Mikester

When I was but a young Mikester, I somehow badgered my dad into hauling me out to a comic shop in Simi Valley for a Chris Claremont signing. It was 1984, and I had my copies of the Claremont-written New Mutants #18 (which I admittedly bought just for the Bill Sienkiewicz art) and Man-Thing #11 (last issue of the second series, featuring, as a character, Claremont himself!) clutched in hand, ready for autographing.

Anyway, we got there a few minutes before the signing was to begin. The fans who were already waiting and had only seen Claremont as a grainy black and white photo of a man his blondish hair and a beard on the Bullpen Bulletins page, spotted my dad, a man with blondish hair and a beard. Yes, a gaggle of kids ran up to my dad, X-Men comics in hand, wanting his autograph…and knowing my dad, he was surely tempted to do a little signing.

Alas, my dad’s inadvertent impersonation of an X-Men writer was short-lived as the real Chris Claremont arrived and the session began…I don’t remember much about it, aside from asking Claremont a super-fanboyish question — “Uh, Mr. Claremont, what did you think of John Byrne killing off Guardian in Alpha Flight?” “Well, what did you think of it?” was his reply, and I’m sure I stammered out some kind of lame answer while thinking “I know what I think…I want to know what you think!” In retrospect, it was a very politic answer, not having to pass judgement on what another creator did with a certain character and risk having his opinion be blown out of proportion among fannish circles, even in those pre-internet days. Or, just as likely, he just wanted to get through the autograph session without putting up with lame fanboy questions like mine. And who could blame him?

I still have my autographed comics, though…I have a signed Man-Thing #11 and you don’t!

It’s a Jim Woodring multimedia extravaganza! You can listen to MP3 recordings from his Comics Journal interview or you can watch somewhat frightening animations featuring his character Frank (warning…Realplayer).

Due to the vagaries of shipping company holidays, the High Holy New Comics Wednesday is Friday this week…not much came out, but we still got some fun stuff, like another non-Moore Tom Strong and the new Smax.

The choice item this week, though, was the absolutely gorgeous Young Gods & Friends hardcover by Barry Windsor-Smith, published by Fantagraphics. In addition to seeing material that never made it into the sadly-aborted Storyteller series, we get plenty of behind-the-scenes notes from Windsor-Smith himself about the collapse of the project with the original publisher. It’s very depressing and telling stuff about the comics market. The comics themselves are fluff…that’s not a criticism, as it’s very entertaining and funny fluff that takes itself about as seriously as it deserves, and the fact that it’s beautifully illustrated doesn’t hurt. It’s Kirby’s New Gods with a little more self-awareness and a lot more irreverence.

There has to be some word to use in reference to those groups of humorless comic fans who completely misinterpret comments made by a comics professional in an online interview, or simply fail to recognize when said professionial is pulling their legs.

I call it “Morrisoning.”

Usage: “Boy, those comic fans are really morrisoning that Newsarama interview.”

(In all fairness to the John Byrne message board, regarding my previous comments…that Way interview was a bit over the top. The “who the f* is Giant Man” comment still cracks me up, though…yeah, I know, I’m 12.) (EDIT 11/20/11: Sorry about the linkrot.)

It seems to me that the reaction the John Byrne Forum had to this interview with Daniel Way (writer of Marvel’s Ant Man mini) was exactly the response Way was hoping for.

I’m sure his gag about not knowing who Giant Man or Yellowjacket were probably caused heart palpitations in some hardcore Marvelites somewhere, too.

I don’t buy very many back issues any more…given that I’ve been reading comics for (gack) 30 years, I already have most of the funnybooks from the last few decades in which I’d have any interest.

However, there are a few things I do keep an eye out for…I collect old fanzines (The Comic Reader in particular), the occasional inexpensive Archie or Superman-family related comic from the 50s and early 60s, The Fox and The Crow by Jim Davis (no, not that Jim Davis)…

…and anything that contains any work by Sheldon Mayer.

Given that it seems increasingly unlikely that we’ll see any extensive reprinting of Mayer’s work (despite the recent reissue of the first Sugar & Spike and the high hopes of the DC Archives page, as seen by the mock-ups here and here), I’ve been buying his work whenever I come across it. Sugar & Spike and, to a lesser extent, Three Mouseketeers (though he didn’t do all of these) are relatively easy to track down, finding some of his other work requires digging through the back-up stories in titles like The Dodo and The Frog or Nutsy Squirrel. I still haven’t come across any of his Scribbly material, though, aside from a reprint in A Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics. Mayer’s work is always worth the search, and it’s a damn shame today’s kids won’t get exposed to it.

It’s even more of a damn shame that if today’s kids were exposed to Sugar & Spike, they’d think it was just a Rugrats rip-off.

Additional linkage:

There was a short Golden Age Red Tornado story by Mayer that appeared in Secret Origins #29 in the late 1980s.

An interview with Mayer’s daughter appeared in an issue of Comic Book Artist, which is online here, with lots of art by Mayer.

It’s getting to be the end of the year, and it’s that time when everyone starts making their lists of best, worst, and most notable whatevers. (You can find a fairly comprehensive collection of links to lists of this sort right here.)

I don’t really have a Best/Worst list for the year, but one category that I would have mentioned is this one:

THE COMIC THAT FINALLY GOT ME TO READ MANGA: Gyo Vol. 1 by Junji Ito – I’ve never had anything against manga, and I’ve had only a passing interest in it as a whole…my interest in comics history would lead me to read articles and histories of manga, for example, without actually reading any manga (I recommend the excellent Manga Manga: The World of Japanese Comics by Frederik L. Schodt). However, the sheer wrongness of some of the imagery in this book compelled me to give it a try. Seeing fish on legs invading an island community…there was just something primally disturbing about this idea, and given that I have an interest in horror comics in general, this was a natural book with which to break my manga drought.

Of course, this now has me interested in Ito’s other horror work, such as Uzumaki. You (and I as well) can learn more about Ito here.

Plus, now that I’ve broken down that barrier, I find myself looking at more manga, such as Sgt. Frog, which is about as far away from Gyo as you can get. Don’t ask me to explain.

Many years ago, Eclipse Comics released a regular-sized issue of mini-comics mainstay The Amazing Cynicalman by Matt Feazell. In the text pages of this comic, Feazell made readers an offer (no longer good, I am guessing) to send a free mini-comic to anyone who sent in their own drawing of the title stick-figure character, along with an SASE.

Well, I took him up on that offer, sending in my illustration of “The Amazing Cynicalman in 3-D” (yes, in red and blue ink) along with my SASE. Some time later, I came back from my first day of college to find two envelopes from Mr. Feazell! As it turns out, the SASE I used was too small, so Feazell used another envelope to send me my mini-comic. The envelope I did send he filled with photocopies of sketchbook material and a personal letter (mostly just to explain why he had to send another envelope!). Well, that was very cool, I thought, and even though I had been a fan before, I was even more of a fan now…and even 16 years later(!), he’s still one of my favorites.

Anyway, I found out just recently that he has a new book out, and I placed an order for it late Sunday evening. Today, Friday, I have it in my hands. Now that’s some fast shipping, especially for Christmastime! And it’s even signed, with a Cynicalman pencil sketch.

He’s still a cool guy, and I recommend that everyone visit his website and buy his stuff.

Two true stories:

1. When I first joined AOL (way back in the dark ages) I almost used “cynicalman” as my username…good thing I didn’t, because Feazell is using it now!

2. The very first issue of Scott McCloud’s Zot! I bought was the mini-comic Zot! in Dimension 10 1/2 drawn by Feazell in the stick-man style. That got me to read the regular Zot! comics and become a McCloud fan…so I have Feazell to thank for that as well.