New York: Year Zero issue 4

New York: Year Zero
by Ricardo Barreiro (script) and Juan Zanotto (art)
Eclipse Comics
Issue 4, October 1988

Issue One is here.

Issue Two is here.

Issue Three is here.

In the fourth and final issue of the series, Brian Chester, along with Delfina Carson, leads a commando team through New York City's sewers. Their mission: breach the stronghold of the Rofeller corporation. But the sewers of this postmodern NYC contain entities more dangerous than just the typical rat..... or alligator....

Here it is, the final episode of 'New York: Year Zero':

Void Indigo

Void Indigo
by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik
Marvel Graphic Novel No. 11, 1984

During the 1970s, Steve Gerber was (along with Steve Englehart and Don McGregor) one of the most high-profile (some would say pretentious) writers at Marvel comics. After a dispute over revenue from Gerber’s creation ‘Howard the Duck’, Gerber left Marvel in 1978, with some degree of acrimony.

Marvel launched its series of Graphic Novels in 1982, with the premise that these novels would be open to publishing independently-produced, creator-owned publications, printed in an oversize format on quality paper with color separations that were considerably superior to those of the comic books of the time. Gerber set aside his past grievances with Marvel, and submitted a concept for a fantasy-themed story that had no similarities to any of his previous characters for the company. 

The result was Marvel Graphic Novel No. 11, ‘Void Indigo’, by Gerber and artist Val Mayerik, released in 1984.

‘Void’ starts in an ancient, sword-and-sorcery landscape, where four evil wizards find their kingdoms endangered by the onslaught of a savage barbarian tribe. In desperation, the wizards arrange for mass human sacrifices to restore their youth and power; however, this fails, and a fateful decision is made to kidnap and sacrifice Ath Agaar,the leader of the barbarians, and his consort.

I won’t disclose any spoilers, save to say that the wizards’ machinations disrupt the order of the cosmos. Across vast gulfs of time and space, their battle with a vengeful Ath Agaar will resume….in modern America.

‘Void’ features what were, at the time, rather graphic scenes of torture, mutilation, and violence – stuff that was unremarkable for its inclusion in ‘adult comics’ like Heavy Metal, but rather extreme for a graphic novel from a major comic book publisher. Nonetheless, the end of ‘Void’ was left open so that Gerber could continue the story in comic book format.

Epic Comics did indeed release two of a planned six issues of ‘Void Indigo’ in 1984 and 1985, but these first two issues were criticized by distributors and comic book critics, who decried the comic books’ violence. The remaining four issues never saw print.

 
‘Void Indigo’, the graphic novel, suffers to some extent from its open-ended conclusion. As well, some of its content might be considered misogynistic and overly violent.

My opinion ? It’s an interesting experiment in the graphic novel / comic medium, but as a creative work, it was stillborn in the sense that much of the content that already had appeared in Heavy Metal magazine was of superior quality and just as transgressive (if not more so…..I’m thinking of Arthur Suydam’s strip ‘Lulea’….), but much more stylish in its ‘transgressiveness’.

 
‘Void’ demonstrated that Marvel, when all was said and done, simply wasn’t willing to promote the edgier side of graphic art in the way that the European comic establishment did.

Book Review: Marvel Comics :The Untold Story

Book Review: 'Marvel Comics: The Untold Story' by Sean Howe

5 / 5 Stars

'Marvel Comics: The Untold Story' first was published in hardcover in 2012; this Harper Perennial trade paperback version (483 pp) was published in 2013.

The book opens with a familiar anecdote: it’s 1961, and in an office building at 655 Madison Avenue in New York City, Stanley Lieber, 38 years old, sits at a desk in a forlorn corner of the offices of Martin Goodman’s Magazine Management Company.

Lieber, who uses the pen name Stan Lee, is contemplating quitting his job. Only a decade earlier he had been supervising a large ‘bullpen’, or staff, of artists and writers who made up the very profitable Timely comic book publishing wing of Magazine Management. But now, in the aftermath of the anti-comic book crusade of the mid-50s, he supervises a handful of freelancers – among them Jack Kirby and Stan Goldberg – who illustrate a thin lineup of cornball monster comics, and ‘Millie the Model’.  

One of the writers for True Action, one of Goodman's 'men's magazine' titles, is a man named Mario Puzo. He regards Lee with a mixture of pity and amusement; Lee is the company's 'funny book' guy, an employee whose future seems limited, at best.

Martin Goodman tells Lee that DC comics has recently had considerable success with rolling out its superheroes in a team-based format called The Justice League of America, and suggests that Lee try something along the same lines for Marvel comics. Lee consults with his wife, who urges him to give the comic book scene one last try before bowing out. So an energized Lee conceives of a group of superheroes that suffer from all manner of human foibles and conflicts, enlists Kirby to supply the art, and in the Fall of 1961, with a cover date of November, the first issue of The Fantastic Four hits the stands.

The reaction from readers is immediate and positive: letters come into the Magazine Management office praising the Fantastic Four, and asking for more. Lee and Kirby, heartened by the response, embark on what would be a remarkable enterprise in comic book creation, one that would forever change the industry, and by extension American pop culture. Lee and Kirby would make Marvel the number one publisher of comic books, and the owner of some of the most profitable licensed properties in film history.

MC:TUS tells the story of Marvel from its beginnings in 1939, with the publication of Marvel Comics No. 1, up until 2012. Its pages are filled with anecdotes and reminiscences and insider gossip, which makes this one of the best books – if not the best book – I have read so far this year.

One thing author Howe does very well is illuminate the business decisions and conflicts that, to date, have been covered in only a superficial manner, as in (for example) Les Daniel’s 1993 coffee-table book Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. 

As Howe relates, due to the work-for-hire policy that governed Marvel, those who, like Kirby, created best-selling characters were solely dependent on company largesse if they hoped  to receive any financial rewards other than their base salary. And Marvel's management had no qualms about behaving nastily towards former employees; Howe describes how Marvel ignored Kirby's repeated requests to return some of the 8,000 pages of original artwork he had provided to the company. Marvel claimed that it was having trouble locating the artwork, even as some of those pages were showing up for sale at conventions.

Howe also reveals how unprofitable the comic book industry was until the direct sales market matured ca. 1979 – 1980. Prior to that time, Marvel was resigned to selling only one of every three comic books it produced. The company was often at the mercy of distributors, some of whom would simply let stacks of comics lie fallow in their warehouses, before tearing off the covers, submitting them for credit, and then selling the cover-less comics for a 100 % profit.

Howe also provides a clear and engaging narrative of the great comic book boom of the early 1990s, a time when fanboys and speculators shelled out their dollars to buy ‘special edition hologram cover’ issues of Spider Man or X-Men, sure in their assumptions that in just a few years, they would be able re-sell the book for hundreds of dollars. 

The magnitude of the damage the great comic book crash that started late in 1993, and continued well into the early 2000s, did to Marvel was a revelation to me: mass-firings and title cancellations reduced the company to a shadow of its former self. 

When veteran artist and freelancer Herb Trimpe, who I well remember as the illustrator of the Incredible Hulk comics of the early 70s, found his title cancelled, he tried to find a substitute: 

No matter what I say or who I call or write at Marvel, I can't get assigned to another book. I've tried reason, outrage, guilt trips and begging. Nada. I haven't been able to scrounge together enough work to meet my monthly quota. The place [Marvel] is a shambles. When I press, they admit sales are down and so is morale. The scuttlebutt is that more layoffs are coming.

Along with layoffs, employees had to put up with the penny-pinching, grasping management of Marvel owner Isaac Perlmutter, who castigated employees for not recycling paperclips, of for not turning off their office lights if they were to be out for more than 5 minutes. 

Today, of course, Marvel has recovered, and earns considerable revenue from the films and tie-ins featuring its characters (although I was stunned to learn that the company earned only $25,000 from the very first Blade movie, which earned $70 million for Warner Bros. - !). 

I don't think I've bought any new comics from Marvel since Marvel Zombies Supreme (2011), the lame final installment in the 'Zombies' franchise. But I do continue to buy graphic novels of Marvel's comics from the 70s and 80s, as well as back issues of Epic Illustrated and the Epic imprint comic books.

Whether you’re a current Marvel fan or someone who read them back in the day; a fan of comics in general; a fan of American pop culture; or someone who is interested in the business aspects of comic book publishing and print media, MC:TUS is well worth getting. I give it an unequivocal 5 stars.

Recently acquired 80s graphic novels

Recently acquired 80s graphic novels

Most are from Eclipse; some from Epic. I should have reviews of most of these posted in the next month or so.

Cody Starbuck episode 3

Cody Starbuck
by Howard Chaykin
Episode 3
from Heavy Metal magazine July 1981 
continuing from the first two episodes

 

Book Review: Wolfwinter

Book Review: 'Wolfwinter' by Thomas Burnett Swann

3 / 5 Stars

‘Wolfwinter’ (203 pp.) was published by Ballantine Books in November, 1972. The striking cover artwork is by Gene Szafran.

The novel is set in ancient Greece and Italy (Etrusca / Etruria), back in the days when Gods and heroes and the creatures of mythology roamed the earth alongside mortal man.

The heroine of the novel is a plain, rather awkward adolescent girl named Erinna; she resides on the island of Lesbos, and is friend and confidant of the poetess Sappho. Lesbos is – not surprisingly – presented here as a wonderland of Free Love. Orgies (alluded to in a mild way) are not unusual, and as the novel opens, Sappho urges Erinna to attend the Festival of Aphrodite – an orgy devoted to the arrival of Spring – and after some prodding, Erinna agrees, and has a liaison with a faun named Greathorn.

In the months after the Festival, Erinna is betrothed to Timon, a member of the idle rich of the city of Sybaris, a city in Etrusca. Timon recognizes that Erinna is pregnant by another man, but, in keeping with his indolent nature, agrees to have the child raised in his household.

Unfortunately for Erinna, when her son Hoofless is born, while he lacks the hoofs of a faun, he has two horns on his forehead. Timon will not abide with rearing a satyr’s son, and he orders that Hoofless be taken away from his mother and subjected to the cruel custom of Sybaris: unwanted, crippled infants are abandoned outside the city walls, on the Field of Wolves, where they are devoured by the unnaturally intelligent and ferocious White Wolves of the surrounding countryside.

Erinna has no intention of sacrificing Hoofless, so she escapes the city walls and travels to the Field of Wolves…there to try and save her infant son, an act of foolhardy courage that brings her into confrontation with the White Wolves….and involvement in the age-old war between the fauns of Italy and their canine adversaries.

‘Wolfwinter’ is the first novel by Thomas Burnett Swann that I have read. Swann (1928 – 1976) wrote nearly 20 novels and short-story collections, many of which were published by DAW Books and other sf publishers in the late 60s and early 70s. 

Swann, who was a homosexual, portrayed ancient Greece and Rome in a laudatory, even elegiac, manner for their lack of repression in such matters, although, as in ‘Wolfwinter’, he did not shy from disclosing the less salutary practices of these ancient civilizations, such as infanticide.

‘Wolfwinter’ is a fantasy novel in the sense that much of its narrative is occupied with lyrical descriptions of the forest, its fauns and dryads and other creatures, all living harmoniously in a sort of pastoral paradise. Its accounts of the charming, rustic habitations of the woodland denizens, their food and drink and interior and exterior décor, are told with the same detail and warmth with which Tolkein related the homely appeal of his hobbit-holes and the landscape of the Shire. 

It’s a reasonably engaging book, and, while devoid of much in the way of action, those few sequences in which the ravenous White Wolves are encountered are well-written, and injected sufficient momentum into the narrative to keep me interested.

Dragon Chiang

'Dragon Chiang' by Tim Truman and Timothy Bradstreet

 

'Dragon Chiang' (44 pp) is a black and white graphic novel published in 1991 by Eclipse Comics. Truman did the script and art, and Bradtsreet, the inks.

It's set  in the same post-collapse America of Truman's 1985 - 1987 series for Eclipse, Scout.

'Dragon' Chiang is a Chinese trucker making the long, long drive from Beijing, north into Russia, across the Bering Strait causeway, south through Alaska and Canada, to finish in San Francisco. It's a journey he has made before, but as the American economy undergoes further disintegration, waves of refugees have been fleeing the US and entering Russia; as a result, crossing the borders has become more regulated....and more dangerous.

Dragon is known and respected among the border guards, the other truckers, and the rest stop managers all along his route. But that doesn't mean Dragon won't use the unique armaments that his futuristic 18-wheeler has at its disposal.

Nor does it mean that Dragon isn't going to be able to take a piss at the truck stop without getting into some trouble with 'Possum Man' and his fellow road trash......

Things only get more hazardous - and more violent - as Chiang proceeds into the continental US...........

Tim Truman's meticulous draftsmanship is on display here, benefitting from some nice ink work from Bradstreet.

In a three page Afterword essay, author Truman expounds on the inspiration for Dragon Chiang. It's  a long and eclectic list straight out of modern American Pop Culture, and includes the trucker / CB radio craze of the mid-70s; biker movies; sf novels like Damnation Alley; and Trashman, Spain Rodriguez's underground comic classic .

If you like the intersection of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior with Truman's offbeat take on a postapocalyptic US, then 'Dragon Chiang' is well worth picking up. Copies can be obtained for reasonable prices from many vendors; I might suggest MyComicShop.com as one of the better sources (note: I receive no recompense for that endorsement).

Book Review: Night Winds

Book Review: 'Night Winds' by Karl Edward Wagner

4 / 5 Stars

‘Night Winds’ (286 pp.) was published by Warner Books in August, 1978. The cover artwork is by Frank Frazetta.

These Warner paperback editions of the Kane stories are long out of print, and command high prices; I was fortunate to pick this volume up for $2 at the Gordon St. Library booksale in Charlottesville last April.

“Night Winds’ compiles six short stories and novelettes first published from 1974 – 1977 in small press magazines such as Midnight Sun, Chacal, and Whispers.

All of the stories display purple prose and stilted conversations – Wagner was at heart a pulp writer. However, they are atmospheric, offbeat, and Kane stands firm as a distinctive type of antihero throughout each and every tale.

My concise summaries of the stories:

Undertow (1977): Probably the most poorly-written of the entries; Kane’s mistress enlists various soldiers of fortune and adventurers in an effort to help her flee from Kane's grasp.

Two Suns Setting (1975): wandering through a desolate, rubble-strewn landscape, Kane embarks on an adventure to find the ancient resting place of the King of the Giants. This is one of the better stories in the anthology.

The Dark Muse (1975): Opyros the Poet is desperate to write the best poem of his career; Kane obliges by assisting the poet to enter into a dangerous, but otherworldly, dream-world. A reasonably good mix of Lovecraftian ‘Randolph Carter’ – style adventure, and some more conventional sword-and-sorcery tropes.

Raven’s Eyrie (1977): On the run and in desperate straits, Kane and his band of cut-throats seek refuge in a decrepit inn. As night falls on the surrounding wilderness, the Lord of the Dead emerges from the depths of the Earth and stalks the night for victims. This story’s downbeat tenor and lively action sequences make it effective.

Lynortis Reprise (1974): Amidst the crumbling ruins and decay of a long-ago battlefield, Kane competes with a band of mercenaries to learn the location of a rumored hoard of treasure. Another tale marked by a cynical atmosphere, and a carefully crafted sense of allegory about war and madness; a theme not uncommon in fiction of the post- Vietnam era.

Sing A Last Song of Valdese (1976): A cold Autumn evening in the remote highlands; a priest finds himself forced to seek lodging for the night in a hotel filled with fellow travelers. As the night unfolds, criminals, and the consequences of an atrocity committed long, long ago, are revealed. More of a horror story than a sword-and-sorcery adventure, ‘Valdese’ is arguably the best of all the Kane tales.

Summing up, ‘Night Winds’ is a worthy collection of vintage fantasy / sword-and-sorcery fiction. Provided you can find a copy for a reasonable price, it’s worth searching out.