AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #700
AQUAMAN #15
AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #15.1
BEFORE WATCHMEN NITE OWL #4
CROSSED BADLANDS #20
DEATHMATCH #1
EERIE PRESENTS EL CID HC
HIP FLASK OUROBOROUS
JUSTICE LEAGUE #15
MARA #1
SHADOW SPECIAL #1
STAR WARS OMNIBUS CLONE WARS TP V.3
This short list comes from Comics & Collectibles of Memphis. Arrivals at your local comics store may vary.
Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
July 12, 2011 -- In the early part of the twentieth century, the United States had the world’s most amazing and unique comic strips, a legacy of innovation and irresistible storytelling almost forgotten today. Which is just one of the reasons I’m grateful for The Comics: The Complete Collection (Abrams ComicArt, $40), by Brian Walker.
Walker, who previously released this book in two volumes, is a comic-strip expert who has worked in every aspect of the field. He is part of a team producing new strips (“Beetle Bailey,” “Hi & Lois”), has taught cartoon history at the School of Visual Arts, was director at the Museum of Cartoon Art, served as editor of Collector’s Showcase and has written both books and magazine articles on the subject.
Walker is such a scholar that, if there’s a flaw in the book, it is his relentless amassing of minutiae. Walker is so thorough, so methodical and so academic that this can be a formidable and forbidding tome to the newcomer.
But for those of with a love of the medium it’s virtually indispensible. In the first few chapters alone Walker demolished a host of myths about R.F. Outcault’s “The Yellow Kid” that I had taken as gospel for decades. From there Walker’s work is one discovery after another. Like which strips were owned by the syndicate and which by the artists (which often forced major artists elsewhere, like Roy Crane leaving “Captain Easy” to start “Buz Sawyer”). Like how the phrase “hot dog” got popularized (Tad Dorgan’s “Inside Sports”), or what katzenjammer means (German for “cats howling,” and a popular ‘20s euphemism for a hangover) and why a “Rube Goldberg device” is still a catchphrase.
Walker also brings an artist’s eye to how many amazing, uniquely American early strips got started and what effect they had, like the surreal “Krazy Kat” (George Herriman), the intricate “Little Nemo in Slumberland” (Winsor McCay) and the art Deco “Bringing up Father” (George McManus). He continues with the rise of strips through their heyday, and later fall, examining not only the strips themselves and giants like Milton Caniff (“Terry and the Pirates”), Al Capp (“Li’l Abner’) and Walt Kelly (“Pogo”), but the now-declining business of comic strips and even the marketing (think “Buster Brown shoes” plus radio, television and movie spinoffs).
Naturally, there are hundreds, if not thousands of actual comic strips included. Combine that with interviews and biographies of major American cartoonists, and Comics: The Complete Collection lives up to its name. This book is so comprehensive and full of valuable information that superlatives simply fail me.
Speaking of important comic strips, author Craig Yoe has contributed Krazy Kat and the Art of George Herriman: A Celebration (Abrams ComicArts, $29.95).
Most people are familiar with the strip’s basics, but almost nobody knows what it means. Ignatz Mouse hates the androgynous Krazy Kat, whom he routinely bops in the head with a brick, which the smitten feline interprets as a valentine, but Offissa Pupp regards as criminal behavior (especially since he is enamored of the cat) and routinely jails the surly mouse. All this occurs in a vaguely Southwestern U.S. landscape that morphs and/or moves from panel to panel.
Celebration collects rare essays by names big and small who interpret this strange triangle in a myriad of ways. Some note that Herriman was “Negro” on his birth certificate, but “Caucasian” on his death certificate, which is fascinating all on its own – but was racial uncertainty or insecurity a factor in “Krazy Kat”? And if so, for God’s sake, someone explain how!
Alas, Celebration does not end the mystery of “Krazy Kat,” but simply informs it. And, you know, that’s exactly how it should be.
If all this comics history arouses a taste for some seminal comic strips, look no further than Fantagraphics’ “Captain Easy” collections. This series (it’s up to volume two, $39 each) collects Roy Crane’s Sunday pages about the good-natured “soldier of fortune,” which were prequels to the dailies Crane was producing at the same time, which paired an older Easy with the strip’s original star, Wash Tubbs.
Collected in oversize hardbacks that present the pages at their original size, these beautiful books restore one of the original adventure heroes of the strips – the affable (albeit two-fisted) mercenary who was much more interested in excitement than money or women, which is what he was supposedly after. Easy moved through a more innocent – and largely unexplored – world, and there’s no better word for this adventure strip than “charming.”
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
Cartoon Network’s Young Justice cartoon isn’t your daddy’s Teen Titans. It’s not even your older brother’s.
Young Justice is its own animal by virtue of playing mix and match with the various teen sidekicks from different eras of DC superhero comics, plus inventing a couple more. For example, the show features the original Robin at age 13, even though in the comics he hasn’t been that age since the 1950s. By contrast, YJ features the contemporary comic-book version of Superboy, a teen cloned from Superman in 1993.
One new character is a black Aqualad, although the original in the comics was white (and is dead). Evidently DC liked what they saw, since the new guy was recently introduced as Aquaman’s partner in the comics, too. Another new character may be confusing if you know too much; she’s a girl archer named Artemis who is NOT A) the Amazon warrior with that name in Wonder Woman comics, or B) the girl archer in the 1998-2003 Young Justice series named Arrowette.
But you don’t need to know all that to enjoy the cartoon. The ensemble cast is fine without prior knowledge, and entertains by depicting the interactions of an immature Robin, a reckless Kid Flash, a brooding Superboy, a flighty Miss Martian, and so forth. The flirting, fighting and search for identity and acceptance all ring true.
My one complaint is how they portray the Justice League. The show’s premise, you see, is that the sidekicks had demanded to join the League and be treated as adults. But that wouldn’t create a show starring that all-important demographic, the teenager. So story considerations required heroes like Superman to refuse to associate with the kids, and force them instead to become a covert superhero team. That’s not only more dangerous, it’s cruel. Thankfully, these jerks masquerading as super friends don’t show up much, except for Batman (assignments), Black Canary (combat trainer) and Red Tornado (supervisor).
And it seems to be working; Young Justice has been renewed for a second season. If you can’t wait, Warner Home Video released the first four episodes on DVD July 19 as Young Justice: Season One, Volume One ($14.97) and DC Kids has launched a companion comic book.
REPRINT ROUNDUP
* Sweet Tooth is ongoing mature-readers series set in a post-apocalyptic America where a plague has wiped out most of humanity, and animal/human hybrids are being born. These hybrids are immune to the plague, and are pursued by the ruthless human survivors for their secret. The eponymous star is one such hybrid, a boy with antlers who loves chocolate. Hence, “Sweet Tooth.”
I have to say I’m not a fan of the impressionistic art style of writer/artist Jeff Lemire (Nobody). On the other hand, my wife is crazy about every aspect of the book, so it’s really a matter of taste.
You can judge for yourself with the latest collection, Sweet Tooth Vol. 3: Animal Armies (DC/Vertigo, $14.99). Collecting Sweet Tooth #12-17, this volume sheds some light on the plague’s origin, re-unites Sweet Tooth with the big man who’d sold him for experiments (and has since had a change of heart) and begins a quest to learn Sweet Tooth’s origins.
Naturally, all of this complicated by the usual inhabitants of an apocalypse: brutal survivors, religious fanatics, mad scientists and rogue militias. Which, in Lemire’s hands, feel fresh. I may not care for the art, but Sweet Tooth is an absorbing and disturbing read.
* When Deluxe Comics re-launched a beloved 1960s series in 1984 as Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, I bought them while holding my nose. I was a purist, you see, and was irritated by the title and concept, because Wally Wood – the heart and soul of the series – had died in 1981. I didn’t think of these characters as the “real” agents of The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserve.
Now DC has reprinted those five issues as T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archives Volume Seven ($59.99), and I was surprised: They were much better than I remembered. With work by Rich Buckler, Dave Cockrum, Paul Gulacy, Jerry Ordway and George Perez, it is more consistent in quality than the original 1960s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, which featured two or three superstars (like Wood) but also a whole lot of drek. Given that DC has re-launched T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents currently with the welcome revelation that all previous stories remain in continuity, this volume of obscure stories is simply that much more necessary for any hard-core comics fan.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
Archie’s Kevin Keller is a first in a lot of ways. He’s the first openly gay teenager in Riverdale. He’s the first Archie character to spin off into his own eponymous miniseries. Heck, that four-issue miniseries is itself a first for Archie Comics; they’ve never done one before.
Actually, Archie is hedging a bit on that last part: Kevin Keller #1, which arrived June 15, is also Veronica #207. But that’s a technicality, and probably has more to do with in-house scheduling than any doubts about Kevin, whose name is emblazoned proudly across the top of the cover.
And Archie Comics has a lot to be proud of with Kevin Keller #1. Not only is Kevin gay, he is – thankfully – no-big-deal gay. It’s just an aspect of his character, not the whole of it. He’s a character, not a cause.
That’s the reality most teens deal with it on a daily basis, gay or straight or anything in between. In fact, you could read most of Kevin Keller and drop another new character in his place.
The series is meant to provide his background; the mechanism is two friends from one of Kevin’s previous schools, who drop by and give the Riverdale gang an opportunity to quiz them about Kevin’s past. As it turns out, it’s a background a lot of kids can identify with: Kevin’s an Army brat, who has moved around a lot; he and his two pals were unpopular geeks; the three of them were pudgy, gawky, or otherwise unattractive until they grew out of it; they dealt with bullies.
Where “teh gay” comes into play is the story of Kevin coming out, and it’s a scenario that would be the envy of many gay teens. His parents are understanding, and don’t freak out. His Army officer father even affirms: “I’ll always love you, no matter what. … You’re the best son a father could have.” The only hint of difficulty is a veiled warning from Col. Keller to Kevin about the latter’s plans for joining the military. Could it be a reference to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”? We don’t know yet.
Anyway, that’s probably not the coming-out experience most gay teens have, so it could be criticized as unrealistic. I choose to see it as an affirmation of what Riverdale has always been: The fantasy of an average American town where everyone feels safe, comfortable and wanted.
Surprisingly, Kevin fits snugly into the Riverdale gang more than other late additions over the years, like Chuck Clayton and Cheryl Blossom. He and Veronica share a lot of interests, so he provides her the BFF that rival Betty could never be. The snappy patter between her, Kevin and Jughead is comfortable, and Kevin’s niche seems natural and unforced.
Credit goes to Dan Parent, who created Kevin Keller and is the writer/artist on the miniseries. Parent draws in what used to be the company’s house style, so his work is comfortable, professional and un-flashy.
Which pretty much sums up Kevin Keller. It’s as good as any Archie comic out there, and that’s saying a lot.
REPRINT ROUNDUP
* I held off buying the new hardback series collecting Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, because I already have complete reprint collections of that ground-breaking comic strip. But I finally broke down and bought Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-38 (Fantagraphics, $29.99), and I’m glad I did. The reproduction is crisp, and the strips are presented the size they originally ran, that of a newspaper broadsheet. This is how Foster’s gorgeous artwork was meant to be seen, and I have to be careful not to drool on the pages.
* When Fawcett Comics stopped creating new Captain Marvel stories in 1953, the company that reprinted them in the UK tasked writer/artist Mick Anglo to create a similar, substitute superhero called Marvelman. After that eventually ended, the character remained in limbo until Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman famously reworked Marvelman in the 1980s into an apocalyptic, deconstructionist meditation on power and morality (reprinted in America as Miracleman to avoid conflict with Marvel Comics).
The rights to Miracleman are famously tied up in court, but Marvel Comics has begun reprinting Anglo’s version of the character in its original black and white. I finally picked up Marvelman Classic Volume 1 ($34.99), and just as I’d heard, these stories from 1953-54 are aimed at kids and are extremely derivative and simplistic. Marvelman Classic might be of value for comics historians, but not for casual readers.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com
7 WARRIORS #3 (OF 3) (MR)
ACTIVITY #2
ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN HC
ALL NEW BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #15
ALPHA FLIGHT BY PAK AND VAN LENTE PREM HC VOL 01
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #677
ARCHIE BEST OF DAN DECARLO HC VOL 03
AVENGERS 1959 #5 (OF 5)
AVENGERS BY BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS TP VOL 02
BATGIRL #5
BATMAN AND ROBIN #5
BATMAN THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS HC
BATTLE SCARS #3 (OF 6)
BATWOMAN #5
BLACK PANTHER MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE #528
BLUE ESTATE TP VOL 02 (MR)
BRILLIANT #2 (MR)
BTVS SEASON 9 FREEFALL #5 JEANTY VAR CVR
BTVS SEASON 9 FREEFALL #5 MORRIS CVR
CAPTAIN AMERICA #7
CARNAGE USA #2 (OF 5)
CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #66
COBRA ANNUAL 2012 ORIGIN OF COBRA COMMANDER #1
COLTS MANNING 14 INCH PLUSH (C: 1-1-3)
COLTS MANNING 7 INCH PLUSH (C: 1-1-3)
COMIC SHOP NEWS 90CT BUNDLE #1282 (NET)
DAKEN DARK WOLVERINE #19
DARK MATTER #1 (OF 4)
DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BATTLE OF TULL PREM HC
DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER WAY STATION #2 (OF 5)
DARKNESS #97 CVR A HAUN (MR)
DC UNIVERSE ONLINE LEGENDS #21
DEADPOOL #49
DEATHSTROKE #5
DEMON KNIGHTS #5
DOCTOR WHO ONGOING VOL 2 #13
DR WHO MAGAZINE #442 (C: 0-1-2)
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 100 PAGE SPECTACULAR
ESSENTIAL MARVEL TWO IN ONE TP VOL 04
FANBOY MAKE YOUR OWN COMIC BOOK (NET) (O/A) (C: 1-1-3)
FEAR ITSELF AVENGERS PREM HC
FEAR ITSELF GHOST RIDER PREM HC
FLASH TP VOL 01 THE DASTARDLY DEATH OF THE ROGUES
FORMIC WARS SILENT STRIKE #2 (OF 5)
FRANKENSTEIN AGENT OF SHADE #5
GERONIMO STILTON HC VOL 09 WEIRD BOOK MACHINE
GHOST RIDER BY DANIEL WAY ULTIMATE COLLECTION TP
GHOST RIDER CYCLE OF VENGEANCE #1
GHOST RIDER OFF INDEX TO MARVEL UNIVERSE GN TP
GI JOE A REAL AMERICAN HERO #174
GREEN LANTERN #5
GREEN LANTERN #5 VAR ED
GRIFTER #5
HAUNTED MANSION HC VOL 01 WELCOME FOOLISH MORTAL (O/A)
HELLRAISER TP VOL 02 (MR)
HP LOVECRAFT THE DUNWICH HORROR #4 (OF 4)
INCREDIBLE HULK #4
INVINCIBLE #87
INVINCIBLE TP VOL 15 GET SMART
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #633
KULL THE CAT & THE SKULL #4 (OF 4)
LEGION LOST #5
LOBSTER JOHNSON THE BURNING HAND #1 (OF 5) JOHNSON CVR
LOGANS RUN AFTERMATH #4 (RES)
MAGNETO NOT A HERO #3 (OF 4)
MARVEL UNIVERSE AF ASST 201107 (C: 1-1-3)
MEGA MAN #9 REG CVR
MISADVENTURES OF ADAM WEST #2 (MR)
MISADVENTURES OF ADAM WEST #3 (MR)
MISTER TERRIFIC #5
MONSTER MESS HC
MORIARTY #8
MY GREATEST ADVENTURE #4 (OF 6)
MYSTIC TENTH APPRENTICE TP
NEW AVENGERS #20
NORTHANGER ABBEY #3 (OF 5)
NORTHLANDERS #47 (MR)
OPERATION BROKEN WINGS 1936 #3 (OF 3) (MR)
ORCHID #4
PC CAST HOUSE OF NIGHT #3 (OF 5)
PIGS #5 (MR)
POKEMON BLACK & WHITE GN VOL 05 (C: 1-0-0) (PP #997)
PREACHER HC BOOK 06 (MR)
PUNISHERMAX #21 (MR)
RAY #2 (OF 4)
RESURRECTION MAN #5
ROGER LANGRIDGES SNARKED #4
SCALPED #55 (MR)
SCARLET SPIDER #1
SCARLET SPIDER #1 BLANK VAR (NET)
SECRET AVENGERS #21
SEVERED #6 (OF 7) (MR)
SFX #217 (C: 0-1-1)
SHADE #4 (OF 12)
SMURFS GN VOL 10 RETURN OF SMURFETTE
SNAKE EYES ONGOING (IDW) #9
SPAWN #215
SPIDER-MAN COMPLETE BEN REILLY EPIC TP BOOK 03
SPIDER-MAN SPIDER-ISLAND HC
STAND NIGHT HAS COME #6 (OF 6)
STAR WARS AGENT O/T EMPIRE IRON ECLIPSE #2 (OF 5) (C: 1-0-0)
STAR WARS FIG COLL MAG #43 SNOWTROOPER (C: 0-1-3)
STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC WAR #1 (OF 5) CARRE CV
STAR WARS LEGACY TP VOL 11 WAR (C: 0-1-2)
SUICIDE SQUAD #5
SUPER HEROES #22
SUPERBOY #5
THE OCCULTIST #3 (OF 3)
THE STRAIN #2 (OF 12)
TRANSFORMERS MORE THAN MEETS EYE ONGOING #1
ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #6
UNWRITTEN #33 (MR)
UNWRITTEN TP VOL 05 ON TO GENESIS (MR)
WOLVERINE #300
WOLVERINE #300 BLANK VAR (NET)
WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #4 XREGG
WOLVERINE BEST THERE IS BROKEN QUARANTINE PREM HC
WOLVERINE BEST THERE IS CONTAGION TP
X-FACTOR #230 XREGG
X-MEN LEGACY #260.1
YOUNG JUSTICE TP VOL 01
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
April 12, 2011 -- It’s cliché to say that comics aren’t just for kids any more, but sometimes neither are superhero cartoons.
Case in point is Batman: The Brave and the Bold, now in its third and last season. Maybe its impending demise has emboldened the creators to take the gauntlets off, but recent episodes have been a huge Easter egg hunt for comics fans.
B&B takes the square-jawed, campy Batman of the 1960s and teams him up with other DC characters, which was the format of The Brave and The Bold comic book from 1966 to 1983. Some other characters are also from the 1960s, like Green Arrow, who is presented as the Batman knockoff he was before 1969 (a competition which is played for laughs.)
But Brave and Bold is more than just an exercise in nostalgia. Batman existed before the ‘60s, and continues to exist 40-odd years later, and B&B isn’t afraid to lift from any of it. It’s like a mix-tape of Batman’s 70-year history, with other characters sprinkled in for spice.
Take for example the first episode of season three, “Battle of the Superheroes,” which debuted March 25. This is the first episode to co-star Superman, which is significant, because Batman co-starred with Superman in nearly every issue of World’s Finest Comics from 1954 to 1986. Even before the team-up was formalized, the two first co-starred in a 1952 story where they *gasp* revealed their secret identities to each other, which was unheard of in 1950s superhero circles.
In “Battle,” Superman and Batman are pals, until red kryptonite (provided by Lex Luthor) turns the Man of Steel into – in the words of Jimmy Olsen – a “Super-jerk!” Batman has to keep his friend busy, and non-lethal, until the red K wears off.
It’s an amusing story for kids, but what’s amazing for adult fans is the execution. In one scene, Mr. Mxyzptlk shows up, and runs Jimmy Olsen through a series of bizarre transformations in seconds – most of which first appeared in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen comics from 1952 to 1974. Running down the list, I can practically hear comics fans whooping with joy: Blimp Jimmy, Genie Jimmy, Werewolf Jimmy, Porcupine Jimmy, Future-Boy Jimmy and – of course – Giant Turtle Man Jimmy. Those transformations were all the subject of 8- or 10-page stories decades ago, but I think they still work as 8- or 10-second sight gags today.
Superman is old school as well, a squinty-eyed hero (1940s) who changes in a Daily Planet supply closet (1960s), and whose famous 1950s TV theme (“faster than a speeding bullet”) is incorporated into the dialogue. The computer villain Brainiac shows up, and wants to steal Metropolis “to re-populate my home planet” – a confusing line, unless you know that’s exactly how he was portrayed in his first appearance in 1958 (he’s changed a bit since then). Lois Lane has brief daydreams that mirror “Imaginary Stories” from her book in the ‘60s, the Metropolis mayor is named for long-time Superman artist Curt Swan, and Luthor’s lair is modeled on those depicted when Swan was drawing the books.
But we also get the 1970s Metallo, and Bat-armor straight out of the best-selling 1986 graphic novel Dark Knight Returns. Batman says to Luthor, “You diseased maniac!” -- a line from 1978’s Superman: The Movie. The “World’s Finest” team – yes, a newspaper headline calls them that – defeats Luthor with the same identity-switching trick they used in that first team-up in 1952.
I could go on, but then I wouldn’t get to talk about episode 2, “Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases!” Bat-Mite – a 1950s magical imp similar to Mxyzptlk – speaks directly to the viewer from his “Bat-Museum” full of genuine Batman toys and costumes. This meta-mad episode doesn’t just break the fourth wall – it chews it up, along with all the other scenery.
First we see an adaptation of the famous “Bat-Boy and Rubin” parody from Mad #8 (1954), with Rubin sounding exactly like Jerry Lewis. Then we see an adaptation of a 1960s Japanese Batman comic book that was itself adapted from an American comic book. Then the Super Friends version of the Dynamic Duo meet the Scooby Doo gang, although they’re hampered by the TV “Standards and Practices” rules of the 1970s – until Bat-Mite changes them.
This maddening ouroboros of self-reference is almost enough to make your head hurt – until you realize you’re laughing too hard.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
The bid by Archie Comics to become a bigger player in pop culture keeps expanding, buttressed this month by the first comprehensive history of Archie and the company that bears his name.
Craig Yoe’s Archie: A Celebration of America’s Favorite Teenager (IDW, $49.99) isn’t going to surprise anyone. But it is a handsome book that fills in the basics.
Yoe, a comics and pop culture historian, does yeoman work here in clean, concise prose. He covers the company’s 1939 founding as superhero publisher MLJ Magazines (the name derived from the first initials of founders Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater), and its later transformation into Archie Comics, when that character, who first appeared in 1941, became the star. He provides summaries of the main Riverdale residents, and biographies of each of the major editors, writers and artists. He devotes a couple of pages each to big Archie spin-offs, like Little Archie and The Archies cartoons, band and records. He mentions some of the lesser lights, like Josie and the Pussycats, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and various fads.
It’s a handsome book, with a die-cut cover of the famous three-on-a-soda scene that the United States Postal Service recreated as its representative Archie stamp. The reproduction, even of 70-year-old stories, is top-notch.
But don’t expect any surprises; Yoe toes the company line. For example, the acrimonious debate over who created Archie isn’t even mentioned, with all credit going to editor Goldwater and none to writer/artist Bob Montana or presumed early writer Vic Bloom. The company’s aggressive role in the formation and perpetuation of the Comics Code, long a thorn in the side of comics fans, is only given a few perfunctory nods.
And so forth. But, really, I didn’t expect much more than that. This is just a starting point for examining Archie Comics, and it is very welcome. Archie: A Celebration is a fine – and fun – addition to any bookshelf, for fans and casual readers alike.
REPRINT ROUNDUP
* Frank Frazetta, known to most people for his 1960s and ‘70s Conan the Barbarian paperback covers, also drew a lot of comics. Vanguard Publishing seems determined to reprint them all.
The latest volume in Vanguard’s Frazetta library is White Indian ($49.95), a strip that appeared in various Western comics published by Magazine Enterprises from 1949 to 1953. It featured Dan Brand, a Philadelphia socialite during Revolutionary War times who ends up being trained by Native Americans, gains a sidekick named Tipi and runs around the frontier in a breechclout. Brand, who is heroically proportioned and amazingly competent at everything, mostly arranges peace between Indians and settlers, while fighting frontier bad guys like “bad” Indians, bootleggers, gun-runners and Tories.
This is pretty clichéd stuff, of course, not to mention historically inaccurate, incredibly implausible and more than a little insulting to Native Americans. But we’re not here for the stories – we’re here for Frazetta’s art, which does not disappoint.
By the time of the famous Conan paintings, Frazetta had become unique in style and technique. But in these earlier works, you can see his influences, which include Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon), Hal Foster (Tarzan) and possibly Joe Kubert (1940s Hawkman). Frazetta’s muscular male figures in action are consistently breath-taking, and emphasized to the point of homoeroticism. Frazetta’s backgrounds and animals are equally lush and impressive, so the entire package is page after page of stunning eye candy.
The back of White Indian is fleshed out with stories from other publishers of the era from a variety of genres (including Western, war and Viking) and a series that called “Heroic True Life Stories” from 1952-53 Heroic Comics. Presumably these stories are included because they weren’t numerous enough to carry a volume of their own and/or White Indian didn’t fill the necessary pages.
* Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Strange Tales Vol. 4 ($59.99) is the first volume to reprint Strange Tales from after the imposition of the draconian Comics Code of 1954, and they are almost painful to read. As comics historian Michael Vassallo says in the foreword: “What’s noticeable is how tame these post-Code stores immediately are. There is no serious conflict, no death, no destruction and no violence. Just Code-scrubbed blandness.”
Especially objectionable is when a sad or serious story has a clumsily pasted-on final panel that puts the “bad” ending on another planet or dimension or something. This is fascinating from a historical perspective, but pretty tough slogging for a casual reader.
Art from top:
Archie: A Celebration of America's Favorite Teenager is a basic overview of the character and the company that bears his name. Courtesy IDW Publishing
In 2010, the USPS released this Archie stamp
White Indian collects the strip by legendary artist Frank Frazetta that ran in the early 1950s. Courtesy Vanguard Productions
Marvel Masterworks: Strange Tales Vol. 4 straddles the era when the Comics Code of 1954 was introduced, and contains stories on either side of that division for comparison. Courtesy Marvel Entertainment
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
American Vampire writer Scott Snyder is having a lot of fun creating a new vampire mythology – which means a lot of fun for us.
For proof, look no farther than American Vampire Volume Two (DC/Vertigo, $24.99), out this month, which collects issues #6-11 of the ongoing, mature-readers series, written by Snyder with art by Rafael Albuquerque. Or the five-issue American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest miniseries, with art by Sean Murphy, which begins next month.
What kind of vampires are in American Vampire, you ask? Potentially all of them.
The book asks “what if vampires were these physiological creatures,” Snyder said in an interview, “that … when their bloodline hits different populations, when the blood hits someone new from somewhere new, that it sometimes makes something new. … There have been secret species throughout history with different characteristics.”
Plus, “they all have different organic weaknesses, like wood causes this massive infection in the classic European kind, but wood doesn’t do anything to [the American] kind,” Snyder said. “They have different reactions to sunlight, different periods when they weaken. We wanted to create a fun genealogy for ourselves, almost like a big classification chart.”
And in the 1880s American West, a new bloodline emerges when outlaw Skinner Sweet gets the bite from a Carpathian vampire (the familiar Dracula type). “He’s sort of almost an evolutionary leap,” Snyder said. “He is much more fierce, he has longer claws, longer fangs, he’s impervious to sunlight.” Sweet creates a new bloodline starting with the other major star of the series: Pearl Jones, an actress wannabe in 1920s Hollywood.
Those two characters were introduced in the first five issues of American Vampire, which were co-written by horror auteur Stephen King, and collected in the first hardback. In Volume Two we meet two more members of the cast: Cash McCogan, the sheriff of booming 1930s Las Vegas during the construction of Hoover Dam, and Felicia Book, whose lawman father met a grim fate thanks to Skinner. Both end up cursed by vampirism in a sense; McCogan winds up with a vampire baby, and Felicia herself is half-vampire – her father was in the middle of his transformation when she was conceived.
But that’s not all! The old Carpathian vampires are none too happy with this new breed, and want to stamp it out. Meanwhile, an organization called the Vassals of the Morning Star would be happy to see all vampires staked – or whatever it takes to kill them.
All of this comes to a head in the second volume of American Vampire, which I won’t spoil for you here (except to say that a vampire baby is a pretty creepy idea). But then the series progresses to World War II, where the story splits – in upcoming issues of the main series, some of the cast goes to the Pacific theater, while in the miniseries, Cash and Felicia head to German-held Romania to search for a vampire cure.
And, yes, that means vampire Nazis.
“[Murphy] drew them all dolled up,” Snyder laughed. “They’re in full regalia. With vampire Nazis you really can’t go wrong.”
But the miniseries is also where Snyder expands and explains his brave new world. “It’ll take a huge leap forward in terms of the reader’s understanding of where vampires came from,” Snyder said “and what happens that made the world the way it is in terms of classic European vampire, the Carpathian vampire being so prevalent, and no other species being around.”
Through the Vassals, he hints at all the vampires throughout history – even back to Biblical times. “In the first issue we see the New York headquarters of the Vassals, which is in a pretty fun place, I think,” Snyder said. “They have skeletons of vampires from different eras and charts of where certain vampires are around the world.”
But as often as the word “fun” is thrown around, American Vampire is plenty serious. “What we trying to do is explore what makes us as Americans,” Snyder said. As to the miniseries, “we wanted to tell a story that mattered and wasn’t just a fun romp,” he said. “I couldn’t be prouder of it.”
But don’t worry. No matter how many monstrous babies or goose-stepping bloodsuckers appear, Snyder still wants American Vampire to also be “a big, fun, popcorn thing.”
“It’s so much fun. I feel so lucky to get to do it,” he said.
That’s how I feel when I get to read it.
Art, from top:
1) American Vampire Volume Two brings together competing vampire species, vampire-hunters and overwhelmed humans in 1930s Las Vegas.
2) American Vampire #15, out this month, takes part of the cast to the Pacific Theater during WWII.
3) American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #1 arrives in May, set in Nazi-held Romania in 1941.
All art courtesy DC Comics Inc.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
Jan. 25, 2011 -- Archie Comics has been making a lot of headlines lately, none bigger than the two recent stories of the Riverdale redhead’s “what if” marriages to Betty and Veronica. Somebody at Abrams ComicArts recognized them for their historical importance, and collected them in the gorgeous hardback Archie Marries … ($24.95).
These 2010 stories, as most folks know by now, followed Archie Andrews as he traveled up (not down) Memory Lane, exploring what would happen if he married spoiled, gorgeous, filthy rich Veronica Lodge after college or sweet, devoted, wholesome Betty Cooper. The results aren’t necessarily “happily ever after” in either case – and the stories caused an explosion of attention outside Riverdale city limits.
“I wanted to let the world know that these comic books are still being published, that Archie is still relevant,” said Michael Uslan, executive producer of the Batman movies, who came up with the idea and wrote the stories, in Archie Marries … . “But what we did not anticipate was the firestorm that erupted in the worldwide media. I’m not just talking about the United States and Canada. I’m talking about Kenya, India, Australia, England. The story just seemed to register with fans everywhere; that was something we never did anticipate.”
The issues were “a tremendous boost,” said Archie Editor-in-Chief and Co-publisher Victor Gorelick, who has been with the company for more than 50 years. “In all the years I’ve been at Archie, we’ve never had that much exposure, or that much attention. [Not] even when Archie was on television, when the cartoons came out. This is really big. … We’re getting mail, letters from people who haven’t read Archie in 30 years and they find out Archie’s getting married and they want to know what’s going on.”
Author Uslan and editor Gorelick were abetted on Archie Marries … by veteran Archie artist Stan Goldberg (whom Uslan refers to as “a legend”), letterer Jack Morelli, inker Bob Smith, colorist Glenn Whitmore and CEO Jon Goldwater. Archie Marries … contains interviews with all seven, along with other goodies and supplementary material – including a comic book tucked in the back cover reprinting five significant “love triangle” stories from 1949 to 1965. The main part of the book reprints the two wedding stories from Archie #600-605, plus an epilogue from Archie #606, on high-quality, glossy paper.
Which is to take nothing from the outside of Archie Marries … . The book is slip-cased, with hearts die-cut from front and back allowing views of the two weddings. Of course, which wedding you consider front or back will be determined by whether you prefer Betty or Veronica.
“I always wanted to show both sides,” Uslan said. “Showing Archie just marrying one of the two would have cheated at least half of every generation of Archie readers.”
Meanwhile, Life with Archie magazine, which continues both Archie Marries … stories, is such a success that it will increase to 80 pages. Plus, Gorelick said, Archie will launch a second magazine, Veronica & Betty. That book will follow the girls as they travel from country to country as exchange students, as well as the foreign students who take their place in Riverdale.
“You’ll see some new characters, new romances, new hi-jinx,” Gorelick said. “It’ll make things interesting for the regular Archie crew.”
Add that to upcoming return of forgotten characters like Jinx and Katy Keene, and one wonders where all this sudden excitement at Archie comes from. Not only did Archie Marries … make headlines, but so did the introduction of Kevin Keller (the first openly gay teen in Riverdale), an interracial romance (between Archie and Valerie) and even Pres. Obama and Sarah Palin visiting Riverdale.
Gorelick shrugs the question off.
“For over 70 years Archie has been keeping up with the times,” he said. “A lot of the new things that you see are just in keeping with the position of Archie Comics, of keeping current, just like we always keep current with fashion, with what our readers like to watch on TV, see in a movie, what kind of fads … and other things our readers are interested in. … We fall in line with attitudes, and things like that, that’s very important as far as creating a storyline. So when you see the characters we come up with, that’s all part of our Archie Comics credo.”
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
Dark Horse has begun the Brobdingnagian task of reprinting all Archie comics. That’s a welcome project for comics fans and historians, but one off to a rocky start.
Archie Archives Volume One ($49.99) has arrived, and it is a remastered, chronological hardback reproduction of all the Archie stories from the character’s introduction in Pep Comics #22 in late 1941 through Archie Comics #2 in the spring of 1943. It is a delight to learn so much about how “Mirth of a Nation” began, like how quickly some parts of the status quo fell into place, and how some had to be worked in later.
For example, Archie Andrews arrives almost fully fleshed – his clumsiness, skirt-chasing, predilection for getting in trouble, but essential good-heartedness are there from the beginning. So is Betty Cooper’s crush on him (she thinks he’s “grand” in the very first story) as is Jughead Jones’ unstinting loyalty.
But Veronica Lodge doesn’t arrive until the sixth story. Archie’s rival Reggie Mantle seems to evolve from a throwaway character named Scotty in the seventh story, and doesn’t get his familiar name and full introduction until three months (and five stories) later. When Riverdale High’s principal is introduced, it’s Miss Grundy, but soon the familiar Waldo Weatherbee takes the big chair – only “the Bee’s” familiar look (portly, needle-nosed, pince-nez glasses, small toupee) comes into being through trial and error.
This is a lot of fun, but Dark Horse has made the puzzling choice to eschew a contents/credits page, a standard practice in virtually all other reprint projects, including those by Dark Horse. Since there’s no index or footnotes either, there’s no way of knowing where these stories came from, or who wrote and drew them, which is an important reason most people buy a book like this. Fortunately I was able to Google the pertinent information (which is available below). For the record, these stories first appeared in Pep #22-38, Jackpot Comics #4-8 and Archie Comics #1-2, and were mostly by writer/artist (and Archie co-creator) Bob Montana.
Dark Horse also omitted the Archie text piece from Archie #1 (but included the text piece from Archie #2), the Pep and Jackpot covers with Archie on them and other features from the original books (like contents pages and a biography of Montana). One can only hope that these disappointing omissions are corrected in future volumes, and later editions of Volume One.
Even with those flaws, I still recommend the book. Comprehensive Archie reprints are something I’ve wanted since I bought my first Archie in the 1960s, saw that big issue number, and realized I had missed something on the order of 20 years’ worth of stories. Intolerable! Now that Dark Horse is bringing back Archie’s Golden Age in an affordable format, I’ll take what I can get, warts and all.
Other Dark Horse reprints:
* DH’s Creepy Archives has turned a corner into the better stories of the 1970s, but the companion Eerie Archives has yet to do so. The latest of the latter, Eerie Archives Volume Seven ($49.99) reprints Eerie #32-36 from 1971, and while the content shows signs of the story experimentation found in the rest of the decade and an influx of new artists, it is still pretty mediocre. History shows us the quality will improve as these reprints march into the later 1970s and 1980s, but the “Archives” just ain’t there yet.
Speaking of dips in quality, Flash Gordon Comic Book Archives Volume 3 ($49.99) was something of a chore to wade through. The second volume in this series brought us the 11 issues published by King Features, which had outstanding artwork (the only reason to read these old comics, since the stories are usually just rehashes of what Alex Raymond had already done in the “Gordon” comic strip). But when Charlton Comics picked up Flash Gordon (and continued the King numbering) in 1969 they didn’t keep the artists, and the bulk of their run (Flash Gordon #12-18, reprinted here) is by Pat Boyette. I find Boyette’s static, over-rendered and somewhat ugly style interesting as a change of pace, but too much of it is like swallowing sand – which is the case here.
Fortunately, like with the Eerie reprints, this is due to improve in future volumes, which will reprint Flash Gordon when it was published under the Gold Key/Western banner (1970-82). If you’re not a purist, you can skip Volume 3.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
Archie Archives Volume 1
Pep Comics #22, December, 1941
[“Introducing Archie”],* script by Vic Bloom, art Bob Montana … 6
Pep Comics #23, January 1942
[“Danger: Thin Ice”], script by Vic Bloom (?), art by Bob Montana … 12
Jackpot Comics #4, Winter 1941
Cover by Bob Montana NOT INCLUDED
[“The Play Goes to the Dogs”], script and art by Bob Montana … 18
Pep Comics #24, February 1942
[“The Basketball Blunder”], script by Vic Bloom (?), art by Bob Montana … 26
Pep Comics #25, March 1942
[“Archie’s Taxi Service”], script and art by Bob Montana … 32
Pep Comics #26, April 1942
[“Veronica Makes the Scene”], script and art by Bob Montana … 38
Jackpot Comics #5, Spring 1942
[“Trip to Bear Mountain”], script and art by Bob Montana … 44
Pep Comics #27, May 1942
[“Archie for Class President!”], script and art by Bob Montana … 52
Pep Comics #28, June 1942
[“Band of the Bland”], script and art by Bob Montana … 60
Pep Comics #29, July 1942
“Archie on Vacation,” script and art by Bob Montana … 66
Pep Comics #30, August 1942
[“The Escort Agency”], script and art by Bob Montana … 73
Jackpot Comics #6, Summer 1942
[“The Jalopy Race”], script and art by Bob Montana … 79
Pep Comics #31, September 1942
[“Archie Goes to Congress”], script and art by Bob Montana … 86
Pep Comics #32, October 1942
[“The Voyage of the Betty C”], script and art by Bob Montana … 92
Pep Comics #33, November 1942
[“Jughead’s Cousin”], script and art by Bob Montana … 98
Jackpot Comics #7, Fall 1942
“Archie Andrews’ Christmas Story,” script and art by Bob Montana … 104
Pep Comics #34, December 1942
[“The Limerick Contest”], script and art by Bob Montana … 112
Pep Comics #35, January 1943
[“The School Reporter”], script and art by Bob Montana … 119
Archie Comics #1, Winter 1942
Cover by Bob Montana … 135
[“Contents Page”] art by Bob Montana NOT INCLUDED
“Who’s Who in Riverdale,” art by Bob Montana … 136
“Prom Pranks,” script by Bob Montana (?), art by Bob Montana … 137
“Train Trouble,” script by Bob Montana (?), art by Bob Montana … 135
“That $$#@!! Telegram,” text by Scott Feldman NOT INCLUDED
“Pancakes in a Blackout,” script by Bob Montana (?), art by Bob Montana … 142
“Archie’s Puzzles” … 144
“The Case of the Missing Mistletoe,” script by Bob Montana (?), art by Bob Montana … 145
“Meet Bob Montana,” text by Cord Elliott NOT INCLUDED
[“Jughead’s Day”], script by Bob Montana (?), art by Bob Montana … 150
Jackpot Comics #8, Winter 1942
[“How to Be a Detective”], script and art by Montana … 156
Pep Comics #36, February 1943
Cover by Bob Montana NOT INCLUDED
“The 3-11 Club,” script and art by Bob Montana … 162
Pep Comics #37, March 1943
[“Introducing Oscar”], script and art by Bob Montana … 168
Pep Comics #38, April 1943
[“On the Farm”], script and art by Bob Montana … 173
Archie Comics #2, Spring 1943
Cover by Bob Montana … 179
[“Contents Page”], art by Bob Montana NOT INCLUDED
“A Prevue of ‘Archie’s Troubles’,” art by Bob Montana … 180
“Archie the Athlete,” art by Bob Montana … 181
“Sir Archibald of the Round Table,” art by Bob Montana … 190
“Archie’s Secret Weapon,” text by Kobold Keep … 200
“A Hunting We Will Go,” art by Bob Montana … 202
“Veronica Goes to Town,” art by Bob Montana … 203
“Meet the Editor” text by Scott Feldman NOT INCLUDED
“Poor Fish,” art by Bob Montana … 207
* Brackets indicate titles assigned by Grand Comic Book Database to untitled stories.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
Feb. 15, 2011 -- Many retailers wouldn’t sell sexy Vampirella magazine to minors when it debuted in 1969. They believed they were protecting kids, and they were – from terrible stories.
Vampirella Archives Vol. 1 ($49.99) has arrived from Dynamite Entertainment, collecting the first seven issues (1969-70) of Warren Publishing’s third black-and-white horror magazine, after Creepy and Eerie. Like the first issue of Vampirella itself, the cover of the first Archives volume is the famous Frank Frazetta painting which introduced the voluptuous, scantily clad vampire.
That’s pretty much where the quality ends. When Vampirella debuted, Warren Publishing was going through hard financial times. And the once high-quality publisher was using second-rate talents in the late 1960s, and even a core cadre of up-and-comers (Ernie Colon, Tom Sutton, etc.) wasn’t enough to save the book from clichéd stories, amateurish art, poor spelling, malapropisms and erroneous homophones.
I was also looking forward to learning more about the origins of the title character, now a headliner at two different publishers (long story). But it seems Vampi wasn’t originally the star of Vampirella – she was simply the host of a horror anthology, similar to Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie in their magazines. And she poses a lot, theoretically exciting to adolescent boys (although, with the crummy art, I doubt it).
There is a story in the first issue giving her origin, but it isn’t written by a professional author. It is instead by Forrest J. Ackerman, the world’s most famous horror-film fan, who was the nominal editor of Warren’s Famous Monsters of Filmland. And it is painful.
Vampirella (her real name, implausibly) lives on a planet of vampires called (sigh) “Draculon,” where water is made of hemoglobin. U.S. astronauts arrive, whom Vampi promptly sucks dry, then steals their ship and goes to Earth, where, inexplicably, she has an evil, blonde cousin named (sigh, again) “Evily.” They briefly fight, and Vampi is apparently the good guy, albeit a blood-sucker who kills innocent people.
There are a couple more stories like this, each more excruciating than the last. The regular horror stories aren’t much better. I really can’t recommend this book.
Fortunately, Warren’s quality improved in the 1970s, before they went out of business altogether. So later volumes of Vampirella should be better. Also the series, and the character, improved greatly at later publishers, stories which are being reprinted as Crimson Chronicles by Harris Publications, and Vampirella Masters by Dynamite. Those I can recommend.
Elsewhere:
* DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns can apparently do no wrong these days. He just finished re-imagining Green Lantern to critical and financial success, and now has turned his sights on the Fastest Man Alive, with promising results.
The Flash: The Dastardly Death of the Rogues ($19.99) collects the first seven issues of the Scarlet Speedster’s rebooted title, plus two stories from the Flash Secret Files and Origins 2010 one-shot. Not only do these stories lay the groundwork for the new series starring the resurrected Flash of 1956-86 (as a superhero forensics expert), not only do they tell you everything you need to know about the major characters, villains, background and milieu of the series, but they tell a whopper of a tale as well. Johns combines the innocent charm of ‘60s Flash stories with the hard-nosed storytelling of today’s CSI franchises in a time-travel whirlwind using most of the Crimson Comet’s rogues gallery. That’s a lot to pack in, but Johns does it effortlessly for a story offering revelation, mystery, thrills and charm. No wonder he’s CCO!
* NBM has released Salvatore Vol. 1: Transports of Love ($14.99), the first in a series of anthropomorphic-animal graphic novels by Nicolas De Crécy (Glacial Period) and … I’m really not sure what to make of it.
Salvatore is a master mechanic dog who steals parts from his clientele to build a Rube Goldbergian vehicle to travel to South America to reach his true love (a well-bred terrier). Inexplicably, he only eats fondue. Meanwhile, Amandine – a pregnant and extremely near-sighted hog – has a Mr. Magoo-like adventure where her car lands on an airplane, where she gives birth, and loses one of her piglets in the sewers of Paris, where it is adopted by a Goth cat. Thus ends volume one.
I know Salvatore is supposed to be funny, but mostly I found myself baffled by this adventure/comedy/travelogue. I am intrigued enough to continue, so maybe the second volume will give me more context.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
March 15, 2011 -- When Dark Horse began reprinting Flash Gordon comic books last year (as opposed to the more famous comic strips, by Alex Raymond and Mac Raboy) I wondered “Why bother?” The recently released second volume answers my question.
Flash Gordon Comic-Book Archives Volume 1 reprinted all the comic books published about that character from 1947 to 1953, all by Dell Comics and mostly mediocre. But Volume 2 collects the Gordon comic books published by King comics from 1966 to 1967, and is a huge leap forward in quality.
The stories improve greatly with the addition of legendary writer/editor Archie Goodwin. But Flash Gordon has always been more famous for its art than its stories, and King doesn’t disappoint. Volume 2 boasts an all-star lineup, including Dan Barry, Reed Crandall, Ric Estrada, Al Williamson, Wally Wood – even Raymond and Raboy, in the form of occasional reprints from the comic strip.
Since King comics weren’t distributed in my area growing up, this is the first time I’ve seen these hidden gems. I’m delighted to add Flash Gordon Comic-Book Archives Volume 2 ($49.99) to my collection, and to recommend it to other Mongo fans.
Two other books in the running for “most improved reprint series” are Creepy Archives Volume Nine (Dark Horse, $49.99) and Vampirella Archives Volume Two (Dynamite, $49.99). Both Creepy and Vampirella were originally from Warren Publishing, which hit a rough patch in the late 1960s and was forced to use lesser, cheaper, creators. But both of these collections come from the early 1970s, when Warren had recovered and improved.
But before I tell you how good they are, let me indicate how bad they’d gotten. Here’s Publisher Jim Warren himself describing early Vampirella in Comic Book Artist #4 (available online at http://twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/04warren.html): “The first issue was awful – and the second issue was just as bad. … Suddenly she came alive in the twelfth issue with Archie [Goodwin] writing an entirely new origin. … Now if only there was a way I could wipe out the first 11 issues and erase it from memory.”
That’s a little harsh; Goodwin was writing the Vampirella episodes as early as issue #8, where he began adding a supporting cast, motivations and other elements that turned the strip from an incoherent pun-fest into an actual story. But Warren is right that the strip really took off with issue #12, when Spanish artist Jose Gonzalez came on board.
And it wasn’t just Gonzalez. The early 1970s saw an avalanche of new, talented, hungry artists, and many of them arrived – or debuted – at Warren Publishing. Vampirella #8-14, collected in this volume, featured horror stories by Neal Adams, Frank Brunner, Billy Graham, Jeff Jones, Esteban Maroto, Mike Ploog and Ralph Reese. Add old hands like Wally Wood and Tom Sutton, and these 1970-71 issues of Vampirella are as good as the early Warren years, or maybe even the famous EC Comics that inspired them.
All of that also holds true for Creepy Archives Volume Nine, which collects four issues from 1971-72. But Creepy #42-45 also availed itself of the huge influx of talented Spanish and Filipino artists of the time, as well as some of the new, hot writers of the early ‘70s – Don Glut, Steve Skeates, Jan Strnd and more. It’s worth a look.
Elsewhere in reprint collections:
* The Dark Knight Archives Volume 7 (DC, $59.99) collects Batman #26-31 from 1945, and I’m sad to say it’s just plain boring. The Dynamic Duo fight various dull, plainclothes crooks in these stories, and if it wasn’t for the humorous shorts starring Alfred the butler, I would have forgotten them already.
* Marvel Masterworks: Atlas Era Battlefield (Marvel, $64.99) reprints all 11 issues of this war book from 1952-53. The usual faults of old war comics are present: vile racial caricatures, implausible combat, infallible Americans. But “Battlefield” was clearly aiming for the high bar set by the famous war books at EC Comics, and sometimes it succeeded. The presence of many artists who would make Marvel famous in the 1960s certainly helps.
* The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor Archives Volume Two (Dark Horse, $49.99) continues the 1970s adventures of a character the editor wanted to be a narrator, and the writer wanted to be an adventurer. This creative tug-of-war is sometimes confusing, but Glut’s stories and the art (by Jesse Santos and others) are both enthusiastic and entertaining.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
Jan. 18, 2011 -- Original graphic novels are hitting bookshelves like a tsunami these days, but DC’s Vertigo Crime line is always welcome. They’ve released another winner, Noche Roja ($19.99), that is nerve-wracking from first page to last.
Writer Simon Oliver (The Exterminators) wisely placed his story in one of the most genuinely lawless and frightening places on Earth: northern Mexico, near the U.S. border. One glance at Google will attest to how law enforcement there is virtually non-existent, how hundreds of young women continue to disappear annually and how narcotraficante gangs battle each other with military-grade weapons. Northern Mexico is one location where ‘30s-style crime noir stories continue to work well, because it is similar to the U.S. settings of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler: places that fake being civilized but are incredibly dangerous.
As is typical of crime noir stories, our “hero” is a cynical outsider with a dirty past and a lousy present. Jack Cohen is an ex-policeman and occasional private eye who sells security systems to McMansion owners, and stays drunk to quiet his nightmares. He’s hired by a Mexican social worker to investigate a series of murders of maquiladoras (female factory workers) that are even more brutal than usual. Cohen’s trip south of the border is a Conradian journey into the heart of darkness – his own, and the political conspiracies, brutal class structure, powerful drug cartels and sexual perversion he finds there.
Jason Latour’s art is more stylized than I like in a book where it’s important to see expressions, postures and subtle movement, but it’s still clear (and gritty) enough to do the job. This “Red Night” will be a chilling one for the average reader on the safety of the couch.
NBM is another publisher whose original graphic novels (often imported from Europe) are usually among my favorites. But Miss Don’t Touch Me Vol. 2 ($14.99), by Hubert and Kerascoet of France, was something of a disappointment.
Maybe it’s because I had so much fun with the first Miss Don’t Touch Me, which introduced the naïve but courageous Blanche, whose poverty consigns her to a whorehouse in early 20th century Paris – but by dint of her determination remains a virgin. This is achieved by Blanche becoming a dominatrix who does not allow the customers to touch her, a curious sexual niche that becomes a sensation and the whorehouse’s biggest draw. This farcical narrative was buttressed by a murder mystery, all of which came to a happy ending, turning the novel into a sort of 1930s-style screwball comedy.
However, the second volume is more Oliver Twist than Thin Man, where Blanche is buffeted by economic and social forces beyond her control, compounded by losing her heart to a gay man. She is no heroine here, but merely a victim. Add the return of her selfish, alcoholic mother, and Miss Don’t Touch Me Vol. 2 is more tragedy than farce.
Hopefully this is merely a second act, and there will be a third Miss Don’t Touch Me that will allow our heroine to prevail. As it stands now, the second volume is just depressing.
REPRINT ROUNDUP
Most people know Our Army at War as the DC title that introduced Sgt. Rock, and later took that name. With Showcase Presents: Our Army at War Vol. 1 ($19.99), we can see what it was like in its infancy.
Our Army began in 1952 during the Korean War, but also during what many consider the highlight of war comics: Harvey Kurtzman’s Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat at EC Comics. Interestingly, the stories reprinted in this black-and-white behemoth (OAAW #1-20, 1952-54, 512 ppg.) only occasionally tip their hat to Kurtzman, especially in the use of the three-panel zoom (mostly by writer Robert Kanigher, who used the technique promiscuously the rest of his career).
Most of these stories are fairly by the numbers, with heroic Americans learning life lessons during combat adventures that often border on the absurd (first in the Korean War, then after the 1953 armistice mostly in WWII). But it was interesting to see so many familiar names, especially Ross Andru, Gene Colan, Jerry Grandenetti and Irv Novick, and even more interesting that due to the consistent house-style inking – mostly by Joe Giella – how amazingly similar these divergent artists were made to appear.
Conclusion? This book is valuable for the comics history it reveals, but don’t expect much excitement.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
March 8, 2011 -- Maybe I’m just a sap, but two new graphic novels made me feel warm and fuzzy this week.
The Story of Lee (NBM, $11.99) is a shojo (romance) manga about a Hong Kong girl and a Scottish boy stumbling over language barriers, family complications and cultural roadblocks on the way to maybe, possibly, could-be love. Do they get together? Will they? Can they? It doesn’t seem possible throughout, and – without spoiling the end – there’s definitely room for a sequel.
As novel as this situation might be for readers, it’s oddly familiar territory for the creators. Writer Sean Michael Wilson is a Scot living in Japan, and artist Chie Kutsuwada is a Japanese living in London. Their familiarity with the turf wars gives this unpretentious East-meets-West, boy-meets girl story an easy, breezy sense of verisimilitude.
And, OK, Lee and her Western boyfriend Matt make a cute couple. There, I said it.
Meanwhile, the warmth of Abram ComicArts’ The Night Bookmobile ($19.95) is chilled a bit by the suggestion that the joy of reading is a mixed blessing.
The van of the title is one found by a young woman named Alexandra as she takes a late-night walk in Chicago after a fight with her boyfriend. Within the bookmobile she finds, amazingly, every book she has ever read, including her childhood diary. The dreamlike nature of this treasure trove is accentuated by the heroine’s inability to find the bookmobile when she seeks it – instead, it appears when she least expects it, according to its own obscure rules.
This celebration of the written word has a dark side, though, as Alexi becomes obsessed with finding the bookmobile, and perhaps becoming a night bookmobile librarian herself. The current custodian hints darkly at the price one must pay to do so, which ratchets up the anxiety as the years pass and an anxious and lonely Alexi races to her goal.
Written and drawn by Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife), The Night Bookmobile is a short story illuminating the wonderful and terrible seduction of the written word. As Neil Gaiman says in a foreword, it’s “a cautionary fantasia for anyone who loves books.” And, like The Story of Lee, it practically cries out to be a series.
REPRINT ROUNDUP
* I thought I was familiar with most of Marvel’s superheroes back when it was called Timely in the 1940s, so I was surprised when Marvel revived a dozen of them in a 2008 maxiseries called The Twelve, and several were strangers. Now that I’ve read Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Mystic Comics Volume 1 ($59.99), I’ve discovered where characters like Dynamic Man and Mastermind Excello came from – and why they are deservingly obscure.
Most comics from the 1940s are pretty amateurish, but some had a rough charm and an infectious enthusiasm. Not so the substandard Mystic Comics, produced primarily by the second-rate Harry “A” Chesler Studio. Mystic never produced a legitimate star, and you can see why from this Masterworks, which collects the first four issues. It is unadulterated drek.
* A British publisher named Rebellion has embarked on reprinting in chronological order the adventures of perhaps the most famous British comic-book character. However, I have to say the first two volumes of Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files ($19.99 each) aren’t for everyone.
That’s probably because “Judge Dredd” never seemed to know what it was. Sometimes it was straightforward adventure fiction, other times it was a parody of adventure fiction. As a reader, I was never quite sure whether I should laugh or not. And given that “Dredd” was originally published in five-page increments (in the weekly 2000 AD anthology), most stories weren’t long enough to find out. And Dredd the character is rigidly one-dimensional, which – while presumably part of the joke – is boring in large doses.
These books do contain two of Dredd’s longest and most famous adventures (“Luna One” and “Cursed Earth”), plus the story of Dredd’s clone Judge Rico, which was the basis for the ill-fated Sylvester Stallone movie. The longer serials give the writers room to flourish, but the art is wildly uneven – especially since artists can change every five pages!
It is interesting to see the superhero genre through a British lens, where the benign authoritarianism that is the subtext of American costumed heroes is exaggerated and ridiculed. But that alone may not be enough to sustain interest for the casual reader through these 300-page, B&W behemoths.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
Feb. 1, 2011 -- Ding dong, the witch is dead.
Or maybe I should say all other witches are symbolically back from the dead. Because the witch in question – the industry’s self-censoring Comics Code Seal of Approval – is the one that outlawed from comic books monsters, sex, crime and anything else the preachers, politicians and parents of 1954 thought could harm young minds ... which was virtually everything.
But when the Code’s primary enforcers – magazine distributors – became mostly irrelevant to the comics industry in the 1980s, so did the Code. And over the years it’s been modified as social norms changed, so the current version isn’t nearly as Medieval as the original. But it’s still a milestone of sorts that the last two publishers to still use the Code – Archie Comics and DC Comics (for its kiddie line) – are dispensing with the Seal and instituting their own ratings systems this month.
By coincidence, a couple of recent books give examples of what had 1954’s Guardians of Decency in such a froth.
The Horror! The Horror! Comic Books the Government Didn’t Want You to Read! (Abrams ComicArts, $29.95) focuses on the gory horror comics that appeared mostly from 1950 to 1954. The author is Jim Trombetta, who has worked as a Shakespearean scholar, a reporter and a TV script writer, so there’s a lot of cross-disciplinary speculation going on here.
Actually, too much speculation for my taste – I’m of the “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” school. If you’re going to make broad sociological generalizations about what a given story, cover, art style or genre has to say about 1950s society, you’re going to have to work pretty hard to convince me.
Trombetta does work hard, shoehorning dozens of short, silly, gleefully gory stories into quasi-academic categories like “Death and the Maiden,” “The Gorgon” and “The Age of Nuclear Terror.” He backs his analysis up with plentiful examples, and he constructs a series of engaging arguments raising, say, a random eye injury to the level of eternal mythological symbolism. I wasn’t completely convinced, mind you, but I was vastly entertained.
Trombetta’s examples are covers or short snippets, because he can only operate under “fair use” laws for pre-Code horror stories that are still under copyright (which is most of them). That’s actually a plus, in that most books exploring this topic rely on the small percentage of pre-1954 horror stories in the public domain. That means we see those same stories repeatedly (two such well-traveled tales appear in The Horror), and major publishers like EC Comics, Timely (now Marvel) and National (DC) usually get short shrift.
But Trombetta samples from all publishers for a truly comprehensive presentation. There’s even a DVD of an alarmist (and almost entirely false) 1950s documentary about comics poisoning our children! “The Horror” belongs on every fan’s bookshelf, and more than a few academic ones. It’s the most thoughtful and thorough analysis on 1950s horror comics extant, and it will be quoted by scholars and reporters for decades to come.
Meanwhile, Feral House’s The Weird World of Eerie Publications ($32.95) tackles our topic obliquely; it’s a history of a 1960s-1980s magazine publisher whose titles were largely filled with reprinted (or re-drawn) pre-Code horror comics. These black-and-white magazines, like Weird, Witches’ Tales and Tales of Voodoo, lurked in the shadows of far superior mags like Warren’s Creepy and Marvel’s Dracula Lives during a short-lived boom.
Eerie Publications was the very definition of a sleazy, fly-by-night company. Publisher Myron Fass took old pre-Code horror stories by minor publisher Ajax/Farrel (and any others he could safely steal or cheaply buy) and either reprinted them outright (with extra blood added) or had them redrawn (with orders to “gore it up”) by underpaid and mistreated artists, many from South America. These magazines were just part of Fass’s empire, which included sweaty men’s mags, lurid confessionals and other sorts of garbage.
But there is a subculture that loves this sort of nonsensical, over-the-top, bloody carnage (think of the “Saw” movies), and author Mike Howlett is an unashamed member. While I don’t share this particular enthusiasm, I enjoyed seeing him take his hobby horse out for a ride.
Weird World won’t win any academic prizes, and there are a lot of unnecessary four-letter words. But Howlett has done history a service by putting more effort into a book about a forgotten corner of comics than Eerie Publications ever did on the comics themselves.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
