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

Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Written by Jim Steranko & Stan Lee

Art by Jim Steranko

248 Pages, Paperback

Collects Nick Fury strips from Strange Tales # 150-168

ISBN 9780785107477

What you get with this collection is the complete Steranko run of the Nick Fury feature from Strange Tales. At the time Strange Tales was being published as a split book with Nick Fury and Doctor Strange with alternating cover art of Fury and Strange.

What you don’t get are any of the later Nick Fury comics by Steranko that were published in Fury’s solo book, which was titled (potential confusion warning) Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Those comics have been collected in a volume called “Who Is Scorpio”. I’m tempted to go off on a rant saying that the two volumes could have been titled Nick Fury by Steranko Vol. 1: Who Is The Supreme Hydra/Yellow Claw and Nick Fury by Steranko Vol. 2: Who Is Scorpio/Your Daddy. But I won’t….for now. Confused?

So most people that are going to buy this book are probably going to do so because of the Steranko connection, or so you’d imagine. Nick Fury hasn’t left the mark that other Silver Age characters have and later re-boots haven’t popularised him as much as Marvel would have hoped. Having said that, Fury hasn’t drifted into obscurity like some other characters and he still has a role in the Marvel Universe. In fact, Fury’s more recent resurgence in the Ultimate Universe seems to have spilled over into the mainstream Universe. That this book was released ten years ago speaks more for Steranko’s popularity than Fury’s.



Strange Tales # 167

 I’m the first to admit that I’m not very familiar with Steranko. Aside from reprints of the three Captain America issues that he produced this volume is all that I own. Of course, it’s not as much of a surprise when you consider the small amount of comics that he’s produced over the years. According to the after word Steranko has many and varied other artistic outputs to keep him occupied.

This volume gets of to a slow start in terms of Sterankoism. The first half of the page count is written by Stan Lee (mostly) with pencils by Steranko over Jack Kirby layouts. Everything seems pretty much run-of-the-mill B-List adventure comic. I’m sure like me, you’ve read worse, but there’s nothing in act one to talk about. Steranko, probably on the insistence of his new employer, uses a style that is Kirby-esque. Adequate sequential art, with little to herald him as the cutting edge creator that he grew in to.

Strange Tales # 168

Act two introduces a new storyline, with script and art duties falling to Steranko. Here we go then? Well, not quite. The story concerns the return of the Yellow Claw as a major threat to world peace and as the pages roll by, crazy Sci-Fi elements are added which show that Steranko is allowing his imagination to run free. Anyone unfamiliar with Steranko’s later work (like me) will be thinking “Ahh…So this is what it’s all about.” I experienced a kind of false enlightenment at the start of act two, purely because the style changes as soon as he’s left to his own devices and I’m thinking “Jim, you’re making this your own.”. It’s good, better than act one and the layout and composition are distinctive, if not the artistic rendering itself.

And then it’s over.

The final plot twist is revealed and the world continues to turn. I’m not awestruck or overwhelmed, but I am satisfied. Steranko’s Nick Fury is……..Enjoyable.

But wait. Hold on. One minute. What’s this. Twelve more pages.

The dozen or so pages I’m referring to are sometimes known as Strange Tales # 168 and they are a different animal altogether to any previous pages by James “Greatest Hair On Any Man” Steranko.

Within this post (not including the cover image at the top) two of the three images I’ve posted are from # 168, the other is from # 167. The differences are profound. Prior to # 168 Steranko takes inspiration from the American tradition in general, Jack Kirby in particular, but for the final issue we suddenly see a very different style, one that borrows from the European (Italian) style.

I found the plot of the last issue to be forgettable, but the art shows a quantum leap in Steranko’s technique. Clearly he didn’t develop this from one issue to the next, so I wonder why he hadn’t shown it to his audience in earlier instalments.



Strange Tales # 168

 The layout and composition of the panels is much less rigid, it seems that the artist is applying a sense of design rather than just a narrative to the pages he’s producing. For readers more familiar with modern creators I found a similarity between this and J. H. Williams III’s work on Promethea, a sense of the page rather than just the panel, the whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts. It’s expertly meshed though, the narrative is enhanced, rather than detracted from by the composition.

What we’re a left with is a readable Silver Age adventure comic, with the last few pages acting as a teaser for what comes next. It’s actually quite frustrating, but it’s a great starter, heavy with promise, if this is your first exposure to the work of Jim Steranko.

But what does come next? Well, Ill be trying to get a copy of Who Is Scorpio, I’ll let you know how that works out for me.

Mad Thinker

Great Covers #3 - Jack Kirby’s Mister Miracle

I wanted to do a “Great Covers” for Jack Kirby’s Mister Miracle because I love ‘em and they’re also some of the few original printings of Kirby that I own. But I just couldn’t decide on a single issue. So here we are with a four cover collage.

Starting top left and working clockwise we have #1, #6, #9 and #13 of Mister Miracle vol. 1. Cover dates between March 1971 and March 1973.

These are excellent examples of Kirby in full swing of his third wind. His first being his initial employment (notably with Joe Simon) in the Golden Age, then his legendary resurgence in the early sixties creating the modern Marvel mythology (alliteration unintended), and then this in the seventies, a superb series of inter-related titles known as the Fourth World.

The Fourth World books were woefully underselling at the time and ended up being prematurely cancelled, but today, like his work for Marvel, they’ve provided a spine for the Cosmic stories of the DC Universe and are seen as the great body of work that they are.

No one can draw power and dynamism like Kirby. Mark Evanier says in his Kirby biography, Kirby: King of Comics, that Jack would start his drawing from the top left of the page and work down to the bottom right, as if he could already see the finished piece before him.

Jack, if you were a living woman of similar age, I’d kiss you.

Mad Thinker

Batman Chronicles: Volume Four

Batman Chronicles: Volume Four

ISBN: 9781401214623

Writer: Bill Finger

Art: Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson & Others

Collects material from: Detective Comics #51-56, Batman #6-7 & World’s Finest Comics #2-3, from 1941

Ahh…The Bat-Man.

He holds a very special place in my heart. My absolulte, favourite, number one, top comic book character of all time, forever. The most versatile of all the masked avengers. Ol’ Pointy Ears was the first American character I read (see the Intro Post of this blog) and the only one that I’ve read consistently. So easy to get wrong, but when a writer/artist team get it right, the results are spectacular. A couple of favourite pairing that springs to mind are Doug Moench /Gene Colan and Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle. But the comics we’re discussing now pre-date those creators by generations, we’re talking Golden Age here, ladies and Gentlemen, 1941.

So, why am I writing about The Batman Chronicles: Volume Four when I haven’t previously mentioned one, two or three. Easy. The first three volumes were read before I started this blog and I feel it would be unfair to review them without being entirely familiar with their contents. So I’ll start with Four and continue through the later volumes as I read them, when I do re-read the earlier collections, I’m sure they’ll get a mention.

For anyone unfamiliar with DC’s Chronicles, they are a paperback printing very similar to the hardback Archives, obviously cheaper (I’ll get back to that later), but the most significant difference is the ordering of the material. In the Archive volumes the Batman and Detective Comics issues are printed in separate collections, whereas the Chronicles reprint all the Batman stories from Detective Comics, Batman and World’s Finest in chronlogical order, allowing, in my opinion, a seamless progression in the readers mind of the growth of all involved with the creation of the strips.

Yes, yes. Thanks for that, but what about the strips, I hear you cry.

By 1941 Bill finger had been writing practically every appearance of Batman since his creation. I’ve got a lot of time for pretty much anything that Finger wrote, but by 1941 things were getting a little bit formulaic, that being said, it was a very good formula and at no point does it get boring, it’s just that nothing is really being added to what would become the Batman Legend. These are solid, readable and entertaining stories, they just aren’t the best stories that Finger has written. There’s a considerable amount of time spent outside of Gotham (Dick and Bruce do seem to spend a lot of time on vacation, but they’re millionaires, so why not?) so whilst the backdrops are fresh, the stories are at least partially recycled from earlier strips. There are however several memorable moments, one in particular being a great return of the Joker, with his Practical Joke Gang. In all fairness to Finger, even when he’s not on top form, he’s still better than most and he manages to tell complete and succinct tales in what would now be considered as a very low page count.

There are a few disappointments with this volume and the Chronicles in general. Firstly, specific to this volume, is the cover. Jerry Robinson, despite his infuriating lack of credit, was the driving visual force behind the early Batman strips, so I have no idea why the terrible cover, pencilled and inked entirely by Bob Kane, was chosen for this volume. I don’t want to sound bitchy (but I’ll say it anyway) Rob Liefeld could have done a better job at rendering Batman’s extremities than Bob Kane did on this cover. For some unaccountable reason, our heroes have been drawn with the malformed hands of toddlers.

More generally, concerning the Chronicle editions is the noticable ink spread. In many places the text is difficult to read, I assume this is due to the low quality of paper, this also has an impact on the art which can appear to be in soft focus at times.

To end on a positive note, there is one small but wonderful element that is rarely mentioned in connection with Batman- Fred Ray. This volume offers two covers from Ray, World’s Finest Comics #2 & 3. Ray is better known for drawing Superman, so with me not being a great reader of Supes, he’s not an artist I’ve had a great deal of exposure to. I’d like to change that. On the strength of the covers that I’ve seen in this and previous volumes I’ve really come to appeciate his clear line style, which seems a generation ahead of it’s time. A pleasant surprise and I look forward to seeing more Ray in future volumes.
My recommendation concering the Batman Chronicles really depends on the monetary aspect. If you can afford to buy the Batman and Dark Knight Archive Editions you will certainly be getting a better quality product. But you’ll pay considerably more for the privelige. If however, you’re on a budget, the Chronicles offer you a chance to read some fine (and not so fine) Golden Age Batman stories at a very affordable price.

Mad Thinker



Devlin Waugh: Swimming in Blood

 

Devlin Waugh: Swimming in Blood

Pages: 224 - Paperback

 

ISBN: 1904235170

 

Writer: John Smith

 

Artists: Sean Phillips & Others

“The name's Waugh. Devlin Waugh. I'm here to steal the show.”

Devlin Waugh is one of the most quotable characters in all of comicdom. Quite an achievement considering how little has been written about him since his initial creation and rise to fame. He first appeared in Judge Dredd Megazine Vol. 2, # 1, in 1992, which I very clearly remember reading very shortly after it hit the stands. Swimming in Blood, the first story arc for this character, shone from that first issue and the subsequent 10 or so instalments were an absolute joy to read. In the annual 2000 AD poll of that year Waugh was voted by readers as their favourite character. The one and only time that anyone other than the Man Himself, Dredd, has been knocked from the top spot. High accolades indeed.

Swimming in Blood is a bloody, fantastic read. It is in fact bloody fantastic. The basic premise is an underwater penal colony is hit with a vampiric viral outbreak, the prison is quarantined and the Vatican send in their man Waugh, expert exorcist and practitioner of underhand fisticuffs to sort the rotters out. The result is a claustrophobic, survival horror masterpiece, with added bottom slaps.

It really shouldn’t work, but it absolutely does. Waugh is Noel Coward’s mind in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body. I could talk about Devlin forever, but I’m going to leave it at that because if you’re reading him for the first time, I don’t want to take anything away from the experience. The story races along like a 21^st Century zombie, shifting effortlessly from farce to face ripping without stumbling once. A seamless blending of art and narrative that is impossible to disentangle, exactly as good comic book storytelling should be. Phillips uses photographic images in a few panels, which I would usually not welcome, but in this instance, they are used sparingly and specifically only in reference to the “outside world” ie. anything not taking place inside the prison. The effect is a subtle reminder to the reader that what is taking place inside the prison is far from the normal experience for most of the protagonists.

All of this leads us to a satisfying, if very slightly rushed, climax. Which changes our Hero absolutely and yet not at all.

But. The above review only deals with “Swimming In Blood”, the first part of this collection, approximately one third of the page count. The remainder collects "Brief Encounter", "Fetish", "A Mouthful of Dust", "A Love Like Blood" and "Body and Soul". The last two being illustrated text pieces.

I’m sorry to say that the Halcyon Days of Devlin Waugh have so far only been seen in his first outing. The remaining stories in this volume are mediocre, with varying degrees of exposure to Waugh. In “Fetish” for example, Waugh’s introduction to the story takes place roughly half way through the page count and frankly, it feels like an after-thought.

However, I have no intention of dwelling on the negatives of this volume because they are so outweighed by the positives. The “Swimming in Blood” story is a fine addition to any collection, a truly brilliant modern comic and if you happen to get a bit of mediocrity with it, consider it as a freebie.

So, keep your dander up and prepare yourself for a trouncing.

Recommended,

Mad Thinker.

Great Covers #2 – Space Adventures 10, Steve Ditko

Space Adventures # 10, Spring 1954, by Steve Ditko

An early cover by Ditko. He’d been professional since 1953 and his first published cover was on a comic cover dated February 1954, (The Thing #12) also pulished by Charlton, a company he had a long standing association with.

I don’t know how many covers he’d had printed prior to this but the date suggests it could have only been a handful. To my eye it shows that he found his mature style early in his career. It’s pure Ditko and recognizable at a glance.

What Kirby does for heroics and energy, Ditko does for menace, paranoia and base fear. Ditko’s work was often inked by himself too (unlike Kirby) so what you see is exactly what he wanted to produce.

This cover was used for the black and white reprint collection Steve Ditko: Space Wars, published by Vanguard, ISBN: 9781887591676, which I intend to write about in the not too distant future.

Mad Thinker

Jack & Stan Do It Again For The First Time

Where is the future that was promised to us when we were kids?

Do any of you own flying cars, or even hoverboards?

How many of you have seen a gorilla fight a robot?

The closest thing to the future that I was expecting are those shoes that have tiny wheels on the soles. But I’m in my thirties, I can’t wear those. And frankly they’d be a poor substitute for the rocket powered roller skates that Santa didn’t buy for me.

Why do I have these expectations? I’ve suckled from the teat of many works of fiction over the years, some were forgettable, but some have had a long standing effect. In retrospect it’s not difficult to see why some have stayed with me: Believability.

Not a word that can often be attached to the outlandish stories that were produced in the Silver Age of Comics, but bear with me. What’s believable about a group of friends stealing a spaceship only to gain super-human powers in orbit? What about when they meet an entire race of inhuman allies that have secretly lived in the Himalayas for a jillion years? Not to mention Atlantean/Human Halflings, WW2 androids or the Living Fuhrer.

What about when this group are given distinct personal qualities that often clash, but are able to continue working together, as a team, because of the close relationships built on love, respect and shared responsibilities?

OK, now we’re getting somewhere.

I know It’s been said elsewhere, but really, there was nothing in comics like Fantastic Four before that incredible series began and it’s still one of the greatest runs of comics ever. Over 100 issues of perfection.

Fantastic Four 1-102 (Nov. 1961-Sep. 1970) and Annuals 1-6, by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and (mostly) Joe Sinnott had everything comics need and a lot more. Yes, there’s plenty of action, some of the best that you’re ever likely to read. Time travel, giant robot gorillas, dastardly inter-galactic plots and more. All of it expertly scripted, plotted and rendered in the Merry Marvel Way, but what really sets it apart is the humanity of the characters.

For every encounter with Dragon Man there’s an everyday occurrence which results in drama. Reed and Sue’s courtship, with the added interference of Namor is handled beautifully, one of the many themes that still impacts on the present day comics. The wedding issue, perfectly balanced with a super-human threat, the mundane and the absurd amalgamated into intense drama.

After the wedding and Sue’s announcement of her pregnancy we see Reed obsessing over Sue’s safety, taking her out of the team for the sake of their unborn child, ultimately showing Reed’s and the teams desperate struggle in the Negative Zone due to the possibility of a birth defect.

Compellingly human reactions regardless of the science-fiction cause.

We see the team move house, suffer financial instability, jape and joke at each others expense and even go their separate ways under the stress of it all, only to realise that their bonds as a family unit are stronger than the petty niggles that they see in the others. Real life, I’ve been through this and I’m sure you have too.

This is as much soap-opera as super-heroics.

One of my favourite moments, which is really just an off-hand comment by Reed, is when Ben is expressing his inability to understand even the most basic scientific principle, Reed remarks “You’re not fooling anyone Ben, remember I went to college with you and I know you’ve got a Degree.”

Compare Fantastic Four to other team books at the time. You'll see Super-Buddies working together flawlessly, slapping each other on the back and complementing their team-mates brilliance after defeating villain of the month. Those other books were often well structured, with solid art, but had essentially stagnated. They were offering nothing new and their sales had been stable but small. Of particular note in this area, albeit a few years earlier, is Challengers of the Unknown. A pleasurable read and Kirby's prototype Fantastic Four, but lacking the sharp and well paced dialogue of Stan Lee, it just doesn't quite hit the mark, as evidenced by it's patchy publication history.

Stan and Jack's precision character building is a staple of modern comics, often attempted but rarely achieved with the same level of success. But with so many other things, what was once the exception has now become the rule. It would be easy to see these comics as dated, because they are. They are undoubtedly a product of their time, but that is what makes them timeless, it was the sixties, every concept was given room to breathe, it was a time when innovation and experimentation was encouraged and when the first issue was published Stan and Jack had nothing to lose, the company was practically dead. Things turned around though.

The Heroic Age returns to modern Marvel, taking inspiration from the groundbreaking stories written nearly half a century ago by Stan, Jack, Steve and friends. The house style created by a select few, still having an impact on one of, if not the most influential publisher of comics today.

And The Fantastic Four is the book that started it all. Get the collected editions if you don’t already have them, and if you do own them, read them again. You’ll see the past, the present and I’m hopeful that they usher in a very bright future.

Mad Thinker Reads....The Fantastic Four by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.

MT

Hellblazer: All His Engines

Hellblazer: All His Engines

Mike Carey (W)

Leonardo Manco (A)

Vertigo

ISBN: 9781401203177

This is an Original Graphic Novel not a TPB.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve read this comic, that I’ve gone back and read it again shows that it has merits.

I’ve read all of Mike Carey’s Hellblazer issues and this rounds off my collection nicely, but the strength of Carey’s writing is in the interactions between characters.

Anyone that’s read more than a handful of Hellblazer issues will recognise the relationship between Constantine and his drinking buddy/chauffer/whipping boy Chas as one that has been developed, sometimes conflictingly, through many years and many writers. Carey, in the space of around 5 panels and a little internal monologue, allows the long term reader to feel a privelige of already being aware of the history, but also clues in the casual reader as to how the normal Constantine and Chas get-together’s usually go awry and that their friendship can often be a little strained to say the least.

The story of the Supernatural Turf-War is well designed but Carey crafted better in his run on the ongoing title, but in All His Engines, I think it’s fair to say that the Supernatural story was used as the impetus to the Buddy Story. Carey does an excellent job of getting Constantine to do the right thing by his mate and still not tarnishing his image as a Double Bastard. Even Constantine’s selfless risks are shrugged off, quite convincingly, as self preservation.

Carey also hits the delicate balance between Magician and Con-Man that some writers have difficulty maintaining, indeed, he tangles them together so deftly and naturally that the story wouldn’t function were the balance to tip one way or the other.

Leonardo Manco is also doing a balancing act. Carey’s script makes it plain that Constantine feels out of his natural element, hopping around L.A. at noon on a glorious sunny day. Manco takes the cue and his heavily shadowed style is reigned in as appropriate. Which makes it all the more noticable when Constantine does pass back into the shadows, or on a few occassions, where the shadows are pre-empted by a very clear line style in one part of the panel, degenerating into solid black as the eye moves across the page.

The colours are appropriately washed out with only a strong red or green as needed.

My only complaint; as with so many modern comics, it was such a quick read. Either it could have been produced with a lower page count (at a lower price), or more text (therefore more characterisation).

Overall-

WORTH OWNING

MT.

Great Covers #1- Thor 243, Gil Kane

Thor # 243, January 1976, by Gil Kane

Probably my favourite cover of all time.
Gil Kane can make me believe that a Norse God fighting Mongolian warriors, a dinosaur and flying Space Police is something that he's seen.

If only Thor had been a frog in this issue.

Introducing the Mad Thinker

Well, how do you start a blog?

An introduction sounds like a good idea to me.

I was born in the summer of ’79 in Middle England and I’ve been reading comics regularly since the age of 5, 20^th September 1984 to be precise. I started with Transformers published by Marvel UK. A relative bought the first issue from a newsagent for me and I had a great many more after that, I also branched out into the Action Force comic, which is the British name for the American G.I. Joe.

I read comics on and off until I was 12, at this point my little brother came home one day with a copy of 2000 A.D. and I’ve read seriously since then.

2000 A.D. changed the way I thought about comics and their potential. That’s no disrespect for the wonderful job that Simon Furman has done with Transformers over the years. But 2000 A.D. by it’s very nature has both a wider scope and a larger regular readership.

It was Judgement on Gotham, the first Judge Dredd/Batman crossover that introduced me to American comics and I haven’t looked back since.

Or rather, I have consistently looked back since.

I’ll explain.

If you look at the side bar to the right there are three images. Stan, Jack and Steve. When I initially discovered American comics, I of course had not a clue who these chaps were. Obviously, over time I picked up the names and looked around to see what the fuss was about.

So I started working backwards. Instead of spending my pocket money on contemporary issues I started buying back issues and trades of whatever I could afford and whatever was available from the origins of the Marvel Universe.

Now, there were some excellent stories on the way, but it was the very early issues by Stan, Jack and Steve that really caught me. These chaps were World-Building from the ground up and I loved every panel of it. They had created the comics masterpieces that I’d read about in contemporary letter pages but hadn’t truly believed existed.

Stan, Jack and Steve are the chaps you’ll see pictures of on the side bar, but there are lots of other creators who will get a mention as the blog progresses, Doug Moench, Gene Colan, Lou Fine, Dick Sprang, Gardner Fox, Mark Gruenwald, all the way through four colour history to Warren Ellis, Alan Moore and Robert Kirkman.

But why am I writing a blog?

Well, I’m opinionated, obnoxious and self-serving, which is qualification enough to write anything on the Internet.

MT