I am currently reading Jay Disbrow's Monster Invasion.
Last night I was reading Tom Peyer's editorial in Howl #4, in which he had this to say about Disbrow:
Lately I've been learning about one I'd been only dimly aware of: Jay Disbrow. During the time I've been taking about [early '50s], he was drawing and writing short horror stories, all of which featured monsters. "The horrible Entity," "The Thing From the Void." "Creeping Death." (Available in Jay Disbrow's Monster Invasion, a hardcover compendium published by Craig Yoe, the John the Baptist of comics like these.) The monster stories would have put him well withing the blast radius of Senate hearings and magazine articles by concerned child psychologists. The detonation came in 1954, driving 80% of publishers out of business. Suddenly, Jay Disbrow and a lot of others had to go out and find jobs.
Then it occurred to me: "Hey! I have that book!" (I have all of Craig Yoe's "Chilling Archives of Horror Comics" series.) Then Peyer wen on to discuss Disbrow's The Flames of Gyro...
Disbrow resurfaced a quarter century later with The Flames of Gyro, the first comic book published by, of all publishers, Fantagraphics. It was a straight, heroic space opera like Flash Gordon. It felt like a very old comic but for one thing: the mind of Disbrow, now in his 50s, had apparently been blown away by Star Wars, as shown by the meth-load of detail on his spaceships. Indeed, the whole art job, done in grey tones, was made of effort. The figures could be stiff, the anatomy slightly cnfused, but that gave the work its flavor. Disbrow loved space opera. You looked at Gyro and knew that this is what he'd been needing to do all along.
I wish I had that. Peyer went on to provide a link to Aroc of Zenith, 312 installments of an online, Sunday-format color strip, which debuted in January of 2000. That is what I'm going to be reading next. Take a look, won't you?
Replies
More about Jay Disbrow.
I am loving this strip! (Aroc of Zenith) I have fallen into the habit of reading at least one strip per day, but usually more. (Basically, I read one every time I sit down at my computer.) I was going to wait until #104 (one third of the way through) before commenting again, but I just can't wait. (Check out strip #82.)