Comics Commentary

Al Capp's sex scandals

2012-01-21T17:41:00.000-08:00

Brit Hume remembered the conversation that took place on 1971 between cartoonist Al Capp and reporter Jack Anderson as follows:

Angered over rumors of impropriety, Anderson allegedly confronted Al Capp, a conservative political cartoonist and radio host, whose lectures at universities across the country gave him easy access to female students.

As Hume described it, Anderson, a devout Mormon with nine children - including a college-age daughter - questioned Capp about these activities.

Capp's response to Anderson was a pleading, "You know how these college babes are," which turned to panic when he saw Anderson's face turn red with rage.

"After that, the world never heard very much from Capp again," Hume said.

Jack Anderson's 1971 investigation about Al Capp being asked to leave the University of Alabama in February 1968 (where he was invited as a lecturer) after being accused of making "indecent advances" to four college students in the space of a few days is available in Google News. The complete article follows:

22 Apr 1971
Jack Anderson
Al Capp Hustled Off U Of A Campus After Coeds Charge He Made Indecent Advances

WASHINGTON - Al Capp, the famed cartoonist and caustic critic of college students, was shown out of town by University of Alabama police a few years ago after he allegedly made indecent advances toward several coeds.

The incident, hushed up for three years by the university administration, is both ironic and significant. For Capp's scathing denunciations of college students and their morals have made him one of the most controversial commentators of the day.

He now has a syndicated newspaper column and his broadcast commentaries are heard on some 200 radio stations. He was even approached to run for the Senate. But his principal forum has been the campus where some of his biting remarks have become famous.

In a widely quoted speech at Princeton, for example, Capp said: "Princeton has sunk to a moral level that a chimpanzee can live with, but only a chimpanzee. It has become a combination playpen and pigpen because it disregards the inferiority of the college student to every other class."

"President Nixon," Capp has said, "showed angelic restraint when he called students bums." On another occasion, he said: "Colleges today are filled with Fagin professors who don't teach... They just corrupt."

Although Capp denies any misconduct and says he cannot remember being asked to leave Tuscaloosa, we have confirmed the Alabama incident with a number of high-level university officials.

They include Dean of Women Sarah Healy and University Security Director Col. Beverly Lee. On instructions from then University President Dr. Frank Rose, Lee went to Capp's hotel, asked him to leave and followed his car to the town line.

- Capp On Campus -

In addition, we have established the details of Capp's alleged encounters with the four young women involved. Two of them have given us notarized affidavits recounting their experiences.

Based on our interviews and affidavits, here is what occurred: Capp arrived in Tuscaloosa Sunday, Feb. 11, 1968, to make a speech as part of the university's annual arts festival.

Late that afternoon, a coed, active in the arts program went to his room at the Stafford Hotel to deliver a university yearbook and other materials he had requested for his speech the next night.

Capp told the young woman he was impressed with her and discussed the possibility of hiring her to help produce the "Capp on Campus" radio series, then in progress.

He began making forceful advances toward her and exposing himself to her. She tried to leave but found she could not get the door open. She finally broke free and locked herself in the bathroom until he agreed to let her go.

Although she was not injured, she was sufficiently upset by the experience to be admitted a few days later to the university infirmary where she remained under sedation for several days.

That evening, another coed, whose job it was to greet visiting speakers, went to see Capp at his hotel. He exposed himself to her and made suggestive comments. She, too, found she could not open the door, but he let her go when she threatened to open a window and scream.

The next afternoon Capp was introduced in his room to another woman student who had just completed a taped interview with his staff for a planned broadcast called the "Now Morality." Capp exposed himself to her and made suggestive comments. She immediately left.

Late that night, he brought another coed to his room where he said a party was planned. There was no party, however, and Capp made an unsuccesful pass at the girl.

- Exodus From Town -

By the next morning, reports of the four incidents had reached the university administration and Dr. Rose sent Col. Lee to Capp's room. "He was asked to get and he did get out and went to Birmingham," Lee told us.

Asked why no charges were preferred against Capp, Dean Healy explained: "The young women were not physically harmed and we felt that the publicity and notoriety should be avoided."

Reached at his studio in Cambridge, Mass., Capp told my associate Brit Hume that the Alabama allegations made him sick and he would neither confirm nor deny them. Instead, he immediately boarded a plane and flew to Washington to discuss the matter with us.

In our office, he repeatedly declined to discuss the episode, claimng it made him ill. All he would say was: "I have never become involved with any student." Pressed, he finally listened to a review of the allegations and, when questioned about them specifically, denied them.

It gives us no pleasure to make these revelations about a man whose legendary "Li'l Abner" cartoon creations have amused millions of Americans for generations.

But Al Capp today is much more than a gifted cartoonist and a brilliant humorist. He is a major public figure, whose views reach and influence millions. He even seriously considered running against Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Therefore, we believe the public has a right to any information which may bear on his qualifications to speak, particularly when the incident involved is so obviously relevant to the selfsame subjects on which he has been holding forth.

A 1968 Li'l Abner strip

In a 2008 interview, Brit Hume told how some newspapers decided against publishing the above investigation, and how Capp unsuccesfully tried to cover it up:

BRIT HUME: ”The Post” – ”The Washington Post” didn’t run it. The Boston paper, whichever one we had then didn’t run it. A lot of papers didn’t run it.

BRIAN LAMB: A Chicago paper out there --

BRIT HUME: I don’t remember, but I can’t remember now. But it might be in the book, but ”The New York Post” ran it. We found that the Al Capp lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the ones that – the minute ”The New York Post” hit the newsstands up there, they were all bought up. So, he did everything he could to try to cover it. Now, one of the things – interesting things that happened was that the story ran in a little newspaper out in Wisconsin in Eau Claire, where there’s a branch of the University of Wisconsin.

It so happened at that very moment that a young woman had had a similar encounter with Mr. Capp out there and she like a number of women across the country, we later came to learn, was agonizing with the local prosecutor about what to do. He didn’t – he was indignant about what had happened and outraged, but there was a question of are you going to put this – her word against his testimony and he’s a famous guy. And you going to put her through that for the sake of something that she managed to wriggle out of anyway. And when that story hit, her resolve was – look, this is obviously happening elsewhere. We got to do this. So, he was charged out there. And an extradition measure was taken. And Al Capp was on the verge of being extradited to Wisconsin to stand charges of assault. And as – I don’t remember all the details, but I think he pleaded out and got it over with. And, basically, he was really never heard from again.

Al Capp ended up being charged with sodomy, attempted adultery and indecent exposure in 1971. Capp tried to blame this on the "revolutionary left" but in the end "as part of a plea agreement, Capp pleaded guilty to the charge of attempted adultery" (quote from Al Capp's Wikipedia page). He retired his Li'l Abner strip in 1977 for health reasons, and died in 1979.

A 1971 Li'l Abner Sunday page

Nevertheless, we know that it's not exactly true that Capp was "never heard from again". More than two dozen reprint volumes of his Li'l Abner daily strips were published by Kitchen Sink a couple of decades ago, and IDW's Library of American Comics is now reprinting the daily strips and the Sunday pages. His talent as a cartoonist and satirist is undeniable, and I'm a big fan of the 1940's episodes of the strip, where many believe Capp did some of his best work.

And there's more. Over at The Beat, one of the blogs about comics where an account of actress Goldie Hawn having a similar incident with Capp was reproduced, publisher and agent Denis Kitchen posted the following in the comments section:

Readers of Heidi’s column who are interested in Al Capp’s fascinating career and personal life (of which Goldie Hawn is but one scandal) will be happy to know that Michael Schumacher (Will Eisner, Alan Ginsberg and many other bios) and I (Art of Harvey Kurtzman, etc.) are hard at work collaborating on a biography of Al Capp. It’s coming in approximately one year from a major publisher. Official announcement will come from them.

Good news. Kitchen definitely has shown himself more than capable of assembling books about cartoonists (though this may be the first time he tackles a straight biography), so I'm looking forward to this upcoming book.

Hugo Pratt: Will Gould was my real teacher

2012-01-18T05:50:00.000-08:00

An interview with Hugo Pratt (originally published in 1988) was recently posted over at Ediciones de la Duendes's blog (part one, part two). The following exchange (translated from Spanish) caught my attention. Interviewer Germán Cáceres describes Pratt as a great artist in the comics medium, comparing him to Chester Gould.

Pratt replies:

HP: He narrated masterfully, but I prefer Will Gould, who has no relation to Dick Tracy's author. Will's line is more dynamic, in the thirties he launched the police comic strip Red Barry. Will Gould was the artist who had the most impact on me.

GC: I had supposed those [who had the greatest impact] were Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff. Will Gould's work isn't very well known.

HP: I admit Will Gould isn't a widespread comics artist, but he was my real teacher. Though of course Caniff with Terry and the Pirates had an influence on my style as well, and besides, I consider he's the greatest comic strip artist ever.

Image taken from ComicArtFans.

A Fantagraphics compilation from 1989 is still available, but the good news is that there are plans to do a more definitive edition of Will Gould's Red Barry. The first hint was a blog post from Dean Mullaney over at the Library of American Comics site, showing a Red Barry Sunday page waiting to be scanned:

And Dean Mullaney confirmed it last month, posting the following:

We're gathering all the source material for Red Barry with plans to present the hard-to-find Sundays and dailies in a complete two-volume set. As soon as we locate the final elusive dailies, we'll put it on the schedule.

More of Hugo Pratt's work, by the way, can be seen at the Corto Maltumblr.

R.I.P Jean Simek

2012-01-17T03:25:00.000-08:00

Roy Thomas reports the passing of letterer Jean Simek:

I'm sorry to have to report that I just learned, from her partner Tom, that Jean Simek passed away on Jan. 5, after a long illness in which her body had great difficulty absorbing nutrition, and after an operation or two. Jean was the daughter of veteran Marvel letterer Art Simek, who lettered most of the early Marvel comics in the 1960s. Both under an earlier married name and later under her own name, she was a letterer in her own right, both for Marvel and for DC. I hadn't spoken with her in a year or so, though we exchanged Christmas cards, and we kept discussing the interview I wanted someone to do with her about her own career and her father's. She had lots of her father's sports cartoons, etc. Perhaps in the near future I'll discuss getting some of those from Tom... but I don't want to bother him just now.

Jean Simek's credits can be found at the Grand Comics Database, both as Jean Izzo and as Jean Simek.

"Lost" 1958 Peanuts strip by Charles Schulz

2012-01-14T05:56:00.000-08:00

A rare find from Heritage's upcoming auctions, a special Peanuts page drawn by Charles Schulz for the July 22, 1958 issue of Look Magazine. It seems to be an original piece, instead of a reprint.

Something to include in an special "odds and ends" volume after Fantagraphics finishes reprinting the strip, perhaps? (By the way, Fantagraphics recently posted the cover of The Complete Peanuts: 1983-1984.)

Harlan Ellison on Howard Chaykin's "The Shadow"

2012-01-13T16:04:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, Warren Ellis casually mentioned that he'd been "Writing a blurb for the back cover of the forthcoming reprint of Howard Chaykin’s SHADOW comics series."

Today Dynamite Entertainment has made the official announcement, releasing some preview artwork along with an impressive amount of blurbs from notable comics industry figures. But one of the things that came to mind when I first read Ellis's blog post was the somewhat different reaction from people back in 1986, when Chaykin's The Shadow mini-series originally was published.

This is something that Matt Fraction maybe alludes to, when he writes: "IT’S TIME TO GET OFFENDED AGAIN." I'm thinking of Harlan Ellison's particularly memorable reaction.

Ellison is a big fan of the character in its original radio and pulp incarnations, even planning at some time (a few years before Chaykin did his version) to write a graphic novel featuring The Shadow. Michael Kaluta was going to be the artist (sample image above), with Fantagraphics publishing the book. For various reasons the graphic novel was never done, and the fact that Ellison and Fantagraphics were involved at the time in a years-long lawsuit against Michael Fleisher probably didn't help.

Anyhow, issue #108 of The Comics Journal includes a report of a radio interview with Frank Miller that Harlan Ellison conducted on March 14, 1986. The interview is mostly about Miller's Dark Knight, which Ellison praises and holds up as an example of updating an old character "in more adult terms". Ellison contrasts Miller's work with what he describes as the:

"loathsome Shadow revival that is being done by Howard Chaykin, which in my view is an absolute obscenity".

Adding later that Chaykin's series was:

"a really offensive, ugly, mean-spirited, violently pornographic piece of work".

Ellison also criticized what he described as "the starfucker syndrome", in which:

"the comics companies are giving total auteur freedom to certain people to create projects like the Dark Knight project, and yet some of them are turning out very, very sour. Some of them are going very, very wrong."

Issue #111 of the Journal has reports of three more Hour 25 radio shows from 1986, in which Ellison interviewed people such as Marv Wolfman, Steve Gerber, and Frank Miller. There is a quite interesting discussion about John Byrne's Man of Steel which you can read following the link, and also more interesting Ellison comments about Chaykin's Shadow:

Ellison referred to the Shadow as "beloved to people of my generation," but found Howard Chaykin's interpretation "vile and detestable." According to Ellison, Chaykin's Shadow is a "sexist pig who uses people, sacrifices people, hasn't one grain of decency in him. He's a psychopathic killer."

[...]

Ellison said he objected to Chaykin's killing off original Shadow characters and sidekicks. "At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" he asked.

(During the eighties Ellison frequently wrote and talked in public appearances about then-current comics, even writing an article for Playboy magazine in which he tried to summarize to a general audience how much comics had changed during the decade. I'm just mentioning this as an excuse to link to Gary Groth's 1989 editorial in which Groth responds to this article, denouncing Ellison's "intellectual charlatanism.")

Ellison is known for his ability to nurse a grudge, and here's one more example. In 2003, Michael Chabon edited McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, a collection of stories by various writers, with each story carrying an accompanying illustration by Howard Chaykin (who did his usual exemplary work). Well, each story save one. Here's a note Harlan Ellison posted on his forum at the time:

HARLAN ELLISON
- Saturday, February 22 2003 19:23:45

The reason my story in McSweeney's doesn't have an accompanying piece of art by Howard Chaykin -- as do the other stories in the issue -- is because I didn't want one. I wanted the marvelous color oil painting by my friend (and frequent Ellison-fiction illustrator) the phenomenal California artist, Kent Bash, that he did for this story-idea when I came up with it for the final issue of HARLAN ELLISON'S DREAM CORRIDOR. The illustration had to be done in black&white, so you cannot see how spectacular it is; but you'll see it when I get around to putting together that issue of DREAM CORRIDOR. What DOES piss me off, however, is among all the typos and amateur fuckups in McSweeney's #10 (which is incorrectly identified
as #11 on the table of contents) are two unacceptable, egregious demonstrations of sophomoric editing and amateur proofreading:

1) They dropped all the copyright notices, thereby forcing me and other writers to have to get letters of omission so we can register the stories with the Library of Congress;

2) The table of contents announces "all art in this issue by Howard Chaykin." Well, no, in fact; Kent Bash is an internationally-acclaimed artist, and however good or bad Howard Chaykin's little b&w cameos may be for McSweeney's purposes, the Bash painting is not comic-book art, it is a full visual interpretation of one of the punchlines of the story, and failure to acknowledge Kent REALLY and TRULY angers me.

Harlan Ellison

'Nuff said.

New Love and Rockets books announced

2012-01-12T16:40:00.000-08:00

As part of a celebration of Love and Rockets's 30th anniversary, Fantagraphics will be publishing the following two books. (Descriptions below taken from a message sent by Gary Groth to a comics scholars mailing list.)

Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting)

The Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting) contains three incredibly in-depth and candid interviews with creators Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez: one conducted by writer Neil Gaiman (Coraline); one conducted some six years into the comic’s run by longtime L&R publisher Gary Groth; and one conducted by the book’s author, spanning Gilbert’s, Jaime’s and Mario’s careers, and looking to the future of the ongoing series, with a follow-up conversation with Groth.

This book has foldout family trees for both Gilbert’s Palomar and Jaime’s Locas storylines; unpublished art; a character glossary (which is handy, considering that Gilbert alone has created 50+ characters!); highlights from the original series’ anarchic letters columns; timelines; and the most wide-ranging Hernandez Brothers bibliography ever compiled, including album and DVD covers, posters and more.

The obsessive-yet-accessible detail and high production values make it a must-have for comics collectors, scholars, libraries and old and new fans alike: for those new to the series, it will make jumping in seem less daunting. For longtime fans, it clears up confusion that even those devoted to the groundbreaking alternative comic over its 30-year run can experience, given the sheer amount of material and sophisticated storytelling techniques (such as flashbacks, flash forwards, elliptical narrative and magical realism).

The Love and Rockets Reader: From Hoppers to Palomar

The Love and Rockets Reader: From Hoppers to Palomar started as a series of blog posts attempting to answer the deceptively simple question: “what makes Love and Rockets so great?” Over the next six years, it quickly grew into a meticulously researched study containing in-depth analysis of and commentary on the series. Author Marc Sobel delves into the comics’ themes, symbols and influences, as well as the Hernandez Brothers’ artistic development.

Organized into seven main chapters, one for each of the first seven Love and Rockets trade paperback collections (representing the original Love and Rockets Vol. I), the book also includes: the comics’ origins in the Hernandez Brothers’ roots, such as their involvement in the Southern California punk scene, their adventures in self-publishing, and their vital partnership with Fantagraphics; an examination of the Hernandez Brothers’ ill-fated Mister X (a science-fiction series) collaboration; a review of Mario’s solo book, Brain Capers; and a paradigm-changing analysis of Gilbert’s vastly underappreciated erotic graphic novel, Birdland. As an “extra,” The Love and Rockets Reader also includes Jaime’s very first published work: the never-before-reprinted four-page story, “Another Time, Another Place,” from 1977.

An essential resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike, this book will enlighten and deepen even the most ardent fans' appreciation of this groundbreaking series.

Art Spiegelman video interview

2011-12-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

From the latest Angouleme Festival newsletter, here's a three-part video interview with Art Spiegelman, conducted by Jean-Luc Hees. I just noticed that you can listen to Spiegelman's answers in English via your left speaker, or to the French translation in the right one.

Also of interest: Tom Spurgeon's recent interview with Art Spiegelman over at The Comics Reporter.

Authors Coalition royalties

2011-11-29T09:59:00.000-08:00

Found the following via Twitter and through a message posted by Kurt Busiek. The Authors Coalition of America has a list of authors and illustrators who may be owed royalties from non-U.S. sources due to what they call "foreign reprographic (or photocopying)". There are several well-known names in the list, such as:

Sergio Aragonés
Kyle Baker
Robert Crumb
Steve Ditko
Colleen Doran
Gary Hallgren
Andy Kuhn
Mike Luckovich
Patrick McDonnell
Mike Mignola
Art Spiegelman

And there are even some names of deceased comics creators:

Lee Falk
Brant Parker (presumably the Wizard of Id artist?)
Gil Kane
Alex Schomburg
Joe Shuster
Rick Griffin

The site has the contact info and forms that authors need to fill in order to claim their royalties. I'm not sure how the whole setup works, but there's more information in the site's FAQ:

What is the Authors Coalition of America (ACA) and why are you sending me a check?

The Authors Coalition of America is a coalition of 22 U.S. author organizations that came together in 1994 to receive and distribute foreign reprographic (or photocopying) royalties. These royalties were non-title specific (authors unknown) and distributed by collective method to our Member Organizations to be used for the benefit of authors. In 2007, the Authors Coalition began receiving title-specific reprographic royalties for visual material authors. Under agreements with Reproduction Rights Organizations (RROs), the Authors Coalition is able to distribute these royalties to individual visual materials authors for photocopy use of graphic arts, illustrations and photographs outside the United States.

The check you received is for the portion of the RRO's distribution to Authors Coalition that is designated for you by the foreign collecting country.

Did the Authors Coalition authorize use of my work?

No. The Authors Coalition does not represent authors, does not license copyrighted works and did not authorize use of your work. We function strictly as a payment agent for RROs and other foreign collecting societies wishing to distribute reprographic royalty payments to authors.

If Authors Coalition did not authorize use of my work, and I did not authorize use of my work, was my work illegally copied?

Not necessarily. With few exceptions, a foreign RRO from which payment is being made collects license fees for photocopying under special legislation in its country that permits the use of U.S. works without authorization from the U.S. rightsholder. The laws of these countries include "statutory licenses" that give users the right to photocopy material on the condition that they report that usage and pay royalties to an RRO. Although the RRO in a particular country may not have received authorization from you or your agent to license your work, it will have collected photocopy license fees with full legal authority in its own country. Fees are collected for photocopying in schools, universities, businesses, research centers and elsewhere.

Artwork stolen from Joe Giella

2011-10-31T15:54:00.000-07:00

The following message was sent by Jim Amash to various mailing lists:

For Immediate Public Release,

A certain person Joe Giella trusted apparently stole a few pieces of original comic art from his house, mostly likely on Sept. 7 and Oct. 13 of this year. We want to get the word out so that anyone who may have already purchased this work or may be contacted about it will know it's considered stolen property, and hopefully will help get Joe's artwork back to him. A police report has been filed in the case, but spreading the word to the comics art community is absolutely vital. Here is a list of the stolen art:

Flash #144 "Menace of the Man Missile", pages 1 and 9. Pencils by Carmine Infantino.
Detective Comics #329 "Castle with Wall to Wall Danger" pages 7 and 8. Pencils by Carmine Infantino
Green Lantern/Green Arrow #107 cover. Pencils by Joe Staton.

This person is believed to have taken art from another comics art veteran, too. Anything you can do to spread the word would be very appreciated. Let's try to catch this thief.

-Jim Amash

[Artwork/bio at the top of this post taken from the National Cartoonists Society's webpage]

Lynda Barry interview on Late Night with David Letterman (video)

2011-10-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

I was reading this much linked-to Lynda Barry profile from the New York Times, and the article mentioned that she'd been a guest half a dozen times in David Letterman's show. It turns out that one of these interviews was uploaded to YouTube less than a week ago. The interview (ostensibly to promote Barry's book The Fun House) is from 1988, when she had recently moved to New York.

The first volume of a ten-volume set reprinting Lynda Barry's work, Blabber Blabber Blabber, will be published by Drawn & Quarterly in November.

UPDATE: Mike Lynch had already posted it.

Unpublished Superman story from 1944

2011-10-27T17:39:00.000-07:00

Looking at the original art for sale over at Heritage Comics I found the following: a complete (and previously unpublished) 12-page Superman story from 1944, "Supermite!", presumably written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster's studio. The pages can be found here.

Maybe not as exciting a find as the famous "K-Metal" story from 1940, but still an entertaining story featuring mad scientist Luthor and the classic Superman-Clark Kent-Lois Lane triangle. I don't know much about prices for original comic art, but some of the current bids seem to still be quite low. The next few weeks should let us know if these pages end up selling for a price as high as the price of Jerry Siegel's potential clone.

2011/10/28 update: A couple of details I didn't mention yesterday: Heritage's description mentions that the story came from the collection of Jack Schiff, and also that the late Richard Morrissey had identified the writer as Jerry Siegel (which would suggest that the story has been circulating in fandom for some time).

An amazing resource: Martin O'Hearn's blog

2011-10-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

Martin O'Hearn is a fan and historian who has been studying American comics for decades. I remember first hearing about him thanks to the late Rich Morrissey, who'd share O'Hearn's research with us over at the Grand Comics Database mailing lists, describing his capacity for identifying uncredited writers thanks to thorough and detailed examinations of their tendency to use certain words and patterns in their work, and by identifying their writing quirks in general. Several of the credits you see in the GCD today are due to Martin O'Hearn's research.

I had noticed a few months ago that he'd started posting comments in comic-related blogs, identifying uncredited writers and artists. But what I didn't know was that he'd started a blog for sharing his knowledge. He's been posting writer William Woolfolk's records, posting corrections to GCD credits, and even identifying a Jack Kirby story that has been miscredited for decades. Give his blog a look.

Publishing Updates, 2011/09/02

2011-09-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

More news about upcoming comics-related books:

I first read about this over at The Collected Comics Library, but now there is an official press release. Russ Cochran and Grant Geissman will be continuing the series of EC Archives, reprinting entire runs of EC titles in chronological order, that was interrupted some time ago (apparently due to Steve Geppi's financial problems). The first two volumes will be Haunt of Fear Vol. 1 (reprinting the first six issues), and Vault of Horror Vol. 2 (reprinting issues 7 to 12). Presumably there will be enough of an audience for both these recolored reprints and the upcoming Fantagraphics series of artist-focused EC volumes in black-and-white.

The MAD Fold-In Collection by Al Jaffee reprints in 4 volumes all of Jaffee's Fold-In pages from 1964 up to 2010 (found via Boing Boing). According to Chronicle Books' website, the collection will also include essays by Pete Docter, Jules Feiffer, Neil Genzlinger, and Jaffee himself. Looks like a nice addition to the previous Don Martin deluxe collection. (What other MAD artist would be a good candidate for one of these collections? I'm thinking a Wallace Wood volume could be quite welcome.)

Max and Hendrik Dorgathen poster

2011-09-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

Not strictly comics, but too nice-looking not to share: artists Max (Bardin the Superrealist) and Hendrik Dorgathen (Space Dog) collaborate on this poster for the 2011 Neotokyo Festival:

Publishing Updates, 2011/08/25

2011-08-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

News about upcoming comics-related books:

Now available: Skip Williamson's Spontaneous Combustion, his second autobiographical volume, which according to Jay Lynch covers "the sordid underbelly of the underground comix years" (link found via Lynch's Facebook page).

The Someday Funnies, the until-now unpublished anthology of 1970's comics edited by Michel Choquette is still on track, and cartoonist Bado has some preview pages to prove it, including work by Sergio Aragonés, Don Martin, and Gahan Wilson. See also this earlier preview, with pages by Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, and Bill Griffith. This is a project I've been wanting to see ever since Bob Levin revealed its history in the pages of The Comics Journal #299.

The Cisco Kid - The Complete Dailies will be published by Charles Pelto's Classic Comic Press (the same publisher of other fine strips such as Mary Perkins On Stage, The Heart of Juliet Jones, and Big Ben Bolt), featuring writing by Rod Reed and the wonderful artwork of José Luis Salinas. Pelto has done a good work of establishing a marketplace niche for these continuity-driven strips that may not rank as high as the work of masters like Caniff, Herriman, or Foster, but which still are well worth preserving and reading.

Over at the Comic Strip Classics mailing list, Pelto has written:

Volume 1 includes an introduction from Sergio Aragones, a piece by Dennis Wilcutt, and a brief overview of the Cisco Kid in various formats - tv, movies, etc. I'm also reprinting O Henry's The Caballero's Way (the orginal appearance of Cisco from O Henry's Heart of the West).

Then each volume will cover a different aspect of the Cisco legacy - Volume 2 will cover the movies, Volume 3 - the Radio Shows, etc. At one point we'll cover the Dell Comics and I promise to reprint all those covers in glorious color!!!!

"Imagine Chris Ware doing the Fantastic Four"

2011-08-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

Two things that came to mind after reading Grant Morrison's comments about Chris Ware's work in a recent Rolling Stone interview.

First, Grant Morrison's website, more than 10 years ago:

(I remember showing the above quote to a friend at the time. His response: "Yeah, right.")

And, from a 1999 interview with Grant Morrison:

I really like Chris Ware formally, he’s formally brilliant. The black humour is at a pitch where I can enjoy it just for the sheer nastiness of it, the black depth of it. But what worries me is that there’s so many of those American guys - and I have this problem with the Fantagraphics books, not all of them, but most of them - is that there’s a lot of really bad ones, I think.

They live in the most privileged, the most wonderful country in the world, and they keep writing about how shitty their lives are, and I’m sorry, I come from Scotland, I come from a place where no one’s got work, no one’s got money, and I’m reading these Americans in California telling me that life is shit, and it’s like, Get Therapy, y’know, I don’t want to read your comics, ‘cos you’re boring bastards. And there’s nothing fun, there’s nothing empowering or useful in that. You know, I love Dan Clowes’ stuff, when he was doing Velvet Glove, and Ghost World, but when he writes that stuff, this is who I hate, because Dan Clowes walks in and says “I hate that kid over there because she’s got a big arse, and I hate that one... it’s like, shut up, shut the fuck up, keep it to yourself, that means nothing to me, it’s just attacking humanity for no good reason, do something. And the good thing about him is, he does, but a lot of these Fantagraphics guys do nothing but “I hate this!”, nihilistic, pointless... But like I say, these guys are living in California...

This time, Morrison's comments have generated attention from places such as The Comics Journal and The Beat. I don't agree with his comments about Ware or Fantagraphics cartoonists in general, but I can understand his point of view. (Also, the quotes above suggest that he's been aware of Ware's work for some time. I assume he arrived to that conclusion after reading the work, at least.)

To be honest, I'm much more disappointed by his cavalier dismissal of Jerry Siegel's and Joe Shuster's treatment by DC, as Abhay Khosla and Paul Gravett pointed out a month ago. To say that corporations screwing young creators is something natural ("it's kind of the world") and something that he can't possibly have an opinion about (because he "wasn't around" at the time) strikes me as much more nihilistic than anything Chris Ware or Daniel Clowes have published in their work.

Jean Tabary 1930-2011

2011-08-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.actuabd.com/Mort-de-Jean-Tabary-le-dessinateur

Update: Tom Spurgeon posts an obituary.

Ariel Dorfman on Action Comics #900

2011-05-04T17:56:00.001-07:00

Noted comic-book critic Ariel Dorfman, co-author of How to Read Donald Duck, has weighed in on the Action Comics #900 controversy.

In an article written for Spanish newspaper El País, he ties Superman's recent announcement of his intention to renounce his U.S. citizenship with recent events regarding Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden. A brief summary for non-Spanish speakers:

Dorfman summarizes for his readers the Superman backup story from Action Comics #900 (in which the Kansas-raised character turns his back on his adopted country) as well as the outraged reactions from conservative U.S. bloggers, mentioning that this is being seen by some as further sign of the decadence of the U.S.A.

Even though Obama is more of a Spider-Man fan, Dorfman believes that somebody must have drawn this story to the U.S. president's attention. Realizing the danger of being accused by Republicans of his having "lost" Superman to anti-U.S. interests (in the same way Cuba and Vietnam were lost), Obama must have decided to kill Osama Bin Laden in order to show everybody that America didn't need superpowered beings to defend itself.

Dorfman goes on to point that Obama still had one further point to address: the doubts regarding the accusations that he, like Superman, was an illegal alien, brought to the U.S. by his Kansas-born mother (noting the "kafkanian letter K" coincidence of the initial letter shared by Kenya, Krypton, and Kansas). By providing proof of his birth certificate, he proved that he was a legitimate president, which in turn allowed him to eliminate the United States' number one enemy.

The article ends with Dorfman's suggestion that Obama and Superman join forces in order to remove all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Dorfman concludes:

"It would be nice to read this in the next adventures of the Man of Steel, it would be encouraging to have Obama and Superman -- both with their origins in Kansas, both belittled for being 'aliens' -- collaborate in creating at least a small oasis of peace in a world in which unfortunately both truth and justice are now in short supply."

DC's blog in the meantime is amusing for two things: it's showing me on the left side of the screen an ad for a Thor computer game, and it continues to be remarkably free of any mention of the controversial Action Comics #900 backup story.

Action Comics #900

2011-04-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

After Rich Johnston correctly pointed out that Action Comics #900 was a "Fox News Story Waiting to Happen", there have been several reactions to the story in which Superman renounces his U.S. citizenship.

What I find more amusing about this is how unprepared DC was for all the media attention. Unlike Marvel, which for the most part manages to have news media focus on the "news" Marvel want them to publicize, DC clearly had no idea that this story would have repercussions.

Evidence? Well, how about checking DC's blog? There's an entry posted one day after the comic came out, which mentions an "earth-shaking twist" contained in the comic and warns us of "spoilers" after the jump.

The big reveal? An image showing several Superman look-a-likes about to battle four versions of Doomsday, a character who was popular in 1992 (back when DC knew more about how to generate media attention). Pretty exciting, eh? This is what DC chose to publicize on their blog after the comic came out.

There will be many people picking up copies of Action Comics #900, but if any of these new readers decides to stick around for next month's issues of Superman and Action, hoping to see more about Superman's decision to renounce his American citizenship, I have the feeling they'll be severely disappointed.

Jim Shooter on Kirby's artwork

2011-04-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

Over at his blog, Jim Shooter has posted his version of the story about Jack Kirby's struggles against Marvel in order to get his artwork back. This is a controversial issue even today since in the end Kirby didn't get back all of his artwork (many of his pages were stolen or lost).

The Kirby family tried recently to sue Marvel and claim damages for the lost artwork, but that particular claim was dismissed. However, their attempt to terminate Marvel's copyrights on Kirby-created work still proceeds. For more about this, check Daniel Best's blog.

Shooter's post is an updated version of something he posted back in December 1998, in the http://www.comicbookresources.com/ message boards, a copy of which I saved back then. Here's his original post (which I haven't altered in any way):

Before the mid-70's, no one got artwork returned. Actually, few cared about it. As the collector market grew stronger, and the artwork became valuable, artists started caring.

By the time I became editor in chief at Marvel in 1978 (and therefore in a position to have a voice in the management), both Marvel and DC had instituted artwork return policies. Marvel's, set up by Roy Thomas, gave writers a share of the pages. Go figure. As soon as I could, I changed that --- one reason why a few writers like Moench and Thomas didn't like me. Tough.

Kirby worked for Marvel during that period and had artwork returned to him just like everybody else. The dispute arose over the old art from before the return plan was instituted, which was in a warehouse.

I was on the side of Kirby and all the other old artists. I tried to convince Marvel's brass to return the old artwork. There were many reasons cited bythe corporate counsel, financial officer, etc., why this was a problem --i.e., the art could be considered an asset, and couldn't be disposed of with no benefit to the stockholders of a publicly traded company, tax issues, and lots of other nonsense.

Over time, I successfully overcame those objections, and got approval from the board to return the old artwork. Kirby's contract had expired at about the same time, and he'd left. As soon as he'd left, he sued Marvel for ownership of the characters he'd had a hand in creating. The return of the artwork was one aspect of that case.

Because he was suing Marvel, the lawyers felt that the artwork couldn't be returned -- it's complicated, but doing so could have tended to support his claims. In fact, they wouldn't let me return artwork to anyone while the case was pending. Imagine the frustration of guys like the Buscemas and Joe Sinnott.

The legal sparring went on for a long time. Though it was a complex case about who owned the characters, the way it was pitched to the public bytheirside was that Marvel, and in particular, JIM SHOOTER wouldn't give Kirby his artwork back. Unwilling to badmouth a founding father, I said nothing.

Eventually, I convinced the lawyers that it wouldn't compromise the case if other artists got their art back, and I was allowed to return everyone's but Kirby's.

The Kirby case ended when, in discovery, Marvel produced a number of documents, including several signed with Marvel parent Cadence Industries' predecessor proving that Kirby had specifically agreed several times, in exchange for compensation (beyond the original payment for the work) that Marvel owned the work -- art, characters, everything. One document specifically listed every story Kirby had ever done -- part of the proof Martin Goodman had been required to provide to show that he'd owned what he wasselling when he sold Marvel to Cadence, I believe. Kirby's lawyers, who were apparently unaware of the existence of these documents, immediately apologized (!) and dropped the suit.

Marvel's lawyers would have shown the documents earlier, but never dreamed that the other side wasn't aware of them.

The only remaining thing was returning the artwork. Kirby then demanded as a condition of accepting the artwork (!) that he must be given sole credit as creator on all the characters he'd co-created with Stan, and that Stan must be given no credit whatsoever. Kirby also insisted that he'd created Spider-Man.

I talked to Jack and convinced him that Stan should be allowed some credit, and that Stan and Ditko created the Spider-Man that was actually used (Kirby had done a sketch of a version that was rejected).

And finally, Kirby got his artwork back.

During these years, my relationship with the corporate bosses had gone downhill. They were trying to sell Marvel, and I found some of their dealings injurious to the creators and damaging to the company's future. I fought every step of the way.

Because the board was increasingly at war with me, they were only too happy to let the blame for the Kirby mess stick to me, and they did everything else they could to damage me. Why? Because at the point this all began, they felt that if I left a lot of creative people would leave with me. They did a good job of undercutting me, though, and by the time I left, everything but the Challenger disaster was my fault. People threw parties.

I'm no good at political infighting. My battles with top management took place behind closed doors, and while I'm cashing somebody's paychecks, I don't feel that I should be bad mouthing them in public. By the time I wasn't on the payroll anymore, no one wanted to hear my side.

Whatever.

Jim Shooter

It's interesting to compare Shooter's account(s) to The Comics Journal's version. The latter is interesting since it makes no mention of Kirby suing Marvel. It also mentions some interesting details that Shooter omits, such as that in 1984 Marvel was only able to account for 88 (!) pages of Kirby artwork, out of a total of more than 8000 pages that he produced. Kirby was being asked to sign a four-page document in order to get his 88 pages back, with no guarantee of getting more pages, and under conditions that were much more restrictive than the ones that other Marvel artists were being asked to submit.

Shooter doesn't mention the following either (quoted from the Journal's article):

Kirby received the form in August of 1984 and, over the months that followed, he attempted to negotiate some form of compromise with Marvel Editor in Chief Jim Shooter, asking that a more thorough list be compiled of the original Kirby art in Marvel's possession and offering to send a representative to assist the company in cataloging the materials. Shooter refused all such requests, explaining in a Jan. 25 letter to Kirby that it would be "unfair" to single Kirby's art out for special treatment -- though he apparently saw nothing unfair in devising a release form that targeted Kirby exclusively. Marvel's position remained firm that the artist must sign the four-page document in its entirety or he would receive no art back.

One thing I find strange about Shooter's version of events is his statement that Kirby's lawyers "dropped the suit" once Marvel showed them that they had documents in which Kirby had signed away his rights. This doesn't take into account that the existence of these documents was more or less well-known at the time.

Transcripts from a panel from the 1986 U.K. Comic Art Convention as published in The Comics Journal #114 show Gary Groth asking the very reasonable question: if Kirby had effectively signed away his rights (something mentioned in public by Marvel staffers such as Tom DeFalco), why were Marvel asking him to sign them away one more time (as a condition for getting his artwork back)? Shooter doesn't answer this, and in his version Kirby's lawyers were so surprised by the existence of these documents that they even apologized to Marvel.

The Journal article also mentions that Kirby's lawyers had made claims of copyright ownership, but there are no mentions of a lawsuit against Marvel. Back when Shooter posted his original version of the article, I decided to ask him about this discrepancy:

I've read other accounts of the Marvel/Kirby dispute, and they've clearly stated that Kirby never sued Marvel. He wasn't asking for ownership of the characters, he only wanted the art back.

According to you, when did Kirby sue Marvel? Are there any other sources we could check in order to confirm that Kirby sued Marvel?

Thanks,

Rodrigo Baeza

Shooter's reply was as follows (parts of this reply were incorporated in his 2011 post):

Dear Rodrigo,

Kirby wanted ownership of the characters. He framed his demands for the return of the artwork in such a way that to do so would be a tacit admission by Marvel that it was "his" art, i.e., he owned the underlying rights, and therefore the characters.

It is my understanding that Kirby's lawyers actually filed suit against Marvel, which is what triggered the release of documents to Kirby's lawyers, which is what prompted them to capitulate.

My recollection is supported by a copy of a letter in my possession, dated Aug. 5, 1986, from Kirby's lawyer, Mr. Paul S. Levine, Esq.,of Stephen F. Rohde, P.C., to Marvel's lawyer, Mr. Stuart J. Sinder, Esq., of Kenyon and Kenyon. This letter refers to the matter as "Kirby v. Marvel Comics."

I also have copies of several letters from Sinder to Levine written around the same time referring to the matter in similar fashion. Earlier correspondence was written under the heading: "RE: Kirby."

Whether the suit was filed, not filed, or filed and withdrawn due to the eleventh hour revelations by Marvel is minutia. As I said, I was given to understand that a suit was filed. That technicality notwithstanding, this much is well known and well documented: starting, as most do, with a period of threats and legal maneuvering, in 1978 the Kirby side began an aggressive legal and PR attack on Marvel that ended (or lessened somewhat) in mid-1986 when the matter was settled.

As editor in chief, I was certainly kept apprised of significant developments, but I wasn't privy to every detail of the process. I was occasionally called upon to provide information, such as the inventory of Kirby art in Marvel's possession. This should have fallen to the office management department, which ran the warehouse, but my people could recognize Kirby work and theirs couldn't.

About a dozen times, I requested an audience with the upper management and/or lawyers to argue in favor of generousity toward Kirby. One thing I proposed was offering a settlement which would include Kirby (and all other founding fathers) in the character-creator incentive I'd established for current Marvel creators. This incentive was a profit sharing plan that paid a royalty for ALL uses of a character. It works like partial ownership. I asked for it to be retroactive to the date the plan had been installed. Retroactive payments of any kind beyond that date had been previously, adamantly ruled out by management. As it turned out, my more modest plan was ruled out too. Louise Simonson might remember this. I seem to recall discussing it with her.

The fact is, though, I fought for the interests of Kirby (and Ditko, and Heck,and Cockrum, and Ayers, and Sinnott, and every other creator) to the best of my ability. As an employee, I didn't have the option of publicly bad-mouthing Marvel management decisions.

Kirby himself seemed to know that I wasn't the enemy. He was always friendly to me, always happy to see me, and always a gentleman.

After Kirby agreed to the final phase of the settlement, which I represented to him at the San Diego Con in 1986, I asked Jack and Roz to come to the Marvel 25th Anniversary Party as a personal favor to me. Roz was reluctant,but, indeed, that evening they showed up. Stan and I spent a good while chatting with them.

A huge picture of Cap, drawn and inscribed by Jack: "To Jim -- a good friend," is one of my most cherished possessions.

Anyway...

The bottom line is that the Kirby action against Marvel was real and significant whether or not the complaint was filed. I have represented it accurately. It did no one any good, certainly not me. To this day, people use my supposed roleas mastermind of the evil scheme to deny Kirby his artwork as the basis for attacking me. Ask Joe Sinnott how hard I worked to get artwork returned to the older artists. People who have been conditioned to assume the worst possible motive for anything I did or do never seem to question the motives of my detractors.

Jim Shooter

In this reply Shooter backtracks a little, and tries to lessen the importance of his earlier statement (whether the suit was filed or not is, in his words, "minutia"). The above exchange was discussed at the time on the now-defunct Kirby-l mailing list. Mark Evanier posted the following on December 29, 1998, in which he disagreed with Shooter's version but in which he agreed with him that it was inaccurate to portray Shooter as the sole villain:

Regarding Shooter's version of the events...

I really don't have the patience to get into a point-by-point refutation of the whole situation at this time. But Jack Kirby never sued Marvel. Shooter says he did, then he backs off that claim and says, in effect, "Well, maybe the suit was never filed, but that's not important." Obviously, there is a big difference there. Yes, Jack's lawyer occasionally threatened to sue Marvel, usually in response to a similiar threat from Marvel to sue Kirby. But it would be inaccurate to say that Marvel was actually suing Jack, just as it is inaccurate to say that Jack was actually suing Marvel.

I have copies of all (I think) the correspondence between the two sides, as well as Kirby's lawyer's notes on the matter. If you look at it in its totality, and in sequence, it lays out a very different picture than Shooter paints.

I will say that I think it's a bum rap to give Jim Shooter the blame for Kirby's art not being returned. As far as I can see, he had very little to do with that situation and probably did, at some point, try very hard to get Jack's art sent back to him, if only to abate a colossal embarrassment to the company. But his version of who did what and why does not correspond to my understanding.

In early 1999, after a software glitch at http://www.comicbookresources.com/ deleted the original postings (luckily, I'd saved copies of them), Shooter decided to post an updated version. I won't quote it in its entirety, but I was amused at the time by the fact that he'd changed some of his wording (saying for example "Because he was threatening to sue Marvel" instead of saying "because he was suing Marvel"). He also added the following note at the end:

That's the truth, the whole truth, or at least an accurate capsule description thereof, and nothing but the truth.

In a case of history repeating itself, Shooter's claims have been questioned again, and a follow-up article has been posted. In it Shooter doesn't go into much detail about the lawsuit (or lack thereof), preferring to concentrate on the way he has (in his opinion) been unfairly treated all this time. I'm glad to see he's once again posting his version of events and willing to engage in a dialogue with readers, but I still believe his version of events isn't "the whole truth", for the reasons explained above.

Coober Skeber

2010-11-14T14:55:00.000-08:00

The story behind Coober Skeber 2: Marvel Benefit Issue has been recently covered at the Comics Comics blog. I probably became aware of this anthology of short stories featuring Marvel characters as done by alt comix creators over at the late comix@ mailing list. I was able to buy a copy around 1998 at Montreal's Librairie Astro for 5 Canadian dollars, I believe. (I was in Montreal for a business trip, but I managed to make time for visiting the local comic stores, including the now-defunct La Mouette, one of the classiest comics stores I've visited.)

Coober Skeber paved the way for DC's two Bizarro Comics anthologies and, of course, the more recent Strange Tales series that have been published by Marvel. But despite these recent attempts at doing something similar, there is still something unique about this small artifact, printed in black-and-white, and featuring artwork done by young creators riffing on characters such as Deathlok, Spider-Woman, and Devil Dinosaur. I remember bringing back home several comics thanks to that Montreal trip (Chaland books, issues of L'Association's Lapin, Steve Canyon reprints, and other stuff), but Coober Skeber was certainly one of the most memorable.

The original comic may be difficult to find these days, but it has (recently?) been scanned and made available among all the scans of new comics that appear each week. The download link is here, so if you haven't seen the book before now there's a chance to enjoy it in its entirety.

Steve Rude update

2010-11-12T02:27:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, Steve Rude's friends and fans helped publicize a series of auctions to help Rude prevent the loss of his home. Rude's latest newsletter brings the following good news:

Well, it's nice to know we still have a nice house to live in.

In fact, thanks to this amazing "save the house" fundraiser you contributed to, we were even able to order a few extra art supplies for the Dude. Perhaps the most shocking of all--we may have enough left over to supplement the Sillies Emergency Diaper Fund. Yes, they still have their accidents.

When I saw the bread coming in after Gino made her announcement (this was unbeknownst to the oblivious Dude), I was, and still am, in a mild state of stupefication. The outpouring of generosity was clearly far beyond what Gino and I could've asked for. Your contributions poured in from all corners of our planet; the sizeable backstock of comics and Dude related "higher reading paraphernalia" were ordered by the spit-load; and Erik Larson [sic] bought his complete Next Nexus 3 issue!

All said, we saved the house.

Mattotti illustrates Lou Reed's "The Raven"

2010-11-11T16:00:00.000-08:00

An edition of Lou Reed's The Raven (based on his 2003 record) illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti has been recently released in Europe. And it seems an English-language edition will be available from Fantagraphics next year.

The story behind the book: in an article published in publico.es, Mattotti tells how Lou Reed phoned him a couple of years ago, telling him he loved his Jekyll and Hyde book and that he wanted him to illustrate Reed's book. It seems Reed and Art Spiegelman share the same literary agent, and that Spiegelman pointed Reed in Mattotti's direction.

All of the above came to my attention when I stumbled upon a news account about Reed having fallen asleep during a presentation of the book (while Mattotti was speaking). Here's hoping the book comes out at the scheduled date, despite the .. er ... skepticism of some regarding the publisher's publication dates.

A PDF preview of the Spanish-language edition can be downloaded here.

Dot & Dash

2010-11-09T14:42:00.000-08:00

From the Spanish blog La Cárcel de Papel comes news that Cliff Sterrett's Dot & Dash strip (a "topper" strip that ran on the same page as Sterrett's Polly and Her Pals between 1926 and 1928) has been reprinted by Portuguese publisher Manuel Caldas.

(Shown above: an example of how both strips looked together on the same newspaper page. The upcoming IDW book should reprint the pages in this format.)

This is a 64-page book with an introduction by Domingos Isabelinho. Caldas is a publisher known for the quality of his archival projects, and this new book shouldn't disappoint. Samples from the book can be seen at La Cárcel de Papel.

Caldas is also reprinting Warren Tufts's Lance in Portuguese and Spanish editions. Samples of the strips can be seen at http://lance-by-tufts.blogspot.com/.

What's missing from this book?

2010-11-05T15:15:00.000-07:00

I just received a copy of the new Adventures of Superboy hardcover, reprinting stories published between 1945 and 1947. I look forward to reading this soon, but in the meantime I made a quick checklist of what is and isn't included in this volume.

New cover by Michael Cho? Check
The Superboy stories from More Fun Comics #101 to #107, and Adventure Comics #103 to #121? Check
Covers to the original issues? Most of them. (I assume all covers featuring Superboy were included, which sounds reasonable.)
Credits for writers and artists of each story or cover? Check
Credit for the editor of the original stories? Check (Jack Schiff, in case you were wondering)
Some sort of introduction or article describing the origin of the character or the contents of the book? No
Text at the beginning of the book, or the indicia, or the contents page or anywhere else saying "Superboy created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND

Gary Friedrich loses Ghost Rider lawsuit

2010-06-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

Back in 2007, Gary Friedrich sued Marvel and other companies for copyright infringement regarding the use of the Marvel character, Ghost Rider, in different media. Basically, he claimed that the copyright to the character and his first appearances had reverted to him in the year 2001. A check through recent filings reveals that Friedrich (or more accurately, "Gary Friedrich Enterprises, LLC", a Friedrich-created company to which he transferred his copyrights) has lost his lawsuit, since Marvel and the other defendants' motion to dismiss has been granted.

A year ago, Judge James C. Francis recommended the dismissal of Friedrich's claims (the link requires free registration), indicating that the 1976 Copyright Act (which specifies stricter terms regarding work-for-hire creations) should apply to this case, rather than the 1909 Copyright Act as Friedrich's lawyers had claimed (which would have presumably allowed Friedrich to renew the copyright 28 years after the character's original appearance in 1972).

A more recent filing by Judge Barbara S. Jones from last month confirms Judge Francis's "R&R" (Report and Recommendation), dismissing Friedrich's objections to it:

"For the following reasons, the Court adopts the R&R, overrules Plaintiffs' Objections, and GRANTS Defendants' Motion to Dismiss."

An examination of the actual legal reasoning behind this decision is frankly beyond my ability. Unlike the documents related to the Siegel family's claims to the Superman copyrights, these documents don't reveal any details about how specific comic-book industries conducted their business or interacted with creators. Marvel and the film, toy, and gaming companies involved in the lawsuit were able to dismiss the suit without there being any need for the judges to go into this detail.

All of the above is very disappointing for those of us who would like to see creators like Friedrich get a fairer share of the profits generated by their creations. There are rumors indicating that Friedrich may have settled out of court; I hope that's the case but I'm not very optimistic.

Missing "Our Gang" page found

2010-02-03T16:59:00.000-08:00

Some years ago, I reviewed the second of Walt Kelly's Our Gang volumes published by Fantagraphics. Back then I'd noticed something strange in the second story reprinted in that book:

There's a strange transition between pages 44 and 45 of this edition: in the last panel of page 44 one sees the soldiers preparing to escape from their hideout, without knowing that they are being watched by the kids's friend, Captain Dan, who's holding a rifle. [...]

In the next page, we're in a completely different scene, with Froggy telling the other kids: "So I showed the cap'n how to aim it an' told him the exact pusychological [sic] time to fire an' -". The implication is clear (the Captain shot the Japanese while they were trying to escape), but the transition is a bit too sudden. The episode as reprinted in this volume is only 11 pages long, while the two previous episodes and the very next episode have 12 pages each. My first thought was that Fantagraphics may have accidentally skipped a page, but a likelier explanation could be that Kelly's editors decided to drop the page in which we see the Japanese soldiers being shot, figuring that such a thing might have been too strong for a children's comic, war or no war.

As it turns out, the simplest explanation was the correct one: this edition is missing a page that was included in the story's original appearance in Our Gang Comics #11. Since this issue was scanned some months ago, I'm able to include the original page (scanned from microfiche, so the quality isn't that good) here:

So there you have it, the original page in its uncensored glory. Hopefully this will be included in future printings of Fantagraphics's series.

Frank Miller and the Friends of Abe

2009-10-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

Not really about comics:

Finding through Sean Collins's blog (via) that Frank Miller was posting on the comments thread of Victor Davis Hanson's blog, I decided to look for more Miller posts at that site. Miller has apparently been sporadically posting over there for at least a year and a half, and I thought that a selection of his most noteworthy posts might be of interest, for a look at his thoughts about Hollywood, politics, and heroes.

Posted April 20, 2008:

Professor Hanson,

Your comments about movie-making and finding the right actor to portray a hero strike a loud chord with this director.

I was insistent, through the casting of my new movie, THE SPIRIT, to find a lesser known actor, so that the audience would, as they did with Richard Donner’s wonderful SUPERMAN and his perfect choice of then-unknown Christopher Reeve as the Man Of Steel, see the Spirit as the Spirit, not as a vehicle for an established star.

It wasn’t easy to find my hero. Dozens were auditioned. I learned that while Hollywood produces many skilled male actors, it produces very few men.

Gabriel Macht emerged as a matinee-idol dream of a hero, and he and I worked very closely for many months as he crafted his part.

So it was difficult to cast the part. But I still believe the fault lies not with the acting talent available, but rather with movie-makers’ intent. Look around: modern Bogarts like Bruce Willis crave good, heroic roles. Clive Owen brings back the verve of Sean Connery, adding his own Chandleresque twist to the job. Mickey Rourke is certainly a tragic presence–and an heroic one–worthy of the best comparisons with Jack Palance, in Rourke’s performance in my SIN CITY. And Gerry Butler in 300 would certainly put the great Charlton Heston to the test.

Add to that Matt Damon in the BOURNE series, and Brad Pitt whenever they let him show what he can do, and, though they are few, I argue that the talent is there.

To mangle the words of the Bard, the fault lies not in our stars, but in our studios.

FM

Posted September 30, 2008:

Should Obama be elected, sad indeed though I will be, and horrible for my country this will be, I will remember my mother’s wise words: “We’ll still be America.”

This patriot takes some comfort in that.

FM

A couple of months later he's more optimistic:

Posted November 19, 2008:

Call me crazy, call me irresponsible, but, though I opposed his candidacy, I suspect President Obama will turn out to be a rather moderate president. The Presidency is not a kingship, and it is informed by forces and events that are unexpected.

The anti-Obama hysteria is already smelling like the toxic waste thrown at George W.

Let’s see what the man does.

FM

Posted November 22, 2008:

McCarthyism?

Please. McCarthy lost. The socialists won. That is so evident it is painful to behold.

Meanwhile, I challenge our correspondents to drop their fake names and stand for who they are. STATE YOUR REAL NAMES!

Or be branded, properly, as cowards.

FM

(He goes on ranting against anonymous commenters for several more posts during that thread.)

And the latest post from a few days ago:

As usual, I concur with your sentiment, and share much of your taste (just watched ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA for the umpteenth time–what a tonic!), but I think that you’re unaware of the quiet struggle ongoing in entertainment.

The acting talent is there in abundance, though frequently misdirected, poorly scripted, and dismissed or downright condemned by critics. Given the proper opportunity, I’d put Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Daniel Craig, Gary Sinise, Matt Damon, Samuel Jackson, Harrison Ford and others up against the stars of old. I’d likewise mention two actors in particularly with whom I’ve had the pleasure to work: Gabriel Macht and Gerard Butler. No nasal, spoiled-by-spending-their-lives-sitting-by-the-swimming-pool spoiled-brat conceit there.

“He is the hero; he is everything,” wrote Raymond Chandler. In film, a hero is a construct in the best sense of the word. The heroic actor is, of course, the sine qua non of any such effort. But whatever his talents and inherent dramatic virtue, the heroic actor is hobbled by an anti-heroic script, director, or studio. Women? You probably haven’t heard of Carla Gugino, but should her talent be unleashed, she’d give Bettte Davis a run for her money. Take a good look at Hilary Swank in MILLION DOLLAR BABY, and see what she can do–if allowed.

Many in Hollywood still whine about “The McCarthy Era,” which is ironic, given that McCarthy lost and the Left won. So the pervading atmosphere is at direct odds with any attempt at heroic drama. In response, a fast-growing group called FRIENDS OF ABE has taken shape in hope of reclaiming heroism–and patriotism–to the screen. Then next time we’re both in LA, I’d love to take you to one of their lunches or dinners. I think you’d find it encouraging, if not inspiring.

FM

The "Friends of Abe" group that Miller mentions at the end is (according to the Washington Times) a group of politically conservative Hollywood figures apparently trying to do something against what they perceive as a Hollywood bias in favor of liberalism (also described in the article as a support group for industry figures allegedly ostracized for espousing conversative values). Miller's participation in this group shouldn't come as a surprise, but it's still interesting to see.

Review: Two Steve Ditko Comics

2009-10-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

I've known for some time that Steve Ditko and Robin Snyder have been publishing new Ditko comics over the past few years, but it became harder for me to buy these comics once they stopped being listed in the Diamond catalog. It seems the only way to get them now is through mail order or at one of the few comic-book stores that carry them.

So during a visit to New York a few months ago, one of the first things I did was to head over to Jim Hanley's Universe where I knew these comics would be stocked. I ended up buying four of them:

Steve Ditko's 32-Page Package ("Tsk! Tsk") (2000), a collection of illustrated essays.
The Avenging Mind (April 2008), a collection of (mostly) text pieces dealing with topics such as current Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, Martin Goodman, and examinations of what it means to "create" something (with special attention given to Stan Lee's various and contradictory accounts of his and Ditko's role in the creation of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange).
...Ditko Continued... (January 2009)
Oh, No! Not Again, Ditko! (March 2009)

It's the last two I'm interested in reviewing here; both are 32-page black-and-white comics featuring mostly stories told in a traditional comics format, along with some illustrated editorials or examinations of the ideas that Ditko's traditionally been concerned with.

It makes sense to review these two together, Ditko has this odd habit of splitting stories between books, publishing for example the first four pages of a story in ...Ditko Continued... and then publishing the conclusion (pages 5 to 8) in Oh, No! Not Again, Ditko! (I don't find serialization by itself to be odd, it's the brevity of each installment that makes me wonder why couldn't each story be published complete in a single comic.) Also, some stories in ...Ditko Continued... are conclusions to stories apparently originally began in Ditko, etc..., a comic I didn't find at Jim Hanley's store.

Reading the comics, one thing that immediately stands out is the minimalistic approach to storytelling that Ditko uses. Each panel contains the minimal information needed to carry the story and explain the motivation for each character. One gets the impression that complete sentences are barely used here, the dialog frequently consists of only fragments of sentences or simple descriptions of actions (some examples of all the dialog featured in three single panels from different stories: "...try a long shot...", "...a drink, relax... count my earnings...", "that's it... hear voices..."). The artwork is also quite clear, some pages are elegantly designed, but there's little unnecessary detail in them.

It's as if Ditko at this point didn't feel the need to bother with all the trappings of a standard "good vs. evil" story (or in many cases, "evil hoist by its own petard" story); there are no captions, no unnecessary supporting characters, very few backgrounds, no effort (as in traditional superhero comics) at creating an unbelievable situation and then trying to convince us of its believability through repetition and the gradual accumulation of details. All that stuff would interfere with the message, with the point of the story.

In a similar fashion, characters either have no name, or just the briefest of names needed to identify them. Ditko's new hero is simply called "The Hero", another one is just called "The Cape" (and he consists of just that, a floating cape; no face, no body). Villains are called "The Fist" (he has a gigantic fist) or "Force" and "Violence". Heroic characters have only one facial expression, looking with serene detachment; "evil" or "corrupt" characters' faces on the other hand go through several contortions throughout the story: from happiness to worry to fear to incomprehension in some cases ("Why? I'm an honest man... doesn't make sense.. white ... grey ... black !?") or frustrated acceptance of their fate in others.

There are also a few one-pagers scattered throughout these comics, these can be similar to old-fashioned editorial cartoons (heavy on labels and simple symbolism), or diagrammatic examinations of ideas (one example shown below).

I admit I particularly enjoyed the sequences Ditko devotes to comic-book fans. Fans as shown here are arrogant, whiny, selfish, and parasitic; complaining when Ditko doesn't meet their expectations (which seems to be always). The thing is, Ditko's right. These fans exist and I've seen them in various message boards and mailing lists. One thing is to disagree with Ditko's philosophy, dismiss some of his ideas, or criticize his work, but there are many fans who go beyond that and seem to be offended by the very idea of someone not living in the way they'd like him to live: Why doesn't he give interviews? Why doesn't he try to claim the rights to Spider-Man? Why didn't he negotiate a better deal? Why is he challenging Stan Lee's version of history now and not fifteen years earlier?

Ditko is certainly an intriguing figure in comics, and it's very tempting to try to guess what his motivations are, what makes him tick, what makes him behave in the way he does. But many fans go beyond this, trying to convince themselves and others that "Ditko must be an unhappy man", "Ditko's moving through different publishers in the 1960's and 1970's must mean he's an unstable person", "Alan Moore says Ditko lives at the YMCA so it must be true", "Ditko must be penniless", etc (none of these examples are made up). Ditko seems to be aware of these fans and their deeply-held convictions (one page is simply titled "The Internet Nuts"), and there's a one-pager titled "I Don't Understand!?! I'm an Inquiring Guy" which is so eerily accurate that it makes me suspect Ditko must be reading a few mailing lists I'm aware of. (The phrase "Ditko won't perform for us" is also a great summation of fan thinking, see illustration below.)

I love the idea of this 81 year-old man thumbing his nose at his detractors and not doing the slightest effort to accomodate them or justify his actions to them.

But of course, after criticizing and mocking other fans for their attempts at mind-reading Ditko, I can't help falling in the same trap myself, if only a little. (Though according to these comics, you can't be "a little" wrong or be guilty of a "minor" transgression, you're either behaving correctly and rationally or you aren't.) One can draw parallels between some elements of these stories and Ditko's own life, such as in page 3 of "The Partner" in which someone fixes a report only to have someone else take the credit for it ("...great report, yes, good work. Very good!")

And one story in particular, "Habitual Means to Ends" (sample page shown above), with its depiction of a backstabber who constantly excuses himself by saying he's sorry and that he will not do it again, reminds me of Ditko's account in Steve Ditko's 32-Page Package of how Stan Lee gladly takes complete credit in interviews for the creation of Spider-Man, then corrects his version and credits Ditko ("I write this to ensure that Steve Ditko receives the credit to which he is so justly entitled"), only to once again take complete credit for the character, and so on.

It's not much of a stretch to assume that this "I'll stab you / I'm sorry!" behavior could also be how Ditko sees his past relationships with certain publishers, fans, or associates; take for instance Blake Bell's account of his relationship with Ditko and the reasons why Ditko decided to stop his association with him. (And I'm aware of the irony that with this paragraph I've become one of the fans Ditko shows in "The Internet Nuts", saying things like "One might assume he figured / It also may have been.../ They look like they could have been...".)

All in all, I wasn't disappointed with these comics. They can be simplistic and repetitive at times, but they do contain some surprises, some good old-fashioned Ditko fighting scenes (pages 6, or 13-14 of Ditko's "Hero" story are fine examples), and they even show Ditko has a sense of humor (something that's almost always omitted in the usual accounts of Ditko as a recluse which doesn't give interviews). I'm glad he's still doing his eccentric comics for the very love of it, and I look forward to reading more of them as they become available.

Frank Miller's "The Price"

2009-09-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

Following last week's reprint of a guest editorial by John Byrne, this time I'm posting an article by Frank Miller, originally published in Comics Scene #3 (May 1982).

In this article, Miller reviews the deals made by creators such as Siegel & Shuster or Lee, Kirby, and Ditko; he affirms that neither DC nor Marvel are to blame for not giving these creators a larger compensation for their work ("If Siegel and Schuster [sic] had wanted a bigger piece of the action, they should have swung themselves a better deal"); and then proceeds to enthusiastically describe how treatment for creators has improved in the past few years.

Miller had reason enough to be optimistic: the amount of benefits given to creators by DC and Marvel during this period was unprecented (Miller, to his credit, argues that the publishers were driven to this out of necessity, instead of doing this out of a sense of fairness). Miller mentions the following benefits:

Higher page rates and royalties
Sharing of licensing revenues
Creator-ownership
Profit sharing on new characters, titles

(One benefit he doesn't mention is reprint fees, he probably couldn't imagine back in 1982 how often his work would be reprinted over the next decades.)

In contrast to Byrne, who argued that creators asking for more benefits would only harm the fans, Miller concludes that these incentives will drive creators to do better work ("For the first time, it's to our advantage to invest in the survival of the industry").

To make the difference clearer, Miller took the time to write a letter refuting some of Byrne's points. The following was published in Comics Scene #4 (July 1982):

As I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, all these articles were written while Steve Gerber and Marvel were fighting over the ownership of Howard the Duck. In my next post, I'll show Steve Gerber's reaction to this discussion.

Carlos Roume

2009-09-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

Mariano Chinelli over at the Eternautas mailing list reports that Argentinian comic artist Carlos Roume passed away last week.

Throughout his long career, Roume worked for Argentinian, British, and French publishers, and was probably best known for his ability at drawing animals and for specializing in stories with rural, naturalistic settings.

I'm most familiar with his collaborations with Hector German Oesterheld on series such as "Nahuel Barros" and "Patria Vieja", but his career consisted of much more than that, as can be seen in the samples of his work posted over at the Chiquirritipis blog, at Domingos Isabelinho's blog (which includes an examination of Roume's "Nahuel Barros"), and in this gallery of his original artwork.

(Image above taken from Domingos Isabelinho's blog.)

Cogs in the machine

2009-09-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

This is something I'd been meaning to post for a long time. It's the beginning of (hopefully) a series of snapshots showing how the discussion regarding creators' rights in the American comics industry has evolved during the past decades. Generally speaking, things have improved since then (there are more choices available for creators today), but there is also a sensation of stagnation in many aspects (just look for example at the new generation of creators who have in past years been screwed by fly-by-night publishers who take all their rights in exchange for vague promises of future royalties).

Things like Jerry Siegel's family trying to regain the copyright of Superman (by simply trying to take advantage of a modification in copyright law that enables them to do so) still generate some controversy today, partly due to lack of information (some people believe the Siegels are trying to change past contracts, which is untrue) or simply because there are people who believe that a publisher is more responsible of a character's financial success than its creators. In the same way there is plenty of room for improvement regarding creators' rights, there is also room (and a need) for informed discussion about this matter.

The following article is from Comics Scene #2 (cover-dated March 1982), and it's written by John Byrne at the height of his popularity. In it, Byrne defines himself as a "company man", making his famous statement: "I'm a cog in the machine which is Marvel Comics", and he also explains why he believes creators should accept the rules as they are, or at the very least not pretend that they weren't aware of these rules when they started working in the industry.

Byrne is characteristically blunt and direct in this article, saying: "The whole concept of work-for-hire has been a thorn in the side of creative people for a long, long time, but it has also been the bounden duty of those who entered the industry to accept the rules, and not expect their presence to modify their little corner of the cosmos." This was published at the same time Steve Gerber and Marvel were battling in court over the rights of Howard the Duck (I intend to write more about Gerber in following posts), and Byrne still held this same view some 15 years later, when he voluntarily testified for Marvel (and against Marv Wolfman) in the lawsuit for the rights to Blade. (Byrne's viewpoint basically was that everybody back then knew they were selling all their rights to Marvel in exchange for a flat page-rate and that it was disingenious for Wolfman to pretend otherwise. Wolfman lost the lawsuit, and hasn't been able to get work at Marvel since then.)

In this article, Byrne also makes the somewhat bizarre statement: "If we are going to have creator's rights [...] should we not then also have (excuse the pun) creator's wrongs? In all the noise and fury over everyone getting a fair share I have not heard one so-called creator offering the flip side of the coin. No one has said they would be willing to take a loss if their creation fell flat on its very expensive face."

This is an example of the viewpoint I mentioned before: believing that since publishers take risks when publishing an unknown property, they deserve a large part of the financial benefits if the property turns out to be succesful. This is a legitimate point of view, but by taking the argument to its extreme ("Is there anyone out there willing to return the money they made while producing some of these duds?") Byrne may have ended up weakening his argument. Freelancers do take a loss if their creations are not commercial enough; each failure means it's going to be more difficult to find work in the future.

The point of this post however is to simply present Byrne's famous article, and not to rebut it point by point. Nevertheless, I'll show in future posts how other industry professionals reacted to this article, with what should be some familiar names popping in.

The difficulties Kirby's heirs face

2009-09-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's announcement that Jack Kirby's heirs are trying to claim the copyrights to characters created by Kirby for Marvel probably caught many by surprise, including me. It's true that when news of Disney buying Marvel broke out, many fans speculated that the Kirby family might try to do something like this, following the footsteps of Jerry Siegel's heirs. But my thought at the time (and now) was that actually regaining to copyrights to the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Hulk, Sgt. Fury and other characters would be extremely difficult for the Kirby family to do.

Like most of the people commenting about this and the Superman rights case, I'm not an expert on copyright law. I've followed the development of the Siegel case closely though, trying to understand the reasoning behind each decision, and based on that I think the Kirbys have some significant hurdles to cross.

Many online commenters have correctly pointed out that Kirby didn't sign work for hire contracts while he worked for Marvel, and that the current definition of "work made for hire" applies from 1978 onwards (when the new law took effect). In fact, Kirby refused to sign the work made for hire contract that Marvel started using that year. As noted in The Comics Journal #44, February '79 ("Ploog & Kirby Quit Marvel Over Contract Dispute", page 11):

Former Marvel star artist Jack Kirby also objected to Marvel's contract and Marvel has indicated that he won't be allowed to work for the company unless he signs it. Kirby had apparently been scheduled to resume drawing for Marvel at the end of the animation season. He had been working for Filmation Associates on their Fantastic Four Saturday morning cartoon series for the NBC television network.

Kirby enjoyed working in animation again [...] and remarked, "I sort of adapted to it and I like it very much." He did not want to discuss the specific details of his complaints with the contract, saying only, "I don't want to get tied to a commitment."

Marvel still hopes Kirby will consider signing the contract and returning to work, however. [Editor-in-chief Jim] Shooter says Marvel's talks with Kirby were on friendly terms and Kirby himself called them "very amicable." Nonetheless, Kirby remained unwilling to sign. "I want to try my talents in other directions," he told The Comics Journal. "Maybe this is the right time of life to try other things."

And so he did, doing more animation-related work, trying his hand at screenplays, and doing creator-owned comics like Destroyer Duck, Captain Victory, and Silver Star. (He also returned to The New Gods, but that's because DC offered him a very good deal to do so, which included royalties. The reason appearances of those characters to this day have a "Created by Jack Kirby" credit is due to that deal.)

Still, as seen in the opinion issued by Judge Stephen Larson on August 12 of this year regarding the Superman copyright, the lack of a written agreement between Kirby and Marvel may not be enough. As commented in this blog's previous entry, the Siegels were able to claim the copyrights to some important elements of the Superman franchise, but the Judge's opinion is worth reading in full for knowing which elements and stories they were not able to regain.

Beginning in page 40 of the document, the Judge deals with the Superman work produced by Siegel and Shuter after March 1, 1938 and before the employment agreement they signed in September of that year. Despite the lack of a contract, the Judge decides that the material produced during that time is work for hire, and therefore belongs to DC.

The Judge writes (pages 43-44):

In essence, the September, 1938 employment agreement formalized what had informally been ongoing beforehand. That Detective Comics' requests were made on an informal basis before the written agreements were executed does not detract from the fundamental fact that Siegel and Shuster's creation of the derivative Superman material was done at the request and instance of Detective Comics. That Detective Comics waited six months before more formally "employing" the pair to "continue" to do just that does not detract from the core point that such production by Siegel and Shuster was again done at the instance of Detective Comics; it simply shows that by that point Superman had so proven itself a commercial success that the publisher desired a more formalized arrangement to be placed down in writing to ensure that the pair would continue to produce such material for it (rather than going on to create other comic book characters for other publishers).

When these facts are considered in toto, it is easy to conclude that creation of the works in question lie further along the spectrum from that found in a more traditional employment relationship, as is the case for the comic books created by in-house employees of the publisher. The lack of any long-term guarantee or commitment by the publisher to the business enterprise itself, however, is not something which is atypical in an independent contractor situation. That the pair functioned in such a looser employment relationship with the hiring party is not critical. What is important is the existence of an engagement to create the works, and the level of control and direction the commissioning party thereafter had over creation of the works in question. And in that regard, the fact that Siegel and Shuster were commissioned by the publisher to create specific material to which the publisher had the statutory right to exert control over its creation, and for which they were paid upon the material's publication, is dispositive as to the instance prong.

In short, Detective Comics, as the copyright holder of the pre-existing work, approached the artists and asked that they create works derived from that preexisting material on a regular basis, and then paid the artists for that derivative work. As such, the material would fall within the category as a work made for hire. [emphasis mine]

It's easy to see the parallels with Kirby's situation at Marvel. He was a freelancer, but he was working under the editorial direction of Stan Lee, and he was "commisioned by the publisher to create specific material" on a regular basis for Marvel's monthly books.

Basically, until now the Siegels have been only able to regain the rights to material that Jerry Siegel developed before selling it to DC. Is the Kirby family in a position to come up with evidence that shows that Jack Kirby had written scripts or drawn stories featuring the Fantastic Four or the X-Men before he sold them to Marvel? This is doubtful, and this is the main reason why I can't see them being able to succesfully claim the copyrights to these characters.

Despite all of the above, Tom Spurgeon makes an important point: "The fact that aggressive litigator Toberoff & Associates is the attorney of record makes this a bigger deal because of their past successes" (including the recent Siegel victories). I would very much like to see the Kirby family regain these copyrights, or at least some fair compensation for the use of the characters. I believe they're in a difficult position for the reasons stated above, but at least they have chosen a powerful ally, and this may end up making an important difference.

Siegels awarded more Superman rights

2009-08-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

As usual, Jeff Trexler brings us the latest news regarding the Siegels' litigation against DC Comics for the rights of Superman.

The Siegels have recaptured the rights to the following Superman material: Action Comics #1; Action Comics #4; pages 3 to 6 of Superman #1; and the first two weeks of Superman newspaper strips.

The judge's reasoning is as follows:

There is evidence (provided by Denis Kitchen) that the Superman story in Action Comics #4 (about Superman's exploits in a football game) was sufficiently developed by Jerry Siegel and Russell Keaton some years before Action Comics #1. As such, the story in Action Comics #4 can not be "work for hire". While there is proof (based on surviving Siegel notes and documentation) that Siegel had the ideas for some of the stories of other early Action Comics issues some time before 1938, the judge says that a mere idea is not subject to copyright.

Pages 3 to 6 of Superman #1 were also developed before Siegel's and Shuster's relation with DC, so they would now belong to Siegel's heirs. There is evidence that pages 1 and 2 are work for hire, since they were done at Detective Comics's request. (The rest of Superman #1 consists of reprints of early Action Comics stories.)

But what is probably most important is the ownership of the first two weeks of Superman newspaper strips.

(This is the most complicated part of the judge's opinion, examing in detail the deal between Siegel & Shuster, Detective Comics, and the McClure Syndicate; and also citing previous cases such as the DC-Fawcett lawsuit for Captain Marvel/Superman, and a legal dispute between Burne Hogarth and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.)

The judge writes (page 85):

A fact not lost on either party or the Court is that potentially valuable copyright elements subsist in this material, as it is the first material in which Superman's home planet of Krypton is named, Superman's Krypton name is revealed, and the circumstances surrounding Krypton's destruction are revealed. [Emphasis mine]

That's right, it seems these key elements of the Superman franchise would now also belong to the Siegels.

So while gaining the copyright to a mere handful of Superman pages and strips wouldn't seem that important at first glance, gaining the copyright to "Krypton" and "Kal-El" seems to be a very important legal victory for the Siegels.

During my quick read of the 99-page document I found some additional and interesting details about other aspects of the negotiations between Siegel & Shuster and DC. One example: the origin of the mysterious "Lois Lane, Girl Reporter" strip is revealed. On page 23 it is stated that this strip was produced directly by DC as "filler" material due to lateness on Siegel's and Shuster's part in providing strips for the McClure syndicate. There was a side agreement (apparently done without Siegel's and Shuster's knowledge) between DC and McClure in 1943 for the production of these strips, and the cost of producing this material was to be deducted from the gross receipts of the Superman syndication (resulting in, I assume, less income for Siegel and Shuster).

Besides being happy for the Siegels, I also find it very entertaining to see details like these (and many others regarding contracts, page rates, and other financial matters) to be finally revealed in these court documents.

The initial Superman newspaper strips can be seen here.

Comics Revue

2009-06-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

The latest Previews catalog shows how some publishers are adapting in order to meet the new minimum orders required by Diamond. As pointed out in various places, Buenaventura Press for example is offering a "Comics Revival Previews Excluse 3-Pak", a $11.95 shrink-wrapped package containing Eric Haven's The Aviatrix, Ted May's Injury #3, and Lisa Hanawalt's I Want You (comics that if published separately probably wouldn't have met Diamond's minimums).

Other publishers are taking similar measures. When I was reaching the end of the solicitations I noticed something: Comics Revue wasn't listed. Comics Revue is a monthly 64-page anthology of classic newspaper strips that has been published since 1983. Currently in its 277th (!) issue, the magazine is something that (in its current format) could only survive in the direct market. I admit I was worried when I noticed there was no listing for the magazine in the latest Previews catalog, so I decided to ask publisher Rick Norwood about the situation. His response was:

Diamond will (knock wood) still carry Comics Revue. But to meet the Diamond minimum order on each issue, I have to publish six double issues each year instead of twelve single issues. So, no issue in September. First double issue in October. On the other hand, to comply with Diamond's demands, I had to raise the cover price to $16 for each double issue. If you subscribe, you can lock in the old price -- $45 for one year, $90 for two years.

I explain all this in the editorial in CR 278, on its way to your dealer now.

The magazine currently reprints strips such as Gasoline Alley (the Dick Moores strips), Krazy Kat dailies, Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie, Roy Crane's Buz Sawyer, Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon, Dan Barry's Flash Gordon, and V.T. Hamlin's Alley Oop, among others. Comics Revue was an essential part of my monthly comics reading when I started buying it regularly, in the dark mid-to-late 1990's period in which few publishers were issuing book collections of newspaper strips. And even in today's current bonanza of reprint projects, Comics Revue is still worth reading for its selection of strips and its attention to detail.

Rick Norwood also adds the following:

I know there are a lot of people out there who would love Comics Revue if they knew it exists, but it is hard to get the message out. I was at the recent New York Comics Con, and people I talked to about Comics Revue would say things like -- my comics dealer said it was no longer published or -- my comics dealer says he can't order it from Diamond.

[T]he new format will have eight pages of color, including The Phantom in Return of the Sky Band. Also starting in October, the first English language reprint of the very first Mandrake story.

Personally, I think this new format might be an improvement over the current one (it reminds me in a way of how the Comics Journal has evolved during the past few years), and I'm looking forward to seeing it. Hopefully there will still be a place in today's marketplace for this magazine and the strips it contains.

You'll never guess the identity of our surprise mystery villain!

2009-01-26T17:30:00.000-08:00

"It can't -- It can't be!"

"No! It can't be!" "But it is! I've sensed it all along! I just wouldn't let myself believe it!"

"Oh my God!"

"Why didn't I see it? WHY?!"

"Oh my, God!"

Courtesy of:

Stan Lee, John Romita, Sal Buscema, 1969:

Gary Friedrich, John Romita, 1971:

Gary Friedrich, Sal Buscema, 1972 (a reveal so cool, it had to be spread over two issues):

Steve Englehart, Frank Robbins, Joe Giella, 1975:

Jack Kirby, Mike Royer, 1977:

Roger McKenzie, Sal Buscema, Mike Esposito, John Tartaglione, 1978:

J.M. DeMatteis, Mike Zeck, 1981:

Mark Gruenwald, Larry Alexander, Bud LaRosa, 1991:

Mark Waid, Ron Garney, Scott Koblish, 1995:

Batman R.I.P. 1967

2009-01-26T17:25:00.000-08:00

From TV Tornado 5, (Feb. 11, 1967):

Horror in the Nursery

2008-01-14T14:12:00.001-08:00

I recently found a copy of the March 27, 1948 issue of Collier's, which includes an article written by Judith Crist on Dr. Fredric Wertham's crusade against crime comics. The complete article (along with the original accompanying photos of child models re-enacting the testimonies of children quoted in the article) is included below.

For many years comic-book fans have had a very simplistic and somewhat inaccurate version of the history behind Dr. Wertham and the creation of the Comics Code (some of the most common myths: "Dr. Wertham found that all juvenile delinquents read comics and therefore claimed that comics were the sole reason for juvenile delinquency", or "The Comics Code was created to put EC Comics out of business"). Recent scholarship has given us a more balanced view of Dr. Wertham, suggesting that his research wasn't as shoddy as most fans believe, and that there were strong reasons for regulating the horror and crime comics cranked out by opportunistic publishers.

The article below is still mildly sensationalistic at times (and that's not counting the staged photos), but it's worth reading in its entirety for the chance to read Wertham in his own words, a few years before the publication of Seduction of the Innocent.

Skizz

2008-01-05T17:29:00.000-08:00

I recently bought a copy of DC/Rebellion's edition of Alan Moore's and Jim Baikie's SKIZZ, a minor work from the period in which the "British Invasion" at DC was just starting.

It's a competent work with some touches of the usual Moore wit. The main characters, Skizz (the alien) and Roxy (the teenager who finds him), are convincingly handled, but the remaining characters aren't very fleshed out. I had read the work some years ago, and therefore wasn't very disappointed by this re-reading, I already knew that this wasn't as good as THE BALLAD OF HALO JONES or the work Moore was doing for "Warrior" magazine at the time.

One thing I noticed this time, and which I don't know if it's a problem exclusive to this edition or if it's something carried from the previous collection published by Titan Books in the 1980's, is that the book omits a page from the original serialization in "2000 AD". I noticed that one chapter was noticeably longer than the other chapters, went to look at my library of "2000 AD" scans (kept, ahem, strictly for research purposes), and found that yes, one splash page from issue #329 of "2000 AD" was left out. This page should go between pages 88 and 89 of the DC/Rebellion edition. Page 89 in this edition also alters some of the dialog in the first panel. As a public service, the first two pages of the "Skizz" chapter in 2000 AD #329 are included here.

Marvel and DC take legal action against comics torrent site

2007-11-22T03:35:00.000-08:00

Marvel Comics recently announced its intentions to sell their comics online. In an interview posted at CBR, Marvel publisher Dan Buckley is asked about the existence of illegal comics downloading, and he answers as follows:

One of the benefits of this launch is that it provides many of our fans with the opportunity to "legally" read our comics. We sincerely hope that this service offering will curb these "illegal" downloading activities. The music industry's reactions to the illegal downloading did help us with us the formation of our business strategy, but it was not the driving factor behind our business model.

It turns out that Marvel (along with DC) is doing more than "hoping". In the same interview, Buckley says that Marvel will be evaluating illegal download sites on a case by case basis. The following announcement was posted a couple of days ago at Z-Cult FM, a torrent site for downloading comics.

We got legal letters from both Marvel and DC Comics who have been working together to send us these legal threats. We are currently dealing with the legal issues and they have given us 3 days before they are forced to take anymore action.

Z-Cult FM website was put offline [...] after I got the email while in work and issued a code red alert (we have drills also 5 times a year). We decide [sic] putting the site offline was best course of action to analyse the situation and decide our best course of action. We have confirmed one of the legal letters is 100% from DC Comics when a phone call was made to DC Comics who confirmed the email and its contents. As of today we was unable to contact Marvel and we are trying again tomorrow just to 100% confirm it.

Today we decided it was time to bring site back online but without the torrent and download sections. One of Marvels demands was we take down Z-Cult FM for good but we will never let the main Z-Cult FM site die even if that means torrent free.

We are currently deciding our future and working on it as we speak. We will do our best to keep everyone happy but our future decissions might cause some of our users to think we have given in, but this isn't the case, we are just currently working through this situation and taking the best course of action to keep the site up and our staff safe.

Z-Cult FM is a site that has operated for a few years, with the bigger publishers being aware of its existence for some time. The site usually contained links for downloading (via bit torrent) scans of comics of all genres, publishers, and decades; including the biggest publishers' latest releases.

The scanning and pirating of comics will continue in the near future (there are still many other sites in which these comics are available for free), but Marvel and DC taking joint action against the best-known sites surely will have some effect. My guess is that new sites will pop up to fill the void left by Z-Cult FM and the also recently-shut down Demonoid, but that some of these new sites may end up having more restricted memberships (an "only by invitation" system).

More upcoming strip collections

2007-11-06T06:11:00.000-08:00

The Scorchy Smith collection mentioned in the previous post is now available for pre-order. Meanwhile, Dean Mullaney writes over at the Comic Strip Classics yahoogroup that "my old friend Denis Kitchen is now onboard as a Contributing Editor for the Scorchy book."

Another great comic strip, Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse is apparently also being reprinted. However, unlike other recent comic strip projects, this doesn't seem to be a complete reprint of the strip, but rather a "Best of" collection, probably due in part to racial sensivity issues. For a look at a previous attempt to reprint some of the strips that probably won't be included in this new collection, see Jim Korkis' article about "The Uncensored Mouse".

Rumors have been flying for some time about an upcoming Complete Beetle Bailey collection, reprinting Mort Walker's humor strip (I first saw this mentioned in a R. C. Harvey article in The Comics Journal some months ago). Checker Publishing seems to be the likeliest candidate for the American edition, but in the meantime you can see the European edition here.

The project is apparently being done thanks to European interest in the series (where Walker's strips are quite popular). I've been coincidentally reading the Mort Walker: Conversations book recently which (while not one of the best books of the "Conversations" series) shows that Walker did Beetle Bailey all by himself for several years before it became a produced-by-committee strip. The early volumes of this new reprint series then, while not as historically important as the Peanuts or Popeye reprints, should still allow us a welcome look into a lesser-known period of this strip, in which there was still a single creative force in charge of it. (While the current Beetle Bailey strip isn't particularly noteworthy, I still have fond memories of older strips I've read in paperback collections.)

Finally, we have news of another comic strip-related project, this time the 5 issues of the Shmoo comic book, based on the character created by Al Capp in the Li'l Abner strip. Dark Horse has already done some Al Capp collections in the past (four volumes of Sundays done while Frank Frazetta worked as an assistant/ghost artist). While I've read those previous volumes (and most of the compilations published by Kitchen Sink), I know very little about these particular comic books. They're apparently credited to the "Al Capp Studio" rather than to Capp himself, probably indicating that this may be a diluted version of Capp's usual acerbic humor.

Scorchy Smith

2007-10-26T06:17:00.000-07:00

Over at the Comic Strip Classics yahoogroup, Dean Mullaney has announced his latest reprint project:

On the subject of future projects, since we've already sent the solicitation info to our book distributor, I can announce that in June 2008, I will release an oversized, 11" x 11" hardcover: SCORCHY SMITH AND THE ART OF NOEL SICKLES through IDW. It will contain the complete Sickles Scorchy for the first time ever, plus about 60 pages of Sickles's magazine and other illustrations.

It was fantastic to have the Woody Gelman books at the time, but they were obviously incomplete. And now they sell for $60-75 for each book! The collection I'm editing will retail for $49.99. So you might want to get a head start and put your paperbacks on eBay!

And to all the Europeans(!): all dailies are being scanned at 1200 dpibitmap.

Dale Crain, who most of you know from his years at Fantagraphics and particularly DC doing their archive editions, will be co-designing the book with me. Dale was going to design the Scorchy collection Denis Kitchen had hoped to do many years ago, but that never came about. Needless to say, he's thrilled to have a second chance!

Robert E. Howard comics news

2007-08-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

Scott Allie talks about his plans for the new Solomon Kane from Dark Horse. A bit that caught our attention:

Scott, let's talk story — what can you tell us about your plans for Solomon Kane?

I don't want to say the name of the first arc just yet, because lately every time we announce something with Conan or Buffy, some other publisher immediately tries to publish or register a trademark using that name.

Now who could he be referring to? (See botttom of entry.)

(For those too lazy to click: Dynamite Entertainment announced their own Savage Tales magazine, registering the trademark in their name, some time after Dark Horse announced its plans to do an anthology named Robert E. Howard's Savage Tales. We've previously mentioned Dynamite's current efforts to register the trademarks of several public domain Golden Age heroes.)

In other Robert E. Howard-related news, Michael Moorcock announced a month and a half ago that he's "supposed to be doing a Conan comic for Dark Horse."

More about Eisner

2007-08-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

More information about the previous post can be found in an article posted today at icv2.com: the Will Eisner and PS Magazine book will be published by Hermes Press. Hermes Press has previously published books on Gil Kane and the Ross Andru/Mike Esposito team.

Other comics-related projects from Hermes Press, according to ICV2, are a Walt Kelly Career Retrospective (see a review of the recent Our Gang Volume 2 here) and The Unknown Carl Barks, focusing on Barks' animation work.

Upcoming Will Eisner Book

2007-08-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

Will Eisner and PS Magazine is the title of an upcoming book written by Paul Fitzgerald. According to Bob Aldeman, author of Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, Paul Fitzgerald is a "former PS editor and long-time friend" of Eisner.

"P*S" stands for Preventive Maintenance Monthly, the magazine for which Eisner provided (from 1951 up to the 1970's) illustrations and technical instructions (in comic-book form) on how to take care of military equipment and weapons. Eisner came up with the idea for this magazine, believing in the potential of the comics medium to communicate ideas and educate. This is from a somewhat controversial and perhaps underdocumented (in comparison to the time in which he was doing The Spirit, or his post-A Contract with God work) period in Eisner's career, so this book, written by someone who knew Eisner during that period, should make for interesting reading.

Fitzgerald has previously written a couple of appreciations of Eisner for the Washington Post (see here and here), the latter of which relates some Eisner anecdotes from the P*S period.

Further reading: Mike Ploog describes his time as an assistant to Eisner on P*S.

"..a certain web-spinning Peter-come-lately"

2007-08-08T15:52:00.000-07:00

DC discovers Marvel Comics. From Brave and the Bold #74 (1967):

(Courtesy of Bob Haney, Ross Andru, and Mike Esposito. A reprint of this story can be found here.)

75% of Superman's appeal

2007-08-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

As reported by the Forbidden Planet International blog, Diamond Galleries' Scoop has news about a collection of documents relating to the 1947 litigation for the ownership of Superman (between National Periodical Publications and the Jerry Siegel-Joe Shuster team) being offered for sale.

The three documents shown in the article are apparently only the tip of the iceberg, and as Tom Spurgeon says, hopefully the documents will be made available to historians at some point.

Among the documents we can see for now is a 1937 contract that states that all work done by the Siegel-Shuster team for their employer between December 4, 1937 and December 3, 1939 (at the rate of ten dollars per page) "shall become the sole and exclusive property of the Employer, and the Employer shall be deemed the sole creator thereof, the Employee acting entirely as the Employer's employee." The next clause states that Siegel and Shuster can't use of these creations somewhere else after they leave National Periodical Publications. While only "Slam Bradley" and "The Spy" are mentioned by name, the time period includes the first appearance of Superman in "Action Comics".

(Siegel and Shuster started working for Mayor Wheeler-Nicholson in 1935; one assumes that their earliest work, such as the "Dr. Occult" feature, wasn't initially covered by such a contract, unless they were later asked to retroactively sign their rights away, a not unlikely possibility.)

The last document shown in the article is a 1942 letter from Siegel to Jack Liebowitz. The reproduction is somewhat blurry, but as far as I can tell this is the entire text of the page shown:

Dear Jack:

I was very glad to hear from you. Your invitation to come on to New York to discuss the matter under correspondence was happily received as it will be nice seeing all of you again.

Bella and I expect to leave Monday from Cleveland. And so we should be seeing you Tuesday.

Regarding the matter mentioned in one of your earlier letters (regarding Lois finding out who SUPERMAN is because of reader demand) I feel that the interest of the readers in this subject is a very healthy angle, and we should endeavor by all means to keep them wanting to have Lois find out that Clark is really SUPERMAN. If Lois should ACTUALLY learn Clark's secret, the strip would lose about 75% of its appeal -- the human interest angle. I know that a formula can possibly prove monotonous thru repetition but I fear that if this element is removed from the story formula that makes up SUPERMAN, that the strip will lose a great part of its effectiveness.

This last paragraph is interesting given what we know about the unpublished "K-Metal" story that Siegel wrote in 1940, in which Lois does in fact learn Superman's secret identity. In the letter above Siegel argues in favor of maintaining the status quo (and would it be correct to deduce from this letter that Liebowitz was in favor of having Lois find out Superman's secret?), which suggests that he may have later changed his mind about the appropriateness of the "K-Metal" story.

There is some speculation that Siegel wanted to move the strip forward when he wrote the 1940 "K-Metal" story, and that we were denied the chance to see Superman (and the whole superhero genre) grow as the years passed (see Alex Ross' comments), but the letter above puts things in a different perspective. The "K-Metal" story can be seen as a "Wouldn't it be fun if..?" exercise caused by youthful enthusiasm, while the letter written two years later shows Siegel more preoccupied with the lasting power of the "Superman" feature.

In any case, the genie has been let out of the bottle as far as the current "Superman" feature is concerned, with not only the comics but even the movies showing us what Jerry Siegel would describe as a Superman with only 25% of his original appeal.

Golden Age revivals

2007-07-23T07:27:00.000-07:00

Newsarama and CBR have news of the latest Alex Ross/Jim Krueger project, Superpowers, published by Dynamite. The way it's described, the project began with Dynamite's Nick Barucci, who then chose this pair of high-profile creators to develop the final product.

You won't find much information about the series artist or the series format at this point, what we have now is some concept art by Alex Ross (featuring several public domain Golden Age characters), a rough idea of what the series will be about, and Alex Ross saying "in the case of Dynamite you have creative energies coming from people who want to tell a story and create a project and make it the biggest thing they possibly can for their company".

How big? A clue might be found at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where we can see that "Super Powers Heroes" (presumably Dynamite Entertainment under a different name) is trying to claim trademarks for several characters, such as The Owl, Mighty Samson, Black Terror, Green Lama, and others, for use in comic books and printed materials.

Also revealing is their claim for the "Super Powers" trademark, for use in areas such as "entertainment motion picture films and pre-recorded entertainment video cassettes, pre-recorded audio tapes, video tapes, audio cassettes, video cassettes, CD-ROMs, DVDs, compact discs, and video discs, featuring entertainment related to films and music", "resin figures/statues", and "toys, namely, action figures, soft sculpture plush toys, stuffed and wind-up toys; playthings, namely, toy weapons, toy protective armor, and play and action figures".

Interestingly enough, only a few days after Dynamite's announcement, Erik Larsen announced that Image will be doing their own Golden Age project: "The Next Issue Project", featuring contributions from creators such as Larsen, Mike Allred, Kyle Baker, Howard Chaykin, and many others (I for one am glad to see people like Steve Gerber and Tony Salmons included, it'll be good to see more work from them).

The use of public domain heroes in contemporary comics is nothing new, as readers of AC Comics or Alan Moore's Terra Obscura can attest, but the announcement of these two projects in the same week is an interesting coincidence.

While Ross and Krueger seem to be crafting a more Watchmen-like story, creating a cohesive backstory for the characters and promising that they will deal with some usual super hero themes in ways that haven't been done before, Larsen's project seems to be more spontaneous and a bit less pretentious (Larsen mentions making use of oddball concepts such as Fletcher Hanks characters with an emphasis on having fun with them, which contrasts with Krueger's and Ross's more "serious" approach, and Dynamite's apparent intentions to establish new trademarks for future commercial use in different areas).

Some of Larsen's art features characters that will be used in the Dynamite project (including characters such as Samson, for which Dynamite is trying to claim a trademark). What remains to be seen is if there's enough support in the marketplace for both series (which despite the surface similarities are quite different in their approach), and if both projects can co-exist peacefully without any legal problems.

Go, Read: Hugo Pratt

2007-07-20T12:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some scans of 1960-episodes of "Ernie Pike", written by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and drawn by Hugo Pratt, the series' initial artist. Some pages stand out, such as the striking bottom half of page six of "Pearl Harbor", with a very interesting use of black-and-white. Also interesting is page four of "Bismarck", mainly because it's incredibly text-heavy. This reminds me of a comment Alberto Breccia made in an interview, pointing out that Oesterheld could write some very good stories, but that he wasn't always a good comics writer: the artist sometimes had to do a lot of cutting and re-arranging in order to make the story work as a comic. (Breccia was Oesterheld's collaborator on such masterpieces as Mort Cinder and the 1969 version of El Eternauta.)

"Ernie Pike" was a series of war stories written by Oesterheld and drawn by several artists; however Pratt's episodes are the ones that have been most widely reprinted in the past few years (currently 4 volumes published by Casterman are available in French). The series' simple premise (reporter Ernie Pike tells war stories) allowed Oesterheld to show different characters in a variety of settings, with his characteristic emphasis on the human element.

Speaking of Pratt, the Archives Pratt site has an interesting (but incomplete) bibliography of the artist, including some very attractive cover galleries, such as the one for Sgt. Kirk Magazine, which shows some beautiful color work by Pratt (along with work by other artists). "Sargento Kirk" was originally a 1950's series created by Oesterheld and Pratt in Argentina. In 1967, Pratt created Sgt. Kirk Magazine in Italy, where the first "Corto Maltese" stories would appear. Here Pratt would also reprint several of the stories he did in Argentina during the 1950's, but omitting Oesterheld's name (Oesterheld's publishing outfit, Editorial Frontera, had gone under in the early 1960's, leaving Oesterheld owing money to several people, which caused some bad blood between him and some of the artists).

Roberto Fontanarrosa

2007-07-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

Argentinian cartoonist Roberto Fontanarrosa died of heart failure a few hours ago.

His career began in the 1970's, doing witty but crudely-drawn cartoons for local magazines such as "Hortensia". His drawing would improve dramatically in the next few years, and his creations "Inodoro Pereyra" and "Boogie el Aceitoso" would become famous throughout the Spanish-speaking comics world.

(Shown above: a sequence from one of his Sperman stories, a sexual superhero parody.)

Fontanarrosa was a voracious comics reader during his youth: he read Oesterheld, Hugo Pratt, Solano Lopez, Alberto Breccia, and many others, and he'd also praise series such as Roy Crane's "Buz Sawyer" (which he read in Argentinian reprints). Most of his work was humor-oriented, a large part of it done as gag panels, but he also did longer stories in which he showed his mastery of the comics form. (I remember being blown away by his collection "(Continuará)", a collection of comics shorts of different genres, not all of them humorous.)

"Boogie" in particular showed his dark humor, featuring a "Dirty Harry"-esque cold-blooded and very violent Vietnam vet and hitman. Fontanarrosa commented that the magazines that published this character would often receive congratulatory letters from male readers expressing their delight at finally seeing a character who knew how to treat women and black people correctly, without realizing that the series was supposed to be a parody.

Fontanarrosa was also a prolific novelist and short-story writer. His short stories (many of them about soccer, his passion) are highly praised, some of them having been adapted into popular theater plays in Argentina. I once read one of his novels, and found it exhausting in a way: the amount of (funny) jokes and wordplay per page was staggering, something I've never experienced with other books.

I had the chance to see him speak in public a few times: he could be tremendously funny and witty in public, capable of getting humor out of any situation, playing with logic and words intelligently and naturally, gently making fun of the people who asked him questions, but in a way in which everybody could get into the joke. I remember he was once asked if he ever felt that his characters wrote themselves. He said that that had never happened to him, and that he felt jealous of authors who could claim that: as soon as he stopped typing the characters would just stand there on the page, doing nothing and "standing like morons (boludos)" until he started typing again.

Fontanarrosa was suffering a strange degenerative disease in the past years, which had left him semi-paralyzed and uncapable of drawing. He was at his creative peak when the disease struck him, and it's sad to see him die so soon.

The Mary Marvel Marching Society

2007-07-06T10:47:00.000-07:00

In a recent thread over at the John Byrne forum, Byrne posts the following:

There had been fan clubs before. The Merry Marvel Marching Society shamelessly stole its name from the Mary Marvel Marching Society.

Don Markstein's Toonopedia says the same thing:

She even had her own fan club, the Mary Marvel Marching Society (the name of which Marvel Comics shamelessly appropriated in the '60s, as the Merry Marvel Marching Society).

Except it's not true. There never was a "Mary Marvel Marching Society", and the name of the "Merry Marvel Marching Society" wasn't taken from an old Mary Marvel fan club.

The whole thing is a hoax. Larry Ivie (a comics fan turned pro who had a small career in comics during the 1960's) made up this story, and even went as far as making up a fake ad for the "Mary Marvel Marching Society" in order to support his claim (Ivie published his "evidence" in his magazine Monsters and Heroes). For some time, his story was believed to be true, but further research by Fawcett comics experts has shown that there was a Mary Marvel club, but no "Marching Society".

Some years ago, the following messages from P. C. Hamerlinck and John Pierce were forwarded to the Timely-Atlas mailing list.

P. C. Hamerlinck:

There was a Mary Marvel club, not a Marching Society. I'm 99.9% sure the
'Marching' ad was bogus. I'll forward your email to John Pierce who might be
able to shed more light on the subject, as we may have discussed it at one time
ourselves.

John Pierce:

Although I once wrote an article and cited Larry's "evidence," apparently
it was false. Larry [Ivie] apparently had a grudge against Marvel, and wanted
to make them look bad. Or so I have been told.

Ivie's hoax has proven to be widely succesful unfortunately, and as can be seen above, is still widely believed by many people.

World's Greatest Comix Magazine

2007-07-05T08:08:00.000-07:00

The sixth Essential Fantastic Four volume is the first volume in this series without any work by Jack Kirby, and it shows. The initial Lee/Buscema/Sinnott stories at the beginning of the book seem to be done in autopilot: while the art is very good, the stories are lackluster and rather inconsequential (though I can't deny a small thrill upon seeing the Silver Surfer and Galactus drawn again by Buscema, only a short time after the cancellation of Silver Surfer solo book that Lee and Buscema did together). Things improve when Roy Thomas takes over the book (at the same time he became Marvel's editor-in-chief), with a story in which Thomas does his usual playing with Marvel continuity, this time tying the Mole Man and Tyrannus with a little-known subterranean character from an early Iron Man story.

Another small change when Thomas takes over (issue #126) involves the title's masthead:

As you can see, the title has now become "The World's Greatest Comix Magazine", seemingly in a nod to the underground comix movement (rather appropiate in a story involving the Mole Man). This change lasted for only a few issues (things are back to normal by issue #134, with the masthead once again saying "comic magazine").

I emailed Roy Thomas to ask him if he remembered who had made the change and why:

Don't recall. May have been my idea, but if so, was no better than Stan's short-lived "Pop Art Productions" of years before. we were comics, not comix.

Only a couple of years later Marvel would publish something closer to a "comix magazine": the fabled Comix Book, with work by several of the leading underground creators of the day.

Review: Walt Kelly's Our Gang Volume 2

2007-07-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

This second volume of "Our Gang" stories by Walt Kelly offers no surprises to those who've already read the first one, but it's still a nice addition to the libraries of Kelly fans, while we are still waiting for Fantagraphics to restart its Complete Pogo series.

Seven stories from issues 9 to 15 of "Our Gang Comics" (1944 to 1945) are reprinted in color, with additional commentary by Steve Thompson. Even though this isn't his best work (apparently, Kelly hit his stride with the series a few years later), the stories contain the usual slapstick humor and clever wordplay you'd expect from Kelly, with the characters encountering cartoony circus animals, Japanese soldiers, and counterfeiters throughout their adventures. The art is reproduced from the original comics, with what seems to be the original coloring. (One detail: the first story in the book doesn't seem to be drawn by Kelly; the first volume of this series also features a non-Kelly story by a mystery artist which has yet to be identified.)

The first continued story (consisting of one episode drawn by the mystery artist and the next three episodes drawn by Kelly) is about the kids getting stranded on a desert island, where they find "a secret Jap radio station" manned by a few Japanese soldiers. There's a strange transition between pages 44 and 45 of this edition: in the last panel of page 44 one sees the soldiers preparing to escape from their hideout, without knowing that they are being watched by the kids's friend, Captain Dan, who's holding a rifle. He says: "They're in a spot the minute they start goin' down that Jacob's ladder." The kid (Froggy) next to him simply asks "Why?"

In the next page, we're in a completely different scene, with Froggy telling the other kids: "So I showed the cap'n how to aim it an' told him the exact pusychological [sic] time to fire an' -". The implication is clear (the Captain shot the Japanese while they were trying to escape), but the transition is a bit too sudden. The episode as reprinted in this volume is only 11 pages long, while the two previous episodes and the very next episode have 12 pages each. My first thought was that Fantagraphics may have accidentally skipped a page, but a likelier explanation could be that Kelly's editors decided to drop the page in which we see the Japanese soldiers being shot, figuring that such a thing might have been too strong for a children's comic, war or no war. (For those who want to see some bloodshed however, the next episode shows more Japanese soldiers dying, this time on-panel.)

Steve Thompson has researched Kelly's work for a long time, and offers some useful pieces of info in this book, such as pointing plot similarities between some of these stories and "Pogo" sequences he did a few years later, pointing out that some of the Japanese dialog used in a story comes from a Japanese language guide for which Kelly had done the illustrations a year earlier, or letting readers know that one of the villains in a story contained in this book will become a recurring antagonist in future episodes. The book mentions Thompson is writing a Walt Kelly biography, which should be a welcome addition to the libraries of Kelly fans.

It's a shame that very little of Kelly's comic-book work has been reprinted over the years. Eclipse did four volumes of "Pogo" comic-books and a couple of non-Pogo Kelly comics, and Gladstone has reprinted over the years some Disney comics and covers drawn by Kelly. But there's still plenty of work waiting to be reprinted (Fairy Tale Parade, Santa Claus Funnies, Peter Wheat, most of the "Pogo" comic-book sequences from the Dell comics and the material originally done for the "Pogo" compilations, etc). It's a good thing that Fantagraphics is doing this series, with the production values it deserves, and hopefully it will do well enough so that we can see the entire "Our Gang" series by Kelly reprinted.

Comics characters not likely to be revived soon

2007-07-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

From Funland Comics #1 (1945), art probably by Louis Ferstadt.