E-MAIL THE AUTHOR

Breakdowns -- Were You There When They Pussified Ted Kord?

July 10, 2003

I had a vague plan to really keep up the steam of last week’s mini-manifesto, but some food poisoning and waning time has put the kibosh on it. I find when I’m really in a hurry is when you’ll get the less-than-considered slams at NinthArt or something. But that does bring up something. No, not an apology, per se, as that Shipping Forecast of theirs is still not what it could or should be, but maybe I’m just spoiled by what we had in TITLE BOUT. It’s hard to apologize when the “Lighthouse Crew” are apparently pseudonyms, too. What’s with that? Oh, there I go again.

Anyway, a point that I did want to get across is that, be it comics creators, columnists or reviewers, I’m probably the toughest on those in whom I see a talent and potential not being used to the fullest, as far as I’m concerned at least. And I’m sure I’m also merciless on those who exhibit tendencies or bad writing habits I’m consciously or unconsciously worried about developing. I think that’s a very natural instinct, not just to fear what you don’t understand but to fear what you understand only too well.

So we’ll hold everyone’s feet away from the fire for this week, and just do some reviews. Interesting selection this week, with probably more art commentary than usual—always tough for me.

FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 (OF 4) by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire and Joe Rubinstein. DC Comics. $2.50
I’m curious how this miniseries will go over with readers today who may have no idea of the “funny” Justice League book of the late `80s and early `90s. It was a fresh idea when it happened, most DC superhero books of that time being either staid and conventional or edging into darker territory in the wake of successes like THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and WATCHMEN. So here you had a lighthearted team book with a lot of characters people didn’t know all that well, written by veterans of serious, straight superhero books but each with wicked senses of humor, and drawn by a young artist with a unique style who was very good with expressive faces, essential for scripts calling for much of the comedy to come from verbal sparring and reactions. Of course, eventually familiarity bred contempt, and most of us had had enough Oreo jokes and “Bwah-ha-ha’s”, and it was time for the next thing. But enough time has passed that maybe we’re ready for that old flavor again.

The first issue is a “gathering the forces” story, naturally, as Maxwell Lord talks to former members about getting the team back together, this time with no governmental or corporate sponsor interference. Whether seeing robot L-Ron working a fast food drive-thru is funny to you will greatly depend on already knowing the character. Despite not making much of an effort to bring new readers up to speed, the scripting is generally witty, and Maguire is in good form. However, most of the yuks of the old series came not from Lord and a hero trading quips but from the heroes trading them with each other, so perhaps next issue things will pick up a bit.

CRACKURZ SUPER SPECIAL #1 by James Patrick and D.J. Coffman. Candida Press/Angry Naked Comics. $3.95
This is something of a rarity among small press humor comics these days, in that the focus is not on the trials and tribulations of a twentysomething, White, male, American underachiever and his goofball friends. Patrick has created a premise strong enough to work as a daily newspaper comic strip: two birds sharing a cage, one with a penchant for harebrained schemes and ever-changing moods, the other the dry, wise observer. It’s a little reminiscent of the late Jeff McNelly’s SHOE strip, come to think of it, but younger and dirtier.

I get their names confused, but I think it’s Remster who’s the antic one, and in the first story his constant complaints about the deterioration of his favorite comic book leads Loagster to tell him if he’s got such great ideas, pitch them. Yeah, okay, this is a story of a male, American underachiever after all, but he’s a bird. It opens up other possibilities. Anyway, Remster’s ideas go over well, he’s hired as the new writer, the fans love him, the success causes immediate editorial interference, he soldiers on until he can’t take it, makes a stand, and learns how replaceable he is. Probably by the next bird with great ideas who think the comic went downhill. It’s a fun, concentrated version of the soul-killing life of the freelance comics writer (applicable to television and film as well), with the added bonus that the comic in question is THE MAGNIFICENT COCK, about a space-faring rooster and his obligatory two sidekicks, Tes and Tic. Hey, I told you last week I liked double-entendres. They’re done with wit and style here, emphasis on clever wordplay over visual puns, though there are a couple of those as well.

The joke carries over into an actual COCK adventure, which is simple but nicely plotted. Third sidekick Les is stricken with cancer (I know, I know) and has to make the ultimate sacrifice to save Cock and the others. Sort of a SPACE GHOST/FLASH GORDON/SGT. ROCK mélange, really. Coffman shows a nice range here with a second appealing funny animal style.

The third story finds Remster on a quest to figure out just what Loagster was about to call him, which leads him into a PLEASANTVILLE situation except he’s in the world of thinly veiled Looney Toons characters. His brusque labeling of every character as either a “queer” or “retard” ends up spoiling the innocent fun of this world, and he learns what Loagster was talking about, and maybe a little lesson in the bargain. In other words, it’s not just a raucously funny Looney Toons parody but one with a tolerance message that works without getting in the way of the entertainment. This is followed with a short, “real world” (non-funny animal) story that plays with a similar premise—not so much being tolerant as being considerate—that’s not quite as effective, but still better than most anthology short stories these days.

Patrick has a great artist in Coffman, who has to bring both birdlike and expressively human qualities to Remster and Loagster, not to mention draw beloved cartoon characters just close enough to help sell the jokes but not so close to be actionable. He does this all superbly. But it all has to come from the story first, and Patrick really shines here. These are not just a group of gags spread over several pages, but stories first, the comedy coming from clever situations, clearly delineated characters, and careful timing. Some of the funniest panels are the silent ones, Patrick having Coffman repeat a panel because he knows the joke will hit harder that way. A very well-done book, but I’m guessing you’ll be doing too much laughing to think about the craft, which is the whole point anyway.

Note: the book is actually published through Candida Press, not Angry Naked Comics. It’s Diamond’s error, probably due to Coffman doing MONKEY MAN UNLEASHED with Brian Lynch through Angry Naked. Go to the Angry Naked section of PREVIEWS for the solicitation, and preorder!

THE VAGABONDS by Josh Neufeld. Alternative Comics. $2.95
As a back cover blurb from THE COMICS JOURNAL indicates, Neufeld’s “cultural and class observations are enormously rare in the world of commix.” And while this may be true, that’s not to say the observations are particularly deep or insightful. They’re encouraging first steps towards a point of view, but he’s not gotten there yet.

The main story, “Tribal Rituals”, finds Neufeld and girlfriend Sari trekking through Thailand, on the search for the Buddhist Full Moon Festival (Loy Krathong), which they hope will be more revelatory and authentic than the packaged Buddhism tour they’ve been on. Finding all the hotels booked, the cab driver drops them off at the home of an American Baptist missionary couple, who are quite hospitable in taking them in and feeding them, though Josh and Sari have to endure their sexism and religious fervor. When it’s all over, the two leave with Josh sweating bullets in old-fashioned cartoon fashion and whispering a “Let’s get out of here!” that comes off as inappropriate and ungrateful to the couple who, whether one agrees with their mission or not, were excellent hosts, and quite forgiving of the Jewish Josh and Sari sleeping unmarried in the same bed. The last page is Josh and Sari in a restaurant being horrified at the gaudy kitsch of a Thai singer, in jumpsuit, singing “We Are the World.” The cultural commentary offered is, then, that despite the best of intentions, young Americans can return from a trip abroad with all their small-minded prejudices intact.

“From the Asylum” is a two-pager in which Neufeld recalls a disturbing teenage practice of making lists and analyses of everything in his life. Friends are rated for good and bad traits, baseball heroes have their seasons projected based on past stats, and even his comic books are rated, with the amusing ending that despite what he feels to be true, Neufeld must have liked THOR better than TEEN TITANS. “Georges Remi vs. Josh Neufeld” is also a funny, self-deprecating piece where Neufeld owns up to the heavy Herge’ on his work, from a ripoff childhood strip to an adulthood partially spent traveling to some of the places covered in Herge’s TINTIN books.

“I Left My Name in San Francisco” is an unsuccessful short mystery, seemingly a real anecdote about meeting an old college friend with a new name, with a crime slapped on the end for service in the MURDER BY CROWQUILL anthology. If you have to do REAR WINDOW as a two minute film, without seeing the murder, why bother? “Song for September 11th” utilizes the rather obvious device of setting the upbeat lyrics of Kander and Ebb’s “New York, New York” to the tragedy and chaos of 9/11 Manhattan, but Neufeld’s artistry is excellent at conveying the heartrending events. Throughout, he is an efficient, pleasing storyteller, achieving dynamics with a simple style through use of tones and the occasional borderless panel. But with such a style, the emphasis is often going to be on the story at hand, and as yet, he shows the most aptitude with the humorous, personal pieces rather than the boorish travelogues and pastiches. I wouldn’t say he has a range yet, but what’s good here is good enough that he bears watching.

WEASEL #6: OVERBITE by Dave Cooper. Fantagraphics Books. $16.95
The fifth issue of WEASEL was a disappointment for many, as it was a thinner issue, with a rushed look and feel to the conclusion of the gripping erotic psychodrama “Ripple”. Reading Cooper’s aspirations of fine art fame in the letters column, one could almost visualize him tossing out briskly scribbled “Ripple” pages out a bus window to a grasping Groth or Thompson as he sped away to the BIG CITY, his brush and oils resting on the seat next to him, other oils oozing from Dave, hopefully some tank-topped teen troglodyte in the seat across, so he could have something to sketch.

Well, at least I can imagine that. The point is, I loved Cooper already; he didn’t have to prove his artistic merit to me again. But he does it anyway, with this hardcover artbook of “mostly pillowy girls”.

Without a story to tell, Cooper still gets across the message of the primal power of women. Cooper has no interest below the knee—the power radiates from the thighs or the crazy eyes. “Three on the Beach” presents three girls of varied proportions in confining black bikinis, and somehow they look not objectified but threatening. If they were directly in your path, your feet were burning in the sand, and all you wanted to do was dip them in the water, you would still steer well away from them, blisters or no. The evenly spaced dark clouds behind the girls seem almost to be an invasion fleet at their command.

“Crawling Out of Bed” has the honeyed sheen of Will Elder, a not-so-Little Annie Fanny, while the “Cameo Girl” series of four finds flared-lip lovelies seemingly bringing new, weird species of flora to life simply by their flesh touching the ground. The cover image is one of another series in which voluptuous, playful women contrast with oppressively calm home interiors filled with sterile, obsolete appliances like Bakelite radios, the rooms appearing to resent the invasion of messy, spontaneous life. There are several works with women wrestling or grasping each other, and yet only in the endpapers illustration “Table Manners” do they ever seem to be doing it for their benefit or the voyeur’s. It’s an angry compulsion, but one each seems to understand and accept, even if said acceptance means you have to bite a red leather loveseat like it’s a candy apple. Cooper revels in the grotesque and carnal, but it seems mostly a joyful if strange celebration, not hateful, of the natural beauty and power of women.

BROOKLYN DREAMS by J.M. DeMatteis and Glenn Barr. DC Comics. $14.95
The translation to film of ROAD TO PERDITION may have had the effect of waking up DC Comics to other out-of-print Paradox Press books. For whatever reason, DeMatteis’ autobiographic novel is back, and will hopefully be enjoyed by more readers than the first time.

DeMatteis is known in fandom for the arguably annoying tendency to work spiritual themes into his superhero comics, though it can certainly be said a character like The Spectre has some form of spirituality at its heart. But in this seeming memoir of DeMatteis’ troubled Brooklyn youth, an appreciation of the contents is not dependent on one’s faith or lack of same.

Vincent Carl Santini is like many adolescents, tortured by anger and frustration and nameless longing. He’s in an Honors English class but failing most other subjects. He has a great girlfriend but his sour disposition eventually drives her away. Instead of taking an honest account of himself he wastes time in a fog of drugs.

DeMatteis writes with great recall of his adolescent feelings, and his craft as a storyteller enlivens what are outwardly fairly minor events. Quite simply, even with Barr’s gifts for art representational, cartoony and surreal, it’s not easy to create a graphic novel about internal, spiritual yearning and awakening. They both get pretty far along the path, so to speak, but not all the way there. But in many religions, that’s all you can ask for, right? DeMatteis acknowledges in the narration that he isn’t able to explain just where the character’s pain comes from, and it’s a pretty big flaw in a book of this sort. It’s really DeMatteis’ skill at recounting his wasted youth and the signs pointing the way out that make it worth reading.

Mag, Mag, Mag

I’m tapped out of theories and passionately held beliefs for this week, so all I have to say about comics-related magazines is that I want them to be informed, well-designed and have a point of view. I did, however, want to explore some commonly held beliefs about the following mags, such as THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR being too fawning and anti-Stan Lee, THE COMICS JOURNAL being too negative and elitist, and ALTER-EGO being…well, I’m not sure—who ever talks about this one?

THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #38, Edited by John Morrow. TwoMorrows Publishing. $9.95
With a previously unseen female character on the cover, and no copy but the title, I’m curious if sales dipped a bit on this one, and yet it really jumped out at me personally. Don Heck really did a nice job inking Kirby on this unnamed character, giving her a lithe femininity the King couldn’t always achieve on his own, or chose not to. The rap on the magazine in general has always been that it celebrates the King of Comics without owning up to the less-than-inspired work—mostly late in his life—or that it downplays the roles of Lee and Kirby’s many inkers in shaping his artwork. This issue doesn’t have much to say about Lee one way or the other, but sure knocks the second assertion to pieces, starting with an excellent Joe Sinnott interview, wherein we see the significant improvements the inker brings to Kirby’s F.F. pencils, particularly an extra dimension to the Thing’s rocks. Sinnott also claims, with no malice, to have been the first to use what would later be called “Kirby Krackle”—round ink circles representing energy—and that Kirby got it from him, incorporating it into his work as any questing artist does when they find something they like. It’s plausible enough, until Ger Apeldorn provides a more convincing argument that Kirby was using the effect in a 1959 HOUSE OF MYSTERY, wherein there is a ghost who looks like the Human Torch in a trenchcoat. Sinnott is also quite candid about Kirby not putting as much effort into his pencils on the last year of F.F. because he was gearing up to leave for DC.

“Kirby As A Genre” by Adam McGovern is a fun two pages covering recent comics and other media sporting Kirby mentions or an obvious influence, and then Mark Evanier’s column gently answers some reader questions with the simple fact that Kirby liked to talk a lot and in his later years could get carried away with stories of his accomplishments, at one point even claiming to have created Superman!

There’s a sensational section of “Kirby’s Greatest Hits”—tabloid size pages of blow after blow, a good regular feature on the more obscure Kirby comics, and some excellent columns on the Evolution of the Cosmic Squiggle (the abstract lines Kirby used to suggest musculature, which would become overdone and erratic in later years) and a How-To on “Kirbifying” one’s own art through foreshortening. There’s also an okay Kirby interview—really just answering some questions for fans with an observer (the comic shop owner hosting the event) interspersing the text with his own heartfelt but unnecessary comments. This is more the kind of feature ALTER-EGO would run.

The rest of the magazine, however, makes it clear that this is the Cadillac of the TwoMorrows line-up not just because it’s the biggest. The design is always strong and slick, and page after page surprises with the number of cool sidebar features, such as Steve Englehart talking about writing Kirby characters, Los Bros Hernandez on their love of SGT. FURY (really!), and Kirby’s influence of J.H. Williams III, Paul Gulacy and Steve Rude, in their own words. It’s easy to stick to the theme—KIRBY!—but after several years Morrow seems to just be getting better at picking good material that explores the man’s work with fresh viewpoints and voices. Hours of pleasure, this one.

ALTER EGO #25 edited by Roy Thomas. TwoMorrows Publishing. $5.95
This was the last issue of this magazine left on my comic shop’s preorder list, for what that’s worth. It’s not that there’s nothing of value in the magazine, but that it’s often presented in kind of a slapped-together way. Still, this was a pretty decent issue to go out on, though with the usual problems.

The main problem may just be me as a reader wanting the magazine to be something other than what it calls itself—a fanzine. I don’t know, but when I think of Roy Thomas, I think of him as not just a competent writer but an experienced editor and sometime art director, during his tenure at Marvel Comics. So it’s frustrating to start reading articles that are suddenly interrupted by sidebars that refuse to even stay on the side, sometimes taking over the top half of two pages. And it really feels like a con to throw in one piece of nice but nonessential art from a pro just to be able to tout his name on the cover. I mean, there are 40 people listed on the cover. Narrow it down to people with significant contributions to the issue.

One half of the magazine is devoted to Plastic-Man creator Jack Cole, and I really have no complaints about it. Good, fairly lengthy piece by Jim Amash, followed by other pieces of decent quality from fellow artist Creig Flessel and PLAYBOY art director Art Paul. Where TJKC will run an attractive art section, though, A-E keeps the art small and often restricted to covers, pin-ups and sketches. With many artists, especially one like Cole, it would really help to see a full-page sequence rather than just read one more respectful reminiscence.

The other half of the issues is devoted to Thomas’ old pal Jerry Bails, one of the prime movers of comics fandom, and the founder of ALTER-EGO itself. I didn’t know enough about the man, but there’s a helpful, impressive top ten list of his accomplishments in this field, including many fanzines and magazines, the first comic collectors’ fanzine, one of the first comics conventions, etc. He’s certainly earned a place as one of the best friends the industry’s ever had. Still, without an interview with Bails, who is humble and avoids publicity, there’s not a lot of reason to fill half the mag with material relating to him. Thomas finds a way to kill several pages with a moderately interesting clutch of correspondence between himself and Bails about Thomas’ plans for the 1980s ALL-STAR SQUADRON, but I guess it’s just Bails’ luck that Thomas has been mining this for several issues now, and we’re still not up to the debut issue of said series! Fortunately, some sense if not editorial vision prevails, and there’s a very good interview with Chris Claremont about working with Dave Cockrum on X-MEN which really plays up how the book became a success because of their creative synergy and the visual nuances Cockrum brought to each character. I still kind of enjoyed the magazine here and there but the good pieces on good talent do tend to be muted at times by indifferent pieces on mediocre talent, or examples of rare artwork that turns out not to be very good.

THE COMICS JOURNAL #252 Edited by Milo George. Fantagraphics Books. $6.95
Reading TCJ for me usually comes down to reading the parts I want to read the most, and then maybe getting to others as time permits. Often, a new issue is out before I can read both big interviews, but that’s fine. It’s worth the $7 even if you don’t read everything, because there’s so much in there. I love TCJ columnists squabbling with each other, and if you’re like me, check the Suat-Ng/Fiore battle, with Fiore being called geriatric, and yet not following up with the low blow of pointing out Suat-Ng edited ROSETTA. Old guys have decorum, it seems. There’s a good Eric Drooker interview and the usual quality reviews, but what strikes me is how wide the range is. The magazine is always called elitist and only concerned with art comics creators, but hell, there was John Romita, Sr. in probably his best interview last month, and now PRINCE VALIANT artist John Cullen Murphy gets the same treatment. What’s less elitist than an 70 year old newspaper adventure strip? Then there’s a very solid, perhaps too long piece on the legal problems between former publisher Jim Warren and Harris Comics, current owners of Vampirella, and even a relatively positive review of Vertigo’s FABLES. Other than the infighting and justly negative reviews, there’s a lot of comics love here.

NEXT WEEK:
Reviews of Harlan Ellison’s and Richard Corben’s VIC AND BLOOD; Alan Moore’s ACROSS THE UNIVERSE; Warren Ellis’ and Brandon McKinney’s SWITCHBLADE HONEY and more.

Chris Allen

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES