevada to investigate. That night, after arriving at Fred's shack, the mysterious skull and crossbones appear in the sky as a harbinger of death. It turns out the gruesome sight is just painted on the underside of a weird helicopter. The Black Terror leaps to catch hold of the helicopter as it swings low only to be thrown to the ground. The eerie chopper emits some poisonous gas and then escapes without a sound. "Probably some special engine designed to let the plane sneak up on its enemies. No wonder the murdered men thought they'd been attacked by a ghost!"

Running as super-speed they somehow manage to find the helicopter's secret hangar where they're captured by The Voice. The Voice is sinister-looking character in a purple hood and robe with a skull and crossbones instead of his face. He decides to test his "hemoline gas" on the Terror Twins. Meanwhile, Jean and Fred have been captured and are also brought to the secret base.

As The Voice is locking them in the gas chamber he describes his nefarious plot. "I am an expert on gases--I made it my hobby because I suffered severely from gas in the last war!" He continues "at dawn I will wipe out the entire city of Elkwater...then I'll be in control of one hundred square miles from which to launch me attacks against all America. Mines, factories, human beings...all will work at my command."

As the gas chamber with the Terror Twins begins to fill with hemoline gas, The Voice leaves to commence his plot. Luckily the Black Terror recognizes that the hemoline gas is heavier than air -- if the can only let the gas attack their shackles first they will then be able to break the chains and escape. Fortunately, it works out and they free Jean and Fred.

In the final page our heroes steal one of The Voice's helicopters, leap from plane to plane, kill the henchmen with one of the villain's own hemoline gas bombs, and capture the ringleader. In the last panel Fred congratulates the Black Terror. "You've done a wonderful service to the people of Nevada and all of America, Terror! But I wonder if you can find my friend Bob Benton for me?"

Things to note: Although Tim offered to ask Jean to come along in America's Best Comics #15, he's downright disappointed to find her waiting for them at the airport. Fred Swanson is also put out by Jean's presence when the arrive in Nevada. "I'm glad you could make it so soon, but I didn't know you'd bring a lady along." You'd almost think that Bob was more popular with the guys than the gals.

Again, Bob disappears just as the Black Terror shows up, which might be explained away. But in this case they're in the middle of the friggin' Nevada desert. Wouldn't Jean wonder why the Black Terror was out West? But, even at the last panel neither Fred nor Jean wonder where the Black Terror came from, or why Bob is missing.

Why did the villain name himself The Voice? Given his mastery of gases, and his pirate insignia on his hood, why didn't he call himself The Gas Pirate, or something more obvious. And shouldn't his silent airship have been a dirigible rather than a helicopter? The gas theme was sort of scattershot. I mean, why would someone who's been scarred by mustard gas in WWI take up a hobby of poisonous gases? In any case, the design of the costume for The Voice is pretty cool.

Interestingly enough, since a gas gave the Black Terror his powers, one would think that Bob Benton could use his ingenuity to combat the voice, but he doesn't. I found a slightly different version of BT's origin on this website:

Pharmacist Bob Benton was being harassed for protection money. After he convinced the goons to give him one more day, they stormed out - knocking down teenager Tim Roland on the way. Feeling bad for Tim, Benton hired him as his assistant.

That evening, Benton and Tim were working on Bob's secret project - trying to develop a formula to help "run down people," as Bob puts it. Tim accidentally adds formic acid, which comes from red ants. The resulting "formic ethers" gave Benton super strength and invulnerability. He decided to use these powers to fight crime, starting with the goons who were hounding him. He sent Tim to a costume shop and then became the Black Terror.

After putting an end to their racket, Tim learned of a plot to crash a subway train. The Black Terror went to prevent the crash. Tim, thinking the Terror may need help, reproduced the experiment and developed the same powers as Bob. Tim showed up in the nick of time and the crash was prevented.

The powers of the Terror Twins seem especially inconsistent in this story. The Black Terror can leap from the ground to the helicopter, punch through a porthole, and hold his breath through poison gas, yet a single punch on the chin knocks him free of the plan. Both Tim and the Black Terror can run for miles very quickly, tear down 10-inch roof beams and bend steel bars, but they're both felled when hit by stout pieces of wood.

This story, however, gives the Terror Twins more opportunities to show off their fighting styles. I like the sequence where Bob leaps up, grabs the propeller, then Tim tries to do the same but is thrown off. The action, like the panel frames, feels very organic.

And the Schomburg cover, as always, is great. I like how the robbers look like humanized versions of the Beagle Boys. The frightened tellers also have some great expressions.

The Comics Bin

5PPDMY2R3S52

CBR's Top 100 Comics of 2011

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Meanwhile...

Black Terror in Exciting Comics #61

Atmostpheric - Amazing Fantasy #15 sells for $1.1 million

Black Terror #11 - Part 2 "The Discovery"

Black Terror #11 - Part One "The Voice"