The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2000: Wall of Flesh #1, 1992

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Given that this comic is from the same company that have published Femforce for the last few decades, you might be forgive for thinking that this comic, especially based on its cover, might be a weird, slightly-horrific but more titillating comic than it actually is. There's one cheesecake-y moment, with a member of Femforce in a pin-up on the Wall of Flesh, but aside from that it's reprints of old horror comics, and was meant to be the first issue of many.

 

As with a large number of the old 50s horror comics, each of these stories is really, really good. Though the comic suffers from a lack of colour, the draftsmanship apparent in each tale reinforces just how talented these early comics artists were, and just what they could do without the restrictions of the Comics Code. Indeed, it's a testament to how good they were that they could produce some stellar material even under those restrictions, but such tales often pale compared to what was possible before that draconian set of rules was enforced.

 

All that said, this is my 2000th comic! That feels like a lot. I wondered, at the beginning of the project, at what point would I feel like I'd done a significant chunk of the collection, and this is it. 2000 comics. It's a number I can still sort of visualize. I'd considered at one point taking each of the comics I'd read for the project and separating them, so I would have the read and the unread collections. Though I ultimately decided that this would be a ridiculous way to organize my collection, it would have been interesting seeing the shift, slowly but surely, over the years.

 

But what a nightmare it would have been for accessing anything.

 

So it seems somewhat fitting to me that a comic celebrating the brilliant history of comics is my 2000th read. I cannot wait to see what the next 2000 bring.

 

More to follow.

 

Further Reading and Related Posts

 

A couple of other "anniversaries:"

My post on day 100 - I thought I'd read a lot at that point.

And my post on completing the first year - we're in Year 6 right now, for anyone keeping track.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 434: All-Out War #1, October 1979 (War Week, Day 5)

This comic marks the first appearance, one of the few, of the Viking Commando, a viking warrior transported accidentally through time to the Second World War, and watched over by a Valkyrie maiden who wishes he was dead so she could carry him away for all eternity. After reading Robert Kanigher's fairly nuanced treatment of PTSD in Sgt. Rock yesterday, this odd little tale made for an interesting juxtaposition. Let's mix a war comic with vikings and see what happens. Very odd.

And then there's the story "Brother with Wings," about an African-American fighter pilot who has a couple of fortuitous interactions with the Haunted Tank - a tank that flies a Confederate flag all the time. While I appreciate the attempt at some subversion in this story, Lt. Bannister's quip that, having been rescued by the Haunted Tank, he's been "freed a second time" is just uncomfortable. Couple this with the depictions of Japanese soldiers in the comic, and all of a sudden it becomes starkly clear how far we've come in just under 40 years. The stories in this issue, were they conceived today, would communicate in a very different tenor, one hopes.

Unlike my foray into romance comics, I haven't found something that's really spoken to me yet. Yesterday's Sgt. Rock was pretty well done, but Rock's personality reminds me too much of Frank Miller's Dark Knight, and though the attitude may have been somewhat revolutionary in the 80s, it's cliche now.

Tomorrow we move on to another of the giant-size war comics DC put out in the 70s, and then we'll finish the week with a Vertigo re-think of the Haunted Tank. I'll be interested to see if there's any acknowledgment of the problematic celebration of the Confederacy that is all-but absent from these older comics. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 430: Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #136, October 1976 (War Week, Day 3)

As with last week's Marvel Ai, I just can't leave my beloved superheroes alone for too, too long, though today's issue is only sort of related. Well, that's not true - given that it's an origin story for Nick Fury, it's a pretty fundamental part of Marvel U history, even it it's been retconned out of existence.

The story's not great, but also not terrible, telling the origin of the Howling Commandos, replete with racial epithets that are, at least, appropriate to the time period, and with bullets-flying-everywhere battle scenes. One interesting thing is that though there are indeed a number of problematic racial constructions of both Japanese and German people, the Commandos themselves are also racial stereotypes, so at least in their essentializing, Marvel were somewhat equal opportunity.

I've not much else to say about this comic. It was good, but that's all. The art and writing were competent, but the story was middling.

Tomorrow I'll be at the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, giving a paper at 12:30, and wandering about for most of the rest of the day. Not sure when I'll get a chance to post tomorrow, and depending on my haul of goodies, we may take a brief break from "War Week," just so I can show off my finds from the con. Onward!