The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1947: Clive Barker's Hellraiser #9, 1991

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 As I sat to write today's post, I cast my mind back over the various Hellraiser films that I've seen, and I couldn't for the life of me think of any queer characters in any of them. Not that I've watched all of them (but they're on the list, I love the setting), but I'm pretty sure that the sex that is linked to pain in these films is all hetero. And given the links between the BDSM community that inspired the looks of the films and the queer community, you'd think it would be a no-brainer. Except, sadly, it would also likely alienate a large portion of the audience for these films.

Setting that depressing fact aside, today's featured creator is someone that I think will go down in history as one of the great queer creators of our time, Lana Wachowski. Honestly, The Matrix and Sense8 have to rank up there as some of the best pieces of media we've seen in the new millennium (I know The Matrix is 1999, but I think it presciently grabbed hold of our current zeitgeist). Sense8 is perhaps the best metaphorical articulation yet of how we ought to be reshaping our social systems, and The Matrix, no matter how many times I watch it, fills me with the fires of revolution. Ms. Wachowski got started, however, writing for the various Clive Barker properties that were under the aegis of Epic Comics in the early 90s. Indeed, it's somewhat fitting that the story that she writes here is called "Closets." The tale, of an abusive mother and her child, uses one form of violence to articulate an other - the damage done to the child in the story, his being locked in a closet, ends up corrupting him despite his escape from the Cenobites and Hell. Those of us who grew up in closets can perhaps see what the story is trying to say. In an interview with The Mary Sue, Lana's sister Lilly acknowledges that re-watching The Matrix from the point of view of the two creators' transness shows how the film is addressing that part of their lives, and of the lives of closeted queer people. I think in future we're going to have a lot of pieces of media that have to be read this way. Just as we might go back and read George Eliot from the perspective of a woman hiding in a man's world, we'll see stories told that must be considered from the point of view of the hidden queerness of the creators.

Who else was in this issue, though? The Hellraiser books are anthologies, brimming with talent, really. Two of my featured creators from the recent past, Denys Cowan and Dwayne McDuffie grace these pages, and Miran Kim, who illustrates Ms. Wachowski's story, is of Korean descent. Add to this some bloody (literally) brilliant painted artwork, and one can see how this series lasted as long as it did. If you're a fan of the franchise, this is one of the few times that I've seen an adaptation be almost as effective as the source material.

One last note, as I'm celebrating queer creators right now, is that Clive Barker is also queer, having come out in the mid-90s. I remember the furor over it, but I wish I could remember how I, personally, felt about it.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

I've read a bit more from Epic Comics for the project, including the very queer-sounding Steelgrip Starkey and the All-Purpose Power Tool.

And since Ms. Wachowski and her sister are, primarily, filmmakers, here's some thoughts I've had on movies.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1923: Batman #403, January 1987

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

 

 We'll jump back a few decades now. I think it's really important that we recognize that the contribution of POC to our culture isn't a new thing. It's not just since we've entered ostensibly more "politically-correct" times that people other than white people have had a hand in our entertainment media. If one considers that to be the case, one misses out on some truly excellent pieces of art.


The weird thing about this one, given that Denys Cowan is one of the most renowned Black creators working in comics, is that there isn't a single person of colour in the whole story. This is something that needs to be thought about when we're on the subject of creators who are POC. Representation is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but as I begin to see more bisexual characters introduced into media, I come to have a much better understanding of why it's important. For Denys Cowan to work on this comic that doesn't feature a single representative character that resembles him, at least physically, is pretty messed up. This is not to say that the motivation for this was a racial one - at least, not an overtly racial one. It's simply another symptom of the systemic racism that permeates our culture. White = default, and it has for so many years. I suppose the question I'm left with is whether or not this absence was noted by Mr. Cowan at the time. What I think is of great concern is when these situations do not raise red flags because all of us, POC or not, have internalized the idea that white = default. And that's a dangerous place to be.


Storywise, I quite enjoyed this one. A crazed cop takes on Batman's identity and starts killing people, and Batman, in the end, defeats him and tries to get him help. There's some interesting stuff going on in the comic with regard to whether or not Batman actually helps those he apprehends, and, honestly, if the comic was going to hit on some of the more salient cultural problems surrounding its publication, making the incarcerated cop Black could have opened up some even more uncomfortable conversations for the Bat.


Hope that makes sense.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

Here's a few other mentions of Denys Cowan in the project - he's instrumental in establishing Milestone Comics, and is an intensely important creator in comics.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 778: Hardware #1, April 1993

 






















(Link, because my Web Fu is bad: https://www.comics.org/issue/871010/)

We've got two cover images today, one for the actual cover, and one for the polybag within which the comic is shipped. What this tells us is that Hardware was produced in that time of comics that was all about collectibility, rather than readability. Fortunately, in this case, the comic is more readable than it was collectible. At least, it is now.

First, let's briefly talk about Milestone Comics. Far from being a thing of the past (almost 25 years past), Milestone, as a home for creators of colour, is alive and well, as the above link attests. As the editorial in the middle of the comic, written, I'm assuming, by EIC Dwayne McDuffie, notes, "Diversity's our story, and we're sticking with it. The variety of cultures Out There make for better comics In Here." I don't think I could say it better. This is especially important to note given the recent comments from Marvel on potential reasons for a market slump (and, as I noted when that article blew up the Internet for a bit, there's no mention of the rising price of comics [the reason I've stopped buying so many], or the drop in the U.S. economy). One of the few comics I still regularly read is The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, a thoroughly positive and diverse bit of comics if I've ever seen one.

We've already thought a bit about penciller Denys Cowan in Iron Man from a few days ago. Today's comic comes about 4 years later, and one can see that there's more passion behind this project than the mainstream Marvel fare. It's not surprising, really, that a creator would put more passion into a project that hits a little closer to home. In my own work I'm far more passionate about teaching comics (or occasionally Lego) than I am many other things. And Mr. Cowan's (and writer Dwayne McDuffie's) passion seeps through these pages, creating a story that engages the reader as much as it probably engaged the writers. So let's talk a bit about writer Dwayne McDuffie, a powerhouse creator in the comics world who sadly passed away in 2011. As with Mr. Cowan, Mr. McDuffie's passion for this project is palpable. Hardware, a.k.a. Curtis Metcalf, is a very, very angry character. As the tag on the cover proclaims, "A cog in the corporate machine is about to strip some gears," though it would be more apt to say that the gears are blown up and sprinkled as dust across Dakota City. It's appropriate to bring up Iron Man in the context of this comic, as Metcalf is a scientific genius who is exploited by a tech magnate very much like Tony Stark. (What a great story that would be to see Stark accused by one of his employees of institutionalizing racism in Stark Industries.) We have, of course, seen stories of the downtrodden corporate employee retaliating against their bosses, but very often the character is Caucasian, and in the end becomes a villain. And while Hardware kills a fair few people in this issue, it's hard to call him a villain. In fact, I could see the series moving into the territory currently being explored on Arrow vis a vis heroes who kill. Though given the time period within which the comic is written, perhaps the hero who kills is not that big a moral problem.

Mr. McDuffie's writing bears some resemblance here to the style of the early Image titles, which is unsurprising given their popularity at the time. But Curtis Metcalf's angry inner dialogue rings much more true than the over-muscled badasses of Youngblood or Deathblow. (As I write this, my English class are writing their final exam, and one of the terms we've covered is "verisimilitude." This is the insertion of detail into a fiction that allows the fiction to more closely resemble reality. Hardware's grievances with society are far more verisimilitudinous than any member of Youngblood.) What this accomplishes for a reader like myself is to see that the kind of dialogue that I despise in some comics actually works and is far more appropriately deployed and executed in a comic and setting where it actually makes sense. Dwayne McDuffie will undoubtedly come up again in this project. He left an indelible mark on comics, working not only in the print media aspect, but also the business and animation sides of the industry. But Milestone might be his most significant contribution, and one that will hopefully live a long and prosperous existence.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 775: Iron Man v.1 #241, April 1989

The late 80s at Marvel were a strange time. Or, my understanding is that they were. I'd stopped collecting comics at this point, so I missed much of the hullaballoo that led to the forming of Image Comics. It seems to me, though, that the stories were very much retreading waters that had only recently been trod (?). Today's comic is a good example.

I was recently talking with a friend about Blues music. My contention had been that, much like Shakespeare, it wasn't necessarily the originality of a Blues song that was paramount, but the way in which an artist took the form and made something novel out of it. Comics, I think, are very similar. Especially superhero comics. There's really only so many stories you can tell, and so many things you can do with a character, so it's not always the originality of plot we readers want to see, but originality of execution.

Anyway. Today's featured creator is breakdown artist Denys Cowan. Cowan's work is very much in the 80s Marvel style, similar to the John Buscema Avengers that was my bread and butter a little earlier in the decade. Marvel's art had moved from the more stylized look of Kirby and Ditko into a parodic style through the 70s (see Howard the Duck), and then into a more realistic style in the 80s. I can only assume this is a response to Dave Gibbons' work on Watchmen. There's not a lot to distinguish Cowan's art from most of his contemporaries at this time, but that's entirely the point. A "house style" develops at a publisher in order that readers might have some idea of a baseline level of quality they'll be receiving in buying a comic from that publisher. And while there's definitely something to be said for novelty, sometimes one simply wants a good, old-fashioned superhero comic. Whatever that may be.

From the looks of his Wikipedia bibliography, Mr. Cowan has mostly moved on from comics, though he's fundamental in the formation of Milestone Comics at DC later into the 90s, and which we'll be having a look at some time in the next couple of weeks. Milestone was an imprint designed to highlight Persons of Colour in comics, and was, for a little while, mildly successful. In today's issue, as I've intimated, his art is very much in keeping with the look of Marvel in the 80s. I don't want this to seem like I'm down-playing his art. The creation of a brand, of a standard of production, is very important in a publishing endeavour, so that an artist can cop to this house style, even though his own personal style might be quite different (I'm thinking of Cowan's very different art on The Question), speaks well of that artist. Of course, it's likely that inker Bob Layton had a lot to do with this as well.

More tomorrow. To be continued.

Walking the Shadowline part 2: Into the Night

This installment begins with another issue of Marvel Age, though this time the larger-format annual version of the news magazine. The annuals of this publication are occasionally worth a look, as they'll often include exclusive comics content. Such is the case with MAA #4, in which we're presented with a recap story of sorts by Chichester, Clark, and Cowan. Whether or not the Shadowline series were suffering low sales, and thus deemed in need of a boost in a more public forum, or if it was just enthusiasm for the line that prompted this little comic is hard to say. And, to be honest, not much is added to the overall story by this little interjection. I can only imagine that it was intended to drum up interest in the three main titles.

I don't think it worked, unfortunately.

With issue #5, both Doctor Zero and Powerline underwent shifts in artist. DZ lost Denys Cowan, who was replaced variously with Brett Ewins, Dan Spiegle, and Gary Kwapisz, where as the Powerline team lost David Ross and gained Gray Morrow. The quality of art doesn't change, to be fair. But one of the troubles comics face, especially comics such as these that do not feature well-known characters, is the loss of readers through an inability to follow a story because of inconsistent art. 

 

Let me explain: though the costumes are quite iconic, in the pages of each issue, the main characters wear their costumes only seldom. Thus it's vital that there be consistency in their non-costumed appearances in order that one know who a given character is at a given time. Of course, context explains much, but not all, especially in a visual medium like comics. Add to this the characters that move from series to series who are also victim to this inconsistency, and the comics become a bit confusing. Even on this read through, easily my fourth or fifth since they were published, there were some characters that I couldn't immediately identify, though from the context it was clear that I was supposed to.

But, again, what of the actual stories. In this run (really a run-up to the solicited "Critical Mass" crossover), we see the various heroes taking on challenges inherent in the clash between humans and shadows. Michael Deviln takes his powered armour back to a village in Nicaragua in which he preached, and takes on guerillas while searching for his predecessor as Knight of St. George. The Powerline team takes on strange cases across the country, all the while trying to figure out how to take vengeance on the Ravenscore family for their brutal slaying of both Victor and Lenore's families. And Doctor Zero encounters a covert military group nicknamed "The Merchants," who manage to capture him and begin to analyze him before he escapes and makes known that The Merchants have joined Henry Clerk as enemies of "The Dragon." So the story is moving along, and has veered a bit from the thoroughly conjoined feel of the previous four issues. I think this was a wise move. With the bi-monthly publishing schedule, we'd basically been given 9 months of world-building with the first 4 issues of each series. Not to say that there weren't stories and plots interwoven through that world-building, but the establishment of the connectedness of the titles was obviously on the minds of the creators. The subsequent issues loosen that connection (but only a bit) and allow the characters, and by proxy the readers, to explore the world a little more, to build a sense of there being events taking place on this version of Earth (Earth 88194, according to the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe) that don't all revolve around the conflicts between the orders and families of Shadows to whom we've been introduced.

With issue #8 of each series, however, things change. The regular writers and artists disappear, and we have what can only be described as fill-in issues, but these are fill-ins with the words "Final Issue" plastered on the covers. The text within tells the tale: "Due to dropping sales, it has become necessary to cancel Epic's Shadowline titles."

The news, however, is not all bad. Instead of continuing as three separate series, the storylines within each series are to be picked up and published in a monthly single volume entitled Critical Mass. It is to this epic (see what I did there?) story we'll move in the next installment. I'll consider what works and what doesn't, and what the ramifications of this kind of concurrent publishing for a crossover story might be for the mainstream crossovers that flood the market nowadays. Critical Mass is not a crossover series in the way that something like Secret Invasion or the current Secret Wars, but is instead the individual series taking part in the crossover published under a single title. I'll get into it more next time.