The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1609: Amazing High Adventure #4, November 1986

There is a bittersweetness to reading a comic by Bill Mantlo these days. After a heartbreaking plea from his brother, many became aware of Mr. Mantlo's tragic car accident 1992 and the difficulty he has endured ever since. His work is peppered throughout my collection, of course. He was one of Marvel's most prolific writers in the 70s and 80s, and scripted some well beloved comics. Today's offering is well outside of what I'm used to from a few of the creators on the cover, Mantlo included. I'm not sure if the mandate of the comic was to tell stories set in a specific historical period, but the three stories today all took place across the 19th century, and told interesting, and adventurous, historical tales.

Mr. Mantlo's tale in this issue involves a man who decides he's had enough of office life and packs up and heads West...with the front door of his former business in tow. And while this sounds faintly ridiculous, it's got the feel of a really well-crafted post-modern Western about it, in that the door, and so much of what happens in the story, is, really, much more metaphoric than comics usually tend to be. There's perhaps a bit too much of the colonial drive West about this story, but it's also doing a nice job of highlighting what is at once America's greatest and worst trait: its constant drive forward. The thing that concerns those of us outside is the direction the country decides to go.

Anyway, a cool little slice of obscure Marvel. All really great, and if this line-up is any indication, the rest of the series (1-3, 5) are probably just as impressive.

"Is there a golden eagle out there in the courtyard?"

Other Things You Might Like Reading

John Bolton gets creepy: The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 38 - Shame: Conception, 2011

More obscure Marvel from the 80s: The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 146: Yuppies From Hell, 1989 (Two Weeks From The Dollar Bin - Day 10)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 38 - Shame: Conception, 2011

I think that it must be impossible to dislike something that John Bolton creates. His facility in combining the realistic with the surrealistic is just about unparalleled, at least in my experience, by any of the other popular comics painters (people like Ross, etc.).

Shame does some other cool things visually. Classical philosophy, in places, claims that the exterior of a person reflect all that is inside them as well. If you're ugly outside, you're going to be ugly inside. Those ancient philosophers may have been on top of things in other aspects, but not here. Kindzierski and Bolton offer us a protagonist at the opening of the work named Mother Virtue who suffers from some rather extreme facial deformities but is, despite this, seen as one of the kindest people in her village. Children flock to her and adults rely on her, and how she looks has nothing to do with anything. In contrast, our other protagonist, Shame, is beautiful, and naked a lot, but inside is a thoroughly awful creature. It's not new, I know, but it's nice to see this kind of characterization that doesn't rely on visual appearance in a comic. More often than not, our villains are gross-looking, our heroes are paragons of beauty, and never the twain shall meet.

This is part one of a series, and I'm not sure what happens in the rest of the series. Shame is imprisoned in this book by Mother Virtue, her mother, because Virtue knows that Shame is not a good creature. But Shame has her own plans, warping the caretakers Virtue leaves behind, and eventually escaping and killing Mother Virtue. Whether or not we'll see a redemption arc for the character, I don't know, but I hope not.

Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 432: Alien Worlds #5, December 1983 (Little Tiny Break in "War Week" Day One More!)

Okay, one more. The first comic I blogged from the Edmonton Con last year was a copy of Alien Worlds, so I thought this was fitting. Bruce Jones tells creepy little stories. If you're a fan of The Twilight Zone, this is the sci-fi comic for you. And what's great is that Jones and his collaborators are equally comfortable with 3-page dialogueless stories or longer, complex, and quite verbose narratives. The lead story in this one, "Lip Service," offers a viewpoint of life from the compound eyes of a Praying Mantis. I'm not sure if these stories have ever been reprinted, but they'd be amazing in a genre-literature course in an English program.

So, tomorrow, seriously, I'll get back to the war comics. Promise. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 372: A1 #3, 1990

Our last little look, for now, at the short comics writing of Grant Morrison ends with quite a long book. A1 features some really, truly wonderful, weird, and generally excellent stories. It's a who's who of luminaries in the comics industry of the early 90s, with Morrison's presence being accentuated by Alan Moore, Brian Bolland (who writes and draws a story, in poetry, as well as providing that amazing cover), Philip Bond, Steve Parkhouse, Glenn Fabry, John Bolton, and Moebius. The stories are all weird (except Bond's, which is just kind of lovely), so Morrison's "The House of Heart's Desire" is in good company. I always get this story mixed up with his prose piece "The Room Where Love Lived," but that's only because they're works I'm less familiar with.

What more can I say? The real importance of this story comes in one panel, midway through the piece. The protagonist, with a door strapped to his back, has just come through a stinking forest, and is making his way toward a city of ghosts. The sign that points the way has a single word upon it: Barbelith. I'll point out that this comic is from about four years before Morrison's The Invisibles saw the light of day, and made the word Barbelith so very important for those of us who delved into the Supercontext.

Back to random craziness from the collection tomorrow. See you then!