Author: gasp65

From off the streets of Cleveland comes…

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« What kind of people are these?
Where do they come from,
what do they do? What’s in a name? »

Coming out of nowhere (well, “From off the streets of Cleveland“, as it happens) in 1976, Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor was one of comics’ truest and most bracing alternatives. It wasn’t part of the Underground Comix movement, despite the participation of Pekar’s old friend and fellow record collector Robert Crumb, and it wasn’t like anything pushed out by the mainstream comics industry.

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This is The Comics Journal no. 97 (April, 1985). Cover by Crumb and Pekar.

Crumb’s introduction to Doubleday/Dolphin’s 1986 anthology of early AS strips describes Pekar’s appeal better than anyone else is likely to:

« Yeah, Harvey is an ego-maniac; a classic case… a driven, compulsive, mad Jew… it’s something to see. But how else could he have gotten all those comics published, with almost no money; in total isolation from any comic-publishing ‘scene’ such as exists here in California, or in New York; constantly brow-beating artists to illustrate his stories; handling the distribution himself… only an ego-maniac would persist in the face of such odds. »

« The subject matter of these stories is so staggeringly mundane, it verges on the exotic! It is very disorienting at first, but after awhile you get with it. Myself, I love it… Pekar has proven once and for all that even the most seemingly dreary and monotonous of lives is filled with poignancy and heroic struggle. All it takes is someone with an eye to see, an ear to hear, and a demented, desperate Jewish mind to get it down on paper… there is drama in the most ordinary and routine of days, but it’s a subtle thing that gets lost in the shuffle… our personal struggles seem dull and drab compared with the thrilling, suspense-filled, action-packed lives of the characters who are pushed on us all the time in movies, tv shows, adventure novels and… those *other* comicbooks.

What Pekar does is certainly new to the comicbook medium. There’s never been anything even approaching this kind of stark realism. It’s hard enough to find it in literature, impossible in the movies and tv. It takes chutspah to tell it exactly the way it happened, with no adornment, no great wrap-up, no bizarre twist, nothing. Pekar’s genius is that he pulls this off, and does it with humor, pathos, all the drama you could ever want… and in a comic book yet! »

And here’s an atypical example of Mr. Pekar’s storytelling art, a rare but eloquent pantomime vignette. It originally saw print in DC Comics’ run of American Splendor comic books (no. 1, Nov. 2006, published under the Vertigo imprint and edited by Jonathan Vankin.) The symbiosis at play here between writer and artist makes ‘Delicacy’ my very favourite story by Hilary Barta, who somehow never gets matched with a script worthy of his tremendous talent, even when he’s working with Alan Moore (Moore can be very funny, but superhero parodies, even his, seldom are… and Splash Brannigan wasn’t exactly side-splitting). This is a wonderful oddity, one of two times that Barta and Pekar collaborated. Bon appétit!

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Blink-and-you-miss-it: Terrance Lindall, Warren cover artiste

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« How do I get myself in these situations? »

As the close of the 1970s neared, James Warren‘s magazine empire was inexorably crumbling. I like to imagine that it was decided, in desperation, that a little fiddling was in order… just a smidgen. Some enlightened soul (my pick is new editor Chris Adames) got the notion to bring on board Terrance Lindall (1944-) to produce some covers for the magazines. He painted a mere five, but made each one memorable, to say the least, evoking justified comparisons to Matt Fox, Lee Brown Coye, sans oublier the venerable Hiëronymus Bosch.

Well, then, let us bask in the comforting, bucolic visions of Terry Lindall at Warren, in their order of publication. Makes you want to pack a picnic lunch and go for a leisurely ramble through the countryside with your faithful Hound of Tindalos.

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Creepy no. 108 (June, 1979.)
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Eerie no. 103 (August, 1979.)
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Creepy no. 116 (March, 1980.)
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What do you know? Terrance Lindall actually manages to make perennial fanboy wankbait Vampi look downright classy. This is Vampirella no. 86 (April, 1980.)
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And all too soon, it’s over, with Creepy no. 127 (May, 1981.)

Oh, how Creepy’s long-time readers must have wailed and moaned at these singular, quease-inducing mise-en-scènes! “Bring back Boris Vallejo!”

Nowadays, Lindall earns his keep as co-director and chief administrator of the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn, New York. Doesn’t he just perfectly look the part?

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The new kid’s mini-bio, as it appeared in Creepy 108 (June, 1979).

If you’re craving more Lindall visions, who am I to discourage you? Slide on over to http://www.escapeintolife.com/artist-watch/terrance-lindall/

-RG

Steve Skeates’ “… and the Dog Howls Through the Night!” (1974)

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« Who’d ever believe a story like that? »

On this fine day, we pay tribute to shifty scribe Chester P. Hazel (who sometimes goes by the unlikely nom de plume of Steve Skeates). It is whispered that Stephen, along with his nefarious twin Warren Savin, first invaded this plane of existence on January 29, 1943. That would make him/them/it seventy-five earthly rotations old, should these windblown tattles hold any credence.

Happily, in this case, picking out a Skeates favourite to share was no ordeal: I’d been meaning for some time to shine a light on one of his neglected gems, one that salt-rubbingly ran without proper attribution in The Phantom Stranger no. 34 (Dec. 1974-Jan. 1975, DC Comics.)

The cases of Dr. Terrance Thirteen, ghost breaker, must have been easier to write back in the 1950’s, when DC Comics’ default setting in its mystery titles was to explain away the supernatural element before the curtain call. DC’s resident skeptic first shared his insights in Star Spangled Comics, his feature lasting from issue 122 (November, 1951) to issue 130 (July, 1952). He then moved to The House of Mystery for a handful of appearances, then faded away. He returned to action, along with his also long-dormant colleague  and foil The Phantom Stranger, in 1969’s Showcase no. 80. In the Supernatural Seventies, all poor Dr. Thirteen could do is vainly and stubbornly play the cards of reason and logic against a house deck stacked to inevitably favour the uncanny and the unreal. He was doomed to be a comic book version of The X-Files’ Dana Scully, Fritz Leiber‘s Norman Saylor (Conjure Wife, 1943) or Night of the Demon‘s Dr. John Holden, all skeptics coming off as hopelessly obdurate and clueless in light of the “facts”.

Sounds like today’s so-called post-fact world… in which we need true skeptics (as opposed to deniers) and cool, rational minds more than ever.

Anyway, it wasn’t the first time wily Skeates had faced such a storytelling impasse: he’d had to ring the changes on pacifist character Dove (of Steve Ditko’s eternally squabbling Hawk & Dove) within a universe of hard-slugging super vigilantes.

Dr. Thirteen bounced around various DC titles in the early-to-mid 70s. This is the series’ last bow in the back pages of The Phantom Stranger, and ironically its finest hour, alongside the penultimate entry, The Ghosts on the Glasses, which ran in Adventure Comics no. 428 (August, 1973.) In both cases, the inspired artwork is that of Filipino master Tony DeZuñiga (1932 – 2012), who was clearly in his element.

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A character likens the dead scientist’s ill-fated velocity experiments to comic book character The Flash… but it’s a cinch that what the impish* Mr. Skeates really had in mind was Virgil “Guy” Gilbert, aka Lightning, whose début, The Deadly Dust! he had scripted back in 1965 (T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents no. 4, April 1966). Here’s a relevant excerpt, featuring art by Mike Sekowsky and Frank Giacoia.

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In closing, a biographical blurb from DC’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archives, circa 2002: « A native and longtime resident of the Empire State, Steve Skeates began his work in comics as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics in 1965 – a job which he quickly abandoned in favor of writing comics as a full-time freelancer. Over the next twenty years he did work for nearly every major comics publisher, including DC, Marvel, Charlton, Tower, Warren, and Gold Key. Since leaving mainstream comics in the mid-1980s, he has worked as a reporter, bartender, and Zamboni operator, as well as publishing his own comics titles, which he continues to do from his home base in Fairport, New York. »

Happy birthday, Mr. Skeates, and thanks for everything!

-RG

*I mean to refer to Mr. Skeates’ undisputed status as King of the unofficial inter-company crossover. Naughty!

Buon compleanno, Gianni De Luca!

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« Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. »

On the ninety-first anniversary of his birth, we take the opportunity to salute fumetti gran maestro Gianni De Luca (b. January 25, 1927; d. June 6, 1991)… and to share some of the striking images he crafted. In comics, the term « innovative » has been applied far too liberally, all too often in ignorance. In the case of of Mr. De Luca, no hyperbole is involved, I assure you.

I first came upon his work in the mid-70s, through my parent-sponsored subscription to the québécois catholic youth magazine Vidéo-Presse (1971-1995), which was kind of didactic, I suppose, but still quite fun. The publisher had licensed much of its comics content from Italy, and it was definitely high-toned stuff, such as adaptations of Jules Verne novels. I recall « L’Île mystérieuse » being among them. Accustomed as I was to the madcap and hyperkinetic tone of the dominant Franco-Belgian and American schools, the Verne stuff, while clearly well-executed, seemed a bit languid and wan.

However, this feature was followed by, as fate would have it, the bane of any schoolboy*, Shakespeare adaptations. But wait… these were MIND-BLOWING. Decades later, I became fast friends with another cartoonist roughly my age, and he’d had the very same epiphany with De Luca’s Hamlet. Other than that, I’ve never really met anyone familiar with the work. Even locating a copy was a bit of an ordeal, but I managed to snag, a few years ago, a handsome volume gathering Hamlet and La tempête (The Tempest), published by Les Humanoïdes Associés in 1980.

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Hamlet, page eighteen. Adaptation by Barbara Graille and lettering by Roberto Roquemartine. Colours presumably by De Luca himself, as the credits are mute on that point.
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Hamlet, page twenty-three.
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La tempête, page five.
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La tempête, page twelve.

I don’t believe there’s any De Luca out there in the English language… save for one happy exception: UK publisher Running Press‘ The Mammoth Book of Crime Comics, discerningly edited by critic Paul Gravett**, contains « Strada », a superior entry in writer Gian Luigi Gonano and De Luca’s ‘Il Commissario Spada‘ series (1970-1982). « The series was groundbreaking in many ways, since it introduced subjects like violence, organized crime, satanic sects, terrorists and murderers to the pages of a Catholic magazine for young readers, that was at the time mainly distributed in parishes. »

*To be fair, we never studied Shakespeare in school.

**Speaking of Mr. Gravett, he happened to write an illuminating essay on De Luca’s Hamlet: http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/article/gianni_de_luca_hamlet

-RG

Happy Birthday, by Crom!

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« Whatever got Juan is coming for me, too! »

It’s birthday number one hundred and twelve for pulp wordsmith Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) who, in his tragically short lifespan, yet found time to unleash upon the world Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, Kull of Atlantis and, more significantly for this reader, the chilling classic Pigeons From Hell, a short story posthumously published in Weird Tales’ May, 1938 issue.

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Howard’s The Horror From the Mound, originally published in the May, 1932 issue of Weird Tales Magazine, presumably had its title sanitized here because the H-word was still verboten in the early 1970s. Hailing from the second issue of Marvel’s Chamber of Chills (January, 1973), it was reprinted in glorious black and white in 1975’s Masters of Terror no. 1 (original title restored, hurrah!)

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And here it be. Seems a bit inaccurate to refer to a group of mostly pulp writers (some long dead) from the 30s to 50s as “Modern-Day Masters of Terror”, but I suppose it depends on one’s definition of “Modern-Day”. Cover illustration by Gray Morrow from a drawing by noted fabulist, fervent Trump supporter and fellow Hair Club for Men habitué Jim Steranko.

Gardner Fox and Brunner give it their all, but the story could have used more pages to truly do justice to Howard’s moody proto-weird western.

Read the full adaptation here:
http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.ca/2009/02/monster-from-mound.html

Better yet, read Howard’s tale:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601761h.html

And Pigeons From Hell, while you’re at it:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600721h.html

-RG

Treasured stories: “Abide With Me” (1975)

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« She stared at Douglas… at this man she had judged to be an ideal mate… yet he had this very fatal flaw. »

Even to the occasional reader of mystery or ghost comic books from the late 60s to early 80s, the absurdly narrow range of plot variations must have been glaringly obvious. Same goes for any genre, of course…

For instance, at DC, mainstays Jack Oleck and Carl Wessler drove the same hoary scenarios into the old sod with numbing insistence (editor Joe Orlando‘s insistence, presumably): the greedy nephew murdering his rich, elderly uncle, the avaricious white explorer / big game hunter / mercenary purloining the sacred idol and incurring its terrible vengeance, the bank robber on the lam getting his ironic comeuppance, satanists vs werewolves vs vampires vs witches and so on… Still, the occasional inspired yarn did crop up, often to the outraged bafflement of readers.

On the other hand, Charlton was the field’s top producer of ghost stories, wisely keeping away from Marvel and DC’s spandex preserve. While one hears (correctly) about artistic laisser-faire attracting maverick stylists, Charlton’s ace in the hole, and the backbone of its comics line, was the remarkably prolific and versatile writer Joe Gill (1919-2006). Unlike his counterparts at DC, Warren, and most famously EC Comics before them, Gill rarely resorted to the O. Henry “twist” ending. An overplayed strength becomes a weakness, and so the “sting in the tail” soon was anything but. Having to write most of Charlton’s line, Gill could afford to experiment and improvise. Fact is, he pretty much had to. In my view, Gill’s work stands out from most of his peers’ in that it seems nourished by high and extensive erudition. When a Gill character discusses business deals or the combustion engine, it’s not just hot air and a family-size tub of Fluff.

Here’s a favourite of mine, a tale scripted by Gill and illustrated by Sururi Gümen (1920-2000). It appeared in Ghost Manor no. 23 (May, 1975, Charlton). The nearest it skirts a ghost story is when Regina says « I… I’ve heard that people who die unhappily haunt the place where they die! »

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I love how Abide With Me carves out its own niche between romance and horror without calling upon any of these genres’ habitual devices. It’s like a well-played game of chess, a philosophic two-character play, a gravesite deliberation. Hope you’ve enjoyed it too!

– RG

Don’t Slide on Your Hide!

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This is Pep no. 168 (Jan. 1964, Archie.)

This splendid Bob White cover brings to mind science-fiction satirist Douglas Adams‘ prescription for achieving flight: « … all one must do is simply miss the ground. »

Judging from the distribution of stars, it would appear that Archie’s left cheek took more of a hit.

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Betty gets her turn: This pin-up theme was sugge(s)ted to Dan DeCarlo by his son, Dan Jr., who grew up assisting his father on Betty and Veronica stories and later (early 80s) became one of the feature’s main artists. Originally published in Archie Giant Series no. 10 (Archie’s Christmas Stocking, 1961.)

-RG

Steig Swoops In: The ‘Epic in Jazz’ Cat Sextet

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« The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats » – Albert Schweitzer

In the mid-50s, New Yorker cartoonist (and children’s book author, sculptor and Orgone Box owner) William Steig (1907-2003) was called upon to throw together some illustrations for Epic Records’ “Epic in Jazz” LP series, which featured classic 30s recordings from the likes of Johnny Hodges, Chu Berry, Count Basie, Barney Bigard and Cootie Williams. One might safely opine that the good Mr. Steig outdid himself. You be the judge.

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John Cornelius “Johnny” Hodges (1906 – 1970) was a saxophone giant of the big band era, and closely associated to Duke Ellington’s band. This 1955 compilation gathers some key recordings from the mid-to-late 30s, including Rent Party Blues, Skunk Hollow Blues and Dooji Wooji.
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Bobby Hackett (1915-1976) was a trumpet, cornet and guitar player who performed with Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller’s bands. Among my very favourite of his recordings are some he made in the 1950s with trombonist supreme Jack Teagarden. There was tremendous musical and personal camaraderie between these two.
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Trumpeter Roland Bernard “Bunny” Berigan (November 2, 1908 – June 2, 1942) had, according to Al Rose, the custom of carrying « several packages of chewing gum in his pocket, not because he was addicted to the vigorous mastication of chicle. He had an even more practical use for the stuff. He’d put three or four sticks of gum in his mouth as we approached a boîte with liquor in mind. Once inside, we’d sit at the bar and order our drinks. Then he’d excuse himself, promising to come back in a moment. He would walk purposefully off, to the men’s room I assumed incorrectly. Early on I discovered that what he was doing was finding the jukebox, putting a wad of Wrigley’s Doublemint through the coin slot, then pushing the slide in to assure the device’s inoperability for at least as long as we’d be there enjoying our drinks. He’d return to the bar secure and relaxed in the knowledge that our ears wouldn’t be assaulted by bad music. »
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The great Rex Stewart recalls Chu: « Chu Berry was a big bear of a man and, as a matter of fact, he resembled a great big teddy bear. He was always in good humor and never had an unkind word to say about anyone. His given name was Leon Berry, his home town was Wheeling, West Virginia, and he hove onto the Harlem scene with his tenor saxophone. While he lived, he loved the life of a musician, late to bed and even later to rise. His favorite hangouts were Tillie’s Chicken Shack on Lenox Avenue and the Victoria Cafe on Seventh Avenue, where they used to serve good barbecue. Later he’d frequent the Woodside Hotel along with the fellows with Count Basie’s band when they lived there. Chu loved to talk, drink and eat, and if he could do all three while playing he was in his particular seventh heaven. »
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« Probably no other band has brought such fame to sidemen as the Duke Ellington band », sagely states Shirley Hoskins Collins in the liner notes of this peerless LP showcasing four of the Duke’s finest acolytes: Barney Bigard, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams and Johnny Hodges.
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If I need to tell you who Count Basie and Lester Young are, you need to treat your ears to some fine vintage jazz, pronto.

These sets were reissued over the years, often with bland photo covers (oh, the infamy!), but Sony Japan has done right by the series a few years ago, reissuing it on cd while retaining the essence of its visual allure and, in most cases, adding four tracks of the same calibre and vintage to each disc.

Did I mention that Cab Calloway and Dizzy Gillespie are also in attendance? Sorry, it must have slipped my mind, what with all the excitement and bathtub gin.

« My neighbours listen to good music whether they like it or not. » – Unknown

– RG

“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

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