Now Read This!

 

By Stan Lee, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-905239-1462-9

Marvel Comics built its fan base through strong and contemporarily relevant stories and art, but most importantly, by creating a shared continuity that closely followed the characters through not just their own titles but also through the many guest appearances in other comics. Such an interweaving meant that even today completists and fans seek out extraneous stories to get a fuller picture of their favourite’s adventures. In such an environment, series such as ‘Essential’ and DC’s ‘Showcase’ are an economical and valuable product that approaches the status of a public service for collectors.

This particular edition, reprinting the exploits of a very different Daredevil to the one popularised by Frank Miller and his successors from the 1980’s onwards, covers the period of March 1967 (#26) to January 1969 (#48), and includes the first Annual and Fantastic Four #73 where a long running storyline concluded (see what I mean about cross-collecting?).

The adventures are fairly typical 1960’s action-fodder. Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose other senses over-compensate, making him a formidable acrobat and fighter, and a human lie-detector. Very much a second-string hero, he was nonetheless a popular one, due in large part to the wonderfully humanistic art of Gene Colan. He fought gangsters and a variety of super-villains, and even the occasional alien invasion. He also joked and wise-cracked his way through life, unlike the grim and moody quasi-religious metaphor he’s been seen as in latter years.

In short order then, you will find here such foes as the Stilt-Man, Masked Marauder, sight-stealing Aliens, cheap hoods, The Cobra and Mr Hyde, The Beetle, and from the Annual, the Emissaries of Evil – that’s Electro, Leapfrog, Stilt-Man, Gladiator and the Matador. After some “Secrets of DD” information pages and lots of pin-ups the crime-fighting continues with the Trapster and Doctor Doom, which all concludes in the aforementioned Fantastic Four #73, drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Joe Sinnott.

The Unholy Three and the Exterminator are next, followed by a prolonged battle with the Jester only interrupted by a brief tiff with Captain America. A well-written change of pace featuring a blinded Viet Nam soldier shows a more human side to the adventurer and the book ends with the return of Stilt-Man for one last hurrah. Other guest stars include Thor and Spider-Man.

This is a good place to end as Stan Lee would hand over the scripting to Roy Thomas soon after this and the social turbulence that marked the end of the decade would begin to alter DD into something closer to his current archetype. But that’s another volume…

© 1967, 1968, 1969, 2004 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 

By Karl Zinsmeister, Dan Jurgens & Sandu Florea (Marvel Comics)
ISBN 0785115161

It’s always good to see Marvel venture outside its self-constructed ghetto of Proprietary Characters, rather than endlessly re-hash the names it’s already trademarked, and doubly so when it is to venture into genres that it has previously abandoned. Sadly, in some cases the question then becomes one of seeking new markets as opposed to simply looking for new resources to exploit. Comics have had a long and chequered history when it comes to militarism, ideological witch-hunting and band-wagon hopping.

Combat Zone features the “real-life accounts” of US combatants in the 2003-2004 Iraq War, although “some incidents have been combined to make for a more condensed read”, and of course names have been changed to protect, etc. etc. …

Writer Zinsmeister was an embedded reporter during the conflict so I’m sure the events are as true as he saw them but the overall feeling after reading the book was one of tedious detachment. Maybe the modern military life is one of immense boredom, spent talking to buddies and telling everyone how cool your ordnance is, interlaced with the occasional skirmish, but if such is the case it shouldn’t be in a drama-oriented comic-book.

It’s hard not to compare this series with the excellent Real War Stories produced in the late 1980s by Eclipse or even such personal visions as Sam Glanzman’s A Sailor’s Story or Don Lomax’s gruelling, compelling and, above all, informative Viet Nam Journal, perhaps because all of these take the part, and the authorial voice, of the ordinary man, and there is an implicit understanding, that though necessary, the job at hand is neither easy or fun. Even Robert Kanigher’s Sgt. Rock tales had greater verisimilitude than what’s on offer here.

In Combat Zone even when a character eventually dies, the response is so anodyne that we know nobody really cares. There is more than the hint of the Press Release about it. Often it feels like the entire comic has passed through the same Pentagon ‘fact-checker’ that news reports do. A far cry, then, from Real War Stories #1, which the US government actually attempted to suppress.

On a purely dramatic level, the problem is one of heroic stature. When two desperate guys give their lives in a dramatic, doomed attempt to stop an onslaught of high-tech juggernauts from crushing their homeland, with nothing more than an old pick-up truck and a machine gun, those ought to be the heroes, not the bad guys!

There’s nothing but platitudes in each character’s mouth here to show the reader how justified the war might be, and no mention of the disastrous early days of allied blunders or numerous friendly fire incidents. ‘Those didn’t happen where I might see them’ is not an excuse in a documentary which has been subjectively edited “to make for a more condensed read”. You don’t get to pick and choose between Dramatic Authenticity and Journalistic Veracity at will, and not expect a few hits for it.

With lacklustre art masquerading as realism from comic super-star Dan Jurgens adding to the overall dullness of the mix (is it me or are all US soldiers darned good looking fellers?) the overall response to this is one of disappointment. It felt as if the neither the creators nor the characters were in the least bit emotionally engaged. I certainly wasn’t.

© 2005 Marvel Characters Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

By John Wagner & Vince Locke (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-212-6

Once again Vertigo reaps the benefits of the experimental exploits of DC’s all but defunct Paradox Press venture when another barely noticed graphic crime thriller got the big-time Hollywood seal of approval. Following on the heels of Road to Perdition, David Cronenberg’s film adaptation furthered the trend away from flashy superhero spectacular movies with this tale of small, brave people who can only be pushed so far. The film itself was nominated for a Palme D’Or at Cannes where it premiered.

Veteran British comics writer John Wagner continues his life-long explorations of human nature with the tale of an ordinary guy who loves his family and runs a diner. When two thugs try to rob the place he manages to subdue them, but that’s where his troubles begin. Seeing his picture in the news, a team of New York Wise Guys turn up, claiming that he’s someone they used to know and they’re disturbingly not keen on taking “no” for an answer.

In typical Wagner tradition, there’s as much action as mystery before the startling and grisly denouement, and the vital, edgy drawing of Vince Locke reinforces the mundane nature of the characters and settings whilst capturing the shock and disorientation as these normal lives of ordinary people are permanently disrupted.

In a time where not one comic-based blockbuster movie has materially increased the readership of the core material, perhaps a few more creators might be enticed to make comics that are to the tastes of the wider world rather than a dwindling die-hard group of unreconstructed post-adolescents. Only so many consumers can handle that fetishistic costuming and power-tripping, but any reader can be sucked in to great story-telling, as long as they’re not put off by ludicrous trappings.

A History of Violence is a tight, dramatic crime-suspense thriller, with subversively sharp visuals, strong but accessible characterisation and a memorable climax. I know, because I read it, and I might even see it eventually. That’s an order of events I urge all comic fans to emulate.

™ & © 1997 John Wagner. All Rights Reserved.
Art © 1997 Vince Locke. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Raeburn Van Buren (Ken Pierce Inc. 1983)
Vol 1 No ISBN
Vol 2 ISBN 0-912277-24-6

It’s practically impossible for us today to understand the power and popularity of the comic strip in America from the Great Depression to the end of the Second World War. With no television, far from universal usage of radio, and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most people, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. To consider that situation as a parallel to the modern comic scene would be like expecting those generations distant readers to only read one out of a dozen of the numerous offerings in each and every paper. Our themes of adventure and horror, superheroes and merchandising tie-ins targeting kids would seem laughably limited in comparison to the sheer variety of story and genre available then.

If we tenuously compare those papers with television schedules today you might get a more accurate flavour of the industry, the stars and the brands that blossomed at that time. One entry from that era, created by stars, which began as what we’d probably call a soap-opera, evolved into an American Classic and became one of the most fondly remembered comedy strips of all time.

Abbie an’ Slats was created by Li’l Abner creator Al Capp and he scripted it for the first ten years, after which he handed it over to his brother Elliot (Caplin) who wrote it until its end. It began as the story of dead-end kid Aubrey Eustace (understandably self–dubbed Slats) sent to live with spinster relative Abbie Scrapple, and became in turn a seminal prototype for soap comedy dramas, the whole Archie Andrews phenomenon, a heart-warming melodrama, a slice-of-life pot-boiler, a romance strip, and, with the introduction of drunken reprobate “Bathless Groggins” – father of Slat’s one true love Beckie – a comedy classic. Groggins senior had appropriated the full colour Sunday page by 1941 for his own comedic fantasist shenanigans in the grand manner of Baron Munchausen.

That’s all well and good, but what makes this strip even more special is the art.

Raeburn Van Buren was a highly successful illustrator much in demand by such prestigious publications as the Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, Esquire and humour magazines such as Puck, Judge and Life. When Al Capp approached him to draw the strip, he initially declined and it took all of the writer’s legendary wiles and perseverance to lure him away from his freelance ways.

Eventually Van Buren capitulated and the strip debuted on July 7th 1937, with a Sunday page beginning January 15th 1939. The last strip was published on January 30th 1971. Van Buren, who was credited with every single page and episode, retired to Great Neck, New York.

Over the decades his spectacularly underplayed scenarios, the wonderfully rendered, evocative detail – just enough for clarity, never too much to digest – and his warmly funny, human, loving characters became part of the psyche of a nation and the fictitious town of Crabtree Corners became a pictorial synonym of small town America.

Sadly very little of this wonderful strip has been collected as yet, but the books cited herein are long overdue for reprinting and with the current wave of strip reprints and a burgeoning graphic novel market rapidly burning its way through all the good stuff to reprint, we can only hope somebody opts for quality over major names and brings this much neglected gem back to public gaze.

© 1937- 1964 United Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved.

 

By Grant Morrison & Philip Bond (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-207-X

Grant Morrison’s latest modern fantasy – superbly aided and abetted by the brilliant Philip Bond – is set in and around an “open all hours” corner shop in Bradford. Ali is fretting because his arranged bride is due to arrive any moment. His future happiness is tied to a girl he has never met. He really hasn’t got time to worry about the hole that has opened up under the shop, or his brother Omar’s injuries from falling down it, or even that the baby has wandered into it and found a lost outpost of Atlantis.

He’s pretty impressed by the very capable Sophia, though. His intended wife had made her own way to the shop, and also went looking for the toddler. She was with Ali when the techno-demons who had been slumbering there escaped, intent on undoing creation, and she helped him awaken the godly Ultrahadeen. And she’s beautiful.

The problem is that the leader of these lordly heroes loves Sophia too, which might impinge on the whole saving humanity thing, as well as interfering with his now eagerly anticipated marriage. The god-like Ben Rama is really tall, really beautiful, and, let’s not forget, a god.

How the world is saved and Ali gets what he deserves proves to a gloriously exuberant romp, bright, colourful and very funny. I haven’t heard a cool media term to pigeon-hole this sort of cross culture comic with, and I’m not going to use any form of “Bollywood” derivative. You should just read this and make one up yourself. Or, if not that, you should just read this.

© 2005 Grant Morrison & Philip Bond. All Rights Reserved.