Tentacle Tuesday: Plants Sometimes Have Tentacles, Too

redscraper13 Comments

The topic of today’s Tentacle Tuesday is based on a plant-based mishap. I was walking along an alley, minding my own business, when some sort of climbing plant with especially long and vicious tentacle-vines, swinging from from a nearby fence,  grabbed my arm. The result were scratches that felt like burns.*

So today’s gruesome offerings are mostly cousins of the Venus Flytrap, if the latter had tentacles to assist its quest for prey. (Let’s breathe a sigh of relief that it doesn’t.)

MidnightTales6-HowardWayne
Midnight Tales no. 6 (November 1973), cover by Wayne Howard. I am a big fan of Midnight Tales and its blend of humour and adventure. Note the “created by Wayne Howard” announcement on the cover, which wasn’t exactly typical for its time – comic book companies didn’t use to acknowledge the creators of their “content” so openly and insistently.

Midnight Tales often offer moments of “wait, how did that get through the Comics Code?” Arachne (Professor Coffin’s undeniably attractive niece) is frequently more sexually provocative than one would expect from a kid-appropriate comic, crimes committed are nastier than surmised, and the plots go from morbid to surreal… with some comedy thrown in. Oh, sure, there’s some terrible clunkers, as every issue has three or four stories linked by a common theme and illustrated by different artists, but overall the quality remains high throughout its 18-issue run.

I’ve seen people online saying that Howard shamelessly plagiarized Wally Wood’s style – perhaps people more erudite than I see that, but I don’t. “Influenced” is one thing – but one can build on those beginnings to create a recognizable style of one’s own, right? Those who like Wayne Howard frequently classify him as a “guilty pleasure”, and proceed to insult his art while they’re explaining why they like it. To quote, for instance, from Atomic Avenue, who follow the unspoken rule – just mentioning Charlton Comics warrants a condescending tone, and any acknowledgement of their quality has to be tempered by mockery. 

Creator Wayne Howard blatantly imitated the style of comic art great Wally Wood right down to his gothic signature, but at least he aimed high in his plagiarism. Consequently, Midnight Tales had the look of a seedy, off-register knock-off of an EC horror comic—putting it at the top of Charlton’s quality spectrum.

Another opinion from Cap’n’s Comics:

In my world of geek’n out over all this great art, Wayne Howard is one of my biggest guilty pleasures. He loves to draw like Wally Wood, but he’s no Wally Wood. His females usually look like Wally’s women after a really bad day, and his males are just plain fugly. His Wood machinery is close to the background machinery behind the awesome machinery, and everything shouts fan art VS pro art, but… Luvittopieces

Ah, well. I won’t be apologetic about liking Howard’s art, and Midnight Tales will be proudly presented as a favourite series on a need-to-know basis. Fortunately, there’s some nice articles about him, too – a sort of obituary for a great African-American artist who died at only 58.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Another Flytrap for your enjoyment, in this tale of brotherly rivalry:

HouseofMystery251-HarvestofHate1
“Harvest of Hate” was scripted by Jack Oleck and drawn by Alfredo Alcala (speaking of whom, I still can’t get over how beautiful his signature is.) Page scanned from House of Mystery no. 251 (March-April 1977).
HouseofMystery251-HarvestofHate2
Don’t worry, the “gardener” who fed his brother to this man-devouring monstrosity gets his comeuppance, all right.

The cover of this issue of House of Mystery is also a good exhibit of plant tentacles, even if the children are a superfluous addition:

HouseofMystery251-NealAdams
House of Mystery no. 251 (March-April 1977), cover by Neal Adams.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Here’s something more recent – published on some almost-thirty years ago, instead of forty – the tentacular adventures of Doctor Gorpon! I hope these guys count as plants (even if they’re slightly more mobile) – they’re the right shade of green!

DoctorGorpon#2-MarcHansen
Doctor Gorpon no. 2 (July 1991) by Marc Hansen. The little guy in the right bottom corner is extra-cute – if only all children looked at their parents with the same sense of admiration and awe! It’s “Ooze Me, Baby!”

I only finished reading this three-issue series today, and I must say, it was an exciting ride. Highly recommended (if you can find it, that is).

DoctorGorpon3-MarcHansen-Splash
A panel from the aptly-titled “Big Eyeballs!”, published in Doctor Gorpon no. 3 (August 1991).
Gorpon2-MarcHansen-Doofus
A page from “Big Eyeballs!”, published in Doctor Gorpon no. 3 (August 1991).

~ ds

*
Plantburns

One Summer Solstice at the Old Fishing Hole…

gasp657 Comments

« I had me a scientific career before… ah… circumstances forced me to take up fishin’… »

In case it’s escaped anyone’s notice, summer’s officially arrived.

Xenozoic7A

This is Xenozoic Tales no. 7 (Oct. 1988, Kitchen Sink), a series that presented, wonder of wonders, a post-apocalyptic future that wasn’t strictly doom and gloom. Cover by Mark Schultz. This issue features « The Growing Pool », written and drawn by Schultz, and “Crossed Currents”, written by Schultz and illustrated by Steve Stiles.

The lady is Hannah Dundee, and she may soon have to share her lunch. Something tells me this illustration is a pastiche of some The Saturday Evening Post-type cover.. there’s something charmingly old-fashioned about it, and I don’t mean Cambrian Age old.

SaturdayPostSummertime1933A
You know, that sort of thing. The Saturday Evening Post‘s August 5, 1933 cover by… who else? Norman Rockwell.
HannahPterodactylA
It’s the new falconry! Xenozoic Tales’ coexistence of humans and dinosaurs is not your run-of-the-mill anachronism: this is the world of tomorrow, not yesterday’s. This striking portrait of Ms. Dundee was conceived as a t-shirt design in the late 1980s. I should still have mine stashed somewhere…

– RG

The Observant Ambulations of Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer

gasp654 Comments

« This peephole was smeared when I moved in »

CheapNoveltiesCoverA
« A RAW One-Shot » (1991, Penguin Books)

Originally appearing in alternative weekly The New York Press in the late 1980s, Ben Katchor’s Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer belongs to that most exotic breed of comic strips, those that suddenly awake the mind to the medium’s grand possibilities. Said experience can be abrupt and dizzying, but in this particular instance, it’s soothing and bittersweet, full of rightful yearning for things that possibly were or surely should have been, glimpsed in a daydream by the low flame of the fantastic mundane.

Mr. Katchor (born November 19, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York) is blessed with a vision of startling depth and singularity. By its nature and scope, it’s not everyone’s thing, but the rest of us likely wind up as lifelong admirers, and isn’t that just the ideal audience?

Much has been written elsewhere, often brilliantly, about Mr. Katchor and his œuvre; it’s work of a calibre to inspire theses, dissertations and papers, so I’ll mostly stick to presenting some samples. The passionate plaudits these strips have inspired tend to obscure the fact that most people just haven’t had the pleasure, or at least the opportunity, of encountering such rich material.

These vignettes were collected in 1991 as Cheap Novelties: The Pleasures of Urban Decay. Oddly enough, it was the only one of Katchor’s books to go out of print… the situation was remedied in 2016 by Montréal’s Drawn & Quarterly, who brought it back in a lovely hardcover edition.

KatchorCheapNovelties031A
While on vacation, my accountant fell in love with a hot sauce manufactured on the small Caribbean island of Dominica. He’s since devoted considerable energy to renewing his stock of the stuff, which has involved much international horse trading.
KatchorCheapNovelties043A
Montréal has its share of architectural remnants of bygone commercial enterprise; arguably, the most famous is the “Giant Milk Bottle“, but no, it isn’t full of milk.
KatchorCheapNovelties051A
This melancholy vignette ties in quite nicely with a recent piece from Atlas Obscura noting the fading lingo and diminishing rôle of the soda jerks of New York City. Read it over a mug of murk with a choker hole.

KatchorCheapNovelties063AKatchorCheapNovelties073AKatchorCheapNovelties079A

From the collection’s back cover blurb: « In a vast and shadowy city of old skyscrapers, neglected warehouses, juice stands, and coffee shops, Julius Knipl, a rumpled, middle-aged man in a suit and hat, wanders the streets photographing buildings and pondering the details: the scent of the past that seeps into the present; the ghosts of other values and culture embedded in the urban landscape; people and behaviors almost gone that linger on. He sees what others overlook, a Borscht-belt Buster Keaton. »

Ben-Katchor
The esteemed Mr. Katchor.

-RG

Tentacle Tuesday Masters: Hilary Barta

redscraper6 Comments

There are few things more satisfying than hitting two birds with one stone. Today’s Tentacle Tuesday almost, but not quite, coincides with the birthday of Hilary Barta, who was born on June 17th, 1957. As it happens, he is delightfully adept at depicting tentacles, and quite enthusiastic about it, too…. so it is my pleasure to combine tentacle festivities with a (hopefully) tantalizing sampling of a great artist’s work.

HorrorNoir-HilaryBarta
All I could find about this illustration is that it was meant as a cover to a book. To quote from Rhine’s website, « writer R.S. Rhine and illustrator Hillary Barta will collaborate on the graphic novel (release 2005) ». Was it ever released? It doesn’t seem so.
BLACK FLAME #7-HilaryBarta
Art for The Black Flame no. 7, 2017. Art by Hilary Barta. So Black Flame is getting attacked by a bunch of drooling monsters and he’s victoriously brandishing… a small lizard?
blackflame7cover
The published version of The Black Flame no. 7. I think this colour scheme works much better, actually.

There’s no mentioning Barta without perusing some of his Simpsons’ work, especially under the umbrella of that tentacle-rich (my favourite!) manifestation of the Simpsons, the Treehouse of Horror.

treehouseofhorror8alphabet
P is for Portal! This « Lexicon of Lurid Limericks » was published in Treehouse of Horror no. 8, 2002. Art by Barta, colours by Dave Stewart. Moe is nonplussed, as usual… it’s going to take more than a few slimy tentacles and a big puddle of gore to shake him up.

HilaryBarta-Gnaws

Barta can also channel Wally Wood with ease, and who says “Wally Wood”, says “tentacles”!

RobotGirlHilaryBarta
Barta art created for a promotional poster for the Lake Count-I-Con, Lake County’s 2014 comic convention.

(And this is what the actual poster looked like… at least they didn’t cover up too much of the artwork)

HilaryBartaRobotGirl

It’s rare for me to post something published recently (my head is firmly lodged in the past), but this is a pleasant exception:

ComicCreator17
Comic Book Creator no. 17, 2018. It just came out, actually, so you’ll still catch it on quality newsstands if you hurry.  Cover by Hilary Barta.

Don’t forget to visit Barta’s blog, Surly Hack Attack!

HilaryBartaFrink
Barta, looking at Professor Frink no. 1, 2013 (the cover has tentacles, by the way) in which he has a story titled « Frink Sinatra ».

~ ds

The Expanding Ego Theory: Neal Adams at 77

gasp653 Comments

« Now at this age, I look back and oh, Adams is probably one of the worst things that happened to the medium, when I look at it historically. » – Darwyn Cooke (2004)

On his 77th birthday, the legendary Neal Adams must surely look back on his storied career and radiantly beam (‘gloating’ is for lesser beings). Still, with all he’s accomplished (and with such brio!) in the fields of graphic storytelling, advertising, physics, the theatre and geology, who could find it in his heart to blame him? With so much to celebrate, let’s just stick to the highlights, shall we?

HeartThrobs120A
Why is the nasty little dude threatening the giantess? Why, Neal, why? Well, I suppose that is some people’s idea of romance. This is Heart Throbs no. 120 (June-July, 1969), edited by Joe Orlando.
AdamsAvengers95SplashA
I don’t know if you’ve ever pulled yourself out of the water onto a dock, but that… is not the way to do it. One might argue that Triton is an Inhuman, and as such, gravity and anatomy are trifles unworthy of his kind. From Avengers no. 95 (Jan. 1972, Marvel), a chapter in the “Kree-Skrull War”, cobbled together by Roy Thomas from discarded Kirby plot effluvium and Jerome Bixby and Otto Klement’s Fantastic Voyage.
AdamsGL_Flash226A
Ah, Neal Adams. He who brought naturalism and realism to comics. A panel from “The Powerless Power Ring!”, a Green Lantern backup strip from Flash no. 226 (March 1974, DC Comics.)
Jason-BrownA
Neal’s influence can’t be overstated, and not only in the fields of comics and geology. Here’s US figure skater Jason Brown‘s poignant tribute to that very Green Lantern tale, presented to warm applause at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. As Neal is fond of saying to any cartoonist he encounters, « You are all my children! »*
AdamsGrandFunkA
A concert poster reproducing Our Neal’s gatefold art for Grand Funk‘s 1974 LP, All the Girls in the World Beware!!! (which incidentally features their finest original composition, imho, Bad Time) Despite the difficult assignment, Neal comes through with flailing biceps and chicken legs; thank goodness his caricature chops are equal to his grasp of earth sciences. Curiously, half the groupie throng seems to be cloned from a particularly manic Marsha Brady, and most of the rest from Carol Burnett.
Grand_Funk_Nude_1973
They’re an American Band. From left to right: Don Brewer (he of the competent drum work), Mark Farner (he of the wild, shirtless lyrics), keyboardist Craig Frost (Homer didn’t rate him), and of course Mel Schacher (he of the bong-rattling bass.) One may wonder just who those guys in the poster are supposed to be.
SuperHeroDigestA
Faceplant time, or The perils of drawing comics whilst grabbing lunch, getting a massage on 52nd, or simply resting on your laurels. How does this cover make any sense? Just picture the scene from another angle, or if someone tried to build a model of it. Archie’s Super Hero Comics Digest Magazine no. 2 (1979 edition.)
Skateman1
As legendary as his renditions of established characters are, it is with his own creations that Neal Adams’ true legendary status rests: fabled names, always spoken in hushed awe, such as Ms. Mystic, Samuree, Cyberad, Crazyman, Megalith, Valeria the She-Bat… and of course Skateman, Jason Brown’s childhood idol. Here’s his premiere (and dernière) issue, published in November 1983 by Pacific Comics.
SkatemanA
And here’s a mock-up of the same cover. I’ll go to my grave wondering why they chose to run the cover sans this piquant, vernacular-rich dialogue, which would have shown once and for all that Neal the writer was every bit the equal of Neal, the artiste. Eat your heart out, Noël Coward!
Crazyman1A
Neal applies his Midas touch to another original creation: Crazyman! Double bag several copies of this number one, someday it’ll put your kids through college. It even comes with an embossed cover! By then, Adams was drawing donkey teeth on everyone, evidently his shorthand for “hilarious”. April 1992, Continuity Comics. You know, “The other superhero company”!

– RG

*as recounted by Yanick Paquette

Tentacle Tuesday: The Friendly Octopus

redscraper2 Comments

So far, we’ve leaned heavily in the direction of the aggressive octopus, the hoggish, ill-mannered brute who grabs people without so much as a how-do-you-do. Even when the multi-tentacled beast has self-defence as an excuse, the gory results are often not for the weak-hearted. Yet, like any complex creature, it has many personality facets; let’s have a look at the friendly cephalopod, the octopus-next-door type, the one who’s willing to let you use its tentacles in lieu of swings and lend a feeler’d arm with your fishing.

LonesomeOctopus-BeldaRecords
In 1946, Belda Records came up with the concept of a “komic book & plastic record”. The series was called Talking Komics, promising (and delivering!) kids a “record-music-story-comic book” experience. There were 8 characters, one per book-cum-record, in all. Our friend the Lonesome Octopus is one, although he seems to be doing all right socially. The other 7 are Grumpy Shark, Happy Grasshopper, Chirpy Cricket, Flying Turtle, Blind Mouse, and in a slightly different vein, Enchanted Toymaker and Sleepy Santa.

The records were written & produced by Bob Bellem and narrated by Marvin Miller (a well-known voice actor – to name a few well-known shows, he was Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet and in  The Pink Panther Show he voiced the Inspector, Deux-Deux and the Commissioner), the music was composed & conducted by Frank Hubbel, and the comic was illustrated by Mel Millar, who may or not be Marvin’s brother. Cartoons were created for at least some of the records/comics (so it’s more like “record-music-story-comic-book-animation”) – some of them used to be findable on Youtube some time ago, but the years seem to have swept everything away.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Another octopus who kindly consented to let his tentacles be used as swings. He apparently sings, too!

MuttandJeff137-1963
Mutt and Jeff is a newspaper strip created by Bud Fisher in 1907, generally believed to be the first daily comic strip (or at least the first really successful one). It featured Augustus Mutt (the tall fellow swinging on the right tentacle), greedy and highly inventive (if not downright insane) with his parade of get-rich-quick schemes, and bald Jeff, his reluctant sidekick, whose sideburns would surely get him accepted as a hipster in these modern times. Go here to read an enthusiastic article about this cultural phenomenon, and here to read some comics.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Little boys who over-work an octopus are going to end up as his dinner, I say. Still, for the time being, here’s a sweet scene of inter-species coöperation.

Funnies23-1938
I sure hope that this octopus gets his share of fish at the end of the day! Also, wouldn’t it be more efficient to just grab the fish directly with tentacles instead of using man-made contraptions like fishing lines? This is The Funnies no. 23 (Dell, August 1938). Does anybody know the artist?

TentacleTuesdayIcon

‘Orrible Orvie and Awful Annie will help us wrap up this Tentacle Tuesday. This octopus isn’t assisting the kids directly, but the kind smile on his, err, face radiates benevolence (well, not to the fishes, but one has to feed on *something*, right?)

LittleMonsters41-1977
This is The Little Monsters no. 41, 1977 – only three issues away from the series’ end (it ran from 1964 to 1978 for a total of 44 issues, plus a giveaway issue of March of Comics). Artist unknown.

~ ds

Free Inside Package: James Sturm’s The Cereal Killings (1992-95)

gasp653 Comments

« You cannot work with men who won’t work with you. » — John Harvey Kellogg

Before he created his justly celebrated The Golem’s Mighty Swing, wrote the mini-series Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules, or co-founded The Center for Cartoon Studies, James Sturm (b. 1965) committed to paper and ink a mind-expanding, if little-noticed, saga entitled The Cereal Killings, complete in eight issues and published by Fantagraphics between 1992 and 1995. Sturm valiantly struggled through ocular problems during that period, undergoing no less than three retinal operations, leaving him with one good eye.

CerealKillings3A
The Cereal Killings no. 3 (Sept. 1992), colours by Mark Lang. Hey, I’d pay good money to see The Screaming Ernies perform. I’d settle for a t-shirt!

Sturm dug well beyond the shallow pun of the title and implacably hauled it to its logical conclusion. TCK has been likened to a Watchmen with a cast of funny animal cereal mascots, and that’s not that far off the mark. But beyond its conceptual debt to Alan Moore’s superhero deconstruction, Sturm’s story actually takes aim at more adult concerns and issues, made all the more harrowing and poignant by how psychologically credible his cast of cereal pitchmen and acolytes is. Corporate malfeasance, petty theft, betrayal, bitterness, grandiloquence, blind ambition, dementia, remorse… and wisdom. You name it, it’s all there, in a gripping, kaleidoscopic and haunting narrative.

CerealKillingsVerso2A
Sturm, Fantagraphics & Co. made splendid use of the entire, (actual) ad-free magazine to flesh out the concept. This is Mark Lang’s gorgeous depiction of The Scarecrow and Carbunkle. These are our good guys, appearances notwithstanding.
CerealKillingsVerso3A
Issue 3’s back cover provides a helpful look at our cast of characters.
Cereal4A
This is the cover of TSK no. 4, featuring Schmedly the Elephant, who wishes he *could* forget. Colour by Mark Lang.

CerealKillings8P5A

CerealKillings8aA
A crucial flashback scene from the eighth, and ultimate, issue (Jan. 1995). It would appear that The Scarecrow is a stand-in for cereal giant Kellogg’s founder, John Harvey Kellogg.

« It’s the present! It’s nostalgia! It’s a crispy non-sweetened comix story that doesn’t get soggy in milk! And remember — product is sold by weight, not volume. Some unsettling may occur. »

The series has never been collected or reprinted, so you’ll have to do the work… I think I noticed a torrent file somewhere. Sturm at one point intended to issue a revised collected edition, but has apparently changed his mind since. That’s no way to treat one’s masterwork, neglected as it may be.

-RG

Happy Birthday, Charles Clarence Beck!

redscraper4 Comments

« It’s difficult to know just what to make of C.C. Beck. He’s crusty and curmudgeonly in the Cleveland Armory mold. He’s virulently opinionated, yet insists that he doesn’t take himself seriously. His aesthetics are inflexible if not reactionary, and not entirely consistent at that. He also happens to be one of the most endearing and original cartoonists ever to breathe life into a super-hero.“*

Charles Clarence Beck was born on June 8th, 1910 and left this world in 1989. The world is a stodgier place without him!

Tawny-CaptainMarvelAdventres79
My favourite of Otto Binder/C.C. Beck’s characters – Tawky Tawny, the well-mannered, reasonable, tweed-wearing tiger. Sweet Tawny first appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #79 (December 1947), as a talking tiger who longed for a life as a normal, suit-wearing, polite member of society. He also really likes ice cream. This panel is from “Mr. Tawny’s Personality Peril”, a story by the Binder and Beck team, published in Captain Marvel Adventures #115 (December 1950).

Here are a few covers which showcase A) C.C. Beck’s stylish art B) the lovely goofiness of it all. To quote the man, « When Bill Parker and I went to work on Fawcett’s first comic book in late 1939, we both saw how poorly written and illustrated the superhero comic books were. We decided to give our reader a real comic book, drawn in comic-strip style and telling an imaginative story, based not on the hackneyed formulas of the pulp magazine, but going back to the old folk-tales and myths of classic times. » Well, to be honest, aside from the so-called Greek origins of Captain Marvel (“Shazam”, the catalyzing cry which allows ordinary Billy Batson to transform into his superhero alter-ego, stands for “Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury”), there’s little in these stories that evokes classic folk tales *or* mythology. I know the Ancient Greeks were into some kooky shit, but I don’t recall any myopic worms with a Napoleon complex nor talking tigers in suits. Ultimately, Captain Marvel comics are family fun. “Old-fashioned” values are the backbone of these stories: friendship, loyalty, kindness to those weaker (or stupider) than us. If that sounds boring, it isn’t. Beck had a cartoony style that make his stories fucking adorable, especially when coupled with the often surreal and delightfully wacky plots.

“Quote! Mr. Tawny is not a tiger – he’s a worm! Unquote!”

CaptainMarvelAdventures113
At first glance, this cover is celebrating the beauty of autumn; upon a closer inspection, it turns out that it has much darker overtones – two faceless guys in the background, clearly following some nefarious plan to break up Tawny and Captain Marvel’s friendship (how dare they!) and a creepy boarded-up house. This is Captain Marvel Adventures #113 (October, 1950), cover by C. C. Beck. Read “His Feud With Mr. Tawny” (scripted by Otto Binder, illustrated by C.C. Beck), which is finally not at all gruesome, just heart-warming, here.

C.C. Beck co-created Captain Marvel with writer Bill Parker in 1939. The Big Red Cheese made his first stellar appearance in Whiz Comics #2 (cover date February 1940), published in late 1939. Captain Marvel was a huge hit, and so Fawcett put out a number of spin-off comic books – as for Beck, he opened his own comic studio in 1941 that provided most of the artwork in the Marvel Family line of books.

« Special! Baby dinosaurs! New! Different! Be the envy of your friends! »

CaptainMarvelAdventures123
Captain Marvel Adventures #123, 1951. Did you know that dinosaurs apparently wag their tails like dogs to express their affection? No? Head over here.

« Wait! This isn’t oil! It’s dense, black and real sticky! »

CaptainMarvelAdventures126
Don’t let go of that piglet, Captain Marvel! Pigs’ reputation for loving mud may be well deserved, but no self-respecting swine wants to be dropped into black, sticky goo. This is Captain Marvel Adventures #126 (November 1951), cover by C.C. Beck. The cautionary cover tale, Captain Marvel and the Creeping Horror, was written by Otto Binder and pencilled by C.C. Beck (with inks, tentatively, by Pete Costanza).

« Did you hear that, ma? We’re on another – uh – world! Ma, aren’t you scared? »
« Land sakes, pa, why get scared? At least my wash will dry nice and fast with two suns shining down! »

CaptainMarvelAdventures135
Captain Marvel Adventures #135 (August 1952); cover by C.C. Beck.

IGN ranked Captain Marvel as the 50th greatest comic book hero of all time. You know how they qualified it? “Times have changed, and allegiances with them, but Captain Marvel will always be an enduring reminder of a simpler time.” If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who assume that generations before theirs were naïve or that the world was a “simpler” place (take a peep in any good history book and see if that was the case). This kind of condescension poisons any compliment.

C._C._Beck_1982
C.C. Beck in 1982. He kinda looks like my physics teacher from high school!
BillyBatson'sBadDream1982
Doctor Sivana comes out with his whole family to taunt Billy! Says Beck, “The publisher also once wanted to drop Sivana, claiming the old rascal was becoming a more interesting character than Captain Marvel. The editors paid no attention to so silly an order and kept him alive and cackling.”

There’s a beautifully conducted interview with Beck by Tom Heintjes, published in Hogan’s Alley. I highly recommend it. Heart-breakingly, Heintjes explains in the introduction that “when Beck died of renal failure on November 23, 1989, my inability to complete a book celebrating Beck’s life and career—to my mind, one of the most commercially and aesthetically successful in the entire history of comic books—was a source of acute regret.”

~ ds

*Gary Groth’s introduction to an interview with C.C. Beck published in Comics Journal #95 (February 1985) and conducted in 1983.

Urban Legend Fun: The Spider in the Hairdo

gasp651 Comment

« We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information. » — Neil Stephenson

True story! It happened to a friend of a friend of a relative of an acquaintance of the hairdresser of the nephew of the uncle of the garage mechanic of the girdle maker of a cousin of a U.F.O. abductee ex-classmate of my brother’s. Or so he obliquely claimed under hypnotic regression.

Apparently, this tale gave rise (I know, I know) to a variant called The Cucumber in the Disco Pants.

And remember, always check with Snopes.com before propagating dubious claims.

Spider in the Hairdo! is a juicy excerpt from Dark Horse’s one-shot Urban Legends no. 1 (June, 1993). Adaptation by the self-proclaimed « World’s Best Artist », Mitch O’Connell. I can think of far less worthy candidates for the position.

Should you be craving more from Dr. Mitch, here’s where to go for your fix: www.mitchoconnell.com.

And if, like me, you can’t get enough of such urban folklore, check out any of Jan Harold Brunvand’s score of splendidly compelling books on the subject. When it comes to urban myths, Dr. Brunvand is the authority.

MitchGirl'sHeadA

As a bonus, here’s Arthur Adams‘ slightly subsequent take on the same myth, published in DC/Paradox Press’ inaugural entry in its ‘Big Book of…’ series, The Big Book of Urban Legends (1994).

SpiderHairdoArtAdamsA

By their very nature, the Big books (seventeen in all) tended to be pretty hit or miss, not, for once, because of the writing, but chiefly due to the evident paucity, in the current comics industry, of artists versatile enough to credibly depict low-key, quotidian, humorous or historical situations. Is it counterintuitive, or fitting, that artists on the cartoonier end of the scale (Rick Geary, Roger Langridge, Gahan Wilson, Hilary Barta, Ty Templeton, Danny Hellman, Sergio Aragonés…) tended to fare best in producing this type of « documentary » work? I haven’t quite made up my mind. All I know is that the superhero specialists and photo tracers just brought embarrassment upon themselves *and* the unfortunate reader.

– RG

Tentacle Tuesday: Popeye, the Sailor Man

redscraper2 Comments

Since Popeye’s a sailor, one would expect him to run into a lot of octopuses during his adventures. It doesn’t happen nearly as often as one would think, actually, but there’s still enough encounters for a decent-sized tentacle journey. Here we go!

PopeyeDangerAhoyA
Popeye: Danger, Ahoy! Big Little Book no. 5768 (Whitman, 1969). Does anybody know who painted this cover?

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Popeye-Roger-Langridge
« Zombie Popeye » (and, more importantly for our current topic of discussion, Chtulhu-Olive!) by the talented Roger Langridge. He posted this so-called sketch (how detailed can a drawing be before it stops being a sketch?) on his website on September 2014… and the original is still for sale, I believe! Go here. This isn’t the first time Langridge tentacles slither into a blog post – for instance, go visit « Tentacle Tuesday: pirates and treasure, oh my».

TentacleTuesdayIcon

PopeyeClassicComics48
A variant cover for Popeye Classics no. 48, July 2016. These Craig Yoe reprints of Bud Sagendorf’s Popeye are great fun, by the way, and I highly recommend them for the proverbial children-at-heart.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Sunday-1958Popeye-Octopus
Original art for a Popeye Sunday, published on July 9th, 1958. The art is by Bela (Bill) Zaboly, who worked on Thimble Theater starting from 1939 and until Bud Sagendorf took over in 1959.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Popeye-1960-07-10
A chunk of story in which an octopus makes a very minor appearance… from a strip by Bug Sagendorf published on October 7th, 1960.

TentacleTuesdayIcon

Popeye19-JanMar1952
A panel from “Hitchhikers!” by Bug Sagendorf, published in Popeye Comics no. 19 (January-March 1952). Read the full zany story here. (Technically, this is a Sherm story, but let’s not split hairs.) I’m not surprised the octopus looks like a spy, wearing a hairpiece like that. Or is it just a nest for the birdies?

– ds