RIP Al Williamson

Illustrator AL WILLIAMSON died this past Saturday at the age of 79. Now, I heard the news that day, but I wasn't really thinking I'd eulogize him. Don't get me wrong- I knew full well who he was- one of the greats, with a graceful style in the great newspaper strip tradition. A consummate craftsman, certainly in the discussion when it comes to the all-time greats. But at the time, I had no real emotional connection because I couldn't think of anything he'd done that particularly moved me one way or the other since I'd been reading comics. I remembered him being one of the Warren stable in their glory years under Archie Goodwin. I also recalled his work on features like Flash Gordon and even recalled reading Secret Agent X-9 in the Louisville Courier-Journal (or was it the Louisville Times? I forget), and I also remembered a ton of ink jobs on comics I didn't buy very much, if at all, like Marvel's Star Wars adaptations and other comics. His byline was always appreciated, but I never sought it out.

Ah, but I was wrong!

After reading Steve Bissette's remembrance today, it hit me- he drew one of my absolute favorite Warren stories, the wickedly funny "The Success Story", page below:

Click to read it inflated-ego size. If nothing else, when I first read it at the tender young age of six or so, it introduced me to the concept of "ruling panel borders", and that stuck with me for years. To this day I have a reluctance to rule panel borders. Go here to read it in its entirety.

And then, and then it REALLY hit me. Bissette's mention of Williamson's interaction and mentoring of the likes of Tom Yeates and Rick Veitch jogged my memory- Williamson drew a story in the multi-artist fourth issue of Timespirits, from a Steve Perry script! Below are two of his pages, click to read them dino-size.

So there you go. You never know sometimes, what kind of connection you could have with a man's work. There have many great tributes already- I linked to Bissette's above, and here's Tom Spurgeon's, as well as a roundup of most of the others.

As I so often seem to say when someone of this magnitude passes on, and it's happening more and more these days- we're running out of great ones and we won't see their like again.

Pic of Al above found here.

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.

Passing along an appeal.

Got some disturbing news Friday night when I was reading Steve Bissette's Myrant blog- seems that Timespirits scripter and co-creator Steve Perry is terminally ill and apparently destitute besides; according to Bissette he is in dire straits, and he has put out a call for help for his friend.

Please go here to read Bissette's post, if you haven't already.

Even though I don't know Perry personally, I had some brief email correspondence with him a few years ago after I wrote this post about the 80's Epic series that lasted a too-brief eight issues. A year or two later, he emailed me out of the blue to let me know that Image was planning to reprint TS in a trade collection, which has yet to see print due to what I understand are technical issues of some sort. He was very nice to me in both instances, and I appreciated being kept in the loop. Timespirits is one of my absolute favorite series; a true unappreciated and overlooked gem in my opinion, and even after all this time, when I reread these books I am often amused, excited, and even moved by the drama, humor and adventure contained in those stories. Of course, a large part of this is due to Tom Yeates' excellent art (as well as a couple of others who did short features, including Bissette himself and Rick Veitch), and I don't know what the exact ratio of ideas and concepts was between the two...but Perry had a really dry, but marvelously expressive, dialogue style that served these stories very well and he made the two leads, Cusick the Tuscarora and Doot of the Wawenoc, come alive in a way that few writers could, as true then as it is today. Anyway, this news makes me very sad, because I have been touched and moved by these tales, and it hurts to hear that one of the men responsible is in such straits.

Even if you've never read Timespirits, I hope you can find it in your heart to perhaps send something along or take some sort of appropriate action. For my part, I will try to send something, but as always I live paycheck to paycheck and rarely have much to give. I have considered perhaps doing an illustration of the 'Spirits, and auctioning it on eBay, to send whatever I get along to Perry. I'll let you know here when I do.

I now interrupt the cricket concerto this blog has become lately to keep a promise- that is, the one where I said I'd let you know if I heard more about the Timespirits collection.

Over at Steve Bissette's MyRant blog, about halfway down the post he mentions the upcoming Megacon in Orlando, Fla., and specifically goes on to say that 'Spirits co-creator and scripter Steve Perry will be in attendance, and posts two made-by-unknown-hands promo images for the collection- one of which I have ganked, as you can see above. He also goes on to say that he has just written the introduction for the collection, still scheduled to come from Image at some future date. Looking forward to that, and if you go and meet Mr. Perry, tell him Johnny B says hi. Hopefully, he won't look at you like you just ate a bug.


And now for something completely different: You can go here to see a trailer for the still-unfinished documentary Will Eisner: The Spirit of an Artistic Pioneer. Ugh, what a title- but the trailer is good stuff.

All right, enough's enough- I've finally gotten over that stomach virus or food poisoning or whatever that I had, and I feel like me for the first time since Tuesday night. But tonight, I had DVDs of Neil Young (new Heart of Gold, so-so) and Faces-Last Concert (too many shots of Rod Stewart wiggling his ass, and the print condition was miserable, but Keith Richards guest starred and it was the frickin' Faces! Without Ronnie Lane, dammit, but still) plus I got my box o'new comics today...so that means that I'll be getting back in the saddle tomorrow, if nothing else but to get started on my PopCultureShock column with the new title, which is due over the weekend. Thanks for your patience, indulgence, and interest, such as it may be.

I did get a tidbit of information from none other than Steve (Timespirits) Perry tonight via email, and it went like this:

Timespirits is being reprinted by Image into a graphic novel with new stuff by Me and Tom(Yeates).

Apparently this supersedes the previous plans by another publisher to reprint the series that I hold in such high regard, and for my part I couldn't be happier that it's from a higher profile company than was previously announced- perhaps Image can hype it a bit more. We shall see. And hopefully I can be the one to let you know when it happens!

He also goes on to say

Steve Perry (me. you mother) who wrote Timespirits and Thundercats and Silverhawks and Dracula and GI Joe and Bizarre Adventures and Amazing High Adventures and Creepy and Heavy Metal and Conan and Star Wars and all that other shit ... is finally doing what he wants: A COMICS GRAPHIC NOVEL ABOUT MY SEVEN YEARS IN THE CARNIVAL: It's called RED EYE GRAVY. It is being drawn by JIM WHEELOCK, a fantastic artist out of LA who has never hit except in the cinema. Watch out -- adult material. Crazy.

This bears watching, too, I think! Link is mine. If it's the wrong Jim Wheelock, I apologize. Not exactly a hard-hitting comics journalist over here.

All right, that's all I got tonight. Check back soon.

And oh- that Sergio Aragones issue of Solo? BRILLIANT.

"Two bytes in a chip...two birds in a nest!"

Reading the recent news about Marvel's relaunch of its Epic imprint put me in mind of one of my favorite comics series, which came out as part of that line in the 80s...Timespirits.

Timespirits was co-created by scripter Stephen Perry (no, not the Journey singer) and illustrated by Tom Yeates, fresh from his stint on Swamp Thing pre-Alan Moore. It was perhaps the best and most sympathetic treatment of Native American characters in comics ever. Difficult to sum up in a nutshell, it was an imaginative, quirky, warm and winning blend of religion, Native American legend, science fiction and high fantasy which never took itself too seriously and is sorely missed, at least by me.

At its basic level, it's about the time-traveling adventures of Cusick of the Tuscarora, an aged Native American "Time Spirit", sporting a fedora, backpack, hiking boots and Sgt. Pepper jacket who functions like an extradimensional Monty Hall– he trades strange and powerful items for souls, which he collects in a turtle shell until he can release them into the afterlife. It is in one of these transactions, in issue #1 above, that he meets teenage Doot of the Wawenoc tribe in the early days of the pre-Revolutionary War American colonies. Doot's brother, Three Birds, wishes revenge on the white man for the slaughter of his village. Cusick, hearing this wish expressed aloud, appears to him and offers him a strange creature called a Bloodless Ghebe, which will enable the Chief to rout the white man from his land forever. The Ghebe, which resembles a walking stick insect with a big eyeball in place of a head, enter's Three Birds' brain, gives him incredible strength, and enables him to fire a destructive beam from his right eye, which has been replaced by the Ghebe. It also drives him quite insane. Three Birds goes on a murder spree, uniting the tribes against the white man. In the meantime, Cusick strikes up an acquaintance with Three Birds' younger brother and recognizes him as a potential Timespirit of great power. Doot, who loved his brother and did not understand what had caused his formerly pacifistic sibling to change so, wishes to stop the rampage and kill the Ghebe, which eventually sheds Three Birds' skin like a snake. It's too late to save Three Birds' physical self, but Doot is able to save his spirit and destroy the Ghebe using his nascent abilities, and takes his brothers' soul into himself. Cusick offers to take the young brave under his wing and teach him to utilize his potential as a shaman. It's a fine adventure yarn, in a time period that isn't depicted all that often, especially in comics, with a very touching ending.

Issues 2 & 3, arguably the zenith of the entire run, has a plot which is almost too gnarly to describe succinctly. Titled "The Blacksack of King Ogam", it involves dying magicians, unrequited love, spoiled princesses, bands of Norsemen, a spiteful talking fish which came closest to being an arch-enemy of the 'Spirits, a massive octopus-like creature called the Spurtyn Duyvel which is summoned up by a rejected, hate-filled amateur prince/magician with the aid of the fish, a magic bag which is literally bottomless, Stonehenge, Noah from the Bible, and much more. It works on a number of different levels– as heroic, pulp-type fantasy, as a romance, and as a cautionary fable. If you never read any other issues of TS, get these two.

Issue four was a Christmas-themed one, with Cusick facing an uber-vamp named Varnae and eventually delivering an object called the Crystal Skull to the Christ child. It also featured fill-in art by Al Williamson, Steve Bissette (Yeates inks), John Totleben (inking Yeates), and Rick Veitch. #'s 5 and 6 was another continued story, this one mixing a dystopian future and some commentary on the state of music vs. big business with the ghost of Jimi Hendrix and in #6 taking it up a notch, mixing in some anti-US government's involvement in Nicaragua (this was 1985, you know) statements, with Yeates taking the opportunity to let his feelings be known in the matter. Mildly controversial at the time, as I recall, and both Yeates and Marvel took some shots, but these two issues were the weakest in the series because the message kinda got watered down and the whole storyline became a bit incoherent as a result. The final two issues, 7 & 8, got back to the original idea of what the 'Spirits were and what they did, with Cusick taking Doot to Tibet to meet the High Lama and to release the souls they have accumulated over the course of their recent adventuring. Problem is, the talking fish again has made a jealous and hate-filled Yeti on the mountain aware of what he needs to do to inhabit the body of the High Lama and become all-powerful. The enlightened yeti chops off his hand, which becomes a totem that facilitates the body switch and transforms the former beast into a malevolent, spirit-eating monster, laying in wait for our pair as they climb the mountain to the Lama's home. The storyline ends with surprising and somewhat tragic results, and the final page of #8 is a literal curtain call of all the characters that have appeared in the previous issues, and they all come out with one puzzling exception. It was a charming and clever way to end the series.

If Perry has done any comics series since Timespirits, I'm unaware of them. I do think he's made a name for himself as a writer of Star Wars novels; at least I think it's him because he's left it off his online resume. Yeates mostly went on to illustrate a few issues of Zorro for Topps with Don McGregor, does a lot of ERB-related work, and still does the occasional job for DC and Marvel. The Tomahawk one-shot Vertigo Visions he did in the mid-90s was especially nice, and reminded me a little of Timespirits. I did email Yeates a while ago and ask him if he had any 'Spirits pages for sale, but he said he didn't want to let any of them go...obviously this book meant a lot to him.

Somehow, from the look of what they're soliciting so far for the new Epic line, I don't think there will be room for a series as unassuming, yet intricate, as Timespirits. Too bad...I think there were a lot more stories yet to tell about Doot and Cusick.