Slash Maraud by Moench and Gulacy

'Slash Maraud' by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy

DC comics, 1987 - 1988

DC published 'Slash Maraud' as a six-issue miniseries from November, 1987 to April, 1988.

Doug Moench threw everything he could find from 80s pop and sf culture into this one. Escape from New York, The Road Warrior, Buckaroo Banzai, the TV show American Gladiators, all make up the bizarre, but entertaining stew, that is 'Slash'.

Slash Maradovich, 'famed Detroit Polack', and a mix of 'Mad' Max Rockatansky and Snake Plisskin, is a soldier of fortune in a near-future Earth that has been taken over by a race of technologically superior aliens called the Shapers. 

The Shapers look like 'Ernie' from Sesame Street, but that's simply a physical form they assume while in proximity to Terrans; in reality, the Shapers are - well - shapeless, able to assume any form they desire.

Earth's surface is slowly being terraformed to a design that suits the Shapers, with the Earth's population continuously being converted into a sort of protoplasmic 'goop' to serve this purpose. Apathy, anarchy, and end-of-the-world hedonism rule most of the few major metropolitan areas, where the human population is reduced to serving the perverted, often homicidal desires of the Shaper overlords.

As a rebel without a cause, Slash is just too cool to get wrapped up in anything but his own survival. But when an old flame entreats him to assist a band of rebels and their ally, a Shaper defector, Slash reluctantly agrees to help out. 

This means traversing a USA, and later Europe, riddled with monsters created by the Shaper manipulation of the planet's ecosystem.

Complicating things are the various gangs peopling the wastelands; a tribe of butch lesbians, whose leader is modeled on Grace Jones (!); psychopathic hot-rodders and bikers; the Nulloids, a collection of deformed, homicidal mutants; neo-Nazis; and The Family, an inbred clan of backwoods types who take inspiration from 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'.

Paul Gulacy's artwork is excellent, despite the rather crude color separations used in 80s comics. And Moench's plotting carefully teeters on the edge of satire, even as it barrels along with little in the way of filler.

Visually, Gulacy's artwork represents the 80s aesthetic so faithfully that 'Slash Maraud' can be placed in a time capsule as a quintessential representation of the decade's fashion and graphic style.

You name it, every excess of 80s fashion is on display here: 

Zebra-stripe bodysuits........ sleeveless leather vests.......... Blade Runner trenchcoats.....  mousse-supported spiked and New Wave hairdos......... Frederick's of Hollywood bindage and fetish gear.........Punk stylings.....

With the passage of time I have come to regard 'Slash Maraud' as a must-have classic of 80s comic art, a story that certainly is more entertaining than much of the superhero material churned out in that era by the major publishers. 

If you have a liking for satirical humor mixed with well-done action sequences, then you'll probably want to check the online comic book stores, or online auctions, for a set of all 6 issues (which still are quite affordable).

Bats by Doug Moench, Paul Gulacy, and Duffy Vohland

Bats
by Doug Moench (script) and Paul Gulacy and Duffy Vohland (art)
from Vampire Tales (Marvel / Curtis), issue 7, October 1974

Entirely wordless, these kinds of comics look like they're easy to pull off, when in fact they are heavily reliant on the skill of the artist......and this comic does a great deal with its seven pages, thanks primarily to some great illustration by Paul Gulacy and Duffy Vohland.

Also of interest in this issue, a review of four Pinnacle / Zebra paperbacks from long, long ago....I have never heard of any of these. 

But then again, if they were representative of the typical Zebra horror novel, I'm probably not missing much.....

Anyways, here is 'Bats'.....

Epic Illustrated Fall 1980

'Epic Illustrated' Fall 1980

It's the Fall of 1980, and the FM radio stations are playing 'That Girl Could Sing' by Jackson Browne. And the third issue of Marvel's 'Epic Illustrated' is on the shelves, with a striking orange-tinted cover illustration by Paul Gulacy.

P. Craig Russell provides the first of a two-part series of Michael Moorcock's Elric adventure, 'The Dreaming City'. Starlin's 'Metamorphosis Odyssey', and Thomas and Conrad's 'Almuric', continue with their newest installments. 

There are a number of one-shot strips, including 'Libido' by Moench and Gulacy; 'The Worker in the City' by Goodwin and Lindall; Midsummer Night's Dream' by Wakelin; and 'Tombstones' by Jones and Saenz. 

Among the best of the one-shots is a brief three-page strip by Paul Kirchner, 'My Room', which I've posted below.

Sabre issue 2

'Sabre' issue 2

Eclipse Comics, October 1982

Issue 2 - which reprints, in colored form, the second half of the 1978 original Sabre graphic novel - opens with some skilful artwork from Paul Gulacy depicting our hero in the midst of interrogation. This provokes some flashbacks which reveal more of Sabre's past, such as his growing up in the 'hood under conditions of violence and privation.....

Don McGregor's prose, as usual, encrusts every page, but it can't totally obscure Gulacy's rendering of a fight sequence between Sabre and the psychopathic Overseer. 

So closes the first two issues of Sabre, the color comic book. Issue three would inaugurate all-new content, and will be the topic of a future Sabre posting.

Blood on Black Satin episode one

'Blood on Black Satin' episode one
by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy
Episode One (from Eerie #109, February 1980)

One of the most impressive strips ever to appear in a Warren magazine was the three-part 'Blood on Black Satin', written by Doug Moench, and gifted with outstanding artwork by Paul Gulacy. 

The inaugural installment appeared in Eerie 109 (February 1980) and parts two and three in issues 110 (April 1980) and 111 (June 1980).

Posted below is the first episode; the succeeding episodes will be posted in the future here at the PorPor Books blog.

These scans are taken from the original comic and done at 300 dpi, using the graytone setting on my Plustek book scanner. I then used Corel Photo-Paint to autoadjust the images for fading and sharpness, although this creates jpeg files each 18 - 22 MB in size - hopefully the web page won't crash when loading. 

For reasons that are unclear, some of the pages present with a sepia tint, despite being auto-adjusted; I suspect this is an issue with Blogger, as when I examine the images in Photo-Paint, they display no tinting.

I expect they will be as good as one can get, at least until Dark Horse / The New Comic Company produce all three episodes in an upcoming Eerie Presents hardbound volume....

Sabre image by Paul Gulacy

'Sabre'

from the 1978 comic book by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy

Dark Horse revives The Rook

Dark Horse Comics revives 'The Rook'

I didn't see this coming: Dark Horse comics this week released the first issue in a reboot of the Warren magazines' quintessential Steampunk hero, 'The Rook'. 

The Rook first appeared in late 1976, in Eerie No. 82 (March 1977 cover date). 

The story goes that in 1976, James Warren thought the time was right to bring back the Western genre, and cowboy heroes, to popular culture. He contacted Bill Dubay, formerly an editor at Warren, and Howard Peretz, an executive at the California toy company Package Play Development, and asked them to create a Western hero (Warren and Peretz apparently wanted to market toys and other collectibles based on the newly created concept).

After some contemplation, Dubay and Peretz came up with a character that combined both Western and sci-fi themes: a time-travelling cowboy called 'The Rook', whose great-great grandfather was an acquaintance of H. G. Wells's Time Traveller, and a chrononaut in his own right. Restin Dane, The Rook, was a young man of the 70s who inherited the time machine of said great-great grandfather, and proceeded to have all sort of adventures through time and space.

[This, of course, was years before the word and concept of 'Steampunk' were coined.]

The first appearance of The Rook drew a high volume of reader mail, and the character became a regular in the pages of Eerie. In 1979 Warren launched The Rook as a standalone title; it ran for 14 issues, until 1982.

In 1985 Harris Comics ('Vampirella') launched a four-issue miniseries, and that's all we've seen of The Rook....until now.

The Dark Horse comic is written by Steven Grant and illustrated by veteran Paul Gulacy. 

How is this first issue ? I have mixed thoughts. Grant's writing has the frenetic, incoherent quality that so defines the point of view of contemporary comic book editors and publishers: too much exposition and external narration are deadly if you're trying to gain the attention of the iPhone Generation. 

There's no effort in this first issue to orient the reader to the background of The Rook; hopefully this will be furnished in successive issues. But for now, at least, anyone lacking prior knowledge of the franchise - meaning practically everyone under the age of 40 - is going to conclude that this is simply a brand-new entry into the Steampunk genre, and yet another new title that will be struggling to compete on the already crowded shelves of the comic book shops.

However, on the plus side, Paul Gulacy's artwork is as impressive as ever, especially when combined with the elaborate software-based color schemes that are commonplace in today's comics, but didn't exist back in the 70s and early 80s. 

At this point, at least, The Rook has a better debut than Dark Horse's disappointing reboots of Creepy and Eerie. I'm willing to pick up the next few issues to see how things play out.