Author: gasp65

The Batman’s First True Auteur

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« In almost every picture, Batman looks as if he has spent the day greasing the Batmobile and didn’t bother to clean up afterwards. There is a difference between shadowing and what looks like globs of dirt and grime. » — letterhack Bob Rozakis (Detective 420, Feb. 1972), as astute an art critic as he would prove a writer.

Think about it: from his initial appearance in 1939’s Detective no. 27, the Batman was always a bit of a shop product. While notorious deceiver and glory-hog Bob Kane (né Kahn, 1915-98) loved to slap his name on anything and everything, his principal talent was self-promotion. Kane’s Batman was mostly the work of far more talented ‘ghosts‘ such as Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang, Bill Finger, George Roussos, Jack Burnley, Win Mortimer… and so on, for decades. It’s unlikely that anyone ever produced the artwork for a Batman story on their own (well, professionally), let alone wrote *and* drew one. In a nutshell, that’s the assembly-line style US funnybook industry.

As far as the caped crusader is concerned, that state of affairs would briefly change with Detective no. 416 (cover-dated October, 1971): under a particularly clumsy Neal Adams cover, the lead story, Man-Bat Madness!, was scripted, pencilled, inked *and* lettered by Frank Robbins. He would produce four more solo Batman adventures: Forecast for Tonight — Murder! (Detective Comics no. 420, Feb. 1972); Blind Justice — Blind Fear! (Detective Comics no. 421, March 1972), Killer’s Roulette! (Detective Comics no. 426, Aug. 1972) and Man-Bat Over Vegas! (Detective Comics no. 429, Nov. 1972).

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A sample from the first one-man Bat-Adventure, Detective no. 416‘s Man-Bat Madness! Robbins’ expertly fluid storytelling and confident spotting of blacks are well in evidence here.
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Opening splash from my pick of the solo Robbins Batman, Detective no. 421‘s Blind Justice — Blind Fear! [Psst! Read it here.]
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Those were the days of “relevance” in comics. The Attica Prison Uprising had just occurred…

Robbins had been scripting for DC since 1968 (starting right after the ignominious firing of many of their most seasoned writers… for presuming to request some social benefits after decades of loyal, and often forcibly exclusive, service*), but he didn’t get his brushes out until 1971, presumably wanting to draw his then-recent creation, Man-Bat** (Detective no. 400, June 1970).

After a final hurrah (script-only) with Batman 254‘s King of the Gotham Jungle! (Jan.-Feb. 1974), he was off to Marvel, where he did no writing, but illustrated tales of Morbius The Living Vampire, Dracula, Ghost Rider, The Legion of Monsters, Captain America, The Invaders, the Man From Atlantis, The Human Fly, Daredevil… generally while paired with inkers ranging from the decent (Frank Giacoia, D. Bruce Berry), to the inappropriate (Frank Springer) to the dismal (Frank Chiaramonte and… hello again, Vinnie). He walked away from the industry in the middle of a cliffhanger, after Daredevil no. 155‘s The Man Without Fear? (Nov. 1978). Beyond that, having endured far more than his share of fanboy sniping and editorial meddling, Robbins left comics forever, going off to paint in México. Wise man.

Robbins, as you may or may not know, was a truly polarising figure in 1970s comics. He was the bane of house-style loving fanboys, and it seems that anyone savvy enough to appreciate him at a tender age later became a cartoonist. The ample evidence (meaning far too much) witnessed on FB comics groups has led me to shrugging acceptance that most fanboys’ aesthetic sensibilities haven’t shifted an iota from when they were twelve… and won’t now or ever.

Another dodgy character encountered in recent years is the annoyingly common “I hated Robbins then, but I totally get him now” git, which brings to mind a certain science-fiction cliché.

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« Yeah, we burned down his house, tarred and feathered him and ran him out of town… but looking back, he was a pretty swell guy! »  Which stories are these? Find out at the end of the post.

Back to our regularly scheduled train of thought…

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A sample from Detective Comics no. 420‘s Forecast for Tonight — Murder! Read it here, while you can.
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A moody teaser from Detective Comics no. 426‘s Killer’s Roulette! Peruse it here .
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The precarious opening splash from Detective Comics no. 429‘s Man-Bat Over Vegas! Play the odds right… here.

How I wish he’d gotten to illustrate his moody script for The Spook’s Master Stroke! (Batman no. 252, Oct. 1973), introducing my favourite Bat-villain, seldom-seen The Spook. He was difficult to write, so they killed him off after a handful of appearances.

While Robbins wasn’t my very favourite Bat-writer, (that honour goes to… David V. Reed), he generally delivered a solid tale… but when he was in full command, he was pretty top-notch.

-RG

*« Even though Fox has worked for several comic book publishers, he remains most associated with DC Comics, for whom he worked more than three decades. That collaboration came to an abrupt end in 1968. Fox had joined other comics writers like Otto Binder, John Broome, Arnold Drake, Bill Finger and Bob Haney, signing a petition to ask DC for more financial benefits, particularly regarding health insurance. Since the company regarded writers as expandable people they were all fired without mercy and replaced by more obedient newcomers. » [ Source ] (incidentally, Haney wasn’t fired… at least permanently)

**Neal Adams, having waited until everyone else in the room was dead (editor Julius Schwartz passed away in 2004), began to claim that Man-Bat had been his idea, with no-one’s help. Sorry, Neal, I think you’re a bit confused: you’re thinking of Valeria the She-Bat, and she’s all yours.

Mini-quiz answers: 1) Spores From Space (Mystery in Space no. 1, May 1951, DC); written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by… Frank Frazetta. 2) The Unknown Spaceman (Mystery in Space no. 11, Jan. 1953, DC); written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Bob Oksner and Bernard Sachs; 3) I Created Sporr, the Thing That Could Not Die! (Tales of Suspense no. 11, Sept. 1960, Marvel); written by Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers; 4) The Blip! (Tales to Astonish no. 15, Jan. 1961, Marvel); written by Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers.

Treasured Stories: “Dragstrip Paved With Gold” (1968)

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« Alcohol is for drinking, gas is for cleaning parts, and nitro is for racing! » — Don Garlits

At this time each year, Montréal is beset by its own plague of greedy locusts: it’s Formule 1 Grand Prix time! While our fair city offers other crowd-pleasing events (for instance le Festival international de jazz de Montréal and le Festival Juste pour rire / Just for Laughs), the most glaring distinction between the Grand Prix and the others is that it essentially draws just one type of visitor, a Las Vegas/Florida Spring Break/Nascar sort of randy, aggressive, would-be Alpha Male yob. Imagine hosting the Republican National Convention year upon year, and at eardrum-tormenting sonic levels. Time and time again, the newspapers run the same stories about rampant prostitution and criminal exploitation and how the event only benefits bar, hotel, restaurant and cab operators and variegated pimps… and shafts everyone else. The usual one-percenter bait-and-switch appeal to everyday avarice, it never fails.

Oddly enough, given my distaste for racing culture proper, I’m paradoxically quite fond of hot rod comics. I was as surprised as anyone when I chanced, several years past, to read an odd issue of Drag n’ Wheels that had come into my possession decades earlier in the midst of an assorted lot (this was no. 46, April 1971)… and greatly enjoyed it. Gripping stuff, as it turned out!

Now, there’s no question that the number one driver of Charlton Comics’ hot-rod line* was Jack Keller (1922-2003), a Golden Age artist who found his true niche with car comics. Around 1967, he was offered an exclusive contract with Marvel to work on their western titles, but Keller declined in order to focus on his Charlton account, where he could write, pencil, ink and letter his own stuff… without having to redraw anything. Moreover, he claimed to favour horsepower over horses.

Keller’s car stories are often a delight, full of knowing detail, clever humour and plenty of thrills. However, if Keller had produced the entire line on his own (as he did, in fact, when it was whittled down to a pair of titles in its final years), the growing bleakness in his work could have become wearying. Drawing from his direct involvement in the racing scene, Keller packed his stories with pompous asses, dangerous egomaniacs, slimy backstabbers, sociopathic glory hogs, and other representatives of a bloodthirsty, mean-spirited mob.

Charlton’s main writer, Joe Gill, filled out the rest of the book, aided by a rotating crew of artists, among them Don Perlin, the tireless Charles Nicholas ‘n’ Vince Alascia duo, Tony Tallarico, Bill Montes, Dick Giordano, Bill Molno, et al.

But in the line’s peak years (1964-1969, also an aesthetic apogee in automotive design), the number two illustrator in Charlton’s racing stable was Edd Ashe (1908-1986), another journeyman from the Golden Age of comics.

Here, at last, are some actual comics. Dragstrip Paved With Gold appeared in Hot Rods and Racing Cars no. 90 (June 1968, Charlton Comics), and was written by Joe Gill, pencilled by Edd Ashe, and inked by the mysterious and likely pseudonymous T. Roots.

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It might be easy to miss some of the more unusual nuances of Gill’s tale. When faced with the daily task of coming up with material grounded in genres with a limited number of available plots (say, romance, war, horror, hot rods, sports), Gill kept the plot basic and tidy, but enriched his stories with unusual characterization, pertinent technical details, vernacular and jargon… and sometimes moral values quite at odds with the prevailing societal mores. In this story for instance, note that the ladies in Terry and Jim’s lives provide the voices of reason, prodding them gently away from blind ambition, excessive materialism and showboating and toward self-preservation and enlightened self-respect. Dead men can’t keep up with the Joneses… or rather ahead, in this case.

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As a bonus, I’ve compiled a complete-as-far-as-I-know bibliography of Mr. Ashe’s contributions to Charlton hot rod comics (1964-1969); wherever available**, follow the links to read the issue on comicbookplus.com!

Hot Rod Racers 1 : Local Champ / The Compact Cavaliers / Back-Road Champ
Hot Rod Racers 2: The Avenger / Joe’s Jalopy / The Driver, not the Car
Hot Rod Racers 10: Quarter King
Hot Rod Racers 11: Fast Loser
Hot Rod Racers 12: Wrecks to Riches
Hot Rod Racers 13: The Spoiler
Hot Rod Racers 14: The Day the Creampuff Won
Hot Rod Racers 15: You Never Know!

Grand Prix 16: Bossin’ the Turns
Grand Prix 17: Twins’ Trouble / Constant Loser
Grand Prix 18: Gentleman Driver
Grand Prix 19: The Eagles Scream
Grand Prix 20: For Money or Marbles
Grand Prix 21: The Town Wreckers

Drag-Strip Hotrodders 2: Tamed Tiger / Falcon Flyer / Little Eliminator
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 3: English Cousin / 1320 in 13.20 / S/S King
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 5: Great Moments in Racing History: “Rods Across the Sea”
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 10: The Furious 40! / 200 Plus!
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 11: Match Champ
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 12: I’m a Lemon (A Car’s Own Story)
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 13: Speed in All Seasons
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 14: Playin’ the Role!
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 15: “Mighty Mustang”
Drag-Strip Hotrodders 16: Speed at Any Price

World of Wheels 17: Modified Madness
World of Wheels 18: The Astro Rod
World of Wheels 19: “Speedy”
World of Wheels 20: Beast From the East
World of Wheels 21: The Rat Pack
World of Wheels 23: The Wild Ones (Parents)
World of Wheels 27: The Sissy Wagon
World of Wheels 28: Home Town Driver / Lemon at Le Mans (Vince Colletta inks)

Hot Rods and Racing Cars 70: Nightmare at Le Mans
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 72: Farmboy at Le Mans
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 73: Outlaw Hot-Rod / 300 MPH Flying Jet / The Novice / Hold It!
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 74: Final Test (Colletta inks)
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 75: Great Moment in Racing History: “Race to the Sky”
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 78: Great Moment in Racing History: Sebring ’65
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 79: Mille Miglia of 1952
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 80: Great Moment in Racing History: The Vanderbuilt Cup Race of 1937
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 83: The Digyard Demon
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 85: Fast and Furious
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 86: Backyard Grand Prix
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 87: The Pigeon / Just a Country Boy
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 88: Wild Willie & the Black Baron
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 89: The Mighty Midgets
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 90: Dragstrip Paved With Gold
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 91: Piston Head
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 92: Dirt Track Digger
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 93: Tomboy Tornado
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 94: A Friendly Little Car
Hot Rods and Racing Cars 99: The New Breed

Teenage Hotrodders 15: Great Moment in Racing History: The World 600
Teenage Hotrodders 16: Great Moment in Racing History: The Detroit Special
Teenage Hotrodders 17: Great Moment in Racing History: Le Mans 24 Hour Race 1959
Teenage Hotrodders 21: His Big Dream
Teenage Hotrodders 23: Flying Failure

Top Eliminator 25: The Pigeon
Top Eliminator 27: RedLight Express / Mad for Matches
Top Eliminator 28: Blow-Up
Top Eliminator 29: Scarface and the Get Away Gasser

Drag ‘n’ Wheels 32: Weird Willy’s Wild Wagen
Drag ‘n’ Wheels 33: Smoked In
Drag ‘n’ Wheels 34: Wastin’ Time
Drag ‘n’ Wheels 35: The Firecracker 500

– RG

*These were Hot Rods and Racing Cars (1951-1973); Speed Demons (1957-58); Dragstrip Hotrodders / World of Wheels (1963-1970); Teenage Hotrodders / Top Eliminator / Drag ‘n’ Wheels (1963-1973); Hot Rod Racers / Grand Prix (1964-1970); and Surf ‘n’ Wheels (1969-1970).

**Until they wised up sometime in 1968, Charlton didn’t bother to copyright their publications; therefore, they wound up in the Public domain.

Jughead’s Pal, Samm Schwartz

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« What is it about me, Pops? Am I different than normal people? »

One (more) thing I’ve learned in this world is that the vast majority of people, from the man or woman in the checkout line to the hard core of comics aficionados… can’t tell Archie artists apart, let alone name any of them.

If you scratch deep enough, one name will come up, like pebbles from a fallow field: Dan DeCarlo. I’m reminded of the annual restaurant poll a local alternative weekly used to hold: McDonald’s unfailingly took its category in a landslide, because of its ubiquitous familiarity. And so it is with Archie artists: DeCarlo must be the best because… well, that’s what we’ve always been told.

If you ask me, much of his peers’ work gets attributed to him. For instance, check out our gallery of Bob White covers. That Archie’s Mad House no. 27 cover, in particular…

WOT’s pick for top artist on the Archie totem is handily Samm Schwartz (1920 – 1997). He’s easily the smoothest, most inventive storyteller in the Archie universe. Despite his skill as a cover designer during Archie’s best years (1959-1965, a figure proposed by cartoonist-scholar Seth and worth carving in stone), there were no Schwartz covers chez Archie after 1965.

The likely reason? In ’65, Schwartz was hired away by Wally Wood‘s Tower Comics (by managing editor Harry Shorten, a former Archie writer-editor) to serve as their art director. While there, he conceived Tower’s relatively prolific teen humour line, featuring Tippy Teen, Go-Go and Animal, and Teen-In, often glibly dismissed as “Archie clones“, by people who clearly haven’t read the work. We’ll return to these eventually.

Now comes the clincher: Schwartz in turn hired some of his former Archie colleagues to pitch in (presumably at higher page rates); DeCarlo (a handful of stories in early issues of Tippy Teen), Harry Lucey (a decent batch, actually) and reportedly Bob White (no sign of him, though). But the bulk of the work was done by Schwartz and future Archie artist Doug Crane.

Now the Archie people didn’t like this one bit; it was a clear case of sedition, a threat to their tidy little work camp system. After the industry’s near-collapse in the mid-1950s, there weren’t a lot of options in the tight-knit little club that remained; let’s not forget that even Jack Kirby was driven to such humbling desperation in the early 1960s. It was all too easy to be blackballed. The Goldwater clan, Archie’s reigning dynasty, took careful note of Schwartz’s break for freedom and the names of his accomplices. After Tower called it a day in 1969, Schwartz went to DC for a year, but it didn’t take. He was forced to return to Archie, which certainly suited the publisher since Schwartz’s signature title, Jughead, had been wilting away in his absence.

The terms of his return are unknown… but against all odds, Samm proceeded to create the finest work of his career, pencilling, inking and lettering hundreds of inspired Jughead stories until, well, until he couldn’t any more. But no covers, considered a plum job: these went exclusively to DeCarlo (with an occasional Lucey) and later to versatile mediocrity Stan Goldberg, aping DeCarlo’s style and random design sense*.

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Jughead’s Fantasy no. 2 (Oct. 1960); a parody of the excellent 1958-61 detective show… and yes, Peter Gunn did get conked on the head an awful lot.

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Archie’s Pal Jughead no. 78 (Nov. 1961)

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Archie’s Pal Jughead no. 81 (Feb. 1962). Check out Reggie’s body language, in particular.

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Archie Giant Series Magazine no. 17 (Archie’s Jokes, Summer 1962). There goes Archie, into the next county.

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Laugh Comics no. 136 (July 1962)

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Archie’s Pal Jughead no. 86 (July 1962)

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Archie’s Pal Jughead no. 89 (Oct. 1962)

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Er, interesting choice of space pioneers, USAF. Could this mission be some sort of tax dodge? Perhaps Mr. Lodge has a financial stake in it, and gently “suggested” Archie for the possibly one-way trip. Archie Giant Series Magazine no. 19 (World of Jughead, Dec. 1962)

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Pep no. 165 (Sept. 1963). My college graphic design teacher told our class that a poster should be “One Angry Fist”, which certainly applies to comic book covers, and this is a fine, fine example of making the most of a format.

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Archie’s Mad House no. 33 (June 1964)

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Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica no. 102 (June 1964). The new, definitely not improved cover layout of the Archie line rears its homely head.

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Mr. Samm Schwartz, date unknown, though the cars should certainly serve as a clue.

To quote his daughter, Joanne Colt, from the introduction of 2011’s The Best of Samm Schwartz (it isn’t, but it’s pretty good): « He drew for Archie until his death on November 13, 1997, my birthday. There was an unfinished story on his drawing board. »

-RG

*the way I see it, the difference between a Bob White or a Samm Schwartz cover and a DeCarlo is the difference between a considered, effective layout and the act of pointing a camera at random and snapping the shutter. To be fair to DeCarlo, his girlie cartoons for Martin Goodman’s Humorama were excellent, and his first half-decade at Archie (60-65) was fine… then the company wore him down into a sad hack and the unfortunate protagonist-victim of a cautionary tale.

A Garrulous Dilettante and Her Pals: Tom Hachtman’s Gertrude’s Follies

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« Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers’ granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages. » — Gertrude Stein

Several years ago, while browsing in the comics section of a rather lousy bookstore (by which I mean a book shop in which none of the employees know a thing about books, let alone are actual readers… I suspect that this is becoming more common, with predictable results), I stumbled upon an oddball item, a faded-looking, obscure comic strip collection lost amidst the monotonous stacks of DC ‘n’ Marvel superhero fare and the perennial dusty Garfield and Doonesbury paperbacks.

This was Fun City (1985), the second recueil of Tom Hachtman‘s newspaper strip Gertrude’s Follies, which at the peak of its circulation appeared in… well, one paper, but a good one, at least. That was the SoHo Weekly News (1973-82). After the weekly’s demise, a handful of episodes appeared in the fast-fading National Lampoon. Much, much later (which is to say currently) the strip lives on within the pages of American Bystander, an astonishingly well-staffed humour magazine. I smell doom.

Anyway, here’s Hachtman’s recollection of the strip’s genesis, from a 1980 interview conducted by Maxine Fisher for Funnyworld no. 22 (”The world of Animated Films and Comic Art”):

MF: What was your inspiration for a strip about Gertrude Stein and her companion, Alice B. Toklas?

TH: I knew of them, but I didn’t know much about them. And then I saw a photograph of them [by none other than Man Ray] sitting in a room at the home on the rue de Fleurus in Paris. I looked at this famous lesbian couple sitting across from one another — so far apart– and I thought: ”Look at that! One of them is fat, and the other one’s skinny. That’s funny. They’re just like a comedy routine. I wonder if they had any fun.” It didn’t look like they were having any fun in that picture; they just looked like they were posing for a picture. But I thought: ”maybe they ran around and had lots of fun.” So I started drawing pictures of them, and drawing pictures of their friend Pabs, and looking at pictures of them, and looking at pictures of Picasso.

Anyway, I started drawing Gertrude and Alice and Pabs and Hemingway and putting them into situations in my sketchbook.

Basically, I was doing Abbott and Costello or I Love Lucy starring Gertrude, Alice, and their friends.

I knew if would make a nice comic strip in a newspaper. And that narrowed it down. Here was a comic strip about a lesbian couple and all their artist friends. There weren’t too many newspapers that were going to publish this. In fact, I thought, there’s only one. And I started to watch the SoHo News, wondering where it would fit. Where would they put this thing? Would they give me a whole page to do a comic strip?

More juicy details from another interview, this one conducted in 2018 by Martin Kozlowski:

MK: One of the unique features of the strip is the blending of Jazz Age Paris and Punk Rock New York. Was that a deliberate strategy or did it naturally evolve?

TH: I was living in NYC in the 1970s. I only know Paris from movies and books. That’s right; I have never been to Paris. So, when I draw a mailbox I am too lazy to research what a mailbox looks like in Jazz Age Paris. I just draw a mailbox as I know it. I have been told that my readers in Paris find this very amusing. So, the blending happens — naturally.

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However, something that Stephen King does mind…

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Oh, I’ll bet dear old Dr. Pretorius would be right chuffed with this Alice Bride. « To a new world of gods and monsters! », as the good doc famously exclaimed.

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Our heroines in a more (or less) realistic vein. In the usual order: Gertrude, Bucket, Alice.

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Despite, or perhaps because of the liberties he takes with these semi-sacred historical figures, Hachtman’s Gertrude appears to be rather beloved of the keepers of Gert and Alice’s mad flame. For example: « I look at the cover of the soon-to-be-reborn Follies several times a day and have a laugh each time. Too funny, Hemingway’s teeth, silly Picasso avec crayon, Basket’s slobbering excitement and Alice’s cigarette charm!! And Gert, yes sir, she is fierce!!! Rose flying like arrow ready to hit Alice’s nose. This can’t get any better! I hear the brooch ringing… Bravo! » –– Stein scholar Renate Stendahl

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The auteur, circa the late 70s. Say, what’s that he’s sporting?

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Un mini-parasol, une ombrelle. For shade, not protection from the rain. Hachtman was fond of road-testing some of the props employed by his players. Gives the strip that je ne sais quoi of authenticity, don’t you know.

If  you like what you see, you may rejoice in the fact that Gertrude’s Follies has lately become more widely available (whilst retaining its elusive cachet) thanks to the efforts of Now What Media. Amble over to their website, where they provide a generous sampling of strips and biographical information, not to mention the possibility of acquiring the collections.

Oh, and do check out Alice’s unusual, lasting contribution to popular culture.

« I love you, Alice B. Toklas, and so does Gertrude Stein… »

-RG

“Just a feminine hygiene version of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse”: Russo & Wong’s ‘Rancid Plotte’ (1993)

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« We’re not very accepting of people who act strangely. » — Chester Brown

Scott Russo’s Jizz, published by Fantagraphics in 1991-93 (10 issues in all), was a fearless, often downright incendiary and frequently fascinating repository of vitriol from the heart and soul of Mr. Russo. As his own drawing style was pretty rudimentary (but clean and distinctive), the auteur drew upon collage, détournement and plain old text pieces for variety. Russo may have been embittered and misanthropic, but the entertainment he proffered was quite deliberate; a fine, dexterous trick to pull off.

Here, from Scott Russo’s Jizz no. 10 (March 1993, Fantagraphics), is his merciless but spot-on takedown of publisher Drawn & Quarterly‘s stable of neurotics: Julie Doucet, Joe Matt, Chester Brown and Seth, rendered in a breathtakingly accurate facsimile blend of their respective styles and schticks. Script by Russo, art by his trusted confederate ‘Master’ Jeff Wong. Not particularly ‘safe for work‘, I should say.

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From Scott Russo’s Jizz no. 7 (Sept. 1991, Fantagraphics). I’ll always be grateful to Mr. Russo for this scathing exposé of the Olive Oil industry. My girlfriend at the time was taking a chemistry class at McGill University, during which they subjected various brands of olive oil to chemical analysis and essentially confirmed Russo’s claims. Now I merely snicker and shrug when I see someone shell out big bucks for the stuff… sometimes there’s no sense in trying to convince anyone.

-RG

Marooned in Time With Paul Gillon

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« We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they’re called memories. Some take us forward, they’re called dreams. » — Jeremy Irons

Today, we note the birth anniversary of the powerful French bédéiste Paul Gillon (May 11, 1926- May 21, 2011). Working in a classical, realistic style, he began his career in comics with the weekly Vaillant. For daily newspaper France-Soir, he co-created the daily soap opera strip 13, rue de l’Espoir (1959-1962, scripted by Jacques Gall and François Gall), strongly inspired by Elliot Caplin and Stan Drake’s The Heart of Juliet Jones, but set in Paris.

Then, in 1964, for the short-lived bédé newspaper Chouchou (an eight-pager published for a mere 14 issues, a tragedy!), Gillon co-created, with scripter J.C. Valherbe (alias Jean-Claude Forest, of Barbarella fame), one of the great classics of French science-fiction comics, Les naufragés du temps (“Castaways of Time”). Several wonderful features (for instance, Georges Pichard‘s Ténébrax) were left stranded by Chouchou’s demise, including (literally) Les naufragés.

Fortunately, its authors deemed its premise too worthy to let the matter drop forever. Nearly a decade on, Gillon tweaked the saga’s opening pages and resumed the narrative, which France-Soir published. Forest scripted the first four collections (1974-76), then Gillon took full command of the strip, which found a warm new home in Métal hurlant from 1977 right to the end of the series with Le cryptomère (The Cryptomeria), collected in 1989.

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Les naufragés’ premise is this: In 1990, a man (Chris) and a woman (Valérie) are placed into suspended animation. A thousand years hence, the man is picked up and woken. Where’s the woman?, he wants to know. A futuristic bout of cherchez la femme ensues, to make a long story short.

Forest, wrote, in 1967, of his original plans for the saga: « Chris was searching for an image. After many adventures, he manages to find Valérie only to realize that this image no longer fitted that of his dream. »

The sequence presented here comprise the second, third and fourth pages of the first tale, as they appeared in Chouchou in 1964. Say, that cool metal creature reminds me of one of the most ridiculous Marvel super-baddies of the 1960s, disgruntled government employee Alexander Gentry, aka… (see below for the answer).

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The first album in the series, L’étoile endormie (The Sleeping Star) – 1974
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The fourth album in the series, L’univers cannibale (The Cannibal Universe) – 1976
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The fifth album in the series, Tendre chimère (Sweet Illusion) – 1977

A peek at a page of original art from album 3, Labyrinthes (1976):

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More about the series: http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/naufragesdutemps.htm

… and you can read the entire series here (if you can read French) or, if not, just admire the artwork.

– RG

… and here’s your answer:

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Stan Lee and Don Heck‘s The ‘Dreaded’ (ha!) Porcupine, or what happens when neither Steve Ditko nor Jack Kirby are on hand to design your costume (and ghost-write your story). Incidentally, Stan, porcupines don’t project their quills. Here he is depicted by Kirby, from the cover of his inaugural appearance, in Tales to Astonish no. 48 (October, 1963).

Treasured Stories: “I Wonder Who’s Squeezing Her Now?” (1979)

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« When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. » — Sacha Guitry

Here’s my contender for the most adult thing ever published in a Warren Magazine, as opposed to adolescent. It was also Wally Wood’s final significant contribution to his bibliography (though it was created around 1971); by the time of its belated publication Wood’s work had degenerated into depressing, crude porn before he tragically took his own life in November, 1981. As Witzend sadly proved, most comics creators, when handed a creative carte blanche, would merely regurgitate the same old thing they were doing for the mainstream, but with the addition of tits and/or gore. This, however, whilst featuring a generous dollop of T&A, is another breed of beast. It was published, of all places, in Warren’s SF anthology 1984 (issue 5, Feb. 1979). Go figure.

IWonderWho01AIWonderWho02AIWonderWho03AIWonderWho04AIWonderWho05AIWonderWho06AIWonderWho07AThe marvellous Bhob Stewart queried Nick Cuti about the story during a roundtable gathering of former Wood assistants in Derby, Connecticut, in July 1985. The discussion later appeared in Against the Grain: MAD Artist Wallace Wood, edited by Stewart (2003, TwoMorrows Publishing)

Bhob: You worked on “Last Train to Laurelhurst“? [the story’s original title]
Cuti: « As a matter of fact, I’m in it on the opening page. That’s me — right there [points to foreground figure in splash.] I used to wear muttonchops in those days. We wrote that together; Woody came up with the basic storyline, and I wrote a lot of dialogue. I hated his ending. I said, ‘Woody, you really ought to change the ending.’ The ending was that the guy blasted his faithless wife and her lover and then walked away. I said, ‘Gee, that’s what he’s intending to do in the very beginning. There’s no switch at the end. If you change it around somehow, it would make it a little bit more surprising.’ So he went home and rewrote the ending. I thought that the ending he came up with was far superior and made it a really brilliant story, to really tell you what life can be like.

Ernie Colón did the pencils. It was Woody’s idea, and I wrote some of the script, I don’t know how much because we used to toss things back and forth all the time when I was at the studio.It was for a magazine called Pow that never came to be. [Jim] Warren had approached Wood to do an adult humor magazine which would have had serious stories, very sexy, something that adults would enjoy reading. Unfortunately, Woody and Warren had diametrically opposed personalities, and they couldn’t seem to get together on it.

There was a funny story: Ernie had done the pencils with a soft pencil, and Woody and I were wondering what the heck we could do to make sure it didn’t get smudged. I was very carefully going over the pencils with an eraser to get out the smudges. I came in the next day with the pencils and said, ‘I found the perfect way to avoid smudging the pencils.’ Woody said, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘I sprayed them.’ Woody’s face dropped, and he almost reached over the strangle me before I stopped him and said, ‘Hey, Woody, I’m only kidding!’ [laughter] Because when you spray something, you can’t erase the pencils any more. You would have ink and pencil on the same paper. He almost had a heart attack right there; his mouth dropped open, and he said, ‘Oh, no!’ Then he started laughing after I told him it was only a joke. Later, when I walked into the house, and Marilyn said, ‘Oh, Woody, Nick’s here. You know, the fellow who sprays all your pencils?’ Obviously, he had thought enough of the joke to tell her about it. »

Speaking of Pow, here’s a cover sketch Wood did in 1971.WallyWoodPowRoughAAn adult humour magazine? I guess they hadn’t quite settled on the tone.

-RG

The Case of the Cackling Conjurer!

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« Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. » — Denis Charles Pratt (1908-1999)

Longtime companions Bruce and Alex, who spend their days tracking down and investigating “queer events”, presumably for a guide they’re putting together, happen to drive near Oakville, where a gleeful oldster is on a tear.

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I’m thinking Quentin Crisp, because his fellow raconteur and bon vivant Sir Noël Coward wasn’t especially into large, floppy hats.

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« The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us. » — Quentin Crisp (né Denis Charles Pratt)

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You don’t say, Bruce! Let’s face it, screwball ideas hardly ever fail to bear fruit in these zany yarns.

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More action-packed merriment with Bruce & Alex, roving queerness inquirers!

Alex has a plan, and Bruce grasps instantly what Bruce has in mind. It’s like they’ve done this before. Somehow, Alex’s brainstorms always involve Bruce disrobing, and, judging from his expression, he’s unfailingly eager to comply.

This saga is that of The Cackling Conjurer (Strange Adventures no. 201, June 1967, DC), writer regrettably unknown, art by that magnificent oddball Bernard Baily. Edited, of course, by Jack Schiff; he may have screwed DC out of Jack Kirby’s talent throughout the 1960s, and nearly drove the Batman titles over the cancellation cliff, but he certainly produced some perversely entertaining crap. Incidentally, Schiff retired from comics two issues after this one, but surely that’s mere coincidence.

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As you can see, the rest of the issue was quite mundane and utterly devoid of eccentricity. Cover by Carmine Infantino and George Roussos. That’s a rather… intimate hold the Mod Gorilla Boss has on Animal-Man, don’t you think?

– RG

Earth Day With Jim Woodring and Friends

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« Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain’s majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea. » ― George Carlin

On this day, the forty-ninth edition of Earth Day, we feature some little-seen work (by his usual audience, at any rate) by Jim Woodring and his collaborator Scott Deschaine*. Given the current political climate, an increasingly dire state of affairs, I’ll (mostly) skip the chit-chat and make with the visual riches.

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Among the Woodring / Deschaine collaborations, One Green Tree (1990) is the masterpiece, and the only full-on Woodring, visually-speaking, with its expressive inks, unsimplified art and lush palette.

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An interior (in more than one sense) page from One Green Tree, a sixteen-pager. Full marks to Deschaine, a science popularizer of the first order, and a cartoonist himself, which goes a long way in explaining the success of these collaborations.

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Incidentally, Woodring drew himself into the story as the friendly guide, Mr. Underwood.

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As it happens, Earth Day 2019’s theme is « Protect Our Species », and few species need more protection than the gentle elephant.

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An excerpt from An Elephant’s Life (1999), written by Mike Benton and Scott Deschaine, illustrated by Woodring.

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Search for Soil (2000, Discovery Comics) features Woodring in a simpler style, but it’s still gorgeous and effective. And hey, a Tiny Perfect Mole!

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And for those of you who may find this all too earnest, cute and family-friendly, I’ve saved a Woodring piece to soothe your savage brow. This is the one-shot Northwest Cartoon Cookery (1995, Starhead Comix), also featuring fine work by J.R. Williams, Donna Barr, Ellen Forney, Roberta Gregory, Michael Dougan, Mark Zingarelli… and a couple of pages of Ed Brubaker’s dismal artwork.

« What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. » ― Chris Maser, Forest Primeval: The Natural History of an Ancient Forest

-RG

*French family names, after spending some time in English-speaking lands, tend to distort in interesting ways: “Deschaine” makes no grammatical sense. It likely started out as “Deschaînes” (of the chains), or its homonym, Deschênes ou Duchêne (of the Oaks or the Oak). Sometimes, the name gets so badly distorted that it’s quite unpronounceable: Shia LaBeouf  (Leboeuf, the ox) or Cara Delevingne (Delavigne, of the vine)… not that I’d want to utter these names, save perhaps as curses.

The Quite Wacky Adventures of Cracky

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Country Boy: What are you doing?
City Boy: Drawing.
Country Boy: Where are your guns?
— Submitted by Steven Feinstein, 7, Philadelphia, PA (circa 1965)

Cracky the parrot was introduced in the role of mascot for Western Publishing‘s general-interest kids’ mag The Golden Magazine (1964-71), which heavily drew upon the successful Jack and Jill (published since 1938 by The Saturday Evening Post Society) formula.

For much of its existence, The Golden Magazine thrived, having access to top creative talent from the Western publishing empire (Whitman, Gold Key, Golden Press, Golden Book Encyclopedia…)

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At first, Cracky stuck to sharing reader-submitted jokes. Then, around 1968, he began to show up on covers, generally depicted by versatile Canadian illustrator Mel Crawford (1925-2015). This is one such case, from April, 1969.

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In 1970, Cracky saw his old job expanded, branching out into two titles, Jokes by Cracky and  Pencil Puzzle Fun, the latter outlasting its parent, The Golden Magazine. This is Jokes by Cracky no. 2 (1970); Cover art by Mel Crawford.

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Then, in 1972, it gets interesting: the lowly parrot mascot broke into comics.

As Archie Comics had their Christian-zealot madman in Al Hartley, so did Western in the person of Vic Lockman. A significant difference, however, is that Hartley, despite quite stiff competition, is arguably the very worst Archie artist; he’s certainly got my vote [Seconded! ~ ds]. Lockman (1927-2016), a prolific but often terrible scriptwriter, was a terrific cartoonist, blessed with a gorgeously fluid line and exemplary design sense, lively and detailed. Here, then, is a story from Wacky Adventures of Cracky no. 3 (June, 1973). Script and art, including his distinctive lettering, by Mr. Lockman.

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During the run of his comic book, Cracky (and sidekick Mr. Kaws) wore many hats: detective, inventor (presumably giving Lockman the chance to recycle some of his rejected Gyro Gearloose scripts), ship’s captain, escape artist, sheik… And yes, he did encounter some choice tentacles, but I leave it to my partner to conduct her own investigation. Lockman beautifully handled the first ten issues of WAOC; the instant he stepped away, the thing dissolved into tripe. Avoid accordingly.

Lockman, who seemed a loveable, well-meaning coot, was also twelve kinds of batty. Biblical Economics, anyone? For as full a picture as can be reasonably assembled, read Mark Evanier‘s fine, thoughtful obituary of Lockman.

Lockman was also among those sadly deluded souls (hello, Chuck Dixon) who tried to lay claim to the title of most published comics writer. Let’s face it: the most likely contenders (Joe Gill, Paul S. Newman, Gaylord DuBois) toiled in anonymity for most of their long careers.

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In 1971, The Golden Magazine was sold (to The Saturday Evening Post Company!) and renamed, becoming Young World in 1972. Young World, in turn, got incorporated into Child Life in 1979, but that’s a story for another day. Many of TGM’s features were retained but slightly… tweaked. For instance, see who inherited Cracky’s old desk?

« Moo! I say Moo! »

-RG