Farewell to the Gentleman: Gene Colan, 1926-2011

I know, it seems like the only time I post here anymore is when someone notable dies...but I couldn't not mark the passing of the great Gene Colan, whose art I've loved for decades, especially when I was growing up in the 60's and 70's.

I won't try to eulogize him or write an obituary, because in the past couple of weeks there have been many, many wonderful posts doing just that, and far more eloquently than I could. That said, because of what Colan's art meant to me as a young comics reader and aspiring comic artist in those years, I wanted to write something...and I think what I'll do is post a few pages from some of my favorite Colan-drawn comics over the years, literally the first ones that came to mind when I read about his passing. They won't be the usual suspects, I don't think...at least after the first few.

The first place I saw Colan's art was most likely on one of his Iron Man stories in Tales of Suspense, under his "Adam Austin" pseudonym, followed soon after by one of his Daredevil efforts. The looseness of his style was the first thing which caught my eye, especially in those days when perhaps only Neal Adams, then just starting out over at DC himself, was doing realism with a flourish- Colan's figure drawing and layout style was far looser, yet it was still grounded in the everyday world. Sometimes, especially in his 70's work, his figures always seemed to me to be dissipating into mist, as if the ink line was the only thing holding it together. I found it exciting and fascinating, but I could never ever draw like that, and believe you me I tried. I also noticed his stellar inkwash work in a few issues of Creepy and Eerie for Archie Goodwin; go here to read a favorite of mine from this period. The page above comes from Daredevil Annual #1, cover-dated September 1967; this one was Stan's attempt to follow the template he came up with for 1964's Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, in which six of Spidey's most popular foes teamed up to battle him. Stan took Electro from the Sinister Six, and obviously 'Leckie neglected to realize that 1) Spidey's rogues gallery was far more deadly than DD's, and 2) it didn't work against Spider-Man, so why the heck did he think it would work here? Regardless, this was a fast-paced and fun tale which gave us DD fighting against each bad guy separately, as well as all together at the end, and a big part of the reason why was Colan's dynamic, kinetic art. I love how all hell breaks loose in that middle horizontal panel, as the "Emissaries of Evil" gang up on DD. This annual also sported a fun backfeature, which gave us a fly-on-the-wall look at a story conference with Lee and Colan...with a generous amount of whimsy to boot. One of the reasons why the whole Bullpen myth was so persuasive and enjoyable back then. You can read that story here.

The above pics, top to bottom, are from Doctor Strange #'s 182 and 178.

Arguably, though, it was Colan's moving on to Doctor Strange, paired with Tom Palmer, who was generally agreed to be his best inker, which seemed to turn him loose and give him free rein to play around with page layout and further refine his storytelling style...which he later used to great effect on Tomb of Dracula, as well as his successful return to the character in the 70's. Colan's style, which was rooted in the newspaper strip/advertising realism tradition (but still was always quite loose, especially compared to the Caniffs, Crandalls and the like), took flight as he gave us page after page of vertiginous layouts and non-stop action; even when the Doctor and Clea had some quiet downtime things seemed to be bubbling under the surface. Below is a great example, and a page I love very much, from Doctor Strange #180; I first saw it on someone's blog right after his death was announced, but alas I failed to bookmark it and forget now where I saw it, otherwise I'd just link to it there. Apologies to the first poster.

By 1970, it seemed like Colan had drawn every Marvel character's comic at least once, except Spider-Man; I remember loving his stints on Captain America, Sub-Mariner and the Avengers as well. Trying to stay as busy as he could, and to keep the money flowing, he began to do a variety of short stints on various titles in Marvel's fractured, hectic 70's period, and all the while doing Tomb of Dracula. ToD was a high point not only for him, but also in comics in general, as was Howard the Duck, a series I was mostly indifferent to as a teen (though I liked Steve Gerber's other work in general); when rereading ToD now, Wolfman's prose often seems overheated (as did Thomas' on those Doctor Stranges), but there's no denying Colan's artistry. He was truly well suited for horror stories, which also was made manifest on a short stint doing Brother Voodoo in Strange Tales, and the story below, from which I've pulled a couple of pages:

Marvel Spotlight was one of Marvel's showcase titles at the time; and featured the Son of Satan character which was created by Gary Friedrich and first drawn by Herb Trimpe. By the time he got his own feature in Spotlight, Steve Gerber wrote and Jim Mooney drew the first few issues, but for whatever reason the artist moved on after #17 and Colan stepped in for #'s 18 and 19 to bridge the gap between him and Sal Buscema, who drew the series until it was granted its own title a few months later. Anyway, Gerber's obviously Exorcist-inspired story could not have found a better realizer than Colan; it was completely rooted in the mix of the mundane and the fantastic that was Colan's stock in trade. He made this two-parter sing (despite some rather unsympathetic inking by Frank Chiaramonte), alternating polite dinner parties and dining room conversations and literal hell-raising action as Daimon Hellstrom struggles to exorcise a demon that can leap from host to host. Gerber tied it up with a clever solution, and went on to write some very imaginative stories before he was done with the character. If not for this two-parter, though, chances are I might not ever have seen the potential for excellence in the Son of Satan; I was not particularly interested in him before I plucked these off the spinner rack, attracted by Colan's art. Daimon soon became a favorite of mine, mostly thanks to Gerber, though Colan's rendition was my gateway. As a matter of fact, the first issue of Howard the Duck that I bought was the one in which Daimon made a cameo appearance, partly because I was tickled to see Colan draw him again.

Gene never limited himself to just horror or superheroes, though; in 1974, he took another fill-in assignment on a series that I was already a rabid fan of: Don McGregor's War of the Worlds (featuring Killraven). Regular artist Herb Trimpe had moved on by issue 25; Rich Buckler and Klaus Janson had done that one. Colan came along next, and provided his usual sharply observed job on one of McGregor's more whimsical scripts:

On his travels across the country to the "Place of Yellow Stones", Killraven and his men, with the Martians' killer Skar in pursuit, happened upon Battle Creek, Michigan, and encountered the leader of the group of its surviving residents, led by Pstun-Rage the Vigilant, who all guarded a treasure at the cost of their lives, if necessary. The revelation at the end is one of the most bizarre endings that I can recall in a comic book from the Big Two that wasn't written by Weisinger or Bridwell. Inked by Dan Adkins, Colan navigated all the action-adventure, as well as the drama and humor, of McGregor's wordy script (that bottom page, in particular, was notorious, showcasing a narrative style that irritated many, but I love it) with aplomb, despite never having drawn any of the characters before. McGregor and Colan collaborated a few times after that in subsequent years, forming a sympathetic team on such fare as the neo-noir Nathaniel Dusk (which I think I should revisit someday) for DC, and Ragamuffins for Eclipse. This story above was the first thing I thought of when remembering Colan and his career's effect on my life; even though the series went on to hit some very high highs with Craig Russell, it will always be a fondly recalled story in one of my favorite comics series.

And that pretty much does it for show and tell with me and Mr. Colan; after Dracula folded and Jim Shooter ran him out of the House that Stan and Jack and Steve Built, I did go on to buy some of his 80's work at DC like the occasional Batman or the aforementioned Dusk (never was too interested in Night Force or his take on Wonder Woman), but with diminishing returns; the fizz had seemed to go out of the pop for me. I still liked seeing his work here and there, especially on his return to Daredevil in the 90's and the outstanding commissions he did via his website. The decision not to saddle him with an inker on his infrequent appearances (which dated back to Dusk and Ragamuffins, if I recall correctly), brought on by his increased reluctance to subject his vision to the tender mercies of other, perhaps lesser talents, wasn't to his advantage, either, at least when it came to printed comics...his very good penciled commissions were something else again. When his health issues came to light, I did the dutiful blogger thing by linking to the drive to get him some financial relief for health care; I also recall a cover gallery on his birthday a couple of years ago. See the tags at right to be taken to those blog posts.

His passing was not a surprise, even as much as it was for me when Jeffrey Jones met his maker several weeks ago. That doesn't make it any harder to process, though, at least in my solipsistic view. Each year, more and more comics legends form my formative years die, and as I said before, every time it happens a little bit of my childhood dies as well. He was truly one of the all-time greatest, and his influence and legacy is vast. Even though he wasn't such a big part of it for the last decade or so, he will be missed merely by not being around.

I will be forever grateful and proud that I was able to experience it first-hand the way I did. I'm sure his work will remain an inspiration to up-and-comers for decades to come.

There have been dozens of outstanding blog posts and obits commemorating Colan's passing; I encourage you to visit the usual suspects (Heidi, Tom, CSBG, Robot 6, Blog@), to find them. I was especially moved, though, by Blake Bell's reposting of interviews with Colan's late wife Adrienne on living with him throughout his career. Here's the posts tagged "Gene Colan", all three parts are there.

Snap, crackle, pop...sluice.

Yesterday was Walt Simonson's birthday, and of course I missed it, as unable to find the time to sit down and focus and write as I seem to be these days. Even still, I thought last night that I would attempt to pay a little tribute of some sort, and I wanted to spotlight a somewhat unheralded and kinda-forgotten art job he did before he went on to Marvel, and Thor, and the FF, and so on: his brief stint on the Metal Men comic back in '76-'77. By this time, he had really begun to perfect the dynamic, playful style he had gotten everyone's attention with in the excellent Manhunter, and this, as well as the last few issues of Hercules Unbound (which he did at about the same time) just blew me away back then. I searched high and low for scans of his MM ( for some reason, I no longer own my originals) run so I could post a few pages for your edification, and finally, one night later, I found some. They were mostly corrupt and wouldn't display properly, but I did manage to find a few great pages from one issue in particular, #49, which was the conclusion of a two-part story involving Eclipso (I've been reading the Showcase Presents that came out a week or so ago, and I'll probably try a longish review soon. relatively speaking.) and his quest to resurrect some sort of ancient god, the likes of which were most popular back in the mid-70's. Apologies for the awful look of these; I don't have a computer at home with Photoshop anymore so I can't touch 'em up. Still, the resolution's OK and they're quite readable.

Anyway, many things jump out at me- the breathless pace of the action, full of speed lines and Simonson's patented lighthearted onomatopoeia; although you can't tell it much from these pages, Simonson made a definite effort to pay homage to Alex Toth's version of not only 'Clipsy but alter ego Bruce Gordon and girlfriend Mona Bennett as well. Marty Pasko's script (I've always felt that his work on this title was his best) was breezy and fun, not written with overwrought imitation Roy Thomas dialogue like so many writers' scripts from that time period were, and Simonson's art brought a lot of that out- look at the last panel of the last page, in which Mercury exclaims "There he goes- sluicing back into the sea!"...and sure enough, he does so accompanied by a big "SLUICE" in wobbly letters, courtesy of the artist. There's also an amusing sequence (in the page at right, click to see biggerer) in which the Big Bad, name of Umbra, fires death-beams out of his fingertips, which seek out their intended targets- humans Doc Magnus, Mona, Gordon, two others- and Walt gives us a panel with helpful little boxes with arrows pointing to each, telling us which target each beam is intended for. Well, I thought it was amusing, anyway.

Anyway, Simonson and Pasko's short-lived Metal Men was good comics. Take my word for it. If I ever run across a set, I'll buy them back someday.

Oh, if you want further testimony to the man's excellence, if any was needed, here's my last year's tribute, with lotsa covers.


Oh, and lest I forget, Tuesday the 1st was the birthday of the great Gene Colan. I wished him a happy one on his Facebook page, 'cause we're all best buds and such. Anyway, here's last year's covers tribute.

Bacardi Show Birthday Greetings to both!

Sending out a Bacardi Show Birthday Greeting to the great GENE COLAN, 82 years young today. As tribute, here's a gallery of covers, just a fraction of the great work he has done over the last few decades. Most of these are comics I've owned and loved growing up. Hopefully, his recent health problems are working out, and I wish him all the best in the future.

One of the most noteworthy stories from the last few days in the world of comics is that the great GENE COLAN is suffering from liver failure, and does not have adequate medical insurance to help meet his expenses. Writer Clifford Meth put out the word, and called for everyone all over the Blogosphere to send him cards, or post tributes on their own blogs, to try and help raise his spirits. I haven't gotten a card yet, but I realized that I had scans of at least three outstanding Colan-illustrated stories that he did for Warren magazines in the mid-60's, and I thought I'd post one of them to help draw attention to his situation, and also pay tribute to a man whose work has been absolutely essential- and who has worked on many seminal comics series in the last four decades, equally at home with the mundane and everyday as he is superheroes and the supernatural. The impression it has left on me alone, as I at first hoped to be a comics artist and later simply as someone who loved the medium, has been incalculable.

Anyway, I thought I'd try something new this time and since I recently set up a Flickr account, I thought I'd create a slideshow and post the pages there.

Click here to read "Fitting Punishment", which is admittedly a not-so-subtle EC-style tale by Archie Goodwin with a somewhat improbable ending...but Colan's wonderful atmosphere-enabling inkwash technique and his vertiginous, cut-and-paste-style page layouts make it something special. See if you agree. If this slideshow doesn't work properly, pages out of order, etc., please leave a comment and I'll just repost each page here.

ETA: I think I should make it a bit clearer that many efforts are underway to raise money to help the Colans in their time of need. I had hoped that those who would click on the links above would find their way to the proper venues to get information on how they can help...but I'm thinking I should just come right out and put it here. Loath as I am to link to Journalista, Deppey is spotlighting the information (I'm assuming) every day for the near future, so click here to get the info written in a more concise, informative, and entertaining fashion than I can manage, I'm sure. Basically, you can bid on eBay Colan art auctions, or send money directly to them via PayPal- their account is genecolan@optonline.net, and you'll probably want to put "donation" somewhere in the comments so it will be easier to find for them. This is probably what I'll do later on this week when I get paid.

Good Evening. Permit me to introduce you to...

First, the usual disclaimers. This is a list of horror-and-supernatural themed comics that have made a big impression on me in my longer-than-I-like-to-think-about comics reading experience. I do not intend for this to be a "all-time best" list, nor do I even claim that these are shining examples of works of sequential fiction. Also, I'm sure much of what I'll be writing is already familiar territory for many, so apologies in advance if it gets tedious. I just want to share with the rest of the class some titles over the years that I've grooved on, man. So here goes nothing.

Of course, the first (and in most cases, the best) real horror comics of note, but not necessarily the first ones I was exposed to, were the EC titles such as Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and others, which saw print in the 50s. Before I was born, believe it or not. I didn't read any of these classic books until I was in my late teens/early 20s and had a friend who had a few of the reprint editions, and they were as good as I had been led to believe. I have never owned one, either in original or reprint format, so I don't really include them on my list, but they're damned good. I especially tended to like those illustrated by Ghastly Graham Ingels, Bernie Krigstein, and the SF stories that Wally Wood drew. That stout-hearted stalwart, the Pop Culture Gadabout, has saved me the trouble of writing more since he has recently posted a nice overview of the line with emphasis on a story illoed by another good one, Johnny Craig. Go here, read, then come back. I won't wait long for you.



The first horror comics I remember being exposed to were the line of B&W magazines published by Warren- Creepy, Eerie, and later the original incarnation of Vampirella, which kinda came late to the party. After all the dust settled from the Wertham trials, and after EC had folded all its horror titles with the advent of the Comics Code, the only place these sort of stories could appear were in the pages of magazines like these, which weren't displayed in the same locale as comic books, nor were they aimed at the same audiences. Actually, the first horror comics I remember reading were probably the seven-or-eight page illustrated adaptations of movies like The Mummy's Hand that appeared in Famous Monsters of Filmland and Monster World, and although I didn't know it then those were Warren's way of testing the waters for a whole magazine of nothing but illustrated horror stories. And oh, boy- what talent they assembled between their covers, especially in the first year of both titles: Archie Goodwin was the editor (and main scriptwriter) in the early days, Frank Frazetta did most of the covers, and the likes of Reed Crandall, EC's Wally Wood, Joe Orlando and Jack Davis, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Tom Sutton, Dan Adkins, Gene Colan, Gray Morrow, and my personal favorite Jerry Grandenetti, whose hallucinogenic, expressionistic style just blew me away. Much later the likes of Berni Wrightson and Richard Corben, then all those Filipinos, came along and revitalized the line. The Warren titles were, to me, artist showcases first and foremost- the scripts were all tight and well written, but most were riffs on the EC template. Either way, those Warren magazines really got their hooks in me early on and I spent many an allowance coin on them whenever they came out on the magazine rack at the Houchens Market.

Also coming out at about the same time were the supernatural titles of Gold Key, formerly Dell. Dell had changed over to the Gold Key imprint at roughly about the same time I was aware that there were even such things as comic books, so I don't really remember Dell all that much, but I remember the GK imprint very well. Gold Key comics were also unusual (on Planet Dave) in that they weren't sold on the same racks as DCs or Marvels or even Harveys, but were always found at the local Ben Franklin five and dime store, and nowhere else. Well, OK, also at the Stevenson's five and dime down the street, but they weren't there long. I think Ben Franklin sold Gold Keys exclusively until the early 70s, when they shared spinner rack space with DCs. But I digress. Gold Key didn't have the superstar artist firepower that Warren did, but they had some solid illustrators like Russ Manning, Jack Sparling and Doug Wildey and Gold Key books were often pretty darned entertaining. They published several horror-themed titles, all with lush painted covers and featuring code-approved but no less remarkable tales of terror aimed at kids and teenagers. One story I remember in particular illustrated the legend of Spring-heel Jack, in Ripley's Believe it or Not, I think...really creeped me out, as I recall. I always had at least one GK horror title like Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery or The Twilight Zone around when I was in grade school. If I had the patience and the money I'd track some of these down but have little of either, so I'll just have to get by with my memories.



To be honest, I'm not sure which of the Big Two (who both published horror comics pre-Code, but pretty much ceased after it was introduced) actually got around to doing supernatural comics in the 70s, when the Code relaxed its anti-vampire, zombies, and werewolves restrictions a bit, but I seem to recall Marvel testing the waters with its Morbius, The Living Vampire character in an issue of Spider-Man before DC revamped its House of Mystery/Secrets titles, so I'll go with the House of Ideas first. When the Morbius story went over well, Marvel rush-released its own takes on a Werewolf (By Night, actually not bad when Mike Ploog drew it), Frankenstein's monster (ditto), and the big kahuna of sanguinary doings himself, Dracula. After a shaky beginning, the Tomb of Dracula, as it came to be called, got in a real groove, with writer Marv Wolfman (not the first scripter, but he came aboard very early on) creating and developing a solid supporting cast to interact with Drac, as well as giving the lead a well-developed, if belligerent personality, and stalwart Gene Colan did some of the best work of his career, illustrating (I believe) all 70 issues, plus a story or two in other books at the time. Colan has always drawn his figures and backgrounds as if they were on the verge of dissipating into mist, something which came in very handy when he was given a character that could actually do this. ToD, despite its subject matter, was still a Marvel comic and sometimes listed into melodramatics and compromise (one specific instance, I recall, had Drac encountering an angel, late in the series' run- an angel dressed in a spandex costume, of course), but it was still one of the best things Marvel did in the 70s and is well worth one's time if one cares to invest it. They've finally released that long-awaited Essential edition of the first 25 issues, plus three other Drac appearances, and it's well worth the 15 bucks. Not long after the Morbius issue of Spider-Man, we got two horror anthologies, Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness. Don't remember much, if anything, about CoD, but I'll always remember the lead story in Tower by Jim Steranko which is one of the best pieces of sequential storytelling I've ever seen. Above is the more sedate-by-comparison cover that appeared on the newsstands, then the rejected design (complete with groovy logo) by Steranko colored for the Steranko-Graphic Prince of Darkness one shot which came out a few years ago, then an interior page example. The original title for the tale of greedy heirs and a weird old house was: "Let Them Eat Cake", which was so cool that it came as no surprise to read that Stan didn't like it and somewhere down the line it got re-titled "At the Stroke of Midnight". Zzzz. But the story itself- whoa mama. Steranko was at his graphic storytelling peak then, and this tale was a tour-de-force. You can see a B&W example of one of the pages above.



One other Marvel supernatural book of note was Man-Thing. Another swamp-dwelling creature who was semi-intelligent and whose touch burned those who feared him, as the copywriters kept telling us again and again. At first, he appeared as the all-new lead in a reprint title, Adventures Into Fear, most notable for the first appearance of Howard The Duck. Eventually, they put MT into his own title, and assigned the team of Steve Gerber and, after issue #5, Mike Ploog to do the script and art chores. Gerber's stories tended to be of the "Man-Thing and company encounter weird strangers and menaces in the swamp" variety, but written in his typically quirky style with human interest shadings and Ploog's quirky, Eisner-inspired art brought just the right tone to the proceedings. My favorite of these was the one depicted above, "Night of the Laughing Dead", (a two-parter in #'s 5 and 6) in which MT and his friends encountered a suicidal clown who had come out to the swamp to do the deed, and wind up fighting for his soul with demons from hell. Gerber crafted a touching script out of a very odd premise, and this was the most memorable of their run together, which lasted until issue 11, and included the infamous-for-its-title-and-the-legion-of bad-jokes-it's-inspired Giant-Size Man-Thing #1.

Moving on to DC now, it seems that about the same time Marvel stuck its toe into the horror comics pool, DC followed suit in the late 60s by revamping (no pun intended) its former flagship supernatural titles, House of Mystery and House of Secrets, which had been featuring superhero takes like Eclipso, Dial H for Hero, Prince Ra-Man, and others. Also at about this time they launched a title whose lead had actually been created in the 50s, and had a very short-lived book of his own then, the Phantom Stranger. Early issues consisted of the Stranger, that enigmatic character whose origins were clouded in mystery but could usually be counted on to show up, introduce the story, dispense warnings and advice and bicker with Doctor Terry Thirteen, a skeptical James Randi-type paranormal debunker/investigator who was determined to prove the Stranger was a charlatan. This went on for several issues, until a young writer named Len Wein showed up and, combined with artist Jim Aparo (who did the best art of his career, in my opinion, on this title), ushered in the most creatively fertile period that the character has ever known. Wein gave the Stranger a girlfriend of sorts, a blind psychic named Cassandra Craft, and set him to battle a murderous cult called the Dark Circle, led by a sexy high priestess named Tala with aid from a cynical, morally ambiguous magician named Tannarak, who had appeared several issues back in the run. This was truly PS's golden age, because after Wein and Aparo left, it was back to becoming a glorified horror host (the Rod Serling of comics, some called the character at the time) before the inevitable cancellation. That Wein/Aparo run, though, was some great stuff, and it was issues 14-26, in case you were wondering. Also appearing in the last few W/A books was an interesting back feature, The Spawn of Frankenstein, by Wein and Mike Kaluta, in which Dr. Thirteen gets mixed up with Frankenstein's monster. The episodes that Kaluta drew were really great, and issue #26 was a fun crossover between the Stranger and the SoF, with Aparo interiors and a Kaluta cover.

One reason Wein left the Stranger was so he could focus on DC's latest horror star, the Swamp Thing, who had just earned his own brand new title in the late summer of 1972. This particular run tends to be overshadowed by Alan Moore's brilliant re-imagining of the character some 13 years later, but I've always had a soft spot for its original incarnation, which featured the best artwork of Berni Wrightson's career and some clever reworkings of classic horror-film icons; a Frankenstein monster, here called the Patchwork Man; a werewolf, witches, and so on. In #7 Swampy met Batman in Gotham City, which treated us to Wrightson's lithe version of the Dark Knight, complete with fifty-foot long cape, touched on Lovecraftian territory in #8 when he encountered M'Nagalah, a malignant "old god" in a mine shaft, and so on. After issue #10, Wrightson tired of incessant deadlines and left, along with Wein, who went over to Marvel and began his quick slide to obscurity, and new creators came aboard: David Michelinie (fresh off an underrated run on the Unknown Soldier comic) and Nestor Redondo, who was easily one of the best of the then-new Filipino artists that were prevalent in comics in the mid-70s. They had a tough act to follow, but they often excelled and Swamp Thing was consistently good for a long time, but eventually sales dwindled and the book got cancelled, and then a few years later Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben happened. But that's another story.

A sort of wild-card entry into DC's 70s horror stable was the Mike Fleisher/Jim Aparo take on the Golden Age character, The Spectre. After DC had revived the Discarnate Detective in the early 60s, first in one of those JLA/JSA team-ups of yore, then in his own short-lived series in which he was treated as sort of DC's answer to Dr. Strange, the decision was made to give the character a spotlight in one of DC's anthology-type books, Adventure Comics, which had been floundering in sales. Fleisher took the earliest appearances of the Spectre as his inspiration, specifically the instances where the Spectre would kill a man dead in his tracks by giving him a death stare, or pick up a car full of fleeing gangsters and fling it into space, watching it catch on fire as it left the atmosphere. This grim, avenging angel aspect of the character had been pretty much ignored previously, and Fleisher decided to take it and blow it up to imaginative, outlandish, Grand Guignol (or as much so as one could do in a Code-approved comic) levels. Killers disguised as hairdressers? Spec would gesture at a pair of scissors out of one of their pockets, enlarge it to giant size, and cut one of them in two! Trapped kidnapper in a sawmill? Transformed into wood and cut into sections! Fake swami, with crystal ball, ripping people off? Transformed into glass and shattered! This was a gruesome hoot for a while, and this relaunch of the Spectre was quite popular at first...but eventually it became formulaic and stale, and sales dwindled as well, and was eventually replaced in Adventure about a year after it had begun. But these issues were PG rated, gory good fun and Jim Aparo turned in some outstanding art on these as well. They're well worth checking out if you find them, and I'll always remember them fondly.



I think there was a pretty long dry spell for interesting horror-themed books in the late 70s and 80s; other than Moore's (and later, Rick Veitch's not-bad) Swamp Thing, and Gaiman's Sandman of course. Seems like all the independents like Eclipse and Pacific tried their hands at horror anthology books, and most were forgettable. But one character, created by Moore as sort of a gadfly during his Swamp Thing run, soon became a star and eventually got his own title in the late 80s, which helped launch the entire Vertigo line: John Constantine: Hellblazer, still going strong to this day. Ol' JC has had a number of different writers and artists in those one hundred eighty-plus issues, but has always remained a fascinating and charismatic character. Perhaps the best run of this title was Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's long run in the 90s which introduced a lot of great characters, developed the lead in new and interesting ways, and set the tone for their subsequent Preacher series. Another long run by Paul Jenkins and Sean Phillips was outstanding as well. Actually, JC:HB is as good right now as it's been in a long time, with Mike (Lucifer) Carey at the helm. Speaking of Sandman, I gotta mention Carey's excellent Lucifer ongoing series, which is as good as it gets in mainstream comics right now, in my own humble opinion.

Dark Horse Comics' major contribution to the horror comics genre is, of course, Mike Mignola's Hellboy, the always entertaining adventure/horror series featuring a seven-foot demon who gets called "The World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator" and has become, thanks to Mignola' innovative style, a stylistic benchmark for any sort of subsequent supernatural-themed illustrated endeavor. Big Sunny D recently posted a great commentary on this series, and I'll just point you here so you can read it. One of the best things about the Hellboy series, in my opinion, is the organization he works for, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, aka the BPRD, which is staffed with a fascinating cast of characters and provides a lot of depth for the entire series. I want a BPRD cap, damn it.

Another series I like a lot originally appeared as a backing feature in Hellboy before getting its own one shot a couple of years ago, The MonsterMen by Gary Gianni. Gianni's meticulously retro artwork recaptures the feel of old pulp magazine illustrators more convincingly than anyone since Mike Kaluta, and the concept (which still hasn't been fully explained yet, due to the sporadic nature of MonsterMen appearances), is just downright wiggy. Most of the tales so far revolve around one Saint George, a fellow who dresses in a smoking jacket and wears a medieval armored helmet to help people do battle with the malignant forces of evil. Lotsa fun, and well worth checking out when possible. This series has had a lotta names as well: it was originally called "Gary Gianni's MysteryMen", then was changed for obvious reasons to "Corpus Monstrum", and is now known as "Gary Gianni's MonsterMen". Whatever they call it, I like it.

X-Men saturated Marvel really didn't have much of note coming out in the 90s, unless you count its Ghost Rider book...they attempted several times, especially in the wake of the success of DC's Vertigo imprint, to revive their supernatural stable to no avail. However, in my opinion they did publish one standout title in that period: Warren Ellis and Leo Manco's Hellstorm series, which I included in my 12 comics series everyone should read list. Go here to read what I wrote then.

Finally, I want to mention a couple of Fantagraphics' forays into supernatural comics, especially my personal favorite: Richard Sala's Evil Eye. Sala's made a career out of writing and illustrating oddball murder mysteries and ghost stories, and I really like his quirky, Charles Addams-meets-Nancy Drew style. Eye is his ongoing series, which features a mystery serial Reflections in a Glass Scorpion and the stand-alone exploits of his somewhat enigmatic and waifish Peculia. This book, and all of Sala's work like this, is an acquired taste, I suppose, but I acquired it a long time ago so I'm in for the long haul. Besides, Sala draws, in my twisted opinion, some of the sexiest women I've ever seen. Also from Fantagraphics, and speaking of acquired tastes, is Meat Cake, by performance artist Dame Darcy. Darcy's primitive art style and whimsical, sometimes surreal, Neo-Victorian gothic stories don't appeal to everyone, for sure, but I find them charming. I also get a strong antebellum Southern-style ambiance from them as well. Darcy has been known to do the occasional ghost story as well, in her turn-of-the-previous-century style, and these are always excellent. Plus, if you send her 20 bucks and a copy of your palm, she'll tell your fortune! Where else are you gonna find that in a comic book? The Bros. Hernandez, in both incarnations of their Love and Rockets series, also sometimes dip into the supernatural well, most notably the Mexican legend of La Llorona. Fantagraphics also publishes Charles Burns' Black Hole, a title to which I was initially attracted, but I found it kinda dry and uninvolving after a couple of issues so I moved on. I really like Burns' style, though (especially on those great El Borbah stories), so I might try to buy a collection of this down the road sometime.

I know there are probably a lot of great books I've overlooked, or didn't mention because they just didn't fit somehow (like Dr. Strange, Neilalien) but these are ones that have left the strongest impression on me in the past, so there ya go. Sorry it's taken me so long to finish this; I've had all kinds of stuff going on non-stop around here and it's seriously cut into my time in front of the butterfly curtains...so...thanks for your patience and Happy Halloween!