Giant Box of Comics Breaks the Law! - Dungeons & Dragons, one last time.

I've shared bits of this final series on the GBoC Tumblr, but I recently found more, and I think all, of it. So here is the longest of the stories. I think it must also be the oldest. I have some of these strips in my Doctor Who Weeklys from 1979 or so. These definitely predate the more sophisticated Epic Illustrated comics, though we do see the quality of art improve as the story moves on.

If anyone knows if the story continues, if you have some that I'm missing, I'd love to see it. Please feel free to get in touch at damabupuk (at) gmail (dot) com.

I'm not sure what becomes of our intrepid crew...but perhaps that's the point.

Giant Box of Comics Breaks the Law! - Dungeons & Dragons

The last two Epic Illustrated strips are the beginning of a story entitled "Quest Through the Savage Country." I've only been able to locate these two installments.

These are from the June and August 1982 issues of the magazine.

Giant Box of Comics Breaks the Law! - Dungeons & Dragons

One of my earliest memories of Dungeons & Dragons is the comic strip ads that ran in such publications as Doctor Who Weekly, or in the occasional superhero comics I picked up in my very early youth. As I've been going through the collection, as with the Earth-H stuff, I've been coming across whole storylines in these ads. I hadn't realized there was a story there. So, in the interest of sharing, here's some D'n'D comics. There's a few discrete stories, so I'll spread them out. And, of course, I'm still trying to track down what I can.

(Hey, Wizards of the Coast, if you own the rights to these, sorry, I'm not trying to piss you off. And if you want to publish them, I'd be happy to write an introduction to the volume for you!)

 

These comics are scanned from Epic Illustrated Magazine August, October, and December 1981 and February, April, June, and  August 1982. As far as I know this constitutes a full storyline.

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 21: Epic Illustrated #6, June 1981

Okay. Time to blog this one.

I have to say that these magazines have tired me much more quickly than I thought they would. Though I'm still enjoying some of the features, there's a lot in this one, and admittedly the last one, that was just okay.

Perhaps this is why magazines are published on a monthly basis? So that there's a bit more distance between things, a palette cleanser.

(Just looked up palate and that last sentence was a completely unintentional pun!)

Back to Heavy Metal, next week? Or perhaps DW Weekly.

I don't want to suggest that the stories aren't well done. They are. But it really seems that the magazine is struggling to differentiate itself from Heavy Metal and the be Heavy Metal all at the same time. It's inevitable, as the artists who are represented in Epic Illustrated are likely discovering all of the European greats at the time, through Heavy Metal, like everyone else in North America. I'm curious to see what changes come over the magazine in the next few issues - many of the letters that are printed are offering suggestions on, or critiquing, the features, the style, of the magazine. I wonder how much the editors listen to their audience?

As always, it's great to see Rick Veitch's work anywhere. He's one of the few artists whose work I love that genuinely creeps me out. There is this unsettling visceral quality to his art that is both beautiful and discomforting. One of these days I'll (re)read his Can't Get No graphic novel and I'll still have no idea what to say about it. His Greyshirt miniseries, and the Tomorrow Stories stuff is some of the coolest looking comics I've ever seen. Today's "Shipmates" applies that viscerility to a spaceship, rusting and hanging in space.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 20: Epic Illustrated #5, April 1981

There's really a lot going on in each of these issues. I'm of two minds about this. Sometimes it's nice to have so much variety - granted that it's restricted in this case by its genre(s), though you can really get away with a lot in Science Fiction and Fantasy - enough that you can read a 100-page magazine and not get bored at all. On the other hand, keeping track of all of these narratives, from the continuing to the tiny, can be a bit much every now and again.

That said, I'm absolutely loving Jim Starlin's "Metamorphosis Odyssey," which I did not know was the first place that his famed character Dreadstar appeared. Now I'm intrigued to read that as well (though I have no issues of the series in the collection, unfortunately). There's also some more stuff from Mirko Ilic, which I linked to in the review of the first issue of the magazine. His comics are, as I noted in that earlier piece, genius. I wish there were more. So there's a lovely example of what this magazine is doing right. An ongoing series that's definitely engrossing, and small snapshot pieces that are pushing at boundaries. Today's story "Satri," written and drawn by Margaret Gallagher (who's got a shockingly low online presence) is another wonderful and innovative piece.

I think I could do with less text-piece content. There's an interview with the Hildebrandt Brothers, very important artists in fantasy art, but it takes up soooo much space, and I can only read so much about people holding forth on their artistic processes. I think the shorter text pieces are pretty great, especially the ones commentating on the medium in this pre-Maus world (as I noted last week), but the long ones are just a bit much.

My opinion, I guess, for what it's worth. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 19: Epic Illustrated #4, Winter 1980

So I actually read the feature article in today's magazine. It was about the next evolution of comics, the graphic novel, and the various early attempts at the format. Most interesting was reading this from a pre-Maus perspective. Each time writer Archie Goodwin gestured to that unknown work in the future that would cement the idea of graphic novel, all I could think was "Just wait a couple of years!" He does, however, offer a list of interesting works, some I know and others I don't, that might be worth looking into.

For interest's sake, Gil Kane's Blackmark and Ken Steacy and Dean Motter's The Sacred and the Profane (serialized in Star*Reach) are the two that stood out to me most. I'll have to keep an eye out.

The magazine continues to have a remarkable graphic pedigree. The inclusion of Starlin and Russell in the magazine almost guarantees it's going to look great. Throw in some Veitch, some Hempel, some Steacy, and you've got a beautiful thing to look at. Are the stories maintaining the same level of excellence? Maybe. The stories are entertaining, and in some cases quite beautifully wrought, but right now two of the three main pieces running through the magazine (Elric and Almuric) are adaptations of other works. Only Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey is an original lengthy contribution. This is not to say that the adaptations aren't good, and aren't important. One of the best ways we see the effect of a piece of imaginative fiction is when it's adapted into another medium. Stories have different things to tell us dependent on the medium within which they're presented. Thank you, Marshall McLuhan. But I think I'd like to see more original work. The shorter pieces that pepper the magazine are all very good. They actually could be considered as being graphic ancestors of today's microfictions. I'm hoping to scan one or two of them in the near future and put them up here. Hopefully no one'll mind.

See you next week!

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 18: Epic Illustrated #3, Fall 1980

While the stories are still strong, and the quality of the art and writing are pretty good, there's something missing from Epic Illustrated that I see in the early issues of Heavy Metal with which its competing. There's something vital about the European science fiction and fantasy that elevates it just a bit above this more North American version of the adult fantasy genre. The article I noted last week suggests that European fantasists go in one of two directions: either into myth and fairy tale, and the more traditional fantasy, or into the future, and a world of technology so far advanced that it acts like magic in the narrative context, and therefore the stories are fantasy and not science fiction.

I think the stories that one might call science fiction in Epic are actually science fiction, rather than technologically-inflected fantasy. I wonder if this is because in North America we're brought up to be very rational in our beliefs. This is perhaps one of the detriments of the hard separation of Church and State. Such a thing is more fluid in many European countries, giving the imaginative literature more scope to accept the irrational as simply a part of the everyday. The stories in Epic Illustrated almost implicitly ask you to believe that what's happening in the story is scientifically explainable. The Heavy Metal stories don't care if you don't understand. You don't need to.

Though I'm not a fan of the Elric stories of Michael Moorcock, it's lovely to see an adaptation of one of them here from P. Craig Russell. I don't think I've ever seen anything he's done that I haven't marveled at, even if I didn't read it. Certainly one of our great comics artists.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 17: Epic Illustrated #2, Summer 1980

A solid second issue, though perhaps not quite as strong as the first. The inclusion of some of P. Craig Russell's operatic adaptation is nice, as is the continuation of "Metamorphosis Odyssey." I'm not as keen on the R.E. Howard adaptation in this issue - Esau Cairn is far too "manly" a protagonist for my liking.

The stories are quite novel in that it's hard really to say what's coming next. Sometimes a fantasy story will morph wholesale into science fiction, and then back again. Or main characters are killed and the story end with them, and we're left not knowing what's just happened, really. There's also a fair bit of overt environmental and social critique going on. Archie Goodwin and Michelle Brand's "Sinner" questions excesses of both technology and faith quite nicely, though their conclusion is a little pessimistic for my liking.

Epic is overall a pretty readable magazine. The stories are cool, and some of the text articles are quite interesting. I haven't been reading them all as part of the project. It is about comics after all. But there's an article in today's comic, outlining the history of fantasy in European comics, that's looks really neat.

More Epic in a mere week! See you then!

The 40 Years of Comics Project Friday Magazine 16: Epic Illustrated #1, Spring 1980

Aaaaannnndd we're back!

I was lucky enough, a few years ago, to come into a rather large collection of "Adult Fantasy" magazines. Heavy Metal is, of course, the archetype of this form, though it's origins can be traced both in European publishing of the 60s and 70s and in the Warren horror titles of those same decades. In amongst this collection was a near-complete run of Epic Illustrated, a fairly strong competitor for Heavy Metal, at least for a few years.

It's easy to see why. This is a remarkable opening issue. Jim Starlin is telling one of his trademark cosmic tales, but without the constraints of any established continuities. Stan Lee and John Buscema contribute their own version of that tale through the mouths of the Silver Surfer and Galactus. There are big-name artists working here. Arthur Suydam's visceral fantasy art contrasts with Wendy Pini's more whimsical take on that genre. In the middle of the issue is "Lullaby of Bedlam" by Ray Rue, who tells a thoroughly archetypal tale of dream manipulation.

Epic is blessed with a diverse group of very gifted artists in this first issue. Some are new to the industry and some are veterans, but all produce top quality work.

I've read this issue a few times and not blogged it for some reason. Starlin's tale is the one I'm most excited for. I think I may have read ahead in that a few issues, though maybe not. The other revelation for me in this issue, this time around, is the work of Mirco Ilic. The three strips from this magazine, and two from subsequent magazines, can be found here. They're totally worth a read. I read up a litte on Ilic, and it turns out he's a widely respected artist. His comics are genius.

More next week!