The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2004: Mister Miracle #19, September 1977

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I think I managed to say everything I wanted to say about Mister Miracle in an article I wrote for Sequart about 5 years ago - it's one of a series that I'd have loved to turn into a book, and may yet, if I can get my shit together. As I note in that article, there's a gap in Mister Miracle's publishing and then 7 issues by Steve Englehart (19 - 22) and Steve Gerber (23 - 25). I have Gerber's stuff, but Steve Englehart intrigues me, and I've got the rest of Kirby's original run (with one or two gaps), so why the heck not try to track down these last couple of issues? This one was pretty good, and very 70s. I actually can't believe how much Barda nudity they got away with on this cover. 1977 was a strange time.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Posts

On the topic of the New Gods - The New Gods.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 844: Superman Family #194, March/April 1979

It's no secret that I have a thing for the Man of Steel. He was the first superhero. How can we not revere him, even in some small measure. For me, though he hasn't always been my favourite character to read, he's always stood for the best that superheroes, and by proxy of their metaphor, we, can become. Ben Saunders, in his book Do the Gods Wear Capes? labels Superman as the Platonic good in fictional form. I think I agree, though he's not always been treated as such.

Superman Family is a cool comic - I like the idea that rather than buying four or five different series, you can get this one that includes stories about all of the cast of the Super-titles. What I didn't realize about this comic, which I picked up on the cheap from the Calgary Expo this year, is that it's the last part of a multi-issue story which I actually have the previous bits of. So I could have read the story in proper sequence, had I just glanced at my collection before reading it. Ah well. These things are likely to happen, really.

The central story features art by John Calnan, an artist I've never heard of before. I'm torn about his style, and really it's over one particular aspect of the art: The characters all look like they're posed action figures. Part of me loves it, and part of me hates it. There's a staticness to the movement and pose of the characters that almost pushes into the realm of the uncanny. But on the other hand, it takes that stylizedness of superhero art and applies it to the motion of the comic, not just the appearance. And I can't decide whether it's brilliant or mediocre.

Also, whoever drew that cover has no idea how human (or Kryptonian) physiology works. Unless Supergirl has a rubber spine.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 148: Eclipse Monthly #1, August 1983 (Two Weeks From The Dollar Bin - Day 12)

Anthology titles are always an iffy prospect, and that's why you find a large number of them in dollar bins. This title, for example, has five different stories in it. While the caliber of talent lined up for these stories is pretty impressive, you're always going to have one story you enjoy more than the others, and then the others pale in comparison. So then you don't really look forward to the other stories, and end up paying a lot of money for 5 pages in an anthology title.

Or, at least, that's how I find it is with me.

Of all of the stories in here, I think I enjoyed Doug Wildey's "Rio" the most. So far it's reading a bit like a Cormac McCarthy novel, and while I'm not a huge fan of McCarthy, the particular atmosphere and period he evokes in Blood Meridian is really pretty fascinating. So to see it transferred to the comics page is a treat. I was kind of excited to see another oddball Steve Ditko piece in here, but "Static" failed to electrify me (see what I did there?). But I did get the first four issues of the title, so perhaps they'll get better as we go on. While I do like Trina Robbins' art, her contribution to this anthology is a continuation of her work in Eclipse Magazine, so the story's a bit lost on me, it being part 8 of 10. Which leave Marshall Rogers' "Cap'n Quick and a Foozle" and B.C. Boyer's "The Masked Man," both of which were entertaining, but not terribly gripping.

So the western wins out. Interesting. As I say, I've got at least three more issues of this series to go through. I'm curious as to why anthology titles very rarely succeed. I've suggested a reason above, but I don't think that's all there is to it. Perhaps it's because it's so hard to convey any drama and development when you've only a small amount of pages in which to tell (part of) a story. I'll think more on this, and talk about it a bit more next time we have an anthology come up.

See you tomorrow.