Comics' Ephemera 1 - Swimsuit / Lingerie Issues

Beginning a new month, I'm hoping to get back to occasionally writing things other than the 40 Years project. I'm aiming for once a month right now.

Within my collection are a number of items that can really only be tangentially called "comics." They look like comics, certainly, and they often feature comics artists and writers, and well-known comics characters. But they're lacking in a particular part of comics, and that is narrative. But not solely narrative, because we have abstract comics that simply perform the art, rather than tell a story. Still sequential, not narrative. So not solely narrative, but without intent of narrative.

The swimsuit and lingerie issues, for example.

I've looked at one other, the Lady Death entry into the genre. I treated it like a comic, but it wasn't really one. So let's have a look at the rest of them, shall we?

Though it's often said that many Liefeld books are simply exercises in skimpy clothing for women, there's at least the veneer of story to deflect some attention. Not so here. One of 3 covers featuring model Cathy Christian as Liefeld's avenging angel (I think - I actually don't know much about Avengelyne). Within are numerous photos of Ms. Christian in bathing suits, as well as artist's renditions of characters from the series in various states of undress. Mostly, needless to say, women. There's no continuity, no tale being told, between the pages, which seems to me a lost opportunity. Imagine a story that was a series of splash pages featuring swimsuit-clad characters - shenanigans could indeed ensue.

One thing that I do think is important to note is that Ms. Christian appeared at cons as this character, and this is back in the 90s, so she's actually probably fairly important in the history of cosplay. As might this particular publication, too.

These publications, though, I don't think I'd ever call comics. They're art books, more correctly. There are a number of similar cases, where comics-like ephemera accumulates in the collection. We'll have a look at them over time. But first, more swimsuits and lingerie!

Babes of Broadway (get the double entendre, there?) is just awful. I don't know what Broadway Comics was, only that Jim Shooter was involved, as were some super top-level artists, and there's testimonials inside this comic from women who work for the company talking about how not offensive they find the whole idea of a lingerie/babe publication. I don't know, but I can't help but read them with a very large grain of salt.
















The Razor Swimsuit Special is a bit off-putting for the fact that the main character, in her usual romps, is bloodthirsty and violent in a way that only London Night Studios tends to pull off. And Faust, of course.

So seeing many of these characters in "come hither" positions, sometimes while engaged in other, more visceral pursuits, is weird. I've never really understood that aesthetic that links sexuality with brutal, brutal violence. A bit of consensual S&M is one thing, but horrifically mangling corpses while mostly nude - who is this appealing to, and how do I avoid them?

















I will add a caveat - there are actually some really lovely pieces of art in these books. Free of the constraints of continuity or audience expectation, there are occasionally cool interpretations of characters. But such interpretation could easily be subsumed into an art book - why go for the lingerie?

Well, the answer's obvious, unfortunately. Because Men.

Some more recognizable characters in the next couple of issues. The Wildstorm one is okay, I guess. Lots of bikinis, but varied art at least. There is one strange one that's Rose Tattoo from Warren Ellis's Stormwatch, who is literally death (I think) in that series, posing like a porn star on a weird alien planet. It's not just that the comics most definitely objectify women, but that they're completely unfaithful to the source material. I think it does a lot of dis-service to the characters.

The Top Cow entry into this genre does pretty much the same thing as the Wildstorm one, but with another Image imprint. The irony that strikes me is that I mentioned back when I reviewed the first Fathom collection that I understood the Top Cow aesthetic much more in the context of a water-based story, but Top Cow doesn't do a swimsuit issue - they do a lingerie issue.

*sigh*




















One last one for your perusal. A small enough publisher that they have no comics listed in the GCD.

Though the artwork within is very good, it's exactly what you think it is.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 86: Supreme #45, January, 1997

To be fair, the first chunk of Supreme could probably have stopped with yesterday's issue. The flashbacks put a nice cap on the Golden Age recollections of the titular character, whereas this issue moves us into a definite Silver Age vibe. But I really felt like reading Supreme today.

Alan Moore anticipates the responses (such as this one) to the comic in light of his previous superhero work when he has Billy Friday ask, upon entering the Citadel Supreme, "This is like, a sort of post-ironic statement, yeah?" to which Supreme gives a definitive "No." But it is, really. Though it's not completely without its irony, it's an irony that's less disparaging to the genre from which it's taking a step back. I'm stuck on this idea of the ironically reconstructionist mode, and I'm wondering if it's a mode that can really only be explored in a genre like the superhero where the are these constant revisions of the fictional reality. I've theorized elsewhere about the notion of abstraction through over-definition, where a character goes through so many iterations that it becomes everything and nothing at the same time. I think this over-definition can also open the way to reconstructing a superhero, but from an ironic stance, with the understanding of the ridiculousness of the genre, but also with the understanding that the wondrous, the ridiculous, doesn't necessarily mean superfluous.

This issue also raises another of the questions I would ask Alan Moore about the series: why make Billy Friday an obnoxious dick? He's meant to be the Jimmy Olsen analogue of the series, and, supposedly, previous iterations of reality have featured him as "Supreme's Pal." Why the change? He is a relatively amusing caricature of the British writer of the 1980s and 90s, but one wonders if a less-antagonistic relationship might have been more narratively profitable. Moore seems to put him in here so he can laugh at people like Grant Morrison or Neil Gaiman (or himself). It's almost too many levels of metafiction.

We'll leave Supreme for a bit with the tease of next issue's introduction of Suprema. Back to Miracleman, who has just cast off his Golden Age, and is figuring out now who he actually is. I find a similar movement in Supreme now, in that the main character is moving from filling in the past of his world to filling in his personal past, and figuring out how he fits in the modern world of the 1990s. It certainly was a weird world to try to fit into.

See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 85: Supreme #44, January, 1997

The second-last issue of Supreme for this week wraps up what's ostensibly the Golden Age history of the hero. Though re-telling the Superman story, Supreme's tale begins somewhat earlier than Kal-El's, with,  variously, a magic belt buckle, a strange meteor, or an exploding planet, in the early 1920s. It's an interesting change to make, and one I'm not sure what to make of. Was it simply to place Supreme's origin before that of Superman, or is Moore offering his tribute not just to the Man of Steel, but to the proto-superheroes who appeared in the pulps and early comics before him? Given that Moore moves on from Supreme to the ABC line, where League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Tom Strong draw directly from those earlier mass-market publications, the placing of Supreme in that lineage isn't too far a leap to take. We don't actually see anything that looks like a pre-30s comic in the flashbacks, though, which makes the placement of the character there, by the logic of the comic itself, problematic.

This issue hits the 1950s and everything comes to a stop. I'll admit to only being a little familiar with the early EC comics, and what I've read has never impressed me very much. Perhaps I'm just not reading the right ones, but I found them boring and kind of predictable. Which is strange because I quite like their ancestors in Bruce Jones' Alien Worlds that came out from Pacific and Eclipse in the early 80s. I think perhaps it's the hyperbolic writing about issues that are, quite frankly, very dated that turns me off. But, if I'm not careful, I'll have to stop reading all comics, because datedness is becoming a rapidly contemporary problem. Can imaginative works keep up with reality? Tune in next week to find out!

The Allied Supermen of American confront strange, Crypt-Keeper-esque creatures from the future who transport them into weird analogues of the early Mad, Tales from the Crypt, and Shock Suspenstories. What's kind of interesting about this particular flashback is the steps toward and away from reality it takes. The initial flashback, to the Allies 1950 New Year's party, fills in some of Supreme's back story, and is thus "real" in the sense that it's an event that happened in the ostensible real world that the character inhabits. But the three adventures that various members get taken on over the course of the flashback aren't real. The Morgue Minder tells the group of Allies that he accompanies into a post-nuclear apocalyptic landscape that it's not real, but it is what America will be afraid of in the 1950s. So where exactly is it that the Morgue Minder takes the heroes? Into the fears of the populace? Or into the comics that will entertain that populace? It's almost as if the superheroes, as stories, are being shown the stories that will replace them, though the irony is that it's happening in a flashback from a superhero story from a time in which EC-style horror comics have all but vanished.

And with that, I think it's time to get back to work for me. We'll finish the first chunk of Supreme tomorrow with a quick initial foray into the Silver Age flashbacks. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 84: Supreme #43, October, 1996

There are certain comics works that, like Plato's Republic, only really begin to offer up their secrets upon subsequent readings. Morrison's The Invisibles is one, and Moore's Supreme is another. Reading this series again for probably the fourth or fifth time, I'm struck by how meticulously planned the story is. The story contained in the first 13 issues is titled "The Supreme Story of the Year," and it really is one long story that encompasses past and present and gives clues as to the events of the future. I think something that really distinguishes a great writer from a good writer is understanding the serialized nature of the medium, or the genre, and using it to its fullest extent. In a novel-length work, the clues that Moore drops might be taken simply for background, but in a story that is being released in discrete chunks like this one, there is time for the reader to really focus on the "background" details, to recognize the importance of what might seem extraneous.

This is the first Maximum Press cover, and the series supposedly takes on the subtitle "The New Adventures." I get the impetus behind re-branding, but this is only the 3rd issue of the reboot, so to reboot the reboot, so to speak, seems a bit premature. But if Liefeld is known for one thing in the industry, it's poor business decisions. We'll talk about that a bit more when we get to the "ending" of Moore's run. (Okay, he's also known for not being able to draw feet, but that's less-relevant here.)

Speaking of the cover, Warren Ellis really has a point. What a terrible picture. I think, had I been collecting this title at the time, that my eyes would have skipped right over it. It's nondescript, really. There's nothing that draws me to it.

Well....that's not entirely true. The more I look at it, the more craziness appears. Is Judy Jordan basically thigh-high to Supreme? I don't even want to think about what their sex life must look like. And again, I just don't believe that the arms of either version of Supreme would be able to bend. There's always been a lot of talk about the hyper-sexualized depictions of women in superhero comics (see how Judy's breasts are each as big as her head), but what gets left out of those conversations for the most part is the hyper-masculinization/sexualization of men. I can't imagine that Stephen Platt (who drew that cover) thought that how Supreme looks is the epitome of male development. The exaggeration, though here carried to ludicrous extremes, is part of the exaggeration of myth that finds its way into these stories. As I noted yesterday, Chris Sprouse's work on the title does so much to undo this hyperphysicalization of bodies, and really demonstrates how a more reigned-in superheroic art style can work. Also, foreground Supreme's hands and biceps are larger THAN HIS WAIST! What kind of monster is this man?

Okay, enough harping on the art. It's way better than anything I'd be able to do. The story this issue maintains the format that makes the whole run so successful, the flashback that is filled in for us at the same time that it's filled in for Supreme. This is a stereotypical metafictional trope, and Supreme deals in metafiction almost as well and as whole-heartedly as Morrison's Animal Man. Though Moore never shows up to talk to Supreme, which is a conversation I'd give a lot to read.

Continuing "The New Adventures" tomorrow. See you then.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 83: Supreme #42, September, 1996

As I noted yesterday, this was the first issue of Supreme that I read. It was the brilliant flashback sequences by Rick Veitch that pushed me over the edge. The way the flashbacks meshed with the contemporary story, as well as the metatext made me realize that this was a comic for me.

Veitch's art is above reproach in these comics, but the pencillers on the contemporary stuff are....less unreproachable. I will cop to the fact that this was early 90s Image, and more specifically Rob Liefeld's "Extreme Studios," so the aesthetic was fairly well established as being bad. I remember reading a Warren Ellis essay on comic book covers, and he noted that the covers to Supreme, starting with tomorrow's issue which is the first Maximum Press issue, were horrendously ugly. Ellis' point was that the covers are what draw readers in in the first place, so we should have attractive covers on everything. He's right. The Maximum Press ones, the early ones, anyway, are terrible. But it's not just the graphic design. It's also the exaggerated art style. Even on this cover, I'm trying to imagine what Supreme would look like in real life. I thought Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth shirtless came pretty close to what a male superheroic body would look like in real life, but look at Supreme's thighs. They're probably 3 times the size of his head. His neck is larger that his head too. I also don't believe that arms that look like that would bend. I get the need to show him as very strong, but does that necessarily equate to muscles on his muscles? Chris Sprouse, who takes over art with issue #53, demonstrates that strength can be alluded to, rather than rubbed in one's face.

This issue continues very much in the vein of yesterday's issue. More back story, and more contemporary story. Considering that the character had been around for a few years at least by this point, and that his early years had been addressed in such series as Supreme: Glory Days and The Legend of Supreme, issue 41 might as well have been issue 1 for all that both we and Supreme himself are starting fresh. That said, without the prior issues, the trope of the revision would have had far less weight.

Brain's a bit tired today, so that felt like rambling. Back to it tomorrow.

The First Few Issues: Early Writings of the Giant Box of Comics

(I dropped the ball on my Shadowline posts, part 2 of which was supposed to go live today. I just haven't had the energy to put toward the kind of post I'd like to do about them. I really think they're important comics, so I want to get it right. By way of apology, and I'll be keeping a few of these queued up just in case I drop the ball again, here's some of the earliest "critical" writing I did on comics, circa 2001. I haven't edited or changed anything. I think it's important to recognize where you've come from. Be gentle.)

Supreme

A review of issues #41 - 52b, by Alan Moore and various artists

Having just finished re-reading these 13 issues, I feel like I've been reading Supreme for about 60 years. That's not a bad thing. In a world where a continuity error in a comic book can completely eclipse a really good story, Alan Moore has found the solution: Create your own continuity. Taking a second-rate Image universe character and wiping the slate clean, Moore has created a super-hero that the more well-known Man of Steel wishes he were.

Supreme started out existence as a sort of violent Superman, Image's and more

specifically, Rob Liefeld's, answer to the Man of Tomorrow. That the book lasted through 40 issues and various mini-series' is a testament to his popularity, but it wasn't until #41 that both fans and the industry sat up and took notice. Perhaps in an effort to tell the Superman stories he couldn't tell at DC, Alan Moore took over the book, and in many ways, the whole universe he existed in.

In each issue of the 13 I'm talking about, Supreme in the 90's confronts a problem that puts him in mind of past events, which are then presented as flashbacks. A common enough trick, yes, but the way it is pulled off here is what makes the book special. Each flashback, illustrated by the amazing Rick Veitch, is drawn in the style of the era it is supposed to represent. For example, when we see Supreme's origin in issue #42, set in the 1930's, it is drawn much as a comic from the very beginning of the Golden Age was. Moving on a few issues, a story of Supreme in the 70's (long-lived fellow, that Supreme) is drawn in the appropriate fashion. Even the pages these stories appear on have been artificially yellowed to enhance the effect. 

The effect these flashbacks have, especially in the later issues where Liefeld had departed from the ranks of Image and taken his characters with him, is to set up an entire super-hero history that you can get the scope of in only 13 issues, hence the 60 years of reading Supreme. In much the same way he parodied / tributed old Marvel titles in the 1963 series, Moore takes all the conventions of the DC universe and makes them new. For those familiar with comics there are in-jokes a-plenty, yet not so many that new readers will feel lost.

As for the story of Supreme itself, I'd rather not give too much away. We meet Supreme on his way back to Earth after a mission in space. He finds that the universe is about to undergo a revision, a fact made clear to him by a multitude of other Supremes he meets who have already been revised. In this way, Supreme is finding out about his past at much the same time that the reader is. Moore has taken the approach of single issue, stand-alone stories, with one or two two-parters. There is a story running through all 13 issues, but not one that precludes reading issues out of order. The series continues up to issue #56 and picks up again with Supreme: The Return, which has so far produced 3 issues. Awesome Entertainment's unfortunate financial circumstances have made the further adventures of Supreme sporadic at best, but maybe once the second year of stories is complete (Supreme: The Return #8), it'1l be the huge seller it deserves to be, and I won't need to review them to get people to read it.

This is a comic for anyone who misses the wonder a super-hero title used to give. It's not grim, it's not violent, it's not full of sex, but it will make you smile and laughand be moved. The opinion I've most heard expressed about this series is it's contrast to Watchmen, Moore's most well-known work. Where Watchmen seemed to be about deconstructing the super-hero ideal, Supreme is about how wonderful an ideal it is. 

 Supreme is only currently available in back issue, and they're very scarce. There are plans to release a hardcover of the issues I've reviewed, but no firm date. Supreme: The Return #4 - 6 are supposed to be out in March - April 2000.

Supreme was published monthly by Image, then by Maximum Press, and then by Awesome Entertainment.