Arts Unknown: the Life and Art of Lee Brown Coye

Arts Unknown
The Life and Art of Lee Brown Coye
by Luis Ortiz
Nonstop Press, 2005

'Arts Unknown' (176 pp) is one of a number of overviews of fantasy / sci-fi art edited by Luis Ortiz and published by the Greenwood, Delaware publisher Nonstop Press.

Like many devotees of sci-fi and fantasy literature and art, I was aware to some extent of Lee Brown Coye (1907 - 1981), mainly though his distinctive artwork for the classic Weird Tales pulp magazine, his cover art for Arkham House hardbound books, and, in the late 70s and early 80s, his collaboration with Whispers magazine writer Karl Edward Wagner and editor Stuart David Schiff.

'Arts Unknown' provides an in-depth overview of the artist, his works, and his times.

Coye was born in the small town of Tully and spent most of his life in upstate New York, in locales such as Syracuse, Cazenovia, and Hamilton; anyone who lived or lives in that area will find many informative anecdotes in 'Arts Unknown' about the region in the days when it was prosperous and thriving (as opposed to nowadays being a depressing landscape emblematic of the Rust Belt).

'Arts Unknown' chronicles Coye's life and art in chronological order, assessing his work within the trends and fashions of the art world during the pre- and post- WWII eras. As a self-taught artist, without a network of contacts and patrons, Coye nonetheless was able to gain a degree of appreciation in his homeland of Central New York and, as his career progressed, a measure of notice among the established art community of New York City.

One thing that emerges from 'Arts Unknown' is that Coye was something of an erratic personality, which, when combined with a poor business sense, regularly left him in a state of financial insecurity. 

Also revealed in the pages of 'Arts Unknown' is the breadth of Coye's artistic skills, which included the assembly of meticulously crafted dioramas; metalsmithing; and medical illustration.

Although much of the pieces Coye created have been lost over the years, author Ortiz does a commendable job in compiling as much material as could be found. Readers hoping to see Coye's works for Weird Tales and Arkham House will find examples here.

Ortiz does relate some interesting anecdotes behind Coye's famous illustrative motif of crossed sticks, and how this motif came to the attention of Karl Edward Wagner and Stuart Schiff, and the memorable short story 'Sticks' by the former that appeared in Whispers magazine in the March, 1974 issue. 

If you're not familiar with this phenomenon of late 70's horror fiction, and its referencing in the 1999 'found footage' film The Blair Witch Project, then this blog has some details (but beware - it also has Spoilers). Another, more lengthy, examination of 'Sticks', Wagner, and Coye is available here.

Summing up, 'Arts Unknown: The Life and Art of Lee Brown Coye' will be of interest to fans of horror and fantasy literature; graphic art; American art of the early 20th century; and even those with an interest in the history and culture of the arts scene in upstate New York in that same time interval. Copies, priced at about $40, can be had from your usual online vendors. 

Swords of the Swashbucklers

Swords of the Swashbucklers
by Bill Mantlo (story) and Jackson Guice (art)
Marvel Graphic Novel No. 14 (1984)

'Swords of the Swashbucklers' (64 pp.) is Marvel Graphic Novel No. 14, and was released in 1984.

As 'Swords' opens, it's the morning after a major storm off the South Carolina coast. A teen-aged girl named Domino is wandering the beach to see what has washed ashore.

Among the dunes, Domino comes across a strange piece of machinery that has become uncovered by the storm. The machinery emits a signal pulse.

The action then shifts to another part of the galaxy, where ships 'sail' the depths of space thanks to enwrapping force-fields that retain a bubble of breathable air for the crew.

We are introduced to the pirate ship 'Starshadow', her crew of alien scum, and the captain, a red-headed woman with horns (?!) named Raader. 

Without giving away spoilers, I'll simply say that Raader and her ship are the scourge of the spaceways, and the sole opponent of the rapacious Colonizers. And there is a connection between Raader and Domino, a connection that stretches back hundreds of years and across light-years of space.......

'Swords of the Swashbucklers', needless to say, is an attempt to infuse a sci-fi adventure narrative with the theme of the pirates of historical fact. In this, Mantlo's script does a reasonably adequate job, although the presence of a lot of hanging plot threads at the book's conclusion signals that the creators were hoping to launch a franchise from this Graphic Novel. This of course came to pass, with the 'Swords' series of 12 comic books that were released, under Marvel's Epic imprint, from March 1985 to March 1987.

Jackson Guice's artwork is the major selling point for this Graphic Novel, as it represents his customary level of high quality. Alfred Ramirez's colors at times overwhelm Guice's penciling, but this is simply a reflection of the limitations of the color reproduction processes Marvel employed for its Graphic Novels in the early 80s.

Summing up, 'Swords of the Swashbucklers' is another of those 80s sci-fi Graphic Novels that sets out to be a fun and entertaining read, no more, no less. It has a lighter quality than the overwritten, weighty sci-fi comics one sees nowadays (like Saga, Descender, Bitch Planet, and Invisible Republic) and if this is appealing to you, then acquiring a copy is recommended (used copies of 'Swords' can be found for under $10).

Robert Palmer: You Are In My System

Robert Palmer
'You Are In My System'
October 1983

'You Are In My System' first was released in August 1982 as a single by the U.S. band The System. 

English singer Robert Palmer heard the song and was eager to record his own version, which in turn became a track on his 1983 album Pride. Palmer released a single of 'You Are In My System' in October 1983; the single reached number 73 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. 

Like the version released by The System, Palmer's take on the song stayed true to its New Wave / Electropop aesthetic, with an emphasis on synthesizer and electronic drums. The accompanying video is noteworthy for its proto-Cyberpunk imagery: Palmer dons a leather trench coat; there are computers; Tron-style vector graphics; neon lights; and noir-style lighting.

Moving Fortress by Barreiro and Alcatena

Moving Fortress
by Ricardo Barreiro (story) and Enrique Alcatena (art)
adapted by Chuck Dixon and Tim Truman
4Winds Publishing Group, 1988

'Moving Fortress' first was published in 1987 as a serial (La Fortress Movil) in the magazine Skorpio (which circulated in South American and Italy from 1974 to 1996). A sequel, titled El Mundo Subterranea, came later in 1987. 'Bundled' versions of the two comics are available in Spanish editions.

[For an in-depth article, in Spanish, on these comics, readers are directed here.]

In the U.S., veteran comics artist Tim Truman and writer Chuck Dixon formed 4Winds Publishing Group to obtain the rights to issue English translations of comics published in South America and Europe. English translations of 'Moving Fortress' and 'Subterra' (El Mundo Subterranea) were published by 4Winds in 1988 as black-and-white trade paperbacks.

'Moving Fortress' (58 pp) features as its hero the adventurer Bask de Avregaut, who, in the opening pages, is flying in a dirigible over the wasteland. de Avregaut has the misfortune to fly over an extraordinary vehicle: the Moving Fortress, an entire city on wheels. 

Shot down by the Fortress's cannoneers, Bask is forced to work as a slave in the engine room, where the eldritch energies used to power the vehicle take their toll on the labor force.

But as luck would have it, a battle with Yathroian airships gives Bask a chance to escape certain death in the engine room. Thanks to his coolness under fire, Bask is instated as a member of the Fortress's crew..........and comes to learn the purpose behind the creation of the Fortress and the single-minded obsession driving its cruel leader, Emir Basileo.............

'Moving Fortress' is one of those comics in which everything comes together so well that it stands as one of the best graphic novels of the 1980s. 

Ricardo Barreiro's script has its twists and turns, but never becomes so complicated that it can't be effectively communicated within its 55 pages.

But it's Alcatena's art that really makes 'Moving Fortress' a unique comic. The artwork calls to mind the lithography-based illustration of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly the artistry of Aubrey Beardsley and Harry Clarke, along with a pinch of Art Deco. The designs of the uniforms and clothing of the characters, the dirigibles, the cities, the ruined statues in the desert, and the weapons and mounts of the combatants all are imaginative and unlike nothing seen in most standard-issue 'sword and sorcery' comics.

You can get copies of the 4Winds version of 'Moving Fortress' for under $15 from your usual online vendors. Fans of graphic art and fantasy comics definitely will want to have one in their personal library.

Book Review: Lord of Dark Places

Celebrating Black History Month 2020

Book Review: 'Lord of Dark Places' by Hal Bennett

2 / 5 Stars

Here at the PorPor Books Blog, we observe Black History Month by reading and reviewing a book - fiction or nonfiction - that illuminates the Black Experience. For Black History Month 2020, we are featuring the novel 'Lord of Dark Places', which first was published in 1970. This Bantam Books edition (310 pp) was released in June 1971. The artist who provided the striking cover illustration is uncredited.

George Harold Bennett (1936 - 2004) was a black author who published several mainstream novels as Hal Bennett, as well as the 'Justin Perry' men's adventure fiction series (using the pseudonym John D. Revere) in the 1960s and 1970s. His short story 'Also Known As Cassius', published in the August, 1971 issue of Playboy magazine, gave him membership in the small cohort of authors who supplied material to the so-called 'slick' magazines at the top of the writers' market.

'Lord' is the story of Joe Market, from his days as a child in rural Virginia in the late 1940s, to his adulthood in the ghetto of Newark, New Jersey during the late 1960s. Joe is the embodiment of the black superstud: athletic, good-looking, and Always Ready. Even as a child, Joe's physical gifts lead him to being exploited by his father Titus, who displays an unclad Joe to gullible audiences of poor southern blacks as part of a 'Church of the Naked Disciple' religious road show. A calculating Titus allows anyone - anyone who is willing to pay, that is- some personal time alone with Joe.

Needless to say, these experiences take their psychological toll, and Joe matures into a man consumed with self-interest, and indifferent to the welfare of others. Men and women of all races and ages find Joe so irresistible that they are willing to overlook his faults. But Joe's circle of friends and acquaintances, including Tony, the white cop; Pee Wee, the taxicab driver and marijuana purveyor; China, the prostitute; the Down Low Lamont; and long-suffering wife Odessa and her hectoring mother Lavinia, can only forgive and overlook his transgressions for so long, before a reckoning must be made...........

'Lord of Dark Places' is an awkward blend of softcore pornography, melodrama, and political discourse. Too often the narrative will address injustice and oppression within one segment, before veering into a recounting of some sort of eye-rolling Grotesquerie designed to be both satirical, and an outrage to Bourgeoisie Sensibilities.This continual shifting in tone and theme gives the novel a disjointed quality, and lessens its impact as an observation of one black man's efforts to negotiate the social turmoil of the 60s.

Summing up, 'Lord of Dark Places' is, unfortunately, not an overlooked gem of Black American Fiction from the early 70s. Given that copies of the hardbound and mass market paperback versions have steep asking prices, I would say that only ardent collectors of Bennett's works will want to have this in their personal library.

Book Review: The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XII

Book Review: 'The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XII'
edited by Karl Edward Wagner

3 / 5 Stars

'The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XII' (239 pp) was published in November 1984 and features cover artwork by Segrelles. It's DAW Book No. 503.

All of the stories in this collection were previously published in 1982 - 1983 in various magazines and anthologies.

In his Introduction, editor Wagner does a bit of pontificating, announcing to his satisfaction that the 'horror fad' is receding, and 

......people are no longer standing in line to see films like Rototiller Dentist or assaulting the paperback racks to buy novels about giant maggots gobbling up Los Angeles or possessed teenagers turning other teenagers inside out. Readers have been affronted by enough garbage served up as horror; now they demand something better.

And what is, indeed, 'better' ? Why, the entries in 'The Year's Best Horror Stories', edited by Karl Edward Wagner, of course !

(Devotees of Paperbacks from Hell and splatterpunk novels undoubtedly will grasp my sarcasm).

So here are my capsule reviews of the gems awaiting you in this DAW anthology:

Uncle Otto's Truck, by Stephen King: in the 80s, having an entry by King in your anthology was marketing magic. This story is about an abandoned truck that menaces the first-person narrator's Uncle Otto. It's a successful enough horror tale from King, one that takes advantage of being set in his familiar territory of rural Maine.  

3:47 am, by David Langford: psychological horror tale of a man beset with increasingly disturbing nightmares. 

Mistral, by Jon Wynne-Tyson: on the French Riviera, a middle-aged man enjoys the company of a beautiful mistress whose attitude is a bit........feral.

Out of Africa, by David Drake: big-game hunting in Africa, for an unusual animal. A competent tale, if not all that imaginative.

The Wall Painting, by Roger Johnson: an English ghost story in the M. R. James tradition.

Keepsake, by Vincent McHardy: children in an elementary school use witchcraft against their teacher. The premise is interesting, but the story is so over-plotted that it misfires. 

Echoes, by Lawrence C. Connolly: a short-short story about a grieving family. One of the better entries in the anthology.

After-Images, by Malcolm Edwards: World War Three strikes an English town and the results are unexpected. Effectively mixing horror and sci-fi along with a unique depiction of growing dread, this is not only one of the better entries in this anthology, but one of the best horror stories of the 1980s.

The Ventriloquist's Daughter, by Juleen Brantingham: a woman confronts her father and her past. Unremarkable.

Come to the Party, by Frances Garfield: Garfield was Manly Wade Wellman's wife. This haunted-house tale adheres to a pulp writing style and would have been at home in Weird Tales.

The Chair, by Dennis Etchison: ahhh, yes, the inevitable Etchison 'quiet horror' entry. So superior to those novels about 'giant maggots' ! 

Here, Etchison gives us a high school reunion that goes awry. 

Etchison wasn't shy about vying with Ramsey Campbell for the use of purplish metaphors: 

A rusty tricycle like a twisted spider littered a shadowy yard. 

Like too many Etchison stories, the over-effort to depict mood, atmosphere, and setting fails to offset weak plotting.

Names, by Jane Yolen: Yolen was an established writer of children's books, and this apparently was her first attempt at something for the adult market. 'Names' is about Rachel, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor; Rachel is psychologically distressed. The premise is contrived, and the story unimpressive. 

The Attic, by Billy Wolfenbarger: editor Wagner was really scraping the barrel by including this entry, which is a chapter from some poet's unpublished novel, rather than a short story per se. 'The Attic' is a prose poem about a man's reveries, triggered when he rummages around his attic. Yeah, it's that lame................

Just Waiting, by Ramsey Campbell: the opening pages of this story about a man who returns to a forest, and the scene of childhood trauma, were written in an unusually clear and unadorned manner........ and my hopes rose that here, finally, Campbell might deliver something worthwhile ! Sadly, however, the story's final pages are so overloaded with descriptions of phantasmagorical happenings that the plot simply collapses under their weight. 

One for the Horrors, by David J. Schow: less a horror story than a treatment of classic movies, old movie theatres, and nostalgia. 

Elle Est Trois, (La Mort), by Tanith Lee: in 18th century Paris, three Starving Artists are confronted by Death ('La Mort') in its feminine incarnations. This being a Tanith Lee story from the early 80s, I anticipated a thin plot burdened with ornate prose, and that's what I got. But the denouement holds up well enough.

Spring-Fingered Jack, by Susan Casper: short-short story about a particularly disturbing video game.

The Flash! Kid, by Scott Bradfield: Rudy stumbles across an Alien Artifact concealed in a termite nest; there are Big Consequences. This story is a humorous sci-fi tale (it was originally published in Interzone) with no horror content. Its presence in this anthology suggests that editor Wagner wasn't trying as hard as he could have to collect worthy material for this volume.

The Man with Legs, by Al Sarrantonio: Willie, and big sis Nellie, decide to take the bus on a cold Winter's day to a house where their father - assumed to be dead - may in fact be alive and well. Or so it seems............. 

This story is not only another of the best entries in the anthology, but a gem of 80s horror, period. I actually devoted an entire post to a comic based on 'Legs'.

The verdict ? I finished 'The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XII' thinking that editor Wagner could have done a better job of seeking out genuine horror short stories, written with genuine skill, rather than settling for too many duds as part of his effort to promote material of the 'highest quality'.

That said, the inclusion of the stories by Connolly, Edwards, and Sarrantonio is enough to give this particular incarnation of 'The Year's Best Horror Stories' a three-star rating, and it is these stories that make this volume worth searching out. 

Visions of the Future

Visions of the Future
Edited by Janet Sacks
Introduction by A. E. Van Vogt
Chartwell Books, Inc. 1976

Science Fiction Monthly was published in the UK from 1974 - 1976 by paperback publisher New English Library. The Monthly was a large-size magazine that featured high-quality reproductions of sci-fi art, inserted without staples and intended to be removed, unfolded, and hung as posters. 

Visions of the Future (128 pp), edited by Janet Sacks, compiles art from the Monthly. At 13.5 x 10 inches in dimension, the book is expansive enough to adequately showcase its contents.

While some of the most prominent sci-fi artists in the UK and the USA were featured in the pages of Science Fiction Monthly, and will be familiar to anyone who was a fan of sci-fi in the 70s, others are rather obscure. 

The showcased art spans the gamut from figurative pieces indicative of the New Wave aesthetic, to the more realistic art exemplified by Chris Foss. One area where Visions of the Future falls short is that while it provides the titles for the featured pieces, it doesn't give any information about the original art (acrylic, oil, airbrush, etc.).

Jim Burns, Beyond Bedlam

Visions of the Future can be seen as the UK counterpart to Ian Summers's 1978 book about American sci-fi art,Tomorrow and Beyond. Between them, the two books provide a good overview of 70s commercial art for the sci-fi market. Copies of Visions in good condition can be had for reasonable prices, so if you are nostalgic for the art that served as covers for books and magazines of the era, this is worth picking up. 

 Lucinda Colwell, Panic O'Clock

The cover art (above) for the 1974 novel Panic O'Clock by UK author Christopher Hodder-Williams is the most striking piece in Visions of the Future. According to this post at the Bear Alley blog, Lucinda Cowell (b. 1947) is an American-born artist and graphic designer who first set up a print shop in London in 1972, afterwards enjoying considerable success in the fields of commercial art and advertising well into the 1990s.

Chris Foss, Away and Beyond

Robert Foster (as C. Foster), Sexmax

Bob Layzell, Invasion

 David Pelham, The Drought

Bruce Pennington, The Pastel City

Shamballa: Anderson Psi Division

Shamballa
Anderson Psi Division
by Alan Grant (writer) and Arthur Ranson (art)
2000 AD, 1991

'Shamballa' (2000 AD Books, 96 pp., 1991) compiles the episodes first serialized in the pages of 2000 AD comics from October to December 1990 (progs 700-711).  

The story features Judge Anderson, a telepath and Judge Dredd's colleague. As 'Shamballa' opens, there has been an epidemic of supernatural phenomena (some of them with lethal consequences) around the world.

 Anderson, being a telepath, is particularly receptive to these phenomena; concerned that they herald an approaching apocalypse, she consults with Doc Rickard at the Department of Fortean Events. This results in a team of Mega-City One's psi personnel embarking on a trip to East-Meg, there to join their Russian counterparts and embark on a collaborative investigation into the source of the phenomena.

I won't give away any spoilers, save to say that the danger to the world is real, and before things can be set right, some sacrifices will have to be made.........

'Shamballa' features a good plot by veteran writer Alan Grant, who avoids overloading the story with sub-plots and sub-sub-plots, something that by the early 90s, too many comic book writers were wont to do, in the hopes of emulating Alan Moore.

But where 'Shamballa' excels is in the intricate artwork by Arthur Ranson, one of the most talented artists in British comicdom. Ranson's work for 2000 AD for various Judge Anderson episodes, Button Man, and Mazeworld represents some of the best illustration ever to appear in that publication.

At 11.5 x 9 inches, this trade paperback maintains the sizing of the original 2000 AD issues, and presents Ranson' artwork without the 'miniaturization' that afflicts British comics when they are republished by American publishers and forced into the dimensions of American graphic novels. By maintaining the original dimensions, with this graphic novel it's much easier to admire the details of Ranson's penciling as well as the careful coloring (which, apparently, also was done by him ?). 

My only complaint about this trade paperback compilation is that it doesn't include the covers, or interior title pages, from the original issues of 2000 AD. 

Summing up, copies of 'Shamballa' in good condition can be obtained for affordable prices from your usual online vendors. If you are a fan of 2000 AD, its artists, or British comics in general, then getting a copy is well worth your while.