The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1864: Metal Hurlant #1, July-August 2002

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

I don't actually know that I've got a lot to say about this comic. It was really good. The premise of the series is to bring together European and North American creators, with a little bit of South American thrown in for good measure. It widely succeeds in its mission and tells some entertaining and beautiful stories.

But none of them really stood out to me that much. They were technically very good, but didn't quite have that emotional impact that I like to see from a short story. Ah well. They can't all be life-changers, I suppose.

More to follow.

Related Posts and Further Reading

For more European comics, have a look at Heavy Metal, the magazine that sprung from the original 70s version of Metal Hurlant. 

More globally, here are all the things I've had to say about non-North American comics. 

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1861: 2020 Visions #3, July 1997

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

Alex's story comes (which is a funny pun if you've read the story) to a conclusion that I'm not 100% on board with. After escaping Ellis Island with an army of plague-carrying revolutionaries, he plays his usual card, abandons the doomed attempt at social upheaval, and instead manages to sneak into the heart of the walled-off, elite section of the city. Climbing to the top of the tallest building (and let me tell you, it was off-putting to have him looking down at the tops of the the Twin Towers), he plans to leap off into an air conditioning system, thereby infecting hundreds, if not thousands, of the genetic elite with his lustful disease.

Which then burns out with the rising of the Sun, and we leave Alex as he's about to be beaten by cops and dumped back in the plague-infested part of the city from which we've just watched him climb. But he's had a turnabout, and sees life and the world as beautiful as well as ugly, and he's not ready to leave it yet.

Given the constant building of tension throughout the three issues of the story, the finale really does play like, in Alex's words, "another premature ejaculation," which is maybe the point, but it's not the ending I was hoping for. Of course, regardless of whether or not I liked the ending, it was all drawn by Frank Quitely, which means it was fucking gorgeous to look at. Endings are weird, and I feel like so many writers struggle with them. We've been programmed, in Western Culture at least, to embrace stories that never end. We're a Christian-based nation, of course - has the story of the Bible ended yet? So when our stories do end, I sometimes think there's some fundamental part of us that rails at it, regardless of whether it's a satisfying ending to the story or not. Or perhaps it's just that it reminds us that our stories too will end one day, and not a one of us is okay with that.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1860: 2020 Visions #2, June 1997

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

I should probably walk back my claims of Jamie Delano's prescience a bit, in that this series is not a really a futurist speculation but a commentary on America at the turn of the millennium. If we read it as a far more metaphorical representation of American society, you can see the problems Delano is drawing attention to, and how they led us to the current state of United States socio-political organization. There's been no mention of who runs the country now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that it was a celebrity of some sort.

This particular chapter is also a bit of a stroll through U.S. history, or part of it anyway. The 12 issues of this series share a setting - they're all set in the same United States in 2020, and there are apparently connections between the various characters, so maybe I'll have to go back and re-read the second story arc to see how Jack Atlanta's tale links to this first story. Most of today's issue takes place in the quarantine of Ellis Island, where immigrants to the U.S. were held until deemed healthy enough to enter the country, or were sent back where they came from. The island plays an opposite role in 2020, however, with victims of disease, any disease, sent to the island to waste away, out of sight, out of mind.

Well, that got a bit too real. Hopefully our current plague will get under control before something like this becomes necessary.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1859: 2020 Visions #1, May 1997

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

I'm surprised it took me this long to get around to this series, given the year, but I think perhaps I've left it to just the right time. The premise of the first story in the series is a society that has gone full-totalitarian in order to stop the spread of a virus.

Yep.

While the political situation of the series is both identical and completely opposite the current U.S. one, the paranoia over the transmission of this disease is far too real. I honestly could see, with not too much pushing, our own society hitting the point of having special police to round up those who might be infected for mandatory testing and quarantine.

To give you an idea of how prescient, at least in a small way, this story is likely to be, here's a couple of captions that probably will reflect our own world in, oh, let's say, 3 weeks. If we're lucky.

Can't put it much better than that.

More to follow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1854: Moebius Comics #1, May 1996

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

You may have noticed I'm not reading Jon Sable anymore, despite my liking of the series. I just needed to do some different things, which I'm kind of blaming on the quarantine, and kind of blaming on my ADHD.

Moebius plays a background role in my comics education, much the same way that Heavy Metal (his primary vehicle in North America) does. I, of course, have always been aware of Giraud's work, but my preference for the mainstream, and for superheroes, has always kept me from getting into his stuff. Which, I suppose, is why I started this project to begin with. That said, science fiction comics have never really been a thing I enjoyed. Or rather, have never been a thing I enjoyed as much as some other things. It's weird, because as a genre I quite like science fiction - I just often find that there's not quite as much of a spiritual dimension to such stories, or not in the way that I like to see/read a spiritual dimension, anyway. For me I think that's why superhero stuff works so nicely - it meshes the magical and the scientific into a pretty good amalgam, which is also how I try to order my brain.

Today's comic is a bit of a mishmash. In order to spread the one complete story out over a few issues, we get a scant amount of the primary tale, "The Man from [the] Ciguri." Everything else is stuff from Moebius' sketch book, or from abandoned projects, which is interesting for the collector of Giraud's work, but not necessarily for the casual reader. I do like the "Arzach Jams," in which another artist takes some of the sketchbook work and fleshes it out into a proper story. William Stout's work in today's issue pays homage to Moebius without totally ripping him off. It's quite a lovely piece.

Isolation life is weird. My schedule is becoming non-existent, as there's nothing pulling on my time. I'm still writing for CBR in order to make a bit of money, and I'm still taking care of the house, but there's no sense of urgency to any of these things. Right now, though it's not an ideal circumstance, I seem to have time. Now I just have to get off my ass and fill it with all the things I want to do when I don't have any.

More to follow.

Public Domain Comics! - "Three Eyes Look Earthward!" from Adventures Into the Unknown #119, September 1960

For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.

I thought since most of us (hopefully) are practicing safe distancing from others, and staying home more than usual, that a few interesting comics to read might be fun. I've gone through my collection for all of my public domain stuff, and I'll be posting stories from them for the next little while. I'll try to go daily, but, let's be honest, that's not my strong suit.

Today's story is from Adventures Into the Unknown #119, September 1960, published by American Comics Group. The story was written by Kurato Osaki and illustrated by Ogden Whitney.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1592: Hilly Rose #4, December 1995

I really did want to love this series. It's got an amazing aesthetic, straight out of the old movie serials, and Boyer's artwork is dynamic and beautiful. But it's such a boring story.

I feel like there's a bit of false advertising going on with the series. Each cover depicts an action sequence in a wilderness setting, pitting our heroine against either her antagonists or against the very environment itself. Hilly wields a laser pistol on each cover, sometimes firing, sometimes readying it for trouble. But here's the thing: the contents of the comic have been basically 4 issues of Hilly and her friends flying around a city, looking for clues to uncover a terrorist cell and never actually seeming to arrive anywhere, while her father, who is behind the terrorism, misleads her, all in the name of what he seems to think is love. It's a situation in which the exterior and the interior are completely unrelated, aside from the main character. So there's that.

My other complaint is that the editing on the book is just awful. And that's surprising, seeing as how cat yronwode, editor extraordinaire of Eclipse Comics, is at the helm. Admittedly, I'm a little more sensitive to such issues given my educational background, but when you're running across 3 or 4 errors in an issue, you have to wonder if anyone was paying attention. There are the usual "you're" and "it's" errors (if you can't use the uncontracted form in a sentence, it's the wrong word), but there's spelling errors too ("deminished"), and straight up factual errors (grass that might be a clue is called "fauna"). To me, when I run across such things, it smacks of laziness, or simply a privileging of the art over the words.

I'm going to give the rest of the series some time. Perhaps it's my state of mind, or the constant rain in Calgary for the last few weeks, but I'm not feeling as magnanimous toward the medium as I usually do. If you're going to put something out to the public, make sure it's a finished product. This, to me, is still a draft.

"Due to my undercover work, I have determined they are in actually terrorists." ("actuality," Boyer, "actuality")

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1590: Hilly Rose #2, July 1995

Thus far one of the things I like most about this series are the back covers. Each is laid out like the cover of a magazine, Rocket Times, the paper at which Bach is trying to convince Hilly to work. There's a lovely Norman Rockwell aesthetic to the pieces, showing the characters in situations that, in the course of the narrative, they are unlikely to encounter. There's something about this kind of outside-narrative depiction that gives one the feeling of the characters actually being characters played by people who, simply, look exactly like their characters. I got a similar feeling from the Cutey Bunny stories in Army Surplus Komikz.

In some ways, the characters are simply roles being played, though it is B.C. Boyer who is playing all of the roles. In an independently-produced work such as this one, I have to imagine that each character represents something of the creator, or at least represents something the creator has internalized. This is what Foucault and Barthes talk about when they (Foucault mainly) theorize on the "author function." But, to be honest, it's too early in the morning for Foucault.

Oh, and in this issue, Hilly's Dad is just wrong and creepy.

"Please, Hilly, whatever you do, put away that cute little journalistic bug you have...and stay being my sweet...innocent...naive girl."

(Seriously, those pauses at the end? Gross.)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1589: Hilly Rose #1, May 1995

I don't know anything about writer/artist B.C. Boyer, though I've got a bit of his "Masked Man" work in some of my Eclipse books. His style is kind of cool and retro, carving a future out of glimpses of it from the past. Hilly's world is more Flash Gordon than the Matrix, as you can probably tell from the strange fins on the clothing. Who ever thought that that would be a fashion thing? Wouldn't they just get in the way?

Not much to say about the series yet - this is definitely an introductory issue, though we do seem to be joining the story in media res. Hilly is already a successful reporter, and the action of the comic takes place as Mister Bach is trying to convince Hilly's father that she should cover news on Earth, rather than on Splatt 4. Though Hilly does assert her own agency in the face of her father's commands, it's unclear whether or not she'll actually disobey him. Perhaps this conflict of gender and generation will underpin the series.

One thing I did wonder about was the character of Blossom, up there on the cover in black and white. She looks a lot like she just wandered out of Boneville with Jeff Smith's famous cousins, though I suppose the design for the cousins is based on older strips like Pogo. Boyer's retro style certainly speaks to a love of the old comics, so perhaps Blossom is more Walt Kelly than Jeff Smith.

More of this tomorrow, and we'll see where the story goes.

"You saw how I pummeled his fist with my face!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1532: Futility #4

Red Hayes manages to bumblingly survive a full-on interstellar war and that most horrible of things that those of us with penises can imagine: having a parasite swim up it.

This series is fucking nuts.

I am excited to see where it goes, especially as this issue ends with Red sort of getting home, but sort of not. The next book, "Orange Planet Horror" hopefully will give some insight into the strange new world that Red returns unto.

It's rare, I think, to see a squishy outer space story. So many of them are very clean and clinical, so it's nice to run into a story where the aliens are every bit as gross as we are, and sometimes, most times, even more so. The last series I remember doing this organicness well was the reboot of Prophet from a few years back. Everything was food for everything else in that series, as far as I could tell. Futility isn't far from that either.

On to something new tomorrow, but we'll definitely return to the adventures of Red Hayes.

"Slimy tyrant! You thought to control me? A god!?"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1531: Futility #3

Futility is a really gross comic. You may be able to tell that from the cover. It's everything the EC comics wanted to be but couldn't because there were just still some thing that you couldn't do back in the 50s. Cam Hayden and Rick Overwater have no such qualms.

I read the first 2 issues of this series a little while back but didn't get around to blogging them, but at the recent Fan Expo I snagged signed copies of the next 3 issues, because it's just that good. Now, bear in mind that when I say that, it's not necessarily a nice comic. It's not going to leave you feeling good. Red Hayes, farmer and amateur astronaut, is not a good guy. He's a redneck from the middle of Texas in the 1960s. But I get the suspicion that the weirdness he's encountering on his journey through space is maybe opening his mind a little more than it used to be. And then there's the art - visceral and bloody, hearkening, for me at least, to the grossest of the undergrounds. Space is a weird, slimy place, and poor Red just isn't equipped to handle it.

Tomorrow I'll read issue 4, after which the creators have decided to do graphic novels instead. Which I'll get back to one of these days, really.

Futility is a local comic to Alberta, and is definitely evidence that we're not all conservative nightmares out here. This is some high weirdness.

"But it could -- uh -- end with the enslavement of your entire world."

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 1441: Aztec Ace #13, May 1985

I have actually managed to find the final issue of the series, so I'm rapidly approaching the end. Things are a bit strange, though that's not saying a lot in the context of this series. It's a very strange series. But it may also be one of my favourite series I've read. There's so much here that prefigures a lot of the Morrison stuff I glommed onto in the 90s, mixed with a nice dash of pulp adventure. I feel like Ace's adventures in time would be somewhat similar to the adventures of the 20s Invisibles in Morrison's epic.

Today's issue was a lovely metatext, both a love letter and a deconstruction of superheroes. This is a little while before Watchmen, and manages to both demonstrate the problems with the superhero, a la Watchmen, but also manages to show why they're such beloved characters: they offer us a site of belief. That's really all it is. Superheroes replace the more flawed religious constructions upon which our culture is built, refining away the bad ideas (I don't know too many hateful superheroes), and keeping the good stuff.

Many say that it's time that humanity outgrew the numerous faith traditions we've clung to for millennia, but we still need something to believe in. I think that's something very human. So why not superheroes, a myth that we ourselves can contribute to?

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Days 1432 - 1438: Transformers Generation 1, 2002

'Bout time I got back to this, yeah?

Here's what I've been reading for the last week:

 

 

There was a pretty amazing uproar when this series came out from people who decried the idea that children's toys, and their concomitant narratives, shouldn't be made all gritty and dark. Which, to be fair, is what happens here. The first couple of issues are pretty bloody, which is a bit off-putting given the source material. But the interesting thing is that the narrative is literally about that very thing. A shadowy group takes control of the Transformers and uses them to carry out clandestine attacks. The heroic warriors of yesterday become assassins. Was this a clever anticipation of the push back to the series, or just wild coincidence. Yes to both, probably.

This is a good series. The art is unbelievable, capturing the cartoon-era characters' likenesses with startling accuracy. The story is...okay. It could be I'd been out of touch with the characters for too long when it came out, and certainly now, but it didn't really touch me. It was fun, and lots of things blew up, and there were cool battles (though, now that I think about it, not a lot of transforming - mostly robot battles), but that's about it. It read like the first few Michael Bay films watched. Entertaining, but not life-changing. Which is not a criticism. I love a good bit of entertainment.

As I was reading through, I noted on my Instagram (@giantcomicbox) that the story is slow to get going. We see only shadowed robots, and I got the feeling that it was the beginning of a much longer series. Perhaps the second act of the series picks up speed.

I'm curious to see what happens with the characters in the sequel series, so maybe when that big lottery win happens, I'll go pick up the trades.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1422: Aztec Ace #1, March 1984

I've set myself something of a clock in reading this issue today. Aztec Ace runs 15 issues, and I was fortunate enough to nab the first fourteen for very, very cheap one fine day. I have, of course, since been unable to find the 15th issue at any of the comic shops in Calgary. And if I keep reading the series, I've 14 days to find it.

*sigh*

Though, really, of all the stressors in my life, that's the most pleasant one.

Another thought that occurs is that the cover date for this comic is  when I turned 10 years old.

I like this comic a lot. It reminds me of Grant Morrison, in the weird trippy multiple time lines and non-linear understandings of reality, and comes from a writer (Doug Moench) whose work I've always found to be really solid. I'm excited to see a series in which he's given free reign over the story he's telling. And to be telling that story using an Indigenous South American man as the focal character is pretty great. Regardless of whether or not I manage to find the final issue, I think I'm going to enjoy this story.

More to come...(really, this time.)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1409: Doctor Who (1984) #1, October 1984

Doctor Who Weekly #19, from which part of today's comic is drawn, is perhaps the comic I have that is the one that I remember having read the longest. It came out in February of 1980, which means I very likely had it while I was still in England. "The Starbeast," the story featured in today's reprint comic, is permanently emblazoned in my brain, along with the Wrarth Warriors and the Meep. And, of course, Sharon, who I've just confirmed is the first POC companion in the series history. Only took 17 years :D.

What's kind of cool about this reprint is that it's been coloured. The original weeklies were all in black and white, so I've always envisioned the Meep as being white, but he's apparently blue. I suppose that makes sense, given that he's got green blood. White would not be a natural colour for him. I guess. I don't know why I'm trying to figure out alien physiology from a single re-coloured panel of a Doctor Who comic.

The other neat thing about this issue is that in the text feature that gives some background on the Doctor, there's an amazing picture of the fourth Doctor and the second Romana by Walt Simonson. It's a bit of a revelation for me, but I can't imagine a better-suited artist. Mr. Simonson's incredible command of movement in his panels would be a brilliant fit for the Doctor and his adventures. Sadly, these appear to be the only illustrations of the Time Lord that he's done, all reprinted from Marvel Premiere #60 (which I read yesterday).

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1378: Cannon God Exaxxion #2, December 2001

Okay. I think maybe it's time to get back to it. This has been a brutal week, and I'd be kidding myself if I thought that I was even remotely better. But I work in an industry that sadly cares little for its employees, as far as I can tell, so it's time to bundle all that misery and pain back down into the little (okay, not so little) ball I've been storing it in for the last couple of decades.

Yesterday I decided I wanted to read some light-hearted manga, and this series seemed a good fit. There's a ton of fan service, which I just don't get (well, I do, but I don't, if you see what I mean), but it also seems to be telling what looks to be an intriguing alien invasion story. The drag is that I thought I had a good long run of the series, and I do, all 8 issues of the first arc - with the exception of issues 3 and 4. *sigh*

This won't stop me from reading them. I've got to get out of the habit of wanting to complete these series before reading them. If my dream of a comics research library is ever achieved, then I'll try to complete them. But for now, fragments will have to do.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1377: Cannon God Exaxxion #1, November 2001

I was going to start talking about my comics again. But, really, what the hell can I say about that cover?

More to come...