0064: The Jigsaw's Up #1

The reason, I suspect, that there isn't a comprehensive database for licensed products featuring popular comic book characters is that one of the cardinal organizing principles would be the art credits and there is often no record of who drew what.

It's true that there's an enormous volume of individual pieces to track, but that's also true of comics themselves and there are and have long been checklists and price guides of every comic from a given publisher, big and small, either in print or online. These often include art and/or writing credits, but for some users that might not be necessary if their only interest is in a particular character or genre. With licensed products, however, there is no story, per se, although one might be implied. What you get is a character (or  several) in a pose or scenario either lifted from a previously released publication or newly drawn to meet the standards of whoever the publisher's Art Director is at the time. For licensed super-heroes, the thinking for decades was that they were most appropriate for products intended for a market of children. For that reason, fan favorite artists who appealed to those readers who bought and read the largest number of comics, most frequently and consistently, were passed over in favor of artists inclined to give the characters an even softer and friendlier look than they would ordinarily have. Who were these artists? Good question. When the art is reproduced from a print publication it's usually easy (if time consuming) to verify the artist. Original art and exclusive images, which should be more desirable, are ironically more difficult to tie to an artist. License holders don't want to field questions about artists they've never directly employed or even met, so they prefer the work not be signed. So, it becomes a detective game of educated guesses and shots in the dark.

Let's take the Incredible Hulk jigsaw puzzle, whose box lid is pictured above, as a case study. It is clearly a children's product, starting with the fact that it is a 100-piece puzzle [technically 108 pieces]. The same manufacturer, Rainbow Works, also makes 500- and 1000-piece boxed jigsaw puzzles of more conventional landscapes and flower arrangements. Secondly, the normally scowling Hulk merely has a furrowed brow and the kids in the school bus window, far from panicking about being in the grip of a giant green monster, seem happy to see him.

Next, check out the side panel above. There are two copyright dates, 1981 and 1988. The finished product should have the later date, but the earlier date invites two possible explanations. Either this same puzzle was released in 1981 and this is a reissue of the same puzzle in a new package; or the artwork was taken from some other product or book originally published in 1981 and used again to make this jigsaw puzzle in 1988. So we're probably looking for someone Marvel would ask to draw a no frills Hulk picture circa 1981.

For Marvel, 1981 was a freaky little year. In the two years since cancelling roughly two dozen titles at the beginning of 1979 around the time of a price increase (to 40¢), Marvel had ended its relationship with Simon & Schuster, whose Fireside imprint published paperbacks reprinting Marvel comics stories (mostly Silver Age) from 1974 to 1979. However, they also published an exercise book, a cook book, "How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way" and several books of puzzles, all of which licensed images of Marvel characters. The puzzle books must have proved popular enough to justify the new series FUN AND GAMES #1 (09/79)- #13 (09/80), a newsstand comic book filled with similar puzzles using art often credited to Owen McCarron. McCarron was a Canadian cartoonist who was a fixture of Canadian newspapers for decades, but also did sporadic work for Marvel in addition to the FUN AND GAMES series. In light of his familiarity with the characters and the disappearance of outlets for his art like the Fireside trades and the subsequent comic book series, it makes sense that Marvel would turn to McCarron for licensing images in 1981. There are other candidates, of course, many of whom will remain forever anonymous, but this art is very much in his style. His take on the Hulk follows the look that John Romita, Sr. (who was Marvel's Art Director during most if not all of McCarron's projects with Marvel) approved for licensed products in the late 70's.

If we're willing to assume that McCarron is the artist, that still doesn't explain why the image was copyrighted for 1981. It's worth pointing out that the date doesn't refer to the design of the logo, which is itself a form of intellectual property. The "Incredible Hulk" comic book series used a 'stone block' motif for its logo from the time it took over the "Tales To Astonish" title as of #102 (04/68) through #128 (06/70), except for #109 (11/68). #109 had a stylized logo the was later tidied up and used as the regular logo for #129 (07/70)- #313 (11/85) and is the one that appears on the jigsaw puzzle box. I should note that it was only used on the monthly series. The Annuals used the 'stone block' style logo from 1969 to 1994 (with three exceptions I'll explain in a moment) for some reason. It was also used for the single Giant-Size Hulk (1975) and Marvel Treasury Editions #5 (1975) and #17 (1978). His remaining three solo volumes of MTE (#20, 24 and 26) used a "Rampaging Hulk" logo similar to the one often used on the B&W magazine. Even the reprint series "Marvel Super-Heroes" used the 'stone block' logo from #56 (03/76) until its cancellation with #105 (01/82), The only Annuals not using the 'stone block' style were the first (1968), with its unique (and notorious) logo integrated into the art by Jim Steranko, and #14 (1985)- #15 (1986), which had the same logo used on the monthly series for #314 (12/85)- 339 (01/88). Oddly, shortly before the jigsaw puzzle was marketed the monthly series reverted to the 'stone block' logo and kept it for the rest of the run of that incarnation of the title, except for a handful of issues that temporarily adopted the 1962 logo for nostalgia purposes. There's no reason to think that the logo, if it also accompanied the art in 1981, would have been copyrighted for that year specifically after being in continuous use for a decade. I'm also curious as to why they might use that particular logo on the jigsaw puzzle box in 1988 when the comics had not only discontinued its use but had used two other logos since then. It's not actually part of the art used to make the puzzle; it only appears on the packaging.

The next step to finding a possible source for the art was to research other products from the manufacturer. Rainbow Works gave the puzzle a product number: 75913-2. One thing I found about their products is that the '2' that comes after the dash isn't an ordinary UPC suffix. Some of their products have two-digit numbers after the five-digit index. The other thing I found is that products of theirs in the 75900 series of indices have copyrights ranging from 1968 to 1992 but that the numerical order of the indices is unrelated to the chronological order of the products. Also, several indices have more than one suffix, indicating different products. But most importantly, most of those products were framed tray jigsaw puzzles. Those are sold assembled with the outermost edge of the image uncut and glued against a heavy cardboard backing and the interior pieces loose. It wouldn't surprise me if the Hulk image had been used for a framed tray puzzle in 1981 and revived in 1988 for a boxed puzzle to sell it through different channels. I'd rather know for certain. The image may have been made for a Whitman/Western coloring book or some other child-targeted product.

If any readers own or know of an earlier use of the above image, please leave a note to that effect in the comments. Even a later use would be interesting, and possibly provide a lead to earlier licensees.

0057: Sax and Drugs

In 1978 Eclipse Enterprises began publishing graphic novels with SABRE (by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy), followed in 1979 with the graphic album NIGHT MUSIC (by P. Craig Russell) and two more graphic novels in 1980, DETECTIVES, INC. (by McGregor with Marshall Rogers) and STEWART THE RAT (by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan). All of these were clear successes, but circumstances at the time would cause the young company to change direction. Mike Friedrich's Star*Reach had stopped publishing comics in 1979 and became an artists' representation company, finding work and negotiating rates for creators, usually finding larger audiences for them than if they had published their work directly. The second warning sign for Eclipse was that Marvel began publishing EPIC ILLUSTRATED, clearly intended to be an American response to Heavy Metal and made frequent use of Star*Reach's clients. For a company like Eclipse, run by two Marvel letter column regulars (Dean Mullaney and Cat Yronwode) and at that point publishing works by former Marvel writers and artists, when Marvel itself to begin poaching in what everyone had thought was a niche market of stories for adult audiences that were neither super-hero nor counter-culture 'underground' subjects it became obvious that if Eclipse didn't expand its visibility it would become lost in the marketplace to the audience it had helped to cultivate.

In 1981 Eclipse launched an eponymous B&W magazine of comic stories and serials, offering readers 64 pages for $2.95. This was several months before shipping their fifth and final pre-ISBN graphic novel, ex-Marvel artist Jim Starlin's THE PRICE, his sequel to the EPIC ILLUSTRATED serial "Metamorphosis Odyssey". At about the same time that ECLIPSE THE MAGAZINE #1(05/81) was released, Eclipse also published a slightly smaller (7" X 10") B&W comic book compiling "Mike Mist Minute Mist-eries" that had previously appeared in a syndicated newspaper feature during 1979-1980. The Mike Mist comic was printed on cheaper pulp paper compared to the stiffer, whiter paper used in the magazine and offered 40 pages for $1.50. Despite having an earlier April 1981 date in the indicia it contained the same ad for the second issue of the magazine found in the first issue of the magazine. The reason that the ad is significant is that it means that the first issue of the magazine had already been put together and the second issue was being planned when the Mike Mist comic was compiled. (In other words, why advertise the second issue if the first issue hadn't already come out?) The same creative team behind the newspaper strip, Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty, were introducing a whole new feature in the first issue of the magazine, called "Ms. Tree".

Ms. Tree was a character clearly meant to be Mike Hammer's widow, seeking vengeance for her husband's murder in the first serial arc entitled "I, For An Eye". It was the only serial in that first issue and it was clearly conceived as a graphic novel but the noirish, pulp magazine feel of the story made it a great candidate for being told in installments. The character was even used in that ad for the second issue.

On the page immediately preceding the first Ms. Tree chapter was the far more whimsical one page story, "Loose Hips Sink Ships" by Chris Browne and Trina Robbins. Although Ms. Tree evoked the style of Depression era pulp magazines it took place in the present day. "Loose Hips..." on the other hand took place at a 1930's radio station, complete with Orson Wells as a character. Robbins' very clean, art deco-ish art was a great match for the period. It was also the kind of distinctive, instantly recognized art that any savvy editor would want to draw readers to a new anthology title. Robbins gained fame in the undergrounds and was one of several who very easily transitioned to the early independents when the direct market and other fan-oriented systems of circulation emerged in the 1970's, bypassing the Comics Code but more importantly bypassing distributors who expected audiences to serve the needs of the distribution systems and not vice versa. If you need any proof of the significance she had amongst readers, publishers and other artists at this time, you need only look at the fragment of credits taken from the cover of that first issue (see above). She's the only artist who the editors were confidant could be identified by readers using only her first name.

When I checked Diamond Comics website today for comics shipping tomorrow (Sept. 13th, 2017), the titles from IDW included the long awaited hardcover compilation of Trina Robbin's adaptation of Sax Rohmer's DOPE. Most people who recognize Rohmer's name at all probably remember him only as the creator of the fictional character Fu Manchu, the villain at the center of a string and lurid adventure novels filled with gratuitously racist supporting characters. Despite the ugly caricatures, the novels survived beyond the early 20th Century when they were written because of the nail-biting escapes from truly original death-traps that became the signature of the franchise. Every episode of "Wild Wild West" is essentially a theft of a Fu Manchu story. DOPE, however, is far more serious in tone and, while it's true that the Fu Manchu stories set an unreasonably low bar, the badly stereotyped Chinese characters in DOPE are at least human and can be differentiated. The difference was necessary to tell the story, which hinges on the complexity of the problems involved in drug use and trade. In terms of quality and intelligent examination of the topic, it's not as good as the excellent British television mini-series "Traffic" but much better than the moronic feature film based on that mini-series.

The first chapter of Trina Robbins' adaptation appeared in ECLIPSE THE MAGAZINE #2 (07/81), along with Englehart and Rogers' "Coyote" feature. By the end of 1982, Eclipse had begun publishing color comics with the DESTROYER DUCK one shot and the ongoing SABRE series. The last issue of the magazine, #8 (01/83) coincided with the color comics line shifting from Mando to Baxter paper, DESTROYER DUCK returning as a series and the debut of SCORPIO ROSE. Englehart and Rogers concluded their Coyote story in the last issue of the B&W magazine and their SCORPIO ROSE mini-series (originally intended as a Madame Xanadu origin story rejected by DC) would have been their next project but was derailed by creative conflicts. Englehart took the Coyote character to Marvel's new Epic imprint (a line of comics ostensibly tied to the EPIC ILLUSTRATED magazine but more closely aligned with their line of graphic novels) with Steve Leialoha doing the art. Rogers stayed with Eclipse, resurrecting a character he and Englehart had used in the first issue of the B&W magazine, The Foozle. After considerable delays, the first issue of the magazine's color replacement, ECLIPSE MONTHLY, shipped with a August indicia date. The cover of the first issue is at the top of this post. That's the Foozle surrounding the logo. Also on the cover are new features Doug Wildey's "Rio" and Steve Ditko's "Static", B.C. Boyer's "Masked Man" (which replaced "Ms. Tree" in issue #7 of the magazine) and in the center Trina Robbins' DOPE adaptation. The first three issues of ECLIPSE MONTHLY present the final three chapters in color, which immediately presented the question of whether the expected collected trade would color the first seven chapters, reprint the last three in B&W or present them mixed, as they were originally published. For three and a half decades that's been a pretty academic question which is now finally being answered. Logically, because Robbins had no way of knowing when she started that the publisher would shift venues from a B&W magazine to a color comic, the entire story is now being presented by IDW (under the It's Alive! imprint) in B&W for consistency. As aesthetic choices go, it's hard to argue against losing the color and not my choice anyway, but it should be stated somewhere (and why not here?) that the color job was as gorgeous as it was unnecessary. The colors in the other features were usually credited to Denis McFarling but no one was credited for the "Dope" chapters. Obviously the device you use to read this blog will determine how the colors in the third scan here will look, but in most cases it should reproduce faithfully.

It's embarrassing that it took so long for this story to be compiled. Even during the 80's most of the other features from the magazine and color comic got their own comic title or trade. The Englehart/Rogers "Coyote" story was compiled as graphic novel by Eclipse in 1984. Ms. Tree got her own series which eventually moved to Aardvark-Vanaheim and Renegade, who published "I, For An Eye" and subsequent stories as trades. "Masked Man", "The Foozle", and "Rio" all became comics titles; "Ragamuffins" became a one-shot. It's possible that the ethnic caricatures made the story a lower priority when scheduling titles to release and a year after the story ended Eclipse received an influx of orphan projects when Pacific Comics went out of business. The end of 1984 was preoccupied with completing the first Rocketeer story, "Somerset Holmes", "Twisted Tales", "Alien Worlds" and "Sunrunners", as well as picking up other projects. When 1985 began, Eclipse had launched over two dozen color comics titles in all, including one-shots and minis. When 1985 ended, of those only CROSSFIRE and MASKED MAN were still published regularly and even they would both end by April 1986. They would return in 1987, as would ZOT! But aside from rare sporadic appearances of NIGHT MUSIC, the rest of the Eclipse roster was entirely different from its first three years. I don't know if it was a coincidence, but between the end of the B&W magazine and the first issue of the color anthology, while "Dope" was in limbo between chapters seven and eight, Marvel canceled its MASTER OF KUNG FU  title. Since "the fiendish doctor" brought an ignominious end to Peter Sellers' career in 1980, those final three chapters awaiting publication were the last bits of Sax Rohmer to reach popular culture outside of the novels themselves. I don't know how much more distance was needed to consider the comic adaptation dispassionately as a separate work but apparently we passed that point while we weren't paying attention. Two years from now the original novel will turn 100 years old. I'll have to be satisfied to reread the comics in their original form.

0051: This Artist, This Man

This is the second half of the post "This Man, This Artist" (#0050). The title is a play on the title of one of Jack Kirby's most beloved art jobs from FANTASTIC FOUR #51 (06/66), "This Man, This Monster". (If you haven't read it and plan to, be advised that the rest of this paragraph is a Spoiler. The post continues in the next paragraph.) It takes place after the first Galactus story (#48-50) with the team trying to get their lives back to normal. The Thing is bemoaning his condition when a stranger invites him in from the rain. The stranger (who is never named during the story) turns out to be a scientist jealous of Reed Richards' success and drugs Ben then uses his own technology to turn his own body into the Thing and the Thing's body back into Ben's original form. Hoping to infiltrate the Baxter Building as the Thing to get close enough to Reed to kill him, the stranger instead learns that Reed's public persona is his own and not the hypocritical façade he had always assumed it to be. He realizes that his chances to find success on his own terms were squandered when he focused all his energy on revenge. During a crisis, the stranger sacrifices himself to save Reed. His death causes the real Ben to revert to the Thing. Each of the three men, Ben, Reed and the stranger, are either men or monsters depending on perspective. Ben fears that he is a monster, Reed is characterized as one and the stranger discovers that he is one. The stranger isn't named in the story because it gives thing a kind of universality. He didn't do wrong because of his name or who he is, but because of the limited way in which he saw things. That could have been any of us.

The thing that makes Kirby so universally name dropped is not simply because he touched a large number of people, many of whom went on to be comics creators. Fans, critics and publishers keep revisiting his work because of the wide variety of future creators who imprinted on him like ducklings. Eventually the ducklings grow up and swim away from momma, but if you could see under the water then you'd know that their legs are still kicking the same way. 31 years ago when Fantagraphics published the one hundredth issue of AMAZING HEROES they noticed that it would coincide with Jack Kirby's birthday on August 28th. They then cast a wide net asking anyone working in the industry to contribute a brief message to Jack. Dozens replied with anecdotes, observations, sketches or some combination of those. I included scans of half of them in the previous post and now here's the rest, along with my own short descriptions of the contributors.

• William Messner-Loebs is now known primarily as a writer but he also drew his own scripts on JOURNEY, published by Aardvark-Vanaheim and then Fantagraphics. He had just concluded the series months before this article and had begun scripts on JONNY QUEST for Comico with various artists. He began several years at DC with art on WASTELAND and scripts for DR. FATE, FLASH and WONDER WOMAN. These tend to be overshadowed by scripts for THE MAXX and EPICURUS THE SAGE, both with Sam Keith.
• Gilbert Hernandez (who often signs 'Beto') is one of several Hernandez Brothers, two of whom (Gilbert and Jaime) are markedly more prolific. Along with Mario they created all of the features in the magazine-sized anthology LOVE & ROCKETS (which was recently revived as a new series). The serialized features (like "Palomar" and "Poison River") were gradually compiled in a series of trade paperbacks under the umbrella title LOVE & ROCKETS, even though some had only tenuous or no connections to the others.

Gilberto also contributed to the all-ages anthology MEASLES and girl-band-from-space series YEAH! as well as the adult oriented BIRDLAND, LUBA and GRIP.

• T.M. Maple was a prolific fan letter writer in the 70's and 80's, when nearly every title carried a letters' page. He died shortly after Jack.
• Don Heck was working at Marvel when Jack returned there in 1958. On more than one occassion Don would have an extended run pencilling a feature that Jack started and left, notably THE AVENGERS and IRON MAN. He passed away about a year after Jack did.
• Al Gordon is more likely to be the inker who started at Marvel in the late 70's rather than the Golden Age penciller, if only because he signed off here with the phrase "'Nuff Said!" He also worked on DNAGENTS for Eclipse while Jack was drawing DESTROYER DUCK.
• This statement by Wally Wood was provided to the editors by Jim Valentino from materials prepared for a convention booklet, since Wood had died in 1981. A few years after this article when the Harvey Awards added a Jack Kirby Hall of Fame category, Wood was the first in.

• Steven Grant started writing for Marvel in the late 70's after being published in STAR*REACH and other independents. He went from the HULK! magazine and SPIDEY SUPER STORIES to the PUNISHER mini-series (collected as CIRCLE OF BLOOD) and First Comics' WHISPER when this article came out. Two years ago he brought back Warren's "The Rook" for Dark Horse.
• Milton Canniff was the creator of the newspaper strips TERRY AND THE PIRATES and STEVE CANYON. He was ten years older than Jack and died a couple years after this article ran.
• Don Rico was a Golden Age contemporary of Jack's who did art for Victor Fox, Lev Gleason and others. He went to work for Marvel in 1942 to draw Captain Marvel after Simon and Kirby left. He stayed there right through the change to Atlas until the restructuring in 1957.
• Michael T. Gilbert is most famous for refurbishing a forgotten Golden character (Mr. Monster) and has a regular column in the magazine ALTER EGO.

• Joshua Quagmire was the creator of Cutey Bunny and now works primarily through his website.
• Chas. Gillen, according to several online sources, was the real name of the Charlton artist who signed his work "J. Gill". I recognize Gillen's name (and stylized signature) from fanzines like this one, but I can't recall seeing his (or Gill's) name after the 1980's.
• Stan Lee-- if I have to explain to you who Stan Lee is then you might be reading this blog by mistake. Perhaps I can interest you in a cat video?
• [Jim] Steranko had a pair of short-lived action series for Harvey comics in 1966 when he got a chance to ink Jack Kirby on the S.H.I.E.L.D. feature in STRANGE TALES. He soon began finishing Jack's layouts and eventually was pencilling and writing the feature, taking it to a full-length monthly NICK FURY series in 1968. By the end of that year he began short stints on X-MEN and CAPTAIN AMERICA. His work on all three titles was reprinted as Baxter paper mini-series a few years before this article appeared.

• Burne Hogarth is another artist whose comments were provided by Jim Valentino. He was both a commercial illustrator and comic book artist. He drew the Tarzan Sunday newspaper strip for over a decade, but today is probably best known for a series of instructional books about drawing anatomy, especially anatomy in motion.
• Roy Thomas became a comics fan in the 1940's, contributing to the pioneering fanzine ALTER EGO, and currently edits the modern version of it published by TwoMorrows. In the mid-1960's he began a long association with Marvel, usually succeeding Stan Lee's writing duties on various titles as the company's line expanded and Lee's editing duties became more demanding. Eventually, he succeeded Lee as Editor-In-Chief as well. Most notably, he took over X-MEN and AVENGERS. He also talked the company into abandoning it's policy of avoiding licensing characters in order to adapt the first CONAN comics, which he wrote for over a decade. He also wrote the adaptation of STAR WARS in 1977. In the 1980's he became DC's go to guy regarding Golden 

Age characters, scripting ALL-STAR SQUADRON, YOUNG ALL-STARS and INFINITY, INC. When CRISIS eliminated that history, he was given a new monthly title, SECRET ORIGINS, to write or edit a new one. He may be the only person working in comics to have created as many durable, recurring characters as Stan and Jack.

• Jaime Hernandez, who often signs as "Xaime", is one of the Hernandez Brothers (see Gilberto, above). Jaime did a number of mini-series that spun off supporting characters from LOVE & ROCKETS, such as PENNY CENTURY and WHOA, NELLIE! and numerous album covers.
• Don Simpson is the creator of the long-lived super-hero parody "Megaton Man", but Dover Publications has just recently collected his science fiction opus BORDER WORLDS into a single volume for the first time ever.
• Jonathan Peterson became an editor at DC around the time that this article ran. By the time he left in 2000 he had also done some scripts.

• Rick Veitch is a writer and artist who has worked for Marvel and DC but might be best remembered for his creator owned work published with smaller companies, such as BRAT PACK, MAXIMMORTAL and RARE BIT FIEND. In the 1970's he left undergrounds to work in the majors, doing art for SGT. ROCK (DC), colors for FLASH GORDON (Western), letters for STAR WARS (Marvel) and all three for his own scripts in HEAVY METAL. After providing art on SWAMP THING for a year and a half he took over scripting when Alan Moore departed, staying for another year and a half. His website is both beautiful and easy to navigate.
• Gil Kane was working at DC in the 1950's when Jack left to join Marvel. At about that time, Kane was playing a huge part in launching DC's Silver Age, leaving behind "Rex the Wonder Dog" and "Trigger Twins" for the new "Green Lantern" and "The Atom". Beginning in the mid-60's Kane became one of the select few to work at both Marvel and DC simultaneously. He was still working for both when this article was published and continued to do

so right through the 90's. He passed away in 2000.

• Mark Alexander was an inker discovered by DC's title NEW TALENT SHOWCASE, but at the time of this article was working on one of Marvel's "Official Handbook" series, which must have forced him to think about numerous Kirby caharcter designs.
• Scott Shaw! is (like Fred Hembeck and Sergio Aragones) one of those rare humor cartoonists who becomes tied into super-hero comics for reasons that become obscured with time. His anthropomorphic comics appeared in QUACK! (published by Star*Reach) along with Dave Sim, Frank Brunner, Steve Leialoha and others. He worked on Marvel's Hanna-Barbera titles in the late 70's while Jack was there (see the Howard the Duck post, #0045) He was drawing CAPTAIN CARROT for DC while Jack Kirby was doing CAPTAIN VICTORY for Pacific Comics. Shaw brought unpublished stories of features from QUACK! to Pacific, which became WILD ANIMALS, but Pacific went under before the second issue was ready. At the time of this article he was probably working in animation, but clearly made time to write a substantial entry. In fact some of the submissions for this issue were so long that they were published as full articles in this same issue. They include "Kirby!" by Doug Moench, "Jack Kirby's Gods & Heroes" by Greg Potter, "The King And I" (an interview) by Mark Evanier, "10 Great Jack Kirby Stories" by Richard Howell, "That Old Jack Magic" by Greg Theakston and reviews of key issues by R.A. Jones in the same style normally used to review current comics.

Well, I hope that these two posts provide you with several days of amused reading. I also hope that Gary Groth doesn't have a conniption fit over me reproducing so many pages that he never had any intention of reprinting in a million years anyway. It'll also give you something to point to the next time someone says, "You can't get that many people with that many different tastes to agree on anything..."

0050: This Man, This Artist

Jack Kirby lived to be just over 76 years old. That's how long ago Captain America started punching Nazis. On Monday, August 28th, 2017, it will be Jack Kirby's 100th birthday.

The cover on the left is for AMAZING HEROES #100 (Aug.1st, 1986), a fanzine published by Fantagraphics. AH began as a B&W magazine, the same size as Fantagraphics longer lived fanzine THE COMICS JOURNAL, although I remember it being thinner. As TCJ began to devote more space to the legal and ethical issues facing comics publishing and retail, AH took over the materials more commonly sought by fans, such as release dates, previews of upcoming series and events, histories of Marvel and DC heroes and news about licensing for film and merchandise. Whereas TCJ would publish 50 page career spanning interviews with writers and artists, AH would interview them about recent projects and career highlights. Beginning with issue #14, AH shrunk down to standard comic book dimensions. It was still printed in B&W on newsprint, but of the two fanzines it was the one whose readership more likely included comic fans who didn't buy anything else of magazine dimensions that wasn't designed for a bookshelf. For their convenience, AH would then fit in a comic storage box.

Seeing as how this Kirby tribute issue is 31 years old, the people paying tribute may not all be familiar to modern audiences, although most should be. I'm not going to make any assumptions about who you'll recognize, so...

• Steve Rude is an artist probably best known for drawing Mike Baron's Nexus (as his first and definitive penciller). Look for Rude's own character The Moth. He also drew a MISTER MIRACLE Special for DC that was on sale in January following this article.
• Richard Corben emerged from undergrounds to be one of the defining contributors to the American HEAVY METAL. His SHADOWS ON THE GRAVE mini-series for Dark Horse is ending soon.
• Robert Loren Fleming is a writer who collaborates with Keith Giffen on AMBUSH BUG.
• If you read comics, you already know who Frank Miller is.
• Michael Kraiger had just started contributing the feature "Zone" to Fantagraphics' anthology THREAT months before this article. It moved to Dark Horse a few years later. He then became an editor at Marvel.

• Jim Baikie worked on 2000A.D. and other Fleetway titles in the U.K. before pencilling DC's ELECTRIC WARRIOR.
• Jim Rohn contributed his "Holo Brothers" feature to Fantagraphics' THREAT anthology shortly before this article and their Monster Comics imprint published the 10 issue miniseries that continued the story.
• Gary Fields regularly contributed "Enigma Funnies" to THREAT but lettered comics for several other creators.
• John Romita briefly drew Captain America stories in the fifties.When Kirby left Marvel in 1970, Romita was assigned to follow him on FANTASTIC FOUR. He's probably best known for his work on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.
• Jack Katz created the genuine epic FIRST KINGDOM, currently complete in hardcover from Titan.
• Bob Laughlin self-published KITZ 'N' KATZ, which was distributed by Eclipse in the 80's.
• Arthur Byron Cover is best known as a science fiction author who has occasionally worked in comics, notably with Harlan Ellison on DAREDEVIL #'S 208-209.

• Flo Steinberg was, I think, technically the receptionist at Marvel in the 60's, but according to Stan Lee and others she effectively handled just about every task around the office not directly involving comics production, such as sorting fan mail and keeping the fan club memberships organized. At the end of the 60's she left for a non-comics editing job but was involved in undergrounds and early independents, eventually becoming a publisher herself.
• Rick Norwood was an editor for COMICS REVUE, a fanzine from the publishers of COMICS INTERVIEW.
• Dennis O'Neil is a writer who worked for Marvel briefly in the mid-60's and more prominently in the 80's but made comics history with Neal Adams for their work on Batman and Green Lantern in the early 70's.
• Julius Schwartz was an early fan of science fiction pulps in the late 1920's and went on to become an editor at DC, where he revived the company's Golden Age heroes in the late 50's as s-f based characters, creating the Justice League to replace the Justice Society.

• Barry Windsor Smith became famous for drawing the first CONAN THE BARBARIAN comics in 1970. Before that, he drew in a cruder style that looked like a Kirby imitation. In just a few years his art became both original and beautiful but he kept an affection for Kirby's characters. Two years before this article he finished and inked Herb Trimpe's pencils on the MACHINE MAN mini-series. In the 90's he created ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG, RUNE and STORYTELLER.
• Dave Garcia was the creator of Panda Khan, which was a back-up feature in A DISTANT SOIL before this article and afterwards became its own title from Abacus Press.
• Monica Sharp scripted and edited the Panda Khan stories, often with Garcia.
• Bob Wiacek is an inker who did some work at DC in the mid-70's just Kirby was leaving, but in 1977 began a long tenure at Marvel working on just about everything, including STAR WARS and IRON MAN.

• Dave Gibbons is a British artist who drew for both 2000 A.D. and DOCTOR WHO WEEKLY from the beginning of each. In America, he became famous for WATCHMEN with Alan Moore and GIVE ME LIBERTY with Frank Miller.
• Kevin O'Neill is another British artist, probably best known for MARSHALL LAW and LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. That's his illustration of a 'Marshall Law' type gun on the left.
• Mike Royer is a longtime inker of Kirby who has followed him through several publishers for about 20+ years.
• Stephen DeStefano was doing the DC title 'MAZING MAN when this article came out. He went on to do brilliant humor comics (including INSTANT PIANO and JINGLE BELLE) whose audience was dwarfed by that for his animation work (including "Ren And Stimpy" and "The Venture Brothers").
• Charles Meyerson wrote text pieces for First Comics in the 80's.

• Steve Parkhouse is a British artist who sold some scripts to Marvel in the late 60's. When Marvel created a U.K. branch in 1972 it was initially all reprints, but Parkhouse was one of the early writers they called on when easing into publishing original stories. He wrote three different features for HULK COMIC (later HULK WEEKLY) but also drew his own scripts on the SPIRAL PATH feature and Alan Moore's BOJEFFRIES SAGA for Fleetway/Quality's WARRIOR. Eclipse reprinted SPIRAL PATH as a mini-series while this article was out. Today you can see his art in Dark Horse's RESIDENT ALIEN (highly recommended.
• Bill Mantlo was a prolific writer at Marvel in the mid-70's to mid-80's, probably most famous for MICRONAUTS and ROM, but also wrote INCREDIBLE HULK for years and all of the B&W magazine version of HOWARD THE DUCK. He also created Rocket Raccoon for an uncompleted science fiction serial. He has been unable to write for 25 due to traumatic injury by a car.

• Vince Argondezzi drew NEXT MAN for Comico before this article came out and drew INFINITY, INC. for DC afterwards.
• Rick Bryant iinked Keith Giffen's pencils on a one shot comic from Lodestone called THE MARCH HARE, which Giffen co-wrote with Robert Loren Fleming.
• Scott Hampton had completed SILVERHEELS for Pacific comics two years before this and adapted Robert E. Howard's 'Pigeons From Hell" for Eclipse two years later. Not to be confused with brother Bo Hampton, Scott is currently finishing P. Craig Russell's layouts in AMERICAN GODS: SHADOWS from Dark Horse.
• George Pratt works as much (if not more) as an illustrator than as a comic book artist. Like Hampton, he often paints comics and is probably best remembered for the graphic novel ENEMY ACE: WAR IDYLL.
• Larry Marder is the creator of TALES OF THE BEANWORLD, originally with Eclipse and now with Dark Horse. He was made Executive Director of Image to overcome their early chaos.

• Steve Ringgenberg is a freelance comics writer who also writes nonfiction about comics industry.
• Dark Horse Comics had only just started publishing when this article was released. The lineup shown here is, left to right, Concrete (by Paul Chadwick), Boris The Bear (by James Dean Smith), Garrett from "Mindwalk" (by Randy Stradley and Randy Emberlin), Mercy St. Clair from "Trekker" (by Ron Randall), Conrad from "Black Cross" (by Chris Warner), Roma (by John Workman) and Charlie from "Hellwalk, Inc." (by J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Badger). Boris had his own series and the others appeared in DARK HORSE PRESENTS. Two of them, however, hadn't even debuted when this illustration ran. "Trekker" would debut in #4 (01/87) and "Roma" would debut in #5 (02/87). The "Hellwalk, Inc." feature didn't start until issue #2 (undated; probably September), but the image of Charlie used here can be found in #1 as part of a small ad teasing the next issue. Also in #2, the art seen here is also used in a two page ad in the centerfold.

• J.M. DeMatteis is a comics writer who was writing war and horror stories for DC's anthologies in the late 1970's and eventually doing some super-hero back-up stories. In the early 80's he worked at Marvel, including writing DEFENDERS and CAPTAIN AMERICA. When this article came out he was writing the last stories of the original JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA series and would go on co-write, with Keith Giffen, the new JUSTICE LEAGUE series that would follow the LEGENDS mini-series. Those would be some of his best remembered scripts, along with the GARGOYLE mini-series for Marvel and MOONSHADOW and BLOOD: A TALE, both minis for Marvel's Epic line and both later reprinted by DC's Vertigo.
• Scott McCloud is now best known for the nonfiction comics-format book UNDERSTANDING COMICS, but at the time of this article he was known primarily as the creator of ZOT! from Eclipse.
• Jerry Ordway is both a writer and a penciller on numerous titles but his close association with Superman was beginning to develop after this article ran and ALL-STAR SQUADRON was cancelled.

Whew! And that's just half the article! Give yourself some time to read some Jack Kirby stories today and I'll complete this article during the week. Enjoy!

0045: How to lay an egg

Howard the Duck pretty much ceased to exist when Steve Gerber was removed from the book. In 1978, the very public dispute that Jerry Siegel had revived with DC over Superman caused Gerber to raise questions about creative control that Jim Shooter didn't want to hear. Demands for creative control sounded to management like demands for copyrights or trademarks. Gerber was off the book, which changed frequency from monthly to bi-monthly and two fill-in issues (out of continuity) were done from his notes until Bill Mantlo could write two final issues. The title was cancelled along with tons of other Marvel titles at the beginning of 1979. By that time, Gerber was long gone, along with Jack Kirby, who dropped three titles (BLACK PANTHER, DEVIL DINOSAUR and MACHINE MAN) abruptly. They worked together on the animated "Thundarr The Barbarian" television show in 1980.

Gerber had been the only writer to handle Howard since creating him for a Man-Thing story in ADVENTURES INTO FEAR #19 (12/73), which continued into the new series MAN-THING #1 (01/74) in which Howard fell into the void of space, supposedly gone forever. Gerber hadn't created Man-Thing, but a succession of writers on that feature turned over quickly. Man-Thing's first appearance in the B&W SAVAGE TALES magazine in 1971 was written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway and drawn by Gray Morrow and intended to begin a regular feature, but the planned second issue didn't happen. The title would eventually restart at #2 in 1973 with new material after the stories originally slated back in 1971 were mostly cannibalized. The second Man-Thing story by Len Wein and Neal Adams, for instance, had already been incorporated as a flashback into a Roy Thomas/John Buscema Ka-Zar story in ASTONISHING TALES #12 (06/72)-13 (08/72). A third story, which takes place before the Ka-Zar story but after the flashback, was written by Tony Isabella with art by Vincente Alcazar. Bear in mind, that's four writers and four artists for three stories. That third story didn't appear until it ran in the B&W magazine MONSTERS UNLEASHED in 1974, after Man-Thing had his own title, but reads as though it was drawn from an earlier, unused script. It might have been a new story, or it might have been intended for a hypothetical SAVAGE TALES #3 in 1971.

The letters' page of ASTONISHING TALES #13 told readers looking for more Man-Thing that he would be getting his own feature soon, but couldn't confirm where. "Even we aren't sure-- but it'll definitely be in one of our presently featureless monster mags, FEAR, WHERE MONSTERS DWELL or MONSTERS ON THE PROWL." It turned out to be two months later in ADVENTURES INTO FEAR #10 (10/72) with another story by Conway and Morrow, the last before Gerber was handed the feature and also the last to be under a dozen pages, a sign that it, too, might have been planned for the B&W magazines. When Gerber took over, he not only expanded the page count but the scope of the stories as well. Man-Thing was still a swamp monster, but the readers learn that the unlikely combination of events that caused its creation were compelled to happen in order to fill a need-- to produce a guardian at the Nexus Of All Realities, a point in space that enables travel to and from any of the parallel worlds. Over the course of issues #11-19, a wizard named Dakimh uses the muck monster and a gifted magical trainee named Jennifer Kale to fight demons and illusions, all of it directed by a villain named the Overlord who intends to exploit the Nexus for conquest. It is strongly implied that the army he is building to storm the other realities is populated by characters from comic books which, by 1973, had fallen out of favor with readers: war comics, westerns, period adventures, straight science fiction, etc. The only comic characters Dakimh can gather are a Sword & Sorcery barbarian (Korrek) and an anthropomorphic 'funny animal' (Howard). As the battle takes them between one reality and another, Howard trips en route and falls into the infinite void, having served his narrative purpose of establishing that comic book 'alternate Earths' need not be limited to being variant versions of super-heroes, but could occasionally cross genres without necessitating that the characters always occupy the same continuity.

One of these guys has an Oscar. Just sayin'.

Man-Thing continued his monthly series for 22 issues plus 5 quarterly Giant-Size (twice the pages) supplements. The last two included new short stories starring Howard solo, explaining that he fell back to the last reality he had come from, but rather than land in the Everglades he wound up in Ohio. The fan reaction was positive. Thus, as the sales of monster comics waned at the end of 1975, MAN-THING was cancelled and HOWARD THE DUCK began bi-monthly with #1(01/76). After a few issues it went monthly and he began to run for President. He was the cover story of FOOM #15. After only seven issues, he was granted a Marvel Treasury Edition. Do you know who didn't get one? Iron Man, Daredevil, X-Men, Sub-Mariner, Captain Marvel, any of the western characters (still being published through the 70's), Sgt. Fury or Power Man.. It's true that some of those characters got stories in the Christmas issues, but that's hardly the same as getting your own volume. And Howard's back catalog was so thin that it required that a third of the treasury be devoted to a new story, which took place between issues #7 and #8. Around the time of the treasury and the election, George Lucas was in contact with Marvel and Roy Thomas, providing materials from which the comic book adaptation of "Star Wars" could be made ready by spring 1977 when the movie was due for release. Lucas said years later that he had long enjoyed the Howard comics and it couldn't have hurt that Gene Colan had become the regular penciller months earlier. Colan is known for having a photographer's eye when creating layouts, giving individual panels the sort of innovative 'camera angles' that would catch the attention of a film school student turned successful director in the auteur-friendly 1970's. Of course, Lucas and Howard both had pretty good years in 1977. Lucas' has been well documented; Howard introduced KISS to comics, got an annual and a syndicated newspaper strip. Pretty good for a four year old character. 1978 began almost as auspiciously, with a two-issue Star Wars parody/tribute (Man-Thing, Dakimh and Jennifer Kale return as Chewbacca, Obi-Wan and Leia, respectively). Then, as mentioned above, Gerber ran afoul for trying to run a fowl and was out the door before the Superman movie even made it to theaters.

With both the color comic and newspaper strip cancelled, Marvel moved Howard to their B&W magazine line. At first, he appeared in one-page gags in CRAZY #50(05/79)- #54(09/79) and #59(02/80) [except #52 and every third issue following it, which where reprint specials]. Then, Mantlo scripted Howard's own magazine series #1(10/79)-#8(11/80) and #9(03/91), during which Alan Kupperberg (who drew the last six months of the newspaper strip from Marv Wolfman's scripts) produced a Howard story for MARVEL TEAM-UP #96(08/80) and Steve Skeates and Pat Broderick handled the majority of the three-page Howard stories in CRAZY #63(06/80)-#77(08/81) [again, except for every third issue from 64 to 76]. A one-page Howard gag by Kupperberg turned up a year later in the all humor issue of WHAT IF...? #34(08/82), but aside from a cameo in Fred Hembeck's FANTASTIC FOUR ROAST (05/82), that was it for a year. Not only was there no feature, but there were no guest appearances.

In the latter half of 1978, fill-in stories scripted for Marvel by Steve Gerber were published, a solo Beast story in AVENGERS and a Lilith story in MARVEL PREVIEW. That appeared to be the end of his affiliation with them, except that he was scripting Hanna-Barbera stories for editor Mark Evanier under the anagrammatic pseudonym "Reg Everbest". All six of the H-B titles got the ax in the same cull that cancelled the Howard color comic. But Evanier (who has since written extensively about his Hollywood experiences) provided a route to animation, and "Thundarr the Barbarian". After the cartoon premiered in September 1980, Eclipse published Gerber's graphic novel STEWART THE RAT in November. The following year, Eclipse began publishing a B&W anthology, ECLIPSE MAGAZINE, and Gerber occasionally contributed to it. Back on fans' radar, DC took his scripts for a PHANTOM ZONE mini-series and Dr. Fate back-up feature in FLASH for 1982. Jack Kirby, not surprisingly, had kept busy, too. Pacific Comics published two series of his, CAPTAIN VICTORY and SILVER STAR, from 1981 to 1983. During that time, Kirby and Gerber collaborated on a personal project that Eclipse agreed to publish as their first full color comic, taking the place on their schedule of the May 1982 issue of the B&W magazine. It was DESTROYER DUCK, a clear and obvious protest for creators' rights and a specific condemnation of Marvel's treatment of Howard in Gerber's absence. Originally advertised to come out on December 15. 1981 [on the back of ECLIPSE #4(01/82)], it was probably out by February (the July issue of the magazine was due to ship in April, according to The Comic Reader that year). The issue of WHAT IF...? with the Howard page would have shipped to the direct market in early May with a newsstand 'on sale' date by the end of the month. Of course, Marvel had bigger problems than Howard. The emergence of publishers like Pacific, Eclipse and Capital had forced them (and DC) to offer collectors comics made with better materials and printing methods. Initially offering reprints and graphic novels, then special projects, by the time Marvel formed a Baxter paper imprint (Epic) Destroyer Duck had become an ongoing series at Eclipse, joined by SABRE by fellow disgruntled former Marvel employees Don McGregor and Billy Graham. Eclipse's color roster continued to slowly grow while Marvel cancelled the last of their B&W magazines (except SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN), converting the last issue of BIZARRE ADVENTURES #34(02/83) into a Baxter color comic, including an eight-page Howard Christmas story by Steven Grant and Paul Smith (who had just started work on UNCANNY X-MEN). Smith also drew Howard's half-page entry in the OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE #5(05/83). Butch Guice provided a Howard pin-up for MARVEL FANFARE #9 (07/83), which had a Man-Thing cover story. Then, in 1984 both Howard and Destroyer Duck disappeared. George Lucas wanted to turn his love for Howard into a movie, which would make it Marvel's first full-length theatrical feature film. Gerber was, on paper, hired as a consultant but little of his creation made it into the movie. In it, the plot centers on Howard's homeworld being another planet, not an alternate Earth, although great pains were taken to furnish scenes of his homeworld with 'duck' versions of American Earth culture. The social satire was gone, replaced by an occasional sarcastic quip. The script was provided by the producer and director, old classmates from Lucas' film school days who felt that the movie would more appropriately be animated. Every step towards getting this film into theaters seemed to involve everyone concerned second-guessing their own instincts and acting counter-intuitively, So much wasted talent, wasted money and wasted opportunity, it has become justifiably notorious in both comics and film circles. Leading into its release in August 1986, the only comics appearances Howard made in the previous three years were HOWARD THE DUCK #32(01/86) (by Steven Grant and Paul Smith again), a pin-up by Dave Sim in MARVEL FANFARE #25 (03/86) and HOWARD THE DUCK #33 (09/86) (by Christopher Stager and Val Mayerik, his original artist).

The storybook I have excerpted above was published by Grosset & Dunlap, who licensed Marvel characters for puzzle books in the late 1970's. By the way, the Read-Aloud story book mentioned on the back cover had ISBN #0448-48606-7 and the Book-And-Cassette set had ISBN #0448-48619-9. What I find strange about that is that by 1986, Marvel had expanded to publishing books and that by volume, most of them were children's books featuring many of the licensed characters which also appeared in their Star Comics and toy-based titles: Transformers, Heathcliff, Madballs, Sectaurs, Muppet Babies, etc. These came in the form of story books, paint-with-water and coloring books, activity books and so on. There was even at least one Howard the Duck sticker book called "A Walk Back In Time" (ISBN #0871-35157-9). So why was this handled by another publisher? It may have been a contractual obligation of the studio or distributor, but I simply don't know for sure.

One last note for the curious: the images scanned above were originally 8.5" X 11.0".

0040: Clef Quest

In 1984 I was attending college in the midwest. A friend who knew I was into comics invited me to go with him on the weekend to an all-Elfquest convention a couple of hours away. I had attended huge science fiction/fantasy multi-media conventions in the northeast, but had never been to one devoted to a single comic. The main reason for holding it was that the creators, Wendy and Richard Pini, were nearing the end of the original series and a group of fans were sponsoring a pair of wolves in their name at a nearby reserve (I think; this was 30+ years ago and the specifics are kind of fuzzy). Since they were heading out (probably from Poughkeepsie, NY) to visit the wolves, they agreed to appear at an all EQ mini-con.

It was a relatively simple set-up. It took place in a portion of a hotel with a room for a Q&A session and costume contest and a separate room for dealers. It was the first time I had seen entire families cosplaying. There was more of a community vibe than at larger cons. I picked up current printings of some issues I hadn't read and probably some general interest fanzine stuff, but most of the tables in the dealer's room were stocked with more merchandise than comics (after all, it was a whole convention devoted to a series that lasted 20 issues at that point). There were metal figurines, stuffed wolves, buttons, etc. Something I wish I had known about to look for was a cassette of Elfquest related songs that was released sometime that year. I don't know for certain if it had come out before or after the convention, but if it had been released, I'm betting it would have been there.

The cassette was on the label Off-Centaur Publications, which was formed in 1980 to publish the lyrics (and presumably sheet music) of original songs written by sf/fantasy fans about their favorite mêmes, characters and tropes. They released fewer than twenty books but about a hundred cassettes. "A Wolfrider's Reflections" was a multi-artist collection released in August 1984 as OCP-32. A book of the lyrics was released in 1987 with the same catalog number.

The compact disc (the subject of today's post) was released on 1992. It follows the original program exactly. The first eleven tracks were side 1 of the cassette and the second eleven were side 2. Musically, it's pretty much solid. Lyrically, it's pretty much what you'd expect. As much as I collect both music and comics, there is a whole subculture of fandom revolving around music about comics that I never really followed closely. It was probably at its peak from 1975-1995. What I can remember about those times is that Sword & Sorcery was as ubiquitous in the mid-70's as oversized guns were in the mid-90's. Barbarian heroes were everywhere. That's the only possible explanation I can imagine for why so many of the fan recordings emerging over the next decade sounded as though they were written for a Renaissance Faire, regardless of what kind of comics/books/movies, etc. the songs were about. Fortunately, that makes a great match for "Elfquest".

When the owners of Off Centaur split in 1988 there were legal disputes that left many of their recordings in limbo. The disputes were settled in 1992, and this album made its CD debut as soon as possible thereafter. It was fortuitous timing. At that time, Elquest had been around for 14 years, with Wendy Pini drawing the entire series and co-scripting with husband Richard. The original 20 self-published B&W magazine-size issues had been reprinted in color as paperbacks by Donning and in comic size by Epic. Then the series continued as B&W comics, first in "Siege at Blue Mountain" for Apple Press and later "Kings of the Broken Wheel" for the Pinis' own WaRP Graphics. All three series were then reprinted in color by WaRP as trades following the Donning format. All that preceded an expansion program by WaRP to publish several concurrent Elfquest comic book series-- in color-- to be written and drawn by a small army of contributors, some of whom (like Barry Blair) had been long-time fans of the series. It started with two titles, "The Hidden Years" and "New Blood" in spring 1992 but by the time the plug was pulled in spring 1996 the little publisher that produced fewer than 40 Elfquest comics in 14 years had produced over 140 Elfquest comics in four years. The entire line was cancelled and replaced with a monthly anthology.

Between 1992 and 1996, the color trades reprinting the pre-1992 material were reissued in hardcover. For even a more casual fan like myself, who read the series as a combination of comics and paperbacks, the CD offered a much better way to enhance the experience of rereading the old series than the added heft of a hardcover. After all, it was recorded in 1984 and each of the songs is about, or in the voice of, the original characters, often referencing specific scenes or dialogue from the first series. For me, the highlights were tracks 1 and 12, the lead tracks of each side of the cassette format, "Children Of The Fall" and "A Wolfrider's Reflections". Also worth a listen were "Nightcrawler" and "Strange Blood". For what is essentially an upscale 30-year old fan recording, the production values are remarkably good. It should also be noted that Mercedes Lackey is a prolific fantasy writer in her own right but these recordings were made before her first full-length book was published. Julia Ecklar went on to write a jillion Star Trek novels as half of L.A. Graf. Leslie Fish, as far as I know, is still alive and performing songs as of this writing. The album can be heard on YouTube here with montages of still art and photos of cosplayers. If you want to own it in a more portable audio form, it's downloadable from several services.

0030: He Built This City (and he did a better job than Starship)

In the fall of 1983, the Los Angeles-based band X released the album "More Fun In The New World". It was sort of an ending to the first phase of their career. Ray Manzarek (better known as the keyboardist for the Doors) had produced all four of their albums at that point and this would be his last with them. It was also their last really punk flavored studio album. The next album would come out almost two years later and sound more polished, after playing and recording as country/folk group The Knitters (which more accurately foreshadowed the direction of the band from the late 1980's onward). Of course, in the spring of 1984 no one would have that perspective of hindsight, and to those attuned to the innovative in pop culture, "More Fun In..." was simply the latest album by the band most associated with the letter 'X'.

The reason I mention all this is because while futzing about [and I can't help but notice that the word "futzing" is not highlighted by that damned Spellcheck feature] looking for any early Mr. X materials not included in the recent Dark Horse Trade collecting Volume One (1984-1988), I found the issue of "Amazing Heroes" on the left. It's #48, June 1st, 1984 (it was coming out twice a month back then). If you'll note the date, then you'll realize that the black-and-yellow clock image is not a Watchmen reference. You might have to be a little more alert to realize that the hands are set at ten o'clock-- and that the letter 'X' is the Roman numeral for ten. Yeah, I know. I had been patting myself on the back for noticing that the crossed searchlights formed an 'X' when the clock face suddenly hit me and it became clear to me that the searchlights were a red herring.

The issue contains a ten-page article, in black and white by "Ace" MacDonald, who probably had the recent album in mind when he (or his editor?) entitled the article.

Patrick Cowley was an early proponent of EDM, purely electronic dance music. He was based in San Francisco and released his second solo album, "Megatron Man", on the small Megatone Records label in 1981. Megatone didn't have the means to manufacture and distribute their titles overseas, but the nature of the early EDM movement is that it had small pockets of ardent support scattered all over the world. Collectively that meant many potential sales but required licensing the album in about a dozen different countries to small labels also comfortable with pressing and distributing small quantities quickly. All of the other labels used the crude black and white jacket art by Jim Saunders except the Canadian label Attic, which replaced it with a full color painting by Dean Motter. That LP (Attic LAT 1132), released in 1982, is now considered the first public appearance of Mr.X. When the label Unidisc reissued the album on CD for Canada, they combined the two different cover art pieces into a single image for the inlay card. For some reason, the painted cover is reproduced in B&W in the original Vortex trade paperback "The Return of Mr. X" (ISBN# 0-921451-008, December 1986), despite the fact that it reprints the first four issues of the series in their original color.

When ibooks (the publishing company, not to be confused with the iTunes app iBooks) reprinted the first series in two volumes, they reproduced the cover painting in color, but somewhat smaller. In Volume One (ISBN# 0-7434-9334-6, October, 2004) it appears on page 8 with a wide black border on all sides. The text that appeared on the right side of the LP jacket is eliminated so that the image would more closely fit the dimensions of the book, a smart move undercut by the borders. Also, the color obscures details visible in the B&W version from Vortex.

The Dark Horse trade (ISBN# 978-1-50670-265-0, May 2017) reproduces the art in color with more of the detail and texture retained. It appears on page 6 in full bleed (the image extends to the edges of the page), but the left and right edges are shaved off. I might just have to find a copy of the vinyl.

Also on this page from the Vortex trade is the Paul Rivoche cover for "Vortex" #2 (03/83), the publisher's first title. It was a B&W anthology (although the cover was originally in color) and there was no Mr. X story inside, despite him being on the cover. That art appears in color and without the trade dress in the ibooks Volume One on page 10 and with far thinner white borders than the LP art got. It also makes page 10 of the DH trade, full bleed again but intact, also in color and before trade elements were added. Advantage Dark Horse.

There's much more comparing and contrasting to be done with the trades, but I've got to hunt down some more original source material. Sleep well. Or not at all.

0029: Surprisingly, It's Not About Cuba

The comic book was called "Xenozoic Tales", but it isn't too often that a small press, creator-owned comic gets optioned for a Saturday morning cartoon. On several occasions, creator Mark Schultz marketed the feature under the name "Cadillacs And Dinosaurs" because that pretty much sums up the visceral appeal of it if not the full premise. In a post-apocalyptic future, the Earth is overrun by vegetation while humans go underground to survive. When their descendents emerge centuries later, they find dinosaurs roaming around and have to rediscover forgotten technologies to survive.

The entire series was done in black-and-white, starting with a 12-page story in the Kitchen Sink anthology DEATH RATTLE #8 (12/86) which lead right into XENOZOIC TALES. After finishing 8 issues in two years, XT took the first of what would be several extended gaps in its publishing history. During that time Kitchen Sink published the first trade paperback collection, entitled "CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS", in the summer of 1989. It compiled that first story and ones from the first four issues, but in order of occurance. Remember, despite their difference in size, Marvel and DC were still relatively new at publishing their own paperbacks and hardcovers, but Kitchen Sink had been getting books into mainstream bookstores since the 1970's. Thus, the trade collection reached a larger potential audience than the comic, getting on shelves in counties that didn't even have comics specialty stores, let alone one that prominently displayed smaller publishers. And the comic wasn't sold at newsstands or convenience stores. Hence, more people came to know the feature by the name of its trade collection. Issue #9 followed the trade but #10 didn't come out until 1990, followed by the second trade, "DINOSAUR SHAMAN", collecting XT #5-8, in the fall.

Between the second trade and the resumption of the series, Marvel's Epic Comics imprint reprinted the first six issues of XENOZOIC TALES in color as a monthly series, but under the title CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS, since the Kitchen Sink series was still going on. #11 came out in 1991, #12 in 1992 and months later CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS 3-D #1 (07/92), with an ad for C&D Candy Bars! Since the 3-D comic processed one story apiece from XT#6 and 7, this meant that new issues were now coming out annually and that the next year, the biggest year of all for the feature, would be the first without a new issue. In the summer of 1993, the third trade was released, "TIME IN OVERDRIVE" at about the same time as a second edition of the first trade (with new cover art) was printed. In September the animated television series "CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS" began being broadcast on CBS Saturday mornings, lasting 13 episodes until it was replaced in the spring by "CONAN AND THE YOUNG WARRIORS", which also lasted 13 episodes. It spawned a line of Tyco Toys, including characters, dinosaurs, vehicles and playsets. Kitchen Sink even published a color comic: CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS SPECIAL TYCO TOYS EDITION in December reprinting a story apiece from XT #1 and 9. And while all of that activity was buzzing about in the fall of 1993, the album was finally completed.

In publisher TwoMorrows' "Modern Masters Vol. 15: Mark Schultz" (2008, pages 58-59), Mark Schultz tells an interviewer that he met musician Chris Christensen at a San Diego Comic Con sometime after Christensen had written the music for a vinyl picture disc of songs tied to Will Eisner's Spirit. He was also a fan of XT and the two agreed to work on a concept album as a companion to the comic. Taking their cue from the vehicle designs in the comics, they initially recorded covers of early rock standards and gradually wrote enough originals in compatible styles that the covers were eventually unnecessary. They started recording these in September, 1990 and finished in October, 1993. All the songs on the finished disc were co-written by Christensen and Schultz and in some cases with Robert Haimer ("Liturgy"), Don Wittsten ("This Land", "When You Come Back Home"), Scott Rosner ("Fracture") and one with Haimer and Bill Mumy ("Into The Vaults"). Mumy is probably best known as an actor (as Will on "Lost In Space" and Lennier on "Babylon 5") but has worked in music (with Haimer as Barnes & Barnes) and comics for years. He plays guitar on tracks 5, 10 and 12 (with Max Allan Collins on organ). Miguel Ferrer narrates the opening track, "Liturgy".

The overall effect is that of a very capable bar band; fine listening but only a few songs are all that memorable. It was made in the US by Graphitti Designs, better known for their T-shirts and high-end limited edition versions of books from other publishers. The good news for the curious is that it's now available for streaming from from nearly every outfit that streams music. It's about an hour long, with the highlights being "Liturgy", "Step On The Gas And Go", "Into The Vaults" and "Cadillacs And Dinosaurs". The CD was released in 1994 while Topps Comics was publishing a 9 issue series called CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS, presumably to ride on the success of the cartoon that had already been cancelled. The Topps series was written by Roy Thomas and featured a variety of artists but Schultz wrote only a bit of text and his art appeared only as bits and pieces reprinted within short articles. For their part, Kitchen Sink selected DEATH RATTLE #8 as one of three comics reproduced for their 25th Anniversary (the others were BIZARRE SEX #9 with the first Omaha story and Robert Crumb's 1972 THE PEOPLE'S COMICS). The year ended with a new issue #13, but #14 took another two years to come out (indicia dated October 1996, but reaching direct market stores in December). And that was it. Schultz stayed busy with other things but he hasn't been too quick to say the dinosaurs have gone extinct again. There's been a two volume compendium from Dark Horse and one volume from Flesk. Aside from collecting the Topps series, there's not much left to do with the existing material. Except listen.