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 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: Day 56 - Hero Premiere Edition #6: 1963: Horus, Lord of Light, 1993

If there's one thing I love, it's free comics. One of the reasons I've come to love Free Comic Book Day slightly less is that a lot of stores that participate in it now only distribute free comics is you buy something from them. This, to me, is intrinsically against the idea that spawned Free Comic Book Day, but then I'm an optimist if nothing else.

And this insert from the comics magazine Hero Illustrated isn't really a free comic. The original purchaser would have paid the cost of the magazine with which it was included, and I likely paid a dollar for it from some dollar bin. But, as an insert comic, it's not an expected part of the magazine with which it was packaged. Wizard Magazine would do this sometimes too, and very often it was original content, not reprint content as this particular issue is.

That said, though the premiere edition of 1963 #5 doesn't contain the whole story, just a taster to get you in the mood, it does contain an interview with Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette about the formation and formulation of the 1963-verse, and those particular artists' reasons for becoming involved in the project.
It also gives me a nice taste of the wonder that is 1963. It's one of the great tragedies of 90s superhero comics that the final part of this series, the legendary Double Image special that would have pitted the optimistic characters of 1963 against the gritty Image heroes, never materialized. In much the same way that Moore's final issues of Supreme, and the giant conflict between Daxia and the Supremacy never came about, we can probably blame the lack of Double Image on the terrible business practices of Rob Liefeld. But that's a conversation for another time, and after much more research.

This ashcan makes me want to re-read the series, though, so that might come up in the next few weeks. We'll see. The other nice thing about it was that it's an ashcan, and so took a bit less time to read on a busy morning.

See you tomorrow.