Month: January 2018

“He sure is my heap hep dream beam!”* In praise of Bob Lubbers (1922-2017)

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Mr. Lubbers (pronounced LEW-bers) , born January 10, 1922, left us last summer at the venerable age of ninety-five. As it happens, he also left us some fine, fine artwork.

My initial encounter with Bob Lubbers‘ work came in 1978, when he provided a handful of covers and a couple of issues to Marvel’s Human Fly, a book about masked Canadian stuntman Rick Rojatt, whose real-life, non-funnybook story is a gripping read**. Anyway, the series was usually pencilled either by Lee Elias*** or by the mighty Frank Robbins; by the time Lubbers came along, Robbins had rightly had his fill, given the comics industry the one-finger salute and decamped to México to retire and paint in peace. Wise man.

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Lubbers’ fourth and final The Human Fly cover (no. 16, Dec. 1978, Marvel). Inks by Bob McLeod. Inside, “Niagara Nightmare!” is written by Bill Mantlo, with art by Lubbers and Ricardo Villamonte.

I then became aware of Mr. Lubbers as one of the Golden Age’s primo ‘good girl’ cover artists, with Fiction House, no less. That’s what I’ll chiefly focus on here. Can you honestly blame me? Unlike some of his peers (hello, Bill Ward), he wasn’t just good at, and interested in, the saucy depiction of lightly-clad sirens: he could draw anything with finesse and brio.

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Mouth-breathing, slope-browed… I guess he’s not the hero in this one. Wings Comics no. 82 (June 1947, Fiction House.)
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Arguably the most (in)famous of Lubbers’ Wings covers. “Classic bondage and headlights cover!”, cry the ancient fanboys. Wings Comics no. 90 (Feb. 1948, Fiction House.)
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If our man of the hour had rescue in mind for the imperilled damsel, dropping a payload (you heard me!) a hundred feet away from her is likely to… make the situation a bit messy. Wings Comics no. 91 (March 1948, Fiction House.)
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« Seriously? The engine is on fire, we’re being strafed, I’m hogtied and helpless, and he’s still going to threaten me with a gun? » Wings Comics no. 94 (June 1948, Fiction House.)
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The life of a crocodile dentist isn’t an easy one, but the satisfaction of a job well done is its own reward. Wings Comics no. 98 (Oct. 1948, Fiction House.)
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Here comes the mother of all rope burns, sister. You’re supposed to grab the loop! Wings Comics no. 100 (Dec. 1948, Fiction House.)
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The exception to the Fiction House Wings set: Authentic Police Cases no. 5 (Oct. 1948, St. John.) The babes never could resist a bad boy.

Yet farther along, I would learn of his large and distinguished body of comic strip work: Long Sam, Secret Agent X-9, Tarzan, The Saint, Lil’ Abner, and best of all, his most personal work, Robin Malone (1967-70). On the latter, I can’t praise enough Tom Heintjes‘ definitive article (Hogan’s Alley no. 19, 2014), here’s a version of it: www.hoganmag.com/blog/the-life-and-death-of-robin-bob-lubbers-robin-malone

… and don’t forget to scroll down, down, down so you can sample (though it’s never enough!) the article’s lavish bounty Robin Malone Sunday strips.

*From the Captain Wings adventure « The Spider and the Fly-Guy » (Wings Comics no. 82) Read it right here (or pick from a generous selection of Wings Comics issues at Comicbookplus.com)

**speaking of which, check out this fine piece about The Human Fly’s rocket bike and the stunt that ended his career: http://kymichaelson.us/human-fly. You have to admit that jumping over 27 buses is a tad ambitious… and he was originally going to try for 36!

***likely picked for the job due to his fine work on another masked stuntperson character, Harvey’s The Black Cat.

– RG

Tentacle Tuesday: Adopt an Octopus Today!

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I’m in the mood for a light-hearted Tentacle Tuesday, an octopus-as-gentle-companion kind of mood.

Without further ado, I invite you to take a peek at the lives of those who opted for a slightly unorthodox pet!

Here’s our first friendly fellow. Ocho the octopus may be a minor player on this cover, but I’d like to think that he can still be part of our Tentacular Tuesday line-up (I couldn’t resist his puppy eyes).

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The Addams Family no. 1, October 1974. Cover by Bill Ziegler.

AF#1 not only features Ocho, but also a creature called Boola-Boola, basically a shaggy, colour-changing octopus – so you get double the tentacular pleasure in one issue!

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Art also by Bill Ziegler.

You can read the whole story here. Interestingly enough, the website that has beautiful scans of all three Addams Family Gold Key issues seems to be dedicated to teaching young people’s English, or to quote from the horse’s mouth, “Improve your English through Reading Comic with Fun”.

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Next up are Victoria and Otto, a nattily-dressed Victorian girl and her pet (confidant, friend, butler…) octopus.

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Given the style of these comico-illustrations, I don’t think it will astonish anyone to learn that Brian Kesinger is a Walt Disney Studios alumnus. Apparently, Otto and Victoria’s popularity has taken him by surprise, though it seems rather obvious that a curvy steampunkette and a friendly octopus would be a hit with a lot of people. This may be overly cute, but how can you resist the chronicles of two dear friends (though they may be of different species), especially when they regularly drop everything for a tea or reading break?

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Ice bucket challenge!

Otto and Victoria (with some involvement from Kesinger, I imagine!) have three books to their name – Walking Your Octopus: A Guidebook to the Domesticated Cephalopod (2013), Coloring With Your Octopus: A Coloring Book For Domesticated Cephalopods (2014) and Traveling With Your Octopus (2015), all three published by Baby Tattoo Books.

Here’s a self-portrait of the artist as a tentacle man:

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I think he’s stuck drawing tentacles for the rest of his life, now that Otto & Victoria merchandise is selling well. Careful what you wish for!

You can peruse more octopus adventures here.

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For our last entry, a friendly game of cards.

Now you see this brand new razor
I had it sharpened just today
I’m comin’ in there with my own rules
That you must follow when you play
Hey kid, keep your hands up there
While you’re givin’ them out, please
Stop puttin’ them wildies
Down there ‘tween your knees***

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Lucky Duck #6 (May 1953), art by Irv Spector, (1914-1977), whose career was mostly in animation, though he left behind some lovely comic work as well. The madcap energy of his stories certainly makes it look like the characters are actually in motion!

The inside stories are also by Irv Spector.  His son, Paul Spector, hosts a wonderful blog about his father’s work, and you can find many Lucky Duck stories for your enjoyment on its online pages for a dose of the sort of ebullient zaniness one only finds in animal funnies of the 1950s.

As a little bonus, a peek at Gary Larson’s view of octopuses as pets.

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~ ds

Unexpected Delights: John Severin, 1971-72

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« And you always get your finger in the frame* »

I’m inordinately fond of Marvel’s brief flirtation with “picture frame” covers, which lasted but a year, opening with books cover-dated November 1971, at the tail end of Stan Lee’s run as editor-in-chief, and fading away less than a year later during Roy Thomas’ tenure. Figures.

This period coincided with one of John Severin’s passages at Marvel. At the time, the self-proclaimed « House of Ideas » was endeavouring to flood the market with crap, aiming to force DC to overextend itself to retain its market share, and, reportedly, to drive Gold Key out of business. So Marvel let loose a torrent of unannounced and unnecessary reprints, at most commissioning new covers to sell the bill of goods.

Tactically, it was a tawdry page out of the infamous Israel Waldman* book: in the late 1950s to mid-60s, the canny cheapjack publisher issued a line of comics (IW/Super) reprinting material he owned and often didn’t, in the case of some of the more nebulous copyrights (namely Quality’s The Spirit, Doll Man and Plastic Man)… accidentally on purpose. Anyhow, Waldman paid a few handpicked freelancers top dollar (to get his money’s worth… I did say he was canny) to create enticing new covers to adorn his shoddy reprint rags. And I do mean rags: the paper stock used was even worse than the low industry standard… just try to find any IW comic book in decent shape nowadays!

Among the cover artists Waldman recruited were the Ross Andru / Mike Esposito team, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Jack Abel… and John Severin.

But getting back to 1971-72, here’s a chronological and alphabetical sampling of my favourite Severin turd-polishing covers from Marvel’s brief « picture frame » flirtation, out of the 35 or so he created solo at the time. Several of these are refreshingly uncluttered and moody… for Marvel.

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Someone at Marvel loved to rip-off the 1967 Lee Marvin-led epic “The Dirty Dozen“; probably Gary Friedrich. The very next month, the Deadly Dozen would team up with another Irishman stereotype to form “Combat Kelly and The Deadly Dozen”, I kid you not. Oh, and a diverse cast in a Marvel war comic? Oh, right, they’re ex-convicts… and they get slaughtered in the last issue. Oops.

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Ah, Severin’s Rawhide Kid. Don’t miss Severin and writer Ron Zimmerman’s brilliant and daring 2003 reboot of the Kid, “Slap Leather”.

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*Del Amitri, “In the Frame” (1995)

**all about Marvel’s “picture frame” era: https://www.cbr.com/marvel-comics-picture-frame-cover-era/

***The gory details on the IW/Super story: http://toonopedia.com/iw-super.htm

-RG

Faites gaffe, monsieur Franquin!

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Ninety-three years ago today (January 3, 1924, that is), master bédéiste André Franquin was born in Etterbeek, Belgium.

His œuvre is an embarrassment of riches, but heck, here’s a diabolically ingenious Gaston Lagaffe strip whose mise-en-scène is so solid and visually limpid that the only dialogue needed to truly “get it” is the punchline: « Never seen such a tough nut… »

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Originally published in Spirou no. 1599 (Dec. 5, 1968, Éditions Dupuis.)

It would be unfair and inaccurate to single anything out as André Franquin’s «masterpiece», given the consistently high calibre of his output. Let’s settle for stating that Gaston was in all likelihood his most popular creation, as luck would have it.

The legendary gaffeur first messed up in a two-panel cameo in the Spirou et Fantasio adventure Le voyageur du Mésozoïque in 1957. Later S&F tales were dotted with Gaston cameos, and the accident-prone office boy soon (crash-) landed his own half-page strip, which ran from the late 50s to the late 90s, though mostly consisted of reprints after the early 80s.

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Gaston’s second strip collection, issued in 1963 in the original “landscape” format, deemed an oddity at the time.

As for translations, Gaston’s popular in a bevy of languages, but not, of course, in English. Fantagraphics’ Kim Thompson was a huge fan, and translated a handful of strips, which were published (as Gomer Goof) in issues of the anthologies Prime Cuts and Graphic Story Monthly.

Speaking of Gomer, Anglophone readers are in for a treat: UK publisher Cinebook has, just last October, issued a collection (only 48 pages, but you have to start somewhere… and perhaps small) entitled Mind the Goof! Check it out here.

-RG

Tentacle Tuesday: Out of the Snowbank and Into the Jungle!

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Welcome to the first Tentacle Tuesday of 2018. Exciting, isn’t it?

Since it’s currently chillingly cold outside (or so the weather networks tell us), let’s bask in a bit of warmth and visit some exotic places where heat reigns supreme all year ‘round.

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What’s the first thing to do on a vacation? Take a leisurely walk, of course. However, I’d advise against venturing into a swampy forest. Some people never listen to sage advice, however…

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This is Beware no. 13 (1953), with a cover by Harry Harrison. « Out of the filth and mud-spawned deep it came, this horrible slug-white creature that wanted only one thing — to be loved! » Wait, what? “Rebirth”, the cover story, also illustrated by Harrison, clearly has absolutely nothing to do with the cover.

I’m quite fond of Harry Harrison as a writer, but as an artist he seems to have been rather middling. Although advertised as a “saga of terror”, Rebirth is an intriguing story in which the “horrible slug-white creatures” are actually far more likeable than the regular humans, who are back-stabbing, greedy assholes. Not that the plot makes much sense.

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The “white slug” may be well-intentioned, but he tends to launch into pompous speeches at the drop of a hat.
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A heart-warming, romantic scene.

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Okay, so a walk through a forest didn’t pan out quite as hoped. Let’s take a soothing dive into welcoming, warm waters. Did I say “welcoming”? Perhaps a little *too* welcoming.

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Terrors of the Jungle no. 20 (December 1952), cover by L.B. Cole. Normally I like Cole’s use of bright colours, but on this cover he goes all the way into gaudiness. However, the octopus is quite handsome, and he’s got startlingly human, expressive eyes. I’m rooting for him! Once again, the cover has little to do with the cover story.

The Creeping Scourge, credited to the Iger Shop (that my spellchecker keeps correcting to “tiger shop”), a comics packager that was officially known as the Eisner and Iger Studio, is an entertaining romp with babes in bondage, wild natives, catfights, blood sacrifices, etc. For example:

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A typical page from The Creeping Scourge, published in Terrors of the Jungle no. 20 (December 1952). « Help! The crawling thing eats me! » is a pretty snappy catchphrase.

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For the botanically-minded, a vacation is a fine opportunity to admire some heretofore unseen exotic plants. Take a look at this sweet little flower:

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« In the middle of the everglades, there’s a flower that’s different from any you’ve seen… »  Tales of Horror no. 11 (June 1954). Pencils by Ben Brown, inks by David Gantz. Death Flower tells the blood-curdling tale of a creepy old man who lives in the Florida swamps and feasts on human flesh – after having turned into a flower, of course.
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The opening panel of Death Flower, also drawn by the Ben Brown (pencils) and David Gantz (inks) team.
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Wouldn’t *you* trust this old man? Just look at him – such honest eyes, such a confidence-inspiring face. Yes, of course we’ll go to your cabin, venerable oldster!

That’s it for our little holiday pleasure trip – come to think of it, I’ll remain where it’s cold and snowy, thanks.

~ ds