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.

Dwayne McDuffie, RIP

Multiple sources around the Net have reported that Dwayne McDuffie has shockingly passed on. I say shockingly because no one seems to have even been aware that he might have been ill- he has been active in his writing career, both in comics and in animation, right up until now. No cause of death has been reported as of this writing.

I won't try to BS you and tell you that I've been a lifelong fan of his or anything- I can only think of one series I've read regularly that he scripted. Back in 1993, when my then-11-year-old son wanted me to start getting him comics to read on my weekly Wednesday run, some of the titles he liked were DC's teen heroes- Robin, Impulse, Superboy. One other that caught his eye was the series above, Static. Now, since I was as much a comics geek back then as I ever was, I read not only the titles I bought, but the titles I bought for him (he liked X-Men, Spawn, Gen13, and other hot books back then too- I didn't read them often) as well, and I enjoyed Static. McDuffie only scripted the first four issues, along with the mysterious Robert L. Washington III, but was instrumental in creating the character with artist J.P. Leon, the first place I saw his soon-to-be excellent work as well. He was a driving force behind the whole Milestone imprint company published by DC which was designed to spotlight minority characters. Many years later, I found myself addicted to the animated TV series Justice League Unlimited, as far as I'm concerned one of the high-mark programs of its kind- he was its story editor and a producer, and also scripted many of its best episodes. I may have to go back and look up some of the other comics work he's done, such as the late 80's Marvel series Damage Control and his troubled stint on Justice League of America. He seemed to be a talent whose best work was still ahead of him, whether it was in animation or comics.

Reaction all over the Web has been heartfelt and overwhelmingly sad- he seemed to have been well-liked by everyone whose lives and careers he touched. I never had the pleasure of interacting with him online, but I can see his obvious talent and importance in the industry, and he will be missed by all who care about comics. I just thought I should write a few lines.

Ain't no snafu. No folderol.

Your guitar is not really a guitar Your guitar is a divining rod.

Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over.

A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.

Don Van Vliet, also known in the music world as Captain Beefheart, died on Friday at age 69.

May I ramble a bit? I'll get to the point eventually.

You all know (or should, if you've been reading me for any length of time and have a good long-term memory) that I have had a lifelong fascination with the recorded output that eminated from the Brothers Warner and their associated label Reprise, especially in the years 1970 through 1975, and that, perhaps, not coincidentally, is mostly when Beefheart and the Magic Band were in full swing. I wish I could tell you that I was a fan from Safe as Milk on, but that's just not the case- despite being aware of the man and his group from seeing the curiosity-provoking song titles listed in the old Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders, I was not in a position to hear his music until 1976, when I purchased the 8-track of the collaborative comeback effort he released with Frank Zappa, 1975's Bongo Fury. You see, when I first got interested in the Captain, it was roughly 1974 and he was represented by the critically savaged and backwards-looking Mercury Records releases Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams. Since my income was limited to the ten dollars a week I'd get from my parents (just enough for an album and a couple of comics or paperback books), I was reluctant to take a flyer on these records, which were painted in a poor light by people whose opinion I respected. There was a chance encounter with a vinyl copy of 1972's Clear Spot, which I spied at a Louisville record store in the Mall at St. Matthews sometime in late '74. I snatched it up, took it to the cashier, and looking at it in line, I noticed a side-length light scratch, where someone else had slid it out of its clear plastic-with-a-flap sleeve and apparently didn't take the greatest care in replacing it. I decided to put it back. I didn't see another copy of it on vinyl until the 90's, in a used record shop, where its $25 price tag was a bit rich for my blood.

You see, part of my problem was that in those long-dead days, there was obviously no Internet with its myriad ways to get music, both illegal and legal, nor were there an endless parade of repackaged CDs of varying price points to help the uninitiated discover an artist's back catalogue, especially for an artist as obscure and out-there as the Captain. The records came out, sold a few, very few, then got deleted and if they weren't smash hits they didn't get reissued but instead were sold for significantly less with a hole punched in the sleeve or the corner cut off the record, same for the 8-tracks and cassettes. And reel-to-reel, I assume, though I don't recall ever seeing any cutout reel to reels. Cutout bin diving is one of the great lost pleasures of being a record buff, believe me, now limited to cities and towns with independent record stores. If you were lucky, you could find some great records for a buck ninety-nine. Since, by 1975, all the Beefheart albums had been deleted, it was very difficult to run across copies. Believe me, I looked after that.

Anyway, after Fury, a couple of years later I finally ran across a cutout copy of Clear Spot on 8-track. Snatched that thing up immediately and played the hell out of it. It was a more commercial, which is to say some attention was paid to accessibility, effort, produced by smokin'-hot Ted Templeman, producer of the Doobie Bros. and soon to helm releases by Van Halen and others- almost a last-gasp play, a Hail Mary if you will, full of R&B and Soul and New Orleans shuffle, as well as the usual oddball spoken-word poetry set to Jazzy, angular rhythms. It would spawn no hit singles and didn't sell any better than his more challenging efforts such as the highly-esteemed Trout Mask Replica and the underrated Lick My Decals Off, Baby. So, the Captain broke up the Band, got new management, and released the aforementioned even more blatant commercial stabs, then hibernated again until hooking up with Zappa and releasing Fury. For some reason, I was reluctant to get 1978's Shiny Beat (Bat Chain Puller), even though it got a lot of positive writeups in CREEM and other places. Perhaps I felt the bloom was off the rose; can't say why for sure. I did break down and get 1980's Doc at the Radar Station, thanks to seeing him perform the track "Hot Head" on Saturday Night Live. I could have sworn it was on ABC's Fridays, but can't find anything online to back that up. Anyway, I bought it, liked it a little though it took so much time to grow on me that I didn't get the followup, 1982's Ice Cream for Crow. After that, there would be no more music from him, though I didn't know it at the time. Eventually, bit by bit, I acquired some of the Loss Leaders with Beefheart tunes like 1971's "Click Clack", and liked them a lot, but still had no luck finding those Reprise records. Finally, CDs happened, and I got the Spotlight Kid/Clear Spot twofer, finally replacing that long-discarded 8-track, and the 1999 anthology The Dust Blows Forward, where I finally got to sample some of the by-then-legendary Trout Mask tracks and many others I hadn't heard. My fandom was cemented, as I came to love nearly all of the weird and willful stuff, even the more conventional blues-based pre-Trout Mask music like "Abba Zabba" and "Electricity". Since then, I've gone on and acquired, by hook or crook, the albums I craved to hear for so long and love them all in their way, especially Clear Spot. You never forget your first love.

Van Vliet's music was an almost indescribable blend of Dada Delta Blues, Zappa-style weirdness, playful lyrics, the aforementioned jazz, R&B, soul and other stuff. Not much country, but there was a little twang in the mix. I'm not surprised it wasn't embraced by the masses- and it seems to me that Van Vliet wasn't either. Eventually he said to hell with it and stopped making music recorded for mass consumption, instead choosing to concentrate on his career as an (unsurprisingly) surrealist painter and sculptor, which brought him a lot more success (and personal satisfaction, I'd bet) than his music career ever did. And that's fine.

Although it took me a hell of a long time, I did finally come to appreciate the genius of the man, and find out a lot about the wonderful musicians who backed him (they deserve a ton of credit for those records, especially considering the crap he put them through while making them, as it turns out). Unlike many artists who bowed out early to pursue other paths, I don't really resent it and wish there had been more, although I sure do wish there had been more from his mid-70s reunion with Zappa. It had been so long since he issued new music, I had mostly resigned myself to the occasional online news update and fairly frequent listens to his albums...so I don't feel the wrenching sense of loss that some of the deaths of people I admire fosters; it seems like he was already gone for a long time to me. Still, he's one of those larger than life figures who left his often sloppy and chaotic mark on a sadly limited number of people, though by extension (i.e., all the musicians he subsequently inspired), the number becomes remarkably large. I am glad that I made the effort and am a better person for the experience, I think.

Harvey, I Hardly Knew Ya.

I won't lie to you: The only issues of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor I have read in my life are two of the DC/Vertigo ones that came out a few years ago, and I got comped on them. Now I realize that probably makes me automatically invalid as a comics commentator, but bear with me, OK? I'm not unfamiliar with Pekar's work in general; you couldn't read an issue of The Comics Journal in the Eighties or Nineties without running across something with his name in it- a review, interview, you name it. For what it's worth, I've read plenty of excerpts in different places as well as anthologies with stuff he did in them, and I did see him on David Letterman once or twice. Sadly, though, not the one in which he appeared for the last time. I was never really moved to seek out his work, however, (even waxed philosophical about this shortcoming of mine a few years ago, scroll down a ways for the review) even though I enjoyed the excellent American Splendor feature film, made by Terry Zwigoff and starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar.

If I ever do decide to make the effort to appreciate Pekar's work more, it won't be in his lifetime, sorry to say- Harvey passed on early this morning, and the entire comics community is in mourning. Even a Philistine like me can recognize that Pekar's influence over the last three decades has been huge, especially in the Alternative comics genre, in which he was a pioneer and an inspiration, especially for those who chose to write and illustrate slice-of-life stories. He was a talented writer with a unique point-of-view, and will be missed by all.

Stephen Perry, RIP.

I don't know exactly where this will go, but I know I have to write something, and the words are coming even harder than usual. I sincerely hope this is premature, and if that turns out to be the case I'll gladly take it down. It's gonna ramble, too, so please forgive.

In 2003, I wrote a longish blog post extolling the virtues of the short-lived mid-1980's Epic Comics series Timespirits. At some point a few months later, I had become part of a collective comics blog called "Four Color Hell" (I had completely forgotten about that blog!), and re-posted the Timespirits piece there, where it came to the attention somehow of the series' co-creator and scripter, Stephen Perry. He sent me an email on April 5, 2004:

To the 4 color hell guy: thanks for the kind words. I should like very much to bring back Timespirits, first as a reprint for the generation that has come since I left comics, and then as the continuing series I had always envisioned. The Timespirits graphic novel "Doot Lives" never was published, and the script remains in a drawer, along with many other adventures of Cusick. I've tried to contact Tom (Yeates) but this is only the third week I have entered into the world of the internet -- surprised anyone remembers. After whoring on Thundercats and Silverhawks, and losing a major motion picture deal, I bummed and, while writing all these years, have published nothing since 1991.

Well, of course, I was excited to hear from him like that, so I replied, and we exchanged a couple of emails back and forth afterwards. Mostly just small talk type stuff, a little about the series and so on. I didn't hear from him again until February of 2006, when out of the blue he emailed me to let me know that things were looking good for Timespirits to be collected and published again, and to ask me if I'd mention it here, which I did. Another couple of emails went back and forth, and that was it. About a year later, after seeing no TS collection, I asked him how it was coming along, and he told me that they had had issues with the printing, among other things, and didn't know if it would happen or not. Disappointing, but that stuff happens. After that, I heard little else from him save for an occasional forwarding of some political-type email or somesuch, no more than a couple...and thought nothing of it until I saw Steve Bissette's urgent update and appeal in his behalf with its dismaying news. I wanted to try and do something, anything, and eventually I sent along a small amount, nowhere near what I would like to have sent, thinking that something was better than nothing. After the first contribution I made, he emailed me expressing gratitude and filling me in on what had happened since the last time we exchanged emails, and his tale was horrifying. Shocking. I was heartsick for days after reading it. It was worse than Bissette had let on in his post. I briefly considered doing some sort of illustration, perhaps to auction on eBay and raise some money for him, but alas as so often is the case the plan came to naught. While I didn't have a lot of money to contribute, I did remember that the Hero Initiative was around to look out for comics creators who had fallen down on their luck, and I emailed Gail Simone, who I knew had worked with them before and might be able to tell me how I could get the HI involved. After I had sent her one of Perry's emails so she could read for herself how bad it was, she contacted them herself and got Perry a little assistance. May she be blessed for getting involved. I was very happy to hear this and hoped that perhaps things might be looking up for him and his little boy...but that turned out to not be the case. After that, I continued to get the occasional email from Steve, updating me on his status and occasionally asking for money; I did send a little more, just a drop in the bucket. Eventually, it looked like he was going to get the medical treatment he needed, and he sounded optimistic and ready to write again. But, the surgery and its aftermath went horribly wrong, and his life devolved into what surely sounded like a living hell, which culminated in the terrible news reported over the weekend. His last email, with the subject line of "Farewell" (the preceding one was named "Death"), was so depressing I couldn't reply. I didn't know what to say or do, and I regret not trying to come up with something now. Who knows- he might not have been able to have read it anyway, but at least I would have tried.

I don't want to come across as self-serving. Perry and I were only acquaintances, and Internet acquaintances at that. We all have them here, some of us more than others- people we interact with frequently and in a friendly manner in chat rooms and Twitter and whatnot, but have never met, and most likely never will. My admiration for his work began and ended with Timespirits, a comics work which moved me more that I can reasonably explain (and I know that Thomas Yeates probably had a lot to do with that as well). I'll come out right up front and admit that while I did read, and promptly forgot, a lot of his other Marvel stories in publications like Bizarre Adventures and Epic Illustrated, I freely ignored other work like the Thundercats and Silverhawks stuff, based on cartoons my son watched and not especially interesting to me. Figured he was paying the bills by doing that; little did I know back then. But there was just something about the 'Spirits comic that grabbed my imagination and emotion like few others have. All this said, I was delighted to have known Perry as well as I did, and was honored to help in the insignificant way that I did. I always hoped that I'd be able to buy new comics that he had scripted, and perhaps someday attend a convention in which he would be a guest. After this past weekend, though, this is unlikely to ever happen. Until the grisly remains are identified as his, there's always a slim chance he'll be found or will turn up...but since the police are already treating this as a homicide case, I'd say that's very unlikely. I worry about his young son going forward; from his emails, (and I want to be diplomatic and not make insinuations I can't prove or back up) I'm not sure that his situation is the best for him right now. I hope that concerned parties keep an eye on this. I also hope that Stephen, if he is indeed gone, is in a better place now, free from pain, where he can write to his heart's content. I am, and was, proud to have been his "Internet friend".

Two more things: first, when I sent a money order to him last year, I also enclosed the original to the quick pencil sketch I did of the Timespirits, link above, since it looked like I was never going to do it up right. In return, after complimenting the drawing (he said "Not Yeates, for sure, but not too awful"- high praise to me!), he asked if I'd be willing to draw a 2-3 page TS story if hr wrote one for me. I told him that I didn't want to make promises I couldn't keep, but I would try. For the first time anywhere, here is the story he wrote (and I've cleaned up the spelling and such just a bit):

Tentative Title: The Arrow Heard Round The World

Cusick is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean at a thermal vent collect a weird sea animal that lives in the extreme water heated by magma. He needs this critter to finish a potion that will save the planet ...

We go into flashback panels here to tell what has happened, to tell the bulk of the story:
Doot is practicing with a bow and arrow, shooting at a target of some sort. (George Bush photo? Cheny? Osama? Something funny.) He has shot a lot of arrows and is reaching for another one in a quiver.
Cusick is appearing, to shout: NOT THAT ONE!
But he is too late, Doot has let the arrow fly.

The arrow will not stop at the target. In fact ... it WILL NOT STOP AT ALL ...FOR ANYTHING!
(This arrow is, in effect, an idea stolen from the first Men in Black movie. In MiB Will Smith is brought to HQ for the first time and he knocks that little ball from it's mooring, and the little ball, over the next twenty seconds, careens around HQ smashing through everything and bouncing all around until Tommy Lee Jones stops it. That thing, Jones explained in the movie, caused the Eastern Seaboard blackout in 1979.)

Our arrow is the same concept. Once released ... it will not stop, smashing through everything -- targets, walls, cars, bridges, buildings, mountains ... as Cusick and Doot chase it, Cusick trying to throw a potion on it that will stop it -- which he does and the potion does not work, at which point he remembers he needed one final ingredient for the potion -- which is a little critter found only at the thermal vents at the bottom of the pacific.

We've wrapped to the thermal vent by now, and the potion is complete, but Cusick and Doot still can't catch the arrow -- it has gone right through the center of the earth and Cusick picks up Doot and the chase at the point of its emerging.
It should cause tons more damage before Cusick and Doot finally are just about to catch it as it heads toward some famous theater or arena or something like Madison Square Garden or the Hollywood Bowl or something ... a name is on the marquee.
Cusick manages to throw the potion on the arrow just before it zooms into the theater ...
to hit ...
STEVE MARTIN
in the head.
The last panel is, yes, Steve Martin, with his banjo and the stupid "arrow through the head" as he performs, with Doot and Cusick in the wings.

That's it.

sp

How cool is that, anyway? I laughed out loud when I read the revelation at the end. I'm not sure exactly who owns the copyright to these characters, so I'll just say they're © Thomas Yeates and let it go at that. Perhaps this falls under the Creative Commons thing (which I've ever understood all that well). I tried to be true to my word, but except for a couple of hastily scribbled attempts at laying out the opening scene, I did not live up to my promise, sorry to say.

Finally, I want to post some Timespirits pages that came to mind, months ago, when I first heard of Perry's plight, and echo somewhat the hopes of those (this may be presumptive of me, but I hope anyway) who knew him and loved him. In these pages, we see the aftermath of their final battle with the Spirit Eater on a mountain in Tibet; an unfortunate result is the death of Doot, Cusick's young companion and fellow Timespirit. Something must be done with all the souls the Eater captured, including Doot's, and the High Lama knows what to do. Apologies if I spoil. Click to view them bigger, of course.

The last page, below, of not only this issue but (as it turned out) the series as a whole, and one of the absolute best endings I've ever read in a comics series, never fails to move me, and I find it hard to express exactly why. Each character featured in the previous seven issues- Three Birds and the Bloodless Ghebe, Princess Pey and Tubal Carrin, the human/dinosaur spaceship captain and her prehistoric ancestor, which Doot encountered on a trip to the past (long story); Thorneypaws and her manager (no Hendrix, though), the High Lama and the Yeti Spirit Eater, all come out and take a bow. Then, they turn (and it's implied that the applause is louder and louder) back to the curtain, expecting someone else (again, implied, Doot and Cusick and perhaps the Talking Fish, last seen in Cusick's frying pan) to come out and take their turn...but no one comes. It's left for Three Birds, Doot's unfortunate brother from the very first issue, to have the final word: a shrug. I thought this was absolutely brilliant.

Goodbye, Mr. Perry, if such this is. I hope you have found peace.

For more: Steve Bissette, part one and part two. Also, Nat Gertler, Rich Johnston, and Mark Evanier.

R.I.P. Frank Frazetta

Word has gone out that the great Frank Frazetta is dead of a stroke at 82.

I first became aware of him primarily as the guy who did those dynamic and evocative Warren magazine covers when they hit the magazine racks in the mid-1960's; although, ironically enough, the first one I ever bought (well, OK, had bought for me) didn't sport one of his paintings on the front, I know without a doubt the second one did, and I loved looking at the others in house ads, and as they came out on new releases. Eventually, as a teen, I discovered the many paperback covers he did, most notably the Conan series, and began to find out how he fit in with his contemporaries and the influence he had on some of my favorites of the time, most notably Berni Wrightson. He was one of the greats, and almost more of a larger-than-life figure than many of the characters he brought to life.

If you haven't seen the documentary Frazetta: Painting with Fire, that's a good place to start, and I'm sure many of the usual suspects will be posting links to many places where you can get an idea of the legacy he's leaving.

R.I.P. Dick Giordano.

For those who may be unaware, the artist and editor Dick Giordano died yesterday. Giordano was one of the most important figures in comics in the 60's through the 80's, first at Charlton Comics and later at DC. For a quite thorough career overview, I'll refer you to Tom Spurgeon's typically eloquent bio/obit; Mark Evanier's is, as usual, well done too.

For me personally, it's hard for me to recall when I first became aware of his work...I just didn't buy or read very many Charltons in the 60's, so I figure it had to be in an issue of Batman or Detective, where he inked Neal Adams (I think Giordano was arguably Adams' most sympathetic delineator) or perhaps some of the Len Wein/Dick Dillin circa 1972-73 issues of Justice League which he inked over Dillin's pencils. Perhaps the first time I saw his full art was in the Human Target series he did with Wein, which appeared as a back feature in Action Comics at about this time. I couldn't care less about the Bates/Swan stodgy (but admittedly weird and all-over-the-place) Superman stories, but the Target feature was something I didn't see too much in comics in the day- a TV-style action thriller which played to Giordano's strengths- he was firmly in the late 50's-early 60's advertising art-inspired tradition rather that one which lent itself well to superheroics (although his inking work was fine on these endeavors). I've seen a lot of it over the years, but I'm not sure if he ever did better work on his own. I've posted a couple of pages from one such story, in Action #423. This is the art I think of when I think of Giordano. Oh, and as an editor, he was the man who gave Bob Fleming and Trevor Von Eeden the green light to do Thriller, so I owe him for that. He also was the one who had some pages of the original art that he had inked in that series (#'s 5 and 6), which enabled Von Eeden to help me acquire a page for my own collection. That's my absurdly tiny connection to the man.



He was definitely one of the greats of the field, and he'll be, already is, I'd imagine, be missed.

Be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you.

It was New Years' Day, 1965. I was five years old. I watched Soupy Sales's program that day, and Soupy told me to remove all the "funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents" out of my parents' wallets and mail them to him. Of course, I did so. I got a severe beating (spent over a week in the hospital, and I still walk kinda funny to this day), my parents sued, lost their case, and lost their house due to all the legal bills. As we struggled to get our lives back in order thanks to Sales' irresponsible prank, we cursed his name every day and I never ever watched any Soupy Sales show again.

And of course, this is bullshit. That said, I think Soupy Sales would appreciate the joke.

Actually, truth be told, I never really paid a lot of attention to the Soupster on TV back in the early '60s. I vaguely remember the version of the show that ABC aired around 1965 or so, which I might have viewed once or twice (probably not on New Years', though) and he was a constant guest-star presence on shows (The Flintstones, even!) that I did watch as that decade went on, continuing in the '70s, where he always seemed to be popping up on game shows and stuff like Love American Style. Still, he was a definite part of the cultural zeitgeist, and everybody knew who the heck he was.

So, it's with a little bit of sadness that I see where he has passed on- while he wasn't as "special" to me as he was to some, He was a small part of my rapidly-fading childhood memories- heck, he even appeared as a panelist on Match Game- and thus will be missed.

The quote above was the only quote I could find attributed to him; I'm sure that better can be found with enough digging, so by all means keep looking!

Another Soupy-related side note- his sons, Hunt and Tony, pursued a career as professional musicians and played on a lot of music that I have bought and listened to- with Todd Rundgren on his first couple of solo albums, on through a short stint in Paris, the post-Fleetwood Mac group with Bob Welch, as well as David Bowie and Iggy Pop in the late '70s, on some of the best albums by either. They reunited with Bowie in his late '80s Tin Machine group project as well.

RIP, Soupy.

RIP JULIUS CARRY, who yes, played "Sho 'Nuff" in the excruciatingly silly 1985 flick Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon...but contrary to what Variety and the other news sources who have reported the death would have you think (since they don't even mention the role or the show) his biggest film/TV geek cachet came in the role of Bruce Campbell's Brisco County, Jr.'s sidekick (just don't ever say that with him around) Lord Bowler in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr..

RIP Harvey Korman.

I suppose the first time I was exposed to his talents was as a child watching The Flintstones, as his was the voice of the Great Gazoo- a little outer-space guy character which was brought in in the last year of that show by 60s space-craze crazy Hanna-Barbera, and divides Flintstones fans to this day. Me, I've always kinda liked him and Korman's voice was perfect in its smug, bemused tone.

First time I actually laid eyes on him and was aware of who he was was on the Carol Burnett Show, where he was part of a pretty good ensemble cast that included Tim Conway. My Mom and Dad liked that show- it wasn't always my kind of humor when I was a kid and teen, but sometimes it could be infectiously funny when they'd (intentionally or not) flub lines and try to crack each other up.

Really, though, when all is said and done, it was in Mel Brooks films, specifically Blazing Saddles, where Korman really shined...and that's where the above clip comes from. He also had roles in the so-so Hitchcock spoof High Anxiety and Dracula: Dead and Loving It, which I saw just the other night. For some reason, I was thinking he had already died since his appearances had been few and far between over the last 10 years or so, mostly voice work it seems, and IMDb lists only a few appearances in Carol Burnett reunion shows and such since 2001. It's funny- it's always seemed to me that he appeared in more films and TV shows than he actually did. What this means, I can't say.

(Image taken from here)

RIP WILL ELDER, one of the great EC artist/writers. Go here for his official website.

I'm not well-versed in all things EC; believe it or not, I wasn't alive when those legendary pamphlets were being published. But you have to try really hard to be a hardcore comics fan and not be aware of the legacy all these exemplary creators left, and I've had plenty of opportunities to read a great deal of that imprint's output. For my EC experience, read my review of Grant Geissman's Foul Play.

Elder was an integral part of Gaines' humor books such as Panic and Mad, and I loved his contributions in both. To see his pages, crammed full of puns and visual sight gags, is amazing- and amazingly funny- his was a lively imagination. When he left EC to work with Harvey Kurtzman on a number of projects, he maintained his high standard of work- I also used to enjoy reading his "Little Annie Fanny" features in Playboy, when I could sneak a copy as a teen or when I subscribed back in the 80's. It didn't have the anything-goes panache of his Mad/Panic style work, as I found out later, but it was great nonetheless. When all is said and done, I think I like his nutball take on "The Night Before Christmas" the best, but you really can't go wrong with just about anything he did.

Apparently he was in a nursing home and in ill health; his passing is no surprise but no less sad when one reflects on yet another titan who will entertain us no more.

I first became aware of this when I saw a brief Warren Ellis post that broke the news but couldn't say for sure, and when I looked around on his website and Wikipedia, nothing was mentioned about it so I dismissed it...but now it appears to be official, as Mark Evanier and CBR have verified: the great DAVE STEVENS has passed away. Another tragic loss.

Of course, Dave was renowned for his retro-styled pinup art, at which he had few peers, and especially for his Bettie Page work. For me, though, it will always be for the Rocketeer, which came along in the early '80s at a time when I, at age 21 and facing young adulthood, had become disenchanted with the blandly illustrated perpetual long underwear fighting and melodramatic hand-wringing of Marvel and DC's output at the time...and was considering dropping my longtime comics reading habit. But comics from a new group of publishers- stuff like Flaming Carrot, Zot!, Aztec Ace, Love and Rockets, and even an oddball title from DC called Thriller re-energized my interest, and among the first and best of this bunch was Dave's Rocketeer- a stylish and superbly illustrated Pulp adventure pastiche that blew me away in a fashion that I hadn't experienced since Kaluta stopped doing The Shadow. It was simply breathtaking how retro, yet fresh, it was and even though the title kept jumping around from publisher to publisher, I never missed an issue. For a while, that was my ambition- to be able to draw, especially women, as well as Stevens did. I wanted my work to look like that so much it was ridiculous.

I had wondered what had become of him over the last couple of decades; he used to contribute covers and whatnot to various publications but hadn't seen any in a long time, and of course the Rocketeer had seemed to lose its momentum after the not-bad but disappointing box-office-wise film version. I had assumed he had moved on to other formats for his talents; commissioned paintings, that sort of thing. Apparently he's been seriously ill for a while and that accounts for a lot of his lowered profile.

Anyway, RIP, Mr. Stevens, and thanks.

Via Mark Evanier comes awful news: STEVE GERBER has died after his extended illness, of which we who read his blog upon occasion were aware of, but he wrote optimistically until the end, so I (at least) had no clue that he was so close.

Above I've posted just a handful of covers of comics he worked on over the last three decades, many of which were among my favorites of the periods of time in which they came out. I'll leave it to others to post the more well-known of his many credits; these are some of the books which made an impression on me.

I think I first became aware of him when he took over Daredevil and the Black Widow from Gerry Conway; I think #97 was the first. Not long after, he started writing Defenders, which I was slow to pick upon (I started around #48 or so, and I had to backtrack to read Gerber's; I think it was because I've always been so averse to Sal Buscema art), but at about the same time he did some great Man-Things, some really gnarly Tarot-themed Son of Satan stories in Marvel Spotlight, eventually (of course) Howard the Duck (another book I was slow to pick up on, can't say why) and another of my favorites, an overlooked run scripting the Guardians of the Galaxy in Marvel Presents. The subsequent decades brought the ahead-of-its-time and ended-too-soon Void Indigo for Epic/Marvel, and the fun Nevada for DC/Vertigo. One thing you could always count on in a Gerber script was that it would be sharp, smart, and inventive, and often just nuts- and there simply weren't enough of them after the 70's.

I was considering buying his most recent effort, the Dr. Fate series he was working on until the end for DC. I was thinking I'd check out the trade. I wasn't crazy about the 90's Image-style art, and I told him so in the comments of his blog when he posted some advance images from it- he was dismissive of my gripe, but not in an especially negative way, and I probably deserved worse. And that was the last time I commented there, which I kinda regret.

Anyway, he's no longer dealing with a bad illness, and that's a mercy. RIP, and thanks for all the great stories, Mr. Gerber.

Tom Spurgeon has a very thorough, and very eloquent, remembrance right here.

Good gravy Marie. RIP Brett Somers.

I absolutely must interrupt my hiatus to pass this sad news on- according to Blog@Newsarama, MIKE WIERINGO has passed away.

What a shock. While I only own one or two comics he drew, I've enjoyed seeing his work posted regularly on his blog/website; he had a fluid, dynamic, graceful, clean style that was a joy to behold, and he brought it to everything he drew, be it a childhood reminisce or cheesecake illo or Fantasy series work like his co-creation, Tellos. I also would comment once in a while, and he was always friendly and pleasant to converse with.

I can't say I really knew him like many of you out there may have, but I definitely think the world will be a poorer place for his passing.


EDIT 11:02 CST: Here's a post on Mike from about three years ago, with some art. Just remembered it, thought I'd share.

RIP, Chuck.





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Oh my God, MARSHALL ROGERS has passed away.

In the mid to late 70's, you remember, at the tailend of that "garbage decade" you've been reading so much about, a group of artists came up through the ranks that would go on to make a definite mark in the world of American mainstream comics. Mike Golden, Trevor Von Eeden, Craig Russell, Frank Miller, and others. Right up there with those talents was Rogers, whose work I first saw in back-up features in Detective (this was immediately prior to his outstanding stint on Batman in that title, with Steve Englehart and Terry Austin), -Green Arrow stories, unless I'm mistaken- and the one which I recall most vividly was also the first appearance of a character that has gone on to bigger and better things in the DCU: The Calculator. Of course, he had his super-suit with the numerical keypad on his chest, typical silly 70's stuff. But Rogers' style caught my eye- at first, it looked awkward and stiff, and let's face it, it often could be- but it was also witty and cleverly composed, with a Simonsonesque use of onomatopoeia. The main thing about his art was that to this day I can't really spot an influence. Ditko, perhaps, maybe A little Infantino or Neal Adams but nowhere near as graceful or as immediate, I just don't know. Either way, I was intrigued and continued to buy anything I saw his work appear in, including the cover you see above: Amazing World of DC Comics #16, an acquisition on one of my infrequent teenage Nashville trips (to the Great Escape down there, that rarest of rare things in 1978, a comics shop) which depicted a host of Golden Age characters in Rogers' inimitable style. I especially loved the way he drew the Sandman, with an honest-to-goodness functional-looking gas mask.

Eventually, as the Eighties progressed, he did less and less for DC and did a lot of work for Eclipse Comics, including the original run of Coyote in Eclipse Monthly and this:



Rogers' own Cap'n Quick and a Foozle, another Monthly alumnus and a lighthearted and surreal adventure story that was completely charming...but not popular enough to get it published past three issues. I've always considered it the best thing he ever did, Detective notwithstanding.

Not long after the Eclipse stuff, he had another short stint at Marvel (he had done some early Deadly Hands of Kung Fu-type stuff then), one effort being a pretty good run on Doctor Strange, in which he got to exercise his predilection for Ditkoesque dimensional backgrounds.

In recent years, his work has been scarce- there was the depressing attempt to resuscitate his (and Englehart's) Detective glory years, Dark Detective, which showed that he hadn't progressed a bit over the last two decades as far as facility or innovation went, or perhaps he was just making an extra buck...either way, the stale, lifeless art and convoluted, dull script just didn't cut it. But that didn't mean that I wouldn't have checked out anything else he did afterwards, just in case.

Even though he was older than me by about ten years, he was one of those artists that I always thought of as being one of "my generation" of comics artists; it makes me very sad to learn of his passing. RIP, Mr. Rogers.

Here's his Wiki entry; and here's a fan site with a good checklist and timeline, and about a million popups.

RIP Arnold Drake.

It's 10:47 PM CST, and I'm only now sitting down at the computer to check out the 'Net, and I'm greeted with this sad news. Please forgive me, because I'm going to ramble a bit. Now, you all know that as Tegan is with Aquaman, and Mike Sterling is with Swamp Thing, and so on, so am I with Drake creation Super-Hip. Whom Evanier didn't mention. For shame. Anyway, you may be wondering how come I've posted this X-Men cover, of all things, and not yet another Adventures of Bob Hope piece, or even an old Doom Patrol? Well, I'll tell ya.

Above is X-Men #49, cover-dated October 1968, purchased for or by me when I was eight years old. Back then, since all I had was the occasional couple of bucks from my parents a week allowance, it was not uncommon for me to go several months at a time without buying issues of a certain title, even though I may like the title in question. Only so much money, you know. And I liked but didn't love, X-Men, so it had been a few months since I had picked up a copy. I knew what had been going on because I had friends who had some of the prior issues (W.T. Stinson in particular- hey, W.T.!)...and I knew the X-Men had lost Professor X and had split up. The issues immediately preceding this one had the original team engaging in solo or duo efforts, and I guess sales didn't exactly skyrocket because in this very issue, they began to put the band back together again, so to speak, and also began to feature some snazzy Steranko covers (unless I'm mistaken, he did the interiors for #50). OK, here's the point- Mr. Drake was the scripter who had essayed the fragmented X-Men tales, as well as this particular issue, and I distinctly remember being a bit surprised that DC guy Drake was now writing for Marvel. Plus, his writing style, or "voice" if you will, seemed kinda stiff and clumsy, especially considering the established Stan Lee/Roy Thomas style that was so prevalent in those days. I had no idea about the office politics that had led to Drake moving on from National, in those pre-Internet days. Not long after this issue (his last was #54, according to the GCD), Drake moved on to other projects and Thomas came back, joining with Neal Adams to usher in a brief but stellar period on the Mutants that I still maintain was the high point of any X-book I've ever read, and that goes for the Claremont/Byrne stuff, too. Anyway, though his stint on the original X-title has been mostly forgotten, I think, looking back now on it, there was a lot of charm and vitality to those stories, and it's not really Drake's fault that they were overshadowed by what came next.

So that's why I have chosen the above cover to commemorate Mr. Drake's passing; it's an idiosyncratic memory but it's mine all the same.

Besides, I never was much of a fan of those old Doom Patrol stories when I was a kid (don't know why, I read them now and kinda like), and I couldn't find an appropriate page of the faculty and students of Benedict Arnold High School to post either, so there it is.

Rest easy, Mr. Drake.

RIP BOB OKSNER, who has died earlier this evening. As always, Mark Evanier has the information.

Of course, among the multitudes of characters Oksner drew for DC in the Sixties was Super-Hip!, the official JBS mascot, so there was no way I was going to let his passing go unremarked upon. As a kid growing up, I certainly picked up my share of DC humor comics, and it seemed like Oksner drew 75% of them- his angular, manic humor style really made a deep impression on young, impressionable me, not only in the Adventures of Bob Hopes I read with Tad Jutefruice's alter ego in them, but on the Stanley and His Monster and Angel and the Ape features as well, and there were so many others. As the years went by, though, I soon became interested in other artists' work, and DC stopped doing the kinds of books Oksner drew best, so I kinda forgot about him for a long time- in fact, until 2002 and the beginnings of this blog, when I had found an old beat-up copy of Bob Hope #105 and renewed acquaintances. As a theoretical grownup, I found him to be a much better illustrator than I had remembered, and boy, could Mr. Oksner draw the ladies. According to Evanier, he didn't draw much in the latter years of his life after he retired in 1986, and that's a shame. Anyway, I'm sure he'll soon be setting up to sketch Angel O'Days for a long time now.