The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1519: Vanguard Illustrated #3, March 1984

The opening editorial in issue #1 calls this series a try-out book. What this means is that it's a place where the publisher would give emerging writers and artists a chance to get some work published. DC did this with their New Talent Showcase, as have others, and the result is often a mixed bag, which really is the case with any anthology title. What I find a bit odd about it is that one of the emerging writers is David Campiti, but he has a story in every issue thus far. I'm not sure that's really in the spirit of a try-out book, but I wasn't there and don't know the circumstances.

Regardless, Campiti's story in today's issue is phenomenal. It's called "Be It What It Will, I'll Go To It Laughing," and tells the story of an alternate history in which human beings make it to Mars, and about the way Ray Bradbury inspired one young boy to get there. It has an excellent ending that actually gave me chills. That doesn't happen very often.

A bit of research on Mr. Campiti tells me that he's a prolific writer, or was, and is not working internationally with artists trying to establish themselves in various markets. He story today goes pretty close to the top of my list of comic book science fiction stories, and really just comic book stories in general. Beautifully illustrated by Tom Yeates, it's worth your while if you can find the comic.

"Stubbs from Moby-Dick. You'll want to read it someday."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1518: Vanguard Illustrated #2, January 1984

I've said it before, I do love me some Dave Stevens artwork. I mean, he appears to exist in a world where every woman is a pin-up model, which seems to me a bit boring, but he's really good at showing us scenes from that world. That cover up there is amazing.

One thing I neglected to mention yesterday is that there's a serial in here called "Freakwave" and it's written by Peter Milligan, whose work I've been tracking down over the last little while. I had no idea he was in this series. To make matters even better, "Freakwave" is illustrated by Brendan McCarthy, whose Zaucer of Zilk I read a few weeks back. It's not quite the psychedelic festival that McCarthy's later work becomes, but you can definitely see flashes. What's also interesting about this serial is that it really, really resembles the film Waterworld. In fact, it resembles the film so much that when that film was released in 1995, 10 years after "Freakwave," the creators made some attempt at taking legal action. It doesn't seem to have amounted to much, but I will say that when I started reading this serial, I was really shocked at the similarities.

But what's the old saw? There's only 2 or 3 stories to tell, really. Everything else is just variations.

"Before the cumbersome Mickey Death can launch another attack, Tia and Drifter race across the cabin and..."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1517: Vanguard Illustrated #1, November 1983

I've had this series completed and ready to read for about a year now, I think. I've noted before in my reviews of anthology titles that the problem with them is that the quality between stories is often quite variable. This title, a self-proclaimed "new talent book," runs that risk of variable quality not only because it's an anthology, but because it's new writers. Regardless of how talented a creator is, their first few forays are not going to be stellar, with a few exceptions of course. Even Alan Moore's Maxwell the Magic Cat is good, but it's no Watchmen.

That said, I quite enjoyed this issue. It's definitely pulling on the old pulp science fiction traditions of the pre-comic book days. Nowhere is this more clear than the covers, most presenting a scantily-clad (or unclad, in today's case) woman in a strange science fiction setting. When I was reading old pre-code horror stuff, I came across comics published by Avon, a paperback publisher. Rather than using comic artists, the covers were apparently (this according to Tales Too Terrible To Tell) done by paperback artists, and you can tell. There's a different design aesthetic to them. The reason I bring this up is that Vanguard Illustrated does a nice job of taking the elements of old sci-fi covers and rather than simply giving up a paperback cover, uses those elements in the mold of a comic cover.

It's a subtle thing, and probably one of those things that only someone like me notices. Comics, cover-wise, have to ride that fine line between magazine copy and book copy, and it's a line that is not always successfully walked.

"You done made a bad choice, bro! Tha's cannibal country for sure!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1365: Wild Animals #1, December 1982

A note on the GCD listing for this comic tells us that much of the content was actually created in 1977-78, and was for some reason not published until 4 years later. At one point, one of the characters is told that he's in an underground comic, and there is the feel of an underground to this book, more so than some of the other anthropomorphic comics I've read. But I can see the anthro (we're just gonna shorten that word for the next little while ;D) genre growing from the undergrounds, of course. I think what happens not too long after this transitional era is the influence of manga and anime enters anthro, and forever changes it.

I know I've probably said it before on this blog, but Grant Morrison's Animal Man #5 changed the way I looked at comics in a pretty fundamental way. One of the things it really did was make me view the animal avatars in our entertainment in different ways. Frye suggests that comic strip characters in the Fifties are frozen, unable to evolve, and so too are cartoon animal characters. In some ways it's a more tragic frozenness, as the characters themselves are so often animated.

(Having just typed that, I realize I'm actually describing superheroes too. *sigh* It's one of those points one which Frye and I disagree!)

All this aside, this comic was really pretty great. There's some stuff by Larry Gonnick, Scott Shaw!, Sergio Aragones, just a fantastic array of really, really talented artists. The stories are funny and witty, and I think there was only one questionable ethnic representation, which is actually pretty good given the time period it comes from. Sadly, there are no other issues in the series. Though perhaps that's a good thing. Nothing to add to the collecting list!

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1364: Twisted Tales #3, June 1983

Damn, but Richard Corben draws some dark, dark shit.

What immediately struck me about this comic as I took it out of its bag was the amazing condition it's in. I've no record of where I got this issue, though due to the tag of "garage" in the notes in my database, I can tell that I've had it at least since 2008ish, if not longer. I'm always surprised to find a comic in this good shape and this old. It means that it's probably been stored properly since it was released, so it was probably part of a collection, or old stock from a store.

The stories are, of course, fantastic, though the cover story was a bit too narratively similar to a story from the previous issue. I can't imagine that this slipped by a writer like Jones, and perhaps the whole point of the series is to tell stories literally in the vein of the old ECs, and see what one could do with that format. It's a bit like when I read poets who mess about with the sonnet format. It's very rigid, but within that rigidity one can achieve amazing things. The 12-bar blues are a similar idea.

The other thing that really makes these comics quite different from those that inspired it is the amount of nudity. But the cool thing is it's not just female nudity. There's a shot in story "Off Key" in which a young lady slips her husband's jeans off and we get a full shot of a rather nicely-rendered bottom. It's a small thing, but what it allows, in this and in some of the other stories, is for us to see the nudity not as exploitative, as it would have been if only the women were unclothed, but as a part of the story. The couple in this story are having a private weekend away. I don't know about many of you, but when my wife and I have a private weekend away, there's very often nudity involved! I guess the short version is that the nudity and sexuality in these stories is there for verisimilitude, rather than simply to titillate. Which it also does, by the way.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1353: Twisted Tales #2, April 1983

I have waxed lyrical about Bruce Jones' ability to tell a great short story while I was reading the sister title to today's comic, Alien Worlds. The stories in today's comic are a little darker, and much more brutal, and really, really remind me of the EC horror stuff I've been reading over the last little while. I get the suspicion that the similarities aren't coincidental. Mr. Jones and his collaborators are definitely of the age that they would have know much more about the pre-Code horror titles than someone of my generation. I didn't recognize the influence when I was reading the science fiction comic, but now that I'm a little more elucidated, the influence is clear.

I can't even decide on a favourite story in today's issue. The lead tale, illustrated by Mike Ploog, has an excellent ending that I didn't see coming. The final tale, drawn by the fabulous Rand Holmes presages Crash (the one about sex in cars) by quite some time. I think, really, only the Ken Steacy-illustrated "Nightwatch" fell a bit flat for me. A neat little tale, but I feel like I've seen it all before.

More of this tomorrow, perhaps. I always balk at reading horror comics so early in the morning. I worry that it's going to inflect my day.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 58 - The Complete Rog 2000, July 1982

I can't for the life of me remember where I got this book. I got it recently, I know that, but where from has completely escaped me. I think it must have been a cheap bin somewhere, as I've made my feelings about the work of John Byrne known pretty clearly. That said, this also represents some very early Roger Stern work, so I suppose it has a place of some distinction in my collection.

Rog 2000 started out as a fictional robotic editor for a fanzine called CPL. It seems the character fairly oozed personality from the moment he was put upon the page, and a series of short stories, all collected here, followed.

Rog's adventures are silly. They know exactly what they are and aspire to be nothing more than an entertainment, a diversion. Rog hunts a slime creature, visits a "haunted" house, encounters a little old witch. There's no continuity, no recurring characters, no need to invest more than a surface read of the piece. Which, for me at least, is a very odd phenomenon. I as telling my classes today that we can certainly choose to read a piece of art with the express intention of an escapist, surface reading, but that there is almost certainly a deeper reading we can perform. I'm not sure if that's the case with Rog 2000. I mean, I sure one could, but I'm also fairly sure that there was nothing of the sort in the minds of those writing and drawing the tales within.

Seems like a terrible thing for someone who attempts to teach critical reading and thinking practices to say, but every now and again we have to acknowledge that, in some cases, there is only surface to some works of art. This doesn't make them bad...just simple.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 905: Vanguard Illustrated #6, June 1984

(A slight detour from The Avengers. I'm away camping over the weekend, so here's some preprepared posts.)

The early 80s really were a golden age for science fiction anthology titles. And so many major artists appeared in them. Today's feature story is an excellent short illustrated by George Perez and written by Joel Cavalieri. It skirts the edge of the science fiction genre cemented by the accompanying stories, though it's a lovely articulation of a Shadowrun adventure, predating that game by a few years, I think.

I've noted before that you're often getting a mixed bag with these anthology titles. Today's is a bit different. Though some of the stories seem to be continuations of serials (should probably have read the series in, y'know, order), I couldn't quite make up my mind whether they were, or were simply written to sound like they were. Reading them from the latter point of view was immensely satisfying. And that's perhaps a nice way to approach any random anthology title. Unless you know for sure, you never know if the story you've read was meant to be part of a larger story or just seemed like it. There's an excellent article on caricature by David Carrier in A Comics Studies Reader that posits that a single-panel comic is actually a part of a virtual series of panels, and our understanding of the single panel depends on our ability to see what has, or might have, come before, and what comes after. Such comics are possibly only because we have the gift of hypothetical thought. So could we consider a comic presented as a part of a series in the same way? And fill in hypothetically what might have happened before, and what comes next?

Though I may read a prior or subsequent issue and blow that theory out of the water. At least for this series.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 730: Bold Adventure #1, November 1983

And so Year 2 comes to a close! It's been an interesting year. I've read some really great comics, and a few really, really terrible ones. Re-reading Morrison's Batman was a lovely treat, and I really can't wait to see what I get up to over the next 365 days.

Today's comic is a bit of nostalgia for me, even though it was one of the comics that was part of my quarter bin buy a few weeks ago. I first came across Bold Adventure #1 (though I mistook the title for "Time Force") back in the earliest days of my collecting. When I first got into comics, my parents went out and bought me a comic collecting kit. It included a box, which was somewhere between standard short and long box size, a price guide, and a package of 20 or so comics. I can't for the life of me remember what most of them were, though it seems to me they were generally from indie publishers from the 80s. I do, however, remember this comic, and if I'm to be honest, it was probably because my pre-pubescent brain was fascinated by the very prominent breasts on the cover. I wish I could say I've changed...

The stories inside are pretty neat, all penned by Bill DuBay. There's a bit of science fiction, a bit of adventure, and what is potentially a horror tale in the final short piece entitled "The Weirdling." I was a little confused by the "Time Force" story, as it ends quite suddenly with the death of the main character and the triumph of the bad guy, and with no "to be continued." At first I thought it was quite a gutsy move, to give so much set up and then have all the hope one invests come to naught. But it turns out the story does continue in the next issue, so perhaps all hope is not lost. Perhaps.

Tomorrow begins Year 3. I'll be reading the oldest comic in my collection as a way of kicking off the year, and then I've got a bit of a theme planned for the first couple of weeks. I hope you've enjoyed Year 2, or some of it anyway. I know I have.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 708: Vanity #1, June 1984

This morning, as I was explaining some superhero costume tropes to my class, I mentioned the ever-classy "boob window." Vanity, our title character up there, is a prime example.This explanation was in response to a discussion of Erik Larsen's horrendous tweet about women and practical outfits in comics. Another excellent comics creator is outed as sexist POS. Pity.

This is a weird comic. I can only find 3 appearances for the character. Two are her own series, and one is in Pacific Presents #3. An interesting premise. She's got science fiction tech but exists in contemporary times, and is apparently a time-displaced cave person. That's literally all I can get from it. Will Meugniot's art is quite lovely, and Vanity and her cohorts are rendered expertly. It's nice to see, on the first page, that the male characters also evince "boob window." At least the comic is equal opportunity as far as the amount of flesh it bares. Vanity it obviously inspired by old science fiction exploitation films, with a healthy dash of pin-up girl thrown in. She's part spy, part superhero, part sex symbol, and I'm curious to know how the story ends up. Well, if it ends up, I guess. The GCD says it "was" an ongoing series, but I'm not sure we can say that two issues is ongoing. More like aborted. And, as with many series from this era, I'm sure it simply disappeared with no explanation.

Pity.

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 224: Alien Worlds #7, April 1984

A slight error in yesterday's post: this issue, number seven, is the last one under Pacific Comics. Numbers eight and nine are from Eclipse.

Thus far, Bruce Jones has unequivocally been the guiding creative force behind Alien Worlds. As of this issue, though, noted science fiction author William F. Nolan (Logan's Run) is brought on board. Considering the fact that the title passes over to Eclipse in the next issue, following Pacific Comics' dissolution, perhaps the move to get Nolan in was one geared toward making the title seem desirable to whomever was going to take over publication. Though that's the pessimistic view. Comics have a long history of attracting writers from other media, and this could simply be a case of a fan wanting to branch out into comics.

Though this does bring up something that's always bothered me. The cover of this comic prominently features Nolan's name, though none of the previous comics have featured Jones's. When Kevin Smith was secured by Marvel to write Daredevil, it was giant news. China Mieville getting a "New 52" title - also big news. Neil Gaiman's triumphant return to comics with 1602, huge. I'm trying to imagine a moment where the same thing would happen in reverse. Grant Morrison's done video game and film treatments, but these were not hailed as huge coups for either industry. Fans have been crying out for Steven Moffat to get Morrison or Moore to do a Doctor Who episode, but it hasn't happened yet. Comics like to advertise when people from outside the industry decide to write or draw a comic. In some ways it's a way of celebrating the attraction of the medium, but I sometimes think it's also a way of saying "Hey! Look at us! We're a valid medium after all, because these people have deigned to write for us." In this particular issue, Jones's story "Ride the Blue Bus" is head and shoulders above Nolan's story, which reads like a golden age M. Night Shyamalan film. It's good, but not nearly as moving as the tragic little tale Jones and George Perez weave to finish off this issue.

I know this comic came out in the eighties, and comics weren't nearly as well-thought of as they are now, but it still irks me when publishers feel the need to trumpet the fact that someone outside of the comics world has come to write or draw something. Comics creators account for some of my favourite writers and artists of all time, and I think that some of these creators deserve the same sorts of accolades that any creator in any other industry receives, critically and popularly. How is it that Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell is not considered a postmodern literary masterwork?

Well, because it's a comic book.

Had not meant to rant this morning. Probably a reaction to the ridiculous amount of work I have to get done today, so I'd better get on with it. Not sure what's on for tomorrow. I have one more issue of Alien Worlds, but I reviewed it almost 200 days ago. It's here if you'd like to check it out. I've also got a prestige-format special of the series, but I might save that for the much-delayed Weekly Graphic Novel (fell by the wayside due to school pressures, I'm afraid). So it'll be something new. See you tomorrow!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 223: Alien Worlds #6, February 1984

I wonder what the reaction of comic shop owners was when they opened their boxes and saw that they'd have to try to display that cover somewhere on the shelves.

As I mentioned previously, I've been trying to figure out whether the glut of naked women in the pages of Alien Worlds is simply the male-centric world of comics rearing its beardy, ugly head, or if there's something a little more ironically nostalgic going on. The curvaceous lady on the cover there is the main character from a long-ish tale at the end of the comic. She, when questioned about the scanty nature of what she terms a "combat uniform" claims it was inspired by the clothing of Dejah Thoris, of Burrough's John Carter series of novels. So there is this call-back to the golden age of science fiction. And her term for her almost-complete-lack-of-clothing, a "combat uniform," is interestingly supported by the fact that she describes the uniform as giving her an advantage over opponents not only in martial combat, but also in navigating the bureaucracy of the colony she inhabits. So there there is a tiny irony, a redefinition of the term combat. I'm still not completely convinced that it's not simply sensationalism, but it's starting to appear to be something more.

The stories in this issue were quite good, better than yesterday's. The final, long story read almost like an old Prince Valiant story. There was very little dialogue, most of the internal action happening in caption boxes. There was far less attention paid to the robots that have been ubiquitous through the rest of the series. The concentration was instead focussed on different species and the ways we might interact with them, manufacture them, and become them. There's a bit more of the posthuman here, a little less of the singularity. Oh, and it ends with strange alien monster sex. How's that for a selling point?

I'll be moving on to issue #7 tomorrow, the first one to bear the Eclipse Comics trade dress. It'll be interesting to see if the content substantially changes with the change in publisher. But now I'm off to mainline some Rick and Morty with my son. See you tomorrow!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 222: Alien Worlds #4, September 1983

I was excited to get back to Alien Worlds. It's been a really long time since I've read some science fiction I've enjoyed. I'm not sure why I went off it, but I did, so it's nice to be able to dip my toes back in.

The cool thing is that last weekend, at the Edmonton Comic Expo, I found a special, published about 3 years after the series ended, all written by Bruce Jones and his various original co-creators. I think this series is moving out of the Storage collection, and into Active rotation. I need to think about it further.

That said, I did not enjoy this issue nearly as much as I have the prior 3. The stories are still good, a nice range of comic to tragic, and the art is wonderful. The dialogue is as snappy and interesting as the previous issues. But there was just something missing. Maybe it's that in each of the previous issues, there's been one story that's really resonated, that's really stood above the rest. In this issue, there's no superlative story. Not that the stories are bad; they're good. But none of them are great. No worries, though. Not every single comic can be a good one, and I've been very lucky in the quality of comics I've read over the last little while.

One story does deserve mention, however. The short piece "One Day In Ohio" is a tragic little story of a servant robot that doesn't realize it's family has died in a holocaust of some sort. It eventually rescues a chimp from the local zoo, treating it as the family child, until it overheats one day and explodes. The chimp, touchingly, tries it's best to take care of the ruined machine. And that's it.

Maybe there was a great story in this issue.

We'll continue along tomorrow, I was unable to find some of the missing issues for this series at the con. I'll be poking about in local comic stores, but it's (not) surprising (at all) how few comic shops carry Pacific Comics back issues from the 1980s. We'll muddle through somehow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 214: Alien Worlds #1, December 1982

Second post from the road, and I did manage to find an issue of Alien Worlds that I didn't have (and one that I didn't know existed, which is pretty great!). This issue is pretty exactly in keeping with everything I've said about the previous (though actually subsequent) ones. Jones has an amazing handle on how to craft a satisfying story in a very few pages, and his choices of collaborators is consistently brilliant. A theme that I begin to see emerging in these comics is the relationship of the human to the non-human, but, as with all great science fiction, using the non-human as a reflection of ourselves. There's a lot of looking at the ways in which humans and robots might interact, especially once the robots become virtually indistinguishable from us. Of particular note is Jones' concern with how we will treat robots in the guise of children, something that prefigures the film A.I.

We also see a hearkening back to the golden age of science fiction paperbacks with the depictions of the female form, both on the covers and in the interior pages. Pacific Comics was certainly geared toward a more mature audience than its mainstream competitors, and it took advantage of (I'm assuming) a Comics Code free existence to fill this book with heaving bosoms and pert bottoms. While this is certainly a problematic depiction of women, who aside from this play only small supporting roles in the stories thus far, there's also a nostalgic quality to the art, looking back to a time when such objectifying was accepted (not, I'll point out, that that made it right), and also to a time when science fiction did look to the future, was speculative, rather than the space opera fantasy epics that science fiction had become by the time of this comic's publication.

What I'm trying to figure out is if the depictions of women in these comics is in any way meant to be ironic, an acknowledgment of the oppressed role given to most women in early science fiction novels. Jones and his artistic collaborators are smart guys, and they're working for a publisher that's just one step or so removed from the undergrounds that had proven so subversive a decade or so before. Perhaps I'm being too optimistic, but the hyper-sexualization of the female form is so prevalent in these comics that I feel like it's more parody, or gently satirized homage, than out and out sexism. It's hard to say, to I'll just look at it from my optimistic standpoint, and invite you to do so as well.

I was unable on my first go through the con to fill in all the holes in my Alien Worlds run, but I'll try again tomorrow. Failing that, there's more sitting at home in the collection, so we'll continue on with them.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 213: Alien Worlds #3, July 1983

Posting from the road, in a hotel in Edmonton, excited for the comic con tomorrow, the panel on Let's Play videos I'll be co-presenting, and getting my hands on some issues to fill in my spaces.

There are, in the annals of literature, those writers who are considered to be the epitome of particular forms. In the case of the short story, names like Edgar Allen Poe, Raymond Carver, Jorge Luis Borges are lauded as being amongst those writers who understand the short story form in the most sublime of ways. I think we can make the argument that, in the case of comics, Bruce Jones is a master of the short-form sequential story. Short stories are, more often than not, moments in a life, where novels and other long form works are, again more often than not, lives in and of themselves. The short story narrates moments rather than series of moments. Jones' stories do this in such perfect, succinct form, building entire worlds and back stories but telling pointed and brilliant little tales in the space of 6 or 7 pages. He's assisted by this amazing array of artists, of whom the standout in this issue is Scott Hampton, with a story about dolphins that would make Douglas Adams proud. I feel like if I just wax lyrical about this comic, it will come off as disingenuous, and certainly less than critically rigorous, but Jones' scripts and the artists who collaborate on them are all just great. If you're looking for a series that perfects the short, sequential science fiction story, this is the one.

While I'd love to post tomorrow about another issue of this comic (and I might, if I can find the ones I'm looking for at the con), I only brought the single issue with me. I'll blog one of my finds from the reams at the convention tomorrow. See you then!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 212: Alien Worlds #2, May 1983

And here I was worried about what I was going to read after Age of Apocalypse. There, sitting behind the AoA section of the collection was the Bruce Jones-scripted anthology title Alien Worlds. I really like this title, and its horror cousin Twisted Tales. Jones has got a great knack for telling a short, spooky, quirky story, a la the old Steve Ditko tales that were reprinted in my Doctor Who Weeklys, and the amazing array of artists he gets to join him is a treat. Dave Stevens' art on the cover story is just...well, how about I let it speak for itself? Aurora is really something.

Now, the nice thing about the character is that, after this single cheesecake-y shot, she dons her action suit and proceeds to be something of a badass for the rest of the story. I'm hoping that it's a story that continues, because I'm kind of intrigued by the premise. The other two stories in the book are emblematic of Jones' style on this and Twisted, in that they're fairly straightforward sci-fi tales, though entertaining and well-wrought ones to be sure, with a twist at the end. Could it be that Jones is the M. Night Shyamalan of comics, though far less-maligned? A question for another day.

According to the GCD, the series ran 7 issues at Pacific and a further 2 at Eclipse. I don't have all of them, but as I'm heading up to the Edmonton Comic Con this weekend, perhaps I'll track them down. This era of speculative fiction in comics is pretty great. At this point, Heavy Metal's only a few years old, Warren's 1984 is still a fresh memory, and Epic Illustrated is in full swing, not to mention the "ground-level" comics that skewed heavily toward fantasy and science fiction. I wonder what it was about the early 80s that made so many writers and artists embrace these genres across so many levels (and, to be fair, qualities) of publishers? Backlash against the stagnation many perceived in superhero comics, perhaps. Recall, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Watchmen, and Dark Knight were a few years off at this point. Early 80 superhero comics were good, but in that amusing, campy way, still escaping the influence of the 60s Batman television show. Sci Fi and Fantasy were perhaps a good place to go if you wanted to tell intelligent and interesting stories.

First post-Age of Apocalypse comic. Feeling pretty good. Only missing the X-Men slightely. More Alien Worlds tomorrow. See you then!

(Edit: After writing this, I found out that Dave Stevens died a few years ago. His official site is still up and is well worth an hour or so of your time.)

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.