Creepiest Thing I've Ever Seen?

Why? and What?

This is bizarre as well. Jughead, Bob Hope, and Luke Wilson are look-alikes? Eggplants resembler big-snouzered cartoons and actors.

Raiders of the Lost Arc

The "Flicks on the Bricks" series at Portland Pioneer Square, showing a movie on Friday night on a giant inflatable screen at dusk, with "Raiders of the Lost Ark"...

... the presenter (a dj from a light rock radio station, apparently) rolled through the trivia, and mentioned (probably through a google search, and indeed a google search shows the words she used precisely-- ie: George Lucas was 15 and Steven Spielberg was 12) that the opening sequence came out of a Carl Barks - created Donald Duck comic book -- "Prize of Pizarro". (Further allusions can be made with "The Seven Cities of Cibola".)

Adapted into the tv cartoon "Duck Tales", and thus engrained in my memory is the image of a giant boulder chasing Scrooge McDuck and Huey Duey and Luey and the character created for the show whom I don't remember a name for. (Doofus?)

Name that Comic

"The deer is fucking the dog!"
"Now the dog is shitting."
"Now the deer is eating the dog's shit!"

"Bestial pervisions. Did they only do that once?"
"On the contrary! It got to be their thing?"
--- "That's the sixth time today!"

"The cops busted us one day, and they --"
--- "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say -- Holy Cow! What are those animals doing?"
"What did the cops do to you?"
"Nothing. They stood and gawked for a while, then just took us in."

..............

The dialouge is approximate and rough. So, um... Who wrote it and what is it?

And Soyalent Green is People

"Oh. You're a cartoonist?"

I have my sketch-book out, with pen in hand. Visible if you just scan are a batch of panels drawn on the page.

The answer is no. Or maybe it's yes. In this case, the answer is "yes", as I have as much relation to actual cartooning as she does to play-writing, which she had told me she has written a few plays, and is, for what it's worth, an aspiring play-write. (My guess, as conversations have gone, is she's heavily inspired by Tolkein. I fear the possibility of somewhat Coummunist-ish political didactism, as well.)

"Yes."
"I like Spiderman. And Calvin and Hobbes."
"Yeah. Calvin and Hobbes is great."
"Kurt Cobain was my Hobbes."
"Your imaginary friend at some point growing up was Kurt Cobain?"
"Er... yes."
"Interesting."

As per what I drew... something about Charlton Heston and Cecil D DeMill (by not really) and alternate versions to the ending of Soyalent Green and The Planet of the Apes.

Really, I'm not a cartoonist. I can't'a draw. And the number of items I'd be willing to share to anyone (as per my selection of comics scanned onto the web) over the past year are pretty meager. I do suspect I can clean myself up to perfunctorariness with but a handful Life-Drawing lessons.

No. I have not seen the movie about Kurt Cobain's death.

The Death of Superman

I just saw someone walking around wearing a "Superman: 1938 - 1992" tshirt.

I was kind of embarrassed for him. What is that t-shirt commemorating? A comic book story from last decade that received mainstream national press, and contributed to a collectors bubble? Or... some sort of hypothetical death of Superman that kind of did but kind of didn't happen in 1992?

I google in search of, perhaps, an image of this t-shirt. I find commentary regarding the death of heroes... a hi-faluting and preposterous essay:

I guess that I've been wondering whether he was destroyed by a creature called Doomsday, just so the comic book publishers could make a fast buck, or is it a sign of the times? Are most of our Heroes and Heroines being sold out or not living up to our expectations? This sudden departure of Superman and some recent attitude changes on my own behalf has really caused me to review Superman's life and my own ideals on heroism as well.

As I showed earlier, Superman was not a hero. He could be positively genocidal at times. (Though I guess you can't accuse him of being Saddam Hussein -- Saddam Hussein, you know, killed his own people... Superman is incapable of killing his own people, as they have the same powers or don't have the same powers and have the same achille's heel to Kryptonite as he does.)

Never mind. I remember Ruben (he of "Justin Bustin" fame) brought a bunch of comics from this era to Camp Cispus. Some boys in the bunk borrowed, and read through them. Supergirl evidentally took over the comic of Action Comics, and so we got a lot of skipping over those ones.

Whatshisname -- and by whatshisname I'm referring to this smart kid named Francisco -- read the novelization of the whole "Death of Superman" arc. (I don't think he did a book report on it.) A product that seems kind of absurd to me -- akin to the novelization of "Itchy and Scratchy the Movie".

The comics the company is most proud of are of the funeral to Superman, eulogizing him. The love here comes with showing what an icon Superman is, and why he's so very important, when as a general rule fans kind of view the title as a silly after-thought -- published out of habit. Nay. It is and has always been a silly comic, and it's incapable of being anything else. See... he fought nazis, then he fought Lex Luthor, then he fought gorillas (no -- strike that. Every gorilla cover I've seen the gorillas have been friendly), then he fought Myz-something or other (the subject of my favorite episode of, and the only one I remember, the WB cartoon series), then he fought Lex Luthor again, then he fought Doomsday, and now I don't know what he's doing.

(This looks like a cool comic, all that being said. A "Planet of the Apes" with the Statue of Liberty sequence, it looks like. Beyond which, Evan Dorkin wrote a few comics and tv episodes... though the cartoon I mentioned I looked hard at the credits, and no he did not write... the one I identified as being written by Dorkin and Dyer -- I had no opinion of and do not now remember.)

I won a prize at a County Fair for a drawing of Superman. I was 5 -- it looks like what you'd imagine a 5-year old drawing Superman looks like. The drawing was on my parents' wall -- a curiosity as to what childhood items were kept and weren't, this one was. I don't know if it's still there.

Lousy Riverdale Preppies.

Is this racism?

I don't know. Perhaps it is unfortunate that the cartoonist (Stan Goldberg?) drew Archie gesturing in the direction of Riverdale's... um... token black character.

I do know this, though. This is racism.

At some point, someone higher in the Archie Comics pecking order read Matt's outline. Actually, I know exactly who but my libel insurance may not completely cover me in this situation. I'm a coward, so sue me. No wait, I meant to say, please don't sue me. For the purposes of this story, we'll call the boss guy something innocuous, like "Doctor Victor von Doom." So Victor had a talk with Darryl. Darryl had a talk with Matt. "This is a really good story but what if it wasn't Betty dating the black guy? What if it were a friend of Betty's?" Matt pointed out that then it wouldn't be a story about Betty. Anyway, Matt reasoned, the stories are just basic Archie comics love-triangle stuff. They aren't about race. Dexter was to be Betty's new friend and confidant. He was the guy who would show her the ropes on her new job and help her navigate the minefield of newsroom politics. As the stories were written, Dexter was such a nice guy that he quickly became friends with Archie despite their rivalry (much as Betty and Veronica maintain their friendship, despite their tug-of-war for Archie's hand). Darryl went along with Matt's approach, albeit reluctantly as he sensed the potential for trouble. The book was penciled, lettered, inked and colored before Darryl found himself back on the carpet.


Darryl called Matt with the bad news. Dr. Doom had literally thrown the issue at him. He hated the stuff, wanting to know why Dexter was so much more accomplished than Archie, "What is he, super-Negro?" (at least, "Negro" is what everyone who told me this story reported him as saying. I have a sneaking suspicion that they were trying to save my feelings). Darryl was very upset and told off his boss, but to no avail. He was ordered to change the story in the cheapest way possible: Dexter was to be re-colored white. Unfortunately, this fooled approximately no one. Archie's offices were flooded with four or five letters congratulating them on their progressive move of adding that "cool, black guy" to Betty's cast. Uh oh.

I wonder if the real name of "Doctor Victor von Doom" is, indeed, Victor.

Superman is A dick.

Really. What an asshole.

You really can't blame Jimmy Olson for not being much of a "pal".

Actually what I wonder is why some people shake their head and laugh at all the "Marriage" stories in Lois Lane covers (denoting her fall from ace reporter to a "proper place for women") when you could easily get upset with all the times Superman tried to ... Kill her.

(Okay.))

The Bestest Marvel Comics

A comment from a long-ago thread sparked my interest, reminded of it due to that thread about the most hated of comics monstrosities (at least as it was in the early 1990s), Image Comics -- and my general disconnect with most of comics fandomonium.

When did Marvel jump the shark?...

My answer, of course, as said by Dan Parometer:

Or (just to be snarky) when Basil Wolverton and Dan DeCarlo left?

Except he's wrong. It's when Wolverton, Decarlo, and Krigstein left in the late 1950s. They then had something of a golden age during the early 1990s when they published Evan Dorkin and Ty Templeton.

All of which spurred me to jot down my favourite Marvel Comics, or some facsimilie thereof. (I'm a bit loose with the realities here.) I wanted a list of 12, but since I could only come up with 14 entries into this hall of fame, I'll list them all.

14: Dracula. Gene Colan. Not terribly good, but charming enough.
13: The Astonishing Ant-Man. As featured in a "This American Life" segment, and collected into a black and white "Essentials" Volume, this superhero has the power to shrink and amass a swarm of ants to attack the villians. They got tired of this self-limiting power, and thus he gained a different power "Giant Man". And somehow that leads to "Giant Size Man Thing", something I have no comment on.
12: Alf. Something about a comic that outlasts its television property by a couple years.
11: Dan Decarlo's swarm of comics -- that'd be "Millie the Model", "My Girl Pearl", "Irma something or other", and "Homer the Happy Ghost". To be honest all I have is a stray issue of the reprint series of "Homer the Happy Ghost" they published in the late 1960s, deleting Decarlo's name (and seemingly replacing it with the writer -- Stan Lee's). Caspar oughta have sued.
10: Bernie Krigstein's swarm of comics. Albeit a bit disappointing.
09: Groo -- Sergio Aaragones.
08: Devil Dinosour -- Jack Kirby
07: Basil Wolverton's kitchy sci fi and horror comics.
06: Mad Dog -- Ty Templeton
05: Fightman -- Evan Dorkin.
04: Dr. Strange -- Stan Lee. Steve Ditko.
03: Hey! Look! Harvey Kurtzman (published alongside the thrilling comics of "Tessie the Typist". Do they count? Why not?)
02: Powerhouse Pepper by Basil Wolverton
01: Bill and Ted's by Evan Dorkin

Reasons may be inserted later. If I missed anything feel free to tell me. Lists of similar counterintuitive nature welcome.

Another failed Communist Revolution

From each according to the needs, to each according to their crappy comics creations.

How Image Comics was formed in ’92 was a microcosm of every Socialist/Communist revolution in the world. Liefeld, Larsen, McFarlane, et al, sought to control their means of production, and set up a proletariat controlled state that eventually became a regime similar to what they originally rebelled against: Marvel. The early Image comics retain, in my opinion despite the criticisms of the Clement Greenberg-esque, Orthodox Church of the Comics Journal acolytes, an electricity and verve never seen since. Though “formally” speaking, there are failings in the comics, but, like much art, the emphasis is not necessarily on the formal. The Image founders were not attempting a revolution of form, or even content. But of desire. Of intent. Of control. Of production. Of style. They sought to make comics that were inspiring to the readers of the day the way Marvel and DC comics were to them. They had no reason to be held back. The first few image comics struggled to be as badass as possible as fast as possible, and the result of that struggle, in my opinion, was a pleasure to experience. Critics reacted as if they should have taken the opportunity to make existential autobiographical comics. All these creators ever knew were superheroes. Creator-owned superhero comics that could compete for the loyalty of Marvel and DC fans was a revolution indeed. A young person making their own superhero fantasies now knew that their own creations could reach the audience that their big brother’s (and father’s) icons once exclusively commanded. These were not your big brothers comics. Image was seen, by many, to be our generation’s Marvel. This was Fantastic Four #1 and Amazing Fantasy #15 but with hindsight. This initial burst of energy flamed out quickly, as the revolution eventually settled into the same business practices that they originally railed against.

Aside from The Maxx, I know not from Image. If there's anything else worth a gander from this company's backlog, they've kept themselves well hidden. As for the Uprising of the Proletariat -- a Revolution cannot sustain itself on an imbecilic collectors' bubble. (That be a bad patch of capitalism, which tends to run ahead of itself a little too far... except in this case it's hard to pinpoint where the glimmer of reality is... the early Spidermans and before that early Supermans your mom threw out?) Nor can it rest easy on stories designed around "pin-up poses" and pages designed to be worth more as original art.

There used to be a funny bit here about the launch of Image. It's now been deleted so is only available here.

Enter Rob Liefeld. The situation is as follows: there is a terrorist group from the future that is hell bent on awakening a terrible menace from our past in the present. One really cool monster, ninjas, assassins, barbarians, time-travelers and plenty of intrigue. All the ingredients that set X-Force apart from the pack 13 years ago are front and center here. The sins of Cable’s past really come back to haunt him this time around...

I have no comment on that. Perhaps our tcj poster does:

The Image creators were not nearly as self-conscious about it, but still, those early ones feel like comics made by that dude in junior high who could draw better than anyone and made his own homemade comics--no overthinking it, just drawing whatever the hell he wanted.

Frazetta versus Herriman and other Battles to the Death

It is here that I wish Mr. Devlin had properly written that editorial about how "the Worship of EC Comics has retarded Comics", something he copped out of.

The more interesting comparison might be between Frank Frazetta and Max Ernst. I have no idea where I picked up on the artist Max Ernst, but when I wrote a (ahem) "deconstructionist piece of dada fiction" for 12th grade English class, I has him as Detective Marcel Duchamp's assistant. Max Ernst is better than Frank Frazetta (technically proficient though the illustrator be).

I met someone in college (a classmate in a Literature class) who bemonaed the dearth of attention to the passing of Jim Varney (of "Earnest Goes Camping" fame) in relation to the attention paid to the passing of Charles Schulz.

They Keep Assassinating Abe Lincoln

Is there a sub-genre of comics about time travel screwing up the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?

There's this one.

There's this one (I bought a bruised copy for 25 cents.) Plastic Man #9, by Kyle Baker.

I think there might have been something in an EC Science Fiction comic about the concept, but I could be mistaken.

Perhaps the Overstreet Price Guide can start including notations for "Lincoln Assassination Screw-up" such that it does for "Injury to Eye Panels" and "Bondage Scenes" (derived from Wertham's reading of the comics.)

(Note: Here's some comedy akin to a repeated gag found at, of all places, the Comics Journal Message Board.)

I also bought, for a quarter, a battered copy of a 1968 issue of Archie. Review? Inoffensively bland. The highlight of the comic, I suppose, would be this send-off of commercial interruptions (written by Frank Doyle, art by Harry Lucey). It's never going to be reprinted in a digest, because of (1) the wee bit politically incorrect "commercial" for Indian War Paint and (2) the "commercial" that features casual wife-beating.

Items

Item: There's a Matt Groening cartoon where a fan comes up to him wearing a SIMPSONS T-shirt and says, "Mr. Groening, I'm your biggest fan, I've bought everything you've ever done!" Matt offers him a LIFE IN HELL book and the fan says, "What's that?"

Item: Kurt BUSIEK: It's not the first time I've heard it, but I expect it's just a common mistake -- someone hears that I wrote Jell-O Man, and they remember that I wrote about a heroic snack food, but since there was only the one issue of Jell-O Man, and many more of Kool-Aid Man, the title gets swapped somewhere down the line. I'd like to have written Kool-Aid Man, mind you -- Dan deCarlo drew most if not all of those, and I've always wanted to work with him. Even on the adventures of a sugary drink.

Dr Fate cover

I'm a big fan of this cover. It's a comic I purchased for 33 cents because of the cover. The interior story suffers from an affliction known to the world of funny-books, where I don't know what is going on and nobody is bothering to tell me why I oughta care to begin with.

But... the cover. Here's why I like the cover.

#1: There are three individuals telling you that they are Dr. Fate.
#2: They look nothing like each other, save an improperly fit mask and costume.
#3: The blurb "Will The Real Dr. Fate Please Show Up?" informs you that none of these guys is the real Dr. Fate.
#4: The emphasis of the three would be Dr Fates informing you that they are Dr Fate is on a different word. Hence, they are telling you three different things. The tall lanky guy is telling you straight-forward that he is Dr. Fate, as if someone asked "Who are you?". The elf-guy seems to be the next speaker, correcting the tall lanky guy. No... no... no... "I am Dr. Fate. The short fat twirp is the most philosophical, emphasis on the "am". I think this is what sells the cover.

Anyway...

Which of these is doing its own thing?

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things is doing its
own thing, one of these things i not the same...

Actually, more than one. Some are smut. Some are highly praise-worthy comics. Some? "Big Blown Baby" is, ultimately, no more drudged into its toilet-humour than "Captain Underpants" (a children's book my mother for some reason tried to unload on me.) Mike Diana is a typical case of how First Amendment victims tend to concern irredemably retarded "art". I believe Chester Brown once said that he was "trying his best to offend almost anyone" at the time of the publication of his confiscated comics.

Giving the benefit of the doubt to a number of items, there are two items here that make no sense to me whatsoever But perhaps I need to read Will Eisner's "A Life Force" and the first issue of Betty's Diary. (Betty's Diary???)

Ed the Happy Clown reprinted

This makes me mad for reasons I can't quite place.

Probably the strongest reason to pick up Ed The Happy Clown is the extensive notesd Brown includes in the final three pages. Brown is a cartoonist who isn't afraid to share his process with his readers, as noted above, and in the actual story notes one can find fascinating and revelatory nuggets that lead to a further appreciation of his efforts.

I guess that's the one thing it has going for it beyond ... the graphic novel edition that sits somewhere on my shelf.

And the covers... which, Chester Brown seems more adept at creating now than he was in the 1980s.

And... ? Is that about it? Could he have not just republished it, with notes, in graphic-novel form?

Instead of nine 24-page pamphlets?

Hm...

"Prez"

Well. Happy 4th of July.

Or, if you will Prez...

He... fixed the clocks, and that launched his political career toward the presidency? By the whims of a politico boss whose face looks like a Smiley sticker?

I have nothing to say of the thing. I read the Sandman issue. I read the Brubaker written comic (and its clumsy Kurt Cobain fixation.) I've always felt like to buy it and read it, I'd find that the comic is essentially exactly what it looks cracked up to be, and thus I'd be disappointed... thus, no.