Mighty Samson: The Pollution People

Mighty Samson
'The Pollution People'
Gold Key / Whitman, December 1974

In keeping with the 'Toxic 70s' theme for this month of January 2017, here's a story featuring Samson, a superhero appearing in his own series with Gold Key / Whitman in the early 70s. In this issue, Samson wanders a postapocalyptic landscape, where mutants created by pollution harbor enmity towards those who corrupted the Earth.

Gold Key was not a participant in the Comics Code Authority, which meant their comics could have 'violent' content - such as the shedding of monster blood in this comic - that was prohibited in books from Marvel and DC.

Book Review: The Poisoning of Michigan

Book Review: 'The Poisoning of Michigan' by Joyce Egginton

On September 20, 1973, Rick Halbert, a dairy farmer in Battle Creek, Michigan, concluded that his cows were sick.

The animals in Halbert's 400-head herd were not eating; they seemed lethargic and were not providing as much milk as they normally did.

Halbert suspected that the latest shipment of feed he was giving to his cattle, called Dairy Ration 402, might be responsible. He contacted the Michigan Farm Bureau feed mill in Battle Creek and asked if they had mistakenly substituted the magnesium oxide supplement in Dairy Ration 402 with another element, such as molybdenum or manganese.The feed mill assured him that they had not.

As Fall turned to Winter, Halbert grew increasingly desperate as his dairy herd was ravaged by illness. The animals suffered from mange, skin lesions, diarrhea, and neurological disorders. Calving season was a disaster; many calves died in utero, and the cows were too sick to expel the aborted calves.

Halbert's veterinarian tested the animals for a variety of diseases, suspecting poisoning from mycotoxins in the grain fed the animals. But the results were negative.

Facing financial ruin, Halbert - who had a degree in chemical engineering, a body of training few dairymen possessed - barraged the state agricultural laboratory and Michigan State University with requests to test the Dairy Ration 402 feed for contaminants, particularly pesticides. But sophisticated chemical tests performed on the feed were negative.

Then, in April 1974, a chemist at the USA laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, identified reproducible peaks of a chemical contaminant in samples of Dairy Ration 402. The peaks were not associated with pesticides, which explained why they had not been detected by routine screens for the presence of those chemicals. 

But when George Fries, the USDA chemist, revealed what the peaks were, Rick Halbert - and soon every farmer in Michigan - and then every resident of Michigan - realized that the disaster was just starting.....

'The Poisoning of Michigan' (363 pp, Michigan State University Press, 2009) is a very readable, often dramatic account of one of the greatest toxic disasters in the modern history of the USA, one with consequences that plague many of that state's residents even today.

[ 'Poisoning' first was published in hardback in 1980; this 2009 trade paperback features an Afterward by Devra Lee Davis, Maryann Donovan, and Arlene Blum that updates the story of the disaster. ]

As Egginton makes clear, the disaster was aided and abetted by indifferent bureaucrats, scientists, and politicians, who tried to sweep the scope of the contamination under the rug, 'only to see it come out the other side'.

I don't remember hearing about the disaster back in '73 and '74, but the news media was obviously much more localized back then and events in Michigan would not have received much coverage in the major newspapers in New York State. 

I do vaguely remember advertising for the 1981 TV movie Bitter Harvest, which starred Ron Howard (who played Richie Cunningham in Happy Days), as a Michigan farmer who confronts the toxic disaster.

With the passing of the decades, the disaster in Michigan has faded from the public consciousness. But 'The Poisoning of Michigan' is well worth getting, both as a documentary of a major 70s toxic disaster, and as an engrossing book in its own right.

January is Toxic 70s Month

Dead livestock, Seveso, Italy 1976

warning sign at the entrance to Times Beach, Missouri

January is Toxic 70s Month at the PorPor Books Blog !

Here at the PorPor Books Blog I occasionally take a respite from reading and reviewing sf content to focus on something else.

For January 2017, I thought I would turn to a subject near and dear to the hearts of many Baby Boomers who came of age in the 70s: Toxic Disasters.

chemical structure of dioxin

There were plenty of these throughout the 70s, both in the USA and abroad. Some of them I was aware of, while others are new to me.

The books for which I will be posting reviews all are fascinating........if disturbing.

child with chloracne, Seveso

Travel back in time to the days when birds dropped from the sky.....cows gave birth to mutants.......and people became Contaminated with chemicals that are with us still.....!

chemical structure of polybrominated biphenyl

'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner

'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner
from the November 1985 issue of Heavy Metal

Killraven (2002)

Killraven (2002)
Alan Davis (script and art) and Mark Farmer (inks)
Marvel graphic novel, 2007

'Killraven' compiles all six issues of the miniseries first published by Marvel comics from November, 2002 to April 2003.

Alan Davis (b. 1956) started out as a comic book artist in the UK, before becoming one of the best-known artists for DC and Marvel based on his work for those companies from the mid- 80s up through the 2000s. 

In his Introduction to this compilation, Davis recalls seeing issue 18 of Amazing Adventures, which in the Spring of 1973 debuted the Killraven character, and being impressed with the character and the artwork from Neal Adams. 

In 2002, Marvel editor Bob Harras offered Davis the chance to write and illustrate a Marvel series; Davis ultimately chose to do Killraven. 

The 2002 miniseries is basically a retelling of the Killraven storyline, and features characters and plot points that will be quite familiar to those who have read the series back in the 70s. 

In my opinion, while competently done, Davis's Killraven really doesn't succeed as a re-imagining of the character and the setting. 

The artwork is decent enough, although stylistically it is very much inspired by the artwork used in Marvel's mainstream superhero titles of the early 2000s. There's nothing about the 2002 Killraven that identifies it as a sf, rather than a superhero, comic. 

I can't say I'm overly enthused by Davis's use of tilted panels in an effort to lend additional dynamism to his action sequences. Those action sequences rendered in this manner seem too cramped and too overfilled with speech balloons to be very effective in a visual sense.

Davis's plot is reasonably interesting through the first five issues, although the preachy nature of Killraven's 'Quest for Peace' gets wearying after a while. Unfortunately, Davis introduces some plot elements in the sixth and final issue that are contrived, ending this miniseries on an unconvincing note. 

Summing up, if you're a die-hard Killraven fan and you want to have every incarnation of the character in your collection, then you'll want to pick up either the original issues or this graphic novel. All others can probably pass.

The Fellowship of the Ring by the Brothers Hildebrandt

The Fellowship of the Ring
by the Brothers Hildebrandt
late 70s

This was one of the Hildebrandt's better-known Tolkein posters from the late 70s. 

The Prophesy from Eerie No. 107

The Prophesy
by Bill Kelly (writer) and Nestor De Leon (art)
Eerie No. 107 (December 1979)

A neat little 'monsters on the loose' tale from the skilled Filipino artist Nestor De Leon. Unfortunately, this comic was De Leon's only work for a US publisher.

Favorite 70s pop wines

Favorite 70s Pop Wines

Anyone who Imbibed during the 70s is going to remember these cheap wines. Although these were the preferred choice of winos everywhere, you didn't have to be a wino to appreciate them.  

Boone's Farm and Mogen-David (aka 'Mad Dog') 20/20 were my faves. I still have memories of the horrible hangovers I got from drinking too much of them......I

Book Review: Jirel of Joiry

Book Review: 'Jirel of Joiry' by C. L. Moore

2 / 5 Stars

'Jirel of Joiry' (212 pp) was published by Ace Books in November 1982. The cover artist is Stephen Hickman.

This paperback compiles five Jirel stories that first were published in 1934 - 1939 in Weird Tales.

Joirel of Joiry was arguably the forerunner for the female sword and sorcery heroine genre, although none of these stories introduce anything like the 'chick in chain mail bikini' imagery that defines the modern version of the genre.

The stories are set in Medieval France, where Jirel is a kind of secular Joan of Arc, albeit a Joan of Arc with an aggressive streak; Jirel has no hesitation about hacking away at those petty princelings and warlords infesting her country.

In these stories, author Moore focuses less on furious action, and more on elaborate phantasmagorical and supernatural encounters. The lead character often finds herself traversing other dimensions, where she has life-or-death contests with various malevolent sorcerers and mages. While not disclosing any spoilers, I will reveal that some of these locales and adversaries are of a Lovecraftian flavor.

Moore's prose style is very pulp-centered; although her prose can be quite atmospheric, many passages overdose on adjectives and adverbs, and can be tedious to read. 

Summing up, while the Jirel stories have their historical value in terms of the Pulp canon, I doubt that modern readers will find these stories to be as entertaining as those of Robert E. Howard.