Comix: A History of Comic Books in America

Comix: A History of Comic Books in America

by Les Daniels 

Outerbridge and Dienstfrey, 1971

Les Daniels (1943 - 2011) was a U.S. writer who played an important role as a chronicler of pop culture, especially during the early 1970s, when he and authors such as Tony Goodstone (with his 1970 book 'The Pulps') were able to persuade publishers to issue books on the topic.

Daniels's 'Comix,' and in 1975, 'Living in Fear,' were touchstone treatments of prominent, fan-favorite topics, and possessed intrinsic appeal to those Baby Boomers who were edging into middle age and willing to buy books that evoked nostalgia.

Daniels parlayed his success with these nonfiction books into a productive career writing horror fiction, and, in the early 1990s, coffee-table quality hardcover books on both Marvel and DC comics.

I have vague memories of seeing 'Comix' back in the early 70s but I don't believe I sat down and read it. So recently I picked up a copy, noticing that in its presentation, the book (which is hardbound) has the quality of an 'underground' publication, obviously a conscious decision by Daniels and his collaborator, the graphic artist John Peck.

In its 198 pages, 'Comix' furnishes a chronological overview of the comic book, from its start in the late 1930s, up to the early 1970s.

It suffers from having a self-consciously 'scholarly' attitude towards the material, and the prose can be stilted. In time Daniels would adopt a more colloquial style of prose but for this book he likely was hoping to establish some credibility with the literati.

Illustrations (all in black and white) are sprinkled throughout the text, and each chapter ends with some black and white and graytone reprints of comic book stories, from publishers such as Disney, Marvel, D.C., Warren, and E.C., rendered in landscape format. There is a selection of color comics provided in the middle of the book.

 

The book's final chapter is devoted to underground comics, making clear Daniels's attitude that the undergrounds, which were flourishing the year the book was published, represented a new paradigm for the comic book, and for the role of comics not just in the counterculture, but the larger sociopolitical landscape of 20th century America. 

 

I'm guessing that the chapter on the undergrounds also allowed a sly Daniels the chance to be transgressive and naughty in terms of exposing unsuspecting kids (like I was in '71) to nudity and drug use, this being camouflaged - to the eyes of clueless librarians and parents - in a book about 'funnies' and 'kid stuff.'

Who should get a copy of 'Comix' ? Truth be told, while its treatment of the material was innovative at its time of publication, the ensuing 53 years inevitably have seen quite a few historical and critical overviews of comic books that are more informative, and serve as better references, than 'Comix.' 

Where Daniels's book retains value is in its immediacy as a snapshot of the comic book enterprise in a time and place where the medium had a level of excitement that would only grow during the rest of the decade. For Baby Boomers such as myself, if even for sentimental reasons, it's worthwhile to revisit that era in the pages of 'Comix.'

 

For another review of the book, readers are directed here.

Book Review: A Man of Double Deed

Book Review: 'A Man of Double Deed' by Leonard Daventry

2 / 5 Stars

'A Man of Double Deed' first was published in the UK in 1965. This Berkley Books edition (159 pp.) was issued in the US in December 1967, and features cover art by Richard Powers.

There are two additional novels in the so-called 'Keyman' saga; 'Reflections in a Mirage' (1969) and 'A Ticking Is in Your Head' (1969).

The novel is set in the year 2090. Following a vaguely described Atomic Disaster, the world has been remade into the sort of high-tech, futuristic landscape presented in the Magnus: Robot Fighter comic books of the sixties. Amid towering skyscrapers, the population enjoys lifespans of one hundred years, these years free of want or privation. The cities are clean and spacious, provided with pedwalks and all manner of computer-controlled interior design comforts. Robots both are plentiful and servile, and travel can be accomplished either by personal aircars or spacecraft.

As pleasant as this future world is, a worrisome phenomenon has emerged: young people are running amok, randomly committing acts of violence, including murder. The best efforts of the scientific class cannot discover a cause for this phenomenon, and the political establishment is contemplating the unthinkable; namely, the construction of a planet-based prison, called the War Section, where all evildoers are permanently to be exiled.

The protagonist of 'Double Deed' is one Claus Coman, a man gifted with telepathy. Coman is one of the so-called 'Keymen,' an alliance of telepaths who serve the world government in a clandestine role. As the novel opens, the leaders among the Keymen are convinced that the formation of the War Section is the only recourse for saving humanity. Claus Coman is to be a central operative in a scheme to convince the most influential member of the government to advocate for the War Section. Unfortunately for Coman, there are those opposed to the creation of the War Section, and they have no scruples about using deadly force to thwart any actions on his part.........

'A Man of Double Deed' is an ambitious novel that ultimately falls short in its aspirations. Author Daventry, a Britisher who in the 1960s and 1970s published several sci-fi novels, is very earnest in making the novel cerebral in nature. While this is a laudable goal, in reality, the narrative is overwritten and often tedious; nothing of moment happens until page 107, after which the novel takes on the character of a 60s spy thriller where the story beats come thick and fast. 

Much exposition is given to documenting the psychological and emotional stresses of Coman's existence as a telepath. It doesn't help matters that Coman is in a 'throuple' (the word didn't exist in 1965) with two fetching young women named Jonl and Sein. This allows the author to expound on the rewarding humanism of such an 'unconventional' social contract. This approbatory messaging can't help but drag down the thin plotting.

While 'Double Deed' deserves some kudos for trying to rise above the banal nature of much of 1960s science fiction, it fails to offer an engaging storyline, and thus I award it only a Two-Star Rating. I also don't feel a strong compunction to access the other two novels in the series.

For a more expansive review of this novel, I direct readers to the Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations blog.

National Lampoon November 1975

National Lampoon

November, 1975

November, 1975, and atop the Billboard Hot 100 are two disco songs, not at all unusual for that year, as the disco craze swept America. The Four Seasons benefit from the Nostalgia Craze and appear in the top 5 with their single 'Who Loves You,' while Elton John, a chart juggernaut during this decade, has a former number one with 'Island Girl.'

The November issue of the National Lampoon is devoted to 'Work,' and even the seemingly benevolent bakery of Sarah Lee doesn't escape satire, being depicted as a grim place where elderly women are forced into cruel labors.

The lengthiest piece in this issue is a satire of the Kelly staffing services, which, back in the 20th century, advertised itself as the go-to place for the temporary hire of young women to do routine office work. The advertisements for Kelly emphasized that the 'Kelly girl' was quite attractive and presentable; the perfect marketing tool to aim at the older men who might be interested in hiring a temp.

Leave it to the Lampoon to take aim at the Kelly girl with a portfolio of depictions of undressed, nubile young women groveling for the benefit of the male office staff. The explicit nudity in this portfolio was quite tasteless and exploitative, even by the standards of a 'humor' magazine published in 1975.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The November issue featured a bunch of comics that are printed on the 'slick' paper portion of the magazine, and include a two-pager that mocks the 'truckin' man' phenomenon. This comic is attributed to Lampoon staffer Joe Schenkman; he emulates the style of underground comix legend S. Clay Wilson, to good effect.

Shary Flenniken steps away from 'Trots and Bonnnie' to do a comic about a toilet factory (!?).

 

 

The 'Trail of Tears' comic offends those Native Americans who preferentially sought work in the field of constructing skyscrapers.

 

 

 

 

'Foto Funnies' get reworked into 'Cancer Ward,' with Lampoon contributor Chris Miller playing the role of a hapless man who gets bad news. 

A satire of a public service advertisement to 'hire the handicapped,' is cruel and offensive.

The comics printed in the back pages of the magazine, on newsgrade paper, include the particularly unpleasant 'Eating Out,' as well as the more gentle 'Mule's Diner.'

 

Let's close with an advertisement from this November issue, reminding us that 49 years ago, Pink Floyd had released their album Wish You Were Here.

And that's what you got for your dollar, back in November of '75........

Book Review: The Yngling

Book Review: 'The Yngling' by John Dalmas

2 / 5 Stars

'The Yngling' first appeared as a novelette in the October and November 1969 issues of Analog. Author Dalmas expanded the novelette into a 224-page novel, published by Pyramid Books in August, 1971. The cover art is by Jeff Jones.

'John Dalmas' was the pen name of the U.S. writer John Robert Jones, 1926 - 2017. 'The Yngling' was his first novel; during the next 40 years, he went on to published a large body of novels, mainly in the genres of space opera and military sci-fi. 

'The Yngling' is set in a post-apocalyptic Europe, some one thousand years into the future. Civilization has reverted to a medieval level, recapitulating the era of duchies, principalities, earldoms, and kingdoms. A quasi-clandestine network of telepaths (or 'psis'), known as the Inner Circle, provide counsel to the lords and serve as communications hubs.

While the nation-states of Western Europe are busy quarreling with one another, the psis have gained knowledge of an alarming development in Asia Minor. A tyrant known as Kazi the Undying has used a mixture of charisma and brutality to bring nomadic horsemen and Turkic soldiery under his rule. Kazi's army of thirty thousand well-trained and ruthless fighters is heading West, bring fear and destruction in its wake.  

Fortunately for the peoples of Western Europe, a hero, or 'Yngling' in Scandinavian society, has arisen. A physical specimen of a man named Nils Hammarson. Despite his youth, Nils has a stoic quality that, teamed with a quick intelligence, allows him to defeat all comers.

As Kazi's army draws closer to the territory of Ukraine, responsibility for leading the combined armies of Western Europe against Kazi falls on the immense shoulders of Nils Hammarson. Outnumbered, and unused to working cooperatively, the Europeans are at a distinct disadvantage. But Nils has a genius for tactics, and Kazi is going to learn that it is costly to tangle with the barbaric men from the North.....

'The Yngling' is a mediocre novel, even by the standards of sci-fi and fantasy writing of the late 1960s. This mediocrity is due mostly to the narrative, which is crammed with ad hoc plot developments. These have a perfunctory, tossed-off quality that is worsened by the fact that Nils is a superman, able to defeat anyone in armed combat; gifted with psi abilities that give him forewarning of enemy intentions; and able to heal grievous wounds simply by going into a lengthy trance state (?!). There's little suspense or tension in the narrative, when Nils can win every encounter.

The novel somewhat redeems itself in its final third, when the armies of Nils and Kazi clash in the steppes and marshes of Ukraine; these segments are well-rendered accounts of medieval warfare and the value of using good strategy to counter numerical superiority. 

'Yngling' ends in such a way as to hint at a sequel. However, Dalmas did not publish this until 1984, and 'The Homecoming.'  In 1992 Baen Books issued 'The Yngling' and 'Homecoming' as a two-volume omnibus, titled 'The Orc Wars'.

Further books in the series include 'The Yngling and the Circle of Power' (1994), and 'The Yngling in Yamato.' 

The fact that the series features four novels suggests that some must find the Yngling saga entertaining. What can I say ? I'll end with the observation that in a 2016 review posted at his blog, M. Porcius found 'The Yngling' to be just as underwhelming (if not more so) than I did. Let our critiques aid you, in any decision you make to sit down with something from the Yngling saga........

The Brad Johannsen Archive

 The Brad Johannsen Archive

“I knew Brad during his most artistically productive period. He lived in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn with the family of his artistic promoter, Howard Bloom. Brad arrived in New York around 1968, at about 19 years old, an already highly developed and gifted artist. I know nothing of his artistic training or background, although I know he was raised in Connecticut. He was tall with a large, blond afro. I knew psychedelic drugs fired his prolific imagination. I sense that he used the geometrically reconfigured reality of his drug experiences to create the unusual environments found in his work. If you look carefully at the faces he painted, It’s obvious he could have easily been a successful portrait artist. But that possibility apparently didn’t interest him. Brad was active mainly during the seventies, as far as I know. He died in his sixties around 2015.”

-Camille, review posted to amazon.com

 

 

My very first post here at this blog, about the artist Brad Johannsen, was in January 2015, when I provided an overview of the book 'Occupied Spaces.' Since that time I've made additional postings about Johannsen and his artwork.

As best as I can tell there is no online archive of Johannsen's works, or accounts of his life and times, so I have decided to post a 'Brad Johannsen Archive' and maintain it indefinitely. Hopefully, folks who Google Johannsen will arrive here at some point in their link-clicking, and get some information that otherwise is difficult to find.

So here's a list of links to posts (some my own, others, from various websites) about Johannsen:

1. 'Occupied Spaces' overview

 

2. 'One Fine Morning' LP cover art

 

3. 'Thoughts of Movin' On' LP cover art

 

4. Paintings by Brad Johannsen, Mark Suall collection 

 

5. Johannsen's LP cover art for the Michael Quatro band

 

6. Fonts in Use article on a paperback with Johannsen artwork

7. Fonts in Use article about Johannsen's artwork for 'Thoughts of Movin' On'

 

8. Fonts in Use article about Johannsen's artwork for 'One Fine Morning' 

 

9. Johannsen cover art for a Karl Edward Wagner audio drama CD

 

10. Johannsen promotional art for radio station WDVE

 

11. Johannsen 'October Vibes' (Far Out Company) 

 

12. Johannsen illustrations for the 1972 book 'High Tide'  

Why Men Don't Read Fiction

Today Show, November 12, 2024

An interesting segment of a recent broadcast of a Today show, where Jenna Bush Hager sits down with a group of men to ask why they don't read fiction. The segment ends on a note of advocacy, but the books handed out seemed (to me, at least) underwhelming and banal. Then again, likely it was too much to hope for that Hager would hand out some lowbrow, vintage paperbacks.......

Book Review: For Texas and Zed

Book Review: 'For Texas and Zed' by Zach Hughes

3 / 5 Stars

'For Texas and Zed' (189 pp.) was published by Popular Library in May, 1976. The artist who provided the cover illustration is not credited.

Zach Hughes was the pseudonym of the U.S. writer Hugh Zachary (1926 - 2016) who had success from the late 1960s to the 1980s in publishing short stories and novels in the genres of sci-fi and horror. My review of his 1980 novel 'Killbird' is here.

'Texas and Zed' is set in the year 2589. The thousands of inhabited planets in the galaxy are divided between the Empire and the Cassiopeian Alliance. These polities are engaged in a centuries-old Cold War, a war continuously on the precipice of turning into a galaxywide conflict of unprecedented destruction.

The planet Texas, which orbits the star Zed, is the lone independent planet, siding neither with the Empire, nor the Alliance. The inhabitants (referred to as 'Texicans') of Texas carefully shield their world from detection by the Empire, for Texas is one of the most bountiful and pleasant worlds in the known galaxy. So much so, that if the Emperor learned of its whereabouts he would seek to capture it, and add it to his collection.

As the novel opens, a Texas official, Murchison Burns, and his son Lex Burns, are negotiating with Empire bureaucrats for a trade deal involving the exchange of Texas beef for Empire metals. Being only 17 and headstrong, Lex enjoys the favors of the fetching Empire representative Lady Gwyn Ingles. Lex makes the fateful act of abducting the Lady Gwyn, intending to make her his bride, when the Burns delegation leaves Empire space to return home.

The Empire will not tolerate such a transgression and as punishment, Lex is obliged to spend two years in service aboard an Empire battle cruiser. What he learns on that duty leads him to an audacious plan: defy the Empire, and make Texas a military and economic power.

Defying the Empire is seeming folly, for it has a million ships, and tens of millions of men to man them. But even as a confrontation with the Empire looms, Lex believes that Texas can win. The Emperor, for all his military resources, is about to learn a truism: you don't mess with Texas. 

'Texas and Zed' basically is a homage to the space operas of the pulp era. It has a stripped-down prose style and breathless pacing; space battles involving thousands of ships are related in the span of a page or two. Major plot points are disposed of in a few paragraphs. Lex Burns is so indomitable and self-confident a hero that there never really is any tension or suspense generated in the narrative. The frenetic action sequences are periodically interrupted by more retrospective passages, but these seem perfunctory.

Author Hughes imbues the novel with his personal philosophy, which centers on rugged individualism and a conservative political stance. This stance is of course intrinsic to Texas (at least, outside Houston and Austin) and is both quaint and novel when contrasted with the Woke ideology that predominates in today's sci-fi publications.

Readers looking for a short and sweet space opera will likely enjoy 'For Texas and Zed,' but those interested in a more deliberate treatment of this sub-genre probably will want to look elsewhere.

The Last Temptation graphic novel

'The Last Temptation' graphic novel
Marvel / Dynamite, 1994 / 2014

'The Last Temptation' graphic novel was issued by Dynamite in 2014, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the printing of the original comic book trilogy by Marvel. It's a nice hardbound volume, printed on good quality slick paper with crisp, high-res reproductions.

The series is recolored, which in my opinion is an improvement over the original color scheme and demonstrates how much color printing technology has advanced since 1994.

original (top) and recolored (bottom) pages

Also in the graphic novel are some specially commissioned new illustrations by artist Michael Zulli, an essay and some correspondence by writer Neil Gaiman, his complete script for the series, and a representative collection of some of Zulli's original pencils.

In his essay, Gaiman describes how the project came about. He initially was recruited by Alice to provide input for a concept album, which was released in July 1994 as 'The Last Temptation'. Gaiman isn't sure who first proposed doing a comic series in conjunction with the album, but Alice was agreeable, and thus the release of issue 1 in May of that year.

Without disclosing spoilers, 'Temptation' is set in suburbia, and features as its protagonist a boy named Steven. One evening in October Steven and his friends come across a mysterious alley, and within the alley, a Showman (Cooper) who offers them seats to see a show in a nearby theatre. Only Steven is brave enough to take the Showman up on his offer. This in turn leads the Showman to haunt Steven with disturbing illusions and nightmares designed to coerce him into succumbing to........the Last Temptation.

As Gaiman makes clear in his essay about the project, he was not seeking to emulate the ornate style of his writing for the Vertigo title Sandman. Rather, 'Temptation' was intended from the start to be a straightforward narrative, one designed for an audience from Young Adults on up to Adults, and is devoid of explicit horror or violence. 

But what makes 'The Last Temptation' work is not Gaiman's script, but the art of Michael Zulli. A lot of comic book art from the early 1990s was highly stylized and slapdash, but Zulli's pencils for this trilogy show attention to detail, and deliberation in their composition. Zulli's portrayal of Alice makes the character menacing without venturing into caricature or parody:

The verdict ? Those with a fondness for the mythology of Alice Cooper, a fondness for the better comic books of the early 1990s, and for Ray Bradbury-ish horror / supernatural stories likely will want a copy of this hardcover, 30th anniversary edition of 'The Last Temptation'. Used copies in good condition can be had for reasonable prices from your usual online retailers.