Showcase Presents: Doc Savage by Doug Moench & Various

I do love Doc Savage. It’s possible that I may even devote a future post to some of my favourite Doc Savage pulps if time allows (yeah, right). But with this post published, I’m entirely up to date with the blogging and that doesn’t happen very often.

This volume (ISBN: 9781401231255) contains about 450 pages of black and white reprints, but the original strips were printed in a B&W magazine, so there’s no loss of colour for this book. The original magazines cover dates are between August 1975 and Spring 1977. Curiously, the original books were published by Marvel, but because Doc Savage was a licensed character and DC now have that license, this collection is published by DC. This is not a new concept (Dark Horse have been doing it for a while with Tarzan, Conan, John Carter, etc.) but it’s not common between Marvel and DC (possibly a first, but I’m not sure.)

The volume reprints the complete run of the Doc Savage magazine. The original mags included Doc Savage related articles and interviews but only the strips, covers and pin-ups are reprinted here. Each issue is a self-contained story of approximately fifty pages, written in the pulp style, which basically means that the narrative hurtles along at break neck speed, Doc Savage instantly jumps into the action and time is always of the essence.

Moench’s quite verbose style suits the pulp characters perfectly, there is a lot of narrative and dialogue, but even at 50 pages the stories are condensed to fit the page count, or at least that’s how they feel when you read them, which could well have been Moench’s intent.

Splash Page from Doc Savage #1

As the title would suggest, these are all Doc’s stories. If you’re hoping to see the good Doctors entourage expanded upon in this volume you may be disappointed. They provide a little comic relief and the odd minor assistance, but generally speaking Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, Johnny and occasionally Pat are superfluous to the plot or, at best are used as a cipher for a plot point.

The stories themselves mostly have a fantastical bent. Whether it be lost civilisations or Dieselpunk technology, the feel of the book is a slightly skewed real world, but with larger than life characters.

 Like many of the old pulp characters, when handled well, Doc transfers beautifully to the comic medium. Moench seems to have an affinity to this type of character, in his woefully underrated Aztec Ace there a several pulp tropes, but that story is on a grander scale than these self contained strips.

The artwork, the lions share of which is produced by Tony DeZuniga is solid and refined, but not, in all honesty, anything above and beyond the norm. It is certainly not poor and there are several fantastic panels and splash pages, but my enthusiasm for the highs that are reached is tempered by the general mediocrity of the main body of the art. The art seems very safe. As the magazine was a bit of an experiment for Marvel, I can understand them wanting to play it safe, but a little more dash and inventiveness would have suited the story and added to the pulpishness (I’m remembering some of the garish but incredibly eye-catching original pulp covers) of the stories.

Doc Savage #3 p.22

As I mentioned above, this volumes strength is Doug Moench. He captures the immediacy and full throttle adventure that was the bread and butter of the pulps. I was left in no doubt that the Doc Savage of this volume is the same Doc Savage that appeared in over 180 pulp adventures. His almost super-human abilities dwarf that of his colleagues and even the original pulps recognised this as many of the later stories minimised the involvement of his aides.

I’m not sure why, but although it’s a relatively recent publication, I had a little trouble getting hold of a copy. It’s well worth tracking down though. The Showcase Presents are always good value for money, especially this one, as these stories were always intended to be printed in B&W.

Heartily recommended (Yes I’m biased, but there are plenty of other Doc Savage comics that I wouldn’t recommend.) and won’t cost you the earth. What more could you ask?

Mad Thinker Reads……..

With No Regard For Anything But Justice.

.

Doom Patrol by Drake & Premiani

Showcase Presents: Doom Patrol
Arnold Drake: Writer
Bruno Premiani: Artist

Vol. 1 – ISBN: 1401221823
Collects My Greatest Adventure/Doom Patrol #80-101
1963–1966
520 pages

Vol. 2 – ISBN: 1401227708

Collects Doom Patrol #102-121

1966–1968

512 pages

Blame Grant Morrison. Morrison is the reason that in all my years of comic reading, only recently have I read the original DP stories by Drake & Premiani. After reading Morrison’s re-imagining of the DP from the late 80’s I wasn’t overly interested in catching up on the original version of the DP. That’s not to say that Morrison’s run wasn’t very good, but personally, I’ve always found Morrison’s writing to be in the incredibly wide range of the “average” comic. So, nothing to blog about frankly.

What changed? Well, by pure chance, I read a brief article regarding the life of Bruno Premiani (I forget where, maybe an old issue of Alter-Ego, but I’m not sure.) It isn’t within the scope of this article to enlighten you, dear reader, concerning Mr. Premiani’s fascinating life, but I would encourage you read what you can about him. He has surely lead one of the most interesting lives in comics, and he seems to be fearless in the face of fascist bullies.

The article mentioned Premiani’s work on Doom Patrol, which was practically every issue of the original run, some 40 comics, with the main writer for the run being Arnold Drake. So I took the plunge and bought both volumes of Showcase Presents: Doom Patrol, and there’s no hesitation when I tell you that it was a regret free purchase.

The Showcase Presents: Doom Patrol collect every issue of the original DP run from the 1960’s. One small quibble is that the single crossover issue with Challengers of the Unknown isn’t included. For the sake of a mere 23 pages in a volume that already contains over 500, it seems churlish not to include it as a little bonus. It’s relatively common to find similar issues collected in the Marvel Essential line (the inclusion of a single issue of Dr. Strange in Essential Tomb of Dracula vol. 2 springs to mind.) so why not expect the same from DC.

The two volumes represent an absolute top line Silver-Age adventure, sci-fi and super-hero book. It’s as good as anything else that was being published in the mid to late sixties and does deserve to be read by a wider audience. So the question is, why isn’t it?

For my money, the answer is November 1961. The penultimate month of 1961 saw the release of Fantastic Four #1. A mere 18 months later Doom Patrol debuted, if you were a kid with a limited financial resource and these two books were an option, which would you go for? Both books had an aloof leader with little attachment to the mundane world, two bickering hot-heads one with great strength, the other with a flying, crackling alter-ego, and they both had a motherly, level headed female to keep the peace and remind them to eat meals between adventures.

But only one of them had Stan and Jack. Who’d get your money?

Doom Patrol is not an FF derivative. There are many original ideas employed by Arnold Drake, not least the inclusion of an outside love interest for Sue, I mean Rita, named Namor, I mean Mento. Oh well, I’ll give up with this paragraph.

Seriously, Doom Patrol is excellent, but unfortunately it wasn’t quite as fresh as it needed to be in the formative days of the Silver-Age. It was up against stiff competition. But in retrospect, it’s my favourite DC title from this period and it does attempt stories that you’ll not find elsewhere. Drake is an accomplished writer that offers us self contained issues but with over arching plot threads and character development, particularly with Rita Farr (Elasti-Girl) and Gar Logan (Beast Boy). Premiani is an excellent artist with a great deal of skill and ability at rendering figures, in dynamic but believable poses, also, he can draw a great gorilla, which is important when Monsieur Mallah appears in several story arcs.

Monsieur Mallah

As is true of any story, the heroes can only be as interesting as the villains they face, and that is where Doom Patrol really excels. With bad guys such as the Brain, Monsieur Mallah, General Immortus, Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man and the tragic Madame Rouge, the only other comic that has as colourful a rouges gallery is Batman. Batman however, built up his rogues gallery over several decades and hundreds of issues, Doom Patrol does it in considerably less than a decade and in forty issues. There’s a lot going on in these comics.

DP 89, Cover by Bob Brown

As I mentioned earlier, I read these comics in the two Showcase Presents black and white volumes, that’s the equivalent of 40 comics for less than £20. If you chose to, you could buy the hardback colour reprints in Archive Edition for considerably more money, but in terms of reading pleasure the Showcase Presents are certainly a bargain, I guarantee that any reader that enjoys Silver-Age heroics won’t be disappointed.

Mad Thinker Reads………..

More comics by Arnold Drake & Bruno Premiani.

Black & White Reprints

When it comes to value for money (which I’m unabashed to admit is a concern for me) there’s no beating the Showcase Presents and Essential editions. I suppose that by definition I am a comic collector, but I see myself more as a comic reader and the black & white collections that are produced by the Big Two (and increasingly by other companies, Dark Horse in particular) are a great way to read comics that are often difficult or pricey to get hold of.

The only disadvantage is the lack of colour. But is that really so bad?

The vibrancy and instant eye appeal that the colour reprints provide is a great draw, but the more Showcase and Essentials that I read the more I come to appreciate the format. For me there is a purity with the black and white art that colour can detract from. Ditko is a prime example. Most of Ditko’s work was pencilled and inked by his own hand, so what you see in a black and white Ditko reprint is “pure” Ditko. What you get on the page is exacly as he produced it. When you start adding colour, particularly darker shades, it can muddy the line an leave the reader with an impression of the art that was unintended by the artist. I suppose that what I’m saying is that the colour can distract from the subtlety of the finished ink work.

But that’s just me. Not everyone will want to pore over artwork in the way that I sometimes do, and rightly so, the primary reason for comic art is storytelling, not showcasing the work of a specific artist. There is another consideration though and as ever, it comes down to a matter of taste: Some art just looks better left uncoloured. If you’re sceptical fair enough, but Gene Colan’s Tomb of Dracula is a great example. Gene Colan’s pencils under Tom Palmer’s inks on ToD are really beautiful. The only way to read them is in black and white. It’s a shame that they were ever coloured, when you put them in context with the horror theme of the comics the addition of colours is garish and unnecessary. So with the Essential ToD, what was printed as cheap alternative has become a definitive edition in terms of clarity and beauty, it’s just unfortunate that some of the art was retouched to cover lady bits.

I’m not advocating that all comics be black and white, just that some artists are better served by not being coloured and no pencil and ink artist should need to rely on a colourist to complete their work. There are of course exceptions.

Joe Kubert’s Enemy Ace is one such exception.

I wrote that last sentence about 10 minutes ago and I’ve been trying to articulate my reasons for writing it and in all honesty, I can’t. I have no idea why some art works better in black and white and other art works better with colour. Looks like this post is about to fizzle out. What can I say.

How about this?

Don’t discount a cheap black and white reprint as inferior to a colour reprint. Sometimes the cheaper option is a better product. I’d suggest browsing both volumes and making an informed choice afterward.

Mad Thinker