Bob Burden

This Spooky October: Santos Sisters… Ut!

redscraperLeave a comment

Who are the Santos Sisters, you may ask? A detailed analysis may be found over at The Comics Journal, but in short you can expect a superheroine pastiche with fluffy teen-romance trimmings and juicy squirts of surreal humour. Ambra and Alana, denizens of the fictional Mexican town of Las Brisas, toggle between fighting crime (magical medallions on) and navigating life as your garden-variety attractive young women (magical medallions off).

Authors Greg & Fake, who also go by Greg Petre (illustrator) and Fake Petre (writer), are not, as far as I could tell, brothers, except arguably in spirit. According to this article (fair warning – it’s in French, though you can always run it through a translating app) they met in college in Chicago, and have been flourishing as an artistic duo ever since. Weirdly enough, I kept finding the same information about them couched in the exact same sentences (including a page that quotes, without giving a source, the literally translated text from the aforementioned French article). On the other hand, it’s nice to encounter a little bit of mystery in this age of arguably too much information, all of the time.

The Santos Sisters are also highly appropriate to this season, as their multiple encounters with spooks, ghouls and ghosts will attest – check out this Hallowe’en special.

Greg & Fake surely can be accused of having excellent taste, as they’ve partnered up with the phenomenal and joyously baffling Bob Burden to create a three-part series, featuring a Santos Sisters crossover with the Flaming Carrot. I was surprised (and a little appalled) to remind myself that in WOT’s some nine years of existence, neither RG nor I have dipped our dainty little toes into those churning Daucus carota sativus waters, but then Flaming Carrot is both ‘obvious’ and challenging to talk about. This is (still, yet) neither the time, nor the place to dive into that, so follow the links above for more information if you require it, and otherwise let’s head to the ghostly section of this post.

Variant cover for Santos Sisters Fun Special no. 1.

Let’s take a quick peek at a few pages taken from Santos Sisters Fun Special no. 1 (Aug 26, 2026). As the girls say, ghosts! treasure! and even a Frankenstein monster limb:

We end on a cliffhanger, but you’re just going to have to purchase the issue to see what happens next! Meanwhile, go check out some lively photos for the Santos Sisters Vol.1 signing here.

~ ds (Ut!)

Hallowe’en Countdown IV, Day 16

gasp652 Comments

« Then — when O’Flaherty turned on the light,
his blood crystallized! »

This is Unknown World no. 1 (June 1952, Fawcett); cover painted by the rightly fabled Norman Saunders.

Its classic cover aside, this Fawcett one-shot is barely worth reading, save for the utterly bizarre Footprints on the Ceiling.

Synopsis:

The gangsters O’Flaherty and Flitcher train a revived dead dog to be a trick dog on stage. But they have to fight off hordes of skeletal zombies coming after them to bring the dog where it belongs – in the province of the dead.

Judge for yourself — read it here: http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=16289

Who came up with that scenario? (it’s not merely a rhetorical question: no one seems to officially know). Might its loopiness have in some small way inspired Bob Burden’s gonzo Flaming Carrot epic The Dead Dog Leaped Up and Flew Around the Room? It’s not such a stretch, given that Burden is no stranger to Golden Age comics, having been a-dealing in such goods, with a marked (and healthy) predilection for the oddball. Obviously.

Diving right into the splashy fray, here’s the immortal tale’s opening, from Flaming Carrot Comics no. 12 (May 1986, Renegade Press).
And here’s a bonus one from Mr. Saunders which, thanks to its decidedly muted palette, looks more like a pulp cover than a comic book. This is Strange Stories From Another World no. 4 (Dec. 1952, Fawcett), and you can read it here!

And after all these dead dogs, what do you say we enjoy the sight of a curious and healthy live one?

Meet Lucky, photographed by Alicja Zmysłowska.

-RG

Once More Around the Sun, Rick Geary!

gasp657 Comments

« Hey — if you’re looking for that curly machine, I saw some beasts run off with it. »

Missouri native Rick Geary, born 72 years ago today, on February 25, 1946 (in Kansas City, which isn’t in Kansas, despite its name) is in a classe à part: a true iconoclast, he’s quietly, steadfastly carved out for himself (and his fans) a varied and consistently strong œuvre, seemingly free from petty compromise.

GearySelf85A
A 1985 self-portrait.

He first gained notice in the mid-70s through his fanciful contributions to National Lampoon and Heavy Metal, and just kept up the pace from there. These days, he mostly concentrates on his true crime graphic novels series, published by NBM. One gets a sense of a man who works in comics because he’s passionate about the possibilities the form offers. A 1994 recipient of the National Cartoonist Society’s Magazine and Book Illustration Award, he certainly doesn’t need to work in the comics industry.

GearyPetMiraclesA
This charming one-pager saw print in the anthology Animal Confidential (May 1992, Dark Horse.)

He’s collaborated with fellow oddball genius Bob Burden, of Flaming Carrot fame, a dream pairing that manages to surpass the lofty expectations it implies. Their take on Art Clokey‘s legendary claymation characters Gumby and Pokey manages to be true to its source and to espouse both Burden and Geary’s respective slants.

Here’s a sequence from Gumby no. 1 (July 2006, Wildcard Ink.) Story by Burden, art by Geary, and let’s not forget the contribution of hue ace Steve Oliff. When it comes to Gumby comics, however, mind your step: don’t settle for anything less than Burden (whether with Arthur Adams or Rick Geary). A recent revival fumbles the childlike mood of infinite possibility and mires itself in mere childishness instead.

GearyGumby1AGearyGumby2AThe Exploits of the Junior Carrot Patrol (2 issues, 1989-1990) was a solo Geary endeavour, but  « based upon characters and concepts created by Bob Burden ». Pictured here is #2. From left to right: Dusty, Ethel and Chuck.

JuniorCarrot2A

GearyStampA
Perhaps the ultimate bonafide as a Geary-head: I am the proud possessor of a rubber stamp designed by the great man himself. Furthermore, I have it on good authority that one of our regular readers proudly wields a genuine Geary rubber stamp of his own, albeit a different one. For this particular print, I took advantage of the vegetable world’s finest provider of ink: a slice of beet.

Happy birthday, dear Mr. Geary!

– RG