'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner

 

Book Review: Brothers of Earth

Book Review: 'Brothers of Earth' by C. J. Cherryh

2 / 5 Stars

‘Brothers of Earth’ (245 pp.) is DAW Book No. 212; it was published in October 1976, with cover art by Alan Atkinson.

‘Brothers’ adheres quite closely to the premise regularly employed in author Cherryh’s science fiction: through circumstance, or his own volition, an Earthman finds himself immersed in an alien world and an alien culture. 

Success of his mission, or perhaps his very survival, depends on his willingness to adapt to the alien culture and gain the respect of its people. The alien culture is usually depicted as being fair and equitable in its own right, if not in some ways superior to that of Terran culture. 

And, more often than not, our hero finds himself bereft of laser, disintegrator ray, railgun, mini-nuke launcher, phase plasma rifle in the 40-watt range, and other ordnance, leaving him with no choice but to undergo various humiliations and abuses, with no way to respond save to grin and bear it, and hope his persecutors will eventually relent.

In the case of ‘Brothers’, the hero is spaceman Kurt Morgan, the lone survivor of a battle between the fleets of the Federation and the rebellious Hanan faction. Morgan  crash-lands on a nameless Earth-type world, whose inhabitants are a race of humans akin to the Polynesians of Terra.

In due course, Kurt Morgan and Kta, his native minder, find themselves caught up in various religious and political conflicts among the native peoples, and forced into choosing sides in a violent civil war. It’s up to Kurt to demonstrate that his loyalties stand with Kta and his kin, even if so doing ruins the last, best chance Morgan has of regaining contact with the Federation, and eventual rescue…..

I found ‘Brothers’ to be a competent, if not particularly original, Cherryh novel. With the exception of the book’s middle section, where the narrative takes on some degree of momentum, most of the text is devoted to lengthy explorations of the emotional interactions between Morgan and his friend Kta. 

While I can’t claim to be an aficionado of so-called ‘slash’ fiction, it’s clear that in many ways ‘Brothers’ is a more chaste incarnation of the Kirk/Spock pieces regularly produced in the 70s by a subset of Star Trek’s female fans.

The novel is centered on the relationship between Morgan and Kta, and rarely strays from this path; I’m not disclosing a major spoiler to say that early on a female love interest is deployed, but then quickly removed. Other female characters are introduced in the course of the narrative, but these characters serve as vehicles by which Morgan and Kta can further cement their dedication to one another.

Cherryh fans will want to have a copy of ‘Brothers’ on their bookshelf, but I suspect all other PorPor fans will want to read it only if they have nothing more pressing on their calendar.

The Silver Age of Comic Book Art

'The Silver Age of Comic Book Art', by Arlen Schumer

 

  

Arlen Schumer’s ‘The Silver Age of Comic Book Art’ (Collector’s Press, 2003, 176 pp.) is a large trade paperback (at nearly 10 “ x 13 “, it didn’t fit into the confines of my scanner).

Author Schumer is a historian of comics and graphic art, and he knows his stuff, and how to present it. This book, as its title indicates, is devoted to the artwork of Silver Age (1956 – 1972) mainstream comic books, with emphasis on 8 of the artists who were foremost in the field. The printing quality of the book is very good, and even when enlarged, the Ben-day dot images of the old comics are rendered in a manner that is pleasing to the eye. 

 

The layout is consistently interesting and carefully places the covers of the featured comic books on the left and right sides of each page, superimposed on the background graphic – usually a blown-up panel or series of panels. Schumer further mixes things up by overlaying superposed quotes from the featured artist, or his own editorial comments, either as speech balloons or ‘comic book-style’ font headings. The final result is to lend the book its own colorful, Silver Age-inspired visual style. 

The Introduction gives an overview of the Silver Age and the relationship between its revolutionary effect on not just comic book art, but graphic art culture as a whole, particularly the Pop Art movement. There is also some discussion of the way the Silver Age books approached controversial social and political issues within the context of the Civil Rights and Antiwar movements.

The surveyed artists cover the Silver Age in roughly chronological order, starting with Carmine Infantino and his work for The Flash at DC in the late 50s – early 60s. 

Successive chapters turn to Steve Ditko:

 

Jack Kirby:

 

  

  

Gil Kane:

 

 Joe Kubert:

 Gene Colan:

 Jim Steranko:

 

  

and Neal Adams:

By taking advantage of modern printing technology, author Schumer succeeds in bringing out the artistry innate to these images, something difficult to grasp when viewing the actual comics back in the 60s (much less nowadays), with all the drawbacks of their cheap paper construction, hasty print quality, and crude color separations. 

One appreciates the effort of these artists, who were often assigned to illustrate multiple books each month, with all the attendant deadlines, yet received comparatively meager compensation for properties that brought in sizable amounts of money to the publishers.

If you were a fan of the Silver Age comics from Marvel and DC, you'll want to have this book in your library. And even if nostalgia isn't your 'bag', those interested more in the evolution of illustration and graphic art in American culture also will want a copy.

Autumn by Judson Huss

'Autumn' by Judson Huss

1989, oil on wood, 46 x 38 cm

from the book 'River of Mirrors: The Fantastic Art of Judson Huss'

Morpheus International, 1996

Fever by Jean-Michel Nicolett

'Fever' by Jean-Michel Nicolett

from the October 1981 issue of Heavy Metal magazine

The October 1981 issue of 'Heavy Metal' lacked the horror theme that made the October 1979 H. P. Lovecraft special issue so memorable. But like the October 1979 issue, one of the best pieces in the magazine was another strip by Jean-Michel Nicolett, 'Fever', which I've posted below.

Let's see.....a demon dressed in kid's pajamas (!?) rides a mechanical spider down an eerie canyon of Hell in search of an overweight mutant possessing a parasitic twin attached to her abdomen ...?! 

The story starts out weird, and just gets weirder. 

'Fever' has brilliant artwork, and demented genius, and even at 8 pages in length, it's easily far better than anything appearing in current issues of 'Heavy Metal'.

Book Review: A Scent of New-Mown Hay

Book Review: 'A Scent of New-Mown Hay' by John Blackburn

 3 / 5 Stars

John Blackburn (1923 – 1993)  was the British author of a number of well-received thriller and horror novels published from the 1950s on into the early 1980s. ‘A Scent of New-Mown Hay’ (hardbound, M. S. Mill and Co., 192 pp.) was issued in 1958.

The story starts with General Kirk – a British intelligence service director, and a recurring character in Blackburn’s novels – concluding that something worrisome has happened in a remote area of the Soviet Union. The population of the area has been evacuated, there is a quarantine, and the White Sea ports closed to all shipping.

The action shifts to a British freighter, the ‘Gadshill’, whose crew find themselves in dire straits in the White Sea. It gradually becomes clear that a mysterious epidemic has broken out along the northern coast of the USSR, but the nature of the disease has not been disclosed to the West.

Halfway around the world, in the small university town of Durford, England, a young biologist named Tony Heath is summoned to a classified meeting with General Kirk and his team. There he learns some disturbing news: the pathogen responsible for the outbreak in the USSR is beyond the capacity of the Soviets to successfully combat it. Unless the UK investigative team can learn more about the origins of the plague, there is a danger it will infect every man, woman, and child on the entire planet….

‘Scent’ is a very well-written novel; Blackburn’s prose style is crisp, fast-moving, and devoid of unnecessary verbage. 

In many ways the book reads more like a detective or crime novel than a horror tale per se; there are disclosures and revelations, and some skillful misdirecting, so that these revelations are a genuine surprise to the reader.

Compared to modern horror or thriller novels, ‘Scent’ is more subdued in the grue department, reflecting the more restrained attitudes of the 50s. But ‘Scent’ remains a good read, and it’s worth searching out among the used bookstore shelves.

Solomon Kane: Castle of the Undead

Solomon Kane: 'Castle of the Undead'
from  Dracula Lives ! No. 3 (Marvel Comics, October 1973)

Solomon Kane never got his own magazine from the Marvel / Curtis lineup of the 70s, regularly appearing as a backup feature in magazines like 'The Savage Sword of Conan'. 

This didn't mean the character got short shrift; many of the Kane strips were very good, and among the best of them is this entry from Marvel's Dracula Lives ! black and white comic magazine (No. 3, October 1973). 

You can't go wrong with Solomon Kane battling werewolves, brigands,and  dueling with the Count, with a seductive vampire girl thrown into the mix for good measure......

The artwork by Alan Weiss and 'The Crusty Bunkers' (a team of inkers working at Neal Adams's Continuity Studios during the 70s) is top-notch.

[Solomon Kane would tangle with Dracula again, in the sequel  'Retribution in Blood' from The Savage Sword of Conan , No. 26, 1978.]

As far as I'm concerned, this strip is markedly superior to any and all of the newer 'Solomon Kane' comics that Dark Horse has issued in the past few years.........

Almuric by Tim Conrad

'Almuric' by Roy Thomas and Tim A. Conrad

‘Almuric’ was a short novel Robert E. Howard wrote sometime around 1934. Following Howard’s death, the novel was published in serialized form in Weird Tales magazine in 1939. 

'Almuric' was Howard’s take on the ‘planetary romance’ genre so successfully mined by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The novel’s hero is one Esau Cairn, a two-fisted, not-too-bright brawler in the mode of Howard’s 'Dennis Dorgan' and 'Sailor Steve Costigan' characters. 

Fleeing retribution for killing a corrupt ward boss, Cairn  comes upon a mad scientist’s lair, the occupant of which teleports him to Almuric, a planet “…in a solar system far from our own.”

Once on Almuric, Cairn becomes involved in a constant stream of fights and escapades with the planet’s various humanoid races.

In 1980 Roy Thomas teamed up with artist Tim Conrad to produce an Almuric comic, which appeared in serial form in issues 2 – 5 (1980 – 1981) of Marvel’s Epic Illustrated magazine. In 1991 Dark Horse comics published the entire novel in a softcover format.

While the storyline in Almuric is not particularly imaginative, Tim Conrad’s artwork is outstanding, and the major reason why fans and appreciators of graphic art will want to get a copy of this Dark Horse edition. 

Conrad’s meticulous draftsmanship, dynamic figure depictions, and gorgeous color schemes evoke the Golden Age of magazine illustration of  the 1890s – 1930s, and its practitioners such as Maxfield Parrish, J. C, Leyendecker, Howard Pyle and the Brandywine School, Edmund Dulac, and N. C. Wyeth.

Copies of the Dark Horse edition of ‘Almuric’ in good condition are expensive (starting at around $30) but if you can find one at a perhaps more reasonable price, it’s definitely worth picking up.

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

Book Review: 'The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series II', edited by Richard Davis

2 / 5 Stars

‘The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series II’ is DAW Book No. 109 and appeared in July 1974; the cover illustration is by Hans Arnold.

The stories all originally appeared in 1972 / 1973 in various anthologies, small press magazines, and ‘slick’ magazines (such as Playboy). As was always the case with this series, there are three or four good stories in this anthology.  Dracula actor Christopher Lee provides the Forward.

My capsule summaries of the contents:

‘David’s Worm’ by Brian Lumley: tongue-in-cheek tale of a monster on the loose in the placid English countryside.

‘The Price of A Demon’ by Gary Brandner: bored housewife dabbles in the occult. A competent tale of modern mores colliding with arcane knowledge.

‘The Knocker at the Portico’ by Basil Copper: an eccentric experiences various torments; employs a traditional horror theme. Well-written, if not particularly imaginative.

‘The Animal Fair’ by Robert Bloch: a surprisingly good tale from Bloch about a creepy carnival sideshow, with a bleak Midwestern setting.

‘Napier Court’ by J. Ramsey Campbell: one of two Campbell tales in the collection; two too many, in my opinion. ‘Court’ is the leaden tale of a sickly young woman alone in a haunted house.

‘Haunts of the Very Rich’, by T. K. Brown the Third: spoiled rich people arrive on at a Fantasy Island and get some nasty surprises. Not really a horror story, as much as it is a satire of the pettiness and self-indulgent attitudes of the wealthy.

‘The Long-Term Residents’, by Kit Pedler: overworked scientist vacations in a strange countryside B & B. A bit too opaque and slowly-paced for my tastes.

‘Like Two White Spiders’ by Eddy C. Bertin: a reworking of the traditional Hands of Horror theme, albeit with a bit more imagination and verve than is usually the case.

‘The Old Horns’ by J. Ramsey Campbell: another Campbell entry, this one just as underwhelming as ‘Napier Court’. ‘Horns’ deals with British beachgoers discomfited by a dank patch of forest.

‘Haggopian’ by Brian Lumley: another Lumley entry. This one deals with a warped, Jacques Cousteau - style explorer, and very unpleasant undersea life forms.

‘The Events at Poroth Farm’ by T. E. D. Klein: this novelette is the longest entry in the anthology. A neurotic professor of English literature decides to spend the summer on a remote farm; there are indications that the local fauna are not very welcoming. As is common with Klein’s fiction, the narrative is slow-paced and takes its time unfolding, and the denouement, when it eventually arrives, is underwhelming.

The verdict ? I wouldn't pay the $25 or more that copies of this book in very good / like new condition are commanding, but if you can find a copy for $5 or less, it might be worth picking up.

'Hobo's Lullaby' by John Warner (script) and Yong Montano (art)

from the June 1975 (No. 11) issue of Vampire Tales (Marvel / Curtis)

Filipino artist Montano provides some effective artwork for this 1930s - themed vampire tale.