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§ February 12th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on More on Mr. Gerber.
I’m going to guess that just about every internet outlet attached to comics is going to have something to say about Steve Gerber’s passing today, if they haven’t said their pieces already. And I’m not surprised, as Gerber was one of the most unique voices in comics writing.
Of course, his greatest creation is Howard the Duck, one of those comic characters, like Plastic Man, like Charlie Brown, that has never been handled as well as when it was in the hands of its creator. Indeed, Howard was Gerber’s four color avatar, and other writers attempting to give Howard life just plain did not fit. Alas, that title’s legacy of satire, parody, and just plain strangeness has been muted by the long shadow cast by the Howard the Duck movie, but slowly people are again recognizing the greatness of this series, and what was lost when the creator and his creation were kept apart.
Howard sprang forth from Gerber’s other major Marvel work, Man-Thing, which at first glance appeared to be a more straightforward horror title, but still had its moments of satire and offbeat humor. In fact, through most of Gerber’s work, there’s a feeling of Gerber taking things about as seriously as they needed to be…he can turn on the horror or the drama when he needs to, but just as quickly he can hit you with a scene that has a feeling of “can you believe this? I’m writing it, and I can barely believe it” — but doing it in such a way that you didn’t feel like the characters or situation were being mocked.
Speaking of “turning on the horror” — just a few short months after I started this website, I posted a brief appreciation of one of my favorite comics, Gerber’s terrifying Phantom Zone mini-series. I followed up on that post with a more detailed overview in my guest writer gig at The Horror Blog a couple of years back. So, please, I invite you to check out those posts for more about Mr. Gerber.
So, Steve Gerber.
He gave us Howard the Duck.
He gave us the Howard the Duck album issue, an illustrated text piece with Gerber’s ponderings on his life and work and the universe…
…Where he also gave us a Las Vegas showgirl and her pet ostrich fighting a lampshade, which many years later became the Vertigo mini-series Nevada.
He gave us Doctor Bong. Dude, seriously, he gave us Doctor Bong. Who else could have? Who else would dare?
He gave us the Man-Thing series (and most of the preceding Man-Thing run in Fear), picking up from Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway’s introduction of the character to take it into bizarre and frightening, and simply weird, directions.
He gave us “Kid’s Night Out” from Giant-Size Man-Thing #4, easily one of the greatest and most affecting comic books ever published.
And yes, since someone’s gonna bring it up, I suppose he sorta gave us Giant-Size Man-Thing, too. I’m pretty sure he claimed at some point that wasn’t an intentional double-entendre, and it’s not like he created Marvel’s “Giant-Size” line. Still lots of good readin’ in those GS-MTs, though.
He gave us Omega the Unknown, a coming-of-age story disguised as a superhero comic.
He gave us Sludge, yet another take on the Man-Thing/Swamp Thing/man-become-monster genre, and still managed to keep it fresh and entertaining.
He gave us Wundarr, a parody of Superman who eventually became, sort of, Marvel Jesus.
He gave us Stewart the Rat, which could have been just an attempt at getting lightning to strike twice with another Howard-esque avatar for Gerber, which…well, okay, it was, but still managed to stand on its own.
He gave us Destroyer Duck, one of the most unsubtle, but still very funny and pointed, comic books I’ve ever read.
He gave us the Mandrill. Hey, I like the Mandrill.
He gave us a new and interesting take on Dr. Fate in Countdown to Mystery, still being published even now.
He gave us much, much more than I’m mentioning here, and I’m sad to realize that we’ll see no more. But we can all still appreciate the work he left behind.
Thanks, Steve.
§ February 11th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on In heaven, Steve Gerber owns Howard the Duck.
So long, Steve.
image from Man-Thing #22 (Oct. 1975) by Steve Gerber & Jim Mooney
§ February 11th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Hello, it’s Monday again.
Just a couple of follow-ups from the weekend:
First, on Sunday I just happened to be restocking the Batman graphic novels, and I took the opportunity to flip through a copy of Batman: The Cult to see if the monster truck shown here did indeed resemble The Cult‘s Batmobile.
And yes, the two do appear similar, though the comic book version’s tires are quite a bit larger.
That, my friends, is the kind of research you’ve come to depend upon here at Progressiveruin.com.
Second, I’m not intending any real criticism of Aqualad’s redesign in Teen Titans Year One with this post. I didn’t really have an opinion, one way or the other, aside from “hmmm, guess they changed his look, here.” The Innsmouth connection just came up at work, it made us laugh, and that’s good enough for website content, my friends.
Though, I suppose, this creepy look could be used to help underscore his outcast status, given his origins (rejected from Atlantis society due to his purple eyes…yes really). The more overt physical differences not only separate him from his people, but from the folks of the surface world as well, giving the character that extra touch of tragedy.
Or whatever. Doesn’t matter, since we’re not likely to see this character design again past the end of this series.
I’m not really reading this Year One series, though I kinda flip through it when it shows up at the shop. What bothers me more than Aqualad’s fishy makeover is the internet chatting, the cell phone (there was a cell phone, wasn’t there? I think so), and stuff like that. I see it and I think briefly “the Teen Titans first appeared in the ’50s, they didn’t have internet or cell phones then!” I realize of course with the sliding timelines, assuming the current DC universe is in 2008 (or 2009, I have no idea how “One Year Later’ futzed things up), then Teen Titans Year One takes place…oh, around 1999, 2000, or thereabouts, I guess.
That probably isn’t the sort of thing I should be thinking about. That way madness lies.
In other news:
- Hey, you all remember that Batman/Hellboy/Starman two-issue series from a few years back? I had a request for it on Sunday, and I don’t think it’s ever been reprinted. Someone pointed out this fact on the Dark Horse message boards, and apparently the official answer is “it’ll happen eventually” (as of early ’07).
Of course, two issues would make for an awfully thin paperback (though I believe they did one for the two-issue Ghost/Hellboy mini). What would be welcome is a trade reprinting all the crossover one-shots/minis (like with Painkiller Jane and Savage Dragon and the Goon), but given the number of rights-holders involved it may not be financially feasible. Still would be nice, though.
- Dr. K writes about the troublesome portrayal of the Blackhawks’ pal Chop Chop. Now, a long time ago, we had some old Blackhawks with the Chop Chop back-up stories, and flipping through them…well, Dr. K states that the back-ups “kicked up the caricature” of Chop Chop, which is almost understating it. My memory of those stories is that Chop Chop was barely even recognizable as human…it was one of the most offensive things I’d ever seen.
Dr. K also brings up the slow redressing of this problem, coming to a head in one of my favorite metatextual gags to ever appear in comics. I’ll let Dr. K tell you what that was, and you’ll know when you get to it because you’ll see the word “metatextual” again.
Anyway, Dr. K gives a nice, brief overview of the character’s history and its evolution into something a bit less politically incorrect, so go ahead and give it a read.
- Coming from Hollywood: Superhero Movie, a parody film in the style of Epic Movie. Check the link and tell me that guy in the green suit doesn’t look a little like Ambush Bug, if you squint a bit. (WARNING: page may generate a noise-making pop-up.)
§ February 10th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Some Sunday briefs.
- Your weird real world reference to that Batman: The Cult mini-series from a few years back:
“If you’re old enough to remember the Jim Starlin/Berni Wrightson comic-book series, Batman: The Cult, you’ll recall the slightly ridiculous, mostly awesome monster-truck version of the Batmobile in the story. Finally, life has imitated art: Batman, the truck, is the reigning Monster Jam World Racing Champion.”
Includes photo of said truck, which may or may not resemble the Batmobile from The Cult. Sorry, been a while since I’ve read The Cult, so I’m just gonna take the article’s word for it.
- NEAR LEGO DISASTER!
- Currently reading volumes 3 and 4 of Hank Ketcham’s Complete Dennis the Menace collections from Fantagraphics…well, okay, I’m not reading them both at once, but rather I read volume 3, and now am reading volume 4. These things are nearly review-proof, in that 1) they’re reprints of the daily Dennis panels, and 2) you know what Dennis the Menace is like, and if you enjoy it, well, here’s a whole lot of it, and if you don’t enjoy it, you aren’t going to be reading this anyway.
The presentation is nearly perfect…nice big ‘n’ clear reproductions of the panels, allowing for detailed appreciation of Ketcham’s linework, at one panel per page. The pages themselves are just slightly bigger than the panels, making for one fat, square book.
A few things I noticed which amused me in my perusal of these comics:
1. Dennis’ pop Henry is kind of a letch, with Dennis always calling him out, nearly always in mom Alice’s presence, on his ogling girls at the beach or in magazines and whatnot.
2. Dennis’ dog Ruff, more often than not, is presented with a thought balloon containing a single question mark, in reaction to Dennis speaking to him, or Dennis doing something terrible right in front of him, and so on. A nice contrast to the army of talking, intelligent animals on the funnypages.
3. There are an awful lot of one-shot supporting characters (or “victims”), and Ketcham gave each one a unique and amusing appearance. If anything, these books give you a new appreciation for Ketcham’s ability for character and caricature.
4. I…ahem…sorta find Alice slightly attractive. SHUT UP I KNOW SHE’S A COMIC STRIP CHARACTER.
5. Also, even at one panel a page, it feels like it took forever to get through these books, so you’ll definitely be getting your money’s worth.
So there you go…if you like Dennis the Menace, here are several hundred pages worth, in about as nice and permanent a package as you can reasonably expect. I wasn’t even that much of a Dennis fan, and after reading these volumes, I want to go back and get the first two, now that I have a newfound appreciation for the comic.
§ February 9th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on So it’s not an exact match.
“…The odd, deep creases in the sides of his neck made him seem older when one did not study his dull, expressionless face.”
“He had a narrow head, bulging, watery-blue eyes that seemed never to wink, a flat nose, a receding forehead and chin, and singularly undeveloped ears.”
“…In places the surface seemed queerly irregular, as if peeling from some cutaneous disease.”
“A certain greasiness about the fellow increased my dislike. He was evidently given to working or lounging around the fish docks, and carried with him much of their characteristic smell. Just what foreign blood was in him I could not even guess.”
“…I could see why the people found him alien. I myself would have thought of biological degeneration rather than alienage.”
(Text from The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft. Aqualad images from Teen Titans: Year One #2 by Amy Wolfram, Karl Kerschl, Serge Lapointe, and Steph Peru. Post suggested by Employee Aaron…blame him.)
§ February 8th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on If I actually show up in that costume, you have my permission to beat me senseless.
Okay, enough of the ’50s and ’60s Batman comics. For
now, anyway.
- So what would Lost star Josh Holloway look like as DC Comics’ Jonah Hex? Darned frightening, that’s what he’d look like.
- See, I did manage to sell a copy of Gene Simmons’ Zipper. Okay, not at our store, but still…
- I’ve seen a couple of links, here and there, to this article about Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists contributing to a forthcoming issue of Mad Magazine. The bit of the article that gets me is near the end, where representatives of the mag claim the average age of its readers is 26 years old (median 19).
My initial reading period of Mad was from when I was about 7 years old ’til I was about 11 or 12 years old, and I guess, because of that, I’d assumed that’s about the same period most kids discover and read Mad, and thus made up the bulk of its readership. I suppose nowadays there a lot more folks like me in their readership, who read Mad as a kid, and just (relatively) recently started picking it up again, and not as many people getting exposed to it, and picking it up, at an early age.
Or maybe it was always something older kids read, and much younger kids (like I was, once, centuries ago) were the exception. I really don’t know.
- If you happen to be in Santa Rosa, CA this coming Saturday, why not drop by the Schulz Museum and say “howdy” to pal Nat, who’ll be the Cartoonist in Residence for that day. Check that second link for details.
- Apparently there was yet another discussion about lightsabers vs. Superman, and a commenter there with a long memory linked back to my post about finding a fantastic message board discussion on the topic. (Or, rather, a “Jedi Vs. Superman” discussion, which, inevitably, brought us to the brilliance of the “Kryptonite lightsaber.”) After the debate continues in the comments, someone worries “you’re really trying to get Mike Sterling to laugh at us,” but he needn’t worry. At this point, there’s nothing left but tears.
I’m reminded, in a way, of a minor plot aside in an episode of (I believe) Angel, where two characters go on and on arguing about who would win in a fight…cavemen or astronauts. This apparently was based on real behind-the-scenes activity on the show, where that topic was brought up, decried as being “a really stupid thing to talk about,” and yet, the concept wormed its way into everyone’s head, and everyone suddenly had a strong argument for their position, pro-astronaut or pro-caveman.
I think “Superman Vs. Jedi” has the potential to be another one of these mind-grabbers. Something you don’t want to have an opinion on, but sooner or later…you will.
And if you have to discuss it on my site, for God’s sake, continue in the comments section for my original post.
- Dafna at the Bispectacult recently posted a Youtube video featuring a musical adaptation of a Jack Chick religious tract. It’s not too much different from the actual comic.
- Employee Aaron (looking through the preview copy of Millar and Hitch’s Fantastic Four comic…due out next week, effendi!): “So, what’s the big deal about this comic again?”
Me: “It has a lot of splash pages.”
Aaron: “Oh.”
- Happy Blogiversary to my Blogging Neighbor only about 45 minutes north of me…Carla at Snap Judgments!
- Tim O’Neil comments on a couple of recent quiet moments in superhero books.
- Ken has a few words about super-fans (i.e. the ones who lack any sense of perspective and self-awareness, not people like me or you, my fine, upstanding, intelligent, Mike’s-Amazon.com-link-using readers), and Bitterandrew also has a few allegory-tastic words along those same lines.
- At the shop, I mentioned in passing that I may — may — be going to the Los Angeles Wizard World convention in March, and a customer asked if I’d be going in costume. I replied “Yes…I’ll be dressed as a Klingon who’s dressed as a Stormtrooper.”
Employee Aaron was apparently amused enough by this concept to knock out a quickie preliminary sketch:
I really need to give that boy more to do at the store.
§ February 7th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on At some point in your life, you will find yourself needing these exact same things…
…so be prepared:
from Batman #160 (Dec. 1963)
§ February 7th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on "It’s made of two baseballs and some fishing tackle!"
EL BOLO!
BEWARE THE ELECTRIC BOLO!
THE LOOMING THREAT OF THE SLEEPING GAS BOLO!
ATTACK OF THE SMOKE BOLO, AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE BOLO FROM THE SLEEPING GAS BOLO!
THE MENACE OF THE BLADED BOLO!
THE TABLES TURNED! VIVA THE BAT-BOLO!
(from Batman #125, Aug. 1959)
§ February 6th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on "Teacher from the Stars!" (from Batman #137, Feb. 1961)
After encountering a group of alien creatures wandering around Gotham City and causing disturbances, Batman and Robin try to get to the bottom of things:
Blish is apparently under the assumption that Batman is to give his class a tour of the city. Batman’s not sure why, but he plays along just to keep an eye on these beings, in case there’s more trouble.
And that was a good idea, it seems, as the students continue to make mischief. Assorted pranks follow, including this rather spectacular example:
The extraterrestrial student’s “Virgil Partch Ray” terrifies the populace:
…And finally gets on Blish’s last nerve:
After gathering the kids, a little Bat-spanking justice is applied:
Having learned their lesson, the three students decide to help out when they witness a bank robbery in progress:
However, they bypass the bandits and lay an alien whammy on the boys in blue:
Batman’s had enough, and he’s on the verge of kicking all their asses off the planet when Blish comes to a sudden realization:
Things apparently work a little differently there on that other planet, which not only explains why the kids protected the bank robbers, but why they assumed Batman was their tour guide:
Sounds a little convenient, but that’s okay, I guess.
The class finally departs, leaving behind a token of their appreciation for their caped and crusading friends:
Now that’s a trophy that needs to be put back on display in the modern-day Batcave. Forget about showcases containing costumes of minor supporting characters….we need to petition DC editorial for more photos of Batman’s alien pals decorating the place. There’s an effort I can get behind.
§ February 5th, 2008 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on All aboard the S.S. Batman! (from Batman #133, Aug. 1960)
It’s the most unique sailing ship on the seven seas…the S.S. Batman!
Only one man can pilot this ship, and that man is Captain Batman:
The people rejoice at the coming of the S.S. Batman:
Please note Robin’s presence in the “Bat’s Nest,” oddly never referred to as such in the narrative, though the gag seems plainly obvious.
A replica of the Batcave is squeezed below deck, somewhere:
The guy shouting “gosh, it’s just like the real Batcave” — either he’s the annoying know-it-all in this crowd, or he’s dealing with a Batman who’s a heck of a lot less secretive than his modern “Mr. Urban Legend” counterpart. I’m picturing photo spreads in Look, after taking the photographer there blindfolded, so he wouldn’t know the cave’s location.
Much of Batman and Robin’s crime-stopping equipment is on display as well, such as their crime lab:
Now, are those prop file cabinets, or are they actually filled with copies of their crime files? I’m guessing the latter…DC superheroes, particularly about this time, were pretty obsessive about that level of detail.
Look out, S.S. Batman! There’s an unwelcome guest aboard!
Turns out that “Batman” is actually part of the S.S. Batman’s high tech security system:
So long, S.S. Batman! We may never see the likes of you again!
From the letters page of this issue, a type of missive that the Bat-editors probably don’t see a whole lot of nowadays:
Oh, I’d give almost anything for a return to the “Batman’s Time Travel Crimes on Venus” era of Bat-comics.
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