Stephen E. Fabian's Ladies and Legends

'Stephen E. Fabian's Ladies and Legends'
by Stephen E. Fabian
Underwood-Miller, 1993

U.S. artist Stephen E. Fabian (b. 1930) was a prolific illustrator of small-press sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books, as well as a cover artist for mainstream publishers, from the late 60s throughout the 2000s. He particularly was adept in black-and-white and graytone illustrations.

Unlike other genre artists of the same era, whose works would be assembled into dedicated art books from companies like Dragon's Dream / Paper Tiger, Ballantine Books, or Pomegranate, compilations of Fabian's work tended to be issued in limited-run hardbound books, and as limited edition Portfolios. 

Fantasy by Fabian, 1979, Gerry de la Ree / Saddle River, N.J.

That means that presently, accessing Fabian's work can only be done through two hardcover books released by Underwood-Miller in the 1990s: Stephen E. Fabian's Ladies and Legends (1993) and Stephen E. Fabian's Women and Wonders (1995).

Below are a selection of the illustrations compiled in Ladies and Legends. I'll be posting selections from Women and Wonders in the future if there is interest.

And who knows...........maybe Titan Books, or Dark Horse Books, or Dynamite will arrange to issue a nice compilation of Fabian's art as a oversize hardbound book........?!

Book Review: In the Field of Fire

Book Review: 'In the Field of Fire' edited by Jeanne Van Buren Dann and Jack Dann

4 / 5 Stars

The paperback edition of 'In the Field of Fire' (415 pp.) was published by Tor Books in November 1987. The cover art is uncredited.

[ It's not easiest of 80s sci-fi anthologies to find, otherwise I would have included it in my special 'Vietnam Month' retrospective of July 2019. ]

This book is very 80s.

You'll likely want to be listening to Paul Hardcastle's 1985 single '19' while reading it.

In 1987, the year 'In the Field of Fire' was published, the pop culture fascination with the Vietnam War was going strong, as audiences went to see the movie Full Metal Jacket. The next year, the TV drama China Beach would air. 

The overarching theme to the stories collected in 'In the Field of Fire', Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among Vietnam veterans, was a very high-profile topic in many media outlets, as exemplified in the since-notorious 1988 CBS documentary CBS Reports:The Wall Within. 

In the popular culture of the mid-80s, the PTSD theme was so synonymous with the Vietnam war that in the 1987 comic book Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, when Bruce Wayne first sets out to be a vigilante, he disguises himself as a Vietnam War veteran:

Many entries 'In the Field of Fire' also adopt the phantasmagorical portrait of the war as outlined in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now. Still other entries adopt the ideology of the war as an orgy of All-American racism and bloodlust, as evinced in the My Lai massacre and the 'Hill 192 Incident'.

Rather than provide capsule summaries of all 22 stories in the anthology, I'll instead provide a broad overview:

The best story in 'Field' is Brian Aldiss's 'My Country 'Tis Not Only of Thee', which re-envisions the Vietnam War as a civil war in the UK early in the 21st century (!) The UK is divided into northern and southern halves by the Cotswold Wall, with the U.S. providing military assistance to the South. Aldiss clearly intended his story to be an allegorical denunciation of Thatcherism, but the sheer coolness of the concept of a postmodern War of the Roses undermines his effort at polemic. I finished 'My Country' thinking that 2000 AD comics could do something fabulous with the concept.

Other noteworthy entries include Kate Wilhelm's 'The Village', which depicts the My Lai massacre in a different light, and Gardner Dozois's 'A Dream at Noonday', in which a seeming hallucination morphs into a stark reality.

Multiple authors seek to fuse the supernatural into war stories. The best of these attempts are Lucius Shepard's two contributions, 'Delta Sly Honey' and 'Shades', Craig Kee Strete's 'The Game of Cat and Eagle', and Bruce McAllister's 'Dream Baby'.

Vietnam as an especially bad 'trip' is explored in Robert Frazier's 'Across Those Endless Skies'.

More representative of traditional science fiction themes are Ben Bova's 'Brothers', and Richard Paul Russo's 'In the Season of the Rains'.

PTSD among returned vets is dealt with by Charles L. Grant's underwhelming 'The Sheeted Dead', as well as Harlan Ellison's 'Basilisk', Lewis Shiner's 'The War at Home', Dave Smeds's 'Goats', and Susan Casper's 'Covenant with A Dragon'. 

Stories focused on the homefront experience tend to be unimpressive; these include 'Letters from Home' by Karen Joy Fowler, 'Deathtracks' by Dennis Etchison, and 'The Memorial' by Kim Stanley Robinson. 'Credibility', by John Kessel, is markedly superior to these, and an effective treatment of the 'Stolen Valor' theme.

Barry M. Malzberg's 'The Queen of Lower Saigon' is an incoherent example of authorial self-indulgence, and the worst entry in the anthology.

The last entry in the anthology is by Joe Haldeman, with the poem 'DX'. It's a decent enough poem, I suppose, but it's something of a disappointment; I was expecting something more substantive from Haldeman, the only contributor to 'In the Field of Fire' who was a combat soldier in the Vietnam War. It may have been that all his other writing projects at the time prevented Haldeman from submitting something more expansive.

Summing up, in 1987, 'In the Field of Fire' was a 'right time, right moment' examination of the embodiment of the Vietnam War in the pop cultural consciousness of the U.S. Somewhat inevitably, the passage of time has considerably lessened the resonance this anthology had when it first appeared. Sci-fi fans with an interest in the genre as it stood in the mid-80s definitely will want to get a copy, but I doubt younger, contemporary sf readers will find it very engrossing. 

The Stylistics: Let's Put It All Together by Johnson and O'Connell

The Stylistics
Let's Put It all Together
cover artwork by Doug Johnson and Jim O'Connell
1974

Doug Johnson is a Toronto-born artist who did album cover art (and other commercial art commissions) during the 70s and 80s. Johnson was adept in composing pieces not just for soul and R & B albums, but for other genres as well, such as the Heavy Metal band Judas Priest.

Johnson's advertisement for 'Cosmic Candy' and 'Space Dust' joins ''Pop Rocks' as an exemplar of the 70s merging of drug culture with candy:

[The expressions on the faces of the two kids are priceless ! ]

Johnson's artwork has a distinctive style that remains eye-catching even after the passage of nearly 50 years.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a Wiki entry, or any other in-depth biographical treatment, for Johnson, save for a paywalled artwork sales website. If there are non-paywalled sites offering information on his portfolio and career, let me know and I will link to them. 

Book Review: Mojave Wells

Book Review: 'Mojave Wells' by L. Dean James

3 / 5 Stars

'Mojave Wells' (280 pp) was published by Avon Books in June 1994. The cover art is by Dorian Vallejo.

As the novel opens, archaeology graduate student John Caldwell agrees to accompany his mentor, Professor Hanover, on a field trip to the 'Devil's Playground' area of the Mojave desert. The Professor believes unusual scorings in the terrain are indications of possible extraterrestrial activity in the distant past. 

Caldwell digs into the sand and unearths a strange artifact: a small, rectangular box, made of an exotic black material. Even as he examines the box, Caldwell finds himself passing out..... for over four hours ! When he revives, John angrily denounces the Professor for exposing him to a potentially lethal dose of radiation.

But as it turns out, the exposure to the mysterious black box has not given John Caldwell a lethal dose of radiation. Rather, it has engineered a change in his physical being: transmuting Caldwell into an alien, a member of the race known as the Ral. 

As Caldwell struggles to understand his transformation, the residents of the small desert town known as Mojave Wells are going to find themselves caught up in a conspiracy to identify and eliminate what may be the beachhead for an alien invasion of the planet Earth. For the Ral are a race of conquerors, armed with technologically advanced weaponry and an brutal indifference to the fate of those they conquer. 

Unless John Caldwell can find allies among the disbelieving residents of Mojave Wells, he will be the unwilling gateway for a Ral invasion........

The first half of 'Mojave Wells' is the best part of the book. It reads very much like an episode of The X Files, and it's not hard to believe that author Jones was inspired to some degree by that TV show (which began airing in 1993). The plot revolves around a small team of everyday citizens who find themselves the target of a government operation, and must rely on their wits and shared expertise to avoid becoming casualties of a clandestine war. The narrative offers quick pacing, interesting characters, and a steady stream of disquieting revelations and double-crosses.

It's in the final third of the book that 'Mojave Wells' unwisely jettisons the X Files homage and starts to devolve into an overly belabored treatment of alien sociology and psychology (there is much exposition on the marriage customs of the Ral, as well as excursions into the otherworldly realm of Ral 'dreaming', in which individuals can share the same phantasmagorical experience). This shift in the book's emphasis saps momentum from the narrative, and leads to a denouement that drags on too long: Star Gates are opened, then closed, then opened again, as one crisis after another is introduced and dutifully resolved. 

The verdict ? I can't recommend 'Mojave Wells' as a book to search out. But if you are a fan of X Files - style narratives and you happen see 'Mojave' on the shelf, you may want to pick it up.

Wolfpack issue 5

Wolfpack
Marvel Comics
Issue 5, December 1988

Marvel published some really bad comics in the late 80s and early 90s, but few (if any) were so inane as 'Wolfpack'. 

First marketed as a Marvel Graphic Novel (No. 31) in August 1987, Marvel's editorial staff gave writer Larry Hama and artist Ron Wilson the go-ahead to turn the concept into a limited-run series of 12 issues (August 1988 - July 1989).

The Wolfpack are five New York City teens (muscle man Slag, martial arts expert Rafael, gymnast Sharon, stealth operative 'Slippery Sam', and disABLED wheelchair-kid 'Wheels') who dedicate themselves to fighting an evil organization known as The Nine. Minions of The Nine are responsible for the crime and poverty in the South Bronx neighborhood where the Wolfpack lives.

Writer Hama (who later turned the chore over to Joe Figueroa) had a talent for (unintentionally) showcasing his cheesy interpretation of Ghetto culture. The Wolfpack seem to be modeled on the extras appearing in Michael Jackson's 1987 video 'Bad', and their interpretation of city life on the mean streets of the Bronx has so many cringe-worthy moments that it becomes a self-parody. Like this Kid Addicted to Crack:

Artist Ron Wilson (who is black) contributed to the storylines as the series went on, but even making allowances for his having to adhere to the Comics Code and Marvel's editorial policies, he maintains the cheesiness. It doesn't help matters that his artwork for 'Wolfpack' is very mediocre, looking as if first draft sketches were hurriedly passed on to the inkers with no additional refinement. 

Issue 5 (titled 'Save the Children', written by Wilson and Figueroa, with art by Wilson, December 1988), which I've posted below, is the quintessential Wolfpack comic. There's no need for further exegesis on my part; simply read it, and revel in the badness......

Book Review: Earth Cult

Book Review: 'Earth Cult' by Trevor Hoyle

3 / 5 Stars

'Earth Cult' (189 pp) was published in the UK by Panther in 1979; the cover art is by Peter Elson. In the U.S., the novel was retitled 'This Sentient Earth' and published, also in 1979, by Zebra Books.

This was one of a number of sf titles written by U.K. author Trevor Smith (b. 1940), who used the pseudonym Trevor Hoyle.

The terrain and mountains are the main characters, so to speak, in 'Earth Cult', as the novel is set in Colorado in the late 70s. The Mount of the Holy Cross features prominently, as do the nearby towns and villages (Minturn, Red Cliff, Dotsero, Eagle, etc.) of Eagle County. 

It's September, and Frank Kersh, a writer for the magazine Science Now, has arrived in the (real-life) town of Gypsum on an assignment to interview the director of the 'Deep Hole' : the Rocky Mountain Astrophysical Neutrino Research Station. The Research Station supervises a project to detect neutrinos by monitoring the collision of these particles with the chlorine atoms residing in perchloroethylene solution stored in enormous tanks a mile under the Mount.

Kersh completes his interview with Station Director Professor Friedmann and is ready to head for Chicago the following morning, when Kersh begins to realize that things are a little........off............in Gypsum. For one thing, a cult, calling itself the Telluric Faith, has established itself in the town, and its head, the mysterious Mr. Cabel, tells of a coming Apocalypse that will see the Earth sundered and all living things extinguished.

Then there is the unprecedentedly severe weather that has struck Gypsum and the other towns in proximity to the Mount of the Holy Cross. And in the town of Radium, mothers are giving birth to 'zombie' babies that are outwardly healthy, but simply lie in their cribs and stare vacuously into space......

Intrigued by these developments, Frank Kersh finds himself teaming up with local journalists Cal and Helen Renfield to conduct an investigation....because these developments weren't present prior to the installation of the Research Station. Is there something going on in the depths of the Mount of the Holy Cross that the researchers don't want the world to know about.........?

Like the other sf novel by Hoyle that I have read, The Last Gasp, 'Earth Cult' stays away from New Wave affectations and relies on a straightforward prose style, short chapters, and a steady stream of revelations to keep the reader engaged. Without disclosing spoilers, the final chapters undergo a shift from a 'scientific mystery' theme to a much more 'Cosmic' theme. While I thought this shift showed quite a bit of inventiveness, there also was a bit of contrivance in terms of plot development, hence my three-star review.

I finished 'Earth Cult' thinking it was perhaps most effective as a travelogue, and tribute, to the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado of the 1970s. 

It reflects very much the era of John Denver's Rocky Mountain High and the attendant pop culture fascination with the mountains and a Return to Nature, as exemplified in films like The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, Adventures of the Wilderness Family, Jeremiah Johnson, and Continental Divide. 

John Denver, in quintessential 70s 'outdoors' clothing, posing against some mountain scenery 

Grab that Gerry down vest, your suede Trail Boots, and your rugby shirt (as demonstrated below in the Moss Brown and Co. catalog from 1978), and get ready to ascend the mountains !

The Dark Age of Comic Books (TV Tropes)

The Dark Age of Comic Books
from 'TV Tropes'

A very readable and entertaining essay about how the release of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore's Watchmen in 1986 ignited a trend towards darker, more violent stories in comic books from multiple U.S. publishers. 

(I can't find an author for the TV Tropes essay, nor a date of publication.)

An argument could be made that in the U.K., 2000 AD comics already had staked out its turf on the 'Dark Age', and that the U.S. comics industry simply was catching up. But maybe that's for another essay, at another time..................